Cologne War
The Cologne War, 1583-1588, also called the Seneschal War or the Seneschal Upheaval, was fought primarily by selected troops of the archbishop of Cologne and his allies, primarily the Palatine, against those of the Duchy of Bavaria and its ally, Spain. The war was a major test of the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion, or, in the Prince’s land, the Prince’s religion) established by the Augsburg Religious Peace (1555).
Trigger
The conversion of the Archbishop of Cologne Gebhard, Seneschal of Waldburg to Protestantism, and the subsequent implication that this conversion would transform the important city into a secular, dynastic duchy, triggered repercussions throughout the Holy Roman Empire. His conversion had widespread implications for the future of the Holy Roman Empire’s electoral process: the Imperial Electors chose the successors of to the imperial crown of the Empire. Established by the Golden Bull of 1356, seven electors selected the future emperor. This included four secular electors of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Palatine of the Rhine, and Saxony balanced with three spiritual electors: the Archbishop of Mainz, the Archbishop of Trier, and the Archbishop of Cologne. Each elector controlled some of the richest territories in the Holy Roman Empire. The presence of at least three Catholic electors, who oversaw some of the most prosperous territory in the empire, guaranteed the delicate balance of Catholic and Protestant in the college.[1]
Furthermore, under the established principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, Gebhard’s conversion meant the conversion of Cologne's Catholics to Protestantism. Other archbishops had also converted to Protestantism: Hermann von Wied and Salentin von Isenburg-Grenzau had resigned from their office upon their conversion. Unlike his predecessors, however, Gebhard proclaimed the Reformation, in the style of Calvinism, from the city’s Catholic cathedral, angering the city’s Catholic leadership and alienating the Cathedral chapter. When he married the Protestant countess Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben, a former abbess with whom he had had an affair since circa 1579, Pope Gregory XIII excommunicated him on February 2, 1583 and the chapter deposed him.[2] The chapter elected the 29 year old canon, Ernst of Bavaria, brother of the William V, Duke of Bavaria, to fill the vacancy, thus insuring the involvement of Bavarian troops in any potential military conflict.[3]
Course of the war
The war was fought between the dependents of Gebhard and with him the allied troops of the Protestant Palatine against Bavarian troops and Bavaria’s allies, the Spanish Netherlands. Gebhard had the foresight to gather some troops around him, and planned to recruit support from the Lutheran princes. Unfortunately for him, he had converted to another branch of the Reformed faith; such cautious Lutheran princes as Augustus I, Elector of Saxony balked at extending their military support to Calvinists and the Elector Palatine was unable to persuade him to join the cause.[4] Efforts to engage other important cities, such as Strassbourg, failed.[5] Eventually Gebhard called upon William of Orange for assistance, drawing in the troops of the United Netherlands as well.[6]
The course of the war was incredibly destructive, although concentrated in the region around Cologne. Entire regions of states and cities were besieged and plundered, and several were destroyed. In the initial weeks of fighting, three regions were completed overrun: Wevelinghoven, Hülchrath, Deutz, which lay across the Rhine River from the Cologne itself, Rheinberg and Linz am Rhein, and a line of small towns and villages the Neuss region, from present-day Dusseldorf to Nordrhein Westfalen.[7] Spanish and Bavarian troops over-ran Godesberg in 1583. A month later, under the command of Ernst, the newly elected archbishop of Cologne, they drove Gebhard to Westphalia, where he took refuge in the fortress Werl.[8] By 1586, Gebhard’s forces were hard pressed and outnumbered by the Bavarian and Spanish forces, and he sought assistance from William of Orange in the Netherlands. After the destruction of Bonn in late 1587, Gebhard retreated to The Hague, and from there he gave up the war in 1588.
Aftermath
His victory confirmed Ernst of Bavaria as the new archbishop of Cologne, giving the Wittelsbach family a foothold on the northern Rhine, and confirming the Catholic oligarchy in the city.[9] Ernst's presence there, and the presence of Wittelsbach successors well into the 18th century, also strengthened the position of the family in Imperial politics.[10] The victory of the Catholic party further strengthened the Catholic counter-reformation in the northwest territories of the Holy Roman Empire, especially in the bishoprics of Liege, Munster, Paderborn, Osnabruck and Minden, which were surrounded by Protestant territories. [11] In addition, the use of troops from the Spanish Netherlands, on the Catholic side, and the Netherlands, on the Protestant side, „internationalized“ the German confessional problem, which came to a crisis in the Thirty Years War, and was not resolved until 1650.[12]
Literature
- ^ Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, The Reformation, Princeton, 1959. pp. 291–247.
- ^ N.M. Sutherland, Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Structure of European Politics. The English Historical Review, Vol. 107, No. 424 (Jul., 1992), pp. 587-625, p. 606.
- ^ Holborn, pp. 288–289.
- ^ Holborn, p. 288.
- ^ Theodor V. Brodek, Socio-Political Realities in the Holy Roman Empire, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring, 1971), pp. 395–405, 401.
- ^ Holborn, p. 288; Sutherland, p. 606.
- ^ Max Lossen: Der Kölnische Krieg 1: Vorgeschichte 1561-1581, Gotha 1882; 2: 1582-1586.
- ^ Lossen.
- ^ Brodek, pp. 400–401.
- ^ Brodek, p. 401.
- ^ Robert W. Scribner, "Why Was There No Reformation in Cologne?" Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 49 (1976): 217–241.
- ^ Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years Wars, 1618-1648.
Weblinks
Kurze Erklärung zum Kölner Krieg (in German)