predestined
every
individual to be either one of the elect (the saved) or among the damned; there
was nothing mere mortals could do to influence their predetermined destiny.
Calvinist religious communities were characterised by extreme social discipline;
and individual conduct, far from being fatalistic (as the doctrine of
predestination would logically suggest) was characterised by self-discipline, the
psychological consequence of perpetually seeking for signs of being one of
God’s elect. Theological differences and debates among Protestants of different
persuasions were to multiply in subsequent generations.
The notion of ‘Protestant’ itself derives from the so-called ‘Protestation of
Speyer’ of 1529, protesting against the decision to enforce the Edict of Worms
outlawing supporters of Luther. (Germans still distinguish between adherents of
‘Evangelical’ and ‘Reformed’ confessions, while the English – whose national
Reformation managed to combine elements of both traditions in a pragmatic
Elizabethan compromise – tend to adopt the more unitary term ‘Protestant’, to
include later sectarian variants as well as the established church.) But Luther and
his early followers had no intention of causing an irreversible split in
Christianity; they merely wanted to purge the church of what they considered to
be heretical abuses of doctrine and practice. Repeated attempts were made to
settle differences or come to terms. At the 1530 Diet of Augsburg – which
Luther, still under the ban of Empire, was unable to attend – Luther’s Wittenberg
colleague, Philipp Melanchthon, drafted the so-called ‘Augsburg Confession’, a
relatively irenical document making many concessions to Catholics. Its
omissions angered the Swiss reformers; but it was signed by the Protestant rulers
present, and, for all its ambiguities, has remained the basis of the Lutheran faith.
The 1530 Diet of Augsburg was a moment at which opportunities for
reconciliation still appeared open; but a series of misperceptions and increased
intransigence led to a hardening of fronts. Religious affairs were complicated by
Imperial politics, in the context of Charles V’s attempts to have his brother
Ferdinand pre-elected as German king, arousing fears on the part of such
prominent Catholics as the Bavarian Wittelsbachs that the Habsburgs were
attempting to make the Imperial crown hereditary. Partly in response to the pre-
election of Ferdinand, which after much politicking and bribery was effected in
January 1531, the League of Schmalkalden was formed in February 1531 as the
military defence force of Protestants, initially comprising six princes and ten
cities, subsequently joined by most Protestant states.
Continued attempts were made to reach agreement between Catholics and
Protestants. From 1532, the Emperor was particularly preoccupied with
combating the Turks, and pursuing Habsburg interests in southern Europe. But in
1539–40 he turned his attention again to pacification of German affairs. At the
inconclusive 1541 Diet of Regensburg it became clear that the split was
unbridgeable, and the Lutheran doctrine of obedience to authority was reshaped
to mean obedience to the territorial prince or local ruler, and not to the Emperor.
Despite the support of Protestant princes in his continuing conflict with France
(after concessions in the Speyer Diet of 1544), the Emperor determined on war
against the ‘heretics’ in Germany, to be supported by papal troops and money. A
few months after Luther’s death in 1546, the Schmalkaldic War erupted, in the
course of which the Emperor succeeded in capturing Wittenberg, and nearly had
Luther’s body disinterred from its tomb in the Castle Church. But Charles V was
himself weakened by conflicts with the papacy, and in the context of splits
among Catholics Charles V issued the relatively moderate Augsburg Interim of
1548. This pacified neither Catholics nor Protestants, and military and political
disturbances continued, complicated by Imperial plans for a divided succession
(between the Spanish and Austrian branches of the Habsburg family) and French
involvement with princely opposition to the Emperor. In 1552 the Treaty of
Passau registered the collapse of Imperial constitutional and religious ambitions.
It accepted that transfers or seizures of ecclesiastical property and changes in
religious worship would not be revoked nor demands made for restitution.
Finally, in the realisation that there was effective political stalemate, and that
neither Catholicism nor Protestantism was about to disappear, a pragmatic
settlement of differences – an agreement to disagree – was reached in the 1555
Diet of Augsburg.
The 1555 Peace of Augsburg was intended as a means of terminating the
internal political unrest by freezing the existing positions of Catholics and
Lutherans. It excluded from consideration all variants of Protestantism other
than Lutheranism; it failed to tackle problems connected with Zwinglians and a
range of sectarians, and did not foresee the problems that would be posed by the
development of Calvinism as a powerful alternative version of Protestantism.
The notion was accepted that princes should have the power to determine the
internal religious complexion of their territories; but that they should not engage
in missionary activities to convert other territories or to protect co-religionists
elsewhere. Anyone dissenting from the religious confession of a given territory
would have to emigrate; only cities could incorporate religious minorities.
‘Freedom’ of religion thus meant freedom at the territorial, rather than
individual, level: freedom for the prince to determine the religious complexion
of his territory, later known as the principle of
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