History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VIII

[sophie]

I mean, you sort of answered your own question: it doesn't.

Ireland, Poland, Austria, Bavaria and Belgium all remained strong Catholic bastions throughout the reformation, even on to today.

French Huguenot populations were pretty significant, and really you could make an argument that France only didn't go Protestant, because, unlike England, France didn't get a monarch with a political interest and the power and legitimacy necessary to enforce protestant unity on its populace. It's important to remember that England wasn't really a Protestant nation even as late as the 1570s. Protestantism thrived in the country because England got a protestant queen that ruled for 30 years and spent the full duration of those 30 years violently stamping out any and all catholic elements in her kingdom, and her successors continued that tradition throughout the ensuing centuries.

Really the question amounts to why the Reformation spread in parts of Germany and not in, say, Italy or Spain. And the answers are:

1) Luther was successful in gaining key and powerful allies early on, particularly in John, the Elector of (Ernestine) Saxony, Philip of Hesse, and Albrecht von Hohenzollern, the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights. The importance of The University of Wittemberg cannot be understated in this respect. Even outside of Germany, a couple key Wittenberg-influenced emissaries, particularly Bugenhagen in Denmark, and Laurentius Petri in Sweden, were able to win over influence in the courts of those respective kingdoms. From there Luther and the Protestants were able to create enough of a nuisance for the Emperors Charles V and Ferdinand that eventually they were able to get a peace and semi-official recognition with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555.

2) Luther benefited heavily from the central-decentralized nature of the Empire. The nature of the court systems meant individual cities, preachers, and princes had a lot of leeway in deciding confessional positions for themselves, and could plausibly argue for their lawful right to do so, free from interference by the Emperor. At the local level, the vast majority of preachers in Germany, particularly Northern Germany were University-educated, most prominently at Wittemberg, and were therefore either direct students of Luther or else students-by-proxy of Luther.

The history of the Empire is largely one of the push-pull between the Empire, the Church, and the various princes and free cities, and Luther provided a useful opportunity for princes to gain power and independence for themselves at the expense of the church and the emperor.

3) It definitely also helped that Luther was a German who wrote in German. And the version of German he wrote in was clear, eloquent, and broadly intelligible given the linguistic horsehockeyshow that was Early Modern German. During the course of Luther's lifetime, 682 works were published, composed of 3897 editions, of which 80% were in German and 16% were in Latin. That leaves a mere 4% which appeared in translated form in 10 other languages. His two most essential works - Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and The Babylonian Captivity of the Church were each only translated into one other language. There was no translation of any of Luther's work into Spanish until 1540. It's hard to reach any kind of an audience when your works aren't being translated into a form others could read. What pattern you're recognizing really comes down to this part of it. The printing of translations of Luther was banned by the prominent monarchies around Europe - England, France, Spain, etc.

4) Germany was a relatively more literate place than was other places such as Italy. Much of Luther's early tracts were written in Latin and, e.g. less than 5% of the Italian populace (including clergy) was literate enough in Latin to be able to read and comprehend Luther and Zwingli's arguments.

5) A central tenet of Luther's reformation came from reading the scripture for oneself so as to understand the meat of Luther's theological positions. He was aided by the fact that a) He produced a translation of the Bible very early onto his call for a reformation, b) his translation was extremely good [see: Luther's German in point 3], and c) that translation was able to be very widely disseminated. He finished his translation of the New Testament in 11 weeks, and from the period 1518-1525 it represented a full third of all books sold in Germany. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and the Low Countries were other regions which notably got widely-disseminated, well-translated Vernacular editions of the Bible early into the Reformation

I can go on, the topic of the Reformation is an exceedingly complex one, but that sums up the most essential points. Basically the answer to your observation can be reduced to:

1) For a number of reasons, the Reformation was extremely successful in Northern and Western Germany, as well as Denmark and Sweden.
2) Due to contingent, unrelated reasons, the Reformation was eventually successful in England, and failed in France

 

[Flying Pig]

Excellent post.

