There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more or less partake. One is where the elements combine with a tendency toward organic development; another, where these elements fall apart with a tendency toward disintegration; and still another, where all processes, constructive and destructive, are arrested as in a crystal. The United States, the Ottoman Empire, and China illustrate these three conditions to-day.
The Teuton, who had been such a powerful element in renovating other European nations, had thus far seemed incapable of consolidating his own national life when left to himself. The tendency was steadily toward disintegration rather than growth.
This was not alone because the strength of the Teutonic kingdom was wasted in pursuit of that glittering toy bestowed by the Pope; but on account of internal strifes and rivalries which employed the hostile schemes of the Roman Pontiff for their own ends and purposes.
The rivalry with the Pope, in itself a destructive element, was made still more destructive when it was thus used by disaffected dukes as a means of annoying and circumventing Emperors whom they disliked.
A Frederick Barbarossa might arrest these processes for a time. But one century later the ruin was complete.
Frederick II., the last of the Hohenstaufens, died, leaving an empty throne and a broken and shattered empire. It was destined to rise again and to wear the name and trappings of its former greatness, but, crippled and degraded, to be in reality a mere shadow and semblance of what it had once aspired to be—the head of the world.
A period of twenty years then followed, known as the "Great Interregnum." A time when there was no King nor Emperor; when robbery and brigandage became the employment of needy knights, and when great barons made war upon and waylaid each other on the highways.
It was a time of strange chaos and darkness. And yet this period, apparently so unfavorable to growth, brought forth two of the most pregnant events in the history of Germany. These were the creation of the Hanseatic League and the birth of German literature. The one laid the foundation of a real national life in which the people should participate; while the other gave expression to the romantic ideals of a hitherto silent race.
The great German epic, which is the Iliad of the Middle Ages, was produced at this darkest hour in the history of Germany. The Nibelungen Lied deals with the colossal crimes, loves, and sorrows of Burgundian kings and princesses at the time of the Hunnish invasion. And it has been the good fortune of Germany, six hundred years later, to have a son (Richard Wagner) who has clothed that great epic in music which matches it in heroic dignity and splendor.
The other event was of deeper import than this. The burgs, or cities, which were created as a defense against the Hungarians, had become busy centers of manufacture and trade, and to some extent of learning. Many of them had been made free cities. That is, they were under the direct control of the Emperors instead of the hereditary nobles as at first. These cities enjoyed especial privileges and immunities which drew to them population and prosperity. The true policy for German Emperors, harassed by Italian intrigues and at war with their own archbishops and disaffected nobles, would have been to form close alliance with these free cities, and make friends of their burghers and guilds.
When there was no king, no ruler in the land, when robbery ran riot so that traveling was impossible, two cities, Hamburg and Lubeck, agreed together to keep order in their neighborhood. Then Brunswick and Bremen joined; and at last over a hundred towns had combined together in what was called the "Hanseatic League."
This Confederacy became the mightiest power in the North of Europe; and at one time even threatened the overthrow of feudalism, and to convert West Germany into a federation of free municipalities.
When trades increased in the cities, each trade managed its own affairs by an organization called aguild. The guilds in the course of time obtained a share in the government of the towns; and it was the regenerating power of these guilds which brought about this great movement. With their simple ideals of truth, sincerity, and justice, they were the storehouses of that power which is the real life of a nation. As well expect a tree to flourish when its sap is not permitted to rise, or a man to be well when the blood is obstructed in his veins, as to look for healthful growth and expansion in a nation from which the life of its common people is excluded!
Among these early guilds, that of the Meistersingers, which was chartered in 1340, was of vast importance in the development of the German people.
It was composed of artisans and governed by the strict, pedantic rules then existing in the arts of musical and literary composition.
The prizes did not confer as great an honor as those bestowed at Olympia two thousand years before, but they were sought with an intense enthusiasm.
The soul of the Teuton was by nature set to music. For him that art was not a luxury reserved for the rich and cultured, but the daily food which nourished the life of the most untutored. Within this musical and literary guild the two arts of music and poetry for centuries existed in their most elementary form, and were the soil out of which later came such marvelous blossom and fruit.
Germany, which had always been a loosely compacted mass, was at the close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty composed of 60 independent cities, 116 priestly rulers, and 100 reigning dukes, princes, counts, and barons, always rivals and usually at war with each other, in perpetually changing combinations for attack or defense.
Lying beneath this body of small and struggling sovereigns was a people in whom was the first dawning consciousness of human rights; which consciousness was gradually extending to that helpless mass underlying the whole—the peasantry.
In 1273 the German princes succeeded in electing an Emperor; and the Great Interregnum was over.
It is a curious fact that the two namesHapsburgandHohenzollernshould have appeared simultaneously in German history. Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg, through the influence of his brother-in-law Frederick of Hohenzollern, Count of Nuremburg, was chosen to fill the vacant throne. It was during the reign of Albert, son of this first Hapsburg, that the Swiss first revolted against imperial authority.
