31 December 1530 A.D. Schmaldkald
League Protected Lutherans
Graves, Dan. “Schmalkald League Protected
Lutherans.” Christianity.com. May
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/schmalkald-league-protected-lutherans-11629948.html. Accessed
23 Jun 2014.
When Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church
door, the Christian world was irrevocably changed. It was as if water were
poured into thirsty sand. There was no way to get it back into its bottle
again. The Roman Church and its champion, the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V, did
not recognize that fact at first.
Backed by the pope, Charles V
met the Lutherans at Augsburg, demanding they return to the Roman Church. The
Lutherans held their own in debate and presented him with the Augsburg
Confession--a document which remains their fundamental statement of
faith.
Charles V determined to reunify
his empire by eradicating Lutheranism from Germany. On November 19th, 1530, he
issued a decree commanding the Protestant princes to return to the Roman fold.
He gave them until April 15th to submit--or face war.
Recognizing their danger,
leaders of several German Protestant states met in the little town of
Schmalkalden, in Saxony, Germany two days before Christmas. On
this day, December 31, 1530, the meeting closed. Stating its grievances,
it had agreed to form a League to resist the Holy Roman Emperor if he tried to
compel them to abandon the Reformation. The leaders immediately wrote to other
nations, asking them to join the league or at least offer it their assistance.
They received favorable answers. A treaty was formally signed on February 27,
1531.
Emperor Charles suddenly found
himself in a vulnerable position. Not only had the Schmalkaldic League arisen
to resist his armies, but the Turks were again threatening Europe from the
East. France, too, was stirring against him. Thanks to these external threats,
the emperor found it necessary to accommodate the German princes. He granted
them free exercise of their religion until a church
council or national diet could decide religious issues.
Charles's involvement kept him
from attacking the Lutherans for sixteen years. But in 1546 the blow fell.
Disagreements among the Schmalkald leaders, the treachery of Prince Maurice,
and the Protestants' military ineptitude gave the emperor as complete a victory
as he could have hoped for. He imposed an "interim" creed upon
Germany, one which made only a few small concessions to the Lutherans.
Bad as the situation was for the
Protestants, it did not last long. Alarmed at the emperor's successes, other
powers rose to make his declining years unhappy. Rome fumed that the emperor
had no right to draft a creed; that was the prerogative of the church. In 1552,
Prince Maurice, fighting again in behalf of the Protestants, won significant
victories and compelled Charles to sign the treaty of Passau which restored
Protestant rights.
Short-lived and seemingly
unsuccessful though the Schmalkaldic League was, it served its purpose. To
Protestants it seemed God's Providence had upheld their cause.
Bibliography:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. Editor in chief Hans J. Hillerbrand. New York : Oxford University
Press, 1996.
Various encyclopedia articles, internet articles,
and histories of the Reformation years.
Last updated May,
2007.
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