3) It definitely also helped that Luther was a German who wrote in German. And the version of German he wrote in was clear, eloquent, and broadly intelligible given the linguistic ****show that was Early Modern German. During the course of Luther's lifetime, 682 works were published, composed of 3897 editions, of which 80% were in German and 16% were in Latin. That leaves a mere 4% which appeared in translated form in 10 other languages. His two most essential works - Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and The Babylonian Captivity of the Church were each only translated into one other language. There was no translation of any of Luther's work into Spanish until 1540. It's hard to reach any kind of an audience when your works aren't being translated into a form others could read. What pattern you're recognizing really comes down to this part of it. The printing of translations of Luther was banned by the prominent monarchies around Europe - England, France, Spain, etc.

How does that fit with the success of Protestantism in Denmark and Sweden (and in Iceland and Norway)? Are you arguing that the availability of the Bible was more important than the availability of Luther's texts?

EDIT: On doing a bit of reading, it seems like the Icelandic case is much more like the English (in that the Danish rulers imposed the Reformation by law and violence). I'm mindful, however, of how badly wrong forced conversions often go - the example that springs to mind is Julian the Apostate, but Mary Tudor would be another one. Granted, Julian didn't have very long to do his work, and Mary didn't when compared with Elizabeth, but is length of time all that there is to it? There are certainly underlying factors that make it more or less easy to convert a country by force - doing anything by force alone in a pre-modern state, against general, convinced opposition, is extremely difficult.

 

[Mouthwash]

I mean, you sort of answered your own question: it doesn't.

Ireland, Poland,

I'm only referring to how the denominations are distributed only within Germanic and Latin areas.

Austria, Bavaria

Those are one contiguous region.

and Belgium

Half French, if I recall.

1) Luther was successful in gaining key and powerful allies early on, particularly in John, the Elector of (Ernestine) Saxony, Philip of Hesse, and Albrecht von Hohenzollern, the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights. The importance of The University of Wittemberg cannot be understated in this respect. Even outside of Germany, a couple key Wittenberg-influenced emissaries, particularly Bugenhagen in Denmark, and Laurentius Petri in Sweden, were able to win over influence in the courts of those respective kingdoms. From there Luther and the Protestants were able to create enough of a nuisance for the Emperors Charles V and Ferdinand that eventually they were able to get a peace and semi-official recognition with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555.

There is still the problem of stacked turtles: why was he successful there to begin with?

2) Luther benefited heavily from the central-decentralized nature of the Empire. The nature of the court systems meant individual cities, preachers, and princes had a lot of leeway in deciding confessional positions for themselves, and could plausibly argue for their lawful right to do so, free from interference by the Emperor. At the local level, the vast majority of preachers in Germany, particularly Northern Germany were University-educated, most prominently at Wittemberg, and were therefore either direct students of Luther or else students-by-proxy of Luther.

The history of the Empire is largely one of the push-pull between the Empire, the Church, and the various princes and free cities, and Luther provided a useful opportunity for princes to gain power and independence for themselves at the expense of the church and the emperor.

But if Germanic peoples just happened to be less receptive to a Latin-based church or simply held different values than Mediterraneans, would that also offer an explanation of why relations between the Church and secular society were so turbulent there?

4) Germany was a relatively more literate place than was other places such as Italy. Much of Luther's early tracts were written in Latin and, e.g. less than 5% of the Italian populace (including clergy) was literate enough in Latin to be able to read and comprehend Luther and Zwingli's arguments.

Does that have anything to do with German culture or society?

5) A central tenet of Luther's reformation came from reading the scripture for oneself so as to understand the meat of Luther's theological positions. He was aided by the fact that a) He produced a translation of the Bible very early onto his call for a reformation, b) his translation was extremely good [see: Luther's German in point 3], and c) that translation was able to be very widely disseminated. He finished his translation of the New Testament in 11 weeks, and from the period 1518-1525 it represented a full third of all books sold in Germany. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and the Low Countries were other regions which notably got widely-disseminated, well-translated Vernacular editions of the Bible early into the Reformation

But why did those books sell in those countries? Look out for those turtles!

 

[Flying Pig]

It seems like you're trying to trace this down to some basic feature of what 'Germanic society' is like, and some sense that 'Germanics' and 'Mediterraneans' have distinctive cultural values. I don't think that gets you out of your charge of 'stacking turtles' - it only makes it harder, because you've got to explain how it is that these differences come about and why they're so central. At some level, it's acceptable to say that something happened which wasn't necessarily predetermined. Luther won over John of Saxony because John had been taught by one of Luther's friends, and Luther convinced him on a personal level. That might not have happened: nothing intrinsic in the grand forces of history said that it should be so. But it happened, and it's fine to say that.

