ago, they would never have heard of these twelve articles. But
they had refused reform, and they now had to meet revolution.
And they knew of but one way of meeting it, namely, by the
sword. The lords of the Swabian League sent their army of foot
and horsemen, under their captain, George Truchsess. The poor
peasants could not hold out against trained soldiers and
cavalry. Two battles on the Danube, in which thousands of
peasants were slain, or drowned in the river, and a third
equally bloody one in Algau, near the Boden See, crushed this
rebellion in Swabia, as former rebellions had so often been
crushed before. This was early in April 1525. But in the
meantime the revolution had spread further north. In the
valley of the Neckar a body of 6,000 peasants had come
together, enraged by the news of the slaughter of their fellow
peasants in the south of Swabia." They stormed the castle of the
young Count von Helfenstein, who had recently cut the throats
of some peasants who met him on the road, and put the Count to
death, with 60 of his companions. "A yell of horror was raised
through Germany at the news of the peasants' revenge. No yell
had risen when the Count cut peasants' throats, or the Swabian
lords slew thousands of peasant rebels. Europe had not yet
learned to mete out the same measure of justice to noble and
common blood. ... The revolution spread, and the reign of
terror spread with it. North and east of the valley of the
Neckar, among the little towns of Franconia, and in the
valleys of the Maine, other bands of peasants, mustering by
thousands, destroyed alike cloisters and castles. Two hundred
of these lighted the night with their flames during the few
weeks of their temporary triumph. And here another feature of
the revolution became prominent. The little towns were already
... passing through an internal revolution. The artisans were
rising against the wealthier burghers, overturning the town
councils, and electing committees of artisans in their place,
making sudden changes in religion, putting down the Mass,
unfrocking priests and monks, and in fact, in the interests of
what they thought to be the gospel, turning all things upside
down. ... It was during the Franconian rebellion that the
peasants chose the robber knight Goetz von Berlichingen as
their leader. It did them no good. More than a robber chief
was needed to cope with soldiers used to war. ... While all
this was going on in the valleys of the Maine, the revolution
had crossed the Rhine into Elsass and Lothringen, and the
Palatinate about Spires and Worms, and in the month of May had
been crushed in blood, as in Swabia and Franconia.
{1460}
South and east, in Bavaria, in the Tyrol, and in Carinthia
also, castles and monasteries went up in flames, and then,
when the tide of victory turned, the burning houses and farms
of the peasants lit up the night and their blood flowed
freely. Meanwhile Münzer, who had done so much to stir up the
peasantry in the south to rebel, had gone north into
Thuringia, and headed a revolution in the town of Mülhausen,
and became a sort of Savonarola of a madder kind. ... But the
end was coming. The princes, with their disciplined troops,
came nearer and nearer. What could Münzer do with his 8,000
peasants? He pointed to a rainbow and expected a miracle, but
no miracle came. The battle, of course, was lost; 5,000
peasants lay dead upon the field near the little town of
Frankenhausen, where it was fought. Münzer fled and concealed
himself in a bed, but was found and taken before the princes,
thrust into a dungeon, and afterwards beheaded. So ended the
wild career of this misguided, fanatical, self-deceived, but
yet, as we must think, earnest and in many ways heroic spirit.
... The princes and nobles now everywhere prevailed over the
insurgent peasants. Luther, writing on June 21, 1525,
says:--'It is a certain fact, that in Franconia 11,000
peasants have been slain. Markgraf Casimir is cruelly severe
upon his peasants, who have twice broken faith with him. In
the Duchy of Wurtemberg, 6,000 have been killed; in different
places in Swabia, 10,000. It is said that in Alsace the Duke
of Lorraine has slain 20,000. Thus everywhere the wretched
peasants are cut down.' ... Before the Peasants' War was ended
at least 100,000 perished, or twenty times as many as were put
to death in Paris during the Reign of Terror in 1793. ...
Luther, throughout the Peasants' War, sided with the ruling
powers. ... The reform he sought was by means of the civil
power; and in order to clear himself and his cause from all
participation in the wild doings of the peasantry, he publicly
exhorted the princes to crush their rebellion."
_F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution,
part 2, chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 3, chapter 6 (volume 2)._
_P. Bayne,
Martin Luther: His Life and Work,
book 11 (volume 2)._
_J. Köstlin,
Life of Luther,
part 4, chapter 5._
_C. W. C. Oman,
The German Peasant War of 1525
(English History Review, volume 5)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1525-1529.
League of Torgau.
The Diets at Spires.
Legal recognition of the Reformed Religion, and the withdrawal
of it.
