Counter-Reformation Research Articles

Planting the Cross: Catholic Reform and Renewal in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France. By Barbara B. Diefendorf. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. x + 215 pp. $74.00 cloth.

Planting the Cross: Catholic Reform and Renewal in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France. By Barbara B. Diefendorf. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. x + 215 pp. $74.00 cloth. - Volume 89 Issue 2

El arte de la Contrarreforma y la épica de Lepanto: la obra de Paolo Caliari, el Veronés

El fervor religioso del Concilio de Trento produjo en el arte del mundo católico un estilo triunfalista que pretendía demostrar la superioridad de la fe romana y el favor divino de sus príncipes. Con la victoria de Lepanto, los jefes de la Liga Santa crearon una entera propaganda político-religiosa que les permitía explotar los efectos psicológicos de su triunfo frente a la Cristiandad dividida. El ensayo propone revisitar esta historia, relacionando la dimensión artística-ideológica de la Contrarreforma con el contexto político de la Repúbli-ca de Venecia, a través de la obra del pintor Paolo Caliari.

The Directory for Confessors, 1585: Implementing the Catholic Reformation in New Spain

The Directory for Confessors, 1585: Implementing the Catholic Reformation in New Spain

Reviving the past to meet the needs of the present: John Henry Newman from 1835 to 1838

ABSTRACT Between the years 1835 and 1838, arguably at the height of his influence within the Church of England, John Henry Newman was involved in three revivals. As a Tractarian leader, (1) he encouraged the Anglican Communion to strengthen the laity by undertaking a Catholic revival, (2) he played a role in the Gothic architectural revival that (as he saw it) made concrete the Anglican divine Joseph Butler’s views on worship and belief, and (3) he used the theology of the early Church to help lay the foundations of a patristic revival. These three aspects of his Tractarian years are shown, in the conclusion, to be at work also in ‘On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine’ (1859), which has influenced the Catholic Church’s theology and practice.

Exclusion, Penance, and the Box: Retracing Mercy in the Birth of the Confessional

It is the concern of this paper to retrace, rather than diachronically expound, some of the events that substantiate the forging of the confessional box within the historicity of confession. It exposes that the birth of the confessional (box) is an issue of how confession evolved from the varying historical instances that project man’s yearning for reconciliation and salvation. It thereby retraces the formulations of mercy within such context. Hence, the paper will delve into confession’s history vis-à-vis its roots, practices, and evolution from its ancient, medieval, and eventual modern institutionalization in the Council of Trent. The paper runs in two parts: 1) it discusses the art of exclusion and control of penance that is distinctive of the ancient and medieval practices of reconciliation respectively, and 2) it proceeds into a discussion of the crisis of mercy and the eventual forging of the confessional box.
 References
 Bossy, John. “The Social History of Confession,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 25 (1975): 30.
 __________. Christianity in the West, 1400–1700, Oxford, 1985.
 Butler, Perry. “Introduction: Confession Today,” in Martin Dudley (ed.), Confession and Absolution. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1990.
 Cantor, Norman. Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 1993.
 Cornwell, John. The Dark Box, A Secret History of Confession, 1st ed. Cambridge: Basic Books, 2014.
 Dallen, James. “History and Reform of Penance,” in Robert Kennedy (ed.), Reconciling Embrace: Foundations for the Future of Sacramental Confession. Illinois: Liturgy Training Publications, 1998.
 Daniel-Rops, Henri. History of the Church of Christ, vol. 5, The Catholic Reformation, trans. John Warrington. London, 1962.
 de Boer, Wietse. The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan. Leiden, 2001.
 Dooley, Catherine OP. “The History of Penance in the Early Church: Implications for the Future,” in Robert Kennedy (ed.),
 Reconciliation: the Continuing Agenda. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1987.
 Duchesne, Louis. Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution. London, 1904.
 Favazza, Joseph. The Order of Penitents: Historical Roots and Pastoral Future. Collegeville,
 Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1988.
 Foucault, Michel. “Christianity and Confession’ (lecture),” in Foucault, The Politics of Truth. Los Angeles, 1997.
 Fox, Robin Lane. Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine. London, 1986.
 Hamelin, Léonce. Reconciliation in the Church: A Theological and Pastoral Essay on the Sacrament of Penance. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press.
 Jedin, Hubert. A History of the Council of Trent, trans. Dom Ernest Graf, vol. 2. St. Louis, 1961.
 Mahoney, John. The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition. Oxford, 1989.
 Martinez, German. Signs of Freedom: Theology of the Christian Sacraments. New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2003.
 O’Malley, John. Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA, 2013.
 Orsy, Ladislas. The Evolving Church and the Sacrament of Penance. Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1978.
 Pope John Paul II, “Apostolic Exhortation on Reconciliation and Penance,” no. 28, in Origins, 14:25 (1984).
 Poschmann, Bernhard. Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, trans. Francis Courtney. New York: Herder and Herder, 1964.
 Haliczer, Stephen. Sexuality in the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned. Oxford, 1996.
 Taylor, Chloë. The Culture of Confession from Augustine to Foucault: a Genealogy of the ‘Confessing Animal’. New York: Routledge, 2009.
 Von Speyer, Adrienne. Confession, the Encounter with Christ in Penance. Frieburg: Herder, 1964.
 Žižek, Slavoj. The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003.
 __________. Žižek’s Jokes. London: MIT Press, 2014.

