Question

How did religious differences lead to conflicts in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries

Answer 1

In the 16th, 17th and early 18th century there was a series of religious wars in Europe known as the European wars of religion. Such wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe and were fought after the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which was a division in Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther and continued by Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and other Protestant Reformers in 1517.

Even though religion was given as the reason for such wars, there were many other reasons such as land, economics, political power, natural resources, and more. These wars of religions included the Farmers' War of 1525 in the Holy Roman Empire, the Schmalkaldic War of the 1540s, the ongoing fight between the Holy Roman Empire and the Turks, the Reconquista of the Spanish versus Muslims, the Hussite rebellion, and missionaries and conquistadors versus Native Americans.

Answer 2

The Protestant Reformation's started in 1517, disturbing the religious and political order in Europe´s Catholic countries. The outcome was the European wars of religion prosecuted in Europe in the 16th, 17th and part of the 18th century. Nonetheless, uprisings, territorial disputes, and Great Power conflicts were also causes of the wars.