A200 Commentary for TMA02 2014
Question
To what extent did the Reformation depend on Christian humanism?
(I am sorry that my references to Wallace are a bit vague. I only have the first edition and I don’t want to mislead you, but hopefully you should be able to identify my references to the Wallace sources by looking up key terms in the index.)
The key words for this question are “to what extent”. This might lead you to consider three questions:
- What weight could be given to Christian Humanism as a cause of the Reformation in comparison to other possible causes?
- What part did Christian Humanism play in influencing, contributing to and bringing on the Lutheran Reformation?
- Did Christian Humanism play a greater or a smaller role than Luther or any other factor in creating the Reformation?
It is important that you pay attention to the guidance notes and read and compare the first half of Unit 6 in the Block with the section in Wallace which covers Christian Humanism, pp. 67-80. You also need to be clear what Christian Humanism was. For this see the first paragraph on page 20-21 of Unit 6 under the heading The Significance of Christian Humanism.
Probably the starting point for this TMA is a consideration of the discussion of Wallace’s views of Christian Humanism to be found in the middle of page 22of Unit 6. Here you will discover that Wallace really does not regard Christian Humanism as that significant, but that the Unit gives it much greater weight. An examination of the first few pages of the Wallace sectionHumanism, Renaissance, and Reformation, where he provides a critique of the view of 19th century cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance, shows that he even doubts whether the Christian Humanists (a label given to them in the 19th century) could be clearly separated from earlier medieval scholars. He sees them as a small elite who corresponded with each other but who “never formed a coherent school or programme”.
It is worth exploring Wallace’s perspective a little further, and what follows are some of my own observations. One of the key sentences from Wallace is given at the beginning of the Chapter (the final two sentences of the first paragraph), where he compares the fates of Hus and Luther:
The different fates that these reformers faced had less to do with their message than with the profound shift in church-state relations during the intervening century. This chapter will plot the changes in Europe’s political landscape in the era between Hus and Luther and examine the various calls for resistance, renewal and reform.
A further clue to Wallace’s mode of thinking is given in the subtitle to his book: Religion, Political Conflict, and the Search for Conformity, 1350-1750. Wallace does take a long view; in his introduction he starts with Jesus. This means that he is more likely to stress continuity and see nothing particularly new in the schism in the Church in the early 16th century (although it is true, as I state below, that he recognises Luther’s originality). He discusses the reforms of Pope Gregory VII of the mid-eleventh century, “The late Medieval Crisis” is the title given to his first chapter, and in it he notes how the Catholic Church survived the Avignese Papacy (1307-77) and the Great Schism (1378-1417) in tact. Throughout Wallace stresses that it is factors external to religious belief that causes schism and dispute in the Church, and these are primarily the changing political landscape, especially the clash between secular and religious authority, between monarchs and the popes, as well as the worsening economic situation, which tended to create conflict between the Church’s need to raise taxes and the need of monarchs and the nobility to do likewise. See what he says about the economic impact of the Black Death. Do look it up in the index. Wallace emphasises that the Concordats that the 15th century popes signed with European monarchs outside of Italy reduced their potential income, forced them to reply more on their revenues from their Italian lands, and really turned them more, at least in part, into secular rulers, involved in the tortuous politics of the Italian states:
The French-Aragonese conflict divided these regional states into rival alliance systems and factionalised the magnates within each territory. The popes as elected rulers of the largest single Italian state were critical players in this political drama…(Wallace, late in Chapter One.)
The expense of sustaining multiple courts and, after 1415, increasing entanglement in volatile Italian politics would further arouse papal fiscal appetite and worldliness. (Wallace, early Chapter Two.)
Wallace describes a vibrant late medieval church where the laity is enthusiastic and increasingly involved:
The Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life were one example of hundreds of pious lay foundations, which hinted at the vitality of fifteenth-century Christianity rather than its decay. (Wallace, just at the end of the section beforeHumanism, Renaissance, and Reformation.)
Throughout the fifteenth-century Europe lay folk desired increased participation in ecclesiastical affairs at all levels of society, from royal involvement in reform movements to local lay participation in religious confraternities and third-order movements. Tensions between lay demands for spirituality and clerical supply would play a key role in turning reform into Reformation. (Wallace, final section of Chapter One.)
Finally, Wallace makes two further important points, that the fifteenth century popes blocked reform from above (see particularly the final pages of Chapter One) and that:
The growing influence of monarchical states in ecclesiastical affairs was a principle precondition for the European Reformation, which then completed the shift of religious power into the hands of state officials.
Considering to all these issues I think Wallace’s answer to my three question above would be that Christian Humanism’s contribution as a cause of reform was comparatively slight. He says that “Humanism was not inherently reform-orientated nor amenable to reformation” (towards the end of the section Humanism, etc.) – you might note here the role of Spanish humanists (three pages in to the next section, Fifteenth Century Monarchs, etc.) - and of Erasmus that, although he had enemies and “numerous admirers”, “he never built a party among the republic of letters.” (right at the end of Humanism, etc.). Also, Wallace does not really seem to see a connection between the humanists and Luther. Reformers really developed separately as is implied in Wallace’s statement: “so when reformers with a programme came along, all the humanists could do was join or resist” (right at the end of Humanism, etc).
