The expansion of Europe; a history of the foundations of the modern world

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Prince Henry the Na\iqatob.

From a 17th century English print. Not a portrait, but rather a figure
symbolic of the Spirit of Expansion.

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THE

EXPANSION OF EUROPE

A HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATIONS
OF THE MODERN WORLD

BY

WILBUR CORTEZ ABBOTT, B.LlTT.(OXON.), M.A.
ProfeMor of History in Yale Uaivenity

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTKATIONS

IK TWO YOLUMBS

VOL. I

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1918

. /.

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\

CorTRIQBT, 1916.
BY

HBNRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PnbllBbed May, 1918

■ I

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TO
MY FRIEND

E. W.

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PREFACE

In presenting what is, in effect, a new synthesis of modem
history it seems necessary to define, as well as possible, the
reasons for snch an undertaking. These lie chiefly in the
point of view from which such history is to be considered
in the light of the demands of the present and the oncoming
generation. It is obvious that we are in a stage of develop-
ment to which many of the older formulas do not apply, and
that we are entering an era in which it seems necessary to
take a wider if not a deeper view of the past and of the
forces which have gone to the making of the modem world.

There are, from this standpoint, three elements which need
correlation to provide a proper basis for the understanding
of what has happened during the past five hundred years,
and of the situation which confronts us to-day. The first is
the connection of the social, economic, and intellectual devel-
opment of European peoples with their political affairs. The
second is the inclusion of the progress of events among the
peoples of eastern Europe, and of the activities of Europeans
beyond the sea. The third is the relation of the past to the
present — ^the way in which the various factors of modem life
came into the current of European thought and practice,
and how they developed into the forms with which we are
familiar. And it has been the purpose of these volumes to
combine these elements so far as possible, to infuse a sense
of unity into the narrative of European activities wherever
and however they have been manifested, and to draw from
these the story of the development of modem civilization in
its manifold aspects.

History, wrote Gibbon, is little more than the register of
the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind, and that
pesdmistie judgment has too often been accepted by its
students and perhaps too often confirmed by its makers. Such
a judgment was natural to one who, like Gibbon, devoted his

vil

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viii PREFACE

talents to the account of the decline and fall of a s^reat social
and political order. It is, perhaps, natural for any student
of the purely political minutiaB of any period at any time. Yet
it cannot be accepted as a constant guide to the considera-
tion of human activities in general, for if it is, either history
is a false record or we should not now be where we are.
Especially is this true of the period considered in the follow-
ing pages. They record not the decline and fall but the rise
and progress of a civilization even greater than that whose
overthrow Gibbon chronicled. Such an achievement does not
come as the result of crime, folly, and misfortune. It is
constructive not destructive, and it does not seem to confirm
in the field of human affairs that doctrine of the degradation
of energy which plays such a part in the domain of physical
science.

It is apparent in the mere statement of the purpose of the
following pages that they include much material which, how-
ever considered in separate investigations, has not been
reckoned as part of European history as it has generally been
conceived. This alters not only the perspective but the
proportion of the more or less conventionalized historical nar-
rative with which we are familiar. In such a view as is here
attempted, many movements, many characters, and, in par-
ticular, many episodes, shrink to relative insignificance, while
others, hitherto subordinated or even excluded, are elevated
into what will seem at first, to many minds no doubt, an
undue importance.

In the effort to take account of events or episodes which
have influenced the general current of affairs, of movements
which have contributed to change, of individuals who have
inaugurated or who represent such movements or played a
leading part in such episodes, it is obvious that the great
problem is that of selection. No one can pretend to choose
his material or to judge among infinite claims to importance
with entire satisfaction to himself much less to others. Yet
the effort has seemed worth the making. For it is apparent
that with all the ability and industry of a host of gifted
scholars unearthing the remains of the past, there must be an

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PREFACE ix

interpretation of their results if we are to put to nse the
fruits of scholarship, and keep that past in touch with the
present. And if this attempt to present a new view of
history, its material, its method, and its purpose shall only
serve to arouse fresh interest in these subjects it will have
been worth the time and labor it has cost.

Finally it is only fair to say that these volumes have no
thesis to prove or to disprove. They do not consciously point
a moral; they do not seek to determine the ''meaning" of
history. They do not deal with first causes nor ultimate
goals. They do not attempt to justify the ways of God to
man, after the manner of the older ''providential" school.
They do not offer a brief for the superiority of democracy,
or rationalism, or the middle classes; nor do they attempt to
defend that progress which they chronicle. Their only en-
deavor is to show, as well as they may, how things came to
be as th^ are. They are essentially dynamic rather than
static; they are not intentionally antiquarian, for they are
concerned less with what was tiian with what came to be.
Th^ do not profess that this was, in every case, the most
desirable outcome, that this is the best of all possible worlds,
or that whatever is, is right. But in so far as the world is
different from what it was and a better place in which to
live, that fact is due to what we call progress. It is the
purpose of this book, therefore, to describe the situations
which arose, to indicate the greater lines of change, the devia-
tions from those lines and some explanation of how and — ^in
80 far as we can see — ^why things happened as they did. And
it is hoped that, having described the laying of the founda-
tions for the modem world it may be possible to supplement
these two volumes by a third which will continue the narra-
tive from the period of the French Revolution to the present
time.

It may not be out of place in this connection to call atten-
tion to two other features of this task. The first is the series
of maps which are intended to form a part of the text rather
than to illustrate the volumes. The second is the collection
of pictures which are intended for a like purpose. An attempt

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X PREFACE

has been made to select such illustrations as will, in some
measure, show what manner of people these were who made
this history, where they went and what they did, rather than
to include purely decorative material.

Finally it is necessary to acknowledge the assistance which
has been generously extended to the author by Professor C.
H. Haskins of Harvard University, who has read the proofs
of the entire work ; to Assistant Professor C. H. Haring, who
has read those parts relating to Spanish America; to Dr.
F. W. Pitman, who has performed a like service for the parts
relating to the British North American colonies; to the
authorities of the Yale University Library for their unfailing
kindness in putting material at my command ; and, above all,
to my wife, without whose E^mpathetic assistance the com-
pletion of this task would have been impossible.

W. C. A.

Niw Haven, Deoeniber 12, 1917.

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CONTENTS

VOLUME I
INTRODUCTION

PAGE

The Expandon of Europe— Its oondition»--ItB scope — Its period

and its background 1

CHAPTER I ^

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The beginnings of modem Europe — European disorganization —
The Church— The Empire and feudalism— The British Isles-
Spain and France — Burgundy— The Empire — Central Europe
— ^Italy and the Balkan peninsula — ^Russia, Poland, and
Lithuania— Social and Intellectual Europe in 1453 — ^The
results of the Germanic Invasions— The Dark Ages — ^The re-
shaping of Europe— The Church and feudalism — Society in
the middle ages — ^The feudal domains— The towns — ^Feudal
culture — ^The arts and crafts — The influence of the Church —
The Church and the unity of Europe— iSoma caput mundi —
Its limitations — Its decline — ^Medifleval culture — ^Art— Music
and literature— The triumph of scholasticism over the classics
— Mediaeval science and the Church — ^The sciences— The epi-
demics—Navigation— The problem of reconstruction — ^The Re-
vival— ^Elements of strength — ^The b^nnings of the Renais-
sance— ^Italy — ^The literary revival — Language — Latin and the
vernaculars—Revival of Commerce — ^Trade with the East —
Trade in the West— Commerce and culture— The Universities
— Canon and civil law->-Banking and credit — ^Feudalism and
the Church — ^The causes of change — ^Restrictions of conform-
ity—^Printing— Gunpowder and the compass .... 7

OHAPTBR 11

THE BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION

The Rknaibsanob. 1200-1600

The revival of art and learning — Italy and the Renaissance —

Foreign influence on Italy — Political situation of Italy— The

^ Age of the l^jn^nts — The classicists — ^Art and architecture—

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The northern RenaiBsanoe — ^Medieval painting — ^Early Renais-
sanoe art — ^The artists of the fifteenth century, "the cinque-
j cento'* — The patrons and collectors — ^Poggio Bracclolini —
^ The discovery of classical manuscripts — ^The libraries — ^The
spread of printing — ^The New Learning and the academics —
Florence and the Platonic Academy — ^^hieas Sylvius — ^The
northern Renaissance and literature— ^vonarola — ^The revival
of the sciences,, arts, and crafts — ^Mathematics — ^Purbach and
Regiomontanus — Spread of printing — Geography — The Indus-
trial transition — ^The handicraft system — ^The guilds — ^The
Renaissance and the middle classes — ^The revival of geography
— ^Ancient knowledge of the world — ^Mediaeval knowledge of
the world — ^Monkish geography — ^The medieval travelers —
Early pilgrims and adventurers — ^The Tartar conquests — ^The
missionaries — Prester John — ^The merchants — ^Trade-routes —
Marco Polo— Medioval knowledge of the Atlantic — Improve-
ments in navigation — ^The Arabs — ^Maps and charts — ^Astron-
omy— The Turkish conquest and the decline of Italian
commeree — Gondusicm 43

CHAPTER III

THE BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

The Aob of Diboovebt. 1415-1498

The Spanish Peninsula — ^Portugal — The captj]ure of Ceuta — ^Prince
Henry the Navigator — Portuguese advance in Africa and^ the
Atlantic— The Canaries, the Madeiras, the Azores — ^The- Guinea
coast— The beginnings of the sl^ve-trade— The results of
slavery— The way about Africa — ^The Cape of <3k)od Hope —
Covilham and Paiva — Christopher Columbus — ^His design —
His preparation — ^His discbvery — ^His iretum — ^The. results —
The division of the world — Columbus\seeond voyage — J(ohn
Cabot— Vasco da^ Gama— India— The Malabar coast^IThe
Arabs — Da Gama's adventures and return— The results — Con-
clusion, Europe and the discoveries .... ^. . 82

CHAPTER IV

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS V

The Rise of National Kingships. 1400-1517

y ^ The discoveries and Eusopean politics— The b^nnings of mod-
em European polity — France and England — France — Spain —
Eastern Europe— The Scandinavians — ^Russia, Moscow and the

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Tartan— The Gennanic orders— Hungary and Bohemia — The
Church in eastern Europe — Commerce in eastern Europe —
Social condition of the SUtb — ^The Empire and eaetem
Europe — ^Brandenburg— The Hapsburgs — ^Poland — ^Muscovy —
Germany and Maximilian I — ^The Papacy— Alexander VI —
Julius II— Despotism— ^The new royal councils— Absolutism
and local government — ^Absolutism and the national assem-
blies— Spain — The Councils and the Inquisition — England —
The dynastic interest — Germany — ^The results of the national-
dynastic system lOD V/""^

OHAPTBR V

EUBOPEAN POLITICS. 14921621

The Italian Wabs

Charles VIU's invasion of Italy— The political situation in the
Italian peninsula — "The Italian adventure "—The French
conquest — Its collapse — Louis XII and Italy — ^Ferdinand and
Italy — France and Spain— The results of the Italian wars —
Absolutism and internationalism — Changes in rulers — Charles
y— Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII— Francis I and /
Italy— The Age of Charles V— The end of the middle ages . Azt \y^^

. OHAPTBR VI

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 14081621

Columbus, his third voyage — ^His return and disgrace — ^His fourth
voyage, and death — ^His later life and position — ^The com-
panions and successors of Columbus — ^Beginnings of Spanish-
American colonization — Organization of the Spanish colonial
system — Slavery— Difficulties of Spain's situation — ^Portu-
guese discovery — Cabral and Brazil — ^The Portuguese attack
on India — Portugal and the Mohammedan world — ^Almeida —
Portugal's triumph— Portugal's colonial policy — ^Albuquerque
— ^His successors — ^The effect of Portugal's policy — In Por-
tugal, in relation to Europe, in her colonies — ^Portuguese im-
perial organization— Trade and administration — Spain in the
West Indies— The results— The rumors of the Aztecs — ^Her-
nando Cortes— The Aztecs — ^The Conquest of Mexico — ^Fem&o
Magellan — ^Effect of Spanish conquest — ^The natives — ^The
repartimiento (qrstem— Slavery — Organization of Spanish-
America 148

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CH AFTER YU

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION

Italian art — ^Papacy and the Renaissance — ^The spirit of Risnais-
sance art — Italian literature — Oerman art — ^The New Learn-
ing in northern Europe — ^The new universities — ^More —
Erasmus — Rabelais — Other influences — ^History — ^Machiavelli —
Architecture — ^Printing — ^The Renaissance and the Reforma-
tion— ^The opponents of the ecclesiastical system — ^Wydif and
Huss — Savonarola-^Humanism and the Church — St. Peter's
and the Indulgences — ^Martin Luther — His supporters — ^The
Church and the Lutheran Revolt — Lutheranism — The Ref-
ormation in northern Europe — Spain and Portugal and the
Reformation — ^The new issues 174

CHAPTER Yin

EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS. 1621-1642

The renewal of the Italian wars — Revolt in Germany — The War
of the Knights— The Peasants' Wai^-The problem of the
Empire — ^The Turks-— The Peace of Cambrai — ^The German
Reformation — The divorce of Henry VIII and the reform move-
ment— ^Protestantism — Secularization — Scandinavia, the inde-
pendence of Sweden — European politics — ^England and the
Papacy — ^The English Reformation — ^The Anabaptists — John
Calvin and Calvinism — Geneva — Spread of Calvinism — Edu-
cation, Printing, and the Bible — ^The rise of the Counter-
Reformation — Ignatius Loyola— The Jesuits — ^Francis Xavier
— The Counter-Reformation in Portugal and Spain — ^The
transition to modem times iff

CHAPTER IX

EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA. 1621-1642

The delimitation of the world — Spanish expansion, the Argentine,
_^- Central and North America— The organization of Mexico—
The effect of America on Europe — European politics — Calvin
and Pizarro— The Conquest of Peru— The Incas— The resultr—
The organization of Peru — ^The Andean conquest, Ecuador,
Chili, Colombia— Results of the Andean conquest— ^The Ex-
plorers, Narvaez, Coronado, De Soto— The coast line — ^The
V"New Laws*' — ^The Council of the Indies, its work and its
difficulties — ^The Portuguese in America — In the East — Por-
tugal's enemies — Her disabilities — Progress of other European
peoples — England 220

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CHAPTER X

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE. 152M543

The Beginnings of M(h>ebn Science and Capitalisic

Scientific advance — Science and the Reformers — ^The Reformation
and the scientific renaissance — The importance of science to
progress — ^Tartaglia — Copernicus — ^Hans Holbein, the younger
I— The transition to modem thought — Specialization — ^''The
open way for the talents J!^^ocial and economic change — The
arts and crafts — Artisans — ^Tools — ^Decline of medieval crafts
— The "working-classes" — ^The merchants — Shifting of eco-
nomic balance — ^Spain and Germany — ^The age of capital —
Finance — ^The Fuggers — ^Public banks — ^Industry — Capitalism
and industry — Capitalism and the guilds — Capitalism, labor,
and the towns — Antwerp — Capitalism, classes, and nation-
ality— Capitalism and the extra-European world — Europe
and the extra-European world — Spain and Portugal — Char-
acter of their expansion — ^Their differences — ^Their effect on
the non-European world — ^The effect of Asia and America on
Europe 240

CHAPTER XI
THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 1642-1563

The result of Luther's challenge — Summons to the Council of Trent
—Its purpose — ^Its first meeting — ^Its history — Its work — Its
result — ^The religious war and the extension of civil authority

^ —England — ^France — Gennany-^-The. Schmalkaldic War — ^The , . , .
Peace of Augsburg — Renewal of European war — ^Results of the
period — Europe beyond the sea — ^Mexioo — ^Mining — ^The miia
— l*eru — Spanish South America — ^The Portuguese — Brazil —
Xavier — The Philippines and India — ^The decline of Portugal . 275

CHAPTER XII

THE AGE OF PHILIP II AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS.
1563-1578

Maximilian II— Philip II— His character and policy— The Nether-
lands— ^France — Scotland — ^The year 1568 — ^The European con-
flict— ^France — The Netherlands — ^Eastern Europe — ^England —
Her character and policy — Philip II and his opponents —
William of OrangA^Eastem Europe — ^Her enemies — The mer-

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VAmm
chant-adventurers — ^The Ck)mpany of Merchant Adventurers —

The Muscovy Company — Russian expansion — Ck>ligni and

French colonizations-Hawkins and English trade in America 294

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONDITIONS OP CONFLICT. 1678-1688

Portugal and the coIonies-^Spain and her colonies — Spanish ex-
pansion— ^The Philippines— America — ^The division of Spanish-
America — ^The organization of trade — The extension of geo-
graphical knowledge — ^Mercator — Ship-building . .316

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARMADA. 1676-1688

Spain, France, and the Empire — England — ^Drake — Frobisher and
Qilbert— Spain, Ireland— The Jesuits— The war—The Armada
—The battle off Qravelines 327

CHAPTER XV

THE AQE OF ELIZABETH; AND THE ANGLO-DUTCH INVASION
OF THE EAST. 1688-1601

The results of the Armada's failure — ^The Protestant ascendancy —
The Anglo-Dutch attack on Spain— The United Netherlands
— ^Their commerce and industry — ^Their political situation —
England— The Tudors— The Church— The Puritans— Litera-
ture— ^Reprisals for the Armada — ^The third circumnavigation
of the world — ^Elizabeth's policy — ^The breakdown of Spanish *
monopoly — ^The invasion of the East — Jame3 Lancaster — ^The
Dutch invasion of the East — Its results — Dutch activities else-
where— ^The English East India Company — ^Its first voyage —
The Dutch East India Company— The end of an era . . 330

CHAPTER XVI

EUROPE AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The middle classes— Economic and social advance— ^Banks and
stock-exchanges — ^Effect of Europe oversea on the old world
— Building — ^Manners and costume — ^Protestant universities
— Secularization of society — ^Printing — ^Letters — Painting —
Architecture — Glass and china — ^The drama and opera — ^Music
— Palestrina and Monteverde — ^The Elizabethan drama —
Shakespeare — Spain — Lope de Vega and Cervantes . 358

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CHAPTER XVII

THE RISE OF HOLLAND. 1603-1623

The change in rulers — Henry IV — GustaTns Adolphus — ^The Em-
pire— The progress of ProtestantlBm and the Gonnter-Reforma-
tion— Bohemia— The Thirty Years' Wai^-The defeat of the /

Protestan^-^ngland-— James I — ^The Netherlands and Spain i/' 1/ ^
— ^The coloniaTconflict — ^The Dutch conquest of the East — ^The
Dutch Revolution — Spain — Soirth America — ^The Dutch and
the Portuguese Empire — ^The Dutch colonial Empire — ^England
and Holland — ^The English in India — ^Anglo-Dutch hostility —
Caen — The massacre of, Amboyna — ^Russia — The results of
expansion 379

CHAPTER XVIII

ENGl4ANI^ FRANCE, AND HOLLAND IN AMERICA. 16031623

Europe and h4r oversea possessions — France in America — Canada
— Champlain — ^His first voyage — ^England in America--^tlir^^
Virginia Company — Jamestown — John Smith — The London
Company— North America and its inhabitants — ^The progress
of English settlements in America — ^The Puritans — ^New Eng-
land—The Pilgrim Fathers— New Plymouth— New Nether-
lands—The Dutch West India Company 403

CHAPTER XIX

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 1623-1642

France and England — Eastern Europe — ^The Danish period of the
Thirty Years' War— Wallenstein— The Peace of Lttbeck— The
Edict of Restitution — ^The disagreements among the Catholics
— ^The other states of Europe — Spain — ^France under Richelieu
— England under Charles I — ^Holland under Frederick Henry —
Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus — France and Sweden — ^The
crisis of the Thirty Years' Wai^-The arrival of the Swedes—
The rise of Sweden — Qustavus' advance — ^Wallenstein — Ltitzen
and the death of Qustavus — ^The disgrace and death of Wal-
lenstein— ^The Peace of Prague — ^The entry of France — ^The
Swedish-French period — England 422

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CHAPTER XX

COBiMEBCE AND CX)LONIES. 1621-1642

Thb SnTLKMENT OP New Enqland; the Dutch Empibb and the
Dbolink of Spain

PAOB

Europe beyond the sea — ^France — England — ^In the East — ^In Amer-
ica— ^New England — MaBsachuaetts — Connecticut and Rhode
Island — ^The character and importance of English oolonueation
— ^Holland and Spain — ^The West India Company — Piet Hein —
The New Netherlands — ^The East — Spain — Spanish colonies —
The Portuguese Empire — ^The Jesuits and Paraguay — The
Paulistas — ^The Buccaneers — ^Brazil — ^The New Armada — ^The
Revolt of Portugal 441

CHAPTER XXI

INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. 1610-1642

The Bbginninqb op Modern Philosopht and Soientipio Thought

The transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century —
' Weapons — Dress— Industry — ^Tastes and habits — Intoxicants
M — ^Baths— Results of expansion — Intellectual advance — Its re-
W^yW suits— The new spirit— The progress of science — Chemistry —

Medicine — ^Harvey — ^Biology— Physics— The telescope — ^Tycho
Brahe and Kepler — ^Napier's logarithms — Galileo and mechan-
ics— ^The new philosophy — ^Descartes — ^Baoon — ^The modern
spirit — Grotius — ^Bruno— Campanella — ^The early seventeenth
century— The beginning of the modem world .... 466

CHAPTER XXII

THE PEACE OP WESTPHALLA. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION.

1642-1648

The dawn of peace— Preliminaries of Westphalia — ^The progress
of the war— The English Civil War— Its origin — Its out-
break—The Long Parliament— Europe— The Thirty Years'
War— The final stage— England— The middle class— The Par-
., liament — ^The opposing elements — Character of the war— The
early engagements — ^The New Model — ^The Independents —
Their triumph — ^The end of the German war — Other European
activities — ^The signature of the Peace of Westphalia — ^Its
terms — Sweden — ^France — ^The German states — ^The Empire —
The religious settlement — General results — Germany — ^The fall
of the old English monarchy— The transition to modem polity 496

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ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

PAttB

Pbzncb Hbnbt thb Naviqatob Froniiapiece

8r. AUTHONT, by Albrecht Diirer. An Idealized Mediaeval Town . 16

BOOK-ICAKING 40

Tenth Cbntubt Cabtulabt; Illumination fbom a Book of

HouBS 60

Thk Embabkation op Tboops 84

Views op Calicut and Goa 104

The Pobtuouese Fobtbesb at Calicut 166

Fleicish Enobavino or a Cabback * 160

The Citt or Mexico 166

La Belle jABDiNnbBE, Raphael 176

Ebasicus, Holbein 182

The Execution or Savonabola 190

Mabtin Lutheb; John Calvin 208

Ldca. The Modern City 230

The Skeleton, from Vesalius's Fahrioa 250

The Coubt-tabd or a Cantnon-foundbt 266

Jacob Fuogeb, "the Rich" 264

The Bbothebs Coliqni 298

The Ebcobial 304

The Spanish Abmada 334

Sixteenth Centubt Cbapts 362

The ChIteau or Phenonceaux 368

St. Pbteb's 370

WnjJAH Shakespbabb 374

Cebvantes 376

Fbans vant deb Bobcht 398

Champlain's Hdbiiaium 408

New AifSTEBDAM, About 1630 420

Descabtes 466

The " Golden Quadbant " or Ttoho Bbahe 484

Galileo 494

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MAPS

VOLUME I

IN BLACK

PA«B

Ptolemy'B Map of the World, 2d Century A.D 65

The Hereford Map, Drawn About 1280 67

The World According to Ptolemy, 1640 .... facing 74

The World According to Ibn Haukal, 977 77

The Mediterranean Coast in the Portulano of Dulcert, 1330 . 70

West Coast of Africa *..... 80

Fra Mauro Map, 1457 facing 02

Restoration of the so-called Toscanelli Map 93

Martin Behaim's Globe of 1492 94

Map of America Drawn by Bartholomew Columbus About 1503 . 100

The Malabar Coast of India 103

France (c. 1453) 112

Eastern Europe in the 15th Century 116

Central Europe in the Last Half of the 15th Century . . 121

The Iberian Peninsula (c 1453) 128

Italy at the Close of the 15th Century 136

European Possessions of Charles V 142

Waldseemilller Map, Published In 1513 .... facing 150

East Coast of Africa 157

The Conquest of Mexico and Central America 168

SchOner's Globe of 1523 facing 222

The Andean Conquest 228

The Religions of Europe at the Middle of the 16th Century . . 278

The New World in 1587 facing 332

The East Indies 304

French, English, and Dutch in North America, 1600-1625 . 410

The Religions of Europe at the Middle of the 17th Century . . 600

IN OOLOB

The European World at the Middle of the 15th Century (c. 1453) 7
The European World at the Beginning of the 16th Century

(o. 1519) 141

The European World About the Middle of the 16th Century

(a 1542) 237

The European World at the Beginning of the 17th Century

(0. 1608) 370

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^^

THE EXPANSION OP EUROPE
VOL. I

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** Political disturbances arise from great caases bat small events/'

'^ There is no law of history but the law of progress.''

'' Progress is the change in form of that which is in its nature and
substance unchangeable."

''Always there have been two forces at work among men; the
desire for stability and the desire for change. To the one we owe
much of the permanencCi to the other most of the progress of what
we call society."

J' The progress of society is due to the fact that individuals vary
from the human average in all sorts of directions, and that their
originality is often so attractive or useful that they are recognized
by their fellows as leaders and become the objects of envy or
admiration, and setters of new ideas."

'' So absolutely has change become the law of our present condition
that it is identified with energy and moral health ; to cease to change
is to lose place in the great race; and to pass away from off the
earth with the same convictions which we found when we entered
it, is to have missed the best object for which we now seem to exist"

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INTEODUCTION

It is the purpose of the following pages to describe, as fully The
as possible within the limits set, the great movement by which ^£*^^^
those peoples and that modem civilization which we call
European, developed, overspread, and finally came to dom-
inate the world which we inhabit. This movement, which is,
in nearly all respects the most important event thus far in
human history, occupied a period of somewhat less than the ^
four hundred years between the end of the fourteenth and
the beginning of the nineteenth century. It followed no
simple, straightforward course of carefully calculated, well-
ordered endeavor. Like most of those phenomena to which
we give the name of progress, it was rather a confused and
complicated interaction of different and often apparently
opposing forces than a conscious working through well-
ehosen means to a well-defined end. And its development l^
home, like its extension abroad, was accompanied by almost
constant conflict of arms no less than of ideas and ambitions,
which conditioned and not seldom hindered almost every
phase of its history.

These armed conflicts were, indeed, for the most part, only Its
incidental to the main current of progress. Without them, co»<*^**<»*
it is true, the triumph of new conceptions would often have
been impossible, and the expansion of European power into
other lands, especially, would have been inconceivable. Yet,
without the intellectual and material processes which pre- <--
ceded and accompanied the political expansion of Europe,
that extension of her influence, like the progress of her civil-
ization, could not have been accomplished by mere feats of
an^s.

No means then at the disposal of the Europeans would have ^ >
enabled them to reach and to maintain themselves in regions
80 remote as those which they attained. No force at their

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4 INTRODUCTION

command/ would, iiave availed against the overwhelming
ma89es. which they met and conquered by their superiority

• in -material and intellectual equipment even more than by
their discipline and courage. In particular no such effect as
they produced upon mankind would have followed, and their
great exploits would have remained as transitory and as
barren of result as those of Tamerlane or Jenghiz Ehan. In
its last analysis the importance of European expansion lies
not in the deeds of daring by which it was accompanied, great
as they were, nor in the areas brought under European con-
trol, though they include more than two-thirds of the land
surface of the earth; but in the incalculable extension of
man's intellect, capabilities, and resources, of which it was
) at once a cause, a concomitant, and a result.
Ite scope The expansion of Europe, therefore, is not wholly, nor even
chiefly concerned with the mere progress of European con-
quest beyond the sea. Still less is it absorbed with the con-
current conflicts for supremacy among the peoples and rulers
at home. It involves the intellectual, economic, and spiritual^
progress of mankind, rathertEan'the more spectacular but less

' constructive activities of captains and of kings^ It takes ac-
count of the advance in htiman comfort, and the still more
extraordinary increase in human capacity, which revolution-
ized conditions of existence. It involves the extension of
knowledge, which altered at once the current of men's
thoughts and lives, especially through the penetration of the
long neglected achievements of the classical world into the
fabric of European life, and through the development of
scientific learning. With science came invention. Whatever
ascendancy the European holds to-day is due very largely
to the capacity which he has developed beyond all other races
thus far, of originating, adapting, and improving devices to
enlarge human powers, both mental and physical ; and of pur-
suing a steadily progressive employment of natural laws and
resources to his own use. i

Yet in such an account as this, it is necessary to consider,
beside the material and intellectual development of Europe,
those political changes which gradually altered not only the

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INTRODUCTION 5

boundaries of the various states, but the conditions and ideals
of life among the various races and nationalities which occupy
the European world. For upon them depend, in no small
degree, many of the forces which have gone to make civiliza-
tion what it has become. It is no less necessary to consider,
in some detail, the part played by expansion oversea. The
discovery and exploitation of other continents enormously
increased the resources of mankind. It played a great part
in the emancipation of the human intellect; and it has cre-
ated a new situation in the world's affairs. The continent of
Europe remains, indeed, the focus of so-called European his-
tory. Yet if one considers the world as it stands to-day, and,
still more, as it will probably appear in another century, it
is apparent that no history of European peoples can ignore
those great societies which, from year to year, bulk larger
in human activities, and tend, more and more, to form that
Greater Europe of which we are a part.

It was a great exploit, no less of the intellect than of the its period
arms of Europe, to push out into the great unknown, and lay ^^^^
the foundations of a new heaven and a new earth amid the ground
ruins of an outworn system of society and thought, [fit ex-
tended from the days in which European adventurers first
gained a foothold outside of the continent, and European
scholars recovered the long neglected culture of Greece and
Rome, to the time when the first European society beyond
the sea broke away from its political connection with the
old world, and when men sunmioned the forces of nature to
conquer nature — ^the age of invention and the use of steamj
Its progress was conditioned no less by the impulse of the
one than by the long development of the other. Yet neither
was a wholly independent phenomenon. Each revealed in
all its stages a deep background of achievement and culture
which lay behind this expansion of energy and intellect.
However unconscious its influence, the immemorial develop-
ment of European civilization at once inspired and made
possible its tremendous extension, once the barriers which
separated men from the past and from the world about them
had been broken down.

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6 INTRODUCTION

It is necessary, therefore, to take accoont of many and
diverse elements to explain the factors which have gone into
the making of a modem world. For it is apparent, as the
history of mankind unfolds, that there is no single clue to the
development of human society. It has not seldom happened
that the most trivial circumstances have led to tremendous
consequence ; that influences apparently the most remote from,
let us say, the field of politics, have combined to produce the
greatest alterations in government. And, small or great, im-
portant or trivial, the conditions which man has created for
his activities and his environment demand for their explana-
tion an account no less inclusive, if less complex, than the
organism which has resulted trom his infinite and varied
energy.

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CHAPTER I
THE END OP THE MIDDLE AGES

In so far as any point may be said to divide one so-called The begin-
period of history from another, the year 1453, which saw ^^^^
the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, and the Europe
last battle of the Hundred Years' War between England
and France, has always been regarded as one of the principal
landmarks in the development of Europe. This is but nat-
ural. The fall of the capital of the Eastern Empire, im-
portant in itself, was doubly significant in the dramatic
emphasis it gave to the tremendous transition in European
affairs, then reaching its culmination. With that event, the
boundaries of the European world, already invaded by Tar-
tar, Magyar, and Bulgarian in the east, and by the Moors
in the west, were further contracted. The most distant peo-
ples of the continent were disturbed by the disappearance
of the Byzantine Empire, which, as the political heir of
Rome and the intellectual heir of Qreece, had been at once
the connecting link with the ancient world and a bulwark
of Christian Europe afi;ain8t Asia. Nearer nations were terri-
fied; for it seemed to them not improbable that they, and
perhaps all Europe, might be forced to fight for life against
the new invaders as they had once fought against Hun and
Saracen.

The terror of the Turk was not lessened by the knowledge European
that Europe was ill-prepared for such a conflict. The con- ^Jj^fj^"
fused transition from a decaying medievalism to new and the Church
untried forms of thought and action, even of speech, which
was then taking place in almost every department of human
affairs, gave small promise of that unity which seemed so
essential to avert the impending peril. The one power in

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The
Empire
and
feudalism

Hie

British

Isles

any sense universal, the Christian chnrfth^ was^dividedjiaupst
itself. The earlier schism between the East and West had
long since become irreconcilable, and had prodaeed two com-
mnnions, Greek and Roman Catholic, unalterably opposed to
each other. More recently the quarrels within the western
church had still further disrupted the solidarity of Christen-
dom, till two and sometimes three rival popes had lately
demanded the allegiance of the faithful. Besides thsse, still,
insistent reformers continually denounced the abuses of the
establishment or the vices of its members, and so contributed
another element of confusion to the ecclesiastical situation.

To this was added the disorganization of the political estab-
lishment. Of the two dominant systems which the middle
ages had produced, the Empire and feudalism, the second
had almost wholly overpowered the first. It had divided
Europe into a complex of more or less independent states,
infinitely various in size and condition. These were bound
together by ties, strong in theory, but in practice weak and
provocative of endless strife. So long as feudal principles
and practices prevailed it was impossible to establish even
considerable kingdoms, much less a European empire. And
social progress was scarcely less impossible so long as the
class distinction between noble and non-noble which feudalism
imposed upon society was maintained, so long as Europe was
divided horizontally rather than vertically and knights of
whatever nationality had more in common with their order
in other lands than with their own vassals.

But if the fall of Constantinople threw into high relief the
disorganization of Europe politically, religiously, and so-
cially, the battle of Chatillon and the revolt of the earls of
Shrewsbury and Warwick against the English crown, which
took place in this same momentous year of 1453, was of
scarcely less importance in revealing the situation of affairs.
The one brought to an end the long struggle which England
had waged at intervals for a hundred years to maintain her
power on the mainland of Europe. The other began that
bitter civil confiict known as the Wars of the Roses, when,
for thirty years, the land found no settled peace amid the

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 9

t, c

fierce rivalries of the two branches of her royal family. That
family was, indeed, far from supreme even in those terri-
tories which seemed to fall naturally within its jurisdiction,
the British Isles. Sco^Hmdf remained separate, independent,
and hostile-^^^TrelaS^save for a narrow strip on the nearer
coast, was an BngUSn dependency in little more than name;
and the people of Wales, though politically united with Eng-
land, were far from being Anglicized.

In no small measure the situation of the British Isles was Spain and
typical of all Europe. The Spanish peninsula was still ^'"*^
divided among the Moors and the Christian states of Aragon,
Castile, Navarre, and Portugal. Prance, torn by intermittent
war with the English for more than a hundred years, had just
driven the invaders from all their conquests save Calais. But
Brittany* Anjou, and lesser feudal lordships on the west,
Provence on the south, and Burgundy on the east, still main-
tained an independence which limited alike the lands and
the authority of the French kings, while the wide divergence
of language and customs among the people called generically
the French, made the existence of a French nation as yet
impossible.

The chief rivals of the French kings, the dukes of Bur- Burgundy
gundy, under the nominal suzerainty of the Empire for a
part of their dominions, were busily engaged in attempts at
independence and the enlargement of their territory. The
long-enduring dream of a kingdom between France and
Germany was destined to failure; but, while it lasted, it
was provocative of endless wars, and it troubled the peace of
the Emperor on the east scarcely less than the ambitions of
the house of Capet on the west.

Central Europe, indeed, boasted a formal unity. Under The
the nominal leadership of the Holy Roman Emperor were ^^P*"*
grouped the greater part of what is now Germany and
Austria; in an earlier day his suzerainty had extended over
yai'ts of northern Italy, and in the hope of reviving and
making good the ancient claims to that peninsula lay the seeds
of long and bloody rivalries which, with like visions of France
and Spain, were to disturb Europe for centuries. But the

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10 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

authority of the Emperor was at all times limited by the
exigencies of the moment, and the strength of his own char-
acter and possessions. His dignity was but a name, and,
however he was able at times to transmute it into fact, what-
ever intangible influence it possessed over men's minds, it
remained a variable quantity in Europe's affairs. The im-
perial power was already on the wane, and such strength as
it had rested rather on the hereditary possessions of the
house of Hapsburg, which held the title, than upon the shad-
owy tradition of its ancient Roman ascendancy.
Central The Empire did not find its only problem in Burgundy,

Europe fQj. central Europe, at the middle of the fifteenth century,
was no less divided against itself than the western states.
So low had imperial authority sunk, owing to the weakness
of its possessors and the decline in the fortunes of the house
of Hapsburg, that Bohemia and Hungary had achieved recog-
nition of their independence. The latter had begun a career
of expansion which was presently to lead to the occupation
of the Austrian capital itself; and in the general disorganiza-
tion even lesser states assumed pretensions which they could
ill have supported in more quiet times.
yYet, weak as it was, the imperial authority was the only
bond of union among the hundreds of virtually independent
and often absurdly petty German sovereignties, whose inde-
scribable medley of conflicting claims and authority bred an
administrative chaos, and whose almost universal principle
of dividing their lands among the heirs of successive sov-
ereigns reduced most of them to impotence. In this situation,
. princes, nobles, cities, and districts formed leagues to defend
or advance their interests. Larger and more ambitious states,
like the electorates, so called because their rulers chose the
Emperor, took advantage of the situation to extend their
territory and influence at the expense of their lesser neighbors
and even of the Empire itself. Some, like Brandenburg,
learning the lesson of unity, adopted a policy of primogeni-
ture and indivisibility of lands which was to bring great
rewards for the future ; and all entered upon an era of unrest
and almost constant strife.

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 11

If possible, southern and eastern Europe was in worse ease Italy and
than the rest of the continent. In Italy the rivalries among peninsula*
the petty priijcipalities of the north, the Papal states in the
center, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, was
but temporarily checked by the peace which the Turkish
terror imposed. Only the divisions among her neighbors
preserved Italy from foreign intervention; and her chaotic
' situation remained no less of a menace to the peace of Europe
than to the Italians themselves. At the same time the long
line of Venetian and Genoese possessions in the Levant of-
fered to the Turkish conquerors a prize even more tempting
than Black Sea and Balkan provinces, and one after the other
they fell into the invader's hands.

- For the district north of the Black Sea there was already W^^l^x^^.
another aspirant. Two centuries earlier the Mongols had g^
overrun that great steppe region and laid the Slavic princi- Lithuania
palities still farther north under tribute. Since then the

power of the Tartar horde had gradually declined as the
result of internal dissensions, and the Slav states, emerging
from its suzerainty, were now busy consolidating their terri-
tory under the names of Muscovy or Bussia, and Poland-

- Lithuania. But they freed themselves from the Tartar only
to face the Turk, against whom, for two centuries more, they
and the imperial Hapsburg power were to contend with
varying success, playing the part of a bulwark agaist Asia,
which the city that had just fallen had borne heroically for
nearly a thousand years.

n

Such was the political situation which confronted Europe Social
at the moment that the Turks, in capturing Constantinople, fJJtual
broke down the last barrier which stood between them and Europe
the complete domination of the Balkan peninsul^. But it ^
was not alone against Turk and Arab and Mongol that the
continent was called upon to contend in the long conflict
which was to make Europeans the masters of the world. «
Great as it was, the political disruption and disorder within
her frontiers was not the only nor perhaps even the most

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12 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

dangerous foe of Europe. Not so dramatic, but of far wider
„^ and deeper consequence to her future was the intellectual
and social condition of her people, their ignorance and super-
stition, their poverty and those ruder habits which we asso-
ciate with a lower stage of civilization, and, beneath all of
these, an apparent incapacity to attain higher levels of
achievement and understanding. If she was to rise^ these
were the first hindrances to be removed. It is necessaiy,
therefore, to describe in some detail the social, economic^ and
intellectual situation in which Europe found herself, that
we may comprehend the problem which lay before her and
understand the steps by which she emerged from mediffival
to modem conditions.
The I It is probable that some time between the ninth and the
results \ eleventh centuries Europeans had reached the lowest point
Germanic in civilization which occurred between classical times and
Invasions ^jjose of the modem world. The situation which confronted
"^them at the beginning of the eleventh century was the nat-
ural, perhaps the inevitable result of the conditions which
arose from the conquest of the lands and peoples of the
Roman Empire by the Teutonic tribes. These, with all their
strength and virtues, had, at the time of their irruption into
the classical world, achieved only the most rudimentary civil-
ization. They were pre-eminently hunters and warriors, and
they carried with them into their new environment many of
the qualities and institutions which had made them what
they were. Of the fundamental industries they knew little,
of the higher arts infinitely less than the majority of the
peoples whom they subdued. They imposed themselves as a
ruling class and held their conquests for generations as a
garrison, amalgamating but slowly with the conquered. Thus
they became an aristocracy, lords of the soil, collectors of
tribute in labor or kind, dispensers of justice, and masters
of government. Their leaders became nobles, the mass of
their followers freemen, the conquered population in large
measure serfs or even slaves.
The Dark In consequence, with the coming of the German invaders
^8«s of the fourth and fifth centuries, the mode of life which had

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 13

prevailed among the upper classes of what had probably
been the most comfortable as well as the most luxurious y
society thus far in human history, that of the later Roman
Empire, disappeared in large measure throughout the greater
part of Europe. In the rude life of the imperfectly civilized
conquerors material as well as intellectual necessities were
reduced to low terms; and if the scale of daily life be any
test of civilization, Europe as a whole declined enormously
after the fall of the Roman Empire. Despite the great
contributions made by the Teutonic peoples to many depart-
ments of human activity, to government, to liberty, in later
times to art and letters, as well as \% science and religion, ^^
the recovery from the first shock of their invasion was slow
indeed. The society which rose from their entry into the
Empire was essentially military and agricultural, self-
centered and self-sustaining and so tending toward that form /
of organization known as particularism, or the ascendancy
of local over general interests. It was prevented from fol-
lowing the modes of life and thought which marked the
more highly organized and cultured Roman society which
the Teutons had overthrown, first by the persistence of the
conquerors' own customs and their contempt for the habits
of a defeated foe, later by their religion which cut them off
from contact with a pagan past, and at all times by the cir-

^cumstances in which they found themselves. This last, in-
deed, conditioned the whole problem of the reorganization
of European society.

For as wave after wave of migrating peoples swept across The
great areas of Europe, as Lombard succeeded Gtoth in Italy, i«s^ping
as Northman followed Frank into France, as Dane and Nor- _the
man in turn brought Anglo-Saxon under their domination in ^"I^is "^
England, and as the hordes of Asia followed, pressing hard

. upon the heels of these invasions, many forces operated to
re-mold men's lives. Little by little the influence of the Chris-
tian church of Rome replaced paganism and the rival Chris-
tian sects from the Qreek Catholicism of Constantinople on
the east to Celtic Christianity on the west Little by little so-
ciety tended to divide itself into two. classes, the noble and

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14 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the non-noble, proprietor and tenant, lord and peasant.
Little by little government tended to associate itself with
landholding; and, as the middle ages went on, the institution
of feudalism spread gradually through the continent. It
was a form of society and government based on the possession
of land, in which the lower classes were bound to the soil
and looked to their lords for protection, justice, and some
measure of order, in return for their services as tillers of the
soil or followers in war. In turn the lord was bound ta his
overlord by obligation of military service, and the feudal
chain led, in theory at least, to the king himself. In practice
such a ^stem came to be too often an excuse for private war
and pillage ; and, with aU its nobler features which centered
in the institution of chivalry, it remained a menace to the
common peace and the greatest obstacle to the establishment
of settled government over wide areas.
Society in Moreover, feudalism was productive of a system of society
the mi^e which overspread western Europe with a multitude of estates
fSidal ^ or manors. Here, for the most part, the lesser nobility lived,
domains gnfl many of them, like their superiors, possessed one or more
castles, built for defense, surrounded by the cottages of their
tenants, and forming independent and almost wholly self-
supporting social and economic units. Here and there, at
places convenient for military purposes or more often for
trade, had risen towns, many dating from even pre-Boman
times, walled and moated like the castles. Scattered no less
widely over the continent, as time went on, were monastic
houses, often of great magnificence, surrounded by the lands
belonging to the order which they represented. About them,
too, had not seldom grown up villages like those about the
castles. To the great landlords, nobles and clergy alike,
belonged not merely the land but the chief public utilities
of that simple agricultural society, the mill at which the
grain was ground, the smithy at which the tools and armor
were made or repaired, often the ovens in which the bread
was baked. Under their lords' direction roads were kept
up by the tenants, to the nobles and monastic orders went
the tolls and charges of the trade carried on within their

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 15

domains, by pedlars or by fairs, which brongjit them in touch
with the outside world.

Gradually the towns emancipated themselves from this The towns
overlordship. There industry and commerce were chiefly
carried on through the instrumentality of corporations or
guilds. These were, in effect, associations of labor or capital ,
or both, — closely organized bodies of men engaged in the
same pursuit, weavers, smiths, leather and metal workers of
many sorts, — ^rigidly differentiated by trades and interests.
In many cases the larger towns had made terms with the
invaders at the beginning, or won a certain measure of inde-
pendence from their nominal feudal lords, and so governed
themselves through their own corporations at the price of
tribute to their feudal superiors. From them went out the
traders to the fairs, small and great, which throughout the
middle ages formed the chief means of exchange, to the castles
and monasteries and villages; and in them was collected such
body of capital, material, and skill as the times boasted.

But trade and even manufacturing were hampered by the
very institutions which in a sense made them possible, as well
as by the dominant agricultural and feudal elements of
society. The g^ds promoted and at the same time restricted
production. The nobles protected and at the same time
often levied exorbitant taxes on the towns and tolls on the
merchants who passed through their lands. Outside of a few
centers, there were no accumulations of capital to finance
large enterprises, and even those accumulations seem almost
insignificant to modem eyes. Above all, there was no great v,
common commercial interest. Mediaeval Europe was pro-
vindai beyond modem conceptions, and, apart from a small
class, but little removed from the economic disorder incident
to the wreck of Boman civilization.

The social and intellectual conditions evolved under this
feudal regime did even less to improve the general situation
of the people than the political system which it produced.
Knowing little and demanding less of the world outside their
own narrow bounds, the feudal estates which sprang from the
conquest were in no small degree sufficient to themselves not

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16 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

only for their own administration but for their own support.
They not merely lent themselves to local rivalries which
made for almost incessant private war and so prevented the
spread of the arts of peace in whose development lies the
greater part of progress; but the demand for ideas in a
^ society like that which they produced was virtually negligible.
In consequence the growth of a desire for things which they
could not supply from their own rude resources, as for the
establishment of a settled peace which would enable men to
engage in manufacturing and commerce to meet or create
a demand for the refinements of life, was extremely slow.
The development of the conceptions and desires which come
as the result of intercommunication by trade and travel was
slower still; while the scarcity of precious metals and the
absence of any general ^stem of exchange or any tendency
toward far-reaching enterprises further handicapped eco-
nomic development.
Feudal ' The older traditions of civilized society, indeed, lingered
^^^^ here and there in districts not wholly submerged by the in-
vaders and among the clergy, who by precept and example
encouraged a higher scale of material existence in this world
while preparing men for the world to come. Thanks largely
to them there had been spread through Europe during the
middle ages something of that older tradition of living
which, with the culture of the Greek and Roman world, had
survived in the Byzantine Empire, and, to a less degree, in
Italy after the barbarian invasions. But nearly everywhere
these higher tastes and habits were exotic. Nearly everywhere
commerce, manufacturing, and even agriculture during the
e^lier mediagval period were in an elementary stage of devel-
opment. In spite of the progress made after the successive
sEocks of invasion had spent themselves, in general men lived
' and administered their affairs on a lower plane in the twelfth
century than they had in the first. Though it is probable
that an equal force of mediaeval warriors would have proved
themselves superior in arms if not in discipline to even a
Soman legion, the arts of peace had been far from keeping
pace with the developments in those of war, while in com-

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1

0

Q
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&

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 17

parison with the Roman system of government, law, and
culture the achievements of the men of the middle ages
were all but insignificant.

Moreover, the homelier activities of daily life suffered great, The arts
if unequal, retrogression. Not only were many of the facilities *"^ crafts
for comfort and luxury which were familiar to the ancients
not employed, they were not even known. Most of the ordi-
nary arts and crafts had declined from disuse in like pro-
portion with the amenities of civilized life. Europeans dur-
ing the so-called *'dark ages*' between the fifth and the ^
eleventh centuries were, indeed, far removed from mere i^
savagery, but they lacked a large part of that skill in handi-
craft which had distinguished the later Roman world and
was not extinct among the older civilizations of the east.

Of the fundamental industries, cloth-making and metal-
working, the first had made some progress. Weaving in wool
and flax was fairly well understood, but silk and cotton
were still beyond European resources and skill, almost beyond
the knowledge of the greater part of the continent. Despite
the universal use of arpior and weapons, the triumphs of
steel-making remained in Arab hands; and Toledo shared
with Damascus the mastery of i!ts closely guarded secrets,
until the Italian craftsmen, especially those of Milan, began
to challenge that supremacy.* In building, the castle and the
cathedral witnessed unusual capacity in the service of war
and religion, but the hovels of the poor made the peasants
little more than brothers to the ox; and even the furnishings
of the rich scarcely surpassed the resources of mere barbarians,
save where Oriental standards or the remnants of classical ^
influences supplied the means and tastes for a higher, form
of existence. The same was measurably true in many other
fields. Sheep-raising had progressed as kitchen-gardening
all but disappeared. Sanitation vanished with the decline
of cooking and cleanliness; and there was probably not a
good piece of road-making done in Europe for more than a
thousand years after the fall of the western Roman Empire.

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18

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The
Church
and the
unity of
Europe

m

The influ- Much men might have learned from the great civilizations
Srchurch ^^^® monuments they saw about them adorning half the
continent. But classical literature, its learning, its arts, even
its handicrafts, by the twelfth century had been buried so
long that there were few or none in Europe who even knew,
^ much less who were competent to reproduce any of its achieve-

ments. C^ong the unfortunate results of the barbarian
conquests and the conversion of the Qermanic invaders to
Christianity, this separation from the classical culture was
probably the most serious3 For Europe had been compelled
to begin again, almost from the bottom, to build a new struc-
ture of society, unaided by the experience of the past in
many important particulars.

This situation was not wholly due to the limitations imposed
by uncultured feudalism, nor to the ignorance of those who
practised it. Some of the loss of contact with the achieve-
ments of the past must be charged to the account of that
organization which in many fields remained the great civiliz-
ing influence of the middle ages — the church of Rome. If the
) chief effect of feudalism had been to produce political chaos,
the principal result of the conversion of the west by Rome
was ecclesiastical unity. The organization which owed its
origin to the teachings of the carpenter Jesus of Nazareth,
and its beginnings to the energy of the Galilean fisherman
Peter, had altered mightily by the fifteenth century from
that humble company of apostles whose faith and works had
spread its teachings through the Mediterranean world.

It had early divided into two great communions, the eastern
or Qreek, and the western or Roman church, the one with
its seat at Constantinople, the other at the old capital of the
western empire. The latter, in particular, had developed
under the guidance of a capable and devoted succession of
leaders into an organization scarcely inferior to the old
empire whose traditions of world dominion it had carried into
the field of religion. It bad converted the peoples of the
continent west of the Vistula to its faith. It had spread a

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 19

network of territorial and administrative arrangements into
every comer of the new Roman Empire of the chnrch. If
feudalism had covered the continent with lordships and
manors, which made for dissension and disorganization,
Rome, with its system of archbishops, bishops, and priests,
with their dioceses and parishes, had bound every district
and every individual directly to itself in a unity comparable
only to that of the political organism whose genius it had
inKerited.

To this it had added the monastic system by which its Roma
secular or territorial clergy were reinforced; and, toward the ^£J3<
close of the middle ages, it had again strengthened its hold
by orders of wandering preachers or friars, who supple- ^^
mented the work of regulars and seculars alike. All these
were subject to the Papacy, in discipline and doctrine; the
Vatican claimed, and in no small measure made good its
claim, to superiority over the lay princes of the continent,
as the chief arbiter of Christendom. Rome became again
the capital of western Europe, exercising a dominance over
men's minds and beliefs no less centralized and effective than
the political ascendancy she had wielded a thousand years
earlier, — and not without a certain considerable measure even
of that more worldly authority. Roma caput mundiy Rome
the head of the world, became true once more under the
church, as it had been under the republic and the Empire.
As to her were summoned the intellectual and artistic as
well 'as the spiritual resources of Italy, stiU the most civilized
portion of the continent, so from Rome they were disseminated
by the marvelous organization of the church throughout the
Papal See. And, in no smaU degree, these, too, strengthened
her hold upon her spiritual subjects.

This ecclesiastical conquest of those peoples before whose
arms her political power had collapsed, was, indeed, in many
respects a fortunate circumstance for Europe, even apart
from the spiritual contribution which the Christian faith
made to her peoples. It gave a sense of solidarity to Europeans
as against the other races of the world, which neither feudal- .
ism nor the Empire afforded, and which came to be a powerful

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20 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

force in their conflicts with extra-European peopled. It pro-
vided a common meeting-place for men of all tongues and
tribes. In more senses than one it maintained a common
standard of life and thought among the diverse elements of
which European society was composed, especially after the
barbarian invasions. It acted as a link between the old
imperial and the tribal system, between Roman and Ger-
manic ideals and practices, which enabled Europe in some
measure to combine the two into a new form of polity and
society.

Its intellectual contribution was of like kind. Despite its
opposition to the paganism of the classical as well as that
of the barbarian world, it did much to preserve those parts
of the ancient culture which were not antagonistic to its own
faith and practice. It maintained Latin as the universal
language of educated Europe. It preserved even while it
modified the Roman legal tradition, forms, and phraseology.
For some centuries it kept some knowledge of Greek. It con-
tinued the Roman legal tradition in the modified form of
canon law. It kept alive the transmission of knowledge by the
art of writing; it was the patron of music and architecture,
and, in some sense, of literature. Long after the study of
Greek decayed before the theological objections to pagan
thought, the influence of Aristotle persisted as the dominant
force in European intellectual processes. Long after Vii^l
was abandoned for the same reasons, the tongue in which
he wrote was the common means of communication among the
peoples of the continent, and so maintained a unity which
would otherwise have been lost.
Its limita- In many other directions the ecclesiastical influence worked
tioM for the perpetuation and the advance of civilization. The

monasteries cleared and improved vast tracts of land and
practised the principles of Roman husbandry. Monasteries
and cathedrals alike carried on and encouraged schools and
such education as they afforded; gave employment to artists,
architects, and copyists; provided a refuge for men desiring
to pursue an intellectual as well as a religious life. The
monasteries in particular furnished entertainment for the

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 21

traveler and succor for the needy and the sick. The church
preserved, even if it neglected, the manuscripts of the classical
world. And, in a thousand ways it ameliorated the harsh
and unenlightened regime established by the Germanic con- ^
querors, no less through its efforts toward checking feudal
quarrels and private war thaib by the pressure it exerted
directly and indirectly upon the rulers of the middle ages. ^^^^^
Without its softening and civilizing influence the dark ages
would have remained mere savagery, perhaps Europe would
never have recovered from the collapse of the ancient world.

But with all this great service, with all its material, intel- TheChurchr^
lectual, and its spiritual influence, there came a time when the *°^ science
church began to act as a brake upon progress, when faith \
overpowered intelligence, and what had been almost if not
quite the only force making for the preservation and increase
of intellectual achievement became a hindrance to the mind
and spirit of Europe. For as the domination of the church \y^
grew stronger, it narrowed. Theology became its chief intel-
lectual concern, logic its chief intellectual weapon, and the
life to come its chief if not its only concern. In all fields
which were not touched by theological considerations it re-
mained a power for good; but with the development of its
doctrines into irrefutable dogma, with the increase of its
worldly strength and wealth, there came an inevitable decline
in its inteUectual openness. The mysteries of nature became ^
the secrets of God, and so insoluble. T Authority became the y^
enemy of investigation; the true faitn the irreconcilable foe
not merely of heresy but of the paganism which it had con-
quered. In consequence, the writings of the classical world
came first into neglect, then into disrepute, and finally under
proscription.] What little knowledge there was of scientific
methods and results followed the same course, and man was
thrown back upon himself as at once the source and the end
of all knowledge, upon the Scriptures and the commentaries
as the sole fount of inspiration, the church as the sole arbiter
of intellectual as well as spiritual questions, and conformity
to its decisions as the guide of life and thought.

Moreover, whatever its divine origin, however true its

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22 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

faith, the church tended to develop those imperfections inevi-
table to any human organization unchecked by effective
criticism. Through the gifts of the faithful it came to absorb
a considerable part of the wealth of the lands into which it
penetrated, and as a corporation which never died, its right
of mortmain, or the dead hand, removed great tracts of land
and great stores of property from circulation and public
.,^iservice, limiting at once the strength of temporal rulers and
the development of industry. Finally the natural tendency
(3 of such an organization to demand assent to its principles
and practices as the price of membership in society bred
a conventionalism in almost every department of life which
hampered the development not alone of spiritual but of
intellectual and even of material activities. [As a consequence,
J the later middle ages found Europe conditioned not only by
/ the demands of the feudal regime but by the scarcely less
obstructive power of an intrenched ecclesiasticism.J From an
T~ organization which laid stress upon souls and obedience rather
than on mind and investigation there could never come the
intellectual achievement upon which depended the progress
I of mankind. It was necessary to substitute for the idea of
-^t" conformity the principle of diversity before that advance
was possible; and in this substitution lay the germ of that
revolution which was to remold the world.
Ite ^^ Yet there was little enough in the superficial aspect oi
decline European affairs or of European culture at the beginning
of the fifteenth century which promised either social or po-
litical revolution. There was still less which presaged great
spiritual or ecclesiastical change. The continent was, indeed,
nominally Christian save for outlying territories like the
southern third of the Iberian peninsula or the vast steppes
north of the Black Sea. Perhaps, in one sense, it was more
devoted to that faith than now. But, apart from her lessen-
ing hold upon the minds of men, however great her contribu-
tion to the spiritual side of human existence, however pro-
found her infiuence there remained, the great work which
the early church had done in the cause of material civiliza-
tion was all but over. Her mandate in that field at least was

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 28

all but exhausted. What she had brought to the barbarians
who overthrew the old classical civilization, of the culture
and arts they had so nearly destroyed, had long since become
a part of European experience. She had not merely ceased y
to contribute greatly to the intellectual advance of the con- ^
tinent. She was no longer a considerable factor in the
material prosperity which she had so greatly served in the *^
days when her members were scarcely less apostles of im-
proved agriculture, stone architecture, drainage, and cattle-
breeding, than they were the promoters of learning and
literature, the teachers and enforcers of a moral code, and
the heralds of a new and purer faith.

As, little by little, the church had extended its influence
into nearly every department of existence, it had impressed
the culture which it had preserved with the stamp of its own
character, and the civilization which it had done so much
to produce possessed the defects as well as the virtues of its
qualities. As the middle of the fifteenth century approached,
in the face of the slowly altering tastes and habits of Europe,
the defects came to bulk larger than the virtues in the minds
of many men. (in a changing world the church remained in
a state of relatively arrested development, and its too rigid
and inflexible adherence to its great tradition brought it into
variance with the new spirit of the times. Like feudalism, it
''liad outlived its generation J and unless, like the political
system which was even then4)eginning to adapt itself to new
ideas and new conditions, ecdesiasticism took on new form
and spirit, it was only a question of time till it would find
itself at variance with general if not universal tendencies.

This condition was evident in many fields. In architecture, Medieval
with its glory of the heaven-aspiring Gothic arch, its miracles ^jJJ"'*^
of fretted stone, the middle ages, indeed, advanced beyond
the classic pediment and arch. But the greatest triumphs
of the sculptor's art, — and Gothic jgulpture in its higher
ranges revealed great beauty and skill, — ^much less the gro-
/Itesques in which the mediaeval artists found characteristic
expression, despite their quaint and hideous fascination of
perverted fancy, scarcely rivaled the triumphs of Phidias

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24 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and Praxiteles. In two directions, indeed, mediaeval crafts-
men excelled. The one was their love_qf_ nature which ex-
pressed itself in the ornamentation of all their work in stone
and metal. The other was their skill not only in the carving
which adorned their buildings, but in their goldL and silver
productions, and in wrought iron. Here they were scarcely
surpassed by any men before or since.

-*- But the same was not true of the pictorial art. Whether
materials failed them, or whether this lay chiefly in the hands
of those imbued with ecclesiastical influence, there was a

\ fgreat gulf flxed between the triumphs of the stone and metal-

^ workers and the puerile efforts of the painters, llhe elaborate

illumination of missal and manuscript ill endured comparison

(; : with even the wall paintings of Roman villa decorators, much

*^ ^^ less with the lost masterpieces of Apelles and his successors.

\ In every field where formal ecdesiasticism had made itself

• supreme ''the subistitution of conventionalism for sjrmpathy

-' with observed life,*' which is "the first characteristic of the

hopeless work of all ages," the barbarism from which nothing

could emerge and for which no future was possible but

extinction," had blocked every avenue of advance. For such

workers *'the world was keyless," for they *'had built cells

for themselves in which they were barred up forever." From

! such labors only the ** living barbarism" of new thought

and action could save the world, only a return to nature

and a rejectioijL of convention could preserve them.

Music and If this condition was most conspicuous on the material side

Uterature ^| jjj^^ j^ ^^^ ^^ ^ess characteristic and even more important
in other fields. Music which, like literature, had been im-
pressed for the most part into the service of the church,
found itself confined to a single line of development and that
not the one best adapted to its manifold capacities or appeal,
x^ith all their ingenuity and their summons to a purer faith,
the writings of the church fathers poorly supplied in style
or content the loss of Greek and Roman philosophy, whic
save for Aristotle, had gradually disappeared from mei
knowledge as ecclesiastical infiuence strengthened and
rowedJ Still less could the church historians, bent on justif^

style

liicl^

leijBv

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 25

ing the ways of Ood to man, fill the place of Livy or Tacitus,
Herodotus or Thucydides. The crude turgidity of late Latin
yeisifierSy and the cruder imagination of the miracle plays,
were feeble substitutes for Virgil and Homer, the great
triumvirate of the Greek masters of tragedy, the mockery
of Aristophanes, or the undying charm of Horace and Pindar,
Catullus and Sappho. Even the Scriptures, on which the
church based its intellectual as well as its spiritual exist-
ence, had been almost as deeply submerged under the notes
of the commentators as the classical masterpieces had been
buried under the mass of medieval theology. Finally the
formal logic of Aristotle, supplemented by a concentrated
devotion to theology and presently converted into scholasti-
cism, extended its barren empire over men's minds and steril-
ized their processes of thought, even while it sharpened their
intelligence. For, with all its contribution to intellectual
progress, it divorced men from the realities of life, and led
them to believe that truth was to be achieved only by the
exercise of the unaided intelligence, without observation, ex-
periment, or that quality of vision and common-sense which
embraces them all.

From this situation Europeans might possibly have been
saved by the study of the classics. But as little by little these The trl-
had been discredited as pagan, the manuscripts which held the ^oi^^stf. .
wisdom of the ancient world were too often neglected or de- cism over
stroyed, or turned to the uses of monastic chroniclers or **>« classics
accountants.! Scholars degenerated into schoolmen. Science
lost itself in the morasses of alchemy or astrology and became
anathema to the faithful.] Philosophy was overpowered by
theology, and this world gave place to the next as the chief
concern of learned men. /Speculation replaced investigations
words took the place of facts, and mind endeavored to prov
duce from itself that knowledge and understanding which
only comes from the intellect working upon material outside
i^dl or in a medium not wholly intangible.

Wm was, then, i];i their intellectud limitations that the de- Medieval
^|Hicies of the EuropeaBroi the eleventh century were most ^^^q^ *"?
s«9iiiB.^ Their knowledge of the great scientific heritage,

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26 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

which is the ccmspicuous feature of man's present inteUectual
eminence, was all but wanting. Their ignorance of the planet
which they inhabited was only equaled by that of the past
from whence they sprung. It was exceeded by their ig-
norance of the heavens which they saw and of the complex
organism which they were. Save for a superficial acquaint-
ance with water, earth, air, and the products which their
slender powers drew from those elements, or from a slight
connection with their fellows in other lands, nature and art
were jjmost equal_mysteries. . J^ohammedanism, though it
had tended to check the^development of plastic and pictorial
arts among its followers, especially by its opposition to repre-
senting the human face and figure, had left the realm of
nature free to its investigators. Among them the Koran
had not played the part of the Bible in Christendom. But in
Christian Europe the reverse had been largely true. All the
learning of the thirteenth century friar, Boger Bacon, *'the
father of science,'' had not saved him from imprisonment
for dealings with the devil by the black arts of physics and
chemistry. All the skill of his contemporary, the physician-
astrologer, Amaud de Villeneuve, had not averted the censure
of the church from one who held that medicine and charity
were as pleasing to Ood as religious services. The laws of
nature were not merely unknown but unsuspected by minds
which referred all natural phenomena to the direct action of
an omnipotent and inscrutable deity. The church was all-
powerful, and until ecclesiastical and popular prejudice was
converted, conquered, or defied, all progress in unraveling
the secrets of the universe was effectually barred.
The It is not surprising in this state of affairs that biology and

its kindred subjects were non-existent. As among the Arabs,
the basic science of chemistry was still in the stage when
alchemists devoted their slender gifts to the search for the
philosopher's stone, which could transmute base into precious
metals. Medicine, which had developed some method in Arab
hands, among Europeans who lacked knowledge of anatoqv,
physiology, and therapeutics alike, depended on the simplest
of old-wife herbalists, or the chance of fantastic compoundn

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sciences

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 21

worthy of central Africa mumbo-jumbo men. Sargery was
scarcely better, and the knowledge of the existence of the
organs of the human body led to little more understanding
of their functions than grotesque and misleading fancies of
their attributes and uses.

This was the more important on account of the situation The
in which Europe found itself during the so-called dark ages. epi<^«™i<»
The subject of human diseases is not one which we approach
with pleasurable anticipation or linger upon with any enjoy-
ment; yet, in the reckoning up of the influences which have
made for modem civilization and the changes which have
taken place during the long development of the race it is
necessary to consider no less the ills which men have endured
and from which they have in some measure escaped than the
joys which they have attained. ( It is probable that never
in its history was mankind so cursed with epidemic diseases \)r
as it was during the middle ages. ) Europeans had passed
beyond the relatively healthy stage of outdoor savagery in /
their habits of life without learning any of the lessons of .
civilization necessary to existence in the more crowded con- i
ditions imposed by residence within the fortified places where ' -
continual war compelled them to reside. Sanitation and .
hygiene, the simplest of medical treatment, were unknown,
the movement of population tended only to disseminate dis-
ease, and war added its epidemics as well as its casualties to
increase mortality and disfigurement. j^ ^

The consequence was a succession of plagues which almost ^^/»/'^^*^a^^^(^
bafBes description and certainly horrifies the imagination, ,/^f^^^^
Leprosy, scurvy, influenza, ergotisltf^ and above all the so- /^
called Black Death decimated the population of the con-
tinent and, what was perhaps worse, crippled the efficiency ^
of uncounted thousands of those who survived. How great \
was the calamity may be judged from the fact that it is
calculated a fourth of the population of the earth, some ^
sixty millions of human beings, perished in the Black Death
of tiie fourteenth century. Strangely enough, for a variety
of reasons, this terrible visitation seems to have died out in
the years which saw the rise of the new learning and the

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28

THfi EXMNSION OF EUROPE

Medidne

V-

u.*.^

Mathe-
matics

discovery of the new world. That discovery, however,
brought new and scarcely less virulent scourges on Europe
in the form of the bubonic plague from the east, and syphilis
from the west.^ji»>*^^^^^

The development of medicine for many years scarcely kept
pace with the progress of disease. For though the health of
Europe probably improved during the sixteenth century
owing to the advance in cleanliness as well as in medical
science with its new methods, knowledge, and remedies, it
fell far short of even the low standards of later times. In
two directions the fifteenth century contributed much to this
development. The one was the establishment of the principle
of quarantine, either general or local in the form of i>est-
houses, lazarettos, or leper settlements. By such means many
dangerous and highly contagious diseases, in particular
• leprosy/ wfere checked or even eradicated. The other was the
improvement in habits, which, however slow, gradually raised
the standard of health and morals alike.

Nor were the sciences dependent on mathematics, which
had reached no small development among the eastern nations,
in much better case. Mathematics itself comprehended
scarcely more than the simplest of arithmetical operation,
with some slight tincture of plane geometry, whose sjonbols
were too often better known as the incantations of astrology
than as the expression of intellectual processes. ^At the same
time that astronomy was winning new triumphs in Arab
hands, the European knowledge of the heavens was circum-
scribed at once by the limitations of human senses and by a
theology which made the earth the center of the universe,
and man the sole concern of the Creator.)) It was stUl further
perverted by superstition, which, not content with peopling
the earth with all manner of superhuman creatures, from
fairies to hobgoblins, pixies and gnomes, witches and
elves, saw in the stars the determining elements of human
fortunes.

Even geography was formalized in learned hands to utter
impotence; and the knowledge of the world outside Europe,
as well as great parts of even that continent, was crystallized

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 29

into impossible conventions. That the earth was globular
was not even suspected. Men fought or traded with such,
eastern peoples as found their way to European borders,
or from the western shores looked out across the Atlantic
to infinity. But in neither direction, save for the effort to ,

regain the holy city of Christendom, Jerusalem, from the
infidel, and the occasional expeditions of some adventurous
or devoted spirits into the wild wastes of the north Atlantic,
had Europeans made serious attempts to penetrate the secrets
of the outside world.

They were, indeed, poorly equipped for such an enter- Navigation
prise. Their knowledge of navigation was elementary in /
the extreme. They were still in the coasting stage of
developpient. The compass was half known as an aid to
navigation, half feared as black magic, and wholly unde-
veloped as a scientific instrument. Neither in size, draught,
nor constructicm were their vessels designed for long c(Hn-
mercial voyages in the open sea; and they had still to learn
the art of tacking or sailing across or against the wind.
Though the almost incredible daring and seamanship of the
Norsemen — ^to whom the beginnings of this art were attributed
— ^had carried their slender craft about the coasts of the
continent and across the Atlantic to Greenland or even
America, though adventurous fishermen may have found their
way to Newfoundland, these bold spirits had contributed
little to the commerce or the enlightenment of their fellows.
They had contributed still less to permanent progress; for
their occasional visits to strange lands beyond the sea had
been rather like those of eagles or fish-hawks than the steady
advance of human conquest or migration.

Thus to the limitations imposed by her political and ec-
clesiastical system Europe added an ignorance of the still all ly"'
but uncharted realm of nature whose mystery and power had
hitherto been more feared than any human foe. Without
the conquest of the knowledge of the earth and its resources,
of the heavens, of natural laws, of man's own structure and
powers, of the wisdom of the preceding generations, the suc-
cess of the relatively few and feeble European people against

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30 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the other races of the world would have been impossible ; and,
had impossibility been overcome, it would have been barren of
permanent result. Without the emancipation of her intelli-
gence Europe and mankind generally would have remained
subject to those forces whose mastery has added more to
human capacity, resources, and comfort in the last five
hundred years than in all preceding time.
The Such an enterprise in conception and result was of far

©rrecOT- Sr^tcr moment than any of the conflicts of arms and diplo-
stniction macy by which it was accompanied. Its captains included
men in nearly every department of human activity — scholars
and scientists, merchants and adventurers, rulers and con-
querors, explorers, inventors, engineers, philosophers and
theologians. Their triumphs lay less in the destruction of
their fellow-men — ^though this was not wanting — ^than in the
extension of human faculties, the increase of man's ability
to comprehend and do, the conquest of new realms of thou^t
and power no less than new lands, which was to make man
less the servant than the master of his environment.

It was essential, if Euroi)e was to grow, that, beside the
alterations in her knowledge and power she should take steps
to throw off the shackles of political and ecclesiastical organ-
ization, give freer rein to individual initiative and ability,
provide a more open way for the talents and a wider and
more secure field for their exercise than was afforded by the
feudal system and the mediaeval church. For of the various
disabilities under which her people labored in the period now
coming to an end three were probably the most inimical to
progress^ — ^a social and political organization provocative of
particularism and private war, an intellectual habit llirgely
circumscribed by theological and ecclesiastical limitation, and
a decreasing facility for relatively quick, easy, and safe inter-
change of goods and ideas. Each of these in its own way
enforced conformity* to general or local authority, and so
made for stagnation, material and intellectual. They not
merely checked the unity and mobility so characteristic of
the Roman world ,• they .interfered with the development of
mankind on almost every side of his varied nature, breeding

^Nl

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 31

a provincialism which long remained the principal obstacle
to progress in nearly every field of human endeavor. If the
} spirit which dominated the middle ages had prevailed, if it
had been able to crash the protest which it continually pro-
voked from those classes and individuals on whom it bore
most severely, Europe would scarcely have been able to emerge
from the impasse in which she |ound hersi^. i 7 / A,

jt: t.'WV C ^ .' f IL( • ^L HajA ('" •: '" >' k^ ( ^ - '- ^ ^' ^ ''^^

But, fortunately for Europe and for the world, there was The
prepared in the later medisBval period a revolution in her ^iJj^nt^
affairs and thought comparable to that which, a thousand of
years earlier had set the continent on another stage of her ^^'^^fi^
development as a result of the barbarian invasions. For
the g^irit of protest against convention, like the impulse to
look deeper into the mysteries of the universe, had been
growing steadily for nearly three hundred years before the j
fall of Constantinople. Amid the forces of reaction and the
dead weight of ignorance and superstition the leaven of a
great change slowly made its way, and as the fifteenth cen-
tury c|une on it began to make itself clearly felt in many
directions. Little by little it became evident that, soon or
late, it must come into sharp and decisive conflict with the
spirit of authority, and that upon the result of that conflict
would hang the future of the world. There was even some
ground to hope that the new forxies might prevail. However
hopeless the political situation of Europe in the mid-fifteenth
century appeared, it was not quite so hopelei^ as it seemed.
Amid its weakness and dissension certain elements, though
for the momegat they contributed rather to confusion than to
r^eneration, offered more promise of future stability than
the apparently aimless turmoil of selfish and conflicting inter-
ests indicated. Ami<} the ambitions of princely houses, and
to a far greater degree outside their ranks, other forces than
those which made for anarchy were slowly straggling into
power. Beneath the surface of ecclesiastical uniformity en-
forced by the church there were being developed still other
forces which had already threatened the unity of Roman

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32

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The begin-
nings of
the Ren-
aissance
—Italy

7

1965-1391

Christendom. And in the success or failure of those factors
lay the possibility of reform, even of revolution, intellectual
no less than spiritual.

The movements toward regeneration were still more evident
in fields beyond the bounds of politics, even, in some measure
beyond those of religion. ( As early as the twelfth century
there had begun that activity in the realm of intellect which
bade fair to revolutionize at least one phase of European
activity;') and that movement had gathered imjjetus in the
succeeding years, till by thgJi2Qg^of^e.iallj(rf>£^8twti^^
it had become one of the principaTforces in the European
world. During the fourteenth century, Italy, and then Eu-
rope generally, had felt the influence of Dante, who, fusing
classical and mediasval tradition in the fire of his genius, had
drawn thence his epic vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Para-
dise, the great trilogy of the Divine Comedy. That epoch-
making work, reminiscent of the past, • penetrated with the
philosophy and theology, the social and moral indignation of
his own time, was prophetic of a great future. To it he
added writings on monarchy, and his Vita Nuova, love-songs
to his. ideal mistress, Beatrice, which struck a new note in
literature, and gave to the nascent Italian, or *' vulgar
tongue," an impetus which set it presently on even terms
with the long dominant Latin as a medium of literary ex-
pression. Following him the fourteenth century was amused
by the diverting tales of Boccaccio which found a permanent
place in world literature ,- and it was inspired by the sonnets
of Pe^arch, with which the Italian language and European
letters entered on a new plane as well as a new stage of their
development.

In France, meanwhile, the period which began with the
twelfth century saw the rise of the Raman de Rou, and the
RamaixJU^ Rose, which followed the troubadours' tales of
chivalry, and made French rather than Provengal the na-
133S-1410? tional tongue. To them succeeded Froissart's Chronides
which, immortalizing the ^ great deeds of the Anglo-French
wars, contributed to the same end. At the same time, in
Germany, the epics of the Niebelungen Lied and Chidrun

1313-75

The

literanr
revival

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 33

preserved the traditions and romance of old Teutonic life,
mingled, as in France and England, with the stories of
Charlemagne and his paladins, of Arthur and his knights,
and the undying legend of the search for the Holy Grail.
The productions of the minnesingers, of the wandering
students, — ^the so-called goliardii^, — ^infused at once a new
vitality into the language and the spirit of letters. In Eng-
land the Vision of PiersJPlowman voiced that protest of the c. 1369
downtrodden which was to be the motive of much future social
advance ; while the humane and humorous genius of Chaucer, ? 1340-1400
in his CanterburjiJ[ales, brought letters into close touch with
life, and made English, like French and Italian, a literary
tongue. At the same time the Scandinavians with their
recensions of the sagas or heroic tales of the Vikings, gods
and heroes, furnished another element to that movement
which, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, found Bu- -
rope provided with a body of literature, which took the place
of the all but forgotten classical masterpieces, and at least
in popular appeal, far surpassed the achievements of the
churchmen.

It found her no less equipped with new and vigorous Language
tongues, which, though they tended to break down the unity i[^d*tiic
preserved by univ^rs^l Latin, offered means of expression and yernacu-
possibilities of development impossible to a language which
had ceased to grow. Latin was, indeed, far from extinct;
and long remained the medijim of communication among the
learned of the whole continent. In it Dante composed his
treatise on monarchy. In it scholars and scientists like Boger
Bacon appealed against the dogmas of theology. In it re-
formers like Widif and Huss endeavored to rouse their
fellows against the intrenched abuses of the ecclesiastical
establishment. But the future belonged to the vernaculars.
It was in them that the new literary movement found ex-
pression, and in them that the great preachers appealed to
their countrymen. Into them they translated the Scriptures ;
and the appearance of the Bible in separate tongues, beside
being a literary and linguistic event of the first magnitude,
made the first breach between the old and new theology which

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34 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

was the determining characteristic alike of a new age of
faith and of intellect.
Revival of The advance of Europe between the so-called twelfth cen-
commerce ^j^ renaissance and the mid-fifteenth century was by no
means confined to letters. During those years the way was
prepared scarcely less in the every-day business of life for
the transition which, at the moment of the fall of Cdhstanti-
nople, was beginning to make itself felt in every phase of
European affairs. This was the product, in no small degree,
of those alterations in habits to which we are apt to give
the name of progress. In spite of the relative stagnation
of the early middle ages as compared with the commercial
activity of the ancient world, [considerable advanc.es were
made in trade and communication between the fifth and the
twelfth centuries. J The world moved slowly, it is true, but
it moved. And the great counter-stroke of Europe against
^ Asia, the Grpsades, which began in the latter period, stunu-
lated improvement in communication '^^d t^<^ kn^^l^^g^ of
many things previously little considered by western Euro-
peans. With them, indeed, it may be said that a new era
begins ; for they projected into the provincialism of the w^,
the goods, the ideas, and, what was of no less importance,
the romance of the east. That process was continued and
enlarged during the succeeding era, until Europe was fa-
miliar at least with the Levant and north Africa, and was
not without some notion of the products of the lands that lay
beyond.
Trade with Thus, though inferior in many respects to the Romans of
the East ^g Empire, the men of the fifteenth century were prepared
to make, use, and enjoy many things unknown to their an-
cestors of the fifth, or despised by them. Not only had com-
mercial intercourse among themselves and with Asia gradu-
ally increased; the conquests and colonies in the eastern
Mftditeiyanean, which resulted from the Crusades, encour-
aged that activity. The demand for foreign products, at
almost all times a sure measure of advancing civilization,
had grown steadily. Medicine, chiefly derived from the
Arabs, looked to the East for many of its drugs. Materials

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 35

for its incense, colors for its scribes, goods for its vestments,
precious metals and stones for its vessels, brought the church
into close dependence on this trade. Spices to mitigate the
dreariness of mediieval cookery, or to preserve its food ; dye-
stuffs to relieve monotonous coloring, perfume to doak
imperfect hygiene or sanitation; cottons, muslins, and silks
to enhance the beauty or disguise the ugliness of medifleval
heiresses and to increase the comfort of all who could afford
them; gold and silver, jewels, ivory and ornaments, found
their way to Europe to brighten the lives of lords and ladies
and churchmen; till what had once been almost unattain-
able luxuries came to be regarded in some sort as necessi-
ties, and so swelled the current of trade from generation to
generation.

At the same time conmierce and manufacturing had cor- Trade in
respondingly increased in the West itself. The wool of the West
England, the flax of France, the furs of the Baltic, heightened
comfort and luxury alike, once they had passed through the
hands of the weavers, the fur-dressers, and the merchants,
especially those of the Low Countries, who acted as interme-
diaries for a great part of this traffic. The hides and tallow
of the north, the fish that gave relief on fast-days to the
appetite and conscience of the pious, added to this commerce.
The timber, the oil, the ambergris and other products of a
colder climate, found even more general demand throughout
Europe than the costlier goods of the east. Century by
century the caravans that made their way between farther
Asia and the Levantine ports increased ; and with them the
fleets that plied between those ports and the buqr cities of
southern Europe, no less than the pack-trains which passed
along the Bh6ne or across the Alps to the trading centers of
the north. Markets and fairs grew in numbers and impor-
tance. Everywhere towns were established and flourished. .«--'
The wealth of northern burgher and southern merchant
prince multiplied in like proportion. A whole new world of
commerce gradually took its place amid the feudal and ec-
clesiastical regime of the earlier middle ages, leavening its
military and agricultural character with a new spirit. Before

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36 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the fifteenth century was half gone, it had made itself felt
in almost every activity of life, among the upper and middle
classes.
Commerce Foremost among its results was the intellectual progress
^^ which owed no small part of the stimulus it had experienced

in the centuries preceding the fall of Constantinople to the
^ increase in wealth and trade. Caravan and fleet and pack-
train brought into all quarters of Europe ideas even more
precious than the goods they bore ; knowledge of the greater
world and its affairs, of men and governments, of laws,
religions, and learning far outside the pale of medieval
European thought. Under such influences the intellectual
horizon had insensibly broadened. Problems arose whose
solution was not to be found in the maxims drawn from
feudal or ecclesiastical experience. A class of men was de-
veloped which was dependent not sa much on the inter-
relations of the old society as on its own skill and initiative,
prepared to meet those problems rather by the use of reason
than by appeal to authority. Less and less bound by the old
ties and the old f ormuls, that commercial element had grown
rich and powerful enough, not merely to daim a certain
measure of independence for itself, but to gain a hearing
for its ideas in fields far outside its purely commercial sphere,
in politics, in intellectual affairs, even in religion.

It was, then, no accident that in Italy, '' the wharf of
Europe," the land through which flowed the main current
between East and West, a new educational force, the uni-
versity, first appeared. There in the south the medical
school of Salerno led the way. In the north, amid those
thriving cities which had founded their fortunes in the traffic
arising from the Crusades, and had taken part in the struggle
The Uni- between the Pope and the Emperor, no less political than
TioSmSs r^li^ious, which filled the later middle ages, there had arisen
the law school of Bologna. The example thus set had been
followed quickly in other communities within that same circle
of infiuences. Thence it had spread throughout the continent.
Paris, the home of theology and its great exponents, Abelard,
and Thomas Aquinas, Prague and Oxford, with their off-

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 37

shoots and followers, dotted Europe with those institutions
which are the peculiar product of her intellectual genius. _,

For the most part the universities sprang from the cathedral ^ "^
schocds, and they were not seldom dominated by the religious ,
orders, which, like the Dominicans and Franciscans in par-
ticular, found in them at once a recruiting ground for their
membership and a powerful reinforcement for their doctrines.
They were the exiK)nents of those scholastic principles which^
at once sharpened the intellect and sterilized it. But, from
the days when they lent their great influence to the inaugura-
tion of a new era in European culture, to the present, they
have, with all their failings, remained, on the whole, the most
powerful single force making for the conservation, increase,
and propagation of that knowledge upon which civilization

must, in the long run, found itself. With them, education,

though not for centuries emancipated from the church, at l^
least emerged from the cloister.

And more: as no single department of ecdesiasticism had tium^and
more powerfully affected every-day affairs of life than its ^^^ ^^
judicial establishment, founded on canon law, so, of all the
forces which the universities set in motion, none was more
far-reaching or profound in its results than the erection,
beside this canon law, of a civil code. This was basgdJargely

mi jhaMiodY ftf lf;ffin1atiiMi riiiri[rtTri1 undnrHirrTfiTThnritirnf

the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, in thejtiTth century. It
was revived and revised at first largely by the jurists of
Bologna; and it offered to the world a system of jurispru-
dence suited to its broadening needs, and relatively inde-
pendent of church influence. Though it was to be long before
ecclesiastical poww over education and affairs was to be
relaxed, perhaps no one non-theological force proved as great
a solvent of ecclesiastical monopoly as that which enabled
men to find professional careers outside of the church, and in
this the establishment of civil law played an eminent part.

The study of law, which owed no small part of its inspira- Banking
tion and its initial importance to the service it was able to •^^ credit
render to the imperial and local authorities of northern Italy
in their conflict with the Papacy, was of scarcely less value

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38 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

to the business world. For/in those same Italian cities there
arose meanwhile, beside this new intellectual f orce, a system
of banking and credit which likewise spread throughout Eu-
rope as far as the British Isles, where its memory is still
preserved in the name of London's Lombard Street J There
it came in touch with another and not dissimilar Toree set
on foot by the northern burghers, who had been no less active
?1295 than southern bankers and merchants. This was the Han-

seatic League, that great confederation of trading towns,
which, enlarging and protecting the interests of its members,
extended its power into the remoter regions of the north and
east as far as the distant centers of Bergen and Novgorod.
Its treaties reached as far as Naples and Lisbon ; its trading
houses to half the cities of the continent, where, as in London,
its once powerful emblem, the Steelyard, still perpetuates the
memory of its vanished greatness. By such means as these,
I Europe, divided against itself politically almost to the point
^of impotence, had been gradually covered with a network of
educational, financial, and commercial relations, as intimate
as the bonds of the church itself, and even more far-reaching^
And, even before the middle of the fifteenth century, tlie^
were making themselves felt in the renaissance of civilization
throughout the continent, scarcely less than the literary
movement which accompanied them.
Feudalism Such were the chief forces which had begun to undennine
CfcfrSr ^® foundations of that form of social organization to which
we give the name of medieval, and to establish bases for a
new edifice, long before it was apparent to the eyes of the
men of the time that the old structure was being insensibly
altered. (For in the mid-fifteenth century the church was
still the most powerful single influence in the European
world.y Its marvelous organization, which reached to every
quarter of western Europe, was still intact. Its vast wealth,
its almost complete control over men's thoughts and con-
sciences, the intimate relation which it bore to their most
sacred private affairs by means of the sacramental system
from birth and baptism, through marriage and death to
burial, its control of education and of a great part of legal

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1

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 39

procedure, all this was still unimpaired, and gave it im-
measorable strength. / No less the feudal Efystem, though it
was beginning to face the rivalry of the national spirit as
embodied in the kingships in the field of politics, remained
as all-persuasive as the church itself and scarcely less
powerful in the affairs of every-day life^ It still limited the
interplay of class with class and narrowed the avenues of
advance in almost every field of secular activity, beside rein-
forcing the ecclesiastical influence in circumscribing intel-
lectual achievement.

Tet the old and stately edifice of mediaeval society had The causes
already suffered changes which, though as yet apparently of change
inc^siderable, threatened the integrity of the whole system
upon which the middle ages had based its life and thought.
For the most part these changes were due to three forces
which operate at nearly all times and in nearly every class ^
of society. The first was the spirit of adventure. inteUectual I J
no less than physti^ "which impels men to seek new experi-
ences, and, driven on by the desire to break the monotony
of life, to brave the unknown for the sheer pleasure of the .
new sensations which it promises or affords. The second is
the desire for greater comfort, which, in its higher form, we
know as luxury, and, in its ultimate ranges, turns to the
beauties of color and form and sound, in the domain of art
and music, even in letters. The third is the innate rivalry
between individuals and societies from whfcEHDWs'^ot merely
physical confiict, but the stimulus to do or to have or to be
something better and greater than the rest of the world.
From such forces, with others less selfish — ^tl\p devotion of
those who seek rather the betterment of their fellows than
their own advantage, whether as missionaries or reformers,
or the single-hearted absorption of creative genius striving
toward perfection — are derived the elements of progress ; and
all of these had long been tending toward a new order of
affairs and thought.

Among these varied forces there is at all times a certain
activity; but the results which they achieve are not always
wholly dependent on themselves. That commqn ijQteriei^

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40

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Restric-
tions
of con-
formity

Printing

C.1460

which may be called the organization of society, whether po-
litical, ecclesiastical, social, or economic, must be taken into
account; and that organization is never wholly on the side
of change. Too often it is wholly opposed to progress. Dur-
ing the period now coming to an end, conformity to a rigid
qrstem of faith and practice was the price of peace, even of
mere existence to the vast majority of men in western Europe.
Submission to a scarcely less rigid political and social organ-
ization had been the price of opportunity to realize advance
in any direction for those classes below the dead-line between
the noble and the non-noble. And though, as the years went
on, some bolder or more fortunate spirits had defied or evaded
the one, and certain groups had managed to gain strength
to secure terms from the other, there was as yet no open way
for the talents, no unity in diversity, no general liberty of
self-expression for all classes and individuals, which is the
touchstone of the modern world. To achieve that was the
first and most important step in the development of the race ;
and in one direction, the emancipation of the intellect, this
had begun.

Finally to this movement science and mechanical invention
lent their aid. In the very months when the TurkB were
preparing to push their conquering advance to its great suc-
cess, Dutch and German artisans were engaged upon a new
process of reproducing manuscripts by printing from movable
types upon paper. That material had entered Eui^ope from
the Orient with the coming of the Arabs, and its manufacture
and use had spread through the continent during the pre-
ceding century. Its peculiar adaptation to the new metiiod
of book-making combined with the use of press and types
to revolutionize the world, marking an epoch in affairs more
important even than the fall of Constantinople. ^Por the first
time it became possible to disseminate knowledge widely,
quickly, and cheaply, since, 'though the few had books
before Qutenberg gave* us our Art, not until Printing came
could Learning, yes, and Wisdom also, knock at every man's
door."

It is symbolic of the time that the earliest fragment

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Book- MAKING.

From the wood-cuts of Jost Amman, 1562, illustrating type- founding and paper-
making, printing and binding.

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THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 41 ^

of tiiis momentous innovation which we still possess is a Papal
indulgence for those who volunteered to serve against the
Turk. Most of all, perhaps, is it significant that the first
book to which the new process was applied was the Bible.
With the appearance of that volume, in such form that it
was soon to become accessible to the masses of the laity, /
theology took on a new aspect; and it is scarcely too much
to say that the breakdown of ecclesiastical monopoly dates
from the moment when the principal source of its inspiration V
and its authority passed to other hands than its own.

Coincident with the spread of printing came other changes Gnnpow-
tending directly and indirectly to the same end. The first J^^ ^^
of these was the use of a new mimition of war, gunpowder, pass
then finding its way through Europe. It completed the re- -
moval of the inequality between the mounted knight in full
armor and the half -armed foot-soldier, which, in the ultimate
resolution of affairs, was to be a matter of scarcely less im-
portance to social than to military development. At the same
time it gave to Europeans an advantage over the peoples of
the other continents which was to prove a decisive factor in
the history of the world. The superiority which it brought
them was enhanced meanwhile by improvements in the art of
navigation. The compass and the astrolabe, the revival of
scientific chart and map making, accompanied and stimulated
in like proportion the conquest of the sea ; and again enlarged
the field upon which an increasing number of men were to
play their part.

Thus in every direction the intellect and enterprise of
Europe were^ inspired and assisted to a degree unparalleled
for a thoui^d years before. The^ middle dosses, in par-
ticular, to whom these great extensions of human capabilities
were chiefiy djae, were correspondingly benefited. For not
merely did every new invention open up new means of liveli-
hood to thousands beside those whose occupations it destroyed.
It broadened the basis of life; it developed wide fields of
opi>ortunity; and it widened the intellectual horizon of the
whole continent. Moreover, it presented on every hand fresh
fields of activity for the energies of those who at once created

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42 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and enjoyed this new basis of existence. With the inventions
no less than the revival of learning and the discoveries,
Europe entered upon a new phase of her development. Under
such impulses the beginnings of a modem world came into
evidence, and another generation was to see many of its
promises fulfilled.

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CHAPTER n

THE BEGINNINGS OP INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION

Thk Benaissakoe. 1200-1500

Neither the rise of trade nor of the legal, financial, admin- The
istrative, and educational activities which accompanied com- f^^^d °*
mercial expansion, much less the almost incessant wars amid learning
which they went on, had exhausted European^energies in the
years between the Norman conquest of England and the fall
of Constantinople. The increase of wealth and consequent
leisure which permitted the acquisition and appreciation of
things outside the necessities of life had its effect in fields
far removed from counting-house and court; and, great as
were the political changes which Europe was to experience
during the century which midway of its career saw the old
capital of the east pass from European hands, they yielded
in importance to the extraordinary development of intellect
and taste which, during that period, filled the continent with
the inspiring fruits of its literature and its scholarship, and
the beauty of its art. That movement has been well called
the Renaissance, or re-birth, for from its activities proceeded
no mere elaboration of medieval forms and practices but a
new world of thought and performance. The alterations ^
in the content and the method of the mind, the revolution in
artistic taste and craftsmanship, were important not merely
because of their intellectual and aesthetic triumphs. They
revealed the fact that Europeans were possessed of talents
capable of the highest achievements, and were preparing to
enter upon a new and greater stage of their development.

That movement was well on its w&y long before the fall Italy and
of Constantinople and it was but natural that it had found its ^gj^ce"
most conspicuous expression in Italy. No part of the con-
tinent was so intimately and so uninterruptedly bound up

43

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44

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

r.

Foreign <-''
influence
on Italjr

Political
situation
of Itofy

with the achievements of the classical civilization upob whose
influence the new activity so largely depended. There, on
every hand, were to be seen the monuments of the ancient
culture ; there was to be found a tradition of learning which
had never quite disappeared even in the darkest ages of the
medieval period. There the earliest centers of wealth with
its consequent leisure and luxury had developed; the uni-
versities had first arisen; and the influences long gathering
to destroy the older forms of thought and speech, of art and
literature, had first begun to replace the standards of the
middle ages with modes of life and expression more suited
to the tastes and conditions of a society eager to create and
enjoy a new experience of life.

To this was added a long connection with the spiritual
and intellectual processes and achievements of the east. Arab '
civilization had strongly influenced the southern half of the
peninsula, where there had been founded the medical school
of Salerno, first of European universities. It had profoundly
affected that brilliant court of the Emperor Frederick II,
which in the thirteenth century was at once the wonder and
the scandal of orthodox Christendom. Besides this, Byzan-
tium, with its carefully cherished traditions of the classical
world, had for generations reflected to Italian eyes something
of that luster of scholarship which had been somehow main-
tained through the vicissitudes of the Eastern Empire's dis-
turbed political history. Moreover, into her complex society
Italy had infused a Teutonic element. In the preceding cen-
turies she had been a part of the Holy Roman Empire, and
thousands of German immigrants, drawn by politics or com-
merce, had poured into the northern part of the peninsula.
Thus, from every direction, she was open to the pervasive
influences of a widely varied culture, which revealed itself
not only in her receptiveness to new ideas but in the tastes and
capabilities for the refinements of life, which surpassed those
of any other quarter of the continent.

That receptiveness had been no unmixed blessing, for it
had proved the bane of her political history. At all times
after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Italy had been the

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BEGINl^INGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 45

prize of successive invaders. The Teutonic conquerors who
had early founded Gothic and Lombard kingdoms there, the
Franks, and later the German Emperors, had in turn dom-
inated the peninsula. -To this was joined the rivalry of the
Italian states among themselves, the ambitions of the nobility,
and that instability which made the people of the peninsula
ready at all times to invite the foreign conqueror to aid one
party or another against its opponent. The migrations had
long since ceased. The strife of imperialist and anti-imperial-
ist, of Guelph and Ghibelline, which vexed the middle ages,
was passing; but as the fifteenth century came on it was
transformed into the rivalry of the national states and
dynasties as the houses of Aragon and Capet took up the
contest for Italian supremacy.

Thus it was not in politics that Italy was to become the
leader of the continent, nor was it in the south where this
new rivalry was first felt that there now sprang up the
impulse which was to revolutionize Europe. It was rather
among the peoples of northern Italy that there had begun to
emerge a culture which for a time made her the intellectual
and artistic mistress of the European world. There a Papacy,
relieved at the beginning of the fifteenth century from the
exile and schism which had weakened its authority and en-
dangered its supremacy for more than a hundred years, had
began to devote itself to establishing the temporal power of
the so-caUed Papal States ,- and at the same time, to re-estab-
lishing the dominance of Rome over the intellect as well as
the faith of the continent. There Venice and Genoa, though
maintaining a losing confiict with the Turk, still kept a great
part of their commercial strength, and the ability which had
achieved[ it. There, above all, as the fifteenth century pro-
ceeded, the city states, like Siena, Florence, Pisa, and their
followers, entered on a new era of their chequered history.

This was the Age of the Tyrants. To the long struggle The Age
of the factions for and against the domination of Germany, ^v^nts
which had filled a great part of the middle ages, to the
infinite quarrels of the nobility and the antagonisms of the c. 1450-
various elements within these little organisms, there sue- ^^^

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46

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The
ClassidsU

1904-74

ceeded a race of rulers and a polity which contributed, how-
ever unconsciously, to the rise of non-political, non-religious,
and non-commercial interests. In Milan the house of Sforza
replaced the Yisconti as rulers of the state; in Siena,
Petrucci rose to the head of the commune; in Modena the
family of Este, in Florence that of the Medici, transmuted
financial into political supremacy; while Venice and Genoa
retained their oligarchies, drawn from the ranks of their
leading citizens. In each place popular assent was given to
absolute rulers or assumed by them. The nobles were virtu-
ally deprived of that ascendancy which brought the worst evils
of feudalism upon other states, and tended to find in other
fields the careers denied to them in politics. Thus the com-
mercial centers, relieved of the unintellectual atmosphere of
the feudal regime, became, with all their faults, the artistic
and intellectual, as they had long been the financial, capitals
of the continent.

To their inhabitants the mere accumulation of greater
wealth seemed not the end of human achievement, nor mere
physical comfort its chief purpose. For more than a century
before the fall of Constantinople their thoughts had turned to
other means of satisfying their desires for a fuller existence
than that afforded by commerce or politics. This took the
form of art and scholarship. The slowly rising interest in
the remains of the classical civilization which lay about them
had early led to the collection and preservation of it!^ more
beautiful and interesting relics which escaped the greed of
barbarians, the fanaticism of bigots, and the ignorant de-
struction of those who burned the treasur<^ of ^r*>^Tr ati^
Boman stonework for lime,_ Classicists like Petrarch, col-
lectors like the great Florentine virtuoso, Niccolo de* Niccoli,
scholars like Aurispa who brought from his studies in Con-
stantinople hundreds of Qreek manuscripts, contributed to
this movement. Princes like the Medici, nobles and mer-
chants, had adorned the palaces which their wealth and
taste had raised in every little capital, with these relics of
the past. The energies of the learned men whose services
the universities had attracted and to whose abilities they

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 47

offered a career, worked to the same end. The influence of
individnals like Dante and Petrarch, bred in the classical
tradition rather than in that of the church, reinforced by
Byzantine scholars who found their way to Italy in person
or through their students, built up a body of men skilled in
the I^foming and culture of the classical world. From its
inspiration, and from the stimulus of a reviving intellectual
activity, they had begun to develop not only a new tongue
and new forms of literary expression but new^-^eneeptiona.
and ideals of life and letters alike.

Nor was this all. At the same time with wealth had come Art and
that emulation in comfort and luxury which lies at the root of J^***^
a great part of progress. Riches had produced not merely the
prince but the patron. First in architecture, then in the lesser
arts and crafts, there had arisen a body of artists and artisans
unequaled in Europe to supply the demands of improving
tastes and standards of life. From their hands had flowed a
stream of achievement which adorned every city of northern
Italy with chur^es and palaces and public buildings that
remain the admiration of the European world. There Gio^, 1967-1337
in the preceding century, had laid the foundations of a new
school of painting, and designed the Campanile or Lily Tower
of Florence, whose plan and decorations touched the high-
water mark of Italian Gothic architecture. There Pisa's
cathedral and her leaning tower ; Venice with its palaces and
its church of St. Mark; Milan with its Duomo; Bologna with
its bell-tower; Gtenoa, Siena, and a score of lesser towns wit-
nessed at once the wealth and taste of a society unmatched in
Europe. These, transforming Gothic into Benaissance archi-
tecture, became the models for the continent.

The genius which produced them had sought triumphs in
other and allied fields. The bronze gates of the Florentine
baptistery, "worthy to be the gates of Paradise,'* were but
the greatest of the magnificent works which came from the
hands of the painter-sculptor-goldsmith, Ghiberti. The Pitti 1378.1455
palace in Florence and the church of Santa Maria del Fiore
witnessed at the same time the talents of Brunelleschi ; and
the marvelous statues of Donatello revealed the inspiration 1386-Ii66

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48

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

northern
Renais-
sance

Medieval
painting

of classical models and gave new impetus to this reviving
art.

Such were a few of the great names which lend luster to
the first half of the fifteenth century of Italian architecture
and sculpture. But that extraordinary burst of artistic
genius was by no means confined to Italy nor to the ^rking
of stone and bronze. Throughout northern Europe the same
devotion to the Qothic forms had been evidenced by such
widely differing examples of that graceful school as the
splendid tower of Magdalen College in Oxford and the chapel
of Vincennes, which owe their origin to this same period.
Yet even in these there lay the evidences of oncoming
change. For though the last years of the long reign of Gothic
architecture saw the erection of some of the noblest and most
beautiful of its conceptions, in England its so-called Perpen-
dicular form was passing into more florid types, and in
France the Flamboyant school had already arisen. The over-
elaboration which is the sure mark of decadence had begun,
and as Gothic had succeeded Romanesque five centuries' ear-
lier, it began to give way, in its turn, to the Renaissance
types which foreshadowed the development of another age.

At the same time that building and the plastic arts thus
adorned Europe, painting improved, and in even greater
degree. Beautiful as many of the mediseval products had
been, mural decoration and the making of pictures had
remained far inferior to the classical achievements in that
field, and incomparably poorer than the work pf the medieval
architects. The illumination of missals and manuscripts, with
all their wealth of color, the exquisite skill of their lettering,
the graceful basket-work designs of the Celtic school, the
splendor of Lombard and French monkish imagination, lav-
ished upon their decoration, had fallen far short of such
painting as the Greeks and Romans had known. The reason
is not far to seek. With all the pains and devotion of the
monkish artists, their most elaborate figures were lifeless,
their most carefully drawn landscapes were flat. And, apart
from these miniatures, and the Romanesque designs which
adorned the churches built in the later years of that period,

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 49

the middle ages had known little or nothing of the painter's
art.

But as the fourteenth century merged into the fifteenth. Early
there came a change. In half a score of centers, almost sa^eact
simultaneously, there sprang up a race of painters intent upon
producing on larger scale and in more lifelike forms the
faces and figures of the saints and angels which peopled their
imagination. To this, undoubtedly, the improvement of weav-
ing and the manufacture of smooth and permanent plaster
surfaces contributed, as well as the introduction of new pig-
ments and the discovery of methods of producing and blend-
ing color on a larger scale. Equipped with these facilities
the talents of the Renaissance artists began to challenge the
triumphs of Zeuxis and Apelles.

The earlier groups which arose in such widely separated
districts as northern Italy and the Flemish Netherlands,
Spain, and Germany, were, indeed, crude enough in their
conceptions and execution, differing only from the mediaeval
predecessors in their larger scope and more varied coloring,
with whatever originality of subject and grouping their new
materials permitted. But as the fourteenth century went on,
artistic production increased with the improvement of tech-
nique, and the demand for such work. From Bologna paint-
ing spread through Lombardy and the adjoining states till
nearly every north Italian city, from Milan to Ferrara,
boasted its ^'school" of pictorial representation, while from
Naples to the Dutch Netherlands men seized upon this new
means of expression, dotting the continent with studios,
whence a new stream of art flowed into European life.

It was inevitable that the increasing attention to work in The artists
line and color should improve technique, and as the yteenth rf.***^n
century came on that improvement grew more and more century
marked. If one compares the monkish art with that to which *^^ -^\V/i
the modem world has become accustomed he will perceive -e«ntonIi^l-^'
that, apart from the problems of color, three great changes
have taken place in painting. The one is accurate drawing,
the second is what we call perspective, the third is the han-
dling of light and shade, so-called chiaroscuro, or the art of

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50

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1444-UlO

/

000-1625

The pa-
trons and
collectors

shadows. In no small degree it was the province of the
painters of the fifteenth century to introduce these elements
into pictorial representation. Their efforts in this direction,
like their experiments in color, were strikingly unequal and
by no means always successful. There is not one who com-
bines in his work a skill in all of these fields approaching the
perfection of their followers. But they began the solution
of those problems which another generation carried to success.

They did more. By the achievements of Masaccio, the great
pioneer of the '^ modem manner/' painting was raised to
a new level. From the plastic art he borrowed the treatment
of drapery, from nature itself the ''sense of aerial space'
and landscape, so that his figures stand in a world prepared
for them." At the hands of ]^ JL^ippo Lippi and his more
famous pupil, Botticelli, another element made its way
through the medium of an increasing group of artists in which ,
the names of Bellini, Mantegna, and Perugino were, after
those of its leaders, the most eminent. Lacking somewhat of
the technical perfection to which their successors accustomed
the European eye, their delicate refinement of conception
and tone, the poetical element they infused into religious art,
their simplicity and tenderness, above all the humanity of
their creations, brought about a revolution in spirit and aims
of still greater importance to the future of painting than
even the advance in technique which they were able to make.
With them came the end of the flat decorative formalism, the
lifelessness of monastic art. And, reinforced by the achieve-
ments of the sculptors and goldsmiths, the terra-cottas and
enamels of plastic artists^ who, like the della Bobbias, found
a new medium of expre^ion in these materials, art bclcame
at once more decorative and more akin to life.

The patronage of such men was by no means confined to
any class. The nobles and merchant princes, indeed, were
quick to appreciate the intellectual stimulus of the revival
of antique masterpieces. But from the first the new art and
the new learning found no stronger supporters than some of
the highest dignitaries of the church. These, spiritual of-
ficials in name, but in fact rather Italian noblemen, with the

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 51

tastes and Btandards of their class, had found in the
church an outlet for those talents which in their ancestors'
hands had ruled the world in temporal as they now directed
the destinies of half Europe in spiritual affairs. They had
not confined their patronage to the collection of antiques, the
search for objects of art, inscriptions, manuscripts, and the
myriad relics of a long neglected past. They embraced with
scarcely less eagerness the achievements of the new race of
artists; while their encouragement gave fresh impetus to the
cultivation of these refinements and enlisted them in the
service of the establishment.

But this was not the whole of this great movement to which
we give the name of the Renaissance, nor were its efforts and
effects confined to Italy and the east. While the artists
reached new heights of excellence, the men of letters and learn-
ing had increased with equal pace. One by one the barriers
which had separated Europe from her past broke down before
them, as the collection and study of classical remains devel-
oped from mere dilettantism into the serious business of life
for many men. And while the artists and architects,
sculptors and workers in metal brought new elements of
beauty into European life, a new race of antiquarians pro-
vided the continent with an invaluable foundation for intel-
lectual advance. Among them one figure may be taken as
the type of the whole.

This was Poggio^ Bracciolini, a secretary of the Soman Poggio
curia, who about the year 1414 was sent to Constance on a ^'•^^^^^i"*
Papal mission in connection with the church council then
attempting to determine the great schism which had so long
divided Boman Catholicism against itself. Trained in Greek
and Latin by the most eminent scholars of his day, his talents
as a copyist, his tastes and abilities which brought him in
touch with men of like mind in Italy, turned his attention
to the possibility of recovering classical manuscripts from
their hiding-places in western Europe. To the pursuit of
these, buried and forgotten, even where they were preserved
in monastic libraries, he devoted his talents, his fortune,
and his life. From Constance he explored the monas-

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52

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The dis-
covery of
classical
manu-
scripts

The
libraries

teries of Switzerland and the adjacent lands. St. Oall
yielded Quintilian's treatise on oratory; Langres, Cicero's
oration on Giecina, and from other sources came much
more material to illuminate the life of the great Boman
advocate.

To these were joined works in far different fields which
fell to the share of this industrious and fortunate collector.
Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Vegetius' De Re MUitari,
Firmicus' Mathematica, the histories of Tacitus, Livy, Am-
mianus Marcellinus, the poems of Silius Italicus, the archi-
tectural writings of Vitruvius, the agricultural treatises of
Columella, among many others, became the fruits of his
explorations. Nor was he alone. While he was busy resur-
recting the letters and learning of the Boman world from the
libraries and storehouses of French and German monasteries,
others were ransackiiig Constantinople for Greek manuscripts,
whose collection became one of the great activities ct literary
fashion. From these sources manuscripts poured into western
Europe by hundreds, and even thousands, there to be copied,
edited, and finally printed. Through their correspondents
the commercial magnates sought such material no less eagerly
than the more usual materials of trade. Privitte individuals
employed collectors, and there emerged a new profession,
that of collecting, buying, selling, and copying these master-
pieces. Through such hands passed the priceless treasures
of antiquity. To Niccolo de' Niccoli the scholar Aurispa
brought Sophocles and the Laurentian manuscript of
iBschylus. In the collection of Filelf o were numbered most
of the Greek poets, the historians from Herodotfis to Polybius,
the writings of Aristotle, the orations of Demosthenes, iBs-
chines, and Lysias.

It was no wonder that with these accessions to the knowl-
edge of Europe, intellectual processes took on new life. For
their inspiration was not confined to their immediate pos-
sessors. Copyists spread reproductions of them through
many hands; and, above all, there were founded libraries
throughout Italy. Cosmo de Medici, first at Venice, then at
Florence, established great collections; the Vatican began to

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 53

interest itself in the enlargement of its store of mannseripts ;
and individnals, like the learned Dnke Federigo of Urbino
and Cardinal Bessarion, contributed their time and fortunes
to the great cause of bringing together and preserving the
intellectual treasure of the classical world. With this was
opened to European eyes the long vista of the past and new
ways to be explored. Every year revealed new treasures to
men weary of the narrow round of theological disputation,
impatient of its barrenness, and eager for new information
and new ideas.

As a result there came into existence not merely a new The
race of scholars and new professions. Education was slowly *^J^^'
revolutionized as Greek again took its place in the intellectual
equipment of Europe, invigorated by its philosophy, learning
and literature. And when, almost simultaneously, the fall of
Constantinople and the invention of printing altered the po-
litical and intellectual situation of the continent, the Renais-
sance received a new impulse. Greek scholars, fleeing before
the Turks, brought with them into Italy, and even into
northern Europe, not only manuscripts but a scholarship
superior to that of the west. The art of printing, early
introduced into Italy by the (Germans, was there greatly
improved, and found at once in this field of classical
scholarship ample scope for its activities. It was enormously
stimulated by the capture and sack of Mainz by Adolf of
Nassau in 1462. That event,— comparable to the capture of
Constantinople, — scattered printing and printers throughout
Europe, and so gave new impetus to printing and scholarship
alike. For it provided everywhere that ''circulating medium
of culture'' which was so supremely essential to the diffusion
of the new learning and humanism generally. From the
young presses flowed a steady stream of volumes, which,
edited by the rising scholarship of the continent, at once put
into European hands the inspiration of the ancient world and
secured for it a permanence and an audience impossible to
the age of copyists.

Such was the humanism, or New Learning, which during
the fifteenth century found its way through the continent

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54

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The New
Learning
and the
academies

Florence
and the
Platonic
Academy

1433-99

by the activities of the scholars. It was, indeed, not long
confined to Italy. Across the Alps the scholars of France
and Germany, England and the Netherlands, eagerly em-
braced the same cause, while even some nobles followed the
example of their Italian contemporaries, and, like Duke
Humphrey of Gloucester, who enriched Oxford with its first
great library, turned at least a part of their talents and their
wealth to the service of civilization. That cause, meanwhile,
found expression and support in a new form of organization*
which was to culture what universities had long been to
education. This was the academx a. voluntary association of
men devoting their time, jenfirgy»_and wealth to the pursuit
and publication of -scholarly, literary, and, finally, scientific
productions. Founded on ancient models, like those of Plato
and Socrates, and beginning in a variety of forms during the
two preceding centuries, this movement now crystallized in
northern Italy. Thence it spread slowly through the Eu-
ropean world until scarcely a nation or a city of cons^uence
lacked an institution of this sort. And these, throwing
'kittle specks of light on the still ocean of the past,'' encour-
aged by their existence and their patronage the extension
and preservation of all forms of intellectual activity and so
became a powerful factor in the life and progress of the
European peoples.

