Several important agreements, including the Augsburg Confession (1530), after which the rights of religious minorities in imperial cities were to be protected, a mixed Catholic-Protestant city council presided over a majority Protestant population, were concluded there during the Reformation. Until the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), religious peace in the city was largely maintained despite increasing confessional tensions. In 1629 Emperor Ferdinand II issued the Edict of Restitution resulting in the installation of an entirely Catholic city government that radically curtailed the rights of local Protestants. This persisted until April 1632, when the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus took the city without resistance. The Swedish garrison refused to surrender and a disastrous siege ensued through the winter of 1634-5, during which thousands died of hunger and disease. Augsburg suffered greatly in the Thirty Years War (1618-48).
The Protestant Reformation made its way into the country about 1530. Duke Karl (ruling 1564-90), whose wife was the Catholic Duchess Maria of Bavaria, introduced the Counter-Reformation into the country; in 1573 he invited the Jesuits into Styria and in 1586 he founded the Catholic University of Graz. In 1598 his son and successor Ferdinand suppressed all Protestant schools and expelled the teachers and preachers: Protestant doctrines were maintained only in a few isolated mountain valleys, as in the valley of the Inn and the valley of the Mur. On a narrow reading of the Peace of Augsburg, 1555, with its principle of cuius regio eius religio, only the nobility were not forced to return to the Roman Church; each could have Protestant services privately in his own house. After Ferdinand had become Holy Roman Emperor in 1619 and had defeated his Protestant opponents in the Battle of the White Mountain near Prague in 1620, he forbade all Protestant church services whatsoever (1625). In 1628 he commanded the nobility also to return to the Catholic faith.
In the second half of the 17th century renewed action against the Protestants in the isolated mountain valleys resulted in the expulsion of Protestant ministers with the peasants who would not give up Protestantism; about 30,000 chose compulsory emigration to Transylvania over conversion.
The League of Augsburg, defensive alliance formed (1686) by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I with various German states, including Bavaria and the Palatinate, and with Sweden and Spain so far as their German interests were concerned. The Grand Alliance (known, prior to 1689, as the League of Augsburg) was a European coalition, consisting (at various times) of Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, England, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Saxony, Spain, Sweden, and the United Provinces. The organization, which was founded in 1686, was known as the "Grand Alliance" after England joined the League (in 1689). The League was officially formed by Emperor Leopold I, acting upon the advice of William III of Orange. The primary reason for the League's creation was to defend the Palatinate from France. This organization fought the War of the Grand Alliance against France from 1688 to 1697.
Parts of the Codex Argenteus book came to rest in the library of Emperor Rudolph II at his imperial seate in Prague. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, in 1648, it was taken to Stockholm, Sweden, to the library of Queen Christina of Sweden. After her conversion to Catholicism and her abdication, the book wound up in the Netherlands. The final leaf of the codex, fol. 336, was discovered in October 1970 in Speyer, Germany. It was found at the restoration of the Saint Afra chapel, rolled around a thin wooden staff, contained in a small reliquary originating in Aschaffenburg. The leaf contains the final verses of the Gospel of Mark. The manuscript is written in an uncial script in the alphabet created by Ulfilas for the Gothic language. The script is very uniform, so much so that it has been suggested that it was made with stamps. Two hands identified: one hand in the Gospels of Matthew and John and another in the Gospels of Mark and Luke.
- Gospel of Matthew: 5:15-48; 6:1-32; 7:12-29; 8:1-34; 9:1-38; 10:1,23-42; 11:1-25; 26:70-75; 27:1-19,42-66.
- Gospel of John: 5:45-47; 6:1-71; 7:1-53; 8:12-59; 9:1-41; 10:1-42; 11:1-47; 12:1-49; 13:11-38; 14:1-31; 15:1-27; 16:1-33; 27:1-26; 28:1-40; 29:1-13.
- Gospel of Luke 1:1-80; 2:2-52; 3:1-38; 4:1-44; 5:1-39; 6:1-49; 7:1-50; 8:1-56; 9:1-62; 10:1-30; 14:9-35; 15:1-32; 16:1-24; 17:3-37; 18:1-43; 19:1-48; 20:1-47.
- Gospel of Mark: 1:1-45; 2:1-28; 3:1-35; 4:1-41; 5:1-5; 5-43; 6:1-56; 7:1-37; 8:1-38; 9:1-50; 10:1-52; 11:1-33; 12:1-38; 13:16-29; 14:4-72; 15:1-47; 16:1-12 (+ 16:13-20).
In 1806 when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, Augsburg lost its independence and became part of the kingdom of Bavaria. It increased considerably in industrial importance in the nineteenth century together with the discovery of America, and of the road to India by the Cape. In 1848 all the provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy received complete liberty of religion and of conscience, parity of religions, and the right to the public exercise of religion. Ecclesiastically the province was historically divided into two Catholic prince-bishoprics, Seckau and Lavant. Ever since the time of their foundation both have been suffragans of the Archdiocese of Salzburg. The Prince-Bishopric of Sekau was established in 1218; since 1786 the see of the prince-bishop has been Graz. The Prince-Bishopric of Lavant was founded as a bishopric in 1228, and raised to a prince-bishopric in 1446; since 1847 Marburg an der Drau (Maribor) has been the see of the prince-bishop.
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