MacCulloch, Reformation, 270-313.

Identify: Pius V, altar tabernacle, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Elizabeth I, Catherinde de' Medici, Thirty-nine Articles, Kirk, Augsburg Interim (1548), Peace of Augsburg (1555), Guise, Bartolomé Carranza, Colloquy of Poissy (1561), Emden (find on the map on p. 348), Philip II, Duke of Alva, Council of Blood

In Chapter 5 ("Reunion Deferred"), we read about efforts to overcome religious division: the sincere, but unsuccessful attempt, to create a common understanding of justficiation between Catholics and Protestants at the Regensburg Colloquy, Melanchthon's Variata of the Augsburg Confession which was supposed to unite Lutherans and non-Lutheran Protestants, the agreement between Calvin and Bullinger on the Eucharist (Consensus Tigurinus), and that early form of religious toleration knows as the Torda agreement. Chapter 6 ("Reunion Scorned") might also be called "The Parting of the Ways." Reconciliation and compromise became virtually unworkable, even if some still tried, for instance at the Colloquy of Poissy. Notice how MacCulloch ends this chapter: "In the Netherlands, as in France and Scotland, the hopes of conciliation and the reconstruction of a single Catholic Church were at an end. After the second wave of militant popular Reformation in the 1560s, Europe's house was destined to remain divided" (313). Here we have not only an allusion to the title of the book but also to the book's original question and the title of the first part. For MacCulloch the Catholic identity encompasses more than the Church of Rome. Do you think his catholic approach to Catholicism informs what he calls "a common culture"? Is Part 1 about the medieval legacy of Catholicism and the various forms in which legacy was taken up or played out, forms that proved to be irreconcilable? That is just one way of making sense of what MacCulloch means by "a common culture." Or maybe his title for Part 1 is flawed? What do you think?

Let us return to theme of disunity. The Schmalkaldic Wars (1547-1552) pitted the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against the German Protestant Princes and "eliminated the last major player who tried to bridge the divide between Rome and the Protestants," namely Hermann von Wied (271). Charles won the first round but lost the second. Imposing a temporary religious settlement on the Empire generated more, not less, strife, even among the defeated Protestants. The princes defeated Charles in 1552, and this led to a new settlement, which could rely on a precedent that dated back to 1526 Does the settlement of 1555 reflect "reunion scorned"? Certainly, after Charles's death, Ferdinand I and Maximilian II wanted to pursue a policy or religious compromise, but they faced opposition from within their (Austrian) Habsburg dynasty. Philip II, head of the Spanish Habsburgs and supporter of the work of the Spanish Inquisition (299), was not interested in compromise. He once famously said that he had no intention of being the ruler of heretics.

The opening pages of the chapter underline the political framework of MacCulloch's narrative. This even affects the papacy. Paul IV, "a good hater" (277), hated the Spanish. Is MacCulloch justfied in calling him a "lunatic" (279)? The Council of Trent continued in an unambiguously political context. Catherine de' Medici and the Cardinal of Lorraine, eager for religious compromise to prevent strife in France, wanted "a newly convened Council into which Protestants might be drawn." Ferdinand agreed, but not Philip II (303). The debates that almost ruined the Council were theological, but they also had to do with authority in the Church. You need to understand what was at stake. Pay attention to the Council's reforming work too--another "r" word that will make you think of O'Malley's article and the nature of Catholicism. MacCulloch puts a great deal of store by Trent.

Politics, of course, was bound up with religion, and vice versa. Queen Mary returned England to the Roman obedience for a short time. She authorized the burning of many Protestants, most notably Cranmer, but she could not restore overnight the Catholic Church to its position before the momentous changes initiated under her father Henry VIII. MacCulloch presents "Bloody Mary" as a tragic figure: "The greatest unfairness of a life filled with disappointments came when her hopes for a pregnancy turned out to be the beginnings of stomach cancer" (285). MacCulloch's admiration for Mary's ally and another tragic figure, Reginald Pole, is also evident. Elizabeth, "who read the New Testament in Greek every day" (287) established an "uncompromisigly Protestant regime" (288), yet the religious settlement of 1559, which she would not alter when England's bishops proposed "further Protestant reforms" (291) is, arguably, evidence of her religious conservatism and political savy. What do you make of the Thirty-nine Articles? Read articles 22 and 28.

The failure of reconstituting a single Catholic Church coincided with violence, and this too had political contexts as is clear from the final section of the chapter. From our perspective this may seem puzzling. Why did Europeans want to kill each other because they did not believe the same things? We need to suspend our own views and acknolwedge that they did this and understand why they did this. Notice the "extraordinary growth" and "rapid expansion" of Protestantism in France (307). Huguenot militancy was driven in part by singing the psalms in French. Even humming the tune of a psalm setting represented "an act of Protestant subversion" (308). What do you think about that? Violence, in the sixteenth century as today, leads to dislocation or "many movements of people" (313). MacCulloch refers to the thousands of Protestant "refugees" who fled the Netherlands to escape Spanish soldiers.