From Compromise to Rebellion: Religion and Political Power of the Nobility in the First Century of the Habsburgs' Reign in Bohemia And Moravia

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
Václav Bůžek
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Political Power ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
High State ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Church Administration ◽  
Church Courts

AbstractIn Bohemia and Moravia, a religious dualism prevailed following the Hussite revolution and the Compactata of 1436. Although the Compactata were abolished by the pope in 1462, the treaty of Kuttenberg guaranteed a right to individual choice in religion, something the nobility viewed as a crucial privilege. But such choice became a victim of a growing re-Catholicization in the sixteenth century. Although Catholic nobles were a minority in Bohemia and Moravia, they were better organized and supported the Habsburgs and the Council of Trent. Their efforts succeeded in contriving a situation in which non-Catholic nobles were tolerated, but excluded from serving in high state offices. Non-Catholic nobles, starting in the 1570s, attempted to organize themselves, and drew up the Confessio Bohemica, which would have given them control over education, church administration, church courts, and censorship. Although the Confessio never achieved legal status, Calvinist noblemen used the dynastic crises of the Habsburgs during the years 1608-11 to further their agenda. A charter, ratified in 1609, gave them control over the lower consistory courts, Charles University, and a body of Defensors who oversaw the preservation of religious liberties. They thereby established a "state within a state," and unavoidably set themselves up for later conflict with the Habsburgs. After their defeat at the battle of the White Mountain, a revised constitution (1627 in Bohemia, 1628 in Moravia) ended religious toleration by outlawing non-Catholic worship, and paving the way to a later absolutism.

King Sigismund of Poland and Martin Luther

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Nowakowska
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Variant Form ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Social Unity

This first major study of the early Reformation and Polish monarchy for over a century asks why Crown and church in the reign of King Sigismund I (1506–48) did not persecute Lutherans. It offers a new narrative of Luther’s dramatic impact on this monarchy—which saw violent urban Reformations and the creation of Christendom’s first Lutheran principality by 1525—placing these events in their comparative European context. Sigismund’s realm appears to offer a major example of sixteenth-century religious toleration: the King tacitly allowed his Hanseatic ports to enact local Reformations, enjoyed excellent relations with his Lutheran vassal duke in Prussia, allied with pro-Luther princes across Europe, and declined to enforce his own heresy edicts. Polish church courts allowed dozens of suspected Lutherans to walk free. Examining these episodes, this study does not treat toleration purely as the product of political calculation or pragmatism. Instead, it reconstructs the underlying cultural beliefs about religion and church held by the King, bishops, courtiers, literati, and clergy—asking what they understood ‘Lutheranism’ and ‘catholicism’ to be? It argues that the ruling elites of the Polish monarchy did not persecute Lutheranism because they did not perceive it as a dangerous Other—but as a variant form of catholic Christianity within an already variegated late medieval church, where social unity was more important than doctrinal differences. Building on John Bossy, and borrowing from J. G. A. Pocock, it proposes a broader hypothesis on the Reformation as a shift in the languages and concept of orthodoxy.

scholarly journals Capitalism and democracy in the twenty-first century: does it still take two to tango?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Matteo Marenco
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
First Century ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
Science Question ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article reviews three books that offer thought-provoking insights on a central political science question, namely the relationship between capitalism and democracy in the twenty-first century. First, ‘Democracy and Prosperity’ by Iversen and Soskice posits a symbiotic relationship between capitalism and democracy. Advanced capital thrives on nationally rooted institutions, hence it needs democratic politics. A majority of voters ask for pro-advanced-capital reforms, hence democratic politics needs advanced capital. Second, ‘Capitalism, Alone’ by Milanovic depicts a troubled coexistence between capitalism and democracy. The former's tendency to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the few is the main reason why democratic politics is under pressure. Third, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ by Zuboff suggests a negative relationship between digital capitalism and democracy. Surveillance capitalism increasingly acts as a control means of individuals' behaviour, which undermines democracy at its roots. The last section brings the three contributions together. It maintains that a mutually beneficial coexistence between capitalism and democracy currently faces both internal (from within) and external (from without) challenges. In line with Milanovic and Zuboff, it argues that the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the few is the most apparent from-within challenge. Drawing on Milanovic, it contends that rise of China as a global power combining capitalism with non-democracy challenges the relationship between capitalism and democracy from without. Finally, it contends that the environmental question and the pandemic represent two windows of opportunity for democracy to recover lost ground and re-establish a more balanced relationship with capitalism.

scholarly journals Female Politicians in Chile: Unfolding the Meanings and Implications for Chilean Politics in the Twenty First Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Paula Andrea Pereda Peréz
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Symbolic Representation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Female Politicians ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Complex Relationships

