The successes of Calvinism spurred the Catholic Church into more vigorous responses to
Protestant challenges, which had begun somewhat fi tfully in the 1530s. Many historians
see the developments within the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation as two
interrelated movements, one a drive for internal reform linked to earlier reform efforts,
and the other a Counter-Reformation that opposed Protestants intellectually, politically,
militarily, and institutionally. In both of these movements, the papacy, new religious orders,
and the Council of Trent that met from 1545 to 1563 were important agents.
Beginning with Pope Paul III (pontifi cate 1534–49), the papal court became the center
of the reform movement rather than its chief opponent. Paul appointed reformminded
cardinals, abbots, and bishops who improved education for the clergy, tried
to enforce moral standards among them, and worked on correcting the most glaring
abuses. Reform measures that had been suggested since the late Middle Ages – such as
doing away with the buying and selling of church offi ces (termed simony), requiring
bishops to live in their dioceses, forbidding clergy to hold multiple offi ces (termed pluralism),
ending worldliness and immorality at the papal court, changing the church’s
tax collection and legal procedures – were gradually adopted during the sixteenth century.
Paul III and his successors supported the establishment of new religious orders
that preached to the common people, the opening of seminaries for the training of
priests, the end of simony, and stricter control of clerical life. Their own lives were
models of decorum and piety, in contrast to the fi fteenth- and early sixteenth-century
popes such as Alexander VI (pontifi cate 1492–1503), Julius II (pontifi cate 1503–13), and
Clement VII (pontifi cate 1523–34), who had concentrated on building and decorating
churches and palaces and on enhancing the power of their own families. (Alexander
was a member of the Spanish Borgia family, and accomplished his aims partly through
the military actions of his son Cesare and the marriages of his daughter Lucrezia.) By
1600 the papacy had been reestablished as a spiritual force in Europe, with its political
hold on central Italy suffering no decline in the process.
Reforming popes also supported measures designed to combat the spread of Protestant
teaching. Paul III reorganized the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Offi ce, giving
it jurisdiction over the Roman Inquisition and putting its direction in the hands of a
committee of cardinals in Rome. The Inquisition was given the power to investigate
those suspected of holding heretical opinions or committing acts deemed theologically
unacceptable, and was very effective at ending Protestantism, fi rst in the Papal States
and then elsewhere in Italy, though local authorities sometimes limited the scope of its
investigations. Paul III’s successors, Paul IV (pontifi cate 1555–9) and Pius IV (pontifi -
cate 1559–65), promulgated an Index of Prohibited Books, which forbade the printing,
distribution, and reading of books and authors judged heretical. (The Index was formally
abolished in 1966, and the records of the Congregation of the Holy Offi ce were
opened to scholarly study in 1998. During the time of Napoleon many of its records
had been carted off to Paris, where they were sold as scrap paper.)
Reforms involved religious orders as well as the papacy. Older religious orders,
such as the Benedictines, Augustinians, and Franciscans, carried out measures to restore
discipline and get back to their original aims. New religious orders such as the
Theatines, Barnabites, and Capuchins worked among the poor and sick, establishing
hospitals and orphanages and preaching and administering the sacraments in poorer
districts.
The most important of the new religious orders was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits,
founded by Ignatius Loyola (1491?–1556). Loyola was a Spanish knight who became
acquainted with the works of religious writers and mystics while his leg was mending
after being broken in several places during a battle in the fi rst Habsburg–Valois war.
Like Luther, he went through a period of inner turmoil and crisis of conscience, but
resolved this through a rigorous program of contemplation rather than a new theological
approach. He later described his techniques – in Spanish, so that they could be read
by those who did not know Latin – in the Spiritual Exercises , which sets out a training
program of structured meditation, designed to develop spiritual discipline and allow
one to meld one’s will with that of God. The ultimate aim of Loyola’s program was not a
mystical losing of oneself in God, however, but action on behalf of God. Though Loyola
had not studied as a humanist, his stress on the individual will and the possibility – with
God’s assistance – of self-control and holiness certainly fi tted with the ideas of Ficino
and Pico.
