Reformation, Religious Wars, and Baroque Art: Key Concepts and Figures

Religious Pluralism

the coexistence and mutual acceptance of diverse religious beliefs and practices within a society.

Indulgences

a grant by the Pope of remission of the temporal punishment in purgatory still due for sins after absolution.

Reformation

a 16th-century movement for the reform of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church ending in the establishment of the Reformed Catholic and Protestant Churches.

Martin Luther

German theologian and religious reformer who initiated the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. He is known for challenging the practices of the Catholic Church, particularly through his publication of the 'Ninety-Five Theses' in 1517, which criticized the sale of indulgences.

95 Theses

Ninety-five Theses, propositions for debate concerned with the question of indulgences, written in Latin and possibly posted by Martin Luther on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517.

Diet of Worms

imperial assembly held in 1521 in Worms, Germany, convened by Emperor Charles V. It is most famous for Martin Luther's appearance before the assembly, where he defended his writings and was subsequently declared an outlaw.

Charles V

Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, and Archduke of Austria. He inherited a Spanish and Habsburg empire extending across Europe from Spain and the Netherlands to Austria and the Kingdom of Naples and reaching overseas to Spanish America. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century.

Primacy of Scripture

Christian doctrine that canonized scripture is 'first' or 'above all' other sources of divine revelation. This means that the Bible alone is the infallible and inerrant Word of God.

Salvation by Faith Alone

the doctrine that faith in Jesus Christ is the only means by which individuals can be declared righteous before God. This belief asserts that salvation cannot be earned through good works, but is a free gift from God, received through faith.

John Calvin

a French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation.

Predestination

the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul.

Anabaptists

members of a radical movement that emerged during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. They advocate for adult baptism as the only valid form of baptism, rejecting the practice of infant baptism.

Puritans

a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries in England, primarily seeking to purify the Church of England from remnants of Roman Catholic practices.

Huguenots

a French Protestant of the 16th-17th centuries. Largely Calvinist, they suffered severe persecution at the hands of the Catholic majority, and many thousands emigrated from France.

Catherine de' Medici

Catherine de' Medici was an Italian Florentine noblewoman of the Medici family and Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King Henry II.

Henry of Navarre

the first monarch of France from the House of Bourbon. He became king of France in 1589 and is best known for issuing the Edict of Nantes in 1598.

St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre

slaughter of French Huguenots (Protestants) in Paris on August 24/25, 1572, plotted by Catherine de' Medici and carried out by Roman Catholic nobles and other citizens. It was one event in the series of civil wars between Roman Catholics and Huguenots that beset France in the late 16th century.

Edict of Nantes

signed in 1598 by King Henry IV of France, it granted significant rights to the Huguenots, marking a pivotal moment in the history of religious tolerance in France.

Spanish and Habsburg empire

An empire extending across Europe from Spain and the Netherlands to Austria and the Kingdom of Naples and reaching overseas to Spanish America.

Thirty Years War

One of the most destructive conflicts in European history, with an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians dying from battle, famine, or disease.

Peace of Augsburg

The 1555 agreement that attempted to resolve religious conflict within the Holy Roman Empire by dividing it into Catholic and Lutheran states.

Cardinal Richelieu

A French Catholic prelate and statesman who served as the chief minister to King Louis XIII from 1624 until his death in 1642.

Peace of Westphalia

The treaty that brought an end to the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch and the German phase of the Thirty Years' War.

Catholic Reformation

Also known as the Counter-Reformation, it was a movement initiated in the 16th century aimed at reforming the Roman Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation.

Roman Inquisition

An ecclesiastical tribunal established by Pope Gregory IX c.1232 for the suppression of heresy, notorious for the use of torture.

Index of Prohibited Books

A changing list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality of the Church, which Catholics were forbidden to print or read.

Ignatius Loyola

Founded the religious order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and became its first Superior General in Paris in 1541.

Jesuits

Founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions, the Society of Jesus is the largest religious order in the Catholic Church.

Council of Trent

Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the 'most impressive embodiment of the ideals of the Counter-Reformation.'

House of Lords

The upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

House of Commons

The name for the elected lower house of the parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada.

Patriarchal

A social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men.

Charivari

A noisy mock serenade performed by a group of people to celebrate a marriage or mock an unpopular person.

Mannerism

A style of 16th-century Italian art characterized by unusual effects of scale, lighting, and perspective, and the use of bright, often lurid colors.

Baroque

A Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s.

Caravaggio

A leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries known for the intense and unsettling realism of his large-scale religious works.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

An Italian artist who was perhaps the greatest sculptor of the 17th century and an outstanding architect, known for creating the Baroque style of sculpture.

Peter Paul Rubens

A Flemish painter who was the greatest exponent of Baroque painting's dynamism, vitality, and sensuous exuberance.