Augsburg interim

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Augsburg around 1550 (painting by Heinrich Vogtherr the Younger)

The Augsburg Interim or even just the Interim ( Latin , here “transitional regulation”) is a decree of Emperor Charles V , with which he wanted to enforce his religious political goals in the Holy Roman Empire after the victory over the Schmalkaldic League . The interim, enacted as an imperial law in 1548, was intended to regulate ecclesiastical relationships for a transitional period until a general council had finally decided on the reintegration of Protestants into the Catholic Church .

The Augsburg Interim met with rejection from both Protestants and Catholics. In the southern German Protestant areas it was enforced by the state, but only superficially in the northern German regions. As early as 1552, after an uprising by Protestant princes (see Prince Uprising ) , Karl was forced to withdraw the interim and accept the confessional division of the empire in the Passau Treaty .

initial situation

Emperor Karl V , (Portrait of Christoph Amberger, ca.1532)
Territorial European situation of the Holy Roman Empire around 1548
Map of Saxony and Thuringia after the capitulation of Wittenberg ( 1547 ).

With the conversion of further imperial estates to Protestantism, the German denominational problem became more urgent in the course of the 1530s. The focus was on the legal status of Lutheran Protestantism, whose teachings had been condemned as heresy by the church . The emperor saw it as his duty to restore religious unity in the empire. In addition to personal motives, political motives also played an important role: A religious fragmentation of the empire strengthened the power of the imperial estates at the expense of the imperial central authority. In addition, the idea of ​​the Roman-German Empire was strongly religiously motivated, a rejection of the Catholic Church thus also called into question the legitimacy of the imperial title.

Taking military action against the Protestants was forbidden because the emperor needed the military and financial support of the Protestants in the fight against the Turks . Both the Nuremberg Religious Peace of 1532 and the Frankfurt decency of 1539 temporarily secured the situation of the Protestants, but were little more than temporary peace and neutrality regulations.

The emperor tried to achieve reunification first through a general council, then in 1540/41 through a series of religious talks. Although these discussions brought theological rapprochement on various points, an agreement on central issues was not reached. Ultimately, they also failed because the split had long since been not a religious-theological one, but a political-legal one . In December 1545 the Council of Trent , which the emperor had long called for, met, in which the Protestants initially did not take part. When they did it later (after 1547) under pressure, numerous questions had already been decided by the council participants, so that an agreement could no longer be expected.

The Protestant princes, on the other hand, ostentatiously united in the Schmalkaldic League in order to be able to effectively counter an attack by the emperor. As the federal government in 1546 spread to the territory of the Duke of Brunswick, to move these to enter the Emperor outlawed the Schmalkaldener and explained to them the imperial war . The moment was propitious, because through the Schmalkalden's action, the war was not under the auspices of a religious war, but that of action against lawbreakers, which is why Protestant princes also joined the war. In the Schmalkaldic War , the emperor defeated the alliance in 1547 in the battle of Mühlberg . His two most important opponents, Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony and Landgrave Philipp of Hesse , were captured.

The emperor was thus at the height of his power and endeavored to use his military victory to achieve his two main political goals, the restoration of church unity and a comprehensive reform of the empire.

Creation of the interim

Johannes Agricola , who helped to develop the Augsburg Interim (woodcut from the 16th century )

Before Karl V. one in spring 1547 Reichstag convened, he commissioned a secret commission of Catholic theologians to draw up guidelines for a union of the two denominations. Especially Wilhelm IV. , Duke of Bavaria, supported the paper, which thus also joined the political calculus, the emperor in enforcing the guidelines that wear out politically and would thus weaken the Habsburg position in the kingdom. Without naming Bavaria, Charles V himself noticed that the point of these proposals was only to make him hateful among the imperial estates. He therefore commissioned another secret commission around the Naumburg bishop Julius von Pflug , the Mainz auxiliary bishop Michael Helding and the Brandenburg court preacher Johannes Agricola to draw up a communication paper that was close to Catholic church doctrine, but also took Reformation concerns into account.

At the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1547/48, which also went down in history as the armored Reichstag , the Protestant princes accepted this draft - albeit under considerable pressure. In April 1548, however, the clergy princes and numerous other Catholic imperial estates presented the emperor with a protest paper edited by the Bavarian Chancellor Leonhard Eck , in which they declared the introduction of the interim in their areas to be superfluous and thus refused to accept the compromise that had been found. It was only when Charles V suddenly declared around May 10 that the interim should only apply to the Protestant imperial estates that the interim should apply to the Protestant imperial estates, against the background of the threat of intervention by the curia, which strictly rejected any privileges under imperial law for the Protestants, he was able to use the imperial catholic estates Get largely closed behind you.

Thereupon Charles tried to push through the draft single-handedly and without papal approval. He submitted it to the Reichstag for a vote on May 15, 1548, in such a way that the head of the Reichshof Chancellery , Johannes Obernburger , only read the preface, but not the entire text; nor had any copies of the final text been given to the imperial estates beforehand. After barely an hour's deliberation, the interim was declared accepted by the Archbishop of Mainz as Imperial Chancellor - despite the lack of approval from important Lutheran imperial estates . Although the emperor took note of the formal protests of important Protestant princes and imperial cities in the following days and therefore conducted particular negotiations for a few weeks, largely unsuccessful, he nevertheless took the formal declaration of acceptance by the Elector of Mainz as an opportunity, the interim by admission to the imperial farewell of June 30, 1548 to become law. The validity, which is limited to the Protestant imperial estates, is only indirectly expressed in Section 10 in such a way that those estates that have not made any changes in religion to date are ordered to refrain from doing so in the future; those, on the other hand, who have already made changes in their religion, now either have to return entirely to the old customs or to implement the interim.

content

The Augsburg Interim contained an interim regulation that was to apply until the conclusion of the Council of Trent, which the Protestants had formally committed to attending during the Reichstag, provided that it took place on Reichsboden; the relocation of the council to Bologna since the spring of 1547 and the completely open question of when the emperor would get the participants to return to Trent seemed to give the interim a certain significance. It primarily regulated questions of the practical implementation of faith such as ceremonies and sacramental practice, in the case of central theological issues, however, the Catholic position was more or less tacitly adopted, which corresponded to the balance of power in the empire after the victory at Mühlberg .

The interim consisted of a total of 26 articles and was officially called: "The Roman Imperial Majesty's Declaration, as it should be kept for the sake of religion in the Holy Kingdom until the general Concilii." Teaching.

Beginning with the primordial doctrine and the doctrine of the condition of man after the fall of man (Articles 1 and 2), the following doctrines on soteriology (Article 3), on the doctrine of justification (Articles 4 to 6), on faith and work (Articles 7 and 8), on ecclesiology (Articles 9 to 13), on the doctrine of the seven sacraments (Articles 14 to 21), on the sacrifice of the Mass (Article 22), on the veneration of saints (Article 23), on the Mass for the Soul (Article 24) and a requirement for frequent reception of Communion (Article 25 ). The authors tried to build on the religious talks in Worms and Regensburg and to incorporate the compromises found there into the interim.

In contrast, Article 26 contained an almost complete restoration of the religious order of the Catholic Church. As a concession to the Protestants, only the lay chalice was allowed and the marriage of already married clergy was recognized. The "old [n] ceremonies" should be taken over and not be changed. Vigils and "celebrations of the dead, as it is customary in the old church" should be held again. A detailed festival calendar was prescribed, which also included Corpus Christi and All Saints' Day , which did not appear in the Protestant festival calendar . Lent customs , church processions and the blessing of the water of baptism at Easter and Pentecost were affirmed, as was the veneration of saints , but with the theological clarification: "Wherever they violate the right measure, they should be corrected and bettered." private fairs very popular with Catholics of the time; it had been one of the Lutheran demands with which Agricola had been able to prevail.

Overall, however, the foundations of the Catholic doctrine remained untouched. The future handling of property relations that were changed during the Reformation was not discussed. However, in the preface to the interim, the emperor reserved the right to make changes “where and so vil vonnöthen, itzo and hinnach all time”.