In this great development, as in art, Florence had from
the beginning taken a leading part, and with the accession
of the banking family of Medici to the headship of the state,
especially with the reign of Lorenzo, called the Magnificent,
that city became for the time the intellectual capital of
Europe. There was situated the earliest and most i>owerful
of these societies, the so-called Platonic Academy, founded
by Gosimo de Medici, and strengthened by Lorenzo. To it
was summoned the scholar Ficino as president, high-priest
or '* hierophant" of the Platonic cult, which now stood forth
to challenge the long supremacy of Aristotle. With thetrans-
lation of Plato began an era in the intellectual development
of Europe, which set the great humanist's idealistic, imagina-
tive, aesthetic, eclectic ideas in opposition to the dogmatic.

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 55

material, logical system of his antagonist. It is not too much
to say that with the introduction of Platonism into European
thought there began a revolution of no less consequence than
that presently effected by the discovery of the transatlantic
passage and the worlds beyond. From this academy other
elements found their way into the method and content of
human thought. Politian strove to revive the golden age of i45i-94
classical literature, and in his hands the neo-Latin movement
gained fresh beauty and strength. Midway between the new
learning and the old orthodoxy, Pico della Mirandola sought i4(»-94
in the Hebrew Kabbalah the source and proof of Christian
mysteries, and from his union of scholarship and theology
gave a powerful impulse to a school of inquiry which applied
historical and critical methods to the foundations of dogma.
And from a hundred hands there came editions of classical
texts, notes, criticisms, imitations, comment and literature
which revolutionized both the processes and the substance of
European thought.

Under such influences the renaissance of art took on fresh
life. The educational system which had dominated the middle
ages with its formalized trivium and quadrivium — gram-
mar, logic, and rhetoric; arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy — which, with law, medicine, and the all-powerful
study of theology, made up the training of the mediaeval
mind, was at once enlarged and liberalized. Literature felt
a like impulse and pressed farther along the ways already
pointed out by the pioneers in prose and poetry of the pre-
ceding century. The new learning was not without its prac-
tical effect in many fields. Already, under the patronage of
Alfonso of Naples, then in conflict with the Papacy, Valla 1406-57
had applied historical criticism to the documents upon which
the church founded its claims to temporal sovereignty, and
had proved that the so-called Donation of Constantino, which
had long been accepted as a title-deed to its possessions, was
a forgery.

Meanwhile, as classical models were again set before ^neas
Europe, there came an alteration in taste which profoundly ^y*^*"*
affected almost every department of life and thought. It

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56

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1468

made its way into affairs and among its results none was
more striking than the change in the type of men and minds
which came into those high places not reserved for those
merely born to greatness. Five years after the fall of Con-
stantinople there came to the Papal throne Mneas Sylvius
Piccolomini. His very name echoed the now dominating
classical impulse. He had grown rich by discovering alum
mines in the Papal territories; assumed the cross for a
crusade against the Turks ; and gained literary eminence by
such diverse works as a history of Bohemia, a life of Fred-
erick III, geographical treatises, erotic poems, and theological
tracts. The advent to the Papacy of the first writer who
'' consciously applied a scientific conception of history to
the explanation and arrangement of passing events," marks
a new stage of intellectual development ; and no circumstance
could have been more significant of the change in values
which was coming over the European mind than the elevation
of such a character to the headship of the church.

But Italy was not alone in her glory, nor unique in her
devotion to art and literature in this period of the budding
Renaissance. Across the Alps the poet-thief, Villon, brought
to still greater perfection those types of formal versification,
the villanelle, chant royal, ballade and rondeau which took
their place beside the Italian sonnet as poetical models.

" When 8ong, new-born, put oflf the old world's attire
And felt its tune on her changed lips expire."

Working through the same medium, the new French, the
historian Gomines took up the burden of Froissart and
Monstrelet in chronicling the last exploits of a fading chivalry.
In (Germany the Meistersinger, last of the troubadors, first
of the modem poets, held their picturesque contests. In
England Malory revived the legends of King Arthur and his
knights of the Bound Table. And, noblest expression of the
? 1380-1471 best side of Latin Christianity, the Imitation of Christ, a
manual and exhortation to the Christian life, from the hand
of an humble Bhenish monk, Thomas k Eempis, began its
long career of comforting the weary heart of man. Than
such works as these, nothing could have been more significant

The

northern
Renais-
sance and
literature

1445-1511

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 57

of the transition from old to new. They were the products
of an age which looked back to an era of knightly adventure
and monastic self-sacrifice^ even while it prepared a period
of literary, artistic, and scientific achievement which actively,
if unconsciously, undermined the foundations of a past al-
ready entering the realm of the imagination.

To these forces was added another element, the progress Savonarola
of a reforming, spirit within tiie church. In the very days
and place that saw the rulers of the ecclesiastical establish-
ment strain every nerve to re-invigorate their temporal sov-
ereignty, and the leaders of the intellectual revival turn from
church and morality alike, was heard the voice of Qirolamo 1459-98
Savonarola, the monk of Florence, thundering against the
vice^and folly of church and world in tones prophetic of
approaching revolution. That warning was little heeded, and
not for a quarter of a century was the protest thus voiced
to become a part of the great movement then making for the
regeneration of the continent. For the time being Europe
seemed content with the absorbing pursuits which her political
activities and the renaissance of art and learning and litera-
ture had made possible. But amid the multifarious concerns
with which her people busied themselves in the last half of
the fiifteenth century, the spirit which he voiced made its
unnoticed way, preparing to play its part in the next act
of the European drama.

In one direction the Renaissance fell short — ^the develop-
ment of a philosophy to combat the dogmatism of the church.
Its indirect effect was, indeed, great, but had it taken classical
thought more seriously, it might have developed some more
practicable method of combating authority, which like
rationalism in later centuries would have enabled its fol-
lowers to advance beyond dogma and revelation to a more
reasonable if not a more logical attitude toward life, its
meanings and its problems. That opportunity it missed, and
meanwhile, more pressing, and, it seemed, more practical
concerns demanded immediate attention.

Had the Renaissance been confined to art and letters, or
to classical scholarship, it might have proved as barren of

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

Revival

of the

sciences*

artSyand

crafts

Mathe-
matics

permanent advantage as the influences which gave it birth.
Without some more substantial element, some power to con-
nect this burst of energy with every-day affairs, it might
have spent itself in dreary dilettante patronage of barren
intellect, with all the petty shibboleths and incapacity which
accompany mere appreciation. It might well have degen-
erated into like courses which had led men into the deserts
of scholasticism, had it not been preserved by iwo^id^uences.
The one was the tendency of the new literature to dissociate
itself from ecclesiastical authority and to relate itself to the
world about it rather than to the abstractions of either pure
intellect or theology. The other was the advance of scientific
knowledge, which, in like fashion, diverted men's attention
from the insoluble questions of the infinite and the absolute
to the more tangible problems of mundane affairs.

If mediaeval Europe had suffered much from the destruc-
tion of the settled system of society, and the interruption or
diversion of intellectual processes into ways as barren of
result as classical science, she had suffered scarcely less f r<Hn
the loss of that practical knowledge upon which the material
fabric of the ancient world rested. With the revival of
learning she b^ij^ to recover not merely the thought but the
usage of the older civiliMtion. Among the literary remains
uncovered by the archaeological revival were treatises on war
and navigation, building and gardens, astronomy, mathe-
matics, and a score of no less substantial affairs, which con-
tributed, if not to the thought, at least to the practice of
the oncoming generations. That information, added to the
hard-won knowledge of experience, helped to set Europe on
new paths of activity at the same moment that her scholars
introduced a new philosophy of life, her men of letters and
her artists put before her new achievements and ideals, and
her adventurers led the way to new lands.

One of the earliest and greatest symptoms of this progress
along practical and scientific lines was the revolution in
mathematics. The early middle ages, characteristically, had
preserved and taught the propositions of Euclid, but not his
proofs; its arithmetical calculations had found their highest

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BEGINNINGS OP iNTfiLLfiCtUAL EXPANSION 6d

expression in the abacus. Its elementary knowledge of
geometry had been confined, where it was preserved at all,
to the purposes of the surveyor and the architect, or to the
less useful services of the astrologer. But with the insistent
demands of the new navigation and the concurrent discovery
of classical manuscripts, there came a change. Little by little
the knowledge of Greece and Bome was added to that de-
rived from experience and drawn from Arab sources. And,
what was more important still, mathematics came into the
hands of scholars and was infused with that Spirit of investi-
gation which ensured its development.

Its principal exponents were found in Germany. The Purbach
great work of P^^^j^ in Vienna brought to the attention
of European scientists — as these men came gradually to be
known — ^the contribution of Ptolemy who had summed up
the ancient knowledge of the earth and heavens. But long
before Purbach the renaissance of mathematics and astronomy
had begun. The so-called .^Jma^gst, which the Arabs had
translated from the Alexandrian geographer's writings, was
brought within the widening circle of general European in-
tellectual achievement as early as the twelfth century; and the
long eclipsed science of trigonometry, of such incalculable
value to geography and navigation, was rescued and revived.

The Viennese astronomer but summed up the labors of his Regiomon-
predecessors. To him succeeded, among others of less note, ^^^^
his pupil Johann Muller. better known by his assumed name 1436-76
of Begiomontanus, sometime a student in Italy, finally a
citizen of Nuremberg. There, with his associate, Walter, a
rich merchant, he published books and constructed astro-
nomical instruments, by which it became possible to correct
those Arabian calculations, the so-called Alphonsine tables,
which since the thirteenth century had formed the basis of
European study of the heavens. In such hands map-making
was revived as the pursuit of learned men, the science of
geography was revolutionized with that of astronomy. New
methods of measuring time, tables of declination, catalogues
of stars, took their place in Europe's rapidly developing
intellectual resources.

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Spread of As secular, and, in particular, scientific, learning thus
pnnung paralleled the progress of classical scholarship, art, and lit-
erature, it was reinforced no less by printing. For the first
time it was possible not only to record the results of such
labors in books whose very number ensured their permanence,
but to make this work available to many widely separated
workers in the same field, so that its fruits were quickly
spread throughout the continent and progress thus made
more rapid and secure.

How great a service was thus rendered was soon apparent.
The Bible was, naturally, the first book to fall from the
press, and printing lent its powerful aid to classics and
theology. From the Italian publishing houses poured a
stream of volumes drawn from the masterpieces collected by
the archseologists and edited by the scholars, who, like the
printers, were so largely indebted to the academies for their
Geography support. But it was not long before the interest in geography
produced a literature of surprising magnitude in that field.
Among the earliest books which came from the press were
Pomponius Mela's cosmography, De Situ Orbis, and Ptol-
emy's great work, the Oeographia, of which not less than
three editions appeared within a little more than a decade.
In the same years Marco Polo's Travels delighted European
readers; and not long thereafter the prototype of all lying
travelers' tales, the book of Sir John Mandeville, saw the
light of print. Finally d'Ailly's work, the last desperate
attempt of the old school to harmonize the medisBval doctrines
with the new astronomy, marked the end of the long con-
troversy between dogmatic theory and revealed fact, as Eu-
rope turned definitely toward a modem cosmogony.

One may well question whether, with all the stimulus of
putting the Bible and the schools of ancient thought within
the reach of every reader on the continent, the effect of these
scientific works was not fully as great a factor in the intel-
lectual advance as even scriptural and classical scholarship.
In this field of print all the new intellectual movements
found common ground, and printing became the universal
bond among the peoples of western Europe at the same mo-

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 61

ment that the church began to lose something of its once
unique position as the meeting place of all nations. Every-
where learned and even merely curious men, German
geographers, Italian scholars, merchants of all lands, nobles
and clergy and laity, turned their attention to new fields of
human endeavor. Learning and secular literature, for the
first time in a millennium, found themselves on an equality /
with the utterances of the theologians, and the layman began
to play a part in the intellectual life of the continent.

This was the more important because of the gradual rise The
of that class to greater place in European society and economy J"^^
during the preceding centuries. The development of organ- ; .
izations of merchants like the Hanseatic League and the
Merchants of the Staple was ^ot the only evidence of the
progress of the non-noble elements throughout the continent.
No less important and scarcely less powerful were the asso-
ciations of craftsmen which owed their origin to the same
period ; and even more significant than the rise of the traders
was the development of the manufacturing classes in whose .
wares they dealt. i

That development was almost wholly the product of the The
towns. The feudal estates, as has been said, were, for the ^^m^
most part, possessed of artisans whose rude skill, supple-
mented by the households which were scarcely less self-
contained, sufficed for the simple demands of their relatively
primitive society. The towns early developed greater skill
and larger production. There the early stages of manu-
facturing, chiefly in Weaving and metal-work, took the form
of the so-called handicraft system, by which the workers,
largely in their own homes, carried on the labors of their
crafts — spinning and weaving, leather-dressing and working,
the manufacture of weapons and armor, wood and iron
working, gold and silversmithing, and the like.

One of the earliest developments was the gradual alteration
from the iifdustrial methods of the middle ages which made
production of the finished article the test of craftsmanship,
to the substitution of process for product. To the household
industry which had raised, spun, woven, and dyed cloth,

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62 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

succeeded the handicrafts which made each process the basis
of its existence. To the crude smithy succeeded the more
highly specialized crafts which wrought the iron, turned it
into steel, and from it produced the blades, the scabbards,
even the handles separately; and tempered, finished, and
polished the weapons by different hands and trades.
The Upon these there was developed during the later middle

Gi^lds i ng^ ^j^^ fQPjjj Qf distributing organization, at once mer-
cantile and social, known as the guild. >^It was intended to
ensure justice and equal opportunity to its members, to limit
and standardize production, and maintain prices and quality.-^
From that it was but one step to monopoly, which became the
characteristic feature of most manufacturing and commercial
activity for the ensuing centuries, as against the efforts of
individuals to excel, or even to introduce new methods. By
the fifteenth century that struggle was already in evidence;
and beside the efforts of men to emancipate themselves from
the domination of church and feudal monopoly may well be
set the attempt of those unrecognized individuals to break
^ through the privileges of organized labor and capital and
emancipate industry.

To this, by the middle of the fifteenth century had been
added a powerful tendency toward the emergence of a class
midway between the producer and the mere merchant, the
j/. middleman, or entrepreneur, from whom, indeed, a consider-
able element in the so-called merchant class was developed,
as in later years the banker was evolved from the goldsmith.
(Generally speaking, this promoter was the product of the
so-called '' putting-out" system, under which the merchant-
manufacturer gathered the raw material, distributed it
among the workers, and disposed of the product. This
arrangement, not unconnected with the guilds, developed
gradually, and under opposition from many directions slowly
made way until it became a powerful factor in that part
of industry which was related to commerce.

It was dosely connected with another element which marln

one of the principal distinctions between medieval and

. modem activities in this field, — ^the problem of tbe marfcity

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 63

upon which depended in no small degree the development of
industry. That market was limited, in earlier times, by the
political chaos of the continent,. no less than l)y..the difficulties
of transportation; and it was not until the establishment of
settled peace over wider areas and the increasing mobility of
men and goods that there came any greaF improvement in
the volume of commerce. It was still necessary to have some
more powerful body to protect trade, nor was it possible for
a century more to dispense with the security of the great
mercantile organizations, as political organizations took up
the work. As yet, outside of these mercantile associations,
trade was largely limited to relatively local areas, and organ-
ization followed the lines laid down by the market. It was
already possible for individuals like the first of the %]t^p.lin«
to establish great dye-works and make a fortune from his
product. It was already possible for others like the first of
the Fuggers to become a master-weaver, head of the guild,
virtual monopolist of the region in which he lived, and even
turn banker. But in the main, industry, like every other y^
form of organization, maintained those restrictive character-
istics which it had inherited. And in the beginnings of oppo-
sition to them, as in the development of new processes, and
new forms of production and marketing, lay the seed of an
industrial revolution which was to be no less important to the
expansion of Europe than the intellectual and spiritual de-
velopment by which it was accompanied.

The middle classes, to whom these great extensions of The Ren-
human capabilities were chiefly due, were correspondingly J[|f^5*J^
benefited. Every new invention opened up new means of middle
livelihood, not merely to those whose occupations were de- ^*®*^^
stroyed but to thousands of others. For, with the widening
of the intellectual horizon, fresh fields of activity presented
themselves on every hand for the energies of those who at
once created and enjoyed the new basis of life. With such
impulses the beginnings of a modern world came into evi-
dence, and another generation was to see many of their
promises fulfilled.

The Renaissance, as this great movement was to be known,

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64 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

4

had dawned ; and its first beams had begun to illuminate the
Europe of the fourteenth century with the light of the New
Learning, whose ' 'humanism/' as it was called, now chal-
lenged the long rule of scholasticism. At the same moment
politics, commerce, even rcligioii,' of,1nore properly, theology
and ecdesiasticism, showed signs of an impending change*.
''The general capacity for liberal culture, restored to the
world, became a part of the higher life of the race." Coming
upon a people seeking new solutions for the problems of
existence, no less in their private than in their public con-
«ems, the example of the ancient world offered at once a
new basis of knowledge and new methods of approach, spirit-
ual and material.

The In this development one phase of knowledge soon rivaled

mmphy classical scholarship ; perhaps, in certain directions, even sur-
passed it in interest and importance. This wa^ geography.
It seldom happens in any age of the world that even a con-
siderable minority of men, much less a majority, allow the
claims of the past, however powerful, to outweigh the more
pressing demands of the present or the promise of the future.
Nor was this period of the so-called Renaissance, which was
^ rising to its zenith during the fifteenth century, an exception
to the rule. It was inevitable that, whatever the changed^
produced by a reviving interest in the past, men should
desire to know not merely .what had gone before but what lay
about them ; that, with the undoubted charm and importance
of art, letters, and philosophy, men should be still more
absorbed in the practical affairs of every day. No circum-
stance was more typical of the transition from the old to the
new, therefore, than the advances made in the geographical
sciences between the thirteenth and the sixteenth century.
Ancient Before this time the most extensive knowledge of the world

o?^Uicr^** possessed by Europeans had been attained under the Boman
world Empire. Summarized first by Strabo in the first century of

the Christian era, and a hundred and fifty years later by the
greatest of the ancient geographers, Claudius Ptolemy of

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 65

M 8 rt e«

0) 9k Ml a> S d

i Sll

% lis gi^

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Mediaeval
knowledge
of the
world

Alexandria, in the most famous of ancient maps, that knowl-
edge was, of course, by no means j^rfect. It was naturally
most accurate in the regions of the Mediterranean, the Bed
and the Black Seas ; while the northern coasts of Europe were
practically uncharted, and even the British Isles were dis-
torted almost beyond recognition. Ptolemy's detailed knowl-
edge of what was known as the '^ Inhabited World*' was, in
general, limited on the south by the Soudan and the upper
Nile, which had been reached by the Romans; and on the
east by the Jaxartes, which had been reached by Alexander.
Beyond these he had some notion of more distant points;
the Fortunate Isles on the west, whence he calculated his
longitude eastward ; the Mountains of the Moon on the south ;
the Pamirs; and even Serica, the land of silk. Sine, Thime,
or China on the east. The three southern peninsulas of Asia
were indicated on his map. But other and earlier charts,
based on the voyages of Greek merchants — ^the so-called
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, and the account of the geog-
rapher Marinus in particular, which were apparently un-
known to Ptolemy, — reveal a greater knowledge of these
regions than that evidenced by him as it has come down to us.
Finally, through an error, long discouraging to navigators,
the great geographer connected Africa and eastern Asia by
an ''unknown southern land," which converted the Indian
Ocean into an inland sea, like the Mediterranean, and ren-
dered a seaway to the East apparently impossible.

With all its faults, the> geographical knowledge of the
ancients was far from contemptible; but perhaps no branch
of human enlightenment was more affected by the dissolution
of Greek and Roman civilization. The shock of the barbarian
invasions suddenly and violently contracted both the desire
and the necessity for such knowledge. The Ptolemaic tradi-
tion was in large part neglected, distorted or forgotten.
When it was revived, one great improvement and two great
errors made by Ptolemy were revived with it, and, as s<Hne-
times happens, the errors proved more valuable than the
accuracies. The Alexandrine geographer had devised a sys-
tem of measuring latitude and longitude, in itself ingenious

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 67

and useful ; but, basing his calculations on insufficient knowl-
edge, he had made the degree too long, and the circumfer-
ence of the earth, in consequence, too small. Beckoning from
the undetermined position of the Fortunate Isles eastward
only, the apparent distance between western Europe and
eastern Asia was thus greatly shortened, and men of later
times were tempted to a voyage which otherwise might have
seemed impossible. Long after his conception of a land connect-
ing Africa and Asia was shown to be f alse, the tradition of a

The Hereford map, or picture of the world, drawn about 1280. (Re-
produced from Jacobs'B The Biory of Chographical Ditoovery by
permisaion of D. Appleton & Company.)

** terra australis incognita" lured them to a search which was
in one sense confirmed by the discovery of an Antarctic con-
tinent, and, in another, rewarded by the finding of Australia,

Even with this interruption and these inaccuracies, had Monkish
geography, when it began to revive, based itself on Rolemy's IS^^^P^J
maps and calculations and incorporated the new knowledge
gained from generation to generation, the maps of the fif-
teenth century would have represented Europe and consid-

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68 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

erable parts of Asia with tolerable correctness. But cartog-
raphy, like many other branches of knowledge which came
into the hands of the church after the barbarian invasions,
was revived less as a science than as a curiosity. Ptolemy's
map gave place to that of a circular world, bounded by a
circumscribing ocean, and arranged about Jerusalem as a
center according to a passage in Ezekiel, confirmed by the
Psalms, '^Thus saith the Lord Gk)d, this is Jerusalem, I have
placed her in the midst of the peoples, and in the circuit of
their lands. ' ' Paradise lay, as in Gtenesis, to the east. On the
extreme west were the pillars of Hercules. To the northeast
lay the home of the mythical Oog and Magog, shut off from
Europe by the great iron gates built, according to medieval
legend, by Alexander to close the only way by which the
fierce pagan tribes of Asia could pass through the mountains
into Europe. Such mingled theological and fabulous con-
ceptions, grotesquely symbolic of the school which produced
them, destroyed all usefulness of maps either as travelers'
guides or aids to a true conception of the world. Of these
the amazing work of the Alexandrian traveler, Cosmas Indi-
copleustes, with its impossible reconstruction of the world
* from Biblical texts, was the forerunner. Thereafter their
degeneration was rapid and complete. The world was some-
times represented as a T within an 0; the lines .indicating
water — ^the encircling ocean, the Mediterranean, the Don, and
the Nile; and the white spaces land — ^Europe, Asia, and
Africa. Outlines of countries became formalized; natural
features gave way to pictures of fabulous monsters; lands
which no man had ever seen, like those of the Amazons, were
set down; and to complete and adorn their work the geog-
raphers ''filled the blanks with elephants for towns."
The If European knowledge of the outside world had been

Savd^*^ wholly confined to these, as even scholars long supposed, the
discoveries of the fifteenth century would have been no less
than miraculous. But, fortunately for mankind, geographical
knowledge had not been restricted to the cloister. Inde-
pendent of Ptolemy and the monkish map-makers alike, cen-
tury after century, pilgrims, travelers, traders, and sailors

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 69

making their way throughout Europe and into Asia, and,
recording their information thus gained in chronicle,
itinerary, and chart, laid, slowly but surely, a new basis of
knowledge. From the time of St. Helena, mother of the
Emperor Constantine, who early in the fourth century jour-
neyed to Jerusalem and there found the Sepulchre and the
true cross, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became more and
more frequent. Many, like Bishop Sighelm of Sherburne,
Alfred's reputed emissary to Jerusalem and the shrine of
St. Thomas in India, made that long journey "very pros-
perously, which a man would wonder at to-day — ^and return-
ing home brought divers strange and precious stones — ^yet
extant in the monuments of the church." As Christianity
spread throughout the northern peoples from the fifth to the
eleventh centuries the stream of pilgrims increased. This
movement was at once stimulated and altered by the first
crusade, which brought Jerusalem into Christian hands.
Men like Adelard of Bath and Daniel of Eaev in the twelfth
century returned from their travels in the Eastern Empire
and among the Arabs with information even more precious
than the jewels of Sighelm. Nor was it crusaders only who
brought the armed power of Europe into touch with the
infidel. Norse sea-rovers found their way across Russia to
the Black Sea or around Spain into the Mediterranean to
fight the Saracen. Adventurers, like Oodric the English
pirate, and like Sigurd of Norway and Edgar Etheling, who
successively plundered the Moorish stronghold of Lisbon,
at once narrowed the Mohammedan power and widened the
knowledge of Christendom. Nor was interest and activity in
the world outside of Europe confined to the East even in the
earlier centuries. Before the first crusade, the Norsemen
had discovered and settled Iceland and Greenland and even
reached the eastern coast of North America ; and Alfred had
recorded in his translation of Orosius the reports of those
stout captains, Othere and Wulfstan, who ** dwelt northermost
of all men," concerning their voyages to the north and east,
to the furthest land of the Finns.

Yet it was, after all, the East which chiefly inspired an

Early
pilgrims

and
adven-
turers

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70 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

interest stimulated alike by religion, trade, and curiosity.

Strange stories of unknown Christian lands, of unnatural

The monsters, of amazing sights, of incredible wealth, attracted

'^"*" . men no less, perhaps even more, than the sober truth with

which they were inextricably mingled. As the Crusades went

on, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the near East

became as well known as most parts of Europe; and at the

beginning of the thirteenth century a new series of extraor-

I dinary and unexpected events, unconnected with European

I history, for a time opened the farther East to European curi-

1206-37 osity and enterprise. These wtere the conquests of the Tartars

under the leadership of Jenghiz Khan and his successors.

They fought with every people from (Germany to China.

They even prepared an armada against Japan; and their

empire embraced the vast territory stretching from the Pacific

to the Dnieper and later extended to Persia, Armenia, and

Asia Minor.

The nations of Europe were terrified at this advance, which
many believed to be the irruption of the nations of Qog and
Magog through the gates of Alexander that had so long
confined them. But the Tartar conquests ceased with the
occupation of the great steppes north of the Black Sea, and
their power, once established, proved by no means hostile to
western Europeans. On the contrary, it broke down many
of the barriers to travel raised by the hostility of lesser
tribes, and, once inside its far-reaching borders, the traveler
found his journey was relatively easy and safe to the utter-
most parts of Asia. At the same time the Tartars, not being
Mohammedans, and inspired by no such crusading zeal as
later fired the Turks, who were set on their long march
ending at the Danube by this very Mongol invasion, even
sought Christian missionaries from the west. Moreover,
**ju8t at the time when God sent forth into the Eastern parts
of the world the Tartars to slay and to be slain. He also sent
into the West His faithful and blessed servants, Dominic
and Francis, to enlighten, instruct, and build up in the
faith,'' through the great orders which they founded and
which bear their names.

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 71

With these two circumstances fhe relations between fhe Themis-
farther East and the West were completely altered. In par- fi*°*»»rica
ticnlar the Franciscans took up the work of opening com-
munication with the Mongols. About the middle of the thir- lus
teenth century, Friar John of Planocarpini had been sent to
Tartary as an emissary of Innocent iv tl> the Great Ehan, /
and brought back news of Eitai, Cathay, or China. Ten
years later Friar John of Bubruquis^ or Buysbroek, went on
a similar mission from Louis IX of France, and returned
with news of Cipango, or Japan. Some missionaries settled
in Tartary; a few found their way to China; and one, John
of Montecorvino, even became famous as the so-called bishop
of Pekin. Others had sought India, where the shrine of St.
Thomas and a body of Nestorian Christians had long at-
tracted pilgrims. In the first quarter of the fourteenth cen-
tury, a certain Friar Odoric of Pordenone set out for China IS18
by way of India, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Cochin-
China, and returned by way of Thibet, perhaps visiting
Lhassa, accompanied part of the time by an Irish friar,
James.

Some twenty years later, in response to an embassy from
the '^Ehan of China," Benedict XII sent a mission under
Giovanni de Marignolli, who crossed Asia to Pekin and thence, .
after some years, returned by much the same way Odoric had
gone. In central Asia and in India these travelers saw relics
not only of an older Nestorian Christianity but of martyred
missionaries who had preceded them. In western Asia and
in China, Odoric found houses of his own order. In India
Marignolli visited the church founded at Quilon by Jordanus
of Severac, consecrated bishop of Columbum. Everywhere
Franciscan missionary enterprise was discovered actively at
work, and everywhere were traces of those who were still
busy With conversion, or those unnamed martyrs who ''seek-
ing Cathay found Heaven."

Thus while Christian and Mohammedan strove for suprem- Prester
aey in the Levant, far beyond that conflict the church was ^^^^
endeavoring to plant its faith in more distant fields by
peaceful means. For many who sought those lands, interest

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72 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

was stimulated by one of the most striking legends which
ever lured men to the unknown. This was the story of
/Prester John, a Christian potentate and priest, endowed by
tradition with a kingdom whose location varieji from fhe
Mountains of the Moon to the Himalayas or J^yond. The
fable originated probably in the twelfth or thir^nth century,
and was apparently compounded' from the actual existence
of such Christian communities as Abyssinia and. the Indian
Nestorians, and the more or less mythical kingdom of Eara-
korum. Confused with the exploits of Jenghiz Khan, and
magnified by time, distance, and repetition, it was strength-
ened by the appearance of letters purporting to have been
written by Prester John to his fellow Christian rulers of the
West. The story defied the changes of time and circumstance.
Thirty years after the fall of Constantinople a Portuguese
king sending emissaries to the East gave them letters to this
fabled potentate who, however short-lived and shadowy his
real existence, for three hundred years dominated the im-
agination of Europe.
The Yet, with all their great services, the missionaries had made

merchants jggg permanent contributions to knowledge and connection
"- with Asia than the traders who followed in their wake. The
recharting of the Mediterranean and the revival of the road-
maps or itineraries of Europe began very shortly after the
barbarian conquests ; indeed it is probable that such practical
knowledge suffered less interruption than most kinds of
learning. With pilgrimages, commercial enterprise, and Cru-
sades strengthening relations with the near East and among
the various nations of Europe, this information had been
gradually enlarged and recorded, and was further reinforced
by contact with the Arabs. Adventurous European mer-
chants found their way past the western barriers of heathen-
dom and, like the missionaries, brought back information as
precious as the fruits of their trading. Though, as with
trade secrets of to-day, such information was guarded jeal-
ously enough, there is no doubt that some, at least, of the
merchant princes of northern Italy possessed road-maps and
itineraries, word-books and tables of comparative money

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 73

values, with similar material nsefal to the traveler from
Florence to Pekin.

Beside those far-reaching systems of exchange which north The trade-
Italian merchants established across the plains of central '^'^ **
Asia, with China and intermediate trading centers like Bok-
hara and Samarcand, other lines of commerce ran to the
south and east. From Venice and Genoa, from Marseilles
and lesser ports, the vessels plied to those cities which fringed
the eastern Mediterranean. And these, from Alexandria
through Beirut and Smyrna to Constantinople, formed the
outlet of caravan routes which brought hither the products
of India and even more distant lands. From Alexandria
across to Suez, or up the Nile and so over the desert to
Suakin or Massowah, or still further south, the camels bore
their loads to the ships which from those ports made their
way past Aden into the Indian Ocean and so to the trading
centers of the Malabar coast of India. From Beirut through
Damascus to Bagdad, and so to Bassorah and the Persian
Oulf, thence byjiress^l^t Ormuz and again to India ran
another of the great^^avan routes. Or if by land, the
traders from Bagdad pushed on to Kermanshah across Persia
through Teheran or Ispahan and so through Afghanistan or
Baluchistan again to India; while from those distant points
still other ways led through northern Asia Minor to Smyrna
or Constantinople. From the rich trading cities of India's
western or Malabar coast, ships made their way to the still
farther east, Java, Sumatra, the Spice Islands, to China
itself, in this long, sl^fmer chain of trade which bound the
East and West.

It was, indeed, inevitable that the length and hardships of
such a precarious commerce should confine exchange to the
most precious and easily portable goods j it was no less inevi-
table that profits must be in proportion to distance and risk ;
and it followed, in consequence, that to European eyes the
East appeared a land of illimitable resources; that these
remote caravan centers of unfamiliar name and rare prod-
ucts should seem dream cities of unimagined wealth, full of
romance and rich in opportunity. Thus early arose the

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Marco
Polo

1254-1394

1998

legend of Asia's fabulous, incalculable treasures which fired
Europe's adventurous spirit in later years to high emprise.
Thus inspired, however slowly and however carefully
guarded, knowledge of the East and the ways thither grew
insensibly with the years, and with it an ever-increasing
desire to share "the wealth of the Indies."

How considerable was this knowledge by the end of the
thirteenth century is revealed in the story which the greatest
of these adventurers has left us. This^ was Marco Polo, the
Venetian, whose account of his ti^avels marked the greatest
advance in geographical knowledge since Ptolemy, and be-
came the inspiration of like adventurous spirits for centuries.
Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Polo's two uncles,
embarking on a trading venture, made their way to Con-
stantinople, thence to the Crimea, so to Bokhara, and finally
to the capital of the Great Khan, then somewhere south and
east of Lake Baikal. Returning after nine years of wander-
ing, they brought to the Pope a request from the Khan for a
hundred missionaries to teach and ^Kert his people. This,
probably the earliest and greatest ^Hbrtunity ever offered
the church to win the East, was negl^ted. After two years
at home, the Polos left again for Tartary, traveling this time
by way of Ormuz, Ehorassan, the Oxus, Pamir, Gh)bi, and
Eaipingfu.

They took with them the young Marco, who attracted the
attention of the IGian and entered his service. For twenty
years, as counselor and diplomat, he served the Tartar
prince, traveling on missions of state throughout the greater
part of Asia, till, wearying of his employment, he returned
to Venice toward the close of the thirteenth century. Within
three years after his return he was taken prisoner while
commanding a vessel in the War then going on between
Venice and Genoa. He was thrown into prison, where one
of his fellow-captives, a certain Busticiano of Pisa, wrote
out in French from dictation the Venetian's extraordinary
narrative, which thus — ^by means scarcely less extraordinary
than the author's own adventures — found its way to the
knowledge of western Europe to enlighten and stimulate its

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2 o ?^
O S o<

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 75 9

interest in the East. Its success bred imitators, among which
that genial and accomplished book of marvels composed by
the most eminent of fireside adventurers except the Baron
Munchausen, Sir John Mandeville, was perhaps the most
popular. Under such impulse of fact and fiction, missionary
enterprise, and especially commercial activity, was directed
more and more toward the fabulously rich land of wonders,
from whose abundance the Venetian had brought back y
enough to give him the name of Messer Millione.

Though interest in the West, meanwhile, lacked the power- Mediaeval
ful religious motive, and the prospect of as great wealth as ^^^Jf^^
that to be won from India or China, the fascination of the Atlantic
unknown was as strong in the western seas as in those of
the east, and the profits not to be despised. Aside from the Q
Norse settlemei^ts in Greenland, it is probable that the hardy
fishermen of western Europe early found their way to the
Newfoundland banks, though their knowledge of those happy
fishing grounds was long kept a secret for the same reasons

that led men to conceal what they knew of the way to the^

Bast. "^^^^

But whatever the West lacked in trade it made up in
legends. Somewhere in the north Atlantic floated the moving
island of St. Brf^ndan. . Since the days of Plato and Aris-
tophanes men had dreamed of the island-continent of Atlantis,
somewhere to the west of Africa, which had transmitted its
civilization to the western world and sunk into the ocean v
which bore its name. Somewhere, far to the west of the
Fortunate Isles, lay the fabled island of Antilla and of the
Seven Cities, seats of wealth and culture, rich in the lode-
stone of exploration, gold. Moreover, men were said to have
visited this western world. Sometime in the twelfth century,
the Welsh prince, Madoc, driven from home by civil war, had
found refuge there, returned with his wonderful news, and
sailed again, with many of his countrymen, to the new land.
The Italian brothers Zeni, visiting the king of the Faroe or
Shetland Islands, had found their way, under his direction,
to transatlantic lands, rich, well-peopled, highly civilized, and
had returned to tell the story. Most probable of all, the

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76

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Improve-
ments in
navigation

/

The Arabs

Icelandic sagas told of Leif Erickson and the discovery, per-
haps the settlement, of Vinlarui the Good.

But more than all the legends of east and west, even more
than the travels of traders or missionaries, the improvement
in the art of na>igation was developing the new geography.
The greatest problem of ancient and medieval sailors had
been the difficulty of laying a fixed course through the open
sea, out of sight of land. They could, it is true, use the.
sun or the north star in clear weather, but in cloudy seasons
they were obliged to stay in touch with coast or island, or
rely on pure good fortune. At least as early as the twelfth
century, however, there had come into use a rude form of
compass, a magnetic needle floating in a straw on water.
This, first looked on as witchcraft, was gradually emancipated
from the fear of the supernatural and improved. By the
fourteenth century it took the form of a needle suspended by
a pivot fixed upon a card which indicated the points of the
compass. This device revolutionized not merely navigation
but map-making as well, for it enabled cartographers to indi-
cate the direction of coast lines, rivert, and roads, and the
position of countries, cities, and natural features with respect
to each other more exactly than had previously been possible.
Beside this the seamen used a rude contrivance, the cross-
staff, to measure altitudes ; and, during the fifteenth century
a more accurate instrument, the astrolabe, came into general
use for the same purpose. As these were slowly supplemented
by other aids derived from astronomical mathematics, tables
of the sun's declination, and devices for measuring time, the
scope and safety of navigation were greatly increased.
'Olot a little of this knowledge was derived from the Arabs,
among whom geographical knowledge had suffered something
of the same fate as among Europeans, though modified by
the peculiarly scientific spirit which characterized their intel-
lectual advance. Their superstition, indeed, evolved wild
legends of the western ocean, the Green Sea of Night, peopled
with fearful moving monsters of rock, where the hand of
Satan was depicted rising tronp. the waves to seize the sacri-
legious intruder; of the southern lands where the sun beat

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 77

down with such fury as to make human life impossible, where
rivers ran boiling water, and where was to be found that
huge bird, the roc, capable of bearing two elephants in its
claws. But the Arabian Nights' legend of the mountain of
lodestone which drew the iron from vessels that approached
it too closely and drowned their passengers did not prevent
the Arabs from using bits of such metal to guide their ships.
Their knowledge of the stars derived from their long desert
existence was not so wedded to astrology that they could not

This

The World according to Ibn Haukal, 977.
'inap,"__or diagram, has the south at the top

from Jacobs's The Story of €hograph%cdl Discovery
draw from it a scientific and practical astronomy, and use
the same art to direct their vessels by sea that they had long
employed in their voyages across the no less trackless sands.

Moreover, situated as they were between East and West
and North and South, they enjoyed unrivaled opportunities
as middlemen in the great carrying trade between Europe,
Asia, and Africa. By caravan and fleet, therefore, they be-
came the great intermediaries between India, Persia, and the
Levant, the Soudan and the Sahara and southern Europe.
Damascus, Bagdad, and especially Alexandria, became great

y

(Reproduced
ppleton ) .

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i

78 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

centers of eastern trade, and it was largely from them that
not merely goods but the ideas of the tropical world, East
and West, with improved aids to navigation, came into
Europe. Here, too, the south-Europeans were first to profit.
As early as the middle of the twelfth century, the most emi-
nent of Arab geographers, Edrisi of Sicily, completed his
great geography under the patronage of the Norman king,
Soger II, and from that time Arab influence was strong in
those south-European regions where commerce most flour-
ished. Nor was that connection so greatly affected by the
Crusades as one might suppose. The greatest of tho^e wars
seldom checked it for long, and, apart from the actual scene
of conflict or the actual powers involved, commerce seems to
have gone on much as usual. Moreover, proflt not seldom
triumphed over faith. In most north African ports Italian
houses had their factories, and, at times, as in a famous inci-

1334 dent at Ceuta when the men of Genoa aided the Saracens in

beating off a crusading fleet, Christian and infidel trader even
joined forces against religious enthusiasts.

Maps and Thus, in the interests of commerce, sailors gained knowl-

charts edge on every ha]5id ; and this knowledge, their stock in trade,

they embodied in charts of the coasts they traversed, plotting
: the Mediterranean world in portulani, or port-guides, which
grew steadily ttom generation to generation in extent and
accuracy. In the last half of the thirteenth century ap-
peared a famous product of this activity. This was the
so-called Catalan map which at once summed up preceding
knowledge of the Mediterranean world and became the model
for later portulani. Such an infiuence once established grad-
\ ually found its way into more formal scientific geography.

1339 '^ Before the middle of the fourteenth century Angelico Dulcert
of Majorca produced a map of the world, modeled on the
portulani, which delineated the Mediterranean coast line with

1375 almost modern exactness. Some thirty-five years later an-

other Majorcan, Cresquez, added to this the knowledge of
the further East contributed by Marco Polo. With such
innovations, geography, associating itself with discovery, and
presently with astronomy, began again to assume an aspect

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BEGINNINGS OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 79

at once accurate and scientific ; and though as yet the question
of the earth's spheijcity had not come into the realm of
practical affairs, its consideration could not long be delayed.

k ^

1

— ^

^\

^\ '

5.

■%

I

8- re I

OHO O"

O"^
o «

1%

(g"?

■S *--^ ft
Ji •■a*!'

fl 'C *£ ^ ■ ^

2 « s "--a

2— « h.S

5 I S S = -

I

0, H ?^

S S « « i

While seamen and geographers were busy plotting the Astronomy
known world for practical purposes, men of science, appealing
to classical and to Arabian knowledge of the skies, were
busily engaged in rescuing astronomy from the astrological

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80

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

Turkish

conquest

and the

decline of

Italian

commerce

absurdities into which it had fallen; and were transforming
the study of fh^ stars from prophecy and divination into a
mathematical science. Not until the seventeenth century was
the Copernican system to be widely known, and until it was
fairly adopted medieval ideas of the universe cannot be said
to have been overthrown ; but by the middle of the fifteenth
century many of its fondest traditions had been shattered
and the way opened for a truer conception of a new heaven
and a new earth. Thus at the very moment when Europe,
divided against itself in political affairs, weak and open to
attack, had lost no small part of its territory to Asia and
seemed about to lose still more, the revival of its intellectual
forces, which were to renew its power and increase its capac-
ity at once for progress and for offensive action, was reaching
its culmination.

The direction which it tpok was in some measure due to the
very successes of the Turks themselves. As long as the
Tartar empire endured and the Arabs held the ways to
southern Asia, the trade-currents ran in the old lines unal-
tered. But the Turks were little more than fighters. Where
they went intellectual life virtually disappeared, and com-
merce, though it went on, never attained the proportions it
had enjoyed under the Byzantine Empire. Their capture of
Constantinople practically closed one door to the East. And
their ensuing conquests by land and sea, thanks to the almost
constant state of war which their activities introduced into
the Mediterranean world, even more than their own uncom-
mercial spirit, erected further barriers between Europe and
Asia till little beside Egypt was left open as a means of
communication. One by one the outposts of Venice and
Genoa fell into their hands; and though both these proud
cities contended against them, it was, amid the rivalries at
home, a losing fight.

The early, unquestioned leadership in commerce, educa-
tion, finance, and the intellectual renaissance had been
held by Italy. But, in the face of changing conditions, it
became evident on the fall of Constantinople that, whatever
the fruits of the new movement in geography and exploration.

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BEGINNING^ OF INTELLECTUAL EXPANSION 81

whatever the solation of the diflScuIties noi^^ed, the rewards
were not for those cities which had sc^^Bheld the com-
mercial pre-eminence of Europe. TMl^Kupremacy was
doomed, and the splendid energies which had raised them to
such heights were worn out in a vain struggle against the
inevitable, or diverted to other channels. North as well as
south, the day of the commercial city state and the trading- ^
league was passing, and with their decline went the pre-
dominance of Italy and the Mediterranean in European com-
merce and politics. Their place was taken by other kinds of
organization, ^national state and the various forms of
trading enterprise which rose on the extinction of the older
order^_ Among these one in particular had already made a
beginning in the movement which was to revolutionize the
world. The state which was to lead the way to the political
and commercial expansion of Europe, as Italy was to lead to
a new era of intellectual advance, was not Venice nor Genoa,
but Portugal.

The fall of Constantinople was the crisis which accentuated -Conclusion
the passing of the old order; but nearly forty years before
that great catastrophe a series of no less important though
less spectacular events had already ushered in the new. From
Italy had begun that exploration into the mysteries of the
classical civilization which had done much to stir an interest
in matters but little touched in the prevailing ecdesiasticism \
of intellectual Europe. From the Iberian peninsula had come 1

an impulse toward the expansion of European power and \

knowledge into the no less mysterious domains which, begin- i |
ning just across the strait of Gibraltar, stretched far beyctnd '
the knowledge of the Boman world, or the imagination of {

the middle ages. Into these almost equally remote and un-
charted regions adventurous scholars and warriors^ of dif-
ferent nations, of widely different aims, and as yet wholly
unknown to each other, had begun to penetrate. From these
two streams of influence, scholarship and exploration, which,
rising from widely separated sources, tended unconsciously
to join, was to spring that full tide of progress which was
to revive all European activity. ,

V'

\

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CHAPTER III

THE BEGINNINGS OP TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

The

Spimish

peninsula

700-1400

c. 1253

The Age op Discovery. 1415-1498

Whatever its relation to the other movements in continental
affairs^ nowhere in Europe was the development of what we
have come to know as national states during the fifteenth cen-
tury more active than in the Spanish peninsula, and nowhere
were its results earlier apparent. Every phase of that develop-
ment had long been conditioned by the presence of an alien
race. Seven hundred years earlier, Mohammedan power had
swept across the straits of Gibraltar, whose name, Jebir al
Tarik, still perpetuates that of its Arab leader; had over-
whelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, passed the
Pyrenees, and penetrated to the Loire before it broke on
Prankish resistance. Before that power it had receded again
into the peninsula. But seven centuries of crusading warfare
waged against it by' those Christian states which survived its
first onset in the mountains of the north and west had re-
duced its possessions to the little principality of Granada
in the extreme south, and even this was hard pressed by its
rivals.

These states meanwhile had risen to the rank of petty
kingdoms. Navarre had not greatly altered its size and con-
dition. But Aragon had extended her. sway to the Ebro and
the sea, to the islands and even to southern Italy; while
Castile, uniting with Leon, had wrested the central plateau
of Spain from the Moslem. And, on the west, the little duchy
of Oporto, joining her conquests south of the Tagus to her
older possessions, had formed the kingdom of Portugal. In
all of these the long struggle with the infidel had not merely
modified social, economic, and political conditions. It had
inspired the people with a crusading zeal which profoundly

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 83

affected national character. Proud, chivabnu^and adven-
turous, it was often heroic, sometimes f aiflj^Bbut jil^ays
a force to be reckoned with in peace or wan^^r

Alone among the states of the peninsula at the beginning Portugal
of the fifteenth century, Portugal . had reached her final
bounds and status. These were, indeed, not great. Small,
poor, sparsely populated, worn with wars, she was cut off
from continental Europe and hope of expansion on land by
her . powerful rival, Castile, against whom she maintained
even her independence with difficulty. However well adapted
to defense, her smaU' add brbken territory offered no great
advantages to the furtherance of ^national unity or wealth.
Her swift and turbulent rivers afforded scant communication
with the interior, and their narrow valleys, which formed
the greater part of the habitable, lattd, were separated 1^
mountain ranges and susceptible of cultivation on a large
scale only in their lower reaches. Agriculture, thus re-
stricted by nature, was still further hampered by the fact
that the great estates of crown, nobility, the church, and the
powerful military order of the Knights of Christ, had not
merely checked the increase of small holdings, but were
themselves not greatly productive. Moreover, Portugal's
manufactures were almost negligible and her native products
inconsiderable. By sea she was'of more consequence ; for her
fisheries were of some importance, and of her half-dozen har-
bors, the best, that of her chief city, Lisbon, was a much fre-
quented port of call and exchange between the Mediterranean
and northern Europe. Her commerce, though not of first-rate
importance, was far-reaching; and, with her navy, brought
her in touch with other sea-going peoples, especially those of
Genoa, England, and Flanders.

To this she owed much. From the beginning of the four- 1S17
teenth century, when the Genoese, Emmanuel Pessanha, had
organized Portugal's navy, the ** mother city of seamen" had
been relied on to officer its ships. Portuguese indebtedness
to England was even greater and of longer standing. As
early as the middle of the twelfth century, English forces
had helped to take Lisbon from the Moors, and two hundred

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84 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and forty :^K^fc later the long series of treaties which had
ensued bet^ft f|e two countries was crowned by the mar-

;i87 riage of thl^Prfhguese king, John I, with Philippa, daugh-

ter of John of Qaunt and sister of him who was to ascend
the English throne as Henry IV. With the aid resulting
I from that alliance, Portugal had finally repelled Gastilian
aggression and was now prepared to enter the most glorious
period of her history. When, in the course of that splendid
career, the Atlantic islands came into her hands, no small
part of their original population was drawn from the Nether-
lands, whose ruler, the Duke of Burgundy, had married the
daughter of John and Philippa.

Hie Thus conditioned by circumstances, at the beginning of

of^CeiSa ^® fifteenth century, the ambitious energy of her king,

relieved from the menace of Gastilian aggression, found no

. outlet for its energies but the sea and the Moors. There, at

least, opportunity was always at hand. Though long since

1415 driven from Portuguese territory to its strongholds across

the straits, Arzilla, Tangier, and especially Geuta, ''the key
of all the Mediterranean sea,'' Arab power had remained
a menace to Portuguese coasts and commerce and a support
to the Moorish kingdom of Oranada. This was now to be the
scene of one of the world's most momentous exploits.

The sons of King John were come of knightly age, and this
circumstance was seized upon as the opportunity for the
great adventure. Instead of the costly and useless tourna-
ments incident to the ceremony of their knighting, the king
was persuaded to undertake a real warlike expedition into
Africa; and to this end he summoned his subjects to a new
crusade against the Moors. Preparations were made on a
scale commensurate with the greatness of the exploit. Adven-
turers of all nations flocked to his standard to share the
glory and the spoil; and in July, 1415, at the same moment
that his English cousin prepared that enterprise which cul-
minated in his victory of Agincourt, the great armada, a
hundred ships and eighty thousand men, according to report,
sailed forth to the conquest of Geuta, blessed by the dying
prayers of the heroic queen. Investing the city with this

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The Embarkation of Tboops.

From a manuscript miniature of 1488. The ships, architecture,
and costume of the period are particularly noteworthy. Cp. picture
of the carrack, p. 160, and of the Armada, p. 334. From Bourel
de la Konci^re, Histoire de la Marine Francaise.

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 85

overwhelming force, the king, like his royal English kinsnian
at Crficy, seventy years before, left the burden and the glory
of the conflict to his sons. One day's fierce fighting gave
the place into their hands; the governor fled, the castle
surrendered, and the political expansion of Europe had
begun.

Not because it was a novel conception or a great catastrophe,
but because it gave fresh direction and impetus to a far-
reaching movement, the fall of Q^uta marks a turning-point
in human affairs. It was, in the inception of the exploit,
the echo of a feudalism already on the wane in many parts
of the continent. In its execution it was but carrying across
the strait that long conflict with the Moorish power which
had absorbed the energies of Portugal for centuries and still
vexed the other states of the peninsula on their own borders.
But, in a larger view, it was the connecting link between the .
older crusading movement which sought to win back Jeru- '•
salem and the Holy Sepulcher from the infldel, and the
mnHerTu r>nni>PT>tinT^ nf wip^jny ^he world for conmierce andv \
forJ[Ilu3SiiS&ili7* Not the least of its claims to importance^ '
is that it brought forth the first great figure in that far- —

spreading movement whose direction he was so largely to
determine — ^the young prince Henry, third son of John and Prince
Philippa, then some twenty years of age. To him the capture ^^ ^^
of Ceuta had been chiefly due, and, knighted with his brothers
for hFs share in this feat of arms, he was presently made^^
gOTcmor of the new conquest as well as of the southern- ,
jQiost Portuguese district of the Algarve, and created grand 1394-1460
master of the crusading Order of Christ. -
These circumstances inspired him with a great design. At
that time the southernmost point known to Europeans was
Cape Bojador on the West African coast ; beyond it, as in all
northern Africa, trade and knowledge of the land was in
Arab hands. There ran what was supposed to be the western
branch of the Nile, the Senegal, by which, it was thought,
a way could be found to the East and it9 unknown Christian
peoples, even to the fabled kingdom of Prester John. Once
past the cape, rich trade might be secured, Mohammedan

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86 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

power attacked in flank and rear, with the aid of Eastern
Christendom; and, lastly, "was his great desire to make
increase in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring
to Him all the souls that should be saved." Thus the young
prince dreamed of a greater crusade and a greater Portugal.
In this faith he took upon himself a task that grew under
his hand; till, for near fifty years after King John's great
expedition, the history of European expansion is little more
K than the story of the Prince's life.

The progress of his enterprise was sure if not rapid. Ceuta
secured against recapture, information was gathered there of
the lands beyond ; map-makers and mathematicians were em- ^
ployed to collect, organize, and formulate geographical and
astronomical knowledge. To combat the heavier seas and
currents of the Atlantic, so difficult for the Mediterranean
galleys, the building of larger and stronger square- or
lateen-rigged, saU-driven ships, which developed into the fa-
mous caravels, was encouraged. To lay a course through
fog and dark and unknown seas, independent of headl^mds
and uncharted coasts, various aids to navigation were intro-
duced and improved; especially devices to measure time and
distance, to reckon latitude and longitude, and to determine
location and direction. The university of Lisbon and Coimbra
was strengthened; new ports were projected for the antici-
pated needs of the enterprise; commerce was stimulated and
discovery encouraged by promise of reward. And, on the
southwesterly point of Portugal, at Sagres, the Sacred Cape,
where, seven centuries before, Christians fleeing before the
c. 1435 fury of Mohammedan invasion had borne and buried the
body of the holy St. Vincent, were built a study, an observa-
tory, and a chapel. There the Prince planned a city to rival
Cadiz, the Villa do Iffante, and thence he directed his counter-
stroke against the Moslem, his crusade against the infidel
and the unknown. Year by year he sent out ships to find
their way down the African coast and across to the islands,
charting the way for merchj^nts who would ** never trouble
themselves to go to a place where there is not a sure and
certain hope of profit"; striving to learn **determinatively

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BEGINNIljJGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 87

how far the power of those infidels extended," for the glory
of Qod and the profit of Portugal.

Prince Henry the Navigator was not, indeed, the first to Portagiuae
dream of African exploitation. From ancient times most ^^^
of the islands toward which his early ventures were directed and the
had been found and lost and found again. A dozen years Atlantic
before the capture of Ceuta, a Norman knight, Jean de
Bethencourt, under Spanish authority, had seized a group —the
whose Roman name, Canaria, Isles of the Dogs, witnessed J^Sm* \
how long they had been known to Europeans. Since Ptolemy
had laid down the Fortunate Isles on his map, many had
found their way thither. A century and a third before
de Bethencourt, the Genoese, Malocello, had discovered and
given his name to one of the group. Seventy years later
the Pope had granted them to a Spaniard, Don Luis of is^i
Talmond; and, at almost the same time, an expedition from r? '
Portugal had reached and claimed them for that power.
"When Prince Henry's work began, their title had long been
in dispute; and the controversy, complicated by Bethen-
court's nephew, who sold his claims to both powers, dragged
on for nearly a century before it was finally determined in 1495
favor of Spain.

But, though anticipated here, Prinze Henry was more The
fortunate in other quarters of the same field. Scarcely had M***^*'"
he entered on his work when his captains, John Gonsalvez
Zarco and Tristan Vaz Texeira, came upon a group of unin- 1418-19
habited islands north of the Canaries. One, where they
found refuge from shipwreck, they called Porto Santo; an-
other, Deserta; the third and largest, which gave name to
the group, Madeira, or Isle of Woods, from the forests which ^
covered it. Seventy years before, the story runs, two lovers,
Robert Machin and Anne d'Arset, or Dorset, eloping from
Bristol, had been cast ashore here and perished. Their
sailors escaping to Africa and Arab slavery, Zarco is said to
have first learned of the islands from the pilot, whom he
captured as that ancient mariner was returning to Seville
from his long imprisonment. The story is not probable, but
the reality is scarcely less romantic. Granted to Prince Henry

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88

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The
Aiores

ltt7

The

Guinea

coast

by the crown, and regranted by him to the discoverers, the
spiritualities of the new territories were decreed to the Order
of Christ, and the produce, when the demands of church and
state were satisfied, divided equally between the prospective
owners and cultivators. To Zarco was given northern Ma-
deira, centering in Machico, whose name romance derived
from Machin; Funchal and the south, with Deserta, to
Texeira. And Porto Santo was conferred on a certain Bar-
tholomew Perestrello, whose daughter, in later years, became
the wife of a Genoese adventurer, one Christopher Columbus,
of much fame thereafter.

Such were the beginnings of colonial grants, and under
their terms exploitation rapidly advanced. Settlers were
secured, the forests were destroyed, and the land set in
vineyards and sugar plantations. The Malvoisie grape, pres-
ently introduced from Crete, produced a famous wine, which
took its name from the islands, Madeira ; and this, with wood
for furniture and houses, honey and sugar, made up the
staples of the colony. So great was the success of this the
first and for many years the greatest of European settle-
ments outside the continent, that within thirty years its
population numbered eight hundred souls. Encouraged by
such development, in no long time the Azores, or Islands of
the Hawks, like their fellows long known and long neglected,
were brought, by the Prince's efforts, permanently within
the circle of European influence. Of these but one, Oraciosa,
was colonized by his own countrymen. The rest were settled
from the Netherlands, as Josua of Bruges in Terceira, van
der Haagen in Flores and Corvo, and Job van Heurter in
Fayal, planted settlements, which long gave to the group the
name of the Flemish Islands.

But the energy of the Portuguese was far from exhausting
itself on the islands. From the first the continent had claimed
their attention. There, as in the Atlantic, they could scarcely
be regarded as pioneers ; for as early as the thirteenth century
the great Genoese houses of Doria and Vivaldi had sent their
galleys down the west- African coast seeking fresh fields of
trade, at least as far as Cape Non; and, long before Prince

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 89

1488

Henry's time, Italian, French, and Spanish vessels had made
their way to Cape Bojador. But, until now, progress had
ended there. That great cape, stretching far into the At-
lantic, guarded by treacherous shoals and baffling winds and
currents, had proved an obstacle to further advance more
substantial than
the Arab legends of
the fearful dangers
beyond.

For many years
it defied even the
Prince 's efforts.
But with the re-
turn of his brother,
Pedro the Traveler,
from knight-errant
wanderings across
Europe, bringing
with him stories of
strange lands and
peoples, charts and
maps and books,
among them Marco
Polo's Travels,
Portuguese exer-
tions were redou-
bled; and, after
one failure, the
Prince's esquire. Oil Eannes, finally rounded the cape and 1484
sailed into the open sea beyond. Two years later Portuguese
ships reached and passed the Rio de Oro or River of Gold.
With the advent of their keels the serpent rocks, the boiling
rivers, and the hand of Satan receded into the realm of fable
whence they had emerged, and real knowledge of the south
began.

Such a success gave promise of great and speedy reward, The
but exploration was interrupted at this point for some five ^^e****
years by politics at home and an unsuccessful attempt on slave-trade

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90

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1441

The results
of slavery

1447-48

1445-47

Tangier, and when Prince Henry resumed his task it had
taken on a new form. One of his esquires, Antonio Oon-
salvez, voyaging to the Bio de Oro for seal-skins and oil some
seven years after Eannes' exploit, seized there two natives. \
Nuno Tristam, who joined him and sailed on to Gape Blanco,
followed his example and brought back the captives to Por-
fOj^l. The suggestion was not lost. Securing from the
i^ope a bull for the remission of sins to those embarking on
the new crusade, and from his brother Pedro, now Begent,
a charter granting him monopoly of the African trade with
a fifth of its profits, Prince Henry began to issue licenses
to private enterprise. The venture which had hitherto relied
on his resources now attracted many with a prospect of
profit. Encouraged by the success of the men of Lagos who
first entered the trade, others hastened to share their privi-
leges. Within five years, it is said, forty ships brought more
than a thousand slaves into Portugal, ''of whom the greater
part were turned to the true path of salvation." Thus the
second step was taken in the exploitation of the tropics.
To provide Portugal and her possessions with cheap labor ^
able to endure exertions impossible to Europeans in a hot
climate, and to bring the heathen under Christian influence,"
slave-catching took its place beside planting. And if the
greed of gain shortly outweighed the missionary spirit, the
Prince at least, while he lived, did what he could to check the
baser and promote the nobler motive.

Whatever the moral aspect of the case, whatever elements ^ ^
of future weakness it held, there is no question but that
Portugal profited for the moment very greatly by this new
element in her affairs. The economic situation, already
stimulated by Atlantic colonies and African trade, was revo-
lutionized by the advent of slavery. Agriculture and com-
merce took on new life. Estates and fortunes crippled by
war and lack of labor began to revive. Exploration was
correspondingly stimulated. Zarco's nephew made his way
as far as Cape Verde, and a fort was built in the Bay of
Arguin to secure that district. Oonsalvez was named governor
of Lanzarote in the Canaries and efforts were made to wrest

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 91

that group from Castile. With the aceessioii of the Prince's
nephew to the throne as Alfonso V, the crusade against the 1454
north African Moors was resumed, and in the year after the
fall of Constantinople Prince Henry's monopoly was fortified
by a Papal bull forbidding any Christian to trade in the
territory between Cape Non and the Guinea coast without
Portuguese license. The Venetian, Ca da Mosta, voyaging a
few years later through the new possessions, has left a vivid
picture of the vigor and success of this colonial empire in
the making. Everywhere he found the evidences of its
strength and activity, and the promise of its rapid develop-
ment: the sea dotted with its ships, the islands and the
mainland held by its settlements and trading posts, and its
promoters filled with the hopes and ambitions of a new
society.

Already the purpose and character of the movement was The way
changing. Close in the Venetian's wake sailed the Prince's ^uwca
captain, Diego Gomez, commissioned to explore the Cape
Verde Islands, sighted some fifteen years earlier by the
brothers Noli; and instructed, besides, to secure information
of the gold-producing lands to the eastward in Africa, above
all, of a sea-way to India. For, with the success in exploiting
the islands and the west coast trade, the dream of Atlantic
and African expansion had inevitably widened into the de-
sign of reaching Asia around Africa. That crowning achieve-
ment of his long career Prince Henry was not to see, for
before the results of Gomez' mission were available his
master was dead. The aim 6f the Portuguese hero's life- 1460
work, begun and carried on in the spirit of his motto, '^ re-
solve to do greatly," is fitly summed up in his epitaph, which
records how he labored ''that he might lay open the regions
of western Africa across the sea hitherto impossible to men,
and sail around Africa to the remotest shores of the East."
And though this last statement was rather a prophecy and
a hope than an achievement of his life ; though the splendid
map of Fra Mauro, which records his additions to European
knowledge, shows no sea-way to Asia yet traveled by men of
his generation; that discovery was none the less the chief

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92 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

result of his activities. Crusader, scientist, statesman, Prince
Henry laid the foundations of an empire, and pointed the
way to further greatness, determining the future, not of his
country alone, but of the world.

Scarcely interrupted by his death, the Portuguese pressed
to th« accomplishment of his designs. From Arguin,
strengthened into a fortress, successive expeditions reached
Sierra Leone and the Bight of Benin. The Guinea trade was
farmed on terms which compelled the exploration of five
hundred leagues of coast southward ; and, nearer home, after
eight years of effort, Portuguese power in northwestern
Africa was secured by the capture of Arzilla and Tangiers.
At the same time Fernando Po reached the island which still
bears his name, while Estravos and Santarem passed the
Equator. With these achievements the way to the East
seemed almost in sight; but again further progress was
interrupted by renewed war with Castile, and still more by
the lack of aids to navigation in the southern hemisphere
^ with its strange constellations, and these for a time checked
the Portuguese advance.

The Cape The accession of John II saw both difficulties remedied.

ofGood Peace was made with Castile, and the Gold Coast secured
by the fort of S. Jorge de Mina ; a royal geographical council
was formed to remedy the deficiencies of the astrolabe and
navigators' tables. To its deliberations was summoned for-
eign aid. Adventurers and promoters of all sorts, attracted
by the Portuguese exploits, flocked to Lisbon. From Nurem-
berg came the German merchant-geographer, Martin Behaim,
son-in-law of Governor van Heurter of Fayal, with the latest
achievements of the German map-makers and mathemati-
cians. From Florence the librarian-geographer, Toscanelli,
despatched a letter and a map of the world which showed
lands west of the Azores and hinted of a way to Asia by
that route. From Majorca and Minorca was drawn what re-
mained of that great tradition of cartography which had long
flourished there. The results were soon apparent. Within
four years of the new king's accession, Diego Cam and
Behaim found the Congo and reached Walfisch Bay. In two

Digitized byVjOOQlC

This map is that of Fra Mauro, 1457. It will be observed that, as in all,
or nearly all, mediaeval maps, the north is at the bottom of the map, i.e.,
Permia, ** Rossia," Sibir, etc. It includes the Portuguese discoveries, and
knowledge from other sources, i.e., Sofala, Diu, " Choncibar," Sumatra, etc.,
and is, therefore, far in advance of the actual progress of Portugal in the East.

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

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94

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 95

years more Bartholomew Diaz reached the most southerly
point of Africa, conquered the bafiSing head-winds of its Cabo' i486
Tormentoso, or Cape of Storms, re-named the Cape of Good
Hope, and sailed five hundred miles beyond that hard-won
point, fair on the way to India. With this exploit Prince
Henry's work was fitly crowned.

Yet, with the prize within their grasp, the Portuguese, Covilham
this time almost unaccountably, again were held back from •^^l***^*
seizing it. Assailed by doubts and fears; obsessed with
visions of Eastern potentates; hampered, perhaps, by the
king's ill-health, the royal council spent its strength in
securing what had been won. It sought further information
from monkish pilgrims, from Arab and from AJbgro sources,
strove to penetrate to Prester John by way of Senegal, and
finally despatched two men, Pedro de Covilham and Affonso
de Paiva, through Egypt to India with letters to the elusive
Christian potentate. Meanwhile the west coast of Africa was .
secured. Along the shore were set up stone pillars, bearing ''
the arms of Portugal, with the name and date of the discov-
erer; and protectorates were established over native chief-
taincies. From Spain was secured renunciation of her claims
on Guinea in return for Portugal's abandoning her pre-
tensions to the Canaries; from the Papacy, the confirmation
of the privileges it had pre^ously conferred. While these
precautionary measures were being taken, the royal mes-
sengers reached Aden by way of Cairo. Thence Paiva sailed
for Abyssinia and was lost. Covilham, reaching Calicut, re-
turned by way of Sofala and east Africa, learned at Cairo
of his companion's death; and turQ$dri)ack to Abyssinia to
find Prester John. Well received, he married and remained
there, half guest, half captive, until his death. But from
Cairo he had sent back letters by a Jewish merchant. ''If
you persist to the southward," he wrote, ignorant of Diaz's
exploit, ''Africa will come to an end. When the ships come
to the Eastern Ocean, let them ask for Sofala and the island
of the Moon [Madagascar] and they will find pilots to take
them to Malabar." This, it would have seemed, should have
determined immediate action. But not even this definite con-

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96

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Chris-
topher
Columbus

1474-6

His design

firmation of its hopes moved the Portuguese administration.
Beyond a grant to ojae Femam Dolmos, Lord of Terceira, of
the ''isles or continent" of Antilla, if he should discover that
fabled land, the importunities of those who were urging the
plan of reaching the East by sailing west had as little effect
as the achievement of Diaz or the letters of Covilham. And
before Portugal and her king had recovered from their long
fit of lethargy, a great event had altered the whole current
of the world's affairs. This was the discovery of the trans-
atlantic passage and the lands of the western hemispherey

That exploit, however startling in its conception and resul^
grew naturally from the circumstances of the times in
which it fell. Amid the crowd of adventurers drawn to
Portugal by the fame of her achievements oversea during
the fifteenth century there came to Lisbon, toward the close
of Alfonso V's reign, a young Genoese, Christop|
lumbus, then between twenty-five and thirty ye
The son of a weaver and innkeeper, he had follow^
and picked up some knowledge of map-making
tion. In Lisbon he married into the family of Pcj
the grantee of Porto Santo, and thus improved his
status, and, ,in a sense, laid the foundation of his fortunes.
He voyaged, as he claimed, to England, perhaps to Iceland,
certainly to Porto Santo, where he lived some years, and
almost as certainly to Africa, where rumor indicates his pres-
ence at the founding of S. Jorge de Mina. At all events,
something in this obscure early career brought him the con-
viction that land was to be found beyond the westernmost
islands then known.

The belief was not original with him nor confined to his
brain. Like the conception, a generation before of a sea-way
around Africa, the opinion that land was to be found by
sailing west, — great islands and beyond them Asia — ^was held
by many. The Ptolemaic tradition, reinforced by new dis-
coveries, forecastle yams and travelers' tales, the classical
reminiscences of Antilla and Atlantis, the legends of the
Seven Cities and St. Biyndan's Isle, the discovery of Vin-
land by the Norsemen — some or all of these he must some-

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 91

where have heard. Perhaps, as tradition records, an un-
known pilot, blown from his course to new lands in the west, '
confined his secret to the Genoese. Perhaps his belief was
founded on Toscanelli's letter, which came into his hands,
it has been surmised, by means which led to his leaving
Portugal. However this may be, some eight years after his
arrival in Lisbon, the Italian adventurer submitted his de-
sign to the king.^^It comprised four points: that the earth j
was a sphere, that all save the part between Asia and Europe
was known, that this was perhaps not more than a third of
the total circumference, and that there were probably islands
to break a long voyage. Tradition records that the council
sent a ship secretly to test the plan, and that on its return
from a fruitless voyage, Columbus, disgusted with Portu-
guese duplicity, left the country.

le less inspired or less persistent than Columbus this His prep-
might well have ended his endeavors; but, for- *''*"®°
ifor his fame, the realization of his dream had
master passion which enabled him to surmount 1478-90
ad ridicule alike. Leaving Portugal, he carried his
^plan fjoQenos,, while his brother, Bartholomew, laid it before
Henry VII of England. But it met with no response in
either place, and it seemed the end had come. Every state of
maritime importance, save Venice, had rejected him, and
there was left only the Spanish crown, which had already
turned him away. This last, however, remained his only
hope, and to it, supported and encouraged by his friend.
Father Perez, the Prior of la Babida, sometime confessor to
Queen Isabella, he determined to apply once more.

The moment was, in one sense, favorable. The years which
had elapsed since Columbus first went to Portugal had seen
the whole complexion of Spanish affairs altered; and at this
crisis in his fortunes and those of Spain came an event which
determined the future of both. This was the final successful
attack then being carried on against the Moorish stronghold
of Granada, which was to make an end of Arab power in
the peninsula. Thus freed from its most ancient enemy,
flushed with success, the crown, now all but supreme, was

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98

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

His
discovery

His return

no less ready for new enterprise than Spanish chivalry* for
a new exploit. Such was the country and the court to which
Columbus now addressed himself. His cause was well-nigh
lost by the extravagance of his pretensions, for misfortune
had not taught him humility. But, four months after the
fall of the Moorish stronghold, his persistence was rewarded
by a charter granting him the title of Qrand Admiral and
almost complete monopoly of all privileges and profits in any
lands he might discover.

With this concession, backed by the support of capitalists
of Palos, chiefly the family of Pinzon, ships and crews were
collected; and on August 3, 1492, he sailed from Palos in
the Santa Marvi of a hundred tons, accompanied by the
Pvnia of sixty tons under Martin Pinzon, and the Nina of
fifty tons under Vincente Pinzon. Eighty-six men, chiefly
from about Palos, but including at least one Englishman
and an Irishman, made up the crews. Befitting at the
Canaries, the little fleet sailed thence on September. 3, across
the unknown sea. Filled with nameless fears, half mutinous,
only Columbus' will held his reluctant followers on their
course until two o'clock on the morning of October 12,
Bodrigo de Triana, lookout of the Ptn^a, saw a land light,
and the ships hove to. When day broke, the adventurers
found themselves off a small island, Guanahani, one of the
Bahamas as it later appeared, upon which, in the presence
of a few friendly, half-naked savages, they landed, took
possession in the name of Spain, and called the place San
Salvador.

Sailing thence they discovered other islands. The largest,
which Columbus believed **the continental province of
Cathay" and christened Juana, in honor of the Spanish In-
fanta, has, after bearing many designations, Femandina,
Santiago, and Ave Maria, returned to its original native
name of Cuba. The next, later known as Santo Domingo
and Hayti, he called Espaiiola. The name of the group, the
Antilles, echoes the tradition of Antilla; that of the West
Indies perpetuates his error, for he had no doubt that he
had reached Asiatic territory. The Santa Maria having been

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 99

wrecked, he left some of his sailors on Espanola to found
a little settlement, Navidad, and hastened to carry the news
of his discovery to Spain. Eleven months after the date of
his patent, he arrived with proofs of his success. There was
need of haste. His contemporary, Behaim, had meanwhile
completed in Nuremberg a globe representing the latest geo-
graphical knowledge, and proposed to attempt such a voyage
as that of Columbus. But he was too late. By his daring
the Genoese adventurer, forestalling his rivals, had destroyed
even the most advanced conceptions of geography, and
had equalized for Spain the long and toilsome advance of
Portugal in oceanic expansion. As his coat of arms later
recorded, ''To Castile and Leon, Columbus gave a New
World."

If Portuguese discovery had unsettled medievalism in Eu- The results
rope, Columbus' exploit seemed likely to destroy it. Upon -
the balance of trade and commerce generally the effect was
not then, nor for some time, appreciable. From his voyage
the discoverer brought back a few natives, a little gold, and
some curious products of the western hemisphere; and for a
generation this represented its contribution to the old world's
material resources. But upon European thought the effect
was immediate and profound, and upon its politics only less
important. A thousand years of ecclesiastical conceptions of /
earth and man fell at a stroke. Shrewd individuals here
and there doubted or discounted or denied his claim that
he had found his way to the East Indies. But geographical
and astronomical as well as theological ideas were none the
less replaced or modified by a whole new series of deductions
and hypotheses, no less important because the truth was not
yet known and in many quarters judgment was still sus-
pended.

In public affairs the first result of Columbus' great exploit The
was the destruction of the practical monopoly of exploration ^J^^°
by Portugal. It became immediately necessary to readjust world
the claims to lands outside Europe in accordance with the
new situation which he created. Some thirteen years earlier, ^

Pope Martin V, as arbiter of Christendom, had confirmed

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100

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

N

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 101

to Portugal the territories from Cape Bojador to the East 3-4 May
Indies. Now, Pope Alexander VI assigned to Spain all lands ^*^^
beyond a line a hundred leagues west of the Azores, to which 2& Sept
he presently added *'and eastern regions to India." But ^*®*
Portugal protested and, in the following year, the treaty of ^
Tordesillas fixed the line two hundred and seventy leagues 7 June
further west ; and here, for the time, the matter rested, while ^*^*
Spain devoted her energies to exploitation of her position in
the new world. With that, and the discoveries of Portugal,
the Mediterranean era of European history came to an end
and the oceanic period began.

Whatever its influence on Europe, the effect of Columbus' Columbus*
discovery on his adopted country was immediate and pow- ^*^"^
erful. Flushed with its victory over the Moors, the crown
was eager for further exploits. The land was filled with
men, trained to war, hating the infidel, br&ve, adventurous, n^
poor, and now suddenly, on the fall of Granada, without v
an occupation. To such a society a new world came like a
gift from Heaven. Reinforced by loans from private sources,
the crown found money for a second expedition out of church
tithes and confiscated property of the Jews, banished from
Spain the year before. Recruits fiocked to the standard of
the *' captain-general," and, six months from his return,
Columbus sailed again with seventeen ships, a thousand re-
cruits, two hundred volunteers; and, once at sea, this force
was unexpectedly increased by the appearance of three hun- v
dred stowaways. But the ships took out not men alone.
Horses, sheep, and cattle, vegetable-seeds, grain, vines, and
fruit-trees from Spain; goats, pigs, chickens, orange, lemon,
and melon seeds, and, above all, sugar-cane from the
^Canaries, where they stopped to refit, made up the first gift
of the old world to the new, so curiously deficient in these '
necessities of European life. "And, had the crown foreseen, ' 1 ^ '
as well, the need of women colonists, perhaps the dark- / | A\ -
est chapter of Spanish expansion would not have been \ ' '
written. "' '

Discovering a new island, Dominica, on their way, no C ' ii ^ ^
tracr was found of Navidad, whose settlers doubtless died at ^v ./' T .

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i -iiW:.* TttE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

native hands; and a new colony, Isabella, was established,
which was at once a type of Spanish civilization and a model
for its later settlements. Streets and a plaza were laid out;
and, among the rude huts of the men, rose public buildings
of stone, an arsenal and storehouse, a fort, a hospital, and
a church, symbols at once of the authority and the meaning
of the Spanish power now about to be established in this
new environment. But illness, disappointment at the.scanti-
I ness of gold, internal dissension, and trouble with the natiyes
ensued. Public, opinion began to turn against the^yenture ;
and when Columbus, having explored Cuba, Jamaica, and
southern Espanola, returned to Spain two years later, he
had to defend his rights, restore shaken confidence, and
recruit fresh settlers for his colony by any means, even from
the jails.
John Before he could set out again, other nations entered the

Cabot ^eld. A certain Zuan Caboto, Anglicized John Cabot,

[ Gtenoese-bom and naturalized in Venice, having visited Lisbon
to learn the new geography, had settled in Bristol. Thence,
1407 under patent from Henry VII, he sailed with eighteen men

across the North Atlantic in the summer of 1497 ; and, after
r six weeks, sighted land, most probably Cape Breton Island,

{ and so returned to England to receive the title of Grand

Admiral, ten pounds from the royal chest, twenty pounds
pension from the customs of Bristol, and a patent for another
voyage. But the results of that second voyage, if such there
was, are uncertain, and with some contribution to geography
and the establishment of English claims on North America,
his gallant exploit ended save for its influence on the for-
tunes of his son and companion, Sebastian, who was destined
to great deeds in later years.
Vasco da It was far different with Portugal. Boused by the success
Gama ^j Spain, her enterprise revived with the accession of Em-

r J manuel, aptly styled, not the Great, but the Fortunate; and
a fleet was prepared to find the sea-way to the East. Nothing
was omitted to ensure success. Three ships and a transport,
a hundred and sixty men, commanded by an able and experi-
enced gentleman of the court, Vasco da Gama, backed by

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 103

the experience of Diaz and Covilham, set out at the Mar.-June
same time that Cabot sailed for the greatest voyage yet ^^^'^
undertaken by Europeans. Refitting at the Cape Verde
Islands, his little fleet steered boldly out into the Atlantic
for ninety-three days before making land at St. Helena Bay,
a hundred miles north of the Cape of Good Hope. The cape
was rounded in November and da Gama spent Christmas at ^
a place called thence Natal. De-
layed by storms, winds, currents,
and mutiny, he passed his destined
stopping-place, Sofala, so far at
sea as to miss its much desired
harbor, was repulsed by native
hostility at the Zambesi, Mozam-
bique, and Mombasa, and reached
]k(elinde before finding a friendly
sultan and a pilot to take him
across the Indian Ocean. Thence,
after twenty-three days* sail, he
finally cast anchor, more than a
year from the time he left Por-
tugal, at Calicut, a principal port of the western or Malabar .
coast of India, and the chief center of the spice trade in that I
quarter of the world.

The region to which the Portuguese had made their way India— the
was the shore line divided from the interior by a mountain JJj[^^"
barrier, the so-called western Ghats, ''the landing-stairs to
India" proper. Here, when the great Hindu kingdom of
Chera had dissolved, five centuries before, a group of petty
sovereignties had established and had thus far maintained
themselves. From Bombay to Cape Comorin a long line of
Jhem, Ck)a, Cananor, Calicut, Cranganor, Cochin, Quilon,
shared this narrow land, their chief resource their ports, their
chief income derived from that commerce which made their
coast the focus of exchange between the merchants from the
further East and those Arab traders who carried Asiatic
goods by fleet and caravan to European borders, where they
were, in turn, transferred to Genoese or Venetian hands. Of

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Arabs

Da Gama's
adventures
and return

Indian affairs and conditions the Portuguese then and for long
thereafter knew virtually nothing. The Hindu kingdom of
Vijanayagar in the south, the Mohammedan empire of Delhi
in the north, like the lesser principalities, were as yet not
even names to them. It was long before they even learned
of the Mohammedan sultanates about Cambay, whose jealous
hostility they were to experience.

This was, in fact, their chief danger. They had invaded
Arab commercial monopoly and taken Mohammedanism in the
rear. But Arab-Mohammedan supremacy which, in the cen-
turies since it had overwhelmed north Africa and Spain, had
spread its power throughout northern and western India,
was not prepared to yield its trade monopoly without a blow.
Arab merchants had dotted Indian coasts with their agents,
filled its harbors with ships, covered its seas with their con-
voys. With them had gone their faith, till, from Malacca
to Alexandria, they had become the dominant commercial
power, and, through centuries of active enterprise, Malabar
had grown to be the center of their trading empire. They
were far from intolerant. Where they went Hindu and Jew,
Persian Parsee, Nestorian Christian, and Moslem Arab min-
gled with faiths from the farther East in the mutual for-
bearance engendered by commercial relations. But on one
point they were resolved: not to admit another, least of all
a Christian European power, as a rival in their trade.

The advent of the Portuguese into this long established
circle challenged at once its faith and its economy, and the
invaders felt its antagonism at once. Scarcely had they
landed when Moorish merchants conspired with state officials
to expel or destroy them. The ruler of Calicut, the so-called
Zamorin or Sea Bajah, was influenced against 'iiiem, and
only good fortune and the ability of their leader saved them
from destruction. Harassed, insulted, well-nigh betrayed, .da —
Qama endured, dissembled, and at last, evading the fate
prepared for him, made his way to the neighboring city of
Cananor, loaded his ships, and so retraced his way by Me-
linde around Africa. ''With the pumps in their hands and
tKe~^rgin Mary in their mouths," his exhausted crews

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 106

brought their storm-racked, leaky vessels to the Azores with
a loss of near two-thirds of their number, da Gama's brother
among them. Two years and a half after their departure
they anchored again in the Tagus. If their dangers and
hardships had been great, the reward of the survivors was
commensurate, for sixty times the cost of the expedition was ^
returned in profits. Da Gama was ennobled and the King
assumed the title of ''Lord of the Conquest, Navigation, and
Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and China,'' — at once
a symbol of achievement and a prophecy. Throughout the
land feasts and public thanksgivings celebrated da Gkuna's
return ; for the dream of Prince Henry had at last come true,
and Portugal saw the road to wealth and power lie open to
its energies.

But Portuguese rejoicings found no echo elsewhere in Eu- The results
rope. Far slighter in its effect on European thought, da
Gama's exploit far surpassed that of Columbus in its influ-
ence on affairs. The Genoese had, indeed, found a new
world, but its vast, sparsely inhabited, and wholly uncivilized
stretches of coast and forest, with some curiosities, pearls,
and dye-woods, enough gold to whet the appetite for more,
a turbulent colony, and an unrivaled collection of marvelous
tales which, six years after his discovery, formed the total
result of his achievement, seemed almost trivial beside the
prospects held out by this first voyage of the Portuguese.
Instead of exploring vast reaches of tropical sea and shore
to find, at best, half -naked savages; or bearing settlers and ,
the necessities of life to a struggling colony, da Gama had
sailed into a safe harbor filled with the commerce of three
continents. He had encountered a civilization in many re-
spects comparable to his own, in a land whose dense popula-
tion, while it forbade colonization, offered unlimited possi-
bilities of trade, with almost incredible profits. Of the vast
interior of India the Portuguese knew little and cared less.
For the difficulties confronting them they cared scarcely more.
They had but little inclination and scarcely more oppor-
tunity for territorial conquest. Their sole interest was to se-
cure a foothold and the control of the commerce between Asia

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106

THE EX VNSION OF EUROPE

and Europe, to become the middlemen from whom, instead
of from Arab or Italian merchants, all Europe must buy.

Thus early were the differences determined not merely
between the rival ambitions of Portugal and Spain, but be-
tween the types of European political expansion, and Eu-
ropean influence in the East and West. Nor was this all.
On the great trading centers of Europe — ^the long line of
Italian posts stretching toward the East; on Venice and
Genoa; even on the network of northern Hanse towns —
Turkish and Mongol conquest had borne hard. Commerce
had struggled through the barrier thus raised; the greater
part, which had once found its way between the Levant and
Italy, was diverted to Egypt or north of the Caspian, paid
tribute to the conqueror, and, however crippled, had somehow
gone on. To its merchants Columbus' discovery, once the
more clear-sighted had perceived it^ significance, made little
difference. From that quarter their traffic with the East had
nothing to fear. But when the news of da Gama's voyage
came, Italian city councils and guilds met with sinking
hearts, and women wept in the streets. For the dullest intel-
• ligence could see that, unless in some way the Portuguese
I were checked, the ruin of the older capitals of commerce was
at hand.

The blow was met in different ways. The Venetians, on
whom it fell hardest of all, for a time even joined hands
with Egypt to repel the invader. Florence and Genoa, the
richer merchants of the north, and the Hanse towns, has-
tened to share the profits; and unlicensed adventurers from
many lands sought, sometimes with success, the closely
^ guarded way to the wealth of the East. The outlet for her

I commercial and conquering activities so long closed by the
Vsuccesses of the Asiatic hordes pressing upon her eastern
borders was now opened in another quarter^ and Europe
nastened to enjoy its profits and to take her ancient enemies
An the flank and rear.
Conclusion Such were the great events which, as the flfteenth century
"d'th*^ wore to a close, determined the future of European develop-
discoveries ment. In the world of politics centralized despotism became

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BEGINNINGS OF TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 107

the order of the day among the national states of the west.
In the wider field of international relations these same powers
found themselves in rivalry for pre-eminence, and Italian
dissension provided an outlet for their ambitious plans. At
the same time the intellectual movement centering in that
peninsula was confronted by the concurrent attack on the
ecdeaiaatical establishment which had its capital there, and
the astonishing revelations of the scope and content of the
world through Spanish and Portuguese discoveries. Hence
simultaneously every department of European life was stimu-
lated from these various centers to a new activity. The cen-
tury which began with Portuguese adventure in Africa and
the uncovering of the ancient civilization, which midway of
its career experienced the shock of the Turkish capture of
Constantinople, thus ended in a burst of conquering and
creative energy which at*once revealed new worlds to Euro-
pean experience and pointed the way to an unparalleled
opportunity to exercise those qualities and resources which
the preceding generations had done so much to strengthen
and secure.'

Of this there is one striking illustration. Between the
fall of the Soman Empire and the discovery of America,
Europe had been leather the paiS&ive tEwi the active element
in that great shifting of population to which we give the
name of folk-wandering or migration. Within her own bor-
ders, indeed, there had been great movements which altered
the whole complexion of her peoples. The Norsemen and the
Crusaders had pushed a little way beyond her boundaries.
But the pressure of Asia upon Europe had been far stronger
than that of Europeans upon the other continents. Tartar
and Finn, Arab, Magyar, Turk and Bulgarian had made
good their occupation of great stretches of European territory
and had reduced materially the area once held by so-called
European peoples.

Now, however, all was changed. Prom the years which
saw the entry of Portugal and Spain into lands beyond the
sea to the present day the great, outetanding j^actor in the
world's affairs has been European aggression. If there is

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108 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

one thing above all others which divides mediaeval from
modern world history it is the fact that the conditions of folk-
wandering have been reversed. Europe is no longer the goal
but the starting-point of migration. And this circumstance
in no small degree measures her altered status among the
continents ; and characterizes, as well as conditions, what we
know as modem polity.

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CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS

The Rise of National Kingships. 1400-1517

The exploits of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama
determine definitely that break between the mid^ a^s and
modem Europe which hi^d already found expression in the
Renaissance and a point of departure in the fall of Constanti- ^
nople^ The developments which culminated in the discovery
of the transatlantic passage and the lands beyond, of the way
about Africa and the sources of Asiatic tradeXrevolutionized
not merely the economic bases of European life ; they had no
less effect fipon the intellect. They accelerated progress
along certain lines of thought and action, and at the same
time brought the end of other activities within sight. While
they opened new channels of trade and new fields for con-
quest, they dealt a blow to Italy's commercial supremacy
from which she never recovered. While they stimulated the.
intellectual activities which based themselves on science andi
investigation, they undermined theological speculation based!
on dogma and revelation.

Finally the djscoveries came ultimately to affect that from The
which they seemed for the moment most remote, the field of ^^J*^^^'***
continental politics. They modified the relations of one state European
wiffilffibther,"lDrEurope itself. They brought European power P^^^^^
into contact with strange lands and peoples, with systems
and interests hitherto foreign to European experience. But
these were not their greatest and most far-reaching results.
For they established in distant lands new societies, modified
by their peculiar environment, like, and yet unlike, Europe
itself. However much they infiuenced the regions which they
now entered, Europeans were, in their turn, affected scarcely
less by the return current of the conditions and actions of

109

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110

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

TTie begin-
nings of
modern
European
polity

France and
England

1415

their opponents, and still more by the activities of their own
descendants in those distant centers. And however pro-
foundly the European intellect was stimulated by the unfold-
ing of a great past, it was inspired no less by the prospect
of a still greater future, which was revealed by the dis-
coveries.

These wider and deeper issues, however, were as yet far
distant. For the time being men were more concerned by
a problem which lay nearer at hand — the development of
European polity. During the very years which had seen the
vast extension of her knowledge and her power through the
activities of her scholars and her adventurers, Europe had
been engaged in revolutionizing the theories and practices
of her political life. Among the elements which combined
with the Renaissance and the discoveries, to lay |he founda-
tions of the modem world a&ring this eventful fifteenth
century, ^ot the least was the development of national and
international relationships into a system, which, however
rudimentary and unformed, resembled that to which we are
accustomed far more than it was like the medieval complex
from which it was evolved. Before the end of the century,
so rapid was the progress of this movement, Europe had been
transformed into a group of national kingships, well on the
way toward absolutism, and the map of the continent, like
the organization of political affairs, had taken on a form
not wholly unfamiliar to our eyes.

That development had been almost if not quite con-
temporary with the progress of the Renaissance and the age
of discovery. In the same months that Poggio Bracciolini
had turned from his duties at the Council of Constance to
collect classical manuscripts, King John had prepared his
expedition against Ceuta, and his nephew, Henry V of Eng-
land, began the final stage of that hundred years' war with
France, which had already lasted three-quarters of a century.
Three months after the capture of Ceuta, the victory of
Agincourt put northern France into his hands, and his mar-
riage with the French princess confirmed his title as regent
and heir of the French monarchy. For a time it seemed that

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 111

the long-cherished dream of the English kings might be
realized and the two lands joined under one crown. But
Henry's death, seven years later, brought that dream to an 1438
end. From the moment of the accession of his {eeUe son
and heir, Henry VI^ to the English throne, the English cause
in France was doomed. Despite their desperate resistance,
and the ability of their leader, the Duke of Bedford, they
lost ground. With the advent of the heroic Joan of Arc, i4S8-9
the French, aided by the designing Duke of Burgundy, in-
spired by what they reckoned the miraculous intervention
of Providence in the person of the peasant girl of Domremy,
and guided by the genius of their commanders, began to
win back their land. At the same moment that Constantinople
feU into the hands of the Turk, the battle of Ghatillon broke 1463
the power of the English in France, and of their wide pos-
sessions they retained only Calais as the symbol of their
ambitious designs.

The collapse of their continental power was not entirely
due to the intervention of the martyred i>easant heroine,
or to the lack of the gallantry of English troops; nor was
the French success owing wholly to their superior virtue or
skill in arms. As the war went on^JBnglwd had become ; ,
involved in the. coils of ciyU dispuje, which the weak Lan-
castrian king was powerless to check. At the same time the ' *
people of France were welded into one by their common
hatred of the invader, and found in their ruler, Charles VII, i^/sts^i
** the well-served," a focus for that spirit of common custom
and purpose to which we give the name of nationality.
Scarcely had the battle of Chatillon been fought, when the
effects of these divergent forces were apparent in the two
nations. The insanity of the English king and the birth of
an heir brought to a head the rivalry of the two houses of
York and Lancaster, the one desirous, the other in possession
oflhe throne. The Duke of York, deposed from his regency
by the recovery of the king, took arms against the crown,
and there began that devastating conflict known as the Wars 1463-85
of the Roses, which for a full generation absorbed the ener-
gies of the English people.

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112

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

France

1461-83

1477

1481

1485

FRANCE
c. 1463

Meanwhile, Prance, under the rule of Charles VII, had
moved forward toward unity and strong administration. A
standing army was established ; and the States General agreed
on a fixed tax to support it ; the liberties of the Qallican church
were asserted against Papal dominance; and with these re-
forms and the success against the English, there began that
consolidation of territory and royal power which continued

throughout the cen-
tury. To Charles
VII succeeded his
son, Louis XJ,
whose shrewd, in-
triguing rule
brought Prance in-
creasing boundaries
andstrength. Prom
Aragon he bought
the border fortress
of RoussiUon ; over
the Somme towns
and Normandy he
assumed royal
rights ; and, in spite
of the opposition of

powerful leagues of nobles aided by Burgundy and Spain, his
policy of aggrandizement made way.

Finally, when the rash attempt of Charles the Bold of
Burgundy to extend his frontiers in Switzerland and Prance
brought him defeat and death, the astute Prench king ended
his long labors with fresh accession of territory. Anjou and
Bar had already come under his authority ; now Guienne and
part of Burgundy were added to his dominions. His work,
crowned finally by the marriage of his son to Anne of Brit-
tany, rounded out the boundaries of a new Prance.

Meanwhile, the battle of Bosworth Pield, last of the many
engagements which had marked the Wars of the Boses, cost
Richard III his life and the Yorkish cause the throne.
Henry of Richmond, of the Tudor line, took the crown as

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 113

the prize of his victory and established a new dynasty, con-
firming his title by marriage with the Yorkist heiress, and
so uniting England again. Thus, at alm6&t the same moment,
the old rivals found themselves in the same position, their
earlier internal differences largely removed and their
strength consolidated under a vastly increased royal author-
ity, prepared to use its newly won power in the cause of
absolutism.

Had Europe remained in the same situation which had Spain
confronted it a generation earlier, it might well have been
that the reviving energy of England and of France would
have renewed their quarrel where they had left off thirty
years before. But political like every other aspect of society,
had been revolutionized in the intergal. /On the south the
long conflicts between the rival houses of Castile and Aragon,
which had filled a great part of the middle ages and divided
the interest of those Christian states with wars against the
Moors, had come to an end./ Moreover, with the accession of
Ferdinand the Catholic to the throne of Aragon, six years 1479-1516
before the battle of Bosworth Field, the fortunes of the
Spanish states were finally united. For he had married the
heiress of Castile, the princess Isabella, and, at the moment
that England and France took their place in European polity
in something of the form they were to jkeep for centuries,
the kingdom of Spain, now finally unified, tunie^ to conclude
that long conflict with the Mohammedan power which still
held the southern part of the peninsula.

Nor was this all. There are two circumstances beside the Eastern
rise of these national kingships which in the light of later ^^'^^P^*
events distinguish the fifteenth century in the realm of
politics. The one is the development of powerful states east k
of* the Oder; the other is the fact that (central Europe
resisted the impulse toward the aggregation of lands under
a centralized monarchy, and perpetuated those smaller local
sovereignties which it was the purpose of the rest of the
continent to merge into greater organisms./ Of these the
first was, for the time being, the more significant. At the
same moment that western Europe was being transformed

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114 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

into political units which look familiar to modem eyes, these
eastern regions, under like impulse, began a process of amal-
gamation and centralization which not merely created political
entities but brought them into contact with the current of
European aiffairs in which they were to play an increasing
part. Thus, in no small degree, these contributed to the
expansion of Europe, as it were, within her own geographical
boundaries.

The lands which now began to take their place in European
polity were those vast forests and plains east of the Oder.
In the main they were occupied or at least dominated by
the Slavic peoples who, with the Celtic elements in the west
and the Teutonic elements in the center, made up the great
ethnic groups into which the European peoples are roughly
divided.
The Nowhere was the process of organization more needed than

navians ^^^®» ^^ these races were to becoMe a part of the European
system. The Scandinavian states had been organized cen-
turies before into the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark, which in varying relationships still endured. They
had already made their great contribution to history in the
800-1000 form of a folk-wandering which had established their duke-
doms and principalities along the northern borders of the
continent. They had founded Normandy, conquered England,
and, from Greenland to Sicily, had dotted the coasts and
islands with their settlements and the states which had arisen
from their conquests. Central and western Europe had
^ * evolved their own systems of society and administration.
The east remained, therefore, the only district still somewhat
apart from the main current of European affairs at the
beginning of the fifteenth century. And its entry into that
circle is, in consequence, of no less importance to Europe's
history than the developments of politics and culture in the
west, or the extension of European power beyond the sea.
Russia A beginning had long since been made. In the same cen-

^35-036 t^jy tjjj^t ^jjg storm of Norse and Danish invasion had burst
upon the west, and the fierce warrior-seamen had gained their
first booty, then a foothold in France and the British Isles,

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 115

their Swedish cousins had found among the rude and unor-
ganized Slavs a field for like conquering activities, especially
in the regions east and southeast of the Baltic. While Bollo
founded the dukedom of Normandy in France, and
Guthrum established the kingdom of East Anglia in Britain,
a horde of Swedish adventurers set up principalities, duchies,
and free cities, and organized a group of rival states, Tver
and Pskoff, Novgorod and Moscow, and their suzerain, the
principality of Kieff, whose early and long continued activi-
ties expressed themselves chiefly, as usual, in the form of
wars, with each other and with their neighbors.

The dreary chronicle of this long rivalry was interrupted Moscow
by the great Mongol invasion. This, in the thirteenth century, ^i^^
swept across the steppes from central Asia, brought the wide
plains north of the Black and Caspian seas under Tartar
dominion, and reduced thejglavic principalities to little more 1996-M
than vassal states. Thenceforth there was added to the
struggles of those states among themselves a long and bitter
conflict with the Great Horde of Tartars, not unlike that
which the Iberian peoples had carried on against the Moors
in the west. This struggle, by the beginning of the fifteenth
century, had brought the duchy of Moscow into the position
of the chief champion of Slavic independence and so given
it a certain primacy among its fellows. Meanwhile, from
among these various elements had been slowly evolved, as
the only profitable result of almost constant war, the loosely
woven kingdoms known as Poland and Lithuania, which,
sharing the confiict with the Tartars, had found themselves 1386-1599
opposed by the Swedish power pressing upon them from the
north and that of the GteVmans pushing forward from the west.
These, united under the house of Jagello, were destined to
endure in that connection for more than two centuries.

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the advance The
guards of this Gkirmanic invasion, the crusading orders of Germanic
the Teutonic Ertghts and the Knights of the Sword, had isaS^
conquered a conuderable territory about the southern shores
of the Baltic, and had spread their power among the heathen
peoples, PrussiPAs, Livonians, Esthonians, Wends, and kin-

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116

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1410

dred tribes which occupied that district. The greater part
of Lithuania fell into their hands. But, five years before the
battle of Agincourt and the capture of Ceuta, the Teutonic
Knights had suffered a great defeat at the hands of the
united Poles and Lithuanians in the battle of Tannenberg.

Hungary
and .
Bohemia

IXIBOPE

As a result of this catastrophe, tiieir power, already under-
mined by the same forces which had weakened all such cru-
sading orders, ceased to expand its territorial sovereignty.

Such was the situation of the east at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. The destruction of Kieff by the Mongols
in 1240, and its subsequent conquest by the Lithuanians eighly
years later, brought the duchy of Muscovy to the leadership

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 117

of "what was to be known as Buaaia, while the Poles, mean-
while, absorbed the debatable land of Lithuania. Nor was
this all of the eastern situation. Far to the south, at the
same time that the Norsemen established themselves in the 875-900
west and the Swedes in the east/a Turanian tribe allied to
the Finns, the so-i^^ed Magyars, nad conquered the district
known as Hungary/^There they set up a kingdom of their own,
whose fortunes were interwoven with those of their neighbors,
and at the end of the fourteenth century united them 1370-89
for a time under the same crown with Poland. Beside these,
still, a branch of the Slavic peoples, the Czechs, as they were
called, had occupied that land we know as Bohemia, and
there maintained a precarious independence until the begin-
ning of the century of amalgamation and expansion, which
commenced with Ceuta and Agincourt.

Were the history of Europe dependent on the mere recital The
of endless conflicts among such elements, it would have the ^JJ^m^
same interest as a chronicle of the wars of kites and crows, Europe
the same importance as the struggle for better hunting
grounds between rival wolf packs. But there were other
factors involved in this evolution. About the year 1000 the
missionaries of the Greek and Roman Catholic communions
began to find their way among the new conquerors of
the east, as five hundred years earlier the emissaries
of the Roman and Celtic churches had begun to
Christianize the Franks and Anglo-Saxons in the west,
and, more recently, the Scamjlinavian peoples at home
and in their distant conquests. fThus Russia and Lithuania
became converted to the Greek— !Poland, Bohemia, and Hun-
gary to the Roman — form of Christianity 7\ And there began
that connection with Constantinople and Rome which, like the
earlier activity of the cHufch in the west, contributed to the
spread of what we call civilization, no less than to the im-
provement of faith and morals.

The second infiuence was that of trade. With the estab- Commerce
lishment of centers of population and power like those cities ^^^^^^
which, beginning with Novgorod, had risen among the rude
communal settlements of the original inhabitants, came the

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Sls?s

118 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

devdopment of commerce, first among themselves, then with
their neighbors, as the demand grew for things which their
own resources could not provide. /The shrewd and enterpris-
ing merchants of the Hanseatic Lec^e were quick to find their
way to peoples who could supply them with furs and skins,
with the products of forests and fisheries.^ Thus there sprang
up, in the course of centuries, a brisk trade which, even more
than the ministrations of the churchmen, brought these rude
peoples into touch first with the material, then, more slowly,
with the intellectual progress of western Europe. To this
the struggles between the east and west contributed, for they
learned of their enemies. And, however retarded in their
development, by the Mongol invasions, the Slavs thus came
within the widening bounds of European culture.
Sodai They were, indeed, far behind the peoples of the west in

of toe**^° their social and political, no less than in their cultural evolu-
^ tion. Their peasantry maintained the rude organization of

the village conmiunity, or mir, for centuries after it had been
superseded by other types of land tenure and .cultivation in
the r^st.of ^ Europe. Their ruling classes and their admin-
istrating tended continually to revert to Asiatic rather than
advance to European standards, and a certain barbaric spirit
was evident in their habits and tastes. ^As late as the fifteenth
century it was still possible for a Muscovite ruler to confiscate
the goods of foreign merchants and so drive trade from his
territories. It was possible for the Polish nobility to reduce
their tenants to the condition of serfdom a hundred years
after villenage had virtually disappeared in England. C The
\ doctrines and practices of feudalism and chivalry were still
powerful in Poland nearly two centuries after they had van-
ished in western Europe, while they can scarcely be said to
have influenced Russia at all^ There was not in these eastern
. states, until far into modenr times, any such middle dass as
that which played so great a part in western Europe. Thus
the entry of these peoples into the circle of European affairs
marked for them, as for Europe itself, a great step forward
in the progress of the politics and the civilization of the
continent.

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 119

As its earliest agents had been the Scandinavian conquerors, The Em-
its later representatives had been the Germaaja^ who, whether ^JJ^^
as merchants or adventurers, looked with longing eyes upon Europe—
the Sikvic peoples and their territories. And hardly had the ^urff "
results of the battle of Tannenberg become apparent, when
the Empire took up the sword which had fallen from the
hands of the Teutonic Knights. By the establishment of a
mark or border county along the lower Oder, to protect
Germany in that quarter from possible inroads, in the twelfth
century it had conferred that region upon the house of
Ballenstadt or Askania. Thence it had come into the hands
of Ludwig of Bavaria, thence it passed to Austria, and now
again it changed masters.

The beginnings of the power which now acquired these lands
debatable were simple enough. The Council of Constance,
among its numerous activities, confirmed and invested a cer-
tain Frederick of Hohenzollem, burggraf or city count of
Nuremberg, with the territories granted to him by the Em-
peror, and he became markgraf or count of the marches of
Brandenburg, commissioned to hold the northern borders
against the Slavs. With this began the history of that house
which, as the rulers of what was to be known as Prussia,
thenceforth played a part in European politics. Twenty- .
three years later the house of Hapsburg, which had held a The
similar position along the Danube for a "century and a half, l^«P«burg8
and had advanced its borders deep into Germany by the
conquest of the Bohemians, achieved election to the jieadship
of the Empire. This it retained, through many vicissitudes,
in an unbroken line* of male descent and election for three
hundred years. Following these adjustments, the throne of
Poland-Lithuania was now confirmed in the house of Jagello,
thaFof^J^a in the line of Rurik, the house of Wettin
became the rulers, of SaxoAy^ and the Scandinavian kingdoms
were united under the Danish-Norwegian., crown. In such
fashion the eastern states now began to take form, and from
this situation proceeded the events of the fifteenth century.

Nothing can better illustrate the contrast between the rival Poland
political principles at work during that eventful period than

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120 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

a comparison between the two great Slavic states in these same
periods. While the rest of ^jmipe tended toward absolutism,
the foliflh nobles began to assert successfully the power of
their order agamst the other elements of the state. The diet
began to overshadow the king, and to legislate in favor of
the class which controlled it. The result was soon apparent,
not only in the depression of the peasants into serfdom,
but in the exclusion of the middle class from the slender
political privileges which they haci earlier enjoyed. Flushed
with their^ victory over those beneath them, the nobles turned
against the crown, enacted laws forbidding the king to declare
war without their consent, and took to themselves the virtual
direction of executive action. Worse «till, they laid the
foundations of that right of free veto which, by making unani-
mous consent of the diet necessary to the enactment of laws,
made salutary legislation impossible, and so gradually re-
duced the fftftt^ tft fmr^^^T^fiP

Muscovy While Poland established a system which, in later genera-

tions, was to make her one of the great prizes of European
rivalry, her great neighbor on the east rose to power by a^

1462-1505 precisely opposite policy. With the accession of IvgaJlII
began an era not unlike that which the reign of Coi^s XI
. brought to Prance. His first efforts were directed against
the free city of Novgorod, which, sixteen years after he
,came to the throne, was overpowered by Muscovy. There-
after Tver, Byasan, and the dependencies of Pskofl fell into
his hands, and the way was opened for the acquisition of the
latter city state. As the power of the Golden Horde declined,
^Iysh seized the opportunity to throw off the Tartar yoke.
Finally, by his marriage to Sophia Palseologus, niece of the

1469 last Emperor of the East, who found refuge from the Turks

among the Muscovites, he learned from the Byzantine princes
**to penetrate the secret of autocracy." He assumed the
double-headed eagle as the symbol of his authority and of
his ambition to be regarded as the successor of the dynasty
which had fallen before the Turkish attack, and so inau-
gurated that policy which for more than four hundred years
has directed its strength toward the recovery of Constanti-

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 121

nople by a Christian state. To this he added a code of laws,
and the beginnings of a system which looked toward the abso-
lute power of the crown oyer nobles and peasants alike.
In such fashion, strangely like that pursued by England and
France in the same years, was the Muscggite power consoli-

MediHrran^a

dated into a Russian kingdom, at once the pupil and the
presumptive Iieif oi the Byzantine Empire, whose religion it
professed and to whose leadership of the east it thenceforth
aspired.

Nor was this spirit of consolidation less apparent in Qer- Austria
many. Its history, during the fifteenth century, though it eriancT***'

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122

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1353-86

Germany
and Maxi-
milian T'

1493-1519

lacked somewhat of the spectacular quality of war and
diplomacy which it so strikingly exhibited thereafter, and
though it met with no such success as its neighbors east and
west, revealed the same powerful motive as that which dom-
inated the affairs of its neighbors. Midway of the century,
after long conflict, the house of Hapsburg finally lost its hold
on those tiny territories of the western Alps, which, under
the name of Switzerland, combined into a species of republic
which has maintained its independence, almost without a
break, from that day to this. But with the accession of
Maximilian in the year after the discovery of America, this
was, in some measure, compensated by the acquisition of the
eastern Alpine region, known as the Tyrol, and the reversion
of the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, which have since
remained in Hapsburg hands. With these, joined to the
region known as Austria and the Austrian Alps, reinforced
by the scattered lands of his old Swabian inheritance, Maxi-
milian laid the foundations of the Hapsburg power which for
four hundred years has played a principal part in the history
of the continent.

This was accompanied by efforts to bring the Empire over
which he exercised a variable suzerainty under more direct
and more efficient control, comparable to that which was
being established meanwhile in the states about him. Like
his royal contemporaries, he endeavored to give form and
substance to his imperial title, and centralized government
to his dominions, which, next to Italy, stood in most need of
such stable union. Like them he proclaimed and endeavored
to enforce the public peace. Like them he set up a council,
the Imperial Chamber, a court of appeals,*^ and later a so-
called Aulic Council, in an effort to compose the endless
quarrels of the lesser rulers, and to extend his authority
over them. To these he strove to add an ^g*,pfiirial f\xf^^^ /^^
taxation, the ''common penny''; and, establishing units ^i^*^^
local administration, the ''circles," as they were known, US
made a serious attempt to create real unity under imperiU
forms and authority. To such designs the German middle
like their fellows in other lands, were not avers4

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 123

but among the selfish, decentralizing class of petty rulers
they roused powerful opposition, which neither his authority,
nor his character, nor the strength of his supporters was
sufficient to overcome. On these, and on his foreign policy
which involved him in Italian affairs, his great design was
wrecked. Of all his schemes only the marriage alliances
which united the Hapsburg house with those of Burgundy,
Bohemia-Hungary, and Aragon proved ultimately successful.
In them he laid the foundations for the world-empire of his
grandson and imperial successor, Charles V; and this, as
it proved, was his chief contribution to the next phase of
European history.

If it were not enough that, during this eventful fifteenth The
century. England, France a9jL.SBaitt,--Ajwtria,^ Bussia and *P*^
Poland took on something of the fonnjhey were thenceforth
to retain, so all-pervasive was the influence of the consolidat-
ing and dynastic forces in this period, they found their way
even into the Papacy. Among the phenomena which the
£urox>ean world exhibited at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, none was more typical than the career of that
Giuliano della Bovere who ascended the Papal throne as
Julius II.*N Trained by his uncle, Sixtus IV, in the arts of
diplomacy and administration, he became a prince of the
church in fact as in name. When the Borgias, joined with —Alcx-
the Sf orzas, outwitted their rivals, the della Roveres, and set J^lfj^s
Boderigo Borgia in the Papal chair as Alexander VI, the
future Julius II took refuge with Charles VII I of France -Julius
and incited him to the invasion of Italy in revenge. Chosen 15Q3.13
Pope, this greatest of the della JBtoyeres fought, intrigued,
negotiated like any lay sovereign to emancipate thejemporal
power of the Papacy and to advance the fortunes of his
house. The Papal btates were feeed from the pressure of
antside powers, Venice subdued by aid of France and the
Empire, and these, in turn, expelled from Italy by his adroit
diplomacy. Had he been a lay prince, it is by no means
improbable that he might have succeeded in uniting Italy, as
he aspired to do. Even in his failure to accomplish this
^eat end he revealed not only the qualities which set him

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124 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

among the great statesmen of his age, but that spirit which
was then remodeling the continent. And among the various
manifestations of political and ecclesiastical activity which
the fifteenth century and its successors afforded, not the least
significant was the contest between the church and the Papacy,
the one bent upon limiting Papal power by councils, the
other determined to remain, as far as possible, an autocracy.
Despotism By virtue of these events, at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, five powerful states, Spain, Prance, England,
Russia, and Austria, arose in Europe, four of them based
on the new principle of nationalit;^ and at least three of
them prepared by their position to dispute the supremacy of
the Atlantic with Portugal, if and when opportunity pre-
sented itself. Different as they were, those peoples which
had embarked on the uncharted sea of political experiment
had one thing in common, the desire to substitute some new
form of government in place of- that feudal system whose
evils they had experienced long after its good effects had
passed away. To men who had suffered from the anarchy
which it had engendered there appeared but one remedy,
and that was offered them by those ruling houses which
saw in this spirit of discontent an opportunity to extend
their own power. This was the establishment of a central
government able and willing to ensure the discontinuance of
private war and those local rivalries which had thus far
been an effective barrier against the development of the
arts of peace. In that belief they welcomed the creation of
a royal authority which grouped together peoples of like
language, customs, and traditions, as well as common inter-
ests, in larger and stronger units. What democracy was to
be to the nineteenth century, despotism was to the sixteenth.
Tet it was ifar from the (despotism) of an Asiatic type,
especially in western Europe. It waslbased no less upon
the consent of the middle and lower classes which saw in
the supremacy of one ruler the pledge of internal peace'^
and security so necessary to material and social prosperity,
than it was upon the desires and ambitions of great dynastic
interests for their own aggrandizement. Everywhere the

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 125

lOfircantile element, in particular, supported the growing
authority of the king, and the widening bounds of an official
power strong enough to check the petty oppression and the
imminent dangers of local despots. For this they were
willing to sacrifice something of their own slender liberties.
For this they were willing to endure the burdens of national
taxes and national struggles ; since they felt, however dimly,
something of the new national security, and of the new na-
tional greatness, in which they had a share, however humble.

