Chapter 30
Via Media
“This illness is not yet so advanced that it cannot be healed. This fire is not yet so fierce that it cannot be extinguished.”
“When was the World ever better than in the days of Constantine and Sylvester […] and here in Denmark when Sweyn Estridsen and Bishop William of Roskilde acted as one.”
- Poul Helgesen, 1528[1]
When Christian II returned from Augsburg in early 1528, the prospect of Church reform was as prevalent in Denmark as in the rest of Europe. Throughout the continent, dissatisfaction with the corruption of the curia, the secular vices and greed of the episcopacy and, indeed, the very nature of the ‘dead hand of the Church’ were eagerly and consummately debated. While the king had already begun his reformation with the
Great Ecclesiastical Recess of August 1520 a general dissatisfaction remained within as well as outside of the confines of the Danish church province, especially in the wake of the Ducal Feud.
Towering above all other participants in the great question of reform was the Carmelite friar Poul Helgesen.
[2] A commoner of low-birth, Helgesen had proved his worth as the dean of the Carmelite college in Copenhagen from whose pulpit he had acted as the king’s chief ecclesiastical advisor during the promulgation of the 1520-recess. Known to posterity by the well-deserved epithet of “The Erasmus of the North”, Helgesen spared neither Papist nor Evangelical in his quest for the
Via Media. With one hand he chastised the Pope as a tyrant, whose peddlers of indulgences bled the poor of Christendom dry whilst the other ridiculed Luther as a pedantic schismatic. However, he also showed considerable intellectual integrity in praising Luther when Luther was right. Indeed, he abhorred the corruption which so visibly plagued the Church: “…
nothing has contributed more to the fall of the Church than the vanity and pride of certain noblemen, men who are such slaves of life’s pleasures and licentiousness that they not only extinguish the innocence and the piety of the Christian religion, but completely despise them. What is sustained by power, violence, ostentation, pride, splendour, ambition, and human strength cannot long endure.”
[3] Yet at the same time, Helgesen was not prepared to split the Church as some of the most radical reformers in Germany whished. Abuse might have been prevalent, but to Helgesen the fact that abuse occurred was not sufficient reason for the abolition of the office. Indeed, as he pointedly remarked at one point, if one wanted to do away with pope and bishop on account of sinfulness and corruption, then why not do away with prince and nobleman as well?
Whilst the Evangelical movement had spread like a wildfire through Germany, the North had so far remained relatively unscorched.
[4] Only in Viborg, where the exiled bishop Jørgen Friis had been a prominent member of the Lords Declarent, and in Malmø, where the burghers were especially powerful, had Evangelical preachers begun to operate. Chief amongst them was a lapsed Johannite monk named Hans Tausen. Still, one should be careful not to tar Tausen with too heavy a Lutheran brush. Although he went a good deal further than his Carmelite rival when it came to critiquing the Church, Tausen’s role model was not Luther, but rather Erasmus.
[5] This was a marked Achilles Heel of the nascent Evangelical movement in Denmark. Theological unity was a rare beast amongst the scattered Evangelicals: Preachers in the Duchies said one thing, on Funen another and in the Sound Provinces a third. Conversely, the ‘Catholic camp’ was merely divided between a conservative minority and a Humanist-Reformist majority.
[6]
Christian II, by the Grace of God King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway wood-cut portrait by Lucas Chranach the Elder,
1523.
The king is depicted as a powerful prince, wearing his collar as a Knight of the Golden Fleece and seated beneath the coats of arms of his many domains. The illustration is taken from a propaganda leaflet immediately following the Ducal Feud. The “original sin” of the rebellious bishops would haunt the Catholic Church in Denmark for the following decade.
As for Christian II, his own Church policy was as mercurial as it was Machiavellian. His ambitious legal and ecclesiastical reforms might have been penned in Erasmian ink, but his
realpolitikal treatment of the Church had been ruthlessly unforgiving. Indeed, it should not be forgotten that Christian II ascended the throne with a threat of excommunication hanging over his head.