The Arnhem Mystical Sermons: Preaching Liturgical Mysticism in the Context of Catholic Reform, by Ineke Cornet

The Arnhem Mystical Sermons: Preaching Liturgical Mysticism in the Context of Catholic Reform, by Ineke Cornet

Константин Великий и св. Елена на фресках Яна Кубена в Воздвиженском костеле в Бжеге

The paper introduces the splendid representations of Emperor Constantine the Great and Saint Helena in Jan Kuben’s frescos in the church under invocation of the Triumph of the Cross in Brzeg. They testify strongly of the incessant presence of the creative reflection over the Christian ancient times in the area of Opole Silesia in the period of the Catholic reform in the 18th century. Kuben’s trompe-l’oeil constitutes a wonderful combination of deeply experienced Catholic spirituality with the genius of the artist – a visionary.

Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe by Dale Van Kley

Reviewed by: Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe by Dale Van Kley Jeffrey Burson, Maria Teresa Fattori, Harm Klueting, Robert Scully S. J., Mita Choudhury, and Dale Van Kley Dale Van Kley, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 384. ISBN 978-0-300-22846-5. $38.00. Introduction by Jeffrey Burson, Georgia Southern University Professor Dale K. Van Kley’s book, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe is the most recent of four monographs scattered across a scholarly career spanning well over forty years. Although Van Kley modestly notes in his acknowledgments that this book is the accidental offshoot of a still ongoing and longer-term project on the trajectory of “Reform Catholicism” from circa 1750 to 1804, it remains, for all that, a considerable achievement. Throughout Van Kley’s expansive and detailed narrative, he argues, first, that Gallican- or Jansenist-derived anti-Jesuit discourses, mostly French in origin, were exported to the rest of Catholic Europe increasingly after 1750, providing thereby the ideological underpinning and justification of the suppression of the Jesuit Order throughout Catholic Europe and its imperial peripheries. Second, Van Kley’s work asserts that a surprisingly active, transnational, and coherent network of anti-Jesuit scholars, jurists, statesmen, and diplomats actually provided the impetus for a coordinated international campaign to demolish the Jesuits as prelude to a brief era of sweeping Catholic Reform cut short by the French Revolution (pp. 1–9). The various state-specific suppressions of the Jesuits, and that of the papacy in 1773, have long intrigued historians of the eighteenth century, but surprisingly few volumes have been devoted to these suppressions as a group. Of these works, none have uncovered the possible collaborative, conspiratorial, or transnational origins of the eighteenth-century suppressions. But, based in many years of research into sources in Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and Portuguese—many of these sources, archival—Van Kley’s most recent book has uncovered, not only that these suppressions had common ideological and socio-cultural origins, but that [End Page 738] they might plausibly be considered a watershed moment in the history of the immediate pre-Revolutionary period of Euro-Atlantic history. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which concerns itself with the sources, historical context, and rhetoric of anti-Jesuitism, and its vital part in the construction of what would ultimately become Reform Catholicism (pp. 113–50). Part II of the work dives deeply into the interconnections and contrasts among the various national suppressions and expulsions of the Jesuits in Portugal, France, Spain, Naples, and Parma, finally culminating in the first suppression of the order by Pope Clement XIV’s brief, Dominus ac Redemptor in 1773 (pp. 150–240). Part III considers developments in the nearly twenty years separating the papal suppression of the Society of Jesus from the French Revolution (pp. 240–93). In all, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe leaves us with five major historiographical interventions to which I will devote the remainder of this forum’s introduction. First, Van Kley maintains that many styles of Catholic Reformism— from Febronianism to Josephism, to followers of Pereira—heretofore treated as largely separate species of Catholic Enlightenment or Catholic Reform, are in fact related through a common intellectual genealogy traceable to an international Gallican-inspired Reform Catholicism with roots largely in France. This argument is most stirringly articulated in Van Kley’s discussion of the Gallican roots of Hontheim/Febronius (pp. 24–30) and of Pereira de Figuereido (pp. 30–32). Van Kley does recognize that a sub-stratum comprising kindred roots of Reform Catholicism existed throughout Europe. Afterall, even French Gallicanism was derived from a fifteenth-century conciliarist jurisprudence that set down roots throughout much of late medieval and early modern Europe well before the advent of Jansenists and Jesuits, and in ways that proved vital to the inception of humanism, and to both Protestant and Catholic Reformations. Dale Van Kley’s extensively researched recent book, however, has...

