Part 10 (1/2)
The reign of Sigismund II [Sidenote: Sigismund II, 1548-1572] saw the social upheaval by which the n.o.bility finally placed the power firmly in their own hands, and also the height of the Reformation. By a law known as the ”Execution” the a.s.sembly of n.o.bles finally got control of the executive as well as of the legislative branch of the government.
At the same time they, with the cordial a.s.sistance of the king, bound the country together in a closer bond known as the Union of Lublin.
[Sidenote: 1569] Though Lithuania and Prussia struggled against incorporation with Poland, both were forced to submit to a measure that added power to the state and opened to the Polish n.o.bility great opportunity for political and economic exploitation of these lands.
Not only the king, but the magnates and the cities were put under the heel of the ruling caste. This was an evolution opposite to that of most European states, in which crown and bourgeoisie subdued the once proud position of the baronage. But even here in Poland one sees the rising influence of commerce and the money-power, in that the Polish n.o.bility was largely composed of small {142} gentry eager and able to exploit the new opportunities offered by capitalism. In other countries the old privilege of the sword gave way to the new privilege of gold; in Poland the sword itself turned golden, at least in part; the blade kept its keen, steel edge, but the hilt by which it was wielded glittered yellow.
[Sidenote: Protestantism]
Unchecked though they were by laws, the Protestants soon developed a weakness that finally proved fatal to their cause, lack of organization and division into many mutually hostile sects. [Sidenote: 1537] The Anabaptists of course arrived, preached, gained adherents, and were suppressed. [Sidenote: 1548] Next came a large influx of Bohemian Brethren, expelled from their own country and migrating to a land of freedom, where they soon made common cause with the Lutherans.
[Sidenote: 1558] Calvinists propagated the seeds of their faith with much success. Finally the Unitarians, led by Lelio Sozini, found a home in Poland and made many proselytes, at last becoming so powerful that they founded the new city of Racau, whence issued the famous Racovian Catechism. At one time they seemed about to obtain the mastery of the state, but the firm union of the Trinitarian Protestants at Sandomir [Sidenote: 1570] checked them until all of them were swept away together by the resurging tide of Catholicism. Several versions of the Bible, Lutheran, Socinian, and Catholic, were issued.
So powerful were the Evangelicals that at the Diet of 1555 they held services in the face of the Catholic king, and pa.s.sed a law abolis.h.i.+ng the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. This measure, of course, allowed freedom of all new sects, both those then in control of the Diet and the as yet unfledged Ant.i.trinitarians. Nevertheless a strong wish was expressed for a national, Protestant church, and had Sigismund had the advantages, as he had the matrimonial difficulties, of Henry VIII, he might have {143} established such a body. But he never quite dared to take the step, dreading the hostility of Catholic neighbors. Singularly enough the champions.h.i.+p of the Catholic cause was undertaken by Greek-Catholic Muscovy, [Sidenote: 1562] whose Czar, Ivan, represented his war against Poland as a crusade against the new iconoclasts. Unable to act with power, Sigismund cultivated such means of combating Protestantism as were ready to his hand. His most trenchant weapon was the Order of Jesuits, who were invited to come in and establish schools. Moreover, the excellence of their colleges in foreign lands induced many of the n.o.bility to send their sons to be educated under them, and thus were prepared the seeds of the Counter-Reformation.
The death of Sigismund without an heir left Poland for a time masterless. During the interregnum the Diet pa.s.sed the Compact of Warsaw by which absolute religious liberty was granted to all sects--”Dissidentes de Religione”--without exception. [Sidenote: January 28, 1573] But, liberal though the law was, it was vitiated in practice by the right retained by every master of punis.h.i.+ng his serfs for religious as well as for secular causes. Thus it was that the lower cla.s.ses were marched from Protestant pillar to Catholic post and back without again daring to rebel or to express any choice in the matter.
The election of Henry of Valois, [Sidenote: Henry, May 11, 1573] a younger son of Catharine de' Medici, was made conditional on the acceptance of a number of articles, including the maintenance of religious liberty. The prince acceded, with some reservations, and was crowned on February 21, 1574. Four months later he heard of the death of his brother, Charles IX, making him king of France. Without daring to ask leave of absence, he absconded from Poland on June 18, thereby abandoning a throne which was promptly declared vacant.
The new election presented great difficulties, and {144} almost led to civil war. While the Senate declared for the Hapsburg Maximilian II, the Diet chose Stephen Bathory, prince of Transylvania. [Sidenote: Stephen Bathory, 1576-86] Only the unexpected death of Maximilian prevented an armed collision between the two. Bathory, now in possession, forced his recognition by all parties and led the land of his adoption into a period of highly successful diplomacy and of victorious war against Muscovy. His religious policy was one of pacification, conciliation, and of supporting inconspicuously the Jesuit foundations at Wilna, Posen, Cracow, and Eiga. But the full fruits of their propaganda, resulting in the complete reconversion of Poland to Catholicism were not reaped until the reign of his successor, Sigismund III, a Vasa, of Sweden. [Sidenote: Sigismund III, 1586-1632]
[Sidenote: Bohemia]
Bohemia, a Slav kingdom long united historically and dynastically with the Empire, as the home of Huss, welcomed the Reformation warmly, the Brethren turning first to Luther and then to Calvin. After various efforts to suppress and banish them had failed of large success, the Compact of 1567 granted toleration to the three princ.i.p.al churches. As in Poland, the Jesuits won back the whole land in the next generation, so that in 1910 there were in Bohemia 6,500,000 Catholics and only 175,000 Protestants.
