The Reformation, and the resultant birth of Protestantism, proved traumatic for the Catholic Church. In 1545 ecumenical meetings began known as the Council of Trent.
Lasting 8 years and held in Trento in northern Italy, the Church re-shaped itself, searching its soul to purge its failures.
What emerged was a strengthened Papacy with new doctrines and discipline to cut out corruption. At the centre of Luther’s actions in devising Protestantism had been the doctrine of justification by faith alone, meaning that a Christian didn’t have to join the Catholic Church to be a Christian.
RECOUPING THE LOSSES
Catholicism rejected this, determined to uphold Church authority and win back losses from Protestantism. This was to be achieved in 2 ways. In 1534 Ignatius Loyola had founded the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits.
His order was now given the task of protecting Catholicism from the Protestants, taking the Catholic message around the world through missionary zeal. However, the Council of Trent also realised that the Protestants may have to be beaten by force, thus instigating the Counter-Reformation.
In France, although not stamped out, Protestantism was suppressed before becoming a major national reforming movement, and in many central European nations the Counter-Reformation was successful as Spain rose to be the most ardent defender of the faith. However, she was weakened by the defeat of the Armada by England under Elizabeth I in 1588.
But storm clouds were brewing in the German States between Protestants and Catholics, coming to a head when the Bohemians revolted against the Catholic Hapsburg ruler, Ferdinand II in 1618.
THE GERMAN PROBLEM
Taking reprisals against Bohemia, the Habsburgs then decided to reclaim all German Protestant States for Catholicsm, beginning the Thirty Year’s War. Imperial armies swept through northern Germany.
However, in 1630 King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden took up the Protestant cause, being victorious at the battle of Lutzen in 1632. But with his death, the Habsburgs took the upper hand.
At this point the religious motives of the war disappeared as France, hungry for power, came into the war on the side of the Protestants, with the aim of destroying the Habsburgs.
Under the leadership of Richelieu, the Habsburgs were forced to peace and the Treaty of Westphalia in1648. Germany remained religiously split, and the greatest power in Europe, particularly with the acquisition of Alsace from Germany, was France.
WHEN FRANCE FIRST ROARED
Led by the Sun King, Louis XIV, from 1643, this period saw the first flowering of the modern France, with Louis building the Palace of Versailles and his ministers such as Colbert over-seeing a massive increase in trade, the rise of the French merchant marine and navy, and the expansion of a standing army that was to reach 400,000 men at arms.
There were problems internally – a combination of high war taxes and Louis’s attempt to retain absolute power led to a series of revolts known as the Fronde, beginning in 1648 and not put down until 1652 – but the ascendancy of France had begun.
And in order to consolidate her position the French went to war with, and defeated, Spain, forcing the disadvantageous Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659. But most importantly, the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire created a power vacuum that would fuel European conflict up to the end of World War Two.
© Anthony North, November 2007
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