Gessler, who had been sent by Albert to subdue the refractory Alpine shepherds, so exasperated them by his atrocities that he was shot by William Tell. It was a long way from Tell to Swiss freedom and independence. But the people from that hour never wavered in their determination not to be serfs to the house of Hapsburg.
The Hanseatic League in North Germany, and the invincibly free spirit in Switzerland, were the two things of deepest significance at this time of political chaos.
Side by side with this assertion of political rights, there had commenced a general intellectual awakening. The Bishop of Ratisbon, Albertus Magnus, was so learned in mathematics and in science that people believed he was a sorcerer.[1] Godfrey of Strasburg had written an epic poem about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Wolfram of Eschenbach had told of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal; and a learned history of Denmark had been written, without which our own literature would have suffered immeasurable loss, for in it Shakspeare found the story of Hamlet!
It was at this time (1356) that the famous "Golden Bull" was issued, a new electoral system, which reduced the number of electors to seven.
The idea was that as the sun and the seven planets illumined our heavens, so that great luminary, the German Emperor, should be the center of a political system composed of seven Electors.
These earthly luminaries, whose duty it was to elect a new Emperor, were the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trèves, and the temporal princes of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatine of the Rhine.
The very first act of these seven wise men was to place upon the throne Wenceslas, a brutal madman, who might better have been confined as a maniac.
It was during the reign of his brother and successor Sigismund that the burning of John Huss lighted the conflagration in Bohemia known as the Hussite War.
John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague, had dared to raise his voice against the temporal enrichment of a church whose Founder had not where to lay his head, and who had put behind him the kingdoms of this earth, when offered to him by Satan!
Huss, for this offense, came under the displeasure of the bishops. Charges were brought against him that he had maintained the existence of four Gods, and he was condemned and burnt (1415).
The Hussite war had none of the reforming purpose which led to the martyrdom they wished to avenge. It was a mad strife, beginning over some detail of the Communion Service, and ending in a war between Bohemian and German, in which for nearly twenty years the country ran with blood.
At this period an event occurred of trifling significance then, but of profound importance to future Germany.
In 1411 the Emperor borrowed one hundred thousand florins of Frederick of Hohenzollern, the Burgrave, or "Count of the Castle," of Nuremburg, direct descendant from that first Hohenzollern who helped to found the Hapsburg dynasty. For this loan Sigismund gave his creditor a mortgage on the territory of Brandenburg. Frederick at once took up his residence there, and subsequently made an offer of three hundred thousand gold florins more to purchase the territory. The Emperor accepted the terms, so the then small state was thereafter the home of the Hohenzollerns, and was on its way to become Prussia.
Sigismund and his brother Wenceslas belonged to another dynasty, that of Luxemburg. But after the death of the former, in 1440, the Hapsburgs succeeded again to the crown, which they wore until it was taken off at the bidding of Napoleon in 1806.
Just before the issuance of the Golden Bull, there had occurred that most revolutionary event, the discovery of gunpowder. When a man in leathern jacket could do more than a knight in armor, when safety depended upon quickness and lightness, and ponderous iron and steel were fatal—then a momentous change in conditions was at hand! The destruction of feudalism was involved in this discovery of 1344.
Under Frederick III., that Hapsburg who came to the throne in 1440, the Empire seemed to have reached a climax of disorder. Old things were passing away, and the new had not yet come to take their place.
On the eastern shore of the Baltic the march of German civilization had received an almost fatal check. The "German Order," an organization of knights intended to keep back the Slavonic tide, had failed to do so. Holland was becoming estranged from the German Empire. France had obtained possession of Flanders. Luxemburg, Lorraine, and Burgundy were becoming practically independent; while it began to seem as if Switzerland were forever lost to Germany.
And now the Hungarians were setting up their new king, the valiant Hunyadi; and the Bohemians theirs, George of Podjebrod. Not only were these kingdoms and principalities slipping away, but the peasants in the cantons of the Alps, and elsewhere in revolt, were some of them led by great nobles.
Still another, and perhaps the gravest of all these dangers, was one which yet darkens our horizon in this closing nineteenth century!
In the year 1250 the Turks had commenced their existence in Asia Minor, with one little clan, led by one obscure chieftain. This clan had grown as if by miracle into a great empire in the East, rivaling in power that of the Saracens, whose successors they were as the head of the Mahomedan Empire. The Turks had been steadily encroaching upon Germany; had made havoc in Hungary; had devastated Austria, and were now insolently pressing on toward their goal, the Imperial palace at Vienna.
While the incompetent and drowsy Emperor Frederick III. was helplessly viewing these stupendous overturnings, there occurred that other event, as important in the empire of thought as the invention of gunpowder had been in that of political institutions.
The invention of printing (1450),—that art preservative of all arts,—was the greatest step yet taken in the emancipation of the human mind.
