I.

Exploration of the New World The 15th century was an age of exploration and discovery, not only of the New World but of the Far East as well o It's important to remember that in 1400, Europeans knew little more of the world's surface than had the ancient Romans o In 1350, it took the same amount of time to sail from one end of the Mediterranean to the other as it had 1000 years before o As late as 1325, there was still no regular sea traffic between northern and southern Europe by way of the Atlantic. By 1500, all this had changed Why did Europeans begin exploring at this time? o Population not a factor Europeans were not motivated by demographic pressures to leave Europe in the 15th century as they would be in the late 19th The European population had not yet recovered from the Black Death, nor would it do so until at least 1500 o The role of national governments the explorations were encouraged by national governments which were the only ones wealthy enough to finance such exploration Countries that lacked such national governments, like Italy and Germany, were cut out Some believe the Europeans might actually have reached the new world earlier had not they been held back by economic depression and political upheavals After all, the Portuguese had found the Azores in 1350 and these islands were one-third of the way to the new world o Scarce items Europeans were encouraged to search the world because they were looking for the things they could not produce themselves These included spices, silk, cotton cloth, and precious stones The Venetian monopoly in spices set very high prices Between 1495-99, the price of pepper doubled in Venice Da Gama of Portugal found pepper costing 80 ducats in Venice could be had for a mere three in Calicut in India John Cabot of England was looking for cod; cod from the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland had bigger and fattier livers that produced more oil from which a huge profit could be made o the Renaissance during the Middle Ages, Europeans had no burning desire to look beyond the boundaries of Christendom but with the Renaissance and the ideas of human improvement, people became curious as to what lay beyond their known world they also looked back at the knowledge of the ancients and learned One major reason for the explorations was the rediscovery of Ptolomy's Geography recovered in 1409 Ptolomy accepted the idea of the world as a sphere, but he exaggerated the size of known territory making continents seem closer together than they really were The result was that Ptolomy had underestimated the circumference of the globe by 5000 miles This misinformation is what led Columbus to sail west to get to China New inventions

exploration was made possible by new inventions The sandglass was the basic timepiece of the period, good enough to measure the difference in four hour watches on a ship, but not nearly good enough to calculate longitude Not until the 18th century would there be chronometers accurate enough to calculate longitude Instead, the naval explorers of the 14th and 15th centuries used latitude sailing This meant they would find the right latitude by measuring the distance of the sun from the horizon, sail so many days on that course, change to another, etc. until they reached their destination The magnetic compass first developed around 1300 helped sailors determine their position at sea, and the astrolabe permitted the plotting of latitude Better maps also aided seamen The Beginnings of Exploration o Portuguese take the lead The Portuguese took the lead in exploration, feeling their way along Africa, hoping that the two known oceans, the Atlantic and Indian, were connected somehow This was done under the influence of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) Portuguese ships found the Gold Coast of Africa by 1500, Portugal controlled the flow of gold into Europe The Golden Age of Portugal had begun As they worked their way around Africa searching for a passage, the Portuguese also founded the slave trade which they also soon controlled In 1487, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, but storms and a threatened mutiny obliged him to turn back But before the Portuguese could venture around Africa and on to India, further information would be required about conditions in eastern Africa To that end, Pero da Cavilha was sent overland to India to find ports in India and Africa hospitable to the Portuguese He identified a sultan in Malindi who would be willing to provide the Portuguese with pilots across the treacherous Indian Ocean The Portuguese then concerned themselves with their other main rival, Spain The Treaty of Torsedillas in 1494, divided the world between Spain and Portugal, giving most of the new world as it turned out to the Spanish, except for Brazil, but preserving the Portuguese monopoly over the African coast Vasco Da Gama in 1497 set sail and eventually reached India He found the pilot promised him and made the 2300 mile trip across the Indian Ocean in only 27 days, with the wind at his back and a skilled pilot who maneuvered around the islands and reefs But, having reached India and taken on his goods, Da Gama was obliged to leave in a hurry Worse, his pilot was killed The trip back to Africa took 3 months By the time he returned to Portugal, he had lost two ships, and only 59 of the 170 men he had began with were left

