Buying Loyalty

In his excellent Theopolitical Imagination , William Cavanaugh points out that during the Reformation Catholic princes remained Catholic in those areas where the power of the Papacy had already been restricted.  Because the princes could have their way, they didn’t need to change religions: “In France the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges had accomplished this in 1438, eliminating papal collection of the Annate tax, taking away the Pope’s right to nominate candidates for vacant sees, and giving the crown the formerly papal prerogative of supplicating in favor of aspirants to most benefices.  The Concordat of Bologna in 1516 confirmed the French kings’ control over Church appointments and revenues.  In Spain the crown was granted even wider concessions between 1482 and 1508.  France and Spain remained Catholic.”

Once the Concordat of Bologna was secured, “the French kings and Catherine de Medici saw no advantage to the Reformation in France.”  As a result, the Reformation was regarded as a political threat, which the French kings suppressed.  French nobility, fearing the centralizing powers of the king, became Calvinists.

By contrast, “where such concordats were not arranges, as in England, German, and Scandinavia, conflicts between the Church and the secular rulers – which, it must be remembered, predated Luther – contributed in every case to the success of the Reformation.”