BY WILL DURANT
The Story of Philosophy
Transition
The Pleasure of Philosophy
Adventures in Genius
BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT
THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
1. Our Oriental Heritage
2. The Life of Greece
3. Caesar and Christ
4. The Age of Faith
5. The Renaissance
6. The Reformation
7. The Age of Reason Begins
8. The Age of Louis XIV
9. The Age of Voltaire
10. Rousseau and Revolution
11. The Age of Napoleon
The Lessons of History
Interpretation of Life
A Dual Autobiography
COPYRIGHT © 1957 BY WILL DURANT
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To the Reader
THE prospective reader deserves a friendly notice that The Reformation is not quite an honest title for this book. An accurate title would be: “A History of European Civilization Outside of Italy from 1300 to 1564, or Thereabouts, Including the History of Religion in Italy and an Incidental View of Islamic and Judaic Civilization in Europe, Africa, and Western Asia.” Why so meandering a thematic frontier? Because Volume IV (The Age of Faith) in this “Story of Civilization” brought European history only to 1300, and Volume V (The Renaissance) confined itself to Italy, 1304-1576, deferring the Italian echoes of the Reformation. So this Volume VI must begin at 1300; and the reader will be amused to find that Luther arrives on the scene only after a third of the tale has been told. But let us privately agree that the Reformation really began with John Wyclif and Louis of Bavaria in the fourteenth century, progressed with John Huss in the fifteenth, and culminated explosively in the sixteenth with the reckless monk of Wittenberg. Those whose present interest is only in the religious revolution may omit Chapters III-VI and IX-X without irreparable loss.
The Reformation, then, is the central, but not the only, subject of this book. We begin by considering religion in general, its functions in the soul and the group, and the conditions and problems of the Roman Catholic Church in the two centuries before Luther. We shall watch England in 1376-82, Germany in 1320-47, and Bohemia in 1402-85, rehearsing the ideas and conflicts of the Lutheran Reformation; and as we proceed we shall note how social revolution, with communistic aspirations, marched hand in hand with the religious revolt. We shall weakly echo Gibbon’s chapter on the fall of Constantinople, and shall perceive how the advance of the Turks to the gates of Vienna made it possible for one man to defy at once an emperor and a pope. We shall consider sympathetically the efforts of Erasmus for the peaceful self-reform of the Church. We shall study Germany on the eve of Luther, and may thereby come to understand how inevitable he was when he came. In Book II the Reformation proper will hold the stage, with Luther and Melanchthon in Germany, Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland, Henry VIII in England, Knox in Scotland, and Gustavus Vasa in Sweden, with a side glance at the long duel between Francis I and Charles V; and other aspects of European life in that turbulent half-century (1517-64) will be postponed in order to let the religious drama unfold itself without confusing delays. Book III will look at ‘the strangers in the gate”: Russia and the Ivans and the Orthodox Church; Islam and its challenging creed, culture, and power; and the struggle of the Jews to find Christians in Christendom. Book IV will go “behind the scenes” to study the law and economy, morals and manners, art and music, literature and science and philosophy of Europe in the age of Luther. In Book V we shall make an experiment in empathy—shall attempt to view the Reformation from the standpoint of the imperiled Church; and we shall be forced to admire the calm audacity with which she weathered the encompassing storm. In a brief epilogue we shall try to see the Renaissance and the Reformation, Catholicism and the Enlightenment, in the large perspective of modern history and thought.
It is a fascinating but difficult subject, for almost every word that one may write about it can be disputed or give offense. I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man’s past always colors his views, and that nothing is so irritating as impartiality. The reader should be warned that I was brought up as a fervent Catholic, and that I retain grateful memories of the devoted secular priests, and learned Jesuits, and kindly nuns who bore so patiently with my brash youth; but he should note, too, that I derived much of my education from lecturing for thirteen years in a Presbyterian church under the tolerant auspices of sterling Protestants like Jonathan C. Day, William Adams Brown, Henry Sloane Coffin, and Edmund Chaffee; and that many of my most faithful auditors in that Presbyterian church were Jews whose thirst for education and understanding gave me a new insight into their people. Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets.
I thank Dr. Arthur Upham Pope, founder of the Asia Institute, for correcting some of the errors in the chapters on Islam; Dr. Gerson Cohen, of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, for checking the pages on the Jews; my friend Harry Kaufman of Los Angeles for reviewing the section on music; and, pleno cum corde, my wife for her unremitting aid and illuminating comments at every stage in our co-operative labor on this book.
If the Reaper will stay his hand, there will be a concluding Volume VII, The Age of Reason, which should appear some five years hence, and should carry the story of civilization to Napoleon. There we shall make our bow and retire, deeply grateful to all who have borne the weight of these tomes on their hands, and have forgiven numberless errors in our attempt to unravel the present into its constituent past. For the present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for our understanding.
