Religious refugees in the early modern world : an alternative history of the Reformation PDF
Preview Religious refugees in the early modern world : an alternative history of the Reformation
RELIGIOUS REFUGEES IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD Thereligiousrefugeefirstemergedasamassphenomenoninthelatefifteenth century.Overthefollowingtwoandahalfcenturies,millionsofJews,Muslims, andChristianswereforcedfromtheirhomesandintotemporaryorpermanent exile. Their migrations across Europe and around the globe shaped the early modern world and profoundly affected literature, art, and culture. Economic and political factors drove many expulsions, but religion was the factor most commonly used to justify them. This was also the period of religious revival known as the Reformation. This book explores how reformers’ ambitions to purify individuals and society fuelled movements to purge ideas, objects, and people considered religiously alien or spiritually contagious. As an alternative historyoftheReformation,it: * Aims to explain religious ideas and movements of the Reformation in non-technicalandcomparativelanguage. * Moves Jews and Muslims from the margins of the traditional Reformation narrativeandconsidershowtheexileexperienceshapedearlymodernculture, art,politics,andcities. * Traces the historical patterns that still account for the growing numbers of modernreligiousrefugees. NicholasTerpstraisProfessorandChairofHistoryattheUniversityofToronto. HehasbeenavisitingprofessoratSydney,TelAviv,andWarwickUniversities andattheHarvardCenterforItalianRenaissanceStudies.Hisbookshaveshown how Renaissance cities handled orphans, abandoned children, criminals, and thepoorinthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies.Hismostrecentbook,Cultures ofCharity:Women,Politics,andtheReformofPoorReliefinRenaissanceItaly(2014), wonprizesfromtheRenaissanceSocietyofAmericaandtheAmericanHistorical Association. Published online by Cambridge University Press Published online by Cambridge University Press RELIGIOUS REFUGEES IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD An Alternative History of the Reformation M NICHOLAS TERPSTRA UniversityofToronto Published online by Cambridge University Press 32AvenueoftheAmericas,NewYork,ny10013-2473,usa CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107652415 ©NicholasTerpstra2015 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2015 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Terpstra,Nicholas. Religiousrefugeesintheearlymodernworld:analternativehistory oftheReformation/NicholasTerpstra,UniversityofToronto. pages cm Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-1-107-02456-4(alk.paper) 1. Reformation. 2. Religiousrefugees–History. 3. Europe–History–1492–1648. I. Title. br305.3.t472016 270.6086′91–dc23 2015005133 isbn978-1-107-02456-4Hardback isbn978-1-107-65241-5Paperback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof urlsforexternalorthird-partyInternetWebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchWebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Published online by Cambridge University Press Tothememory ofAnne&Klaas andJean& John,whoseown migrations,shapeddeeply byreligion,closedsomehorizons butopened manyothers Published online by Cambridge University Press Published online by Cambridge University Press CONTENTS Introduction page1 OntheMove 1 ReformationHistories 7 PersecutionParadigms 11 TolerationandCo-Existence 15 BodyPolitics 17 1 TheBodyofChrist:DefinedandThreatened 21 PurityandCommunityintheBody 22 ThreatstotheCorpusChristianum 38 2 PurifyingtheBody 74 Separation 77 Containment 84 Prosecution 94 Purgation 105 3 DividingtheBody:PeopleandPlaces 133 People 134 Places 157 4 MindandBody 184 WaysofThinking:PurityofThought 186 WaysofLiving:PurityofAction 218 5 Re-FormingtheBody:TheWorldtheRefugeesMade 241 Tools 242 Personnel 257 Spaces 269 Imagination 289 ConfessionandCulture 305 6 Re-ImaginingtheBody 309 SelectBibliography 331 Index 337 vii Published online by Cambridge University Press Published online by Cambridge University Press INTRODUCTION One of the harshest realities of the modern world is the plight of refugees. War, brutal dictators, and inter-communal tensions regularly send tens of thousands fleeing for their lives over the nearest border. Race, ethnicity, and religious identity often provide the