In the late 20th century, a number of revisionist historians such as William M. The Encyclopædia Britannica maintains that " wars of religion of this period fought mainly for confessional security and political gain." Others emphasise the fact that cross-religious alliances existed, such as the Lutheran duke Maurice of Saxony assisting the Catholic emperor Charles V in the first Schmalkaldic War in 1547 in order to become the Saxon elector instead of John Frederick, his Lutheran cousin, while the Catholic king Henry II of France supported the Lutheran cause in the Second Schmalkaldic War in 1552 to secure French bases in modern-day Lorraine. Scholars have pointed out that some European wars of this period were not caused by disputes occasioned by the Reformation, such as the Italian Wars (1494–1559, only involving Catholics), as well as the Northern Seven Years' War (1563–1570, only involving Lutherans). they could often simultaneously be characterised as wars of succession), and financial interests. The religious nature of the wars has also been debated, and contrasted with other factors at play, such as national, dynastic (e.g. Whether these should be included in the European wars of religion depends on how one defines a " war of religion", and whether these wars can be considered "European" (i.e. These included the Savoyard–Waldensian wars (1655–1690), the Nine Years' War (1688–1697, including the Glorious Revolution and the Williamite War in Ireland), and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). In 1521, Luther was excommunicated, sealing the schism within Western Christendom between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutherans and opening the door for other Protestants to resist the power of the papacy.Īlthough most of the wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religious conflicts continued to be fought in Europe until at least the 1710s. In 1517, Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses took only two months to spread throughout Europe with the help of the printing press, overwhelming the abilities of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the papacy to contain it. The European wars of religion are also known as the Wars of the Reformation. 9 Religious situation pre- and post-European wars.3.3 Schmalkaldic Wars and other early conflicts.3.1 Rebellions of Anabaptists and other radicals.Although many European leaders were sickened by the bloodshed by 1648, smaller religious wars continued to be waged until the 1710s, including the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651) in the British Isles, the Savoyard–Waldensian wars (1655–1690), and the Toggenburg War (1712) in the Western Alps. The Peace of Westphalia broadly resolved the conflicts by recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. The conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany and killed one third of its population, a mortality rate twice that of World War I. Warfare intensified after the Catholic Church began the Counter-Reformation in 1545 against the growth of Protestantism. The conflicts began with the minor Knights' Revolt (1522), followed by the larger German Peasants' War (1524–1525) in the Holy Roman Empire. The wars were largely ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established a new political order that is now known as Westphalian sovereignty. By the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Catholic France had allied with the Protestant forces against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy. Other motives during the wars involved revolt, territorial ambitions and great power conflicts. Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe, or Christendom.
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The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. The Battle of White Mountain (1620) in Bohemia was one of the decisive battles of the Thirty Years' War that ultimately led to the forced conversion of the Bohemian population back to Roman Catholicism.