The Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century 265then dispatched a French refugee, Guillaume Farel, to
convert the French-speaking Genevans. Farel was a fine
preacher, but he realized that he was not the man to or-
ganize a church. When Calvin stopped at Geneva on
his way from Ferrara to Strasburg, he prevailed upon
the young scholar to stay and assist him in the task of
reformation.
Calvin’s first years in Geneva were full of turmoil.
Though they had no love for the pope, the Genevans
resisted Calvin’s attempts to reform their morals. He es-
tablished the kind of godly commonwealth he sought
only with great difficulty. His opponents finally dis-
credited themselves by supporting Miguel Servetus, an
antitrinitarian executed by the Genevan city council as
a heretic in 1553. This act, now regarded as an example
of gross intolerance, was universally applauded by
Catholics and Protestants and secured Calvin’s position
in the city until his death.
Calvin’s Geneva has been called a theocracy, but
Calvin believed in the separation of church and state.
Neither he nor any other Genevan pastor could hold
public office, and the temporal affairs of the Genevan
church were guided by an elected committee or pres-
bytery of laymen. The city continued to be governed
by its two elected councils. These bodies were empow-
ered, as in Zürich, to enforce conformity in faith and
morals. A Consistory, composed of church elders and
certain municipal officials, was responsible for defining
both. Geneva soon became known as a center of the
Reformed movement and as a refuge for those who
were persecuted elsewhere. An academy was estab-
lished to train pastors who were then dispatched to cre-
ate missionary congregations in other parts of Europe.
They were most successful in France, the Netherlands,
and in those countries such as Hungary, Bohemia, and
Poland where resistance to German culture inhibited
the spread of Lutheranism. When the reformer died in
1564, Calvinism was already a major international
movement.
The English Reformation
England’s revolt against the papacy was an example of
reformation from the top. Henry VIII (reigned
1509–47; see illustration 14.4) and his chief minister,
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. 1475–1530), had little use
for reformed doctrines. Henry had even earned the pa-
pal title “Defender of the Faith” for publishing an attack
on Luther’s view of the sacraments and would probably
have been content to remain in the church had he not
decided to divorce his queen, Catherine of Aragon.
Catherine had suffered a series of miscarriages and
stillbirths. One child, Mary, survived, but Henry feared
that without a male heir the succession would be endan-
gered. He resolved to ask for a papal annulment and to
marry Anne Boleyn, a court lady with whom he had
fallen in love. His request posed serious difficulties for
pope Clement VII. The emperor Charles V was Cather-
ine’s nephew. Charles vehemently opposed the divorce,
and as his troops had recently sacked Rome (1527), al-
beit in the course of a mutiny, the pope was intimidated.
Moreover, the basis of the request struck many canon
lawyers as dubious. Catherine had originally been mar-
ried to Henry’s brother Arthur, who died before he
could ascend the throne. To preserve the vital alliance
with Catherine’s father, Ferdinand of Aragon, Henry VII
had quickly married her to his second son, but this hadIllustration 14.4
Henry VIII of England.This portrait by Hans Holbein
shows the king as he looked at the time of the Reformation.