AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how Romanticism challenged Enlightenment rationalism and made renewed religious feeling more attractive
- Identify why religion recovered after **1815** in the post-Napoleonic era
- Distinguish between **Romanticism**, **conservatism**, and the political alliance of **throne and altar**
- Recall key examples of Catholic and Protestant revival, including **Chateaubriand**, the **Jesuit restoration**, and **Methodism**
- Analyse how religious revival could support both social order and, at times, liberal or national causes
- Use this topic in AP European History arguments about causation, continuity, and change over time

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how religious revival accompanied Romanticism, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that Romanticism emerged in reaction against the heavy emphasis on reason found in the Enlightenment and Neoclassicism
- Understand that religious revival after **1815** was closely linked to both Romantic culture and conservative reaction
- Identify the idea of **throne and altar** as cooperation between monarchy and church to preserve order
- Explain how **François-René de Chateaubriand** defended Christianity in _The Genius of Christianity_ (**1802**)
- Know the significance of the **restoration of the Jesuits in 1814** as a sign of renewed Catholic strength
- Distinguish Catholic revival from Protestant revival, using examples such as **Methodism**, Pietist influence, and the **German Protestant Awakening**
- Recognise that Romanticism was not identical to conservatism: it could also support nationalism and liberal causes
- Place the topic in its proper chronology: it connects Unit 5 reaction after Napoleon to the broader 19th-century developments after **1815**

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. How did Romanticism differ from Enlightenment rationalism?
2. Why did many European rulers support religion after **1815**?
3. What was meant by **throne and altar**?
4. Name one Catholic and one Protestant example of religious revival in the 19th century.
5. Why is **Chateaubriand’s** _The Genius of Christianity_ important for this topic?

## Introduction

Romanticism is often remembered as an artistic and literary movement, but AP European History expects you to see more than paintings, poems, and music. Romanticism also shaped religious thought. After the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic era had weakened traditional religious authority, many Europeans turned back toward faith, mystery, emotion, and the sacred past.

This matters because the revival of religion after **1815** was not a random spiritual event. It was tied to politics, culture, and social order. Conservatives wanted religion to support monarchy and obedience. Many ordinary believers wanted something that reason alone did not provide: meaning, feeling, and moral certainty. Romanticism helped make that return to religion intellectually respectable.

> **Key Term: Romanticism**
> An intellectual and cultural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that stressed emotion, imagination, nature, subjectivity, spirituality, and the past, often in reaction against Enlightenment rationalism.

### Why Romanticism encouraged religious revival

Romanticism did not reject reason completely. That is a common mistake. Instead, it challenged the idea that reason alone could explain human life. Enlightenment thinkers often stressed logic, order, and universal rules. Romantics argued that human beings also live through feeling, awe, memory, intuition, and spiritual longing.

That shift mattered for religion. If people believe the world is only to be measured, classified, and explained, then religion can seem old-fashioned or unnecessary. But if people believe that mystery, inner experience, and the sublime are real parts of life, then religion gains new force. Romanticism reopened space for faith by insisting that the human mind and heart reach beyond cold logic.

Rousseau helped prepare the way. In _Émile_ (**1762**), he presented education through nature and feeling rather than memorised rules. His thought did not amount to a church revival by itself, but it did make emotion and inner life central. That was a major change. Once emotion became respectable, religion could be defended not only as doctrine, but as experience.

Romantic writers also admired the medieval past, folklore, and ancient religious traditions. That admiration mattered because the Middle Ages had long been treated by Enlightenment critics as backward. Romantics instead saw the medieval world as spiritually rich, imaginative, and unified. This helped restore respect for Christianity as part of Europe’s historical identity.

A strong early example was **François-René de Chateaubriand**. In _The Genius of Christianity_ (**1802**), he defended Christianity not mainly through strict theological argument, but by stressing its emotional and cultural power. He argued that Christianity inspired beauty, art, poetry, morality, and deep feeling. This was a very Romantic defence of religion.

> **Key Term: Enlightenment rationalism**
> The Enlightenment tendency to stress reason, order, evidence, and universal principles as the main guides to knowledge and society.
>
> **Key Term: Chateaubriand**
> A French writer whose _The Genius of Christianity_ (1802) defended Christianity by stressing its emotional, moral, and artistic power.

Chateaubriand’s importance is easy to miss unless you ask how his argument worked. He did not simply say Christianity was true because the Church taught it. He said Christianity answered human emotional needs and produced civilisation’s finest art and moral ideals. That method fit Romantic habits of thought. It made Christianity attractive to readers who distrusted both revolutionary violence and dry scepticism.

