Mapping the PastMAP 15.2 Religious Divisions in Europe, ca. 1555 The Reformation shattered the religious unity of Western Christendom. The situation was even more complicated than a map of this scale can show. Many cities within the Holy Roman Empire, for example, accepted a different faith than did the surrounding countryside; Augsburg, Basel, and Strasbourg were all Protestant, though surrounded by territory ruled by Catholic nobles.ANALYZING THE MAP Which countries in Europe were the most religiously diverse? Which were the least diverse?CONNECTIONS Where was the first arena of religious conflict in Europe, and why did it develop there and not elsewhere? What nonreligious factors contributed to the religious divisions that developed in sixteenth-