I just hope Austria, Hungary and the HRE will take a lot easier to your conversion than the Holy Father did.
But then again, who cares what the Pontifex says?
But then again, who cares what the Pontifex says?
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Read through this just now--looks fantastic! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem Bohemia will be joined by other nations of the faith, as Lutherans would.
Will the Slovaks become independent or join with Bohemia? A sort of proto-Czechoslovakia would be strange to see.
Will the Slovaks become independent or join with Bohemia? A sort of proto-Czechoslovakia would be strange to see.
They lack the widespread use of the printing press, widespread outrage at the church, and a common tongue. Half of Luther's appeal was that he was speaking German and not Latin...but Czech was not widely spoken outside Bohemia.
So, yeah: they're on their own!
I definitely do plan to liberate our Slovak brothers from Hungarian oppression
Which means they'll have to use the universal language - swordish
You're absolutely correct about the factors which favoured the spread of Reformation, though I am playing with the idea of early use of printing press at the moment...A lot of people, sadly, because my relations with the rest of Europe went down the toilet.
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This is great, I can't wait to see how all this will turn out. Playing around with an early reformation is always fun, too bad the AI hates converting. Anyways, just wanted to say that I'm subscribing!
OARSOME AAR. Looking forward to more.
I've just had a thought, if you manage to become elected the HRE, would you be able to create a Hussite Roman Empire?
I've just had a thought, if you manage to become elected the HRE, would you be able to create a Hussite Roman Empire?
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Decatholization of Bohemia
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Decatholization of Bohemia
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The declaration of the Hussite faith as the official religion in Bohemia was of course very important, but the actual enforcement of this religion was another matter. Catholicism remained strong in all provinces except Bohemia and Moravia and it was clear that it would take a lot of time to uproot it and replace it with Hussite faith. The Hussites knew that time was in short supply since the enemies of the reformation were organizing against them.
There were some factors, however, which were helping the Hussite side. First of all, the long-term Church “boycott” of Bohemia imposed after the first Moravian Hussite rebellion seriously undermined the Church hierarchy in Bohemia; therefore the Church found itself unable to resist the pressure as effectively as it would have wanted. Ladislav I further aggravated its situation by banning new Catholic priests from coming to Bohemia from abroad and he also ordered expropriation of church property in Bohemia; this move filled the state coffers with large amounts of gold [1].
Another positive thing for the Hussites was the fact that Catholic strength in Czech-speaking parts of Bohemia depended on influential, but rather small social group made mostly of members of higher nobility who were supported by the Church. The king was well-aware of that and so he issued a decree demanding that each and every aristocrat in Bohemia took an oath of loyalty to him and to the Four Articles of Prague. Refusal was considered treason punishable by death by beheading. In reality, most of the devout Catholic nobles chose emigration over martyrdom in the name of the Church, while most others reluctantly took the oath.
German-speaking provinces of the kingdom proved to be the most problematic to convert, mostly due to the fact that the necessary prerequisites for a successful spread of the new faith were missing. German population was receiving the Hussite missionaries who were being sent and supported from Bohemia and Moravia with distrust; Hussite religion was generally seen as being a matter of only the Slavic inhabitants of Bohemia [2].
When it became clear that the first wave of missionaries failed to even begin uprooting Catholicism in areas with German majority, Ladislav I decided to have all major and important works of Hus (including the recently completed Hussite Bible) translated into German. In order to dispel the suspicion of his German subjects, he also had some German Hussites from Prague and the Moravian towns trained as preachers and missionaries. Together with other measures, these steps greatly helped to spread Hus’s teachings among the German-speaking peoples of Bohemia.
However, some Hussites were calling for more radical conversion of the “corrupted Christians” and argued with the success of the violent approach in Moravia. Ladislav I refused these calls for two reasons. First, conversion at swordpoint would have undermined the economy and administration of Bohemia as many moderate Catholics who otherwise respected him as their king would have been forced to leave the country; second, it would have given the enemies of the reformation abroad another reason and a pretext to launch a military intervention, which the king wanted to delay as much as possible.