Aufklärung – Wissenschaft – Religion. Zur Struktur unseres neuzeitlichen Spannungsfelds

Our modern world is - at least, since the 17th and the 18th century - deeply structured, if not scattered by several not-reconciled, though classical traditions: By the Platonic-Socratic conception of enlightenment, by the lutheran reformation and the catholic counterreformation, by the Encyclopédie-tradition of science-specific enlightenment, by Rousseau‘s auto-critique of enlightenment and by Kant’s philosophical deepening of the human rights-tradion as essential part of the republican tradition.

Bullfighting, the Basque Clergy, and Tridentine Reform

The post–Council of Trent court records for the diocese of Pamplona (northern Iberia) record numerous and ongoing incidents of clergy accused of running with and fighting bulls. Placed within the context of efforts to implement Tridentine and Catholic reform in the diocese, contemporaneous lay legal actions, and conflicting ideas of appropriate gendered behavior and professionalism of the clergy, these episodes illuminate how parishioners effectively used the court system and crafted accusations to promote local interests and punish unpopular priests.

On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649) by Francisco Pacheco

Reviewed by: On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649) by Francisco Pacheco Tanya J. Tiffany On Christian Iconography: Selections from The Art of Painting (1649). By Francisco Pacheco. With an introduction and the Spanish text translated by Jeremy Roe with Carles Gutiérrez Sanfeliu; Latin text translated by José Solís de los Santos. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, Volume 16.] (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph University Press. 2017. Pp. xxv, 340. $75.00. ISBN 978-0-91610-189-3.) In 1638, at age seventy-four, the learned Sevillian painter Francisco Pacheco completed his life's work, the Arte de la Pintura (Art of Painting), a treatise published posthumously in 1644. A monumental text, the Arte consists of three books on the nobility, theory, and practice of painting, with a particular emphasis on sacred images. Scholars have long valued the Arte for the light it sheds on intellectual life in early modern Seville and especially on the career of Pacheco's most illustrious pupil, Diego Velázquez. Until now, however, only fragments of the Arte have been available in English. The translation under review is therefore most welcome for making Pacheco's treatise more widely accessible to students and scholars of early modern art history. As indicated by the book's title, Jeremy Roe and Carles Gutiérrez Sanfeliu have chosen to focus on the ample sections of the Arte devoted to decorum in religious painting. This decision follows the precepts of Pacheco himself, who affirmed that it was by representing Christian subjects with both "majesty" and historical accuracy that painters fulfilled their ultimate purpose: to create images that "serve[d] as truthful books" for the faithful (p. 46). In his introduction, Roe provides a nuanced perspective on the relationship between Pacheco's artistic theory and his practice as a painter of sacred subjects. Building upon Bonaventura Bassegoda's critical edition of the Arte (1990), he highlights Pacheco's close engagement with writings by Sevillian churchmen and by post-Tridentine figures of international renown, among them Gabriele Paleotti [End Page 145] and Johannes Molanus. He also emphasizes Pacheco's commitment to establishing new sacred iconographies, as illustrated by the artist's paintings and codified in his text. Like other Catholic Reformers, Pacheco opposed the invention of novel religious iconography for its own sake, but at the same time he sought to abandon pictorial conventions that failed to adhere to the letter of scriptural truth. In an example well known to specialists, Pacheco thus used historical evidence to affirm that Christ's crucifixion should be depicted with four nails, rather than the usual three. He also sought to correct the "improprieties" seen in versions of the Last Judgment by Michelangelo and others (p. 56); according to a cleric quoted in the Arte, Pacheco rejected images of a "terrible and fearful" Christ and, in his own Last Judgment, instead depicted the Lord as "merciful and joyful," in keeping with biblical evidence of God's "delight" in saving the just (p. 66). Yet as Roe contends, Pacheco's portrayal of a gentle Christ benignly delivering judgment means that his painting lacks the very narrative clarity and emotional impact that he and other post-Tridentine