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THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
VOLUME IX
A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL
ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
With a staff of specialists
VOLUME IX
[Illustration: Henry VIII, during the festivities at Guines--"The Field
of the Cloth of Gold"--in courtly dance with one of the French Queen's
ladies-in-waiting
Painting by Adolph Menzel]
The National Alumni
Copyright, 1905,
by The National Alumni
CONTENTS
VOLUME IX
PAGE
_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii
CHARLES F. HORNE
_Luther Begins the Reformation in Germany (A.D. 1517)_, 1
JULIUS KOESTLIN
JEAN M. V. AUDIN
_Negro Slavery in America_
_Its Introduction by Law (A.D. 1517)_, 36
SIR ARTHUR HELPS
_First Circumnavigation of the Globe (A.D. 1519)_
_Magellan Reaches the Ladrones and Philippines_, 41
JOAN BAUTISTA
ANTONIO PIGAFETTA
_The Field of the Cloth of Gold (A.D. 1520)_, 59
J. S. BREWER
_Cortes Captures the City of Mexico (A.D. 1521)_, 72
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
_Liberation of Sweden (A.D. 1523)_, 79
ERIC GUSTAVE GEIJER
_The Peasants' War in Germany (A.D. 1524)_, 93
J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE
_France Loses Italy (A.D. 1525)_
_Battle of Pavia_, 111
WILLIAM ROBERTSON
_Sack of Rome by the Imperial Troops (A.D. 1527)_, 124
BENVENUTO CELLINI
T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE
_Great Religious Movement in England_
_Fall of Wolsey (A.D. 1529)_, 137
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
_Pizarro Conquers Peru (A.D. 1532)_, 156
HERNANDO PIZARRO
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
_Calvin is Driven from Paris (A.D. 1533)_
_He Makes Geneva the Stronghold of Protestantism_, 176
A. M. FAIRBAIRN
JEAN M. V. AUDIN
_England Breaks with the Roman Church (A.D. 1534)_
_Destruction of Monasteries_, 203
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
_Cartier Explores Canada (A.D. 1534)_, 236
H. H. MILES
_Mendoza Settles Buenos Aires (A.D. 1535)_, 254
ROBERT SOUTHEY
_Founding of the Jesuits (A.D. 1540)_, 261
ISAAC TAYLOR
_De Soto Discovers the Mississippi (A.D. 1541)_, 277
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
_Revolution of Astronomy by Copernicus (A.D. 1543)_, 285
SIR ROBERT STAWELL BALL
_Council of Trent and the Counter-reformation (A.D. 1545)_ 293
ADOLPHUS W. WARD
_Protestant Struggle against Charles V_
_The Smalkaldic War (A.D. 1546)_, 313
EDWARD ARMSTRONG
_Introduction of Christianity into Japan (A.D. 1549)_, 325
JOHN H. GUBBINS
_Collapse of the Power of Charles V (A.D. 1552)_
_France Seizes German Bishoprics_, 337
LADY C. C. JACKSON
_The Religious Peace of Augsburg (A.D. 1555)_
_Abdication of Charles V_ 348
WILLIAM ROBERTSON
_Akbar Establishes the Mogul Empire in India (A.D. 1556)_, 366
J. TALBOYS WHEELER
_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1517-1557)_ 385
JOHN RUDD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME IX
PAGE
_Henry VIII during the festivities at Guines_--"_The Field
of the Cloth of Gold_"--_in courtly dance with one of
the French Queen's ladies-in-waiting_ (_page 63_), Frontispiece
Painting by Adolph Menzel.
_Gustavus I (Vasa) addressing his last meeting of the Estates_, 79
Painting by L. Hersent.
AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
THE GREAT EVENTS
(THE REFORMATION: REIGN OF CHARLES V)
CHARLES F. HORNE
Our modern world begins with the Protestant Reformation. The term itself
is objected to by Catholics, who claim that there was little real
reform. But the importance of the event, whether we call it reform or
revolution, is undenied. Previous to 1517 the nations of Europe had
formed a single spiritual family under the acknowledged leadership of
the Pope. The extent of the Holy Father's authority might be disputed,
especially when he interfered in affairs of state. Kings had fought
against his troops on the field of battle. But in spiritual matters he
was still supreme, and when reformers like Huss and Savonarola refused
him obedience on questions of doctrine, the very men who had been
fighting papal soldiers were shocked by this heretical wickedness. The
heretics were burned and the wars resumed. When Alexander Borgia sat
upon the papal throne for eleven years, there were even philosophers who
drew from his very wickedness an argument for the divine nature of his
office. It must be indeed divine, said they, since despite such
pollution as his, it had survived and retained its influence.
