Nor did
the series of wars materially affect the strength or extent of the
religions implicated. It was prior to 1570 that the Protestant Revolt
had been effected and the Catholic Reformation achieved.
[Sidenote: Geographical Extent of the Revolt]
In the year 1500, the Roman Catholic Church embraced central and
western Europe; in the year 1600 nearly half of its former subjects--
those throughout northern Europe--no longer recognized its authority or
practiced its beliefs. There were left to the Roman Catholic Church at
the close of the sixteenth century the Italian states, Spain, Portugal,
most of France, the southern Netherlands, the forest cantons of
Switzerland, the southern Germanies, Austria, Poland, Ireland, large
followings in Bohemia and Hungary, and a straggling unimportant
following in other countries.
Those who rejected the Roman Catholic Church in central and western
Europe were collectively called Protestants, but they were divided into
three major groups. Lutheranism was now the religion of the northern
Germanies and the Scandinavian states of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
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