Daily Life During The Reformation (12 page)

Portugal, under Spanish domination for much of the period
(1580– 1640), followed policies similar to those of Spain. The country remained
untouched by the Reformation.

The Reformation had very little impact on Italy as a whole.
The only Protestant communities were those of the Waldensians, who lived in isolated
mountain valleys. These groups had existed before the Reformation but then, due
to common beliefs, they integrated into the Reformed Church.

Because Luther’s works were published in German, Church
censorship in Italy successfully kept his works from the literate public as
well as the general populace by banning preaching and reform ideas. There were
no city or state officials asking for reformed preachers as was the case in
German-speaking areas.

Church officials regarded any kind of reform as a threat to
their position, and high offices were controlled by powerful families. There
were a few isolated incidents in which followers of Luther or Zwingli tried to
make inroads in Italy, but even the mention of their names could be dangerous.
At one point in 1531, Lutheran ideas were discussed at the University of Padua,
but papal authorities wasted no time suppressing this activity.

EASTERN EUROPE

Protestant reformers cut deeply into the fabric of the
Catholic states of Poland under tolerant rulers. The teachings of the reform
movement found adherents throughout the country.

The most fervent Protestants were to be found in the cities
of Danzig, Thorn, and Elbing, which were still mostly German. The majority of
Poland’s nobility had converted to Protestantism, and the policy of tolerance
attracted many of the refugees from other lands. A new Protestant-dominated
nation was about to be born.

Then came the miscarriage. In 1550, the king, Sigismund
Augustus, announced he would remain Catholic and that heretics would be
expelled from the country. This did not happen as many of the nobility were
Protestant, and the common people were not affected by the religious split.
Following monarchs were thoroughly Catholic, and a divided Protestantism, while
not vigorously persecuted, just faded away.

WESTERN EUROPE

France

Assembled at Meaux by Guillaume Brigonnet was a group of
French evangelical humanists. There, Jacques Lefevre produced his French
translations of the scriptures. Lefevre did not attack the papacy or seek a
break with the Church, but the town gradually acquired many Protestant
residents. Similar small circles appeared in other towns such as Amiens and
Metz in Lyons and Grenoble. There was little coordination among the far-flung
groups that were inspired by Erasmus, Lefevre, Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, and even
the Anabaptists. Growth and expansion was inhibited by opposition from the
Sorbonne and the Parliament of Paris. King Francois I supported Lutheran
princes in the Holy Roman Empire in his struggle against Charles V but had no
axe to grind with the pope as did Henry VIII of England.

The citizens of France did not have the spiritual or
political need to embrace the new faith. The peasantry, especially, stuck to
their saints and pious practices. There was no rush into heresy, and the
powerful French bishops kept their dioceses under control.

In 1534, with the affair of the placards, the king clamped
down, then for a time relaxed the oppression, but at the end of his reign, some
3,000 Waldensians were massacred in Provence along with many Protestant
artisans at Meaux. Calvinism, however, was on the rise, but Catholics were
still in firm control.

England

Dissenters were not unknown in England and provided a small
nucleus for a Protestant foothold. The Lutheran movement was reinforced by the
trade with Antwerp whereby numerous heretical books and pamphlets invaded the
country. After about 1520, such ideas were discussed by students at Cambridge
under the auspices of the Augustinian friar, Robert Barnes, a disciple of
Luther (martyred in 1540). Ties with the Vatican were severed in the reign of
Henry VIII, and the Anglican Church emerged. Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell
inclined toward Protestantism; the latter worked toward forming alliances with
other Protestant states such as Saxony. They both were sympathetic to the
dissemination throughout England of the scriptures translated by Tyndale and
Coverdale.

WOMEN IN THE ADVANCE OF THE REFORMATION

In countries outside the Holy Roman Empire women also
played a significant role in the spread of reformed ideas. Elizabeth Dirks, for
example, from a good family was sent to a convent in East Friesland where she
began to question whether life in a convent was truly a Christian way to live
and became interested in Anabaptism. She decided to flee, but she was
apprehended a little later in still Catholic Holland. Hustled off to prison,
she was asked for names of her family members and students whom she had taught.
She refused to reveal anyone in the Anabaptist movement. When asked by the
examiners if she believed one was saved through baptism, her response was that
she did not. She also stated that only Christ, and not priests, could forgive
sins. Severely tortured, she still refused to answer their questions. On March 27,
1549, Elizabeth was forced into a sack and drowned. The criminal court records
of her ordeal were published in 1660.

Catholic women in the hands of Protestants fared little
better. Women in England who harbored Catholic priests were persecuted in the
reign of Elizabeth I. Such was the fate of Anne Line, a convert to Catholicism,
who was hanged as one of the 40 Catholic martyrs of England and Wales in 1601
for that crime. Margaret Clitheroe was accused of the same crime but refused to
plead either guilty or not guilty (in such cases, the trial could not proceed,
and torture was applied). A board was placed over her body and weights added to
it, resulting in her being crushed to death.

Margaret Ward was hanged for helping a Catholic priest
escape from a London jail. She was arrested and clapped in irons, flogged, and
hung up by the wrists. This treatment continued for so long that afterwards she
was severely crippled before her execution.

