PART II

Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

A POLITICAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE

VOLUME I

1500-1815

BY CARLTON J. H. HAYES

PREFACE

This book represents an attempt on the part of the author to satisfy a

very real need of a textbook which will reach far enough back to afford

secure foundations for a college course in modern European history.

The book is a long one, and purposely so. Not only does it undertake to

deal with a period at once the most complicated and the most inherently

interesting of any in the whole recorded history of mankind, but it

aims to impart sufficiently detailed information about the various

topics discussed to make the college student feel that he is advanced a

grade beyond the student in secondary school. There is too often a

tendency to underestimate the intellectual capabilities of the

collegian and to feed him so simple and scanty a mental pabulum that he

becomes as a child and thinks as a child. Of course the author

appreciates the fact that most college instructors of history piece out

the elementary textbooks by means of assignments of collateral reading

in large standard treatises. All too frequently, however, such

assignments, excellent in themselves, leave woeful gaps which a slender

elementary manual is inadequate to fill. And the student becomes too

painfully aware, for his own educational good, of a chasmal separation

between his textbook and his collateral reading. The present manual is

designed to supply a narrative of such proportions that the need of

additional reading will be somewhat lessened, and at the same time it

is provided with critical bibliographies and so arranged as to enable

the judicious instructor more easily to make substitutions here and

there from other works or to pass over this or that section entirely.

Perhaps these considerations will commend to others the judgment of the

author in writing a long book.

Nowadays prefaces to textbooks of modern history almost invariably

proclaim their writers' intention to stress recent happenings or at

least those events of the past which have had a direct bearing upon the

present. An examination of the following pages will show that in the

case of this book there is no discrepancy between such an intention on

the part of the present writer and its achievement. Beginning with the

sixteenth century, the story of the civilization of modern Europe is

carried down the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries with

constant _crescendo_. Of the total space devoted to the four

hundred years under review, the last century fills half. And the

greatest care has been taken to bring the story down to date and to

indicate as clearly and calmly as possible the underlying causes of the

vast contemporaneous European war, which has already put a new

complexion on our old historical knowledge and made everything that

went before seem part and parcel of an old régime.

As to why the author has preferred to begin the story of modern Europe

with the sixteenth century, rather than with the thirteenth or with the

French Revolution, the reader is specially referred to the

_Introduction_. It has seemed to the author that particularly from

the Commercial Revolution of the sixteenth century dates the remarkable

and steady evolution of that powerful middle class--the bourgeoisie--

which has done more than all other classes put together to condition

the progress of the several countries of modern Europe and to create

the life and thought of the present generation throughout the world.

The rise of the bourgeoisie is the great central theme of modern

history; it is the great central theme of this book.

Not so very long ago distinguished historians were insisting that the

state, as the highest expression of man's social instincts and as the

immediate concern of all human beings, is the only fit subject of

historical study, and that history, therefore, must be simply "past

politics"; under their influence most textbooks became compendiums of

data about kings and constitutions, about rebellions and battles. More

recently historians of repute, as well as eminent economists, have

given their attention and patronage to painstaking investigations of

how, apart from state action, man in the past has toiled or traveled or

done the other ordinary things of everyday life; and the influence of

such scholars has served to provide us with a considerable number of

convenient manuals on special phases of social history. Yet more

recently several writers of textbooks have endeavored to combine the

two tendencies and to present in a single volume both political and

social facts, but it must be confessed that sometimes these writers

have been content to tell the old political tale in orthodox manner and

then to append a chapter or two of social miscellany, whose connection

with the body of their book is seldom apparent to the student.

The present volume represents an effort really to combine political and

social history in one synthesis: the author, quite convinced of the

importance of the view that political activities constitute the most

perfect expression of man's social instincts and touch mankind most

universally, has not neglected to treat of monarchs and parliaments, of

democracy and nationalism; at the same time he has cordially accepted

the opinion that political activities are determined largely by

economic and social needs and ambitions; and accordingly he has

undertaken not only to incorporate at fairly regular intervals such

chapters as those on the Commercial Revolution, Society in the

Eighteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution, and Social Factors,

1870-1914, but also to show in every part of the narrative the economic

aspects of the chief political facts.

Despite the length of this book, critics will undoubtedly note

omissions. Confronting the writer of every textbook of history is the

eternal problem of selection--the choice of what is most pointedly

significant from the sum total of man's thoughts, words, and deeds. It

is a matter of personal judgment, and personal judgments are

notoriously variant. Certainly there will be critics who will complain

of the present author's failure to follow up his suggestions concerning

sixteenth-century art and culture with a fuller account of the

development of philosophy and literature from the seventeenth to the

twentieth century; and the only rejoinders that the harassed author can

make are the rather lame ones that a book, to be a book, must conform

to the mechanical laws of space and dimension, and that a serious

attempt on the part of the present writer to make a synthesis of social

and political facts precludes no effort on the part of other and abler

writers to synthesize all these facts with the phenomena which are

conventionally assigned to the realm of "cultural" or "intellectual"

history. In this, and in all other respects, the author trusts that his

particular solution of the vexatious problem of selection will prove as

generally acceptable as any.

In the all-important matter of accuracy, the author cannot hope to have

escaped all the pitfalls that in a peculiarly broad and crowded field

everywhere trip the feet of even the most wary and persistent searchers

after truth. He has naturally been forced to rely for the truth of his

statements chiefly upon numerous secondary works, of which some

acknowledgment is made in the following _Note_, and upon the

kindly criticisms of a number of his colleagues; in some instances,

notably in parts of the chapters on the Protestant Revolt, the French

Revolution, and developments since 1848 in Great Britain, France, and

Germany, he has been able to draw on his own special studies of primary

source material, and in certain of these instances he has ventured to

dissent from opinions that have been copied unquestioningly from one

work to another.

No period of history can be more interesting or illuminating than the

period with which this book is concerned, especially now, when a war of

tremendous magnitude and meaning is attracting the attention of the

whole civilized world and arousing a desire in the minds of all

intelligent persons to know something of the past that has produced it.

The great basic causes of the present war the author has sought, not in

the ambitions of a single power nor in an isolated outrage, but in the

history of four hundred years. He has tried to write a book that would

be suggestive and informing, not only to the ordinary college student,

but to the more mature and thoughtful student of public affairs in the

university of the world.

CARLTON J. H. HAYES. AFTON, NEW YORK, May, 1916.

NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author begs to acknowledge his general indebtedness to a veritable

host of historical writers, of whose original researches or secondary

compilations he has constantly and almost unblushingly made use in the

preparation of this book. At the close of the _Introduction_ will

be found a list of the major works dealing with the whole period under

review, or with the greater part of it, which have been drawn upon most

heavily. And there is hardly a book cited in any of the special

bibliographies following the several chapters that has not supplied

some single fact or suggestion to the accompanying narrative.

For many of the general ideas set forth in this work as well as for

painstaking assistance in reading manuscript and correcting errors of

detail, the author confesses his debt to various colleagues in Columbia

University and elsewhere. In particular, Professor R. L. Schuyler has

helpfully read the chapters on English history; Professor James T.

Shotwell, the chapter on the Commercial Revolution; Professor D. S.

Muzzey, the chapters on the French Revolution, Napoleon, and

Metternich; Professor William R. Shepherd, the chapters on "National

Imperialism"; and Professor Edward B. Krehbiel of Leland Stanford

Junior University, the chapter on recent international relations.

Professor E. F. Humphrey of Trinity College (Connecticut) has given

profitable criticism on the greater part of the text; and Professor

Charles A. Beard of Columbia University, Professor Sidney B. Fay of

Smith College, and Mr. Edward L. Durfee of Yale University, have read

the whole work and suggested several valuable emendations. Three

instructors in history at Columbia have been of marked service--Dr.

Austin P. Evans, Mr. D. R. Fox, and Mr. Parker T. Moon. The last named

devoted the chief part of two summers to the task of preparing notes

for several chapters of the book and he has attended the author on the

long dreary road of proof reading.

CONTENTS

VOLUME I

PART I

FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN EUROPE

CHAPTER I. THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH

CENTURY

The New National Monarchies

The Old Holy Roman Empire

The City-States

Northern and Eastern Europe in the year 1500

CHAPTER II. THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

Agriculture in the Sixteenth Century

Towns on the Eve of the Commercial Revolution

Trade Prior to the Commercial Revolution

The Age of Exploration

Establishment of Colonial Empires

Effects of the Commercial Revolution

CHAPTER III. EUROPEAN POLITICS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The Emperor Charles V

Philip II and the Predominance of Spain

CHAPTER IV. THE PROTESTANT REVOLT AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

The Catholic Church at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century

The Protestant Revolt

Lutheranism

Calvinism

Anglicanism

The Catholic Reformation

Summary of the Religious Revolution in the Sixteenth Century

CHAPTER V. THE CULTURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The Invention of Printing

Humanism

Art in the Sixteenth Century

National Literatures in the Sixteenth Century

Beginnings of Modern Natural Science

PART II

DYNASTIC AND COLONIAL RIVALRY

CHAPTER VI. THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN

BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1589-1661

Growth of Absolutism in France: Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin

Struggle between Bourbons and Habsburgs: The Thirty Years' War

CHAPTER VII. THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE

BETWEEN BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1661-1743

The Age of Louis XIV

Extension of French Frontiers

The War of the Spanish Succession

CHAPTER VIII. THE TRIUMPH OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND

Conflicting Political Tendencies in England: Absolutism _versus_

Parliamentarianism

The Puritan Revolution

The Restoration: the Reign of Charles II

The "Glorious Revolution" and the Final Establishment of

Parliamentary Government in Great Britain

CHAPTER IX. THE WORLD CONFLICT OF FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN

French and English Colonies in the Seventeenth Century

Preliminary Encounters, 1689-1748

The Triumph of Great Britain: The Seven Years' War, 1756-1763

CHAPTER X. THE REVOLUTION WITHIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

The British Colonial System in the Eighteenth Century

The War of American Independence, 1775-1783

The Reformation of the British Empire

CHAPTER XI. THE GERMANIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The Holy Roman Empire in Decline

The Habsburg Dominions

The Rise of Prussia. The Hohenzollerns

The Minor German States

The Struggle between Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs

CHAPTER XII. THE RISE OF RUSSIA, AND THE DECLINE OF TURKEY, SWEDEN, AND

POLAND

Russia in the Seventeenth Century

Peter the Great

Sweden and the Career of Charles XII

Catherine the Great: the Defeat of Turkey and the Dismemberment of

Poland

PART III

"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY"

CHAPTER XIII. EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century

Commerce and Industry in the Eighteenth Century

The Privileged Classes

Religious and Ecclesiastical Conditions in the Eighteenth Century

Scientific and Intellectual Developments in the Eighteenth Century

CHAPTER XIV. EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The British Monarchy

The Enlightened Despots

The French Monarchy

CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Introductory

The End of Absolutism in France, 1789

The End of the Old Regime: the National Constituent Assembly,

1789-1791

The Limited Monarchy in Operation: the Legislative Assembly

(1791-1792) and the Outbreak of Foreign War

Establishment of the First French Republic: the National

Convention, 1792-1795

The Directory (1795-1799) and the Transformation of the Republic into

a Military Dictatorship

Significance of the French Revolution

CHAPTER XVI. THE ERA OF NAPOLEON

The French Republic under the Consulate, 1799-1804

The French Empire and its Territorial Expansion

Destruction of the French Empire

Significance of the Era of Napoleon

INTRODUCTION

The story of modern times is but a small fraction of the long epic of

human history. If, as seems highly probable, the conservative estimates

of recent scientists that mankind has inhabited the earth more than

fifty thousand years [Footnote: Professor James Geikie, of the

University of Edinburgh, suggests, in his _Antiquity of Man in

Europe_ (1914), the possible existence of human beings on the earth

more than 500,000 years ago!], are accurate, then the bare five hundred

years which these volumes pass in review constitute, in time, less than

a hundredth part of man's past. Certainly, thousands of years before

our day there were empires and kingdoms and city-states, showing

considerable advancement in those intellectual pursuits which we call

civilization or culture,--that is, in religion, learning, literature,

political organization, and business; and such basic institutions as

the family, the state, and society go back even further, past our

earliest records, until their origins are shrouded in deepest mystery.

Despite its brevity, modern history is of supreme importance. Within

its comparatively brief limits are set greater changes in human life

and action than are to be found in the records of any earlier

millennium. While the present is conditioned in part by the deeds and

thoughts of our distant forbears who lived thousands of years ago, it

has been influenced in a very special way by historical events of the

last five hundred years. Let us see how this is true.

Suppose we ask ourselves in what important respects the year 1900

differed from the year 1400. In other words, what are the great

distinguishing achievements of modern times? At least six may be noted:

(1) _Exploration and knowledge of the whole globe_. To our

ancestors from time out of mind the civilized world was but the lands

adjacent to the Mediterranean and, at most, vague stretches of Persia,

India, and China. Not much over four hundred years ago was America

discovered and the globe circumnavigated for the first time, and very

recently has the use of steamship, telegraph, and railway served to

bind together the uttermost parts of the world, thereby making it

relatively smaller, less mysterious, and in culture more unified.

(2) _Higher standards of individual efficiency and comfort_. The

physical welfare of the individual has been promoted to a greater

degree, or at all events preached more eloquently, within the last few

generations than ever before. This has doubtless been due to changes in

the commonplace everyday life of all the people. It must be remembered

that in the fifteenth century man did the ordinary things of life in

much the same manner as did early Romans or Greeks or Egyptians, and

that our present remarkable ways of living, of working, and of

traveling are the direct outcome of the Commercial Revolution of the

sixteenth century and of the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth.

(3) _Intensification of political organization, with attendant public

guarantees of personal liberties_. The ideas of nationalism and of

democracy are essentially modern in their expression. The notion that

people who speak the same language and have a common culture should be

organized as an independent state with uniform laws and customs was

hardly held prior to the fifteenth century. The national states of

England, France, and Spain did not appear unmistakably with their

national boundaries, national consciousness, national literature, until

the opening of the sixteenth century; and it was long afterwards that

in Italy and Germany the national idea supplanted the older notions of

world empire or of city-state or of feudalism. The national state has

proved everywhere a far more powerful political organization than any

other: its functions have steadily increased, now at the expense of

feudalism, now at the expense of the church; and such increase has been

as constant under industrial democracy of the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries as under the benevolent despotism of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. But in measure as government has enlarged its

scope, the governed have worked out and applied protective principles

of personal liberties. The Puritan Revolution, the French Revolution,

the American Revolution, the uprisings of oppressed populations

throughout the nineteenth century, would be quite inexplicable in other

than modern times. In fact the whole political history of the last four

centuries is in essence a series of compromises between the conflicting

results of the modern exaltation of the state and the modern exaltation

of the individual.

(4) _Replacement of the idea of the necessity of uniformity in a

definite faith and religion by toleration of many faiths or even of no

faith_. A great state religion, professed publicly, and financially

supported by all the citizens, has been a distinguishing mark of every

earlier age. Whatever else may be thought of the Protestant movement of

the sixteenth century, of the rise of deism and skepticism in the

seventeenth and eighteenth, and of the existence of scientific

rationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth, there can be little doubt

that each of them has contributed its share to the prevalence of the

idea that religion is essentially a private, not a public, affair and

that friendly rivalry in good works is preferable to uniformity in

faith.

(5) _Diffusion of learning_. The invention of printing towards the

close of the fifteenth century gradually revolutionized the pursuit of

knowledge and created a real democracy of letters. What learning might

have lost in depth through its marvelous broadening has perhaps been

compensated for by the application of the keenest minds in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to experimental science and in our

own day to applied science.

(6) _Spirit of progress and decline of conservatism_. For better

or for worse the modern man is intellectually more self-reliant than

his ancestors, more prone to try new inventions and to profit by new

discoveries, more conscious and therefore more critical of conditions

about him, more convinced that he lives in a better world than did his

fathers, and that his children who come after him should have a better

chance than he has had. This is the modern spirit. It is the product of

all the other elements of the history of five hundred years--the larger

geographical horizon, the greater physical comfort, the revolutionized

political institutions, the broader sympathies, the newer ideals of

education. Springing thus from events of the past few centuries, the

modern spirit nevertheless looks ever forward, not backward. A debtor

to the past, it will be doubly creditor to the future. It will

determine the type of individual and social betterment through coming

centuries. Such an idea is implied in the phrase, "the continuity of

history"--the ever-flowing stream of happenings that brings down to us

the heritage of past ages and that carries on our richer legacies to

generations yet unborn.

From such a conception of the continuity of history, the real

significance of our study can be derived. It becomes perfectly clear

that if we understand the present we shall be better prepared to face

the problems and difficulties of the future. But to understand the

present thoroughly, it becomes necessary not only to learn what are its

great features and tendencies, but likewise how they have been evolved.

Now, as we have already remarked, six most important characteristics of

the present day have been developed within the last four or five

centuries. To follow the history of this period, therefore, will tend

to familiarize us both with present-day conditions and with future

needs. This is the genuine justification for the study of the history

of modern times.

Modern history may conveniently be defined as that part of history

which deals with the origin and evolution of the great distinguishing

characteristics of the present. No precise dates can be assigned to

modern history as contrasted with what has commonly been called ancient

or medieval. In a sense, any division of the historical stream into

parts or periods is fundamentally fallacious: for example, inasmuch as

the present generation owes to the Greeks of the fourth century before

Christ many of its artistic models and philosophical ideas and very few

of its political theories, the former might plausibly be embraced in

the field of modern history, the latter excluded therefrom. But the

problem before us is not so difficult as may seem on first thought. To

all intents and purposes the development of the six characteristics

that have been noted has taken place within five hundred years. The

sixteenth century witnessed the true beginnings of the change in the

extensive world discoveries, in the establishment of a recognized

European state system, in the rise of Protestantism, and in the

quickening of intellectual activity. It is the foundation of modern

Europe.

The sixteenth century will therefore be the general subject of Part I

of this volume. After reviewing the geography of Europe about the year

1500, we shall take up in turn the _four_ factors of the century

which have had a lasting influence upon us: (1) socially and

economically--The Commercial Revolution; (2) politically--European

Politics in the Sixteenth Century; (3) religiously and

ecclesiastically--The Protestant Revolt; (4) intellectually--The

Culture of the Sixteenth Century.

ADDITIONAL READING

THE STUDY OF HISTORY. On historical method: C. V. Langlois and Charles

Seignobos, _Introduction to the Study of History_, trans. by G. G.

Berry (1912); J. M. Vincent, _Historical Research: an Outline of Theory

and Practice_ (1911); H. B. George, _Historical Evidence_ (1909); F. M.

Fling, _Outline of Historical Method_ (1899). Different views of

history: J. H. Robinson, _The New History_ (1912), a collection of

stimulating essays; J. T. Shotwell, suggestive article _History_ in

11th edition of _Encyclopædia Britannica_; T. B. Macaulay, essay on

_History_; Thomas Carlyle, _Heroes and Hero Worship_; Karl Lamprecht,

_What is History_? trans. by E. A. Andrews (1905). Also see Henry

Johnson, _The Teaching of History_ (1915); Eduard Fueter, _Geschichte

der neueren Historiographie_ (1911); Ernst Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der

historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie_, 5th ed. (1914); G.

P. Gooch, _History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century_ (1913).

TEXTBOOKS AND MANUALS OF MODERN HISTORY. J. H. Robinson and C. A.

Beard, _The Development of Modern Europe_, 2 vols. (1907), a political

and social narrative from the time of Louis XIV, and by the same

authors, _Readings in Modern European History_, 2 vols. (1908-1909), an

indispensable sourcebook, with critical bibliographies; Ferdinand

Schevill, _A Political History of Modern Europe from the Reformation to

the Present Day_ (1907); T. H. Dyer, _A History of Modern Europe from

the Fall of Constantinople_, 3d ed. revised and continued to the end of

the nineteenth century by Arthur Hassall, 6 vols. (1901), somewhat

antiquated but still valuable for its vast store of political facts;

Victor Duruy, _History of Modern Times from the Fall of Constantinople

to the French Revolution_, trans. by E. A. Grosvenor (1894), verbose

and somewhat uncritical, but usable for French history. More up-to-date

series of historical manuals are now appearing or are projected by

Henry Holt and Company under the editorship of Professor C. H. Haskins,

by The Century Company under Professor G. L. Burr, by Ginn and Company

under Professor J. H. Robinson, and by Houghton Mifflin Company under

Professor J. T. Shotwell: such of these volumes as have appeared are

noted in the appropriate chapter bibliographies following. The

Macmillan Company has published _Periods of European History,_ 8 vols.

(1893-1901), under the editorship of Arthur Hassall, of which the last

five volumes treat of political Europe from 1494 to 1899; and a more

elementary political series, _Six Ages of European History_, 6 vols.

(1910), under the editorship of A. H. Johnson, of which the last three

volumes cover the years from 1453 to 1878. Much additional information

is obtainable from such popular series as _Story of the Nations_ (1886

_sqq._), _Heroes of the Nations_ (1890 _sqq._), and _Home University

Library,_ though the volumes in such series are of very unequal merit.

Convenient chronological summaries are: G. P. and G. H. Putnam,

_Tabular Views of Universal History_ (1914); Carl Ploetz, _Manual of

Universal History_, trans. and enlarged by W. H. Tillinghast, new

edition (1915); _Haydn's Dictionary of Dates_, 25th ed. (1911); C. E.

Little, _Cyclopædia of Classified Dates_ (1900); _Cambridge Modern

History_, Vol. XIII (1911). The best atlas--a vitally necessary adjunct

of historical study--is either that of W. R. Shepherd, _Historical

Atlas_ (1911), or that of Ramsay Muir, _Hammond's New Historical Atlas

for Students_, 2d ed. (1915); a smaller historical atlas is that of E.

W. Dow (1907), and longer ones are _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. XIV

(1912) and, in German, Putzger, _Historischer Schulatlas_. Elaborate

treatises on historical geography: Elisée Reclus, _The Universal

Geography_, trans. and ed. by E. G. Ravenstein, 19 vols.; _Nouveau

Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle_, by Vivien de Saint-Martin and

Louis Rousselet, 10 vols. See also H. B. George, _The Relations of

Geography and History_ (1910) and Ellen C. Semple, _The Influence of

Geographic Environment_ (1911).

STANDARD SECONDARY WORKS AND SETS ON MODERN HISTORY. _The Cambridge

Modern History_, 12 vols. and 2 supplementary vols. (1902-1912),

planned by Lord Acton, edited by A. W. Ward, G. W. Prothero, and

Stanley Leathes, written by English scholars, covering the period from

1450 to 1910, generally sound but rather narrowly political. Better

balanced is the monumental work of a group of French scholars,

_Histoire générale du IVe siècle à nos jours_, edited by Ernest Lavisse

and Alfred Rambaud, 12 vols. (1894-1901), of which the last nine treat

of the years from 1492 to 1900. For social history a series, _Histoire

universelle du travail_, 12 vols., is projected under the editorship of

Georges Renard. _The Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th ed. (1910-1911), is

the work mainly of distinguished scholars and a storehouse of

historical information, political, social, and intellectual. Also

available in English is _History of All Nations_, 24 vols. (1902), the

first nineteen based on translation of Theodor Flathe, _Allgemeine

Weltgeschichte_,--Vols. X-XXIV dealing with modern history,--Vol. XX,

on Europe, Asia, and Africa since 1871, by C. M. Andrews, and Vols.

XXI-XXIII, on American history, by John Fiske; likewise H. F. Helmolt

(editor), _Weltgeschichte_, trans. into English, 8 vols. (1902-1907).

Sets and series in German: Wilhelm Oncken (editor), _Allgemeine

Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen_, 50 vols. (1879-1893); _Geschichte

der europäischen Staaten_, an enormous collection, appearing more or

less constantly from 1829 to the present and edited successively by

such famous scholars as A. H. L. Heeren, F. A. Ukert, Wilhelm von

Giesebrecht, and Karl Lamprecht; G. von Below and F. Meinecke

(editors), _Handbuch der mittel-alterlichen und neueren Geschichte_, a

series begun in 1903 and planned, when completed, to comprise 40 vols.;

Paul Hinneberg (editor), _Die Kultur der Gegenwart, ihre Entwicklung

und ihre Ziele_, a remarkable series begun in 1906 and intended to

explain in many volumes the civilization of the twentieth century in

all its aspects; Erich Brandenburg (editor), _Bibliothek der

Geschichtswissenschaft_, a series recently projected, the first volume

appearing in 1912; J. von Pflugk-Harttung, _Weltgeschichte: die

Entwicklung der Menschheit in Staat und Gesellschaft, in Kultur und

Geistesleben_, 6 vols. illust. (1908-1911); Theodor Lindner,

_Weltgeschichte seit der Völkerwanderung_, 8 vols. (1908-1914).

Valuable contributions to general modern history occur in such

monumental national histories as Karl Lamprecht, _Deutsche Geschichte_,

12 vols. in 16 (1891-1909), and, more particularly, Ernest Lavisse

(editor), _Histoire de France depuis les origines jusqu'à la

Révolution_, 9 double vols. (1900-1911).

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARIES. General: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th

ed., 29 vols. (1910-1911); _New International Encyclopedia_, 2d ed., 24

vols. (1914-1916); _Catholic Encyclopedia_, 15 vols. (1907-1912). Great

Britain: Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (editors), _Dictionary of

National Biography_, 72 vols. (1885-1913). France: Hoefer (editor),

_Nouvelle biographie générale_, 46 vols. (1855-1866); _Dictionnaire de

biographie française_, projected (1913) under editorship of Louis

Didier, Albert Isnard, and Gabriel Ledos. Germany: Liliencron and

Wegele (editors), _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, 54 vols. (1875

_sqq_.). Austria-Hungary: Wurzbach (editor), _Biographisches Lexikon

des Kaiserthums Oesterreich_, 60 vols. (1856-1891). There is also a

well-known French work--L. G. Michaud, _Biographie universelle ancienne

et moderne_, 45 vols. (1880).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Many of the works cited above and most of the works

mentioned in the following chapter bibliographies contain convenient

bibliographies on special topics. The best general guide to collections

of source material and to the organization of historical study and

research, though already somewhat out-of-date, is C. V. Langlois,

_Manuel de bibliographie historique_, 2 vols. (1901-1904). See also C.

M. Andrews, J. M. Gambrill, and Lida Tall, _A Bibliography of History

for Schools and Libraries_ (1910); and C. K. Adams, _A Manual of

Historical Literature_, 3d ed. (1889). Specifically, for Great Britain:

W. P. Courtney, _A Register of National Bibliography_, 3 vols. (1905-

1912); S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger, _Introduction to the Study

of English History_, 4th ed. (1903); H. L. Cannon, _Reading References

for English History_ (1910); _Bibliography of Modern English History_,

now (1916) in preparation under the auspices of English scholars and of

the American Historical Association. For German bibliography: Dahlmann-

Waitz, _Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte_, 8th ed. (1912);

_Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft_, a valuable annual

publication issued under the auspices of the Historical Association of

Berlin. For French bibliography: Gabriel Monod, _Bibliographie de

l'histoire de France_ (1888), new ed. projected (1910) in 4 vols.;

_Manuels de bibliographie historique_ (1907-1916): Part II, 1494-1610,

by Henri Hauser, _Part III, 1610-1715_, by Émile Bourgeois and Louis

André; _Répertoire méthodique de l'histoire moderne et contemporaine de

la France_, an annual publication edited by Brière and Caron. For

American bibliography: Edward Channing, A. B. Hart, and F. J. Turner,

_Guide to the Study of American History_ (1912). Among important

historical periodicals, containing bibliographical notes and book

reviews, are, _History Teacher's Magazine, The American Historical

Review, The English Historical Review, Die historische Zeitschrift,

Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, La revue historique_, and

_La revue des questions historiques_. For periodical literature see

_Poole's Index_ (1802-1906) and _Readers' Guide_ (1900 _sqq._). The

most famous lists of published books are: _The American Catalogue_

(1876 _sqq._); the _English Catalogue_ (1835 _sqq._); C. G. Kayser,

_Bücher-Lexikon_ (1750 _sqq._); Wilhelm Heinsius, _Bücher-Lexikon_

(1700-1892); Otto Lorenz, _Catalogue général de la librarie française

(1840 _sqq_.); and, for general comment, American Library Association,

_Index to General Literature_ (1893 _sqq._).

PART I

FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN EUROPE

CHAPTER I

THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

1. THE NEW NATIONAL MONARCHIES

[Sidenote: "National Monarchies" in 1500]

Before we can safely proceed with the story of European development

during the past four hundred years, it is necessary to know what were

the chief countries that existed at the beginning of our period and

what were the distinctive political institutions of each.

A glance at the map of Europe in 1500 will show numerous unfamiliar

divisions and names, especially in the central and eastern portions.

Only in the extreme west, along the Atlantic seaboard, will the eye

detect geographical boundaries which resemble those of the present day.

There, England, France, Spain, and Portugal have already taken form. In

each one of these countries is a real nation, with a single monarch,

and with a distinctive literary language. These four states are the

_national_ states of the sixteenth century. They attract our

immediate attention.

ENGLAND

[Sidenote: The English Monarchy]

In the year 1500 the English monarchy embraced little more than what on

the map is now called "England." It is true that to the west the

principality of Wales had been incorporated two hundred years earlier,

but the clannish mountaineers and hardy lowlanders of the northern part

of the island of Great Britain still preserved the independence of the

kingdom of Scotland, while Irish princes and chieftains rendered

English occupation of their island extremely precarious beyond the so-

called Pale of Dublin which an English king had conquered in the

twelfth century. Across the English Channel, on the Continent, the

English monarchy retained after 1453, the date of the conclusion of the

Hundred Years' War, only the town of Calais out of the many rich French

provinces which ever since the time of William the Conqueror (1066-

1087) had been a bone of contention between French and English rulers.

While the English monarchy was assuming its geographical form, peculiar

national institutions were taking root in the country, and the English

language, as a combination of earlier Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French,

was being evolved. The Hundred Years' War with France, or rather its

outcome, served to exalt the sense of English nationality and English

patriotism, and to enable the king to devote his whole attention to the

consolidation of his power in the British islands. For several years

after the conclusion of peace on the Continent, England was harassed by

bloody and confused struggles, known as the Wars of the Roses, between

rival claimants to the throne, but at length, in 1485, Henry VII, the

first of the Tudor dynasty, secured the crown and ushered in a new era

of English history.

[Sidenote: Increase of Royal Power in England under Henry VII]

Henry VII (1485-1509) sought to create what has been termed a "strong

monarchy." Traditionally the power of the king had been restricted by a

Parliament, composed of a House of Lords and a House of Commons, and as

the former was then far more influential than the latter, supreme

political control had rested practically with the king and the members

of the upper house--great land-holding nobles and the princes of the

church. The Wars of the Roses had two effects which redounded to the

advantage of the king: (1) the struggle, being really a contest of two

factions of nobles, destroyed many noble families and enabled the crown

to seize their estates, thereby lessening the influence of an ancient

class; (2) the struggle, being long and disorderly, created in the

middle class or "common people" a longing for peace and the conviction

that order and security could be maintained only by repression of the

nobility and the strengthening of monarchy. Henry took advantage of

these circumstances to fix upon his country an absolutism, or one-man

power in government, which was to endure throughout the sixteenth

century, during the reigns of the four other members of the Tudor

family, and, in fact, until a popular revolution in the seventeenth

century.

Henry VII repressed disorder with a heavy hand and secured the

establishment of an extraordinary court, afterwards called the "Court

of Star Chamber," to hear cases, especially those affecting the nobles,

which the ordinary courts had not been able to settle. Then, too, he

was very economical: the public revenue was increased by means of more

careful attention to the cultivation of the crown lands and the

collection of feudal dues, fines, benevolences [Footnote:

"Benevolences" were sums of money extorted from the people in the guise

of gifts. A celebrated minister of Henry VII collected a very large

number of "benevolences" for his master. If a man lived economically,

it was reasoned he was saving money and could afford a "present" for

the king. If, on the contrary, he lived sumptuously, he was evidently

wealthy and could likewise afford a "gift."], import and export duties,

and past parliamentary grants, while, by means of frugality and a

foreign policy of peace, the expenditure was appreciably decreased.

Henry VII was thereby freed in large measure from dependence on

Parliament for grants of money, and the power of Parliament naturally

declined. In fact, Parliament met only five times during his whole

reign and only once during the last twelve years, and in all its

actions was quite subservient to the royal desires.

[Sidenote: Foreign relations of England under Henry VII]

Henry VII refrained in general from foreign war, but sought by other

means to promote the international welfare of his country. He

negotiated several treaties by which English traders might buy and sell

goods in other countries. One of the most famous of these commercial

treaties was the _Intercursus Magnus_ concluded in 1496 with the

duke of Burgundy, admitting English goods into the Netherlands. He

likewise encouraged English companies of merchants to engage in foreign

trade and commissioned the explorations of John Cabot in the New World.

Henry increased the prestige of his house by politic marital alliances.

He arranged a marriage between the heir to his throne, Arthur, and

Catherine, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish

sovereigns. Arthur died a few months after his wedding, but it was

arranged that Catherine should remain in England as the bride of the

king's second son, who subsequently became Henry VIII. The king's

daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland, thereby

paving the way much later for the union of the crowns of England and

Scotland.

England in the year 1500 was a real national monarchy, and the power of

the king appeared to be distinctly in the ascendant. Parliament was

fast becoming a purely formal and perfunctory body.

FRANCE

[Sidenote: The French Monarchy]

By the year 1500 the French monarchy was largely consolidated

territorially and politically. It had been a slow and painful process,

for long ago in 987, when Hugh Capet came to the throne, the France of

his day was hardly more than the neighborhood of Paris, and it had

taken five full centuries to unite the petty feudal divisions of the

country into the great centralized state which we call France. The

Hundred Years' War had finally freed the western duchies and counties

from English control. Just before the opening of the sixteenth century

the wily and tactful Louis XI (1461-1483) had rounded out French

territories: on the east he had occupied the powerful duchy of

Burgundy; on the west and on the southeast he had possessed himself of

most of the great inheritance of the Angevin branch of his own family,

including Anjou, and Provence east of the Rhone; and on the south the

French frontier had been carried to the Pyrenees. Finally, Louis's son,

Charles VIII (1483-1498), by marrying the heiress of Brittany, had

absorbed that western duchy into France.

[Sidenote: Steady Growth of Royal Power in France]

Meanwhile, centralized political institutions had been taking slow but

tenacious root in the country. Of course, many local institutions and

customs survived in the various states which had been gradually added

to France, but the king was now recognized from Flanders to Spain and

from the Rhone to the Ocean as the source of law, justice, and order.

There was a uniform royal coinage and a standing army under the king's

command. The monarchs had struggled valiantly against the disruptive

tendencies of feudalism; they had been aided by the commoners or middle

class; and the proof of their success was their comparative freedom

from political checks. The Estates-General, to which French commoners

had been admitted in 1302, resembled in certain externals the English

Parliament,--for example, in comprising representatives of the clergy,

nobles, and commons,--but it had never had final say in levying taxes

or in authorizing expenditures or in trying royal officers. And unlike

England, there was in France no live tradition of popular participation

in government and no written guarantee of personal liberty.

[Sidenote: Foreign Relations of the French Kings about 1500]

Consolidated at home in territory and in government, Frenchmen began

about the year 1500 to be attracted to questions of external policy. By

attempting to enforce an inherited claim to the crown of Naples,

Charles VIII in 1494 started that career of foreign war and

aggrandizement which was to mark the history of France throughout

following centuries. His efforts in Italy were far from successful, but

his heir, Louis XII (1498-1515), continued to lay claim to Naples and

to the duchy of Milan as well. In 1504 Louis was obliged to resign

Naples to King Ferdinand of Aragon, in whose family it remained for two

centuries, but about Milan continued a conflict, with varying fortunes,

ultimately merging into the general struggle between Francis I (1515-

1547) and the Emperor Charles V.

France in the year 1500 was a real national monarchy, with the

beginnings of a national literature and with a national patriotism

centering in the king. It was becoming self-conscious. Like England,

France was on the road to one-man power, but unlike England, the way

had been marked by no liberal or constitutional mile-posts.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

[Sidenote: Development of the Spanish and Portuguese Monarchies]

South of the Pyrenees were the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies,

which, in a long process of unification, not only had to contend

against the same disuniting tendencies as appeared in France and

England, but also had to solve the problem of the existence side by

side of two great rival religions--Christianity and Mohammedanism.

Mohammedan invaders from Africa had secured political control of nearly

the whole peninsula as early as the eighth century, but in course of

time there appeared in the northern and western mountains several

diminutive Christian states, of which the following may be mentioned:

Barcelona, in the northeast, along the Mediterranean; Aragon, occupying

the south-central portion of the Pyrenees and extending southward

toward the Ebro River; Navarre, at the west of the Pyrenees, reaching

northward into what is now France and southward into what is now Spain;

Castile, west of Navarre, circling about the town of Burgos; Leon, in

the northwestern corner of the peninsula; and Portugal, south of Leon,

lying along the Atlantic coast. Little by little these Christian states

extended their southern frontiers at the expense of the Mohammedan

power and showed some disposition to combine. In the twelfth century

Barcelona was united with the kingdom of Aragon, and a hundred years

later Castile and Leon were finally joined. Thus, by the close of the

thirteenth century, there were three important states in the peninsula

--Aragon on the east, Castile in the center, and Portugal on the west--

and two less important states--Christian Navarre in the extreme north,

and Mohammedan Granada in the extreme south.

While Portugal acquired its full territorial extension in the peninsula

by the year 1263, the unity of modern Spain was delayed until after the

marriage of Ferdinand (1479-1516) and Isabella (1474-1504), sovereigns

respectively of Aragon and Castile. Granada, the last foothold of the

Mohammedans, fell in 1492, and in 1512 Ferdinand acquired that part of

the ancient kingdom of Navarre which lay upon the southern slope of the

Pyrenees. The peninsula was henceforth divided between the two modern

states of Spain and Portugal.

[Sidenote: Portugal a Real National Monarchy in 1500]

Portugal, the older and smaller of the two states, had become a

conspicuous member of the family of nations by the year 1500, thanks to

a line of able kings and to the remarkable series of foreign

discoveries that cluster about the name of Prince Henry the Navigator.

Portugal possessed a distinctive language of Latin origin and already

cherished a literature of no mean proportions. In harmony with the

spirit of the age the monarchy was tending toward absolutism, and the

parliament, called the Cortes, which had played an important part in

earlier times, ceased to meet regularly after 1521. The Portuguese

royal family were closely related to the Castilian line, and there were

people in both kingdoms who hoped that one day the whole peninsula

would be united under one sovereign.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Kingdom in 1500]

From several standpoints the Spanish monarchy was less unified in 1500

than England, France, or Portugal. The union of Castile and Aragon was,

for over two centuries, hardly more than personal. Each retained its

own customs, parliaments (Cortes), and separate administration. Each

possessed a distinctive language, although Castilian gradually became

the literary "Spanish," while Catalan, the speech of Aragon, was

reduced to the position of an inferior. Despite the continuance of

excessive pride in local traditions and institutions, the cause of

Spanish nationality received great impetus during the reign of

Ferdinand and Isabella. It was under them that territorial unity had

been obtained. It was they who turned the attention of Spaniards to

foreign and colonial enterprises. The year that marked the fall of

Granada and the final extinction of Mohammedan power in Spain was

likewise signalized by the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, which

prefigured the establishment of a greater Spain beyond the seas. On the

continent of Europe, Spain speedily acquired a commanding position in

international affairs, as the result largely of Ferdinand's ability.

The royal house of Aragon had long held claims to the Neapolitan and

Sicilian kingdoms and for two hundred years had freely mixed in the

politics of Italy. Now, in 1504, Ferdinand definitely secured

recognition from France of his rights in Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Spain was becoming the rival of Venice for the leadership of the

Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Increase of Royal Power in Spain under Ferdinand and

Isabella]

While interfering very little with the forms of representative

government in their respective kingdoms, Ferdinand and Isabella worked

ever, in fact, toward uniformity and absolutism. They sought to

ingratiate themselves with the middle class, to strip the nobility of

its political influence, and to enlist the church in their service. The

Cortes were more or less regularly convened, but their functions were

almost imperceptibly transferred to royal commissions and officers of

state. Privileges granted to towns in earlier times were now gradually

revoked. The king, by becoming the head of the ancient military orders

which had borne prominent part in the struggle against the Mohammedans,

easily gained control of considerable treasure and of an effective

fighting force. The sovereigns prevailed upon the pope to transfer

control of the Inquisition, the medieval ecclesiastical tribunal for

the trial of heretics, to the crown, so that the harsh penalties which

were to be inflicted for many years upon dissenters from orthodox

Christianity were due not only to religious bigotry but likewise to the

desire for political uniformity.

In population and in domestic resources Spain was not so important as

France, but the exploits of Ferdinand and Isabella, the great wealth

which temporarily flowed to her from the colonies, the prestige which

long attended her diplomacy and her armies, were to exalt the Spanish

monarchy throughout the sixteenth century to a position quite out of

keeping with her true importance.

2. THE OLD HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

[Sidenote: The Idea of an "Empire" Different in 1500 from that of a

"National Monarchy"]

The national monarchies of western Europe--England, France, Spain, and

Portugal--were political novelties in the year 1500: the idea of

uniting the people of similar language and customs under a strongly

centralized state had been slowly developing but had not reached

fruition much before that date. On the other hand, in central Europe

survived in weakness an entirely different kind of state, called an

empire. The theory of an empire was a very ancient one--it meant a

state which should embrace all peoples of whatsoever race or language,

bound together in obedience to a common prince. Such, for example, had

been the ideal of the old Roman Empire, under whose Caesars practically

the whole civilized world had once been joined, so that the inhabitant

of Egypt or Armenia united with the citizen of Britain or Spain in

allegiance to the emperor. That empire retained its hold on portions of

eastern Europe until its final conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453,

but a thousand years earlier it had lost control of the West because of

external violence and internal weakness. So great, however, was the

strength of the idea of an "empire," even in the West, that Charlemagne

about the year 800 temporarily united what are now France, Germany,

Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium into what he persisted in styling

the "Roman Empire." Nearly two centuries later, Otto the Great, a

famous prince in Germany, gave other form to the idea, in the "Holy

Roman Empire" of which he became emperor. This form endured from 962 to

1806.

[Sidenote: The Holy Roman Empire; Its Mighty Claims in Theory and its

Slight Power in Practice]

In theory, the Holy Roman Empire claimed supremacy over all Christian

rulers and peoples of central and western Europe, and after the

extinction of the eastern empire in 1453 it could insist that it was

the sole secular heir to the ancient Roman tradition. But the greatness

of the theoretical claim of the Holy Roman Empire was matched only by

the insignificance of its practical acceptance. The feudal nobles of

western Europe had never recognized it, and the national monarchs,

though they might occasionally sport with its honors and titles, never

admitted any real dependence upon it of England, France, Portugal, or

Spain. In central Europe, it had to struggle against the anarchical

tendencies of feudalism, against the rise of powerful and jealous city-

states, and against a rival organization, the Catholic Church, which in

its temporal affairs was at least as clearly an heir to the Roman

tradition as was the Holy Roman Empire. From the eleventh to the

thirteenth century the conflict raged, with results important for all

concerned,--results which were thoroughly obvious in the year 1500.

[Sidenote: The Holy Roman Empire practically Restricted by 1500 to the

Germanies]

In the first place, the Holy Roman Empire was practically restricted to

German-speaking peoples. The papacy and the Italian cities had been

freed from imperial control, and both the Netherlands--that is, Holland

and Belgium--and the Swiss cantons were only nominally connected. Over

the Slavic people to the east--Russians, Poles, etc.--or the

Scandinavians to the north, the empire had secured comparatively small

influence. By the year 1500 the words Empire and Germany had become

virtually interchangeable terms.

Secondly, there was throughout central Europe no conspicuous desire for

strong centralized national states, such as prevailed in western

Europe.

[Sidenote: Internal Weakness of the Holy Roman Empire]

Separatism was the rule. In Italy and in the Netherlands the city-

states were the political units. Within the Holy Roman Empire was a

vast hodge-podge of city-states, and feudal survivals--arch-duchies,

such as Austria; margravates, such as Brandenburg; duchies, like

Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg; counties like the Palatinate, and a

host of free cities, baronies, and domains, some of them smaller than

an American township. In all there were over three hundred states which

collectively were called "the Germanies" and which were united only by

the slender imperial thread. The idea of empire had not only been

narrowed to one nation; it also, in its failure to overcome feudalism,

had prevented the growth of a real national monarchy.

[Sidenote: Government of the Holy Roman Empire]

What was the nature of this slight tie that nominally held the

Germanies together? There was the form of a central government with an

emperor to execute laws and a Diet to make them. The emperor was not

necessarily hereditary but was chosen by seven "electors," who were the

chief princes of the realm. These seven were the archbishops of Mainz

(Mayence), of Cologne, and of Trier (Trèves), the king of Bohemia, the

duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, and the count palatine of

the Rhine. Not infrequently the electors used their position to extort

concessions from the emperor elect which helped to destroy German unity

and to promote the selfish interests of the princes. The imperial Diet

was composed of the seven electors, the lesser princes (including the

higher ecclesiastical dignitaries, such as bishops and abbots), and

representatives of the free cities, grouped in three separate houses.

The emperor was not supposed to perform any imperial act without the

authorization of the Diet, and petty jealousies between its members or

houses often prevented action in the Diet. The individual states,

moreover, reserved to themselves the management of most affairs which

in western Europe had been surrendered to the central national

government. The Diet, and therefore the emperor, was without a treasury

or an army, unless the individual states saw fit to act favorably upon

its advice and furnish the requested quotas. The Diet resembled far

more a congress of diplomats than a legislative body.

[Sidenote: The Habsburgs: Weak as Emperors but Strong as Rulers of

Particular States within the Holy Roman Empire]

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.

Before reviewing the chief city-states of northern Italy, it will be

well to say a word about two other political divisions of the country.

The southern third of the peninsula comprised the ancient kingdom of

Naples, which had grown up about the city of that name, and which

together with the large island of Sicily, was called the kingdom of the

Two Sicilies.

[Sidenote: Southern Italy in 1500: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]

This state, having been first formed by Scandinavian adventurers in the

eleventh century, had successively passed under papal suzerainty, under

the domination of the German emperors, and at length in 1266 under

French control. A revolt in Sicily in the year 1282, commonly called

the Sicilian Vespers, had severed the relation between the island and

the mainland, the former passing to the royal family of Aragon, and the

latter troublously remaining in French hands until 1442. The reunion of

the Two Sicilies at that date under the crown of Aragon served to keep

alive the quarrel between the French and the Spanish; and it was not

until 1504 that the king of France definitely renounced his Neapolitan

claims in favor of Ferdinand of Aragon. Socially and politically Naples

was the most backward state in Italy.

[Sidenote: Italy in 1500: the Papal States]

About the city of Rome had grown up in the course of centuries the

Papal States, or as they were officially styled, the Patrimony of St.

Peter. It had early fallen to the lot of the bishop, as the most

important person in the city, to exercise political power over Rome,

when barbarian invasions no longer permitted the exercise of authority

by Roman emperors; and control over neighboring districts, as well as

over the city, had been expressly recognized and conferred upon the

bishop by Charlemagne in the eighth century. This bishop of Rome was,

of course, the pope; and the pope slowly extended his territories

through central Italy from the Tiber to the Adriatic, long using them

merely as a bulwark to his religious and ecclesiastical prerogatives.

By the year 1500, however, the popes were becoming prone to regard

themselves as Italian princes who might normally employ their states as

so many pawns in the game of peninsular politics. The policy of the

notorious Alexander VI (1492-1503) centered in his desire to establish

his son, Cesare Borgia, as an Italian ruler; and Julius II (1503-1513)

was famed more for statecraft and military prowess than for religious

fervor.

[Sidenote: The City-States of Northern Italy in 1500]

North and west of the Papal States were the various city-states which

were so thoroughly distinctive of Italian politics at the opening of

the sixteenth century. Although these towns had probably reached a

higher plane both of material prosperity and of intellectual culture

than was to be found at that time in any other part of Europe,

nevertheless they were deeply jealous of each other and carried on an

interminable series of petty wars, the brunt of which was borne by

professional hired soldiers and freebooters styled _condottieri_.

Among the Italian city-states, the most famous in the year 1500 were

Milan, Venice, Genoa, and Florence.

[Sidenote: Italian City-States: Milan Governed by Despots]

Of these cities, Milan was still in theory a ducal fief of the Holy

Roman Empire, but had long been in fact the prize of despotic rulers

who were descended from two famous families--the Visconti and the

Sforza--and who combined the patronage of art with the fine political

subtleties of Italian tyrants. The Visconti ruled Milan from the

thirteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth, when a Sforza, a

leader of _condottieri_ established the supremacy of his own

family. In 1499, however, King Louis XII of France, claiming the duchy

as heir to the Visconti, seized Milan and held it until he was expelled

in 1512 by the Holy League, composed of the pope, Venice, Spain, and

England, and a Sforza was temporarily reinstated.

[Sidenote: Venice, a Type of the Commercial and Aristocratic Italian

City-States]

As Milan was the type of Italian city ruled by a despot or tyrant, so

Venice was a type of the commercial, oligarchical city-states. Venice

was by far the most powerful state in the peninsula. Located on the

islands and lagoons at the head of the Adriatic, she had profited

greatly by the crusades to build up a maritime empire and an enviable

trade on the eastern Mediterranean and had extended her sway over rich

lands in the northeastern part of Italy. In the year 1500, Venice

boasted 3000 ships, 300,000 sailors, a numerous and veteran army,

famous factories of plate glass, silk stuffs, and gold and silver

objects, and a singularly strong government. Nominally Venice was a

republic, but actually an oligarchy. Political power was intrusted

jointly to several agencies: (1) a grand council controlled by the

commercial magnates; (2) a centralized committee of ten; (3) an elected

doge, or duke; and (4), after 1454, three state inquisitors, henceforth

the city's real masters. The inquisitors could pronounce sentence of

death, dispose of the public funds, and enact statutes; they maintained

a regular spy system; and trial, judgment, and execution were secret.

The mouth of the lion of St. Mark received anonymous denunciations, and

the waves which passed under the Bridge of Sighs carried away the

corpses. To this regime Venice owed an internal peace which contrasted

with the endless civil wars of the other Italian cities. Till the final

destruction of the state in 1798 Venice knew no political revolution.

In foreign affairs, also, Venice possessed considerable influence; she

was the first European state to send regular envoys, or ambassadors, to

other courts. It seemed in 1500 as if she were particularly wealthy and

great, but already had been sowed the seed of her subsequent decline

and humiliation. The advance of the Ottoman Turks threatened her

position in eastern Europe, although she still held the Morea in

Greece, Crete, Cyprus, and many Ionian and Ægean islands. The discovery

of America and of a new route to India was destined to shake the very

basis of her commercial supremacy. And her unscrupulous policy toward

her Italian rivals lost her friends to the west. So great was the

enmity against Venice that the formidable League of Cambrai, entered

into by the emperor, the pope, France, and Spain in 1508, wrung many

concessions from her.

