~ Ordinatio Imperii ~
Reform in the Holy Roman Empire, c. 1540-1560
The 12 years of war that consumed the Holy Roman Empire from 1542 to 1554 would pass into the contemporary annals as a series of disjointed, religiously-fueled uprisings, a momentary stumble on the House of Hapsburg’s inevitable path to domination. But to popular memory this conflict would be recalled as the “Schwarzkrieg” - the “Black War” that forced unprecedented violence between the German people and would forever befoul relations between the Catholics and Protestants amongst them. The seething ferocity of this conflict grew to involve all of the powers of Western Europe, baring their own particular socio-religious divides in the process and leaving an estimated 2 million dead from disease, disorder, and destruction of cataclysmic proportions.
Popular uprisings in Central Europe after the Bauernkrieg
(1: Beeldenstorm/Bildersturm, 2: Swabian Revolt, 3: Horali Revolt)
Yet despite the depredations and consequent bad blood brought about by the Schwarzkrieg, it served a remediative purpose for Reformation-era Germany. Wave after wave of destruction brought on by warfare, looting, and iconoclasm had effectively erased much of Germany’s tangible medieval heritage, but this destruction had similarly wiped clean from both German society and the German consciousness many of the problems that had caused it in the first place. After the final session of the ecumenical council at Basel closed in 1546, the Germans gradually found the Church they had so heartily rebelled against able to respond to their needs and concerns. Reform Catholicism was already slowly filtering in naturally from Northern Italy via the Oratorians and Gregorians beginning in the 1540s, but its true induction into German society began with a homegrown movement led by two clerics by the name of Bruno Gerhardt and Pieter Kanis.
Gerhardt, a native of Dormagen, was finishing his Augustinian novitiate and canon law studies in the city of Cologne when Duke William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg strode in at the head of an army of ravenous mercenaries, followed closely by thousands of angry Protestant zealots. Gerhardt spent two terrifying weeks in hiding, narrowly evading capture as he witnessed the subjection of Cologne to a deluge of bloodshed, looting, and all manner of sacrilege. After finding an opportunity to slip out of the city unnoticed, Gerhardt hid his tonsure and fled 80 kilometers before being sheltered by a Catholic family near the city of Venlo. While recuperating in their barn, Gerhardt states that he came to the conclusion that the blame for the Protestant epidemic could be placed squarely on negligent clergy and the consequent ignorance of the masses towards their own faith. After two short weeks in hiding, Gerhardt would again have to flee as the iconoclastic Beeldenstorm and Dutch Revolt came into full swing, this time stopping in Eindhoven where by happenstance he found Pieter Kanis, a colleague from Cologne.
Kanis, a native of Nijmegen, was of like mind with Gerhardt, and proposed that they gain permission from their order to obtain a printing press for the sake of pamphleteering. With the famed medieval Colognian doctor Albertus Magnus as their inspiration, Gerhardt and Kanis laid the foundations for a religious community later known colloquially as the “Albertines.” This connection to Albert of Cologne was significant enough that the Albertines were instrumental in seeing him canonized in 1620, after which they formally changed the name of their order from the "Society of Clerics Regular of the Divine Word" to the “Society of St. Albert the Great.” Tapping into the long-established and vibrant popular devotion found in the Low Countries and Lower Rhineland and drawing inspiration from the writings of the 19th Ecumenical Council and its Basilian Catechism (as well as from Jehan Cauvin, the French bishop of Noyon), the mission of the Albertines was simple: to revive Church-led education. Gerhardt and Kanis acknowledged the value and advancements found in the Renaissance humanist models of Europe’s foremost educational institutions and intellectual leadership, and they wished to collaborate with such modern knowledge and relay it to the uninformed - albeit with an underlying focus on Christ rather than Man. Ideally, Albertine schools would be charitable institutions and thus free of charge, with priority given to orphans and other clergy.
