10. Renaissance Humanism and the Dawn of the Reformation: Waldo to Wycliffe

The prelude to the Reformation was both positive and negative. On the positive side, there were many individuals demanding reform in the Church. On the negative side, corruption was rife—all manner of fraudulent rackets right in the belly of the Church itself. But amid the corruption, creative juices were flowing, most notably in art, architecture, and literature. This is particularly evident in Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.

On a trip to Italy in 2006 my husband and I were among the teeming crowds of tourists visiting that wonderful city — the “Athens of the Middle Ages.” Here one finds not only spectacular works of art, but also places of great historical significance—some of which tourists are unaware. The Piazza della Signoria is one such spot. To this square Girolamo Savonarola, the celebrated evangelist of his day, brought his followers in the spring of 1497. They joined in building a bonfire to burn “vanities”— everything from popular books and board games to ladies’ gowns and works of art. The next year the evangelist himself was burned in that very piazza.

In that same piazza stands that grandest of all of Michelangelo’s sculptures, David— high and lofty in all his naked youth and beauty — having not moved since he took up residence in the fall of 1504.

The Medici family of wealthy bankers (with its close ties to the papacy) also took up residence in this city. While patronizing the arts and music, they controlled money and much more to their own advantage. Machiavelli called this city his home, and that is where he wrote “The Prince,” his political guide for rulers. Dante also hailed from Florence. Although his poetic writings were apparently not among the vanities Savanarola burned, they were surely considered burnable by popes and others whom he harshly attacked.

Strolling through the piazzas and across the bridges spanning the River Arno, my husband and I almost sensed the cobblestones crying out in a clamor of voices from the past. Though distant in time and culture, we were yet so near to those who once deliberated in the piazzas and walked the narrow streets.

“Historians have their method, just like anyone else, and they’re jealous of it, but the ‘Illiad’ shames any history of Greece, and Dante stands supreme above the world’s collected medievalists. Of course the medievalists don’t know it, but everyone else does. As a way to arrive at the truth, exactitude and methodology are, in the end, far inferior to vision and apotheosis.”

ALESSANDRO IN MARK HELPRIN, A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR

The historical approach to understanding any given period in our past ought not be disabused, but at the same time there is a way of arriving at truth that calls forth vision and grandeur as much as exactitude and methodology. Dante’s Divine Comedy is a supreme example. Though wading through his seemingly endless lines of his poetry can be tedious, he offers glimpses of life through a historical lens that cannot be found in an academic tome. Dante’s lines in the Inferno reflect on the decadence of the Catholic Church of his day, most specifically aimed at the corruption of Pope Boniface VIII and the selling of church offices. But his poetry also draws from the church’s very foundation in the New Testament:

Then tell me how, how much gold did our Lord

ask that Saint Peter give to him before he placed the keys within his care? Surely the only thing he asked was “follow me.” And Peter and the others never asked for gold or silver when they asked Matthias to take the place of the transgressing soul.

Dante was surely not alone in challenging the church to be faithful to its mission. In fact, he was one of many who found himself on the outside of a church that used its power to reward its friends and defeat its enemies. The motives of these reformers are mixed. Like the mystical miracle-working saints, canonized and otherwise, these individuals seeking to bring renewal to the Christian faith struggle with their own derelictions and demons. Among them are Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Thomas à Kempis, Girolamo Savanarola, and Desiderius Erasmus.

What is sometimes referred to as the Dawn of the Reformation encompasses a complex mix of individuals and events. If there is one representative story — probably more legend than reality — it might be the dying words of Jan Hus As he is being burned at the stake for his attack on various church practices and beliefs, he reportedly says, through the voice of prophecy: “In a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed “ Hus died as a martyr to the cause in 1415. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous Ninety-five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg We are tragically missing the story of these generations, however, if we are only craning our necks, looking forward to the Reformation.

PARADE OF HISTORY

As church history marches into the Renaissance and toward the Reformation, the drum beats are becoming louder as accusations against Rome accelerate. In the late twelfth century Peter Waldo, on a Sunday excursion in the town square, listens to the song of a traveling troubadour. His life is transformed and he turns against Rome. A parade-turned-charade occurs in 1414, when Jan Hus, with thirty bodyguards, makes his way to Constance, only to be ambushed, imprisoned and burned at the stake. But the biggest procession of this era is later in the century when Savonarola and his multitude of followers march to a popular piazza in Florence to burn their “vanities.” Soon thereafter another parade of onlookers is gawking at the burning of the preacher himself.

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ART

The distinction between Medieval and Renaissance painting is not one of competency…. Medieval art was hierarchic. Figures were often ranked in size on a scale of ascending importance…. In such a scheme it was necessary that the most significant figure in the painting be the largest and that all other figures, according to their rank, be of diminishing size…. A religious event could be depicted in serial fashion so that all key episodes were presented…. The picture did not require natural surroundings or realistic panoramas…. In order to avoid any analogy to human experience and to enhance the other worldliness of the scene, medieval settings were deliberately shallow in depth. Further, the application of gold leaf to the background areas Conveyed … purity…. While the Middle Ages were concerned with the mysteries of God, [the] Renaissance … painted world was a stage set for significant human action that took place in a world that matched the natural environment of man…. Harmony, proportion, and unity, which in Medieval art had been tied to the divine, were now applied to human figures and to the compositions in which they were placed. These terms, with their humanistic emphasis, were achieved visually, by using a single point perspective. This perspective related all parts of the composition to the human viewer and the human world depicted. Thus, God looks at Medieval art, man looks at Renaissance art.

