Thomas_More
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The French state kept control of the Church in its own hands until the Concordat of 1801 formally ended the Gallican structure (which the Revolution had already smashed) and returned the Church to the Pope, on condition that the French head of state would nominate bishops for Rome to confirm. Church and state were officially separated in 1905, barring Alsace & Lorraine, where bishops are still nominated by the President.
The Spanish state continued to control Church affairs, lands, and choose its clergy until the death of Franco returned the Church to Papal control.
Monastic lands were seized in both countries during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Crow and friend.
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.
” 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.”
VoilĂ ! 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.
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.
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).
Germany:
Meanwhile, British army taking part in scenario imagining “defending” Estonia in 2030.
Side by side with a general blasĂ© attitude toward the imminent use of the world’s nuclear arsenals goes, in the UK and Europe, the idea that war with Russia could be “fought” – as though we were in the 1940s. Were Estonia under attack, millions of Europeans across the continent will already be incinerated before you can say the four syllables in “Estonia”!
Birds who sew, using spider webs.
