The Hanse and the Reformation
The Reformation of the sixteenth century was one of the most important events in the history of the Hanseatic League, and a major factor in the League’s decline. The Reformation began in 1517, when Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, and the Reformation spread rapidly through the Hanseatic cities in the following years. Most of the cities adopted Lutheranism in the 1520s and 1530s, and the religious landscape of northern Germany was transformed.
A political as well as religious act
The adoption of Lutheranism was, in many ways, a political act as well as a religious one. The cities adopted Lutheranism partly out of religious conviction, but also as a way of asserting their independence from the bishops, the emperors, and the Catholic territorial princes. The adoption of Lutheranism was, in this sense, a continuation of the cities’ long struggle for independence, and it was supported by the patriciate, who saw the Reformation as an opportunity to confiscate the property of the Church and to assert their own political power.
The adoption of Lutheranism had a profound impact on the religious life of the cities. The Catholic mass was replaced by the Lutheran service, the Latin liturgy by the German liturgy, and the priests were allowed to marry. The dissolution of the monasteries was, in many ways, the most dramatic change: the monks and nuns were pensioned off, and the monastic properties were often sold to the patrician families.
Impact on the League
The Reformation also had a profound impact on the League. The Hansetag had always been a body of merchants, and it had no mechanism for dealing with religious disputes. The Catholic cities of the south, like Cologne and Goslar, found themselves isolated from the Protestant majority, and the Hansetag tried to remain neutral — but the religious tensions made neutrality impossible. The Hansetag of 1525 broke up in acrimony, and the Hansetag did not meet again for several years.
The religious tensions continued to divide the League for the rest of its history, and they were a major factor in the League’s decline. The Hansetag could no longer make decisions that bound the member cities, because the cities were divided along confessional lines, and the cities’ ability to act collectively was further weakened. The religious tensions were also a major factor in the wars of religion that devastated northern Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The religious tensions were particularly acute in the years around the Schmalkaldic War of 1546–47, in which the Protestant princes of Germany were defeated by the Catholic emperor. The Schmalkaldic War had a major impact on the Hanseatic cities, and several of the cities were forced to make concessions to the Catholic powers. The religious tensions were also acute in the years around the Thirty Years War of 1618–48, which devastated much of northern Germany and which had a particularly severe impact on the Hanseatic cities.