overtreasonsforexileandexpulsion.Somerefugeessettleincamps,hoping toreturn,whileotherskeepmovingfromcountrytocountryinsearchofa newlife.Familiesaretornapart,andthosewhochoosenottofleeriskbeing killedbyarmies,guerillas,orneighbours.Thetwentiethcenturysawmillions killed, millions flee as refugees, and millions more forced to migrate when war destroyed their homelands. In 2014 the United Nations High CommissiononRefugeesestimatedthatthecurrentglobaltotalofdisplaced peopleshadrisenbeyond50million.Hasitalwaysbeenthisway?Whendid refugeesfirstbecomeacommonphenomenon,andwhy? OntheMove Europeanstatesbeganusingexileandexpulsionasdeliberatetoolsofpolicy aboutsixhundredyearsago,intheperiodknownasthelateMiddleAgesor Renaissance. This was when the religious refugee in particular became a mass phenomenon. Medieval traditions regarding purity, contagion, and purgation took a sharper definition in the fifteenth century. Political and economic realities deeply shaped the many cultural forces and historical eventsthatthenspurredinstitutionalreligiousreformationinthesixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Towns, cities, and states had long been con- cerned with asserting their religious character and spiritual purity. As powerbeganflowingtowardsmonarchsandcentralgovernments,French kingHenryIV’sgoalof“onefaith,onelaw,oneKing”tookholdacrossthe continent. Those who fell outside this unity were not just alien, but also 1 https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139170055.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press 2 Introduction impureandpossiblycontagious.Anysocietythattookitsresponsibilitiesto God seriously might have to purge itself in order to purify its population andsomaintainitsownhealth. The sharp language ofpurification and purgation came outof medicine, but was adopted by religious reform movements. The drive to purge and purifyreshapedEuropeandtheglobethroughouttheearlymodernperiod. Thisbookwillarguethatbecausepurgationwassocentralapartofreligious reform, we should include the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 as one of the critical events marking the start of ‘the Reformation’ – no less significantthanMartinLuther’spostingoftheNinety-FiveThesesin1517or EnglishkingHenryVIII’sdivorcecontroversyofthe1520sand’30s.Iberian JewsweregiventhechoicetobebaptisedasChristiansortoleavetheland that theyhad lived infor overa thousandyears. IberianMuslims,who had lived in Spain for seven hundred years, were given the same ultimatum in 1502.Thesewerenotthefirstorlastthreats–Jewshadfacedsimilardemands in1391,andMuslimswouldfacethemagainin1609–14.Yetthe1492decree ofKingFerdinandandQueenIsabellawasthemostambitiousinitsnational scope, numerical scale, and religious focus. To its proponents, it was an exerciseincommunitybuildingandapiousact.Itwasalsothewaveofthe future.Itsetmembershipinthenationalcommunityonthefoundationsof religioustruthandindividualwill,ratherthanonaccidentsofbirth.Within decades, Dutch Anabaptists, Italian Calvinists, English Catholics, and BohemianHussiteswouldallbeofferedthesamechoice:joinorleave. Mass expulsions did not come overnight. Throughout the course of the fifteenth century, an accelerating wave of expulsions across Europe forced hundredsofthousandsofpeopleoutoftheirhomes forreasons ofreligion: 20,000JewswereexpelledfromtownsacrossGermanyandFrancethrough- out the century, before Spain’s unlucky 80,000 were given three weeks to leavein1492.Adecadelater,the200,000whoremainedofGranada’shalf- million Muslim population were given the choice of baptism or exile. Anabaptists began fleeing from west and central to Eastern Europe in the 1520sand1530s;spiritualifledItalyfromthe1540s;ProtestantMarianexiles abandonedEnglandinthe1550sandCatholicsleftunderElizabethI.Larger andlargergroupswereonthemove:10,000CatholicsfledtheNetherlands whenCalvinistsseizedpowerinthe1570sandearly1580s,andthen150,000 ProtestantsfledfromFlanderswhenSpanishtroopsretooktheregionlaterin that decade. In the 1570s and 1580s, 80,000 moriscos were moved from GranadaandValenciaintoCastile. Thescaleofexpulsionsonlyincreasedthroughtheseventeenthcenturyas nationsgainedafirmershapeandidentity,andasgovernmentsgainedgreater https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139170055.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
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