1. The Pre-Reformation Church.
The Church at the
beginning of the sixteenth century confronts us
with
the variety which we should expect to find when we
look at the
manifold life of a whole continent. There
were abuses and
disorders—indeed an unusual number
of grave scandals at certain
levels—but also in many
places even deep piety and reforming
zeal. The
Renaissance itself could bring attempts to enrich the
Christian outlook with the new humanism, projects
for a further alliance
between Platonism and religion,
and a fresh interest in the ancient
texts—the Scriptures
and the Fathers of the Church. Even in
Italy there
were many localities that had their religious revivals,
some of them medieval in character, popular and even
perhaps superstitious,
though the one associated with
Savonarola in Florence captured some of the
famous
figures of the Renaissance. The monastic system, from
its very
nature, was subject to ups-and-downs, espe-
cially as its rules took for granted a certain intensity
of
spiritual life. But if in some regions monasteries had
sunk into
immorality, there had been a number of
reforming movements, some of them
emerging from
within and arising spontaneously. There had been edu-
cational developments—the
religious schools under the
Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands,
for
example, and the founding in fifteenth-century
Germany of
universities under the patronage of the
clergy or the pope. Many of these
movements were
local in character, arising from below. Even a wicked
pope would normally have no reason for checking
them, or for discouraging
piety as such.
On the other hand, the leading officers of the Church
could be too remote
from these things and ordinarily
too indifferent in respect to them. It is
doubtful
whether the directors of the Catholic system took even
the
minimum measures that were required to maintain
their guidance over
religious life or ensure the survival
of the system as a whole. In some
regions the state
of the priesthood and the work of the pulpit had
sunk
so low that a prince who wished to plunder the Church
had only to
open the door to the missionaries of
Protestantism, who might bring an
awakening or a
revolt without meeting with an adequate reply. Too
much
of the burden of the Church had come to be
borne by a lower clergy who
seemed sometimes hardly
trained to realize the nature of their own
religion, and
had every reason to be discontented with their lot. A
surprising number of them (and particularly of those
who belonged to the
minor and mendicant orders) were
to become Protestants, and some of those
who had been
unsatisfactory before their conversion were by no
means
contemptible after it. It would appear that there
was often too much of what might be called paganism
or
superstition still mixed into the popular Christianity
of the
period—too great a readiness on the part of the
authorities to
exploit the willingness of ignorant people
to rely on wonders that were
mechanically operated,
salvation-devices that had lost their connection
with
the inner man.
Apart from the more technical controversies at a
higher level the Reformers
were to attack in the world
at large the attitude which the lowest classes
were
encouraged to take towards images, relics, indulgences,
the
invocation of saints, and the like. There were now
too many people who were
coming to be too mature
for this; and the Reformation (which could
have
achieved nothing without the success of its preaching)
came in
one aspect as a religious revival, a call to a
more personal faith, a
demand for a more genuine
“Christian society.” The
Reformation was to have its
dark sides but it was to secure its successes
because
so many people were ready to be earnest, ready (when
called
upon) to bring religion home to themselves and
to feel that they had some
responsibility in the matter.
In a sense the Reformation occurred because
(on a
long-term view) the medieval Church had done its
work so well,
producing out of barbarian beginnings
a laity now capable of a certain
self-help, a certain
awareness of responsibility. And as the Church of
Rome, once it had been provoked into reexamining
itself, was to recover its
hold on people by its own
preaching and its spiritual intensity, the
opening cen-
turies of modern times see the
reassertion of religion
both in the individual and in society.
The Reformation was to be helped at the same time
by what on the one hand
was a colossal envy and
covetousness, and on the other hand a great resent-
ment. The abuses in the ecclesiastical
organization
itself were sufficient to provoke a revolt, and if they
offered an opening for zealous reformers they pre-
sented too great a temptation to monarchs and mag-
nates. In the Middle Ages there had been serious oppo-
sition to the development of the power of
the papacy
in particular—the capture of the spiritual
prerogatives
into a single center and the insertion of papal authority
into every corner of the European system. At a certain
stage in the story
the process had been understandable;
the papacy had often stood as the most
beneficial
agency on the continent; abuses, disorders, and lapses
into
superstition had tended to occur in the regions
which the hand of the pope
could not reach.
But the centralization did not prevent benefices,
offices, indulgences,
dispensations, etc., being used as
a means of making money, and new offices
being cre-
ated in order that they could be
sold—the Church, and
particularly Rome, being saddled with
dignitaries who
had to find the means of recouping themselves for the
initial
outlay. Early in the sixteenth century the posi-
tion of the papal states was so difficult that the pope,
as the
ruler of a principality, had a desperate need
for money; and he used his
spiritual prerogatives in
order to procure it—an evil that was
liable to show
its consequences throughout the length and breadth of
Western Christendom. A higher clergy who were too
often like the sharers in
a colossal spoils system did
too little for the earnest people, though they
seemed
to stamp very quickly on any enterprise that might
threaten
their own profits. The Church lost much,
therefore, through the nature of
its entanglement with
the world; and its vested interests—the
mundane pos-
sessions that were supposed to
guarantee its position—
became in fact a terrible weakness, an
abuse to some
people, and, to others, the primary object of cupidity.