<p>The aim of this thesis is to unfold the meanings and implications of female politicians in Chile in the twenty-first century. Based on interviews with Chilean politicians and employing a methodology based on Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology and relational ontology, I unpack the complex relationships between gender and political power. My central claim is that the way in which female politicians are perceived by themselves and by male politicians, and how female politicians might affect views on political behaviour, is something widely influenced by the history and trajectory of Chilean politics. I explore issues of representation in politics and democracy and reassess the relevancy of the concept of representation for elaborating the meanings and implications of increased numbers of female politicians in Chile. Highlighting the strategic character of political practices, I analyse symbolic representation by looking at it from political representatives’ points of view. I problematize the complex relationships between democracy, representation, and economic development in the context of neoliberal globalization, in which the place of women in politics remains both promising and uncertain. I analyse interview data collected by integrating ‘conceptual blending theory’, critical discourse analysis and Bourdieu’s theory. From this integral perspective, I analyse political practices as both embodied experience and as a reflection of socio-political reality. Through a socio-historical journey, I explore the foundations of Chilean democracy, political participation, and representation. I argue that the main milestone which affects the meanings and implications can be found in Chile’s late granting of women’s suffrage (1949) and in the democratic breakdown during Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990). I argue that Chilean political institutions of formal representation impede women’s descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation from fully taking place in the Chilean political system. Interview analysis demonstrated that political institutional design is an expression and reflection of the shortcomings of Chilean political culture. This was found to prevent the furthering of a democracy in which female politicians are central actors. This political context sheds light on Michelle Bachelet’s presidential triumph in 2006, which represented a push for a more democratic and egalitarian society, as well as the political strategy by the weakened ruling coalition who sought to remain in power. Finally, I explore the temporal dimension of the meanings and implications of female politicians in Chile. By looking at the temporality of political processes, practices and institutions, I return to the symbolic dimension of representation. I demonstrate that the states of uncertainty and crises of politics offer contested spaces for political power distribution and for further elaboration on the private and public division of social life. The temporality of politics as social practice reflects its deeply gendered nature, as well as the arbitrariness of political power.</p>

Honouring the Prophet's Family: A Comparison of the Approaches to Political Legitimacy of Abū’lḤasan ʿAlī al-Marīnī and Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-Saʿdī

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cory
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Political Legitimation

Although the fourteenth century Marīnids openly acknowledged their Berber identity, by the end of the sixteenth century, sharīfian descent had become a requirement for Moroccan rule. This chapter examines the political propaganda of the Marīnid sultan Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī (r. 731–752/1331–1351) and the Saʿdī sultan Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-Dhahabī (r. 986–1012/1578–1603). It considers similarities and differences between their political propaganda in light of their differing historical circumstances, particularly the relative power of sharīfian movements during their respective reigns, as well as the importance of holy lineages, monarchical treatment of the shurafāʾ, and the role of ceremonies in political legitimation. It argues that the Saʿdī ability to convince Moroccans of their sharīfian lineage connected with a larger trend to equate political power with descent from the Prophet and reinforced their authority. In contrast, the Marīnids contributed to their own downfall through their inconsistent policies towards honouring the shurafāʾ.

A Tridentine Response

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-131
Author(s):  
Kenneth Austin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Catholic Church

This chapter analyzes “Counter Reformation,” a terminology that implies the developments within the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century and beyond of reactions to the Protestant challenge. It explains how historians generally prefer the term “Catholic Reformation” over Counter Reformation as it is more neutral and better able to accommodate the range of initiatives witnessed in the period. It also points out reform efforts that predate the Protestant challenge, in which a new ethos developed within the Catholic Church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The chapter talks about the fathers of the Council of Trent, who sought to address a wide range of issues relating to belief and practice. It looks at the “Tridentine” decrees that were implemented alongside various papal initiatives and efforts at the local level.

Printing Baronius's Annales Ecclesiastici (Rome 1588-1607)

Quaerendo ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J.A.N. Rietbergen
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
History Of ◽  
Printing History

AbstractThe printing history of Baronius's Annales ecclesiastici (Rome 1588-1609), one of the chief works of early modern historiography, is closely linked with the eventful history of the Vatican printing shop, which was founded with the specific aim of printing works like that of Baronius and publishing them in the context of the church's policy as laid down by the Council of Trent. The article discusses this history as the background to the genesis of the successive volumes of the Annales. At the same time, and more specifically, the technical and financial aspects of printing and publishing part vii (1596) are examined as illustrative of sixteenth-century printing history.

“What in the World Have You Done To Me, My Lover?” Sex, Servitude, and Politics among the Pre-Conquest Nahuas as seen in the Cantares Mexicanos

2006 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Townsend
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
First Time ◽  
Warrior Women

