The Reformation and the Rise of the Nation State
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Bristol was the main centre of the colonial trade in English slaves because until the end of the 17th century the English trade in African slaves was monopolised by London.
Google: “Witch-hunting in early modern Europe (roughly 1550–1650) was more intense in many Protestant areas due to a combination of religious, social, and economic factors following the Reformation. While both Catholics and Protestants prosecuted witches, Protestant areas often experienced higher trial rates due to intense competition for souls, a literal interpretation of scripture, and the abolition of older Catholic spiritual protections.Key reasons for the intensity of witch-hunts in Protestant areas include:Religious Competition: The post-Reformation era created a competitive “market” for churchgoers. Protestants and Catholics sought to prove their superior piety and protection against Satan. Prosecuting witches became a way to demonstrate to undecided “consumers” that a particular church was actively fighting evil, which was especially intense in regions with strong Catholic-Protestant rivalries, such as Germany.Theological Shifts (Elimination of Spiritual Defenses): Protestantism removed many Catholic rituals that offered comfort against evil, such as the use of holy water, saints’ relics, and exorcisms. In their place, reformers emphasized a personal, inward piety and a terrifying view of witchcraft as a direct pact with the devil. This made people feel more vulnerable and more desperate to find and punish the “witches” responsible for their hardships.Literal Interpretation of the Bible: Many Protestant groups, including Puritans, believed in a literal interpretation of scriptures, such as Exodus 22:18 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”). This created a direct theological mandate to prosecute witchcraft as a capital offense.Anti-Catholic Rhetoric: Protestant leaders often painted Catholic rituals as a form of “sorcery” or “enchantment,” equating the Pope and Catholic priests with sorcerers or witches. This heightened the focus on finding “magic” in their communities, often identifying Catholics or those practicing old rituals as satanic minions.Regional Instability and Social Upheaval: Germany, which saw the highest rate of prosecutions (nearly 40% of all Europe’s witchcraft trials), was ground zero for the Reformation. The political and social upheaval, along with religious conflict, left communities looking for scapegoats for disasters, wars, and disease.Greater Authority of Local Churches: In many Protestant regions, particularly in Scotland and parts of Germany, local, zealous pastors and secular councils had more power to drive witch trials, often without the curbing, slow-paced judicial oversight of the centralized Roman Inquisition, which was sometimes more skeptical of witchcraft.While Protestant Scotland, Germany, and England had high rates of execution, and the New World saw the famous Puritan trials in Salem, it is important to note that witch-hunts were not exclusive to Protestants. Rather, they occurred most frequently in areas of intense religious, political, and social stress, which was often brought on by the Reformation.”
The Fronde, the revolt against the emerging French centralised state.
Santeria is African catholicism, and the Catholic Church called it witchcraft. Most ancient and modern religions are connected with the African religions. The Communist Party of Cuba supports Santeria.
Santería is a major Afro-Cuban religion, often considered a pillar of Cuban cultural identity, but it is not the only religion in Cuba. It originated from West African Yoruba traditions that blended with Spanish Roman Catholicism between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Syncretic Nature: Also known as La Regla de Ocha or La Religión Lucumí, it links West African deities, called orishas, with Roman Catholic saints.
Cultural Significance: Santería is often considered a “national religion”, reflecting the resilience of the Cuban spirit, and its roots are deeply tied to the Afro-Cuban community.
Beliefs & Rituals: It focuses on maintaining positive relationships with orishas for guidance and health through offerings and ceremonies.Widespread Practice: Despite previous government repression and historical stigma, it remains heavily practised in Cuba, including in homes, daily life, and in cities like Havana.
Global Spread: It has expanded beyond Cuba to the United States and other regions, particularly after the 1959 revolution.While it is a prominent, often defining faith on the island, other religions like Catholicism are also practised in Cuba, often side-by-side with Santería
Voodoo ( Vodou, Vudu ) is also African catholicism.
Haitian Vodou and similar traditions like Louisiana Voodoo are syncretic religions that blended West/Central African spiritual traditions with Roman Catholicism. Developed by enslaved people between the 16th and 19th centuries, it merged African deities (lwa) with Catholic saints, often to mask traditional practices under colonial prohibition.
Syncretism: It is not just one or the other, but a combination of traditional African religions (specifically from regions like modern-day Benin/Dahomey) and Roman Catholic rituals.
