Gebhard II. and The Counterreformation In the Lower Rhinelands

GEBHARD II. AND THE COUNTERREFORMATION IN THE LOWER RHINELANDS.

Protestants in the Lower Rhine Lands (�1).
Bavarian Intrigues in Lower Germany (� 2).
Gebhard II (� 3).
Gebhard's Downfall (� 4).
Progress of the Counterreformation (� 5).

1. Protestants in the Lower Rhine Lands.

The Reformation nowhere completely permeated the Lower Rhenish districts. Small congregations, it is true, struggled here and there for a modest existence, and a part of the nobility appeared to incline toward the new doctrines; but the new movement was not supported by the towns. In both of the most powerful imperial cities of these regions, Cologne and Aachen, the Roman preponderance in councils and civic life remained un impaired. But from 1570 onward, the disturbances in the Netherlands having driven countless refugees into the neighboring districts of the Lower Rhine, quite a number of Reformed congregations became estab lished in the duchy of Juliers and Cleves, and in the electorate and city of Cologne. Wesel came to be a center for the new propaganda. At Aachen the Protestants began to contend, after 1574, for the rule of the city. Indeed as early as 1571 there came into effect a firm organization of all these "Netherland ish "congregations, which drew to themselves many of the native Protestants. In spite of sporadic action on the part of the authorities, the congregations were tacitly tolerated, in the main, a contributory factor to this end in the city of Cologne being re gard for mercantile relations with the Netherlands; while at the court of Juliers a Protestant party even endeavored to gain a legislative influence over the infirm and vacillating Duke William IV.

If therefore the Reformation had nowhere gained the supremacy in these districts, and had not even attained to a position of security, nevertheless, toward the dose of the decade 1570-80, Protestants were everywhere to be found, and no Counterref ormation tendency was then active. The Jesuits had begun their activity in Cologne soon after their society was founded, and made that point a center of their missionary and literary enterprises in the rest of Germany; but their efforts in Cologne it self never accomplished anything assured and fruitful. They were thwarted by lack of support from the political authorities; the electors showed no inter in the society, and the city council, the clergy, and the university put obstacles in its course. The victory that was eventually achieved at this place by the Counterreformation was owing to the pressure of alien dynastic interests, and the chief part in this result for the Roman cause was played by Bavarian statecraft.

2. Bavarian Intrigues in Lower Germany.

Duke Albert V. of Bavaria had destined his third son, Ernest (b. 1554), for the clerical vocation; in 1565 he became a canon at Salzburg, and soon afterward at Cologne, Treves, and Würzburg as well; in the autumn of 1565 he likewise became bishop of Freising. Albert's wishes no doubt centered upon the neighboring archdiocese of Salzburg; but in 1569, when Elector Salentin of Cologne incurred difficulties with the curia for non-recognition of the Council of Trent and was con templating resignation, Ernest was pro posed by his father, who had the support of the Spanish government at Brussels, as Salentin's successor. At the imperial diet at Speyer, in 1570, the negotiations with Salentin were so far advanced that Ernest went to Cologne in November, and served his first residence there as canon till May, 1571, such being the preliminary condition in the line of election. Salentin's resignation, however, was deferred, and in 1573 he actually submitted to the Council of Trent, and was thereupon confirmed by the curia as archbishop, foregoing the priestly consecration. In 1577, after the Bavarian court had failed in an attempt to secure Münster for Ernest, efforts looking to Cologne were resumed and prosecuted more zealously than before. Moreover, the support of the curia now heightened the hope of some practical result. Duke Ernest, who for a time, in 1572, had well-nigh thwarted all his father's plans by a suddenly outcropping disinclination to ward the spiritual vocation, was sent to Rome in the spring of 1574, for a sojourn of nearly two years, by way of reward for submitting to his father's will. At Rome he won the particular good-will of the pope, so that Gregory XIII. resolved to support, with all his might, Ernest's installation as coadjutor to Salentin; in fact, the advancement of Bavarian family interests appeared to be the only possible way of recovering a more secure standing for the Roman Catholic Church in Lower Germany. The status which had been gained in 1573 by the election of Ernest as bishop of the small see of Hildes heim could not as yet, by itself alone, afford a very trustworthy base of support.

But against the common plans of Salentin, the curia, and the Bavarian court, opposition manifested itself on the side of the chapter at Cologne; when, in 1577, Salentin resigned, Ernest was defeated, at the new election, by Gebhard Truchsess, who was elected by the Protestants and the lukewarm Catholics of the chapter. Duke Albert, as well as the papal nuncio Portia, protested against the election; but as both the emperor and the electors espoused Gehbard's cause, and as he passed for a good Catholic, receiving priestly consecration in Mar., 1578, and swearing to the Council of Trent, the curia disregarded the Bavarian protest and in Mar., 1580, confirmed the election. By that time Duke Albert had died, and his successor, William

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V., was ready to come to terms. Ernest received some compensation, in 1581, by obtaining the rich diocese of Li�ge.