painters sought to achieve. Roe also explores how this painstaking search for historical precision distinguished Pacheco from other artists of the day, among them his rival in Madrid, the Florentine-born Vicente Carducho, who ridiculed ongoing "disputes over … how Christ our Lord was crucified" and affirmed that pious painters should simply focus on representing "the essential" aspects of sacred history (quoted on pp. 28–29). For the translation itself, Roe and Gutiérrez have included chapters from the Arte dealing with "Order, Decency, and Decorum" and the Last Judgment (chapters 2–4 of Book Two) as well as Pacheco's lengthy appendix on the iconography of various Christian themes, the Adiciones a algunas imágenes (Further matters raised by a number of images; appendix to Book Three). They have rendered Pacheco's often unwieldy Spanish prose into lucid English, and have included English translations by José Solís de los Santos of Pacheco's quotations from Latin. Accompanying the text are 123 reproductions of works either...

«Правда та її тінь»: антимодерністська риторика на сторінках галицьких релігійних часописів другої пол. XIX — поч. XX ст.

In the XIX century and the first half of XX century, scientists A. Comte, M. Weber, H. Spencer, E. Durkheim, G. Simmel, and Ch. Cooley developed a theory explaining the social reality in which a person exists. The result of their work was a theory of modernization that describes a transition from the traditional to the modern society. Further on, due to various historical vicissitudes, the theory of modernization has undergone significant changes. In the first half of the XX century universal theory of modernization has been criticized. By shaping a new approach to the study of global transformations in society, scientists began considering cases of nonlinear progress or regression, since the model of the Western society’s functioning does not always adequately apply to the description of the functioning of other societies. Among the presumable counterpoints in the history of civilization, which scientists define as the beginning of modernity, are The Age of Discovery, The Industrial Revolution, and The French Revolution. Specifically, the French Revolution has significantly influenced the process of secularization of the European society, and contributed to the diminished presence of the Catholic Church on the international political scene, as well 86 as a gradual removal of religion from the life of modern human. The media played a significant role in reforming the socio-political, cultural and economic dimensions of the Western society, as the press was an important means of promoting modernization ideas. At the same time, the religious press was a key platform of criticism of modernization. At the end of the XIX — early XX centuries, a number of articles there were published on the topic of modernization in the secular and religious spheres, on the pages of the Lviv religious journals: «Ruskii Sion», «Dushpastyr», «Nyva». The authors of the «Nyva» journal in their publications rested upon the concept of modernism put forward by the Vatican. The latter concept concerned the young generation of Catholic theologians in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. They were united by their shared views concerning the Christian Church’s status in a changing world. Catholic reformers sought to revise the Catholic Church doctrine, taking into account the relevant trends of subjectivism and criticism of that time. The authorship of the «Ruskii Sion» and «Dushpastyr» criticized the ideas of reducing the influence of religion in science, culture and politics. The authors of these journals argued that the enemy of modern society is not the Church, but speculative modernism, which is a source of false values. On the contrary, the church is a deterrent for the modern political and economic system absorbing human. We conclude that it is incorrect to presume that modern Ukraine (with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church as one of the major denominations) was molded under the influence of religion, gi ven that the key processes of modernization (urbanization, industrialization, and so on) were accomplished accordingly to the model diverging with the Catholic, Christian, ideals. Therefore, the question of the peculiarities of the scenario of the modernization of the Ukrainian society and the role played by religion and the religious press in this process remains open. Keywords: religious press, modernization, civilization, secularization, Christianity, Catholicism, Church document, religious modernism.

