The position of the Holy Roman Emperor was mainly titular, but the emperors, from the House of Habsburg, also directly ruled a large portion of imperial territory lands of the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Bohemia , as well as the Kingdom of Hungary.
The Austrian domain was thus a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects. Another branch of the House of Habsburg ruled over Spain and its empire, which included the Spanish Netherlands, southern Italy, the Philippines, and most of the Americas.
After the Protestant Reformation, these independent states became divided between Catholic and Protestant rulership, giving rise to conflict. Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious conflict, which was made yet more complex by the spread of Calvinism throughout Germany in the years that followed. This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.
Religious tensions remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel—some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region.
This was evident from the Cologne War — , in which a conflict ensued when the prince-archbishop of the city, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism. As he was an imperial elector, this could have produced a Protestant majority in the college that elected the Holy Roman Emperor, a position that Catholics had always held.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Rhine lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while the north was dominated by Lutherans, and certain other areas, such as west-central Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, were dominated by Calvins.
Minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere, however. In some lordships and cities, the numbers of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal. In November it stopped the pensions of refractory priests and prohibited their use of religious buildings. The Assembly suppressed all remaining religious orders, including those staffing schools and hospitals, and ordered remaining non-jurors to leave or be arrested and deported. Concern peaked on 2 September when news arrived that the fortress-town of Verdun near Paris had fallen to the allied Prussian forces.
The September Massacres made clear the distrust that would prevent any accommodation between the Church and the new Republic proclaimed on 22 September The new Republican government, known as the Convention, responded to growing civil unrest and the ongoing overseas threat with the Reign of Terror. The Revolutionary Tribunal, established on 10 March , aimed to demonstrate that persons of danger to the Republic were being identified and punished.
Although the Constitutional Church had been permitted to continue its work, the Convention now considered Catholicism in any form suspicious. Constitutional priests were advised to abandon the priesthood and were encouraged — or in some cases forced — to marry. Any priest that continued to practise, whether constitutional or refractory, now faced arrest and deportation.
In October , public worship was forbidden and over the next few months all visible signs of Christianity were removed, a policy pursued with particular enthusiasm by revolutionary armies eager to seek revenge on the institution that harboured so many counter-revolutionaries. Church bells were pulled down and melted, ostensibly to help the war effort, crosses were taken from churches and cemeteries, and statues, relics and works of art were seized and sometimes destroyed.
On 23 November , churches were closed, to be converted into warehouses, manufacturing works or even stables. The Revolutionary calendar started with the advent of the French Republic Year 1. The names of its months reflected the seasons and its ten-day week eliminated Sunday as a day of rest and worship. Although such measures were unevenly applied, and in many cases met with considerable local opposition, they reinforced the message that Christianity had no place in the Republic.
The revolutionary government had learnt, however, that when destroying the past, it was wise to have something to put in its place. The creation of the Republic in had given rise to ceremonies and festivals that aimed to make a religion of the Revolution itself, commemorating revolutionary martyrs as its saints and venerating the tricolour cockade and red liberty cap as its sacred symbols.
Robespierre, wary of atheism and the political forces behind certain cults, introduced on 7 May the Cult of the Supreme Being, which he envisaged as a new state religion. But the Festival of the Supreme Being, held on 8 June throughout France and presided over in Paris by Robespierre, provided little beyond spectacle and, like other cults, it attracted minimal interest outside urban centres.
Catholicism had been squeezed out of the Republic, but alternatives imposed from above failed to catch on. The fall of Robespierre in July brought a thaw towards religious practice. Dechristianisation had forced religious observance into the privacy of the home. The Convention, anxious to achieve some form of stability, recognised that somehow it would have to accommodate this private worship.
It did so by announcing on 21 February the formal separation of Church and State. Churches were reopened, refractory priests were released from jail, and both constitutional and refractory priests were permitted to practise on the condition that they promised to respect the laws of the Republic.
Yet complete separation proved impossible. Religion was still considered a threat and subsequent decrees sought to monitor worship and ban outward signs of religion, such as statues or religious dress, from the public eye.
Royalist uprisings led to the reapplication of earlier laws concerning refractory priests, as did the coup of 18 Fructidor 4 September , which saw thousands of refractory priests arrested yet again. Like earlier governments, the Directory November tried introducing alternatives to Catholicism, notably in the new cult of Theophilanthropy. Yet again, these failed to gain popular support.
The Directory instead witnessed a religious revival in which Catholic men — and especially women — played an important role in re-establishing their faith around the wreckage left by the Revolution. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work. President Michael Dimock explains why. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
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