Tiêu đề Impact of reformation in England and france.docx ✅

Q. Assess the development and impact of the Reformation in England and France in the 16 th century. The Reformation in the conventional sense implies the schism or break within the Roman Catholic Church that functioned under the Pope in Europe for centuries and the creation of a separate Protestant Christianity. But this process is multi-faceted as it led to the creation of several radical and moderate folds within Christianity such as Lutherans, Calvinists, Puritans, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians and also the efforts of some Catholics to reform the church through the counter-reformation. Apart from this, Reformation embraced a number of areas – reform of both the morals and structures of church and society, re-interpretation of Christian spirituality and the reform of its doctrine. Putting it very simply, the Reformation was a protest by churchmen and scholars of privileged classes in 16 th century against their own superiors. Then there was a coalition with laymen’s political ambitions that gave its popular form to the movement. To understand it, the Reformation has therefore to be place in its regional, historical, political, social and economic context. The split in the Christian Church in AD 1054 growing suzerainty of the Catholic Church led to considerable problems. The Catholic Church interfered in the internal matters of the rulers and controlled about one- third of all cultivated land in Western Europe. It is told that it was an age of ecclesiastical corruption and inefficiency with the financial burden falling on the ordinary people. They were charged for marriages, baptisms, confessions and burials by the Church. The clergy collected ‘tithe’, one tenth of income, from them and the Papacy even received subscriptions on the sale of indulgences which meant pardon from sins in return of huge payment. These growing expenses created bitterness and hostility providing the background to Reformation. The Church officials tried to hold as many church posts as possible leading to pluralism that resulted in absenteeism which meant negligence of duties in their offices. There was social discontent among the lower clergy due to lack of promotion avenues and a general dissatisfaction from the ignorance and poor quality of clergies and priests. European people suffered from mass diseases and repeated lesser plagues in preceding decades and population change had profound social consequences. The growth of the national Church, the rise of absolutist states and nationalism became important features of the era.
Religious controversies became entangled with political and economic conflicts and created inter-state rivalries and wars. The liaison between reformers and politicians resulted in development of the national Church and expropriation of the Church property contributed to the financial needs of the newly rising states. Reformation in France can essentially be studied in four phases: before the exile of Calvin from France, after his exile – growth of Protestantism and Calvin’s role, the Wars of Religion and thereafter. John Calvin was from the second generation of reformers and had a powerful impact on different parts of Europe. Many of his views were derived from the Bible but he was also influenced by St Augustine. His biggest contribution of Reformation was through his views on church structure and discipline. His structure of Genevan church had four major institutions: pastors, doctors, Deacons 1and Elders. Calvin sent missionaries to France, the Netherlands, Scotland and other parts of Europe to carry forward his reforms. Calvin sincerely believed that someday France would become a truly Christian commonwealth and he worked for this. The success of Calvinism is located in tits effective organisation and clarity of thought. Reformation ideas were abroad in France by 1519 as is shown by printing of Luther’s Latin writings by John Froben of Basle. The Paris theologians were reading the texts but were not very approving of it. The censoring of religious books was instituted in June1521. Through the concordat of Bologna between the King Francis (1515 - 47) and Pope Leo X in 1516, the power of the crown over the church increased considerably which among other things included nomination of bishops and other ecclesiastics to the king and also the right to levy tithes on the clergy. The latter is significant as this was an important financial reason for the crown to oppose the Reform. The attitude of the French kings towards the Reformation remained hostile. But as we will see, the relationship of the crown with the Protestants was more complex than mere hostility as it was guided by foreign affairs, political motives and dynastic rivalries and a need as well as desire from the part of the crown, to maintain a balance of power in insecure circumstances. The centre for Reformation was not Paris, but a small town of weavers 30 miles east of Paris, called Meaux. France saw three important individuals
