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Introducing the Age of Reformation

Many students approach the ideas of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century in much the same way as medieval travelers approached the vast dark forests of southern Germany – with a sense of hesitation and anxiety, in case what lay ahead should prove impenetrable. They often feel like explorers venturing into an unfamiliar world, at times overwhelmed by the unmapped wilderness ahead of them, in which they could easily become lost. Many find themselves longing for a guide who will lead them through what sometimes seems like a dense and impenetrable jungle.

It is understandably difficult for a student who has been immersed in the secularism of modern western culture to come to terms with a movement that was so clearly motivated by religious ideas. It is tempting to marginalize these ideas and view the sixteenth century through the lens of the modern period. Like any historical phenomenon, however, the Reformation demands that its interpreters attempt to enter into its world-view. We must learn to empathize with its concerns and outlook, in order to understand how these affected the great flux of history. The Reformation in Switzerland and Germany was directly based upon religious ideas which demand and deserve careful consideration. Even in England, where local conditions led to political factors having a somewhat greater influence, a significant core of religious ideas and concerns shaped the development of the reforming programs of the age. This book aims to explain as clearly as possible what the religious ideas underlying the Reformation were and how these impacted on individuals and communities. So what do we mean by this idea of “Reformation,” or the phrase “An Age of Reformation”?

The Concept of “Reformation”

Like many other terms used by historians to designate eras in human history – such as “Renaissance” or “Enlightenment” – the term “Reformation” is open to criticism. For example, the twelfth century witnessed a comparable attempt to reform the church in western Europe – but the term “Reformation” is not used by historians to designate this earlier movement. Other terms might be thought by some to be more appropriate to refer to the sixteenth-century movement we shall be studying in this work.

The term “Reformation” does not designate a specific chronological period – such as “the sixteenth century” (a block of time that is easily demarcated) or “the Middle Ages” (which proves rather more difficult to define). Like the term “Renaissance,” it is an interpretative category – a way of mapping out a slice of history in which certain ideas, attitudes, and values were developed, explored, and applied. The present book uses the term “Reformation” in a restricted sense, engaging the leading individuals, ideas, and movements working for the reform and renewal of the church in western Europe over the period 1500–60. As the title of this work makes clear, its particular focus is on the ideas that lay behind the Reformation in its various forms. How did they arise? How were they understood? What was their appeal? And what were their consequences?

The term “Reformation” has achieved wide usage, and there are no persuasive reasons for ceasing to use it. It does, however, need to be used with caution. The historian John O’Malley makes an important point that needs to be taken seriously. Terms such as “Reformation,” “Counter Reformation,” and “Catholic Reformation” are not, he cautions, “simple ideas.” Rather, they “subtly directed attention to some issues and away from others, highlighted certain phenomena and cast others into the shadows, admitted some evidence but filtered out the rest.”1 O’Malley’s point is that we need to be attentive to the historical evidence, and not allow ourselves to become trapped by preconceived ideas about what the Reformation ought to be, or whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

The term “Reformation” has come to be generally accepted as the proper designation for reforming movements within church and society in the first half of the sixteenth century, partly because the movement was linked with the recognition of the need for a significant overhaul of the institutions, practices, and – though perhaps to a lesser extent – the ideas of the western church. The term, which has achieved wide acceptance, helpfully indicates that there were both social and intellectual dimensions to the movement which it designates. Christianity was woven into the social fabric of western Europe at this time, and the demands for reform included both a review of aspects of the Church which appeared to have become corrupt, and its ideas, some of which were called into question by the new biblical scholarship of the Renaissance. Reform was thus needed at the level of institutions and ideas; it was a demand for both social and theological change.

As it is used in the historical literature, the term “Reformation” is generally understood to enfold four basic components: Lutheranism, the Reformed church (often referred to as “Calvinism”), the “radical Reformation” (often referred to as “Anabaptism”) and what was once called the “Counter-Reformation” but is now generally known as the “Catholic Reformation.” In its broadest sense, the term “Reformation” is used to refer to all four movements. Some recent studies of this age have used the plural form “Reformations” to suggest that the Reformation was a multi-faceted movement, or a loosely connected set of distinct reforming movements, rather than a single coherent movement with local adaptations.

The term “Reformation” is often used in a somewhat more restricted sense to mean “the Protestant Reformation,” thereby excluding the Catholic Reformation. In this sense, it refers to the three Protestant movements noted above. In some scholarly works, the term “Reformation” is used to refer to what is sometimes known as the “magisterial Reformation,” or the “mainstream Reformation” – in other words, the form of reformation that was linked with the Lutheran and Reformed churches, rather than with the more radical Anabaptists. Although this work focuses on the ideas of the Protestant Reformation, it is attentive to the concerns and ideas of the Catholic Reformation, which clearly merit discussion and consideration.

The unusual phrase “magisterial Reformation” needs explaining. It highlights the way in which the mainstream reformers developed a generally positive relationship with secular authorities, such as princes, magistrates, or city councils. Whereas the radical reformers regarded such authorities as having no rights or authority within the church, the mainstream reformers argued that the church was, at least to some extent, subject to the secular agencies of government. The magistrate had a right to some degree of authority within the church, just as the church could rely on the authority of the magistrate to enforce discipline, suppress heresy, or maintain order. In contrast, Anabaptism was opposed to recognizing any form of secular authority within the church. The 1534 Anabaptist takeover of the city of Münster, which had to be ended by force, was widely seen as a threat to social stability throughout western Europe, and led to reforming movements throughout Europe being tainted by association with social anarchy – a concern explicitly noted by Calvin in the preface to the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), addressed to the king of France.

All these senses of the word “Reformation” will be encountered in historical and theological works dealing with the sixteenth century. The term “magisterial Reformation” is increasingly used to refer to the first two senses of the term (i.e. enfolding Lutheranism and the Reformed church) taken together, and the term “radical Reformation” to refer to the third (i.e. Anabaptism). Although the present work is primarily concerned with the ideas of the magisterial Reformation, it includes discussion of all the components of this age of Reformation, including the Radical and Catholic reformations.

So how does the term “Reformation” map onto the related term “Protestant”? The term “Protestant” began to be used in the aftermath of the Second Diet of Speyer (February 1529), which voted to end the toleration of Lutheranism in Germany. In April of the same year, six German princes and fourteen cities protested against this oppressive measure, defending freedom of conscience and the rights of religious minorities. The term “Protestant” derives from the Latin term Protestantes (“those who protest”), which was used to refer to those who dissented from this suppression of religious minorities. It is therefore not strictly correct to apply the term “Protestant” to individuals prior to April 1529 or to speak of events prior to that date as constituting “the Protestant Reformation.”

The term “evangelical” is often used in the literature to refer to the reforming movements at Wittenberg and elsewhere (e.g. in France and Switzerland) prior to this date. The French term évangelique and the German term...