Charles, as a devout Roman Catholic, had no sympathy for the Reformation. At Worms, on the day following Luther's refusal to recant, the emperor had expressed his determination to stake "all his dominions, his friends, his body and blood, his life and soul" upon the extinction of the Lutheran heresy. This might have been an easy task, had Charles undertaken it at once. But a revolt in Spain, wars with the French king, Francis I, and conflicts with the Ottoman Turks led to his long absence from Germany and kept him from proceeding effectively against the Lutherans, until it was too late.
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE at the Beginning of the Reformation, 1519 A.D.]
THE "REFORMED RELIGION"
The Reformation in Germany appealed to many classes. To patriotic Germans it seemed a revolt against a foreign power—the Italian Papacy. To men of pious mind it offered the attractions of a simple faith which took the Bible as the rule of life. Worldly-minded princes saw in it an opportunity to despoil the Church of lands and revenues. For these reasons Luther's teachings found ready acceptance. Priests married, Luther himself setting the example, monks left their monasteries, and the "Reformed Religion" took the place of Roman Catholicism in most parts of northern and central Germany. South Germany, however, did not fall away from the pope and has remained Roman Catholic to the present time.
[Illustration: CHARLES V
A portrait of the emperor at the age of 48, by the Venetian painter
Titian.]
THE PROTESTANTS, 1529 A.D.
Though Germany had now divided into two religious parties, the legal position of Lutheranism remained for a long time in doubt. A Diet held in 1526 A.D. tried to shelve the question by allowing each German state to conduct its religious affairs as it saw fit. But at the next Diet, three years later, a majority of the assembled princes decided that the Edict of Worms against Luther and his followers should be enforced. The Lutheran princes at once issued a vigorous protest against such action. Because of this protest those who separated from the Roman Church came to be called Protestants.
PEACE OF AUGSBURG, 1555 A.D.
It was not till 1546 A.D., the year of Luther's death, that Charles V felt his hands free to suppress the rising tide of Protestantism. By this time the Lutheran princes had formed a league for mutual protection. Charles brought Spanish troops into Germany and tried to break up the league by force. Civil war raged till 1555 A.D., when both sides agreed to the Peace of Augsburg. It was a compromise. The ruler of each state—Germany then contained over three hundred states—was to decide whether his subjects should be Lutherans or Catholics. Thus the peace by no means established religious toleration, since all Germans had to believe as their prince believed. However, it recognized Lutheranism as a legal religion and ended the attempts to crush the German Reformation.