The Protest which gave rise to the name "Protestants."
See PAPACY: A. D.1525-1529.
GERMANY: A. D. 1529.
Turkish invasion of Austria.
Siege of Vienna.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.
GERMANY: A. D. 1530.
The Diet at Augsburg.
The signing and reading of the Protestant Confession of Faith.
The condemnatory decree.
Breach between the Protestants and the emperor.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1530-1531.
GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.
The Augsburg Decree.
Alarm of the Protestants.
Their League of Smalkalde and alliance with the king of
France.
Pacification of Nuremberg with the emperor.
Expulsion of the Turks from Hungary.
The decree issued by the Diet at Augsburg was condemnatory of
most of the tenets peculiar to the protestants, "forbidding
any person to protect or tolerate such as taught them,
enjoining a strict observance of the established rites, and
prohibiting any farther innovation, under severe penalties.
All orders of men were required to assist with their persons
and fortunes in carrying this decree into execution; and such
as refused to obey it were declared incapable of acting as
judges, or of appearing as parties in the imperial chamber,
the supreme court of judicature in the empire. To all which
was subjoined a promise, that an application should be made to
the pope, requiring him to call a general council within six
months, in order to terminate all controversies by its
sovereign decisions. The severity of this decree, which was
considered as a prelude to the most violent persecution,
alarmed the protestants, and convinced them that the emperor
was resolved on their destruction." Under these circumstances,
the protestant princes met at Smalkalde, December 22, 1530,
and there "concluded a league of mutual defence against all
aggressors, by which they formed the protestant states of the
empire into one regular body, and, beginning already to
consider themselves as such, they resolved to apply to the
kings of France and England, and to implore them to patronise
and assist their new confederacy. An affair not connected with
religion furnished them with a pretence for courting the aid
of foreign princes.'" This was the election of the emperor's
brother, Ferdinand, to be King of the Romans, against, which
they had protested vigorously. "When the protestants, who
were' assembled a second time at Smalkalde [February, 1531],
received an account of this transaction, and heard, at the
same time, that prosecutions were commenced in the imperial
chamber against some of their number, on account of their
religious principles, they thought it necessary, not only to
renew their former confederacy, but immediately to despatch
their ambassadors into France and England." The king of France
"listened with the utmost eagerness to the complaints of the
protestant princes; and, without seeming to countenance their
religious opinions, determined secretly to cherish those
sparks of political discord which might be afterwards kindled
into a flame. For this purpose he sent William de Bellay, one
of the ablest negotiators in France, into Germany, who,
visiting the courts of the malecontent princes, and
heightening their ill-humour by various arts, concluded an
alliance between them, and his master, which, though concealed
at that time, and productive of no immediate effects, laid the
foundation of a union fatal on many occasions to Charles's
ambitious projects. ... The king of England [Henry VIII.],
highly incensed against Charles, in complaisance to whom, the
pope had long retarded, and now openly opposed, his divorce
[from Catharine of Aragon], was no less disposed than Francis
to strengthen a league which might be rendered so formidable
to the emperor. But his favourite project of the divorce led
him into such a labyrinth of schemes and negotiations, and he
was, at the same time, so intent on abolishing the papal
jurisdiction in England, that he had no leisure for foreign
affairs. This obliged him to rest satisfied with giving
general promises, together with a small supply in money, to
the confederates of Smalkalde. Meanwhile, many circumstances
convinced Charles that this was not a juncture" in which he
could afford to let his zeal for the church push him to
extremities with the protestants.
{1461}
"Negotiations were, accordingly, carried on by his direction
with the elector of Saxony and his associates; after many
delays ... terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremberg
[July 23], and ratified solemnly in the diet at Ratisbon
[August 3]. In this treaty it was stipulated: that universal
peace be established in Germany, until the meeting of a
general council, the convocation of which within six months
the emperor shall endeavour to procure; that no person shall
be molested on account of religion; that a stop shall be put
to all processes begun by the imperial chamber against
protestants, and the sentences already passed to their
detriment shall be declared void. On their part, the
protestants engaged to assist the emperor with all their
forces in resisting the invasion of the Turks. ... The
protestants of Germany, who had hitherto been viewed only as a
religious sect, came henceforth to be considered as a
political body of no small consequence. The intelligence which
Charles received of Solyman's having entered Hungary, at the
head of 300,000 men, brought the deliberations of the diet at
Ratisbon to a period. ... The protestants, as a testimony of
their gratitude to the emperor, exerted themselves with
extraordinary zeal, and brought into the field forces which
exceeded in number the quota imposed on them; and the
catholics imitating their example, one of the greatest and
best-appointed armies that had ever been levied in Germany
assembled near Vienna. ... It amounted in all to 90,000
disciplined foot, and 30,000 horse, besides a prodigious swarm
of irregulars. Of this vast army ... the emperor took the
command in person; and mankind waited in suspense the issue of
a decisive battle between the two greatest monarchs in the
world. But each of them dreading the other's power and good
fortune, they both conducted their operations with such
excessive caution, that a campaign for which such immense
preparations had been made ended without any memorable event.
Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground upon an enemy
always attentive and on his guard, marched back to
Constantinople towards the end of autumn. ... About the
beginning of this campaign, the elector of Saxony died, and
was succeeded by his son John Frederick. ... Immediately after
the retreat of the Turks, Charles, impatient to revisit Spain,
set out, on his way thither, for Italy."
_W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 5._
ALSO IN:
_L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 6, chapters 1-8 (volume 3)._
_H. Stebbing,
History of the Reformation,
chapters 12-13 (volume 2)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1532-1536.
Fanaticism of the Anabaptists of Münster.
Siege and capture of the city.
See ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER.
GERMANY: A. D. 1533-1546.
Mercenary aspects of the Reformation.
Protestant intolerance.
Union with the Swiss Reformers.
The Catholic Holy League.
Preparations for war.
"During the next few years [after the peace concluded at
Nuremberg] there was no open hostility between the two
religious parties. ... But there was dissension enough. In the
first place there was much disputation as to the meaning of
the articles concluded at Nuremberg. The catholic princes,
under the pretext that, if no man was to be disturbed for his
faith, or for things depending on faith, he was still amenable
for certain offences against the church, which were purely of a
civil nature, were eager that the imperial chamber should take
cognisance of future cases, at least, where protestants should
seek to invade the temporalities of the church. ... But
nothing was effected; the tribunal was too powerless to
enforce its decrees. In 1534, the protestants, in a public
assembly, renounced all obedience to the chamber; yet they did
not cease to appropriate to themselves the property of such
monasteries and churches as, by the conversion of catholics to
their faith--and that faith was continually progressive--lay
within their jurisdiction. We need scarcely observe, that the
prospect of spoliation was often the most powerful inducement
with the princes and nobles to change their religion. When
they, or the magistracy of any particular city, renounced the
faith hitherto established, the people were expected to follow
the example: the moment Lutheranism was established in its place,
the ancient faith was abolished; nobody was allowed to profess
it; and, with one common accord, all who had any prospect of
benefiting by the change threw themselves on the domains of
the expelled clergy. That the latter should complain before
the only tribunal where justice could be expected, was
natural; nor can we be surprised that the plunderers should
soon deny, in religious affairs, the jurisdiction of that
tribunal. From the departure of the emperor to the year 1538,
some hundreds of domains were thus seized, and some hundreds
of complaints addressed to him by parties who resolved to
interpret the articles of Nuremberg in their own way. The
protestants declared, in a letter to him, that their
consciences would not allow them to tolerate any papist in
their states. ... By espousing the cause of the exiled duke of
Wittemberg, they procured a powerful ally. ... But a greater
advantage was the union of the sacramentarians [the Swiss
reformers, who accepted the doctrine of Zwingli respecting the
purely symbolical significance of the commemoration of the
Lord's Supper--see SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531] with the
Lutherans. Of such a result, at the diet of Augsburg, there
was not the least hope; but Bucer, being deputed by the
imperial cities to ascertain whether a union might not be
effected, laboured so zealously at the task that it was
effected. He consented to modify some of his former opinions;
or at least to wrap them in language so equivocal that they
might mean anything or nothing at the pleasure of the holder.
The Swiss, indeed, especially those of Zurich, refused to
sanction the articles on which Luther and Bucer had agreed.
Still, by the union of all protestant Germany under the same
banners, much was gained. ... In the meantime, the dissensions
between the two great parties augmented from day to day. To
pacify them, Charles sent fruitless embassies. Roused by the
apparent danger, in 1538, the catholic princes formed, at
Nuremberg, a counter league to that of Smalcald [calling it
the Holy League]. ... The death of Luther's old enemy, George,
duke of Saxony [1539], transferred the dominion of that
prince's states into the hands of [his brother Henry] a
Lutheran. Henry, duke of Brunswick, was now the only great
secular prince in the north of Germany who adhered to the
Roman catholic faith. ... A truce was concluded at Frankfort,
in 1539; but it could not remove the existing animosity, which
was daily augmented. Both parties were in the wrong. ...