With this were bound up the problems of the extent and The new
limitations of the rapidly increasing royal authority; and J^^n-
of these the first naturally seemed of chief importance to the
dynasties which had found their opportunity for wider
power in the popular antagonism to feudal organization and
the nascent spirit of nationality. ^Almost without exception
the various states of Europe, thus oeing revolutionized, saw
the rise of that most universal and natural of all political^
devices, a council of those whose secular or ecclesiastical
authority entitled them to a voice in government. But the
new national royal council differed from that of the feudal
regime which had preceded it in at least one important par-
ticular. It represented rather the king than the nobility^
It was long necessary to distribute the offices of state among
those whose possessions made their support essential to the
crown. But the constant tendency of the new kingship was
to decrease the numbers and the infiuence of that baronage
which had so long directed the course of public affairs to their
own advantage and the popular injury. In consequence, the
royal council tended henceforth to the inclusion of men de- >
pendent on the king and devoted to his interest as against]
all other elements in the state. As royal power had grown
by the extension of its OWQ system of jurisdiction over that
highly prized prerogative of the medisBval baronage, justice
begimp th£L TnftTiQpnly q£^ the. crown, and as the king's council
became the source of law, his courts became the fountain of
justice.

Local administration followed a like course; and beside,
or in the place of, baronial jurisdictions appeared the crown

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126

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Absolutism
and lochl
govern'
tnent

Absolutism
and the
national
assemblies

-!>

officers, to preserve peace, collect taxes, try cases, and repre-
sent the central authority. In many cases provincial cgurts
Sand Qouncils were established, dependent on the royal au-
thority as they werecreatecTby it. And though the conflict
between the particularism of the mediaeval lordships and
the centralizing authority of the new kingships hung long
undetermined, the new absolutism gradually replaced the old.
In so far as it was better administered, and affected all dis-
tricts and all classes more equally, it received more and more
support, until, within two centuries, it had virtually de-
stroyed the old decentralizing feudal system ii^ most parts of
Europe. Only in tke central powers, Germany and Italy,
it found more than its match in the princes. These, while they
maintained the same principles as the greater sovereigns,
were equally unwilling to fuse their interests with those of
the imperial autl^ority and impotent to enlarge their princi-
palities to embrace whole nationalities.

Such was the contribution which the national kingships
made to political practice by the beginning of the sixteenth
century; and, however modified by time and circumstane^,
such it remained until it was displaced by a greater force, —
for the principles of absolutism are among the oldest and
most elementary in the government of men. Beside this
problem of establishing unlimited authority and intimately
connected with it, however, there was another element to be
taken into account. Almost every European state of con-
sequence possessed, in addition to the council, another body
of advisers, inherited from the past, which had some share
in^^the conduct of affairs. In Pr^ca the Stajfift: Ctenfiyal,
in Spain and Portugal the Cortes, in England the Parjia-
m^B4, in Poland the Diet, in Hungary the so-called .Tables,
thus played a part in the conduct of government, which
varied with the strength or weakness of the classes above it.

The royal houses, thus confronted with the opportunity
to establish absolute power, found, therefore, tro, JoififiS-lo
be, crushed or conciliated ; and according to their circum-
stances or their strength, they proceeded to adjust their
relations with nobles and people alike. The council, which

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 127

became the chief eng^e of their authority, was now trans-
formedy so far as possible, into an administrative rather than
a mere advisory body of great nobles ; and, establishing other
like bodies in the various parts of the kingdom, brought the
power of the crown to bear directly on every part of the
realm. As royal administration became the central fact in
every department of government, whatever authority the
more general if not more popular assemblies possessed tended
to become subordinate to the higher gower.

Their opinion was sought for less and less. As royal power
grew they were more and more disregarded, till, save perhaps
in England, they became almost a negligible quantity. They
were called less and less frequently, and though their mem-
bers and the classes which they represented struggled, often
with violence, against the neglect and even the extinction of
the last representative of that popular element which nearly
every European state had possessed, the sixteenth century was
to see the gradual decline of most of these bodies. Thus,
however great the gain to the commonalty by the suppression
of feudalism as a principle of administration, that gain was
accompanied by a loss of most of those slender privileges
which the towns in particular had earlier enjoyed -, and Europe
entered on her long experiment with absolutist kingships,
stimulated by the spirit of nationality indeed, but sacrificing
its popular liberties to the dynastic interests as the price of its
release from feudal tsrranny.

The most conspicuous example of this situation was found
in Spain. There the accession of Ferdinand the Catholic
had been accompanied by the establishment of a series of
councils, for Castile^ for.Aragon, for Naples, and, after
ColBttbsa' exploit^ £or..the..N£w. World* These at once Spain--the
limited the authoxity ...of . the . great nobles and ecclesiastics, ^^'t*^*
who^composed the group of advisers to the crown in the inquisition
hands of hia predecessors, and relegated the Cortes to a still
IfiSerjj^OJxe in the affairs of state. To this, in Spanish hands,
was added another element, dictated in part by the situation
of the peninsula and in part by the spirit which that situa-
tion had done much to produce. jThe tribunal of the Holy 1479-

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128

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

England

1485-

Office, or Inquisition, established in the thirteenth century
to stamp out heresy^ had played no part in England, little
in France, and less in Germany and the east. Its chief
stronghold had been in Italy, but, reorganized under Ferdi-
nand in Spain, it (became an engine of both royal and ec-
clesiastical supremacy Its earliest efforts had been directed
against heretics in general; but it soon became a useful
weapon against any whose tendency to adopt the newer prin-
ciples of thought, whether religious or political, marked jhem
out as dangerous to the old order. Its secrecy, its terrible

penalty of the auto-da-f6, whose Cinemaderos or cremation
places claimed their victims almost daily, made it a fearful
symbol of the principle of terror invoked against those who
ventured to differ from the establishment, and widened the
breach between Spain and the liberal element in Europe.

However useful to the power of the crown the Inquisition
proved in Spain and her dominions, it took no hold on
the rest of Europe. But the political impulse which
moved Ferdinand was no less strong among his contem-
poraries. In England, Henry VII followed almost precisely
the same course as his Spanish contemporary, and though

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 129

the Parliament was too strong to be treated in the same
fashion as the Cortes, it lost much of the power it had
enjoyed under the house of Lancaster. In like measure the
sovereigns of oth^r realms, from Prance to Muscovy, entered
upon the same course, and from consolidating their terri-
tories they turned to make their authority more absolute.

To this was added, almost immediately, another element, The
the so-called dynastic interest. Among the methods by which j^J^^*^
the unquestioned right to the throne and the amalgamation
of territories in the various national states had been secured ^
had been the matrimonial alliances of the houses which now
came to direct the political destinies of Europe. By such
means Castile had been united to Leon and to Aragon ; by such
means Brittany had been joined to the house of Capet; by
such means Henry VII had confirmed his claim to the Eng-
lish crown, and the Hapsburg lands had been consolidated.
It was but natural that this process should be extended.
Scarcely was Henry VII on the English throne when he
began that policy of marriage alliance with the houses of
Aragon and Scotland which was to be of such great conse-
quence in another generation. Scarcely had Ivan III begun
his efforts to absorb the neighboring Slavic states when he
entered on the^same course. And, whatever the failures of
Maximilian in emulating the successes of his contemporaries
by consolidating the Empire, in the direction of his marriage
policy he was the most fortunate of them all. His own
marriage to the heiress of that ill-fated Charles the Bold of
Burgundy, whose efforts to found a kingdom between Prance
and the Empire had led to his defeat and death, had brought
to the house of JEIf psburg the greater part of the Burgundian
inheritance, incli!{ding those districts at the mouths of the
Rhine and Scheldt known to later generations as the Nether-
lands. And the marriage of his son to the heiress of Spain
brought into the hands of his successor the greatest terri-
tories which had been until then united under one crown.

While, then, Italian scholars and Portuguese adventurers
were opening new avenues for Europe's intellect and am-
bitions to tread, the rulers of the continent effected a revolu-

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130 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

tion in her political condition no less important and even
more spectacular than the achievements of the sea-farers and
men of letters. Different as were the circnmstances of their
peoples and their problem^ their methods and their results
were essentially the same. \To each the fundamental issue was
the substitution of a strong and centralized royal power for
feudal arrangements, the consolidation of territory and rival
lordships in one family, the creation, in so far as possible,
of great national kingships over peoples of like kind, and
the establishment of dynasties; in brief, the division of Eu-
• rope vertically rather than horizontally.^
Germany In central Europe this was not wholly possible. Whatever
the success of the dynastic policy, whatever the aggregation
of lands under its dominion, in one direction the Hapsburg
house was bound to fail. The dynastic overpowered the
national principle and there began that accumulation of
sovereignties which in another generation became the admira-
tion and the terror of the European world. In England
and France, as in Spain, Portugal, and Russia, the national
idea became the leading motive, and the ydynastic interest,
however important, a secondary element. \B^t ^^ Germany
and Italy, divided as they were among an infinity of petty
principalities, neither the national nor the imperial interest
prevailed) No single house — ^gpt even that of the .Sapaburgs,
to which the opportunity belonged— proved itself capable of
compelling unity among the decentralizm^^JEQECfia which
dominated those re^^on9 ; yand these areas remained aloof
from the consolidating movement of the time. Their people,
in consequence, lost that opportunity, so eagerly embraced
by all but the disintegrating feudal elements, to secure a
broader basis of sovereignty, with relatively greater power,
possibility, and peace. Despite their disadvantages, which
the inunediate future was to demonstrate, the national king-
ships that now arose offered the average man the fairest
promise of security which Europe had seen since the dream
of universal empire had faded before the realities of feudal-
ism. Upon the ambitions of these new kingships the political
activities of .Europe thenceforth chiefly turned.

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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN POLITICS 131

The spirit which they revealed and the direction, which Hie results
their energies took were determined by two forces: (the one n'JJ'^j^i,
was the tendency of young and vigorous political organisms dynastic
to seek new fields of power outside their own boundaries, ^*®™
which has, at all times, proved an active element in political
history; the other was the disturbed condition of certain
districts of Europe, which offered a tempting opportunity to
the ambitions of neighboring rulers. J Thus the establiahmftT^t
of the national atntes wqo marked hy thc^eginning of a great
European war. )lts^cene was the region which even at that
momeiil wafi UfSming the continent along new paths of intel-
lectual and artistic achievement, the Italian peninsula, and
the chief antagonists were the two stated which had thus far
best expressed the principle of national kingship, Spain and
France. Scarcely had Charles VIII finally united Prance by
his marriage with Anne of Brittany when he asserted his
claims to Italian territory, and, invited by the Italians them-
selves, made the center of the Renaissance movement the
battlefield of the continent. Thus, as the first result of a
century-long movement toward consolidation and absolutism,
which had resulted in the formation of the national kingships,
there began a confiict which was to endure in some form for
more than three hundred years, only to be thwarted finally
in its purpose of reducing Italy to a dependency of some
power beyond the Alps, j

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CHAPTER V

EUROPEAN POLITICS. 1492-1521

^Qharles

vm's

iHvasion
of Italy

imrit

The Itatjan Wars

It was apparent before the news of Colombus' great dis-
covery had been fully appreciated by European peoples that
the continent had reached a crisis in its intexnational affairs,
and that the long development Which had resulted in the
formation of national states was about to produce some
extraordinary changes unrelated either to the discovery of
the western world or to the internal situation of the new
political organisms now taking form. Two years after the
return of the Discoverer from his first voyage, Maximilian I
ascended the imperial throne, and Charles VIII of France
led an army across the Alps to the invasion of Italy. With
those events there began a period of European history dif-
ferent in nearly every respect from what had gone before,
and destined to the most far-reaching results. The ensuing
quarter of a century, in consequence, became an era of the
highest importance in the political development of Europe,
and Charles' enterprise the event which, like Columbus'
discovery, inaugurated a new chapter in European history.

The situation of the continent. in. general, and of Italy in
particular, lent itself to such exploits as that of the French
king in a variety of ways, while, at the same time, it made
the success of his adventure more than problematical. Spain,
with the conquest of the Moors, the development of. absolut-
ism under Ferdinand, and the discovery of the western world,
was now prepared to entertain designs of further conquest
and take an active share in continental rivalries. jEIpgland,
though the cautious and politic Henry VII was stiU ab-
sorbed in consolidating his power at home, was not wholly
averse to playing some part in that same field. And the

183

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EUROPEAN POLITICS 133

Emperor Maximilian, thwarted in his design of marrying
Anne of Brittany, who had become the wife of the French
king, desired not merely revenge for his affront, but the more
sabfitantiaLcompensations.of lands^ along- the Rhine.

At the same time the situation of the Italian peninsula jQie.
bode4_ilLJer-the- ultimate- auceew «E «uch. an enterprise, J^^^J^"*
whatever the immediate politicaL triumphs which it seemed in the
to j)ffer. Italy was then, as it was to remain for centuries, J^^
in a fftntfl of anarfhy Venice, Milan^-Fl^^enee-j^Ctenoa, and
Savoy, with lesser principalities like Parma and Piacenza,
Mantua and Ferrara, disputed among themselves - for su-
premacy, in the north ; while the Papal States in the center
and the kingdom of Naples in the south added to the chaos
of petty rivalry with which the peninsula was cursed. Not
only was there no Italy, there were no Italians, and the
doctrine of success at all costs had long since replaced any
sentiment of patriotism even to the cities or states to which
their inhabitants owed allegiance. For there was scarcely
a petty sovereignty in Italy where the strife of party had
not overpowered every other political consideration. More-
over, for years the land had been fiUed with mercenaries,
the so-called condottieri, to whom war was a profession and
treachery a trade. Revolt and conspiracy, feud and assassina-
tion, and petty war, in which the commonest incidents were
betrayal and desertion, had long been the fate of the gifted
people who revealed at once the highest triumphs of aesthetic
genius and the lowest qualities of public and private morality.

Into such a maelstrom the young French king plunged,
fired by dreams of territorial aggrandizement, even of re-
establishing the kingdom of Jerusalem by a crusade against
the Turkish power ; and thus he embarked his nation upon an
enterprise ''for which neither his exchequer, his understand-
ing, nor his preparations sufficed." But it took no long
time to prove that, however easy it might be to win victories
against his divided enemies, the conquest of Italy, or any
considerable part of it, much less its retention by France,
was one of the maddest enterprises which any European
power had entertained since the English had been driven

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134 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

from France. And yet, like the English attempt against
their own land, the French were to waste time, energy, lives,
and treasure for a hundred years in an ambition as fruit-
less as it was costly. The Italians were no less fatuous in
their quarrels among themselves. The Turks captured
Otranto, their camp-fires were visible from Venice; yet
neither that nor the French fury availed to prevent the
fierce feuds of family with family, of state with state in
the troubled peninsula. Least of all cpuld Italy remain at
peace wh^ aspiring pontiffs, more eager, ta -extend their
family influence and their temp<Hral power than to attend to
the spiritual needs of the church they had been set to guard
and direct, vied with the petty, hatreds of local parties to
betray the interests of the people who formed the most highly
cultured society in Europe.

The long history of the Italian wars forms one of the
most brilliantly romantic and one of the most barren chap-
ters in European history. A sQunder^^polMy would haxfi^led
Charles to oppose the designs of MflYimilian on-Eianche
Gomte, wrest the post of Boussillon from Ferdinand, Qfdais
from England, and so secure his frontier^ against the ene-
mies of France. But the adroit diplomacy, ol. .Lodovico
Sforza diverted him from these substantial measures to pursue
the elusive and costly domination of Italy. What was more
disastrous to the interests of his country, the French, king
1493 freed his hands for the Italian enterprise by ceding Cerdagne

and Roussillon to Ferdinand and Franche Comt^ with Artois
to Maximilian, a policy which was to cost France an infinity
of blood and treasure in later generations to regain the places
thus lightly abandoned.
** The The cLaimajwhich he advanced to JLtalian_soverjgigOty were

▼«ttttc*'^' first those of the house ft£ Orleans whichi by virtue of its
descent from the hei^ess^of the dispossessed house of Vis-
conti in Milan, aspired to the rule of that rich province.
To these were added the still older claims of the house of
Anjou to the kingdom of. Naples, held by' the Aragonese
family, with whom they had divided the ancient lands of
Anjou, retaining only Provence and Anjou itself in the

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EUROPEAN POLITICS 135

hands of the French crown. But it was rather in the rivalry
between^ilan and Naples that Charles _saw_hia .opportunity
than in these shadowy dynastic pretensions. That rivalry
was substantial enough, and the fr^pl^ nliJAnPA nf ]MftplPfl^ 1499
Florence^ and Milan, which hadJ^roken.ulawn-mJJie year '*^" -
of Columbus' discovery and the death of Lorenzo de Medici,
laid Italy open to the invader. The astute but short-sighted
duke^fjtfila^, pursuing his designs against his Neapolitan
rival, had firai^^naglit ^^^ ^i^ »^ Mfl\;fTnilianj then tucnfid to
urge the Freneh..Ung^4a^ asseist his right to Naples, and,
securing his^aid, plunged not only Italy but Europe into war.

Charles' early operations, despite his own licentious in- jt^
capacity, offered fair promise of achieving his ambitions. •j^'^J,^^^
His motley force, French troops, Swiss mercenaries, and
German lanzknechts, poured through the passes of the Alps
into the territories of his ally, thence into Tuscany, withotit
opposition. Piero de Medici hastened to -submit to the in- 'U9idi
vader, but his pliwpy. promptly cost him^ his. throne, and
the first i^esultof Charles' .enterprise was to make the
Florentine ruler a fugitive. Presenting Pirn .with its freedom
from -Florence, the French king proceeded to Florence, ex-
acted a ransom from that city, wenl on to Siena, and so to
Borne, where Alexander VI, compelled to abandon, his alli-
ance with ^Naples, gave up a part of Papal territories to
Charles. Thence the French advanced against their chief
objective, Naples, whose unpopular and cowardly ynlAf AK
fonsp, abdicated and fled to Sicily, leaving his crown to his
son, Ferrante. He, in turn, after some efforts to resist, was
betrayed by his own generals, and followed his father. Thus,
in fivejnonths, almost without a blow, the FxenehJunfiL^ound
himself in possession. jofJMaples, a considerable number of
lesser territories, and the dominance of Italy.

Had Charles been possessed of his father's capacity, he Its
might well have profited largely from so successful an enter- ^<*"*P^
prise, even had he not remained the master of the peninsula.
But his feeble talents, his licentious habits, and, above all,
perhaps, the open contempt for the Italians which he and
his followers exhibited, roused -Jthe peninsula against Jam;

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and scarcely had he secured his new inheritance when it
began to slip from his hands. The Milanese-xulap- repented
the folly which had brought the French into Italy and hegap
to fear for hia owiir-position. The_iDpe, never friendly, was
roused to further jopposition-by the dread that£!hades might

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summon a general council. The Venetians, at first neutral,
and not disinclined to see their neighbors in difficulties,
began to entertain apprehensions of French domination.
And among European rulers outside of Italy, Ferdinand of
Spain suspected French designs on his appanage -^-Sicily;
while the Emperor Maximilian, disturbed by the asoendancy

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, EUROPEAN POLITICS 137

of the housej of Valois, was moved to jft'^ ^^ limiting its
power.

Scarcely was Charles' great prize within his grasp, there-
fore, when, to his own incapacity was added a posEfiiful
cQalitie& against his power. Emperor and ?^pfi| ftpftin,

Venice, and Mllnn^ ^nmhiTio/i 4^ fngm^ftiA Tiongrna ^f YoTiir»P .

and the French king, causing himself to be crowned, hastily Nov. 1495
began ^.xetoeat, already far too long delayed. Only the
fidelity^of .£h»ence, the unwillingnooa of Milan to^ see too
complete a.Yictoiy^4)¥er-Ae invaders, and the undiseiplmed
plunderkig instinct of the forces brought against him, sayed.
the French king's forces from annihilation. They escaped,
and with their departure Charles' conquests melted away,
his garrisons were compelled to submit, his lieutenants ex-
pelled, and his authority brought to an end. Of all his gains,
only the cities ceded to him by Florence remained, and these
he bartered away in the course of the next few years. Of
all the results which he achieved, the only one of any con-
sequence was the weakening of the one Tt»^^«Ti -pnmt^v vrhinh
had remained fflithfnl to his intprpsts, Flopence.

It is not easy, even were it necessary, to determine the Louis XII
proportion of responsibility for an enterprise which absorbed ?°^ ^^'X
the energies of a great part of Europe for more than a
century. The obstinate ambitions of the French rulers who "
took part in it, the real if mistaken aspirations of the people
who supported it, the treacherous folly of the Italian princes
who called in the foreigner to their aid, — all these combined
to produce that vast expenditure of energy and blood and
treasure to little purpose. Nor did successive generations
learn from experience ,- for the first chapter of that long ad-
venture became a pattern for the whole. When, four years
after his Italian expedition, Charles VIII died, he left his 1498
successor, Louk .XII, a bad example and a heritage of war,
both of which the new king eagerly embraced. Like his
predecessor, he abandoned Fcanche Comt£ to Maximilian, like
him he hastened to embark on the Italian enterprise. And,
QS before, Italy welcomed the invader. The League of
Venice had fallen apazl with the departure c^ the French.

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138 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Pope, and - Ven ic» had allied themselves with Eranee,
and LouisJSII, having thus ig^ilnted his intflntifMl Tit^tinij the
same Ludovico Sforza who had invited his predecessor to
intervene against Naples, inxadfidJtt&lj with even greater
initial success. As before, R^>v|rvg__gftyp fht^m -frAP pagfliigp
As before, they were reinforced by Swiss mercenaries; and,

1499 as {"lorence had earlier driven out Piero de Medici, so now,

for different reasons, the. Milanese. ^ompeUedrliodovico to
take refuge with the-Emperor. Milan was surrendered to
the French, Qenoa followed suit, and, without a blow, Venice
and Erance found themselves in possessicoi of a great part
of northern Italy.

Ferdinand Nor did the resemblance to the earlier enterprise end here.

and Itely Again the FrenGli4mt theixLQwn. officers in charge. Again the
Italians- were antagonized; and when, six months after Louis'
advent into the peninsula, IjttdoYico.Tetnrnftd-with an army,
the FrenchloBt their poase^fiions as quickly as they had gained
them. Then, reinforced in. torn, they defeated Ludovico,
regained. Jdilan, and prepared -to-Attempt the cononeat of
Naples. But here they now encountered a more^jdangexLOUS
QQgmy. Ferdinand of. Spain had looked with jealous eye
upon the French ambitions. He had earlier warned Charles
VIII against pressing too far in that direction; and he had
restored the bouse of Aragon to thfi. NftapolitanJiirone after

Nov. 1500 the French withdrawal. Now he came to an agreement with
Louia in regard to. Naples, and, under pretext of a treaty
with the Turks which had been negotiated by Federigo of
Naples, the kings of France and Spain agreed to divide the
Neapolitan landa iietween them.

With this secret treaty of Qranada, first of those partition
treaties which thenceforth played such a great part in Euro-
pean politics, the dynastic pnocipLetook its place in inter-
national affairs, in a form which was to endure~~from that
day until the time when it was in some degree overpowered
by the national spirit. For by its provisions whple. districts
and their inhabitants were transferred from one family to
another, as one might sell a farm and its cattle. With this
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EUROPEAN POLITICS 139

was apparent that, unless other forces should operate to
check its activity, the unfortunate people had but exchanged
a feudal for a national serfdom.

Almost immediately the agreement was put into effect. Ecance.
The CcfiOCh, welftomi^ ^y the Pope, who denoUOped thC"^^^***^

Neapnlitaa^ips as ^^ p^m^mj of ^>>Hfftenflon ^^^ TttaV^iip an
agreement with the Turk, tryfrrfln the northern part. i>f Na-
ples; the Spaniards, under the ''Qreat Captain/' GimaalEa
de_£!nrdoya, the conqueror of Granada, ifln^pH in flip gAnth^
and the unfortunate Neapolitan royal family, thus beset,
were driven intn p^jIp, But scarcely was this accomplished
when the conquerors, naturally enough, found themselves
irreconcilably opposed to each other, and there began a
Fjanco-Spaniah wftr^f an extraordinary character. On the 150»-S
one side it partook of the old spirit of chivalry which found
expression in tournaments and single combats, and added
the names of Paredes and Bayard to the roll of knightly
champions and a brilliant chapter to romance. On the other
it ushered in. the^ age , oLihe-yeat . professional soldier, of
whom the French D'Aubigny and the Spanish Qonsalvo
became the great exemplars. And thus, as the expiring spirit
of mediaeval chivalry flamed up in a last gleam of brilliance,
Europe entered upon a new phase of dynastic international
rivalry.

From the beginning the regidLwasjwiarcely m doubt. The
Fi^enc^ were driven. .fcom.Ha]2lga; and the rixaljx-bfitveen
France ^>»*^^t>»^ Empire ov^** ♦^^ •R«i>giin/iior. pffly>qcriniiQ
added MaximiUao.tiLth&.§ctive^eO£Qiies of Louis, thus divid-
ing his energies and strength. Though, after his first re-
pulse, the French king essayed twice more- the fatal adven-
ture ^f Italian invasion, an4 even succeeded in annexing
Genoa, Naples__remained in the handsjrf Ferdinand. The
League of Cambrai, formed htf>twpPTi t^p Fr-?n^*' ^"Cj the 1508

•RmpPBQi^-^flHUriTip fif Ppflin^ unA fltP P^p^^j ^^ flpqpnil Vptiipp

of her mainland possessions, witnessed anothog. atop in the
dyiiaslic-policy. It revealed, too, the same spirit which had
animated Italian politics since Charles VIII's invasion,
and which was to be for generations the peculiar character-
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140 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

istic of that long rivalry. In turn that «1lianr*p gave way.,

1511 ta the Sely League, formed of the Popfti Fprdingn^j Vpn?^^j

and. Switzerland, to expel the French. On that rockj^r^

the ambitions of Louis XII ,- and at his death heJ>e4U£athed

1515 to his successor, Francia. I, only what he had inherited from

Charles VIII — an ambitious _aijd .futile .iorjBi«n policy.
Tlie resists Such were the principal events in European politics which
ito^ ^®^ ^^ years when Spain and Portugal were achieving
w«ni and consolidating their positions in the world outside, and

the B&aissance turned the finest spirits of the continent to
intellectual and artistic triumphs. So far as their ultimate
results were concerned, the Italian wars were no less futile
than their immediate circumstances were dramatic. They
checked the ambitions of Venice on the mainland, and, with
the concT^rrent attacks of the TMrks upon J^£^ Adriatic posts,
they brought her long ascendancy witiiin sight, of its fall.
They established Ferdinand of Aragon as the master of
Naples, and raisedjie.Papacy.taJiifi-iifiightjQf Jts ill-fated
temporal power. They passed on a long heritage..i)£-war to
succeeding generation?, and introduced into. Exisopwa af-
fairs that Franco-Hapsburg rivalry which was to run a
course of more than three hundred years of armed conflict.
1499 Beyond these hollow results they were as barren of advan-

tage to the progress of the world as the concurrent accession
of Ismail Shah Sufi to the throne of Persia, and his ensuing
wars with the Turks, which, at least, relieved in some degree
the pressure which the Ottoman power was exerting upon
the European world. They were of much less importance to
the cause of civilization than the break-up of that Golden
C1500 Horde of Mongols in southern Russia and the consequent
decline of the Tartar suzerainty over the Muscovites, which
occurred during these same years. Beside the activities of
the Spaniards and the Portuguese beyond the confines of
Europe, these kaleidoscopic changes in Italian politics, with
all their contemporary interest, were insignificant; and in
comparison with the concurrent intellectual progress of the
continent they were contemptible.
Far more important were the efforts of the greater rulers

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EUROPEAN POLITICS 141

of T^^ny^JI^J^^JUify ^liQii* ^AmininTifl nnil fn inr»roAfiP the

power of royalty. Whether, like Maximilian, they failed, \

or like Ferdinand, Henry VII, Charles VIII,, and Ivan III, Absolutism
they succeeded, they accQUOjJisbeiJjKflLlhings. They went ^^^^^
far toward hrpn Vingf>iPjj^]jtiVAl ynw^f ^f fhg mrdiirrnl tionalism
feudal baroflfige/ and they set hffw^ ^^ir^I/lt the ^i^^l of

nRtmnaliHTTi u?^<^^ fthgnlnfp IringsWip. And this, in the last

result, became the mold in which all of the continent, save
€(ermany and Italy, was cast. Thenceforth its politics, for the
most part, revolved upon the relations which came to be,
in fact as in name, for the first time international. They
were, indeed, still dynastic, and in no real sense popular.
But they formed that transition from mediaeval to modern
polity which, like the intellectual revolution and the oversea
expansion that accompanied them, marks the beginning of a
new age. For with them, even in the futile Italian adven-
ture, there was revealed the spirit which has dominated men
in their political capacity from that day to the present, that
elusive but powerful force which we call nationality.

In that development, as in so many other movements which ChApges
went to make up the sum of European progress toward a wwfe"
modem world, the dozen years which followed the accession
of Henry VIII _to the English throne in 1509 formed a j^m-21
pecuUariy~Tmportant period, with its changes of personnel
and policy among European rulers. Four years after Henry
assumed the English crown, the ambitious and warlike. Julius I5l^
11,^* the founder of the Papal States,'' was succeeded by the
sogpf Lorenzo de Medici, the luxurious and pleasure-loving
Leo .2, who brought to his new office many of the qualities
which had made lllorence the center of the Benaissance.
Scarcely had he begun to give the Papal power a new impress
when Ferdinflp^ ^^tfj ^flthf^^V. "^^^^^^rg^^ from the 1515-11

scene of their ea^hlj' ru'llKWdjI, Icavrmg to their successors,
the shrewd, njil^^atic CharB^I, and the vain, ostentatious
F£§Qfi}gLj/their respectiveldiipt^s and the long heritage
of Italian rivalry. Three years later Maximilian was suc-
ceeded by his grandson, the king of Spain, who took the 1519
imperial throne . as Charles V. Thus, almost simultane-

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

ously, Europe saw the advent of three young, ambitious sov-
ereigns, upoi^ whose relations the political fortunes of the
ensuing generation were to turn, and with them the begin-
nings of a fresh realignment of forces and policies.
Charles V The greatest and the most conspicuous of these were per-
"' sonified in the Emperor, Charles V. Important as the reign

1519-66 of Henry VIII was to be to England, and that of Francis I
to France, the circumstances of the continent and of his
inheritance made Charles inevitably the focus of affairs.

From his mother he in-
herited Spain,^-^imerica,
andjSicily ; from his4ather
the landa-oUSapabuxg and
Burgundy. On him, in
consequence, devolved the
widest realm Europe had
ever seen. His long rule
touched its achievements on
every side. The continent
trembled at the fear of uni-
versal sovereignty; and he
was called, not without cause, **the Lord of the World" by
a generation in which he played the leading part.

In his domains the Reformation took its rise; his power
defended, then attacked the Pope, and finally decreed religious
peace. His son's marriage to the Infanta of Portugal brought
him in touch with that nation's future. His aunt's divorce
by Henry VIII bound up his fortunes with the English
change of faith. Half of Italy became an appanage of his
house, and he took part in all the complicated politics of that
long-vexed peninsula. Against his wide-encroaching power,
Francis I of France entered a life-long struggle and waged
four great wars. To these he summoned the aid of the reviv-
ing Turkish energies, which, having overpowered Egypt and
begun to absorb the long line of Europe's old Mediterranean
outposts, the Venetian factories, again pressed hard on
Christendom. In consequence, Charles twice invaded Africa
and twice fought the Turks, as Spain and the Empire became

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EUROPEAN POLITICS 143

the bulwark against the Ottoman. And while his subjects
conquered the New World and sailed around the earth, re-
ligion and politics, European and colonial affairs were, in his
day, and partly at his hands, inextricably joined.

For the moment, indeed, the weight of the responsibilities Charles v,
which was about to devolve upon him and the people of J[^2!ulmry
Europe generally was scarcely felt, and the firet-J^ears of vill
the new sovereigns were filled with rivftlrina inhsritrd from
the past And if there is one circumstance more surprising
than another in the history of these eight years in which
her leadership was being altered, it is the ignorance or indif-
ference of the rulers of Europe in general to the signs of
coming change which were already apparent on every hand.
In fhffwfiAia nf intftiTT^tJ^T'^'i po^^^^^^<^ t^^ l^^^lflP ^'^^ main-
tained Jhfiir-£&rlief importance. Hardly was the Engljuah
kine upon his throne when he was ditasmJiBto their far-
reaching complexities. He became a member of the, snhftallfid
Holy Tjfiftjfqy^ formp/»JK^ Tnling JJ l^ (^fJYP i}\9 Ff^^'^h from 1511
Italy. He was given the title of the Most Christian King
by the Pope and persuaded 4o- revive the old and futile
policy of Eni^ish dominioxLin France. With Maximilian's 1513
aid he attackedl^eaifr XII and won the *' battle of the spurs,''
at Quinegate. In Henry's absence — so far did the baneful
influence of the Italian adventure spread — ^the unfortunate
James IV of Scotland, urged on by France, invadedJEliigland,
only to meet defeat and death at Flodden Field, and thus
unwittingly take the first step in that long history which
ended in the union of the two kingdoms.

France followed the same course. Scarcely was Francis I ErnndB^
crowned when he took up the Italian policy which his prede- ^^ ^^^
cessors had bequeathed to him, and the first five years of his
long and warlike reign w^ spent jji-.thp pursuit nf that
phantom sovereignty. Like Charles and Louis, he was at
fijst -Successful, and the campaign which culminated in the
battle of Marignano gave Genoa and Milan into his hands. 1515
But hardly was this accomplished when the election of
Chaj^es to the imperial throne threatened France with the
greatest danger she had faced since the victories of Henry V

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144 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

a hundred years before. Throughout their long frontiers,
from the debatable kingdom of Navarre, through Italy, and
along the Rhine, France and the Hapsburg power found them-
selves in opposition at almost every point. With his posses-
sions on the continent, his dominion oversea, and his family
alliances, Charles V hemmed in the French on every side. It
is not surprising that, apart from personal ambitions, Francis
found ample cause for fear of universal sovereignty and the
extinction of an independent France; or that, after the lull
which followed his first Italian war, he devoted the energies
of a lifetime to conflict with Charles V.

But it was not in this great adventure, as events were
soon to prove, that there lay the real current of European
development which to the eyes of these young rulers partook
rather of the past than of the future. The new reigns began,
indeed, much as the old had ended; and in them, save for
the fantastic efforts of Henry VIII to be elected Emperor
and secure the Papacy for his adviser. Cardinal Wolsey,
there seemed small promise of any striking -Pangea* in the
political develgprnent of Europe apart from- the progress of
absolutism which succeeded the consoUdatien- of the greater .
states.
The Age of Yet the briefest summary of the activities in which the
Charles V young Emperor was to be involved in the course of his long
eventful reign reveals the fact that few periods of European
history have been so epoch-making as the generation in which
he was the most conspicuous figure in the world. \For those
years saw aj:e3colt.agaHi8tPfiqMd-«ath^ty which shook the
foundations not alone of the church but of politics and
society, dividing men into hostile communions, armed camps,
and, more enduring still, opposing schools of thought. They
saw the imperial ppj^er^-findeavor^ to unite

Germany, and the spirit of national absolutism rend the
continent time after time with its rivalries. They saw a
1^ tremendous influx of precious ^opds. and metals, a shifting
of the older currents of trade inta new channels, and an
increase of capital alter the economic basis of the European
world. And, far beyond the confines of the continent itself

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EUROPEAN POLITICS

145

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146 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

they saw an Arab trading empire of the East replaced by
that, of Portugal ; greisit civilizations in the wesTera" hemi-
sphere discovered and destroyed by Spain; the world encir-
cled by a single ship; **and every year reveal new wonders
and new lands."

As the center of European activities shifted from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and the weight of Asia and
America was thrown into the European scale, its balance was
altered for all time. As the past was uncovered and the
reforming movement spread, the spiritual and the intellectual
The endof foundations of the continent were profoundly changed. The
Wiemiddlc fleeds of living conquerors which far outshone those of the
heroes of romance, the achievements of scholars and men of
letters, of artists and artisans, which began to challenge the
triumphs of the ancient world, stimulated Europe's thought
and imagination to fresh adventures. At the same time the
outworn framework of medieval society and intellect broke
down under the pressure of these new influences; and Eu-
rope's energies were rallied to develop a new system to take
its place. The older principles of service and exchange,
based on land and kind, gave way to those of money and
day wages, labor and capital. And this movement, partly
begrnn, partly accelerated by a huge tidal wave of sudden
wealth from oversea, which all but blotted out the earlier
landmarks of polity and finance, laid the foundations of a
new economy. From the decaying feudal and imperial
regime arose the national governments. Beside the Qre^
and Roman Catholic establishments the Protestant confes-
sions took their stand. The promise of two centuries was
f fulfilled, and Europe, gradually secularized in thought and
. deed, expanding no less intellectually than territorially,
turned from mediseval concepts and practices toward the
ideals of a modem world.

If this was not enough to absorb her energies, these greak
achievements took place amid bitter conflicts between sov-\
ereigns and states striving for mastery, and in the face of i
attacks from the Turks, who proved almost as great a hin-
drance to the progress of civilization as the ambitions of

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EUROPEAN POLITICS 147

the rulers of the Christian world. Yet those antagonisms
were not without their significance. For they were insepara-
ble from the process by which Europe was set in the way
which led to the divisions which have, in general, maintained
themselves as the basis of national and international rela-
tionships and made modem Europe what it is. For, with
all its infinite complexities, and the long conflicts which have
modified its boundaries, the principle of national states has
proved preferable, on the whole, to that system of theoretical
unity and practical chaos which it supplanted. And in it,
no less than in the other manifestations of social activity,
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries laid the foundations of
another age.

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CHAPTER VI

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 1498-1521

Columbus
—his third
voyage

Ip history is to concern itself with events which absorb the
attention of society at any given moment, irrespective of
their importance for the future, it is apparent that the
Italian wars would form the chief theme of any account of
the quarter of a century which lay between the death of
Lorenzo de Medici in 1492 and the accession of Charles I of
Spain as the Emperor Charles V in 1519. But if the ques-
tion of permanent value fs to be considered, it is no less
apparent that the activities of the powers which had found
their way to Asia and America in those years overshadow
even the achievements of de Foix, Bayard, or even the "Great
Captain,'' Gonsalvo de Cordova himself, to say nothing of
the general continental policy of the masters whom they
served. For the problem which lay before those states which
had burst through the charmed circle that had so long sep-
arated Europe from the world outside was, in a sense, the
future of the extra-European world. Already it had* taken
on a twofold aspect which it was to keep to the end. On
the one hand was the task of maintaining and improving the
position they had won; on the other was the extension of
their ancient rivalry to the farthest comers of the earth.
After the manner of their kind, therefore, they hastened to
strengthen and enlarge their power oversea, and at the
same time endeavored to forestall each other in acquiring
title to as much of this great inheritance as possible.

The chief burden of this contest naturally fell first upon
him who had led the way to the western hemisphere.
Columbus was not averse to this extension of his activities, yet
it was peculiarly unfortunate for him. The difficulties of
the situation, Spanish inexperience, and his own incapacity
made success hopeless. His supporters clamored for returns

148

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 149

on their investments. The crown licensed voyages in defiance
of his chartered rights, and the settlers antagonized the na-
tives by their lust and violence. Powerless to quell the tur-
moil, the Admiral took refuge in exploration; and, setting
out on a third voyage in the days that da Gama was loading
spices in Malabar, and Savonarola met a martyr's death in 1499
Florence, he found a new island, Trinidad, and the South f
American continent, with its mighty river, the Orinoco.

But he was as little able to grasp the significance of his Hisr&-
exploits as to insure wealth and order to the new settlement, disgrace
A vessel of the rich and powerful mainland peoples which
he met did not enlighten him, and the shipload of natives
he sent back as slaves was received with misgiving and pres-
ently returned. A mistaken martinet, Bobadilla, despatched IMO *
to restore order, threw Columbu^ and his brother in chains
and carried them to Spain as disturbers of colonial peace. ^
And though he was released and his injuries for the most
part redressed, thenceforth the Admiral sank gradually into
something of the obscurity from which he had risen : his fame
secure, but his fortune declined. Vain, impracticable, inex-
perienced in aflfairs, neither a conqueror nor an administrator, .
he could not control the spirit he evoked, and the world
went past him. To the end he remained an explorer. Lat-
terly he became a mystic; his energies absorbed in main-
taining his rights against encroachment, and in seeking new
lands. One voyage was left to him, his fourth, on which -*is
he discovered Honduras and followed the continental coast voyage
southward past the Equator. Returning late in 1504, he —and
found Spain torn by contending factions, amid whose tumults, 20 May
after some months, he died, almost unnoticed. i^oa

What the world he found really was he never knew. To His later
him it was always Asia ; toward the end it became something positT^
more. Exposure and exertion told on his health, and his
mind seems to have been affected by the strain and the
tremendous stimulus of his achievement. Embittered by the
inadequacy of rewards which, had they been infinitely
greater, would still have seemed to him far from his deserts,
he came to be haunted by dreams of an older cosmogony.

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150 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The earth appeared to him in Ae shape of a pear; the
Orinoco as a river of life, flowing from a central region
which reflected vagae traditions of Paradise; himself a
Bringer of Salvation, and a revealer of divine secrets. Per-
haps anticipated in his exploit by forgotten seamen; certainly
not original in his conception; and followed so closely by
independent discoverers like Gabral as to make it evident
that, had he never sailed, his great discovery woold have
been made by others; the distinction still remains to him of
being the first to demonstrate to all the world the trans-
atlantic passage and the lands beyond. His initial exploit
promised to make him the greatest flgare of his generation,
but his character and abilities were unequal to the situation
he created, and the exploitation of America fell to other
hands.
The com- Close in his wake a swarm of adventurers had poured
^*H*°°c- *<5ross the sea seeking wealth, licensed explorers, his own
cessorsof companions first of all; and beside them unlicensed inter-
Columbus lopers, ignoring royalty and grant alike. In the year of
da Gama's return there sailed the reckless Cavalier Ojeda,
with Columbus' map-maker, Juan de la Cosa. With them
went a merchant-adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci, whose later.
1499- writings brought the New World to European attention to

such effect that, through the suggestion of a German geog-
rapher, there was attached to it the name America instead
of that of its discoverer. Christening a region which they
found Venezuela, apparently from some fancied resemblance
to Venice, and fetching home two hundred natives of Bahama
as slaves, this expedition was followed closely by others of
like sort. Alonzo Nino, whose family had furnished the
Nina to the first voyage; Vincente Pinzon, the Nina's old
commander; Diego Lepe, with Columbus' former pilot,
Roldan; and others, known and unknown, seeking gold and
pearls and a sea-way to Asia, increased the knowledge
brought back by the great discoverer. But neither he nor his
successors found that fabled strait. In the western world,
at Columbus' death, the Spaniards knew only the islands
and the northern coast of South America. Of the great

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 151

continent to the north, of the mainland with the rich empires
of the interior, as of the ocean beyond, they had scarcely
a hint.

If the progress of their knowledge had been slow, that of Begin-
their colony had been slower still. Of all the native tribes gp^idf.
they might have met, the simple Araacs, the farthest outpost American
of their race which covered much of the southern continent, ^*^'*^"
were probably the mildest and least advanced of any x>eoples
which the Europeans had yet encountered. But even these v ^ ^ ,.
resented the cruelty ^d oppression of the rough adven- / ' ■'^' '
turers, so eminently tU-fitted to exploit a new world with
justice, ox with fasting benefit to it or to their country. They^- / ^ ^ •
quarreled constantly among themselves and with their gov- ' >^/
emors only less than with the natives, and not until the'*',
coming of Nicolas Ovando as governor, some ten years after 1509 /
the first discovery, did real social and economic order begin.
Even so, its progress was extremely slow. Lesser settlements,
indeed, sprang up beside Isabella and Santo Domingo; the
washing of stream-sands yielded a little gold ; while clearings
made with native or with negro labor afforded space for
agriculture, to which the introduction of the sugar-cane gave
fresh impetus.

As the second decade of Spanish activity in America began, Organlca*
another circumstance did much to determine its future. The g^^^**^^
crown, forced by the exigencies of the situation resulting from colonial
Columbus' discoveries to take measures to regulate American *y*'^™
affairs, had named a canon of Seville, Juan Rodriguez de
F^eca, as colonial agedt-general, and for ten years he had
been virtually colonial minister. Now, with Seville as the 1409-1503
center of colonial affairs, and this astute churchman as the
director of the fortunes of Spain's empire oversea, his office
be^n to expand into the all-powerful Casa de la Contrata-
cion, modeled on the lines of the Portuguese Casa da India,
which was meanwhile rising to the control of eastern com-
merce in the neighboring kingdom. The Casa was constituted
to supervise all trade and licenses, vessels and cargoes, but
by Ovando 's time the council found it necessary to outline
X^heme of government. Prom his capital of Santo Do-

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152

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Slaveiy

DifBculties
of Spain's
situation

mingo the governor was empowered to administer the affairs
of the islands and the mainland not otherwise assigned, to
preserve order, to convert but not to maltreat the natives,
to force them to work the mines but to ensure their pay-
ment, to exclude Jews and Moors, to import negro slaves,
and to reserve to the crown its moiety of the gold thus mined.
\ With the governor were despatched a judge, twelve Fran-
i ciscans, and a company of soldiers, and thus, with its three
^ permanent elements, officials, clergy, and army, formal ad-
ministration in the New World began.

Thus, too, began the most difficult of colonial problems,
labor, the native, and the negro. On this no nation spent
more thought than Spain. Theologians were summoned to
counsel whether the Indians had souls like Europeans, half
souls, or no souls at all, since on this depended their status
and usage; and when it was determined that they had real
souls, the government took steps to save them and to pre-
serve the bodies which housed them. Those sent to Spain
were presently returned, laws passed to put the natives under
civil and ecclesiastical protection and control, and missionary
work began. The more cruel customs were checked, tribute
of girls and forced labor without pay was forbidden, no
arms nor liquor were to be sold to them, and they were
permitted to trade and cultivate and raise cattle. Moreover,
under Spanish oversight, the native caciques were to retain
their old authority; and in each district, under the supervision
of the priest, the Indians were permitted to choose their
own alcalde or judge, their fiscal or attorney, and their
regidor or administrator. In brief, the new subjects were to
be protected, Christianized, and in so far as possible, civil-
ized ; while the Spanish municipal system was to be extended
to the New World, in the hope that it would presently pro-
duce a civilization, if not a society, like that of Spain. Such
were the earliest European plans to establish power in
America.

It was a great ideal, but the very laws enacted to carry
out these plans revealed the fundamental difficulties of a
problem which has at all times created sharp differences be-

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 153

tween those interested in the moral side of tropical exploita-
tion and those interested primarily in its financial aspects.
The native races were unwilling or unfit to adapt themselves
to qrstems devised by European conquerors, the home govern-
ment found its plans hampered by a situation which has since
become the commonplace of tropical administration. The
colonists cared little for justice in comparison with gold;
pr(^ts rather than civilization or salvation was their aim.
The mother country was a long way off, the natives close at
hand; and they evaded, neglected, or defied the law, in
their endeavor to make quick fortunes. The society they i
framed was that of a dominant race, basing its economic j
strength upon the labor of a weaker class; founded, like
most later experiments in the same field, on virtual slavery.
When, seventeen years after his father's first voyage, Diego
Columbus went out as governor of Santo Domingo, the mold
was made in which the Spanish empire was to be cast; and
which, in some form, was to be the pattern thenceforth for
tropical exploitation by all other powers.

The contribution made by Spain to the fast-widening Portuguese
sphere of European infiuence during her first quarter of a d*«^v«""y
century in America was but slight. Compared with what
Portugal had meanwhile accomplished in the East, it seemed >
almost contemptible. For, with da Gama's return his people 1499
had waked from their lethargy, and their activity in the
ensuing twenty years became the wonder of the world. Hard
on his arrival, hoping still to anticipate the Spaniards by
discovering the coveted western sea-way to Asia, their first
concern was to despatch expeditions to find the fabled North-
west Passage. Thus Gaspar de Cortereal explored Newfound- 1500
land, Labrador, the *'land of the Bretons," and the "land
of codfish," along the north Atlantic coast of North Amer-
ica ; and, on his second voyage, lost his life as the first victim
of that long-lived delusion. He was not the only one to
whom such a task was intrusted, and the widening bounds
of their successive maps of that quarter of the world record
the efforts of their now unknown explorers in that hopeless
quest.

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154 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Cabraland These eflforts were not entirely vain, for but a scant

Bradl ^^^ years after de Gama's voyage, Pedralvarez Gabral, seht

out with an armada of thirteen ships and some twelve hun-

1500 dred men to seize the eastern trade, and bearing far to
the southwest under the pilotage of Bartholomew Diaz, to
avoid the Guinea passage, by accident or design, sighted land
beyond that reached by Pinzon three months before. This
he claimed for Portugid under the name of Santa Cruz and
sent a vessel back with news of its discovery. Thus with his
exploit the greatest of all Portugal's colonial possessicms,
Brazil, was brought under her influence, and Spain's new-
bom monopoly was broken in the western hemisphere.

The Nor was the advent of Cabral in India of less consequence,

attaSfoSr* ^^^ ^^ ^* began a fresh chapter of expansion and of the

India relations of Europe with Asia. He compelled the Zamorin of

Calicut to grant permission to set up a trading-post. But

this first of European factories in the East was soon de-

1501 Btroyed by Arab hostility; and it became apparent that
Portugal must fight to gain a share of that great commerce
which she coveted. Cabral was quick to accept the challenge.
Sinking ten Moorish ships at Calicut, he sailed to Cochin,
secured a cargo there, established a factory, and so turned

' homeward to rouse his countrymen to a fresh crusade. Be-
fore he reached Lisbon another Portuguese force had come
to blows with Calicut; and on its way back to Portugal it
crossed da Gama's formidable armada going out to avenge
his wrongs and make good his master's claim to the rights
15(MM of trade in the Indian seas. Up the east coast of Africa
and across to Malabar; bombarding Quiloa and imposing
tribute; capturing and burning pilgrim ships bound to
Mecca and rice boats from Coromandel; forcing the rulers
of the Malabar coast to grant him a monopoly of trade
and renounce their connection with Calicut and Egypt, da
Gama laid down the lines upon which was to be fought the
first great conflict between the West and the farther East.

Fired by these events, the Portuguese bent every energy
to the great adventure to which their chivalry flocked in
search of glory and wealth; while the Arab trading powers

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 155

rallied their forces with those of Calicut to defend their
d>inmerce and their faith. Marked by the heroic episodes
and the fearful cruelties incident to a religious war, this
bloody conflict went on with increasing fury. Fleet after 150S-
fleet, "flocks of sea-eagles, eager for the spoil," hurried to
the East, bearing adventurers, "mad for wealth and war,"
and the fortunes of the conflict shifted from side to side
with bewildering rapidity, till the heroic defense of Cochin
by the "Portuguese Achilles," Duarte Pacheco, turned the
tide in favor of the invaders. The Zamorin was defeated
and part of his city destroyed; "Portuguese vengeance"
visited on the hostile Arabs and their native allies; and
Mohammedan power in Malabar was crushed. From trading-
voyage to permanent post, from commercial rivalry to holy 1506
war, within eight years Portugal became the most feared and
hated power in the Indian seas, fair on the way to the
monopoly of the carrying trade between the East and West.

But she soon found that she had overthrown one set of Portugal
antagonists only to be confronted by far more dangerous Moh^^^.,
foes. Every interest of the Indian world and of powers dan world
far outside its boundaries roused to resist the Portuguese 1
peril. The Mohammedan states of northwestern India about
Diu ; the Arab sultan of Egypt, his revenues diminished and
his faith insulted by the invaders; the Turks; even the
Venetians were summoned to oppose these daring adven-
turers. Yet this did not daunt the Portuguese. The Sultan
threatened the Papacy with the destruction of the holy
places of Palestine, the Sepulchre itself, but the king of
Portugal retorted to the Pope's ambassador that none in
Europe did their duty on the infldel more manfully than his
subjects, and no Mohammedan threat would check the new
crusade. And so far from drawing back, the Portuguese
extended their plans of conquest.

To this end Francisco Almeida was despatched to establish^ Almdda
permanent bases on the east African coast, and a regular pilot- ^ ^
service thence tQ India. His second task, the suppression of
Arab power in Maltiibar, had been largely accomplished by
his predecessors. The third, to overthrow the Moslem dom-

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156

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Portugal's

triumph

1505-

1508

•- -«•

Portugal's

colonial

policy

1506

ination of the sea, remained. To strengthen his hands, to
mark the altered policy and permanent purpose of Portugal,
he had been commissioned Viceroy of India; for Portuguese
power now aspired to the mastery of the Indian Ocean and
the ways thither. To that end a fleet was sent out to remain
in permanence, and plans were formed to seize the keys of
navigation ; Aden to control the Bed Sea ; Ormuz to command
the Persian Gulf; Malacca to secure the Straits and the way
i to the Spice Islands and farther Asia; and a capital on
Malabar.

With these far-reaching plans Almeida was not wholly in
accord. It seemed enough to him to hold the sea against the
Mohammedan power which from Calicut to Cairo was com-
bining to crush the Portuguese. To lesser men even that
task would have seemed insuperable, and only after the most
incredible exertions was it accomplished. Almeida's brief
viceroyalty was signalized by almost incessant conflict on the
sea, the brunt of which was borne by his gallant son Lorenzo,
who in three successive years crushed the Zamorin's forces,
compelled the snibmission of Ceylon, and met defeat and
death in striving to hold off the united fleets of Egypt and
the north Indian powers from the relief of Calicut. A
twelvemonth after his death the battle of Diu avenged the
young hero and gave Portugal command of the sea for a
hundred years. In such wise was laid the foundation of her
power in the East.

With it was raised the issue of imperial policy and control.
Already a colonial office, the Casa da India, had been formed
to administer the trade; already the merchants of Florence
and Genoa, of Augsburg, Nuremberg, and the Netherlands
had begun to share the profits. And in the first year of
Almeida's viceroyalty Affonso da Albuquerque and Tristan
da Cunha had been despatched as harbingers of a new policy
and a new war. Discovering the island which still bears da
Cunha 's name, they carried fire and sword up the east
African coast, seized Socotra, and invadet^Hii&' Persian t3t\xlt.
From Euria Muria they sailed to the c;ipture of Muscat and
thence to the siege of their objective^ Ormuz. Their attack

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

157

failed, and on their arrival in India, Almeida, stung by the
king's ingratitude, refused to surrender his post, and threw 1508
his designated successor, Albuquerque, in prison. Thence he
was released by the arrival of another fleet, in the same year
that Diego Columbus began his governorship of the
West Indies, and entering on his viceroyalty of the East,
the new governor began a new chapter in the world's
affairs.

Far different from the activities of Spain in the West,
Portugal's venture had done much to alter the balance of
trade and politics through-
out Europe and Asia even
before the advent of Al-
buquerque. Lisbon was al-
ready superseding Venice
and Genoa and Alexandria
as the entrepot of eastern
commerce; and the trade
routes in Europe were
changing to meet the new
conditions. At first, ham-
pered by lack of capital
and mercantile experience,
the Portuguese permitted the
merchants of other countries
to share their enterprise, and
foreign firms had quickly

established Lisbon agencies, embarked on trading voyages,
and financed ventures under royal license. Thus Europe
as a whole took no small part in the new exploitation
of the East. But in politics the reverse was true. The Papal
bulls, the closely guarded secrets of navigation, the possession
of the harbors from Lisbon to Calicut barred the way to other
powers, and only here and there had an occasional daring
interloper found his way to India. Prom these the Portu-
guese had little to fear, and from the other European states,
absorbed in matters nearer home, nothing at all.

Thus undisturbed, she strengthened her power oversea.

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158 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

In the wake of trader and conqueror poured a stream of
other folk, officials, soldiers, sailors, adventurers, with occa-
sional setUers, missionaries, commercial agents, making their
way from port to port, till from Lisbon to Calicut there ran
a slender thread of Portuguese through the great masses of
the native population. Too few to dispute pre-eminence with
these, and disinclined, like the first colonists of Spain, to
wage a war of conquest or extermination, or aspire to great
territorial dominion, the Portuguese contented themselves
;with conquering i>orts and setting up mere trading-posts.
Recognizing, where need was, native kings, treating, trading,
settling, mingling, and marrying among the native races,
with little sense of race repugnance or superiority, they
founded a curious society, trader and planter, free and slave,
white, native, and meti. Under such circunustances they
served to spread a much modified European people and
civilization along the coast, throwing in their lot with the
new-found races to a degree little known as yet even among
the Spaniards and scarcely tolerated by the northern Euro-
peans who were presently to take up their task.

Thus by a fortunate coincidence of skill, courage, and
accident was the circle of European knowledge and influence
widened more in a decade and a half than it had been in
the preceding two thousand years of its history, and far
beyond even the imagination, much less the achievement, of
all preceding generations. Yet it was the work, not, as
might well be supposed, of the energies and thought of a
whole continent, but of a mere handful of men from two
small kingdoms. For with all the promise of the new
discoveries, the other European states found themselves
less concerned with this than with their local interests in
the years which saw the boundaries of Europe thus
enlarged.

Even Spain, whose energies were so largely absorbed in
the Italian ambitions of Ferdinand, and whose exploits in
the western world had been so much less profitable than
those of her neighbor in the East, paid correspondingly less
attention to the work of her discoverers. In consequence the

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 159

center of the new impulse lay almost wholly in Portugal,
and, at the moment that Charles and Francis took up the
burden of their respective sovereignties the long and glorious
reign of Emmanuel the Fortunate finished its burst of con-
quering advance, and his people stood out as the first colonial
power of the world. This coveted pre-eminence they owed
to the genius and energy of their last and greatest empire-
builder, Affonso da Albuquerque, who crowned the work of!
da Gama and AlmeidiTTjy rounding out tHe FOrtoguese
commercial domination of the farther East.

The great figure who now personified the expanding power Albn-
of Europe was a type and product of his people and his ^'^^'q"*
age. Bom in the year that Constantinople fell, of warrior-
sailor-courtier ancestry, long service in Africa and on the
sea among those bred in the school of Prince Henry had
filled him with the ambition ''to render the great service to
Our Lord in casting out the Moslems from the land.** From
a voyage to Malabar he brought a design destined to alter
the direction of the world's affairs. There Arab rivalry had
made da Gama's plan of peaceful, unrestricted trade im-
possible; and to it had succeeded Almeida's efforts to control
the sea by fleets and naval base. Building on this, Al-
buquerque planned to extend Portuguese power from the
sea-ways about Africa and ports on the Indian coasts to the
sources and channels of the whole of that trade which cen-
tered on the Malabar coast.

His strokes were swift and sure. As a center of opera-
tions,' at once a naval base and a commercial capital, he
seized the port of Goa in north Malabar, killed or drove out 1519-
its Moslem inhabitants, conciliated the Hindus, built a for-
tress, transferred to it the privileges of the older ports,
established magazines of arms and supplies, and set up a
central administration. Meanwhile, a squadron made its way
to Sumatra, through th^ Straits to Java, and so to the Spice
Islands, whither Albuquerque followed on the conclusion of
his operations in Malabar. With aid from Java he attacked
Malacca, built a fort there to control the Straits highway to
the farther East, and thence despatched a fleet to establish

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160 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

I

posts in the Spice Islands as far as Amboyna, in order to
control the spice trade at its source.

Thence, having made treaties with the rulers of Indo-
China, he turned to avenge a Turkish-Persian attack on his

1513 new capital, and struck at the Bed Sea. Though beaten off

from Aden, he took Ormuz, the key to the Persian Gulf, and
' its rich trade, and strengthened his hold on India by fac-
tories at Calicut and Diu. His wilder dreams of ruining
Egypt by diverting the Nile into the Bed Sea, and paralyzing
the Moslem world by stealing Mohammed's body from its
shrine at Medina, were scarcely less amazing than his deeds.
In five years he replaced the Arab trading empire with that
of Portugal, opened the way to farther Asia, and fastened
the hold of Europe on the East. He had done more. Fol-
lowing the Navigator's policy of taking Mohammedanism in
the rear, he had helped to divert Turkish attention from
European conquest, and so relieved the pressure from that
quarter for a time. At his death the Portuguese empire of

1515 the East was an accomplished fact, and, completed precisely

a hundred years after the fall of Ceuta, his task, conceived
and executed in the spirit of Prince Henry, fitly crowned the
century of expansion.

His His work was carried on by other hands. Within six

151?**^'' years Saurez had secured Colombo with a fort to dominate
Ceylon; Pereira went to China as envoy; Andrada had ex-
plored the Chinese coast, whose trade, with that of farther
India, now fell to Portugal ; and the vast eastern archipelago,

1517 as far as Borneo, was visited by her ships, ^^t the same

time the Turks conquered Egypt. Venice and Genoa were j
thus cut off from their last highway to the East ; and Lisbon /
'^ took their place as the great entrepot of Asiatic goods. Turk,

Arab, Persian, and Egyptian strength was still to contend
for mastery of the sea; the long demarcation line between
their power and that of Portugal was to swing back and
forth with the uncertain hazards of an endless war; but, till
her independence was lost at home, Portugal was to hold her
power in the East.
Such was the prize. How was it to be keptt Had Por-

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vvu//

Flemish Engraving of a Carrack.

[End of the 15th century.] Compare with the picture of the Embarkation,
p. 84. From Bourel de la Ronci^re, Histoire de la Marine Francaise.

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 161

tugal's development at home, or her ability to organize and The
rule abroad equaled her daring and her enterprise, the edi- p^^^^.g
fice thus raised might well have stood, and €k)lden Gtoa re- policy
mained the mistress of the East. Perhaps no state so
circumstanced at that time could have revealed superior
capacity, but Portugal's development at home scarcely kept
pace with her progress abroad. Her government grew highly
centralized ; Cortes was merged in Council ; popular liberties
disappeared; and the king's authority, like that of his con-
temporaries, increased. But futile foreign policy and a false
economy weakened the state. Her feudal organization was
better fitted to conquer than exploit the new empire; and
her million and a third inhabitants were too few for the.
great task thus thrust upon them.

Moreover, sudden wealth demoralized society. Her nobles in
found their way to wealth and power by courtly arts that Po'^R**
won them the commands abroad which were the perquisite .
of their class. The influx of slaves compelled the peasantry,
unable to compete with forced labor, to leave their holdings.
Agriculture correspondingly declined; manufactures tended ,
to disappear; and, save for the fisheries, Portugal, abandon-
ing herself to a single interest, ceased to support herself.
Never a nation of varied resource, she had called sailors
and shipwrights, merchants of all lands to reinforce her
daring and her enterprise. But success narrowed her policy.
The Jews were forced to embrace Christianity or follow the
Moors into exile ; and, as capital increased, foreigners found
their privileges cut off. Boyal monopoly was extended to a
lengthening list of articles, the quantity of imports limited
and prices raised. To prevent interlopers, the secrets of
the passage were guarded with increasing vigilance. Papal
interdicts were reinforced by prohibition of the sale of maps
of lands beyond the Congo; and those waters became a mare
clausum.

Yet, strangely enough, the Portuguese neglected trade with in rdaUon
European ports. Flattered, perhaps, by homage to their *<> Europe
capital, or seeking easy profits from its port dues, they
suffered Germans and Flemings, French, Italians, Jews;

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162

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

f

In her
colonies

L- -^

.r'

Portuguese
imperial
organiza-
tion

Welsers and Fuggers, Hochstetters, Imhoffs, Ifarchini, Sal-

vaggi, Carducciy half the great merchants of the continent,

to establish branch houses in Lisbon and absorb the distribu-

; ^^ tion of their goods throughout Europe. From these in turn

^ they bought the necessities of life, and this, with the vast

,yC' expense of their establishment oversea, ate up their profits.

. Thus, with the unequal distribution of her wealth, and eco-

. nomic decline which reduced her taxable property, Portugal

early began to degenerate at home.

Nor was this compensated by development abroad. Her
population in the East gave small hope of permanence or
increase, still less of impressing its culture or power upon the
natives whom she met. Pew women of the better sort went
out even while their emigration was allowed, which was not
long. The men, encouraged by the government and the
church, married among the natives and bred a new race,
Eurasian or Eurafrican, lacking the strength of either ele-
ment; while from too close contact with alien blood at home
and In the colonies the national fiber weakened and grew
Orientalized. The church, which accompanied the Portuguese
advance, scarcely extended its infiuence beyond the greater
ports, and competed ineffectively with the native faiths.

Such were the first fruits of Portugal's achievements in
the East. Yet, in spite of them, it might have been Em-
manuel's fortune to build up a system of colonial administra-
tion which would have counteracted these defects in some
degree. But the task seemed beyond his strength. The huge
Estado da India, created in Almeida's day, was governed by
a Viceroy who, from his capital at €k)a, ruled some fifteen
thousand miles of coast with vast but vague authority. At
home the Casa da India, or India House, extended its over-
sight to all the business with the factories, while the Casa
da Mina, or Guinea House, controlled the gold output of
Africa. Beyond the Cape were presently established seven
governorships, and a system of inspection by royal ofBcers.
An Indian army was created, and squadrons stationed at
the danger points to guard the trading fieets.
Bi;it %% long lii^e of scattered posts could be but slightly

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 163

supervised at best. The Viceroy fought and administered as Trade and
best he could; the Casa da India prepared cargoes, divided ^"J{^^
profits, enlisted soldiers, supervised the fleets; the royal
agents looked after the king's interests when and where they
could ; the supreme court in Goa settled such cases as came
before it. But, withal, captains and governors exercised their
powers almost without restraint, and from the first a fatal
error nullified all efforts at honest government. In their
hands administration was combined with oversight of trade,
and the temptation to sacrifice the public good for private
gain was thus made irresistible. Worse still, the Portuguese
did not learn. The commission of the Admiral of the East
was made in the same terms as that of Pessanha, centuries
before, even to the necessity of employing twenty Genoese
subordinates; while Gtoa's charter, ignoring difference of con-
ditions, was copied from that of Lisbon.

Thus, though Portugal had great sources of strength, — a
prestige won by the fighting qualities of her noble adven-
turers and their followers, superiority in vessels, seamanship,
and arms, — from the beginning she revealed sources of weak-
ness as well. Her rulers were not only ignorant of admin-
istration and trade; they held to older forms and rigid
measures, and never rose to great heights or wider vision of
imperial or commercial needs. Equally incapable of imposing
her own system on alien peoples, or of devising new methods
to suit new conditions, only the absorption of other European
states in their own affairs and the courage of her agents
abroad enabled Portugal to maintain the power she had won
by the daring of her heroes.

And at the very moment when she achieved her greatest Spain in
success she had a rude awakening from her dream of com- ^^^^*
plete monopoly. It came, as might have been supposed, from
Spain. While Portugal had pushed her power to farther
Asia, her rival had feverishly sought two objects in America,
gold and a western way to Asiatic trade ; and, almost simul-
taneously, at this juncture in affairs, she suddenly achieved
them both. Her success was the climax of a decade of
§trenuoafl nctivity. The y^r tbat Albuquerque sailed, 1508

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164 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Ocampo circumnavigated Cuba and Vincente Pinzon found
his way along the eastern coast of South America to the
fortieth parallel; while Ponce de Leon, a colonist-companion
of Columbus, and first of a new race of conquerors, brought

1510 Porto Bico under Spain's control. As the great Portuguese

empire-builder began his work, Diego Columbus, son of the
Discoverer, went out as Viceroy of the West.

With his coming a new age began in America. The old
Columbian monopoly was broken down and on every hand
Spain's subjects began to exploit the new world. Coincident
with the Portuguese advance to the Straits, Jamaica was

^ occupied; Diego Velasquez conquered Cuba and established

a settlement at Havana; Ponce de Leon, seeking, it was said,

1519 the fabled fountain of youth, found a peninsula of the

western continent, which he called Florida. A short-lived
settlement was planted on the Isthmus of Panama; and Vasco
f Nunez de Balboa, having founded the first permanent main-
land colony at Darien, led a force across the Isthmus to look

1513 out for the first time upon the waters of a i>eaceful western

sea, which he christened the Pacific. This he claimed for
Spain, while two of his more daring followers seized a native
boat and, first of all Europeans, pushed out upon its waters.

1514-15 Upon the news of this discovery, the Spanish king despatched
his captain de Solis to find a way around America into its
waters, and thus anticipate, if possible, the Portuguese dis-
covery of the Isles of Spice. But Portugal, who likewise
sent an expedition on the same track, had meanwhile won

1515-16 the race from the other end. Before de Solis sailed, her
ships had loaded at Barida and Amboyna in the heart of
the Moluccan archipelago ; and, in the year that Albuquerque
died, the Spanish leader fell by native hands on the great
estuary which he named La Plata; his men turned back,
defeated in their enterprise ; and Portugal retained her hard-
won domination of the East.

The results Spain's opportunity, despite her great activities, seemed
lost. She had been in the new world a quarter of a century ;
her subjects had explored and conquered widely, spending
their lives and fortunes freely in their quests; but thus far

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 165

she had failed of sudden wealth like that of Portugal. She
had won the West Indian archipelago and some thousand
miles of tropical coast ; laid some rude peoples under tribute,
or set them to work; found some store of gold and pearls;
built up a slender trade; sent out some colonists; and laid
foundations for a sure if slow prosperity from the products
of the soil, like and not so great as that in the Portuguese
island-colonies. Of native races she had met only the mild
and peaceful Aruacs, from whom she wrested tribute and
forced labor; andTthe fiercer Caribs, from whom she got
scarcely more than hard blows, a new name, Caribbean, for
the Antillean sea, and the word cannibal. But both Aruacs
and Caribs were savages of low type, mere hunters and
fishermen; neither of them offered prospects of profit beyond
what had been or was being obtained from them, and that
was far from considerable. As yet no land of gold; no
spices, silks, nor gems; no rich nations fit for conquest or
for trade; no sea-way to the East rewarded her adventurers
in the western hemisphere.

Yet at the end of her costly enterprise Spain found a great The
success. From native chiefs the founder of Darien learned J^^Sws
of lands ''flowing with gold," sufficient to satisfy even the
"ravenous appetites" of his rapacious followers. These, as
the event was to prove, lay to the south; but long before
they were attained, adventurers had begun the exploitation
of the coast lands to the north. Within three years Cordova 1517
foupd the peninsula of Yucatan, the home of the highly
civilized Maya tribes ; and Juan de Qrijalva, coasting north- 1618
ward thence, got news of a great mainland empire of fabulous
wealth. This information, with some store of gold, he sent
back to Cuba; and with the exploration of the Gulf coast
from Florida to where Grijalva had left off the problem
of gold and a sea-way to the East took on more definite form,
as the Spanish- Americans prepared for continental conquest.

The first to move was Cuba's governor, Velasquez. Fired Hernando
by Grijalva 's gold and informiition, he hastened to equip a ^^^^
force to seek the mainland empire. Ten ships, some six
hundred foot, a score of horses, with artillery and supplies.

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166 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

were intrusted to the command of the alcalde of Santiago,
Hernando Cortez. In one view the choice was f ortutlate. A
soldier's son, bom in Estremadora, ''the cradle of con-
querors,'' brave, adventurous, poor, able, and ambitious even
b^ond his kind, the new commander, after long service
under Ovando and Velasquez, had thus far been denied an
independent command and the great opportunity of which he
dreamed. He was neither slow nor scrupulous in availing
himself of it, now it had come. Sailing at once to evade
recall, recruiting his forces and supplies as he went, he
found his way to Tabasco, thence to Vera Cruz. There he
was elected governor and captain-general by his followers;
sent back word to Charles V of his adventure and his new
dignities; and thus severing the last tie which bound him
to his patron, the Cuban governor, he prepared his great
exploit. Meanwhile, the ruler of the inland empire, Monte-
zuma, sent him presents and a command to leave the country.
But the sight of gold only confirmed the invaders' resolution
''to go to see what this great Montezuma might be like, and
to make an honest living and our fortunes." Cortez burned
his ships to commit his men irrevocably to the adventure, and
advanced toward the interior with some four hundred Span-
iards and his native allies.
The Astecs Of it and its inhabitants he had meanwhile learned much.
Centuries earlier a fierce northern tribe, the Aztecs, had fallen
on the cultured Toltec race, which held the central Mexican
plateau, subdued them and their neighbors, absorbed the
civilization which they found, grafted on it their dark and
bloody religious observances, and became the rulers of the
greater part of what came to be known as Mexico. Save for
the use of iron, gunpowder, and domestic animals, especially
the horse, and for the ferocious superstitions of their
religion, they seemed scarcely inferior to the Europeans with
whom they were now to be brought in contact. They built
in stone, wove cotton cloth, mined and worked the precious
metals, dug canals, and were pre-eminent in agriculture. Nor
were their intellectual acquirements inconsiderable, for they
reckoned time, used hieroglyphic writing, and were no mean

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 167

astronoiaers and mathematicians. In their own land of Ana-
huac, the heart of Mexico, they were a ruling warrior caste ;
elsewhere they exercised a rigid suzerainty, whose severity
was emphasized by an enforced tribute of victims for human
sacrifice from the subject tribes.

To conquer such a race with four hundred men would have The
been preposterous, nor was it Cortez' design. His policy was of 5?e3dco
to divide and rule, to conquer the Aztecs by the aid of their 1519
enemies and the subject tribes. With the allies he had already
made he overthrew the warlike Tlascalans, whose lands, which
lay on his march to Montezuma's capital, had remained inde-
pendent of the Aztec rule. Enlisting them against their
ancient enemies, he finally advanced on Anahuac itself.
Mountains and desert offered as little obstacle to the Spanish
adventurers as native hostility. Though no European eyes
had ever looked on such tremendous scenes as those through
which Cortez' force now passed, the natural wonders they
encountered, amazing as they were, astonished them scarcely
as much as the first sight of the Aztec capital, the island city
of Tenochtitlan, ''like the enchantments they tell of in the
legend of Amadis — ^great towers and buildings rising from
the water — and some of our soldiers even asked whether the
things that we saw were not a dream." Thus defended,
approachable only by long causeways, impregnable to his little
force, the capture of this great city seemed hopeless enough.

But what he would have been unable to accomplish, fortune
did for him. The superstitious Emperor was alarmed by
intestine feuds, by prophecies which foretold the downfall of
his race, by likeness of these ''Children of the Sun" to a
divinity who, according to tradition, had come from the East,
centuries before, taught the arts of peace and departed, prom-
ising to return. He admitted the invaders to his capital.
Once within the city, Cortez fortified the palace assigned to
him; secured the Emperor's submission to the king of Spain;
and finally, by a daring stroke, seized Montezuma and ex-
acted a huge ransom as the price of his safety.

From this success he was summoned to confront a force
sent by Velasquez to supersede him. That force Cortez 16S0

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168

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

bribed to betray its leader, and, thus reinforced, he returned
to Mexico to find the natives aroused against the Spaniards
by the cruelty of his lieutenant, Alvarado, and the Emperor

deprived of his authority. The invaders, compelled to fight
their way out of the city, took refuge with their allies, the
Tlascalans, and in the following year again advanced. The
subject tribes were summoned to Cortez' aid; the city was

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 169

invested; and for three months the Aztecs, under a new
leader, Guatomozin, defended themselves with the fury of
despair. They were defeated, and the Aztec nobility was all 1591
but annihilated. The city was destroyed and upon its ruins
another capital was begun. The tribes which aided the in-
vaders found that they had only exchanged new and more
powerful masters for the old. The land and its inhabitants
were parceled out among Cortez' chief followers, its treas-
ures were distributed among the conquerors, save for the
royal fifth. The native temples were broken down or turned
to Christian usages, the missionaries began to preach the new
faith; and the conquerors, entering on their inheritance in
this great realm now added to the Spanish crown, laid the
foundations of a new society.

Great as was this achievement, it was not alone in its Femib
glory. While Gortez and his followers were winning this M*8****"
rich landy another and a smaller Spanish force had been
engaged in an exploit no less important but productive of
far less reward. This was the conquest of the western sea. Sept. 90
Six weeks before the Spaniards saw the Aztec capital for the ^^^®
first time, five ships had sailed from San Lucar in Spain
under command of a Portuguese adventurer, Femao Ma-
gelhaes, or Magellan, sometime a captain under Albuquerque,
who, six years earlier, had sailed with d'Abreu from Malacca
to the Isles of Spice. He conceived the idea that the Moluccas
were not within Spain's demarcation line, and that they could
be reached by sailing west, but lie had failed to interest Em-
manuel and so entered the service under Charles of Spain.

Given command of this little fleet, he took de Solis'
course to the la Plata, whence, following the eastern coast of
South America beyond the farthest point then known, he
wintered in Patagonia. His men mutinied, one of his cap-
tains deserted him. But, undaunted by his losses and the
dangers of an unknown sea, a year from his departure, while
Gortez was advancing for a second time upon the Aztec
capital, Magellan reached the strait which still bears his naifir"i590
at the extremity of the continent. Escaping its perils
almost by miracle, after six weeks he cleared the dangerous

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170 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

passage, turned ''the desired cape, 'Deseado/ '' and sailed
out on the Pacific.

For a time he followed the coast northward, then struck
out boldly into the open sea. Week after week he dog-
gedly went on. The water spoiled, the fleet's supplies
gave out. Men lived on leather, rats, the sweepings of the
ships, meal full of maggots, or, more often, died. For a
hundred days they plowed across this vast, unknown, appar-
ently illimitable, expanse, haunted by the fear that they would
sail over the world's edge into space, and at last made land
at the Ladrones or Isles of Bobbers. Even so the great
captain was not to see the end of his exploit ; for in another

16121 group, later named, from the Spanish heir, the Philippines,

he fell by native hands. But his work was done. He had
invaded Portuguese monopoly from the rear and given Spain
a foothold upon Asiatic soil. Far more than this, he had
revealed the mystery of the Pacific. His surviving followers
found their way to Borneo and Tidore. One of their two
remaining ships, the Trinidad, attempted to return to Pan-
ama, but put back to the Moluccas, where it was captured
by the Portuguese; while the last vessel of the fleet was
voyaging, by Portugal's well-known way about Africa, to
Spain. Three years from their departure this ship, well-
named the Victoria, with eighteen Europeans and four

1589 Asiatic sailors, under Sebastian del Cano, sailed into San

. Lucar, after the greatest feat of seamanship the world had
ever seen. Thirty years before, Columbus found the trans-
atlantic passage. Now the great age of maritime discovery was
crowned by the circumnavigation of the earth which revealed
its size and its sphericity. With it, for the first time, man-
kind conceived the world which it inhabited. Portugal and
Spain, **the one of them departing toward the Orient and
the other toward the Occident," had now ''met again in the
course or way of the middest of the day" and "compassed
the world," between them. It remained apparently only for
them to exploit what they found.

Effect of With these two great adventures, Spain found herself again

inquest ^^ ^^ equality with her rival in the colonial field; and, like

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 171

Portagal a decade before, was confronted by the problem of
organizing and administering the empire which was being
won and settled by her adventurers. Scarcely less than the
progress of territorial conquest, the development of society
in her possessions had demanded the attention of the home The
government The slight stores of native gold in her island *^**^^**
possessions had been soon exhausted by the plundering con-
querors. The product of stream washing and rude mines
proved inconsiderable; and the growth of planting had im-
posed fresh burdens on the unfortunate Aruacs, which they
soon proved unable to sustain. Added to war and wanton
cruelty, the unaccustomed and exacting labor which their mas-
ters required of them was scarcely less fatal than the Spanish
arms, and, despite the efforts of the administration, they
died by thousands.

In order to prevent their complete extermination, accord-
ingly, the government devised a plan which, with some modi-
fications, became the basis of Spanish economic power in the
new world. With the design of protecting the natives and
raising them at least from slavery to a species- of serfdom. Hie r«fHif^
those within thebounds of Spanish occupation were placed in ^^^^^
charge of leading colonists, by groups or villages propor- 15111-
tioned to their holdings, and these so-called encomenderos
were held responsible for the well-being, faith, and safety of
their charges. Such was the system known as that of reparti-
mimtos or encamiendas. This, in some form, spread through
theSpanish- American colonies, and became at once the pattern
for the later development of their resources and the chief con-
tribution of Spain to the solution of the problem of tropical 1516
exploitation. "^^

Opposed by imparti^ and enlightened men like the great
missionary, Las CalagT this design was welcomed by the
colonists, and'bven approved by the Franciscan commissioners
sent out to investigate its workings. But however defensible Slavery
in theory, and however admirable when properly administered
with due consideration for the natives, too often it accelerated
the destruction it professed to check, since it served only to
confirm and legalize a bondage from which there was no

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172 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

escape but death. With this came another development. As
1506- the demand for laborers continued to increase, and the native

supply continued to decline, the Spanish planters, like the
Portuguese, turned to Africa for negro slaves, better fitted
to endure the hard labor in the tropics which had proved
insupportable to European and Indian alike. An increasing
number of these new immigrants was soon introduced into the
West Indies from the Guinea coast. And, though at first
forbidden by the crown, the slave trade, supported by power-
ful interests and even the eloquence of good men like Las
Casas, who hoped to save the Indians by its means, finally
1617 received the royal sanction and became a part of the colonial

life. With this the ultimate success of planting and cattle-
raising was assured, and a society was formed upon the basis
thus laid down. Planter and native, negro and half-breed,
poured into Spain an increasing stream of its produce, dye-
stuffs and wood, fruits, drugs, tobacco, cotton, hides and
c. 16«0 cattle products, and, above all, sugar, which, introduced into
the colony within a generation after the discovery, became the
first great staple of the West Indian colonies. Thus though
progress was checked by the continual drain upon the popu-
lation for mainland exploits, the island settlements began a
course of slow but sure advance.
Organixa- With the development of planting and the influx of labor
SpaiSsh- ^^*^® administrative changes. Two years before Diego Co-
America l^lumbus had taken his place as governor, the Espanola towns
had been granted their petition for mumcipal prmleges;
and within a year of his arrival a court had been established,
independent of the executive authority, to hear appeals from
his justices. Thus began that characteristic institution of
Spanish colonial administration, the audienda, at once a
governor's council and a supreme court, empowered to pre-
sent m^orials to the home'^ovenmient and so act as an
I effective check on executive authority. Almost at the same
Time the colonial director, Fonseca, and the king's secretary,
with other members of the Council of Castile, had been
named a committee for American affairs. From this had
been developed, as early as the first year of Columbus'

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SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 173

governorship, a Council of the Indies, and after the accession
of Charles to the throne, this became a permanent body,
which grew into the controlling authority, under the king, for c I6d4
justice and administration oversea. Meanwhile conquest and
exploration spread, as the Antilles, Darien, Florida, and Mex-
ico, with later additions, were brought under Spanish power.
And though the governor of Espanola remained, under the
home government, the nominal ruler of the Spanish- American
colonies, new governors were appointed for each fresh ac-
quisition, with slight relation to the authority of the original
colony. Under such auspices, administration and society were
extended with the progress of the Spanish arms. Spanish
civilization, modified by slavery and the conditions of a new
world, made its way gradually throughout the territories
around the Gulf of Mexico at the same time that Magellan's
exploit enabled Spain to invade the regions in which Al- 1^90
buquerque had just completed the edifice of Portuguese
colonial supremacy.

Thus simultaneously and by not dissimilar means, America r-^
and A^ia were opened to European enterprise; and there O^
began that interaction among them from which was to grow
a great part of the world's history. While the continent
itself was rent with the rivalries of new princes and newly
organized states, there were laid the foundations of dominion
oversea which was to make a European world. This, rather
than the Italian wars, remains the event of lasting impor-
tance in the political activities of the first quarter of the
sixteenth century. For the future belonged not to the cap-
tains and kings who filled the public eye and were to monop-
olize the pages of history. While explorers and conquerors
determined the paths which Europe was to take abroad, the
scholars and men of letters were altering the whole basis of
life and thought at home; and they, with their fellow-
adventurers, remained the real directors of European des- ^^
tinieflL

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CHAPTER VII

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION.
1492-1521

At the moment that the little Spanish town of Palos rang
with the preparations for that voyage which was to bring
a new world into European view, and the envoys of Milan
1499 were seeking to persuade the French king, Charles VIII, to

intervene in the affairs of the Italian peninsula, the greatest
princely figure of the Renaissance, Lorenzo the Magnificent,
lay on his death-b.ed. Before the news of the discovery
reached Florence, or the emissaries of Ludovico Sforza had
received assurances of French support, the noblest patron
of the New Learning had gone. Had the movement which
unfolded the past to European minds been of like nature
with those political activities which drew his city into the
maelstrom of French and Spanish rivalry, it might well have
been that his death would have checked the splendid burst
of scholarly and artistic genius evoked in the preceding gen-
eration and its budding splendor would have failed to achieve
its full fruition. But such movements as the Renaissance
depend little upon the individual, however great; and less
upon the ambitions of a prince, however powerful ; least of all
upon the vicissitudes of politics. For, even while Italy-
became the battle-ground of Europe, her genius made her
the artistic and intellectual capital of the continent.

For the first quarter of the sixteenth century, though filled
with great actions by land and sea, the rivalries of princes
and the adventures of nations and individuals, was far from
being wholly dominated by even the most insistent demands
of war and politics. Deeply influenced as they were by these
activities, the mind and heart of Europe were still more pro-
foundly stirred by the concurrent developments in far dif-

174

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 175

ferent fields. Art and letters, science, above all theology,
assumed a fresh importance in the life of man. New lines
of achievement, new fields of opportunity were opened on
every hand; and while the creative genius of the European
race rose to still greater heights of excellence, there was
evolved a new school of religious faith and practice in op-
position to the old establishment.

This expansion of man's intellect and capabilities was Italian art
nowhere more evident than in the realm of art; and nowhere
were its achievements more remarkable than in Italy. At the
same time that the Iberian powers revealed an amazing burst
of conquests and discovery, the Italian peninsula revealed a
no less amazing development in art and letters. And it is
not the least remarkable of the coincidences in this extraor-
dinary period that concurrently with the deeds of Columbus
and Vasco da Gama, Albuquerque, and Cortez, painters like
Baphael and Leonardo da Vinci, ^nd writers like Machiavelli
and Ariosto, should have appealed to enlarge Europe's lit-
erary and artistic empire while her political boundaries were
extended oversea.

This was a natural result of those same forces which had
operated to produce the humanist renaissance and to lay the
foundations for rebirth of art. As the centers of intellectual
effort in the peninsula, and, more slowly, in Europe generally,
felt the scholarly and literary impulse which emanated from
Florence under the golden age of the Medici, so these same
Italian cities had become the fountainheads of a new art.
"The oil of commerce fed the lamp of culture," and it was
a culture which took on the form of beauty. There the
Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci, architect, engineer, scientist, 1459-1519
and artist, in Milan, in Florence, in Rome, in France, had
pursued his varied callings, and crowned the achievements
of his versatile genius with the masterpiece of fresco, the
liast Supper.

What Leonardo's influence was to the Lombard cities
that of Giorgione's pupil, Titian, was to Venice, whose beauty 1477-1576
and opulence flamed from his glowing canvas in a splendor
of color till now unrivaled in pictorial art.

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176

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1483-1590

1475-1564

The
Papacy
and the
Renais-
sance

Meanwhile, the genius of the master of the Italian school,
Raphael Sanzio, ''the Divine," of Urbino, crowned the
achievements of the period. In his work the deep sense of
the older religious inspiration was blended with the technical
skill developed by two generations of unparalleled progress
in portraiture -, and in his Madonnas and Holy Families, the
zenith of achievement in that field was reached. Finally, the
Titanic talents of the Capresian, Michelangelo trained in
the school of Lorenzo the Magnificent, infused into painting,
sculpture, and architecture alike that greatness of con-
ception, that combined strength and delicacy of execution,
which, whether in the colossal frescoes of the Sistine Chapel,
or in the superb design for the projected church of St. Peter,
or in the compelling vigor and fidelity of his statuary, set
new standards in each field. Of these Leonardo, Titian
and Michelangelo, by virtue of long life, carried on into
another generation the tradition of greatness, and no less
by their lives than by their works established the artistic
revival on an enduring foundation.

To their achievements in form and beauty must be
added another element, that of majesty. If the earlier
painters of the Renaissance had tended toward delicacy, and
those of the middle period toward a subtle sensuality, if
the age of Savonarola found its ideal in humility, that of the
oncoming generation tended toward a pride of bearing, a
dignity, a courage which reflected the altering attitude of this
world toward the next. Men were becoming conscious of
their powers and opportunities, and painting was quick to
catch the altered tone of life.

Thus in the decades which saw French and Spanish power
waste themselves in their futile rivalry, and Spain and
Portugal win new worlds for European energies to exploit,
Italy made secure the edifice of her artistic supremacy and
established once for all the canons of taste and craftsmanship.
Not since the days of Pericles had Europe seen such a galaxy
of artistic genius as Italy brought forth at the beginning of
the sixteenth century. Not during her whole history had
Europe seen such an advance in painting as in this generar

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La Belle Jardiniere.

From the painting by Raphael. A typical example of the new
school of art; notable not only for its beauty, but for the accurate
drawing and perspective, the use of landscape and the traces of
classical influence.

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 177

tion. To Lorenzo's patronage encceeded that of the warlike 150s
Julius II, and to his encouragement that of Leo X, as with 1513
its last great effort to establish temporal power the Papacy
became the center of Italian culture. Whatever its shorts
comings on the spiritual side, as it enlisted artists and archi- •
tects to embody and adorn its greatness in stone and fresco,
and clothed its spiritual leadership with the splendor of
creative art, it served greater ends than mere improvement
in technique and decoration. It helped to develop the soul
of art which underlay all these material manifestations, and
so aided in the emancipation from the formalism of the past

For it was not merely Titian's color and Michelangelo's The spirit
application of anatomy to painting and sculpture, nor Ra- gan^rt
phael's mastery of technique, which accomplished these new
miracles. Behind the advance in drawing and design, the
development of perspective and chiaroscuro, lay a spiritual
force. If the scholars had brought Europe in touch with
the past, and the adventurers had brought her in contact ,

with the world outside, the artists brought her in touch with
nature, and that service, reinforced as time went on by the
scientists, was to prove no less important to her future devel-
opment than even the greatest results of her more material
activities. Nor was the sense of achievement, which is the
most powerful incentive to further effort, less in the realm
of art than in those other fields. From it proceeded new
confidence and new strength, and that impulse to new ad-
venture which was to win fresh triumphs with the advancing
years. As full, rounded landscape took the place of the rude,
jagged sketches which the preceding century had largely
used as a background for its figures, it symbolized an altered
attitude toward life. The flowing lines, the more fleshly
figures, the spaciousness of conception, like the attention to
details of dress and furnishing, revealed that man had come
to look on his environment with pleasure rather than dis-
taste. For good or ill the world was becoming more worldly.
And as comfort and luxury were no longer reckoned sinful
this world lost something of its terrors, the next something
of its joys.

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178

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Italian
literature

1474-
1633

1469-
1597

German
art

1471-15S8

Italy was not unique in this achievement nor was it dis-
tinguished merely for its painting and sculpture. In poetry,
the genius of Ariosto revived, expanded, and adorned an
earlier poem into his romantic epic of Orlando Furioso, the
beauty of whose verse, no less than the skill of its construc-
tion and the vivacity of its imaginative qualities, set it among
the masterpieces of the world. What Ariosto was to Italian
poetry, the Florentine secretary, Nicolo Machiavelli, was to
statecraft and literature alike. From long experience in
politics and letters, he drew a history of Florence which
established a new form of historiography. Far more endur-
ing and more pervasive in its influence, he formulated in his
great masterpiece, The Prince, those maxims for the manage-
ment of men and bodies politic whose subtlety and skill
made their way deep into the minds of men of affairs.
Divorcing morality from method, it became the model for
that school which, from this day to ours, found in the accom-
plishment of its ends a full excuse for exercise of all the
means which lead to power. With these as the chief ex-
ponents of a wider school, Italy retained in literature, as in
art, the primacy of the continent. Humanism had produced
no philosophy of its own, but in Machiavelli 's work was
summed up, not merely the cynicism to which it gave rise,
but a political philosophy, drawn from the phenomena of
absolutism about him, and at once a potent and a manual
for the greater absolutism which was to come.

Yet far beyond the Alps, partly inspired by Italian influ-
ence, but more largely drawing from its inner consciousness,
still other schools made way during this period. The father
of German painting, ** prince of artists," Albrecht Diirer,
sometime court painter to the Emperors Maximilian and
Charles V, trained in his birthplace, Nuremberg, and in Italy,
drew from each source those qualities of exactness and
breadth which, joined to his natural quaintness of conception,
made him the ** Chaucer of painting/' Beside his work with
the brush, he added another element to the growing appeal
of art; for he became the founder of a school of wood-
engraving which, in his hands, was developed from rude

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THE EENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 179

earicatnre to the rank of a fine art. With it he, like hii^
contemporaries, of whom the elder Holbein was chief, made
that appeal from princes to people which was the character-
istic of the modem world, bringing the masses into closer
touch with this field of human endeavor through the medium
of the printing-press.

While the genius of Italy led the way toward that emanci- The New
pation of the intellect which was the chief product of the JfnS^fm
New Learning of the Renaissance, northern men of letters, Europe
like northern artists, had begun to strike out ways for them-
selves and to infuse the scholarship of the continent with
a spirit less conservative than that of Italy, clinging to the
past, yet looking more and more toward the future. The
painters of the Teutonic world, following Diirer and Holbein,
tended continually to the delineation, not so much of saints
and angels as of the characters and scenes about them; and
their genius seemed more closely in touch with the living
world than with the realm of faith or fancy. As scholarship
spread northward it revealed the same characteristic.
Though the older forms remained, in art and letters and
intellect their power waned before the new spirit, till they
became rather the relics of a fast-fading past, than the
expressions of a living present.

Throughout the fifteenth century the great outstanding The hew
fact in the intellectual development of Europe beyond the "j^g^^'®*"
Alps had been the foundation of universities. There, espe-
cially in (Germany, those centers of learning and education 1400-
had increased enormously in number and importance. ^^^
Louvain, St. Andrews, Upsala, Leipzig, Freiburg, Tubingen,
Basel, Wittenberg, with many others, less famous or long-
lived, thus took their place in lengthening the roll of such
institutions, while in England, Oxford and Cambridge saw
corresponding increase in the number of their colleges. With
this came an access of scholarly pursuits. At first, like the
schools of France and Italy, whence they sprung, the new
race of teachers adhered to the strictest rules of the past.
Dialectic reigned supreme, Aristotle retained his dominion
over their intellectual processes. But this was not for long.

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1455-1599

C.150a-
1540

More
1478-1535

1516

Erasmus
1466-1536

Like their prototype and prophet of this new order, the
German scholar-poet Agricola, they felt the new forces then
making way in European thought. His work on dialectic,
which led the way in this tendency, evidenced a general
reaction against the older scholasticism in favor of the on-
coming intellectual processes which sought a sounder basis
for their conclusions than mere tradition or authority.

Agricola was but one of many. In his own land were found
men like Reuchlin, whose talents were devoted not merely
to Greek and Latin but to Hebrew, now, with the impetus
given by Pico della Mirandola, beginning to make way in
European scholarship and even into theology. Still more
was the cause of the new learning furthered by the English
or Oxford school of humanists. These — Colet, Lily, Latimer,
Grocyn, and the English chancellor, More— <»rried the la-
bors of the Florentines one step farther. They were not
content with the study and editing of elassic^il texts. They
wished to make them a part of general education, and in
their hands began a movement to alter the fundamentals of
instruction. This, reinforced in many other quarters, began
that system of mental training, based on the classics and
mathematics, which slowly but surely superseded the mediaeval
school ^nstem.

One of them, at least, went farther still. Not content with
aiding the cause of the new learning, Sir Thomas More, the
chancellor, moved by the spirit of sympathy with the unfor-
tunate lot of the lower classes, and by the general discontent
with social conditions which marked the early years of the
sixteenth century, gave to the world the first sketch of an
ideal commonwealth which Europe had seen since the days
of Plato. His Utopia was not merely a remarkable literary
achievement, it was a sign of the times. For in its pages
were voiced the dreams and the aspirations of a multitude
of men who saw the old order disintegrating about them,
and who sought a new basis of society no less than a new
basis of knowledge in reason rather than inherited authority.

Greatest of all this northern school was the Dutchman,
Desiderius Erasmus. Bred to the church, trained in theology

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 181

and the so-called ''humane sciences," he brought to the
humanistic movement a scholarship unrivaled in his day,
wide knowledge of the world, a keen and critical intellect,
and, above all, a literary style which made him a leader in
this movement. His connection with the Venetian publisher,
Aldus, and the Swiss publisher, Frobenius, placed him in
touch with the great exponents of scholarship and letters.
His edition of the Greek New Testament revealed learning
and acumen which put him in the first rank of European
scholars. His Praise of Folly, and still more his Colloquia,
went farther still along the lines laid down by More in
looking toward a church reform inspired neither by pagan
philosophy nor Papal predominance. For, not content with
satirizing society as it was then constituted, he ventured to
attack the ecclesiastical establishment, especially on its
weakest side, monasticism. To England he brought a new
impetus of classical scholarship by his lectures at Oxford
and his relations with the English humanists. To the con-
tinent he brought that note of antagonism to the intrenched
authority of Rome which was to bear such bitter fruit.

In this he was the herald of a new age. For his careful
and conservative skepticism not only inspired such men as
Reuchlin and the young Melanchthon to voice more openly
the prevalent discontent with Rome, but infused the Teutonic
world with a classicism touched by religious and social senti-
ments, and concerned with every-day affairs. Like the
English school, with which they were so closely connected,
Erasmus and his followers ventured to apply scholarship to
Scripture and at least some modicum of reason to theology,
and to inform the spirit of the time with learning, common-
sense, and a fresh ally, humor. From the spirit thus evoked
there came in no long time a new movement of scarcely less
consequence to the social than to the ecclesiastical system.

That movement was meanwhile active in other quarters
and in very different hands. The Frenchman, Rabelais, Rabelais
destined, like Erasmus, for the church, but soon rebelling ^*®^i^^
against his fate, evolved his extravagant masterpiece of
Oargantua and Pantagruel. This gigantic satire on the old

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182

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Other
influences
— histoiy

1439

Bystem of thought and education at once condemned the
intellectual and educational models of the church and extolled
the ideals of the apodtles of the new learning, mingling its
wisdom with a humor too coarse for modem taste, but
peculiarly fitted to combat the outworn ideals of the ecclesi-
astical system which it attacked. Such were the leaders of
that movement, which, expanding the labors of the Florentine
humanists, brought the new learning another stage in its
progress, and formed the connecting link between the Benais-
sance and the reforming movement in the church.

In their hands the rapidly approaching trial of strength
between the champions of the old order and the new was
carried on to another generation from that which saw the
discovery of the transatlantic passage and the way to India.
And it is not, perhaps, surprising, amid such abundant fruits
of the literary and scholarly renaissance, that the ladt quarter
of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth century
were occupied rather with the letters and thought than with
the science of the classical world. For they were concerned
with those things which pressed most closely on their daily
life, the affairs of a church sorely in need of reform and of
societies busied in establishing themselves into states on new
foundations of national and international relationships.

Amid this conflict of ideas and ideals, three other move-
ments typified the changes then coming about in European
life and thought. The first was the emergence of historical
scholarship, the second the revolution in taste which injected
classical conceptions into a society long accustomed to Gtothic
models, the third was the extraordinary progress of the art
of printing. They were, perhaps, co-ordinate phenomena.
It was no mere casual concurrence of unrelated circun^tances
that in the same year of the preceding century in which the
Portuguese were finding their way about Cape Bojador fair
on the way to India, the Italian scholar, Valla, not only
demonstrated the falsity of the so-called Donation of Gon-
stantine, but detected flaws in Livy and even in the Vulgate
itself. From that spring flowed a stream of destructive his-
torical criticism which, by the beginning of the sixteenth

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Erasmus.
From the painting by Holbein, in the Louvre.

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THE BENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 183

century, had powerftQly aided not only the hmnanists but
the reformers.

To its development the investigations of the Romany
Biondo, in the Papal archives contributed. To this the labors 1500-
of the Florentine historians, Varchi, Quicciardini, and, above
all, Machiavelli, joined to produce a new school of history. MacfaiavdU
Of these the last was the greatest. In his Discourse on the 1*^^-1^^
Language of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, in his books on
Livy, and, still more in his History of Florence, he typified
that method of critical investigation which was rapidly super-
seding the blind processes of ''harmonizing" rather than
comparing historical material, by discarding what seemed to
be untrue and so raising history from legend to at least an
approximation to truth. To these he added his great con-
tribution to political thought, on which his chief fame rests.
The Prince; and, whether it be reckoned merely a description 151S
of the motives which ruled men in the age of the tyrants,
or as a satire, or as a manual of the theory and practice of
despotism, it remains not merely a masterpiece of the maxims
of that school of statecraft, but an example of a new school
of thought which for the first time in modem history looked
its phenomena in the face and set them down as they were.

The great and obvious debt which historical writing owed Arcfaitec-
to the revival of the learning of the ancient world was shared ^^
by architecture, though to modern eyes the gain was hardly
compensated by the loss. The change in fashion, at once
irrational and inevitable, which arises from the innate human
desire for a new experience, had, during the latter part of
the fifteenth century, greatly altered the character of the
Gothic school of building that had slowly evolved through
various forms during the middle ages. As is so frequently
the case, its very triumph brought with it the seeds of its
decadence, which had revealed itself in weakening of design
and excess of ornamentation. The Renaissance, among its
many results, turned men's tastes away from the forms to-
ward which the later Gothic tended. Classical models, which
had profoundly affected sculpture, to its huge betterment,
found their way into the buildings which the sculptures

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184 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

adorned. The development of painting tended toward the
same end, for that art needed what the (Gothic lacked, clear
wall space to display its frescoes. From such elements pro-
ceeded the alteration which now began to exhibit itself in the
buildings of the continent. Thus while in France Gothic
architecture continued in the so-called Flamboyant style,
whose name describes its character; while in England the
later or Tudor Gothic persisted in scarcely dimmed beauty
of form and spirit; in Italy by the beginning of the sixteenth
century a change began which slowly but surely made its
way throughout the continent during the next two hundred
years and more. It was the evolution of the neo-dassic style
which, in the hands of Italian architects, began to imitate
the models of. the ancient world, and to replace the Renais-
sance types as they had replaced the pure Gothic. Column
and flat wall space, dome and rounded arch again took their
place in European building. On these artists and sculptors
lavished their art, and so gave another expression to
that classical influence which had commenced to invade edu-
cation, and which had already begun to drive scholasticism
from the fleld of intellect.

Printing The rapid spread of these influences might, however, have

proved impossible had it not been for the third great force
then making way in Europe's affairs — ^the printing-press.
During the preceding generation this great invention had been
the wonder of the continent; and the last quarter of the
fifteenth century, in particular, had seen the spread of
printers to every part of Europe. By the beginning of the
sixteenth century the Netherlands had a score of presses,
France twice that number, and Italy four times as many.
In the same years that Columbus came to Portugal seeking

1476 his fortune, the English printer, William Caxton, brought

from his apprenticeship on the continent the first press to
his native country. His earliest ventures abroad had been
a French romance on the history of Troy and a book on
chess. His earliest volume in England was a translation of
the Sayings of fhe Philosophers. And, in a peculiar sense,
thjese typified the interest finding expression in print through

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 185

northern Europe beside the Bible and the classics: for they
made the new art not merely the vehicle of purely intellectual
achievements, but brought it into touch with every depart-
ment of life.

In printing generally, in publication and editing, as in the
scholarship which gave it impetus, Italy took the lead. The
art brought thither by German craftsmen, and first practised
by them, was, almost at once, adopted and improved by
Italian taste. There, in some measure, it experienced the fate of
architecture. To the Oothic forms of type, or Uacfc Ietter»
which the northerners had invented and used at first almost
if not quite exclusively, was soon added the lighter and more
legible Roman type, adapted from the so-called minuscule
letters of the ninth century Carolingian manuscripts. To
the great Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius, in the first 1450-1516
years of the sixteenth century, is usually attributed the
development of so-called itcdics, and the Qreek font, which
from that day to this have been familiar to typography.

This progress was not confined to Italy. Before the first
quarter of the century had passed, there was not a consid-
erable city in Europe without a press, and northern printers
rivaled those of the south in contributing to scholarship by
their editorial activities, and to typography by their technical
taste and skill. From their hands flowed a steady stream of
dasfidcal texts, and, scarcely less, of more modem literary and
scientific writings. And when the growing controversy be-
tween the church and its antagonists came to a head, it found
ready to its hand the means by which both sides could appeal
to a wider audience than would have been possible a century
earlier. This redounded rather to the advantage of the pro-
testing element, but its immediate effect upon the art of
printing was very great. Among the reasons for the success
of the reforming movement which accompanied the advance
in letters and learning must be reckoned not the least the
craft which owed its original largely to Luther's fellow-
countrymen; while among the reasons for the extraordinary
increase of printing during the sixteenth century, the the-
ological controversies hold a high place.

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186 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Thus the half -century which saw the discovery of the sea-
ways east and west, the emergence of national kingships, and
the beginnings of revolt against the church, marked a great
epoch in the artistic and intellectual, even in the technical
advance of Europe. In one view no movements could have
well seemed more diverse than those which brought into
existence the masterpieces of Italian and northern art and
letters, new fonts of type, and new schools of architecture,
historical scholarship, and education. Yet at bottom no cir-
cumstance of the period was more characteristic than the
simultaneous appearance of these widely differing phenomena.
For there was not one of them which did not owe its origin
in some measure to the Benaissance, and which did not con-
nect itself directly or indirectly with that growing tendency
toward emancipation from the traditions of the past, that
reliance on self rather than tradition, which was the char-
acteristic of the oncoming modem world.
The Ren- How powerful these influences were to be, the generation
and^thcT ^^^ taking its place upon the stage was soon to show. While
Reforma- rulers and statesmen wove their plans for greater power or
wider dominion, their people, however involved in the imme-
diate concerns of politics, found in this field of spirit and
intellect, of arts and crafts, a firmer basis for a new fabric
of culture and society than the ambitions of their kings
and captains could conceive. And even while the ensuing
drama of war and politics unfolded its successive acts, the
studies and workshops of the European world prepared a
more enduring triumph for the race than all the glories of
diplomacy or war were able to achieve. From the work of
the Benaissance there sprang not merely greater knowledge
and skill in arts and letters, but that long and complex
movement, social, religious, and political, which we know,
inadequately enough, as the Reformation. From it and its
results, in turn, joined to the progress of letters, art, and
science, there was evolved a new society.
1517 That movement had already begun. At the very moment

when the yotmg Flemish prince Charles made his first prog-
ress in Spain, on the way to his coronation, and Francis I was

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 187

reaping the rewards of his first attack on Italy there began in
Germany a revolt against Papal authority, which, reinforced
from many directions, seriously threatened, for the first time,
a permanent diidsion of the western church. And the years
which saw the recrudescence of the Franco-Hapsburg rivaliy
in Italy, the extension of European power in the east and
west, and the culmination of the renaissance of art, became
no less memorable for a final, and, as it was to prove, a
successful effort to throw off the domination of the Papaqr
from a great part of Europe.

The Reformation wad compounded of many elements. The
Throughout its history the Roman hierarchy had been com- p?^" ec^
pelled to contend with those classes and individuals who, from desiasticai
time to time, resented the dictation of their faith, or found *y®**™
themselves opposed to the abuses which inevitably creep into
any establishment. In no small degree these were connected
with that social discontent which is the product of too great
inequality of condition between the rich and poor, and by
that passion for moral betterment which found material for
its denunciation in the laxness of many members of the
church. To these, with the advance of the new learning,
and the injection of classical thought into the European
mind, was added an element of disbelief in the dogmas of
Roman Catholicism, a spirit of inquiry, and, in extreme
instances, of downright paganism, .among looser or more ad-
vanced thinkers. Especially was this true of the leaders of
Italian liberal culture, and from its influence some of the
higher clergy themselves were not wholly free. Mingled with
this was a vaguer but no less powerful feeling that the
wealth and pomp of the establishment were scarcely in
accordance with the poverty and simplicity of the early
church and its founder. That spirit had operated to found
the so-called mendicant orders; it had been the basis of
popular sentiment against the higher clergy in particular;
and at all times it had been a powerful factor in the appeal
of reformer and revolutionary alike in their denunciation of
what they reckoned the vices of the church. And, as the
Papacy represented in concrete form the worldly power and

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188

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

WycUf
and Huss

1207-

1414-18

1320-84

Huss

splendor, no less than the dogmatic authority of the ancient
church, as it remained the guardian of her traditions, the
mouthpiece of her doctrines, and the actual and visible symbol
of the unity of western Christendom, it became at once the
chief upholder of uniformity in belief and practice and the
chief target of criticism.

Revolt against the ecclesiastical establishment was not new.
The middle ages had seen various efforts to shake off the
domination of Rome and to escape the formalism or dogmas
of the mediaeval church. From the time when, two centuries
earlier, the Papacy had summoned a crusade to crush the
Albigensians in the south of France, to the Council of Con-
stance, in the first years of the fifteenth century, Papal
domination had been disturbed by successive heresies and
schisms. Since the twelfth century the so-called Waldenses
had maintained their independence of Rome in the high-lying
west Alpine valleys. Thirty years before the Council met,
there had died in England one John Wyclif, who, as fellow
and master of Balliol College, Oxford, and rector of Lutter-
worth, had passed from an attack on the mendicant orders
for their luxury and uselessness to criticism of the whole
establishment, and an endeavor to establish greater sim-
plicity in the ecclesiastical organization. He had formed a
sect, known as the Lollards, and had brought such great
numbers under his influence that church officials, in the
divided state of Papal authority, found it impossible to
discipline him.

Fortunately for Wyclif, he died before a reformed and
reunited Papacy could summon him before a general council.
His successor in the ranks of heretic leaders was not so
blessed. In the very days of July, 1415, that John of Por-
tugal set forth on his high emprise against the Moors, and
Henry V prepared the expedition which led him to Agin-
court, the assembly whose meeting had drawn Poggio Brac-
ciolini to Switzerland, the Council of Constance, had taken
a momentous step in the history of Europe. For, having
finally determined the schism which had rent the church for
nearly a century, replaced three popes with one, and trans-

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 189

ferred the seat of the Papacy again to Rome, it had sum-
moned before it one John Hubs of Bohemia, rector of the 1373-1415
University of Prague, and ordered him to recant his heresies.
His doctrines and his teachings had been, to all intents and
purposes, those of Wydif , whose example he had followed,
and whose plea for greater liberty in thought and greater
ef&ciency and simplicity in practice he had supported and
amplified. Despite a safe conduct granted him by the council,
despite the protests of the rulers of Poland, Bohemia, and
Hungary, his works were condemned and he was burned at
the stake.

But the seed thus sowed had not all fallen on stony
ground, nor was it all consumed by the fowls of the air.
The dose relations of state and church had, indeed, brought
many of the so-called innovators in opposition to the secular
as to the ecclesiastical power. Heretic and schismatic were
thus easily transformed by law or fact into rebels, and so
suppressed in every region of the continent where royal and
ecclesiastical power found a common interest. But much
remained hidden from the gaze of the authorities, and, 'as
the Roman church was again unified, the spirit of dissent
from the establishment, its doctrines, and still more its prac-
ticed, spread slowly through the masses of the west-European
peoples during the fifteenth century. Among the upper
classes the tendency to disregard the long-hallowed dogmas
of the church was given a tremendous impetus by the human-
ism of the Renaissance, which supplied not merely a fresh
interest but offered a new philosophy of life to intellectual
minds. Its first result was seen in those circles which, like
the brilliant court of the Medici, most eagerly seized upon the
new learning, and took that opportunity to dispense with
religion and morality alike. And, as usual, this in turn
produced another reaction.

