Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation (also Catholic Reformation^[1][2] or Catholic Revival^[2]) denotes the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.

The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:

1. Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration
2. Religious orders
3. Spiritual movements
4. Political dimensions

Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality. It also involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition.

Council of Trent

A session of the Council of Trent, from an engraving.

Pope Paul III (1534–1549) initiated the Council of Trent (1545–1563), a commission of cardinals tasked with institutional reform, addressing contentious issues such as corrupt bishops and priests, indulgences, and other financial abuses. The Council clearly rejected specific Protestant positions and upheld the basic structure of the Medieval Church, its sacramental system, religious orders, and doctrine. It rejected all compromise with the Protestants, restating basic tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. The Council clearly upheld salvation appropriated by grace through faith and works of that faith (not just by faith, as the Protestants insisted) because "faith without works is dead", as the Epistle of St. James states. Transubstantiation, during which the consecrated bread and wine were held to be transformed wholly and substantially into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, was also reaffirmed, along with the other six Sacraments of the Catholic Church. Other practices that drew the ire of Protestant reformers, such as pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary were strongly reaffirmed as spiritually commendable practices. The Council officially accepted the Vulgate listing of the Old Testament Bible which included the deuterocanonical works (also called the Apocrypha, especially by Protestants) on a par with the 39 books customarily found in the Masoretic Text and the Protestant Old Testament. This reaffirmed the previous council of Rome and Synod of Carthage (both held in the 4th century, A.D.) which had affirmed the Deuterocanon as Scripture.^[3] The Council also commissioned the Roman Catechism, which still serves as authoritative Church teaching (the Catechism of the Catholic Church, issued in 1992, updates modern explications, but does not differ doctrinally).

While the basic structure of the Church was reaffirmed, there were noticeable changes to answer complaints that the Counter-Reformers were, tacitly, willing to admit were legitimate. Among the conditions to be corrected by Catholic reformers was the growing divide between the clerics and the laity; many members of the clergy in the rural parishes, after all, had been poorly educated. Often, these rural priests did not know Latin and lacked opportunities for proper theological training (addressing the education of priests had been a fundamental focus of the humanist reformers in the past). Parish priests were to be better educated in matters of theology and apologetics, while Papal authorities sought to educate the faithful about the meaning , nature and value of art and liturgy, particularly in monastic churches of the secular Renaissance church, epitomized by the era of Alexander VI (1492–1503), exploded in the Reformation under Pope Leo X (1513–1522), whose campaign to raise funds in the German states to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica by supporting use of indulgences was a key impetus for Martin Luther's 95 Theses. But the Catholic Church would respond to these problems by a vigorous campaign of reform, inspired by earlier Catholic reform movements that predated the Council of Constance (1414–1417): humanism, devotionalism, legalism and the observantine tradition.

The Council, by virtue of its actions, repudiated the pluralism of the Secular Renaissance which had previously plagued the Church: the organization of religious institutions was tightened, discipline was improved, and the parish was emphasized. The appointment of Bishops for political reasons was no longer tolerated. In the past, the large landholdings forced many bishops to be "absent bishops" who at times were property managers trained in administration. Thus, the Council of Trent combated "absenteeism," which was the practice of bishops living in Rome or on landed estates rather than in their dioceses. The Council of Trent also gave bishops greater power to supervise all aspects of religious life. Zealous prelates such as Milan's Archbishop Carlo Borromeo (1538–1584), later canonized as a saint, set an example by visiting the remotest parishes and instilling high standards. At the parish level, the seminary-trained clergy who took over in most places during the course of the seventeenth century were overwhelmingly faithful to the Church's rule of celibacy, and lived in line with the Church's moral teachings.

Orders

New religious orders were a fundamental part of this trend. Orders such as the Capuchins, Ursulines, Theatines, Discalced Carmelites, the Barnabites, and especially the Jesuits strengthened rural parishes, improved popular piety, helped to curb corruption within the church, and set examples that would be a strong impetus for Catholic renewal.

The Theatines were an order of devoted priests who undertook to check the spread of heresy and contribute to a regeneration of the clergy. The Capuchins, an offshoot of the Franciscan order notable for their preaching and for their care for the poor and the sick, grew rapidly in both size and popularity. The Capuchin fathers were an order based on the imitation of Jesus' life as described by the Gospels. Capuchin-founded confraternities thus took special interest in the poor and lived austere lifestyles.

