Augsburg Interim
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The Augsburg Interim was an imperial decree ordered on May 15, 1548, at the Diet of Augsburg, after Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, defeated the forces of the Schmalkaldic League in the Schmalkaldic War, from 1546 to 1547. The document was written by three theologians: Johannes Agricola, Julius von Pflug, and Michael Helding. Although it ordered Protestants to readopt traditional Catholic beliefs and practices, including the seven Sacraments[1], it allowed for Protestant clergymen the right to marry and for the laity to receive communion.[2]
This creed, a mixture of parts from two different confessions, turned out to be a failure. Charles V tried to enforce the Interim in the Holy Roman Empire, but was only successful in territories under his military control, such as Wurttemberg and certain imperial cities in southern Germany[3]. There was a great deal of political opposition to the Interim. Many Catholic princes did not accept the Interim, worried about rising imperial authority. The papacy refused to recognise the Interim for over a year, as it saw it as an infringement of its own jurisdiction.[4] Charles's ally during the Schmalkaldic War, Maurice of Saxony, worked out with his estates a compromise known as the Leipzig Interim, which despite its even greater concessions to Protestantism was barely enforced.[5] Protestant leaders also rejected the terms of the Interim. As a result of the decree, many Protestant leaders, such as Martin Bucer, fled to England, where they would influence the English Reformation.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Sources
- Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg; Ernest Alfred Benians, Sir Adolphus William Ward, George Walter Prothero (1904). The Cambridge Modern History. New York: Macmillan & Co., ltd.
- Kagan, Donald; Steven Ozment, Frank M. Turner (2002). The Western Heritage: Since 1300, Eighth Edition, New York: Prentice Hall Publishing. ISBN 0131828835.
- Lindsay, Thomas M. (1906). A History of the Reformation. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Smith, Henry Preserved (1920). The Age of the Reformation. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