3. Gebhard II.

Gebbard (b. at the Waldburg, 5 m. e.s.e. of Ravensburg, in Swabia, Nov. 10, 1547; d. at Strasburg May 21, 1601) descended from the old Swabian family of the Truchsesses of Waldburg; his father was Imperial Councilor Wilhelm Truchsess; his uncle, Cardinal Otto of Augsburg. A careful education had fallen to his portion, as even at an early age he was destined for the spir itual vocation. He attended, so the accepted report has it, the universities of Dillingen, Ingolstadt, and (longest) Louvain; then terminated his studies with a sojourn in Italy, 1587. His spiritual career began in 1580 with the acquisition of a prebendary position at Augsburg; in 1561 he became canon at Cologne; capitular at Strasburg in 1567; and capitular at Cologne in 1568, in place of the newly elected elector Salentin. From data of the year 1569 it is known that Gebbard led a scandalous life at Augsburg, and by request of Cardinal Otto, Duke Albert V. interposed with exhortations which appear to have occasioned some improvement. In 1574 Gebhard became dean of the cathedral at Strasburg; in 1576, by papal nomination, provost of the cathedral at Augsburg. At all events, his ecclesiastical behavior must have been clear of suspicious imputations, and the curia was ready to confirm his election as elector of Cologne.

A personal matter drew the elector, some years after his election, into the ecclesiastical strife, and gave new life to the Bavarian hopes. Gebhard, about 1580, had formed a liaison with Countess Agnes of Manafeld, a canoness of the cloister at Gerresheim. Under the insistencies of the dishon ored woman's relatives, Gebhard resolved on marriage. Originally, no doubt, he meant to resign his office and renounce the spiritual career; but the same friends who had been active in securing his election now induced him to retain the archiepiscopal position despite his marriage. After somewhat prolonged, though not, indeed, by any means satisfactory preliminaries, and after formal conclusion thereof in the city of Bonn, which, for that matter, was anything but unanimously in accord with him, the elector publicly announced, in Dec., 1582, and in Jan., 1583, that he licensed the exercise of both confessions in the archdiocese, the old as well as the new; and that he himself intended to adopt the Augsburg Confession, to remain archbishop, and to marry. Gebhard's shortsightedness betrays itself in the fact that on publicly declaring his purpose he still had no assur ance that he had sufficient support in the arch diocese, or that he would receive encouragement from the German Protestants or from Orange and the States-General. Up to that time, only the counts of Wetterau and Palgrave John Casimir had showed themselves ready to help. In case a general Protestant support were lacking-and this was just what happened, thanks to the mistaken policy of Elector Augustus of Saxony-the unsuo cesaful issue of this attempt toward religious freedom was inevitable from the outset.

4. Gebhard's Downfall.

Even before Gebhard had publicly announced his purposes, his adversaries were stirring (from the autumn of 1582); the cathedral chapter at Cologne, opposing on both ecclesiastical and personal grounds the secularization of the archdiocese, devised meas ures of resistance, and formed an alliance with the governor-general of the Netherlands, Alexander of Parma; moreover theter ritorial estates of the diocese declared themselves against Gebhard's project. The most influential member of the chapter, the suffragan bishop, Duke Frederick of Saxe-Lauenburg, even began, on his own responsi bility, open war against the innovation. The city of Cologne arrayed itself against the elector; the Emperor charged him to desist; and the curia instituted canonical procedure against all apostates. In Apr. 1583, Gebhard was excommunicated and deposed from his rank. Bavarian statecraft now began to stir anew, and the curia, no less than Gebhard's antagonists in the chapter at Cologne, accepted Duke Ernest as their sole possible can didate. He had appeared in Cologne at the be ginning of. March, and at the new election, duly appointed under date of May 23, he was unani mously elected archbishop. Ernest and Gebhard now confronted each other as champions of differ ent principles no less than as exponents of personal interests; nor was Gebhard disposed to recede.

Promptly after his election, Ernest, supported by his brother Duke William V., by the Spanish Government at Brussels, and by the curia, collected an army; his elder brother, Duke Ferdinand of Bavaria, was appointed commander-in-chief, in the summer of 1583; and Spanish regiments were furthermore in readiness to cooperate, since it would be a new menace to the shattered Spanish dominion in the Netherlands if the electorate of Cologne fell into Protestant hands. Gebhard's military forces were quite unequal to this opposition.

