THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
HIST 613A; TRS 727D; TRS 420 The Catholic Reformation 1320-1540
Syllabus
Credit Hours: 3
Prerequisites/ Department consent: none
Classroom: Shahan 303
Thursdays 3:35-6:00
Instructor contact information:
Nelson H. Minnich
Mullen Library 320 and Caldwell 417
X 5079 and x5702
Minnich@cua.edu
Office Hour: Tuesdays 2-3:00pm
Course Description (from Cardinal Station http://cardinalstation.cua.edu)
A study of ongoing reform efforts in the Church from the healing of the Great Western Schism to
the organized Roman response to the Protestant Reformation, treating such topics as
conciliarism, observantism, mysticism, popular preaching, confraternities, Devotio Moderna,
Christian humanism, new religious orders, evangelism, missionary efforts, plus a survey of the
Church in Germany, Spain, France, England, and Italy, and the initial papal responses to the
Protestant challenge.
Instructional Methods:
Lectures and Discussion
Required Text:
None, but specific required readings
Recommended Text:
None
Reading materials: Course Discussion Schedule (name of discussion leader in bold font
following the date of the discussion):
Terms "Catholic" and "Counter" Reformation; Church and State: Theory and Practice
9/7 Allison Ralph:
O’Malley, John W. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2000) BR 438 .O45 2000
Institutional Church Problems: Avignonese Papacy, Great Western Schism, Conciliarism
9/14: Jingfeng Zhang:
Crowder, Christopher M.D. Unity, Heresy, and Reform, 1378-1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism
(New York, 1977), 41-177. Canon Law BX 733 .U5
Spinka, Matthew A., ed., Advocates of Reform from Wyclif to Erasmus (Philadelphia, 1953), 140-174. BQ 302
L69 vol. 14
Jared Vibbert:
Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation, and Commentary by Henry Joseph Schroeder (St.
Louis, 1937), 443-79. BV 11 S38
Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II), De gestis Concilii Basiliensis Commentariorum libri II, ed. and trans. Denys Hay
and W.K. Smith (Oxford, 1967), 3-187. BX 823 P69 D2 1967
Mainline Thinking: Scholasticism and Humanism
9/21: Ryan Lenz:
The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer, Paul O. Kristeller, and John Randall (Chicago, 1948), 34,
46, 134-43. B 775 C34 1956
Marginal Thinking: Mysticism, Heresies, Prophecies
9/28: Patrick Rizzuto:
Spinka, Advocates of Reform, 32-88, 196-278.
Religion of the Laity: Preachers, Popular Piety, Confraternities
10/3: Minnich:
Origo, Iris. The World of San Bernardino (New York, 1962), 28-42, 131-57. BQ 6429 .069 .W9
Katya Mouris:
2
Terpstra, Nicolas. “Ignatius, Confratello, Confraternities as Modes of Spiritual Community in Early Modern
Society,” in Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W. O’Malley, S.J., eds. Kathleen M.
Comerford and Hilmar M. Pabel (Toronto, 2001), 163-182. BX 835 .E2 2001
Gleason, Elisabeth G. (ed.), Reform Thought in Sixteenth-Century Italy (= The American Academy of Religion,
Texts and Translation Series, No. 4) (s.l, 1981), 9-19. BL 25 .A53 T3 n.4 or Olin, The Catholic
Reformation, 16-26.
Andrew Montanaro:
Bossy, John, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700 (New York, 1985), 3-87. BR 280 .B6 1985
Restored Central Bureaucracy: Renaissance Papacy
10/26: Minnich:
Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II. An Abridgment, ed.
Leona C. Gabel, trans. Florence A. Gragg (New York, 1959), 27-110, 118-44, 149-53, 196-211, 221-59,
356-76. BX 903 G 73 E5 1959
Defensorium obedientiae apostolicae et alia documenta, ed. and trans. Heiko A. Oberman, Daniel E. Zerfoss, and
William J. Courtenay, (Cambridge, MA, 1968), 225-27, 357-65. BT 369 B58 D3
Victoria Sequeira
Church and State Through the Centuries: A Collection of Historic Documents with Commentaries, trans. and ed.
Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall, (London, 1954), 112-20, 125-31, 134-59. BT 3464 .E33
Olin, John C., The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola. Reform in the Church 1495-1540,
(Westminster, Md., 1969), 4-15, 44-64. BX 863. 046 C3
Schroeder, Henry Joseph, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, (St. Louis, 1937), 480-509. BV 11 S38
Mid-Term Examination 10/19: have read by then:
Swanson, Robert Norman, Religion and Devotion in Europe c. 1215--c. 1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995).
Oakley, Francis A., The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages, (Ithaca, 1979). BX 753 .015
Dickens, Arthur Geoffrey, The Counter-Reformation, (N.Y., 1969), 7-28. BX 863 D54 C8
Ozment, Steven, The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and
Reformation Europe (New Haven, 1980), 1-222 BR 270.09
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Religious Life: Observantism among Monks and Mendicants, New Forms: Brethern of the Common Life,
Clerks Regular
11/2: Michael Tinker:
Valla, Lorenzo, `The Profession of the Religious' and the Principal Arguments from `The Falsely-Believed and
Forged Donation of Constantine', trans. and ed. Olga Zorgi Pugliese (Toronto, 1985),17-74. PA 8585 .V215
P73 1985*
Olin, The Catholic Reformation, 128-81, 198-211.
Thomas Haemerken von Kempen, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chps.1-25; II, 1-12; III, 16-44; IV 1, 3, 11, 18.
BT 2516
Iberian Church and Missions
11/9: Minnich:
Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven, 1997) BXZ 1735 .K312 1998.
Olin, John C., ed., Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, (New York, 1974). BX 7465 .A3 1974
German Church and the Rise of the Protestant Movements
11/16: Samuel Deas:
Manifestations of Discontent in Germany on the Eve of the Reformation, ed. and trans. Gerald Strauss,
(Bloomington, Ind., 1971), 3-63. DD 174 S91 M2
Joseph Goldsmith:
Wicks, Jared, Luther and His Spiritual Legacy, (Wilmington, Del., 1983). BR 333.2 W63 L8 1983 Also available
on the web as www.jcu.edu→academics→academic departments and programs→religious
studies→faculty→J. Wicks→Studies of Martin Luther’s Theology→Luther and His Spiritual Legacy
(download 7 chapters, one at a time)
Elizabeth Campbell:
The Essential Erasmus, ed. and trans. John P. Dolan, (New York, 1964), 98-173. PA 8502 E5 D65 1964
Olin, The Catholic Reformation, 65-89
James Douthwaite:
4
Bagchi, David V. N., Luther's Earliest Opponents: Catholic Controversialists, 1518-1525, (Minneapolis, 1991). BR
355 P36 B 34 1991
Italian Evangelism
11/30: Tiffany Meadows:
Olin, The Catholic Reformation, 90-106.
Gleason, Reform Thought, 21-52, 103-161.
Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, ed. G.H. Williams and Angel H. Mergal, (Philadelphia, 1957), 321-29, 335-50,
353-90. BQ 302 L69 vol. 25
French and English Churches
12/7 Minnich:
Olin, The Catholic Reformation, 31-39, 107-27.
Papal Responses, Why 1540?
Gleason, Reform Thought, 55-80.
Olin, The Catholic Reformation, 182-97.
Final Examination 12/16 (4:00 - 6:00): have read by then:
Dickens, 29-106
Bossy, 89-171
Ozment, 223-351, 397-418
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Other materials (e.g. lab supplies, calculators) with specifics of what is needed and how to
obtain
None
Course Goals
The purposes or goals of the course are to provide the student with an understanding of
the condition of the Western Christian Church at the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of
the Early Modern Period: its relations with civil authorities, internal administrative problems,
the contending models of the Church [conciliarist and papal], mainline currents of thought
[scholastic and humanistic], marginal currents [heresies, mysticism, prophecies], life of the laity
[piety and confraternities], religious life [Observantism, new movements and orders], the
restored papal monarchy, and the conditions of the Church in Iberia, Germany, France, and
England as the Protestant Reformation began, and the initial papal response to Protestantism.
Goals for Student Learning
At the conclusion of the course, the student will be able to demonstrate such an
understanding by intelligent discussion of the issues and answering questions in a written
examination.
