Hello Maurice,
Fred was right, the 30 Years War (1618-1648) was a power struggle between
different European coalitions.
That war started almost exactly 100 years after the beginning of the
reformation. Martin Luther fixed his 95 theses in 1517, indulgence was one of many
subjects.
Just like today religion and striving for power - also known as politics -
got mixed up and the consequence was a war.
Brigitte Jahnke
As an addition to Brigitte - let me say that one tends to have to grossly
generalize in these short emails. An email list does not propose to
represent a scholarly treatise on the origins of the 30 Years War. Many
books have been written on the topic.
Let's just remember that Luther was a RC priest with new ideas whose time
had come - and which are still supposed to be coming from Rome. His weapons
were ideas not armies. Were it not for the questions of temporal power and
wealth the Church could probably have worked something out with him. Sadly
the RC Church had lots of wealth, collected over the centuries, which was
coveted by others and therefore came the wars. The Church and the Empire
tried to protect the status quo as it came with power and privilege. It was
of course the ordinary people who paid the price in suffering.
After Luther started his ruckus the Peace of Augsburg (1555) set up the
"Cuius regio, eius religio" rule which left the lords of the land with the
power to set the religion of their subjects. What it really meant was that
those princes who had switched could now own what the Church possessed in
their domains. In Prussia the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order simply
declared himself a Protestant Duke and signed a deal of fealty to the RC
King Of Poland and therefore owned the land himself instead of the Order.
The Protestant thing came in very handy as it did in other places.
Henry the Eighth did much the same in starting the English Church which he
could control and disown as needed.
Fred
730 5th St. NW
Naples, FL 34120
FredRump@gmail.com