page_title: Cuius regio, eius religio
section_title: Augsburg Diet
hierarchical_section_title: Cuius regio, eius religio / Augsburg Diet
caption_attribution_description: English: Negotiating the Religious Peace of Augsburg Deutsch: Die Augsburger Friedensgemälde
context_page_description: Cuius regio, eius religio is a Latin phrase which literally means "whose realm, his/her religion" - meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. This legal principle marked a major development in the collective freedom of religion within Western civilization. The principle of "cuius regio" was a compromise in the conflict between this paradigm of statecraft and the emerging trend toward religious pluralism developing throughout the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire. It permitted assortative migration of adherents to just two theocracies, Roman Catholic and Lutheran, eliding other confessions.
  At the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, which ended a period of armed conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant forces within the Holy Roman Empire, the rulers of the German-speaking states and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, agreed to accept this principle. In practice the principle had already been implemented between the time of the Nuremberg Religious Peace of 1532 and the 1546-1547 Schmalkaldic War.
context_section_description: Catholic and Protestant ideology seemed further apart than ever. Charles' interim solution satisfied no one. He ordered a general Diet in Augsburg at which the various states would discuss the religious problem and its solution (this should not be confused with the Diet of Augsburg in 1530). He himself did not attend, and delegated authority to his brother, Ferdinand, to "act and settle" disputes of territory, religion and local power. At the conference, Ferdinand cajoled, persuaded and threatened the various representatives into agreement on three important principles: cuius regio, eius religio, ecclesiastical reservation, and the Declaration of Ferdinand.
caption: Representatives of the German estates at the Augsburg conference discuss the possibilities of a religious peace.
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