Augsburg 1555 – Picture and text of the document
In 1555, the official agreement about the Augsburg Peace of Religion was a handwritten document, which was kept in the archive of the ruler. Today, you can find pictures of it on the internet. A series of 33 pictures shows the whole document. Text of § 9 (see Augsburg 1555 – Articles 9-10, 14) starts on picture 4, left side, last paragraph. The full text of the original document (early modern German) shows up under ‘Transkription’.
Context:
The Reformation brought a division of the Christian church in Central Europe. Theologians like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and others established new teachings on the Christian faith and belief. They soon found many followers. The different German states split up between the Catholic and the Evangelical side and divided into two political parties as well. After years of political struggles, this conflict even ended up in civil wars after 1546. In 1555, the envoys of the German states met in Augsburg. They sought for a way to settle the conflict and end the religious wars in Germany. The Augsburg Peace of Religion of 25 September 1555 finally accepted the existence of two different Christian churches. The princes and rulers could decide whether to stay with the old Catholic church or to adhere to the new Lutheran belief as formulated in the Augsburg Confession of 1530. The Lutheran states were now on an equal footing with the Catholic ones. Other religious groups, which came up with the Reformation, were, however, excluded from the Peace treaty. Freedom of religion applied only to the German estates, i.e. the princes and imperial cities. Their subjects had to follow the faith of their sovereign or were allowed to emigrate. The Peace of Augsburg heralded a long period of peace in the German lands, which did not end until the Thirty Years’ War in 1618.
Further information about The Peace of Augsburg can be found at On Site, In Time.
For more information on this and other peace treaties, see