[Sidenote: Genoa]

Second only to Venice in commercial importance, Genoa, in marked

contrast with her rival, passed through all manner of political

vicissitudes until in 1499 she fell prey to the invasion of King Louis

XII of France. Thereafter Genoa remained some years subject to the

French, but in 1528 the resolution of an able citizen, Andrea Doria,

freed the state from foreign invaders and restored to Genoa her

republican institutions.

The famed city-state of Florence may be taken as the best type of the

democratic community, controlled by a political leader. The city, as

famous for its free institutions as for its art, in the first half of

the fifteenth century had come under the tutelage of a family of

traders and bankers, the wealthy Medici, who preserved the republican

forms, and for a while, under Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492), surnamed

the Magnificent, made Florence the center of Italian culture and

civilization.

[Sidenote: Florence, a Type of the Cultured and Democratic Italian

City-State]

Soon after the death of Lorenzo, a democratic reaction took place under

an enthusiastic and puritanical monk, Savonarola, who welcomed the

advent of the French king, Charles VIII, in 1494, and aided materially

in the expulsion of the Medici. Savonarola soon fell a victim to the

plots of his Florentine enemies and to the vengeance of the pope, whom

Charles VIII had offended, and was put to death in 1498, The democracy

managed to survive until 1512 when the Medici returned. The city-state

of Florence subsequently became the grand-duchy of Tuscany.

[Sidenote: The Obscure Duchy of Savoy in 1500]

Before we take leave of the Italian states of the year 1500, mention

should be made of the insignificant duchy of Savoy, tucked away in the

fastnesses of the northwestern Alps, whose duke, after varying

fortunes, was to become, in the nineteenth century, king of a united

Italy.

[Sidenote: The City-States in the Netherlands]

The city-state was the dominant form of political organization not only

in Italy but also in the Netherlands. The Netherlands, or the Low

Countries, were seventeen provinces occupying the flat lowlands along

the North Sea,--the Holland, Belgium, and northern France of our own

day. Most of the inhabitants, Flemings and Dutch, spoke a language akin

to German, but in the south the Walloons used a French dialect. At

first the provinces had been mere feudal states at the mercy of various

warring noblemen, but gradually in the course of the twelfth,

thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, important towns had arisen so

wealthy and populous that they were able to wrest charters from the

lords. Thus arose a number of municipalities--practically self-

governing republics--semi-independent vassals of feudal nobles; and in

many cases the early oligarchic systems of municipal government

speedily gave way to more democratic institutions. Remarkable in

industry and prosperity were Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Liege,

Utrecht, Delft, Rotterdam, and many another.

[Sidenote: Relation of the City-Stats of the Netherlands to the Dukes

of Burgundy]

Beginning in 1384 and continuing throughout the fifteenth century, the

dukes of Burgundy, who as vassals of the French king had long held the

duchy of that name in eastern France, succeeded by marriage, purchase,

treachery, or force in bringing one by one the seventeen provinces of

the Netherlands under their rule. This extension of dominion on the

part of the dukes of Burgundy implied the establishment of a strong

monarchical authority, which was supported by the nobility and clergy

and opposed by the cities. In 1465 a common parliament, called the

States General, was constituted at Brussels, containing deputies from

each of the seventeen provinces; and eight years later a grand council

was organized with supreme judicial and financial functions. Charles

the Bold, who died in 1477, was prevented from constructing a great

central kingdom between France and the Germanies only by the shrewdness

of his implacable foe, King Louis XI of France. As we have seen, in

another connection, Louis seized the duchy of Burgundy on the death of

Charles the Bold, thereby extending the eastern frontier of France, but

the duke's inheritance in the Netherlands passed to his daughter Mary.

In 1477 Mary's marriage with Maximilian of Austria began the long

domination of the Netherlands by the house of Habsburg.

Throughout these political changes, the towns of the Netherlands

maintained many of their former privileges, and their prosperity

steadily increased. The country became the richest in Europe, and the

splendor of the ducal court surpassed that of any contemporary

sovereign. A permanent memorial of it remains in the celebrated Order

of the Golden Fleece, which was instituted by the duke of Burgundy in

the fifteenth century and was so named from the English wool, the raw

material used in the Flemish looms and the very foundation of the

country's fortunes.

4. NORTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE IN THE YEAR 1500

[Sidenote: Northern and Eastern Europe of Small Importance in the

Sixteenth Century, but of Great Importance Subsequently]

We have now reviewed the states that were to be the main factors in the

historical events of the sixteenth century--the national monarchies of

England, France, Portugal, and Spain; the Holy Roman Empire of the

Germanies; and the city-states of Italy and the Netherlands. It may be

well, however, to point out that in northern and eastern Europe other

states had already come into existence, which subsequently were to

affect in no small degree the history of modern times, such as the

Scandinavian kingdoms, the tsardom of Muscovy, the feudal kingdoms of

Poland and Hungary, and the empire of the Ottoman Turks.

[Sidenote: Northwestern Europe: the Scandinavian Countries]

In the early homes of those Northmen who had long before ravaged the

coasts of England and France and southern Italy and had colonized

Iceland and Greenland, were situated in 1500 three kingdoms, Denmark,

Norway, and Sweden, corresponding generally to the present-day states

of those names. The three countries had many racial and social

characteristics in common, and they had been politically joined under

the king of Denmark by the Union of Calmar in 1397. This union never

evoked any popularity among the Swedes, and after a series of revolts

and disorders extending over fifty years, Gustavus Vasa (1523-1560)

established the independence of Sweden. Norway remained under Danish

kings until 1814.

[Sidenote: The Slavs in Central and Eastern Europe]

East of the Scandinavian peninsula and of the German-speaking

population of central Europe, spread out like a great fan, are a

variety of peoples who possess many common characteristics, including a

group of closely related languages, which are called Slavic. These

Slavs in the year 1500 included (1) the Russians, (2) the Poles and

Lithuanians, (3) the Czechs, or natives of Bohemia, within the confines

of the Holy Roman Empire, and (4) various nations in southeastern

Europe, such as the Serbs and Bulgars.

[Sidenote: Russia in 1500]

The Russians in 1500 did not possess such a huge autocratic state as

they do to-day. They were distributed among several principalities, the

chief and center of which was the grand-duchy of Muscovy, with Moscow

as its capital. Muscovy's reigning family was of Scandinavian

extraction but what civilization and Christianity the principalities

possessed had been brought by Greek missionaries from Constantinople.

For two centuries, from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of

the fifteenth, the Russians paid tribute to Mongol [Footnote: The

Mongols were a people of central Asia, whose famous leader, Jenghiz

Khan (1162-1227), established an empire which stretched from the China

Sea to the banks of the Dnieper. It was these Mongols who drove the

Ottoman Turks from their original Asiatic home and thus precipitated

the Turkish invasion of Europe. After the death of Jenghiz Khan the

Mongol Empire was broken into a variety of "khanates," all of which in

course of time dwindled away. In the sixteenth century the Mongols

north of the Black Sea succumbed to the Turks as well as to the

Russians.] khans who had set up an Asiatic despotism north of the Black

Sea. The beginnings of Russian greatness are traceable to Ivan III, the

Great (1462-1505), [Footnote: Ivan IV (1533-1584), called "The

Terrible," a successor of Ivan III, assumed the title of "Tsar" in

1547.] who freed his people from Mongol domination, united the numerous

principalities, conquered the important cities of Novgorod and Pskov,

and extended his sway as far as the Arctic Ocean and the Ural

Mountains. Russia, however, could hardly then be called a modern state,

for the political and social life still smacked of Asia rather than of

Europe, and the Russian Christianity, having been derived from

Constantinople, differed from the Christianity of western Europe.

Russia was not to appear as a conspicuous European state until the

eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Poland in 1500]

Southwest of the tsardom of Muscovy and east of the Holy Roman Empire

was the kingdom of Poland, to which Lithuanians as well as Poles owed

allegiance. Despite wide territories and a succession of able rulers,

Poland was a weak monarchy. Lack of natural boundaries made national

defense difficult. Civil war between the two peoples who composed the

state and foreign war with the neighboring Germans worked havoc and

distress. An obstructive parliament of great lords rendered effective

administration impossible. The nobles possessed the property and

controlled politics; in their hands the king gradually became a puppet.

Poland seemed committed to feudal society and feudal government at the

very time when the countries of western Europe were ridding themselves

of such checks upon the free growth of centralized national states.

[Sidenote: Hungary in 1500]

Somewhat similar to Poland in its feudal propensities was the kingdom

of Hungary, which an invasion of Asiatic tribesmen [Footnote:

Hungarians, or Magyars--different names for the same people.] in the

tenth century had driven like a wedge between the Slavs of the Balkan

peninsula and those of the north Poles and Russians. At first, the

efforts of such kings as St. Stephen (997-1038) promised the

development of a great state, but the weakness of the sovereigns in the

thirteenth century, the infiltration of western feudalism, and the

endless civil discords brought to the front a powerful and predatory

class of barons who ultimately overshadowed the throne. The brilliant

reign of Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490) was but an exception to the

general rule. Not only were the kings obliged to struggle against the

nobles for their very existence--the crown was elective in Hungary--but

no rulers had to contend with more or greater enemies on their

frontiers. To the north there was perpetual conflict with the Habsburgs

of German Austria and with the forces of the Holy Roman Empire; to the

east there were spasmodic quarrels with the Vlachs, the natives of

modern Rumania; to the south there was continual fighting, at first

with the Greeks and the Slavs--Serbs and Bulgars, and later, most

terrible of all, with the Ottoman Turks.

[Sidenote: The Ottoman Turks in 1500]

To the Eastern Roman Empire, with Constantinople as its capital, and

with the Greeks as its dominant population, and to the medieval

kingdoms of the Bulgars and Serbs, had succeeded by the year 1500 the

empire of the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman Turks were a tribe of Asiatic

Mohammedans who took their name from a certain Othman (died 1326),

under whom they had established themselves in Asia Minor, across the

Bosphorus from Constantinople. Thence they rapidly extended their

dominion over Syria, and over Greece and the Balkan peninsula, except

the little mountain state of Montenegro, and in 1453 they captured

Constantinople. The lands conquered by the arms of the Turks were

divided into large estates for the military leaders, or else assigned

to the maintenance of mosques and schools, or converted into common and

pasturage lands; the conquered Christians were reduced to the payment

of tribute and a life of serfdom. For two centuries the Turks were to

remain a source of grave apprehension to Europe.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

THE NATIONAL MONARCHIES ABOUT 1600. A. F. Pollard, _Factors in European

History_ (1907), ch. i on "Nationality" and ch. iii on "The New

Monarchy"; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. I, ch. xiv, xii, xi;

_Histoire générale_, Vol. IV, ch. xiii, iv, v; _History of All

Nations_, Vol. X, ch. xii-xvi; A. H. Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth

Century_ (1897), ch. i, ii; Mary A. Hollings, _Renaissance and

Reformation_ (1910), ch. i-v. On England: A. L. Cross, _History of

England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xviii; J. F. Bright, _History

of England_, Vol. II, a standard work; James Gairdner, _Henry VII_

(1889), a reliable short biography; Gladys Temperley, _Henry VII_

(1914), fairly reliable and quite readable; H. A. L. Fisher, _Political

History of England 1485-1547_ (1906), ch. i-iv, brilliant and

scholarly; A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_

(1914), Vol. II, ch. i, ii; William Cunningham, _The Growth of English

Industry and Commerce in Modern Times_, 5th ed., 3 vols. (1910-1912),

Vol. I, Book V valuable for social conditions under Henry VII; William

(Bishop) Stubbs, _Lectures on Mediæval and Modern History_, ch. xv,

xvi; F. W. Maitland, _The Constitutional History of England_ (1908),

Period II. On Scotland: P. H. Brown, _History of Scotland_, 3 vols.

(1899-1909), Vol. I from earliest times to the middle of the sixteenth

century; Andrew Lang, _A History of Scotland_, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1901-

1907), Vol. I. On France: A. J. Grant, _The French Monarchy, 1483-

1789_, 2 vols. (1900), Vol. I, ch. i, ii, brief and general; G. B.

Adams, _The Growth of the French Nation_ (1896), ch. viii-x, a

suggestive sketch; G. W. Kitchin, _A History of France_, 4th ed., 3

vols. (1894-1899), Vol. I and Vol. II (in part), dry and narrowly

political; Lavisse (editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. V, Part I

(1903), an exhaustive and scholarly study. On Spain and Portugal: E. P.

Cheyney, _European Background of American History_ (1904), pp. 60-103;

U. R. Burke, _A History of Spain from the Earliest Times to the Death

of Ferdinand the Catholic_, 2d ed., 2 vols. (1900), edited by M. A. S.

Hume, Vol. II best account of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; W.

H. Prescott, _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_, 3 vols.

(1836), antiquated but extremely readable; Mrs. Julia Cartwright,

_Isabella the Catholic_ (1914), in "Heroes of the Nations" Series; H.

M. Stephens, _Portugal_ (1891) in "Story of the Nations" Series; F. W.

Schirrmacher, _Geschichte von Spanien_, 7 vols. (1902), an elaborate

German work, of which Vol. VII covers the years 1492-1516.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. I (1902), ch.

ix, a political sketch; James (Viscount) Bryce, _The Holy Roman

Empire_, new ed. revised (1911); William Coxe, _History of the House of

Austria_, Bohn edition, 4 vols. (1893-1894), a century-old work but

still useful for Habsburg history; Sidney Whitman, _Austria_ (1899),

and, by the same author, _The Realm of the Habsburgs_ (1893) 5 Kurt

Kaser, _Deutsche Geschichte zur Zeit Maximilians I, 1486-1519_ (1912),

an excellent study appearing in "Bibliothek deutscher Geschichte,"

edited by Von Zwiedineck-Südenhorst; Franz Krones, _Handbuch der

Geschichte Oesterreichs von der altesten Zeit_, 5 vols. (1876-1879), of

which Vol. II, Book XI treats of political events in Austria from 1493

to 1526 and Vol. III, Book XII of constitutional development 1100-1526;

Leopold von Ranke, _History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations_, 1494-

1514, a rev. trans. in the Bohn Library (1915) of the earliest

important work of this distinguished historian, published originally in

1824.

ITALY AND THE CITY STATES. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. I (1902),

ch. iv-viii; _Histoire générale, Vol. IV, ch. i, ii; Mrs. H. M. Vernon,

_Italy from 1494 to 1790_ (1909), a clear account in the "Cambridge

Historical Series"; J. A. Symonds, _Age of the Despots_ (1883),

pleasant but inclined to the picturesque; Pompeo Molmenti, _Venice, its

Individual Growth from the Earliest Beginnings to the Fall of the

Republic_, trans. by H. F. Brown, 6 vols. (1906-1908), an exhaustive

narrative of the details of Venetian history; Edward Armstrong,

_Lorenzo de' Medici_ (1897), in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series,

valuable for Florentine history about 1500; Col. G. F. Young, _The

Medici_, 2 vols. (1909), an extended history of this famous Florentine

family from 1400 to 1743; Ferdinand Gregorovius, _History of the City

of Rome in the Middle Ages_, trans. from 4th German ed. by Annie

Hamilton, 8 vols. in 13, a non-Catholic account of the papal monarchy

in Italy, of which Vol. VII, Part II and Vol. VIII, Part I treat of

Rome about 1500. For the city-states of the Netherlands see _Cambridge

Modern History_, Vol. I (1902), ch. xiii; the monumental _History of

the People of the Netherlands_, by the distinguished Dutch historian P.

J. Blok, trans. by O. A. Bierstadt, 5 vols. (1898-1912), especially

Vols. I and II; and _Belgian Democracy: its Early History_, trans. by

J. V. Saunders (1915) from the authoritative work of the famous Belgian

historian Henri Pirenne (1910). For the German city-states see

references under HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE above.

NORTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE ABOUT 1500. General: _Cambridge Modern

History_, Vol. I (1902), ch. x, iii; _Histoire générale, Vol. IV, ch.

xviii-xxi; R. N. Bain, _Slavonic Europe: a Political History of Poland

and Russia from 1447 to 1796_ (1908), ch. i-iv; T. Schiemann,

_Russland, Polen, und Livland bis ins 17ten Jahrhundert_, 2 vols.

(1886-1887). Norway: H. H. Boyesen, _The History of Norway_ (1886), a

brief popular account in "Story of the Nations" Series. Muscovy: V. O.

Kliuchevsky, _A History of Russia_, trans. with some abridgments by C.

J. Hogarth, 3 vols. to close of seventeenth century (1911-1913), latest

and, despite faulty translation, most authoritative work on early

Russian history now available in English; Alfred Rambaud, _Histoire de

la Russie depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours_, 6th ed. completed to

1913 by Émile Haumant (1914), a brilliant work, of which the portion

down to 1877 has been trans. by Leonora B. Lang, 2 vols. (1879); W. R.

A. Morfill, _Russia_, in "Story of the Nations" Series, and _Poland_, a

companion volume in the same series. See also Jeremiah Curtin, _The

Mongols: a History_ (1908). For the Magyars: C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen,

_The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation_, 2 vols. (1908),

especially Vol. I, ch. i-iii; A. Vámbéry, _The Story of Hungary_ (1886)

in "Story of the Nations" Series; Count Julius Andrássy, _The

Development of Hungarian Constitutional Liberty_, trans. by C. Arthur

and Ilona Ginever (1908), the views of a contemporary Magyar statesman

on the constitutional development of his country throughout the middle

ages and down to 1619, difficult to read. For the Ottoman Turks and the

Balkan peoples: Stanley Lane-Poole, _Turkey_ (1889), in "Story of the

Nations" Series, best brief introduction; A. H. Lybyer, _The Government

of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent_ (1913);

Prince and Princess Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich, _The Servian People,

their Past Glory and their Destiny_, 2 vols. (1910), particularly Vol.

II, ch. xi, xii; far more pretentious works are, Joseph von Hammer,

_Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1834-1835), and

Nicolae Jorga, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches nach den Quellen

dargestellt_, 5 vols. (1908-1913), especially Vol. II, _1451-1538_,

and H. A. Gibbons, _The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire _(1916),

covering the earlier years, from 1300 to 1403.

CHAPTER II

THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Introductory]

Five hundred years ago a European could search in vain the map of "the

world" for America, or Australia, or the Pacific Ocean. Experienced

mariners, and even learned geographers, were quite unaware that beyond

the Western Sea lay two great continents peopled by red men; of Africa

they knew only the northern coast; and in respect of Asia a thousand

absurd tales passed current. The unexplored waste of waters that

constituted the Atlantic Ocean was, to many ignorant Europeans of the

fifteenth century, a terrible region frequented by fierce and fantastic

monsters. To the average European the countries surveyed in the

preceding chapter, together with their Mohammedan neighbors across the

Mediterranean, still comprised the entire known world.

Shortly before the close of the fifteenth century, daring captains

began to direct long voyages on the high seas and to discover the

existence of new lands; and from that time to the present, Europeans

have been busily exploring and conquering--veritably "Europeanizing"--

the whole globe. Although religion as well as commerce played an

important role in promoting the process, the movement was attended from

the very outset by so startling a transformation in the routes,

methods, and commodities of trade that usually it has been styled the

Commercial Revolution. By the close of the sixteenth century it had

proceeded far enough to indicate that its results would rank among the

most fateful events of all history.

It was in the commonplace affairs of everyday life that the Commercial

Revolution was destined to produce its most far-reaching results. To

appreciate, therefore, its true nature and significance, we must first

turn aside to ascertain how our European ancestors actually lived about

the year 1500, and what work they did to earn their living. Then, after

recounting the story of foreign exploration and colonization, we shall

be in a position to reappraise the domestic situation in town and on

the farm.

AGRICULTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Differences between Sixteenth-century Farming and That of

To-day]

Agriculture has always been the ultimate basis of society, but in the

sixteenth century it was of greater relative importance than it is now.

People then reckoned their wealth, not by the quantity of stocks and

bonds they held, but by the extent of land they owned. Farming was

still the occupation of the vast majority of the population of every

European state, for the towns were as yet small in size and few in

number. The "masses" lived in the country, not, as to-day, in the city.

A twentieth-century observer would be struck by other peculiarities of

sixteenth-century agriculture. He would find a curious organization of

rural society, strange theories of land-ownership, and most unfamiliar

methods of tillage. He would discover, moreover, that practically each

farm was self-sufficing, producing only what its own occupants could

consume, and that consequently there was comparatively little external

trade in farm produce. From these facts he would readily understand

that the rural communities in the year 1500, numerous yet isolated,

were invulnerable strongholds of conservatism and ignorance.

[Sidenote: Two Rural Classes: Nobility and Peasantry]

In certain respects a remarkable uniformity prevailed in rural

districts throughout all Europe. Whether one visited Germany, Hungary,

France, or England, one was sure to find the agricultural population

sharply divided into two social classes--nobility and peasantry. There

might be varying gradations of these classes in different regions, but

certain general distinctions everywhere prevailed.

[Sidenote: The Nobility]

The nobility [Footnote: As a part of the nobility must be included at

the opening of the sixteenth century many of the higher clergy of the

Catholic Church--archbishops, bishops, and abbots--who owned large

landed estates quite like their lay brethren.] comprised men who gained

a living from the soil without manual labor. They held the land on

feudal tenure, that is to say, they had a right to be supported by the

peasants living on their estates, and, in return, they owed to some

higher or wealthier nobleman or to the king certain duties, such as

fighting for him, [Footnote: This obligation rested only upon lay

noblemen, not upon ecclesiastics.] attending his court at specified

times, and paying him various irregular taxes (the feudal dues). The

estate of each nobleman might embrace a single farm, or "manor" as it

was called, inclosing a petty hamlet, or village; or it might include

dozens of such manors; or, if the landlord were a particularly mighty

magnate or powerful prelate, it might stretch over whole counties.

Each nobleman had his manor-house or, if he were rich enough, his

castle, lording it over the humble thatch-roofed cottages of the

villagers. In his stables were spirited horses and a carriage adorned

with his family crest; he had servants and lackeys, a footman to open

his carriage door, a game-warden to keep poachers from shooting his

deer, and men-at-arms to quell disturbances, to aid him against

quarrelsome neighbors, or to follow him to the wars. While he lived, he

might occupy the best pew in the village church; when he died, he would

be laid to rest within the church where only noblemen were buried.

[Sidenote: Reason for the Preëminence of the Nobility]

In earlier times, when feudal society was young, the nobility had

performed a very real service as the defenders of the peasants against

foreign enemies and likewise against marauders and bandits of whom the

land had been full. Then fighting had been the profession of the

nobility, And to enable them to possess the expensive accoutrements of

fighting--horses, armor, swords, and lances--the kings and the peasants

had assured them liberal incomes.

Now, however, at the opening of the sixteenth century, the palmy days

of feudalism were past and gone. Later generations of noblemen,

although they continued by right of inheritance to enjoy the financial

income and the social prestige which their forbears had earned, no

longer served king, country, or common people in the traditional

manner. At least in the national monarchies it was the king who now had

undertaken the defense of the land and the preservation of peace; and

the nobleman, deprived of his old occupation, had little else to do

than to hunt, or quarrel with other noblemen, or engage in political

intrigues. More and more the nobility, especially in France, were

attracted to a life of amusement and luxury in the royal court. The

nobility already had outlived its usefulness, yet it retained its old-

time privileges.

[Sidenote: The Peasantry]

In striking contrast to the nobility--the small minority of land-owning

aristocrats--were the peasantry--the mass of the people. They were the

human beings who had to toil for their bread in the sweat of their

brows and who were deemed of ignoble birth, as social inferiors, and as

stupid and rude. Actual farm work was "servile labor," and between the

man whose hands were stained by servile labor and the person of "gentle

birth" a wide gulf was fixed.

[Sidenote: Serfdom and the Manorial System]

During the early middle ages most of the peasants throughout Europe

were "serfs." For various reasons, which we shall explain presently,

serfdom had tended gradually to and the die out in western Europe, but

at the opening of the sixteenth century most of the agricultural

laborers in eastern and central Europe, and even a considerable number

in France, were still serfs, living and working on nobles' manors in

accordance with ancient customs which can be described collectively as

the "manorial system."

The serf occupied a position in rural society which it is difficult for

us to understand. He was not a slave, such as was usual in the Southern

States of the American Union before the Civil War; he was neither a

hired man nor a rent-paying tenant-farmer, such as is common enough in

all agricultural communities nowadays. The serf was not a slave,

because he was free to work for himself at least part of the time; he

could not be sold to another master; and he could not be deprived of

the right to cultivate land for his own benefit. He was not a hired

man, for he received no wages. And he was not a tenant-farmer, inasmuch

as he was "attached to the soil," that is, he was bound to stay and

work on his land, unless he succeeded in running away or in purchasing

complete freedom, in which case he would cease to be a serf and would

become a freeman.

[Sidenote: Obligations of the Serf to the Lord]

To the lord of the manor the serf was under many and varied

obligations, the most essential of which may be grouped conveniently as

follows: (1) The serf had to work without pay two or three days in each

week on the strips of land and the fields whose produce belonged

exclusively to the nobleman. In the harvest season extra days, known as

"boon-days," were stipulated on which the serf must leave his own work

in order to harvest for the lord. He also might be called upon in

emergencies to draw a cord of wood from the forest to the great manor-

house, or to work upon the highway (_corvée_). (2) The serf had to

pay occasional dues, customarily "in kind." Thus at certain feast-days

he was expected to bring a dozen fat fowls or a bushel of grain to the

pantry of the manor-house. (3) Ovens, wine-presses, gristmills, and

bridges were usually owned solely by the nobleman, and each time the

peasant used them he was obliged to give one of his loaves of bread, a

share of his wine, a bushel of his grain, or a toll-fee, as a kind of

rent, or "banality" as it was euphoniously styled. (4) If the serf died

without heirs, his holdings were transferred outright to the lord, and

if he left heirs, the nobleman had the rights of "heriot," that is, to

appropriate the best animal owned by the deceased peasant, and of

"relief," that is, to oblige the designated heir to make a definite

additional payment that was equivalent to a kind of inheritance tax.

[Sidenote: Free-Tenants]

As has been intimated, the manorial system was already on a steady

decline, especially in western Europe, at the opening of the sixteenth

century. A goodly number of peasants who had once been serfs were now

free-tenants, lessees, or hired laborers. Of course rent of farm-land

in our present sense--each owner of the land letting out his property

to a tenant and, in return, exacting as large a monetary payment as

possible--was then unknown. But there was a growing class of peasants

who were spoken of as free-tenants to distinguish them from serf-

tenants. These free-tenants, while paying regular dues, as did the

others, were not compelled to work two or three days every week in the

lord's fields, except occasionally in busy seasons such as harvest;

they were free to leave the estate and to marry off their daughters or

to sell their oxen without the consent of the lord; and they came to

regard their customary payments to the lord not so much as his due for

their protection as actual rent for their land.

[Sidenote: Hired Laborers]

While more prosperous peasants were becoming free-tenants, many of

their poorer neighbors found it so difficult to gain a living as serfs

that they were willing to surrender all claim to their own little

strips of land on the manor and to devote their whole time to working

for fixed wages on the fields which were cultivated for the nobleman

himself, the so-called lord's demesne. Thus a body of hired laborers

grew up claiming no land beyond that on which their miserable huts

stood and possibly their small garden-plots.

[Sidenote: Métayers]

Besides hired laborers and free-tenants, a third group of peasants

appeared in places where the noble proprietor did not care to

superintend the cultivation of his own land. In this case he parceled

it out among particular peasants, furnishing each with livestock and a

plow and expecting in return a fixed proportion of the crops, which in

France usually amounted to one-half. Peasants who made such a bargain

were called in France _métayers_, and in England "stock-and-land

lessees." The arrangement was not different essentially from the

familiar present-day practice of working a farm "on shares."

[Sidenote: Steady Decline of Serfdom]

In France and in England the serfs had mostly become hired laborers,

tenants, or _métayers_ by the sixteenth century. The obligations

of serfdom had proved too galling for the serf and too unprofitable for

the lord. It was much easier and cheaper for the latter to hire men to

work just when he needed them, than to bother with serfs, who could not

be discharged readily for slackness, and who naturally worked for

themselves far more zealously than for him. For this reason many

landlords were glad to allow their serfs to make payments in money or

in grain in lieu of the performance of customary labor. In England,

moreover, many lords, finding it profitable to inclose [Footnote: There

were no fences on the old manors. Inclosing a plot of ground meant

fencing or hedging it in.] their land in order to utilize it as

pasturage for sheep, voluntarily freed their serfs. The result was that

serfdom virtually had disappeared in England before the sixteenth

century. In France as early as the fourteenth century the bulk of the

serfs had purchased their liberty, although in a few districts serfdom

remained in its pristine vigor until the French Revolution.

In other countries agricultural conditions were more backward and

serfdom longer survived. Prussian and Austrian landowners retained

their serfs until the nineteenth century; the emancipation of Russian

serfs on a large scale was not inaugurated until 1861. There are still

survivals of serfdom in parts of eastern Europe.

[Sidenote: Survival of Servile Obligations after Decline of Serfdom]

Emancipation from serfdom by no means released the peasants from all

the disabilities under which they labored as serfs. True, the freeman

no longer had week-work to do, provided he could pay for his time, and

in theory at least he could marry as he chose and move freely from

place to place. But he might still be called upon for an occasional

day's labor, he still was expected to work on the roads, and he still

had to pay annoying fees for oven, mill, and wine-press. Then, too, his

own crops might be eaten with impunity by doves from the noble dovecote

or trampled underfoot by a merry hunting-party from the manor-house.

The peasant himself ventured not to hunt: he was precluded even from

shooting the deer that devoured his garden. Certain other customs

prevailed in various localities, conceived originally no doubt in a

spirit of good-natured familiarity between noble and peasants, but now

grown irritating if none the less humorous. It is said, for instance,

that in some places newly married couples were compelled to vault the

wall of the churchyard, and that on certain nights the peasants were

obliged to beat the castle ditch in order to rest the lord's family

from the dismal croaking of the frogs.

[Sidenote: Persistence of "Three-field System" of Agriculture]

In another important respect the manorial system survived long after

serfdom had begun to decline. This was the method of doing farm work. A

universal and insistent tradition had fixed agricultural method on the

medieval manor and tended to preserve it unaltered well into modern

times. The tradition was that of the "three-field system" of

agriculture. The land of the manor, which might vary in amount from a

few hundred to five thousand acres, was not divided up into farms of

irregular shape and size, as it would be now. The waste-land, which

could be used only for pasture, and the woodland on the outskirts of

the clearing, were treated as "commons," that is to say, each villager,

as well as the lord of the manor, might freely gather fire-wood, or he

might turn his swine loose to feed on the acorns in the forest and his

cattle to graze over the entire pasture. The cultivable or arable land

was divided into several--usually three--great grain fields. Ridges or

"balks" of unplowed turf divided each field into long parallel strips,

which were usually forty rods or a furlong (furrow-long) in length, and

from one to four rods wide. Each peasant had exclusive right to one or

more of these strips in each of the three great fields, making, say,

thirty acres in all; [Footnote: In some localities it was usual to

redistribute these strips every year. In that way the greater part of

the manor was theoretically "common" land, and no peasant had a right

of private ownership to any one strip.] the lord too had individual

right to a number of strips in the great fields.

[Sidenote: Disadvantages of Three-field System of Agriculture]

This so-called three-field system of agriculture was distinctly

disadvantageous in many ways. Much time was wasted in going back and

forth between the scattered plots of land. The individual peasant,

moreover, was bound by custom to cultivate his land precisely as his

ancestors had done, without attempting to introduce improvements. He

grew the same crops as his neighbors--usually wheat or rye in one

field; beans or barley in the second; and nothing in the third. Little

was known about preserving the fertility of the soil by artificial

manuring or by rotation of crops; and, although every year one-third of

the land was left "fallow" (uncultivated) in order to restore its

fertility, the yield per acre was hardly a fourth as large as now. Farm

implements were of the crudest kind; scythes and sickles did the work

of mowing machines; plows were made of wood, occasionally shod with

iron; and threshing was done with flails. After the grain had been

harvested, cattle were turned out indiscriminately on the stubble, on

the supposition that the fields were common property. It was useless to

attempt to breed fine cattle when all were herded together. The breed

deteriorated, and both cattle and sheep were undersized and poor. A

full-grown ox was hardly larger than a good-sized calf of the present

time. Moreover, there were no potatoes or turnips, and few farmers grew

clover or other grasses for winter fodder. It was impossible,

therefore, to keep many cattle through the winter; most of the animals

were killed off in the autumn and salted down for the long winter

months when it was impossible to secure fresh meat.

[Sidenote: Peasant Life on the Manor]

Crude farm-methods and the heavy dues exacted by the lord [Footnote: In

addition to the dues paid to the lay lord, the peasants were under

obligation to make a regular contribution to the church, which was

called the "tithe" and amounted to a share, less than a tenth, of the

annual crops.] of the manor must have left the poor man little for

himself. Compared with the comfort of the farmer today, the poverty of

sixteenth-century peasants must have been inexpressibly distressful.

How keenly the cold pierced the dark huts of the poorest, is hard for

us to imagine. The winter diet of salt meat, the lack of vegetables,

the chronic filth and squalor, and the sorry ignorance of all laws of

health opened the way to disease and contagion. And if the crops

failed, famine was added to plague.

On the other hand we must not forget that the tenement-houses of our

great cities have been crowded in the nineteenth century with people

more miserable than ever was serf of the middle ages. The serf, at any

rate, had the open air instead of a factory in which to work. When

times were good, he had grain and meat in plenty, and possibly wine or

cider, and he hardly envied the tapestried chambers, the bejeweled

clothes, and the spiced foods of the nobility, for he looked upon them

as belonging to a different world.

In one place nobleman and peasant met on a common footing--in the

village church. There, on Sundays and feast-days, they came together as

Christians to hear Mass; and afterwards, perhaps, holiday games and

dancing on the green, benignantly patronized by the lord's family,

helped the common folk to forget their labors. The village priest,

[Footnote: Usually very different from the higher clergy, who had large

landed estates of their own, the parish priests had but modest incomes

from the tithes of their parishioners and frequently eked out a living

by toiling on allotted patches of ground. The monks too were ordinarily

poor, although the monastery might be wealthy, and they likewise often

tilled the fields.] himself often of humble birth, though the most

learned man on the manor, was at once the friend and benefactor of the

poor and the spiritual director of the lord. Occasionally a visit of

the bishop to administer confirmation to the children, afforded an

opportunity for gayety and universal festivity.

[Sidenote: Rural Isolation and Conservatism]

At other times there was little to disturb the monotony of village life

and little to remind it of the outside world, except when a gossiping

peddler chanced along, or when the squire rode away to court or to war.

Intercourse with other villages was unnecessary, unless there were no

blacksmith or miller on the spot. The roads were poor and in wet

weather impassable. Travel was largely on horseback, and what few

commodities were carried from place to place were transported by pack-

horses. Only a few old soldiers, and possibly a priest, had traveled

very much; they were the only geographies and the only books of travel

which the village possessed, for few peasants could read or write.

Self-sufficient and secluded from the outer world, the rural village

went on treasuring its traditions, keeping its old customs, century

after century. The country instinctively distrusted all novelties; it

always preferred old ways to new; it was heartily conservative.

Country-folk did not discover America. It was the enterprise of the

cities, with their growing industries and commerce, which brought about

the Commercial Revolution; and to the development of commerce,

industry, and the towns, we now must turn our attention.

TOWNS ON THE EVE OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Trade and the Towns ]

Except for the wealthy Italian city-states and a few other cities which

traced their history back to Roman times, most European towns, it must

be remembered, dated only from the later middle ages. At first there

was little excuse for their existence except to sell to farmers salt,

fish, iron, and a few plows. But with the increase of commerce, which,

as we shall see, especially marked the thirteenth, fourteenth, and

fifteenth centuries, more merchants traveled through the country, ways

of spending money multiplied, and the little agricultural villages

learned to look on the town as the place to buy not only luxuries but

such tools, clothing, and shoes as could be manufactured more

conveniently by skillful town artisans than by clumsy rustics. The

towns, moreover, became exchanges where surplus farm products could be

marketed, where wine could be bartered for wool, or wheat for flax. And

as the towns grew in size, the prosperous citizens proved to be the

best customers for foreign luxuries, and foreign trade grew apace.

Town, trade, and industry thus worked together: trade stimulated

industry, industry assisted trade, and the town profited by both. By

the sixteenth century the towns had grown out of their infancy and were

maintaining a great measure of political and economic freedom.

[Sidenote: Freedom of the Towns.]

[Sidenote: Town Charters]

Originally many a town had belonged to some nobleman's extensive manor

and its inhabitants had been under much the same servile obligations to

the lord as were the strictly rural serfs. But with the lapse of time

and the growth of the towns, the townsmen or burghers had begun a

struggle for freedom from their feudal lords. They did not want to pay

servile dues to a baron, but preferred to substitute a fixed annual

payment for individual obligations; they besought the right to manage

their market; they wished to have cases at law tried in a court of

their own rather than in the feudal court over which the nobleman

presided; and they demanded the right to pay all taxes in a lump sum

for the town, themselves assessing and collecting the share of each

citizen. These concessions they eventually had won, and each city had

its charter, in which its privileges were enumerated and recognized by

the authority of the nobleman, or of the king, to whom the city owed

allegiance. In England these charters had been acquired generally by

merchant gilds, upon payment of a substantial sum to the nobleman; in

France frequently the townsmen had formed associations, called

_communes_, and had rebelled successfully against their feudal

lords; in Germany the cities had leagued together for mutual protection

and for the acquisition of common privileges. Other towns, formerly

founded by bishops, abbots, or counts, had received charters at the

very outset.

[Sidenote: Merchant Gilds]

A peculiar outgrowth of the need for protection against oppressive

feudal lords, as well as against thieves, swindlers, and dishonest

workmen, had been the typically urban organization known as the

merchant gild or the merchants' company. In the year 1500 the merchant

gilds were everywhere on the decline, but they still preserved many of

their earlier and more glorious traditions. At the time of their

greatest importance they had embraced merchants, butchers, bakers, and

candlestick-makers: in fact, all who bought or sold in the town were

included in the gild. And the merchant gild had then possessed the

widest functions.

[Sidenote: Earlier Functions of the Merchant Gild.]

[Sidenote: Social]

Its social and religious functions, inherited from much earlier bodies,

consisted in paying some special honor to a patron saint, in giving aid

to members in sickness or misfortune, attending funerals, and also in

the more enjoyable meetings when the freely flowing bowl enlivened the

transaction of gild business.

[Sidenote: Protective]

As a protective organization, the gild had been particularly effective.

Backed by the combined forces of all the gildsmen, it was able to

assert itself against the lord who claimed manorial rights over the

town, and to insist that a runaway serf who had lived in the town for a

year and a day should not be dragged back to perform his servile labor

on the manor, but should be recognized as a freeman. The protection of

the gild was accorded also to townsmen on their travels. In those days

all strangers were regarded as suspicious persons, and not infrequently

when a merchant of the gild traveled to another town he would be set

upon and robbed or cast into prison. In such cases it was necessary for

the gild to ransom the imprisoned "brother" and, if possible, to punish

the persons who had done the injury, so that thereafter the liberties

of the gild members would be respected. That the business of the gild

might be increased, it was often desirable to enter into special

arrangements with neighboring cities whereby the rights, lives, and

properties of gildsmen were guaranteed; and the gild as a whole was

responsible for the debts of any of its members.

[Sidenote: Regulative]

The most important duty of the gild had been the regulation of the home

market. Burdensome restrictions were laid upon the stranger who

attempted to utilize the advantages of the market without sharing the

expense of maintenance. No goods were allowed to be carried away from

the city if the townsmen wished to buy; and a tax, called in France the

_octroi_, was levied on goods brought into the town. [Footnote:

The _octroi_ is still collected in Paris.] Moreover, a conviction

prevailed that the gild was morally bound to enforce honest

straightforward methods of business; and the "wardens" appointed by the

gild to supervise the market endeavored to prevent, as dishonest

practices, "forestalling" (buying outside of the regular market),

"engrossing" (cornering the market), [Footnote: The idea that

"combinations in restraint of trade" are wrong quite possibly goes back

to this abhorrence of engrossing.] and "regrating" (retailing at higher

than market price). The dishonest green grocer was not allowed to use a

peck-measure with false bottom, for weighing and measuring were done by

officials. Cheats were fined heavily and, if they persisted in their

evil ways, they might be expelled from the gild.

These merchant gilds, with their social, protective, and regulative

functions, had first begun to be important in the eleventh century. In

England, where their growth was most rapid, 82 out of the total of 102

towns had merchant gilds by the end of the thirteenth century.

[Footnote: Several important places, such as London, Colchester, and

Norwich, belonged to the small minority without merchant gilds.] On the

Continent many towns, especially in Germany, had quite different

arrangements, and where merchant gilds existed, they were often

exclusive and selfish groups of merchants in a single branch of

business.

[Sidenote: Decline of Merchant Guilds]

With the expansion of trade and industry in the thirteenth and

fourteenth centuries the rule of the old merchant gilds, instead of

keeping pace with the times, became oppressive, limited, or merely

nominal. Where the merchant gilds became oppressive oligarchical

associations, as they did in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent,

they lost their power by the revolt of the more democratic "craft

gilds." In England specialized control of industry and trade by craft

gilds, journeymen's gilds, and dealers' associations gradually took the

place of the general supervision of the older merchant gild. After

suffering the loss of its vital functions, the merchant gild by the

sixteenth century either quietly succumbed or lived on with power in a

limited branch of trade, or continued as an honorary organization with

occasional feasts, or, and this was especially true in England, it

became practically identical with the town corporation, from which

originally it had been distinct.

[Sidenote: Industry: the Craft Guilds]

Alongside of the merchant gilds, which had been associated with the

growth of commerce and the rise of towns, were other guilds connected

with the growth of industry, which retained their importance long after

1500. These were the craft gilds. [Footnote: The craft gild was also

called a company, or a mistery, or _métier_ (French), or _Zunft_

(German).] Springing into prominence in the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries, the craft gild sometimes, as in Germany, voiced a popular

revolt against corrupt and oligarchical merchant gilds, and

sometimes most frequently so in England--worked quite harmoniously with

the merchant gild, to which its own members belonged. In common with

the merchant gild, the craft gild had religious and social aspects, and

like the merchant gild it insisted on righteous dealings; but unlike

the merchant gild it was composed of men in a single industry, and it

controlled in detail the manufacture as well as the marketing of

commodities. There were bakers' gilds, brewers' gilds, smiths' gilds,

saddlers' gilds, shoemakers' gilds, weavers' gilds, tailors' gilds,

tanners' gilds, even gilds of masters of arts who constituted the

teaching staff of colleges and universities.

When to-day we speak of a boy "serving his apprenticeship" in a trade,

we seldom reflect that the expression is derived from a practice of the

medieval craft gilds, a practice which survived after the gilds were

extinct. Apprenticeship was designed to make sure that recruits to the

trade were properly trained. The apprentice was usually selected as a

boy by a master-workman and indentured--that is, bound to work several

years without wages, while living at the master's house. After the

expiration of this period of apprenticeship, during which he had

learned his trade thoroughly, the youth became a "journeyman," and

worked for wages, until he should finally receive admission to the gild

as a master, with the right to set up his own little shop, with

apprentices and journeymen of his own, and to sell his wares directly

to those who used them.

This restriction of membership was not the only way in which the trade

was supervised. The gild had rules specifying the quality of materials

to be used and often, likewise, the methods of manufacture; it might

prohibit night-work, and it usually fixed a "fair price" at which goods

were to be sold. By means of such provisions, enforced by wardens or

inspectors, the gild not only perpetuated the "good old way" of doing

things, but guaranteed to the purchaser a thoroughly good article at a

fair price.

[Sidenote: Partial Decay of Craft Gilds]

By the opening of the sixteenth century the craft gilds, though not so

weakened as the merchant gilds, were suffering from various internal

diseases which sapped their vitality. They tended to become exclusive

and to direct their power and affluence in hereditary grooves. They

steadily raised their entrance fees and qualifications. Struggles

between gilds in allied trades, such as spinning, weaving, fulling, and

dyeing, often resulted in the reduction of several gilds to a dependent

position. The regulation of the processes of manufacture, once designed

to keep up the standard of skill, came in time to be a powerful

hindrance to technical improvements; and in the method as well as in

the amount of his work, the enterprising master found himself

handicapped. Even the old conscientiousness often gave way to greed,

until in many places inferior workmanship received the approval of the

gild.

Many craft gilds exhibited in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a

tendency to split somewhat along the present lines of capital and

labor. On the one hand the old gild organization would be usurped and

controlled by the wealthier master-workmen, called "livery men,"

because they wore rich uniforms, or a class of dealers would arise and

organize a "merchants' company" to conduct a wholesale business in the

products of a particular industry. Thus the rich drapers sold all the

cloth, but did not help to make it. On the other hand it became

increasingly difficult for journeymen and apprentices to rise to the

station of masters; oftentimes they remained wage-earners for life. In

order to better their condition they formed new associations, which in

England were called journeymen's or yeomen's companies. These new

organizations were symptomatic of injustice but otherwise unimportant.

The craft gilds, with all their imperfections, were to continue in

power awhile longer, slowly giving away as new trades arose outside of

their control, gradually succumbing in competition with capitalists who

refused to be bound by gild rules and who were to evolve a new

"domestic system," [Footnote: See Vol. II, ch xviii.] and slowly

suffering diminution of prestige through royal interference.

[Sidenote: Life in the Towns]

In the year 1500 the European towns displayed little uniformity in

government or in the amount of liberty they possessed. Some were petty

republics subject only in a very vague way to an extraneous potentate;

some merely paid annual tribute to a lord; some were administered by

officers of a king or feudal magnate; others were controlled by

oligarchical commercial associations. But of the general appearance and

life of sixteenth-century towns, it is possible to secure a more

uniform notion.

It must be borne in mind that the towns were comparatively small, for

the great bulk of people still lived in the country. A town of 5000

inhabitants was then accounted large; and even the largest places, like

Nuremberg, Strassburg, London, Paris, and Bruges, would have been only

small cities in our eyes. The approach to an ordinary city of the time

lay through suburbs, farms, and garden-plots, for the townsman still

supplemented industry with small-scale agriculture. Usually the town

itself was inclosed by strong walls, and admission was to be gained

only by passing through the gates, where one might be accosted by

soldiers and forced to pay toll. Inside the walls were clustered houses

of every description. Rising from the midst of tumble-down dwellings

might stand a magnificent cathedral, town-hall, or gild building. Here

and there a prosperous merchant would have his luxurious home, built in

what we now call the Gothic style, with pointed windows and gables,

and, to save space in a walled town, with the second story projecting

out over the street.

The streets were usually in deplorable condition. There might be one or

two broad highways, but the rest were mere alleys, devious, dark, and

dirty. Often their narrowness made them impassable for wagons. In

places the pedestrian waded gallantly through mud and garbage; pigs

grunted ponderously as he pushed them aside; chickens ran under his

feet; and occasionally a dead dog obstructed the way. There were no

sidewalks, and only the main thoroughfares were paved. Dirt and filth

and refuse were ordinarily disposed of only when a heaven-sent rain

washed them down the open gutters constructed along the middle, or on

each side, of a street. Not only was there no general sewerage for the

town, but there was likewise no public water supply. In many of the

garden plots at the rear of the low-roofed dwellings were dug wells

which provided water for the family; and the visitor, before he left

the town, would be likely to meet with water-sellers calling out their

ware. To guard against the danger of fires, each municipality

encouraged its citizens to build their houses of stone and to keep a

tub full of water before every building; and in each district a special

official was equipped with a proper hook and cord for pulling down

houses on fire. At night respectable town-life was practically at a

standstill: the gates were shut; the curfew sounded; no street-lamps

dispelled the darkness, except possibly an occasional lantern which an

altruistic or festive townsman might hang in his front-window; and no

efficient police-force existed--merely a handful of townsmen were

drafted from time to time as "watchmen" to preserve order, and the

"night watch" was famed rather for its ability to sleep or to roister

than to protect life or purse. Under these circumstances the citizen

who would escape an assault by ruffians or thieves remained prudently

indoors at night and retired early to bed. Picturesque and quaint the

sixteenth-century town may have been; but it was also an uncomfortable

and an unhealthful place in which to live.

TRADE PRIOR TO THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

Just as agriculture is the ultimate basis of human society, so town-

life has always been an index of culture and civilization. And the

fortunes of town-life have ever depended upon the vicissitudes of trade

and commerce. So the reviving commerce of the later middle ages between

Europe and the East meant the growth of cities and betokened an advance

in civilization.

[Sidenote: Revival of Trade with the East]

Trade between Europe and Asia, which had been a feature of the antique

world of Greeks and Romans, had been very nearly destroyed by the

barbarian invasions of the fifth century and by subsequent conflicts

between Mohammedans and Christians, so that during several centuries

the old trade-routes were traveled only by a few Jews and with the

Syrians. In the tenth century, however, a group of towns in southern

Italy--Brindisi, Bari, Taranto, and Amalfi--began to send ships to the

eastern Mediterranean and were soon imitated by Venice and later by

Genoa and Pisa.

This revival of intercourse between the East and the West was well

under way before the first Crusade, but the Crusades (1095-1270)

hastened the process. Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, on account of their

convenient location, were called upon to furnish the crusaders with

transportation and provisions, and their shrewd Italian citizens made

certain that such services were well rewarded. Italian ships, plying to

and from the Holy Land, gradually enriched their owners. Many Italian

cities profited, but Venice secured the major share. It was during the

Crusades that Venice gained numerous coastal districts and islands in

the Ægean besides immunities and privileges in Constantinople, and

thereby laid the foundation of her maritime empire.

The Crusades not only enabled Italian merchants to bring Eastern

commodities to the West; they increased the demand for such

commodities. Crusaders--pilgrims and adventurers--returned from the

Holy Land with astonishing tales of the luxury and opulence of the

East. Not infrequently they had acquired a taste for Eastern silks or

spices during their stay in Asia Minor or Palestine; or they brought

curious jewels stripped from fallen infidels to awaken the envy of the

stay-at-homes. Wealth was rapidly increasing in Europe at this time,

and the many well-to-do people who were eager to affect magnificence

provided a ready market for the wares imported by Italian merchants.

[Sidenote: Commodities of Eastern Trade]

It is desirable to note just what were these wares and why they were

demanded so insistently. First were spices, far more important then

than now. The diet of those times was simple and monotonous without our

variety of vegetables and sauces and sweets, and the meat, if fresh,

was likely to be tough in fiber and strong in flavor. Spices were the

very thing to add zest to such a diet, and without them the epicure of

the sixteenth century would have been truly miserable. Ale and wine, as

well as meats, were spiced, and pepper was eaten separately as a

delicacy. No wonder that, although the rich alone could buy it, the

Venetians were able annually to dispose of 420,000 pounds of pepper,

which they purchased from the sultan of Egypt, to whom it was brought,

after a hazardous journey, from the pepper vines of Ceylon, Sumatra, or

western India. From the same regions came cinnamon-bark; ginger was a

product of Arabia, India, and China; and nutmegs, cloves, and allspice

grew only in the far-off Spice Islands of the Malay Archipelago.