Hussite Bible - the first printed edition
Instead of violence, “carrot and stick” method was chosen. Important posts in the administration could now be held only by Hussites, a fee for celebrating Catholic Masses was instituted which only aggravated the already desperate financial situation of the Catholic Church in Bohemia, Catholic aristocracy was forced to pay extra “Catholic tax” [3] and allow their subjects to freely choose their religion. In addition, a Catholic noble could only ask 2/3 of corvee duty demanded from Catholics from their Hussite subjects. These measures created an environment in which voluntary conversion to Hussite faith began to have a certain appeal even to otherwise loyal Catholics.
In order to make their work easier, the Hussites began experimenting with a new invention, which has recently appeared in Germany – the printing press. Soon they realized the power behind it and eagerly adopted it; the printing press allowed them to mass-produce translations of Hus’s works and thus accelerate the conversion work all around Bohemia [4].
New invention in service of the reformation
Thanks to well organized, well funded and continuous decatholization pressure the Hussite religion soon became dominant in most of the Bohemian Kingdom. First province without a Czech majority to be converted was Upper Silesia (Opole), where the peasant revolt started 10 years ago. Hussite missionaries didn’t have a particularly hard time converting it as most of the mixed Polish-Czech population accepted the new faith willingly after decades of social unrest. Increased pressure had also broken the resistance in predominately German Lusatia and soon a genuine and sizable community of German-speaking Hussites was created there. On the other hand, conversion of the Bohemian borderlands and Lower Silesia turned out to be much more difficult.
Religious situation in Bohemia, 1460 A.D.
This fact is usually explained by the mixed ethnic composition of population in these provinces. While the Slavs – Czechs and Poles – were adopting the new faith rather quickly, the Germans stuck to Catholicism as part of their distinct identity. Adopting Hussitism was seen by them as betrayal of their people, therefore they remained stubborn in face of the conversion pressure applied by the state. In the case of the Bohemian borderlands, the situation was being made even more difficult by the proximity of Bavaria and Thuringia, to which many of the exiled Bohemian Catholics fled and from where were they organizing anti-missionary activities.
And it was Bavaria who would first raise sword against the Hussite reformation.
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[1] I gave myself few hundred ducats. Yeah, it’s cheating, but I think the dissolution of monasteries should yield much more money than it does in Magna Mundi. Historically, the money the European kings took from the Church fueled many wars in Europe in the following decades.
[2] As in OTL. Germans weren’t particularly fond of the new faith; they saw it as purely Czech matter – a Czech faith preached by Czech priests to the Czech population. There were some German coverts, though.
[3] Savor the irony – their own invention turned against them.
[4] We’re in the late 1450s now, so it’s not that far-fetched, is it?
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Good that you've expanded Hussitism to a solid portion of the country.
You mentioned that the Slovak rebels weren't Hussites in-game; how will you deal with the religious situation when you take those provinces? Are the rebels still in control?
You mentioned that the Slovak rebels weren't Hussites in-game; how will you deal with the religious situation when you take those provinces? Are the rebels still in control?
How willing would the borderlands be to turn against the Hussites? Are troops from that area loyal?
They keep appearing and disappearing, but the important part is that both Slovak provinces now have the "heresy" tag, which means they'll be easier to convert if I capture them before the heresy disappears. And since the rebels keep appearing there, I don't think that will be a problem.
I think that at this point, the Bohemian military is almost 100% Hussite. The borderlands are religiously divided - the German speaking population is unwilling to give up on Catholicism, because the people think they'd betray their own kind if they did. Slavs, on the other hand, do convert to demonstrate their loayalty to the king.
In Magna Mundi, religions are divided to two groups - missionary and stubborn. Hussitism is of the stubborn type, which means there is -3% penalty to missionary success chance. Fortunatelly, Bohemia starts with "Divine Supremacy" nat. idea which gives you nice 6% bonus. Still, the more populous provinces are harder to convert.