These first years were ones of toil and tribulation as the Albertines struggled to ride out the throes of the Beeldenstorm and Schwarzkrieg. Communication with Rome was sparse and slow, but in 1562 Kanis and Gerhardt finally received authorization of their new order from Rome as well as the go-ahead to start a community at Arnhem, followed by a sister community at Duisburg in 1563. Greater support subsequently came from imperial princes wishing to re-Catholicize their domains, particularly the prince-bishops of Liège, Cologne, and Wurzburg. What truly improved the fortunes of this upstart order was the interest of Albrecht VI, duke of Bavaria, who personally invited the Albertines into his duchy, giving them funds to open a grammar school in Ingolstadt and requesting their best tutors for his son. The Albertines of Ingolstadt quickly gained a reputation for their learnedness, eloquence, and devotion, and soon found themselves sponsored directly by the House of Hapsburg - first by Ferdinand II, Duke of Further Austria, who paid for an Albertine college in Innsbruck, then by the Emperor himself, Philipp II, who kept his court filled with Albertine brothers and made enormous donations to their chapters and schools in Prague, Vienna, Mechelen, Ghent, Eger, Pressburg, and Brno. Having started with basic catechesis, arithmetic, and syntax, the Albertines quickly began percolating into the fields of law, medicine, botany, astronomy, anthropology, and philosophy.
Die Albertinische Universität von Ingolstadt
The inception and rise of the Albertines in Central Europe was merely one facet of the far-reaching effects of the Council of Basel. All across the Empire, there were fundamental changes in Catholic society: corrupt bishops and licentious priests were defrocked; the more inaccessible, quaint frescoes often found in the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were overshadowed by awe-inspiring baroque paintings and sculptures; and the much needed Oratorians, Gregorians, and Albertines - so full of spiritual vigor and moral seriousness - began to file into the churches, monasteries, and universities. With a great number of German Protestantism’s secular and religious leadership exiled, killed, or otherwise disengaged from society, many Germans (especially those less theologically attuned) that formerly aligned with the Protestant cause simply reverted to the Catholicism of their forefathers - a Catholicism which now possessed a renewed energy and had overcome the greater share of its old abuses.
- Der Große Reichstag -
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
- Isaiah 1:18
Der Reichstag in Mühlhausen
Assailed on all sides, the old imperial, Catholic order represented by the Hapsburgs had somehow prevailed against the humanist, centralizing governments of France and the League of Fulda, and now found itself free to dictate the terms of postwar Europe. With no small amount of blind luck, the Emperor Charles “the Iron” von Hapsburg had exploited his enemies’ weaknesses, chosen his allies wisely, held firm under immense pressure, and ended up stumbling out of the Schwarzkrieg in 1554 with most of his opponents in the palm of his hand. Or so it had seemed.
Just a few short days into the first Imperial Diet since 1541 in Würzburg - the latter regarded as something of a Robber Synod by the League of Fulda - it had become clear to Charles V that the absolute victory that unfolded for the House of Hapsburg at the battle of Darmstadt turned out to be not quite as absolute as it might have seemed. The arrangements prior to the Reichstag of 1556 betray an undeniable sense of confident clemency from Charles V and the Hapsburg camp. Cardinal Antoine de Granvelle, Charles V’s longtime advisor and the most preeminent statesman of his court, was more or less the mastermind behind the truce of Darmstadt and the Imperial Proposition for Mühlhausen, and he cautioned the emperor against acting on his anger (for the sake of his remembrance by posterity) and oriented the drafting of conditions towards a more conciliatory verdict. Likewise, while the city of Augsburg had been the prevailing locale for Imperial Diets under the Hapsburgs (primarily due to it being the residence of the Fugger family, the Hapsburgs’ chief lenders), the Imperial city of Mühlhausen - formerly entrusted to the governance of the houses of Hesse and Wettin - was chosen for its presence in the suitably neutral ground of the Thuringian Basin. Nonetheless such concessions would be mostly useless, as Charles V's many subjects let him know that he would be only minimally in charge. The sudden vulnerability Charles V must have felt at the 1556 Reichstag after riding high on his great victory two years earlier was probably at its most acute while he winced with every step making his processional entry down the aisle of the Marienkirche, barely able to walk from an advanced case of gout as the whole imperial elite bore witness to his undignified infirmity.
