ABSTRACT
There is a standard story about religious authority and ecclesiastical governance in early modern Europe. It runs somewhat like this:
In medieval Europe religious authority lay in the hands of clerics. Clerics were regarded as superior to the laity, and they were governed by the papacy in Rome. When there were disagreements about the faith, the papacy had the last word. Dissenters were condemned as heretics and handed over to lay governments for punishment. Orthodoxy was ruthlessly enforced and there was no religious liberty.
That changed during the Renaissance and Reformation. Lay people began to grow dissatisfied with the enforcement of orthodoxy and claimed a growing share of religious authority for themselves. When Martin Luther proposed a new kind of theology, their dissatisfaction erupted into outright rebellion. After about a century of violent religious wars, the papacy had to admit defeat.
The outcome was settled more or less around the time of the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Priests and bishops continued to exist. But they were divided into different confessions and the papacy lost the ability to impose its will by force. Education, persuasion, and enlightenment took the place of the Inquisition and the stake, and religious liberty was enshrined as a natural right. That was a great step forward in the history of humanity’s progress from ignorance and oppression.
