Wars of Religion and the Scientific Revolution, 1560 to 1648

This is Unit Seventeen of Western Civilization One, part two of two: the Scientific Revolution from Bacon to Descartes, the five procedures the exam tests on this last band, and the capstone that closes the course's story. Part one ended at Westphalia, with standing armies and order above religion. Carry the same idea through this part: one world breaking in two ways, and this is the second break, in the head. Natural philosophy had described a universe everyone already knew; humanism showed the ancients disagreed; Bacon said start from experience and try to disprove. Copernicus moved the sun in fifteen forty-three, Brahe gathered the data, Kepler drew the ellipses, and Galileo saw the moons in sixteen ten and knelt before the Inquisition in sixteen thirty-three, during the same religious war. Descartes doubted his way to a mechanical universe, and God became its clockmaker. Science gained authority because it could be shown. Newton and the Enlightenment lie past the exam's edge, and the course stops where they begin. By the end you will be able to define the method. To tell the heavens from Ptolemy to Galileo's physics. To describe the body, Descartes and deism. To sequence, map, classify, sort and read two documents. And to state the two breaks.

Three entries on method: a science that described what was already known, the two halves of the new reasoning, and Bacon's rules beside Newton's alchemy.

To describe the truth, not discover it.

WC1 1619 Natural Philosophy: Describing a Universe Already Known

For a thousand years Europeans explained nature by Aristotle and the ancients plus Christian scholarship. Science was natural philosophy, cataloguing without explaining beyond authority, because, the anchor says, everyone already knew how the world worked from myth, the ancients and the Bible: to describe the truth, not discover it. Humanism started the change, since the ancient authors disagreed with each other.

Facts to theory, or theory to facts.

WC1 1620 Inductive and Deductive: The New Method's Two Halves

Inductive reasoning starts from facts and builds a theory; deductive starts from a theory and fits observations to it, the geocentric universe the classic case. Mathematics kept deduction honest as a divine language promising certainty, in Leonardo, Galileo and Newton, and astronomy came first because the ancients had not explained the planets. Both halves belong to real science; the exam tests the definitions.

Hypothesis, disproof, repetition, and an alchemist.

WC1 1621 Bacon's Method and the Alchemist's Motive

Francis Bacon, fifteen sixty-one to sixteen twenty-six, codified the scientific method: hypothesis, then the attempt to disprove it, and repeatable results, breaking with ancient authority entirely, a prophet rather than a scientist, the anchor says. Yet Newton was an alchemist and astronomers were astrologers; the urge to probe secrets still produced discovery. Magic and science overlapped.

Six entries on the heavens: why the spheres fit theology, the canon who moved the sun, the observer and the mathematician, the telescope, the trial, and the physics.

Heaven beyond the last sphere, hell below.

WC1 1622 Ptolemy's Spheres: Why Geocentrism Fit Christian Theology

Ptolemy and Aristotle set the earth at the center inside crystal spheres, the anchor's nearly eighty in Ptolemy's version. The earth was imperfect and changing, the heavens perfect, so God sat beyond the last sphere and hell below: geocentrism fit theology, and heaven up and hell down come from this model, the anchor says. Planets' irregular paths forced ever more elaborate fixes.

A book published at its author's death.

WC1 1623 Copernicus, 1543: The Sun at the Center

Nicolaus Copernicus, fourteen seventy-three to fifteen forty-three, a Polish canon, argued in a book published at his death that the system worked with the sun at the center: heliocentrism. He kept the spheres and Ptolemy's calculations, and most astronomers were dismayed. A Renaissance man, doctor, painter and Greek scholar, the anchor says, which calls him a priest; a canon, not certainly ordained.

Data gathered to refute, used to prove.

WC1 1624 Brahe's Data, Kepler's Ellipses

Tycho Brahe spent twenty years observing to refute heliocentrism and left the data that disproved him. Johannes Kepler, his assistant and imperial mathematician to Rudolf the Second, used it to prove the sun central and, by convention, that planets move in ellipses, sensing a force from the sun he called magnetism. Kepler's ellipses are unwitnessed; the anchor says only sun-centered.

Mountains on the moon, moons around Jupiter.

WC1 1625 Galileo's Telescope: The Starry Messenger, 1610

Galileo Galilei, fifteen sixty-four to sixteen forty-two, built a telescope from a description and saw the moon's mountains, the sun's spots and Jupiter's moons. The Starry Messenger of sixteen ten showed the heavens full of unknown objects, imperfect like the earth, publicly demonstrated and famous across Europe's elites. Ancient knowledge itself now looked unreliable, and that was the disruption.

A pope mocked, a doctrine condemned, a book banned.

WC1 1626 The Dialogue, the Trial of 1633, and the Index

His Dialogue of sixteen thirty-two let a heliocentrist win every argument against Simplicio, whose name suggests simple-mindedness and whom Pope Urban the Eighth took as himself. Tried by the Inquisition in sixteen thirty-three for a condemned doctrine, not heresy as such, Galileo recanted, and the book sat on the Index until eighteen twenty-two. Religious war was the trial's backdrop, the anchor says.

