On 25 September 1555, at the imperial city of Augsburg, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and an alliance of Lutheran princes signed the Peace of Augsburg. It established the principle “Cuius regio, eius religio” ("Whose realm, his religion"), meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. Subjects of a different faith could relocate to another state with their property. The Peace of Augsburg ended a long and bloody period of armed conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant forces and made the legal division of Christendom permanent within the Holy Roman Empire.