The Reformation

Covering the whole of the Reformation, plus the Counter Reformation, in a small book is always going to be a challenge - this book covers the topic adequately, but it's quite England-centric.
It was interesting to see the author covering (briefly) the Spanish activities in South America.
One thing I

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learnt: the reason that Portuguese is spoken in Brazil and Spanish in the rest of South America is due to a line drawn on a map by a pope - the Spanish got west of the line, the Portuguese the east.
One thing I read but not sure I agree: that the Calvinist were against organs in churches; not sure then there are so many organs in the Calvinist churches in the Netherlands.

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I enjoyed it save for a number of throwaway and moderately sexist comments about women, which rather unnecessarily soured things.

Owen Chadwick stands out as the trustsed authority on Reformation history. Not only is his scholorly knowledge outlined with enough precision to impress any aspiring historian, but Chadwick also manages to convey the facts with a level of underlying passion.,Book annotation not available for this

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title.Title: The ReformationAuthor: Chadwick, OwenPublisher: Penguin Group USAPublication Date: 1990/05/01Number of Pages: Binding Type: PAPERBACKLibrary of Congress: BL 99784652

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The beginning the sixteenth century brought growing pressure within the Western Church for Reformation. The popes could not hold Western Christendom together and there was confusion about Church reform. What some believed to be abuses, others found acceptable. Nevertheless over the years three aims

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emerged: to reform the exactions of churchmen, to correct errors of doctrines and to improve the moral awareness of society. As a result, Western Europe divided into a Catholic South and Protestant North. Across the no man's land between them were fought the bitterest wars of religion in Christian historyThis third volume of 'The Penguin History of the Church' deals with the formative work of Erasmus, Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, and analyses the special circumstances of the English Reformation as well as the Jesuits and the Counter-Reformation

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A traditional, excellently-written account: all big names and grand events and things that sound, to 21st century ears, rather bizarre (indigenous Americans weren't able to compete in the "adult world"?) Chadwick focuses on Britain, as is the wont of British people last century; he is surprisingly

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sanguine about the reformers, excusing all of their murders, insanities and horrors by mentioning, yet again, that "everyone agreed reform was needed." Perversely, he argues that i) the Reformation in England was a political event with religious consequences (seems fair) and ii) nobody much cared that the Reformation came. It's very difficult to read this after Duffy and so on have done so much work to show that, for a good many people in Britain at least, the reformation was a traumatic destruction of a way of life; but even common sense should have suggested that the reformation in England can't have been both bureaucratically imposed by a walking penis and accepted whole-heartedly by the population.

But, as I said, very nicely written, and good on the ideas of the main figures.

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