Discussion: Catholic Northern Europe, alt-Protestant Southern Europe

So, I know that the Protestant Reformation has its heart in the northern half of Europe, what with Martin Luther and Henry VIII and the cultural differences between the two halves of Western Christendom. And I know that the Papacy's main base being in the southern half of Europe and its distance from the northern part makes this difficult.

But I was wondering what it would take for Britain and the northern Germans to remain loyal to the Pope while Spain and Italy start a schism in the Church. And what such a thing would mean for Europe as a whole.
 
So, I know that the Protestant Reformation has its heart in the northern half of Europe, what with Martin Luther and Henry VIII and the cultural differences between the two halves of Western Christendom. And I know that the Papacy's main base being in the southern half of Europe and its distance from the northern part makes this difficult.

But I was wondering what it would take for Britain and the northern Germans to remain loyal to the Pope while Spain and Italy start a schism in the Church. And what such a thing would mean for Europe as a whole.
Interesting.

Keeping Britain and Northern Germany Catholic in an alt-Reformation is conceivable. I´m currently exploring something along these lines in the Hussite Reformation timeline which you can find in my signature. A Reformation, for example, which has a strong Slavic proto-nationalist and anti-German twist to it, won`t appeal to Germans.

The problem with your challenge is the other thing: making Italy and Spain *Protestant and still have Northern Germany being Catholic. If Italy goes *Protestant, what does it mean for England to be Roman Catholic?
The Pope can flee, of course... but that alone alters the character of Catholicism, as the period of the Avignonese Papacy and the ensuing Western Schism has shown.

Also, Spain has next to no tradition of Reformatory movements or even widespread heresies throughout the Middle Ages.
Italy did have quite a few heretic groupings, but the differences between advocates of Apostolic Poverty and enraged populists like Savonarola is huge and difficult to bridge. Italy`s Reformatory movement would require a very solid popular support in order to chase the Pope away, which it never came close to mobilising. Foreign interferences are of course possible, but off the top of my hat I can`t think of any which would truly be conducive to the OP´s end.

So - sorry, I´ve failed.
Is there some background which made you shape the challenge exactly the way you did?
 
You'd need a Fraticelli-esque kind of heresy to emerge in Spain. Yes, Spain. And mostly Spain at first. Maybe have the Pope do something...wonky, and then end up alienating a lot of Spanish clergy. Then have the Spanish ruler open the doors to Greeks fleeing the Fall of Constantinople (to do this you'd need to keep Byzantium around a little longer, at least long enough to have it inherit Aragon. Then have the reform; throw in a weaker local pope, icons, and enough difference to make the Pope hate them (though national popes would probably be enough for the Pope to excommunicate everyone). Let the Spanish settle America, get rich, have this "Protestantism" take hold, have the royals convert, and then... everybody duggie.
 
You'd need a Fraticelli-esque kind of heresy to emerge in Spain. Yes, Spain. And mostly Spain at first. Maybe have the Pope do something...wonky, and then end up alienating a lot of Spanish clergy. Then have the Spanish ruler open the doors to Greeks fleeing the Fall of Constantinople (to do this you'd need to keep Byzantium around a little longer, at least long enough to have it inherit Aragon. Then have the reform; throw in a weaker local pope, icons, and enough difference to make the Pope hate them (though national popes would probably be enough for the Pope to excommunicate everyone). Let the Spanish settle America, get rich, have this "Protestantism" take hold, have the royals convert, and then... everybody duggie.
That`s innovative.
 
This would inevitably require the Pope to move northward. At that point it is no longer a Roman Catholic Church but . . . what? German Catholic Church?
 
Maybe a continued Great Western Schism, with the Avignonese papacy gaining the upper hand but being unable to get rid of the Roman papacy. Then early in the second half of the 15th century a movement in Italy and Spain that calls for a strong reform of the church, so that the Cardinals who meet in Rome at the death of a pope refuse not only to elect another one but also to bow to the Avignonese pope: a council of bishops would end up governing the church.
It is pretty difficult to manage, and it is quite possible that HRE + France would be able to re-impose catholicism even if England stays on the sidelines. Something has to happen before Charles becomes both emperor and king of Spain.
 
I've always found this interesting because if one studies a linguistic map of Europe all Germanic countries but Austria(i think) went Protestant and most Latin speaking countries didn't. Considering this was before Napoleon and the age of nationalism I've always wondered why this was. As to the question I guess you could have the pope move to the HRE temporarily,(and later permemently) due to a war in Italy, and over time grow closer to the Northern European countries, whilst the southern ones move away from the papacy due to being geographically further away.

Edit -sorry wasn't aware this had already be mentioned.
 
Have the Albigensians be more successful (how? good question), and Southern Europe goes Cathar.
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(Of course, the rest of Europe would try catharsis... purging ... And if it gets a foothold in the New World, vultures Cathartes spp. will be well fed.)
 
I've always found this interesting because if one studies a linguistic map of Europe all Germanic countries but Austria(i think) went Protestant and most Latin speaking countries didn't. Considering this was before Napoleon and the age of nationalism I've always wondered why this was. As to the question I guess you could have the pope move to the HRE temporarily,(and later permemently) due to a war in Italy, and over time grow closer to the Northern European countries, whilst the southern ones move away from the papacy due to being geographically further away.

Edit -sorry wasn't aware this had already be mentioned.
Plenty of Germanic peoples didn't end up protestant, though (especially in Austria and Bavaria, but in all of the non-scandinavian Germanics there are big catholic minorities). The big deal seems to be Scandinavia which influenced (and saved) northern German protestants. The Netherlands and England both went mostly protestant, but they went about it rather uniquely (with half of the former Netherlands becoming firmly catholic and the other half mostly protestant; and England seems to have been the easiest-to-topple-back protestant state, given how paranoid they were about catholic monarchs).
 
My take is that the OTL Reformation had a lot of factors going into it:

* I don't think that it's a coincidence that by and large states that were under Roman rule tended to stay loyal to Rome, while states that were outside the Roman Empire (i.e. Nordics, Germania past the Rhine) tended to break away. England and Poland were outliers, but both had sui generis cases that I'll get back to later.
* One of the reasons why the Reformation was more successful than previous reformist movements was secular support. Without the protection of the Elector of Saxony it's unlikely Luther gets the traction he had OTL. I suppose there was a Caesaropapist undercurrent that the German princes used to co-opt the Reformation to their ends.
* Habsburg supremacy in Southern Europe was key as well. With the increasingly worldly focus of the Papacy in these times, and the Habsburgs dominating Italy even as they played Tug of War with France for it, it's no wonder.
* While there was a reformist undercurrent in England, Henry VIII's break with Rome was a political move. It wasn't until Edward VI that the doctrinal layer of the CoE really came in.
* Poland remaining loyal to Rome is something I never really got, especially when its neighbors to the West were Protestant, Orthodox to the East, and Calvinism was popular in Bohemia and Hungary before the Habsburgs applied the Counter-Reformation.
 
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