Topic 2 Churches and national identity, nationalism

The aim of the second topic is to provide students with an overview of the fundamental historical moments and key issues for the connected development of churches and nationalism in the 19th century and selected significant examples of this development. It shows how Christianity spread through different parts of Central and Western Europe, and describes the relationship of the Church and the state, using the example of France; the position of the Church in Italy and the Risorgimento; the role of different denominations in the establishment of national systems; and their influence on the rise of nationalism. The dominance of Protestantism and its denominational policy is illustrated using the examples of Switzerland and Holland. Students will gain the ability to reflect the diversity and mutual dependency of the different forms and dynamics of the changes in the historical development of the Church. The course will provide students a basic overview of the topic and a common point of reference for future study. 

Other goals of studying this topic include:

(a) To realize the significance of nationalism in 19th century Christianity.

(b) To be able to define the term ‘national identity’ in 19th century Christianity.

(c) To understand how nationalism developed and the role Christianity played in it.

(d) To reflect on the importance of technological, economic, and political changes in society and in 19th century Christianity.

(e) To comprehend the impact of nationalism on the development of church organizations and associations. 

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Nationalism as part of the history of 19th century Christianity  

Chapter 2: Denominations and nationalism

Chapter 3: Catholicism in France and Italy; Ireland and the Irish diaspora

Chapter 4: Christianity and Germany

Chapter 5: Christianity in England

Chapter 6: The dominance of Protestantism in Switzerland and Holland

Chapter 7: The crisis of German and French historical universalism and optimism and European nationalism in the late 19th century

Chapter 1: Nationalism as part of the history of 19th century Christianity

The New Testament interpreted the universal mission of Christianity as follows: ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’ (Mt 28, 19). This connects the missionary universalism and dynamism of the early Church with faithfulness to the teachings of Christ, giving rise to a dynamic religious community with open cultural, ethnic, and historical memory. It is accessible to men, women, and children of many nationalities and professions, including slaves. This universalism has historical roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, but it has been influenced by many other spheres of civilisation. It is connected to specific Christian communities (congregations) and their faithfulness to Christ. In a large part of the Christian world, national churches developed throughout the centuries. 

The modern form of European nationalism emerged with the French Revolution of 1789. 19th century Europe can be seen as a continent whose modern states and denominations were significantly influenced by nationalism. At the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), the national principle did not play a dominant role in how the political leaders set up the new order in Europe, but many of them already saw it as an undeniable part of their states’ societies. During the 19th century, it became more and more obvious that individuals who belonged to one nation in a given state were connected by culture (a set of language, thinking, and models of behaviour and communication) and that individuals could not take part in national unity without being brought up to do so and without later willingly to decide to accept their rights and obligations. In the political lives of most 19th century European states, nationalism was rooted in the basic idea that a state's political and national life must achieve a certain balance, using a number of mechanisms of power. The 1830 revolutions set up an expectation of significant social reforms in Europe. These also included a growing realization that nations have their rights and obligations. In that year, Europe was divided into states which dynamically promoted liberal policy and constitutional monarchy principles (Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain) on one side, and conservative states (the Danubian Monarchy, Russia, major parts of Germany and Italy). Liberalism aimed to solidify its political position in Europe and gradually became the main political direction for European states and nations. Although the radical and liberal revolutions of 1848 were defeated in Europe, the victory of the conservatives was accompanied with a gradual weakening of the Viennese system of European security. Different states started looking for ways of revising the European system from 1815, which had been further shaken by the Crimean War of 1853–1856. Several powerful European states were forced to participate in this war – apart from Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Britain, these most notably included France. More than ever before, European governments and rulers started taking nationalist political interests into account (for example in France, where Napoleon III promoted a policy of national interest, emphasizing European national self-determination).

In many cases, not all individuals of a certain nationality lived within the political borders of one state in 19th century Europe. Many European states were multinational and, due to a complicated history, not all nationalities were equal in their political and civic rights. The theoretical principles of nationalism clashed with the complex historical reality, which also influenced the development of different European denominations.

Nationalism became an important feature in the history of 19th century Christianity. It was one of the integrating forces, which connected Christians and the organism of society and reflected their identification with the national community. The intellectual and leading elites of European denominations gradually learned to accept nationalism as an important part of their journey to the modern world. This showed in the Church's leadership and educational institutions and in the different approaches to making nationalism serve the denominations. The intellectual and leading elites of European denominations strived to understand the cultural and ethnic components of the contemporary nationalism and to find rules for using it to strengthen the denominations’ social position. These rules often drastically differed from the ones which prevailed in the largely agrarian, feudal states in the previous centuries. 

Even in a single denomination, the approaches to nationalism often differed by state. A typical example is the contrast between the reformed Calvinism in France and the more traditional one in Hungary. On the Balkan Peninsula, Orthodoxy in connection with nationalism helped preserve the social and historical memory of the local nations, which spent several centuries under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire. The development of the Russian state in the 19th century was also influenced by the connection of Orthodoxy and nationalism and many former Russian politicians, statesmen, theologians, philosophers, and authors focused on it.

