There's something of a random walk in jumping from one used book to another. The closest previous relations to the above were different media: The BBC/PBS series of broadcasts about Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII's court, a fixer for introducing Miss Boleyn and then removing her from circulation. And then what I expected to be a sentimental journey through the history of Ireland ( the isle to the West of Tudorland) by an emigre to America, Malachy McCourt.
I suppose Ireland was far from paradise prior to Tudor establishment, what with Vikings, Normans pulling their boats ashore and so forth, but it also seemed available to weather the Dark Ages, enough to restore some Northern European literacy via teachers and transcription of Scriptures at Derry monasteries contemporary to Charlemagne. Much the same service was provided to Anglo-terre. But when it came to reciprocity in Tudor times, Ireland should have heaved anchor and rowed a thousand miles away. For an example of what I'm talking about, consider Maynooth Castle or Silken Thomas. And those are just for starters. But was there any relief with New Thought and Parliament under the guise of Oliver Cromwell? And Oliver Plunkett? After the Battle of the Boyne, there were oaths and penal laws.
But as usual I digress. Irish history exposes much of the Reformation underbelly, but it was local and individual in character. Pelican books has a fairly recent history of the oveall Reformation by a Scot historian named Diarmaid MacCulloch. Other than his first name, which I have no idea how it should be pronounced, Mr. MacCulloch writes clearly and insightfully about a vast subject. That I should mention it at all here is, of course, because I think this past has bearing on our present state of affairs. In one way, the deliberations on the continent among speakers of Romance languages, German and Latin transmitted to the British Isles like a virus and then mutated in the English context. But much of what we believe about the Reformation is about as accurate as what we come to think about Columbus sailing off to the western hemisphere ( e.g., there was little question that the world was round or that his voyages demonstrated experimentally). Similarly, whether or not the western church was corrupt or not, it was clearly not without gift or vitality for measures other than religious civil war - and it was possible to be executed by either side for heresy or disloyalty - with the extreme prejudice innovations of the era.
The Reformation did not really start with a whistle when Luther nailed his 95 theses at Wittenburg in 1517 ( half a millennium mark coming up soon), but had roots in various reform movements in the Western Latin Church heir to Jerome and Vulgate. In that context it could be said that the fall and evacuation of Constantinople in 1454 injected much Greek text and philosophy into this environment - and fence sitting scholars such as Erasmus had as much to do with the onset. Luther was an Augustinian monk and hence a student of Augustine of Hippo, author of the City of God and the Confessions. This was not Greek culture or language, but the Latin view the recently compiled and translated combination of New and Old Testament Scripture.
In the light of increased Greek literature, it was the contention of McCullouch that the Reformati was society taking away from Augustine a revised vision, inherent in his works all along and the essence of Luther's faith.
Instead of concentration on a social City of God rising out of the ruins of Rome, Augustine was now to point to the worthlessness of the sinner in the sight of God. Nothing they could accomplish was of any worth and the sacramental system of the church did not change that. Only an unconditional faith in the redemptive act of Jesus.
I'll let others fill in the story on that, if there are any takers. But for Protesting groups, soon all issues in the church were on the table - and the strife among Protestants was near as intense as it was between them and Catholics. Take the Anabaptist movement, for example. But something that many of these groups seemed to have in common and reappears today.
Lutherans, Anabaptists, Zurich Reformers all thought they were living in the END TIMES! And they thought they had a direct line from God on how to deal with it.
They did have some evidence. Constantinople had been taken and converted to Islam much as the Crusader Jerusalem enclave had been taken centuries before - in a military campaign. Here were two instances were violence ( and poor defense) definitely settled something, perhaps forever. And currently,the Turkish Caliphate was just hundreds of miles away knocking off Budapest and the Kingdom of Hungary! The world of Christendom was shrinking to a couple of corrupt monarchies, right?
So once Protestantism consolidated throughout the Germanic speaking world, what did it do about this?
Nothing.
It was Charles V and subsequent Spanish monarchs that pulled the chestnuts out of the fire. Polish forces saved Austria. The Spanish fleet sank the Turkish at Lepanto (Turkey seeks to link itself to the European community by other means these days). I guess it took a lot of silver from the New World to finance all of that.
But as much as there is to mull in all this, I've got to go.