lands and aimed to establish an independent middle kingdom. (See BURGUNDY.) In 1435, however, Burgundy made peace with France, and within a score of years England had lost all its conquests except Calais. After the death of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, in conflict with the Swiss (1477), the greater part of the Netherlands passed, by marriage, to the Austrian house of Hapsburg, but Burgundy was annexed to France. By the union of Castile and Aragon (1479), and the conquest of Granada (1492) and of Spanish Navarre (1512), Ferdinand the Catholic became ruler of the entire Spanish peninsula, except Portugal. Thus, France and Spain came out of the Middle Ages as wellrounded national states. In each the crown was hereditary, and the royal authority was becoming supreme. In central Europe the conditions were very different. In Germany the emperors were chosen first from one house and then from another, that no precedents for hereditary succession might be created; and each emperor used his position to increase the territorial power of his own house. After 1438, indeed, emperors were regularly taken from the Hapsburg family, but this change of policy indicated only that the other territorial princes had become too strong to apprehend any revival of the Imperial power. Thus weakened, the Empire began to lose territory on every side. In the fourteenth century the Swiss became practically independent of the Empire; in the fifteenth they became a factor in European politics. In the latter century Burgundy passed definitively to France; Schleswig and Holstein were brought into personal union with Denmark; and the Prussian possessions of the Teutonic Order were partly annexed by Poland and partly held as fiefs from the Polish crown; Italy remained divided, for it was the policy of the popes to prevent any single state from obtaining a predominance which would threaten the independence of the Papal States. The wealth and weakness of Italy naturally attracted the stronger western states. Since the overthrow of the Hohenstaufen, Aragonian princes had ruled in Sicily and French princes at Naples. In the first half of the fifteenth century Aragon obtained control of both regions. Before the close of the century Charles VIII had invaded Italy to enforce the French claims to Naples, and the struggle for the control of the peninsula was opened. In the north and east of Europe, as in the west, larger political unions were forming. At the close of the fourteenth century all the Scandinavian countries were brought by the Calmar Union under a single ruler, and Norway remained united with Denmark until 1814; but Sweden was largely independent during the fifteenth century and became wholly independent in the sixteenth. In the latter part of the fourteenth century Poland was united with the recently Christianized Lithuania, and became, in territorial extent at least, an important state, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea; but the elective Polish monarchy never developed sufficient power to make this Slavic state permanent. At the close of the fifteenth century Russia freed itself from subjection to the Mongols. The most important event of this period, however, was the overthrow of the Greek Empire. In the middle of the fourteenth century the Ottoman Turks, having subdued Asia Minor, attacked the European territories of the Empire; before the end of

the century they had conquered nearly all of the Balkan Peninsula, and in 1453 they took Constantinople by storm. Long decadent, the East Roman Empire had, nevertheless, outlived the West Roman for nearly a thousand years; and it had held against Islam the southeastern gate to Europe for more than seven centuries. Map: EUROPE ABOUT THE YEAR 1500.)

(See

Close of the Middle Ages. Intellectually and spiritually the closing centuries of the Middle Ages represented ferment and growth. Renewed acquaintance with the literature of the ancient world (see HUMANISM) widened the narrow horizon of medieval thought. The invention of printing immensely accelerated the diffusion of new ideas. The basis of political power also was shifted. The invention of gunpowder completed the change begun by English bows and Swiss pikes; it destroyed the military superiority of the armored horseman and the power of the feudal nobility. The opening by the Portuguese of the sea route to India, and the discovery, under the auspices of Spain, of a new world in the west, signified primarily for modern Europe the opening of new sources of wealth, and an increase of the power of the burgess class and of the crown. Later it was to signify the expansion of European civilization over the world; and, last of all, the subordination of European politics to world politics. At the close of the thirteenth century the power of the papacy had begun to decrease. England and France were already asserting, as other countries were later to assert, the right of the state to limit ecclesiastical jurisdiction and taxation and the taking of land into the “dead hand." (See MORTMAIN, STATUTES OF.) Early in the fourteenth century the French kings brought the papacy under their control, and for 70 years the popes were in exile at Avignon. Other popes were set up at Rome. The schism was ended by church councils in the fifteenth century, but reforms proposed by the councils were not carried into operation. Reformation through revolt found its leaders in Wielif and Huss, and the attempt to crush the Hussite revolt led in the fifteenth century to a long and bloody war. See WICLIF; HUSS; HUSSITES.