A faith focusing on God in a national environment, using nationalist arguments, can be valid, but it might also not be. It may be valid when the faith still takes the general scope of Christianity into account and looks for common ground with other national forms of Christianity. However, it loses validity if it becomes a mere political ideology; when it enforces national and political obedience; when it corrupts the history of both society and churches; when it attempts to eliminate and delete parts of the society and church which played a significant role in the historical process. Christians, including theologians and church historians, have a duty to see and spread the truth, even if they are to bear ideological consequences in society and the church. Nobody can take this responsibility away from them: no group of people, no denomination, no religion. In the national environment, faith can be, and has been for centuries, a tool for social and religious integration. However, many had to fight for this integration in 19th century churches.

 Chapter 2: Denominations and nationalism

The development of European Christianity between the 15th and 17th century was significantly impacted by the Reformation. It reinstated European Christianity as a creative force, establishing it as a formative social power of the modern age. 

The Roman Catholic Church also gained much from this process. The reform of the Council of Trent reacted to the Reformation impulses and made the Church into a powerful denomination in Europe and the world. All the denominations that emerged from this process of European confessionalization in the 16th and 17th centuries gained formative power in new early modern states. The 1848 Peace of Westphalia firmly put the decision-making power in Europe into the hands of secular rulers, even against the Pope's will. The Thirty Years’ War limited the influence that the clergy and denominational leaders could exert on European political life. In the late 17th century and during the 18th century, European secular rulers dealt with national problems with regard to contemporary denominational structures, but without including the clergy into the decision-making process. Their decisions were becoming more and more secularised.

The modern secularisation of the 19th century was a consequence of the shared history of the denominationally differentiated Christianity and it was largely influenced by modern European states. 

In the 19th century, nationalism developed in a dynamically secularising Europe. In the early 19th century, denominations still developed based on a shared historical memory of the Christianization of medieval Europe and the confessionalization of the early modern Europe. In the second half of the 19th century, secularization and dechristianization started becoming more and more influential in denominational development. The forces of dechristianization, desacralization, and demythologization worked against rechristianization, sacralization and mythologization, battling for strategic points in both the public and the private sphere. These processes also impacted how the perception of denominations developed and what influence they had over issues of European nationalism.

Different denominations of 19th century Christianity in Europe worked both on a more universal level and on the level of national churches. These national churches worked with their specific confessional foundations to gather believers in mass, teach them, and guide them through pastoral services. In the beginning of the century, some European states were monodenominational, while others had multiple denominations, based on previous developments. These systems then changed and developed throughout the century, based on important political and social events.  

Chapter 3: Catholicism in France and Italy; Ireland and the Irish diaspora

Italy At the Apennine Peninsula, a number of reforms inspired by the 1789 Enlightenment took place in the Austrian Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Naples. The French Revolution also affected the politics and religion on the Peninsula; its ideals and principles mostly impacted the young generation. Corsica, an island which was historically Italian and where Italian was the first language, became a French territory in 1768. Some of the local politicians aimed to use the island to disseminate revolutionary ideals in Italy, to prepare the ground for a future revolution on the peninsula. After several years of the revolution, the peninsula welcomed the young General Napoleon Bonaparte as a liberator in 1796. He influenced the establishment of the Cisalpine Republic in Central and Northern Italy, which existed for two years. It was a formally independent state, in reality under French military control, and its Constitution was a copy of the French one from the third year of the revolution. Its growth was limited, partly because the Third Estate was not very developed in most of the republic. Although the republic ceased to exist, its political principles remained rooted in Italian historical memory: especially the political experience in state governance, and the reality of political freedoms for the press and different groups. The citizens of two other republics – the Roman Republic and the Parthenopean Republic, in Central and Southern Italy – had the same experience. In 1800, Napoleon, as the First Consul and then Emperor, rearranged the politics of the peninsula, founding most importantly the Italian Republic, which he later transformed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1802. 

The Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814–1815, re-established the state borders at the peninsula using the principle of legitimacy. The House of Savoy returned to Piedmont and Sardinia; the Bourbons regained Naples and Sicily; the House of Lorraine once again took up the reign in Tuscany; and the State of the Church was restored. The governments of the restored states had to face strong liberal opposition, which was strengthened in 1796–1814. Italian nationalism developed as well, undergoing a revival. The societies of the Italian states were full of expectation of new, radical political change. That was most strongly embodied in 1848. In this year, Italy saw a number of revolutionary shifts in several states, which largely also included a broad spectrum of people from the city and the country. After the 1848 revolutions were defeated, the fight for Italian independence and freedom was delayed for many years – but the next two decades proved it could not be stopped. 

It took a long and complicated process before the leading and intellectual elites of the Roman Catholic Church could accept the modern denominational differentiation of Europe as positive. In the 19th century, it was still mostly seen as a schismatic failure, leading to secularisation and social decline. Popes, Pius IX (1846–1878) most of all, were suspicious towards nationalism connected with political liberalism, seeing it as one of the uncontrollable forces of their time which limited their secular power. The papacy had a negative experience with the Italian, and broader European nationalism, and fostered many reservations and concerns. It took a long time before these elites learned to accept the diversity of Christian faith, culture, and way of life as an offer of freedom, which Christianity had embodied from the very beginning. And it took just as long for them to see and accept nationalism as part of this diversity.

Despite these concerns of the Roman Catholic Church leadership, nationalism formed the thinking of many laymen and clergymen in France, Italy, Ireland, and other European states in the 19th century. It also strongly influenced the anti-Catholic and anti-clerical political liberalism.

