The cultural influence of Rome and the papacy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries has recently attracted much attention. At the same time, courts and courtiers have come under the scrutiny of a number of scholars anxious to define their function in the cultural sphere. This brief essay is an attempt to lean on such work collectively, so to speak, and it can make no claim to originality of source material or personal research. I should perhaps give the tone and indicate the level of my approach by explaining that the gist of what follows formed a lecture given in December 1986 to the Scottish branch of the Renaissance Society at a meeting in Glasgow. I should like to regard it as well as part of this tribute to James Cameron, also as an expression of my thanks to the late Judith Hook for her work for the Society; she herself wrote an important essay bearing on the topic, albeit at a later period, the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623-44), to which I shall refer later.

Le platonisme florentin, et surtout le fameux discours de Pic de la Mirandole de dignitate hominis sont souvent considérés comme les manifestations primordiales de l’humanisme européen, pour peu que Ton accorde à ce dernier concept si controversé de par sa polysémie elle-même, le sens d’une philosophic ou, à tout le moins, d’une attitude mentale exaltant la grandeur ou la liberte de l’homme. La dignité de l’homme serait moins une valeur ajoutée a l’homme que l’expression même de son essence, ou sa définition spécifique: homo loquens, homo rationalis, zôon politicon, la notion de dignité subsumerait toutes les autres caractéristiques de l’homme, tant il est vrai que le don de la parole — qui distingue l’homme des animaux, capables seulement d’exprimer des sons (sonitus, mais non point voces ou verba) — la puissance de la raison — qui le distingue également des bêtes brutes, mues par l’instinct — ou encore la volonté de former avec ses semblables une communauté civile — si différente des rassemblements de hordes ou de troupeaux de bêtes — constituent des aspects ou des modalités de la dignitas.

Erasmus Von Rotterdam hat seine Diatribe für einen weiteren Leserkreis besrimmt. Der lector imperitior soll angesprochen werden, also nicht nur der Theologe, sondern vor allem der Laie, denn — so betont Erasmus — crassulis scribimus crassuli (IIa 13; W 32, 1). Schon durch eine klare und überschaubare Disposition des Werkes will Erasmus diesem Leser und seinen Verstehensmöglichkeiten entgegenkommen. So folgt auf eine zweiteilige Einleitung erst im Haupt-teil die eigentliche Diatribe sive collatio, in der Erasmus zunächst jene Bibelstellen behandelt, die für, danach jene, die gegen den freien Willen sprechen. Durch den Widerstreit von Schriftstellen und Beweisen soll die Wahrheit einsichtiger gemacht werden (‘hac collisione scripturarum et argumentorum fiat evidentior Veritas’: la 3; W 3, sf). Angesichts der bei diesem Arbeitsgang aufgedeckten Vielfalt der biblischen Stimmen stehen Autor und Leser dann vor einem hermeneutischen Problem, das Erasmus in die Worte faßt: ‘Quoniam autem spirirus sanctus, quo auctore prodita sunt haec, non potest pugnare secum, cogimur velimus nolimus aliquam sententiae moderationem quaerere’ (IV1; W 77, 5–7). Erasmus will bei der Behandlung dieser Quaestio den Disputator hervorkehren, er will nicht richten und entscheiden, sondern nur prüfen (la 6; W 5, 1 of);ihm geht es als Autor um den Vergleich, nicht um einen Streit (lb 9; W 18, 12). Diese moderatiosententiae wird dann im Schlußabschnitt des Werkes vorgetragen, der mit der berühmten Konklusionsformel endet: ‘CONTULI, penes alios esto iudicium’ (IV 17; W 92, 8).

Of the numerous criticisms and expressions of grievance directed at the Church in Germany on the eve of the Reformation, the most devastating was the charge of inadequate pastoral care. Reformers of all complexions bewailed the poor state of the parish clergy and the inadequate manner in which they provided for the spiritual needs of their flocks. At the very least, the parish clergy were ill-educated and ill-prepared for their pastoral tasks; at the very worst, they exploited those to whom they should have ministered, charging for their services, treating layfolk as merely a means of increasing their incomes, and, above all, resorting to the tyranny of the spiritual ban to uphold their position. The popular propaganda of the early Reformation fully exploited such deficiencies, exposing the decay in root and branch of a system of pastoral care depicted as no more than an empty shell, a facade of a genuine Christian cure of souls. The attack on the traditional Church was highly successful, successful enough to provoke an ecclesiastical revolution, and almost a socio-political revolution as well. It was, indeed, so successful that generations of historians of the Reformation have seen the condition of the pre-Reformation Church largely through the eyes of its critics and opponents. This negative image was matched by an idealized view of what succeeded it: where the old Church had failed the Christian laity, indeed, so much that they had virtually fallen into the hands of the Devil, the new Church offered solutions, a new way forward, a new standard of pastoral care and concern that created a new ideal, the Lutheran pastor, who cared for his flock as a kindly father, a shepherd who would willingly give up his life for his sheep.