Course Requirements
Assignments/Projects:
Reading the materials on the reading list and demonstrating an understanding of
them both in the discussions and in the written examinations
A paper is optional. To be at least 12 pages of text, plus footnotes and
bibliography
Examinations:
A midterm and a final examination
Expectations and policies
Academic honesty:
Academic honesty is expected of all CUA students. Faculty are required to initiate
the imposition of sanctions when they find violations of academic honesty, such as
plagiarism, improper use of a student’s own work, cheating, and fabrication.
The following sanctions are presented in the University procedures related to
Student Academic Dishonesty (from
6
http://policies.cua.edu/academicundergrad/integrityprocedures.cfm): “The presumed
sanction for undergraduate students for academic dishonesty will be failure for the
course. There may be circumstances, however, where, perhaps because of an
undergraduate student’s past record, a more serious sanction, such as suspension or
expulsion, would be appropriate. In the context of graduate studies, the expectations for
academic honesty are greater, and therefore the presumed sanction for dishonesty is
likely to be more severe, e.g., expulsion. ...In the more unusual case, mitigating
circumstances may exist that would warrant a lesser sanction than the presumed
sanction.”
Please review the complete texts of the University policy and procedures
regarding Student Academic Dishonesty, including requirements for appeals, at
http://policies.cua.edu/academicundergrad/integrity.cfm and
http://policies.cua.edu/academicundergrad/integrity.cfm.
Other Policies or Expectations.
Students are expected to attend classes and to come to discussions with the
materials read and to participate in the discussions.
Those students who take the additional paper option are required to submit their
paper topic for approval, an outline of the paper with tentative bibliography, and final
version on or before the dates set. Papers must be submitted in both hardcopy and
electronic formats and should follow the Chicago Manuel of Style and be free of
grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors. In addition, all papers must come with a
signed statement from a member of the staff of the Writing Center (111 O’Boyle x4286)
testifying to the student’s having consulted with the Writing Center on how to improve
the paper. Failure to meet the deadlines will disqualify one from using the paper option
and failure to produce a paper according to the above instructions will result in penalties.
Campus Resources for student support: (e.g. add contact information for library,
tutoring center, writing center, counseling center)
See above regarding consultation with the Writing Center on all optional papers.
Accommodations for students with disabilities: Any student who feels s/he may need
an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor
privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact Disability Support Services (at 202
319-5211, room 207 Pryzbyla Center) to coordinate reasonable accommodations for
students with documented disabilities. To read about the services and policies, please
visit the website: http://disabilitysupport.cua.edu.
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Assessment: Grade percentages voted on by the students:
Discussions:
Normal
Paper
45
35
Paper Option:
20
Mid-term Examination:
25
20
Final Examination:
30
25
Total:
100
100
University grades:
The University grading system is available at
http://policies.cua.edu/academicgrad//gradesfull.cfm#iii for graduate students.
Reports of grades in courses
http://cardinalstation.cua.edu .
are
available
8
at
the
end
of
each
term
on
Course Lecture Schedule:
8/31
Terms "Catholic" and "Counter" Reformation; Church and State: Theory and Practice
9/7
Institutional Church Problems: Avignonese Papacy, Great Western Schism, Conciliarism
9/14
Mainline Thinking: Scholasticism and Humanism
Deadline for decision on paper option
9/21
Marginal Thinking: Mysticism, Heresies, Prophecies
9/28
Religion of the Laity: Preachers, Popular Piety, Confraternities
10/5
Restored Central Bureaucracy: Renaissance Papacy
Deadline for paper topic
10/12 Administrative Wednesday – no class
10/19 Mid-Term Examination
10/26 Religious Life: Observantism among Monks and Mendicants, New Forms: Brethern of the Common Life,
Clerks Regular
11/2
Iberian Church and Missions
Deadline for outline of paper
11/9
German Church and Erasmus
11/16
Rise of the Protestant Movements
11/23 Italian Evangelism
Deadline for completed paper
11/30 French and English Churches
12/7
Papal Responses, Why 1540?
12/16 Final Examination 4:00 - 6:00
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