The cargo he carried, however, was worth 60 times the cost of the expedition In time, the Portuguese set up trading posts in India to the discomfort of the Arabs there Christianity spread as well with them, with missionaries reaching China in 1516 Jesuits reached Japan in 1549, delivering hundreds of converts in a few years The Spanish enter the race the Spanish had not found anything that paid such dividends early Spanish explorations Columbus Columbus was dispatched with the support of Ferdinand and Isabella in August, 1492, landing in October at San Salvador which he believed to be India Columbus was not the first to discover the New World, but the last Earlier European explorers to the New World The Vikings in 982 under Eric the Red had found Greenland, and about 1000 under Lief Erickson had found the what we now know as Canada Lacking stable political institutions in Scandinavia, they had no governmental forms to impose on these distant countries, and their settlements collapsed Irish sailors led by a monk named Brendan most likely sailed across around the same (or even earlier time) in a boat made from leather Columbus ultimately located all the major islands in the Caribbean He also found new souls to win over to Catholicism, and of course, he found new land to settle the restless young hidalgos who had expected the Spanish crown to give them land and wealth following the fall of Granada when in fact the crown had none to give Columbus also found gold that was cultivated by placer mining, that is washed from gravel The work was tedious and the indians had no immunity to most European diseases What with disease and overwork, the population of Hispaniola fell from one million in 1493 to 100,000 by 1510 Black slaves would be imported from Guinea to do the mining But the amounts of gold found were tiny and still the voyages had not paid off In 1513, Balboa sighted the Pacific Ocean after crossing the isthmus of Panama Magellan

following Balboa's discovery, Spain dispatched Ferdinand Magellan to find a sea route to the new ocean He found the straits at the bottom of South America which still bear his name Sailing between huge mountains and through narrow passages, it took 38 terrifying days to make it through The ocean he found on the other side was so calm, he named it the Pacific Still thinking Ptolomy's calculations were correct, and the victim of extraordinary bad luck, Magellan crossed the Pacific, missing Tahiti, the Marquesas, and every other major island group, arriving finally in the Philippines There he was killed and the rest of his expedition finally returned to Spain in 1518 after running the gauntlet of hostile Portuguese settlements in Africa and India Magellan's crew had proven the earth was indeed round and considerably larger than Ptolomy thought it was, but they had not yet found the wealth the Portuguese had enjoyed for decades The Conquistadors Thus the conquistadors were sent inland looking for treasure Cortes in 1519 captured the Aztec empire and Pizarro captured Peru between 1531 and 36, finding the richest silver mines in the new world Finally, the Spanish exploration had paid off, and the Spanish began exploiting this new found wealth But this money did not stay in Spain: she had destroyed her own middle class made up of Jews and Muslims when the latter were expelled in 1492 Thus, the wealth passed through Spain to create raging inflation in the rest of Europe.

II. Social Results of Imperialism Technology o Technology aided imperialism that in turn had a major impact on European social life, primarily through new developments in ship building Before the Renaissance, the ships that plied the Mediterranean were narrow open boats called galleys Such ships were frequently rowed and sometimes used a small mast which did not catch the wind efficiently Such delicate, slow-moving craft were acceptable for the relative calm of the Mediterranean Sea which was well mapped, but they would have sunk quickly in the rough seas of the Atlantic, most of which remained unexplored It was the Portuguese who developed the caravel in the 15th century, a three masted ship which, though physically smaller than a galley, could actually hold more cargo, and could be sailed by as few as 12 men if need be This more efficient use of manpower was absolutely necessary following the massive population loss caused by the Black Death o While technology made Renaissance imperialism possible, especially the caravel and and new cannons, this imperialism itself had a huge economic impact on Europe o Almost unimaginable amounts of gold and silver came in from the Spanish possessions o This influx of bullion led to major price increases

