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1618-1648 - The Thirty Years' War

The religious supremacy accorded the state by the Protestant reformers quickly led to Caesarism, even in Catholic countries. Many sovereigns suppressed ecclesiastical rights, as well as popular liberties. The peasants were turned into slaves, and often subjected to treatment far less humane than in the Middle Ages; and emigration was prohibited under penalty of death. Contrary to the stipulations of the Religious Peace of Augsburg, Protestantism forcibly extended its territory. Protestant princes seized twelve bishoprics and two archbishoprics and made them Protestant. In the Palatinate, the rulers changed the official religion four times, between 1562 and 1583. The imperial city, Oppenheim, had to change to and fro, between Lutheranism and Calvinism, ten times before the year 1648.

While the Protestant princes were establishing their religion by force, the Emperor Maximilian was so "liberal" that he favored them even at the expense of the Catholics. Finally, however, Rudolph II and Ferdinand I also made use of the civil power to impose the Catholic religion. In like manner the Archbishop of Salzburg compelled all Protestants to leave his territory in 1731, because Frederick William I of Prussia kept stirring them into revolt.

The Protestants, in 1608, formed the "Evangelical Union," headed by the Elector Frederick of the Palatinate. In 1609 the Catholics formed the "Holy League," under Maximilian I of Bavaria. In 1610 the " Evangelical Union," concluded an alliance with France against the house of Hapsburg. Although the French invaded Julich, peace was formally preserved until 1618, when the Thirty Years' War began, in the reign of the Emperor Matthias. It commenced with riots in Bohemia, occasioned by the closing of a Protestant church which had been erected contrary to the imperial order. The rebels were assisted by the Union. Frederick V of the Palatinate, head of the Union, was defeated (1620).

The Restitution Edict (1629), issued by Ferdinand II, commanded the Protestants to restore the fourteen bishoprics and convents wrested from the Catholics in violation of the treaty of Passau. This measure, though in itself justifiable, exasperated the Protestants, who formed an alliance with France and, aided by the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, revolted against the emperor in 1630. In the war which followed Germany was terribly devastated. According to a list made by Protestants and preserved in the imperial archives at Stockholm, 1,976 castles, 1,629 cities and 18,300 villages were destroyed by the Swedish king. The German population fell from eighteen millions to four millions. Historical researches show that the real aim of Gustavus Adolphus was not so much to assist his fellow-believers as to become emperor.

In 1648 the terms of peace were dictated to Germany by the French and Swedes. The conditions were shameful. Germany was compelled to pay land and money to its destroyers, in return for their "help." Protestant princes were indemnified from the property of the Catholic Church, and this process of confiscating church property was called "secularization," a term then first introduced. The Religious Peace of Augsburg was renewed, likewise the Reformation Right, i. e., the right of the ruler to dictate the religion of his subjects and to deprive dissenters of civil rights. Pope Innocent XI (1676-1689) protested, not against the making of peace, but against certain articles of the treaty that violated the rights of the Church.