Motion without a continuing push.

WC1 1627 Galileo's Physics: Inertia Against Aristotle

Six years after the Index, Galileo published Two New Sciences of Motion and Mechanics, with inertia and acceleration defined mathematically against Aristotle, who held that motion needed a continuing push: experiments, then formulas. The anchor rates the physics as important as the astronomy. Less remembered, equally important, and the exam may ask.

Three entries on body, mind and after: anatomy from cadavers and blood in circulation, Descartes doubting his way to certainty, and a clockmaker God.

Cadavers cut, and the heart as pump.

WC1 1628 Vesalius and Harvey: The Body Observed

Medicine still followed Galen's four humors and bled the sick. Andreas Vesalius, fifteen fourteen to sixty-four, a Fleming at Padua where the anchor says Italian, published anatomy from cadavers; William Harvey, fifteen seventy-eight to sixteen fifty-seven, showed the heart pumps blood in circulation, not the liver, with Renaissance drawing and print making anatomy shareable. Both rest on the anchor, and contagion stayed unexplained.

I think, therefore I am, and a clockwork world.

WC1 1629 Descartes: Doubt, Deduction, and the Mechanical Universe

Rene Descartes, fifteen ninety-six to sixteen fifty, doubted everything he could and found one certainty, that he thought, therefore he was, and deduced God from it, deductive reasoning applied to belief, in the Discourse on Method of sixteen thirty-seven by convention. The universe ran by mechanical, mathematical laws that God had set going, a non-meddling God, the anchor says, the road to deism.

Authority from what could be shown.

WC1 1630 Deism, Cultural Authority, and Where the Revolution Led

The mechanical universe suggested God as clockmaker, deism, which undermined no belief at the time. Science gained authority because its results were demonstrable, Galileo letting Romans view buildings through his telescope, and the anchor traces later skepticism from it. Newton's Principia of sixteen eighty-seven lies beyond this course, and Newton, Spinoza and Pascal are named as direction only.

Five procedures: the war in four phases by who entered, the map of sixteen forty-eight by three readings, a conflict classified by two tests, astronomers sorted by what each kept and broke, and Galileo's abjuration read against Bacon.

Four phases, named for who entered.

WC1 1631 Sequencing the Thirty Years' War's Four Phases

The anchor's structure is four phases by the power that entered. Bohemian, sixteen eighteen to twenty-five, from the Defenestration to White Mountain. Danish, twenty-five to twenty-nine, Christian the Fourth crushed and the Edict of Restitution. Swedish, thirty to thirty-five, Gustavus from Breitenfeld to his death. French, thirty-five to forty-eight, Bourbon against Habsburg to Westphalia. The Defenestration and Frederick's election are Bohemian; White Mountain in sixteen twenty ends that phase; Restitution in twenty-nine ends the Danish; Breitenfeld in thirty-one, Gustavus's death in thirty-two and Wallenstein's murder in thirty-four are Swedish; Westphalia ends the French. The phases are named for who entered, not who won, and the Catholics won the first two. Richelieu's money arrived in sixteen thirty, five years before French troops.

A mosaic, two Habsburg branches, and the winners' gains.

WC1 1632 Reading a Map of Europe After Westphalia

Read the map of sixteen forty-eight three ways: the Empire as a mosaic of autonomous states, the two Habsburg branches at its edges, and the winners' gains, French land on the Rhine and Swedish land on the Baltic, with the independent Dutch Republic in the northwest. Hundreds of small colored states between France and Poland are the Empire after Westphalia. A band along the Rhine in French colors is France's gain; a Baltic coast in Swedish colors is Sweden's. Seven provinces independent of Spain are the Dutch Republic. A Bohemia shaded Catholic is correct after White Mountain. Spain still holds the southern Netherlands and Italy on any correct map, and the Franco-Spanish war ran past sixteen forty-eight. Westphalia ended the German war, not every war.

Divided by confession, or fighting co-religionists.

WC1 1633 Classifying a Conflict: Religious, Dynastic, or Both

Ask two questions: were the sides divided by confession, and did any power fight its own co-religionists. Confession dividing with no crossover is religious; confession shared with crossover is dynastic; both signs is mixed, the usual case. Catholic mobs killing Huguenots at a royal wedding is religious. The Catholic League fighting a Catholic king is dynastic inside religious, mixed. Calvinist provinces revolting against a Catholic king who was their sovereign is mixed, with taxes and the Inquisition together. A Protestant queen's fleet against a Catholic Armada is religious on the surface, dynastic and commercial beneath. Catholic France paying a Lutheran king to fight Catholic Habsburgs is dynastic. The anchor's sequence is the key: religious causes dominated to sixteen thirty-five, dynastic after, which is why France's entry mattered.

What each kept, what each broke.