The poor inventor was, after the manner of inventors, badly treated. John Fust, on account of Gutenberg's inability to pay back the money he had loaned him for his experiment, seized the printing press, and himself proceeded to finish printing the Bible.
The rapidity with which the copies were produced, and their precise resemblance to each other, created such astonishment that a report spread that Fust had sold himself to the devil, with whom he was in league.
This, together with the identity of names, led Victor Hugo, Klinger, and other writers to confuse John Fust, the practicer of the Black Art in mediæval times, with John Fust the printer. And as the original Fust had come to stand for the emancipation of the human intellect through free learning, and as printing was above all else the means for such emancipation, the coincidence, if such it be, was, to say the least, remarkable!
When we approach the time of Isabella of Castile and of Columbus, and when we are confronted with that familiar specter, the Turk, in Southeastern Europe, we feel that we are in sight of the lights on familiar headlands, and are not far from port. We are not very near to that haven, but we are passing the line which divides the old from the new.
[1] See chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
It was not alone in Germany that the old was vanishing. The movement in that country was part of a general condition prevailing in England, France, and Spain; all with the same tendency—the passing of the power from many small despotisms to one greater one. It was an advance, although a slow one, in the path of progress. Feudalism—that newfangled system which had so tried the soul of Duke Welf in the ninth century—was dissolving.
In England the war with France, and the War of the Roses, by impoverishing the nobles had broken their remaining authority, and that system which had been gradually perishing since the Conquest was virtually dead.
In France Louis XI. had cunningly conceived the idea of recovering the power of the throne by an apparent friendship with the people; and a combination was thus formed against which a decrepit feudalism could not long stand.
In Spain the smaller kingdoms had at last been merged into two larger ones, and by the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella, and the expulsion of the Moors which quickly followed that event, that country was at last consolidated into one kingdom—in which feudalism no longer existed as a disturbing power.
In northern Italy also, among that brilliant group of small republics, there was this same centralizing tendency at work. Florence had passed into the strong keeping of the Medici (1434), while Genoa and most of the Lombard republics were gravitating toward the control of Milan.
It was at this period that there were for the first time formed those combinations and alliances between the nations of Europe which led finally to a system existing for the preservation of thebalance of power. In fact, after the various monarchies had assumed these firmer and more definite outlines, there began a process of weaving them together into a larger whole; and the threads used in this process are known asEuropean diplomacy, which, as we have recently seen, is stronger than individual sovereigns!
It was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the fifteenth century that the Imperial throne of Germany should be occupied, at this time of centralizing tendencies, by a man determined not alone to reign but to rule.
Maximilian I., son of the sleepy Frederick III., was chosen by the electors in 1486. He was full of energy, intelligence, and heart, and was, besides, the handsomest prince in Europe, and his wife, Mary of Burgundy, was the fairest of princesses.
The people, weary of disorder and insecurity, were glad to feel the touch of a strong hand. Maximilian firmly planted the foundations of the house of Hapsburg. From that time the choice of the Electors was merely a formal recognition of the hereditary rights of that family.
This prince, standing on the dividing line between the old and new, possessed the qualities of both. He was stately, brave, and chivalric, and at the same time educated according to the highest standards of his time, devoted to literature, art, and poetry, and with comprehensive and progressive plans for his kingdom. He had a sincere desire to reform abuses. He introduced into Germany the post office, and the system for the conveyance of letters, throughout two thousand independent territories!
The Turks were advancing on the east, the French King was harassing him on the west, and the Pope always trying to embroil him with other kingdoms and to drain his Empire. His was not an easy task.
He was not a Charlemagne nor a Frederick Barbarossa, but he infused strength and a power of resistance into Germany at a period of extreme weakness, and he reunited to the house of Hapsburg the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia.
There was evidence that the long thraldom to Rome was passing away, in the fact that Maximilian assumed Imperial authority without receiving the crown from papal hands; his father Frederick having been the last Emperor who made pilgrimage to Rome for that purpose (in 1452).
When Maximilian came to the throne in 1493 an event of transcendent importance had just occurred. Europe had learned with amazement that when the sun disappeared in that mysterious Western Ocean, it passed on to shine upon other lands beyond—lands teeming with life and riches.
The most fascinating field for adventure the world had ever known was suddenly opened to Europe, and the magnet of boundless wealth was transferred from the East to the West. A stream of adventurous and rapacious men, from all the lands excepting Germany, was moving toward the setting sun.
Spain, only recently obscure, poor and struggling to free her land from an alien race, suddenly found herself mistress of her own territory, consolidated, and with an empire and resources in the West, practically boundless.
The good Queen Isabella, who had been the instrumentality in bringing about these changes for her country, had the satisfaction of seeing her kingdom at one bound take its place in the first rank among the nations of Europe.
Her chief care now was to make alliances for her children suited to this new position. She and Ferdinand aimed high. They secured the daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, for their son, who was heir to the crown of Spain; but the hopes from this union were quickly blighted, as the young prince suddenly died during the wedding festivities. Then another marriage was arranged for their oldest daughter Joanna with Philip, Maximilian's son, who was also heir to the Imperial throne.