The year 13-Reed [1479]. It was at this time that the people of Ame-cameca and the Chalcas Tlalmanalcas came to sing for the first time in Mexico. At that time they performed the song of the women of Chalco, the Chalca Cihuacuicatl. They came to sing for the lord Axayacatzin.The song and the dance were begun in the patio of the palace while Axayacatl was still inside in the house of his women. But in the beginning the song was poorly performed. A noble of Tlalmanalco was playing the music very clumsily, and making the great drum sound in a lazy offbeat way until finally in desperation he leaned down over it, not knowing what else to do.There, however, close to the place of the drums, was a man called Quecholcohuatzin, noble from Amecameca, a great singer and musician as well. When he saw that all was being lost and that the song and the dance were being ruined, he quickly placed himself next to the drum section. He picked up a drum and through his effort he gave new strength to the dance so that it would not be ruined. Thus Quecholcohuatzin made the people sing and dance. . . . Axayacatl who was still inside the palace, when he heard how marvelously Quecholcohuatzin played the music and made the people dance, was surprised, and his heart filled with excitement. He quickly arose and left the house of his women and joined in the dance. As Axayacatl approached the place of the dance his feet began to follow the music and he was overcome with joy as he heard the song and so he too began to dance and spin round and round.When the dance was over, the lord Axayacatl spoke, saying, “Fools, you have brought this fumbler before me, who played and directed the song. Don’t let him do it again.” The people from Chalco answered him, saying, “It is as you wish, supreme lord.” And because Axayacatl had given this command, all the nobles of Chalco became terrified. They stood there looking at each other, and it is said that truly they were very frightened.. . . But the lord Axayacatl was well pleased [with Quecholcohuatzin] and continued to take delight in the “Song of the Women of Chalco,” the Chalca Cihuacuicatl. So it was that once again he had the Chalcas, all of the nobles, return, and he asked them to give him the song and he also asked all those from Amecameca, because the song was theirs, it belonged to the tlailotlaque, the men who had returned. The song was their property, the “Song of the Warrior Women of Chalco.” Chimalpahin, Seventh Relation Ms. Mexicain 74, Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris Folios 174-176The indigenous historian Chimalpahin seemed quite certain that events on a certain day in 1479 had unfolded as he described them, though he wrote over a century later and saw it all through the refracting lens of the intervening Spanish conquest. Posterity has been the more inclined to believe him since there exists a song amongst those collected in the sixteenth century under the auspices of the Franciscans entitled “The Song of the Women of Chalco” (Chalca cihuacuicatl) in which the singer addresses Axayacatl as the conqueror of Chalco and as her own lord and master. But what can we in the twenty-first century make of these two sources? We might pursue a number of interpretive avenues. In this article I will ask specifically what we actually know about the fifteenth-century performance event, and what, if anything, we can glean from the song concerning the lives of the Nahua women in that nearly untranslatable category whom we know in English as “concubines.”

An Ecclesiasticall Seminarie and College General of Learning and Religion, Planted and Established at Ripon

1953 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-161
Author(s):  
Frederick Bussby
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Educational History ◽  
Special Training ◽  
The Government

Sixteenth century England saw a good deal of discontent with the education provided by the universities. Not only churchmen but also statesmen and schoolmasters felt the need for something more than the courses then provided. Cranmer first suggested (1540) the need for a nursery: ‘in every cathedral there should be provision made for readers of divinity, and of Greek and Hebrew; and a great number of students, to be exercised in the daily worship of God, and trained up in study and devotion’. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539?–83) outlined a scheme for Queene Elizabethes Achademy which was to educate her ‘Maiestes Wardes and others the youth of nobility and gentlemen’. The universities were unable at that time to do this work, Gilbert maintained, and special training was needed for those laymen who looked forward in due time to sharing in the government of their country. And for schoolmasters, Mulcaster made a like proposal (1580): ‘He that will not allow of this careful provision for such a seminary of masters, is most unworthy either to have a good master himself, or hereafter to have a good one for his. Why should not teachers be well provided for, to continue their whole life in the school, as divines, lawyers, physicians do in their several professions’. In 1556 cardinal Pole invented the word ‘seminary’ which has had such a powerful influence in educational history. It was adopted at the seventh session of the Council of Trent in 1563 when the Council devoted itself, with great success, to the provision of diocesan seminaries throughout the Roman Church. Thirtysix seminaries were founded by 1626.

Papal Efforts Toward Protestant Representation at Trent

1948 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Kuttner
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
The One ◽  
The Catholic Church

It is not within the purpose of this paper to appraise the historical significance which the Council of Trent held for the consolidation of Catholic doctrine on all the points of dogmatic and sacramental theology that had been put into question by the religious innovators. Nor shall we examine the role which its measures of canonical legislation played in the great process of spiritual and disciplinary renewal which eventually determined the position of the Catholic Church in the modern world. We propose rather to turn our attention to the great goal which the Council did not reach: the restoration of the one Respublica Christiana, of the Catholic unity which prior to the sixteenth century had been the only conceivable form of Christian religious existence. To the eye of the historian, it is true, the rift in Western Christendom appears quite obviously prepared by the developments of two centuries preceding Luther's challenge. The exile of Avignon; the great schism; the constitutional unrest of the conciliar epoch of Constance and Basel; the political realism by which Renaissance popes had sought above all to consolidate their position as Italian territorial rulers; the growth of the national states and national sovereignties; the ferment of humanistic ideologies—they all were alarming and distressing symptoms of the radical disintegration of mediaeval unity.

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