Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 23: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information; Refectory to Sainte-Beuve
The first step in clarifying the situation is to come to a full realization that the medieval Church was essentially an inter national state, and that the character of the Protestant secession from it was largely determined by this fact. As Maitland suggests: We could frame no ac on, ceptable definition of a State which would not com medieval prehend the Church What has it not that a State aw? Should have? It has laws, law givers, law courts, 23: lawyers. It uses physical force to compel men to obey the laws. It keeps prisons. In the 13th century, though with squeamish phrases, it pronounced sentence of death. It is no voluntary society; if people are not born into it they are baptized into it when they cannot help them selves. If they attempt to leave they are guilty of crimerz Iaesae majestatis, and are likely to be burned. It is supported by involuntary contributions, by tithe and tax (canon Law in thec/zurch of England, p. 'roo). The Church was not only organized like a modern bureaucracy, but performed many of the functions of a modern State It dominated the intellectual and profoundly affected the social interests of western Europe. Its economic in?uence was multiform and incalculable, owmg to its vast property, its system of taxation and its encourage ment of monasticism When Luther made his first great appeal to the German people in his Address to the German Nobility, he scarcely adverts to religious matters at all. He deals, on the contrary, almost exclusively with the social, financial, educational, industrial and general moral problems of the day. If Luther, who above all others had the religious issue ever before him, attacks the Church as a source of worldly disorder, it is not surprising that his contemporary Ulrich von Hutten should take a purely secular view of the issues involved. Moreover, in the fascinating collection of popular satires and ephemeral pamphlets made by Schade, one is constantly im pressed with the absence of religious fervour, and the highly secular nature of the matters discussed. The same may be said of the various Gravamina, or lists of grievances against the papacy drafted from time to time by German diets.
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