Why did Protestants become dominant in some areas, Catholics in others?

What explains the geographic distribution?

Snowniggers and Anglos embraced Pr*testantism out of opportunism; German kings and princes who no longer wanted to fulfill their obligations to the pope and Henry VIII who sent England down the path of heresy because he was pissed off that the pope wouldn't grant him a divorce.

In the case of England, lust.

I'm not kidding.

You also have to consider that many territories that were originally Protestant later turned back to Cathoplicism as the counterreformation picked up steam. Bavaria and Austria used to be mostly protestant, and France had a sizeable protestant minority that was either forced to convert or was driven out of the country.

>What explains the geographic distribution?

People who were in the Roman Catholic Church's good graces would not converted, the opportunists that were not did. It's that simple.

Protestant monarchs converted because it allowed them greater power than staying under the Pope. England, the Nordics, and North Germany all managed to centralize power by establishing the clergy as subordinate to the crown instead of the Pope. A few places, like the PLC and France, saw widespread pushback towards Catholicism after the Council of Trent. As for the regions that never strayed, Italy was still balkanized and right on the Pope's doorstep, and Hispania consolidated power through the Reconquista and the Inquisition.

Lust wasn't the prime motivation but securing his lineage by divorcing his haggard old wife who wouldn't sire him a son.

A better question is why is Protestantism such a shit theology?

tough northerners vs soft southerners

It all comes down to putting too much focus on the temporal over the spiritual. Every major doctrine in Protestant theology serves the end of increasing one's personal power without being a "bad person."

Because it's dull and dire Christianity with less flash and fan fiction to spice it up.

Proximity to Rome seemed to have something to do with it, though there are exceptions like Poland

t.fails religious studies forever

Poland is an exception because there was no significant pressure to convert or conformuntil the Jesuits arrived.

It was born out of the massive clusterfuck that was the HRE. It had zero central government and the states could do whatever the fuck they wanted, so some went Protestant while others stayed Catholic. Then it spread to the Northern parts later.

The Aryan race will always lean towards paganism, protestantism was closest to this.

Luther knew about men wanting to have sex without guilty, priests wanting to get laid and kings wanted to abolish usury laws
He fixed the issue like a good german: spreading destruction
Today in Germany even the turks reject the german woman because their tradition of being cheap prostitutes

Protestantism and Lutheranism revived Christianity in many areas. Place like England, Scotland and Wales had been traditionally Celtic rather than Roman in terms of their Christian understanding of theology. The Pope was not even considered totally legitimate until the early 1000s in Britain. Germany, the British Isles and the Nordic countries had Romanism forced upon them and threw it off after being abused too much in the 15/16th centuries.

The Church Catholick is not Romanism, it is the universal worship of Jesus Christ. Each territory should be allowed to operate with their own episcopal polity and have their own traditions provided they don't go against scripture. Anglicanism is a good example of polity done right. Look at the historical Church of England and the other national churches it help set up--i.e the Anglican Church of Japan and so on.

>Protestantism includes a variety of branches
>Grouping it as one
user I-

The opposite is true. Protestants made up concepts like "sola scriptura" which severely limited their understanding of spirituality while destroying any aspects of Roman Catholicism they deemed "pagan."
I've never found a decent protestant theology. Is this saying Protestantism as no redeeming aspects? No. Some of it's principals are good, even if they are misused. Likewise it's tangible manifestation isn't always bad. However as a whole Protestant theology is trash-tier.

In the majority of the HRE, the possibility of seizing church lands and of holding suzerainity over the church attracted a lot of princes. The same could be said about the nordic states, although the region wasn't very familiar with Rome to begin with. Eastern Europe, dominated by powerful nobles, rejected any attempt of seizing power by the Crown. Having dealt with the hussites not so long ago was a big factor in that rejection. France toyed with the Reformation, but ultimately the king chose to remain catholic, choking its spread in the region. The church of Spain, after the reforms of Cardinal Cisneros, lacked the utter corruption which made the Reformation possible (Other factors hindering Protestantism were the catholic tradition in the country and the Spanish Inquisition).
If you want to expand on this, "Reformation Europe" by G.R.Elton does an amazing job explaining the factors behind the spread of Protestantism in Europe.

because christianity

>Eastern Europe, dominated by powerful nobles, rejected any attempt of seizing power by the Crown. Having dealt with the hussites not so long ago was a big factor in that rejection.

In Poland-Lithuania Protestants achieved parity, if not majority over Catholic nobles (there was also Orthodox, so not an absolute majority) for a while in XVIth century, but the Counter Reformation reclaimed those lands in the XVIIth. All peacefully, even if the brutality of Protestant Swedes and desecration of Catholic churches during their invasion sort of tipped people over back to Catholicism. Meanwhile the only major neighbouring Catholic power - HRE - enjoyed good relations with the Commonwealth throughout the century. Still, in XVIth century the Polish king enjoyed the thought of establishing a national church like England, but in the end decided against it.

In Hungary protestantism was very popular with the nobility, but the enmity was largely Hungary-Austria, not Protestant-Catholic.

Not sure what other eastern European polities you might mean.

>Snowniggers and Anglos embraced Pr*testantism out of opportunism;

fuck off they knew the papacy was a babylonia pagan crock and had a long history of religious strife with the institutions.

>German kings and princes who no longer wanted to fulfill their obligations to the pope

prince elects of Germany and the Holy Roman Emporer had an extensive list of privileges

Some princes/kings decided their states would be Catholic, others that they'd be Lutheran, and still others that they'd be Reformed. England was all fucked up.

Are you actually familiar with Protestant theology? Lutheran? Reformed? Anglican? Have you read from cover to cover any of their systematics/dogmatics? Because I suspect you haven't.

Sphere of influence

the places that remained Catholic were closer to its HQ so they can talk to them more

>Be devout English Christian priest
>get a letter saying you are excommunicated
>have to travel months just to go to the Vatican to get an appeal
>once it happens take months to get everything back
>wait months if there's any update on what's canon or not
>in the meantime some know-it-all college students can get their treatises on why the church is bullshit in a matter of days