Chances for HRE to be centralized through massive support to Reformation

Balances aren't a goal in themselves : Cold War is a good exemple of that.

Eventually, it's quite simple : the universalists ambitions of Hapsburgs (as well territorial than religious) were fought by...well, basically everyone.
Neighbours, Pope, Ottomans, Protestants, Germans catholics but not that fond of imperial hegemony...At some point, Charles had to make priorities in lack of men, ressources and money to fight all of these (the last 1/3 of this reign was passed to make peace with one side to fight the other one, in a Eastasia/Eurasia/Oceania way).

It's one of the reason, as well than inner issues, that his empire was eventually splittered in two halves for more easy managment (It wasn't the first occurence of this, of course)

So, I really don't think that refraining to crush Protestantism because you're threatened elsewhere, and because you lack ressources to do so, make you tolerent in the strictest (or largest) meaning of the word.

I would like to know your opinion about if Reformation would have been more successful it could have lead to scrapping Habsburgs (with HRE with them?), letting them to die out in some lost castle in Austria or Spain.
 
I would like to know your opinion about if Reformation would have been more successful it could have lead to scrapping Habsburgs (with HRE with them?), letting them to die out in some lost castle in Austria or Spain.

I doubt it would have lead to that entierly : Hapsburgs ennemies (except Protestant princes of course) weren't too much trhilled to encourage too deply religious division, as it would eventually backfire in their own kingdoms.

The Affaire des Placards, show there was a line that Protestants couldn't have crossed without important consequences (admittedly, putting Protestant pamphlets of the royal bedchamber was a really bad idea)

So, even admitting Protestant Germans would have the possibility to do that (they didn't) they would have been fought far earlier having crushed Imperial power that way.
 
I honestly think that he was quite tolerant by the era standards. I'm sure that other possible Emperors would have reacted much worse than Charles V, commiting other Catholic nations to march against Protestants, even if the later consequences would have been more disasterous.
Think that the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was somehow accepting the spread of a big heresy inside the Empire, something with no many precedents, as other heresies had been fought before.
In fact, this is something that I never get: the Reformation would have either crushed Catholicism or either fail miserably, but curiously (at least for me) achieved a fragile balance inside the Empire.

Are you speaking about all of Europe or just the Empire, because Protestantism I don't think ever really had a chance of crushing Catholicism.

There were reasons, ranging from politics to actual faith that would have kept Catholicism viable.
 
Are you speaking about all of Europe or just the Empire, because Protestantism I don't think ever really had a chance of crushing Catholicism.

There were reasons, ranging from politics to actual faith that would have kept Catholicism viable.

First the Empire, but maybe if the whole Empire had gone into Reformation, they could have finally take Rome and abolish the Papacy.
Probably Spain, France etc would have re-establish it elsewhere, but as it would have been difficult that they could agree which and where, I'm sure that everyone would have founded their own 'papacies' (in a similar way of what happened with the Orthodox church) at the end, thus finishing the existence of a 'universal' pope.
 
You've also got the problem that Protestantism was massively divided. Often enough the Calvinists hated the Lutherans about as much as they did the RCs.

And even within Calvinism and Lutheranism, you had major political/theological quarrels.

Trying to unify Germany on the basis of 'Protestantism' is .... very unlikely. The only way to keep the Calvinists and Lutherans together is to thave the RC church be a continuing major threat - which almost certainly means a major presence in the Germanies, which means Germany cant be united under 'Protestantism'.

Plus everything LSCatalina said.
 

Deimos

Banned
Dr. Waterhouse's TL while having a different POD might be what you are looking for.


The Reformation is a multi-faceted period and historians and theologians are still arguing whether it was a step forward into modernity or actually a conservative backlash.

And while I could spend hours on that topic you would need to unify the Reformation or at least to make them play fair with each other. While the outside threats have been discussed in this thread the internal division would need to be addressed.
The idea that I find workable would be Calvin's idea of one universal church (enforced by the nobles) where not different faiths are warring against one another but where different schools debate one another. This would not lead to instant harmony but might be enough to avoid too much brutal infighting and persecution.
Martin Bucer might be another person to look into as he was one of the few who tried to heal the early rift between Reformed Christians and Lutherans.

A word of warning though, Lutheranism is thought to be more cooperative with a feudal society but there is a lot to be said for the flexibility that the Reformed model of organising a church offers.
 
Top