Loyola had, in fact, not studied formally at all, a defi cit that he recognized. He enrolled
fi rst at a preparatory school to improve his Latin, and then studied briefl y at
several Spanish universities. In 1528, he went to Paris to study theology, and quickly
gathered a group of like-minded young men around him, including Francis Xavier
(1506–52), who later became a missionary in Asia. Most of the members of this group
were not priests, but they took the standard monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, and also declared that they owed special obedience to the pope. After some
initial misgivings, Pope Paul III responded in 1540 by recognizing the group as a new
religious order, the Society of Jesus, whose main purposes were the entwined processes
of education and conversion. The Jesuits founded schools, taught at universities, and
preached popular sermons. They became confessors to infl uential people, and through
this gained infl uence at many European courts. The order itself was highly centralized
and arranged in a military-style hierarchy under a Superior General; Jesuits were not
under the control of local bishops, an independence that the bishops often resented.
Though Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises offered a quick four-week program for those beginning
the process of self-discipline, preparation for admission into the order took many
years, during which time a young man went through military-like training designed
to transform him into a spiritual soldier controlled from within. Only those who had
passed rigid examinations were allowed to become professed fathers and take the special
fourth vow of absolute obedience to the papacy.
Their training and discipline made Jesuits extremely effective. Under the leadership of
Peter Canisius (1521–97), they established colleges in Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Mainz,
and other cities in the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire, reconverting some
areas that had become offi cially Protestant and strengthening the loyalty of areas that
had been wavering. In 1565 Canisius sent ten members of the order to Poland-Lithuania,
where many of the nobles were Protestants of various types – Lutheran, Calvinist,
Socinian – and the offi cial policy was one of religious toleration. Jesuits established
several colleges for training noble boys, and became confessors to the Polish monarchs;
loyalty to Catholicism grew, and in the early seventeenth century King Sigismund III
Vasa (ruled 1587–1632) repudiated the policy of toleration with little resistance. Jesuit
missionaries went to Brazil, the Spanish New World colonies, West Africa, India, the
East Indies, Japan, and China, where they worked to convert indigenous people and
minister to the European soldiers, traders, and settlers who were there. (Missionary activity
outside Europe will be discussed in more detail in chapters 7 and 13.)
In 1580, Robert Parsons (1546–1610) and Edmund Campion (1540–81) began a Jesuit
mission in Protestant England, providing spiritual guidance and religious services
for English Catholics, and encouraging them to resist Elizabeth’s policies of religious
uniformity. Campion was arrested and executed as a traitor, and Parsons returned to
the continent to organize or expand colleges for Englishmen who wished to become
Catholic priests. Despite the threat of arrest and execution, Jesuits and other priests
stayed in England, where they were often sheltered by women from prominent Catholic
families. Married women, according to common law, controlled no property, and
imprisoning a woman would disrupt family life. Thus though Elizabethan offi cials
fi ned and imprisoned Catholic men for recusancy (refusing to attend church), they
were generally unwilling to apply the law to women, and English Catholicism increasingly
centered on households.
The unusual situation of Catholics in England allowed recusant women to play a
more prominent role in the maintenance of Catholicism than was possible for women
elsewhere in Europe. The year after the Jesuits obtained papal recognition, Isabel Roser,
who had been an associate of Loyola’s in Barcelona, sought papal approval for an order
of women with a similarly active mission of education, along with care of the sick and
destitute. Loyola was horrifi ed at the thought of religious women in regular contact
with lay people, and Pope Paul III refused to grant approval. Despite this, Roser’s group
continued to grow in Rome and the Netherlands. Several years earlier, Angela Merici
(1474–1540) had founded the Company of St. Ursula, a group of lay single women
and widows also dedicated to the poor. This received papal authorization, and later in
the century became a religious order focusing increasingly on girls’ education. Once
they became a religious order, however, the Ursulines came under increasing pressure
to become cloistered nuns, that is, to cut themselves off from the world in enclosed
convents. Many Ursuline houses fought this, though others accepted claustration willingly,
having accepted church teaching that the life of a cloistered nun was the most
worthy role for a woman in the eyes of God. Ursuline houses were generally allowed to
continue teaching girls, though now within the walls of the convent, and especially in
France, they became the most important providers of education for girls.
SOURCE 14 Luise de Carvajal’s mission to England
Women’s requests to serve as missionaries were
almost always denied, but a few women were
given permission to minister to Catholics in
England. One of these was a Spanish
noblewoman, Luise de Carvajal y Mendoza
(1566–1614), who was jailed several times for
attempting to persuade English Protestants to
convert to Catholicism. The following is a portion
of a letter she wrote to Joseph Creswell, the
director of the English Jesuits in Spain and
Portugal, which gives a vivid account of
street-corner religious debates.
I can tell Your Grace that I have walked
between the cross and holy water, as they
say there, because I have been in prison,
and since it was in the public jail, it would
be useless for me to keep silent about it.