Nationalism found more understanding in the Catholic intellectual environment when its scholars connected it to the transcendence of European national history. Catholicism gradually found one of the ways to experience human and civic rights in the values of nationalism, as well as an approach to human dignity based on many political and professional organizations in modern European states. However, the first Pope who showed greater understanding for these values was Leo XIII (1878–1903). He realized that the life of the Roman Catholic Church could not stand outside of the boundaries of the period and that it could accept all of its manifestations, including nationalism, and make them into a tool to influence the social and political life of Europe. In the late 16th and the early 17th century, the theologians and teachers of the Society of Jesus managed to harness humanism to serve the goals of the Roman Catholic Church, and nationalism was to serve the same purpose in the 19th century. Pius IX's Syllabus rejected all the main features of political liberalism, but the reception of nationalism became a part of Leo XIII’s model of social reconstruction and it reflected his pontificate’s orientation to this world and its social struggles. For centuries, the Church dabbled in politics, economy, science, and the arts, and under this Pope's rule, it once again took up the social challenges of its time and showed that its work was not limited to the metaphysical and that faith did not have to be isolated from modernity.

Ireland: Irish history was full of political turmoil from the beginning of the 19th century. In the 1780s, Great Britain and Ireland gradually became a free trade zone. After the parliaments of the two countries were merged, they passed the Acts of Union in 1800 and in the January of 1801, Ireland became part of the United Kingdom, subordinate to the parliament in Westminster. Irish interests were represented by 100 Members of Parliament, while the British had 558.  From this moment on, Irish political, social and religious problems depended on the solutions that British MPs preferred. Ireland struggled with a number of major social and religious problems: Population growth, which undermined Ireland's social stability (there had not been any land reform that would have fulfilled the needs of landless tenants); growing tensions between Catholics and Anglicans; and Catholic efforts to have more political power. In 1823, politician Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847) founded the Catholic Association and gained the support of many Irish laymen and clergymen. While Catholics were not yet represented in the Parliament in the 1826 election, Roman Catholic voters connected to the association voted for Protestant MPs who were on their side and won in four counties. In 1828, O’Connell was elected as an MP in County Clare. In 1829, the Parliament passed a bill that removed a number of political restrictions for Catholics and ensured equality. After the Whigs and their allies won the majority in the Parliament, they also passed a reform of the Irish denominational life in 1833, limiting the numbers of Irish archbishops and bishops, and changing the system of church financing.

O’Connell, with liberal support, won suffrage for poor Irish citizens. However, O'Connell had to start being more tactical in his political efforts. He wanted the union between Ireland and Britain to be abolished, lost the support of many voters, and ultimately died in 1847.  During the last years of his life, a group called Young Ireland was established within this movement and started presenting its political and religious views in a weekly newspaper, The Nation. Its chief editor was the Roman Catholic Charles Gavan Duffy (1816–1903), supported by the Protestant lawyer Thomas O. Davis (1814–1845) and the Unitarian John Mitchel (1815–1875). They promoted a unified Irish nation, despite all denominational and social differences. They wanted Ireland to leave the union with Britain and to address the social turmoil of the country through land reform. Although they were not successful in the short term, they helped bring about a revival for Irish Catholics and other denominations. While O’Connell was still alive, they opposed him, suffered persecution from the government and had to go into exile. In the long run, however, they influenced the Irish throughout the entire 19th century.  

The social instability in Ireland was exacerbated by several years of bad harvests and the famine of 1845–1850, which caused many casualties and an emigration wave. The population of the island declined by two million. This major social crisis also had an impact on the religious situation in the country and it gave rise to a more modern Ireland with a large diaspora abroad.

The revolutionary tradition of the Young Ireland group was picked up in 1858 by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), also known as Fenians. This conspiratorial organization worked for Irish independence and the separation of church and state and gained many supporters. Its goals were nationalist, not socially constructive. The IRB was largely layman dominated, with the support of some Catholic clergymen. Most of the Catholic clergy in the country kept their distance from the organization, concerned that it would be too radical and socially destructive.  Although Fenians were persecuted, they managed to revive their leadership several times. Their activities influenced the British politician William E. Gladstone (1868–1874). In the effort to solve the national and political tensions in Ireland, his first government proposed a bill in 1869, which stripped the Irish Anglican church (Church of Ireland) of its privileged position and made it equal to the Roman Catholic Church before the law. In 1870, this was followed by a land act which was an attempt to resolve the social tensions between landlords and tenants. Both acts influenced the social and denominational development in Ireland up till the end of the 19th century. 

In the 19th century, Ireland therefore became a country headed towards greater political autonomy. The Roman Catholic part of the national historical memory also played a role in this, with its emphasis on the unique development of the Irish church and society. The Church helped mobilize social forces which gradually got out of London’s control.

   Chapter 4: Christianity and Germany

After the Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries, German nationalism in the German parts of the empire gained new political and religious influence. This was reflected in the life story of Martin Luther and his Bible (NT 1522, OT 1534), as well as the stories of other Reformation theologians and politicians. The conflicts between the Imperial denominations and their schools of thought were important catalysts of 18th century Enlightenment. Enlightenment came as a result of the effort to create a denominational life in the Empire which followed the path of reformed Christianity, outside of medieval bounds – tolerant, but also critical towards the sources of revelation and tradition. The trust in potentiality and the possibilities of human knowledge and reason brought about an effort to overcome the traditional authorities of social and church life. Unlike the French Enlightenment, its German brand emerged in a less radical form, with a broad and thorough effort to influence both social and denominational life.