According to Protestant understanding, veneration of Mary is only permissible when it is based on Scripture. When such scriptural proof is given, it should neither be used polemically against other churches nor be dismissed on account of unbiblical influences and pressures: the Bible is, and remains, the one foundation for all Evangelical Christians. In the New Testament, Mary is mentioned in particular in the birth stories of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Beyond this, she appears only incidentally in the accounts of Jesus’ ministry. Here a certain detachment from the activities of Jesus can be discerned. None the less, in the Gospel of John, Mary is seen as standing under the Cross. This, in turn, helps to explain how the veneration of Mary originally arose. At the same time, however, veneration of Mary remains a part of the veneration of Jesus, as die Lord of the Anointed God.

The question of how a certain historical situation or event arises is doubtless one of the classical questions for any historian. It is true, however, that there can never be a final and exhaustive answer, because any question about origins can only be asked within a specific framework, and can therefore represent only a small section, and never the fulness of all the interwoven factors. Historical events are always based on much more than what we are able to get access to by analysis. Within this complex picture it is even more difficult to assess and determine the weight of individual factors in comparison with each other: only rarely can we produce or, indeed, find comparable situations without the factor in question. The question of the importance of one particular event or phenomenon can therefore only be answered in history by identifying the impulses coming from it.

One of the traditional puzzles in Calvin studies has been Calvin’s proposed and supposedly French edition of the sermons of the Greek Church Father, John Chrysostom. The date, circumstances, and precise scope of this project have always been uncertain, chiefly because the only evidence for the plan is a substantial fragment of a prefatory introduction in Calvin’s own hand. As yet, no mention of or allusion to it has been found in any other contemporary source. The fact that all we have is a preface, or the first draft of one, suggests that the scheme was abortive. At any rate, no such work was published by Calvin, though that does not prove that he never actually got round to translating the Homilies. It is just as conceivable that no publisher would take it on. But it is likely that the combination of Calvin’s other extensive literary commitments and the heavy demands and vexations of what was a pioneering local and cosmopolitan ministry simply hindered him from realizing his intention.

The discussion that took place between Theodore Beza and Jacob Andreae during the Colloquy of Montbeliard in 1586 highlights the differences among the French Reformed doctrine, the doctrine derived from the Basle Reformation, and the Lutheran doctrine. It also makes very clear how consistendy the Genevan Reformers related their sacramental theology, their understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, and their doctrine of predestination.

Religious poetry inevitably echoes the traditions and trends that are evident in the period. At first there are authors who followed paths that persisted well after the beginning of the sixteenth century, but pre-Reformation and Reformation attitudes were bound to mirror themselves among the writers, both in the vernacular and neo-Latin poetry. The ideas of the Reformation affect the neo-Latin poets especially during the 1530s, but they form, as it were, a bulge in the main current, modifying form and themes, but by the end of the period, conservative attitudes have re-established themselves. Neo-Latin may have benefited from the circumstances: Latin has some resonance beyond the frontiers as well as at home, and Protestant thinkers were not as hostile to the classics as may be assumed. There was perhaps a tendency—I will not say more—for censorship to be more lenient to a language that was not accessible to the menu peuple; and humanism, often associated with the new religious ideas, was open at an early stage to neo-classical and classical fashions. It is well known that the ‘lyric’ Horace, not popular at the closing of the Middle Ages, came first through the neo-Latin poets rather than through the Pléiade and its precursors. Horace was not unfamiliar to authors, even in the 1510s, though it was during the 1530s that his lyric poetry was familiar to poets, many of whom came to see what his metres could do for the psalm paraphrasts. In the 1520s or early 1530s, when the Sorbonne’s influence was mitigated, if not entirely reduced, this coincided with the growing interest in Erasmus and the themes he popularized. Regional centres acquired more vigour than Paris; in any case, pedagogic movement fostered the exchange of ideas. This does not mean a general trend towards Reformation in all neo-Latin circles; it is too simple to divide persons and attitudes by locations: many places had conservative attitudes and advanced views. Some Protestants fled to Geneva and beyond; here and there, authors did not publish all they had written in their lifetime; some were floaters whose thinking was affected by the passage of time or circumstance; for a few, discretion was the better part of valour, and one cannot trust literally what was said at any particular moment. And documents and printings suffered from the ravages of time and fortune.

In 1559 Philip II left the Netherlands for Spain, where, from then on, he was to rule his empire. The government of the Provinces united by his father, Charles V, was left to his bastard sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma. Although she faithfully followed the Habsburg line, which in religion meant opposing Protestantism, her reign was characterized by a certain lack of firmness, enabling opposing factions to assert themselves. Shortly before Philip’s departure, Henry II, his French rival, had died in a tournament. His children and widow were as unable to quell the religious unrest in France as Margaret was in the Netherlands. In this situation, Calvinism grew irresistibly: from around 1555, it had already increased greatly in strength under Henry II, and in 1559 it had managed to hold a synod in Paris. That synod, as well as drawing up a Confession of Faith, produced its Discipline or Church Ordinance; and the best way of tracing the growth of Calvinism is to examine how rapidly the synods met, and to see how the Church Ordinances were adjusted to meet particular circumstances. That this development in the French Reformed Church had repercussions in the adjoining Netherlands, where the same language was spoken, at least in part, needs scarcely to be emphasized. Besides, during the reign of Elizabeth I, Calvinist refugee congregations were established in England, and these, in turn, could be used as bases for serving the Netherlands.