who initiated some level of reforms during this phase: the Bishop of Meaux, Guillaume Briconnet, the famous humanist figure, Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples and the king’s sister, Marguerite d’Angouleme. Briconnet had earlier served as the king’s ambassador in negotiating the concordat of Bologna. On his return he engaged in efforts to reform preaching and the religious life. To aid his work, he invited humanist biblical scholar Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples to join. In 1509, he published his first edition of the Scriptures, beginning with the Psalms which was translated in to French in to 1523. This was followed by the translation of the Bible in 1530. Soon other evangelicals, including William Farel, arrived to make up the Meaux circle. Marguerite, the king’s sister was also a significant humanist sheltered Humanists accused of Protestantism and had her own brush with the Inquisition over the publication of her mystical writing, ‘The Mirror of the Sinful Soul’. Nevertheless, these three were reformers only in the essence and were unwilling to create a new religion or a new church by means of reformation and were not ready to provide leadership in any such attempt. Reformation thus led a covert life in France till the growth of Calvinism. The Protestants were called Huguenots.teh French Calvinists, later, preferred the term Refromes, the Reformed. Heresy was perceived to be a cancer in the body of society and the execution of heretics was ritual action to expunge their memory forever. Calvinism had begun to divide French city on religious grounds. Captivity of the king after the Battle of Pavia (1525) led to the blame for it put on the Meaux group of heresy which resulted in the fleeing of reformers including Calvin from France. Louis de Berquin, humanist and translator of Luther was burned at the stake in 1529 and this made clear the hostility towards reform when radicals indulged in violence and iconoclasm. Francis’s response to the evangelical vacillated between persecution by imprisonment and execution on the one hand and moderation on the other. The placards posted in the palace finally aggravated him to institute a swift and violent persecution of suspected evangelicals. However, this could also be counterproductive and could spread the ideas instead of eliminating them. Executions became a theatre of martyrdom in the original sense of the word “martyr” as witness. They reinforced the Huguenot conviction that their faith was a return to that of the primitive church when the popular saying arose that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church”. Two royal edicts of June 1539 and 1540 turned heresy jurisdiction over to the secular courts, provincial parlements, and bishops acting jointly. In their suffering, the Calvinist martyrs drew courage and legitimization from Old Testament models of a persecuted chosen people. The universal embrace of the witness of the martyrs is evident in the numerous martyrologies coming from Jean Crespin, Simon Goulart and others. As religious divisions within France hardened, the execution of heretics in the frame of “ritual as containment” broke down. The “cancer” in society was now too widespread to be excised by the deaths of individuals. By the mid-1530s, it was clear that for Reformation to survive in France, external intervention was necessary and this came in the form of the Reformed church of Geneva. By 1567, Geneva had sent at least 120 pastors into France to organise congregations. The Reformed church spread rapidly through France (in the west and south particularly) and in some areas began worshipping publicly. Apart from the organisational genius, the rousing songs, the Psalms became source of popular appeal. The first national synod of the reformed church met in Paris in 1559 and set forth a confession of faith, the Gallican Confession which was drafted by Calvin but it was later revised to include insistence on absolute equality among ministers and churches which signifies accommodation of unique characteristics in the ambit of Reformation to make it suitable for France. The successor of Francis, Henri II (1547 - 59) was even more severe than his father and put the persecutions on a more established footing. The edicts of Chateaubriant in 1551 and Compiegne in 1557 included clauses against individuals who were either corresponding or had any association with Geneva. By 1559, the Huguenots constituted about one tenth of the total population and about a thousand congregations concentrated in large provincial towns. Calvinism in France appealed to particular social groups, notably skilled artisans, independent shopkeepers, and middle-class businessmen such as bankers. There is no doubt that the Calvinist virtues of hard work and thrift motivated by a theology of vocation dovetailed nicely with a profit economy; but as has been mentioned earlier, there are other factors responsible for its success. By 1560 Calvinism had established considerable foothold amongst the nobility, especially the houses of Bourbon and