Social Origins of Protestant Reformation Author(S): Robert Varickayil Source: Social Scientist, Vol
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Social Scientist Social Origins of Protestant Reformation Author(s): Robert Varickayil Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 8, No. 11 (Jun., 1980), pp. 14-31 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3516750 Accessed: 04-05-2017 16:54 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist This content downloaded from 129.170.195.201 on Thu, 04 May 2017 16:54:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ROBERT VARICKArIL Social Origins of Protestant Reformation PROTESTANT REFORMATION demands the attention of the sociologist for two reasons. First, it was one of the most important movements which inaugurated what is called the "modern west". Just as the idea of popular participation in the government was established with the French Revolution and large-scale mechani- cal production with the Industrial Revolution, so individualism in the religious sphere began to assert itself from 1517, with Martin Luther's revolt. Hence one cannot understand the modern west and the contemporary world in general without gaining some clear idea as to what the Reformation was. Second, there are a number of sociologists who try to establish the casual priority of the ideal factors based on the assumption that modern capitalism was primarily an outcome of the protestant ethic. This assumption has its origin in the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber.' Even in our own days such a theory is accepted by several sociolo- gists under the leadership of Talcott Parsons. Karl Marx, against whom most of these authors take their stand, too had noted that the Reformation was the true setting of a new world, especially of a new Germany.2 But Marx did not abandon his general thesis that religion was made by man and that the Reformation in particular was related to the economic This content downloaded from 129.170.195.201 on Thu, 04 May 2017 16:54:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms REFORMATION 15 interests and the material circumstances of the upcoming bourgeoi- sie. Thus Marx too recognized the influence of the Reformation on the origin of our contemporary world. But he saw the ultimate base of this influence in the new economic forces that were emerg- ing even before the Reformation. The Reformation had a remote as well as a proximate social background. The remote background consisted of the general economic change affecting Europe such as the Crusades, the Balck Death, the new trade routes, the medieval frontier and certain internal contradications of the feudal structure. This paper however, is focussed on the immediate provocations which trig- gered off the Protestant Reformation. Our argument is that even these provocations were economic and political rather than religious. In other words, it was not the moral indignation of a few righteous people on the "immorality of the Church" which was the most important factor behind the movement called Reformation. The Church and the European Nations Famous is the saying that Christ preached the Kingdom of God, but what came out was the church of Rome. The Kingdom of God preached by Christ was a protest movement against the rulers and the rich. The Gospels (the good messages of Christ) implied that God will put down the mighty and satiate the poor. But Christ was not preaching a political revolution; he was challenging the state religion of the old Roman Empire. Thus he was aiming at a secularization process. But the process initiated by Christ was reversed by an alliance of the chruch and the state under Constantine, the Great. Thus what was begun as a protest against the dominant ideology became itself the ideology of the ruling class even after the fall of Rome, and the chruch (the pope) became the feudal overlord of all Europe. The "barbarian" kings of the emerging new nations of Europe considered the chruch as a necessary instrument of unity and political stability at national and even international levels. Eventually, however, the nation-states were consolidated in many parts of Europe, partly at least owing to the economic demands of these regions. The new political structure had to undermine the age-old relations between the chruch and the state. The new nations with despotic monarchs started challenging the overlorship of Rome. These challenges, again, were shaped by the politico-economic conditions of each region. Thus the kings of France could obtain the cooperation of all the three "Estates" This content downloaded from 129.170.195.201 on Thu, 04 May 2017 16:54:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 16 SOCIAL SCIENTIST to defeat the popes and even keep some of them as prisoners in Avignon. The kings of England, on the other hand, had several rounds with the popes. Some of them defied the popes; others obtained the cooperation of the church to contain the barons. Finally, of course, Henry VIII would openly break with Rome. But Germany was politically and economically much weaker than either France or England. The feudal princes of Germany had no wish to strengthen the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor and thus weaken their own political power. Hence the rulers of Germany had to submit themselves to the pope on several occasions. Typical as well as famous is the case of Henry IV, who (in 1077) had to wait three days in the winter with a rope around his neck as a penitent before he was admitted to the presence of the pope in his castle at Canossa. But this economic and political weakness of Germany itself, in a curious historical configuration, became the immediate prop for the success of the Reformation. In a nurshell, an excessive drain of money from an economically weak nation prepared the necessary ground for a successful protest movement. This drain included the papal taxes, the veneration of relics and the sale of indulgences. As far as the taxes were concerned, the effect was almost uniform. Thus all nations of Europe had to pay the tithes and the crusading tax, though Peter's pence was levied only on England and the Scandinavian countries, at least in the beginning. But Italy benefited the most from these collections when the popes were in Rome, and France, when the popes were in Avignon. Fur- ther, the check on the levy of taxes and their transfer to Rome was less in Germany than in England or France. The feudal possessions of the church too differed from nation to nation. Thus the Catholic church owned a half of Germany, while only a fifth of France (valued at three quarters of the wealth of France, it is said) and only one-third of the Italian peninsula. Such possessions were still smaller in other nations though they included vast estates of immense wealth. There is no doubt that the ecclesiastical possessions as well as exactions were resented by every nation concerned, mainly because it strangulated the emerging merchant capitalism. The monarchs of these nations too, who depended on the merchants and the landed gentry (the commerical farmers) could not support the pope. Hence we see that an attack on the financial irregularities became the rallying point of religious re- formation in feudal Europe. Secondly, the Reformation broke out in Germany because that region had suffered the worst form of papal exactions. This must be the reason why Luther could succeed This content downloaded from 129.170.195.201 on Thu, 04 May 2017 16:54:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms REFORMATION 17 in Germany whereas his forerunners in other countries either failed or had only a minimum of success. Prelude to the Lutheran Reformation Here we wish to point out that the Lutheran revolt was preceded by a number of attempts at the purification of the church. The Catholic church itself had made repeated attempts at a reformation from within. But the popes, the College of Cardinals and the bureaucracy of the Curia could not agree upon a common formula as the economic interests of each party or group could not coincide with the interests of other groups. Reformation from outside was a must in the face of this failure. Attempts at this was made by kings, priests, intellectuals and even by common people. Perhaps the first king who seriously challenged the church was Louis of Bavaria (1314 to 1347). He declared marriage to be a purely civil affair and granted divorce on his own authority. He patronized the first wellknown intellectual (among the reformers), William of Ockham. Ockham was a Fransican friar and had seen the liquidation of several of his confriers who tried to reform the church. Ockham declared, with the help of the king, that the pope had no infallibility as he claimed to have. There were two more famous intellectuals who revolted in line with Ockham; one was Wycliff and the other was Huss. Wycliff(1320-1384) was a priest teaching theology at the university of Oxford. He taught, among other things, that there was no need for such intermediaries as the pope and the bishop to stand between God and the faithful.