Humanities Unit 5 Module 6

It is a movement of religious reform in the Catholic religion conducted by popes in the early 16th century who called councils and promulgated decrees aimed at reform.

They viewed it as the Counter-Revolution because they saw these reforms as a response to the Protestant challenge.

Many of these religious reflections grew out of a continuing Catholic discussion that followed the Great Schism, the Conciliar movement, and the rule of the politically active Renaissance popes.

They faced a tough challenge in implementing reforms because the Habsburg-Valois Wars occupied the attention of the Catholic kings Charles V and Francis I, who in normal times would have backed the papacy. These wars also carried a high financial price for the popes.

Spain emerged from its medieval decentralization and became a strong, unified kingdom.

Isabella and Ferdinand's marriage joined the kingdoms of Leon-Castile and Aragon.

They immediately set about reducing the power of the nobility and establishing a centralized power.

As part of their consolidation of royal authority, they obtained permission from the pope to establish their own inquisition, directed against converted Jews and former Muslims who were suspected of secretly practicing their old faith. This newly established court brought great suffering to many of Spain's loyal citizens.

They became known as the "Catholic monarchs", emphasizing their faith and the degree to which they believed they carried the banner of an invigorated Catholicism.

As a part of their goal of a centralized and religiously homogeneous Spain, they resumed the conquest of the peninsula that had dominated the history of medieval Spain.

As a part of their drive to unify Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella obtained permission from the pope in 1478 to establish an Inquisition to try to ensure religious homogeneity in their newly conquered territories. This court was different from the medieval Inquisition, for it was under the control of the monarchy instead of the papacy.

In Spain, the Inquisition was run by a royal council and was charged with examining converted Muslims and Jews to see if they continued secretly to practice their old religions. Under the control of the secular authorities, these trials led to suffering and public executions.

The reconquest ended in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella besieged Grenada, the last Muslim stronghold in the south of Spain.

At the same time, all Jews were expelled from Spain.

By 1492, Spain was well placed to take the lead in fostering Catholicism against the forces of Protestantism.

As part of their dynastic aims, they had arranged marriages for their children to the leading families of Europe.

Joanna became the wife of the Habsburg archduke, and her son Charles V became heir to both Spain and the Habsburg lands.

He was the most influential religious figure in Spain. He was confessor to the queen, bishop of Toledo, Grand Inquisitor, and regent of Spain after Ferdinand's death.

Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros brought humanist ideas into Spain.

Ximenez was particularly impressed with Erasmus; emphasis on scholarly study of scripture and the works of the church fathers, and he wanted to strengthen this kind of education in Spain.

In 1498, he received permission from the Borgia pope Alexander VI to found a new university at Alcala de Henares that would feature humanist approaches to theological and ecclesiastical studies.

The high quality of the scholarship at the school drew notice with the publication of the "Complutensian Polyglot Bible", an edition of the Bible written in three columns that compared the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin versions.

The scholarship represented a high point in humanistic learning and new critical techniques in the study of the Bible.

The pattern of the Catholic Church being reformed by monastic and mendicant orders that infused new life and ideas into the church continued into the 16th century.

They were members of the Society of Jesus, established by Ignatius of Loyola.

True.

True.

In "The Spiritual Exercises", Loyola taught how spiritual discipline could satisfy people's desire to reach up to God while obeying the orders of the Catholic Church. Here was the perfect combination of Catholic orthodoxy and the longings expressed by Protestant reformers.

In 1540, the pope established the Society of Jesus as a religious order.

Jesuits, who vowed perfect obedience to the papacy, became the vanguard of reformed Catholicism. These men devoted themselves to education, sharing Cardinal Ximenez's belief that a Christian humanist education would combat the threat of Protestantism.

They were good schools, among the best in Europe. They drew even some Protestants who were willing to risk their children's conversion to Catholicism in exchange for the fine education.

They served as missionaries to bring Catholicism to the New World.