The Period of the Reformation and the Religious Wars. The struggle between France and Spain for supremacy in Italy may be regarded as the beginning of the modern period of international politics. The Reformation (q.v.), by completing the disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire and dismembering Germany, made this country, too, a plaything for the ambition of other powers; it shifted the centre of European intrigue and conflict from south to north Europe. The expansion of firmly governed nations at the expense of nations lacking a strongly centred authority is perhaps the most marked feature of the succeeding period. Thus, France and Sweden grew at the expense of Germany, and later Prussia, Austria, and Russia grew at the expense of Poland, and Spain grew at the expense of Italy. The election of Charles I of Spain as Emperor in 1519 led to a protracted war with Francis I of France. In view of the overwhelming power of Charles, who, in addition to the Imperial title, united in himself the sovereignty of Spain with Naples and Sicily, the Austrian possessions of the Haps. burgs, and the enormous wealth of America and the Low Countries, the war assumed for Francis the character of a struggle for self-preservation.

Francis was fighting for nationalism and Charles for internationalism. (See CHARLES V; FRANCIS I.) The odds against the French King, however, were not so great as they seemed. He could depend upon the united strength of a firmly jointed nation; whereas Charles's multifarious interests and the very extent of his domains exposed him to attack from many sides. The Turks, the Protestants, the Pope at different times prevented Charles from bringing all his resources to bear against France, and that country, though defeated in four wars, suffered little loss in the end. The nature of the Reformation Charles in the beginning entirely failed to understand, and he neither made himself the leader of it nor did he consistently attempt to repress it. He thought he had settled the German difficulties by the Edict of Worms (1521). Protestantism, unmolested before 1530, spread rapidly over north Germanyoriginating, no doubt, in the prevalent abuses and laxness of discipline in ecclesiastical affairs, but finding favor, too, with the princes and knightly classes, whose anarchic ambitions it tended to confirm. After 1530 all efforts on Charles's part to stamp out the progress of the Reformation were vain; and though the victory of Mühlberg (1547) over the German Protestants seemed for a moment to make him master of the Empire and of west Europe, he was compelled during the last years of his reign to make his peace with the Protestants (Passau and Augsburg) on the terms of cujus regio, ejus religio, and to see the French King actually the master of German soil (Metz, Toul, Verdun, 1552). With his abdication his huge Empire fell apart. The Imperial dignity was assumed by his brother Ferdinand, and the throne of Spain with its possessions in Italy and the Netherlands went to Philip II. With the overweening power of the Hapsburgs reduced and the fabric of the Holy Roman Empire crumbling under the progress of the Reformation, France's opportunity seemed to have come. But France itself fell a victim to religious strife and exhausted its energies in civil warfare (see HuGUENOTS); and it was not until the genius of Henry IV (q.v.) had reunited all factions that France was able to revive the anti-Hapsburg policy of Francis I and Henry II. The widereaching plans of Henry IV were interrupted by his death, but they were taken up and put into execution by Richelieu (q.v.), who instituted the famous French policy of Catholic at home but Protestant abroad. Nor did France find its opportunity gone after the lapse of 60 years, for on the part of its rivals this had been a period of steady degeneration. The bigotry of Philip II brought on the revolt of the Netherlands (Briel, 1572) and the loss of the northern provinces; and the strength of the Spanish monarchy was exhausted in the struggle with the Dutch and in the crusade against England. (See ARMADA.) In the Empire a succession of rulers, acting in the spirit of the Counter Reformation (Rudolph II, Matthias, Ferdinand II), drove the line of cleavage between Protestants and Catholics deeper than ever, and finally, by their aggressions on the reformed religion, brought on the Thirty Years' War (q.v.). This was Richelieu's opportunity. Originally a conflict for religion between members of the Empire, the war, with the incursion of Gustavus Adolphus (q.v.), developed into a war for booty on the part of Sweden and France.