WILL DURANT
Los Angeles, May 12,1957
NOTES ON THE USE OF THIS BOOK
1. Dates of birth and death are usually omitted from the text, but will be found in the Index.
2. The religious standpoint of authors quoted or referred to in the text is indicated in the Bibliography by the letters C, J, P, or R, for Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or rationalist.
3. Passages intended for resolute students rather than for the general reader are indicated by reduced type.
4. To make this volume an independent unit some passages from The Renaissanee, on the history of the Church before the Reformation, have been summarized in the opening chapter.
5. The location of works of art, when not indicated in the text, will usually be found in the Index under the artist’s name. The name of a city will, in such allocations, be used to indicate its leading gallery, as follows:
Amsterdam—Rijksmuseum
Augsburg—Gemäldegalerie
Barcelona—Museum of Catalan Art
Basel—Offentliche Kunstsammlung
Bergamo—Accademia Carrara
Berlin—Kaiser-Friedrich Museum
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Bremen—Kunsthalle
Brussels—Museum
Budapest—Museum of Fine Arts
Chicago—Art Institute
Cincinnati—Art Museum
Cleveland—Museum of Art
Colmar—Museum Unterlinden
Cologne—Wallraf Richarts Museum
Copenhagen—Statens Museum for Kunst
Detroit—Institute of Art
Frankfurt—Städelsches Kunstinstitut
Geneva—Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
The Hague—Mauritshuis
Leningrad—Hermitage
Lisbon—National Museum
London—National Gallery
Madrid—Prado
Milan—Brera
Minneapolis—Institute of Arts
Munich—Haus der Kunst
Naples—Museo Nazionale
New York—Metropolitan Museum of Art
Nuremberg—Germanisches National Museum
Philadelphia—Johnson Collection
Prague—State Gallery
San Diego—Fine Arts Gallery
Stockholm—National Museum
Toledo—Museum of Art
Vienna—Kunsthistorisches Museum
Washington—National Gallery
Worcester—Art Museum
The galleries of Florence will be distinguished by their names, Uffizi or Pitti, as will the Borghese and Galleria Nazionale in Rome.
6. This volume will reckon the crown, the livre, the florin, and the ducat of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at $25.00 in the money of the United States in 1954; the franc and the shilling at $5.00; the écu at $15.00; the mark at $66.67; the pound sterling at $100.00. These equivalents are loose guesswork, and repeated debasements of the currencies make them still more hazardous. We note that in 1390 a student could be boarded at Oxford for two shillings a week;1 about 1424 Joan of Arc’s horse cost sixteen francs;2 about 1460 a maid in the service of Leonardo da Vinci’s father received eight florins a year.3
Table of Contents
BOOK I: FROM WYCLIF TO LUTHER: 1300–1517
Chapter I. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: 1300–1517
I. The Services of Christianity
II. The Church at Nadir
III. The Triumphant Papacy
IV. The Changing Environment
V. The Case against the Church
Chapter II. ENGLAND: WYCLIF, CHAUCER, AND THE GREAT REVOLT: 1308–1400
I. The Government
II. John Wyclif
III. The Great Revolt
IV. The New Literature
V. Geoffrey Chaucer
VI. Richard II
Chapter III. FRANCE BESIEGED: 1300–1461
I. The French Scene
II. The Road to Crécy
III. Black Death and Other
IV. Revolution and Renewal
V. The Mad King
VI. Life among the Ruins
VII. Letters
VIII. Art
IX. Joan of Arc
X. France Survives
Chapter IV. GALLIA PHOENIX: 1453–1515
I. Louis XI
II. Italian Adventure
III. The Rise of the Châteaux
IV. François Villon
Chapter V. ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: 1399–1509
I. Kings
II. The Growth of Wealth
III. Morals and Manners
IV. The Lollards
V. English Art
VI. Caxton and Malory
VII. The English Humanists
Chapter VI. EPISODE IN BURGUNDY: 1363–1515
I. The Royal Dukes
II. The Religious Spirit
III. Sparkling Burgundy
IV. Charles the Bold
V. Art in the Lowlands
Chapter VII. MIDDLE EUROPE: 1300–1460
I. Land and Labor
II. The Organization of Order
III. Germany Challenges the Church
IV. The Mystics
V. The Arts
VI. Gutenberg
Chapter VIII. THE WESTERN SLAVS: 1300–1517
I. Bohemia
II. John Huss
III. The Bohemian Revolution
IV. Poland
Chapter IX. THE OTTOMAN TIDE: 1300–1516
I. Second Blooming in Byzantium
II. The Balkans Meet the Turks
III. The Last Years of Constantinople
IV. Hunyadi János
V. The Tide at Full
VI. The Hungarian Renaissance
