122 Reformations on the Continent (Five Hundred 7)

Zooming out, this episode casts a wide net to summarize how the movement started by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin affected Europe over the next century. We’ll see how the Reformation took root in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands while simultaneously failing to find fertile ground in France, especially among those in power. Lastly, we’ll consider the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648) and how this brutal conflict fundamentally changed the way religion and politics related henceforth.

This is lecture 8 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.

—— Notes ——

Germany

• Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560): systematic theologian of Lutheran movement
• 1521 – Diet of Worms: edict outlawed Luther and followers
• 1526 – Diet of Speyer suspended the edict of Worms
• 1529 – Diet of Speyer re-enacted the edict of Worms
• 1530 – Diet of Augsburg
  • Lutherans presented Augsburg Confession[1] (written by Melanchthon)
  • Johann Eck prepared a confutation against the Augsburg Confession
  • Charles demanded Lutherans sign this refutation
• 1531 – Schmalkaldic League
  • 1532 – Emperor called a truce at Nuremberg that lasted a decade
  • 1546-7 – First Schmalkaldic War
  • 1552 – Second Schmalkaldic War
• 1555 – Peace of Augsburg
  • Cuius regio, eius religio: whose region, his religion

 

Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark)

• All of Scandavia ultimately became Lutheran during the 16th
• Monarchs converted to the faith
• 1527 – Gustav Vasa (1496-1560), king of Sweden split with Rome
  • King took possession of all church property
  • Subjected clergy to civil law
  • Declared all churches to preach “the pure Word of God”

 

Netherlands

• Anabaptist movement was popular
• Spanish government (Philip II) harshly persecuted Protestants in the Netherlands
• 1560s – Dutch Reformed Church dominated

 

France

• French Protestants were called Huguenots
• Francis I (r. 1515-1547) initially was tolerant, owing to humanist tendencies until 1534
• 1534: Affair of the Placards stirred Catholics against Protestants
• 1562-1698: French Wars of Religion were civil wars

“The parish pulpits of Paris taught hatred of heretics and suspicion of those—including the magistracy and monarchy—who allowed their continuing existence. Catholic preachers goaded people into a frenzy of fear and hatred of the religious and moral depravity of the ‘Deformed’ that would undermine royal efforts for toleration and produce deadly fruit. …For over the next 30 years Huguenots and Catholics murdered and assassinated each other with increasing barbarity.”[2]

• 1572: St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre
  • Marriage between Marguerite of Valois and Henry of Navarre brought many prominent people into Paris
  • August 24th King Charles IX (1550-1574) had gates of Paris locked

“The streets were covered with dead bodies, the rivers stained, the doors and gates of the palace bespattered with blood. Wagon loads of corpses, men, women, girls, even infants, were thrown into the Seine, while streams of blood ran in many quarters of the city…One little girl was bathed in the blood of her butchered fa