The Reformation and the Rise of the Nation State
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This is a continuation of my discussion with ‘Thomas More’. TM – you have said that Luther was not an important figure in the development of the English Reformation. However wasn’t he an important influence on Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer who are considered the architects of the English Reformation?
Cranmer was influenced more by Lutheranism than Cromwell. Cromwell kept his theological views to himself as chief hatchet-man for Henry, who burned both Catholics and Protestants.
Cranmer became more of an evangelical (Calvinist).
The two basic facts are, that protestantism, mostly of the Calvinist variety, was welcomed after Henry’s death and would only then influence the Church of England. But the expropriation of church lands, secession from Rome, and dissolution of the monasteries, with the mass eviction of the English peasantry, all took place in England BEFORE England became Protestant, under Henry VIII and his Church, which was NOT protestant until after his death.
Lutheranism prevailed in Scandinavia, but I don’t know any details on that.
Why do you think Calvinism was more to the taste of the English elite? It was supposed to be more systematic but what specific ideological differences (if any) appealed to the Puritans?
While Lutheranism also believes faith alone matters, and not deeds, Calvinism takes that further. It was even more suited therefore to the rapacity of the upstart class in England, where it had free rein.
Calvinism blames poverty on the poor. Bankruptcy used to get you excommunicated from the Presbyterian kirk in Scotland. The persecution of the propertyless after the Henrician enclosures, the Vagrancy Acts of Edward VI and Elizabeth I, are all justified in Calvinist theology, as was the terrorising of the working class via the “Protestant Work Ethic.”
It is the original root of even today’s guilt-tripping of the unemployed and benefit claimants.
Calvinism is the ultimate capitalist theology.
Even though capitalism developed in the Catholic world, Catholic monarchies prevented Calvinist protestantism from taking the helm – although Jansenism tried to “calvinise” Catholicism. The traditional “Christ friend of the poor” myth was just too strong in Catholicism, despite its own ferocity in other ways. The running of charity hospitals was also a strong medieval tradition bound up with monasticism – the first institution to be scrapped in England and Scotland. Elizabeth instead authorised workhouses, in which the poor could be worked to death.So in the English context the Puritans borrowed the Calvinist theology (ideology) for the reasons you mention? From what Protestant sect did the levelers and Diggers (true levelers) acquire their ideology – Anabaptists perhaps? I know the Lutherans persecuted the Anabaptists ruthlessly (Siege of Munster etc.) but were the Puritans more inclusive?
There were two main groups of Puritans in England. They were originally united in their common disgust with the episcopal structure retained by the Church of England.
The Presbyterians were conservative parliamentarians in the Civil War, and were reluctant at first to do without the King, but definitely did not want his bishops, nor any bishops, and wanted the episcopal church gone. They were also afraid of the Independents, also Puritans, but attracting a less bourgeois and more revolutionary and republican element.
The Presbyterians controlled Parliament after the first civil war, and controlled the king who had fled to Scotland.
The Levellers, whom the war had encouraged in demanding greater liberties, controlled the English army, compelling Oliver Cromwell to oust the Presbyterians and clear Parliament. Cromwell then went to war with the Presbyterian government in Edinburgh, and these panicked, handing over the king to him. But soon after the king’s defeat Cromwell turned on the Levellers, even though he was an Independent, and established martial law.
Independency in puritanism had encouraged a blossoming of communistic and other thinkers and groups by its very nature of having shown established authority was neither divine nor invulnerable. Hence arose the Diggers, Ranters etc. But Cromwell would crush them and also terrorise the army into submission via colonial ventures. Again “OUR revolution, not YOURS!”In Scotland the Presbyterians established the cruellest, severest and most misogynistic government of all.
Anabaptism was given an impetus in Europe in the 16th century but, unlike protestantism, it stressed mutual aid, good deeds and compassion. It was a movement of the poor, unlike protestantism, and its ideals entered England and influenced the “Ranter” sects – also suppressed by Cromwell.
I think it is simplistic to say Puritanism inspired proto-communism. Firstly, we should recognise there were two puritanisms, one extremely vicious and conservative, and bourgeois; the other, Independency, including as many theologies as there were individuals.