The reason was because, arriving one day
at a store in Cheapside [a part of London],
leaning on the door sill from outside, as is
my custom, the occasion offered to ask one
of the young attendants if he was Catholic
presented itself, and he responded, “No,
God forbid!” And I replied, “May God
not permit that you not be, which is what
matters for you.” At this the mistress and
master of the shop came over, and another
youth and neighboring merchants, and
a great chat about religion ensued. They
asked a lot about the mass, about priests,
about confession, but what we spent the
most time on (over two hours) was whether
the Roman religion was the only true one,
and whether the Pope is the head of the
Church, and whether St. Peter’s keys have
been left to them [the popes] forever in
succession.
Some listened with pleasure, others with fury,
and so much that I sensed some danger, at
least of being arrested. But I thought nothing
of it, in exchange for setting that light
before their eyes in the best way I could. And
in these simple matters of faith there are
known methods [of persuading] which are
very handy for anyone, and with which one
can wage war on error. And although they
might not take it very well at fi rst, in the end
those truths remain in their memories, to be
meditated upon and open to holy inspirations,
and God’s cause for their salvation or
condemnation is greatly justifi ed. And there
are very many who never manage to fi nd out
even where the priests are, and among the
lay Catholics, not many want to run that risk
[of contact with priests] without a guaranteed
benefi t. And the merchants of Cheapside
exceed the rest of the city in malice, error,
and hatred for the Pope, as well as in the
quantity of its residents and money. And
some of this can be observed in the fact that,
when I have spoken on several occasions with
others about exactly the same things, they
have always taken it affably.
The mistress of the shop tried to stir everyone
to anger, as did another infernal young
man who was there, younger in age but with
greater malice. The woman said it was a
shame that they were tolerating me and that,
without a doubt, I was some Roman [Catholic]
priest dressed like a woman so as to better
persuade people of my religion. Our Lord saw
fi t that I speak the best English I’ve spoken
since I’ve been in England, and they thought I
was Scottish because of the way I spoke …
While in jail I spoke about religion much
more than I had out of it, with all the jailers
and offi cials and their families and friends
whom, with my permission, they brought to
speak with me. And they listened nicely. And I
didn’t want to let the chance slip by, remembering
the Holy Apostle who says that the
word of God is not tied down.
(From Elizabeth Rhodes, This Tight Embrace: Luisa de
Carvajal y Mendoza (1566–1614)
[Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000],
pp. 265–79. Reprinted by permission.)
interrelated movements, one a drive for internal reform linked to earlier reform efforts,
and the other a Counter-Reformation that opposed Protestants intellectually, politically,
militarily, and institutionally. In both of these movements, the papacy, new religious orders,
and the Council of Trent that met from 1545 to 1563 were important agents.
Beginning with Pope Paul III (pontifi cate 1534–49), the papal court became the center
of the reform movement rather than its chief opponent. Paul appointed reformminded
cardinals, abbots, and bishops who improved education for the clergy, tried
to enforce moral standards among them, and worked on correcting the most glaring
abuses. Reform measures that had been suggested since the late Middle Ages – such as
doing away with the buying and selling of church offi ces (termed simony), requiring
bishops to live in their dioceses, forbidding clergy to hold multiple offi ces (termed pluralism),
ending worldliness and immorality at the papal court, changing the church’s
tax collection and legal procedures – were gradually adopted during the sixteenth century.
Paul III and his successors supported the establishment of new religious orders
that preached to the common people, the opening of seminaries for the training of
priests, the end of simony, and stricter control of clerical life. Their own lives were
models of decorum and piety, in contrast to the fi fteenth- and early sixteenth-century
popes such as Alexander VI (pontifi cate 1492–1503), Julius II (pontifi cate 1503–13), and
Clement VII (pontifi cate 1523–34), who had concentrated on building and decorating
churches and palaces and on enhancing the power of their own families. (Alexander
was a member of the Spanish Borgia family, and accomplished his aims partly through
the military actions of his son Cesare and the marriages of his daughter Lucrezia.) By
1600 the papacy had been reestablished as a spiritual force in Europe, with its political
hold on central Italy suffering no decline in the process.
