Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire even socialist currents resisted the Empire's longstanding conservatism. The events of 1848 were the product of mounting social and political tensions after the Congress of Vienna of 1815. During the "pre-March" period, the already conservative Austrian Empire moved further away from ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, restricted freedom of the press, limited many university activities, and banned fraternities. Conflicts between debtors and creditors in agricultural production as well as over land use rights in parts of Hungary led to conflicts that occasionally erupted into violence. Conflict over organized religion was pervasive in pre-1848 Europe. Tension came both from within
History of the Catholic Church in Germany of the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Saint John. Monasteries and abbeys lost their means of existence as they had to abandon their lands. The secularization of society became a main theme of European history in the 18th and especially 19th century and was vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church, resulting in a struggle which was later termed “Kulturkampf”. In Germany, this process had its first culmination in the German revolutions of 1848–49 and, after their suppression, gained new momentum with the establishment of liberal governments in various German states in the 1850s and 1860s and in the empire in