Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/174



HE Reformation did not accomplish as much for the advancement of popular enlightenment and popular literature as had at first been expected from it. So long as the real struggle continued it was found expedient to abandon the appliances of learning, or at least not to employ them where they came in conflict with the needs of the common people. But as soon as the struggle had subsided, and when the new doctrine had become rooted, the old practices were gradually resumed. The honor of learning could not be gained through Danish, but only through the Latin, and this was the case throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Danish was not extensively employed except in a very few branches of literature. It was used only when the people were directly concerned, as for instance in the case of devotional books, of which a large number were written in Danish. The only one of the sciences accessible to the laity was history, a few historical works being produced in the Danish language.

The age of the Reformation was accordingly followed by an age of learning, preeminently theological learning, and the university, which had been completely broken up by the great fermentation attending the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism, and had now been opened again