Transcript The Age of Religious Wars

The Age of Religious Wars
●Kagan, Chapter 12
Renewed Religious Struggle
In the early 16th century Lutherans and Zwinglians
attempted to secure rights and freedoms in Central
Europe.
●Religious conflict shifted to western Europe in the
late 16th century as Calvinists struggled for
recognition in France, the Netherlands, England, and
Scotland.
●The Peace of Augsburg (1555) made Lutheranism
“legal” in the Holy Roman Empire, but did nothing
for other Protestant groups.
●
Catholic Counter-offensive
After the conclusion of the Council of Trent (1563),
the Jesuits launched a global counter-offensive
against Protestantism.
●Calvinism was attractive to proponents of political
decentralization while Catholicism found favor with
absolute monarchy.
●Catholic Church enjoyed the baroque art style,
which presented life in grandiose three dimensional
displays
●Protestant artists were restrained
●
Intellectuals preach tolerance
●When the religious wars erupted in the 16th century,
the intellectuals moved to preach tolerance more
quickly than the politicians.
●Sebastian Castellio responds to the killing of
Michael Servetus, ordered by John Calvin
●“To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man.”
●Michel de Montaigne asked, “What do I know?”
reflecting skepticism for the dogmatic.
●The Lutheran Valentin Weigel advised people to
search within themselves for religious truth.
Politiques
intellectuals of the 1500’s criticized the
religious strife between Catholics and
Protestants
●rulers who urged tolerance and moderation
and became indifferent to religion became
known as politiques
●Elizabeth I of England the most successful
politique
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The French Wars of Religion
(1562-1598)
Protestant Repression in France
French Protestants were known as Huguenots
●Emperor Charles V started the first wave of
Protestant persecution in 1525
●1534 – Protestants arrested and leader John Calvin
sent into exile
●1540 – Edict of Fontainebleau makes Protestants
subject to the Inquisition
●1551 – Edict of Chateaubriand establishes more
measures against the Protestants
●later the Bourbon and Montmorency-Chatillon
families become sympathetic to the Hugenots
●
Appeal of Calvinism
John Calvin curries favor with powerful
aristocrats like the Prince of Conde who
converted to Calvinism
●the powerful combination of now political
and religious (the Huguenots) dissidents made
Calvinism a viable religion in Catholic France
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The Medicis and the Guises
Catherine de Medicis unsuccessfully attempts to
reconcile the differences between the Protestants and
the Catholic Guises (dominant radical Catholic
group of Eastern France) with religious toleration
●the duke of Guise massacres Protestant worshippers
in Champagne causing the French wars of religion
●Medicis and her young king son go under the
control of the Guises
●
The Peace of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Three wars of religion end with the deaths of the
duke of Guise, Protestant military leader Conde and
a Huguenot victory
●peace treaty acknowledges the Protestant nobility,
grant Huguenots religious freedom, and the rights to
fortify their cities
●Catherine who once supported the Protestants, turns
to the Guises fearing Protestant leader Coligny
would draw France into a war with Spain that could
not be handled by her son
●
The Saint Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre
Catherine convinces her son King Charles IX that
a Huguenot coup was about to happen
●
Response is on August 24, 1572 – Coligny and 3,000
Huguenots are massacred in Paris / within three days
20,000 other Protestants are also killed in France
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Protestant Resistance Theory
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Protestant cause becomes one of sheer survival
●In response, Protestant writers call for an active
defense of religious rights
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Henry of Navarre
Henry III, a politique attempts to compromise with
the warring religions to save the nation (which was
more important to him than religion)
●Henry of Navarre leads the Protestants in turning
back Henry III attempt to rout the Protestants at the
Day of the Barricades
●the two Henrys are forced into an alliance against
the Guises, but Henry III is assassinated and Henry
of Navarre becomes Henry IV, a Protestant as King
of France
●Henry IV, basically a politique converts to
Catholicism horrifying the Huguenots
●
The Edict of Nantes
a formal religious settlement that gave
Protestants religious freedoms within their
own towns and territories
●the violence stops, but hostilities remain
●a Catholic fanatic assassinates Henry IV in
1610
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Imperial Spain and the Reign of
Philip II (r. 1556-1598)
Philip II
Philip II was the most
powerful man in Europe
until the defeat of the
Spanish Armada in 1588.
