Riforma cattolica e fragilità giuridica: i decreti del Concilio di Trento e la Boemia

After the overwhelming victory at White Mountain in 1620, the catholic reform seemed to stand in front of a path without obstacles in Bohemia that would have guaranteed its easy success. However, it was not realised in the expected forms and way. To find an explanation, it is worth it examining the causes, starting out obviously from the missing recognising of the decrees of the Council of Trent. Searching for the answer in the first place the study analyse the political and ecclesiastical background putting into context the subject. The bases on which the recatholisation could unfold were put down during the long archiepiscopacy of Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598– 1667), who had studied in Rome and was appointed the archbishop of Prague in 1623, then three years later also cardinal. Given the political situation, when he arrived at Prague the success of the reform seemed guaranteed, but its practical realisation proved to be very problematic in a country in which for instance all of the ecclesiastical benefices were controlled by the nobility. The discussions about the scheme of the new constitution of Bohemia in 1627, demonstrated the existence a significant distance between the nominal and the practical plans. Namely, despite the formulated objections of the ecclesiastics, who were all absent from the final consultations, on 10 May the new constitution of the kingdom was promulgated. Some month later, on the 31th of July Harrach declared in the name of the imperator also the instruction in which it was announced that only the Catholic religion is tolerated in Bohemia. Nevertheless the repeated requests to promulgate the decrees of Trent also in the archdiocese of Bohemia were not fulfilled. The reasons are examined in detail in the study, putting the question: what was in that moment the real normative base that regulated the relations of Church and State? Theoretically, the articles of the Concordat of Vienna (1448) were in effect. But the Hussite wars (1419–1434) destroyed the administrative network of the Catholic church in most of the country, moreover, the archbishoprics of Prague remained vacant for a long time and the disappear of the ecclesiastical order deprived the Church from the active participation of practicing power. The Utraquist Church was officially recognised by the compactata of Basel (1436) that after much hesitation was not ratified by the Holy See. Riforma cattolica e fragilità giuridica 133 Hence, parallel existed two variant of Christianism in Bohemia. Being the archbishoprics see unfilled, ecclesiastical affairs were carried by two consistories, the “superior one” of the catholic priests and the “inferior one” of the utraquist priests. The archiepiscopal see was finally filled in 1561. Then the Roman Curia thought it was the right moment to put an end to the schism. After many delay on the request of the nuncio an exhortatory breve was sent to the archbishop and a synod was convoked in 1605 where the decrees of Trent were recognized. Rome thought that the question was solved this way, but even in 1629 the decrees of the Council of Trent did not have a normative value as they were accepted only by the Church and not by the political orders. The study ends by drawing the conclusions, according to which: one of the causes of the slowness of the recatholisation seems to be in the fact that the rulers always wanted to be their power more and more centralised. Right in this moment the Church in Bohemia returned to a fundamentally medieval picture of the representation of its own role. In reality between the symbolic and practical aspects there was a deep gap. Therefore it seems possible to confirm that the absence of valid and common juridical norms contributed to the impede of the progression and realisation of a univocal and common reconquist plan.