varied and included the DOGEand his six councillors. The
council employed spies, received reports, conducted se-
cret diplomacy, and sometimes ordered assassinations. It
supervised the manufacture and distribution of artillery
and munitions until 1582. After the appointment of three
inquisitors of state (1539) for the secret investigation and
punishment of crimes, the council was widely perceived
as a sinister organization.
Counter-Reformation The reform of ecclesiastical
abuses and the vitalization of spirituality were lively
concerns in the decades before LUTHER’s posting of the
Ninety-five Theses and the beginning of the Protestant
REFORMATION. The early 16th-century Catholic Reforma-
tion continued after 1517 until, by the 1530s, it had be-
come a vast movement of spiritual and moral renewal (see
SPIRITUALI). The Catholic Reformation (meaning origi-
nally the reformist movement within the unitary pre-1517
Church) was therefore independent of the Protestant Re-
formation (meaning the reformation led by those who ei-
ther removed themselves from the Roman communion or
were excommunicated from that communion) and was
not necessarily directed against it. Intellectuals such as
Jacques LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, Desiderius ERASMUS, Francisco
de QUIÑONES, and Juan de VALDÉS(to name but a few)
were all representatives of this movement. To the degree
that the Council of TRENTdisciplined and revitalized the
ecclesiastical offices of the Church, it too was part of the
Catholic Reformation. However, after 1540 there was also
a desire to combat Protestantism, to counterattack, and to
regain lost ground. This movement is called the Counter-
Reformation. It was destructive of some of the most liberal
trends of the earlier 16th-century Church, and it created
the psychology and worship of Roman Catholicism until
Vatican II in the 1960s.
The Counter-Reformation can best be discussed
under the headings of theology, psychology, triumphalism,
and mysticism. First, theology. Since Protestant ideas and
Catholic spiritualist notions (understood to their disad-
vantage in the context of the Counter-Reformation) had
been spread largely by preachers and the new printing
press (for example, between 1517 and 1526 there were
over 2000 editions of works by Luther), ecclesiastical and
temporal authorities deemed it necessary to “protect”
their flocks against dangerous proselytizing. Kings,
princes, and civic authorities strengthened CENSORSHIP. In
1520 the first index of prohibited books was issued by
HENRY VIIIwho sought to protect England from Lutheran
ideas. To guide civil authorities, the papacy finally (1559)
issued its more famous INDEX LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUM.
Local inquisitions and courts also took action against
heretical theology. The Roman Inquisition was reestab-
lished in 1542 to rid Italy of heresy. French provincial par-
lements actively tried heretics. Temporal lords began
requiring printers to acquire royal “licences” before allow-
ing them to publish books. Should unwelcome books be
published, the presses could then be shut down by revok-
ing its licence. The Roman Catholic Church organized an
elaborate censorship system by which texts had to obtain
a nihil obstat (“there is nothing objectionable”) and an im-
primatur (“it may be printed”) before the presses could
run. It is paradoxical that the same invention, the printing
press, could lead to the expansion of scholarship and the
dissemination of ideas as well as to modern censorship.
The Counter-Reformation period also saw the foun-
dation of new religious orders such as the Society of Jesus
(JESUITS). Founded by IGNATIUS LOYOLAand a handful of
companions in 1534, the order quickly grew in numbers
and spread throughout western Europe. Ignatius was a
soldier-mystic and, at one point, a near heretic. His Con-
stitutions (first drawn up between 1547 and 1550) laid
down a strict organization for the Jesuits. His Spiritual Ex-
ercises, setting out the method of prayer and meditation
followed by the first generation of Jesuits, exemplify
the commitment, ardor, and discipline of the Counter-
Reformation “Christian soldier,” very different from the
early 16th-century Catholic-Reformation model offered in
Erasmus’s Enchiridion militis christiani (1504; Handbook of
the Christian Soldier). The single-minded passion of the
Counter-Reformation is reflected in Ignatius’s words: “To
arrive at complete certainty, this is the mental attitude we
should maintain: I will believe that the white object I see
is black if that should be the decision of the hierarchical
church.”
The Council of Trent (1542–65) solidified the theo-
logical armamentum of the Counter-Reformation Church.
Taken as a whole, the council was as dogmatic and mili-
tant as Ignatius Loyola for the Catholic camp and John
CALVINfor the Protestant side. The council, a long time in
coming into being and sometimes precarious in its exis-
tence, managed to define Roman Catholic doctrine for the
next 400 years. It countered Protestant doctrines, issue by
issue, and in this way it set forth a basically systematic or-
dering of Roman Catholic doctrine, thus making crystal
clear who was a Catholic and who a Protestant. As one
historian has noted, the medieval Church was generally
more ecumenical and permissive theologically than was
the post-Tridentine religious world. Peaceful coexistence
of competing theological ideas was no longer possible
during the Counter-Reformation era.
While there was a clear doctrinal gap between the
Counter-Reformation Church and the various Protestant
churches after 1560, there was also a growing psychologi-
cal gap in terms of devotional practice and style of piety.
Counter-Reformation piety was characterized by a heated
emotionalism, especially for the laity. The religious paint-
ings of the late 16th and 17th centuries aimed at suggest-
ing ideal worship practices: weeping, distorted figures,
exaggerated gestures, and eyes turned piously toward
heaven. Artistic examples of tearful repentance and con-CCoouunntteerr--RReeffoorrmmaattiioonn 112233