The Reformation, Capitalism and Ethics in England during the 1590s and early 1600s

2018 ◽  
pp. 139-178
Author(s):  
Neema Parvini
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Protestant Ethic ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Moral Systems ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
The Impact

This chapter complicates the outline of moral philosophy in Shakespeare’s period provided by the previous chapter by considering the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the challenge posed by John Calvin to the synthesised humanist moral systems that had been developing during the Renaissance. It also considers the impact of the rise of capitalism, which is broadly coincident with that of Protestantism. It considers the moral implications of Calvin’s three solas, as mediated in England by William Perkins’s A Golden Chain (1591) and Thomas Becon’s The Governance of Vertue (1556), while noting Shakespeare’s possible hostility to puritanism. In the second half, it reconsiders Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) and the Calvinist notion of “the calling”, while tracing the changing attitude towards commerce in the work of Giovanni Botero, John Wheeler, and Walter Raleigh. It argues that Calvin’s thought lacks the individualist and entrepreneurial enterprise found in Machiavelli, and that any attempt to locate “the spirit of capitalism” must be found in the “unresolved tension” between Machiavelli and Calvin.

The Impact of the Reformation

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-61
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Elizabeth I ◽  
Long Term Effect ◽  
Queen Elizabeth I ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
European Diplomacy ◽  
Francis I

This chapter focuses on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Following Henry VIII's break with Rome in 1531, the English Reformation led Britain into a protracted struggle with the two great Catholic powers, Spain and France, for the next 300 years. The long-term effect was to define Britain as the leading Protestant power; but more immediately, it posed a far greater threat to England than Islam, and effectively destroyed the rationale for crusading activities. In this situation, the Islamic empires actually became a valuable balancing factor in European diplomacy. Henry's readiness to deal with the Muslim powers was far from eccentric during the sixteenth century. Both King Francis I of France and Queen Elizabeth I of England took the policy of collaboration much further.

THE REFORMATION AND THE COMMUNITY Europe's Reformations, 1450–1650. By James D. Tracy. Lanham, MD, and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. Pp. xvii+387. ISBN 0-8476-8835-6. £15.95. Religious choice in the Dutch Republic: the reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius, 1565–1641. By Judith Pollmann. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Pp. xii+288. ISBN 0-7190-5680-2. £45.00. Radical Reformation studies: essays presented to James M. Stayer. Edited by Werner O. Packull and Geoffrey L. Dipple. Aldershot: Ashgate. 1999. Pp. x+201. ISBN 0-7546-0032-7. £45.00. The Reformation of the dead: death and ritual in early modern Germany, 1450–1700. By Craig Koslofsky. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Pp. xiii+223. ISBN 0-312-22910-0. £42.50.

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-209
Author(s):  
PHILIP BROADHEAD
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Communal Life ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Four Books ◽  
The Impact

The four books under review examine different aspects of the impact of the Protestant Reformation on communities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The study of communal responses to religious reform has become a significant aspect of Reformation research in recent years, and it has served to emphasize that religious reform was a process rather than an event, and that it was a collective concern, which involved families, neighbours, and all those in guilds and congregations at all levels of society, both in town and village. Study of the community in history has, however, raised some problems, principally over definition, for communities were not institutions or geographical areas, but a complex web of overlapping social, economic, and cultural groups, within which there was a range of shared and conflicting interests. Despite the value placed by rulers and magistrates upon unity, communal life was a constantly mutating mix of conflict, concession, and change, to which the Reformation added a dynamic and volatile new dimension. Although the authors here use the notion of community, they attach to it a variety of interpretations, and one might wonder whether such a malleable term has value as a tool for historical analysis. In fact, these works show such flexibility to be a strength, for in the Reformation, beliefs were only gradually defined, and levels of support were variable and unpredictable. Interpretations which recognize the changing secular and spiritual worlds inhabited by the people of the period are particularly useful for providing new insights into how religious reform was experienced by the majority of those living at the time.

scholarly journals The Reformation of Hell? Protestant and Catholic Infernalisms in England, c. 1560–1640

