?Rather Than Establishing Unity And Harmony, Religious Developments Have Caused Division And Conflic Essay, Research Paper
??????????????? In order to answer this
question successfully, one must first understand what is meant by
"religious developments" and also to define and concentrate on the
"chosen period of study". In the context of the question, one must
understand religious developments to be the progressive changes made in the
area of theology by prolific thinkers, biblical humanists and also the period’s
most powerful rulers. This could mean whole new movements, such as Calvinism,
or the slight change in religious policy, such as the different approaches to
the matter of convivencia and the Conversos and Moriscos. The period that I shall concentrate upon in this analysis
will be the whole of the sixteenth century, including the important events that
took place in the time leading up to, and away from, this area of history. ??????????????? Religion,
to the people of the sixteenth century, was a very important issue which
governed their lives. The parish priest had more direct effect on an ordinary
person?s life than any government official. The church would have been the most
substantial building in the village, apart from perhaps the manor house, and so
would have been an imposing presence to all who lived near it. At the top of
the church there lay the splendour and power of the church in Rome. In the
renaissance, many people, biblical humanists, philosophers and monks, began to
think about the state of the church and whether it should be changed. This led
to a great surge of activity which spawned many changes in the religious
activities of the 16th Century. The first real religious developments
that were introduced in this period, were perpetrated by Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain. For 250 Spain had been the host to three different religions;
Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. These three religions had coexisted since long
before the Catholic Kings came to the throne, in a condition known as convivencia. ?Christianity was the dominant faith but the other two minority
religions had managed to integrate themselves successfully into the fabric of
Spanish society, especially in Aragon. However, the twilight years of the 15th
Century, during Ferdinand and Isabella’s reign saw this situation change
drastically, along with the fluctuating social and economic conditions. ??????????????? The
Jewish religion had always been a minority, and so, like most minorities, it
was likely to be attacked at times of unrest. However, the Jews had been
relatively untouched in Spain, with only a few anti-Semitic riots breaking out
periodically. Indeed, Isabella herself had proclaimed in 1477, "All Jews
in my realms are mine and under my care and protection". However, things
were to change. The growth of the false Conversos
Jews (Jews who had embraced the Catholic faith in order to be eligible for
full civil liberties and equal opportunities) was a worry to Catholics. This
anxiety came to a head with Alonso de Hojeda’s report of the widespread problem
of false converts, said to be rife throughout Castile, which lead to the
introduction of the Castilian Inquisition in 1480. The anti Conversos feeling and unstable political
climate of the 1470s also encouraged anti-Semitic demonstrations in Toledo,
Cordoba, Seville and Avila. All this activity unfortunately marked the
beginning the persecution of the Conversos.
?The Inquisition, under the command
of Dominican Friars set about its work with zeal, and in time, most Spaniards
came to support its work, especially as an inquisitor was murdered by angry Conversos in 1485. ??????????????? Many
oppressive policies were approved throughout the 1480, such as forcing all Jews
to wear distinctive yellow badges and to live in ghettos called aljamas, banning Jewish families from
buying food during working hours, subjecting Jews to heavy taxation and even
some towns evicting Jewish families. The Inquisition compounded the hardship by
holding trials for suspected false Conversos
and having them imprisoned, or even killed. The killing of the Conversos was most prolific in the 1480s
with thirty people burnt in a single day in Ciudad Real in 1484, 700 burnt and
7,000 punished in Seville alone in 1488. All this vicious activity was taking
time and attention, time and attention that the monarchs could not afford to
devote with the Granadan crusade going on. So a decree was issued in 1492 that
all Jews had until 31 July to convert to Christianity or emigrate.? This was a severe step, one which, in the
words of an Aragonese Inquisitor, was "a mistake". It divided
families, caused a lot of pain and also removed many "industrious and
hardworking" people which would have brought the country money. The decision
also compounded the problem of false converts, as only 3% of the Jewish
population left the country, meaning that not all of the ones who remained
could be sincere about their new religion. This left the same problem for later
monarchs to deal with. The situation worsened after the decree, with the use of
torture, arrests without trial and the numerous executions by the inquisition
becoming more acceptable. Indeed, Charles V first Cortes of 1518 declared
"Many innocent and guiltless have suffered death, harm, oppression, injury
and infamy". The Jews were the victims of a bloody and divisive conflict
caused by religious developments prompted by the religious fervour of the
Catholic Kings. The Jews were not the only minority group to fall foul of
the religious developments of the Ferdinand and Isabella. The Spanish Muslims
were to become the victims of persecution too. The genesis of the persecution
of these people can be identified as the Granada crusade, instigated by
Isabella once she had secured her place on the throne. Castilian and Aragonese
armies invaded Granada in 1482, starting off a ten year campaign which claimed
many lives, created great economic strain and prompted pressure on the Spanish
people, what with increased taxes.? The
crusade came to a glorious climax for the Catholic Kings with the fall of the
city of Granada in 1492. In the course of the conflict, 100,000 Muslims had
died, or been enslaved, and of the remaining 400,000, half chose to immigrate
to north Africa. The following decade was in general, a period of recovery and
compliance with the traditional spirit of convivencia.