Masking and Saints: Enslaved people often used images of Catholic saints to represent their own spirits (lwa) to avoid persecution, making the two traditions outwardly interlinked.
Dual Identity: Many practitioners in Haiti and New Orleans often identified, and may still identify, as both Catholic and Vodouist.Cultural Context: While rooted in African traditions, Vodou developed specifically in the New World (Haiti/Louisiana) as a form of survival and cultural resistance.
In summary, characterising it solely as “African Catholicism” is a simplification, but it is accurate to say it is an African diasporic faith deeply syncretised with Roman Catholicism.
Aristides, who was a Salesian fathers and a member of the Liberation theology,y wanted Voodoo to be the official religion of Haiti, ti and that created fierce confrontation with the Catholic church. They wanted him to be overthrown, but they never complained that the Ton Ton Macoute were killing people because Duvalier supported the catholic church
The early Christian missionaries in Europe found the way to win converts was to absorb local practices.
In the Byzantine east, customs we now accept as essential to Christmas – holly, mistletoe – were forbidden by the Church Fathers as symbols of the Saturnalia; but in western Europe they were embraced by the Church rather than combatted. Constantine had changed the date of the Nativity from March to December in order to facilitate conversions, in spite of Christian discomfort. Even now, Christmas in the East is much humbler than the main feast of Pascha (the Passover), which only Nordic and Germanic/English countries call by the name of the pagan goddess Easter; but the world has embraced Easter’s symbol the hare and the Celts’ Druid’s Egg. Indeed, Christian symbols of both Christmas and Pascha are completely buried by the pre-Christian pagan ones.Catholicism adopted various pagan traditions over centuries, often recontextualising them to aid in the conversion of European and Mediterranean cultures, blending pre-Christian practices with Christian theology. Key examples include setting Christmas on the winter solstice (Natalis Invicti), using incense/candles, and venerating saints and the Virgin Mary, mirroring earlier polytheistic customs.
Major Adopted Traditions & Cultural Parallels
Christmas & Solstice (Dec 25th): The birth of Christ was aligned with the Roman festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birth of the Unconquered Sun) and the winter solstice, incorporating traditions like evergreen trees to symbolise life.Easter & Fertility Rites: Easter rituals, including eggs and bunnies, have roots in pagan festivals celebrating spring fertility, such as the cult of Ishtar.
Veneration of Mary & Saints: The devotion to Mary, including her title as “Queen of Heaven,” shares parallels with ancient mother-child cults like Isis/Osiris in Egypt or Cybele in Rome. The concept of multiple saints replacing local pagan deities is seen as a way to transition pagan followers to Christianity.
Ritual Objects & Symbols: The use of incense, candles, and holy water, as well as the use of halos in art, were common in Greco-Roman, Babylonian, and Egyptian religious ceremonies long before Christianity.
The Rosary & Prayer Beads: While often used in Catholicism, beads for counting prayers were used in various ancient religions, including those in India, Greece, and Egypt.
Titles & Clergy Functions: The papal title Pontifex Maximus was originally used by the highest priest in ancient Rome.
Eucharist & Sacrificial Meals: Similarities exist between the Eucharist and the ritualistic eating of bread and wine in pagan mystery cults, such as the worship of Dionysus and Mithras.Purpose of Adoption
Rather than eradicating all existing customs, the early Church frequently adopted them and provided new, Christian meanings, as encouraged by early leaders like Pope Gregory, to ease the transition for new believers.The catholic church adopted Aztec, Maya and indian religious traditions to convert the native to catholicism.
In Europe, Virgin Mary is white, but in Mexico, Virgin Mary has dark skin, and the message was given to an indian peasant. That is a very lucrative celebration that generates millions of dollars in profits
But by the time of Gregory the Great all these usages and rites were already an old tradition in Christianity.
Surely incense and candles were already used in Jewish worship anyway, and hence used by Christians from the start, not a ploy to win converts.
The idea that all these things, which Christianity evolved with, were later “brought in” by “a corrupt papacy” is a protestant notion. Protestants require there be an “original Christianity” that agrees with their fantasies. There never was. All these ritual forms we associate with Roman Catholicism were in place long before the bishops of Rome became independent. The much older Churches of the East all use them.