Unrelated to Wyclif or Huss or any of the so-called re- Savonarola
formers, there was raised in Florence, at the height of its ^^^-^
splendor under Lorenzo, the protest of Girolamo Savonarola,
denouncing at once the frivolity and irreligion of his own
townsmen and the vices and corruption of the Papacy. For

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190 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

a brief period Florence experienced the frenzy of a religious
revival and Borne trembled before his eloquent denunciation.
But that moment passed. The extravagances of the leader
and his followers, the disinclination of the people to forego
the pleasures to which they had been accustomed, the author-
ity and the astuteness of his opponents combined to check
the new wave of reform. Its leader's voice was hushed in
the year that Yasco da Gama sailed round the Cape of Qood
Hope; and the attempt to purify the Italian church, like
the reforming movement in England and Bohemia, fell before
the strength of the intrenched establishment.

Had the Papacy heeded the warning then sounded, its
history and that of Europe would have been spared one
of their bloodiest and moat disastrous chapters. In the voice
of Savonarola, amid the tumults of war and the negotiations
of diplomacy, might have been heard the note which was
presently to dominate war and diplomacy alike. While the
1503-ls ambitious Julius II laid the foundations of the temporal
power of the Papacy, fought, schemed, treated, and intrigued,
like any secular prince, the great organization of which he
was the head had drifted more and more rapidly toward a
great catastrophe from which its newly won lands and
authority, which were the fruits of his endeavors, were power-
less to save it.
Humanism For, with all tlieir efforts to extend its temporal sovereignty
Chun^ in Italy and maintain its long ascendancy throughout
western Europe, the leaders of the church had lagged behind
its members in grasping the new concepts of the universe and
society, the new ideals of learning and morality. Under the
scholarly Leo X, as under the warlike Julius n, the Papacy
retained, with all its intellectual interests, its old claims to
spiritual supremacy and its political ambitions: increasingly
out of touch, like the establishment generally, with the prog-
ress of the world about it; deaf to entreaty and to threat
alike. Wyclif and Huss had long since passed, the eloquence
of Savonarola had thundered fruitlessly, and, to all external
appearances, the authority which, at the be^ning of the
sixteenth century, was preparing to embody its pre-eminence

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 191

in the construction of the most magnificent church in Chris-
tendom, had no need to fear attack on its position. But at
the very moment that the Papacy was thus preparing
to proclaim its supremacy, the humanistic and the the-
ological forces prepared a fresh assault. The adherents of the
New Learning had already done much to undermine the
intellectual and the educational foundations of ecdesiasticism.
They had made great breaches in its philosophy. From
motives of prudence or indifference or both they had refrained
from any direct attack upon the church itself. They had
been silent or paid lip-service to its doctrines and conformed
to its practiceis even while their own beliefs had penetrated
deeply into its membership. But man is not saved by intellect
alone; and it required an emotional stimulus to produce an
open resistance to Papal supremacy which the humanists,
with all their intellectual independence had thus far avoided.
Against the intrenched power of the great establishment
there was an increasing host anxious to be led, but it was
not among the ranks of the intellectuals that a leader was to
be found.

The opposition to Papal dominance was not confined to any
country nor to any dass. Apart from selfish reasons, which
moved many powerful interests to join the new movement,
the best friends of the church were pleading for a change.
Her enemies urged other charges. The wealth which contrib-
uted so little to the state ; the claims which seemed to grow as
faith declined; the vices and corruption of the Vatican; the
obstinate pride of an intrenched establishment; the decay of
the monastic life, no longer rendering its once unquestion-
able services to society; the obscurantist policy, stubbornly
maintaining outworn dogmas — ^these were the grievances
which the church, convinced of its own strength and wis- .
dom, impervious to persuasion as to threat, disdained to
correct.

Reform denied, revolution became imminent, and the out- st Peter's
break, though long prepared, came suddenly upon an aston- j^^jjll®
ished world. Political disturbances, says Aristotle, spring gences
from small events but great causes; and like many such

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192 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

movements, which illustrate the Oreek philosopher's pro-
found observation, this so-called Reformation began simply
enough. For, though its causes lay deep in the past and in
the heart of men, its immediate outburst was due to seem-
ingly trivial circumstances apparently far removed from the
field of theology. In connection with plans for beautifying
Rome in the first years of the sixteenth century, Julius II
summoned the genius of the most famous engineer and archi-
tect of the time, Bramante, to design an edifice to replace
the old metropolitan church of St. Peter's, now fallen in
decay. To this great enterprise the Papacy, then nearing
the zenith of its temporal power, committed itself, and, by
a curious coincidence, at the moment that Christopher Co-
1604 lumbus was on his death-bed, the first stone was laid in

what was to be an architectural wonder of the world. But
Bramante 's plans, however modified by later architects, were
no less impressive for their cost than for their beauty, and
to defray the projected expense the Vatican, among other
devices, resorted to the sale of so-called indulgences, espe-
cially in Germany.

Thus, some ten years after the inception of the project,
while Francis I's incomparable captains, the Chevalier
Bayard and Gaston de Foix, were conquering northern Italy,
a persuasive monk, Tetzel, carrying out the mission intrusted
to him, made his way to the "milch-cow of the Papacy," as
Germany was satirically called. There he fell foul of a
Martin certain Professor Martin Luther, of the Umversity of Witten-
]l5U^^ berg, who from his pulpit and in his lectures bitterly
denounced the sale of indulgences, and crowned his protest
by nailing to the church door his ninety-five theses or proposi-
tions against that practice. It was significant that opposition
should come as the direct result of Papal supremacy in the pat-
ronage of the arts, still more significant that it found its first
voice in a university, and, most significant of all, that it arose
in Germany. Nowhere had the ecclesiastical establishment
been more burdensome. Nowhere was feudalism more power-
ful or its anarchy more oppressive ; nowhere, in consequence,
was there more social discontent, and nowhere had religious

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f)

thI

RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 193

humanism, as distinct from the Italian intellectual humanism,
struck deeper root.

Martin Luther was the expression of his nation and his 148S-1546
time. By training and environment, no less than by his
character, he was peculiarly fitted to sustain the part of a
popular leader in such a situation as that in which he now
found himself. The son of a Saxon slate-cutter, he had been
trained in jurisprudence at Erfurt, entered an Augustinian
monastery, been ordained a priest, and finally risen to a pro-
fessorship of philosophy at Wittenberg. His study of Aris-
totle and St. Augustine laid the foundations for his opinions
of scholasticism and theology. A visit to Borne convinced him
of the venal worldliness of the Papal court. Thus equipped,
the simple vigor and eloquence of his literary style, no less
than the strength of his resolution and courage, once he had
challenged the authority of the Vatican, made him a formida-
ble antagonist. Moreover, the time for a revolt was ripe.
As the translation of his theses against indulgences spread
through Gtermany, he became a popular hero ; and though for
the time he did not leave the church, he refused to recant
his heresy or to obey a Papal summons to Rome. From 1517-91
his study poured forth a stream of tracts attacking Papal
supremacy, appealing for wider tolerance; and, above aU,
urging the doctrine of a personal connection between the
individual and the Deity, not through priestly intermediation
but through prayer.

"The spiritual estate, what is it," said he, *'but a fine
hypocritical invention? All Christians are of the spiritual
estate; a priest is nothing but a functionary, and when de-
prived of his office loses his authority; there is no indelible
character; he is a simple layman. . . . It is a false and
lying specter by which the Romanists have kept our con-
sciences in subjection. . . . Italy is a desert! Whyf The
cardinals ! The revenues of all are drawn to Rome. So will
Gtermany become ! . . . Let every one look to his own salva-
tion 1"

It was no wonder that the Imperial ban declared the
author of such stupendous heresies as one mad or possessed

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194

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

His
supporters

148i-15Sl

The
Church
and the
Lutheran
Revolt

1591

of a demon, ''a limb cut off from the Church of God, an
obstinate schismatic, and a manifest heretic." Making all
allowance for the more vigorous language of the time and
the dogmatic tone which has characterized theological con-
troversy at all times, it is apparent that there lay here the
root of a quarrel in which compromise was impossible, and
Luther's challenge, if not withdrawn, portended the disrup-
tion of the western church.

For Luther found allies. Apart from those, like the scholar-
theologian, Melanchthon, who supported him, and the still
greater scholar-humanist, Erasmus, who more than half sym-
pathized with the new movement, and aided, though he did
not join it, the attack was reinforced from other quarters.
In Switzerland, especially, the priest Huldreich Zwingli thun-
dered against the abuses of the church, while, like Luther at
Wittenberg, he opposed the sale of indulgences. And though
the Saxon and Swiss reformers failed to effect a union, in
his native land, the Zurich priest laid enduring foundations
for the new communion on which a later reformer was to
build a stately edifice. Meanwhile, Luther published his
address to the Christian nobles of Germany, issued a tract
on the Babylonish Captimiy of the Church, in which he
denounced Papal supremacy and doctrine alike; burned the
Papal bull directed against him, and so made the breach all
but inevitable.

It was in vain that the Papacy, thus attacked, endeavored
to bring the reformers to its side by persuasion and threats.
While the Emperor was engaged in foreign wars and his
captains were winning a new empire oversea, revolt spread
fast and far, and Germany was absorbed in social and re-
ligious strife. In the very days that Magellan made land in
the Ladrones and Cortez prepared his final attack on Mexico,
Luther appeared before the Emperor and his first Diet at
Worms. There his refusal to recant his heresies struck a
spark which set Germany in flames. He found powerful
support and protectors; and, spirited away from enemies
who would not have scrupled at his life, he took refuge in the
Elector of gftxpny's castle of Wartburg. Thence he pro-

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 195

ceeded to rouse his countrymen against the Papal power and
the abuses of the church. He translated the Bible into
German; and thus not only supplied his people with a
version of the Scriptures which they could read in their own
tongue, but gave to that tongue a literary form which became
the foundation of the German language — ^performing for it
the same service that Dante and Petrarch had earlier accom-
plished for Italian. But it was not merely the defects of the
establishment, the literary talents of Luther, the intellectual
influence of the new learning, nor the selfish interest of
those who saw some advantage to themselves in the break-up
of the ecclesiastical system which gave the Reformation its
following. Behind these lay a force which, for want of a
better name, we call spiritual, and which, however influenced
by intellectual or theological considerations, was rather emo-
tional than logical. ^'It is only on the wings of enthusiasm
that we rise, and he who depends on reason alone will never
fly." A considerable part of the world was dissatisfied with
the spiritual relationship and sustenance provided by Rome.
It was ready for a form of spiritual expression more in accord
with its changing circumstances and thought — simpler, more
direct, less ornate and less highly organized, more personal.
In its mind, to adopt a phrase from one of the greatest of
the church fathers, it required a church which was more of
a ''spirit" and less of ''a number of ecclesiastics," more
individual and less corporate. This want Lutheranism sup-
plied, and to it and its successors, in consequence, that portion
of the world turned. To that spirit Luther appealed, and of
it, for the moment, he became the principal spokesman, and,
in consequence, the hero and the protagonist of the anti-Papal
party throughout Europe.

Meanwhile, his tracts inspired revolt against ecclesiastical Latfaeran-
authorities and his words became the guiding infiuence for ^^
increasing thousands of his countrymen. With this he gave
the new movement form and direction. From his pen ap-
peared in quick succession an Order of the Worship of Ood,
a hjrmnal, an Order of Baptism, a prayer-book, and a cate-
chism; and with these Lutherwlom began to take on form

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196 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

as a communion separate from that of Borne. Based on a
more direct relationship with Gk>d, it lacked, indeed, the
dogmatic coherence of the Boman faith and the unifying
influence of a highly organized establishment, and so re-
mained rather a spiritual force than a rigid system of doc-
trine or a disciplined hierarchy. From it, in time, emerged
nine separate creeds, and, so numerous were the forms it took
in various hands, so loose its organization, that scarcely a
(German state but held its own variety of worship.

None the less, amid disputes among the Lutherans them-
selves, their faith spread rapidly till, despite the efforts of
Pope and Emperor, it took its place among the permanent
elements of European life. For the first time in her history
since the earliest days of Christianity, the continent felt the
presence of a school of faith, which elevated the individual
above established authority. The * 'founder of Protestant
civilization," Luther and his followers contributed to Euro-
pean life the principle of personal independence in matters
spiritual, which, active in other fields, intellectual, and pres-
ently political, set the European world on another and
greater stage of its progress.

Luther's defiance of the Papacy by his attack upon indul-
gences, his burning of the Papal bull launched against him,
and his refusal to recant before the Diet, mark the beginning
TheRef- of the movement known variously as the Beformation and
ta^OTttSrn ^^^ Protestant Bevolt. With it the breach between the
Europe church authorities and those who were dissatisfied with the
conduct of affairs was made irrevocable. Increasing numbers
of all classes, from prince to peasant, rallied to his cause;
and the Lutheran movement became almost immediately as
much a social and a political force as a religious phenomenon.
It was a standard under which the most diverse elements
combined, and its spread was accompanied by those dis-
turbances which general disaffection with existing conditions
is certain to produce. It found a speedy echo in regions
remote from theological controversy, and in lands uncon-
nected with the fortunes of Germany. In Switzerland, in
France, in England, in Scandinavia, even in Italy itself, it

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THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION 197

stirred men to question the claims and practices of an estab-
lishment then ill-prepared to meet its challenge.

Only the Iberian peninsula, absorbed in oversea expansion, Spain and
paid no heed to this new movement. Nor was this to be f,J2['3j^*^
wondered at. Spain and Portugal were the last of the Refonnar
crusaders, and still in close touch with the InfideL It had ^^^
been centuries since France or Qermany had felt the presence
of Hun or Arab. But within the memory of living men there
had been a Moorish kingdom in Spain; and oversea her
people, like those of Portugal, still bore the banner of the
cross with as fiery zeal as the northern races three centuries
earlier had striven to wrest the Holy Sepulcher from Saracen
and Turk. With them the church was still a living force^
a test of race and blood and national existence, bound up
with every fiber of their society. And as, absorbed in war and
commerce, they found small leisure for the artistic side of
life which had so deeply affected their neighbors, so these
new movements of religious thought touched these men of
action little or not at all.

Thus, as the second decade of the sixteenth century came to The new
a close, apart from their political rivalries and economic ^^^
change, the people of Europe faced three great issues. The
first was the revision of their religious beliefs and their
ecclesiastical system. The second was the development of their
power oversea. The third was the reconstruction of their intel-
lectual and artistic life in accordance with the standards set
by the preceding generation. And it is significant of the
diversity as well as the unity of European development that
as yet these were but slightly related to each other. The
intellectual and artistic impulse was spreading rapidly
through the continent, but its principal seat still remained
in Italy, which gave it birth. The religious movement began
among the Germanic peoples, the oversea expansion with
those of the Iberian peninsula, and, though, like the Renais-
sance and Reformation, these two forces were to be vitally
connected with each other in future years, they now ran
in widely separated channels. There was thus laid upon the
men of the early sixteenth century a burden of such un-

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198 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

paralleled magnitude and sach diverse aspect that, whether
they were to prove themselves competent to solve the problems
thus thrust upon them, or what form their solutions would
take, one thing was dearly apparent, — ^Europe could not
stand still. Before the third decade of the century had
ended the time for peace and compromise, had such a time
ever existed, was already past, and, for good or ill, her people
had set forth on new and dangerous paths. It was evident
that, if thede new movements succeeded, the society which
emerged from these great tasks would find itself far different
in spirit, substance, and practices from that to which, a
century before, these problems were all but unknown.

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CHAPTER VIII

BXJEOPB: REFORM AND POLITICS. 1521-1542

The dozen years which followed the accession of Henry VIII I6O9-21
to the English throne form a period of epoch-making events
in many fields. The extension of European power through
the East, the conquest of Mexico, and the circumnavigation
of the world, together with the Lutheran revolt, had altered
the whole aspect of affairs, and portended still greater de-
velopments in religion and politics alike. At the same time
Francis I's attack on Italy and Henry Villus invasion of
France, with the consolidation of the lands of Hapsburg,
Burgundy, Castile, and Aragon under Charles V, presaged
a new era of international relationships. For the moment,
Europe's most pressing concerns were the antagonism between
Francis and Charles, and the events which flowed from
Luther's challenge to the Papacy. The one, which formed
the great outstanding motive of general European affairs
in the oncoming period, was wholly i>olitical. The other
covered a wider field. For the Reformation, as it came to
be called, involved not merely questions of the church, but
those of state, and, ultimately, of world polity, greater and
more far-reaching than even the Franco-Hapsburg rivalry;
issues of profound social and economic importance; and an
intellectual movement of scarcely less intensity than the
ecclesiastical controversy with which it was bound up.

This was, however, not so clearly evident in the first months The
of Luther's revolt against Papal authority, for the attention Jhelltalian
of the continent was centered on the most recent development wars
in that phase of the Hapsburg-Valois rivalry, which for more
than twenty years had found expression in the Italian wars.
The sudden and daring stroke by which Francis I at the
moment of his antagonist's accession to the Spanish throne

109

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200 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

had brought Genoa and Milan into his hands had been
followed by a ''perpetual peace." This, joined to a concordat
with the Papacy, seemed to assure to France predominance
abroad, and the so-called Oallican liberties of her church
at home against the interference of the Vatican. The summer

15«0 of 1520, which was marked by Cortez' attack on Mexico

and Luther's appeal to the Oerman nobility, saw a confer-
ence between the Emperor and his aunt's husband, Henry
VIII of England, and another between Francis I and Henry
on the "Field of the Cloth of Gold." These meetings, under
more favorable auspices, might have evidenced a reconcilia-
tion of all western Christendom and joint action to solve
the great problems then pressing on society.

But those problems were far from the thoughts of the
ambitious princes, absorbed in the extension of their own
power and the humiliation of their rivals. Far from being
the harbingers of peace, these conferences were but the prel-

1591 ude to new European conflicts. The Emperor revived hia

claims upon Milan and Burgundy. Francis countered with
pretensions to Naples and Spanish Navarre. Each sought the

1599 aid of England; and within a twelvemonth the nations were

again at war. In quick succession the French were driven
from Italy and Navarre. Charles V's diplomacy enlisted the
^ English monarch in his cause ; the Pope joined in. The con-

stable of France, Charles of Bourbon, threw in his lot with

1593 the Imperialists; and France was invaded simultaneously

from Spain, England, and Germany. Thus isolated, Francis
rallied all his energies, drove out the invaders, and pushed

The into Lombardy. Bepulsed by their forces which again in-

PaWa^' vaded his territories and laid siege to Marseilles, he defeated
them, followed them again into Italy, and besieged Pavia.
But his zeal outran his discretion, for, flushed with victory,

1595 he despatched a force to occupy Naples ; and the Imperialists,

seizing their opportunity, fell on his weakened army, de-
stroyed it, and made the French king prisoner. Such was
the flrst of the long series of conflicts between Francis and
Charles, which commanded the attention of Europe. Since
the English triumphs at Agincourt and Poitiers a hundred

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 201

years before, Prance had suffered no such reverse as that
which brought this struggle to an end and carried her king
a captive to Madrid;

Yet with all its dramatic circumstance and tragic climax, Revolt in
the Italian war yielded in real importance to events else- Germany
where, and the victorious Emperor, despite his great success,
found himself at the moment of his triumph over Francis I
compelled to deal with a situation beside which even the
results of the battle of Pavia seemed almost insignificant.
For, while Charles had been so busily engaged in the exten-
sion of his boundaries, in the heart of his dominions his
authority, with that of the church, had been challenged by
the new forces roused in Germany which now threatened
the very foundations of society. This result of Luther's
activities was no less surprising than it was important, for
the Wittenberg professor's refusal to recant his doctrines
before the Diet of Worms had been followed by an edict
which condemned him as a heretic. Such an action, supported 1591
by an engagement between the Emperor and the Pope to
suppress the new movement, had seemed amply sufficient
to those arbiters of Christendom to crush the presumptuous
monk.

But had the Pope and Emperor abandoned northern Italy
to the French king and bent their strength against the
German professor they might have been better advised. For
while they triiunphed over their mutual enemy, Francis I,
Luther had laid the foundations for a movement disastrous
to Papal and Imperial authority alike, roused his country-
men by fiery attacks upon the old establishment, and trans-
formed the Empire into a battleground. Almost at once
men sprang to arms, and long-smoldering discontent flamed
into civil war.

The circumstances were symbolic of the forces thus newly The War
aligned in opposition to each other and to constituted au- knights
thority. The conflict began with a romantic episode. Two
knights, the humanist Ulrich von Hutten and the adventurer 1539-s
Franz von Sickingen, united by their hatred of the princely
class, gathered forces and fell upon the Archbishop of

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

Peasants*

War

1594-6

Treves. For a time it seemed that they might have a measure
of success. But their rash enterprise challenged at once the
temporal and spiritual arms. Lay and ecclesiastical authori-
ties rallied against them and they were beaten off. Hutten
was driven into exile, and Sickingen found defeat and death
in his own castle at the hands of his princely enemies.

This was but the beginning of disturbances. While the
war of the princes and the knights was being determined,
in other quarters and in different hands another rebellion
disturbed Germany. This was the so-called Peasants' War.
Two years after the death of Sickingen, at the moment that
Francis I invaded Italy for the second time, a flame of revolt
ran through southern and western Oermany, menacing the
same elements on which the knights had warred. Like many
such movements which preceded it, the ''Bundschuh," as it
was called, was a compound of social, political, and religious
elements, inspired no less by the ''false prophets" following
Luther's wake than by the real and bitter grievances of the
peasantry. Its leaders based their cause on a long list of
rights and wrongs, so-called ''Twelve Articles," which com-
bined a constitution for Germany, church reform, and a reor-
ganization of society on the basis of greater equality. It was
inevitable that such a plan, so many centuries in advance of
its days, should fail, especially in such hands and in such
times. Against it rulers of all ranks and faiths, the middle
classes, every interest of property and government combined ;
and Luther, to whom the rebels looked for aid, denounced
the peasants as he had denounced the knights. Their poorly
equipped and worse led forces were defeated and destroyed;
their leaders killed; their survivors and sympathizers cruelly
punished, and the unfortunate peasantry sank into bondage
worse than that from which they had sought vainly to escape.

Such were the external circumstances of the movements
which filled the annals of the Empire while its master strove
with the French king for Italy, and Luther's doctrines made
way through the Teutonic lands. And though the two re-
bellions were suppressed, though knights and peasants alike
met an untimely fate, their ill-advised, disastrous defiance

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 203

of authority was of greater significance than the Imperial
triumphs beyond the Alps. They threw into high relief the
problem which confronted every European state at the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, and which was nowhere more
apparent than in Oermany — ^the problem of the transition
from a feudal to a national form of government.

In the Empire this developed into an antagonism between The
the five elements which existed in some form in every state. JJ®^^
The Emperor, intent on the establishment of a central^d Empire
monarchy under the Hapsburg dynasty, the Electors, '*bebt.
upon an aristocratic federation" in which they should be
the dominant element; the princes, small and great, deter-
mined to maintain the territorial independence which was
their feudal heritage ; the towns and peasants dreaming of a
share in the government which pressed upon them so heavily
and so unequally: — ^these were the forces which contended
for equality or supremacy. The issue had been foreseen and
in some measure dealt with by Maximilian. Now, complicated
by the advent of the Lutherans, it confronted Charles; and,
amid the infinite perplexities of his foreign relations, it
remained one of the greatest problems of his long reign and
those of his successors.

For its solution Germany was to wait for many centuries.
But these rebellions made it a pressing concern of Imperial
politics. In the Peasants' Revolt lay the germs of that vast
and underlying discontent, engendered by oppression and
inequality, which, growing through the centuries, was to be-
come a dominant motive of much later history. In the rebel-
lion of the knights was revealed that anarchic force whose
suppression was the first condition of national kingship. This
force, proving itself stronger than the Imperial power, was
to bring the Empire to impotence, and, joined to the religious
issue, was to accomplish the ruin of Germany. Had Charles
or his advisers been able to crush opposition, or had the
princes been willing to unite in reasonable compromise, those
evils might have been averted and a united Germany might
have emerged. The chance was lost, and the current of
events closed over these futile revolts, leaving only an eddy to

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Turks
15^5

1686

1697

The

Peace of
Cambrai
16d7

1598

1599

mark the hidden rock on which later authority was to find
shipwreck.

Meanwhile, the Empire was called to face another and, it
seemed to men of the time, a far more real danger than the
rising of a handful of peasants and men-at-arms. This was
the Turk, to whom, in his extremity, the king of France had
turned and for the first time made the Ottoman power a
part of European polity. Compelled to sign the Treaty of
Madrid by which he yielded all things in dispute from
Burgundy through Italy to Navarre, Francis had turned to
the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, for aid.
Under his lead the Turks had roused to fresh conquest, and
poured their armies into Hungary, where at the moment of
the Treaty of Madrid they crushed Hungarian chivalry at
Mohacs, took Buda Pesth, and prepared to advance against
Vienna. Nor was this the only danger confronting the
lately victorious Emperor. Fearful of his increasing power
after the battle of Pavia, Venice, Milan, and the Pope formed
a league against him. The English king joined France, and
Francis I, renouncing the terms extorted at Madrid, des-
patched his troops again across the Alps. Thus realigned,
the European powers entered upon another seven years of
conflict, at the same moment that Oermany felt the full
force of Lutheran revolt.

Once more Charles faced a world of enemies, and once
more the continent was rent with all but universal war.
Borne was punished for changing sides by Bourbon's army,
half Catholic, half Lutheran Imperialists, which sacked the
Holy City and turned thence to drive the French from the
peninsula. Still undismayed by this reverse, Francis again
invaded Lombardy, while his allies, the Turks, pressed for-
ward to besiege Vienna, but with the same result. Four
years after the treaty which had released him from captivity,
he was driven to sign the Peace of Cambrai. By it he gave
up all his claims on Italy, pretensions to the suzerainty of
Artois and Flanders ; and though he kept Burgundy, he sur-
rendered Toumai, and paid Charles an indemnity of two
million crowns. At the same time, the Imperial forces tri-

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 205

Tunphed in the East. The attack upon Vienna failed; the
Sultan's forces drew back to Buda Pesth, and Charles again
emerged triumphant over his enemies.

Thus ended, for a time, the conflicts which had absorbed Kesulte
the military and diplomatic energies of Europe for a decade ^^
and a half. Save in one direction, the results scarcely seemed
to justify the efforts put forth. It is apparent that if
European civilization was to be preserved, the Turkish power
must be checked in its advance, and that achievement went
far toward vindicating the policy and activities of the Empire
as the defender of the continent, in the same measure that
it condemned the action of Francis I in summoning the
Sultan to his aid. It is not easy to determine in how far the
long and complex struggle in Italy was due to mere princely
ambition, or in how far it represented real underlying an-
tagonisms of peoples and principles, like the contest between
the Empire and the Turks. It may have served to check
the extension of Charles V's power throughout the continent,
and so prevented universal sovereignty. But that these wars,
with their huge expenditure of blood and treasure, con-
tributed to the world's progress in proportion to the losses
they inflicted, is scarcely probable. With all their current
interest and the consequence which must inevitably attach
to any such expression of human energy, however ill directed,
it is evident that the true development of humanity lay
along far different lines.

By the Treaty of Barcelona Charles came to terms again 15S9
with the Papacy, returned Florence to the Medici, and Milan
to the Sforza, and received in exchange the Papal sanction
to his title to Naples and to the Imperial crown. In so
far he achieved his purposes. But had it been possible for
him to devote to the reorganization of Germany the resources
expended in achieving these barren successes in Italy, it
can scarcely be doubted that Europe would have gained im-
measurably by the exchange.

From the pursuit of his Italian ambitions the Emperor
turned to the two great problems which pressed not merely
upon him but upon the whole of the European world with

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Ger-
man Ref-
ormation
1596

15S9

The
divorce
of Henry
VIII and
the reform
movement

1599

peculiar force, the progress of the Reformation in Germany,
and the coincident development of affairs in England, each
of which, at the moment of the signature of peace, came
to a climax which troubled Pope and Emperor alike. They
were, indeed, as events were to prove, but two sides of the
same question, though they presented themselves in very
different forms.

First in time, if not in importance, was the situation in
Oermany, where religious affairs, as usual, had followed the
course of the Emperor's fortunes abroad. Scarcely had the
Treaty of Madrid been signed when a Diet of Spires, taking
heart from the Imperial success, approved the old edict
of Worms condemning Luther's heresy; and, at the moment
of the Treaty of Gambrai, a second Diet of Spires reaffirmed
that action. With this the crisis came. A group of princes
of the Empire, headed by the rulers of Hesse, Brandenburg,
and Saxony, protested against the edict and withdrew from
the Diet. Thus did the name and sect of Protestants come
into formal being, and thus was the Emperor summoned
from foreign victory to face a crisis at home.

At the same moment England claimed his care. Its ruler,
the proud, licentious, cruel Henry VIII, had long chafed
under Charles' dominance, and long desired to divorce his
queen, Eatherine of Aragon, the Emperor's aunt. Under
ordinary circumstances the matrimonial affairs of royalty,
whatever their relation to domestic politics and common
morality, would have been a matter of scarcely more than
mere political interest. But the conditions at the moment
were far from usual. Thus far the English king's ambi-
tions had been thwarted by Charles' adroit diplomacy. He
had played no part of any consequence in European affairs;
and the Pope, subject to Imperial influence, had taken his
presents and postponed his divorce. Henry had now reached
the end of his limited patience and exhausted the ordinary
channels of legal procedure, and, infatuated with a lady of
the court, Anne Bole3rn, he determined on a drastic move.

In the month of the peace of Cambrai a trial for divorce
began before the English chancellor. Cardinal Wolsey, and

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 207

the Papal legate, Campeggio. The suit broke down, as it
was meant to do; the queen appealed to Rome; and Henry,
thoroughly enraged, appealed to the European universities
againdt the Pope. At the same time, to fortify his position,
he called a Parliament, whose earliest acts revealed antag-
onism to the church establishment, and so strengthened his
hands in the impending conflict with Papal authority. Not
merely was a breach with Charles thus made inevitable. At
the same moment that the seceding German princes formally
inaugurated the Protestant movement on the continent,
Henry, who had earlier earned the title of Defender of the
Paith from the Papacy for his attack upon Luther, gave to
the revolt from Rome a powerful if unintentional impetus.

That revolt, in the meantime, had invaded other lands. 1527-9
France, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands had felt its power;
while Sweden had become formally Protestant. Thus, facing Protestant-
new dangers from the Turks, embarrassed by the defection ^^^
of his own subjects as well as by the action of the English
king, Charles was compelled again to compromise. Bavaria's
jealousy of the Hapsburg power, the formation of a Prot-
estant League at Schmalkald, together with French and 16S0
Danish readiness to aid his recalcitrant subjects, completed
his discomfiture. The Diet of Augsburg had listened to the
Protestant Confession presented by Luther's follower,
Melanchthon, but again condemned its heresy. Two years
later, so rapidly did events move, the Peace of Nuremberg 1539
revoked the edict of Augsburg, the Imperial authorities
agreed to consider the claims of the new communion, and
the Protestants were allowed to exercise their religion undis-
turbed until some solution of the question should be reached.

Thus, by one of the curious coincidences of history, the '
ambitions of a Turkish sultan and a French king, the matri-
monial affairs of an English ruler and the jealousy of a
German house combined with the spiritual aspirations of
the so-called Protestants to perpetuate the reformed doctrines
and ensure the weakening of the church establishment. This,
after a thousand years of absolute supremacy, now found
itself shorn of half its members and all of its unquestioned

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Secular-
ization

1635

Scandina-
via— ^tlic
independ-
ence of
Sweden

1397

1591
15S3

monopoly of European conscience. Thenceforth the Pope
remained, indeed, the head of the most considerable body
of Christians. But he was no longer the arbiter of Christen-
dom; and the church which owed him allegiance, though
still a powerful influence in European life, no longer included
within its ranks the whole company of those intellectual
and spiritual leaders who were to make Europe the dom-
inant power of a modem world.

Almost immediately two circumstances which marked the
political development of this momentous period made this
more evident. As a result of the spread of the Lutheran
doctrines and the peculiar situation in which a considerable
section of the princely classes found themselves, many holders
of the so-called ecclesiastical fiefs, church officials in name,
but in fact lay princes, sought to take advantage of the
breach with the Papacy to espouse the new communion and
transform their churchly possessions into temporal sov-
ereignties. Among these the first was the most conspicuous.
Albert of Hohenzollem, grand master of the Teutonic
Enights, and ruler of East Prussia, which had been con-
quered centuries earlier by that crusading order from the
pagan Slavs, transferred his spiritual allegiance to the Be-
formed church, became a feudatory of the king of Poland,
and thus led the way not only in the secularization of such
fiefs but to the ultimate aggrandizement of the house of
Brandenburg.

At the same time, and partly under the influence of the
same impulse, the long-vexed Scandinavian question came to
a head. The close of the fourteenth century had seen Nor-
way, Denmark, and Sweden joined into one kingdom by the
Union of Colmar, under the rule of Margaret, the
^'Semiramis of the North." That arrangement, which had
continued under the house of Oldenburg, had grown increas-
ingly distasteful to the Swedes; and at the moment of Lu-
ther's appearance at Worms, the overthrow of their rebellious
leaders by Christian II, followed by persecution, produced
a crisis in the peninsula. Under the leadership of a popular
hero, Gustavus Vasa, the men of the district of Dalecarlia

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H

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 209

rebelled. The revolt spread rapidly, the Danes were driven
out; and Sweden became an independent kingdom under the
role of a native house which was to raise her, within a cen-
tury, to first rank in the European polity. Norway and
Denmark remained united under the house of Oldenburg,
now, like Sweden, turned Protestant; and, in such fashion,
the northern states established a modiLs vivendi which en-
dured for near three hundred years.

Such were the principal events of the first decade and European
a half of Lutheran activity and Franco-Hapsburg rivalry P™^
within the immediate circle of continental affairs. In those
circumstances which we reckon as purely political — ^war and
diplomacy, the rise and fall of dynasties, and alterations
in the form of the functions of government — ^the decade which
followed the time when German Protestants extorted tolera-
tion from a hard-pressed Emperor, was productive of few
elements of permanent consequence not related to the events
of the preceding years. During that period the wars between
France and the Hapsburg power went on with varying for-
tune but with small effect upon the relative power of the
combatants. What importance they ever had was overshad-
owed by the renewed activities of the Turks. Following their
victory at Mohacs they overran the greater part of Hungary, i59e-
and, at the same time, extended their Mediterranean pos-
sessions at the expense of Venice, who found her empire 1539
virtually destroyed. Again the Hapsburg power was called
upon to protect Europe from the Asiatic menace. The
Emperor himself led a futile expedition against Africa to 1535
check their growing strength, and lessen the increasing danger
to commerce from their feudatories, the Algerian pirates,
who infested the eastern Mediterranean. The English king,
meanwhile, allied himself first with one, then with the other
side of the Franco-Hapsburg confiict, with small appreciable
effect either upon that struggle or his own position. For
only the defeat of the Scotch and the death of their king
at Solway Moss in the last year of this decade remained as 1549
a tangible result of all Henry's endeavors to play a great
part in the world's affairs, outside the British Isles.

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

England
and the
Papacy
1599-

1534

1536-39

The
Enfflish
Reformat
tion

1599-40

The Ana-
baptists
1599

But in those ooncems which were in whole or part related
to religions affairs the period was of the ntmost significance,
and Henry VHI a noteworthy figure. The seven years'
Parliament which aided his contest with the Vatican had
completed the work which he unwittingly began. The quarrel
with the Papacy had rapidly widened to a general attack
upon the church. Convocation was forbidden to legislate
without the king's consent; the Pope's authority in England
was repudiated by the clergy themselves ; and Henry assumed
the title of Supreme Head of the English church under the
Act of Supremacy. With this began an attack upon ecclesi-
astical property by which first the lesser, then the greater,
monasteries were dissolved and their possessions forfeited to
the crown. An English translation of the Scriptures was set
up m the churches, and though the so-called Six Articles
decreed that the Roman doctrines and practices were still
to be followed under severe penalties, that very fact revealed
the rapid decline of the older faith.

With this England began to align itself with the reform-
ing movement on the continent. It was in vain that the
conservative elements took alarm. The opposition of suc-
cessive ministers and even popular rebellion failed to check
the king's determination: while the growth of reformed doc-
trines combined with the greed of crown and courtiers, eager
for church spoils, to undermine the old establishment. Three
chancellors, Wolsey, More, and Cromwell, fell in turn before
the royal displeasure, and the question of the succession, com-
plicated by five royal marriages and divorces, added another
element to the tumultuous reign. Meanwhile the Beformar
tion spirit grew, aided by the actions of a king who, in the
words of one favorable to the new doctrines, ''accomplished
blessed ends by means which better men might well have
thought accursed."

Such was the great reinforcement brought to the cause
of the reformers in Gtermany, There, meanwhile, the new
communion had suffered a curious experience. Among the
dangers to which such a movement is inevitably exposed, the
excesses of its more radical element are perhaps the most

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 211

serious. And, with the spread of the Reformed doctrines,
there arose a sect which, in some form, was to play a con-
siderable part in the development of the Protestant body.
This was the so-called Anabaptist denomination, whose ear-
liest representatives, the ''false prophets of Zwickau," had
been denounced by Luther, and whose leader, Miinzer, had
played a great part in the peasant insurrection. A year
after the peace of Nuremberg the city of Miinster came under 1533-5
the influence of this element, and a period of licentious
anarchy ensued, which was finally suppressed by the neigh-
boring Protestant princes. Shorn of its doctrines of free-
love and retaining only so much of the ideas of community
of goods as fitted the circumstances in which it found itself,
this body, with its cardinal principle of adult baptism, became
the forerunner of the German Mennonites and the English
Baptists, and perhaps the most powerful of the democratic
influences then making way in the world of religion and
politics.

While it thus joined the revolt against constituted authority John
with its extravagant views and practices, in another quarter i^^
and in widely different hands that movement was stimulated
to a far greater degree and by means which left a still
deeper impress upon European thought and action. In the
same year that the English Parliament began its attack upon
the property of the church by suppressing the lesser mon-
asteries, that the Portuguese established themselves in Macao
and the Spaniards in Lima, that Charles V and Francis I
entered upon their fourth war, and Gartier reached Canada
on his second and most important voyage, — ^which is to say
in 1536, — ^a French derk, John Calvin, published at Basel 1536
a volume entitled CJiristianae Religionis Institutio, the Insti-
tution of the Christian Religion, more commonly known as
Calvin's IitsUtutes. With this new manual of the theory
and practice of Christianity, as it appealed to him, he laid
the foundations of a new communion. The author was no
less notable than his book. The son of a French notary,
he had reversed Luther's career, for, destined to the church,
he gave up that profession for the law. First at Paris, 1593-

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212

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

then at Orleans, and finally at Bourges, he pursued his
1599 Btadies, and meanwhile he was drawn, like so many men of

his time, into the theological dispute then raging on the coa-
tinent. A kinsman engaged in translating the Scriptures
into French sent him to a famous Oreek scholar at Bourges,
and from reformer and humanist he received at once
1534-5 a bias against Bome and an impulse to letters. The perse-

cution of the Protestants instituted by Francis in con-
junction with the Emperor drove Calvin from France to
avoid death at the stake — ^which was the fate of so
many hundreds of Protestants — and he sought refuge at
Basel, where he found a publisher and an audience for his
book.
Calvinisiii Its appearance marked an epoch in European history. De-
signed to furnish a complete and logical defense of Prot-
estantism, Calvin's doctrine was distinguished by its dogma
of the predestination of certain elect souls to salvation, and
of others to be damned. It appealed to many who had been
untouched by Luther's vaguer formulas. Sterner, more
logical, better organized than the loose-woven Lutheran belief,
it embodied a doctrine and a discipline which lent themselves
more readily to a widespread sentiment of revolt, i>olitical
as well as theological. It set against the Roman episcopal
form of church government the no less ancient, though long-
neglected, practice of government by elders or presbyters.
In opposition to the Roman principle of priestly mediation,
it joined with Lutheranism in teaching a direct rela-
tionship between man and Gk)d. To the splendor of Catholic
liturgy it opposed extreme simplicity; in place of Latin
mass it offered a service in the tongue of every-day affairs.
Its congregational system, its appeal to logic rather than
revelation, its unbending insistence on personal morality,
connected it with an increasing element in European thought
and practice; and, as uncompromising as the older faith,
it soon became the most vigorous fighting force of the re-
formed communions. Besides this, still it had a powerful
political element in its doctrine of the righteousness of re-
sistance to unbridled tyranny. ''Let us not think," the

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 213

pregnant passage ran, ''there is given no other commandment
but to obey and snfler. . . . I do so not forbid them . . .
to withstand outraging licentiousness of kings; and I afiSrm
that if they wink at kings wilfully raging over and treading
down the poor commonalty, their dissembling is not without
wicked breach of faith because they deceitfully betray the
people's liberty."

Such was the challenge to political authority, such the
summons to revolt against oppression issued by him who
was called in derision by his enemies ''the Protestant Pope/'
It was accompanied by another element which made its appeal
peculiarly attractive to an increasing class. This was the
glorification of what may be called the homelier virtues,
sobriety, diligence, thrift, honesty, above all, diligent indus-
try. It exhorted to an orderly and successful life in this
world scarcely less than it held out rewards in the world to
come, and its appeal to middle classes and commercial ele-
ments was therefore powerfully aided by the elevation of
their particular virtues as a means of grace. As Calvin's
ideal of government was "a mixed aristocracy and democ-
racy," his ideal of society was that of well-ordered, indus-
trious, sober, Ood-f earing middle class, working, under Provi-
dence, for material prosperity.

That ideal he strove to put into effect. He was induced to Geneva
settle at Geneva, there to aid in the establishment of a popular ^*^'
government; and thither, after a sojourn in Strasburg, he
returned. Under his influence the Swiss city soon became 1538
not merely a model municipality, governed by the church
authority on lines of the strictest morality, but a religious
center not incompar^tble to Rome itself. In its activities 1541-
the labors of the earlier reformers, Zwingli and Farel, and 1564
Calvin's contemporary, Beza, came to a climax and thence
spread throughout Europe.

Trained in its university, hundreds of preachers carried Spread of
its doctrines abroad. Thence John Enox was presently to J^"*®"
bear its faith and discipline to Scotland, there to found
another branch of Protestantism, the so-called Presbyterian,
destined to great influence in British affairs. Among the

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214

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1560

Education,
printing,
and the
Bible

1639-40

1583

French trading classes and nobility, restive under royal and
Papal authority, the Calvinistic influence laid the foundations
of a powerful faction, the so-called Hug^uenots. The northern
portion of the Netherlands became a stronghold of this
faith which was soon to make Holland a battleground of
liberty. Along the Rhine, even in northern Italy, it gained
adherents, till it became a far more dangerous rival to Rome
and to unlimited royal authority than even the Lutheran
heresy.

Like that movement, it found a powerful ally in the
printing-press. In every country which the Reformation
touched, the Bible was translated into its native tongue, and
this, apart from theological considerations, gave a tremendous
stimulus to national language and literature as to greater
freedom of thought and speech. *'If Ctod spare my life,'*
said Tyndale, the English translator of the Bible, to a critic
of the old school, ''I wiU cause a boy that driveth a plow
to know more of the Scriptures than thou dosf; and that
promise, before he met his death as a martyr, he greatly
fulfilled. In such hands the Oospel became not the preroga-
tive of the few but the privilege of the many. With the
appearance in England of Cover dale's translation, The Or eat
Bible, to supplement others like Luther's German version
and Paber's French New Testament, Europe was at last
possessed of her greatest weapon against ecclesiastical
monopoly.

To this democratizing of theology was added another force,
the schools. As they had been the earliest centers of revolt,
the universities were among the first to propagate the move-
ment. Education, which had ceased to be ecclesiastical in
those countries which accepted the reform, now became
Protestant. They trained a new clergy, and through them
a new laity. And their members became the most active
of pamphleteers, as almost from day to day new tracts
appeared to fan the flame. Luther's words were multiplied
by thousands; and of Calvin's Institutes, it has been calcu-
lated, a new edition appeared every ten weeks for more
than a hundred years. Under such influences, a quarter of

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 215

a century after Lather had nailed his theses to the Witten-
berg church door, what had then seemed a hopeless cause
threatened the very existence of Papal authority in half the
continent.

Yet with all the successes of the Protestant communions Hie rise
in the decade and a half which followed Luther's advent ^J[^,.
on the European stage, it could not be supposed that the Reforma-
older establishment was either insensible to its danger nor ^^"
without strong champions. The very vigor of the Protestants 15»0-
was in some sort a measure of the strength of the Catholic 1540
cause. Still less could it be imagined that the Papacy would
rely wholly on edicts and persecution for its maintenance,
much less on its own temporal power or that of the sov-
ereigns who held its doctrines. From the first a multitude
of champions had rallied to its aid. England's great chan-
cellor. More, had fallen a martyr to his convictions against
Henry VIII 's divorce and the royal renunciation of Papal
authority. Every Protestant pamphlet found an answer from
Catholic hands. Every university in Catholic countries had
thrown its reviving energies into the fray. The clergy of
every Catholic nation had taken heed of the danger which
threatened their order and had begun to purify the estab-
lishment. In Italy had begun a reform within the church
which spread rapidly throughout the continent. New orders
had sprung up, which, like the so-called Capuchins, brought
to the conflict the spirit of preceding centuries of devotion
and self-sacrifice. In every quarter of the European world
Roman Catholicism revealed a renaissance of those nobler
qualities which had characterized its earlier supremacy. And,
among the effects of the great Protestant Revolt, not the
least was this movement toward the reform of the old estab-
lishment, which, as time went on, came to be known as the
Counter-Reformation.

In the moment of its greatest need the church found new Ignatius
resources and a great ally. The story is no less remarkable Loyola
than that of the growth of the reformed communions. At
the same time that Calvin left Paris, a lame Spanish soldier, 1491-1556
Ignatius Loyola, so wounded at the siege of Pampeluna in

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216 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1528- the wars of Charles and Francis as to wreck his military

career, found his way to the Sorbonne, to seek in the service
of the church a consolation for his worldly ambitions. There

1535 as a student he spent seven years, gathered about him a

small company of friends and followers of like mind, and
at almost the same moment that Calvin held his first com-
munion service at Orleans, at Montmartre Loyola and his
companions dedicated their lives to the church. Their new
society was modeled upon the older fellowships of the so-
called friars, like the Franciscans and Dominicans, but with
new and compelling elements of strength. Besides its vows
of poverty and chastity were principles of strict discipline
and unquestioning obedience. Peaceful in method, subject
to the most rigid rules of self-effacement and self-sacrifice,
shrinking at nothing to effect its ends, the new organization,
under its general, sprang to the defense of the threatened
establishment. The Pope sanctioned the order, at first con-
ditionally, then unreservedly, and the Society of Jesus took
its place in European life.

The Like the Protestant reformers, it grasped almost at once

^ the importance and opportunity of education in the cause

of faith, and its members soon became the best schoolmasters
in Europe. It recognized, as well, the power of the secular
arm and of established authority and so detailed the acutest
intellects at its command as confessors to princes and states-
men. It realized the urgent need of gaining popular support,
and so trained its preachers in the art of eloquent appeal.
And seeing the great field beyond Europe for converts, it
entered at once on missionary labors not exceeded by those
first followers of St. Francis or St. Dominic, Thus while
its marvelous organization kept it in touch with the affairs
in every quarter of Europe, its most highly placed agent
might at a moment's notice find himself transferred to the
most distant part of Asia or America; and its all-pervading
influence was presently to become a factor no less in political
than in ecclesiastical affairs.

Xavie** ^^ ^^^^ ^^^** order, besides Loyola himself, one figure stood

1506-53 conspicuous as the chief representative of its far-reaching

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 217

missionary enterprise, — ^the proud, handsome, gifted Na-
varrese, Francis Xavier. He had become the secretary of
the order at Rome as soon as it was formally organized;
thence he was summoned to undertake the mission
which John III had determined to send out to India;
and he arrived at Ooa in the same year that saw the i649
Spanish and Portuguese empires reach their widest
bounds. With his coming the great religious movement
which stirred Europe was transmitted to her possessions
oversea.

It was peculiarly appropriate that the society destined The
to play so great a part in European history should be founded ^^J^.
by a Spaniard and enter the colonial field under the auspices tion in
of Portugal. In the latter 's dominions, especially, there J^J^g^^
seemed to be need of such a force. Absorbed in war, com-
merce, and politics, the Portuguese had long refused to
jeopardize their position in the East by interfering with the
native faiths. Churchmen, indeed, had followed where the
traders led, as they accompanied the conquerors in America.
Churches were raised, the orders had built houses in the
greater ports; viceroys and governors had lent their influ-
ence and purse; converts were made. Yet in comparison
with the general progress, or even with the activities of
Franciscan and Dominican in America, the total was
not great. Ten years after the accession of the devout
John III there were only two bishoprics outside of Portu-
gal, and they were no farther away than Madeira and
Morocco.

But as the religious rivalry between the Reformation and 1542-
the Counter-Reformation, as these movements came to be
called, brought the issue of faith to a crisis, they had their
eflPect on the Iberian powers. While northern peoples
tended to adopt the new communions, both Spain and
Portugal took the opposite course. The Inquisition was
revived and strengthened; the Jews were driven to
conversion or exile; the Jesuits were welcomed with
open arms. In Gk)a the Hindu temples, thus far undis-
turbed, were marked out for destruction. A new era

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213 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of proselyting and persecution was begun; and to her long
crusade against Mohammedanism the Portuguese now added
an attack on all non-Christian faiths, which reinforced the
hatred of her trade supremacy. In the New World, mean-
while, the problem was different. There Spain had, from
the first, endeavored to crush native priesthoods and convert
her subjects. And when the Jesuits were added to the
orders which followed or accompanied the conquerors, the
church found its way into new quarters of the western
hemisphere with zealous and self-sacrificing strength. The
Argentine pampas, like the Andean heights, the tangled
wilderness of the Amazon and Central America, like the
wide-stretching empire of New Spain, felt a fresh impulse
of religious zeal, as the first result of the Reformation on
extra-European peoples. Like its effect in politics, the earliest
religious reaction of the new world upon Europe was the
extension of Catholicism as part of the great movement
toward ecclesiastical reform.
The transi- Such were the events of the momentous quarter of a century
mcldeni which elapsed between the advent of Luther in Europe and
times of Xavier in the East, between the exploits of Cortez and

Magellan and the summons to the last church council which
could be called in any sense universal, the Council of Trent.
1517-42 They form the turning-point from mediaeval to modern his-
tory in even greater measure than the capture of Constanti-
nople by the Turks or the discovery of America. For in
this period the newer elements of European life were estab-
lished beyond the power of the older doctrines or practices
to suppress them ; and, for good or ill, these elements thence-
forth became the guiding motives of the progressive factors
in society. America and the Reformation, coming thus
simultaneously into the current of affairs, as part of every-
day experience, not merely produced new conditions of life
and a series of institutions which affected every phase of
existence. They transformed men's minds. Henceforth it
was impossible to think in terms of even the preceding cen-
tury. Above the mere facts of battles lost and won, dynasties
changed and territories transferred from one hand to an-

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EUROPE: REFORM AND POLITICS 2ld

other, tliis great revolution, in the final analysis, remains
the chief result of a period which more than any for a
thousand years altered the balance of the world's affairs and
the whole future of mankind, and so marks the Age of
Charles V as a great epoch of history.

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CHAPTER IX

EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA. 1521-1542

Thede- COMPARED with the activities of Europe's captains and kings
^*rthc^^° in the momentous quarter of a century which followed the
world accession of Charles to the Spanish throne, and especially

compared with the Protestant revolt, the progress of Euro-
peans beyond the sea which resulted from the exploits of
Albuquerque and Cortez seemed insignificant. Yet though
colonial affairs were overshadowed by events in Europe, after
a period of relative inaction they entered on an era of im-
portance to themselves and to the world in general. The
1591 death of Emmanuel the Fortunate, which occurred at the

moment of the Diet of Worms and the final attack on
Mexico, marked the beginning of a great change in Portu-
guese as in European affairs. Though John III, who suc-
ceeded to the throne, enjoyed the greatness he inherited, he
added little to it, and the first decade of his long reign
witnessed but one considerable event. This was the delimita-
tion of the world, which the voyage of the Victoria made
imperative. Scarcely was she in port when Spain declared
that the bull of Alexander VI held good only with redpect
to the Atlantic, and that the treaty of Tordesillas was now
inadequate. Spanish and Portuguese geographers accord-
I5d4 ingly met at the frontier towns of Badajos-Yelves, and while

German peasants fought along the Rhine, and French forces
invaded Lombardy, the Iberian diplomat-scientists argued for
six weeks with small results. ^In default of means to deter-
mine exact longitude it was impossible to arrive at a the-
oretical solution of the conflicting claims. And when, to
confirm her contentions, Spain sent Loaysa on a voyage like
and scarcely less exhausting than that of Magellan, he found,
when he arrived on the other side of the world, that he

220

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 221

could neither return the way he came nor reach home by
any other route without the permission of the Portuguese.
No circumstance could have demonstrated more conclusively
the strength of Portugal's position in the East. Charles V
bowed to the inevitable, gave up his claim on the Moluccas
for an indemnity, and by the Treaty of Saragossa, a 1599
line was drawn on the Equator 17** east of that group, and
Spain was thus excluded from the Philippines. That ex- Spanish
elusion she ignored, and the claim to that archipelago «P*i»»Jon
remained the chief political result of Magellan's exploit.

Under these circumstances, for the second time in a gen ^the

eration and the last time in history, the world was divided Argentine
into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence. More
important than that adjudication, or even the possession of
the Philippines, was the voyage of Sebastian Cabot which 1596-
resulted from the controversy. For, following the track of
Magellan and Loaysa to South America, he reached a river
which he called, from the silver ornaments worn by the
natives, the Bio de la Plata, or River of Silver. Thence he
explored the Uruguay and Parana rivers to the rapids of the
latter which barred his further progress, and so opened to 1597
European enterprise a vast and fertile land better adapted
to white occupation than any then known to his countrymen.
Almost at once it found settlers. A Basque nobleman, Pedro
de Mendoza, with his fellow adventurers, hastened to lay 1534-
foundations for what was to be ultimately a prosperous ^*^
colony, and, what was of even greater interest to the bolder
spirits of Spain's colonists, to learn of a rich empire beyond
the mountains. In such fashion was established European
power in the Argentine.

Meanwhile from Mexico and the West Indies had begun Central

a fresh advance. Its first achievement was the extension *nd North

America
of Cortez' conquest. Scarcely had Montezuma's empire been 1593-

subjugated when Alvarado, de Olid, Montejo, and their great

leader himself proceeded to subdue Central America; while

Guzman, advancing northward, founded the province of New 1595

Galicia. With this, the whole region between North and

South America took its place in the rapidly widening realm

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1599

16U

The organ-
ization of
Mexico

1695-
1535

of Charles V. At the same time Ponce de Leon made a last
and, as it proved, a fatal attempt on Florida. Still farther
north a series of expeditions brought the eastern shores of
North America to European attention. So great was the
advance in geographical knowledge that, at the moment
that the breach with Rome was made irrevocable in Germany,
Ribeiro embodied in a famous map the whole Atlantic coast
from Newfoundland to Cape Horn. The Spaniards were not
alone in this great work, for Francis I, emulous of his rival's
success, sent his Italian captain, Giovanni Verrazano, to seek
the fabled sea-way to Cathay by the northwest. And though
Spanish discovery brought no settlers to a region ''too much
like Spain" to attract the fortune hunters of the new world,
though Verrazano found no passage to the Pacific by way
of the St. Lawrence, the Americas now took their place in
European politics and thought at the same time that
Protestantism, in whose fortunes they were to play so great
a part, established itself upon the continent.

This interest extended far beyond mere exploration and
gold-seeking. While the new world was being laid open to
European eyes, the conquered mainland was occupied and
organized. In this work Cortez revealed statesmanlike quali-
ties scarcely inferior to his abilities as a general, and, in
spite of the curtailment of his authority by a home govern-
ment, which was suspicious of his increasing power, he pro-
ceeded to make Mexico into a Spanish province. The land
was parceled out in military fiefs, and the encamefideros
required to provide arms and followers, proportioned to their
holdings, subject to call after the feudal fashion. Cannon
were cast from the products of the native mines; the crater
of Popocatepetl supplied sulphur for gunpowder ; ships were
built, and ports established. The new city of Mexico rose
near the ruins of the old, and, chartered as a municipality,
became the capital, of which the people of the neighboring
tribes were induced to become inhabitants. European plants
and animals were introduced; planting and cattle-raising,
mining and commerce encouraged, and, as Spanish power
spread, it carried with it the seeds of European life.

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 223

With this came the authority of the home government.
Hardly had the conquest been condnded when a viceroy
was appointed for the new province, with a council, or
audiencia, to assist and supervise his work, and provincial
governors were named. The church accompanied the civil
power. Bishoprics were established and missionaries pushed
out among the natives. Beside the square solid government
buildings in the new municipalities arose the churches; and
across the plain or deep in the heart of forest wilderness
was soon heard the bell of the mission church, symbol of that
force which was to do far more than any o£Scial agency in
spreading European civilization through the New World.

Beside the activities of Europe itself in this eventful The effect
decade and a half, these beginnings jof the occupation and ^^ EwJpe*
organization of America seem insignificant enough. Yet
apart from the fact that they represented an element in the
world's affairs which was to be of increasing importance, they
were not without a powerful influence upon events in the
old world. Prom Mexico, in particular, there had poured a
stream of precious metals into Spain of incalculable impor-
tance not merely to the economic but to the political develop-
ment of the continent. Enriched by that spoil, the Spanish
mind was turned from the sober pursuit of every-day affairs,
in which alone lay real prosperity, to dreams of further
conquest and adventure, and Spain, like her master, Charles
V, aspired to a still wider influence in the world's affairs.

Not the least of the results of the conquest of Mexico
was the strengthening of the Hapsburg power. And the
inevitable reaction of Europe, under the leadership of France,
against the threat of universal sovereignty. Insurgent Hun-
garians, dissatisfied Italian princes, Swiss peasantry, Tudor
king, and Ottoman Sultan had been summoned to contend
against Hapsburg domination. And great as were the re-
sources of the Emperor, the weight of America, thus thrown
into the European scale, was no inconsiderable factor in
enabling him to make head against his enemies. At the same
time the church, deprived of a great body of adherents at
home, found, in the millions of non-European peoples now

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224 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

brought under her influence, some compensation for the
losses of the Reformation. Thus, strangely enough, the first
result of the occupation of the New World was to strengthen
the conservative elements in European polity. And, almost
immediately, another event, of like character to Cortez' great
exploit, lent new significance to the importance of the Amer-
icas and new strength to the Hapsburg power.
European The year 1532, though not a great landmark in history
politics Yike that twelvemonth which saw the fall of Constantinople
or that which witnessed the discovery of America, is one of
those peculiar periods when the coincidence of striking events
1539 in various lines of human activity reveals with unusual em-

phasis the complex forces from whose interaction emerges
a new order of society. In July of that year the Emperor,
Charles V, harassed by the disturbances in his newly-won
Italian provinces, and still more fearful of the Turkish
power, now rall3ring from its repulse from Vienna three years
before, summoned the Imperial Diet to meet at Nuremberg,
and there agreed to extend still further toleration to the
Lutheran sect which had so vexed his peace and that of
Germany for a dozen years. In August the heroic defense
of the fortress of Giins by the Hungarians checked the new
Turkish advance, and Suleiman the Magnificent, balked of
his ambitious designs against the Empire, turned his attack
against Venice. In October, Francis I, who had joined with
Saxony, Hesse, and Bavaria to oppose the recognition of
Ferdinand of Hapsburg as heir to the Imperial dignity,
allied himself with England by the treaty of Boulogne.
Simultaneously the English Parliament, under royal lead,
proceeded in that course which, by abolishing annates and
appeals to Rome, led to a final breach with the Papacy.
Calvin and There was, then, in this eventful year, quite enough in
Puarro ^Yieae affairs of state to absorb all the talents and the time
of European rulers. But far removed from their ambitious
eyes, two other events of far too slight importance to be
regarded by these great ones of the earth made this same
period no less memorable. Some time during these months
an obscure French derk, one John Calvin, then resident in

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 225

or near Paris, after long searchings of the heart, tamed from
the Roman to the Reformed commnnion, and thereby 'lighted
a candle seen throughout the world." And while the caval-
cades of the Imperial dignitaries made their way along the
highroads that led to Nuremberg to meet their Emperor and,
as it chanced, decree religious peace, in the western world
a humble captain of that same Emperor, with a handful of
followers, breasted the tremendous slopes of the Andes to
challenge the power of a state whose fabled wealth had
roused Spanish cupidity for a dozen years, and whose con-
quest formed an adventure scarcely rivaled by the exploit
of Cortez.

The project thus rashly undertaken by the Spanish ad- Hie con-
venturers was not new. Even while Cortez was organizing ^'J^^'
Mexico, the interest of the colonial world was shifted to
South America, and that continent became the scene of an
extraordinary advance of European power. At the same
moment that the Argentine was explored, the foundation 1597-8
of Coro marked the first effective occupation of Venezuelan
lands by the Spaniards; and Portugal, disturbed by visits
of the English and the French to the Brazilian coasts, had
begun to take steps to secure her neglected dependency. Still
more important were events in the west. The year following
the capture of Mexico, Andagoya brought back from a voyage 1699-3
along its shores news of the Andean empire. Inspired by
this and by Cortez' exploit, a Darien colonist, Francisco
Pizarro, sometime Balboa's follower and since his leader's
death a cattle-raiser in Panama, with two neighbors, Diego
de Almagro, and a priest, Fernando de Luque, projected new
conquest.

Unlike Cortez, Pizarro found no force ready to his hand,
and his slender resources, with those of his associates, were
strained to the utmost to provide means even to explore the
coasts. Only the leader's indomitable perseverance made it
possible. Twice he attempted in vain to find this so-called
empire of the Incas; and finally assured of its existence, he
embarked for Spain, where, after extraordinary efforts, he 159S-0
secured a commission for its conquest from the Emperor.

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226 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

As a result of eight years' unremitting effort he now em-
barked with three ships, less than two hundred men, and

1530-1 thirty horses, for an exploit as hazardous as that which

Cortez had hardly accomplished with three times that force.
A month's sail brought the rash adventurer from Panama
to the port of Tumbez, and there, for the first time, fortune
smiled on him. The situation in which he found himself
bore a striking resemblance to that which Cortez had faced ;
nor was the parallel between the Aztecs and the people whom
Pizarro found less remarkable. Among the mountain tribes,
known as the Quichuas, which occupied the vast Andean
region at this time, one, named from its rulers, the Incas,
had become supreme. Whether, like the Aztecs, they had
learned from the vast and imposing civilization of the Hatun
Runas or Piruas, which existed prior to their coming, or
whether their culture was self-developed, they were, at the
time when they first came into touch with the Spaniards,
the most advanced peoples of the western world. They no
longer built the Cyclopean edifices of their forerunners. Their
capital at Cuzco was less imposing but no less remarkable
than its predecessor on Lake Titicaca ; and their power, which
in the preceding five centuries had slowly brought the Andean
region under its control, was no less widespread and doubtless
much better organized than that of the prehistoric people
whose lands they had inherited.

The Incas Like the Aztecs, the Incas were far from being mere sav-
ages. Their government was well ordered. The roads which
bound their far-flung empire together were marvels of engi-
neering skill. Their achievements in agricultural and do-
mestic arts, stone-building, the working of precious metals,
and astronomy were equal or superior to those of their
northern neighbors. And, like these, however inferior in
culture to the invaders, they yielded little to them in ma-
terial civilization beyond the use of iron, gunpowder, and
domestic animals, with such inventions and processes as those
of printing and navigation.

Under normal circumstances, Pizarro 's expedition against
such a power with such a force as his would have been

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 227

worse than madness. But at the moment Peruvian affairs
were much disturbed. Their great Inca, Huayna Capac, had
but lately died ; his sons, Huascar and Atahualpa, contended
for the throne, which the latter had just secured and made
his brother prisoner. The people were in consequence divided ;
the fortunes of the government unsettled and its power
weakened ; and the invaders were not slow to take advantage
of the situation which they found. Apprised of the divisions,
the Spanish leader seized his opportunity, negotiated with
the warring native factions, and, hastening inland, invited
Atahualpa to meet him. The prince incautiously agreed, isss
and Pizarro, following Cortez' example, made him prisoner,
demanding a huge ransom for his safety.

The result surpassed even the Spanish dreams of avarice. Hie result
But the royal treasures, the spoils of the temples, and the
plunder of the people, though their value ran into many
millions, were declared insufficient by the insatiable con-
querors. Fearing that they would declare for his rival,
Atahualpa ordered his brother's execution, and Pizarro,
joined by Almagro, with reinforcements, put the unhappy
Inca prince to death, hurried to Cuzco, secured the city and isas
its wealth, and proclaimed another of the Inca family, Manco
Capac, as ruler of Peru. This done, the conqueror sent his
brother to Spain with the royal fifth of the plunder. As
his reward Pizarro was created a marquis and governor of
Peru; while his companion, Almagro, who had arrived too
late to share the Inca spoil, was given the southern province
of Chili, which he set out to conquer. At the same time,
Pizarro removed the seat of government from Cuzco to
Lima, where he began to construct a new capital. But this 1535
was not the end. The natives rebelled. Almagro claimed a
greater share of land than was allowed him for his great
services; and civil war broke out among the conquerors.
Almagro was killed, but his followers, choosing his son to 1538
lead them, conspired against Pizarro, assassinated him, and 1541-49
were only brought to terms after the arrival of a crown
agent and another civil war.

Such were the circumstances of the great adventure which

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228

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The organ- added another empire to the Spanish crown, poured another
5^^"°' huge flood of precious metals into Spain, and thence into
Europe, and opened new fields for European enterprise. Had
Peru's conqueror been, like Cortez, a man of statesmanship
as well as military qualities, the history of the Andean state
might have followed the lines laid down in Mexico. But
Pizarro's exploit revealed the darkest aspects of the Spanish
character. Piercer, more stern, far less enlightened than

Cortez, his nature was re-
flected in Peruvian history,
and while he lived, and
long thereafter, its devel-
opment scarcely exceeded
the transfer of power from
Inca to Spanish hands.
Feudal baronies replaced
the estates of native no-
bles or royal domains, the
repartimiento was intro-
duced, and the peasants,
like the land on which they
lived, came into possession
of the conquerors. Some
Spanish leaders, like de la
Vega, hastened to wed the
native heiresses. Some, like
Carbajal, preferred the
mines; some the rich fields ;
some, like de Soto, took
their share of the Inca
spoil and set forth in quest of new adventures ; some followed
Gonzalo Pizarro or Valdivia to fresh fields. To the new
capital of Lima and, more sparsely, to the interior came
soldiers of fortune, merchants, oflBcials, clergy, to enjoy the
crumbs of conquest or share the revenues of the principality.
This, far more slowly than New Spain, took on like form of
colonial life. Apart from its great wealth, it was more nearly
kin to that intervening region of Central America, through

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 229

whose tangled tropical forests Spanish power was meanwhile
finding its slow and difficult way.

For the conquest of Peru by no means exhausted Spanish The
achievement in this momentous period. Two years before ^"Jlquest
Lima was founded the crown had authorized the establish- ^Ecuador
ment of a port of entry on the lower Caribbean, famous in
later history as Cartagena; and a year later Mendoza's men 1533-36
began that La Plata port whose delightful climate moved
them to name it Buenos Ayres. Meanwhile Pizarro's exploit
had brought results in regions remote from the chief center
of disturbance. Par to the north, the upper Andean capital,
Quito, found itself masterless on Atahualpa's death, and,
facing a rebellion of the subject Canari tribes, summoned
Sebastian de Benalcazar's garrison from San Miguel to pro-
tect them. To this quarter other adventurers hurried. Prom
his conquests in Central America, Alvarado was tempted to
share the spoil, but Almagro forestalled him, and reinforced
by Benalcazar, founded the town of Guayaquil, on the finest
harbor of the Pacific coast, and a new province, Ecuador,
came into being.

Prom these regions proceeded fresh advance. Like Cortez, Chili
Pizarro had at once despatched lieutenants to secure out-
lying provinces and explore the newly-won empire. His
brother, Gonzalo, gathering followers to find a new Peru, 1540-41
crossed the Andes, seeking a fabled '4and of cinnamon,"
and, failing this, after fearful hardships, made his way back
from one of the most daring explorations in all history.
His second in command, Orellana, deserting him, found his
way down a mighty river, which, from a tale he told of a
female warrior tribe he found there, we still call the Amazon.
Upon Almagro 's death an Estremaduran follower of Cortez, 1540
Pedro de Valdivia, loaned by the Mexican conqueror to
Pizarro, became the first Spanish master of Chili. In such
wise, the western border of the southern continent came
under Spanish power and linked itself with the great con-
quests farther north.

One region remained, the rich, mysterious lands which lay Colombia
between Venezuela and Ecuador, the northernmost Andes

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230 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

where the headwaters of the Magdalena, the Orinoco, and the
northern branch of the Amazon had their rise. Thither from
1536-7 every side adventurers now pressed to find the fabled El

Dorado, "the Golden Man," the golden city of Manoa, and
the real treasures of the Chibcha race. From Santa Marta,
founded on the headlands east of the Magdalena ; from Coro,
granted to the great German bankers of Charles V, the house
of Welser, and presently included in the governorship of
Pizarro's fierce lieutenant, Carbajal; from Cartagena; from
the more distant settlement of Cumana, near the Orinoco's
mouth; from Quito and Panama, successive expeditions
strove to penetrate into the interior of what was to be later
known as Colombia. In this race for wealth German cap-
tains of Charles V, like Alfinger and George of Spires, Peder-
mann and Philip von Huten, rivaled Spanish adventurers
like Benalcazar and de Quesada. The last, starting from
Santa Marta, after fearful hardships, was the first to reach
the Chibchas. Less civilized and less rich, as well as less
warlike than the Aztecs or Incas, they fell an easy prey,
and on the site of one of their villages was founded the
1638 Spanish post of Bogot&. Compelled to divide his plunder

with Benalcazar and Federmann, Quesada left the task of
subduing the northernmost region of Antioquia to other
hands. From that last of the Andean conquests, its con-
querors, Robledo and Heredia, it is said, gained more wealth
than either Pizarro or Cortez, and its subjugation put into
the possession of the Spaniards some of the richest gold mines
in the world.
Results Thus was completed the Andean conquest, and the transfer

A^ndean ^* *^^ ^^^^ sources of precious metals then known to the
conquest world, from native to European hands. The motives of the
conquerors, like their methods, partook of the lowest elements
of human nature, greed and cruelty; and it can only be
urged in their favor that they spoiled the spoiler, took by
force the wealth and power which the tribes they conquered
had earlier obtained by the same means. The immediate
result of their conquest was disastrous to the ruling classes
they displaced; the ultimate results contributed enormously

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a;

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 231

to the development of the race. Not merely was a territory
comparable in size to Europe opened to the enterprise of
her people, and their resources multiplied by this extension
of their field of activity. For the first time the old world
found a source of precious metals adequate for its economic
needs. The influx of this great stream of capital not only
reinforced the wealth and luxury of Spain, and the ambitions
of her king, the Emperor; it found its way into commerce
and industry, and the mines of America, while they fed the
ambitions of the Hapsburg house, at the same time made
possible Europe's further economic advance.

But even this tremendous extension of her resources and The
her possibilities did not Exhaust Spain's contribution to Eu- expl®""
ropean progress in this momentous decade. While Peru took
its place among Spanish dependencies, the exploits of the
Andean conquerors raised the adventurous spirit to its
height ; and men turned with high hopes to the great northern
continent, where tales of golden cities and glimpses of Indian
pueblos, vouchsafed to earlier explorers, convinced them of
the existence there of empires no less wealthy than those of
Peru or Mexico. In the decade of the conquest of the Andes,
therefore, a series of extraordinary marches laid bare the
secrets of the southern part of North America. Though they
failed to find the gold they sought, these expeditions revealed
as great courage and enterprise as the exploits of Mexican
or Aztec conquerors, and were of scarcely less ultimate im-
portance to the spread of European power through the
western world.

Of these the first was PamfiUo de Narvaez, Cortez's old Narvaei
antagonist. Before Pizarro began his conquest of Peru,
Narvaez had commenced to explore the mainlands westward I5fi8
from Florida, while one of his companions, Cabeza de Vaca,
even made his way across the Gulf plains to Mexico. Mean-
while, Cortez's agents discovered Lower California and
planted a colony, and during the period of Andean conquest
vessels were sent along the western coast as far as Cape
Mendocino, a thousand miles to the north. Cortez's suc-
cessor, Mendoza, pursued the task of extending Spain's power

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232

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1640

Coronado
1640-

1649

DeSoto

1639-

1643

The coast
Une

1638-
1640

Thc"Ncw
Laws"

with no less energy. Hernando de Alar<;on, despatched to
the Gulf of California, found a great river, whose turbid
waters inspired him to christen it the Colorado; and Fran-
cisco de Coronado, appointed governor of New Oalicia^ made
his way from that province, across desert and mountain, to
where that same stream has hollowed the marvelous phenom-
enon known as the Grand Canyon. Thence, turning eastward
to the Rio Grande, he was lured onward by rumors of a
native city, Quivira, rich in gold, in search of which he found
his way across the western plains to a point north of the
Arkansas river, and from there, empty-handed, he returned
to Mexico, after the longest march yet undertaken by the
new world adventurers.

At the same time, a follower and son-in-law of Pedrarias
d'Avila, Hernando de Soto, who had accompanied Pizarro
to Peru, landed in Florida to seek an Eldorado in the northern
continent. Following Narvaez's track, he found and crossed
the Mississippi, and made his way far to the westward. But,
like Coronado, he found no cities and no gold, and disap-
pointed in his search, he was compelled to retrace his steps
to the great river he discovered. There he sickened and
died, and his followers, burying him in its waters, made their
painful way to Mexico.

Spanish advance was not confined to the mainland. At
the same time that the whole south and west of North America
was being traversed and claimed for Spain by these remark-
able marches, Valdivia sailed along the western shores of
South America to the fortieth parallel, Camargo carried the
Spanish flag to Cape Horn, and the coast of California
was explored. With these exploits Spain's claims to territory
in the New World reached their widest bounds. She had
secured not merely the huge plunder of the western peoples
and acquired the sources of a supply of precious metals in
amounts hitherto unknown to European experience, but an
extent of land greater than the whole area of Europe itself.

It was appropriate, therefore, that at this point in her
colonial career she took occasion to reorganize her power. In
the same year that Almagro began the conquest of Chili

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 233

and Pizarro founded Lima, Antonio de Mendoza had been
named the first Viceroy of New Spain. Before his coming
the general system of native exploitation and control had
been extended to the mainland conquests, but its funda-
mental feature, the repartimiento system, was now pro-
foundly changed. It had been granted at first in perpetuity,
but the efforts of Las Casas and his school had succeeded >

in limiting its operation to the life of the grantee. Later
extended to two lives, it was now decreed that, on the en- '
comendero^s death, his grants reverted to the crown. This
was the most striking feature of those measures which now
inaugurated that great code of Indian legislation known to
later generations as the RecopUacion de Leyes de los Reinos 1539-49
de las Indias, usually, if not quite correctly, called by them
the New Laws of Charles Y. Enlarged and modified from
time to time, these now became the supreme law of the
colonies, and remained for centuries the greatest of the world's
colonial codes, directing the destinies of millions of human
beings.

Under the new arrangement, though Seville retained the ite
monopoly of colonial trade and the Casa de la Coniratadon ^""ndies
went on, the management of affairs remained in the hands of
the Council of the Indies, which became the supreme author-
ity in legislative and judicial affairs of the colonies. Its
president and its members, ''men of noble birth, pure lineage,
and true faith," formed an imposing and a powerful board
of control. It gathered information and advised the king
in civil and ecclesiastical affairs ; held residencias or inquests
on each viceroy's acts at the expiration of his term, through
its commissioners; heard appeals; controlled finance; and,
through the subordinate Casa de la Contratadon, regulated
commerce.

Under its direction the resident administration of the new
world was organized. From the first Spain's policy had
been to check and balance authority in the colonies, and the
whole system of government, therefore, reflected this funda-
mental principle. The audiencia, though it was the viceroy's
council and for the most part under his authority, sat as an

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234 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

appellate court on his decisions. From it proceeded, nen-
nially, one of its judges to inspect administration in the
provinces, the acts of the district or provincial govei ^:
of the Indian agents; of municipal affairs under the direction
of their alcaldes and boards of aldermen or councillors. A^hey
took account of the crown fifths of mining profits; native
poll or tribute tax; the alcabala, or tax on goods sold; re-
ceipts from sale of offices; indulgences; monopolies of to-
bacco, gunpowder, quicksilver, salt; and supervised the
administration of justice. From their reports and knowledge
of affairs, viceroy and aucKencia reported to the Council
which framed the laws and regulations for the colonial empire.
Its work Such was the organization spread through Spanish Amer-

ica. Its task was no less novel than difficult. Hampered by
the difficulty of legislating at a distance, and without inti-
mate knowledge of the people and the circumstances among
which their edicts were to operate, such a body as the Council
of the Indies lacked adequate control of the officials who put
its measure into force. Its principal defect lay in its efforts
to remedy the lack of a dose supervision by too minute a
regulation of affairs. Yet despite the false political economy
which harmed the native and the government alike far more
than the oppression and extortion for which the Spaniards
have been so bitterly attacked, it carried on its work with
conscientiousness, ability, and no small success. Too rigid
for a later age, to whose changes it began to adjust itself
too late, and by no means always well administered by its
agents, the Spanish colonial system in the fifteenth century,
measured by the standards of its time, was both strong 9, id
, enlightened. And, ruling as it did half the known world,
it was a factor of wide importance in the affairs of mankind.
Its diffi- Under more favorable circumstances it might have ensured

culties f Qj. centuries the dominance of the state that gave it birth.
But the political situation in which the nation found itself,
no less than the false notions of political economy, and the
demoralizing influences of such sudden and overwhelming
success, were powerful agents of disintegration almost from
the first. Even the vast treasures secured from the plunder

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 235

of tue new provinces, the taxes and prospective tribute of
wir* ^-stretching territory and millions of native vassals, with
'^' ' -"^ forced labor in fields and mines, was neutralized by
ihel^ tremendous cost of the Emperor's foreign policy. The
alm*ost incessant dash of arms during the preceding century,
the exodus of adventurers to the New World, added to the
long and exhausting wars of Charles V, not merely drained
the land of able-bodied men; it made the pursuit of arms,
long bred in the Spanish race, almost the only ambition of
a whole people. Moreover, in a nation which was at best
not mercantile in its instincts, the flood of sudden wealth
choked the springs of industry. The slender flow of
manufactured goods, even the cultivation of the soil, was
checked, and as the nation, inflamed by conquest and dis-
covery, sought the ways to sudden wealth, like Portugal it
left the straight path of homely prosperity and the sound
basis of its economic life decayed. The full effect of this,
indeed, was not felt when, at this crowning point of her
achievements oversea she formalized the administration of
her new empire; but already, to the world outside, Spain
seemed a land where the hidalgo, soldier, friar, and ofiicial
stood for the sum of national life and spirit. And this
in no small measure became the mold of her national character.
Such were the beginnings of European occupation in the
western hemisphere, which above all other regions has re-
mained thus far its most important seat outside of Europe
itself. But the exploitation of America was not confined to TbePortu-
Spain. Boused by their rival's energies, the Spanish occupa- J^^/^
tion of the Argentine, the threats of English and of French I617-49
adventurers, the Portuguese, who for a generation had neg-
lected Brazil for their eastern possessions, turned their atten-
tion to that imperial province. In the year Pizarro con-
quered Peru, the Portuguese noble, Affonso de Sousa, was
despatched to America. His first exploit was the discovery
of the harbor of Bio de Janeiro, the next was the establish- 1531-9
ment of settled government. For its model the island
colonies were drawn upon. Beginning at the north the land
was parceled out into hereditary fiefs, the so-called cap-
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236

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1533
1536-9

In the

East

1517-42

1536

taincies, each for the most part with a sea-frontage of some
fifty leagues and extending indefinitely into the interior,
along lines parallel with the equator. These huge grants
were conferred on noble donatorios, with civil and criminal
jurisdiction and complete authority over the land and its
inhabitants. This characteristic Portuguese system endured
until the crown found itself compelled, as in the island
colonies, to appoint royal officials to enforce the rights of
the colonists and the home government. Under such condi-
tions, de Sousa, as the first grantee, founded a post at Sao
Vicente on the northern coast. Settlement began with unde-
sirables of every class, convicts, women of the baser sort,
bankrupts, Jews; but there followed presently a slender
stream of more eligible colonists, and, favored by a salutary
neglect, the small and isolated coast settlements, Olinda,
Recife or Pemambuco, and Bahia, which soon sprang up,
showed signs of real vitality. The natives were reduced to
servitude, wherever possible; the fiercer tribes driven into
the more remote interior. Slaves from the Guinea coast were
introduced ; planting begun ; and with it and forest products,
a little gold and an increasing trade, were laid the founda-
tions of a sound colonial prosperity.

Yet whatever the future promised her American posses-
sion, the more immediate concern of Portugal was with the
East. There the quarter of a century which followed Al-
buquerque's death had seen the wide extension of her em-
pire. Holding their stronghold of Diu with difficulty, the
successors of the empire-builder had done what they could
to extend their power in the farther East, by treaties with
the rulers of Cofombo and the Maldives. They held Malacca
against their enemies only with the aid of their allies in
Pacem and Achin, while their connection with China re-
mained precarious and subject to many interruptions.

Had they possessed Albuquerque's character and abilities
they might have made Portugal 's position all but impregnable.
But their incessant raids, their greed aud bad faith, made
enemies on every hand. And while native attempts at insur-
rection were cruelly suppressed; while the richest of th'

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 237

Molucca' spice-trading centers, Tidore, became a tributary
state, and the Spanish treaty secured the Portuguese position 1529
in that archipelago, dishonesty and rapine went on all but
unchecked, and Portugal's position grew gradually less
secure.

Meanwhile the field of conflict widened. The Portuguese Portugare
attack upon Diu enlisted the king of Cambay among their enemies
enemies; and from Egypt the Turkish governor of Cairo
despatched forces against them. In turn the younger da
Gama raided the Turkish power in the Bed Sea and carried
his victorious arms from Socotra to Suez, effecting a diversion
which materially aided the Imperial and Italian conflict with
the Ottoman power, then at its height. The king of Abys-
sinia was induced to aid in the attack upon Egypt; and
finally John III despatched an embassy to Suleiman the
Magnificent, which, though it failed, revealed the altering
tendencies' of world politics as clearly as the earlier efforts
of Francis I to enlist Turkish support against the Emperor.
But with all of Portugal's warlike enterprise and the ex-
tension of her boundaries, efforts for peace became as futile
as efforts for reform, and perpetual strife and corrupt admin-
istration became the normal condition of Portuguese occupa-
tion of the East.

This was not the worst. While her captains reached the Herdis-
farthest East, her power nearer home had sunk until, espe- aW^^^es
cially ii> northern Africa, the tide of Moslem rule had over-
spread much Portugal had owned and lapped the base of her
remaining fortresses. The valor of her fighting men as yet
showed small decline, her great monopoly was scarcely im-
paired, but greed, corruption, and jealousy were more dan-
gerous enemies than any human foe. Few viceroys escaped
arrest. Most deserved their fate, and even the best of them
found it impossible to repress the infinite perversion of
public office to private gain among their subordinates. The
lack of real colonists weakened her hold upon the East no
less. After a quarter of a century of occupation Goa held
less than five hundred Europeans, and these were chiefly
in government employ. With all the brilliance of her cap-

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238 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

tains' exploits, army and navy continually lacked recruits;
and the soldiers, their discipline relaxed, their comfort ig-
nored, their pay withheld, fell, like their officers, into con-
tempt. Even pilotage and the once dreaded artillery de-
clined. Only the incredible profits of her trade maintained
apparent prosperity amid boundless waste, while the one
sure foundation of permanent welfare, public virtue, showed
signs of insufficiency before the strain of a too great success.
Such was the position of Portugal when in the same year
1549 that Spanish colonial administration was reorganized, the

Portuguese extended their operations to the distant, long
dreamed-of island kingdom of Cipango or Japan. With that
event at the same moment the two rival empires reached
their widest bounds.
Progress Beside their advance, the progress of other European

European Powers in the world outside was all but insignificant. Nor
peopi!^ was this to be wondered at. Oerman adventurers had taken
--England ^^^ small part in the exploiting of South America, but
their sovereign's demand for men at home to fight the French,
the Moors, the Turks, and throughout Italy, left few to be
spent in more distant lands. The ostentatious monarch of
what was to be the leading maritime nation of the world
was besought in vain to aid in finding a northern passage
to '^the regions of all the Tartarians, the Chinas, and Cathaio
Orientall," by way of ''the back side of the new-found land."
For Henry VIII was unwilling to divert even the ** godly
meane, the little cost, perill or labour" for such an enter-
prise from the vain ambitions of an Imperial crown, the
church affairs, and the domestic entanglements which filled
his life.
Prance Even amid his campaigns against Charles V the French

king found more opportunity than England for such enter-
prise; and at the moment Pizarro conquered Peru, he sent
15S4- Jacques Cartier of Saint-Malo to the St. Lawrence, to

1536 find his way up that great river to the rapids called, satirically

perhaps, Lachine. The explorer found no passage to China
by that route. But five years later he went out again, founded
1540 a short-lived settlement at Charlesburg, while his associate,

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EUROPE BEYOND THE SEA 239

the Lord of Roberval, the ''governor of New Prance, Canada,
and Hochelaga/' as these lands were called, built a stockade
above the Isle of Orleans. Yet like the private trading
voyages of the English to Newfoundland, Brazil, and Central
America, these French exploits produced no permanent re-
sults. Without the crown support, on which Spanish and
Portuguese success was founded, it was scarcely conceivable
that such undertakings at such time could prosper; and
these scattered efforts, save that they kept alive an interest
in the new world among the peoples whose main strength was
then absorbed in religious and political rivalries at home,
left Spain and Portugal supreme in the colonial field

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CHAPTER X

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE. 152H543

Scientific
advance

Science
and the
Reformers

The Beginninos of Modern Science and Capitalism

In any consideration of the forces wluch combined daring
the long reign of Charles V to produce the beginnings of
a modem world, it is impossible to ignore the development
of that department of intellectual activity to which we give
the general name of science. For that development is im-
portant not alone in its mere contribution to knowledge and
power, in its increase of man's comfort and his capacity to
achieve material tasks, to cure or ameliorate his sufferings,
to bring the forces of nature to his aid to conquer nature or
his fellow-man, to enable him to comprehend something of
the mystery of the created universe. Like scholarship, and
still more like art, it has a deeper significance, than even
the discovery of new method and new facts. This lies in
the emancipation of the mind from the trammels of dogma,
the increased capacity to conceive great ideas, to discover
and to learn. For from such a force proceeds not only
material achievement but the possibility of real progress in
mental and spiritual fields.

Such a result must be reckoned no less important to the
history of Europeans than the changes in religious belief and
ecclesiastical practice by which it was accompanied, and of
far greater significance than the larger part of the political
activities by which it was, for the most part, hindered. With
all their infiuence in breaking the power of the older tradi-
tion of dogmatic authority, and their ^insiste^nce upon the
rights of the individual, (the new cbmmunioriri'sScJri proved
themselves scarcely more tolerant than the old, when meas-
ured by modern standards?^ Asserting their own claims to
liberty of opinion, they were quick to refuse that privilege

240

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SOCIAL AND INTBLLECTUAL EUROPE 241

to those who disagreed with them. It was still possible for
Luther to deny the supremacy of Boman dogma and to de-
nounce the doctrines of his Protestant rivals with equal vigor.
It was still possible for Calvin to demonstrate his right to
renounce the old faith and practices, and have Servetus 1653
burned for refusing to assent to a particular arrangement of
the words ''the infinite son of the father" as against ''the
son of the infinite father.''

/Nor was the new theology more willing to accept the
freedom of speculation necessary to the advance of all knowl-
edge, and of science in particula^ The tradition of the older
conceptions was still strong. To Lutheran and Calvinist,
as to Boman Catholic, the earth was still the center of the
universe, and man the chief if not the only concern of God.
Though in the last year of this remarkable period the
^Copemican hypothesis of a solar system was taking form,
not for another three-quarters of a century was it to be
acceptedyby even the most advanced leaders of European
thought. None the less, the Reformation marks a tremendous
alteration in the history of the world. Prom it flowed not
merely new communions but the beginning of an emancipation
from a single school of dogma, that denial of the claim to
a monopoly of revealed truth, which opened the way to
greater freedom of speculation, and, in due course of time,
to liberty of thought and speech. And, whether one regards
this as a blessing or a curse, it none the less remains the
great outstanding characteristic of the modern world.

Finally, in that (it summed up in itself ' something of each TheRcf-
of the forces then at work remolding Europe, religious, social, aSdthe"
political, and intellectual, the ReformationNwas not merely scientific
the type but the epitome of the times in which it fell. It ^ *°^®
not merely influenced politics/ it was, in no small degree
itself political^ It not merely offered an outlet to the dissatis-
faction with the social system of the time,^it partook of that
social discontent j and brought that growing spirit another
step on its way; and it was at once the product of the intel-
lectual movement which had preceded it and the inspiration
of much that followed. Yet in this it revealed a striking

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242 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

difference from .the scientific renaissance. For though its
leaders advanced toward the determination of truth from a
direction wholly opposite to that from which the scientists
proceeded, they aimed at the same goal. The ope side based
itself upon revelation, the other on i^e^i^&OT. And if
there is one circumstance which distinguishes the period in
which the Protestant communions took their rise, apart from
that revolution in the ecclesiastical world, it is that there
began at this time the first great serious effort which was
destined to success, to discover the secrets of the structure
of the universe and man.
liieim- The adventures of the mind, even less than the triumphs

offence ^* *^® artists, perhaps even less than the contentions of the
to progress theologians, make littie appeal to us in comparison with
the deeds of men of action. In any chronicle of the his-
tory of mankind they have been given small consideration
beside the annals of war and diplomacy. Yet whatever we may
think of the relative importance of European progress during
modem times in the fields of politics, or even in those of
morals, philosophy, art, and letters, as compared with the
achievement of the ancients, one thing is certain. We know
more, we have more, and we can do more than our ancestors,
and that this is' an absolute advance in civilization it is dif-
ficult to deny. Men may not be better, happier, stronger,
or more profound than they were in the age of Pericles, but
they are, unquestionably, more comfortable, more powerful,
and more capable, and in so far more civilized.

This result is due, in general, not to the efforts of those
men chiefly concerned in establishing their ascendancy over
their fellows but to those whose principal aim has been
the conquest of the secrets and the resources of nature — ^in
short to the advance of scientific knowledge. However the
progress in scholarship, in letters, art, or theology may have
contributed to the emancipation of the intellect which made
scientific labors possible/it is to science, 7athe£~thftii-4a^ese
otheiL£henpmen&.i)f-thajnilid^ that the development of what
we call the modem world is due, and that of all fields, it is
in science we excel the ancient world. |

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 243

Europe had made great progress in the art of govermnent
in the generations just passed. She had revolutionized
letters and art, with the whole t^ory and practice of ecclesi-
astical affairs. She had discovered the sea-ways east and
west, and made far-reaching conquests. Yet the last quarter
of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth were Tlie
no less notable for the foundation of those branches of knowl- of modem
edge from which has developed a great part of our modem science
strength, than for the alterations in these other fields of
human activity. In particular, it is to this period that we
owe the beginnings of knowledge and practice in two fields of
the prof oundest importance not merely to our every-day life
but to our tiiought and, in no small degree, to our beliefs.
These were (the fields of medicine, and of mathematics and
astronomy.^ ^^of" vi mjl. *» C-.

In considerable measure these advances were due, like most
of the progress of the period in all intellectual affairs, to the
rise of the new learning which wa/ brought in by the Renais-
sance'Viuring the preceding century.

Among the treasures of antiquity which found their way
to more general knowledge during those years, the produc-
tions of the men of letters had not been unique. It is true
that the middle ages had known many of the achievements of
the classical world. It is true that especially after the so-
called thirteenth century renaissance great additions were
made to that knowledge. From their long obscurity had
been drawn such scientific attainments as the Greeks in par-
ticxdar had acquired, and this had been reinforced by the
contributions of the Arabs, from whose writings, as they
came into Europe, had been extracted not only their own
learning but that which they had acquired from classical
and Indian sources. But there is a vast difference between
knowledge and accessibility; between the labors of a handful
of widely separated scholars and the vivid, and often highly
practical interest of increasing nu^ibers, kept in touch with
each other and with the general progress of their work by
such rapid and generous reproductions as are made by
the printing-press. And it is this characteristic which sharply

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244

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Mathe-
matics

Tartaglia
1506-59

divides the modem from the mediseval period. From the
middle of the fifteenth century this impulse was more and
more in evidence; and it may fairly be said that, whatever
the acquirements of isolated individuals before that time,
/classical knowledge was not in the possessign of Europe in
general until it was available in print ana became a part
of the commonly accessible stock of European inf ormationA

This was especially true of mathematics, where the Greeks
had achieved their greatest scientific success, and where the
needs of the new navigation had been most insistent in their
demands. The early middle ages had characteristically pre-
served the propositions of Euclid^ but not his proofs.
This error was corrected during the twelfth century. But
to minds inflamed with that tremendous burst of intellectual
curiosity which accompanied and followed the revelation of
unknown lands and the uncovering of the past even this was
far from enough. And if this period and the progress of
printing were notable for nothing else, they would be mem-
orable for the reintroduction into general European knowl-
edge of the labors of that Greek whose work remains, after
twenty centuries, the basis for the science of geometry.

To the revival_flfJBudid as a scientific auxiliary and a
means of education were added other contributions. While
geometry, apart from its prostitution to the uses of
necromancy, had been largely confined to the practical pur-
poses of surveyor and architect, and the calculations of
arithmetic had found their chief expression in the abacus,
there was small opportunity for mathematics to become a
great factor in the extension of the intellectual faculties. In
the preceding century the labors of Purbach and of his pupil
Begiomantanus had done much to arouse fresh interest in
the knowledge and understanding of geography, mathe-
matics, and astronomy. To these were added in the first
half of the sixteenth century the achievements of the Italian
Fontana, better known by his nickname of Tarta^ia, '*the
stammerer."

This original genius added to his contributions to bal-
listics the discovery of the so-called cubic equation, a method

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 245

of finding the least common denominator, and a variety of
similar practical solutions of mathematical processes. Al-
gebra, whose name like its methods came into Europe from
the Arabs through the medium of the thirteenth-century
mathematician, Leonardo of Pisa, and was greatly stimulated
by the work of Lucas de Burgo at the end of the fifteenth
century, had been reinforced by the latter 's text-book which 1494
appeared in the days of Columbus' second voyage and Charles
VIII 's invasion of Italy. Its development had gone on side
by side with art and letters, but it was not until Tartaglia's
day that his genius set it on the paths which it has since
followed. The same course had been followed by arithmetic.
From the labors of the Arab Mohammed ben Musa al-
Khwarismi, building on the rude dedmal system derived from
India, had been developed the decimal system which became
the foundation of European arithmetical processes ; and that
fiiystem had, by Tartaglia's day, established itself in the place
of the awkward Roman numerals and the abacus. Now, in
the years which saw the revolt from Rome, these were rein-
forced by the labors of another and far greater intellect.

This was the Pole, Johann Kopemik, better known from the Copernicus
Latinized form of his name, as Copernicus. Prom his studies ^*'''*-i^*3
in Bologna and his lectureship in Rome, this modest scholar
brought to his studies in Frauenburg ideas which, finally
embodied in his book, De Revolutionibus Orbiunt, prepared
the nyprthrnw f>f nqfymnnTny ey^^eveu thcoIogy. as then con-
ceived. For, from the many hypotheses regarding the uni-
verse held by the ancients, he evolved his theory of the solar
systm, in which the^lacela, including the earth, revolved
abouTlhe eon. To this conception he added his theory of
the revolution of the earth on its axis, and that of the stars,
Ijkft thp eart^, in their orbits,— doctrines which were to
astronomy what Columbus' discovery was to geography.
For these, with explanations of the precession of the
equinoxes, and the variations of the seasons, though unac-
companied by proof, and not for a century accepted by even
scientists generally, laid the foundations for a knowledge
and a belief which, in the field of faith no less than in that

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246 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of intellect, separated the modem from the mediseval world
by an impassable gulf. His work, carried on while Europe
was convulsed with the revolt from Rome, the progress of
the Renaissance, the Spanish conquest of America, and the
development of the national absolutisms, did not appear
finally in print until 1543. By that time the church had
bestirred itself to summon the great council which marks
the break between the new and old ecclesiastical system of
the continent, the Spanish empire had been organized, and
the world was fairly set on its new course. In that course,
though its time was long in coming, the labors of this obscure
Polish scientist were to play a part not incomparable to
that of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the great
discoveries.
Medicine The scientific advance in these years was not confined to
mathematics and astronomy, for Europe had begun mean-
while another movement of no less interest and of even
greater practical importance to the race than the determina-
tion of the laws of the universe. This was in medicine. In
the twelvemonth which saw the defeat of Francis I at Pavia
and that of the rebellious peasants on the Rhine, there ap-
peared, almost simultaneously, at Venice, the Greek text of
the works of Galen and H\iqtQg;fttfi3^the latter from the press
of Aldus. A ^ozen years later other and better editions ap-
peared at Basel. With these the writings of the two great
medical authorities of the classical world took their place again
in scientific literature. They were soon translated, in whole
or in part, into Latin and even into modem languages and so
found a still wider audience. Though they had been known
to the middle ages, they now became easily accessible, and
took their place in the current of general scientific advance.
The result was immediate and profound. However far
they fell short of modem conceptions and practices in healing,
however wrong their theories and however deficient their
knowledge, the writings of the great Greek physicians offered
at least a comprehensible system of medicine upon which, as
a foundation, it was possible to build a new edifice. The
work of Galen, in particular, had been known to the later

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 247

middle ages through the Arabic of Avicenna, but now accessi-
ble in the original and in translation, it took on new influence.
The long development of medicine which, during the pre-
ceding century in particular, had begun to show some signs
of escaping from the trammels of ijgnorance and superstition
which had prevented its progress was immensely stimulated';
while' its scRttllflC character wST powerfully reinforced by
the decline of that almost mystifi^l reverence for the human
body which the church inculcated and thus long prevented
any adequate study of its organs. Renaissance and Reforma-
tion spirit alike revolted against this prohibition, to the
enormous advantage of the race.

Almost at once there arose a new school of medical thought ««'nie
and practice, partly based on the Qreek teachings, partly ™<^ic*l
owing its achievements to its antagonism to the ''fathers of ista**-
medicine." In the hands of these ''medical humanists" the
whole basis of medical and surgicalloiowledge was altered
as men began to seek the sources of their information not
in books but, in the body itself. Its first development was
naturally in anaBnyr TT£ection, which still suffered from
the ecclesiastical prejudice, and which ivas long permissible
only under church sanction, came into increasing vogue, as
its limitations were removed or ignored ; and with-it modem
mediciue iuay.be said to begin. This movement was "not
confined to any nation. In Italy Fraseatoro, the physician
of the Council of Trent and professor at Padua, began that
study of contagion which laid the foundations for a great
part of modem medical science, while the Papal physician,
Eustachio, whose name the Eustachian tube perpetuates,
shared with the Imperial physician, Vesalius, the honor of
establishing the sciences of anatomy and histology. These,
in turn, found a rival in the Pisan professor, Falloppio,
who gave his name to the Fallopian tube, which rewarded his
researches in anatomy.

This activity was not limited to Italy. The Englishman,
Linacre, physician to Henry VII and Henry VIII, drewTar
more from his studies at Florence than the classical learning
which made him — with Qrocyn, Colet, Lily, and Latimer —

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Enelish
and
French
medicine

The

Nether-
lands,
Switxer-
land
and
Germany

Para-
celsus
1490-1541

one of the founders of the English or Oxford hnmanistic
school, and introduced Britain to the Italian classical Ren-
aissance. His translations from Galen and Hippocrates, like
those of the Italian Leoniceno, did more than bring Greek
medical acquirements to the knowledge of his day. They
inspired him to {ojuid lectureships in medicine and the
London College of Physicians, as one of the first steps in the
extension ot medical education beyond the bounds of Italy.
In France the talents of Brissot brought some amelioration
to the favorite practice of blood-letting by giving it some
relation to the parts which it was intended to benefit; while
Sylvius, despite his slavish adherence to Galen, described
many of the blood-vessels and muscles and gave them the
names they still bear. Still more the genius of the great
surgeon, Par^, found ample scope for its expression in the
incessant wars with which his country was cursed. For among
the few blessings which they brought, his contributions to
the art of amputation, and his advocacy of such varying
practices as massage and asepsis are probably the greatest.

lnTKe"Hands oTThany of these exponents of the reviving
art the learning of the ancients was continued along tradi-
tional lines, modified in practice by the introduction of dis-
section. This soon established the dissecting-room and even a
rude clinic alongside the hospital as a feature of the new
science. But in some quarters, especially in Switzerland and
the Netherlands, the problem was approached from a dif-
ferent direction. The Spanish physician, Servetus, began
those researches in the circulation of the blood between the
heart and lungs which were to find fruition a century later ;
but, seeking refuge from the bigotry of his own country, he
met death in Switzerland at the hands of the no less bigoted
followers of Calvin for his theological opinions. Greater
still the traveler-chemist-doctor, appropriately christened
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus von
Hohenheim, but better known by the abbreviated form,
Paracelsus, sometime professor at Basel, sometime physician
to"£fie merchant-prince, Fugger, in whose mines and labora-
tories he gained no small part of his knowledge, founded

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a new school of medical theory and practice. Rejecting all
tradition, burning Oalen and Avicenna, deriding Hippoc-
rates, this curious pioneer, half genius, half charlatan, sought
knowledge in reason and investigation as against authority.
He preached asepsis and the value of mineral baths, made
and used opium and many mineral salts, discovered hydrogen
and animal magnetism, and compelled physicians to accept
chemical therapeutics A Iri meJiicine, In Chemistry, in phar-
macy he was equaUy a pioneer.)

Paracelsus well typifies the change coming over the treat- latro-
ment of disease in more ways than one, for he brought to ^emistry
medicine the aid of chemistry, then just beginning to
dissociate itself from alchemy. Still more, under such influ-
ences, there began that school of thought known as ''jgtro-
chemistry/' which referred all physiological change to chem-
ical processes, and thus, while it facilitated progress in certain
directions, hindered it in others. To this was added the
beginnings of another science, botany, which, especially in
the hands of the so-called Fathers of Botany in Germany,
b^an that description^ of plants which at once laid the
foundations of a new department of knowledge and added
to the curative or therapeutic resources of medicine.

None the less, the great contribution of the age remained Vesalius
ijftfinrip^jvq anatomy, and in that field one figure appears the ^*^^^
supreme example of the new spirit. This was the Flemish-
bom, Italian-trained Ygsalius, the teacher of Falloppio, the
inspirer of Par6, physician to Charles V and Philip II.
Basing his work upon dissection and description rather than
on tradition, he gave an impetus to anatomy which the science
has never lost, and by his genius and enthusiasm he not only
advanced knowledge, he founded a method and a school of
w^anBtion whicK^gives him rank in the medical world with
Copernicus in that of mathematics and astronomy. Nor is
it a coincidence without significance that his great work, De
Corporis Humani Fabrica, which gave a death-blow to the
old pedantic school and "dragged the Oalen-idol down,"
appeared in the same year that Copernicus' labors found 1543
their final form in print.

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250 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Unconnected with the advances of medicine and mathe-
matics, yet of scarcely less importance, was the d^j^elopaMBt
of interest in metals stimulated by the discoveries in Europe
itself wd especially in America. The development of mining
on the continent had roused men to new interest in the re-
sources of the earth. It is not surprising, therefore, that this
period saw the appearance of the first — ^and for three cen-
turies the most substantial — contribution to the scienceof
mineralogy. This work, De Re Metallica, was produced by
1546 a Qerman, Oeorg Landmann, generally called by his assumed

name, Agricola, ''the father of mineralogy." It was rein-
forced from the medical side by the labors of Paracelsus; and
from the direction of practical operation by the development
of the amalgamation or quicksilver process of separating gold
from ore. This was enormously stimulated by the discovery
and working of the deposits of cinnabar, from which mercury
was extracted, at Almaden in Spain and Idria in Austria.
Thus the domains and the subjects of Charles Y, apart from
the conquests which distinguished his reign, became pecul-
iarly notable for their contribution to the economic as to the
intellectual progress of the European world.
Hans Hoi- Finally this extraordinary burst of activity reacted directly
y^nffer ^P^^ Other fields and individuals not usually associated with
1497-1543 the more practical side of life. To his contributions in en-
gineering and painting, Leonardo J5 ^W^ added the first
rational explanation of the fossils which the new mining
" discovered in its operations. To his triumphs with the brush
and chisel Michelangelo, appointed chief architect of St.
Peter's, added a skill in building operations which finally
brought that greaf"e31ffce*lnt(J iJeTng; And to his extraor-
dinary gifts as the delineator of sixteenth-century faces,
which made the younger Holbein the greatest of portrait-
producers of his time, this great genius added a skill in
designing and engraving which set the art of book-making
another stage on its progress. If any one desires to know
what manner of men and women made this period he needs
only to study the work of this talented, itinerant sketcher of
faces, whose detached, impersonal method of drawing things

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The Skeleton, from Vesaous's Fabrica.

(From Ix)cy*8 Biology and Its Makers.) Illustrating
the revolution effected by the combinod advance of art
and anatomy — together with the peculiar humor of 16th
century drawing of this sort.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 251

as they were, is, in some sort, a symbol of his times. For
his sketch books reveal that tendency to find in the creatures
of this world an interest which many of his predecessors
had been able to find only in the next. Sacred art was by
no means wanting. But its ascendancy, like that of the
painting of classical subjects which was the product of
the Renaissance, now began to share honors with the
delineation of the scenes and the characters which made
the world what it was to the inquiring eyes of the mid-
s^eenth century.
^These phenomena, concurrent with the summons to the Tlietransi-
Council of Trent, the advent of the Portuguese in Japan, ^^*J^
the reorganization of the Spanish colonial empire, and the thought
final triumph of absolute kingships ux the national state^^
mark fittingly the great turning-point in the fortunes of the
new world which the men of action and of thought had
summoned from the ruins of the old. Thenceforth, in intel-
lect as in faith, in words and deeds, Europe turned more
and more definitely to those activities and those concepts to
which we give the name of modem. Thenceforth the shackles
of tradition were loosened increasingly from year to year,
and the men of thought, like the men of action, found opening i

before them wider fields for the exercise of their abilities
and their energies. For if they had not begun to explain,
they had, — ^to use Bacon's witty analogy, — ^foUowed the ex-
ample of Adam and Eve in Paradise, they had ''observed the
creatures and named them, — ^the first steps in the summary
parts of knowledge."

Their development implied far more than these. Two other Special-
characteristics differentiate this movement from what had ™"®^
gone before. The one was the spread of these great interests
to all sections of society, and the rise of a body of intellectual
men which thenceforth began to play an increasingly greater
part in human affairs. The great figures were still great, but
they were no longer divided from the mass of mankind by
any such gulf as had existed earlier. They were, in fact,
but the more conspicuous individuals evolved from a grow-
ing class of intellectuals, types rather than personalities.

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252 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Beside them worked increasing numbers of all but
anonymous individuals, whose collective contribution to
knowledge not merely equaled the product of the greater
geniuses, but went far toward making their achievements
possible.

The second characteristic of a changing world grew from
this situation of the intellectual class. It was the develop-
ment^of more and more highly specialized actiyjlies. It was
no longer possible, as it had^ been two centuries earlier, for
one man to become, like Roger Bacon, virtually an encyclo-
pedia of human, or at least scientific, knowledge. The process
of differentiation had begun. Occasional geniuses, like
Leonardo da Vinci, as in all ages of the world, did many
things well, and several things greatly. Some men, like
More, were no less eminent in letters and scholarship than in
public affairs ; some, like Servetus, were conspicuous in medi-
cine and theology; some, like Rabelais, combined medical
knowledge with eminent literary gifts. But, for the most
part, the content of knowledge was now becoming too great,
the demands of the various activities now opening before
men were growing too arduous to allow of such universality
as had once been possible.
"The Prom these two circumstances grew a third, which was of

for the*^ no Icss moment. The chief defect of mediseval society had
talents" been the relative restriction of careers outside the church
open to men of talent, of non-noble birth. This, which was the
natural result of the social and ecclesiastical system of the
middle ages, had begun to break down with the intellectual
and political expansion of the fifteenth century. With the
acceleration of those movements in the first half of the six-
teenth century, it tended to disappear even more rapidly.
It was to be long before the aristocratic tradition was weak-
ened in the field of public affairs, or ecclesiastical influence,
whether Catholic or Protestant, ceased its attempts to control
the progress of the human mind in those fields which trenched
on the domain of dogma. But as from year to year new
paths were opened to men's energies in every direction, more
and more an open way to the talents presented itself to

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 253

every class, save the lowest. As it became possible for a
Cortez to rise to the dignity of a marquisate even in Spain,
it was no less possible for a Luther or an Erasmus or a
Calvin to become a ruler of men's thoughts. And, with the
advance of science, arts, and crafts, thousands of men found
ready to their hands an infinity of tasks and a world of
opportunity wholly apart from religion or politics, even apart
from that commercial activity which, at the same time, rose
to undreamed-of heights of influence, amid the rivalries of
statesmen and warriors.

Thus, as the mid-sixteenth century approached, with the
beginning of those great readjustments, political and ecclesi-
astical, which arose from the events of the preceding fifty
years, it found a society prepared to take an active share in
many concerns unknown to men of preceding generations or
barred to a great part of their number. And though it
was still true that only a minority shared this privilege, /\
it was now possible for men_to_ achieve distinction in so
man^,.fifiLds that the progress of the middle classes, at least
in northern Europe, was but a matter of time in every
direction which led to the determination of their destinies.
And this, as events were soon to prove, became the next
great element in the evolutions of affairs. /

V.

Among the events which will always make the age of
Charles V memorable in history, the Reformation and the
Counter-Reformation are by far the most conspicuous, and
in many respects by far the most important. Beside them
even the transition from feudal to national forms of govern-
ment has seemed to most historians comparatively insig-
nificant, and the development of Europe beyond the sea, with
the economic revolution which took place at the same time,
scarcely worth more than passing mention. Yet, in the
long resolution of events, it is by no means certain that the
theological controversies with which so much of the history
of the time is chiefly concerned may not come to be regarded

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254

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Social and

economic

change

The arts
and crafts

as of scarcely more than antiquarian interest, and even the
long coil of war and diplomacy which centered in the Italian
peninsula give way in importance to other factors in the life
of this great transition period.

Of these, one, in particular, is peculiarly deserving of
attention. This is the phase of human existence to which
men have agreed to give the name of social and economic, —
the routine of every-day life, and those activities which,
though they lack the dramatic character of war and intrigue,
dynastic ambition and personal adventure, have not only
contributed to the existence of mankind, but have formed
the foundation of progressive civilization to a greater degree
than most of the acts of rulers and statesmen.

In such a field the mid-8hrteenth eentgyy revealed a Europe
so altered from its condition even half a century earlier
as to give it the aspect of almost a new world. Not merely
in the spiritual and intellectual advance which it had
achieved in the preceding hundred years, but in the concerns
of daily life vji^ affected every class of society, the con-
tinent had experienced a revolutioniin its status. This had
profoundly influenced individual fortunes and in no small
degree inspired or modified those movements which, like
the Reformation itself, have been looked upon as concerns
of the spirit.

First among the changes produced by the shifting balance
of thought and practices had been, naturally enough, the
ijiiprfrvAmfTit, ilLthgjrtn flud ursftn It is not the infinite toil
of infinite millions which contributes most to the material
progress of society, save in that it aids in the accumulation
of capital, nor is it even the genius of great leaders of
thought which gives the steady impulse to the advance of a
progressive material civilization. Somewhere between them
lies a group of men gifted with technical skill, whose constant
improvement of methods and machines gradually builds up
a body of knowledge and a manual dexterity which provides
continually improving materials for the uses of mankind.
To these are added other forces, the demands of arts and
crafts upon each other, the changing fashions of society.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 255

the pressure for ^eater comfort and luxury, and the con-
sequent insistence of the traders for goods to satisfy these
various demands.