Under French rule over the European continent (1789–1815), social and ecclesiastical development in Germany was significantly influenced by forces from outside of its borders. Great figures of cultural and political life were intrigued by the ideals of the French Revolution (Johann Ch. F. Schiller (1759–1805), Friedrich W. J. Schelling (1775–1854) and others) but abandoned them when the Jacobin Terror disillusioned them. Nationalism became more and more prevalent in many German states due to the Enlightenment, emerging liberalism, and military defeats in battles with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805–1806.

In the beginning of the 19th century, the secularisation process connected to the French Revolution later also significantly affected the lands and assets of the Roman Catholic Church in the Empire. Napoleon Bonaparte seized Imperial territories on the left bank of the Rhine for France. In 1803, he compensated the secular Imperial princes for these losses with the lands of the ecclesiastical Imperial principalities. Only the territories of the Teutonic Order, the Knights Hospitaller and the diocese of Regensburg remained. This abolished the ecclesiastical electorates of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz, powerful in the Middle Ages, the lands of nineteen archdioceses and dioceses (including the Archdiocese of Salzburg), 44 Imperial abbeys and almost two hundred Imperial monasteries. Over three million believers in the Empire in territories amounting to 90,000 km² became subordinate to secular nobility. This change to the political and territorial structure of the Empire as a conglomeration of ecclesiastical and secular territories contributed to deepening its crisis and ultimately to its speedy end. It decreased the income of the Roman Catholic Church by 21 million gulden annually and significantly curtailed its social, pastoral, and educational activities.

Nationalism and liberalism retained its influence over the developments in Germany even after 1815. Between 1815–1848, representatives of these schools of thought in different German states generally agreed on their demands: parliamentary and civil liberties enshrined in a constitution. Socialism also gained more and more political impact. These three ideologies formed the denominational development in Germany. German nationalist schools also generally supported the struggle for emancipation in the oppressed nations of Europe (Poland, Greece). In this, German nationalism was connected to the European nationalist stream which strived to liberate the oppressed peoples on the continent.

After the Congress of Vienna of 1814 and 1815, the Holy Roman Empire was replaced by the German Confederation to maintain the balance of power in Europe. This was another way for the Congress of Vienna to enforce a new order in Europe which lasted up to the late 19th century. Between 1815 and the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, nationalist values played a major role in the unification of Germany. Up to 1871, most Germans lived in small, politically insignificant states. Although the German culture was one of the most developed in Europe, it lacked in political backing, which helped nationalism grow. The unification of Germany massively increased the political confidence of the nation (and its denominations), which would later decide to spread its culture by force in several moments of history. The unification was also followed by a boom in the industry, finance, and transport networks – especially railways and steamboats on rivers and the sea. The unified Germany abolished tariffs between states and established a single currency and Imperial bank.

In 1870 a Catholic Centre Party emerged in the Prussian Parliament. A year later, it became the strongest party in the Reichstag. The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) was afraid of a strong Catholic political party, as an opposition force standing against the new Protestant state led by Prussia. He was afraid the Centre Party politicians would ally with France and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and thus started a battle between the German state and the Roman Catholic Church (Kulturkampf). It began when he closed down a department of the Ministry of Culture which dealt with Roman Catholic issues. At the end of 1871, the Pulpit Law came into force. This law forbade the clergy from commenting on matters of the state in their sermons. Before, the pulpit had generally been seen as an important part of the public arena. Any violation of this law could result in a prison sentence and removal from office. Another law from the spring of 1872 transferred the power over church education to the state in Prussia. In the very same year, the Reichstag banned the Society of Jesus on German territory and kept limiting the activities of other Roman Catholic orders, allowing only those active in social and charity work. The state controlled the appointment of clergymen (since 1873) who first had to study at state-controlled universities and pass state exams. In 1875, civil marriage was placed above church marriage. The state stopped providing financial support to the Catholic Church and made it impossible to appoint bishops and priests in many dioceses and parishes.  Some priests were imprisoned or exiled. Despite this sustained pressure, Centre Party politicians gained considerably more votes in the following elections. The party won 91 seats in the Reichstag, proving the Kulturkampf to be unsuccessful. In 1878, the conservative Pope Pius IX died. The new Pope Leo XIII sought new ways to overcome the Kulturkampf policy. Many of the German anti-Church laws were rescinded or their scope was limited. The measures that remained generally corresponded to the secularisation developments in the country – meaning mainly civil marriage and state oversight over education. The Pulpit Law also remained in force to protect the state, and the Society of Jesus remained banned (until 1917). After the Kulturkampf passed, the Centre Party played an important role in the political system of the German Empire. It moved from the opposition to a major constitutive force of the state, winning 105 seats in the Reichstag in 1907.