Sandra Willard, “The Illusion of the Renaissance,” Yale – New Haven Teachers Institute

It is widely argued that the Reformation began long before that chilly day in Wittenberg, October 31, 1517, when an Augustinian monk posted a document challenging the church primarily on the matter of indulgences That incident ignited a flame, but there were innumerable other sparks that had filled the night sky of the late Middle Ages And they were not all religious in nature Political and social factors combined with religious impulses to make the Reformation virtually inevitable The church was entering the modern age, and it is highly unlikely that such a transition or transformation could have been made without major turmoil.

What shape this reform would take, however, was most uncertain Throughout the medieval period there had been renewal movements and theological disputes and challenges to the papacy — all of which culminated in widespread discontent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Adding to the general discontent over the wealth and corruption of the papacy was the relocation of popes to Avignon, followed by the Great Schism.

While there were those who separated from the church, the majority of late medieval reformers were loyal Catholics They could not have imagined being numbered with the heretics Their only desire was to bring about changes in the church that they held so dear Indeed, most agreed with church dogma that there was no salvation outside the church. Thus, a Reformation that would spawn Lutheran and Reformed churches would have been abhorrent.

EVERYDAY LIFE

Crime and Punishment

From the perspective of Dante, the worst crimes committed in medieval times were committed by clerics, especially popes. Dante’s criminals rarely got their due in life, but in death they went on to burn endlessly in hell. The sins Dante identifies come in three categories, from lesser to greater: self-indulgence, violence, and maliciousness. Hell is a cone-shaped realm ringed with nine concentric circles, each going deeper into perdition. The ninth circle is at the very center of the earth, where the likes of Judas Iscariot and Satan himself are housed. In circle eight Dante finds Pope Nicholas III, who condemns the two popes who follow him, Boniface VIII and Clement V, for selling church office to the highest bidder. Boniface, whom Dante does not find in hell because he is still alive (and will not die until Dante has already gone to the grave), will surely find his way to one of the lowest circles.

Justice by Pieter Bruegel, showing different methods of torture

But there are many other rings of hell and many crimes of a non-clerical nature. Indeed, the Middle Ages could be described as a thousand years of lawlessness. The feudal system opened the door for violence, with less-than-chivalrous knights assuming responsibility to keep order and fight wars. Peasants rebelled through thievery. Bands of highway robbers roamed the countryside and wielded control over whole regions. The brutality of the Crusaders only aggravated an already violent society, though when so many were marauding their way to the Holy Land there were fewer at home to disturb the peace. Violence in the church was widespread — not only in Crusades and Inquisitions but also in the very inner sanctums of power, where murder was one means of handling administrative problems.

Among commoners, crimes were committed and punished routinely. Crime-solving, barely in its infancy, favored clever criminals. Punishment was designed as a deterrent and meted out by often-conflicting levels of law enforcement. On a local level, petty crimes merited public humiliation, while more serious offenses drew a jail term. The criminal was typically chained in a dungeon, and care was assigned to the family. Without such support, the accused often wasted away amid filth and vermin without provisions and medical aid. Friars and nuns like Catherine of Siena sometimes offered assistance, but local priests and their parishes were less inclined to become involved. Torture, frequently used to force confessions of murder or heresy, took the form of beatings, ripping out fingernails, and knocking out teeth, but could end in dismemberment and slow burning at the stake.

Rape in the Middle Ages

The women involved were often the wives and daughters of day labourers or textile workers or servant girls…. Violence against women was … part of the sexuality of young males in late medieval Venice. Rape in Venice tended to be regarded as serious if it involved children, the elderly or the upper classes, but rape between social equals was not regarded as too serious and in some cases almost as part of the courtship ritual…. The attitude of sexual bravado was not limited to any one class, but seems to have been the norm.

Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation

The most common crime reported in medieval times was theft of food, crops, and livestock. Punishment was typically no more than a fine to compensate for the value of the stolen property as determined by the town council. When the fine had been satisfied, the guilty person was absolved and life went back to normal. On repeat offenses, a person might be publicly held in stocks or whipped or imprisoned, or in the case of multiple thefts, the hacking off of a finger or hand. In the mid-fourteenth century some seventy percent of punishable crimes involved thievery. Murder was second at nearly twenty percent.

Rape was not uncommon, though rarely reported due to the strict class divisions of the day. Indeed, attitudes toward crime and morals typically reflected one’s social status. In the twelfth-century advice book The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Capellanus writes that a man should not be considered unfaithful to his wife in a moment of passion when “Venus is urging him on” and he encounters “a little strumpet or somebody’s servant girl” and takes her down into the grass. “We can say without fear of contradiction,” he continues, “that just for this a lover is not considered unworthy of the love of his beloved.” The only issue in this case is how the wife will feel; there is no concern for the raped servant girl. Violence is a way of life in the Middle Ages, and women often find themselves the victims. Dante makes an allusion to such crimes in the Inferno’s eighth circle: “With … honeyed tongue and … dishonest lover’s wiles … [they] left [women] pregnant and forsaken. Such guilt condemns [them] to such punishment.”

Although this era encompasses far more than religious turmoil, religion is intermingled with every activity of life. At the same time, the Renaissance march toward the modern world is evident everywhere. This cultural and intellectual movement begins in the fourteenth century and affects virtually every aspect of society. Humanism is the key word. Originating in Florence, it quickly fans out through the burgeoning cities, with university professors and students eager to grasp all things new. Man is now the focus. The reign of scholasticism is ending. Monastic contempt of beauty and the physical body is being repudiated. As Greek sculpture is once again honored and reclaimed, so also are classical languages and literature.

