Shortly after the burning of Huss a crusade was proclaimed against his followers, who had risen in arms. Then began a cruel, desolating war of fifteen years, the outcome of which was the almost total extermination of the radical party among the Hussites. With the more moderate of the reformers, however, a treaty was made which secured them freedom of worship.
[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE 1880.]
THE IMPERIAL CROWN BECOMES HEREDITARY IN THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA (1438).—In the year 1438, Albert, Duke of Austria, was raised by the Electors [Footnote: When, in the beginning of the tenth century, the German Carolingian line became extinct, the great nobles of the kingdom assumed the right of choosing the successor of the last of the house, and Germany thus became an elective feudal monarchy. In the course of time a few of the leading nobles usurped the right of choosing the king, and these princes became known as Electors. There were, at the end of the Hohenstaufen period, seven princes who enjoyed this important privilege, four of whom were secular princes and three spiritual.] to the Imperial throne. His accession marks an epoch in German history, for from this time until. the dissolution of the empire by Napoleon in 1806, the Imperial crown was regarded as hereditary in the Hapsburg [Footnote: The House of Austria is often so called from the Castle of Hapsburg in Switzerland, the cradle of the family.] family, the Electors, although never failing to go through the formality of an election, almost always choosing one of the members of that house as king.
From the beginning of the practically uninterrupted succession upon the Imperial throne of the princes of the House of Austria, up to the close of the Middle Ages, the power and importance of the family steadily increased, until it seemed that Austria would overshadow all the other German states, and subject them to her sway; would, in a word, become Germany, just as Francia in Gaul had become France. But this, as we shall learn, never came about.
[Illustration: GERMAN FOOT-SOLDIER (15th Century.)]
The greatest of the Hapsburg line during the mediæval period was
Maximilian I. (1493-1519). His reign is in every way a noteworthy one in
German history, marking, as it does, a strong tendency to centralization,
and the material enhancement of the Imperial authority.
Beginning of German Literature.
SONG OF THE NIBELUNGEN.—It was under the patronage of the Hohenstaufen that Germany produced the first pieces of a national literature. The "Song of the Nibelungen" is the great German mediæval epic. It was reduced to writing about 1200, being a recast, by some Homeric genius, perhaps, of ancient German and Scandinavian legends and lays dating from the sixth and seventh centuries. The hero of the story is Siegfried, the Achilles of Teutonic legend and song.
THE MINNESINGERS.—Under the same emperors, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Minnesingers, or lyric poets, flourished. They were the "Troubadours of Germany." For the most part, refined and tender and chivalrous and pure, the songs of these poets tended to soften the manners and lift the hearts of the German people.