A Short History of Europe: From Charlemagne to the Treaty of Europe (8 page)

Meanwhile, in Spain, a sailor of Genoese origin was making plans to set sail across the Atlantic to find a route to Asia. In 1492, after 61 days at sea, Christopher
Columbus made landfall on the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas archipelago. He also visited Cuba, which he believed to be a promontory of Cathay (China), and Haiti. The Vikings had travelled to North America almost five centuries previously, but Columbus’s achievement was still outstanding and he was welcomed home with the promise of further missions – in 1498 and 1504 – that led to the
enduring Spanish influence on Latin America.

The ambitions of the two Iberian nations inevitably led to conflicts. These were resolved, however, by a papal intervention in 1493. In his papal bull,
Inter Caetera
(‘Among Other Works’), Pope Alexander VI divided the New World between Spain and Portugal. Spain was allocated all the lands west of a line 370 leagues west of the Azores; it gave them
most of America, excluding Brazil. The Portuguese, meanwhile, got Africa, India and the East Indies. Soon, African slaves were being transported to Brazil to work on the sugar plantations. In the end, Portugal proved unable to develop its territories and, in 1580, when the King of Spain, Philip II (ruled 1556–98), inherited the Portuguese throne, the Portuguese Empire went into decline.

The rivals
to Spanish global domination were now England, France and the Netherlands and they set no store by Alexander’s division of the world, establishing trading posts at the expense of the Portuguese in the east. The French and the English had long been exploring North America. In 1497, the Italian explorer, John Cabot (c. 1450–c.1498), sailing under an English flag, was the first European to land
in North America, at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Like Columbus he was under the misapprehension that he had actually reached China. The Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano (c. 1485–c. 1528), funded by the French crown, was the first European to land on the east coast of the modern-day United States. Cabot and others sought, in vain, a Northwest Passage to Asia that would open up the Atlantic to trade from
the east and provide a fast route home. In 1522, ships in the expedition originally commanded by the Portuguese captain, Ferdinand Magellan, completed the first circumnavigation of the world. By the early seventeenth century, European ships could sail to the furthest corners of the earth.

The age of discovery was virtually over. Nonetheless, its impact was far-reaching. European colonial powers
had now divided up much of the world between them and, in doing so, they destroyed civilisations and committed genocide, so great was their hunger for slaves, trade and the pursuit of imperial ambitions. They imported diseases never before suffered and, in North America in particular, disease is believed to have killed 50–90 per cent of the indigenous population. Europe, in turn, imported syphilis,
but its effects were nowhere near as devastating as those that travelled in the other direction.

International trade exploded. By 1600, 200 ships a year arrived back in Seville from the New World bringing untold wealth in gold and silver. The southerly route around Cape Horn was plied by the Portuguese and then by the Dutch. From the east came Polish grain to feed the growing populations of western
cities. Meanwhile, the English were supplying cloth to the Low Countries and English trading companies such as the Muscovy Company (1555), the Levant Company (1581) and the East India Company (1600) began making fortunes for their founders. In the Netherlands, too, the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, was trading successfully. In the same year it was established, the world’s first
stock exchange opened in Amsterdam.

Europe now welcomed a variety of new foods and products – pepper, coffee, cocoa, sugar and tobacco. Tomatoes, potatoes, maize and haricot beans also arrived from the Americas. Trade became global. In Africa, slaves were obtained in exchange for goods made in Europe; the slaves were sold to American plantations and the ships, returning to Europe, carried such
items as tobacco, sugar and cotton. Global trade, in turn, brought the birth of capitalism. The banking system was developed and encouraged by trading associations and branches of the most important firms opened in all of Europe’s major cities. Credit became available and such techniques as double-entry book-keeping were introduced. Banks began to extend credit to kings and princes who, as a result,
interfered more in running their economies, increasingly centralising them.

As a result of the new wealth engendered by global trade, the European economy went through a serious crisis in the sixteenth century. Prices rose by more than 300 percent as a result of the increase in the money supply due to the gold and silver pouring in from Africa and the Americas. The standard of living rose but
Europe, not for the last time, began to live beyond its means. The biggest loser was Spain which fell from the grandeur of the sixteenth century to the status of a second-rate power a hundred years later. As untold wealth flowed into the country from overseas, it failed to modernise its industry and squandered its riches. The aristocracy was content to buy luxury items from the rest of Europe, allowing
its international rivals to benefit from its wealth. In the seventeenth century, Spain and Portugal entered a severe depression.