The (Catholic) Act for the Advancement of True Religion was
passed in 1543, prohibiting women from reading the Bible in public, but this
did not deter Anne Askew. Arrested and stretched on the rack, she endured this
treatment for months but revealed nothing of her acquaintances. Too badly
crippled to walk, she was carried to the stake and burned as a heretic in 1546
in London at the age of 25. Protestantism was not to be recognized officially
in England until the reign of Edward VI.

6 - HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

OBSERVATIONS OF A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
TOURIST

Fynes
Moryson, son of a well-off English gentleman, left England in 1591, sailing to
Stade near the river Elbe where his travels began through the Holy Roman
Empire. In his accounts, he commended the Germans for their integrity but found
them inclined to be somewhat dull.

He admired the German women for their propriety—covering
themselves from head to foot if in the street. People who were not married did
not kiss publicly; and if they were married, they only did so discreetly. Even
to touch a woman’s hand in greeting or departure was strictly against
etiquette.

Honesty was a characteristic of the inland Germans who
would not cheat a client nor sell an item for more than its value. Buyers paid
the asking price without bargaining.

At feasts they had no intimate interaction and discourse or
playful activities. Instead, there were long orations, one following upon the
other, interspersed with short toasts.

In short, Fynes found the Germans large in body, short in
wit, modest in speech, just in their dealings, strict in dress, and heavy
drinkers.

Artisans and City Life

Germans were excellent in what Moryson called the manual
arts because of their diligence in their chosen professions. They were content
to do a good job in one industry unlike in other countries where, besides their
professions, men tried to gain a superficial knowledge of many things for
discourse and ostentation. The Germans produced the printing press, excellent
clocks, and water-driven mills for use in mines and for sawing wood. Mills, on riverboats,
could be moved from town to town when needed. With these inventions, they made
labor easier and saved on costs. Children’s cradles were supported by wheels as
were beds designed for the ill, too weak to walk. For ease of labor, plows also
had wheels.

The various artisanal trades had their yearly feasts that
were not as rigid as most events. People paraded through the streets in the
morning and once having dined, moved on to a public house to spend the
afternoon either dancing or sitting at the tables, singing, talking, and drinking.
When the festivities were finished, they marched back to their homes as they
had come.

Unlike open English shops, the artisans in Germany worked
behind closed chambers with stoves or ovens supplying heat in the winter
months. Apprentices also worked here for six years under less harsh conditions
than in England, according to Moryson. They had more holidays and more leisure
time, with Mondays off work. If a client entered a shop to buy a pair of shoes
or boots, no one offered assistance, but all continued working. The buyer
selected his footwear himself and tried it on. If it was satisfactory, he paid
the price asked along with a mandatory tip (
drink-geld
), drinking money
for the workers. A small tip was scornfully refused.

He noted in addition that many educated Germans he met
spoke Latin and had some skill in mathematics and music. Women carried chalk in
their purses to help them quickly add up figures.

People begging for alms sang in the streets, and poor
students during holidays went from house to house, generally receiving
hand-outs from the wealthier homes.

Each city and fair sized town had trumpeters who lived in
the steeples of churches along with their families. Stoves were provided as
were chambers to live in. Daily at noon, they sounded trumpets on the highest
part of the steeple. When anyone approached the town along the road, by horse,
carriage or even walking, flags were hung out on the steeple to inform the
citizens of the new arrivals and especially the innkeeper who could prepare for
clients. In addition, patrols walked the streets at night to keep an eye out
for mischief or fire. As they walked, they shouted out periodically to the
effect:

Loving sirs let me say to you

The clock eleven has now struck

Look to your fire and your light
(candles)

That no mischance befall this
night

Many cities also maintained (at public cost) musicians who
played at the inn each day at noon when the councilors went for dinner, as well
as at public feasts. At festivals, the louder the music, the better the Germans
liked it. It seems they were fond of singing birds and both in the better
houses and those of the artisans, birds could be seen enclosed by a wire behind
the window or flying about freely. In Leipzig, Moryson observed nightingales in
the better homes that made sweet sounds for those passing. For reading matter,
literate Germans had little interest in foreign authors but preferred their own
in science, philosophy, and divinity.

Dueling

As men often got into arguments and fights, even when
drunk, they did not kill each other, for the penalty was immediate execution.
When two gentlemen went into a field to duel, there were no referees or
moderators, but they did battle with the flat of their swords, being careful
not to thrust or stab. When the first blood was drawn, the fight was over, and
they usually shook hands. The loser bought the drinks for all who witnessed the
event.

Bathing

Most people of any means had a stove in the house to heat
water for the bath they took on Saturdays. The women could often be found
sitting in doorways drying their hair in the sun. The cities also had public
baths for use on those days, used by both men and women who only covered their
private parts, if anything, and they were often attended by maids and servants
who washed and dried them. The various hot springs or mineral waters were
popular, and men often brought mistresses rather than their wives to bathe with
them. Although it was forbidden, apothecaries sold sex-stimulating drugs to
trusted patrons.

Other Customs and Amusements

Moryson found many unfamiliar customs in Germany, one of
which involved the cherished storks. The cities and even private homeowners
often built nests of wood, saving the birds much effort; and it was considered
good luck to have them nest nearby.

At the time of public fairs and the ringing of bells,
thieves and condemned fugitives could freely enjoy the festivities, but they
had to be gone by the second ringing of the bell. Moryson claims to have seen a
woman (who had already had a finger cut off for a crime), beheaded for failing
to leave on time.