[7] Ten years later he repeated the manoeuvre by imprisoning the Bishop of Odense, Jens Andersen Beldenak, for daring to raise the council-constitutionalist banner at the Hereditary Estates at Viborg. However, Beldenak’s arrest was quickly abrogated as the bishop abandoned his doomed alliance with the traditionalist high-aristocracy in favour of aligning with the crown. With the Bishop of Odense in his pocket, Christian II had created a formidable front within the upper echelons of the Danish Church Province. Beldenak might have been a brutish, low-born shoemaker’s son, who once, when pressured to resign by his noble enemies, swore: “…
on the holy diaper that he would rather die as a powerful bishop in the service of the devil”
[8], but he was an exceedingly skilled theologian and a master of canon law. Together with Ove Bille of Aarhus, Anders Christensen of Børglum
[9] and the Archbishop of Lund, Christiern Pedersen, the king had stacked the ecclesiastical elite with card-carrying and theologically skilled reformists.
[10] Others, such as Niels Friis of Viborg, owed their position to royal patronage and could therefore not be expected to counter the crown’s wishes, especially not when it had the secular nobility and the commoners at its side.
[11]
Christian II’s careful promotion of commoners and known Bible-Humanists to important bishoprics has often been portrayed as a deliberate move in a delicate campaign towards the political emasculation of the Catholic Church in Denmark and (eventually) the entirety of the North. However, one must also remember that the king was a deeply devout person. While it is clear that the king wielded the question of reform as a powerful tool towards advancing the paramountcy of the crown it is equally undeniable that Christian fully believed in the fundamental need of taking a new broom to the dusty hierarchy of the Church. Similarly, he had conquered Sweden under a Papal pennant to avenge the murder of Gustaf Trolle in 1519. In other words, he perceived reform in a consummate Humanist way. The need of ecclesiastical reform naturally dictated a reform of society. In this regard, one cannot overstate the importance of having allies placed at important positions within the established Church hierarchy.
These considerations aside it is equally difficult not to see the obvious advantages reform would render the crown. In Denmark, the Church owned roughly 35% of the tillable land and even after the judicial aftermath of the Ducal Feud, a number of fiefs, hundreds and manors were pawned off to various prelates. Furthermore, a very substantial sum of money continued to flow out of the country and into Roman coffers. In Norway, the Church constituted the only opposition to the crown, albeit a loyal one. Still, the Norwegian Church used its economic and organisational clout to dominate trade in direct contradiction with royal policies. In the king’s own fisheries, clergymen competed with burghers, but did not pay any taxes. Churchmen shamelessly exploited their tenants, adding these considerable gains to their already untaxed income. In the words of one of Christian II’s Norwegian commissioners: “…
Priests in the northern lands carry on so great a trade in purchase and transport that they have most of what Your Grace’s subjects should be taxed for. They have great ships, on which the bishops’ and church’s tenants must sail whether they will or no, and others besides whom they force to do so. Some priests have ten men, others twenty, others fifteen, others more, in Your Grace’s fisheries, from which Your Grace never receives any part or a good word. If Your Grace’s bailiffs protest, they receive blows instead of money, which seems to me unjust.”
[12]
In other words, the Church remained the last institution with a modicum of ability to bridle the nascent New Monarchy of the North. Weak as the ‘Martian Heresy’ (as Poul Helgesen termed the Evangelical movement) might have been in Denmark at the time of the Augsburg Decency, there is ample evidence that the king knew and endorsed some of Luther’s ideas. He had been impressed at Melanchthon’s performance at the diet; a theological show of force which convinced him to go a good deal further than what the traditional Catholic elite might have envisioned.
[13]
Consequently, the king summoned a general synod of the Danish Church in Copenhagen on the 23rd of May 1528. The choice of stage was an interesting one. Christian II hereby not only bypassed the archiepiscopal see of Lund, but also the
Roskilde Rota (as the supreme ecclesiastical court had become known) and summoned the prelates to the Carmelite-dominated university instead. The future of the Danish Catholic Church hung in the balance.
