Joshua’s Reviews > Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648 > Status Update

Okay chapter. It was mostly just alliance building and negotiations. It was cool to see Bavaria have a major role in this chapter alongside Hessen.

Difficult enough chapter discussing Reich institutions and religion. The origin of the Protestant naming scheme was interesting and to see the importance of less talked about figures like Philip of Hessen.

It was also interesting to see how Charles V was attempting to centralise the Reich slowly.

Of course it was also great to see the Truce of Nuremberg which began the process between Protestants and Catholics.

What a twist! The whole time the Council of Trent was there just in the phrase of church council. I had no idea they were connected!

This chapter was actually pretty important. It gave a brief overview of European affairs at the time such as Ferdinand's wars with Suleiman or Charles' wars with Francis of France.

I enjoyed this chapter quite a bit!

Good chapter! The basic conclusion was that despite the efforts of princes to keep their territories Catholic, it ultimately flipped to Protestant when their successor came to power or ultimately allowed for Protestants to exist without repression.

It's crazy to think that the only major Catholic powers within the HRE was Bavaria and Austria with some other minor Catholic polities existing as well.

Okay chapter. I thought it was going to look more into the emergence of Protestantism into the duchies and it sort of did. I found it interesting when it touched on the Teutonic Order but overall the chapter was difficult to read and comprehend. It seemed more of a chapter based on law and religion rather than national politics and religion.

Mediocre chapter on Cities and Reformation. The main idea of the chapter is that the reformation was unique in every case in cities. It also mainly sped up the process of city councils attempting to grab more power over the Church.

Some imperial cities stayed Catholic to ensure good relations with the Emperor.

The chapter on the Peasants War was okay. It looked at why it happened; basically they didn't want to pay too much taxes and the princes were too overbaring. Numerous rebellions happened and peasants organised and created the Twelve Articles only for the peasants to lose when the princes mobilised. Luther meanwhile was condemning the peasants and actively removed pro-peasant policies after the revolt.