Talk:European wars of religion

These wars were the birth pangs of the Modern state, not the results of religious violence
This article is terribly misnamed. Current scholarship finds the idea that the wars of this period were primarily motivated by religion both laughable and an embarrassing narrative used for centuries now to justify the ever-growing claims to authority and demands of obedience by the centralized state. See especially Thomas Cavanaugh on the question; for example, “'A Fire Strong Enough To Consume The House': The Wars of Religion & The Rise of the State" at . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.211.131.228 (talk) 21:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This is an important comment and should not be ignored. The scholar s/he refers to is named William T. Cavanaugh; "A Fire Strong Enough To Consume the House" is an article that was later integrated into the first chapter of an entire book on the topic: "The Myth of Religious Violence."

Also important, I believe, would be the inclusion of Edward Hyde and James Harrington's perspectives. Both were 17th century contemporaries of Hobbes, but argued for the economic and legal causes of the violence of the era, anticipating in some ways the Marxist historiography of Europe's 16th and 17th century. On that, Perry Anderson would be of use.


 * There is also an article, for instance, that deals with the "First Sacred War", which the article says was from 595 BC-585 BC in Greece. The article says the motivation for war was the protection of a religious site. --Concerned — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.216.93 (talk) 10:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

"Current scholarship finds..." and then the anonymous contributor quotes a single book, written by a theologian, which got mixed reviews. Naturally the European wars of religion are a bit of an embarrassment to Christians now, and they would dearly like to do a bit of discreet relabeling. It will take more than Cavanaugh's book to change the perspective of scholarship. Campolongo (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Thirty year's war
The sentence in the infobox : " his firm Catholicism was the proximate cause of the the war " should be removed to maintain NPOV of this article. This sentence is blaming the Catholic faith for the outbreak of the Thirty year's war.


 * I have neutralised the picture description. Xandar (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Catholic involvement?
The lead has this sentence "This article deals with Catholic involvement in these conflicts."

What is the function of this sentence? Does it mean that only conflicts in which Catholics were involved are within the scope of the article? I would just delete this sentence completely as I don't understand what purpose it serves.

--Richard (talk) 20:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have replaced the sentence. I think it came from a period when this article was more catholic-specific than it is now.  Xan  dar  23:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The section on France repeats much from the original article - consider a rewrite to deal specifically with Catholic involvement or reducing the repetition by removing most of this section??? —Preceding comment added by Dragonfang88 (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC) (talk) 16:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I still don't understand the "Catholic involvement" bit. Were there any religious wars in France that didn't involve Catholics?  We should not focus on Catholics.  The Church of England also waged war on Protestants.


 * That said, I'm OK with summarizing sections in this article such as the one on France so as not to duplicate the detail of the entire main article.


 * --Richard (talk) 17:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, sorry, I was thinking 'Catholic involvement' because it's still headed as that on the link from the French Wars of Religion page, have changed that now to its current title of 'European wars of religion'. Though I think you'd have a hard time finding a religious war in France that doesn't consist of Catholics vs. X insert religion here X, them being the majority and all. Dragonfang88 (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Schmalkaldic wars
In this section, the article text reads "Lutherans could keep the territory that they had captured from the Catholic Church " I'm concerned about the phrase "from the Catholic Church". Is this accurate? Was the territory formerly belonging to "the Catholic Church"? Or to the Holy Roman Empire? This is not an area of expertise for me but it just sounded wrong to me so I figured I'd ask. --Richard S (talk) 06:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

More references needed!
It's incredible that such a large article has so few sources. I'll contribute a bit, but for the most part the original authors have been lazy to provide evidence for what they wrote. The current B-class status is undeserved. I'll put references templates where necessary to point this out. English Wikipedia has higher standards than this. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:58, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Onnekink and his publisher are happy to describe his views on the religious element in wars not usually so described as revisionist/outside the mainstream. I don't think his views should be the sole reference, especially for intra-Catholic and intra-Protestant wars. Johnbod (talk) 02:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Necrometrics is a blog/website not a RS
The references in Death Toll point to Necrometrics which is a blog/website not a WP:RS NBeale (talk) 10:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Treaty of Baden
In this article it is said that the peace/treaty of Baden was signed on June 16, 1718. However, in the article on the Treaty of Baden itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Baden_(1714) to which this article refers, it is said that the "treaty was signed on 7 September 1714 in Baden, Switzerland".

So what is the correct date? 2A02:A449:DFE:1:5DB6:E22:1EFE:39D4 (talk) 20:36, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * According to this Latin/German 1726 reprint of the Treaty of Baden, p. 371, it was die 7. Sept 1714 / den 7. Sept. 1714. No other source I can find cites 16 June 1718, and that date doesn't make any sense within the wider context of the Peace of Utrecht. I'll change it, thanks. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Whig "history"
This whole concept of "wars of religion" is almost certainly an invention of Enlightenment polemicists well after the fact. Just purely in terms of causality, the Reformation followed state-building, and not the other way around. To say nothing of all the side switching and Protestant-Catholic alliances during the period, or the fact that it took 3 decades after the Reformation began for any religious conflict to start, and even then there wasn't a clear and obvious division between Protestants and Catholics. Jonathan f1 (talk) 01:13, 24 February 2023 (UTC)