Too Papist, Too Reformed...

Were there any factors present in England during the Reformation which caused the Church of England to evolve into a denomination "too Papist for the Reformed, and too Reformed for the Papists"? Admittedly the seesawing of Catholic vs Reformed/Evangelical/Lutherans in power must've worked its magic in this regard, but is it possible for another state to evolve this sort of church with the mixed papist-reformed church combo?
And another question, is caesaropapism a solely English idea, or could a similar/selfsame ide evolve in other countries?
 
France could evolve the same way; it was more independent of the papacy than Spain was, and wanted to be even more independent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallicanism

[My main alt history has England and France both splitting from the Catholic Church in 1500 over hatred of Spain, the HRE, and the Borgias.]
 
Were there any factors present in England during the Reformation which caused the Church of England to evolve into a denomination "too Papist for the Reformed, and too Reformed for the Papists"? Admittedly the seesawing of Catholic vs Reformed/Evangelical/Lutherans in power must've worked its magic in this regard, but is it possible for another state to evolve this sort of church with the mixed papist-reformed church combo?
And another question, is caesaropapism a solely English idea, or could a similar/selfsame ide evolve in other countries?


Well I'm actually planning something similar for Apollinis et Dianae. But I think in many ways England was very unique religiously. The Catholic nations had the Pope as their heads but the majority of the Protestant nations' churches had no official leader. Only in England do you see that and only in England does one see the religious makeup of the Church constantly change. Most Lutheran nations remained Lutheran, Calvinists remain Calvinist, and so on and so forth. The most you could perhaps get is autonomous Catholic Churchs that have Reformist overtures but besides that I can't think of anyway else.
 
What about the PLC, admittedly its a long shot, but Barbara Radziwill might've influenced Sigismund II in that direction if she'd lived longer and perhaps produced an heir.
 
It is important not to assume that the 'nationalist' element of the CoE was a creation of the Reformation.

England had an anti-Papal grudge ever since the Synod of Whitby. Anti-Papalism waxed and waned but it was always there, frex Ric II laws on preamunire (and thety were claimed to be merely declaratory of the common law).

Hen VIII claimed to 'liberate' the CoE not to create it.

Another maybe unique factor in England is that the Common Law and Church Civil law were two completely different law systems which hated each other. Unlike almost all Continental countries, Justinian and Grotius made no headway at all in England outside the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts.
 
Wasn't Continental civil law a creation of Napoleon, though? France was governed by various customs until the Revolution.
 
Do not confuse 'civil' law, the law dealing with matters between man and man (ie the opposite of criminal law) with civil law in the English sense, the law of the 'civilians', ie the law pertaining to the church, to marriages, to the admiralty courts etc.

Lawyers dealt with the former, as well as most criminal law, at the Courts of Westminster . Either common or statute law .Doctors (of civil law, D.CL) with the second at Doctors' Commons and the Court of Arches .

The customs you refer to are common law (both civil and criminal) , which, as you state, Napoleon codified.

The other civil law, the law of the church courts, had been codified earlier, by adopting the Roman ( as in Roman Empire) laws of Justinian.

Incidentally, common law here has nothing to do with the phrase 'common law marriage'. I mention this only because someone always brings it up.
 
See my soc.history.what-if posts on Sarpi, Venice, and the Interdict Crisis:

"If Sarpi's grandest dream--of Protestant armies destroying the Papacy--was
not realistic, what might he have achieved in terms of liberating Venice
from the Papacy? His strategy during the Interdict crisis was of course
to argue that it was Venice, not the Pope, which was acting in accordance
with Catholic orthodoxy. Eventually, Paul V gave way. But suppose the
Vatican is really pig-headed and insists on continuing the Interdict
despite all the evidence that it is not working and despite the French and
Spanish efforts at a face-saving compromise? Then Venice might indeed set
up a "national" church separate from Rome, with Sarpi as its chief
theologian. In the beginning it would no doubt be "Catholic without the
Pope" but as in England it might gradually become Protestantized. Of
course unless you have a much more successful Reformation in southern
Europe, a Protestant or even quasi-Protestant Venice cannot survive unless
some *Catholic* power is willing to defend it militarily against Rome. The
most likely candidate for such a power is France." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/s5EKVIXIFuoJ


"The foreign power the Venetians were most counting on was France, because
they wanted a great Catholic power on their side to show that they were not
heretics. France did make a great show of friendship with Venice, but was
also worried that the Venetians as well as the Pope might be too
intransigent. What France and the other major Catholic powers ultimately did
was to lobby for a peaceful settlement of the papal-Venetian dispute, both to
enhance their own prestige and power and to prevent a war that might get out
of control. The final compromise seems to me considerably more favorable to
Venice than to the Pope: true, the two imprisoned priests were released to
the custody of the King of France, but Vencie did not repeal the laws to
which the Vatican objected (and under which the priests had been imprisoned).
So if "Venice stood alone", in a sense so did the Pope. If he had been more
pig-headed and refused compromise, he would have been isolated with no ally
except perhaps Spain. (Spain was the only power to offer the Pope military
support, but even it did so on the assumption that a compromise would be
reached and therefore it would not have to follow through on the offer.) So if a lasting schism developed betwen Rome and the Church in Venice, and it
was really clear that the fault was on the Pope's side, I am not sure that
Venice might not get French support. For that purpose, the Venetians would
at first have to maintain that the separation was "temporary" and forced on
them by the Pope, and the Venetian Church would initially have to keep the
old Catholic theology--as indeed the Church of England largely did at first.
What I am wondering is whether as in England this could eventually develop
under Sarpi's guidance (despite his public orthodox Catholicism during the
Interdict crisis) into some form of Protestantism. Protestant ideas might
infiltate in part from the foreign Protestants whose presence (and freedom to
worship) Venice tolerated in the Republic." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/87te3kZB08w/0-Y_EpkP76oJ
 
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