Another important point in the religious development of the country was the establishment of the Old Catholic Church. The First Vatican Council's declaration of the Pope's infallibility caused a strong negative reaction in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. At assemblies of priests and laymen, scholars and theologians such as Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890) or  Joseph Hubert Reinkens (1821–1896) spoke out against the dogma. They argued that the new dogma went against the nature of the original Church and started looking for ways to maintain its original, pre-Council character. In the September of 1872, this process culminated in the founding of the Old Catholic Church in Cologne. Its bishop was the Wroclaw theologian Joseph Hubert Reinkens. Professor Döllinger remained in the Roman Catholic Church in the end. The Old Catholic Church continued to develop and create its own hierarchy and structure. In the 1870s, it expanded to France, Italy, and Switzerland. During the German Kulturkampf in the 1870s, the German state allowed its Old Catholics to partake of Roman Catholic assets. In 1889, Old Catholic churches were unified in the Union of Utrecht. This Dutch church separated from the Roman Catholic Church in the beginning of the 18th century, after Rome rejected its hierarchy for being too Jansenist. 

Chapter 5: Christianity in England

The liberal form of English nationalism in the 18th century defended parliamentarism against absolutism. In the 16th and 17th centuries, overseas trade developed, and the country underwent a complex denominational development, which gave nationalism more political and religious influence. Its journey through the country’s history was also impacted by two major events of the late 18th century: the British wars with the American colonies of 1775–1783 and the French Revolution of 1789–1799. After the Peace of Paris (1783), Britain gave up its American colonies, save for Canada, thus effectively preparing the ground for future political developments in the American Confederation and in its Christian churches. Despite the revolution in France, it maintained its political position as a supreme naval power and an influential player on the continent. However, the revolution had an undeniable political and ideological influence over Britain’s development and in the first decades of the 19th century it affected radicals and conservatives alike. 

Britain gained primacy in Europe when it came to population growth, industrial, agricultural, and trade development, and the rise of the middle class. Despite that, traditional Anglicanism and monarchism maintained a strong influence over English social and church life until the 1820s. Their values gradually changed the fiscally militant 18th century country (governed by strong governments and oriented on reforms and repression) into a more effective state, governed by competent central civil servants.  Between 1816–1846, the newly emergent ‘minimalist state considerably lightened the tax burden on the population. Dynamically entrepreneurial gentry was at the forefront of society and the Anglican church, as well as industry, trade, and agriculture, colonial and military politics, science, and culture. Parliamentarism made the British aristocracy much more politically active in church and society than its continental counterparts.  While the Anglican Church’s position in society was not as strong as that of the Roman Catholic Church for example in pre-1789 France, it was the dominant denominational force in a country which was asserting itself as a global economic and military power. After the Congress of Vienna, it was more than apparent that the social institutions and the antiquated structure of the Anglican Church from the previous centuries could not keep up with the dynamic societal development. 

In the early 19th century, all levels of British society gained a new political awareness. It was linked to growing literacy in the middle and lower classes and the commercialized culture aimed at them. New associations were founded across society and denominations and played a major part in constituting the new public sphere as authorities who often stood in opposition to traditional political and church powers. The newspaper market was flooded with cheaper periodicals and everybody who had the time could enter debates on many political, cultural, and confessional topics. This development contributed to the creation of new forms of religious influence in the public sphere. Many associations both aimed to modernize the church and society and defend traditional social values. This phase of denominational development in England was rife with discussion on contemporary ethical problems.

In this, the middle class became a force which helped reform British social and political life and establish a new voting system (1832), which corresponded to population trends. Between 1831–1833, the number of English and Welsh voters grew from 435 to 653 thousand. The reformist legislation was brought about by the country's radical political liberalists, which enabled the creation of new national political parties, cut the number of members of parliament from the aristocracy, and gradually extended suffrage to poorer citizens. It also completely barred the monarch from composing governments based on their will, although they did retain a great deal of influence over choosing the prime minister and Cabinet members. However, the House of Lords forced them to respect the election results. The old world in which the monarch and aristocracy had unlimited power was a thing of the past.

In 1867, a new reform of the voting law was passed. Even the conservatives realized that extending suffrage to the working class would not necessarily mean a loss for them, as workers were patriotic and had undergone a religious education. In 1884, the voting system was modified further, extending suffrage to even poorer citizens. In Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, the pace of the reforms corresponded to the countries’ respective political, denominational, and social conditions.

These reforms were gradually reflected in the life of the Anglican Church, as many Anglican clergymen and laymen had been discontenting with its situation since the 18th century. In 1836, the government reacted to the demands of these dissenters by transferring the Anglican clergy's power to record births, marriages, and deaths to civil authorities. The London University was founded to provide education to non-conformists. The reforms also impacted British Roman Catholics and stabilized their civil and political position.

During the long reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), the political, economic, and cultural rise of Britain had a significant effect on the development of its churches. Social modernization and the rise of the Empire broadened the political and denominational horizons of British believers and forced them to extend their historical memories. The Anglican Church, as well as others, gained an intellectual class connected to the active middle classes. Folk intellectuals became an important part of the church life.

Between 1811–1861, the population of Britain doubled in size, but the economy lagged behind. The average working week in industrial agglomerations reached 56–65 hours between 1856–1873. As work productivity grew after 1873, working hours were gradually decreased to 9 per day. Despite that, worker wages slowly rose. Most workers could regularly save small amounts of money and did not have to rely on the legal protection granted to them by the Poor Law. Three quarters of working-class children between five and fifteen years of age partly or fully attended Methodist and Anglican Sunday schools. Thanks to the activity of Methodist and partly also Anglican clergy and laymen, the continuity of the Christian faith was maintained in big industrial agglomerations, despite the country's turbulent industrial development.

