ABSTRACT
The political situation in Central Europe was of crucial importance for the survival and spread of Lutheranism during the first half of the sixteenth century. It is very doubtful whether the religious beliefs and fervour of Luther and his followers could have made the permanent impression they did without the assistance of three factors. The first was the surprisingly muted reaction of the Pope and the Emperor Maximilian I to Luther's initial outbursts between 1517 and 1519, attributable to their preoccupation with German issues and the problem of the imperial succession. The second was the adoption of Lutheranism as the official state religion by a large number of German princes and Free Cities during the 1520s and 1530s, the motive for which was sometimes strongly secular. The third was the inability of the forces of orthodoxy to crush Lutheranism and its political protectors, largely because of the enormous range of internal and external problems confronting the Emperor Charles V between 1519 and 1556.
