Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/515

Rh Foreign wars. Decay of feudal relations. The Reforma- tion. THE 1?.EFOP.1I.TION.] kingdom into ten circles, each with its own administrators, appointed for the purpose of preventing private war. These institutions were of genuine service, but no other real con- cession could be wrung from Maximilian. In his ﬁrst diet, held at Worms in 149.3, a permanent public peace was pro- claimed, and he unwillingly consented to the formation of an imperial chamber, consisting of a president and assessors, the for111cr to be appointed by the emperor, the latter by the states. This chamber was to judge between princes of the empire, and to act as a court of appeal for parties of lower grade ; and partly for the payment of its expenses a tax called the common penny was granted. Maximilian, who was always in straits for money, took n1ucl1 interest in the common penny; but to the imperial chamber, which limited the rights of the crown, he was so persistently hostile that it did no good in his day. An administrative council to which, after his defeat by the Swiss League in 1499, he was forced to agree, also failed in consequence of his opposition. The famous invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of Francein 1494 brought Maximiliin into the ﬁeld, and ever afterwards he mixed himself up in the confused struggles to the south of the Alps, hoping to assert the ancient claims of the German kings, at least in northern Italy. In 1508 he joined the infamous League of Cambray against the Venetian republic, and at a later time he took part in the conﬂict of the Holy League against Louis XII. of France. He was everywhere baﬂied, for his own territories, great as they were, did not suflice for his vast undertakings, a11d Germany refused to let herself be dragged into conflicts in which she was not directly concerned. Period of the ]3c_afornzatz'on. The reign of Maximilian must be regarded as in many respects the end of the Middle Ages. The feudal relation between the king and the princes, and between the princes and their vassals, had become purely nominal. No real COi-‘.i3l‘Ol was exerted by the crown over the heads of the various states, and now that war was carried on mainly by mercenary troops, the mediate nobles did not hold their lands on condition of military service. The princes were sovereigns, not merely feudal lords; and by the institution of local diets in their territories an approach was made to modern conceptions of government. The age of war was far indeed frulll being over, but men had at least begun to see that unnecessary bloodshed is an evil, and that the true outlet for the mass of human energies is not conﬂict b11t peaceful industry. By the growth of the cities in social if not in political importance the products of labour were being more and more widely diffused; and it was now incomparably easier than at any previous time for the nation to be moved by common ideas and impulses. The discovery of the New Vorld, the invention of printing, the revival of learning, and many other causes had contributed to effect a radical change in the poi11t of view from which the world was reg.1rde-;l; and the strongest of all mediaeval relations, that of the nation to the church, was about to pass through the ﬁery trial of the Reformation. This vast movement, which began in the later years of Maximilian, deﬁnitely severed the medizeval from the modern world. The seeds of the Reformation were laid at so remote a time. as that of the conﬂict between the p.1p.1cy and the empire. The arrogance and the ambition of the popes then stamped upon the minds of the people an impression that was never effaced. During the temporary struggle of Louis IV. with the popes of his day the old feeling revived with fresh intensity ; all classes, clerical as well as lay, looked upon resistance to papal pretensions as a necessity imposed by the national honour. At the same time the spiritual teaching of the mystics awakened in many minds an GERMANY 497 aspiration which the church, in its corrupt state, could 1495- ill satisfy, and which was in any case unfavourable to 1521- a merely external authority. The Hussite movement, shaking as it did many ancient beliefs and shattering many ancient institutions, further weakened the spell of the church. Still more powerful, because touching deeper elements of human nature and affecting a more important class, was the influence of the Renaissance, which, towards the end of the 15th century, passed from Italy to the uni- versities of Germany. The men of the new learning did not sever themselves fron1 Christianity, but they became indifferent to it ; its conceptions seemed to them din1 and faded, while there was a constantly increasing charm in literature, in philosophy, and in art. N o kind of effort was made by the church to prepare for the storm which might have been foreseen. The spiritual princes, besides dis~ playing all the faults of the secular princes, had special defects of their own ; and as simony was universally prac- tised, the lives of multitudes of the inferior clergy were a public scandal, while their services were cold and unim- pressive. The moral sense was outraged by such a pope as Alexander 'I.; and neither the military ambition of Julius II. nor the reﬁned paganism of Leo X. could tend to revive the decaying faith i11 the spirituality of their ofﬁce. Pope Leo by his incessant demands for money, and his unscrupulous methods of obtaining it, awakened bitter hostility in every class of the community. The popular feeling for the ﬁrst time found expression Luther. when Luther, in 1517, nailed to a church door in Witten- berg the theses in which he contested the doctrine at the root of the detestable traffic carried on for the pope by Tetzel and his accomplices. In appearance a slight circum- stance, this was in reality an event of vast signiﬁcance; for it brought to the front, as the exponent of the national sentiment, one of the mightiest spirits whom Germany has produced,—a man who had certainly many faults, but who amply made up for them by the force of his intellect, the loftiness of his aims, and the rare combination of caution and audacity with which he devoted himself to noble causes. Under the inﬂuence of Luther’s great personality the most active and progressive elements of the nation were soon in more or less open antagonism to the papacy. When Maximilian died, the throne was competed for by his grandson Charles, by Henry VIII. of England, and by Francis I. of France. The ﬁrst and the last were the only real candidates, and ultimately Charles was chosen. time he reached Germany in 1521, Luther had passed through his famous controversy with Eek ; he had con- fronted the papal legato, Cajetan; he had burned the pope’s bull. After this, retreat was impossible; and his innumerable adherents waited with keen excitement to see on which side the new king would declare himself. Charles V. (1520—55), although a boy in years, was not really young. spirit supposed that any influence would cause him to diverge from his path. He had no adequate conception of the strength of the feeling which had been aroused. He fancied, as had at ﬁrst been imagined in Rome, that he had to deal with a monkish quarrel ; at one time he even sup- posed that a little money would easily set the difliculty at rest. Nor did he ever comprehend the real nature of the questions which stirred the hearts of his subjects. For Charles, although a diplomatist of astonishing skill, was a man of cold and narrow nature ; it was incredible to him that men should be genuinely moved by aspirations to which he was himself a stranger. Even if his knowledge had been far more exact, he would not have turned against the church. Since the intcrregnum none of the emperors, with the exception of Maximilian, had been powerful princes X. — 63 By the Charles He soon made up his mind as to the general lines His of his policy, and no one who knew his grave and obstinate P0110)?