Interesting to see how a Bohemia plays in EU3 and how the Hussites are modelled here.
I think I'll follow this for a bit.
I think I'll follow this for a bit.
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TeeWee said:
Keep in mind Behomia plays like this with the mod. In EU3 vanilla it would play very different.
Chapter V: The New Princes of Kiev
With the first conquests in Lithuania came the great grain basket of the Russian Steppes. With them came also the collapse of Lithuania as a major power, and her gradual downfall would continue apace over the ensuing years.
King Eduard I had by now firmly etched his place as one of the ‘Warrior-Kings’ of Bohemia, and in his final act of governance commenced construction of the Great Armoury in Breslau (whose earthen-reinforced munitions testing wall can still be seen today). Eduard died in January 1544.
His son Ruprecht I took the throne, having neither his father’s military sense (of which he had none) nor his predecessor Ladislav II’s vision.
What he did have at his disposal was one of the pre-eminent states of its day, and perhaps the greatest army in Europe. These he used to continue the aggrandisement of what had once been a humble Czech duchy on the outposts of what had once been the edge of the Catholic world.
Ruprecht was no great leader, but he did know how to impose authority, and this he did at once, condemning the practice of indulgence selling across the kingdom. Neither the Catholic Emperor, nor the pope himself, welcomed the news, and the first gulf opened between Praha and the imperial seat. In September 1545, more bad news arrived from the west, when Brandenburg issued a strongly-worded condemnation of Bohemian aggression. While the court had long maintained that its interests lay exclusively to the east, this was the first clear sign that Bohemian success was breeding contempt from her fellow electors.
The following July, amid rumblings of war preparations, the nobles demanded quid pro quo for impending services. New rights were granted to the barons without argument. Whether this was Eduardian tact, or Jindrichian complicity remained to be seen when, come the first thaws of spring in 1547, the Bohemians marched against the bedraggled and bewildered Lithuanians. The One Year War, so named as it ended on the anniversary of its beginning, saw Zaporozhia, Poltava and Minsk added to Ruprecht’s domains.
The old Halych-Volhynian kingdom was now in Bohemian hands, and the local Ruthenians were granted the rights of free men, as their Slavic brothers in Poland had been fifty-four years before.
As if to symbolise the elevated state of the Outer Bohemian citizenry, a vast textile works was begun in Warszawa. The only surviving sample from the original Warsaw mill is on permanent display in the British Museum, care of the Czartoryski Foundation. The rest was sadly lost in the fire-bombing of 1926.
The summer brought rising temperatures all across the steppe as Muscowy stared at the waves of Maurician-inspired infantry and caracole cavalry. The army the Bohemians set their eyes upon was hopelessly antiquated, many still wielding lances rather than pistols. Their techniques had served them well enough against the Persians and Sibir, but there was little doubt amongst the elite Catholic troops that the next war would be an easy one.
Ruprecht hedged and waited, hoping for an external war to bring Muscowy’s allies in Novgorod further from the steppe. The 1550s saw violence erupt across Scandinavia, and Ruprecht’s prayers were answered when the armies of Novgorod stormed into the vast Finnish wilderness, occupying as much as a quarter of Sweden in the first few months of conflict.
As if on cue, Ruprecht ordered his armies to attack in spring 1555. In the midst of the fighting, which unfolded much to Bohemian expectation, a new emperor was crowned in the west, Albrecht I of Ansbach. Ansbach was a tiny state, one of the sprawling confederation which made up the western half of the Holy Roman Empire. Albrecht was, if anything, more opposed to empire-building in Slavic lands than had been his predecessors. On flimsy pretext, he suggested that Kalisz be granted secession. It had long been the north-eastern vanguard of imperial lands, and Albrecht was seeking to reduce his hegemony, and thereby to conserve those lands which could best be controlled. Ruprecht, in a rare moment of insight, refused, on the equally flimsy pretext that the people of Kalisz deserved imperial privileges and protections the same as any other province. What Ansbach could have done in the event of an international crisis which Bohemia could not was anyone’s guess.
In August 1556, Muscowy managed to negotiate peace. Mogilyov, Polotsk, Chernigov and Kursk, most of the remaining Muscovite steppe, were lost.
A standing army of forty thousand, including nine thousand horse, was maintained to keep order across Ruprecht’s sprawling empire. Just forty years earlier, Ladislav had established a standing army less than half that size, which at the time was considered monarchical extravagance.
