Talk:Cuius regio, eius religio

Corrections

"neither the Reformed nor Radical churches (Anabaptists and Calvinists being the prime examples)" - these are out of order - the Calvinists were Reformed and the Anabaptists were Radical. I'm switching the order so they match.

Removed:

In Visigothic Spain, for instance, the Arianism of the rulers was expected to be enforced upon their subjects, as a matter of course.

The Visigoths were Arian but their Hispano-Roman subjects were Catholic. -- Error 04:28, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Indeed. And the Visigothic bishops and the public version of Christianity in Visigothic Spain was consequently Arian, was it not? That's what cuius regio eius religio entails.Wetman 04:35, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The ruling Visigoths had their custom law and the Arian church for themselves, while the Hispano-Romans kept the Roman law and the Catholic church. But all of them were subjects of the Arian Visigoth king (until the mass conversion with Recaredus (?). That is not what I understand under c.r.e.r. Or am I wrong? -- Error 04:51, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The point is that cuius regio is the principle under which the popular religion (even paganism, under Christian emperors) is suppressed. Even when the Arian Visigoths stopped exiling Catholic bishops, the repression continued, even at the highest social levels.This gives better Visigothic background than I could: " while there is no record of an actual persecution of the Spanish Catholics by the Arian rulers except for the brief period from 583 to 585 during the reign of Leovigild, there was constant friction between the Catholics and the Arians. Thus Amalaric (507-531) treated his queen, Clotilda, so cruelly because of her Catholic religion that he provoked a war with her brother, the Frankish ruler, Childibert I. Agila (549-5 54)" Isn't that the principle at work?  ;) Wetman 05:41, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I understand that Clotilda was treated as a Visigoth since she married one. But since the Lex Romana Visigothorum (I skimmed your URL) respects the Catholic church and there were differences among kings, I think that the pre-conversion Visigoths are a bad example. But the mass conversion to Catholicism induced (forced?) by the king could be one. Are we actually discussing the meaning of the principle or the facts about the Visigoth rule (which I don't really master)? -- Error 01:29, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

We're probably unwise to extend the principle back in time, or away from the H.R.E. anyway. But the principle is not one of toleration but of sovreignty. The Prince decides. His suzerain cannot impose. That's what should come across in the entry. We agree on that, don't we? Wetman 16:00, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Still today

I read somewhere that today (or before WWII) you could find that the church tax maps still follow the old imperial fiefs. -- Error 02:02, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

"State sovereignty, considered absolute and unquestioned until after World War I, was undeniably eroded in the later 20th century."

Uh, what? English Civil War, Glorious Revolution, anyone? Deleting this nonsense. --Cruci 23:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Last two paragraphs

• There are two lines in the last two paragraphs that I think could use a little more context and or clarification. 1) "The disaffection of the population was a factor." I have heard that strife between Arians and Catholics was alive and well in Spain at this time, but could someone please elaborate on this statement? 2) "there was little loyalty to the emperor in Constantinople, partly because of recent controversies over the nature of Christ." Please elaborate. I know there are existing Wiki pages dealing with this issue, so a short sentence and an appropriate link should be all this needs for clarification.--Hraefen 15:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Nope, in 711 the Visigothic Kingdom was officially a Catholic kingdom, since the convertion of Reccared I in 587. But the strife still existed within the kingdom against king Roderick. --85.48.96.96 17:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Could we include pronunciation guides to this phrase?

By the way, I am glad this article was here. I was reading a document on-line that used this phrase but did not provide any background or translation. Thank you, Wikipedia community. - Bounton 03:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

British Context

This could do with being placed in a British context considering how relevant it is to both the Henrician Schism and later Glorious Revolution - the embodiment of, and rejection of, this phrase respectively. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.136.12 (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Odd sentence

The first sentence after the table of contents reads:

In the Protestant Reformation, the old testimony was granted new life.

What, perchance, does this sentence mean? I was going to delete it, but then it occurred to me that in some dialect of English it might perhaps make sense. I'm from America, and it doesn't make any sense in my language. (Unless "the old testimony" means "the true, original unblemished form of Christianity". If that's what it means, then I do understand the sentence. But in that case, this sentence is POV and irrelevant to this article.)

no, it doesn't make sense in any dialect of English I'm familiar with. It is utter nonsense. Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I was going to delete it, but it has been on this page since 7 Sept 2008, and many editors have revised the page since then, so the fact that this sentence has not been altered makes me think maybe that it does mean something to those editors. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Update: Looking at the revision history, I see that this sentence was altered twice yesterday, and the changes were reverted both times. Why not just delete this sentence instead of revising it? After all, this Wikipedia topic is presumably about the phrase "cuius regio, eius religio", not about all the times in history that rulers chose or affected the religions of their subjects. Unless someone can show that this phrase existed before the religious conflicts in the HRE in the 16th century, then the page should begin with them. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

While we're at it: What does the following paragraph mean?