The Hierarchy of the Church. Mural from the parish church of Brøns in southern Jutland by an unknown artist, c. 1530. The pope, surrounded by flat-capped cardinals and mitre-wearing bishops, holds up a sealed letter. It is in turn rejected by two fools (wearing animal ears). On the right, one of the fools hands the pope a pair of glasses, indicating that he might not be reading the Holy Text all too clearly. By the late 1520s, the call for Church-reform had become so persistent that even lowly Danish parish churches ridiculed the corruption and malpractice of the Roman curia.
Much have been said about the 1528-Synod and its effect on the subsequent development of the Nordic Union. Many writers have especially wondered why Christian II decided to proceed in such a piecemeal fashion. Some have even gone so far as to ponder whether or not this was the moment that finally sealed the process of integration between the three realms. As counter-intuitive as it might appear to modern eyes, the king’s decision to approach the question of reform at a checked pace instead of in one swift stroke might actually have furthered the submission of the clergy in all three kingdoms. Indeed, if Christian had convened representatives from Norway and Sweden as well, it is quite possible that the consensus reached at Copenhagen would have been insufficient to bridge the divide between Evangelical minority and Humanist majority on account of the relative strength of the combined Church power. Instead, the king separated his three domains, deftly outmanoeuvring what otherwise might have been a formidable traditionalist opposition. In the words of Christiern Pedersen, Christian II supposedly acknowledged this by quipping “…
that he hoped as Denmark goes, so goes the Union.”
[14]
As the prelates and select secular officials convened on the university of Copenhagen, a great uproar erupted when Hans Tausen and other Evangelical preachers appeared as well. Poul Helgesen in particular was deeply disconcerted, urging the guardsmen to arrest “…
the banner-bearer of all Lutherans here in Denmark, who has come to Copenhagen from Viborg so that his pestilential preaching might lead this city astray as well.”
[15] Yet the provost simply informed the stunned audience that Evangelical party had been issued with
royal letters of passage (værnebreve), which essentially elevated them to the position as royal chaplains and, in effect, outside the jurisdiction of the Church!
[16] When the king himself arrived he meekly commented that “…
between brother and brother, man and wife, there can be no true and lasting friendship without a will to compromise and to look past the other’s mistakes. Likewise, it is impossible for the unity of the Christian Church to persevere if one and all are blind and unable to see the virtues and good conduct of the others.”
[17]
From a political point of view, the consecration of the Evangelical potentates as royal chaplains was a master stroke on Christian II’s part. By elevating Tausen to an equal participant in the synod, the king effectively signalled that if the Catholics wouldn’t accommodate his Humanist agenda, then he could very well consider a different, Evangelical approach.
Grumbling, Helgesen conceded the point, but his hitherto staunch admiration of the king had suffered irreparable damage. In the following days the Synod broke into several commissions, each tasked with clarifying distinct questions of reform. Despite its rocky start, the assembled clergy soon made considerable headway. Regarding the considerable wealth of the Church, Helgesen and Tausen found common ground with Archbishop Pedersen in stating that: “…
ever since kin and rich friends began to inherit the Church’s stewards and prelates, to the great detriment of the poor (who are the true inheritors of the Church), Christendom has been plagued by heresy, strife, mutiny, disobedience and rebellion, which now attack all Christendom’s holiness and common weal. This happens with God’s righteous permission, not in order for the Church to be plundered and robbed, but because wealth should be used piously as in the olden days.”
[18] In other words, the Synod concluded that the wealth of the Church was not meant for the upkeep of prelates and abbots, but ought to be shared amongst the poor and help people in need. In practical terms this essentially gave the crown license to put the episcopacy under state control and convert ecclesiastical property to public property. Basing his consideration on St. Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy, the archbishop recommended that the houses and other properties owned (but not used) by the Church were to be handed over to their current users and clergymen were prohibited from acquiring new properties unless they
married. Neither was the Church allowed to receive land through inheritance - only monetary gifts were allowed.
[19]
While Church properties were thus set to be repurposed by the crown, the core lands and properties of the monasteries were not to be touched. Further limitations were placed on the most hated monastic orders (such as the Franciscans), but otherwise monasteries were permitted to operate. However, the ban on ecclesiastical property-ownership in the cities meant that many of the smaller houses either soon collapsed or combined into larger units.
