Radical Protestant Propaganda of the Thirty Years' War

Map of seventeenth-century Hungary 55
Transylvania: Religion and Identity
In the seventeenth century, Hungary and Transylvania formed the largest Calvinist Church in
central Europe. 56 The number of Protestants in Hungarian society reached its height at the
end of the sixteenth century, when about half of the country’s population became Calvinist,
while Calvinist influence within society as a whole was greatest in the opening years of the
seventeenth century. This summit of Calvinist influence was largely due to the Transylvanian
prince István Bocskai, who revolted against Habsburg claims of sovereignty. He cited
Protestant religious liberties and defence of the Hungarian nation to be his reasons for
rebellion, and in doing so he united the nobles, the Hungarian Calvinists and the non-
Hungarian Protestants of the country. This forged an identity for Transylvania in the
seventeenth century, which came to understand itself as fiercely Protestant and anti-
55
Image taken from website: http://www.hunsor.se/transsylvanien/transylvania.htm [accessed
24.1.12].
56
Graeme Murdock, Calvinism on the Frontier 1600-1660. International Calvinism and the Reformed
Church in Hungary and Transylvania (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), p. 291. Henceforth Murdock.
32