Beard, Charles. Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany Until the Close of the Diet of Worms. London: Philip Green, 1896.
A few musings, notes and reminders.
Objective: lay out larger geo-political context for 16th century and, in view of Cranmerian studies, assess the Canterbury-Wittenberg connection. We have not seen much between Mr. Cranmer and Mr. Luther in the 1520s. Cranmer gets his doctorate in/around 1522-23ish at age 34. What does he know, if he knows much?
As for the English outpost north of the Channel and external to Imperial-Romanist politics, Mr. (bp.) John Fisher, Mr. (king) Tudor, Mr. More and others knew about Lutheranism in the 1520s, but what about Mr. Cranmer?
As such, we’ll review Mr. Beard and Lutheranism (worthy to be studied on its own), but as an effort to assess Early Henrician reformism. And, more narrowly, to investigate this slow and plodding Cambridge man...hero or villain?
As such, the central narrative in Beard’s work is the German Reformation from 1517 to Melancthon’s death in 1560. The setting is Saxony and Wittenberg. The more narrow focus of his book are the events between 1517 and 1521. Again, Mr. Cranmer gets his doctorate about 1522-23ish at age 34.
The 16th century had the printing press. This would have helped Wycliffe; it helped Luther. Libraries grew and books were more readily available. Even Mr. Cranmer’s collegiate library grew quite significantly from its modest beginnings in 1498 (about 500-600 volumes) until 1690, as previously noted.
Erasmus had noted that a “change” at Cambridge had occurred over “his last two years there” (1510-1515) as Mr. Pollard informs us. “The New Learning” was at hand. A revival of the study of classical literature and philosophy, allegedly and reportedly, was occurring; or, so it is said. The exact lineaments of those changes are still under review.
The Carolingian Kingdom of the Franks invested “the succession of the Roman Empire” with renewed vigor under “Otho the Great.” But, although an Empire, it was heading away from monarchy towards a “confederacy of states.”
The Empire had been rather “homogenous” under Charlemagne in 800 A.D. However, Italy was disunited into varied principalities in the 16th century (and wouldn’t be a united Italy until 1870). We might refer one to Mr. Machiavelli’s Renaissance treatise on the inter-tribal conflicts in Italy.
Spain had united Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella. England, an outpost of sorts, was strengthening its national consciousness after the War of Roses. A hat tip goes to the Tudors for this consolidation. The Royal Absolutists of the Stuarts further enabled this nationalism. Brittany had united under the House of Valois, thereby strengthening and unifying France. Germany, however, had some disunity. Various unities and disunities are evident.
The ideal was when the "two swords" were “happily in accord.” The Pope ruled over the spiritual realm with the Emperor ruling over the civil realms. American theonomists like Mr. Sutton, Mr. Jordan and others would like to see this revived. The “sun” and the “moon” stood in the intellectual, political, legal, moral, and cultural sky.
It is a huge mistake to think of Erastianism as an English problem.
But, back tracking.
By 962, Otho the Great descended from the Alps with his victorious army to become another “crowned Emperor.” Setting: of course, Rome. Allegedly, “…the Pope owned himself a subject and the citizens swore for the future to elect no Pope without Otho’s consent.”
The two bedfellows would frequently get to fighting each other.
The Papacy, itself, had its ups and downs. 100 years would pass until Mr. (pope) Gregory VII and Henry IV would appear.
In one instance of infamy, at a height of Papal sovereignty and a nadir for the Empire, the Emperor waited in the snow in the castle-yard at Canossa until “the Pope should be willing to see and to absolve a penitent.” Cheer up, Sir Emperor, Mr. Pope is the Sovereign. Have you not read Matthew 16 and are you unaware of the sense of it...e.g., Unam Sanctum, 1301? You, Mr. Emperor are the moon and we, the Popes, are the "Sun of the Sky."
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| St. Mark's, Venice A stones throw from the harbor area and source of the Venetian canal system. It is located on the famous piazza or plaza with surrounding cafes and the like. And pigeons. |
Or, on another occasion, Frederick Barbarrosa appeared at the grandiose St. Mark’s in Venice and “humbly bowed before Alexander 111.” Mr. Barbarrosa “deliberately confessed itself the Empire] vanquished.” Now, now, Mr. Barbarrosa, things will improve.
The Papacy put out its pseudo-Isadorian decretals, later proven to be titular and legal forgeries but forgeries nonetheless that were skillfully used by Popes, to claim vast land holdings. It might be called “Estate Planning.”
Mandatory clerical celibacy, a novelty, was enforced and vows of obedience from monks and nuns were vital to the Roman apparatchiks and their machineries of governance and control.
Avignon, however, and the Papal Split for some 70 years was a disaster for Papal pretensions.
By the 16th century, Electors of the Empire, while retaining their own territorial privileges, began to “bestow the Imperial Crown on a prince who like Charles V might have a fair ground to aspire to universal dominion.” One good thing from Mr. Charles V...he evicted the Muslims from southern Europe, an ever-avaricious theocratic breed.
A College of Electors was made up of 7 persons. Mr. (pope) Urban established in 1265 that 3 archbishops would be Electors: Mainz, Kohl, and Trier. The other 4 were Dukes from chief tribes: Franks, Swabians, Saxons, and Bavarians. Charles IV would later expand this college to include: Bohemia, Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg. This Romano-Germanic Empire as configured by this college, continued in this pattern until the Thirty-Years War, 1618-1648.
The Electors retained dominion in their own territories. They could independently collect taxes. They had their own courts. In short, a monarch was moving towards a “confederation of states.”
Into this matrix, Mr. Luther in time would get "political cover" from an Elector of the college. Without it, the Emperor and the Imperial Edict would have meant the stake and death for Mr. Luther.
The Popes surely wanted Mr. Luther's head.
Ultimately, they got Mr. Cranmer's...and his whole body.
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