These differing approaches were often complementary, as with the missions to rural areas poorly served by the existing parish structure. Members of orders active in overseas missionary expansionism expressed the view that the rural parishes, whose poor state of affairs contributed to the growth of Protestantism, often needed Christianizing as much as heathens of Asia and the Americas.

The Ursulines focused on the special task of educating girls. Their devotion to the traditional works of mercy exemplifies the Catholic Reformation's reaffirmation of salvation through faith and works, and firmly repudiated the sola scriptura of the Protestants emphasized by Lutherans and other Protestant sects. Not only did they make the Church more effective, but they also reaffirmed fundamental premises of the Medieval Church.

The Jesuits, however, founded by the Spanish nobleman and ex-soldier Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), were the most effective of the new Catholic orders. His Societas Iesu was founded in 1534 and received papal authorization in 1540 under Paul III. An heir to the devotional, observantine, and legalist traditions, the Jesuits organized their order along military lines. The Jesuits strongly represented the autocratic zeal of the period. Characterized by careful selection, rigorous training, and iron discipline, the Jesuits ensured that the worldliness of the Renaissance Church had no part in their new order.

Loyola's masterwork Spiritual Exercises showed the emphasis of handbooks characteristic of the earlier generation of Catholic reformers before the Reformation. The great psychological penetration that it conveyed was strongly reminiscent of devotionalism. The Jesuits, however, are really the heirs to the observantine reform tradition, taking strong monastic vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty and setting an example that improved the effectiveness of the entire Church. They became preachers, confessors to monarchs and princes, and educators reminiscent of the humanist reformers; and their efforts are largely credited with stemming Protestantism in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, southern Germany, France, and the Spanish Netherlands.

They also strongly participated in the expansion of the Church in the Americas and Asia, conducting efforts in missionary activity that far outpaced even the aggressive Protestantism of the Calvinists. Even Loyola's biography contributed to the new emphasis on popular piety that had been waning under the eras of politically oriented popes such as Alexander VI and Leo X. After recovering from a severe battle wound, he took a vow to "serve only God and the Roman pontiff, His vicar on earth." Once again, the emphasis on the Pope is a key reaffirmation of the Medieval Church as the Council of Trent firmly defeated all attempts of Conciliarism, the belief that general councils of the church collectively were God's representative on earth, rather than the Pope. Firmly legitimizing the new role of the Pope as an absolute ruler strongly characteristic of the new age of absolutism ushered in by the sixteenth century, the Jesuits strongly contributed to the reinvigoration of the Counter-Reformation Church along a line harmonized to the Vatican.

Spiritual movements

The Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese (1571)

The Catholic Reformation was not only a political and Church policy oriented movement, it included major figures such as Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales and Philip Neri, who added to the spirituality of the Catholic Church. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were Spanish mystics and reformers of the Carmelite Order whose ministry focused on interior conversion to Christ, the deepening of prayer and commitment to God's will. Teresa was given the task to develop and write about the way to perfection in her love and unity with Christ. Her publications, especially her autobiography The Life of Theresa of Jesus had multiple effects. It's to be placed besides the Confessions of Augustine.^[4] Thomas Merton called John of the Cross the greatest of all mystical theologians.^[5] Ignatius of Loyola and Francis de Sales choose an active spirituality, that is an exact opposite of Teresa and John of the Cross. "To see God in all things" was a typical expression of Ignatius and a main theme of his Spiritual Exercises.^[6] The spirituality of Filippo Neri, who lived in Rome at the same time as Ignatius, was practically oriented too, but totally opposed to the Jesuit approach. Said Filippo: "If I have a real problem, I contemplate what Ignatius would do ... and then I do the exact opposite". As a recognition of their joint contribution to the spiritual renewal within the Catholic reformation, Ignatius of Loyola, Filippo Neri and Teresa of Avila were canonized on the same day, March 12, 1622.

The victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was accredited to the Virgin Mary and signified the beginning of a strong resurgence of Marian devotions".^[7] During and after the Catholic Reformation, Marian piety experienced unforeseen growth with over 500 pages of mariological writings during the 17th century alone.^[8] The Jesuit Francisco Suárez was the first theologian to use the Thomist method on Marian theology. Other well known contributors to Marian spirituality are Lawrence of Brindisi, Robert Bellarmine, and Francis of Sales.

Decrees on art

The Last Judgment, a fresco in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo (1534-41), came under persistent attack in the Counter-Reformation for, among other things, nudity (later painted over for several centuries), not showing Christ seated or bearded, and including the pagan figure of Charon.

