The
Wars of
Religion
(1560 -1648)
Civil War
In France
(1562-1598)
The Valois Family:
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Henry II was the last powerful Valois King…his wife Catherine de Medici was a force to
be reckoned with…
Henry’s father (Francis I) died in a tennis game…sound fishy? I wonder if it was a ‘love’
game? And, then Henry and Catherine become king and queen…coincidence?
Henry, as king, ignored Catherine and appeared in court with his mistresses…openly!
He had an “accident”…are you surprised… in a jousting contest…he got a scratch!
On Henry’s death their 15 year old son Francis II became king…he was weak, frail, and
had ideas of his own, and oops, he died too! Do you love her?
Her 10 year old was now crowned king, Charles IX…she had sweeping power…and
mysteriously her son Charles dies…talk about bad luck!
To lose one son was tragic, to lose two is down right careless! Finally, her third son
became king…Francis II…he listened to his mom AND LIVED…coincidence?
At first, Catherine sought compromise through limited concessions to the Huguenots; she failed,
however, to grasp their need for freedom of worship..
Later, as anarchy set in, Catherine abandoned conciliation and resorted to hard-line policies
towards religious rebels. As a result, she was personally blamed for the worst atrocities of the
Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day, of 1572, in which thousands of Huguenots were
butchered in Paris and throughout France.
Catherine's subsequent vilification in contemporary pamphlets gave birth to "the black legend,”
which branded her for posterity as the epitome of evil, servicing an overwhelming lust for power with
dark political crimes, serial poisonings, and even witchcraft.
By the nineteenth century, this tradition had hardened to the point where the great historian Jules
Michelet could refer to Catherine as that "maggot which came out of Italy's tomb.”
Catherine de Medici
Mother of the
year…1560
Francis II & His Wife, Mary Stuart
Is it me, or does
he look like he’s
12 years old?
He listened to
his mom
The French Civil War
The
de
Le
Ducduke
de Guise
Guise
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There were two sides:
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The Guise family led the Catholics in the North
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The Bourbon family led the Huguenots in the South
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They were fighting for the French crown…of course, religion
had nothing to do with it!
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Catherine supported the Guises in the first phase…and then
switched sides
 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre:
In what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 24
August – 17 September, 1572 Catholics killed thousands of
Huguenots in Paris.
Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following, with
death toll estimates again ranging wildly, from thousands to as high as
110,000.
An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators.
Antoine
Bourbon, Le
Duc de
Vendome
St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
The French Civil War
 Catherine started supporting the Bourbons…she
switched sides…
Catholic
League
CIVIL
WAR
Protestant
Union
 Henri of Navarre defeated the Catholic League &
became Henry IV of France.
 Effects of Civil War:
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France was left divided by religion
Royal power had weakened
Valois family now replaced by Bourbons
Triumphal Entry of Henry IV Into Paris
– Peter Paul Reubens
Henry IV of France
He ended Spanish interference in France
He converted to Catholicism :
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He did this to compromise and make peace…he
was a POLITIQUE
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A politique puts the interest of the state first,
before any religious considerations
 He issued the Edict of Nantes in April of1598:
The Edict of Nantes was issued by Henry IV to grant
French Calvinists (also known as Huguenots) substantial
rights in a nation still considered essentially Catholic.
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The main concern was civil unity, and the edict separated
civil from religious unity, it treated some Protestants for the
first time as more than mere heretics, and opened a path for
secularism and tolerance.
“Paris is worth a mass”
In offering general freedom of conscience to individuals, the
edict offered many specific concessions to the Protestants,
such as amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights,
including the right to work in any field or for the state and to
bring grievances directly to the king.
• The edict granted the Protestants fifty places of safety (places de sureté), which were
military strongholds such as La Rochelle for which the king paid.
• Such an innovative act of toleration stood virtually alone in a Europe, where standard
practice forced subjects to follow the religion of their ruler — the application of the
principle of CUIUS REGIO, EIUS RELIGIO.
The Cathedral in Nantes
The Huguenot Cross
The
Thirty Years
War
(1618-1648)
Background to the Thirty Years War
• Under the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 Lutheranism had been given
official recognition in the Holy Roman Empire.
• Lands of the Roman church which had previously been taken by secular
powers were retained by them.
• German rulers could also impose their religion on their subjects.
• However, the Peace did not provide a permanent framework for religious
settlement in Germany.
• The Catholics and Protestants formed armed alliances to preserve
their rights:
• The Catholic League under Maximilian I of Bavaria and the
Protestant Union under Frederick V of the Palatinate.
• Meanwhile, in Bohemia, Moravia and Austria dissension between
the Habsburgs had enabled the local elites to extort religious
freedom from their rulers. The Habsburgs gradually began to chip
away at these concessions.
• So, the scene is set………………
• The Thirty Years' War began as a civil war and was fought between 1618 and 1648…
mostly on the territory of today's Germany, and involved most of the major European
continental powers.
• Although it was from the outset a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics,
the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other powers was also a central motive, as
shown by the fact that Catholic France, under the de facto rule of Cardinal Richelieu
who supported the Protestant side in order to weaken the Habsburgs, thereby furthering
France's position as the pre-eminent continental power.
The major impact of the Thirty Years' War, which primarily used mercenary armies who
had little concern for anyone's rights or property, was to lay waste to entire regions,
causing a much higher than normal death rate among the civilian population.
Episodes of widespread famine and disease (a starving body has little resistance to
illnesses) devastated the population of the Germanys and the Low Countries.
The war also bankrupted many of the powers involved.
The war may have lasted for 30 years, but the conflicts that triggered it continued
unresolved for a much longer time. The war ended with the treaty of Munster, a part of
the wider Peace of Westphalia.