As Europe developed in material civilization and in culture
during the centuries following the Crusades, these elements
came more and more into evidence. Though the middle ages
had beeen unable to produce those masterpieces of Roman
masonry which defied the changes of time, though its artisans
had forgotten the secret of that tool manufacture which made
the Boman pre-eminent in every field of workmanship from
dentistry to woodworking, the simpler crafts had gone on
through the centuries, improving as they went. And with
the greatly increased demands arising from greater knowl-
edge, especially during the fifteenth century, the artisans^
no less than the artists, had been stimulated to new models
and new methods.

Successive generations of builders had carried on the tradi- Artisans
tions of their trade and developed them with their successive
triumphs in those churches, public buildings, and palaces
which make northern Italy still the Mecca of architects,
as in those guild-halls, castles, and mansions which housed
the nobles and merchant-princes of the north. The jul of
the goldsmith did not exhaust the creative genius of the
metal-workers^ for every new craft, as it came into being,
maHe its demands upon that most universal of handicrafts
for its tools. With every advance in navigation the demand
for s^ufiBJdgbte-grew, and their ability augmented. With
changing fashion and greater luxury in dress the weavers
increased in numbers and in skill. The development of ^gotf "
ter^ which was conspicuous in the first half of the sixteenth
century; the beginning of watch-making, which dates from
the same period; the manufacture of lace^ which then began,
revealed at once new features in European industry, and the
improvement of a society which demanded such products.
It is one of the most significant signs of an altering age
that the invention of the sjainning-wheel is attributed to the
same years which saw Protestantism take on its form and
name; and that the invention of the wheelbarrow is credited

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256 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

to the painter of the great fresco of the Last Supper, the
artist-engineer, da Vinci.
Tools With such advance the age of the tool-makers began. In

the main the hand tools with whicli alT crafts are familiar,
the hammer, the saw, the chisel, and the smoothing instru-
ments, were by this time in common use in something of
' their present forms. Certain rude efforts to use more power-
ful forces than the human arm had been begun, by wind
and especially water-wheels, particularly by the men engaged
in grinding grain, and these were slowly taken up by other
trades. Crude tilt hammers were devised to work into shape
those anchors and artillery appliances beyond the strength
of man's unaided strength to shape. The lathe was im-
proved and enlarged to bore out cannon, among other uses;
and the improvements associated with the name of the
Frenchman, Besson, who issued a manual of lathe building
and lathe work in 1569, revealed new processes and new
principles. Among these the chief was a device for turning
ovals and forms partaking of the principle of the screw —
moldings whose axis was at an oblique angle to the main
axis of the work — ^useful not only to the adornment of
furniture but to a wide variety of other purposes.
DecUpAof It was inevitable that the progress of the arts and crafts
^^^^ should displace as well as introduce. The QotyiLJuiildfirs
tended to disappear with the rise of Renaissance and neo-
classic forms. The armorers' skill was lost or transferred to
other fields with the extension of the use of gunpowder.
The copyists^ upon whose handiwork Europe had relied for
centuries for the perpetuation of its knowledge found their
occupation gone with the development of printing. Yet with
all such displacement of the older arts, Europe progressed
enormously in her industry during the sixteenth century. (A
score of professions, a hundred trades sprt^ng up to take the
place of those whose usefulness was gone.^ Cayvas-making,
whether for the use of the painters or for that of the sail-
makers, type-founding and paper-making, press-building and
book-binding arose as the manufacture of parchment and the
art of the copyist declined. Engraving, with its materials

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!J

/.

The Courtyard of a Cannon -foundry.

After the drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. The device for lifting the cannon
is especially noteworthy.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 257

and tools, map-making, and the construction of instruments
for astrgxumucal observation and time measurement, the
manufacture of firearms and gunpowder, with an infinity
of lesser activities, more than supplied the place of the out-
worn crafts.

Virtually all of this vast, complex, and for the most part The
anonymous contribution to the welfare and progress of Euro- " working-
pean peoples was due to those classes with no voice in the »>/*•./.<
affairs of state, and, in consequence, no place in history. Yet - ^ , .«: >
it was to them, in the last resolution, that the advance of .. « /

Europe, even in politics, was chiefiy due. Not only would »
the discoveries have been impossible, whatever the daring of ^
navigators, without the artisans who made their voyages . *^ ' '^^
possible, the triumphs of the conquerors who followed the
explorers would have been inconceivable without the arms \'' ' ' • ' ' \.
and armor with which the craftsmen provided them. And,
in no small degree, even the progress of national kingship
was stimulated by this same element.

For it was not alone through patronage of the artists and
architects by the upper classes that there came to be some
recognition of the dignity and importance of industry by
rulers and statesmen. Many senerations were to elapse before
there was any appreciably' qgfiline in the old feeling of dis-
tinction between aristocracy an? commonalty^ based on the
feudal difference between the noble service of arms and
the ignoble service of work. But with the rise to high position
in affairs of the mind and spirit of so many men then
reckoned of base birth, with the extraordinary progress of
the arts and industries, that open way for the talents which
the church almost alone had offered men in the middle ages,
began to have new avenues of approach. It was app^irent
that even public affairs, however jealously guarded as the
preserve of noble birth, could not be closed forever to classes
capable of such distinction in other fields.

Among these one had already forced its way to the front The
in Italy, and now began to play a like part in other lands — i^fchanta
the merchant, to whom the marvelous developments of the
preceding hundred years had showed new paths to wealth

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258

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Shifting of

economic

balance

1617-

1543 N^'

<

Spain and
Germanj

and power. For, amid the dramatic events in politics and
religion, the concurrent alterations in trade and finance had
slowly and almost imperceptibly begun to shift, the balance
of the continent in social and political no less than economic
fields.

This was particularly evident in the northern states, espe-
cially in Germany and the Netherlands. In the century
which had just elapsed, the trade currents had shifted until
the older commercial capitals no longer played the major
part in the affairs which they had once controlled. This
circumstance was jmLjghdly du^to Portuguese discoveries
or Spanish conquest. The progress of Tmkish^-HQwer through
Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula, and, stUl more, its
successes against the long line of Venetian and Genoese island
and mainland posts through the Levant, had crippled the
. great commerce which had flowed through Italy. And when,
/ at the moment that Charles V ascended the Spanish throne
I and Luther began his labors in Qermany, the Turks overran
I Egypt and secured control of Alexandria, the last gateway
Mnto the East was barred to Italian enterprise. Thenceforth,
though Genoa retained some fragments of her old privileges
in the Levantine ports, and Venice collected the fragments
of her old commerce, the Portuguese gga-way about Africa
remained without a rival in the eastern trade and the Italian
cities;- flnatly" excluded from its profits,* sank into relative
commercial insignificance.

But this was not the only, nor perhaps the greatest change
effected in these years. Not merely had the trade routes
shifted; there were strong indications that the balance of
financial, and even political power was to follow the eStBff
"course. Had Spain and Portugal, with all the wealth they
brought from oversea, maintained their home economy unim-
paired, they might have become the masters of European
finance and politics. But even at the height of Portugal's
monopoly of the eastern trade, it was the merchants of the
northern nations who reaped the profits of exchanging those
products for the necessities of life which their fellow-country-
men produced and of which Portugal found herself in want.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 259

At the crowning-point of Spanish success in America, it was
the bankers of central Germany who financed the policies of
Charles V, and, owing to the short-sightedness of the land-
holders and the development of a huge corporation of wool-
growers in Spain, which deprived that nation of its arable
land and a more varied industry, it was the artisans and
farmers of northern Europe who supplied the mining indus-
try of Spanish America with food and tools. Thus, thanks
to the devotion of the Iberian peoples to a single industry,
it was to other hands there fell the most enduring rewards
for their activity. Lisbon and Seville, indeed, became the
entrepots of goods and bullion from non-European lands,
and in so far replaced Venioff ftTiH Opnnn But what the
Italian cities had once been, Frankfort, and Augsburg and
Nuremberg, Antwerp and Amsterdam became— centeDgL.jaflt
oill^jii commerce but of capital, and leaders in every field
of trading and financial enterprise. The case of Nuremberg
is typical. It grew up about a castle built in the eleventh
century, and by imperial favor, no less than its situation and
the energy of its citizens, grew rapidly in wealth and popu-
lation. It lay on the highway between Italy and north Eu-
rope. Its art and architecture became the model for Ger-
many ; and it was the home of the great Meistersinger, Hans
Sachs, as well as of Diirer. It was remarkable for its inven-
tions, for to it is attributed the discovery of brass, and the
art of wire-drawing, the first air guns and gunlocks, terrestrial
and celestial globes, and the earliest watches, '^ Nuremberg
eggs." But its position was weakened by the Portuguese
discoveries, and the diversion of its trade and enterprise to
other cities was typical of the great change then impending
in Europe.

[jThia leadership fell first from Italian into Gterman hands^Spcrmany
and it was not due wholly to the wealth drawn from Spain
and Portugal. From early times the North Sea fisheries,
the trade with Russia and with Scandinavia, with England
and the farther north, had brought its profits and enriched
the cities of the Hanseatic League, Bremen and Liibeck and
Hamburg, in particular. As the fifteenth century proceeded.

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eaffei
dtid

260 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

that trading confedgratioii had declined before the rivalry
of stat^sM^ose people, like the English, took commerce into
theirown hands, ^^it^™""'* ■■if^ij^yifln fpnii^^ p^ujjvQnpofir>T»
in offifef'fta^. The silver mines of the Tyrol, in SdzEilrg
and Bohemia, the copper of Hungary, the iron forges in
Thuringia, the varied mineral wealth of the Harz and the
Erzgebirge, enriched the declining supply of precious metals
of the continent, and enabled the enterprising merchants of
central Germany to increase their holdings and so finance
still greater adventures. To this was added the development
of manufactures, especially those of weaving and metal-work.
In such fashion, at the same time that new centers of like
activity in Italy, among which Florence was the chief, turned
to trade with north African ports, and to the arts and crafts
which brought them wealth and power, Augsburg, Frankfort,
Nuremberg, and their neighbors in central Germany rose
to European stature in finance and industry.
As their wealth iAcreased the merchant class embarked on
capital various ventures, financed vojFages lo'lLsik and America,
opened' newinihes in tne old world and the new, loaned
money to sovereigns, provided capital for every enterprise
which promised profit, and so were gradually transformed
into bankers and financiers. With the rise of great accumula-
tions of capital, and, above all, of a body of men skilled
in commercial operations, there emerged an element whose
wealth and ability contributed more to the communities in
which they lived than all the conquests of the Iberian powers.
The day of the soldier had reached its prime; as^J^ age
of capital came on the day of the merchant-bankeF begaiTTo
dawn; and to its coming the vast increase of bullion from
the Spanish colonies contributed. For that capital was inevi-
tably drawn throughout the continent by the inexorable laws
of mercantile exchange to which the false economy of Spain
and Portugal contributed.

It did still more; for, joined to the rapid development of
a higher scale of living, especially in the cities, and the
demands of a more complex society as the sixteenth century
advanced, it raised prices. And this, in turn, reacted ia

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 261

an infinite variety of ways. The ambitions of princes like
fVancis and Charles, with their extravagance, laid heavier
burdens on their taxable subjects, the landlord classes.
These, in turn, oppressed their tenants, inclosed the common
lands, demanded mpney as well or in the place of service
or of kind; and ^^igsjhdped to precipitate a revolution in
tfee social jixder. Among the complaints of the revolting
German peasants, this grievance was continually in evidence ;
in the innumerable disturbances of the succeeding century
which gradually revolutionized society, the substitution of
a money economy^for ^rvice or exchange in kind played
a great part. An3,^cIosely bounf up with this far-reaching
change, another element, which was its peculiar product,
began to take a still greater share in the affairs of Europe.

This was the development of finance. The phenomenon Fiaance
was not new, for by the beginning of the fifteenth cerSui^
\ Italy had already laid the foundations of her fortune in
trade. Apart from the commerce which her position brought,
the Crusades had vastly stimulated her development. Her
merchant vessels were used as transports; she sold supplies,
financed adventurers, and from the increased ;Connection
between East and West drew fresh profits, till she had
become not merely the mistress of Mediterranean trade, but
a great reservoir of capital. Her merchants became financiers,
and, like the Bardi and Peruzzi of Florence, loaned money
to princes as widely separated as the kings of England and
Sicily. As the years went on, they became rulers in fact,
even in name. Such, to take one instance of many, was
the history of the Medici.

Building on this, by the natural development of credit Banking
and capital, there arose a system of banking in the chief
cities of the peninsula. First came the mere bank of deposit,
thence emerged the function of loaning money. And, as
the prejudice against interest or usury gave way before the
insistent demands of business and politics, that branch of
economic activity passed from the hands of Jews, who had
monopolized its profits as long as the church had frowned
upon the practice. Money was recognized as a commodity.

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262 THE EXPANSION OF EUBOPE

like wood or steel, and it became legitimate to make a profit
on its use.

Thence, following the practice of the Florentines who
made that city the financial center of Europe for so many
years, Venice and Qenoa established banks, backed by their
merchants, which became virtually the masters of the state;
and these became the prototypes for all Europe. With the
advance of capital to the north this same development fol-
lowed in due course, now vastly reinforced by Spain's bullion.
The store of precious metals grew by leaps and bounds, the
scale of operations correspondingly increased, and, as the
sixteenth century advanced, the northern merchants, like
their predecessors of the south, became, if not territorial
rulers, at least no inconsiderable factors in public affairs.
The Nothing can better illustrate this process than the rise of

Puggers ^ ijj^ great German f amjljr^f Fugger, which, by the middle
,^ of the sixteenth century, personified the triumph of capital
y in the northern states. Its founder, a weaver near Augsburg,

left at his death in 1409 a fortune considerable for those
da3n3 of some three thousand gulden. His son, in turn, in-
creased that sum, moved to Augsburg, and there became the
head of the guild of weavers. Of his three sons one con-
tinued the family business with eminent success, one made
another fortune in the mines of the Tyrol, loaned the Arch-
duke of Austria no less than 150,000 fiorins, and built a
splendid castle, the Fuggerau. All three married ladies of
noble family and were themselves ennobled by the Emperor,
Maximilian, to whom they loaned no less than a quarter
of a million fiorins. By the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury two representatives remained in the business, which,
following the great discoveries, had spread to the remotest
comers of the European world. They financed Charles V's
campaign against the Lutherans and EiT cnisade'^agidlist
Algiers; they became bankers to the Fope; they even under-
took the ** farming,'' or contract for the sale of. indulgences
in (Jermany.

They were raised to the dignity of counts; and when the
younger died in 1560 his estate was reckoned at edx million

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 263

gold crowns, besides vast properties in Europe, Asia, and
America. Nor were they mere getters of money. Their
philanthropy and their patronage of art were equally re-
markable; and, like the Medici, they contributed no less to
the progress of politics and society than to the economic
development of the European world. And it was of them
that Charles V spoke when, on being shown the royal treasure
of France, he observed that he had among his subjects a
weaver of Augsburg whose wealth surpassed that of the
f^nch monarch.

The Fuggers were but the greatest of a great class then Public
spreading northward through the continent. They still were ^'"^
merchant-bankers /^ot until the years preceding the Armada
was the first public bank, within our meaning of the word,
founded at Venice.) But the great change was on its way.
Twenty years later Amsterdam took up the principle, and
though for a century more the private merchant-banker or
goldsmith remained the chief financial power of Europe,
the principle was established. As he contributed to the am-
bitions of the absolute princes, his monopoly was early at-
tacked by lower classes who attributed to him that rise in
prices and that tendency of wealth to concentrate in a few
hands, which was only in part due to the shrewdness of these
men who took advantage of a general movement of which
they were themselves a product. The age of barter and
exchange-Jwas^^gi^dng way to that pr~inoney 'as rapidly Ss
Europe obtained sufiicient specie to effect lEe change. And
as the old system tended to disappear, the whole fabric of
society, unconscious and largely ignorant of the causes which
lay behind the phenomena affecting its existence, found every
fiber of that existence modified by the economic revolution
thus produced.

With the development of capitalism was closely bound up industry
a profound change in the system of industry. The guilds
which had overspread the greater part of western Europe
by the thirteenth century had jjradually^decUngijtfiter-that
period of ascendancy. The organizations of masters tended
to become more or less hereditary andTiiore exclusive. The

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264 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

^gnm^ymfiTi. whose ambitions to become masters were thus
limited, organized^ their own associations more closely, and
as the fifteenth century went on came, more and more into
conflict with the masters-. It was, indeed, long before eitli:er
form of organization gave way entirely before new sjnstems,
but, as the older guilds had reached their climax in
the thirteenth, so the journeymen attained their highest
development in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Thereafter, however each maintained its existence in
some form^ each declined in numbers and influence till
they no longer played any considerable part in European
industry.
Capitalism Their functions were gradually absorbed by the new form
fndustry ofjITQ^^IIg^^^*^. ^"^. /JjptTihi^tJPgjyganJzation which had risen
to prominence in the preceding hundred years, and by the
middle of the sixteenth century was coming to dominate
manufacturing, — ^the so-called domestic or puttinfg-ont ,sy8-
tem. /The arrangement which divided and specialized the
processes of making and selling goods was in line with the
tendencies in the intellectual fields?^ Whatever its defects, it
became apparent that a plan which provided a middleman,
skilled in buying raw material, finding markets, employing
labor, and furnishing capital, while leaving the actual pro-
duction to those equally skilled in their crafts, was superior
to the old-fashioned guild-master who was at once an artisan
and a man of business. The guild system, however well
adapted to an age when the source of supply, and, in par-
ticular, the market was relatively limited, came to be more
and more out of place with the widening area and greater
scope of operations. The growth of capital, like the increas-
ing demand for goods, necessitated such a transformation.
Save in certain trades like glass-making and iron-working,
which were restricted by problems of supply of raw materials
and a more intensive process of manufacture, this develop-
ment, moreover, contributed to the solution of that greater
density of population, which, with the growth of cities whose
area was constricted by their walls, was becoming a matter
of some concern.

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Jacob Fuooeb, "the Rich."
After the painting by Dttrer.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 265

For under the new organization the promoter or employer
was able to put out the process of manufacture over a con-
siderable area, and was not, like the old guild master, con-
fined to production under one roof. Moreover, he was better
able, by his supply of capital, to buy and sell to better
advantage by taking advantage of the market to accumulate
a larger stock. Finally, the new system became a powerful
infljiftn^fl toward, that indiviHuaiism which' marked the prog-
ress from the relai^vely greater communal principles that
cl^aracterized the "li^fllA Ages. It diiFerentiated more sharply
capital_frQ2DJiabor, it tended to degtcoy the p^ja^nnal hand
between empl^perLjei^d jemgloy^^ master and apprentice, and
to substitute for it the iTnpprHnni^l rftlatigp^llir which has

become the Tnarlr nf TTir^Hpm inHnafrifi^iaTn ThcSC rCSUItS

were not yet accomplished; and not until the rise of
the factory system were they fully in evidence. But by
the middle of the sixteenth century they had begun to
show themselves in something of the form which later
generations were to develop. And, by laying stress upon
process rather than finished product, they began to create
classes of specialists in various branches of labor, which, again,
was to become one of the dominating features of modem
industry.

It was inevitable that as capitalism made its way into Capitalism
European life it should profoundly influence every depart- !^^g®
ment of society. Though few or none of the greater Euro-
pean states followed the example of Florence and sanctioned
the accession of a merchant prince to the headship of public
affairs, there was not one in which the emergence of a capital-
istic element did not affect both public and private policy.
The most immediate effect of the financial revolution was
naturally felt in those quarters whose older organization
was most directly concerned with the developments in the
field of industry — ^the guilds. They were essentially pro-
vincial in their character, bound, for the most part, to the
localities in which they were situated, and connected with
the outside world by traveling merchants who made their
way from town to town, and fair to fair. It was apparent

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266 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

from the first that a syBteia like that of capit^iatic^^ter-
prises,! bound to no one locality and to no single line of
industrj^ had an advantage over the guilds, with their limited
output and still more limited facilities for marketing their
productsA Thus it was not long before these old organizations
were f oro6d to alter their status or retire from competition.
In the main they adopted one of two alternatives. They
became capitalistic, and were transformed into a species of
corporation, composed in many instances of those same men
who had turned from the old order to the new — or they
remained merely local industries, subordinated to the greater
currents of commerce. Little by little they tended to disap-
pear, and, save as curious survivals of the past, another
century found in active existence few of those extraordinary
organisms which had dominated the industrial life of the
middle ages.
Caoitalism Still more remarkable was the influence of capital upon
and labor ^j^^ agricultural laborer, and its pervasive power combined
with other elements to begin a revolution in the social as well
as the economic status of those districts into which it made
its way. In the main Europe was still organized, during the
fifteenth century, on feudal lines, but to this there were
striking exceptions. The Black Death and the Peasants'
Revolt in England toward the close of the fourteenth century
had dealt a serious blow to serfdom, and in many parts of
the continent an altering standard of life or more enlight-
ened interest had begun to weaken the hold of lords upon
their tenants. To this the development of cities contributed,
for the guilds, scarcely less than the church, had offered a
means of escape from serfdom to the more enterprising or
more fortunate peasant who found refuge within their lib-
erties, /with the progress of commerce, and especially of
manufaeturing, the cities grew, and with them the oppor-
and the tunities for free labor developed. I The demand for workers
*^"^* produced a supply drawn fromnnany sources, and by the

middle of the sixteenth century the town-dwelling laboring
population had increased considerably. At the same time the
gradual substitution of payment in money rather than kind

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 267

or service tended to loosen the bond between landlord and
tenant, as the decline of the feudal principle, with the devel-
opment of the power of the king, tended to the same end.
I mius, while the age of capital had as its first result the
pK^ greater oppression of the peasant classes through the in-
creased demands of their superiors for greater revenue, it
gradually relieved more and more individuals from the feudal
yoke.J

If^e rise of the house of Fugger typifies the altering Antwerp
status of the individual, the almost concurrent development
of the city of -^ntwerp illustrates the changing conditions
of commerce, and, in soime degree, of the Bfe of ^lurope during
tnese momentous years. However favorably situated for the
foundation of fortunes central Germany had been during
the fifteenth century, it had one great disadvantage as the
sixteenth century came on. The decline of the Italian ports
and the rise of Spain and Portugal seriously injured those
old lines of commerce which had flowed across the Alps and
down the Rhine. If those fortunes should live, stiU more
if they were to increase, access to the sea was a necessity.
In consequence, German capital sought a new outlet for its
investments. Led apparently by the Augsburg merchant-
bankers, the Germans followed the Venetians to Antwerp.
There in the last quarter of the fifteenth century the Fuggers
and Welsers and their fellows prepared to share the com-
merce of the world. The city authorities welcomed them,
bought out the toll-rights of the landowners along the
Scheldt, threw open their trading privileges to men of all
nations, and made^ntwerp at once a freg^^gfi^t and a per-
petual fairAMore than this, it became, as a natural resulC"
of Its coi^erce and policy, not only the chief.jce)iter of the
trade between Lisbon and the northern ports, but the great
^-jxMOiey market for the northern continent. For its more
liberal policy soon gave it pre-eminence over those neighbors
which, like Bruges, had earlier divided the prosperity of
the Netherlands. Thence the principles of trade which made
its fortune tended to be transmitted to other communities,
to the Dutch Netherlands, where Amsterdam rose gradually

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268

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Capitalism,
classes,
and na-
tionality

Capitalism
ana the
extra-
European
world

to almost equal eminence, to England, and to the greater
cities of France.

Now that capital had proved itself fluid, it produced two
series of phenomena of great importance to Europe at home
and beyond the sea. One was the development of classes
of laborers and employers, no longer bound by the old ties
of guild and local authority. ^JEhis reacted in politics, f^ it
became increasingly apparent to rulers that it was neceroary
to take into account the interests of every element of society
if the state was to flourish. And, as the Italian city-states
had long since begun that process of encouraging different
industries within the same area and interdependent one upon
the other, as some cities had even gone so far as to control
the food supply in the interests of the community, so now
the national kingships made the beginnings of organizing
their dominions to the same end. By this extension of city
economy to national economy they emphasized that spirit of
common interest which operated powerfully to bring and hold
the nations together, and so added another source of strength
to the nationalizing tendency. As in religion, they substi-
tuted a unity in diversity for the communal unity of the
middle ages.

The influence of capital was not confined to the continent,
nor to that class which now began to challenge the long
domination of the landed interest. It sought investments
not only in Europe itself, but in the most distant lands to
which her adventurous sons had carried her influence. It
had long since begun to finance voyages to the East and West.
In America the investments of the Fuggers and Welsers were
considerable, and to the latter house was even granted a
certain sovereignty in the region about Coro. Mines and
plantations, no less than voyages, enlisted the interest of the
capitalists, as they began to demonstrate the possibility of
profit, and another generation was to see that interest increase
to the point where capital rather than adventure took the
main part in the development of lands beyond the sea. In
the meantime, that region had begun to react in many other
ways upon old world society.

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 269
It was now fifty years since Columbus had found the trans- Europe

and the

extra-

atlantic passage and the lands that lay beyond, and a quarter
of a century since Luther had defied the Pope. The genera- Eurwiean
tion which had seen a new world revealed to them was gone : '^^^
the generation which had seen the old ecclesiasticism thus
challenged was passing. Asia, Africa, America, the Atlantic
and the Pacific were no longer marvelous; like the doctrines
of Protestantism they were now a part of European knowl-
edge and experience. Europe had outgrown the Mediter-
ranean and the coasting stage of her career and entered on
the oceanic age; as she had begun to abandon the age of
unity for that of diversity of faith. As yet only the nations
bordering on the Atlantic had sought the New World, and
only two of them had achieved material results. As yet
only parts of the northern peoples had been affected by
Protestantism, and its doctrines had not made way outside
the continent. But the balance of European thought and
power had already begun to shift as Europe's horizon widened
with the changing political, economic, and intellectual influ-
ences then busily at work, till every nation felt something
of the colonial impulse, as every nation had been touched
by the reforming movements in and out of the church. Por-
tugal and Spain had done more than conquer and grow rich,
they had altered the face of the world and the balance of
its affairs. The reformers had done more than establish
communions in opposition to the old establishment; they had
powerfully reinforced the movement which led to the emanci-
pation of the intellect from authority; and they had stimu-
lated to an extraordinary degree that form of individualism
which was so characteristic of the new age of commerce and
capital.

What, then, was the status and influence of the wider field Spain and
on which Europe, under these new impulses at home, was Portugal
about to play a greater part than had thus far been vouch-
safed her in the world's affairs? The expansion of Portugial
and Spain had not been, indeed, the transfer of their own
social structure to their new domains, but rather the ex-
ploitation of those territories by a ruling caste. For this

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270 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

there were two reasons: the first was royal inflnence, the
second, national conditions. From the beginning both states
had looked askance at unrestricted emigration as at unre-
stricted trade; for each the royal permission was requisite,
and it was not easy to obtain. At the same time, few of
the causes which produce an exodus — excess of population,
decline of home resources, religious or political persecution —
had much affected Spain or Portugal. Their population was
not dense, no economic crisis drove them out, and persecuted
classes were forbidden to emigrate. There was, in conse-
quence, no unimpeded current from all orders of society
flowing out, and the earliest communities formed by the
Europeans in other lands were widely different from those
they knew at home.
Character Their motives, in fact, lay rather in the realms of adven-
expa^ion *^^^ ^^^ religion, royal and national and personal ambitions,
and were chiefly a product of the upper class. It was an
age of war; and soldiers, not merchants, had led the way
to East and West. It was an age of faith ; and, from Henry
the Navigator to Pizarro, the crusading spirit was in evidence.
It was an age of national kingship; and every conqueror
struck for the profit of his sovereign as for his own. It was
pre-eminently an age of royalty, nobility, clergy, and it was
those elements which chiefly won and enjoyed the new inheri-
tance. In trading, as in planting colonies, ofiKcials, soldiers,
landlords, and even merchants were recruited from the upper
classes. There was no peasantry, only slaves or serfs or
tribute-yielding communities. And in one respect European
civilization was set back centuries; for slavery, which
had all but disappeared upon the continent, was revived
in certain quarters there, and generally throughout the
colonies, to an extent scarcely experienced since the fall of
Bome.

Moreover, there was little of that slow conquest of the soil
and expulsion of the inhabitants which marks the advance
of a freehold society, multiplying as it goes from its own
land or loins, till it has replaced the original population
with its own homogeneous race of every rank of life. Emi-

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 271

nently fitted for conquest, the conquerors were ill adapted
to build up such a society. They knew and cared for little
beyond their own fortunes: they were a handful among the
conquered. For purposes of protection, society, or trade, in
consequence, they concentrated in the towns they found or
founded. Having won empires by a daring stroke, they held
them by a chain of garrisons. With them authority came
wholly from above ; the bureaucracy was supreme ; and, save
in a few places, they laid no foundations for enduring
supremacy. Their language, faith, and institutions spread,
but no full-blooded powerful Spanish or Portuguese race,
like that of the English in later times, was established beyond
the sea. Perhaps this would have been impossible. Their
empires were largely tropical; the lands best fitted for a
temperate agricultural society were long ignored in their
pursuit of sudden wealth. And while experience has gone
to prove that European power in such latitudes must finally
depend upon such forces as they used, it has revealed, as well,
the instability of such power as theirs, once the controlling
hand is weakened or removed.

Great as were the resemblances between their empires, the Their
contrasts have seemed, to most men, greater still, since Spain's differences
power rested on territory, Portugal's on trade. The differ-
ences, it has been assumed, lay largely in the peoples and
conditions that each met, since Asia's teeming millions af-
forded as little space for colonies as the more slightly peopled
regions of America afforded trade. Yet in this earlier period
there was need of a world of men for Spanish no less than
Portuguese ambitions. With slight exceptions, the Span-
iards took small account of sparsely settled lands; what
Calicut and Diu were to their rivals, Mexico and Peru were
to them, and their energies were spent far less on the culti-
vation of the soil than on the exploitation of its peoples and
its wealth. The real difference lay deeper. Had Portugal
been possessed of greater power she might have taken part
in Indian politics, invaded the interior, and perhaps antici-
pated by two centuries the European occupation of the
peninsula. Had Spain not been distracted by foreign wars,

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/

272 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

had she been filled with men eager to find homes in the new
world, she might have occupied those lands best fitted for
European settlement and set up New Spain in North America.
But the genius of Portugal lay toward the sea, SpaiA's was
all landward ; and both were filled with the spirit of chivalry
rather than that of commerce or colonization. In widely dif-
ferent fields this rivalry worked out to widely different ends,
by not dissimilar means, each in its own environment, and each
determined largely by conditions at home no less than those
it found abroad.

Their What, then, was their effect on the non-European world!

^^non- '^^^ answer is significant, not alone for this but for all
European periods. Even had Portugal become the ruling territorial
^ power in the East, it is not probable she could have imposed

her faith and civilization on its peoples to the extent Spain
infiuenced the new world. That she so failed was due to
no superior tenderness on her part; for it is probable that
the losses she inflicted on the East were quite as great as
those Spain visited on America, and, if Europeanizing be
regarded as desirable, to far less purpose. But her com-
parative weakness, coupled with indifference to all but ma-
terial ends, made small impression on the huge weight of
Oriental forces against her, and to them she brought little
or nothing. On the other hand, if Spaniards conquered and
oppressed America, they made a great return. Teeming with
life, the West was curiously lacking in domestic animals,
its range of fruits and vegetables was narrow ; and, from the
first, Spanish administration and individuals labored to
remedy these deficiencies. Horses and cattle, donkeys, swine,
sheep, and poultry were introduced, with garden vegetables,
lemons and oranges, vines, olives, silkworms and mulberries,
flax and grains. As time went on the conquerors brought^
besides, the products of Asia, sugar, coffee, indigo. The use
of iron, gunpowder, the improvement of industrial and
mechanical arts, the infinite devices of a more highly civilized
society, all these increased the material bases of life in the
New World. And more: the intellectual achievements of
European society, however distorted by the medium through

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SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL EUROPE 273

which they were introduced, however slowly penetrating the
masses, were destined to bring some recompense to the West
for the spoliation and suffering which it endured. The effect
on population was no less marked. For, like the Portuguese
and over far wider areas, the Spanish intermarried with the
natives, till, within a century, there had arisen what was
virtually a new race between the relatively few of pure Euro-
pean blood and the masses of natives. These mestizos, so-
called, thus added another element, and one of importance, to
swell the results of Spanish conquest.

On the other hand, America, apart from gold, silver, and The effect
precious stones, cotton, tobacco, cocoa, and, later, drugs like J[^ j^^"
quinine, contributed little to her conquerors. Her staple, America
Indian com or maize, like her chief fruit, bananas, took no oi^ Europe
hold on European palates. Not for centuries was her cotton
much used; and cocoa, with tobacco, and presently the po-
tato, long remained her only considerable contributions to
old world resources. Asia's additions, on the contrary,
were almost incalculable. With its spices, drugs, cottons,
silks, gold, ivory, rare woods, jewels and handiwork, pig-
ments of all sorts, coffee and tea, new forms of* animal
life, horses, poultry, and new plants, it contributed to the
material no less than the intellectual advance of European
civilization.

In politics the effect was not dissimilar. America, with ■
all its suffering under Spanish rule, found greater peace
than when subject to constant wars between the native tribes ;
and, however slight the change in oppression under new
masters, in general a more regular government set the people
on the path to higher levels. On the other hand, Portugal
was rather Orientalized than her possessions Europeanized,
in morals, if not in forms of government. Thus each brought
from the older or more stable civilization to the newer the
greater contributions. At the same time each became the
means by which Europe drew to itself the resources of other
continents. She became at once a repository and a clearing-
house of products and ideas from the entire world, and this
result, which was then impossible to men of other lands, gave

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274 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

her an impetus and a supremacy which she has since main-
tained. Thus, as the mid-sixteenth century approached, her
people found wide fields for further enterprise and unpar-
alleled resources on which to draw, as, from their complex
activity emerged the earliest phases of a modem world

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CHAPTER XI

THE AGE OP THE COUNCIL OP TRENT. 1542-1563

When, in that momentous pause which followed Luther's The result
refusal to recant his doctrines before the Diet of Worms, ^^^^^
Germany stood half astounded, half triumphant, at his
temerity; while the Papal nuncio drew up an edict against 1591
the daring heretic; the Emperor's secretary, Valdez, wrote
prophetically: '*Here you have, as some imagine, the end of
this tragedy, but I am persuaded it is not the end but the
beginning of it. . . . This evil might have been cured . . .
had not the Pope refused a general council. . . . But while
he insists that Luther shall be condemned and burned, I
see the whole Christian republic hurried to destruction unless
God hjmself help us." Whatever the relative responsibility
of Pope and Emperor for that repressive policy, the history
of the two decades which ensued had been a full confirma-
tion of Valdez' prophecy. In that brief period the revolt
against Papal authority had overspread the greater part of
Teutonic Europe, and threatened to invade those chief
strongholds of the faith, the Romance nations. Western
Christendom was now divided against itself, and it was
evident that only drastic measures would enable the Papacy
to retain even the power that remained to it. It was no
less evident that its old weapons had been blunted, that
condemnation and the stake were no longer efficacious; that
excommunication, interdict, and anathema had lost their
force. Single-handed, the Pope was no match for the heretics ;
and, however reluctantly, the church was summoned to his

SummonB
Twenty-one years, almost to a day, after Valdez penned to the

his famous prophecy, therefore, Paul III, fearing the Em- ^^ ^SJ^^

peror might anticipate him in calling a meeting of ecdes^- 1648

275

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276 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

astical authorities, issued a summons for a general council
to meet at Trent in the Tyrol. It was an epoch-making
period. Spain and Portugal had just attained their widest
limits; the former was issuing her great colonial code, the
latter was sponsoring the advent of the Jesuits into the
extra-European world. On the continent, Charles V had
lost Hungary and failed in his crusade against Algiers, and
was now entering upon his fifth war against Francis I, while
in his German dominions his Protestant subjects were organ-
izing that so-called League of Schmalkald which was pres-
ently to play a great part in Reformation history. In Eng-
land Henry VIII had just beheaded his fifth wife and was
entering upon that conflict with Scotland which ended in
the death of the Scotch king and the accession of his daughter
Mary, Queen of Scots. More important still to the develop-
ment of Europe than royal wars or marriage or divorce, in
distant Poland, Copernicus was seeing through the press his
work on the revolution of celestial bodies, destined to have
an influence upon theology even more profound than the
great assembly now about to meet.
Its The Council of Trent, none the less, remains a landmark

purpose jjj ^Y^Q ecclesiastical development of Europe, not merely for
what it accomplished but for the circumstances which accom-
panied and in no small degree determined its activities.
When it finally came together at the solicitation of the
Emperor, who felt the urgent need of church reform in his
dominions, it was apparent that the time had arrived for
determined action if the church was to be preserved.
Whether, as Valdez and many others believed, its earlier
meeting would have checked the disruptive forces then at
work, or turned them to the uses of the establishment, those
forces had now gained strength which even a church council
could not well ignore. The last of such assemblies to which
all western Europe was summoned, it was the closing chapter
of an old regime, for the Council of Trent faced a revolt
which compelled it to review the whole fabric of the Chris-
tian church. Its history, thus powerfully influenced by the
political events which accompanied its long and chequered

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 277

career, illlustrates with peculiar force the complex period in
which it fell.

The first summons to the council was issued in 1542, but Its first
its first meeting was not held for three years thereafter; and ™^®*™«
to that there came only some forty ecclesiastics, chiefly Span-
iards and Italians. In consequence the Protestants refused 1545
to recognize it as a real ecumenical council. Nor was this
all. The Emperor's chief object in urging a council was the
consideration ofreforiris witHn the church itself; but to
its members Jthe most important problem seemed the chal-
lenge of Lutheran and Calvinist; and in consequence they
proceeded to debate not abuses and conciliation but dogma.
Thus early was statesmanship subordinated to theology.

In no small degree the first meeting was typical of the its history
whole council. The political as well as the religious situation
of German affairs compelled an adjournment to Bologna.
The Protestants sent delegates. But another turn in the
imperial fortunes again transferred the council to Trent; 1547
and, after numerous sessions at intervals during some eight-
een years and the final secession of the Protestants, the as-
sembly wad dissolved. The net result was what might have i56S
been expected under the circumstances. The chief strength
of the members was spent on issues of theology, and the
Papal contention prevailed. Discussion on revelation was
followed by fierce debate upon the great and decisive ques-
tion of justification ; and in this the tendency was to uphold
without reserve the Roman doctrine, to put it broadly, of
justification by works, progressive and dependent on the
^craments, as against the Protestant dogma of justification
by faith.

To this, in the course of the two decades which elapsed its work
between the first summons and the dissolution of the council,
were added other and no less important elements. The first
was the full recognition of the Society of Jesus. The second
was the revival and extension of the Holy Office or Inquisi-
tion, whose supreme tribunal was established at Rome, and
whose agents or inquisitors were appointed to search out
and extirpate heresy in every land, "above all toward Cal-

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278

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

vinists/' The third was the establishment of a catalogue
of books, which the faithful were forbidden to read, the
Index Expurgatorius, which carried the principles and prac-
tices of the Inquisition into the field of letters. Besides
these still, the council reinforced the efforts of the Papacy,
to strengthen the position of the church in other particulars.
The doctrines of purgatory, of the sacraments, the invocation
of the saints, and of indulgences were reaffirmed with new
strength and precision. Doubtful interpretations were re-
placed with definite dogma; and uniformity of faith and
practice established to a degree hitherto unknown. And
though nothing was done to affect the position or the pre-
rogatives of the Pope or the cardinals, which, in no small

C1550

degree, had been the occasion of the chief discontent with
the establishment, strict measures were taken to strengthen
the bishops' authority, to enforce a more rigid discipline
upon the lesser clergy, and to check the abuse of so-called
pluralities. At the same time, largely under Jesuit influence,
the church embarked upon a far-reaching scheme of clerical
education. It was decreed that in each diocese there should
be established a seminary or college for the training of those

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 279

entering the service of the church; and for the general
enforcement of this policy there was provided for the first
time an adequate supply of men properly equipped for
ecclesiastical office. This served many purposes. It removed
the reproach of illiteracy, long leveled against the lower
clergy in particular. It did much to sharpen the distinction
between clergy and laity and improved the efficiency, the
discipline, and the esprit de corps of the ecclesiastical body.
And, supplemented by the rigid enforcement of celibacy,
which further differentiated churchmen from laymen, it be-
came at once the most practical result of the council and
the step which most separated the church from the forces
making for modernism. Stronger, if narrower, ''the Catholic
Church of the West was transformed into the Church of
Rome," and the Counter-Reformation, as it came to be called,
formally took its place in European affairs in opposition to
the Protestant Revolt. And the authority of the Papacy,
immensely strengthened by its success in turning the council
to its own advantage, finally attained that almost absolute
supremacy in the Roman church which it has never lost.

Thus the church, through the council, defied changes from Its result
without; and though accepting many of the newer agencies
developed within its own ranks, she made compromise with
the Protestants impossible. Thenceforth there were but two
alternatives for the adherents of the new communions, to
surrender or to fight. That choice to all intents had been
made even before the council had finished its long delibera-
tions, since, apart from their own stand, concrete events
outside the shadowy realm of speculation over free-will and
predestination, faith and works, and the intent of Ood toward
man, had gone far to determine the future of fact and theory
alike. For, in that interval, religion had become a main
concern of politics.

That circumstance, which was an inevitable outgrowth of Thereli-
the developments of the time, marks the beginning of a great f Jj^Jj^*"
epoch of European history, the era of religious wars, which extension
was to endure for a full century. Between Luther's defiance Juthoritv
of the Papacy and the meeting of the Council of Trent,

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280 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

nearly a generation had elapsed. Daring that period the con-
tinent had been rent by international rivalry and theological
dispute as never before in its history. But thus far those
destructive forces had not been fully combined, partly be-
cause the greater rulers were still nominally Catholic, partly
because of danger from the Turk, and, perhaps more largely,
because the Vatican still claimed the sole right to determine
ecclesiastical questions, and the balance as yet hung unde-
termined among Conservative, reformer, and revolutionist.
But while the council debated, two developments in the
world of politics altered the whole situation. The one was
the encroachment of rulers upon the field of church affairs,
the other was the progress of those forces of political and
social readjustment which found expression in the oncoming
race of sovereigns.
The For Protestantism in its narrower sense was not the only

of cwu" *^® ^^ ^^^ ^'^ order thus marshaling its forces to the fight,
authority The controversies of the preceding decades had already
brought another element into the fray. This was the transfer
of men's allegiance from clerical to civil authority. Beside
the Papal assertion of divine origin for its supremacy had
appeared the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Against
the priestly claim to be the keepers of men's consciences there
had arisen a demand for personal independence in matters
spiritual. In the minds of men who held such views as these
the Pope was no longer the sole arbiter of Europe in religion,
the church no longer the sole repository of true faith. As
a natural result, kings, states, communities, and even indi-
^ viduals had begun to assume functions long held as church
prerogatives. And, as feudal and imperial power tended to
decline ; as changing economic conditions bred a middle class,
which sheltered itself against aristocratic domination beneath
the growing power of absolute kingship; as knowledge in-
creased and was diffused among the people at large; there
came a readjustment of the relations and the authority of
church and state alike. In consequence politics took form
and color from the altering spirit of the times no less than
from the actual situation of affairs; and the period which

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 281

began with the Council of Trent revealed a new temper no
less than new events.

Its most conspicuous example was to be found in England. England
There the activity of Henry VIII had not merely broken
her connection with the Papacy, undermined the economic
basis of the old church by dissolution of the monasteries,
and separated the nation from Roman control. It had .bred
a nobility of **ncw men," whose wealth was derived in large
measure from the spoils of the church, and whose position
was dependent on the favor of the crown. At the same
time it had enabled the doctrines of the reformed com-
munions, in particular those of the Calvinists, to spread with
great rapidity through the nation. And when, two years
after the council began its sessions, Henry VIII died and 1547
his son, the boy-prince Edward VI, came to the throne,
these elements almost at once gained the ascendancy. Under
the guidance of the new nobility, now, like the king, avowedly
Protestant, the final breach was made. A new church was
organized, with a new liturgy, modeled on that of Rome, but
doctrinally Protestant, and England was thus ranged on the
side of the Reformed communion at the same moment that
the Council of Trent condemned the rebellious heretics.

This was not the end of the struggle. Edward's short
reign was followed by that of his sister, Mary the Catholic, 1&6S
the wife of Charles V's son, Philip of Spain; and her acces-
sion saw the beginning of the effort to roll back the tide.
The Protestants were suppressed and persecuted; their
liturgy condemned; its author, Archbishop Cranmer, with
many others, burned at the stake; and an attempt made to
restore not merely the faith but the confiscated property
of the church to its old footing. Such forcible measures
roused bitter opposition. The "blood of the martyrs became
the seed of the church," the holders of ecclesiastical lands
were alienated; and only Mary's death saved England from
reaction or civil war.

The accession of her sister, Elizabeth, determined the con- 1^*8
flict finally in favor of the Protestants. New acts of su-
premacy and uniformity gave the Church of England the

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282 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

sanction of the Parliament; and a new liturgy, like that of
Edward, Roman in form but Protestant in doctrine, pro-
vided it with spiritual garb. The older organization revised
to fit its altered character was preserved, and, thus endowed,
the Church of England took its stand beside the Lutheran
and Calvinist creations in opposition to the Roman establish-
ment. At the same time the fiery zeal of John Knox carried
the Calvinistic doctrines from Geneva to Scotland, there to
found that branch of Protestantism known as Presbyterian.
And, despite the opposition of the adherents of the old faith
in both kingdoms, which was to be productive of long dis-
turbances, all Britain was thus added to the ranks of the
Reformed communions, though Ireland remained all but un-
touched by their influences.
France But England, though she presently became the focus of

a new international situation, was not alone in the political
and religious complexities which characterized these mid-
1547 decades of the sixteenth century. France, under Henry II,
who succeeded Francis I in the same year that Edward YI
became king of England, went far on the road to Calvinism
as the rising power of the so-called Huguenots became a factor
in her history. Like his father, Henry made war on Charles
V, but with more success; like him he came to blows with
England and Spain; and had he lived, France might have
found a better solution of her religious problem. But his
1559 untimely death, which brought to the throne in quick suc-
cession the sixteen-year-old Francis II and the still younger
Charles IX, threw affairs into the hands of their mother, the
Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medici. Under her malign
influence the nation drifted to civil war, and a disastrous
rivalry between the Catholic house of Guise and the Prot-
estant house of Bourbon, with all its bloody consequences.

Meanwhile, what John Enox called ''this monstrous regi-
ment of women'* who directed the fate of nations in this
eventful period, was increased by Margaret of Parma, ap-
pointed regent of the Netherlands, and by Mary Stuart,
Queen of Scots, the wife of Francis II of France, whose
death a year after his accession had left the French crown

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 283

in possession of the boy Charles IX. To her titles she added 1^60
a claim to the throne of England, which, joined to her
adherence to the Roman church, was destined to lead three
nations into war and bring to her the fate which makes her
one of the great tragic figures in history.

Thus, while the new communions challenged the dominance
of their older rival, by whom they were condemned, while
every northern state from France to Poland, divided against
itself upon religious lines, and the European map became
defined, in large degree, by theological boundaries, the
Franco-Hapsburg rivalry merged into a larger and a more
complex issue.

The first developments in this new conflict were found Germany
in Germany, whose aiSfairs, meanwhile, had run a spectacular
course^ To the early disturbances which had accompanied
the Lutheran revolt had succeeded the transfer of the con-
troversy to the imperial diet; and there had ensued, after ^sssa»
the Peace of Nuremberg, ten years of virtual tolerance, in
face of the perpetual danger from the Turks. That period
the reformers had improved. The rulers of Brandenburg
and ducai Saxony had been converted to their cause. A
Protestant duke had been restored in Wiirtemberg. Bruns-
wick had been conquered and added to the ranks of the
new communion ; and the Schmalkaldic League had increased
in numbers and activity. These were phenomena which the
Emperor could not witness with equanimity. And when the
Archbishop Elector of Cologne, like many of his brethren,
was reported to be considering a course like that of Albert
of Hohenzollem, which would change his faith, turn his
lands into a secular fief, and thus give the Protestants a
majority in the Electoral College itself, Charles deemed it
high time to intervene.

Scarcely had he concluded the Treaty of Crespy which The
brought to an end his fourth war with Francis I, and agreed ^^^^^
with the French king to take joint action against the 1546-
heretics, when he turned upon the German Protestants. He
won over their ablest leader, Duke Maurice of Saxony, sum-
moned Spanish and Italian troops to his aid, and fell upon

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284 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the forces of the Schmalkaldic League, which had been col-
lected to support the Protestant interest The contest was
short and decisive. The armies of the League were over-
thrown, their conunanders, the Elector of Saxony and the
Landgrave of Hesse, were made prisoners, Maurice was re-
warded with an electorate, and Charles became the master
of Germany in fact as in name.

His triumph was short-lived; for scarcely was it achieved
when his allies deserted him. At the same moment the
1647 death of Francis I brought Henry II to the French throne

and Edward VI succeeded his father in England. From
neither could the Emperor hope for aid. The Pope, fearful
of the Imperial encroachment on his prerogative of dealing
with religious questions, withdrew his support; and the
Council of Trent, to which Charles looked for assistance in
reforming the recognized abuses of the establishment, was
absorbed in the denunciation of heretics. More important
still, the Emperor's course in Oermany itself alienated his
adherents. For though he separated the Netherlands from
the Empire, he settled its succession in the house of Haps-
burg; and while he kept the Protestant princes in prison he
attempted to force the Diet into a course which would have
made him the military dictator of all Germany. Most im-
portant of all, Maurice felt his position threatened by the
imperial policy, and this determined the event. The Saxon
ruler secretly changed sides, allied himself with France,
gathered forces, and marched against the unsuspecting Em-
peror, who was compelled to flee. The captive princes were
freed; Charles was forced to withdraw his Spanish troops
1659 from Germany and grant tolerance by the Peace of Passau.

The Peace The ultimate result of this romantic feat of arms was as
bur^"^" striking as the exploit itself. For by the great Peace of
1666 Augsburg which ensued, each German prince was empowered

to decide for himself and for his subjects which of the
communions should be adopted in his dominions. Such was
the principle of cujus regio, ejus religio under which the
Empire enjoyed two generations of uneasy religious peace.
Thus from the situation so evoked in Britain, France, and

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 285

Germany three main features emerged. The one was the
perpetuation of the reformed communions; the second was
the existence in every state of a party at odds with its
government upon political and religious grounds; the third
was the alignment of European states in two opposing camps.
From these three elements proceeded the next dtage of Euro-
pean politics.

It was characterized by new and bloody wars. France, Ranewal
attacked by England and Spain at once, became a land S^^war
debatable among Guise, Bourbon, and Valois, contending for
tiie throne; and between Calvinist and Catholic striving for
religious supremacy. The old Anglo-Scottish quarrel was
now embittered no less by the conflicting claims of rival
queens than by the fierce antagonism of hostile confessions
which involved not merely the British Isles, but all western
Europe in their struggles, and in no long time carried their
contentions to the most distant quarters of the earth. From
such increasing turmoil of church and state the Emperor,
Charles V, withdrew in the year following the Peace of 1556
Augsburg. Weary of power, he conferred his (German lands
upon his brother Ferdinand; Spain with her colonies, the
Netherlands, Milan, and Sicily upon his son, Philip II; and
retired to monastic life. ,

With the passing of that great figure from the stage a
new era began, and if Charles sought peace, the event soon
justified his choice. Scarcely was the new Emperor crowned
king of Hungary and Bohemia when he was called upon to
fight the Turks who held the greater part of his Hungarian
inheritance. Scarcely was the new king of Spain upon his
throne when, with the aid of his English wife, he entered
on a disastrous war with France. From that conflict France
emerged with the buttress-bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and
Verdun, and the last English foothold on the continent,
Calais, as prizes of her victory, confirmed to her by the Treaty
of Cateau Cambr6sis. Hard upon this success, religious 1559
toleration was granted to the Huguenots, but to no avail, and
France plunged into the first of those civil-religious wars
which took the place of the long conflict with the Empire.

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1680

ReBults of
the period

Europe
beyond
the sea
1643-63

There the house of Hapsbnrg busied itself in consolidating
its authority, while the Turks completed the reduction of
the sea-power of the Italian states in the naval battle of
Djerbe, and so became the virtual masters of the eastern
Mediterranean.

Thus ended those eventful twenty years in which religion
and politics were joined in an unholy union. Protestantism
was now firmly established among the northern peoples.
Thenceforth for a century the domestic concerns of nearly
every European state, as well as international affairs, were
profoundly influenced by a diversity of opinion in matters
spiritual, now identified with those concerns of war and
diplomacy which hitherto had found their motives only in
the ambitions of princes or, more rarely, in economic pressure.
With this; with the extension of French sovereignty over
Calais and the bishoprics, and the increase of the Spanish
Hapsburg power in Italy; with the secularization of ecclesi-
astical estates in Oermany; the expansion of Russia toward
the Urals and the Black Sea; and the spread of Turkish
power in the Levant, are summed up the chief permanent
results of the vexed period of Charles Y in the domain of
continental politics.

But the activities of European rulers by no means ex-
hausted the interest or importance of European history in
this eventful period. The summons to the Council of
Trent marks an epoch in the religious and political develop-
ment of Europe, and the ensuing twenty years, during which
the council sat, determines the period in which the continent
set forth on a fresh series of adventures in those realms.
Meanwhile the issue of the New Laws and the events of
the two decades following, mark an era of transition in the
history of Europe beyond the sea. It is not without
significance that the alteration of the motives and balance
of European politics should coincide with the beginning of
a new age in the colonial world. For with those changes in
Europe itself and the reorganization of Europe beyond the
sea there dawned an age in which both elements were joined
in a world polity.

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 287

It was but natural that the rulers of Europe, absorbed in
the critical events which accompanied the entry of the
Reformation issues into the field of national and international
affairs, should pay little heed to lands beyond the boundaries
of the continent. Yet the developments in those lands during
this period was of as great importance to them, and of more
importance ultimately to their peoples, than many of the
objects which engaged the attention of European statesmen
and diplomats. Nothing, indeed, could have been more for-
tunate for the colonial powers in the situation which con-
fronted them than such neglect; for each was actively en-
gaged in strengthening its hold upon the western world, and
each was in the stage when an attack might well have altered
the future of its possessions and the whole current of colonial
development. The age of exploration and conquest for Spain
and Portugal was nearing its end; the age of readjustment
and organization had begun; and, with the appearance of
the New Laws, the Spanish dependencies, in particular, en-
tered on a period of restlessness such as always characterizes
a transition from license to restriction.

No circumstance better revealed the altered status of the Mexico
colonies than the death of Hernando Cortez, which was coin-
cident with those of Henry VIII and Francis I. Not many
years earlier this would have been a determining event in
the New World's affairs; now it was no part of Spanish
colonial history, so far had the world moved since his great
exploit. He had been long resident in Spain; contracted a
great marriage; served Charles V in Africa; and, amid
alternate honor and abuse, worn out his later years endeavor-
ing to maintain the honors he had won. Meanwhile the
province he had gained and set upon the path of European
progress had for a dozen years pursued its course in widely
different hands. Under Mexico's first Viceroy, Antonio de
Mendoza, schools had been built; a printing-press, the first
outside of Europe, was set up; the ports improved; a mint
established; sheep introduced and weaving encouraged.
Above all, the harsh rule of military governors had been
replaced by milder men and measures. On this development

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288

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the New Laws had fallen like a curse. Not even Mendoza's
power nor the eloquence of Las Casas, now bishop of Chiapas,
availed against the determination of the €ncomendero9 —
among whom the religious orders were not the least violent —
to maintain their hold upon that native labor to which they
owed existence and prosperity. Within a year the New Laws
were revoked; and, defeated in his dearest hope, the Apostle
to the Indians left his diocese for Spain. There Ee penned
an indictment of his countrymen which for three centuries
and a half has condemned their colonial policy, — ^without,
however, inducing any nation to treat its conquered on a
basis of equality.

Mining Such was the first stage of extra-European development

along new lines. But even before Las Casas went a fresh
turn of fortune gave new point to his attack and new riches
to his countrymen. No sooner had the Spaniards exhausted
the Aztec plunder than they began the search for the sources
of native wealth. Mining succeeded conquest; the soldiers
turned prospectors, though for a time with but indifferent
success. But in the tenth year of Mendoza's viceroyalty,
just as the Council of Trent began its labors and the Schmal-
kaldic war broke out in (Germany, the luckiest of adven-

1545-6 turers, Juan de Tolosa, found a vein of silver at Zacatecas

in northern Mexico, whose yield was to surpass even the huge
Aztec spoil. His success gave renewed impetus to prospect-
ing, and an age of exploration ensued whose excitement
reached the height which only a mining craze can attain.
The adventurous element in New Spain, the islands, and the
mother country joined in the rush. Thousands of prospects
were begun, and though few or none met with such success
as that of Zacatecas, many rich mines were opened, old ones
reworked, till Mexico became, for the moment, the greatest
source of silver for the European world.

Themtfa Besides this tremendous increase in its value to its pos-

sessors and to Europe generally, the coincident elevation
of New Spain to archiepiscopal rank seemed all but insig-
nificant. Yet, whatever the relative importance of the two
events, a third, which resulted from the discovery of the

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 289

sources of precious metals, overshadowed the other two in
the minds of Spain's new subjects. This was the extension
of forced labor to the mines. With their development the
villages were levied on for workers more and more; and the
wealth of the province became the greatest enemy to the
welfare of its inhabitants. The mita, as this service was
known, soon became the worst of all oppressions. Beside it
the repartimiento, whence it grew, seemed almost beneficent,
for the unfortunate natives sent to the mines went out to
well-nigh certain death. Against the greed and cruelty of
the mine-owners even the government was powerless; and
when Mendoza was transferred to the vieeroyalty of Peru
he left the wealth and misery of Mexico increasing in equal
pace.

Such were the beginnings of the new era of Spanish admin- Pero
istration in North America, whose resources thus' further
increased the wealth and power of Europe. The history of
Peru was not dissimilar. With all their ills the Mexicans
were in far better case than the inhabitants of the unhappy
province to which Mendoza had been transferred, since to
the evils which beset New Spain, Peru had joined the curse
of civil war. Under its first Viceroy, Nunez de Vela, the i***-
old conquerors had raised the earliest of colonial rebellions,
as a protest against the New Laws. But de Vela's death
was soon avenged by the licentiate priest, de Oasca, despatched
to crush the rebels. Betrayed and overthrown, Gonzalo
Pizarro and his fierce lieutenant, Carbajal, were executed 1^7
and their heads hung in chains at Lima to discourage further
revolt, as the province was cowed into uneasy peace.

But tragedy was not, in European view, the most important
feature of the development of Peru. Like Mexico it was
erected into an archiepiscopal diocese, from whose seat at Lima
was organized the hierarchy of Spanish South America.
Meanwhile, its agricultural prosperity, indeed, declined amid
civil disturbances; and its enlightenment and industry suf-
fered a corresponding loss. But this was more than counter-
balanced by discoveries which, like those of New Spain, but
in still greater measure, made Peru the chief source of

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290 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

precioufi metals in the world and the most valuable possession
of Europe. To the rich mines of the Andean region, for
whose possession the conquerors had been prepared to defy
6ven the Spanish government, was added the discovery of

1645-6 silver deposits at Potosi, surpassing even the wealth of

Zacatecas. The ensuing rush of prospectors sunk, it is said,
ten thousand shafts, which poured into Spain a fresh flood
of precious metal to enrich its coffers, and still further disturb
the economic basis of Europe. And if, as in New Spain,
native oppression became more severe, as the mita was rigidly
enforced, while the Andean region felt the worst effects of
European occupation, Peru became the most coveted of
European colonies.

Spanish Meanwhile the Spanish boundaries were widely extended

^mlni ^^ conquest as well as by the mining discoveries. The ex-
peditions which still sought the fabled El Dorado about the
headwaters of the Orinoco and the Magdalena were, indeed,
unfortunate. There Orellano, the discoverer of the Amazon,
was lost; there the efforts of the Welsers to establish a post
broke down; but others finally founded a settlement at To-
cuyo, and, with the appointment of a governor, confirmed
the Spanish hold upon the Venezuelan hinterland. In widely

1535 different fields the same process went on. Far to the south

the followers of the sturdy Basque, Irala, settled the upper
Paraguay; west of them the conquerors of Chili, where Val-
paraiso was founded to secure the principal harbor of the
southern coast, proceeded to the establishment of a capital at

1541 Santiago. Thence the conquering governor, Valdivia, par-

celed out the rich central region into baronies for his fol-
lowers; and from there they fought their way southward
against the warlike Araucanians to the frontier outpost of
Concepcion. Meanwhile the mineral-bearing highlands of
Bolivia became the seat of garrison-settlements. Beside the
older post of Las Charcas, south of Lake Titicaca, was
founded La Paz, and further east, within ten years, the town

1548 of Santa Cruz became the center of Spanish power in the

easternmost Andes.
Thus, 04 every side, in the busy mid-decade of the sixteenth

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 291

century, far-reaching areas were secured by rapidly advanc-
ing Spanish adventurers whose substantial gains were adding
year by year more to the resources of the European world
than all the barren rivalries of their rulers at home. In
this pursuit they were aided by the achievements of the races
they supplanted. The remote interior which, without its
mineral wealth might have been spared the presence of Eu-
ropeans for generations, was bound to the coast settlements
by the pack-trains of llamas, along the Inca roads which led
to every part of that empire. These not merely bore prod-
ucts of the forest and the mines to the world outside. With
them came in return the men and goods of distant Europe,
whose influence thus suddenly and violently thrust on
America made it a part of Europe in its widest sense.

The activities of the Portuguese were also meanwhile en- The
gaged in extending European boundaries. While Spain was ^g^lj^***
spreading her authority on the west, the governor of Brazil,
Thome de Sousa, was engaged in building a new capital on I5i0
Bahia bay, defended by strong walls, a fort, and batteries.
Becruited by a stream of colonists drawn to the settlement on
account of its planting advantages, not the least of which
was its nearness to Africa and its supply of negro slaves,
Bahia soon rivaled SSo Paulo and Pernambuco in the sugar-
growing industry. At the same time, under the great Jesuit
missionary, Nobrega, his order made its way into the wilder-
ness, and, in defiance of the colonists, brought the natives
under its control.

But neither Portuguese nor Jesuit energies were exhausted — Xavier
by their activities in Brazil. On the other side of the world
the labors of Xavier meanwhile became the wonder of two 1543-
continents, as, like his fellows, he bore the faith of Christ
to distant lands and bound them to the fortunes of Europe.
Goa, the pearl-fishers from Comorin to Pamban, Travancore,
Ceylon, Malacca, Amboyna, and the Moluccas heard his voice ;
and five years after his arrival in Asia he set sail to carry
the new faith to Japan, there to swell the total of what the 1^59
faithful call his million converts. Perhaps no single force,
and certainly no other individual, did more to bring the out-
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292 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

side world in touch with Europe than Xavier and his order
in this eventful decade.
The While he wrought his miracles of conversion, the carnal

Md *&^a** weapons of his sponsors were no less active. Prom New
1640 Spain Lopez de Villalabos led a squadron to the Philippines,

named from the Spanish heir; and though the Portuguese
compelled him to submission, his exploit drove them, in turn,
to share Temate and Tidore with the Spanish power and
yield their claims to the Luzon archipelago. That surrender
was a symbol of their waning power. With Xavier 's aid,
Malacca was preserved from the Sultan of Achin; but only
fortunate chance and the desperate courage of its defenders
saved Diu from the Cambayan king. Meanwhile, a whole
world of enemies, east African, Arabian, and Malabar rulers,
native princes from Diu to the Moluccas, Arab traders every-
where, and finally the Turks, who from their conquest of
Egypt were drawn into the far-reaching quarrel, strove to
drive the Christians out. Not a year went by without native
attack, scarcely a year without a fleet from Goa or Lisbon
to avenge insult or loss, and innumerable incidents of hero-
ism and treachery repeated themselves in infinite variation
on the same theme along ten thousand miles of border war.
Though trade went on, though annual fleets made their way
between Lisbon and India, though her scs|ttered enemies beat
in vain against the hard shell of her empire, the nation felt
1557 the strain. Save for the foundation of a post at Macao for

the Chinese trade, they were compelled to be content with
what they had. And when, following Xavier, the Inquisition
made its way to India and the ecclesiastical period of her
colonial history began, it needed but the appearance of an-
other power in the East, able to cope with Portugal on the
sea, to rouse her persecuted subjects everywhere against her
rule.
Thede- Corruption lent its aid further to weaken her. "I dare

Portu/al °^ longer govern India,'' wrote one of her viceroys, "since
men are now so changed from honor and from truth." It
was in vain that the viceroys were given a council to aid
them and stricter laws were enacted against dishonesty;

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THE AGE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 293

salvation never comes by edicts and offices. Public and pri-
vate virtue declined until, with John Ill's death, the chron- 1657
icles declare, ''ended the good fortune of Portugal in Europe
and India." Such was the epitaph of her glory at home
and abroad. Finally to crown her failure, her short-sighted
king committed the fatal error of marrying his only son
to Charles Y's daughter. Thus he bound his country's des-
tinies with the fortunes of its most dangerous enemy; and
another generation was to see Portugal, as a result of this
ill-fated marriage, an appanage of Spain. Such was the
situation in the European world as the continent girded itself
for the impending religio-political conflict in the decades dur-
ing which the Council of Trent and the Protestants deter-
mined its future.

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CHAPTER XII

A

THE AGE OP PHILIP H AND THE RELIGIOUS
WARS. 1563-1578

Maxi-
milian II
1564-76

lfi66

Philip II

1556-98

It is one of the great ironies of history that on Charles Vs
retirement from affairs the Netherlands fell into Spanish
rather than into Austrian hands. Eight years after his abdi-
cation, the reign of Ferdinand, the heir to the great Em-
peror's German possessions, came to an end, and Maximilian
of Austria succeeded to the Imperial throne and the crowns
of Hungary and Bohemia. A mild man, inclined toward
peace and not unfriendly to the Protestants, his path was
smoothed by the death of Christendom's greatest enemy,
Suleiman the Magnificent, and the consequent cessation of
war with the Turks. Despite the fact that his reign marks
the beginning of Catholic reaction, the Peace of Augsburg
gave Germany measurable relief from the long- vexed question
of religious rivalry, and only one conflict, a war with Transyl-
vania besides some minor difSculties concerning the religious
settlement, disturbed the peace of the peace-loving Emperor.
Had such a man, under such circumstances, become the
ruler of the Netherlands, Europe might have been spared
a bloody, if glorious, chapter of her history. But such was
not the case. If the period of the Council of Trent is notable
for the joining of religion and politics in European affairs,
the two decades which followed are no less notable for the
union of the colonial and economic elements with those of
faith and national aspiration to bring about a more far-
reaching conflict than Europe had yet experienced. And if
the events of the preceding forty years had centered in the
person of Charles V, those of the generation which followed
his departure from the stage found their focus in his son,
Philip II of Spain. No less by the situation in which he

284

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 295

found himself than by his character and ambitions, he became
the pivot of affairs; and from his activities and those of his
opponents there flowed a series of events which showed how
deeply the religious issue had penetrated politics, and how
profoundly the new colonial-commercial elements were to be
reckoned with in war and diplomacy.

The Spanish king was the peculiar product of his nation Hischar-
and his age. Pious, abstemious, kind in private life, incred- *^*?' *"^
ibly industrious and strong-willed, Philip II was devoted
to despotism and the church, to Spanish ascendancy and
the faith of Rome, in a degree unknown to his shrewder
and more cosmopolitan father. Lacking the chivalrous
quality of his race, in him its crusading spirit took the form
of an attempt to stamp out heresy by whatever- means and
win back Europe to the true belief. He brought to that great
task a fierce intensity of purpose, every resource of a strong
if narrow intellect, and the whole power of his royal author-
ity. To it he subordinated every worldly interest, common
humanity, and the well-being of the lands he ruled. And
from the time when, as the husband of the English queen,
Mary the Catholic, he urged on the efforts to bring England
again under the domination of Rome, to the time when, old
and feeble, he still carried on the futile contest with her
sister, the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, in that great hopeless
struggle to roll back the wave of Protestantism, he never
faltered nor compromised.

It was inevitable that such a purpose and such a character,
backed by the support of the most powerful nation in Europe,
should breed a struggle marked, on Philip's side, by relentless
cruelty, and on«that of his opponents by the fury of despair.
And this was the more important in that the Spanish king •
undertook his enterprise at the moment when England under
Elizabeth espoused the cause of the Reformation, when his
Dutch subjects in the Netherlands embraced Calvinism, and
when France, after the death of Henry II, saw the Navarrese,
Henry of Bouybon, become the hope of the Huguenots and
a possible succQ^sor to the French throne.

Almost at once, therefore, events took form and direction

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Neth-
erlands

1559

1567

France

1558-9

from Philip's character. The bloody persecution of Moors
and Protestants in Spain by the Inquisition which marked
the outset of his reign was followed by similar activities in
the Netherlands. The withdrawal of their ancient privileges,
the introduction of a Spanish garrison, the issue of edicts
against heresy, and the threat of the Inquisition, with which
Philip signalized the beginning of his sovereignty over the
rich cities of the lower Rhine and Scheldt, roused the fierce
resentment of its Calvinistic elements. In spite of the efforts
of leaders like Egmont and Orange, the populace rose in
revolt a'gainst the Catholic rulers, sacked the churches and
broke the images. The regent, Margaret of Parma, was suc-
ceeded by the Duke of Alva, at the head of a powerful force,
to restore order. With his coming there began a reign of
terror and exactions which roused the people to frenzy, and
a dozen years after Philip's accession he faced a rebellion
of his richest provinces.

While he thus ''stirred up the hornets' nest of the Dutch
Calvinists," France had entered on a period of religious
strife such as Germany had already experienced. The prob-
lem was complicated by the issue of the succession. The
death of Henry II in the same twelvemonth that Elizabeth
assumed the English crown had brought to the throne the
first of three weak brothers, Francis II, the husband of Mary,
Queen of Scots. His death within a year left the boy-king,
Charles IX, under the infiuenee of his Italian mother, Cath-
erine de Medici, and the fourteen years of his ill-fated reign
became one of the darkest chapters in French history. Three
parties contended for supremacy. The first was that of the
crown directed by the Queen Mother, intent on upholding
the authority of the house of Valois and maintaining its suc-
cession. The second was the ambitious family of Guise, bent
on securing, if not the crown, at least the •direction of affairs.
The third was the Huguenot faction, which mingled with its
political aspirations an adherence to the Calvinistic doctrines,
so bitterly opposed by the other parties to the conflict. Bour-
bon and Guise each boasted a secondary tide to the crown.
But the house of Montmorency, headed by the Grand Con-

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 297

stable — ^who, though himself a Catholic, had three Protestant
nephews, among them the Grand Admiral Coligni, the leader
of the Hugaenots — ^while it cherished no designs upon the
throne, played a part scarcely less important in this involved
tragedy. And if there be added to these three elements that
variable group known as the PolitiqueSf with whom the
Montmorencys were at times aligned, the confusion of French
politics becomes all but hopeless. For this last faction, hating
the Italians whom the Queen Mother introduced, and equally
opposed to political Catholics and political Huguenots, re-
mained the uncertain, perhaps the determining, factor in the
French problem.

Hardly was the Treaty of Cateau Cambr^sis signed and 1659-60
France at peace with England and Spain, when the seizure
of the government by the Guises in the first days of Francis
II 's brief reign began the struggle which for a full genera-
tion inflicted on France the horrors of a combined religious
and civil war. Nine years of alternate failure and success
of the contending factions saw three conflicts broken by
uneasy peace^ At the moment that Alva set up his Council
of Blood in the Netherlands, the Treaty of Longjumeau wit- i568
nessed that the efforts of the Guises to suppress Protestan1>
ism and the States General had proved as futile as the attempts
of the Protestants to achieve full toleration, or those of the
Queen Mother to achieve the supremacy of the crown over
its rivals.

In those same years the advent of the Calvinist, John Ejiox, Scotland
and the young widow of Francis II, Mary Queen of Scots, ^^^"^^
into her kingdom transferred the controversy between the
new and old communions to that northern land. The Pres-
byterians rose in revolt against the efforts to make them con-
form. The queen's position was weakened by her ill-advised
matrimonial adventures no less than by the policy of her
advisers; and at the moment of the Peace of Longjumeau isas
and the beginning of Alva's repressive policy, she was com-
pelled to seek refuge in England. There, meanwhile, Eliza-
beth had slowly consolidated her authority. The Church of
England had been finally established, peace made with

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298 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

France, and only the king of Spain, whose suit for her hand
had been rejected, whose religious convictions were outraged
by England's conversion to Protestantism, and whose West
Indian monopoly was continually infringed by Elizabeth's
adventurous subjects, remained unreconciled to the Eliza-
bethan settlement.
The^ear Thus the year 1568 marked a great turning-point in the

^^^ world's affairs and from its events there flowed momentous

consequences. In that year the execution of the Dutch lead-
ers, Counts Egmont and Horn, embittered the quarrel be-
tween Philip II and his Low Country subjects beyond the
possibility of compromise, while an engagement between the
forces of William of Orange and those of Alva marked the
beginning of the Revolt of the Netherlands. In that year
the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots by the English
government made possible the triumph of Presbyterianism in
Scotland, while it widened the breach between Elizabeth and
the Spanish king. In that year the Peace of Longjumeau,
though it gave a breathing-space in the French civil wars,
turned the thoughts of the Queen Mother to still darker
designs whose culmination four years later made the quarrel
irreconcilable. And in that year, far beyond the scenes of
the oncoming struggle between the two communions, yet
closely connected with it, the attacks of the French Huguenot,
Dominique de Gourges, on Spanish settlements in Florida,
and of the Englishman, John Hawkins, on Vera Cruz, at
once extended the scope of the conflict and injected into it a
new and, as it proved, a determining element.
The Such was the situation which, at the dose of the seventh

amSct*" dcc^d® o* the sixteenth century, offered a fertile field for the
peculiar talents and the far-reaching ambitions of the Spanish
king, and in each of the disturbed nations his influence was
speedily made manifest. From such events, as well, there
sprang a fierce struggle which soon involved all western
Europe and in no long time spread thence throughout the
world. However its main features were obscured by masses
of detail, it was at bottom a conflict between opposing schools
of civilization rather 4;han a mere religious stru^le, or a

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r.ni. .to tiri r»Al'll^-*'

'^*^mnjtv ^4H*« fnufltti^Mi ptJtfttUi

The Brothers Coligni.

After a drawing by J. Vi8scher. Compare the costume with that of Fralis
van der Borcht, p. 398.

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 299

contest for commercial supremacy, or a bid for pre-eminence
within Europe itself.

On the one hand were arrayed the forces which repre-
sented the domination of royal, noble, and ecclesiastical au-
thority, the institutions which had made the church, the
crown, and the aristocracy supreme during the middle ages.
Those forces rested on the devolution of power from above;
made arms and diplomacy the chief concerns of government ;
and considered freedom of thought and speech, individual
initiative, and popular opinion as secondary or negligible
elements in public life. On the other side were forces best
described as individual. Among these may be grouped such
apparently dissimilar activities as commerce, invention, per-
sonal liberty of opinion in religion, popular share in govern-
ment, and an intellectual habit more or less independent of
precedent or authority. Each had the defects of the qualities
which gave it strength — the tendency of the one to harden
into formalism, of tJie other to degenerate into license; the
worship of the past, and its disparagement. Which was to
be the stronger was now to be determined ; and on the decision
hung the future of Europe, and, in some sort, that of the
world.

Thus conditioned, there had already burst forth this holy France
war, half religious, half political, full of the highest devotion
and the meanest self-seeking. In no small degree the four
years which followed the breathing-space of 1568 marked
the turning-point in that conflict, and gave it at once impetus
and direction. In France the successive defeats of the
Huguenots after the breach of the Treaty of Longjumeau and
the murder of their general, Cond6, seemed likely to prove
their ruin. But under Coligni's able leadership they rallied,
won back their liberties by the Treaty of St. Germain, and
secured the possession of four cities of refuge, chief among
them the stronghold of La Rochelle, which for half a century
was to be the citadel of their party and their faith. But
with this result neither the Queen Dowager, nor the Guises,
nor Philip II were content, and the peace only began a new
era of conspiracy. Two years later this culminated in a

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300

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Neth-
erlands

1579

Eastern
Europe
1568-

1569

1574

plan to crush the Protestants by wholesale murder, and on
the fearful eve of St. Bartholomew, in August, 1572, began
a massacre which within two days cost thirty thousand lives.
Coligni was numbered among the victims, but the young
king, Henry of Navarre, feigning conversion, escaped to
oppose the ambitions of the Guises and the antagonism of
the Catholic League through another decade of war and
intrigue which brought him finally to the throne.

Meanwhile the Netherlands had become the center of an-
other great conflict. There the resistance of the Dutch nobles
headed by William of Orange had been broken by Alva's
veteran army, the princes of Nassau, with many of their
adherents, had been driven into exile, and a reign of terror
and oppression had ensued. But four months after St.
Bartholomew there came a change. The leaders of the
irreconcilable Dutch rebels, the so-called ''Water Beggars,"
who had been engaged, with English connivance, in preying
on Spanish commerce, suddenly found England's ports
closed against them, as a result of Spain's protests, which
circumstances compelled Elizabeth to heed for the moment.
As a retort they seized the town of Brill, and presently
occupied Flushing and the adjacent ports. With this, revolt
spread like wildfire. Lewis of Nassau hurried from his refuge
among the Huguenots of La Bochelle to take possession of
Valenciennes and Mons. His brother, William of Orange,
advanced from his camp at Dillenburg with an army Jo
attack Alva, and the Revolt of the Netherlands was an ae«
complished fact.

Such were the events which ushered in another stage of
development in western Europe. They were not without their
parallels in the East, nor were they unconnected with those
distant lands. In the first year of this eventful decade the
duchy of Prussia threw off its allegiance to the kingd of
Poland and became hereditary in the house of Hohenzollem.
A twelvemonth later the Treaty of Lublin united Poland
and Lithuania, and, with the extinction of the Jagellon
dynasty, five years later, Henry of Yalois was elected king.
Meanwhile Russia experienced a fierce and, as it was to pj76ve,

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 301

a final attack from her ancient enemies, the Tartars. From
their strongholds in the Crimea the wild horsemen of the
steppes poured into Mnscovy, devastated its lands and burned
its capital, the holy city of Moscow. At almost the same
moment the Turks, summoning to their aid the fleets of
their feudatories, Alexandria and Algiers, rallied their forces
for a great effort to control the Mediterranean. Against
them Pius V formed a Holy League. Qenoa, Venice, Naples,
and the Papal States united their strength. Their fleet was
intrusted to Philip's illegitimate brother, Don John of Aus-
tria, and, at Lepanto, the Moslem sea-power was broken in i57l
one of the great decisive naval conflicts of history. Mean-
while, Moorish revolt in Spain was repressed ; and with these
reverses the Asiatic powers which had so long threatened
Europe were deprived of their capacity to injure Christen-
dom at the same time that Europeans themselves plunged
again into all but universal war.

Beside this bloody chronicle the history of England, like England
that of Germany, in this eventful period, seems almost pas- ^^^
toral. Yet the position in which she found herself was
growing difficult. The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity
which signalized Elizabeth's accession had conflrmed the
establishment of a Protestant church ; and this, despite rebel-
lions of the adherents of the old faith in England and Ireland
and the disturbances in Scotland, had maintained itself
against all opposition. But the Pope excommunicated the
English queen. Philip II — ^whose offer of marriage had been
rejected and whose efforts to support the Catholic reaction
in the British Isles had been defeated — ^had intrigued against
her power as he had interfered in the affairs of France.
Finally when Mary Queen of Scots sought refuge from her
rebellious Presbyterian subjects, and entered England as an 1568
unwilling and greatly undesired guest, she had fit once
become the focus of a series of plots, stimulated by the
Jesuits and encouraged by the Spanish power.

Among these manifold dang^rs it had been imperative that
the English queen and her advisers should walk warily until
the royal authority was firmly established and the new dis-

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policy

302 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

pensation secure. Yet it grew increasingly evident, despite
her ruler's unwillingness to enter upon European rivalries,
that England was bound to come to blows with Spain, and
that her queen was likely to be forced into the position of a
participant in continental affairs, which Henry V had in some
sort occupied and to which Henry VIII had vainly aspired.
It was scarcely less evident that this was largely because she
represented, with the Netherlands, a new and powerful force
in European polity, opposed at nearly every point to the
principles and practices which found their chief expression
in Spain.
Her char- England had been the first of the national states to throw
noifcv*"^ off feudal domination as she had been among the first to
repudiate Papal supremacy. The civil wars of the preceding
century had virtually destroyed the power of her baronage;
while the decay of the economy of the medieval period, then
of its politics, and finally of its ecclesiastical system, had
cleared the way for a social readjustment which had gone on
rapidly after the accession of Henry VII. In place of the
feudal baronage had risen a nobility, recruited from the
gentry and even from the merchant classes as nowhere else
in Europe, dependent on the crown and in turn depended on
by the sovereigns. The English Parliament, almost alone of
those representative bodies which had earlier held a place in
European polity, retained its powers and safeguarded the
popular interests. Containing, as it did, men of the counting-
house as well as of the manor, questions of trade and economy
played a part in its deliberation more conspicuous than in any
other land save among the Dutch.

These activities were by no means confined to her own
borders. An island nation, England had bred a race of
seamen. Safe from the aggressions of continental powers, she
had preserved the greater part of her popular liberties;
while at the same time the commercial element which was
chiefiy responsible for these results had extended her influ-
ence far beyond the confines of. the British Isles. And it was
certain that such a people, enrolled against the Spanish power,
would, like the Dutch rebels, carry their antagonism to the

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 303

ocean from which they had been excluded by the concerns
of pure politics until, as now, they were released by the new
factor of political antagonism, religion. Scarcely had the
Water Beggars seized the town of Brill, therefore, when
Elizabeth, driven on no less by the doings of her subjects
than by the activities of Philip's agents against her power
and her life, broke off relations with Spain, made an alliance 1573
with France, and allowed volunteer? to embark for Holland.
With this it was evident that a new chapter had opened in
the affairs of the whole European world.

Thus while from the new architectpral wonder of the The new
world, the palace of the Escorial, which Philip now began as ^"2*^*^^*"
the outward sign of Spain.'s greatness and his own, the
Spanish king strove to direct European faith and policy,
there was laid the foundations of a rivalry which was soon to
replace the older antagonisms of the continent, and, spreading
far beyond its confines, involve the fortunes of the extra-
European world. It is an illuminating commentary on the
spirit which inspired Spain and her opponents that the
Spanish king's palace had for its ground-plain the gridiron
on which St. .Lawrence met a martyr's death; while at the
same time the leading architect of the period, Palladio, and
those who followed him, like the Englishman Inigo Jones
and the French Perrault, who then dominated the taste of a
great part of the continent, turned for their models not to
the middle ages but to Greece and Rome. It was a symbol of
a fundamenal hostility of ideals, which was emphasized in
other and more directly practical fields. Chief of these was
the alteration in the emphasis on the pursuits of life. Spain
still remained largely the land of king, hidalgo and peasant,
soldier and friar. But in England and the Netherlands,
above all other European states, the soldier of fortune had
given way to the merchant adventurer; royal or noble monox>-
oly to private, municipal, or corporate enterprise; ecclesi-
astical to secular interests ; while political rivalry continually
revealed some touch of the commercial spirit, and found its
highest expression on the sea.

Especially was this true of England, which, unlike the

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304

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Netherlands, had always been an independent power. No-
where was this adventurous element more in evidence than
there ; and, whatever high reasons of state or conscience were
involved, it was not on merely religious or political grounds
that England found herself opposed to Spain. While Philip
and Elizabeth, Mary of Scotland, and Catherine de Medici
practised their arts of governance and wove their intricate
webs of diplomacy, events and individuals far outside the
bounds of formal diplomacy, as then practised, were busy
determining which way those ancient "mysteries of state"
should go. Spain was mistress of a great part of the colonial
world, and when, six years after St. Bartholomew, the young

1578-80 king of Portugal, Sebastian, was killed on a crusade against
the Arabs of northern Africa, Philip II inherited his
dominions and became the sole ruler of all European pos-
sessions beyond the confines of the continent. The strength
of the new powers which now began to challenge Spanish
supremacy lay upon the sea. It thus became inevitable that
the conflict which commenced with the assertion of Spain's
right to dominate the faith and policy of a great part of the
continent should, in no long time, be fused with the struggle
which had already begun for oceanic mastery and the trade
of the lands beyond.

Meanwhile France plunged again into the chaos of civil
war after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and was in no
small measure removed from any determining share in gen-
eral European politics. Germany remained quiescent under
the mild rule of Maximilian II, till his death brought the
astrologer-emperor Rudolf to the throne. The principal
interest of European affairs therefore shifted to the struggle
between Philip and his rebellious subjects of the Netherlands
and the oncoming antagonism between England and Spain.

Little by little the Dutch and Flemish rebels made head
against the Spanish power in the years following the Water
Beggars' exploit. Alva was succeeded by Bequesens, whose
brief administration was marked by an event only less ap-
palling and even more important to Europe's development

1576 than the French tragedy. This was the so-called Spanish

PhUip II
and his
opponents

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8

CO

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 305

Fury, an outburst of ferocity by which the rich cities of
Antwerp and Ghent, with Maestricht and lesser towns, were
sacked by the Spanish soldiery, their inhabitants outraged,
and their wealth and prosperity all but destroyed. From
this blow the Flemish Netherlands scarcely recovered in a
century. Good Catholics as they were, this was too much
for their loyalty to Philip. Thousands of them sought refuge
in the Dutch provinces; and almost at once the Flemish
Netherlands joined in the Pacification of Ghent with their
Dutch neighbors to drive the Spaniard from the land.

That circumstance, with the accession of the Prince of
Orange to the leadership of affairs, decided the issue of the
conflict. In quick succession the victor of Lepanto, Don
John of Austria, and Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma, 167S
were sent to reduce the rebellious provinces. Against the
dogged resistance of the people of the Netherlands and the
genius of William of Orange, sumamed the Silent, neither
was able to accomplish this result in its entirety. But Parma,
subduing the southern districts, partly by force, partly by
promises of restoring their older privileges, turned his arms
against the Dutch. These, now deprived of all hope of
reasonable compromise, took a momentous step. A year after
Parma's arrival, while Philip II was engaged in those nego-
tiations which made him the master of Portugal and her
colonies, they proclaimed their independence of Spain by
the Union of Utrecht. They chose "William ^f Orange heredi- 1579
tary Stadtholder, and so added anothei; «fate to the European
polity, as they had already begun a new chapter in the history
of liberty and introduced another hero to that history.

For in William of Orange the Dutch Netherlands had William
brought forth a champion worthy to set against all the power °^ Orange
of the Spanish king. Son of the Count of Nassau, heir to
the principality of Orange, his estates in Holland and
Flanders had brought him into close association with Low
Country affairs. Charles V had cemented that connection
by appointing him commander-in-chief and Stadtholder of
Holland, Utrecht, and Zeeland. From Henry II he had
learned of Philip's design of crushing Protestantism in the

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306 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Netherlands; and, though himself a Catholic, he had em-
braced Protestantism and put himself at the head of the
movement to save his adopted country from the catastrophe
which menaced its faith and liberties. His genius, backed by
the obstinate courage of the Dutch, made him the savior
of the Netherlands, and from the moment of his accession
to command to the moment of his death at the hand of an
assassin employed by the Spanish king, he remained the
principal champion of that spirit of civil and ecclesiastical
liberty on which the ambitions of the Spanish and reactionary
forces came to wreck.

Eastern In such fashion and in such hands was ushered in the

^^^ great conflict of civilizations which distinguished the last
quarter of the sixteenth century. It was not unconnected
with the development of the continent elsewhere. While
Holland and Spain thus made their quarrel irreconcilable,
eastern Europe had taken another step in its progress. The
death of Charles IX of Prance made Henry of Valois, some-
time an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of the English
queen, and more. recently the elected king of Poland, heir to
the French throne. He was not slow to take advantage of his
opportunity to exchange the undesired throne of Poland-
Lithuania for that of Prance, and his departure left the

1575 eastern kingdom to choose the heroic Stephen Bathory of

Transylvania as its ruler. With his accession the advance of
the Reformation toward the east came toi an end. He encour-
aged the Jesuits, who had thrown themselves across the
stream of Lutheran influence which had overrun Prussia and
threatened the position of the old communion in Poland.
At the same time he undertook a war which was to prove
successful in checking the ambitions of Russia in the west,
and, for the time, preserved the dual kingdom to its inhab-
itants and its ancient faith. Such were the circumstances
which conditioned the borders of Europe in the decade which
saw her rivalries spread to the farthest comers of the earth
and made sea-power a determining factor in religious as in
political affairs. j

Spain As a result of these events, which, however different among

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 307

themselves, tended to the same end, twenty-two years after
the abdication of Charles V, Spain stood forth as the cham-
pion of Catholicism and absolutism, confronted by the lib-
eral, Protestant elements of all western Europe. The year 1578
in which Sebastian's death enabled Philip II to put in
motion those intrigues which two years later gave Portugal
into his hands, under different conditions might have marked
the beginning of a development such as the world had never
seen. But the Union of Utrecht, and the virtual alliance of
England, France, and the Dutch rebels, set in her path, at
the moment of her greatest opportunity, an enemy prepared
to challenge not merely her material strength, but every prin-
ciple on which her national life was based.

In the bitter conflict, which had, indeed, already begun, Her
between the old order and the new, Europe was to determine «^«°*^*
at once her own future and that of the new Europe beyond
the sea. As a natural result of many forces developed in the
preceding generations, for the most part outside the field
of politics, that conflict was to take a wider range, and, what
was more important still, to partake of a different character
from those struggles which had preceded it. For in it were
engaged communities and classes as yet relatively new in
European polity, by which there had been developed factors
all but unknown to the calculations of men bred in the old
statecraft.

Among these the activities of English merchant-adven- Hie
turers were, for the moment, the most conspicuous. This, in ™^n^*'
the changing circumstance of affairs was an inevitable de- turers
velopment of the preceding generations. Any struggle which
involved, as this was bound to do, sea-power, Protestantism,
and commercial interests, by virtue of the progress of those
elements among the people which, more than any other, had
made them a chief concern of national existence in the years
just gone, was bound to set their nation in the forefront of
conflict.

Before the English queen had mounted the throne, adven-
turers had dreamed of flnding a way to the secluded East
by land across Muscovy or Asia Minor, or by sea through

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308 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the Arctic, thus evading the Portugnese monopoly. Already,
without royal aid and in the face of infinite discouragements,
this popular movement, inspired by private enterprise, had
begun to develop for itself new means for its achievement.
Building upon the older forms of trading corporations, like
the so-called Merchants of the Staple, and the commercial
guild or fraternity of St. Thomas k Becket, they had evolved
a form of organization, foreign to the genius of Spain and
The Com- Portugal, but eminently adapted to the English temper.
Merchant '^^^^ ^^ ^^^ chartered company, formed by the association
Adven- of individual merchants for a common purpose of trade, and
turcrs sanctioned, protected, and granted privileges or monopoly by

the crown. To this they added some knowledge of the out-
aide world. Apart from what they had drawn from their
own experience, from voyages to Lisbon and Seville, to Africa
and America, from agents sent to Spain and Portugal,
from their own countrymen in foreign service, they had
related themselves, even before the accession of Elizabeth,
to the great current of discoveries by curious, even romantic,
means.

While Edward VI was still upon the throne, the old Se-
bastian Cabot, long since the co-discoverer of Newfoundland,
sometime map-maker and pilot-major to the King of Spain,
and explorer of the La Plata region, returned from his long
wanderings to his old home in Bristol, whence, fifty years
before, he had set sail for North America. He came at a
propitious moment, and his coming was at once an inspiration
and an opportunity. About him crystallized long entertained
projects. He was immediately enlisted in an "intended
voyage to Cathay," and was created ** governor of the mys-
1561 terie and companie of Merchants adventurers for the dis-

covery of Regions, Dominions, Islands and places unknown"
in the long-dreamed-of East. Under such auspices no time
was wasted in setting on foot an enterprise which was to
open up new regions of the world. Sir Hugh Willoughby
and Richard Chancellor were despatched to find a northeast
passage to Asia; and, though Willoughby was lost, Chan-
cellor made his way to the White Sea, thence overland to

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 309

Moscow, where he was entertained by the Czar Ivan IV;
and so began another chapter of European history.

Before he returned Edward VI had died, but Mary char- The
tered a corporation known as the Muscovy Company. Thia^J^^I^
became not merely the agent of a fresh burst of commercial
activity, and the intermediary between England and the then
semi-Asiatic power of Russia, but a model for later com-
mercial organization. Under its auspices Anthony Jenkinson 1559-61
within two years made his way from the English fac-
tory near Archangel across Russia to Astrakhan and
thence to Ehiva and Bokhara. From that far journey he
returned to fire his countrymen to compete with Hanseatic
and Italian merchants in that field. Four years there-
after he secured from Ivan IV monopoly of the White
Sea trade for his company, and with the despatch of an
agent to Persia prepared to challenge the way to India.
Under such auspices, at the accession of Elizabeth, Eng-
land made ready to take her part in the exploiting of the
East.

While her agents were thus engaged in bridging the gap RassUn
which separated her from that region, the power with which ^P**"*^"
she was now first brought into contact had taken up the task
of pushing European boundaries toward the East. The year
before Chancellor's first visit to the Czar, the Muscovites had 1559
subdued the Tartar principality of Easan. Before Jenkin-
son's coming the province of Astrakhan had been annexed.
And in the year of Elizabeth's accession the Russians began 155S
a fresh advance. Upon the great commercial house of
Strogonoff the Czar conferred some ninety miles of land
along the Kama River, in the Ural district, with mining, set-
tlement, and trading rights. To conquer that wild region
the Strogonoffs enlisted a body of Don Cossacks, so-called
''Good Companions,'' under a certain Yermak Timofe6vitch.
What Cortez and Pizarro had been to the New World, this
leader became to northern Asia. From the original grant,
aided by Vasili Strogonoff and his followers, Yermak con-
quered as far as the Tobol within a dozen years. His un- 1570
timely death scarcely checked the Muscovite advance. While

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310 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

western Europe was convulsed with war, Russia pushed on,
till, thirty years afters her entry into Siberia, her power
1587 was well on the way to the Pacific. The city of Tobolsk had

been founded to secure her frontier, and the trade route
to Bokhara opened up. Thenceforth, as England and pres-
ently Holland, took steps to find their way to the dose-
guarded East, Russia marched with steady pace across the
plains of northern Asia to meet them on the other side of
the world.

England and Russia, whose fortunes were thus early joined
in the great work of territorial and commercial expansion,
found rivals in their efforts to extend their influence beyond
their own borders and those of Europe. From a far dif-
ferent quarter and in far different hands there had been
inaugurated a movement in whose conception lay the germs
of what was to be the most important feature of the next
stage of European progress beyond the sea; and, as it proved,
the chief link in that lengthening chain of circumstance
which was binding the religious and colonial impulses into
a new form of polity.
Coligni These centered in the activities of Gaspard de Coligni,

coIo^mI?^ Grand Admiral of France and head of the Huguenot party
tion in that vexed nation. As in the case of the English adven-

turers, the French invasion of the colonial world was no
new enterprise. Apart from the exploits of Verrazano and
Cartier, the French had long made efforts' to gain a foothold
in America. Strive as she would, Portugal had never been
^4 able to prevent their presence in Brazil. Their rulers had
long desired a foothold in that quarter of the world; their
ships had long been visiting its ports; Bio de Janeiro had
become almost a French outpost; and no small amount of
the attention which Portugal had directed to her imperial
colony had been due to the fear that it might pass to other
1555-6 hands. Now in the same twelvemonth of the P^ce of Augs-
burg and Charles V's abdication, a tragic inciddkit gave these
activities a new importance. A certain Frenchman, Nicholas
Durand de Villegagnon, who had. gained the French king's
favor and the confidence of Coligni, secured from the one

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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 311

a concession for a settlement and from the other assistance
in enlisting Protestant colonists for his enterprise. Thus
eqnipped, he sailed to establish a post at Bio Janeiro. The
experiment was short-lived. Villegagnon fell out with his
companions; his followers were bejtrayed; and their post was
destroyed by the offended Portuguese.

But its work was done. Despite its tragic failure the idea Failure in
which it contained bore fruit: for in Coligui's mind there ^'****
was developed the plan of finding homes beyond the sea for
his persecuted co-religionists. The idea never left him. He
tried and tried again to put it into force; and though he
failed, he has the distinction of being the first European
statesman to formulate a policy which, in other hands and
later generations, was to become a leading factor in the
Europeanizing of the world.

His second attempt was made under like auspices. For Ribault
years the Huguenots/or those who made their Protestant
professions a cloak lor piracy, had harried .Spanish com-
merce relentlessly, especially in the Caribbean. They plun- -^
dered and burned Havana; ravaged Porto Rico; terrorized
the mainland about Cartagena; and harassed the West In-
dian trade in retaliation for Philip's interference in their
affairs at home. Two years after Villegagnon's colony was
destroyed they took another step. One Jean Ribault, of 1569
Dieppe, given command of a new enterprise, enlisted some
young Huguenot nobility and some veteran soldiers, and
made his way to Florida. There, passing the St. John's
River, they went northward to Port Royal, where they set
up a colony called Charlestown, in a region christened Caro-
lina in honor 6t the French king. The dissatisfied colonists
soon mutinied, killed their leader, and returned to France.
Still Coligni, whon^ assisted the enterprise, was not dis-
heartened, and when tllttsPeace of Amboise gave a moment
of quiet in the civil war, he^fteq^tched another party under
Ren£ Laudonni^re on the same e^hqjd. Founding a settle- 1564
ment on the St. John's, they embarked^5h*«<xpeditions against
the Spaniards and the natives till the arrivm^rfJtibault with'--
reinforcements gave the new colony fresh life ana character

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312 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

which under more favorable circumstances might have in-
sured ultimate success.

But the Spaniards were infuriated by their losses and
invasion of their monopoly. Menendez de Avila, created gov-
ernor of Florida by Philip, prepared an expedition, harried
1565 to the French settlement, drove oflf Bibault's squadron, sur-

prised the fort, butchered its garrison with the French sailors
who escaped from the wreck of the fleet, and rechristened
the post San Mateo. Three years thereafter a Gascon soldier,
Dominique de Gourges, sometime a captive Spanish galley-
slave, equipped three ships at his own cost, reached Florida,
1588 stormed and destroyed the Spanish fort, hanged his prisoners,

and so avenged his country and his faith. The French gov-
ernment, indeed, disavowed his act and relinquished all
claims to Florida, which the Spaniards took immediate steps
1579 to colonize. Four years thereafter the Massacre of St. Bar-

tholomew put an end to the great Coligni's life and plans,
but despite the failure of his experiments, the attempt to
settle Florida for the first time transferred to the new world
the great religious conflict which was then about to convulse
the continent. Insignificant as were the results of his activi-
ties in North and South America, they ushered in another
phase of history.
Hawkins With all the angry fear roused by the French Huguenot
Usht^ade attempts to settle in Florida and Carolina, however, it was
in America not from France that Spain had most to fear. She had more
deadly enemies in the English and the Dutch ; and even while
she was engaged in driving out French colonists the English
had begun their invasion of her monopoly in other quarters
and by other means.^ If the story of England's eastward
expansion is that of her commercial companies, the tale of
her entry into the western world is that of her privateers.
Her adventurous merchants, who had long since found profits
^ in the African and American trade, had early discovered
that ''negroes were good merchandise in Hispaniola and
that they might nasily be had upon the Guinea coast." It
was a simple discovery of wide consequence. Five years
after Elizabeth came to the throne, while Coligni was plant-
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THE AGE OF PHILIP II 313

ing his Huguenot settlements, one John Hawkins of Plymouth, 1563
following in his father's wake as a trader to Africa and
America, made a rich voyage to Sierra Leone. In that
region he got some slaves, "partly by the sword, partly by
other means," including the plunder of the Portuguese; and
took them to Hispaniola, getting in exchange enough to
freight his own three ships and two others, which he had
the temerity to send to Spain. There they were seized as
contraband, but, even so, his profits were so great that lords
about the court helped to finance a second venture, for
which the admiralty loaned a ship. But the Spanish authori-
ties were aroused; only the threat of arms opened the
colonists' ports to him; and when, daring too greatly, he
embarked upon a third and even more warlike voyage, his
little fleet was crushed at Vera Cruz. Spain, enraged at 1567
this defiant violation of her monopoly and an attack upon
her treasure-fleet which was driven by storm into Plymouth
harbor, was deterred from war only by her entanglements
and by England's adroit and none too scrupulous diplomacy.

Such were the circumstances inJ^e extra-European world The
that accompanied the events which in Europe itself led up SfMSesS^
to and flamed from the Revolt of tH^ Netherlands and the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. They were not only of com-
mercial and military importance. They involved not merely
the principle of a mare liberum for which the Protestant
powers stood, as against that of the mare clausum on which
Spanish and Portuguese expansion had been based. They
were, in part, founded on

" The good old rule, the simple plan
That he shall take who has the power
And he shall keep who can."

Yet they differed from the earlier European conflicts in at
least one important particular. They were far from being
the result of the rivalries of princes, for the English queen,
at least, was forced by popular sentiment and activity along
the path which led to war, largely in her oy^ n despite. "Your
mariners," declared the Spanish envoys to Queen Elizabeth,
"rob my master's subjects on the seas; trade where they

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314 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

are forbidden to go; plunder our people in the streets of
your own towns; attack our vessels in your harbors; take
our prisoners from them; your preachers insult my master
from their pulpits; — and when we apply for justice we are
met with threats." In those words lay the root of the whole
matter. The old faith and the new ; the champions of monop-
oly and those who demanded a share in the trade of the
The world stood face to face. The Revolt of the Netherlands

war^with** and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the unbending deter-
Spain mination of Philip and the activities of the English priva-

teers had made compromise impossible. The conflict begun in
Europe had spread to the rem9test comers of the earth.
The Atlantic, and presently the^ Pacific, were troubled by
the strange keels of the northeni adventurers; and places
whose very names were as yet all but unknown to Europe
generally were to become the scene of conflicts no less im-
portant than Agincourt or Pavia. Prom the events of the
oncoming years were soon to spring not only new European
societies but a new balance of power and a new basis of
civilization. For, with the exploits of Dutch rebels, English
privateers and Huguenot colonists, the issues of politics,
religion, and colonial expansion joined to produce a new ^d
world-wide European polity.

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CHAPTER Xni

THE CONDITIONS OP CONFLICT. 1578-1588

The period in which the Protestant maritime peoples em-
barked upon their great adventure against the Spanish-
Portuguese empire in the last quarter of the sixteenth cen-
tury was peculiarly propitious for such a task as that they
set themselves ; for, however desperate their attack seemed at
first sight, they possessed two great advantages in such a
conflict. The one was the situation of Philip's far-flung
empire; the other was the condition of naval affairs and
knowledge. The flrst was the more conscious stimulus. The
wealth of the Hispano-Portuguese possessions was only too
evident; and it offered prospects of plunder great enough
to tempt a sterner virtue than that which filled the breasts
of Eriglisl;, Dutch, and Huguenot privateers, even had their
ambitions nof 'been sharpened by those religious antagonisms
which gave to their attack something of the form and spirit
of a crusade.

The Portugal which Philip had now acquired was far from Portugal
being the poor and divided state for which his ancestors ^Jtoaka
had fought two centuries before. Her trading stations 1580-88
reached the farthest ports and islands of the East ; her African
possessions not merely secured the way to Asia, but drew
to themselves the gold and ivory and forest products of the
interior and an unlimited supply of slaves for her own use
and that of the American colonies. From her Atlantic islan^
and Brazil came the greater part of the world's sugar, with
dye-stuffs, precious stones, and gold. Her fisheries retaiped
their ancient value; and her cities flourished. Lisbon's ware-
houses held the treasures of the East, spices and silks, gems,
medicines, rare woods, the products of the precious i]^etal-
workers' art, the weavers' triumphs in fine fabrics, till their

816

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316

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

— her
strength

— her
weakness

expanding bulk taxed the resources of the state to handle
them. Its population had trebled in half a century, and its
hundred thousand inhabitants ranked it among the leading
cities of the continent, while with its harbor crowded with
ships of every nation, this mistress of the eastern trade levied
toll on every European state which used the goods of Africa,
Asia, and America. Ten thousand slaves a year poured
through her gates to till the fields of Portugal, and thousands
more were sent across the sea. Apart from the inestimable
gain in private hands, Lisbon's port dues alone paid the
crown three million dollars annually, the profits of the royal
monopolies as much more ; besides tribute and presents from
subject and allied powers. Under the wise administration of
her greatest governor of Brazil and the salutary neglect of
the home government, that imperial possession had been
strengthened not only by the growth of northern settlements
but by a post at Rio Janeiro to control the south. With
Jesuit aid and the cessation of slave raids the natives had
been conciliated; while the increasing stream of African
negroes made the fortune of a colony whose population, at
de Sousa's death, numbered no less than sixty thousand
souls.

Such was the wealth of the empire which fell without a
blow into Philip II 's hands; and it would have seemed that
such resources, added to his own, would have enabled him
to become the master of the world. Yet never were appear-
ances more deceptive in any national economy than in that
of Portugal. Despite the growth of cities and the influx of
slaves her population had increased little if at all. With
the expulsion of the Moors and Jews, the steady drain of
men to fill the eastern ports and recruit the colonies, the
recurrent epidemics increased by her close contact with Asia,
ana her losses by war and shipwreck, it is a question whether
she KU3 as populous as a century before. Nor was her loss
confined to undesirables. Noble youths, pursuing fame and
fortune, peasants driven out by competition with slave labor,
middlj classes fleeing from high prices produced by the influx
of wealth in which they had small share, swelled the emigra-

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THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT 317

tion till the nation found itself only exchanging free men
for slaves.

With this was bound up problems of finance. The exodus Finance
of freemen reduced tax receipts, as the extraordinary de-
mands of war and ostentatious foreign policy, joined to the
extravagance inspired by Eastern wealth and methods, in-
creased the state's expense. The public debt had grown till
royal paper waj worth but half its face value ; and the national
insolvency which ensued was not liquidated even by the
enormous profits of the trade. Of its millions, the garrisons
absorbed a third, administration and the fleets took all the
rest, and more. Goa's port dues were worth a hundred
thousand dollars a year; those of Ormuz half as much again;
the rest in like proportion. Each voyage to the Moluccas
was worth thirty thousand dollars; those to Japan or China
four times that sum. Sofala alone produced each year, ac-
cording to report, five million dollars' worth of trade; in
days when money had a purchasing power some thirty-fold
as great as now. But if crown profits were so great, those of
colonial officials were greater still. Governors of larger ports,
whose salaries ranged from fifteen hundred dollars to thrice
that sum, accumulated fortunes in a three-year term. The
government seemed powerless to prevent corruption and ex-
travagance at home, much less abroad; the viceroys who
strove to check it gained only the fatal hatred of the official
class; and India, as the exiled poet, Camoens, wrote, became
the mother of villains and the stepmother of honest men.

In the face of such wealth and weakness it was questionable
whether the Portuguese empire was an asset or a liability
to Spain; but there was no question but that the ''Sixty 1580-1640
Years' Captivity," as the Spanish period came to be called,
was wholly disastrous to Portugal. The council of state was
transferred to Madrid, the council of finance was divided to
control the separate elements of the dual empire, but Portu-
guese hatred of Spanish rule more than neutralized every
effort at reform. Dutch sailors were introduced, but pilotage
degenerated so that in thirty years scarcely more than five
ships a year survived the voyage to India. The formidable

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318

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Spain
and her
colonies
1580-88

Spanish
expansion
— thePhU-
ippines

1664-5

1585

artillery decayed, the army declined in numbers and disci-
pline. And though the colonists of the islands and Brazil,
left for the most part to their own/ devices, were able to
protect themselves against native encroachment or the priva-
teers that fell upon the rich and feeble prize, when northern
seamen finally made their way to Asia they found an easy
prey, — ^for Portuguese imperial power was already on the
wane.

But this was not the whole story of Philip's empire in
these decades which saw the absorption of Portugal into
Spain and its consequent decay. While she had proved herself
incapable of assimilating and reorganizing her new heritage,
Spain had given her own empire new form and strength;
and in the generation which followed Philip's accession ex-
tended and reorganized her possessions. While Goligni set
on foot his second colonizing enterprise, a Spanish adven-
turer, Miguel Lopez de Legaspiy- following the example of
Villalobos, sailed from Mexico and established her power
in the Philippines. Prom the capital, first at San
Miguel in Cebu, then at Manila in Luzon, conquest began,
though on a smaller scale and by milder means than
in America. With the advent of the religious orders, espe-
cially the Augustinians, success was assured. Trade sprang
up with Mexico; and, as the direct passage was given up
for the great circle along the shores of Asia and America,
a yearly galleon crept back and forth between Manila and
Acapulco in New Spain, linking this most distant of Spain's
possessions with those fleets which annually plied between
Cadiz and Vera Cruz. The years in which the conquest of
the Philippines was projected and carried out were marked
by two other extensions of Spain's empire. The first was
d'Avila's settlement of St. Augustine in Florida, the earliest
permanent center of Spanish power in eastern North Amer-
ica; the second was the foundation of the town and province
of Tucuman, in the vast fertile plains of the upper Parana^
long since explored and settled by Spanish adventurers.

With these began another chapter of European advance
in the New World. The most populous district of the interior,

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THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT 319

farther south, had already been seized by pioneers from —America
Santiago de Estero. From Asuncion, which had been settled
nearly thirty years before, Juan de Garay founded the post
of Santa Fe at the confluence of the Paraguay and ParaniC,
while at the same moment Cordoba had been founded farther
West Thence he established a permanent post at Buenos
Ayres near the La Plata mouth, on the site of an earlier c. 1580
settlement; and so gave to. the great grazing and plantation
baronies of the interior an Atlantic port accessible to Spain.
Nor was this all. While the eastern slopes of the Andes and
the plains of the Argentine were thus transformed into
European dependencies, whose grains and vines, cattle and
horses offered unlimited possibilities of wealth, far to the
north the men of New Spain spread in like manner through
the southern spurs of the Bocky Mountains. There in later
years the town of Santa Fe was established as the outpost
and capital of that vast and little known region christened
New Andalusia. Meanwhile, the cities at the center of
Spanish Caribbean power, Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Porto
Bello, and Vera Cruz flourished^ in like measure with Lima
and Mexico. Finally, the conquest of Venezuela, where
Valencia and Caracas had been founded to hold the interior,
was confirmed by the post of La Guayra, through whose port 1588
poured a fresh stream of trade between Spain and the Vene-
zuelan hinterland. Thus in the days when Philip aspired
to direct the destinies of Europe, and Portuguese empire
decayed, the wide-spreading movement by which his colonial
pioneers and administrators secured the empire which Charles
V's captains had won, opened new opportunities to European
resources and influence.

Under the circumstances, it was imperative that this vast The
inchoate mass of lands and peoples which had developed so gJJIJ^^h^'
rapidly in the generation just past should be provided with America
a system of political and economic organization more suited ^^^^^'^
to its changing form and needs than the simple viceroyalties
which had sufficed for the period of the conquests, and the
haphazard voyages which had carried its first plunder to the
mother country. The Spanish empire was accordingly split

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320 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

into two great parts, Ne^j^ Spain including Mexico, Central
America, Venezuela, the islands, and the Philippines; and
Peru, which comprised Spanish South America. Each of
these grand divisions was again divided into lesser govern-
ments; New Spain into four audiencias, Mexico, Espanola —
which included the islands and Venezuela — ^the northern dis-
trict of New Galicia, and the southern province of Guatemala ;
Peru into five audiencias, Lima for Peru proper and Chili,
Las Charcas for the central Andes, Quito for the north. New
Granada for the northwest, and Panama'' for the isthmus.
Each of these in turn were subdivided into governorships, of
which New Spain counted seventeen or eighteen and Peru ten.
Each of the great divisions was ruled by a viceroy, appointed
for three years, assisted by his audiencia, or court and coun-
cil, his triburuU de los cuentos for finance, his junta de go-
bierno, or administrative body, and his junta de guerra for
military affairs. Such were the divisions of the western
world destined to endure for nearly two centuries and to
become, in large measure, the bases for the modem states
which occupy that area.
The organ- No less important were the measures taken to safeguard
trade** ^ ^^^ restrict the course of this richest of commerce from the
''fountain and well-head** of the wealth of Spain, for its
1569 ship-loads of bullion early roused the cupidity of privateers

in a day when no international law restrained their activi-
ties, and there was ''no peace beyond the line.'* Not merely
did each po^ contain a casa de contratacion in miniature,
but a complete system of transport was devised to handle
and protect the valuable cargoes to and especially from
America. Six years after Philip II came to the throne it
took its final form. Once a year a great fieet set sail, usually
in January, from Seville, Cadiz, and San Lucar, for the
New World, convoyed by ships of war. One part, "the fleet,**
so-called, was destined for Vera Cr^, the port for Mexico,
and the Philippines; the other, or "galleons,** for CapMgena
and Porto Bello, the entrepots for SoutV^America.** Sailing
together, this fieet of half a hundred ships made its way by
the Canaries and the West Indies to Dominica, where it

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THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT 821

divided for the trading ports. To those ports, meanwhile,

pack trains and ships had gathered up from the greater part

of Spanish America, its goods, its gold and silver, and its

precious stones, as the treasures of the Philippines had

found their way by the annual ship to Acapulco and thence

by pack train to Vera Cruz.

