Areas of Conflict 1590–1609

Abstract

The Peace of Augsburg, negotiated by war-weary enemies in the aftermath of Charles V’s abdication in 1555, recognised that the Lutheran Church was firmly established in the Holy Roman Empire, and that the princes, Catholic and Lutheran alike, were too strong to be overawed by Imperial authority. The principle of cuius regio, eius religio, adopted at Augsburg, established that the inhabitants of Germany were to accept the religious views not of their emperor but of their local ruler. For most of the princes who had fought each other for a generation or more, the peace represented a practical compromise which sanctioned an existing state of affairs: it was not designed to withstand the vigorous, disruptive forces which were subsequently unleashed by the Counter-Reformation, on the one hand, and the Calvinist Church of Geneva, on the other.