{1462}
At the close of 1540, Worms was the scene of a conference very
different from that where, 20 years before, Luther had been
proscribed. There was an interminable theological disputation.
... As little good resulted, Charles, who was hastening from
the Low Countries to his German dominions, evoked the affair
before a diet at Ratisbon, in April, 1541. ... The diet of
Ratisbon was well attended; and never did prince exert himself
more zealously than Charles to make peace between his angry
subjects. But ... all that could be obtained was, that things
should be suffered to remain in their present state until a
future diet or a general council. The reduction of Buda,
however, by the Turks, rendered king Ferdinand, his brother,
and the whole of Germany, eager for an immediate settlement of
the dispute. ... Hence the diet of Spires in 1542. If, in
regard to religion, nothing definitive was arranged, except
the selection of Trent as the place most suitable for a
general council, one good end was secured--supplies for the
war with the Turks. The campaign, however, which passed
without an action, was inglorious to the Germans, who appear
to have been in a lamentable state of discipline. Nor was the
public satisfaction much increased by the disputes of the
Smalcald league with Henry of Brunswick. The duke was angry
with his subjects of Brunswick and Breslau, who adhered to the
protestant league; and though he had reason enough to be
dissatisfied with both, nothing could be more vexatious than
his conduct towards them. In revenge, the league of Smalcald
sent 19,000 men into the field,--a formidable display of
protestant power!--and Henry was expelled from his hereditary
states, which were seized by the victors. He invoked the aid
of the imperial chamber, which cited the chiefs of the league;
but as, in 1538, the competency of that tribunal had been
denied in religious, so now it was denied in civil matters.
... The following years exhibit on both sides the same
jealousy, the same duplicity, often the same violence where
the mask was no longer required, with as many ineffectual
attempts to procure a union between them. ... The progress of
events continued to favour the reformers. They had already two
votes in the electoral college,--those of Saxony and Brandenburg;
they were now to have the preponderance; for the elector
palatine and Herman archbishop of Cologne abjured their
religion, thus placing at the command of the reformed party
four votes against three. But this numerical superiority did
not long remain. ... The pope excommunicated the archbishop,
deposed him from his dignity, and ordered the chapter to
proceed to a new election; and when Herman refused to obey,
Charles sent troops to expel him, and to install the
archbishop elect, Count Adolf of Nassau. Herman retired to his
patrimonial estates, where he died in the profession of the
reformed religion. These events mortified the members of the
Smalcald league; but they were soon partially consoled by the
capture of Henry duke of Brunswick [1546], who had the
temerity to collect troops and invade his patrimonial
dominions. Their success gave umbrage to the emperor. ... He
knew that the confederates had already 20,000 men under arms,
and that they were actively, however secretly, augmenting
their forces. His first care was to cause troops to be as
secretly collected in his hereditary states; his second, to
seduce, if possible, some leaders of the protestants. With
Maurice duke of Saxony he was soon successful; and eventually
with the two margraves of Brandenburg, who agreed to make
preparations for a campaign and join him at the proper moment.
... His convocation of the diet at Ratisbon [1546], which
after a vain parade ended in nothing, was only to hide his
real designs. As he began to throw off the mask, the reformed
theologians precipitately withdrew; and both parties took the
field, but not until they had each published a manifesto to
justify this extreme proceeding. In each there was much truth,
and more falsehood."
_S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 3)._
GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1544.
War with Francis I. of France.
Battle of Cerisoles.
Treaty of Crespy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1563.
The beginning of the Roman Catholic reaction.
The Council of Trent.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.
GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.
War of Charles against the Protestants.
The treachery of Maurice of Saxony.
The battle of Muhlberg.
The emperor's proposed "Interim" and its failure.
His reverse of fortune.
Protestantism triumphant.
The Treaty of Passau.
"Luther's death [which occurred in 1546] made no change in the
resolution which Charles had at last taken to crush the
Reformation in his German dominions by force of arms; on the
contrary, he was more than ever stimulated to carry out his
purpose by two occurrences: the adoption of the new religion
by one who was not only an Elector of the Empire, but one of
the chief prelates of the Church, the Prince-Archbishop of
Cologne. ... The other event that influenced him was the
refusal of the Protestants to accept as binding the decrees of
the Council of Trent, which was composed of scarcely any
members but a few Italian and Spanish prelates, and from which
they appealed to either a free general Council or a national
Council of the Empire; offering, at the same time, if Charles
should prefer it, to submit the whole question of religion to
a joint Commission, composed of divines of each party. These
remonstrances, however, the Emperor treated with contempt. He
had been for some time secretly raising troops in different
quarters; and, early in 1546, he made a fresh treaty with the
Pope, by which he bound himself instantly to commence warlike
operations, and which, though it had been negotiated, as a
secret treaty, Paul instantly published, to prevent any
retraction or delay on his part. War therefore now began,
though Charles professed to enter upon it, not for the purpose
of enforcing a particular religious belief on the recusants,
but for that of re-establishing the Imperial authority, which,
as he affirmed, many of the confederate princes had disowned.
