REFORMATION 471 REFORMATION" found intensified expression in the acts and writings of Martin Luther, who, with a genius and audacity which have given him a place among the molders of man's destinies, proclaimed the need of a new departure in the religious life of humanity. In rejecting the traditional claims of the papacy Luther at the same time supplied a new principle by which, as he contended, a higher and truer life of the soul might be lived. By his doctrine of Justification by Faith Luther threw each individual on his own re- sponsibility for the reason and life which is intrusted to hinv Hitherto the deep- est concerns of men had been inex- tricably bound up with Pope and priest, and in this had lain the essen- tial principle of mediaeval Christianity. By the new principle Luther made the Pope no longer an indispensable factor in individual or corporate life, and thus initiated a new phase in the development of society. As Avas to be expected, this principle, so organic in its working, cleft the German nation in twain, and gave rise to a struggle which did not close till more than a century after the death of Luther himself. Lu- ther's attack on the sale of indulgences (1517), the burning of the papal bull (1520), Luther's condemnation by the Emperor Charles V. at the Diet of Worms (1521), his temporary triumph at the first Diet of Spires in 1526 (the beginning of modern Germany, accord- ing to Ranke) , the confession of the Prot- estant faith at Augsburg (1530), are the outstanding events in the contest closed by the peace of Augsburg in 1555, nine years after Luther's owti death, but again renewed in the disastrous Thirty Years' War (1619-1648), and finally settled by the peace of Westphalia (1648). The religious revolt of Germany left no iountry of Christendom unmoved. Be- fore the 16th century had closed the bulk of the Teutonic peoples had followed her example and broken with the papacy. Under one aspect, indeed, the Reforma- tion may almost be regarded as a Teutonic revolt against the domination of the Latin races. Between 1525 and 1560 Denmark and Sweden, taking the occasion of a political revolution, both declared for Protestantism; and in 1581, the United Provinces definitively threw off their double allegiance to Spain and the Pope. But it is more important to trace the course of the revolution in the great powers of the West. In Spain heresy of all kinds had no chance of finding a home. In its hated Inquisition, reorganized in 1478, it had an institution ready made for effectually dealing with all attempts at reform or revolution. Luther found followers in Spain as in other countries; but they were literally extinguished before their voices could be heard, and of all the great powers Spain profited least by tho evolutionary spirit of the Reformation. Much more interesting and important is the history of religious reform in France. Between 1520 and 1530, the period of Luther's greatest activity, both renaissance and reform found a firm footing in France, and so many circum- stances seemed to favor the future of both that for a time it was doubtful with which side the victory would eventually lie. On the one side was the University of Paris, which through- out the Middle Ages had claimed for it- self the right — denied to the Pope him- self-;— of sovereign decree on the truth or falsity of all religious doctrine. As its decrees had in every case the strenuous support of the Parliament of Paris, the university was a formidable force to be reckoned with by every innovator in studies or religion. In 1519 Luther's dis- pute with Eck had been referred to the doctors of Paris for decision, and their judgment, delayed for two years, had been the unqualified censure of Luther's position. Thenceforward every advocate of the new religion, and they daily grew in numbers, especially among the middle class, both in Paris and in the provinces, was pursued by the fixed disapproval of the Parliament and the university. On the other hand, the king (Francis I.), eagerly encouraged by his famous sister, Margaret of Navarre, who herself had strong Protestant leanings, was at first disposed to use the new religious move- ment as a weapon to his hand in his dealings with the court of Rome. In the end Francis saw that separation from Rome meant the disruption of the French nation, and after 1534 he reso- lutely set himself to the extermination of every heretic in his dominions. His son and successor, Henry II. (1547- 1559), carried out his policy with even greater rigor, but in spite of all efforts to suppress them the French Protestants grew into a body formidable alike by their position, wealth, and intelligence. The Huguenot wars, the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), and the Edict of Nantes (1598), are the outstanding events of this long struggle, which, in- volving political as well as religious questions of the first importance, threat- ened the very existence of France by suggesting' to Philip II. the possibility of annexing the divided country as a province of Spain, By the edict of Nantes the French Protestants attained a certain measure of religious freedom; by its revocation in 1685 Protestantism was