[20] Conversely, many of the Evangelical representatives argued wholeheartedly for the abolition of the
tithe, a rallying cry that had brought many commoners over to the new confession. The loss of the tithe, however, was a bridge too far, even for the most moderate Erasmians. Yet the tithe had become a rallying point for the urban Evangelical movement with discontent slowly seeping into the rural communities instead. Unfortunately for both partisans of Helgesen and Tausen, the king had his eyes set on the ecclesiastical taxes. This offended and surprised so many participants (across the confessional aisle) that one observer supposedly quipped that Christian II “…
would have burned his cap if it knew his thoughts.”
[21] Bringing all of his personal influence to bear, the king proposed that the bishop’s tithe be transferred to the royal exchequer and from there dispersed to the dioceses. This satisfied neither the most conservative bishops, nor the most radical Evangelicals, but as one later scholar once wrote: “…
sometimes the via media
crosses many toes.”
Still, the royal reformers wanted to go further than merely establishing economic supremacy over the Church. Reform, as Hans Mikkelsen so briskly stated, had to be institutional as well. The 1520-reces had removed the ability of the Danish clergy to appeal to Rome in favour of the Roskilde Rota, but the question of episcopal investiture still remained within the purview of St. Peter. Poul Helgesen, Hans Tausen and Christiern Pedersen all agreed that it was a monstrous thing for bishops to “…
purchase the pallium”, but the promotion of the crown to the position as supreme bestower of ecclesiastical titles left a bitter taste in many mouths. Eventually, however, the opposition collapsed. As compensation, Christian II promised that the dioceses were to maintain their electoral rights and that the archbishop and foremost prelates be assured seats on the royal council.
[22] These were easy promises to make: The electoral liberty of the Church was effectively countered by the institutional and economic barrel over which the crown had heaved it. In the words of a later historian “…
the royal retreat begun with the deposal of Eric of Pomerania in 1439 had finally come to a halt ninety years later.”
Map of the Ecclesiastical Dispositions of the Danish Realm at the Ascension of Christian II. Although in no way as widespread as in Western Europe, the monastic houses of late medieval Denmark towered over those of the other Nordic realms. Some orders, such as the Carmelites and Benedictines were at the forefront of reforming the Church while others, such as the Franciscans, were widely despised by commoners and burghers. Besides serving a spiritual purpose, many houses also acted as powerful economic centres in the countryside with some abbots owning properties and land rivalling even great noblemen.
When Lage Urne of Roskilde voiced his opposition to what he rightly interpreted as de-facto institution of a royal
Jus patronatus (the right to appoint bishops without papal interference), the king briskly replied by reminding him that in the recent civil war “…
what little fidelity certain bishops showed the realm could be carried away on a fly’s arse”
[23] and “…
when the bishops have been anointed, they suddenly owe us no more obedience but prefer the pope in Rome!”
[24] When a noble deacon by the name of Joachim Rønnow
[25] weakly interjected that in such a case, it would be proper for the episcopacy to be reserved for the ‘good men’ of the realm, Jens Andersen Beldenak acidly asked him “…
if the Bible taught that Adam only begot noble sons or if a shoemaker had a different way of procreating.”
[26] As the latter quote by the Bishop of Odense goes to show, the Danish reformation made for some queer bedfellows. Although a consummate Catholic, Beldenak would have agreed wholeheartedly with the Sacramentarian citizens of Malmø when it came to denying noble primacy of the mitre.
Although the political effects of the Copenhagen Synod were enormous, the conclave also resulted in a new and highly unusual codification of what constituted “…
good Christendom” within the Kingdom of Denmark. Prayers for the dead and good deeds were acknowledged as virtuous, but at the same time believers were encouraged to spend their money on charity for the living instead. Likewise, the commissions concluded that the misuse of religious imagery, relics and icons was a disgusting practice which harmed the unity of the Church. Strict penalties were imposed, but the practice remained sanctioned. Provisions were also made for the flowering mural tradition of Denmark’s churches to be supported by Church authorities, although the imagery was explicitly required to only depict scenes from the Bible.
