With PoD no earlier than 1500, make a state in Iberian Peninsula which Christianity is doctrinally in defiance with Rome, to be formed by 1790s by the latest, with the start up territory as large as approximately three-quarter of that of Portugal's. By 1900 the population of this country must be 85% Protestant(or *Protestant? But I prefer this country to be Calvinist) at the very least.
Challenge : Protestant Iberian Nation
- Thread starter Ridwan Asher
- Start date
I'd have to say this is verging on impossible. The reason that Protestantism never took off in Iberia was the ruthless efficiency of both the Inquisition and the Spanish Kings at taking steps to prevent Protestant ideas and influences seeping into Spain. This happened within a couple of decades of your earliest allowed POD, and frankly, Spain is neither going to disintegrate nor gain a Protestant or religiously tolerant King in that period. By the first time you can start toying with things realistically, Catholicism and Counter-Reformism is utterly entrenched.
The problem is your earliest POD is too close to the start of the Reformation, thus allowing little room for manipulating events.
The problem is your earliest POD is too close to the start of the Reformation, thus allowing little room for manipulating events.
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Well, all you really need is a reason for Spain to break with the Pope. A while back I'd thought about a POD of the Papacy allowing Henry VIII's divorce and Spain breaking off to form its own church.
The Sandman
Banned
The French win the battle for influence in Italy. The Spaniards are unwilling to submit to a French-controlled Pope, setting up their own rival Papacy somewhere in Iberia (or at least letting some of the Cardinals flee to Iberia before the French finish tightening their grip on the Papal States). Assuming that Protestantism still appears as per OTL, there will now be a splintered Catholic Church to face it.
Find some way to make the Portugese somewhat more tolerant than the Spanish, and then have the Spanish Inquisition (backed up by a Pope in Toledo) make itself intensely disliked when the Spaniards seize Portugal, and you might get the Portugese to break with the Church outright when they regain their independence.
Find some way to make the Portugese somewhat more tolerant than the Spanish, and then have the Spanish Inquisition (backed up by a Pope in Toledo) make itself intensely disliked when the Spaniards seize Portugal, and you might get the Portugese to break with the Church outright when they regain their independence.
I meant to have a Calvinist state in Iberian Peninsula. Is there any way to make this happen ?
But I do think that dragging the earliest limit for PoD to 40 years earlier will greatly boost the possibility if it's just to make an Iberian state which religiously defies Rome. How can their Christianity to be as "Calvinist" as possible ?
I thought our problem is that the PoD is to late ?
uhh...I find it hard to believe that this could work. Spain was just that much more Catholic than England, and they dominated the Cardinals College along with Italians and later France. They had ruthlessly pursued and eliminated all heresies, whereas the English court by 1532 had been very much infiltrated with humanist, Protestant and revisionist persons. Also, Spanish kings regularly got in arguments with Pope. Philip II of Spain was excommunicated...twice. Charles V's troops actually invaded Rome and captured the Pope, leading to the Catherine of Aragon problem in the first place! They aren't going to create their own Church! They're just going to bully the Papal States until they get a Spanish candidate again. Where England felt able to break with Rome, Spain by 1500 never would.