I think it is also important to recall that the English “Puritan” revolution was a minority phenomenon. The vast majority of the common people hated Cromwell’s rule and could not accept the killing of the king, in spite of all Milton & Co’s propaganda.
A word on those Puritans who established the Massachusetts colony, some of whom were friends of the young Cromwell: toleration was not in their Puritan lexicon.
Arrival of Puritan Calvinist "Christians" (Pilgrims) @ Plymouth Rock
byu/Snoo_40410 inHistoryMemesThe spur to colonial enterprise during the “Common-wealth” also saw the regular kidnapping of children in England for sale in the colonies as slaves, and commenced the transportation and sale in large numbers of convicts to the West Indies.
I notice you haven’t mentioned the fear of Catholicism. Didn’t both William Cecil (during Elizabeth’s reign) and Oliver Cromwell fear invasion from Catholic forces more than they endorsed a particular form of Protestantism? In other words their motivation was political rather than theological? Who has said that Puritanism inspired proto-communism? Did Christopher Hill say that? I know Gerrard Winstanley is regarded by some on the left as a proto-communist but his inspiration seems to have come from his interpretation of the bible and was in the tradition of Watt Tyler. He seems to have rejoined the establishment after it was all over so not a very convincing revolutionary.
Well yes, it is all political. I don’t think William, or Robert, Cecil feared much, but they knew the value of demonising Catholicism. At school we were told of a book at the time (1970s; I haven’t been able to locate it) presenting the Gunpowder Plot as a set-up. It certainly benefited the authorities.
Popophobia 😀 didn’t prevent Cromwell making war on the Dutch Republic, the strongest Protestant power in the world. Nor was the English crown deterred from fighting on Richelieu’s side in the Thirty Years War.
Like today, ideology/religion takes a back seat where economic gain is concerned.
I don’t think we can blame Winstanley, Coppe, or anyone for keeping a low profile in later years. What sense is there in martyrdom?
TM – ‘What sense is there in martyrdom?’
Rather ironic coming from someone who calls themselves Thomas More. Incidentally although I agree with you that it’s all political I do think your namesake and many others actually showed great courage and died for what they believed in. Luther, likewise, showed great courage during his own trial and didn’t know that he was to be rescued. Some historians do see the English Revolution as part of the 30 years war but, of course, it became something much more momentous. So why do you think England was so far ahead in political terms than most of Europe (with the possible exception of the Dutch)? You mention Luther can be blamed for this to some degree, especially in terms of German development. Was it the failure of the Reformation in France that caused it to lag behind England, only having its revolution almost 100 years after the English?More was a devout Catholic, and martyrdom for the faith is part and parcel of that. Because of his psychology he could not possibly have sworn to the Oath of Supremacy.
Winstanley and the others had no such religious commitment or way of thinking for sacrificing their lives.“Politically ahead” … The political reflects the material conditions. But you are being unfair to France if you don’t take into account the intellectual upheavals happening there in the 16th century.
The Wars of the Roses in England had left Henry VII Tudor and his family sole autocrats. There was no feasible feudal opposition left, even though his reign was beset by lords putting up pretenders. Henry defeated them all, abolished feudal liveries and demanded sole loyalty to Tudor centralised power. Under his successor land enclosures exploded as never before: a grand theft traumatising the people and rupturing the social fabric of centuries. The Reformation in England, spilling over into Scotland and Wales, was the ideological expression of this social and agrarian revolution. This is what overturned English society, beginning a century before the Civil War.
In France Louis XI had failed, unlike Henry VII of England, in his own struggle for monarchical centralisation of power against the feudality headed by the Duke of Burgundy. Even so, centralisation was to proceed tentatively, and in the face of powerful feudal resistance, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The tolerant and progressive Francis I. presided over a vibrant intellectual scene, permitting religious debates which would enable many French reformists to remain within the Catholic Church. The Wars of Religion at the close of the 16th century resulted in the victory of Henri IV, a Huguenot and survivor until he became king of a lifetime of assassination attempts. Under his rule the Edict of Nantes would grant the protestants freedom of religion for nearly a century.
The Reformation in France was not a failure. It was able to take place within the Catholic Church via Gallicanism – autonomy from Rome without separation. Much was the same for the Church in Spain. In both countries the monarchs took precedence over Church affairs, without the need to separate from Rome.
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