Enforcement of the interim

Letter from Charles V to the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, Melchior Zobel von Giebelstadt , with orders for compliance with the Interim by his estates

The enforcement in the empire

Both Catholics (for whom it was not binding) and Protestants rejected the interim by a majority and therefore this interim solution turned out to be a failure. Theologically, the compromise that had been found did not go far enough for both sides , indeed it weakened their own position at the planned unification council. The majority of the critics were also unwilling to attribute competence to the emperor in questions of religion.

Concrete example: Hochstift Würzburg

Despite the general dissatisfaction with the regulation in the months following the conclusion of the Reichstag, imperial policy was determined by the attempt to enforce the interim as closely as possible. The promised restriction of the validity of the regulation to the Protestant imperial estates was very quickly forgotten: Catholic imperial estates and even clergy princes (example: Hochstift Würzburg under Melchior Zobel von Giebelstadt ) received requests to report on compliance with the interim in their countries, and instructions to intervene wherever the interim has not yet been followed. Bauer interprets the corresponding imperial letters to the Würzburg bishop of August 30th (lost) and October 12th (picture on the right) to the effect that the Catholic imperial estates were indeed obliged to enforce the interim among Protestants living under their jurisdiction to care. The wording of the surviving letter, first published in 1732, speaks against this, in which there is no mention of a restriction to Protestants. From the Catholic bishop's point of view, it would have always been closer to completely returning the Lutherans living in the diocese to the old faith, and in fact, under Melchior Zobel, the first approaches to the Counter-Reformation in the Hochstift Würzburg can be seen. Nevertheless he bowed to the imperial will at least outwardly and obediently wrote a series of letters to the estates of his principality. The practical effects remained small in the Hochstift Würzburg, as in most other areas of the empire; there was mostly a lack of serious will to implement it, as well as so-called "interim priests", since clergymen of both denominations saw the religion being diluted in the interim and often emigrated rather than celebrating the liturgy according to the provisions of the interim.

Concrete example: Jeverland

Confessions of the 21 Jeverland clergy - here: Confession of Cornelius Falconissa
Acrostic poem on the subject of interim (Cornelius Falconissa)

The Reformation movement had already reached Jeverland in the north-west of the empire in 1526/1527 . It was primarily Heinrich Kremer († 1540), pastor of Jever, who introduced the evangelical sermon on his own initiative, distributed the Lord's Supper in both forms and finally married, who were responsible for their implementation. In 1531/1532 Miss Maria , the mistress of the Jeverland, gave up her initial resistance to the Reformation and in 1532 issued a mandate which ordered the Reformation to be carried out in her domain. Your chancellor Remmer van Seediek was given the task of drafting church regulations for the Jeverland.

Through an imperial messenger, the interim came into the rule of Jever in August 1548 and was received by Fraulein Maria. On Monday, November 12th, 1548, she gathered the Jeverland clergy in her castle in Jever and submitted the interim to her for acceptance. Since the assembly could not spontaneously decide on a clear vote, Maria gave them a three-week cooling-off period and at the same time instructed them to write a personal statement. In doing so, they should deal with four points in particular: the interim itself, the Articles of Faith of the Apostolicum , the sacraments, and traditional religious ceremonies.

Ultimately, the 21 Jeverland clergy, among them the Westrum pastor Cornelius Falconissa , rejected the Augsburg interim in their personal confessions - albeit with different theological arguments . Its spokesman, the former Augustinian hermit Antonius Morenanus, declared during a meeting on December 3, 1548: “Christ [has] said: give to the emperor what is the emperor's and to God what is God; that is why one must always obey the emperor in every respect in matters of time and give him what belongs to him. But in the matter of salvation, what is his must be given to God, so that that saying is not turned into the opposite. Because one has to obey God more than men. ”About the further course of the negotiations it then says:“ [The Jeverland clergy] immediately proved how that imperial book, the so-called Interim, contained teachings that are incompatible with the word of God. The greater part therefore rejected this book. "

Implementation in the remaining areas

The regulations of the Augsburg Interim were disregarded or only superficially implemented where the estates could evade the pressure of the imperial arms. Only in the southern German evangelical territories, here especially Württemberg , and in the southern German imperial cities directly subordinate to the emperor, could the interim be enforced to some extent.