If you'll allow me the flagrant breach of your earliest POD, I'd suggest part of my own favoured TL. I'd point to 1386, when John of Gaunt invaded Castile, seeking the throne. He managed little success and was eventually bribed away IOTL, but if you allow him a few more troops and perhaps the support of the King of Portugal (whom he had already signed a treaty with) it's possible he could go further. Change his fundamental motives from seeking glory and money to seeking a favourable agreement, and say his advance grounds around the city of Leon, probably from lack of men which is pretty realistic. If he can't advance and the king of Castile can't remove him, there's a chance that he could be handed the Kingdom of Leon (surely including Galicia) in return for giving up his claims to Castile, leaving him with a fair-sized chunk of Spain, just a little smaller than Portugal. Now have Henry IV of England choose to remain in England to maintain his claim to that throne as Richard II's heir, and he's likely to not settle for just Leon when he is exiled and his father dies. Certainly that seems to be fitting for him according to the biography of him I am reading at the moment. So you end up with a Leon detached from Castile and in union with England. Leon is pretty depopulated, however, so I wouldn't imagine huge butterflies - I'm against the idea that all of history should be re-written from POD anyway. So I'd imagine it quite possible that when England goes Protestant in roughly the same way as OTL, Leon has now been softened up with the expulsion of the Inquisition (which the English hated) and the slow influx of humanist thought to allow for a slow conversion to Protestantism too. With a population perhaps as low as only around 300,000-400,000 by the year 1500, and that strange Spanish phenomenon where somewhere between 1/10 and 1/5 of the population call themselves Nobility, allowing for a much less defined boundary between who is actually high society and who are the run-down lowest classes, it shouldn't be too hard to allow
Protestantism to take over this state.
Just an idea of course. And I make no claims that my TLs are foolproof or 100% accurate.
But even if John of Gaunt had become king of Castile (or Leon in this case) Henry IV wouldn't have any claim to it. John's claim was got due to his marriage to Constance of Castile, his second wife, while Henry was born from John's first wife, Blanche of Lancaster. If he had got the throne, then his heir in Iberia wouldn't be Henry, but his daughter from Constance, Katherine (who eventually became Queen of Castile, solving the matter with the Trastamaras).
If we go back to 1386, then we buttefly protestantism in general (much less calvinism) No, the POD must be post Luther
And I think Clavinism is outright impossible. The crown and Inquisition had too strong a hold, and by the time they lost it the time for imposed crown conversions was past.
The only way I can see a "protestant" Iberia is if some king (he would need to be a king from this TL, brought by the butterfly effect) goes the Henry IV way and Spain gets its own "anglican" religion (a french dominated papacy is the most reasonable path).
But even then this Hispanican Church would be based on the catholic one -if fact, it almost certainly would select a Pope in Exile and claim to be the real Catholic Church. The problem is, the time the papacy went against Spain's wishes (in the Henry IV divorce), Charles V sacked Rome.
As a start of the POD, make sure the Hapsburgs, catholic fanatics, do not get the throne. Make Juan survive, make Joanna barren, or whatnot. Many people on this board like the "Infante Miguel survives" POD; this allows for an Iberian Union.
Since I am suggesting a spanish anglican church, an hilarious POD would be than the Pope allows Henry IV to divorce (so he remains Catholic), Catherine and Mary return to Spain, and then either one of them eventually gets the throne and proclaims her own church. Sadly, even if we kill Joanna at the (stillborn) birth of the future Charles V, we have Queen Maria of Portugal ahead of her younger sister -and she had ten children, eight of whom reached adult age. No one expects the English Inquisition.
P.D. We cannot get a protestant Portugal either. Spain spent millions of men and doblons to fight protestantism one thousand miles away, with an enemy nation on the path. Portugal as a nation would be gone before you could say "Die filthy heretic!"
And I think Clavinism is outright impossible. The crown and Inquisition had too strong a hold, and by the time they lost it the time for imposed crown conversions was past.
The only way I can see a "protestant" Iberia is if some king (he would need to be a king from this TL, brought by the butterfly effect) goes the Henry IV way and Spain gets its own "anglican" religion (a french dominated papacy is the most reasonable path).
But even then this Hispanican Church would be based on the catholic one -if fact, it almost certainly would select a Pope in Exile and claim to be the real Catholic Church. The problem is, the time the papacy went against Spain's wishes (in the Henry IV divorce), Charles V sacked Rome.
As a start of the POD, make sure the Hapsburgs, catholic fanatics, do not get the throne. Make Juan survive, make Joanna barren, or whatnot. Many people on this board like the "Infante Miguel survives" POD; this allows for an Iberian Union.
