The Role Of Absolute Monarchs During The Reformation

Abryl Navarro DBQ Essay During the 1500s and 1600s, Western Europe experienced a period of governments ruled by ab-solute monarchs. Absolute monarchies are forms of government in which the monarch has abso-lute power over the people. The absolutism was caused by religious and territorial conflicts which was crated fear and uncertainty. Rulers/ Kings abused their power of absolutism over their sub-jects.

The Reformation affected the European civilization in many ways. Protestant and Catholic had a huge impact on the European civilization. The Reformation happened in the year 16c . Some causes of the Reformation was church corruption, Avignon Papacy, Conciliarism, Marsilius of Padua, Development of personal devotions, Papal need for money, and greed of secular leaders land. There was also few characteristics described in this civilization. The law in order was one of them. Kings were the highest leaders over everybody. People believed they were put in position by god and that it was god's will over their people. They had created the laws. Other characteristics were heredity, slide support from the middle class (towns), and organize their finances into reliable order. Rulers would want family members to continue the bloodline of a ruling of their people. Some families even fought because they wanted to be rulers. People separated by their class because they had a social class system. People at a high class relied on lower class people for support.

The reformation was a drastic event in the early modern period that launched Europe into a massive conflict of widespread violence, through both political and religious factors. The political scene had remained very much the same before the beginning of the reformation in 1517, with many philosophers sharing similar ideas on how to handle the issues of sovereignty and private property. Religion was a long debated factor before the reformation however was brought inadvertently to the forefront of most political works in the early years of the Protestant Reformation. This event completely changed the way in which philosophers constructed their political discourse as seen with More and Martin Luther, who although despite being placed on

Reformation is the religious revolution that took place in Western Europe in the 16th century. It arose from objections to doctrines and practices in the medieval church, loss of papal authority and credibility as well as other societal, political and economical issues of the time. This revolution had a major impact on Europe and it gave way to short term and long-term consequences, which still can be seen today.

And even after that there wasn't a separation of church and state until the 18th century. Even some of the later English kings like James I claimed divine right, as well so did Louis XIV of France. However all of this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for a man by the name of Charles Martel.

The Catholic Reformation was the response of the Protestant movement in the sixteenth century. By the sixteenth century, many people lost the trust for the Catholic Church because it was corrupt. Popes and Cardinals became involved in politics and were more like kings than spiritual leaders and Nepotism was rampant. This loss of trust led people to moved on into other branches of Christianity which includes, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism. Catholic Church’s realized it needed to re-establish itself, thus beginning the Catholic Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was successful because it triggered the start of The Society of Jesus and The Council of Trent which helped resolve the church’s corruption through education,

Religiously, rulers justified their actions by persuading the public that they were working in the name of God. Many english rulers used the excuse of divine right to justify their actions. The rulers announcement of their power given to them by God, made their actions justified. This was because, people would not stand up against any harsh actions in risk of going to hell. Due to the importance of religion in this time allowed rulers to use religion to their advantage when justifying their power.

The church and the state had to contend with the growing influence of the Enlightenment and the need to strike a new balance with religion, a more utilitarian balance determined in large part by its own political rationalism. Power was held within the monarchy and the church. The monarchy of France and the Catholic Church were allies that were unbreakable. The King was the master of the temporal realm, while the Church under his protection ruled the spiritual realm. Kings derived their authority from God and stood immediately below him in rank. The monarchy had the support of the church and the church had the support of the monarchy. Power was based on morality and the church thrived on positive morality and the monarchy was proof of this morality. The balance between these two powers in France was equivalent to one another. The whole system

Therefore, the king/queen only had to answer to God, not the people. Since the ruler was chosen by God it was considered axiomatic that the monarch has absolute power, after all God has great power so His earthly representative does as well (Document 7, James I of England 1609). Furthermore, because God chose the sovereign, disobeying the king was considered the same as disobeying God (Document 4, The Ideal State 1697 by Jean Domat). Of course, because the monarchs had such great power and were God’s chosen people they had to govern per God’s will, which was absolute justice. (Document 5, On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy by Jean Domat). As important this concept was in maintaining absolute monarchs, the reason that the Divine Right to Rule was so effective is because absolute monarchies primarily occurred in Catholic countries, where the monarch could gain the partnership of the Roman Catholic Church and thus win power over the

