A digression is necessary on the subject of the Reformation. This is not easy, as it demands the appreciation of the Early Modern mindset, very different from our own, with our understanding of science & its methodology. The critical event was Luther's posting of 95 theses, essentially on the subject of Indulgences, on the church door at Wittemberg in Saxony in 1517. Indulgences were pardons sold by the Pope allegedly to shorten the time the purchaser or their ancestors would spend in Purgatory for their relatively trivial sins & Pope Leo X had initiated a big sales drive of Indulgences to finance the extension of St. Peter's, Rome. We might call this a levereged voluntary tax today but it was the last straw for Luther. At the time, Luther, still technically an Augustinian monk, was a Professor at Wittemberg University. There had been turmoil in the Church over the previous century and more, as intense bible study & an examination of 'original' texts had caused scholars (known as the 'humanists', not to be confused with modern humanists) to question the orthodox teaching of the Church, who's violent reaction did little to stem this study.

The Church in Wittemberg where Luther nailed his theses.

For example, the Church burned Jan Hus when he was under 'safe conduct'. Into this ferment was thrust the invention of printing, which rapidly extended the amount of bible study by the laity, especially when vernacular editions of the bible were produced. So, Luther's theses were a spark into very dry tinder. It was extremely brave of him, because of the risk of being burned but he did have the protection of Friedrich, Elector of Saxony.

Theologically speaking, Luther was very conservative. He was a student of St. Augustine of Hippo, who in the 4th Century, did two contradictory things. He effectively set up the Catholic Church as Luther knew it but he also propounded the theory that there was nothing Mankind could do (by way of 'good works' or prayer or whatever) to impress God & that one could only rely on God's good grace for salvation. And salvation was a very serious concern in the 15th & 16th Centuries. During a period of enforced confinement for his own protection, Luther translated the bible into German, a direct assault on the notion that ordinary people needed a priest to mediate between them and God.

The new thinkers were known as Evangelicals, as they were taking the Word as written in their newly re-translated or vernacular bibles, out to the people, a missionary activity which was imitated by the Catholic Church later in the Counter-Reformation but which the Catholics coupled with burning every vernacular bible they could lay hands on, in order to preserve their monopoly of interpretation to their own flock & their on-going agenda of suppressing dangerous (i.e. any) thoughts.

Erasmus' house in Freiburg in Breisgau

One of the humanists was Erasmus. He was extremely critical of the Church but wanted reform, not schism & thought, erroneously, that it was possible. This brought him into conflict with Luther but, at the same time before the theologically turbulent 1520s, he had a pupil from Graubunden called Huldrych Zwingli, which is about as Swiss a name as one could wish for. Zwingli had read Erasmus' translation of the New Testament in 1516, which set him thinking as he returned to Glarus to take up the post of parish priest. He also accompanied Glarus men as padre when they were hired out to fight other people's wars in the Swiss fashion. This constant concern with pastoral matters gave him a different, more practical take on the problems of the Church from the monastic academic Luther.

Zwingli's big break came in 1518, soon after Luther nailed up his theses. The post of "peoples' priest" became available in the Grossmunster at Zürich & the obviously brilliant Zwingli was snapped up by the City Council. He preached directly from the bible, ignoring the usual cycle of texts & carried his congregations with him, to the point where, on the 1st Sunday in the Lent of 1522, Christophe Froschauer cut up & shared out the most famous sausage in history, in defiance of the fast. Zwingli promptly started preaching that this freedom was permissable, although he had passed on his share of the sausage at the time. He also disagreed with Luther over the nature of the Eucharist. Luther was at one with the Catholic Church in claiming that, as God was omnipresent, the bread & wine really were the body & blood of Christ. Zwingli realised that this was tosh & stated that the Eucharist was a symbol. This may seem a triviality today but it was a critical difference then & lead to a number of other doctrinal differences, the net result being that Western Europe ended up with two & a half main Protestant Churches, Lutheran & Reformed (deriving ultimately from Zwingli).

Zwingli

The half was Queen Elizabeth I's Church of England, a sort of Reformed Church but one who's doctrine she nailed down after only one year on the throne & which she absolutely refused to change, despite the on-going debates (some very bloody) in Mainland Europe among the various Protestant tendencies. There were good political reasons for this anomaly, as England had been through a cynical reformation under Henry VIII, a more thorough-going one under his son, the regrettably short-lived Edward VI & bloody reaction to Catholicism under Mary I, who barbecued many Protestants. Elizabeth decided on Protestant stability, under the 39 Articles of the Church of England (which do not quite add up, but never mind). This was, however, in 1559, which is rather ahead of our story.

We will soon meet Philip Melancthon because he met & converted John Delaforce. Melancthon was a fellow professor of Luther's at Wittemberg University. It was he who knocked Lutherism into roughly the shape we know today, not without some resistance from Luther himself!

John Calvin

Enter John Calvin, properly Jean Chauvin. This French priest was active in the second generation of the Reformation. The evangelicals had been quite active in France. This was different soil from Central Europe, as the king, François I, had negotiated a deal with the Pope in 1516 which gave him much control over the Catholic Church in France & he was not going to endanger that. While evangelicals made plenty of progress, matters came to a head in October 1534 when placards attacking the Mass were nailed up all over the place. François cracked down, executing some academics & causing others, including Calvin, to flee. Like many humanists, Calvin had made a crab-wise move towards the Reformation but having arrived, he used his two years of exile in Basel to write his "An Instruction in Christian faith", the remarkable 1st version of what we understand as "Calvinism" & the emanation of a very ordered mind.

He tried to 'sell' this text to King François, to demonstrate that the evangelicals were the true loyal Catholic citizens of France but François was not having any of it, despite his use of the little wars for his own political purposes, not hesitating to send troops to fight with Protestants against the might of Spain when it suited him.

After various unhappy peregrinations to Geneva and Strasbourg, Calvin eventually arrived in Geneva for good. It would be wrong to say he 'settled' there, as he always longed to return home to France but during the rest of his life (1509 - 1564) the mayhem his influence created in France made this impossible.

For Calvin had worked out solutions to the problem of the boundaries between clerical & secular power. He also sent many disciples out into the whole of Europe (with conspicuous success in, for example, Scotland) &, as his message was more or less the same as Zwingli's, Calvinism became popular, even in France, where, among other things, the power split appealed to many of the aristocracy (a question of having their cake & eating it). Nobody is quite sure why the French Calvinists became known as the 'Huguenots'.

France & the Huguenots are our special interest. The consequences of the Reformation there are in chapter 15.