Among the archdiocesan subjects, only the estates of the duchy of Westphalia had declared in his favor; in the Rhenish districts of the electorate, Gebhard, at the beginning of the war, had only a few secure points in his hand (Bonn, Bedbur, Berk, and Uerdingen); in the southern portion of the diocese, his brother Karl Truchsess fought on his side and in the north his most capable partizan,

Count Adolphus of Neuenar, but both with meager commands. Palgrave John Casimir, to be sure, the sole Protestant prince who attempted to furnish real assistance, marched up to his support with seven thousand men in the summer of 1583; but his army, unfit to begin with, and by no means well handled under his own leadership, was well-nigh ready to disband after two months of fruitless maneuvering on the right bank of the Rhine, and in consequence of a shortage of pay. In October John Casimir was recalled from the seat of war to Heidelberg, to assume the regency on occasion of the death of his brother, Elector Louis. The ban of the Empire, threatened by the emperor, contributed to the collapse of this auxiliary service.

Negotiations with the States-General leading to no result, Gebhard was left to his own resources for facing the much stronger adversary. In spite of

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this, half a year elapsed before the new elector's preponderating power achieved its purpose; first in the archdiocese, then also in Westphalia, one city and one castle after another slowly succumbed. Gebhard sought refuge in the Netherlands, and finally died at Strasburg in 1601. The battle over the electoral dignity and religious freedom was decided from 1584; by admission to the electoral college early in 1585, Ernest won for himself the legal recognition of the Empire.

Gebhard was impelled by no great idea, nor could he claim through virile activity the title to high striving ambition. He meant well, both at the outset as Roman Catholic and later as Protestant, but was wanting in depth and tenacity. His victorious adversary, personally, was not at all his superior. Ernest had pretty nearly the same good and evil traits, and lived a spiritual life just as little as his predecessor; "he is a great sinner, but you must cut your cloth to the figure," was the papal nuncio's remark of him. Again, Ernest's personality was almost indifferent as regards the. result; he was carried to his position by the rising tide of the Counterreformation. Over Gebhard, who stood alone, the, victory was the curia's, Bavaria's, and Spain's.

5. Progress of the Counter-reformation.

Now that the political task was accomplished; the ecclesiastical forces of the Counterreformation began to exert themselves; the Jesuits and the papal nuncios proceeded to invest their field. In the Rhenish districts of the diocese and in Westphalia, Protestantism was combated energetically; by the acquisition of Münster, where Ernest was elected in 1585, and by the induction, under Bavarian influence, of trust worthy Roman Catholics into the episcopal sees of Osnabrück, Paderborn, and Minden, the possibility of a consolidated Roman Catholic Northwestern Germany appeared to be once again in the course of realization. However, the Protestant congregations everywhere struggled obstinately for their existence; in spite of all repression, they continu ally increased in Cologne toward the close of the sixteenth century; while the greatest obstacles to a complete reaction in the electorate at large inhered in the elector's personality. His worldly inclina tions were so little amenable to the desires of the curia that even by 1588 the papal nuncio agitated the plan of a coadjutorship. When the adminis tration and the finances fell into worse and worse decline, and the elector by his ardor for the chase and his worldly dress, his evasion of the command ments of the Church, and his frivolous life caused sharper and sharper vexation, the installation of a coadjutor was prosecuted with earnestness. In Apr., 1595, with the elector's consent, his nephew Duke Ferdinand of Bavaria was elected to that office. The liquidation of accumulated debts was now undertaken, and a visitation, with ecclesiastical reforms, of the entire archdiocese was accomplished.

But even though the electorate of Cologne and the neighboring episcopal provinces were securely annexed once more to the Roman Church, the attempt again to subject to the Roman Church the entire Northwest of Germany did not succeed; for not only did the Netherland provinces, victorious in their battle with Spain, form a strong Protestant counterpoise, but also in the Juliers-Cleves districts, the Protestant congregations maintained themselves notwithstanding limitations; indeed, they continually increased, insomuch that in Cleves and in the Mark they actually held the preponderance, and in 1609, when Brandenburg and Pfalz-Neuburg assumed possession of the territories of the house of Juliers, the time of complete liberty was at hand for them.

Walter Goetz.

Bibliography: L. Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Köln, vol. v., Cologne, 1880; M. Loosen, Der kölnische Krieg. Gotha. 1882; M. Philippson, La Contre-Révolution religieuse au xvi. siécle, Brussels, 1884; L. Keller, Die Gegenreformation in Westfalen, vol. ii., Leipsic, 1887; Unkel, in Historisches Jahrbuch, vols. viii., x., Munich, 1887, 1889; J. Hanson, Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, vol. iii., parts 1-2, Gotha, 1892-94; idem, Rheinische Akten zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens, 16.4.8-88, ib. 1896; G. Wolf, Aus Kurköln in 16. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1905.