o o

Between 1503 and 1650, 16 million kilograms of silver and 185 thousand of gold reached Europe But since artisans could not rapidly increase the production of their goods since such goods were still handmade, a classic inflationary cycle began, with large amounts of money chasing very few consumer goods, leading to major price hikes Between 1519 and 1547, in Wittenburg, where Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door, prices increased 100%. In this inflationary period, merchants profited and prospered because they owed fixed sums that cost less to repay with inflated currency, and because they could rapidly raise the prices they charged for their wares By contrast, the nobility were hurt because they were paid a fixed sum by their tenants over a long term lease They were in fact living on a fixed income Wages of workers lagged behind the inflation rate By 1620, a common laborer's income could buy only one-half of what it could in 1500 The price of food rose sharply By 1600, wheat cost five times what in had in the late 1400s This meant that agriculture became a lucrative field for investment, just as long distance shipping had been Increasingly, merchants, having made their profits in trade, bought land to diversify their operations and increase their profits When they began managing farms, they brought the same "bottom line" mentality they had used in trade to agriculture, resulting in the Second Agricultural Revolution Many articles, such as sugar, coffee, and rice, stopped being luxuries because they were available in larger quantities Industry thrived as well, especially glassmaking Cheaper glass made possible glass windows that replaced the oiled paper of the Middle Ages Glass windows allowed far more light into a room than the oiled paper ever had With more light, houses could be split into smaller rooms for more privacy, without turning rooms into dark cells With more (if smaller) rooms available in houses for the first time, people of modest means could physically separate themselves from their children, keeping children away from adult pursuits For the first time in history, a concept of childish innocence developed because children could be kept innocent for the first time by keeping them away from the procreation of their siblings Improved glassmaking also allowed finer glass to be produced this in turn allowed it to be ground more efficiently in the 17th century, better glass allowed microscopes and telescopes to be developed with clearer lenses which allowed scientists to see the heavens and microscopic life better these new developments helped bring forth the Scientific Revolution of Galileo and Newton The slave trade underwent a Renaissance as well Portugal dominated the slave trade because of her conquest of African ports

Slavery
o o

Only in the 17th century would the Dutch and English begin trading slaves on the Guinea coast o The chief market for these slaves was Spanish South America; native Americans in that area were rarely successfully enslaved since they were unaccustomed to the labor required and had no immunity to European diseases The importation of large numbers of slaves caused a huge demographic shift against the native Americans in Brazil in 1798, for example, there were two million blacks out of a total population of 3.25 million o It is important to note that slavery was widespread in Africa and Europe, and that Europeans almost always contracted with other African tribes to provide them with slaves for sale in the Americas o This worked because Africans were already familiar with slavery, having practiced the system against one another for centuries--very different though from slavery as it emerged in the Americas who was involved (mostly kings of larger African countries and those smaller kings who wanted to become large kings--also an outflow trade to the Muslims) why slavery existed--form of punishing criminals, prisoners of war, unpaid debts conditions of slavery--for a limited period, slaves had legal protections, slaves usually treated as part of the household o That said, the pace at which slaves were taken increased, leading to the disintegration of the African social system As young men and women were captured in vast numbers, it was impossible for African tribes to reproduce themselves or their cultural patterns from one generation to the next o Controversy surrounded slavery almost at once Some considered it inhumane while others saw the system as an economic necessity By the late 17th century, there were abolition movements in both north and south America The Columbian Exchange o The "Columbian exchange" is a term developed by historian Alfred W. Crosby describes the transfer (both intentional and unintentional) of biological materials between Europe and the Americas this transfer was both devestating and beneficial at the same time o Perhaps the most important import from the New World after its wealth was its food The potato, for example, could grow where nothing else could, and its culture eventually spread to England and Germany where wet soils and short growing seasons made wheat cultivation difficult By the 19th century, it had become the most important crop in all of Europe But Protestant, northern Europeans remained suspicious of the potato in spite of its many virtues because it was not mentioned in the Bible, and they sometimes blamed it for causing disease, especially leprosy Fish from the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland entered the European diet The tomato first appeared in Europe in a yellow form, hence the term for it in Italian, pomodoro (golden apple) The tomato was a valuable source of vitamin C as was the potato, provided the latter was not overcooked and the skin was eaten But the miracle crop at first was surely corn

Instead of getting back 5 grains for every one sown as one did in wheat cultivation, one got back 70 or more Corn filled the granaries of Europe

