The European wars of religion, also known as the wars of the Reformation (and Counter-Reformation) or Reformation wars,[1][2][3][4] were a series of religious wars waged in Central, Western and Northern Europe from 1522 to around 1700[5] following the onset of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation in Europe. Most conflicts ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648),[1] recognising three separate Christian traditions in the Holy Roman Empire: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism (otherwise known as the Reformed tradition). However, some wars of Reformation persisted to around 1700.[5]
The wars were strongly influenced by the religious change of the period and the conflict and rivalry that it produced. Nevertheless, the combatants cannot be neatly categorised by religion, nor were they divided by religion alone, and in most cases religion was only a part of the causes of the wars.
