Daily Life During The Reformation (10 page)

Zurich Embraces the New Faith

As the sixteenth century advanced, Zurich contained about
10,000 inhabitants. The city’s economy focused on the surrounding hinterland
that provided commercial agricultural produce. Power was held by an urban
oligarchy of leading families. The surrounding villages and farmers were
obliged to sell their products at fixed prices in the city and purchase their
requirements from the city shops. Censorship allowed no criticism of the
administration. The little industry and trade was reserved for the privileged
few who operated in the sphere of public or ecclesiastical authority. In the
twisting narrow streets, the merchants and artisans had no say in the
functioning of the city and were banned if they complained. Zurich was both spiritually
and economically corrupt. A few priests lectured ineffectively about the abuses
of indulgences and corruption of morals, but little changed.

Already well known for his dynamic preaching, Ulrich
Zwingli was appointed people’s priest at Zurich where he gave his first sermon
on January 1, 1519. During his university days in more liberal Basel, he had
become familiar with the doctrines of humanism and was sensitive to
ecclesiastical abuses.

At the end of January 1519, when Bernhardin Sanson appeared
at the gates of the city peddling indulgences, parishioners turned to Zwingli
for advice. He let it be known that indulgences were sold on false pretences,
and as a result, the Council of Zurich denied Sanson entry into the city. Hoping
to reduce the effects of the reforms called for by Luther, authorities in Rome
disclaimed supporting Sanson, and he was recalled.

After 1520, Zwingli’s theological opinions became more
radical. He attacked moral corruption, accused monks of laziness and high
living, rejected veneration of saints, cast doubts on the notion of hell fire
and the efficacy of excommunication. Attacks on the assertion that tithing was
God-given contravened the economic interests of the Church, and some canons
came to oppose him. Zwingli professed not to be an innovator; his teachings
were based only on scripture. How much he was influenced by Erasmus and Luther
is unclear.

Zwingli was chosen to fill a vacancy among the canons of
the cathedral in spring 1521, retaining his post as the people’s priest. He was
now a citizen of Zurich.

In March 1522, on the first fasting Sunday of Lent, he
ignored the rules while friends distributed smoked sausages, an action he
defended in both a sermon and a publication. Noting that there was no general
rule on diet in the Bible, Zwingli reasoned that no sin had been committed, and
hence no punishment should proceed from the Church. The city council requested
that the issue be clarified. The bishop responded, reiterating the traditional
position on fasting.

Soon after, in July 1522, Zwingli and other humanists
petitioned the bishop in an attempt to rescind the requirement of clerical
celibacy. The bishop insisted that the ecclesiastical order should be maintained,
but Zwingli was not dismissed. When he rejected the right of the Church to
judge on ecclesiastical matters because of its own corruption, other Swiss
clergymen began to join his cause.

With no clarification on the issues, tension continued to
grow between Zurich and the bishop, and among Zurich’s confederation partners
in the Swiss Diet. On December 22, 1522, the Diet proposed that its members put
a stop to the new teachings, but the Zurich city council had other ideas. On
January 3, 1523, it invited the city’s clergy along with those from outlying
regions, as well as a representative from the bishop, to a meeting to hear the
views of the various factions, after which the council would decide who would
be permitted to continue proclaiming their beliefs. Attracting some 600
participants, the Zurich disputation met. It came as a severe blow to the
Catholic Church when the council decided not only to let Zwingli continue his
preaching, but to allow any preacher to teach as long as it was in accordance
with scripture. The secular members of society were setting the rules that had
been the prerogative of the Church.

In September 1523, Zwingli’s colleague and pastor of Saint
Peter’s Church, Leo Jud, adhering to a literal reading of the second commandant
“Thou shalt not take unto thee any graven images” asked for the removal of
icons from churches including statues of saints. Demonstrations followed,
whereupon the city council held a second disputation to discuss not only icons
but the very essence of the Mass. Catholics felt that the Eucharist was a true
sacrifice, but Zwingli declared that it was only a commemorative action. Men
were in attendance who also wanted the process of reform to move at a more
rapid pace and who, among other things, wanted to replace infant baptism with
adult baptism—a time when people understood what they were doing. They were led
by Conrad Grebel, one of the founders of the Anabaptist movement. The
arguments, pro and con, resulted in the question of who actually held the
authority to decide on these issues—the city council or the Church.