Science also gains momentum. Perhaps no one more comprehensively represents the “Renaissance man” than does Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543). A cleric, military officer, and diplomat, he was also a scholar with specialties in linguistics, classical studies, art, medicine, economics, mathematics, and astronomy. Although astronomy was little more than a fascinating hobby for him, it is in this arena that he met both criticism and fame. By no means was he the first to maintain that the earth was not the stationary center of the universe, but he demonstrated it convincingly. His scientific calculations would foment what would become known as the Copernican Revolution when clerics denounced his system as contradicting Scripture.

There is no female counterpart to Copernicus — a “Renaissance woman.” There were, to be sure, women who learned the ancient languages and studied the classics. They were patrons of the arts who sometimes established schools for girls. But the era of modern feminism was far in the future. Women had spoken with prophetic and visionary voices, but neither the church nor the humanism of the universities were prepared to let them sit at the table as equals.

The backdrop to this progression toward the modern world was the growth of urban centers. After several centuries of stagnation in once-thriving European commercial and cultural hubs, trade routes to the East begin to open up, especially in the thirteenth century. Italian cities that have developed into city-states are the most notable beneficiaries. By the fourteenth century, with the Crusades now history, commerce expands. Finance and banking also add to Italy’s growing wealth, with its corresponding class of non-aristocratic merchants and bankers. With wealth comes building projects and patronage that turns Italian cities into extravagant cultural attractions. By the fifteenth century, this love of art and architecture becomes a passion, perhaps most notably among a succession of secular popes.

But any imagined picture of Italian cities as grand, easy-going artist colonies is entirely mistaken. Wars and invasions and hostilities of every description mark the era. Social instability and class conflict add to the volatility, as merchants and bankers surpass aristocrats in wealth and as workers lose out in the process.

Peter Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons

Three centuries before the Reformation, Peter Waldo (c. 1140 – 1218) challenged the validity of indulgences, purgatory, and prayers for the dead. A wealthy clothing merchant in Lyons, France, he “made himself much money by wicked usury,” according to a contemporary account. Whether a banker who loaned money at high interest rates or a pawnbroker, he was involved in shady business dealings. But then one Sunday in 1173, he hears the song of a troubadour and is struck by the lyrics. The traveling storyteller had spun a tale of a saintly old man who died with his sins forgiven and the promise of life eternal. Realizing that his good fortune will be reversed in the life to come, Waldo vows to devote his life to ministry and informs his wife that he is leaving her behind, giving her half his assets — either his personal property or his real estate holdings.

Although distraught by the sudden turn of events, she chooses the real estate — “ponds, groves and fields, houses, rents, vineyards, mills, and fishing rights.” Of his remaining wealth, he gives a “great part of it … to his little daughters, who, without their mother’s knowledge he places in the convent of Font Evrard.” What remains goes first to all those he had cheated and the rest to the poor and for funding Bible translation. With nothing left for himself, he goes from door to door begging. So humiliated is his wife that she hauls him before the bishop, and “seizing her husband by the throat,” she shouts at him, “Is it not better, husband, that I should redeem my sins by giving you alms than that strangers should do so?” The bishop rules in her favor, and Waldo is not permitted to take food from anyone “except from his wife.” But poverty is his rule, and he and his followers are known as the Poor Men of Lyons, later the Waldensians.

His aim is not to form a new sect but rather to influence the church to serve the poor and study the Scriptures. As the movement grows, opposition mounts. In 1179 he journeys to Rome, where he meets with Pope Alexander III and defends his work before three clerics. Itinerant evangelism and Scripture translation in “the vulgar tongue” are the sticky issues. He is denied official recognition, and the movement is condemned at the Third Lateran Council. In 1184 Waldo is excommunicated, and his views are again condemned in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council In the meantime, he and his followers move from Lyons to more remote mountainous areas in France His theological views are drawn from his Catholic heritage, including a strain of perfectionism Those committed to poverty and celibacy are considered more saintly and on a higher rung of faith than others Such perfectionism is found among those who take monastic vows, but he offers a two-tiered ranking for laity as well.

SLAUGHTERED SAINTS

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones

Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old

When all our Fathers worship’t Stocks and Stones,

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold

Slayn by the bloody Piedmontese that roll’d

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubl’d to the hills, and they

To heav’n. Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O’er all th’ Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple tyrant: that from these may grow

A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

John Milton, “On the Late

Massacre in Piedmont.”

While some of his more educated followers translate the Bible, he and others commit passages to memory and go out two by two as peddlers, preaching sermons based largely on memorized Scripture. Described by a critic as “naked disciples of a naked Christ,” he insists that he and his followers are living by the Sermon on the Mount. Encountering intense persecution and ordered not to preach, he defends his work with Scripture: “It is necessary to obey God rather than man; God commanded the Apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature.” Many of the early preachers are terrorized and martyred, hunted down not only by the Inquisition but also officials of the state. Some later merge with Reformed Christians in Geneva. The most atrocious attack against them is in 1655, known as “Piedmont Easter,” when French military forces slaughter more than seventeen hundred, including women and children.

John Wycliffe: English Bible Translator

Twenty-nine years after John Wycliffe (c. 1324 – 1384) died, his bones were dug up and burned, a retroactive rebuke to the “stiff-necked heretic.” A contemporary, however, felt otherwise: “They burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighborhood brook running hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world over.” At the time of his death, a Catholic leader had written a scathing indictment:

That instrument of the devil, that enemy of the church, that author of confusion to the common people, that image of hypocrites, that idol of heretics, that author of schism, that sower of hatred, that coiner of lies, being struck with the horrible judgment of God, was smitten with palsy and continued to live till St. Sylvester’s Day on which he breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of darkness.