●heir to the intensely
Catholic and militarily
supreme western
Habsburg kingdom
●
Part of Philip's dominions
(1581 and 1598)
Spain was very wealthy from bullion and
gold from their colonies in the New World.
●
Pillars of Spanish Power
Increased wealth and population triggered inflation and an
economic gap between the wealthy and the peasants.
●Castilian peasants were the most heavily taxed people in
Europe.
●Philip II ruled through an efficient bureaucracy and military.
●The Battle of Lepanto (1571) in the Mediterranean Sea
against Turkey results in a great Catholic victory over the
Muslim Turks. It stops the expansion of the Ottoman empire
in the Mediterranean and leads to Spanish control of the sea
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Battle of Lepanto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPLXaZzIwEw
Battle of Lepanto
7 October 1571
●The battle was a naval engagement in which a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of
European Catholic maritime states arranged by Pope Pius V, financed by Habsburg Spain and led by
admiral Don John of Austria, inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of
Patras, where the Ottoman forces sailing westwards from their naval station in Lepanto met the fleet of
the Holy League sailing east from Messina, Sicily.
●In the history of naval warfare, Lepanto marks the last major engagement in the Western world to be
fought entirely or almost entirely between rowing vessels, the galleys and galeasses which were still the
direct descendants of the ancient trireme warships. The battle was in essence an "infantry battle on
floating platforms". It was the largest naval battle in Western history since classical antiquity, involving
more than 400 warships. Over the following decades, the increasing importance of the galleon and the line
of battle tactic would displace the galley as the major warship of its era, marking the beginning of the
"Age of Sail".
●The victory of the Holy League is of great importance in the history of Europe and of the Ottoman
Empire, marking the turning-point of Ottoman military expansion into the Mediterranean, even though
the Ottoman wars in Europe would continue for another century. It has long been compared to the Battle
of Salamis both for tactical parallels and for its crucial importance in the defense of Europe against
imperial expansion. It was also of great symbolic importance in a period when Europe was torn by its
own wars of religion following the Protestant Reformation, strengthening the position of Philip II of
Spain as the "Most Catholic King" and defender of Christendom against Muslim incursion, although this
was mitigated by the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the Royal Navy of England in 1588.
Revolt in the Netherlands
Cardinal Greenville – leader of the council in the
Netherlands who wanted to check Protestant gains by church
reforms
●William of Orange – opposition member of council;
politique, placed political autonomy above religious creeds
(eventually an avowed Calvinist)
●Louis of Nassau (William’s younger brother) led revolt
against Greenville and had him removed from office
●the Compromise a solemn pledge (national covenant) to
reject the decrees of Trent and the Inquisition
●revolt by the Protestants after they were called “beggars” by
Regent Margaret is violently put down by Philip II ‘s , duke
of Alba who executes thousands of suspected heretics
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Continued rebellion Netherlands
William the Orange comes out of exile in Germany and leads
the independence movement of the Netherlands against Spain
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Orange takes over Calvinist inclined Northern territories
Alba replaced by Don Luis de Requesens
Spanish Fury – Spanish mercenaries leave 7,000 people
dead in November 4, 1576 – the massacre unites Protestant
(northern) and Catholic (southern) Netherlands versus Spain
under the Pacification of Ghent – declared internal regional
sovereignty in matters of religion
