Friedensburg used much new material preserved in the archives of Hamburg and other cities.
Charles G. Albert: The Diet of Speyer, the Rise and Necessity of Protestantism, in the "Luth.
Quart. Review" (Gettysburg, Penn.), for January, 1888.
We must now consider the political situation which has in part been presupposed in previous
sections.
As Protestantism advanced, the execution of the Edict of Worms became less and less
practicable. This was made manifest at the imperial Diet of Speier, held in the summer of 1526
under Archduke Ferdinand, in the name of the Emperor.^935 The Protestant princes dared here for
the first time to profess their faith, and were greatly strengthened by the delegates of the imperial
cities in which the Reformation had made great progress. The threatening invasion of the Turks,
and the quarrel of the Emperor with the Pope, favored the Protestant cause, and inclined the Roman
Catholic majority to forbearance.
The Diet came with the consent of Ferdinand to the unanimous conclusion, Aug. 27, that a
general or national council should be convened for the settlement of the church question, and that
in the mean time, in matters concerning the Edict of Worms, "every State shall so live, rule, and
believe as it may hope and trust to answer before God and his imperial Majesty."^936
This important action was not meant to annul the Edict of Worms, and to be a permanent
law of religious liberty, which gave to each member of the Diet the right to act as he pleased.^937 It
was no legal basis of territorial self-government, and no law at all. It was, as indicated by the terms,
only an armistice, or temporary suspension of the Edict of Worms till the meeting of a general
council, and within the limits of obedience to the Catholic Emperor who had no idea of granting
religious liberty, or even toleration, to Protestants.
But in its practical effect the resolution of 1526 went far beyond its intention. It was a great
help to the cause of Protestantism, especially as the council which the Diet contemplated, and which
the Emperor himself repeatedly urged upon the Pope, was postponed for twenty years. In the mean
time the Protestant princes, notably Philip of Hesse at the Synod of Homberg (Oct. 20, 1526), and
the Elector of Saxony, interpreted the decree according to their wishes, and made the best use of
the temporary privilege of independent action, regardless of its limitations or the views of the
Emperor. Luther himself understood the Diet of Speier as having given him a temporary acquittal
of heresy.^938
(^935) Speier, or Speyer, is an old German city on the left bank of the Rhine, the seat of a bishop, with a cathedral and the graves of eight
German kings, the capital of the Bavarian Palatinate. It became the birthplace of the name "Protestants" in 1529. See below, § 115, p.
692.
(^936) Demnach haben wir uns jetzt einmüthiglich verglichen und vereiniget, mittlerzeit des Concilii, oder aber Nationalversammlung,
nichtsdestoweniger mit unsern Unterthanen, ein jeglicher in Sachen so das Edict durch kaiserl. Majestät auf dem Reichstag zu Worms
gehalten, ausgangen, belangen möchten, für sich also zu leben, zu regieren und zu halten, wie ein jeder solches gegen Gott und kaiserliche
Majestät hoffet und vertraut zu verantworten."See the Reichsabschied (recess) in Walch, XVI. 266, and in Gieseler, III. I. 223 (Germ.
ed.; IV. 126 Am. ed.). The acts are now published in full by Friedensburg.
(^937) This was the view heretofore taken by most Protestant historians, e.g., by Kurtz (II. 31, ed. 9th), who calls the recess "die
reichsgesetzliche Legitimation der Territorialverfassung," and by Fisher (Hist. of the Christ. Ch., p. 304): "This act gave the Lutheran
movement a legal existence." The correct view is stated by Janssen (III. 51): "Der Speierer Abschied bildet keineswegs eine positive
Rechtsgrundlage, wohl aber den Ausgangspunkt für die Ausbildung neuer Landeskirchen." Kluckhohn, Friedensburg, and his reviewer,
Kawerau (in the "Theol. Literaturzeitung," Dec. 3, 1887), arrive at the same conclusion.
(^938) He alludes to it in a polemical tract against Duke George of Saxony from the year 1529 as follows: "Auch so bin ich auf dem
Reichstage zu Speir durch ein öffentlichs kaiserlichs Reichsdecret wiederumb befreiet, oder zum wenigsten befristet [freed at least for a
season], dass man mich nicht kann einen Ketzer schelten; weil daselbst beschlossen ist von Allen einträchtiglich, dass ein jeglicher solle
und müge glauben, wie ers wisse gegen Gott und kaiserliche Majestät zu verantworten; und ich billig daraus als die Ungehorsamen dem