Sovereigns can determine the religion of their subjects
As a young man, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had wanted to punish Luther as a heretic at the Diet of Worms (1521). He remained resolute in his rejection of the Reformation and considered it his duty to restore the unity of the Church. To this end, he undertook successful military action against an alliance of Protestant princes and pushed for the reintegration of Protestants into the Catholic Church. Also hoping to restore imperial powers, he was met with resistance from Catholic rulers, who refused to support Charles V during a renewed Protestant rebellion. Finding himself in considerable trouble after the French took advantage of his preoccupation to launch an offensive, Charles V abdicated his imperial throne to his brother Ferdinand I, who was already the Roman-German king.
Ferdinand set about his task of re-organizing the empire by summoning the Diet of Augsburg in 1555, at which he worked towards a solution that would reconcile the competing interests of the various princes. Concluded on 25 September 1555, the Peace of Augsburg foresaw that whilst ecclesiastical estates such as prince-bishoprics had to remain Catholic, secular estates would be granted freedom of religion. The subjects of the princes would be required to adopt the religion chosen by their ruler in accordance with the principle of “whose realm, his religion” (Latin: Cuius regio, eius religio). This applied to both Catholics and Lutherans, but not yet to the significantly smaller number of Reformed Protestants in the empire. Those who did not want to accept the prescribed religion would be permitted to leave the country. The Peace of Augsburg marked the end of the Reformation and ushered in a phase of peace, until the cataclysm of the Thirty Years’ War brought religious conflict back to the centre of Central European life.
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