Charles V (who ruled the Spanish realms from 1516 to 1556) inherited a vast empire that, when he abdicated in 1556, two years before his death, measured some four million square kilometres. Born in 1500, son of Philip I the Handsome, King of Castile (ruled
1504–06) and Joanna the Mad (1479–1555), he was the heir to four of Europe’s leading dynasties – the Habsburgs of Austria, the Valois of Burgundy, the Trastamara of Castile and the House of Aragon. In addition, he would rule over concessions in Africa, in Italy (Sicily, Naples and Sardinia) and immense colonial tracts in the Americas. In 1530, he also became Holy Roman Emperor, succeeding his grandfather,
Maximilian I (ruled 1508–19). Charles spent a large part of his reign tussling with the French over the rich but politically unstable Italy. It was a struggle that would continue sporadically for the next 150 years.

However, the real threat to Europe at the time was from the Ottoman Turks. Since Sultan Mehmet II had secured Constantinople for the Ottoman Empire in 1453, they had made advances
into Europe. Thrace, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Albania had all fallen to them. They took Belgrade in 1521 and, by the middle of that decade, were close to Vienna, posing a danger to the Holy Roman Empire itself. Meanwhile, they had rallied Muslim troops into threatening Spain once more from North Africa.

Charles believed the only solution to the Turkish threat was a ‘Universal Concord’ amongst
European states. He believed that Christian sovereigns had a duty to stop fighting each other so that they could unite against the Ottomans. He famously gave a speech in Spanish on the subject in front of Pope Paul III. It was never going to happen, especially if the French king, Francis I, had anything to do with it. Francis and Charles went to war again. In 1521, following Francis’ capture
after defeat at the Battle of Pavia, he was coerced into signing the Treaty of Madrid in which he surrendered to the Emperor the duchies of Milan and Burgundy.

The Pope, Clement VII (Pope 1523–34), meanwhile, led the Italian states against the Empire in a series of inconclusive battles that ended in the Peace of Cambrai in 1529. Burgundy was handed back to the French and Spanish supremacy in
Italy was recognised. Further wars followed. But, soon, other matters began to demand the attention of Charles and his fellow monarchs. Not only was there the advance of the Turks to worry them but there was also the rise of Protestantism in France and Germany in the religious revolution known as the Reformation.

Religious Revolt

On 31 October 1517, the German monk, theologian and university professor, Martin Luther, pinned a notice containing
95 Theses
on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Church doors were often used as notice boards and the one at the Castle Church provided a very efficient way of getting information to everyone in the university. Luther’s notice, however,
was meant for a far bigger audience. Within months it had launched a religious revolution that changed Europe forever.

In 1516, Johann Tetzel (1465–1519), a Dominican friar, was sent to Germany by the Pope to raise money for the construction of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome by selling indulgences. Indulgences were, effectively, forgiveness for sins and their sale had become one of the Catholic
Church’s biggest abuses. However, selling indulgences was just one of many abuses that had become everyday practice amongst the clergy and such malfeasance went all the way to the top. Nepotism was rife in the Vatican and friends and relatives of the pope, whoever he was, were routinely appointed to positions for which they were unworthy. Even out in the parishes, priests were neglecting their duties.
These abuses were coupled with growing religious discontent, following the Church’s inability to do anything about the famine, war and pestilence that had bedevilled Europe in the last 200 years.

Dissenters such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus and theologians such as Erasmus, with their new, humanist values, had been unable to bring about change. Pope Julius II (Pope 1503–13) had promised reform
when he was elected and eventually called the Fifth Lateran Council – but it failed to make any changes. It ended in 1517, by which time Julius had died and been replaced as pope by Leo X (Pope 1513–21). This was the very year that Luther nailed his
95 Theses
to the church door. By this time, Germany was ripe for religious change. The Pope was extremely unpopular, having just levied a tax, and
the emperor had been weakened by bickering with the princes and cities that had elected him. The peasants looked on in disgust as the clergy enjoyed a life of luxury, land-ownership and wealth.

