Was it just coincidence that the most parts of Western Europe that had been part of the Roman Empire stayed Catholic while most of the parts of Western Europe that were never part of the Roman Empire became Protestant?

by Yeangster

The obvious exceptions are Great Britain, the Netherlands, North-Western Germany and Ireland. And I guess, Poland, depending on how you define Eastern/Central Europe.

I have a couple ideas on why this might be, and I wonder if any of these might be valid:

  1. The institutions of the Roman Empire, which the Catholic Church inherited, were stronger and this meant the Catholic Church was more deeply rooted in these areas.

  2. Physical proximity to Rome. This is rough since Portugal is further from Rome, I think, than Saxony, but travel between Portugal and Rome might be easier. But then again, Poland is certainly further from Rome than Bohemia. Is it plausible that rulers closer to Rome benefitted more from the Catholic Church, and thus had less desire to fight with the Vatican over Investiture or land?

Am I completely off base here? Is there some explanation I haven't thought of? Or is it just a complete coincidence?

Empty-Mind

To follow up, could conversion to Protestantism be better understood as a cultural/geographic proximity to Germany? What about locations that had more experience with heresy? There were Hussites in the Holy Roman Empire and I seem to recall some kind of heresy happening at some point in England (Luddites maybe?).