The galleons reached Cartegena usually in April and The

waited there till news came of the arrival of the Peruvian ^*?'

gaUeons

treasure fleet at Panama. On that they proceeded to Porto andfkin
Bello, where was held a forty days' fair, at which goods were
exchanged at prices fixed by agents from each side. The
cargoes disembarked, the ships reloaded and departed from
the fever-ridden spot, to join the fleet which meanwhile had
pursued a like course at Vera Cruz. Uniting at Havana,
the vessels made their way home by routes fixed secretly for
them in advance and changed from year to year to avoid
piratical attack. Thus was determined for a century and
a half the greatest single trading operation of the world. It
was but slowly extended to the other parts of Spanish
America. For many years direct trade even with Buenos
Ayres was prohibited, and when it was finally established,
so rigid was the Spanish system, it was restricted, like that
of the Philippines, to a single ship a year, the value of
whose cargo was itself prescribed !

It was not enough, in Spanish eyes, to limit colonial trade
to a few ports and to a single fleet. For the most part, all
business was confined to & few trading houses of Seville,
Lima, and Mexico, which were soon formed into dose cor-
porations, prototypes of those great companies which, in
other hands and under different conditions, were soon to
form the aggressive force of rival powers. However well it
might have been adapted to the earlier stages of a rude
commerce, or the perpetuation of a profitable monopoly to
a few favored interests, this system worked a hardship to
both sides, as Spanish imperial power grew with the advance
of its subjects oversea. ''Supplying a great kingdom like
the provisioning of a blockaded fortress," however necessary
it appeared to a government concerned almost entirely with

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322 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the products of the mines, not merely lent no strength to
the empire, it became an element of actual weakness. For
it divided imperial interests from those of Spain; and con-
centrated wealth into convenient form for piracy.

Such was the position of the extra-European world at the
moment when its master, Philip II, planned the extinction
of Dutch Protestant faith and liberties; and, in conjunction
with French and English Catholics, Quise, Valois, and Mary
Stuart, dreamed of extirpating heresy and bringing England,
no less than Holland, back to its ancient faith. Such was
the situation which, on the other hand, inspired the seafaring
elements of the threatened communions to their attempts on
Spanish commerce east and west, and their designs to find
a way to the great trade preserve of Asia.

It was not merely the decline of Portugal's sea-power
and the relative inferiority of Spanish seamanship which
gave them an advantage in the conflict which then began.
Chief simbng the many influences which brought the northern
powers to an equality with Spain and Portugal was the
development of scientific knowledge. That had enormously
advanced in those years which saw a great part of Europe
engaged in violent discussions over the doctrines of salvation
by faith or works ; the necessity or efficacy of the sacraments ;
the insoluble mystery of whether the bread and wine of the
sacrament was Christ's flesh and blood — transubstantiation,
so-called ; episcopal and congregational or presbyterian church
government; free-will and predestination; and Papal author-
ity as against the divine right of kings or individuals.
The ex- ^ particular, the preceding fifty years had freed men in

tension of no small degree from that dependence on experience, whereby
kid?nowl- ^^^ earlier navigators, like pilots on an ever^changing stream,
^ge had in large measure steered their course. The impetus to

astronomy, cosmography, navigation, and the mathematics
on which all these sciences depended, begun by the discov-
eries of the fifteenth century and reinforced by every advance
of explorer and scholar, had found a powerful ally in the
improved processes of printing and engraving which accom-
panied and stimulated the advance of knowledge. As the

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THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT 323

material for study increased with widening areas of Euro-
pean activity, it was gradually made available in charts,
geographies, and atlases. The time had passed when the
precious secrets, long jealously guarded by Spanish and Por-
tuguese authorities, were wholly confined to them. With the
employment of foreigners in their service, with the issue of
necessary manuals, no less than by the voyages which inter-
lopers undertook, that knowledge filtered through to other
hands, till, by the time that Philip had made the whole colonial
world his own, there were many besides his subjects who
knew more of the seaways east and west than was agreeable
to his monopoly.

Meanwhile, that practical knowledge had been powerfully Mathe-
reinforced from a far different quarter. If the Iberian peo- ™^^ar-
ples had led the way in conquest and discovery, the Teutonic tography
races had contributed scarcely less in other fields to man's
capacity for comprehending and exploiting the world in
which he lived. Prom the revised system of Ptolemy a fresh
stream of mathematics, geography, and astronomy, which
had flowed long since from Alexandria to Arabia and India,
came through Arab channels back into European minds,
greatly enlarged and purified. German scientists in the
preceding century had revived mathematics and placed it at
the service of their fellow-men; and here no single subject
was of greater importance than the reinvigorated science of
trigonometry, so indispensable to seafarer and cartographer.

This, in the hands of Purbach, Walther, and Regiomon-
tanus, developed and soon found its way to print. Applied
to map-making, with towns for central points, it revolution-
ized the art of cartography. To it Copernicus addressed his
genius, and none of his contributions to human knowledge,
not even his hypothesis of the solar system, was of more
immediate service to mankind than this. For he applied the
principles of this reviving science to curved surfaces; and
to him is ascribed the first simple formula of spherical
trigonometry.

With him began a new age of geography as well as of
astronomy, and for the moment the former was of the

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324 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

greater aignificance. For centuries, and more especially since
the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries, men had endeavored

Mercator to picture the world graphically yet accurately. So long

1618-94 ^ ^^^ earth was believed to be flat and but little of it was
known, this was not difficult. But it is not ea^ to depict
all sides of a globe on a plane surface, and the ingenuity of
map-makers was exhausted on the problem, with smaU suc-
cess for fifty years. Now these attempts to improve the old
cumbrous methods were crowned by the invention of Cterhard
Kramer, better known as Mercator, sometime cartographer to
Charles V, who published a world-map drawn on a cylin-
drical projection with lines of latitude parallel to the
equator, and lines of longitude at right angles to these. This
now familiar principle revolutionized cartography, displaced
other systems, and from his time to our own has remained
the model for navigation charts and maps in general Co-

1548 pemicus' great work appeared as the Council of Trent

gathered to its labors, Mercator 's chart was coincident with

1560 the third Huguenot rising in France, and the union of the

mother country, Poland, with Lithuania. Modest as their
achievements seemed beside the earth-compelling conflict of
Protestant and Catholic and the adjustment of European
states, not even these yielded in results to the all but un-
heralded contributions of these obscure Polish and Flemish
scientists.

They were but the principal flgures in a great movement.
Already manuals of navigation based on the new mathematics
had appeared in print; the value of rhumb lines and the
advantages of sailing on the great circle were recognized;
and while western Europe was convulsed with the conflict
between Spain and her enemies, one French scientist, Coignet,
observed the obliquity of the ecliptic, and another, Norman,
noted the dip of the magnetic needle. With such discoveries
the way was prepared for a more accurate and scientific
knowledge of the world and the ways to its most remote
regions. These were added to the armory of Spain's enemies,
since it was rather to those who had the lesser knowledge
of the seaways east and west than to those who had

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THE CONDITIONS OF CONFLICT 325

long been familiar with those ways, that this was of ad-
vantage.

Meanwhile, the co-workers of the scientists, the shipwrights, Ship-
had not been idle. While the appliances of navigation had ^^<*hi«
scarcely kept pace with the new knowledge, while astrolabe,
cross-staff, and rude quadrants remained the principal de-
vices for observing stars, and the defects of the chronometers
left no means of measuring time at sea with any accuracy,
ship-building had advanced. In Spain and Portugal, indeed,
such changes as took place had been conditioned by the de-
mands of commerce rather than of war. New types appeared,
like the carrack and galleon, but, in the main, the tendencies
were toward mere floating warehouses or fortresses. The
famous caravels had been enlarged and strengthened; their
upper works or ''castles" had risen higher to hold more men
and goods; port-holes for cannon had been introduced, and
movable topsails ; till the three-masters, with their high bows
and stem, low waist, bowsprits, square-rigged main and
mizzen sails, took on a new appearance, without much change
in sailing or handling qualities.

While Spain and Portugal had been content merely to
modify the older types of vessels, the northern ship-builders
had evolved new models and new qualities; nor was -the
reason far to seek. The privateers for whom they built de-
manded great seaworthiness, ease of handling, fighting
qualities and speed, since on these depended not merely their
owners' living but their lives. Thus the French, and pres-
ently English and Dutch, began to launch a different kind
of ship. Its keel was longer in proportion to its beam, its poop
and forecastle lower in comparison with the waist, its greater
draught and less freeboard making for increased stability
and so for more accurate gunnery. To these were added more
easily managed sails, longer cables, and improved capstans,
for safety and quick handling. Of other forms, like those
propelled with oars, which still found favor in the smoother
waters of the Mediterranean, the men who had to meet the
great Atlantic swells took little account, as from the Hugue-
not ports of Prance, from Rhine mouth and Zuyder Zee,

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326 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and from the English harbors, they pushed out in yearly
increasing numbers, better manned and armed, better found
and handled if not better fought, to spoil the Spaniard and
the Catholic.
The Thus, in the struggle for oceanic mastery were matched

antagonists ^^ types of ship, and no less two types of men : the Span-
iard, who like the Roman forced himself to be a sailor and
transferred as far as possible land tactics to the sea, and
those traders and fishermen to whom for centuries water had
been their other element. To this conflict science made one
final contribution. Apart from the increase in the size and
efficiency of cannon, the researches and experiments of men
like Tartaglia regarding projectiles and quadrants for gun-
ners' use now revolutionized the art of gunnery. And these,
no less than the improvements introduced by their ship-
wrights, were seized upon by the antagonists. Thus in such
curious wise there were combined religion, politics, and trade,
science and ship-building, in the conflict with which the
second stage of modem European history begins.

Achievements such as these, indeed, appealed but little to^
those outside the ranks of seafarers or scientists, and it is
not probable that European rulers and statesmen in general
recognized the altering circumstances of the world in which
they lived — so blind have been those in the seats of the
mighty to the most important influences beyond their narrow
range of vision. Not until those forces proved their strength
in action or thought, and so compelled attention from those
whose minds moved in that unreal realm of the so-called high
politics — ^and not always even then — ^were they reckoned a
part of the world's affairs. Yet, as events were soon to prove,
these humbler factors were the deciding element in a conflict
upon which hung the fate of nations and beliefs.

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CHAPTER XIV

THE ARMADA. 1575-1588

The changes in the tastes, habits, and opinions of the Euro- Spain,
pean peoples during the sixteenth century, which caused or ^^^^
accompanied their division into rival camps, had, by the Empire
beginning of |;he last quarter of that century, compelled even
the most hesitant of powers to take sides in the struggle of
civilizations, which filled that period, either from religious
conviction or economic and political interest. From the first
Spain's choice was certain. She was removed from the influ-
ences then permeating the greater part of Europe, no less
by faith than by inclination, by the conservatism of a society
whose fortune was already made and whose habits were
already formed, and by the character of the sovereign who
directed her affairs. In like measure the Netherlands, whose
only hope of life lay in resistance to the Spanish power,
found but one course open. France and the Empire were
in a different case. Each faction in France felt the same
necessity for preserving its position and its faith, and the
nation, in consequence, was rent with civil war which pre-
vented it from taking full share in the coming conflict. The
Emperor, relieved from the fear of the Turk, only to find
his authority defied by a revival of internal dissension be-
tween rival rulers and faiths in his dominions, was scarcely
less removed from active participation in general European
politics. But in so far as its situation permitted, each
party in each state contributed as best it might to the far-
spreading conflict then about to burst upon the European
world.

The situation of England was in many respects peculiar. England
The efforts of the Catholic party to overthrow Elizabeth and
the Protestant establishment were, it is true, doomed to

827

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328 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

failure. But Mary Queen of Scots was still alive and re-
mained the focus of those elements which had not yet given
up the hope of successful revolution. The government was
therefore cautious to a fault, and still temporized. But
it was far different with the majority of the people. The
voyages of Hawkins, which had crowned the age of contraband
exploits, inaugurated a period of all but open war. The
revolts of the Huguenots and the Dutch enlisted English sym-
pathy. The prospect of Spanish plunder inspired every senti-
ment of greed ; and the progress of the Counter-Reformation,
reinforced by the fears which the Massacre of St. Barthol-
omew and the revival of the Inquisition inspired, determined
the event. No less for self-preservation than for reasons of
conscience, the greater glory of Ood, and the enrichment
of England, the active defense of Protestants was forced
upon her, and the exploits of her privateers confirmed her
policy. Thus while every popular and political instinct im-
pelled them to fight Spain, in spirit not unlike the Spanish
and Portuguese attack on Asia and America, in methods
differing only with the times and the position of their ene-
mies, the English pressed to the confiict.

Drake Its earliest exploit gave character to the war and a new

hero to the English nuje. Three years after Hawkins' third
voyage, his companion^ and kinsman, Francis Drake, some-
time in trade with Quinea and the Spanish Main, ventured
a fresh attack. With two small vessels and some eighty men

1579 he sailed from Plymouth for Nombre de Dios, that *' golden

granary of the West Indies wherein was hoarded up the
golden harvest from Peru and Mexico.'* Joined at the Isle
of Pines by another English bark with thirty men, his little"
force made Nombre de Dios, stormed the town and reached
its strong-room, *'the Treasure of the World,*' only to be
balked by their leader's wound, which caused his disheartened
men to retreat to their ships. Recovering from his injury,
the daring adventurer proceeded to Cartagena. There he
cut out a Spanish galleon from under the guns of the fortress,
burned Porto Bello, crossed the Isthmus with only eighteen
men, sacked Vera Cruz, plundered three caravans, and so,

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TH£ ARMADA 329

after incredible adventures, brought home his little com-
pany, rich men. Such was the great exploit which ushered
in the conflict between England and Spain and stirred Eng-
lish seamen to that far-reaching enterprise.

Four years later Drake sailed again with five ships, made
land at La Plata, followed Magellan's track through the
Straits, and with a single vessel of four hundred, tons, the
Golden Hind, found his way to WUuui^o^ thence to Callao, 1577
plundering as he went. He took a rich galleon, the Cacafuego,
with a cargo worth a million dollars; sailed northward to
the €k)lden Gate, and from there some seventy days through
the ''main ocean" to the Philippines. Thence he proceeded
to Temate and the Celebes, Batjan, and Java.' From the
latter he made a course about the Cape of Gk>od Hope, and,
after an absence of three years, reached England with his
cai^o of gold and silver, spices and sil^.

Not since Cortez and Magellan, scarcely since Columbus
and da -Gama, had any one accomplished such a feat ; nor
were its results much less considerable. The great adven-
turer had not only shown the way to jhe rich plunder ^f the
Spanish Main. He had invaded thelnviolate preserve of the
Pacific, and it was not to be supposed that in the temper
of the English this ''master thief of the unknown world"
would lack successors. Spain, naturally, was furious. Eliza-
beth,, halting as usual between two great alternatives, hesi-
tated whether to- honor or imprison the daring adventurer,
but finally made his cause her own and that of England.
Denouncing to the Spanish ambassador his master's treatment
of her subjects, his prohibition of commerce, and his encour-
agement of English and Irish rebels, she knighted Drake
and thus threw down the gage to Spain.

The sea-king of Devon was but one of many adventurers. Frobisher
Even as he embarked on his long voyage, one of his qJJJjj^^^
comrades in the suppression of that Irish rebellion engi-
neered by Spain, which had done much to inspire these
counter-strokes, attempted the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly
by another route. Three times did this commander of the
Muscovy Company, Martin Frobisher, essay the northwest 1576-8

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330

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Spain and
Ireland

1579-83

passage to India; and though the way he son^t was as
elasive as the gold in the pyrites which he brought back, he
began that long series of Arctic voyages which brought gloiy
and ultimately gain for England in the frozen north. Mean-
while, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose writings had inspired
Frobisher 's exploit, secured a charter for a new world colony ;
and though his plan failed as signally as that of the Arctic
voyages, like them it pointed to future achievement.

These were but a few of England's efforts to expand her
influence. At the same time that Gilbert, Drake, and Fro-
bisher were .engaged in the west^ the power of the Hanse
merchants in England was broken. The Eastland Company
was chartered for the Baltic trade. The Muscovy Company
extended its scope and character; and an embassy was des-
patched to the Sultan of Turkey seeking for trade concessions
which gave rise to the Levant or Turkey Company. With
these events England was fairly embarked on her twofold
adventure, which presently set her in the forefront «f mari-
time and commercial powers. Dutch and Hanse merchants
had indeed preceded her in Bussian trade, and France
anticipated her plans of settlement in America. But though
her Arctic ventures and colonizing schemes broke down;
though the adventurers who emulated Drake were often
crushed ; she led the way to the invasion of the Spanish power,
and first devised that form of corporation which was to
bring her to ultimate success.

But she could hardly hope to carry on such far-reaching
designs unhampered by her enemies. While Philip's armies
were at close grips with the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands^
and his intrigues supported the French Catholics, he took
steps against England which revealed the darker aspects of
his character and cause. From their piratical adventures
oversea the English were summoned to meet dangers at
home. Even as Drake returned from circumnavigation of
the world, a body of so-called Papal volunteers, chiefly Span-
iards, had landed to assist a new Irish rebellion. To its
repression, as six years before, the. privateers hastened to
the assistance of the crown. The power of the rebellious

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THE ARMADA 331

Earl of Desmond was destroyed; the ill-fated invaders were
put to the sword; and the Spanish ambassador, demanding
satisfaction for Drake's piracies, was refused admission to
the queen's presence.

Meanwhile the same force used to weld the Irish into —the
union against the English power — ^the Jesuits — despatched ^
agents to England from their colleges on the continent for
a darker design. The Spanish ambassador drew in the violent
English Romanists ; the Scotch Catholic nobles were enlisted ;
the head of the French Catholics, the Duke of Guise, prom-
ised his aid. Agents were engaged to kill Elizabeth; plans
drawn for invasion from Scotland: and Mary, Queen of
Scots, now long a prisoner, was destined for the English
throne. This great design was accompanied by even wider
plans. The death of Francis Duke of Anjou made Henry
of Navarre, the Huguenot, the next heir to the throne, and
France flamed once again in civil war as his opponents strove 1583-4
to bar the way to his accession. At the same time the savior
of the Netherlands, William the Silent, fell by the hand of
an assassin, instigated by the Spanish king. Thus auspiciously
began the great attack upon the Protestants. But the fine-
woven scheme broke down. Henry evaded the snares of his
enemies; the Netherlands were not dismayed by the loss of
their heroic leader. The Scotch Presbyterians secured the
person of the young king James ; the English conspiracy was
unearthed and the conspirators were put to death. The net
was drawn about the brilliant and ambitious Queen of Scots ;
till, as England girde^ herself to meet the great Armada
then preparing in Spain to crush her once for all and make 1587
Philip her master, the unhappy queen, last hope of Elnglish
Catholics, was put to death.

With this the die was cast and each side pushed on to war. The war
England and "{Scotland signed a peace safeguarding their
respective Protestant interests. Elizabeth sent an army to 1586
the Netherlands ; and, from the transparent guise of letters of
marque from Cond£ or Orange by which they had long
preyed on Spanish ships, her courtiers embarked on more
open attacks. These were accompanied by further efforts to

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332 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

I584n5 colonize. Already Gilbert, with his stepbrother, Sir Walter
Baleigh, had tried to plant a settlement in Newfoundland;
and Raleigh had sent ont a colony to the region north of
Florida, now named Virginia in honor of ElizabetlL As the
threat of invasion grew, Drake was called on to strike another
blow. With Frobisher as his vice-admiral, he plundered Vigo
on the coast of Spain, sailed to the Caribbean, burned San-
tiago, held Santo Domingo and Cartagena to ransom, picked
up the remnants of Raleigh's Virginia colony, and so returned'
to make ready for still more daring exploits. -^

The Meanwhile Spain's preparation for the invasion of Eng-

Annada ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ j^^ ^ j^^^ ports, especially Cadiz and

Lisbon, shipwrights were busy, sailors, soldiers, supplies, and
vessels were collected. In the Netherlands her great general,
^faima, drew to the Flemish coast a powerful army to co-
operate with the forces of the fleet, which was to crush the
English, then the Dutch, restore the waning prestige of
Spain, and make Philip the uncontested ruler of the British
Isles and the Low Countries. Xgainst this huge preparation
Drake was launched again ''to impeach the joining of the
fleet out of their several ports, keep victuals from them, follow
them in case they should come forward towards England or
Ireland, cut off as many of them as he could, cut off their
landing, and set upon such as should come out of the East
or West Indies into Spain, or go out of Spain thither.*'
1587 Under such wide instructions he made for Cadiz, burst into

its harbor, captured, burned, or sunk more than thirty ves-
sels he found there. Then, establishing himself at Prince
Henry's old post at Sagres, he harried the coast, seized forts,
supplies, and ships, and sold his captives to the Moors to
ransom English slaves. Thence he sailed to the Azores and
there captured a Portuguese carrack, whose rich cargo opened
English eyes to the real value of the Eastern trade) and so,
having ''singed the beard of the King of Spain," he returned
triumphant from the adventure which had proved so great
in glory, spoil, and warlike results.

His success only delayed the blow, though that delay was
of much help to England ; and in the following summer the

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THE ARMADA 333.

Spanish Armada set sail. No such naval expedition had
ever before been launched by any European power. A hun-
dred and thirty vessels of near sixty thousand tons burden
were manned by eight thousand sailors and more than twice
that number of soldiers, who, with galley-slaves, servants,
and others, brought the total force to thirty thousand men.
Moreover, the fleet was equipped with great stores of am-
munition, supplies, horses, mules, carts, and intrenching tools.
For this was no mere naval venture. In the Netherlands 1588
the Spanish general, Parma, drew his troops together and
prepared transports for an invasion of England which the
Armada was designed to cover and assist. Nothing less than
the complete conquest of the British Isles was planned; and
naval victory was but the prelude to a war on land.

Beside the threatening bulk of this huge twofold armament
the English preparations seemed almost insignificant. The
royal ships were sparsely provided with food or powder; and
the stirring words of the queen scarcely atoned for the royal
parsimony which grudged equipment and supplies. But what
the government lacked, private enterprise in large measure
supplied. A score of ports furnished their vessels to meet
the foe, London first of all. Hundreds of seamen, thousands
of landsmen volunteered to serve under the great captains
who had made the English name a terror to the Spanish
world. An army was collected ; and the Thames' mouth forti-
fied. Thus prepared, England awaited the attack.

It was not long delayed. Held back by contrary winds
until July, a favoring breeze brought the Spanish armament
across the Bay of Biscay into the English Channel, where July 31-99
the English fleet, under the queen's cousin, the Catholic Lord
Howard of Effingham, awaited them at Plymouth. There
the Armada should have stopped and fought. But, acting
under orders far too' minute, the inexperienced Spanish com-
mander, the Duke of Medina ^Sidoma^ hurried past, with
some slight skirmishes, toward his rendezvous at Calais, where
Parma, who had brought his forces up prepared to convey
them into England by transports, was harassed and held back
by a Dutch fleet. Following close on the Armada's track,

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334 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the English hung on flank and rear, pounding with their
heavy artillery, cutting out disabled vessels or slow sailers,
which the Spaniards made no effort to save, hampering and
harassing their less mobile enemy for a full week till the
Armada found shelter in Calais Boads. Driven thence almost
immediately by the English fire-ships, they faced their ene-
mies in a last, decisive engagement off Gravelines.
The In the conflict which was to decide, in some sort, the future

G^^^dto*^ of the oceanic world, of Protestantism, and perhaps of Europe
generally, all the advantage seemed to lie with the enormous
fleet of Spain. Beside its huge array the English vessels
seemed as small and weak as their narrow kingdom beside
their enemies' far-flung empire. But the weakness was ap-
parent, not real; the advantage actually lay with them.
Despite its numbers the Armada counted hardly more than
flfty men-of-war flt for the service on which they were en-
gaged; while the English, even when their adversaries first
entered the narrow seas, were scarcely overmatched in fight-
ing ships. The slight disparity in numbers was more than
made up by the nearness of their ports, with consequent
facility for refitting and repairs; while the apparent dis-
crepancy in size was largely accounted for by difference in
build.

But the deciding advantage lay in the ships and men.
More stable than the top-heavy, cranky Spanish craft,
whose pitching and tossing made good marksmanship all but
impossible, the English were superior in number and weight
of guns. Better manned and served, firing three shots to the
Spaniard's one, with greater r^nge and impact, as well as
greater accuracy, they poured a tempest of shot into the
towering targets of their enemies from a comparatively safe
distance. More weatherly, they were able to evade the Span-
ish efforts to come to close quarters, keep the weather gauge,
cut out stragglers and disabled ships, and fight or run with
equal success. Finally, the crowning English advantage lay
in their officers and crews. The Spaniards, hampered by
the soldiers on whom they had relied for boarding and land-
service, were undermanned with seamen. Their artillery-

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THE ARMADA 336

men were despised by ''men of sword-thrust and push of
pike"; their highest oflScers were grotesquely ignorant of sea
affairs, and inferior in every particular, save that of personal
bravery, to the English. The English fleet, on the other hand,
was heavily manned with sailors trained equally to work and
fight their ships. Its commanders were accustomed to their
task, and in familiar waters; its admirals were no mere cour-
tiers, but seasoned veterans, chosen not for wealth or social
status but for ability. Thus each navy was a fit representative
not alone of its national sea-power but of its society.

When finally the two fleets came together at Oravelines, July 89,
even the disparity of numbers told against the Spanish. ^^^
While they had lost by capture, shipwreck, destruction, and
unseaworthiness, the English fleet had actually increased,
since to it ''out of aU Havens of the Realm resorted ships
and men ; for they all with one accord came flocking hither
as unto a set field, where immortall fame and glory was to
be attained and faithfull service to bee performed unto their
prince and country.^' From the first the issue never was in
doubt. Defeated with terrific loss, unable to find refuge in
the continental ports or effect a junction with iParma, whom
the Dutch held impotent, Spain's great Armada finally broke
and fled into the North Sea, pursued by the English^o the
Firth of Forth. Some of its vessels perished off the coast of
Holland, some were taken, others sunk or burned. The rest
made their slow and painful way about the British Isles,
leaving a long trail of wrecked or foundered ships. The
survivors who were unfortunate enough to escape the sea
were butchered by those into whose hands they fell, till of
that imposing force which had set forth to insure the triumph
of Spain and Catholicism, a broken handful made its way
home again. Without losing a single ship, and at the cost
of scarcely more than sixty men, England not merely re-
mained the mistr^ of the narrow seas, she became the leading
naval power of the world, With the failure of her Armada,
Spain, broken and bankrupt, lost her primacy in the Euro-
pean system of states; and there began a new chapter in
history.

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CHAPTER XV

THE AGE OP ELIZABETH; AND THE ANGLO-
DUTCH INVASION OP THE EAST. 1588-1601

The
results
of the
Annada's
failnre

Like all such great catastrophes, the defeat of Spain's
Armada marked at once the climax of one series of events
and the beginning of another. The chapter of European
history which it closed had been the record of the maritime,
commercial, and colonial supremacy of Portugal and Spain.
The one it opened was to chronicle the transfer of that power
to the north. The sixty years just past had seen the new
communions challenge the establishment in church and state ;
the next sixty were to see affairs readjusted in the light of
the new faith and policies thus evolved. The generation then
vanishing from the scene had been concerned most largely
with controversies which turned upon questions of theology.
The generation coming on the stage was to find in the field
of science an enlarging sphere of intellectual activity. The
colonizing energies of Europe, directed by the Mediterranean
powers, had hitherto concerned themselves principally with
the tropics, working on broad but superficial lines nnder
royal, noble, and clerical influence. Henceforth they were
to be largely absorbed by temperate and cold temperate
states ; and by middle classes, seeking to win from commerce
in private hands and from the aqtual transference of Euro-
pean peoples with their own customs to the New World the
more enduring gain of trade and colonies. Above all, the
oncoming generation was to see the currents of religion,
politics, and colonial-commercial enterprise joined in new
forms of European polity. Thus as a century before Europe
had created a new situation in the world's affairs to which
she had readjusted her actions and her thought, so now she
stood at a fresh parting of the ways, impelled to new

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 337

achievements along new lines by forces which she herselfc The Prot-
j J y estant as-

produced. -^ ccndancy

Of all the consequences which flowed from the Armada's
failure none was more striking than that it threw into high
relief the three significant features of the situation which
the preceding two decades had evoked. These were the in- \/
creased importance of sea-power, the growing strength of tho/t
middle dasses, and the shifting of the balance of statecraft
toward the reformed communions. Of these the last was
most immediately evident. Under Elizabeth, England had
revealed a subtlety in politics no less remarkable than her .
success upon the sea. As a result, not merely was she now
definitely ranged on the Protestant side ; but the execution of
Mary Queen of Scots had delivered that nation into the hands
of its Calvinistic elements. These reared the young prince
James, — ^who was to become the ruler of both kingdoms, —
in the faith of Geneva rather than of Some. At the same
time the Republic of the United Netherlands had produced
a worthy successor to William the Silent in the person of
Jan van Oldenbameveldt. His talents, reinforced by the
military gifts of the great Stadtholder's son. Prince Maurice-
of Nassau, bade fair to rescue the new nation from Spanish
bondage and weld it to a state which, from its slender foot-
hold on the land, challenged the supremacy of the sea.

France felt the same impulse. Twelve months to a day 1580
after the English ships turned back from their pursuit of
Spain's defeated fleet, Henry Hi, last of the Valois kings,
fell victim to the dagger df a mad priest; and thenceforth
the greatest of the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre, faced no
rival in his long and bloody progress to the throne. His
enemies of the Catholic League were overthrown at Ivry.
Paris was won by his nominal conversion to Catholicism,
''the lip-service of a mass." Just ten years after Drake
had rounded Cape St. Vincent to crush the Spanish vessels
then preparing at Cadiz to overthrow the Protestant powers
of the north, this half Protestant, half Catholic, and wholly
tolerant sovereign of a united France confirmed the
rights of his Calvinistic subjects by the- Edict of Nantes. 1598

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338

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The ADglo-
Dutch
attack on
Spain

The
United
Nether-
lands

Thus while half of Germany and all of Scandinavia embraced
their doctrines, from the Hebrides to the Pyrenees the new
communions found little persecution for a full generation,
and Europe remained not unevenly divided between the old
faith and the new.

Yet with all the romantic interest which attached to the
career of Henry IV, with all the many and varied activities-
which it witnessed, the fifteen years which followed the
destruction of the Armada form a far less impressive period
in the affairs of Europe than the preceding decade. The
Papacy, indeed, saw three masters in as many years. The
struggle of the Imperialists against the Turks went on. The
Spanish king continued his efforts to suppress his subjects'
liberties; and Catholic quarreled with Protestent throughout
the Empire as before. The north saw the continuance of
the conflict for Vasa supremacy over Sweden and Poland
which centered in the ambitions of Sigismund III. But all
these events, however important to the men of the time, yield
in ultimate significance to that struggle between Spain and
her Anglo-Dutch enemies, which spread throughout the world
and, by the transfer of naval supremacy to the northern
powers, revolutionized Europe's affairs.

This long struggle, it has been observed, was not merely
a warlike adventure ; it was a confiict between two principles
of European civilization. And with the decline of Spain
it was but natural that those nations which best expressed
the spirit of the changing age, commercial, intellectual, reli-
gious, maritime, political, should take their place in the fore-
front of Europe ; as a century earlier political expansion had
lain in the hands of Spain and Portugal, and intellectual
initiative, with commerce and finance, had been most con-
spicuous in Italy.

Chief among those nations were England and the United
Netherlands, and nowhere were certain aspects of the on-
coming development more remarkable than in the tiny prov-
inces about the Rhine mouths, still battling for independence,
like a later Greece with a Spanish Persia. More than sixteen
hundred years earlier, Cassar had found their swamp- and

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 339

sea-dwelling ancestors, the Belgse and Frisii, among the stub-
bomest and least accessible of his enemies, and Spain was
now repeating his experience. Save for the Soman ontpost
at the ''Last Crossing,"— "IZKra Trajectum/* Utrecht so-
called, — ^they had remained all but untouched by Roman
influence.

As the centuries went on they had been converted by
Irish monks; taught by the missionaries to dike and drain
the land against the sea, at once their greatest enemy and
friend. Their meadows had become the seat of great mon-
asteries; their towns had been enriched by their daring
fishermen, who "founded cities on herring skeletons." Later
still they came under the power of the aspiring house of
Burgundy, and thence, by marriage, to the rule of Sp>.ain.
Neither was able to crush their ancient love of liberty. Their
landed aristocracy, their burghers, their farmers and sailors,
lord and merchant-prince alike, cherished a stubborn pride
of race and land ; and, with their adoption of the Calvinistic
doctrines, the Protestant element among them was further
hardened against their Catholic rulers. All the tact of
Flemish-bom Charles V had barely kept his Dutch provinces
in leash, and Philip II 's ill-advised designs had driven them
to rebellion. And though the j[!atholic .Flemings and Wal-
loons had been won again, the United Provinces under their
heroic leader, William of Orange, maintainecl a struggle,
which, despite their desperate disparity of numbers, had
brought them thus far not merely success but prosperity.

They were still in doubtful conflict for possession of the Their
narrow land which they had so largely won back from the conwnercc
sea, and their real strength lay upon that restless element, industry
Their slow-flowing rivers, their canals, their level, low-lying
fields, their too well-watered country, all of whose principal
towns were seaports, made them at once extraordinarily ac-
cessible to trade and yet defensible in the last resort by letting
in the ocean. The people whose ''farms only grew enough
to feed them half the year," became rich from the North
Sea fisheries which fed a fasting faith, and on the carrying
trade which their location and facilities threw in their way.

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340 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

They were masters of the many-mouthed Rhine, with its
great commerce, neighbors to the English producers of wool
and grain, and to the Flemish weaving districts which con-
sumed those products. Besides the wines and silks of France,
the fish and oil, hides, tallow, and forest products of the Baltic
and North Sea, they seized upon the trade in Eastern goods
from Lisbon and, after the fall of Antwerp, they became
the chief distributors to northern Europe for that profitable
commerce. So great was their maritime ascendancy that as
early as the middle of the sixteenth century their principal
province, Holland, was reckoned to possess a thousand ships
and thirty thousand seamen. Nor was this all. From Italy
their enterprising merchants learned the lessons of finance
and trade that had been lost on Spain and Portugal, the tried
devices of banking and exchange which were to make the
Netherlands a second Lombardy. Meanwhile from Geneva
they drew~a Calvinistic polity and faith which imi>08ed stem
virtues of economy and industry, inspired the love of liberty
and individual rights, and helped to nerve them to resist
oppression to the last limit of human endurance.
Their Yet, though their very faults made for success against the

Sto&ti^ ^^^i<J® world, their internal affairs were seldom so for-
tunate. The faith which infused the principles of dissent,
brought with it doctrines of independent thought which held
the seeds of controversy. The natural antagonisms of mer-
chant and noble, of maritime and agricultural provinces, were
emphasized by wars in which the one bore the chief brunt and
the other reaped the chief benefits. The rivalry between
province and province, town and town, which, even in time
of war, did not always yield to common interests of self-
defense, in quieter times might well lead to fierce dissensions.
The Union of Utrecht, which had set up the central govern-
ment of a States General over a federated body of United
Provinces, republican in form, had failed to destroy particu-
laristic tendencies. Their constitution was designedly imper-
fect and obscure. Their legislature was but a meeting of
provincial diplomatic delegates, and these, joined to a weak
executive and a local administration which failed to check

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 341

the opposition of the imenfranchised classes to the petty
oligarchies of merchante who ruled the cities, perpetuated the
old divisions. Finally the jealousies between town and coun-
try, province and province, were crovmed by the antagonisms
of rival schools of theology.

But withal the Netherlands revealed tremendous energy.
For the first time individual initiative had virtually free
scope in nearly every department of life, and it was almost
immediately reinforced by outside agencies. The first of
these was the sack of Antwerp by the Spanish troops. The
greatest single catastrophe since the fall of Constantinople
was the ruin of the Queen of the Low Countries; and its
destruction in the burst of Spanish fury which wrecked the
rich, rebellious towns of the devoted Catholic Netherlands
drove thousands of their wealthy, energetic merchants
into the Dutch provinces to increase their resources of capital,
ability, and numbers. Still more, when Philip II repudiated
his indebtedness and ruined the capitalists of Augsburg, and
the great house of Fugger fell, carrying with it many lesser
moneyed interests, Amsterdam became perhaps the most pow-
erful financial center of the continent; while the United
Provinces, enriched by new energy and capital, struck boldly
for supremacy in trade. To this achievement the states bent
all their efforts ; chambers of commerce in the cities lent their
aid; individuals planned and fought. For the first time in
modem Europe there arose a national state based on com-
merce, bound by its ties and interests into new forms of
politics and business enterprise. It was republican if not
democratic, self-governing, if^vidualistic, yet, for the time
at least, co-operating to one end. Free in thought and speech
beyond aU other continental peoples, it now brought to bear a
fresh and powerful energy, nation-wide, to establish a new
and active principle and become a vigorous factor in the
world's affairs.

Yet whatever the intellectual and material advance of the England
United Netherlands, whatever their immediate strength and
success, the ultimate promise of her neighbor-ally, England,
was greater still. With all their pride of race, few peoples

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342 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

or none of northern Europe were of more mixed blood than
those of the British Isles. The Celtic tribes, which at the
dawn of British history were driving a still older population
into the fastness of the islands, having been conquered by the
Romans, after the imperial eagles were withdrawn were
themselves driven from the lowlands by Saxon invaders.
These, in turn, were conquered by Dane and^orman, with
adventurers or refugees from the wKole continefiT^ho fol-
lowed or accompanied them to this melting-pot of European
peoples, till around the Saxon-Danish-Norman heart of Eng-
land proper and the Scottish Lowlands spread a wide Celtic
fringe of Wales, Cornwall, and the Scotch Highlands. Ire-
land had followed much the same course, and though she
had been nominally conquered by the English who had ab-
sorbed Wales, their sovereignty was scarcely recognized out-
side the so-called Pale along the eastern coadt. The tribal
chiefs of the west were nearly as independent as the rulers
of Scotland; while, to the political and racial animosity they
bore to English domination, the Reformation — which had
overspread England and the Scotch Lowlands, but found no
foothold in Ireland — added another and even deeper basis of
antagonism.
Her With the defeat of the Armada, after so many years of

triumph travail, England now stood forth triumphant and rejoicing
in her strength. What the court of Lorenzo de Medici had
been to letters, what the court of Ferdinand and Isabella
had been to war and adventure a hundred years before, the
court of Elizabeth now became to both letters and adventure.
Strong in the prestige of Spanish overthrow, enriched by
the trade and plunder of the oceanic world, inspired by the
new learning of the Renaissance and the spirit of the Reforma-
tion, skilled alike to wield the sword and pen, the brilliant
circle ranged about the English queen touched the high level
of courtly achievement in action and intellect alike< The
court, indeed, was but the more splendid flower of a sturdy
stock. Elsewhere in Europe popular liberties had, for the
most part, sunk beneath the despotism which men welcomed
as a cure for feudal anarchy, and aristocracy had hardened

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 343

to a caste. But in England the Parliament lived on beside
that very tjrranny which had crushed the medisval baronage.
There had been created a nobility of *'new men" dependent
on the crown and bound by the old custom by which a com-
moner could rise to ducal rank and the younger sons of
nobles sink again to commoners; thus insuring a more inti-
mate relation among all classes of society than was generally
possible on the continent.

The ruling house partook of all the qualities of the race Tbe
from whence it sprung. Brave, crafty, affable, skilled in the '^^^^
*'art of governance,*' the Tudors revealed the powerful
anomaly of wielding despotism by popular consent. They
were arbitrary monarchs of a free people, and they expressed
the will and the temper of their subjects and their times.
Shrewd, haughty, practical, illogical, and proud, at once
religious and cynical, they possessed insight and common-sense
beyond their class. ''I do not so much rejoice," declared
Elizabeth, ''that God hath made me to be a queen, as to be
a queen over so thankful a people." If the Tudors were
tyrants, they brooked no tyranny in others. If they were at
times unjust and cruel, they enforced justice as they saw it.
If they oppressed, they checked lesser oppressors. If they
struck down aspiring individuals, they seldom dared invade
the rights of a class; for their power rested in their concert
with their subjects. The Tudors retained, indeed, what .
power they could in the face of the increasing strength of 1
their subjects. Tliey were not able to overawe their Parlia-
ments, but they created scores of new boroughs, whence they
hoped to draw into the Commons a body of representatives,
like the new nobility, devoted to their interests. Yet if this
was their design it was far from accomplishing the subjection
of even the lower House to royal will; and it evidenced at
once the growing power of the commonalty and the substitu-
tion of ** governance" for mere arbitrary royal authority.
While the Vatican sent Bruno to the stake, Richard Hooker
argued the supremacy of law and government in his Ec-
clesiastical Polity, unharmed. While the Consistory compelled
Galileo to recant, Coke maintained to the king's face that

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344 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

royalty was under God and the law. Such were the results
of Tudor domination on their own generation and the next.

The England's energy was not limited by politics and war.

" Her breach with Home, which had begun with the question of

royal divorce, deepened by the disestablishment of the mon-
asteries, and confirmed by the conversion of the people, had
been made permanent by the foundation of a Protestant
church unlike any other in Christendom, and now, by the
failure of the Armada, secured from Catholic attack. Cre-
ated, like the aristocracy, under the influence of the crown,
it remained Soman in form though Protestant in doctrine,
episcopal, diocesan, liturgical, and largely Calvinist, a work-
ing compromise between reaction and reform, a middle
ground on which all but extremes could meet. Parliament,
alternately subservient and independent, now a convenient
instrument, now an effective check to royal power, was sup-
ported by a commercial, moneyed class that took its place
beside the landed interest which had risen upon the ruins
of the baronage, enriched by the spoils of a disestablished
Catholicism and a depressed yeomanry. Thus with all its
inequalities and inconsistencies, well-balanced, self-contained,
and self-supporting by land and sea alike, equally removed
from extremes in politics, faith, and society, the England of
Elizabeth stood forth the characteristic leader of its times,
' as its great rival, Spain, had been a hundred years before.

The Like her it had its adventurers and religious enthusiasts.

From manor-house and farm, seaport and counting-house
poured forth a steady stream of younger sons, yeomen,
sailors, merchant-adventurers, to seek their fortunes oversea.
Everywhere, but especially in this busy middle dass, as the
doctrines of Calvin made their way, the advancing thought
of the reformed communions, Puritan so-called, had tended
to press beyond the middle ground of the Tudor church estab-
lishment to a more extreme Protestantism. It combined nar-
rower sympathies with wider liberty of thought. It urged a
severer code of morals, a more austere life, a simpler form of
worship, opposing itself to the *'rags of Rome" and the
'abominations" which to its eyes defiled the statelier,

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r

Puritans

<«.

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 345

''seemlier'^ forms of the Anglican worship. Against these
extremists, with a sure instinct for the royal prerogative, the
crown had set its face, but the blood of the martyrs was ever
the seed of the church. The persecuted Puritans had multi-
plied and strengthened with the growth of a class where
''heterodoxy and trade went hand in hand." It now became
increasingly apparent that their doctrine of the individual
right to choose his faith, their democratic or theocratic tend-
encies, backed by their numbers and their capital, would
inevitably be transferred in time to the field of politics,
whence vested authority labored to exclude their disturbing
influence.

In literature as in adventure and religion, meanwhile, Eng- literature
lishmen went far in the generation which followed the
Armada. The "poets' poet," Spenser, crowned his earlier
triumphs with his Faerie Queene. Courtier-adventurers,
like Sidney, laid aside the sword to wield a scarcely less
trenchant pen; and dramatists, with the supreme genius of
the modem literary world, Shakespeare at their head, passed
the bounds which had been set to achievement hitherto in
that field. Ulelieved from imminent fear of destruction at
the hands oi Spain, conscious of its strength, and equipped
for progress in nearly every field of human endeavor, the
nation turned to complete the downfall of its ancient enemy^
And as in the case of Holland, now joining in the fray, its
very elements of unrest contributed to its offensive power,
since religion no less than trade was the prize of success.

Its first efforts were directed toward retaliation; and the Reprisals c
scattering ships of the Armada had scarcely straggled back J^' *^^
to Spain before England had launched a fleet against her
enemy. This enterprise, under Drake's command, fell short
of what had been expected, but the loss inflicted on the
Spanish ships and stores completed the work of making his
countrymen safe from further danger on that side. Not 1589
the least of the English intention had been a plan for ''inter-
cepting the king's treasure from the Indies," and though
that failed, the project of traversing the eastern trade monop-
oly was almost immediately revived by an extraordinary

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346

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

TTie
third
circum-
navigation
of tlie
world
1686-8

EliEabetli'8
policy

1589

drcnmstance. A fortnight after Drake returned from pur-
suing the Armada, there had appeared in his native town
of Plymouth one Thomas^ Cavendish, in his little ship Desire,
from a voyage around the world, which in daring and results
was a fit rival to Drake's own exploit Two years earlier
Cavendish had sailed with three small vessels by way of the
Canaries and Cape Verde to South America, passed the
Straits, and made many prizes, among them a Manila gal-
leon, the Oreat Santa Anna. Thence he found his way to
the Philippines, and so, by way of Java to the Cape of Good
Hope, discovered St. Helena, and, ''by the mercifuU favour
of the Almightie," reached home just in time to hear of the
defeat of the Armada, ''to the singular rejoycing and com-
fort of us all.'* Prom this great voyage he brought back
not merely treasure; under the circumstances the maps and
information he acquired were of inestimable value. For by
confirming and enlarging the knowledge of the Spanish pre-
serves which had first been invaded by Drake, he performed
a service of scarcely less importance to his f ellow-countrymen^
whose energies were now bent on completing Spain's over-
throw.

Fortunately for Spain, and unfortunately for England,
Elizabeth stilt hung irresolute between conflicting policies.
Had she followed the plan of cutting off the Fhia which
supplied the Spanish power with the sinews of war from
America and was now'the most considefaHeTsource of Spanish
revenue, she would have brought her enemy to his knees at
once, and saved Europe a bloody chapter in her ensuing
annals. If she had seized strategic points and held the sea she
would have accomplished scarcely less. But vacillation and
parsimony, as too frequently before, marked the course of the
English queen in the decade and a half which intervened
between the Armada and her death; and though many expe-
ditions harassed and weakened the power of her antagonist,
Spain, however crippled, was enabled to go on. Norreys and
Drake were despatched to aid the aspirant to the throne of
Portugal, Don Antonio, to rescue his country from the Span-
ish domination. Probisher, Cumberland, Hawkins, Howard,

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 347

EsseZi and Baleigh were sent out to ravage the Spanish

coasts, plunder the Indian and American fleets, and avenge

Philip's aid to an Irish rebellion, which was suppressed with 1597

stem cruelty, as the English queen's long reign wore to an

end. But there was, withal, no serious, determined effort to

end Spain's power, even on the sea. After two vain attempts

to found a colony in Virginia, Raleigh turned, with Drake

and Hawkins, again to the Spanish Main, seeking its plunder

and that fabled El Dorado which had lured so many brave

men to their death. This ehni^vB(|^)al Baleigh sought about

Guiana and the Orinoco, while Drake and Hawkins ended

their careers where they had been begun in a last blow

against the West Indies. It was a tragic close to a momentous

period. At Porto Rico Hawkins died; and Drake, foiled in

his efforts to plunder the towns he attacked, soon followed

his colleague. Off Porto Bello his body was committed to 1595

the sea, — ^*'and that which raised his fame became his grave."

But with all the harassing conflict of raid and reprisal,

neither the destruction of Spanish fleets and ports, nor the

seizure of Fayal, nor even the vain attempt to invade Spain's

western monopolar by the ill-fated settlement of Virginia,

effected little more than the hampering of Spanish plans

and momentary loss of men and property. The flnal blow

remained to be struck. i-.--^

As a preliminary, this guerilla warfare of the seas pco- The break-
vided the information which was essential to the greater Ip^jJh
enterprise. Drake, Hawkins, and Raleigh had many rivals monopoly
in their attack upon the Spanish Main. In those tempestuous
years before and after the Armada, many others made their
way to sack the Spanish ports from Vera Cruz about South
America to Acapulco, and to waylay the galleons, till the way
to the New World came to be known to the English almost
as well, as to the Spaniards themselves. The *' rattier^" or
sailing directions thither for all seasons of the year, took its
place among the navigation records, with charts and de-
scriptions not alone of the Americas but of the Atlantic
islands off Africa, of the winds and currents of the Atlantic
and even of the Pacific. Of all the plunder of the Spanish

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d48 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

ships nothing was counted more valuable than the letters,
reports, and maps of their captains' cabins. Within a dozen
years after the Armada, on the basis of such material, Eng-
land had built up a body of information of more worth to
her even than the wealth of gold and silver she had secured
from Spain. The Dutch were not far behind, and in one
field they surpassed even their future rivals. Once the mys-
tery of the sea-ways east and west was solved, the ];iiap-
makers, printers, and engravers, who abounded in the Nether-
lands, published the knowledge which the privateers secured.
So far as Protestant peoples were concerned, the Reformation
had destroyed whatever force the Papal bulls had lent to
Spain and Portugal. Now as the last bulwark of the Iberian
monopoly, the secrets of the passage, began to fail, the guns
of the Protestant privateers and the Flemish gravers' tools
^ joined to complete the conquest of Philip's far-spreading

empire of the seas.
The > Of all the difficulties which confront the historian who

the East ^ /^^^^^^ to chronicle the progress of any society, small or
I great, the most perplexing is to choose the leading motives
j \ which at any moment dominate the actions of the time and
' j determine the future, and to weave into one narrative the
( many and often widely divergent activities of classes and
individuals which make up the sum of the achievements of
the mass. In too many cases this seems to be all but im-
possible ; and even in considering the results of such a catas-
trophe as the defeat of the Spanish Armada, it is not easy
to determine justly the relative importance of the various
results which seem to flow from that great event. But among
them one is certain. With the collapse of Spain's domination
of the sea, the way was opened for her enemies to invade the
long guarded routes to the Orient, and to begin there a
chapter of history of the most far-reaching consequence not
only to themselves but to Europe and to the world generally.
The great days of the Spanish Main came to an end
with the concluding years of the sixteenth century; for the
English courtier-adventurers found the ports prepared against
them, treasure hid, and capable resistance everywhere. But if

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 349

the colonizers for the moment found no permanent foothold
in the western hemisphere, the merchant-adventurers were
more fortunate on the other side of the world. Even before
Armada times the Muscovy Company had secured its position
in the trade of Bussia. The English queen and the Russian
Czar had exchanged ambassadors, and a score of voyages
had brought Persia within the widening area of English
enterprise. The ''high courage and singular activity" of
the Arctic adventurers had been rewarded with little more
than unmeasured realms of polar ice through which they
had been unable to penetrate to the riches of the East. But
what their daring had failed to accomplish was now achieved
in different quarters and by different means. For as in the
preceding generation Sebastian Cabot had brought from
Spain the knowledge which had directed the English along
new paths of enterprise, so now, with the defeat of the
Armada, there came from Portugal a like impulse which took
the English power at last across the line.

The story is one of the romances of history. Among the James
seamen who had flocked from all quarters to fight the Armada Lancaster
came one James Lancaster, who had been "brought up among
the Portuguese," to command a vessel in that "last great
battle in the west"; and his arrival marked an epoch in
affairs. Many adventurers, indeed, English and Dutch, had
already made their way to the Guinea coast. The survivors
of the Drake and Cavendish voyages, at least, knew some-
thing of the way back to England by the Cape of Good
Hope. But thus far knowledge of the seaway to the Indies
was not within the scope of English seamansldp. Now, how-
ever, all this was changed. Three years after the defeat of 1691-4
Philip's fleet, Lancaster sailed in the same ship he had com-
manded at Gravelines, the Edward Bonaventure, with two
more, from Plymouth bound for the Indies. From Table
Bay he sent back one of his little squadron full of scurvy
patients. Another of his ships was lost; but he went on. He
evaded Portuguese hostility, conciliated the natives, gained
knowledge "of the state and traflSque of the country"
everywhere. He made his way by Zanzibar about Cape

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350 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Comorin to Ceylon, Sumatra, Pulo Penang, and Malacca,
trading and taking prizes; and after three years, returning
as he went, brought his rich cargo home, with twenty-five
of the two hundred men who sailed with him.

What Vasco da Qama's first voyage had been to Portugal,
Lancaster's exploit was to England. The Portuguese monop-
oly had been invaded successfully, the closely guarded sea-
way to the East traversed, and the Spanish-Portuguese power
had been found far from invincible on its own trading-ground.
The effect was profound if not immediate. The following
year, financed by London merchants, Lancaster plundered
the Brazilian ports to such effect that he was compelled to
hire Dutch ships to help transport his booty from Pemam-
' buco; and scarcely was the profit shared among the backers
of his enterprise than wider plans were set on foot to follow
up the lead his earlier exploit had given. But the delay had
already proved nearly fatal to the progress ofJBnglish enter-
prise in the East; for before the Londoners could formulate
their plans they had been anticipated by their rivals across
the North Sea.
The Dntch It was not surprising that the Dutch should take the lead
thc^East^' in this movement. They had long been accustomed to act
as middlemen for oriental products between Lisbon and north
European ports, and thus had grown familiar with the supply
and the demand of a traffic which they had shared only with
a few houses in London and the Low Country capitals. Now
^that they were in arms against Philip, English and Dutch
alike had been shut out from Lisbon. Their ships were seized ;
and a commercial no less than a religious and political crusade
4% had been proclaimed against them. With this, and with the

"" fall of Antwerp, nothing remained to those determined to

participate in the traffic with Asia but to break through to
the sources of the eastern trade. Years earlier the northern
route had been proposed; the Mediterranean way had been
attempted; and the Guinea coast had been explored. But
the Polar plans had thus far come to naught. Spain had
strengthened' her hold upon the Mediterranean where, with
the Turk and the Barbary corsairs, seafaring became too

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ANGLO-DUTCH INVASION. OF THE EAST 351

dangerous to be largely profitable ; and the Guinea commerce
was a poor substitute for that of Lisbon.

Dutch efforts to secure a source of eastern goods had thus
far been futile; but at this juncture, like the English, they
were aided by circumstance. Lancaster had been by no means
the only foreigner in the Spanish-Portuguese service. Long
before his day an English Jesuit, Stephens, had become a
resident of Goa; more recently Elizabeth had sent a certain
Balph Fitch as envoy to Cambay and China. The latter,
taken prisoner by the Portuguese and conveyed to (Joa, had
escaped, visited the Mogul Emperor, Akbar, at Delhi, and
returned to tell his marvelous story. More important still,
five years before the Armada sailed, one John Huyghen van 1583-9
Linschoten of Haarlem had gone out in the train of the
Archbishop of Goa, and he now returned to publish his
experiences and the routes to India. Three Dutch expeditions
in successive years to find the northern way to the East had 1694-7
failed, and the heroic explorer Barentz had been lost; but
Linschoten 's tale of ''great provinces, puissant cities, and
immeasurable lands'' spurred his countrymen to attempt the
southern passage. And at the same moment fortune put in
their hands a proper instrument for their purpose. This was
a Dutch skipper, Cornelius van Houtman.pf Gouda, some-
time in the service of Portugal but now disgruntled by the
treatment accorded him by his employers, and prepared to
reveal the secrets of the spice trade. ^

Thus equipped, the Company van Verre was formed for a
Cape voyage. The aid of Linschoten and the geographer
Flancius was secured; four ships, carrying some two hundred
and fifty men and mounting sixty guns, were fitted out ; and
with Pieter Dierckz Eeyser and the English John Davis as
chief pilots, and Houtman as chief commissary, the squadron
set sail. Rounding the Cape in safety, it stopped at Mada- 1595-7
gascar, the Malaccas, and Sunda, and reached its objective.
Bantam, before it met determined opposition from the Portu-
guese. Proceeding thence, fighting and trading, taking on,
with its cargo of spices; Chinese and Indians from Malabar,
a Japanese and an experienced pilot from Gujerat, it made

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352 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

friends with the natives wherever possible. It gained in-
formation everywhere. After more than two years it sailed
again into the Texel with its precions goods and even more
precious knowledge.
Its results Its effect on Holland was no less great than that of Lan-
caster's voyage had been on England; and its results were
far more practical and immediate. The Company van Verrc
prepared a second squadron at once. The Old Company of
Amsterdam and the New Company of Zealand were founded,
and others soon followed. The plan of reaching the East
around South America was revived; and finally, when van
Neck took out eight ships to Java and the Moluccas, set up
factories, treated with native rulers, and returned with full
cargoes, the whole nation fell into a frenzy of excitement
over the prospect thus spread before them. They scarcely
counted the danger and the cost. With one accord they
hurried forward their preparations in defiance of the press-
ing hostilities at home and the squadrons which the Spanish-
Portuguese authorities hastened to throw across the path of
the intruders from the Canaries to the East.
Dutch Meanwhile the Dutch had been no less active on the African

clMwhcre *°^ ^^^ American coasts. Five years after the Armada,
1593 Barend Erickzoon had led the way to the sources of gold

and ivory and slaves on the west coast of Africa. The
numerous efforts of his successors to seize S. Jorge de Mina
and S. Thome and so secure a permanent foothold on the
Guinea coast had met with small success; for the climate
had been found insupportable and the Portuguese power
invulnerable. Yet despite the losses to individuals, it was ap-
parent that the annoyance of the Spaniards and the prospect
of further gains in America, which were later realized, were
of advantage to the state. Especially was this true in the
western hemisphere. Oldenbameveldt, indeed, obstructed the
design of an Antwerp refugee, one William Usselincx, to
found a company to exploit and colonize the Americas, of
much reward thereafter. But for many years, with the con-
nivance of the colonial authorities, the Dutch carried on a
profitable smuggling trade and even built posts on the

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ANGLO-DUTCH INVASION OF THE EAST 353

Amazon. So great, in fact, was Datch activity in the East
and West at the close of the sixteenth century, so keen the
competition, not merely with other nations but among them-
selves, that it seemed not unlikely to defeat its own ends.
The States General found it impossible, among local rivalries,
to enforce the regulation of the various companies; and,
failing this, they turned to another and, as it proved, a far
greater design, that of consolidation. So far had the provinces
progressed in a decade that they planned to seize the whole ^y
of the trade of the tropics in both hemispheres.

Before the project of consolidating their various interests The Enr-
in that field could be put into force, their English rivals had indif
given them another incentive to that end and a model for Company
their action. Against the English, as against the Dutch,
Spain had sought to close the Mediterranean ; and the exist-
ence of the old company of the Levant being thus endan-
gered, steps were taken to reorganize and strengthen that
corporation. This was the more important in that its inter-
ests were threatened from another quarter; for scarcely had
the Dutch secured a hold on the spice trade when they raised
the prices against the English. Under such circumstances
the Londoners were driven to protect themselves; and, as a
first step, two founders of the Levant Company, Staper and
Smith, planned a new association. An agent, John Milden-
hall, was despatched to the Great Mogul to secure com-
mercial privileges. Lists were made of places held by neither
Portugal nor Spain, which might be available to English
trade without open hostility. A capital of some seventy thou-
sand pounds was subscribed; ships were bought; the queen
was petitioned for a patent. Finally, on the last day of the IMO
sixteenth century, a royal charter conferred on "the Gov- — •
emor and Company of Merchants of London, trading into
the East Indies"-— commonly known as the East India Com-
pany— exclusive privilege for fifteen years of all commerce
beyond the Cape of Good Hope, in places not held by other
Christian powers.

The new corporation wal^ obliged to send at least six ships
a year. It was forbidden to export specie without guarantee-

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854 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

ing to return it; and its activities were controlled scaredy
less by the crown and the Privy Council than by its
own governors. It partook at first, therefore, in large degree,
of the qualities of that form of organization known as a
^'regulated company," in which individuals or groups within
a larger body, under its general supervision, sent out sep-
arate ventures. Still more was it the child of the curious
Elizabethan policy, disinclined to face the facts of any sit-
uation, tentative, hesitating, inconclusive. It was incon-
ceivable that the company should not come into conflict with
the Spaniards and the Portuguese despite the mandate of
the charter forbidding it to occupy the ports of its rivals.
It was no less absurd to imagine that the southern colonial
powers would look with more favor upon an organization
invading their monopoly because of its charter provisions.
Thus the early history of the company, whose activities were
so restricted and whose capital was so limited, but which was
destined to such great achievement, in consequence partook
of the spirit of half measures so characteristic of Elizabethan
policy.

Its first None the less, its services were from the first considerable.

idoi^ Under such auspices, with Smith as its first governor, James
Lancaster was made commander of its fleet, seconded by the
most famous navigator of his day, John Davis, who had ex-
plored the Polar regions, sailed with Raleigh and Essex, and
but recently piloted Houtman around Africa. With four
''tall ships" these leaders set sail in the first spring of the
new century, rounded the Cape and made Achin, to find
the ** queen of England very famous there by reason of the
wars and the great victories . . . against the king of
Spain," — ^so far had the results of the Armada spread. Load-
ing with cinnamon and pepper, they established factories in
Bantam and the Moluccas; and, after an uneventful voyage
home, dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor to find England
mourning the death of Elizabeth which had occurred three
months before. Meanwhile, still seeking, like their Dutch
competitors, to avoid the Spanish-Portuguese hostility and
secure a shorter way to the East, the company had sent Wey-

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ANGLO-DUTCH INVASION OF THE EAST 355

mouth on another ^arch for the northwest passage. In that
he failed; but, with Lancaster's return, the way about the
Cape, however long and dangerous, was at last assured, and
there began that long three-cornered rivalry for eastern su-
premacy which was to take its place among the principal
activities of European powers for two hundred years.

However great the ultimate effect upon the English, the Th^ Dutch
immediate results of the establishment of their East India compcuiy^
Company were of far more importance to the Dutch. What
the States General alone had not been able to effect m saving
the merchants from their overzeal was now accomplished by
their rivals. The government of the Provinces took steps at
once to unify the separate Dutch companies. Their petty
jealousies were overcome. The fear of centralized control^
which was always a bugbear to the Netherlands, was allayed
by the establishment of a so-called. Council of Seventeen, with
representatives from all the chambers of commerce involved
in the new enterprise. The authority of Oldenbameveldt
and Maurice of Nassau was invoked to quiet factional dis-
cord; and, two years after the English company was under ieo9
way, the Dutch East India Company was chartered.

The terms and resources under which the new corporation
began its long and profitable career fitly symbolized the dif-
ference between the EnglisI^ policy and the Dutch in regard
to Spain and the East. Tiie Provinces were still nominally
mere rebels against their sovereign, and the scruples which
possessed Elizabeth and her advisers as to conflicting rights,
for them had no existence, since, in any event, they were
outside the law. Nor were their preparations less significant.
The capital of more than six million florins, subscribed by
citizens of the PiTQvinces, the exclusive privileges for twenty-
one years to trade, colonize, and make war throughout the
vast territory which lay between the Strait of Magellan and
the Cape of Good Hope, revealed the scope and purpose of
the powerful corporation. Sixty directors were chosen from
all the principal chambers of commerce of the cities and
provinces, a third of them from Amsterdam, with an inner
circle, the **XVII,'' to whom direction of affairs was given.

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356 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Thus was revealed the national character of this under-
taking as at once a source of profit and a warlike move against
the Spanish power. With its resources and experience re-
cruited from the whole people, its tremendous capital, its wide
privileges, it was not merely the symbol of a new force in
European politics and a new element in the world's affairs.
It became the greatest engine of expansion and of trade yet
organized in modem Europe, destined not merely by its deeds
but by its example to play a great and decisive part in the
next stage of political and economic progress of the conti-
nent. Such were the circumstances which, in the fifteen years
between the Armada and the death of Elizabeth, gave a
new turn to the fortunes of Europe and introduced new
devices to further her power and resources.
The end With the formation of the English and the Dutch East

of an era India companies the decade and a half which succeeded the
Armada wa$ fitly crowned, and the emergence of such organ-
izations well typified the changes which were altering the
face of European life and politics. Already the rulers of the
generation which had seen the power of Spain bYoken in the
disastrous failure of its crowning exploit were passing from
the scene. Five months after the Edict of Nantes appeared,
while Houtman was engaged in his voyage to the East, the
champion of the Counter-Beformation and master of the
1598 colonial world, Philip II, died, leaving his country bankrupt,

discredited, and, as it proved, weak beyond belief of those who
still remembered her as the strongest and proudest power
of the continent. Of Philip's antagonists, William of Orange
and the subtle Elizabethan, Walsingham, had gone long since.
Burleigh died a short month before; while their mistress,
Elizabeth, lived to see five years of triumph over her old
enemy. On the Imperial throne, the astrologer, Rudolf II,
had spent two-thirds of his long reign in vain attempts to
turn back the rising tide of heresy and preserve from his
too ambitious vassals and relatives something of the power
which Charles V had wielded. But, like his neighbors on
the east, he found himself the champion of a losing cause.
There, while Sigismund III of Poland and Sweden strove to

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ANGLO-DUTCH INVASION OF THE EAST 357

guide the widely diverging destinies of his ill-matched pair
of principalities, the northern states adjusted their affairs
to altering cireumfitance and the Turks rested on their con-
quests. In Bussia, simultaneously with Philip II 's death,
the old line of Burik ended in Feodor II, whose removal
left a long heritage of civil strife, which for the time removed
the Muscovites from further share in the affairs of Europe.
With the death of Elizabeth in 1603 the Armada period mi^
be said to end. Thenceforth Europe moved forward under
new leaders upon new paths to widely different goals. 1

And while the older antagonisms of Europe went on, th^
great religious question shaped itself to new and still more
terrible and far-reaching conflict, and the issue of royal pre-
rogative and popular privilege took form. While the intel-
lectual development of Europeans reached new heights of
achievement and revealed new possibilities to science and
philosophy, Europe beyond the sea came suddenly into a
prominence which it was never to lose. For with the loss
of Spain's monopoly of the ocean ways, the colonial and
commercial elements of the northern powers, now suddenly
unleashed, hastened to carry out their long-cherished dreams
of expansion, and so began another era of European progress.

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CHAPTER XVI

EUROPE AT THE CLOSE OP THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY

The middle It has been observed that the triumph of the English and
classes ^j^^ Dutch over the force of Philip II was due, in no small
degree, to the activity and ability of that element in society
to which is usually given the name of middle class, an element
equally removed, on the one side, from the aristocratic caste
which during the middle ages arrogated to itself the conduct
of public affair^, and, on the other, from the lower ranges of
peasants and laborers. To a still greater extent was the prog-
ress of society due to that same class which, as the seven-
teenth century approached, came to be of increasing impor-
tance in affairs. However much great movements like the
Renaissance and the Reformation, science, letters, art, and
scholarship had owed to the patronage of those in authority,
this secularized middle class, economically independent and
intellectually progressive, equally opposed to clerical con-
formity and aristocratic convention, had been the prime
movers in economic and cultural activities. In consequence
the history of the sixteenth century concerns itself not only
with the ambitions of rulers, commanders, and ecclesiastics,
but with the achievements of commoners who from Luther
to Drake, Copernicus to Descartes, revolutionized the world
of thought and action.

To these were joined the no less remarkable, though for the
most part anonymous, improvements of the arts and crafts in

I the hands of obscure inventors and artisans. These laid the
foundations for the advance in capacity and comfort which
we are apt to call civilization. In consequence, whatever
credit may be assigned to the ruling classes of Europe for
their services in this cause, it is chiefly to those from whom

868

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (359 V

social and politieal eminence was withheld — the middle
classes — ^that European culture and capability owe their de-
velopment, and it is in their activities that any history of
modem European progress must find much of its theme.

At no preceding time in history had the numbers of this
middle class been so great nor its influence so apparent as in
the closing years of the sixteenth century. As a natural
consequence, its increasing strength was beginning to be evi-
denced by its emergence into public affairs. Not merely in
science and literature, to which it still remained the chief
contributor, in art and architecture, in philosophy and the-
ology, as in every handicraft from weaving to phip-building,
but in matters which a century earlier would have been reck-
oned beyond its province, this element, now- coming to be
known as democracy, had proved its power. And if one
feature, above all others, characterizes the difference between
the seventeenth century and its predecessors, it is the greater
part played by the people in every state not wholly dominated
by the ancient order. Of all the forces making for the modern
world, of all the powers to whom the future belonged, this||
was the chief; and to thode nations who were first to recognize
or experience the strength latent in this new source of great^
ness came the first reward for its recognition.

It owed its rise to the economic and social advance of Economic
which it was a product and to which it had so largely con- J^y^^***
tributed. The sixteenth century had been the age of capital
and of national kingship, as well as of the Reformation and
the exploitation of the western hemisphere; and with the
decline of feudalism there had developed not merely a new
system of national and international exchange, but new
sources of wealth and power arising from commerce and
finance. The relatively local industry, the restricted markets,
the payment in kind or exchange, which characterized the
mediaeval period, had given way to wider operations and
greater interests. Not every feudal lord still exacted
duties on the goods that traversed his lands; and, whatever
the situation which still existed ''beyond the line," in Euro-
pean waters not every merchant ship was a potential pirate.

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360

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Banks and
stock-
exchanges

While commerce was thus slowly freed from its chief danger
and inconvenience, finance received a like impulse. For the
ecclesiastical anathema against usury had given way to the
idea that men might properly take interest for sums which
otherwise might gain profit in their own business. Money
thus became a conmiodity, and, enriched by the influx
of specie from the New World, as well as by the removal of
restrictions and prejudice, the merchant-banker class in-
creased in numbers and influence. Land remained, indeed,
the more honorable, if not the more profltable, basis of wealth,
but almost from year to year capital played a greater part
in affairs.

As commercial operations had increased in number, mag-
nitude, and variety, new devices were put in operation to
finance them. From Italy the idea of a public bank had
made its way to Holland. Besides this, the Netherlands had
adopted another financial expedient of incalculable impor-
tance for the future. This was the issue of stock in shares
which could be transferred from hand to hand, bought and
sold publicly like land or goods. Such a device, first used
by the great oversea trading companies, effected a revolution
in finance of as great importance as banking itself and of
perhaps even more far-reaching consequence, since it per-
mitted men of small means to have a share in great financial
enterprises, and drew from a thousand little hoards the
national savings into vast reservoirs of capital.

Nor was this the only important feature of this period of
commercial revolution ; for commerce itself experienced great
changes. Fairs, which had been so characteristic of the
middle ages, remained as picturesque and profitable sur-
vivals of the older period. The cloth fairs of England and
the Low Countries; the city exchanges of Germany, now
reinforced by the book market at Leipzig; the great Bussian
fair of Nijni Novgorod, where East and West met to exchange
their wares ; and hundreds of like and lesser marts throughout
the continent still played a great part in the economic as in
the social life of Europe. Even beyond the sea, from Porto
Bello to Japan, this oldest of systems held its sway undis-

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 361

torbed. Such activities were actually greater and more vari-
ous than two centuries eariier, as supply and demand had
gradually increased. Tet in comparison with the total amount
of business done, their importance had relatively declined
before the advance of more modem systems. The word
exchange no longer connoted mere barter of commodities;
for specie, bills, notes, credit, discount, and shares of stock
were now a part of commerce as of finance. Combinations of
trade and capital, so-called ** engrossers,*' "regraters,*'
''forestallers," or monopolists were active and now clearly
recognized factors in affairs; and, as a result of long evolu-
tion, the business world took on an aspect familiar to modem
eyes as '' exchanges,'' dealing in stocks and bills, made their
appearance in the centers of capital. Only in one direction
was trade still hampered— its method of land transport.
Wagons had taken the place of pack-horses, and with them
had come some slight attention to highways. But, in the
main, Europeans were to await for generations the transport
facilities adequate to their ambitions and their needs.

No small part of this widespread development had been Effect of
directly due to Europe beyond the sea. Trade routes had oversea on
been revolutionized. As the bulk of commercial and financial the old
power was transferred to northern powers the stream of traffic
had worn down new channels of commerce, and the influx of
precious metals altered the economic character of the con-
tinent. The flood of bullion and the increase of trade had not
merely called a new class into existence to redress the old
mediaeval balance of noble and serf, free and unfree: it
threatened to revolutionize politics no leas than society. This
increase of wealth had not been, indeed7an unmixed blessing
to all men alike. It had produced a rise of prices in the
sixteenth century, which had perhaps been n^ t unrelated to
the popular discontent of that tumultuous period. Neither
wages nor national revenue had been increased proportion-
ately to the growth of capital, and as yet no adequate means
had been devised to draw such fluid wealth into the service
of the state or lay on it such burdens as the land still bore.
Both masses and governments, in consequence, had felt the

world

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362 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

strain; and readjustments in taxation, like the welfare of
working classes, had, as usual, lagged far behind the growing
national resources. Worse still, as royalty had become more
ostentatious and expensive with its growing power, as the
luxury of favored individuals and classes had increased more
than the comfort of the great majority, social disturbance
grew.

One may not venture tt^ declare what relation, if any,
exists between the concurrent development of these phe-
nomena and the tremendous period of war by which it was
accompanied and followed. But it is certain that there was
throughout the continent a large discontented element, land-
less and moneyless, ready for any ylesperate enterprise. Nor
is it less certain that, whatever religi^lis and political motives
impelled rulers to wage war against the old ecclesiastical
establishment and their- neighboring rivals, the hope of gain
was not always absent from councils which professed them-
selves concerned only with conscience and honor.

Scarcely less significant than these phenomena wad the
general change of mental attitude, habit, and consequent de-
mand, produced by the increasing stream of goods from Asia
and America. What had been thought not long since the
almost unattainable luxuries of the few, with the advance
of what we j|^H!tvflisation, had comedo be regarded as the
necessities of the many. Spices and sugar, cottons, silks,
with an infinity of lesser products of the extra-European
lands, had begun to seem essential to existence. Upon them
now depended many arts. Painters and dyers, workers in.
precious stones and metals, ivory, and stuffs of all sorts
relied upon them. The advance in medicine brought new
demands and new necessities. Even sports, like the recently
invented game of billiards, and habits like the growing use
of tobacco, tea, coffee, and cocoa, lent their infiuence to
increase the pressure on this commerce and to establish more
firmly the connection between Europe and the outside world.
It became inconceivable that her people should allow them-
selves to be cut off from the sources of the gold and goods
which more and more became the foundation of a great part

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Sixteenth Century Crafts.

After the wood-cuts of Jost Amman, 1562. Above the nail-maker and
the weaver. Below the spectacles-maker and the clock-maker. Compare
the weaver with the picture of 18th century weaving, vol. II, p. 348.

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 363

of her existence; that they should allow themselves to sink
ugain into their earlier civilization and economy. Still less
was it possible that they should revert to that ruder scale
of living which, to the men of the early seventeenth century
and to their successors, would have seemed little better than
barbarism* Thus, on every side, the new desires and devices
of modem life were riveted upon Europe's society, and
thenceforth played their part in her economy and even in her
politics.

These altered standards were not confined to the highest Building
classes alone, to royalty, the great nobles, or the clergy. What
Pope and Spanish king had done in building a St. Peter's
or an Escorial, the aristocracy did their best to imitate in
castles, countiy and city houses. Even the burghers of the
northern leapitals did not lag far behind their splendid
predecessors of the Italian city-states and their contem-
poraries of a higher rank. Ouild-hall and market, mansion
and counting-house rose among the humbler edifices of the
trading towns in a new birth of architectural magnificence.
Among the alterations which the sixteenth century pro-
duced, especially in western Europe, none was more con-
spicuous than the development of the dwelling-house. As the
demand for comfort grew and areas of strong government and
relative peace increased, as the advance of artillery made it less
possible for each man's house to be his castle, as the growth
of royal authority discouraged more and more the construc-
tion of fortress-dwellings which might be centers of resistance
to the king, the upper classes had turned to a different type
of habitation. Feudal castle gradually gave way to manor-
, house and country-seat, to villa and ch&teau ; while city man-
\^£ions increased in numbers, convenience, and magnificence.
Arrow-slits widened to windows glazed with leaded panes;
rushes gave way to rugs upon the floors; rude arras to rich
hangings. Tapestry shared the walls with pictures; plaster
came to cover the bare stone ; rude stools and benches, pallets
or monumental beds gave way to lighter, more graceful, and
more movable furniture.
Most of the arts had spread northward from Italy, and

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364

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Manners

and

costume

with them came minor refinements of scarcely less significance
to the changing bases of European life. Manners improved
with cooking and service, as plates replaced trenchers, while
spoons, individual knives, and here and there a fork, took
the place of dagger and fingers at meal-time. Habits of
personal cleanliness made way; and, in the more civilized
communities, soap became an article of manufacture and
commerce, in some rare instances rivaling even perfumes.
Methods of warfare altered even more. With the improve-
ment of cannon and musket, full armor gradually gave way
to helmet and breast-plate. The two-handed sword, the
battle-az and club, even the most deadly of mediaeval weapons,
the English long-bow, with its chief competitor, the Genoese
cross-bow, became mere curiosities. This was accompanied by
changes in costume. For, as the necessity for close-fitting
clothes suited to wear beneath armor declined, men turned
to other forms of dress. And though the name of that
Columbus of tailors who first devised the masculine costume
with which the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were
familiar is lost to history, it is apparent that he probably
lived in the years which followed the Spanish Armada.

The sixteenth century is scarcely less notable for a general
advance in the facilities for production and the increasing
use of the comforts and luxuries of every-day life than for
its attention to the concerns of the spirit. What may well be
called the material reformation of Europe is fully as evident
as the ecclesiastical reformation during that period. In the
field of metal-working the invention of stamp-mills to prepare
the ore, the discovery of the so-called wet process of treatment
of the powder so produced, the use of sieves, and, above all,
the separation of gold and silver by the quicksilver method,
completed a revolution in the recovery of precious metals.
This added enormously to European resources, especially
when introduced into the mining regions of the western
world. Beside these the discovery of the art of coating iron
with tin was of no small importance in the lesser affairs of
existence. Most of these new processes were the result of
German ingenuity ; and to that people, or to the Netherlands,

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 365

is attributed the adaptation of the loom to the weaving of
ribbons. This was accompanied by another and still more im-
portant development, the art of knitting whose progress '
daring the sixteenth century was crowned in the last years
of that period by the invention of the stocking-loom. Than
this, which is usually attributed to an Englishman, Lee, there
is scarcely a single advance of more importance in material
comfort since the introduction of silk and cotton to European
markets, nor any so productive of alteration in costume and, ^

in some measure, of habits and industry.

One other feature of the period just passing was no less Wood-
remarkable. The art of carpentry or joinery, which in its ^<>'>^K
higher branches was expressed in cabinet-making, took great
strides during the same period. This was due in part to the
increasing demand for better house-furnishings. But it was
scarcely less owing to the progress in tool-manufacture.
The sawmill, which replaced the older and peculiarly
toilsome and unsatisfactory process of working out boards
or ''deals" by hand labor, had been gradually developed
during the sixteenth century till it was now possible to cut
several planks from a log at once. This, added to the im-
provements in the use of water or wind power, enormously
facilitated the task of the wood-workers; while the develop-
ment of the size, power, and uses of the turning-lathe aided
them perhaps even more than their fellow-workers in metal.
Beside these, still, in an allied field, the progress of the
coach-makers had been no less remarkable. Those vehicles —
which had earlier been confined to the use of women, sick
I>ersons, or great dignitaries — ^were now lightened, orna-
mented, and hung on springs of greatly superior arrangement
and quality, and began to take their place among the necessi-
ties as well as the luxuries of life throughout Europe. Like
every other refinement of existence, progress in mechan-
ical art was greatly stimulated by printing; since the last half
of the century saw for the first time manuals and diagrams of
many varieties of methods and machinery for the use of
artisans.

In other fields the new bases of life were no less marked Education

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366 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

if somewhat less conspicuous. As the conflict of communions
widened and deepened during the sixteenth century, eadi
side had hastened to enter the educational field ; and Catholic
and Protestant schools alike had grown in numbers and in
intellectual strength. From Jesuit Coimbra no less than
from Calvinist Geneva, the impulse to found new seats of
learning or reorganize and revive older establishments spread
throughout the continent in the hands of the adherents of the
rival schools of faith, and, joined to the humanistic move-
ment which had preceded it, lent to education a new vigor
and new direction.
Protestant This was especially true in the Teutonic lands. England,
universiUes beginning with Henry VIII 's splendid foundations of Christ
Church at Oxford and Trinity College at Cambridge, made
great additions to her roll of collegiate foundations in both
her universities during the Tudor period. Scotland, and
even Ireland, with its Protestant establishment of Trinity
College, Dublin, felt the same impulse; while in Germany
the universities of Jena, Marburg, Eonigsberg, Hehnstedt,
and Altdorf , among others, testified to the same evangelizing
spirit of the new communions. Finally Holland, at the
height of her desperate struggle with Spain, found energy to
establish at Leyden, in honor of the heroic resistance of that
city, a faculty which was to become famous throughout the
continent in the succeeding century. The Catholics went fur-
ther still. For, apart from the rejuvenation of their older seats
of learning, the religious orders established universities in
Spanish Asia and America, — ^Lima, Mexico, Cordoba, Manila.
And this movement, however ecclesiastical its origin, soon
brought results in many other fields. Above all, while in
other lands the progress of the Reformation and the national
spirit tended toward a certain provincial and dogmatic spirit,
the Italian universities retained or acquired a universality
scarcely known elsewhere. In consequence, they became the
goal of those who aspired to the best learning of the time,
and the ranks of their faculties, no less than of their students,
tended to attract the ablest and most enlightened men of the
continent.

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Meanwhile in both Protestant and Catholic establishments,
whatever their service to their respective faiths, the emphasis
on training men for secular pursuits insensibly augmented;
as it became increasingly unnecessary for those who entered
professional or public life to be in holy orders. Lay states-
men and officials became the rule rather than the exception,
even in the most Catholic of states; for, with all Europe's
absorption in the saving of its soul, the age of ecdesiasticism
in secular affairs was passing rapidly. The changes thus
taking place were indeed unequal in different quarters of
Europe, conditioned as they were by the development of
personal liberty. They were far more conspicuous in the
north and west. Thus while serfdom still flourished in eastern
Germany, Poland, and Muscovy, it was already dying out
in France, and had long since vanished from English soil.
In like degree, except for parts of Italy, the intellectual ad-
vance tended to follow the same lines as the development of
commerce and the new communions, since in those vigorous
societies now rising into eminence, the new ideas found a
warmer welcome and a greater tolerance than in communities
still dominated by the noble and the priest.

Thus as the sixteenth century merged into the seventeenth SecoUrica-
Europe was being gradually transformed into a far more J^^
secular society than that which the early reformers found.
The combined influence of the Benaissance and Reformation
had now elevated and strengthened lay authority. Now in
place of an all-powerful unity of faith and feudal rights came
a new unity in diversity of interests and beliefs, which from
that day to this had been the characteristic of the European
world. This was due in chief measure to two elements — ^the
increased demand for comforts and luxuries which bound this
great society into the interdependence of its several parts
for the material necessities of their more complex lives, and
the intellectual movements which tended to build up a
universal society, founded not on uniformity of belief but on
community of knowledge. In such wise and under such im-
pulses Europe, amid the incessant conflict of political and
ecclesiastical rivalry, developed the germs of a new unity,

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368 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

at the same time that it set forward on new paths of material
and intellectual adventure.

Printing To this movement, as to all otheFL.^^^^ inteUectual field»

the art of printing contributed. With the sixteenth century
appeared the *'text>book.^^ or manual of instruction, whose
name indicates its origin in those publications of classical
Lpr even Scriptural texts, which became the basis of a great
'part of education, then and since. The educational value of
the printer's art was not confined to merely intellectual pur-
suits. From that stream of publication which began with
^AYtftTi'a book on chess had flowed a multitude of manuals
on almost evei^department of life — ^hawking and heraldry,
building and decoration, gardening and husbandly, and, per-
i haps not the least, as indicative of the amelioration of the

hardships of mediaeval society, on cooking. With this went
other activities difficult to classify, yet obviously related to
the progress of Europe. Thus collections of pictures and
books, the founding of galleries and libraries, came into evi-
dence, and, in a somewhat different field, the establishment of
botanical and zoological gardens with which, beginning in
Italy, the great ones of the earth satisfied their curiosity no
less than their love of display.

Letters Be^des these still, the closing years of the sixteenth cen-

tury made their own contribution to the refinements of civil-
ization. These were different, indeed, but not inferior even
to those advances in the humanities and especially in the
urbanities of life which the splendor of the artistic renaissance
had contributed to the continent. For with all Europe's
absorption in war and trade, religion and politics, there re-
mained minds open to matters outside the province of all
these, which busied themselves with concerns even more en-
during than wealth or power. Amid the clash of faith and
arms in France, Michel, Seigneur Montaigne, composed in

1580 the security of his P^rigord chateau those Essays which have

remained the delight of all succeeding generations. Filled
with the spirit of classicism, the love of nature and of man,
hatred of dogma and an irrepressible delight in mankind,
its weakness and its strength, they not merely amused, they

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 369

helped to hninaiiize the world While Portugal's power de-
clined, her greatest poet, the exiled Camoens, began in his
distant Asiatic prison the epic of the Portuguese heroic age,
the Lusiad, which related the great deeds of Vasco da* Gama 1571
and his successors. At the same time all Italy was ravished
with the sonnets of Tasso, which soon inspired the continent
to imitate a form of verse that thenceforth took high place
in nearly every European literature. Meanwhile, his epic,
Jerusalem Delivered, set him among the immortals of Italian 1574
poetry and even won for him the high though tardy recog-
nition of the church authorities. Finally, as England
emerged from the long coil of circumstance which hampered
her entry into world-politics, the court of Elizabeth read with
delight the young Edmund Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, 1579
fit prelude to that nobler burst of melody, the Faerie Queene, 1590
whose beauty adorned the years following the defeat of the
Armada.

The other arts were not neglected in this stirring period Painting
when politics began another chapter of its ever-changing
events and characters. The golden age of the Italian painters
was past; the first great contributions of the Netherlands
had been made; and the deaths of Holbein and Diirer, Titian
and Michelangelo had left only such talents as those of
Tintoretto and Paul Veronese to refiect the sunset glories of a
greater school. But two arts now took on at once new beauty
and new form. The first was architecture. During the mid-
sixteenth century in those nations so diverse yet so closely
connected in many ways throughout this period, England and
Italy, there sprang up, almost simultaneously, two rival
schools of the builder's art. The one was the neo-classic Arcfaitec-
type, already begun in the hands of the Renaissance masters ^^^
who had turned from Gtothic models to those of the ancient
world for their inspiration. Now, in the hands of Palladio,
the classical influence began definitely to supersede the
mediaeval and renaissance forms in European taste, as the
massive pillar, round arch and dome overpowered the more
graceful (Gothic forms, and the tower virtually disappeared
from architecture for two centuries and more.

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Glass and
china

The drama
and opera

In England^ meanwhile, the combined effect of wealth and
political change — ^the advance of comfort and luxury, with
the impossibiUty of defense against improved artillery, —
turned men to a neo-Gothic type. This, during the Tudor
period, adapted the older form especially to the convenience
of domestic use; and, before the classical style invaded
northern lands, produced some of the most livable as well as
the most beautiful examples of dwelling-houses which Europe
had yet seen.

To the refinements of life another art contributed. In
England and Germany glass-making, introduced from Italy,
developed new methods and new forms no less useful than
beautiful; and in France the genius and patience of the
heroic Palisgy drew from a thousand unsuccessful attempts
the secret of making that delicate glazed pottery known to
the East, and named from its chief source, china.

But with all these manifestations of progress during the
period which centered in the Armada, one rose to such sudden
and, as it proved, such sustained eminence, that it became the
prodigy of the age. This was the art of dramatic representa-
tion which, like architecture, found almost simultaneous ex-
pression in England and Italy. It was not new. No savage
tribe but had rude elements of the drama among its religious
or social rites ; no nation of antiquity but had framed canons
of tragedy or comedy, chorals or interludes. With the advent
of the Greeks into the field of drama, the rude eclogue and
pastoral which formed the earliest vehicles of this art, grew
suddenly into the tragedy of ^schylus and Sophocles and
Euripides, and the comedy of Aristophanes. These marked
the climax of dramatic achievement in the ancient world, or,
so far as those particular forms were concerned, of any time.
Thence the decline was rapid and complete. The Roman
imitations of the Greek drama were bad; the rude mystery
and miracle plays of the middle ages were worse. And with
all its progress in other fields, in the dramatic art the Europe
of the early sixteenth century scarcely surpassed many of
the half-civilized peoples whom its adventurers found and
conquered. The Renaissance restored to her a portion of the

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 371

Greek masterpieces; but Greek drama made its way slowly
into scholarship, more slowly still into literature, and not at
all into stage-craft

The same was measurably true of music, inseparably con- Music
nected with drama in the Greek conception. Its methods
and its instruments, inherited or adapted from the past, im-
proved but slowly through the period lying between the
ancient and the modem world. The middle ages wrought the
old ''Pan's pipes" into a rude organ, whose sounds filled
the hearts of its hearers at least with awe. Troubadours and
minnesingers relied largely on the harp for their accompani-
ments. The bugle and trumpet, flute and hautboy, trombone
or sackbut, with a few other forms, almost as old as European
civilization itself, remained the chief wind instruments.
From the viol the late Renaissance period began to evolve
the violin in the hands of Italian instrument makers; and
toward the dose of the sixteenth century the Amati of
Cremona began that improvement of this king of stringed
instruments, which reached perfection a century later in
the productions of their great pupil, Stradivarius.

Thus equipped by the instrument makers, the composers
had gradually improved their craft. The rude elements of
harmony known to the Greeks were slowly acquired and
extended during the middle ages. The modem tetrachord
took the place of the ancient hexachord. The scale was made
to run up, not down; the so-called discantus, or two-part
harmony, was introduced, and the art of counterpoint, or
composite melody, was founded. By the close of the
fifteenth century four-part writing had been achieved, with
the variations from simple melody which were accomplished
by such refinements as the so-called inversions, discords, and
chromatics. The early part of the sixteenth century, in addi-
tion to the improvements made by sharps and flats, and what
were known as accidentals and ''passing notes," had seen
the development of the staff, bars, and clefs. These, defining
the older and looser notation, set music another and a greater
step along the path which made it an "absolute art," not
unrelated to mathematics. Much of this improvement was

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372 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

due to the Netherland school of musicians, which ('uring this
early period of musical evolution did most to intrcxiace these
innovations and give music its modem form. Thence the
later Renaissance brought these newer developments into
Italy, where, at Venice and Rome in particular, they were
reinforced by an emotional element and the genius of another
school of composers.
Palestrina For the most part music had developed in the church, which
MoDteTcrde ^ound in its harmonies one of the chief agents of its mystical
appeal. But secular music felt the same impulse and a
variety of new forms, among which the madrigal was con-
spicuous, soon challenged the older and less pleasing as well
as less flexible fashion of folk-songs and minstrel lays. The
latter years of the sixteenth century gathered up the various
threads of this long development, and two powerful influ-
ences combined to complete the change from medieval to
modem forms. The first was the work of the Vatican choir-
master, Palestrina, the last and greatest of the mediaevalists.
The second was that of the Cremonese composer, Monteverde,
who, breaking away from the so-called polyphonic forms in
which Palestrina excelled, turned his attention to freer
melody and more worldly activities. He adapted his scores
to dramatic purposes, and associated his talents with that
movement which by the fourth decade of the seventeenth
1637 century, under his direction, had established in Venice the

first European opera-house. Nor were the Protestant com-
munions slow to enlist music on their side. For the long list
of their hymn writers, beginning with Luther, allied
with their composers, of whom **the Protestant Palestrina,"
Lassus, was chief, rivaled the Roman harmonists, and in-
jected the element of choral or congregational singing into
European life.
Theplay- Such were the beginnings of a new art which was to spread
^ 8"^ with great rapidity throughout the European world. It had
an ally. While Italy had led the way to the final develop-
ment of melody and the opera, she had done scarcely less
for the drama. This in her hands, and in those of the other
peoples, followed or accompanied her progress in the new

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 373

field of operatic representation. The growing class of story-
tellers and scholars who owed a great part of their inspira-
tion to the Benaissance was, indeed, quick to find other
channels than the medium of narrative literature for the ex-
pression of its talents. That curious fraternity of strolling
players who, during the later middle ages, in particular,
had amused Europe at fairs and feast days, was not slow
to take adyantage of the opportunities presented by the alter-
ing spirit of the times. They turned from the folk-comedy
and the religious mystery-play which had been their chief
stock in trade to other forms of representation, drawn from
the incidents of the life about them or from the rich treasures
which the story-tellers and the classical scholars had col-
lected. Among them, in consequence, there sprang up a
school of play-writers, soon recruited by literary aspirants
who saw in the drama of life a field for talent till then
absorbed by other forms of prose and verse. The fashion
grew no less by the activities of the writers than by the
hold it took upon the public, which found in the new art a
means of amusement peculiarly satisfying to its tastes. In
many cities arose a system of resident companies, supplied
from their own ranks or from outside sources with dramatic
material, — stock companies, as they became known to a later
age, strollers only upon occasion. And, as the fashion spread,
the actor, the manager, and the playwright became recog-
nized features of European society.

Nowhere was this movement destined to greater impor- TheElixa-
tance than in England, whose dramatic development became ^^^
not merely a type but a model for the continent. There the
new art fell into the hands of a brilliant group about the
court of Queen Elizabeth, and by them it was extended
and improved. Breaking with every tradition of the
mediaeval drama, they freed dramatic representation from the
constricting forces which had kept it apart from the general
literary progress of the continent, and set upon the stage
those problems of human life and character in which the
Greek playwrights had found material for their masterpieces.

As in the case of the early opera, classical influence, no less

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374 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

in subject than in treatment, was at first strongly in eyidence.
But the dramatists, like the composers and the librettists,
soon broke away from the traditions instilled by the Renais-
sance and sought wider fields. From the works of men like
Painter, who brought the rich treasures of Italian fiction to
England, came one set of plots and characters. From the
chronicles of men like Holinshed was derived another series
of dramatic motives based on the history of England itself.
A long array of legends, from Troy to Tamerlane, supplied
a third; and from the life about them came the inspiration
of a fourth, and, as it proved, the most enduring form of
dramatic literature.

The development of the English drama was even more
rapid than the rise of opera in Italy, to whose story-telling
ability and whose culture England owed so much. With the
sudden increase in wealth and luxury which accompanied the
plundering of Spain and the growth of commerce in the last
years of the sixteenth century, reinforced by the renaissance
influences and the literary impulses proceeding from Italy,
the Elizabethan court turned to adventures in the field of
literature no less daring than those which it had undertaken
in war and politics, and with no 1^ brilliant success. Under
noble and royal patronage, playhouses and companies of
actors took their place in English life, playwrights and drama
in the world of -letters. Within a decade a new type of
man had found a place in European society, the literary
adventurer, and the earliest of these was the dramatist.
Recruited from every rank of life, hard-living, free-thinking,
filled with the fierce passion of creation, they founded not
only a new profession but a department of letters. Among
them one figure became pre-eminent. Oreene, the creator
of lighter English prose; Marlowe, whose genius revolution-
ized the stage with his Tamhiirlane, Faustus, and The Jew
of Malta; Kyd, Jonson, and their fellows yielded to the su-
preme talents of the country-bred actor-manager-playwright.
Shake- William Shakespeare. In him at last the modem world found
1564^616 * fipi^*^ worthy to set beside the greatest of the ancients.
And, among the minor coincidences of human affairs, it may

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William Suakespeare.
The Chandos portrait.

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 375

be observed that the death of Calvin and the birth of Shake-
speare in the same year, 1564, symbolize, in a sense, the
changes which overtook Europe between the beginning and
the end of the sixteenth century.

Following the fashion of the time, begun by Surrey and
Wyatt, who had introduced Italian forms of verse into
England, and influenced scarcely less by Florio, who had
translated Montaigne, the young poet had first turned his
attention to such studies. His earliest essays in the new world
of letters reflected the influence of the Italian school of
romantic drama which had inspired his predecessors and
his contemporaries. But besides the cycle of plays whose
scene was laid in Italy there was material nearer to hid
hand; and in the tragedies of English history he found the
stuff from which many of his most successful works were
drawn. Almost from the flrst his talents were recognized.
For it is not surprising that the London of Elizabeth, filled
with the profit and the pride of conquest, no less than with
the exaltation of spirit which accompanied England's sudden
revelation of her strength, saw in this playwright the repre-
sentative of all that was greatest in the nation whence he
sprung, or that ten thousand persons flocked to see his flrst
great drama in a month. And as his genius went from
strength to strength, by the time of the death of Elizabeth
the Warwickshire playwright stood forth as the commanding
literary genius of the European world.

Spain alone, of all Europe in this epoch, produced a rival, Spain
and even her men of genius were scarcely to be reckoned v^^ndT
with the great Englishman. To one of them, the soldier, Cervantes
Lope de Vega, who had fought at Lepanto and with the
Armada, remains the proud distinction of having written
some two thousand plays, and thus having achieved the emi-
nence of superlative proliflc industry in the fleld of literary
production. But to another belongs the honor of a work
which, though inferior to the many-sided genius of Shake-
speare, still challenges his popularity and, like the writings
of Montaigne, gave literature a new form. This was Miguel
Cervantes, who, wounded at Lepanto, turned to letters for a

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376 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

livelihood and, forsaking the drama, to which, like all Enrope,
1004-5 he had first been attracted, brought forth the marvelonB

tale of Don Quixote. Half humor and half satire, this first
of the great romances of modem time, gave the death-blow
to the fast-fading chivalry of his native land and laughed
it out of existence. At the same moment that England
and Spain reached the height of their literary rivalry with
the productions of Shakespeare and Cervantes, in the twelve-
m<mth following the death of Elizabeth, the two great forms
of literature which affected the modem world so powerfully
were firmly fixed. And as Europe turned to other tasks,
her way was lightened if not illumined by her old friend
Romance, which, whether in drama or opera or novel, was
to accompany her thenceforth through all her wanderings in
these new forms. With Cervantes, Spain's literary greatness
ended, for the time. But from the nation which saw Handet
at the same moment that Don Quixote found its way to print,
there flowed a broadening stream of prose and verse. This,
if it never reached 'the dramatic heights attained by Shake-
speare, found other forms of expression which made England
the mother of the richest of all modem European literatures.
Italy In this great revolution one feature was conspicuous. It

was the altered position of Italy. Already Vasari had begun
his monumental work on the Lives of the Painters. If it were
not enough to show that the great artistic age of Italy was
past when men began to write its history, the death of
Veronese in the Armada year eclipsed the last star in the
splendid galaxy of Italian artists. And the completion of
St. Peter's church at Rome in the concluding decade of the
1690-1600 sixteenth century marked at once the culmination and the
dose of the great burst of neo-Christian art which had
illumined Europe with the glory of the Renaissance. Nor
was it without significance that the newer school of archi-
tecture abandoned the aspiring arches of the medieval Gk)thic
forms, and, under the influence of Palladio, reverted to those
classical models whose influence dominated the ensuing cen-
tury. At the same time that artistic pre-eminence disap-
peared from Italy and political domination fell from the

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MiouEX Cervantes.

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CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 377

hands of Spain, the last of the immortals of Italian poetry,
the last interpreter of the mediaeval spirit, Torquato Tasso, 1596
died. The Portuguese Camoens had already sung the van-
ished glories of his land's heroic age. The Spanish Cer-
vantes wrote the great ironic epitaph of his country's
misguided chivalry in Don Quixoie. Each was symbolic of
the time in which it fell. Each was the swan-song of the
supremacy of its i)eople in arts as arms. For as the spring
of painting and literature lessened in the south, it had sprung
with fresh vigor in the rising powers of the north, where
England took the place in letters which had been held by
Italy, and Holland was presently to rival her in art.

The Italian peninsula, indeed, was to retain for many years Her
a reputation which drew men of all nations to study and 2[*^°**
admire the relics of her classical antiquity, and still more dose of
those achievements which for two centuries had made her ^^^^^
pre-eminent in every field of intellectual endeavor, in politics
as in painting, in scholarship as in diplomacy, in engineering'
as in literature. Long after she ceased to lead she continued
to instruct the continent. Rome, though shorn of half her
spiritual dominion, remained the mistress not alone of the
Catholic world but of the imagination of all Europe. Venice,
''a shell on the shores of the Adriatic, deserted by the won-
derful organism which once inhabited it," could still reveal
the wonders of her declining greatness to the inquiring trav-
eler. The splendor of the Medicean court had faded; but
Italian universities remained the goal of European students.
And the polish of the most refined society in Europe, the skill
of craftsmanship engendered by long generations of artists
and artisans, the lessons and traditions of statecraft and
letters, commerce, mechanics, and administration, with all the
refinements of life, remained to spread their influence
throughout the rest of the continent.

Yet withal, save in the fields of music and of science,
creative genius waned in Italy, as in southern Europe gen-
erally. Like power, wealth, and enterprise it sought the
freer northern air, where political liberty had already found
refuge. The triumph of the spirit of the Inquisition; the

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378 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Itscftttse increasing authority of learned, devoat, but reactionaiy
forces like the Jesuits ; the narrower if stronger ideals of the
Vatican, which marked the victory of the Counter-Reforma-
tion in southern Europe, were all against an intellectual de-
velopment on the lines which were to be the dominating
element in the next advance. It was evident that, unless
this could be changed, the Mediterranean world had ex-
hausted its intellectual as well as its political mandate. One
force remained— the numerous academies which sprang up in
the old centers of thought and action in the peninsula, and
thence spread through the continent their encouragement of
the new scientific spirit which now made such headway in
European thought. These were, however, outside the pale
of the official and ecclesiastical influence. Though QalOeo,
the founder of physics, and Bru]aQ» the prophet of modem
politics, were hoth Italians, Galileo's theories and Bruno's life
were sacrificed to the principle of conformity, and the two
rising forces of a modem world, science and popular gov-
ernment, found their chief enemies - among the same
classes which for two centuries had been the patrons of the
Renaissance.

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PA C

THE EUROPEAN WORLD

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
171k CENTURY

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CHAPTER XVII

THE RISE OP HOLLAND. 1603-1623

The death of the English queen, Elizabeth, marks mth pe- The change
culiar emphasis a turning-point of European politics. For *"'"^®'«
forty years her duel with Philip II had been a leading motive
of international affairs ; and, after the Armada year, she had
become, in many ways, the most conspicuous ruler in Chris- 1594-
tendom. With her departure from the scene, England, like I60i
Spain after the death of Philip, declined from the exalted
position which she had occupied in the concerns of Europe.
That leadership fell to other hands. Neither the aging
astrologer-emperor Rudolf, nor the weak Philip III of
Spain, nor James VI of Scotland, who, uniting Britain for
the first time under one crown, became James I of England,
compared in influence or ability with another king who now
took the center of the 'Ullage. This was Henry lY of France,
who, after the long years of war and intrigue which made
up French history during the latter half of the sixteenth
century, had ascended the throne on the death of Henry III
the year after the Armada. He became king in fact as well
as name five years thereafter, by his abjuration of Prot-
estantism and the consequent submission of the Catholic
party. In his hands France showed reviving strength, and
with the Edict of Nantes, which gave the Huguenots virtual
tolerance and political equality, the nation began to play its
part in the European drama.

So far as merely military events go to make history, the
decade and a half which followed the death of the English
queen was a bavren epoch. But one considerable conflict, the
continuance of tiie war between Spain and her rebellious
provinces, disturbed the peace of the western continent, while
only the struggle betwe^ Sweden and her enemies broke the

879

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Henry IV
155::i-1610

]610

l(a4

Uustavug

Adolphus

59^1639

1611

quiet of the East. But in those deeper concerns of human
affairs which center in the transition from one form of polity
and society to another, it was a most eventful period; and
in the activities of Europeans outside the confines of the con-
tinent it was a decisive epoch in the Idstory of the world.

In these events Henry IV and his minister, Sully, played
a great part. The deep scars of civil war were healed as
far as possible by a series of adroit compromises which had
been begun with Henry's conversion and the Edict of Nantes.
The king's title to the crown had been further assured by
his marriage to Marie de Medici, and the house of Bourbon
thus established on a throne which it was to hold for nearly
two centuries. Finance was reformed, trade encouraged, a
sound basis laid for royal authority and national prosperity
alike, and the old colonizing projects of Coligni revived. Be-
yond this still, Henry dreamed of a ** Great Design," — a
Christian federation of western Europe, based on his alli-
ances with the Protestant rulers within the Empire and the
support of England and the Netherlands, to secure a balance
of power making for universal peace. That dream, like his
more practical project of breaking the Hapsburg strength by
war and diplomacy, was cut short by an assassin's dagger.
Seven years after the death of Elizabeth, Prance fell again
into the hands of a queen-mother. Sully was dismissed* The
States (General were suspended, — ^as events were to prove, for a
century and three-quarters, — and a decade of royal minority
Catholic regency, and Huguenot disturbance, intrigue, r. *
civil war ensued before another statesman arose to f'i \:\i
kingdom again in the forefront of European politics.

Meanwhile the East produced a ruler not incornparablp U
the French king as a power in continental n" irn. "Vh- .
France felt the reaction following the death cf Ifenvy i /,
the accession of Michael Romanoff as Czar of Muscovy eadi .1
the anarchy which had followed the cixtiix^lior of t};*^ hoi:*;^''
of Burik fifteen years before. But Ihe advept of. tlic family
which has held the Russian throne from that day to mir
own was singularly unpropitious. Two yearv V-fore
Michael I assumed the crown, Swedeir had declare ! war upon

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 381

Denmark; and the young Swedish king, GuBtavns Adolphus,
had proved himself a terrible enemy. Under his leadership,
ably seconded by the talents of his chancellor, Ozenstiema,
the Danes were beaten and compelled to an unfavorable
peace. Lnmediately the Swedish arms were turned against
Bussia, with such effect that Ingria and Karelia, with the 1614
key-fortresses of Finland and Livonia, fell into the hands of
Gustavus. Sweden became the foremost power of the north,
well on the way to the control of all the Baltic shores and
a position among the first-rate European states. Bussia, shut
off from access to the sea, was, for the time being, corre-
spondingly depressed in the international scale; and the
young Swedish king stood out as a factor to be reckoned
with for the future, a fit successor to Elizabeth and Henry
of Navarre as the leading figure among the rulers of Europe.

It was not without significance that all three were members The
of the Protestant communion, into whose hands had passed ^^P^'*
the initiative in European affairs after the death of Philip IL
Neither the German nor the Spanish branch of the house of
Hapsburg at this juncture revealed qualities of wisdom or
of strength. In the German Empire as in the Spanish Nether-
lands the chief features of its rule were the decline of its
authority and continuance of conflict. Meanwhile central Eu-
rope, as the long reign of Budolf wore to a close, found itself lon-i9
again disturbed by the breakdown of the Peace of Augsburg,
which, with all its faults, had insured to Germany^ half a
century of uneasy peace. Now, however, the ambitions of
the rival sects and rulers brought on evil days for which all
the Emperor's learning and his skill in astrology could find
no cure.

The chief difficulty arose from the spread of Protestantism
and the relation between religion and politics. These por-
tended a trial of strength between the two communions, and,
no less, between the imperial power and that of the lesser
rulers within the Empire. Four years after the death of 1607
Elixabeth, the seizure of the city of Donauworth by the
Catholics to avenge an insult to their faith seemed likely to
precipitate a conflict. But peace was patched up and the

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1G08
1609

Itic prog-
ress of
Protes-
tantism
and the
Counter-
Reforma-
tion

reign of Budolf ended without a general appeal to arms.
Yet it was apparent that the struggle was only delayed. A
Protestant Union was formed under the leadership of Fred-
erick IV, Elector Palatine, the son-in-law of William the
Silent, and a Catholic League headed by Maximilian of
Bavaria was organized almost immediately to oppose the
Protestant alliance. Little by little the relations between the
parties which these bodies represented were strained to the
breaking-point. As Matthias succeeded Budolf the antag-
onism deepened; and as he, in turn, made ready his de-
parture from the throne, the smoldering enmity flamed into
war.

It is not surprising that conflict seemed inevitable to the
men who embarked upon the trial of strength between the
two communions. In the century which had elapsed since
Luther had nailed his ninety-five theses against indulgences
to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, the struggle
between the old faith and the new had gone on with scarcely
an intermission. For though the various diplomatic settle-
ments, of which the greatest was the Peace of Augsburg, had
prevented much armed strife, no one recognized them as a
final determination of the great problem then filling the
minds and hearts of the people of the continent. Throughout
Europe, particularly in France and Germany, Protestant-
ism had made its way from town to town, from province
to province, congregation by congregation encroaching
on the old establishment. In France it had achieved the
accession of Henry of Navarre and the Edict of Nantes. In
(Germany it had converted whole districts and their rulers.
And in each, against the bitter opposition of the Catholics,
it had perfected an organization to maintain itself and for-
ward its interests. On the other hand, the forces of the
Counter-Beformation had been no leds active. In France
and Germany they had founded Catholic Leagues ; and while
Henry had ascended the throne of France it ha]l been at
the price of his adherence to the ancient faith. In Poland
the energies of the Jesuits had set bounds to the progress
of Lutheran doctrines. In southern Europe the new heresy

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 383

had been effectaally crashed out; and in outlying districts
like Ireland it had made no headway. The onion of the
Flemish and Dntch Netherlands had been dissolved and the
former had been won back to Spain and held to their old
faith. While the imperial authority had grown increasingly
orthodox under the influence of the Jesuits until the
accession of Ferdinand brought to the throne a man of their
own making, the Catholic forces in the central powers had
become more and more aggressive in their attitude toward the
heretics. These, in turn, by virtue of their successes, had
asserted their rights more and more vigorously.

Nowhere was the issue more acute than in Bohemia. There Bohemia
the teachingid of Hubs had taken deep root and the majority
of the people were now Protestant. The crown was nom-
inally elective, the Czechs tenacious of their privileges, and,
during the disturbances of preceding years, they had man-
aged to secure so-called Letters of Majesty, which guar- 1609
anteed them the exercise of their faith. As a result that
faith had flourished. Even where it had been unable to
replace Catholicism entirely, it had often effected compromise,
and made an arrangement by which men, following the pe-
culiar system inaugurated by Huss, were permitted to take
communion in both kinds; and these Utraquist congrega-
tions, as they were called, had multiplied.

To more tolerant minds than those of the early seven-
teenth century such a compromise might well seem the best
solution of a vexed problem. Yet it was far from satisfying
those who saw the foundations of belief thus undermined,
and it became an aggravation rather than a palliative of
the situation. In the face of Protestant progress the Cath-
olic minority in Bohemia had drawn together into a party
which, supported by the Hapsburg house, formed a powerful
factor in affairs. When the deposition of Rudolf brought I6li
Matthias to the throne, one of his earliest acts'was to forbid
the completion of a Utraquist church for whose erection per-
mission had already been obtained. The Protestant Estates
protested and the edifice was built. But the new Emperor
ordered it closed, and in this breach of the Letters of Maj-

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884 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

esty he was supported by the Catholic element. The con-
troversy became acnte with the destruction of another Prot-
estant church and the appointment of Catholic goTemors in
^ven of the ten districts of the principality. And when
the Catholic town council of Prague asserted its right to pass
upon the qualifications of parish priests, and so control the
1618 faith of the capital, the storm burst. The so-called De-

fensors, headed by Matthias of Thum, projected a Pro^
estant revolt. In the so-called '^ defenestration of Prague"
two of the Catholic governors of Bohemia were thrown
from the windows of the council chamber. The aid of the
Protestant Union was invoked; a provisional government was
set up; and with the arrival of troops from the Union, and
the forces of Silesia and Lusatia under John George of
Jagemdorf , the conflict Jbegan to take form. The Bohemians
found allies. Savoy loaned them a general. Count Mans-
feld, with two thousand mercenaries, and the nder of Tran-
sylvania, Bethlen Gabor, renounced allegiance to Austria and
prepared for war.
The Thirty Under such auspices began the reign of Ferdinand II, now
Years* Waf y^^^^ of the Hapsburg land» in all but name. His daim to
the Bohemian throne was repudiated by the rebellious Prot-
estants, who chose Frederick V, Elector Palatine, for their

1618 king. A twelvemonth to a day from the action of the Prague
town council he was crowned ; and central Europe embarked
on the most desolating conflict in her history.

