Catholic League (1538)

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The founding place of Nuremberg around 1493

The Catholic League (also called the Nuremberg League or League of Nuremberg ) was an alliance of Catholic estates in the Holy Roman Empire founded on June 10, 1538 in Nuremberg . It was the Catholic counterpart to the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and was intended to counteract the increasing spread of Protestantism in the empire.

The alliance was ineffective due to differing interests and the mutual distrust of its members. Although the union was limited to 1549, the league no longer existed de facto by 1545 at the latest and the members went their separate ways politically.

history

Portrait of Emperor Charles V by Titian (1533).
Portrait of King Ferdinand by Barthel Beham (1531)

prehistory

In the 1530s it became clear that the Edict of Worms against Protestantism could not be enforced politically and militarily. At the same time, Emperor Charles V came under pressure in terms of foreign policy because the Turks invaded Hungary and he needed a free hand to avert the Turkish threat in the empire. In return, the Protestant princes, who had largely united in the Schmalkaldic League in 1531, insisted on securing their political and economic power base, which they had considerably expanded by confiscating Catholic property within their territories.

On July 23, 1532, the emperor and the Protestant imperial estates concluded the Nuremberg Religious Peace . The emperor declared that all religious trials at the Imperial Court of Justice would be suspended, in return the Protestants agreed to support Karl in the fight against the Turks.

The founding of the league

In the interpretation of the Catholic side, the compromise reached in Nuremberg also regulated that the denominational status quo of 1532 should be preserved. Nevertheless, other territories and imperial cities converted to Protestantism in the period that followed . The expansion becomes particularly clear when one considers that Catholicism was preserved almost exclusively in the Habsburg and Wittelsbach areas, in addition to the spiritual territories immediately adjacent to the empire .

While the two denominations were predominantly tolerant in the west of the empire for a long time, and confessionally mixed areas emerged here, the conflict threatened to escalate in other places at any time. The military expansion of the Schmalkaldic Confederation, which had been driven forward since 1535, and the successful Protestant recapture of the Duchy of Württemberg in 1534, further exacerbated the situation. In this situation the Catholic estates decided to found a defensive alliance limited to eleven years.

The initiative for this went back to the Reich Vice Chancellor Matthias Held . He relied on military strength and a deterrent against the Schmalkaldic League in order to be able to contain Protestantism. With this strategy, Held found himself in opposition to the Emperor and the Roman King Ferdinand , who at that time both advocated political integration of the Protestants into a general order of peace and religious rapprochement through religious talks. With his rigid course against the Schmalkaldic federal estates, Held contributed significantly to the worsening of the situation between the emperor and the Catholic estates on the one hand and the Schmalkaldic federal estates on the other.

After the Protestants had refused further support in the fight against the Turks in 1536, Ferdinand tried to get this help at least from the Catholic side. In February 1537, during negotiations in Passau , the princes of the Bavarian imperial circle declared that they would only be able to provide support if they were certain that they would not be attacked by the Protestants. For this reason, the Catholic League was founded in Nuremberg on June 10, 1538, initially without the knowledge and membership of the emperor.

On June 23, 1538, Charles V, who was currently in Genoa , was informed about the establishment by his brother Ferdinand. It was not until March 20, 1539 that he ratified the charter and formally joined the alliance. In the end, Karl was reserved about the league, as evidenced by the long absence of imperial ratification as well as the fact that the Frankfurt decency and further religious discussions came about .

Similar to the Schmalkaldic League, the purpose of the alliance was to provide common resistance . The alliance members made a binding commitment to support one another militarily in the event of a Protestant attack.

The action of the league

George of Saxony, through whose death the Duchy of Saxony left the league and became Protestant.

The league could achieve little reputation with a rather unwilling emperor and a relatively small number of members. The alliance remained small and - in contrast to its Protestant counterpart - could not develop into an influential factor in the empire. It was significant that he had no secular elector and only two clergy princes. The Pope also refused to support the alliance.

