14 The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618
ruler could change his personal religion he must immediately resign
his office. This was intended to ensure that ecclesiastical territo-
ries remained permanently Catholic, thus severely hampering further
progress of the Reformation within the Empire, and also to secure
the Catholic hold on the ecclesiastical electorates of Cologne, Mainz
and Trier, thus helping to retain a Catholic majority in future Impe-
rial elections. Ferdinand forced this reservation into the peace despite
strong Protestant opposition, partly by threatening to break off the
negotiations and partly by offering a concession in return.
This, the second limitation and later known as the Declaratio
Ferdinandea, restricted the right of ecclesiastical rulers to determine
their subjects’ religion by providing that nobles and towns which were
already Protestant at the time of the peace would be entitled to remain
so. Free Imperial cities where there were confessional divisions were also
to be granted freedom of religion, although this applied only to a few, as
most were either wholly Lutheran or wholly Catholic.^11 The Protestant
side accepted this, but while the ecclesiastical reservation was written
into the peace the declaration was not, and nor was it submitted to the
Kammergericht for ratification as law in the usual way, so that its status
was subsequently open to dispute.
The point which became a bone of contention almost immediately,
and which was still a major issue three-quarters of a century later, con-
cerned church property. On the basis of the assumed temporary nature
of the religious divide, and hence of the settlement, the potential ram-
ifications had not been clearly thought through, so that the peace of
Augsburg merely provided that Catholic church property which had
already been secularised at the time of the peace of Passau in 1552
was to remain in Protestant hands. Nothing was said about further
secularisations, which, claimed the Catholics, meant that none were
permissible, whereas the Protestants countered that this argument was
incompatible with the central provision of the peace, theius reformandi.
As rulers were entitled to convert their whole territories to Protestantism
this must, they maintained, include the ecclesiastical institutions within
them, accompanied naturally by their property. There were many large
and wealthy abbeys, monasteries and convents, even entire bishoprics,
often with extensive lands, which did not themselves stand directly
below the emperor but had an intermediate overlord, and were thus
at risk should the latter become a Protestant. Many had indeed already
done so, particularly in northern Germany, but also in the large prin-
cipalities of Hessen in the centre and Württemberg in the south west.
The issue was not so much religion, as the relevant populations were