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Alexius
Guest
If I am not mistaken, I believe that the Sultan during Luther’s revolt (I forget his name, but I think it was Suleimon the “Magnificent”) actually gave money to Protestants to combat Rome. It wasn’t that he liked them as much as it was he hated Rome (for the Crusades)…In that way, he had troops without risking his own–it worked out for both sides…
Prayers and petitions,
Alexius
Prayers and petitions,
Alexius
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rr1213
Guest
Source?If I am not mistaken, I believe that the Sultan during Luther’s revolt (I forget his name, but I think it was Suleimon the “Magnificent”) actually gave money to Protestants to combat Rome. It wasn’t that he liked them as much as it was he hated Rome (for the Crusades)…In that way, he had troops without risking his own–it worked out for both sides…
Prayers and petitions,
Alexius
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Montalban
Guest
Better Turk, than Roman! 
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ChadS
Guest
I think we should give this idea of the Turks “saving” Protestantism some credence. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517. We should remember that all this didn’t happen in a vacuum. At the same time Suleman had assumed leadership of the Turks and by the 1520s had pushed deeply into Eastern Europe. The Ottomans were outside of Vienna. In the late 1530s Charles V the emperor of the Hapsburg Empire formed an alliance with the Pope and the Venetians to rid the Mediterranean and near East of Turkish influence. 1571 the famed Battle of Lepanto occurred.
So at that time European leaders saw Christian lands in the hands of Muslims and invaders. The Turks seemed to be encroaching on the heart of Europe from both the east and south-eastern borders. Spain was only finally freed from the Moors by 1492.
Given the pressing military issues facing European and Church leaders we can’t help but see why they didn’t respond as forcefully as they should’ve when Luther and others started to question the Church. They were after all separated by hundreds of miles and they were hardly a united group with a specific and common agenda.
ChadS
So at that time European leaders saw Christian lands in the hands of Muslims and invaders. The Turks seemed to be encroaching on the heart of Europe from both the east and south-eastern borders. Spain was only finally freed from the Moors by 1492.
Given the pressing military issues facing European and Church leaders we can’t help but see why they didn’t respond as forcefully as they should’ve when Luther and others started to question the Church. They were after all separated by hundreds of miles and they were hardly a united group with a specific and common agenda.
ChadS
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Brian_C
Guest
You all should read *How the Reformation Happened *by Hilaire Belloc. Available right here in the CA bookstore. Very good read that highlights the often less-than-noble motives behind the Reformation.
Sadly, you can’t blame it all on the Turks. Catholic forces had protestant ones on the run when Cardinal Richelieu of France urged (paid) the protestant Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to enter the fray and route the pro-Catholic forces during the 30 yrs War.
Sadly, you can’t blame it all on the Turks. Catholic forces had protestant ones on the run when Cardinal Richelieu of France urged (paid) the protestant Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to enter the fray and route the pro-Catholic forces during the 30 yrs War.
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AgnosTheist
Guest
The Turks reached Vienna because the Roman Catholics helped them destroy the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Byzantine empire (when the crusaders backstabbed them plundered their capital).
All those divisions & problems are because the Church keeps shooting itself in the foot.
All those divisions & problems are because the Church keeps shooting itself in the foot.
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Brian_C
Guest
Yes, but like Richelieu’s treachery, the sacking of Constantinople was the result of political intrigue and not something sanctioned by the Church. Quite honestly that’s what a great deal of the Reformation was about-subjugating the Church to the newly ascendant states of Western Europe. Local bishops and ministers are much easier to control than some guy in Rome.
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AgnosTheist
Guest
not sanctioned, but its still a bit like criminal negligence. the crusades was its responsibility. the pet goes out of control, the master is blamed.
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Montalban
Guest
Speaking of Richelieu, his Catholic France helped the Reformation by siding against Austria in favour of the Protestants!
So not just the Turks saved them. This prince of the church also has some credit
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Rolltide
Guest
It has to be mentioned, of course, that Charles V was also HIGHLY distracted by the discovery of the New World. In fact, it was 1519-1521 that the conquest of the Aztecs was occurring. The immense wealth of the region was of paramount importance to Spain, as was deciding how to best reign in the abuses of conquistadores so as to promote the conversion of the native population.
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Brian_C
Guest
Lol. that was what my first post about Richelieu was about!