Precious stones were then, as always, in demand for personal adornment

as well as for the decoration of shrines and ecclesiastical vestments;

and in the middle ages they were thought by many to possess magical

qualities which rendered them doubly valuable. [Footnote: Medieval

literature is full of this idea. Thus we read in the book of travel

which has borne the name of Sir John Maundeville:

"And if you wish to know the virtues of the diamond, I shall tell you,

as they that are beyond the seas say and affirm, from whom all science

and philosophy comes. He who carries the diamond upon him, it gives him

hardiness and manhood, and it keeps the limbs of his body whole. It

gives him victory over his enemies, in court and in war, if his cause

be just; and it keeps him that bears it in good wit; and it keeps him

from strife and riot, from sorrows and enchantments, and from fantasies

and illusions of wicked spirits. ... [It] heals him that is lunatic,

and those whom the fiend torments or pursues."] The supply of diamonds,

rubies, pearls, and other precious stones was then almost exclusively

from Persia, India, and Ceylon.

Other miscellaneous products of the East were in great demand for

various purposes: camphor and cubebs from Sumatra and Borneo; musk from

China; cane-sugar from Arabia and Persia; indigo, sandal-wood, and

aloes-wood from India; and alum from Asia Minor.

The East was not only a treasure-house of spices, jewels, valuable

goods, and medicaments, but a factory of marvelously delicate goods and

wares which the West could not rival--glass, porcelain, silks, satins,

rugs, tapestries, and metal-work. The tradition of Asiatic supremacy in

these manufactures has been preserved to our own day in such familiar

names as damask linen, china-ware, japanned ware, Persian rugs, and

cashmere shawls.

In exchange for the manifold products of the East, Europe had only

rough woolen cloth, arsenic, antimony, quicksilver, tin, copper, lead,

and coral to give; and a balance, therefore, always existed for the

European merchant to pay in gold and silver, with the result that gold

and silver coins grew scarce in the West. It is hard to say what would

have happened had not a new supply of the precious metals been

discovered in America. But we are anticipating our story.

[Sidenote: Oriental Trade-Routes]

Nature has rendered intercourse between Europe and Asia exceedingly

difficult by reason of a vast stretch of almost impassable waste,

extending from the bleak plains on either side of the Ural hills down

across the steppes of Turkestan and the desert of Arabia to the great

sandy Sahara. Through the few gaps in this desert barrier have led from

early times the avenues of trade. In the fifteenth century three main

trade-routes--a central, a southern, and a northern--precariously

linked the two continents.

(1) The central trade-route utilized the valley of the Tigris River.

Goods from China, from the Spice Islands, and from India were brought

by odd native craft from point to point along the coast to Ormuz, an

important city at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, thence to the mouth of

the Tigris, and up the valley to Bagdad. From Bagdad caravans journeyed

either to Aleppo and Antioch on the northeastern corner of the

Mediterranean, or across the desert to Damascus and the ports on the

Syrian coast. Occasionally caravans detoured southward to Cairo and

Alexandria in Egypt. Whether at Antioch, Jaffa, or Alexandria, the

caravans met the masters of Venetian ships ready to carry the cargo to

Europe.

(2) The southern route was by the Red Sea. Arabs sailed their ships

from India and the Far East across the Indian Ocean and into the Red

Sea, whence they transferred their cargoes to caravans which completed

the trip to Cairo and Alexandria. By taking advantage of monsoons,--the

favorable winds which blew steadily in certain seasons,--the skipper of

a merchant vessel could make the voyage from India to Egypt in somewhat

less than three months. It was often possible to shorten the time by

landing the cargoes at Ormuz and thence dispatching them by caravan

across the desert of Arabia to Mecca, and so to the Red Sea, but

caravan travel was sometimes slower and always more hazardous than

sailing.

(3) The so-called "northern route" was rather a system of routes

leading in general from the "back doors" of India and China to the

Black Sea. Caravans from India and China met at Samarkand and Bokhara,

two famous cities on the western slope of the Tian-Shan Mountains. West

of Bokhara the route branched out. Some caravans went north of the

Caspian, through Russia to Novgorod and the Baltic. Other caravans

passed through Astrakhan, at the mouth of the Volga River, and

terminated in ports on the Sea of Azov. Still others skirted the shore

of the Caspian Sea, passing through Tabriz and Armenia to Trebizond on

the Black Sea.

The transportation of goods from the Black Sea and eastern

Mediterranean was largely in the hands of the Italian cities,[Footnote:

In general, the journey from the Far East to the ports on the Black Sea

and the eastern Mediterranean was performed by Arabs, although some of

the more enterprising Italians pushed on from the European settlements,

or _fondachi_, in ports like Cairo and Trebizond, and established

_fondachi_ in the inland cities of Asia Minor, Persia, and Russia.]

especially Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, although Marseilles

and Barcelona had a small share. From Italy trade-routes led

through the passes of the Alps to all parts of Europe. German merchants

from Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Regensburg, and Constance purchased

Eastern commodities in the markets of Venice, and sent them back to the

Germanies, to England, and to the Scandinavian countries. After the

lapse of many months, and even years, since the time when spices had

been packed first in the distant Moluccas, they would be exposed

finally for sale at the European fairs or markets to which thousands of

countryfolk resorted. There a nobleman's steward could lay in a year's

supply of condiments, or a peddler could fill his pack with silks and

ornaments to delight the eyes of the ladies in many a lonesome castle.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of European Commerce]

Within Europe commerce gradually extended its scope in spite of the

almost insuperable difficulties. The roads were still so miserable that

wares had to be carried on pack-horses instead of in wagons. Frequently

the merchant had to risk spoiling his bales of silk in fording a

stream, for bridges were few and usually in urgent need of repair.

Travel not only was fraught with hardship; it was expensive. Feudal

lords exacted heavy tolls from travelers on road, bridge, or river.

Between Mainz and Cologne, on the Rhine, toll was levied in thirteen

different places. The construction of shorter and better highways was

blocked often by nobles who feared to lose their toll-rights on the old

roads. So heavy was the burden of tolls on commerce that transportation

from Nantes to Orleans, a short distance up the River Loire, doubled

the price of goods. Besides the tolls, one had to pay for local market

privileges; towns exacted taxes on imports; and the merchant in a

strange city or village often found himself seriously handicapped by

regulations against "foreigners," and by unfamiliar weights, measures,

and coinage.

Most dreaded of all, however, and most injurious to trade were the

robbers who infested the roads. Needy knights did not scruple to turn

highwaymen. Cautious travelers carried arms and journeyed in bands, but

even they were not wholly safe from the dashing "gentlemen of the

road." On the seas there was still greater danger from pirates. Fleets

of merchantmen, despite the fact that they were accompanied usually by

a vessel of war, often were assailed by corsairs, defeated, robbed, and

sold as prizes to the Mohammedans. The black flag of piracy flew over

whole fleets in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean. The amateur

pirate, if less formidable, was no less common, for many a vessel

carrying brass cannon, ostensibly for protection, found it convenient

to use them to attack foreign craft and more frequently "took" a cargo

than purchased one.

[Sidenote: Venice]

These dangers and difficulties of commercial intercourse were due

chiefly to the lack of any strong power to punish pirates or

highwaymen, to maintain roads, or to check the exactions of toll-

collectors. Each city attempted to protect its own commerce. A great

city-state like Venice was well able to send out her galleys against

Mediterranean pirates, to wage war against the rival city of Genoa, to

make treaties with Oriental potentates, and to build up a maritime

empire. Smaller towns were helpless. But what, as in the case of the

German towns, they could not do alone, was partially achieved by

combination.

[Sidenote: The Hanseatic League. Towns in the Netherlands: Bruges]

The Hanse or the Hanseatic League, as the confederation of Cologne,

Brunswick, Hamburg, Lübeck, Dantzig, Königsberg, and other German

cities was called, waged war against the Baltic pirates, maintained its

trade-routes, and negotiated with monarchs and municipalities in order

to obtain exceptional privileges. From their Baltic stations,--

Novgorod, Stockholm, Königsberg, etc.,--the Hanseatic merchants brought

amber, wax, fish, furs, timber, and tar to sell in the markets of

Bruges, London, and Venice; they returned with wheat, wine, salt,

metals, cloth, and beer for their Scandinavian and Russian customers.

The German trading post at Venice received metals, furs, leather goods,

and woolen cloth from the North, and sent back spices, silks, and other

commodities of the East, together with glassware, fine textiles,

weapons, and paper of Venetian manufacture. Baltic and Venetian trade-

routes crossed in the Netherlands, and during the fourteenth century

Bruges became the trade-metropolis of western Europe, where met the raw

wool from England and Spain, the manufactured woolen cloth of Flanders,

clarets from France, sherry and port wines from the Iberian peninsula,

pitch from Sweden, tallow from Norway, grain from France and Germany,

and English tin, not to mention Eastern luxuries, Venetian

manufactures, and the cunning carved-work of south-German artificers.

THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

[Sidenote: Desire of Spaniards and Portuguese for New Trade-Routes]

In the unprecedented commercial prosperity which marked the fifteenth

century, two European peoples--the Portuguese and the Spanish--had

little part. For purposes of general Continental trade they were not so

conveniently situated as the peoples of Germany and the Netherlands;

and the Venetians and other Italians had shut them off from direct

trade with Asia. Yet Spanish and Portuguese had developed much the same

taste for Oriental spices and wares as had the inhabitants of central

Europe, and they begrudged the exorbitant prices which they were

compelled to pay to Italian merchants. Moreover, their centuries-long

crusades against Mohammedans in the Iberian peninsula and in northern

Africa had bred in them a stern and zealous Christianity which urged

them on to undertake missionary enterprises in distant pagan lands.

This missionary spirit reënforced the desire they already entertained

of finding new trade-routes to Asia untrammeled by rival and selfish

Italians. In view of these circumstances it is not surprising that

Spaniards and Portuguese sought eagerly in the fifteenth century to

find new trade-routes to "the Indies."

[Sidenote: Geographical Knowledge]

In their search for new trade-routes to the lands of silk and spice,

these peoples of southwestern Europe were not as much in the dark as

sometimes we are inclined to believe. Geographical knowledge, almost

non-existent in the earlier middle ages, had been enriched by the

Franciscan friars who had traversed central Asia to the court of the

Mongol emperor as early as 1245, and by such merchants and travelers as

Marco Polo, who had been attached to the court of Kublai Khan and who

subsequently had described that potentate's realms and the wealth of

"Cipangu" (Japan). These travels afforded at once information about

Asia and enormous incentive to later explorers.

Popular notions that the waters of the tropics boiled, that demons and

monsters awaited explorers to the westward, and that the earth was a

great flat disk, did not pass current among well-informed geographers.

Especially since the revival of Ptolemy's works in the fifteenth

century, learned men asserted that the earth was spherical in shape,

and they even calculated its circumference, erring only by two or three

thousand miles. It was maintained repeatedly that the Indies formed the

western boundary of the Atlantic Ocean, and that consequently they

might be reached by sailing due west, as well as by traveling eastward;

but at the same time it was believed that shorter routes might be found

northeast of Europe, or southward around Africa.

[Sidenote: Navigation]

Along with this general knowledge of the situation of continents, the

sailors of the fifteenth century had learned a good deal about

navigation. The compass had been used first by Italian navigators in

the thirteenth century, mounted on the compass card in the fourteenth.

Latitude was determined with the aid of the astrolabe, a device for

measuring the elevation of the pole star above the horizon. With maps

and accurate sailing directions (_portolani_), seamen could lose

sight of land and still feel confident of their whereabouts. Yet it

undoubtedly took courage for the explorers of the fifteenth century to

steer their frail sailing vessels either down the unexplored African

coast or across the uncharted Atlantic Ocean.

[Sidenote: The Portuguese Explorers]

In the series of world-discoveries which brought about the Commercial

Revolution and which are often taken as the beginning of "modern

history," there is no name more illustrious than that of a Portuguese

prince of the blood,--Prince Henry, the Navigator (1394-1460), who,

with the support of two successive Portuguese kings, made the first

systematic attempts to convert the theories of geographers into proved

fact. A variety of motives were his: the stern zeal of the crusader

against the infidel; the ardent proselyting spirit which already had

sent Franciscan monks into the heart of Asia; the hope of

reëstablishing intercourse with "Prester John's" fabled Christian

empire of the East; the love of exploration; and a desire to gain for

Portugal a share of the Eastern trade.

To his naval training-station at Sagres and the neighboring port of

Lagos, Prince Henry attracted the most skillful Italian navigators and

the most learned geographers of the day. The expeditions which he sent

out year after year rediscovered and colonized the Madeira and Azores

Islands, and crept further and further down the unknown coast of the

Dark Continent. When in the year 1445, a quarter of a century after the

initial efforts of Prince Henry, Denis Diaz reached Cape Verde, he

thought that the turning point was at hand; but four more weary decades

were to elapse before Bartholomew Diaz, in 1488, attained the

southernmost point of the African coast. What he then called the Cape

of Storms, King John II of Portugal in a more optimistic vein

rechristened the Cape of Good Hope. Following in the wake of Diaz,

Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, and then, continuing on his own

way, he sailed up the east coast to Malindi, where he found a pilot

able to guide his course eastward through the Indian Ocean to India. At

Calicut Vasco da Gama landed in May, 1498, and there he erected a

marble pillar as a monument of his discovery of a new route to the

Indies.

[Sidenote: Occupation of Old Trade-Routes by the Turks]

While the Portuguese were discovering this new and all-water route to

the Indies, the more ancient Mediterranean and overland routes, which

had been of inestimable value to the Italians, were in process of

occupation by the Routes by Ottoman Turks. [Footnote: Professor A. H.

Lybyer has recently and ably contended that, contrary to a view which

has often prevailed, the occupation of the medieval trade-routes by the

Ottoman Turks was not the cause of the Portuguese and Spanish

explorations which ushered in the Commercial Revolution. He has pointed

out that prior to 1500 the prices of spices were not generally raised

throughout western Europe, and that apparently before that date the

Turks had not seriously increased the difficulties of Oriental trade.

In confirmation of this opinion, it should be remembered that the

Portuguese had begun their epochal explorations long before 1500 and

that Christopher Columbus had already returned from "the Indies."]

These Turks, as we have seen, were a nomadic and warlike nation of the

Mohammedan faith who "added to the Moslem contempt for the Christian,

the warrior's contempt for the mere merchant." Realizing that

advantageous trade relations with such a people were next to

impossible, the Italian merchants viewed with consternation the advance

of the Turkish armies, as Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, and

the islands of the Ægean were rapidly overrun. Constantinople, the

heart of the Eastern Empire, repeatedly repelled the Moslems, but in

1453 Emperor Constantine XI was defeated by Sultan Mohammed II, and the

crescent replaced the Greek cross above the Church of Saint Sophia.

Eight years later Trebizond, the terminal of the trade-route from

Tabriz, was taken. In vain Venice attempted to defend her possessions

in the Black Sea and in the Ægean; by the year 1500 most of her empire

in the Levant was lost. The Turks, now in complete control of the

northern route, proceeded to impose crushing burdens on the trade of

the defeated Venetians. Florentines and other Italians who fared less

hardly continued to frequent the Black Sea, but the entire trade

suffered from Turkish exactions and from disturbing wars between the

Turks and another Asiatic people--the Mongols.

[Sidenote: Loss to the Italians]

For some time the central and southern routes, terminating respectively

in Syria and Egypt, exhibited increased activity, and by rich profits

in Alexandria the Venetians were able to retrieve their losses in the

Black Sea. But it was only a matter of time before the Turks,

conquering Damascus in 1516 and Cairo in 1517, extended their

burdensome restrictions and taxes over those regions likewise. Eastern

luxuries, transported by caravan and caravel over thousands of miles,

had been expensive and rare enough before; now the added peril of

travel and the exactions of the Turks bade fair to deprive the Italians

of the greater part of their Oriental trade. It was at this very moment

that the Portuguese opened up independent routes to the East, lowered

the prices of Asiatic commodities, and grasped the scepter of maritime

and commercial power which was gradually slipping from the hands of the

Venetians. The misfortune of Venice was the real opportunity of

Portugal.

[Sidenote: Columbus]

Meanwhile Spain had entered the field, and was meeting with cruel

disappointment. A decade before Vasco da Gama's famous voyage, an

Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, had presented himself at the

Spanish court with a scheme for sailing westward to the Indies. The

Portuguese king, by whom Columbus formerly had been employed, already

had refused to support the project, but after several vexatious rebuffs

Columbus finally secured the aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish

monarchs who were at the time jubilant over their capture of Granada

from the Mohammedans (January, 1492). In August, 1492, he sailed from

Palos with 100 men in three small ships, the largest of which weighed

only a hundred tons. After a tiresome voyage he landed (12 October,

1492) on "San Salvador," one of the Bahama Islands. In that bold voyage

across the trackless Atlantic lay the greatness of Columbus. He was not

attempting to prove a theory that the earth was spherical--that was

accepted generally by the well informed. Nor was he in search of a new

continent. The realization that he had discovered not Asia, but a new

world, would have been his bitterest disappointment. He was seeking

merely another route to the spices and treasures of the East; and he

bore with him a royal letter of introduction to the great Khan of

Cathay (China). In his quest he failed, even though he returned in

1493, in 1498, and finally in 1502 and explored successively the

Caribbean Sea, the coast of Venezuela, and Central America in a vain

search for the island "Cipangu" and the realms of the "Great Khan." He

found only "lands of vanity and delusion as the miserable graves of

Castilian gentlemen," and he died ignorant of the magnitude of his real

achievement.

[Sidenote: America]

Had Columbus perished in mid ocean, it is doubtful whether America

would have remained long undiscovered. In 1497 John Cabot, an Italian

in the service of Henry VII of England, reached the Canadian coast

probably near Cape Breton Island. In 1500 Cabral with a Portuguese

expedition bound for India was so far driven out of his course by

equatorial currents that he came upon Brazil, which he claimed for the

king of Portugal. Yet America was named for neither Columbus, Cabot,

nor Cabral, but for another Italian, the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci,

who, returning from voyages to Brazil (1499-1500), published a letter

concerning what he called "the new world." It was thought that he had

discovered this new world, and so it was called after him,--America.

[Sidenote: First Circumnavigation of the Earth]

Very slowly the truth about America was borne in upon the people of

Europe. They persisted in calling the newly discovered lands the

"Indies," and even after Balboa had discovered (1513) that another

ocean lay beyond the Isthmus of Panama, it was thought that a few days'

sail would bring one to the outlying possessions of the Great Khan. Not

until Magellan, leaving Spain in 1519, passed through the straits that

still bear his name and crossed the Pacific was this vain hope

relinquished. Magellan was killed by the natives of the Philippine

Islands, but one of his ships reached Seville in 1522 with the tale of

the marvelous voyage.

Even after the circumnavigation of the world explorers looked for

channels leading through or around the Americas. Such were the attempts

of Verrazano (1524), Cartier (1534), Frobisher (1576-1578), Davis

(1585-1587), and Henry Hudson in 1609.

ESTABLISHMENT OF COLONIAL EMPIRES

[Sidenote: Portugal]

When Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon in 1499 with a cargo worth sixty

times the cost of his expedition, the Portuguese knew that the wealth

of the Indies was theirs. Cabral in 1500, and Albuquerque in 1503,

followed the route of Da Gama, and thereafter Portuguese fleets rounded

the Cape year by year to gain control of Goa (India), Ormuz, Diu

(India), Ceylon, Malacca, and the Spice Islands, and to bring back from

these places and from Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and Nanking (China) rich

cargoes of "spicery." After the Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517 the

bulk of commerce was carried on by way of the Cape of Good Hope, for it

was cheaper to transport goods by sea than to pay taxes to the Turks in

addition to caravan cartage. Lisbon rapidly gained prominence as a

market for Eastern wares.

The Portuguese triumph was short-lived. Dominion over half the world--

for Portugal claimed all Africa, southern Asia, and Brazil as hers by

right of discovery--had been acquired by the wise policy of the

Portuguese royal house, but Portugal had neither products of her own to

ship to Asia, nor the might to defend her exclusive right to the

carrying trade with the Indies. The annexation of Portugal to Spain

(1580) by Philip II precipitated disaster. The port of Lisbon was

closed to the French, English, and Dutch, with whom Philip was at war,

and much of the colonial empire of Portugal was conquered speedily by

the Dutch.

[Sidenote: Spain]

On the first voyage of Columbus Spain based her claim to share the

world with Portugal. In order that there might be perfect harmony

between the rival explorers of the unknown seas, Pope Alexander VI

issued on 4 May, 1493, the famous bull [Footnote: A bull was a solemn

letter or edict issued by the pope.] attempting to divide the

uncivilized parts of the world between Spain and Portugal by the "papal

line of demarcation," drawn from pole to pole, 100 leagues west of the

Azores. A year later the line was shifted to about 360 leagues west of

the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal had the eastern half of modern Brazil,

Africa, and all other heathen lands in that hemisphere; the rest

comprised the share of Spain.

For a time the Spanish adventurers were disappointed tremendously to

find neither spices nor silks and but little gold in the "Indies," and

Columbus was derisively dubbed the "Admiral of the Mosquitos." In spite

of failures the search for wealth was prosecuted with vigor. During the

next half century Haiti, called Hispaniola ("Spanish Isle"), served as

a starting point for the occupation of Puerto Rico, Cuba (1508), and

other islands. An aged adventurer, Ponce de Leon, in search of a

fountain of youth, explored the coast of Florida in 1513, and

subsequent expeditions pushed on to the Mississippi, across the plain

of Texas, and even to California.

Montezuma, ruler of the ancient Aztec [Footnote: The Aztec Indians of

Mexico, like various other tribes in Central America and in Peru, had

reached in many respects a high degree of civilization before the

arrival of Europeans.] confederacy of Mexico, was overthrown in 1519 by

the reckless Hernando Cortez with a small band of soldiers. Here at

last the Spaniards found treasures of gold and silver, and more

abundant yet were the stores of precious metal found by Pizarro in Peru

(1531). Those were the days when a few score of brave men could capture

kingdoms and carry away untold wealth.

In the next chapter we shall see how the Spanish monarchy, backed by

the power of American riches, dazzled the eyes of Europe in the

sixteenth century. Not content to see his standard waving over almost

half of Europe, and all America (except Brazil), Philip II of Spain by

conquering Portugal in 1580 added to his possessions the Portuguese

empire in the Orient and in Brazil. The gold mines of America, the

spices of Asia, and the busiest market of Europe--Antwerp--all paid

tribute to his Catholic Majesty, Philip II of Spain.

By an unwise administration of this vast empire, Spain, in the course

of time, killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The native Indians,

enslaved and lashed to their work in Peruvian and Mexican silver mines,

rapidly lost even their primitive civilization and died in alarming

numbers. This in itself would not have weakened the monarchy greatly,

but it appeared more serious when we remember that the high-handed and

harassing regulations imposed by short-sighted or selfish officials had

checked the growth of a healthy agricultural and industrial population

in the colonies, and that the bulk of the silver was going to support

the pride of grandees and to swell the fortunes of German speculators,

rather than to fill the royal coffers. The taxes levied on trade with

the colonies were so exorbitant that the commerce with America fell

largely into the hands of English and Dutch smugglers. Under wise

government the monopoly of the African trade-route might have proved

extremely valuable, but Philip II, absorbed in other matters, allowed

this, too, to slip from his fingers.

While the Spanish monarchy was thus reaping little benefit from its

world-wide colonial possessions, it was neglecting to encourage

prosperity at home. Trade and manufacture had expanded enormously in

the sixteenth century in the hands of the Jews and Moors. Woolen

manufactures supported nearly a third of the population. The silk

manufacture had become important. It is recorded that salt-works of the

region about Santa Maria often sent out fifty shiploads at a time.

These signs of growth soon gave way to signs of decay and depopulation.

Chief among the causes of ruin were the taxes, increased enormously

during the sixteenth century. Property taxes, said to have increased 30

per cent, ruined farmers, and the "alcabala," or tax on commodities

bought and sold, was increased until merchants went out of business,

and many an industrial establishment closed its doors rather than pay

the taxes. Industry and commerce, already diseased, were almost

completely killed by the expulsion of the Jews (1492) and of the Moors

(1609), who had been respectively the bankers and the manufacturers of

Spain. Spanish gold now went to the English and Dutch smugglers who

supplied the peninsula with manufactures, and German bankers became the

financiers of the realm.

The crowning misfortune was the revolt of the Netherlands, the richest

provinces of the whole empire. Some of the wealthiest cities of Europe

were situated in the Netherlands. Bruges had once been a great city,

and in 1566 was still able to buy nearly $2,000,000 worth of wool to

feed its looms; but as a commercial and financial center, the Flemish

city of Antwerp had taken first place. In 1566 it was said that 300

ships and as many wagons arrived daily with rich cargoes to be bought

and sold by the thousand commercial houses of Antwerp. Antwerp was the

heart through which the money of Europe flowed. Through the bankers of

Antwerp a French king might borrow money of a Turkish pasha. Yet

Antwerp was only the greatest among the many cities of the Netherlands.

Charles V, king of Spain during the first half of the sixteenth

century, had found in the Netherlands his richest source of income, and

had wisely done all in his power to preserve their prosperity. As we

shall see in Chapter III, the governors appointed by King Philip II in

the second half of the sixteenth century lost the love of the people by

the harsh measures against the Protestants, and ruined commerce and

industry by imposing taxes of 5 and 10 per cent on every sale of land

or goods. In 1566 the Netherlands rose in revolt, and after many bloody

battles, the northern or Dutch provinces succeeded in breaking away

from Spanish rule.

Spain had not only lost the little Dutch provinces; Flanders was

ruined: its fields lay waste, its weavers had emigrated to England, its

commerce to Amsterdam. Commercial supremacy never returned to Antwerp

after the "Spanish Fury" of 1576. Moreover, during the war Dutch

sailors had captured most of the former possessions of Portugal, and

English sea-power, beginning in mere piratical attacks on Spanish

treasure-fleets, had become firmly established. The finest part of

North America was claimed by the English and French. Of her world

empire, Spain retained only Central and South America (except Brazil),

Mexico, California, Florida, most of the West Indies, and in the East

the Philippine Islands and part of Borneo.

[Sidenote: Dutch Sea Power]

The Dutch, driven to sea by the limited resources of their narrow strip

of coastland, had begun their maritime career as fishermen "exchanging

tons of herring for tons of gold." In the sixteenth century they had

built up a considerable carrying trade, bringing cloth, tar, timber,

and grain to Spain and France, and distributing to the Baltic countries

the wines and liquors and other products of southwestern Europe, in

addition to wares from the Portuguese East Indies.

The Dutch traders had purchased their Eastern wares largely from

Portuguese merchants in the port of Lisbon. Two circumstances--the

union of Spain with Portugal in 1580 and the revolt of the Netherlands

from Spain--combined to give the Dutch their great opportunity. In 1594

the port of Lisbon was closed to Dutch merchants. The following year

the Dutch made their first voyage to India, and, long jealous of the

Portuguese colonial possessions, they began systematically to make the

trade with the Spice Islands their own. By 1602, 65 Dutch ships had

been to India. In the thirteen years--1602 to 1615--they captured 545

Portuguese and Spanish ships, seized ports on the coasts of Africa and

India, and established themselves in the Spice Islands. In addition to

most of the old Portuguese empire,--ports in Africa and India, Malacca,

Oceanica, and Brazil, [Footnote: Brazil was more or less under Dutch

control from 1624 until 1654, when, through an uprising of Portuguese

colonists, the country was fully recovered by Portugal. Holland

recognized the Portuguese ownership of Brazil by treaty of 1662, and

thenceforth the Dutch retained in South America only a portion of

Guiana (Surinam).]--the Dutch had acquired a foothold in North America

by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609 and by settlement in 1621.

Their colonists along the Hudson River called the new territory New

Netherland and the town on Manhattan island New Amsterdam, but when

Charles II of England seized the land in 1664, he renamed it New York.

Thus the Dutch had succeeded to the colonial empire of the Portuguese.

With their increased power they were able entirely to usurp the Baltic

trade from the hands of the Hanseatic (German) merchants, who had

incurred heavy losses by the injury to their interests in Antwerp

during the sixteenth century. Throughout the seventeenth century the

Dutch almost monopolized the carrying-trade from Asia and between

southwestern Europe and the Baltic. The prosperity of the Dutch was the

envy of all Europe.

[Sidenote: Beginnings of English and French Explorations]

It took the whole sixteenth century for the English and French to get

thoroughly into the colonial contest. During that period the activities

of the English were confined to exploration and piracy, with the

exception of the ill-starred attempts of Gilbert and Raleigh to

colonize Newfoundland and North Carolina. The voyages of the Anglo-

Italian John Cabot in 1497-1498 were later to be the basis of British

claims to North America. The search for a northwest passage drove

Frobisher (1576-1578), Davis (1585-1587), Hudson (1610-1611), and

Baffin (1616) to explore the northern extremity of North America, to

leave the record of their exploits in names of bays, islands, and

straits, and to establish England's claim to northern Canada; while the

search for a northeast passage enticed Willoughby and Chancellor (1553)

around Lapland, and Jenkinson (1557-1558) to the icebound port of

Archangel in northern Russia. Elizabethan England had neither silver

mines nor spice islands, but the deficiency was never felt while

British privateers sailed the seas. Hawkins, the great slaver, Drake,

the second circumnavigator of the globe, Davis, and Cavendish were but

four of the bold captains who towed home many a stately Spanish galleon

laden with silver plate and with gold. As for spices, the English East

India Company, chartered in 1600, was soon to build up an empire in the

East in competition with the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French, but

that story belongs to a later chapter.

France was less active. The rivalry of Francis I [Footnote: See below,

pp. 77 ff.] with Charles I of Spain had extended even to the New World.

Verrazano (1524) sailed the coast from Carolina to Labrador, and

Cartier (1534-1535) pushed up the Saint Lawrence to Montreal, looking

for a northwest passage, and demonstrating that France had no respect

for the Spanish claim to all America. After 1535, however, nothing of

permanence was done until the end of the century, and the founding of

French colonies in India and along the Saint Lawrence and Mississippi

rivers belongs rather to the history of the seventeenth century.

[Sidenote: Motives for Colonization]

One of the most amazing spectacles in history is the expansion of

Europe since the sixteenth century. Not resting content with

discovering the rest of the world, the European nations with sublime

confidence pressed on to divide the new continents among them, to

conquer, Christianize, and civilize the natives, and to send out

millions of new emigrants to establish beyond the seas a New England, a

New France, a New Spain, and a New Netherland. The Spaniards in Spain

to-day are far outnumbered by the Spanish-speaking people in Argentina,

Chili, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, and the Philippine

Islands.

[Sidenote: Religion]

It was not merely greed for gold and thirst for glory which inspired

the colonizing movement. To the merchant's eager search for precious

metals and costly spices, and to the adventurer's fierce delight in

braving unknown dangers where white man never had ventured, the

Portuguese and Spanish explorers added the inspiration of an ennobling

missionary ideal. In the conquest of the New World priests and chapels

were as important as soldiers and fortresses; and its settlements were

named in honor of Saint Francis (San Francisco), Saint Augustine (St.

Augustine), the Holy Saviour (San Salvador), the Holy Cross (Santa

Cruz), or the Holy Faith (Santa Fé). Fearless priests penetrated the

interior of America, preaching and baptizing as they went.

Unfortunately some of the Spanish adventurers who came to make fortunes

in the mines of America, and a great number of the non-Spanish

foreigners who owned mines in the Spanish colonies, set gain before

religion, and imposed crushing burdens on the natives who toiled as

slaves in their mines. Cruelty and forced labor decimated the natives,

but in the course of time this abuse was remedied, thanks largely to

the Spanish bishop, Bartolomé de las Casas, and instead of forming a

miserable remnant of an almost extinct race, as they do in the United

States, the Indians freely intermarried with the Spaniards, whom they

always outnumbered. As a result, Latin America is peopled by nations

which are predominantly Indian in blood, [Footnote: Except in the

southern part of South America.] Spanish or Portuguese [Footnote: In

Brazil.] in language, and Roman Catholic in religion.

The same religious zeal which had actuated Spanish missionary-explorers

was manifested at a later date by the French Jesuit Fathers who

penetrated North America in order to preach the Christian faith to the

Indians. Quite different were the religious motives which in the

seventeenth century inspired Protestant colonists in the New World.

They came not as evangelists, but as religious outcasts fleeing from

persecution, or as restless souls worsted at politics or unable to gain

a living at home. This meant the dispossession and ultimate extinction

rather than the conversion of the Indians.

[Sidenote: Decline of the Hanseatic League]

The stirring story of the colonial struggles which occupied the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be taken up in another

chapter; at this point, therefore, we turn from the expanding nations

on the Atlantic seaboard to note the mournful plight of the older

commercial powers--the German and Italian city-states. As for the

former, the Hanseatic League, despoiled of its Baltic commerce by

enterprising Dutch and English merchants, its cities restless and

rebellious, gradually broke up. In 1601 an Englishman metaphorically

observed: "Most of their [the league's] teeth have fallen out, the rest

sit but loosely in their head,"--and in fact all were soon lost except

Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg.

[Sidenote: Decay of Venice]

Less rapid, but no less striking, was the decay of Venice and the other

Italian cities. The first cargoes brought by the Portuguese from India

caused the price of pepper and spices to fall to a degree which spelled

ruin for the Venetians. The Turks continued to harry Italian traders in

the Levant, and the Turkish sea-power grew to menacing proportions,

until in 1571 Venice had to appeal to Spain for help. To the terror of

the Turk was added the torment of the Barbary pirates, who from the

northern coast of Africa frequently descended upon Italian seaports.

The commerce of Venice was ruined. The brilliance of Venice in art and

literature lasted through another century (the seventeenth), supported

on the ruins of Venetian opulence; but the splendor of Venice was

extinguished finally in the turbulent sea of political intrigue into

which the rest of Italy had already sunk.

EFFECTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION

In a way, all of the colonizing movements, which we have been at pains

to trace, might be regarded as the first and greatest result of the

Commercial Revolution--that is, if by the Commercial Revolution one

understands simply the discovery of new trade-routes; but, as it is

difficult to separate explorations from colonization, we have used the

term "Commercial Revolution" to include both. By the Commercial

Revolution we mean that expansive movement by which European commerce

escaped from the narrow confines of the Mediterranean and encompassed

the whole world. We shall proceed now to consider that movement in its

secondary aspects or effects.

One of the first in importance of these effects was the advent of a new

politico-economic doctrine—mercantilism--the result of the transference

of commercial supremacy from Italian and German city-states to national

states.

[Sidenote: Nationalism in Commerce]

With the declining Italian and German commercial cities, the era of

municipal commerce passed away forever. In the peoples of the Atlantic

seaboard, who now became masters of the seas, national consciousness

already was strongly developed, and centralized governments were

perfected; these nations carried the national spirit into commerce.

Portugal and Spain owed their colonial empires to the enterprise of

their royal families; Holland gained a trade route as an incident of

her struggle for national independence; England and France, which were

to become the great commercial rivals of the eighteenth century, were

the two strongest national monarchies.

[Sidenote: Mercantilism]

The new nations founded their power not on the fearlessness of their

chevaliers, but on the extent of their financial resources. Wealth was

needed to arm and to pay the soldiers, wealth to build warships, wealth

to bribe diplomats. And since this wealth must come from the people by

taxes, it was essential to have a people prosperous enough to pay

taxes. The wealth of the nation must be the primary consideration of

the legislators. In endeavoring to cultivate and preserve the wealth of

their subjects, European monarchs proceeded upon the assumption that if

a nation exported costly manufactures to its own colonies and imported

cheap raw materials from them, the money paid into the home country for

manufactures would more than counterbalance the money paid out for raw

materials, and this "favorable balance of trade" would bring gold to

the nation. This economic theory and the system based upon it are

called mercantilism. In order to establish such a balance of trade, the

government might either forbid or heavily tax the importation of

manufactures from abroad, might prohibit the export of raw materials,

might subsidize the export of manufactures, and might attempt by minute

regulations to foster industry at home as well as to discourage

competition in the colonies. Thus, intending to retain the profits of

commerce for Englishmen, Cromwell and later rulers required that

certain goods must be carried on English ships.

[Sidenote: Chartered Companies]

By far the most popular method of developing a lucrative colonial

trade--especially towards the end of the sixteenth and throughout the

seventeenth century--was by means of chartered commercial companies.

England (in 1600), Holland (in 1602), France (in 1664), Sweden,

Denmark, Scotland, and Prussia each chartered its own "East India

Company." The English possessions on the Atlantic coast of America were

shared by the London and Plymouth Companies (1606). English companies

for trade with Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Guiana, Bermuda, the Canaries,

and Hudson Bay were organized and reorganized with bewildering

activity. In France the crop of commercial companies was no less

abundant.

To each of these companies was assigned the exclusive right to trade

with and to govern the inhabitants of a particular colony, with the

privilege and duty of defending the same. Sometimes the companies were

required to pay money into the royal treasury, or on the other hand, if

the enterprise were a difficult one, a company might be supported by

royal subsidies. The Dutch West India Company (1621) was authorized to

build forts, maintain troops, and make war on land and sea; the

government endowed the company with one million florins, sixteen ships,

four yachts, and exemption from all tolls and license dues on its

vessels. The English East India Company, first organized in 1600,

conducted the conquest and government of India for more than two

centuries, before its administrative power was taken away in 1858.

[Sidenote: Financial Methods.]

[Sidenote: The "Regulated Company"]

The great commercial companies were a new departure in business method.

In the middle ages business had been carried on mostly by individuals

or by partnerships, the partners being, as a rule, members of the same

family. After the expansion of commerce, trading with another country

necessitated building forts and equipping fleets for protection against

savages, pirates, or other nations. Since this could not be

accomplished with the limited resources of a few individuals, it was

necessary to form large companies in which many investors shared

expense and risk. Some had been created for European trade, but the

important growth of such companies was for distant trade. Their first

form was the "regulated company." Each member would contribute to the

general fund for such expenses as building forts; and certain rules

would be made for the governance of all. Subject to these rules, each

merchant traded as he pleased, and there was no pooling of profits. The

regulated company, the first form of the commercial company, was

encouraged by the king. He could charter such a company, grant it a

monopoly over a certain district, and trust it to develop the trade as

no individual could, and there was no evasion of taxes as by

independent merchants.

[Sidenote: The Joint-stock Company]

After a decade or so, many of the regulated companies found that their

members often pursued individual advantage to the detriment of the

company's interests, and it was thought that, taken altogether, profits

would be greater and the risk less, if all should contribute to a

common treasury, intrusting to the most able members the direction of

the business for the benefit of all. Then each would receive a dividend

or part of the profits proportional to his share in the general

treasury or "joint stock." The idea that while the company as a whole

was permanent each individual could buy or sell "shares" in the joint

stock, helped to make such "joint-stock" companies very popular after

the opening of the seventeenth century. The English East India Company,

organized as a regulated company in 1600, was reorganized piecemeal for

half a century until it acquired the form of a joint-stock enterprise;

most of the other chartered colonial companies followed the same plan.

In these early stock-companies we find the germ of the most

characteristic of present-day business institutions--the corporation.

In the seventeenth century this form of business organization, then in

its rudimentary stages, as yet had not been applied to industry, nor

had sad experience yet revealed the lengths to which corrupt

corporation directors might go.

[Sidenote: Banking]

The development of the joint-stock company was attended by increased

activity in banking. In the early middle ages the lending of money for

interest had been forbidden by the Catholic Church; in this as in other

branches of business it was immoral to receive profit without giving

work. The Jews, however, with no such scruples, had found money-lending

very profitable, even though royal debtors occasionally refused to pay.

As business developed in Italy, however, Christians lost their

repugnance to interest-taking, and Italian (Lombard) and later French

and German money-lenders and money-changers became famous. Since the

coins minted by feudal lords and kings were hard to pass except in

limited districts, and since the danger of counterfeit or light-weight

coins was far greater than now, the "money-changers" who would buy and

sell the coins of different countries did a thriving business at

Antwerp in the early sixteenth century. Later, Amsterdam, London,

Hamburg, and Frankfort took over the business of Antwerp and developed

the institutions of finance to a higher degree. [Footnote: The gold of

the New World and the larger scope of commercial enterprises had

increased the scale of operations, as may be seen by comparing the

fortunes of three great banking families: 1300--the Peruzzi's,

$800,000; 1440--the Medici's, $7,500,000; 1546--the Fuggers',

$40,000,000.] The money-lenders became bankers, paying interest on

deposits and receiving higher interest on loans. Shares of the stock of

commercial companies were bought and sold in exchanges, and as early as

1542 there were complaints about speculating on the rise and fall of

stocks.

Within a comparatively short time the medieval merchants' gilds had

given way to great stock-companies, and Jewish money-lenders to

millionaire bankers and banking houses with many of our instruments of

exchange such as the bill of exchange. Such was the revolution in

business that attended, and that was partly caused, partly helped, by

the changes in foreign trade, which we call the Commercial Revolution.

[Sidenote: New Commodities]

Not only was foreign trade changed from the south and east of Europe to

the west, from the city-states to nations, from land-routes to ocean-

routes; but the vessels which sailed the Atlantic were larger,

stronger, and more numerous, and they sailed with amazing confidence

and safety, as compared with the fragile caravels and galleys of a few

centuries before. The cargoes they carried had changed too. The

comparative cheapness of water-transportation had made it possible

profitably to carry grain and meat, as well as costly luxuries of small

bulk such as spices and silks. Manufactures were an important item.

Moreover, new commodities came into commerce, such as tea and coffee.

The Americas sent to Europe the potato, "Indian" corn, tobacco, cocoa,

cane-sugar (hitherto scarce), molasses, rice, rum, fish, whale-oil and

whalebone, dye-woods and timber and furs; Europe sent back

manufactures, luxuries, and slaves.

[Sidenote: Slavery]

Slaves had been articles of commerce since time immemorial; at the end

of the fifteenth century there were said to have been 3000 in Venice;

and the Portuguese had enslaved some Africans before 1500. But the need

for cheap labor in the mines and on the sugar and tobacco plantations

of the New World gave the slave-trade a new and tremendous impetus. The

Spaniards began early to enslave the natives of America, although the

practice was opposed by the noble endeavors of the Dominican friar and

bishop, Bartolomé de las Casas. But the native population was not

sufficient,--or, as in the English colonies, the Indians were

exterminated rather than enslaved,--and in the sixteenth century it was

deemed necessary to import negroes from Africa. The trade in African

negroes was fathered by the English captain Hawkins, and fostered alike

by English and Dutch. It proved highly lucrative, and it was long

before the trade yielded to the better judgment of civilized nations,

and still longer before the institution of slavery could be eradicated.

[Sidenote: Effects on Industry and Agriculture]

The expansion of trade was the strongest possible stimulus to

agriculture and industry. New industries--such as the silk and cotton

manufacture--grew up outside of the antiquated gild system. The old

industries, especially the English woolen industry, grew to new

importance and often came under the control of the newer and more

powerful merchants who conducted a wholesale business in a single

commodity, such as cloth. Capitalists had their agents buy wool, dole

it out to spinners and weavers who were paid so much for a given amount

of work, and then sell the finished product. This was called the

"domestic system," because the work was done at home, or

"capitalistic," because raw material and finished product were owned

not by the man who worked them, but by a "capitalist" or rich merchant.

How these changing conditions were dealt with by mercantilist

statesmen, we shall see in later chapters.

The effect on agriculture had been less direct but no less real. The

land had to be tilled with greater care to produce grain sufficient to

support populous cities and to ship to foreign ports. Countries were

now more inclined to specialize--France in wine, England in wool--and

so certain branches of production grew more important. The introduction

of new crops produced no more remarkable results than in Ireland where

the potato, transplanted from America, became a staple in the Irish

diet: "Irish potatoes" in common parlance attest the completeness of

domestication.

[Sidenote: General Significance of Commercial Revolution]

In the preceding pages we have attempted to study particular effects of

the Commercial Revolution (in the broad sense including the expansion

of commerce as well as the change of trade-routes), such as the decline

of Venice and of the Hanse, the formation of colonial empires, the rise

of commercial companies, the expansion of banking, the introduction of

new articles of commerce, and the development of agriculture and

industry. In each particular the change was noticeable and important.

But the Commercial Revolution possesses a more general significance.

[Sidenote: Europeanization of the World]

(1) It was the Commercial Revolution that started Europe on her career

of world conquest. The petty, quarrelsome feudal states of the smallest

of five continents have become the Powers of to-day, dividing up

Africa, Asia, and America, founding empires greater and more lasting

than that of Alexander. The colonists of Europe imparted their language

to South America and made of North America a second Europe with a

common cultural heritage. The explorers, missionaries, and merchants of

Europe have penetrated all lands, bringing in their train European

manners, dress, and institutions. They are still at work Europeanizing

the world.

[Sidenote: 2. Increase of Wealth, Knowledge, and Comfort]

(2) The expansion of commerce meant the increase of wealth, knowledge,

and comfort. All the continents heaped their treasures in the lap of

Europe. Knowledge of the New World, with its many peoples, products,

and peculiarities, tended to dispel the silly notions of medieval

ignorance; and the goods of every land were brought for the comfort of

the European--American timber for his house, Persian rugs for his

floors, Indian ebony for his table, Irish linen to cover it, Peruvian

silver for his fork, Chinese tea, sweetened with sugar from Cuba.

[Sidenote: 3. The Rise of the Bourgeoisie]

(3) This new comfort, knowledge, and wealth went not merely to nobles

and prelates; it was noticeable most of all in a new class, the

"bourgeoisie." In the towns of Europe lived bankers, merchants, and

shop-keepers,--intelligent, able, and wealthy enough to live like kings

or princes. These bourgeois or townspeople (_bourg_ = town) were

to grow in intelligence, in wealth, and in political influence; they

were destined to precipitate revolutions in industry and politics,

thereby establishing their individual rule over factories, and their

collective rule over legislatures.

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. A. F. Pollard, _Factors in Modern History_ (1907), ch.

ii, vi, x, three illuminating essays; E. P. Cheyney, _An Introduction

to the Industrial and Social History of England_ (1901), ch. ii-vi,

a good outline; F. W. Tickner, _A Social and Industrial History of

England_ (1915), an interesting and valuable elementary manual, ch.

i-vii, x-xii, xvi, xvii, xix-xxi, xxiv-xxvii; W. J. Ashley, _The

Economic Organization of England_ (1914), ch. i-v; G. T. Warner,

_Landmarks in English Industrial History_, 11th ed. (1912), ch.

vii-xiii; H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann (editors), _Social England_

(1909), Vols. II, III; H. de B. Gibbins, _Industry in England_,

6th ed. (1910), compact general survey; William Cunningham, _The

Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times_, 5th ed., 3

vols. (1910-1912), a standard work; H. D. Bax, _German Society at the

Close of the Middle Ages_ (1894), brief but clear, especially ch. i,

v, vii on towns and country-life in the Germanies. Very detailed works:

Maxime Kovalevsky, _Die ökonomische Entwicklung Europas bis zum

Beginn der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsform_, trans. into German

from Russian, 7 vols. (1901-1914), especially vols. III, IV, VI; Émile

Levasseur, _Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l'industrie en

France avant 1789_, Vol. II (1901), Book V; Georges d'Avenel,

_Histoire économique de la propriété, des salaires, etc._, 1200-

1800, 6 vols. (1894-1912).

AGRICULTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. R. E. Prothero, _English

Farming Past and Present_ (1912), ch. iv; E. C. K. Gonner, _Common

Land and Inclosure_ (1912), valuable for England; R. H. Tawney,

_The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century_ (1912); E. F. Gay,

_Essays on English Agrarian History in the Sixteenth Century_

(1913); H. T. Stephenson, _The Elizabethan People_ (1910); W.

Hasbach, _A History of the English Agricultural Labourer_, trans.

by Ruth Kenyon (1908), an excellent work, particularly Part I on the

development of the class of free laborers from that of the medieval

serfs. Valuable for feudal survivals in France is the brief _Feudal

Regime_ by Charles Seignobos, trans. by Dow. Useful for social

conditions in Russia: James Mavor, _An Economic History of

Russia_, 2 vols. (1914), Vol. I, Book I, ch. iii. See also Eva M.

Tappan, _When Knights were Bold_ (1911) for a very entertaining

chapter for young people, on agriculture in the sixteenth century;

Augustus Jessopp, _The Coming of the Friars_ (1913), ch. ii, for a

sympathetic treatment of "Village Life Six Hundred Years Ago"; and W.

J. Ashley, _Surveys, Historical and Economic_, for a series of

scholarly essays dealing with recent controversies in regard to

medieval land-tenure.

TOWNS AND COMMERCE ABOUT 1500. Clive Day, _History of Commerce_ (1907),

best brief account; W. C. Webster, _A General History of Commerce_

(1903), another excellent outline; E. P. Cheyney, _European Background

of American History_ (1904) in "American Nation" Series, clear account

of the medieval trade routes, pp. 3-40, of the early activities of

chartered companies, pp. 123-167, and of the connection of the

Protestant Revolution with colonialism, pp. 168-239; W. S. Lindsay,

_History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce_, 4 vols. (1874-

1876), very detailed. The best account of sixteenth-century industry is

in Vol. II of W. J. Ashley, _English Economic History and Theory_, with

elaborate critical bibliographies. For town-life and the gilds: Mrs. J.

R. Green, _Town Life in England in the Fifteenth Century_, 2 vols.

(1894); Charles Gross, _The Gild Merchant_, 2 vols. (1890); Lujo

Brentano, _On the History and Development of Gilds_ (1870); George

Unwin, _The Gilds and Companies of London_ (1908), particularly the

interesting chapter on "The Place of the Gild in the History of Western

Europe." A brief view of English town-life in the later middle ages: E.

Lipson, _An Introduction to the Economic History of England_, Vol. I

(1915), ch. v-ix. On town-life in the Netherlands: Henri Pirenne,

_Belgian Democracy: its Early History_, trans. by J. V. Saunders

(1915). On town-life in the Germanies: Helen Zimmern, _The Hansa Towns_

(1889) in "Story of the Nations" Series; Karl von Hegel, _Städte und

Gilden der germanischen Volker im Mittelalter_, 2 vols. (1891), the

standard treatise in German. On French gilds: Martin St. Leon,

_Histoire des corporations des métiers_ (1897). See also, for advanced

study of trade-routes, Wilhelm Heyd, _Geschichte des Levantehandels im

Mittelalter_, 2 vols. (1879), with a French trans. (1885-1886), and

Aloys Schulte, _Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Handels und Verkehrs

zwischen Westdeutschland und Italien_, 2 vols. (1900).

GENERAL TREATMENTS OF EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION. _Cambridge Modern

History_, Vol. I (1902), ch. i, ii; A. G. Keller, _Colonization: a

Study of the Founding of New Societies_ (1908), a textbook, omitting

reference to English and French colonization; H. C. Morris, _History

of Colonization_, 2 vols. (1908), a useful general text; M. B.