But Isabella's sorrows matched her triumphs and successes in magnitude. Joanna became hopelessly insane. Another daughter, who married the King of Portugal, was buried in the same grave with the infant who was expected to unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal, while for her youngest child Katharine was reserved the unhappy fate of becoming the wife of Henry VIII. of England.
It is sad to remember that this admirable woman, in her intense desire to drive heretic Jews out of her country, was prevailed upon, by her confessor Torquemada, to establish the Inquisition in Spain. Believing as she devoutly did that heresy meant eternal death, and little suspecting the engine for cruelty it was to become, this kindest and best of women may be forgiven for this fatal mistake.
Overwhelmed by private griefs and sorrows, Isabella died in 1506, leaving her crazed daughter Joanna a widow, with two sons, the elder six years old. She would have been consoled could she have known that, in thirteen years from that time, this grandson would wear not alone the crown of Spain, but the great Imperial crown of Germany, and would be lord of a greater empire, and wield more power, than any living sovereign.
The period of Maximilian's reign was a bridge which spanned two colossal events: the discovery of America and the Reformation. When this Emperor died in 1517, a greater work was at hand than any he or his predecessors had ever accomplished, and the humble man who was to be its instrument was destined to become a power above all princes, and to shake the Church of Rome to its foundation after an undisturbed reign of a thousand years.
The Reformation had long been preparing in the hearts of the people. The persecutions of the Albigenses in France, the Waldenses in Savoy, and the burning of Huss and of Jerome, had all come from the growing conviction that the Bible was the only true source of Christian truth and doctrine.
The art of printing had made this well of pure truth accessible to all, and there was a deep though unspoken belief in the hearts and minds of the people that a church grasping at secular power and riches had wandered far from the simple teachings of its Founder.
These smoldering fires were very near to the surface when Maximilian died. Charles, his grandson, was then King of Spain. The ambitious Francis I. of France struggled hard for the crown laid down by the Emperor, but, in 1519, it was placed upon the head of his rival, and Charles V. was the first of whom it could be said that the sun never set upon his dominions.
At this most critical moment in the history of the world, the fate of Europe was in the hands of three men: Charles V., Emperor of Germany; Francis I., King of France, and Henry VIII., King of England.
Charles, half Fleming and half Spaniard, had the grasping acquisitiveness of the one nation, and the proud, fanatical cruelty of the other. Small of stature, plain in feature, sedate, quiet, crafty, he was playing a desperate game with Francis I. for supremacy in Europe.
Francis, handsome as an Apollo, accomplished, fascinating, profligate, was fully his match in ambition. Covering his worst qualities with a gorgeous mantle of generosity and chivalrous sense of honor, he was the insidious corrupter of morals in France, creating a sentiment which laughed at virtue and innocence as qualities belonging to a lower class of society.
Each of these men was striving to enlist Henry VIII. upon his side, by appealing to the cruel caprices of that vain, ostentatious, arrogant King, who in turn tried to use them for the furthering of his own desires and purposes.
It was a sort of triangular game between the three monarchs—a game full of finesse and far-reaching designs. If Charles attacked Francis, Henry attacked Charles, while the astute Charles, knowing well the desire of the English King to repudiate Katharine and make Anne Boleyn his queen, whispered seductive promises of the papal chair to Wolsey, who was in turn to establish his own influence over his royal master by bringing about the marriage with Anne, upon which the King's heart was set, and then be rewarded by securing Henry's promise of neutrality for Charles, in his designs of overreaching Francis—and, after that, the road to Rome for the aspiring cardinal would be a straight one!
It was an intricate diplomatic net-work, in which the thread of Henry's desire for the fair Anne was mingled with Wolsey's desire for preferment, and both interlaced with the ambitious, far-reaching purposes of the other two monarchs.
All these events were very absorbing, and while they were splendidly gilding the surface of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century, it seemed a small matter that an obscure monk was denouncing the Pope and defying the power of the Catholic Church. Little did Charles suspect that, when his victories and edicts were forgotten, the words of the insolent heretic would still be echoing down the ages.
A few years later, and the Apollo-like beauty and false heart of Francis I. were dissolving in the grave; Henry VIII. had gone to another world, to meet his reward—and his wives; and Charles V. was sadly counting his beads in the monastery of St. Jerome, at Juste, reflecting upon the vanity of human ambitions. But the murmur of protest from the unknown monk had become a roar—the rivulet had swollen into a threatening torrent. As it is the invisible forces that are the most powerful in nature, so it is the obscure and least observed events that have accomplished the most tremendous revolutions in human affairs.