Emperor Maximilian I’s Diet of Worms in 1495 and Diet of Augsburg in 1500 were the shining examples for Charles V’s intended goals at Mühlhausen; it had long been Charles V's aim to continue Maximilian I's program of reorganizing the Imperial government, finances, and judiciary. However, even for an emperor as diligent, resourceful, and respected as Maximilian I, the prospect of reforming and centralizing the Holy Roman Empire was daunting, to say the least. The Byzantine mosaic into which the Empire had devolved by the late 15th century was a staggering, intricate mess of individual liberties, jurisdictions, tolls, and hierarchies - nearly all of which were as tenaciously guarded as any vast, aristocratic latifundia to be found in France or Spain. What had made matters even worse for the project of Imperial reform was, of course, the emergence of Protestantism. Whereas the power brokers of the Empire in Maximilian’s day could at least find common confessional ground, the formation of the League of Fulda and the eruption of the Schwarzkrieg demonstrated that Charles V’s most powerful subjects now considered defying the authority of the Emperor to be a religious obligation. The most prominent of the defenders of German Protestantism and opponents to Hapsburg dominance had been dealt an irreversible defeat at the hands of their emperor on the field of battle, but there remained a multitude of Imperial princes and oligarchs who likewise wished to defy Charles V and protect their Protestant creeds without taking up arms, choosing Mühlhausen as the place to do so.
The nature of the Protestant rebellion in the Empire was - while continued - substantially altered by the events of the 20 Years War. For the sake of peace Charles V could not deny the Protestant representatives an opportunity to make a collective statement as he had at Würzburg in 1541, and the Meyeran princes were allowed to have their statement of intent read after the reading of the Imperial Proposition. This statement, which was read aloud by George Frederick, the margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, was essentially a summarized and reworked draft of the “Hessian Confession” presented by Meyer himself at Nidda in 1541 in anticipation of its announcement before the assembled Reichstag. The wording of the Mühlhausen statement, however, was noticeably more subdued than that chosen by Meyer himself and the proto-
Fuldischer Bund, reducing the affirmation of Meyer’s creed to subjectivity (e.g. from “the Lord’s Supper must be received in both kinds” to “
we believe the Lord’s Supper
to be most appropriately received in both kinds”). This reflected not only a greater reluctance to offend the victors of the Schwarzkrieg but also a certain guardedness, as if the Protestant community was gradually beginning to consider itself a nation apart from - or even in captivity to - the ascendant Catholic portion of the Empire.
Reading of the statement regarding the Confessio Reformatorum Germanica
Many had been hopeful that the defeat of the League of Fulda would spell the end of Protestantism in the Empire entirely - Charles V must have at least hoped to see Mühlhausen as the beginning of Protestantism's gradual eradication - but by 1556 such an outcome was simply impossible, barring genocide. Putting the consequences of Catholic victory into action opened an unforeseen can of worms. In the regions still held by the Protestants by 1556, countless monasteries had been dissolved, Church properties had been confiscated and nationalized, and numerous prince-bishoprics remained occupied, for which Charles V had received a deluge of complaints and requests for intervention by the dispossessed churchmen. The demand for restitution of yet un-returned former Church lands and property had been at the fore of Charles V's agenda since Darmstadt, and he had decreed at Giessen the following Spring that the lands of the Imperial prince-bishoprics had to be returned, but, beyond that, only the ecclesial properties seized by those who had risen up in rebellion against Charles V were to be restituted to their former owners or be monetarily compensated for. This presented a significant obstacle. These restitutions and fines were easy enough to secure from the domains of the imperial princes subdued in the Schwarzkrieg, but there were a great number of princes who had seized Church property without joining in the revolt against their Emperor, and there remained two dukes - Wilhelm III of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Ernst I of Brunswick-Lüneburg - who were members of the rebellious League of Fulda but were never captured, killed, or forced to surrender. Charles V's insistence in his demand for these parties to surrender what amounted to millions of ducats - without ever having proven to them that he possessed the capabilities to force them to do so - led to murmurings of renewing the rebellion.
