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Protestant Imperial Knights, Multiconfessionalism, and the Counter-Reformation

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Protestant Imperial Knights, Multiconfessionalism, and the Counter-Reformation PROTESTANT IMPERIAL KNIGHTS, MULTICONFESSIONALISM, AND THE COUNTER-REFORMATION Richard J. Ninness The German lower nobility is well-known for its role in the early Reformation. According to this narrative, in 1522, the knights led by Franz von Sickingen attacked the Arch Bishopric of Trier in a defi- ant act, supporting the Reformation.1 After Sickingen’s death in 1523, ending the Knights’ Revolt, they supposedly retreated from the stage of the Reformation into irrelevance. Sickingen’s invasion of Trier only involved a minority of the knights and was definitely not the last gasp of a quixotic group. True, the 1520s were a tough decade for these small independent lords found in Franconia, Swabia, and in the Rhineland of the Holy Roman Empire, and it looked as if territo- rial princes would absorb their lands and domesticate them into their subjects. That, however, did not happen. After the Knights’ Revolt, the knights saved themselves from becoming the subjects of the princes, not by feuding, but by organiz- ing themselves collectively and accepting the emperor as their patron: the knights became imperial knights.2 As imperial knights, they were 1 Examples are William Hitchcock, The Background of the Knights’ Revolt 1522–1523 (Berkeley: 1958) and Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford: 1991). Vic- tor Thiessen in his dissertation, “The Nobles’ Reformation: The Reception and Adapta- tion of Reformation Ideas in the Pamphlets of Noble Writers from 1520–1530” (PhD diss., Kingston, Queen’s University, 1998) discusses this approach to the knights in the historiography of the Reformation. 2 The imperial knights have received almost no attention in English language litera- ture and a few words of explanation are in order. They were lower nobles, recognized by the emperor as his clients. In the early-16th century, as the ecclesiastical princi- palities confronted the Reformation, knights in Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhineland maintained their independence against aggressive princes by organizing themselves into groups with the support of Charles V and his brother, Ferdinand I. In return, the imperial knights paid the emperor contributions. Without representation at the impe- rial diet, the imperial knights depended on the emperor as their advocate. As clients, they could at best expect occasional privileges and support from the Habsburgs. As virtually independent suzerains in their own right, albeit on a much smaller scale than princes, the imperial knights made up for their individual weakness by cooperating as a group. The imperial knighthood consisted of three circles: Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhineland. Within each circle they were divided into districts called cantons. Vol- ker Press, Kaiser Karl V., König Ferdinand und die Entstehung der Reichsritterschaft 156 richard j. ninness able to play a larger role in the religious struggles beyond the 1520s, especially for Catholic princes. Through their talent for organization, they came to dominate many of the most important ecclesiastical principalities in the imperial church: Trier on the Mosel, Mainz at the confluence of the Rhine and Main rivers, farther south in Worms and Speyer, and farther east on the Main in Würzburg and Bamberg. They were also influential in the Prince-Bishoprics of Augsburg and Eichstätt. Thus, the imperial knights carved positions of leadership for themselves in some of the most important centers of the Counter- Reformation.3 These Catholic ecclesiastical principalities did things that we would associate with the Counter-Reformation. They fought to protect the Ecclesiastical Reservation, started to forcibly convert Protestant sub- jects to Catholicism in the late-16th century, joined the Catholic League in the early-17th century, and were vociferous proponents of the measures later proclaimed in the Edict of Restitution in 1629. But the imperial knights were a heterogeneous group of Lutherans and Catholics. They saw the imperial church as an important source of patronage for their members and thus worthy of support, but the Peace of Augsburg recognized their right to choose either Catholicism or Lutheranism. Who were these imperial knights, who could relive the glory of their family just by visiting a cathedral and be Protestant at the same time? Their greatest ancestors had served as bishops and were buried in cathedrals with the family’s heraldic devices on their memorials. Imperial knights knew how crucial ecclesiastical principalities were for (Wiesbaden: 1976); idem, “Reichsritterschaften” in Kurt G.A. Jeserich, Hans Pohl, and Georg-Christoph von Unruh (eds.), Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte. Vom Spätmit- telalter bis zum Ende des Reiches, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: 1983), 679–689. 3 In Trent and All That, O’Malley asks what’s in a name, and then in his conclu- sion titled “There’s Much in a Name” argues for Early Modern Catholicism. John O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cam- bridge, MA: 2000). Many terms exist for the activities of the Catholics in the period covered in this essay such as Catholic Reform, Catholic Renewal, Catholic Reforma- tion, Catholic Reform and Counter-Reformation, or Early Modern Catholicism, but I still favor the use of Counter-Reformation even if, as O’Malley argues, that it conveys a certain impression that is false. For one reason, the term is the best known. Fur- thermore, much of this study deals with religious tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic authorities wanted their subjects to be Catholic, but ecclesiasti- cal principalities had to deal with Lutheran members from imperial knightly families, their Lutheran subjects, and Lutheran imperial knightly churches. For a discussion of the Counter-Reformation see David Luebke (ed.), The Counter-Reformation (Malden, MA: 1999), 1–16..
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