In England there had been the influence of John Wyclif's An English translation of the Bible was adopted.Thomas example.There also had been humanists who had talked freely of Cromwell-Vicar-General of the Church,King's Chief Minister church reforms.On top of these,there was the fact that for four further broke from the Pope,closed the monasteries,took away their centuries,in England there had been strong opposition to the Pope in land and introduced church reforms. Rome. In England,therefore,the question of reform was not The split came when Henry I decided to ignore the authority of fundamentally one of belief or interpretation of the Bible but one of the Pope in his matrimonial affairs.Henry was first married to rejection of the supremacy of the Pope. Catherine Aragon from Spain.She bored Henry several children but only one of them survived and this one was a daughter.Henry, 5.Counter-Reformation however,desired to have a male heir and he asked the Pope for By late 1520 the Roman Catholic Church had lost its control over permission to divorce Catherine.Failing to obtain the approval of the the church in Germany because the local church officials sided with Pope,Henry declared on his own that the marriage with Catherine the rebel princes in Germany.Meanwhile the movement against the invalid and married Anne Boleyn,Catherine's maid in waiting.When Roman Catholic Church had swept over the whole of Europe,shaking the Pope refused to recognize this marriage,British Parliament,in the very foundation of the Roman Catholic Church. 1534,passed the Act of Supremacy which marked the formal break The Roman Catholic Church did not stay idle.They mustered of the British with the papal authorities.The Parliament gave Henry their forces,the dedicated Catholic groups,to examine the Church an Act of succession,recognizing the legality of the divorce and institutions and introduce reforms and improvements,to bring back securing the Crown to Anne's children.On financial matters it was its vitality.In time,the Roman Catholic Church did re-establish made clear that revenues,instead of being paid to the Pope,would be itself as a dynamic force in European affairs.This recovery of power paid to the crown.Above all,there was the establishment of the is often called by historians the Counter-Reformation.The seed-bed Church of England,or Anglican Church.The king,not the Pope for this Catholic reformation was Spain with the Spanish monarchy was now the head of the church.It was a national church with all establishing the Inquisition to carry out cruel suppression of heresy foreign control and interference at an end. and unorthodoxy. Every English man was required to take the oath of Supremacy. Anybody who refused to do so would be charged with treason and a.Council of Trent subject to severe punishment. Faced with the growing threat,the papal authorities had to call As far as church services were concerned,there were changes a number of councils to introduce necessary reforms.Among them such as the use of English instead of Latin in the Lord's prayers and was the Council of Trent. other parts of the service. The sessions of the Council reaffirmed that the Church had the 148 149
sole right to interpret the Bible.The Council declared that the Latin Vulgate of Jerome to be the definitive translation of the text.It was Council of Trent.They guided the council in declaring war on also stressed that Catholicism was a religion of infallible authority. Reformation.With their efforts in education,they succeeded in There were among the decrees such as every bishop was required to recapturing the mind of youth and allegiance of power and helped take the oath of complete obedience to the Pope and reforms that establish a spirit of confidence and militancy for the Roman Catholic were aimed at tightening the discipline of the clergy.The Catholic Church. 4 Reformation,that is,counter-reformation afterwards was to a great Church thus won back for the Roman Catholic Church much of extent occupied with the principles and requirements laid down at the Germany,most Hungary,Bohemia,all of Christian Poland. Council of Trent. Today the Society of Jesus is still active with a membership of 31 000,having institutions in various parts of the world. b.Ignatius and the Jesuits Ignatius was a Spaniard who devoted his life to defending the 6.Protestantism and the Rise of Capitalism Roman Catholic Church.He read books of saints and pledged to Reformation movement broke the absolute authority of the eternal chastity.From Spain he went to Paris where he entered the Roman Catholie Church.In Europe,different denominations with College de Montaigne and won a lot of followers.In the winter of the orthodox church began to appear one after another.Protestantism 1536-1537,they walked across the Alps to go to Rome.All the came into being.Liberal ideas took wings and as the countries in way they begged for food and mostly lived on bread and water and Europe went on their different ways to free themselves from the they sang Psalms as they went along until finally they reached Rome. religious,political and economical control of the papal authorities, Ignatius and his followers called themselves the Jesuits, they each went on its