This is the key causal chain you should remember:

- Enlightenment criticism weakened church authority
- Revolution and war created exhaustion and instability
- Romanticism restored respect for emotion, mystery, and tradition
- Religion became appealing again as a source of meaning and order
  > **Test Tip:** In an SAQ or LEQ, do not write that Romanticism “caused” religious revival on its own. Stronger answers say it helped create a cultural climate in which renewed faith, tradition, and spirituality seemed attractive again.

### Why religious revival accelerated after 1815

The timing matters. The strongest political religious revival belongs to the period after **1815**, when Napoleon fell and the Congress of Vienna reshaped Europe. That is why this topic connects Unit 5 and the 19th century. The French Revolution had attacked old institutions, confiscated church property, and promoted secular political authority. Napoleon controlled the Church rather than submitting to it. After all that upheaval, rulers wanted stability.

Many governments concluded that religion could help provide it. Churches taught obedience, hierarchy, duty, and moral restraint. Those values suited rulers who feared another revolution. This is why post-1815 Europe often linked religion to reaction.

> **Key Term: throne and altar**
> The alliance between monarchy and established religion in which rulers and churches supported each other to preserve order, hierarchy, and obedience.

The phrase **throne and altar** captures more than symbolism. It describes a political arrangement. Monarchies protected churches through law, status, education, and censorship. Churches, in turn, helped justify monarchy as natural, sacred, or necessary. In practice, this meant that religion became a buttress of conservative society.

Examples make this clearer:

- In **England**, Anglican clergy in the House of Lords opposed reforms such as Catholic emancipation and the Great Reform Bill.
- In **Russia**, the Orthodox clergy supported the autocratic state.
- In **Spain**, the **Inquisition** was allowed to operate again after Napoleonic rule.

These examples show that revival was not purely spiritual. It had an institutional and political side. European rulers did not simply notice people becoming more devout. They actively supported religion because they thought it would reduce unrest.

The revolutions of **1848** reinforced this pattern. When revolution spread again across Europe, conservatives became even more convinced that religion was essential for social control. That is why later 19th-century Catholic revival and papal authority grew stronger, even though liberal critics also pushed back.

Students often confuse this point by treating Romantic religion as automatically liberal. It was not. Some Romantics supported liberty, nationality, or rebellion. But religious revival often supported authority and tradition. The overlap is real, but not total.

> **Key Term: conservative reaction**
> The post-Napoleonic effort to restore order, strengthen monarchy, and resist revolutionary or liberal change.
>
> **Test Tip:** If a question asks about post-1815 conservatism, link religion to repression carefully. A high-scoring answer explains how rulers used churches to strengthen order, not just that “people became more religious.”

### Catholic revival and renewed papal strength

The Catholic side of revival is especially important for AP evidence. One major symbol was the **restoration of the Jesuits in 1814** by **Pius VII**. The Society of Jesus had been suppressed in the 18th century. Its return showed that the papacy was regaining strength after the revolutionary and Napoleonic period.

> **Key Term: Jesuit restoration**
> The restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, symbolising revived Catholic education, missionary activity, and papal influence.

Why does that matter? Because the Jesuits were associated with disciplined Catholic teaching, education, and loyalty to the papacy. Their return showed that Catholic institutions were recovering, not fading away.

A second important trend was **ultramontanism**. Catholics who supported this outlook stressed strong papal authority over national churches. The term means looking “beyond the mountains,” that is, across the Alps to Rome. This pushed back against the older tendency of states to control churches within their own borders.

> **Key Term: ultramontanism**
> A 19th-century Catholic movement that stressed strong authority of the pope over national churches.

Ultramontanism became stronger later in the century, but its roots fit the same revival trend. After revolution and political fragmentation, many Catholics wanted certainty and unity. Strong papal leadership offered both.

In some countries, revival took direct legal form. **Spain** declared in **1851** that Catholicism was the only religion of the Spanish people. In **Austria**, earlier reforms imposed by **Joseph II** on the Church were repealed. These are good examples because they show religion backed by the state.

The papacy also reacted directly against modern liberalism. After revolution in Rome in **1848**, **Pius IX** fled and later returned with French military help. He then issued the _Syllabus of Errors_, condemning liberalism as one of the errors of modern life. This shows clearly that Catholic revival could be anti-liberal as well as anti-secular.

However, there is another side students should not miss. Later in the century, some Catholic thinkers argued that religion should answer social problems, not just defend authority. **Leo XIII’s** _Rerum Novarum_ (**1891**) defended property but also insisted on Christian responsibility to the poor. That does not belong to the first Restoration wave, but it shows that religious revival evolved rather than staying fixed.

