TLC2: An Orange World

(The POD for this timeline is that Luther becomes a mediocre lawyer instead of a becoming a monk and leading the Protestant Reformation. Anyways, here goes.)

An Orange World: A TL

The Renaissance in Europe officially ended in 1492, with the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. It also ushered in a new era for Spanish strength and prosperity, one that would last for over one hundred years. But it was the ideas of the Renaissance coupled with the invention of the Printing Press in Europe that turned people’s opinions against the major power broker at the time; the papacy.

Papal authority had been absolute in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church exercised complete and total control over this entire feudal remnant of Europe and kept the entire population downtrodden in serfdom. The power of the pope continued to grow until ultimately in the year 1300 AD, the head of the Church in Rome controlled over one-third of all the land in Europe. All of this power was about to shift hands however at the end to the Renaissance. Populations had returned to their pre-black Death levels and people were beginning to learn more and prosper more. They also began to see the massive corruption that existed within this church and more specifically the sale of indulgences in order to raise money. Many also saw the pope appoint his friends and family to positions of power within the church hierarchy. Many had lost faith in the church and saw it as just another offshoot of Italian politics. All of this dry grass had been great, just waiting to set aflame.

There was no real leader of the Protestant Revolution. But all of their ideological roots trace back to the great bridge between the Renaissance and the Revolution; Erasmus. One of the greatest thinkers of his day, Erasmus pushed for humanist ideals and was very critical of the more morally reprehensible aspects of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Erasmus was good friends with many catholic leaders and well as Kings and nobles. But, contrary to what many of the revolutionaries in Europe may say, Erasmus never condoned violence or theocracy in his criticism of the Pope and his questionable practices. In fact he did not join any of these revolutionary movements until quite late in his life, when he discover one that suited his humanist ideals

Ultimately, several voices began to speak out against the papacy, all of whom had received some ideas from Erasmus. Although these Revolutionaries the stirring of the Revolution preceded Erasmus even. Jan Hus spoke out against the Pope even earlier in Bohemia, but because of a stronger reaction by the papacy and his burning at the stake in 1415, his ideas never emerged from Prague. The underlying problems and sympathies remained and the time was ripe for the Revolution by 1520.

In southern Germany and the eastern Swiss Canons, the first to speak against the church was Huldrych Zwingli. He was educated at the University of Vienna and upon returning to Zurich met with Erasmus several times and began his ministry as the leader of the church in Zurich. Contrary to what many priests did at the time, he began to critically analyze the bible and its contrarian nature to what the Catholic Church was doing. His preaching was quite different and immediately in 1519, followed many of the humanist guidelines set by Erasmus. However as time went on, his pulpit began to appear more and more zealous. Zwingli attacked moral corruption and in the process he named individuals who were the targets of his denunciations. He accused monks of indolence and high living. He specifically rejected the veneration of saints and called for the need to distinguish between their true and fictional accounts. He casted doubts on hellfire and asserted that unbaptised children were not damned. He questioned the power of excommunication. He attacked the claim that tithing was a divine institution. After 1524, this preaching began to evolve into what the pope believed to be heretical calls for a removal of priestly celibacy. In 1524, a papal bull demanded that Zwingli cease his heretical teachings or he would excommunicate him. Zwingli was left with a precipitous choice.

Meanwhile in northern Germany, Andreas Karlstadt was beginning his ministry in a similar way to Zwingli had, yet Karlstadt had moved to Rome for his studies. There he saw the massively corrupt policies of the papacy and the problems within it. After returning, he also had a correspondence with Erasmus although his influence under some of Erasmus’s ideas was quite different to Zwingli. He emphasized the mysticism and militarism of Christianity, rejecting the scholarly and what he saw as unnecessary pursuits. He found an unlikely ally in Ulrich von Hutten, a leader of the Imperial Knights of the Holy Roman Empire. Hutten began to build a militant support group around Karlstadt’s popular message of reform, which was also supported by Franz von Sickingen. In the same papal bull issued to Zwingli was given, he admonished them and threatened to excommunicate them as well. Hutten, who had quietly built up his power among the ranks of Imperial Knights and several northern Germanic nobles threatened all out war and guaranteed a massive massacre of Catholics if it ever came to fruition.

This papal bull and the popularity of opposition to it would require military intervention in both southern and northern Germany. The Pope at the time was Clement VII, who saw this as very worldly attack on his power and his grip over the Holy Roman Empire. He enlisted the help of the most powerful man in Europe since Caesar, Charles V of Hapsburg. Charles V did not care much for Clement and he certainly did not want to go and wreak havoc on his own population. But he was forced to halfheartedly comply with Clements’s calls for retaliation to his excommunication, which was doing nothing to stem the popular upwelling of support for Zwingli and Karlstadt. Charles V was finally convinced when he found out about heavy Knight Support and whispers of uprising against the power of the Church within the HRE. Charles realized the threat they posed against his Emperorship and began raising forces. Once the Knights began antagonizing one of the bishoprics held provinces of the HRE in 1531, Charles decided it was time to march to Vienna, where his brother Ferdinand I of Hapsburg was currently in very dire straights…
 
This is my entry for timeline contest two.