The Arnhem Mystical Sermons: Preaching Liturgical Mysticism in the Context of Catholic Reform. Ineke Cornet. Brill's Series in Church History and Religious Culture 77. Leiden: Brill, 2019. x + 400 pp. $204.

The Arnhem Mystical Sermons: Preaching Liturgical Mysticism in the Context of Catholic Reform. Ineke Cornet. Brill's Series in Church History and Religious Culture 77. Leiden: Brill, 2019. x + 400 pp. $204.

Protestantismo e intolerância: caminhos para um diálogo interdenominacional

Este artigo se propõe a iluminar o passado do protestantismo e, a partir de uma reflexão histórica, proporcionar caminhos para superação dos desafios do diálogo interdenominacional no cristianismo contemporâneo, tão marcado pela intolerância religiosa. O Protestantismo da Reta Doutrina (PRD), tipo ideal definido por Rubem Alves e cuja ênfase está na Confissão da Reta Doutrina, ainda se faz ouvir na contemporaneidade. Seu caráter repressivo e características distintas, como a detenção da verdade absoluta, clima bélico e, consequente, intolerância, ainda possuem representantes ativos no cenário religioso brasileiro. O local histórico de constituição da identidade do PRD se localiza nos séculos XVI e XVII, época da Contrarreforma católica e das guerras religiosas na Europa. Somente com uma análise crítica desse passado, é possível o estabelecimento de alternativas para contenção da intolerância religiosa nesse segmento cristão.

Arcydzieła El Greca – namalowana kontrreformacja

Termin „sztuka potrydencka” używany jest w odniesieniu do powstającej po Soborze Trydenckim (1545-1563) sztuki sakralnej. Sztuka religijna XVI i XVII wieku włączyła się w działania związane z kontrreformacją, broniąc dogmatów Kościoła rzymskokatolickiego i polemizując z protestantami. W artykule podjęto ważne pytania: Dlaczego dzieła El Greco można zaliczyć do tzw. „przedstawień kontrreformacyjnych”? Jakie tematy i w jaki sposób poruszane tematy przemawiały na rzecz wiary głoszonej przez Kościół rzymskokatolicki? Na ile sam El Greco miał świadomość, że przez swoje arcydzieła bronił, uzasadniał i potwierdzał nauczanie tego Kościoła?