As desperately as Charles V might have wanted to restructure the Empire, revitalize its finances, and purge it of heresy, maintaining the peace remained the inviolable objective. Charles V underestimated the number of princes and representatives holding Protestant beliefs - making up majorities in both the
Reichsfürstenrat (college of imperial princes) and
Reichsstädtekollegium (college of imperial cities) - and eventually understood that unless he promised them indefinite toleration, none of his measures stood any hope of passing. Open practice of Protestantism was thus permitted in the domains of Protestant princes and within the walls of Protestant free cities, although the Imperial office was forbidden to non-Catholics and, in individual cases - while men could not be tried according to their conscience - any sensationalist anti-Catholic rabble rousing or defamation of the Papacy, the Mass, the sacraments, and the doctrine of purgatory were to remain criminal offenses (so long as there was someone around willing to report them). In order not to upset either side by pushing certain question, there were unfortunately no guidelines put in place to deal with many of the glaring religious loopholes, such as discerning the fate of an imperial prince that embraced Protestantism after the Diet. The restitution clause was therefore left in the Recess document (
Reichsabschied), although no fines were as yet issued to Jülich-Cleves-Berg or Brunswick-Lüneburg.
When it came to more secular matters, the promise of toleration was insufficient and Charles V remained at loggerheads with the Reichstag. First was the matter of the Imperial Chamber Court, or
Reichskammergericht, a supreme court which had been established at the Diet of Worms in 1495 against the wishes of Maximilian I. As a means of preserving the supreme deliberative authority of the imperial office, Maximilian I had founded a rival supreme court known as the “Aulic Council”, which was composed entirely of the Emperor’s appointees and had concurrent and - in some cases - greater jurisdiction than the more representative Reichskammergericht. It was obviously in Charles V’s interest to disband the Reichskammergericht, and it was obviously in the imperial princes’ interest to try and safeguard what little participation they were still allowed in the judicial process of the Empire at large. Second was the matter of the "
Gemeiner Pfennig" (“Common Penny”) - a combined poll tax, income tax, and property tax payable by all citizens of the Empire over the age of 15, and was measured against the wealth and status of the taxed individual. The idea of such a tax was intolerable to the Reichstag unless they had a say in what could be done with its revenues. They wanted a reformed imperial treasury, comprised of princes and representatives from each of the colleges and dispensed at their judgement.
However, just as the Diet at Mühlhausen seemed to be settling into long-term gridlock, the circumstances necessary for a forced compromise emerged. While Charles V was busy suppressing revolt and repulsing French intervention, the Ottomans had swallowed up the Levant and Egypt without missing a step, and it was now almost common knowledge that Hungary was the Great Turk’s next target. Indeed, Charles V received word while in session at Mühlhausen in mid September that an army numbering in the tens of thousands - possibly hundreds of thousands - was being assembled at Edirne under Turkish banners.
Charles V needed money and he needed it quickly. In order to get the Gemeiner Pfennig passed he conceded to the creation of an imperial treasury, the decisions of which he could not in any way veto so long as the revenue of the Gemeiner Pfennig was set aside exclusively to deal with the Turks or other immediate external threats. The Gemeiner Pfennig was still an exceptionally bitter pill for the attendants of the Reichstag to swallow, however, and a further condition was needed before it could be accepted. Charles V relented on the matter of the judiciary as well and agreed to establish a Reichskammergericht over each of the Imperial Circles (Reichskreise), which were consequently redrawn to better reflect the confessional divide, with Protestant populations consolidated as much as possible in order to broaden the jurisdiction of their respective chamber courts. These courts would function as the supreme judiciary within their respective circles, wherein their juridictions could not be infringed by the Emperor or his Aulic Council. The Aulic Council or the Emperor would therefore only be allowed to deliberate on matters emerging between the Imperial Circles or with the outside world - except in cases of capital punishment as outlined in Charles V's 1532 criminal code, the
Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, in which the accused would retain the right to appeal to the Emperor.
With the close of the Diet of Mühlhausen in August of 1556, neither the Reichstag nor the Emperor were able to secure full legislative autonomy from one another, but an imperial government of sorts - in which judicial and financial decisions were made through a cooperation between the Emperor and his subjects - was achieved. Likewise, while the Protestant question remained unsolved, a satisfactory peace had been established and the warrior class of the split Christian confessions of the Holy Roman Empire - only moments before at one another’s throats - had now strangely enough clasped arms once again and turned towards the behemoth fast approaching from the southeast.
Statue of Charles V in Darmstadt