In Württemberg, where Duke Ulrich was only able to regain his land with Protestant-Hessian help in 1534 and only held it as an Austrian after-fief according to the Treaty of Kaaden , a felony trial was now threatened . Although reports were drawn up that rejected the interim in writing, and so Ulrich asked in a public statement that the interim be spared, he had little to counter the political and military pressure. 300–400 pastors, including Johannes Brenz , lost their positions and the monasteries were restituted.

The imperial city of Constance refused to accept the interim. They then took the Emperor with the imperial ban , he besieged the city and punished them after the surrender with the loss of the kingdom of freedom.

In 27 Upper German imperial cities, above all Augsburg and Ulm , the political implementation of the interim accompanied the abolition of the old guild constitutions, which the imperial commissioner Heinrich Has replaced with new, patrician-dominated city constitutions based on the model of Nuremberg . With a few exceptions, the new so-called rabbit councils were able to hold out for the duration of the interim until the loss of the imperial city independence at the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The Protestant theologians of the imperial city were driven out. Martin Bucer fled from Strasbourg to England.

Magdeburg was a center of resistance against the interim (engraving by Matthäus Merian around 1640)

The princes Johann Friedrich von Sachsen and Philipp von Hessen refused to accept the interim after their defeat in the Battle of Mühlberg in captivity. The Duchy of Calenberg-Göttingen , Pfalz-Zweibrücken , the Duchy of Prussia , Margraviate Brandenburg-Küstrin , Duchy of Mecklenburg , Lüneburg , Bremen , Lübeck and Hamburg completely refused the interim. Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg had the interim spread, but at the same time retained the Protestant church order of 1540. Elector Friedrich von der Pfalz also had it announced in his country, but he did not supervise the implementation. The Dukes of Pomerania accepted the interim personally, but left the execution to the Bishop of Cammin. Since the bishop's chair had been vacant since the emperor's deposition of Bartholomaeus Suaves, the execution was practically not carried out. This showed that large areas of northern and eastern Germany were outside the imperial power.

Despite a strict imperial ban on writing, printing or preaching against the Interim, innumerable pamphlets circulated against it in the empire . The opponents gathered especially in the free city of Magdeburg , which was therefore given the name Herrgotts Chancellery . Mocking songs were also composed for the Interim and circulated among the people.

Philipp Melanchthon, who played a key role in the preparation of the Leipzig articles (painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1559))

The Saxon special route

Duke Moritz von Sachsen , who received the electoral dignity of the Ernestine line from the emperor for his support in the Schmalkaldic War, personally accepted the interim. But he did not dare to force it on his country. Therefore, with the help of Philipp Melanchthon , he had his own proposal worked out at a series of conferences, which became known as the Leipzig Article , also known as the Leipzig Interim .

This interim was accepted by the Saxon estates on December 22, 1548 and introduced as a state law in July 1549. At its core, it mainly contained the doctrine of justification that was so central to Protestantism . In other controversial issues, for example the Latin mass, the Corpus Christi and Mary feasts , Catholic positions were also adopted.

Similar to the Augsburg Interim, this also met with resistance from the ranks of Protestants who wanted to preserve the original teachings of Martin Luther . This led to a split in Protestantism into Gnesiolutherans and Philippists , which could not be overcome again until 1577 with the formula of concord .

The end of the interim

In the following years, Duke Moritz von Sachsen increasingly distanced himself from the emperor , whose ally he was in the Schmalkaldic War, and on May 22, 1551, secretly concluded an alliance with various northeast German Protestant princes (for example with Hans von Küstrin in the Treaty of Torgau) and Albrecht of Prussia ). With the Treaty of Chambord concluded on January 15, 1552, France also joined this alliance.