"A winter-king," the Jesuits declared, on the election of
Frederick to the Bohemian throne; but their prophecy was
not immediately fulfilled. Led by Mansf eld and Thum, aided
by the Margrave, John George of Brandenlmrg-Jagemdorf ,
and Bethlen Gabor 's diversion against Hungary— whose
titular '^ prince" he now became — ^the Bohemians drove the
Imperialists before them to the walls of Vienna, and only a
Polish invasion of Transylvania, which broke up the Prot-
estant combination, saved the capital.

1619 Upon the death of Matthias, Ferdinand became Emperor
in name and fact, and bending his whole resources against
Bohemia, the tide began to turn, with help from Spain,

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 385

Bavaria, and the Lutheran Elector of Saxony. Spinola
poured his Spaniards from the Netherlands into the ill-fated
Palatinate* John George of Saxony sabdued Silesia and
Lusatia, and Maximilian of Bavaria, with the forces of the
Catholic League under Tilly, united with the Imperialists in
Bohemia.

There, just outside the walls of Prague, they joined battle Iiie
with Frederick's army under Christian of Anhalt, and ^p|^t-
crushed Protestant hopes in the ensuing defeat of the White estants
Hill. Frederick, put under the ban of the Empire, found ^
refuge in Holland. His lands, with those of Christian and
John Qeorge of Brandenburg, were confiscated. Bohemia was
subdued, its charter repealed; and Protestantism was rooted
out in all the Hapsburg lands so far as possible. , As Catholic
and Imperialist made their triumphant way through Ger-
many the Protestant Union was dissolved; and the Palatinate
was conquered by Tilly despite the desperate resistance of
Mansf eld and Christian of Anhalt. Maximilian of Bavaria
was rewarded for his aid by the upper Palatinate, and the
electoral title which had been Frederick's; while the Elector
of Saxony was granted Lusatia in pledge for his services.
Thus, in total disaster to the Protestant cause, ended five years 1(193
of fierce confiict which formed the first period of the German
war.

These events were accompanied by others of less ultimate England
consequence, but of much immediate importance. In Holland J^^^ ^
a revolution which coincided with the outbreak of the German
war cost Oldenbarneveldt his place and his life, and made
Maurice of Nassau Stadtholder of the United Netherlands. A
Huguenot rising under Cond£ in France, and a Spanish con-
spiracy in Italy disturbed the peace of these peoples at the
same moment. And, in a very different fashion than
that which had marked the reign of Elizabeth, England
had become a noteworthy figure in European affairs
during the course of the events which led to war in (Germany.
Its most remarkable characteristic was the reversal of the
Elizabethan policy. The royal pedant who ascended the
throne upon the great queen's death, James the Pacific, ''the

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386 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

wisest fool in Christendom," as Snlly dedared, had entered
on a course in foreign and domestic concerns, marked neither
by shrewdness nor success, but destined to the grayest con-
sequence. Among his earliest acts was peace with Spain. For,
obsessed by the absurd delusion that he could somehow com-
pose Europe's deepnaeated antagonisms by mere diplomacy,
he entered on a long series of negotiations which made Eng-
land, in no long time, a negligible factor in Europe's affairs.
Meanwhile he antagonized the powerful Puritan and com-
mercial elements among his own subjects ; oppressed the Non-
conformists or drove them from the land. He disorganized
finance by his assumption of the right to tax without consent
of Parliament ; and weakened royal authority no less by bitter
quarrels with the Commons over his pretensions to absolutism
than by unkingly qualities which forfeited the popular re-
spect. Learned, disputatious, obstinate, timid, he seemed
equally incapable of meeting or averting the dangers thicken-
ing about his ofifice and his faith ; while his petty intellectual-
ism and his pretension to prerogatives from whose assump-
tion even Elizabeth had shrunk, proved a poor substitute
for Tudor governance.
FaUure His motto was that beatitude which extols the virtues of

noUrT^' peacemakers. But the times were unpropitious for a doctrine
of nonresistance, nor were his methods adapted to attain
his ends, however satisfying they were to his sense of intel-
lectual superiority. It is true that while on every hand
Europe was torn with conflict, England remained at peace.
But it was peace without honor, and only in name. Throuerh
all the catastrophe to Protestantism the supine English king,
infatuated with his belief in his own shrewdness and flat-
tered by his weak favorites, saw the collapse of the faith he
held, his son-in-law dethroned, his daughter a fugitive, firm
in the absurd conviction that he could arrest by his diplomacy
the triumphant power of Catholic Imperialism. His more
dear-sighted Parliament — ^infuriated scarcely less by his
fatuous complacency than by the conquest of the Palatinate —
voted to support Frederick, and petitioned James against the
marriage which he projected between his son and the Spanish

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policy

THE RISE OF HOLLAND 387

Infanta, as a solution for the recovery of his son-in-law's
dominions. The quarrel came to open breach. The king,
having defied the laws of common-sense and the will of his
people, was confronted with a Great Protestation of the Com- 1691
mons, which asserted the right of Parliament to a voice in state
affairs even against the opinion of the crown. It was in vain
that James tore the offending page from the Commons' jour-
nal with his own hand, imprisoned the popular leaders, and
sent his son to Spain to urge his suit in person. The unprece-
dented journey was as vain as it was foolish, and the young
prince, humiliated by his experience, returned at the moment
that his brother-in-law's fortunes collapsed, to find his father
all but openly defied by Parliament.

Such were the events which introduced Europe into a new The
chapter of her history in the two decades following the death ^q^^J^,]
of Queen Elizabeth. Save for the reorganization of France Spain
and the germs of progress which lay in the English situation,
they were chiefly destructive; and had the development of
Europe been confined to continental politick, these decades
might well be reckoned a backward step in the world's history.
But while ambitious rulers and zealous statesmen strove for
advantage to themselves or to their faith, while the most
fertile parts of Germany were ravaged by alien mercenaries,
there had proceeded that conflict between Spain and the
Dutch, inherited from the preceding generation. Upon it
hung the fate of the rebellious Netherlands, and, in some
sort, that of her great antagonist. With it the European
rivalries were carried to the farthest regions of the earth,
while at home it had become a school of war for half Europe.
Siege and counter-siege had flUed the history of that narrow
borderland between the Dutch and Spanish Netherlands for
nearly forly years, though with the defeat of the Armada
it became increasingly evident that Spain's chances of recov-
ering her lost provinces were waning steadily.

The accession of Philip III only derved to emphasize the 1598-1691
decline of Spanish power. Like the English king, he was
dominated by his favorites, the Duke of Lerma and his son;
his nation was weakened by a fatal foreign policy and the

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

colonial

conflict

incessant wars to which it led, as well as by a declining
industry and a false economy. Spain still aspired to play a
great part in Europe ; intrigued in Italy, fought the Dutch,
and lent assistance to the German Catholic and Hai»sburg
powers. She was still able to deceive the English king. But
when, with the foundation of the Dutch East India Company,
the conflict took a wider range, it became apparent, to Spain's
principal antagonists at least, that the nation which had so
lately aspired to dominate European politics and faith was
hard pressed to compete with the Netherlands alone. In
their struggle for independence and commercial supremacy
there had rested the chief importance of international affairs
in the years between the death of Elizabeth and the outbreak
of the German war. *

That conflict, like the Anglo-Spanish rivalry a generation
earlier, involved far wider interests than those of continental
Europe. For the Dutch undertook to finish what the English
had begun, and in their resistance to' Spanish domination
they not merely fought Spain along their own frontiers and
weakened her efforts to assist the Catholic cause in Germany,
but they carried the conflict to the most distant quarters of
her empire. In consequence, besides the outbreak of war in
central Europe, and the antagonism between the English
crown and Parliament, the first decades of the seventeenth
century witnessed a struggle for commercial and colonial
supremacy, which rivaled even the efforts to maintain reli-
gi(ms liberty in Germany and political liberty in England,
1^ was not without its influence upon each.
The Dutch ^ The initial success ^gf the Ditfcb was rapid and complete.
In the four years which followed the death of Elizabeth as
many fleets found their way to the East, n^^rfi fm"? t^^
Cape of Good Hope to the Isles.of.BpJce the Portuprnese were
forced to fight for the ^fitention. of. their factories and trade.
Three years after Elizabeth's death one of the decisive ni^^al
combats of history destroyed a SpanishrEortuguese fleet
at Malacca and l$ift..Control^of eastern lyjitAra it^ Di^tch handa.
'"S twelvemonth later, another Spanish fleet was overwh^med
by the sea-power of the NAthftriftiiHa f^\ fflt^riiifay > ^t.^^ (^q

conquest
of die
East

1606-7

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 389

Atlantic, like the Indian Ocean, was thus cleared of obstruct
lions to the Dutch trading fleets' passage to the East. While
the talents of Oldenbameveldt and ^^^^TJfffl of Ns*^"^" ^^'^
back the Spanish arms on land, Holland became the virtual
mistress of the Spanish seas ; and, two years after the battle
of Gibraltar, compelled her nominal suzerain to a cessation
of hostilities. That so-called Twelve Years' Truce determined, iw9
to all intents, her status and her future. Thus, while her
neighbors were disturbed with civil quarrels, the Netherlands,
with all their disadvantages, building upon their successes
over Spain, secured their place in world trade and polity.

But as their merchants took advantage of the situation TheDntch
thus created, their statesmen and divines improved the oppor- Rc^ol'itioii
tunity to fall out among themselves, and the decade which
followed the signature of the Twelve Years' Truce was filled
with civil and religious discords. The theologians had divided
into two factions whose animosities were as bitter as only
theological disputes can be. The new controversy over pre-
destination between Arminian and Gomarist, as the rivals
were called from their respective leaders, was transformed
into quarrels over toleration and civil supremacy. Maurice
of Nassau, who frankly said he never knew whether his pre-
destination was blue or green, found himself opposed to.
Oldenbameveldt. A coup d'Stat placed in power the Contra
Remonstrants to whom the prince belonged. The Advocate
was hurried to judicial murder; and in the first twelvemonth
of the German war Maurice became the sovereign of the 161S-19
United Netherlands in all but name. Such were the earliest
fruits of the search for ultimate theological truth which
accompanied the virtual independence of the Netherlands.

Had Spain, in this juncture, revealed even a portion of
the strength she had possessed a generation earlier, she might
have improved the years of the great truce to make her
position more secure. To that end one thing was imperative,
the reconstruction of her naval power. The Dutch, indeed,
were compelled to defend their narrow land against their
late masters if they were to make good their place in Euro-
pean polity. But the defense of their frontiers was not

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390 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

enough. To their minds the sea was at once their element
and their opportunity, the field of commerce and of colonies
their real inheritance. Without this even their hard-won
independence at home was but a barren gif t, their future not
only empty of the power and wealth they coveted, but wholly
insecure. It was upon their sea-power they relied as well for
the profits which it brotight as for the offensive warfare
which should compel their opponent to terms. In conse-
quence, from the Caribbean to Celebes their fieets harassed
the Spanish power with ever-increasing violence. To them
might well have been applied the old motto of Bremen: *'It
is necessary to navigate, it is not necessary to live."
Spain After the shock of the Armada, the succeeding onslaughts

of English and Dutch, and the disastrous defeats of Malacca
and Gibraltar, Spain found herself all but powerless against
this fierce and well-sustained attack. Her government seemed
equally incapable of retrieving or averting catastrophe.
Weakened by the incessant drain of her foreign policy and
by consequent bankruptcy, the mediocre talents of her rulers
were unable to rouse her underlying strength, bring order
out of chaos, or awake ability from indurated pride of rank
and birth. Her centralized control, her aristocratic temper,
her clerical and official rigidity, her repression of initiative,
left small room for that individual enterprise which had
become the heart and soul not only of the new colonial forces
but of commerce and the politics which fiowed from them.
At home her popular liberties and her economic strength had
long since decayed. Her Cortes had been finally dissolved
by Charles V; and those provincial privileges which survived
its extinction had gradually lost whatever power they had
once possessed to influence policy. Besides the collapse of her
mastery of the ocean and her monopoly of the knowledge of
the seaways, her docks and harbors were ruined by neglect,
her navy only a memory of its recent greatness. In conse-
quence the story of her possessions abroad became scarcely
more than that of weakening defense against the Anglo-
Dutch attack. And, had her power been confined to the
peninsula, or had her activity been bounded by the abilities

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 391

of her rulers, she might well have been eliminated from world
politics.

In one direction especially she was weak. Great as were
the triumphs of official voyages and far-sounding victories —
of which history, perforce, takes chief account — ^the greatest
conquests in the world of commerce, however dependent upon
arms, were won by individual enterprise. Nameless traders
with their little ships, sailing wherever in the world there
was hope of profit, coasting from port to port, stretching
across from Africa to America and back, threading their
way among the islands east and west, exchanging European
goods for ivory or slaves, and these for gold, tobacco, sugar,
hides, spices, or dyes, — ^these were the omnipresent agents
of expansion, no less powerful because their names were not
emblazoned on the page of history. Such were the means by
which slaves first found their way to Virginia and English
and Dutch goods were introduced to South America. And
such were the means, added to the organized trading forces
of the great companies, by which the Dutch undermined the
power of their late masters.

For the moment the Atlantic colonies were preserved by South
their nature from direct attack. Though harassed by English, An^'*^*
French, and Dutch, theij: plantations qffsij'ed Ba^flUfill>Ilrigf*'
as Spain ^s ^eets j|nd trading-posts. ^ The islands went on
much as usual, save for an occasional descent of their ene-
mies. Brazil, even at the crisis of this early period^ flour-. .
ished and spreaii^ts settlements from Pernambuca far to
thiT'northwest, where Para was founded. tq^f oil French .AHIr 1615
bltionsjin thatjauarter^ ^nd though it might have been
apparent tliat once the East was secured, Spain's enemies
would turn against the West, the very destruction of the
trading empire brought respite to the planting colonies.

Thanks to the activity of her colonists, within the shell of
desolation which her policy drew about the rich interior of
her own American provinces, Spain's power actually in-
creased while the storm of aggression beat most severely on
her coasts and commerce. Far within their borders, settlers,
prospectors, priests, planters, and officials slowly spread over

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her far-flung empire the broadening authority of her govern-
ment and the peculiar institutions of her colonial society.

1665-85 In the La Plata region colOTiists pressed in^ founding new
posts, Gke Comeiil'es ancl Tiicuman, and in Cordoba even
a university. The Creoles spread their herds across the
pampas, the Jesuits their mission farms and ranches along
the Paraguay and Uruguay, until, at the height of English
attack, the port of Buenos Ayres, through which ran the
currents of communication between this new society and the
old world, had grown into a principal resort of smugging
trade as well as a center of legal commerce. So great was
this development that at the same time the German war
reached its first climax, the Lima authorities divided this
vast region into smaller administrative areas, and so organ-

1690 ized the provinces of Tucuman, Buenos Ayres, and Paraguay.

Farther north the same process went on in almost equal
pace. In the same year that the Argentine was thus divided,
the rich grazing and tobacco land of Venezuela, the district
about Barcelona, began to be settled, and the previously pro-
hibited cultivation of cacao was begun. From there, from
the plantations west and south, as far as the old capital of
Bogota, which now, with its cathed;>al and schools, began to
rival Lima and Mexico, Spanish culture, no less than Spanish
authority, took on new life. The most distant lands of New
Spain felt like impulse, and while explorers resurveyed the
California coast, or traversed the lands which Coronado

1605 found, in Santa F£, New Mexico, the foundations of a new

provincial capital were laid. In these extensions of her empire
the insular possessions lagged behind. Manila, remote from
outside influence, took on the form of a municipality, and
with its government buildings, its barracks, and its uni-
versity, maintained the Spanish influence in the Philippines,
its chief event the yearly galleon to Mexico. But the West
Indies, subject to continual attack, save for the fortifled port
of Havana, sank into insignificance, or became the resort of
pirate and privateer.

Center and eymbol of the whole vast area, Lima and
Mexico fiourished, with their hospitals and schools, their

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 393

cathedrals, and universities^ the oldest and largest institutions
of their kind outside of Europe. They represented the wealth
of the Spanish American colonies, which had increased since
the discovery of quicksilver-bearing cinnabar at Huancavelica, 1606
in the tenth year of Philip II 's reign. This gave fresh impetus
to the mining industry in which mercury was by this time an
invaluable agency in the recovery of gold from ore. The
growing stream of wealth which the improvements in the
reduction of ore by the copper pan amalgamation process, and
the discoveiy of new mines in the Lake Titicaca district,
poured into its hands, evidenced the substantial increase of
Spanish colonial prosperity. Tet at the same time Spain's
own strength declined till it became dependent on its own de-
pendency. Such, in the years which saw the Dutch supplant
the Portuguese in the East, were the extensions which Euro-
pean power and civilization owed to the energy of the Spanish
colonists.

But if, with the beginnings of the seventeenth century, those The Dutch
colonists thp flourished behind their wilderness barrier, de- port^I^^sc
spite the biuSMUcra^ic rule which did little to second their Empire
activities, thr raf orttlnate Portuguese bore the full brunt of
all the many enc^lhies of Spain. To them Philip II had, 1580-1690
indeed, confirmed control of the trade and offices throughout
their empire. But it was a barren gift; for neither he nor
his successors could insure immunity from the consequences
of his own policy. As a result, the first four decades of
the Portuguese captivity saw the collapse of their colonial
empire. Under the guidance of the pacific James, England's
attack slackened; but Dutch aggression, hampered by no il-
lusions and few scruples, held on its way to seize the eastern
trade by right of the strong hand. The rise of the Dutch
empire in Asia was only the story of the fall of Por-
tugal. /. .

It was in vain that the old masters of the East strove to
assert their rights. It was in vain they sought support from
native rulers, the Grand Mogul, the King of Siam, and the
Shah of Persia. It was in vain they struck time after time
from Qoa or from Portugal against their enemies. Their

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 395

earlier oppression now bore its bitter fruit, for everywhere
the invaders found native allies. Long misgovemment met
its reward; and desperate efforts to reorganize their armies
and their fleets brought small success. The Portuguese them-
selves shunned such service, save when official peculation
made it profitable. And though the garrisons were increased
fivefold by native levies, these lent themselves rather to cor-
ruption than defense, until, with such a strain on her re-
sources, it became a question whether the loss of her eastern
possessions would not be a positive gain for Portugal.

It was, then, rather against the eastern posts that the Dutch
directed their first and most furious attack, and, for the time
being, made their chief effort to break down Spain's colonial
monopoly, for it was there that the great profits of such
extra-European ventures lay, and there that trade and power
could be obtained most rapidly and most easily. In conse-
quence, within six years from its foundation, the Dutch India
Company had made enormous strides.

Everywhere throughout the islands which stretch south- The Dutch
eastward from Asia it not merely established its own trading ^p"^^
connections, but had endeavored, with considerable success,
to exclude the English, as the rival traders made their way
among the native princes seeking business and treaties. From
India through Ceylon to Java and Sumatra, south and south-
east through the Moluccas, or Islands of Spice, with their
chief trading centers of Temate and Tidore ; among the Isles
of Cloves and Nutmegs, Banda, Amboyna, Pularoon; to
Macao in China ;^pa8t Celebes and Borneo, to New Guinea,
even to the remoter confines of Australia, now rediscovered
and renamed New Holland, they pushed their vessels in
search of trade and laid foundations for a new empire of the
commerce of the East.

Nor was trade the whole of their activity. Beginning with
Achin in Sumatra opposite the Portuguese Malacca, to Ban-
tam in Java, and Johore on the south coast of the Malay
peninsula, they established posts by which, with the pos-
session of strategic points like Temate and Amboyna, they
sought to command not merely the seaways of the farther

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396 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

East, the straits of Malacca and Sonda, but the whole traffic
of the islands and the routes to China and Japan. To this
end their next eflPorts were directed. Amid continual war
with the Portuguese, and efforts to enlist native princes every-
where against the common enemy, they extended their
suzerainty over local chiefs. Now, as they grew stronger, they
strove to prevent the natives from commerce with any other
1609 nation. When the Twelve Years' Truce was signed, they

crowned this first stage of their progress by sending out
Pieter Both as Gk)vernor General, to organize and confirm
their hold upon the Archipelago. Already their ships had
reached Japan, whose Shogun, lyeyasu, detained their Eng-
lish pilot-major, William Adams. By his infiuence the Dutch
were allowed to found a factory in the island kingdom.
Two years thereafter the exile secured the same privilege
for his own countrsnoien ; and thus, by the curiously romantic
intervention of this Kentish sailorman — ^who became the
founder of the Japanese navy and eventually a god — began
that long-lived relationship of such future consequence to
East and West alike.
England But it was not alone against the Spanish and the Portu-

HMland g^^se that the Dutch had to contend, for, as the English
had preceded them in organized efforts to control that trade,
. so they remained their chief competitors for its great
/ profits. If political development were a well-ordered, logical,
' and intelligent progress toward well-defined ends, instead of
blind advance toward the unknown, the triumph of one set
of principles or practices might become the basis for con-
certed action to the advantage of all the victorious elements.
Had England and Holland, triumphing over Spain and Por-
tugal, been content to divide and enjoy the heritage which
they were about to win — ^had they even been satisfied to con-
fine their hostilities to the destruction of their mutual ene-
mies until that issue had been determined — ^the result might,
indeed, not have made for peace, but it would, at any rate,
have limited the area of confiict. But scarcely were they
fairly in the field of eastern trade when to th4ir joint attack
on Spain and Portugal was added their rivalry with each

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 397

other, which within another generation was to become one
of the great issues of the European world.

It might have been supposed that this oversea conflict would
have been the cause of an immediate general European war.
But three circumstances combined to prevent this result.
The first was the fact that colonial affairs were still regarded
as outside the pale of European polity as then understood;
that events ''beyond the line" were in the main a separate
concern, to be reckoned a cause of war at home, or not, as
the occasion served. The second was Spain's inability to
avenge all of her injuries at once. The third was the pacific
policy of James I and JcAn Oldenbarneveldt.

These last were, in a sense, the immediate determining ele-
ments. The peace between England and Spain and the
Twelve Years' Truce were forced on Philip III by his tri-
umphant enemies; and had they pressed their great advan-
tage home, they might have crushed Spain's power once for
all. Yet to their minds peace seemed the wiser course and
its accomplishment was easier because, whatever the antag-
onism beyond the Cape, the interlopers had certain advantages
in their efforts to expand their power oversea while keeping
peace at home. The field was wide ; it was imperfectly culti-
vated by Portuguese enterprise, and there were opportunities
for profit without war.

Such a condition appealed especially to the English king; ne
and his subjects, unlike the Dutch, had from the first sought ^"^^^^
means to invade Portuguese monopoly without conflict, iaoo-9
Their immediate concern was to flnd some legal procedure
for their acts. And in accordance with the Company's pious,
punning motto, ''Deus Indicat," they turned to India. On
the third of the so-called "Separate Voyages," which filled
the first dozen years of its existence, one of the Company's
captains, William Hawkins, landed at Surat and carried let-
ters from James I to the Mogul Emperor, Jehangir, at Agra,
in an attempt to gain a foothold on the mainland. But
neither the effort to connect themselves *with the Mogul
authority, which was meanwhile extending its power over the 1607
interior, nor the development of their trade, had proved espe-

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898 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

dally suceessful. Now, when to the antagonism of Dutch
and Portuguese was added the increasing e£Fort of inter-
loping English adventurers to break down the Company's
monopoly, it was compelled to take steps to preserve its
existence. Nine years, therefore, after its first incorporation,

1609 just as Spain and Holland had come to terms of truce, the

English company was recharteredj its privileges were re-
granted in perpetuity, its capital was enlarged, and, under
these more favorable auspices, it began a new chapter in its
eventful history.

In one direction the English were fortt^ite. On the north-
west coast of India a post at Surat had been established,
and thereafter, defeating the Portuguese squadron guarding
thiB approaches to the English vantage point and destroying
the fleet which held the coast between Goa and Diu, permis-
. sion for a i>ermanent settlement was obtained. Sir Thomas
Boe was despatched to gain trading and residential privi-
leges from the Grand Mogul. Agencies were established in
the interior to gather muslins and indigo for the Surat post,
and when, ten years after the destruction of the Portuguese

1699 fleet, the English with native aid captured Ormuz, Portu-

gal's supremacy in Cambayan and Persian waters was at
an end.

Had the English been equally successful in their other
ventures, or in their relations with their rivals, the history
of their empire in the East would have been far different
from what it proved to be. On the other side of India,
where the Dutch factors controlled the trade of the Malabar
coast, they essayed in vain to establish a post at Policat.
Under protection of the king of Golconda a short-lived post
was set up at Pettapoli; and, finally, at Masulipatam, half-
way between Cape Comorin and the Ganges' mouth, they
founded the ''most fortunate and thrifty" of their stations.
The rich trade in textiles and the precious stones which made
Golconda a synonym for wealth, the spices and camphor and
benzoin of Siam and the Archipelago, found their way hither
with the goods from the farther East. Yet in the very success
of this factory lay the seeds of enmity with their Dutch

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FRANS van deb BOBCIIT.

After the painting by Van Dyck. Tliis portrait is a good type of the
17th century school, and illustrates the change in costume. Compare with
Coligni, p. 298.

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND

rivals; in particular since it shared in that spice trade for/
which the Dutch were prepared to fight with any or all other
powers.

To control that most coveted of monopolies, Both's expedi- Angl(>-
tion had bound the native princes of the Archipelago to the Utility
Dutch interest by a network of treaties and so laid the founda-
tions of Dutch supremacy. Meanwhile, at home the statesmen
strove for an accommodation. The nominal friendship of the
rival states, endless negotiations, James' apparent determina-
tion to have peace at any price, combined with Oldenbame-
veldt's efforts to compose the quarrel, to calm the storm, — but 1^19
to little purpose. The long negotiations led only to the vaguest
of arrangements. It provided that each nation should enjoy
its own conquests and discoveries, pay customs to each other
at their respective ports, and so divide the trade for twenty
years, leaving the question of the posts undetermined. To
this was added an agreement to join against the common
enemy, establish a joint Council of Defense, and so ''beat the
Spaniard out of the Indies."

But all the good intentions and the adroitness of statesmen
and diplomats availed little to insure peace beyond the line.
The strategic points of the seaways and the centers of the
spice trade were seized by the Dutch. Collisions of all sorts
embittered relations already strained to the breaking-point.
Disputes over conflicting treaties with the natives were fol-
lowed by attack and reprisal, which led to open war. In this
conflict the English company, its profits reduced, its very
existence threatened by rivalry at home and war abroad,
found itself in no condition to oppose the great national
enterprise of the United Provinces. It was as little able to
compete with the new trafiSc in tea which the Dutch intro-
duced from China as they were to rival the trade in coffee
which their competitors first brought from Mocha. And,
whatever their profits from their chief commodity, pepper,
from spices and eastern products generally, they fell far
short of the Dutch, not only in their revenues but in their
general status through the East. Only their defeat of the
Portuguese at Ormuz, two years after the Trealy of Defense, i69i-9

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400 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

and their entry into some share in the trade of that region
broke the long record of disappointment and defeat which
these years held for England's merchant adventurers.

To them the treaty brought no relief. However it may
have satisfied the English king and his advisers, it availed
little in checking hostilities in the East. Sir Thomas Dale
was despatched to face the new Dutch governor-general, Jan
Caen Pieterzoon Caen (or Eoen), with whose arrival opened a new

chapter in Dutch colonial history. This great administrator
had been trained in the Roman commercial house of
Piscatori. He had long been president of the factory and
outlying agencies of Bantam, and what Albuquerque had
been to Portugal, Caen now became to th£ United Provinces.
Nor were his plans and operations dissimilar. Fortifying
Jacatra and Bantam to control the Sunda Straits, and put-
ting down native revolt in the Moluccas, he returned from
his first expedition to wrest his half-completed fortresses
from the English and Javanese who had taken advantage of
his absence to overthrow Dutch domination. Dale, driven
from Jacatra, made his way back to India, to die of fever,
and Caen, thus relieved of his most dangerous enemy, pre-
pared to consolidate his country's power in the East Ja-
Batavia catra was destroyed, and near it was begun the city and
^^^^ fortress of Batavia, which, more than worthy rival of Sural

and Oolden Ooa, has stood from his day to our own, the
capital of the Dutch trading and planting empire of the
East.

Caen's services by no means ended here. For he maintained
the Dutch contention that, whatever the great treaty said
of commerce and defense, it gave the English no dominium
or jurisdiction in Asiatic territories, and he proceeded
to oust them from the slender foothold they had gained.
Unable to supply their complement of ships, unwilling to
join in a projected attack on Bantam, or to engage in war
with Spain, embittered by the quarrels over mutual restitu-
tion of property taken in the late reprisals, the English
found then^selves outgeneraled in war and diplomacy alike.
Their ships remaining in the Archipelago were taken. Their

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THE RISE OF HOLLAND 401

treaty with Bantam was seized on as ground for war. Their
position at Batavia was made untenable; their agents were
fined, imprisoned, even flogged; their agencies in Lantor and
Pularoon were expelled; and they lost whatever power they
had held. Before the end of Caen's first term of service
the Dutch were masters of the Archipelago.

This was not the worst. At the same moment that the The mas-
Catholic Imperialist success ended the first period of the y^SSmia
German war the Dutch confirmed their hold on farther Asia
by a crowning tragedy. In the remotest regions to which
commercial rivalry had led Europe's adventurers, the little
island of Ambo3rna — one of the great centers of the spice
trade — ^had, from its position in the heart of the Moluccas,
long been contested by successive powers. These now were
narrowed to the English and the Dutch, whose agents were at
bitter enmity. Scarcely had Caen left office when the con-
trover^ was determined there by a single stroke. The
Dutch, who outnumbered their competitors some ten to one,
charged the English with conspiracy, fell on the little gar-
rison, put them to death, and took possession of their few isss
remaining posts throughout the Archipelago. With this Hol-
land's control of the Spice Islands was assured. The English
were driven back upon the continent, to find what compenssr
tion they could there; and the first chapter of Anglo-Dutch
rivalry ended. The contest for Asiatic trade was not con-
cluded with this forcible delimitation of the spheres of influ-
ence; its last outrage left a long legacy of bitter retribu-
tion to succeeding years. But, for the time being, the Dutch
held the ascendancy. The English were compelled to that
momentous decision which made the mainland of India the
chief scene of their activity, and, in the end, the chief prize
of their imperial ambition.

The English had other rivals in their activity on the Asi- Russia
atic continent. At almost the same moment that England
and Holland burst through the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly
in the south, the Russians had begun to play a part in this
invasion of the East. Their adventurers, following along the
path Termak had pointed out, were making their way across

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402 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1588 the vast plains of northern Asia to the conquest of Siberia.

In the Armada year Tobolsk had been founded and the trade
route to Bokhara opened up. As the Dutch and KngliHh com-
panies began their long rivalry the Muscovites reached the
upper Obi and established an outpost at Tomsk, halfway
from Moscow to the Pacific. Thence they prepared to press
forward across the northern steppes. The year in which the
>Oerman war broke out they reached the Yeneaei, and founded

1618 there the town of Yeneseisk. And, at the moment that the

Anglo-Dutch rivalry reached its height with the Massacre of
Amboyna, the Russians had become the masters of the greater

19SS part of Siberia, and were well on the way to those vast regions

which lie along the course of the Lena.

The Thus in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, while

apaDsion Germany embarked on the last and greatest of religious wars,
and England entered upon an era of civil disturbance which
was to end in a no less momentous conflict, the earth was
divided into new spheres of European influence, and a new
element was injected into world politics. And if one feature
of political affairs becomes more apparent than another, as
the events of the ensuing century unfold themselves, it is
that European activities are no longer bounded by the
limitations which conditioned the affairs of the preceding cen-
tury. However important the situation which had brought
central Europe into the throes of war, the future belonged
less to the issues which were there fought out than to those
elements which found their first expression in the English
disturbances, and the activities of Europeans beyond the sea.
It has been observed that any society which cannot expand
must die; and that its every function is affected by its mar-
gins of free land and the extension of its opportunities. In
that view the extension of their power beyond the sea offered
to those European states which now entered the colonial field
a new lease of life no less than new fields for their energies.

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CHAPTER XVIII

ENGLAND, PRANCE, AND HOLLAND IN AMERICA.

1603-1623

It is apparent in even the most saperficial consideration of Europe
European history during the first two decades of the seven- oversea
teenth century that, however important the events which possessions
brought the English crown into conflict with the Parliament,
made Sweden the mistress of the Baltic, and plunged Ger-
many into the throes of a religious conflict, the interest and
importance of that period is not confined to Europe itself.
No account of the activities nf Frai^gg ynAt^r TtM^ ^^ wonlr^
be in any sense complete winct ignored one of the greatest
events in his reign, the planting of^.French settlements in
America. No chronicle of eastern affairs would be^nniicfi
value which omitted the advance of Russia into Asia. Nor
is it possible to write of t|ie conflict between Spain and the
Netherlands without consideration of the principal scene of
that conflict, the sea, and its great prize, commerce and
colonies. Above all, no record of the reign of James I can
pretend to any completeness which fails to include not only
the controversy between the crown and the nonconformists
within the British Isles, but those far-reaching policies and
events which, during this period, planted English colonies
and English power in the western world. For, among the
various results which flowed from the conflicts and contro-
versies of the si^eenth century, none exceeds in importance
that decline of Spanish naval gower jjhich asoE* ^or the flrst
time, opened the seawaj^s and the lands beyond to northern
nations, "and flSaT cofisequent movement of north-European""'*"
peoples to AmericyWhich introduced a hew'3emerif mto'the
world's affairs. Beside the beginnings of the German war,
the quarrel of English crown and Parliament, and the estab-

408

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404

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

France in
America

1535-

liahment of England and Holland in the East, the settlement

of North America must be reckoned as one of the determining

factors of modem history.

It might have been supposed that those nations to which

the destruction of Spanish naval power was due would have

been the first to enter into the inheritance of the western

hemisphere now opened to their enterprise. But such was

not the case. For under the stimulus of the new spirit which

had come over her affairs with the accession of Henry IV.

it was France who first roused to fresh adventures oversea.

Midway between the crusading and commercial powers, her

instinct for r>n1miiftft njirji trfl^jp, adventure and empire^ if it
a.i_- ji A 'J _-^iV/:r!: i

lacked somewhat of the fierce covetousness and religious zeal
of Spain and Portugal, and fell short of the passionate regard
for dividends which characterized her northern neighbors,
partook of both impulses. For centuries, as fishermen, as
interlopers in the Portuguese monopoly, as privateers and
colonists, her seamen and adventurers had found their way
to the west. Merchants of Rouen, Dieppe, Honfleur, Bor-
deaux Jhad set up factorleOffTH? Atrican Gold Coast, sent
expeditions to the farther East, financed Brazijian v^gges,
and Tmvn^fl^fi^^ ^^^^Tnp^^pjes. The Frendi

fuIersliiF the sixteenth century, like their neighbors across
the Channel, however, had been turned aside from wider
colonial ventures by the long rivalry with Charles V and
by the civil wars. The despatch of Verrazano and Cartier
by Francis I, Cartier 's settlements and those of Boberval,
had done no more than dissipate the fear of the griffins and
monsters which ranged the northern seas, the fiends who held
the Isles of Demons, the savages possessed of Satan who occu-
pied the interior of Canada. Some claims to the' shore neg-
lected by Spain and Portugal had been established. Coligni 's
colonizing projects had been cut short by his tragic death;
all else had come to naught, save the precarious gains from
West Indian piracy and private trade.

However, with a monarch bred in the HujgjfiiMt}; school,
to which nearly all French e?:tra-£uropean enterprise had
been due, and with a minister interested no less in the eco-

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 405

nomic than in the political power of the nation, there came a
change. As Granada's faU, a century earlier, had turned
adrift needy Spanish adventurers bred to war and seeking
fresh enterprise, the peace whinh f?|]ftY^fi^ tliA |^pY>f>3ff)nTi nf
Henry of Navarre~pui a like force a^ tfip (^ispp^ o^ the
FrencH. IW a colonial enterprise they could enlist recruits
jrom a nobility which had lately played a part that, however
embittered and disguised by a religious complication, was
not unlike that of the English baronage a hundred years
before. To these they added a king, who, despite all differ-
ences of character and circumstance, was in a position not
unlike that of Henry VII ; and a realm scarcely less disturbed
than England after Bosworth Field. From such elements
they recruited a fresh adventure.

Within a year after the Edict of Nagj^fiSi^ii^^trading asso- Canada
ciation had been establishe<flo*3eaI with Java, the lIoTuccas, ^*^
and Sumatra, a53 tlie t^ompan^^ ha3

been brought into existence. It was but natural Mai tlie'
lllller eumpatty* slioul3 seenfthe more important, for French
enterprise had always directed its chief interest toward North
America. The region about the St. Lawrence was the earliest
territory known to them in the new world, and the most
explored ; it was beyond the. accepted limits of the powers
with which Coligni's colonies had had such sad experience.
Inhospitable as it seemed to Mediterranean peoples, its rigors
were less heeded by the hardier northerners. Unprofitable
as it had appeared to Spain, its furs, its forest products, and
its fisheries offered to French adventurers prizes only less
attractive than the spices of the East; while to her states-
men, the illimitable, unoccupied interior of the continent
brought dreams of imperial dominion. Since Cartier's day,
wild tales had been afloat of Norumbega, of the great native
town of Hochelaga below the rapids of the St. Lawrence,
which had barred the earlier explorers from their hope of
reaching Asia, fmd thenceforth were known as Lachine. Since
his time trade had increased in fish and peltry, in ''ocean
ivory*' of walrus tusks, in oil, and such products of forest
and sea; and when the Edict of Nantes had freed the energies

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406 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of France it was to this vast region that their thoughts first
turned.

Champlain The revival of her colonial ambitions took form from the
ideals and the circumstances of the time. A Breton Catholic,
the Marquis de la Boche, named as lieutenant-general of
''Canada, Hochelaga, Newfoundland, and Labrador, with
their adjacent lands," began by settling an ill-fated convict
colony upon Acadia. His death transferred his patent to
a St Malo merchant, Pontgrave, and a naval captain,
Chauvin, who landed settlers at Tadoussac to live on Indian
• charity or starve. Thereafter a stout soldier, Sieur Aymar
de Chastes, Commander of St. John, Governor of Dieppe, a
Catholic supporter of the king, whose aid had given Henry
the victory of Arques, was granted a charter ''to plant the
lilies and the cross" in the new land. Allying himself
with Pontgrave, he presently enlisted the services of one
who was to be to French power in the new world what Cortez
had been to Spain and Yermak to Russia, Samuel Champlain.
Son of a Brouage sea-captain, bred to arms, having seen
service in the civil wars, sometime enlisted in a Spanish
expedition to the West Indies to gain information of those
regions for the French government, this brave, sagacious ad-
venturer, wearying of inaction as a royal pensioner at courts
committed himself to the new enterprise, and set out with
Pontgrave on an expedition which was destined to give France
an empire. Such were the founders of New France.

Hisftrst On his first voyage Champlain explored the St. Lawrence

^^^ and the Saguenay. He failed to find the town of Hochelaga,
or a way past the rapids of Lachine, and returned to learn
that his colleague, de Chastes, had died, and Pierre du Oast,
Sieur de Monts, the Calvinistic governor of Pons, and some-
time a companion of Chauvin in America, was now grantee
of Acadia. The adventurers' reports, now published, wakened
fresh interest in the project to found a colony. De Monts lent
his assistance, and Pontgrave, and a wild company, half
Protestant, half Catholic, wholly adventurers, sailed with

1004 Champlain to found the settlement of Port Royal, on the Bay

of Fundy in Nova Scotia. From that region the coast was

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 407

explore^} far to the south. But the resentment of the inter-
loping traders whom he sought to repress brought the revoca-
tion of de Monts' monopoly, and it was only after two years
of effort that the governor of Pons again despatched Cham-
plain as lieutenant-governor to secure a site for a trading-
post. From Tadoussac the great explorer made his way again
up the St. Lawrence, and at the foot of that huge cliff from
whose commanding eminence the city of Quebec still gazes 1606
down the broadening river to the sea he founded the first
permanent French settlement in America, or indeed outside
the European continent. With this the hold of France in
the new world was finally secured. Tadoussac, overrun with
Basque and French adventurers, remained a center of fur
trade. Increasing fleets of fishermen and merchants visited
Acadia and Newfoundland. The Jesuits followed ; and before
the first decade of the new century was gone, while Holland
secured her foothold in the East, France had established her
authority along the St. Lawrence and prepared, under Cham-
plain 's direction, to extend her power deep in the heart of
the vast wilderness beyond.

It could not be supposed that, in the face of these great England in
movements in the East and West, England would content ^™*''*^
herself with the slight profits of her Asiatic trade ; and those
who had formed the companies to ^ploit the East were quick
to feel the lure of the West, to which the earlier adventurers
had already shown the way. Baleigh, who^ad written in
Elizabeth's last years, ''I shall still live to ^ Virginia an
English nation," had fallen from place and- favor, lost his
patent and his liberty. James I had reversed Elizabethan
policy and set England's feet in different paths. But Eng-
lishmen still dreamed of the land which Baleigh had thought
to seize between the spheres of Spain and France, and whose
name, Virginia, still echoed the greatness of a passing gen-
eration and its queen. Already her captains had spied out
the land. The year before her deaths Baleigh himself made 1609
a last effort to rescue his ill-fated colony. On his track Oos-
nold explored southern New England coasts, first by himself,
later with Gilbert and Bring ; and, later still, Weymouth led

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408

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The

Virginia
Company
1606

Jamestown
1607

an expedition to the Kennebec. With this, as French power
fixed itself on the St. Lawrence, England gathered fresh
forces for a colonizing enterprise destined to permanence,
between the regions now claimed and occupied by Spain and
Prance.

Nothing conld have been more typical of the nation which
set it on foot than the men who poished it forward. With
its. chief promoter, the explorer Gk)snold, were associated Sir
Thomas Smyth, the first governor of the East India Company,
and chief assignee of Raleigh's forfeited patent; Popham,
a cousin of the chief justice; Wingfield, a West CJonntry
merchant; Hunt, a clergyman; Somers and Gates, comrades
of Baleigh; Dale, a Low Country soldier; Raleigh Qilbert,
nephew of ''the caged eagle''; with ''knights, gentlemen,
merchants, and other adventurers," chiefly in London, Bristol,
Exeter, and Plymouth. These petitioned James for "licence
to deduce a colony into Virginia," and two years after Port
Royal was founded a patent passed the royal seal establishing
two companies. To the London Company, or First Colony,
was granted land along the Atlantic coast of North America,
from 34** to SS**, with right to three degrees farther north
if it was first to colonize. To the Plymouth Company was
issued a similar grant from 41" to 45'', with like overlapping
rights to the south. Each company was given land for fifty
miles each side its first colony and twice that distance inland ;
rights of coinage and of self -defense ; with liberal trading
privileges; and, for government, a resident council in the
colony and a general council at home. Such were the per-
sonalities and the plans for England's first successful attempt
to extend her civilization and her power in America.

Thus equipped, the new corporation bought three ships.
A hundred adventurers, mostly gentlemen, were enlisted;
Christopher Newport, "a Marriner well practised for the
Westeme parts of America," was engaged; and, nine months
after the passage of the patent to the company, its little fleet
set sail. Watering at the Canaries, trading with the
"Salvages," and refreshing themselves in the West Lidies,
they were driven by storm into the Chesapeake. Thence they

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Champlain's Habitation, Quebec.

From Champlain's Voyages, 1613. By courtesy of the New York
Public Library.

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 409

sailed up a river, christened it James; and there on a low-
lying peninsula the adventurers began a settlement which they
called Jamestown. As soon as this was well under way, a
council formed, the river explored, and savage attacks beaten
off, they were left by Newport to their great task, than which
there was ''nothing so difficult ... to establish a Common-
wealth so farre remote from men and means." Meanwhile,
the western company, dissociating itself from the Londoners,
despatched an expedition, under Qilbert and Popham, to the
Kennebec. But the climate was severe; the hopes of finding
mines were disappointed; the French and Spanish traders
were hostile; and in the very days that the French colony 1607-8
which was to found Quebec made its slow way across the
north Atlantic, it was passed by the discouraged English
colonists, ''frightened at a blast," returning home.

Had it not been for the courage and capacity of one man, John
the Jamestown settlement might have suffered the same fate. ^^^
What Champlain was to New France, John Smith was to
Virginia. Besides a varied service in the European war,
especially against the Turks, he had experienced a long series
of what by his own account were not infrequently marvelous
adventures. Such a life had hardened this sturdy captain
who took charge of affairs in the first trying year of the new
colony into a commander whose courage, persistence, and
resource made the continuance of the experiment x>ossible,
and sustained its feeble life amid many vicissitudes till a
new supply of settlers enabled it to go on. In such hands,
and by such slender means, was England's foothold in North
America secured.

While it was thus slowly and painfully establishing itself The
in the New World its status at home was altered. Eeorgan- Q^^jp®"
ized at the same time that the East India Company was 1609
rechartered, the London Company became an open corpora^
tion with purchasable shares, which might be allotted to a
colonist for his services, together with land to be distributed
after seven years in proportion to the stock he held. Royal
and episcopal supremacy was confirmed, with English land
tenure and judicial system. At the same time also a new

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410 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

grant of territory, whose indefinite terms were of mneh im-
portance thereafter, conferred on the reorganized company
two hundred miles of coast on each side of Old Point
Comfort, extending inland ''west and northwest from sea to
sea."

Under the new charter was formed a corporation without
parallel hitherto in European experience. Its government was
vested in an English president and council, its active manage-
ment was intrusted to a governor and council in the colony.
Thus the colonists became, in effect, at once servants and
sharers of a species of joint-stock communistic enterprise;
turning their produce into its magazines, drawing thence their
necessary supplies, and sharing in the prospective profits of
the venture. With all its disabilities it somehow managed to
survive. Despite its earlier disappointment in finding neither
mines nor a seaway to the East ; despite the sufferings which
culminated in the fearful ''Starving Time" of its third
winter; despite its feebleness which was accentuated by
Smith's return to England, the colony held on. And it
gradually became evident that, however unpractical its orig-
inal organization was to prove, a new and vigorous force was
to compete with Spanish asonquest and planting and French
commerce in the exploitation of America, and extend there
the frontiers and resources of European peoples on new
lines and over increasing areas. The Jamestown colony was
projected at the same moment that the outbreaks in Germany
presaged religious war. Its early years coincided with the
Anglo-Dutch attack upon the Portuguese empire of the East,
and the growing hostility between the English crown and
people. Beside these great events the activities of a handful
of settlers in the North American wilderness seem trivial
enough. Yet it was in their hands rather than in trade war
or religious controversy that the future lay.
North The conditions which the French and English encountered

America jj^ ^^ regions where they now made their first permanent
inhabitants settlements, and whither they were soon to be followed by
the Dutch, differed widely from any hitherto met with by
i European settlers. From temperate through cold temperate

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 411

to Arctic latitudes they found lands covered for the most
part with forests, beech, oak, ash, pine, chestnut, walnut,
and poplar in many varieties, familiar and unfamiliar to
them. Those forests were filled with game which, with a few
striking exceptions, was not unknown to Europe in some form.
Deer and bear abounded, with rabbits and squirrels, wild The
birds of many kinds, particularly ducks, quail, and grouse ^ *
of numerous species. To European eyes the opossum, the
raccoon, and the wild turkey were novelties; and as they
penetrated the interior, the bison, or buffalo, added a new
element to their resources and experience. In particular,
the fur-bearing' animals formed the chief wealth of this new
heritage, especially in the north. Mink, fox, and ermine,
bear skins, from the brown and black varieties of the south
to the white Polar variety, the walrus and the seal, were
plentiful. Above all, perhaps, was the beaver, whose extraor-
dinary intelligence and engineering skill had spread the
lodges of its widespread communities across the northern
continent, the most numerous as well as the most sought of
all the more valuable fur-bearing inhabitants of the new
world.

The peoples with whom Europeans now came in close The
contact, the North American Indians, resembled somewhat ^"^**"s
in color and habits some of the races the invaders had met
in South America. They varied among themselves, but not
so much as they differed from the chief races the Europeans
had already conquered, the Aztecs and Incas. In spite of
tfie fact that many of them had villages, their settlements
were usually not permanent, and they were, for the most part,
within the fairly defined areas their tribes inhabited, semi-
migratory in their character. Their living was gained in
part from hunting, which, with war, absorbed the energies
of the men; and in part, among the less savage tribes espe-
cially, from cultivation of the soil, carried on almost entirely
by the women, or squaws. Indian com or maize, pumpkins,
fruits, beans, added to the potatoes or yams, rice and tobacco
of the south, formed their chief subsistence, with fish, oysters,
and clams which the waters provided.

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412 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Their arts Their arts were rudimentary. Lodges or tepees of bark,
poles, and skins formed their houses; their clothing, such as
it was, they made from the skins of animals, principally the
deer. They were still in the stone age, and their implements
of war, chase, and husbandry were all of that material. They
lacked the three animals most important to civilized man,
the horse, the cow, and the pig. Their sole domesticated
animal was the dog, and their only conveyance the canoe.
Their principal weapons were the bow, the war-ax or club, the
hatchet-shaped tomahawk, and the rude knife which they
used not merely as a means of offense and defense, but to
secure their most coveted trophies, the scalps of their enemies.
Some tribes achieved rude pottery and basket work, most
used a rude currency of wampum or shells strung on cords,
—religion Their religion was a natural mythology; in literature they
and culture j^^^ ^^^ proceeded beyond the stage of folk-tales and myths ;
and their use of rude hieroglyphs did not extend to the pro-
duction of permanent records. Their government was tribal ;
and their most powerful confederacy, the Iroquois, or EHve
Nations, which occupied the lands between the Hudson Biver
and the Great Lakes, had attained an organization and an
ascendency which dominated a great portion of the north.
Thence their far-reaching hunting and war parties brought
them into collision with a l^ke group of Chickasaws and
Creeks, which held a similar position in the south. Among
these tribes there existed a rude form of commerce in ma-
terials for apparel, war, and chase ; and this, with their wide
journeys in search of game or enemies, was the sole bond of
union among these scattered peoples.
Their They had, indeed, some admirable qualities. They were

^ ^* incomparable woodsmen, capable of enduring extraordinary
hardships. They were at once proud, brave, and cunning;
their stoicism was almost incredible, and they possessed a
noble and lofty eloquence. Above all, owing perhaps to their
peculiar social system, they preferred death to slavery; and
in this respect offered a striking contrast to almost every
other uncivilized or even civilized people the Europeans met.
This characteristic determined the conditions of the invaders

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 413

of North America. Had they desired, it woidd have been
impossible to reduce the Indians to subjection; and, in con-
sequence, if they made good their occupation of the continent,
it was only at the cost of long and bloody war, of the exter-
mination or expulsion of its original inhabitants.

Such were the people and such the conditions of successful
colonizing which Europeans were now called on to face in
the new scene of their activities. Compared with the far-
flung empire of Philip III these tiny specks of settlement
seemed insignificant, even when, at this moment, they were
reinforced by the exploit of Henry Hudson, who, sailing up 1009
the river which still bears his name, claimed it and the
adjacent territory for hid Dutch employers and laid founda-
tions for a later occupation. Compared with the problems
at issue among peoples and rulers at home, such enterprises
seemed all but contemptible. While Europe was convulsed
with a life and death conflict between the two communions,
while England began her struggle between crown and Par-
liament, it might seem that the activities of a handful of
adventurers in a distant and savage land could well be
ignored.

Yet, in a longer view, those feeble French and English Importance
settlements yield nothing in importance to the more spec- jj^^h
tacular European conflicts which accompanied and in some American
measure conditioned their progress. In those colonies there ^*®°*^
lay not merely the germs of wide and powerful dominion,
but the beginnings of a new order in the world. The activi-
ties of captains and kings filled a far larger place in the minds
of the generation which endured the Thirty Years' War than
the achievements and hardships of the founders of these new
societies. They have thus, naturally enough, bulked larger in
history. But if we are to regard constructive effort as one
of the chief aims of mankind and a leading concern of those
who chronicle its achievements, it is apparent that Champlain
and Smith are worthy to be set above many of those rulers
who in this period occupy a far greater space in its annals.
And, in the long resolution of events, the formation of
self-governing societies in North America is certainly not

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414

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Colonial
history
and de-
velopment

1G07-91

incomparable with even the maintenance of Protestantiflm in
central Europe. For, apart from the opening of vast areas
to settlement, the North American colonies were indissolubly
connected with the two great issues which then faced Euro-
pean peoples, — freedom of belief and popular share in gov-
ernment. They were thus not only in close touch with the
struggles in Germany and England, but they were, in a sense,
a peculiar type and symbol of their times.

It is a false view of history which regards the activities of
Europeans beyond the sea as outside the current of general
European development. With all the variations among
Europeans themselves, and between them and their ofEahoots
abroad, there remains a certain unity in diversity in their
joint activities whose neglect breeds a wholly distorted view
of the past. As the struggle proceeded in Europe between
Catholic and Protestant, between crown and subject, the Eng-
lish and the French made their way deeper into the heart
of that wilderness which was to become the seat of a greater
and freer society than any which had yet arisen outside t^
old world. Upon that world these societies were to have a
profound influence. They were to contribute in no small
measure to the solution of many of the problems then con-
vulsing Europe. And, apart from their effect upon the
future, they, like the concurrent activities of the Dutch, were
not without significance on at least one of the two great issues
then at stake in European affairs. For they placed before
their countrymen at once a refuge from oppressv[)n and an
ideal which powerfully reinforced the agencies then making
for liberty throughout the continent. It is easy to exaggerate
that immediate influence. It is still easier to overlook it. But
no one who considers the whole field of European activity in
the eventful years which saw the outbreak of religious dis-
sension in Germany, and the beginning of opposition to autoc-
racy in England, can doubt that the rise of the Dutch empire
and the colonization of North America are to be reckoned
among the most powerful influences which made for a new
situation in the world's affairs.

In those busy years Champlain defeated the Iroquois who

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 415

barred his path, explored the Richelieu and the Ottawa,
and made his way westward to Lake Huron. Franciscans
were brought out to convert the savages, and the fortifications
of Quebec strengthened. And though the governor of Vir-
ginia, Dale, destroyed French posts from Mount Desert to
Port Royal, and limited French activity to the south, the
''father of New Prance" confirmed his country's hold upon
the mighty stream which, "like an insatiable merchant, en-
grossed all commodities" in that quarter of the world, and
made the middle St. Lawrence at once the warehouse and the
citadel of France in America.

Meanwhile the English gained an advantage which they Theprog-
never lost in the struggle for a continent, now thus begun. EnfifHfh
This lay in the increasing numbers of their immigrants, setuements
which marked them from the first as the chief colonizing *° America
nation of the world. Despite discouragement and loss, due
to the incapacity of the first settlers, despite the unfortunate
location of the capital, and the impracticable communal sys-
tem which presently broke down, despite ofKcial incompetence
and the failure to find gold, Virginia grew. Germans and
Poles were sent out to make potash and pearl ash from timber
cleared away in the process of turning forests into farms.
Hundreds of emigrants from England, inspired by the changes
in the charter, which enabled men to gain free homes in
the new world, poured into the settlement. To its success
other events contributed. Of these the greatest was the be-
ginning of tobacco culture on a scale which soon afforded
a sound economic basis of prosperity. A Dutch ship brought 1619
some slaves, and so introduced that system of labor which
had made the fortunes of the older tropical colonies. At the
same moment the first Oeneral Assembly of the burgesses
was convened by the governor. And when finally Sir Thomas
Wyatt brought out a new constitution vesting local power in
the governor, council, and House of Burgesses or assembly,
the outlines of development and the stability of Virginia were
assured. Self-contained and largely self-supporting, as well
as self-governing, this new society of unmixed European
blood, slave-holding, absorbed in planting and farming.

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416 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

became not merely the first real successful colony of the
north-European states but the first of a new species of colcmial
enterprise.
The The James River settlement was not long an isolated phe-

Puntans nomenon in English affairs, for, as Europe plunged into
religious war, two circumstances gave a new turn to these
colonial activities. Raleigh, returning from a last, unfor-
tunate voyage to the new world, found his way to the scaffold
at the behest of the Spanish ambassador, as punishment for
the destruction of a Spanish-American settlement. With his
1618 death ended the Elizabethan period. At that precise moment

an obscure company of English Separatists, who had sought
refuge from James's persecution in Leyden, joined with a
group of London merchants in an agreement to plant another
colony in the new world. With this came preparations to
put into effect Coligni's great design of using the New World
to redress the balance of the old by making there a home
for the oppressed. Thus the death of Raleigh, first of Eng-
lish colonizers, last of the Elizabethans, so far from relieving
Spain of interference in the west, but ushered in a greater
chapter in that history. It is one of the striking coincidences
of history that the years which saw the German religious
question revived by the occupation of Donauworth and the
formation of the Catholic and Protestant leagues, were nota-
ble for the foundation of Jamestown and Quebec. It is no
less noteworthy that the very moment of the outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War and the death of Raleigh, the religio-
political movement against which James I, in common with
the sovereigns of his time, had set his face, found in America
a field for its activities.

For a new element was injected into the colonization of
America, the Puritans. The management of the Virginia
Company, transferred from traders like Smyth to the hands
of ''subtle men of high courage," like the leader of the Par-
liamentary opposition to James, Sir Edwin Sandys, had begun
to assume the complexion of the political and religious ele-
ments which then divided England. Not even Tudor author-
ity had been able to check the Reformation at the middle

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 417

ground of the Established Church. The more advanced
Protestants, oppressed by Mary, discouraged by Elizabeth,
and persecuted by James, who threatened that he would
''make them conform or harry them out of the land or
worse," had been driven to different courses to save them-
selves. Some had carried on a propaganda in the country,
in Parliament, in the church itself, reinforcing the party
opposed on other grounds to the royal financial and foreign
policy. Some had more or less patiently endured their
miseries. Some had fled beyond the sea to that "cage of
unclean birds,'' ''the common harbor of all opinions and
heresies," the United Netherlands. ^

Such was the first of the elements which were now joined New
in a new undertaking. There were others of scarcely less °*^ *°
consequence. In a community bent upon fresh enterprises
of eastern trade, American colonies, and so-called "planta-
tion" ventures in lands but lately wrested from rebellious
Irish chieftains, the writings of John Smith — or those which
his exploits and imagination inspired — ^which now appeared,
roused England as Champlain's had earlier stirred France.
His work was reinforced by other activities. Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, undeterred by the failure of the Kennebec colony, 1614
employed Smith to explore "northern Virginia," with the
result that the "New England" coast was mapped. A new
region was thus brought to English view and almost at once
a new corporation appeared as "the Council for New Eng-
land" to exploit its possibilities. This was formed by the
so-called "Merchant Adventurers of London," who secured
patents for a colony from the Virginia Company and looked
about for settlers. With their enlistment of the Puritan
exiles in Holland, the new project was assured.

The groups now brought within the circle of English coloniz- The
ing schemes were a peculiar product of the age in which they Fa§IcJJ
lived. They were the members of a so-called Brownist or 1609
Separatist congregation of Scrooby in Yorkshire, belonging
to the estate of Sir Edwin Sandys' brother. A dozen years
before, under their minister, John Robinson, they had found
refuge in Holland. Fearing to lose their nationality in that

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418 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

alien land, they had first planned to emigrate to the district
which Hudson found and named ; and, failing that, they were
prepared to listen to the proposals of this branch of the Vir-
ginia Company as voiced by Sandys. The form which the
enterprise took owed much to the communal plan of the
Virginia settlement. Seventy subscribers provided the cap-
ital, and shares were alloted to the emigrants, one to each
emigrant above sixteen, two to each family furnishing itself,
one for each two children between ten and sixteen. A slender
store of utensils and food was provided, and thus equipped
the colonists sailed on a small vessel, the Mayflower, to trans-
plant their peculiar society to the western world. They
1630 sighted land the day after the battle of the White Hill

was fought ; and at the moment that Bohemia and the
Palatinate were being overrun by Spanish, Imperialist, and
Bavarian Catholics, the seed of another Protestant colony
was planted in the New World.
New Before landing on the inhospitable shore to which their

Plymouth pilot's ignorance or intention brought them, they signed a
covenant *'to . . . combine into a civill body politick . . .
to enact, constitute and frame just and equall lawes for the
generall good of the Colonic," and by this momentous act
they established, virtually, a republican form of government
Under their elected governor, John Carver, and their captain,
Miles Standish, ''the John Smith of New England,'* they
founded their little settlement of New Plymouth in the last
weeks of that momentous year (1620) which saw the Im-
perialists complete their triumph for the moment in Germany
and the Jamestown colony take final shape.

With this the English spirit of expansion was embodied
in the form it maintained thereafter little changed. It was
the product of three elements, commercial companies, seekers
after religious and political liberty, and individual adven-
turers; and of these the second became the predominating
influence. Widely different from all other forms of such
enterprise hitherto, it was to achieve successfully the transfer
not merely of political authority and commercial supremacy,
but of a European society to displace a native population and

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 419

build up real colonies of white blood beyond the sea. Above
all, it was to establish in a new land, for the first time, a
popular form of government.

The Virginia and New Plymouth settlements came none NcwNclh-
too soon, if England was to gain foothold in America. Not

erlands

VBENGH, BNGLnni AND ODTCB
IN NOBarH AMERICA

merely were the French confirmed in the possession of the St
Lawrence region; the Dutch had already bestirred them-
selves to the same end. Before the Jamestown experiment
was an assured success, long before the Pilgrim Fathers
landed at Plymouth, those who had sent Henry Hudson out
to find a "way across the pole to the isles of spicery,** and
equipped the Half Moon with which he made his way up the
great river christened after him, had laid their plans to secure
a foothold in that promising region. The traders followed
close on Hudson's track. A post was soon established on
Manhattan Island at the river's mouth; and within five years

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420 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1614 there was formed the United Netherlands Company, with

grants of land from 49'' to 45*", and right to trade and colonize.
Forts were built at Manhattan and farther up the river.
Long Island was explored. Steps were taken to secure the
fur trade; and, while the Jamestown colonists deared their
lands, whUe Robinson's congregation were petitioning in vain
for permission to occupy the newly opened region, and Cham-
plain pushed westward from Quebec, Dutch traders found
their way along the Hudson and the Mohawk and laid founda-
tions for a New Netherlands.

The Dutch But the occupation of the Hudson River valley was the

West India i^g^ ^f Dutch activities in these eventful years. For while
England and France were forced to be content with their
experiments in the western world and what crumbs of eastern
trade they could pick up between the Dutch and Portuguese,
the Netherlands aspired to nothing less than the domination
of the whole world of trade and colonies. Projects for settling
South America were revived. The Zealand stations on the
Oyapok were strengthened. With aid of English and Hugue-
not refugees a post was founded on the Essequibo and another
on the Amazon; and, as the Twelve Years' Truce drew to an
end and the fortunes of Oldenbarneveldt declined, the plans
of William Usselincx, an Antwerp refugee, long held in abey-
ance by the pacific policy of the Advocate, revived under the
stimulus of the Orange patronage. A year after the found-
ing of the Plymouth colony they culminated in the establish-

1091 ment of the Dutch West India Company. Its privileges were

symbolic of the times which gave it birth. It was granted
monopoly of commerce and navigation in west Africa, east
and west America, and organized like the East Iiidia Company
from^the chambers of commerce with a Council of Nineteen
at its head. At once an ally and an instrument of the govern-
ment in the war with Spain, now on the point of being
renewed, it was granted a subsidy by the States Qeneral,
and promised naval aid. Thus it became scarcely less a mili-
tary and political than a commercial enterprise. Its capital,
subscribed from patriotic motives as well as the hope of
dividends, exceeded that of its eastern rival by half a million

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ENGLAND, FRANCE, HOLLAND IN AMERICA 421

florins; and when, two years after it was launched, its sub-
scription books were closed, the United Provinces, especially
the Orange party, now in control of Dutch affairs, possessed
in this new corporation a powerful weapon against their
Spanish enemies.

The issue was now joined. In Grermany the struggle be-
tween the communions was fully under way; in America
three nations contended with each other and with their com*
mon enemy, Spain, for a foothold; and through the Bast,
as everywhere on the sea, the Netherlands challenged the
dominion of the world of trade. On every field the conflict
between the old order and the new, in religion, in politics,
and in commerce, brought to a head the irreconcilable am-
bitions and interests of rival schools of faith and policy and
interests. Whatever the result, it was now evident that Eu-
rope would experience, in every phase of her activity, not
merely a new series of events but new conditions in her
development. And if, for the time being, the concerns of
war and diplomacy bulked larger on her immediate horizon,
it was no less evident, to far-seeing men, that the not distant
future held the promise of wider policies and more far-
reaching activities than those which then absorbed her
greatest energies. Among these the exploitation of America
was not the least.

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CHAPTER XIX

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 1623-1642

The At noon of AU Saints' Day, 1517, the "^I^^ttenberg professor

of Europe ^* philosophy, Martin Lather, had nailed to the door of the
castle church in that quiet German universily town his ninety-
five theses against the doctrine of indulgences as then pro-
claimed and practised by the Papal authority. A hundred
years later, almost to a day, there had burst forth in Bohemia
a controversy which, scarcely less insignificant in its external
aspects than the act of the Gkrman reformer, was productive
of a conflict almost as widespread, and of even bloodier
consequence than the original agitation which flowed from
Luther's opposition to the Papal practices. If the beginning
of the Thirty Years' War proved nothing else, it demon-
strated three things, — that the older religious unity of western
Christendom was gone beyond recall, that ecclesiastical issues
were an active factor in public affairs and international rela-
tionships, and that the manifold efforts of the Hapsburg
house to unify Germany under its direct sovereignty had
made no headway in the preceding century and a half.

The great conflict which had begun a hundred years from
the time when Luther drew up his Resolutions in defense
of his position, had by the year 1623 entered upon the second
stage of its long and bloody progress. Already its cham-
pions, like its character, had begun to change. Save in so
far as they represent the tendencies of the time, or react
against them, the accession of new rulers is seldom of much
moment in the evolution of human affairs. But, as at certain
other periods of European history, the seven years which
followed the outbreak of war in Bohemia brought on the
stage a group of kings, captains, and statesmen destined to
play decisive parts in the political fortunes of the continent

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 423

Three years after the beginning of the struggle in Grer-
many, the pious Philip III of Spain had died, his spirit
broken by the appalling evidence of his nation's decadence. U9i
The favorites who had battened on the state had been dis-
missed. His people, now bankrupt and desolate, mourned his
virtuous incompetence, but continued with proud and de-
voted stubbornness their hopeless conflicts in Germany,
the Netherlands, and Italy, and across the sea, maintaining
still their arrogant, impossible claims to determine Europe's
faith and future. At the same time the United Provinces,
deprived of the services of Oldenbameveldt, found, when they
took up again the burden of their war of independence
against Spain, after the Twelve Years' Truce, that, as Maurice
himself declared, ''nothing went well after the death of the
Advocate.*' Threatened by the forces of his Eddlful- adver-
sary, the Spanish general, Spinola, the Prince of Nassau
barely managed to hold his own, while his people, apart from
harassing the power of Spain, were for the time unable to
give their Grerman co-religionists any effective aid.

France and England were in little better case. Under France and
the boy king, Louis XIII, France was weakened by intrigue ^K**°^
and civil war; and it was not until the conmtianding
genius of Richelieu made itself supreme in the royal councils
that his nation again took its share in European politics.
As the long, feeble reign of James I wore to a close, England
played a like unheroic part. The ''British Solomon" had
seen his fatuous foreign policy of a Spanish marriage go to
wreck. The quarrel with his advanced Protestant subjects,
the Puritans, grew from bad to worse. His relations with his
new Parliament strained to the breaking-point, as his financial
expedients, his claims to absolutism, and his failure to help
the Gterman situation, combined to alienate almost every
element of his people from him. Nor was his successor more
able or more fortunate. Two years after his son-in-law,
the Elector Palatine, was driven into exile, James' death
brought to the English throne his pious, obstinate son, 1696
Charles, with whose reign began a still more troubled period
of English history.

i

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424

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Eastern
Europe

The

Danish

period of

tlie Thirty

Years'

War

1635-9

Meanwhile, eastern Europe revealed a new alignment of
powers and a new race of princes. The long reign of Michael
Romanoff gave way* to that of his successor, with no great
result, either in character or importance to the world at
large. The declining strength of Poland and Turkish lethargy
left therefore but two powers to be considered in that quarter
of the world. The first was Sweden, whose heroic king,
Gustavus Adolphus, was now lord of the ascendant in the
Baltic lands. The second was Denmark, whose ruler, Chris-
tian IV, aspired to play a part in European politics; and,
like his Swedish colleague and rival, looked with anxious
eyes upon the situation which had developed in Germany.

It was, indeed, high time for these northern princes to
take thought for the morrow, since, if German Protestantism
was to be saved, there was pressing need for some champion
to appear on its behalf; and if the Baltic states were to
maintain their position, it was no less necessary to check the
advancing power of the Imperialists. For sddom had the
cause of the reformed communions seemed more desperate
than in those days when Bohemia and the Palatinate fell
from their grasp. The victories of the Bavarians and the
imperial forces had not, it is true, extinguished resistance.
There remained the army of Mansf eld ; and while the drums
of his recruiting oflScers beat up reinforcements in other
lands for his service, the Danish king, supported by subsidies
from England and the Netherlands, drew together an army
and pushed into northern Germany. There, in his capacity
as Duke of Holstein and head of the lower Saxon Circle,
he proposed to challenge the Imperial and Catholic supremacy,
and, conjointly with his Mecklenburg allies, to champion
the Protestant interest.

The moment seemed propitious. Now that their own aims
had been attained, neither the new Elector, Maximilian of
Bavaria, nor the Catholic League were overzealous in the
Emperor's cause, save on their own somewhat excessive terms.
Ferdinand himself was no general, and his abilities had been
directed toward the settlement of Bohemia, whoise population
had been decimated by the war and whose lands had been

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 425

distributed among his loyal Austrian Catholic nobility. At
the moment, therefore, that Mansfeld failed to save Breda 1625
from Spinola, and Gustavus overran Couiland and conquered
ducal Prussia, the Danish king poured his troops across
the border, and Bethlen Gabor prepared to threaten Vienna
with his Transylvanian army, in a joint attempt to relieve
the Protestants. Tilly advanced into Saxony to meet this
new danger, and the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War
began, not inauspiciously for the Danish king.

But the success he promised himself was short-lived. In WaUen-
the midst of his embarrassment the Emperor found relief "*^^
from an unexpected quarter. Among the numerous adven-
turers who had hastened to enrich themselves by buying in
Bohemian estates, one, Albert of Wallenstein, who had taken
a prominent part in the Bohemian war and made his reputa-
tion by service against Venice, revealed the talents and
audacity which were to place him high among the great ones
of the earth. To him the Emperor intrusted his defense;
and from the masses of mercenaries which the spoil of Ger-
many had drawn into her wars, he was authorized to recruit
a force, dependent on his genius for its form and leadership,
and on pillage for its support. Thus equipped, he fell sud-
denly upon Mansfeld 's forces, defeated them, killed their 1696
leader, and drove them through Silesia and Hungary till
they found refuge with Bethlen Gabor, who had been com-
pelled to withdraw again into Transylvania.

Meanwhile Tilly had beaten Christian IV at Lutter in
Brunswick; and, following their successes, the two iniperialist
commanders Joined to conquer Holstein. Thence Wallenstein
proceeded to overrun Schleswig and Jutland; drove out the
dukes of Mecklenburg; and forced the duke of Pomerania
to submit to the imperial power. Silesia was compelled to
like submission. Bethlen Gabor, deprived of the assistance
of the Turks by their treaty with the Emperor, was rendered
powerless. Baden was overpowered by the imperial troops;
and Germany cleared of Protestant forces. For his great
services Wallenstein was created Duke of Priedland, prom-
ised thj) estates of the dukes of Mecklenburg, and allowed to

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426 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

assume the title of Admiral of the Baltic. It was only when
1698 his conquering advance reached the walls of Stralsund that

his progress was stayed; and his failure to capture that
city, with Tilly's repulse from Gliickstadt, marked the high
tide of Catholic-Imperial success.
The Peace As a result of that success, six years after Frederick had
l^if^^^^ been driven from the Palatinate, this second or Danish period
of the war was crowned by readjustments flowing from
imperial ascendency in northern (Germany. By the Peace
of Liibeck, Christian regained his lost territory in retnm
for the abandonment of his allies and his promise to take no
further part in German affairs. For his commanding services
Wallenstein became the first subject of the empire, with
grants of lands, among which the dominions of the dukes of
Mecklenburg, now placed under the imperial ban, were in-
And the eluded. Finally the great Edict of Bestitution put into effect
ResUtution *® terms of the so-called ''ecclesiastical reservations,** which
had been left undecided by the Peace of Augsburg. Under
this arrangement all the ecclesiastical estates whose rulers
had turned Protestant since the Peace of Passau three-
quarters of a century before, were now restored to Catholic
hands. By such means the archbishoprics of Bremen and
Magdeburg, a dozen bishoprics, and ten times that number
of monastic domains were wrested from the reformed com-
munions. Moreover, only Lutherans were recognized. All
others were left to the mercy of their enemies; and how scant
that mercy was the ravages of Wallenstein 's followers and
those of the League soon witnessed. Dark as the prospect
had seemed six years before, when Frederick had been driven
from Bohemia and the Palatinate, the Protestant outlook now
seemed darker still; for as the Imperial Catholic designs to
crush the reformed communions were reinforced by Wallen-
stein's ambitions and abilities, the case seemed all but des-
perate to their opponents.
Thedifl- But from apparently certain destruction the Protestants

agreements j^^^q preserved by discords among their enemies. Scarcely
Catholics had the great Edict been issued when the Diet of Regensburg
revealed how widely the views of the Emperor differed from

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 427

those of Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League.
Had it been possible for Ferdinand to accomplish the old
Hapsburg design of making the imperial power supreme in
a united Oermany, the fate of the reformed communions
would have been sealed. But in the minds of the Catholic
princes the fear of a powerful centralized monarchy vested
in the house of Hapsburg was stronger than the dislike of
the Protestants; and in the antagonism between the imperial
and the princely policies and ambitions their opponents
found, if not security, at least a breathing-space. The
Bavarian Elector and his adherents of the Catholic League
demanded the dismissal of Wallenstein and the disbanding of
his forces on the well-grounded charge of the destruction
which his licensed freebooters were inflicting upon Germany.
The Emperor was driven to consent; and, with the loss of the
great general and his army, the imperial authority, deprived
of its chief support, gradually relaxed, while the miserable leso
inhabitants of northern Germany were relieved from the
more imminent pressure of the sufferings which the war had
brought upon them.

In such fashion ended the second stage of the great con-
flict, after twelve years of unexampled destruction. Meas-
ured by its immediate results, it had but carried out the
promise of the earlier period. To all external appearance
German Protestantism seemed doomed. Stripped of Bo-
hemia, the Palatinate, and great parts of northern Germany,
divided against itself, and with its Danish and Transylvanian
champions driven from the field, its own armies destroyed,
and its ablest generals dead, only some miracle of outside
support to aid its stubborn but thus far ineffectual resistance
offered even a hope of its persistence in Gterman polity.
When the conflict had been at its height some years before
it had been declared with bitter satire that the Netherlands
would send a hundred thousand kits of herring, the Danes
a hundred thousand tubs of butter, and the English king
a hundred thousand ambassadors to the aid of their co-
religionists in Germany. Now it seemed that even this
mythical assistance was out of the question.

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428

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The other
states of
Europe
—Spain

France

under

Richelieu

1625-

1638

This trinmph of the reactionary element was emphasized
by events elsewhere in Europe. While the Danes had made
their futile effort to preserve the German Protestants and
improve their own position, the rest of Europe had seen pro-
found changes. In Italy the long pontificate of Urban VTII,
however disturbed by German and Italian wars, had done
much to revive Papal authority. In Spain the rise of a great
minister, Olivarez, had begun to galvanize the state into a
fierce if feverish activity, which gave it, for the time being,
the semblance of its old greatness. Once more the nation
appeared in the front rank of military powers; once more
armadas were prepared to crush the Dutch, and armies raised
for new projects in Italy. It was, indeed, the last flicker
of the burned-out candle; and the ambitious policy was
destined only to lessen the remaining vigor of the state. But
for the moment it served its purpose in the elevation of the
Catholic power in the European world.

Beyond the Pyrenees, meanwhile, the greatest of all French
statesmen-ecdesiastics, Richelieu, rose to the height of an
authority scarcely equaled on the continent, and, with his
ascendancy, set his nation upon a path which led to pre-
dominance in European councils. He had become chief
minister in the same year that Christian lY planned his
descent on Germany, and his rise to unquestioned supremacy
in French councils had been coincident with the Danish period
of the great war. In that conflict he and his nation for the
time took no part. As the struggle was joined across the
Bhine, the Huguenots rose in rebellion against the crown,
and Bichelieu's energies were directed to the suppression of
the powerful faction which threatened the very integrity of
France. His efforts were successful. In spite of their
strength throughout the land, in spite of their desperate re-
sistance, and the all but impregnable position of the chief
city of La Eochelle, in spite of English attempts to succor the
last stronghold of Protestantism in France, the Huguenot
capital was compelled to submit. At the very moment that
the Danish king was driven back to his own land, La Bochelle
fell into the hands of the French government. Thence the

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THEtEHiaSSfYEARSXWARl 429

great minister led his victorious forces against the Spaniards
in Italy, and brought back fresh honors for his nation. The
nobles rebelled in vain against his growing ascendancy and
that of the crown. The Queen Mother found her efforts to
check his rising authority no less ineffectual; and, as the
Danish period of the Grerman war came to an end, the
Cardinal-minister stood out as a force to be reckoned with
thenceforth in European politics.

This reviving French ascendancy was the more pronounced Ensland
in that England had meanwhile fallen on evil days. James ^*f^ i
I's reign had ended with bitter animosities in church and 1695-
state ; nor did his son Charles, on coming to the throne, abate
the popular discontent. He joined, indeed, with Holland to
subsidize Christian IV 's invasion of Germany, which coin-
cided with his accession to the throne. He sent three expedi-
tions to aid the Rochellois in their resistance to Richelieu.
But his efforts to assist the continental Protestants failed
ignominiously, owing in no small degree to the incompetence
of his favorites, especially the arrogant and incapable Duke
of Buckingham, who virtually directed English affairs. At
home Charles further embroiled the crown with Parliament.
He was denounced for alleged innovations in church and
state, for illegalities in raising revenue, for the employment
of favorites; and when he retorted by imprisoning the popular
leaders, the antagonism between the king and Commons came
to open breach. The Petition of Right, which summed up
the people's grievances and so became one of the great land-
marks of English constitutional history, completed the
estrangement. Four years after his accession, at the same
moment that the Edict of Restitution was promulgated in
Germany, and the Peace of Alais brought the conflict be- i699
tween the crown and Huguenots to an end in France, Charles
dissolved his Parliament, made peace with France and Spain,
and began a long and perilous experiment in absolute govern-
ment which finally alienated his people from the crown, and
was destined to end in civil war.

Thus as the third decade of the seventeenth century came
to an end, the European world found itself confronted with

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430

THE EXPANSI<JN OF EUROPE

HoUand

under

Frederick

Henry

1696-47

the apparent triumph of Catholicism and absolute royal
power. England and Denmark were withdrawn from further
interference in (Germany. Mansfeld and Bethlen Oabor were
dead ; and the Protestant states were left to endure the Cath-
olic Imperial ascendancy as best they could. The Calvinists,
in particular, were compelled to bear the brunt of the con-
flict alone, as the great Edict went into force. Hagrnenot
resistance was crushed in France ; Parliamentary government
at an end in England.

One power remained in western Europe. In the same
twelvemonth that Charles I came to the English throne,
and Richelieu to the head of French affairs, Frederick Heniy
of Orange-Nassau succeeded his brother Maurice as Stadt-
holder of the United Provinces. With his accession the
fortunes of the state he came to rule revealed a strength
which rivaled or surpassed those of far more populous na-
tions, and did much to redress the balance thus weighted
against the Protestant peoples of the continent.

The second quarter of the seventeenth century was in
every way the golden age of Holland. In arts and arms,
in colonies and commerce, in intellect and achievement, she
enjoyed a primacy out of aU proportion to her resources or
her size; while in wealth and general prosperity her people
surpassed aU other nations of the continent. Thanks to her
policy of toleration which insured freedom of speech and
residence to all, her own sturdy stock was reinforced by men
of learning and ability from many other states, who sought
within her borders the privileges denied to them at home.
Her world-wide commerce and political interests served
to broaden her horizon. Her social qystem and her polity,
which afforded to thought and speech a license elsewhere
unknown, combined to make her the most enlightened power
in Europe, pre-eminent in almost every field of human en-
deavor of the time. Home of the greatest living philosopher,
Descartes ; of the historian and the founder of international
law, Orotius; her brilliant group of scholars and scientists,
Scaliger, the Vossii, Lipsius, Heinsius, and their colleagues,
had made that child of the Revolution, the University of

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 431

Lieyden, the most famous seat of learning of its time. The
United Netherlands were no less remarkable in other fields,
^ith '^ statesmen of letters" like Huyghens, Hooft, and Gats.
Her artists like Wouverman and Guyp, Rembrandt and Hals,
and their many contemporaries by their genius made Hol-
land the art center of the European world, her only rival
her cousin, the Flemish Netherlands. With great commanders
on land and sea, like Willekens and Heinsius and Frederick
William himself; with diplomats like Aerssens, Lord of Som-
melsdijk, whom Richelieu declared one of the three greatest
men he ever met; the United Provinces now became what
Italy had been a century before to art and science, what
England had been more recently to letters and sea-power,
what France was to become in war and diplomacy, — ^the lead-
ing nation of the European world. Yet with all her eminence
in so many fields, it was not from the Netherlands that there
came any direct relief to Oerman Protestants. That service
was rendered by a very different hand.

At the same moment that Holland achieved this ascendancy Sweden
in the west, the Baltic lands emerged into that same circle ^J^^us
of interests, though under different auspices and in different AdolphuB
fashion from their Dutch co-religionists. While (Germany
had been filled with the contentions of Catholic and Prot-
estant, Imperialists and princes, the northern powers had
been absorbed in another and to them a no less decisive
conflict. In the twelvemonth that the Elector Palatine, flee-
ing from before the Imperialists, had abandoned his short-
lived Bohemian sovereignty, Poland had been attacked by 1690
Sweden and the Turks. The latter, despite their early suc-
cess, were soon brought to terms of peace; but the struggle
between Poland and Sweden had run parallel with the war
in Oermany. Under the leadership of Oustavus the Swedes
took Riga and Mitau, invaded Lithuania, and conquered
Livonia. Thereafter, amid alternate victories and defeats,
the Swedish king pushed his forces along the Baltic shores,
taking Elbing and Marienburg and blocking Danzig, till he
was checked by Polish successes. At the moment that Den- 1699
mark and the Empire signed the Peace of Liibeck and the

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432 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Edict of Restitution was issued, Sweden and Poland came
to terms in the so-called truce of Altmark. Thence Gostavus
tamed his eyes toward Germany, where he feared the col-
lapse of Protestantism only less than the threat of Wallen-
stein's successes in the north against Swedish ambitions in
the Baltic. At that moment, too, France was relieved from
the Huguenot danger; and the far-seeing statesmanship of
Richelieu, marking its opportunity to enlist the Swedish
power in a deadly thrust against the Hapsburg house^ prof-
fered Gustavus a subsidy for an attack on Germany.
France and Perhaps no single act in this momentous period revealed
Sweden moTe dearly the altering character of events than this; for
the same hand which had struck down the Protestants of
France was thus held out to save their German brethren
from destruction, — and that hand belonged to a prince of
the Catholic church. It was the symbol of a new era in the
great war. With the entry of Sweden and France into that
struggle, its religious character, already complicated by the
antagonism of the imperial and the princely ambitions, be-
came a part of the long-standing Franco-Hapsburg rivalry.
Of all those kaleidoscopic changes which make the Thirty
Years' War one of the great dramatic episodes of history,
few are more remarkable than the sudden reversal of parts
which overtook the combatants midway between the outbreak
of hostilities and the first steps toward peace. After a dozen
years of almost continuous conflict, the enforcement of the
Edict of Restitution marked the nadir of Protestant fortunes.
The war had weakened the power and reduced the area of the
reformed communions, the Edict threatened their very exist-
ence. And as the troops of Wallenstein and the Catholic
League were summoned to enforce a settlement which would
have set back the hands of the clock more than three-quarters
of a century, it almost seemed that the labors of Luther and
Calvin had been in vain, so far as Germany was concerned.
The crisis On the face of affairs nothing appeared more probable
of the than that the triumph of the Imperial and Catholic authority,

Veals' despite their differences, was only a matter of time, and no
War long time ; nothing seemed less likely than that any combina-

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THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR 433

lion of circumstances could shake their ultimate supremacy.
But the very success of the divergent elements among the
Imperialist Catholics set the impossible on its way to accom-
plishment. However much the Ei9peror and the Catholic
League found themselves indebted to Wallenstein; however
they had profited by his abilities, they now began to fear the
ambitions of their savior more than they dreaded the dangers
from which he had preserved them. That feeling jrosufurther
embittered by the pillage and ^cruelties practised by his army,
which lived on free quarters; and, at the height of the
Catholic-Imperial sucissss, the Emperor was compelled to dis-
miss the great commander and disband a great part of his
forces. Wallenstein thereupon retired to his Bohemian es-
tates, which had been part of the reward of his great services.
There he rivalled the imperial court in ostentatious luxury
and meditated those far-reaching plans which had roused the
envy and fear of those who dreaded the power of the un-
crowned ** dictator of Gtermany."

Yet it was alone not the withdrawal of the great partisan
which gave such dramatic emphasis to the summer of 1630
in Oermany. It could not be supposed that a conflict involv-
ing the fortunes of the rival communions and threatening
the political balance of the continent should not affect the
neighboring powers. France, however Catholic, had reason
to fear Hapsburg ascendancy. The rising power of
Protestant Sweden looked with jealous eye not only on the
triumph of Catholicism, but on the conquests of Wallenstein
which trenched on the sphere of her own territorial ambi-
tions. Thus, at the height of the Imperialist success, France
and Sweden alike prepared to dispute the further advance
of Ferdinand and his great general.

The Baltic power was the first to move. During those same The ar-
days of June that Wallenstein was retired from his com- ^^"l^'j
mand, in a remote comer of the Empire a new Protestant leso
champion was busy disembarking that army which, in a
twelvemonth, was to alter the face of German, and, indeed,
of European politics. At the same moment those Protestant
princes who had been little moved by purely religious issues

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434 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

began to draw together in defense of their title to lands now
threatened by the Edict ; while the masfies of Lutherans and
Calvinists, driven to desperation by the well-gronnded fear
of annihilation, and preparing for a last stand against the
Catholic Imperialists, were nerved to fresh resistance by the
prospect of deliverance.

The story goes that when the news of the landing of an
army in Pomerania came to Vienna the courtiers hastened to
inquire where lay the lands of this invader who now chal-
lenged the imperial supremacy, — ^''the snow-king and his
body-guard." Yet the name of Gustavus Adolphus, "King
of Sweden, of the Gtoths and Vandals, grand prince of Be-
laud, duke of Esthonia," was not unknown in Europe. Russia
and Poland had felt the weight of his power in the pre-
ceding twenty years. Wallenstein, who had sworn to take
Stralsund ^'though it were attached by chains to Heaven,"
had seen his prey snatched from him by that hand. And
the far-seeing Richelieu, who furnished the subsidy for this
great adventure, had recognized in this ''Star of the North"
a weapon by which the house of Hapsburg might be dealt
a mortal blow. For the Swedish king, backed by his veteran
army, had already proved himself one of the great captains
of history, not inferior to the only worthy antagonist which
Europe then held, the Duke of Friedland, Wallenstein.
The rise Gustavus' advent in Germany was the climax of a long

of Sweden period of Swedish development. The eastern half of the
great Scandinavian peninsula, Sweden, seemed destined to
rule the Baltic. Her hardy inhabitants, with their kinsmen
of Denmark and Norway, had been almost the last converts
to Christianity. Long after western Europe had come under
the influence of Rome, as the fierce heathen Norsemen and
Danes carved principalities for themselves in England and
France, and settled the islands of the north and west, the
Swedes had founded dukedoms in Russia and carried their
arms as far south as Byzantium. With Christianity came
a long era of uneasy peace. The land, divided only less than
Norway by its mountains into small lordships, resisted at-
tempts of the ruling dynasty to bring its independent spirits

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 435

under royal yoke. At the close of the fourteenth century
the Union of Galmar united the three Scandinavian kingdoms 1397
under the Danish crown. But the efforts to crush the Swed-
ish nobles' power, after a hundred years and more of strife,
collapsed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It has
already been related how, while Luther led the Protestant
Bevolt and Cortez conquered Mexico, a Swedish nobleman,
Gustavus Vasa, under romantic circumstances, had headed
a successful rebellion against Danish authority, and had
begun that stormy career which was to set his country in the
first rank of European powers for an eventful century.

The history of Sweden's greatness was that of the Vasa TheVasas
family. Its founder adopted the Lutheran doctrines, which olwtavus
became the faith of the state ; but the conflict between the old Adolphus
communion and the new was, like the coincident struggle in
England, long indecisive. It was not finally determined till
the close of the sixteenth century. Then the king's brother
compelled his nephew, the legal heir, Sigismund, the Catholic
king of Poland, to renounce the Swedish crown, which he
himself assumed, as Charles IX. Hiid design of making Sweden
the dominant northern power and himself the head of a
great Protestant league, led him, naturally, into conflict with
his neighbors; and his son, the young Oustavus, inherited
the wars and the ambitions of his father. When he invaded
Germany he had been king of Sweden nearly twenty years,
and most of them had been spent in arms. His struggle
with Denmark had been indecisive. That with Russia had
given him command of most of the eastern shore of the
Baltic ; while the conflict with Poland, which had just ended
in a truce, provided him a foothold in northeastern Germany.

From these wars he drew the experience which made him so
formidable an enemy, and the well-equipped, weU-disciplined,
veteran troops the finest fighting force in Europe. By means
of war he had diverted the restless nobility from further
attack upon the crown authority. By the reorganization of
his government into a bureaucracy, the encouragement of
commerce, and the building of towns, he had at once enlisted
the support of the middle classes and united all national

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436

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

GusiaTus'
advance

1631

Wallcn-
8tdn

elements in the common pursuit of glory and of gain. His
diplomacy was not less successful. His assembly protested
against the German adventure on the ground of danger and
expense. But the French subsidy made their refusal of suxi-
plies ineffectual to prevent the undertaking; and the fear
that the Emperor might secure the coveted southern Baltic
ports gave the last impetus to his decision.

Tet his advent at first seemed unpropitious. Much as they
hated and feared the Catholic Imperialists, the Protestant
princes, even GuiStavus' brother-in-law, the Elector of Bran-
denburg, looked with little favor on the intervention of a
foreigner. The people in general, with the horrors of war
still upon them, feared a repetition of Wallenstein's maraud-
ing policy. But both elements were gradually reassured.
The Swedish discipline prevented pillage. The king's cautious
advance through Pomerania into Brandenbui^, securing his
position as he went, gave neither his enemies nor the neutral
princes an opportunity to crush or betray him. His treaty
with Pomerania guarded at once its interests and his own;
and when the imperial forces under Tilly captured the Prot-
estant stronghold of Magdeburg, massacred its inhabitants,
and burned the town, a sudden revulsion of sentiment and
interest brought allies to the Swedish king. Joined by John
George of Saxony, he advanced to Leipzig, and there, on
the field of Breitenfeld, fifteen months after his landing,
the Imperialists were defeated. Thence he advanced to
southern Germany, despatching his Saxon ally to Bohemia.
Through Thuringia and Franconia to the Danube and the
Rhine, defeating Tilly again at Bain, taking Augsburg and
Munich, besieging Maximilian in Ingolstadt, and finally estab-
lishing themselves in camp near Nuremberg, the Swedes be-
came the dominant power in the Empire.

Against them the Emperor and the League had proved
helpless and, in this crisis, all eyes turned to WaUenstein.
He was at first obdurate to the imperial appeals, consenting,
only after long supplication, to raise a force but refusing its
command. The magic of his name called to his standard
fifty thousand men. His genius formed them into an army,

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 437

dependent on himself. Still he refused command till, in
despair, the Emperor yielded all. Wallenstein was created
commander-in-chief, not only of the Emperor's forces and
those of the Archdukes, but of the Spanish troops. An
Austrian hereditary territory was to be given him. He was
empowered to confiscate estates, grant pardons and reliefs,
and have sovereign jurisdiction over conquered lands. No
such powers have ever been conferred by any sovereign, before
or siDce, as these which, were he successful, would have made
this great adventurer the master of Germany.

The end seemed to justify the means. Almost at once Ltttsen
Wallenstein drove the Saxons from Prague; and, with the Jl^thof
Elector of Bavaria, he advanced to form a camp over against Gustaviu
that of the Swedes at Nuremberg. Thence he turned to cut
Gustavus' communications and overpower Saxony, and, to
check this, the Swedes hastened by forced marches to fore-
stall him. At Liitzen, near the scene of the first great Swedish 1639
victory, the forces met, with results disastrous to both sides.
The Imperialists were defeated decisively, with the loss of
their greatest cavalry leader, Pappenheim. But the triumph
of the Swedes in the great battle which saw them reach the
summit of their fortunes was dearly bought ; for, at the mo-
ment of victory, their king met his death. It was the greatest
loss his party could have sustained, and for the time it seemed
irreparable. But though none of his generals possessed his
ability, the Swedes did not lack competent commanders
trained in his school ; and in the chancellor, Axel Oxenstiema,
they found a statesman-diplomatist not unequal to Oustavus
himself. Bemhard of Saxe- Weimar, Baner, and Horn assumed
command of the army. The chancellor took direction of for-
eign affairs ; and a league was formed between the Swedes and
the Oerman circles of Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhine prov-
inces, while Prance continued to support their cause.

Even so, the Protestant allies might well have feared the Thedis-
Catholic-Imperialist-Spanish forces commanded by the genius §^®^ ^^
of Wallenstein. But in this crisis, as before, that alliance WaUen-
again collapsed. The scarcely veiled ambitions of the Im- ^^^^
perialist general, whose ability had raised him to the position

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438 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of an all but independent power in Europe, provoked sus-
picion as well as jealousy. The Spanish party, in particular,
was fearful of his schemes. Their fear was not without
foundation. After Gustavus' death, Wallenstein had done
little to offend the Swedes ; he had negotiated with them, the
Saxons, and the French ; and, apart from what wider dreams
he had of winning for himself a kingdom in Gtermany, he
had determined to overthrow the Spanish influence in the
Empire. The consequences were not long delayed. Fifteen
months, almost to a day, from the battle of Liitzen an im-

18S4 perial proclamation removed him from his command; and a

week later he was assassinated by some of his own ofiScers
whom the Emperor richly rewarded for their treachery.

The Peace Hard on the crowning tragedy of this momentous period,

iwd'**^* the Imperialist victory over the Swedes at Nordlingen appar-
ently put the game again in the hands of the Emperor, and
when, in the following year, the Peace of Prague was signed
between him and the Elector of Saxony, the conflict seemed
inclining to a termination favorable to the Imperial and
Catholic interests. That peace, accepted by most of the
Protestant estates, including Brandenburg, gave to the pos-
sessors of estates confiscated before the convention of Paasau
perpetual ownership. All others were to remain as they were
in November, 1627, for forty years, and, barring a new
arrangement before the end of that period, forever there-
after. With this, with amnesty for the Bohemian-Palatinate
disturbances, with toleration for the Lutherans, and an agree-
ment to make common cause against the Swedes the third
phase of the German conflict came to an end.

The^cntry But if any of the diplomats who drew up this treaty be-
lieved the end of struggle was at hand, or even brought
nearer by its terms, they were soon undeceived. It was far
from the plans of the outside powers to allow Germany to
settle her own affairs. Where Gustavus left off Richelieu
began. It had been the policy and the subsidies of France
which had called in the Swedes against the Empire and main-
tained their armies after their king's death. It had been
the Spanish party and the League which had pushed on the

of Franco

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THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 439

dismissal of Wallenstein ; and it was bis death which had
checked his deep designs looking toward the expulsion of
Spanish influence and the enforcement of imperial peace,
together with what personal aggrandizement he had dreamed
of in a reformed Empire. It was the Peace of Prague,
with its Lutheran concessions, which left Sweden and France
the chief opponents of the Emperor and his Spanish sup-
porters as the conflict declined into a phase of the long-
standing Bourbon-Hapsburg rivalry.

The seven years which followed the Peace of Prague, there- The
fore, saw rather a shifting of interests than any cessation pJJJj^"
in conflict. For four years France conflned her efforts to the period
support of Bemhard of Saxe-Weimar, who strove to conquer i<'S5-48
a new dtate for himself in place of that duchy of Franconia
which the battle of Nordlingen had cost him. After his death
French generals and BVench troops as well as French sub-
sidies were poured into Oermany to retain what their ally
had won. Meanwhile the Swedes under Baner had won the 1036
battle of Wittstock over the Saxons and the Imperialists,
and secured themselves in northern Oermany as France had
established her power along the Rhine with the capture of 1638
Breisach.

But already the actors in the drama were changing. The
long-enduring Ferdinand II was succeeded by his son, Ferdi-
nand III, who, above all things, was desirous of peace. Three
years thereafter George William of Brandenburg was fol-
lowed by that Frederick William, to whom a later generation
gave the title of the Great Elector. The ducal house of
Pomerania became extinct; and Bauer's death brought
Torstenson to the command of the Swedish armies. Of these
changes only the last had no effect upon the situation of
affairs, for Sweden's military ascendancy remained unim-
paired. Within a year after lus succession to command
Torstenson defeated the Imperialists at Leipzig and laid the 1649
hereditary estates of the Emperor open to invasion. The
effect of his continued success was twofold. On the one hand,
the imperial authorities were the more inclined to peace ; and,
even before his last victory, preliminary steps toward a con-

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440 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

greEis had been held at Hamburg, which the advance of
Swedish arms had accelerated. Meanwhile the Danes, jealous
of Swedish ascendancy, had seized the opportunity to fall
upon their rivals in the rear. But Christian's forces were
overwhelmed by Torstenson, whose rapid advance carried

1643 him across Holstein and Schleswig to Jutland and compelled

the Danish king to sue for peace at the same moment that
the Austrians and Bavarians checked the successes of the
French in the south.

Thenceforth the contest resolved itself into a series of
efforts on the part of either side to influence the negotiations
begun at Munster and Osnabriick in Westphalia, and the
remaining operations of the Swedish-Danish war. These last,
however destructive and however expressive of national and
dynastic forces, were of small importance to any interests
save those of the ambitious rulers who sought the advan-
tage of their respective governments at the expense of Earoi>e

England generally. Far more significant were the circumstances in the
British Isles, where, in these years, the differences between
the people and the crown, and the concurrent controversy
between the church and the dissenters, had gradually tended

1637 toward armed conflict. There, in the same year that Sweden

and France had finally established themselves in northern
and western Germany, the trial of an English squire for
refusing to pay his assessment of ship-money, and the out-
break against the use of the English liturgy in Scotland,
brought the crisis to a head. And there, in the same months
that the diplomats assembled for the great congress which
was to end the German war, the English king took arms

1643 against his people and so precipitated a conflict of no less

importance to Europe than the one now entering its final
stage.

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CHAPTER XX

COMMERCE AND COLONIES. 1621-1642

The Settlement of New England; the Dutch Empire
AND THE Decline of Spain

Beside the earth-compelling conflict in Germany, the rise of Europe
Sweden and Holland to the rank of first-rate powers, and the the^
emergence of France again into international importance,
the concerns of the extra-European world daring the third
and fourth decades of the seventeenth century may well seem
of minor importance. Yet, it has been observed, those
concerns, even in their earlier stages, were by no means
insignificant, in relation to the fortunes of the continent.
During the period now being considered they yield
little in importance even to Protestantism's fight for
life, or to the revival of royal authority in France and
its decline in England. For the conflicts between rival
communions and opposing schools of political thought were
scarcely less evident in the struggle for sea-power between
Spain and the Netherlands and in the colonizing of North
America than they were in Oermany and England, nor
destined to less ultimate consequence. If these needed proof
of their importance it might be found in the attitude of the
greatest statesman of the time toward extra-European enter-
prises and affairs.

The great French minister, Richelieu, had early perceived France
his opportunity in the Atlantic no less than in central Eu-
rope; and, as Coligni more than half a century before had
seen in America a refuge for his persecuted co-religionists, so
now the Cardinal dreamed of a great empire oversea. Amid
the manifold concerns which filled the early years of his
administration, none was of greater interest to him than the

441

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442 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

formation of a naval force able to contend with Huguenot
resistance, protect French coasts and commerce, and give his
country a place in what he recognized as the new world
politics. He created, and himself assumed, the post of
''grand master and superintendent of navigation,'' doubled
the Mediterranean fleet, and built a navy for the high seas,
among whose vessels the Couronne, of two thousand tons
burden, marked a fresh advance in naval construction.
''For no kingdom," he declared, "is so well sitaated nor so
rich in all the necessary means of being mistress of the seas
as France."

He was no less concerned with trade and colonies. Scarcely
was he in power when he projected the so-called Company
of Morbihan, to trade with America; and when that design
was defeated by the refusal of the Breton parlement to sanc-
tion what it regarded as an infringement of its people's rights,

1097 he revived the Company of New France as the Company of

the Hundred Associates, in which Champlain became a lead-
ing figure. The Company of St. Christopher and that
strangely named Compagnie de la NoceUe de 8t Pierre
Fleurdelisee were set up; and with these he proposed to ex-
tend French trade and power in the New World.

These far-reaching plans broke on the rock of foreign
policy. England, seeking to aid the Huguenots, despatched

16S9 a squadron to Quebec, carried its settlers away, and for a

time balked Richelieu's designs. And though the African
pirates were repressed, though commerce was revived with
northwest Africa, and the Company of St. Christopher occu-
pied the island which gave it name, the effort to plant a
settlement in the Caribbean failed in the face of Spanish
and English hostility. Thus French trade, like French colo-
nization, for the moment felt no fresh impulse. To all intents
it seemed that its prospects were scarcely more promising than
the plans of Sweden, which had secured the services of the
founder of the Dutch West India Company, Usselincx, to
plant a settlement in Australia. But this was due neither to
Richelieu's lack of interest nor to the insignificance of the
prize he sought. Bather it was the inevitable consequence of

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 443

the situation in which he found himself, and of forces beyond
even his control.

Meanwhile England, amid her disturbances at home and England
her disappointments abroad, fared somewhat better. The Eaat***^
English East India Company, indeed, had fallen on evil days.
It was hampered by royal shortsightedness, which refused
to look upon the eastern trade as a national concern. It was
disinclined to send its ablest men abroad, and it was dis-
turbed by English interlopers no less than by the Dutch. Not
until nearly a decade after Amboyna, when the establishment
of a new dynasty in Golconda and the extension of Mogul i6S9
power over Oujerat gave it the support of native authority
which its system of trade required, did it begin to recover
from the injuries which the Dutch had wrought. For it had
prospered meanwhile scarcely more than the Danish company
whose posts, neglected by a monarch absorbed in Oerman
wars, only endured by sufferance of the Dutch.

But in the West Englishmen found compensation for their —in
failure in the East. Among the claims which James I*s reign -^^^^ca
has to remembrance, perhaps the chief is that it was the time
when his subjects established themselves in America. Their
efforts were not confined to Virginia and New England. Eng-
lish settlements were projected north and south of these orig-
inal colonies ; aiid it is probable that these contributed to her
first plantations more than they or their successors realized.

The year foUoi^ing the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth, 1691
an ambitious Scotclmian, Sir William Alexander, secured a
patent for Acadia, re-named Nova Scotia. Upon Charles'
accession that shadowy sovereignty was divided into baronies
and efforts made to find settlers. At the same time, George 169^-6
Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, bent on that ** ancient, primi-
tive, and heroic work of planting the world," had secured
a charter for the so-called province of Avalon, in Newfound-
land, and sent colonists thither. Already, too, James had
conferred the island of St. Eitts upon William Warren. Now,
what was of far more consequence, the fertile island of
Barbados, abandoned by Spain, visited and claimed by Eng-
lishmen many years before, became a center of colonizing

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444 TiHE EXPANSION OF feUtlOPE

activity. Granted first to the Earl of Marlborough; settled
1635 by a London merchant-prince, Courteen; re-granted to Lord

Carlisle; and finally re-colonized by the Society of London
Merchants, it was at last reduced to order, amid conflicts
of rival interests and settlers, and entered the circle of British
colonies at the same time that the Dutch settled the i^ast
opposite.

While England thus confirmed her occupation of the West
Indies and the St. Lawrence mouth with these outposts of
her middle colonies, those older settlements underwent alter-
1619 nate vicissitudes and success. The introduction into Virginia

of the contradictory elements of slavery and self-government,
during the second year of the German war, with the rapid
development of tobacco-planting, had given the colony at once
new character and new prosperity. To these were quickly
added other elements. The communal system gave way to
freehold farms ; young women were brought over and sold to
the settlers as wives ; free trade with the mother country was
established ; and the new constitution went into effect.
1691 The provisions of this notable instrument marked as great

an advance in colonial administration as the New Laws of
Charles V. They were of even more enduring importance.
By them power was vested in a governor, a council, and a
general assembly of burgesses, and while the acts of this first
of colonial legislatures might be vetoed by the governor or
the company at home, the latter 's ordinances, in turn, were
void without the sanction of the House of Burgesses. For
the first time the local authority of a colony was thus put
on measurable equality with that of its directors. Thus
equipped, with an increase of immigrants, which presently
gave it the largest European population of any single settle-
ment outside of the old world, Virginia became the model
for English colonial administration, the first and most power-
ful self-governing European society oversea.

It was not free from the two enemies of such an experi-
ment, the natives and the crown. Its prosperity was hindered
scarcely more by Indian attacks than by the Company's
quarrel with a king who claimed the right to nominate its

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 445

officers, and resented the frank discussion of his policies in
what he called its ''seminary to a seditious Parliament."
Yet, though hundreds of lives were lost in the Indian war,
though the assembly was suspended, and Charles I issued
patents which invaded the provincial privileges, Virginia
was too firmly rooted to be thus destroyed. Its population
increased to five thousand souls. Its tobacco exports grew to
more than half a million pounds a year; and when Calvert
and his followers, seeking a more hospitable location for
settlement than their Newfoundland Avalon, came to the 1639-4
Chesapeake, they found a sturdy, prosperous, self-contained
society, ready to resist not only savage incursions but any
invasion of its land and privileges by the crown or its
grantees.

Yet with all the extension of England's power on the north New
and south, and the success of Virginia, it was in New Eng- ^"ff**"*^
land that the principal energies of her colonizing elements
were expended in this period. Those elements were chiefly
found among the Puritans who were opposing the crown so
bitterly at home. Their first experiment had not greatly
flourished in a material way, and it was many years before
New Plymouth showed any such prosperity as Jamestown,
Its early settlers were ill-prepared to face the hardships they
encountered. Suffering alike from the hostility of the natives
and the climate, ill-found and ill-supported, and with no
such profltable staple as tobacco to reward their industry,
they increased so slowly that after ten strenuous years they
numbered scarcely three hundred souls.

But the colony was important beyond its size. Like Vir-
ginia, it had been driven to abandon the communal principle.
With the withdrawal of some of its disappointed London
backers, the rest consented to dissolve the partnership; and 1697
a new group, chiefly composed of the colonists, assumed the
obligations of the enterprise. The settlers became stock-
holders. The land and cattle were distributed among them;
and the little community was thus transformed into an
independent freehold society. It exhibited amazing vitality.
It resisted Indian attack; rescued an ill-starred settlement

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446 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

at Weymouth; and repressed its unnily neighbors at Merry
Mount. It extended its own outposts to Buzzard's Bay, and
northward to Naumkeag or Salem; secured claims in the
Kennebec region; and, treating and trading with the natives
and with the Dutch of New Amsterdam, it revealed a strength
wholly out of proportion to its numbers.

But while it was thus engaged, the world of English
politics had changed, and the colonial movement followed in
its train. During the first year of the Plymouth settlement,
a Council for New England had been incorporated, as the
successor of the old North Virginia Company. With this
there began a twofold movement of vital importance, as rival
schools of colonizing theory sought to put in practice their
widely varying plans. The one held to a policy of palatine
jurisdiction, not unlike that which had established the county
palatine of Durham as an incident of the Norman conquest of
England, and still divided it from the rest of English admin-
istration. Under the scheme the grantee held all rights
within his province, like the head of a Portuguese captaincy,
a French seigneury, or a Dutch patroonship. On the other
hand, a group contended for a form of grant and government
more like that of Virginia or New Plymouth, looking toward
the establishment of self-governing communities. In such
fashion, in this distant comer of the world, the great political
problem of the time took on fresh form and fashion, with
far-reaching consequence.

Directed by the Council of New England, the northern
territory was now apportioned and settled; and, amid quar-
rels over its fishing rights, and attacks in Parliament on its
monopoly, the charter of this corporation became the basis
of New England grants. Its chief activities were those of a
1691 land company. North of the original New Pljrmouth settle-

ment, between Salem and the Merrimac, a Hampshire gen-
tleman, John Mason, acquired a province, first known as
Mariana. Between the Merrimac and the Kennebec he and
Sir Ferdinando Gorges held another district, named La-
conia, which was later divided between them under the names
of Maine and New Hampshire. Beyond these great palati-

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 447

nates Plymouth and her neighbors had secured concessions
on the Kennebec, while minor patents conferred lesser terri-
tories on other adventurers. To secure their claims further,
the districts which they held were re-patented to the Plymouth
settlers. They, in turn, re-granted lands along the southern
coast to the Earl of Warwick, a Puritan nobleman who headed
the party opposed to the palatine doctrines of Gorges and
Mason. Thus were the rival schools given means to carry
out their theories.

Meanwhile companies were formed and colonizing schemes Massacfau-
were set on foot The ambitious Salem settlement established *****
a branch farther south at Charlestown ; and the Salem Com-
pany, chartered directly by the crown and increased by new
associates, was transformed into a corporation called the
''Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay,*' from the 16»
great inlet whose shores it proposed to exploit. Unlike the
palatine jurisdiction of the Mason-Gorges lands, its patent
wad modeled upon manorial grants, as found in the royal
manors of Windsor and Greenwich, and there was thus intro-
duced another element into the province. Administration was
vested in a governor and assistants; and, with the despatch
of a strong band of emigrants to the Charlestown settlement,
the English company *s council agreed to transfer charter and
government alike to the colony itself. The powers of the
appointed officers were allowed to lapse. A new governor,
John Winthrop, was elected; a fresh settlement was begun
at Shawmut, or Trimountain, renamed Boston, where the 1630
first "General Court of Massachusetts Bay'' was held; and
under such conditions began the history of a new form of
colonial society, even more self-contained than Virginia.

To this was added another enterprise. At the moment Connecti-
that Boston was founded, the Plymouth council had granted ^^^
the Earl of Warwick a strip of the southern New England Island
coast, between their claims and those of the Dutch. This
he transferred to a Puritan group, headed by Lord Brook,
Viscount Say and Seal; and at once the question of settling
the Connecticut valley was opened. Within three years the
men of Plymouth set up a house in this land debatable,

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448 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

despite the oppoeition of the Dutch, who had earlier bnilt
1639-5 a fort in that region. Two years later, emigrants from Massa-
chusetts Bay settled along the Connecticut, and the {KMt of
Saybrook was built at its mouth to secure the English claims.
At almost the same time the region lying between the new
colony and the old, the Narragansett district, was colonized
1636-8 by Roger Williamys, fleeing from his persecutors in Salem;
and shortly thereafter Rhode Island took its place beside his
settlement of Providence, completing the occupation of the
New England coast.
The chftiv Such, in the mid-period of the Thirty Years' War, was the
ha^it^ce l>©KUMung of European settlement in a new region of the
of English world, and of a new chapter in the history of self-governing
tton*****" communities. Save for the Providence colony, it did not,
indeed, make for that toleration which came to be associated
with these communities. For the most part, its settlers ad-
hered to the pnnciple of conformity to their own doctrines
as the price of political rights, or even residence within their
borders. Franchise and faith alike were determined by men
bent not so much upon freedom of belief in general as on
securing their own liberty undisturbed by royal interference
and the intrusion of other opinions. It was the natural out-
conie of an age of dogma and force, the logical result of gen-
erations of the persecution of dissent by orthodox authority,
and of the determination of all parties in the religious conflict
to impose their own beliefs upon all men so far as possible.