Comments should go in the Timeline Contest 2 Discussion thread here.
 
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Charles V’s campaign into Germany marked a watershed moment for the Protestant Revolution. The Holy Roman Emperor’s armies were vast but most came from Spain and Austria whom had little respect for the people of northern Germany. They often required food and contributed to the idea that the Catholic Church was the instigator of all the problems that Europe in general and they in particular were having. But the war that began was ultimately the death throes of the Middle Ages most revered order; the Knighthood. In 1531, supported by Andreas Karlstadt, Ulrich Von Hutten amassed a large army of Knights to combat the force led by Charles at Trier. They scored a surprising victory over them using unorthodox tactics coupled with better knowledge of people and terrain. This would be the first of many battles in what would be known as the Knights War (1531-1540). After Trier, Charles scored some victories in Bavaria and elsewhere in southern Germany. Yet, his losses were often devastating and by 1535, his armies had been reduced almost by half. To his relief, Charles scored a Pyrrhic yet decisive victory at Ulm in 1539, destroying the main force of Franz von Sickingen and ending the first stage of revolts in Germany. While this destroyed the knights, the main aim of the campaign was failed; finding and killing Andreas Karlstadt. Seeing that the Knights would fight in his name, Karlstadt escaped to Saxony where he began cultivating support for not only the peasants but also with several of the more liberal electors and princes, who were quite receptive to his eloquent and lofty ideas. Ultimately, while the knights were killed; the Protestant revolution continued to burn ever more brightly.

While Charles V was focusing on removing the specter of revolt in the central German provinces, his brother Frederick was facing huge renewed uprisings in Bohemia as well as problems in Royal Hungary. His time to try and crush the uprisings ran thin when the renewed Ottoman Empire besieged Vienna and sacked the city in 1541. Frederick barely escaped to Munich with his life. Suleiman the Magnificent was greatly overjoyed in destroying the largest Catholic holdout in Central Europe. While Charles V was outraged and expected everyone in the HRE and Europe to be outraged as well, many quietly murmured in favor of the Ottomans who were seen as opposing the tyrannical Hapsburg ascendancy. No one was happier than Francis I, the King of France who had secretly allied with the Ottomans in order to embarrass and defeat Charles V.

Charles however moved his base of operations to Munich and began to plan a counterattack to defeat the Ottomans now stationed in Vienna. He called for troops from all over Christendom to try and stop this infidel abomination. Unfortunately for him, Europe had changed irreparably since his campaign in central Germany began.

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EUROPE IN 1540

SPAIN is taking in more money than ever before from its new American conquests and is using more and more of it to fund foreign wars against the Protestant regions up north. Here Charles V remains quite popular and they keep sending soldiers to help Catholicism. While some provinces saw small revolts in 1520 against an increase in taxes, there was very little problems for this Golden Age of Spain. The success of the Spanish Inquisition and the view of the Hapsburgs as the protectors of Catholicism make Spain solidly Catholic and loyal compared to the rest of Europe…

ITALY is a mess of small princedoms and little polities that is becoming increasingly dominated by the papacy and by Spain. The two largest and most independent states, Savoy and Venice are both more and more openly defiant of the Papal and Hapsburg domination. Venice however, has experienced a huge renewal in its luck and a return of its power. Both the Spanish and Hapsburg power was broken when Vienna was taken and during the Knights War respectively. The Doge was careful to stay neutral during the Ottoman conflict and came out stronger than ever before. This is because the Ottomans are easier to combat than Hapsburg domination and with Austria gone; Venetian ships now rule the Adriatic Sea. The papacy itself is under the rule of Clement VII, who had severely underestimated the Protestant Revolution and is doing more now to try and stop it, by any means necessary. …

ENGLAND is reforming and consolidating under Henry VIII. After the war of the Roses he has kept the lands as united as his father had. But where his problems arose was his increasing antagonizing relationship with the Papacy. Ultimately, with the help of his determined cabinet members, he officially broke from Papal authority. He set up the Church of England, with him at the head. While Henry VII tried to take a middle road between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, it became more and more reformist. It is a big turning point for the English and set them down a roller coaster path to nationhood…

FRANCE is flourishing under the benevolent rule of Francis I, but he is also staunchly Catholic and refusing to help Charles V because he wants to become Holy Roman Emperor himself. With the Empire in tatters and the Ottomans capturing its largest Catholic Stronghold, Vienna; Francis I looks to be a much better candidate for the job. He has also been somewhat more lenient to Protestant for purely political reasons, yet he doesn’t condone the movement and could see himself taking up the role of protector of Catholicism…

