Diet of Speyer

Background

An imperial diet was an assembly to which the Holy Roman Emperor summoned the princes and the representatives of the free imperial cities (self-governing cities subject only to the emperor). In 1521 the Diet of Worms placed Martin Luther under the imperial ban and prohibited his writings and teachings (the Edict of Worms). Emperor Charles V, however, was preoccupied with Ottoman incursions and his rivalry with France. Meanwhile, the number of princes and cities embracing Luther's teaching continued to grow. Several imperial diets were held during the Reformation in Speyer, a city on the Rhine. Those of 1526 and 1529 are regarded as especially significant in church history.

Course of Events

The First Diet of 1526

The emperor was unable to attend, and his brother, Archduke Ferdinand, presided over the diet. Ferdinand sought to enforce the Edict of Worms strictly but did not succeed. The recess signed on August 27, 1526, provided in substance that, until a council could be convened, each prince and city should conduct itself in religious matters in a manner for which it could answer before God and the emperor. This effectively suspended the Edict of Worms. The Lutheran princes treated the recess as grounds for carrying out reform in their own territories.

The Second Diet of 1529

The diet that opened in March 1529 was likewise presided over by Ferdinand on the emperor's behalf. The Catholic majority resolved to nullify the recess of 1526. It further decreed that, until a council was convened, no new reforms would be permitted and episcopal jurisdiction would be restored. The Zwinglians were excluded from toleration. The Anabaptists (a movement that rejected infant baptism and rebaptized those who had professed faith) were to be punished by death.

In response, six princes and the representatives of fourteen imperial cities lodged a protest on April 19, 1529, and on April 25 submitted it as a formal written appeal. The six princes were Elector John of Saxony, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Duke Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his brother Francis, and Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt. The cities included Nuremberg and Ulm, as well as some closer to Zwingli's position, such as Strasbourg and St. Gallen. The protesters declared that they could not submit to decisions contrary to the Word of God, to conscience, and to the recess of 1526. Against the decision of the majority, they appealed for judgment to the emperor, to a council, and to impartial Christian judges.

Results and Influence

From this protest (Latin protestatio) came the name Protestants, meaning "those who protest." The term later came to designate all the churches that emerged from the Reformation, and in Korean it is used synonymously with gaesingyo (Protestantism). Finding themselves in a weakened position, the reform parties held the Marburg Colloquy in October of the same year in an effort to strengthen their unity. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Philip Melanchthon and others presented the Augsburg Confession to the emperor. Between 1893 and 1904 a church commemorating the Protestation was built in Speyer.

Assessment

Protestants remember the event as a public declaration of the principle that matters of faith and conscience cannot be settled by majority vote. The protesters are reported to have rallied under the motto of Elector John of Saxony, "The word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Peter 1:25). The Catholic majority, for its part, sought to preserve the religious order of the Empire and to restore the authority of the bishops until a council could be convened.

Some judge that the Protestation made the religious division of the Empire irreversible. Others observe that, because a system in which princes governed the churches of their own territories began to take shape after the recess of 1526, political interests were intertwined with questions of faith. It is also noted as a limitation that at the same diet Catholics and Lutherans alike agreed to the death penalty for Anabaptists; the claims to freedom of conscience made at the time did not extend to every group.