way to nationhood and the way was thus members of the Society of Jesus.The Jesuits went through strict prepared for capitalist development. spiritual training and organized their own colleges to train selected The ecclesiastical control over culture,education and scholastic youth who would be centre of their influence in the next generation. studies could not go on the way they used to.The old,conservative, By the time of Ignatius'death there were a hundred Jesuit colleges on medieval ideas and conceptions gradually gave way to imagination, which the Pope relied for the defense of its authority. creation and free thinking.Science in the modern world began to The Jesuits made it their life long work to spread the orthodox develop which led to an age of scientific discoveries and inventions, faith.They went so far as to say that they were always ready to marking the most notable advance since Greek times. believe what seemed to them white was black if the hierarchical Calvinism,which stressed hard work and a thrifty way of life church so defined. changed the life of stagnation in economy and helped to accelerate The Jesuits had great influence over the proceedings in the production,trade and commerce. 150 Navigation and the discoveries of new lands made the world 151
smaller and brought the countries closer to one another so that foreign trade,export and import of raw materials and industrial products were made much easier. IV.Renaissance in Other Countries Protestantism which began as a religious movement against the orthodox church of Rome had profound impact on religious life in Europe,that is no doubt.But its impact on the political,economical The influence of the Italian Renaissance reached every corner of life was even immeasureable.Therefore a basic knowledge of the Europe.In France under the central monarchy of Francois I(1494- Reformation movement and the rise of Protestantism is of great 1547)there was a political stability that provided soil for the growth importance,particularly in the study of the beginnings of capitalism of art,music and literature;in Spain with the gradual unification of the Spanish kingdoms,there was increased prosperity and artistic creations;in the north,Flanders achieved great eminence in art with 7.Conclusion Before Reformation,Europe was essentially feudal and a concentration of artists around the wealthy Burgundian Court;in medieval.It was under the absolute rule of the Roman Catholic the Netherlands,it was the Golden Age of Dutch literature and it Church and the Holy Roman Empire.The Roman Catholic Church was the centre of European humanist movement with Erasmus as the was the international court to which all rulers and states were to be distinctive leading figure;in Germany,the reformation profoundly morally responsible for.Economically,peasants all over Europe had influenced the course of German literature leading eventually to a to pay a good amount of their gains to the Pope.In educational and flowering of German literature with strong courtly and absolutistic cultural matters,the monopoly of the church was broken,and in tendencies;in England,Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603)reigned for religion.Protestantism brought into being different forms of over forty years(1558-1603)and during those years,there was a Christianity to challenge the absolute rule of the Roman Catholic flowering of art,music and architecture,but above all it was an age Church.In language,the dominant position of Latin had to give way of giant literary figures,Shakespeare,Spenser,Sidney Marlowe. to the national languages as a result of various translations of the Bible Prior to that there were a number of humanist scholars in England into the vernacular.In spirit,absolute obedience became out-moded who were very much interested in the study of the classics, and the spirit of quest,debate,was ushered in by the reformists. particularly Greek.In one word,Renaissance in Europe "produced In spite of the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to kill this giants in power of thought,passion and character,in universality and spirit,to maintain the established order and to check the political and learning”.① economical advances of the European countries,Europe was to take a new course of development,a scientific revolution was to be under way and,capitalism was to set in with its dynamic economic principles. Friedrich Engels:Introduction to Dialectics of Nature 152 153
