Europe 1517-1648

choi

European history | Religious Warring; The Reformation and what followed. Economist, Aug 2, 2014
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... d-religious-warring
(book review on Mark Greengrass, Christendom Destroyed; Europe 1517-1648. Allen Lane, 2014)

Note:
(a) “THE new Penguin History of Europe, edited by Sir David Cannadine, was launched more than a decade ago. With five volumes now out, it is shaping up to be the best general account available, superseding all previous ones. The latest volume covers what might be called the birth of modern Europe, from the Reformation, which broke the dominance of the Roman Catholic church, to the Treaty of Westphalia, which entrenched the idea of the nation-state.”
(i) shape up: "informal To turn out; develop"
www.thefreedictionary.com/shape
(ii) Martin Luther (1483-1546) on Oct 31, 1517 posted The Ninety-Five Theses (composed in Latin) on the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, in the Holy Roman Empire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints%27_Church,_Wittenberg
(iii)
(A) Wittenberg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenberg
(The importance of Wittenberg historically was due to its seat of the Elector of Saxony, a dignity held by the dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg)
(B) Christina Blackie, Geographical Etymology; A dictionary of place-names giving their derivations. John Murray (publisher), 1887, at page 23-24
books.google.com/books?id=nwGBTvF_K6kC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=Wittenberg+etymology&source=bl&ots=Lj1A_AAslX&sig=A85CysMohsAHMsyVrDnWjoUC4Gs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=np_vU86KEtbLsATE0YGwDw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Wittenberg%20etymology&f=false
(“BERG (Ger.) a hill * * * The word, berg, however, is often applied to the names of towns and fortresses instead of burg; and when this i s the case, it indicates that the town was built on or near a hill, or in connection with a fortress [giving examples] * * * Wittenberg (white fortress)”)

(b) “The influence of printing emerges as a crucial agent of change. But perhaps most significant is the role of religion and religious war, which is why Martin Luther plays such an important part in the story. Mr Greengrass’s Christendom was, of course, under attack long before 1517, not least by the Ottoman Turks after their conquest of Constantinople in 1453. And Luther was by no means the first person to criticise the papacy. But the Reformation that he triggered profoundly changed not just all of Europe but, coming just as the continent’s overseas empires were being created, the world. It also contributed to a resurgence of national feeling, epitomised by the passing of Latin as Europe’s common language.”
(i) Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type printing around 1439.  Wikipedia
(ii) Constantinople
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople
(In the 12th century, the city was the largest and wealthiest European city; section 1 Etymology; section 2.10 1261–1453 and the Fall of Constantinople)

choi

(c) “The two countries that came later to dominate Europe, France and Britain, play a surprisingly small role in Mr Greengrass’s period. The main actors were the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, which under Charles V included Spain. The centrality of the empire is made clearer by the fact that both Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England were rivals of the Habsburgs for the title that went to Charles V in 1520. But although he then bestrode the continent like no other ruler since Charlemagne, his empire was soon overstretched and fatally weakened, undermined by Spain’s propensity to default on its debt, by wars with France and England and, after Charles’s death, by the Dutch revolt.”
(i) Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_V,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
(1500-1558; Holy Roman Emperor 1519-1556; Charles was born as the youngest son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad in the Flemish city of Ghent in 1500)
(A) His mother (Joanna) was a daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand--the pair who united Spain and sponsored Columbus.
(B) His (Charles’) father (Philip), son of a Holy Roman Emperor, had the power base in flander (in the present-day Belgium)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I_of_Castile
(1478 – 1506; was the first Habsburg monarch in Spain [through marriage with Joanna])
(C) Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, and through inheritance, became King of Spain.
(D) “both Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England were rivals of the Habsburgs for the title that went to Charles V in 1520”

This sentence does not mean to say kings of France and England competed with Charles to be Holy Roman Emperor, because these two kings were not qualified, not part of Holy Roman Empire. But the sentence mean the two nations competed with Holy Roman Empire. See
Henry VIII of England
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
(1491-1547; He [Henry] is also well known for a long personal rivalry with both Francis I of France and the Habsburg monarch Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (King Charles I of Spain), his contemporaries with whom he frequently warred)
(ii) “Spain’s propensity to default on its debt”
(A) sovereign default
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default
(“In the most extreme cases, a creditor nation may declare war on a debtor nation for failing to pay back debt, in order to enforce creditor's rights. For example, Britain routinely invaded countries that failed to repay foreign debts”/ section 4 Examples of sovereign default: Philip II of Spain defaulted on debt four times - in 1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596 - becoming the first nation in history to declare sovereign default)

Philip II of Spain
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Spain
(1527-1598; King of Spain 1556-1598; son of Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire)
(B) Age of Discovery
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery
(section 8 Northern European involvement: In 1568 the Dutch rebelled against the rule of Philip II of Spain leading to the Eighty Years' War [or Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648)]; section 10.1 Economic impact in Europe: last paragraph)
(iii) Naturally all of these described in (ii) occurred after Charles V’s death, except the 1557 default. So I re-read the (c): “his empire was soon overstretched and fatally weakened, undermined by Spain’s propensity to default on its debt, by wars with France and England and, after Charles’s death, by the Dutch revolt.”  Which is written poorly.


(d) “Mr Greengrass pays exhaustive attention to every detail in the post-Luther battles over religious doctrine, which he rightly sees as the underlying cause of most of its wars, culminating in both the Thirty Years War and the English civil war.
(i) Rather, many has said the wars arose from nations’ pursuit of balance of power: when a certain nation appeared to become more powerful, other nations formed alliance to check the rise.
(ii)
(A) Thirty Years' War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War
(B) Peace of Westphalia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia
(Westphalian sovereignty)
(iii)
(A) English civil war
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
(1642-1651; between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") in the Kingdom of England over, principally, the manner of its government)
(B) Roundhead
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundhead
(England's many Puritans and Presbyterians were almost invariably Roundhead supporters; However many Roundheads were Church of England; sectional heading: Origins and background [for the name])
(C) Charles I of England was raised as a Protestant (same as his many subjects). But his wife (Henrietta Maria of France) was Catholic and his children were raised as Catholics. So some in England questioned his faith.

(e) Yet the escape of much of Europe from the dead hand of a corrupt and backward-looking Catholic church was surely an essential precursor of the continent’s success over the next 300 years. The Reformation may have led to much blood being spilt, but it also made modern Europe.”
(i) dead hand (n):
"1: MORTMAIN
2:  the oppressive influence of the past"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dead hand
(ii) mortmain (n): "inalienable ownership," mid-15c., from Anglo-French morte mayn, Old French mortemain, literally "dead hand," from Medieval Latin mortua manus; see mortal (adj.) + manual (adj.). Probably a metaphorical expression.”
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mortmain