●Unified Netherlandic resistance defeats Spanish army
●Spain signs humiliating Perpetual Edict calling for the
removal of all Spanish troops from the Netherlands
●
Independence for the Netherlands
Southern provinces afraid of Protestant domination make
peace with Spain in the Union of Arras and make one last
effort to control the country
●Northern provinces respond with the Union of Utrecht
(Protestant)
●William of Orange is assassinated and replaced by his son
Maurice who with the help of England and France finally
defeat Spain
●Netherlands Independence: Spain first signs truce in 1609
and recognizes full independence of the Netherlands in 1648
with the Peace of Westphalia
●
England and Spain (1553-1603)
Mary I of England
very hostile to Protestants (executes great
Protestant leaders, hundreds are burned at the
stake and others flee to the Continent)
●marries into militant Catholicism by wedding
Philip II of Spain
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Elizabeth I of England
settled religious differences by merging broadly
defined Protestant doctrine with traditional Catholic
ritual, later resulting in the Anglican Church
●all anti-Protestant legislation repealed and ThirtyNine Articles is issued in 1563 making moderate
Protestantism the official religion of the Church of
England
●animosity grows between England and Spain over
dominance of the seas
●
Catholic and Protestant
Extremists
radical Catholics wanted to replace Elizabeth I with
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots,
●Puritans – Protestants who wanted to purify the
church of any “popery”, had two grievances about
Elizabeth
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the retention of Catholic ceremony in the Church of England
the continuation of the Episcopal system of church governance
Presbyterians – Puritans creation of an alternative
national church of semiautonomous congregations
governed by representative presbyteries
●more extreme Puritans, Congregationalists wanted
every congregation to be autonomous
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Mary, Queen of Scots
Catholic ruler of Scotland who later is forced to
abdicate the throne and flee to England and her
cousin Elizabeth I
●Elizabeth, who has Mary under house arrest for the
fear of a Catholic England uprising , uncovers two
plots against her life
●Mary is compliant with the assassination attempts
and is executed by Elizabeth
●ending all Catholic hopes of a bloodless
reconciliation with Protestant England and leads to
the invasion of the Spanish Armada
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The Defeat of the Spanish
Armada
Sir Francis Drake of England, shells the Spanish
port of Cadiz and raids Portugal delaying the
invasion of the Spanish Armada
●a huge Spanish fleet of 130 ships and 25,000 sailors
is crushed by the swifter defending British navy (1/3
of the Armada never return to Spain)
●Protestant resistance everywhere is given hope and
Spain is never again a world power
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https://vimeo.com/29924757 Mary Stuart
●https://vimeo.com/29923676 Walter Raleigh
●https://vimeo.com/29927349 Spanish Armada
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The Thirty Years’ War
(1618-1648)
Scope of the Thirty Years’ War
●The Thirty Years’ War was the last and most
destructive of the wars of religion.
●Entrenched hatred of the various sides
●Seeming determination to sacrifice all for their
religious beliefs and extension of political
power.
●Virtually every major European land became
involved
Preconditions for The Thirty Years
War – Fragmented Germany
Germany was an almost ungovernable land of 360 autonomous
political entities [Map 12-3, p. 407]
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Europe’s highway for trade and travel
German princes opposed any efforts to consolidate the Holy Roman
Empire, lest their territorial rights, confirmed by the Peace of
Augsburg, be overturned.
German princes were willing to turn to Catholic France or to the kings
of Denmark and Sweden for allies against the Hapsburg emperor.