Some modern critics have even gone so far as to assert that for at least
two generations before the Reformation the great majority of the
educated classes had ceased to care whether the Christian religion were
true or not. The Renaissance had so awakened their interest in the
affairs of this world, its artistic beauties and intellectual advance,
that they gave no thought to the beyond. But we approach controversial
matters scarce within our scope. Suffice it to say that the Reformation
brought religion once more into intensest prominence in all men's eyes,
and that a large portion of the civilized world broke away from the
domination of the Pope. Men insisted on judging for themselves in
spiritual matters. Only after three centuries of strife was the
privilege granted them. Only within the past century has thought been
made everywhere free--at least from direct physical coercion. The last
execution by the Spanish Inquisition was in 1826, and the institution
was formally abolished in 1835.
The era of open warfare and actual bodily torture between various sects
all calling themselves Christian, thus extended over three centuries.
These may be divided into four periods. The first is one of fierce
dispute but little actual warfare, during which the revolt spread over
Europe with Germany as its centre. An agreement between the contestants
was still hoped for; the break was not recognized as final until 1555,
when, by the Peace of Augsburg, the two German factions definitely
agreed to separate and to refrain from interference with each other. Or
perhaps it would be better to end the first period with 1556, when the
mighty Emperor, Charles V, resigned all his authority, giving Germany to
his brother, Ferdinand, who maintained peace there, while Spain passed
to Charles' son, Philip II, most resolute and fanatic of Catholics.
The second period began in 1558, when the Protestant queen, Elizabeth,
ascended the throne of England. She and Philip of Spain became the
champions of their respective faiths; the strife extended over Europe,
and soon developed into bitter war. This spread from land to land, and
finally returned to Germany as the awful Thirty Years' War.
Then came the third period, during which the religious question was less
prominent; but Catholic sovereigns like Louis XIV of France and James II
of England still hoped by persecutions to force their subjects to
reaccept the ancient faith. These aims were only abandoned with the
downfall of Louis' military power before the armies of Marlborough and
Eugene, early in the eighteenth century.
During the final hundred years the stubborn contest was confined to the
lands still Catholic, in which intellect, under such leaders as
Voltaire, struggled with the superstition and prejudice of the masses,
and demanded everywhere the freedom it at last attained.
For the present we need look only to the first of these periods, that in
which Germany holds the centre of the view.[1] It is an odd coincidence
that at the outbreak of the Reformation all the chief states of Europe
were ruled by sovereigns of unusual ability, but each one of them a man
who obviously thought more of his ambitions, his pleasures, and his
political plans than of his religion. Moreover, each of these rulers
came to the throne before he was of age, and thus lacked the salutary
training of a subordinate position; while, on the other hand, each of
them, through varying causes, wielded a power much greater than that of
any of his recent predecessors.
RULERS OF EUROPE IN 1517
Henry VIII of England was the first of these young despots to assume
authority. Nine years older than the century, he became king in 1509 at
the age of eighteen. His father, Henry VII, had, as we have seen,
snatched power from an exhausted aristocracy. He had been what men
sneeringly called a "tradesman" king, caring little for the show and
splendor of his office, but using it to amass enormous sums of money by
means not over-scrupulous. Young Henry VIII, handsome, dashing, and
debonair, at once repudiated his father's policy, executed the ministers
who had directed it, and was hailed as a liberator by his delighted
people. They quite overlooked the fact that he neglected to restore the
ill-gotten funds, and soon used them in establishing a far more vigorous
tyranny than his father would have dared. Much is forgiven a youthful
king if he be but brave and jovial and hearty in his manner. His
blunders, his excesses of fury, are put down to his inexperience.
Nations are ever yearning for a hero-ruler.
In France a monarch of twenty years, Francis I, ascended the throne in
1515, five years older then than the century. Henry of England had
descended from a family of simple Welsh gentlemen, far indeed at one
time from the crown; Francis I was also of a new line of kings, only a
distant cousin of the childless Louis XII, whom he succeeded. "That
great boy of Angouleme will ruin all," groaned Louis on his death-bed.
Ruin the prosperity of France, he meant, for Louis had been a good and
thoughtful king, cherishing his land and enabling it to rise to the
height of wealth and power, justified by its natural resources and the
ingenuity of its people.
Francis, the "great boy," even more than his rival Henry, proved bent on
being a hero. Like Maximilian of Germany, he sought to be known as the
flower of knighthood. To win his ambition he also was possessed of youth
and wealth, a gallant bearing, and a devoted people. He had intellect,
too, and a love of art. He became the great patron of the later
Renaissance. The famous artist Da Vinci died at his court, in his arms,
legend says. Artists, literary men, flocked to his service. Paris became
the intellectual centre of Europe. France snatched from Italy the
supremacy of thought, of genius.
Alas for the fickleness of untried youth! Henry seemed to promise his
country freedom and he gave it tyranny. Francis promised his people
glory--that is, honor and splendor. In the end he brought them shame and
suffering. Charles V of Germany, youngest of this mighty trio, seemed by
his wisdom to promise his subjects at least protection; and his reign
produced anarchy.
