Compact arrived at in 1555 by the Diet of Augsburg, in a vain effort to secure religious harmony, by recognizing the pretensions of the German princes to dictate a religion to their subjects and by securing to the adherents of the Augsburg Confession all Catholic property which they had held from the beginning of the religious upheaval. By this compact the religious schism in the empire was definitely established, and the Catholic and Protestant estates were made opposing camps.