In 1521 at the Diet of Worms, the Elector of Saxony decided to protect Martin Luther after the Holy Roman Emperor condemned him to death. The Elector’s political motive to harbor Luther is an example of how politics played a primary role in the spread of the religious Reformation. In Sixteenth-century Europe, the beginning of a religious Reformation started to spread, greatly aided by leaders who had political reasons to help new religions grow or were too busy to stop the spread of the Reformation. The Reformation swept across Europe primarily because those in authority had political reasons to adopt Protestantism or to ignore the its spread.
Princes and rulers of German territorial states supported Luther because they wanted to weaken their …show more content…
For instance, the Schmalkaldic league was a Lutheran alliance of territorial states founded for political reasons and intended to protect each other “whenever any one of us is attacked on account of the Word of God and the doctrine of the Gospel.” Lutheran princes formed the Schmalkaldic league to stand as one force against attacks from Charles V. When the Schmalkaldic League went to war against the Holy Roman Emperor, the Catholic king of France, Henry II, joined the Schmalkaldic league on the Protestant side of the war against Charles V because he was afraid of how much power Charles would have if he won. His political motives to side with the Protestants despite his religion allowed him with the Schmalkaldic league to win the war against Charles V. When he realized he was losing the war, Charles V introduced a law called the Peace of Augsburg, which allowed territorial princes (but not the people of the states) to choose the religion of their state as well as granting equal political rights for Lutheran states. Because of this, many people who had remained Catholic in Lutheran states were forced to become Lutheran if their leader made the state Lutheran. Furthermore, granting Lutherans equal legal privileges made Lutheranism seem more common or acceptable, which along with the fact that there was now