Charles, unlike his rivals, was almost born into power. His father died
in the lad's babyhood; his mother went insane. His two grandfathers were
the two mightiest potentates of Europe, Ferdinand the Wise of Spain, and
Maximilian, head of the great Hapsburg house and Emperor of Germany.
Neither had any nearer heir than little Charles. His father's position
as ruler of the Netherlands was given him as a child, so that he was
really a Fleming by education, a silent, thoughtful, secretive youth,
far different from the jovial Henry or the brilliant Francis, but
ambitious as either and more conscientious perhaps, a dangerous rival in
the race for fame.
Ferdinand died in 1515, and Charles became King of Spain, with all that
the title included of power over the Mediterranean and Southern Italy,
and all the vast new world of America. Charles was then fifteen, just
the age of the century, nine years younger than Henry, five years
younger than Francis. Amid the tumult of the opening Reformation in
1519, the aged Maximilian also died, departed not unwillingly, one
fancies, from an age whose intricacies had grown too many for his simple
soul. The young King of Spain thus became lord of all the vast Hapsburg
possessions of Austria, Bohemia, the Netherlands and so on.
He sought to be elected Emperor of Germany also, but here the matter was
less easy. Already his rule extended over more of Europe than any
sovereign had held since Charlemagne, and Europe took alarm. Henry and
Francis both thrust in, each of them suggesting to the German electorial
princes that he had claims of his own, and would make an emperor far
more suitable than Charles. Henry polished up his German ancestry;
Francis recalled that Germans and Frenchmen were both Franks, had been
one mighty race under Charlemagne, and surely might become so once
again--under his leadership, of course.
The matter was really decided by a fourth party. The Turks had once more
become a serious menace to Europe. During the brief reign of Sultan
Selim the Ferocious (1512-1520) they crushed Persia and conquered Syria
and Egypt. They seized the caliph, spiritual ruler of the Mahometan
faith, and declared themselves heads of the Mahometan world. Triumphant
over Asia, they were turning upon Europe with renewed energy. Hungary
was at its last expiring gasp. Selim's death in 1520 did not stop the
invaders, for his son Solyman, a youth of twenty-five, soon proved
himself a fourth giant, fitted to be ranked with the three young rulers
of the West. He also was a seeker after glory. History calls him the
"magnificent," and holds him greatest among the Turkish rulers. It was
certainly under him that the Turks advanced farthest into Europe, if
that is to be established as the chief measure of Mahometan greatness.
In 1526 Solyman utterly crushed the Hungarians at Mohacs. In 1529 he
besieged Vienna; and though he failed to capture the Hapsburg capital,
yet at a still later period he exacted from the German Emperor
Ferdinand a money tribute. His fleets swept the Mediterranean.
This increasing menace of the Turks was much considered by the German
electors. At first they refused to add to the power of either of the
three monarchs who so assiduously courted them. They chose instead the
ablest of their own number, Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony. But
Frederick proved his wisdom by refusing the task of steering Germany
through the troublous seas ahead. He insisted on their electing some
ruler strong enough to command obedience, and to gather all Europe
against the Turks. So as Charles was after all a German, and of the
Hapsburg race which had so long ruled them, they named him Emperor. He
was Charles I of Spain, but Charles V of Germany. His rule extended over
a wider realm than any monarch has since held.
This success of their younger rival was very differently received by
Henry and by Francis. The English King accepted the rebuff
good-naturedly; perhaps he had never felt any real hope of success. But
Francis was enraged. It was the first check he had met in a career of
spectacular success. He invited Henry to their celebrated meeting at the
Field of the Cloth of Gold[2] to plan an alliance and revenge. Henry
came, but the silent Charles had already managed to enlist his interests
by quieter ways; while Francis, by his ostentation and splendor,
offended the bluff Englishman. So Henry kept out of the quarrel; but to
Charles and Francis it became the main business of their lives. Their
reigns thereafter are the story of one long strife between them, rising
to such bitterness that at one time they passed the lie and challenged
each other to personal combat, over which there was much bustling and
bluster, but no result.
To get a full view of this Europe of young men, that beheld the
Reformation, we must note one other ruler farther north. Ever since the
union of Colmar in 1397, Sweden had been more or less bound to Denmark,
the strongest of the northern kingdoms. By the year 1520 the Danish
monarch Christian had reduced the Swedes to a state of most cruel
vassalage and misery. Only one young noble, Gustavus Vasa, a lad of
twenty-three, still held out, and by adventures wild as those of Robin
Hood evaded his enemies and at last roused his countrymen to one more
revolt. It was successful, and in 1523 Gustavus, by the unanimous
election of the Swedes, became the first of a new line of monarchs.[3]
He proved as able as a king as he had been daring as an adventurer, and
his long reign laid the foundation of Sweden's greatness in the
following century. He early accepted the reformed religion, and thus it
spread through the Far North almost without a check.
