Counter Reformation

The Counter Reformation (about 1560 to around 1610 or as late as 1648 for some historians) was a partially successful effort by the Roman Catholic Church to roll back the Protestant Reformation. Using new agencies like the Jesuits, and removing much of the corruption and complaints that had weakened the Church and given the Reformers many arguments, the Church managed to hold or reclaim most of Southern and Eastern Europe, including Spain, Italy, Austria and France, and large parts of Poland, Hungary and Germany. By strengthening Catholic theology and reigning in objectionable practices, it hoped to either reabsorb or neutralize the Protestant movement while renewing the faith of the Catholic Church.

The Counter Reformation began in 1560 and end in 1648 with the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War between Catholic and Protestants. Some defining moments were the creation of the Jesuits and the convening of the Council of Trent. In the end the Protestant break was permanent and positions adopted or reaffirmed by the Catholic Church had a tendency to define the differences, but did little to mend them.

Spain

The aristocratic archbishop of Valencia Juan de Ribera (1532-1611) was frustrated in his initial attempts to institute the Counter Reformation in his diocese. He established a Tridentine seminary, the Colegio de Corpus Christi (1583-1604), to reform the clergy, promote popular piety, and serve also as his personal chapel, reliquary, museum, and mausoleum. Since the municipal government had resisted his call for them to loosen their control over the university, Ribera's seminary became a center for urban reform in Valencia. The bishop co-opted popular devotion (for example, to Dominican missionary Luis Bertrán) to serve his agenda. New saints whose devotions he could shape provided a tool for implementing his vision of the Church. He used sacred objects such as the holy relics in his treasury to gain cooperation aristocrats when he donate the relics to their favored churches.

The (lay) Third Order of Saint Francis was revived in 17th-century Castile, establishing the Counter Reformation at all levels of society from royalty to peasantry. The priests vigorously developed and defended the concept of purgatory, which had been rejected by Protestant theology. Despite the Church's efforts to make its intercession the only means of benefiting departed souls, other folk beliefs remained common in popular religious culture.

German states

Witchcraft

Friedrich Förner, a principal architect of the Counter-Reformation in Germany, is famous for his 1626 treatise on witchcraft, Panoplia Armaturae Dei. Taking a historical perspective, he argued the simultaneous rise of witchcraft and Calvinism represented the final stage in the devil's assault on Christianity. With the defeat of the Calvinist heresy in the first stages of the Thirty Years War, in desperation the devil had employed witches in a last-ditch effort to destroy the Catholic faith. Förner's reconstruction of ecclesiastical history provided the ideological justification for the final assault on witchcraft, culminating in the many trials of the 1620s and 1630s.

Austrian Empire

From the 1580s to abour 1650, most parishes had elementary schools, designed chiefly to provide candidates for the priesthood. After 1650, as the decisions of the Council of Trent took effect, the Church began intensive efforts to organize secondary schools as well. The goal was an educated laity among the middle classes and the lesser nobility. The Jesuits played a key role; their friaries became centers of intellectual, cultural, and religious life. For example, Jesuit school plays expressed Baroque aesthetic values and had a dramatic impact in the Hungarian and Bohemian regions. They influenced popular culture and popular theological beliefs and religious piety.

France and the Netherlands

Pollmann, (2006) compares the reactions of Dutch and French Catholics to the Reformation. Although both groups opposed the protestants. French Catholics often took violent reprisals against, while Dutch Catholics were more passive. Among the causes of the difference in reactions were the dependence of the Dutch Catholic clergy on retaining the goodwill of the ruling class with its strong Reformed connections, the absence of Jesuit influence in the Netherlands, and the reluctance of the Dutch clergy to call on the lay population to take to the streets. All of those reasons contrasted strongly with France, where the ruling class and priests often encouraged the laity to take violent actions against Protestants. The violence that often occurred between the two groups during the Reformation was not inevitable but dependent on local conditions.

External Links

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Further reading

• Dickens, A. G. The Counter Reformation (1969), the best introduction
• Hsia, R. Po-chia. The World of Catholic Renewal 1540-1770, (2nd ed. 2005), 282pp; standard schoalrly summary. excerpt and text search
• Hsia, R. Po-chia. A Companion to the Reformation World (2004), 573pp; essays by 24 scholars cover the major themes excerpt and text search; ch 14-19 on Counter Reformation
• Luebke, David, ed. The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings (1999) excerpt and text search, 9 essays by scholars
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation (2005), 830pp; influential recent survey covers both Reformation and Catholic responses excerpt and text search
• O'Connell, Marvin R. Counter-reformation, 1550-1610 (1974)
• Pollen, John Hungerford. "The Counter-Reformation." in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. (1908) old but detailed; strong Catholic viewpoint
• Wernham, R. B. ed. The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 3: Counter-Reformation and Price Revolution, 1559-1610 (1968), essays by scholars
• Wright, A.D. The Counter-Reformation (1982), advanced scholarly synthesis