Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

The general stir in men's minds, as indicated in the revival of learning and in remarkable inventions and discoveries, was equally manifest in great debates and changes in religion. One important element and fruit of the Renaissance is here seen. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the nations of Western Europe were all united in one Church, of which the Pope was the acknowledged head. There were differences as to the extent of his proper authority; sects had sprung up at different times; and there had arisen leaders, like Wickliffe and Huss, at war with the prevailing system. Ecclesiastical sedition, however, had been mostly quelled. Yet there existed a great amount of outspoken and latent discontent. First, complaints were loud against maladministration in Church affairs. There were extortions and other abuses that excited disaffection. Secondly, the authority exercised by the Pope was charged with being inconsistent with the rights of civil rulers and of national churches. Thirdly, disputes sprang up, both in regard to various practices deemed objectionable, like prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints, and also concerning important doctrines, like the doctrine of the mass or the Lord's Supper, and the part that belongs to faith in the Christian method of salvation. Out of this ferment arose what is called the Protestant Reformation. The Teutonic nations generally broke off from the Church of Rome, and renounced their allegiance to the Pope. The Latin or Romanic nations, for the most part, still adhered to him. As the common idea was that there should be uniformity of belief and worship in a state, civil wars arose on the question which form of belief should dominate. Germany was desolated for thirty years by a terrible struggle. Yet, in all the conflicts between kingdoms and states in this period, it was plain that political motives, or the desire of national aggrandizement, were commonly strong enough to override religious differences.

When there was some great interest of a political or dynastic sort at stake, those that differed in religion most widely would frequently assist one another. It is in this period that we see Spain, under Charles V. and Philip II., reach the acme of its power, and then sink into comparative weakness.

CHAPTER I. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY, TO THE TREATY OF NUREMBERG (1517-1532).

BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION.—The Reformation began in Germany, where there was a great deal of discontent with the way in which the Church was governed and managed, and on account of the large amounts of money carried out of the country on various grounds for ecclesiastical uses at Rome. The leader of the movement, Martin Luther, was the son of a poor miner, and was born at Eisleben in 1483. He was an Augustinian monk, and had been made professor of theology, and preacher at Wittenberg, by the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise (1508). Luther was a man of extraordinary intellectual powers, and a hard student, of a genial and joyous nature, yet not without a deep vein of reflection, tending even to melancholy. He had a strong will, and was vigorous and vehement in controversy. He had been afflicted with profound religious anxieties; but in the study of St. Paul and St. Augustine, and after much inward wrestling, he emerged from them into a state of mental peace. The immediate occasion of disturbance, the spark that kindled the flame, was the sale of indulgences in Saxony by a Dominican monk named Tetzel. Indulgences were the remission, total or partial, of penances, and, in theory, always presupposed repentance; but, as the business was managed in Germany at that time, it amounted in the popular apprehension to a sale of absolution from guilt, or to the ransom of deceased friends from purgatory for money. These gross abuses were painful to sincere friends of religion. In 1517 Luther posted on the door of the church at Wittenberg his celebrated ninety-five theses. It was customary in those days for public debates to take place in universities, where, as in jousts and tournaments among knights, scholars offered to defend propositions in theology and philosophy against all comers. Such were the "theses" of Luther on indulgences. The public mind was in such a state that a great commotion was kindled by them. Conflict spread; and the name of Luther became famous as a stanch antagonist of ecclesiastical abuses, and a fearless champion of reform. The Elector, a religious man, calm and cautious in his temper, was friendly to Luther, often sought to curb him, but stretched over him the shield of his protection.

LUTHER AND LEO X.—Pope Leo X; was of the house of Medici, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He had been made nominally a cardinal at the age of thirteen, and had advanced to the highest station in the Church. He was much absorbed in matters pertaining to learning and art, and in political affairs, and at first looked upon this Saxon disturbance as a mere squabble of monks. He attempted ineffectually to bring Luther to submission and quietness, first through his legate Cajetan, a scholarly Italian, who met him at Augsburg (1518), and then by a second messenger, Miltitz (1519), a Saxon by birth. A turning-point in Luther's course was a public disputation at Leipsic, before Duke George; for ducal Saxony was hostile to him. With Luther, on that occasion, was Philip Melanchthon, the young professor of Greek at Wittenberg, who was a great scholar, and a man of mild and amiable spirit. He became a very effective and noted auxiliary of the reformer, and acquired the honorary title of "preceptor of Germany." In the Leipsic debate, when Luther was opposed by the Catholic champion Eck, and by others, his own views in opposition to the papacy became more distinct and decided. He soon disputed the right of the Pope to make laws, to canonize, etc., denied the doctrine of purgatory, and avowed his sympathy with Huss. He issued a stirring Address to the Christian Nobles of the German Nation. In 1520 he was excommunicated by the Pope, but the elector paid no regard to the papal bull. Luther himself went so far as publicly to burn it at the gates of the town, in the presence of an assembly of students and others gathered to witness the scene. Both parties had now taken the extreme step: there was now open war between them. Jurists, who were aggrieved by the interference of ecclesiastical with civil courts, supported Luther. So the Humanists who had defended Reuch-lin, among whom were the youthful literary class of which Ulrich von Hutten was one, became his allies. Many among the inferior clergy and the monastic orders sympathized with him.

