A History of Germany from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Bayard Taylor

1496.

Although the decree of Perpetual Peace could not be carried into effect immediately, it was not a dead letter, as all former decrees of the kind had been. Maximilian bound himself, in the most solemn manner, to respect the new arrangements, and there were now several honest and intelligent princes to assist him. One difficulty was the collection of a government tax, called "the common penny," to support the expenses of the Imperial Court. Such a tax had been for the first time imposed during the war with the Hussites, but very little of it was then paid. Even now, when the object of it was of such importance to the whole people, several years elapsed before the Court could be permanently established. The annual sessions of the Diet, also, were much less effective than had been anticipated: princes, priests and cities were so accustomed to a selfish independence, that they could not yet work together for the general good.

Before the Diet at Worms adjourned, it agreed to furnish the Emperor with 9,000 men, to be employed in Italy against the French, and afterwards against the Turks on the Austrian frontier. Charles VIII. retreated from Italy on hearing of this measure, yet not rapidly enough to avoid being defeated, near Parma, by the combined Germans and Milanese. In 1496 Sigismund of Tyrol died, and all the Hapsburg lands came into Maximilian's possession. The same year, he married his son Philip, then eighteen years old and accepted as Regent by the Netherlands, to Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile. The other heirs to the Spanish throne died soon afterwards, and when Isabella followed them, in 1504, she appointed Philip and Joanna her successors. The pride and influence of the house of Hapsburg were greatly increased by this marriage, but its consequences were most disastrous to Germany, for Philip's son was Charles V.

The next years of Maximilian's reign were disturbed, and, on the whole, unfortunate for the Empire. An attempt to apply the decrees of the Diet of Worms to Switzerland brought on a war, which, after occasioning the destruction of 2,000 villages and castles, and the loss of 20,000 lives, resulted in the Emperor formally acknowledging the independence of Switzerland in a treaty concluded at Basel in 1499. Then Louis XII. of France captured Milan, interfered secretly in a war concerning the succession, which broke out in Bavaria, and bribed various German princes to act in his interest, when Maximilian called upon the Diet to assist him in making war upon France. After having with much difficulty obtained 12,000 men, the Emperor marched to Italy, intending to replace the Sforza family in Milan and then be crowned by Pope Julius II. in Rome. But the Venetians stopped him at the outset of the expedition, and he was forced to return ingloriously to Germany.

1508. WARS WITH VENICE AND FRANCE.

Maximilian's next step was another example of his want of judgment in political matters. In order to revenge himself upon Venice, he gave up his hostility to France, and in 1508 became a party to the League of Cambray, uniting with France, Spain and the Pope in a determined effort to destroy the Venetian Republic. The war, which was bloody and barbarous, even for those times, lasted three years. Venice lost, at the outset, Trieste, Verona, Padua and the Romagna, and seemed on the verge of ruin, when Maximilian suddenly left Italy with his army, offended, it was said, at the refusal of the French knights, to fight side by side with his German troops. The Venetians then recovered so much of their lost ground that they purchased the alliance of the Pope, and finally of Spain. A new alliance, called "the Holy League," was formed against France; and Maximilian, after continuing to support Louis XII. a while longer, finally united with Henry VII. of England in joining it. But Louis XII., who was a far better diplomatist than any of his enemies, succeeded, after he had suffered many inevitable losses, in dissolving this powerful combination. He married the sister of Henry of England, yielded Navarre and Naples to Spain, promised money to the Swiss, and held out to Maximilian the prospect of a marriage which would give Milan to the Hapsburgs.

Thus the greater part of Europe was for years convulsed with war chiefly because instead of a prudent and intelligent national power in Germany, there was an unsteady and excitable family leader, whose first interest was the advantage of his house. After such sacrifices of blood and treasure, such disturbance to the development of industry, art and knowledge among the people, the same confusion prevailed as before.

1512.

Before the war came to an end, another general Diet met at Cologne, in 1512, to complete the organization commenced in 1495. Private feuds and acts of retaliation had not yet been suppressed, and the Imperial Council was working under great disadvantages, both from the want of money and the difficulty of enforcing obedience to its decisions. The Emperor demanded the creation of a permanent military force, which should be at the service of the Empire; but this was almost unanimously refused. In other respects, the Diet showed itself both willing and earnest to complete the work of peace and order. The whole Empire was divided into ten Districts, each of which was placed under the jurisdiction of a Judicial Chief and Board of Councillors, whose duty it was to see that the decrees of the Diet and the judgments of the Imperial Court were obeyed.

The Districts were as follows: 1.—The Austrian, embracing all the lands governed by the Hapsburgs, from the Danube to the Adriatic, with the Tyrol, and some territory on the Upper Rhine: Bohemia, Silesia and Hungary were not included. 2.—The Bavarian, comprising the divisions on both sides of the Danube, and the bishopric of Salzburg. 3.—The Suabian, made up of no less than 90 spiritual and temporal principalities, including Würtemberg, Baden, Hohenzollern, and the bishoprics of Augsburg and Constance. 4.—The Franconian, embracing the Brandenburg possessions, Ansbach and Baireuth, with Nuremberg and the bishoprics of Bamberg, Würzburg, &c. 5.—The Upper-Rhenish, comprising the Palatinate, Hesse, Nassau, the bishoprics of Basel, Strasburg, Speyer, Worms, &c., the free cities of the Rhine as far as Frankfort, and a number of petty States. 6.—The Electoral-Rhenish, with the Archbishoprics of the Palatinate, Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and the principality of Amberg. 7.—The Burgundian, made up of 21 States, four of them dukedoms and eight countships. 8.—The Westphalian, with the dukedoms of Jülich, Cleves and Berg, Oldenburg, part of Friesland, and 7 bishoprics. 9.—The Lower Saxon, embracing the dukedoms of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Saxe-Lauenburg, Holstein and Mecklenburg, the Archbishoprics of Magdeburg and Lübeck, the free cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, and a number of smaller States. 10.—The Upper Saxon, including the Electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg, the dukedom of Pomerania, the smaller States of Anhalt, Schwarzburg, Mansfeld, Reuss, and many others of less importance.