Introduction

Christopher W. Close

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511642050.003

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 December 2009

Christopher W. Close

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Christopher W. Close: Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey

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In early July 1546, war erupted in the Holy Roman Empire. On one side stood the Emperor Charles V, a supporter of the Catholic Church who sought to quell the religious dissension introduced into his realm by the Reformation. Opposing the emperor was an alliance of Protestant estates known as the Schmalkaldic League. Led by the prince-elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse, two of the Empire's most powerful noblemen, the Schmalkaldic League's membership stretched across the geographic breadth of the Empire. Its financial base rested largely on mercantile wealth from its urban members in the south, self-governing republics called imperial cities. Autonomous city-states ruled by elected councils, imperial cities owed allegiance to no territorial lord but the emperor. During the 1520s and 1530s, many of these cities introduced evangelical religious reform within their walls. This severed their ties to the Catholic Church and placed a growing strain on their relationship with the emperor. Fearing imperial retribution for their religious deviance, many evangelical imperial cities joined the Schmalkaldic League, which promised military protection to its members. As armed conflict began in the summer of 1546, imperial cities across southern Germany mobilized their armies in defense of the Reformation.

Two exceptions to this mobilization were the Eastern Swabian imperial cities Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren. Located just to the north and south of Augsburg, Swabia's largest and in many ways most influential city, Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren first adopted evangelical reform in 1545.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Negotiated Reformation
Imperial Cities and the Politics of Urban Reform, 1525–1550
, pp. 1 - 19

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511642050.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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