WI: Bavaria Goes/Stays Protestant

The Concordat of Bologna of 1516 made that largely irrelevant. Within France, the King was the de facto head of the church.
That is a really good point; France still might run into problems later (in the 1560's and after) if the crown still moves toward toleration of protestants; and if France compounds this by supporting protestants abroad to weaken Spain, that could complicate things for the Vatican even further. But that's down the line, and not really enough to guarantee another "nationalist" split of the remaining Catholic Church.
 
Why exactly would France support the Protestant so wholeheartly? In OTL they were a fifth column against the Habsburgs consisting of a bunch of small states too weak on their own, now they are a big power on France's border (that enough problem with their own protestants).
 
I've been wondering about something, and it seems pointless to create a new thread for it. But the question of reconciliation between Protestantism and Rome (in an eventuality where the only purely Catholic countries are Iberia and Italy (and even there Ferrara's got a question mark over it)). Wouldn't it bring to mind the idea of a re-emergent schism where half of Europe supported the legitimate pope and half another guy who said he was the legitimate pope (and the legitimacy depended on what your perspective was). Even though half of Europe (if Poland and France joining the Protestant chorus) doesn't recognize any pope. Would it be enough to get the college of cardinals to start thinking "Gee, last week we lost France, the week before that we lost England and Scandinavia, maybe there's a problem on our end?"
 
I've been wondering about something, and it seems pointless to create a new thread for it. But the question of reconciliation between Protestantism and Rome (in an eventuality where the only purely Catholic countries are Iberia and Italy (and even there Ferrara's got a question mark over it)). Wouldn't it bring to mind the idea of a re-emergent schism where half of Europe supported the legitimate pope and half another guy who said he was the legitimate pope (and the legitimacy depended on what your perspective was). Even though half of Europe (if Poland and France joining the Protestant chorus) doesn't recognize any pope. Would it be enough to get the college of cardinals to start thinking "Gee, last week we lost France, the week before that we lost England and Scandinavia, maybe there's a problem on our end?"

By than its too late; you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube once people get it into their heads that the validity of beliefs and church practices and authority of leadership comes from the bottom-up interpretation of the Bible rather than disseminated from the top down by a centeralized body blessed with a peculiar divine insight. Protestant sects are defined as such due to their fundimental structural difference from Catholicism (Except for maybe strict High Church Anglicans, who's labeling as such is questionable), so even if the council tried to launch a reform effort they still have to come out with a single universal doctrine that can somehow attract all these different faiths back into their orbit. If anything, I believe its more likely they go into a "purity spiral", with an eagle eye for anything that could be interpreted as "heresy" mixing in an unhealthy way with internal church politics.
 
If anything, I believe its more likely they go into a "purity spiral", with an eagle eye for anything that could be interpreted as "heresy" mixing in an unhealthy way with internal church politics.

That sounds like absolute fun for religious minorities. Last week it was only the Lutherans persecuting you, today, it's the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Calvinists. I imagine we might see more colonies (formed to escape religious persecution) springing up in the New World in this scenario?
 
That sounds like absolute fun for religious minorities. Last week it was only the Lutherans persecuting you, today, it's the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Calvinists. I imagine we might see more colonies (formed to escape religious persecution) springing up in the New World in this scenario?

You certainly would (or, at least in Spain's regions of control), but I meant that in the context of the Catholic Church. Protestants will continue just splintering off church is they don't agree. But if the nastiness and efforts by the center to seize greater control over what remains of the Catholic infastructure trickles down to where its perceived to impact the local level by the Protestant leadership (Thus, Catholics become more or less perceived as highly likely to be agents of Rome and by extension Madrid), it could instead by Catholic colonies ettling the edges of English, French, Dutch, ect. territories instead.
 
@JonasResende @FillyofDelphi Actually, the role of persecuted religions in settling NA OTL shouldn't be overblown; it needs to be born in mind that no colony is going to get the support it needs from the crown unless said crown can be sure of the colonists' loyalty.

Hence why I suggested those settlements would be at the edges of their respective nation's territories. Considering Spain and Portugal would be the only Catholic nations of note left standing and have the Church virtually captive to her interests, I personally see this world as one in which the remaining Catholic minorities increasingly turn to Spain as their patron and protector against being extinguished entirely. While going to Iberia itself would be more difficult and less rewarding, I can easily see the Iberian states helping transport Catholic German, British, Dutch, ect. groups to the New World to "Squat" on its own frontiers and borders with the Protestant/Reformed colonies as a way to project Spainish influence, the Empire's larger "core" colonies and Fleet providing them with security and commerical oppritunities that would support the infant settlements.
 
Hence why I suggested those settlements would be at the edges of their respective nation's territories. Considering Spain and Portugal would be the only Catholic nations of note left standing and have the Church virtually captive to her interests, I personally see this world as one in which the remaining Catholic minorities increasingly turn to Spain as their patron and protector against being extinguished entirely. While going to Iberia itself would be more difficult and less rewarding, I can easily see the Iberian states helping transport Catholic German, British, Dutch, ect. groups to the New World to "Squat" on its own frontiers and borders with the Protestant/Reformed colonies as a way to project Spainish influence, the Empire's larger "core" colonies and Fleet providing them with security and commerical oppritunities that would support the infant settlements.

Could have an interesting effect on the Spanish economy if German, British, Dutch etc Catholics come to settle in Castile/Aragon. IIRC, in the 18th century, Carlos III was interested in doing just that with some Swiss cattle-farmers as a way of boosting the Spanish economy. (ICR where I read it though, could be apocryphal)
 
If the Wittelsbachs go protestant before 1580, the Cologne War might have a different outcome, with Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, after his 1582 conversion to Calvinism and his 1583 marriage to Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben, canoness of Gerresheim, succeding in his attempt to turn the ecclesiastical principality into a secular dynastic duchy. Should he be able to secure the electorate for his family then the balance in the college of electors would permanently be tipped towards the protestant side, which would make a conversion to protestantism for the Austrian Hapsburg far more important to keep the imperial crown for the family.
 
If the Wittelsbachs go protestant before 1580, the Cologne War might have a different outcome, with Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, after his 1582 conversion to Calvinism and his 1583 marriage to Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben, canoness of Gerresheim, succeding in his attempt to turn the ecclesiastical principality into a secular dynastic duchy. Should he be able to secure the electorate for his family then the balance in the college of electors would permanently be tipped towards the protestant side, which would make a conversion to protestantism for the Austrian Hapsburg far more important to keep the imperial crown for the family.

Now that could make for interesting things. Would the archbishopric-electorate of Cologne be simply relabelled as the electorate of Westphalia (which was one of the archbishop's titles IIRC), or would it just change administrators, since Protestant clergy were allowed to marry and have kids? And could the pope not deprive von Waldburg's family of the electorate and bestow it somewhere else?
 
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