THE REFORMATION
The Reformation began in Germany in 1517, when the Saxon monk
Luther--himself then only thirty-four years a sojourner upon our
planet--protested against the Church's sale of indulgences. He was not
alone in his protest, but only stood forth as the mouthpiece of many
earnest men. His prince, that Frederick the Wise who afterward refused
to be emperor, upheld him. Maximilian, dying in the early days of the
dispute, had kind words of regard for the hero-monk. Even the Pope, Leo
X, treated the matter amicably at first. He also was still in early
life, having been made pope at thirty-six, an age quite as juvenile for
the leadership of the spiritual world as that of the various temporal
monarchs for theirs. Leo, being a member of the famous Medici family,
was apparently more interested in art than in religion. He wanted to
rebuild the gorgeous cathedral of St. Peter, and he did not want to
quarrel with Germany. So also Charles V, desiring to be emperor, could
scarce antagonize Frederick of Saxony, who could and did secure him his
ambition.
Thus in its earliest days Luther's revolt was handled very gently, and
it spread with speed. Then Charles, secure upon his throne and gravely
Catholic, resolved on firmer methods of stamping out the heresy. He
summoned Luther to that famous interview at Worms (1521), where the
reformer, threatened with outlawry and all the terror of the empire's
power, refused to unsay his preaching, crying out in agony: "Here I
stand! I can no other! God help me! Amen!"
Charles in his shrewd, silent way saw that the matter was not to be
settled so easily as he had hoped. Already half Germany was on
Luther's side. Several leading nobles accompanied him as he left the
Emperor's presence. Charles wanted their help against the Turks. So
there was more temporizing. Then came war with Francis no tune this for
quarrelling with obstinate Teutonic princes and their obstinate
_protege_.
The peasants of Germany did Luther's cause more harm than Charles had
done. These ignorant and bitterly oppressed unfortunates, constituting
everywhere, remember, the vast majority of the human race, heard
impassioned preachings of reform, revolt. To them Rome seemed not the
oppressor, but their immediate lords; and, thinking they were obeying
Luther's behest, they rose in arms. Some of the more violent reformers
joined them. Luther preached against the uprising, but it was not to be
checked. Terrible were the excesses of the mobs of brutal peasantry, and
all the upper classes of the land were forced in self-defence to turn
against them and crush them. Many a noble who had once thought well of
the reform, abandoned it in fear and horror at its consequences.[4]
Meanwhile the war with France became more serious. The claims of both
Charles and Francis to Italian lands made that unlucky country the
theatre of their battles. Francis, with his compact domain and readily
gathered resources, proved at first more than a match for the scattered
forces and insecure authority of the Emperor. Never had the French
monarch's fame stood higher than when in 1525, with an army made
confident by repeated victories, he besieged Pavia. The city was the
last important stronghold of Charles in Italy; it was reduced almost to
surrender.
Then came a fatal blunder. Francis confused the old ways with the new.
The German generals had been hopeless of raising the siege, the imperial
armies were on the point of disbanding, but as a last resort their
leaders advanced and defied the enemy to fight on equal terms. Instead
of laughing at the proposal as any modern leader would, Francis, in face
of the protest of all his generals, accepted and in true chivalrous
fashion fought the wholly unnecessary battle of Pavia. His forces were
completely defeated, he himself made prisoner. "All is lost," he wrote
home to France, "but honor." Even that too was lost, had he but
known. Charles, unchivalrous, determined to make the most of his
good-luck, and, for the release of his royal prisoner, demanded such
terms as would make France little more than a subject state.[5]
King Francis refused, threatened heroic suicide to save his country; but
he wearied of captivity at last and descended to his rival's level. It
was the tragic turning-point of the French monarch's life, the not
wholly untragic turning-point of larger destinies, ancient chivalry
being admitted unsuccessful and wholly out of date. The two monarchs
dickered over the terms of release. Charles abated somewhat of his
demands, and Francis was made free, having sworn to a treaty which he
never meant to keep. He repudiated it on various pleas, and having thus
sacrificed honor to regain something of all it had lost him, recommenced
the strife with Charles on more equal terms.
The Pope, not the Leo of earlier years, but Clement VII, another Medici,
absolved Francis from his treaty oath. This benevolence can scarce be
ascribed to religious grounds, for Charles was assuredly a better
Catholic than Francis. But as a temporal ruler Clement feared to have in
Italy a neighbor so powerful and unchecked as the Emperor was becoming.
Charles had his revenge. A German army of "Lutheran heretics" marched
into Italy swearing to hang the Pope to the dome of St. Peter's. They
stormed Rome, sacked it with such cruelty as rivalled the barbarian
plunderings of over a thousand years before; and if they did not hang
Clement, it was only because his castle of St. Angelo proved too strong
for their assaults. The marvellous art treasures which had been slowly
garnered in Rome since the days of Nicholas V, were almost wholly
destroyed.[6] Charles hastened to disclaim responsibility for this
direct assault upon the head of his Church; but he did not relinquish
any of the advantages it gave. He and the Pope arranged an alliance and
the Imperial army turned from Rome against Florence, where Pope
Clement's family, the Medici, had recently been expelled as rulers. The
siege and capture of Florence (1529) mark almost the last fluttering of
real independence in Italy. From that time the country remained in the
grasp of the Hapsburgs or their heirs and allies. Petty tyrants, minions
of Austria or Spain, ruled over the various cities. Their intellectual
supremacy passed over to France. Only within the last half-century has a
brighter day redawned for Italy, has she ceased to be what she was so
long called, "the battle-ground" of other nations.
