Реферат: Did The Increasingly Radical Resistance Theories Of
The Late Sixteenth Century Have Any Effect In Pr Essay, Research Paper
Calvin had a maxim that leaders
were ?ordained of God? and that good leaders were therefore blessings upon a
people, whereas bad leaders were punishment for ?the wickedness of the
people?.? Calvin was aware of the
problem of inciting rebellion against Catholic princes and the repression it
might bring? a fear confirmed by the St. Bartholomew?s Day Massacre? but he
did reserve the right to passive disobedience, especially where staying within
the law required one to neglect or overturn a duty to God.? He also claimed that magistrates were
appointed to restrain the ?tyranny of kings? and so they had the right to rebel
and overthrow intolerable governments. Calvin?s
thesis was unclear, as it failed to set down all the practical means and
justifications for rebellion.? The
magistrates never found out who they were to obey and what they were to do.? Moreover, what one should do in
circumstances such as though during the Wars of Religion when the
superstructure of the state was hostile to Calvinism remained unclear.? Moreover, what one should do in the face of
absolute Catholic repression (as opposed to the potential and partial
repression seen in Calvin?s day) was never clarified.? In terms of theories of resistance, Calvin and Luther were of
very similar opinion.? Luther?s
pamphlet, Ravaging Hoardes, makes explicit reference to the fact that
peasant revolt was bad, and actually shared Calvin?s view of society. The most important person in
determining resistance theories through the sixteenth century was the one of
the idea?s greatest opponents. The sixteenth century?s most famous political
philosopher, Machiavelli, was a devoted Catholic and gained experience between
1498 and 1512 in the Florentine diplomatic corps. He was engaged in a variety
of roles in France, the Papal States and Germany.? Sacked by the new Medici government in 1512, Machiavelli was
writing in part at least in order to regain some influence and perhaps to win a
new appointment.? Dedicating his works
to the Medicis, Machiavelli exhorted them not just to rule Florence, but also
to restore Italy and to liberate her from the barbarians. Machiavelli was an extreme
pessimist and thought all men were prone to giving ?vent to their malignity
when opportunity offers? and he thus saw the ?princely virtues? (clemency,
liberality, honesty, honour etc.) as disadvantages when dealing with more
pragmatic people.?? In his view, a
prince had licence to ?act in defiance of good faith, of charity, of kindness
and of religion? in order to ?maintain his state.?? In essence, Machiavelli thought that in pursuit of national
objectives, Christian virtues should be discarded.? ??????????? Although The
Prince and The Discourses were unpublished until after his death,
these books circulated widely and within a generation of his death in 1527, he
had been universally attacked by Catholics and Protestants.? It is perhaps unsurprising that in the
aftermath of the Medici St. Bartholomew?s Day Massacre that Calvinists should
begin to see Machiavelli and the ?murderous Machiavel? Medicis, to whom
Machiavelli wrote his adivce, as atheist tyrants set on destroying them.? The perceived effect of Machiavelli?s
writings on Catherine de Medici, whether conscious or not, seem to have spurred
many Calvinist writers to begin to endorse theories of resistance designed to
protect themselves from extinction threatened by Machiavellian Catholic rulers
willing to savagely butcher, murder and destroy their subjects without
qualm.? It is the effectiveness of these
theories and their Lutheran and Catholic counterparts, written with the
specific purpose of raking back the tide of supposed Unchristian tyranny against
minorities that this essay will attempt to gauge. This era?s Zeitgeist is
a difficult one to trap for the non elite members of society.? Without the self confidence of a
constitutionally protected bourgeois class and without the guarantees of the
modern Rechtstaat, the consequences for social disorder and uproar were
very grave.? The strict oligarchy of the
time was harsh and could make the life of any resistant party nasty, brutish
and short without qualms, legal interference or backlash.? Meanwhile, the lack of modern
communicational media made the possibility of raising a force capable of making
any sustained or organised force difficult.?
