No. 87. The League of Cognac, 22 May 1526. Quum multos iam annos diutinis et continuis bellis vexata Christiana Respublica . . . Quod perpendens . . . S. D. N. Clemens VII Pont. Max. ac Pastor vigilantissimus nihil praetermittere . . . decrevit quo Reipublicae Christianae saluti . . . consuleret, veramque et stabilem pacem inter Christianos Principes constitueret. . . . Quum autem multa tentasset, tandem certior factus Serenissimum . . . Principem Franciscum, Francorum regem Christianissimum, a captivitate qua ab Imperatore detinebatur liberatum fuisse : . . . eius nuncium ad eum destinavit. . . ut de pace. . . componenda ageretur. . . . Quod animadvertens Illustrissimus Venetiarum Dux, Andreas Gritti,1 inclitumque Venetorum Dominium, necnon Illustrissimus Princeps Franciscus Sforcia, Mediolani Dux, pacis istius percupidi ... nuncium . . . ad eundem ... Regem destinarunt ad eos fines eademque de causa qua Summus Pontifex. Quibus tandem per Christianissimum Regem auditis . . . factum est ut... procuratores constitueret . . super iam dicta capitulatione fienda. Omnibus demum . . . consideratis, praedicti nuncii et procuratores pro et nomine S. D. N. Papae, Christianissimi Francorum Regis, Illustrissimi Ducis inclitique Venetorum Dominii necnon Illustrissimi Mediolani Ducis pacis tractatum inierunt et concluserunt etiam pro Imperatore, Rege Angliae aliisque Christianis Principibus . . . qui hunc tractatum ingredi voluerint. . . . 2 I. Imprimis conveniunt. . . praedicti contrahentes sese nullo modo . . . laedere aut perturbare, neque ullum auxilium . . . praestare aliquibusvis eorum hostibus . . . imo illorum resistere conatibus ac sese invicem suaque regna et dominia defendere quae de praesenti tenent . . . uti bonos . . . amicos . . . decet. .. Pollicenturque omnes praedicti S. D. N. Papae assistere, eiusque dignitatem ac personam defendere adversus quemcumque illam perturbare . . . volentem. . . . II. Conventum est, ut relinquatur honorificus locus ingrediendi hoc sanctissimum foedus, si libuerit, imprimis Serenissimo ... Principi Carolo, Imperatori electo, et Serenissimo Angliae Regi, non modo ut contrahenti, sed etiam ut praesentis foederis Protectori, si assensum praebuerit; atque Illustrissimo Domino Ferdinando, Austriae Archiduci, caeterisque . . . Principibus ... Christianis. Non recipietur tamen . supradictus Im 1 1523-8. 2 1521-35 [Imperial occupation 1525-9]. perator nisi prius . . . Chr. Regis filios quos tenet obsides restituerit... et Mediolani Ducatum Duci Mediolanensi praedicto reliquerit liberum . . . neque Italiam ad se coronandum aut aliquovis modo ingrediatur nisi cum tali. . . comitatu qui videbitur aptus et conveniens tum S. D. N. Papae tum Ill. Duci inclitoque Venetorum Dominio... : et quod Regi Angliae ... ea solvetur pecuniae summa quae sibi ab ipso debetur Imperatore. XV. Promittunt et pollicentur praedicti confoederati, quod si Imperator electus denegaret aut protelaret peragere ea quae in secundo... articulo continentur, quod statim . . . dicti contrahentes invadent... Regnum Neapolitanum cum viribus tam terrestribus quam maritimis.... Quodsi Imperator electus ab ipso Regno Neapolitano pellatur et eius exercitus illinc eiiciatur, manebit quidem illud Regnum ad S. D. N. Papae arbitrium. . . . Actum Cogniaci, die 22 Maii 1526. No. 88. The Proposition, or Speech from the Throne, 25 June 1526. (i) First, it is the gracious and express will, desire, and command of our most gracious Lord, His Imperial and Royal Spanish Majesty aforesaid, that the Electors, Princes, and Estates of the Holy Empire, together with the aforementioned commissioners and deputies of His Majesty, should at this present Diet deliberate, consider, and finally by common conference resolve upon, measures, ways, and means whereby the Christian faith and the well-established good Christian practice and order of the Church in general may be maintained until the meeting of a free Council, and here among the members of the Holy Empire unity of each with all may be secured: how, moreover, transgressors may be punished for their offences and, should one forcibly resist the punishment, how the authorities may assist each other: so that the Imperial