Martin Luther, who had become a professor at Wittenberg University in 1512, was the catalyst. He loathed the practice of selling indulgences and was horrified by Johann Tetzel’s claim that ‘As soon as
the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs’ (Bainton, Roland,
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther
. New York: Penguin, 1995, p 60) and had finally resolved to take action. His
95 Theses
contained the seeds of the revolutionary teachings that were to change Christianity forever. Luther believed (or came to believe) that only faith can bring righteousness; the Holy Scripture
is the only source of faith; the only worthwhile sacraments are baptism and the Eucharist, or Holy Communion; that the worship of the Virgin Mary and the Saints should be abolished; that purgatory does not exist; that there is no need for priests to be celibate and that monastic and religious orders have no real function. The
95 Theses
were swiftly translated from Latin to German, printed and
distributed, and within two weeks Germany was seething with religious discontent. Within two months, his thoughts were spurring debate throughout Europe.

In Germany, the unrest erupted into violence in 1522 when the knights sided with Luther and attacked the Archbishop of Trier. Then, in 1524, the peasants rose up against the lords. On both occasions Luther condemned the rebels. Gradually, however,
the princes of the empire converted to Lutheranism, mainly to weaken the Emperor still further but also so they could get their hands on valuable Church property. In 1531 they formed an alliance, the Schmalkadic League. Emperor Charles V was, in the meantime, largely preoccupied with fighting the French. Once peace had broken out between the two neighbours, however, he faced up to his recalcitrant
princes and, with the support of the pope, defeated them in April 1547 at the Battle of Mühlberg, reconverting around 30 German cities as a result. A year later, with the French now supporting the Lutheran princes, Charles signed the Peace of Augsburg after he was defeated at Innsbruck. It brought peace for 60 years, but the princes gained an important right –
cuius regio, eius religio
(‘whatever
religion the prince is, will be the religion of his people’). As for Charles, he was exhausted. He abdicated, living the remainder of his life in a Spanish monastery.

Similar doctrines to those of Luther had been preached and advocated in other parts of Europe. Swiss theologian Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) preached Church reform, claiming that the Bible was open to interpretation and denying that
the Church should be the ultimate authority. He criticised Church corruption and railed against many other issues, including celibacy, fasting during Lent and the use of images. In 1523, his reforms were taken up by the city of Zurich which became a theocracy and Basle and Berne also began to adopt his theories. The other Catholic cantons of Switzerland opposed these reforms, however, and declared
war on Zurich. Zwingli died in the Battle of Kappel in 1531.

Meanwhile, in Denmark and Norway, King Christian III (ruled 1534–59) imposed Lutheranism on his people with the help of the German towns who were members of the trading alliance, the Hanseatic League. In Sweden, King Gustavus Vasa (ruled 1523–60) similarly introduced Lutheranism and made himself head of the Swedish Church. In other
countries such as France and Scotland, the ideas of another fiery Protestant were gaining currency. John Calvin (1509–64) was a Frenchman who was forced to flee his country in 1533 because of his reforming ideas. He eventually arrived in Geneva where his thinking was imposed upon the city’s governance. Geneva became a theocracy; strict morality was imposed and all worldly pleasures were banned. Those
who failed to follow his orthodoxy were persecuted and punished. Pastors were taught Calvinism at the University of Geneva and they spread it across Europe. It was followed in England, France, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and the Low Countries. John Knox founded the Presbyterian Church in Scotland in 1561, based on Calvinist principles.

In England, church reform grew out of the personal proclivities
of King Henry VIII (ruled 1509–47). He wished to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, to marry Ann Boleyn. Pope Clement VII (Pope 1523–34) denied him the divorce but the king pronounced himself divorced anyway in 1533 and married Ann. The Pope excommunicated him, declaring the divorce illegal and the marriage to Ann null and void. The crisis mounted as the papal nuncio was withdrawn from England
and diplomatic relations were broken off between England and Rome. In 1534, the Ecclesiastical Appointments Act ensured that bishops could only be appointed that had been nominated by the King. That same year, the Act of Supremacy made the sovereign the head of the Church of England and it became punishable by death to oppose this view. Henry dissolved the monasteries, confiscating all their
possessions and opposition was ruthlessly suppressed, as his former Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, discovered when he was beheaded for refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy.