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The Peace of Augsburg (1555) was a peace treaty that sought to end the religious struggle in the German lands and in the Holy Roman Empire in the mid-sixteenth century. The Peace of Augsburg was signed by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who was a Catholic and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League. The treaty was an attempt to end the series of religious wars that had destabilized the Holy Roman Empire, which was the largest political entity in Europe at the time. The treat, also known a the Settlement of Augsburg sought to prevent Catholics and Protestants from going to war again and to end religious tensions and violence in the Imperial lands.

===Background===

The Holy Roman Empire was a fragmented collection of largely independent states, of various sizes. The Holy Roman Emperor, who was a member of the House of Hapsburg directly ruled some of the lands but in the rest of the Empire, he was only a ‘nominal head of state’<ref> Hale, JR, Reformation Europe (Pelican, London, 1998), p 134</ref>. The Hapsburg’s the hereditary rulers of Austria were elected Emperor by the major states in the Empire, as a result, it was a very loose federation. It has often been likened to the modern European Union. In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Cathedral in Wittenbenberg. In these, he challenged the authority of the Pope and called for the reform of the Church based on the Bible. This initiated the Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire.

===Religious tensions===

The Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious tension in Germany and in central Europe. There were continued tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Despite the agreement that those who did not share the religion of the prince or ruler should conform or leave the realm, in the treaty many did not. This meant that there were rival groups of Catholics and Protestants living near each other in an uneasy peace. There are many instances of riots and violence between the two groups. The situation was made more complex by the spread of Calvinism in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Many Germans were drawn to the teachings of Calvin and his ideas on the ‘elect’ and ‘predestination’. Several German rulers especially in Brandenburg and the Rhineland tolerated Calvinists. The Calvinists although Protestants were not Lutherans and they were distrusted and even persecuted by Lutheran rulers.