Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/154



HE Lutheran Reformation, which was solemnly inaugurated by the national assembly in Copenhagen, in 1536, aroused the people, at least for a time, from the intellectual lethargy in which it had been drowsing for many centuries. The whole people was deeply affected by the problems involved in this religious movement, and the intellectual emancipation secured in religious questions was also made available in other directions. The reformatory movement gave rise to a multitude of writings, which, though primarily concerned with the establishment of the ecclesiastical reform, still, on account of the widespread popularity they gained, also roused many minds to reflection, made them capable of higher culture, and produced in them a desire for intellectual improvement. The art of printing, which had been introduced in Denmark, in 1482, had at first been exclusively employed for the purpose of multiplying Latin books, grammars, and other scholastic works, but henceforth it also rendered important service in the publication of Danish works, and thus it became a powerful instrument for the diffusion of the new spirit among the people.

The Reformation came to Denmark from Germany. Yet even before Luther's doctrine had become known in Denmark, there existed in the minds of many individuals an undefined consciousness of the hollow and false condition into which Catholicism had sunk, and there was a desire to break