Political and social factors
Nationhood
Like a giant stirring from a deep slumber, Europe slowly began to awake from the Black Death. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, France, Spain and Britain were developing as the leading independent nations in Europe - their peoples having developed common languages, customs and cultures. There was also a move to establishing rule throughout swathes of contiguous land under centralised structures of monarchy and government. Columbus had discovered the Americas and there was a hunger for new national identity and prestige as Europe stood on the brink of imperialist expansion.
The Holy Roman Empire
Rising from the legacy of Charlemagne's Europe, Otto 1 was crowned Roman Emperor by the Pope in 919. Thus the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation came into being and Otto was widely regarded as having come into the succession of Roman Emperors. In effect, the fact that the empire was both "Holy" and "German" meant that the political leadership of Western Christendom would remain in Saxon hands. By the middle of the fourteenth century, it had become essentially a German institution which was further weakened as German princes began to become ever entrenched in their rights. Its demise had left a vacuum at the heart of Europe.
Renaissance
Another movement that signalled the awakening of Europe was the Renaissance that saw a rediscovery of the classics. Culture began to develop and society became hungry for new experiences and challenges. All of this gave rise to an air of expectation and an increasing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The Church could not hope to escape the fast approaching tide of change.
The Reformation in Europe.
The medieval church
Although some had managed to maintain the missionary dimension of the Church, Plummer writes:
"religion as taught by those in authority and as accepted by those who had any religion at all, had become mainly external, such as the performing of certain acts, being present at services, going on pilgrimages, performing of penances, veneration of relics, and the like; and every one of these, however helpful, or at least innocent, in their origin, had become in practice little better than paganism revived. Services appealed simply to the eye and ear, even when they were decently performed; and they were often grossly irreverent. Pilgrimages were picnics, accompanied by drunkenness and lewdness. Penances were often senseless in character, and could be compounded for by payment. Relics were sometimes of the most ludicrous and impossible kind; straw from the manger at Bethlehem and feathers from archangels' wings."
Rosman in quoting Duffy cautions that there are grounds for holding a contrary view in tension and that a great many ordinary people, in England at least, were very devout in their religious observation.
There is however much to support the view that corruption was widespread among clergy. The laws of the Pope interfered with matters of Church and State. Landowners, princes and bishops opted in and out of church law appealing to the Pope as a supreme dispensing agent as it suited them. As Chadwick observes:
"What one honest man believed to be an abuse, another honest man defended."
Although many longed for reform, what is clear as Chadwick goes on is that :
"....they were almost always thinking of administrative, legal, or moral reformation; hardly ever of doctrinal reformation."
This was happening against the background of the Great Schism which began soon after the death of Gregory XI in 1378. Western Europe became divided into nations (rulers) that supported the Roman Pope and those supporting the rival Avignon Pope. This further entwined nationalism and religion.
Within the Conciliar Movement a succession of Councils (Pisa 1409, Constance 1414-18 and Basel 1431.) met in an unsuccessful attempt to restore a single Pope and rescue the credibility of the church as a catholic institution. At one stage there were even three Popes. It wasn't until 1417 that the unifying Pope Martin V was elected and accepted by the Council of Constance. The Papacy entered what was to become a long period of further moral decline.
Thus important seeds had been sown to question the supremacy of papal authority. This was theme to be re-echoed in the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
Wyclif and Hus
In the second half of the fourteenth century the teachings of John Wyclif found ready support. As a master of scholastic philosophy and theology at Oxford he became heavily influenced by Augustine. Towards the end of his life, his writings and speeches grew in their challenge of Papal authority. By publishing treatises on divine and civil dominion he established the idea that all ownership is God's and that we are only stewards and that if the privilege of stewardship is abused, then it should be forfeited. Latourette writes:
"In an England which was smarting from exactions by the revenue-hungry Avignon Papacy, these assertions were welcomed by many."
He also developed the Augustinian concept of the real Church being invisible and predestined by God and therefore not subject to the rule of a visible earthly Church. Wyclif also commissioned itinerant preachers to proclaim a simple Gospel and use vernacular scriptures. Wyclif and his preachers attracted a large number of followers who were known as Lollards who suffered much persecution and ridicule.
The movement had gathered such weight that in 1401 Parliament passed an Act against heresy which was strengthened with further anti-Lollard measures in 1406.
Meanwhile in Bohemia the second half of the fourteenth century witnessed a rising tide of reform influenced by the writings of Wyclif. Strengthened by academic links between Prague and Oxford and by royal marriages, there was much that was similar in the two reform movements.
John Hus became the leader of the Bohemian reformers and like Wyclif aroused much opposition and persecution against his followers. After being charged with heresy at the Council of Constance, Hus was eventually burnt at the stake in July 1415 in Konstanz.
Throughout Europe other, less well organised, reform groups began to agitate and press for change. The seed-bed was being prepared for wide-scale reform.
Erasmus and Christian Humanism
Another part of the mosaic that contributed to the Reformation was the flourishing of lay piety and Christian Humanism at the end of the fifteenth century. Both of these movements came together in the teaching and philosophy of Erasmus.
Here, the desire for reform was not primarily concerned with organisation or structures, but primarily with doctrine and also with spirituality. Erasmus' work was highly critical in nature and made a strong appeal to the original texts of scripture and the teachings of Christ. He believed that reform could only be achieved by applying the tools of scholarship to Scripture. The inevitable consequence of this would be to infuse new life into Christendom.
It has been said that "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched". The main difference being that Luther laid his emphasis on Paul's teaching.
Henry VIII's need of a male heir
Henry VIII's succession of wives was not merely a result of his philandering but an indication of how strongly he was driven to sire a healthy male heir to the Tudor throne. He was well aware of the failure of England's only queen in the last 500 years and he wanted to ensure that his and his fathers' strong rule was continued, particularly given the awakening of the nations of western Europe. His ambitions seemingly driven as much by a desire for the best for England as by any egotism.
Mary (b1516) was the third and only surviving child of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Elizabeth (b1533) was next to be born, the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Edward (b1537) was a weak and frail child and his mother, Jane Seymour died in childbirth. That Edward survived until he was sixteen was in itself surprising.
We can thus see that a number of areas were evolving into new forms creating pressure for change. A new nationalism, religion and the arts all joined economic and social factors as the awakening prompted the questioning of the status quo.
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