Meanwhile since neither Pope nor Emperor had found time to offer any
vigorous opposition to the German Reformation, it had grown unchecked.
In its inception it had unquestionably been a pure and noble movement:
but as the "protesting" princes moved further in the matter, it dawned
on them that the suppression of the Roman Church meant the suppression
of all the bishoprics and abbeys, to which at least half the lands of
the empire belonged. Such an opportunity for plunder, and such easy
plunder, had never been before. Luther and the other preachers urged
that the church property should be used to erect schools and support
Protestant divines; but only a small fraction of it was ever surrendered
by the princes for these purposes. The Reformation had ceased to be a
purely religious movement.
In no country was this new aspect of the revolt so marked as in England.
There Henry VIII had grown ever more secure in his power by holding
aloof from the jangling that weakened Charles and Francis. He had sunk
into a tyrant and a voluptuary. Yet England herself, profiting by almost
half a century of peace, was progressing rapidly in culture. She was no
longer behind her neighbors. The Renaissance movement can scarce be said
to have begun in England before 1500, yet by 1516 her famous chancellor,
Sir Thomas More, was writing histories and philosophies. In 1522 the
King himself sighed for literary fame and gave opportunity for many
future satirists by writing a Latin book against the Lutherans. The Pope
conferred upon his royal champion a title, "Defender of the Faith."
As Henry, however, devoted himself more and more to pleasure, the real
power in England passed into the hands of his great minister Cardinal
Wolsey, who had risen from humble station to be for a time the most
influential man in Europe.[7] He even aspired to be pope, with what
seemed assured chances of success. But destiny willed otherwise. Henry
chanced to fall in love with a lady who insisted on his marrying her. To
do this he had to secure from the Pope a divorce from his former Queen,
who chanced to be an aunt of the Emperor Charles. What was poor Pope
Clement to do? Offend Charles who was just helping him crush the
Florentines, or refuse his "Defender of the Faith"? Real reason for the
divorce there was none. Clement temporized: and Wolsey with one eye on
his own future, helped him.
The result was tempestuous. Wolsey was hurried to his tragic downfall.
Henry took matters in his own hands and had his own English bishops
divorce him. England joined the ranks of the nations denying the
authority of Rome. Sir Thomas More and other nobles who refused to
follow Henry's bidding were beheaded. Thomas Cromwell, a new minister,
abler perhaps than even Wolsey, and risen from a yet lower sphere of
life, directed England's counsel. By one act after another the break
with Rome was made complete. A thousand monasteries were suppressed and
their wealth added to the crown. Cromwell earned his name, "the hammer
of the monks." In 1534 was passed the final "Act of Supremacy,"
declaring that the King of England and he alone was head of the English
Church.[8]
In France, too, was heresy beginning to appear. The young scholar, Jean
Calvin, wrote so vigorously against Rome that he was driven to flee from
Paris, though King Francis was himself suspected of favoring the free
thought of the reformers. Calvin, after many vicissitudes, settled in
Geneva and built up there a religious republic, that became intolerant
on its own account, and burned heretics who departed from its heresy.
But at least Geneva was in earnest. Calvinism spread fast over France;
it began crowding Lutheranism from parts of Germany. Geneva became the
"Protestant Rome," the centre of the opposition from which ministers
went forth to preach the faith.[9]
Science also began to raise its head against the ancient Church. The
Polish astronomer Copernicus had long since conceived his idea that the
earth was not the centre of the universe. He even pointed out the
proofs of his theory to a few brother-scientists; but the Church taught
otherwise, so Copernicus kept silent till, on his death-bed, he let his
doctrines be published in a book. Then he passed away, bequeathing to
posterity the wonderful foundation upon which modern science has so
built as to make impossible many of the over-literal teachings of the
mediaeval Church.[10]
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION
Nothing but a miracle, it seemed, could save the falling cause of Rome,
and there have been men to assert that a miracle occurred. The order of
the Jesuits was founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola.[11] His followers
with intense fanaticism and self-abnegation devoted themselves
absolutely to upholding the ancient faith, to trampling out heresy
wherever it appeared. They sent out missionaries too, to the New World,
to Asia, Africa, and even distant Japan. As Catholicism lost ground in
Europe it extended over other continents.[12]
Partly at least under Jesuit influence began the great
"Counter-reformation," as it is called, the reform within the Church
itself. Even the most faithful Catholics had admitted the need of this.