The most important members (the Kaiser, Bavaria , Saxony and Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel ) had different political goals; they only united the rejection of Protestantism. In addition, the dividing line between representatives of imperial politics and princes critical of the Habsburgs (especially Bavaria) ran right through the alliance. For these reasons, no internal cohesion developed and the external impact remained low, although the establishment of the Confederation in the Reich initially caused a sensation. Mutual distrust and disagreement prevented the members from taking successful action against the spreading Protestantism in conflicts in which the federal government was subsequently involved.

The Catholic Duke Georg of Saxony died on April 17, 1539 and his Protestant brother Heinrich took over his inheritance. George had in his will decreed that his property to the Habsburg should fall if his successor would not join the Catholic League. As a staunch Protestant, Heinrich was neither ready to join the Catholic alliance nor to release the property he had inherited. The Dukes of Bavaria and Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel urged Charles V to prevent Saxony from converting to Protestantism through intervention by the alliance, including military action if necessary. On the other hand, peace in the empire and the undisturbed implementation of the Hagenau Religious Discussions that began in 1540 were more important to the emperor . Heinrich was therefore able to convert his duchy to Protestantism undisturbed and at the same time take over the inheritance.

Heinrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, one of the federal colonels of the league, who was expelled from his duchy in 1542.

In the summer of 1542 Heinrich von Braunschweig , who was one of the federal colonels of the league, was attacked by troops from the Electorate of Saxony and Hesse and expelled from his duchy. The dispute had been simmering for a long time and was finally ignited by the status of the cities of Braunschweig and Goslar , both of which were members of the Schmalkaldic League but were officially subordinate to the Duke. The Protestant alliance helped the two cities, occupied the duchy and drove out the arch-Catholic Heinrich. Thus, according to the statutes of the league, the alliance case occurred, which obliged the members to intervene militarily. Hesse and Saxony were ultimately asked at the following Bundestag to return the duchy, but no concrete measures were decided - allegedly because of the Turkish threat. The federation remained inactive in the following years, although Heinrich was the last secular Catholic prince in northern Germany. The leaders of the Schmalkaldic Federation propagated the victory over the Duke of Braunschweig with their Schmalkaldic Bundestalers minted in Goslar .

The role of the emperor

Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand played a very mixed role in the Catholic League. On the one hand, they were interested in pushing back Protestantism. He contradicted their religious convictions and Charles V's understanding of office that the Roman emperor was the secular head of all Christianity. In addition, the emperor saw the threat of denominational fragmentation of the empire as a strengthening of the imperial estates at the expense of his powers.

On the other hand, Karl and Ferdinand had to organize the defense against the Ottomans . For this they were dependent on the financial and military support of all imperial estates. By formally supporting the alliance, they secured the goodwill of the Catholic side. By avoiding a military escalation, they also tried to gain the support of the Protestant princes.

Emperor Charles V was also involved in wars against France. In order to be able to act effectively here, he above all needed peace and quiet in the Reich. If the protestant princes were attacked too aggressively, he saw the danger that they allied with France (and possibly also with the Ottomans). The emperor wanted to prevent this in any case and therefore continued his mediation policy.

The end of the alliance

The alliance probably expired before its contractual end without an official announcement. From 1545 Charles V planned to take action against the Schmalkaldic League and in 1546 concluded corresponding treaties with Bavaria and the Pope . The basis of this military alliance, however, were bilateral treaties and not the Catholic League.

construction

The federal government had a defensive orientation, military actions to reintroduce the Catholic faith in Protestant areas were not provided for in the alliance agreement. On the contrary, the federal treaty explicitly obliged the members to observe the religious peace enshrined in Nuremberg decency. The case of defense should arise in the event of religiously motivated attacks on alliance members, but also in the case of breaches of the peace on the part of the Schmalkaldic League. However, an amicable settlement of the conflict should be attempted beforehand.

