[Sidenote: Skeptics]
In addition to these heretics and the Jews, [Footnote: For detailed accounts of the Jews during the middle ages as well as in modern times, see the Jewish Encyclopædia, ed. by Isidore Singer, 12 vols. (1901-1906).] many so-called skeptics no doubt existed. These were people who outwardly conformed to Catholicism but inwardly doubted and even scoffed at the very foundations of Christianity. They were essentially irreligious, but they seem to have suffered less from persecution than the heretics. Many of the Italian humanists, concerning whom we shall later say a word, [Footnote: See below] were in the fifteenth century more or less avowed skeptics.
THE PROTESTANT REVOLT
[Sidenote: A Religious and Political Movement]
We have seen in the preceding pages that prior to 1500 there had been many conflicts between kings and popes concerning their respective temporal rights and likewise there had been serious doubts in the minds of various people as to the authority and teachings of the Catholic Church. But these two facts—political and religious—had never been united in a general revolt against the Church until the sixteenth century. Then it was that Christians of Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland, and England, even of the Low Countries and France, successfully revolted against the papal monarchy and set up establishments of their own, usually under the protection of their lay rulers, which became known as the Protestant churches. The movement is called, therefore, the Protestant Revolt. It was begun and practically completed between 1520 and 1570.
[Sidenote: Political Causes of Protestant Revolt]
In explaining this remarkable and sudden break with the religious and ecclesiastical development of a thousand years, it is well to bear in mind that its causes were at once political, economic, and religious. Politically, it was merely an accentuation of the conflict which had long been increasing in virulence between the spiritual and temporal authorities. It cannot be stated too emphatically that the Catholic Church during many centuries prior to the sixteenth had been not only a religious body, like a present-day church, but also a vast political power which readily found sources of friction with other political institutions. The Catholic Church, as we have seen, had its own elaborate organization in every country of western and central Europe; and its officials—pope, bishops, priests, and monks—denied allegiance to the secular government; the Church owned many valuable lands and estates, which normally were exempt from taxation and virtually outside the jurisdiction of the lay government; the Church had its own independent and compulsory income, and its own courts to try its own officers and certain kinds of cases for every one. Such political jurisdiction of the Church had been quite needful and satisfactory in the period—from the fifth to the twelfth century, let us say—when the secular governments were weak and the Church found itself the chief unifying force in Christendom, the veritable heir to the universal dominion of the ancient Roman Empire.
But gradually the temporal rulers themselves repressed feudalism. Political ambition increased in laymen, and local pride was exalted into patriotism. By the year 1200 was begun the growth of that notable idea of national monarchy, the general outline of which we sketched in the opening chapter. We there indicated that at the commencement of the sixteenth century, England, France, Spain, and Portugal had become strong states, with well-organized lay governments under powerful kings, with patriotic populations, and with well-developed, distinctive languages and literatures. The one thing that seemed to be needed to complete this national sovereignty was to bring the Church entirely under royal control. The autocratic sovereigns desired to enlist the wealth and influence of the Church in their behalf; they coveted her lands, her taxes, and her courts. Although Italy, the Netherlands, and the Germanies were not yet developed as strong united monarchies, many of their patriotic leaders longed for such a development, worked for it, and believed that the principal obstacle to it was the great Christian Church with the pope at its head. Viewed from the political standpoint, the Protestant Revolt was caused by the rise of national feeling, which found itself in natural conflict with the older cosmopolitan or catholic idea of the Church. It was nationalism versus Catholicism.
[Sidenote: Economic Causes of Protestant Revolt]
Economically, the causes of the Protestant Revolt were twofold. In the first place, the Catholic Church had grown so wealthy that many people, particularly kings and princes, coveted her possessions. In the second place, financial abuses in ecclesiastical administration bore heavily upon the common people and created serious scandal. Let us say a word about each one of these difficulties.