It will be readily perceived that under these circumstances the emperor as such could have little influence. Yet the fear of impending Slavic or Turkish attacks upon the eastern frontier, or other fears, frequently operated to secure the election of some prince who had sufficiently strong power of his own to stay the attack or remove the fear. In this way, Rudolph, count of Habsburg, had been chosen emperor in 1273, and in his family, with few interruptions, continued the imperial title, not only to 1500 but to the final extinction of the empire in 1806. Several of these Habsburg emperors were influential, but it must always be remembered that they owed their power not to the empire but to their own hereditary states.
Originally lords of a small district in Switzerland, the Habsburgs had gradually increased their holdings until at length in 1273 Rudolph, the maker of his family's real fortunes, had been chosen Holy Roman Emperor, and three years later had conquered the valuable archduchy of Austria with its capital of Vienna. The family subsequently became related by marriage to reigning families in Hungary and in Italy as well as in Bohemia and other states of the empire. In 1477 the Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519) married Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold and heiress of the wealthy provinces of the Netherlands; and in 1496 his son Philip was united to Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and heiress of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. The fortunes of the Habsburgs were decidedly auspicious.
[Sidenote: Vain Attempts to "Reform" the Holy Roman Empire]
Of course, signs were not wanting of some national life in the Germanies. Most of the people spoke a common language; a form of national unity existed in the Diet; and many patriots raised their voice in behalf of a stronger and more centralized government. In 1495 a Diet met at the city of Worms to discuss with Emperor Maximilian projects of reform. After protracted debates, it was agreed that private warfare, a survival of feudal days, should be abolished; a perpetual peace should be declared; and an imperial court should be established to settle all disputes between states within the empire. These efforts at reform, like many before and after, were largely unfruitful, and, despite occasional protests, practical disunion prevailed in the Germanies of the sixteenth century, albeit under the high-sounding title of "Holy Roman Empire."
3. THE CITY-STATES
[Sidenote: "City-States" in 1500]
Before the dawn of the Christian era the Greeks and Romans had entertained a general idea of political organization which would seem strange to most of us at the present time. They believed that every city with its outlying country should constitute an independent state, with its own particular law-making and governing bodies, army, coinage, and foreign relations. To them, the idea of an empire was intolerable and the concept of a national state, such as we commonly have to-day, unthinkable.
Now it so happened, as we shall see in the following chapter, that the commerce of the middle ages stimulated the growth of important trading towns in Italy, in Germany, and in the Netherlands. These towns, in one way or another, managed to secure a large measure of self-government, so that by the year 1500 they had become somewhat similar to the city- states of antiquity. In Germany, though they still maintained their local self-government, they were loosely attached to the Holy Roman Empire and were overshadowed in political influence by other states. In the case of Italy and of the Netherlands, however, it is impossible to understand the politics of those countries in the sixteenth century without paying some attention to city-states, which played leading rôles in both.
[Sidenote: Italy in 1500 neither a National Monarchy not Attached to the Holy Roman Empire]
In the Italy of the year 1500 there was not even the semblance of national political unity. Despite the ardent longings of many Italian patriots [Footnote: Of such patriots was Machiavelli (see below, p. 194). Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: "Our country, left almost without life, still waits to know who it is that is to heal her bruises, to put an end to the devastation and plunder of Lombardy and to the exactions and imposts of Naples and Tuscany, and to stanch those wounds of hers which long neglect has changed into running sores. We see how she prays God to send some one to rescue her from these barbarous cruelties and oppressions. We see too how ready and eager she is to follow any standard, were there only some one to raise it.">[, and the rise of a common language, which, under such masters as Dante and Petrarch, had become a great medium for literary expression, the people of the peninsula had not built up a national monarchy like those of western Europe nor had they even preserved the form of allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire. This was due to several significant events of earlier times. In the first place, the attempt of the medieval German emperors to gain control of Italy not only had signally failed but had left behind two contending factions throughout the whole country,—one, the Ghibellines, supporting the doctrine of maintaining the traditional connection with the Germanies; the other, the Guelphs, rejecting that doctrine. In the second place, the pope, who exercised extensive political as well as religious power, felt that his ecclesiastical influence would be seriously impaired by the creation of political unity in the country; a strong lay monarch with a solid Italy behind him would in time reduce the sovereign pontiff to a subservient position and diminish the prestige which the head of the church enjoyed in foreign lands; therefore the popes participated actively in the game of Italian politics, always endeavoring to prevent any one state from becoming too powerful. Thirdly, the comparatively early commercial prominence of the Italian towns had stimulated trade rivalries which tended to make each proud of its independence and wealth; and as the cities grew and prospered to an unwonted degree, it became increasingly difficult to join them together. Finally, the riches of the Italians, and the local jealousies and strife, to say nothing of the papal policy, marked the country as natural prey for foreign interference and conquest; and in this way the peninsula became a battleground for Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Germans.