The Rise of “Confessions”

I. Why Was Religion So Political?
A. The Claims of Religion were Universal and Exclusive
B. Churches Were Still “Proprietary”
C. Church Wealth Attracted Predators
D. Only the State Possessed Enough Resources for Reform

II. The Rise of “Confessions”

III. The Peace of Augsburg, 1555

Image: El Greco, The Adoration of the Name of Jesus (1578-79)

Map: Ecclesiastical Territories in the Empire
Map: Religious Divisions in Central Europe, c. 1600

Graph: English Crown Revenues, 1530-1547
Image: The Synod of Dordrecht (1618-1619)
Chart: The Saxon Church (1580)

Image: The “Confession Image” of Kasendorf (1602)
Image: The “Scripture Altar” in Norden (1582)

The Peace of Augsburg (1555)
cuius regio, eius religio: He who rules shall establish the religion

Image top: Adriaen Petersz. van de Venne (c. 1589-1662), De Zielenvisserij (1614). Oil on panel, 98.5 x 187.8 cm. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. In this painting van de Venne represented the moral superiority claimed by Dutch leaders. The painting visualizes Christ's words to his disciples, "I will make you fishers of men," as a contemporary contest for souls between two Reformed boats at left and two Catholic vessels at right. The orderly Dutch Protestants are more successful, catching people with the Bible and with the Christian virtues Hope, Faith, and Charity inscribed in the net. The near-capsizing Catholic monks use incense and music for lures. On the left bank, Dutch leaders are neatly aligned, opposite the less numerous Flemish dignitaries on the other side. Although the Southern Netherlandish camp is painted respectfully, their background is literally constituted by a withered tree and a Pope borne by adulatory monks

Image: Seven-Headed Luther
Image: Whore of Babylon (1534)
Image: Passional Christi und Antichristi (1521)
Image: The Pope as Antichrist (1611)

Image: Eduard Schoen, Luther, des Teufels Dudelsck (Luther as the Devil's Bagpipe) (1535). Schloßmuseum Friedenstein. Source: Wikimedia.

Top: This map shows the religious divisions of Europe in about 1560, when the fortunes of Roman Catholicism were at their lowest point. Elizabeth I had re-established a brand of Protestantism as the official religion there; most of northern Germany and all of Scandinavia were officially Lutheran; there were some 2,000 Huguenot communities within the boundaries of France;  Calvinism was ascendant in most of Switzerland; and in Austria, Hungary, and Poland, large segments of the nobility practiced some version of reformed Christianity.

Bottom: This map shows the religious divisions of Europe after the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), and shows advances of a resurgent Catholicism. The change was greatest in regions subject to the Habsburg dynasty, such as Flanders, where Calvinism had been effectively driven out; in the Habsburg "Crown Lands" of Austria and Bohemia, too, the numbers of Protestants diminished greatly. 

Source: Bedford-St. Martins Map Central.