1527 to 1534

Society

1527. England's Henry VIII appeals to Rome for permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon so that he may marry his young mistress Anne Boleyn.

Literature

The Courtier. Baldassare Castiglione. Italian. 1528. Courtesy. Four books. Dialogues. The perfect courtier and court lady. The courtier is versatile, but nonchalant. His role is to guide princes in government.

Society

1529. London has a severe epidemic of the sweating sickness and the disease spreads within 2 months to Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen, reaches Mecklenburg a month later (August), reaches Konigsberg and Danzig in September, and then strikes Gottingen.

1529. Protestantism gets its name, April 16, as followers of Martin Luther protest a ruling by the Diet of Speyer forbidding the teaching of Luther's ideas in Catholic states while letting Catholics teach in Lutheran states.

1529. Henry VIII removes Cardinal Wolsey as his lord chancellor, October 17, for failing to secure a papal annulment of his marriage; he replaces Wolsey with Thomas More.

1530. The Confession of Augsburg, read at the diet in that city, June 25, is a detailed explanation of Lutheranism designed to reconcile the Protestants with the Catholic Church. It has been prepared by Philipp Melancthon, 33. The diet is unmoved and orders the abolition of all innovations.

1531. The potato, discovered in the Andes by Spanish conquistador Jiminez de Quesada, 30, will provide Europe with a cheap source of food and thus spur population growth.

1531. An earthquake shatters Lisbon, January 26, killing 30,000.

1531. Atahualpa in Peru has his half brother Huascar put to death and becomes the Inca himself.

1532. The Inca Atahualpa visits the Spanish camp of Francisco Pizarro, who has ascended the Andes. Pizarro seizes the Inca, November 16, and holds him for ransom.

Literature

Gargantua and Pantagruel. Francois Rabelais. 1532/64. Satire. Renaissance thirst for erudition; development of all human faculties; human nature is fundamentally good. Satirizes religious, political, legal, and social institutions of 16th-century France.

Society

1533. England's Henry VIII secretly marries Anne Boleyn, 26.

1533. The Peruvian Empire ends, August 29, with the strangulation of the last Inca, Atahualpa. He has been condemned to death, despite the payment of a huge ransom for his release. His death was the most infamous act of treachery committed by the Spanish conquistadors.

1533. The future Queen Elizabeth is born to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

1534. French explorer Jacques Cartier, 43, sails into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1534. Henry VIII breaks with the Church of Rome which has voided the annulment of his marriage to Catherine and has excommunicated him. The Reformation is established in England by the Act of Supremacy which appoints the king and his successors "Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England."

1534. England's Henry VIII will break up the nation's Catholic monasteries.

1534. The Society of Jesus is founded by Ignatius Loyola.