The Viennese Court and the 1674 trial against Protestant clergymen in Hungary

Abstract

This article examines the background to the galley trial of 1674 with a particular focus on the anti-Protestant chamber and church proposal package, which was drawn up in Kassa in February 1673, and its reception in Vienna. Using new sources, the author reconstructs the political and religious preparations for the trial and shows that the plan to expel the preachers was not a purely ecclesiastical initiative, but found broad support in the city, among the monks and in the chambers. After an initially moderate reaction from the Viennese court, the action against the Protestants at the end of 1673 was closely linked to the political control of the anti-Habsburg uprising.

The immediate background of the trial culminated in the Vienna Conference at the end of 1673, which paved the way for the extraordinary trial in Bratislava, and in the negotiations of 1673 in Kassa, which are well known through the research of László Benczédi. The analysis of the state sources shows how religious intolerance and political centralisation were interwoven in the proceedings against the Protestant congregations and their pastors.