Schmalkaldic League

Schmalkaldic League, alliance of German Protestant states during the Reformation, formed in 1531 for defense against the Catholic Holy Roman emperor Charles V. Member states included Hesse, Saxony, Brunswick, Anhalt, Mansfeld, Magdeburg, Bremen, Strassburg, and Ulm. The Protestants were defeated in 1547 in the War of the Schmalkaldic League, but the subsequent Peace of Augsburg (1555) gave Lutheran churches the right to exist.

See also: Reformation.