AHC WI:Protestant Italy

That's why I suggested keeping the papacy in Avignon, to make the church become un-Italian. Italy would still be a stretch, but if the Avignonese Church is in total collapse, it could possibly lose everything but France.

The Problem is eventually you would see an Italian Anti-pope rise, creating an TTL Great Schism, drawing in the rest of the European powers. Eventually an idea would be accepted that allowed one new, untainted Pope to be elected.
 
No it didn't. 15-20% of the population was Protestant yes, but the majority of those were Nobles, not commoners. The commoners would NEVER accept a Protestant King, nor would the Catholic Nobles. There's a reason that Henri IV had to convert.

I think France is (barely) doable but the other three have no chance at being anything but Catholic without a POD so early Protestantism as we know it doesn't exist.
 
True 20% is a large part of the populace, I already conceded that. However, I remember learning in school that there was a much higher percentage of Nobles who were Protestant then commoners who were Protestant. Also I noticed that you didn't depute me when I pointed out Henri IV's conversion was necessary.

Well yes, you're always going to be able to get more diversity in smaller groups since convincing 5 people out of 50 is easier than say convincing 5,000 out of 50,000.

As to Henri IV, well the population aside he'd sort of have to, as the surrounding Catholic countries in a situation where France is still majority Catholic would'nt be exactly to happy about it considering Frances size and power.


As an aside I'm currently working on a TL in which France goes Protestant*, however the PoD is in the late 14th century and has a different development of France and Christianity ending-up split into three with a Roman Catholic Church (that remains and becomes even more corrupt and disconnected from reality), Reformed Catholic Church (basically Catholicism without the corruption, less elitism and theoretically allowing for everyone but the Pope to be married (since he's suppoed to be 'married to the church')) and various Protestant* churches, of which the French Cosmopolitan Church of France is among the Top 2 largest protestant churches.
 
If you have Attila the Hun turn down Pope Leo and decide to sack Rome instead while killing the Pontiff that could do the job for taking the Papacy down enough pegs to be less influential in the development of Italy. The Bishops of Rome made a LOT of propaganda hay out of turning back the Huns from the city's gates so removing that is going to hobble them a bit.
 
If you have Attila the Hun turn down Pope Leo and decide to sack Rome instead while killing the Pontiff that could do the job for taking the Papacy down enough pegs to be less influential in the development of Italy. The Bishops of Rome made a LOT of propaganda hay out of turning back the Huns from the city's gates so removing that is going to hobble them a bit.

That would however butterfly away the development of Protestantism.
 
True 20% is a large part of the populace, I already conceded that. However, I remember learning in school that there was a much higher percentage of Nobles who were Protestant then commoners who were Protestant. Also I noticed that you didn't depute me when I pointed out Henri IV's conversion was necessary.

In France, it was rather 10 to 15% at the peak than 20%.

What seems to be put frankly on this site is that Protestantism never was the natural superior evolution of Christianism.

It was an evolution among many possible ones. But it also was an evolution that had more chance to occur under certain cultural (latin cilture vs germanic culture), sociological and material conditions. And these conditions were much much weaker in Italy and Spain than in Germany.

Why do you think Germany was the main craddle of Protestantism ? Why do you think we can visit so many artistic and architectural wonders in Italy ? Because Germany was the main milk cow of the pope, of the roman church and of Italy.

You can have separate national christian churches in western Europe if the Papacy is brought down some way. But this will never make Italy or Spain turn lutheran or calvinist.

Protestantism was successful in some way in the catholic part of Europe. It forced the Church to reform in a catholic way, to improve the training of priests, ... etc.
 

E.Ransom

Banned
You can't do this with the Pope in Rome. Maybe the Popes could be kept in Avignon, making the Italians resentful.

What Emperor Julian (oh the irony! :D ) said.
It isn't ASB in and of itself, but in the OTL setup, I can't see how it could be done. Maybe if the whole "I'm the pope", "No, I'm the pope!", "You two are wrong; I'm the pope"-thing had lasted longer than it had, enough people would eventually get fed up with the ridiculousness of it all, and more people would be responsive to Luther's points.
I'm also thinking that it might require a sense of nationality that Italy simply didn't have at the moment. No, I'm of course not saying that the rise of nationalism came 300 years earlier than what is commonly accepted. But part of the complaints in Germany at the time, was Germans working their asses off being "bled" to fund the luxury and projects of churches elsewhere. Italy got rich off Germany, by working the system, and OTL, Italy doesn't have much reason to go protestant.

True, the leaders of the merchant republics might see a way to strengthen their own position like the German princes did, but unlike the German princes (and not all of those, mind you!), they would not have the popular backing needed, not to mention that the RC church was considerably more powerful in Italy than in Germany, where it was powerful enough already.
 
True 20% is a large part of the populace, I already conceded that. However, I remember learning in school that there was a much higher percentage of Nobles who were Protestant then commoners who were Protestant. Also I noticed that you didn't depute me when I pointed out Henri IV's conversion was necessary.

That Henri IV needed to convert in OTL does not prove that there was no possible way for France to become Protestant in any ATL. By the time he became king, it was almost certainly too late. But things could have gone differently earlier in the century. The fact that 10-15% of the population converted in OTL despite the danger of imprisonment, or death, is telling. The movement gained traction in spite of the outright hostility of the government. Given a more favorable government attitude towards Protestantism, it could have become larger still. The question is how to change the government's attitude prior to 1589. I can think of a couple possible POD:

-What if the Concordat of Bologna of 1516 had never happened? That agreement gave François I powers over the Church in France that monarchs in other countries (most notably Henry VIII in England) did not have, and thus reduced any potential advantage from breaking ranks with the Papacy. If the Papacy had not been willing to do this, who knows what his (and successors') attitude toward the Reformation would have been?

-What if the Affair of the Placards had never happened in 1534? François I was reasonably tolerant of Protestants up to that point but afterwards became convinced that they were a source of disorder and began to persecute them more severely. One of the biggest effects of this was that the city of Paris and its environs - the areas under firmest royal control - became the most strongly Catholic. It was the people of Paris, specifically, who wouldn't accept Henry IV as long as he was Protestant. As Paris goes, so (usually) goes the rest of France.
 
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