The Peace of Augsburg

Date

25 September 1555

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Holy Roman Empire (Augsburg)

Era

Early Modern

Significance

On 25 September 1555 the imperial Diet at Augsburg proclaimed a religious settlement that ended decades of conflict between Emperor Charles V and the Lutheran princes of the Holy Roman Empire.

Negotiated on the emperor's behalf by his brother Ferdinand, the Peace of Augsburg established the principle later summarised as cuius regio, eius religio, whose realm, his religion, allowing each prince to choose Catholicism or Lutheranism as the official faith of his territory; dissenting subjects were permitted to emigrate. The settlement gave Lutheranism legal recognition within the Empire and marked Charles V's admission that the Habsburg aim of restoring a single Catholic Christendom had failed, contributing to his abdication. Yet the peace recognised only Catholicism and Lutheranism, excluding Calvinism and Anabaptism, an omission that left major confessional tensions unresolved. The unworkable parts of the compromise, alongside the growth of Calvinism, helped set the stage for the catastrophic Thirty Years' War of 1618 to 1648. The Peace of Augsburg nonetheless entrenched religious pluralism as a structural feature of the Empire's constitution.

Empires active in 25 September 1555

• Songhai Empire
  1464 CE – 1591 CE
• Ming Dynasty
  1368 CE – 1644 CE
• Ottoman Empire
  1299 CE – 1922 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War
  October 1648
• Akbar's religious tolerance and administrative reforms
  1564 (jizya abolished); 1582 (Din-i Ilahi)
• The New Laws and the debate over the encomienda
  20 November 1542
• The English Reformation: Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy
  1534
• Suleiman the Magnificent and the codification of Ottoman law
  1520–1566 (reign of Suleiman)
• Selim I conquers the Mamluk Sultanate and the holy cities
  January 1517

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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