Talavera, the new archbishop of Granada, persuaded Isabella that it would be
best to keep the inquisition out of the province. Instead, the Muslims were
introduced gradually to Christian practices and beliefs. However, this peaceful
existence did not last for long, as there was a growing fear of the Mudejar ?Moors, as they were in constant contact with the Northern African
Moors. Certainly, for Cisneros, the Moors were to great a problem to be treated
so gently. In 1499, he began to enforce conversions on the Mudejar and persuaded Isabella to introduce the Inquisistion. It
was only a matter of time before the pressure was moved up a notch and the
moors were well and truly persecuted. Indeed, in 1500, he persuaded Isabella to
force all Mudejars to convert and
become slaves because they would be ?better Christians?. So, between 1500 and
1501 many of these Moors were forced to convert or emigrate from Granada, and
later, in 1502, Isabella extended the policy to cover the rest of the Moors
throughout her kingdom.? The vast
majority chose to convert and become Moriscos,
and thus convivencia came to an end
and the Inquisition had a new quarry to persecute. The situation for the Moors
had become no better than it was for their fellow minority, the Jews. In
Aragon, the king made them live in aljamas,
avoid sexual relations with Christians and wear distinctive blue clothing.
However, none of these measures succeeded in solving the Muslim question, and
the problem remained into Charles’ reign, when he expelled them all from his
eastern kingdoms in 1526. ??????????????? The
religious policies of Ferdinand and Isabella, were inconsistent and undid years
on convivencia, leaving the people
instead with religious and social intolerance, and an unpopular inquisition.
During their reign, they started to remove two whole peoples, peoples who, by
their own admission, had much to offer the country. The Moors of Aragon were
superb landsmen and had for years played and important part in the Spain’s
economy, and had even remained loyal throughout the Granada war. The religious
developments, did indeed, cause much division and conflict. ??????????????? Towards
the end of Ferdinand?s reign, there was maturing in Germany one of the most
famous religious figures of the 16th Century; Martin Luther. This
was a man who would start the first religious movement to successfully defeat
and break away from the Catholic Church. There would, however, be a lot of
conflict and controversy along the way. By 1520, Luther had clarified many of
his early ideas, such as sola scriptura,
sola fide, two sacraments,
consubstantiation, utraquism, combined church, priest of all believers and
spoke out against indulgences. All of
these ideas were considered very controversual and made Luther very unpopular
with the Catholic church he was trying to reform. They prompted heated debate
amongst the biblical humanists, such as Eck and Erasmus. These ideas offended
the church so, due to their radical nature and also because of the threat they
presented on the hold Rome had over the German people and their means of
income. If Indulgences were to be ceased then it would remove a lucrative
income for the church. If the princes did take up Lutheranism, as he was
pleading with them to, then they would cease to receive taxes from that
princedom. These ideas also seemed to the church to encourage sin. If, as
Luther was preaching, one could get to heaven by simply believing, without
confessing, or buying an indulgence, then it would allow people behave as they
wished with no fear of punishment (it was precisely this argument which
prompted some people to convert to Lutheranism). The Pope was even prompted to
call him a heretic and issued a Bull
Exsurge Domine in July 1520 that gave him 60 days to recant on 41 points or
face excommunication. Luther did not recant and was eventually excommunicated
in 1521. ??????????????? His
excommunication did not stop Lutheranism from spreading around the north of
Germany. While his ideas repelled some good Catholics due to their heretical
nature, they also appealed to other sectors of society for other reasons. The
four main classes Luther appealed to were; Peasants, Towns, Knights and
Princes. In each of these areas of society there were people who took up
Lutheranism, either because they genuinely believed in the theology, or because
they believed there was something in it for them to gain. All four of them
manifested their belief in Luther with violence. ??????????????? The
Knights were an old class which was in decline, lesser noblemen living in
