AUGSBURG (Augusta), Diocese of. - The diocese of A., the most important center of Bavaria after Munich, comprises the southwestern part of this region, with 1,200,000 inhabitants, of whom 997,161 are Catholics. It has 992 parishes, 1,401 diocesan priests and 253 religious.
I. HISTORY
In 15 B.C. the military colony of A. Vindelicorum was founded by the Romans. Around it grew up a city, the capital of the Roman province of Raetia Secunda. Toward the end of the 4th century a Christian community certainly existed there, probably with a bishop. Some names of Augsburg bishops of the 7th century are known, but the series is complete beginning with the 9th century. The see of A. originally depended on Aquileia, then on Mainz. The bishop became, like almost all the bishops and abbots of Germany, an imperial feudal prince, with his own territory, sovereign rights and temporal government. In 955 Otto the Great freed the city, of which the famous St. Ulrich was then bishop, from the siege of the Magyars, and defeated them definitively; from that time the Magyars ceased to invade central and southern Europe. The city then grew rapidly as a result of commercial exchanges, especially with Venice; after harsh struggles with its own bishops, in 1276 it obtained the status of free imperial city (Freie Reichsstadt). During the 15th and 16th centuries it rose to the height of splendor and wealth. The Fugger family is very famous, among the most powerful bankers of their time, in relations with popes and emperors who were their debtors. Meanwhile the bishops had chosen the city of Dillingen as their residence.
A. lost much of its importance during the terrors of the Thirty Years' War. The city first adhered to the Reformation, and it was here that in 1530 the famous confessio augustana was presented to the imperial diet (v. CONFESSIONI DI FEDE); here Charles V in 1548 issued the so-called Interim (v. below); here too was concluded, in 1555, the Augsburg pacification, by which German Protestantism received full state recognition. The temporal domains of the bishops were ceded to Bavaria in 1803, and the city itself in 1805.
Bavaria, in 1820, proceeded, in agreement with the Holy See, to a complete reorganization of its ecclesiastical circumscriptions; and it was then that the present diocese of A. was constituted, in part with new territories, while it ceded others to various neighboring dioceses.
It should further be noted that the ancient diocese, which, besides the territories of the bishop's temporal domain, also comprised territories of many other small states, counted in the Middle Ages more than a thousand parishes; but during the Reformation many of these sovereigns changed religion, and, with them, according to the law cuius regio, illius et religio, their subjects too had to change faith. The bishops' own territories naturally remained firm in the ancestral religion; in 1559 at Dillingen the famous Academy was founded, directed by Jesuits, a center of Catholic faith. Until the Tridentine era not a few particular rites still survived in the diocese; but from 1597 onward the Roman rite prevailed, with certain Augsburg usages, preserved to this day.
The glory of A. is St. Ulrich, bishop from 973, the first saint "canonized," as it is usually asserted (993). In the Middle Ages mention is due to Count Hartmann of Dillingen (1248-86), the Mehrer des Stiftes, that is, the one who enlarged and consolidated the sovereign territory; and in the era of the Reformation to Card. Otto Truchess of Waldburg (1543-73), thanks to whom Catholicism regained the upper hand in the city.
II. ART AND CULTURE
1. Abbeys and monasteries
Of the monasteries and convents, for the most part very ancient, of the diocese of A., not a few go back beyond the year 1000; thus the Domstift, that is, the canonical chapter of the Cathedral; then, in the same city, St. Ulrich and St. Stephen; famous are the Benedictine monasteries of Wessobrunn, Kaufbeuren, Ottobeuren, Benediktbeuren, and Füssen, not to mention many others. The reform of Hirsau had great success there. The Dominicans and Franciscans also founded convents in the city. The Franciscan Third Order flourished, which in medieval Germany had enormous importance as a universal brotherhood; especially the female branch could soon count in its Regelhäuser an enormous number of sisters. Let us note those of Augsburg, Dillingen and Kaufbeuren.
At the time of the Reformation the Jesuits and Capuchins played a preponderant part in the assiduous and fruitful work of the Catholic reform in those regions. Today all the great Orders are represented in the diocese: notable especially is the reflowering of the Benedictines, who throughout Bavaria have been able to reacquire and reopen a good number of ancient abbeys. The number of female congregations is imposing.
2. Institutes of culture, libraries, archives
From the time of St. Peter Canisius, who for 7 years was preacher in the cathedral of Augsburg, there existed in the city a famous Jesuit college, owed to the liberality of the Fuggers. Even more renowned was the Academy of Dillingen, founded by Card. Truchsess and entrusted to the same Jesuits, later elevated (1606) to the rank of university. The philosophical-theological Academy is modern.