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Ridgerunner
Guest
That’s pulling it a bit long, though I guess Eastern Orthodox like to think it. The eastern emperor, Isaac Angelus massacred thousands of Italians, mostly Venetians, and blinded Enrico Dandolo. Not a good move. Dandolo later became the ruler of Venice. When the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade tried to set out for the Holy Land, they didn’t have the transport or the money to pay for it. Isaac, himself, had, in the meantime, been deposed and blinded by a Greek usurper of his throne. Isaac’s son, Alexius, made a deal with Dandolo (very bad move) whereby Dandolo’s Venice would transport the Crusaders, first, to recover a Venetian city that had been recently seized by Hungary, then to Constantinope to put Isaac back on the throne. The Pope forbade the Crusaders’ attacking any Christians, including the Eastern Christians, under pain of excommunication. Alexius also promised to pay the Crusaders’ provision support and also 10,000 Greek soldiers to help with the crusade. Ignoring the Pope’s injunction, the Crusaders, largely French and German, recovered the city for Venice and put Isaac back on the throne in Constantinople. When the Greeks found out what Alexius had promised to pay Dandolo’s Venetians and the cost of provisioning the “Franks”, they balked, closed the gates of the city and refused to honor Alexius’ promises, leaving the Franks to starve or leave as best they could. (The worst move of all). Though massively outnumbered by the able bodied citizens of Constantinople, the Franks were trained warriors and took the city, exacting what they felt were reparations. Dandolo, of course, repaid himself. In the “sack of the city” many terrible things happened. Some 2,000 Greeks died. That was a lot fewer than the Italians previously massacred by the Greeks, but still, it was a terrible thing, and two wrongs don’t make a right. Ultimately, Constantinople recovered most of its strength; certainly enough to fight as allies of the Turks against otehr Eastern Christians at times, which they did. Ultimately, as Turkish strength grew and Greek strength waned over time for reasons having nothing to do with the Crusades, the Turks pushed the feeble Eastern Empire over.
“Better Turk than Roman”= “Better Islamic than Catholic”. Since being “Turk” did turn most E.O.s to Muslims, they should have wished otherwise.
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Montalban
Guest
Sorry, I didn’t pick up on it.
Yes, this Prince of the Church looked to French interests first; Bourbon -v- Hapsburgs and all that.
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ChadS
Guest
Charles V at the beginning of the Reformation was determined to stamp out heresy at any costs. However, his territorial ambitions soon got the better of him. At this time he entered into several wars with France over who controlled what is now parts of northern Italy. In 1527 he used German Lutheran mercenaries to march against Pope Adrian VI. They were soon unhappy with their conditions and the fact that they hadn’t been paid for a while and the mercenaries soon invaded and sacked Rome.
Not one European ruler at the time seems to have emerged as a defender of Catholicism, but too often they let their territorial disputes and power grabs dictate who they sided with and against. I think that Protestantism benefitted greatly from this, especially in Germany, where the religion of many of princes and their principalities depended on which side could gurantee their power and wealth the most. Some coveted wealth and land and became Lutherans as pretense to seize Church property, others had a more vested interest in staying Catholic due to familial ties or closer alliances with the emperor and stayed Catholic.
ChadS
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Montalban
Guest
All of that’s before the time of Richelieu
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ChadS
Guest
Yes indeed it is, but the discussion concerning the Turks all occurred before Richelieu and the information on Charles V is directly on topic.
ChadS
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Montalban
Guest
Oh, I don’t disagree that it’s not pertinent to the thread.
However Charles V didn’t really have much power over Germany.
And the Protestants too, they weren’t united; Calvin broke from Luther. They all hated the Anabaptists!
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ChadS
Guest
I think Charles V was at least nominally Emperor over parts of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire, besides his stronghold in Spain.
No the Protestants were hardly a united movement, except in the sense they opposed the Catholic Church, but the movement as a whole was helped along by the temporal machinations of Catholic European rulers and their wars against the Turks also. I think at first the Reformation seemed as a minor annoyance to these rulers that would soon go away and by the time they started to pay attention to it had expanded, gained a foothold, fractured and spread and entrenched even more.
ChadS
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Brian_C
Guest
Yes, that’s it exactly. Protestants almost universally see the Reformation as some spiritual awakening that was a force unto itself. A deeper reading of history shows that underneath the same forces that have shaped so much of human history were at play: greed and pride. Not so much by the reformers but those who supported them. The classic example is Henry VIII. Prior to his row with Rome, he was “Defender of the Faith.” What he viewed as a temporary rift that would surely be healed took on a life of its own once his ministers and nobles got a taste of the vast wealth of the English Church.
A more recent analogy would be the American Civil War. Everyone knows it was about ending slavery, right? Because it was morally wrong, right? Slavery, of course, WAS morally wrong but the war drums on both side beat to the tune of preserving economic interests.
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