ABSTRACT
In the decades following Martin Luther’s emergence on the German scene, both Protestant and Catholic sympathizers made serious attempts to reestablish the religious unity of the Holy Roman Empire. By the 1540s, however, it had become clear that these efforts were doomed. Protestantism had become a political force; by now it had spread throughout the Empire and claimed the allegiance of key princes and cities. The difference that separated the two sides lay not in individual points of doctrine or practice, but in fundamental attitudes towards the role and character of religion itself. The controversy over the Augsburg Interim, promulgated in 1548, brought these basic differences into the light of public awareness and ended, for all
practical purposes, the hopes of a reunited Germany. The Interim, issued at the command of Emperor Charles V, was meant to bring the Protestants one step closer to Catholic orthodoxy: it combined a Lutheran-influenced doctrine of justification with a Catholic order of liturgy and justified this manoeuvre by appealing to the unity of the Empire.
