Question

How did religious wars reshape Europe from the mid-sixteenth century through the seventeenth century?

Answer 1

The conflicts between Protestants and Catholics that challenged the established political order, such as King Philip's militant Catholicism and Henry IV and the French Wars of Religion; population decline and rising social tensions; the Thirty Years' War; the Peace of Westphalia that gave Sweden, France, and their allies new territories and divided the Holy Roman Empire into more than 300 independent states.