Zooming out, this episode casts a wide net to summarize how the movement started by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin affected Europe over the next century. We’ll see how the Reformation took root in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands while simultaneously failing to find fertile ground in France, especially among those in power. Lastly, we’ll consider the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648) and how this brutal conflict fundamentally changed the way religion and politics related henceforth.
This is lecture 8 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.
—— Notes ——
Germany

Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560): systematic theologian of Lutheran movement
1521 – Diet of Worms: edict outlawed Luther and followers
1526 – Diet of Speyer suspended the edict of Worms
1529 – Diet of Speyer re-enacted the edict of Worms
1530 – Diet of Augsburg

Lutherans presented Augsburg Confession[1] (written by Melanchthon)
Johann Eck prepared a confutation against the Augsburg Confession
Charles demanded Lutherans sign this refutation


1531 – Schmalkaldic League

1532 – Emperor called a truce at Nuremberg that lasted a decade
1546-7 – First Schmalkaldic War
1552 – Second Schmalkaldic War


1555 – Peace of Augsburg

Cuius regio, eius religio: whose region, his religion



 
Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark)

All of Scandavia ultimately became Lutheran during the 16th
Monarchs converted to the faith
1527 – Gustav Vasa (1496-1560), king of Sweden split with Rome

King took possession of all church property
Subjected clergy to civil law
Declared all churches to preach “the pure Word of God”



 
Netherlands

Anabaptist movement was popular
Spanish government (Philip II) harshly persecuted Protestants in the Netherlands
1560s – Dutch Reformed Church dominated

 
France

French Protestants were called Huguenots
Francis I (r. 1515-1547) initially was tolerant, owing to humanist tendencies until 1534
1534: Affair of the Placards stirred Catholics against Protestants
1562-1698: French Wars of Religion were civil wars

“The parish pulpits of Paris taught hatred of heretics and suspicion of those—including the magistracy and monarchy—who allowed their continuing existence. Catholic preachers goaded people into a frenzy of fear and hatred of the religious and moral depravity of the ‘Deformed’ that would undermine royal efforts for toleration and produce deadly fruit. …For over the next 30 years Huguenots and Catholics murdered and assassinated each other with increasing barbarity.”[2]

1572: St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre

Marriage between Marguerite of Valois and Henry of Navarre brought many prominent people into Paris
August 24th King Charles IX (1550-1574) had gates of Paris locked



“The streets were covered with dead bodies, the rivers stained, the doors and gates of the palace bespattered with blood. Wagon loads of corpses, men, women, girls, even infants, were thrown into the Seine, while streams of blood ran in many quarters of the city…One little girl was bathed in the blood of her butchered fa

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