The Wars of Religion Flashcards
What was going on after the Reformation?
The church had to reorganize itself as a centralized monarchy to stop Protestant spread and return people to Roman Catholic confession.
- Pope Paul wanted to restructure and rebuild everything to save all these lost souls.
Trent (1545 - 1563)
Basically where everyone shit on the Protestants…
- Wanted to prove protestant wrong
- “If it’s not in the bible, it doesn’t matter” - excuse me but you have hundreds of years of efforts made by people and these things are important!
- Pre-destination = rejected
- Catholic church was now like a waiting room of heaven (for artists, etc.) and rejected Protestantism
- Central authority of the pope - “I’m back baby!”
… There had to be a force strong enough to determine what was right and wrong and overturn the protestant movement
The Roman Inquisition
- Calvinism in particular had some sort of thought control - - An individuals thoughts (sense of sin, etc.) = Roman inquisition was the same
- Faith had been redesigned and therefore had to be reinforced
- 1559 – 1566 forbidden books were not allowed
- Strong penalties because church was scared of Protestantism
- ** ask about Printing Press
Loyola and the Jesuits
Loyola was a cool guy, fought in the military and then almost got blown up! So, he spent some time recuperating and realized… he was fighting for the wrong side! He needed to fight for God and Christ, not the King!
- He then goes to a monastery and has a religious experience.
- He had a vision for 8 days and in the vision he sees a way and shape for his new religious order, and the book to help, “the Spiritual Excercises”; a book to help and train someone to become a deep believer in Catholicism
Now get this,
This guy walks TO Spain from Jerusalem, picks up 3 disciples, and then they all go to Paris and pick up 3 more disciplies and then they ALL go to Rome and in 1538, they were granted by Pope Paul the 3rd the right to form a new religious order called… THE JESUITS!
Jesuits
Has 3 functions:
- Preaching
- Teaching
- Missionary activity
Like Erasmus, and Luther and Calvin, they took a humanist approach to teaching –> This is still used today! Pierre Trudeau used this system!
They restored faith and wanted to educate people who were destined to be leaders in society… However, the Elite of Catholic Europe had everything to refute Protestanism.
This lead to —> THE WARS OF RELIGION!
The Wars of Religion
Happened because of the idea people that the states responsibility to enforce one single religion and political structure to all the citizens within it’s borders
(You couldn’t trust someone of a different religion??)
This need to enforce a single religion, lead to almost 100 years of this war!
Philip II (1556 – 1598)
The son of Charles the second, he ruled Spain and the Italian terrorities, etc.
He thought that he was raised up by God to protect the Roman Catholic church and that Protestants were defeated and got involved in nearly EVERY SINGLY religious argument in Europe (wow).
–> Leads to Revolt of Netherlands against Spain where people in general were against an unpopular foreign ruler and religion was main reason of this revolt
However, as he now ruled the Netherlands, he decided, you know what, no Calvinists. So, he brought in a bunch of Jesuits from Holland.
THEN he decides, you know what, lets just make sure these people are good catholics… but wait, lets also slaughter some protestants because these damn Dutch people aaand a revolt broke out in 1592
William of Orange (1584)
William of Orange was the leader of the Calvinist revolt against the Catholics
- Phillip had to stop it but underestimated how much the Dutch Calvinists hated him and how much they wanted to sacrifice in order to put an end to it (wow!)
When he died his son took his place.
Guise vs Bourbon (people or liquor, let’s find out)
Calvinism had spread widely into France, especially with merchants who finally felt like they could operate alONE..
Eventually, the province was divided into 2: Calvinists and Catholics and both sides had royal people to lead them.
Catholics = House of Guise Calvinists = House of Bourbon (lead by Henry the Bourbon king = super powerful)
But when the king died, he left his 3 dumb ass sons to take over the throne (nice) and the Queen, who was manipulative and evil af, was no better.
She kept switching sides from Bourbon to Guise and back once she realized how powerful the Guise were getting… So, a plan hatched.
Why not marry off the Queen and King from both sides? So, on the day of the wedding CATHOLICS CAME OUT OF THE BUSHES AND SLAUGHTERED THE CALVINISTS!
The only survivor, was Henry the Bourbon King cause he was still chilling in his palace.
So, because of how horrible (clearly) this situation was, the Queen decided to officially move over to the Guise side and wowie, they actually became super powerful!
Now, the last of the Calvinists became Henry the 4th and he was King of France.
Henry IV (Bourbon) 1589 – 1610
If he wanted to be a successful king, he had to become a Christian - it was tradition!
In 1593, he converted to Catholicism “Paris is worth a mass”
- Didn’t become a fanatic
- Lead country in war against Spain
- When peace was back, he made edict of Nantes ***
Edict of Nantes (1598)
Full rights to both Catholics AND Calvinists - you can be a Frenchmen no matter your religion ladies, calm down.
The only reason this wonderful, open minded decision came to be was because of the a group called Les politiques.
Les Politiques
Only raison d’état (reason of state) was the good running of a kingdom so, France was to be a united successful kingdom behind the person of their monarch
They argued that religion was secondary
That structure had to be institution of government
and … they were truly remarkable people
Henry the 4th changed his religion to help the country, and many Calvinists followed his example!
Aww what a happy time! People even realized that hey, maybe religion doesn’t matter more than the government and ideas matter more! –> Secular!
- This would lead to Absolutism
