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Papal see.

There was no longer room for retreat. He had burned his ships behind him.1

This decisive step drew the attention of the whole German nation to Luther's cause, and tended to concentrate all the various elements of opposition to the Papacy.2 Luther found political support in the friendly disposition of the Elector, and from the jurists with whom the conflict of the spiritual with the civil courts was a standing grievance. The Papal Bull was extensively regarded as a new infringement of the rights of the civil power. The religious opposition to the Papacy, which had been quickened by Luther's theological writings, and which found an inspiring ground of union in his appeal to the Divine Word and in his arraignment of the Pope as an opposer of it, engaged the sympathy of a large portion of the inferior clergy and of the monastic orders. Luther also found zealous allies in the literary class. The Humanists were either quiet, laborious scholars, who applied their researches in philosophy and classical literature to the illustration of the Scriptures and the defense of Scriptural truth against human traditions, of whom Melancthon was a type; or they were poets, filled with a national spirit, eager to avenge the indignities suffered by Germany under Italian and Papal rule, and ready not only to vindicate their cause with invectives and satires, but also with their swords. These were the combatants for Reuchlin against the Dominican persecution; the authors of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum." Luther, with his deeply religious feeling, had not liked the tone of these productions. Ulrich von Hutten, one of the writers, the most prominent representative of the youthful literati, to whom we have just referred, had not been interested at first in the affair of Luther, which he regarded as a monkish and theological dispute. But he soon divined its true character and wide-reaching scope, 2 See Ranke, i. 307 seq.

1 Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten, p. 397.

POLITICAL CONDITION OF GERMANY.

103 and became one of the Reformer's most ardent supporters. He seconded Luther's religious appeals by scattering broadcast his own caustic philippics and satires, in which the Pope and his agents and abettors in Germany were lashed with unbridled severity. Abandoning the Latin, the proper tongue of the Humanists, he began to write in the vernacular. Hutten enlisted his friend Francis von Sickingen, another patriotic knight, and the most noted of the class who offered themselves to redress wrongs by exploits and incursions undertaken by their own authority, often to the terror of those who were thus assailed. Sickingen sent to Luther an invitation, in case he needed a place of refuge, to come to his strong castle of Ebernburg.1

We must pause here to look for a moment at the political condition of Germany. In the fifteenth century the central government had become so weakened, that the Empire existed more in name than in reality. Germany was an aggregate of numerous small states, each of which was, to a great extent, independent within its own bounds. The German king having held the imperial office for so many centuries, the two stations were practically regarded as inseparable; but neither as king of Germany nor as the head of the Holy Roman Empire, had he sufficient power to preserve order among the states or to combine them in common enterprises of defense or of aggression. By the golden bull of Charles IV., in 1356, the electoral constitution was defined and settled, by which the predominance of power was left in the hands of the seven leading princes to whom the choice of the Emperor was committed. No measures affecting the common welfare could be adopted except by the consent of the Diet, a body composed of the electors, the princes, and the cities. Private wars were of frequent occurrence

1 See the very interesting biography by D. F. Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten (2d ed., 1871).

between the component parts of the country.

They might enter separately into foreign alliances. During the reign of Maximilian great efforts were made to establish a better constitution, but they mostly fell to the ground in consequence of the mutual unwillingness of the states and the Emperor that either party should exercise power. The Public Peace and the Imperial Chamber were constituted, the former for the prevention of intestine war, and the latter a supreme judicial tribunal; but neither of these measures was more than partially successful. The failure to create a better organization for the Empire increased the ferment, for which there were abundant causes prior to these abortive attempts. The efforts of the princes to increase their power within their several principalities brought on quarrels with bishops and knights, whose traditional privileges were curtailed. Especially among the knights a mutinous feeling was everywhere rife, which often broke forth in deeds of violence and even in open warfare. The cities complained of the oppression which they had to endure from the imperial government and of the wrongs inflicted upon them by the princes and by the knights. Thriving communities of tradesmen and artisans invited hostility from every quarter. The heavy burdens of taxation, the insecurity of travel and of commerce, were for them an intolerable grievance. At the same time, all over Germany, the rustic population, on account of the hardship of their situation, were in a state of disaffection which might at any moment burst forth in a formidable rebellion. In addition to all these troubles and grievances, the extortions of Rome had stirred up a general feeling of indignation.1 Vast sums of money, the fruit of taxation or the price of the virtual sale of Church offices, were carried out of the country to replenish the coffers of the Pope.

1 Ranke, i. 132 seq.

CHARLES V. ELECTED EMPEROR.

105

On the death of Maximilian (January 12, 1519), the principal aspirants for the succession, were Charles, the youthful King of Spain, and Francis I., the King of France. Charles, who was the grandson of Maximilian, and the son of Philip and of Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, inherited Austria and the Low Countries, the crowns of Castile and Aragon, of Navarre, of Naples and Sicily, together with the vast territories of Spain in the New World. The Electors offered the imperial office to Frederic of Saxony, a prince held in universal esteem for his wisdom and high character; but he judged that the resources at his command were not sufficient to enable him to govern the Empire with efficiency, and cast his influence with decisive effect in favor of Charles. The despotism of the French King was feared, and Charles was preferred, partly because, from the situation of his hereditary dominions in Germany and from the extent of his power, it was thought that he would prove the best defender of the Empire against the Turks. But the princes took care, in the "capitulation" which accompanied the election of Charles, to interpose safeguards against encroachments on the part of the new Emperor. He promised not to make war or peace, or to put any state under the ban of the Empire without the assent of the Diet; that he would give the public offices into the hands of Germans, fix his residence in Germany, and not bring foreign troops into the country.

The concentration of so much power in a single individual excited general alarm. Such an approach to a universal monarchy had not been seen in Europe since the days of Charlemagne. The independence of all other kingdoms would seem to be put in peril. It was reasonably feared that Charles would avail himself of his vast strength to restore the Empire to its ancient limits, and to revive its claim to supremacy. This apprehension, of itself,

would account for the hostility of Francis, apart from his personal disappointment at the result of the imperial election. But there were particular causes of disagreement between the rival monarchs which could not fail to produce an open rupture. In behalf of the Empire, Charles claimed Lombardy and especially Milan, together with a portion of Southern France - the old kingdom of Burgundy or Arles. As the heir of the dukes of Burgundy, he claimed the parts of the old dukedom which had been incorporated in France, after the death of Charles the Bold. It had been the ambition of France, since the expedition of Charles VIII., to establish its power in Italy. Francis, besides his determination to cling to the conquests which he had already made, claimed Naples in virtue of the rights of the house of Anjou, which had reverted to the French crown; he claimed also Spanish Navarre, which had been seized by Ferdinand, and the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois. The scene, as well as the main prize of the conflict, was to be in Northern Italy. The preponderance of strength was not so decidedly on the side of Charles as might at first appear. The Turks perpetually menaced the eastern frontiers of his hereditary German dominions, which were given over to Ferdinand his brother. His territories were widely separated from one another, not only in space, but also in language, local institutions, and customs. Several of the countries over which he reigned were in a state of internal confusion. This was true of Spain, as well as of Germany.

For months after the death of Maximilian, the Empire was without a head. Frederic of Saxony, who was disposed to protect rather than repress the movement of Luther, was regent in Northern Germany. Had he been in middle life and been endued with an energy equal to his sagacity and excellence, he might have complied with the preference of the electors and have placed himself at

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