1.Renaissance in France Chapter 57 How those of Theleme were governed in their manner of living. a.Historical Background Their whole life was ordered not by law,statute or rule,but Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance there emerged in according to their free will and pleasure.They arose when they France a whole generation of humanists who began to study Greek pleased.They ate,drank,worked and slept when the spirit culture and philosophy and this gave rise to writings of Ronsard, moved them.No one awoke them,forced food or drink upon Rabelais and Montaigne. them or made them do anything else.Gargantua's plan called for Renaissance also found expression in art,architecture and perfect liberty.The only rule of the house was: music,which flourished particularly under the patronage of Francois I.The Chateau of the Loire Valley was a great landmark in DO AS THOU WILT architecture,and in music there was the beginning of polyphony. because men that are free,of gentle birth,well-bred and at Religiously,Calvanism won great popularity in France because home in civilized company possess a natural instinct that inclines of the general dissatisfaction of the economic condition and the rivalry them to virtue and saves them from vice.This instinct they their between the provincial nobles.The Protestant group in France was honor.Sometimes they may be depressed or enslaved by known as the Huguenots whose rivalry with the Catholic Church led subjection or constraint;for we all long for forbidden fruit and to the wars of religion from 1562 to 1598. covet what is denied us.But they usually apply the fine forces that tend to virtue in such a way as to shake off the yoke of b.Renaissance Writers in France servitude. The Thelemites,thanks to their liberty,knew the virtues i.Francois Rabelais (about 1483-1553) of emulation.All wished to do what they saw pleased one of Rabelais was best known for his great satirical work Gargantua their number.Let some lad or maid say "Let us drink"and all of and Pantagruel,in which he praises the greatness of man,expresses them drank,“Let us play”and all of them played,“Let us frolic his love of life and his reverence and sympathy for humanist learning. in the fields"and all of them frolicked.When falconry or Because of the redical views he expressed in the book,the book was hawking were in order,the ladies sat high upon their saddles on burned by the court and by the University of Paris. fine nags,a sparhawk,lanner or merlin on one daintily gloved Rabelais'ideal comes out most clearly in his deseription of wrist,while the men bore other kinds of hawks. Theleme in Chapter 57,in which he declared that the only rule of the They were so well-bred that none,man or woman,but house was "Do As Thou Wilt. could read,write,sing,play several instruments,speak five or six languages and readily compose verse and prose in any of 154 155
them.Never had earth known knights so proud,so gallant,so portrayal which records his views on life,death and his scepticism adroit on horseback and on foot,so athletic,so lively,so well- towards knowledge,in simple,straightforward style.The motto he trained in arms as these.Never were ladies seen so dainty,so put down in the essays.Que sais-je?(What do I know?)is world- comely,so winsome,so deft at handwork and needlework,so famous.Montaigne had great influence on English literature in the skilful in feminine arts,so frank and so free as these. later ages. Thus when the time came for a man to leave the abbey Following is Chapter II,Book II of Montaigne's collection of (either at his parents'request or for some other reason)he took personal essays.Its title is"Of Repentance".It's worth reading for with him one of the ladies-the particular one who had chosen Montaigne's humanist ideas and a style which is easy and familiar. him for her knight-and they were married.And though they had lived in devotion and friendship at Theleme,their marriage Of Repentance relations proved even more tender and agreeable.Indeed to the ("THESE TESTIMONIES OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE") end of their lives they loved one another as they had on the day Others form man;I describe him,and portray a particular, of their wedding.· very ill-made one,who,if I had to fashion him anew,should indeed be very different from what he is.But now it is done. ii.Pleiade Now the features of my painting do not err,although they This was a group of poets who made efforts to enrich the French change and vary.The world is but a perennial see-saw.All language by writing in a style that was clear and free from useless things in it are incessantly on the swing,the earth,the rocks of rhetoric.The main leader of this group was Pierre de Ronsard the Caucasus,the Egyptian pyramids,both with the common (1524-1585),who wrote a collection of poems called,Sonnets movement and their own particular movement.Even fixedness is pour Helene.The one that drew up the manifesto of the group was nothing but a more sluggish motion. Jaochim du Bellay (1522-1560)who wrote the first literary history I cannot fix my object;it is befogged,and reels with a cititism in the literary history of France.It is the manifesto of the natural intoxication.I seize it as this point,as it is at the Pleiade,called La Deffene et illustratio de la langue francayse moment when I beguile myself with it.I do not portray the (1549). thing in itself.I portray the passage;not a passing from one age to another,or,as the people put it,from seven years'to seven iii.Michel Eyques de,Montaigne (1533-1592) years,but from day to day,from minute to minute.I must Montaigne was a French humanist known for his Essais adapt my history to the moment.I may presently change,not (Essays),a collection of personal essays that he began to write in only by chance,but also by intention.It is a record of diverse 1571 and continued until the last day of his life.The Essais is a self- and changeable events,of undecided,and when the occasion 156 157 车1111频凉圆深泽我周