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The Counter-Reformation and Religious
Tensions
The Peace of Augsburg brought peace but did not settle the religious
disagreements in Germany. For one thing, its signatories did not recognize
Calvinism, a relatively stringent form of Protestantism that was gaining
prominence around the time the Augsburg treaty was signed, in what has
been called the Second Reformation. Adherents to both Calvinism and Lutheranism
worked to spread their influence and gain converts in the face of the
Counter-Reformation, the attempt of the Roman Catholic Church to regroup
and reverse the spread of Protestantism. Followers of all three religions
were at times successful, but only at the expense of the others.
Fear of religious subversion caused rulers to monitor the conduct of
their subjects more closely. Attempting to help the modern reader understand
the intensity and pervasiveness of this fear, Mary Fulbrook, a noted British
historian of Germany, has likened it to the anxiety prevailing in the
first years of the Cold War. An example of the social paranoia engendered
by the religious tensions of the period is Protestant Germany's refusal
until 1700 to accept the Gregorian calendar introduced by the papacy in
1582 because the reform entailed a one-time loss of the days between October
5 and 14. Many Protestants suspected that Roman Catholics were attempting
somehow to steal this time for themselves.
By the first decades of the 17th century, religious controversy
had become so obstructive that at times the Reichstag could not conduct
business. In 1608, for example, Calvinists walked out of the body, preventing
the levying of a tax to fight a war against the Turks. In the same year,
the Evangelical Union was established by a few states and cities of the
empire to defend the Protestant cause. In 1609 a number of Roman Catholic
states countered by forming the Catholic League. Although both bodies
were less concerned with a sectarian war than with the specific aims of
their member states, their formation was an indication of how easily disputes
could acquire a religious aspect.
- The Counter-Reformation
and Religious Tensions
- Military Campaigns
- The Peace of Westphalia
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