Passau Treaty

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The Passau Treaty of August 2, 1552 between the Roman-German King Ferdinand I and the Protestant imperial princes under the leadership of Moritz of Saxony after the prince uprising represented the formal recognition of Protestantism , which was enshrined in imperial law with the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555. The contract was negotiated and concluded in Passau's Lamberg-Palais . It was signed in the castle of the Counts Solms in Rödelheim .

As a result of the hasty flight of the troops of Emperor Charles V from Innsbruck , Moritz had achieved his highest war goal. He wanted to start negotiations with Ferdinand I , Karl's brother and temporary regent for the empire, and to find a solution to the religious question in the empire. This was not possible with Karl because he was not ready for a peaceful settlement.

Commemorative plaque to the Passau Treaty of 1552, on Passau Domplatz , Lamberg-Palais
Commemorative coin of Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony for the Passau Treaty of 1552 and the Peace of Augsburg

Imperial legal significance

This contract was also a compromise agreement between Ferdinand and Moritz. Emperor Karl undertook to release Landgrave Philip of Hesse . Philipp was the father-in-law of Moritz von Sachsen and had been in imperial captivity since the Wittenberg surrender in 1547. The former Elector Johann Friedrich I of Saxony , who had been imprisoned until then, was also released again in the wake of the peace negotiations. It was also the emperor's remit to protect the Holy Roman Empire against the threat from the Turks. For their part, the Protestants under Moritz von Sachsen committed to support him in this.

Position of the emperor

Karl initially rejected the draft contract negotiated in Passau and insisted on changes, e.g. a. on a limitation of the agreed renunciation of force until the next Reichstag , which would then have to look for ways to religiously reunite the Reich. Charles ratified the amended draft on August 15, 1552.

In this respect, the Passau negotiations that preceded the treaty were much more important. Historians consider them to be the truly groundbreaking thing. The negotiations took place in an atmosphere of an imminent war that was actually waged by Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades . Ferdinand, Moritz , the envoys of the other electors, Albrecht of Bavaria, the bishops of Salzburg, Passau and Eichstätt and the representatives of Württemberg, Brandenburg-Küstrin and Jülich gathered in Passau . However, the emperor's representatives did not have the authority to conclude a final contract; Karl wanted to decide for himself. The negotiations took place mainly between the warring parties. Ferdinand and the other princes mediated in conflicts.

Karl resisted the demands of the rebellious princes for a long time, and with the steadfastness of the city of Frankfurt am Main, loyal to the emperor, which defied the siege of the princes (July 17 to August 9, 1552), by granting money from Naples and the Fuggers, gradually changed the location. Karl rejected the demanded definitive, everlasting peace on the religious question.

Interests of the princes

But almost everyone involved in the negotiations was interested in a stable, workable balance based on the status quo . This was interesting in so far as the Catholic Church had always insisted that the unity of the church must be preserved. Second, it was agreed that peace should be given precedence over the reunification of the Church. The religious disputes would have to be legalized and thus politically neutralized. They wanted a stable peace, regardless of whether the theological questions remained unsolved. Shortly before, these views had hardly had any supporters in the Reich. And thirdly, the princes gathered in Passau were convinced that the imperial estates themselves had to solve the problems. It is not only a task of the emperor or the pope to create peace, but the empire must be pacified from within. The views of the Curia were not taken into account and the previous provisional arrangement of Charles V in the form of the Augsburg interim was tacitly disclosed.

Despite Karl's rejection of the contract as a permanent arrangement, Moritz also agreed to the limitation. He would rather see himself as the savior of Protestantism than continue the war against the Habsburgs, especially since the war would probably not have been won in the long term due to the emperor's resources.

literature

  • Winfried Becker (Hrsg.): The Passau Treaty of 1552. Political origin, importance under imperial law and denominational evaluation (= individual works from the church history of Bavaria. Vol. 80). Degener, Neustadt an der Aisch 2003, ISBN 3-7686-4221-6
  • Volker Henning Drecoll: The Passau Treaty (1552). Introduction and edition (= work on church history. Vol. 79). De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-11-016697-6
  • Axel Gotthard : The Old Empire 1495–1806. 5th, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-15118-9 .
  • Joseph Lortz : The Reformation in Germany. Herder, Freiburg i. B. 1940. (2nd volume)

Remarks

  1. ↑ In fact, the Protestants under Moritz did help him with some success. The first serious problems with the " Reichstürkenhilfe " appeared when the successor of Ferdinand, Maximilian II, intended to obtain the crown of Poland. This led to a rapprochement between Maximilian and the Pope and to an alienation from the German Protestants.
  2. ↑ Johannes Voigt: Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach , Berlin, Decker, 1852, Volume 1, pp. 292-315.


Coordinates: 48 ° 34 '29.17 "  N , 13 ° 27' 46.51"  O