[27]
Confession was limited to “…
the most murderous and mortal of sins” whilst smaller transgressions were to be addressed directly to God in private. Feast days were restricted to only those directly described in the Bible. Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Birth of Mary and those of the individual apostles were all abolished. A large number of secular feast days had over the years entered the religious calendar. These were also abrogated as they were “…
verily created as carnal occasions consecrated to eating and drinking.” Conversely, fasting was declared a godly pursuit which held several advantages for one’s health and longevity, but was not necessary for salvation. Those who observed fasting were furthermore prohibited from admonishing those who didn’t and vice versa.
Regarding the Eucharist, Helgesen personally saw no need to administer the sacrament to the laity, but conceded that it could be done should the congregation wish it. He made a rather feeble argument based on a story he had heard from a priest on southern Zealand. When asked to serve wine for the laity as well, the priest had perplexedly asked “…
where in the name of devil am I to find that much wine?”
[28] As for the presence of the Lord within the Eucharist, the commission simply commented that as long as everyone agreed the Christ was present in one form or another (be it corporally or symbolically) everything would be fine and the matter best left to learned theologians at a general Church Council.
[29] Finally, Christiern Pedersen requested the University of Copenhagen with translating the Bible into vernacular Danish. For, as the archbishop himself had once written: “…
if the apostle had written the holy gospel for the realm of Denmark, he would have done so in proper Danish, so all would have understood it. Every man should know it in his own tongue, for none can be hallowed without it and the holy faith."
[30]
As Christian II affixed his seal to his Church’s new constitution, there can be little doubt that the king felt vindicated. However, although he might have broken the last institution capable of opposing him within Denmark, the costs were far from clear. Neither did the “Copenhagen Concord” spell an end for confessional bickering within the realm. The Evangelicals had been granted license to continue their activities, as long as they did not preach against the ordinance and in the Duchies, Luther’s partisans were growing stronger and stronger. Even within court, the Synod had drawn the lines sharper than ever before. Hans Mikkelsen and Mogens Gøye now publicly chose to receive the Eucharist in the Evangelical fashion, whilst Poul Helgesen, Ove Bille and Otte Krumpen declared that according to them, the road of irenicism had come to an end. Still, despite its many flaws and subsequent reputation, the Copenhagen Ordinance of 1528 remains one of the most remarkable and progressive declarations of toleration and religious liberty in the Early Modern Period.
Footnotes:
[1] Both of these are OTL quote from 1533.
[2] Poul Helgesen (or Poul Helie) was a masterful theologian and earnest Erasmian reformer. In OTL, he was a confidante of Christian II until the two broke over Luther and the king’s very harsh treatment of the Church in Denmark and Norway. He fled Copenhagen just weeks before the Jutlandic rebellion and later became the greatest champion of Catholicism in the subsequent years. ITTL, Helgesen has maintained his good rapport with the king owing to the absence of Sigbrit’s Party and the promotion of (fellow humanist) Christiern Pedersen to the archiepiscopacy of Lund.
[3] An OTL quote from Helgesen’s
Skibykrønike (the Skiby Chronicle). By noblemen, Helgesen means those men of quality who might have donned the mitre, but in effect saw the Church as a vehicle for secular aggrandisement. Poul Helgesen was consumed with a quasi-democratic conceptualisation of the Church as meritocratic, almost democratic institution. Indeed, this might very well be what brought him and Christian II together in OTL. The Chronicle is an immensely interesting historical document. In it, Helgesen detailed events from Christian I to the Count’s Feud and peppered his prose with stringent critiques of the Lutheran ‘poison’ that was creeping up the Jutland peninsula. It was only discovered in the 17th century, bricked up in a secret compartment within the Skiby Church. Its last entry ended abruptly in the middle of a sentence, dated 1535, during the height of the civil war. What became of Poul Helgesen, nobody knows.
[4] It is difficult to overstate how powerfully the butterflies are flying at this point. The development of the Danish Lutheran Reformation was more or less shaped by the deposal of Christian II OTL. The decade of civil war, peasant rebellions and noble hegemony, which followed Frederick I’s ascension radicalised society to such a degree that the Evangelical movement became almost unstoppable.
