Religious vs. Secular Authority in Europe, 1500–1900

Introduction: The Persistence of Religious Authority

The period from 1500 to 1900 is frequently viewed as a time of upheaval and change for Europe, and for good reason. These four centuries saw waves of rapid transformation, including the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the colonization of the Americas and beyond. Empires rose and fell, and by the end of the 1800s, Europe was accelerating toward two world wars and a century of technological and social progress. However, for all this change and upheaval, the overarching power structures remained largely unchanged, because religious authority continued to trump any notion of secular power. This was true despite the drive toward reason produced by the Enlightenment, because, like anything else that threatened its authority, religious ideology merely adopted the language of reason in order to reestablish its power. By examining a number of theoretical and literary texts spanning from 1500 to 1800, one can better understand how religious authority remained influential and overwhelming despite the attempted rise of secular authorities and ideas.

To better understand how the state of religious authority in the sixteenth century opened up the space necessary for the Enlightenment in the eighteenth, one may begin by considering Desiderius Erasmus' essay The Praise of Folly, originally published in 1511. In the essay, Erasmus takes on the voice of Folly and uses it to critique what he perceived to be the excesses and theological inaccuracies of the Catholic Church. Folly constantly talks herself up, and Erasmus uses this satirical approach to criticize "several seemingly great and wise men, who with a new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet, whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character, that shall consist of mere lies and shams."

Erasmus and the Redistribution of Religious Power

Perhaps more interesting than Erasmus' criticisms of the Catholic Church, however, is the fact that he ends The Praise of Folly not with an appeal to reason or secular society, but rather with an enumeration of what he perceives to be the correct Christian theology and practice.

Erasmus' ending is significant because it demonstrates that while the authority of the monolithic Catholic Church was diminishing, the centrality of religious authority to European society was in no way diminished. Instead, that authority was rapidly becoming more distributed among the general populace. Thus, while the major religious institutions were losing some official power, that power was not necessarily being transferred to secular institutions; rather, it was being co-opted by smaller religious movements and individuals with their own theological perspectives.

So, for example, when John Milton wrote Paradise Lost nearly a hundred and fifty years later, he was essentially claiming some piece of the authority ceded by the Catholic Church and reiterating that authority through a Protestant lens. When he claims that his goal is to "justify the ways of God to men," Milton is effectively taking over the traditional role of the priest, using the history of epic poetry to make his religious message more palatable to a wider audience.

Milton and Protestant Authority

This is important to recognize because it demonstrates how the split between the Church of England and the Catholic Church — which occurred in the previous century as a result of England's secular authority asserting itself — did not actually lessen religious authority, but rather vested that authority in the hands of more and different people.

Conclusion: Legacy of Distributed Religious Authority

In many ways the changes which occurred in Europe over the course of the four centuries between 1500 and the end of the 1800s help to explain the current issues facing the world today, and particularly the ongoing conflicts between religious groups and secular governments. Although religious and secular authority have been in conflict practically since religion was first formalized into specific institutions and centers of power, the evolution of religious authority after 1500 set the stage for the conflicts of the contemporary world by distributing religious authority to the religious populace rather than to a small group of priests and leaders. By imbuing each individual member of any given religion with the supposed blessing and authority of a god, religion actually increased its influence exponentially — precisely by making that influence appear diminished.