Charles V had long urged the calling of a general council, and one
finally assembled in 1545 at Trent. It even tried to win the Lutherans
back peaceably into the fold, and, though this hope was soon abandoned,
a very marked reform was established within the Church. This Council of
Trent held sessions extending over nearly twenty years, and when its
labors were completed the entire body of laws and doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church were fully established and defined.[13]
The refusal of the Protestants to join the Council of Trent brought
matters to a crisis. It placed them definitely outside the pale of the
Church, and Charles V could no longer find excuse in his not
over-troublous conscience, to avoid taking measures against them. They
themselves realized this, and formed a league for mutual support, the
Smalkald League; but it was never very harmonious. Thought, made
suddenly free, could not be expected to run all in the same channel. The
Protestants had divided into Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and a
dozen minor sects, some of which opposed one another more bitterly than
they did the Catholics. Toleration was as yet a thing unknown.[14]
The state of affairs was thus one peculiarly fitted for the genius of
Charles, who managed so to divide the members of the league that only
one of them, the Elector of Saxony, successor to Frederick the Wise, met
the Emperor's forces in battle. He was easily overthrown. The league
dissolved, and Charles, supported by his Spanish forces, was undisputed
master of Germany. He used his power mildly, insisting indeed on the
Protestants returning to the Church, but promising them many of the
reforms they demanded.
This was the moment of Charles' greatest power (1547). His ancient
rivals Henry and Francis both died in this year, the one sunk in sensual
sloth, the other in shame and gloom and savage cruelty. In his hatred of
Charles, Francis had even in his latter years allied himself with
Solyman the Magnificent, and encouraged the Turks in their assault on
Germany. Henry's crown fell to a child, Edward VI; that of Francis, to
his son, another Henry, the second of France, a young man apparently
immersed in sports and pleasures. The Turks had been defeated by
Charles' fleets in the Mediterranean. The Council of Trent, at first
refractory, seemed yielding to his wishes. Spain, where at one time he
had faced a violent revolt against his absolutism, was now wholly
submissive. Germany seemed equally overcome. The Emperor was at the
summit of his ambitions. Europe lay at his feet.
In 1552, with the suddenness of an earthquake, the Protestant princes of
Germany burst into a carefully planned revolt.[15] Maurice, another
member of the Saxon house, was their leader. Charles, caught unprepared,
had to flee from Germany, crossing the Alps in a litter, while he
groaned with gout. Henry of France, in alliance with the rebels,
proclaimed himself "Defender of the Liberties of Germany," and invading
the land, began seizing what cities and strong places he could. The
princes, amazed at their own complete success, sent Henry word that
their liberties were now fully secured, and he might desist. But he
concluded to keep what he had won. So began the series of aggressions by
which France gradually advanced her frontier to the Rhine.
Charles returned with an army the next year, and made peace with his
Germans, that he might turn all his fury against Henry, who had thus
assumed his father's unforgotten quarrel. A mighty German army laid
siege to Henry's most valuable bit of spoils, the strong city of Metz.
But the young French nobles, under Francis, Duke of Guise, a new, great
general who had risen to the help of France, threw themselves gallantly
into the fortress for its defence. Cold, hunger, and pestilence wasted
the imperial troops until--one can scarce say they raised the siege,
they disappeared, those who did not die had slunk away in fear before
the grisly death. Charles accepted his fate with bitter calm, commenting
that he saw Fortune was indeed a woman, she deserted an aged emperor for
a young king.
The Emperor's life had failed. He had not the heart to begin his plots
again. In 1555 he consented to the Peace of Augsburg,[16] which granted
complete liberty of faith to the German princes, and so ended the first
period of the Reformation. Religion, in this celebrated treaty, was
still regarded as a matter in which only monarchs were to be considered.
By a peculiar obliquity of vision, the princes denied to their subjects
the very thing they demanded for themselves. Each ruler was allowed to
establish what creed he chose within his own domains, and then to compel
his subjects to accept it.
The following year (1556) Charles with solemn ceremony resigned all his
kingdoms--Austria and the Empire to his brother, Spain to his son the
celebrated Philip II. Charles himself retired to a Spanish monastery,
where two years later he died. He had found life a vanity, indeed.
THE OTHER CONTINENTS
Of the world of Asia during this time it scarce seems necessary to
speak. The Tartars or Mongols, driven back from the borders of the
Turkish empire, invaded India and there founded the Mongol or Mogul
empire which Akbar pushed to its greatest extent.[17] These Moguls
remained emperors of India until its conquest by the English, over two
centuries later. Even to our own days their title has come down as a
symbol of power, "the Great Mogul."
Portuguese adventurers continued and expanded the trade with Asia, which
Vasco da Gama had opened. The Spaniards also sought a share in it, and
Jesuit missionaries preached the Christian faith. Magellan, a Portuguese
but sailing in the service of Spain, was the first to fulfil the vision
of Columbus and find the Indies by sailing westward.[18] He crossed the
entire Atlantic and Pacific oceans, discovered the Philippine Islands,
and was slain there by the natives. One of his ships completed the first
circumnavigation of the globe.