But before all this had happened, in the year 1517, when it had not yet occurred to Henry's sensitive conscience that his marriage with Katharine, his brother's widow, was illegal, and while Charles V., that sedate young man, who "looked so modest and soared so high," was quietly revolving plans for the extension of his empire, Pope Leo X., the pious Vicar of Christ upon earth, and elegant patron of Michael Angelo and Raphael, found his income all too small for his magnificent tastes. It does not seem to have occurred to him that his tastes were too costly for his income; he simply recognized that something must be done, and at once, to fill his empty purse. But what should it be? A simple and ingenious expedient solved the perplexing problem. He would issue a proclamation to his "loving, faithful children," that he would grant absolution for all sorts of crimes, the prices graduated to suit the enormity of the offense. We have not seen the proclamation, but doubt not it was in most caressing Latin, for can anything exceed the velvety softness of the gloves worn on the hands which have signed papal decrees?
Simple lying and slander were cheap; perjury and sins against chastity more costly; while the use of the stiletto, of poison, and the hired assassin could be enjoyed only by the richest. It worked well. In the hopeful words of a pious dignitary, "as soon as the money chinks in the coffer, the soul springs out of purgatory." Who could resist such promise? Money flowed in swollen streams into the thirsty coffers, many even paying in advance for crimes they intended to commit!
Martin Luther was the one man who dared to stand up and denounce this tax upon crime, this papal trade in vice. The people had at last found a voice and a leader.
Protestantism, which had long been maturing in silence and in darkness, sprang full-armed into existence, and was the first thing to confront Charles when he assumed the Imperial crown.
He, no doubt, thought that he would soon be able to dispose of the new heresy, as had his royal father and mother in Spain disposed of heretic Jews a few years before. But this new specter of Protestantism would not down!
When Charles called together an assembly of states (or Diet) at Worms, in 1521, he supposed he was going to deal with one obscure monk, leading an obscure movement. But it assumed quite a different aspect when Luther, the culprit, was sustained by two great electors and many princes of his realm; and when a long list of grievances against the Papacy was formally presented by several states, which he was firmly told he would be required to redress!
The princes were in earnest. They began to seize church property, to send monks and nuns adrift, and to make free with gold and silver vessels and treasure belonging to the Church.
This time of confusion was used by one ambitious ruler for his own ends. The German, or Teutonic, order was a knightly organization created expressly to hold the frontier against the Slavonic people. After the year 1230 this order held Prussia, which they ruled like princes. The Margrave of Brandenburg, who was at the time of the Reformation Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, realized his opportunity in the existing disorder. He made himself sovereign over Prussia, and annexed the possessions of the Teutonic order to his family.
But it was not alone the princes who saw their opportunity in this time of overturning. The wrongs of the peasants were very real and very grievous, and of long, long standing. The entire burden of taxation rested on them—the archbishops and the nobles and thegentlemenall being exempt!
When the Reformation began thebauer, or peasantry, believed that their hope lay in the abolishing of Catholicism and of the feudal system.
It takes a very small spark to fire a train of gunpowder. When the Countess of Lüpfen ordered the peasants on her estate to spend their Sundays in picking strawberries and gathering snail shells for pincushions, she dropped such a spark! They refused, and the revolt spread, gathering in fury as it moved like a cyclone through the German states. All throughout Germany there are to be seen, to-day, ruined castles which tell the story of this "Peasants' War" (1525). Hideous atrocities were committed, and, as has so often happened, the cause of a people whose grievances were real and heartrending was so stained with crime that sympathy with and pity for their sufferings were obliterated. Even Luther—whose followers they claimed to be—said of them, "they should be treated as a man would treat a mad dog."
The bold stand taken by Luther against this rebellion strengthened him with the princes. Not only Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick and many free cities, but the Augustine order of monks, a part of the Franciscans, and a number of priests had embraced the new doctrine contained in the "Augsburg Confession," the creed or summary of belief which was prepared by Luther's friend, Philip Melancthon.
The principles asserted in this were that men are justified by faith alone; that an assembly of believers constitutes a Church; that monastic vows, invocation of saints, fasting, celibacy, etc., are useless.
Such were the chief points in the celebrated "Confession," which was signed by the Protestant cities and princes in 1530.
So while Charles was engaged in his great game of finesse with Francis I. and Henry VIII. for preponderance in Europe—while the Turks were pressing toward Vienna on the east, and the French into Flanders on the west, and while the Pope, who should have been his ally, jealous of his power was circumventing and weakening him so far as he could, worse than all else, the foundations of the Protestant Church were being permanently laid in Germany.
The two great aims of the Emperor were to restore papal supremacy over Christendom and firmly to unite Germany and Spain. But how could he do the one, when at the hour of a great schism in the Church, a jealous Pope was trying to weaken his hands? Or the other, when Germany was always suspicious of him because he was a Spaniard, and Spain because he was a Hapsburg?
Charles was profound in his methods, crafty and powerful; but circumstances were stronger than he. In order to succeed at one point, he had to weaken himself at another. He could do nothing in repelling the Turks or the French, unless aided by the Protestant states. And these states would only give assistance in exchange for concessions to their cause, while Francis I., as crafty as he, found a sure way to circumvent his rival in giving aid to the Protestants.
