An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Revolt against the mediæval Church implied a general revolution.

To revolt against the Church was to inaugurate a fundamental revolution in many of the habits and customs of the people. It was not merely a change of religious belief, for the Church permeated every occupation and dominated every social interest. For centuries it had directed and largely controlled education, high and low. Each and every important act in the home, in the guild, in the town, was accompanied by religious ceremonies. The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church had hitherto written most of the books; they sat in the government assemblies, acted as the rulers' most trusted ministers, constituted, in short, outside of Italy, the only really educated class. Their rôle and the rôle of the Church were incomparably more important than that of any church which exists to-day.

The wars of religion.

Just as the mediæval Church was by no means an exclusively religious institution, so the Protestant revolt was by no means simply a religious change, but a social and political one as well. The conflicts which the attempt to overthrow this institution, or rather social order, brought about were necessarily terrific. They lasted for more than two centuries and left no interest, public or private, social or individual, earthly or heavenly, unaffected. Nation rose against nation, kingdom against kingdom; households were divided among themselves; wars and commotion, wrath and desolation, treachery and cruelty filled the states of western Europe.

Our present object is to learn how this successful revolt came about, what was its real nature, and why the results were what they were. In order to do this, it is necessary to turn to the Germany in which Luther lived and see how the nation had been prepared to sympathize with his attack on the Church.

Germany of to-day.

134. To us to-day, Germany means the German Empire, one of the three or four best organized and most powerful of the European states. It is a compact federation, somewhat like that of the United States, made up of twenty-two monarchies and three little city republics. Each member of the union manages its local affairs, but leaves all questions of national importance to be settled by the central government at Berlin. This federation is, however, of very recent date, being scarcely more than thirty years old.

The 'Germanies' of the sixteenth century.

In the time of Charles V there was no such Germany as this, but only what the French called "the Germanies"; i.e., two or three hundred states, which differed greatly from one another in size and character. One had a duke, another a count at its head, while some were ruled over by archbishops, bishops, or abbots. There were many cities, like Nuremberg, Augsburg, Frankfort, and Cologne, which were just as independent as the great duchies of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony. Lastly there were the knights, whose possessions might consist of no more than a single strong castle with a wretched village lying at its foot. Their trifling territories must, however, be called states; for some of the knights were at that time as sovereign and independent as the elector of Brandenburg, who was one day to become the king of Prussia, and long after, the emperor of Germany.