Eventually, a compromise was reached that allowed pastors
to leave images in their churches if they wished as long as they instructed the
congregation about the consequences of worshipping idols. The hope was that
people would eventually want them removed. The council later decided on the
removal of images within Zurich, whereas rural communities were granted the
right to remove them based on majority vote of their congregations.

When Zwingli’s major adversaries left the city, resistance
from those hostile to reform, collapsed. An attempt by the Bishop of Constanz
to defend the Mass and the veneration of images resulted in a rupture of ties
between the city and the Church. Pastors, no longer required to celebrate Mass,
began to modify their services as each saw fit.

Zwingli translated the ceremony of Communion into German,
and on Maundy Thursday, April 13, 1525, he celebrated Communion in its new
form. Instead of silver cups, wooden ones were used to show humility, and at
the sermon there was no music or singing. Zwingli advocated limiting the
celebration of Communion to just four times a year. He also asked for the
abolition of monasteries to turn them into hospitals for the poor. His advice
was followed. Remaining nuns and monks were pensioned off. Church properties
were taken over by the council, and new welfare programs were instituted. The
most extreme branch of the Reformation in Switzerland led by Conrad Grebel
rejected the role of civil government in Church affairs and demanded that a
congregation of the faithful be established for this purpose. Grebel encouraged
the emerging Anabaptist movement.

On August 15, 1524, against Grebel’s wishes, the council
insisted that all newborn infants be baptized, and nonconformists were forced
to pay a fine. This was later changed to banishment. For rebaptism of anyone,
the death penalty was imposed. Felix Manz defied the mandate and was arrested
and drowned in the Limmat River that runs through Zurich. The Anabaptists
departed the city for a more congenial place.

Religious Civil War

Success of the Reformation in Zurich and elsewhere became a
political as well as a religious issue between the cantons since the economy of
some regions depended to a large extent on mercenary soldiers and the pay they
brought home. The Swiss people were proud of their mercenary solder pike men
who had turned the tide of many battles. Mercenary soldiering was also an
outlet for the young men of impoverished hamlets and towns who brought home
their pay that helped improve the lives of their poor families and members of
the communities. Their abolishment was a major tenet of the Swiss Reformation
that led to friction among the cantons.

The League of the Five Cantons was formed in 1524, to
combat the spread of the reformed faith. Tensions ran high. A Protestant pastor
was burned at the stake in Catholic Schwyz in 1529. In retaliation, Zurich
declared war. Open war was avoided and a peace agreement was drawn up.

At a religious conference in 1529, Luther and his friend
and colleague, Philipp Melanchthon, opposed any union with Zwingli. This led to
a schism in the reform movement caused by Luther’s insistence on the real
presence of Christ as opposed to Zwingli’s teaching on the symbolic presence of
Christ at the Eucharist.

Two years later, war broke out, and the Catholic cantons
defeated the forces of Zurich. The 48-year-old Zwingli was killed. The cantons
agreed to a peace treaty allowing cities that had already converted to remain
Protestant. Cantons remained free to choose their religion. The peace
prescribed the
cuius
regio, eius religio
principle that would also be later adopted in the peace of
Augsburg in 1555. Catholic cantons made up a majority in the Federal Diet of
the Swiss Confederacy.