Synge, _A Book of Discovery: the History of the World's Exploration,

from the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole_ (1912);

_Histoire générale_, Vol. IV, ch. xxii, xxiii, and Vol. V, ch.

xxii; S. Ruge, _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_

(1881), in the ambitious Oncken Series; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, _La

colonisation chez les peuples modernes_, 6th ed., 2 vols. (1908),

the best general work in French; Charles de Lannoy and Hermann van der

Linden, _Histoire de l'expansion coloniale des peuples européens_,

an important undertaking of two Belgian professors, of which two

volumes have appeared--Vol. I, _Portugal et Espagne_ (1907), and

Vol. II, _Néerlande et Danemark, 17e et 18e siècle_ (1911); Alfred

Zimmermann, _Die europaischen Kolonien_, the main German treatise,

in 5 vols. (1896-1903), dealing with Spain and Portugal (Vol. I), Great

Britain (Vols. II, III), France (Vol. IV), and Holland (Vol. V). Much

illustrative source-material is available in the publications of the

Hakluyt Society, Old Series, 100 vols. (1847-1898), and New Series, 35

vols. (1899-1914), selections having been separately published by E. J.

Payne (1893-1900) and by C. R. Beazley (1907). An account of the

medieval travels of Marco Polo is published conveniently in the

"Everyman" Series, and the best edition of the medieval travel-tales

which have passed under the name of Sir John Maundeville is that of The

Macmillan Company (1900). For exploration prior to Columbus and Da

Gama, see C. R. Beazley, _The Dawn of Modern Geography_, 3 vols.

(1897-1906).

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO AMERICA: J. S. Bassett, _A Short History of

the United States_ (1914), ch. i, ii, a good outline; Edward

Channing, _A History of the United States_, Vol. I (1905), an

excellent and more detailed narrative; Livingston Farrand, _Basis of

American History_ (1904), Vol. II of the "American Nation" Series,

especially valuable on the American aborigines; E. J. Payne, _History

of the New World called America_, 2 vols. (1892-1899); John Fiske,

_Colonization of the New World_, Vol. XXI of _History of All

Nations_, ch. i-vi; R. G. Watson, _Spanish and Portuguese South

America_, 2 vols. (1884); Bernard Moses, _The Establishment of

Spanish Rule in America_ (1898), and, by the same author, _The

Spanish Dependencies in South America_, 2 vols. (1914). With special

reference to Asiatic India: Mountstuart Elphinstone, _History of

India: the Hindu and Mohametan Periods_, 9th ed. (1905), an old but

still valuable work on the background of Indian history; Sir W. W.

Hunter, _A Brief History of the Indian Peoples_, rev. ed. (1903),

and, by the same author, _A History of British India_ to the

opening of the eighteenth century, 2 vols. (1899-1900), especially Vol.

I; Pringle Kennedy, _A History of the Great Moghuls_, 2 vols.

(1905-1911). With special reference to African exploration and

colonization in the sixteenth century: Sir Harry Johnston, _History

of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races_ (1899), a very useful

and authoritative manual; Robert Brown, _The Story of Africa_, 4

vols. (1894-1895), a detailed study; G. M. Theal, _South Africa_

(1894), a clear summary in the "Story of the Nations" Series; J. S.

Keltic, _The Partition of Africa_ (1895). See also Sir Harry

Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_ (1910), important for the

slave-trade and interesting, though in tone somewhat anti-English and

pro-Spanish; J. K. Ingram, _A History of Slavery and Serfdom_

(1895), a brief sketch; and W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, _The Negro_

(1915), a handy volume in the "Home University Library."

EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION COUNTRY BY COUNTRY. Portugal: C. R.

Beazley, _Prince Henry the Navigator_ in "Heroes of the Nation," Series

(1897); J. P. Oliveira Martins, _The Golden Age of Prince Henry the

Navigator_, trans. with notes and additions by J. J. Abraham and W. E.

Reynolds (1914); K. G. Jayne, _Vasco da Gama and his Successors_, 1460-

1580 (1910); H. M. Stephens, _Portugal_ (1891), a brief sketch in the

"Story of the Nations" Series; F. C. Danvers, _The Portuguese In

India_, 2 vols. (1894), a thorough and scholarly work; H. M. Stephens,

_Albuquerque and the Portuguese Settlements in India_ (1892), in

"Rulers of India" Series; Angel Marvaud, _Le Portugal et ses colonies_

(1912); G. M. Theal, _History and Ethnography of Africa South of the

Zambesi_, Vol. I, _The Portuguese in South Africa from 1505 to 1700_

(1907), a standard work by the Keeper of the Archives of Cape Colony.

Spain: John Fiske, _Discovery of America_, 2 vols. (1892), most

delightful narrative; Wilhelm Roscher, _The Spanish Colonial System_, a

brief but highly suggestive extract from an old German work trans. by

E. G. Bourne (1904); E. G. Bourne, _Spain in America_, 1450-1580

(1904), Vol. III of "American Nation" Series, excellent in content and

form; W. R. Shepherd, _Latin America_ (1914) in "Home University

Library." pp. 9-68, clear and suggestive; Sir Arthur Helps, _The

Spanish Conquest in America_, new ed., 4 vols. (1900-1904). A scholarly

study of Columbus's career is J. B. Thacher, _Christopher Columbus_, 3

vols. (1903-1904), incorporating many of the sources; Washington

Irving, _Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus_, originally

published in 1828-1831, but still very readable and generally sound;

Filson Young, _Christopher Columbus and the New World of his

Discovery_, 2 vols. (1906), a popular account, splendidly illustrated;

Henry Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb, son origine, sa vie, ses voyages_,

2 vols. (1884), a standard work by an authority on the age of

exploration; Henri Vignaud, _Histoire critique de la grande entreprise

de Christophe Colomb_, 2 vols. (1911), destructive of many commonly

accepted ideas regarding Columbus; F. H. H. Guillemard, _The Life of

Ferdinand Magellan_ (1890); F. A. MacNutt, _Fernando Cortes and the

Conquest of Mexico_, 1485-1547 (1909), in the "Heroes of the Nations"

Series, and, by the same author, both _Letters of Cortes_, 2 vols.

(1908), and _Bartholomew de las Casas_ (1909); Sir Clements Markham,

_The Incas of Peru_ (1910). On the transference of colonial power from

Spain to the Dutch and English, see _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. IV

(1906), ch. xxv, by H. E. Egerton. England: H. E. Egerton, _A Short

History of British Colonial Policy_, 2d ed. (1909), a bald summary,

provided, however, with good bibliographies; W. H. Woodward, _A Short

History of the Expansion of the British Empire, 1500-1911_, 3d ed.

(1912), a useful epitome; C. R. Beazley, _John and Sebastian Cabot: the

Discovery of North America_ (1898); J. A. Williamson, _Maritime

Enterprise, 1485-1558_ (1913); E. J. Payne (editor), _Voyages of the

Elizabethan Seamen to America_, 2 vols. (1893-1900); L. G. Tyler,

_England in America, 1580-1652_ (1904), Vol. IV of "American Nation"

Series; George Edmundson, _Anglo-Dutch Rivalry, 1600-1653_ (1911).

France: R. G. Thwaites, _France in America, 1497-1763_ (1905), Vol. VII

of "American Nation" Series.

ECONOMIC RESULTS OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION. William Cunningham, _An

Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects_, Vol. II,

_Mediaeval and Modern Times_ (1910), pp. 162-224, and, by the same

author, ch. xv of Vol. I (1902) of the _Cambridge Modern History_; E.

P. Cheyney, _Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century_

(1912); George Unwin, _Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and

Seventeenth Centuries_ (1904); G. Cawston and A. H. Keane, _Early

Chartered Companies_ (1896); W. R. Scott, _The Constitution and Finance

of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_, Vol. I

(1912); C. T. Carr (editor), _Select Charters of Trading Companies_

(1913); Beckles Willson, _The Great Company_ (1899), an account of the

Hudson Bay Company; Henry Weber, _La Compagnie française des Indes,

1604-1675_ (1904); _Recueil des voyages de la Compagnie des Indes

orientales des Hollandois_, 10 vols. (1730), the monumental source for

the activities of the chief Dutch trading-company.

CHAPTER III

EUROPEAN POLITICS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

As we look back upon the confused sixteenth century, we are struck at

once by two commanding figures,--the Emperor Charles V [Footnote:

Charles I of Spain.] and his son Philip II,--about whom we may group

most of the political events of the period. The father occupies the

center of the stage during the first half of the century; the son,

during the second half.

[Sidenote: Extensive Dominions of Charles]

At Ghent in the Netherlands, Charles was born in 1500 of illustrious

parentage. His father was Philip of Habsburg, son of the Emperor

Maximilian and Mary, duchess of Burgundy. His mother was the Infanta

Joanna, daughter and heiress of Ferdinand of Aragon and Naples and

Isabella of Castile and the Indies. The death of his father and the

incapacity of his mother--she had become insane--left Charles at the

tender age of six years an orphan under the guardianship of his

grandfathers Maximilian and Ferdinand. The death of the latter in 1516

transferred the whole Spanish inheritance to Charles, and three years

later, by the death of the former, he came into possession of the

hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs. Thus under a youth of nineteen

years were grouped wider lands and greater populations than any

Christian sovereign had ever ruled. Vienna, Amsterdam, Antwerp,

Brussels, Milan, Naples, Madrid, Cadiz,--even the City of Mexico,--owed

him allegiance. His titles alone would fill several pages.

Maximilian had intended not only that all these lands should pass into

the hands of the Habsburg family, but also that his grandson should

succeed him as head of the Holy Roman Empire. This ambition, however,

was hard of fulfillment, because the French king, Francis I (1515-

1547), feared the encircling of his own country by a united German-

Spanish-Italian state, and set himself to preserve what he called the

"Balance of Power"--preventing the undue growth of one political power

at the expense of others. It was only by means of appeal to national

and family sentiment and the most wholesale bribery that Charles

managed to secure a majority of the electors' votes against his French

rival [Footnote: Henry VIII of England was also a candidate.] and

thereby to acquire the coveted imperial title. He was crowned at Aix-

la-Chapelle in his twenty-first year.

[Sidenote: Character of Charles]

Never have greater difficulties confronted a sovereign than those which

Charles V was obliged to face throughout his reign; never did monarch

lead a more strenuous life. He was the central figure in a very

critical period of history: his own character as well as the

painstaking education he had received in the Netherlands conferred upon

him a lively appreciation of his position and a dogged pertinacity in

discharging its obligations. Both in administering his extensive

dominions and in dealing with foreign foes, Charles was a zealous,

hard-working, and calculating prince, and the lack of success which

attended many of his projects was due not to want of ability in the

ruler but to the multiplicity of interests among the ruled. The emperor

must do too many things to allow of his doing any one thing well.

[Sidenote: Difficulties Confronting Charles]

Suppose we turn over in our minds some of the chief problems of Charles

V, for they will serve to explain much of the political history of the

sixteenth century. In the first place, the emperor was confronted with

extraordinary difficulties in governing his territories. Each one of

the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands--the country which he always

considered peculiarly his own--was a distinct political unit, for there

existed only the rudiments of a central administration and a common

representative system, while the county of Burgundy had a separate

political organization. The crown of Castile brought with it the

recently conquered kingdom of Granada, together with the new colonies

in America and scattered posts in northern Africa. The crown of Aragon

comprised the four distinct states of Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and

Navarre, [Footnote: The part south of the Pyrenees. See above, p. 8.]

and, in addition, the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, each

with its own customs and government. At least eight independent cortes

or parliaments existed in this Spanish-Italian group, adding greatly to

the intricacy of administration. Much the same was true of that other

Habsburg group of states,--Austria, Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, the

Tyrol, etc., but Charles soon freed himself from immediate

responsibility for their government by intrusting them (1521) to his

younger brother, Ferdinand, who by his own marriage and elections added

the kingdoms of Bohemia [Footnote: Including the Bohemian crown lands

of Moravia and Silesia.] and Hungary (1526) to the Habsburg dominions.

The Empire afforded additional problems: it made serious demands upon

the time, money, and energies of its ruler; in return, it gave little

but glamour. In all these regions Charles had to do with financial,

judicial, and ecclesiastical matters. He had to reconcile conflicting

interests and appeal for popularity to many varied races. More than

once during his reign he even had to repress rebellion. In Germany,

from his very first Diet in 1521, he was face to face with rising

Protestantism which seemed to him to blaspheme his altar and to assail

his throne.

The emperor's overwhelming administrative difficulties were complicated

at every turn by the intricacies of foreign politics. In the first

place, Charles was obliged to wage war with France throughout the

greater part of his reign; he had inherited a longstanding quarrel with

the French kings, to which the rivalry of Francis I for the empire gave

a personal aspect. In the second place, and almost as formidable, was

the advance of the Turks up the Danube and the increase of Mohammedan

naval power in the Mediterranean. Against Protestant Germany a Catholic

monarch might hope to rely on papal assistance, and English support

might conceivably be enlisted against France. But the popes, who

usually disliked the emperor's Italian policy, were not of great aid to

him elsewhere; and the English sovereigns had domestic reasons for

developing hostility to Charles. A brief sketch of the foreign affairs

of Charles may make the situation clear.

[Sidenote: Francis I of France and the Reasons for his Wars with the

Emperor Charles V]

Six years older than Charles, Francis I had succeeded to the French

throne in 1515, irresponsible, frivolous, and vain of military

reputation. The general political situation of the time,--the gradual

inclosure of the French monarchy by a string of Habsburg territories,--

to say nothing of the remarkable contrast between the character of

Francis and that of the persevering Charles, made a great conflict

inevitable, and definite pretexts were not lacking for an early

outbreak of hostilities. (1) Francis revived the claims of the French

crown to Naples, although Louis XII had renounced them in 1504. (2)

Francis, bent on regaining Milan, which his predecessor had lost in

1512, invaded the duchy and, after winning the brilliant victory of

Marignano in the first year of his reign, occupied the city of Milan.

Charles subsequently insisted, however, that the duchy was a fief of

the Holy Roman Empire and that he was sworn by oath to recover it. (3)

Francis asserted the claims of a kinsman to the little kingdom of

Navarre, the greater part of which, it will be remembered, had recently

[Footnote: In 1512. See above.] been forcibly annexed to Spain. (4)

Francis desired to extend his sway over the rich French-speaking

provinces of the Netherlands, while Charles was determined not only to

prevent further aggressions but to recover the duchy of Burgundy of

which his grandmother had been deprived by Louis XI. (5) The outcome of

the contest for the imperial crown in 1519 virtually completed the

breach between the two rivals. War broke out in 1521, and with few

interruptions it was destined to outlast the lives of both Francis and

Charles.

[Sidenote: The Italian Wars of Charles V and Francis I]

Italy was the main theater of the combat. In the first stage, the

imperial forces, with the aid of a papal army, speedily drove the

French garrison out of Milan. The Sforza family was duly invested with

the duchy as a fief of the Empire, and the pope was compensated by the

addition of Parma and Piacenza to the Patrimony of Saint Peter. The

victorious Imperialists then pressed across the Alps and besieged

Marseilles. Francis, who had been detained by domestic troubles in

France, [Footnote: These troubles related to the disposition of the

important landed estates of the Bourbon family. The duke of Bourbon,

who was constable of France, felt himself injured by the king and

accordingly deserted to the emperor.] now succeeded in raising the

siege and pursued the retreating enemy to Milan. Instead of following

up his advantage by promptly attacking the main army of the

Imperialists, the French king dispatched a part of his force to Naples,

and with the other turned aside to blockade the city of Pavia. This

blunder enabled the Imperialists to reform their ranks and to march

towards Pavia in order to join the besieged. Here on 24 February,

1525,--the emperor's twenty-fifth birthday,--the army of Charles won an

overwhelming victory. Eight thousand French soldiers fell on the field

that day, and Francis, who had been in the thick of the fight, was

compelled to surrender. "No thing in the world is left me save my honor

and my life," wrote the king to his mother. Everything seemed

auspicious for the cause of Charles. Francis, after a brief captivity

in Spain, was released on condition that he would surrender all claims

to Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Italy, and would marry the emperor's

sister.

[Sidenote: The Sack of Rome, 1527]

Francis swore upon the Gospels and upon his knightly word that he would

fulfill these conditions, but in his own and contemporary opinion the

compulsion exercised upon him absolved him from his oath. No sooner was

he back in France than he declared the treaty null and void and

proceeded to form alliances with all the Italian powers that had become

alarmed by the sudden strengthening of the emperor's position in the

peninsula,--the pope, Venice, Florence, and even the Sforza who owed

everything to Charles. Upon the resumption of hostilities the league

displayed the same want of agreement and energy which characterized

every coalition of Italian city-states; and soon the Imperialists were

able to possess themselves of much of the country. In 1527 occurred a

famous episode--the sack of Rome. It was not displeasing to the emperor

that the pope should be punished for giving aid to France, although

Charles cannot be held altogether responsible for what befell. His army

in Italy, composed largely of Spaniards and Germans, being short of

food and money, and without orders, mutinied and marched upon the

Eternal City, which was soon at their mercy. About four thousand people

perished in the capture. The pillage lasted nine months, and the

brigands were halted only by a frightful pestilence which decimated

their numbers. Convents were forced, altars stripped, tombs profaned,

the library of the Vatican sacked, and works of art torn down as

monuments of idolatry. Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), a nephew of the

other Medici pope, Leo X, had taken refuge in the impregnable castle of

St. Angelo and was now obliged to make peace with the emperor.

[Sidenote: Peace of Cambrai, 1529]

The sack of Rome aroused bitter feelings throughout Catholic Europe,

and Henry VIII of England, at that time still loyal to the pope,

ostentatiously sent aid to Francis. But although the emperor made

little headway against Francis, the French king, on account of

strategic blunders and the disunion of the league, was unable to

maintain a sure foothold in Italy. The peace of Cambrai (1529) provided

that Francis should abandon Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands, but the

cession of Burgundy was no longer insisted upon. Francis proceeded to

celebrate his marriage with the emperor's sister.

[Sidenote: Habsburg Predominance in Italy]

Eight years of warfare had left Charles V and the Habsburg family

unquestionable masters of Italy. Naples was under Charles's direct

government. For Milan he received the homage of Sforza. The Medici

pope, whose family he had restored in Florence, was now his ally.

Charles visited Italy for the first time in 1529 to view his

territories, and at Bologna (1530) received from the pope's hands the

ancient iron crown of Lombard Italy and the imperial crown of Rome. It

was the last papal coronation of a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.

The peace of Cambrai proved but a truce, and war between Charles and

Francis repeatedly blazed forth. Francis made strange alliances in

order to create all possible trouble for the emperor,--Scotland,

Sweden, Denmark, the Ottoman Turks, even the rebellious Protestant

princes within the empire. There were spasmodic campaigns between 1536

and 1538 and between 1542 and 1544, and after the death of Francis and

the abdication of Charles, the former's son, Henry II (1547-1559),

continued the conflict, newly begun in 1552, until the conclusion of

the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, by which the Habsburgs retained

their hold upon Italy, while France, by the occupation of the important

bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, extended her northeastern

frontier, at the expense of the empire, toward the Rhine River.

[Footnote: It was during this war that in 1558 the French captured

Calais from the English, and thus put an end to English territorial

holdings on the Continent. The English Queen Mary was the wife of

Philip II of Spain.]

[Sidenote: Results of the Wars between Charles V and Francis I]

Indirectly, the long wars occasioned by the personal rivalry of Charles

and Francis had other results than Habsburg predominance in Italy and

French expansion towards the Rhine. They preserved a "balance of power"

and prevented the incorporation of the French monarchy into an

obsolescent empire. They rendered easier the rise of the Ottoman power

in eastern Europe; and French alliance with the Turks gave French trade

and enterprise a decided lead in the Levant. They also permitted the

comparatively free growth of Protestantism in Germany.

[Sidenote: The Turkish Peril]

More sinister to Charles V than his wars with the French was the

advance of the Ottoman Turks. Under their greatest sultan, Suleiman II,

the Magnificent (1520-1566), a contemporary of Charles, the Turks were

rapidly extending their sway. The Black Sea was practically a Turkish

lake; and the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the

sultan's power, now established on the Persian Gulf and in control of

all of the ancient trade-routes to the East. The northern coasts of

Africa from Egypt to Algeria acknowledged the supremacy of Suleiman,

whose sea power in the Mediterranean had become a factor to be reckoned

with in European politics, threatening not only the islands but the

great Christian countries of Italy and Spain. The Venetians were driven

from the Morea and from the Ægean Islands; only Cyprus, Crete, and

Malta survived in the Mediterranean as outposts of Christendom.

[Sidenote: Suleiman the Magnificent]

Suleiman devoted many years to the extension of his power in Europe,

sometimes in alliance with the French king, sometimes upon his own

initiative,--and with almost unbroken success. In 1521 he declared war

against the king of Hungary on the pretext that he had received no

Hungarian congratulations on his accession to the throne. He besieged

and captured Belgrade, and in 1526 on the field of Mohács his forces

met and overwhelmed the Hungarians, whose king was killed with the

flower of the Hungarian chivalry. The battle of Mohács marked the

extinction of an independent and united Hungarian state; Ferdinand of

Habsburg, brother of Charles V, claimed the kingdom; Suleiman was in

actual possession of fully a third of it. The sultan's army carried the

war into Austria and in 1529 bombarded and invested Vienna, but so

valiant was the resistance offered that after three weeks the siege was

abandoned. Twelve years later the greater part of Hungary, including

the city of Budapest, became a Turkish province, and in many places

churches were turned into mosques. In 1547 Charles V and Ferdinand were

compelled to recognize the Turkish conquests in Hungary, and the latter

agreed to pay the sultan an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. Suleiman

not only thwarted every attempt of his rivals to recover their

territories, but remained throughout his life a constant menace to the

security of the hereditary dominions of the Habsburgs.

[Sidenote: Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire.]

[Sidenote: Possibility of transforming the Empire into a National

German Monarchy]

At the very time when Charles V was encountering these grave troubles

in administering his scattered hereditary possessions and in waging war

now with the French and now with the Mohammedans, he likewise was

saddled with problems peculiar to the government of his empire. Had he

been able to devote all his talent and energy to the domestic affairs

of the Holy Roman Empire, he might have contributed potently to the

establishment of a compact German state. It should be borne in mind

that when Charles V was elected emperor in 1519 the Holy Roman Empire

was virtually restricted to German-speaking peoples, and that the

national unifications of England, France, and Spain, already far

advanced, pointed the path to a similar political evolution for

Germany. Why should not a modern German national state have been

created coextensive with the medieval empire, a state which would have

included not only the twentieth-century German Empire but Austria,

Holland, and Belgium, and which, stretching from the Baltic to the

Adriatic and from the English Channel to the Vistula, would have

dominated the continent of Europe throughout the whole modern era?

There were certainly grave difficulties in the way, but grave

difficulties had also been encountered in consolidating France or

Spain, and the difference was rather of degree than of kind. In every

other case a strong monarch had overcome feudal princes and ambitious

nobles, had deprived cities of many of their liberties, had trampled

upon, or tampered with, the privileges of representative assemblies,

and had enforced internal order and security. In every such case the

monarch had commanded the support of important popular elements and had

directed his major efforts to the realization of national aims.

National patriotism was not altogether lacking among Germans of the

sixteenth century. They were conscious of a common language which was

already becoming a vehicle of literary expression. They were conscious

of a common tradition and of a common nationality. They recognized, in

many cases, the absurdly antiquated character of their political

institutions and ardently longed for reforms. In fact, the trouble with

the Germans was not so much the lack of thought about political reform

as the actual conflicts between various groups concerning the method

and goal of reform. Germans despised the Holy Roman Empire, much as

Frenchmen abhorred the memory of feudal society; but Germans were not

as unanimous as Frenchmen in advocating the establishment of a strong

national monarchy. In Germany were princes, free cities, and knights,--

all nationalistic after a fashion, but all quarreling with each other

and with their nominal sovereign.

[Sidenote: Charles V bent on Strengthening Monarchical Power though not

on a National Basis]

The emperors themselves were the only sincere and consistent champions

of centralized monarchical power, but the emperors were probably less

patriotic than any one else in the Holy Roman Empire. Charles V would

never abandon his pretensions to world power in order to become a

strong monarch over a single nation. Early in his reign he declared

that "no monarchy was comparable though not to the Roman Empire. This

the whole world had once obeyed, and Christ Himself had paid it honor

and obedience. Unfortunately it was now only a shadow of what it had

been, but he hoped, with the help of those powerful countries and

alliances which God had granted him, to raise it to its ancient glory."

Charles V labored for an increase of personal power not only in Germany

but also in the Netherlands, in Spain, and in Italy; and with the vast

imperial ambition of Charles the ideal of creating a national monarchy

on a strictly German basis was in sharp conflict. Charles V could not,

certainly would not, pose simply as a German king--a national leader.

[Sidenote: Nationalism among the German Princes]

Under these circumstances the powerful German princes, in defying the

emperor's authority and in promoting disruptive tendencies in the Holy

Roman Empire, were enabled to lay the blame at the feet of their

unpatriotic sovereign and thereby arouse in their behalf a good deal of

German national sentiment. In choosing Charles V to be their emperor,

the princely electors in 1519 had demanded that German or Latin should

be the official language of the Holy Roman Empire, that imperial

offices should be open only to Germans, that the various princes should

not be subject to any foreign political jurisdiction, that no foreign

troops should serve in imperial wars without the approval of the Diet,

and that Charles should confirm the sovereign rights of all the princes

and appoint from their number a Council of Regency

(_Reichsregiment_) to share in his government.

[Sidenote: The Council of Regency, 1521-1531]

[Sidenote: Its Failure to Unify Germany]

In accordance with an agreement reached by a Diet held at Worms in

1521, the Council of Regency was created. Most of its twenty-three

members were named by, and represented the interests of, the German

princes. Here might be the starting-point toward a closer political

union of the German-speaking people, if only a certain amount of

financial independence could be secured to the Council. The proposal on

this score was a most promising one; it was to support the new imperial

administration, not, as formerly, by levying more or less voluntary

contributions on the various states, but by establishing a kind of

customs-union (_Zollverein_) and imposing on foreign importations

a tariff for revenue. This time, however, the German burghers raised

angry protests; the merchants and traders of the Hanseatic towns

insisted that the proposed financial burden would fall on them and

destroy their business; and their protests were potent enough to bring

to nought the princes' plan. Thus the government was forced again to

resort to the levy of special financial contributions,--an expedient

which usually put the emperor and the Council of Regency at the mercy

of the most selfish and least patriotic of the German princes.

[Sidenote: Nationalism among the German Knights]

More truly patriotic as a class than German princes or German burghers

were the German knights--those gentlemen of the hill-top and of the

road, who, usually poor in pocket though stout of heart, looked down

from their high-perched castles with badly disguised contempt upon the

vulgar tradesmen of the town or beheld with anger and jealousy the

encroachments of neighboring princes, lay and ecclesiastical, more

wealthy and powerful than themselves. Especially against the princes

the knights contended, sometimes under the forms of law, more often by

force and violence and all the barbarous accompaniments of private

warfare and personal feud. Some of the knights were well educated and

some had literary and scholarly abilities; hardly any one of them was a

friend of public order. Yet practically all the knights were intensely

proud of their German nationality. It was the knights, who, under the

leadership of such fiery patriots as Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von

Sickingen, had forcefully contributed in 1519 to the imperial election

of Charles V, a German Habsburg, in preference to non-German candidates

such as Francis I of France or Henry VIII of England. For a brief

period Charles V leaned heavily upon the German knights for support in

his struggle with princes and burghers; and at one time it looked as if

the knights in union with the emperor would succeed in curbing the

power of the princes and in laying the foundations of a strongly

centralized national German monarchy.

[Sidenote: Rise of Lutheranism Favored by the Knights and Opposed by

Charles V]

But at the critical moment Protestantism arose in Germany, marking a

cleavage between the knightly leaders and the emperor. To knights like

Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen the final break in 1520

between Martin Luther and the pope seemed to assure a separation of

Germany from Italy and the erection of a peculiar form of German

Christianity about which a truly national state could be builded. As a

class the knights applauded Luther and rejoiced at the rapid spread of

his teachings throughout Germany. On the other hand, Charles V remained

a Roman Catholic. Not only was he loyally attached to the religion of

his fathers through personal training and belief, but he felt that the

maintenance of what political authority he possessed was dependent

largely on the maintenance of the universal authority of the ancient

Church, and practically he needed papal assistance for his many foreign

projects. The same reasons that led many German princes to accept the

Lutheran doctrines as a means of lessening imperial control caused

Charles V to reject them. At the same Diet at Worms (1521), at which

the Council of Regency had been created, Charles V prevailed upon the

Germans present to condemn and outlaw Luther; and this action alienated

the knights from the emperor.

[Sidenote: The Knights' War, 1522-1523]

Franz von Sickingen, a Rhenish knight and the ablest of his class,

speedily took advantage of the emperor's absence from Germany in 1522

to precipitate a Knights' War. In supreme command of a motley army of

fellow-knights, Franz made an energetic attack upon the rich landed

estates of the Catholic prince-bishop of Trier. At this point, the

German princes, lay as well as ecclesiastical, forgetting their

religious predilections and mindful only of their common hatred of the

knights, rushed to the defense of the bishop of Trier and drove off

Sickingen, who, in April, 1523, died fighting before his own castle of

Ebernburg. Ulrich von Hutten fled to Switzerland and perished miserably

shortly afterwards. The knights' cause collapsed, and princes and

burghers remained triumphant. [Footnote: The Knights' War was soon

followed by the Peasants' Revolt, a social rather than a political

movement. For an account of the Peasants' Revolt see pp. 133 ff.] It

was the end of serious efforts in the sixteenth century to create a

national German state.

[Sidenote: Failure of German Nationalism in the Sixteenth Century]

The Council of Regency lasted until 1531, though its inability to

preserve domestic peace discredited it, and in its later years it

enjoyed little authority. Left to themselves, many of the princes

espoused Protestantism. In vain Charles V combated the new religious

movement. In vain he proscribed it in several Diets after that of

Worms. In vain he assailed its upholders in several military campaigns,

such as those against the Schmalkaldic League, which will be treated

more fully in another connection. But the long absences of Charles V

from Germany and his absorption in a multitude of cares and worries, to

say nothing of the spasmodic aid which Francis, the Catholic king of

France, gave to the Protestants in Germany, contributed indirectly to

the spread of Lutheranism. In the last year of Charles's rule (1555)

the profession of the Lutheran faith on the part of German princes was

placed by the peace of Augsburg [Footnote: See below, p. 136.] on an

equal footing with that of the Catholic religion. Protestantism among

the German princes proved a disintegrating, rather than a unifying,

factor of national life. The rise of Protestantism was the last straw

which broke German nationalism.

[Sidenote: Charles V and England]

With England the relations of Charles V were interesting but not so

important as those already noted with the Germans, the Turks, and the

French. At first in practical alliance with the impetuous self-willed

Henry VIII (1509-1547), whose wife--Catherine of Aragon--was the

emperor's aunt, Charles subsequently broke off friendly relations when

the English sovereign asked the pope to declare his marriage null and

void. Charles prevailed upon the pope to deny Henry's request, and the

schism which Henry then created between the Catholic Church in England

and the Roman See increased the emperor's bitterness. Towards the close

of Henry's reign relations improved again, but it was not until the

accession of Charles's cousin, Mary (1553-1558), to the English throne

that really cordial friendship was restored. To this Queen Mary,

Charles V married his son and successor Philip.

[Sidenote: Abdication of Charles V]

At length exhausted by his manifold labors, Charles V resolved to

divide his dominions between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip

and to retire from government. In the hall of the Golden Fleece at

Brussels on 25 October, 1555, he formally abdicated the sovereignty of

his beloved Netherlands. Turning to the representatives, he said:

"Gentlemen, you must not be astonished if, old and feeble as I am in

all my members, and also from the love I bear you, I shed some tears."

At least in the Netherlands the love was reciprocal. In 1556 he

resigned the Spanish and Italian crowns, [Footnote: He made over to his

brother all his imperial authority, though he nominally retained the

crown of the Holy Roman Empire until 1558] and spent his last years in

preparation for a future world. He died in 1558. Personally, Charles V

had a prominent lower jaw and a thin, pale face, relieved by a wide

forehead and bright, flashing eyes. He was well formed and dignified in

appearance. In character he was slow and at times both irresolute and

obstinate, but he had a high sense of duty, honest intentions, good

soldierly qualities, and a large amount of cold common sense. Though

not highly educated, he was well read and genuinely appreciative of

music and painting.

PHILIP II AND THE PREDOMINANCE OF SPAIN

For a century and a half after the retirement of Charles V in 1556, we

hear of two branches of the Habsburg family--the Spanish Habsburgs and

the Austrian Habsburgs, descended respectively from Philip II and

Ferdinand. By the terms of the division, Ferdinand, the brother of

Charles, received the compact family possessions in the East--Austria

and its dependencies, Bohemia, that portion of Hungary not occupied by

the Turks, and the title of Holy Roman Emperor,--while the remainder

went to Charles's son, Philip II,--Spain, the Netherlands, Franche

Comté (the eastern part of Burgundy), the Two Sicilies, Milan, and the

American colonies.

Over the history of Ferdinand and his immediate successors, we need not

tarry, because, aside from efforts to preserve religious peace and the

family's political predominance within the empire and to recover

Hungary from the Turks, it is hardly essential. But in western Europe

Philip II for a variety of reasons became a figure of world-wide

importance: we must examine his career.

[Sidenote: Character and policies of Philip II]

Few characters in history have elicited more widely contradictory

estimates than Philip II. Represented by many Protestant writers as a

villain, despot, and bigot, he has been extolled by patriotic Spaniards

as Philip the Great, champion of religion and right. These conflicting

opinions are derived from different views which may be taken of the

value and inherent worth of Philip's policies and methods, but what

those policies and methods were there can be no doubt. In the first

place, Philip II prized Spain as his native country and his main

possession--in marked contrast to his father, for he himself had been

born in Spain and had resided there during almost all of his life--and

he was determined to make Spain the greatest country in the world. In

the second place, Philip II was sincerely and piously attached to

Catholicism; he abhorred Protestantism as a blasphemous rending of the

seamless garment of the Church; and he set his heart upon the universal

triumph of his faith. If, by any chance, a question should arise

between the advantage of Spain and the best interests of the Church,

the former must be sacrificed relentlessly to the latter. Such was the

sovereign's stern ideal. No seeming failure of his policies could shake

his belief in their fundamental excellence. That whatever he did was

done for the greater glory of God, that success or failure depended

upon the inscrutable will of the Almighty and not upon himself, were

his guiding convictions, which he transmitted to his Spanish

successors. Not only was Philip a man of principles and ideals, but he

was possessed of a boundless capacity for work and an indomitable will.

He preferred tact and diplomacy to war and prowess of arms, though he

was quite willing to order his troops to battle if the object, in his

opinion, was right. He was personally less accustomed to the sword than

to the pen, and no clerk ever toiled more industriously at his papers

than did this king. From early morning until far into the night he bent

over minutes and reports and other business of kingcraft. Naturally

cautious and reserved, he was dignified and princely in public. In his

private life, he was orderly and extremely affectionate to his family

and servants. Loyalty was Philip's best attribute.

There was a less happy side to the character of Philip II. His free use

of the Inquisition in order to extirpate heresy throughout his

dominions has rendered him in modern eyes an embodiment of bigotry and

intolerance, but it must be remembered that he lived in an essentially

intolerant age, when religious persecution was stock in trade of

Protestants no less than of Catholics. It is likewise true that he

constantly employed craft and deceit and was ready to make use of

assassination for political purposes, but this too was in accordance

with the temper of the times: lawyers then taught, following the

precepts of the famous historian and political philosopher,

Machiavelli, that Christian morality is a guide for private conduct

rather than for public business, and that "the Prince" may act above

the laws in order to promote the public good, and even such famous

Protestant leaders as Coligny and William the Silent entered into

murder plots. But when all due allowances have been made, the student

cannot help feeling that the purpose of Philip II would have been

served better by the employment of means other than persecution and

murder.

The reign of Philip II covered approximately the second half of the

sixteenth century (1556-1598). In his efforts to make Spain the

greatest power in the world and to restore the unity problems of

Christendom, he was doomed to failure. The chief Confronting reason for

the failure is simple--the number and [side note Problems Confronting

Philip II] variety of the problems and projects with which Philip II

was concerned. It was a case of the king putting a finger in too many

pies--he was cruelly burned. Could Philip II have devoted all his

energies to one thing at a time, he might conceivably have had greater

success, but as it was, he must divide his attention between

supervising the complex administration of his already wide dominions

and annexing in addition the monarchy and empire of Portugal, between

promoting a vigorous commercial and colonial policy and suppressing a

stubborn revolt in the Netherlands, between championing Catholicism in

both England and France and protecting Christendom against the

victorious Mohammedans. It was this multiplicity of interests that

paralyzed the might of the Spanish monarch, yet each one of his foreign

activities was epochal in the history of the country affected. We shall

therefore briefly review Philip's activities in order.

[Sidenote: Spain under Philip II: Political]

As we have seen, Philip II inherited a number of states which had

separate political institutions and customs. He believed in national

unification, at least of Spain. National unification implied

uniformity, and uniformity implied greater power of the crown. So

Philip sought to further the work of his great-grandparents, Ferdinand

and Isabella,--absolutism and uniformity became his watchwords in

internal administration. Politically Philip made no pretense of

consulting the Cortes on legislation, and, although he convoked them to

vote new taxes, he established the rule that the old taxes were to be

considered as granted in perpetuity and as constituting the ordinary

revenue of the crown. He treated the nobles as ornamental rather than

useful, retiring them from royal offices in favor of lawyers and other

subservient members of the middle class. All business was conducted by

correspondence and with a final reference to the king, and the natural

result was endless delay.

[Sidenote: Spain under Philip II: Economic]

Financially and economically the period was unfortunate for Spain. The

burden of the host of foreign enterprises fell with crushing weight

upon the Spanish kingdom and particularly upon Castile. Aragon, which

was poor and jealous of its own rights, would give little. The income

from the Netherlands, at first large, was stopped by the revolt. The

Italian states barely paid expenses. The revenue from the American

mines, which has been greatly exaggerated, enriched the pockets of

individuals rather than the treasury of the state. In Spain itself, the

greater part of the land was owned by the ecclesiastical corporations

and the nobles, who were exempt from taxation but were intermittently

fleeced. Moreover, the 10 per cent tax on all sales--the alcabala

[Footnote: See above, p. 57.]--gradually paralyzed all native

industrial enterprise. And the persecution of wealthy and industrious

Jews and Moors diminished the resources of the kingdom. Spain, at the

close of the century, was on the verge of bankruptcy.

[Sidenote: Spain under Philip II: Religious]

In religious matters Philip II aimed at uniform adherence to the

doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. He felt, like so many of his

contemporaries, that disparity of belief among subjects would imperil

a state. Both from political motives and from religious zeal Philip was

a Catholic. He therefore advised the pope, watched with interest the

proceedings of the great Council of Trent which was engaged with the

reformation of the Church, [Footnote: See below, pp. 158 ff.] and

labored for the triumph of his religion not only in his own dominions

and in France, but also in Poland, in England, and even in Scandinavia.

In Spain he strengthened the Inquisition and used it as a tool of royal

despotism.

[Sidenote: Temporary Union of Spain and Portugal]

Territorially Philip II desired to complete political unity in the

peninsula by combining the crown of Portugal with those of Castile and

Aragon. He himself was closely related to the Portuguese royal family,

and in 1580 he laid formal claim to that kingdom. The duke of Braganza,

whose claim was better than Philip's, was bought off by immense grants

and the country was overrun by Spanish troops. Philip endeavored to

placate the Portuguese by full recognition of their constitutional

rights and in particular by favoring the lesser nobility or country

gentry. Although the monarchies and vast colonial possessions of Spain

and Portugal were thus joined for sixty years under a common king, the

arrangement never commanded any affection in Portugal, with the result

that at the first opportunity, in 1640, Portuguese independence was

restored under the leadership of the Braganza family.

[Sidenote: Rebellions Against Philip II in Spain]

The most serious domestic difficulty which Philip had to face was the

revolt of the rich and populous Netherlands, which we shall discuss

presently. But with other revolts the king had to contend. In his

efforts to stamp out heresy and peculiar customs among the descendants

of the Moors who still lived in the southern part of Spain, Philip

aroused armed opposition. The Moriscos, as they were called, struggled

desperately from 1568 to 1570 to reëstablish the independence of

Granada. This rebellion was suppressed with great cruelty, and the

surviving Moriscos were forced to find new homes in less favored parts

of Spain until their final expulsion from the country in 1609. A revolt

of Aragon in 1591 was put down by a Castilian army; the constitutional

rights of Aragon were diminished and the kingdom was reduced to a

greater measure of submission.

[Sidenote: Revolt of the Netherlands: The Causes]

The causes that led to the revolt of the Netherlands may be stated as

fourfold. (1) Financial. The burdensome taxes which Charles V had laid

upon the country were increased by Philip II and often applied to

defray the expenses of other parts of the Spanish possessions.

Furthermore, the restrictions which Philip imposed upon Dutch commerce

in the interest of that of Spain threatened to interfere seriously with

the wonted economic prosperity of the Netherlands. (2) Political.

Philip II sought to centralize authority in the Netherlands and

despotically deprived the cities and nobles of many of their

traditional privileges. Philip never visited the country in person

after 1559, and he intrusted his arbitrary government to regents and to

Spaniards rather than to native leaders. The scions of the old and

proud noble families of the Netherlands naturally resented being

supplanted in lucrative and honorable public offices by persons whom

they could regard only as upstarts. (3) Religious. Despite the rapid

and universal spread of Calvinistic Protestantism throughout the

northern provinces, Philip was resolved to force Catholicism upon all

of his subjects. He increased the number of bishoprics, decreed acts of

uniformity, and in a vigorous way utilized the Inquisition to carry his

policy into effect. (4) Personal. The Dutch and Flemish loved Charles V

because he had been born and reared among them and always considered

their country as his native land. Philip II was born and brought up in

Spain. He spoke a language foreign to the Netherlands, and by their

inhabitants he was thought of as an alien.

[Sidenote: Margaret of Parma and the "Beggars"]

At first the opposition in the Netherlands was directed chiefly against

the Inquisition and the presence of Spanish garrisons in the towns. The

regent, Margaret of Parma, Philip's half-sister, endeavored to banish

public discontent by a few concessions. The Spanish troops were

withdrawn and certain unpopular officials were dismissed. But

influential noblemen and burghers banded themselves together early in

1566 and presented to the regent Margaret a petition, in which, while

protesting their loyalty, they expressed fear of a general revolt and

begged that a special embassy be sent to Philip to urge upon him the

necessity of abolishing the Inquisition and of redressing their other

grievances. The regent, at first disquieted by the petitioners, was

reassured by one of her advisers, who exclaimed, "What, Madam, is your

Highness afraid of these beggars (_ces gueux_)?" Henceforth the

chief opponents of Philip's policies in the Netherlands humorously

labeled themselves "Beggars" and assumed the emblems of common begging,

the wallet and the bowl. The fashion spread quickly, and the "Beggars'"

insignia were everywhere to be seen, worn as trinkets, especially in

the large towns. In accordance with the "Beggars'" petition, an embassy

was dispatched to Spain to lay the grievances before Philip II.

[Sidenote: Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, 1567-1573]

Philip II at first promised to abolish the Inquisition in the

Netherlands, but soon repented of his promise. For meanwhile mobs of

fanatical Protestants, far more radical than the respectable "Beggars,"

were rushing to arms, breaking into Catholic churches, wrecking the

altars, smashing the images to pieces, profaning monasteries, and

showing in their retaliation as much violence--as their enemies had

shown cruelty in persecution. In August, 1566, this sacrilegious

iconoclasm reached its climax in the irreparable ruin of the

magnificent cathedral at Antwerp. Philip replied to these acts, which

he interpreted as disloyalty, by sending (1567) his most famous

general, the duke of Alva, into the Netherlands with a large army and

with instructions to cow the people into submission. Alva proved

himself quite capable of understanding and executing his master's

wishes: one of his first acts was the creation of a "Council of

Troubles," an arbitrary tribunal which tried cases of treason and which

operated so notoriously as to merit its popular appellation of the

"Council of Blood." During the duke's stay of six years, it has been

estimated that eight thousand persons were executed, including the

counts of Egmont and Horn, thirty thousand were despoiled of their

property, and one hundred thousand quitted the country. Alva, moreover,

levied an enormous tax of one-tenth upon the price of merchandise sold.

As the tax was collected on several distinct processes, it absorbed at

least seven-tenths of the value of certain goods--of cloth, for

instance. The tax, together with the lawless confusion throughout the

country, meant the destruction of Flemish manufactures and trade. It

was, therefore, quite natural that the burgesses of the southern

Netherlands, Catholic though most of them were, should unite with the

nobles and with the Protestants of the North in opposing Spanish

tyranny. The whole country was now called to arms.

[Sidenote: William the Silent, Prince of Orange]

One of the principal noblemen of the Netherlands was a German, William

of Nassau, prince of Orange.[Footnote: William (1533-1584), now

commonly called "the Silent." There appears to be no contemporaneous

justification of the adjective as applied to him, but the misnomer,

once adopted by later writers, has insistently clung to him.] He had

been governing the provinces of Holland and Zeeland when Alva arrived,

but as he was already at the point of accepting Protestantism he had

prudently retired into Germany, leaving his estates to be confiscated

by the Spanish governor. Certain trifling successes of the insurgents

now called William back to head the popular movement. For many years he

bore the brunt of the war and proved himself not only a resourceful

general, but an able diplomat and a whole-souled patriot. He eventually

gained the admiration and love of the whole Dutch people.

[Sidenote: The "Sea Beggars"]

The first armed forces of William of Orange were easily routed by Alva,

but in 1569 a far more menacing situation was presented. In that year

William began to charter corsairs and privateers to prey upon Spanish

shipping. These "Sea Beggars," as they were called, were mostly wild

and lawless desperadoes who stopped at nothing in their hatred of

Catholics and Spaniards: they early laid the foundations of Dutch

maritime power and at the same time proved a constant torment to Alva.

They made frequent incursions into the numerous waterways of the

Netherlands and perpetually fanned the embers of revolt on land.

Gradually William collected new armies, which more and more

successfully defied Alva.

[Sidenote: The "Spanish Fury" and the Pacification of Ghent, 1576]

The harsh tactics of Alva had failed to restore the Netherlands to

Philip's control, and in 1573 Alva was replaced in the regency by the

more politic Requesens, who continued the struggle as best he could but

with even less success than Alva. Soon after Requesens's death in 1576,

the Spanish army in the Netherlands, left without pay or food, mutinied

and inflicted such horrible indignities upon several cities, notably

Antwerp, that the savage attack is called the "Spanish Fury." Deputies

of all the seventeen provinces at once concluded an agreement, termed

the Pacification of Ghent (1576), by which they mutually guaranteed

resistance to the Spanish until the king should abolish the Inquisition

and restore their old-time liberties.

Then Philip II tried a policy of concession, but the new governor, the

dashing Don John of Austria, fresh from a great naval victory over the

Turks, soon discovered that it was too late to reconcile the

Protestants. William the Silent was wary of the Spanish offers, and Don

John died in 1578 without having achieved very much.

[Sidenote: Farnese, Duke of Parma]

[Sidenote: The Treaty of Array and the Union of Utrecht (1579): the

Permanent Division of the Netherlands]

But Philip II was not without some success in the Netherlands. He was

fortunate in having a particularly determined and tactful governor in

the country from 1578 to 1592 in the person of Alexander Farnese, duke

of Parma. Skillfully mingling war and diplomacy, Farnese succeeded in

sowing discord between the northern and southern provinces: the former

were Dutch, Calvinist, and commercial; the latter were Flemish and

Walloon, Catholic, and industrial. The ten southern provinces might

eventually have more to fear from the North than from continued union

with Spain; their representatives, therefore, signed a defensive league

at Arras in 1579 for the protection of the Catholic religion and with

the avowed purpose of effecting a reconciliation with Philip II. In the

same year the northern provinces agreed to the Union of Utrecht,

binding themselves together "as if they were one province" to maintain

their rights and liberties "with life-blood and goods" against Spanish

tyranny and to grant complete freedom of worship and of religious

opinion throughout the confederation. In this way the Pacification of

Ghent was nullified and the Netherlands were split into two parts, each

going its own way, each developing its own history. The southern

portion was to remain in Habsburg hands for over two centuries, being

successively termed "Spanish Netherlands" and "Austrian Netherlands"--

roughly speaking, it is what to-day we call Belgium. The northern

portion was to become free and independent, and, as the "United

Provinces" or simply "Holland," to take its place among the nations of

the world. For a considerable period of time Holland was destined to be

more prosperous than Belgium. The latter suffered more grievously than

the former from the actual hostilities; and the Dutch, by closing the

River Scheldt and dominating the adjacent seas, dealt a mortal blow at

the industrial and commercial supremacy of Antwerp and transferred the

chief trade and business of all the Netherlands to their own city of

Amsterdam.

[Sidenote: Reasons for the Success of the Dutch]

For many years the struggle dragged on. At times it seemed probable

that Farnese and the Spaniards would overcome the North by force as

they had obtained the South by diplomacy. But a variety of reasons

explain the ultimate success of the Dutch. The nature of the country

rendered ordinary campaigning very difficult--the network of canals

constituted natural lines of defense and the cutting of the dikes might

easily imperil an invading army. Again, the seafaring propensities of

the Dutch stimulated them to fit out an increasing number of privateers

which constantly preyed upon Spanish commerce: it was not long before

this traffic grew important and legitimate, so that in the following

century Amsterdam became one of the greatest cities of the world, and

Holland assumed a prominent place among commercial and colonial

nations. Thirdly, the employment of foreign mercenaries in the army of

defense enabled the native population to devote the more time to

peaceful pursuits, and, despite the persistence of war, the Dutch

provinces increased steadily in wealth and prosperity. Fourthly, the

cautious Fabian policy of William the Silent prevented the Dutch from

staking heavily upon battles in the open field. Fifthly, the Dutch

received a good deal of assistance from Protestants of Germany,

England, and France. Finally, Philip II pursued too many great projects

at once to be able to bring a single one to a satisfactory conclusion:

his war with Queen Elizabeth of England and his interference in the

affairs of France inextricably complicated his plans in the

Netherlands.

[Sidenote: Formal Declaration of Dutch Independence, 1581]

In 1581 Philip II published a ban against William of Orange,

proclaiming him a traitor and an outlaw and offering a reward to any

one who would take him dead or alive. William replied by his famous

"Apology" to the charges against him; but his practical answer to the

king was the Act of Abjuration, by which at his persuasion the

representatives of the northern provinces, assembled at The Hague,

solemnly proclaimed their separation from the crown of Spain, broke the

royal seal of Philip II, and declared the king deprived of all

authority over them. We should call this Act of 1581 the Dutch

declaration of independence. It was an augury of the definitive result

of the war.

[Sidenote: Recognition of Dutch Independence]

Although William the Silent was assassinated by an agent of Spain

(1584), and Antwerp was captured from the Protestants in 1585, the

ability and genius of Farnese did not avail to make further headway

against the United Provinces; but Philip II, stubborn to the end,

positively refused to recognize Dutch independence. In 1609 Philip III

of Spain consented to a twelve years' truce with the States-General of

The Hague. In the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) the Dutch and Spaniards

again became embroiled, and the freedom of the republic was not

recognized officially by Spain till the general peace of Westphalia in

1648. [Footnote: See below, p. 229.]