Chapter X. PORTUGAL INAUGURATES THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION: 1300–1517
Chapter XI. SPAIN: 1300–1517
I. The Spanish Scene
II. Granada
III. Ferdinand and Isabella
IV. The Methods of the Inquisition
V. Progress of the Inquisition
VI. In Exitu Israel
VII. Spanish Art
VIII. Spanish Literature
IX. Sovereign Death
Chapter XII. THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE: 1300–1517
I. The Magicians
II. The Teachers
III. The Scientists
IV. The Healers
V. The Philosophers
VI. The Reformers
Chapter XIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE SEA: 1492–1517
I. Columbus
II. America
III. The Waters of Bitterness
IV. The New Perspective
Chapter XIV. ERASMUS THE FORERUNNER: 1469–1517
I. The Education of a Humanist
II. The Peripatetic
III. The Satirist
IV. The Scholar
V. The Philosopher
VI. The Man
Chapter XV. GERMANY ON THE EVE OF LUTHER: 1453–1517
I. The Age of the Fuggers
II. The State
III. The Germans
IV. The Maturing of German Art
V. Albrecht Dürer
VI. The German Humanists
VII. Ulrich von Hutten
VIII. The German Church
BOOK II: THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION: 1517–64
Chapter XVI. LUTHER: THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY: 1517–24
I. Tetzel
II. The Genesis of Luther
III. The Revolution Takes Form
IV. Bulls and Blasts
V. The Diet of Worms
VI. The Radicals
VII. The Foundations of Faith
VIII. Luther’s Theology
IX. The Revolutionist
Chapter XVII. THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION: 1522–36
I. The Mounting Revolt
II. The Peasants’ War
III. The Anabaptists Try Communism
Chapter XVIII. ZWINGLI: THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND: 1477–1531
I. Multum in Parvo
II. Zwingli
III. The Zwinglian Reformation
IV. Onward, Christian Soldiers
Chapter XIX. LUTHER AND ERASMUS: 1517–36
I. Luther
II. The Intolerant Heretics
III. The Humanists and the Reformation
IV. Erasmus Appendix
Chapter XX. THE FAITHS AT WAR: 1525–60
I. The Protestant Advance
II. The Diets Disagree
III. The Lion of Wittenberg
IV. The Triumph of Protestantism
Chapter XXI. JOHN CALVIN: 1509–64
I. Youth
II. The Theologian
III. Geneva and Strasbourg
IV. The City of God
V. The Conflicts of Calvin
VI. Michael Servetus
VII. An Appeal for Toleration
VIII. Calvin to the End
Chapter XXII. FRANCIS I AND THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE 1515–59
I. Le Roi Grand Nez
II. France in 1515
III. Marguerite of Navarre
IV. The French Protestants
V. Hapsburg and Valois
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p; VI. War and Peace
VII. Diane de Poitiers
Chapter XXIII. HENRY VIII AND CARDINAL WOLSEY: 1509–29
I. A Promising King
II. Wolsey
III. Wolsey and the Church
IV. The King’s “Divorce”
Chapter XXIV. HENRY VIII AND THOMAS MORE: 1529–35
I. The Reformation Parliament
II. The Utopian
III. The Martyr
IV. A Tale of Three Queens
Chapter XXV. HENRY VIII AND THE MONASTERIES: 1535–47
I. The Technique of Dissolution
II. The Obstinate Irish
III. Every Ounce a King
IV. The Dragon Retires
Chapter XXVI. EDWARD VI AND MARY TUDOR: 1547–58
I. The Somerset Protectorate
II. The Warwick Protectorate
III. The Gentle Queen
IV. “Bloody Mary”
Chapter XXVII. FROM ROBERT BRUCE TO JOHN KNOX: 1300–1561
I. The Indomitable Scots
II. Royal Chronicle
III. John Knox
IV. The Congregation of Jesus Christ
Chapter XXVIII. THE MIGRATIONS OF REFORM: 1517–60
I. The Scandinavian Scene
II. The Swedish Reformation
III. The Danish Reformation
IV. Protestantism in Eastern Europe
V. Charles V and the Netherlands
VI. Spain:
1. The Revolt of the Comuneros
2. The Spanish Protestanis
3. The Emperor Passes
BOOK III: THE STRANGERS IN THE GATE: 1300–1566
Chapter XXIX. THE UNIFICATION OF RUSSIA: 1300–1584
I. The People
II. The Princes of Moscow
III. Ivan the Terrible
Chapter XXX. THE GENIUS OF ISLAM: 1258–1520
I. The II-Khans of Persia
II. Hafiz
III. Timur
IV. The Mamluks
V. The Ottomans
VI. Islamic Literature
VII. Art in Asiatic Islam
VIII. Islamic Thought
Chapter XXXI. SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT: 1520–66
I. African Islam
II. Safavid Persia
III. Suleiman and the West
IV. Ottoman Civilization
1. Government
2. Morals
3. Letters and Arts
V. Suleiman Himself
Chapter XXXII. THE JEWS: 1300–1564
I. The Wanderers
II. On the Rack
III. The Second Dispersion
IV. The Technique of Survival