Geneva and Calvinism

The city and the canton of Zurich adhered to the ideas of
Zwingli, along with other parts of German-speaking Switzerland. In the west,
French-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, developed its own particular
brand of the Reformation, organized in Geneva by John Calvin, a Frenchman who
originally pursued a theological education and then law. He later converted to
Protestantism (exactly when is unclear), but his doctrine distinguished itself
from Lutheranism and Zwinglianism by strict moral precepts. Unlike the citizens
of Zurich, Bern, Basel, and other Swiss cities that became Protestant in the
1520s, the people of Geneva did not have close cultural ties with the reformed
churches in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. The canton of Bern,
determined to see Protestantism spread throughout Switzerland, sent reformers
to Geneva in 1533. After considerable conflict, Geneva officially became
Protestant in 1535.

A successful lawyer, Calvin was invited to Geneva by
Guillaume Farel to establish the new Reformed Church where he altered the
nature of Protestantism, modeling the social organization of that city
completely on biblical principles and designing a catechism to impose his
strict moral code, derived from a literal reading of Christian scriptures, on all
the members of the Church as well as the citizens.

His reforms did not go over well, however, as the people of
Geneva realized that they had thrown out one dogmatic church only to see it
replaced by another. Calvin’s reforms simply imposed more oppressive orthodoxy
on the city. As a result, Calvin and the Protestant reformers were banished
from Geneva early in 1538. He moved to Strassburg where he spent his time
writing commentaries on the Bible and finishing his prodigious work on
Protestant doctrine,
The Institutes of the Christian Church
.

The city of Geneva, meanwhile, became unruly, and the city
fathers invited Calvin to return. He was convinced that the entire human race
was wicked and sinful, and people could not save themselves just by their own
efforts but depended on the grace of God who, omniscient, already knew who
would be saved and who would not. Those destined for salvation were the elect
or chosen ones.

Some of Calvin’s followers, Theodore Beza, for example,
asserted that since God did not intend everyone to be saved, then Christ died
only for the elect, for those predestined to go to paradise. This view of
double predestination implied that the rest of mankind would go to hell.
Calvin’s vision of an ideal Christian society would be founded on the elect.

Miguel Servetus, a Spanish theologian and humanist,
stopping off in Geneva on his way to Italy, was arrested there. His views on
baptism and the trinity differed from Calvin’s, and he was burned at the stake.
Heresy was not tolerated.

Nonbelievers were ruthlessly pursued, and any form of
entertainment such as gambling, dancing, singing, drinking, theater, festivals,
displays, and poetry readings were all forbidden. Musical instruments and
pictures were removed from churches. Absence from church without a good excuse
was punishable.

By the mid-1550s, Geneva had become a Protestant focal
point. Those expelled from their own countries including France, England,
Scotland, and the Netherlands, found shelter there, and soon nearly a half of
the population comprised foreign Protestants. Adopting radical Calvinist
principles, many who had arrived as reformed moderates left as devoted
Calvinists.

Anything that was clearly evident in scripture had to be
followed diligently and with dedication. Beliefs, church organization,
political organization, and society itself were to be based on the Bible.
Following citations in the New Testament, Calvin divided Church organization
into four levels: there should be five pastors to preach, a larger body of
teachers to instruct the population in the Calvinist doctrine, 12 elders
imitating the 12 apostles and chosen by the council to supervise every aspect
of city life, and finally, deacons to care for the sick, the elderly, the
widowed, and the poor.

For the citizens of Geneva, like it or not, Calvin’s
council wielded the power. Theaters and drinking establishments were closed,
and only inns were allowed some moderate drinking accompanied by sermons.
Swearing was forbidden as was card playing, and church services required
attendance three or four times a week. All residents were obligatory members of
the Church. Private houses were inspected from time to time to be sure they
adhered to the moral standards set out by Calvin. Not unlike the Spanish
Inquisition, members of society were encouraged to report their neighbors for
violations of moral precepts. Women’s hairstyles and clothing had to meet
certain standards of modesty. Lace, jewelry, and brightly colored clothes were
looked upon as ungodly. Children had to be named after biblical figures.
Penalties for infractions of the code were severe, and capital punishment by
burning was not uncommon, especially for heresy involving witchcraft or
Catholicism.