3. Monuments
The cathedral, St. Mary, with 5 naves, of pre-Romanesque origin (8th century), with Romanesque parts, Gothic transformations and enlargements, was restored and reduced to its present state, according to the neo-Gothic taste of the second half of the last century. Worthy of note are the church of St. Ulrich; the ancient cemetery church of St. Afra, now in grandiose late Gothic forms; St. Anna, of 1321, with the tombs of the Fuggers in Renaissance style. Famous is the Town Hall, by Elias Holl (1615-20), and the Fuggerei, the first example of a colony of family houses (1519).
Bibliography6 works
Giuseppe Löw
III. COUNCILS OF AUGSBURG
An important council took place in A. on 7 Aug. 952, in the presence of prominent ecclesiastical figures, presided over by Frederick, archbishop of Mainz. The initiative was due to King Otto, who with his retinue attended the closing of the sessions and promised to have the decisions promulgated by the Fathers carried out. The first of the canons issued forbade clerics who had received the major Orders to contract marriage, under penalty of deposition. Renewing an old prohibition, the fourth canon forbade the same men to keep in their house a "mulier subintroduca." The fifth forbade monks to leave their monastery without the abbot's permission. In general, monasteries remained under the authority of the diocesan bishop, who was to leave his clerics full freedom to embrace the monastic life. An equal freedom was recognized for virgins consecrated to God.
On 27 Oct. 1062 Anno, bishop of Cologne, convoked another synod in A. A decision had to be made for Pope Alexander II or for the antipope Cadalus. St. Peter Damian declared that the cause of Alexander II had to be defended, and he read out the pamphlet entitled Disceptatio synodalis inter regis advocatum et romanae Ecclesiae defensorem, which is a dialogue between a representative of the Roman Church (in this case: St. Peter Damian) and an advocate of the rights of the crown of Germany. According to the holy Doctor, Cadalus would have been condemned and deposed by all the German and Italian bishops assembled around the young King Henry IV.
On 12 Nov. 1548, under the pontificate of Paul III, the bishop of A., Cardinal Otto of Truchsess, convened a Synod that lasted three days, in which 33 canons were promulgated, dealing for the most part with pastoral duties.
Finally, mention should be made of the diocesan Synod of 1567, whose statutes insist on the profession of faith as the Roman Church teaches it, and deal in particular with divine worship and the Sacraments.
Bibliography6 works
Romualdo Souarn
IV. INTERIM OF AUGSBURG
This name is customarily used to designate the pacification agreement concluded between Catholics and Protestants under the auspices of Emperor Charles V in 1548. It was called
"interim" because it was a provisional agreement, which was to remain in force only until the conclusion of the works of the general council, already begun at Trent in 1545.
Charles V, after the victory of Mühlberg (1547) over the Protestant league of Schmalkalden, with the aim of restoring religious peace to his peoples, divided by the new doctrines which, spreading more each day, had split Germany into two bitterly opposed camps, invited Julius Pflug, bishop of Naumburg, Michael Helding, coadjutor bishop of Mainz, and the famous Carmelite Eberhard Billick, on the Catholic side, and Johann Agricola, preacher of the court of Brandenburg, on the dissident side, to meet in order to concert a draft formula that would ensure for both sides a peaceful coexistence within his states. The four met, discussed and compiled a text consisting of 26 articles, divided into two parts. In the first, of a dogmatic character, which was to satisfy the Catholics, were contained the doctrines concerning the Pope, the hierarchy, justification, the Sacraments and monastic vows, expounded in a veiledly Catholic sense, in terms deliberately vague and imprecise; for example, the Mass was called a "commemorative sacrifice" (not an expiatory one); and no mention at all was made of purgatory. In the second part, of a disciplinary character, which was meant to satisfy the Protestants, marriage was permitted to ecclesiastics, Communion was granted to the laity "sub utraque specie," and the usurpations of property perpetrated to the detriment of the Church were passed over in silence.
(properly Dagenhart)
Charles V accepted the formula, despite the disapproval of the pontifical representatives, and promulgated it on 15 May 1548, at the Diet of A., imposing its observance. As was easy to foresee, it satisfied no one: it displeased the Catholics, who asked by virtue of what principle the emperor arrogated to himself the authority to dispense from celibacy, and it disgusted the Protestants, who did not want to hear talk of either pope or hierarchy or Sacraments. Magdeburg, a Protestant stronghold, minted coins bearing the inscription: Interim, vade retro, Satana, took up arms and resisted for ten months Prince Maurice, whom Charles, after Mühlberg, had named, although a Lutheran, Elector of Saxony. Neglected by the Catholics and opposed by the Protestants, the "Interim" of A. did not achieve its purpose; instead of bringing pacification, it embittered the discords.