eign undertakings. The only permanent result of all these efforts was the Imperial Chamber. The course of history could not be reversed: the territorial development of the separate states had been too logical to allow its reversal. A strengthening of the central administration, the preliminary condition for a reform of the empire, was no longer possible. In 1508 Maximilian had assumed the title of "Elected Roman Emperor," thus proclaiming that the imperial dignity was independent of papal confirmation. Restlessly active, he staked everything on the success of those foreign policies that would strengthen his royal power. It was for this reason that he finally returned to his earlier course of action and joined the Holy League against France. The brilliant success of Francis I over the Swiss at Marignano (1515) forced Maximilian to agree to a peace by which the French received Milan, and Venice obtained Verona. In the meantime various imperial diets again took up the question of reform, but the whole reform movement failed entirely, and the separate states gained a complete victory over the central administration. At Maximilian's death practically nothing had been accomplished for the constitution of the empire.
Political and cultural life followed the course of development we have described, the foci being in the several states. Among these states the most prominent were the electoral principalities, which had been granted special honours and privileges by the Golden Bull. The three Rhenish electors were the most important political personages. Saxony was much increased in size by the addition of Meissen. It would have become the leading state of northern Germany had not its territories been divided in 1485 between the Albertine and Ernestine branches of the ruling family. The Electoral Mark of Brandenburg, acquire in 1417 by the Hohenzollerns, was still in the beginnings of its growth. The Hussite wars had almost entirely estranged Bohemia from the empire. The Palatinate of the Rhine, always a home of culture, was still one of its centres. The Duchies of Brunswick-Lueneburg and Bavaria were also prominent. In 1495 the able Counts of Wirtemberg (Würtemberg) received Countship of Swabia, which was raised to a duchy. Baden grew into a principality more slowly. More rapid was the development of Hesse, whose sovereigns under the title of Landgraves, were soon to come into prominence. The future of the empire depended on these minor states. The empire lacked imperial civil officials, imperial taxes, an imperial army, a general and systematized administration of imperial justice, while in these subordinate states there arose a defined government, a centralization of the civil officials, a systematic administration of law. This is also true of Maxmilian's hereditary possessions, the Austrian provinces. The leaders of progress in this respect also were the imperial cities, in which intellectual life began to flourish. In art they produced an Albrecht Durer and the two Holbeins. A darker side, however, was not lacking to this brilliant city life. Bloody outbreaks were often caused by a restless proletariat. Dissatisfaction was also rife among the free knights of the empire who had lost their former importance in consequence of the change in the military system, which had again made infantry the decisive element in battle. Moreover discontent was at work among the peasantry. The knights became robber-knights and highwaymen. Though banned by the empire, Franz von Sickingen, without authority, carried on war with the city of Worms. The economic changes had even more ruinous consequences for the peasantry. The age of discovery, of the growth of commerce, and of the great inventions, is also the age in which capital made its appearance as the great power of the world. There was a change in the value of money which brought severe suffering upon the peasantry which was despised and politically without rights, especially in the thickly populated southern part of Germany. Communistic writings appeared, which discussed the position of the peasants. The unrest increased in Franconia, Swabia, and on the upper Rhine, and revolts occurred. It was proposed to found a communistic kingdom of God and all hopes were placed on a strong emperor. Mixed with these desires was the expectation of a thorough reform of ecclesiastical affairs concerning which dissatisfaction was loudly expressed.
The social-religious restlessness continually increased. The period of political confusion had not passed by without leaving its impress on the German character. The brilliant exterior of life covered but thinly the brutality within. There was widespread evidence of the lack of morality in domestic life, of barbarity in the administration of justice, and of inhumanity in war. Loyalty to the Church continually decreased, although a rich and voluminous religious literature had been disseminated by the art of printing. Great preachers, like Geiler von Kaysersberg at Strasburg, also appeared at this time. The Brethren of the Common Life took for their ideal the abnegation of the world. But all this failed to prevent the decline of the authoritative influence of the Church on the life of the people. The Great Schism had severely shaken the position of the papacy. The common people were estranged from the Church. A craving for religious self-help arose, and religious movements antagonistic to the Church won large followings. German learning loosened the bond that up to then had united it to theology. A new intellectual movement disputed the dominance of Scholasticism at the universities. Nicholas of Cusa, Æneas Sylvius, and Gregor von Heimburg prepared the way for Humanism. The medieval ideals having apparently lost their attraction, men turned to others, which advocated the world and its pleasures in opposition to self-abnegation, and instead of medieval universalism preached the freedom of the individual.
In the second half of the fifteenth century Italian Humanism entered Germany in order to break down here as it had done in Italy the absolute domination of the ecclesiastical conception of the world. But Humanism in Germany assumed an entirely different form. In Germany the end sought was not beauty of form in learning, art, and life; here it manifested, rather, a practical, pedagogical, and, finally, religious tendency. Aided by the art of printing, humanism by its delight in experiment and induction, roused other sciences to fresh life, such as the science of history and especially the natural sciences. Individualism, moreover, strengthened the national sentiment and was a powerful force in overthrowing medieval universalism, and in putting an end to the ideal of the medieval world, the universality of the Kingdom of God. At the close of Maximilian's reign the signs of the times were undoubtedly very threatening, yet closer investigation shows that the Christian idea was still powerful. Notwithstanding the turning away of many from the Church, there were still men in Germany who were filled with this idea. These men did not conceal from themselves the necessity of genuine moral reform. The same power and intensity of Christian feeling that had built the great cathedrals in the later Middle Ages was still alive in the more serious minded part of the nation. Only the elect few carried these feelings over into the succeeding age, and with them the certain expectation of the reform of the Church from within.
Potthast, Bibliotheca historica medii œvi (2nd ed., 1896); Dahlmann and Waitz, Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte, 7th ed., edited by Brandenburg (1905—); Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter bis zur Mitte des XIII. Jahrh.: Vol. I in 7th ed., edited by Dümmler and Traube (1904); Vol. II in 6th ed. (1894); Lorenz, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter seit der Mitte des XIII. Jahrh. (3rd ed., 1886-87); Vildhaut, Handbuch der Quellenkunde zur deutschen Geschichte; Vol. I, to the fall of the Hohenstaufens (1898; 2nd ed., 1906); Vol. Il, from the fall of the Ho-
