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The Peace of Augsburg. 1555 CE. Selections.
In order to bring peace into the holy empire of the Germanic Nation, between the Roman Imperial Majesty and the Electors, Princes, and Estates: let neither his Imperial Majesty nor the Electors, Princes, etc., do any violence or harm to any estate of the Empire on account of the Augsburg Confession [a document of Lutheran doctrine], but let them enjoy their religious belief, liturgy and ceremonies as well as their estates and other rights and privileges in peace; and complete religious peace shall be obtained only by Christian means of amity, or under threat of the imperial ban.
Likewise the Estates espousing the Augsburg Confession shall let all the Estates and Princes who cling to the old religion [Catholicism] live in absolute peace and in the enjoyment of all their estates, rights and privileges.
However all such as do not belong to the two above-mentioned religions shall not be included in the present peace but be totally excluded from it....
Where an archbishop, bishop, or prelate or any other priest of our old religion shall abandon the same, his archbishopric, bishopric, prelacy, and other benefices, together with all their income and revenues which he has so far possessed, shall be abandoned by him without any further objection or delay. The chapters and such as are entitled to it by common law or the custom of the place shall elect a person espousing the old religion, who may enter on the possession and enjoyment of all the rights and incomes of the place without any further hindrance and without prejudging any ultimate amicable settlement of religion....
In case our subjects, whether belonging to the old religion or to the Augsburg Confession, should intend leaving their homes, with their wives and children, in order to settle in another place [a region of their own religion], they shall neither be hindered in the sale of their estates after due payment of the local taxes nor injured in their honor....