The new faith was spreading not only in Germany, but in Denmark, Sweden, and England. The movement in Switzerland diverged somewhat in character under Zwingli, another Reformer, and the new Protestantism began to have its own schismatics.
Calvin in Geneva rejected Luther's doctrine ofjustification by faith, and for it substituted that ofelection. The doctrine that men were predestined to heaven or hell was thereafter held by that branch of the Church known as Reformers, as distinguished from the Lutherans, while from theprotestof Saxony, Brandenburg, Brunswick, Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities against the decree outlawing Luther and his doctrines, the name Protestants took its rise, which included Lutherans and Reformers alike.
The famous Schmalkaldian League was so called from the little Hessian town where the Protestant princes assembled in 1530 and made a solemn promise of mutual support against the Emperor; when they also entered into a secret treaty with Francis I., and received promises of support from the Kings of England, Sweden, and Denmark.
In 1540 the strength of the Catholics had been re-enforced by the order of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola. This order made the suppression of Protestant doctrines its chief task.
Meyerbeer has, by his great opera, made so famous the strange tragedy enacted at Münster in 1534 that it must have brief mention, although it was only a bit of driftwood in the great current of events. A religious sect called the Anabaptists was led by a Dutch tailor, John of Leyden, who claimed to be inspired. The chief things he was inspired to do were to crown himself king, to introduce polygamy, and to cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees! For more than a year the city was held by this madman and his associates; and then the tragedy was concluded by the torturing to death of the tailor-king and his chief abettors; their bodies being left suspended in iron cages over the Cathedral door at Münster. This grewsome story is the one used by Meyerbeer in his opera of "Le Prophète."
In 1552 Charles saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world failing at every point. By the treaty of Passau, religious freedom had been conceded to the Protestants; and while his army was needed to fight the Turks in Hungary, Henry II. of France (who had succeeded Francis I., 1547), in league with the Protestant states, was invading Lorraine.
Sick at heart and failing in health, the weary Emperor (1556) resolved to lay down the heavy crown he had worn for thirty-six years.
To his son Philip II. he gave the Netherlands, Naples, Spain, and the American Colonies, while the Imperial title, and the German-Austrian lands passed to his brother Ferdinand I.
The singular cause of his death, two years later, makes us wonder whether his unfortunate mother Joanna could have transmitted to her son the insanity which darkened her own life.
At the monastery at St. Juste to which the Imperial monk had retired after his abdication, he yielded to a morbid whim to rehearse his own funeral. The grave-clothes were damp. He was seized with a chill, and after a brief illness died (1558).
Charles had been thwarted in his two great aims of establishing the supremacy of his Church, and the permanent union of Germany and Spain. But perhaps his bitterest disappointment was in not being permitted to leave the Imperial crown to his son Philip.
His brother Ferdinand, although firmly Catholic, was a just and moderate prince, who had always favored conciliatory measures to the Protestants while the course of Philip II., in the Netherlands, soon showed how heavily his hand would have rested upon Germany. He appointed the Duke of Alva Spanish governor in that unfortunate territory. Never had cruel king more cruel agent in carrying out his policy. Torture, fire, and sword were the instruments intended to subjugate, but which in the end brought about the independence of Holland.
The prelates of the Church in 1543 had come together in what was called the "Council of Trent," with the avowed object of reforming abuses which had crept into the Church. The real purpose, however, was to examine the foundations of that venerable structure, to discover where it had been injured in the assaults made upon it since 1517, and to strengthen it where it seemed to need new supports.
In 1563, after eighteen years' deliberation, the work of this Council was finished. The cardinal doctrines of purgatory, absolution, celibacy, invocation of saints, censorship of press, etc., etc., were reaffirmed, and terrible anathemas pronounced against such as should reject them.
Thus was created a chasm which nothing could ever bridge, eternally dividing the old religion from the new.
Another tremendously re-enforcing agent was at work in Loyola's Society of Jesus, which was to be to the Church what the brain is to the human body. In 1540 Loyola's ten disciples received the papal blessing. In 1600 there were ten million Jesuits, and in 1700 twenty millions!
It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth which brought about this buttressing of the old belief and this adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.
When Ferdinand died in 1564 the great majority of the German people had become Protestants. The Empire was honeycombed with the new faith. Even in Austria, that everlasting stronghold of Papacy, the Catholics were in a minority. True to the traditions of the past, Bavaria, the home of the ancient Welfs, was the one thoroughly zealous and obedient champion of the Pope in all Germany.
It seemed as if the great conflict was almost over. But it had not even commenced!
The history of this great movement would have been very different, had it been carried on steadily under one leader. But it had four! Those devout souls who believed they had found in the simple gospel truths of Protestantism a religion in which all might unite were soon convinced of their mistake.