### Protestant revival and the religious language of feeling

Religious revival was not only Catholic. Protestant Europe also saw renewed emotional religion. This is one of the most tested distinctions because students sometimes write only about Catholicism.

The clearest British example is **Methodism**. **John Wesley**, an Anglican preacher, travelled widely, preached to ordinary people, organised small societies, and stressed heartfelt conversion and moral reform. Though Methodism began before 1815, it fits the wider Romantic religious style because it valued inward feeling, personal experience, and active faith.

> **Key Term: Methodism**
> A Protestant revival movement associated with John Wesley that stressed personal conversion, heartfelt faith, discipline, and moral reform.

Methodism matters because it shows religion moving beyond formal institutions into lived emotional experience. It appealed especially to people who wanted a direct and active faith rather than a purely official one. That inward stress fits Romantic values.

In German-speaking Europe, **Pietism** and the **Erweckungsbewegung** or Protestant Awakening also mattered. Pietism had earlier roots, but its influence continued into the 19th century. It stressed Bible reading, prayer, inward devotion, and moral seriousness. The later Awakening renewed these themes in reaction against theological rationalism.

> **Key Term: Pietism**
> A Protestant tradition that emphasised personal devotion, Bible reading, inward faith, and moral reform.

These Protestant revivals differed from Catholic revival in style and structure. Catholic revival often centred on sacraments, papal authority, and restored institutions. Protestant revival more often stressed personal conversion, scripture, conscience, and voluntary religious activity. Both, however, shared a rejection of dry rational religion.

The **Oxford Movement**, beginning in **1833**, is slightly later and not the best first example for Protestant revival, but it is still useful. It sought to recover ritual, apostolic succession, and the historic depth of the Church of England. That too reflects a Romantic respect for tradition and sacred continuity.

The big idea is that both Catholic and Protestant revival answered similar needs:

- distrust of reason alone
- reaction against revolutionary upheaval
- desire for moral order
- attraction to history, sacred tradition, and inward experience

### How to use this topic in AP arguments

This topic works well in essays because it connects multiple AP themes: **Objective Knowledge and Subjective Visions**, **States and Other Institutions of Power**, and **National and European Identity**.

A strong argument usually does three things.

First, it gives context. Start with the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic era weakening old religious authority.

Second, it explains causation. Show how Romanticism made emotion, mystery, and tradition more attractive, while rulers after **1815** wanted religion to stabilise society.

Third, it qualifies the claim. Religious revival accompanied Romanticism, but it was not identical to Romanticism. Nor was it simply conservative. It could also feed national feeling, social reform, or criticism of modern life.

Here is the distinction students most often miss:

- **Romanticism** is a broad cultural movement
- **religious revival** is a spiritual and institutional development
- **conservatism** is a political ideology
- after **1815**, these often overlapped, but they were not the same thing

That distinction helps with comparison and complexity points in essays.

For a short-answer response, a model line would be:
After 1815, Romanticism helped encourage religious revival by restoring respect for emotion, mystery, and tradition, while conservative rulers supported religion as a defence against revolution and social disorder.

For a longer essay, you can strengthen the answer with specific evidence: **Chateaubriand**, **1814 Jesuit restoration**, **Methodism**, **throne and altar**, **Spain**, **Austria**, and **Pius IX**.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Romanticism stressed emotion, mystery, spirituality, nature, and the past in reaction against excessive Enlightenment rationalism
- Religious revival after **1815** was a major post-Napoleonic development linked to both culture and politics
- Romanticism did not reject reason entirely, but challenged the idea that reason alone was enough
- **Chateaubriand’s** _The Genius of Christianity_ (**1802**) defended Christianity through emotion, beauty, and moral depth
- The idea of **throne and altar** describes cooperation between monarchy and church to preserve order
- Conservative rulers supported religion because they feared revolution and wanted stronger social discipline
- Catholic revival included the **Jesuit restoration in 1814** and later growth of **ultramontanism**
- Protestant revival included **Methodism**, Pietist influence, and the **German Protestant Awakening**
- Religious revival was not only Catholic and should not be confused with the American Second Great Awakening
- Romanticism, conservatism, and religious revival overlapped after **1815** but were not identical
- Evidence from **England**, **Russia**, **Spain**, **Austria**, and **France** shows church-state cooperation in different forms
- This topic is useful in AP essays about causation, comparison, and continuity and change over time

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Romanticism
- Enlightenment rationalism
- Chateaubriand
- throne and altar
- conservative reaction
- Jesuit restoration
- ultramontanism
- Methodism
- Pietism


Romanticism - Religious revival accompanied Romanticism