Two years later, Ruprecht went childless to his grave. The elder statesman, Jan Liberec, was once again asked to form a regency, exactly forty years after the first. The old man proved as energetic as he had all those decades before, immediately making adjustments in the military drills instated under Eduard I. The focus would be on ferocious attacks, with morale-building exercises inculcated to foster fearlessness among the infantry. While the kingdom looked increasingly in need of defending, the inclination of Bohemian rulers was still to expand.
Imperial pressures sought a reshuffle within the Regency, aided by jealous nobles. If they had increased power, went the logic, why not the ultimate extension of monarchy? Liberec fought tenaciously to maintain his grip on power, and the imperial push was thwarted. The cost was assessed in January 1559, when Albrecht announced a change in the electorate. Bohemia would be reduced to mere membership in the empire, and her newly conquered lands would be once more hers and hers alone to defend.
The move was designed to force the hands of those nobles unable to think outside the confines of an imperial mandate. They turned to the Hungarian throne, weak, but anxious to reassert itself in Eastern European politics. A direct confrontation would have led to wide-scale violence, and possibly civil war. Liberec backed down in the game of brinksmanship, pledging publicly to attend to the needs of Outer Bohemia, but privately seething at the apparent betrayal of the barons.
In November 1559, he attended a church synod held in Salzburg. The rivalry between Pope and Emperor was reaching new lows, and the synod was as much as anything, a chance for stakeholders in the European future to indicate their leanings. While Liberec was no friend of Emperor Albrecht, he positively loathed the Papacy, as had Bohemian rulers for years. A call was made for a conclave, and the current pope’s immediate deposing. The move went ahead, though naturally without Papal blessing. An extra-Roman curia was formed, and a Pope duly elected. Swiss mercenaries stood at the borders of the Papal States, blocking the new Papal legation from entering. Mother Church was on the verge of schism. The new pope, labelled an ‘Antipope’ by Rome, was offered French sanctuary and slowly his cortege made for the Brittanic coast, forming an alternate Papacy in Morbihan.
Albrecht was suddenly in a quandary regarding the Liberec Regency, unable to determine whether the old man was a true soldier of the empire, a self-serving would-be king, or crony of the Hussites, and anti-papist only in the most heretical of terms. Whatever his conclusions, he took them to his grave, and the imperial seat moved to Munchen, and the throne of Maximilian III Emanuel, king of Bavaria. He quickly sent a missive to Liberec, insisting that Transylvania was now within the remit of Bohemian ambitions. Maximilian was a shrewd man, and was perhaps the first to conclude that if Praha were to have aggressive aims, it was in the interests of the empire not to thwart them, but instead to direct them. The greatest threat was still to the southeast, in spite of Ottoman defeats in recent decades. What could shelter the empire better than a Bohemian buffer between Anatolia and Austria?
With the first conquests in Lithuania came the great grain basket of the Russian Steppes. With them came also the collapse of Lithuania as a major power, and her gradual downfall would continue apace over the ensuing years.
King Eduard I had by now firmly etched his place as one of the ‘Warrior-Kings’ of Bohemia, and in his final act of governance commenced construction of the Great Armoury in Breslau (whose earthen-reinforced munitions testing wall can still be seen today). Eduard died in January 1544.
His son Ruprecht I took the throne, having neither his father’s military sense (of which he had none) nor his predecessor Ladislav II’s vision.
What he did have at his disposal was one of the pre-eminent states of its day, and perhaps the greatest army in Europe. These he used to continue the aggrandisement of what had once been a humble Czech duchy on the outposts of what had once been the edge of the Catholic world.
Ruprecht was no great leader, but he did know how to impose authority, and this he did at once, condemning the practice of indulgence selling across the kingdom. Neither the Catholic Emperor, nor the pope himself, welcomed the news, and the first gulf opened between Praha and the imperial seat. In September 1545, more bad news arrived from the west, when Brandenburg issued a strongly-worded condemnation of Bohemian aggression. While the court had long maintained that its interests lay exclusively to the east, this was the first clear sign that Bohemian success was breeding contempt from her fellow electors.
The following July, amid rumblings of war preparations, the nobles demanded quid pro quo for impending services. New rights were granted to the barons without argument. Whether this was Eduardian tact, or Jindrichian complicity remained to be seen when, come the first thaws of spring in 1547, the Bohemians marched against the bedraggled and bewildered Lithuanians. The One Year War, so named as it ended on the anniversary of its beginning, saw Zaporozhia, Poltava and Minsk added to Ruprecht’s domains.
The old Halych-Volhynian kingdom was now in Bohemian hands, and the local Ruthenians were granted the rights of free men, as their Slavic brothers in Poland had been fifty-four years before.
As if to symbolise the elevated state of the Outer Bohemian citizenry, a vast textile works was begun in Warszawa. The only surviving sample from the original Warsaw mill is on permanent display in the British Museum, care of the Czartoryski Foundation. The rest was sadly lost in the fire-bombing of 1926.
The summer brought rising temperatures all across the steppe as Muscowy stared at the waves of Maurician-inspired infantry and caracole cavalry. The army the Bohemians set their eyes upon was hopelessly antiquated, many still wielding lances rather than pistols. Their techniques had served them well enough against the Persians and Sibir, but there was little doubt amongst the elite Catholic troops that the next war would be an easy one.
Ruprecht hedged and waited, hoping for an external war to bring Muscowy’s allies in Novgorod further from the steppe. The 1550s saw violence erupt across Scandinavia, and Ruprecht’s prayers were answered when the armies of Novgorod stormed into the vast Finnish wilderness, occupying as much as a quarter of Sweden in the first few months of conflict.
As if on cue, Ruprecht ordered his armies to attack in spring 1555. In the midst of the fighting, which unfolded much to Bohemian expectation, a new emperor was crowned in the west, Albrecht I of Ansbach. Ansbach was a tiny state, one of the sprawling confederation which made up the western half of the Holy Roman Empire. Albrecht was, if anything, more opposed to empire-building in Slavic lands than had been his predecessors. On flimsy pretext, he suggested that Kalisz be granted secession. It had long been the north-eastern vanguard of imperial lands, and Albrecht was seeking to reduce his hegemony, and thereby to conserve those lands which could best be controlled. Ruprecht, in a rare moment of insight, refused, on the equally flimsy pretext that the people of Kalisz deserved imperial privileges and protections the same as any other province. What Ansbach could have done in the event of an international crisis which Bohemia could not was anyone’s guess.
In August 1556, Muscowy managed to negotiate peace. Mogilyov, Polotsk, Chernigov and Kursk, most of the remaining Muscovite steppe, were lost.
A standing army of forty thousand, including nine thousand horse, was maintained to keep order across Ruprecht’s sprawling empire. Just forty years earlier, Ladislav had established a standing army less than half that size, which at the time was considered monarchical extravagance.
Two years later, Ruprecht went childless to his grave. The elder statesman, Jan Liberec, was once again asked to form a regency, exactly forty years after the first. The old man proved as energetic as he had all those decades before, immediately making adjustments in the military drills instated under Eduard I. The focus would be on ferocious attacks, with morale-building exercises inculcated to foster fearlessness among the infantry. While the kingdom looked increasingly in need of defending, the inclination of Bohemian rulers was still to expand.
Imperial pressures sought a reshuffle within the Regency, aided by jealous nobles. If they had increased power, went the logic, why not the ultimate extension of monarchy? Liberec fought tenaciously to maintain his grip on power, and the imperial push was thwarted. The cost was assessed in January 1559, when Albrecht announced a change in the electorate. Bohemia would be reduced to mere membership in the empire, and her newly conquered lands would be once more hers and hers alone to defend.
The move was designed to force the hands of those nobles unable to think outside the confines of an imperial mandate. They turned to the Hungarian throne, weak, but anxious to reassert itself in Eastern European politics. A direct confrontation would have led to wide-scale violence, and possibly civil war. Liberec backed down in the game of brinksmanship, pledging publicly to attend to the needs of Outer Bohemia, but privately seething at the apparent betrayal of the barons.
In November 1559, he attended a church synod held in Salzburg. The rivalry between Pope and Emperor was reaching new lows, and the synod was as much as anything, a chance for stakeholders in the European future to indicate their leanings. While Liberec was no friend of Emperor Albrecht, he positively loathed the Papacy, as had Bohemian rulers for years. A call was made for a conclave, and the current pope’s immediate deposing. The move went ahead, though naturally without Papal blessing. An extra-Roman curia was formed, and a Pope duly elected. Swiss mercenaries stood at the borders of the Papal States, blocking the new Papal legation from entering. Mother Church was on the verge of schism. The new pope, labelled an ‘Antipope’ by Rome, was offered French sanctuary and slowly his cortege made for the Brittanic coast, forming an alternate Papacy in Morbihan.
Albrecht was suddenly in a quandary regarding the Liberec Regency, unable to determine whether the old man was a true soldier of the empire, a self-serving would-be king, or crony of the Hussites, and anti-papist only in the most heretical of terms. Whatever his conclusions, he took them to his grave, and the imperial seat moved to Munchen, and the throne of Maximilian III Emanuel, king of Bavaria. He quickly sent a missive to Liberec, insisting that Transylvania was now within the remit of Bohemian ambitions. Maximilian was a shrewd man, and was perhaps the first to conclude that if Praha were to have aggressive aims, it was in the interests of the empire not to thwart them, but instead to direct them. The greatest threat was still to the southeast, in spite of Ottoman defeats in recent decades. What could shelter the empire better than a Bohemian buffer between Anatolia and Austria?
How does schism affect religion in MM? Is a separate Antipapal Catholicism founded and is spread, or do separate states formally align themselves with one pope or the other... or what?
Great AAR by the way. I'll keep an eye on this one!
Great AAR by the way. I'll keep an eye on this one!
Long term it greatly increases the chance of a successful reformation. I think.Sr. Toledo said:
Sr. Toledo said:
The antipope is a state, but not a religion. That is, there aren't two identified Catholicisms in the game (which I have to think would be a profound nightmare in every way from coding to implementation to player confusion).
Schism gives all Catholics penalties.
As an aside, there was a problem in the implementation of the Reformation in the latest MM. I've only just updated my files, so hopefully we'll get some Evangelicals and Presbyterians running around soon!
Fingers crossed...
isca said:The antipope is a state, but not a religion. That is, there aren't two identified Catholicisms in the game (which I have to think would be a profound nightmare in every way from coding to implementation to player confusion).
Schism gives all Catholics penalties.
As an aside, there was a problem in the implementation of the Reformation in the latest MM. I've only just updated my files, so hopefully we'll get some Evangelicals and Presbyterians running around soon!
Fingers crossed...
Isca, which files did you update? Reason I ask is that I'm now into the early years of the Reformation in my Saxony game. On advice received in the MM thread, I simply swapped the old 'reformation_events' file in MM for the latest one in the Catholic Mini-Mod. I am getting the spread of the Evangelical faith in the game (it's now circa 1524) so I guess the Reformation is firing at least. Should I have updated any other files? Enjoying the AAR btw...will be interesting to see how your poor relations with the Emperor - to to mention the Schism - affects Bohemia's seemingly unstoppable expansion!
Cohort said:
Yes, I just overwrote the event file as well. No others. Though I'm missing some text, so it could be the localisation file needs switching, too.
Had a very interesting twist this last session. I'll write it up hopefully by Monday evening.
isca said:The antipope is a state, but not a religion. That is, there aren't two identified Catholicisms in the game (which I have to think would be a profound nightmare in every way from coding to implementation to player confusion).
Schism gives all Catholics penalties.
As an aside, there was a problem in the implementation of the Reformation in the latest MM. I've only just updated my files, so hopefully we'll get some Evangelicals and Presbyterians running around soon!
Fingers crossed...
Ah. I see. And for the purposes of the AAR's story, am I right to assume that Bohemia has aligned itself with the Antipope?
I suppose Isca is preparing to be the sole power of europe soon...
(Takes notes to turn more powerful the "Framed!" event)
(Takes notes to turn more powerful the "Framed!" event)
Chapter VI: Mark the Silent
Marek Boleslav was born in the town of Komna, in Moravia in 1511. The second of four sons, he took to the seminary, like many men lost to the exigencies of primogeniture. Taken by the zeal and passion of the Hussites, and born in the hundredth anniversary of Hus’s martyrdom, Boleslav was destined for a turbulent life within the church. One of his early writings was a condemnation of the Papal Ball outlawing Wyclifism, an act which both brought him fame and accusations of heresy. As his popularity grew, so did his enemies’ numbers. Finally, in 1547, after a number of attempts on his life, he fled Moravia, taking up parish duties at the edge of the Christian world, in the town of Waterford, in Leinster.
It was easier to consider the move a form of exile than for his mostly central-European rivals to pursue him such a distance. He was forgotten for sixteen years, during which time he not only gained a local Irish following, but also managed to form close bonds with all three of the principal royal families of Eire. He was given the Leinster Bishopric in 1560, which in turn brought him into direct contact with Rome. The time of his appointment coincided with the formation of the anti-Papacy in French Brittany, and there were those in the Curia who grew nervous at the increasingly schismatic nature of the synod.
Marek, now known as Mark, Bishop of Leinster, disliked both the Pope’s rhetoric of adherence to archaic tradition, and also the anti-Pope’s conservative, overly episcopal leanings. The role of bishop became an albatross, and in April 1563, at Easter Mass, Mark removed his vestments, leaving the grandeur of the office by the altar, and taking his seat with the congregation, dressed in a simple tunic. According to what is now legend at best, he sat there quietly and contemplatively for several hours. Finally, he is said to have turned to the man sat next to him, pointed at the altar and said, ‘God is not closer to that spot than to this.’ At which point he resumed his ruminations.
In this quiet, simple way, which the Western Church has come to exaggerate into ‘silence’, the Reformation was born.
Just months later, in September 1563, the Regency in Bohemia ended, and Fridrich III Falcky took the throne. The coincidence of a Moravian bishop initiating the greatest modern schism in Christianity and the ascension to the Bohemian throne of perhaps its most directionless zealot combined to throw European politics into particular chaos.
Word of the new Evangelism spread quickly, and in February 1564, Polesia became the first conversion outside the Atlantic Isles. Mark’s native Moravia converted soon after. Then in a remarkable twist, in September of that year, a monk named Jan Zandwort (John Zander to posterity) declared a protest of his own in Salzburg, claiming that the Waterford Reformation didn’t go far enough in creating a true presbyterian commune. While there were fears over the following years that the Christian world would split ad infinitum, these two splinters remained the principal divisions within what would become Protestant Europe.
When Podlasia converted in January 1565, the emperor asked for some form of state condemnation. Fridrich refused, curious at least, if not devoted to the Reformed cause. In October the next year, the emperor died suddenly, and Turlough VII of Munster received the imperial seat, one of the former princely-bishops of the western empire, and an avid supporter of the Holy See in Rome. What started as hushed debate over the former emperor’s murder rapidly escalated to wild accusation, directed almost exclusively at Praha. The long-time enemies of Rome, who spawned the Reformation, and who had long harboured malcontents and heretics of all description had finally crossed the line from blasphemy to regicide. International hostility flooded in, in the form of missives and communiqués, all deploring the Bohemian state, and warning of impending disaster.
The catastrophe of schism – keeping in mind that at this time Bohemia was a tolerant, but still overwhelmingly Catholic state – finally erupted into violence in January 1567. Austria, the Netherlands, and Transylvania all declared war. In April, the free cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Frankfurt followed suit, bringing the might of imperial industry. Lubeck, Mecklenburg and Nuremberg weren’t far behind.
In October 1567, the Miracle of Danzig would change the course of the war, and the course of Bohemian history. The Netherlands had laid siege to the one-time free city, and were slowly starving the inhabitants. During the bombardment, which was difficult for both sides, a storm developed. Conditions deteriorated to the point that the cannons could no longer fire. Rather than retire the field, the Dutch general kept his armies ensconced around the city walls. The rain stopped, and there was a long pause as the Dutch considered the situation. Finally, a sergeant-at-arms, manning the city walls, threw his pike toward the seiging army. It landed with a dull thud in the damp autumn soil. The sergeant pointed at the spear. ‘God is not closer to that spot than to this.’
Then the scene descended from the sublime to the bizarre. While the Dutch Catholics resumed their bombardment, the newly evangelised citizens of Danzig began a mass destruction of the city’s iconography. Where in the days before, the city had been scoured for any signs of food, now it was scoured for idolatry. When, two weeks later, Fridrich’s relief army arrived and beat back the Dutch, they found a city in rapturous upheaval. Fridrich compared the sight of the city to Constantine’s dream of the cross, and vowed that all of Bohemia would follow Mark the Silent should the current troubles find a favourable resolution.
In March 1568, cowed by the Miracle of Danzig, the Dutch made peace. Mecklenburg soon followed. In September, while Bohemian armies were finally turning the tide against the Austrians, Lubeck made peace. But on the northern front, Muscowy and Novgorod took the opportunity to invade, facing as they did a wide and empty front. The next year saw peace made with Bremen and Friesland (who had joined the war as a show of solidarity for a few short months). The Teutonic Knights attacked, joined by Wurzburg, then the Italians dove in: Modena, Sicily and Milan.
The Austrians somewhat pacified, Friddrich sent two armies east. Novgorod and Muscowy were easily pacified, and the Bohemian king took Smolensk as compensation for his troubles. In the meantime, Kazan had attacked Muscowy from the east, and were devouring much of what remained of the Russian kingdom.
By now, it had become clear to all involved that the Five Years War was not going to rid Europe of the schismatic states of Bohemia. Indeed, much of the rest of Northern Europe was following into Reformation, and the war against Bohemia was becoming as controversial as it was costly. A pact was agreed in 1570 whereby Bohemia would not seek to convert surrounding lands, but would be free to conduct its own affairs within its borders as King Fridrich saw fit. The princes of Europe at this point still had no idea of what little control they would have in the resolution of the Reformation.
Curiously, the pact agreed the conditions of a future peace, but did not agree to create peace itself. This was principally due to the fact that both Fridrich and the Austrian king each thought they held the advantage in the war, and wanted terms negotiated in a more conventional context. That logic would go on to favour Bohemia, as Austria had able armies, but lacked depth. Fridrich was in the process of a slow victory when his armies returned from the east. Then the attack became an avalanche. Displaying unusual wile, the king asked for no land from Austria. Instead, the pre-eminent state in the empire would become a vassal of Bohemia. What was important to the court in Praha was not the reality of Austrian lands, but rather the gesture of Austrian subordination.
The Five Years War ended in June 1572, and the following month, mirroring Constantine’s example, Fridrich III declared Bohemia an Evangelical state. Perhaps as much as one quarter of the people had converted, but many of those who remained were Orthodox, and would prove an immovable object in the quest for a unified state. At the end of the year, the king passed the Ordinance of Compulsion, requiring everyone throughout Greater Bohemia to attend Evangelical service. The result was a rapid pacification of the outlying lands, as Nicodemism led to a semblance of order.
England, the other major kingdom to convert in the first decade of Reform, cheerily sent envoys to Praha, and an alliance was signed. Bohemia could now count England and Austria as friends. Never before had the western frontier been so secure. In the east, however, the Russian kingdoms were rapidly being overrun by Islamic princes. Trouble there would ensue for generations.
In just ten years, Marek Boleslav, ex-bishop of Leinster, had given rise to one of the most profound changes in European history. From now on, the politics of the small continent would be further complicated by the question of faith.
Marek Boleslav was born in the town of Komna, in Moravia in 1511. The second of four sons, he took to the seminary, like many men lost to the exigencies of primogeniture. Taken by the zeal and passion of the Hussites, and born in the hundredth anniversary of Hus’s martyrdom, Boleslav was destined for a turbulent life within the church. One of his early writings was a condemnation of the Papal Ball outlawing Wyclifism, an act which both brought him fame and accusations of heresy. As his popularity grew, so did his enemies’ numbers. Finally, in 1547, after a number of attempts on his life, he fled Moravia, taking up parish duties at the edge of the Christian world, in the town of Waterford, in Leinster.
It was easier to consider the move a form of exile than for his mostly central-European rivals to pursue him such a distance. He was forgotten for sixteen years, during which time he not only gained a local Irish following, but also managed to form close bonds with all three of the principal royal families of Eire. He was given the Leinster Bishopric in 1560, which in turn brought him into direct contact with Rome. The time of his appointment coincided with the formation of the anti-Papacy in French Brittany, and there were those in the Curia who grew nervous at the increasingly schismatic nature of the synod.
Marek, now known as Mark, Bishop of Leinster, disliked both the Pope’s rhetoric of adherence to archaic tradition, and also the anti-Pope’s conservative, overly episcopal leanings. The role of bishop became an albatross, and in April 1563, at Easter Mass, Mark removed his vestments, leaving the grandeur of the office by the altar, and taking his seat with the congregation, dressed in a simple tunic. According to what is now legend at best, he sat there quietly and contemplatively for several hours. Finally, he is said to have turned to the man sat next to him, pointed at the altar and said, ‘God is not closer to that spot than to this.’ At which point he resumed his ruminations.