The Sugar trade Sugar was especially prized for its high profits; the main center of production was Brazil, although Cuba and Hispaniola also contributed some sugar Sugar from the New World became available just as the supply of the traditional European sweetener, honey, dwindled Honey had been a bi-product of beehives which monks cultivated for the beeswax used in candles in Catholic services As monasteries were closed in Protestant countries, honey disappeared to be replaced by sugar as the main sweetening agent Sugar was so important the Dutch eagerly yielded up what became New York City to the English in exchange for the captured sugar lands of Surinam New beverages from colonies in Asia and the New World, like coffee, chocolate, and tea, also came from imperialism All these drinks are high in caffeine, meaning such liquids were non-intoxicating Chocolate, tea and especially coffee became the approved drinks of the middle class in Protestant countries, who wished to distinguish themselves from the aristocracy, addicted in their view to overconsumption of alcohol The close association between coffee and the middle class merchant can be seen by noting that Lloyd's of London, still a major insurance company, was formed originally in Lloyd's coffee house In fact, so much did the middle class adopt coffee as their own that money began flowing out of Germany at such a rate that a public relations campaign was begun to convince Germans their national drink was beer! Not only did new foods and beverages arrive from the New World but new cooking techniques reached Europe as well The barbecue was adapted from a cooking technique of natives on the northern coast of Hispaniola Those Carib Indians who escaped the genocide of the Spanish smoked meat over a latticework of green wood built over a fire of hides and bones The Carib Indians called the technique boucan which passed into French as boucanier which became in English buccaneer, because both English and French regarded such Indians as social deviants The Spanish called the greenwood frame barbacoe which became in English barbecue African slaves brought to British islands in the Caribbeans brought their ways of cooking with them, particularly the idea of using spices and frying (instead of boiling) meats--fried chicken for example. These new foods and ways to cook them meant that fewer people in Europe died of starvation The population of the continent soared, freeing up labor first for the industrial revolution and then for the emigration of excess Europeans back to the New World in the 18th and 19th centuries The Columbian Exchange also made it easier for later generations of Europeans to settle in the Americas disease from the Europeans struck the native populations very hard--Native Americans had no built-in immunity to diseases that most Europeans saw as irritating, but not necessarily life-threatening

diseases such as the measles, smallpox, the mumps, and pneumonia were devestating in some areas, the native populations suffered a 90% or higher mortality rate within a decade of first contact with Europeans Most historians of early America estimate that the total Indian population of the Americas dropped from around 25-30 million people to less than 5 million people in the 150 years following Columbus o his transfer of biological items had a much greater impact on Western Civilization in the long-run than all the gold and silver found in the New World I. Protestant Reformation Causes of the Reformation o The Protestant Reformation occurred in part as a response to the decline of the late medieval papacy Increasingly powerful secular rulers challenged the power of the popes, and since the secular rulers had the real power, money and armies to back up their will, the pope's claims to dominance were no longer real Clement V came to live in Avignon in what later was known as the Babylonian Captivity The prestige of the pope suffered enormously, with the English and German rulers accusing him of being merely the creature of the French king The Great Schism The return of the papacy to Rome only produced the Great Schism when, for a time, there were two popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon Eventually the schism was solved by the 1417 Council of Constance which elected a new pope The council voted along national lines showing clearly that religion and politics were never far apart But the dethroning of two popes had challenged papal authority and made later popes unwilling to call a council to deal with church abuses for fear of being dethroned themselves, even when the church found itself under attack by Luther John Wycliff and John Huss Martin Luther was not the first to challenge the doctrine of the church John Wycliff (1329-84) in England had urged that the church be stripped of property and abolish such practices as veneration of saints, pilgrimages and the cult of Mary for which he could find no Biblical justification He translated the Bible into English so people could read it themselves and see that his points were valid At first he had influential protectors who wanted church property which Wycliff claimed the church did not need, but as his radicalism increased (he attacked the Eucharist), Wycliff fell into disgrace The low point came when his ideas were used by the peasants to justify their 1381 Peasants Revolt in England as they condemned the church for its luxury and incompetence As a result of the revolt, Wycliff's views, now known as Lollardy, were regarded as subversive and espousing them became a capital crime in England by 1400