Europe in 1648. The Treaty of Westphalia (q.v.) confirmed the dismemberment of Germany by reducing the power of the Emperor to a shadow, by making the members of the Diet virtually independent, by erecting in Germany 266 secular states and 65 ecclesiastical principalities. Sweden gained extensive territories on the south shore of the Baltic, and France was confirmed in its possession of the three bishoprics, received territory in Alsace, and gained a foothold on the right bank of the Rhine. Westphalia left France the strongest power in Europe, and for a time France possessed in Sweden a powerful ally. Spain was forced to acknowledge the independence of the Netherlands and, though still retaining its Italian possessions, was moribund. The Emperor recognized the independence of Switzerland, and, with the increased power of the Diet, his authority became restricted practically to his personal dominions, whose safety was threatened by the Turks. These had become and were still the masters of the greater part of Hungary, with its capital, Buda. South Italy, the Italian islands, Milan and Mantua, were ruled by foreign masters. Poland was weltering in anarchy and fast slipping to its doom. Russia had not yet found a great ruler to bring it on the stage of European history.

The Period of Dynastic Wars (1648-1763). From Westphalia to Utrecht international relations in Europe were dominated by the aggressions of France, which, after passing through a period of civil disorder (see FRONDE), attained under Louis XIV (q.v.) such power as to threaten for a time the other states of Europe with the same fate that France had feared from the power of Charles V. The European states were forced to unite against him-Holland, England, and Sweden in 1667; Holland, Spain, Brandenburg, and the Empire in 1672; Holland, England, Spain, Sweden, the Empire, Bavaria, and Saxony in 1689. In the course of these wars the theory of the balance of power was worked out in great detail, and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), in which the French armies were repeatedly worsted, demonstrated the superiority of the state system of Europe to the power of any single state, no matter how strong. (See GRAND ALLIANCE.) The defeat of Louis XIV carried with it the overthrow of the Swedish power in Germany. Brandenburg, strengthened by its union with Prussia (1618), and under the astute guidance of the Great Elector (1640-88), had made common cause with the enemies of Louis XIV, and by its victory over the Swedes at Fehrbellin (1675) had entered upon its destiny as the successor of Sweden on the southern shores of the Baltic. While Louis XIV was battling against the Grand Alliance, Sweden was assailed by Denmark, Poland, and Prussia, and, in spite of its heroic King (see CHARLES XII), lost all of its possessions on the south shore of the Baltic with the exception of a small part of Pomerania; Prussia and Russia entering into its inheritance. treaties of Utrecht (1713), Rastadt (1714), and Nystadt (1721) signalized momentous changes in the political balance of Europe, and things began to assume an aspect that is familiar. The power of France was checked by the aggrandizement of Austria, which now obtained possession of the Spanish Netherlands and became the dominant power in Italy. France lost the con trol of the sea to England, which entered upon a successful career of commerce and colonization.

The

Prussia was raised to the rank of a kingdom and stood forward as the leading state of north Germany. Russia under Peter the Great gained a foothold on the Baltic at the expense of Sweden. Savoy was made a kingdom and by the acquisition of Sardinia became a prominent factor in Italian affairs. The period that follows to the French Revolution was in general one of development on these lines. France, exhausted by the wars of Louis XIV and the excesses of his profligate successor, steadily declined in power in spite of a temporary success over Austria in the War of the Polish Succession (1733-35). Prussia, under the able and unscrupulous Frederick the Great (q.v.), assumed the leadership in Germany and held it in the great Seven Years' War (q.v.) against the united forces of Austria, France, and Russia. In this struggle Prussia received some aid from England; but England was more actively interested in world politics than in the continental politics, and to England fell the immense possessions of France in the New World and the ultimate control of India. Russia increased its territory at the expense of the Turks, who, after their great defeat at Vienna (1683), had rapidly been swept back, Carlowitz (1699), Passarowitz (1718), Kutschuk Kainardji (1774), marking the steady decline of their power. The greed for territory, since 1648, the moving spirit of European politics, reached its climax in the despoliation of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, acting under the inspiration of Catharine II.