Edict resolved upon by the above commissioners, together with the Estates of the Empire, may be observed by each and all, and obtain immediate execution. No. 89. The declaration of the Cities, 4 Aug. 1526. Most gracious, gracious, and worshipful Sirs, -The information which the Viceroy and Commissioners of His Imperial Majesty recently communicated, by word of mouth and then in writing, to your Electoral and Princely Graces and other the worshipful Estates of the Holy Empire, we the representatives of the Free Imperial Cities, have obediently received, together with the articles of the Imperial Instructions concerning our holy Christian faith. We observe that the said articles aim specially at this, that nothing in this Diet shall be undertaken or concluded to the injury of our holy Christian faith or to the laws or ancient customs of the Church, its doctrine, order, ceremonies, and usages: but that these shall, in accordance with His Majesty's Edict at Worms, be, throughout the Empire, maintained, executed, and ordained to be used, with the proviso that His Imperial Majesty will shortly repair to Rome to His Holiness the Pope, and with him will, as is fitting, announce and proclaim a General Council and common assembly of Christendom. Now we, the representatives of the Free Cities of the Empire, willingly obedient in all subjection to His Majesty, as our right, only, and natural lord, in all that may forward the peace and unity of the Holy Empire, acknowledge ourselves also bound thereto. But your Electoral and Princely Graces know to what a great and grievous extent the errors, discords, and disagreements in the matter of the aforesaid articles, especially in respect of ceremonies and abuses, have of recent years increased and multiplied: and how impossible it has hitherto proved, and, as it may be presumed, will yet prove more impossible, to execute the Imperial Edict of Worms, as lately, at the Diet of Nürnberg, was by your Graces resolved in reply to the Papal Envoy. We, therefore, the representatives of the Free Cities, doubt not but that... His Imperial Majesty will himself graciously consider that it would be extremely grievous, in the matter of ceremonies and abuses, to persist in imposing the Edict of Worms until a General Council. Further, the date of His Majesty's Instructions is the twentythird day of March last, at which time His Majesty was at one with His Holiness the Pope. But, as we are now informed, His Holiness has at this moment an army in the field against His Majesty. For this and other reasons we cannot suppose that a General Council or other common assembly of Christendom can, as His Imperial Majesty intended, be proclaimed and brought together.... No. 90. The Recess of the Diet, 27 Aug. 1526. § 4. Thereupon have we [the Commissioners], the Electors, Princes, Estates of the Empire, and ambassadors of the same, now here at this present Diet, unanimously agreed and resolved, while awaiting the sitting of the Council or a national Assembly [i.e. without tarrying for the return of the deputation]1 with our subjects, on the matters which the Edict published by His Imperial Majesty at the Diet holden at Worms may concern, each one so to live, govern, and carry himself as he hopes and trusts to answer it to God and His Imperial Majesty. XXX THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LUTHERAN The years that followed the Recess of Speier were years of reconstruction. This was possible (1) because the Hapsburgs were preoccupied with politics. Thus (a) the Emperor was absorbed in his quarrel with the Pope, which led to the sack of Rome, 6 May 1527, and his second war with Francis, 1528-9, and (b) his brother Ferdinand in the effort to secure his position on the eastern frontier of the Empire. Though heir, by right of his wife, Anne of Poland, +1547, to both the thrones of her brother Louis, Ferdinand thought well to secure them by election, and so he was crowned King of Bohemia 24 Feb., and of Hungary 3 Nov. 1527. Henceforth his adversary was not Lutheranism, but the Turk. It was further possible (2) because the Lutherans thus found themselves free to put their own interpretation upon the Recess. They claimed e. g. at the Synod of Homberg, 20 Oct. 1526, that according to it they might make ecclesiastical regulations' de quibus parati sumus Deo et Caesari ex Dei verbo reddere rationem' (Richter, Kirchenordnungen, i. 56). I. In 1525, Prussia, though outside the Empire, led the way. Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, †1568, who, as Grand Master, 1511-25, of the Teutonic Order, lived in Königsberg and ruled over Eastern Prussia, secularized its territories and received them back as an hereditary Dukedom under the suzerainty of Poland 9 April 1525 (Tschackert, Urkundenbuch zur Reformationsgeschichte des Herzogthums Preussen, No. 344, vol. ii. 116). The lands of the order were covered by two dioceses, and by this time had been reformed through the efforts of two bishops. George von Polentz, Bishop of Samland, 1519-150, put out a [No. 91] Mandate of Of the Diet to the Emperor. It was resolved upon 7 Aug. The minutes of the Diet and its instructions for the deputation are given in Friedensburg, op. cit., Anh. XII, XIII, 28 Jan. 1524 (Tschackert, No. 176, ii. 49) which Luther contrasts with a pronouncement from the other side by the neighbouring prelate in Western (or Polish) Prussia, Maurice Bishop of Ermland 1523-137 (Lutheri Op. Lat. vii. 66 sqq.), and then wrote of its author I Feb. 'Sed et episcopus tandem unus Christo nomen dedit et evangelizat in Prussia, nempe Sambiensis, quem fovet et erudit Io. Brismannus quem illuc misimus abiecto cucullo ut et Prussia regno Satanae valedicere incipiat' (de Wette, ii. 474). A year later Erhard von Queiss, nominated (Tschackert, No. 134, ii. 35), but never confirmed, Bishop of Pomesania, 1523-†29, put out his [No. 92] Programme of Reforms, 1 Jan. 1525 (Tschackert, ii. 101, No. 300). The prelates were aided by the preachers, who arrived in Königsberg 1523-4 (ibid., Nos. 141, 237), Jo. Briessmann 1488+1550, and Paul Speratus, 1484-†1551. Prussia thus acquired its new religion and its new political status together, as was observed in [No. 93] a letter of Andrew Bishop of Premysl, 1524-7, to the Nuncio in Hungary (Acta Tomiciana, vii. 249). On 30 May 1525 the Bishop of Samland (Tschackert, ii. 120, No. 356), and 23 Oct. 1527 the Bishop of Pomesania (ibid. ii. 194, No. 565) each gave up his temporal lordship. They retained their spiritual jurisdiction-administered now, as before, by officials -till, 1550, Superintendents were substituted for Bishops because they were cheaper (ibid. i. 113; iii. 263, No. 2374). On 6 July 1525 the Duke issued his mandate for evangelical preaching (ibid. ii. 126, No. 371). This was followed up, 10 Dec., by thirteen articles of the Diet (ibid. ii. 142, No. 417), and by an episcopal order, based on the fourth of these, for Ceremonies and other Church Order (Richter, Kirchenordnungen, i. 28; cf. Tschackert, i. 129). It was published March 1526 (ibid. i. 129 and ii. 142, No. 418), being modelled, in part, on Luther's Formula Missae. These reforms were enforced by a Visitation (ibid. i. 133, ii. 157, Nos. 459, 460) 31 March; and in [No. 94] the ducal (ibid. i. 168, n. 1, ii. 235, No. 699) and episcopal (ibid., No. 700) prefaces to the Synodal Constitutions of Jan. 1530, Speratus, now 'bishop' of Pomesania, set out the theory of the authority by which they had been carried through (cf. Richter, Geschichte der ev. Kirchenverfassung, 36). On 29 Sept. 1526, the Duke had been received into the League of Torgau (Tschackert, ii. 175, No. 515). II. In Electoral Saxony Luther's first ideal, as we have seen (supra, 121 sqq.), had been to leave each community free (de Wette, ii. 563); and this freedom he used to put out his [No. 95] German Mass and Order of Divine Service (Sehling, op. cit. I. i. 10 sqq.) first sung in Wittenberg 29 Oct. 1525 (de Wette, iii. 36) and published Jan. 1526. But after the Peasants' War he began to look, for ecclesiastical discipline, to regulation by the State, 30 Nov. 1525 (ibid. iii. 39, 51). On 22 Nov. 1526, since 'papal and episcopal discipline was gone' (ibid. iii. 136), he begged the Elector to take matters in hand. Four commissioners were accordingly appointed, 13 Feb. 1527, and provided, 16 June, with Instructions (Sehling, |