Who was this man who drew forth such vitriol? To later Protestants he would be hailed as “the Morningstar of the Reformation.” Like Waldo, he committed himself to Scripture translation in the “vulgar” language and denied purgatory and the validity of indulgences. But Wycliffe went further than Waldo in articulating a theological framework that rejected the efficacy of the Mass and the dogma of transubstantiation. Unlike Waldo, he was a scholar and a trained theologian whose direct link to sixteenth-century Reformers is very clear. Born into a large landed family in Yorkshire, England, Wycliffe attended local schools, and by his early twenties was a student at Oxford, where he received a broad education in science, mathematics, philosophy, and biblical studies. A brilliant scholar, he quickly moved from student to tutor to director of Canterbury Hall, and he became a Doctor of Theology in his early forties, lecturing and later serving as a parish priest in Lutterworth.

John Wycliffe

As would be true of later reformers, Wycliffe’s demand for religious reform was intrinsically tied to politics and commerce as well as to foreign policy. English clerics as well as merchants and government officials deeply resented foreign interference. Indeed, why should they pay monetary tribute to a papacy residing in France, as was the case during the seven decades of seven popes residing in Avignon? It was no secret that France wielded considerable power and influence over its resident popes. In light of this, Wycliffe was one of many calling for the secularization of church lands in England. In fact, his first book (containing eighteen theses) argued that in temporal matters the king and parliament have authority over the church and its clergy, including the pope.

The new ideas create excitement among Wycliffe’s students, and the movement spreads like wildfire. Opposing him, however, are monks and most of the English clerics, who are dependent on the papacy. His most illustrious opponent is Pope Gregory XI himself, who issues a bull against Wycliffe and his eighteen theses, denouncing the professor’s dangerous teachings. The pope angrily lays out his case against him, warning Oxford to be rid of him:

John de Wycliffe, rector of the church of Lutterworth, has fallen into such a detestable madness that he does not hesitate to dogmatize and publicly preach, or rather vomit forth from the recesses of his breast, certain propositions and conclusions which are erroneous and false. He has cast himself also into the depravity of preaching heretical dogmas…. He has polluted certain of the faithful … and led them … to the brink of perdition…. We command your University … to arrest the said John.

Summoned to appear before leading bishops in Lambeth, Wycliffe arrives, accompanied by a boisterous parade of supporters, including Joan of Kent, the king’s mother. He is ordered to desist teaching heresy, but he refuses to be silenced, finding the pen more powerful than the tongue. Insisting that Christ, not the pope, is head of the church, he argues that it is not “necessary to go either to Rome or to Avignon in order to seek a decision from the pope since the triune God is everywhere.” He later equates the pope with the antichrist.

Wycliffe’s crowning achievement is the English Bible. Like Waldo, he insists that the only way Christians can truly follow Christ is through reading Scripture in their own tongue. Such ideas, however, threaten orthodoxy. “The jewel of the clergy,” clerics rail, “has become the toy of the laity.” Distributing the newly translated Scriptures are barefoot itinerant “poor priests” scorned as Lollards. They are persecuted, and Bibles are burned. But the movement continues to spread. “Every second man that you meet,” an observer comments, “is a Lollard!” Wycliffe is revered by his followers: “I indeed clove to none closer than to him, the wisest and most blessed of all men whom I have ever found,” recalled William Thorpe.

Both large and small landowners support the secularization of church property, but when Wycliffe begins meddling with religious rituals and dogma, many are uneasy. Church tradition is centuries old in England. Messing with the Mass is simply not tolerated. But that is exactly what he does. In 1380, just prior to the peasants’ rebellion (which he strongly opposes), he issues a provocative challenge to the doctrine of transubstantiation, attacking Thomas Aquinas for what he deems heresy — that the bread and wine are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. He likewise maintains that the church is the body of Christ, made up of elect only, all others being reprobate. Also rejected are merit for indulgences, penance, pilgrimages, and confession, since only Christ forgives sin.

England is not ready for such a thoroughgoing reformation, however. In 1382 Wycliffe is ordered to appear before a synod in Oxford. Poor health and lack of concern among members of parliament work in his favor. He is permitted to return to his parish, where he dies two years later. His followers, the Lollards, carry on as an underground movement.

Jan Hus: Czech Reformer and Nationalist

To a friend, Jan Hus (1371 – 1415) once remarked that he wished his soul might be wherever the soul of Wycliffe was found. Like Wycliffe, he would never live to see a real reformation in the Christian church. Yet he gave his life for the cause — condemned to death at the Council of Constance. Marking the end of the Great Schism that followed the Avignon papacy, the Council was far more reactive than proactive. Maintaining the status quo and stopping a popular “heretic” dead in his tracks filled the agenda. Among Hus’s deplorable doctrines was his claim that the papacy was invented by man, not by God.

Born in Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic) into an impoverished peasant family, Hus vows to rise above such destitution: “I had thought to become a priest quickly in order to secure a good livelihood and dress and to be held in esteem by men.” Moving up the clerical ladder, he earns a doctorate in theology and is ordained a priest in 1401. His parish is Prague’s 3000-capacity megachurch, Bethlehem Chapel. While still in his early thirties, he is also named rector of the university. But amid his good fortune, he becomes troubled by church corruption and by the issues raised by Wycliffe, whose writings have been widely disseminated in Bohemia.

The matter of indulgences, however, rises above all other issues. During the Great Schism, when Pope John XXIII (technically an antipope) calls for a special sale of indulgences to fund a crusade against his rival, Hus is outraged. The pope, he insists, is exploiting the Czech people. Acting “through ignorance and the love of money,” the pope has no moral authority. Christ is the head of the church, he asserts, and the Bible is the only true authority for Christians. The Czech people in large numbers rally to his cause. But the pope has the trump card. He excommunicates Hus and places Prague under an interdict, discontinuing all church sacraments Hus flees to a remote area, where he spends two years immersed in research and writing But in 1414 he is summoned to the Council of Constance.