2010 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER MARSHALL
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social History ◽  
English Language ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Despite a recent expansion of interest in the social history of death, there has been little scholarly examination of the impact of the Protestant Reformation on perceptions of and discourses about hell. Scholars who have addressed the issue tend to conclude that Protestant and Catholic hells differed little from each other in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. This article undertakes a comparative analysis of printed English-language sources, and finds significant disparities on questions such as the location of hell and the nature of hell-fire. It argues that such divergences were polemically driven, but none the less contributed to the so-called ‘decline of hell’.

scholarly journals ESPIRITUALIDADES PLURAIS DA REFORMA

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Cláudio Oliveira Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Creation

RESUMO: A pesquisa centrou-se na análise do percurso teológico da Reforma Protestante, enfatizando a pluralidade dela, as visões politicamente distintas entre seus protagonistas como Martinho Lutero, João Calvino e Thomas Müntzer, e as práticas e espiritualidades igualmente distintas até os dias de hoje. Metodologicamente, seguimos a noção da história como interpretação e o potencial criativo dos entre-lugares culturais, valorizando os aspectos utópicos que possam ser reforçados pela avaliação histórica. Os resultados da pesquisa destacaram alguns desses aspectos como: (i) o valor teológico da dimensão ecumênica, (ii) os processos de renovação eclesial, dentro e fora do contexto protestante, (iii) a criação e o fortalecimento de vida comunitária e crítica, dentro dos parâmetros teológicos da Reforma. Eles devem ser analisados levando-se em consideração as peculiaridades do contexto brasileiro e latino-americano em geral em suas diferentes dimensões.ABSTRACT: The research focused on the analysis of the theological path of the Protestant Reformation, highlighting its plurality, the varied political views among its protagonists, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and Thomas Müntzer, and the equally different practices and spiritualities of today. Methodologically we followed the notion of history as interpretation and the creative potential of the cultural in-between places, valuing the utopian aspects that might be reinforced by the historical evaluation. The research results highlighted some of these aspects, such as (i) the theological value of the ecumenical dimension, (ii) the processes of ecclesial renewal, inside and outside the Protestant context, and (iii) the creation and strengthening of community life, within the theological parameters of the Reformation. They are to be analyzed taking into consideration the peculiarities of Brazilian and Latin American contexts in their varied dimensions.

The Jews and the Reformation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Austin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
First Century ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Jewish Learning ◽  
The Impact

This book examines the attitudes of various Christian groups in the Protestant and Catholic Reformations towards Jews, the Hebrew language, and Jewish learning. Martin Luther's writings are notorious, but Reformation attitudes were much more varied and nuanced than these might lead us to believe. The book has much to tell us about the Reformation and its priorities, and it has important implications for how we think about religious pluralism more broadly. The book begins by focusing on the impact and various forms of the Reformation on the Jews and pays close attention to the global perspective on Jewish experiences in the early modern period. It highlights the links between Jews in Europe and those in north Africa, Asia Minor, and the Americas, and it looks into the Jews' migrations and reputation as a corollary of Christians' exploration and colonisation of several territories. It seeks to next establish the position Jews occupied in Christian thinking and society by the start of the Reformation era, and then moves on to the first waves of reform in the earliest decades of the sixteenth century in both the Catholic and Protestant realms. The book explores the radical dimension to the Protestant Reformation and talks about identity as the heart of a fundamental issue associated with the Reformation. It analyzes “Counter Reformation” and discusses the various forms of Protestantism that had been accepted by large swathes of the population of many territories in Europe. Later chapters turn attention to relations between Jews and Christians in the first half of the seventeenth century and explore the Sabbatean movement as the most significant messianic movement since the first century BCE. In conclusion, the book summarizes how the Jews of Europe were in a very different position by the end of the seventeenth century compared to where they had been at the start of the sixteenth century. It recounts how Jewish communities sprung up in places which had not traditionally been a home to Jews, especially in Eastern Europe.

