Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (VII)
The Great Schism which erupted in 1378 generated a new wave
of dissent which while not unrelated to the earlier movements and impulses,
nevertheless generated more radical factions which for a season took up the
sword. These movements failed and yet in most cases the core ideas and
commitments endured and the survivors would eventually merge back into the
non-violent sword and coin rejecting, non-Sacralist and separatist posture of
the movement's first wave. They would not be challenged or tempted again with
regard to Sacralism until the time of the Magisterial Reformation.
Hussitism in some respects represents the collapse and
fragmentation of the First Reformation. The different impulses within the
movement represent the various strains within the First Reformation's spectrum.
First there were the Utraquists or Calixtines. These were the
moderate party that sought reform but did not seek to break with Rome. They
wanted the cup (calix) restored (sub utraque specie) which had been
removed from the laity in the aftermath of the Fourth Lateran Council. They
also for a time reverted to paedocommunion. The ancient practice continues to
this day in the East but in the Latin Church it had fallen out of favour with
the codification of transubstantiation in 1215. They argued for it in the Four
Articles and the issue was debated as Basel. The Utraquist Hussites were
officially refused but the practice continued until the movement itself no
longer existed.
They would take up arms against Rome but were primarily
motivated by a kind of Czech nationalism and anti-German sentiment which was
focused against the Catholic hierarchy as well ruling families such as the
Luxembourgs and Habsburgs. The Utraquists would eventually turn against their
Hussite cousins, the Taborites and destroy them – though they themselves were
eradicated by Catholic Habsburg forces during the Thirty Years War.
The Taborites were considered radical in that they wanted to
break with Rome completely. Named for their fortified settlement located to the
south of Prague they became militants and attempted to base their views on a
Judaized reading of the Scriptures. Brilliant and innovative in their combat
tactics they were also in no small part affected by groups of prophets.
Apparently some of the region's Waldensians were caught up in this movement.
There were several factions at work in the early stages of the movement and
some of these were brutally suppressed by the dominant forces with the Taborite
spectrum. The Taborites practiced a kind of theocratic communism or communalism
which continued to fascinate generations to come. Communist historians in the
19th century were particularly captivated by the Taborites and some
of the later Anabaptist groups.
After defeating multiple crusading armies they sought to
crush their enemies and spread their message through offensive campaigns. They
would invade neighbouring countries and for a time created a real crisis in
Europe – even Joan of Arc threatened them at one point. But they were not able
to consolidate control and the Utraquists looked askance at their deeds. They
were finally defeated by a joint Utraquist-Catholic force at Lipany in 1434.
The movement survived until the 1450's when the sole Hussite-Utraquist king of
Bohemia, George Podebrady stripped Tabor of its political standing and
effectively disbanded the movement.
The Waldensians were not technically part of Hussitism but
were affected by it. Some defected and joined with the Taborites, others
continued to reject their movement and retained their Waldensian identity. The
question of the Waldensians is further complicated by the fact that many
historians insist that those in Bohemia were primarily German and thus at odds
with the Czech-oriented Hussite movement but the record suggests this was not
the case. Their geographic regions overlapped and there is abundant evidence of
Czech Waldensianism that ranges beyond the German populations – as if the line
between German and Czech was so hard and fast as the apologists of Rome would
insist upon.
There is also the question of Petr Chelčický. His ideas perfectly echo known Waldensian doctrine but there is no objective
evidence to suggest that he was a Waldensian. His group was known as 'brethren'
which itself may (or could) mean that they were Waldensian – if the term is
understood properly in its broad sense. There was no concentrated hierarchical
movement but a series of related movements which can be referred to
umbrella-fashion as Waldensianism. Thus the brethren of Chelčice and other nearby towns may well have been (from the
historian's perspective) Waldensians. Again the parallels between Chelčický's
doctrine and known Waldensian tenets are palpable. He also referred to stories
regarding the Donation of Constantine that come straight out of the Waldensian
tradition.
Chelčický
was (along with other Waldensians) in Prague in the days after the death of
Huss (1415) and he witnessed the rise of the Utraquist and Taborite factions.
He knew many of the people within them and yet categorically rejected both
groups as having sold out to Satan. Though an avid apocalypticist he rejected
the millennial expectations of the Pikarts, the militant theocracy and violence
of the Taborites and the Establishment-friendly but also violent position of the Utraquists. Chelčický
is often referred to as a Hussite but in many respects he rejected the movement
– his First Reformation values and theological methodology stand in stark
contrast to the post-Schism proto- Magisterial Protestant ideologies
represented by the descendants of Wycliffe and Huss.