Such simple brakes on any potential resistance movements or reactions
must be borne in mind when considering the question, as it would be unfair to
judge the power of authors over their audiences if we bear a modern view of
social fluidity and mobility. After the St. Bartholomew?s Day
massacre, Gentillet argued that the Medici influence on France had unleashed
the horrors of the massacre, a massacre of Machiavellian characteristics,
occurring during a time of supposed cross-denominational peace and
reconciliation upon a protestant population that had come to Paris in order to
celebrate in peace.? Gentillet spoke of
the peaceful nature of Protestants, who prayed for the conversion of other
peoples, and of the need for a peaceful co-existance, reiterating Calvin?s
belief in the need for compliance with the dominant and strengthening Catholic
forces.? However, Gentillet was the
first in the line of Calvinist writers whose ferocity would increase with
time.? The events of 1572 made the
Calvinists realise the need for a more effective means of dealing with
repression.? The result was ?monarchomach?
writers who condoned varying levels of resistance.? Francois Hotman?s Francogallia (1573), Theodore Beza?s The
Right of Magistrates (1574) and Philippe du Plessis-Mornay?s The Defence
of Liberty against the Tyrants (1579) being the most famous and typical
examples of such work. Francogallia was actually
written by 1568, and was approved by the Genevan Council who had not seen the
dedication; a passage attacking Louis XI, who was accused of being a usurper
amongst other things.? Hotman claimed
that the Estates Generales had the power to usurp, appoint and depose kings and
that the Estates Generales assent should be obtained before any decisions
affecting the whole Commonweal were made. Beza went further than Hotman,
claiming that the Estates Generales had the responsibilities as described by
Hotman, but he also claimed that in the event of the Estates Generales being
rendered impotent by kingly oppression, that magistrates should convene and
?press for a convocation of the estates? whilst ?defending themselves from
tyranny?.? The ?magistrates? were
defined as being local governors, the nobility generally and people of any
authority.? These people, he argued,
should not be seen as rebels if they acted against their king, but as people
merely performing their sworn duty to their God and Country.? It is unsurprising that this document, which
was rendered unpublishable by the Genevan council (fearing a public backlash),
was banned. The Defence of Liberty
against Tyrants was even more extreme.?
Whereas the others had seen the king as anointed leader in whom trust
must be placed, in return for which one could expect just kingship, du
Plessis-Mornay saw obedience as conditional on the king?s religion, behaviour
and general morality.? Private
individuals had no power to act, but the magistrates were told to act to the
extent of their power to remove such a figure.?
The book includes a phrase condemning the tyrannicidal as ?seditious, no
matter how just their cause may be? although he does admit the need for people
to act with an ?extraordinary calling.? Less orthodox were the writings
by such writers as the Scot George Buchanan.?
In The Right of the Kingdom of Scotland, he claims that the right
to remove tyrants lay with the ?whole body of people? and that ?every
individual citizen? had a compulsion to act appropriately.? A correspondent of Du Plessis-Mornay and
Beza, Buchanan differed on this vital issue.?
Huguenot writers flirted with the idea of open resistance (something
from which even the tyrannicidal Scot Buchanan shied away) but never really seemed
to bring themselves to condone it. Beza?s reaction to Henri of
Navarre?s claim to the French throne was to re-edit his works in favour of
condoning the absolutism of the monarch and diminishing the power of the
Estates Generales, but upon Henri?s conversion, returned to his original theses.? He did write specifically to call upon the
Huguenots to support the new king despite his ?major fault? (Catholicism).? The reaction to the Dutch
Revolt was to find its mouth in the German Johannes Althusius and the Dutchman
Hugo Grotius.? These uncontroversial
republican Protestants saw absolutism as ?wicked and prohibited? and condoned
the Estates Generales as the true method of government.? The Conciliar movement valued the German
constitution for its control of the Emperor through the electors.? Although the writers? vision of the Empire
was a vision of what they wanted it to be and not what it was, it also
contained a warning not to rebel against appointed leaders as otherwise nations
would become ?multitudes without a union.? Before the coronation and
conversion of Henri IV, Catholic resistance theories emerged as they saw the
emergence of a very real Protestant contender to the throne.? Louis d?Orleans firstly attacked the Francogallia
and Jean Boucher and Guillaume Rose proceeded to justify tyrannicide
unconditionally when ?a private individual? could aid ?a whole
commonweal?.? The Jesuit adherence to
the doctrine of tyrannicide was exemplified in such treatises as Juan de
Mariana?s The King and the Education of the King (1599).? Henri II?s assassination was seen as ?a
detestable spectacle? but was seen to serve as a warning to kings that their
crimes would not go unpunished, and even went as far as to claim that Jacques
Clement?s assassinating the King was ?an eternal honour to France.?? It is for such flagrant disregard for
political tact that the Jesuits were ejected from France in 1594 for seven
years. Meanwhile, the Scots Catholic
William Barclay expressed a more conventional position that the divinely
appointed leaders of nations could not be judged by human laws, and therefore
tyrannicide became merely regicide. Antonia Fraser sees the
importance of the Catholic justification for tyrannicide as massively important
for such figures as the Gunpowder plotters.?
