Protestant Wank

kernals12

Banned
What's maximum number of European countries that could feasibly switch to Protestantism? Could the Spanish and Italians do it?
 
With my cursory reading on the subject, Spain had very little in the way of Protestant activity (and of their few Protestant reformers, one major one-Michael Servetus-was burned at the stake by John Calvin). IIRC northern Italy had a little more, but if by some miracle the Reformation movement got established in Northern Italy, the political butterflies that would allow it to survive would probably prevent a reunified Italy in the long term.

To answer your question though, I think that a disunited Russia could see greater Protestant activity-I don't know if we'd actually get a Protestant/Orthodox movement, but we might see some iconoclastic movements in one of the alt-Russian city-states. Maybe a Protestant Poland as well, and a more Protestant southern Germany which is mostly Catholic ITTL. IIRC, @Sevarics had a timeline where France undergoes an Anglican-type Reformation, kicked off by Calvinists but eventually becoming just Roman Catholicism under the control of the throne.
 
Austria came much closer to Protestantism than you’d expect from its later history IIRC. If the HREmperor did convert—I’m not saying it would be easy—you’d basically get a pan-German faith and nation. The rest of Europe would be quaking in its boots.
 

Philip

Donor
Are we counting the various states of the HRE separately? If so, quite a few.

Bohemia, Hungary, France, Austria and Bavaria are possibilities, especially if the Counter Reformation is less effective. Church the pre CR map from the wiki

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Reformation#/media/File:The_Protestant_Reformation.svg
Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation
 

kernals12

Banned
Are we counting the various states of the HRE separately? If so, quite a few.

Bohemia, Hungary, France, Austria and Bavaria are possibilities, especially if the Counter Reformation is less effective. Church the pre CR map from the wiki
Counter-Reformation

Counter-Reformation
Your photos don't work
 
Have a unique, Iberian born-and-bred form of Protestantism get picked up by rebellious Iberian nobles?

Have the Unitarian Reformation take off?
 

kernals12

Banned
Well speaking of Latin America, Protestantism has grown there considerably in the last 30-40 years.
That doesn't come close to cancelling out the effects of 500 years of catholic domination. And Catholicism is still the overwhelming majority there.
 
You forgot Poland. Even IOTL, at some time five sixths of the population already had converted. But then the counter-reformation stroke...
 

kernals12

Banned
Based on the English experience, the easiest way to do this is to have monarchs obsessed with producing male heirs and spouses unable to deliver.
 
Assuming Bosnia largely turned Islamic due to the existence of a Bogomile Church... it is likely that Protestantism takes an inroad of the Ottomans have zero missionary activity there.
 
What if Henry IV had remained a Hugoenot?

He probably never takes Paris. He struggled for four years, fighting against both the Catholic League and the Spanish, before he converted and the city accepted him.

The 1590s is most likely too late a POD for France to adopt Protestantism.
 

kernals12

Banned
He probably never takes Paris. He struggled for four years, fighting against both the Catholic League and the Spanish, before he converted and the city accepted him.

The 1590s is most likely too late a POD for France to adopt Protestantism.
Is there any way the Hugoenots could win the Wars of Religion?
 
I've read somewhere that the reformation in Spain didn't have much of a effect because the church was already somewhat reformed, like in the Spanish Inquistion and other particularities of the church-state relationship in Spain. Now, I'm not going to defend the Spanish Inquistion, but the Catholic Church in Spain seemed to operate well enough than there wasn't much of a call to reformation like in other nations.
 
Is there any way the Hugoenots could win the Wars of Religion?

The Huguenots actually did pretty well in the wars considering that they were (at their peak) probably no more than 10-15 % of the total French population. They did have a significant proportion of the nobility on their side, but still, they did not have a lot of manpower, and limited foreign support.

One thing I have wondered is what would have happened if the Valois line had not died out. Could Henri have tried to form a breakaway kingdom instead? It might be hard for it to survive in the long run, though, surrounded by France and Spain.

For all of France to become Protestant, I think the POD has to happen before 1560. The most important event might be the Concordat of Bologna (1516) which granted the king considerable autonomy over the French Church (something Henry VIII never had in England) and in the long run this meant that French kings didn't have a lot of reason to leave Catholicism.
 
From my reading of the period, I honestly think the only regions that couldn't have fallen to protestantism were in Italy and Iberia. The Spanish already went through what amounted to a reformation of their church structures during the 1400s, with massive anti-corruption campaigns and the much closer linkage of the church and state - coupled with a very militant and missionary version of Catholicism. Portugal had a far more corrupt church system, but was so cut off from the rest of Europe and influenced so heavily by Spain that they would be more likely to follow Spanish example than that set elsewhere. In Italy they were under heavy pressure from the closeness of the church - their form of Catholicism might take on a more liberal bent but it would remain Catholic. I would strongly recommend Diarmaid MacCullough's book The Reformation: Europe's House Divided if you want to learn more about all of this.

France could have fallen to the Huguenots at some point during the Wars of Religion, there are multiple possible PoDs to accomplish that. Germany and Austria nearly fell in their entirety to Protestantism in early 1600 while Poland, Transylvania and Royal Hungary all had very strong protestant powers. I think that about covers the areas that didn't go protestant IOTL.

If the Huguenots had been able to hold onto their supporters in Normandy, particularly in the first couple of wars, then they should be set to eventually dominate France. Though that opens up the question and threat of Habsburg or Papal interference in France earlier on.
 
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