The Wars of Religion

Question 1

What Catholic belief about art did the Council of Trent reinforce?

Answer 1

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s belief that art, music, and architecture could stimulate piety and involve viewers, especially amongst the poor and illiterate.

The Council’s support led to the birth of the Baroque movement (1590-1725) in art, music, and architecture.

Question 2

Define:

tenebrism

Answer 2

Tenebrism is a pronounced use of chiarorusco in which there are intense contrasts of dark and light, with darkness dominating the painting. Tenebrism was employed by artists such as Caravaggio (1571-1610) during the Baroque period.

Question 3

How did most Baroque paintings differ from their Renaissance predecessors?

Answer 3

Most Baroque paintings depicted action, whereas most Renaissance paintings showed subjects at rest.

As an example, Michelangelo’s David shows David before his fight with Goliath, while Bernini’s depiction of David shows him in the act of attacking Goliath.

Question 4

How did Catholics differ from the early Calvinists on the issue of depicting religious figures in artworks?

Answer 4

While Catholics believed that artwork depicting religious scenes could inspire piety, Calvinists were iconoclasts, and believed that pictures of religious figures were blasphemous.

In the late 1500s in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, rampaging mobs of Calvinists regularly destroyed paintings and sculptures of religious figures.

Question 5

Who is Rembrandt?

Answer 5

Rembrandt was a Dutch painter and etcher of the 17th century, during the Dutch Golden Age of artistic and cultural achievements.

Rembrandt is best known for his portraits and Biblical scenes, which emphasized a study of the subjects’ facial features.

Question 6

Who is Peter Paul Rubens?

Answer 6

Rubens was a Flemish painter of the 16th and 17th centuries, noted for extravagant Baroque style. He is famous for his Counter-Reformation pieces depicting mythological and religious subjects.

Rubens’s most famous works include The Elevation of the Cross and Prometheus Bound.

Question 7

What musical form was first established with the performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in 1607?

Answer 7

L’Orfeo was the first true opera; for the first time the actors sang – rather than spoke – their parts and were accompanied by a full orchestra that played throughout.

Question 8

Define:

oratorio

Answer 8

An oratorio is a large musical composition featuring orchestras, choirs, and soloists. Although oratorios resemble operas, unlike operas there is no actual interaction between the various characters in an oratorio.

Oratorios where popular during the Baroque era, reaching their pinnacle with Handel’s Messiah.

Question 9

Who composed the violin concerto The Four Seasons in 1723?

Answer 9

Vivaldi composed The Four Seasons, one of the most famous pieces of Baroque music.

In Vivaldi’s masterwork, each of the ensemble pieces calls to mind the respective season; for instance, Spring calls to mind rebirth and rejuvenation.

Violin concertos like The Four Seasons were first developed during the Baroque era, and feature a solo violin and an orchestra.

Question 10

Who is Johann Sebastian Bach?

Answer 10

Bach was a composer during the Baroque period, when he was best known as an organist. His works such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Mass in B minor became recognized as masterpieces after his death.

Question 11

What sculptor completed his Baroque masterpiece, Ecstasy of St. Teresa, in 1652?

Answer 11

Bernini completed Ecstasy of St. Teresa in 1652, depicting the saint’s encounter with an angel. Many consider the work the high point of Baroque sculpture.

Question 12

Which battle marked the end of Ottoman naval supremacy in the Mediterranean?

Answer 12

In 1571 the combined naval forces of the Christian states of Southern Europe, known as The Holy League, defeated an Ottoman naval force at Lepanto, off the Grecian coast.

Philip II, King of Spain, provided most of the ships to the expedition, and the victory in the Battle of Lepanto enhanced his reputation as Catholicism’s champion.

Question 13

What was the status of the Spanish Netherlands at the time Philip II came to the throne in 1554?

Answer 13

The Spanish Netherlands consisted of 17 provinces. Most of the Southern provinces were Catholic, while the Calvinists had gained a number of converts in the North.

In 1566, during the Beeldenstorm (literally, “statue storm”), Calvinist mobs broke into churches and destroyed religious imagery they considered blasphemous.

Question 14

How did Philip II react to the Beeldenstorm?

Answer 14

As a strong Catholic, Philip II was furious. In 1567, he dispatched the Duke of Alba and 10,000 troops to restore order.

The Duke’s harsh measures provoked further unrest, and united the Dutch in opposition to his rule.

Question 15

In 1576, the 17 provinces of the Spanish Netherlands signed the _____ _____ ____, an internal treaty which pledged them to work together against the Spanish army.

Answer 15

Pacification of Ghent

Between 1557 and 1576 the Spanish had been preoccupied with wars on other fronts, and the Netherlands broke into on-again/off-again revolts, some of which were financed by the English. The cooperative agreement was aimed at combating Spanish troops who hadn’t been paid and had mutinied, sacking numerous Dutch towns.

Question 16

What event prompted the Dutch to declare independence in 1589?

Answer 16

In 1589, Philip II sent his Dutch armies into Northern France to prevent Henry of Navarre from becoming King of France.

With the Spanish Army absent, the seven northern provinces declared independence, while the heavily Catholic 10 southern provinces chose to stay loyal to the King. A 12-year truce was signed in 1609. The 10 southern provinces would later form the country of Belgium.

Question 17

Where did French Calvinism prove popular during the late 16th and early 17th centuries?

Answer 17

French Calvinists (known as Huguenots) were largely concentrated in urban areas. Most Huguenots were from the middle class or from the nobility.

Somewhere between 40% and 50% of the nobility were Huguenots and the existence of a large Protestant group was a threat to France’s Catholic leadership.

Question 18

What was the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre?

Answer 18

In 1572 many leading Huguenots were in Paris for a wedding. With the backing of Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots.

