Final answer:
From 1450 to 1750, religious legitimacy was a fundamental aspect of political authority in land-based empires. Leaders used religion to justify their power and maintain social order, often integrating with the prevailing religious structures or forming new ones to boost their political standing.
Step-by-step explanation:
During the period of land-based empires from 1450 to 1750, religion was used to legitimize political authority in various ways. Most systems in Europe after the Roman Empire were monarchies that embraced Christianity as a means to justify their rule. As seen in the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian city-states, and emerging nation-states like France and Spain, the power of rulers was often established or enhanced through their relationship with the church.
Empire rulers such as the Byzantine emperors, and the leaders of the Sasanian Empire or the Aksumites, fused statecraft with religious policy and imagery. This connection conveyed the idea that their rule was sanctioned by divine power.
In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, which questioned the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, secular rulers found new ways to assert their legitimacy, sometimes by forming national churches or supporting emerging denominations that empowered their political position.
The philosopher Karl Marx later critiqued this intertwining of religion and state, viewing religion as a tool to perpetuate class structures by creating an illusion of happiness that distracted from the pursuit of social and economic reforms. Similarly, the conversion of Germanic kings to Catholic Christianity and their use of bishops and monasteries played a role in both stabilizing their rule and integrating with their subjects.