Religion and the People of Western Europe 1789-1989

From the end of the eighteenth century, throughout western Europe. the official clergy. champions of privilege and tradition. were challenged by religious dissenters and minorities. Chapel confi'onted church ill Britain and Scandinavia; Catholics struggled against Protestants in Germany and Ireland. The war between anti-clerical and Catholic in France and Spain reached its climax in the Spanish bloodbath of the

RELlG lONi/lld/he PEOPLE 0/ WESTERN EUROPE 1789-1989 Hugh McLeod New edition

OPUS

New

edition

1930s.

This book dearly maps out these polarizations and analyses the impact on religion of socialism. capitalism. and the growth of cities. It examines the contrasts between the religion of the middle and working classes and between men and women. It discusses the appeal of movements like Methodism, Secularism. and Ultramontane Catholicism. and considers the crisis faced by the churches in many countries in the 19605. A new concluding chapter examines the role of religion up to 1989. and how it has been afT('!cted by modern changes in society and belie[~.

The 0 PUS series provides concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects.

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OPUS General Editors Christopher Butler Robert Evans John Skorupski OPUS books provide concise, original, and authoritative introductions to a wide range of subjects in the humanities and sciences. They are written by experts for the general reader as well as for students.

Hugh McLeod

Religion and the People of Western Europe 1789-1989

Oxford New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 tiD!' Oxford University Press is 11 departmellt of the Univasity of Oxford, It furtlwrs the Ullivasity's objective of excell,mce in res/!arch, scholarship. and educatioll by ptlblishi,,~ 'lvorldwitiB hl Oxford N/!w YOI''' Atll:"I",/(I J3allglw" Buellos Ai,."s Cape Towll Chell1wi Dar es Salaam Delhi /lollg KOllg Ist(mbul Karachi Kollwta Kuala Lumpur Madrid il1elboul"lle il1.exico City illumbai Nairobi Silo Paulo Shanghai Taipei To"j'o Toronto Oxford is a registered trade II/ar" of O:"furd Ulliversity PI'l'SS ill tIll, UK alld ill certaill other ('OIllttries (,") Hugh Jl.1cLeod J9fil. 1997 First Publislwd as (Ilt Oxford University Press papa/wei, 19fiI Seumd Editioll 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this publicatiollmay be reproduced. stored ill a relrli!7Ja[ s)lstiml, or transmitted, il1 allY form or by allY l1wallS. wilhout the prior permissioll ill wrilillg of Oxford Ulliversily Press. H/ithin the UK, excepliolls are aI/owed in respecl of any fair dealillg for Ihe purpose of l'eSBarch or private study. or cr£t£dsm or review. as permitted tlllder Ihe Copyright. Des1fllls a11lI Palellls Act, 198fi. or ill Ihe case of reprOf.!fllphic reproductt"on in accordance 'With the terms of the licences issued by the COPYYlKht Licensing Agency. E1lqllir£es c01l((!1'lli1lg I'l!j,rutiuction outside these terms and in other cou1ltries should be seul 10 Ihe Righls Deparllllflll. Oxford Uuiv",s;ly Prt!ss. at Ihe address a/Jove British Libl'llry Cataloguing iu Publiml;oll Dala Jl.1cLwd. Hugh Religioll awi the people (4 Weslem Bump" 17fi9J9fi9 ,(OPUS) I. Eumpe Rtdigioll 1. Tille 20()'.94 BR738.2 ISBN 978·0·19·289283·6

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Preface

This book starts from the assumption that the period from the French Revolution to the 1960s forms a distinct phase in western Europe's religious history. The central theme of the period was a widespread revolt against the various official churches that had emerged triumphant from the turmoil of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the consequent breakdown of the religious unity that had been imposed in most areas. In Calvinist Holland a large Catholic minority had survived, and in Ireland the great majority remained Catholic, in spite of the efforts of their English rulers; also, in England, Scotland and Holland, substantial groups of dissenting Protestants were able to establish themselves. But in the later eighteenth century the Iberian Peninsula was homogeneously Catholic, the Scandinavian countries were homogeneously Lutheran; many parts of Germany were overwhelmingly of one religion, and in France the Protestant minority had been reduced to very small proportions. Even in those countries which allowed some degree of religious freedom, dissenters suffered numerous disabilities, and the lives of the great majority were closely bound up with the official churches. From 1789 on, the attack on the power and influence of the official churches was an integral part of any attack on the existing political and social order, and the demand for religious freedom and equality became an essential part of any programme of liberal reform. In these years religion became a fundamental source of division in west European societies, and nearly all of them saw the formation of organised blocs of believers and unbelievers, clericals and anti-clericals, state church supporters and sectarians. This is why the nineteenth century was both the archetypal period of secularisation, and a great age of religious revival: as large numbers were alienated from the official church, religion ceased to provide a focus of social unity; but it became instead a major basis for the distinctive identity of specific communities, classes, factions in a divided society. Many people iound their loyalty to their churches intensified in the process. Chapters 1 and 2 trace the various patterns of religious polarisation that were established in the earlier part of this period: Chapter 1 shows how religion became integral to the conflict between Right and Left