[Sidenote: Hungary, 1526]
Hungary was so badly broken by the Turks at the battle of Mohacs that she was able to play but little part in the development of Western civilization. Like her more powerful rival, she was also distracted by internal dissention. After the death of her King Lewis at Mohacs there were two candidates for the throne, Ferdinand the Emperor's brother and John Zapolya, [Sidenote: Zapolya, 1526-40] ”woiwod” or prince of Transylvania. Protestantism had a considerable hold on the n.o.bles, who, after the shattering of the national power, divided a portion of the goods of the church between them. {145} The Unitarian movement was also strong for a time, and the division this caused proved almost fatal to the Reformation, for the greater part of the kingdom was won back to Catholicism under the Jesuits' leaders.h.i.+p. [Sidenote: 1576-1612] In 1910 there were about 8,600,000 Catholics in Hungary and about 3,200,000 Protestants.
[Sidenote: Transylvania]
Transylvania, though a dependency of the Turks, was allowed to keep the Christian religion. The Saxon colonists in this state welcomed the Reformation, formally recognizing the Augsburg Confession in a synod of 1572. Here also the Unitarians attained their greatest strength, being recruited partly from those expelled from Poland. They drew their inspiration not merely from Sozini, but from a variety of sources, for the doctrine appeared simultaneously among certain Anabaptist and Spiritualist sects. Toleration was granted them on the same terms as other Christians. The name ”Unitarian” first appears in a decree of the Transylvania Diet of the year 1600. An appreciable body of this persuasion still remains in the country, together with a number of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Romanists, but the large majority of the people belong to two Greek Catholic churches.
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CHAPTER III
SWITZERLAND
SECTION 1. ZWINGLI
[Sidenote: The Swiss Confederation]
Amid the snow-clad Alps and azure lakes of Switzerland there grew up a race of Germans which, though still nominally a part of the Empire, had, at the period now considered, long gone on its own distinct path of development. Politically, the Confederacy arose in a popular revolt against the House of Austria. The federal union of the three forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, first entered into in 1291 and made permanent in 1315, was strengthened by the admission of Lucerne (1332), Zug (1352), Glarus (1351) and of the Imperial Cities of Zurich (1351) and Berne (1353). By the admission of Freiburg and Solothurn (1481), Basle (1501), Schaffhausen (1501) and Appenzell (1513) the Confederacy reached the number of thirteen cantons at which it remained for many years. By this time it was recognized as a practically independent state, courted by the great powers of Europe. Allied to this German Confederacy were two Romance-speaking states of a similar nature, the Confederacies of the Valais and of the Grisons.
The Swiss were then the one free people of Europe. Republican government by popular magistrates prevailed in all the cantons.
Liberty was not quite democratic, for the cantons ruled several subject provinces, and in the cities a somewhat aristocratic electorate held power; nevertheless there was no state in Europe approaching the Swiss in self-government. Though they were generally accounted the best soldiers of the {147} day, their military valor did not redound to their own advantage, for the hardy peasantry yielded to the solicitations of the great powers around them to enter into foreign, mercenary service. The influential men, especially the priests, took pensions from the pope or from France or from other princes, in return for their labors in recruiting. The system was a bad one for both sides. Swiss politics were corrupted and the land drained of its strongest men; whereas the princes who hired the mercenaries often found to their cost that such soldiers were not only the most formidable to their enemies but also the most troublesome to themselves, always on the point of mutiny for more pay and plunder.
The Swiss were beginning to see the evils of the system, and prohibited the taking of pensions in 1503, though this law remained largely a dead letter. [Sidenote: September 13-14, 1515] The reputation of the mountaineers suffered a blow in their defeat by the French at Marignano, followed by a treaty with France, intended by that power to make Switzerland a permanent dependency in return for a large annual subsidy payable to each of the thirteen cantons and to the Grisons and Valais as well. The country suffered from faction. The rural or ”Forest” cantons were jealous of the cities, and the latter, especially Berne, the strongest, pursued selfish policies of individual aggrandizement at the expense of their confederates.
As everywhere else, the cities were the centers of culture and of social movements. Basle was famous for its university and for the great printing house of Froben. Here Albert Durer had stayed for a while during his wandering years. Here Sebastian Brant had studied and had written his famous satire. Here the great Erasmus had come to publish his New Testament.
But the Reformation in Switzerland was only in [Sidenote: 1521-9] {148} part a child of humanism. Nationalism played its role in the revolt from Rome, memories of councils lingered at Constance and Basle, and the desire for a purer religion made itself felt among the more earnest. Switzerland had at least one great shrine, that of Einsiedeln; to her Virgin many pilgrims came yearly in hopes of the plenary indulgence, expressly promising forgiveness of both guilt and penalty of sin. Berne was the theater of one of the most reverberating scandals enacted by the contemporary church. [Sidenote: The Jetzer scandal] A pa.s.sionately contested theological issue of the day was whether the Virgin had been immaculately conceived. This was denied by the Dominicans and a.s.serted by the Franciscans. Some of the Dominicans of the friary at Berne thought that the best way to settle the affair was to have a direct revelation. For their fraudulent purposes they conspired with John Jetzer, a lay brother admitted in 1506, who died after 1520. Whether as a tool in the hands of others, or as an imposter, Jetzer produced a series of bogus apparitions, bringing the Virgin on the stage and making her give details of her conception sufficiently gross to show that it took place in the ordinary, and not in the immaculate, manner. [Sidenote: 1509] When the fraud was at last discovered by the authorities, four of the Dominicans involved were burnt at the stake.
But the vague forces of discontent might never have crystallized into a definite movement save for the leaders.h.i.+p of Ulrich Zwingli.