IMAGE BREAKING: ICONOCLASM and IDENTITY CRISIS Frederick

CHAPTER SIX IMAGEBREAKING: ICONOCLASM AND IDENTITY CRISIS Frederick began to support an all encompassing Protestant confes- sionalization with himself acting the part of a Calvinist Josiah and David. His support of this, as well as his attempt to establish a hereditary dynasty in Bohemia, clashed with Bohemia’s late medieval inheri- tance of religious pluralism and elective kingship. Th e confrontation tarnished his image among many Bohemians and caused him to lose most of the cultural capital he had acquired in Bohemia. Indeed, this alienation ultimately led to his demise before armies gathered at White Mountain in 1620. Th is chapter focuses on these developments by fi rst describing Frederick and company’s constitutional treatment of Catholics, then his iconoclastic activates that infuriated both Catholics and Lutherans, and fi nally the confl ict initiated by his desire to set up a hereditary monarchy in Bohemia. Th e treatment of Catholics in the Confederation Act of 1619 reveals the impact of confessionalized humanism in Bohemia.1 Jan Jessenius was a humanist who became Chancellor of the University of Prague in 1617 and an active participant in the revolt against Ferdinand II a year later. Besides his political activities, he had also published in 1614 an important treatise on political theory titled Justifi cations against Tyrants. At the time of the Bohemian Revolt in 1620, he edited it for a second edition published by Pavel Sessius, the printer for the University of Prague.2 Jessenius’s work was a defense for revolution against a tyrant, and he considered his opponent to be Jean Bodin, the champion of Absolutism. Th e Calvinist political theorists, Junius Brutus (pseudonym) and Johannes Althusius, wrote two treatises infl u- ential on Jessenius. For both Brutus and Althusius, only a Calvinist 1 Stanislav Sousedík, “Jan Jesenský as the Ideologist of the Bohemian Estates- Revolt,” Acta Comeniana 11 (1995): 29; Pánek, “Th e Religious Question and the Political System of Bohemia before and aft er the Battle of White Mountain,” 141; Winfried Becker, “Ständestaat und Konfessionsbildung am Beispiel der böhmischen Konföderationsakte von 1619,” in Politik und Konfession, ed. Dieter Albrecht (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1983), 94–96. 2 Sousedík, 13. 226 chapter six ruler could be a good ruler.3 A confessionalized notion of rulership was not uncommon in this era. For example, Catholic political theorists such as Giovanni Botero and Justus Lipsius, who were infl uential on Ferdinand II, argued that Catholicism was necessary for good government because it gave the ruler divine support, a sense of unity, and discipline within the state.4 Th e new constitution by the Bohemian Estates, the Confederation Act of 1619, refl ected this confessionalized notion of rule.5 Despite legal toleration for Catholics, it barred Catholics from all of the important offi ces of government: Catholics could not become the Burgrave of Prague, the chief scribe, presidents of the chamber or the court, as well as administrator of Prague Castle. Even in towns with Catholic majorities, the town council had to be divided evenly between Catholics and Protestants. Any Catholic who objected to this constitution could not get an offi ce at all. Not only did it outlaw the Jesuits, but it did not allow for new orders to enter Bohemia. Th us, toleration for Catholics meant that they would be a subordinate group within the Confederation without equal rights.6 Th e Bohemian Estates justifi ed rebellion against Ferdinand II by claiming that he had acted as if he were an absolute monarch, and they demanded the removal of the Jesuits because they blamed them for breaking the religious peace by encouraging Habsburg rulers to follow the Council of Trent’s dictum that ‘heretics’ could not be loyal subjects.7 However, once in power, the Protestant-dominated Estates and Frederick began their own version of confessionalized statecraft by denying access of ‘cultural capital’ to the Catholics. Th is was not only evident in the new constitution which banned Catholics from important offi ces, but also on a juridical level. At the time of ratifi cation for the new constitution, the new government exiled all Catholics who disagreed with it and confi scated their property. Despite the Estates’ 3 Sousedík, 14–17. 4 Robert Bireley, Th e Counter-Reformation Prince:Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 231; id., “Ferdinand II. Founder of the Habsburg Monarchy,” in Crown, Church and Estates, ed. R.J.W. Evans and T.V. Th omas, 234–235. 5 Sousedík, 39. 6 Ibid.; Becker, 94–96. 7 Inge Auerbach, “Th e Bohemian Opposition, Poland-Lithuania and the Outbreak of the Th irty Years War,” in Crown, Church, and Estates, eds., T.V. Th omas and R.J.W. Evans, 201..

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