The duration of the alliance was limited to eleven years. It was divided into an Upper German and a Saxon province, which had the same organizational structure and were largely independent. The geographic focus of the agreement was in Upper Germany. In contrast, the Saxon province was relatively small. The duchies of Saxony and Calenberg were only briefly (until 1539/40) federal members. The bishops of Meißen and Merseburg were deprived of their ability to shape politics by Saxony. After Heinrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel was expelled in 1542, only the bishop of Magdeburg and Halberstadt and two Mansfeld counts formed the Saxon province.

Each princely founding member received one vote in the Federal Assembly; the voting rights of new members should be determined appropriately and by mutual agreement. Just like in the Schmalkaldic League, two princes with the rank of federal colonel presided over the alliance. For the Upper German province it was Ludwig von Bayern and for the Saxon one Heinrich von Braunschweig.

The Habsburgs bore a quarter of the federal government's total costs. In addition to a supply of weapons and ammunition, a joint federal treasury was kept, from which both the running costs and the soldiers' waiting allowances were paid.

meaning

The Catholic League was not very effective and was actually overtaken by the Frankfurt decency that was concluded in 1539 . Although there were several occasions to do so, the alliance never became active because the members lacked the necessary unity. Even beyond military conflicts, there was hardly any consensus on how to act together. Nevertheless, the league represented the first real counterweight in the empire to the spreading Protestantism.

In modern historiography, this first Catholic League, in contrast to the second Catholic League founded in 1609 in the run-up to the Thirty Years' War, generally receives little attention.

Members

The main members of the Catholic League were:

According to its conception, the Catholic League should be an alliance of all Catholic estates in the empire. However, only very few of the courted imperial estates joined after it was founded. Only a few Upper Swabian aristocrats, the Catholic Counts of Mansfeld, the city of Mühlhausen and the bishops of Meißen and Merseburg were persuaded to take this step.

literature

  • Guido Komatsu: Land Peace Unions in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison . Dissertation, University of Göttingen 2001 ( full text ; PDF; 858 kB)
  • Nadja Lupke-Niederich: "We are willing to get involved in it and are willing to go." The Catholic Federation of Nuremberg and the less powerful Swabians . In: Christine Roll et al. (Hrsg.): Law and Empire in the Age of Reformation. Festschrift for Horst Rabe. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1996, ISBN 3-631-47923-9 , pp. 493-506
  • Hermann Baumgarten : Charles V and the Catholic Union from 1538 . In German journal for historical science vol. 6, JCB Mohr, Freiburg i. Br, 1891, pp. 273-300

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the literature, the alliance is referenced under various names, in addition to those mentioned, it is also referred to, for example, as the Holy League , Holy League of Nuremberg or Liga sancta .
  2. ↑ The Nuremberg Bund on historicum.net
  3. ↑ Blickle, Die Reformation im Reich, p. 209
  4. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 85
  5. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 87
  6. ^ Kohler, Karl V., p. 262
  7. ^ Kohler, Karl V., p. 263
  8. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison, p. 88
  9. ↑ The Nuremberg Bund on historicum.net
  10. ^ Kohler, Karl V., p. 263
  11. ↑ on negotiations with the Pope see Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 96ff
  12. ↑ Mörke, The Reformation: Requirements and Implementation, p. 51
  13. ^ Kohler, Karl V., p. 263
  14. ↑ On the subject of the legacy of Georg von Saxony see: Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 102ff
  15. ↑ Schnabel-Schüle, The Reformation 1495–1555, p. 199
  16. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 106
  17. ↑ On the subject of the expulsion of Duke Heinrich, see: Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 105ff
  18. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison, p. 107
  19. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison, p. 98
  20. ↑ Luttenberger, Faith Unity and Reichsfriede: Conceptions and ways of denominationally neutral Reich policy, p. 41
  21. ^ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison, p. 99
  22. ^ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde in the 16th Century - A Typological Comparison, p. 99
  23. ↑ The Nuremberg Bund on historicum.net
  24. ↑ The Nuremberg Bund on historicum.net
  25. ↑ Komatsu, Landfriedensbünde im 16. Century - A typological comparison, p. 92
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 15, 2008 .