The Religionspolitik of Emperor Ferdinand I (1521—1564): Tyrol¹ and the Holy Roman Empire

Abstract

The present study aims to settle a long-standing historiographical disagreement: where historians of the Habsburg dynasty have traditionally seen Emperor Ferdinand I as a Catholic moderate, those of the Tyrol have traditionally viewed him as a Catholic zealot. On the basis of original archival research, it argues in favour of the former interpretation. Though Ferdinand officially condemned Lutheranism, he tacitly tolerated the religion, whether in the Tyrol or elsewhere in Central Europe. To his way of thinking, religious co-existence was not an end in itself, but rather a temporary expedient pending the reunion of Catholicism, Utraquism and Lutheranism under the umbrella of a reformed universal Church. This interpretation follows from a perception of the Empire as a still vital political organism; thus, more than any one territory, the Reformation was a struggle over the religion of the Empire. This paper is divided into three parts. The first looks at the Tyrolean Reformation as a historical problem. The second offers a close case study of Ferdinand's Religionspolitik in the Tyrol. The third centres on Ferdinand's Religionspolitik in Germany and Bohemia.