Pensioners, Prisoners, and Pupils: Corpus Christi College’s Charity in Tudor Oxford

2019 ◽  
pp. 240-262
Author(s):  
Lucy M. Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Nicholas Udall ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of early Reformation on Corpus Christi College. If one takes the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in the traditional way as the starting-gun for the Protestant Reformation, then Corpus Christi is as old as the Reformation itself. Of course, ‘the Reformation‘ did not begin as early as 1517. It would be another ten years before the Reformation made any recorded impact in Corpus itself, although Luther’s ideas reached Oxford pretty soon. With the exception of the Nicholas Udall affair, the impact of the early Reformation on Corpus Christi is evident largely by its absence during the lifetime of the first president, John Claymond. After Claymond’s death, the college’s peace was briefly disturbed by a new brand of Reformation, by the ideas arising from Henry VIII’s Break with Rome.

The Lombardian Formula in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 48-69
Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Critical Events ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Reformed Churches

This chapter, continuing the historical survey of the previous chapter, slows down and focuses on the reception of the so-called Lombardian formula in the Reformation and early Post-Reformation period, especially among the Reformed churches. After looking at how well-known Reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Zachary Ursinus understood the Lombardian formula, concentration shifts to a few critical events that provide important background to the Synod of Dordt and intra-Reformed debates on the extent of the atonement. More specifically, the chapter covers a late sixteenth-century debate between the Lutheran Jacob Andreae and the Reformed theologian Theodore Beza on the extent of Christ’s work. Next, it looks at the back-and-forth between Jacob Arminius and William Perkins. Finally, it gives a thorough examination of the Hague Conference of 1611, which featured a discussion of the various doctrines of grace among the Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants.

scholarly journals The “Christian Spirit” of Capitalism and the Protestant Reformation, between Structuralist Analysis and Historical Evidence

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Aurelian-Petruș Plopeanu
Keyword(s):  
Main Idea ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
New Form

Abstract For many reasons, it is true that the Protestant Reformation unleashed the forces that lay behind the emergence of capitalism. Such a system was compatible with the emancipation of individuals, their mentalities, due to specific societal reforms and transformations. Therefore, it gave birth, in an unprecedented way, to a “new form of capitalism”. But the main idea I want to stress in this article is that the capitalist ethos was present before the Reformation, many centuries ago, in what is called now the “Christian spirit”. In this direction, I emphasize many theories which disagree with the Weber’s well-known thesis about the relation between capitalism and religion, especially when it comes to generalize a particular result that is both theologically vague and empirically disprovable.

Scholastic Continuities in the Reproduction of Classical Sources in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae

2012 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riemer A. Faber
Keyword(s):  
John Calvin ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

This article seeks to contribute to the current re-evaluation of the relationship between the Protestant Reformation and the first period of Reformed orthodoxy by examining the ways in which the authors of the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae appropriated the literatures of classical antiquity and employed them in the context of their scholastic discourses. The derivative manner in which the many references to ancient Greek and Latin writings are employed is evidenced by the demonstrable influence of three major intermediaries: medieval lexicons and anthologies, the tradition of biblical exegesis, and the writings of John Calvin. With special attention to the classical texts that are quoted in the fundamental introductory theses of several disputations, as well as in the “polemical” ones refuting non-Reformed teaching, it is argued that the Synopsis is constructed on a complexity of intertexts that extends beyond the traditionally identified patristic and medieval sources. Thus a better understanding is gained into the nature of the (dis)continuities from medieval Scholasticism to the Reformation and early Reformed orthodoxy.

Martin Luther and John Calvin

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Church

It has long been recognized that John Calvin admired Martin Luther and that the Frenchman’s theology at various moments approached the teaching of Wittenberg. This relationship, however, was always mediated, particularly through the work of Philip Melanchthon. The literature on Calvin has not fully appreciated the manner in which his epistolary and literary references to Luther formed part of the French reformer’s rhetorical strategies for forging unity among the churches of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin believed that the divide between Wittenberg and Zurich formed the central stumbling block to a full reform of the church, and saw himself, as an outsider, as uniquely placed to break the impasse. How the reformers understood the catholicity of the churches extended well beyond the localities in which they found themselves. Their interpretations of unity were closely related to readings of ecclesiastical and doctrinal history, and the manner in which they understood the Reformation to stand in continuity with apostolic traditions. Reform, catholicity, and tradition were essential components of the reformers’ thought that need to be investigated through a more organic approach that takes into account the ways in which they were interwoven, while at the same time recognizing how they exposed conundrums that often served to expose divisions within the movement.

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