And
yet there is still an overlap. With the final destruction of Tabor in the
1450's, elements from both Tabor and the Utraquist camps would form the Unitas Fratrum, the Unity of the
Brethren, the movement that would in the 18th century join with
German Pietism and become the Moravians. In their early days they were greatly
influenced by Chelčický. They would eventually break with many of his ideas but
as I've written elsewhere there was still enough of that older First
Reformation heritage of non-resistance, the embrace of suffering and
anti-Sacral theology that the Moravians filled a unique place on the mission
fields, especially in places like North America where their apolitical,
anti-colonialist approach to missions garnered them considerable respect among
American Indian leaders – a respect not extended to Presbyterians, Puritans,
Anglicans and others.
The 15th century was one of great persecution and
by the end of the century, movements such as the remnants of radical Hussitism,
Lollardy and Waldensianism survived but their strength and testimony had in
some ways been reduced by the fury of Rome and the struggles they faced. From
roughly 1350-1450 there was a concentrated effort on the part of the
Inquisition and this intensified in light of the Hussite schism. The end result
would be that by the end of the 15th century many places that once
housed underground First Reformation congregations had been abandoned and
fallen silent. Many were killed whose martyr-names are known only in heaven.
There were apostasies and many fled to the haven that was 15th
century Bohemia where they were consequently (and sometimes negatively)
affected by Hussite ideas. By 1450 the First Reformation as an influential
movement had come to an end but by no means did it entirely disappear.
The surviving remnants would later join with the mainstream Reformation,
become Anabaptists or remain in the Bohemian lands – many eventually
affiliating with the Czech Brethren (or Unitas Fratrum). These groups would
suffer terrible persecution during the latter years of the 15th
century and while many would join the Magisterial Reformation in the 16th
century, the early years of the 17th century would (in terms of the
Habsburg lands) almost eradicate both the remnants of the First Reformation and
the Magisterial Protestants.
Bohemia, once the haven and centre for old Protestant dissent
became a wasteland. The same was true of other Habsburg lands such as Austria.
There are remnants of its Protestant heritage in some ruined castles but
traveling through Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia and Styria there is little
hint of the once vibrant communities of both the First and Magisterial
Reformation Christians. The Counter-Reformation and the ravages of the Thirty
Years War would destroy these communities.
The Thirty Years War and the Catholic or Counter-Reformation
represent twin holocausts of both a physical and spiritual nature. Sadly it was
the scheming of the Establishment-minded Utraquist party that would unleash the
calamity in their attempts to play politics. It wasn't the first or last time
Christian politicking would lead to catastrophe. Their attempt to enthrone
Frederick V (Elector-Palatine) backfired and brought down the full force of
Habsburg wrath – a calamity that in terms of scale was more devastating than
World War II. During the 17th century Bohemia would lose well over
one-third of its population.
There are two ways to consider an end-date for the First
Reformation. First you could point to the mid-15th century as the
movements would dwindle under persecution and drift toward the fringes of
obscurity. This is not to say they disappeared because they didn't. Indeed the
Waldensian bodies based in the Cottian Alps – the group many seem to
erroneously treat as 'the' Waldensians faced stiff persecution as late as 1488
and Lollards will still being burnt as late as the 1530's. We will revisit the
question of Waldensian English-language historiography in the next section.
The Magisterial Reformation would arrive in the 16th
century and all historians agree that many of the remnants (which may have been
numerically considerable) of these groups were swallowed up by and/or willingly
joined with the Reformation movement. Those that didn't may have embraced a
further radicalism and found a home among the Anabaptists who (while departing
from the First Reformation on certain points) did retain the overarching
Kingdom ethics that characterised the groups of the first period.*
The First Reformation had generated a type of Protestantism
that was not a primitive or undeveloped Protestantism that needed the
Magisterial Reformation to complete it or flesh it out. Rather, the First
Reformation manifest a First-Protestant (or Proto-Protestant) ideology and a
loose and broad movement that nevertheless had its own Biblicist-Kingdom identity
– an identity that was lost and swallowed up by the Second or Magisterial
Reformation which commenced in 1517. And when viewed through that lens it is
the events subsequent to and connected with 1517 that mark the end of the First
Reformation.**
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* I would argue the Anabaptists arose from the humanistic
milieu and its sense of individualism and proto-rationalism. This would affect
their professed Biblicism, leading to a reductionist theological framework and hermeneutic
– one that (generally speaking) would continue to develop within Protestantism.
This trajectory would play a part in the development of Protestant
Scholasticism and result in crisis with the Enlightenment as the very
foundations of the Scripture were compromised by this epistemology being played
out.
** One could even mark 1525 as the end of the First
Reformation. As the Lutheran and Zwinglian protests began to be worked out
there was the massive German Peasant's Revolt – a movement that while crushed
and rejected by Luther and the other Reformers nevertheless was associated in
the minds of many rebels as an application of Magisterial Reformation
principles. The peasant or grass roots aspect of the new movement would be
inherently political and would never abandon that identity.