Since I am suggesting a spanish anglican church, an hilarious POD would be than the Pope allows Henry IV to divorce (so he remains Catholic), Catherine and Mary return to Spain, and then either one of them eventually gets the throne and proclaims her own church. Sadly, even if we kill Joanna at the (stillborn) birth of the future Charles V, we have Queen Maria of Portugal ahead of her younger sister -and she had ten children, eight of whom reached adult age. No one expects the English Inquisition.
P.D. We cannot get a protestant Portugal either. Spain spent millions of men and doblons to fight protestantism one thousand miles away, with an enemy nation on the path. Portugal as a nation would be gone before you could say "Die filthy heretic!"
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It can be done almost only by authoritarian force to convert,
not by a people movement (as in France or Bohemia).
My suggestion:
A slightly different personality of Philipp II - so PoD at his birth, in 1527.
Philipp reigns Spain from 1556, with his brother emperor of the HRE.
Some years earlier, their father had failed installing Phillipp in Germany as well.
Now imagine Philipp as an utterly ambitious, but imprudent rival of his brother.
One way of distinguishing himself is converting to Protestantism and
force his kingdom to follow.
This would of course ensue quite a lot of problems for Spain.
Among others, there will never be an Iberian union.
On the other hand, the main argument for the conflict with the Netherlands
ends up in grey dust (or cardinal purple, for that matter).
Could the conflict about the Netherlands stop if the citizens are granted
free exercise of Protestantism?
(Though in my TL it would read "compulsory" rather than "free".)
I am not sure what consequences this would have on France.
For the time being, Austria and Portugal are the main Catholic powers.
If we think about the later conflicts, this might prove a bit little -
given that Spain was the strongest power of all.
However, it is not clear whether Spain would ally with other Protestant kingdoms.
Moreover, it would be an opportunity for France to take the place of Spain as
a defender of Catholicism.
But there remains the question:
Was Philipp strong enough to make such a decision on his own, without support
or rather against the resistance of all his entourage?
not by a people movement (as in France or Bohemia).
My suggestion:
A slightly different personality of Philipp II - so PoD at his birth, in 1527.
Philipp reigns Spain from 1556, with his brother emperor of the HRE.
Some years earlier, their father had failed installing Phillipp in Germany as well.
Now imagine Philipp as an utterly ambitious, but imprudent rival of his brother.
One way of distinguishing himself is converting to Protestantism and
force his kingdom to follow.
This would of course ensue quite a lot of problems for Spain.
Among others, there will never be an Iberian union.
On the other hand, the main argument for the conflict with the Netherlands
ends up in grey dust (or cardinal purple, for that matter).
Could the conflict about the Netherlands stop if the citizens are granted
free exercise of Protestantism?
(Though in my TL it would read "compulsory" rather than "free".)
I am not sure what consequences this would have on France.
For the time being, Austria and Portugal are the main Catholic powers.
If we think about the later conflicts, this might prove a bit little -
given that Spain was the strongest power of all.
However, it is not clear whether Spain would ally with other Protestant kingdoms.
Moreover, it would be an opportunity for France to take the place of Spain as
a defender of Catholicism.
But there remains the question:
Was Philipp strong enough to make such a decision on his own, without support
or rather against the resistance of all his entourage?
Hmm, that's an interesting idea. Apart from a non-reconciliation with Rome during/after the Reconquista, could a Mozarabic Christianity develop traditions similar to those in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, along with its unique rite?
The problem is that at the time the Navarrese monarchs were Huguenot what was left of Navarre was just a small piece of land beyond the Pyrenees, and without military strength to reconquer any territory in the Iberian Peninsula proper.
Probably, but I would see some Muslim influence as well, like a lack of depiction of religious figures, an Iberian Iconoclasm. The clergy would probably be allowed to marry. The Bishop of Toledo could be a central figure, like the archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican church.
A POD could be when Alfonso VI conquers Toledo in 1085 and chooses to adopt the Mozarabic rite rather than the Roman rite.