Renaissance and Reformation — Reformation impact and Counter-Reformation

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1555. It introduced **cuius regio, eius religio** — each German prince could choose Lutheranism or Catholicism for his own territory.

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1) Princes gained religious and political power over the Church in their territories. 2) The Peasants' War (1524-25) erupted partly from Luther's ideas, but Luther condemned it. 3) Germany fractured into competing Catholic and Protestant camps.

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Monastery lands and Church property were seized by princes and cities; Protestant work ethic encouraged saving; the Catholic Church lost huge income from indulgences, pilgrimages and tithes in Protestant areas.

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A devastating conflict beginning as a religious war in the Holy Roman Empire, but it became a wider European power struggle. It ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which confirmed states' religious independence and devastated the German population and economy.

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He was a Catholic humanist scholar who criticised Church corruption and produced a Greek New Testament, inspiring reformers. But he stayed loyal to the Catholic Church and opposed Luther's break — so historians debate whether he caused or merely anticipated the Reformation.

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1545-1563 (in three sessions). It reaffirmed Catholic doctrine (including the role of good works and tradition), reformed clerical abuses and discipline, and standardised training for priests through seminaries.

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He called the Council of Trent (1545), approved the Jesuit order (1540), and set up the Roman Inquisition (1542) to investigate heresy.

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Paul IV was far more hardline and repressive: he expanded the Inquisition aggressively and created the first Index of Forbidden Books (1559), banning texts seen as heretical.

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He successfully closed the Council of Trent in 1563 and confirmed its decrees, turning the Council's reforms into official, lasting Catholic Church policy.

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Founded by Ignatius of Loyola and approved in 1540, they became the Catholic Church's most effective tool: educating elites, working as missionaries worldwide, and winning back some Protestant regions through persuasion and schools.

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The Catholic Church's programme of internal reform and active response to the Protestant Reformation, roughly from the 1530s to the early 1600s.

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Some historians argue it was purely reactive (a defensive response to Protestant success), while others argue the Church was already reforming itself before Luther (a genuine "Catholic Reformation") — so how much credit Protestantism deserves for triggering it is debated.