Abstract :
Luther’s early statements, such as that belief is a ‘ free work’ and must not be coerced,
gained crucial relevance in the juridical debates about the meaning of the Augsburg Peace of Religion in the
empire. Christoph Besold was among those transforming the reformers’ message into a legal claim of subjects
against their governments, based on an alleged natural right to believe what one wants. He thus transferred
Luther’s claim based on the reformer’s trust in the work of the divine word into a juridical claim for subjects
against their civil and ecclesiastical magistrates. Besold’s argument is thus an example of the important
changes in political and religious thought developing within the genre of the German politica during the first
half of the seventeenth century.