The Catholic Church had an extremely amount of power that it had become very wealthy and very corrupt. Which leads the revolt of Martin Luther in 1517 against his authorities significant in this time period. Luther’s ideas on the church would spread quickly throughout Europe fueling the flames of Protestantism. Leaders such as Henry VIII took these ideas and used them to break free from the Catholic

The church began to lose to power because the people were no longer listening to the church, and because of what they learned from the 95 statement thesis written by Martin Luther. The thesis informed people they did not need to pay their way to heaven, pay for someone to get out of Purgatory,or pay to get to heaven (Doc.8). The writing of Luther’s 95 thesis led to the printing press being invented by Gutenberg, with creation of the printing press it allowed the people to read the bible for themselves, which in turn allowed them to think for themselves (Doc.9). With this new knowledge from the bible, people began revolting against the church and the government. This led to wars such as the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The St. Bartholomew Massacre started because Catherine de’ Medici felt threatened by the influence of Huguenot Admiral de Coligny and planned on assassinating him. They were not successful and only wounded Coligny. This caused the Huguenots to become furious which made the Medici nervous, who in turn ordered a massacre of all Huguenots. This led to a religion division. With the chaotic acts of freedom from the people, Europe created the Nation States. The Nation States were made to keep people from acting out against the government and to keep control over the

The period immediately following the Protestant reformation and the Catholic counter reformation, was full of conflict and war. The entire continent of Europe and all of it's classes of society were affected by the destruction and flaring tempers of the period. In the Netherlands, the Protestants and the Catholics were at eachother’s throats. In France it was the Guise family versus the Bourbons. In Bohemia, the religious and political structures caused total havoc for over thirty years; and in England, the Presbyterians thought that the English Anglican Church too closely resembled the Roman Catholic Church. Religion was the major cause of the widespread

A German Augustinian friar, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Luther grew up the son of a miner, but he did not maintain that lifestyle for himself. He lived in a period that had a widespread desire for reformation of the Christian church and a yearning for salvation.

Many English monarchs believed in the divine right to rule. This right was given to them by God, therefore they believed that no one could take their crown or it would destroy the rightful line of succession. However, this was not always the case and some kings such as Richard II had their crown forced from them. If a king believed in the divine right he often had a close relationship with God. In William Shakespeare’s comedies, the divine right to rule a kingdom is present in the ways in which Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V are come to rule England. Both Richard II and Henry V were powerful rulers, whose ruling was heavily dictated by their divine right to rule and their relationship with God. Through exploring the King’s relationship to God in Shakespeare’s tragedies Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V, one can see that Henry V is the ideal Christian King.

This writer focuses on two parts of the question ‘The Tudor Reformation was a method of strengthening absolute monarchy in England.’. The first focus is the word ‘method’ and the second focus is the word ‘strengthening’. The word ‘method’ means a planned way of doing something. In this case, the question can be interpreted as ‘The Tudor Reformation was a planned and intentional affair to achieve strenghtened absolute monarchy. Also, this writer is going to put emphasis on the comparison meaning of the word ’strengthen’. Then this essay has to show how the Tudor Reformation made aboslute monarchy stronger than before and what changes did the Tudor Reformation bring out in comparison with the past. According to these focuses, the question can be understood as ‘The Tudor Reformation was a calculated event and it was to accomplish more powerful abosolute monarchy than before in England.’ However, this writer disagrees with the sentence and thinks that the Tudor Reformation was not an affair that had an intention to reinforce abosolute monarchy. Therefore, in the main body, the essay is going to concentrate on whether it was an intentional or unintentional matter that is related to strengthen absolute royal authority. Moreover, figuring out whether the absolute monarchy was consolidated than before. Finally, this essay will examine how the politics was at that time. At the end, in the conclusion part, it puts this issue aside