Educated men, making a sophisticated bid to destroy the Protestant order
under the shield of what she refers to (confusingly) as ?double justification?..
This massive (probably government backed) plot to kill not only the King but
also the Protestant lords of England and if we are to believe its provenance as
a real letter from the Plotters, Monteagle?s letter shows a tremendous effort
to avoid killing Catholics, which would simply be an example the mortal sin of
homicide. Predictably, the effect of the
resistance theories is greater, the more educated the proponents and executors
of resistance were.? The Gunpowder
plotters needed double justification, and (apparently) took pains not to
kill the righteous, despite the predictable results of their widening the
circle of cognoscenti.? The highbrow ideas were
commuted in print and the lack of approval from the Genevan Council for openly
hostile ideas meant that theories propagated in churches from the pulpit and in
popular culture were more important in encouraging resistance than intellectual
theories, although these may have been required for the clerics and the
educated to accept such ideas.? As such, the rebellions of the
illiterate must be looked at in isolation.?
In 1562, the Bishop of Nimes encouraged Catholic children to murder
Protestant children ?following the Lord?s word, that his power would be most
clearly manifested by innocent persons.??
Such murders were not reciprocated because of a lack of familial and
popular support for such retribution.?
That such crimes could be committed is due in part to a transcontinental
hysteria about the imminence of apocalypse.?
Astrological predictions such as those by Michel Nostradamus were common
currency, and the phenomenon of Nostradamus? accuracy in predicting the Wars of
Religion, accompanied by his (and his colleagues?) assertions that
Protestantism would destroy Catholicism led to a determination to pull out
Protestantism root and branch.? To kill
Admiral Coligny was not a theologically sound case of tyrannicide, but in fact
just murder.? A Catholic riot in
Toulouse in 1563 was attributed a prediction of Nostradamus that the town would
fall to heretics the next day.? Low
level revolts were more commonly dictated by baser ideas of astrology and
vitriol distributed in pamphlet form across Europe than the theories of
resistance. More important still to the
heart and mind of every peasant were, predictably enough, resources such as
food.? Peasants, regardless of religion,
rebelled when taxed too hard.? The
French system of exacting tribute from the tenants of the gentry and the
exacting of tribute by the gentry from the peasantry led to frequent revolts,
as an increase in either imposition could lead to a regional poverty crisis
that would be uncontrollable by any one of the two taxing parties.? In 1548, 1589, 1590, 1591, 1594 and 1595,
there were major rebellions, some taking place in Protestant areas, some in the
predominately Catholic regions. In Sweden, where the tax
collection was centralised and where such instances did not occur, there was
much lower incidence of peasant rebellion.?
Although there was a revolt in 1542, a revolt linked to the reform of
the Swedish church as the peasantry wanted a return to the Orders they knew and
the ceremonies to which they were accustomed, it was mostly about the increased
tax burden.? In Muscovy, the risings of
1603 and 1606 to 1607 were a result of the introduction of serfdom and
coincidental famines. The German Peasants? War can be
attributed to the ?Poor Conrad? movement, rebellions concerning the work
tribute system in Inner Austria and the Bundschuh movement. Although such instances as the
Moriscos? Revolt show a propensity to rebel on religious grounds, there are
very few examples of low level revolt with a non tax based causation before
1626 when the Austrian Lutherans were either told to leave the country and face
heavy penalties or to convert swiftly.?
Although the billeting of Bavarian troops on the people was the
touchpaper that won peasant support for the rebellion, the religious aspect was
vital, as Wiellinger, Fadiger and Zeller, all educated men, led a peasants?
revolt against the Catholic oppression.?
It should be noted that these men acted precisely as was suggested in
the tracts.? Wiellinger, the official,
sent a list of demands for clemency and freedom of conscience to Ferdinand II,
promising obedience.? Although they did
turn to arms once the Bavarians billeted on them turned upon them, they did so
only as a last resort.? The armed
uprisings of 1632 and 1636 were purely labourers? revolts and thus turned
straight to arms, but without the cohesion, organisation or focus of the events
of 1626 as they lacked middle classed peasant support. It would seem that the theories
of resistance were important for people to whom they were communicable, in that
the Gunpowder Plotters and the Austrian rebels found theological support for
their actions in the theories of resistance, but that they never inspired
revolts and merely dictated their conduct.?
Events such as the murder of Coligny and the massacring of children had
no theological basis, but were enacted in any case.
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