CONDITION OF GERMANY.—It was now for the Empire to decide between Luther and the Pope. The efforts to create a better political system under Maximilian had proved in the main abortive. There was strife between the princes and the knights, as well as between princes and bishops. The cities complained bitterly of oppressive taxation and of lawless depredations. There was widespread disaffection, threatening open revolt, among the peasants. Maximilian had been thwarted politically by the popes. At first he was glad to hear of Luther's rebellion. He said to Frederick the Wise, "Let the Wittenberg monk be taken good care of: we may some day want him." In the latter part of his reign his interests drew him nearer to Rome.

ELECTION OF CHARLES V.—On the death of Maximilian (1519), as the Elector Frederick would not take the imperial crown, there were two rival candidates,—Francis I., the king of France, and Charles I., of Spain, the grandson of Maximilian. Francis was a gallant and showy personage, but it was feared that he would be despotic; and the electors made choice of Charles. The extent of Charles's hereditary dominions in Germany, and the greatness of his power, would make him, it was thought, the best defender of the empire against the Turks. The electors, at his choice, bound him in a "capitulation" to respect the authority of the Diet, and not to bring foreign troops into the country. Charles was the inheritor of Austria and the Low Countries, the crowns of Castile and Aragon, of Navarre, of Naples and Sicily, together with the territories of Spain in the New World; and now he was at the head of the Holy Roman Empire. The concentration of so much power in a single hand could not but provoke alarm in all other potentates. The great rival of Charles was Francis I., and the main prize in the contest was dominion in Italy. Charles was a sagacious prince; from his Spanish education, strongly attached to the Roman-Catholic system, and, in virtue of the imperial office, the protector of the Church. Yet with him political considerations, during most of his life, were uppermost. He made the mistake of not appreciating the strength that lay in the convictions at the root of the Protestant movement. He over-estimated the power of political combinations.

DIET OF WORMS.—Charles V. first came into Germany in 1521, and met the Diet of the empire at Worms. There Luther appeared under the protection of a safe-conduct. He manifested his wonted courage; and in the presence of the emperor, and of the august assembly, he refused to retract his opinions, planting himself on the authority of the Scriptures, and declining to submit to the verdicts of Pope or council. After he had left Worms, a sentence of outlawry was passed against him. Charles at that moment was bent on the re-conquest of Milan, which the French had taken; and the Pope was friendly to his undertaking, although Leo X. had been opposed to Charles's election.

FRANCIS I.—Francis I. (1515-1547) aimed to complete the work begun by his predecessors, and to make the French monarchy absolute. By a concordat with the Pope (1516), the choice of bishops and abbots was given into the king's hand, while the Pope was to receive the annates, or the first year's revenue of all such benefices. Francis continued the practice of selling judicial places begun under Louis XII.. He was bent on maintaining the unity of France, and, as a condition, the Catholic system. But he was always ready to help the Protestants in Germany when he could thereby weaken Charles. For the same end, he was even ready to join hands with the Turk.

RIVALRY OF CHARLES AND FRANCIS.—Charles claimed the old imperial territories of Milan and Genoa. He claimed, also, a portion of Southern France,—the duchy of Burgundy, which he did not allow that Louis XI. had the right to confiscate. Francis claimed Naples in virtue of the rights of the house of Anjou; also Spanish Navarre, which Ferdinand of Aragon had seized, and the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois. He had gained a brilliant victory over the Swiss at the battle of Marignano, in 1515, and reconquered Milan. He concluded a treaty of peace with the Swiss,—the treaty of Freiburg (1516), which gave to the king, in return for a yearly pension, the liberty to levy troops in Switzerland. This treaty continued until the French Revolution.