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Sixteenth-Century
European Reformations
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History 441/541
Sixteenth-Century European Reformations |
| 1521 | Diet of Worms (January-May): Luther is placed under imperial ban, his teachings are outlawed. |
| 1522-1523 | Diet of Nuremberg (November 1522-February 1523): the estates demand a 'free Christian council' to resolve the religious controversy |
| 1522-1523 | The "Knights' War": free imperial knights form a fraternal association to oppose, among other things, the imperial ban against noble feuding. |
| 1524-1525 | The "Peasants' War" |
| 1526 | Formation of the League of Torgau between Elector John of Saxony (1526-1532) and Landgrave Philip of Hesse (1518-1567) |
| 1526 | Diet of Speyer (June-August): Emperor Charles proposes to enforce the Edict of Worms (1521); the estates agree to defer resolution of the controversy over religion to a future General Council of the Church; in the meantime, the estates resolve that they "should live, govern, and act in such a way as [they] trust and hope to justify before God and the Imperial Majesty." This is taken to mean that each princes enjoys carte blanche to reform religious life as he sees fit. |
| 1529 | Diet of Speyer (March-April): a majority of estates present revoke the resolution of the previous Diet of Speyer; bans Zwinglianism from the Empire; imposes the death penalty on anyone convicted of adult baptism. |
| 1529 | Protestation of Speyer (19 July): the reforming minority of princes and city-states "protests" (whence the term "Protestant") the ruling the final resolution of the Diet of Speyer and asserts that decisions of conscience in religion are matters between the individual and God. |
| 1530 | Diet of Augsburg (April-September): convened by Emperor Charles for the purpose of restoring religious unity. The evangelical estates are asked to produce a statement of faith. The results are the Augsburg Confession -- a statement of the Lutheran, written largely by Philip Melanchthon -- and the Tetrapolitan Confession -- composed by Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer. Both were rejected by the Diet, which resolved to enforce the Edict of Worms (1521) and suppress all heretical innovations. All estates are commanded to comply by 15 April 1531; failure to do so would provoke the intervention of the Imperial Chamber Court. |
| 1530 December 25 | Formation of the League of Schmalkalden: in reaction to the resolution of the Diet of Augsburg, Elector John of Saxony and Landgrave Philip of Hesse form a defensive league of reforming princes and city-states; eventually, its membership expands to include all the reforming estates but the principality of Ansbach-Bayreuth and the city of Nuremberg. |
| 1532 | The Nuremberg Standstill: the need for Protestant aid in common defense against the Turks prompts Archduke Ferdinand of Austria to agree to a truce with the League of Schmalkalden. All suits before the Imperial Chamber Court against violators of the resolution of the Diet of Augsburg (1530) are rescinded; the Emperor agrees to take no action against the Protestant princes until a General Council of the Church has convened. |
| 1539 | When Elector Joachim II (r. 1535-1571) introduces reformation to his lands, Brandenburg becomes the second electorate to join the Protestant coalition. |
| 1546 | Elector Friedrich II (1544-1556) of the Palatinate raises the number of reforming electorates to three. |
| 1546-1547 | The First Schmalkaldic War: Emperor Charles, in alliance with the Duke of Bavaria and the Protestant Duke Moritz of Saxony, defeats the League of Schmalkalden at the Battle of Mühlberg (24 April 1547); Elector Johann the Constant is captured, deposed, and his electoral title handed to Duke Moritz. Militarily, the Protestant coalition is in ruins. |
| 1548 | The Diet of Augsburg: Emperor Charles decrees the Augsburg Interim (15 May), which imposes a compromise religious settlement; Protestants are permitted to allow clerical marriage and communion of both kinds; images are to be restore but not venerated; a clause on confession compromises on the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith; no mention is made of confiscated church lands. |
| 1548-1551 | Protestants polarize over acceptance or rejection of the Interim. |
| 1552 | The Second Schmalkaldic War: Duke Moritz of Saxony, now on the Protestant side and backed by King Henri II of France, leads a war of resistance against the Interim. The result militarily is stalemate. |
| 1555 | The Peace of Augsburg. Extends the imperial truce to religious conflicts between the Protestant and Catholic coalitions; guarantees the free exercise of religion to princes and city-states adhering to the Augsburg Confession of 1530 (but not to other Protestant confessions). The peace effectively confirms the Protestant interpretation of the resolution of the Diet of Speyer (1526), which accorded sovereign estates the right to determine the official religion of their subjects -- provision referred to subsequently as cuius regio, eius religio, i.e., the "right to determine religion belongs to him who rules the land." Under this arrangement, forcible conversion is forbidden, confessional are guaranteed to emigrate from territories from territories in which the official religion is other than their own. Imperial cities that had adopted Lutheranism, however, are required to allow minority Catholics to continue in the free exercise of their religion; this arrangement came to be known subsequently as "Parität." Furthermore, the peace makes special regulations for ecclesiastical states in the Empire: under this "ecclesiastical reservation," as it was called, a Catholic prince-bishop who converted to Protestantism would automatically forfeit all his lands, titles, and privileges. The cumulative result was a limited religious pluralism. |