Yet it differed from the despotism of the Catholic rulers of
the continent as from the absolutist tendencies of the Eng-
lish kings, in that it held a popular element. With all its
theological intolerance, with all its petty jealousies, New
England, like Virginia, represented the spirit which was to
survive. And the settlement of America by the English
made it apparent that the tendency toward popular inde-
pendence in church and state was not to be overpowered by
the reactionary forces in the old world, since there was now
open a refuge in the western hemisphere.

To the final solution of the questions then at issue the Ger-
man war had thus far contributed one element — ^the probable

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 449

persistence of the reformed communions in certain regions.
Prance under Richelieu had contributed another — ^the dis-
sociation of religious and political issues in international
affairs. The great results which flowed from the Anglo-
Dutch attack upon the Spanish monopoly had contributed a
third — ^the determining influence of sea-power in the world's
affairs. At the same time science and philosophy tended to
undermine the whole fabric of the older conceptions of truth
upon which the new communions scarcely less than the old
based their theology.

The settlement of America by the English added another Its result
factor. Not merely as a refuge for the persecuted of Europe,
but as an experimental ground for beliefs and practices dif-
ficult or impossible of realization in the more rigid and more
complex society of the old world, America took on another
aspect than it had shown under Spanish and Portuguese
influence. There, for the first time largely relieved of that
royal and ecclesiastical influence which had characterized the
efforts of the Romance nations, Europeans began to found a
society endowed with the experience of the old and largely
influenced by it. Little hampered by tradition and system
derived from the past, they were permitted, even compelled, to
develop new ideas and new functions. Such an opportunity,
given permanence, would almost certainly become a powerful
factor in the evolution of Europe. The coincidence of the
foundation of Massachusetts Bay, the Edict of Restitution, i699
the dissolution of the English Parliament, and the final sup-
pression of the political power of the Huguenots, is one of
those curious circumstances in history which lends emphasis
to this consideration. For, at the very moment that religious
and political liberty in England, France, and (Jermany
seemed to have reached a point where their extinction was
but a matter of time, the New World prepared a field for their
development in ways hitherto unknown to European ex-
perience.

But the progress of English colonization by no means Holland
exhausted European energies beyond the sea during this "* P "*
period, nor was it the force which reacted most directly on

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450 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

old world affairs. That reaction came rather from the Dutdi
attack upon the Spanish empire; and its strength was not
lessened by the fact that it was bound up with the material
prosperity of the Netherlands. In this great period of her
history her achievements oversea not merely made her rich;
they lent powerful aid to her struggle for independence. They
influenced the German war by weakening the Emperor's
chief ally, Spain; and they ultimately contributed to the
emergence of Portugal from the long burden of her Sixty
Years' Captivity. For while Protestantism lost and won in
Germany, while France and Sweden took their place in the
first rank of European states, while England came into antag-
onism with her rulers at home and secured her hold on North
Americaj^Holland-Xomplfitfid the destructiojPL of^pain 's sea-
power; ^itnd extended. Jxer^xcdoniai empire • thmog^hoat the
worHr-

The reign of Frederick Henry, indeed, began inauspiciously,
since his tolerant policy was strained by the rivalry of
Arminian and Gomarist; while the capture of Breda by the
Spaniards drove the Provinces to seek French aid on the
hard terms of lending a squadron to help in the redaction of
their co-religionists of La Bochelle. And it was only when,
in that eventful year of 1629, they retook the fortress of
Hertogenbosch with French aid, and death removed their
greatest enemy, Spinola, that the Dutch were relieved from
their fear of re-conquest.
Hie West Meanwhile the activities of the West India Company had
Company given them new power and new wealth. Its predecessor,
the East India Company, having secured its foothold in Asia
and Africa, was now directed by men opposed to farther
conquest, and no longer took the lead in expansion. But
the western company, born of the war with Spain, subsidized
by the government, and operating in the Atlantic, where its
every blow reacted directly on Europe, became not merely
an agent of commercial enterprise, but an aggressive factor
in the conflict with Spain, and a considerable element in
European affairs.
Scarcely had it been chartered when it had despatched

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 451

emigrantB to the Hudson Kiver region, to the Amazon, and
to that Esseqnibo district which was to become Dutch Ouiana ;
while, following the example of the English a generation
earlier, it sent a squadron to harass the western ports of
South America on the way to India. Meanwhile a greater
enterprise was prepared. Nearest and richest of the Spanish- Piet Hcin
Portuguese possessions in the western world was San Sal-
vador, better known from its spacious harbor as Bahia. What
Nombre de Dios and Cartagena had been to the English,
this post became to the Dutch; and what Drake had been to
Spain, the ''sea terror of Delf shaven," Pieter Pieterzoon
Heinsius^ more generally called Piet Hein, now became.

His exploits began the year that the Palatinate was lost 1683
to Protestantism and Anvboyna to the English. Sailing as
second in command of a fleet of thirty vessels and three
thousand men, under Willekens, Hein's desperate courage
drove his ships against Bahl&'s batteries, and led his men
clambering with boat hooks up* the fortress walls, with irre-
sistible audacity. The place was retaken by a Spanish-
Portuguese fleet, but its plunder enabled the Dutch to flt out
another squadron, which, under Hein's command, seized the
Spanish Plota, and poured eleven million florins into the 1698
coffers of the Company. Not in a generation had Spain felt
such a sta^ering blow as this which at once impoverished
her own treasury and added its resources to those of her
enemy. Hein's untimely death seemed likely to relieve the
Spanish power. But his achievements had done their work.
They had shown the way to divert Spain's strength, in part
at least, from its attack upon the Provinces, and inspired his
countrymen to dreams of dominion in America, which be-
came the next goal of their ambition.

Its most immediate effect was seen along the Hudson Kiver, The New
where traders, following Hudson's track, had begun their J^^*'"
labors. There, in the year that Hein's great exploits began,
the West India Company's agents built Fort Orange far up
the streanl. Three years thereafter, Peter Minuit bought from
the natives the island of Manhattan at the river's mouth, 1696
and founded the settlement of New Amsterdam. With the

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452 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

best port of the north Atlantic coast at their command, it
would seem that their fast widening trade through the
interior would soon have made their Hudson River colony
one of the strongest European settlements in the New World.
Efforts were made to provide a basis of population propor-
tionate to its possibilities. The lands along the river were
divided into so-called patroonships, petty principalities of
the wilderness, each with its river frontage, not unlike the
Portuguese captaincies in Brazil, and the French seigneuries
on the St. Lawrence. Colonists were despatched to occupy
the territory thus brought under Dutch control. But the
more profitable enterprises elsewhere in the world, throughout
the East, and in Brazil, together with the great demand for
men at home, made large emigration impossible. The com-
pany was compelled to depend largely on Walloons and
Huguenots : and what might have been, under less favorable
conditions elsewhere, a great and successful colonizing move-
ment which should plant a powerful Dutch population in the
western hemisphere, was hampered by the very forces which
brought them such rewards in commerce and in war.

The East To some extent their fortunes in the East languished from
the same cause ; for, like Portugal before them, they had not
men to equal their ambitions and their abilities. While the

16M forces of the West India Company fell upon Bahia, the Dutch

East India Company had despatched a squadron to seize
Formosa as an entrepot for trade with China and Japan, in
silks and the new commodity of tea, but lately introduced to
north European tastes. Under Caen's successor, Carpentier,
whose name the Oulf of Carpentaria still perpetuates, and still
more by the somewhat later discoveries of Abel Tasman, under
Van Diemen's administration, a great part of the Australian
continent, re-named New Holland, was explored. But no such
wide conquering advance as had marked their entry into the
East was achieved, or was now possible.

Meanwhile they grew rich. From these new posts, from
their factories throughout the Isles of Spice and still farther
east, from India and Persia and Ceylon, from an infinity
of vessels scouring the coasts of Africa and America, from

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 453

the fur trade of the New Netherlands, with the carrying
trade of half Europe, a huge and growing stream of com-
merce poured through the ports of the United Provinces,
leaving its sediment of profit to enrich their people. The
income of the East India Company, despite its expenses in
war, the inroads of interlopers, cumbrous bookkeeping, and
dishonest agents, ran into many millions; and those of the
western company, though they were promptly sunk, as they
were chiefly gained, in warlike enterprise, were scarcely less.

The Dutch had learned their lesson well. In their hands Dutch
war not merely supported itself; from the plunder of their *™Wtion8
enemies they drew the means to destroy those they spoiled.
Strengthened and inspired by their profits and success, noth-
ing seemed impossible to them, and they ventured to oppose
all other colonial and commercial powers at once. Beating
off Spain, attacking the Portuguese, blocking up the English
in their feeble and scattered posts, rivaling the French in
the fur trade and the English in their colonial experiments,
the courage of this tiny state, thus challenging the domina-
tion of the commercial world, while it clung with difficulty
to even the little patch of European ground it held, was
equaled only by its huge audacity.

Yet, as in so many other cases, its success was due, in no
small measure, to favoring conditions. Not only was Ger-
many removed from any possible rivalry. The Flemish
Netherlands was ruined by Spain ; and England, like France,
was preoccupied with other affairs. The six strenuous years
which Richelieu employed in bringing peace to his native land V ^
had aided Holland as much by his co-operation against the 16S3-9
common enemy, Spain, as by the slackening of French rivalry.
And the diversion of Spanish strength to (Germany, and to
Italy — ^where France and Savoy joined to break her hold
npon the Valtelline and the imperial claims to Mantua —
served Dutch purposes no less than the dissensions betweei.
the English crown and Parliament.

Above all, Spain's own policy, her devotion to lost causes Spain
and impossible loyalties, became Holland's most powerful
ally. From the^ury of her soldiers had fled those Flemish

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454 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

refugees, who founded, in their adopted country, the West
India Company and the Company of the North, which, with
the East India Company, divided the oceanic world between
them. No less, Spain's support of the Catholic cause in
Qermany, on which she spent so much of her strength and
treasure, went far toward costing her American supremacy.
For the Spanish government, amid all its misfortunes, had
apparently learned nothing and forgotten nothing since the
great days of Charles V. Not even tiie tragic disillusionment
of Philip III had been sufficient to produce a change under
his successor, Philip IV.

The old pretensions to direct the fortunes of all Europe
were maintained, though every year they grew more shad-
owy. The fatal economic and ecclesiastical policy stood un-
changed; the E^stem of favorites persisted. Lerma fell, but
his place was taken by Olivarez; and though the new min-
ister's talents were far beycmd those of his predecessor, they
scarcely compensated for the mistakes and arrogance by which
they were brought to naught. Spain's trade and mannfac-
itures were nqw well-nigh destroyed; her agriculture ruined
by deforestation and the drain of men for foreign wars. Her
popular liberties were absorbed by church and crown, her
economic strength weakened beyond the possibility of wring-
ing sufficient taxes to support her vain and wasteful policies.
The sober maxims of retrenchment, reform, and the encour-
agement of industry were cast aside, while her Quixotic
rulers pursued impossible adventures in war and diplomacy,
until, beneath their weight, the collapse of her position as
a first-rate power was, in this disastrous decade, finally
assured. She had, in fact, expanded beyond her capacity
to organize and assimilate her gains; and, like a tree which
has long stood as the monarch of the forest, she had begun
to decay at the root.
Spanish In this collapse such of her colonies as were not involved

colonies jn hej. foreign policy, and were not easily accessible to out-
side attack, had as yet no share, and, for the most part, flour-
ished. The stream of bullion which they poured into her
treasury, and which had become the chief support of her

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COMMERCE ANiD COLONIES 455

declining power, had shrunk from what it had been in the
preceding century, but it still remained considerable. Though
Mexico had suffered a clash between the civil and ecclesi-
astical powers which involved an attempt to limit terms of
service and exactions from the natives, the result was not
unfavorable to Spain and the Indians, since the latter were
relieved somewhat from their oppression, and the former's
efforts to increase its revenue were not without result. And
even at the height of the struggle with the Dutch, in the face
of a world of enemies, Spain's colonies advanced their borders.
To protect them she embarked upon a policy, half Euro-
pean, half colonial, as a defense against the privateers who
harassed her coasts, preyed upon her commerce, and dis-
turbed her revenue, in the Spanish Main, whose islands and
ports had long been her chief concern. The depopulation
of its shores and the withdrawal into the interior had begun.
Even Cuba was said at this time to contain no more than
twenty thousand souls, and its whole western coast boasted
only a few poor native villages. Already English, French,
and Dutch had begun to occupy the abandoned islands, as ^ 1694^30
St. Christopher, Barbados, and the lesser haunts of pirates
and smugglers fell from Spanish hands. Meanwhile, to
I keep a safe entry for her fleets, great fortifications had been
begun, first at Porto Bello, then at Havana, finally on the
Pacific ports, to guard the progress of her treasure ships.

Following Hein's exploits, she took another step. A fieet
was prepared, which, two years after the Dutch sea-king's
death, swept through the Caribbean archipelago, and with its
capture of prisoners, guns, and plunder, revealed at once
the profits of the pirates and the. smugglers, and the strength
of that traffic. Thus, while the rich trade pf Portugal was
filched from her in the Bast, Spain secured the wealth of
mines and herds and plantations in America, behind an im-
penetrable wilderness. Its few entries were controlled by
impregnable fortresses; and so, 'Uike a huge turtle basking
in the sun, protected by its shell, and showing only here and
there a tooth or daw," she lay before the onslaughts of her
foes.

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456 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The But wUle she thus secured her colonies abroad, she faced

Portuguese jjg^ dangers at home. The subject kingdom of Portugal,
now languishing for nearly sixty years under the hated con-
trol of her oldest enemy, had grown more and more restive
till the discontent had become acute. Portugal had been
dragged in the wake of Spanish misfortunes, sharing the worst
evils of a policy in which she had no voice. Her losses and
her enemies had increased with every conflict in which Spain
had been engaged ; and she was taxed to support wars where
she had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Under the
fury of the Dutch attack the last vestige of her colonial
strength in the Bast had all but disappeared. The viceroy's
authority, long since reduced to little more than the direction
of military expeditions and the supervision of the ports of
Malabar, had become a shadow of its former greatness. The
royal efforts to check the corruption of the governors had
degenerated into a costly farce, since it seemed almost a virtue
to rob the hated authorities of the alien king.
Its War, poverty, and misgovemment combined to impede re-

decay form. The army grew, but not by European additions, since

recruiting in Portugal finally proved impossible ; and the na-
tives, improperly armed, equipped, and ofScered, were use-
less. No less, corruption in the service increased till not even
the heroic step of melting the copper coinage into cannon
could replace the loss by theft and capture of that once
dreaded artillery. Meanwhile her strength by sea came to
an end. The navy, weakened by Dutch and English attack,
declined in numbers, discipline, and skill. The shipwreck of
1696 Menezes' fleet in the fifth year of Philip IV 's ill-fated reign,

marked the beginning of the end; and when, a dozen years
1638 thereafter, the Dutch destroyed a Portuguese armada off

Pemambuco, sea-power disappeared. Of that great navy
which had held the seaway to the East the Tagus sheltered
less than a dozen little vessels. In place of those great fleets
which once bore the wealth of Asia from 6oa to Lislxm,
English ships were hired to transport what remained of that
fast-fading commerce. As, a hundred years before, the
wharves of Venice and Genoa had been deserted for those

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 457

of Lisbon, so now the latter were replaced by those of Am-
sterdam and her neighbors. Batavia supplanted Qoa as the
European capital of the East; Dutch factor took the place
of Portuguese governor; and of her far-flung empire the
unfortunate kingdom, now a mere province, still retained only
the Atlantic islands and Brazil in any semblance of their
former strength.

Powerless to resist the English, French, and Dutch en- The
croachments in the years following the Armada, these were ^^^^
saved from conquest partly by bending to the storm and sions
partly by their relative insignificance, as the attack swept by
to richer prizes. Portugal's subjection to the Spanish yoke,
indeed, worked them some benefit. Through hatred of their
Spanish rulers, many Portuguese sought refuge in the colo-
nies. The Azores, aided by France, had kept out Philip II 's
squadrons for three years after he became king of Portugal ;
and Portuguese exiles made up a large proportion of the
emigrants who established about Maranh&o in Brazil what
became one of the most intelligent and prosperous of the
new world colonies.

Few periods of European history are more notable than
the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century,
whether we consider the epoch-making events in Europe itself
or the no less spectacular circumstances under which the
northern powers established themselves in regions oversea.
It was a time of great and far-reaching activities, of heroic
characters and dramatic occurrences, of sweeping changes and
romantic episodes, within and without Europe. From the
direct consequences of the continental struggle South America
was notably free save for the Dutch attempts on northern
Brazil; and in so far the history of the Spanish colonies,
whether in comparison with the events taking place elsewhere
in the world, or in comparison with their own past, was rela-
tively tranquil. Yet, while the great issues were being fought
out in the old world, South America revealed three move-
ments, of much consequence to its development, and of a Hie
quality as romantic and extraordinary as that of any con- J^d*
current European circumstance. The first of these was the Paraguay

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/

458

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1600-1640

The

"theoo
racy "

The
Paulistaa

rise of a new and unique state in the heart of the southern
continent, which was no less noteworthy in that it seemed
the echo of an age already passing. Of all the activities
by which the Europeans spread their faith and culture
none is more remarkable than that by which, in this
mid-period of the Thirty Years' War, the Jesuits extended
their influence in South America. It yields nothing to the
labors of Xavier in the East nor to those of his order in
the northern continent; and its results are still apparent
among those peoples now brought under its authority. These
were the Ouaranis, whose tribes dwelt between the Andes
and the Atlantic. A peaceful, agricultural race, they lent
themselves as readily to conversion as they had to conquest
by their fiercer neighbors; and in them the Jesuits found
a fertile field for their endeavors.

From the northern ports, the successors of Nobrega had
early made their way to the interior ; but it was in the south
that his order met its most conspicuous success. There, follow-
ing the Parana and the Uruguay, they had established mis-
sionary posts about the beginning of the sixteenth centuiy.
From these they soon began to' weave the fabric of a the-
ocracy. The Indians were grouped in villages, each with its
church and priest, and native officials under Jesuit tutelage.
A communal system abolished private property ; and the sur-
plus, shipped out at Buenos Ayres, provided money for taxes,
for manufactures beyond the capacity of these farming groups
to make for themselves, and for church ornaments. To pro-
tect their charge from outside attack, whether native, Span-
ish, or Portuguese, the fathers armed and drilled a militia.
And to preserve the natives from the contaminating influence
of European life, the whole community was made virtually
a hermit state. Such was the remarkable society founded in
the heart of eastern South America, which for a hundred
and flfty years remained the unique product of missionary
enterprise.

If its principles and practices had been more common, the
history of the Spanish empire in the western hemisphere
might have been spared some of its darker chapters. But

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 459

even while this curious experiment was taking form two
forces of a widely different character were making them-
selves felt at opposite ends of the continent. The first was
due to the activities of the so-called Paulistas, the warlike
inhabitants of the province of Sao Panlo in southern Brazil,
who held the lands stretching westward from Kio Janeiro to
the Jesuit settlements of Paraguay. A mixed people who
combined the vigor of the pioneer with the pursuits of plant-
ing and slave-hunting, they formed the most aggressive
element of Portuguese empire-builders in the New World.
Their bands ranged the wild interior in search of slaves,
their prospectors sought for gold in the mountainous
country to the north, while their outposts harassed the
Spanish and the Jesuit settlements to the west. Half -settlers,
half-brigands, they spread at once their power and the
terror of their wild exploits over a wide area which they
made a bulwark against the Spaniards of La Plata and the
Argentine, destined to preserve the Portuguese supremacy in
Brazil. /

Of different composition but like methods was the second and the
force which threatened Spain's authority at the other end '*^***«^"
of her empire, the Caribbean lands. There, following the
English attack upon Spanish monopoly, an adventurous
element had found a foothold in the half-abandoned islands,
beginning v^ith San Domingo. Chiefly Dutch, French, and
English, these broken or desperate men, wild spirits, or
criminals fleeing from justice, found refuge here. They early
learned from the natives the art of smoking and preserving
meat, so-called ''boucanning,'' whence they derived their
name of buccaneers. Every planting settlement was a mar-
ket for this useful conmiodity, every island afforded a supply
of cattle, and the industry spread rapidly. But their pres-
ence in the forbidden lands, and the disposal of their
produce, brought them in conflict with Spanish authorities,
and the result was inevitable. From hunting and butchering
cattle they advanced to piracy, and in no long time Spain
found a new and annoying warfare on her hands. Time
after time her vessels swept the islands, but, the danger

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460 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

past, the buccaneers, emerging from their hiding-places, took
up their old activities.

1633-30 Such a force was not to be overlooked by states at war

with Spain. In the year that Christian of Denmark had
prepared his German expedition, England and France began
to colonize St. Kitts. In turn Spain sent a fleet whichi seat*
tered but could not crush the settlement. Five years later
the buccaneers moved to Tortuga, and again, after an in-
terval, Spain fell upon the settlement and massacred all
its inhabitants. With that began a long, fiercely contested
conflict which enlisted thousands of recruits from Europe,
and endured for three-quarters of a century. Its great
period was to come. Yet the extraordinary and romantie
interest which it developed scarcely surpassed the serious
importance of the curious episode by which, in this epodi
of Spain's declining powers, another wound was opened in
the side of her empire.

Brasil But the Paulistas and the buccaneers were not the whole

of her tale of enemies. At the same time she was called on
to face another and a far more formidable foe, that threat-
ened her very existence in Brazil. There, with the develop-
ment of African slave labor, and the consequent increase of
the chief export, sugar, the imperial colony had become one
of the most valuable possessions in the world. But its very
prosperity brought dangers in its train, for Spain's chief
enemy had scarcely secured control of the spice trade when
she cast desirous eyes on this new source of wealth. For
its acquisition Holland had already organized her West India
Company, and established her power on the northern coast
Thence she had turned to naval war, and was now prepared
to strike for land empire.

The successes of Willekens and Hein had whetted Dutch
ambition in the western world ; and Prince Frederick Henry
was not slow to follow the lead thus given. Encouraged by
the capture of the Spanish treasure fleet, and enriched by its
spoil, the year following that exploit there had been des-
patched a powerful expedition to secure a foothold in Brazil.
More than sixty vessels, carrying twelve hundred guns and

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 461

twelve thoufland men, were launched against Pemambuco in 16S9-30
this new struggle for the mastery of the colonial world. The
conflict was stubborn in the extreme. Pemambuco 's port,
Beciff, impregnable from the sea, was taken in the rear by
land forces ; the raw Portuguese levies were crushed ; the city
fell; the intrepid governor, Matheus de Albuquerque, re-
duced to the interior lines, threatened the invaders from his
intrenchments and cut them off from further advance. Thus
the conflict resolved itself into a contest of endurance. Both
aides sent out relieving fleets. The squadrons under Pater
and Oquendo met in a flerce though indecisive battle off
Beciff; but the Spaniards, hopeless of dislodging the Dutch,
sailed off to the West Indies, leaving their rivals the masters
of the sea. Albuquerque's resistance thereupon collapsed
and Dutch power spread rapidly between the San Francisco
and the Amazon, leaving but half the old captaincies to their
original possessors. So, at the crisis of the Thirty Years'
War, Protestantism, defeated in Qermany, promised to win
for itself a new empire beyond the sea.

But Spain, reduced to the region between Bahia and Rio
Janeiro, was little disposed, with all her weakness and her
entanglements elsewhere, to endure the loss of half her Portu-
guese territories in America without attempting to regain
them. Thus the years which saw Oustavus' great campaign
in Germany and the settlement of New England, were filled
with her efforts to avenge herself upon the Dutch. Her first
attempt was most unfortunate. A fleet, gathered at Antwerp,
tried in vain to land its troops in Zealand, and was flnally lesi
ignominiously crushed by a Dutch squadron scarcely a third
its size. Hard on its failure Frederick Henry took Maestricht,
which controlled the eastern frontier of the Provinces, and
held it against Spanish and imperial attack. Thereafter when
the death of the Infanta Isabella, the regent of the Flemish
provinces, brought the Netherlands under the direct rule of
Spain, the Dutch, rejecting Spanish overtures for peace, 16S5
seized Dunkirk, with the aid of France, and further secured
their borders and their trade.

At the same time Prince John Maurice of Nassau was sent lesa

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462 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

to rule Brazil, and his administration marked the high tide
of Dutch power in America. The capital, renamed Maorits-
stad, flourished anew with the development of the provinee&
Trade and planting increased under Dutch management; and
it appeared in this fiftieth anniversary of the Invincible
Armada, that Holland, now secure at home, was about to
take the place of Spain upon the sea, and absorb Portugal's
colonial power in the West as she had already engprosaed her
commerce with the East.
The New In this crisis Olivarez rallied every energy of the Spanidi
^nnada government for a supreme effort to destroy its too BueeesBf ul
enemy. At home a new armada was prepared, comparable
to the ill-fated armament of a half century before ; and eighty
ships and twenty-four thousand men were intrusted to the
experienced Oquendo, who was commissioned to erufih the
power of the Dutch in the narrow seas. At the same time
another force was to engage the enemy in the western world;
and a scarcely less powerful Hispano-Portuguese fleet was
collected at Bahia. There ninety vessels and twelve thousand
men under the Count de Torre were to be thrown against
Dutch ascendancy in northern Brazil. To meet this pressing
danger all the strength of Holland and her colony was sum-
moned. Thousands of volunteers enlisted; ships of all sorts
were brought together; and the command was entrusted to the
greatest of Dutch admirals, Martin van Tromp.

The crisis was not long delayed. Worsting the new Armada
in preliminary encounters. Van Tromp met the Spanish in a
last decisive battle in the English Downs. At the head of
more than a hundred ships, manned by the flower of the
dijDct. Protestant Netherlands, he inflicted on the unfortunate Span-
ish fleet a defeat no less crushing than that which had over-
taken the older Armada almost exactly half a century before
at Oravelines. With the loss of more than half its men and
nearly all its ships, the shattered fragments of the Spanish
fleet sought refuge from the fury of the Dutch in friendly
or neutral harbors; and with its downfall Spain was elimi-
nated as a naval power from the European seas. Nor was
this all. Three months thereafter, a running four days'

1639

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COMMERCE AND COLONIES 463

fight off Itamaraca gave to the vastly oyermatched squadron
of John Maurice a scarcely less decisive victory over the
fleet of de Torre, and secured Holland's supremacy in Bra-
zilian waters with undisputed possession of the mainland
provinces which she held.

These disasters were but a part of Spain's misfortunes The
during this period. In the same year that saw the destruction ^^^ ®'
of her last navy, the hatred of Spanish rule, which had already
led the Portuguese to one revolt, came to a head with the
proposal to abolish the Cortes of Portugal and incorporate
the kingdom formally among the Spanish provinces. Never
was such a plan worse timed. Taking advantage of her dis-
asters on the sea, and of a revolt in Catalonia, supported by
France, the Portuguese rebelled. Three hours of fighting in i640
liisbon overthrew the Spanish forces there, and made John
of Braganza king of Portugal. That country, in the weak-
ened and disordered situation of the Spanish government,
was able to maintain the independence it had won by its
daring stroke. Within two years, the fayorite Olivarez, who,
with all his industry and ability, had led his nation to irre-
trievable disaster, was finally dismissed, and Spain collapsed
as a great power. Shorn of half her colonial empire, ruined
by the proud futility of her foreign policy, her suicidal
economic attitude, and the incompetence of her rulers, she
ceased to be a leading factor in the world's affairs, and the
pre-eminence she once held in European councils was usurped
by her great rival, Prance.

Thus, in the mid-period of the German war and the Eng-
lish experiment in unparliamentary government was the
extra-European world revolutionized. In the same twelve-
month that the first steps toward peace were taken in Ger- 1649
many, and England turned at last to civil war, Richelieu
died and Olivarez fell from power. With that remarkable
concurrence of events, Europe at home and oversea entered
upon another phase of her eventful history, altered in nearly
every particular from her status a generation earlier. The
Dutch were now the masters of the East. They held no incon-
siderable portion of South America, and divided the coast

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464 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

line of North America with the English and the French.
There the experiment of popular colonial government had
began. There the English people, removed from continental
politics, revealed a spirit and an energy in their domestic
as in their colonial affairs, which were to be determining
factors in history. Under such circumstances did the initia-
tive pass from Spanish and Catholic hands to those of
northern Protestants. And in their hands was again made
manifest the truth of that great axiom of world politics,
''The dominion of the sea is the epitome of monopoly."

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CHAPTER XXI

INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. 1610-1642

The BEQiNNmGs of Modern Philosophy and Scientific

Thought

From the standpoint of that history which concerns itself with
conflicts for supremacy between rival religions doctrines or t
princely ambitions, rather than with the new forces coming
into the world with each generation, any account of social
and intellectual progress during the period of the Thirty
Years' War must seem even more of a digression from the
main current of affairs than the description of those proc-
esses by which a new European balance was established be-
yond the sea. Yet if history is to be considered as the chron-
icle of the advance of the human race in all those elements
which go to make up the world of to-day, it is apparent that
the first third of the seventeenth century is of greater sig-
nificance to us as the period in which the foundations were
laid for present conditions and capabilities than as the age
of the last great religious war.

It is no doubt true that had Protestantism been finally
eliminated from central Europe, that portion of the continent
would have been profoundly affected in civilization no less
than in faith. But such a result is almost inconceivable, and,
had it been attained, it would scarcely have brought about
the extinction of that form of belief in the rest of the world.
On the other hand, had Spanish efforts to control the sea /O

been successful, or had the reactionary forces of Europe been
able to check the development of those doctrines of liberty
in thought and practice which had achieved the discoveries of
science and the beginnings of popular government, togetheir
with the establishment of new societies in America, the present
status of the world would have been far different from what

465

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466 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

it is. For, by the time of the great trial of strength between
the two commuiiions, Protestantism had accomplidied its task
of making freedom of religious opinion a factor in European
thought, and its great services to the cause of intellectual
liberty were reinforced by other forces which were, by thu
I time, becoming competent to carry on the work of emaaei-
^^ ' pation.

Thetransi- Among these two were most conspicuous. The one ims

th^^fa^™ Iscience, whose triumphs during the generation which vni-

tecnthto nessed the Thirty Years' War had added enormously to the

teenttTwn- ^^^^^^^^S^ *^d capacity of mankind. The other was tlmt

tury Ispirit of liberty, which, expressed no less in literature and in

commerce than in science, and now invading politics, f oouad

. in every field of human progress new outlet for its adV^i-

turous energy, increasing at once the scope and content of

life, and giving opportunity to the individual.

Nor were these the only factors which went to re-create
the European world in this eventful third of a century.
Great as were the political and intellectual changes during
this period, they were no more remarkable, whatever their
greater ultimate importance, than the material phenomena
which accompanied them. Beside the more spectacular de-
velopments in war and politics, the more subtle alterations
in knowledge as in thought, there came a change in every-
day affairs, in the habits and practices, even in the appear-
ance of European peoples, not unworthy of note even amid
wOrld-shaking activities and policies.
Weapons Perhaps the circumstance which seemed of greatest impor-
tance to the men of action was the development of weapons
and means of protection. It was inevitable that the great
conflict in Europe during the earlier part of the seventeenth
century should produce an effect in land warfare comparable
to the changes which had modified naval affairs in the pro-
ceeding fifty years. With the invention of small arms during
/the previous century, the long-bow and cross-bow had dis-
' appeared, and the musketeer took his place beside the pikeman
in the new armies. Meanwhile his weapon was improved.
The cumbrous and uncertain slow-match by which he once

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Descartes.
After the painting by Franz Hals.

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 467

set fire to his charge in the old-fashioned arquebus, had been
first replaced by the wheel-lock, which struck sparks upon
the powder in the pan ; while the weapon was lightened from
a form but little less cumbrous than the still older hand-
cannon from which it had been evolved. In the early years V
of the seventeenth century came the invention of the so-called
Schnapphahn, or snaphaunce, an early form of the flintlock,
which was to be the prevailing model of the musket till the
introduction of the percussion-cap, two centuries later.

Meanwhile, a large variety of weapons based on the musket
principle were evolved— fusils, calivers, musquetoon, and,
smallest of them all, the pistol or hand musket. Artillery
followed a not dissimilar course. But, save for heavy siege
work, it scarcely kept pace with the development of small
arms, its greatest achievements being the Swedish invention
of light and mobile field-pieces, and the use of a crude form
of shell by the English. Before such weapons armor de-
clined. A head-piece, breast- and back-pieces replaced the
full suit of mail, as the old battle-az and mace, shield and
spear gave way to sword and pike. Thus in defensive as in
offensive weapons the whole tendency was toward lightness
and ease of movement.

Such changes were accompanied by others, more or less Dtcbb
related to military affairs, or the trades affected by them.
Not the least of these was dress. If one circumstance dis-
tinguishes the first half of the seventeenth century from its
predecessors in external characteristics, it is the extraordinary
change in the appearance of European men. This was ef-
fected chiefly by the evolution of the doublet and hose, with
which, in a variety of forms, they had arrayed themselves
during the preceding centuries. Such a change was due to
two causes; first, the invention and development of knitting ^^
which evolved those garments known as stockings; and per- |
haps still more to the disappearance of armor, which had J
necessitated the adaptation of male costume to its use. With I
its departure the doublet shrank into a waistcoat, the robe
into a coat. The long hose were divided during the sixteenth
century into "upper" and *'nether stocks,'' so to knee-

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468 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

breeches and stockings. The extraordinary foot-coverings of
an earlier age diminished into the more sober, if not more
commonplace, buckled shoe. As armor shrank to back- and
breast-piece, the suit of buff, or soft leather, declined to the
bnff-coat. Jack-boots protected the horseman's legs against
the dirt, a cloak or riding-coat shielded him against the
weather, a hat replaced the older and more picturesque soft
cap of varying shape. And, after an era of wearing his hair
in long curls, or cutting it short — ^as his nationality, his
religion, his political beliefs, or his taste dictated — the vng
was devised to cover man's natural hair or conceal its lack.
Such, apart from the varying fashion which replaced the
smooth or full-whiskered countenance of an earlier day with
the Spanish or Vandyke beard, and that, in turn, as the
century advanced, with smooth face again, were the changes
which marked the transition between medieval and modem
dress and appearance, — neither a reformation nor a renais-
sance, but a true revolution in costume.

It would be a bold man who ventured to follow the varia-
tions of feminine dress in any period, much less to account
for its vagaries. But, in the main, so far as the unskilled
eye can determine, it would appear that toward the end of
the fifteenth century the long flowing robes and the huge,
picturesque head-dress which had chiefly distinguished the
medieval lady, finally gave way to that form of costume
which would be reckoned as modem, — ^the skirt and corseted
waist, — and, toward the end of the sixteenth century, the tem-
porary fashion of the huge starched neck-ruff. That striking
and characteristic feature of the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth century styles was not confined to women. It
formed a conspicuous element of men's dress as well. But
it was soon cast aside by both sexes, and a long succession
of lace collars, stocks, and neck-dresses ultimately evolved
into the more conventionalized collar of the present day.
And, apart from the merely curious interest which attaches
to this alteration in external appearance during this period,
these changing fashions are notable for two elements of more
serious significance. The one is the fact that these new cos-

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 469

tomes were not only more practical, but that they tended to
become, in a sensei more democratic, since, with all the infinite
variety of taste and cost, men, at least, came gradually to
look more and more alike, and those wide dilSFerences of rank
and wealth which had once been so clearly marked, slowly
gave way to greater uniformity. The other was the effect
which these alterations produced upon industry.

It was to be expected that such changes would be accom- industiy
panied by the development of handicrafts to supply materials
for the changing fashions, and this became a principal char-
acteristic of the early years of the seventeenth century. From
the hands of the lace-makers of Italy proceeded those filmy f
marvels of patient skill like paint de Venise; and thence trans4
ferred to the Low Countries, Brussels and Mechlin, with
lesser centers of manufacture, began to rival their southern
teachers. Silk production made its way to France, and
in due course even to England, with other arts and crafts
driven from the Netherlands by the Spanish Fury. Other
forms of manufactures accompanied them. The steel which)
had made Toledo and Milan famous found rivals in the north, i
as English, French, and German metal-workers developed I
their resources. Spanish leather, Italian goldsmiths' work,
with pottery and glass-making, and china-ware, became the
material of industry no less than of commerce in many parts
of the continent. To these were added contributions from
many other activities. The introduction of tobacco brought
with it the art or **mystery'* of making pipes from clay,
which developed from the potters * craft. The discoveries of the
physicists brought into existence the art of the optician, with
his telescopes and spectacles, his reading-glasses, and, finally,
his microscopes. Lastly the demands of the astronomer,
no less than the convenience of the individual, compelled
the improvement of watches, which, in this period, turned
from their resemblance to clocks, and, with the invention
of the escapement, took on more likeness to their modern
form.

Strangely enough, these were accompanied by altering Tastes and
tastes and habits with consequent developments in widely ^^^^

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uv

470 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

different fields, especially relating to those which a consid-
erable section of later generations reckoned as vices. What-
ever obscure relation there may be among the manifold activi-
ties of any given period, it is a curious fact that the age
which saw the introduction of a new form of costume took
up the habit of smoking tobacco, began to use snuff, and
invented the game of billiards. Nor is it without significance,
among the minor facts of life, that the peculiar conduct of
billiard balls, under stress of the impulse of the cue, is still
known as *' English." The introduction of tea, coffee, and
cocoa or chocolate to general use, among the northern peoples
• especially, marks another change, of wide consequence not
. only to social habits, but, through them, to far-reaching
streams of commerce and industry. The introduction of new
plants, like the gladiolus, the tulip, and the tuberose, marked
an advance in horticulture as part of the luxury of life. At
the same time the use of one of the great food staples of
mankind, the potato, spread through Europe. Introduced
from America by the Spaniards, it found its way thence to
the Low Countries, and, by the reputed agency of Raleigh,
into the British Isles. It slowly but surely was improved and
commended itself to the taste of Europe, especially to the
people from whom, among the English, it took its name — ^the
Irish. Above all, perhaps, the discovery of cinchona, or
Jesuits' bark, whence quinine is derived, and its marvelous
effect upon fevers, is one of the most important results of
this era. For it soon became a factor not only in therapeutics,
but in the exploitation of those malarial districts of the world
otherwise incapable of European settlement.
Intoxicants Amid this manifold activity which revolutionized the whole
fabric of every-day life one feature is even more conspicuous.
This was the development in the use of intoxicants.
During the middle ages, — after some centuries of mead, —
the brewing of ale and beer from grains, and the products of
the grape, had provided Europe with its stimulants. With
the development of commerce, especially after the beginning
of expansion, sack and sherry from Xeres, Canary and Ma-
deira from the islands of that name ; port from Oporto, claret

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 471

and Bordeaux from the Oironde ; Burgundy, Moselle, and the
various Rhine wines, had approved themselves to European
taste and commemorated their origin in their names. It had
early occurred to men to prepare stronger drinks by some
process of distillation; and it is probable that we owe
brandy and alcohol to the Arabs. By the first quarter of the
seventeenth century their manufacture and use seem to have
been fairly common everywhere in Europe. To these were
added usquebaugh, or whiskey, prepared from grain by the
Celtic inhabitants of Scotland and Ireland, and brought to
more general attention by the English, through their closer
connection with the Scotch by dynastic union, and with the
Irish by conquest.

At about the same time the Dutch developed another drink
apparently originating in France, spirits flavored with
juniper — so-called Geneva or gin. And, as if these were
not enough to tempt the taste and virtue of mankind, another
spirituous product, rum, distilled from sugar or sugar-cane,
made its way from the West Indies to divide the doubtful
honors with these other powerful stimulants. Thus in the
generation of the great religious wars the long rule of the
milder beverages was at once reinforced by tea, coffee, and
cocoa, and challenged by a group, nearly if not quite half
alcohol, whose rapidly spreading use set Europeans on an-
other and less temperate stage of their devious career. It
seems probable that the general diffusion of these beverages
throughout Europe in this period is connected not only with
the development of commerce but stiU more with the progress
of those almost incessant wars which for a century and more
had plagued the continent with a horde of soldiers of fortune,
drawn from every land and carrying with them the peculiar
tastes and vices of their own countries to every quarter of
Europe. To this wandering class of free-lances and free-
booters must certainly be attributed the spread of disease
and pestilence as well as of that destruction which accom-
panied their presence. Thus, whatever their contribution to
religious freedom and political advance, the German wars
anquestionably played a great part in the moral as well as

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472 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

the material degeneration of Europe in their thirty disas-
trous years.
Baths Beside these changes in taste and customs one other altera-

tion in European habits is no less noticeable as the sixteenth
century merged into the seventeenth, — ^the fashion of resort-
ing to certain places possessed of springs yielding warm or
mineral waters reckoned of advantage in the treatment of
many diseases. That custom, known to the Romans, and
leaving its traces in place names wherever their power spread,
from the German Aachen to the British Aquae Solis — ^now
Bath— had never wholly died out in the middle ages. But
with the greater attention to medicine, to sanitation and
hygfene, which affected the upper classes during the six-
teenth century, and perhaps not unconnected with the revived
attention to nature which accompanied man's relative separa-
tion from it as city dwelling gradually replaced outdoor life
among larger numbers, these natural resources were again
summoned to his aid. The town of Spa in the Netherlands, —
which as time went on owed some part of its fame to the visits
of great personages like Henry of Navarre and gave its name
to many such places; the English town of Bath; the various
springs in France and the Bhine region, and others of less
note elsewhere in Europe, became the resort of those seeking
health, by drinking and bathing in their life-renewing waters.
The ciustom became general, and, within a century and a half,
had grown to be a fixed habit in the lives of the upi>er classes,
affecting society, so-called in its narrower sense, only less than
health.

Such matters as the changing appearance, tastes, and habits
of every-day life are scarcely consonant with the '* dignity
of history,'* as it is generally understood, however vital they
are to the progress of what we call society, and however
closely they are bound up with the most intimate affairs
of our existence. Had these been the only changes which
overtook Europe during this era, her social and intellectual
history would, indeed, seem trivial enough. But this was
not the case. At few other periods in her long development
was she so altered from her old estate in the deeper concerns

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 473

of life. Beside the infinite petty mutations in these more
personal concerns, there came far-reaching changes in the
most fundamental influences which move mankind.

It was now twojinndred veara aince Poggio^a ^igpnvpripji Results of
of long-lost classical manuscripts and Erince Henry's con- ^'P"^^"
qiieata in northern AfrioA had given Europe that impulse to
intAllAPfyftl M\A tftrritnriftl expansion which had produced
such great results by the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury. It had been a hundred years since Luther and Calvin,
Hagellan, Cortez, and Pizarro, building on the work of
Wyclif and Huss, Columbus and Da Gama, had called into
existence new worlds, religious and political, to alter the
balance of the old. It had been scarcely more than half that
period since the Calvinistic doctrines had begun to produce
new forms of political and of ecclesiastical philosophy and
practice ; and the Teutonic North Sea powers had overthrown
the Iberian supremacy in the oceanic world. The expansion
of Europe, intellectual, political, artistic, religious, economic,
was now fuUy under way; its line of progress determined;
some of its results were already evident, and many elements
of its future well assured.

The products of the Eas* nny flnwp/l fypply iTifn TCnmpfi

through at least three channels. The shore-lines of four con-
tinents; far-stretching areas of the western world and of
northern Asia; vantage-points in Africa and North America;
most of the Atlantic islands — ^and not a few in the Pacific —
' were now ruled, exploited, or occupied by European peoples.
Two great systems of colonial society had been established
oversea; three more had made beginnings; and the areas
controlled by them had more than trebled the extent of Eu-
rope's original territory. Her influence and her wealth had
grown in like proportion; her people had become the great
aggressive element in the world, and the chief factor in its
politics. She had in her hands unlimited wealth of lands
fitted for 9ettlement. She had become the focus toward
which was being drawn much of the store of precious metals
in the world, to augment a circulating medium which enabled
her to replace natural with money economy, to enrich the

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474 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

fields of industry, and to extend the scope and character of
her commercial ventures. All the power of Spain and Por-
tugal combined had not availed to maintain a single narrow
channel for the entry of goods from the other continents into
Europe, nor prevent the settlement of other powers in the
extra-European world, much less ensure to their own
use the flood of bullion from the East and West. Now
as the exclusive age of territorial and commercial exploi-
tation was replaced by an era of capital and competition,
world-politics followed in the wake of world-commerce,
and questions of polity were increasingly determined bj
elements once scarcely recognized as part of the old ''mys-
teries of state.'*
Intellfictual But the progress of Europe had not been limited to ma-
acWance terial, nor even to spiritual activities. No less in matters of
the intellect than in commerce and politics, the European
at the beginning of the seventeenth century had f otmd outlets
for his energies beyond his reach a hundred years before.
Classical scholarship >»«^ ^ftw nnfi^vor^d a new world of
thooghLJBLnd achievement^ where the mind was freed from
the mediaeval bonds of scholasticism and theology. Art had
attained unparalleled eminence. Great^joatiraaljiteratares
had sprung up, blossomed, and borne immortal fruit; new sys-
tems of religious and secular thought and practice had arisen.
New handicrafts had been invented or improved; and science
had revealed a whole new universe. As a result, Europe's
intellectual resources had increased no less than its wealth,
its power, or its political influence. The new spirit had begun
to penetrate philosophy; it was about to invade politics, and
ultimately it was to affect religion, as the search for truth,
''daughter of time, not of authority,'' prepared a fresh
advance.

Its most conspicuous result was to increase the dignity of
ipan and the importance of terrestrial affair at the expense of
mystical and supernatural elements in life and thought. It was
no accident that from the canvases of the great painters of the
period now begun — ^Rembrandt and Hals, Bubens, Velasquez
and Vandyke — look out not so much the Saints and Holy

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 475

Families of the earlier schools, as statesmen^ merchants, and
men of affairs; that landscape and the business of life took
a conspicuous place among the concerns of art. Holbein, not
Raphael, was the prophet of the new era. Nor was it chance
which led the statesman, Bacon, and the soldier, Descartes,
to interest themselves in science and philosophy. Least of
all was it a mere coincidence that the last of the great re-
ligious wars took place concurrently with the first successful
revolt of popular liberties against royal prerogative, the rise
of great commercial states, the foundation of international Its results
law and modem philosophy, and the actual transfer of Euro-
pean society to lands oversea.

Of all these results which flowed from the increasing
knowledge of the two preceding centuries, none was more
important than the revival of man's confidence in himself.
Though still surrounded by the unknown, his conquests in
the intellectual as in the physical world had begun to lighten
the fear which had so long oppressed him that the secrets
of the universe were unknowable. He no longer felt that
he must die to learn, that all his prospects lay in a future
state of which in the nature of things he could know nothing,
whatever he might believe. The supernatural had begun to
give way to a natural conception of the universe. Of all
the gifts of science to mankind, of all the differences between
the European and the non-European races, between the
middle ages and more modem times, this emancipation of
the intellect and the consequent unfettering of the spirit,
this substitution of investigation and experiment for faith
and authority, even for pure reason, was the most far-reaching
and profound. It provided new material for the intellect
which had fed too long upon itself. It replaced the supersti-
tion of blind belief, simple dependence on authority, barren
logic, mere learning, empirical philosophy, with discovery
and conquest. Beginning with the unearthing of the ancient
world, continuing with the exploration of the earth, strength-
ened by the protest against outworn ecclesiastical doctrines
and practice, the new spirit, though it could not solve the
riddle of the universe, was at least able to relate man to his

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476 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

surroundings, and enable him in some degree to "think Gk>d's
thoughts after Him.''
The new Expressed in so many varying forms, a spirit of fierce

•P^^* energy, infusing every fiber of European life, had laid

foundations of the new amid the ruins of the old. As always,
the more spectacular operations of the destructive forces,
which were devastating central Europe with fire and sword,
overshadowed the constructive agencies^ As always, the dif-
ferences in form obscured the likeness of essence in these
widely varying phenomena; for there seems small relation
between the Thirty Years' War and the philosophy of
Descartes, the Dutch attack on Brazil, and the Puritan move-
ment in England. Yet in politics as in religion there was
the same element of denial or distrust of authority; in com-
merce and philosophy the same reliance on personal judgment
and initiative ; in law and science the same respect for reason
and investigation. Each of these felt a powerful impulse of
secularization, not seldom verging on mere materialism, which
was no less apparent in art and literature than in affairs.

This growing sense of the present and the material, of
the worth and dignity of man's achievements in his world,
appeared in education, which had long since begun to prepare
its pupils for mundane rather than celestial activities. It
was no less evident in commerce. There the reaction against
the communistic element of the middle ages had been ex-
pressed in the substitution of great commercial firms and com-
panies for the old guilds, as in the increasing absorption of
common lands by individual proprietors. It was apparent
in politics where the protest against the exercise of tradi-
tional and unlimited authority from above, which had in-
spired much of the religious revolt, was no less strong. The
German Thirty Years' War owed nearly as much of its
impulse to the desire to decentralize and decrease imperial
power as to religious motives. The English Puritan Revolu-
tion was directed no less against royal and aristocratic privi-
lege than against divine right in church and crown. For the
tendency of the times in almost every field was in favor of
the ascendancy of local, lower class, and individual interests.

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 477

The pnnmit of wealth and power, like that of truth, in this
new dispensation, was to be no longer the prerogative of the
few but the privilege of the many.

However great the connection between economics and poll- The
tics, there would seem small relation between them and the ^P^^]^
development of new theories of the universe and God; yet 1610-48
they were now co-ordinate if not consequent phenomena.
The generation which fought the Thirty Years' War and
revolutionized colonial affairs made far-reaching conquests
in the world of science and philosophy. While Italian states-
men were absorbed in the fierce rivalry for the Valtelline,
among their compatriots, Borelli led the rising school of
iatro-physicists toward a new theory of the human organism.
Torricelli advanced physical knowledge and invented the
barometer; and Gassendi gave the final blow to that Aris- 7
totdian philosophy which had so long hampered the advance «
of European thought. While Germany was rent with carnage,
among a multitude of less well-known investigators Glauber
made his discovery of nitric and hydrochloric acids and con-
tributed to pharmacy curative agencies among which the
sodium sulphate salt still commemorates his name. While
James I quarreled with his Parliaments, Horrocks first ob-
served the transit of Venus, Harvey demonstrated the circu-
lation of the blood, and Bacon pointed the way to intellectual
advance in his Novum Organum. And in the very years that
Holland fought for her freedom and her life, the French-born
philosopher, Descartes, returned from his experiences in camp
and field to pursueliis studies under her protection. Thus
with all the shifting of rulers and of policies which altered
the complexion of public affairs, the developments in fields
remote from statecraft presaged a change in human affairs
more profound and far-reaching than any effected by the
activities of war and diplomacy.

Of the various influences which were destined to mold
the future of mankind, the progress of science, now taking
on new form and content, was vital to the next advance of
European thought; and the generation now coming on the
stage was to experience a revolution in its knowledge and its

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478 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

intellectual power scarcely surpassed even hy the f remendons
changes of the preceding century. It has been observed that
among the differences between a modem European and the
non-European peoples or his own progenitors, none is more
marked than his capacity to discover and adapt the forces of
nature to the benefit of man. In that process the seventeenth
century, from its earliest years, played a decisive part. Not
even the discovery of the western hemisphere and the seaway
to the East, the classical revival, the renaissance of art, nor
the religious revolution, were more important to the develop-
ment of intellect-— on which European existence depended —
than the rise of scientific method and the increase of scientific
knowledge which caused or accompanied these more spectac-
ular events and helped insure their permanent value to man-
kind. Before it all the dominance of logic and authority,
which had led European intellectual processes into blind
alleys, gave way to that combination of reason and experi-
ment which enabled men to set themselves upon new ways
to wider truth. It did far more than increase knowledge,
though its contribution in that field was of incalculable im-
portance ; it pre-eminently increased the intellectual capacity
of man. Freed from the dead weight of precedent and
authority, as scholasticism gave way to humanistic scholar-
ship, natural science had gradually become a principal factor
in European knowledge and thought. Now, after a. cen-
tury of experiment and theory, it prepared to enter on its
rightful inheritance.
Qiemistry First in time, if not in importance, was the basic science
of chemistry. It had been largely divorced from alchemy by
the so-called ''spagyrists^' of the sixteenth century, pursuing
Paracelsus' dictum that its true use was ''not to make gold but
to prepare medicines." Thus it had gradually turned from
its search for the philosopher's stone, which would transmute
baser to precious metals, to devote itself to the performance
of the far more useful miracle of transforming sickness into
health. With all their errors and ignorance its followers
pressed on to that ''iatro-chemistry" or therapeutics which
marked a great advance in this fundamental science. The six-
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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 479

teenth century had seen the introduction and use of an ex*
traordinaiy number of chemical preparations of antimony,
lead, sulphur, iron, arsenic, and above all mercury. This
last, especially in the treatment of syphilitic diseases, became
one of the cornerstones of medical practice for two centuries.
And it was of the greater importance because this terrible
scourge — ^introduced from America by the Spaniards — ^had
spread through Europe during the sixteenth century, and
added another terror to life.

To this development many elements contributed, among
them, especially, the universities and printing. The earliest
considerable text-book of chemistry, that of the German
Libavius, which appeared in the last decade of the sixteenth
century, bears witness at once to the enormous increase of
chemical knowledge which the preceding hundred years had
^produced and to the tendency toward the establishment of
laboratories. This, after the dissecting rooms and clinics,
marked the next advance in science. Under such influences
the old doctrine of ''elements'' broke down before the dis-
covery of acids and alkalis, and the re-discovery of the types
and properties of liquids as exemplified in water. Men like
the iatro-chemist, Van Helmont, — ^who first described bodies
resembling air as "gas," — ^proved that metals continued to
exist in their compounds aind salts. Thus they introduced
the idea of the unehangeableness of matter and contributed
to a new conception of chemistry and matter alike. Men'
like Tachenius, who first defined the term "salt" and intro-
duced quantitive analysis; Agricola, who founded metallurgy;
Palisiqr, who developed ceramics ; von Hilden, who, besides his
contributions to pure science, invented the tourniquet; and
Glauber, who contributed alike to therapeutics and to tech-^
nical chemistry, widened the bounds of knowledge and added
to the resources of mankind. At the same time they illus-
trated the connection between the groups of sciences which
on the one side facilitated all industrial processes from
mining to dyeing, and on the other reinforced the e^orts of
the men of medicine.

The latter, whether as scientists or as exponents of the art Medicine

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480 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of healing, had, indeed, still far to go. The earliest eifortt
to ** discover man" had been, naturally, directed toward
anatomy or struetore. Throughout the sixteenth century
there had been slowly revealed the complicated system of the
human frame and its organs; and surgery rather than medi-
cine proper had made corresponding strides. Curative
agencies were still largely empirical ; and though the develop-
ment of watches and clocks and the increasing skill of the
practitioners made the observation of the pulse and tempera-
ture possible, it was scarcely before the seventeenth century
was well advanced that these invaluable aids to diagnosis
were in any sense well understood, much less used. Never-
theless, with the progress of anatomy and therapeutics, as-
sisted by chemistry, advances had been made in what was
to be the next stage of development, the determination of
function, or physiology. This was, in no small degree, ham-
pered by theory. The Oalenic doctrine of "humors," or
fluids which entered into the composition of the body,
blood and phlegm, choler, or yellow bile, melancholy, or black
bile, — ^whence we derive our terms of temperament, sanguine,
phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholy, — still existed, with its
cures. These, by cupping or drugs, were supposed to reduce
the amount of the particular humor and so restore the patient
to health. Sanitation was scarcely known; and though the
Black Death had virtually disappeared in the more advanced
parts of the continent, fearful epidemics or plagues still
persisted in the form of tjrphoid and smallpox for which

\ there was as yet no adequate remedy.

It was perhaps inevitable that the discoveries in physics,

* and the consequent progress of the mechanistic doctrine of
the universe, i^ould have their effect upon medical theory;
and there arose, in consequence, in opposition to the iatro-
chemists what came to be known as the iatro-mathematical or
iatro-physieal school. As one of the curious results of the
work of Copernicus, Galileo, Eepler, and the founders of
modem astronomical knowledge, the principles of physics
were imported into physiology. Under the lead of the
Italian, Borelli, and his co-workers, a powerful group of

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 481

thinkers, among whom the great philosopher, Descartes, was
conspicuous, asserted that physiological processes were not
chemical but the result df the laws of physics upon the human
organism.

In some measure, perhaps, this conception of man as a Harrey
mechanism was strengthened by the labors of the great Eng-
lish physiologist, William Harvey, with whom the ''science
of man" set forth on another stage of its pilgrimage. For,
from his studies in Italy, and still more from a long series
of investigations after his return, he developed his theory
of the circulation of the blood, and the passage of the whole
blood of the body from the heart through the lungs, where
it was purified. That discovery revolutionized every con-
ception of the human body, and brought to an end the errors
of Oalen which had blinded men to the truth for fourteen
centuries. And whether, as Harvey believed, this heart
action was a purely muscular or mechanical process; or
whether, as Borelli asserted, it was neurogenic, or of nervous
origin, the demonstration of Harvey's discovery in his
Anatomical Exercise of the Movement of the Heart and
Blood, which appeared in the tenth year of the Qerman war,
marks an epoch in science as great as the appearance of
Copernicus' volume on the solar system three-quarters of a
century before.

Stimulated by such work, no less than by the development Biology
of the microscope, and the consequent progress of the science
of embryology, with the study of micro-organisms, the whole
field of biology took on new life and form. As a century
earlier the exploration of the unknown world had reinforced
the uncovering of the classical civilization, so now the dis-
covery of the earth and the heavens was compelled to share
interest with the revelation of the physical side of man and
the study of animal creation. For Harvey's work did not
stand alone. To the labors of the compilers of the natural
histories of the preceding century — ^the "encyclopedists,** like
Aldrovandi and Jonston — of Qesner, and of Harvey's teacher,
Fabricius, who began the study of animal development, there
had succeeded the problem of the origin and development pf

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482 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

life. To this Harvey himself added the study of the ehick

within the egg, which was to prove so fruitful a source of

investigation for centuries. To this, in particular, was added

I the work of the microscopists of the ensuing generation,

. Grew, Hooke, Malpighi, and the two great Dutchmen, Swam-

1 jmerdam and Leeuwenhoek. Men still believed, for the most

/part, in the ancient doctrine of spontaneous generation, and

' it was to be a century more before that ancient fallacy was

overthrown. But in Harvey's dictum, oni'ne vivwn ex ovo,

I" all life comes from an egg,'' was voiced that principle which

in time led to the proper realization of the beginning and

development of living organisms.

From such work flowed results of great practical as well
as of purely intellectual benefit to the human race. For with
the rational study of organism and its physiological function,
joined to the progress of chemistry and materia medica,
modem medicine may be said to begin. While it was still
possible to prescribe messes compounded of viper's flesh,
crab's eyes, human perspiration, wood-lice, and almost every
conceivable product of almost every conceivable animal, real
and imaginary, men began to doubt their efScacy, and to sus-
pect the empiricism of medicine no less than the dogmatism
of theology. The European pharmacopoeia, in consequence,
began to include a great variety of those saner compounds
of mineral and botanical products of known properties, more
familiar to modem practice.

How great an effect this medical renaissance had upon
men is demonstrated by one remarkable circumstance. The
seventeenth century was not only the age par excellence of
the publication of anatomical tables of scientific accuracy
and great technical value. For the first time the surgeon
and the doctor became subjects for the painter's brash. Prob-
ably no other period of European art counts among its pro-
ductions so many relating to the labors of these professions.
It is no mere accident that the greatest artist of the genera-
tion, Rembrandt, should find in a clinical demonstration the
subject of one of his most wonderful pictures. It was the
symbol of a changing world that his masterpiece was but one

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/

INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 483

of scores devoted to the delineation of an art once scarcely
less mysterious than astrology, but now taking on the form
and spirit of science, and so relating itself to actualities.

Beside the discovery of man, meanwhile, went on the ex- Physics
ploration of the universe. Great as were the advances in
those sciences which had to do with the human body, those
in physics, mathematics, and astronomy, which revealed the
secrets of nature and its laws, were still more spectacular.
Already men were coming to perceive the influence of one of
the greatest forces which later generations were to subdue to
their service. For the last year of the sixteenth century had ji600
seen the publication of Gilbert's volume on magnetism, the!
earliest landmark in the study of electricity. In this re- 1
markable work he not merely differentiated between elec-
tricity and magnetism, established the terms "attraction"
and "emanation'' as the fundamentals of the new science,^
but propounded the possibility of communicating this force,
and even conceived the earth as a great magnet. |

At the same time physical and astronomical science was The
developed in another direction, — the extension of man's *«l«s<=®P«
faculty of sight. Centuries earlier Roger Bacon had de-
cligfidjthe principle of the telescope, and his discovery had
been more recently confirmed by three Englishmen, Harriott,
Dee, and Diggs. Now, in this generation, almost simultane-
ously, three Dutch opticians, working independently, con-
structed a rude form of so-called "perspective glasses," or
telescope, whose use spread rapidly throughout the continent.
Coming to the hand of the Italian physicist, GalilsOi, it wasl
perfected and applied to the uses of astronomy. Not even I
the discovery of the western hemisphere had more profound
effect upon the European mind than this sudden extension
of vision which brought knowledge of new worlds to man's
intelligence. The mountainous surface of the moon ,• the com-
position of the Milky Way, which had so long perplexed
astronomers and philosophers; the satellites of Jupiter; the
peculiar form of Saturn ; the phases of Venus ; the solar spots ;
rewarded its discovery. European thought was revolution-
ized. The relationship between the earth and other planets

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484 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

was revealed; the Copemican hypothesis confirmed. The old
doctrines of Aristotle concerning the divine essence and ineor-
ruptibility of planets, which had so long oonfosed mankhid,
perished in a night, with all the misleading myfitories to
which they had given rise, and the way was prepared for
new and rational conceptions of the universe and man's plaee
therein,
lycho While man's phjrsical capacity was thus extended in the

Kepto^^ field of sight as QriOeo^ revealed the wonders of the heavens,
1 two mathematical astronomers, both in the service of the
I ''astrologer-Emperor/' Budolf II, Tycho Brahe, and lus
p greater pnpil, Kepler, following the footsteps of Copern]eas»
extended the intellectual vision to even wider range and so
pushed the bounds of human knowledge further still. The
one, among other notable achiev^ements, began that study of
{ the comets which was to dispel mankind's long enduring fear
of those monsters of the skies. In addition he determined
isome eight hundred fixed stars, and compiled observatione of
^the planets, which, in his successor's hands, ^'furnished ma-
terials to construct the edifice of the universe." The other
enunciated the two fundamental laws of planetary bodies, —
that their orbits were elliptical and their distance from the
sun bore direct relation to their revolutions. With this
Kepler not merely opened the way to the general acceptance
of the Copemican hypothesis but established the basic prin-
ciples of solar astronomy, which were to overturn the older
conceptions of both science and theology.
Napier's His great labors were made possible by a new invention,

logariUmis ^]^q}| j^^ further adapted to the uses of astronomy^ This was
the logarithmic system, which had been devised by Napier
to facilitate those endless computations on which the new
science of the stars was founded. '^ Reducing to a few days
the labour of many months, doubling the life of the astronomer
and sparing him the errors and disgust inseparable from
long calculations" ... the human mind has the more
reason to be proud of this invention as it was derived ex-
clusively from its own resources. It did more than to render
astronomy "supportable to human patience and industry,"

\

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The "Golden Quadrant" of Tycho Bbahe.

From the frontispiece of his Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica, 1508.
This great quadrant was used to determine the angle of elevation of stars.
The observer is seen at the right, one assistant took the time of the observa-
tion, a third recorded the data. Above the astronomer is seen, over his
head the celestial globe he invented, on either side of it the portraits of
his patrons. In the background are shown above his other instruments
and below his students at work. Note the books turned with edges out as
in Prince Henry frontispiece. This was customary on account of the
clasps injuring the binding of adjacent volumes.

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 485

or ^ve to mathematical processes "incomparable precision
and accuracy/' It provided new powers and new methods
of human intelligence, by which nature's secrets might be
unraveled, and added unlimited capacities to the extension
of the mathematical processes of the human mind. Finally
there was developed, though more slowly, the compound
ihicroscope, which presently revealed the infinitely little
to European eyes, as the telescope had revealed the in-
finitely great, and thus extended man's capacity in another
direction.

At the same time that the celestial universe was thus un- Galileo and
folded to telescope and calculation, Galileo was engaged in "»«*"*«•
founding the science of mechanics.. With the determination f
of the laws of falling bodies, the composition of motions,/
and the equality and opposition of action and reaction, he{
established the basis for the three laws of motion. More-*
over, his demonstrations added no less to statics than to
dynamics; while his practical inventions of the thermometer
and hydrometer, with his theory of ''virtual velocities" and
his study of molecular cohesion, witnessed at once the uni-
versality of his genius and the scope and content of a new
school of physical knowledge.

Unlike the scholasticism and the dogmatic theology which

it was to replace, that lainwlftHgft waji hftw>H Tint nn mftrq^

thon^t but on e^qierin^ept- ^t was not restricted to the
resources of the human mind working upon itself, nor did it
depend on the contemplation of unknown and unknowable
spiritual mysteries. If the discoverer of America a century
before revealed a new world to European eyes, the scientists
now unrolled a new universe. Their work reacted powerfully
in other fields. The rapid development of the learned acad-
emies and societies; even the investigation of the so-called
''mysteries of state," by inquiry into politics and govern-
ment and the origin of authority itself, gave history and
philosophy an impetus which was to revolutionize European
thought and practice in the ensuing centuries. However
slowly this new learning made its way among ignorant and
uneducated masses, however little it improved the facilities

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486 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

of every-day life, its spirit and results profoundly affected
every field of intellectual endeavor.
The new Two elements this movement lacked The first was a syB-

philosophy ^^jj^ q£ intellectual processes which should finally replace
the formal logic of Aristotle with a true scientific method.
The second was a system of philosophy which should take
account of the advance in knowledge, and, by crystallizing
its achievements and co-ordinating them with what remained
of the older faith, provide men with a new intellectual and
spiritual basis of existence. It is a striking fact that neither
I the Renaissance nor the Reformation produced a great thinker
/ nor a new philosophy. Scholarship, religious experience,
knowledge, and organization they had, with a revival of what,
for want of a better word, we call piety. But it remained,
strangely enough, for science to stimulate the faculties of
thought to new achievements in the effort to determine
something of man's nature and relationship as a creature
of spirit and intellect. The need was soon supplied,
and, characteristically, the prophets of the new era arose,
not from among the theologians but from the ranks of men
of affairs. Among the forces which Maximilian of Bavaria
led to the conquest of the Palatinate in the early years of
the Thirty Years' War, a young oflicer, Ren6 Descartes,
French-bom, and sometime a soldier under Maurice of Nassau,
improved his leisure in refiections which led to the
development of that philosophic system which revolutionized
European thought and gave him a place in intellectual de-
velopment scarcely second to those great Greek thinkers who
had so long dominated the European intellect. Among the
courtier-statesmen who adorned the age of Elizabeth and her
successor, James I, Francis Bacon, sometime Lord Chancellor
of England, brought from long classical and scientific study
that summons to the search for causes of natural phenomena
which became the next step of scientific advance. And, while
these new elements were injected into the intellectual proc-
esses of Europe, they were reinforced by the labors of a
Dutch jurist-diplomatist, Hugo Qrotius, who drew from his
long experience in public affairs, and his knowledge of law

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 487

and of historyi the material for a new theory of international
relationships, destined to no less consequence in the world of
political and even religions speculation than the labors of his
great contemporaries.

Of these none better represents this many-sided period of Descartes
transition than Descartes. He approached his great taski
of explaining the universe and man not from the standpoint I
of dogmatic theory, but by way of science and worldly experi- 1
ence, by reason rAtliftr fhskn rPVAlflti^^Ti^ by mechanism rather 1
than bv morala^^He was a child of the past but a prophet
of the future, be accepted the Copemican hypothesis and
the doctrine of the infinity of space, yet he was capable of
pUgrimage to saintly shrines. He was dependent on royal
bounty for his livelihood, yet he lived in Holland to breathe
there the freer air of independence. And while he pro-
claimed the dualism of mind and matter he explained the
connection of body and soul by a divine relation— or the
pineal gland!

Philosophy he entered by way of mathematics, and he
remained "a geometrician with a taste for metaphysics rather
than a philosopher with a leaning toward geometry and
algebra.'' Perceiving, as he said, ''those long chains of rea-
soning which geometers are wont to employ in the accomplish-
ment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think
that everything which might fall under the cognizance of
the human mind might be connected together in the same
manner, and that, provided only one should take care not
to receive anything as true which was not so, and if one
were always careful to preserve the order necessary for de-
ducing one truth from another, there could be none so remote
at which he might not arrive at last, nor so concealed which
he might not discover." In such mathematical and mechan-
istic spirit did this new prophet approach the riddle of man,
the universe and Qod.

To this he added such knowledge of anatomy and physi-
ology as his age possessed; and with this equipment he at-
tempted to deduce from an infinity of axioms and definitions,
observations and reflections, a system of belief, rational and

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488 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

irrefutable. In opposition to the doctrine of the schoolmen,
*'I believe, that I may know," he set up that dictum which
might well be taken for the motto of all scientific advance,
^'I doubt, that I may know." His stUl more famous phrase,
**Cogito, ergo sum/* "I think, therefore I am," was the
kernel of a belief utterly at variance with the older faith.
I His explanation of the universe and man as mechanism, and
his rejection of all authority save that of reason, led him to
adherence to a rule of conduct rather than of faith as the
true test of morality. He assumed the existence of three
realities as having been proved, God, the individual body and
spirit of man, and the material world or universe. And in
his great work, the Diacours de la MSihode, he both i^ys-
tematiced thought and replaced the older theological bases of
philosophy with those of science. He gave the world new
glimpses of truth, and, what was still more important, a new
method of approach to the riddle of the universe. This,
rather than his establishment of modem analytical geometry,
his proposal of the vortex theory of matter, and his enuncia-
tion of the laws of refraction, important as they were, re-
mains his chief contribution to the advance of human intellect
Bacon _ Before Descartes had begun his philosophical career Bacon
had brought powerful and much needed aid to the agencies in
which the French philosopher had found the inspiration for
his work. What Descartes was to modem thought. BacoiL—
was to modem science. What the Discours de la MSthode was
to philosophythe Novum Organum Scieniiarum, written as
ipart of a larger work, the Instauratio Magna, or new basis
[of knowledge, was to scientific processes. Each, indeed, was
based in some degree upon the fallacy that a method could
be devised to arrive at truth by an infallible system of reason
and experiment, enabling mediocrity to achieve the same
results as genius by industriously applying its method ta
the problems of nature and thought. That fallacy has not
yet been wholly eliminated from either field. But Bacon ^s
contribution, like that of Descartes, was far deeper than this.
If the French philosopher laid emphasis on deduction, the
English scientific thinker laid equal stress upon inductive

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1661-16M

INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 489

processes, and so clearly marked the point at which modem
thought divorced itself from medisval scholasticism. He
enforced the doctrine of selection among the mass of observed
phenomena, and thus fused reason into experiment. While
he accorded theology the first place among the sciences, he
declared the search for first causes no part of science proper.
By this means he avoided the still powerful enmity of ecclesi-
astical influences, and laid down the line to which that
branch of intellectual activity has since confined itself.

He was at once the exponent of the critical spirit and the
prophet of the school which sought the sources of knowledge
in nature and its progress through investigation. He '^ex-
cepted against those who presumed to dogmatize on nature,''
as against those who asserted that ''nothing whatever can
be known"; and no less against those who ''by only employ-
ing the power of the understanding . . . have laid their
whole stress upon meditation and a perpetual agitation of
the mind." "Our only hope and salvation," he declared, "is
to begin the whole labor of the mind again and attain our
end, as it were, by mechanical aid." "We must first by
every kind of experiment elicit the discovery of causes and
true axioms, recognize nature as man's true heritage, and
seek not only phenomena but causes." Doubt, he declared
with Descartes, was the only true test of truth; and the
primum mohUe, that vague, omnipotent "first cause," the
only hjrpothesis to be advanced in explanation of the origin
and conduct of creation to which he and most men give the
name of God. Unlike the tendency toward the abstract rea^
soning which attracted the continental mind, English phi-
losophy, beginning with Bacon, clung to the concrete and
allied itself with science. It opposed equally the old schoolmen
and the new metaphysicians, and founded its reasoning upon
the surer basis of observation and induction. Thus, of all
the schools of philosophy, it contributed most to the advance
of the so-called "positive" sciences whose development was
so rapid in these years. For to Bacon, and to most of his
Anglo-Saxon successors, final causes were "barren virgins,"
and the line between science and theology, knowledge and

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490 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

faith, reason and revdation was dear and distinct. And
"finding it impossible to write a history of what men knew,
he wrote one of what they had to learn."

I Finally in his incomparable Essays, in his Advancement
of Learning, the first prose work on a secular subject written
in English, as in his Novum Organum, the clear, convincing
style, infused with wisdom and mellowed by experience,
spread the influence of the doctrines with an doquence which
reached far wider than the actual contribution which he
made to science itself. Thenceforth the instrument whose
use he championed found no opponents in the scientific
world. And though his actual experiments fell far short of
Oalileo's, though his philosophy found more powerful ex-
pression in Descartes, Bacon remained the herald and the
champion of the new scientific host. For "he moved the
intellects that moved the world.''
The From the day of Bacon and Descartes, though to most men,

spwr™ perhaps, the human race remained the center of the the-
ological universe, and its affairs the chief concern of God,
it was increasingly evident that ndther the earth nor man
hdd the position in the material universe that had once been
bdieved. Still less was it conceivable, to a small but increas-
ing element of thinkers, ttiP*^ »"y "^^tiiQ^i clftsa, nr jjp^iviHiiAl^
whatever its relation to non-European peoples, hdd a divine
anthority to control the aetiona. much leas the thon^t^ of its
fellow-Europeans. Unequal, unrelated as its progress was;
while even Bacon knew little of Galileo and could not accept
Copernicus; while Roman curia and most Protestant divines
rejected the new learning of science, which filtered slowly
through the masses of the continent ; while at the same time
that English royal power was overthrown the doctrine of
the divine right of kings flourished and continental monarchs
increased their power; the modern spirit maintained itself
and made headway. It was, indeed, still possible for the-
ologians to declare that "the opinion of the earth's motion
is of all heresies most abominable"; but among the more
enlightened laity the geocentric theory of the universe was
fast disappearing before that of a heliocentric solar system.

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 491

The telescope had revealed the heavens^ not as the abode of
blessed spirits, but as the more substantial and no less mar-
velous realm of planets and fixed stars. In the light of
physical and mathematical discoveries it was increasingly ap-
parent that, whatever the ultimate ruling power, the material
universe was under the immediate dominion, not of an in-
scrutable and arbitrary Providence, but of natural laws,
immutable, doubtless divine, but discoverable and compre-
hensible by men. For, rightly or wrongly/ the mechanical
theory of the universe had begun definitely to replace the
theological, in the mind of Europe.

While Bacon and Descartes thus laid foundations for a Grotius
modem world in the great fields of science and philosophy, ^^^^^^^
while Galileo and his fellow-scientists advanced the bounds
of knowledge in every direction, another powerful intellect
invaded the realms of law and politics. This was Hugo
Grotius, sometime historiographer of the Revolt of the Nether-
lands, advocate-general of the United Provinces, and author
of a famous doctrine, the Mare Liberum, designed to con-"
trovert the Portuguese contention that the eastern seas were
their private possession. Grotius was involved in the disturb-
ances which cost Oldenbameveldt his life, condemned to life
imprisonment by Maurice of Nassau, escaped to France, and
there published his great work, De jure belli et pacts. From
his long experience in public affairs and as an advocate, from
his wide reading, and his unrivaled knowledge of historical
precedent, he drew materials for this first and greatest manual
of international law. It was based upon principles of right
and justice in government and society, derived not from the ,
Bible but from morality. Written amid the distractions of '
a great religious war, it proclaimed the doctrine of a deep f
underlying ''law of nature'^ in human relations, independent \
of religious beliefs and practices, and no less immutable than i
those great axioms of science then being revealed by his |
co-workers in far different fields. This revolutionary doc- •
trine — ^whose ultimate consequence upon theology he hesitated
to express — ^was supplemented by his contributions to the
study of religion, a statement of the evidence for the truth

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Bruno
1M8-1600

Compa-

nella

1668-1639

of Christianity, stripped of doctrinal argument, and infused
with principles of piety common to all communions, bat
overshadowed or totally eclipsed by the contentions of con-
troversial dogmatists.

Bacon, Descartes, and Orotins were not solitary thinkers,
nor were theirs the only contributions made to the scientific
and metaphysical spirit then making way in European
thought. Before any of them had begun his labors the Italian,
Qiordano TP^np first of the sixteenth century metaphvai^jfiiia
to accept the heliocentric system of Copernicus, had attacked
the Aristotelian theory of the spheres and enunciated the doc-

, trine of the infinity and the continuity of spacer No barriers,
he declared, separated our world from that reserved for angels

\ and the supreme being. Heaven was nothing more than
the infinite universe, God the soul of that universe, immanent,
omnipresent, the eternal cause and active principle, the soul
a vital principle emerging from and returning to the infinite.
Philosophy was to him the search for unity; and — so far

I was he removed from the ecclesiastical influencer— he derided
the mysteries of the faith, and classed the Jewish traditions
with Greek myths. It is small wonder that he became
\ anathema to the church or that, returning into its domains
.' from long residence in England and Germany, he was seized
by the authorities of the Inquisition and by them imprisoned
and burned.

To the teachings of Bruno were added those of another
Italian^ Campanella. Basing his philosophy upon the
Greek skeptics, he held that all knowledge was founded on
experience and reasoning; that power, will, and knowledge
were the principles of being, which he regarded not as abso-
', lute but as relative ; God alone being absolute, from whom
all beings proceed and to whom they return. Like Bruno,
but unlike such philosophers as Descartes, Campanella ex-
tended his speculations to the realm of politics, and his City
of the Sun, in which he embodied his theories, became, after
More's Utopia, the next considerable attempt to delineate an
ideal society. Unlike More's great work, it based itself
largely upon Plato. It lacked that touch of life and reality

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INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 493

which makes the English theory at once more sympathetic
and more practical; and it falls far short of Campanella's
own description of the Spanish monarchy of his own time,
against which he rebelled, and by which he was punished
with nearly thirty years of imprisonment.

Thus in the ImnHa ftf t^fi philngnpliPra wng rPvn1nfinTiiy;A#l

the thouyht of Europe with its method of intellectual ap-
proach at the same moment that the experimental scientists
provided more and more material for its use. And if there
is one characteristic of this early seventeenth century more
striking than another, it is the gradual penetration of the
flcigntifie and rational mf^t^^^ ^"^^ pvppy /JApnrfmPTit nf hnrnflti
Activity w^jp.h related itself to the intellect. Its most marked
result was naturally in theology. But it was beginning, in
the hands of Qrotius and Bruno and Campanella, still more
in the work of the Englishman Hobbes, to relate itself to
politics. There, in no long time, it was to play an active part
in those practical concerns of human government which were
presently to reshape the world of affairs no less than the
realms of thought. Such were the movements which re-
molded the habits of mind of more than half the continent.

If, then, we consider the periods in which, as in our own, The early
the whole fabric of society has been altered by changes in J^SJccn-
tastes, habits, and the contribution of science, arts, and crafts, tuiy— the
we shall find few to compare with the first decades of the of the*"*
seventeenth century. To a man who witnessed the Spanish modem
Armada in his youth and the disturbances in Qermany and ^^^^^
England in his age — and there were many such — ^it must
have seemed that in his later years he confronted a new
world. He would have seen naval supremacy pass from
Spain, and England share with Holland the mastery of the
sea. He would have seen but little political liberty, still less
equality, and no religious tolerance, but he would have wit-
nessed the conflicts from which in some measure all three
were to spring. Had he been an Englishman, he would have
seen or read Hamlet and As You Like It, read Spenser's
Faerie Queene, Bacon's Essays, and perhaps the Novum
Organum. A Spaniard, he would have seen Lope de Vega's

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494 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

plays and chuckled over Don Quixote; an Italiaxi, he would
have been enraptured with Tasso, seen Bruno burned^ at the
stake and Oalileo recant those doctrines which struck tliB flnal
blow to the old cosmogony. He mi^itistgen have

with him those * ^m?u<-

y^A •*-
Imagined lands and regions in the Moon/ *2i. *.*

which rviv-

TVongh optic glass the Tuscan artist views 'S*^^^ ,
At evening, from the top of Fesol^. ^'' /^',

At Rome he would have seen the splendor of the coioldcled
St. Peter's, and listened to Palestrina's music in the Yaliisan.
In Venice he would have heard the earliest of Eurq^een
opera. In the Netherlands he would have been^Bsorbed 'id> the
l^eat commerce which poured through her ports, listen^ to
her scholars, looked with admiration on the masterpieces from
the brushes of Rembrandt and Hals, and read for the first
time of the doctrine of the freedom of the sea and the prin-
cipled of international relationships. He might well have
heard from the lips of Descartes those doctrines oif the
mechanism of the universe and man, and of the dualism of
spirit and matter, which had begun to revolutionize man's
concepts of himself and the world in which he lived. In
whatever land, he might have learned for the first time that
the blood circulated in his body; that the earth revolved
about the sun, and formed part of a vast universal oystem of
planets and starry worlds beyond. And in whatever tongae
he might have read Montaigne. Meanwhile, he woidd have
observed the appearance and habits of his fellows change
before his eyes. He would have had to learn to wear knee-
breeches and perhaps to smoke, to play billiards and muddle
his brains more expeditiously with stronger drinks, to like
or dislike the taste of tea and coffee, to cure his ague with
quinine, — ^in brief, he would have come to think and do the
tilings which mark him as a modem man.

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Galileo.

After a 17th century engraving, a line example of the excellence which
that art achieved in this period.

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CHAPTER XXn

THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA AND THE ENGLISH
BEVOLUTION. 1642-1648

I

I

''If an amnesty universally sincere and without condition is
not conceded, and their rights not fully restored to the States,
and the Treaty of Fragae and the Edict of Restitution not
fully set aside, if everything is not restored to the state of
things which existed in 1618 before the war, all treaties of
peace will be in vain — and everything will be in confusion, /
disillusionment, and dismemberment in the whole Empire."
Thus wrote the Brandenburg agent in the first months of I
1641, as his opinion of the situation into which aiffairs had!
come as the result of the long Qerman conflict. It was, in
brief, a confession of the failure of the whole struggle to
affect the religious question in any particular, and it repre-
sented, virtually, the conclusion at which no small part of
the Oerman people had arrived after more thm twenty years
of bitter experience. But it was more thair a confession ; it
was, in some sort, a prophecy ; and its utterance reveals that .
the beginning of the end was now at hand. I

The Thirty Years' War, which had now spread desolation The dawn
over central Europe for nearly a quarter of a century, bade ^ ^^^
fair to exceed in duration and destruction, in the number and
variety of contestants engaged, the interests represented, and
the dramatic circumstances of the conflict, any such contest
waged on European soil since the destruction of the western
Roman Empire. Thus far the efforts to bring it to an end
had hardly sufiiced to produce even a temporary truce. The
feeling that the Swedes would be unable to maintain them-
selves in Germany after Gustavus' death, the lessening re-
sources of the Hapsburgs, and the death of Wallenstein, had
combined to produce the Peace of Prague. This, though it 16S6

495

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496

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

1641

Prelimi-
naries of
West-
phalia

Theproj
ress of
war

Se

restored no Protestant ruler who had been dispossessed since
the Swedes landed in Pomerania, and no church lands ac-
quired by Protestants virtually since the death of Mansfdd
at Lutter; though it afforded no protection to the reformed
communions in Catholic states, nor to Calvinists anywhere,
had been largely accepted by Protestant rulers.

But that treaty, as events soon proved, was far from ending
the war. The persistence of the Swedes and the ambition of
France made it of as little avail to determine the controversy
as the ensuing conferences of Hamburg and Cologne, or the
efforts of Pope and Emperor to ensure peace. None the less,
most parties were inclined to treat, either to make sure their
gains or to preserve the remnants of the.tr power. Thus when,

I a year before the death of Bichelieu, it was proposed to hold
a new congress, most of the warring elements consented. The
adjacent towns of Miinster and Osnabrtick in Westphalia
were designated as a meeting-place. The district was neu-
tralized ; and though the spring of the year 1642, which was
set for the assembling of the diplomats, went by without
action, little by little the preliminary negotiations by which
all parties sought to improve their positions before entering
on formal engagements were consummated. Two years after
the time set for the first session, the quiet Westphalian towns
were crowded with the agents and ambassadors of the re-

(spective powers. There, under the direction of the imperial
plenipotentiary, von Trautmannsdorff, the huge, unwieldy
mass of claims and counter-claims began to shape itself into
the beginnings of a final settlement.

Meanwhile, beyond the long, tortuous negotiations of the
diplomats, the war went on, though more and more haltin^y.
Frenchmen and Swedes, Bavarians and Imperialists, Danes
and north-Gkrmans, in the general m§l£e, strove to maintain
or to improve their status in the council by triumphs in the
field; and the fortunes of states contending in diplomacy
rose and fell with news of each engagement. But even while
continental eyes were fixed upon these last convulsive strug-
gles of the European war, while the mofit imposing array of
diplomats yet assembled in European council sought, through

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 497

the longest negotiation in European history, to find the via
media which led to peace, beyond the view of the ambassadors
and the sonnd of German conflict there arose a new straggle,
first of politics and principles, then of arms^ which was
destined to be of no less importance to the development of
Europe than the greater war now drawing to an end. This
was the conflict between the English crown and Parliament,
which, at the very moment set for the assembling of the
ambassadors in Westphalia, had reached its crisis in the royal
appeal to arms.

It came as the climax of a long and bitter rivalry. What The Ens-
Germany had been to Europe in the third and fourth i^J^^
decades of the seventeenth century, England was now about
to become, the focus of a struggle between rival doctrines
and practices, on which depended the future of politics and
thought. In the eventful year which saw the removal of i(r49
Richelieu and Olivarez from affairs and the first steps toward
peace in Germany, the smoldering antagonism between the
English king and his subjects burst into open war. The causes
of the conflict were twofold. The quarrel had begun with
the efforts of James and Charles to crystallize the Tudor
''absolutism by popular consent^' into legal form, and to
' force the more advanced Protestants, the so-called Puritans,
into conformity to the Anglican establishment. To that end
James had striven to make the crown in fact and name the
sole arbiter of church and state. His son had followed in
his Steps, with greater obstinacy and still less tact; till in 1689
the year of the Peace of Liibeck between the Emperor and
the Danish king, he had dismissed his Parliament and sent
the leaders of the opposition to the Tower. His arbitrary
measures had been accompanied by the protest of the Com-
mons against taxation without consent of Parliament, against
the ''innovations" by which the so-called High Church
Anglicans were endeavoring to force the Puritans into more
formal observance of doctrines and practices which seemed
to the extreme Protestants to smack too much of Rome.

With this, as the conflict progressed in Germany, England Its origin
entered upon eleven years of unparliamentary government, ^*

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498 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

without a parallel in English history. Driven to curtail ex-
penditure, the king made peace with France and Spain, and
England ceased to play a part in international politics.
Driven to raise revenue in default of parliamentary grant, he
resorted to long-obsolete taxes, and stretched his authority
to the uttermost by levying so-called ''ship-money'* on the
inland counties to equip a fleet. At the same time, ander
the High Church archbishop, Laud, conformity was enforced.
The communion-table of the Puritan congregations was re-
moved from its place in the body of the church, set in its
old position in the chancel and again enrailed as an altar.
The Anglican form of worship was rigidly enjoined; and
Puritan sensibilities were still further wounded by a "declara-
tion of sports'' which authorized the use of the Sabbath, on
which they set such store, for games and amusements of all
kinds. Not content with this, the king commissioned the
royal governor of Ireland, Wentworth, to raise an army there;
and permitted Laud to attempt the introduction of the An-
glican prayer-book iato Presbyterian Scotland.
Its The result was an explosion. The refusal of a country

outbreak squire, John Hampden, to pay ship-money threw the popular
cause into the law courts, whose subservient judges decided
for the crown. The effort to use the prayer-book in Edin-
burgh produced a riot. The oppression of the Puritans drove
thirty thousand emigrants to New England, and fatally an-
tagonized those who remained. The raising of an Irish army
roused a not ungrounded fear of absolutism by royal coup

1638 d'Siat When the Scotch drew up a Solemn League and
Covenant to defend their faith and abolished episcopacy and
the new liturgy, the storm began to break. It was in vain
Charles summoned an army to march against the northern

1639 rebels, to whose assistance Scotch volunteers hurried from
Qustavus' old force in (Germany. The English king found
himself as impotent to fight as he had been to govern, and

1640 he was driven to summon a short-lived Parliament, which
offered supplies only in return for the redress of grievances.

Parh^Mit Upon its dismissal the crisis approached. After an ig-
1640- nominious defeat by the Scotch forces, and a futile assembly

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 499

of the peers, Charles was compelled to call another Parlia-
ment, his fifth, and, as it proved, his last. At once the long-
cherished projects of reform appeared, with an attack on
the prerogative. Wentworth and Laud were sent to prison
and thence to the scaffold. The continuance of Parliament
was assured; the old courts of Star Chamber and High Com-
mission were destroyed and with them the chief danger to
church and individuals from the crown. Hard on these
reforms the news of a massacre of Irish Protestants roused
England to fury; and, as the quarrel deepened, the Commons
issued a Grand Eemonstrance, or summary of their griev- i64i
ances which prompted the king to an unwise revenge. Backed
by his guards and courtiers he came in person to the House
to seize five opposition leaders; then, foiled of his prey, he
left London, and presently raised his standard at Notting-
ham, at the same moment that, on the continent, the pre-
liminaries of a great congress to end the war received the i64d
sanction of the Emperor. Thus there began, on English soil,
a struggle between the crown and Parliament which was to
play a part in the development of political liberty comparable
to that which the German conflict had earlier played in the
field of religious thought and practice.

The six years which followed the beginnings of peace Europe
negotiations in Westphalia and the simultaneous outbreak ^^^'^
of war in the British Isles, form a peculiarly destructive
period of European history. While diplomats sought a basis
of settlement in the protected district of Miinster and Osna-
briick which was set apart for their deliberations, the tide
of battle rolled unchecked back and forth across the rest
of Germany, turning its fertile fields into a wilderness. Prom
that conflict religious elements had long since disappeared,
and with them whatever vital interest the struggle held.
What remained was the selfish political designs of the com-
batants. On the one side the Emperor and his allies, headed
by Bavaria, struggled to maintain the power they once held;
on the other the Swedes and French strove to reduce that
power and exalt their own. Spain, still faithful to the
Hapsburg interest and her own, waged separate war with

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500 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

France. The smaller powers were no less involved. The

ITransylvanian adventurer, Ragocsky, following in the foot-
steps of his predecessor, Bethlen Qabor, brought like diver-
sion against the Emperor on the side of Himgary, and with
no more permanent result. Finally Denmark, reversing her
former r61e in the face of Sweden's threatened supremacy,
again entered the war on the imperial side only to suffer
the vengeance of her Scandinavian rival.
The Thirty That power alone maintained its long ascendancy in arms
1^^^^ I still unimpaired. Baner followed Oustavus; Torstenson,
final stage I Baner; and Wrangel succeeded Torstenson, as commander-in-
ichief , with little change in Swedish success against the Im-
perialists. Had France found a worthy successor to Bern-
hard of Saxe-Weimar, whose army she inherited on his
death, the fate of the Hapsburgs might have been s^ed.
But her generals, save the young Turenne, exhibited few of
the qualities which made their great partisan predecessor
only second to Wallenstein; and the new Emperor, Ferdi-
nand III, on his part, found no commander to ensure him
the peace he so much coveted. Thus the conflict declined into
a long and dreary chronicle of march and counter-march,
defeat and victory, with their wastage of life and property, in
pursuit of what advantage there was to be gained in the
approaching peace.
Meanwhile France invaded Spain; Spain, France; with
164S hlittle more result, save that, in the battle of Bocroy, the

I genius of the young Cond6 was revealed and a death-blow
I dealt to the ascendancy of those great Spanish squares of
j infantry which in a hundred years had found their only
I rival in the Swedes. And, as if it were not enough that

Iall the west and north should feel the weight of war, Italy
endured a conflict between the Papacy and its confederated
enemies, while the Turk, rousing from his long lethargy,
fell once more upon Venice, and, landing upon Crete, took
up again his task of wresting the islands of the eastern
Mediterranean from Christian hands.
England Thus, everywhere in Europe, as the mid-seventeenth cen-

^^*^"® tury approached, her people stood arrayed in conflicts, which

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 501

for the most part were of importance to the future of the
world only because of the shifting of lands or authority
from one hand to another. In England the case was dif-
ferent The struggle there begun involved the greatest
problem which had divided European minds since the reli-
gious schism between Catholic and Protestant — ^the problem
of popular share in government. It was, indeed, a long-
standing issue. Since the fall of the Roman Republic, save
in a few and scattered instances, like the so-called republics
of the north Italian city-states, some Swiss cantons, and
the trading communities of northern (Germany, political power
had remained all but unquestioned in the hands of kings and
aristocracies. The feudal regime had divided men into two
castes, noble and non-noble, with an ever-increasing rigidity
of class. When national kingship conquered the growing
anarchy of feudal privilege, it had checked the right of private '
war, set the king's justice in place of feudal courts, reduced
the aristocracy to dependence on itself, and substituted its
central authority for the divergent interests of the great inde-
pendent lords of the land. But in so doing it had neither
destroyed that-class nor raised the lower elements to equality.
Society remained, .therefore, an aristocracy^

In one direction, none the less, conditions had greatly The middle
altered in the preceding three centuries. This was in the ^^""
development of a wealthy middle class. The growth of com-
merce, the arts, and industries had vastly increased the re-
sources of the commercial groups which, under the improved
economy by which national kingship secured to them the
fruits of their labors, now formed an important element in
nearly every state. But that importance was not political.
While the middle classes welcomed absolutism as a cure for
anarchy, they had too often gained peace at the expense of
privilege. In Spain the absolutism of Ferdinand the Cath-
olic had united the scattered territories of his farnspreading
kingdom, but it had suppressed the old popular assembly of
the Cortes. In France the early years of Louis XIII had
seen the last meeting of the States General. Even in Holland
the Orange ascendancy had tended to subordinate th^ most

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502

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The Par-
liament

The

opposing

elements

powerful commercial middle class in Europe to the Stadt-
holderate. Thus, while throughout the more progressive na-
tions of western and northern Europe economic evolution had
elevated serfs to free tenants and made burghers equal in
wealth to the landed class, it had given to neither a greater
voice in government.

Even England, which retained more of the earlier and
freer Teutonic institutions than any European state, had,
for a time, threatened to follow a like course with France
and Spain. The Wars of the Roses had destroyed her ancient
baronage, and Tudor rulers had surrounded the throne with
a nobility created by the crown, dependent on it and devoted
to its interests. Unable to do away with Parliament^ even
had they wished, they had sought to keep it under their
control by creating new boroughs. Prom these they drew a
body of representatives to support the cause of the crown
in the Commons, and so continued to manage what they could
no longer dominate. There the resemblance to the continent
had ceased. The Parliament was neither destroyed nor ren-
dered impotent. Through the convulsions of the sixteenth
century it had acted as the ally no less than as the agent
of the crown. Its more advanced element would have pushed
the Reformation beyond the bounds determined by the JBliza-
bethan government. But it was not until the first Stuart
kings endeavored to make that settlement absolute by the
oppression of the Puritans, and the transformation of the
personal arbitrariness of the Tudors into a legal despotism,
that there came a test of strength.

When, therefore, on that stormy day of August, 1642,
Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham, there began one
of the decisive struggles of European history. On the one
side were ranged the forces of ancient privilege and author-
ity, the clergy and most of the nobility, a great part of the
gentry and their followers, drawn to defend the old estab-
lishment, the altar, and the throne. Against them were
arrayed a heterogeneous company, the so-called Puritans, a
few of the greater nobility, many of the lesser gentry, and
the overwhelming majority of the trading communities, or

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 503

moneyed class. Though these last included many Anglicans,
they were, for the most part, of the more liberal, so-called
Presbyterian element; while the mass of the rebellious party
was made up of Nonconformists or sectarians, advanced Prot-
estants opposed alike to the hierarchy and the liturgy of an
episcopal establishment. Without exception the remaining
English Catholics were on the side of royalty. Yet neither ^^
party was to be classified on purely religious grounds, least /
of all the so-called Puritans. Their chief importance was
political, for, whatever their religious beliefs, they were
united in opposing unparliamentary government ; and the ^
great issue was less a matter of creed than a question as to
whether the crown or the people was the final authority in
church and state.

The conflict which ensued partook of the peculiar char- character
acter of the parties engaged. At the outset many on either of t*»ewar
side distrusted too great success for their own cause. Most
Royalists would have bitterly opposed the destruction of
Parliament; few Parliamentarians dreamed of destroying the
crown; nor was either result at first conceivable. In conse-
quence war and negotiation went continually hand in hand,
till compromise was seen to be impossible. The military
<q)erations, as well, were what might have been expected
from a warlike but unmilitary nation which had been at
peace for more than a generation. Neither in numbers nor
in skill was the earlier stage of the English Civil War
comparable to the concurrent struggles on the continent,
however it surpassed the last confiicts of the Thirty Years'
War in the principles involved. Prom those conflicts, indeed,
many hastened to take part in the^ great rebellion. The
king's nephews, Rupert and Maurice, came from the Palati-
nate to his aid; Qustavus' old chief of staff, Leslie, to com-
mand the Scots. Soldiers like Monk from Conde's French
Huguenot army and Vere's regiment in the Netherlands,
80 long a school of arms for English gentlemen, hurried home
to take their part in the conflict. Some, like the flrst par-
liamentary commander, Essex, the royalist general, Hopton,
and his opponent, Waller, had seen service in the Palatinate.

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The early
eng^ftge*
menu
1649

1643

The New

Model

1644

1645

The Inde-
pendents

Bat many others, like the greatest of them all, Cromwell
and Blake, had left field and shop for the pursuit of arms.
Thus England became in no long time a battle-ground not
only of religious and political principles but of all the
contemporary schools of warfare.

But the development was slow. In the beginning what
advantage there was lay with the royalist cavalry drawn
from the hunting element fostered by the country gentlemen.
At Edgehill, and again at Newbury, as in the king's attempt
to seize London, only inexperienced commanders prevented
a decision. Thus, with the second twelvemonth of the war,
the Parliament, fearing for its existence, came to terms with
the Scotch Presbyterians, signed the Solemn League and
Covenant, committed England to that form of faith, and
received, in turn, a Scotch army for its aid. At the same
time a voluntary association of the eastern counties, in which
a Huntingdonshire gentleman, one Oliver Cromwell, became
conspicuous, organized a body of so-called Ironsides, picked
men, well-drilled, severely disciplined cavalry, able to meet
Prince Rupert's cavaliers on equal terms.

Under these conditions the crisis was not long delayed.
The Scotch were, indeed, defeated by the king's army, but,
in turn, the royal force was crushed at Marston Moor by
Cromwell's Ironsides. Emphasized by a brilliant diversion
of Montrose in the Highlands, and the defeat of parlia-
mentary forces in the south, the lesson was decisive. The
army was reorganized into a New Model, by Cromwell, who,
with Fairfax, replaced its old commanders^ At Naseby the
last effective resistance of the king was beaten down, his
papers were seized, and he himself fled to the Scotch army.
By it he was surrendered to the Parliament, and by them held
a prisoner.

Such were the circumstances under which successful revo-
lution broke royal power in the British Isles. But, at the
very height of their success, the revolutionaries all but lost
the fruits of their exertions, for they fell out among them-
selves. Parliament, still strongly Presbyterian, found itself
opposed by an element which had come to control the army,

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^

THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 505

and had acquired no small influence in the nation at large.
This was the group known as the sects, the advanced Prot-
estant denominations, among which the so-called Inde-
pendents took the leiid. Strongly individualistic in their
beliefs, as their name indicated, they were opposed to any
set forms or prescribed doctrine and liturgy. Deeply devout,
they were peculiarly tolerant of all forms of church govern-
ment save the episcopal, which smacked too much of in-
trenched authority; while, with their liberal religious tend-
encies, they had strong leanings toward democracy in state
as well as church.

Amid these warring elements the king still dreamed of Thdr
finding an advantage for himself, and, in their discords, ^umpb
recovering his power. Thus he intrigued with each party in
turn till he had forfeited what little confidence each had in
his integrity, and the army became determined to temporize iMtf-7
no longer with such evasion. The king was seized by their
authority; and his negotiation with the Scotch brought as
its chief result the renunciation of allegiance by his rebellious
subjects. With this, events took on a darker tinge. Crom-
well defeated a Scotch army of invasion at Preston Pans, and 1048
so relieved all danger from that side. The Parliament was
purged of its recalcitrant Presbyterians, and the army,
through its adherents of the so-called Sump and its Council
of Officers, became the sole arbiter of English destinies.

Such was the situation of affairs, as the long war in Qer- The end
many drew to a dose. The months that saw the great confiict Q^Tman
determined, with the fate of English monarchy, were, indeed, ww^
heavy with import to the European world. While from his
Newport prison Charles I was making his last effort to come
to terms with Parliament, great events were stirring else-
where. In Bohemia the French and Swedes pushed on a
final, desperate attempt to wrest from their exhausted enemies
that part of Prague still in Imperialist hands. In Poland
the Cossacks of the Ukraine began a great revolt, while the
Crimean khan led the most terrible foray in Russian history
against the Muscovites and Poles. France saw the outbreak
of that amazing civil "war of the women," the so-called

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1648

506 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

Fronde, and the eastern Mediterranean beheld the Turkish
fleet advancing to the siege of Candia which was to endure
for twenty years.

Besides these, in Europe itself as in her far-flung posses-
sions oversea, a multitude of events of less conspicuous quality
contributed, at this juncture, to the great transformation of
the European world. Gteorge Fox began that preaching
career which added the Quakers to the ranks of the Prot-
Other estant denominations. In America a twofold conflict among

Stw^^ the New England colonies and between them and their
Dutch neighbors began to make itself felt in the affairs of
that continent. Beyond them still, a struggle between the
most powerful of the native tribes, the Iroquois, and their
native enemies, aided by the French, added a bloody chapter
to colonial history, and a new martyrology to the Jesuits.
Far to the south, meanwhile, the genius of the Madeiran,
Vieyra, which three years before had inspired revolt against
1648-0 the Dutch in Brazil, now organized, from Portugal, a com-

pany like that by which Holland had gained her ascendan(*y.
Thence he despatched a fleet which was to turn the tide of
victory to his followers and wreck Dutch aspirations in that
quarter of the world. At the same moment, on the other side
of the earth, the Christian faith was driven from Japan ; and
that natju>n was removed from European influence for two
hundred years.
The signa- Such were a few of the diverse activities, which, standing
Peace of*^ out from the dull warp of commonplace affairs, gave color
West- and form to the great and varied fabric which from day

Oct!^24w ^ ^^ ^^ ^^^™ ^^^ ^^^™ ^' European life. Among them
1648 all, one now became the central flgure of the great design.

This was signature of the tremendous document which
brought to an end the European war by the Peaee of West-
phalia. Few instruipents in history have been of such long
gestation, few have brought to an end so long a conflict, none
more clearly marks a great dividing line in human affairs.
From the deliberations of six years, while the whole Euro-
pean world shook with the thunder of contending armies,
there emerged a settlement which, however inadequate to

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X

THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 507

insure continued peace, shifted the whole balance of future
conflict and gave to devastated Germany a needed breathing-
space.

The terms of the variouiS agreements which made up the Itstenns
Peace of Westphalia were as voluminous and nearly as com-
plex as the issues which they professed to meet. But from
the mass of verbiage emerged three leading facts. The first
was the supremacy of Sweden in the north ; the second was J
the securing of French frontiers at the expense of the Empire ; f
the third was recognition of the independence of the republics/
of Switzerland and the United Netherlands. The last involved!
no transfers of territory; but the first two revolutionized the
map of central Europe.

In brief, the principal changes centered in the gains of Sweden
Sweden and of France. With the lands which stretched K
along the north German coast from Stettin to Denmark; with
Verden, the bishopric of Bremen, and Weimar in their grasp,
the Swedes came close to that absolute control of the Baltic 'j
to which they had so long aspired. With three votes in they
Imperial Diet, by virtue of her new possessions in Germany,!
Sweden added to her position as the mistress of the north
that of the most powerful feudatory of the Empire. Such
was the ''satisfaction" of Sweden.

Nor was the victory of France much less. For the first France
time she now held in fee simple the great bulwark triangle
of the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which con\
trolled the main passage between herself and Germany. Toi
these she added Breisach, the invaluable outpost of the upper w
Rhine, and Pinerolo, "the gateway to Italy.'' Besides these,!
still, the landgravate of all Alsace, the government of tent
imperial cities, and the right to garrison Philippsburg gavel
her control of all that coveted area, save Strassburg. This, «
with an agreement that no fortresses were to be built on
the Bhine from Basle to Philippsburg, made her secure upon
her eastern front against her most persistent enemy, and thus
completed her "satisfaction."

This was not all the loss to the imperial power, for read- ^^^i^
justments such as these brought with them the necessity of states

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508

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The
Empire

The

rdiffioufl

settleinent

compensation to the Qerman states affected by them or by

tthe recent war. Brahdenburg, ur consequence, received as
indemnity for its losses in Pomerania the bishoprics of
Minden, Halberstadt» and Camin, as secnlar principalities,
and the reversion of the archbishopric of Mi^ebnrg. Hesse-
Cassdy besides a money indemnity, secnred possession of lesser
episcopal and abbey lands; Bmnswick, a claim upon the
bishopric of Osnabriick; and Mecklenburg, the bishoprics of
Batzeburg and Schwerin.

Such were the principal changes of boundaries and author-
ity within the Empire; and these but slightly affected the
imperial power. But this was not the case with the next
group of the provisions which the peace imposed upon the
house of Hapsburg, the so-called secular interests of the
Empire. The proclamation of a general amnesty and restora-
tion of the status before the war was modified by the reten-
tion of the electoral dignity in the Bavarian branch of the
house of Wittelsbach, and the creation of an eighth electorate
for the dispossessed Rudolfian branch of the Palatinate. Far
more important was the so-called territorial superiority of
the component parts of the Empire. This recognized the
right of the whole body of estates to the control of their
external affairs, the right to make treaties with each other
and with foreign powers, if not directed against the imperial!
\person or authority. With such a provision formally recog-
nized, whatever sovereignty the Emperor had held dissolved
into the shadowiest of suzerainties, and Oermany became a
mere congeries of petty states, like Italy. From the conflict
which had begun a century and a half earlier with Max-
'imilian's attempt to make imperial power a reality, Germany
'emerged a nation divided against itself. The principle of
the Filrstensiaai, a state of princes, had triumphed over the
doctrine of centralized power, and middle Europe turned
definitely aside from the polity of the rest of the continent,
save Italy.

And what of those great religious issues for which the
war had nominally been fought t The terms of the peace
which ended it reflected the altered character of a conflict

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA

509

-wliich at its dose found Catholic Prance allied with Prot-
estant Sweden and a Protestant Hessian in command of the
Catholic Imperialist army. Briefly, three great provisions
determined the ecclesiastical status. The first was the recog-
nition of equality between Protestant and Catholic estates
in all affairs of the Empire, including the equal division

ns

*i

tes I
of V

the imperial court between the two communions. The second
was the extension of the Peace of Augsburg and the Conven-
t;ion of Passau to include the Calvinists, thus placed on the I
same plane as Lutherans. The third was the adoption of i
1624 as the ''annus normalis," or date from which possession!
of ecclesiastical estates and form of religion should be reck-l
oned. The territorial lords retained the so-called ''right of
reformation," but to their subjects was secured the right of
emigration to escape their masters' possibly too zealous
churchmanship. The subjugated Protestants of Austria and
Bohemia were left to the mercies of their rulers, but the
Bhenish states which, like Baden and the lower Palatinate,
had found their Protestantism overborne by Catholic conquest,
were permitted to resume the exercise of their former faith.
These, in brief, were the provisions of the greatest peace

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^

510

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

General
results

Gennany

Europe had seen thus far in her long history. By that
extraordinary settlemeniOthe Empire became a European
rather than a German institution and prolonged its existence
jby the sacrifice of its vitalitjvO On the one side the Swedish
/empire^ on the other the more homogeneous kingdom of
France, challenged the supremacy once wielded by the house
of Hapsburg.^AThe old alliance of church and state as ex-
emplified in the ascendancy of Empire and Papacy was
forever at an encl\v Protestantism was secure in those lands
which had accepted its doctrines, and what efforts Catholicism
was to make for its suppression thenceforth were put forth
through the national states and not through any general
European agency — for ''the mediaeval order of the European
world was over."

Nor was this all. Seldom in history has any land suffered
what Germany endured in the preceding thirty years. Be-
/jtween a fourth and a half of her total population had been
('destroyed, while in certain districts scarcely a fiftieth of
the inhabitants remained. Towns by the score and villages
by the hundred were wholly wiped out, with casties, farms,
bridges, and country-houses innumerable, till the whole basis
of ordered existence in great parts of the west and south
seemed almost if not quite destroyed* ^his was accompanied
by a shifting of classes and interests. The chief destruction
had fallen on old Germany, the richest and most enlightened
districts of the purest German blood which lay between the
Rhine and the Elbe. In consequence the half-German abso-
lutist powers of the east, Brandenburg and Austria in par-
ticular, gained relatively if not absolutely in strength.

The earliest and fiercest blows had been struck against the
Protestantism of the south, and from that blow it never
recovered. Bohemian lands were parceled out among a
Catholic- Austrian nobility and Bohemia was dragooned into
resumption of the older faith. In the Hapsburg possessions
the same policy was put in force, and Austria now came to
rival Spain as the bulwark of Catholicism. Yet from the
long conflict Protestantism had emerged alive and vigorous.
The unity of western Christendom under the mediaeval

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THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 511

church of Rome was gone forever. Thenceforth came on the
scene new doctrines and new policies, a balance of power,
national interests, a unity in diversity, and that perpetual
shifting of creeds and alliances which marks the unstable
eqaUibrinm of a modem world. The Peace of Westphalia
became, in large measure, the basis of the public law of
Burope and its fundamental principles remained in effect
for nearly a century and a half. The doctrine of balance
of power among Catholics, Lutherans, and Protestants, as
between the Empire and its constituent parts, was, indeed,
largely regulated by external forces, in particular those of
Sweden and France, and made for the aggrandizement of
the latter especially. But, indeterminate as any such settle-
ment which rests upon the shifting sands of a continually
altering society must be, the Peace of Westphalia remains,
none the less, one of the great landmarks of European his-
tory. In a political sense it divided the old from the new,
and like the Renaissance, the discoveries, and the Beforma-
tion, perhaps rather like the scientific renaissance, it marks
the change from mediseval to mode^methods and spirit.

It was almost at^jieensupplegented by a movement which The fall
gave even mcflre dramatic emphasis to the changes then taking £ *ii^^^
place in tnfe world of polui^^-'-The peace was signed on monarchy
October 24, 1648. At that momeiuNthe imprisoned English
king was deep in negotiation with his rebellious Parliament,
and dreaming of a division among his enemies, of interventiAzr'
from abroad, of an infinity of contingencies, which mignt
enable him to rescue from the shipwreck of his fortunes that
royal power which had slipped from his grasp. But his
machinations were to prove as vain as his hopes. While the
old (Germany and the old system of European polity passed
away, the old English monarchy came to an end. The tradi-
tion of royal inviolability was broken, the divinity which
hedged in a king was shattered, and England turned to new
courses at the same moment that European polity was revo-
lutionized.

Thus was a great chapter of history closed, and there
began another which was to prove greater still. The era of

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512 THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

The religious wars was over, that of the conflict for popular

J***^?^ sovereignty had begun. And, as the world turned from the
polity one struggle to the other, it was apparent that henceforth

the issues and methods of political affairs, no less than the
spiritual and intellectual bases of European life, which had
endured in some form at least since the Beformation, were
destined to profound and rapid change. As the secular
interest had finally triumphed over the ecclesiastical, so popu-
lar privilege was about to assert itself effectivdy against royal
prerogative, and individualism challenge authority. Two cen-
turies earlier the concurrent fall of Constantinople and the
expulsion of the English from France had marked the double
crisis of Europe's affairs. Now the signature of the great
peace and the collapse of English kingship indicated that
Europe again confronted the reorganization of her principles
and her practices.

END OF VOL. I

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