AHC/WI: No Protestant Reformation

[baltur2]

How do you think European (and later American) history could have progressed if Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Reformers would have been butterflied away?

When encountering these debates on online forums, I've read pretty mixed-bag responses. A Catholic for example told me, that a Moon Landing in 1800 by Monks could've been easily doable, saying that the Catholic Church has always been pro-science, and anti-superstition, and without Protestantism, no 30-years-war would have taken place.

A Protestant in turn, said that Protestantism essentially morally allowed Capitalism and the free accumulation of resources in Western Culture, and that "You can see that it has been the Protestant Americans who have successfully landed a Man on the Moon (with the religious protestant Buzz Aldrin), not the Spanish or the Vatican itself."

How do you think a world with no Protestant Reformation would have turned out like? What would the state of Science and Technology be like in this TL?

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Your Catholic interlocutor was right that the Catholic Church was generally pretty pro-science (see here for a sample), so scientific and technological advances would still happen (as indeed they did happen during the middle ages), but monks walking on the Moon in 1800 is very unlikely.

I'm not sure about how or if capitalism would develop, but given that the (Catholic) Italian city-states like Venice and Genoa were already proto-capitalistic, it might well do.

The Thirty Years' War (I assume that's the one you meant) wouldn't happen, at least not as IOTL, but wars would still happen for a variety of reasons. For all that some people like to go on about religion causing conflict, Europe doesn't seem to have been noticeably more peaceful either before the Reformation or after the Enlightenment, so I reckon we'd probably see about the same amount of violence as we did IOTL.

 

[fdas]

Would the lack of religious conflict and greater unity in Christendom allow Charles V to have greater success in his wars against the Ottoman Empire? Perhaps if it is framed as a holy war, the HRE might enjoy more support and be able to drive back the Ottomans further.

 

[Ivan Lupo]

Would the lack of religious conflict and greater unity in Christendom allow Charles V to have greater success in his wars against the Ottoman Empire? Perhaps if it is framed as a holy war, the HRE might enjoy more support and be able to drive back the Ottomans further.

Nah, it would be business as usual honestly. The Valois/Habsburg rivalry was going especially strong during the 15th and 16th centuries, so much so that France would form an alliance with the Ottomans.

 

[fdas]

Nah, it would be business as usual honestly. The Valois/Habsburg rivalry was going especially strong during the 15th and 16th centuries, so much so that France would form an alliance with the Ottomans.

Yes, but would there be better internal unity within the HRE that would help them in the war effort? Also, would other Christian nations offer more aid in a crusade?

 

[phil03]

Considering the Hussites only appeared in the last phase of the HYW and Luther and Calvin lived about a century after the end of the HYW I kinda fail to see how no Reformation would butterfly the HYW.

More broadly, the Reformation didn't just come up out of thin air, there was pretty deep root causes for it that took a long time to build up. To avoid any kind of Reformation you probably need a POD going back far enough to leave the world a profoundly different place far before the 16th century.

 

[Socrates]

I do think Protestantism was important for the industrial revolution for a couple of reasons.

The first was that its push of lay languages and a priesthood of all believers encouraged lots of people to read the Bible for themselves. The resulting increase in literacy was huge in allowing the exchange of ideas needed for science and entrepreneurialism.

The second is that the religious strife caused by the Reformation led to political strife that allowed the merchant class to grab political control in several places, most notably the Netherlands, England and Scotland. These new political elites were then responsible for developing legal recognition of new types of entity, such as stock exchanges, limited corporations and central banking. It also resulted in poltical compromises that resulted in limited governments, restricted in their ability to tax surpluses from new innovations, allowing investment to be channeled back into the economy.

There are other positive effects of Protestantism on capitalism, but these are the main two.

 

[Auseklis]

I'm not sure if the status quo of the Catholic Church could've remained. The Protestant Reformation was one in a long line of disgruntled clergy and princes, but was by and large the most successful. I agree with phil in that you would need to go back far into the past to stop the Reformation, or rather to have a Europe that is predominately Catholic. If it wasn't the Protestants, it would've surely been another group like the Cathars or the Hussites. It was something that was brewing and would've popped off eventually.

 

[alexmilman]

Your Catholic interlocutor was right that the Catholic Church was generally pretty pro-science (see here for a sample), so scientific and technological advances would still happen (as indeed they did happen during the middle ages), but monks walking on the Moon in 1800 is very unlikely.

I'm not sure about how or if capitalism would develop, but given that the (Catholic) Italian city-states like Venice and Genoa were already proto-capitalistic, it might well do.

The Thirty Years' War (I assume that's the one you meant) wouldn't happen, at least not as IOTL, but wars would still happen for a variety of reasons. For all that some people like to go on about religion causing conflict, Europe doesn't seem to have been noticeably more peaceful either before the Reformation or after the Enlightenment, so I reckon we'd probably see about the same amount of violence as we did IOTL.

The French Wars of Religion are not happening in their OTL form but it is rather easy to imagine that analogs of these wars and of the 30YW could happen under a different "ideological cover".

In the case of France there was an ongoing process of strengthening the royal power at the expense of nobility/aristocracy as well as the quarrel among various aristocratic factions (it did not take any religious difference to trigger a conflict between the Orleans and Burgundians during the 100YW and in both cases there were periods of a weakened royal power). And, at least close to the end, quite a few Catholics sided with a royal side even if the King to be still was a Protestant.

In the case of the HRE there was an issue of the imperial vs. princely power and in the case of a triggering event (Bohemian Uprising) conflict between the royal and local (Estates) power. And of course there were foreign interests: Spanish, French, Danish (even if the King of Denmark acted in his capacity of the HRE prince). Needless to say that adjustment of the forces was not completely along the religious lines and that there were switches back and forth dictated by a political expediency and not a religion.

 

[alexmilman]

Would the lack of religious conflict and greater unity in Christendom allow Charles V to have greater success in his wars against the Ottoman Empire? Perhaps if it is framed as a holy war, the HRE might enjoy more support and be able to drive back the Ottomans further.

Taking into an account that the bulk of his wars was in Italy against the Most Christian King of France (who happen to be an ally of the Ottoman Sultan), the Pope and Italian Catholic states and that most of the Landsknechts fighting on Charles' side were Protestants, I would not expect too much of a difference.