vi Religiotl and the People of Westen! Europe

during the revolutionary years in France, and remained so in most parts of western Europe throughout the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth; Chapter 2 shows how economic change widened the gulf between the religious life of rich and poor, and perhaps of men and women. Chapter 3 looks at the kinds of religious movements that flourished most vigorously in these conditions, and at the widespread tendency in the later nineteenth century for ideological communities with fundamentally opposed views of the world to build their own ghettos. Chapters 4-7 look at the characteristic forms of religion in town and countryside, in the working class and in the urban middle class, and at the consequences for religion of the mass movement of popUlation from country to city. Chapter 8 looks at the fading away of the religious patterns established in the period following the French Revolution. In some areas, notably Britain and Scandinavia, this was already happening in the early twentieth century; but in most countries these patterns remained strongly in evidence until after the Second World War, and it was the 1960s that brought this phase of religious history to an abrupt end. Like any other book of its kind, this one is highly selective. No single author could do justice to all aspects of the religious history of western Europe during this period - even with limitless space, and a lifetime to do it in. This book concentrates heavily on England, France and Germany, and is almost entirely based on works in the English, French and German languages - though it also includes some material on Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Austria, Switzerland, the Low Countries, the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia. It is exclusively concerned with the gentile population of these countries: for an analysis of the effects of emancipation and urbanisation on Jewish religious life, the reader is recommended to consult Stephen Sharot's Judaism: A Sociology, New York, 1976. The book also highlights particular points in time, notably the 1790s, the 1880s and 1890s, and the 1960s, partly because developments in these decades seem to me especially significant, and partly because these happen to be the periods where the documentation is most abundant; on the other hand, periods like 1914-50, for which the secondary literature is much thinner, have received more superficial treatment. It is also selective in its overall approach: its main concern is with the part played by the official churches, and by other religious or anti-religious movements in the life of the various sections of the population, and with the ways in which the character and social role of religion changed as a result of the liberalisation and democratisation of society, urbanisation and the development of capitalism. I have accordingly emphasised class relationships, as these seem to me to have had a fundamental bearing on these

Preface vii

issues, and I have paid much less attention to, for instance, developments in philosophy or religious thought, which seem to me to have had less effect in these areas. Similarly, because of my stress on the social role of churches and religious movements, there is relatively little discussion of individual religious experience. In the Further Reading section I have mentioned some of the most interesting books in the areas covered by each chapter, and named those authors whose work I have drawn particularly heavily upon. I have used the notes to identify quotations, to indicate obscure sources, or to provide some support for controversial or unexpected assertions. I want to thank Paul Thompson and Thea Vigne for allowing me to quote from their interviews on family life and work experience before 1918, and Dr Frances Lannon for permission to refer to material from her unpublished D.Phil.thesis; David Gaunt for help with a section on Sweden; Derek Lomax for teaching me some Spanish, and for advice on reading on Spain; John Fletcher and Peter Jones for sharing their ideas and books at many points; and my wife, Jackie, for her continuing encouragement and support. Preface to Revised edition.

Chapters 1-7 are substantially the same as in Religion and the People of ~ste1"rl Europe, ]789-]970, published in 1981, except that I have rewritten the second part of Chapter 2 in the light of the extensive new research on religion and gender published since 1980. Writing on this theme in 1979 I had the feeling of making bricks without straw, because so little previous work had been done. I therefore felt it necessary to give this section more substance, though I have not made any major changes in the argument. Elsewhere I have made a number of minor corrections. The other part of the original book with which I felt unhappy was the final chapter. This has therefore been largely rewritten and brought forward to 1989. I have also updated the suggestions for further reading. I would like to thank Peter van Rooden for help with sections on the Netherlands.

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