Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/364

 idea the Reformation, while completing the political break-up of the German national State, gave new life, endowing Germany with a common language and inspiring her with fresh motives for independence. It was in no small measure due to these influences-the influences of Maximilian's time and in a measure of Maximilian himself-that in the long and dreary centuries when there was no German State there remained a German nation, able to hand on the great traditions of the past to a happier age which could realise, though in a fresh shape, the ancient ideal of Berthold of Mainz, that side by side with the German nation there should also be a German National State.