Peace of Augsburg of 1555

(noun)

A treaty between Charles V and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes, on September 25, 1555, at the imperial city of Augsburg, in present-day Bavaria, Germany. It officially ended the religious struggle between the two groups and made the legal division of Christendom permanent within the Holy Roman Empire.

Related Terms

Examples of Peace of Augsburg of 1555 in the following topics:

  • The Peace of Westphalia

    • The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster that ended the Thirty Years' War.
    • The end of the war was not brought about by one treaty, but instead by a group of treaties, collectively named the Peace of Westphalia.
    • All parties would recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism.
    • The Peace of Westphalia established the precedent of peaces established by diplomatic congress, and a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states.
    • A simplified map of Europe in 1648, showing the new borders established after the Peace of Westphalia.

  • Louis XIV and the Huguenots

    • The Edict of Nantes was issued in 1598 by Henry IV of France.
    • After all, the Edict of Nantes was the pragmatic concession of his grandfather Henry IV to end the longstanding French Wars of Religion.
    • An additional factor in Louis's thinking was the prevailing contemporary European principle to assure socio-political stability was cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion"), the idea that the religion of the ruler should be the religion of the realm (the principle originally confirmed in central  Europe in the Peace of Augsburg of 1555).
    • The revocation of the Edict of Nantes created a state of affairs in France similar to that of nearly every other European country of the period (with the brief exception of Great Britain and possibly the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), where only the majority state religion was legally tolerated.
    • His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history. 

  • The Peace of Westphalia and Sovereignty

    • Although the Peace of Westphalia did not end wars in Europe, it established the precedent of peace reached by diplomatic congress and a new system of political order in Europe based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states.
    • The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster.
    • The northern Protestant states, angered by the violation of their rights to choose granted in the Peace of Augsburg, banded together to form the Protestant Union.
    • According to the Peace of Westphalia, all parties would recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio).
    • Historical map of Europe after the Peace of Westphalia.

  • Fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire

    • In 1555, Paul IV was elected pope and took the side of France, whereupon Charles finally gave up his hopes of a world Christian empire.
    • The Peace of Augsburg ended the war in Germany and accepted the existence of the Protestant princes, although not Calvinism, Anabaptism, or Swiss Reformed.
    • Germany would enjoy relative peace for the next six decades.
    • The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, gave the territories almost complete independence.
    • The Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648.

  • Bohemian Period

    • In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg had settled religious disputes in the Holy Roman Empire by enshrining the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, allowing a prince to determine the religion of his subjects.
    • Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609).
    • They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the Protestant Union).
    • As the rebellion collapsed, the widespread confiscation of property and suppression of the Bohemian nobility ensured the country would return to the Catholic side after more than two centuries of Protestant dissent.
    • A later woodcut of the Defenestration of Prague in 1618, which triggered the Thirty Years' War.

  • Religious Divide in the Holy Roman Empire

    • The northern Protestant states, angered by the violation of their rights to choose granted in the Peace of Augsburg, banded together to form the Protestant Union.
    • The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, ended the war between German Lutherans and Catholics.
    • Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious conflict, which was made yet more complex by the spread of Calvinism throughout Germany in the years that followed.
    • This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.
    • The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel: some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region.

  • Danish Intervention

    • Peace following the Imperial victory at Stadtlohn proved short-lived, with conflict resuming at the initiation of Denmark.
    • Thus, Christian, as war-leader of the Lower Saxon Circle, entered the war with an army of only 20,000 mercenaries, some of his allies from England and Scotland and a national army 15,000 strong, leading them as Duke of Holstein rather than as King of Denmark.
    • Christian's mishaps continued when all of the allies he thought he had were forced aside: France was in the midst of a civil war, Sweden was at war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and neither Brandenburg nor Saxony was interested in changes to the tenuous peace in eastern Germany.
    • Moreover, neither of the substantial British contingents arrived in time to prevent Wallenstein defeating Mansfeld's army at the Battle of Dessau Bridge (1626) or Tilly's victory at the Battle of Lutter (1626).
    • At this point, the Catholic League persuaded Ferdinand II to take back the Lutheran holdings that were, according to the Peace of Augsburg, rightfully the possession of the Catholic Church.

  • Mughal Empire

    • At the height of their power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they controlled most of the subcontinent, and their lands stretched over a territory of 1.2 million square miles.
    • Babur's son, Humayun (r. 1530-40 and 1555-56), succeeded him in 1530 but lost most of his fledgling empire to Afghan enemies and was forced to go into exile.
    • The Mughal Empire under Akbar's reign experienced an unprecedented period of religious peace and economic and cultural progress.
    • Thereafter, a string of weak emperors, endless wars of succession, fiscal collapse, and persistent onslaughts from the Marathas in the south heralded the decline of the Mughal Empire.
    • The Taj Mahal is one of the finest examples of Indian architecture under the Mughal Empire.

  • William of Orange and the Grand Alliance

    • England and the Dutch Republic had their own commercial, strategic, and political interests within the Spanish empire and they were eager to return to peaceful commerce.
    • This European coalition, consisting at various times of various European states, was originally founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg.
    • French and British ministers prepared the groundwork for a peace conference and in 1712 Britain ceased combat operations.
    • By the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and of the Treaty of Rastatt (1714), the Spanish empire was partitioned between the major and minor powers.
    • Explain William's stake in the War of the Spanish Succession and the goals of the Grand Alliance.

  • Elizabeth I and English Patriotism

    • The reign of Elizabeth I was marked by the restoration of the Protestant Church of England and competition with powerful Spain that both fueled a sense of modern English national identity.
    • In 1555, Elizabeth was recalled to court to attend the final stages of Mary's apparent pregnancy.
    • The siege of Antwerp in the summer of 1585 by the Duke of Parma necessitated some reaction on the part of the English and the Dutch.
    • For many years, Philip maintained peace with England and even defended Elizabeth from the Pope's threat of excommunication.
    • However, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587 ended Philip's hopes of placing a Catholic on the English throne.