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THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION
by
PRESERVED SMITH, Ph.D.
New York
Henry Holt and Company
American Historical Series
General Editor
Charles H. Haskins
Professor of History in Harvard University
Copyright, 1920
by
Henry Holt and Company
VITÂ
CARIORI
FILIOLAE
PRISCILLAE
SACRUM
PREFACE
The excuse for writing another history of the Reformation is the need
for putting that movement in its proper relations to the economic and
intellectual revolutions of the sixteenth century. The labor of love
necessary for the accomplishment of this task has employed most of my
leisure for the last six years and has been my companion through
vicissitudes of sorrow and of joy. A large part of the pleasure
derived from the task has come from association with friends who have
generously put their time and thought at my disposal. First of all,
Professor Charles H. Haskins, of Harvard, having read the whole in
manuscript and in proof with care, has thus given me the unstinted
benefit of his deep learning, and of his ripe and sane judgment. Next
to him the book owes most to my kind friend, the Rev. Professor William
Walker Rockwell, of Union Seminary, who has added to the many other
favors he has done me a careful revision of Chapters I to VIII, Chapter
XIV, and a part of Chapter IX. Though unknown to me personally, the
Rev. Dr. Peter Guilday, of the Catholic University of Washington,
consented, with gracious, characteristic urbanity, to read Chapters VI
and VIII and a part of Chapter I. I am grateful to Professor N. S. B.
Gras, of the University of Minnesota, for reading that part of the book
directly concerned with economics (Chapter XI and a part of Chapter X);
and to Professor Frederick A. Saunders, of Harvard, for a like service
in technical revision of the section on science in Chapter XII. While
acknowledging with hearty thanks the priceless services of these
eminent scholars, it is only fair to relieve them of all responsibility
for any rash statements that may have escaped their scrutiny, as well
as for any conclusions from which they might dissent.
For information about manuscripts and rare books in Europe my thanks
are due to my kind friends: Mr. P. S. Allen, Librarian of Merton
College, Oxford, the so successful editor of Erasmus's Epistles; and
Professor Carrington Lancaster, of Johns Hopkins University. To
several libraries I owe much for the use of books. My friend,
Professor Robert S. Fletcher, Librarian of Amherst College, has often
sent me volumes from that excellent store of books. My sister,
Professor Winifred Smith, of Vassar College, has added to many loving
services, this: that during my four years at Poughkeepsie, I was
enabled to use the Vassar library. For her good offices, as well as
for the kindness of the librarian, Miss Amy Reed, my thanks. My
father, the Rev. Dr. Henry Preserved Smith, professor and librarian at
Union Theological Seminary, has often sent me rare books from that
library; nor can I mention this, the least of his favors, without
adding that I owe to him much both of the inspiration to follow and of
the means to pursue a scholar's career. My thanks are also due to the
libraries of Columbia and Cornell for the use of books. But the work
could not easily have been done at all without the facilities offered
by the Harvard Library. When I came to Cambridge to enjoy the riches
of this storehouse, I found the great university not less hospitable to
the stranger within her gates than she is prolific in great sons.
After I was already deep in debt to the librarian, Mr. W. C. Lane, and
to many of the professors, a short period in the service of Harvard, as
lecturer in history, has made me feel that I am no longer a stranger,
but that I can count myself, in some sort, one of her citizens and
foster sons, at least a dimidiatus alumnus.
This book owes more to my wife than even she perhaps quite realizes.
Not only has it been her study, since our marriage, to give me freedom
for my work, but her literary advice, founded on her own experience as
writer and critic, has been of the highest value, and she has carefully
read the proofs.
PRESERVED SMITH.
Cambridge,
Massachusetts,
May 16, 1920.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE OLD AND THE NEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1. The World. Economic changes in the later Middle Ages. Rise of the
bourgeoisie. Nationalism. Individualism. Inventions. Printing.
Exploration. Universities.
2. The Church. The papacy. The Councils of Constance and Basle.
Savonarola.
3. Causes of the Reformation. Corruption of the church not a main
cause. Condition of the church. Indulgences. Growth of a new type of
lay piety. Clash of the new spirit with old ideals.
4. The Mystics. _The German Theology_. Tauler. _The Imitation of
Christ_.
5. The Pre-reformers. Waldenses. Occam. Wyclif. Huss.
6. Nationalizing the churches. The Ecclesia Anglicana. The Gallican
Church. German church. The Gravamina.
7. The Humanists. Valla. Pico della Mirandola. Lefèvre d'Étaples.
Colet. Reuchlin. _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_. Hutten. Erasmus.