Recess of the Diet of Speyer (1526)
The closing decree of the imperial diet held at Speyer in 1526. Its article on religion left each ruler to act on the Edict of Worms as he could answer to God and the emperor.
A recess was the document in which an imperial diet recorded what it had agreed. That of 1526 says that the electors, princes and estates have unanimously resolved, until a general council or national assembly meets, that in the matters touched by the Edict of Worms each will “so live, govern, and carry himself as he hopes and trusts to answer it to God and His Imperial Majesty”.
The sentence does not grant freedom of religion or mention reform. The evangelical princes read it as leaving the ordering of their churches to them; the emperor’s proposition to the next diet at Speyer complains that it had been expounded at every man’s pleasure. Kidd prints this one article.
Cited in
- 19 April 1529, firm date