Wycliff's ideas spread to Bohemia to John Huss (1375-1415), the rector of the University of Prague The Czech king Wenceslaus' sister, Anne, had been married to Richard II of England, and when he was murdered, she fled to Bohemia with her confessors who had been influenced by Wycliff Huss' criticisms of the church fed Czech resentment against their German overlords Huss was invited to the Council of Constance to defend himself after being assured of his personal safety, but when he arrived, he was instead tried, convicted, and executed as a heretic This produced the Hussite revolt (1420-24) in which Czech aristocrats seized the lands of the church and defeated Catholic German armies sent to put down the rebellion Czechoslovakia would not be brought back into the Catholic fold until the 17th century following the Thirty Years War Wycliff and Huss were responding to a outcry among Catholics for popular piety and mysticism, as well as a preoccupation with death resulting from the onslaught of the Black Death Luther would respond to this as well, writing hymns which the entire congregation could sing and which were based on German folk songs Gregorian chants in the Catholic church, by contrast, had become so technical that they required a professional choir to sing The main complaints of the reformers began with clerical immorality Celibacy was hard to enforce, and drunkenness and gambling among the clergy were widespread Many priests, especially the lower clergy, lived with women Instead of stopping the practice, the church just taxed the couples to make their children legitimate Clerical ignorance was another complaint The standards of ordination were shockingly low It is estimated that maybe no more than 2% of the clergy could actually understand the Latin liturgy As lay people learned to read Latin in the Renaissance, they could quickly see how ignorant the clergy really was The printing of Bibles, moreover, allowed people to read the passages themselves; by 1522, there were 18 translations of the Bible Clerical pluralism was another abuse Sometimes churchmen held several offices at the same time, just collecting the revenues but not visiting their parishes This was especially true of Italian churchmen who had offices in England and Germany but never went there Nationalistic resentment allowed some to believe that Germany and England were "second-class citizens" in the church as a result Nationalists in the north were further angered by the domination of the Italian popes Many also criticized the church's lack of heartfelt piety; many lay associations sprang up to create a more personally meaningful religious experience Note, however, that there was little pressure for doctrinal change Most criticism was about making the church live up to its own rules, rather than changing the rules

Indeed, most abuses were on their way to being corrected by Catholic reformers before the Reformation began

Martin Luther o It is against this background of clerical abuses that we see Martin Luther He became a monk after being terrorized in a storm In spite of many penances, he could not rid himself of a sense of his own sinfulness, until he finally came to believe that salvation did not depend on external observances, but rather on a simple faith in Christ This faith is a gift from God and cannot be earned This position is called justification by faith alone, as opposed to the Catholic view of justification by faith and good works, including the ritual of the church o Luther was shocked at the selling of indulgences which was being done to raise money for the building of St. Peters basilica in Rome The church claimed the right to touch the "treasury of merits," the fund of goodness built up by the saints and Christ, to give absolution Now, instead of undergoing true penance, people were simply buying indulgences Worse, those who sold them were making piles of money; the Fuggers in Augsburg got a one-third commission on each one they sold Luther was also shocked at the fraud in the veneration of relics; there were 12 heads of St. John the Baptist, for example o On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed to the church door in Wittenburg Castle a list of 95 thesis and offered to debate anyone on them These theses challenged papal power to grant indulgences and criticized papal wealth More important, they began the process of turning a critique of Catholicism into a new religion by saying the sole source of authority was the Bible and that indulgences were not in the Bible To prove his point, Luther translated the Bible into German o The church declared him a heretic The Bible was not the sole source of authority; the church recognized the role of the church fathers, the saints, and the councils Luther only recognized two sacraments, baptism and communion, the only two mentioned in the Bible, while the church recognized seven Luther could find no Biblical authority for the cult of Mary, purgatory, or relics, all of which were in fact added in the Middle Ages And Luther rejected transubstantiation o Although declared a heretic, Luther was protected against the troops of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, because the latter was busy fighting the Turks in eastern Europe and would require German troops to do so Thus, German rulers made the protection of Luther the requirement for sending men This gave Luther precious time to develop his ideas which came together in the Augsburg confession of 1530 which later became the creed of the Lutheran church The Political Impact of Luther's beliefs o The political impact of Luther's beliefs was enormous Many worldly people embraced Luther because they hoped to get their hands on church lands and wealth which Luther had condemned Many also objected that papal taxes to support a luxury loving church were draining wealth from northern Europe for the enrichment of Italy, and that