Italian painting after 1520, with the notable exception of the art of Venice, developed into Mannerism, a highly sophisticated style, striving for effect, that concerned many churchmen as lacking appeal for the mass of the population. Church pressure to restrain religious imagery affected art from the 1530s and resulted in the decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563 including short and rather inexplicit passages concerning religious images, which were to have great impact on the development of Catholic art. Previous Catholic councils had rarely felt the need to pronounce on these matters, unlike Orthodox ones which have often ruled on specific types of images.

The decree confirmed the traditional doctrine that images only represented the person depicted, and that veneration to them was paid to the person themself, not the image, and further instructed that:

...every superstition shall be removed ... all lasciviousness be avoided; in such wise that figures shall not be painted or adorned with a beauty exciting to lust... there be nothing seen that is disorderly, or that is unbecomingly or confusedly arranged, nothing that is profane, nothing indecorous, seeing that holiness becometh the house of God.

And that these things may be the more faithfully observed, the holy Synod ordains, that no one be allowed to place, or cause to be placed, any unusual image, in any place, or church, howsoever exempted, except that image have been approved of by the bishop ...^[9]

Ten years after the decree Paolo Veronese was summoned by the Inquisition to explain why his Last Supper, a huge canvas for the refectory of a monastery, contained, in the words of the Inquisition: "buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities" as well as extravagant costumes and settings, in what is indeed a fantasy version of a Venetian patrician feast.^[10] Veronese was told that he must change his painting within a three month period - in fact he just changed the title to The Feast in the House of Levi, still an episode from the Gospels, but a less doctrinally central one, and no more was said.^[11] But the number of such decorative treatments of religious subjects declined sharply, as did "unbecomingly or confusedly arranged" Mannerist pieces, as a number of books, notably by the Flemish theologian Molanus, Saint Charles Borromeo and Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, and instructions by local bishops, amplified the decrees, often going into minute detail on what was acceptable. Many traditional iconographies considered without adequate scriptural foundation were in effect prohibited, as was any inclusion of classical pagan elements in religious art, and almost all nudity, including that of the infant Jesus.^[12] According to the great medievalist Émile Mâle, this was "the death of medieval art".^[13]

Church music

Reforms before the Council of Trent

The Council of Trent is believed to be the apex of the Counter-Reformation’s influence on church music in the 16th century. However, the council’s pronouncements on music were not the first attempt at reform. The Catholic Church had spoken out against a perceived abuse of music used in the mass before the Council of Trent ever convened to discuss music in 1562. The manipulation of the Credo and using non-liturgical songs was addressed in 1503, secular singing in 1492, and the intelligibility of the test in the delivery of psalmody in 1492.^[14] The delegates at the Council were just a link in the long chain of church clergy who had pushed for a reform of the musical liturgy reaching back as far as 1322.^[15] Probably the most extreme move at reform came late in 1562 when, instructed by the legates, Egidio Foscarari bishop of Modena and Gabriele Paleotti began work on reforming cloisters of nuns and their practices involving the liturgy.^[16] In fact, the reforms proscribed to the cloisters, which included omitting the use of an organ, prohibiting professional musicians, and banishing polyphonic singing, were much more strict than and of the Council’s edicts and or even to be found in the Palestrina legend.^[17]

Fueling the cry for reform from many ecclesial figures was the compositional technique popular in the 15th and 16th centuries of using musical material and even the accompanying texts from other compositions such as motets, madrigals, and chansons. With several voices singing different texts in different languages made any of the text difficult to distinguish from the mixture of words and notes. The parody mass, would then contain melodies (usually the tenor line) and words from songs that could have been, and often were, on sensual subjects.^[18] The musical liturgy of the church was being more and more influenced by secular tunes and styles. The Council of Paris, which met in 1528, as well as the Council of Trent were making attempts to restore the sense of sacredness to the church setting and what was appropriate for the mass. The councils were simply responding to issues of their day.^[19]

Reforms during the 22nd session

The Council of Trent met sporadically from December 13, 1545 to December 4, 1563 to reform many parts of the Catholic Church. The 22nd session of the council, which met in 1562, dealt with church music in Canon 8 in the section of “Abuses in the Sacrifice of the Mass” during a meeting of the council on September 10, 1562.^[20]

