Reformation 3/ Absolutism 1

1. In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church implemented two types of reforms called the Catholic Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic Refor-mation sought renewal basically through the stimulation of a new spiritual fervor. The Counter-Reformation started as a reaction to the rise and spread of Protestantism and in-volved Catholic efforts to convince dissidents to return to the church or else corrupt the en-tire Catholic community. The popes resisted calls for a council because they feared that, like the fifteenth-century conciliar attempts, they would limit papal authority and lose power, revenue, and prestige. Cardinal Alexander Farnese, who would become Pope Paul III, initiated the Counter-Reformation at the Councils of Trent from 1545 to 1563. Lutherans and Calvinists were allowed to come, but they differed on the practices and made reconciliation impossible. Charles V opposed discussions because he did not want to further alienate his Lutheran princes. French kings opposed the councils because they wanted to keep Germany divided and thus France strong. The persistence of the conciliar theory of church government would divide the church, so it was agreed that all acts of the council required papal approval. The council gave equal validity to the Scriptures and to tradition as sources of religious truth and authority. It reaffirmed the seven sacraments and transubstantiation. The council strengthened ecclesiastical discipline, required bishops to live in their own dioceses, stopped pluralism and simony, and forbade the selling of indulgences. Clerics who kept concubines had to give them up, bishops were given jurisdiction over all of their dioceses; clergy, and bishops were required to visit every religious house within the dioceses at least once every two years. Every diocese was to establish a seminary for the education and training of the clergy. Seminary professors had to determine whether a candidate was pure of life, detached from the broader secular culture, and was inclined toward the priesthood. Marriages were only valid if they were made publicly before witnesses and a parish priest.

1. Clement VII—The pope responsible for the great spread of Protestantism by being materia-listic. He allowed Rome to be sacked in 1527 after switching diplomatic sides from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the French king Francis I.

2. Council of Trent—A Roman Catholic Church council held in Trent, Italy, from 1545 to 1563, to respond to the threat of Protestantism. The council reaffirmed and defined Roman Cath-olic beliefs and laid the foundation for the Counter-Reformation.

3. Ursuline Order and Angela Merici—Angela Merici founded the Ursuline order and worked to attain enormous prestige for the education of women. The order provided superior edu-cation for young women and inculcated the spiritual ideals of the Catholic Reformation.

4. Society of Jesus and Ignatius Loyola—Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus and played a powerful role in resisting the spread of Protestantism, converting Asians and Latin American Indians to Catholicism, and spreading Christian education throughout Europe. Fol-lowers of the Society of Jesus are known as Jesuits. They brought southern Germany and much of Eastern Europe back to Catholicism.

5. Inquisition—A committee of six cardinals with judicial authority over all Catholics and the power to arrest, imprison, and execute. It effectively destroyed heresy in the Papal States.

6. Index of Prohibited Books—A catalogue of banned books published by the Holy Office.


1. Spain was the winner of the Habsburg-Valois Wars, and France had to acknowledge Spanish dominance in Italy. Instead of dividing his attention between the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, the ruler of both shifted his attention to Spain. The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis ended an era of dynastic wars and initiated an era where politics and religion played the dominant roles. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century armies were bigger than medieval ones. Governments had to reorganize their administrations to finance their armies. The use of gunpowder killed and wounded from a distance, indiscriminately. Governments used propaganda, pulpits, and the printing press to make the public support the wars.

2. Serfs had virtually disappeared in France in the sixteenth century because of the labor shortages that followed the Black Death and the Hundred Years’ War. Francis I issued an or-dinance in 1539 that placed all of France under the jurisdiction of the royal law courts and made French the official language. The taille provided money for the monarchy and sup-ported a strong standing army. The Valois monarchs lavished money on courts, vast build-ings, and Italian artists. Francis I commissioned Pierre Lescot to rebuild the place of the Lou-vre. Il Rosso decorated the wing of the Fontainebleau chateau. He and his song Henry II im-ported Italian Renaissance art and architecture to France. They increased taxes, borrowed heavily, sold public offices, and signed a treaty with the pope allowing for the French king to choose his own bishops and abbots.

3. The ideas of Calvin and Luther gained an audience in France because churchmen were pro-moted to the hierarchy based on their services to the state. Few of the priests in France de-voted scrupulous attention to the needs of their parishioners. Calvin’s Institutes in 1536 gained a sizeable following because he wrote in French. Initially, Calvinism drew converts from reform-minded members of the Catholic clergy, the middle classes, and artisan groups. The French nobility took advantage of the weak French kings and converted to Cal-vinism. Since no one believed that peoples of different faiths could coexist peacefully, armed clashes occurred between Catholic royalist lords and Calvinist antimonarchical lords. Riots occurred and many people were killed.