GERMANY is a mess after the Knights War. The southern German provinces suffered the most, with almost 75,000 dead and the leader of the Protestant movement, Andreas Karlstadt still moving throughout the German Princedoms preaching and gaining many converts. Even several of the princes themselves, most notably the Elector of Saxony is joining him. Austria is in tatters after Suleiman’s successful attack and Hapsburg domination has been broken there. The integrity of the Holy Roman Empire seems to be the weakest it has ever been. Both Zwingli and Karlstadt’s messages are really resonating with a majority of the population and peasants, now emboldened by the huge uprisings by the Knights are considering uprisings themselves….

THE NETHERLANDS hovers between tyrannical rule and revolution…

THE SWISS CONFEDERATION is now virtually a theocracy run by Zwingli and his cadre of able administrators. They have been quite strong and opportunistic, in Austria’s weak moment; they grabbed eastern Tyrol and are now besieging Trent. While Zwingli is the able leader of this Swiss Confederation, a young, intelligent Frenchman is rising in the ranks and is now the lead elector of Geneva. His name is John Calvin and he is a lightning force for Zwingli. Calvin’s evangelical stance is converting more and more within France and frustrating the Catholic establishment…

POLAND-LITHUANIA is one of the most tolerant Catholic countries in Europe and also some of the strongest. This has happened under one of the most powerful and stable families in all of Europe, the Jagiellon dynasty. Ultimately, the country only held together by strong leaders and without them, the weakness of the parliamentary system will begin to show. Nevertheless, many Jews are settling in Poland because of the tolerant attitude and the Jagiellons are winning against Muscovy. Their future looks quite bright...

Tensions are rising in Europe and with Charles V trying to liberate Vienna from Suleiman’s grasp; the whole region is bound to explode…
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Comments?
 
The late 1500’s saw a breakdown of papal and Spanish power. After Charles V died trying to take back Ottoman controlled Vienna, Philip II came to power controlling all of the remaining Hapsburg territories. He essentially becomes a tool of an increasing destructive papacy and goes on several unsuccessful campaigns for the decreasing range of Catholicism. A far more wildly popular revolt breaks out in Holland and by 1621 all but have destroyed most of the Spanish resistance, humiliating Philip and making the first truly modern Republic in the World. It is headed by a very moderate, secular government with a reformed humanist and liberal Dutch Christian Church that emphasizes freedom of thought and human preservation. Erasmus moves to this new republic and becomes one of their founding fathers before his death. The Dutch, with their financial prowess and no longer having to send their riches of Spain and Italy, become Europe foremost traders and bankers. Meanwhile, Protestant Germans, led by the ever growing Saxony, and leading protestant Hungarian nobles push the now exhausted Ottomans out of Austria and Hungary. Andreas Karlstadt rejoices at this protestant victory but dies soon after. This is a massive blow to Papal authority and respect for their rule. Henry VII finally has a son with Anne Boleyn in 1529, named Henry Tudor. He is raised well with both a competent mother and father, and succeeds him in 1550. Henry IX is even more powerful than his father and concentrates even more power in the hands of the monarchy and well as consolidate church power and he rules until his death in 1589. His son, Edward VI is equally strong but a little more incompetent. Sweden and Poland also begin to break ties with Rome albeit more slowly.

In America, Spain and Portugal still use their massive control of gold mines in its American and Asian holdings to fuel their never ending wars on the continent but the unilateral control is coming to an end. The English were the first to set up a colony in southern Coast of North America. The Dutch had set up several colonies along the northern North American coast as well a taking Bermuda. There they can raid Spanish ships as much as they want.

The year is 1621. Spain, France and the Papacy are still the most powerful nations in Europe but a coalition of upstart nations no longer worship at Rome’s feet. Philip II had passed away and was succeeded by his son Philip III, who is even more of a tool of the papacy. The kings of France become increasingly more powerful as well in trying to put down the growing Zwinglist teachings under Francis I, Henry II, and Francis II but when he dies in 1620 there is heavy contention over who will reign after him. Protestants and Catholics in Europe become bitter about it and the whole continent is ready to explode….
 
Ah finals and my parents divorce are getting in the way. Give me one week and a update will be forthcoming.

Just watched a theatrical movie about Luther and I'm happy I'm not too far off on my historical plausiblity.
 
My condolences.

Glad to hear you plan to continue this tl.

I thought the latest Luther movie was pretty good.

Meh, its all for the best. I'm going to college so at least they stuck it out for me.

Yeah, I saw a lot of Brother Andreas and the Peasants revolt in it. But not too much else, so doesn't help my expanded TL.
 
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