castles on small estates. They were suffering from a deteriorating standard of
living and resented the Princes’ power and influence. There were amongst them,
a number of educated people, biblical humanists who understood and supported
Luther’s ideas. However, they also saw his theology as a way of increasing
their power and as a way of attacking the Princes. The Knights had two
particularly outspoken men who were prepared to lead a movement against the
church. They were Von Hutten and Sickingen. They led an attack by the Knights
on the Bishops and Archbishops in Germany in 1522, as they believed them to
epitomise corruption in the church. It was a bloody revolt in which several
Bishops died, including the Bishop of Trier. It was put down by the forcibly
princes and in response Luther produced a pamphlet on "Secular authority
and to what extent it should be obeyed". This went some way in restoring
the Princes’ view of Luther, but also caused the Knights to decline even faster
and to lose their faith in Luther as a religious leader. ??????????????? The
Peasants were also responsible for a revolt, this time in 1524-25. They,
however, did not even understand Luther’s ideas correctly. They had got hold of
his ideas by the means of woodcuts, specifically made "for the sake of the
simple folk". However, due to the imprecise and ambiguous nature of these
woodcuts, the ideas were not clearly enough conveyed, and instead of seeing
Luther as a positive teacher of new religious ideas, they saw him as a kind of
"holy man" and the Catholic Church as the bringer of evils; the force
which had kept them suppressed for so long. This situation was not helped by
the "peasant messiah" myth that was present in Medieval Germany. The
peasants saw Luther as the great peasant leader who would lead them out of
hardship and into greatness. One man in particular did a lot to spread this
peasant movement. His name was Muntzer. He, or some of his associates published
the Twelve Articles of Memmingham, a document which listed twelve peasant grievances,
and which clearly held references to Lutheran ideas. In an attempt to calm
things down, Luther published his "Friendly Criticism of the Twelve
Articles" in 1525, but he could not control the disturbances which had
been set in motion by mounting peasant grievances. All this disturbing activity
finally erupted into a bloody revolt in 1524, with peasants all over Germany
involved in killing and pillaging priests and churches. In response, Luther
published his paper "Against the Thieving, murdering Hordes of
Peasants" in 1525, in which he encouraged the Princes to destroy the
peasants and to show no mercy until they had submitted. The Princes obliged.
They came down very hard on the marauding peasants, killing hundreds. In
publishing this paper, Luther was showing himself to be not all the peasants
thought him to be; thus he lost the support and trust of a whole generation of
working Germans. ??????????????? Lutheranism
also had a role to play in the lives of the townsfolk. Indeed, it was possibly
the towns people who were the most responsive to his ideas. This was due to the
fact that the towns held the most concentrated amounts of learned people,
people who could go to the universities and exchange views and ideas with
others of the same mental calibre. In the towns too, it was easiest to make the
public aware of Luther’s ideas, by the use of pamphlets and woodcuts which
could be sold or given out in the public areas of the towns, and by evangelism
too. The network of traders that made their way from town to town also aided
the spread of Luther. In this way, the people of the towns in Northern Germany
began to take up Lutheran ideas. However, there were certain ways in which they
could personally benefit from converting. They believed (wrongly) that Luther
encouraged the practice of usury, the Protestant work ethic allowed them to
earn money more days of the week, in cutting themselves off from Rome, they
were removing the need to pay so many taxes. Indeed, the fact that the support
in towns was popular (in Ulm, 1530, when citizens were asked to vote on whether
to maintain the reformation or return to Catholicism, 87% of the voters were in
favour of reform) shows that religious consciences were not the only factor in
town’s conversion. In fact, such was the eagerness for some towns to convert,
that acts were committed which caused division and conflict. One example of
such activity occurred when Luther was still incarcerated at Wartburg in 1522.