PLAGUE, HERESY, AND UNBELIEF

The plague accelerated discontent with the Church at the very moment when people felt a greater need of spiritual reassurance. There had to be some meaning in the terrorizing experience God had inflicted. If the purpose had been to shake man from his sinful ways, it had failed….”When those who have the title of shepherd play the part of wolves,” said Lothar of Saxony, “heresy grows in the garden of the Church.” While the majority of people doubtless plodded on as before, dissatisfaction with the Church gave impetus to heresy and dissent, to all the movements for reform which were ultimately to break apart the empire of Catholic unity.

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror

THE EXECUTION OF JAN HUS

Then he was commanded to come down to the execution of his judgment, and in his coming down, one of the seven bishops before rehearsed, first took away the chalice from him which he held in his hand, saying, “O cursed Judas, why hast thou forsaken the counsel and ways of peace?” … The place appointed for the execution was before the gate Gotlebian, between the gardens and the gates of the suburbs…. Then was the fire kindled, and John Huss began to sing with a loud voice, “Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, have mercy upon me.” … When all the wood was burned and consumed, the upper part of the body was left hanging in the chain, the which they threw down stake and all, and making a new fire, burned it, the head being first cut in small gobbets, that it might the sooner be consumed unto ashes. The heart, which was found amongst the bowels, being well beaten with staves and clubs, was at last pricked upon a sharp stick, and roasted at a fire apart until it was consumed. Then with great diligence gathering the ashes together, they cast them into the river Rhine.

John Foxe, The Book of Martyrs

Guaranteed safe passage, he journeys to Germany with thirty bodyguards Despite the promises, however, he is arrested and confined to a small dungeon cell, bound in chains for more than ten weeks When he is finally brought before the council in chains, he is given no opportunity for a hearing Thirty charges are brought against him His only option to avoid execution is to recant He refuses and is sentenced to death His execution infuriates his followers, stirring a spirit of Bohemian nationalism With their leader’s death, many are radicalized — especially when they became targets of a Crusade in 1420 that continues for more than a dozen years.

In the last half of the fifteenth century, the Catholic Church offers various compromise solutions to bring the Hussites back into the fold In the sixteenth century many of them support the Reformation Like the writings of Wycliffe, the life and death and words of Hus inspire Protestant Reformers On reading his sermons, the monk Martin Luther is stunned “I was overwhelmed with astonishment,” he later recalled. “I could not understand for what cause they had burnt so great a man, who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill.”

Burning Jan Hus at the stake

Thomas à Kempis: Imitating Christ

While other reformers of late medieval times challenged church dogma on indulgences, purgatory, and transubstantiation, Thomas à Kempis (c. 1379 – 1471) reverenced these Catholic traditions, considering them necessary for true spiritual formation. In his classic, The Imitation of Christ, he makes the doctrine of transubstantiation warm and approachable:

Oh, how sweet and kind to the ear of the sinner is the word by which You, my Lord God, invite the poor and needy to receive Your most holy Body! Who am I, Lord, that I should presume to approach You? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain You, and yet You say: “Come, all of you, to Me.”

Thomas Haemerken was born in the village of Kempen, Germany, near where Luther was born a century later. His father, like Luther’s, was a metal worker. Both were educated by the Brethren of the Common Life and both became monks. But their personalities and writings and response to church corruption were poles apart. Leaving home at thirteen, Thomas followed his brother’s example and journeyed to Holland, where he joined the Brethren of the Common Life, founded in 1374 by Gerard Groote, a wealthy Dutchman who turned away from his life of luxury to live in poverty. His followers took no lifelong vows and were not bound by celibacy. Groote died of the plague at forty-four but left behind a religious order that influenced thousands of followers, including Nicholas Cusa and Erasmas, as well as Luther and Thomas. Indeed, the movement that became known as Devotio Moderna was a significant aspect of reform within the church.

Thomas á Kempis

In Holland, Thomas copied manuscripts from the church fathers and medieval writers, including his hero, Bernard of Clairvaux. But his greatest influence was the Bible, having copied the entire text four times After some twenty years of copying manuscripts and serving the poor, he was ordained and served as a priest in Germany, where he completed his Imitation of Christ “Thomas gave all his attention to God in church,” recalled a monk “While he chanted the Psalms, his eyes were ever raised towards Heaven, and he appeared to be filled with a Divine energy “ He died at ninety-two, having lived out his own philosophy of life: “Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back.”

SPIRITUAL ADVICE FROM GERARD GROOTE

True obedience is obedience in matters that are contrary and difficult.

In all things, humble yourself, especially in the heart but also outwardly before others.

It is the highest of all learning to know that one knows nothing.

The more one perceives how far short he is of perfection, the closer he is to it.

The beginning of vainglory is to please one’s self.

Seek ever to observe and think of something good about another.

Always put more hope in eternal glory than fear in hell.

One’s thoughts in falling asleep are the same in waking; pray and read psalms before retiring.

SPIRITUAL COMFORT

When God bestows Spiritual comfort, receive it with a grateful heart; but remember that it comes of God’s free gift, and not of your own merit. Do not be proud, nor over joyful, nor foolishly presumptuous; rather, be the more humble for this gift, more cautious, and more prudent in all your doings, for this hour will pass, and temptation will follow it. When comfort is withdrawn, do not immediately despair, but humbly and patiently await the will of Heaven; for God is able to restore you to a consolation even richer than before.