Look also to Spain's achievements in America, a new continent, but one
already vastly important because of the broad empires Spaniards were
winning there, the enormous wealth that was beginning to pour into the
mother-country. Settlement had begun immediately on the discovery. Rich
mines were opened and the Indians forced to work in them as slaves. As
the unhappy aborigines perished by thousands under the unaccustomed
toil, negroes were brought from Africa to supply their places, were
driven like wild beasts to the labor.[19] The New World became more like
a hell than like the paradise for which Isabella and Columbus planned.
Cortes conquered Mexico,[20] rich with gold beyond all that Europe had
even dreamed. Pizarro found in Peru[21] a civilization whose remarkable
advance we are only lately beginning to realize. And he annihilated
it--for gold. Lima was founded, and Buenos Aires, to be twice destroyed
by Indians and yet become the metropolis of South America.[22] Even here
extended the rivalry of the great European monarchs, Charles and
Francis. Cartier, in the service of the latter, refused to acknowledge
the claims of Spain to America, and exploring the St. Lawrence planned
for France a colonial empire to match that of her enemy.[23] De Leon
discovered Florida, and died while seeking there to emulate the
successes of Cortes. De Soto discovered the Mississippi[24] and he also
perished, lured on in the same knight-errant search for another golden
empire to conquer. Who, having read the lives of such adventurers as
these, shall ridicule the wildest extravagance in all the romances of
chivalry? Wonderland grew real around these men. They achieved
impossibilities. The maddest imaginings of the poets, the most fantastic
tales of knightly wanderings and successes, seem slight beside the
exploits of these daring, dauntless, heartless cavaliers of Spain.
[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME X]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Luther Begins the Reformation in Germany_, page 1.
[2] See _The Field of the Cloth of Gold_, page 59.
[3] See _Liberation of Sweden_, page 79.
[4] See The Peasants' War in Germany, page 93.
[5] See _France Loses Italy_, page 111.
[6] See _Sack of Rome by the Imperial Troops_, page 124.
[7] See _Great Religious Movement in England_, page 137.
[8] See _England Breaks with the Roman Church_, page 203.
[9] See _Calvin is Driven from Paris_, page 176.
[10] See _Revolution of Astronomy by Copernicus_, page 285.
[11] See _Founding of the Jesuits_, page 261.
[12] See _Introduction of Christianity into Japan_, page 325.
[13] See _Council of Trent_, page 293.
[14] See _Protestant Struggle against Charles V_, page 313.
[15] See _Collapse of the Power of Charles V_, page 337.
[16] See _The Religious Peace of Augsburg_, page 348.
[17] See _Akbar Establishes the Mogul Empire in India_, page 366.
[18] See _First Circumnavigation of the Globe_, page 41.
[19] See _Negro Slavery in America_, page 36.
[20] See _Cortes Captures the City of Mexico_, page 72.
[21] See _Pizarro Conquers Peru_, page 156.
[22] See _Mendoza Settles Buenos Aires_, page 254.
[23] See _Cartier Explores Canada_, page 236.
[24] See _De Soto Discovers the Mississippi_, page 277.
LUTHER BEGINS THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY
A.D. 1517
JULIUS KOESTLIN JEAN M. V. AUDIN
It has seldom happened that the story of one man was
essentially the history of a great movement and of an epoch
in human progress. In the case of Luther, a large part of
the world regards his name as a historic epitome. The monk
whose "words were half-battles," and whom Carlyle chose for
his hero-priest, was chief among the reformers, and in the
general view stands for the Reformation itself.
But recognition of Luther's dominating position and
representative character should not leave us blind to other
factors in the religious revolution which was also an
evolution, the achievement not of one man, but of advancing
generations with many leaders. Luther had great helpers in
his own time and great successors. He also had great
predecessors. The Reformation was the religious development
of the Renaissance; it had been heralded by Wycliffe, Huss,
and Savonarola, and there were many minor prophets of a
reformed church before the great German was born.
Luther's Reformation was a revolt against the power and
abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. It was directed against
certain doctrines as well as certain practices, and
especially against evils in the spiritual and temporal
government of the Church.
All the reformers aimed at freeing themselves from
oppressive rule at Rome, and endeavored to establish a purer
faith. The appeal to private judgment as against
unquestioning belief was a natural result of the revival of
learning as well as of spiritual quickening.
Before Luther's time, however, such revolts against church
authority had been quickly suppressed. It is also true that
many abuses had been done away by reformation within the
Church itself; and that, indeed, was what Luther at first
intended. His movement became "too powerful to be put down,
and its leaders soon passed beyond the point at which they
were willing to reform the Church from within. Finding that
the Church would not respond as quickly and as fully to
their demands as they wished, they left the Church and
attacked it from without." In Germany the administration of
the Church had long caused discontent. Through Martin Luther
this feeling found powerful utterance, and in him the demand
for reforms became irresistibly urgent.