 Chapter 6: The dominance of Protestantism in Switzerland and Holland

Switzerland: The societal and church development of Switzerland was affected by the French Revolution of 1789–1799 and the visions of Napoleon Bonaparte, who did not want a strong Swiss state. After his fall, Switzerland entered a period of restoration in 1815, when the country's borders became a definitive part of the map of Europe. The integrity of canton territories was guaranteed by the Federal Treaty, but not enshrined in the Constitution. Swiss conservative restoration governments gradually tried to unify the country on an administrative level. However, in 1815 the country’s economic development was halted for decades because of different currencies and limitations in the cantons. Despite that, Switzerland gradually became a modern industrialized country with a social and charitable policy based on associations. There were many active associations in the restored state, focused on music, arts, sports, and scholarly pursuits. They helped form a political culture in society and the church, as well as nationalist activities. Associations helped to build the Swiss national awareness. 

The French July Revolution of 1830 also influenced Swiss politics. In 1830–1831, the country population of many cantons organized assemblies demanding a democratization of the country's political life and a limit on the influence of urban patrician families and the aristocracy. These assemblies propelled the state into a new period of regeneration, led by the rural elites: farmers, teachers, pastors, and lawyers. Liberal politicians of the regeneration movement demanded that the power of the patrician class – the rich urban population and aristocrats – in the canton governments and parliaments be curbed and called for enfranchising the broader population. They based these demands on Swiss political tradition and garnered wider societal support, which the canton governments had to take seriously. Political life in the cantons was structured based on their new constitutions. These generally limited the suffrage to rich and educated citizens, who, however, in the end elected councils that represented the wider population and ensured its fundamental rights. As more citizens took part in canton political activities, the understanding of national issues in the cantons and in the Swiss Confederation as a whole also developed. It influenced the life of Swiss churches and their education and social activities. The final goal of the regeneration policy was a democratized Switzerland.

In the first half of the 1840s, canton governments dealt with denominational issues based on either conservative or liberal and radical policies. In 1844, the liberal Catholic head of the Wettingen seminary Augustin Keller proposed to close down eight monasteries in the Aargau Canton and confiscate their assets. This measure was later contested as a violation of the 1815 Federal Treaty and four women’s monasteries were restored. The men’s monasteries remained closed. On the other hand, the position of the Society of Jesus in church education grew stronger (theological faculty, seminary) in the Lutzen Canton. The aforementioned Augustin Keller suggested banning the Society of Jesus in Switzerland. He argued that the order was dangerous for a denominationally diverse state. In 1830–1831 Switzerland set off on the path to a unified state with many civil rights, under the leadership of liberal politicians. This provoked a reaction from the political and social conservatives in many cantons. 

Voluntary civic associations were founded in radical-led cantons, with the aim to resist the pressure of conservative Catholic cantons and to promote a centralized federation model. To defend their autonomy in the Swiss Federation and their political and religious values, Catholic cantons founded the association Sonderbund. In the November of 1847, a war broke out between the two sides and in the end, the radicals won. As the country developed, liberal and radical politicians gained more influence over the country’s development at the expense of the conservatives. In the September of 1848, the Swiss Constitution came into force as the cornerstone of the country’s legislation. It transferred many of the canton government’s rights and obligations to the Federal Council and federal institution. From a union of cantons connected by the 1815 treaty, Switzerland turned into a modern federal state, with centralized government administration. In 1848, the state removed economic barriers between cantons and carved out a share of European industrialization. In the following years, the freedom of confession was enshrined in the constitution (1869) and social legislation was passed. Churches and their many charities also played a positive role in the country's social work. These organizations were often led by women. In the 1870s and the 1880s, the position of the central government was strengthened, and Switzerland firmly assumed its neutral position in Europe. At the same time, the state’s central liberal policy aimed to unify the Swiss as one nation. This effort was disrupted by social democrats and Roman Catholics.  

The liberal- and radical-led state had to deal with its defeated Catholic opposition. Catholic conservatives stepped to the side-lines, but they never accepted the state’s 1848 political programme. Instead, they formed Catholic associations (such as the Pius Association founded in 1857, at Ignaz von Ah’s behest), founded magazines (Vaterland), and gradually mobilized their political potential. In 1889 they were allowed to establish their own university in Freiburg im Üechtland. After the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 declared the Pope infallible in matters of faith and morality, the discord between the Catholic Church and the state in Switzerland was exacerbated. The Church was represented by the Bishop of Basel Eugène Lachat and the Assistant Bishop of Geneva Gaspard Mermillod. The state supported the new Old Catholic Church and cut diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