In this quiet, simple way, which the Western Church has come to exaggerate into ‘silence’, the Reformation was born.
Just months later, in September 1563, the Regency in Bohemia ended, and Fridrich III Falcky took the throne. The coincidence of a Moravian bishop initiating the greatest modern schism in Christianity and the ascension to the Bohemian throne of perhaps its most directionless zealot combined to throw European politics into particular chaos.
Word of the new Evangelism spread quickly, and in February 1564, Polesia became the first conversion outside the Atlantic Isles. Mark’s native Moravia converted soon after. Then in a remarkable twist, in September of that year, a monk named Jan Zandwort (John Zander to posterity) declared a protest of his own in Salzburg, claiming that the Waterford Reformation didn’t go far enough in creating a true presbyterian commune. While there were fears over the following years that the Christian world would split ad infinitum, these two splinters remained the principal divisions within what would become Protestant Europe.
When Podlasia converted in January 1565, the emperor asked for some form of state condemnation. Fridrich refused, curious at least, if not devoted to the Reformed cause. In October the next year, the emperor died suddenly, and Turlough VII of Munster received the imperial seat, one of the former princely-bishops of the western empire, and an avid supporter of the Holy See in Rome. What started as hushed debate over the former emperor’s murder rapidly escalated to wild accusation, directed almost exclusively at Praha. The long-time enemies of Rome, who spawned the Reformation, and who had long harboured malcontents and heretics of all description had finally crossed the line from blasphemy to regicide. International hostility flooded in, in the form of missives and communiqués, all deploring the Bohemian state, and warning of impending disaster.
The catastrophe of schism – keeping in mind that at this time Bohemia was a tolerant, but still overwhelmingly Catholic state – finally erupted into violence in January 1567. Austria, the Netherlands, and Transylvania all declared war. In April, the free cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Frankfurt followed suit, bringing the might of imperial industry. Lubeck, Mecklenburg and Nuremberg weren’t far behind.
In October 1567, the Miracle of Danzig would change the course of the war, and the course of Bohemian history. The Netherlands had laid siege to the one-time free city, and were slowly starving the inhabitants. During the bombardment, which was difficult for both sides, a storm developed. Conditions deteriorated to the point that the cannons could no longer fire. Rather than retire the field, the Dutch general kept his armies ensconced around the city walls. The rain stopped, and there was a long pause as the Dutch considered the situation. Finally, a sergeant-at-arms, manning the city walls, threw his pike toward the seiging army. It landed with a dull thud in the damp autumn soil. The sergeant pointed at the spear. ‘God is not closer to that spot than to this.’
Then the scene descended from the sublime to the bizarre. While the Dutch Catholics resumed their bombardment, the newly evangelised citizens of Danzig began a mass destruction of the city’s iconography. Where in the days before, the city had been scoured for any signs of food, now it was scoured for idolatry. When, two weeks later, Fridrich’s relief army arrived and beat back the Dutch, they found a city in rapturous upheaval. Fridrich compared the sight of the city to Constantine’s dream of the cross, and vowed that all of Bohemia would follow Mark the Silent should the current troubles find a favourable resolution.
In March 1568, cowed by the Miracle of Danzig, the Dutch made peace. Mecklenburg soon followed. In September, while Bohemian armies were finally turning the tide against the Austrians, Lubeck made peace. But on the northern front, Muscowy and Novgorod took the opportunity to invade, facing as they did a wide and empty front. The next year saw peace made with Bremen and Friesland (who had joined the war as a show of solidarity for a few short months). The Teutonic Knights attacked, joined by Wurzburg, then the Italians dove in: Modena, Sicily and Milan.
The Austrians somewhat pacified, Friddrich sent two armies east. Novgorod and Muscowy were easily pacified, and the Bohemian king took Smolensk as compensation for his troubles. In the meantime, Kazan had attacked Muscowy from the east, and were devouring much of what remained of the Russian kingdom.
By now, it had become clear to all involved that the Five Years War was not going to rid Europe of the schismatic states of Bohemia. Indeed, much of the rest of Northern Europe was following into Reformation, and the war against Bohemia was becoming as controversial as it was costly. A pact was agreed in 1570 whereby Bohemia would not seek to convert surrounding lands, but would be free to conduct its own affairs within its borders as King Fridrich saw fit. The princes of Europe at this point still had no idea of what little control they would have in the resolution of the Reformation.