In a way Wallace sees the context in which reform took place as all important. One of the issues which historians wrestle with is the extent to which ideas have an impact and create social and political change. It is true that Wallace sees Luther as a major thinker with truly innovative ideas, see for example, his explanation of Luther’s three major works on pages 79-81. As Wallace says of justification by faith:
This truly innovative perspective short-circuited the entire sacramental system of late medieval piety. (On the penultimate page of Chapter Two)
However, Wallace emphasises that Luther came along when the political structure of Europe was more fragmented and this allowed a powerful patron to protect him, at a time when the Church hierarchy had failed to reform, when the laity was demanding more of a say and had a great confessional commitment. Also the printing revolution enabled his ideas to be spread in a way that had not been possible for previous thinkers. The early 16th century was also a period of increasing millennial and apocalyptical vision and of growing economic hardship. Wallace would simply say that Luther offered so much more, and for popular consumption, than did Erasmus, but he gives great emphasis to the context. The implication is that without this context, clever and to a certain extent origin though Luther was, his ideas would not have had the major impact that they did. The Unit does share some of this thinking; you might consider what is said about the significance of Wittenburg, Unit 6, pp. 45-47.
In tutorials and emails, I have emphasised that for this TMA it is worth giving some consideration to the wider context of the Reformation. A reading of Unit 6, as well as what I say of Wallace above, will give you this wider context and it is worth noting the detailed consideration of printing, Unit 6, pp. 42-45, the worsening economic climate as shown by the peasant’s revolt (pp. 35-41) and how these both linked to apocalyptic thinking (pp. 24-28). I think that I would tend (and this is my opinion) to see all these factors as more significant that Christian Humanism, but the Unit is rather kinder to Christian Humanism than Wallace, and this seems to be a little fairer to them. I would particularly note in their defence the following:
- The impact of Erasmus’s publication of his New Testament in 1516 (Unit 6, pp. 21-22), the first publication of a Greek edition, as far as he could from the original manuscripts, with a Latin translation, and his emphasis on the importance of the laity studying the Bible for themselves. Luther made use of Erasmus’s edition himself for a course of lectures that he delivered in the year of its publication and later used it as a basis for his own translation into German. (From a book on my shelf, V.H.H. Green, Luther and the Reformation, London, 1964, p. 48);
- The impact of Praise for Folly, going through seven editions in a few months. Note the discussion of Plate 5.3 from the Visual Sources: “This scroll could have been taken straight out of Erasmus.” (Unit 6, p. 43)
- The emphasis in the Unit on the significance of print, the existence of woodcuts such as Plate 5.3, the fact that Erasmus went through so many editions, the fact that Luther read and used humanist scholarship, all indicates that Wallace’s judgement that Erasmus’s “criticisms and witticisms reached only a small intellectual audience” (Wallace, near the end of the Section Humanism, etc.) is rather too sweeping. The point is they were read by influential people who could then use them and interpret them for a wider audience.
On the whole, then, I would argue that Christian Humanism did have a significance, even if other factors had greater weight.
A further note:
I have been asked about how one could tell that Luther was not a Christian Humanist and this can cause problems. Frankly, I don't think the Block is over helpful on this issue as it doesn't explicitly state that Luther wasn't a Humanist, and I went to other sources to check myself, the V.H.H. Green book that I mentioned in my commentary, but also A.G.Dickens, "Reformation and Society in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Thames and Hudson, 1966). These are both books that I've had for years and both make it clear that Luther was never a Humanist because of his outlook on mankind.
The key point is that humanists believed in the perfectibility of mankind and that one could earn a place in Heaven by one's behaviour on Earth. This belief in what man is, is what marks them out, rather than their scholarship. (On this Dickens writes about Luther's ideas: "Presently they brought him into conflict with Erasmus, who as a good humanist believed in the basic dignity and goodness of man, in man's ability by the exercise of free will to contribute towards his own salvation". Dickens, p. 58).
Luther always believed that men were essentially sinful and only God could save them, as a free gift by his grace, and also only God knew who was to be saved. This doctrine was central to Protestantism and was known as predestination. Luther's outlook was always bleak, but the humanists were more optimistic. The only way that you can really tell this from the Unit, I think, is that the Christian Humanists receive a different section from Luther, that references to humanists who became Protestants leave him out, see middle p. 21, and that the comment towards the bottom of page 20, refers to Erasmus as a humanist, but separates him from Luther and Calvin. Again, on the last page of the Section Humanism, etc., Wallace refers to key reformers as having pursued humanist studies, Melanchthon and Zwingli, but not Luther. I know this is a bit unsatisfactory, but in the end nowhere in the materials does it actually say that Luther was ever a humanist. Luther's use of Erasmus’s version of the Bible wasn't mentioned in the Course materials, but V.H.H. Green says it was the case. Here he is from page 48:
Before he had completed his work Luther was able to make use of the new edition of the New Testament prepared by Erasmus. That he did so quickly after its appearance shows that he was receptive to new ideas. Luther was never a humanist but he was ready to utilise the tools they had created." (V.H.H. Green, "Luther and the Reformation" (University Paperbacks, 1969 - 1st edition 1964)
Ian Cardall
Associate Lecturer A200
December 2014
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