Yes, they became controversial. The vigor with which they pursued their aims and the vehemence of their support of the papacy alienated some Catholics and Protestants alike.

It served to forward the ideas and spirit of reformed Catholicism.

It was characterized by passion, drama, and awe. It was designed to involve the audience.

True.

With the conclusion of the Habsburg-Valois Wars, the Catholic monarchs could focus on the divisive religious questions of the day.

Church leaders from all over Europe gathered in northern Italy at Trent, and the council met intermittently from 1545 to 1563. They became the Council of Trent.

He wanted the council to concentrate on reforming abuses of the church.

It confronted this thorny issue honestly, establishing stern measures to clean up clerical corruption, ignorance, and apathy. They even banned the selling of indulgences and the office of indulgence-seller.

The real work of the council took place when it confronted the theological debate that had driven the Protestants from the Catholic church. As these leaders clarified their beliefs, it became obvious that there would be no compromise with Protestant Christianity.

It determined that Catholics did NOT stand alone before God. Rather, it claimed, the community of the faithful, both living and dead, could help a Catholic to salvation. Thus prayers to the saints and to the Virgin Mary did matter.

It claimed that the Catholic Church affirmed the existence of purgatory and the power of prayer, and even indulgences to free souls from their punishment.

They rejected Protestants by reaffirming their position that Christians needed both faith and good works to go to heaven. For Catholics, the sacraments by their very nature conveyed grace, so the council reaffirmed the existence of all 7 rites.

In further rejection of Protestant criticism, Catholics retained their idea of transubstantiation, by which priests presided over the transformation of the wine and host into the blood and body of Christ.

He was a Spanish baroque painter who reaffirmed Catholic theology.

It is about the theological stance of the Council of Trent, visually reaffirming it. The painting depicts heaven as filled with saints and the souls of other saved individuals, who also pray for the count and help him enter their community.

While debating and refining their beliefs, the churchmen used principles that had guided previous councils and looked to 2 authorities-scripture and tradition. Armed with these pillars of Christian thought, they prepared to answer Luther and the other Protestants, who recognized only their own consciences and the complete authority of the Holy Book.

Catholics, they argued, could draw strength from the body of practices that the faithful had accumulated over the course of a millennium.

In 1557, the papacy began to publish an Index of Prohibited Books, a list of works that theologians had determined contained errors.

The Index of Prohibited Books intended to protect the faithful from "incorrect" ideas in an age that was not yet used to the flurry of publications made available by the printing press.

True.

She was a Spanish 16th-century mystic who quickly became a saint. She was also an active Catholic reformer, establishing new convents for women as part of her dedication to a reinvigorated Catholicism.

"Way of Perfection" ensured her influence because it inspired the pope to declare her a Doctor of the Church (which means that her writings were worthy of study). Soon she became the patron saint of Spain.

It offered the church a strong weapon to show skeptics the deep and passionate faith that came with Catholic worship.

Besides Catholic mystics, the Catholic church also looked to the Spanish king to champion the Catholic cause in the political and military arena.

He was Charles V's heir to the kingdoms of Spain and the Netherlands, and also had an unparalleled zeal for both the Catholic religion and empire.

He moved his capital from Toledo, a cramped medieval city, to the newly built city of Madrid, chosen because it was the geographical center of the Iberian peninsula (Spain).

Philip II faced two dire threats to the Catholic faith: the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean and the Protestants in the north.

To challenge the Turks' supremacy in the Mediterranean, he assembled a league that included a number of Italian city-states.

The Venetians, who had a large fleet and were highly motivated by their trading interests in the eastern Mediterranean, were particularly eager to join Philip's navy.

The Battle of Lepanto, which took place off the coast of Greece.

The result of this battle was that Philip II's coalition had scored a decisive victory.

The success at this battle raised Catholics' spirits because the navy had proved that Turkish power in the Mediterranean was not invincible after all.