Council of Trent

Meeting in the northern Italian city of Trent in three periods between 1545 and 1563, the Council of Trent was the Catholic Church's main answer to the Protestant Reformation. Counted by the Church as its nineteenth ecumenical council, it set out Catholic teaching on the points Protestants disputed and began a broad programme of internal reform. Its decrees shaped Catholic doctrine, worship and church life for roughly four centuries, and it is often seen as the clearest expression of the Counter-Reformation.

Soon after Martin Luther issued his 95 Theses in 1517, he and many Germans called for a general council to settle the disputes. The papacy was reluctant, fearing a revival of the old claim that councils stood above popes. Lutherans wanted a council free of papal control, and the rivalry between France and the Emperor Charles V made agreement on a time and place difficult. Pope Clement VII, shaken by the Sack of Rome in 1527, delayed any meeting. His successor Paul III summoned a council to Mantua for 1537, but war and Protestant refusal to attend prevented it from opening. Attempts at reconciliation, such as the talks at the Diet of Regensburg, also failed.

The council finally opened at Trent, then a prince-bishopric within the Holy Roman Empire, on 13 December 1545, with only about 30 bishops present. Its first period lasted until 1547 under Paul III, and the council was formally suspended in 1549. Reconvened by Julius III in May 1551, it broke up again in 1552 when the Protestant Maurice of Saxony defeated Charles V and advanced into the Tyrol. The final period, under Pius IV, ran from January 1562 to 4 December 1563. No pope attended in person; papal legates presided. Italian and Spanish bishops dominated, and the decrees were finally signed by 255 members.

The council affirmed that scripture and church tradition together were sources of authority, confirmed the traditional Catholic list of biblical books, and declared the Latin Vulgate the authoritative text for public use. Against the Protestant teaching of justification by faith alone, it taught that people are justified through cooperation with God's grace. It reaffirmed all seven sacraments, described the Mass as a true sacrifice and used the term transubstantiation for the change of the bread and wine. Purgatory, the veneration of saints and relics, and indulgences were all upheld, though abuses were condemned. Many decrees ended with formal condemnations of opposing views.

Alongside doctrine, the council tackled abuses that reformers had criticised. It banned the sale of indulgences, required bishops to reside in their dioceses, restricted the holding of several church offices at once, tightened discipline in convents and called for better education of clergy. A late decree on religious images, prompted by French concerns, stressed that art should teach and inspire the faithful, an idea later associated with the rise of Baroque church art.

Pius IV confirmed the decrees in January 1564. The papacy then issued an index of forbidden books, the Tridentine profession of faith, a catechism in 1566, a revised breviary in 1568 and a new missal in 1570, which standardised the Latin Mass for the next four hundred years. Catholic Italy, Portugal and Poland accepted the decrees, Philip II of Spain did so with reservations to protect royal rights, and France recognised only the doctrinal parts. Protestant writers attacked the council in many books, while the next ecumenical council did not meet until 1869.

Our 1530 map shows Trent within the Holy Roman Empire on the border of the Italian lands, close to the council's opening; the 1600 map shows Europe a generation after it closed.