On Sept. 25, 1555, the Hapsburg emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the north German princes of the Schmalkaldic League signed the Peace of Augsburg, which after a bloody war allowed for a new level of religious freedom among Christians in the German states.
By the early 16th century, the most powerful man in Europe, arguably the world at the time, was Charles of the House of Hapsburg. Charles had been born in 1500, only eight years after Columbus' discovery of the New World. By the time he took the throne as King Charles I of Spain in 1516, the European Age of Discovery was well underway, bringing massive wealth and power to the Iberian Peninsula from Asian trade and precious metals from the Americas. Indeed, at this time Spain was at the height of its power militarily, economically, culturally and religiously.
Across the continent, Germany existed not as a single nation state but as hundreds of autonomous polities with their own rulers, commonly referred to as a princes, though that was rarely their formal title. These autonomous German states were bound together in a supra-national entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, theoretically founded under Charlemagne in A.D. 800. Both “Roman” and an “Empire” largely in name only, it was theoretically ruled by an emperor, whose power ebbed and flowed over the centuries. More often than not, the Holy Roman Empire functioned like a medieval United Nations for the German states, in which bureaucratic debate often trumped imperial action of any kind.
Whatever their formal titles, seven of the princes also held one other important title: elector. Whenever the emperor died, the princes would cast a vote for a new emperor. In this way, each of the German states had a say in who their new ruler would be. (The institution would eventually prove an inspiration for the creation of the Electoral College in the United States in 1787.)
In 1519, Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian I died and his grandson Charles became leader of the House of Hapsburg. A few months later the princes voted and Charles became Charles V, holy Roman emperor. Meanwhile, a religious struggle was brewing in Germany that threatened to tear the fabric of Christendom apart.
In October 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous Niney-Five Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. Luther protested the Roman Catholic practice of selling indulgences, which could purchase a soul's way into heaven. Rather, he stated, Jesus Christ's sacrifice was a free gift that was available to all sinners who truly repented. In addition to his opposition of the commercialization of the afterlife, Luther objected to the fact that the Bible was only available in Latin and wished to see it translated and disseminated in German so that the common people could read it.
Luther's divergence from the Roman Catholic orthodoxy ultimately led to his being called to account at the Diet of Worms in 1521, which was presided over by Charles, and Luther's excommunication. Luther gave voice to legions of disaffected Christians, however, mostly in northern Germany, who had serious issues with their faith. Soon, the Protestant movement took on a life of its own and led to uprisings and violence in Luther's name, though he denounced such actions. More and more Germans embraced the Protestant mode of Christianity, and this introduced what became perhaps the most important political question of the day: Could minority groups be loyal to the monarch if they didn't share the same faith?
In Catholic dominated polities, Protestants were looked upon with suspicion and faced discrimination, arrest and worse. Soon, however, many German princes themselves converted to Protestantism, alienating their Catholic subjects for the same reasons. This enlarged the question considerably: Could the princes be loyal to the Holy Roman emperor if they didn't share the same faith?
Charles saw the princes' conversions to Christianity as tantamount to treason. In 1531, the Protestant princes decided to form a defensive alliance to protect themselves should the emperor attempt to invade and restore Catholicism. The result was the Schmalkaldic League, named after the German town of Schmalkalden in central Germany.
In the book “Germany: 2000 Years, Volume I,” historian Kurt F. Reinhardt wrote: “The leadership was alternately in the hands of the Elector John of Saxony and Duke Philip of Hesse. The League became the spearhead of all opposition against the imperial regime and was at various times supported by the kings of France and England and even by the Catholic Dukes of Bavaria. When the Turkish menace became more acute, the members of the League refused to defend Germany against foreign invasion unless they were granted freedom of religious propaganda in all the territories of the Empire.”
Throughout the next several years, political alliances with foreign powers and accepting new members saw the league's power to resist Charles grow. Princes who joined the league were required to swear that they would practice Protestant Christianity according to certain forms, ensuring that Lutheranism became a strengthened, relatively unified force in Germany.
What really kept Charles at bay in the 1530s, however, was his preoccupation with other enemies, namely the Turks and the French. With most of the emperor's forces engaged with other foes, the league had time to solidify its position and by 1546, virtually all of northern Germany followed the Lutheran cause. Out of seven imperial electors, four now belonged to the league.
That same year, Charles marched into the north to challenge the league. Taking 50,000 men with him, his force was perhaps outnumbered by that mustered by the league. Nevertheless, elite Spanish infantrymen made up the core of Charles' army. Additionally, Charles knew of the many rivalries and disagreements that plagued the league and hoped to use them to his advantage. In 1547, Charles won a major victory over the league at the Battle of Mühlberg in Saxony, where John Frederick I was captured. Philip I of Hesse surrendered to Charles not long after and the Schmalkaldic League virtually fell apart. Charles had won the war.
A major problem still remained, however. Virtually half of the empire now embraced Lutheranism, and the old concerns of loyalty and treason based on religion refused to die. The next few years saw Charles attempting to come to an agreement with the Protestant princes on this issue while also dealing with various smaller intrigues and revolutions throughout the empire. Finally, Charles dispatched his brother Ferdinand to conduct negotiations with the lingering remnants of the Schmalkaldic league.
When a treaty was finally prepared and signed on Sept. 25, 1555, it introduced a new concept for ruling the empire: “Cuius regio, eius religio,” “Who's realm, his religion.” Essentially, it acknowledged that all German princes owed their political allegiance to the emperor, though each prince could choose which religion — Catholic or Lutheran — his state would follow. While the principle ultimately worked for a time, it succeeded largely through the document's vagueness.
In the book “The Thirty Years' War: Europe's Tragedy” historian Peter H. Wilson wrote: “The peace makers of 1555 deliberately blurred the religious distinctions to maintain an element of the old universal ideal of a single Christendom. Lutherans were referred to as 'adherents of the Confession of Augsburg,' without defining what that meant, while use of words like 'peace,' 'religious belief,' and 'reformation' were a deliberate attempt to incorporate values that all still shared, yet understood differently. For Lutherans, 'reformation' meant the right of legally constituted authorities to change religious practices in line with their founder's teachings. To Catholics, it confirmed their church's role in spiritual guidance.”
The Peace of Augsburg settled the immediate political and religious issues of the day but ultimately proved flawed. The treaty did not accommodate the later different forms of Protestantism, such as Calvinism. Central Europe would not finally be finished with its wars of religion until after the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Still, the 1555 Peace of Augsburg illustrated that different religions could coexist within the empire, and led to a new level of tolerance between Catholics and Protestants.
Luther died of natural causes in 1546. Charles abdicated his title as Holy Roman emperor in favor of his brother, who became Ferdinand I, before his death in 1558 from an illness. The title of King of Spain fell to his son, Phillip II.
Cody K. Carlson holds a master's in history from the University of Utah and teaches at Salt Lake Community College. An avid player of board games, he blogs at thediscriminatinggamer.com. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com