 

[Mouthwash]

It seems like you're trying to trace this down to some basic feature of what 'Germanic society' is like, and some sense that 'Germanics' and 'Mediterraneans' have distinctive cultural values. I don't think that gets you out of your charge of 'stacking turtles' - it only makes it harder, because you've got to explain how it is that these differences come about and why they're so central.

I'm just using the outside view. If black people tend to think OJ is innocent and whites that he is guilty, there just might be an underlying cause for that.

At some level, it's acceptable to say that something happened which wasn't necessarily predetermined. Luther won over John of Saxony because John had been taught by one of Luther's friends, and Luther convinced him on a personal level. That might not have happened: nothing intrinsic in the grand forces of history said that it should be so. But it happened, and it's fine to say that.

That doesn't really prove anything. You could argue that Saxony would have ended up Protestant at a later date anyway.

 

[JohannaK]

I dont really understand the question very well. Germany itself has more Catholics than Protestants (and more irreligious people than followers of either branch). Protestantism triumphed where it did and it failed where it did for political reasons, and this essentialist narrative that you seem to be looking for I just dont think holds.

Not to mention African American distrust is probably due to the history of racism and police abuse than an inherent racial bias, which probably comes into playbut is massively.amplified by thr former.

 

[Mouthwash]

I dont really understand the question very well. Germany itself has more Catholics than Protestants (and more irreligious people than followers of either branch).

I'm really starting to lose my patience with you nitpickers. Yes, modern day Germany has more Catholics than Protestants, but why in the seven hells is that relevant?

Protestantism triumphed where it did and it failed where it did for political reasons, and this essentialist narrative that you seem to be looking for I just dont think holds.

Thanks for your opinion. You can even make arguments on here, although I wouldn't want you to feel any undue pressure.

Not to mention African American distrust is probably due to the history of racism and police abuse than an inherent racial bias, which probably comes into playbut is massively.amplified by thr former.

Funny, that sounds like... an underlying cause.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm just using the outside view. If black people tend to think OJ is innocent and whites that he is guilty, there just might be an underlying cause for that.

Yes. But it depends how far back you trace it. To give continue the analogy, Owen has just given you for the Reformation what Johanna gave you for OJ Simpson. You're essentially asking 'yes, but why do the police abuse black people?', then 'why does racism exist?', and so on and so on. It's quite legitimate to stop long before you're trying to find differences in the underlying characteristic of black and white people to explain a historical event. The same is true here. You don't need a fundamental distinction between what Germanic people and what Mediterranean people are like to come up with a good explanation, and it's difficult to find a distinction like that which actually holds any water.

 

[JohannaK]

The underlying cause is contingent though. If the US hadnt had the history of racial oppression and discrimination that it has had, I'd wager there would be no significant divergence. The point is that this is not dependent on being black or ehite, but on the communities' relation to each other, the police, and the judicial system, while you seem to imply that the underlying cause might be inherent to skin colour or to whatever Germanics and Mediterraneans is supposed to mean.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yes. But it depends how far back you trace it. To give continue the analogy, Owen has just given you for the Reformation what Johanna gave you for OJ Simpson. You're essentially asking 'yes, but why do the police abuse black people?', then 'why does racism exist?', and so on and so on. It's quite legitimate to stop long before you're trying to find differences in the underlying characteristic of black and white people to explain a historical event. The same is true here. You don't need a fundamental distinction between what Germanic people and what Mediterranean people are like to come up with a good explanation, and it's difficult to find a distinction like that which actually holds any water.

Maybe they just had contingently produced memeplexes (for lack of a better word) which spread along with their languages. I'm not saying that there is some deep metaphysical difference between Latins and Germans, just that they were overall distinct enough to fall into separate religious camps.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm just using the outside view. If black people tend to think OJ is innocent and whites that he is guilty, there just might be an underlying cause for that.

The underlying cause is racism. And the centuries of oppression blacks have suffered under because of it.

 

[Flying Pig]

Maybe they just had contingently produced memeplexes (for lack of a better word) which spread along with their languages. I'm not saying that there is some deep metaphysical difference between Latins and Germans, just that they were overall distinct enough to fall into separate religious camps.