The seven provinces, which had waged such long war with Spain,

constituted, by mutual agreement, a confederacy, each preserving a

distinct local government and administration, but all subject to a

general parliament--the States-General--and to a stadtholder, or

governor-general, an office which subsequently became hereditary in the

Orange family. Between the States-General and the stadtholder, a

constitutional conflict was carried on throughout the greater part of

the seventeenth century--the former, supported by well-to-do burghers,

favoring a greater measure of political democracy, the latter, upheld

by aristocratically minded nobles, laboring for the development of

monarchical institutions under the Orange family.

[Sidenote: Natural Opposition of England and France to the Policies of

Philip II]

Not only his efforts in the Netherlands but many other projects of

Philip II were frustrated by remarkable parallel developments in the

two national monarchies of England and France. Both these countries

were naturally jealous opposition and fearful of an undue expansion of

Spain, which might upset the balance of power. Both states, from their

geographical locations, would normally be inimical to Philip II:

England would desire, from her island position, to destroy the monopoly

which Spain claimed of the carrying trade of the seas; France, still

encircled by Habsburg possessions in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands,

would adhere to her traditional policy of allying herself with every

foe of the Spanish king. Then, too, the papal authority had been

rejected in England and seriously questioned in France: Philip's

crusading zeal made him the champion of the Church in those countries.

For ecclesiastical as well as for economic and political purposes it

seemed necessary to the Spanish king that he should bring France and

England under his direct influence. On their side, patriotic French and

English resented such foreign interest in their domestic affairs, and

the eventual failure of Philip registered a wonderful growth of

national feeling among the peoples who victoriously contended against

him. The beginnings of the real modern greatness of France and England

date from their struggle with Philip II.

[Sidenote: Philip II and Mary Tudor]

At the outset of his reign, Philip seemed quite successful in his

foreign relations. As we have seen, he was in alliance with England

through his marriage with Queen Mary Tudor (1553-1558): she had

temporarily restored the English Church to communion with the Holy See,

and was conducting her foreign policy in harmony with Philip's--because

of her husband she lost to the French the town of Calais, the last

English possession on the Continent (1558). Likewise, as has been said,

Philip II concluded with France in 1559 the advantageous treaty of

Cateau-Cambrésis. But during the ensuing thirty years the tables were

completely turned. Both England and France ended by securing respite

from Spanish interference.

[Sidenote: Philip II and Elizabeth]

Mary Tudor died unhappy and childless in 1558, and the succession of

her sister Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,

altered the relations between the English and Spanish courts. Elizabeth

(1558-1603) was possessed of an imperious, haughty, energetic

character; she had remarkable intelligence and an absorbing patriotism.

She inspired confidence in her advisers and respect among her people,

so that she was commonly called "Good Queen Bess" despite the fact that

her habits of deceit and double-dealing gave color to the French king's

remark that she was the greatest liar in Christendom. This was the

woman with whom Philip II had to deal; he tried many tactics in order

to gain his ends,--all of them hopelessly unsuccessful.

Philip first proposed matrimony, but Elizabeth was very careful not to

give herself, or England, such a master. Then when the queen declared

herself a Protestant and showed no inclination to assist Philip in any

of his enterprises, the Spanish king proceeded to plot against her

throne. He subsidized Roman Catholic priests, especially Jesuits, who

violated the laws of the land. He stirred up sedition and even went so

far as to plan Elizabeth's assassination. Many conspiracies against the

English queen centered in the person of the ill-starred Mary Stuart,

[Footnote: Mary Stuart (1542-1587).] queen of Scotland, who was

next in line of succession to the English throne and withal a Catholic.

[Sidenote: Mary Stuart]

Descended from the Stuart kings of Scotland and from Henry VII of

England, related to the powerful family of Guise in France, Mary had

been brought up at the French court and married to the short-lived

French king, Francis II. Upon the death of the latter she returned in

1561 to Scotland, a young woman of but eighteen years, only to find

that the government had fallen victim to the prevalent factional fights

among the Scotch nobles and that in the preceding year the parliament

had solemnly adopted a Calvinistic form of Protestantism. By means of

tact and mildness, however, Mary won the respect of the nobles and the

admiration of the people, until a series of marital troubles and

blunders--her marriage with a worthless cousin, Henry Darnley, and then

her scandalous marriage with Darnley's profligate murderer, the earl of

Bothwell--alienated her people from her and drove her into exile. She

abdicated the throne of Scotland in favor of her infant son, James VI,

who was reared a Protestant and subsequently became King James I of

England, and she then (1568) threw herself upon the mercy of Elizabeth.

She thought she would find in England a haven of refuge; instead she

found there a prison.

For the score of years during which she remained Elizabeth's prisoner,

Mary Stuart was the object of many plots and conspiracies against the

existing governments of both Scotland and England. In every such scheme

were to be found the machinations and money of the Spanish king. In

fact, as time went on, it seemed to a growing section of the English

people as though the cause of Elizabeth was bound up with Protestantism

and with national independence and prosperity just as certainly as the

success of Mary would lead to the triumph of Catholicism, the political

supremacy of Spain, and the commercial ruin of England. It was under

these circumstances that Mary's fate was sealed. Because of a political

situation over which she had slight control, the ex-queen of Scotland

was beheaded by Elizabeth's orders in 1587.

[Sidenote: The Armada]

Philip II had now tried and failed in every expedient but one,--the

employment of sheer force. Even this he attempted in order to avenge

the death of Mary Stuart and to bring England, politically,

religiously, and commercially, into harmony with his Spanish policies.

The story of the preparation and the fate of the Invincible Armada is

almost too well known to require repetition. It was in 1588 that there

issued from the mouth of the Tagus River the most formidable fleet

which up to that time Christendom had ever beheld--130 ships, 8000

seamen, 19,000 soldiers, the flower of the Spanish chivalry. In the

Netherlands it was to be joined by Alexander Farnese with 33,000

veteran troops. But in one important respect Philip had underestimated

his enemy: he had counted upon a divided country. Now the attack upon

England was primarily national, rather than religious, and Catholics

vied with Protestants in offering aid to the queen: it was a united

rather than a divided nation which Philip faced. The English fleet,

composed of comparatively small and easily maneuvered vessels, worked

great havoc upon the ponderous and slow-moving Spanish galleons, and

the wreck of the Armada was completed by a furious gale which tossed

ship after ship upon the rocks of northern Scotland. Less than a third

of the original expedition ever returned to Spain.

Philip II had thus failed in his herculean effort against England. He

continued in small ways to annoy and to irritate Elizabeth. He tried--

without result--to incite the Catholics of Ireland against the queen.

He exhausted his arsenals and his treasures in despairing attempts to

equip a second and even a third Armada. But he was doomed to bitterest

disappointment, for two years before his death an English fleet sacked

his own great port of Cadiz. The war with England ruined the navy and

the commerce of Spain. The defeat of the Armada was England's first

title to commercial supremacy.

[Sidenote: Economic Benefits of the Period for England]

It was long maintained that the underlying causes of the conflict

between England and Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century

and its chief interest was religious--that it was part of an epic

struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism. There may be a measure

of truth in such an idea, but most recent writers believe that the

chief motives for the conflict, as well as its important results, were

essentially economic. From the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, English

sailors and freebooters, such as Hawkins and Drake, took the offensive

against Spanish trade and commerce; and many ships, laden with silver

and goods from the New World and bound for Cadiz, were seized and towed

into English harbors. The queen herself frequently received a share of

the booty and therefore tended to encourage the practice. For nearly

thirty years Philip put up with the capture of his treasure ships, the

raiding of his colonies, and the open assistance rendered to his

rebellious subjects. Only when he reached the conclusion that his power

would never be secure in the Netherlands or in America did he dispatch

the Armada. Its failure finally freed Holland and marked the collapse

of the Spanish monopoly upon the high seas and in the New World.

[Sidenote: Affairs in France]

Before we can appreciate the motives and results of the interference of

Philip II in French affairs, a few words must be said about what had

happened in France since Francis I (1515-1547) and his son, Henry II

(1547-1559), exalted the royal power in their country and not only

preserved French independence of the surrounding empire of Charles V

but also increased French prestige by means of a strong policy in Italy

and by the extension of frontiers toward the Rhine. Henry II had

married a member of the famous Florentine family of the Medici--

Catherine de' Medici--a large and ugly woman, but ambitious,

resourceful, and capable, who, by means of trickery and deceit, took an

active part in French politics from the death of her husband,

throughout the reigns of her feeble sons, Francis II (1559-1560),

Charles IX (1560-1574), and Henry III (1574-1589). Catherine found her

position and that of her royal children continually threatened by (1)

the Protestants (Huguenots), (2) the great nobles, and (3) Philip II of

Spain.

[Sidenote: Dangers to Royal Power in France: Protestantism]

French Protestantism had grown steadily during the first half of the

sixteenth century until it was estimated that from a twentieth to a

thirtieth of the nation had fallen away from the Catholic Church. The

influence of the advocates of the new faith was, however, much greater

than their number, because the Huguenots, as they were called, were

recruited mainly from the prosperous, intelligent middle class,--the

bourgeoisie,--who had been intrusted by preceding French kings with

many important offices. The Huguenots represented, therefore, a

powerful social class and likewise one that was opposed to the undue

increase of royal power. They demanded, not only religious toleration

for themselves, but also regular meetings of the Estates-General and

control of the nation's representatives over financial matters. The

kings, on their part, felt that political solidarity and their own

personal rule were dependent upon the maintenance of religious

uniformity in the nation and the consequent defeat of the pretensions

of the Huguenots. Francis I and Henry II had persecuted the Protestants

with bitterness. From 1562 to 1593 a series of so-called religious wars

embroiled the whole country.

[Sidenote: Dangers to Royal Power in France: the Nobles]

French politics were further complicated during the second half of the

sixteenth century by the recrudescence of the power of the nobles. The

so-called religious wars were quite as much political as religious--

they resulted from efforts of this or that faction of noblemen to

dictate to a weak king. Two noble families particularly vied with each

other for power,--the Bourbons and the Guises,--and the unqualified

triumph of either would be certain to bring calamity to the sons of

Catherine de' Medici.

[Sidenote: The Bourbons]

The Bourbons bore the proud title of princes of the blood because they

were direct descendants of a French king. Their descent, to be sure,

was from Saint Louis, king in the thirteenth century, and they were

now, therefore, only distant cousins of the reigning kings, but as the

latter died off, one after another, leaving no direct successors, the

Bourbons by the French law of strict male succession became heirs to

the royal family. The head of the Bourbons, a certain Anthony, had

married the queen of Navarre and had become thereby king of Navarre,

although the greater part of that country--the region south of the

Pyrenees--had been annexed to Spain in 1512. Anthony's brother Louis,

prince of Condé, had a reputation for bravery, loyalty, and ability.

Both Condé and the king of Navarre were Protestants.

[Sidenote: The Guise Family]

The Guise family was descended from a duke of Lorraine who had attached

himself to the court of Francis I. It was really a foreign family,

inasmuch as Lorraine was then a dependency of the Holy Roman Empire,

but the patriotic exploits of the head of the family in defending Metz

against the Emperor Charles V and in capturing Calais from the English

endeared the Guises to a goodly part of the French nation. The duke of

Guise remained a stanch Catholic, and his brother, called the Cardinal

of Lorraine, was head of as many as twelve bishoprics, which gave him

an enormous revenue and made him the most conspicuous churchman in

France. During the reign of Henry II (1547-1559) the Guises were

especially influential. They fought valiantly in foreign wars. They

spurred on the king to a great persecution of the Huguenots. They

increased their own landed estates. And they married one of their

relatives--Mary, queen of Scots--to the heir to the throne. But after

the brief reign of Mary's husband, Francis II (1559-1560), the Guise

family encountered not only the active opposition of their chief noble

rivals, the Bourbons, with their Huguenot allies, but likewise the

jealousy and crafty intrigues of Catherine de' Medici.

[Sidenote: Religious Wars in France]

Catherine feared both the ambition of the powerful Guise family and the

disruptive tendencies of Protestantism. The result was a long series of

confused civil wars between the ardent followers, respectively

Catholic and Protestant, of the Guise and Bourbon families, in which

the queen-mother gave support first to one side and then to the other.

There were no fewer than eight of these sanguinary conflicts, each one

ending with the grant of slight concessions to the Huguenots and the

maintenance of the weak kings upon the throne. The massacre of Saint

Bartholomew's Day (1572) was a horrible incident of Catherine's policy

of "trimming." Fearing the undue influence over the king of Admiral de

Coligny, an upright and able Huguenot leader, the queen-mother, with

the aid of the Guises, prevailed upon the weak-minded Charles IX to

authorize the wholesale assassination of Protestants. The signal was

given by the ringing of a Parisian church-bell at two o'clock in the

morning of 24 August, 1572, and the slaughter went on throughout the

day in the capital and for several weeks in the provinces. Coligny was

murdered; even women and children were not spared. It is estimated that

in all at least three thousand--perhaps ten thousand--lost their lives.

[Sidenote: The "Politiques"]

The massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day did not destroy French

Protestantism or render the Huguenot leaders more timid in

asserting their claims. On the other hand, it brought into

clear light a noteworthy division within the ranks of their Catholic

opponents in France--on one side, the rigorous followers of the Guise

family, who complained only that the massacre had not been sufficiently

comprehensive, and, on the other side, a group of moderate Catholics,

usually styled the "Politiques" who, while continuing to adhere to the

Roman Church, and, when called upon, bearing arms on the side of the

king, were strongly opposed to the employment of force or violence or

persecution in matters of religion. The Politiques were particularly

patriotic, and they blamed the religious wars and the intolerant policy

of the Guises for the seeming weakness of the French monarchy. They

thought the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day a blunder as well as a

crime.

The emergence of the Politiques did not immediately make for peace;

rather, it substituted a three-sided for a two-sided conflict.

[Sidenote: Philip II and the War of the Three Henries]

After many years, filled with disorder, it became apparent that the

children of Catherine de' Medici would have no direct male heirs and

that the crown would therefore legally devolve upon the son of Anthony

of Bourbon--Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and a Protestant. Such an

outcome was naturally distasteful to the Guises and abhorrent to Philip

II of Spain. In 1585 a definite league was formed between Henry, duke

of Guise, and the Spanish king, whereby the latter undertook by

military force to aid the former's family in seizing the throne: French

politics in that event would be controlled by Spain, and Philip would

secure valuable assistance in crushing the Netherlands and conquering

England.[Footnote: At that very time, Mary, Queen of Scots, cousin of

Henry, duke of Guise, was held a prisoner in England by Queen

Elizabeth. See above, p. 99.] The immediate outcome of the agreement

was the war of the three Henries--Henry III, son of Catherine de'

Medici and king of France; Henry of Bourbon, king of Navarre and heir

to the French throne; and Henry, duke of Guise, with the foreign

support of Philip II of Spain. Henry of Guise represented the extreme

Catholic party; Henry of Navarre, the Protestant faction; and Henry of

France, the Catholic moderates--the Politiques--who wanted peace and

were willing to grant a measure of toleration. The last two were

upholders of French independence against the encroachments of Spain.

The king was speedily gotten into the power of the Guises, but little

headway was made by the extreme Catholics against Henry of Navarre, who

now received domestic aid from the _Politiques_ and foreign

assistance from Queen Elizabeth of England and who benefited by the

continued misfortunes of Philip II. At no time was the Spanish king

able to devote his whole attention and energy to the French war. At

length in 1588 Henry III caused Henry of Guise to be assassinated. The

king never had a real chance to prove whether he could become a

national leader in expelling the foreigners and putting an end to civil

war, for he himself was assassinated in 1589. With his dying breath he

designated the king of Navarre as his successor.

[Sidenote: Henry of Navarre]

Henry of Navarre, the first of the Bourbon family upon the throne of

France, took the title of Henry IV (1589-1610). [Footnote: It is a

curious fact that Henry of Navarre, like Henry of Guise and Henry of

France, died by the hand of an assassin.] For four years after his

accession, Henry IV was obliged to continue the civil war, but his

abjuration of Protestantism and his acceptance of Catholicism in 1593

removed the chief source of opposition to him within France, and the

rebellion speedily collapsed. With the Spanish king, however, the

struggle dragged on until the treaty of Vervins, which in the last year

of Philip's life practically confirmed the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis.

[Sidenote: Decline of Spain and Rise of France]

Thus Philip II had failed to conquer or to dismember France. He had

been unable to harmonize French policies with those of his own in the

Netherlands or in England. Despite his endeavors, the French crown was

now on the head of one of his enemies, who, if something of a renegade

Protestant himself, had nevertheless granted qualified toleration to

heretics. Nor were these failures of Philip's political and religious

policies mere negative results to France. The unsuccessful interference

of the Spanish king contributed to the assurance of French

independence, patriotism, and solidarity. France, not Spain, was to be

the center of European politics during the succeeding century.

[Sidenote: Philip II and the Turks]

In concluding this chapter, a large section of which has been devoted

to an account of the manifold failures of Philip II, a word should be

added about one exploit that brought glory to the Spanish monarch. It

was he who administered the first effective check to the advancing

Ottoman Turks.

After the death of Suleiman the Magnificent (1566), the Turks continued

to strengthen their hold upon Hungary and to fit out piratical

expeditions in the Mediterranean. The latter repeatedly ravaged

portions of Sicily, southern Italy, and even the Balearic Islands, and

in 1570 an Ottoman fleet captured Cyprus from the Venetians. Malta and

Crete remained as the only Christian outposts in the Mediterranean. In

this extremity, a league was formed to save Italy. Its inspirer and

preacher was Pope Pius V, but Genoa and Venice furnished the bulk of

the fleet, while Philip II supplied the necessary additional ships and

the commander-in-chief in the person of his half-brother, Don John of

Austria. The expedition, which comprised 208 vessels, met the Ottoman

fleet of 273 ships in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the coast of Greece, on

7 October, 1571, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat. The Turkish

warships were almost all sunk or driven ashore; it is estimated that

8000 Turks lost their lives. When news of the victory reached Rome,

Pope Pius intoned the famous verse, "There was a man sent from God

whose name was John."

[Sidenote: Lepanto]

The battle of Lepanto was of great political importance. It gave the

naval power of the Mohammedans a blow from which it never recovered and

ended their aggressive warfare in the Mediterranean. It was, in

reality, the last Crusade: Philip II was in his most becoming rôle as

champion of church and pope; hardly a noble family in Spain or Italy

was not represented in the battle; volunteers came from all parts of

the world; the celebrated Spanish writer Cervantes lost an arm at

Lepanto. Western Europe was henceforth to be comparatively free from

the Ottoman peril.

[Illustration: THE HABSBURG FAMILY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH

CENTURIES]

[Illustration: THE VALOIS, BOURBON, AND GUISE FAMILIES, PHILIP OF SPAIN

AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS]

[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF TUDOR: SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND (1485-1603)]

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE HABSBURG TERRITORIES. A. H.

Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598_ (1897), ch. iii-

ix, a political summary; Mary A. Hollings, _Renaissance and

Reformation, 1453-1660_ (1910), ch. vi, ix, x, a brief outline; E. M.

Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation_, 2d ed. (1915), ch. x, xiv, xxiv-

xxviii, a brief and fragmentary account; T. H. Dyer, _A History of

Modern Europe_, 3d ed., rev. by Arthur Hassall (1901), ch. ix, xi-

xxvii, old but containing a multitude of political facts; _Cambridge

Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), ch. ii, iii, vii, viii, and Vol. III

(1905), ch. xv, v; _History of All Nations_, Vol. XI and Vol. XII, ch.

i-iii, by the German scholar on the period, Martin Philippson;

_Histoire générale_, Vol. IV, ch. iii, ix, Vol. V, ch. ii-v, xv. Of the

Emperor Charles V the old standard English biography by William

Robertson, still readable, has now been largely superseded by that of

Edward Armstrong, 2 vols. (1902); two important German works on Charles

V are Baumgarten, _Geschichte Karls V_, 3 vols. (1885-1892), and Konrad

Häbler, _Geschichte Spaniens unter den Habsburgen_, Vol. I (1907). Of

Philip II the best brief biography in English is Martin Hume's (1902),

which should be consulted, if possible, in connection with Charles

Bratli, _Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne: Etude sur sa vie et son

caractère_, new ed. (1912), an attempt to counteract traditional

Protestant bias against the Spanish monarch. Also see M. A. S. Hume,

_Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788_ (1898), ch. i-vi, for a

general account of the reigns of Philip II and Philip III; and Paul

Herre, _Papstium und Papstwahl im Zeitalter Philipps II_ (1907) for a

sympathetic treatment of Philip's relations with the papacy. For a

proper understanding of sixteenth-century politics the student should

read that all-important book, Machiavelli's _Prince_, the most

convenient English edition of which is in "Everyman's Library." For

political events in the Germanies in the sixteenth century: E. F.

Henderson, _A Short History of Germany_, 2 vols. in 1 (1902); Sidney

Whitman, _Austria_ (1899); Gustav Welf, _Deutsche Geschichte im

Zeitalter der Gegenreformation_ (1899), an elaborate study; Franz

Krones, _Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs von der ältesten Zeit_,

Vol. III (1877), Book XIII.

FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A. J. Grant, _The French Monarchy,

1483-1789_ (1900), Vol. I, ch. iii-v; G. W. Kitchin, _A History of

France,_ 4th ed. (1894-1899), Vol. II, Book II, ch. iv-v, and Book III;

_Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III (1905), ch. i; Ernest Lavisse

(editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. V (1903), Books III, IV, VII,

VIII, and Vol. VI (1904), Books I-III, the most thorough and best

treatment; Edward Armstrong, _The French Wars of Religion_ (1892); J.

W. Thompson, _The Wars of Religion in France: the Huguenots, Catherine

de Medici and Philip II of Spain_, 1559-1576 (1909), containing several

suggestions on the economic conditions of the time; A. W. Whitehead,

_Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_ (1904); C. C. Jackson, _The

Last of the Valois_, 2 vols. (1888), and, by the same author, _The

First of the Bourbons_, 2 vols. (1890); Lucien Romier, _Les origines

politiques des Guerres de Religion_, Vol. I, _Henri II et l'Italie,

1547-1555_ (1913), scholarly and authoritative, stressing economic

rather than political aspects; Louis Batiffol, _The Century of the

Renaissance in France_, Eng. trans. by Elsie F. Buckley (1916),

covering the years 1483-1610, largely political.

ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Brief accounts: A. L. Cross, _History

of England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xix-xxvi; E. P. Cheyney, _A

Short History of England_ (1904), ch. xii, xiii; _Cambridge Modern

History,_ Vol. III (1905), ch. viii-xi; J. F. Bright, _History of

England_, 5 vols. (1884-1904), Vol. II, _Personal Monarchy, 1485-1688_

(in part); A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_, 4

vols, (1914), Vol. II, ch. iii-viii; J. R. Seeley, _Growth of British

Policy_, 2 vols. (1895), a brilliant work, of which Vol. I, Part I,

affords an able account of the policy of Elizabeth. More detailed

studies: J. S. Brewer, _The Reign of Henry VIII from his Accession to

the Death of Wolsey_, 2 vols. (1884); H. A. L. Fisher, _Political

History of England, 1485-1547_ (1906), ch. vi-xviii; A. F. Pollard,

_History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of

Elizabeth_ (1910); J. A. Froude, _History of England from the Fall of

Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada_, 12 vols. (1870-1872), a

masterpiece of prose-style but strongly biased in favor of Henry VIII

and against anything connected with the Roman Church; E. P. Cheyney, _A

History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of

Elizabeth_, Vol. I (1914), scholarly and well-written. Also see Andrew

Lang, _A History of Scotland_, 2d ed. (1901-1907), Vols. I and II; and

P. H. Brown, _History of Scotland_ (1899-1900), Vols. I and II.

Important biographies: A. F. Pollard, _Henry VIII_ (1905), the result

of much research and distinctly favorable to Henry; E. L. Taunton,

_Thomas Wolsey, Legate and Reformer_ (1902), the careful estimate of a

Catholic scholar; Mandell Creighton, _Cardinal Wolsey_ (1888), a good

clear account, rather favorable to the cardinal; J. M. Stone, _Mary the

First, Queen of England_ (1901), a sympathetic biography of Mary Tudor;

Mandell Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1909), the best biography of the

Virgin Queen; E. S. Beesly, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1892), another good

biography. For Mary, Queen of Scots, see the histories of Scotland

mentioned above and also Andrew Lang, _The Mystery of Mary Stuart_

(1901); P. H. Brown, _Scotland in the Time of Queen Mary_ (1904); and

R. S. Rait, _Mary Queen of Scots_, 2d ed. (1899), containing important

source-material concerning Mary. Walter Walsh, _The Jesuits in Great

Britain_ (1903), emphasizes their political opposition to Elizabeth.

Martin Hume, _Two English Queens and Philip_ (1908), valuable for the

English relations of Philip II. For English maritime development see

David Hannay, _A Short History of the English Navy_ (1898); J. S.

Corbett, _Drake and the Tudor Navy_, 2 vols. (1898), and, by the same

author, _The Successors of Drake_ (1900); J. A. Froude, _English Seamen

in the Sixteenth Century_ (1895).

THE NETHERLANDS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. A good brief account is that

of George Edmundson in the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. III

(1905), ch. vi, vii, and Vol. II (1904), ch. xix. For the Dutch

Netherlands the great standard work is now P. J. Blok, _History of

the People of the Netherlands_, trans. in large part by O. A.

Bierstadt, and for the Belgian Netherlands a corresponding function is

performed in French by Henri Pirenne. J. L. Motley, _Rise of the

Dutch Republic_, 3 vols. (many editions), is brilliantly written and

still famous, but it is based on an inadequate study of the sources and

is marred throughout by bitter prejudice against the Spaniards and in

favor of the Protestant Dutch: it is now completely superseded by the

works of Blok and Pirenne. Admirable accounts of William the Silent are

the two-volume biography by Ruth Putnam and the volume by the same

author in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series (1911); the most detailed

study is the German work of Felix Rachfahl.

THE TURKS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modern History_,

Vol. III (1905), ch. iv; A. H. Lybyer, _The Government of the Ottoman

Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent_ (1913); Stanley

Lane-Poole, _Turkey_ (1889) in the "Story of the Nations" Series;

Nicolae Jorga, _Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches_; Leopold von

Ranke, _Die Osmanen und die spanische Monarchie im sechzehnten und

siebzehnten Jahrhundert_; Joseph von Hammer, _Geschichte des

osmanischen Reiches_, 2d ed., 4 vols. (1834-1835), Vol. II, a famous

German work, which has been translated into French.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROTESTANT REVOLT AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AT THE OPENING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Differences between Religious Bodies in 1500 and Those in

1900]

Four hundred years ago, practically all people who lived in central or

western Europe called themselves "Christians" and in common recognized

allegiance to an ecclesiastical body which was called the "Catholic

Church." This Catholic Church in 1500 differed from any present-day

religious society in the following respects: (1) Every child was born

into the Church as now he is born into the state; every person was

expected to conform, at least outwardly, to the doctrines and practices

of the Church; in other words the Catholic Church claimed a universal

membership. (2) The Church was not supported by voluntary contributions

as now, but by compulsory taxes; every person was compelled to assist

in defraying the expenses of the official religion. (3) The state

undertook to enforce obedience on the part of its subjects to the

Church; a person attacking the authority of the Catholic Church would

be liable to punishment by the state, and this held true in England and

Germany as well as in Spain or Italy.

[Sidenote: Rise of Protestantism]

Then, within fifty years, between 1520 and 1570, a large number of

Catholic Christians, particularly in Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland,

and England, and a smaller number in the Low Countries and in France,

broke off communion with the ancient Church and became known as

Protestants. Before the year 1500 there were no Protestants; since the

sixteenth century, the dominant Christianity of western and central

Europe has been divided into two parts--Catholic and Protestant. It is

important that we should know something of the origin and significance

of this division, because the Christian religion and the Christian

Church had long played very great roles in the evolution of European

civilization and because ecclesiastical and religious questions have

continued, since the division, to deserve general attention.

[Sidenote: "Catholic" Christianity]

Let us understand clearly what was meant in the year 1500 by the

expression "Catholic Christianity." It embraced a belief in certain

religious precepts which it was believed Jesus of Nazareth had taught

at the beginning of the Christian era, the inculcation of certain moral

teachings which were likewise derived from Jesus, and a definite

organization--the Church--founded, it was assumed, by Jesus in order to

teach and practice, till the end of time, His religious and moral

doctrines. By means of the Church, man would know best how to order his

life in this world and how to prepare his soul for everlasting

happiness in the world to come.

[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]

The Catholic Church was, therefore, a vast human society, believed to

be of divine foundation and sanction, and with a mission greater and

more lofty than that of any other organization. Church and state had

each its own sphere, but the Church had insisted for centuries that it

was greater and more necessary than the state. The members of the

Church were the sum-total of Christian believers who had been baptized

--practically the population of western and central Europe--and its

officers constituted a regular governing hierarchy.

[Sidenote: Head of the Church]

At the head of the hierarchy was the bishop of Rome, styled the pope or

sovereign pontiff, who from the first had probably enjoyed a leading

position in the Church as the successor of St. Peter, prince of the

apostles, and whose claims to be the divinely appointed chief bishop

had been generally recognized throughout western Europe as early as the

third century--perhaps earlier. The bishop of Rome was elected for life

by a group of clergymen, called cardinals, who originally had been in

direct charge of the parish churches in the city of Rome, but who later

were frequently selected by the pope from various countries because

they were distinguished churchmen. The pope chose the cardinals; the

cardinals elected the pope. Part of the cardinals resided in Rome, and

in conjunction with a host of clerks, translators, lawyers, and special

officials, constituted the _Curia_, or papal court, for the

conduct of general church business.

[Sidenote: Local Administration of the Church]

[Sidenote: Secular Clergy]

For the local administration of church affairs, the Catholic world was

divided under the pope into several territorial subdivisions, (1) The

patriarchates had been under patriarchs who had their sees [Footnote:

"See," so called from the Latin _sedes_, referring to their seat

or chair of office. Similarly our word "cathedral" is derived from the

Latin _cathedra_, the official chair which the bishop occupies in

his own church.] in such ancient Christian centers as Rome. Jerusalem,

Alexandria, Antioch. and Constantinople. (2) The provinces were

divisions of the patriarchates and usually centered in the most

important cities, such as Milan, Florence, Cologne, Upsala, Lyons,

Seville, Lisbon, Canterbury, York; and the head of each was styled a

metropolitan or archbishop. (3) The diocese--the most essential unit of

local administration--was a subdivision of the province, commonly a

city or a town, with a certain amount of surrounding country, under the

immediate supervision of a bishop. (4) Smaller divisions, particularly

parishes, were to be found in every diocese, embracing a village or a

section of a city, and each parish had its church building and its

priest. Thus the Catholic Church possessed a veritable army of

officials from pope and cardinals down through patriarchs, archbishops,

and bishops, to the parish priests and their assistants, the deacons.

This hierarchy, because it labored _in the world_ (_sæculo_),

was called the "secular clergy."

[Sidenote: "Regular" Clergy]

Another variety of clergy--the "regulars"--supplemented the work of the

seculars. The regulars were monks, [Footnote: The word "monk" is

applied, of course, only to men; women who followed similar rules are

commonly styled nuns.] that is, Christians who lived by a special

_rule_ (_regula_), who renounced the world, took vows of

chastity, poverty, and obedience, and strove to imitate the life of

Christ as literally as possible. The regular clergy were organized

under their own abbots, priors, provincials, or generals, being usually

exempt from secular jurisdiction, except that of the pope. The regulars

were the great missionaries of the Church, and many charitable and

educational institutions were in their hands. Among the various orders

of monks which had grown up in the course of time, the following should

be enumerated: (1) The monks who lived in fixed abodes, tilled the

soil, copied manuscripts, and conducted local schools. Most of the

monks of this kind followed a rule, or society by-laws, which had been

prepared by the celebrated St. Benedict about the year 525: they were

called therefore Benedictines. (2) The monks who organized crusades,

often bore arms themselves, and tended the holy places connected with

incidents in the life of Christ: such orders were the Knights Templars,

the Knights Hospitalers of St. John and of Malta, and the Teutonic

Knights who subsequently undertook the conversion of the Slavs. (3) The

monks who were called the begging friars or mendicants because they had

no fixed abode but wandered from place to place, preaching to the

common people and dependent for their own living upon alms. These

orders came into prominence in the thirteenth century and included,

among others, the Franciscan, whose lovable founder Saint Francis of

Assisi had urged humility and love of the poor as its distinguishing

characteristics, and the Dominican, or Order of the Preachers, devoted

by the precept of its practical founder, Saint Dominic, to missionary

zeal. All the mendicant orders, as well as the Benedictine monasteries,

became famous in the history of education, and the majority of the

distinguished scholars of the middle ages were monks. It was not

uncommon, moreover, for regulars to enter the secular hierarchy and

thus become parish priests or bishops, or even popes.

[Sidenote: Church Councils]

[Sidenote: Conciliar Movement]

The clergy--bishops, priests, and deacons--constituted, in popular

belief, the divinely ordained administration of the Catholic Church.

The legislative authority in the Church similarly was vested in the

pope and in the general councils, neither of which, however, could set

aside a law of God, as affirmed in the gospels, or establish a doctrine

at variance with the tradition of the early Christian writers. The

general councils were assemblies of prelates of the Catholic world, and

there had been considerable discussion as to the relative authority of

their decrees and the decisions and directions of the pope. [Footnote:

Papal documents have been called by various names, such as decretals,

bulls, or encyclicals.] General church councils held in eastern Europe

from the fourth to the ninth centuries had issued important decrees or

canons defining Christian dogmas and establishing ecclesiastical

discipline, which had been subsequently ratified and promulgated by the

pope as by other bishops and by the emperors; and several councils had

been held in western Europe from the twelfth to the fourteenth

centuries under the direct supervision of the bishop of Rome, all the

canons of which had been enacted in accordance with his wishes. But

early in the fifteenth century a movement was inaugurated by certain

Catholic bishops and scholars in favor of making the councils superior

to the pope and a regular source of supreme legislation for the Church.

In this way, the councils of Constance (1414-1418) and Basel (1431 ff.)

had endeavored to introduce representative, if not democratic,

government into the Church. The popes, however, objected to this

conciliar movement and managed to have it condemned by the Council of

Ferrara-Florence (1438-1442). By the year 1512 the papal theory had

triumphed and Catholics generally recognized again that the government

of the Church was essentially monarchical. The laws of the Catholic

Church were known as canons, and, of several codes of canon law which

had been prepared, that of a monk named Gratian, compiled in the

twelfth century, was the most widely used.

[Sidenote: The Pope and his Powers]

We are now in a position to summarize the claims and prerogatives of

the bishop of Rome or pope. (1) He was the supreme lawgiver. He could

issue decrees of his own, which might not be set aside by any other

person. No council might enact canons without his approval. From any

law, other than divine, he might dispense persons. (2) He was the

supreme judge in Christendom. He claimed that appeals might be taken

from decisions in foreign courts to his own Curia, as court of last

resort. He himself frequently acted as arbitrator, as, for example, in

the famous dispute between Spain and Portugal concerning the boundaries

of their newly discovered possessions. (3) He was the supreme

administrator. He claimed the right to supervise the general business

of the whole Church. No archbishop might perform the functions of his

office until he received his insignia--the pallium--from the pope. No

bishop might be canonically installed until his election had been

confirmed by the pope. The pope claimed the right to transfer a bishop

from one diocese to another and to settle all disputed elections. He

exercised immediate control over the regular clergy--the monks and

nuns. He sent ambassadors, styled legates, to represent him at the

various royal courts and to see that his instructions were obeyed. (4)

He insisted upon certain temporal rights, as distinct from his directly

religious prerogatives. He crowned the Holy Roman Emperor. He might

depose an emperor or king and release a ruler's subjects from their

oath of allegiance. He might declare null and void, and forbid the

people to obey, a law of any state, if he thought it was injurious to

the interests of the Church. He was temporal ruler of the city of Rome

and the surrounding papal states, and over those territories he

exercised a power similar to that of any duke or king. (5) He claimed

financial powers. In order to defray the enormous expenses of his

government, he charged fees for certain services at Rome, assessed the

dioceses throughout the Catholic world, and levied a small tax--Peter's

Pence--upon all Christian householders.

[Sidenote: Purpose of the Church]

So far we have concerned ourselves with the organization of the

Catholic Church--its membership, its officers, the clergy, secular and

regular, all culminating in the pope, the bishop of Rome. But why did

this great institution exist? Why was it loved, venerated, and well

served? The purpose of the Church, according to its own teaching, was

to follow the instructions of its Divine Master, Jesus Christ, in

saving souls. Only the Church might interpret those instructions; the

Church alone might apply the means of salvation; outside the Church no

one could be saved. [Footnote: Catholic theologians have recognized,

however, the possibility of salvation of persons outside the visible

Church. Thus, the catechism of Pope Pius X says: "Whoever, without any

fault of his own, and in good faith, being outside the Church, happens

to have been baptized or to have at least an implicit desire for

baptism, and, furthermore, has been sincere in seeking to find the

truth, and has done his best to do the will of God, such an one,

although separated from the body of the Church, would still belong to

her soul, and therefore be in the way of salvation."] The salvation of

souls for eternity was thus the supreme business of the Church.

[Sidenote: Theology]

This salvation of souls involved a theology and a sacramental system,

which we shall proceed to explain. Theology was the study of God. It

sought to explain how and why man was created, what were his actual and

desirable relations with God, what would be the fate of man in a future

life. The most famous theologians of the Catholic Church, for example,

St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), studied carefully the teachings of

Christ, the Bible, the early Christian writings, and the decrees of

popes and councils, and drew therefrom elaborate explanations of

Christian theology--the dogmas and faith of the Catholic Church.

[Sidenote: The Sacramental System]

The very center of Catholic theology was the sacramental system, for

that was the means, and essentially the only means, of saving souls. It

was, therefore, for the purpose of the sacramental system that the

Church and its hierarchy existed. The sacraments were believed to have

been instituted by Christ Himself, and were defined as "outward signs

instituted by Christ to give grace." The number generally accepted was

seven: baptism, confirmation, holy eucharist, penance, extreme unction,

holy orders, and matrimony. By means of the sacraments the Church

accompanied the faithful throughout life. Baptism, the pouring of

water, cleansed the child from original sin and from all previous

actual sins, and made him a Christian, a child of God, and an heir of

heaven. The priest was the ordinary minister of baptism, but in case of

necessity any one who had the use of reason might baptize.

Confirmation, conferred usually by a bishop upon young persons by the

laying on of hands and the anointing with oil, gave them the Holy Ghost

to render them strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus

Christ. Penance, one of the most important sacraments, was intended to

forgive sins committed after baptism. To receive the sacrament of

penance worthily it was necessary for the penitent (1) to examine his

conscience, (2) to have sorrow for his sins, (3) to make a firm

resolution never more to offend God, (4) to confess his mortal sins

orally to a priest, (5) to receive absolution from the priest, (6) to

accept the particular penance--visitation of churches, saying of

certain prayers, or almsgiving--which the priest might enjoin. The holy

eucharist was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the consecration of

bread and wine by priest or bishop, its miraculous transformation

(transubstantiation) at his word into the very Body and Blood of

Christ, and its reception by the faithful. It was around the eucharist

that the elaborate ritual and ceremonies of the Mass developed, that

fine vestments and candles and incense and flowers were used, and that

magnificent cathedrals were erected. Extreme unction was the anointing

at the hands of a priest of the Christian who was in immediate danger

of death, and it was supposed to give health and strength to the soul

and sometimes to the body. By means of holy orders,--the special

imposition of hands on the part of a bishop,--priests, bishops, and

other ministers of the Church were ordained and received the power and

grace to perform their sacred duties. Matrimony was the sacrament, held

to be indissoluble by human power, by which man and woman were united

in lawful Christian marriage.

Of the seven sacraments it will be noticed that two--baptism and

penance--dealt with the forgiveness of sins, and that two--holy orders

and matrimony--were received only by certain persons. Three--baptism,

confirmation, and holy orders--could be received by a Christian only

once. Two--confirmation and holy orders--required the ministry of a

bishop; and all others, except baptism and possibly matrimony, required

the ministry of at least a priest. The priesthood was, therefore, the

absolutely indispensable agent of the Church in the administration of

the sacramental system. It was the priesthood that absolved penitents

from their sins, wrought the great daily miracle of transubstantiation,

and offered to God the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

[Sidenote: Various Objections to the Church]

It must not be supposed that either the theology or the organization of

the Catholic Church, as they existed in the year 1500, had been

precisely the same throughout the Christian era. While educated

Catholics insisted that Christ was indirectly the source of all faith

and all practice, they were quite willing to admit that external

changes and adaptations of institutions to varying conditions had taken

place. Moreover, it must not be supposed that the proud eminence to

which the Catholic Church had attained by 1500 in central and western

Europe had been won easily or at that time was readily maintained.

Throughout the whole course of Christian history there had been

repeated objections to new definitions of dogma--many positively

refused to accept the teaching of the Church as divine or infallible--

and there had been likewise a good deal of opposition to the temporal

claims of the Church, resulting in increasing friction between the

clergy and the lay rulers. Thus it often transpired that the kings who

vied with one another in recognizing the spiritual and religious

headship of the pope and in burning heretics who denied doctrines of

the Catholic Church, were the very kings who quarreled with the pope

concerning the latter's civil jurisdiction and directed harsh laws

against its exercise.

[Sidenote: Sources of Conflict between Church and State]

As strong national monarchies rose in western Europe, this friction

became more acute. On one side the royal power was determined to exalt

the state and to bring into subjection to it not only the nobles and

common people but the clergy as well; the national state must manage

absolutely every temporal affair. On the other side, the clergy stoutly

defended the special powers that they had long enjoyed in various

states and which they believed to be rightly theirs. There were

_four_ chief sources of conflict between the temporal and

spiritual jurisdictions, (1) Appointments of bishops, abbots, and other

high church officers. Inasmuch as these were usually foremost citizens

of their native kingdom, holding large estates and actually

participating in the conduct of government, the kings frequently

claimed the right to dictate their election. On the other hand the

popes insisted upon their rights in the matter and often "reserved" to

themselves the appointment to certain valuable bishoprics. (2) Taxation

of land and other property of the clergy. The clergy insisted that by

right they were exempt from taxation and that in practice they had not

been taxed since the first public recognition of Christianity in the

fourth century. The kings pointed out that the wealth of the clergy and

the needs of the state had increased along parallel lines, that the

clergy were citizens of the state and should pay a just share for its

maintenance. (3) Ecclesiastical courts. For several centuries the

Church had maintained its own courts for trying clerical offenders and

for hearing certain cases, which nowadays are heard in state courts--

probating of wills, the marriage relations, blasphemy, etc. From these

local church courts, the pope insisted that appeals might be taken to

the Roman Curia. On their side, the kings were resolved to substitute

royal justice for that of both feudal and ecclesiastical courts: they

diminished, therefore, the privileges of the local church courts and

forbade the taking of appeals to Rome. (4) How far might the pope, as

universally acknowledged head of the Church, interfere in the internal

affairs of particular states? While the pope claimed to be the sole

judge of his own rights and powers, several kings forbade the

publication of papal documents within their states or the reception of

papal legates unless the royal assent had been vouchsafed.

[Sidenote: Royal Restrictions on the Church]

Gradually the national monarchs secured at least a partial control over

episcopal appointments, and in both England and France papal

jurisdiction was seriously restricted in other ways. In England the

power of the ecclesiastical courts had been reduced (1164); no property

might be bestowed upon the Church without royal permission (1279); the

pope might not make provision in England for his personal appointees to

office (1351); and appeals to Rome had been forbidden (1392).

[Footnote: All these anti-papal enactments were very poorly enforced.]

In France the clergy had been taxed early in the fourteenth century,

and the papacy, which had condemned such action, had been humiliated by

a forced temporary removal from Rome to Avignon, where it was

controlled by French rulers for nearly seventy years (1309-1377); and

in 1438 the French king, Charles VII, in a document, styled the

Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, solemnly proclaimed the "liberties of

the Gallican Church," that a general council was superior to the pope,

that the pope might not interfere in episcopal elections, that he might

not levy taxes on French dioceses. The Pragmatic Sanction was condemned

by the pope, but for three-quarters of a century after its issuance

there were strained relations between the Church in France and the

sovereign pontiff.

[Sidenote: Political Differences Distinct from Religious Differences]

Similar conflicts between spiritual and temporal jurisdictions were

common to all Christian states, but the national strength and the

patriotism of the western monarchies caused them to proceed further

than any other state in restricting the papal privileges. Despite the

conflict over temporal affairs, which at times was exceedingly bitter,

the kings and rulers of England and France never appear to have

seriously questioned the religious authority of the Church or the

spiritual supremacy of the pope. Religiously, the Catholic Church

seemed in 1500 to hold absolute sway over all central and western

Europe.

[Sidenote: Religious Opposition to Catholicism]

Yet this very religious authority of the Catholic Church had been again

and again brought into question and repeatedly rejected. Originally, a

united Christianity had conquered western Asia, northern Africa, and

eastern Europe; by 1500 nearly all these wide regions were lost to

Catholic Christianity as that phrase was understood in western Europe.

The loss was due to (1) the development of a great Christian schism,

and (2) the rise of a new religion--Mohammedanism.

[Sidenote: The Schism between the East and the West]

Eastern Europe had been lost through an ever-widening breach in

Christian practice from the fifth to the eleventh century. The Eastern

Church used the Greek language in its liturgy; that of the West used

the Latin language. The former remained more dependent upon the state;

the latter grew less dependent. Minor differences of doctrine appeared.

And the Eastern Christians thought the pope was usurping unwarrantable

prerogatives, while the Western Christians accused the Oriental

patriarchs of departing from their earlier loyalty to the pope and

destroying the unity of Christendom. Several attempts had been made to

reunite the Catholic Church of the West and the Orthodox Church of the

East, but with slight success. In 1500, the Christians of Greece, the

Balkan peninsula, and Russia were thought to be outside the Catholic

Church and were defined, therefore, by the pope as schismatics.

[Sidenote: Mohammedanism]

Far more numerous and dangerous to Catholic Christianity than the

schismatic Easterners were the Mohammedans. Mohammed himself had lived

in Arabia in the early part the seventh century and had taught that he

was the inspired prophet of the one true God. In a celebrated book,--

the Koran,--which was compiled from the sayings of the prophet, are to

be found the precepts and commandments of the Mohammedan religion.

Mohammedanism spread rapidly: within a hundred years of its founder's

death it had conquered western Asia and northern Africa and had gained

a temporary foothold in Spain; thenceforth it stretched eastward across

Persia and Turkestan into India and southward into central Africa; and

in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as we have seen, it

possessed itself of Constantinople, the Balkans, Greece, and part of

Hungary, and threatened Christendom in the Germanies and in the

Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Western Heresies]

Even in western Europe, the Catholic Church had had to encounter

spasmodic opposition from "heretics," as those persons were called who,

although baptized as Christians, refused to accept all the dogmas of

Catholic Christianity. Such were the Arian Christians, who in early

times had been condemned for rejecting the doctrine of the divinity of

Christ, and who had eventually been won back to Catholicism only with

the greatest efforts. Then in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the

Albigensian heretics in southern France had assailed the sacramental

system and the organization of the Church and had been suppressed only

by armed force. In the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe appeared in

England and John Hus in Bohemia, both preaching that the individual

Christian needs no priestly mediation between himself and God and that

the very sacraments of the Church, however desirable, are not

essentially necessary to salvation. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's English

followers were called, were speedily extirpated by fire and sword,

through the stern orthodoxy of an English king, but the Hussites long

defied the pope and survivals of their heresy were to be found in 1500.

[Sidenote: Skeptics]

In addition to these heretics and the Jews, [Footnote: For detailed

accounts of the Jews during the middle ages as well as in modern times,

see the _Jewish Encyclopædia_, ed. by Isidore Singer, 12 vols.

(1901-1906).] many so-called skeptics no doubt existed. These were

people who outwardly conformed to Catholicism but inwardly doubted and

even scoffed at the very foundations of Christianity. They were

essentially irreligious, but they seem to have suffered less from

persecution than the heretics. Many of the Italian humanists,

concerning whom we shall later say a word, [Footnote: See below] were

in the fifteenth century more or less avowed skeptics.

THE PROTESTANT REVOLT

[Sidenote: A Religious and Political Movement]

We have seen in the preceding pages that prior to 1500 there had been

many conflicts between kings and popes concerning their respective

temporal rights and likewise there had been serious doubts in the minds

of various people as to the authority and teachings of the Catholic

Church. But these two facts--political and religious--had never been

united in a general revolt against the Church until the sixteenth

century. Then it was that Christians of Germany, Scandinavia, Scotland,

and England, even of the Low Countries and France, successfully

revolted against the papal monarchy and set up establishments of their

own, usually under the protection of their lay rulers, which became

known as the Protestant churches. The movement is called, therefore,

the Protestant Revolt. It was begun and practically completed between

1520 and 1570.

[Sidenote: Political Causes of Protestant Revolt]

In explaining this remarkable and sudden break with the religious and

ecclesiastical development of a thousand years, it is well to bear in

mind that its causes were at once political, economic, and religious.

Politically, it was merely an accentuation of the conflict which had

long been increasing in virulence between the spiritual and temporal

authorities. It cannot be stated too emphatically that the Catholic

Church during many centuries prior to the sixteenth had been not only a

religious body, like a present-day church, but also a vast political

power which readily found sources of friction with other political

institutions. The Catholic Church, as we have seen, had its own

elaborate organization in every country of western and central Europe;

and its officials--pope, bishops, priests, and monks--denied allegiance

to the secular government; the Church owned many valuable lands and

estates, which normally were exempt from taxation and virtually outside

the jurisdiction of the lay government; the Church had its own

independent and compulsory income, and its own courts to try its own

officers and certain kinds of cases for every one. Such political

jurisdiction of the Church had been quite needful and satisfactory in

the period--from the fifth to the twelfth century, let us say--when the

secular governments were weak and the Church found itself the chief

unifying force in Christendom, the veritable heir to the universal

dominion of the ancient Roman Empire.

But gradually the temporal rulers themselves repressed feudalism.

Political ambition increased in laymen, and local pride was exalted

into patriotism. By the year 1200 was begun the growth of that notable

idea of national monarchy, the general outline of which we sketched in

the opening chapter. We there indicated that at the commencement of the

sixteenth century, England, France, Spain, and Portugal had become

strong states, with well-organized lay governments under powerful

kings, with patriotic populations, and with well-developed, distinctive

languages and literatures. The one thing that seemed to be needed to

complete this national sovereignty was to bring the Church entirely

under royal control. The autocratic sovereigns desired to enlist the

wealth and influence of the Church in their behalf; they coveted her

lands, her taxes, and her courts. Although Italy, the Netherlands, and

the Germanies were not yet developed as strong united monarchies, many

of their patriotic leaders longed for such a development, worked for

it, and believed that the principal obstacle to it was the great

Christian Church with the pope at its head. Viewed from the political

standpoint, the Protestant Revolt was caused by the rise of national

feeling, which found itself in natural conflict with the older

cosmopolitan or catholic idea of the Church. It was nationalism

_versus_ Catholicism.

[Sidenote: Economic Causes of Protestant Revolt]

Economically, the causes of the Protestant Revolt were twofold. In the

first place, the Catholic Church had grown so wealthy that many people,

particularly kings and princes, coveted her possessions. In the second

place, financial abuses in ecclesiastical administration bore heavily

upon the common people and created serious scandal. Let us say a word

about each one of these difficulties.