Canon 8. Since the sacred mysteries should be celebrated with utmost reverence, with both deepest feeling toward God alone, and with external worship that is truly suitable and becoming, so that others may be filled with devotion and called to religion: . . . Everything should be regulated so that the Masses, whether they be celebrated with the plain voice or in song, with everything clearly and quickly executed, may reach the ears of the hearers and quietly penetrate their hearts. In those Masses where measured music and organ are customary, nothing profane should be intermingled, but only hymns and divine praises. If something from the divine service is sung with the organ while the service proceeds, let if first be recited in a simple, clear voice, lest the reading of the sacred words be imperceptible. But the entire manner of singing in musical modes should be calculated, not to afford vain delight to the ear, but so that the words may be comprehensible to all; and thus may the hearts of the listeners be caught up into the desire for celestial harmonies and contemplation of the joys of the blessed.^[21]

Canon 8 is often quoted as the Council of Trent’s decree on church music but that is a glaring misunderstanding of the canon; it was only a proposed decree. In fact, the delegates at the Council never officially accepted canon 8 in its popular form but bishops of Granada, Coimbra, and Segovia pushed for the long statement about music to be attenuated and many other prelates of the Council joined enthusiastically.^[22] The only restrictions actually given by the 22nd session was to keep secular elements out of the music making polyphony implicitly allowed.^[23] The issue of textual intelligibility did not make its way into the final edicts of the 22nd session but were only featured in preliminary debates.^[24] The 22nd session only prohibited “lascivious” and “profane” things to be intermingled with the music but Paleotti, in his Acts, brings to equal importance the issues of intelligibility.^[25]

The idea that the Council called to remove all polyphony from the church is widespread but there is no documentary evidence to support that claim. It is possible, however, that some of the Fathers had proposed such a measure.^[26] The emperor Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor has been attributed to be the “savior of church music” because he said polyphony ought not to be driven out of the church. But Ferdinand was most likely an alarmist and read into the Council the possibility of a total ban on polyphony.^[27] The Council of Trent did not focus on the style of music but on attitudes of worship and reverence during the mass.^[28]

The Savior-Legend

The crises regarding polyphony and intelligibility of the text and the threat that polyphony was to be removed completely, which was assumed to be coming from the Council, has a very dramatic legend of resolution. The legend goes that Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525/26- 1594), a church musician and choirmaster in Rome, wrote a mass for the Council delegates in order to demonstrate that a polyphonic composition could set the text in such a way that the words could be clearly understood and that was still pleasing to the ear. Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli (Mass for Pope Marcellus) was performed before the Council and received such a welcoming reception among the delegates that they completely changed their minds and allowed polyphony to stay in use in the musical liturgy. Therefore Palestrina came to be named the “savior of church polyphony.” This legend, though unfounded, has long been a mainstay of histories of music.^[29] The savior-myth was first spread by a account of Aggazzari and Banchieri in 1609 who said that Pope Marcellus was trying to replace all polyphony with plainsong.^[30] Palestrina’s “Missa Papae Marcelli” was, though, in 1564, after the 22nd session, performed for the Pope while reforms were being considered for the Sistine Choir.^[31] On another occasion in 1565, as recorded by the secretary of the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Vitelli invited two Eminences to his house where two masses were performed and compared for textual intelligibility. However, what masses were performed, who composed them, and how the Eminences reacted has been swallowed up by history.^[32] The Pope Marcellus Mass, in short, was not important in its own day and did not help save church polyphony.^[33] What is undeniable is that despite any solid evidence of his influence during or after the Council of Trent, no figure is more qualified to represent the cause of polyphony in the Mass than Palestrina.^[32] Pope Pius IV upon hearing Palestrina’s music would make Palestrina, by Papal Brief, the model for future generation of Catholic composers of sacred music.^[34]

Reforms following the Council of Trent

Like his contemporary Palestrina, the Flemish composer Jacobus de Kerle (1531/32-1591) was also credited with giving a model of composition for the Council of Trent. His composition in four-parts, Preces, marks the "official turning point of the Counter Reformation's a cappella ideal.”^[35] Kerle was the only ranking composer of the Netherlands to have acted in conformity with the Council.^[36] Another musical giant on equal standing with Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso (1530/32 -1594) was an important figure in music history though less of a purist than Palestrina.^[37] He expressed sympathy for the Council’s concerns but still showed favor for the “Parady chanson Masses.”^[38]

Despite the dearth of edicts from the Council regarding polyphony and textual clarity the reforms that followed from the 22nd session filled in the gaps left by the Council in stylistic areas. In the 24th session the Council gave authority to “Provincial Synods” to discern provision for church music.^[39] The decision to leave practical application and stylistic matters to local ecclesiastical leaders was important in shaping the future of Catholic church music.^[40] It was left, then, up to the local church leaders and church musicians to find proper application for the Council’s decrees.^[41] Though originally theological and directed towards the attitudes of the musicians, the Council’s decrees came to be thought of by church musicians as a pronouncement on proper musical styles.^[42] This understanding was most likely spread through musicians who sought to implement the Council's declarations but did not read the official Tridentine pronouncements. Church musicians were probably influenced by order from their ecclesiastical patrons.^[43] Composers who reference the Council’s reforms in prefaces to their compositions do not adequately claim a musical basis from the Council but a spiritual and religious basis of their art.^[44]

The Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, Charles Borromeo, was a very important figure in reforming church music after the Council of Trent. Through Borromeo was an aide to the pope in Rome and was unable to be in Milan he eagerly pushed for the decrees of the Council to be quickly put into practice in Milan.^[45] Borromeo kept in contact with his church in Milian through letters and eagerly encouraged the leaders their to implement the reforms coming from the Council of Trent. In one of his letters to his vicar in the Milan diocese, Nicolo Ormaneto of Verona, Borromeo commissioned the master of the chapel Vincenzo Ruffo (1508–1587), to write a mass that would make the words as easy to understand as possible. Borromeo also suggested that if Don Nicola, a composer of a more chromatic style, was in Milan that he too could compose a mass and the two be compared to textural clarity.^[46] Borromeo was likely involved or heard of the questions regarding textual clarity because of his request of Ruffo.

Ruffo took Borromeo’s commission seriously and set out to compose in a style that presented the text so that all words would be intelligible and the textual meaning be the most important part of the composition. His approach was to move all the voices in a homorhythmic manner with no complicated rhythms and to use dissonance very conservatively. Ruffo’s approach was certainly a success for textual clarity and simplicity but if his music was very theoretically pure it was not an artistic success despite Ruffo’s attempts to bring interest to the monotonous for four-part texture.^[47] Ruffo’s compositional style which favored the text was well in line with the Council’s perceived concerns with intelligibility. Thus the belief in the Council’s strong edicts regarding textual intelligibility became to characterize the development of sacred church music.

The Council of Trent brought about other changes in music: most notably developing the Missa Brevis, Lauda and "Spiritual Madrigal" (Madrigali Spirituali).

Inadvertent start of the scientific revolution

Some historians such as James Burke have noted some of the directives initiated in the Counter-Reformation had consequences that would create even more formidable challenges to the Catholic Church's authority. Specifically, efforts to reform the Julian calendar may have led to the Church's confrontation with Galileo.

This came about with the initiative to make the Catholic Church more attractive to the common person. In addition to better training for the clergy, there was also the idea of making the Church's facilities and activities more attractive to the laypeople. Part of this included extensive decorations that would eventually spawn the elaborate baroque art style and more celebrations of holidays and similar events.

The need to have these events followed closely throughout the dioceses raised the problem with the accuracy of the calendar. By the sixteenth century the Julian calendar was almost ten days out of step with the seasons and the heavenly bodies. Among the astronomers who were asked to work on the problem of how the calendar could be reformed was Nicolaus Copernicus, a canon at Frombork (Frauenburg). In the dedication to De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), Copernicus mentioned the reform of the calendar proposed by the Fifth Council of the Lateran (1512–1517). As he explains, a proper measurement of the length of the year was a necessary foundation to calendar reform. By implication, his work replacing the Ptolemaic system with a heliocentric model was prompted in part by the need for calendar reform. An actual new calendar had to wait until the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

At the time of its publication, De revolutionibus passed with relatively little comment in the Catholic Church itself, which treated the conception as little more than a mathematical convenience. However, the fact that Copernicus' heliocentric theory regarding the Earth's motion directly contradicted Ptolemy and the religious teachings of the time eventually led the pope to condemn this work and temporarily ban it.

Major figures

• Pius II (1503)
• Paul III (1534–1549)
• Julius III (1550–55)
• Paul IV (1555–59)
• Pius IV (1559–65)
• St. Pius V (1566–72)
• Gregory XIII (1572–85)
• Sixtus V (1585–90)
• St. Ignatius of Loyola
• St. Teresa of Avila
• St. John of the Cross
• St. Francis de Sales
• St. Charles Borromeo
• Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
• Mary I of England (1553–1558)
• Sigismund the Old of Poland (1467–1548)
• Sigismund II Augustus of Poland (1520–1572)

References

• Philip M. Soergel: Wondrous in His Saints: Counter Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1993

See also

• Cologne War
• Corpus Catholicorum (series)
• Eighty Years' War
• Philip II of Spain (for more on the political side of the Counter-Reformation)
• Spanish Inquisition
• The Reformation and art

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