RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN REFORMATION EUROPE HSTEU 402
“Religion is often held up as a
vessel of peace, both inner and social.
How then, to understand its
violent currents?” John Hall, “Religion
and Violence: Social Processes in Comparative
Perspective,” in Michele Dillon (ed), Handbook
for the Sociology of Religion
(2/3 of these are Anabaptists = majority of those executed everywhere)
1520-29 1530-54 1555-65 1566-99
German Empire: 380 325 22 23
Switzerland 40 50 11 4
Low Countries 12 500 440 89
France 10 300 200 16
Engl & Scotl 20 40 330 3
Spain (Inq) 0 13 132 66
Italy 0 15 30 72
Totals 462 1,193 1,155 273 Total 3, 083
Source: William
Monter, “Heresy executions in Reformation Europe,” in
Ole Peter Grell and Bob
Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance
in the European Reformation (1996), pp. 48-64;
chart at p. 49
Conclusion: “The
relative scarcity of executions for heresy by the only truly clerically
run institution of this group, the
Roman Inquisition – under 2% of these provisional
totals – points towards the
generalization that heresy executions [by state run courts]
had become a form of state-building in Reformation Europe. (pp.
49-50)
Varieties of Religious Violence and Coercion: Bruce Lincoln’s chart (p.99)
Pacific (Peaceful) Violent
Individual level: Exclusion Execution
Social level: Schism Massacre
Geneva: Sister Jeanne de Jussie –expulsion of
religious orders 1535 (before Calvin)
Geneva Confession:
example of confessional cleansing
Goal
of religious uniformity within the political framework of city state
small scale of
city state permits expulsions rather than executions
Execution of Michael Servetus: Anabaptist and anti-Trinitarian = too heretical to live
Munster 1531-33: Catholic prince-bishop is
expelled (calls up army early on)
evangelical reform movement (basically
Lutheran, supported by magistrates)
1532: urban militia takes Catholic magistrates, high clergy as
prisoners; Bishop in exile
radical reformation led by
ex-priest, Bernard Rothman, turned Lutheran
seen as Zwinglian agitator,
council attempts to exile him, fails
1533-34: Anabaptist refugees from Netherlands (Hsia article link from web page)
Religious
warfare since 1560’s: traditional stress
on political issues (weak monarchy),
but current historiography
stresses the fundamentally religious nature of conflict
(Mack Holt, “Putting
Religious Back in Wars of Religion”)
Conflict as social and
religious: conflict not directly of
beliefs, but of believers:
two social groupings with
different life styles, mutually offensive to each other
Huguenots: new group of
dissenters, breaking with Catholic society and Church,
obnoxious in their behaviors
(roasting meat on Friday, Puritanical behaviors)