European Religious Wars

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Introduction
Religious wars and its differences have formed the European history and identity that we know today. The Roman Empire, the first on the European continent, was also the first Empire to adopt Christianity as its official religion. During the Roman Empire the politics were managed by the Emperor, however after it’s division this has changed. Therefore, it is interesting to observe how and whether the religion has influenced the politics from the end of the Roman Empire up until the early modern era in Western Europe.
This is relevant to understand to what extent the church had influenced the politics during the given time period. It helps explain the political differences in Europe and why in several countries, such as Poland, religion …show more content…

The religious wars are known as the Crusades (1097-1291) or as Holy wars. The Crusades were fought to gain more territory, such as the Holy Land of Jerusalem (Alcock, 2002) to be able to spread Christianity within these gained territories and stop the spread of Islamic influence on the European continent. Tyerman (2005) explains the legitimacy of the wars, as they were approved by the pope and Christians believed that they were fighting in God’s will. Despite the wars being religious, the territorial monarchs agreed to send troops into the war, hoping to gain more territory. Thereby, the Holy wars were not only fought for political and religious reasons, but also for the self-interest of the monarch. These wars also interfered with the political relations between countries, as during the wars the relations did not …show more content…

Furthermore, feudalism played an important role as it had an impact on the power struggle between the pope and emperor. The clergy and emperor worked close together, however it was always unclear who was superior, as, according to the feudal system, the king was a vassal of the pope. With the feudal order the clergy was influenced by it, as it was the strongest estate after the king. This led to more rights and privileges for the clergy, which results in a higher influence in politics. With these rights the right of taxation and the support of the king from the church was given. The King was dependent on the taxes, which is why the clergy could easily intervene with the politics. Additionally, the church intervenes with laws, as all laws had to follow Christian morals and were mostly written down by the clergy as they were the literate. Furthermore, the church established the first modern legal system in the west by introducing the canon law and pleading for equality in front of court. Wars were also fought in the name of religion, causing to trouble the political relations between countries. With the religious revolution in 1517 Protestantism evolved, which caused a change in the political view. ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’ now allowed the territorial rulers to

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