Luther, the son of a poor miner, was born at Eisleben,
Saxony, November 10, 1483. He became an Augustinian monk,
in 1507 was consecrated a priest, and the next year was made
professor of philosophy in the University of Wittenberg. In
1511 he visited Rome, and on his return to Wittenberg was
made doctor of theology. He had already become known through
the power and independence of his preaching. Although he
went to Rome "an insane papist," as he said, and while he
was still intensely devoted to the Church and its leaders,
he made known his belief in what became the fundamental
doctrines of Protestantism, exclusive authority of the
Bible--implying the right of private judgment--and
justification by faith.
The immediate occasion of Luther's first great protest was
the sale of indulgences by the Dominican monk John Tetzel.
From early times the church authorities had granted
indulgences or remissions of penances imposed on persons
guilty of mortal sins, the condition being true penitence.
At length the Church began to accept money, not in lieu of
penitence, but of the customary penances which usually
accompanied it. Before 1517 Luther had given warnings
against the abuse of indulgences, without blaming the
administration of the Church. But when in that year Tetzel
approached the borders of Saxony selling indulgences in the
name of the Pope, Leo X, who wanted money for the building
of St. Peter's Church in Rome, Luther, with many of the
better minds of Germany, was greatly offended by the
vender's methods. Against the course of Tetzel Luther took a
firm stand, and when the reformer posted his theses
(summarized by Koestlin) on the church door at Wittenberg
the first great movement of the Reformation in the sixteenth
century was inaugurated.
In accordance with the impartial plan of the present work
regarding the treatment of controverted matters, it is here
sought to satisfy the historic sense, which includes the
sense of justice, by giving a presentation of each view of
the story--the Protestant by Koestlin, the Catholic by Jean
M. V. Audin, whose _Life of Luther_ has been called the
"tribunal" before which the great reformer must be summoned
for his answer.
JULIUS KOESTLIN
Luther longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics
generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his own
opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject, and to
awake and maintain the fray. This he did by the ninety-five Latin theses
or propositions which he posted on the doors of the Castle Church at
Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints' Day and of the
anniversary of the consecration of the church.
These theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. Such public
disputations were then very common at the universities and among
theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of
exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. Luther headed
his theses as follows:
"_Disputation to Explain the Virtue of Indulgences._--In charity, and in
the endeavor to bring the truth to light, a disputation on the following
propositions will be held at Wittenberg, presided over by the Reverend
Father Martin Luther. Those who are unable to attend personally may
discuss the question with us by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen."
It was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on the
occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements, and
likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the doors of a
collegiate church were used for posting such notices.
The contents of these theses show that their author really had such a
disputation in view. He was resolved to defend with all his might
certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. Some points he
considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish and
object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with others.
Recognizing the connection between the system of indulgences and the
view of penance entertained by the Church, he starts with considering
the nature of true Christian repentance; but he would have this
understood in the sense and spirit taught by Christ and the Scriptures.
He begins with the thesis: "Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when he
says repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one
of repentance." He means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true
inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful
self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful
flesh. The pope could only remit his sin to the penitent so far as to
declare that God had forgiven it.
Thus then the theses expressly declare that God forgives no man his sin
without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who
represents him, and that he recognizes the punishments enjoined by the
Church in her outward sacrament of penance. But Luther's leading
principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements of
indulgences by the Church. The pope, he holds, can only grant
indulgences for what the pope and the law of the Church have imposed;
nay, the pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when
he promises absolution from all punishment. And it is only the living
against whom those punishments are directed which the Church's
discipline of penance enjoins; nothing, according to her own laws, can
be imposed upon those in another world.
Further on Luther declares: "When true repentance is awakened in a man,
full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters
of indulgence." At the same time he says that such a man would willingly
undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would even seek and love it.
Still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right
sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who
sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed
be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. He finds it
difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time
to teach them the true repentance of the heart. He would have them even
taught that a Christian would do better by giving money to the poor than
by spending it in buying indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man
near him to starve draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath
of God. In sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous
trader in indulgences, and gives the Pope credit for the same abhorrence
for the traffic that he felt himself. Christians must be told, he says,
that, if the Pope only knew of it, he would rather see St. Peter's
Church in ashes than have it built with the flesh and bones of his
sheep.
Agreeably with what the preceding theses had said about the true
penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation
offered to a mere carnal sense of security, Luther concludes as follows:
"Away therefore with all those prophets who say to Christ's people
'Peace, peace!' when there is no peace, but welcome to all those who bid
them seek the Cross of Christ, not the cross which bears the papal arms.
Christians must be admonished to follow Christ their Master through
torture, death, and hell, and thus through much tribulation, rather
than, by a carnal feeling of false security, hope to enter the kingdom
of heaven."