Abuses Under Indictment at the Diet of Augsburg 1530 Jared Wicks, S.J
ABUSES UNDER INDICTMENT AT THE DIET OF AUGSBURG 1530 JARED WICKS, S.J. Gregorian University, Rome HE MOST recent historical scholarship on the religious dimensions of Tthe Diet of Augsburg in 1530 has heightened our awareness and understanding of the momentous negotiations toward unity conducted at the Diet.1 Beginning August 16, 1530, Lutheran and Catholic represent atives worked energetically, and with some substantial successes, to overcome the divergence between the Augsburg Confession, which had been presented on June 25, and the Confutation which was read on behalf of Emperor Charles V on August 3. Negotiations on doctrine, especially on August 16-17, narrowed the differences on sin, justification, good works, and repentance, but from this point on the discussions became more difficult and an impasse was reached by August 21 which further exchanges only confirmed. The Emperor's draft recess of September 22 declared that the Lutheran confession had been refuted and that its signers had six months to consider acceptance of the articles proposed to them at the point of impasse in late August. Also, no further doctrinal innovations nor any more changes in religious practice were to be intro duced in their domains.2 When the adherents of the Reformation dis sented from this recess, it became unmistakably clear that the religious unity of the German Empire and of Western Christendom was on the way to dissolution. But why did it come to this? Why was Charles V so severely frustrated in realizing the aims set for the Diet in his conciliatory summons of January 21, 1530? The Diet was to be a forum for a respectful hearing of the views and positions of the estates and for considerations on those steps that would lead to agreement and unity in one church under Christ.3 1 The most recent stage of research began with Gerhard Müller, "Johann Eck und die Confessio Augustana/' Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Biblio theken 38 (1958) 205-42, and continued in works by Eugène Honèe and Vinzenz Pfhür, with further contributions of G.
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