Germany was especially prone to being "taken" because she did not have a central government to defend German interests Some saw in Luther's views a way to unify Germany on the basis of a new religion o The Peasants of Germany revolted in 1524, demanding the abolition of serfdom and a reduction in taxes While Luther recognized the justice of their grievances, he was appalled at the violence and asked the princes to crush the rebellion This they did by 1525 with 100,000 dead The religious strife in Germany was solved with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 Each German prince was to decide the religion of his subjects Protestants were to keep confiscated church lands All Protestant sects except Lutherans were forbidden And from now on, Catholic bishops converting to Lutheranism would be obliged to give up their property The Peace of Augsburg added to the political disintegration of Germany by granting more power to the German princes, including now the right to determine the religion of their subjects Calvinism o By the time of the Peace of Augsburg, there was another fast growing religion in Germany which the treaty did not recognize--This was Calvinism o Calvinists believed in predestination, that is that you were saved on damned before birth The argument ran that all men had inherited Adam's sin and all were therefore damned However, God in His infinite mercy saved some people before they were born, not because they deserved it, but because God was merciful Nothing done here on earth could change God's mind The idea of predestination rested on the sovereignty of God and the weakness of man o The church became supreme in Geneva where a council of ministers made and enforced the law But this was no haven for dissenters Calvinists brutally repressed those who disagreed with them o Calvinism gave support to the new ideals of capitalism by sanctifying thrift and diligence rather than the medieval virtues of chivalry and voluntary poverty accepted by the Catholics Moreover, a clear division occurred between Luther, who became an ally of the princes, and Calvin, who became an ally of the merchants Calvinists became the Presbyterians in Scotland, the Puritans in New England and the Huguenots in France The English Reformation o The English Reformation was unique in that it was clearly politically motivated o England had already been the scene of reform with Wycliff and Thomas More, and Henry VIII had the sympathy of the people or he would not have prevailed o Causes of the English Reformation Henry wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon who had not produced a male heir Their daughter Mary would become Queen, and England had never been ruled by a queen before Henry VIII was aware of the possibility of civil war, as England had already experienced in the War of the Roses

Henry thus wanted to divorce Catherine to marry another woman, Anne Boleyn, and hopefully produce a male heir to avoid a disputed succession The pope (a relative of Catherine's), however, would not grant a dispensation because he was surrounded by the troops of Charles V, Catherine's nephew Henry retaliated by taking England out from under the control of the pope and making himself as king the last court of appeals in England Monarch as head of the Anglican Church Anyone who disagreed with Henry as the head of the English church was also disagreeing with him as king of England and thus guilty of treason; for this crime, Thomas More was beheaded Henry moved to dissolve the monasteries and sold the land or gave it to men he could trust This replenished royal coffers and also created accomplices in crime Any attempt to restore Catholicism would mean the church would retake these lands The "new men" as these new owners were known thus had a vested interest in supporting Henry Parliament's role The king had to work with Parliament to make his reformation so he could claim the support of the people whom Parliament represented Thus the role of Parliament was enhanced in England while in other areas of Europe, representational assemblies were going out of fashion The dogma of Henry's church was still Catholic, with the major exception that Henry and not the pope was the head of it Henry still required transubstantiation as doctrine and confession to the priests, for example Protestant ideas crept in slowly under his son Edward (1547-53), son of his third wife, Jane Seymour Only then was the requirement of celibacy repealed and a new Common Book of Prayer established Queen Mary At Edward's death, Mary, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, became queen (1553-58) She tried to bring Catholicism back and her efforts have earned her the sobriquet of "bloody Mary." She was quite unpopular, especially after marrying her cousin, Philip II of Spain, and forcing England into a war with France which England lost (and which forced England to give up Calais, the last English possession in France) Mary executed some 300 Protestants, including former Archbishop Cranmer who had helped Henry divorce her mother Elizabeth I When Mary died, her half-sister Elizabeth, daughter of the executed Anne Boleyn, became Queen Elizabeth ran a middle course between Protestant and Catholic, insisting primarily on her authority as head of the realm The Articles of Faith were written broadly so that as many as possible could swear to them You had to attend a Church of England service, but Elizabeth did not inquire too closely into what you did the rest of the day, provided your loyalty to her was not questioned