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Savonarola: Fundamentalist Preacher of Florence

Like Jan Hus, Girolamo Savonarola (1452 – 1498) met an untimely death at the hands of church authorities Savonarola was an Italian reformer who abandoned his medical training to become a Dominican monk A powerful and gifted preacher, he warned of the coming judgment of God So popular was he that all of Florence reportedly thronged to hear him as he preached from the pulpit of the great Church of San Marco Instead of enjoying the wealth and prestige associated with the position, however, he organized a lay monastic order He and his followers soon began practicing a strict rule of poverty, living in tiny cells, renouncing all but the barest of food and clothing The brothers quickly grew from a few dozen to over two hundred, all the while the prophet warning his burgeoning congregation of the apocalypse to come.

Through the power of his pulpit, Savonarola attained political leadership, and he wasted no time in introducing tax reforms and humanitarian programs for the poor. Nor did he stop there.

Determined to rid the city of its moral corruption, he condemns the pope as a false prophet and rails against lax morals among clergy and laity. New laws are enacted. Worldliness no longer holds sway. In 1496, he organizes a “burning of vanities.” His followers spread the word to rich and poor alike, calling all Christians to come to a great bonfire on the last day of the town’s big carnival. They are to bring with them not only fuel for the fire, but also their worldly adornments and toys: cosmetics, wigs, hats, jewelry, trinkets, mirrors, dresses, musical instruments, cards, dice, chess pieces, pornography, and sexual paraphernalia. Even great works of art, including ones by Michelangelo, are reportedly thrown to the flames that shoot some sixty feet into the sky. All this is presided over by the great prophet, Savonarola himself.

A MEDIEVAL SERMON ILLUSTRATION ON THE “VANITY” OF PETS

There was [a] lady that had two “litell doggis,” and loved them so that she took great pleasance in the sight and feeding of them: and “she made every day dress and made for them dishes with sops of milk, and often gave them flesh. But there was once a friar that said to her, that it was not well done that the dogs were fed and made so fat, and the poor people so lean and famished for hunger. And so the lady for his saying was wroth with him, but she would not amend it.” So the lady came to a bad end, as she deserved. “And therefore here is a good ensample that ladies nor gentlewomen should not have their pleasaunce in such beasts, not give them that the poor people might be sustained with, that die for hunger, the which be God’s creatures and made to his likeness.”

Margaret Deanesley, A History of the Medieval Church

THE RENAISSANCE POPES

Nicholas V (1447 – 1455): The first of the Renaissance popes, he lavished church funds on the arts and ordered plans for a new Vatican Palace and the building of St. Peter’s Basilica. As a patron of Renaissance painters, he initiated the Vatican’s collection of priceless works.

Callixtus III (1455 – 1458): A member of the infamous Borgia family, he appointed nephews as cardinals, including Rodrigo, a future pope. He was the first pope to hail from Spain in more than a thousand years.

Pius II (1458 – 1464): Well-educated and a patron of the arts, he gained prestige as poet laureate for Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. The father of illegitimate children, he appointed a “nephew” as cardinal, paving the way for him to become Pius III.

Paul II (1464 – 1471): Uneducated and uninterested in cultural advancement, he removed patronage for the arts in favor of a printing press for papal publications, though not without opposition. His cultured enemies were numerous and plotted against him.

Sixtus IV (1471 – 1481): A brilliant scholar, he was a devoted patron of the arts and architecture and watched over the construction of the Sistine Chapel. Pressured by greedy fortune-seeking relatives, he carried nepotism to a new high, appointing six “nephews” (some his own sons) as cardinals, one who would become Pope Julius II. He declared war on the powerful Medici family in Florence, sparking years of turmoil.

Innocent VIII (1484 – 1492): A compromise pope whose election was controversial, he was previously married and used his power and privilege to enhance the lifestyles of his children and other relatives. To increase his wealth he not only sold offices but also priceless treasures, including the papal crown.

Alexander VI (1492 – 1503): More commonly known as Rodrigo Borgia, he was reportedly the most corrupt and degenerate pope of all times. He openly flaunted his mistresses, including married women and teenage girls. His decade-long papal rule was bloodied with murders, political assassinations, and wars. His son Casare Borgia, appointed cardinal at age eighteen, killed his older brother and captured large tracts of land for himself.

Pius III (1303): Ill when he was elected pope in 1503, he died less than a month later.

Julius II (1503 – 1513): The nephew of Sixtus IV and groomed for pontiff as a youth, he sought unsuccessfully to unseat Pope Alexander VI, whom he accused of simony. Alexander’s death was suspicious, since Julius was waiting in the wings to be enthroned. He was the Warrior Pope who led papal troops into battle and was hounded by French opposition throughout his term. He was a very active pope, particularly in foreign policy, but he was also a leading patron of art and architecture.

Savonarola’s execution in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence

But when the Lord does not return and the local economy falters, some of Savonarola’s supporters begin to sour on his campaign of righteousness. He is now looked upon as a tyrant. Restless antagonism begins with the town’s rebellious youth, but soon large numbers of ordinary citizens join the opposition. They defy the laws and begin dancing and singing in the streets. The pubs open their doors and the dice roll again. Public opinion quickly turns against the great preacher, and Pope Alexander VI seals the popular disaffection with a bull of excommunication. Savonarola and his two closest disciples are imprisoned and tortured until they confess to heresy. The execution is straightforward. The three are taken to the central piazza, where they are hanged while a great bonfire roars beneath them. The prophet’s last words are a prayer: “O Lord, a thousand times have you wiped out my iniquity. I do not rely on my own justification, but on thy mercy.” Soon their bodies are consumed, even as the vanities had been.