Reforming popes also supported measures designed to combat the spread of Protestant
teaching. Paul III reorganized the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Offi ce, giving
it jurisdiction over the Roman Inquisition and putting its direction in the hands of a
committee of cardinals in Rome. The Inquisition was given the power to investigate
those suspected of holding heretical opinions or committing acts deemed theologically
unacceptable, and was very effective at ending Protestantism, fi rst in the Papal States
and then elsewhere in Italy, though local authorities sometimes limited the scope of its
investigations. Paul III’s successors, Paul IV (pontifi cate 1555–9) and Pius IV (pontifi -
cate 1559–65), promulgated an Index of Prohibited Books, which forbade the printing,
distribution, and reading of books and authors judged heretical. (The Index was formally
abolished in 1966, and the records of the Congregation of the Holy Offi ce were
opened to scholarly study in 1998. During the time of Napoleon many of its records
had been carted off to Paris, where they were sold as scrap paper.)
Reforms involved religious orders as well as the papacy. Older religious orders,
such as the Benedictines, Augustinians, and Franciscans, carried out measures to restore
discipline and get back to their original aims. New religious orders such as the
Theatines, Barnabites, and Capuchins worked among the poor and sick, establishing
hospitals and orphanages and preaching and administering the sacraments in poorer
districts.
The most important of the new religious orders was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits,
founded by Ignatius Loyola (1491?–1556). Loyola was a Spanish knight who became
acquainted with the works of religious writers and mystics while his leg was mending
after being broken in several places during a battle in the fi rst Habsburg–Valois war.
Like Luther, he went through a period of inner turmoil and crisis of conscience, but
resolved this through a rigorous program of contemplation rather than a new theological
approach. He later described his techniques – in Spanish, so that they could be read
by those who did not know Latin – in the Spiritual Exercises , which sets out a training
program of structured meditation, designed to develop spiritual discipline and allow
one to meld one’s will with that of God. The ultimate aim of Loyola’s program was not a
mystical losing of oneself in God, however, but action on behalf of God. Though Loyola
had not studied as a humanist, his stress on the individual will and the possibility – with
God’s assistance – of self-control and holiness certainly fi tted with the ideas of Ficino
and Pico.
Loyola had, in fact, not studied formally at all, a defi cit that he recognized. He enrolled
fi rst at a preparatory school to improve his Latin, and then studied briefl y at
several Spanish universities. In 1528, he went to Paris to study theology, and quickly
gathered a group of like-minded young men around him, including Francis Xavier
(1506–52), who later became a missionary in Asia. Most of the members of this group
were not priests, but they took the standard monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, and also declared that they owed special obedience to the pope. After some
initial misgivings, Pope Paul III responded in 1540 by recognizing the group as a new
religious order, the Society of Jesus, whose main purposes were the entwined processes
of education and conversion. The Jesuits founded schools, taught at universities, and
preached popular sermons. They became confessors to infl uential people, and through
this gained infl uence at many European courts. The order itself was highly centralized
and arranged in a military-style hierarchy under a Superior General; Jesuits were not
under the control of local bishops, an independence that the bishops often resented.
Though Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises offered a quick four-week program for those beginning
the process of self-discipline, preparation for admission into the order took many
years, during which time a young man went through military-like training designed
to transform him into a spiritual soldier controlled from within. Only those who had
passed rigid examinations were allowed to become professed fathers and take the special
fourth vow of absolute obedience to the papacy.
Their training and discipline made Jesuits extremely effective. Under the leadership of
Peter Canisius (1521–97), they established colleges in Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Mainz,
and other cities in the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire, reconverting some
areas that had become offi cially Protestant and strengthening the loyalty of areas that
had been wavering. In 1565 Canisius sent ten members of the order to Poland-Lithuania,
where many of the nobles were Protestants of various types – Lutheran, Calvinist,
Socinian – and the offi cial policy was one of religious toleration. Jesuits established
several colleges for training noble boys, and became confessors to the Polish monarchs;
loyalty to Catholicism grew, and in the early seventeenth century King Sigismund III
Vasa (ruled 1587–1632) repudiated the policy of toleration with little resistance. Jesuit
missionaries went to Brazil, the Spanish New World colonies, West Africa, India, the
East Indies, Japan, and China, where they worked to convert indigenous people and
minister to the European soldiers, traders, and settlers who were there. (Missionary activity
outside Europe will be discussed in more detail in chapters 7 and 13.)
In 1580, Robert Parsons (1546–1610) and Edmund Campion (1540–81) began a Jesuit
mission in Protestant England, providing spiritual guidance and religious services
for English Catholics, and encouraging them to resist Elizabeth’s policies of religious
uniformity. Campion was arrested and executed as a traitor, and Parsons returned to
the continent to organize or expand colleges for Englishmen who wished to become
Catholic priests. Despite the threat of arrest and execution, Jesuits and other priests
stayed in England, where they were often sheltered by women from prominent Catholic
families. Married women, according to common law, controlled no property, and
imprisoning a woman would disrupt family life. Thus though Elizabethan offi cials
fi ned and imprisoned Catholic men for recusancy (refusing to attend church), they
were generally unwilling to apply the law to women, and English Catholicism increasingly
centered on households.