The Netherlands: In the last quarter of the 18th century, both Northern and Southern Netherlands experienced a rise in nationalism and attempts to curb the power of the authoritarian governments in both parts of the country. The country was also directly affected by the French Revolution of 1789–1799, as it was quite close to its centres. Both parts of the country were occupied by France in 1794 and 1795. While the Southern Netherlands was annexed at the same time, the northern part of the country was not – until 1810. Both parts of the country used this time to partially modernize their political structures, although they were affected by the wartime economic crisis. After Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated, the north of the Netherlands was reformed into a constitutional monarchy led by King William I (+1843), an enlightened but authoritarian ruler, at the end of 1813. The King respected the independence of the judiciary and a limited freedom of the press, but he strived to rule without being too limited by the will of the parliament. In 1814, his monarchy was connected with Southern Netherlands as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, governed by the King and a bicameral parliament, which was partly elected and partly appointed by the monarch. After the Congress of Vienna, European powers saw the country as a dam to stop any potential future French military expansion. The kingdom did declare a freedom of confession, but the denominational differences between the north and the south stood in the way of its unity. Belgian Roman Catholics were afraid of the effect the Protestant Netherlands would have on their Catholic education system, while liberals were concerned about limitations on the freedom of the press and arrests of some journalists (Louis de Potter (1786–1859)). In 1825, William I, prompted by Belgian liberals and Netherlandish politicians, closed down all Belgian Catholic schools, which caused an uproar among the Catholic population. In the revolutionary May of 1830, the King allowed these schools to be reopened. Major social unrest caused the state to divide into two parts in the very same year, after the secession of the southern provinces. The independent Kingdom of Belgium was established with Leopold I (+1865) as its ruler. Great Britain supported the monarchy and guaranteed Belgian independence for the future. William I only accepted the independence of Belgium in 1839 by signing the Treaty of London. In 1840 he abdicated, to be succeeded by his son William II (1840–1849). Both these small parliamentary democracies set off on their journey through the 19th century, aiming to enter the ranks of developed and industrial European countries, without any major military ambitions on the continent.

The Belgian constitution was amongst the most liberal ones in Europe. Between 1847–1884, the Kingdom of Belgium was steered mainly by liberals, but partly also by politically active Catholics. These two political forces were able to cooperate on many political issues, though they also clashed on some (education). In the 19th century, Belgium underwent industrialization and the industrial revolution had an extremely strong effect on the country – in fact, only Britain embraced the process more intensely. Marked differences, however, arose between Belgium’s two territories: the francophone Wallonia with its industrialization centres (engineering, textile industry, mining for fuel) and the coastal Flanders with its agricultural enterprises. These differences impacted the political and denominational life of the population and the nationalism of both the Walloons and the Flemish. The Roman Catholic influence over schools also manifested in a variety of political tensions and impacted the development of political parties. In 1846, a liberal party aiming to limit the power of the clergy in schools was founded.

In the Northern Netherlands, the industry, agriculture, and maritime trade also flourished, and liberals enjoyed the main share in it. Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) was the main Netherlandish representative of political liberalism. As prime minister, he believed that government ministers should primarily be accountable to the parliament, not the King, and he is known as the founding father of parliamentary democracy in the Netherlands. After 1848, William II accepted the constitutional model of government. During the reign of his successor, William III (1849–1890), the Papal Curia strived to restore the episcopal hierarchy in the country – the first attempt came in 1853. The King supported the Protestants who were against this step, even though J. R. Thorbecke tried in vain to persuade him that it was necessary to enshrine the Catholics’ right to freely develop their church structures in the Constitution. The next prime minister was the more conservative Floris van Hall (1791–1866), but he also failed to change the state policy on Catholics in any meaningful way. Liberals, such as Dirk Donker Curtius (1792–1864) and others, also influenced the development of Calvinism and issues of the freedom of confession and speech in churches. Netherlandish Calvinism was also strongly impacted by the Réveil (Revival) group, which strived to revive faith. The political development in the Netherlands also included the rise of socialist and worker parties, as well as social legislation, extending voting rights to poorer citizens (men), the introduction of an income tax, and the establishment of new political parties and associations connected to them. The development of social legislation was preceded by a dynamic boost of denominational social work and schooling after 1880.  Both Calvinists and Catholics built their own primary, secondary, higher, and university education systems, connected with church activities in social affairs, health, association, union, and political work. This formed blocks of connected organization activities, formed by denominations and political parties, which focused on the education, family and social life, and work of the churches’ believers and the state’s citizens. Society was gradually divided into Protestant, Catholic, socialist, and liberal political blocks, which encompassed the majority of the population. The population of the country also slowly grew, and so did the number of workers in industry and agriculture. In 1877 the liberal Jan Kappeyne van de Coppello (1822–1895) pushed through a more modern voting law, which extended suffrage to poor male citizens. The liberals’ attempts to limit the influence that churches had over the country’s school system provoked an anti-liberal response led by politicians connected to churches (the Calvinist politician Abraham Kuyper [1837–1920]), the Roman Catholic Herman Schaepman [1844–1903]). In 1879, the anti-liberalist Anti-Revolutionary Party was formed, as a counterweight to the social democrats who formed a party the year before that.

 A similar system of denominational and political blocks was established in Belgium, where the active parties were mainly Roman Catholics and socialists. This system connected the majority of citizens with many political, social, cultural, and church organizations. It politicized society along denominational lines and brought about the rise of political parties. In the last decades of the 19th century, Belgian society underwent a partial democratization of societal life, which culminated when universal suffrage for all men was passed in 1893. This was accompanied by King Leopold II’s (1865–1909) colonization policies in Africa (the Belgian Congo). The country was governed by Catholic parties from 1884 up to the First World War. In 1898, Dutch was made equal with French, which had been dominant as an official language and the language used in schools. Dutch also gradually started being used as a parallel language in the country’s higher and university education.