Maybe. But I don't see how you could show that, and I also don't see how it's a better or more satisfying explanation than something like what Owen gave you. For one thing, it suggests that the spread of Protestantism in England was somehow more probable than its spread in France, and Owen has made a strong case that it wasn't - what made the difference was how long certain rulers happened to live. You'd need a very convincing argument for your idea, and then you'd need another one to show that it actually improves our understanding of the past.

 

[Hygro]

Is there a reason that the Protestant and Catholic divide sort of seems to correspond to the divide between Latin and Germanic-influenced cultures? And please don't rant about Scotland or Austria disproving my racism/determinism, I said 'sort of.'

An idea might spread across a shared linguistic group a bit more easily. Especially when there's shared customs and geography to consider. To not get too caught up in the idea, aka keeping the "sort of", we look to the specifics provided by Owen.

 

[timtofly]

Is there a reason that the Protestant and Catholic divide sort of seems to correspond to the divide between Latin and Germanic-influenced cultures? And please don't rant about Scotland or Austria disproving my racism/determinism, I said 'sort of.'

Racism comes from a deeper core than just two people groups being different in culture and ideology. There is a superiority component. The Latin Christians were successful in keeping the authority centralized to Rome, until huge groups of Christians broke away from that superiority minded authority. The Latin church was not just a missionary driven force. It was a political one, with alliances and marriages uniting the various kingdoms into one empire. The empire just broke away into the different regions, and were governed by stronger theologians who thought differently than the Latin group. The church was never reformed. Nor was the church ever successful in regaining it all back as one. Especially after loosing the political clout do to the reformation and the emerging nation states. The more diverse an area gets, the greater chance of it breaking down into smaller ideological groups. The Latin church was still involved in politics, but not the controlling superior authority. It just made sure that it had equal footing with regards to the congregations in each local area, as long as those congregations paid their dues to keep the religion going. But racism did hold sway to those who maintained a superiority authority that the church seemed to induce. It came out in several forms as certain nations attempted to take a larger share of the Empire from the other members.

 

[Flying Pig]

The church was never reformed

The Catholic church reformed a lot in response to the Reformation. There really was no option but to respond to at least the worst of Luther's criticisms, particularly the level of corruption and nepotism in the Church and the sale of indulgences.

 

[timtofly]

The Catholic church reformed a lot in response to the Reformation. There really was no option but to respond to at least the worst of Luther's criticisms, particularly the level of corruption and nepotism in the Church and the sale of indulgences.

I asked myself why I wrote that thought and left it there. I argued that redirected would be a better term. The church did not get better from my perspective just more entrenched in it's ability to protect itself.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm really starting to lose my patience with you nitpickers. Yes, modern day Germany has more Catholics than Protestants, but why in the seven hells is that relevant?

The number of Catholics and Protestants was more or less equal in the German-speaking world into the twentieth century. We only associated "Germany" with Protestantism because Prussia won the struggle for dominance in the German national movement, and Austria shifted towards stressing a multicultural Imperial identity. It's simply not the case that Germans, in the sense we would use up until really 1945, were predominantly Protestant, so the argument for cultural correspondence between German-ness (or even "Germanic-ness", giving that we're still talking about a quarter to a third of European "Germanics") and Protestantism doesn't hold water.

 

[Flying Pig]

I asked myself why I wrote that thought and left it there. I argued that redirected would be a better term. The church did not get better from my perspective just more entrenched in it's ability to protect itself.

Whether it got better is a subjective point, but it certainly got very different. I'm not sure whether we can pronounce on how 'good' a church is, unless we say that a church is supposed to be 'for' something, and I don't think it really is.

 

[timtofly]

Seeing as how I said "the church never reformed," I am correct. That is if you think leaving the church made life better for those who did. Otherwise we are not reading the same dictionary meaning for the word reformed. I would state, the church is reformed, if it dropped infant baptism, and the pope stopped being the final authority on church doctrine, for starters. As a religion what the Catholics do is really not my concern. As representing God on earth, that is an entirely different matter.

As for answering the question about racism, the church is not entirely blameless as long as there is a superiority authority mindset at play. IMO, that is what led to slavery and the need to have evolution as the mainstay of materialistic humanism.

 

[JohannaK]

If Catholic authority mindset is how slavery came to happen, why was there slavery before Christianity and why did Protestants keep engaging in it? I really dont bloody get where that manure comes from.