Reformation

A Religion of State.

The story is complicated by the multi plicity and kaleidoscopic changes of these 30o German States, and especially by the confusion between the two Saxonys. Catholicism and Protestantism were exposed to all the gusts of party politics. In Luther himself the prophet often gave way to the politician; and he, who in 1525 had at first insisted that the peasants must be met not with blows but with reasons, was soon ready to call upon secular princes to draw the sword against all enemies of the Reformation. He had begun by insisting on responsibility to God alone ; but now with most of the Reformers, he ended by subordi nating Church to State. In July 1525, a league of Catholic princes was being formed to quench the Reformation in blood ; in October, the landgrave Philip of Hesse began to frame a defensive league of Protestant princes. This support could be bought only by aban doning absolute freedom of private judgment and by allowing many ecclesiastical endowments to be secularized. In order to avoid offending the landgrave, Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer agreed in allowing him to commit bigamy; a concession which may be paralleled by a few similar licences from popes, but which, coming from these Reformers, justly scandalized the public more than the papal actions. On both sides, Catholic and Protestant, self-interest now played a very great part.

The ups and downs may be very briefly summarized. The Diet of Augsburg (Dec. did little. That of Speyer (June 1526) refused to execute the edict of Worms, and procured the decision that each prince should so act in matters of faith as to be able to answer for his conduct to God and the emperor. This gave the Reformers a most valuable breathing space, but the Catholic States were presently provoked into organizing persecution against heretical subjects; the emperor, having now made up his private quarrel with the pope, was determined to fight the innovators, and a diet at Speyer (1529) altered the tolerant decree of 1526. Six princes and 14 cities read a solemn protest at the diet against this vote; and the action of this small minority gave to the party that name of Protestant by which it has ever since been known.

Schmalkalden.

For the Diet of Augsburg (June 153o) Melanchthon drew up a confession, which minimized the differ ences between Lutherans and Catholics, and exaggerated those which separated Luther from the more radical Swiss reformer Zwingli. The emperor granted a respite till April 15, 1531. By that date, eight princes and II cities had formed at Schmalkalden a defensive league for six years. The emperor, more and more hampered by the Turkish peril, finally granted the Peace of Nuremberg (July 1532) which guaranteed the Protestants from molestation until the next general council of the Church. But Clement VII. was in no haste to call such a council; he feared th9 emperor's encroachments scarcely less than Luther's heresy; and, meanwhile, Protestantism gained much ground, though in Switzer land it had received a check in the death of Zwingli. When at

last the general council, in spite of dissensions among the orthodox, seemed imminent, the Protestant princes refused to attend it ; they renewed the Schmalkaldic League (1537) and were joined by fresh allies. The emperor formed a counter-league (Nuremberg, 1538) and war seemed imminent, when a compromise was ar ranged at the Diet of Frankfort (1539).

A series of conferences, from 1540 onwards, produced no real agreement. In 1544 the Peace of Nuremberg was formally pro longed for another five years; but the continual spread of Protes tantism, not always without a violence equal to that which their enemies were prepared to exercise, precipitated a struggle. The long-delayed council of the Church had at last met (Trent, ; but the Protestants refused to attend it. The emperor declared war; the Protestants were beaten at Miihlberg (1547), and promised to send representatives to Trent, but were freed from that undertaking by Catholic dissensions. At the Diet of Augsburg (1548), Charles drew up on his own responsibility a sort of com promise, the Interim; and in 1551 the Protestants sent representa tives to Trent.

But the Interim was naturally unpopular on both sides; and, next year, Maurice of Saxony took advantage of the emperor's twofold embarrassments with France and Turkey to turn suddenly against him ; he almost succeeded in taking him prisoner. Charles, foreseeing defeat and shrinking from the humiliation, soon trans ferred to his brother Ferdinand of Austria the direction of German affairs Maurice was killed in the moment of victory at Sievershausen ; John Frederick of Saxony died soon afterwards; but Protestantism was too deeply rooted to be shaken.

"Cuius regio, eius religio..

While the Diet of Augsburg was hesitating to grant religious peace, a rival assembly at Naumburg was attended by more princes than the diet itself, and decided to abide by the confession of Augsburg (1555). (See AUGSBURG, CONFESSION OF.) The diet, after many struggles, agreed to one of those compromises which leave seeds for future war. It conse crated the principle cuius regio, eius religio; each prince might choose for himself between Catholicism and Protestantism; his subjects must submit to that choice unless they preferred to emigrate. We must here end the story of the Reformation in Germany. The mere fact that Catholicism had been compelled, over and over again, to negotiate with Protestantism on something like equal terms, was a death-blow to the mediaeval conception of the Church. Now, by this Peace of Augsburg, Protestantism was actually legalized for about half the population of Germany; and this proportion has since maintained itself with little alteration.