CHAPTER XVI - POLITICAL THOUGHT AND THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TOLERATION

Summary

Outside Italy political thinking in the sixteenth century was focused on problems raised by the Reformation. In the first place the ordinary individual was forced into an altogether novel situation, and one fraught with the most serious consequences to his peace and security. For the first time humble individuals had to make a decision for themselves as to which of the various claimants was indeed the true church. There had, of course, been heretical movements in the middle ages. But even the most serious of these, such as the Lollard movement in England or the Hussite in Bohemia, had been localised. They precipitated no general crisis of conscience. To the great mass of the faithful, Rome was the citadel of the Catholic faith and those beliefs condemned by her were rejected without hesitation as indubitably heretical. Where there were no doubts, there were no decisions to be made. But in the sixteenth century Rome's authority itself was challenged, and great congregations, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican and Unitarian were organised, besides lesser sects such as the Anabaptists. Distinctive theologies were developed, noticeably by Calvinists and Unitarians, and rival theologians thundered mutual denunciations of their adversaries as heretics and children of Antichrist. Moreover, most of these churches took the traditional view that it is the duty of the secular arm to destroy the heretic, a duty which most princes in the earlier part of the century, for various mixed motives of their own, were ready enough to discharge.