The Decline of the Holy Roman Empire Essay -- Martin Luther, Protestan

The Holy Roman Empire was an empire in central Europe consisting of many territories and ethnicities. Once very powerful, the empire’s authority slowly decreased over centuries and by the Middle Ages the emperor was little more than a figurehead, allowing princes to govern smaller sections of the empire. Though the various ruling princes owed loyalty to the emperor, they were also granted a degree of independence and privileges. The emperor, an elected monarch, needed the allegiance of the princes and other aristocracy to support him, in turn giving them power or money. This tenuous allegiance between powers was greatly strained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as religious reform dominated Europe and religious tensions divided the empire. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the empire’s power significantly declined because of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation split the empire’s states into Protestant and Catholic divisions, straining the peace between territories. Though the relationship between the princes and the emperor had already been tenuous, the princes, seeing the religious divisions, sensed weakness in the empire and further challenged imperial authority. The Holy Roman emperors battled Protestant princes in Germany into the seventeenth century, where tensions were still high from the Reformation and wars of religion – initially contained to the German territories – began to include other territories and states. As more European states joined the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire continued to deteriorate. From the early sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century, the Holy Roman Empire’s power declined greatly because of its internal religious rifts, conflicts (in particular the Thirty Years War, whic... ...> * Crankshaw, Edward. The Habsburgs. New York: Viking, 1971. Print. Greengrass, Mark. The Longman Companion to The European Reformation, C. 1500-1618. London: Longman, 1998. Print. Hsia, R. Po-chia. Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550-1750. London: Routledge, 1989. Print. Linder, Robert Dean. The Reformation Era. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008. Print. McElwee, W. L. The Reign of Charles V: 1516-1558. London: Macmillan and, 1936. Print. Scribner, Bob. â€Å"Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation.† History Today 1 October 1982: 10-14. Print. â€Å"The Twelve Articles of the Peasants.† 1525. TS. Marxists Internet Archive. The Peasant War in Germany. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. â€Å"Treaty of Westphalia.† 1648. TS. Lillian Goldman Law Library, New Haven. The Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.