A group of people in Wittenburg, led by Karlstadt, Muntzer and the Zwichau Prophets
committed iconoclasm, smashing statues and icons in the churches, and generally
being very disruptive and violent. So worried and disturbed was Luther this,
that he came out of hiding and made his way there in disguise in order to
deliver a series of eight sermons intended to calm things down.?? ??????????????? One of
the central requirements for the success of Lutheranism was the co-operation of
the Princes. Luther wanted a combined state and church and in order for this to
be done, the support of the Princes was needed. To begin with, there were not
many princes who were willing to completely break from tradition and risk
conflict, either because they did not believe in Luther?s ideas and thought him
a heretic, or because they feared retribution from Rome and the Holy Roman
Emperor. There were, however three man exceptions to this, Philip of Hesse,
Frederick?s successor, John of Saxony and Duke Albrecht of Prussia. Eventually,
over half of Germany was to be ruled by Lutheran princes, but it was nearly 30
years before that came about. There are many reasons why a Prince may have
wanted to convert, but one can never be always sure which of them it was that
prompted them to reject tradition and the Catholic faith. If a prince converted
then he would stand to gain a lot financially. He would get all the taxes meant
for the church and also the numerous church lands in his princedom. Thus he
would expand his sovereign powers and gain almost absolute authority, not
having to share power with bishops and the Pope. However, numerous princes converted, but still more remained
Catholic. There was fear that these new breed of Princes would cause trouble,
and so the League of Dessau was set up in 1525. This made the Lutheran princes
anxious, and so when false details of an attack on them were leaked in 1528,
Philip of Hesse and John of Saxony instigated a pre-emptive strike. Catholics
were outraged. Their fears that Lutheranism could only lead to conflict seemed
to have been confirmed. So the anti Lutheran movement was stepped up. In
response, the Lutheran princes, against Luther?s wishes, set up the
Schmalkaldic League in 1531. For the next twenty or so years, there were
conflicts, leading up to the ?Schmalkaldic Wars? and eventually the Peace at
Augsberg in 1555. We can see, therefor, that Lutheranism, as a religious
development caused a lot of conflict and division. Luther, however, was by no means the sole reformatory force
in the early half of the 16th Century. Just over the border from
Germany, in Switzerland there was a man hard at work developing his own views
on the state of the church and how he believed it should be run. His name was
Zwingli. A few months after Luther had made his stand against indulgences in
1518, Zwingli became a preacher at the Great Minister in Zurich. It was there
that he made public his increasingly radical ideas, finally making his official
break with Rome in 1523. This marked the beginning of a highly turbulent period
in Swiss history. Zwingli claimed that he had developed his ideas independently
of Luther. They were, however, remarkably similar, with Zwingli promoting sola scriptura , abolition of Mass and
so on. They did, however, differ on one very important area: consubstantiation. Whereas Luther
believed that the bread and wine took on the essence of Christ’s flesh and
blood, Zwingli believed that it was a mere representation of the Last Supper.
This was sacrementarianism.? It was this point which caused the meeting
at Marburg in 1529 to be a failure. Thus, we can see that even the Protestants
themselves were divided. Zwingli also differed from Luther in that he believed in the
use of force to spread the faith. Unlike his German counterpart, he actively
preached to his followers that violence was a viable means of converting the
public. In fact, he established a Schmalkaldic League style council of seven
reformed Swiss cities as early as 1527, called the Christian Civic Union. This
league would defend the faith, by force if necessary. In answer to the
formation of such a league, and the demands Zwingli later made on Zurich to
push reform in the rest of the cantons, the remaining five Catholic cantons
left in central Switzerland formed their own league, the Christian Aliance, in
1529. With two opposing factions now equipped with a defensive force, a clash
seemed unavoidable. The arrival of war seemed imminent in 1529, after the
controversy over the right of Unterwalden, one of the Catholic cantons, to
appoint the new Governor of the Freie Aemter. This was a position which was of
strategic importance to both of the increasingly hostile disciplines. Zwingli
was determined not to allow the Catholics control of the area, and so he
threatened to leave Zurich, unless they declared war on the Catholic cantons.
However, war was averted by Berne’s doubt that faith could be brought "by
means of spears and halberds" and wish not to disrupt the Swiss
Confederation with civil war. Thus a compromise was brought. It did, however,
frustrate Zwingli’s wish to unite Switzerland in Protestantism by war. The
forced peace could not last long. Zwingli continued to work towards the
political downfall of the Catholic cantons, and was gratified by the economic
blockade that the Protestants set up on 1530. It did, however, prompt the five
Catholic cantons to declare war on Zurich. The first battle of this new
Protestant war, at Kappel in October 1531, was a disaster, resulting in the
massacre of Zurich’s forces, and the death of Zwingli. It was not only Zwingli himself that caused problems, but
those inspired by his beliefs as well. One principal group comes to the fore;
the Anabaptists. These were people who were originally Zwinglians, but took his
belief, that the Bible was the sole authority, to what they saw to be its
logical conclusion. This meant that, on failing to find any clear reference to
infant baptism, they insisted that the practice should be abandoned and
replaced with baptism in adulthood. This was seen as extremely heretical, as it
meant that every individual could choose for himself whether or not to join the
church. This might lead to competing religious sects, which would then lead to
a divided community. The Anabaptists also wanted to separate themselves from
the Roman church by ceasing to pay tithes and electing their own ministers.
