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I. The Reformation in Spain: At the close of the

Middle Ages the type of Christianity prevailing in

Spain was more militant, more independent, more

Evangelical, that is, more nearly Prot

r. The estant, than that to be found in any

Early other nation of Christendom. More

Movement. militant, because the 700 years' war

which the Christians of Spain had

waged with the Mohammedans had given strength

and tenacity to their religious sentiments; more in

dependent, because the unbroken spirit of the Span

ish rulers and people had secured the interposition

of the secular authority to combat the deteriorating

influence of the Roman Curia upon the local church;

more Evangelical, because twenty years before

Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wit

tenberg the Spanish church had felt the purifying

and regenerating influence of a reformation largely

Protestant in spirit and aims. This reform was the

outcome of a plan conceived by Queen Isabella,

upon the union of the peninsular states to form the

Spanish kingdom in 1492. Its execution was ac

complished under the leadership of Francisco

Ximenes de Cisneros (see XIMENES DE CISNEROS),

a Franciscan monk and confessor to the queen. The

concordat of 1482 had given the Spanish crown the

right of visitation and of nomination to benefices.

Cisneros was permitted to use these powers to re

store the strictest monastic discipline in the con

vents, and to purge the secular clergy of those

abuses which were common to the time. Having

improved the morals of the Spanish clergy he set

himself to overcome their ignorance and lack of cul

ture. The reading and study of the Bible were made

a special feature in their training, something previ

ously unknown; new schools of theology were es

tablished, with courses in Bible exegesis; and a

band of scholars was collected at Alcala in 1502,

who undertook at the expense of Cisneros the prep

aration of the celebrated Complutensian Polyglot

(see BIBLES, POLYGLOT, L). About the same time

he was instrumental in the establishment of uni

versities at Aleala, Seville, and Toledo, where the

study of the classics was fostered and a large sym

pathy was shown with the labors of Erasmus and

the Humanists. Unlike Luther, Cisneros made no

direct attack on the abuses or authority of the

papacy, yet when he encountered the opposition of

the pope, in dealing with the abuses of the local

church, he assumed an attitude of virtual inde

pendence, and was protected in it by the Spanish

rulers. The immediate influences of this movement

were largely confined to the clergy, but it gradually

wrought a distinct change in the religious life of

the whole nation and developed in Spain a unique

type of Roman Catholicism. In its essential fear tures it represents a partial and limited development of the Protestant thesis, and, with its Humanistic and Evangelical tendencies, it was fitted to serve as the natural forerunner of a truly Protestant Reformation. At the same time, catching up as it did the religious zeal and initiative of the Spanish people and fusing them into a relatively pure and intelligent form of Catholicism, it forged the very weapon that was destined to give the death stroke to Evangelical Christianity on Spanish soil, and trained the leaders who were to rally the forces of Roman Catholicism in the sixteenth century for the long and bitter struggle against Protestant principles throughout Western Christendom.

The advancement of the Spanish monarch to the imperial throne in 1520, as Charles V., opened a wide channel for the introduction of Lutheran and Reformed teachings into Spain. At first,

Movement. interest and favor, and their spread was helped for a time by the liberal tendencies prevailing among the Spanish hierarchy, as well as by the temporizing policy of Charles V. in dealing with Luther and the Protestant princes of Germany. With respect to Charles' attitude, it was even asserted by the confessor of the emperor, who himself favored the Protestants, that Charles secretly sympathized with the movement and that he hoped to use Luther as a lever for forcing upon the German church a Reformation after the Spanish model. Subsequently a gradual reaction against reform among the Spanish clergy and a change in the policy of Charles made Protestantism a proscribed religion in Spain, narrowed the circle of its adherents to the more earnest and daring spirits, and, after the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, subjected the Protestants to a persecution constantly growing in severity. The principal features marking its growth were its almost exclusive confinement to the privileged and educated classes; the lack of organization, except small congregations at Seville and Valladolid; the large numbers from the Roman Catholic clergy and theologians who embraced it; and especially the large numbers of persons among its converts, illustrious either for their rank or learning. Notable among them are the following: Alphonso Valdes, secretary of Charles V.; Alphonso de Bernaldez, chaplain to the emperor, who suffered condemnation in 1537; Bartalome Carranza y Miranda, archbishop of Toledo, who was condemned for holding Protestant views; Roderigo de Valera, who laid the foundations of the church in Seville and was condemned by the Inquisition in 1541; Juan Gil, otherwise known as Doctor Egidius, a famous preacher of Seville who was nominated in 1550 to the bishopric of Tortosa, but before his installation was condemned for heresy; Don Carlos de Seso, a distinguished nobleman who did much for the Protestant cause throughout Spain; Jayme Enzinas and his brother Francesco de Enzinas (qq.v.), two young men of noble birth who were converted while students abroad, the former of whom suffered martyrdom in Rome in 1546, and the latter translated the first Spanish ver-