At the opening of the sixteenth century, many bishops and abbots in

wealth and power were not unlike great lay lords: they held vast fair

dominions--in the Germanics a third of the whole country, in France a

fifth, etc.--and they were attended by armies of retainers. Most of

them were sons of noblemen who had had them consecrated bishops so as

to insure them fine positions. Even the monks, who now often lived in

rich monasteries as though they had never taken vows of poverty, were

sometimes of noble birth and quite worldly in their lives. The large

estates and vast revenues of Catholic ecclesiastics were thus at first

the lure and then the prey of their royal and princely neighbors. The

latter grew quite willing to utilize any favorable opportunity which

might enable them to confiscate church property and add it to their own

possessions. Later such confiscation was euphemistically styled

"secularization."

On the other hand, many plain people, such as peasants and artisans,

begrudged the numerous and burdensome ecclesiastical taxes, and an

increasing number felt that they were not getting the worth of their

money. There was universal complaint, particularly in the Germanies,

that the people were exploited by the Roman Curia. Each ecclesiastic,

be he bishop, abbot, or priest, had right to a benefice, that is, to

the revenue of a parcel of land attached to his post. When he took

possession of a benefice, he paid the pope a special assessment, called

the "annate," amounting to a year's income--which of course came from

the peasants living on the land. The pope likewise "reserved" to

himself the right of naming the holders of certain benefices: these he

gave preferably to Italians who drew the revenues but remained in their

own country; the people thus supported foreign prelates in luxury and

sometimes paid a second time in order to maintain resident

ecclesiastics. The archbishops paid enormous sums to the pope for their

badges of office (_pallia_). Fat fees for dispensations or for

court trials found their way across the Alps. And the bulk of the

burden ultimately rested upon the backs of the people. At least in the

Germanics the idea became very prevalent that the pope and Curia were

really robbing honest German Christians for the benefit of scandalously

immoral Italians.

There were certainly grave financial abuses in church government in the

fifteenth century and in the early part of the sixteenth. A project of

German reform, drawn up in 1438, had declared: "It is a shame which

cries to heaven, this oppression of tithes, dues, penalties,

excommunication, and tolls of the peasant, on whose labor all men

depend for their existence." An "apocalyptic pamphlet of 1508 shows on

its cover the Church upside down, with the peasant performing the

services, while the priest guides the plow outside and a monk drives

the horses." It was, in fact, in the Germanics that all the social

classes--princes, burghers, knights, and peasants--had special economic

grievances against the Church, and in many places were ready to combine

in rejecting papal claims.

This emphasis upon the political and particularly upon the economic

causes need not belittle the strictly religious factor in the movement.

The success of the revolt was due to the fact that many kings, nobles,

and commoners, for financial and political advantages to themselves,

became the valuable allies of real religious reformers. It required

dogmatic differences as well as social grievances to destroy the

dominion of the Church.

[Sidenote: Abuses in the Catholic Church]

Nearly all thoughtful men in the sixteenth century recognized the

existence of abuses in the Catholic Church. The scandals connected with

the papal court at Rome were notorious at the opening of the century.

Several of the the popes lived grossly immoral lives. Simony (the sale

of church offices for money) and nepotism (favoritism shown by a pope

to his relatives) were not rare. The most lucrative ecclesiastical

positions throughout Europe were frequently conferred upon Italians who

seldom discharged their duties. One person might be made bishop of

several foreign dioceses and yet continue to reside in Rome. Leo X, who

was pope when the Protestant Revolt began, and son of Lorenzo de'

Medici, surnamed the Magnificent, had been ordained to the priesthood

at the age of seven, named cardinal when he was thirteen, and speedily

loaded with a multitude of rich benefices and preferments; this same

pope, by his munificence and extravagance, was forced to resort to the

most questionable means for raising money: he created many new offices

and shamelessly sold them; he increased the revenue from indulgences,

jubilees, and regular taxation; he pawned palace furniture, table

plate, pontifical jewels, even statues of the apostles; several banking

firms and many individual creditors were ruined by his death.

[Sidenote: Attacks on Immorality of Clergymen]

What immorality and worldliness prevailed at Rome was reflected in the

lives of many lesser churchmen. To one of the popes of the fifteenth

century, a distinguished cardinal represented the disorders of the

clergy, especially in the Germanics. "These disorders," he said,

"excite the hatred of the people against all ecclesiastical order; if

it is not corrected, it is to be feared that the laity, following the

example of the Hussites, will attack the clergy as they now openly

menace us with doing." If the clergy of Germany were not reformed

promptly, he predicted that after the Bohemian heresy was crushed

another would speedily arise far more dangerous. "For they will say,"

he continued, "that the clergy is incorrigible and is willing to apply

no remedy to its disorders. They will attack us when they no longer

have any hope of our correction. Men's minds are waiting for what shall

be done; it seems as if shortly something tragic will be brought forth.

The venom which they have against us is becoming evident; soon they

will believe they are making a sacrifice agreeable to God by

maltreating or despoiling the ecclesiastics as people odious to God and

man and immersed to the utmost in evil. The little reverence still

remaining for the sacred order will be destroyed. Responsibility for

all these disorders will be charged upon the Roman Curia, which will be

regarded as the cause of all these evils because it has neglected to

apply the necessary remedy." To many other thoughtful persons, a moral

reformation in the head and members of the Church seemed vitally

necessary.

Complaints against the evil lives of the clergy as well as against

their ignorance and credulity were echoed by most of the great scholars

and humanists of the time. The patriotic knight and vagabond scholar,

Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), contributed to a clever series of

satirical "Letters of Obscure Men," which were read widely, and which

poked fun at the lack of learning among the monks and the ease with

which the papal court emptied German pockets.

[Sidenote: Ulrich von Hutten and Erasmus]

Then, too, the great Erasmus (1466-1536) employed all his wit and

sarcasm, in his celebrated "Praise of Folly," against the theologians

and monks, complaining that the foolish people thought that religion

consisted simply in pilgrimages, the invocation of saints, and the

veneration of relics. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries,

put an end to the domination of the clergy, and swept away scandalous

abuses. He wanted Christianity to regain its early spiritual force, and

largely for that purpose he published in 1516 the Greek text of the New

Testament with a new Latin translation and with notes which mercilessly

flayed hair-splitting theologians.

Thus throughout the fifteenth century and the early part of the

sixteenth, much was heard from scholars, princes, and people, of the

need for "reformation" of the Church. That did not signify a change of

the old regulations but rather their restoration and enforcement. For a

long time it was not a question of abolishing the authority of the

pope, or altering ecclesiastical organization, or changing creeds. It

was merely a question of reforming the lives of the clergy and of

suppressing the means by which Italians drew money from other nations.

[Sidenote: Religious Causes of Protestant Revolt]

In the sixteenth century, however, a group of religious leaders, such

as Luther, Cranmer, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox, went much further than

Erasmus and the majority of the humanists had gone: they applied the

word "reformation" not only to a reform in morals but to an open break

which they made with the government and doctrines of the Catholic

Church. The new theology, which these reformers championed, was derived

mainly from the teachings of such heretics as Wycliffe and Hus and was

supposed to depend directly upon the Bible rather than upon the Church.

The religious causes of the Protestant Revolt accordingly may be summed

up as: first, the existence of abuses within the Catholic Church;

second, the attacks of distinguished men upon the immorality and

worldliness of the Catholic clergy; and third, the substitution by

certain religious leaders of new doctrines and practices, which were

presumed to have been authorized by the Bible, but which were at

variance with those of the medieval Church.

[Sidenote: Date and Extent of the Protestant Revolt]

For the great variety of reasons, which we have now indicated,--

political, economic, and religious,--the peoples of northern Germany,

Scandinavia, the Dutch Netherlands, most of Switzerland, Scotland,

England, and a part of France and of Hungary, separated themselves,

between the years 1520 and 1570, from the great religious and political

body which had been known historically for over a thousand years as the

Catholic Christian Church. The name "Protestant" was first applied

exclusively to those followers of Martin Luther in the Holy Roman

Empire who in 1529 protested against an attempt of the Diet of Speyer

to prevent the introduction of religious novelties, but subsequently

the word passed into common parlance among historians and the general

reading public as betokening all Christians who rejected the papal

supremacy and who were not in communion with the Orthodox Church of

eastern Europe.

Of this Protestant Christianity three main forms appeared in the

sixteenth century--Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism. Concerning

the origin and development of each one of these major forms, a brief

sketch must be given.

LUTHERANISM

[Sidenote: Martin Luther]

Lutheranism takes its name from its great apostle, Martin Luther.

Luther was born in Eisleben in Germany in 1483 of a poor family whose

ancestors had been peasants. Martin early showed himself bold,

headstrong, willing to pit his own opinions against those of the world,

but yet possessing ability, tact, and a love of sound knowledge.

Educated at the university of Erfurt, where he became acquainted with

the humanistic movement, young Martin entered one of the mendicant

orders--the Augustinian--in 1505 and went to live in a monastery. In

1508 Luther was sent with some other monks to Wittenberg to assist a

university which had been opened there recently by the elector of

Saxony, and a few years later was appointed professor of theology in

the institution.

[Sidenote: Justification by Faith]

While lecturing and preaching at Wittenberg, where he was very popular,

Luther developed from the writings of St. Paul and St. Augustine an

important doctrinal conviction which differed widely from the faith of

the Catholic Church. It concerned the means of eternal salvation. The

Church taught, as we have seen, that she possessed the sole means, and

that every Christian must perform certain "good works" in order to

secure salvation. Luther, on the other hand, became convinced that man

was incapable, in the sight of God, of any good works whatsoever, and

could be saved only by faith in God's promises. In other words, this

monk placed his doctrine of "justification by faith" in opposition to

the generally accepted belief in "justification by faith and works."

[Sidenote: Tetzel's "Sale" of Indulgences]

So far, Luther certainly had no thought of revolting against the

authority of the Church. In fact, when he visited Rome in 1511, it was

as a pious pilgrim rather than as a carping critic. But a significant

event in the year 1517 served to make clear a wide discrepancy between

what he was teaching and what the Church taught. That year a certain

papal agent, Tetzel by name, was disposing of indulgences in the great

archbishopric of Mainz. An indulgence, according to Catholic theology,

was a remission of the temporal punishment in purgatory due to sin, and

could be granted only by authority of the Church; the grant of

indulgences depended upon the contrition and confession of the

applicant, and often at that time upon money-payments. Against what he

believed was a corruption of Christian doctrine and a swindling of the

poorer people, Luther protested in a series of ninety-five Theses which

he posted on the church door in Wittenberg (31 October, 1517).

[Sidenote: The Ninety-five Theses]

The Theses had been written in Latin for the educated class but they

were now speedily translated into German and spread like wildfire among

all classes throughout the country. Luther's underlying principle of

"salvation through simple faith" was in sharp contrast with the theory

of "good works," on which the indulgences rested. "The Christian who

has true repentance," wrote Luther, "has already received pardon from

God altogether apart from an indulgence, and does not need one; Christ

demands this true repentance from every one." Luther's attitude

provoked spirited discussion throughout the Germanics, and the more

discussion, the more interest and excitement. The pope, who had

dismissed the subject at first as a mere squabble among the monks, was

moved at length to summon Luther to Rome to answer for the Theses, but

the elector of Saxony intervened and prevailed upon the pope not to

press the matter.

[Sidenote: Disputation at Leipzig, 1519]

The next important step in the development of Luther's religious ideas

was a debate on the general question of papal supremacy, held at

Leipzig in 1519, between himself and an eminent Catholic apologist,

Johann Eck. Eck skillfully forced Luther to admit that certain views of

his, especially those concerning man's direct relation with God,

without the mediation of the Church, were the same as those which John

Hus had held a century earlier and which had been condemned both by the

pope and by the great general council of Constance. Luther thereby

virtually admitted that a general council as well as a pope might err.

For him, the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church ceased to

be.

[Sidenote: Separation of Luther from the Catholic Church]

Separation from the traditional Church was the only course now open to

Luther and this was consummated in the year 1520. In a series of three

bold pamphlets, he vigorously and definitely attacked the position of

the Church. In the first--_An Address to the Nobility of the German

Nation_--Luther stated that there was nothing inherently sacred

about the Christian priesthood and that the clergy should be deprived

immediately of their special privileges; he urged the German princes to

free their country from foreign control and shrewdly called their

attention to the wealth and power of the Church which they might justly

appropriate to themselves. In the second--_On the Babylonian

Captivity of the Church of God_--he assailed the papacy and the

whole sacramental system. The third--_On the Freedom of a Christian

Man_--contained the essence of Luther's new theology that salvation

was not a painful _progress_ toward a goal by means of sacraments

and right conduct but a _condition_ "in which man found himself so

soon as he despaired absolutely of his own efforts and threw himself on

God's assurances"; the author claimed that man's utter personal

dependence on God's grace rendered the system of the Church

superfluous.

In the midst of these attacks upon the Church, the pope excommunicated

Luther, and in the following year (1521) influenced the Diet of the

Holy Roman Empire, assembled at Worms, to pronounce him an outlaw. But

the rebel calmly burnt the papal bull and from the imperial ban he was

protected by the elector of Saxony. He at once devoted himself to

making a new German translation of the Bible, which became very popular

and is still prized as a monument in the history of German literature.

[Footnote: The first edition of the Bible in German had been printed as

early as 1466. At least eighteen editions in German (including four Low

German versions) had appeared before Luther issued his German New

Testament in 1522.]

[Sidenote: Spread of Lutheranism]

Within the next few years the Lutheran teachings carried everything

before them throughout the northern and central Germanies. Nor are the

reasons for Luther's success in defying pope and emperor and for the

rapid acceptance of his new theology hard to understand. The movement

was essentially popular and national. It appealed to the pious-minded

who desired a simplification of Christian dogma and a comprehensible

method of salvation. It also appealed to the worldly minded who longed

to seize ecclesiastical lands and revenues. Above all, it appealed to

the patriots who were tired of foreign despotism and of abuses which

they traced directly to the Roman Curia. Then, too, the Emperor Charles

V, who remained a loyal Catholic, was too immersed in the difficulties

of foreign war and in the manifold administrative problems of his huge

dominions to be able to devote much time to the extirpation of heresy

in the Germanies. Finally, the character of Luther contributed to

effective leadership--he was tireless in flooding the country with

pamphlets, letters, and inflammatory diatribes, tactful in keeping his

party together, and always bold and courageous. Princes, burghers,

artisans, and peasants joined hands in espousing the new cause.

[Sidenote: Luther and the German Peasants]

But the peasants espoused it in a manner altogether too logical and too

violent to suit Luther or the desires of the princes. The German

peasants had grievances against the old order compared with which those

of the knights and towns-folk were imaginary. For at least a century

several causes had contributed to make their lot worse and worse. While

their taxes and other burdens were increasing, the ability of the

emperor to protect them was decreasing; they were plundered by every

class in the community, especially by the higher clergy. Thus, under

the influence of social and economic conditions, various uprisings of

the peasants had taken place during the latter part of the fifteenth

century. These insurrections became almost regular in the southwestern

Germanies, and were called _Bundschuhe_, a shoe fastened upon the

end of a pole serving as a standard of revolt. When Luther urged the

princes to assail the ecclesiastics, to seize church lands, and to put

an end to financial abuses, the peasants naturally listened to his

words with open ears and proceeded with glad hearts to apply his advice

themselves.

The new Lutheran theology may have been too refined for the peasants,

but they imagined they understood its purport. And spurred on by

fanatics, whom the religious ferment of the times produced in large

numbers, [Footnote: Many of these radical religious leaders were more

consistent and thoroughgoing than Luther in maintaining the right of

each Christian to interpret the Scriptures for himself. Since they

generally refused to recognize infant baptism as valid and insisted

that baptism should be administered only to adults, they were

subsequently often referred to as "Anabaptists." Many of the

"Anabaptists" condemned oaths and capital punishment; some advocated

communism of worldly goods, in several instances even the community of

women. Nicholas Storch (d. 1525), a weaver, and Thomas Munzer (d.

1525), a Lutheran preacher, spread these doctrines widely among the

peasants. Luther vehemently denounced the "Anabaptists."] the peasants

again took arms against feudal oppression. That the peasants' demands

were essentially moderate and involved no more than is granted

everywhere to-day as a matter of course, may be inferred from their

declaration of principles, the Twelve Articles, among which were:

abolition of serfdom, free right of fishing and hunting, payment in

wages for services rendered, and abolition of arbitrary punishment. So

long as the peasants directed their efforts against the Catholic

ecclesiastics, Luther expressed sympathy with them, but when the

revolt, which broke out in 1524, became general all over central and

southern Germany and was directed not only against the Catholic clergy

but also against the lay lords,--many of whom were now Lutheran,--the

religious leader foresaw a grave danger to his new religion in a split

between peasants and nobles. Luther ended by taking strong sides with

the nobles--he had most to expect from them. He was shocked by the

excesses of the revolt, he said. Insisting upon toleration for his own

revolt, he condemned the peasants to most horrible fates in this world

and in the world hereafter. [Footnote: Although Luther was particularly

bitter against the "Anabaptist" exhorters, upon whom he fastened

responsibility for the Peasants' Revolt, and although many of them met

death thereby, the "Anabaptists" were by no means exterminated.

Largely through the activity of a certain Melchior Hofmann, a widely

traveled furrier, "Anabaptist" doctrines were disseminated in northern

Germany and the Netherlands. From 1533 to 1535 they reigned supreme,

attended by much bloodshed and plenty of personal license, in the

important city of Munster in western Germany. Subsequently, Carlstadt

(1480-1541), an early associate of Luther, though his later antagonist,

set forth Anabaptist views with greater moderation; and in course of

time the sect became more or less tinged with Calvinistic theology.] He

furiously begged the princes to put down the insurrection. "Whoever

can, should smite, strangle, or stab, secretly or publicly!"

[Sidenote: The Peasants' Revolt]

The Peasants' Revolt was crushed in 1525 with utmost cruelty. Probably

fifty thousand lost their lives in the vain effort. The general result

was that the power of the territorial lords became greater than ever,

although in a few cases, particularly in the Tyrol and in Baden, the

condition of the peasants was slightly improved. Elsewhere, however,

this was not the case; and the German peasants were assigned for over

two centuries to a lot worse than that of almost any people in Europe.

Another result was the decline of Luther's influence among the

peasantry in southern and central Germany. They turned rapidly from one

who, they believed, had betrayed them. On the other hand, many Catholic

princes, who had been wavering in their religious support, now had

before their eyes what they thought was an object lesson of the results

of Luther's appeal to revolution, and so they cast their lot decisively

with the ancient Church. The Peasants' Revolt registered a distinct

check to the further spread of Lutheranism.

[Sidenote: Diets of Speyer 1526, 1529]

[Sidenote: The Word "Protestant"]

The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire which assembled at Speyer in 1526 saw

the German princes divided into a Lutheran and a Roman Catholic party,

but left the legal status of the new faith still in doubt, contenting

itself with the vague declaration that "each prince should so conduct

himself as he could answer for his behavior to God and to the emperor."

But at the next Diet, held at the same place in 1529, the emperor

directed that the edict against heretics should be enforced and that

the old ecclesiastical revenues should not be appropriated for the new

worship. The Lutheran princes drafted a legal protest, in which they

declared that they meant to abide by the law of 1526. From this protest

came the name _Protestant_.

[Sidenote: Confession of Augsburg, 1530]

The next year, Luther's great friend, Melancthon, presented to the Diet

of Augsburg an account of the beliefs of the German reformers, which

later became known as the Confession of Augsburg and constitutes to the

present day the distinctive creed of the Lutheran Church. The emperor

was still unconvinced, however, of the truth or value of the reformed

doctrine, and declared his intention of ending the heresy by force of

arms.

[Sidenote: Religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555]

In this predicament, the Lutheran princes formed a league at Schmalkald

for mutual protection (1531); and from 1546 to 1555 a desultory civil

war was waged. The Protestants received some assistance from the French

king, who, for political reasons, was bent on humiliating the emperor.

The end of the religious conflict appeared to have been reached by the

peace of Augsburg (1555), which contained the following provisions: (1)

Each prince was to be free to dictate the religion of his subjects

[Footnote: _Cuius regio eius religio_.]; (2) All church property

appropriated by the Protestants before 1552 was to remain in their

hands; (3) No form of Protestantism except Lutheranism was to be

tolerated; (4) Lutheran subjects of ecclesiastical states were not to

be obliged to renounce their faith; (5) By an "ecclesiastical

reservation" any ecclesiastical prince on becoming a Protestant was to

give up his see.

[Sidenote: Lutheranism in the Germanies]

Thus, between 1520 and 1555, Martin Luther [Footnote: He died in 1546,

aged 62.] had preached his new theology at variance with the Catholic,

and had found general acceptance for it throughout the northern half of

the Germanies; its creed had been settled and defined in 1530, and its

official toleration had been recognized in 1555. The toleration was

limited, however, to princes, and for many years Lutheran rulers showed

themselves quite as intolerant within their own dominions as did the

Catholics.

[Sidenote: Lutheranism in Scandinavia]

The triumph of Lutheranism in the Scandinavian countries has been

traced largely to political and economic causes. When Martin Luther

broke with the Catholic Church, Christian II (1513-1523) was reigning

as elected king over Denmark and Norway and had recently conquered

Sweden by force of arms. The king encountered political difficulties

with the Church although he maintained Catholic worship and doctrine

and apparently recognized the spiritual supremacy of the pope. But

Christian II had trouble with most of his subjects, especially the

Swedes, who were conscious of separate nationality and desirous of

political independence; and the king eventually lost his throne in a

general uprising. The definite separation of Sweden from Denmark and

Norway followed immediately. The Swedes chose the celebrated Gustavus

Vasa (1523-1560) as their king, while the Danish and Norwegian crowns

passed to the uncle of Christian II, who assumed the title of Frederick

I (1523-1533).

[Sidenote: Denmark]

In Denmark, King Frederick was very desirous of increasing the royal

power, and the subservient ecclesiastical organization which Martin

Luther was advocating seemed to him for his purposes infinitely

preferable to the ancient self-willed Church. But Frederick realized

that the Catholic Church was deeply rooted in the affections of his

people and that changes would have to be effected slowly and

cautiously. He therefore collected around him Lutheran teachers from

Germany and made his court the center of the propaganda of the new

doctrine, and so well was the work of the new teachers done that the

king was able in 1527 to put the two religions on an equal footing

before the law. Upon Frederick's death in 1533, the Catholics made a

determined effort to prevent the accession of his son, Christian III,

who was not only an avowed Lutheran but was known to stand for

absolutist principles in government.

The popular protest against royal despotism failed in Denmark and the

triumph of Christian III in 1536 sealed the fate of Catholicism in that

country and in Norway. It was promptly enacted that the Catholic

bishops should forfeit their temporal and spiritual authority and all

their property should be transferred to the crown "for the good of the

commonwealth." After discussions with Luther the new religion was

definitely organized and declared the state religion in 1537. It might

be added that Catholicism died with difficulty in Denmark,--many

peasants as well as high churchmen resented the changes, and Helgesen,

the foremost Scandinavian scholar and humanist of the time, protested

vigorously against the new order. But the crown was growing powerful,

and the crown prevailed. The enormous increase of royal revenue,

consequent upon the confiscation of the property of the Church, enabled

the king to make Denmark the leading Scandinavian country throughout

the second half of the sixteenth century and the first quarter of the

seventeenth. In time national patriotism came to be intertwined with

Lutheranism.

[Sidenote: Sweden]

In Sweden the success of the new religion was due to the crown quite as

much as in Denmark and Norway. Gustavus Vasa had obtained the Swedish

throne through the efforts of a nationalist party, but there was still

a hostile faction, headed by the chief churchman, the archbishop of

Upsala, who favored the maintenance of the union with Denmark. In order

to deprive the unionists of their leader, Gustavus begged the pope to

remove the rebellious archbishop and to appoint one in sympathy with

the nationalist cause. This the pope peremptorily refused to do, and

the breach with Rome began. Gustavus succeeded in suppressing the

insurrection, and then persevered in introducing Protestantism. The

introduction was very gradual, especially among the peasantry, and its

eventual success was largely the result of the work of one strong man

assisted by a subservient parliament.

At first Gustavus maintained Catholic worship and doctrines, contenting

himself with the suppression of the monasteries, the seizure of two-

thirds of the church tithes, and the circulation of a popular Swedish

translation of the New Testament. In 1527 all ecclesiastical property

was transferred to the crown and two Catholic bishops were cruelly put

to death. Meanwhile Lutheran teachers were encouraged to take up their

residence in Sweden and in 1531 the first Protestant archbishop of

Upsala was chosen. Thenceforth, the progress of Lutheranism was more

rapid, although a Catholic reaction was threatened several times in the

second half of the sixteenth century. The Confession of Augsburg was

adopted as the creed of the Swedish Church in 1593, and in 1604

Catholics were deprived of offices and estates and banished from the

realm.

CALVINISM

The second general type of Protestantism which appeared in the

sixteenth century was the immediate forerunner of the modern

Presbyterian, Congregational, and Reformed Churches and at one time or

another considerably affected the theology of the Episcopalians and

Baptists and even of Lutherans. Taken as a group, it is usually called

Calvinism. Of its rise and spread, some idea may be gained from brief

accounts of the lives of two of its great apostles--Calvin and Knox.

But first it will be necessary to say a few words concerning an older

reformer, Zwingli by name, who prepared the way for Calvin's work in

the Swiss cantons.

[Sidenote: Zwingli]

Switzerland comprised in the sixteenth century some thirteen cantons,

all of which were technically under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman

Empire, but constituted in practice so many independent republics,

bound together only by a number of protective treaties. To the town of

Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz came Huldreich Zwingli in the year

1516 as a Catholic priest. Slightly younger than Luther, he was well

born, had received an excellent university education in Vienna and in

Basel, and had now been in holy orders about ten years. He had shown

for some time more interest in humanism than in the old-fashioned

theology, but hardly any one would have suspected him of heresy, for it

was well known that he was a regular pensioner of the pope.

Zwingli's opposition to the Roman Church seems to have been based at

first largely on political grounds. He preached eloquently against the

practice of hiring out Swiss troops to foreign rulers and abused the

Church for its share in this shameless traffic in soldiers. Then he was

led on to attack all manner of abuses in ecclesiastical organization,

but it was not until he was installed in 1518 as preacher in the great

cathedral at Zürich that he clearly denied papal supremacy and

proceeded to proclaim the Scriptures as the sole guide of faith and

morals. He preached against fasting, the veneration of saints, and the

celibacy of the clergy. Some of his hearers began to put his teachings

into practice: church edifices were profaned, statues demolished,

windows smashed, and relics burned. Zwingli himself took a wife.

[Sidenote: Zwinglian Revolt in Switzerland]

In 1523 a papal appeal to Zürich to abandon Zwingli was answered by the

canton's formal declaration of independence from the Catholic Church.

Henceforth the revolt spread rapidly throughout Switzerland, except in

the five forest cantons, the very heart of the country, where the

ancient religion was still deeply intrenched. Serious efforts were made

to join the followers of Zwingli with those of Luther, and thus to

present a united front to the common enemy, but there seemed to be

irreconcilable differences between Lutheranism and the views of

Zwingli. The latter, which were succinctly expressed in sixty-seven

Theses published at Zürich in 1523, insisted more firmly than the

former on the supreme authority of Scripture, and broke more thoroughly

and radically with the traditions of the Catholic Church. Zwingli aimed

at a reformation of government and discipline as well as of theology,

and entertained a notion of an ideal state in which the democracy would

order human activities, whether political or religious. Zwingli

differed essentially from Luther in never distrusting "the people."

Perhaps the most distinctive mark of the Swiss reformer's theology was

his idea that the Lord's Supper is not a miracle but simply a symbol

and a memorial.

In 1531 Zwingli urged the Protestant Swiss to convert the five forest

cantons to the new religion by force of arms. In answer to his

entreaties, civil war ensued, but the Catholic mountaineers won a great

victory that very year and the reformer himself was killed. A truce was

then arranged, the provisions of which foreshadowed the religious

settlement in the Germanies--each canton was to be free to determine

its own religion. Switzerland has remained to this day part Catholic

and part Protestant.

[Sidenote: Calvin]

By the sudden death of Zwingli, Swiss Protestantism was left without a

leader, but not for long, because the more celebrated Calvin took up

his residence in Geneva in 1536. From that time until his death in 1564

Calvin was the center of a movement which, starting from these small

Zwinglian beginnings among the Swiss mountains, speedily spread over

more countries and affected more people than did Lutheranism. In

Calvinism, Catholicism was to find her most implacable foe.

John Calvin, who, next to Martin Luther, was the most conspicuous

Protestant leader of the sixteenth century, was a Frenchman. Born of

middle-class parentage at Noyon in the province of Picardy in 1509, he

was intended from an early age for an ecclesiastical career. A pension

from the Catholic Church enabled him to study at Paris, where he

displayed an aptitude for theology and literature. When he was nineteen

years of age, however, his father advised him to abandon the idea of

entering the priesthood in favor of becoming a lawyer--so young Calvin

spent several years studying law.

[Sidenote: Calvin in France]

It was in 1529 that Calvin is said to have experienced a sudden

"conversion." Although as yet there had been no organized revolt in

France against the Catholic Church, that country, like many others, was

teeming with religious critics. Thousands of Frenchmen were in sympathy

with any attempt to improve the Church by education, by purer morals,

or by better preaching. Lutheranism was winning a few converts, and

various evangelical sects were appearing in divers places. The chief

problem was whether reform should be sought within the traditional

Church or by rebellion against it. Calvin believed that his conversion

was a divine call to forsake Roman Catholicism and to become the

apostle of a purer life. His heart, he said, was "so subdued and

reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he

regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely

abandoning them. Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to

learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and

means of withdrawal from people."

[Sidenote: "The Institutes"]

His search for a hiding-place was quickened by the announced

determination of the French king, Francis I, to put an end to religious

dissent among his subjects. Calvin abruptly left France and found an

asylum in the Swiss town of Basel, where he became acquainted at first

hand with the type of reformed religion which Zwingli had propagated

and where he proceeded to write a full account of the Protestant

position as contrasted with the Catholic. This exposition,--_The

Institutes of the Christian Religion_,--which was published in 1536,

was dedicated to King Francis I and was intended to influence him in

favor of Protestantism.

Although the book failed of its immediate purpose, it speedily won a

deservedly great reputation. It was a statement of Calvin's views,

borrowed in part from Zwingli, and in part from Luther and other

reformers. It was orderly and concise, and it did for Protestant

theology what the medieval writers had done for Catholic theology. It

contained the germ of all that subsequently developed as Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvin and Luther]

It seemed for some time as if the _Institutes_ might provide a

common religious rule and guide for all Christians who rebelled against

Rome. But Calvin, in mind and nature, was quite different from Luther.

The latter was impetuous, excitable, but very human; the former was

ascetic, calm, and inhumanly logical. Then, too, Luther was quite

willing to leave everything in the church which was not prohibited by

Scripture; Calvin insisted that nothing should remain in the church

which was not expressly authorized by Scripture. The _Institutes_

had a tremendous influence upon Protestantism but did not unite the

followers of Calvin and Luther. Calvin's book seems all the more

wonderful, when it is recalled that it was written when the author was

but twenty-six years of age.

[Sidenote: Calvin at Geneva]

In 1536 Calvin went to Geneva, which was then in the throes of a

revolution at once political and religious, for the townsfolk were

freeing themselves from the feudal suzerainty of the duke of Savoy and

banishing the Catholic Church, whose cause the duke championed. Calvin

aided in the work and was rewarded by an appointment as chief pastor

and preacher in the city. This position he continued to hold, except

for a brief period when he was exiled, until his death in 1564. It

proved to be a commanding position not only in ordering the affairs of

the town, but also in giving form to an important branch of Protestant

Christianity.

The government of Geneva under Calvin's regime was a curious theocracy

of which Calvin himself was both religious leader and political "boss."

The minister of the reformed faith became God's mouthpiece upon earth

and inculcated an unbending puritanism in daily life. "No more

festivals, no more jovial reunions, no more theaters or society; the

rigid monotony of an austere rule weighed upon life. A poet was

decapitated because of his verses; Calvin wished adultery to be

punished by death like heresy, and he had Michael Servetus [Footnote: A

celebrated Spanish reformer.] burned for not entertaining the same

opinions as himself upon the mystery of the Trinity."

Under Calvin's theocratic despotism, Geneva became famous throughout

Europe as the center of elaborate Protestant propaganda. Calvin, who

set the example of stern simplicity and relentless activity, was

sometimes styled the Protestant pope. He not only preached every day,

wrote numerous theological treatises, and issued a French translation

of the Bible, but he established important Protestant schools--

including the University of Geneva--which attracted students from

distant lands, and he conducted a correspondence with his disciples and

would-be reformers in all points of Europe. His letters alone would

fill thirty folio volumes.

[Sidenote: Diffusion of Calvinism]

Such activities account for the almost bewildering diffusion of

Calvinism. French, Dutch, Germans, Scotch, and English flocked to

Geneva to hear Calvin or to attend his schools, and when they returned

to their own countries they were likely to be so many glowing sparks

ready to start mighty conflagrations.

Calvinism was known by various names in the different countries which

it entered. On the continent of Europe it was called the Reformed

Faith, and in France its followers were styled Huguenots; in Scotland

it became Presbyterianism; and in England, Puritanism. Its essential

characteristics, however, remained the same wherever it was carried.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Switzerland]

We have already noticed how Switzerland, except for the five forest

cantons, had been converted to Protestantism by the preaching of

Zwingli. Calvin was Zwingli's real theological successor, and the

majority of the Swiss, especially those in the urban cantons of Zürich

and Bern as well as of Geneva, cheerfully accepted Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in France: the Huguenots]

Calvinism also made converts in France. The doctrines and writings of

Luther had there encountered small success. Many French reformers

believed that greater good would eventually be achieved within the

Catholic Church than without. There appeared to be fewer abuses among

the French clergy than among the ecclesiastics of northern Europe, for

they possessed less wealth and power. The French sovereign felt less

prompted to lay his hand upon the dominions of the clergy, because a

special agreement with the pope in 1516 bestowed upon the king the

nomination of bishops and the disposition of benefices. For these

reasons the bulk of the French people resisted Protestantism of every

form and remained loyally Catholic.

What progress the new religion made in France was due to Calvin rather

than to Luther. Calvin, as we have seen, was a Frenchman himself, and

his teachings and logic appealed to a small but influential body of his

fellow-countrymen. A considerable portion of the lower nobility, a few

merchants and business men, and many magistrates conformed to Calvinism

openly; the majority of great lawyers and men of learning adhered to it

in public or in secret. Probably from a twentieth to a thirtieth of the

total population embraced Calvinism. The movement was essentially

confined to the middle-class or _bourgeoisie_, and almost from the

outset it acquired a political as well as a religious significance. It

represented among the lesser nobility an awakening of the aristocratic

spirit and among the middle-class a reaction against the growing power

of the king. The financial and moneyed interests of the country were

largely attracted to French Calvinism. The Huguenots, as the French

Calvinists were called, were particularly strong in the law courts and

in the Estates-General or parliament, and these had been the main

checks upon royal despotism.

[Sidenote: Edict of Nantes]

The Huguenots were involved in sanguinary civil and religious wars

which raged in France throughout the greater part of the sixteenth

century and which have already been treated in their appropriate

political aspect. The outcome was the settlement accorded by King Henry

IV in the famous Edict of Nantes (1598), which contained the following

provisions: (1) Private worship and liberty of conscience were allowed

to the Calvinists throughout France; (2) Public Protestant worship

might be held in 200 enumerated towns and over 3000 castles; (3) A

financial grant was made to Protestant schools, and the publication of

Calvinist books was legalized; (4) Huguenots received full civil

rights, with admission to all public offices; (5) Huguenots were

granted for eight years the political control of two hundred towns, the

garrisons of which were to be maintained by the crown; and (6)

Huguenots were accorded certain judicial privileges and the right of

holding religious and political assemblies. For nearly a hundred years

France practiced a religious toleration which was almost unique among

European nations, and it was Calvinists who benefited.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in the Netherlands]

The Netherlands were too near the Germanies not to be affected by the

Lutheran revolt against the Catholic Church. And the northern or Dutch

provinces became quite thoroughly saturated with Lutheranism and also

with the doctrines of various radical sects that from time to time were

expelled from the German states. The Emperor Charles V tried to stamp

out heresy by harsh action of the Inquisition, but succeeded only in

changing its name and nature. Lutheranism disappeared from the

Netherlands; but in its place came Calvinism, [Footnote: Many

Anabaptist refugees from Germany had already sought refuge in the

Netherlands: they naturally found the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin

more radical, and therefore more appropriate to themselves, than the

teachings of Luther. This fact also serves to explain the acceptance of

Calvinism in regions of southern Germany where Lutheranism, since the

Peasants' Revolt, had failed to take root.] descending from Geneva

through Alsace and thence down the Rhine, or entering from Great

Britain by means of the close commercial relations existing between

those countries. While the southern Netherlands eventually were

recovered for Catholicism, the protracted political and economic

conflict which the northern Netherlands waged against the Catholic king

of Spain contributed to a final fixing of Calvinism as the national

religion of patriotic Dutchmen. Calvinism in Holland was known as the

Dutch Reformed religion.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Southern Germany]

We have already noted that southern Germany had rejected aristocratic

Lutheranism, partially at least because of Luther's bitter words to the

peasants. Catholicism, however, was not destined to have complete sway

in those regions, for democratic Calvinism permeated Württemberg,

Baden, and the Rhenish provinces, and the Reformed doctrines gained

numerous converts among the middle-class. The growth of Calvinism in

Germany was seriously handicapped by the religious settlement of

Augsburg in 1555 which officially tolerated only Catholicism and

Lutheranism. It was not until after the close of the direful Thirty

Years' War in the seventeenth century that German Calvinists received

formal recognition.

[Sidenote: Scotland]

Scotland, like every other European country in the early part of the

sixteenth century, had been a place of protest against moral and

financial abuses in the Catholic Church, but the beginnings of

ecclesiastical rebellion are to be traced rather to political causes.

The kingdom had long been a prey to the bitter rivalry of great noble

families, and the premature death of James V (1542), which left the

throne to his ill-fated infant daughter, Mary Stuart, gave free rein to

a feudal reaction against the crown. In general, the Catholic clergy

sided with the royal cause, while the religious reformers egged on the

nobles to champion Protestantism in order to deal an effective blow

against the union of the altar and the throne. Thus Cardinal Beaton,

head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, ordered numerous executions on

the score of protecting religion and the authority of the queen-regent;

on the other hand several noblemen, professing the new theology,

assassinated the cardinal and hung his body on the battlements of the

castle of St. Andrews (1546). Such was the general situation in

Scotland when John Knox appeared upon the scene.

[Sidenote: John Knox]

Born of peasant parents about 1515, John Knox [Footnote: John Knox (c.

1515-1572).] had become a Catholic priest, albeit in sympathy with many

of the revolutionary ideas which were entering Scotland from the

Continent and from England. In 1546 he openly rejected the authority of

the Church and proceeded to preach "the Gospel" and a stern puritanical

morality. "Others snipped the branches," he said, "he struck at the

root." But the Catholic court was able to banish Knox from Scotland.

After romantic imprisonment in France, Knox spent a few years in

England, preaching an extreme puritanism, holding a chaplaincy under

Edward VI (1547-1553), and exerting his influence to insure an

indelibly Protestant character to the Anglican Church. Then upon the

accession to the English throne of the Catholic Mary Tudor, Knox betook

himself to Geneva where he made the acquaintance of Calvin and found

himself in essential agreement with the teachings of the French

reformer.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Scotland]

After a stay of some five years on the Continent, Knox returned finally

to Scotland and became the organizer and director of the "Lords of the

Congregation," a league of the chief Protestant noblemen for purposes

of religious propaganda and political power. In 1560 he drew up the

creed and discipline of the Presbyterian Church after the model of

Calvin's church at Geneva; and in the same year with the support of the

"Lords of the Congregation" and the troops of Queen Elizabeth of

England, Knox effected a political and religious revolution in

Scotland. The queen-regent was imprisoned and the subservient

parliament abolished the papal supremacy and enacted the death penalty

against any one who should even attend Catholic worship. John Knox had

carried everything before him.

Mary Stuart, during her brief stay in Scotland (1561-1567), tried in

vain to stem the tide. The jealous barons would brook no increase of

royal authority. The austere Knox hounded the girl-queen in public

sermons and fairly flayed her character. The queen's downfall and

subsequent long imprisonment in England finally decided the

ecclesiastical future of Scotland. Except in a few fastnesses in the

northern highlands, where Catholicism survived among the clansmen, the

whole country was committed to Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in England]

Calvinism was not without influence in England. Introduced towards the

close of the reign of Henry VIII, it gave rise to a number of small

sects which troubled the king's Anglican Church almost as much as did

the Roman Catholics. Under Edward VI (1547-1553), it considerably

influenced the theology of the Anglican Church itself, but the moderate

policies of Elizabeth (1558-1603) tended to fix an inseparable gulf

between Anglicans and Calvinists. Thenceforth, Calvinism lived in

England, in the forms of Presbyterianism, Independency, [Footnote:

Among the "Independents" were the Baptists, a sect related not so

immediately to Calvinism as to the radical Anabaptists of Germany. See

above, pp. 134 f., 145, footnotes] and Puritanism, as the religion

largely of the commercial middle class. It was treated with contempt,

and even persecuted, by Anglicans, especially by the monarchs of the

Stuart family. After a complete but temporary triumph under Cromwell,

in the seventeenth century, it was at length legally tolerated in

England after the settlement of 1689. It was from England that New

England received the Calvinistic religion which dominated colonial

forefathers of many present-day Americans.

ANGLICANISM

Anglicanism is the name frequently applied to that form of

Protestantism which stamped the state church in England in the

sixteenth century and which is now represented by the Episcopal Church

in the United States as well as by the established Church of England.

The Methodist churches are comparatively late off-shoots of

Anglicanism.

The separation of England from the papacy was a more gradual and

halting process than were the contemporary revolutions on the

Continent; and the new Anglicanism was correspondingly more

conservative than Lutheranism or Calvinism.

[Sidenote: English Catholicism in 1500]

[Sidenote: Church of England]

At the opening of the sixteenth century, the word "Catholic" meant the

same in England as in every other country of western or central Europe

--belief in the seven sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the

veneration of saints; acceptance of papal supremacy and support of

monasticism and of other institutions and practices of the medieval

Church. During several centuries it had been customary in legal

documents to refer to the Catholic Church in England as the _Ecclesia

Anglicana_, or Anglican Church, just as the popes in their letters

repeatedly referred to the "Gallican Church," the "Spanish Church," the

"Neapolitan Church," or the "Hungarian Church." But such phraseology

did not imply a separation of any one national church from the common

Catholic communion, and for nearly a thousand years--ever since there

had been an _Ecclesia Anglicana_--the English had recognized the

bishop of Rome as the center of Catholic unity. In the course of the

sixteenth century, however, the great majority of Englishmen changed

their conception of the _Ecclesia Anglicana_, so that to them it

continued to exist as the Church of England, but henceforth on a

strictly national basis, in communion neither with the pope nor with

the Orthodox Church of the East nor with the Lutherans or Calvinists,

abandoning several doctrines that had been universally held in earlier

times and substituting in their place beliefs and customs which were

distinctively Protestant. This new conception of the Anglican Church--

resulting from the revolution in the sixteenth century--is what we mean

by Anglicanism as a form of Protestantism. It took shape in the

eventful years between 1520 and 1570.

[Sidenote: Religious Opposition to the Roman Catholic Church in

England]

In order to understand how this religious and ecclesiastical revolution

was effected in England, we must appreciate the various elements

distrustful of the Catholic Church in that country about the year 1525.

In the first place, the Lutheran teachings were infiltrating into the

country. As early as 1521 a small group at Cambridge had become

interested in the new German theology, and thence the sect spread to

Oxford, London, and other intellectual centers. It found its early

converts chiefly among the lower clergy and the merchants of the large

towns, but for several years it was not numerous.

In the second place, there was the same feeling in England as we have

already noted throughout all Europe that the clergy needed reform in

morals and in manners. This view was shared not only by the

comparatively insignificant group of heretical Lutherans, but likewise

by a large proportion of the leading men who accounted themselves

orthodox members of the Catholic Church. The well-educated humanists

were especially eloquent in preaching reform. The writings of Erasmus

had great vogue in England. John Colet (1467?-1519), a famous dean of

St. Paul's cathedral in London, was a keen reformer who disapproved of

auricular confession and of the celibacy of the clergy. Sir Thomas More

(1478-1535), one of the greatest minds of the century, thought the

monks were lazy and indolent, and the whole body of churchmen in need

of an intellectual betterment. But neither Colet nor More had any

intention of breaking away from the Roman Church. To them, and to many

like them, reform could be secured best within the traditional

ecclesiastical body.

[Sidenote: Political Opposition to the Roman Catholic Church in

England]

A third source of distrust of the Church was a purely political feeling

against the papacy. As we have already seen, the English king and

English parliament on several earlier occasions had sought to restrict

the temporal and political jurisdiction of the pope in England, but

each restriction had been imposed for political reasons and even then

had represented the will of the monarch rather than that of the nation.

In fact, the most striking limitations of the pope's political

jurisdiction in the kingdom had been enacted during the early stages of

the Hundred Years' War, when the papacy was under French influence, and

had served, therefore, indirectly as political weapons against the

French king. Before that war was over, the operation of the statutes

had been relaxed, and for a century or more prior to 1525 little was

heard of even a political feeling against the bishop of Rome.

Nevertheless an evolution in English government was in progress at that

very time, which was bound sooner or later to create friction with the

Holy See. On one hand, a sense of nationalism and of patriotism had

been steadily growing in England, and it was at variance with the older

cosmopolitan idea of Catholicism. On the other hand, a great increase

of royal power had appeared in the fifteenth century, notably after the

accession of the Tudor family in 1485. Henry VII (1485-1509) had

subordinated to the crown both the nobility and the parliament, and the

patriotic support of the middle class he had secured. And when his son,

Henry VIII (1509-1547), came to the throne, the only serious obstacle

which appeared to be left in the way of royal absolutism was the

privileged independence of the Catholic Church.

[Sidenote: Early Loyalty of Henry VIII to the Roman Catholic Church]

Yet a number of years passed before Henry VIII laid violent hands upon

the Church. In the meanwhile, he proved himself a devoted Roman

Catholic. He scented the new Lutheran heresy and sought speedily to

exterminate it. He even wrote in 1521 with his own royal pen a bitter

arraignment of the new theology, and sent his book, which he called

_The Defence of the Seven Sacraments_, with a delightful

dedicatory epistle to the pope. For his prompt piety and filial

orthodoxy, he received from the bishop of Rome the proud title of

_Fidei Defensor_, or Defender of the Faith, a title which he

jealously bore until his death, and which his successors, the

sovereigns of Great Britain, with like humor have continued to bear

ever since. He seemed not even to question the pope's political claims.

He allied himself on several occasions with Leo X in the great game of

European politics. His chief minister and adviser in England for many

years was Thomas Wolsey, the most conspicuous ecclesiastic in his

kingdom and a cardinal of the Roman Church.

[Sidenote: The Marriage Difficulty of Henry VIII]

Under these circumstances it is difficult to see how the Anglican

Church would have immediately broken away from Catholic unity had it

not been for the peculiar marital troubles of Henry VIII. The king had

been married eighteen years to Catherine of Aragon, and had been

presented by her with six children (of whom only one daughter, the

Princess Mary, had survived), when one day he informed her that they

had been living all those years in mortal sin and that their union was

not true marriage. The queen could hardly be expected to agree with

such a definition, and there ensued a legal suit between the royal

pair.

To Henry VIII the matter was really quite simple. Henry was tired of

Catherine and wanted to get rid of her; he believed the queen could

bear him no more children and yet he ardently desired a male heir;

rumor reported that the susceptible king had recently been smitten by

the brilliant black eyes of a certain Anne Boleyn, a maid-in-waiting at

the court. The purpose of Henry was obvious; so was the means, he

thought. For it had occurred to him that Catherine was his elder

brother's widow, and, therefore, had no right, by church law, to marry

him. To be sure, a papal dispensation had been obtained from Pope

Julius II authorizing the marriage, but why not now obtain a revocation

of that dispensation from the reigning Pope Clement VII? Thus the

marriage with Catherine could be declared null and void, and Henry

would be a bachelor, thirty-six years of age, free to wed some

princess, or haply Anne Boleyn.

[Sidenote: Difficult Position of the Pope]

There was no doubt that Clement VII would like to do a favor for his

great English champion, but two difficulties at once presented

themselves. It would be a most dangerous precedent for the pope to

reverse the decision of one of his predecessors. Worse still, the

Emperor Charles V, the nephew of Queen Catherine, took up cudgels in

his aunt's behalf and threatened Clement with dire penalties if he

nullified the marriage. The pope complained truthfully that he was

between the anvil and the hammer. There was little for him to do except

to temporize and to delay decision as long as possible.

The protracted delay was very irritating to the impulsive English king,

who was now really in love with Anne Boleyn. Gradually Henry's former

effusive loyalty to the Roman See gave way to a settled conviction of

the tyranny of the papal power, and there rushed to his mind the

recollection of efforts of earlier English rulers to restrict that

power. A few salutary enactments against the Church might compel a

favorable decision from the pope.

Henry VIII seriously opened his campaign against the Roman Church in

1531, when he frightened the English clergy into paying a fine of over

half a million dollars for violating an obsolete statute that had

forbidden reception of papal legates without royal sanction, and in the

same year he forced the clergy to recognize himself as supreme head of

the Church "as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ." His

subservient Parliament then empowered him to stop the payment of

annates and to appoint the bishops without recourse to the papacy.

Without waiting longer for the papal decision, he had Cranmer, one of

his own creatures, whom he had just named archbishop of Canterbury,

declare his marriage with Catherine null and void and his union with

Anne Boleyn canonical and legal. Pope Clement VII thereupon handed down

his long-delayed decision favorable to Queen Catherine, and

excommunicated Henry VIII for adultery.

[Sidenote: Separation of England from the Roman Catholic Church: the

Act of Supremacy]

The formal breach between England and Rome occurred in 1534. Parliament

passed a series of laws, one of which declared the king to be the "only

supreme head in earth of the Church of England," and others cut off all

communication with the pope and inflicted the penalty of treason upon

any one who should deny the king's ecclesiastical supremacy.

One step in the transition of the Church of England had now been taken.

For centuries its members had recognized the pope as their

ecclesiastical head; henceforth they were to own the ecclesiastical

headship of their king. From the former Catholic standpoint, this might

be schism but it was not necessarily heresy. Yet Henry VIII encountered

considerable opposition from the higher clergy, from the monks, and

from many intellectual leaders, as well as from large numbers of the

lower classes. A popular uprising--the Pilgrimage of Grace--was sternly

suppressed, and such men as the brilliant Sir Thomas More and John

Fisher, the aged and saintly bishop of Rochester, were beheaded because

they retained their former belief in papal supremacy. Tudor despotism

triumphed.

