The Origins of the Thirty Years War? 11and Ferdinand of Styria’s minor Uzkok war, the major principalities
of Germany and Austria had no significant involvement in external
wars, and although there were some internal disturbances these did not
develop into major or long-lasting hostilities. Religious tensions there
certainly were, but the resulting disputes were essentially confined to
polemic and the law courts, only occasionally going beyond limited
and localised brawling in the streets. Contemporaries tended to be pes-
simistic, foreseeing a gradually deteriorating situation leading ultimately
to a major war, and with the benefit of hindsight historians have often
echoed their view, but the more remarkable fact is that the Empire for
so long avoided the fate of France and its wars of religion.
In considering the Empire in the years leading up to the Thirty Years
War a thematic approach is usually adopted, which is certainly easier
and probably clearer than the alternative. The drawback is that this
makes it more difficult to appreciate the interrelationship of events and
time, and to see how and why tensions increased due to actions and
incidents in certain periods but eased in others when less happened.
Hence the following review is as nearly chronological as is consistent
with clarity in dealing with a complex subject. It also focuses princi-
pally on the Empire as Germany, including Austria only as relevant, and
viewing the emperor in this context as a separate persona from the ruler
of the Habsburg hereditary lands, principally in Austria, together with
those of the Bohemian crown and in Hungary. The many important
circumstances and events which were more specific to those lands and
their ruler will be discussed in greater depth in describing the origins of
the revolt in Bohemia.
Religion, starting from the Reformation, is normally taken as central,
and while this is valid it also needs to be qualified from the outset.
Religion was only one of the factors at work in the European conflicts
already outlined, and the same was true within the Empire. Demands
for religious freedoms for Protestants were closely linked with aspira-
tions towards political freedoms for the Protestant nobility and gentry
pressing them, while Catholic hierarchies commonly saw religious con-
formity and political obedience as two sides of the same coin. Then
too, the Habsburgs were so closely linked with Catholicism that political
opposition to Habsburg power often went hand in hand with an anti-
Catholic religious stance. At an individual level many leading figures
were clearly totally genuine in their beliefs, including significant num-
bers who conscientiously converted from one confession to another, but
it is equally clear that there were others to whom religion was or could
be made a matter of convenience. Henri IV may have converted to win