The conjunction of humanism with reform is a familiar aspect of the Zurich Reformation. Zwingli’s own eschatological sense of impending divine judgement upon the nations of the world led him towards a more radical understanding of Erasmian humanism, a humanism in which the corporate life of the State expressed the inner relationship between God and man. For Zwingli, the Scriptures, when approached through the proper humanist exegetical methods, revealed the principles necessary to the founding of the true Corpus Christianum. The effective transformation of human communities into reflections of Christ’s universal Church through the co-operation of the evangelical faith with political authority was the urgent agenda of the Zurich reforms in the 1520s. Zwingli conceived of a confessional confederation of Swiss and German territories for which his theology and the reforming process in the Limmat city would serve as the basis and model. The appeal of his humanist conceptions of doctrine and Church was extensive, and Zwingli used his wide range of personal connections with leading theologians and humanists in his evangelism to the European courts.

Charles Perrot, a contemporary and colleague of Theodore Beza, came from a well-known French family belonging to the noblesse de robe. He was born in Paris in 1541, and seems to have spent a number of years as a monk, before joining the Reformation movement. In 1564, at twenty-three years old, he enrolled in the Academy of Geneva. That same year saw him called to the ministry in Moens and Genthoz, not far from Geneva. Having acquired the citizenship of Geneva in 1567, he was appointed minister in this city a year later, a position he was to hold for forty years, until his death in 1608, his delicate health notwithstanding. In addition, he occasionally deputized for Beza as professor at the Academy, where during two periods (1570-2 and 1588–92) he acted as rector.

In the year 1643 the Dutch revolt against Spain was dragging gradually to an end. Repeated attempts by Stadtholder Frederick Henry to take Antwerp had failed. Since 1640 only minor military operations had been undertaken. The demand for peace was growing, but this, at the same time, led to divisions of opinion. During this period of domestic tension the United Provinces became involved in events in England leading to the Civil War.

In July 1565 Edmund Skeltpn, clerk, left to the curate of Egton to remain in the parish for ever a book called Postella Cassiodorus, a Catholicon, and a Latin Bible, works distincdy at odds with the Protestant ethos which the new generation of bishops was striving to introduce into the Elizabethan Church. This bequest in itself singles Skelton out from the usual run of priests serving in Yorkshire villages at this rime. In fact, until his prior surrendered the house on 31 August 1 1539 he had been a monk of Grosmont Priory, and then, at the Dissolution, at the age of thirty-six, with a pension of £36s. 8d, he had apparendy settled in the adjoining parish of Egton. In his will he also gave a gown, tippet, and hat to Nicholas Morley, almost certainly the former prior of Whitby Abbey, and 20d. and certain other unspecified books to a former fellow canon, Robert Holland. Both the books destined for Egton church and those intended for Robert Holland may once have formed part of Grosmont monastic library. Although the evidence can only be reassembled with difficulty, sufficient records have survived to suggest that a significant number of erstwhile monks and friars were similarly redistributing medieval books around Yorkshire in the generation after the Henrician Reformation. An examination of the religious known to have attended the two English universities in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, a survey of monastic schools and, in particular, an assessment of monastic libraries and books can together provide at least an impression of the state of learning within Yorkshire monasteries and friaries, and of the contribution they may still have been making to northern intellectual life at the close of the Middle Ages.

On 4 March 1554 some hundreds of London schoolboys fought a mock battle on Finsbury Field outside the northern wall of the city. Boys have always gratified their innate romanticism by playing at war, yet this incident, organized between several schools, was overtly political and implicitly religious in character. It almost resulted in tragedy, and, though scarcely noticed by historians, it does not fail to throw Ught upon London society and opinion during a major crisis of Tudor history. The present essay aims to discuss the factual evidence and its sources; thereafter to clarify the broader context and significance of the affair by briefer reference to a few comparable events which marked the Reformation struggle elsewhere. The London battle relates closely to two events in the reign of Mary Tudor: her marriage with Philip of Spain and the dangerous Kentish rebellion led by the younger Sir Thomas Wyatt. The latter’s objectives were to seize the government, prevent the marriage, and, in all probability, to place the Princess Elizabeth on the throne as the figurehead of a Protestant regime in Church and State. While Wyatt himself showed few signs of evangelical piety, the notion of a merely political revolt can no longer be maintained. Professor Malcolm R. Thorp has recendy examined in detail the lives of all the numerous known leaders, and has proved that in almost every case they display clear records of Protestant conviction. It is, moreover, common knowledge that Kent, with its exceptionally large Protestant population, provided at this moment the best possible recruiting-area in England for an attack upon the Catholic government. Though the London militia treasonably went over to Wyatt, the magnates with their retinues and associates rallied around the legal sovereign. Denied boats and bridges near the capital, Wyatt finally crossed the Thames at Kingston, but then failed to enter London from the west. By 8 February 1554 his movement had collapsed, though his execution did not occur until 11 April.