JACQUES LEFÈVRE: INFLUENTIAL RENAISSANCE HUMANIST

Theologian and humanist, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1450 – 1536) paved the way for the Reformed movement in France. Although he never separated from the Church of Rome, he was forced into exile and several of his books and Scripture translations were condemned. Among his students was William Farel, who initiated the Reformation in Geneva. A hunted man, Lefèvre found protection at various times from King Francis I and Queen Marguerite of Navarre. John Calvin was profoundly influenced by him and reportedly spent time with him before fleeing from France.

Desiderius Erasmus

Had he not been brutally executed at forty-six, Savonarola might have lived on for another two decades until another monk challenged the church — one who would also condemn the pope as a false prophet and worse. Martin Luther would look to Savonarola as a martyr, publishing the meditations on Psalms 32 and 51 that he had penned amid torture. To Luther they represented “a piece of evangelical testing and Christian piety.”

Desiderius Erasmus: Renaissance Humanist

A clever satirist and serious student of Scripture, Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536) had a profound influence on the Reformation, but he does not easily fit into a religious category. Erasmus was a Renaissance humanist and a contemporary of Luther and Zwingli. Though his writings were a critical element in the success of the Reformation, he remained a Catholic his entire life.

The illegitimate son of a Dutch cleric and his mistress, Erasmus was born in Rotterdam and cared for by his parents until his teen years, when he and his brother were orphaned by the plague. He was educated in monastic schools, including one sponsored by the Brethren of the Common Life, where personal piety was emphasized. But the rigid rules, he insisted, served to break a scholar’s spirit more than to encourage humility. In his mid-twenties he took vows to become an Augustinian monk, but he was unable to settle into a life of monastic asceticism.

After studying at the University of Paris, Erasmus travels as an independent writer and teacher. His scholarly reputation quickly spreads throughout the Renaissance world, and he is offered prestigious teaching posts. For a time he lectures at the University of Cambridge, but he severs those ties for the autonomy of an unsettled scholar. After residing in Italy, he moves to Switzerland, where he finds a supportive environment.

Erasmus spends many years studying Greek and preparing a Greek edition of the New Testament along with a new Latin translation that provides hundreds of corrections to Jerome’s Vulgate version. Convinced that these are the foundation for his scholarship, he writes to a friend: “I cannot tell you, dear Colet, how I hurry on, with all sails set, to holy literature. How I dislike everything that keeps me back, or retards me.” Though it is dedicated to Pope Leo X, his new Greek edition with study notes paves the way for the Protestant Reformation. Published in 1516, it serves as the source for many future translations. In the preface he emphasizes that his purpose is to lay the groundwork for the future. “Would that these were translated into each and every language,” he writes. “Would that the farmer might sing snatches of Scripture at his plough and that the weaver might hum phrases of Scripture to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler might lighten with stories from Scripture the weariness of his journey.”

Although he is always claiming to be loyal to the Catholic Church, Erasmus is accurately accused of having “laid the egg that Luther hatched.” He does not deny his role in the religious uprising but insists that he had anticipated “quite another kind of a bird!” Like other humanists, he scorns the inflexibility of medieval scholasticism. But at the same time he is convinced that Luther and other Reformers are creating a new form of dogmatism. On the matter of human freedom, for example, he challenges Luther’s severe limitations of free will. Although he and Luther never meet in person, they correspond with each other and at times express more than qualified admiration for each other. But they are remembered for their differences.

The dispute between Erasmus and Luther on free will would erupt on a much wider scale not only among Catholics and Protestants but also among various Protestant factions. The debate goes directly to the core of soteriology — how humans are saved. Is one saved by God’s sovereign grace alone, or does the individual have a part in gaining salvation? In On the Freedom of the Will, Erasmus defines free will as “a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation or turn away from them.” Salvation, he maintains, is a cooperative venture between God and the individual.

Yet Erasmus insists that God’s grace trumps human free will: “It is not wrong to say that man does something yet attributes the sum of all he does to God as the author.” God’s grace and human free will combine “in such a way, however, that grace is the principal cause and the will secondary, which can do nothing apart from the principal cause since the principal is sufficient in itself.” Luther writes against Erasmus point-by-point, lashing out at his inconsistencies. If the individual truly has free will, Luther argues, then there is no need for grace. In short, Erasmus makes no sense. He makes his case “like a man drunk or asleep, blurting out between snores, ‘Yes,’ ‘No.’“ The dispute is not settled by the two men, nor has it been settled in the generations since.

“I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.”

Desiderius Erasmus

Throughout his career, Erasmus is criticized from both sides. The Catholic Church bans his writings, while Luther accuses him of being like Moses, dying in the wilderness instead of moving forward and “entering the promised land.” Erasmus had at one time praised Luther as “a mighty trumpet of gospel truth,” though he desperately feared the schism Luther was creating. He pleads with leaders on both sides to come together in compromise. Although Protestants persistently court him, his mind is made up: “I am not so made as to fly in the face of the Vicar of Christ.” Yet he is pained by the bitterness he sees on both sides: “I detest dissension because it goes both against the teachings of Christ and against a secret inclination of nature. I doubt that either side in the dispute can be suppressed without grave loss. It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls are urgently needed.” As time passes, tensions rise.”Had I not seen it, nay, felt it myself,” he laments, “I should never have believed anyone who said theologians could become so insane.”

POPE JULIUS II CHATTING WITH THE APOSTLE PETER

Julius: [T]he absolute power by virtue of which a pope on his own is far superior to a universal council. In fact, he cannot be deprived of his jurisdiction for any crime at all.

Peter: Not for murder?

Julius: Not for parricide.

Peter: Not for fornication?

Julius: Such language! No, not even for incest.

Peter: Not for unholy simony?

Julius: Not even for hundreds of simoniacal acts.

Peter: Not for sorcery?

