The principle of cuius regio, eius religio

The Edict of Nantes is symbolic of the ongoing process of political ordering in Europe in this time period. It represents, in other words, the making of European states that we may recognize today. As discussed in the chapter Political Order: From Coercion to Constitution, European monarchies extended their political influence through the building of a legal and fiscal order. By 1500, major European kingdoms had developed governing capacities to finance naval expeditions across the globe, which prepared the ground for colonial settlements in the Americas, Asia, and coastal areas of Africa. Despite such political success, core aspects of the European model of statehood (what states are, what states should do) remained unresolved. Did a political territory require religious order? Was it the duty of rulers to enforce religious uniformity on their subjects? Did rulers have the right to change their territory’s religion? By the end of the 1500s, controversies over religious order intersected with another unresolved aspect of European statehood: constitutional order. Did monarchs have not only their traditional right to defend existing customs and law, but to change them? Did assemblies, the consent of which were usually required to raise new taxes, share legislative powers with executives, or would monarchies develop absolutist forms of rule? Reaching settlements on these questions entailed two centuries of (often violent) conflict.