Reformas religiosas e a expansão do acesso à educação

Este trabalho estuda os movimentos históricos da religião cristã, comumente conhecidos como reforma e contrarreforma (expressão rejeitada por nós), e suas contribuições para a educação, considerando essencialmente a expansão do acesso a esta em sua forma sistematizada. O interesse é destacar as propostas e ações de cada lado, protestantes e católicos, e perceber de que maneira estes elementos contribuíram para que mais pessoas tivessem a oportunidade de ter contato com o conhecimento elaborado. A partir da trajetória histórica das concepções e organizações eclesiásticas, destacando experiências significativas do ponto de vista educacional, que, por vezes, eram essencialmente questões políticas. Objetivamos demonstrar as implicações educacionais que estes movimentos trouxeram ao longo da história até a chegada ao Brasil. A pesquisa se respalda numa vertente qualitativa, mediante procedimentos de pesquisa bibliográfica, usando como referenciais estruturantes os autores Hsia (2010), Lindberg (2001), Luzuriaga (1976) e Pereira (2012). Procuramos traçar as relações entre os movimentos religiosos e as ações políticas propostas com objetivos educacionais, seja pelo Estado ou pelas próprias igrejas, apoiados em historiadores que se debruçaram sobre o tema. Percebemos que as mudanças religiosas afetam e são afetadas pelo contexto político, pela visão da pessoa humana e de mundo.

The Impact of Reformation in the Transylvanian Diocese and the Beginnings of Catholic Revival

The Impact of Reformation in the Transylvanian Diocese and the Beginnings of Catholic Revival

Vincent de Paul, The Lazarist Mission and French Catholic Reform, by Alison Forrestal

Vincent de Paul, The Lazarist Mission and French Catholic Reform, by Alison Forrestal

Debating the Devil’s Clergy. Demonology and the Media in Dialogue with Trials (14th to 17th Century)

In comparison with the estimated number of about 60,000 executed so-called witches (women and men), the number of executed and punished witch-priests seems to be rather irrelevant. This statement, however, overlooks the fact that it was only during medieval and early modern times that the crime of heresy and witchcraft cost the life of friars, monks, and ordained priests at the stake. Clerics were the largest group of men accused of practicing magic, necromancy, and witchcraft. Demonology and the media (in constant dialogue with trials) reveal the omnipresence of the devil’s cleric with his figure possessing the quality of a ‘super-witch’, labelled as patronus sagarum. In Western Europe, the persecution of Catholic priests played at least two significant roles. First, in confessional debates, it proved to Catholics that Satan was assaulting post-Tridentine Catholicism, the only remaining bulwark of Christianity; for Protestants on the other hand, the news about the devil’s clergy proved that Satan ruled popedom. Second, in the Old Reich and from the start of the 17th century, the prosecution of clerics as the devil’s minions fueled the general debates about the legitimacy of witchcraft trials. In sketching these over-lapping discourses, we meet the devil’s clergy in Catholic political demonology, in the media and in confessional debates, including polemics about Jesuits being witches and sorcerers. Friedrich Spee used the narratives about executed Catholic priests as vital argument to end trials and torture. Inter alia, battling the devil’s clergy played a vital role in campaigns of internal Catholic church reform and clerical infighting. Studying the debates about the devil’s clergy thus provides a better understanding of how the dynamics of the Reformation, counter-Reformation, Catholic Reform, and confessionalization had an impact on European witchcraft trials.

1077 and all that: Gregory VII in Reformation historical writing

AbstractFrom the late Middle Ages onwards, the reputation of Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–85) was hotly debated. Lionized during the Catholic Reformation, the controversial pope was also the target of strident polemic from conciliarists, German humanists and then, most intensely, from Protestants. This essay focuses on the development of polemic against Gregory by Lutherans and English Protestants. Important contemporary sources against Gregory were unearthed by humanist and conciliarist scholars such as Johannes Aventinus and Ortwin Gratius and then published by Protestants such as Philipp Melanchthon and Kaspar Hedio. English writers with strong connections to the Lutherans such as Thomas Swinnerton and Robert Barnes presented the polemical history of Gregory's pontificate to English audiences. It was further extended by Matthias Flacius, John Bale and John Foxe. Yet while all Protestant accounts of Gregory agreed that he epitomized papal depravity, there were significant variations in emphasizing which qualities of his were truly Antichristian. For some writers it was his imposition of clerical celibacy, for others his excommunication and deposition of an emperor and for others it was his activities as a sorcerer. This essay concludes by discussing these variations and evaluating the reasons for their popularity. While Gianmarco Giuliani's essay in this collection describes how Gregory VII became a keystone in Catholic interpretations of the Church and the papacy, this essay attempts to show how he became a keystone of Protestant interpretations of ecclesiastical and papal history.