The development of the 19th century Southern Netherlands/Belgium was significantly affected by nationalism. Catholic parties accentuated Flemish nationalist demands, while liberalism and socialism strived to overcome the national tensions in the country. 

Chapter 7: The crisis of German and French historical universalism and optimism and European nationalism in the late 19th century

     The development of 19th century European nationalism was influenced by contemporary historical universalism and optimism – and its crisis, in the last decades of the century. Although contemporary historical sciences claimed to be objective, the works by many European historians pandered to their states’ nationalist interests to a varying extent. This publication will only briefly introduce some figures and stories of German and French historiography in the 19th century, which are relevant to our topic.

     In German, historical universalism and optimism were represented by historians such as Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–1884), and many others. They believed that a historian’s work is entirely dependent on their sources and that they first have to overcome their subjective knowledge and clearly delimit the analysed facts. A historian, in their opinion, must first create an image of facts and the connections between them, in order to describe the state of things and subsequent changes, and thus determine how history unfolded. Many of these historians expected that the auxiliary sciences of history would progress further in the future, creating a new heuristic and a new, deeper and more comprehensive concept of history.

     The paradigm this generation of German historians used to analyse history was gradually overcome – partly although through their own work. The shifts in the understanding of history and historicity were inseparably connected to the growing influence of nationalist political and historical models, and technological and scientific progress. German historians had to react to many issues in the context of historical thinking and research.

     The crisis of German historical universalism and optimism started in the last decades of the 19th century, mainly as a crisis of optimism. More and more historians were sceptical towards the work of the previous two scholarly generations (historian and theologian Ernst Troeltsch [1865–1923], historian and philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey [1833–1911] etc.) and their criticism grew more forceful. A significant critical figure was the German historian Karl Lamprecht (1856–1915), who was also one of the most criticised historians of his time. His approach to history reduced the importance of politics and economy and emphasised psychology and ethics, as a reaction to a historiography focused mainly on legal history and national economy. All of these figures influenced the development of German political nationalism, as well as theologians in the main German denominations.

     French historiography underwent a similarly complex process in the 19th century. It had three stages: a romanticist one, a universalist, optimist and positivist one, and a third one symbolised by a crisis of optimism and positivism. Romanticist historiography mainly focused on the freedom of the individual in history, while optimist-positivist historiography mainly collected facts on the historical process and then interpreted them. The third stage of French historiography reacted to the ongoing crisis of positivism in the last decades of the 19th century.

     The first stage reacted to the political and nationalist impulses brought about by the French Revolution and the Imperial period, and later the liberalist Restoration. The Restoration years (1820–30) gave rise to great French historians, such as Francois P. G. Guizot (1787–1874), Augustine Thierry (1795–1856), Jules Michelet (1798–1874), and many others

     They were succeeded by a generation of optimist-positivist historians. While romanticism saw freedom and national and patriotic sentiments as the foundation of all intellectualism, this new historiography emphasised truth as the key element of everything. Positivism aimed to find this truth using objective and scientific methods, so that it corresponded to specific realities. From the 1850s onwards, positivism became the guiding principle of French science, philosophy, literature, and the arts. The three great historians of this period, Ernest Renan (1823–1892), Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) and Numa D. Fustel de Coulanges (1830–1889), all used a similar historical method and subscribed to the same cult of historical truth. Fustel de Coulanges saw religion as the work of humanity, motivated by contemporary political, cultural, and nationalist ideals. He believed that political institutions (family, community, class) were founded on the religious and nationalist concept of ancestors as protectors of society and understood history as a science of fact, not speculation.

     In the third stage of French historiography of the 19th century, the views of historians and their ‘schools’ became more differentiated, as a result of the crisis of positivist historiography. Important French historians of this period include Albert Sorel (1842–1906), Ernest Denis (1849–1921) a Charles Seignobos (1854–1942). This generation did not experience the peace and detachment that the search for the truth brought the positivist generation and historians such as Renan, Taine, and Fustel de Coulanges. Their works were fuelled by a national crisis (France was defeated by Germany) and French nationalism.

        Particularly, E. Denis was a member of this generation, which whose life story unfolded in quite a complex way. First, he studied at the École normale supérieure – an institution that also produced H. Taine and Fustel de Coulanges – where he learned of the positivist method. Denis aimed not only to ascertain facts, but also to uncover the ideological causes for specific events (including those motivated by nationalism). While looking for the underlying sources of facts and explaining events through motivating factors, Denis was looking for the intrinsic value and overall meaning of this information. His historical method also bore traces of psychological causalism and fatalism and he often pronounced judgements on the psychological, national, and moral dimensions of the depicted events.

     Another historian of this period was Charles Seignobos. He studied history under Foustel de Coulanges at the École normale supérieure and later in the German Göttingen. His quest was to find the limits of historical knowledge and he engaged in a dialogue between history and other social sciences – especially sociology and psychology. He worked with a number of questions which were taken over by 20th century historiography. Seignobos promoted strictly logical and objectivist positivism and focused on the medieval and modern history of Europe. He reduced history to the study of people in society and in their relationships and focused on individuals and their actions, including their religious, political, cultural, and national motivations.

     The abovementioned French scholars became more and more sceptical towards the methods and results of the previous two generations. They influenced both the development of French political nationalism and the theologians of the main French denominations.

     Many German and French historians also presented criticism of historical universalism and optimism at the first global congress of historians at the Hague in 1898.