The Reformation: A History

817 Pages·2005·8.42 MB·English

by  Diarmaid MacCulloch

Praise for The Reformation
“Deserves to become the standard history of early modern Europe religion and
its legacy, synthesizing and assessing a quarter-century of international
scholarship…Like the best of historians, he helps us to understand why we are;
and why we need not be so.”
—Ronald Hutton, The Independent
“Handled here with brilliance, this is the kind of history that normally gives even
academic historians vertigo.”
—The Economist
“Wide-ranging, richly layered and captivating…This spectacular intellectual
history reminds us that the Reformation grew out of the Renaissance, and
provides a compelling glimpse of the cultural currents that formed the
background to reform. MacCulloch’s magisterial book should become the
definitive history of the Reformation.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diarmaid MacCulloch is the author of Christianity, the winner of the Cundill
Prize in History and selected by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and
Publishers Weekly as a Best Book of the Year, as well as Thomas Cranmer,
winner of the Whitbread Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper
Prize. Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, he was
brought up in a country rectory in East Anglia and now lives in Oxford, England.
DIARMAID MacCULLOCH
The Reformation
PENGUIN BOOKS
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Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL, England First American edition published by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004
Published in Penguin Books 2005
11 13 15 17 19 20 18 16 14 12
Copyright © Diarmaid MacCulloch, 2003
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
MacCulloch, Diarmaid.
The Reformation / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56395-3
1. Reformation. I. Title.
BR305.3.M33 2004
270.6—dc22
2003061607
Printed in the United States of America
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For Simon Yarrow
with whom I discovered Preston Bissett
Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I A COMMON CULTURE
1 THE OLD CHURCH, 1490–1517
Seeing Salvation in Church
The First Pillar: The Mass and Purgatory
Layfolk at Prayer
The Second Pillar: Papal Primacy
A Pillar Cracks: Politics and the Papacy
Church Versus Commonwealth?
2 HOPES AND FEARS, 1490–1517
Shifting Boundaries
The Iberian Exception
The Iberian Achievement: The Western Church Exported
New Possibilities: Paper and Printing
Humanism: A New World from Books
Putting Renewal into Practice
Reform or the Last Days?
Erasmus: Hopes Fulfilled, Fears Stilled?
3 NEW HEAVEN: NEW EARTH, 1517–24
The Shadow of Augustine
Luther, a Good Monk: 1483–1517
An Accidental Revolution: 1517–21
Whose Revolution? 1521–2
Evangelical Challenges: Zwingli and Radicalism 1521–2
Zürich and Wittenberg 1522–4
The Years of Carnival 1521–4
4 WOOING THE MAGISTRATE, 1524–40
Europe’s Greatest Rebellion: 1524–5
Princely Churches or Christian Separation: 1525–30
The Birth of Protestantisms: 1529–33
Strassburg: New Rome or New Jerusalem?
Kings and Reformers, 1530–40
A New King David? Münster and Its Aftermath
5 REUNION DEFERRED: CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT, 1530–60
A Southern Revival
Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits
Hopes For a Deal: The 1541–2 Crisis
A Council at Trent: The First Session, 1545–9
Calvin in Geneva: The Reformed Answer to Münster
Calvin and the Eucharist: Protestant Divisions Confirmed
Reformed Protestantism: Alternatives to Calvin 1540–60
6 REUNION SCORNED, 1547–70
Crisis For the Habsburgs, 1547–55
1555: An Emperor’s Exhaustion, a Pope’s Obsession
A Catholic Recovery: England 1553–8
1558–9: Turning-points for Dynasties
The Last Session of the Council of Trent, 1561–3
Protestants in Arms: France and the Low Countries, 1562–70
PART II EUROPE DIVIDED: 1570–1619
7 THE NEW EUROPE DEFINED, 1569–72
Northern and Southern Religion
Tridentine Successes
The Catholic Defence of Christendom, 1565–71
Militant Northern Protestants, 1569–72
The Massacre of St Bartholomew, 1572
Poland 1569–76: An Alternative Future?
Protestantism and Providence
8 THE NORTH: PROTESTANT HEARTLANDS
Defining Lutheranism: Towards the Formula of Concord
The ‘Second Reformation’ in Germany
Baltic Religious Contests: Poland-Lithuania and Scandinavia
The Northern Netherlands: Protestant Victory
The Northern Netherlands: The Arminian Crisis
A Reformed Success: Scotland
Elizabethan England: A Reformed Church?
Ireland: The Coming of the Counter-Reformation
9 THE SOUTH: CATHOLIC HEARTLANDS
Italy: The Counter-reformation’s Heart
Spain and Portugal: King Philip’s Church
The Counter-Reformation as World Mission
10 CENTRAL EUROPE: RELIGION CONTESTED
The Empire and Habsburg Lands: A Shattered Church
Habsburgs, Wittelsbachs and a Catholic Recovery
Transylvania: A Reformed Israel
France: Collapse of a Kingdom, 1572–98
France: A Late Counter-Reformation
11 1618–48: DECISION AND DESTRUCTION
12 CODA: A BRITISH LEGACY, 1600–1700
New English Beginnings: Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes
Early Stuart England: The Church’s Golden Age?
War in Three Kingdoms, 1638–60
A Spectrum of Protestantisms, 1660–1700
American Beginnings
PART III PATTERNS OF LIFE
13 CHANGING TIMES
Time Ending
Hearing God’s Voice
Fighting Antichrist: Idols
Fighting Antichrist: Witches
14 DEATH, LIFE AND DISCIPLINE
Negotiations with Death and Magic
Telling out the Word
Godly Discipline
A Spirit of Protestantism?
15 LOVE AND SEX: STAYING THE SAME
A Common Legacy
The Family in Society
The Fear of Sodomy
16 LOVE AND SEX: MOVING ON
The ‘Reformation of Manners’
Catholicism, the Family and Celibacy
Protestantism and the Family
Choices in Religion
17 OUTCOMES
Wars of Reformation
Tolerating Difference
Cross-currents: Humanism and Natural Philosophy
Cross-currents: Judaism and Doubts
The Enlightenment and Beyond
Appendix of Texts: Creeds, Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and Hail
Mary
Notes
Further Reading
Index