The Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, encompassing present-day Germany and portions of neighbouring lands, was the single area most devastated by the Wars of Religion. The Empire was a fragmented collection of semi-independent states with an elected Holy Roman Emperor as its head; after the 14th century, this position was usually held by a Habsburg. The Austrian House of Habsburg was a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects in present day Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. The Empire also contained regional powers, such as Bavaria, the Electorate of Saxony, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Electorate of the Palatinate, Hesse, the Archbishopric of Trier and Württemberg. A vast number of minor independent duchies, free imperial cities, abbeys, bishoprics, and small lordships of sovereign families rounded out the Empire.
Lutheranism, from its inception at Wittenberg in 1519, found a ready reception in Germany, as well as in formerly Hussite Bohemia. The preaching of Martin Luther and his many followers raised tensions across Europe.
In Northern Germany, Luther adopted the stratagem of gaining the support of the local princes in his struggle to take over and re-establish the church along Lutheran lines. The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse and other North German princes not only protected Luther from retaliation from the edict of outlawry issued by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, but also used state power to enforce the establishment of Lutheran worship in their lands. Church property was seized and Catholic worship was forbidden in most lands which adopted the Lutheran reformation. The political conflicts thus engendered within the Empire led almost inevitably to war.
Read more about this topic: European Wars Of Religion
Famous quotes containing the words roman empire, holy, roman and/or empire:
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“When and where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?”
—Margaret Abigail Walker (b. 1915)
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“That is the great end of empires before God, to be Catholic and draw nations into their Catholicism. But our empire is less and less Christian as it grows.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)