[Sidenote: The "Six Articles"]

The breach with Rome naturally encouraged the Lutherans and other

heretics to think that England was on the point of becoming Protestant,

but nothing was further from the king's mind. The assailant of Luther

remained at least partially consistent. And the Six Articles (1539)

reaffirmed the chief points in Catholic doctrine and practice and

visited dissenters with horrible punishment. While separating England

from the papacy, Henry was firmly resolved to maintain every other

tenet of the Catholic faith as he had received it. His middle-of-the-

road policy was enforced with much bloodshed. On one side, the Catholic

who denied the royal supremacy was beheaded; on the other, the

Protestant who denied transubstantiation was burned! It has been

estimated that during the reign of Henry VIII the number of capital

condemnations for politico-religious offenses ran into the thousands--

an inquisition that in terror and bloodshed is comparable to that of

Spain.

[Sidenote: Suppression of the Monasteries]

It was likewise during the reign of Henry VIII that one of the most

important of all earlier Christian institutions--monasticism--came to

an end in England. There were certainly grave abuses and scandals in

some of the monasteries which dotted the country, and a good deal of

popular sentiment had been aroused against the institution. Then, too

the monks had generally opposed the royal pretensions to religious

control and remained loyal to the pope. But the deciding factor in the

suppression of the monasteries was undoubtedly economic. Henry, always

in need of funds on account of his extravagances, appropriated part of

the confiscated property for the benefit of the crown, and the rest he

astutely distributed as gigantic bribes to the upper classes of the

laity. The nobles who accepted the ecclesiastical wealth were thereby

committed to the new anti-papal religious settlement in England.

[Sidenote: Protestantizing the Church of England: Edward VI]

The Church of England, separated from the papacy under Henry VIII,

became Protestant under Edward VI (1547-1553). The young king's

guardian tolerated all manner of reforming propaganda, and Calvinists

as well as Lutherans preached their doctrines freely. Official articles

of religion, which were drawn up for the Anglican Church, showed

unmistakably Protestant influence. The Latin service books of the

Catholic Church were translated into English, under Cranmer's auspices,

and the edition of the _Book of Common Prayer_, published in 1552,

made clear that the Eucharist was no longer to be regarded as a

propitiatory sacrifice: the names "Holy Communion" and "Lord's Supper"

were substituted for "Mass," while the word "altar" was replaced by

"table." The old places of Catholic worship were changed to suit a new

order: altars and images were taken down, the former service books

destroyed, and stained-glass windows broken. Several peasant uprisings

signified that the nation was not completely united upon a policy of

religious change, but the reformers had their way, and Protestantism

advanced.

[Sidenote: Temporary Roman Catholic Revival under Mary Tudor]

A temporary setback to the progress of the new Anglicanism was afforded

by the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the daughter of Catherine of

Aragon, and a devout Roman Catholic. She reinstated the bishops who had

refused to take the oath of royal supremacy and punished those who had

taken it. She prevailed upon Parliament to repeal the ecclesiastical

legislation of both her father's and her brother's reigns and to

reconcile England once more with the bishop of Rome. A papal legate, in

the person of Cardinal Reginald Pole, sailed up the Thames with his

cross gleaming from the prow of his barge, and in full Parliament

administered the absolution which freed the kingdom from the guilt

under Mary incurred by its schism and heresy. As an additional support

to her policy of restoring the Catholic Church in England, Queen Mary

married her cousin, Philip II of Spain, the great champion of

Catholicism upon the Continent.

But events proved that despite outward appearances even the reign of

Mary registered an advance of Protestantism. The new doctrines were

zealously propagated by an ever-growing number of itinerant exhorters.

The Spanish alliance was disastrous to English fortunes abroad and

distasteful to all patriotic Englishmen at home. And finally, the

violent means which the queen took to stamp out heresy gave her the

unenviable surname of "Bloody" and reacted in the end in behalf of the

views for which the victims sacrificed their lives. During her reign

nearly three hundred reformers perished, many of them, including

Archbishop Cranmer, by fire. The work of the queen was in vain. No heir

was born to Philip and Mary, and the crown, therefore, passed to

Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, a Protestant not so much from

conviction as from circumstance.

[Sidenote: Definite Fashioning of Anglicanism: the Reign of Elizabeth]

It was in the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) that the Church of England

assumed definitely the doctrines and practices which we now connect

with the word "Anglicanism." By act of Parliament, the English Church

was again separated from the papacy, and placed under royal authority,

Elizabeth assuming the title of "supreme governor." The worship of the

state church was to be in conformity with a slightly altered version of

Cranmer's _Book of Common Prayer_. A uniform doctrine was likewise

imposed by Parliament in the form of the _Thirty-nine Articles_,

which set a distinctively Protestant mark upon the Anglican Church in

its appeal to the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith, its insistence

on justification by faith alone, its repudiation of the sacrifice of

the Mass, and its definition of the Church. All the bishops who had

been appointed under Mary, with one exception, refused to accept the

changes, and were therefore deposed and imprisoned, but new bishops,

Elizabeth's own appointees, were consecrated and the "succession of

bishops" thereby maintained. Outwardly, the Church of England appeared

to retain a corporate continuity throughout the sixteenth century;

inwardly, a great revolution had changed it from Catholic to

Protestant.

Harsh laws sought to oblige all Englishmen to conform to Elizabeth's

religious settlement. Liberty of public worship was denied to any

dissenter from Anglicanism. To be a "papist" or "hear Mass"--which were

construed as the same thing--was punishable by death as high treason. A

special ecclesiastical court--the Court of High Commission--was

established under royal authority to search out heresy and to enforce

uniformity; it served throughout Elizabeth's reign as a kind of

Protestant Inquisition.

[Sidenote: English Dissent from Anglicanism]

While the large majority of the English nation gradually conformed to

the official Anglican Church, a considerable number refused their

allegiance. On one hand were the Roman Catholics, who still maintained

the doctrine of papal supremacy and were usually derisively styled

papists, and on the other hand were various Calvinistic sects, such as

Presbyterians or Independents or Quakers, who went by the name of

"Dissenters" or "Non-conformists." In the course of time, the number of

Roman Catholics tended to diminish, largely because, for political

reasons which have been indicated in the preceding chapter,

Protestantism in England became almost synonymous with English

patriotism. But despite drastic laws and dreadful persecutions, Roman

Catholicism survived in England among a conspicuous group of people. On

the other hand, the Calvinists tended somewhat to increase their

numbers so that in the seventeenth century they were able to

precipitate a great political and ecclesiastical conflict with

Anglicanism.

THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

We have now traced the origins of the Protestant Revolt against the

Catholic Church, and have seen how, between 1520 and 1570, three major

varieties of new theology--Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism--

appeared on the scene and divided among themselves the nations of

northern Europe. The story of how, during that critical half-century,

the other civilized nations retained their loyalty to the Catholic

Church virtually as it had existed throughout the middle ages, remains

to be told. The preservation of the papal monarchy and Catholic

doctrine in southern Europe was due alike to religious and to political

circumstances.

It must not be supposed that pious critics of ecclesiastical abuses

were confined to countries which subsequently became Protestant. There

were many sincere Catholics in Italy, Austria, France, and Spain who

complained of the scandals and worldliness that afflicted the Church at

the opening of the sixteenth century: they demanded sweeping reforms in

discipline and a return of the clergy to a simple apostolic life. They

believed, however, that whatever change was desirable could best be

achieved by means of a reformation within the Catholic Church--that is,

without disturbing the unity of its organization or denying the

validity of its dogmas--while the critics of northern Europe, as we

have seen, preferred to put their reforms into practice by means of a

revolution--an out-and-out break with century-old traditions of

Catholic Christianity. Even in northern Europe some of the foremost

scholars of that period desired an intellectual reformation within

Catholicism rather than a dogmatic rebellion against it: with Luther's

defiance of papal authority, the great Erasmus had small sympathy, and

Sir Thomas More, the eminent English humanist, sacrificed his life for

his belief in the divine sanction of the papal power.

Thus, while the religious energy of northern Europe went into

Protestantism of various kinds, that of southern Europe fashioned a

reformation of the Catholic system. And this Catholic reformation, on

its religious side, was brought to a successful issue by means of the

improved conditions in the papal court, the labors of a great church

council, and the activity of new monastic orders. A few words must be

said about each one of these religious elements in the Catholic

reformation.

[Sidenote: Reforming Popes]

Mention has been made of the corruption that prevailed in papal affairs

in the fifteenth century, and of the Italian and family interests which

obscured to the Medici pope, Leo X (1513-1521), the importance of the

Lutheran movement in Germany. And Leo's nephew, who became Clement VII

(1523-1534), continued to act too much as an Italian prince and too

little as the moral and religious leader of Catholicism in the contest

which under him was joined with Zwinglians and Anglicans as well as

with Lutherans. But under Paul III (1534-1549), a new policy was

inaugurated, by which men were appointed to high church offices for

their virtue and learning rather than for family relationship or

financial gain. This policy was maintained by a series of upright and

far-sighted popes during the second half of the sixteenth century, so

that by the year 1600 a remarkable reformation had been gradually

wrought in the papacy, among the cardinals, down through the prelates,

even to the parish priests and monks.

[Sidenote: The Council of Trent]

The reforming zeal of individual popes was stimulated and reinforced by

the work of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The idea of effecting a

"reformation in head and members" by means of a general council of the

Catholic Church had been invoked several times during the century that

preceded the Protestant Revolt, but, before Luther, little had been

accomplished in that way.

With the widening of the breach between Protestantism and the medieval

Church, what had formerly been desirable now became imperative. It

seemed to pious Catholics that every effort should be made to reconcile

differences and to restore the unity of the Church. The errors of the

manifold new theologies which now appeared might be refuted by a clear

statement of Catholic doctrine, and a reformation of discipline and

morals would deprive the innovators of one of their most telling

weapons against the Church.

It was no easy task, in that troublous time, to hold an ecumenical

council. There was mutual distrust between Catholics and Protestants.

There was uncertainty as to the relative powers and prerogatives of

council and pope. There were bitter national rivalries, especially

between Italians and Germans. There was actual warfare between the two

chief Catholic families--the Habsburgs of Germany and Spain and the

royal house of France.

Yet despite these difficulties, which long postponed its convocation

and repeatedly interrupted its labors, the Council of Trent [Footnote:

Trent was selected largely by reason of its geographical location,

being situated on the boundary between the German-speaking and Italian-

speaking peoples.] consummated a great reform in the Church and

contributed materially to the preservation of the Catholic faith. The

Protestants, whom the pope invited to participate, absented themselves;

yet such was the number and renown of the Catholic bishops who

responded to the summons that the Council of Trent easily ranked with

the eighteen œcumenical councils which had preceded it. [Footnote: Its

decrees were signed at its close (1563) by 4 cardinal legates, 2

cardinals, 3 patriarchs, 25 archbishops, 167 bishops, 7 abbots, 7

generals of orders, and 19 proxies for 33 absent prelates.] The work of

the council was twofold--dogmatic and reformatory.

Dogmatically, the fathers at Trent offered no compromise to the

Protestants. They confirmed with inexorable frankness the main points

in Catholic theology which had been worked out in the thirteenth

century by Thomas Aquinas and which before the appearance of

Protestantism had been received everywhere in central and western

Europe. They declared that the tradition of the Church as well as the

Bible was to be taken as the basis of the Christian religion, and that

the interpretation of the Holy Scripture belonged only to the Church.

The Protestant teachings about grace and justification by faith were

condemned, and the seven sacraments were pronounced indispensable. The

miraculous and sacrificial character of the Lord's Supper (Mass) was

reaffirmed. Belief in the invocation of saints, in the veneration of

images and of relics, in purgatory and indulgences was explicitly

stated, but precautions were taken to clear some of the doctrines of

the pernicious practices which at times had been connected with them.

The spiritual authority of the Roman See was confirmed over all

Catholicism: the pope was recognized as supreme interpreter of the

canons and incontestable chief of bishops.

[Sidenote: Reformatory Canons of the Council of Trent ]

A volume of disciplinary statutes constituted the second achievement of

the Tridentine Council. The sale of church offices was condemned.

Bishops and other prelates were to reside in their respective dioceses,

abandon worldly pursuits, and give themselves entirely to spiritual

labors. Seminaries were to be established for the proper education and

training of priests.

While Latin was retained as the official and liturgical language,

frequent sermons were to be preached in the vernacular. Indulgences

were not to be issued for money, and no charge should be made for

conferring the sacraments.

[Sidenote: Index and inquisition ]

The seed sown by the council bore abundant fruit during several

succeeding pontificates. The central government was completely

reorganized. A definite catechism was prepared at Rome and every layman

instructed in the tenets and obligations of his religion. Revisions

were made in the service books of the Church, and a new standard

edition of the Latin Bible, the Vulgate, was issued. A list, called the

Index, was prepared of dangerous and heretical books, which good

Catholics were prohibited from reading. By these methods, discipline

was in fact confirmed, morals purified, and the scandal of the immense

riches and the worldly life of the clergy restrained. From an unusually

strict law of faith and conduct, lapses were to be punishable by the

ancient ecclesiastical court of the Inquisition, which now zealously

redoubled its activity, especially in Italy and in Spain.

A very important factor in the Catholic revival--not only in preserving

all southern Europe to the Church but also in preventing a complete

triumph of Protestantism in the North--was the formation of several new

religious orders, which sought to purify the life of the people and to

bulwark the position of the Church. The most celebrated of these

orders, both for its labors in the sixteenth century and for its

subsequent history, is the Society of Jesus, whose members are known

commonly as Jesuits. The society was founded by Ignatius Loyola

[Footnote: Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556).] in 1534 and its constitution

was formally approved by the pope six years later.

[Sidenote: Ignatius Loyola]

In his earlier years, Ignatius followed the profession of arms, and as

a patriotic Spaniard fought valiantly in the armies of Emperor Charles

V against the French. But while he was in a hospital, suffering from a

wound, he chanced to read a Life of Christ and biographies of several

saints, which, he tells us, worked a great change within him. From

being a soldier of an earthly king, he would now become a knight of

Christ and of the Church. Instead of fighting for the glory of Spain

and of himself, he would henceforth strive for the greater glory of

God. Thus in the very year in which the German monk, Martin Luther,

became the leading and avowed adversary of the Catholic Church, this

Spanish soldier was starting on that remarkable career which was to

make him Catholicism's chief champion.

After a few years' trial of his new life and several rather footless

efforts to serve the Church, Ignatius determined, at the age of thirty-

three, to perfect his scanty education. It was while he was studying

Latin, philosophy, and theology at the University of Paris that he made

the acquaintance of the group of scholarly and saintly men who became

the first members of the Society of Jesus. Intended at first primarily

for missionary labors among the Mohammedans, the order was speedily

turned to other and greater ends.

[Sidenote: The Jesuits]

The organization of the Jesuits showed the military instincts of their

founder. To the three usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,

was added a fourth vow of special allegiance to the pope. The members

were to be carefully trained during a long novitiate and were to be

under the personal direction of a general, resident in Rome. Authority

and obedience were stressed by the society. Then, too, St. Ignatius

Loyola understood that the Church was now confronted with conditions of

war rather than of peace: accordingly he directed that his brothers

should not content themselves with prayer and works of peace, with

charity and local benevolence, but should adapt themselves to new

circumstances and should strive in a multiplicity of ways to restore

all things in the Catholic Church.

Thus it happened that the Jesuits, from the very year of their

establishment, rushed to the front in the religious conflict of the

sixteenth century. In the first place, they sought to enlighten and

educate the young. As schoolmasters they had no equals in Europe for

many years. No less a scholar and scientist than Lord Francis Bacon

said of the Jesuit teaching that "nothing better has been put in

practice." Again, by their wide learning and culture, no less than by

the unimpeachable purity of their lives, they won back a considerable

respect for the Catholic clergy. As preachers, too, they earned a high

esteem by the clearness and simplicity of their sermons and

instruction.

It was in the mission field, however, that the Jesuits achieved the

most considerable results. They were mainly responsible for the

recovery of Poland after that country had almost become Lutheran. They

similarly conserved the Catholic faith in Bavaria and in the southern

Netherlands. They insured a respectable Catholic party in Bohemia and

in Hungary. They aided considerably in maintaining Catholicism in

Ireland. At the hourly risk of their lives, they ministered to their

fellow-Catholics in England under Elizabeth and the Stuarts. And what

the Catholic Church lost in numbers through the defection of the

greater part of northern Europe was compensated for by Jesuit missions

among the teeming millions in India and China, among the Huron and

Iroquois tribes of North America, and among the aborigines of Brazil

and Paraguay. No means of influence, no source of power, was neglected

that would win men to religion and to the authority of the bishop of

Rome. Politics and agriculture were utilized as well as literature and

science. The Jesuits were confessors of kings in Europe and apostles of

the faith in Asia and America.

[Sidenote: Political and Economic Factors in the Catholic Reformation]

It has been pointed out already that the rapid diffusion of

Protestantism was due to economic and political causes as well as to

those narrowly religious. It may be said with equal truth that

political and economic causes co-operated with the religious

developments that we have just noted in maintaining the supremacy of

the Catholic Church in at least half the countries over which she had

exercised her sway in 1500. For one thing, it is doubtful whether

financial abuses had flourished as long or as vigorously in southern as

in northern Europe. For another, the political conditions in the states

of southern Europe help to explain the interesting situation.

[Sidebar: Italy]

In Italy was the pope's residence and See. He had bestowed many favors

on important Italian families. He had often exploited foreign countries

in behalf of Italian patronage. He had taken advantage of the political

disunity of the peninsula to divide his local enemies and thereby to

assure the victory of his own cause. Two popes of the sixteenth century

belonged to the powerful Florentine family of the Medici--Florence

remained loyal. The hearty support of the Emperor Charles V preserved

the orthodoxy of Naples, and that of Philip II stamped out heresy in

the kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

[Sidenote: France]

In France, the concordat of 1516 between pope and king had peacefully

secured for the French monarch appointment of bishops and control of

benefices within his country,--powers which the German princes and the

English sovereigns secured by revolutionary change. Moreover, French

Protestantism, by its political activities in behalf of effective

checks upon the royal power, drove the king into Catholic arms: the

cause of absolutism in France became the cause of Catholicism, and the

latter was bound up with French patriotism to quite the same extent as

English patriotism became linked with the fortunes of Anglicanism.

[Sidenote: Spain and Portugal]

In Spain and Portugal, the monarchs obtained concessions from the pope

like those accorded the French sovereigns. They gained control of the

Catholic Church within their countries and found it a most valuable

ally in forwarding their absolutist tendencies. Moreover, the

centuries-long struggle with Mohammedanism had endeared Catholic

Christianity alike to Spaniards and to Portuguese and rendered it an

integral part of their national life. Spain and Portugal now remained

fiercely Catholic.

[Sidenote: Austria]

Somewhat similar was the case of Austria. Terrifying fear of the

advancing Turk, joined with the political exigencies of the Habsburg

rulers, threw that duchy with most of its dependencies into the hands

of the pope. If the bishop of Rome, by favoring the Habsburgs, had lost

England, he had at least saved Austria.

[Sidenote: Poland and Ireland]

Ireland and Poland--those two extreme outposts of the Roman Catholic

Church in Europe--found their religion to be the most effectual

safeguard of their nationality, the most valuable weapon against

aggression or assimilation by powerful neighbors.

SUMMARY OF THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

By the year 1570 the profound religious and ecclesiastical changes

which we have been sketching had been made. For seventy-five years more

a series of wars was to be waged in which the religious element was

distinctly to enter. In fact these wars have often been called the

Religious Wars--the ones connected with the career of Philip II of

Spain as well as the subsequent dismal civil war in the Germanies--but

in each one the political and economic factors predominated. Nor did

the series of wars materially affect the strength or extent of the

religions implicated. It was prior to 1570 that the Protestant Revolt

had been effected and the Catholic Reformation achieved.

[Sidenote: Geographical Extent of the Revolt]

In the year 1500, the Roman Catholic Church embraced central and

western Europe; in the year 1600 nearly half of its former subjects--

those throughout northern Europe--no longer recognized its authority or

practiced its beliefs. There were left to the Roman Catholic Church at

the close of the sixteenth century the Italian states, Spain, Portugal,

most of France, the southern Netherlands, the forest cantons of

Switzerland, the southern Germanies, Austria, Poland, Ireland, large

followings in Bohemia and Hungary, and a straggling unimportant

following in other countries.

Those who rejected the Roman Catholic Church in central and western

Europe were collectively called Protestants, but they were divided into

three major groups. Lutheranism was now the religion of the northern

Germanies and the Scandinavian states of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Calvinism, under a bewildering variety of names, was the recognized

faith of the majority of the cantons of Switzerland, of the northern

Netherlands, and Scotland, and of important followings in Germany,

Hungary, France, and England. Anglicanism was the established religion

of England.

[Sidenote: Doctrines Held in Common by Catholics and Protestants]

The Protestants retained a large part of Catholic theology, so that all

portions of western Christianity continued to have much in common. They

still believed in the Trinity, in the divinity of Jesus Christ, in the

sacredness of the Jewish scriptures and of the New Testament, the fall

of man and his redemption through the sacrifice of the Cross, and in a

future life of rewards and punishments. The Christian moralities and

virtues continued to be inculcated by Protestants as well as by

Catholics.

[Sidenote: Doctrines Held by all Protestants Apart from Catholics]

On the other hand, the Protestants held in common certain doctrines

which separated all of them from Roman Catholicism. These were the

distinguishing marks of Protestantism: (1) denial of the claims of the

bishop of Rome and consequent rejection of the papal government and

jurisdiction; (2) rejection of such doctrines as were supposed to have

developed during the middle ages,--for example, purgatory, indulgences,

invocation of saints, and veneration of relics,--together with

important modifications in the sacramental system; (3) insistence upon

the right of the individual to interpret the Bible, and recognition of

the individual's ability to save himself without the interposition of

ecclesiastics--hence to the Protestant, authority resided in individual

interpretation of the Bible, while to the Catholic, it rested in a

living institution or Church.

[Sidenote: Divisions among Protestants]

Now the Protestant idea of authority made it possible and essentially

inevitable that its supporters should not agree on many things among

themselves. There would be almost as many ways of interpreting the

Scriptures as there were interested individuals. It is not surprising,

therefore, that in the last Almanac some one hundred and sixty-four

varieties or denominations of Protestants are listed in the United

States alone. These divisions, however, are not so complex as at first

might appear, because nearly all of them have come directly from the

three main forms of Protestantism which appeared in the sixteenth

century. Just how Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism differed from

each other may be gathered from a short summary.

(1) The Calvinists taught justification by election--that God

determines, or _predestines_, who is to be saved and who is to be

lost. The Lutherans were inclined to reject such doctrine, and to

assure salvation to the mere believer. The Anglicans appeared to accept

the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, although the Thirty-

nine Articles might be likewise interpreted in harmony with the

Calvinistic position.

(2) The Calvinists recognized only two sacraments--baptism and the

Lord's Supper. Lutherans and Anglicans retained, in addition to the two

sacraments, the rite of confirmation, and Anglicans also the rite of

ordination. The official statement of Anglicanism that there are "two

major sacraments" has made it possible for some Anglicans--the so-

called High Church party--to hold the Catholic doctrine of seven

sacraments.

(3) Various substitutes were made for the Catholic doctrine of

transubstantiation, the idea that in the Lord's Supper the bread and

wine by the word of the priest are actually changed into the Body and

Blood of Christ. The Lutherans maintained what they called

consubstantiation, that Christ was _with_ and _in_ the bread

and wine, as fire is in a hot iron, to borrow the metaphor of Luther

himself. The Calvinists, on the other hand, saw in the Eucharist, not

the efficacious sacrifice of Christ, but a simple commemoration of the

Last Supper; to them the bread and wine were mere symbols of the Body

and Blood. As to the Anglicans, their position was ambiguous, for their

official confession of faith declared at once that the Supper is the

communion of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ but that the

communicant receives Jesus Christ only spiritually: the present-day

"Low Church" Anglicans incline to a Calvinistic interpretation, those

of the "High Church" to the Catholic explanation.

(4) There were pronounced differences in ecclesiastical government. All

the Protestants considerably modified the Catholic system of a divinely

appointed clergy of bishops, priests, and deacons, under the supreme

spiritual jurisdiction of the pope. The Anglicans rejected the papacy,

although they retained the orders of bishop, priest, and deacon, and

insisted that their hierarchy was the direct continuation of the

medieval Church in England, and therefore that their organization was

on the same footing as the Orthodox Church of eastern Europe. The

Lutherans rejected the divinely ordained character of episcopacy, but

retained bishops as convenient administrative officers. The Calvinists

did away with bishops altogether and kept only one order of clergymen--

the presbyters. Such Calvinistic churches as were governed by

assemblies or synods of presbyters were called Presbyterian; those

which subordinated the "minister" to the control of the people in each

separate congregation were styled Independent, or Separatist, or

Congregational. [Footnote: This latter type of church government was

maintained also by the quasi-Calvinistic denomination of the Baptists.]

(5) In the ceremonies of public worship the Protestant churches

differed. Anglicanism kept a good deal of the Catholic ritual although

in the form of translation from Latin to English, together with several

Catholic ceremonies, in some places even employing candles and incense.

The Calvinists, on the other hand, worshiped with extreme simplicity:

reading of the Bible, singing of hymns, extemporaneous prayer, and

preaching constituted the usual service in church buildings that were

without superfluous ornaments. Between Anglican formalism and

Calvinistic austerity, the Lutherans presented a compromise: they

devised no uniform liturgy, but showed some inclination to utilize

forms and ceremonies.

[Sidenote: Significance of the Protestant Revolt]

Of the true significance of the great religious and ecclesiastical

changes of the sixteenth century many estimates in the past have been

made, varying with the point of view, or bias, of each author. Several

results, however, now stand out clearly and are accepted generally by

all scholars, regardless of religious affiliations. These results may

be expressed as follows:

In the first place, the Catholic Church of the middle ages was

disrupted and the medieval ideal of a universal theocracy under the

bishop of Rome was rudely shocked.

In the second place, the Christian religion was largely nationalized.

Protestantism was the religious aspect of nationalism; it naturally

came into being as a protest against the cosmopolitan character of

Catholicism; it received its support from _nations_; and it

assumed everywhere a national form. The German states, the Scandinavian

countries, Scotland, England, each had its established state religion.

What remained to the Catholic Church, as we have seen, was essentially

for national reasons and henceforth rested mainly on a national basis.

Thirdly, the whole movement tended to narrow the Catholic Church

dogmatically. The exigencies of answering the Protestants called forth

explicit definitions of belief. The Catholic Church was henceforth on

the defensive, and among her members fewer differences of opinion were

tolerated than formerly.

Fourthly, a great impetus to individual morality, as well as to

theological study, was afforded by the reformation. Not only were many

men's minds turned temporarily from other intellectual interests to

religious controversy, but the individual faithful Catholic or

Protestant was encouraged to vie with his neighbor in actually proving

that his particular religion inculcated a higher moral standard than

any other. It rendered the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries more

earnest and serious and also more bigoted than the fifteenth.

Finally, the Protestant Revolution led immediately to important

political and social changes. The power of secular rulers was

immeasurably increased. By confiscation of church lands and control of

the clergy, the Tudor sovereigns in England, the kings in Scandinavia,

and the German princes were personally enriched and freed from fear of

being hampered in absolutist tendencies by an independent

ecclesiastical organization. Even in Catholic countries, the monarchs

were able to wring such concessions from the pope as resulted in

shackling the Church to the crown.

The wealth of the nobles was swelled, especially in Protestant

countries, by seizure of the property of the Church either directly or

by means of bribes tendered for aristocratic support of the royal

confiscations. But despite such an access of wealth, the monarchs took

pains to see that the nobility acquired no new political influence.

In order to prevent the nobles from recovering political power, the

absolutist monarchs enlisted the services of the faithful middle class,

which speedily attained an enviable position in the principal European

states. It is safe to say that the Protestant Revolution was one of

many elements assisting in the development of this middle class.

For the peasantry--still the bulk of European population--the religious

and ecclesiastical changes seem to have been peculiarly unfortunate.

What they gained through a diminution of ecclesiastical dues and taxes

was more than lost through the growth of royal despotism and the

exactions of hard-hearted lay proprietors. The peasants had changed the

names of their oppressors and found themselves in a worse condition

than before. There is little doubt that, at least so far as the

Germanies and the Scandinavian countries are concerned, the lot of the

peasants was less favorable immediately after, than immediately before,

the rise of Protestantism.

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Good brief accounts of the whole religious revolution of the

sixteenth century: Frederic Seebohm, _The Era of the Protestant

Revolution,_ new ed. (1904); J. H. Robinson, _Reformation_, in

"Encyclopædia Britannica," 11th ed. (1911); A. H. Johnson, _Europe in

the Sixteenth Century_ (1897), ch. iii-v and pp. 272 ff.; E. M. Hulme,

_Renaissance and Reformation,_ 2d ed. (1915), ch. x-xviii, xxi-xxiii;

Victor Duruy, _History of Modern Times_, trans. and rev. by E. A.

Grosvenor (1894), ch. xiii, xiv. More detailed accounts are given in

the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), and in the _Histoire

generate_, Vol. IV, ch. x-xvii, and Vol. V, ch. i. All the standard

general histories of the Christian Church contain accounts of the rise

of Protestantism, naturally varying among themselves according to the

religious convictions of their authors. Among the best Protestant

histories may be cited: T. M. Lindsay, _A History of the Reformation,_

2 vols. (1906-1910); Wilhelm Moeller, _History of the Christian

Church_, trans. and condensed by J. H. Freese, 3 vols. (1893-1900);

Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_, Vols. VI and VII; A.

H. Newman, A Manual of Church History, Vol. II (1903), Period V; G. P.

Fisher, _History of the Christian Church_ (1887), Period VIII, ch. i-

xii. From the Catholic standpoint the best ecclesiastical histories

are: John Alzog, _Manual of Universal Church History_, trans. from 9th

German edition (1903), Vol. II and Vol. Ill, Epoch I; and the histories

in German by Joseph (Cardinal) Hergen-rother [ed. by J. P. Kirsch, 2

vols. (1902-1904)], by Alois Knopfler (5th ed., 1910) [based on the

famous _Conciliengeschichte_ of K. J. (Bishop) von Hefele], and by F.

X. von Funk (5th ed., 1911); see, also, Alfred Baudrillart, _The

Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism_, Eng. trans. by

Mrs. Philip Gibbs (1908). Many pertinent articles are to be found in

the scholarly _Catholic Encyclopedia_, 15 vols. (1907-1912), in the

famous _Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche_, 3d

ed., 24 vols. (1896-1913), and in the (Non-Catholic) _Encyclopedia of

Religion and Ethics_, ed. by James Hastings and now (1916) in course of

publication. For the popes of the period, see Ludwig Pastor, _The

History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages_, the monumental

work of a distinguished Catholic historian, the twelfth volume of which

(coming down to 1549) was published in English translation in 1912; and

the older but still useful (Protestant) _History of the Papacy from the

Great Schism to the Sack of Rome_ by Mandell Creighton, new ed. in 6

vols. (1899-1901), and _History of the Popes_ by Leopold von Ranke, 3

vols. in the Bonn Library (1885). Heinrich Denziger, _Enchiridion

Symbolorum, Definitionum, et Declarationium de rebus fidei el morum,_

11nth ed. (1911), is a convenient collection of official pronouncements

in Latin on the Catholic Faith. Philip Schaff, _The Creeds of

Christendom,_ 3 vols. (1878), contains the chief Greek, Latin, and

Protestant creeds in the original and usually also in English

translation. Also useful is B. J. Kidd (editor), _Documents

Illustrative of the Continental Reformation_ (1911). For additional

details of the relation of the Reformation to sixteenth-century

politics, consult the bibliography appended to Chapter III, above.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY. In the _Cambridge

Modern History,_ Vol. I (1902), a severe indictment of the Church is

presented (ch. xix) by H. C. Lea, and a defense is offered (ch. xviii)

by William Barry. The former opinions are developed startlingly by H.

C. Lea in Vol. I, ch. i, of his _History of the Inquisition in the

Middle Ages._ An old-fashioned, though still interesting, Protestant

view is that of William Roscoe, _Life and Pontificate of Leo X,_ 4

vols. (first pub. 1805-1806, many subsequent editions). For an

excellent description of the organization of the Catholic Church, see

André Mater, _L'église catholique, sa constitution, son administration_

(1906). The best edition of the canon law is that of Friedberg, 2 vols.

(1881). On the social work of the Church: E. L. Cutts, _Parish Priests

and their People in the Middle Ages in England_ (1898), and G. A.

Prévost, _L'église et les campagnes au moyen âge_ (1892). The most

recent and comprehensive study of the Catholic Church on the eve of the

Protestant Revolt is that of Pierre Imbart de la Tour, _Les origines de

la Réforme,_ Vol. I, _La France moderne_ (1905), and Vol. II, _L'église

catholique, la crise et la renaissance_ (1909). For the Orthodox Church

of the East see Louis Duchesne, _The Churches Separated from Rome,_

trans. by A. H. Mathew (1908).

MOHAMMEDANISM. Sir William Muir, _Life of Mohammed,_ new and rev. ed.

by T. H. Weir (1912); Ameer Ali, _Life and Teachings of Mohammed_

(1891), and, by the same author, warmly sympathetic, Islam (1914); D.

S. Margoliouth, _Mohammed and the Rise of Islam_ (1905), in the "Heroes

of the Nations" Series, and, by the same author, _The Early Development

of Mohammedanism_ (1914); Arthur Gilman, _Story of the Saracens_

(1902), in the "Story of the Nations" Series. Edward Gibbon has two

famous chapters (1, li) on Mohammed and the Arabian conquests in his

masterpiece, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._ The _Koran,_ the

sacred book of Mohammedans, has been translated into English by E. H.

Palmer, 2 vols. (1880): entertaining extracts are given in Stanley

Lane-Poole, _Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet Mohammad._

LUTHER AND LUTHERANISM. Of innumerable biographies of Luther the best

from sympathetic Protestant pens are: Julius Köstlin, _Life of Luther,_

trans. and abridged from the German (1900); T. M. Lindsay, _Luther and

the German Reformation_ (1900); A. C. McGiffert, _Martin Luther, the

Man and his Work_ (1911); Preserved Smith, _The Life and Letters of

Martin Luther_ (1911); Charles Beard, _Martin Luther and the

Reformation in Germany until the Close of the Diet of Worms_ (1889). A

remarkable arraignment of Luther is the work of the eminent Catholic

historian, F. H. S. Denifle, _Luther und Luthertum in der ersten

Entwickelung,_ 3 vols. (1904-1909), trans. into French by J. Pasquier

(1911-1912). The most available Catholic study of Luther's personality

and career is the scholarly work of Hartmann Grisar, _Luther,_ 3 vols.

(1911-1913), trans. from German into English by E. M. Lamond, 4 vols.

(1913-1915). _First Principles of the Reformation,_ ed. by Henry Wace

and C. A. Buchheim (1885), contains an English translation of Luther's

"Theses," and of his three pamphlets of 1520. The best edition of

Luther's complete works is the Weimar edition; English translations of

portions of his _Table Talk,_ by William Hazlitt, have appeared in the

Bonn Library; and _Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary

Letters_ is now (1916) in course of translation and publication by

Preserved Smith. J. W. Richard, _Philip Melanchthon_ (1898) is a brief

biography of one of the most famous friends and associates of Luther.

For the Protestant Revolt in Germany: E. F. Henderson, _A Short History

of Germany_ (1902), Vol. I, ch. x-xvi, a brief sketch of the political

and social background; Johannes Janssen, _History of the German

People,_ a monumental treatise on German social history just before and

during the revolt, scholarly and very favorable to the Catholic Church,

trans. into English by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie, 16 vols.

(1896-1910); Gottlob Egelhaaf, _Deutsche Geschichte im sechzehnten

Jahrhundert bis zum Augsburger Religionsfrieden,_ 2 vols. (1889-1892),

a Protestant rejoinder to some of the Catholic Janssen's deductions;

Karl Lamprecht, _Deutsche Geschichte,_ Vol. V, Part I (1896),

suggestive philosophizing; Leopold von Ranke, _History of the

Reformation in Germany,_ Eng. trans., 3 vols., a careful study, coming

down in the original German to 1555, but stopping short in the English

form with the year 1534; Friedrich von Bezold, _Geschichte der

deutschen Reformation,_ 2 vols. (1886-1890), in the bulky Oncken

Series, voluminous and moderately Protestant in tone; J. J. I. von

Döllinger, _Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwicklung und ihre

Wirkungen,_ 3 vols. (1853-1854), pointing out the opposition of many

educated people of the sixteenth century to Luther; A. E. Berger, _Die

Kulturaufgaben der Reformation,_ 2d ed. (1908), a study of the cultural

aspects of the Lutheran movement, Protestant in tendency and opposed in

certain instances to the generalizations of Janssen and Döllinger; J.

S. Schapiro, _Social Reform and the Reformation_ (1909), a brief but

very suggestive treatment of some of the economic factors of the German

Reformation; H. C. Vedder, _The Reformation in Germany_ (1914),

likewise stressing economic factors, and sympathetic toward the

Anabaptists. For additional facts concerning the establishment of

Lutheranism in Scandinavia, see R. N. Bain, _Scandinavia, a Political

History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1513 to 1900_ (1905), and

John Wordsworth (Bishop of Salisbury), _The National Church of Sweden_

(1911). Zwingli, Calvin, and Calvinism. The best biography of Zwingli

in English is that of S. M. Jackson (1901), who likewise has edited the

_Selected Works of Zwingli_; a more exhaustive biography in German is

Rudolf Stahelin, _Huldreich Zwingli: sein Leben und Wirken_, 2 vols.

(1895 1897). Biographies of Calvin: H. Y. Reyburn, _John Calvin: his

Life, Letters, and Work_ (1914); Williston Walker, John Calvin, the

Organizer of Reformed Protestantism (1906); Emile Doumergue, _Jean

Calvin: les hommes et les choses de son temps_, 4 vols. (1899-1910); L.

Penning, _Life and Times of Calvin_, trans. from Dutch by B. S.

Berrington (1912); William Barry, _Calvin_, in the "Catholic

Encyclopædia." Many of Calvin's writings have been published in English

translation by the "Presbyterian Board of Publication" in Philadelphia,

22 vols. in 52 (1844-1856), and his _Institutes of the Christian

Religion_ has several times been published in English. H. M. Baird,

_Theodore Beza_ (1899) is a popular biography of one of the best-known

friends and associates of Calvin. For Calvinism in Switzerland: W. D.

McCracken, _The Rise of the Swiss Republic_, 2d ed. (1901); F. W.

Kampschulte, _Johann Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf_, 2

vols. (1869-1899). For Calvinism in France: H. M. Baird, _History of

the Rise of the Huguenots of France_, 2 vols. (1879), and by the same

author, a warm partisan of Calvinism, _The Huguenots and Henry of

Navarre_, 2 vols. (1886); the brothers Haag, _France protestante_, 2d

ed., 10 vols. (1877-1895), an exhaustive history of Protestantism in

France; E. Lavisse (editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. V, Livre IX, by

Henry Lemonnier (1904), most recent and best. For Calvinism in

Scotland: P. H. Brown, _John Knox, a Biography_, 2 vols. (1895); Andrew

Lang, _John Knox and the Reformation_ (1905); John Herkless and R. K.

Hannay, _The Archbishops of St. Andrews_, 4 vols. (1907-1913); D. H.

Fleming, _The Reformation in Scotland: its Causes, Characteristics, and

Consequences_ (1910); John Macpherson, _History of the Church in

Scotland_ (1901), ch. iii-v.

THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND. The eve of the revolution:

Frederic Seebohm, _The Oxford Reformers_, 3d ed. (1887), a sympathetic

treatment of Colet, Erasmus, and More; F. A. (Cardinal) Gasquet, _The

Eve of the Reformation in England_ (1899), and, by the same author, an

eminent Catholic scholar, _England under the Old Religion_ (1912).

General histories of the English Reformation: H. O. Wakeman, _An

Introduction to the History of the Church of England_, 8th ed. (1914),

ch. x-xiv, the best brief "High Church" survey; J. R. Green, _Short

History of the English People_, new illust. ed. by C. H. Firth (1913),

ch. vi, vii, a popular "Low Church" view; W. R. W. Stephens and William

Hunt (editors), _A History of the Church of England_, Vols. IV (1902)

and V (1904) by James Gairdner and W. H. Frere respectively; James

Gairdner, _Lollardy and the Reformation in England_, 4 vols. (1908-

1913), the last word of an eminent authority on the period, who was

convinced of the revolutionary character of the English Reformation;

John Lingard, _History of England to 1688_, Vols. IV-VI, the standard

Roman Catholic work; R. W. Dixon, _History of the Church of England

from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction_, 6 vols. (1878-1902), a

thorough treatment from the High Anglican position; H. W. Clark,

_History of English Nonconformity_, Vol. I (1911), Book I, valuable for

the history of the radical Protestants; Henry Gee and W. J. Hardy,

_Documents Illustrative of English Church History_ (1896), an admirable

collection of official pronouncements. Valuable special works and

monographs: C. B. Lumsden, _The Dawn of Modern England, being a History

of the Reformation in England, 1509-1525_ (1910), pronouncedly Roman

Catholic in tone; Martin Hume, _The Wives of Henry VIII_ (1905); F. A.

(Cardinal) Gasquet, _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries_, 3d ed., 2

vols. (1888), popular ed. in 1 vol. (1902); R. B. Merriman, _Life and

Letters of Thomas Cromwell_, 2 vols. (1902), a standard work; Dom Bede

Camm, _Lives of the English Martyrs_ (1904), with special reference to

Roman Catholics under Henry VIII; A. F. Pollard, [Footnote: See also

other works of A. F. Pollard listed in bibliography appended to Chapter

III, p. 110, above.] _Life of Cranmer_ (1904), scholarly and

sympathetic, and, by the same author, _England under Protector

Somerset_ (1900), distinctly apologetic; Frances Rose-Troup, _The

Western Rebellion of 1549_ (1913), a study of an unsuccessful popular

uprising against religious innovations; M. J. Stone, _Mary I, Queen of

England_ (1901), an apology for Mary Tudor; John Foxe (1516-1587),

_Acts and Monuments of the Church_, popularly known as the _Book of

Martyrs_, the chief contemporary account of the Marian persecutions,

uncritical and naturally strongly biased; R. G. Usher, _The

Reconstruction of the English Church_, 2 vols. (1910), a popular

account of the changes under Elizabeth and James I; H. N. Birt, _The

Elizabethan Religious Settlement_ (1907), from the Roman Catholic

standpoint; G. E. Phillips, _The Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy,

an Account of the Death in Prison of the Eleven Bishops Honored at Rome

amongst the Martyrs of the Elizabethan Persecution_ (1905), also Roman

Catholic; A. O. Meyer, _England und die katholische Kirche unter

Elisabeth und den Stuarts_, Vol. I (1911), Eng. trans. by J. R. McKee

(1915), based in part on use of source-material in the Vatican Library;

Martin Hume, _Treason and Plot_ (1901), deals with the struggles of the

Roman Catholics for supremacy in the reign of Elizabeth; E. L. Taunton,

_The History of the Jesuits in England_, 1580-1773 (1901); Richard

Simpson, _Life of Campion_ (1867), an account of a devoted Jesuit who

suffered martyrdom under Elizabeth; Champlin Burrage, _The Early

English Dissenters in the Light of Recent Research, 1550-1641_, 2 vols.

(1912).

THE REFORMATION WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Brief narratives: William

Barry, _The Papacy and Modern Times_ (1911), in "Home University

Library," ch. i-iii; A. W. Ward, _The Counter Reformation_ (1889) in

"Epochs of Church History" Series; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. Ill

(1905), ch. xiii by Ugo (Count) Balzani on "Rome under Sixtus V."

Longer accounts: G. V. Jourdan, _The Movement towards Catholic Reform

in the Early Sixteenth Century, 1496-1536_ (1914); K. W. Maurenbrecher,

_Geschichte der katholischen Reformation_, Vol. I (1880), excellent

down to 1534 but never completed; J. A. Symonds, _Renaissance in

Italy_, Vols. VI and VII, _The Catholic Reaction_, replete with

inaccuracy, bias, and prejudice. The _Canons and Decrees of the Council

of Trent_ have been translated by J. Waterworth, new ed. (1896), and

the _Catechism of the Council of Trent_, by J. Donovan (1829). Nicholas

Hilling, _Procedure at the Roman Curia_, 2d ed. (1909), contains a

concise account of the "congregations" and other reformed agencies of

administration introduced into church government in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. The famous _Autobiography of St. Ignatius

Loyola_ has been trans. and ed. by J. F. X. O'Conor (1900), and the

text of his _Spiritual Exercises_, trans. from Spanish into English,

has been published by Joseph Rickaby (1915). See Stewart Rose (Lady

Buchan), _St. Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits_, ed. by W. H. Eyre

(1891); Francis Thompson, _Life of Saint Ignatius_ (1910); T. A.

Hughes, _Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits_ (1892).

Monumental national histories of the Jesuits are now (1916) appearing

under the auspices of the Order: for Germany, by Bernhard Duhr, Vol. I

(1907), Vol. II (1913); for Italy, by Pietro Tacchi Venturi, Vol. I

(1910); for France, by Henri Fouqueray, Vol. I (1910), Vol. II (1913);

for Paraguay, by Pablo Pastells, Vol. I (1912); for North America, by

Thomas Hughes, 3 vols. (1907-1910); for Spain, by Antonio Astrain,

Vols. I-IV (1902-1913). Concerning the Index, see G. H. Putnam, _The

Censorship of the Church of Rome and its Influence upon the Production

and Distribution of Literature_, 2 vols. (1907). On the Inquisition,

see H. C. Lea, _A History of the Inquisition of Spain_, 4 vols. (1907),

and, by the same author, _The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies_

(1908), on the whole a dark picture; and, for a Catholic account,

Elphège Vacandard, _The Inquisition: a Critical and Historical Study of

the Coercive Power of the Church_, trans. by B. L. Conway (1908).

FOR THE OUTCOME OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLT AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

FROM THE THEOLOGICAL STANDPOINT, see Adolph Harnack, _History of

Dogma_, Eng. trans., Vol. VII (1900). Charles Beard, _The Reformation

of the Sixteenth Century in its Relation to Modern Thought and

Knowledge_ (1883) is a strongly Protestant estimate of the significance

of the whole movement. J. Balmes, _European Civilization: Protestantism

and Catholicity Compared in their Effects on the Civilization of

Europe_ (1850), though old, is a suggestive résumé from the Catholic

standpoint.

CHAPTER V

THE CULTURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: "Culture"]

"Culture" is a word generally used to denote learning and refinement in

manners and art. The development of culture--the acquisition of new

knowledge and the creation of beautiful things--is ordinarily the work

of a comparatively small number of scientists and artists. Now if in

any particular period or among any special people, we find a relatively

larger group of intellectual leaders who succeed in establishing an

important educated class and in making permanent contributions to the

civilization of posterity, then we say that it is a cultured century or

a cultured nation.

[Sidenote: Greek Culture]

All races and all generations have had some kind of culture, but within

the recorded history of humanity, certain peoples and certain centuries

stand out most distinctly as influencing its evolution. Thus, the

Greeks of the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ gathered

together and handed down to us all manner of speculation about the

nature of the universe, all manner of hypothetical answers to the

eternal questions--Whence do we come, What are we doing, Where do we

go?--and this was the foundation of modern philosophy and metaphysics.

From the same Greeks came our geometry and the rudiments of our

sciences of astronomy and medicine. It was they who gave us the model

for nearly every form of literature--dramatic, epic, and lyric poetry,

dialogues, oratory, history--and in their well-proportioned temples, in

their balanced columns and elaborate friezes, in their marble

chiselings of the perfect human form, they fashioned for us forever the

classical expression of art.

[Sidenote: Roman Culture]

Still in ancient times, the Romans developed classical architecture in

the great triumphal arches and in the high-domed public buildings which

strewed their empire. They adapted the fine forms of Greek literature

to their own more pompous, but less subtle, Latin language. They

devised a code of law and a legal system which made them in a real

sense the teachers of order and the founders of the modern study of

law.

[Sidenote: Mohammedan Culture]

The Mohammedans, too, at the very time when the Christians of western

Europe were neglecting much of the ancient heritage, kept alive the

traditions of Greek philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

From eastern Asia they borrowed algebra, the Arabic numerals, and the

compass, and, in their own great cities of Bagdad, Damascus, and

Cordova, they themselves developed the curiously woven curtains and

rugs, the strangely wrought blades and metallic ornaments, the

luxurious dwellings and graceful minarets which distinguish Arabic or

Mohammedan art.

[Sidenote: Medieval Culture]

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--the height of the middle ages

--came a wonderful outburst of intellectual and artistic activity.

Under the immediate auspices of the Catholic Church it brought forth

abundantly a peculiarly Christian culture. Renewed acquaintance with

Greek philosophy, especially with that of Aristotle, was joined with a

lively religious faith to produce the so called scholastic philosophy

and theology. Great institutions of higher learning--the universities--

were now founded, in which centered the revived study not only of

philosophy but of law and medicine as well, and over which appeared the

first cloud-wrapped dawn of modern experimental science. And side by

side with the sonorous Latin tongue, which long continued to be used by

scholars, were formed the vernacular languages--German, English,

French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.--that gave a wealth of

variety to reviving popular literature. Majestic cathedrals with

pointed arch and flying buttress, with lofty spire and delicate

tracery, wonderful wood carvings, illuminated manuscripts, quaint

gargoyles, myriad statues of saints and martyrs, delicately colored

paintings of surpassing beauty--all betokened the great Christian, or

Gothic, art of the middle ages.

[Sidenote: New Elements in Culture of Sixteenth Century]

The educated person of the sixteenth century was heir to all these

cultural periods: intellectually and artistically he was descended from

Greeks, Romans, Mohammedans, and his medieval Christian forbears. But

the sixteenth century itself added cultural contributions to the

original store, which help to explain not only the social, political,

and ecclesiastical activities of that time but also many of our

present-day actions and ideas. The essentially new factors in

sixteenth-century culture may be reckoned as (1) the diffusion of

knowledge as a result of the invention of printing; (2) the development

of literary criticism by means of humanism; (3) a golden age of

painting and architecture; (4) the flowering of national literature;

(5) the beginnings of modern natural science.

THE INVENTION OF PRINTING

The present day is notably distinguished by the prevalence of enormous

numbers of printed books, periodicals, and newspapers. Yet this very

printing, which seems so commonplace to us now, has had, in all, but a

comparatively brief existence. From the earliest recorded history up to

less than five hundred years ago every book in Europe [Footnote: For an

account of early printing in China, Japan, and Korea, see the informing

article "Typography" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th

edition, Vol. XXVII, p. 510.] was laboriously written by hand,

[Footnote: It is interesting to note the meaning of our present word

"manuscript," which is derived from the Latin--_manu scriptum_

("written by hand").] and, although copyists acquired an astonishing

swiftness in reproducing books, libraries of any size were the property

exclusively of rich institutions or wealthy individuals. It was at the

beginning of modern times that the invention of printing revolutionized

intellectual history.

