REFORMATION
993
REFORMATION
burned. The diet of 1523 passed a decree that all Lu- therans and their patrons should be seized and burned. But the number of Protestants was already considera- ble: in Hermannstadt they had in 1523 the upper-hand; a new bloody law passed in 1524 remained ineffective, and in 1525 the live royal cities declared in favor of the Reformation. The civil war which followed the death of king Louis II, who fell in the battle of Mohaes in 152G, was favorable to the progress of Protestantism. Although both rivals for the throne — archduke Ferdi- nand of Austria and John of Zapolya, voy vode of Tran- sylvania— issued laws of persecution, they were unable to carry them out. The number of influential preach- ers rapidly increased. As the first preacher, Thomas Preussner, of Khsmark ( about 1520 ), is mentioned ; among the most distinguished were Matthias Devay (called Lutherus Ungaricus), Leonhard Stbckel, who drew up the Confessio Pentapolitana, which the free cities of Upper Hungary in 1549 presented to the king, and John Honter, who had studied in Basle and worked in his native city, Kronstadt, as a preacher and at a print- ing-press. In 1529 Hermannstadt expelled all priests and monks, and Kronstadt soon followed this example. The episcopal sees which became vacant after the bat- tle of Mohaes were partly not filled, and partly came into the hands of friends of the Reformation. Several bishops, as Kechery of Yeszprim, Thurczo of Neutra, and Andrew Dudith, who had attended the Council of Trent, openly became Protestants; and even the pri- mate of Gran, Nicholas Olah, approved Stockel's Con- fession of Faith. The widow of king Louis II, to whom Luther wrote a letter and dedicated his translation of the Psalms, appointed an evangelical court preacher. Neither Ferdinand, who by the peace of 1538 was con- firmed in the possession of the throne, nor John of Za- polya, who was to retain during his lifetime the royal title, Transylvania, and a portion of Upper Hungary, regarded it as safe to adopt stringent measures against the Protestants. The widow of John, Isabella, who, after John's death, endeavored to retain her husband's pos- sessions, with the aid of the Turks, for her son John Sigismund, favored the Protestants; and in that part of the country which was subject to the Turks the Ref- ormation advanced without any obstruction. Thus the Reformation obtained a decided ascendency in all Hun- gary and Transylvania. At one time only three fami- lies of magnates were Catholic ; the archiepiscopal see of Gran remained vacant for twenty years; the whole Saxon population of Transylvania, at the Synod of Medves (1544), adopted the Confession of Augsburg, which for a long time remained a bond of union for all the Protestants of Hungary and Transylvania. Among the Magyars, however, Calvinism finally obtained the ascendency, and in 1566 all the Hungarian Reformed churches signed the Helvetic Confession. In Transyl- vania, in 1564, a Lutheran superintendent was appointed for the Saxons, and a Reformed for Magyars and Szek- lers. In 1571 religious freedom was also extended to the Unitarians; and from this time Transylvania has always had four religions recognised by the State (reli- oiones ?*ecept<e). In Hungary the Jesuits succeeded in arresting the further progress of Protestantism, and in instigating new and bloody persecutions. Repeatedly the Protestant priuces of Transylvania, aided by the Hungarian Protestants, compelled the kings by force of arms to confirm anew the religious freedom of Protes- tantism; but each time these promises were immedi- ately broken. In 1634 the majority of the Hungarian Diet had again become Catholic, and from that time persecutions naturally became all the more oppressive. Though, in spite of all these persecutions, the Protes- tants maintained themselves, they constitute at present only a minority of the population — about twenty-three per cent, in Hungary proper, and twenty-four per cent, in Transylvania.
IX. Protestantism in Poland, Prussia, and Livonia. — Towards the close of the Middle Ages the kings of Po-
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land showed a firmer attachment to the Papal See than any other government of Europe. As, however, the powerful nobles were almost independent of the king, those of them who favored a religious reformation were able to give an asylum to many persecuted heretics dur- ing this period. The Hussite movement met with a great deal of sympathy, and a Polish translation of the Bible came into wide circulation. Luther's doctrines were favorably received by a large portion of the Polish nobility, which at that time was distinguished for its scholarship, and especially by the large German com-- mercial cities of Polish Prussia. In the neighboring grand-mastership of Prussia, the domain of the Teutonic Order, the grand master Albert of Brandenburg called himself in 1523 two Lutheran preachers to Konigsberg. The two bishops, and soon the grand master himself, confessed the Reformation, and in 1525 Albert took the duchy of Prussia in fief from Poland. The Reformation was soon generally accepted.
The success of the Reformation in Livonia was equally rapid, notwithstanding the determined opposition of the archbishop of Riga. The city of Riga took the lead, and in 1538 joined the League of Smalkald. Nearly all the population soon followed. The grand master Conrad Keltler followed the example of Albert of Brandenburg, and in 1561 assumed the title of duke of Courland and Semigallia. This duchy also was a Polish fief: that part of Livonia which was situated on the other side of the Dwina was united by a special treaty with Poland on condition that it should be per- mitted to profess the Confession of Augsburg.