Lulled by the apparent triumph of the new faith, reformers set about the task of defining the belief and correcting the errors of Protestant doctrine. To the followers of Calvin the belief of the Lutherans became almost as abhorrent as Papacy itself, while the Lutherans were again subdivided into an extreme and a moderate party; the one following to the letter the doctrines of Luther, and the other the more modified views of Melancthon. Not only men but states were divided and in bitter strife over these differences, so that the Emperor Ferdinand had said, "Instead of being of one mind they are so disunited, have so many different beliefs, the God of truth surely cannot be with them!"
It is apparent now that the issue underlying all this upheaval was deeper than anyone then knew. The real struggle was not for the supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not to determine whether this dogma or that was true and should prevail, but to establish the right of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship. The great battle for human liberty had commenced, and the Romish Church had been shaken to its foundations not because its doctrine was false, but because it was adespotism!
From the abdication of Charles V. to 1600 was a period of political tranquillity in Germany. The reign of two conciliatory sovereigns, Ferdinand I., and his son Maximilian II., tended to produce a surface-calm, which, although ruffled, was not broken by the stern and despotic reign of Rudolf II., who succeeded in 1576.
It was a half century of unfruitful and sullen waiting—waiting for a future which no one could divine. Protestantism was not blossoming; but the seed was germinating amid elements good and evil, strangely mingled together.
While the Reformation was the leading fact in Europe at this period, another event had created a new and pervading atmosphere, in which all else existed. The impulse given to civilization by the taking of Constantinople by the Turks (1452), and the consequent disseminating of Greek culture throughout Europe, was a transforming event in the history of civilization. Literature, art, music, took on new forms and thrilled with a new life. The activity of the human mind manifested itself in everything. It was an age of great men and great things. Copernicus, followed by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler, brought order into the heavens. The Medici in Italy, who were guiding these new and enriching streams which had set in from the East, helped to produce a wonderful art period, which swept in successive tides over Europe. Fainting and sculpture reached their climacteric. Music, still in its infancy, developed into the new forms of opera and oratorio.[1] And while these things were happening, a mysteriously inspired man—seeming to hold as in a crucible the wisdom distilled from all ages and all human experiences—was writing immortal plays in England!
The Teuton race does not take on the graces of life very quickly. The serious and sincere German mind must inspect the idea first, and then become thoroughly imbued with it, before the hand will act! But when the Teuton roots do begin to draw upon the soil, they strike deep and hold firmly, and know just what they are going to do with the rising sap; concerning themselves much more about that than the foolish branches and leaves!
So this new light did not at once flood Germany, but its influence was felt there. Thought was quickened, knowledge increased, art and science began to flourish, wealth accumulated, and the people became less simple and more luxurious in their ways of living. The King of Spain was occupied in his hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands, and Hungary and Austria were still struggling with the Turkish invasion.
Such was the condition at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In spite of the material advance there was a feeling of impending misfortune. But the magnitude of the coming disaster none then could have imagined or dreamed.
The fatal circumstance was that the Protestants were divided into two angry and hostile camps, at the very time when the Catholics, under the teachings of the Jesuits, were uniting with solid front against them. The Thirty Years' War would never have been undertaken against a united adversary who held four-fifths of Germany!
During the despotic reign of Rudolf II. the Protestants for their protection formed a Union with the Elector Palatine Frederick at its head. Thereupon the Catholic princes also united in aCatholic Leagueunder Maximilian of Bavaria. The forces were now gathering for the great explosion. Matthias had succeeded his brother Rudolf as Emperor.
When a great storm is impending, it takes only a trifling disturbance in equilibrium to precipitate it.
Such a disturbance occurred in Prague (1618) over a church which the Protestants were erecting. An angry mob armed itself, burst into the Imperial Castle at Prague, and flung out of the window two Catholic Bohemian nobles.
With this act of violence commenced the Thirty Years' War, which lasted through three reigns, those of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand III., and caused unparalleled misery in Germany.
Two years from that day the Protestant faith was obliterated in the realm of Austria, and the progress of a hundred years was wiped out. In three years more, not only Austria, but Germany, was in a worse condition than she had known for centuries—the wretched people, a prey to both parties, were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither, and a country only recently rejoicing in its material prosperity was a waste and a ruin.
The Imperial troops were splendidly led by two great generals—Tilly and Wallenstein. The Protestant nations—England, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden—looked on in dismay as they saw a powerful and triumphant Protestantism being wiped out of existence in the land of its birth.
By 1629 Ferdinand II. considered his power re-established absolutely over all Germany. He issued what was called the "Edict of Restitution," which ordered the restoration of all Protestant territory to Catholic hands. Wallenstein, in addition to this, declared that reigning princes and a national diet should be abolished and all power centered in the Emperor! Indeed this Wallenstein was minded to play the dictator as well as general. He traveled in regal state, with his one hundred carriages, one thousand horses, fifteen cooks, and fifteen young nobles for his pages!
