Zur Entstehung des Augsburger Interims 1547/48
Authors: Rabe Horst 
Published: November 2014

The contribution is connected to earlier research by the author (Reichsbund und Interim. Die Verfassungs- und Religionspolitik Karls V. und der Reichstag von Augsburg 1547/48, Köln, Wien 1971) and takes it farther by means of the critical incorporation of editions and discussions that have appeared more recently. The focus of the study is upon the history of the rise of the Interim within the framework of the religious politics of Charles V during 1547-48, which because of the extraordinarily difficult state of the sources has only been partially clarified. More far-reaching historical aspects of theology, by contrast, are only summarily treated. The most important results of the essay are as follows: 1. The Interim that Charles V carried through the Diet of Augsburg was an attempt at a temporary settlement between the religious parties in Germany expiring definitely after the Council of Trent would have solved all controversial items. The unity of the church within the Empire was thereby to be preserved or achieved again, and at the same time the outward peace in Germany assured. Charles V wished to see guaranteed the essentials of the Roman Church - whatever might pertain to them. Nevertheless, the Interim made substantial concessions to the Protestants, in teaching just as in ceremonies and ecclesiastical order (the marriage of priests, lay reception of the chalice). Thus, the Interim stood in close continuity with the religious politics of Charles V after 1530. In contrast, the specifically new aspects of the imperial politics of religion consisted above all of the close unity between this attempted settlement between the religious parties and the effort at intra-ecclesiastical reform. This tie informed the first draft of the Interim late in 1547 and showed itself finally in the proximity of the Interim and the Formula reformationis of June 1548. To this may be added the high personal engagement that the Emperor was able to bring to bear as a result of his enormously increased political authority after the Schmalkaldic War. Yet Charles V tried very effectively to restrict as much as possible outward awareness, especially in the publicity surrounding the Imperial Diet, of the dominant influence that he exerted on the shaping of the Interim. That seems initially surprising but had its good reasons: above all, the Emperor strove to counter the reproach that he attempted to be an authoritarian universal monarch, at the expense of the imperial estates - and also at the expense of Pope and council. 2. The Interim politics of Charles V. was severely contested from the beginning, and not only among the religious parties at the Imperial Diet, but also at court among the closest advisors of the Emperor. Above all, Pedro de Soto, the confessor of Charles V, pleaded for an unyielding Counter-Reformation course for the imperial politics of religion, while Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, the foremost advisor of the Emperor, represented an ecclesiastically mediating and at the same time more pragmatic position. The controversy was fundamental; it remained virulent throughout the imperial Diet, and left personal bitterness in its wake. Charles V finally made an end to the strife in August 1548, when he dismissed his confessor. The decisions in religious politics made by the Emperor continued to arise out of these conflicts. This could well explain the fundamental decision that the Emperor took in rejecting the uncompromising anti-Reformation draft of his first Interim commission in December 1547 and the appointment of a new commission under the leadership of the Bishop of Naumburg, Julius Pflug, who was inclined toward a conciliatory theological position. The Interim policy of Charles V was far more filled with tension than it appears in most historical presentations. 3. Conditioned by the strongly political - not only ecclesiastical - tensions between Charles V and Pope Paul III, in 1547-48 the Emperor completely excluded the Pope and his representative at the imperial court from all negotiations over the Imterim, and in general over religion, at the imperial Diet of Augsburg. Even the originally anticipated confirmation of the Interim by the Pope seemed from early in 1548 to be dispensable. Nonetheless Charles V made a vigorous effort to bind the Pope to his Interim policies. Above all the demand of the Emperor that the Pope send legates or nuncios to Germany who could be helpful in the inner reform of the church - who were empowered to grant dispensations for the marriage of priests, for giving the chalice to the laity, and for moderating the privations of Lent - was virtually a papal legitimation of the concessions to the Protestants made by the Interim, and simultaneously a recognition of the membership of the Protestants, under the terms of the Interim, to the Roman Church. As a matter of fact, Paul III initially acquiesced to the imperial demand but postponed complying until long after the adjournment of the Diet at the end of June 1548; in September of the same year, he finally gave the faculties of dispensation such restrictive wording that this must have appeared completely unacceptable to the Protestants. Thus, from an early date an important part of Charles V’s Interim politics became, and remained, unattainable.