Since I am hated by most of Europe, I seriously doubt I could get my king elected as HRE.
Thanks
Reformation in general is fun in EU3, even for non-religious people like myself. It's amazing how important religion was back then.
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in my case it was hungary ;-) i remember it was fun playing hussite boemia, i started in 1453 though, as for HRE, in my game i got elected! late but hey it's possible, it was near to impossible to get any hre institutions implemented though, second bench issue
share your views on money from dissolution of monasteries, dharper, are you around?
great aar, waiting for more
I can't belive I missed this one! Count me in...
And...
"- I beg for forgiveness of people whose style I am going to emulate. If you don't recognize yourself, it means that I am even more pathetic in doing so than I previously thoughto"
If I can put 2+2 together, I don't mind one bit... You're quite good at it, actually...
And...
"- I beg for forgiveness of people whose style I am going to emulate. If you don't recognize yourself, it means that I am even more pathetic in doing so than I previously thought
o"If I can put 2+2 together, I don't mind one bit...
You're quite good at it, actually...
Yes, I've been following this AAR with interest.share your views on money from dissolution of monasteries, dharper, are you around?
The dissolution events are some of the oldest I've written for EU3, and I was afraid of giving too much money and having ridiculous effects follow suit. But on the other hand, the seizure of church land was a critical event. I had to figure out a middle path.
How much money is an EU3 ducat worth? I tried to come up with a conversion rate by looking at historical costs to raise and maintain 1,000 troops, and then figure out how much money England raised by closing the monasteries. Unfortunately the figures I used were spotty and unclear in part because the English crown did things like grant monastic lands to nobles, etc.
Another issue is that I did not want to make Protestantism the obvious choice, which means balancing the benefits of going Protestant (money, bonuses, lack of church corruption events) with drawbacks (relations with Catholic nations, penalties, revolts, etc.).
A third issue is that the dissolution system was designed for the Reformation, not for the Hussites. When I added the Hussite religion much later, I gave them access to the same events...but they are less powerful. Why? Not on purpose! The thing is, any nation that converts to a Protestant-based religion can seize church land in every province they own...but only one or two provinces start with the right flags in 1399. The more church-related events you get as you play, the more provinces will be eligible for this event later - but the Hussite revolution takes place nearly a century before the Protestant Reformation. I'd be willing to bet that Bohemia in this game only had about half their provinces eligible for this event, versus nearly every province in England by 1540, which means that Protestants will find it more lucrative to convert than Hussites. That's a flaw in the system that I'll have to deal with.
I could see doubling the amount of money given to 50 ducats per province and at the same time making more provinces eligible at the start of the game, but I feel the bonuses given are already quite strong: if you pick +1 tax in the province you're talking about literally hundreds of ducats per province over the rest of the game!
I edited the savegame file. The "cash" console cheat gives you 5000 ducats, which would be too much to justify.
Still no Slovakia and Austria in your hands?
Slovakia's liberation is in my long term plan. As for Austria - are you mad?
I actually want to keep they out of any war, because I'd probably lose to their armies of clone soldiers (I really have no idea where the heck are they getting so many soldiers).Plus, in Magna Mundi, you can't really expand in the HRE unless you have cores on the provinces you want to annex.
in my case it was hungary ;-) i remember it was fun playing hussite boemia, i started in 1453 though, as for HRE, in my game i got elected! late but hey it's possible, it was near to impossible to get any hre institutions implemented though, second bench issue
great aar, waiting for more
I don't want to be an Emperor in any case
I was the Emperor between 1399-1407 and I hadn't had a peaceful year.I can't belive I missed this one! Count me in...
I am glad to have you onboard
I inspired you? The world is going to end soon...
I inspired you? The world is going to end soon...
No! It will simply become a more beautiful place!