This taste for splendor was, like Wolsey's, his undoing. People began to fear the ambitious leader, and Ferdinand dismissed him. With rage and hate in his heart he retired to Prague to await developments.
Twelve years of war in horrible form had wrought utter ruin and broken the spirit of the Protestants. But help and hope suddenly came in 1630.
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with his heart all aflame with zeal to defend the falling cause of Protestantism in Germany, is the knightliest figure which adorns the pages of history.
We in this present age have reached a point of development when, without the quivering of an eyelash, we can hear of the destruction of suffering peoples, even if it involves the principles and things most sacred to us. Whether it be the effacing of Christianity in Crete, or of liberty in Cuba, the motto of practical men and nations is—"hands off."
Gustavus Adolphus had not learned that potent phrase. He was still in that undeveloped condition when the elemental impulses of the heart sway men's action. And without a regret, without an enfeebling doubt, he could turn his back upon a throne and an adoring people, in defense of an imperiled Protestantism in another land.
From the moment his foot touched the soil of Germany on that 4th of July, 1630, life and hope revived. The Emperor Ferdinand laughed and called him the "Snow King," who would melt away after one winter. But when one city after another was stormed and taken, when he left behind him a path of religious liberty and rejoicing—when Tilly was no longer able to cope with this Snow King and Wallenstein had to be recalled, and when it looked as if the work of twelve years might be undone, then Ferdinand no longer laughed!
Wallenstein would only return upon conditions which actually made him the lord and Ferdinand the subject. Having thus become absolute master of the Imperial cause, he confidently set about the task of defeating Gustavus.
The Queen of Sweden had joined her husband in Germany. On the 27th of October, 1632, he took leave of her. As he passed through the country, the people fell on their knees, kissing his garments, calling him Deliverer. He exclaimed, "I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may not be visited upon me, on account of this idolatry toward a weak and sinful mortal."
Before the great conflict began he made an address to his Swedes, and then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn, "A tower of strength is our Lord!"
For hours the battle raged furiously, and while the issue was trembling in the balance, the sight of the riderless horse of the Swedish King, covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the awful story. The terrified animal had carried him with a shattered arm right into the enemy's ranks, where he was instantly shot.
While Wallenstein was retreating to Leipzig, the body of this most royal of kings was lying under a heap of dead, so mutilated by the hoofs of horses as to be almost unrecognizable.
The Protestant cause had lost its soul and inspiration. But, in falling, the heroic king had so broken the enemy that there was a long pause in hostilities. And the wily general retired again to Prague, there to evolve new plans for his own aggrandizement.
At this crisis a new champion arose. It was not to be expected that Richelieu, who had been putting down Protestantism with an iron hand in France, would feel sympathy for the Protestant cause in Germany! But that wary primate and minister was not going to stand on a little matter of religion, when he saw an advantage to be gained for France!
He had long ago determined how this conflict should end. He did not intend to permit Imperial Germany under Ferdinand to rise to ascendancy in Europe.
With the weight of France thrown into the scale when the Imperial cause was already so shattered by Gustavus, it was easy to see how it must end.
Wallenstein secretly opened negotiations from Prague with the French ambassador, and steadily disregarded the Emperor's orders to return to his command. The project was that he should go over to the Protestant side in return for the crown of Bohemia.
A general whom the traitor trusted, in turn betrayed him to the Emperor. Six soldiers, under the pretense of bearing dispatches, entered his room.
"Areyouthe traitor who is going to deliver your Emperor's troops to the enemy?" shouted one of the men.
Wallenstein realized that his hour had come. He said not a word, but stretched out his arms and silently received his death-blow.
With an invading French army in Germany, under the famous Marshals Turenne and Condé, looking about for choice bits of territory for France, a religious war had become a political one. It lasted until 1648, when the "Peace of Westphalia" concluded the most desolating struggle in the history of wars.
And what had been gained? The very principle for which it was undertaken was surrendered. Entire religious freedom was granted to Protestants (excepting in Austria); four great states were lost to the empire; a population of seventeen millions was reduced to four millions, with Imperial authority abridged and broken.
France took Alsace, and Sweden Pomerania. Holland and Switzerland were recognized as independent States. The supreme power was invested in the Reichstag, and the several German princes were made almost independent. The empire, as a unity, had been reduced to a shadow.
The devastation which had been wrought by those thirty terrible years cannot be described. Its details are too awful to be dwelt upon. Famine had converted men into wild beasts, who formed themselves into bands, and preyed on those they caught.
Such a band was attacked near Worms and was found cooking in a great caldron human legs and arms!
The spirit of the people was broken. Germany had been set back two hundred years. And for what? Not to accomplish any high purpose, not even from mistaken Christian zeal, but simply to carry out the despotic resolve of the Catholic Church to rule the minds and consciences of all men through its Popes and priesthood. It was the old battle commenced six centuries before. Had Henry not gone to Canossa in 1073, there had been no Thirty Years' War in 1618!