This meant that, as well as being a threat to the established church, the
Anabaptists were a political threat as well. This was more than the church was
prepared to stand for. Zwingli’s followers saved the Catholics the trouble of
suppressing this new group, as they saw the Anabaptists to be as much of a
threat to their status quo as their traditional counterparts did. Thus in 1526,
the Council of Zurich decreed that anyone discovered to be an Anabaptist would
be met with the death penalty. The following year, the leading dissident, Felix
Mantz, was drowned by a mob. This prompted the Anabaptists to flee to the Alps,
along the Rhine and to other parts of Europe. They lost any coherence they had
before, and also due to their dispersal lost the base of support they had in
the rural communities of Switzerland. This was, however, not the end of the Anabaptists. Due to
the movement’s now fragmentary setup, its characteristics varied enormously. A
man by the name of Melchior Hoffman was an example of one of the more militant
sides to the discipline. He travelled around the Rhineland, predicting a
violent apocalypse, set to take place in 1533. He believed that he was the
second Elijah sent to prepare the world for the day of judgement. He built up
some considerable support, before he was imprisoned in 1533. His followers,
however, remained active without their spiritual leader, preparing for the day
of reckoning. They poured into Munster, whose mayor, Bernt Knipperdolig had
earlier met Hoffman and approved of the radicals. They were led this time by
Jan? Buekels and Jan Mattys, who
forceably re-baptised the whole poulation and abolished private property. It
was not long before the city was under siege by the Bishop of Munster. Under
siege, the hysteria reached epic proportions. Mattys believed believed God had
empowered him with invulnerability to go and face the Bishop in battle. He was
killed by the Bishop’s troops. That left Beukels as the dictator of Munster. He
declared himself King Jan, legalised polygamy, married sixteen wives, beheaded
one for impertinence and made sins punishable by death. The Bishop, however,
now aided by Philip of Hesse, found weak spots in the walls, and took the city
by force in 1535. Jan and Knipperdollig were both killed and their corpses hung
up on display. The Anabaptists would now forever be associated with division,
bloodshed and conflict. The persecution was now stepped up, and 2000-3000 lost
their lives in the Netherlands alone in the next fourteen years. We can again
see that this religious development caused an incredible amount of conflict,
trouble and division. ??????????????? Yet
there was still another major figure in the Protestant reformist movement to
come. He would head one of the most successful religious movements of the 16th
Century and breathe new life into the subsiding initial impetus of
protestantism provided by Luther. Like Luther, Calvin was learned man in
theology, having studied to enter the clergy at a university in his homeland of
France. He also suffered a period of doubt and decided to solve the problem of
spiritual uncertainty by forming his own theological ideas. He would eventually
set up his own kind of "theocrasy"
in Geneva, but only after several years of refining his views and trying to
convince the public to convert to his view of religion. Indeed, on his first
foray into Geneva, he was spurned, and the town decided to follow Zwingli’s
ideas instead. They found Calvin too obstinate and his ideas too demanding on
their lives. After excommunicating the whole town, Calvin went to Strasbourg in
1538 to revise his "Institutes of Christian Religion". There he
remained, teaching and writing, until 1541, when he was invited back to Geneva
by a penitent council. There he remained until his death in 1564. We can see
here, yet another example of division and conflict, even amongst fellow
Protestants. ??????????????? Calvinism
caused a lot of conflict abroad, indeed it became known as "the religion
of revolt". The countries in which it had the most impact (excluding
Geneva) were France, Scotland the Netherlands. In each case, there were genuine
religious followers, but there were also "politiques",
people who converted to Calvinism for mere political reasons. Thus, we cannot
entirely blame Calvinism for all the conflict and controversy surrounding it. There were people who saw Calvinism as
a way of either distancing themselves from the authority of the Government and
the papacy or as a good pretext for forming some kind of resistance to unwanted
authority. Having said that, we must acknowledge that Calvinism was an extreme
religion and actively encouraged the use of violence to protect the movement
(Philippe du Plessis-Mornay’s Vindiciae
contra Tyrannos) and thus cannot be exempt from blame for its consequences.
