ABSTRACT
The Peace of Augsburg had achieved two things: the victory of the princes over the Emperor both on the question of the constitution and on that of the church. Germany remained the country of political decentralization, one may even say of political dissolution, and she remained the country of religious discord. In the fight for the control of the Empire, which had lasted through the whole of Charles V’s reign, the princes had not only maintained their position, defeating the Emperor’s attempts to make himself a real ruler, but gained a very considerable increase of power. The religious peace had prescribed that every state of the Empire might choose its religion, and thereby decides the religion of its subjects. An exception was made of the heads of the ecclesiastical states, the bishops, abbots, and abbesses. For these the change to the new faith was forbidden.
