Gottesfreistaat (Chaos)

Gottesfreistaat (German for "God's free state" or "divine republic" - another kind of theocracy) is the name for a state form that existed for some time in.

There had been predecessors in spirit, like in, the "beggar's republic" of , and the theocracy of , all being states without kings (or at least, hereditary kings) and aiming at more justice and equality and a reformation of the church.

The HRE had suffered under religiously motivated unrests since 1466, when returning pilgrims brought news about the. Many sects believed that the end of the world was near (the date of 1500 was most often mentioned). At first the war gave them hope that could be eventually reconquered, but when - gave up Rome in 1472, they became desperate. Unrest spread. At the same time, the growing riches (and corruption) of the church (which ruled many territories in Germany) and the growing power of the princes made some people wonder about secularization of said territories.

When king secularized and annexed the bistums of Augsburg and Trient for his lands in 1475, the HRE fell into a kind of Civil War. All the princes tried to annex the clerical lands, which lead to lots of confusion and little wars for said lands, which are subsumed as the.

In the same year, in the bisthums of and, millenialist sects took the power, declared the Gottesfreistaat. The latter ones even managed to extend their lands during the chaos of the war, deposing some small princes of NW Germany.

And to make the situation even worse, there were peasant uprisings (mostly in western Germany) who felt suppressed by the nobles. Those who couldn't flee to the territories of the Gottesfreistaaten where they were let in if they only swore to obey God's laws, were brutally suppressed.

During the reforms of the HRE 1500-08, the Gottesfreistaaten of Münster and Würzburg were put into Reichsacht (means: everyone may kill their people and take their lands). The end came in 1545 for Würzburg, when Burgrave Johann von Hohenzollern of Ansbach and Bayreuth defeated and annexed it, thus forming the duchy of. And Münster was first weakened in 1582 by (with French support) and completely conquered by the same during 1676-79.