WC1 1634 Sorting Astronomers: What Each Kept and Each Broke

Sort the astronomers in two columns, what each kept from Ptolemy and what each broke. Copernicus kept the spheres and circles, broke the earth's centrality. Brahe kept the earth central, broke the reliance on old data. Kepler kept heliocentrism, broke the circles by convention, and sensed a force. Galileo kept mathematics, broke the heavens' perfection with a telescope. A book published at its author's death moving the sun while keeping spheres is Copernicus. A castle observatory producing tables a rival used to prove the opposite is Brahe. A Protestant mathematician at a Catholic emperor's court proving the sun central from another man's data is Kepler. A public demonstration of Jupiter's moons is Galileo. A heliocentrist of the third century B.C.E. on the witness is Aristarchus. Copernicus was not persecuted and Galileo was, a century apart, because the backdrop had changed to religious war, and Galileo built a telescope from a description rather than inventing it.

Who speaks, under what pressure, and what the words concede.

WC1 1635 Reading Galileo's Abjuration and Bacon's Novum Organum

For a document, ask who speaks, under what pressure, and what the words concede or claim. Galileo's abjuration of sixteen thirty-three and Bacon's Novum Organum of sixteen twenty, both read in translation from Fordham's Modern History Sourcebook, are the pair. Galileo speaks kneeling before the Inquisition, under threat, and abjures the opinion that the sun is central and the earth moves; he concedes that the Church may define which doctrines are permitted, and the text assumes a scientific claim can be a doctrine. Bacon speaks as a philosopher under no pressure and argues that the idols of the mind, of the tribe, the cave, the marketplace and the theater, corrupt observation, so knowledge must be rebuilt from experience; he claims ancient authority is worthless as a starting point and assumes nature can be read by method. Together they show a method being born and an authority resisting it in the same decade. The abjuration is not evidence that Galileo changed his mind, and the idols are biases, not superstitions.

One capstone entry: the exam's last band, fifteen sixty to sixteen forty-eight, as one world breaking in two ways.

War from Vassy to Westphalia, method from Bacon to Descartes.

WC1 1636 1560 to 1648: How Religious War and New Science Ended the Old Order

The exam's last band runs from fifteen sixty to sixteen forty-eight, and the anchor's two chapters describe one world breaking in two ways. The first break was war. Augsburg had let princes choose their subjects' religion, and no one anywhere believed a rival confession could be saved. France fought itself from Vassy in fifteen sixty-two through St. Bartholomew's Day to the three Henrys, until Henry the Fourth bought Paris with a mass and Nantes in fifteen ninety-eight made tolerance a matter of state rather than belief. Philip the Second fought the Dutch, who declared a republic in fifteen eighty-one, and England, whose ships beat the Armada in fifteen eighty-eight, and bankrupted Spain doing it. Then the Empire: a window in Prague in sixteen eighteen, Catholic victories to sixteen twenty-nine, Sweden with French money, France itself in sixteen thirty-five, and Westphalia in sixteen forty-eight, which left the Empire a mosaic of autonomous states, the sample question's answer, and eight million dead. After it, states built standing armies and wanted order above religion, which is where absolutism begins. The second break was in the head. Natural philosophy had described a universe everyone already knew; humanism showed the ancients disagreed; Bacon said start from experience and try to disprove; Copernicus moved the sun in fifteen forty-three, Brahe gathered the data, Kepler drew the ellipses, and Galileo saw the moons in sixteen ten and knelt before the Inquisition in sixteen thirty-three during the same religious war. Descartes doubted his way to a mechanical universe, and God became its clockmaker. Vesalius cut, Harvey traced the blood, and science gained authority because it could be shown. Newton, the Royal Society and the Enlightenment lie past the exam's edge, and the course stops where they begin. The exam does not ask whether religion or science did more to end the medieval world, and the course does not say; it asks what Augsburg allowed, what happened on St. Bartholomew's Day, what Nantes granted, why the Dutch revolted, what the Armada was, what the Defenestration began, what Westphalia decided, what Bacon's method was, what Copernicus proposed, why Galileo was tried. The anchor's figures are attributed, its errors on Charles the Ninth, Wallenstein, Ferdinand's title and Vesalius's nationality corrected, Vassy, White Mountain, Breitenfeld and Osnabruck come from the witnesses, Kepler's ellipses are convention and said so, and Ivry, Ravaillac and Bodin are disclosures.

Look at what you can now do. You can say that natural philosophy described a known universe, define inductive against deductive, and describe Bacon's hypothesis, disproof and repetition beside Newton's alchemy. You can explain why the spheres fit theology, and tell Copernicus's book of fifteen forty-three, Brahe's data and Kepler's ellipses, Galileo's moons in sixteen ten, his trial in thirty-three, and his inertia. You can describe Vesalius and Harvey, Descartes's one certainty and clockwork world, and deism with Newton as direction only. You can sequence four phases by who entered, read the map of sixteen forty-eight three ways, classify a conflict by two tests, sort astronomers by what they kept and broke, and read an abjuration against a method. And you can state the two breaks, war from Vassy to Westphalia and method from Bacon to Descartes, which is this unit's one idea. Unit eighteen is the capstone: six periods, one exam, and the ten sample questions worked as a set.