Julius: Not even for sacrilege.

Peter: Not for blasphemy?

Julius: No, I tell you.

Peter: Not for all these combined in one monstrous creature?

Julius: Look, you can run through a thousand other crimes if you like, all more hideous than these. The Roman pontiff still cannot be deposed for them….

Peter: How lucky the pope would be, if he could make a law by which he could not merely cheat councils, but Christ himself! However … against such a man it is obviously not a general council that is needed, but a rising of the people, armed with stones, to remove him publicly from their midst as a public nuisance to the whole world….

Desiderius Erasmus, Julius Excluded from Heaven

His efforts to play a role as mediator, however, do not satisfy either side: “My only wish is that now that I am old, I be allowed to enjoy the results of my efforts,” he writes “But both sides reproach me and seek to coerce me Some claim that since I do not attack Luther I agree with him, while the Lutherans declare that I am a coward who has forsaken the gospel “ At the end of the day, Erasmus clearly points to Luther as the premier provocateur.

Even if I approved all of Luther’s doctrine, I could not but condemn such obstinacy in making assertions, and the bitter imprecations that for him lie so ready to hand. Nor can I persuade myself that the spirit of Christ dwells in the bosom from which such acrimony gushes forth Would that my suspicion be wrong! The spirit of the Gospel has its own wrath, I understand, but of a different kind, for it never lacks the honey of charity to sweeten the bitter aloe of abjuration.

Erasmus is above all else a satirist, and his most biting lines mock the traditions of the Catholic Church in an effort “to correct the errors of those whose religion is usually composed of ceremonies and observances of a material sort and neglect the things that conduce to piety “ In his hugely popular parody of religious ritual entitled In Praise of Folly (1511), he satirizes all things Catholic, from indulgences and images to monasticism and phony miracles. Even marriage is folly—particularly as seen in light of producing the church hierarchy: “What man would submit his neck to the noose of wedlock,” he asks, if he truly weighed the consequences. “Or what woman is there would ever go to it did she seriously consider the peril of child-bearing or the trouble of bringing them up?” The answer is not merely folly, but folly’s “follower, Madness.” And what are the results? “For out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious philosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world calls monks, cardinals, priests, and the most holy popes.”

The Praise of Folly quickly turns into a bestseller and is translated into French and German, going through several editions during Erasmus’s lifetime. It is considered a key document that helps to spur the Protestant Reformation. The book is dedicated to his soul-mate, Sir Thomas More, whose dear friendship and wit and cleverness gives Erasmus “such delight” that he could say “let me perish if in all my life I ever met with anything more delectable.” Unlike Erasmus, More has a wife and four children. An English lawyer and a leading Renaissance humanist, he is best known for his writing on statecraft. Utopia is the name he gives to his ideal society. But More lives in anything but an ideal society.

When he refuses to swear an oath of allegiance to the 1534 Act of Succession (making Elizabeth first in line to succeed her father) and to recognize king as head of the English Church, Henry VIII is not amused. More is beheaded in 1535.

“The world is full of rage, hate, and wars,” Erasmus wails. “What will the end be if we employ only bulls and the stake? It is no great feat to burn a little man. It is a great achievement to persuade him.” What had been hailed as the coming of a golden age, he laments, has turned into the “very worst century” since the time of Christ. During More’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, Erasmus suffered with him vicariously. When he learned of his execution, something in him died also: “By his death I feel myself to be dead.” He died the following year.

Was this Reformation era a golden age or was it the very worst century since Christ? Protestants easily look back and stamp it with a golden seal. But as we look at this age in its various facets of reform, we will see utterly unchristian behavior — violence and bloodshed often baptized in sanctimonious vindication.

What if …

What if Peter Waldo had backed down in response to his wife’s objections to his conversion? What if he had renounced his beliefs in the face of persecution? Would Christianity today be different without Waldo in our heritage?

What if John Wycliffe had not gathered around him a devout band of followers and translated the Scripture? What if Jan Hus had not taken inspiration from his life and ministry and courageously vowed to conduct a similar ministry in Bohemia? Did they serve only as forerunners of the Reformation, or do their lives stand alone, apart from later Reformers?

What if the Renaissance popes had faithfully served the church? Did their luxurious and scandalous lives pave the way for the Reformation?

What if the teaching of Thomas à Kempis had gained widespread support? What if devout Catholics like Savonarola and Erasmus and More had been able to inspire widespread reformation from within the church? How might church history be different today?

10. Renaissance Humanism and the Dawn of the Reformation: Waldo to Wycliffe

10. Renaissance Humanism and the Dawn of the Reformation: Waldo to Wycliffe

CHAPTER 10

Renaissance Humanism and the Dawn of the Reformation

Waldo to Wycliffe

PARADE OF HISTORY

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ART

EVERYDAY LIFE

Rape in the Middle Ages

Peter Waldo and the Poor Men of Lyons

SLAUGHTERED SAINTS

John Wycliffe: English Bible Translator

Jan Hus: Czech Reformer and Nationalist

PLAGUE, HERESY, AND UNBELIEF

THE EXECUTION OF JAN HUS

Thomas à Kempis: Imitating Christ

SPIRITUAL ADVICE FROM GERARD GROOTE

SPIRITUAL COMFORT

Savonarola: Fundamentalist Preacher of Florence

A MEDIEVAL SERMON ILLUSTRATION ON THE “VANITY” OF PETS

THE RENAISSANCE POPES

JACQUES LEFÈVRE: INFLUENTIAL RENAISSANCE HUMANIST

Desiderius Erasmus: Renaissance Humanist

POPE JULIUS II CHATTING WITH THE APOSTLE PETER

What if …

Further Reading