In the spring of 1552 the troops of the allied princes struck. They quickly conquered the southern German cities, which were still loyal to the emperor, and in March 1552 advanced as far as Tyrol . The Catholic imperial estates were largely neutral in this conflict, as strengthening imperial power was not in their interest. At the same time France opened the war. The emperor, who barely escaped capture in Innsbruck and without troops or money, had to flee to Villach .

Moritz von Sachsen (detail from a painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger)

In this situation, the Roman King Ferdinand acted as a mediator between the emperor and the rebellious princes. The negotiations took place in Passau . On August 2, 1552 in the Passau Treaty, the Protestant princes agreed to give up their alliance with France. In return, the imperial family released their prisoners - including the two former captains of the Schmalkaldic League. A compromise was reached on the question of faith: the Augsburg interim was canceled and the conclusion of an indefinite religious peace for the next Reichstag was promised.

The emperor had failed with his religious-political goals and began to give up. He increasingly transferred decision-making power in the empire to Ferdinand. The Augsburg Religious Peace , which in 1555 codified the division of faith in the Reich de jure , was formally concluded in his name, but Ferdinand had negotiated it and enforced it against clear reservations from the emperor and the Catholic estates.

On August 23, 1556, Charles V abdicated and left the imperial crown to Ferdinand.

Reasons for failure

The reasons for the failure of the Augsburg interim - and thus for the religious and political ideas of Emperor Charles V - are diverse. The most important of these are:

  • There was a lack of prominent Protestant advocates and negotiating partners. Martin Luther , the influential reformer, died in 1546. The two formerly powerful captains of the Schmalkaldic League were in custody. Moritz von Sachsen, who was one of the most important Protestant princes of his time, had lost his credibility in the eyes of the Protestant believers through the support of the Catholics in the Schmalkaldic War ( Judas von Meißen ).
  • The emperor did not succeed in convincing the pope and powerful Catholic estates, such as the Bavarian duke, of the interim. In their eyes, Protestantism remained a heresy that could only be ended by submitting Protestants to Catholic authority.
  • Charles' position was weakened by an internal Habsburg conflict over succession to the empire. The line of the Austrian Habsburgs , to which Ferdinand belonged, was only to receive the imperial crown temporarily, after which it should fall back to the Spanish line (→ Spanish succession ). Ferdinand, on the other hand, tried to make himself popular with the imperial estates in order to secure the succession for his house. Because of this, he often negotiated with the Protestants behind Charles's back and was more willing to compromise.
  • After his victory in the Schmalkaldic War, the emperor had become too powerful for many imperial estates. They wanted to keep their German liberty . That is why they either supported the uprising of the princes led by Moritz von Sachsen directly or at least maintained a benevolent neutrality .
  • There was in some cases very decided resistance to the interim at the local level. The majority of evangelical pastors and theologians rejected it. An exodus of clergy took place in the areas where the Interim was enforced. Since no replacement could be found at short notice, there was a clear shortage of interim priests in some areas .

