Excerpt from Luther and the German Reformation Professor Leopold von Ranke may be taken as the most illustrious example of historians who have taught us to regard the Reformation as a great political force working political transformations not yet ended. It overthrew completely Jlfedicei'alism, and started the modern conditions of political life on their career. It destroyed the mediaeval ideal of a Christendom made visibly one by a supreme civil governor who ruled over the bodies of all men, by a supreme ecclesiastical chief who ruled their souls, and by a dominant scholastic which kept their minds in due submission, and red the marches between sanctified wisdom and unholy lore. The two and a half centuries before the Reformation are full of revolts against this Medimvalism. They saw the birth of modern European nations with con flieting interests, and the strong feelings of independent national life overthrew the mediaeval ideas of govern ment, both secular and ecclesiastical. The authority of emperor and pope had been defied by almost every European nation long before the times of our epoch; but the failure of Charles V. To restore the mediaeval empire in Germany may be taken as the date at which the old ideas of government passed away for ever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.