Curiously, the pact agreed the conditions of a future peace, but did not agree to create peace itself. This was principally due to the fact that both Fridrich and the Austrian king each thought they held the advantage in the war, and wanted terms negotiated in a more conventional context. That logic would go on to favour Bohemia, as Austria had able armies, but lacked depth. Fridrich was in the process of a slow victory when his armies returned from the east. Then the attack became an avalanche. Displaying unusual wile, the king asked for no land from Austria. Instead, the pre-eminent state in the empire would become a vassal of Bohemia. What was important to the court in Praha was not the reality of Austrian lands, but rather the gesture of Austrian subordination.
The Five Years War ended in June 1572, and the following month, mirroring Constantine’s example, Fridrich III declared Bohemia an Evangelical state. Perhaps as much as one quarter of the people had converted, but many of those who remained were Orthodox, and would prove an immovable object in the quest for a unified state. At the end of the year, the king passed the Ordinance of Compulsion, requiring everyone throughout Greater Bohemia to attend Evangelical service. The result was a rapid pacification of the outlying lands, as Nicodemism led to a semblance of order.
England, the other major kingdom to convert in the first decade of Reform, cheerily sent envoys to Praha, and an alliance was signed. Bohemia could now count England and Austria as friends. Never before had the western frontier been so secure. In the east, however, the Russian kingdoms were rapidly being overrun by Islamic princes. Trouble there would ensue for generations.
In just ten years, Marek Boleslav, ex-bishop of Leinster, had given rise to one of the most profound changes in European history. From now on, the politics of the small continent would be further complicated by the question of faith.
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Congrats on the vassalisation of Austria, a true jewel in the Bohemian crown. And as you say, worth its weight in far more than territorial acquisition.
As you are about 40 years ahead of me in my own MM game, I can see that interesting times lie ahead on the religious front. However, since I'm Emperor-Elect, I have the nagging doubt that Saxony won't see some of the Reformation events unfold. I have no idea what to expect but the uncertainty is half the fun I suppose.
As you are about 40 years ahead of me in my own MM game, I can see that interesting times lie ahead on the religious front. However, since I'm Emperor-Elect, I have the nagging doubt that Saxony won't see some of the Reformation events unfold. I have no idea what to expect but the uncertainty is half the fun I suppose.
So Isca, you are already dominating all the ledgers, no? (I mean without the penalties for the ultimatum)
It will be interesting to see how the two popes will react to this sudden change in the religious seen. Additionally, in future updates, could you give us some information on the tenants of each of the new Protestant groups? I think that it would be interesting to know the differences and similarities with the real-world counterparts.
Sr. Toledo said:
Do you mean 'tenets', the doctrine of the religions, or do you mean tenants, who occupies those religions? For the latter, I'll be posting screenshots of religion maps at irregular intervals (see final screenshot from last post).
If you mean tenets, then I'm taking a fairly historical lean. That is, Evangelism is the first protestation, and Presbyterianism the second. Presbyterianism is more a reformation of the Reformation. Therefore, what you end up with is Evangelism being more closely related to Catholicism.
I don't plan on going into too much detail in terms of Eucharistic practice, or double predestination, though I suppose there's always the chance that game events may in some way call for discussion of those things. Generally, I try to keep my writing linked directly to in-game events; i.e. when the Protestant Reformation kicked off, Leinster had Marek Boleslav as a court advisor, and likewise Jan Zandwort for Salzburg. There had been a Boleslav advisor in Bohemia from Moravia, so I created the link, and a narrative join them.
My main purpose is to create a story from events which illustrates the features of Magna Mundi. So, if MM tells me to write on doctrine, I will...
The last anti-pope Felix X (a.k.a Amadaeus the pleasant of Savoy) stood down in 1449. There were no anti-popes thereafter. I'm rather surprised to see two popes during the game. Why is there an event and what, as interestingly, are its triggers?
I suppose it makes sense as an alternative to Lutheranism, Calvinism and the Reformation.
I suppose it makes sense as an alternative to Lutheranism, Calvinism and the Reformation.
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It's the result of choices made by the AI and the player that in this mod can result in a schism. I don't think it's the most common result however.
isca said:[...]
My main purpose is to create a story from events which illustrates the features of Magna Mundi. So, if MM tells me to write on doctrine, I will...
:wacko:
Even then, do as you please. Your writtings are always first class!