The massacre spread across France, killing upwards of 20,000 Huguenots. For the next 15 years, civil war would rage throughout France.

Question 19

Who were the politiques?

Answer 19

The politiques were moderate French Catholics and Huguenots, who sought to put the interest of France as a whole above their religious differences.

The politiques who sought to resolve the sputtering religious civil war that continued across France between 1572 and 1598 by endorsing a stong centralized monarchy that would allow religious toleration of the Huguenots.

Question 20

In 1589, the last of France’s Valois kings died without a direct heir, and Henry of Navarre, a Bourbon, became King of France, ruling as Henry IV. Why did Henry of Navarre’s accession provoke controversy?

Answer 20

Henry of Navarre was a Huguenot, and his accession was widely opposed by France’s Catholic majority, especially in Paris. A politique, Henry saw an opportunity to reconcile France’s long-running civil war, and nominally converted to Catholicism saying, “Paris is worth a mass.”

Question 21

In 1598, French King Henry IV issued the _____ _____ _____, which officially established toleration of the Huguenots and ended France’s religious civil wars.

Answer 21

Edict of Nantes

The Edict ended the long-running bloodshed of the civil wars, and established once more a centralized French monarchy, paving the way for France’s absolutist state of the 17th century.

Question 22

In 1608, leaders from the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire formed what group?

Answer 22

The Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire formed the Protestant Union, to provide mutual protection from the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor.

The Union elected Frederick V, Elector Palatine as their leader. Nevertheless, the League was weak because of internal disagreements between Lutherans and Calvinists, and because a number of the stronger Protestant states, such as Saxony, refused to join.

Question 23

How did the leaders of the Catholic states respond to the formation of the Protestant Union?

Answer 23

In 1609, the leaders of the Catholic states formed the Catholic League, eventually headed by Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.

Question 24

How did the Thirty Years’ War begin?

Answer 24

In 1617, Ferdinand II was named King of Bohemia, and sent his representatives to Prague.

Bohemian Protestants, concerned that Ferdinand II would remove their religious rights, threw Ferdinand II’s representatives out the window, beginning the Bohemian Revolt and the Thirty Years’ War.

Question 25

The first phase of the Thirty Years’ War is known as the Bohemian Phase, and lasted from 1618-1625. What took place during the Bohemian Phase?

Answer 25

During the Bohemian Phase of the Thirty Years’ War, the Bohemians named Protestant Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate as King.

Frederick V, as head of the Protestant Union, marched troops into Bohemia. Ferdinand II’s Catholic League forces defeated the Protestants in the crucial Battle of White Mountain in 1620, then marched into Germany to subdue the Protestant Union states.

Question 26

What was the response of Danish King Christian IV to the success of Ferdinand II’s Catholic forces during the Bohemian Phase of the Thirty Years’ War?

Answer 26

With financial assistance from the Dutch and English, Lutheran King Christian IV intervened in the war on the Protestant side in 1625. The Danish forces suffered a series of defeats at the hands of Ferdinand, and by 1629 sought and achieved a negotiated peace.

Question 27

Battlefield success prompted Ferdinand II to issue the Edict of Restitution in 1629. What did the Edict state?

Answer 27

The Edict mandated the return to the Church of properties seized from Catholics by Protestants in 1552. The Edict was a deliberate attempt on Ferdinand II’s part to rescind the agreements of the Peace of Augsburg.

The returned property included two Archbishoprics, sixteen bishoprics, and hundreds of monasteries.

Question 28

In 1630, faced with defeat by Ferdinand II’s forces, the desperate Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire called upon which monarch for assistance?

Answer 28

The Protestant states called upon Gustavus Adolphus, the Lutheran King of Sweden, commencing the Swedish Phase of the Thirty Years’ War, which lasted until 1635.

Gustavus Adolphus’s intervention saved the Protestant states and prevented Ferdinand II from establishing a united, Catholic, Holy Roman Empire in Germany. Absolute victory eluded the Swedes, and Gustavus Adolphus died in battle in 1632.

Question 29

The final phase of the Thirty Years’ War was the French Phase, lasting from 1635 to 1648. Why did Catholic France intervene on the Protestant side?

Answer 29

With a Hapsburg on the throne in Spain and in control of the Netherlands, the French intervened to prevent the domination of Germany by another Hapsburg king, which would have left France surrounded.

French efforts against German unification would mark her diplomacy into the 1800s. By 1635, the religion of one’s allies had proven less important than a state’s security.

Question 30

What agreement concluded the Thirty Years’ War?

Answer 30

The Thirty Years’ War ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The peace established an independent Dutch Republic, transferred the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, and largely freed the 300 German states of the Holy Roman Empire from allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor, allowing them to choose the religion of their territories.

Most importantly the Peace of Westphalia established the modern nation-state, recognizing that individual nations are completely sovereign within their territorial boundaries, with no role for external actors, such as the Holy Roman Emperor.

Question 31

How did the Thirty Years’ War affect Germany?

Answer 31

Germany was a battleground for almost the entire Thirty Years’ War. A third of the German population is estimated to have been killed, and the German economy was destroyed by looting, pillaging, and burning.

The Peace of Westphalia, by recognizing the petty principalities of Germany as independent entities, also prevented German unification for over 200 years.

Question 32

By the end of the Thirty Years’ War, what nation had risen to be Europe’s dominant power?

Answer 32

By the end of the Thirty Years’ War, France had risen to be Europe’s dominant power. The Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire was little more than a name, and the Emperor only exercised control of Austria and Bohemia.

England’s population and army was dwarfed by France, Spain was riven by internal dissension, and Germany and Italy were still divided. The next 170 years would see the European nations attempt to maintain a balance of power against French dominance of Europe.