Printing is an extremely complicated process, and it is small wonder

that centuries of human progress elapsed before its invention was

complete. Among the most essential elements of the perfected process

are _movable type_ with which the impression is made, and

_paper_, on which it is made. A few facts may be conveniently

culled from the long involved story of the development of each of these

elements.

[Sidenote: Development of paper]

For their manuscripts the Greeks and Romans had used papyrus, the

prepared fiber of a tough reed which grew in the valley of the Nile

River. This papyrus was very expensive and heavy, and not at all

suitable for printing. Parchment, the dressed skins of certain animals,

especially sheep, which became the standard material for the hand-

written documents of the middle ages, was extremely durable, but like

papyrus, it was costly, unwieldy, and ill adapted for printing.

The forerunner of modern European paper was probably that which the

Chinese made from silk as early as the second century before Christ.

For silk the Mohammedans at Mecca and Damascus in the middle of the

eighth century appear to have substituted cotton, and this so-called

Damascus paper was later imported into Greece and southern Italy and

into Spain. In the latter country the native-grown hemp and flax were

again substituted for cotton, and the resulting linen paper was used

considerably in Castile in the thirteenth century and thence penetrated

across the Pyrenees into France and gradually all over western and

central Europe. Parchment, however, for a long time kept its

preeminence over silk, cotton, or linen paper, because of its greater

firmness and durability, and notaries were long forbidden to use any

other substance in their official writings. Not until the second half

of the fifteenth century was assured the triumph of modern paper,

[Footnote: The word "paper" is derived from the ancient "papyrus."] as

distinct from papyrus or parchment, when printing, then on the

threshold of its career, demanded a substance of moderate price that

would easily receive the impression of movable type.

[Sidenote: Development of Movable Type]

The idea of movable type was derived from an older practice of carving

reverse letters or even whole inscriptions upon blocks of wood so that

when they were inked and applied to writing material they would leave a

clear impression. Medieval kings and princes frequently had their

signatures cut on these blocks of wood or metal, in order to impress

them on charters, and a kind of engraving was employed to reproduce

pictures or written pages as early as the twelfth century.

It was a natural but slow evolution from block-impressing to the

practice of casting individual letters in separate little pieces of

metal, all of the same height and thickness, and then arranging them in

any desired sequence for printing. The great advantage of movable type

over the blocks was the infinite variety of work which could be done by

simply setting and resetting the type.

The actual history of the transition from the use of blocks to movable

type--the real invention of modern printing--is shrouded in a good deal

of mystery and dispute. It now appears likely that by the year 1450, an

obscure Lourens Coster of the Dutch town of Haarlem had devised movable

type, that Coster's invention was being utilized by a certain Johan

Gutenberg in the German city of Mainz, and that improvements were being

added by various other contemporaries. Papal letters of indulgence and

a version of the Bible, both printed in 1454, are the earliest

monuments of the new art.

Slowly evolved, the marvelous art, once thoroughly developed, spread

with almost lightning rapidity from Mainz throughout the Germanics, the

Italian states, France, and England,--in fact, throughout all Christian

Europe. It was welcomed by scholars and applauded by popes. Printing

presses were erected at Rome in 1466, and book-publishing speedily

became an honorable and lucrative business in every large city. Thus,

at the opening of the sixteenth century, the scholarly Aldus Manutius

was operating in Venice the famous Aldine press, whose beautiful

editions of the Greek and Latin classics are still esteemed as

masterpieces of the printer's art.

The early printers fashioned the characters of their type after the

letters that the scribes had used in long-hand writing. Different kinds

of common hand-writing gave rise, therefore, to such varieties of type

as the heavy black-faced Gothic that prevailed in the Germanics or the

several adaptations of the clear, neat Roman characters which

predominated in southern Europe and in England. The compressed "italic"

type was devised in the Aldine press in Venice to enable the publisher

to crowd more words upon a page.

[Sidenote: Results of Invention of Printing]

A constant development of the new art characterized the sixteenth

century, and at least three remarkable results became evident. (1)

There was an almost incalculable increase in the supply of books. Under

earlier conditions, a skilled and conscientious copyist might, by

prodigious toil, produce two books in a year. Now, in a single year of

the sixteenth century, some 24,000 copies of one of Erasmus's books

were struck off by one printing press.

(2) This indirectly increased the demand for books. By lessening the

expense of books and enabling at least all members of the middle class,

as well as nobles and princes, to possess private libraries, printing

became the most powerful means of diffusing knowledge and broadening

education.

(3) A greater degree of accuracy was guaranteed by printing than by

manual copying. Before the invention of printing, it was well-nigh

impossible to secure two copies of any work that would be exactly

alike. Now, the constant proof-reading and the fact that an entire

edition was printed from the same type were securities against the

anciently recurring faults of forgery or of error.

HUMANISM

Printing, the invention of which has just been described, was the new

vehicle of expression for the ideas of the sixteenth century. These

ideas centered in something which commonly is called "humanism." To

appreciate precisely what humanism means--to understand the dominant

intellectual interests of the educated people of the sixteenth century

--it will be necessary first to turn back some two hundred years

earlier and say a few words about the first great humanist, Francesco

Petrarca, or, as he is known to us, Petrarch.

[Sidenote: Petrarch, "the Father of Humanism"]

The name of Petrarch, who flourished in the fourteenth century (1304-

1374), has been made familiar to most of us by sentimentalists or by

literary scholars who in the one case have pitied his loves and his

passions or in the other have admired the grace and form of his Italian

sonnets. But to the student of history Petrarch has seemed even more

important as the reflection, if not the source, of a brilliant

intellectual movement, which, taking rise in his century, was to grow

in brightness in the fifteenth and flood the sixteenth with resplendent

light.

In some respects Petrarch was a typical product of the fourteenth

century. He was in close touch with the great medieval Christian

culture of his day. He held papal office at Avignon in France. He was

pious and "old-fashioned" in many of his religious views, especially in

his dislike for heretics. Moreover, he wrote what he professed to be

his best work in Latin and expressed naught but contempt for the new

Italian language, which, under the immortal Dante, had already acquired

literary polish. [Footnote: Ironically enough, it was not his Latin

writings but his beautiful Italian sonnets, of which he confessed to be

ashamed, that have preserved the popular fame of Petrarch to the

present day.] He showed no interest in natural science or in the

physical world about him--no sympathy for any novelty.

Yet despite a good deal of natural conservatism, Petrarch added one

significant element to the former medieval culture. That was an

appreciation, amounting almost to worship, of the pagan Greek and Latin

literature. Nor was he interested in antique things because they

supported his theology or inculcated Christian morals; his fondness for

them was simply and solely because they were inherently interesting. In

a multitude of polished Latin letters and in many of his poems, as well

as by daily example and precept to his admiring contemporaries, he

preached the revival of the classics.

[Sidenote: Characteristics of Petrarch's Humanism]

This one obsessing idea of Petrarch carried with it several corollaries

which constituted the essence of humanism and profoundly affected

European thought for several generations after the Italian poet. They

may be enumerated as follows:

(1) Petrarch felt as no man had felt since pagan days the pleasure of

mere human life,--the "joy of living." This, he believed, was not in

opposition to the Christian religion, although it contradicted the

basis of ascetic life. He remained a Catholic Christian, but he

assailed the monks.

(2) Petrarch possessed a confidence in himself, which in the constant

repetition in his writings of first-person pronouns partook of

boastfulness. He replaced a reliance upon Divine Providence by a sense

of his own human ability and power.

(3) Petrarch entertained a clear notion of a living bond between

himself and men of like sort in the ancient world. Greek and Roman

civilization was to him no dead and buried antiquity, but its poets and

thinkers lived again as if they were his neighbors. His love for the

past amounted almost to an ecstatic enthusiasm.

(4) Petrarch tremendously influenced his contemporaries. He was no

local, or even national, figure. He was revered and respected as "the

scholar of Europe." Kings vied with each other in heaping benefits upon

him. The Venetian senate gave him the freedom of the city. Both the

University of Paris and the municipality of Rome crowned him with

laurel.

[Sidenote: "Humanism" and the "Humanities"; Definitions]

The admirers and disciples of Petrarch were attracted by the fresh and

original human ideas of life with which such classical writers as

Virgil, Horace, and Cicero overflowed. This new-found charm the

scholars called humanity (_Humanitas_) and themselves they styled

"humanists." Their studies, which comprised the Greek and Latin

languages and literatures, and, incidentally, profane history, were the

humanities or "letters" (_litterae humaniores_), and the pursuit

of them was humanism.

Petrarch himself was a serious Latin scholar but knew Greek quite

indifferently. About the close of his century, however, Greek teachers

came in considerable numbers from Constantinople and Greece across the

Adriatic to Italy, and a certain Chrysoloras set up an influential

Greek school at Florence. [Footnote: This was before the capture of

Constantinople by the Turks in 1453.] Thenceforth, the study of both

Latin and Greek went on apace. Monasteries were searched for old

manuscripts; libraries for the classics were established; many an

ancient masterpiece, long lost, was now recovered and treasured as fine

gold. [Footnote: It was during this time that long-lost writings of

Tacitus, Cicero, Quintilian, Plautus, Lucretius, etc., were

rediscovered.]

[Sidenote: Humanism and Christianity]

At first, humanism met with some opposition from ardent churchmen who

feared that the revival of pagan literature might exert an unwholesome

influence upon Christianity. But gradually the humanists came to be

tolerated and even encourage, until several popes, notably Julius II

and Leo X at the opening of the sixteenth century, themselves espoused

the cause of humanism. The father of Leo X was the celebrated Lorenzo

de' Medici, who subsidized humanists and established the great

Florentine library of Greek and Latin classics; and the pope proved

himself at once the patron and exemplar of the new learning: he enjoyed

music and the theater, art and poetry, the masterpieces of the ancients

and the creations of his humanistic contemporaries, the spiritual and

the witty--life in every form.

[Sidenote: Spread of Humanism]

The zeal for humanism reached its highest pitch in Italy in the

fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth, but it gradually

gained entrance into other countries and at length became the

intellectual spirit of sixteenth-century Europe. Greek was first taught

both in England and in France about the middle of the fifteenth

century. The Italian expeditions of the French kings Charles VIII,

Louis XII, and Francis I, 1494-1547, served to familiarize Frenchmen

with humanism. And the rise of important new German universities called

humanists to the Holy Roman Empire. As has been said, humanism

dominated all Christian Europe in the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: Erasmus, Chief Humanist of the Sixteenth Century]

Towering above all his contemporaries was Erasmus, the foremost

humanist and the intellectual arbiter of the sixteenth century. Erasmus

(1466-1536) was a native of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, but

throughout a long and studious life he lived in Germany, France,

England, Italy, and Switzerland. He took holy orders in the Church and

secured the degree of doctor of sacred theology, but it was as a lover

of books and a prolific writer that he earned his title to fame.

Erasmus, to an even greater degree than Petrarch, became a great

international figure--the scholar of Europe. He corresponded with every

important writer of his generation, and he was on terms of personal

friendship with Aldus Manutius, the famous publisher of Venice, with

Sir Thomas More, the distinguished statesman and scholar of England,

with Pope Leo X, with Francis I of France, and with Henry VIII of

England. For a time he presided at Paris over the new College of

France.

A part of the work of Erasmus--his Greek edition of the New Testament

and his _Praise of Folly_--has already been mentioned. In a series

of satirical dialogues--the _Adages_ and the _Colloquies_--he

displayed a brilliant intellect and a sparkling wit. With quip and jest

he made light of the ignorance and credulity of many clergymen,

especially of the monks. He laughed at every one, himself included.

"Literary people," said he, "resemble the great figured tapestries of

Flanders, which produce effect only when seen from the distance."

[Sidenote: Humanism and Protestantism]

At first Erasmus was friendly with Luther, but as he strongly

disapproved of rebellion against the Church, he subsequently assailed

Luther and the whole Protestant movement. He remained outside the group

of radical reformers, to the end devoted to his favorite authors,

simply a lover of good Latin.

Perhaps the chief reason why Erasmus opposed Protestantism was because

he imagined that the theological tempest which Luther aroused all over

Catholic Europe would destroy fair-minded scholarship--the very essence

of humanism. Be that as it may, the leading humanists of Europe--More

in England, Helgesen in Denmark, and Erasmus himself--remained

Catholic. And while many of the sixteenth-century humanists of Italy

grew skeptical regarding all religion, their country, as we have seen,

did not become Protestant but adhered to the Roman Church.

[Sidenote: Decline of Humanism]

Gradually, as the sixteenth century advanced, many persons who in an

earlier generation would have applied their minds to the study of Latin

or Greek, now devoted themselves to theological discussion or moral

exposition. The religious differences between Catholics and

Protestants, to say nothing of the refinements of dispute between

Calvinists and Lutherans or Presbyterians and Congregationalists,

absorbed much of the mental energy of the time and seriously distracted

the humanists. In fact, we may say that, from the second half of the

sixteenth century, humanism as an independent intellectual interest

slowly but steadily declined. Nevertheless, it was not lost, for it was

merged with other interests, and with them has been preserved ever

since.

Humanism, whose seed was sown by Petrarch in the fourteenth century and

whose fruit was plucked by Erasmus in the sixteenth, still lives in

higher education throughout Europe and America. The historical

"humanities"--Latin, Greek, and history--are still taught in college

and in high school. They constitute the contribution of the dominant

intellectual interest of the sixteenth century.

ART IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Humanism and the Renaissance of Art]

The effect of the revived interest in Greek and Roman culture, which,

as we have seen, dominated European thought from the fourteenth to the

sixteenth century, was felt not only in literature and in the outward

life of its devotees--in ransacking monasteries for lost manuscripts

scripts, in critically studying ancient learning, and in consciously

imitating antique behavior--but likewise in a marvelous and many-sided

development of art.

The art of the middle ages had been essentially Christian--it sprang

from the doctrine and devotions of the Catholic Church and was

inextricably bound up with Christian life. The graceful Gothic

cathedrals, pointing their roofs and airy spires in heavenly

aspiration, the fantastic and mysterious carvings of wood or stone, the

imaginative portraiture of saintly heroes and heroines as well as of

the sublime story of the fall and redemption of the human race, the

richly stained glass, and the spiritual organ music--all betokened the

supreme thought of medieval Christianity. But humanism recalled to

men's minds the previous existence of an art simpler and more

restrained, if less ethereal. The reading of Greek and Latin writers

heightened an esteem for pagan culture in all its phases.

Therefore, European art underwent a transformation in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries. While much of the distinctively medieval culture

remained, civilization was enriched by a revival of classical art. The

painters, the sculptors, and the architects now sought models not

exclusively in their own Christian masters but in many cases in pagan

Greek and Roman forms. Gradually the two lines of development were

brought together, and the resulting union--the adaptation of classical

art-forms to Christian uses--was marked by an unparalleled outburst of

artistic energy.

From that period of exuberant art-expression in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries, our present-day love of beautiful things has come

down in unbroken succession. With no exaggeration it may be said that

the sixteenth century is as much the basis of our modern artistic life

as it is the foundation of modern Protestantism or of modern world

empire. The revolutions in commerce and religion synchronized with the

beginning of a new era in art. All arts were affected--architecture,

sculpture, painting, engraving, and music.

[Sidenote: Architecture]

In architecture, the severely straight and plain line of the ancient

Greek temples or the elegant gentle curve of the Roman dome was

substituted for the fanciful lofty Gothic. A rounded arch replaced the

pointed. And the ancient Greek orders--Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian--

were dragged from oblivion to embellish the simple symmetrical

buildings. The newer architecture was used for ecclesiastical and other

structures, reaching perhaps its highest expression in the vast

cathedral of St. Peter, which was erected at Rome in the sixteenth

century under the personal direction of great artists, among whom

Raphael and Michelangelo are numbered.

[Sidenote: In Italy]

The revival of Greek and Roman architecture, like humanism, had its

origin in Italy; and in the cities of the peninsula, under patronage of

wealthy princes and noble families, it attained its most general

acceptance. But, like humanism, it spread to other countries, which in

turn it deeply affected. The chronic wars, in which the petty Italian

states were engaged throughout the sixteenth century, were attended, as

we have seen, by perpetual foreign interference. But Italy, vanquished

in politics, became the victor in art. While her towns surrendered to

foreign armies, her architects and builders subdued Europe and brought

the Christian countries for a time under her artistic sway.

[Sidenote: In France]

Thus in France the revival was accelerated by the military campaigns of

Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, which led to the revelation of

the architectural triumphs in Italy, the result being the importation

of great numbers of Italian designers and craftsmen. Architecture after

the Greek or Roman manner at once became fashionable. Long, horizontal

lines appeared in many public buildings, of which the celebrated palace

of the Louvre, begun in the last year of the reign of Francis I (1546),

and to-day the home of one of the world's greatest art collections, is

a conspicuous example.

[Sidenote: In Other Countries]

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the new architecture

similarly entered Spain and received encouragement from Philip II.

About the same time it manifested itself in the Netherlands and in the

Germanies. In England, its appearance hardly took place in the

sixteenth century. it was not until 1619 that a famous architect, Inigo

Jones (1573-1651), designed and reared the classical banqueting house

in Whitehall, and not until the second half of the seventeenth century

did Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), by means of the majestic St.

Paul's cathedral in London, render the new architecture popular in

England.

[Sidenote: Sculpture]

Sculpture is usually an attendant of architecture, and it is not

surprising, therefore, that transformation of the one should be

connected with change in the other. The new movement snowed itself in

Italian sculpture as early as the fourteenth century, owing to the

influence of the ancient monuments which still abounded throughout the

peninsula and to which the humanists attracted attention. In the

fifteenth century archaeological discoveries were made and a special

interest fostered by the Florentine family of the Medici, who not only

became enthusiastic collectors of ancient works of art but promoted the

study of the antique figure. Sculpture followed more and more the Greek

and Roman traditions in form and often in subject as well. The plastic

art of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was strikingly

akin to that of Athens in the fifth or fourth centuries before Christ.

The first great apostle of the new sculpture was Lorenzo Ghiberti

(1378-1455), whose marvelous doors on the baptistery at Florence

elicited the comment of Michelangelo that they were "worthy of being

placed at the entrance of paradise." Slightly younger than Ghiberti was

Donatello (1383-1466), who, among other triumphs, fashioned the

realistic statue of St. Mark in Venice. Luca della Robbia (1400-1482),

with a classic purity of style and simplicity of expression, founded a

whole dynasty of sculptors in glazed terra-cotta. Elaborate tomb-

monuments, the construction of which started in the fifteenth century,

reached their highest magnificence in the gorgeous sixteenth-century

tomb of Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, the founder of the princely family

of Visconti in Milan. Michelangelo himself was as famous for his

sculpture as for his painting or his architecture; the heroic head of

his David at Florence is a work of unrivaled dignity. As the style of

classic sculpture became very popular in the sixteenth century, the

subjects were increasingly borrowed from pagan literature. Monuments

were erected to illustrious men of ancient Rome, and Greek mythology

was once more carved in stone.

The extension of the new sculpture beyond Italy was even more rapid

than the spread of the new architecture. Henry VII invited Italian

sculptors to England; Louis XII patronized the great Leonardo da Vinci,

and Francis I brought him to France. The tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella

in Spain was fashioned in classic form. The new sculpture was famous in

Germany before Luther; in fact, it was to be found everywhere in

sixteenth-century Europe.

[Sidenote: Painting]

Painting accompanied sculpture. Prior to the sixteenth century, most of

the pictures were painted directly upon the plaster walls of churches

or of sumptuous dwellings and were called frescoes, although a few were

executed on wooden panels. In the sixteenth century, however, easel

paintings--that is, detached pictures on canvas, wood, or other

material--became common. The progress in painting was not so much an

imitation of classical models as was the case with sculpture and

architecture, for the reason that painting, being one of the most

perishable of the arts, had preserved few of its ancient Greek or Roman

examples. But the artists who were interested in architecture and

sculpture were likewise naturally interested in painting; and painting,

bound by fewer antique traditions, reached a higher degree of

perfection in the sixteenth century than did any of its allied arts.

Modern painting was born in Italy. In Italy it found its four great

masters--Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. The

first two acquired as great a fame in architecture and in sculpture as

in painting; the last two were primarily painters.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), a Florentine by birth and training, was

patronized in turn by the Sforza family of Milan, by the Medici of

Florence, and by the French royal line. His great paintings--the Holy

Supper and Madonna Lisa, usually called La Gioconda--carried to a high

degree the art of composition and the science of light and shade and

color. In fact, Leonardo was a scientific painter--he carefully studied

the laws of perspective and painstakingly carried them into practice.

He was also a remarkable sculptor, as is testified by his admirable

horses in relief. As an engineer, too, he built a canal in northern

Italy and constructed fortifications about Milan. He was a musician and

a natural philosopher as well. This many-sided man liked to toy with

mechanical devices. One day when Louis XII visited Milan, he was met by

a large mechanical lion that roared and then reared itself upon its

haunches, displaying upon its breast the coat-of-arms of France: it was

the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo influenced his age perhaps more

than any other artist. He wrote extensively. He gathered about himself

a large group of disciples. And in his last years spent in France, as a

pensioner of Francis I, he encouraged painting in that country as well

as in Italy.

Michelangelo (1475-1564), Florentine like Leonardo, was probably the

most wonderful of all these artists because of his triumphs in a vast

variety of endeavors. It might almost be said of him that "jack of all

trades, he was master of all." He was a painter of the first rank, an

incomparable sculptor, a great architect, an eminent engineer, a

charming poet, and a profound scholar in anatomy and physiology.

Dividing his time between Florence and Rome, he served the Medici

family and a succession of art-loving popes. With his other qualities

of genius he combined austerity in morals, uprightness in character, a

lively patriotism for his native city and people, and a proud

independence. To give any idea of his achievements is impossible in a

book of this size. His tomb of Julius II in Rome and his colossal

statue of David in Florence are examples of his sculpture; the

cathedral of St. Peter, which he practically completed, is his most

enduring monument; the mural decorations in the Sistine Chapel at Rome,

telling on a grandiose scale the Biblical story from Creation to the

Flood, are marvels of design; and his grand fresco of the Last Judgment

is probably the most famous single painting in the world.

[Sidenote: Raphael]

Younger than Michelangelo and living only about half as long, Raphael

(1483-1520), nevertheless, surpassed him in the harmonious composition

and linear beauty of his painting. For ineffable charm of grace, "the

divine" Raphael has always stood without a peer. Raphael lived the

better part of his life at Rome under the patronage of Julius II and

Leo X, and spent several years in decorating the papal palace of the

Vatican. Although he was, for a time, architect of St. Peter's

cathedral, and displayed some aptitude for sculpture and for the

scholarly study of archæeology, it is as the greatest of modern

painters that he is now regarded. Raphael lived fortunately, always in

favor, and rich, and bearing himself like a prince.

[Sidenote: Titian]

Titian (c. 1477-1576) was the typical representative of the Venetian

school of painting which acquired great distinction in bright coloring.

Official painter for the city of Venice and patronized both by the

Emperor Charles V and by Philip II of Spain, he secured considerable

wealth and fame. He was not a man of universal genius like Leonardo da

Vinci or Michelangelo; his one great and supreme endowment was that of

oil painting. In harmony, light, and color, his work has never been

equaled. Titian's portrait of Philip II was sent to England and proved

a potent auxiliary in the suit of the Spanish king for the hand of Mary

Tudor. His celebrated picture of the Council of Trent was executed

after the aged artist's visit to the council about 1555.

From Italy as a center, great painting became the heritage of all

Europe. Italian painters were brought to France by Louis XII and

Francis I, and French painters were subsidized to imitate them. Philip

II proved himself a liberal patron of painting throughout his

dominions.

[Sidenote: Dürer]

In Germany, painting was developed by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a

native of Nuremberg, who received a stimulus from Italian work and was

royally patronized by the Emperor Maximilian. The career of Dürer was

honored and fortunate: he was on terms of friendship with all the first

masters of his age; he even visited and painted Erasmus. But it is as

an etcher or engraver, rather than as a painter, that Dürer's

reputation was earned. His greatest engravings--such as the Knight and

Death, and St. Jerome in his Study--set a standard in a new art which

has never been reached by his successors. The first considerable

employment of engraving, one of the most useful of the arts,

synchronized with the invention of printing. Just as books were a means

of multiplying, cheapening, and disseminating ideas, so engravings on

copper or wood were the means of multiplying, cheapening, and

disseminating pictures which gave vividness to the ideas, or served in

place of books for those who could not read.

The impetus afforded by this extraordinary development of painting

continued to affect the sixteenth century and a greater part of the

seventeenth. The scene shifted, however, from Italy to the Spanish

possessions. And Spanish kings, the successors of Philip II, patronized

such men as Rubens (1577-1640) and Van Dyck (1599-1641) in the Belgian

Netherlands, or Velasquez (1590-1660) and Murillo (1617-1682) in Spain

itself.

[Sidenote: Rubens and Van Dyck]

If the work of Rubens displayed little of the earlier Italian grace and

refinement, it at any rate attained to distinction in the purely

fanciful pictures which he painted in bewildering numbers, many of

which, commissioned by Marie de' Medici and King Louis XIII of France,

are now to be seen in the Louvre galleries in Paris. And Van Dyck

raised portrait painting to unthought-of excellence: his portraits of

the English royal children and of King Charles I are world-famous.

[Sidenote: Velasquez]

[Sidenote: Murillo]

Within the last century, many connoisseurs of art have been led to

believe that Velasquez formerly has been much underrated and that he

deserves to rank with the foremost Italian masters. Certainly in all

his work there is a dignity, power, and charm, especially in that well-

known Maids of Honor, where a little Spanish princess is depicted

holding her court, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, her dwarfs and

her mastiff, while the artist himself stands at his easel. The last

feat of Velasquez was to superintend the elaborate decorations in honor

of the marriage of the Spanish Infanta with King Louis XIV of France.

Murillo, the youngest of all these great painters, did most of his work

for the Catholic Church and naturally dealt with ecclesiastical

subjects.

A somewhat different type of painter is found in the Dutchman,

Rembrandt (1606-1669), who lived a stormy and unhappy life in the towns

of Leyden and Amsterdam. It must be remembered that Holland, while

following her national career of independence, commerce, and colonial

undertaking, had become stanchly Protestant. Neither the immoral

paganism of antiquity nor the medieval legends of Catholicism would

longer appeal to the Dutch people as fit subjects of art. Rembrandt,

prototype of a new school, therefore painted the actual life of the

people among whom he lived and the things which concerned them--lively

portraits of contemporary burgomasters, happy pictures of popular

amusements, stern scenes from the Old Testament. His Lesson in Anatomy

and his Night Watch in their somber settings, are wonderfully realistic

products of Rembrandt's mastery of the brush.

[Sidenote: Rembrandt]

[Sidenote: Music]

Thus painting, like architecture and sculpture, was perfected in

sixteenth-century Italy and speedily became the common property of

Christian Europe. Music, too, the most primitive and universal of the

arts, owes in its modern form very much to the sixteenth century.

During that period the barbarous and uncouth instruments of the middle

ages were reformed. The rebeck, to whose loud and harsh strains the

medieval rustic had danced, [Footnote: The rebeck probably had been

borrowed from the Mohammedans.] by the addition of a fourth string and

a few changes in form, became the sweet-toned violin, the most

important and expressive instrument of the modern orchestra. As

immediate forerunner of our present-day pianoforte, the harpsichord was

invented with a keyboard carried to four octaves and the chords of each

note doubled or quadrupled to obtain prolonged tones.

[Sidenote: Palestrina]

In the person of the papal organist and choir-master, Palestrina (1524-

1594), appeared the first master-composer. He is justly esteemed as the

father of modern religious music and for four hundred years the

Catholic Church has repeated his inspired accents. A pope of the

twentieth century declared his music to be still unrivaled and directed

its universal use. Palestrina directly influenced much of the Italian

music of the seventeenth century and the classical German productions

of the eighteenth.

NATIONAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Latin and the Vernaculars]

Latin had been the learned language of the middle ages: it was used in

the Church, in the universities, and in polite society. If a lecturer

taught a class or an author wrote a book, Latin was usually employed.

In those very middle ages, however, the nations of western Europe were

developing spoken languages quite at variance with the classical,

scholarly tongue. These so-called vernacular languages were not often

written and remained a long time the exclusive means of expression of

the lower classes--they consequently not only differed from each other

but tended in each case to fall into a number of petty local dialects.

So long as they were not largely written, they could achieve no fixity,

and it was not until after the invention of printing that the national

languages produced extensive national literatures.

Just when printing was invented, the humanists--the foremost scholars

of Europe--were diligently engaged in strengthening the position of

Latin by encouraging the study of the pagan classics. Virgil, Cicero,

Caesar, Tacitus, and the comedies of Plautus and Terence were again

read by educated people for their substance and for their style.

Petrarch imitated the manner of Latin classics in his letters; Erasmus

wrote his great works in Latin. The revival of Greek, which was also

due to the humanists, added to the learning and to the literature of

the cultured folk, but Greek, even more than Latin, was hardly

understood or appreciated by the bulk of the people.

Then came the sixteenth century, with its artistic developments, its

national rivalries, its far-away discoveries, its theological debates,

and its social and religious unrest. The common people, especially the

commercial middle class, clamored to understand: and the result was the

appearance of national literatures on a large scale. Alongside of

Latin, which was henceforth restricted to the liturgy of the Roman

Catholic Church and to particularly learned treatises, there now

emerged truly literary works in Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese,

German, English, etc. The printing of these works at once stereotyped

their respective languages, so that since the sixteenth century the

written forms of the vernacular tongues have been subject to relatively

minor change. Speaking generally, the sixteenth century witnessed the

fixing of our best known modern languages.

To review all the leading writers who employed the various vernaculars

in the sixteenth century would encroach too much upon the province of

professed histories of comparative literature, but a few references to

certain figures that tower head and shoulders above all others in their

respective countries may serve to call vividly to mind the importance

of the period for national literatures.

[Sidenote: Italian Literature]

At the very outset, one important exception must be made in favor of

Italy, whose poetry and prose had already been immortalized by Dante,

Petrarch, and Boccaccio a hundred years and more before the opening of

the sixteenth century. But that country, as we have already repeatedly

observed in many kinds of art, anticipated all others in modern times.

Italy, almost the last European land to be politically unified, was the

first to develop a great national literature.

But Italian literature was broadened and popularized by several

influential writers in the sixteenth century, among whom stand

preeminent the Florentine diplomat Machiavelli (1469-1527), whose

_Prince_ really founded the modern science of politics, and who

taught the dangerous doctrine that a ruler, bent on exercising a

benevolent despotism, is justified in employing any means to achieve

his purpose; Ariosto (1474-1533), whose great poem _Orlando

Furioso_ displayed a powerful imagination no less than a rare and

cultivated taste; and the unhappy mad Tasso (1544-1595), who in

_Jerusalem Delivered_ produced a bulky epic poem, adapting the

manner of Virgil to a crusading subject, and in Aminta gave to his

countrymen a delightful pastoral drama, the exquisite lyrics of which

were long sung in opera.

[Sidenote: French literature]

French literature, like other French art, was encouraged by Francis I.

He set up printing presses, established the College of France, and

pensioned native writers. The most famous French author of the time was

the sarcastic and clever Rabelais (c. 1490-1553), whose memorable

_Gargantua_ comprised a series of daring fanciful tales, told with

humor of a rather vulgar sort. The language of _Gargantua_ is

somewhat archaic--perhaps the French version of Calvin's

_Institutes_ would be a better example of the French of the

sixteenth century. But France, thus seriously beginning her national

literature, was to wait for its supremacy until the seventeenth

century--until the institution of the French Academy and the age of

Louis XIV.

[Sidenote: Spanish Literature]

Spanish literature flourished in the golden era when Velasquez and

Murillo were painting their masterpieces. The immortal _Don

Quixote_, which was published in 1604, entitles its author,

Cervantes (1547-1616), to rank with the greatest writers of all time.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635), far-famed poet, virtually founded the Spanish

theater and is said to have composed eighteen hundred dramatic pieces.

Calderon (1600-1681), although less effective in his numerous dramas,

wrote allegorical poems of unequaled merit. The printing of large cheap

editions of many of these works made Spanish literature immediately

popular.

[Sidenote: Portuguese Literature]

How closely the new vernacular literatures reflected significant

elements in the national life is particularly observable in the case of

Portugal. It was of the wonderful exploring voyages of Vasco da Gama

that Camoens (1524-1580), prince of Portuguese poets, sang his stirring

_Lusiads_.

[Sidenote: German Literature]

In the Germanies, the extraordinary influence of humanism at first

militated against the development of literature in the vernacular, but

the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, in his desire to reach the ears

of the common people, turned from Latin to German. Luther's translation

of the Bible constitutes the greatest monument in the rise of modern

German.

To speak of what our own English language and literature owe to the

sixteenth century seems superfluous. The popular writings of Chaucer in

the fourteenth century were historically important, but the presence of

very many archaic words makes them now difficult to read. But in

England, from the appearance in 1551 of the English version of Sir

Thomas More's _Utopia_, [Footnote: Originally published in Latin

in 1516.] a representation of an ideal state, to the publication of

Milton's grandiose epic, _Paradise Lost_, in 1667, there was a

continuity of great literature. There were Cranmer's Book of Common

Prayer and the King James Version of the Bible; Edmund Spenser's

graceful _Faerie Queene_; [Footnote: For its scenery and mechanism, the

Orlando Furioso of Ariosto furnished the framework; and it similarly

shows the influence of Tasso.] the supreme Shakespeare; Ben Jonson and

Marlowe; Francis Bacon and Richard Hooker; Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy

Taylor; and the somber Milton himself.

BEGINNINGS OF MODERN NATURAL SCIENCE

[Sidenote: Two-fold Development of Culture, Science and Art]

Human civilization, or culture, always depends upon progress in two

directions--the reason, and the feelings or emotions. Art is the

expression of the latter, and science of the former. Every great period

in the world's history, therefore, is marked by a high appreciation of

aesthetics and an advance in knowledge. To this general rule, the

sixteenth century was no exception, for it was distinguished not only

by a wonderful development of architecture, sculpture, painting,

engraving, music, and literature,--whether Roman, Greek, or

vernacular,--but it is the most obvious starting point of our modern

ideas of natural and experimental science.

Nowadays, we believe that science is at once the legitimate means and

the proper goal of the progress of the race, and we fill our school

curricula with scientific studies. But this spirit is essentially

modern: it owes its chief stimulus to important achievements in the

sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth.

[Sidenote: Characteristics of the Sixteenth Century]

Five elements contributed to impress the period that we are now

reviewing with a scientific character. In the first place, the

humanists encouraged a critical spirit in comparing and contrasting

ancient manuscripts and in investigating the history of the distant

past; and their discovery and application of pagan writings served to

bring clearly and abruptly before the educated people of the sixteenth

century all that the Greeks and Romans had done in astronomy, physics,

mathematics, and medicine, as well as in philosophy, art, and

literature. Secondly, the invention of printing itself was a scientific

feat, and its extended use enabled scientists, no less than artists,

immediately to acquaint the whole civilized world with their ideas and

demonstrations.

Thirdly, the marvelous maritime discoveries of new routes to India and

of a new world, which revolutionized European commerce, added much to

geographical knowledge and led to the construction of scientific maps

of the earth's surface. Fourthly, the painstaking study of a small

group of scholars afforded us our first glimpse of the real character

of the vast universe about our own globe--the scientific basis of

modern astronomy. Lastly, two profound thinkers, early in the

seventeenth century,--Francis Bacon and Descartes,--pointed out new

ways of using the reason--the method of modern science.

In an earlier chapter, an account has been given of the maritime

discoveries of the sixteenth century and their immediate results in

broadening intellectual interests. In this chapter, some attention

already has been devoted to the rise of humanism and likewise to the

invention of printing. It remains, therefore, to say a few words about

the changes in astronomy and in scientific method that characterized

the beginning of modern times.

[Side Note: Astronomy]

In the year 1500 the average European knew something about the universe

of sun, moon, planets, and stars, but it was scarcely more than the

ancient Greeks had known, and its chief use was to foretell the future.

This practical aspect of astronomy was a curious ancient misconception,

which now passes under the name of astrology. It was popularly believed

prior to the sixteenth century that every heavenly body exerted a

direct and arbitrary influence upon human character and events,

[Footnote: Disease was attributed to planetary influence. This

connection between medicine and astrology survives in the sign of

Jupiter 4, which still heads medicinal prescriptions.] and that by

casting "horoscopes," showing just how the stars appeared at the birth

of any person, the subsequent career of such an one might be foreseen.

Many silly notions and superstitions grew up about astrology, yet the

practice persisted. Charles V and Francis I, great rivals in war, vied

with each other in securing the services of most eminent astrologers,

and Catherine de' Medici never tired of reading horoscopes.

[Sidenote: "The Ptolemaic System"]

Throughout the middle ages the foremost scholars had continued to

cherish the astronomical knowledge of the Greeks, which had been

conveniently collected and systematized by a celebrated mathematician

and scholar living in Egypt in the second century of the Christian era

--Ptolemy by name. Among other theories and ideas, Ptolemy taught that

the earth is the center of the universe, that revolving about it are

the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, the other planets, and the fixed

stars, and that the entire machine is turned with incredible velocity

completely around every twenty-four hours. This so-called Ptolemaic

system of astronomy fitted in very nicely with the language of the

Bible and with the popular prejudice that the earth remains stationary

while the heavenly bodies daily rise and set. It was natural that for

many centuries the Christians should accept the views of Ptolemy as

almost divinely inspired.

[Sidenote: "The Copernican System"]

However, a contradictory theory of the solar system was propounded and

upheld in the sixteenth century, quite supplanting the Ptolemaic theory

in the course of the seventeenth. The new system is called Copernican

after its first modern exponent--and its general acceptance went far to

annihilate astrology and to place astronomy upon a rational basis.

Copernicus [the Latin form of his real name, Koppernigk (1473-1543)]

was a native of Poland, who divided his time between official work for

the Catholic Church and private researches in astronomy. It was during

a ten-year sojourn in Italy (1496-1505), studying canon law and

medicine, and familiarizing himself, through humanistic teachers, with

ancient Greek astronomers, that Copernicus was led seriously to

question the Ptolemaic system and to cast about in search of a truthful

substitute. Thenceforth for many years he studied and reflected, but it

was not until the year of his death (1543) that his results were

published to the world. His book--_On the Revolutions of the

Celestial Bodies_, dedicated to Pope Paul III--offered the theory

that the earth is not the center of the universe but simply one of a

number of planets which revolve about the sun. The earth seemed much

less important in the Copernican universe than in the Ptolemaic.

The Copernican thesis was supported and developed by two distinguished

astronomers at the beginning of the next century--Kepler (1571-1630)

and Galileo (1564-1642), one a German, the other an Italian. Kepler

taught astronomy for a number of years at Gratz and subsequently made

his home in Prague, where he acquired a remarkable collection of

instruments [Footnote: From Tycho Brahe, whose assistant he was in

1600-1601.] that enabled him to conduct numerous interesting

experiments. While he entertained many fantastic and mystical theories

of the "harmony of the spheres" and was not above casting horoscopes

for the emperor and for Wallenstein, that soldier of fortune,

[Footnote: See below, pp. 223, 226.] he nevertheless established

several of the fundamental laws of modern astronomy, such as those

governing the form and magnitude of the planetary orbits. It was Kepler

who made clear that the planets revolve about the sun in elliptical

rather than in strictly circular paths.

Galileo popularized the Copernican theory. [Footnote: Another

"popularizer" was Giordano Bruno (c. 1548-1600).] His charming lectures

in the university of Padua, where he taught from 1592 to 1610, were so

largely attended that a hall seating 2000 had to be provided. In 1609

he perfected a telescope, which, although hardly more powerful than a

present-day opera glass, showed unmistakably that the sun was turning

on its axis, that Jupiter was attended by revolving moons, and that the

essential truth of the Copernican system was established. Unfortunately

for Galileo, his enthusiastic desire to convert the pope immediately to

his own ideas got him into trouble with the Roman Curia and brought

upon him a prohibition from further writing. Galileo submitted like a

loyal Catholic to the papal decree, but had he lived another hundred

years, he would have rejoiced that almost all men of learning--popes

included--had come to accept his own conclusions. Thus modern astronomy

was suggested by Copernicus, developed by Kepler, and popularized by

Galileo.

The acquisition of sound knowledge in astronomy and likewise in every

other science rests primarily upon the observation of natural facts or

phenomena and then upon deducing rational conclusions from such

observation. Yet this seemingly simple rule had not been continuously

and effectively applied in any period of history prior to the sixteenth

century. The scientific method of most of the medieval as well as of

the ancient scholars was essentially that of Aristotle. [Footnote:

Exception to this sweeping generalization must be made in favor of

several medieval scientists and philosophers, including--Roger Bacon, a

Franciscan friar of the thirteenth century.] This so-called deductive

method of Aristotle assumed as a starting-point some general of

principle as a premise or hypothesis and thence proceeded, by logical

reasoning, to deduce concrete applications or consequences. It had been

extremely valuable in stimulating the logical faculties and in showing

men how to draw accurate conclusions, but it had shown a woeful

inability to devise new general principles. It evolved an elaborate

theology and a remarkable philosophy, but natural experimental science

progressed relatively little until the deductive method of Aristotle

was supplemented by the inductive method of Francis Bacon.

[Sidenote: Modern Method of Science: Introduction. Francis Bacon]

Aristotle was partially discredited by radical humanists, who made fun

of the medieval scholars who had taken him most seriously, and by the

Protestant reformers, who assailed the Catholic theology which had been

carefully constructed by Aristotelian deduction. But it was reserved

for Francis Bacon, known as Lord Bacon (1561-1626), to point out all

the shortcomings of the ancient method and to propose a practicable

supplement. A famous lawyer, lord chancellor of England under James I,

a born scientist, a brilliant essayist, he wrote several philosophical

works of first-rate importance, of which the _Advancement of

Learning_ (1604) and the _Novum Organum_ (1620) are the most

famous. It is in these works that he summed up the faults which the

widening of knowledge in his own day was disclosing in ancient and

medieval thought and set forth the necessity of slow laborious

observation of facts as antecedent to the assumption of any general

principle.

[Sidenote: Descartes]

What of scientific method occurred to Lord Bacon appealed even more to

the intellectual genius of the Frenchman Descartes (1596-1660). A

curious combination of sincere practicing Catholic and of original

daring rationalist was this man, traveling all about Europe, serving as

a soldier in the Netherlands, in Bavaria, in Hungary, living in

Holland, dying in Sweden, with a mind as restless as his body. Now

interested in mathematics, now in philosophy, presently absorbed in

physics or in the proof of man's existence, throughout his whole career

he held fast to the faith that science depends not upon the authority

of books but upon the observation of facts. "Here are my books," he

told a visitor, as he pointed to a basket of rabbits that he was about

to dissect. The _Discourse on Method_ (1637) and the _Principles

of Philosophy_ (1644), taken in conjunction with Bacon's work,

ushered in a new scientific era, to some later phases of which we shall

have occasion to refer in subsequent chapters.

ADDITIONAL READING

THE RENAISSANCE. GENERAL. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. I (1902),

ch. xvi, xvii; _Histoire générale_, Vol. IV, ch. vii, viii, Vol. V, ch.

x, xi; E. M. Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation_, 2d ed. (1915), ch.

v-vii, xix, xxix, xxx. More detailed accounts: Jakob Burckhardt, _The

Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy_, trans. by S.

G. C. Middlemore, 2 vols. (1878), 1 vol. ed. (1898), scholarly and

profound; J. A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, 5 parts in 7 vols.

(1897-1898), interesting and suggestive but less reliable than

Burckhardt; Ludwig Geiger, _Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und

Deutschland_ (1882), in the great Oncken Series; F. X. Kraus,

_Geschichte der christlichen Kunst_, 2 vols. in 4 (1896-1908), a

monumental work of great interest and importance, by a German Catholic.

HUMANISM. The best description of the rise and spread of humanism is J.

E. Sandys, _A History of Classical Scholarship_, Vol. II (1908). For

the spirit of early humanism see H. C. Hollway-Calthrop, _Petrarch: his

Life and Times_ (1907); J. H. Robinson and H. W. Rolfe, _Petrarch, the

First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters_, 2d ed. (1914), a selection

from Petrarch's letters to Boccaccio and other contemporaries,

translated into English, with a valuable introduction; Pierre de

Nolhac, _Pétrarque et l'humanisme_, 2d ed., 2 vols. in 1 (1907). Of the

antecedents of humanism a convenient summary is presented by Louise

Loomis, _Mediæval Hellenism_ (1906). A popular biography of Erasmus is

that of Ephraim Emerton, _Desiderius Erasmus_ (1899); the Latin

_Letters of Erasmus_ are now (1916) in course of publication by P. S.

Allen; F. M. Nichols, _The Epistles of Erasmus_, 2 vols. (1901-1906),

an excellent translation of letters written prior to 1517; Erasmus's

_Praise of Folly_, in English translation, is obtainable in many

editions. D. F. Strauss, _Ulrich von Hutten, his Life and Times_,

trans. by Mrs. G. Sturge (1874), gives a good account of the whole

humanistic movement and treats Hutten very sympathetically; _The

Letters of Obscure Men_, to which Hutten contributed, were published,

with English translation, by F. G. Stokes in 1909. An excellent edition

of _The Utopia_ of Sir Thomas More, the famous English humanist, is

that of George Sampson (1910), containing also an English translation

and the charming contemporary _Biography_ by More's son-in-law, William

Roper. The standard summary of the work of the humanists is the German

writing of Georg Voigt, _Die Wiederbelebung des classischen

Alterthums_, 3d ed., 2 vols. (1893). Interesting extracts from the

writings of a considerable variety of humanists are translated by

Merrick Whitcomb in his _Literary Source Books_ of the Renaissance in

Germany and in Italy (1898-1899).

INVENTION OF PRINTING. T. L. De Vinne, _Invention of Printing_, 2d

ed. (1878), and, by the same author, _Notable Printers of Italy

during the Fifteenth Century_ (1910), two valuable works by an

eminent authority on the subject; G. H. Putnam, _Books and their

Makers during the Middle Ages_, 2 vols. (1896-1897), a useful

contribution of another experienced publisher; Johannes Janssen,

_History of the German People_, Vol. I, Book I, ch. i. There is an

interesting essay on "Publication before Printing" by R. K. Root in the

_Publications of the Modern Language Association_, Vol. XXVIII

(1913), pp. 417-431.

NATIONAL LITERATURES. Among the many extended bibliographies of

national literatures the student certainly should be familiar with the

_Cambridge History of English Literature_, ed. by A. W. Ward and

A. R. Waller, 12 vols. (1907-1916); and with G. Lanson, _Manuel

bibliographique de la littérature française moderne_, 1500-1900, 4

vols. (1909-1913). See also, as suggestive references, Pasquale

Villari, _The Life and Times of Machiavelli_, 2 vols. in i (1898);

A. A. Tilley, _The Literature of the French Renaissance_, 2 vols.

(1904); George Saintsbury, _A History of Elizabethan Literature_

(1887); and Sir Sidney Lee, _Life of Shakespeare_, new rev. ed.

(1915).

ART IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Architecture: A. D. F. Hamlin, _A

Textbook of the History of Architecture_, 5th ed. (1902), a brief

general survey; _A History of Architecture_, Vols. I, II by Russell

Sturgis (1906), III, IV by A. L. Frothingham (1915); Banister Fletcher,

_A History of Architecture_, 5th ed. (1905); James Fergusson, _History

of Architecture in All Countries_, 3d rev. ed., 5 vols. (1891-1899).

Sculpture: Allan Marquand and A. L. Frothingham, _A Text-book of the

History of Sculpture_ (1896); Wilhelm von Lubke, _History of

Sculpture_, Eng. trans., 2 vols. (1872). Painting: J. C. Van Dyke, _A

Text-book of the History of Painting_, new rev. ed. (1915); Alfred von

Woltmann and Karl Woermann, _History of Painting_, Eng. trans., 2 vols.

(1894). Music: W. S. Pratt, _The History of Music_ (1907). See also the

_Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and

Architects_ by Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574), the contemporary and friend

of Michelangelo, trans. by Mrs. Foster in the Bohn Library; Osvald

Siren, _Leonardo da Vinci: the Artist and the Man_ (1915); and Romain

Rolland, _Michelangelo_ (1915).

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modem

History_, Vol. V (1908), ch. xxiii, Vol. IV (1906), ch. xxvii,

scholarly accounts of Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, and their

contemporaries. A veritable storehouse of scientific facts is H. S. and

E. H. Williams, _A History of Science_, 10 vols. (1904-1910).

Specifically, see Arthur Berry, _Short History of Astronomy_ (1899);

Karl von Gebler, _Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia_, Eng. trans. by

Mrs. George Sturge (1879); B. L. Conway, _The Condemnation of Galileo_

(1913); and Galileo, _Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences_, Eng.

trans. by Crew and Salvio (1914). _The Philosophical Works of Francis

Bacon_, ed. by J. M. Robertson (1905), is a convenient edition. On the

important thinkers from the time of Machiavelli to the middle of the

eighteenth century, see Harald Hoffding, _A History of Modern

Philosophy_, Vol. I (1900); W. A. Dunning, _A History of Political

Theories from Luther to Montesquieu_ (1905); Paul Janet, _Histoire de

la science politique dans ses rapports avec la morale_, 3d ed., Vol. II

(1887).

PART II

DYNASTIC AND COLONIAL RIVALRY

In the seventeenth century and in the greater part of the eighteenth,

public attention was directed chiefly toward dynastic and colonial

rivalries. In the European group of national states, France was the

most important. Politically the French evolved a form of absolutist

divine-right monarchy, which became the pattern of all European

monarchies, that of England alone excepted. In international affairs

the reigning family of France--the Bourbon dynasty after a long

struggle succeeded in humiliating the rulers of Spain and of Austria--

the Habsburg dynasty. The hegemony which, in the sixteenth century,

Spain had exercised in the newly established state-system of Europe was

now supplanted by that of France. Intellectually, too, Italian

leadership yielded to French, until France set the fashion alike in

manners, morals, and art. Only in the sphere of commerce and trade and

exploitation of lands beyond the seas was French supremacy questioned,

and there not by declining Portugal or Spain but by the vigorous

English nation. France, victorious in her struggle for dynastic

aggrandizement on the continent of Europe, was destined to suffer

defeat in her efforts to secure colonies in Asia and America.

This period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was marked

likewise by the constant decay of old political and social institutions

in Italy and in Germany, by the gradual decline of the might and

prestige of the Ottoman Turks, and by the extinction of the ancient

kingdom of Poland. In their place appeared as great world powers the

northern monarchies of Prussia and Russia, whose royal lines--

Hohenzollerns and Romanovs--were to vie in ambition and prowess, before

the close of the period, with Habsburgs and Bourbons.

Socially, the influence of nobles and clergy steadily declined. As

steadily arose the numbers, the ability, and the importance of the

traders and commercial magnates, the moneyed people, all those who were

identified with the new wealth that the Commercial Revolution was

creating, the lawyers, the doctors, the professors, the merchants,--the

so-called middle class, the _bourgeoisie_, who gradually grew

discontented with the restrictive institutions of their time. Within

the _bourgeoisie_ was the seed of revolution: they would one day in

their own interests overturn monarchy, nobility, the Church, the whole

social fabric. That was to be the death-knell of the old regime--the

annunciation of the nineteenth century.