1. Terms

1.1. The Göttingen jurist J. S. Pütter (1725–1807) seems to have been the first to use the term “counterreforms” for the recatholicizing of territories by force on the basis of the principle cuius regio eius religio (Augsburg, Peace of). L. von Ranke (1795–1886), M. Ritter (1840–1923), and E. Gothein (1853–1923) then gave the term a more comprehensive significance. Since it might still suggest the suppression of Protestantism by force and a purely defensive movement, it could hardly commend itself for adoption amo…