Germany’s population was reduced by 30 % on average…in some areas it was an estimated
two thirds of the population.
Germany’s male population was reduced by almost half. Population of the Czech lands
declined by a third. The Swedish armies alone destroyed 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages
and 1,500 towns in Germany, the number represented one-third of all German towns.
1618-1648
After the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia
The war was fought in four phases:
The Bohemian Phase: 1618-1622
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Ferdinand II…the Holy Roman Emperor…a Habsburg
inherited Bohemia (present day Czech Republic)
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The Bohemians hated him.
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Ferdinand refused to tolerate Protestantism.
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Defenestration of Prague May, 1618
The Defenestration of Prague
On 23 May 1618, three figures fluttered down from a high window
of the Castle Hradshin in the heart of Prague. Landing in a
convenient heap of rubbish, they escaped with their lives. Thus
began the Thirty Years War.
The men had been flung from the window at the culmination of
disputes between the Protestant nobility of Bohemia and their
overlord Matthias II, Holy Roman Emperor and leader of the
Habsburg House of Austria.
Bohemia named a new king, Frederick II.
Ferdinand II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
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Frederick II borrowed an army from Bavaria and quickly
lost his lands in the fighting…not a terribly smart move!
The rebellion in Bohemia inspired others.
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Bohemian Phase
The Danish Phase: 1625-1629
The Danish Phase of the Thirty Years War
This phase of the Thirty Years War encompassed the years 1625 to 1630.
Foreign powers opposed to the Habsburgs could not look with equanimity on
the developments in Germany.
The French, English and Dutch formed a league to oppose the Habsburgs.
They found their champion in Christian IV of Denmark, who also had
extensive possessions in northern Germany.
Christian invaded, but was crushingly defeated by the army of the Catholic
League and a new Imperial force under the enigmatic Bohemian
condottiere Wallenstein.
Emboldened by victory, the Emperor issued the Edict of Restitution,
requiring the return of all lands expropriated from the Roman church since
the 1550’s.
Fearing Wallenstein’s power, the territorial rulers forced the Emperor to
remove him from power and reduce the size of the Imperial army.
The King Christian IV triplets…
Danish Phase
Albrecht
von
Wallenstein
The Swedish Phase: 1630-1635
The Swedish Phase of the Thirty Years War
This phase of the Thirty Years War encompassed the years 1630 through 1634.
Concerned by growing Habsburg power along the Baltic, Gustavus Adolphus of
Sweden invaded northern Germany. He was not welcomed by his fellow
Lutherans: his sole significant ally were the French, who subsidized his army.
After the Swede’s allied city of Magdeburg was destroyed by an Imperial army, the
Protestants grew concerned and began to arm.
When the Imperial forces moved against Saxony, the Elector of Saxony threw in his
lot with the Swedes. The Swedish army met the Imperials at Breitenfeld near
Leipzig and annihilated them.
The Swedes promptly took over most of southwest Germany. The Emperor had no
choice but to recall Wallenstein. The Swedes and Wallenstein’s new army met
near Leipzig at Lützen. The battle was a draw, but Gustavus was killed.
Fearing Wallenstein’s power, and concerned by his intrigues with hostile powers, the
Emperor had him killed…that’s gratitude for you!
The Imperial and Spanish armies joined and inflicted a crushing defeat on the
Swedes at Nördlingen.
All the Swedish gains in southern Germany were lost.
Swedish Phase
Gustavus
Adolphus
The French Phase: 1635-1648
The French Phase of the Thirty Years War
This phase of the Thirty Years War encompassed the years 1634 through
1648.
After Nördlingen most of the German territorial rulers made their peace with
the Emperor. Under the resultant Peace of Prague most of the church
lands in Protestant hand in 1627 were allowed to remain so.
Fearing the power of the Hapsburgs the French declared war on Spain and
increased the scope of their interventions in the Empire.
Gradually the Imperial forces were weakened. France took control of Alsace
and much of the Rhineland while the Swedes took over or neutralized
northern Germany and carried the war into Bohemia.
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This phase was most destructive
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German towns decimated.
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Agriculture collapsed  famine resulted.
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8 million dead  1/3 of the population [from 21 million in 1618 to
13.5 million in 1648]
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Caused massive inflation.
Cardinal Richelieu
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Trade was crippled throughout Europe.
Loss of German Lives in 30 Years’ War
The Peace of Westphalia (1648)
Over the last four years of the war, the parties were actively negotiating at Osnabrück
and Münster in Westphalia.
On 24 October, 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years
War.
The Swedes received a large cash payment and control over western Pomerania,
Bremen and Verden…in Germany.
The French received rights over Alsace.
The control of the Emperor over the German territorial rulers was reduced to zero.
Within the German portion of the Empire, private exercise of non-conforming religion
was permitted.
The organs of government were rendered religiously neutral.
Lands secularized by the Protestants in 1624 were generally allowed to remain so.
However, in the Habsburg territories of Bohemia and Austria the Emperor was
given a nearly free hand to re-impose Catholicism.
Ratification of the
treaty of Munster
The Peace of Westphalia (1648)
Consequences of the Thirty Years War:
The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland
Europe, ending large scale religious bloodshed in 1648.
There were still religious conflicts but no great wars.
The destruction caused by MERCENARY soldiers defied
description.
The war did much to end the age of mercenaries and ushered in the age
of well-disciplined national armies.
For the next few centuries, this war was blamed for everything that went
wrong in Central Europe.
And now for some more student out takes………
• After the refirmation were wars both foreign and
infernal.
• If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would
have a stronghold throughout northern Europe that
would include Italy, Burgangy, central Europe and India
thus surrounding France.
• The German Emperor's lower passage was blocked by
the French for years and years.