Schmalkaldic League

(redirected from League of Schmalkalden)

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Schmalkaldic League

a political alliance of German Protestants formed in response to Emperor Charles V’s refusal to acknowledge the Augsburg Confession. The league was established on Feb. 27, 1531, in the Thuringian city of Schmalkalden. Its members included such Lutheran princes as elector John Frederick of Saxony, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and, later, Ulrich of Württemberg and Duke Maurice of Saxony, as well as such cities as Magdeburg, Bremen, Strasbourg, and Ulm. In the Schmalkaldic War (1546–48) the league was defeated by Charles V and disbanded.

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References in periodicals archive ?

Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden, and the English Reformation.

Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden, and the English Reformation

In 1531, twenty-two years before the death of Cranach, the mainly North German Lutheran states had agreed on a defensive alliance called the League of Schmalkalden, after the town on the edge of the Thuringian Forest at which it was formed.

A true winter's tale: Lucas Cranach at the Emperor's camp

The remaining chapters deal with the core of the book, the rise of the League of Schmalkalden and its political, judicial, and religious posturing over the gradual acquisition of church property, including the nature of its usufruct.

Church Robbers and Reformers in Germany, 1525-1547: Confiscation and Religious Purpose in the Holy Roman Empire