Without Calvinism, there would have been no pretext for the events in the
Netherlands, France and Scotland, though one could argue that they would have
happened anyway, due to the political and social climate of the time. ??????????????? With
all the concentration on Protestant religious reformers, it is important not to
forget that the Catholic Church itself instigated a period of reform, commonly
referred to as the "Counter Reformation". This is a misleading term,
however, as it implies that the catholic reformist movement was a direct
reaction to Protestant reformers like Luther. This was not the case, as reform
was put into effect before Luther emerged, albeit not in such great scale as
later on in the 16th Century. An example of this would be the
religious changes made by Ferdinand and Isabella, as discussed above. However,
despite this, there are often seen to be three main champions of the Catholic
Reformation; Philip II, the Papacy and the Council of Trent. The reforms put
into effect by these groups also caused a lot of conflict and division. For
example, the reforms put into action by Paul III and his successors led to the
establishment of the Inquisition of Rome in 1542, the formation of the Jesuit
order in 1540 and the opening of the council of Trent, the sentencing to the
galleys over a hundred friars if ill repute and the opening of the first Roman
Index of 1559. All of these things caused the Roman Church to be placed under a
lot of strain, as it caused some amount of division within the papacy, as many
of the religious men of the time would fall foul of such measures. The city of
Rome too could not escape the vigour for cleansing. The city was purged of many
of its sorcerors, homosexuals and prostitutes too. This was accompanied with
the extensive re-education of the local priests in an attempt to stamp out
superstition amongst the common man. ??????????????? However,
there was only so much that the Papacy could accomplish from Rome, and a lot of
the reform depended on local rulers and monarchs to instigate their own
changes. A good example of this is the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria. Duke Albrecht
started religious visitations as early as 1558, five years before the
conclusion of the Council of Trent and in 1570, established the College of
Ecclesiastical Councillors to enforce the decrees. The best example, however,
of a monarch putting into action his own reforms, is Philip II. He was renown
for his extreme piety and Catholic Sentiments and also for his desire not to be
"the ruler of heretics". In fact, heresy was not that serious a
problem in Spain during Philip’s reign, and he instead devoted his attention to
mystics, humanists, Protestants, deviant Catholics and lapsed Moriscos and Conversos. The Inquisition was put hard at work, investigating
40,000 cases and burning 250 of them.?
They victimised people guilty of blasphemy, sacrilage and sex outside
marriage. All of this obviously caused conflict, on a social scale, but none of
it caused any real political trouble. It was only the Moriscos revolt of 1568-70 that caused dramatic conflict and
division. It was very bloody, with thousands killed and was an embarrassment to
Philip as it took him too long to put it down (all of his money and troops were
in the Netherlands). It resulted in the inevitable completion of the work that
the Catholic Kings had started seventy or so years before, when Philip completely
expelled the Moriscos from Granada.
Thus we can see the legacy of the movement started at the beginning of the
century concluded towards the end of the century. So we can see here that even
the Catholic reformist movement came with its share of tension, conflict and
division. ??????????????? In
conclusion, it must be said that I agree, to a certain extent, with the idea
that religious developments in the 15th Century caused division and
conflict. It has been proven here that religious developments did cause a lot
of violence, trouble, division and mistrust amongst the people of the 16th
Century. Many died, or were expelled from their homes for their chosen movement
and this had severe political and social consequences, the removal of the Moriscos for example. However, this is
not to say that these religious developments didn’t establish unity and
harmony, because many of them did. Religious movements such as Lutheranism,
Zwingliism and Calvinism, despite some false converts, brought together many
like minded people who could feel at ease with one another and were united in
their common belief. Calvinism is an extreme example, with its solid structure
and religious base at Geneva adding to the stability and harmony of the
Calvinists. Without Luther, the Lutheran Princes of Germany would never have
come together to work for a common goal. The people of Germany were united by
Luther, in a German Nationalist feeling against the Catholic Church. Nothing
else in that century brought together the people as Luther did. ??????????????? Also
all the division and conflict cited above, could not have been solely brought
on by religious developments. It was an age of change anyway, and change cannot
be brought about without destroying the old. It was time for change and so time
for the necessary conflict. Change was happening too fast, socially and
politically, due to the age of Enlightenment, for conflict not to occur. There
are hundreds of examples of conflict and division which was not caused by
religion, for example the Netherlands revolt, the wars in Italy and Henry
VIII’s numerous attacks on France; he simply enjoyed war. However, despite all
this, I am inclined to conclude that religious developments caused more
division and conflict than unity and harmony.