The unusual situation of Catholics in England allowed recusant women to play a
more prominent role in the maintenance of Catholicism than was possible for women
elsewhere in Europe. The year after the Jesuits obtained papal recognition, Isabel Roser,
who had been an associate of Loyola’s in Barcelona, sought papal approval for an order
of women with a similarly active mission of education, along with care of the sick and
destitute. Loyola was horrifi ed at the thought of religious women in regular contact
with lay people, and Pope Paul III refused to grant approval. Despite this, Roser’s group
continued to grow in Rome and the Netherlands. Several years earlier, Angela Merici
(1474–1540) had founded the Company of St. Ursula, a group of lay single women
and widows also dedicated to the poor. This received papal authorization, and later in
the century became a religious order focusing increasingly on girls’ education. Once
they became a religious order, however, the Ursulines came under increasing pressure
to become cloistered nuns, that is, to cut themselves off from the world in enclosed
convents. Many Ursuline houses fought this, though others accepted claustration willingly,
having accepted church teaching that the life of a cloistered nun was the most
worthy role for a woman in the eyes of God. Ursuline houses were generally allowed to
continue teaching girls, though now within the walls of the convent, and especially in
France, they became the most important providers of education for girls.
SOURCE 14 Luise de Carvajal’s mission to England
Women’s requests to serve as missionaries were
almost always denied, but a few women were
given permission to minister to Catholics in
England. One of these was a Spanish
noblewoman, Luise de Carvajal y Mendoza
(1566–1614), who was jailed several times for
attempting to persuade English Protestants to
convert to Catholicism. The following is a portion
of a letter she wrote to Joseph Creswell, the
director of the English Jesuits in Spain and
Portugal, which gives a vivid account of
street-corner religious debates.
I can tell Your Grace that I have walked
between the cross and holy water, as they
say there, because I have been in prison,
and since it was in the public jail, it would
be useless for me to keep silent about it.
The reason was because, arriving one day
at a store in Cheapside [a part of London],
leaning on the door sill from outside, as is
my custom, the occasion offered to ask one
of the young attendants if he was Catholic
presented itself, and he responded, “No,
God forbid!” And I replied, “May God
not permit that you not be, which is what
matters for you.” At this the mistress and
master of the shop came over, and another
youth and neighboring merchants, and
a great chat about religion ensued. They
asked a lot about the mass, about priests,
about confession, but what we spent the
most time on (over two hours) was whether
the Roman religion was the only true one,
and whether the Pope is the head of the
Church, and whether St. Peter’s keys have
been left to them [the popes] forever in
succession.
Some listened with pleasure, others with fury,
and so much that I sensed some danger, at
least of being arrested. But I thought nothing
of it, in exchange for setting that light
before their eyes in the best way I could. And
in these simple matters of faith there are
known methods [of persuading] which are
very handy for anyone, and with which one
can wage war on error. And although they
might not take it very well at fi rst, in the end
those truths remain in their memories, to be
meditated upon and open to holy inspirations,
and God’s cause for their salvation or
condemnation is greatly justifi ed. And there
are very many who never manage to fi nd out
even where the priests are, and among the
lay Catholics, not many want to run that risk
[of contact with priests] without a guaranteed
benefi t. And the merchants of Cheapside
exceed the rest of the city in malice, error,
and hatred for the Pope, as well as in the
quantity of its residents and money. And
some of this can be observed in the fact that,
when I have spoken on several occasions with
others about exactly the same things, they
have always taken it affably.
The mistress of the shop tried to stir everyone
to anger, as did another infernal young
man who was there, younger in age but with
greater malice. The woman said it was a
shame that they were tolerating me and that,
without a doubt, I was some Roman [Catholic]
priest dressed like a woman so as to better
persuade people of my religion. Our Lord saw
fi t that I speak the best English I’ve spoken
since I’ve been in England, and they thought I
was Scottish because of the way I spoke …
While in jail I spoke about religion much
more than I had out of it, with all the jailers
and offi cials and their families and friends
whom, with my permission, they brought to
speak with me. And they listened nicely. And I
didn’t want to let the chance slip by, remembering
the Holy Apostle who says that the
word of God is not tied down.
