This gave the rulers/princes of States within the Holy Roman Empire the freedom to choose one of the two denominations under the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, which translated to ‘whose realm, his religion’. Effectively, the Augsburg Settlement had the historic consequence of allowing each State within the empire to determine its Christian denominational identity, which laid the foundation for sovereign States in Europe, and marked the beginning of the decline of the Holy Roman Empire.