4. After Henry II died, his three weak sons occupied the throne. Francis II died after seventeen months, Charles IX ruled under his mom Catherine de’ Medici, and Henry III had debauche-ries with his male lovers and repented. The French nobility took advantage of these weak rulers and converted to Calvinism. On Saint Bartholomew’s Day, the king’s sister Margaret of Valois was to marry the Protestant Henry of Navarre, thus reconciling the Catholics and the Huguenots. The night before the wedding, the leader of the Catholic aristocracy, Henry of Guise, had Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the leader of the Huguenot party, attacked. Be-tween August 25 and October 3, about 12,000 Huguenots died in France.

5. The key players in the War of the Three Henrys were the Catholic Henry of Guise, the Prot-estant Henry of Navarre, and Catholic King Henry III. Henry of Guise wanted to end Calvin-ism and put a Guise as king. France suffered fifteen years of religious rioting and domestic anarchy, causing agriculture to be destroyed, commercial life to decline, and starvation and death to occur. Politiques, moderates of both religions, favored a strong monarchy over re-ligious pluralism. The death of Catherine de’ Medici and the assassinations of Henry of Guise and King Henry III led to politique Henry of Navarre to become king as Henry IV. He published the Edict of Nantes in 1598, giving Huguenots freedom of religion in 150 fortified towns.

6. Netherlands’ government before Charles V consisted of seventeen provinces that were only connected by important economic connections and the emperor. Cities of the Low Countries had important sites for the exchange of Baltic and Italian products. In the French-speaking south, fine linens and woolens were produced, and in the Dutch-speaking north, fishing, shipping, and international banking were done. Each of the provinces was self-governing, made its own laws, and collected its own taxes. The corruption in the Church, the critical spirit of the Renaissance, Lutheran tracts, and Dutch translations of the Bible attracted many to Protestantism. Charles V responded with condemnation and only mild repression. In 1556, he abdicated and gave the Low Countries to his son Philip II. Because the provinces possessed a large middle class, Calvinism appealed to those because of its intellectual seriousness, moral gravity, and emphasis on any form of hard labor. Because working-class people only hired other Calvinists, many of the workers converted. In 1559, Philip II appointed his half-sister Margaret as regent of the Netherlands. She tried to wipe out Prot-estantism by introducing the Inquisition. She also raised taxes even though the Low Coun-tries were taxed more than Spain.

7. Philip II sent 20,000 Spanish troops under the duke of Alva to stop the riots. Along with the Inquisition, the duke opened his own tribunal that killed thousands. Alva resolved the finan-cial crisis by levying a 10% sales tax on every transaction. After Philip II sent his nephew Al-exander Farnese, duke of Parma, in 1578, he divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Spanish Netherlands in the south. The northern seven provinces had many sluices and canals and were thus highly protected. The southern ten provinces were mostly flat except for the Ardennes Mountains. In the north, the commercial aristocracy held power; in the south, the landed nobility was the ruler. The north was Protestant and the south was Catholic.

8. The United Provinces asked the Protestant queen of England for help after Philip II and the duke of Parma continued to attack. If Elizabeth helped the Dutch, then she would anger the Spanish and might cause a war that she could not afford. If she did not help the Dutch, then they would be defeated and the Spanish would invade England. The wars in the Low Coun-tries hurt the English economy because they were England’s main market. The murder of William the Silent eliminated a great Protestant leader and a strong military leader. The fall of Antwerp appeared to signal a Catholic sweep through the Netherlands that could cause Spain to invade. She eventually decided to support the Dutch by sending 250,000 pounds and 2,000 troops to the Low Countries between 1585 and 1587.

1. Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis—A treaty signed by France and Spain in 1559 that ended the Habsburg-Valois Wars. It ended an era of dynastic wars and initiated a period of conflicts in which politics and religion were key.

2. Concordat of Bologna—Francis I of France agreed to recognize the supremacy of the papacy over a universal council in return for the right of the French crown to appoint all French bishops and abbots.

3. Holy League—An alliance of Catholic nobles that not only wanted to destroy Calvinism but replace King Henry III with a member of the Guise family.

4. Politiques—A small group of moderates of both Catholic and Calvinism that believed that only the restoration of a strong monarchy could reverse the trend toward collapse. Henry of Navarre, a politique, would become Henry IV in 1589.

5. “Paris is worth a Mass”—Henry IV wanted a strong and united France, and since the majori-ty of France were Roman Catholic, he converted to Catholicism. He later published the Edict of Nantes in 1598 to allow for religious freedom.

6. Bourse—exchange—The place in towns where goods from many nations were bought and sold.