(From Elizabeth Rhodes, This Tight Embrace: Luisa de
Carvajal y Mendoza (1566–1614)
[Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000],
pp. 265–79. Reprinted by permission.)
The exclusion of women from what were judged the most exciting and important
parts of the Catholic Reformation – countering Protestants and winning converts – is
refl ected in the relative lack of women from the sixteenth century who were made
saints. Only 18.1 percent of those individuals from the sixteenth century who were
made saints were women, whereas 27.7 percent of those from the fi fteenth century
had been women. Sixteenth-century male saints tended to be missionaries, reforming
bishops and popes, or opponents of Protestantism, while female saints were generally
mystics or reformers of existing religious orders. The best known of these – indeed,
the most famous of the women religious of the sixteenth century – was Teresa of Avila
(1515–82), a Carmelite nun who recorded her mystical visions in a spiritual autobiography,
founded new convents, and reformed her Carmelite order. Though Teresa did
not advocate institutionalized roles for women outside the convent, she did chafe at the
restrictions placed on her because of her sex, and thought of the new religious houses
she founded as answers to the Protestant takeover of Catholic churches elsewhere in
Europe.
An affi rmation of the necessity of cloistering for all women religious was just one of
many decrees issued by the Council of Trent, an ecumenical council convened by Paul
III in 1545, which met with several breaks over the next eighteen years to defi ne Catholic
dogma and reform abuses. In terms of dogma, Trent reasserted traditional Catholic
beliefs in response to Protestant challenges: good works as well as faith are necessary
for salvation; tradition along with Scripture contains essential Christian teachings; the
mystery and power of the mass centers on transubstantiation, which can only be effected
by an ordained priest; seven sacraments are effi cacious and, except for emergency
baptisms, can be administered only by a priest; the Virgin Mary and the saints are to be
venerated; priests and monks are to be celibate, and to give up their concubines.
The Council of Trent also issued a large number of disciplinary decrees, though
these were not accepted in all Catholic areas of Europe the way Tridentine dogmatic
decrees were. (Regulations from the Council of Trent are termed “Tridentine” from
the Latin name for the city of Trent, Tridentum.) These called for bishops to live
in their dioceses, forbade the outright sale of indulgences (though not the pope’s
power to grant them), strengthened the jurisdiction of bishops, and required every
diocese to establish a seminary. Priests were to be trained to instruct and teach the
laity, and were to keep records of how well their parishioners were fulfi lling their
spiritual obligations, especially the duty to confess and receive communion during
the Easter season.
In its fi nal session, the Council passed the decree Tametsi , which laid out Catholic
marriage doctrine. To be valid, a marriage would now have to be celebrated before witnesses,
one of whom had to be the parish priest; priests were ordered to keep records of
all marriages in their parishes. Divorce with remarriage was not allowable for any reason,
though spouses who absolutely could not live together could ask for a separation
from bed and board; annulment was still a possibility, but only for very extreme cases
such as total impotence.
Tridentine decrees set out ideals that were realized only very slowly; their impact
would not be felt until the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century in many parts of
Catholic Europe. By the time the Council fi nally disbanded in 1564, however, the Catholic
Church had clearly begun to change. The church had revived traditional doctrine,
provided the means for the enforcement of theological uniformity through such measures
as the Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books, and begun to reform itself
through the new religious orders with their emphasis on discipline and education.
This revitalization was a matter not simply of the church hierarchy, but also of devotional
life at the local level. Confraternities of lay people were established or expanded
in many urban parishes and even in villages. Venice had 120 confraternities in
about 1500 and almost 400 by about 1700. They held processions and feasts, engaged
in penitential fl agellation, handed out charity to the poor, conducted funerary services
for their members, purchased candles, furnishings, and art for churches, administered
hospitals and orphanages, and supported local shrines and altars. Most confraternities
were limited to men, though there were a few all-female confraternities, often dedicated
to the rosary, the Virgin Mary, St. Anne (the mother of the Virgin), or another
female saint. Jesuits relied on confraternities organized under their auspices, called
Marian sodalities, for fi nancial and political support in their charitable, educational,
and missionary activities. Some of these, such as the French Congregation of the Holy
Sacrament or the Portuguese Misericordia confraternity, were secret bodies of courtiers
and offi cials who provided support for the monarchy as well as engaging in devotional
and charitable activities. Such support was important when the leaders in this
reinvigorated Catholic Church fi elded armies against Protestants who were themselves
more militant.
World History
