Download The Age of Religious Wars

The Age of Religious
Wars (1550-1648)
Religious Struggles
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Conflicts were largely confined to central and northern
Europe, as states began to determine power between
Catholic and Protestant citizens
Protestants had begun to gain rights and recognition in
many states, and with that came political power
Calvinism appealed to rulers who sought to decentralize
and remove power of the Catholic Church in their realms
(Germany, England, Netherlands)
In certain nations, war was eventually avoided when rulers
(politiques) tended to put the success and well-being of
their state above religious ideology (Elizabeth I of England
and Henry IV of France)
The French Wars of Religion
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Protestantism in France found adherents under the leadership of
Besancon Hugues, leader of the Huguenots…the French crown however
was able to keep them at bay (arrests, exiles, etc.) as France was at
war with the Hapsburgs
However, despite the end of the wars with the Hapsburgs, turmoil still
came to France in a strange way…the king of France, Henry II was
killed in a jousting accident! His young sick son Francis II became king
under the regency of mom, Catherine de Medici…this weakness opened
the door for a Civil War in France over the French crown between the
Guises, (Catholic) and the Bourbons (Huguenots)
The French Wars of Religion
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Bloody and nasty fighting between the two sides
Key Event—St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
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A massacre of prominent Huguenots who had gathered in Paris in 1572
for a wedding.
3,000 followers in Paris were butchered along with over 20,000 in other
areas of France
The Reign of Henry IV (of Navarre)
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Eventually out of the turmoil, Henry of Navarre
would come to the throne of France
The accession of Henry IV of the Bourbon
family scared the Catholic establishment…he
was Protestant! Henry, being a politique,
renounced his Protestant faith and converted
to Catholicism. This prevented further conflict.
“Paris is worth a mass.”
On April 13, 1598, Henry made the Huguenots
happy by issuing the Edict of Nantes…it
sanctioned Protestant right to worship within
France within their own towns and territories
Revolt in the Netherlands
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Protestantism had grown strong in the Netherlands, a
state which was under the domain of the Catholic
Hapsburgs of Spain
Philip II wanted to keep the Netherlands in check, so he
tried to force the outcomes of the council of Trent on
the Netherlands, but rebellion broke out
The eventual peace eventually split the Netherlands into
an independant Protestant north (The United Provinces
of the Netherlands) and a Catholic south (later
Belgium) still under Spanish control
The Thirty Years War
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The Thirty Years War was the last war of this era (16181648) and was mainly concentrated amongst the many
states within the Holy Roman Empire (parts of Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Bohemia, and Sweden)
Fragmented Germany (over 300 small states) had
become a battleground
Continued religious conflict accentuated these divisions,
as the German population was almost equally divided
between Protestant and Catholic loyalties
Ferdinand II—a Hapsburg and devout Catholic who was
Holy Roman Emperor began to persecute Protestants
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The Protestant nobles responded by throwing Ferdinand’s ministers “out
the window” in what became known as the “defenestration of
Prague”…then they overthrew Ferdinand and chose a new leader—This
began the War
The Thirty Years War – The Four Periods
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The war went back and forth, at several points it
appeared Ferdinand and the Catholics would win,
but a Protestant ruler always stepped in and
prevented this from happening
The French entered the war in 1635…by this
point, however, the war had become an
opportunity for several foreign nations to raid and
loot weaker German states
Germany could do nothing but sit and watch as
1/3 of their population was annihilated by conflict
(the worst loss of life since the Black Death)
The Peace of Westphalia
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Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland
Europe, ending large scale religious bloodshed.
In 1648, the peace treaty to the Thirty Years War was negotiated and
solved several issues:
Allowed rulers to determine the religion of their lands
The Calvinists received political recognition
Switzerland and Holland were fully recognized as legally
independent states
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treaty continued to perpetuate
German disunity, and this set the stage
for the growth of 2 major German
states: Austria and Prussia
France was now the most powerful
country in Europe.