Such a pretext he expected to sow disunion in the body, some
members of which were far from desirous to weaken the great
confederacy of the Empire: and, in effect, it did produce a
hesitation in their early steps that had the most important
consequences on the first campaign; for, in spite of the
length of time during which he had secretly been preparing for
war, when it came they were more ready than he. They at once
took the field with an army of 90,000 men and 120 guns, while
he, for the first few weeks after the declaration of war, had
hardly 10,000 men with him in Ratisbon. ...
{1463}
But the advantage of a single over a divided command was
perhaps never more clearly exemplified than in the first
operations of the two armies. He, as the weaker party, took up
a defensive position near Ingolstadt; but, though they
advanced within sight of his lines, they could not agree on
the mode of attack, or even on the prudence of attacking him
at all. ... At last, the confederates actually drew off, and
Charles, advancing, made himself master of many important
towns, which their irresolution alone had enabled him to
approach." Meanwhile the Emperor had won an important ally.
This was Duke Maurice, of the Albertine line of the House of
Saxony (see SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553), to whom several
opportune deaths had given the ducal seat unexpectedly, in
1541, and whose ambition now hungered for the Electorate,
which was held by the other (the Ernestine) branch of the
family. He conceived the idea of profiting by the troubles of
the time to win possession of it. "With this view, though he
also was a Protestant, he tendered his services to the
Emperor, who, in spite of his youth, discerned in him a
promise of very superior capacity, gladly accepted his aid,
and promised to reward him with the territories which he
coveted. The advantages which Protestantism eventually derived
from Maurice's success has blinded some historians to the
infamy of the conduct by which he achieved it. ... The Elector
[John Frederick] was his [second] cousin; the Landgrave of
Hesse was his father-in-law. Pleading an unwillingness while
so young (he was barely 21) to engage in the war, he
volunteered to undertake the protection of his cousin's
dominions during his absence in the field. His offer was
thankfully accepted; but he was no sooner installed in his
charge than he began to negotiate with the enemy to invade the
territories which he had bound himself to protect. And on
receiving from Charles a copy of a decree, called the Ban of
the Empire, which had just been issued against both the
Elector and the Landgrave, he at once raised a force of his
own, with which he overran one portion of [the Elector's]
dominions, while a division of the Imperial army attacked the
rest; and he would probably have succeeded at once in subduing
the whole Electorate, had the main body of the Protestants
been able to maintain the war on the Danube." But Charles's
successes there brought about a suspension ol hostilities
which enabled the Elector to return and "chastise Maurice for
his treachery; to drive him not only from the towns and
districts which he had seized, but to strip him also of the
greater part of the territory which belonged to him by
inheritance." Charles was unable, at first, to give any
assistance to his ally. The Elector, however, who was the
worst of generals, so scattered his forces that when, "on the
23d of April [1547], Charles reached the Elbe and prepared to
attack him, he had no advantage over his assailant but that of
position. That indeed was very strong. He lay at Muhlberg, on
the right bank of the river, which at that point is 300 yards
wide and more than four feet deep, with a stream so rapid as
to render the passage, even for horsemen, a task of great
difficulty and danger." Against the remonstrances of his
ablest general, the Duke of Alva, Charles, favored by a heavy
fog, led his army across the river and boldly attacked. The
Ejector attempted to retreat, but his retreat became a rout.
Many fell, but many more were taken prisoners, including the
Elector and the Landgrave of Hesse. The victory was decisive
for the time, and Charles used it without moderation or
generosity. He declared a forfeiture of the whole Electorate
of Saxony by John Frederick, and conferred it upon the
treacherous Maurice; and, "though Maurice was son-in-law of
the Landgrave of Hesse, he stripped that prince of his
territories, and, by a device scarcely removed from the tricks
of a kidnapper, threw him also into prison." Charles seemed
now to be completely master of the situation in Germany, and
there was little opposition to his will in a diet which he
convened at Augsburg.
_C. D. Yonge,
Three Centuries of Modern History,
chapter 4._