In

Reform and Revolution (1763-1815). In the three decades of peace which followed the Seven Years' War the attention of European sovereigns was directed chiefly towards the internal problems of state. This was the age of benevolent despotism, when monarchs sought to reconcile the theory of absolute government with the new ideas concerning the rights of man emanating from France. Joseph II of Austria, Catharine II of Russia, Frederick the Great, Leopold of Tuscany, and Pombal in Portugal carried out far-reaching reforms in church and state without conceding any increased share in the government to the people. The states of Europe were thus mere governing machines rather than true nations, and they showed little stability when the outbreak of the French Revolution assailed the old form of things. France (q.v.) the Revolution swept away all hereditary privileges and disabilities, destroyed monarchy, and for a time transformed the state into a confederacy of independent communes. The zeal of liberated France to extend to its neighbors the blessings of freedom, and the apprehensive hostility of the rulers of the monarchic states, brought on a series of European wars. The reaction in France against anarchy, and the stress of foreign conflict, made Napoleon (q.v.) absolute ruler of France, with governmental power more completely centralized than under the Bourbons. Napoleon's ambition converted the revolutionary wars into Napoleonic wars, and his military and political genius made him master of half of Europe. He took the title of Emperor of the French and regarded himself as the successor of the Frankish emperors. (See Map: EUROPE AT THE TIME OF NAPOLEON'S GREATEST POWER.) The Emperor in Vienna, who claimed the same position, surrendered his title in 1806, henceforth calling himself Emperor of Austria only; and thus

ended the Holy Roman Empire, the most venerable and the emptiest of surviving mediæval institutions. To at least one of the principles of the Revolution Napoleon remained faithful. As far as his authority or influence reached, class distinctions were swept away, and all men became equal before the law. By independent legislation Prussia and other states took long steps in the same direction. (See STEIN.) This was the one great direct result of the revolu tionary propaganda. For political liberty and popular government in Europe, Napoleon of his own will did nothing; nor was it his purpose to contribute in any way to the establishment of national states in central Europe. These things were not compatible with his European empire. The seeds of democracy, however, had been sown in the early years of the Revolution; and national feeling was fostered among the peoples of Europe by the struggle against foreign rule which Napoleon forced upon them. Knowing that the dynastic method of warfare would be unavailable to make head against him, the monarchs were forced to make common cause with their subjects. The constitution of 1812 in Spain, the organization of local self-government and of a popular army in Prussia, were results of French aggression; and it was the national forces of Spain that prepared Napoleon's downfall, as it was the national levies of Prussia that helped to consummate it. By establishing legal equality and by awakening the desire for national self-government the Revolution gave a unity to subsequent developments in Europe, which had not been seen since the Reformation broke up the uniformity of the medieval civilization. Yet Europe, after the fall of Napoleon, entered on a period of sharp recoil from the ideals of the Revolution. At the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) the Powers, under the leadership of Austria, made a deliberate attempt to return to the conditions that had prevailed before 1789. The map of Europe, with which Napoleon had played havoc, was reconstructed in the interest of "legitimacy” and “convenance” and of the balance of power, that great ideal of eighteenth-century statecraft. France was stricted to her ancient boundaries. Belgium and Holland were united into a kingdom to keep watch on the northern boundary of France, Norway was taken from Denmark and given to Sweden to make up for the annexation of Finland by Russia. Russia received also the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which was organized as a separate kingdom of Poland. For the unity of Germany and of Italy nothing was done. Prussia and Austria were both strengthened. Prussia gained territory chiefly in north and west Germany, Austria in Italy. The smaller German states and free cities, greatly reduced in number, were united with Prussia and Austria in a German confederacy, in which Austria held the presidency. In Italy Sardinia was strengthened: but Austria held a dominant position in the north. The Papal States were reëstablished. and Naples and Sicily were restored to their Bourbon ruler. (See Map: EUROPE AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.)

re

Reaction and Revolution (1815-52). The purpose of the Congress of Vienna was to reestablish legitimate monarchic authority. Το maintain this authority and to resist all revolutionary movements, an alliance was formed by the emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia. (See HOLY ALLIANCE.) Of this