I believe the Roman emperor held the title of Pontifex Maximus in his role as High Priest of the Empire.
To return to the main topic and my post on the Fronde. In both France and in England we see capitalist developments creating the centralised state (I won’t use the term ‘nation’ state) before the bourgeoisie has broken free and seized political power for itself. The monarch in both France and in England holds the monopoly in trade. In France he holds in subjection both nobility and bourgeoisie. The Fronde is reaction, opposing state centralisation. In England there is no feudal nobility left; only the bourgeoisie, split between those whose interests lie with the king and those who strive to be free of him.
The chapter “Red Flag at Bordeaux” in H.N. Brailsford’s “The Levellers & the English Revolution” provides a précis of the Fronde.
Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun focuses on a milestone in the emergence of the centralised state. Loudun’s priest found himself in the midst of it, and sealed his fate by opposing the demolition of the town’s fortifications. The rest was an excuse to get rid of him as an embarrassing obstacle to “progress.”
Royalty’s roots lay in feudalism, but we see that the monarchical absolutism which had repressed its own feudal class in favour of centralised state building and to the advantage of the bourgeoisie prepared its own eventual demise. We see the centralised nation-state being constructed before the bourgeoisie capture state power. It is then consolidated by them after they stage their national revolutions and overthrow the autocracies. But it is those autocratic monarchies that have established the nation-state, which the capitalist class take over and which they make the unit of their control in each land.
Henry VII in England achieves what Louis XI in France had failed to do. The Tudors consolidate the work. The French monarchy resumes the repression of the feudals after Henri IV establishes the Bourbon dynasty and Richelieu and Mazarin complete the centralisation of state power while, in England, the bourgeoisie take control of it (after a remaining political skirmish with the annoying Stuarts).
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/16/archives/in-french-town-demons-linger-the-talk-of-loudun.html
Dissident priest on the front line of national centralisation.
” Thomas Hobbes: A strict materialist. He argued that everything in the universe—including human thoughts, emotions, and the soul—is just physical matter in motion. To Hobbes, the “mind” is simply physical processes in the brain.”
Voilà! The 17th century in France produced philosophical debate largely thanks to the “Cavendish Circle” consisting of English exiles. Free from the strictures of fanaticism, Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi lay the foundations of later, 18th century, materialist thought and expression which was impossible in theocratic Puritan England.
The bogus “scientist”, Descartes the creep, did his utmost to get materialists into serious trouble with the authorities.
He also petitioned the Sorbonne to have Montaigne posthumously excommunicated as a heretic for being compassionate to other animals.(Google): “Descartes used his published works and private influence to publicly discredit and endanger materialist opponents. He felt that materialist philosophies (like those of Thomas Hobbes) and naturalistic interpretations (like those of his former disciple Henricus Regius) threatened his metaphysics and bordered on atheism. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
René Descartes, c. 1641
Descartes took direct aim at his materialist adversaries using a few specific tactics:
Attacking Thomas Hobbes: After Hobbes submitted a materialist critique of Descartes’ Meditations, Descartes publicly retaliated. He wrote to Marin Mersenne describing Hobbes as dishonest and attempting to make a reputation at his expense. In his subsequent published replies, Descartes sought to make Hobbes look foolish by framing his materialist arguments as uncharitable or incoherent.
Discrediting Henricus Regius: Regius was a professor of medicine at Utrecht who adopted some of Descartes’ mechanical philosophy but pushed it toward materialism. When Regius began making unorthodox, quasi-materialist claims about the nature of man, Descartes published Notes on a Program in 1642, publicly refuting his former disciple and distancing himself to avoid guilt-by-association with church authorities.
Appealing to the Church: Because 17th-century materialism inherently denied the existence of an immaterial soul (a severe heresy), Descartes intentionally positioned his dualism as the ultimate defense of religion. By clearly contrasting his own philosophy with the atheistic and materialistic trends of the era, he subtly but effectively painted his opponents as dangerous subversives whose ideas risked the same church censorship that Galileo had recently faced. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
While Descartes welcomed rigorous objections, he aggressively countered anyone whose materialist views undermined his carefully constructed philosophical framework. [1]”I would therefore suggest he did NOT welcome rigorous objections to his hypocrisy, but was even prepared to get opponents in debate executed.
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