The German Question, Part Twenty-Three

"The Thirty Years' War Brings Death, Destruction & A Partial Answer To The German Question," Part One-"The Lead Up To The War"

What I've noted so many times in this series, applies to this segment too; this is a very complex, but also a very important subject (the Thirty Years' War), and I am only going to deal with the very basics. As you can see above, I've given a subtitle to this subject, and then it will be broken into at least two parts.

Basically, the the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was a religious war between Roman Catholics and Protestants (Lutherans and Calvinists), although there were other reasons, too, often defined by political goals of some of the antagonists. It became very extensive, involving many of the European nations of those times, with much of the heaviest fighting done in the German lands.

First, the German Empire (Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) had been Christian; that is, with just one religion. When Luther and others (not only in the German Empire, but elsewhere in Europe) challenged some of the corruption, practices, and beliefs of the Christian rulers and system, this brought about Protestantism, from "protesters." Initially in the German lands, Lutheranism became quite popular, primarily in the northern areas. This now, for the first time, gave the empire two religions, but with the Catholic Habsburgs always as emperors. The Habsburgs (and other Catholics) didn't like the religious split, and at times tried to bring back Catholicism to the "errant" regions, like in the Low Countries, where we already covered religious strife, that then blended into the Thirty Years' War. (See Part 20) Lutherans refused to give up their new faith, and they continued to appeal to others to join them. With neither side willing to compromise, it was a disaster just waiting to happen.

John Calvin was born in France (real French name was "Jean Cauvin") and he also took up differences with Church leaders. France and its leaders remained staunchly loyal to the Church, and a backlash against Protestants caused Calvin to flee for his very life to Switzerland, then still a region of the German Empire (see Part 19). He and others in the region found fertile ground for spreading "Calvinism," as it came to be known, and it indeed spread to other areas of the empire, thus giving us three religions, and adding another element to the potential disaster.

Finally, in the mid 1500s, Emperor Karl V (Charles V), a Habsburg and a Catholic, agreed to terms that would abide by "cuius regio, eius religio," a Latin term that, fully defined, meant that the religion of the individual German princes, and NOT the religion of the emperor, determined the religion of their subjects.* So, for example, if I'm the Count of Cleveland, (hey, I had to make something up) and I've been Catholic, but I change to Lutheran, then all of my subjects must now become Lutheran too. Understand, it could be the reverse of that; Lutheran to Catholic. Subjects unwilling to change religion would be given time to move to an area where their religious preference prevailed. This whole situation weakened the already fairly weak position of German emperor,** while giving added strength to the individual states, which already were much like independent countries.

While the agreement helped cool things off for a time, no one was completely satisfied, and the Church wanted Catholic "princes" to take over Lutheran territories, thus making them Catholic again, and Lutheran rulers sought to extend their dominion over other territories (not only because of religion), sometimes Catholic, which then would have required those new subjects to change religion. There were numerous outbreaks of fighting between local rulers prior to the actual start of the Thirty Years' War, but the beginning of the disaster didn't occur until 1618.
To be continued.... (A Word History is below the notes)

* It always bears mentioning that "the German princes" was a collective term applied to the various local rulers in the empire, and it didn't necessarily mean that all carried the title of "prince," as some were kings, dukes, archdukes, counts, etc.

** The various Habsburg emperors over time were actually more important, not as emperors of the German Empire, but for the vast lands they owned and controlled within the empire, and sometimes outside of the empire.

WORD HISTORY:
Religion-This word "seems" to go back to the Indo European root "leig," which had the notion of "binding." The "re" prefix was simply an intensifier, with the basic meaning in Latin of "again," so if you do something "again," it is intensified, or solidified. The Latin offshoot was "religare," which meant "to bind tightly or hold fast." (Latin is an Indo European language related to English, but further down the family tree, although we have many words derived from Latin, many by way of French, a Latin-based language, due to the tremendous influence of the Romans.) This then gave Latin "religio," which meant "binding respect or reverence for the gods." When the Romans accepted Christianity, the term came to mean "monastic life and vows." (Of course "vows" imply "binding to certain ideas/beliefs.") "Religio" then gave Old French the word "religion," with the same "monastic" meaning. This was then taken to England by the Normans in the 11th Century and became Anglo-Norman "religiun." The idea of "monastic life and vows" developed further into "a set of religious beliefs," but while this meaning was present in English from the 1300s, it didn't completely become as common as we might think, until the 1500s!