literature

  • Christoph Bauer: Melchior Zobel von Giebelstadt, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (1544–1558). Diocese and bishopric of Würzburg in crisis. Aschendorff, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-402-03803-X ( Reformation history studies and texts 139), (At the same time: Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 1994/95).
  • Albrecht Beutel : End of a religious war. The Augsburg Religious Peace - the beginning of a new era. NZZ of September 23, 2005, online version .
  • Horst Rabe : Reichsbund and Interim. The constitutional and religious policy of Charles V and the Reichstag in Augsburg 1547/48. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1971, ISBN 3-412-30371-2 (also: Tübingen, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1965/66).
  • Helga Schnabel-Schüle : The Reformation 1495–1555. Politics with theology and religion. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017048-6 ( Reclam's Universal Library 17048).
  • Luise Schorn-Schütte (Ed.): The Interim 1548/50. Dominance crisis and conflict of faith. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-579-01762-4 ( Writings of the Association for Reformation History 203).
  • Ferdinand Seibt : Karl V. The Emperor and the Reformation. 2nd Edition. Siedler, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-442-75511-5 .
  • Alfred Wendehorst : Diocese of Würzburg. Volume 3 = NF 13: The dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz. The series of bishops from 1455 to 1617. Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-11-007475-3 ( Germania Sacra ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Quoted from: Schnabel-Schüle: Die Reformation 1495–1555. P. 177
  2. ↑ For the imperial Reichsbund project see: Komatsu: Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A typological comparison. Pp. 109-112
  3. ↑ Schnabel-Schüle, The Reformation 1495–1555, p. 207
  4. ↑ Schnabel-Schüle: The Reformation 1495–1555. P. 207.
  5. ^ Albrecht Luttenberger: Faith unity and imperial peace. Pp. 463-464.
  6. ↑ Horst Rabe: Reichsbund and Interim. P. 437.
  7. ↑ Horst Rabe: Reichsbund and Interim. P. 441.
  8. ↑ Horst Rabe: Reichsbund and Interim. P. 441f.
  9. ↑ Horst Rabe: Reichsbund and Interim. P. 452
  10. ↑ Interim . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 8, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 997.
  11. ^ Joachim Mehlhausen: Vestigia Verbi: Essays on the history of Protestant theology. P. 69
  12. ↑ a b Joachim Mehlhausen: Vestigia Verbi: Essays on the history of Protestant theology. P. 70
  13. ↑ Excerpts from the interim quoted from: German history in sources and representations. Volume 3: Reformation period 1495–1555. P. 80f.
  14. ↑ Horst Rabe: Reichsbund and Interim. P. 428.
  15. ↑ Ongoing collection of old and new theological matters. Leipzig 1732, pp. 695-697, “Kaysers Caroli V. Inquiry as to whether the interim has been introduced to the Bishop of Würtzburg
  16. ^ Letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century. Munich 1882, vol. 3 p. 112 f. No. 159, XV "
  17. ↑ Christoph Bauer: Melchior Zobel von Giebelstadt, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg (1544–1558); Diocese and bishopric of Würzburg in crisis. Münster 1998, ISBN 3-402-03803-X , p. 159 f.
  18. ^ Alfred Wendehorst: Germania Sacra Vol. 13: Diocese of Würzburg, Part III, The Bishop's Series from 1455 to 1617. Berlin 1978, ISBN 978-3-11-007475-8 , p. 125
  19. ↑ Rolf Schäfer , Joachim Kuropka, Reinhard Rittner, Heinrich Schmidt: Oldenburgische Kirchengeschichte , Oldenburg 1999, pp. 216-219
  20. ↑ Rolf Schäfer (Ed.): The Jeverschen Pastor Confessions 1548 on the occasion of the Augsburg Interim . Mohr Siebeck Verlag , Tübingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-16-151910-9 , p. 12 f .
  21. ↑ Quotations from Rolf Schäfer (Ed.): The Jeverschen Pastor Confessions 1548 on the occasion of the Augsburger Interim , Tübingen 2012, p. 15 f.
  22. ↑ Volker Press : Duke Ulrich. In: Robert Uhland (Hrsg.): 900 years House of Württemberg. Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-17-008930-7 . P. 133.
  23. ^ Joachim Mehlhausen: Vestigia Verbi: Essays on the history of Protestant theology. P. 71
  24. ^ Eberhard Naujoks: Charles V and the guild constitution. Selected files on the constitutional changes in the Upper German imperial cities (1547–1556). Publications of the commission for historical regional studies in Baden-Württemberg. Row A: Sources
  25. ↑ Volker Press: The Territorial World of Southwest Germany (1450-1650). In: The Renaissance in the German Southwest between the Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Exhibition catalog, Volume 1, Karlsruhe 1986, pp. 40f.
  26. ↑ historicum.net: Augsburger Interim
  27. ↑ Horst Carl: From denominational formation to denominationalization. P. 5
  28. ^ German history in sources and representations. Volume 3. Reformation period 1495–1555, p. 452
  29. ↑ The Great Ploetz. 32nd edition, p. 811