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

The Holy Roman Empire was an pudding stone in central atomic number 63 consisting of many territories and ethnicities. Once very military groupful, the conglomerates authority slow 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 allegiance to the emperor, they were also granted a degree of independence and privileges. The emperor, an elected monarch, involve the allegiance of the princes and other aristocracy to support him, in turn openhanded them power or money. This tenuous allegiance between powers was greatly reach in the sixteenth part and seventeenth centuries as religious reform reign Europe and religious tensions divided the empire. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the empires power significantly declined because of the Protestant reclamation. The Reformation split the empires states into Protestant and Catholic di visions, straining the peace between territories. Though the relationship between the princes and the emperor had already been tenuous, the princes, seeing the religious divisions, sense 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 faith 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 Empires power declined greatly because of its internal religious rifts, conflicts (in particular the Thirty Years War, whic... ... *Crankshaw, Edward. The Habsburgs. bracing 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. Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation. History Today 1 October 1982 10-14. Print.The xii Articles of the Peasants. 1525. TS. Marxists Internet Archive. The Peasant War in Germany. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. Treaty of Westphalia. 1648. TS. Lillian Goldman police force Library, New Haven. The Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.