After Council of Trent , Protestants were afraid Catholics would
attempt to recreate Catholic Europe of pre-Reformation times
● Imperial diet, controlled by German princes, demanded strict
observance of the constitutional rights of Germans
● Emperor ruled only to the extent to which he was prepared to use
force
Preconditions for The Thirty Years
War – religious divisions
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Religious divisions in the Holy Roman Empire [Map 12-3, p. 408]
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between the equally numbered Catholics and Protestants
between liberal and conservative Lutherans
between Lutherans and Calvinists
Peace of Augsburg had attempted to freeze the territorial
holdings of Lutherans and Catholics thru the ecclesiastical
reservation
●Meanwhile, Lutherans had gained political control in some
Catholic areas and vice versa
●Catholic rulers demanded return of all ecclesiastical holdings
●Lutherans and esp. Calvinists in the palatinate ignored
●
Preconditions for The Thirty Years
War – Calvinism and the Palatine
Calvinism was the religious and political ‘leaven’ within the
Holy Roman Empire
● Calvinism unrecognized as a legal religion by the Peace of
Augsburg
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Gained strong foothold when Frederick III, devout Calvinist,
became elector Palatine and made Calvinism official religion
By 1609, Palatine Calvinists led Protestant defensive alliance
supported by England, France, and the Netherlands – Spain’s enemies
Lutherans felt the Palatine Calvinists threatened the Peace of
Augsburg and the existence of Lutheran themselves
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Preconditions for The Thirty Years
War – Maximilian I of Bavaria
Bavaria: staunchly Catholic, supported by Spain and Jesuits,
military and ideological base for Counter-Reformation in HRE
●Maximilian I of Bavaria counters the Palatine with the
Catholic League and fields great army
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Bohemian Period of the Thirty
Years’ War
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Habsburg Ferdinand becomes king of Bohemia
He immediately revokes religious freedom to Bohemian
Protestants
●Protestant nobility in Prague respond by throwing his regents out
the (4th story) castle window – defenestration of Prague
●
Catholics elect Ferdinand II as Holy Roman Emperor
● Bohemians defiantly name Palatine, Frederick V, their king
● Spain, Maximilian of Bavaria, and Lutheran elector John
George I of Saxony support Ferdinand
● Ferdinand defeats Frederick’s troops at the Battle of White
Mountain thereby taking over Bohemia and Palatine
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Danish Period of the Thirty
Years’ War
Fears of reconquest and re-Catholicization
● Lutheran king Christian IV of Denmark, eager to extend his
influence, and encouraged by the English, French, and Dutch,
takes up the banner of Protestant resistance
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However, Maximilian humiliates Protestant forces in Germany and
forces them to retreat to Denmark
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Ferdinand II distrusts Maximilian’s success and enlists
support of Albrict of Wallenstein, opportunistic Protestant
and powerful mercenary
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Wallenstein carries fight to Denmark, breaks Protestant resistance
Ferdinand II orders the Edict of Restitution reasserting the
Peace of Augsburg
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unrealistically: illegality of Calvinism, return all church lands
Swedish Period of the Thirty
Years’ War
Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden (Lutheran) with help
from the French and Dutch turn the tide of the war with a
smashing victory at Breitenfield (decisive battle of history)
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military genius
●Fire-and charge tactics; light, mobile artillery; fluid offensive and
defensive tactics
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Adolphus is killed by Wallenstein’s forces at the Battle of
Lutzen, but then Wallenstein is assassinated himself by
Ferdinand who was afraid of his independence
● Despite religious convictions, the assassination of
Wallenstein proved it was more a war of greed and politics
● Peace of Prague – German Protestant states reach a
compromise with Ferdinand, the war however continues
elsewhere
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Fourth and Final Period: The
Swedish-French Period
French, Swedish, and Spanish troops for the next
thirteen years attack and loot Germany simply for
the sake of warring itself
● 1/3 of German population lost in war
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Treaty of Westphalia of 1648
Ends the war within the Holy Roman Empire
●The Treaty did the following:
● rescinded the Edict of Restitution and put back
the Peace of Augsburg (religious autonomy)
● Calvinists officially recognized
● Swiss Confederacy, the Netherlands and Bavaria
become independent
● Brandenburg-Prussia becomes most powerful
German state; gains international status along
with Austria
●
Pope opposed but powerless to prevent
● Modern Europe established with it’s
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Spain and France
Spain and France continue to war until 1659,
when France emerges victorious
●France becomes Europe’s dominant power,
while Hapsburg Spain never recovers
●