ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that the Catholic search for authority, as much based on the legitimacy of the person who delivered the message as on the sources from which their message was drawn, had in such an environment to be rather more imaginative on the ground than the theoretical structures of Trent would suggest. Lutheranism had recently been given legal status in the Holy Roman Empire, Calvinism was thriving, the Jesuits, though rapidly increasing in size, strength and significance, were far from the peak of their powers, and the well-intended decrees of Trent concerning the proper education of a Catholic priesthood would inevitably take at least a generation to bear fruit. Authority in the post-Tridentine Catholic Church lay; it seems, just as much in the medium of the message as its sources. Authority in the post-Tridentine Catholic Church lay, it seems, just as much in the medium of the message as its sources.