Elizabeth was, therefore, a pragmatist, able to distinguish to a remarkable degree for the 16th century between church and state The inability of the rest of Europe to do so, however, would plunge Europe into devastating wars of religion

II. Catholic Reformation By 1547, the Protestants were in control of England, Scotland, Scandinavia, the northern half of Germany and great pieces of France Catholics responded by taking the initiative and no new areas "fell" to the Protestants with the exception of the Netherlands The Catholic Reformation o This Catholic Church had actually begun a series of reforms before the Protestant Reformation, but the pace quickened in the 16th century o One example of this reform were new religious orders These were needed to raise the moral and intellectual level of the clergy in response to criticisms leveled against the church Orders of Nuns The Ursulines were an order of nuns trying to fight heresy through Christian education to train future wives and mothers; in this way, the Catholics reached out to women and their educational needs The Carmelites were an order of barefoot nuns, founded by St. Teresa of Avila, who lived in extreme poverty, thus responding to the Protestant charge that the Catholics were too concerned with luxury Jesuits But the most important was the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish nobleman and warrior who decided to become a soldier of Christ The Jesuits were subject to iron discipline and became the pope' shock troops in the Catholic Reformation They became confessors and advisors to kings and had enormous political impact Jesuits created excellent schools and engaged in missionary work as far away as Ceylon, Japan and India They were responsible for bringing much of Germany and eastern Europe back into the Catholic fold o The Council of Trent Popes had feared calling a council to deal with the abuses of the church, fearing such a council would trim their powers or even dethrone them as the Council of Constance had a previous pope The Council of Trent was thus finally called only in 1545 instead of compromising with the Protestants, the Council restated basic Catholic doctrine salvation was due to both faith and good works the Bible was not the sole source of authority the cult of Mary and the saints were valid and pilgrimages were valid as well Theological seminaries would be created to train priests The reforms at the Council strengthened the pope and made the church monarchical o Impact of the Council of Trent The Council of Trent was not representative of the Catholic church, however

Almost no German bishops attended and at various times, neither Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, nor Francis I, king of France, would allow their bishops to attend This was because major political concerns underlay the Council Francis wanted to keep Germany divided, fearing a powerful, united Germany on his border Thus Francis would not consider any compromise on Catholic dogma; this would keep Germany hopelessly divided between Protestants and Catholics By contrast, Charles V wanted to reconcile Lutherans and Catholics so as to keep his divided empire together and make it easier to govern Clearly, Francis prevailed Even in architecture, the Catholics showed new vigor as the Baroque style was developed Catholics now turned to the outward symbolism of the power and might of the church, the very things Protestants had criticized before The churches of the Baroque were grandiose and contrasted sharply with Protestant simplicity Most emphasized popular piety, especially the cult of Mary which again Protestants had condemned Fittingly, the Jesuits new church in Rome was the beginning of the Baroque, characterized by great theatrical vistas and the dramatic use of light All these elements centered on the altar where the supreme miracle of the mass was performed and around the pulpit where new dynamic preaching took place The altar was moved forward so more people could see the service and so be a part of it, and the side naves were removed to avoid having columns interfere with parishioners seeing the service Catholics also placed great emphasis on the collectivity of men as opposed to the Protestant insistence on individual faith Catholics restated their belief that you could benefit from the prayers of others as well as be hurt by the sins of others Unfortunately, this came to mean that Protestantism was a direct threat to your personal salvation, not just a matter of private conscience for the dissenter