Cuius regio, eius religio went against earlier Catholic teaching which held that the kings should faithfully obey to the pope. This papal obedience was thought to produce greater fruits and less political infighting and church divisions.

Leaving aside the grammatical errors ("obey to", and also "papal obedience", which would mean the pope obeying someone else), I don't understand what the author is trying to say. Moreover, I don't believe that Catholic teaching ever stated that non-Catholic kings should obey the pope, so what's the relevance here? — Lawrence King ^(talk) 06:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I do believe that Catholic teaching stated and, actually, still states that heathen kings should convert, get baptized and obey the Pope then (though the obedience, today, is more precised and, as to acting in office, "restricted" to moral precepts in so far as they afflict legislation, which then-again is quite a wide field still).--84.154.64.49 (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

meaning

The so-called translation or meaning isn't proper English. It needs to be longer and explicit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.140.57.113 (talk) 16:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

My edit of September 9, 2009

I changed the introduction sentence. The sentence "cuius regio eius religio" does historically not indicate that the king's religion is the country's religion. The king's religion was the country's religion throughout the Middle Ages while this sentence was not formulated. "Cuius regio eius religio" comes from the 16th century and in this sense never means the king (i. e. the Emperor and king), but the territorial princes. Although there was no general unanimity as to whether a layman could have any (undoubtedly limited) influence in religious questions, it was clear that if so, this would belong to the king alone. Therefore, Luther would quite willingly have attributed supreme religious authority to Emperor Charles V if, little problem, Emperor Charles had given Luther's opinions supreme authority. Emperor Charles, however, was quite content in staying Catholic (and this even if he can by some reason be called an enemy of the Pope as a secular power). And here Luther referred to some territorial princes he could convince - and territorial princes were not kings and had only an authority deduced from the king and it was exactly the attribution of this decision in religious matters to territorial princes that is meant by "cuius regio, eius religio". --84.154.64.49 (talk) 14:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it's a good start, but the entire article needs a serious rewrite. First, there is little sense here of the context out of which this principle emerged, and how it was a radical divergence from previous principles of religious unity. Second, there are a whole raft of problems associated with this article, the least of which lie in the first section. That nonsense at the end about The visogoths is bogus. I wish the original editors would show me in some bona fide text where this principle was applied? I'm tempted to delete that last sections, but, in the wiki-spirit, have not done so. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Verification and OR?

Questionable statement: "The principle was re-applied under the absolute monarchy of divine right of the French "sun king" Louis XIV, and in neighboring monarchies, and was used to restrain the rights of Protestants, although Protestants were themselves the originators of this political principle. Later on, dissatisfaction with "cuius regio" led to the general spread of pluralism across Europe."

Louis adopted this principle? Indeed? show me the money, please (show me the cite). Louis did what he thought necessary to secure his kingdom and his own place in the sun, and the jurists simply had to keep up. I'm not aware that Louis had anything remotely to do with such a principle.

Questionable paragraph re the Visigoths, Arians, Muslims, etc. As far as the Muslims were concerned, when they overran the Iberian peninsula, the Christians and the Jews were peoples of the book. They could continue to practice their specific religion. The pagans, on the other hand, were not peoples of the book, and were required to convert to Islam or be executed. This is not Cuius regio, eius religio.

Finally, this page starts with a mistranslation, and then proceeds, error upon error, to built an entirely confounding article. How can this help whoever stumbles across it looking for illumination!

I'm going to revisit this page in a week, and if there are no citations documenting these extraordinary statements, I'm going to delete the sections. Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I deleted the questionable sections: this principle has nothing to do with Visigoths and Muslims, for example. It needs a major rewrite, which I don't have time to do right now. Perhaps someone will attempt this, and I'd be happy to review it if that is desired. I've added a couple of paragraphs from an article I wrote, but these are in another context, so it doesn't flow well. Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:17, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Principle versus expression of it

This is my first attempt at contribution, so forgive mistakes in process. I notice an apparent contradiction here: the article says that the phrase cuius regio, eius religio "was was coined in 1582 by the legist Joachim Stephani", yet it was central to the treaty of Augsburg in 1555. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AeolusSpring (talk • contribs) 14:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible that "cuius regio, eius religio" was expressed differently in the wording of the Treaty, and that only later did Stephani craft the phrase by which we know it? The assertion that Stephani was the originator seems well-sourced, but I don't have that particular book at hand. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:09, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I tried to fix a lot of problems but they got deleted from here

This thing is like a history book