The fourth article will briefly recount the history of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars against Islam, before the last article in the series examines the end of the era of wars of religion. 1 The next article will consider what conclusions and lessons can be drawn from the narrative that follows.
This second in a five-part series of articles on Europe’s wars of religion tells the story of the confessional wars in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christendom. The division between Protestant and Catholic caused or intensified numerous conflicts, resulting in some of the longest lasting, bloodiest, and most bitterly contested and destructive wars in history. Starting in the 1520s international relations between the rising European states were dominated by conflicts that were primarily or significantly religious in character: wars in central and southern Europe, between Christians and Muslims and, in central and northwestern Europe, confessional wars, the fruit of the Reformation. This article is part two in a four part series. The Reformation and Wars of Religion David J.