[5] Recent theological studies have gone a long way in re-evaluating the dogmatic and ideological background of Tausen, commonly known as “The Danish Luther” in more traditional historiography. Conversely, the Evangelical reformers mentioned in Malmø were far more influenced by the radical thoughts espoused in the cities of south-western Germany.
[6] During the 1550s an inventory was taken of the clerical libraries in the distant parishes of Northern Jutland. We therefore know (some 15 years after the Reformation) that the works of Erasmus were third-most common after Luther and Melanchthon. It’s thus somewhat safe to say that Danish scholars were disseminating Erasmian ideas throughout the realm. ITTL, this development is even more widespread thanks to the success of Christian II’s Humanist governance.
[7] Owing to his harsh treatment of the Bishop Hamar whilst serving as viceroy of Norway.
[8] An actual quote attributed to Jens Andersen Beldenak from 1525. The referenced “holy diaper” is a rather impious reference to the Holy Shroud of Turin.
[9] Anders Christensen was the
Provincial (Leader) of the Carmelites in Denmark. In OTL he was an active participant in the humanist/reform-catholic milieu of Copenhagen, although he was also accused by Poul Helgesen for veering too closely to Luther. ITTL he has been made Bishop of Børglum following the Ducal Feud.
[10] This is extremely important. One of the reasons the Evangelical movement overran Denmark so quickly in OTL was the fact that very few of the bishops were actually educated in theology(!).
[11] Niels Friis was the half-brother of the exiled Bishop of Viborg and Lord Declarent Jørgen Friis. In OTL he had lobbied Christian II for the position, promising the island of Mors in exchange. ITTL, the island was confiscated after the Ducal Feud, but Friis ascended to the office regardless.
[12] From an OTL letter by Jørgen Hansen dated 1521.
[13] In OTL, Christian II converted to the Evangelical cause after having heard a sermon by Luther. Similarly, his cousin (the later Christian III) embraced Lutheranism after witnessing the Diet of Worms. ITTL, Christian II’s OTL Humanist-Catholic reformation goes ahead, but it would be a bit out-of-character of him if he left Augsburg without at least a
little Evangelical influence following him home.
[14] Denmark is not Ohio, but the saying fits nicely regardless.
[15] OTL quote from the Skiby Chronicle.
[16] This was also Frederick I’s policy in OTL.
[17] This is an actual OTL quote from Poul Helgesen’s so-called “Letter of Compromise” drafted sometime between 1532 and 1534. The attempt at conciliation was, at that point in time, too little and too late to halt the onrushing tide of Lutheranism, but it does show that Helgesen was willing to compromise.
[18] Ibid.
[19] This is a word-by-word reiteration of Christian II’s OTL Ecclesiastical Law from 1522.
[20] Contrary to popular belief there was no immediate dissolution of the monasteries in Denmark after the OTL reformation. Some monks and nuns were forcibly ejected from their convents, but the vast majority were left to their own accords. As late as 1560 there were still Catholic monasteries in Denmark. The bit about the Franciscans is actually also true of OTL. Beggar monks were universally hated by large tracts of society.
[21] An OTL quote of Christian II’s stance on the Reformation. In OTL the same discussion was held in 1536 with very much the same results. However, ITTL the nobility is
not exempted from the tithe as it was in OTL.
[22] This was actually implemented in 1527 under Christian II’s successor, Frederick. The royal council ITTL is the successor to the council of the realm.
[23] A
slightly rephrased OTL quote (‘those bishops’ is my addition) from the 1536 Church Ordinance of Christian III.
[24] OTL quote by Gustav Vasa c. 1527.
[25] The last Catholic Bishop of Roskilde in OTL.
[26] Another of Beldenak’s OTL irreverent burns.
[27] The veneration of saints as ‘friends of and arbiters with God’ was to contemporaries a natural way to intercede in a society where they could only appeal to the king through noblemen and prelates. As the crown is far stronger ITTL, it is less of an issue to Helgesen and other Humanist reformers.
[28] Poul Helgesen actually argued this in OTL.
[29] All of these points are taken from Helgesen’s aforementioned
Letter of Compromise.
[30] OTL quote from 1517.
I’m always overjoyed when this TL shows notifications hahah
