CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



and partly by real boldness, partly by the moral 

 effect of her example, and the terror inspired by 

 her supposed supernatural character, she soon 

 turned the tide of war, and drove the English 

 from post to post At last, she was taken by the 

 Burgundians, and sold by them to the English, 

 who put her to death at the stake on a charge of 

 witchcraft (1431). After this disgraceful event, 

 Charles, by little and little, recovered his do- 

 minions ; and in 1453, all that remained to the 

 English of the French territory was Calais. 

 Charles VII. was the first modern sovereign 

 that substituted a standing army for the service 

 of mere feudal bands. The reigns of his three 

 immediate successors except that of Louis XI. 

 (1461-1483), whose policy of humbling the barons, 

 and exalting the power of the crown, required that 

 he should favour and foster the growth of civic 

 communities possess little general interest ; that 

 of Francis I. (1515-1547) forms an important era 

 in the history of France. 



The German Empire and Austria. The death 

 of Frederick II. (1250) was followed by what is 

 called the Great Interregnum a period of anarchy, 

 from which the empire was delivered by the acces- 

 sion to the crown of the energetic Rudolph of 

 Hapsburg (1273-1291). In the reign of Charles 

 IV. was promulgated the Golden Bull (1356), 

 which fixed the constitution of the German empire 

 the mode of election of emperors, and the com- 

 position and procedure of the diet or common 

 parliament of the states. 



The component parts of the empire were, in 

 respect of internal government, independent states, 

 some of them of great magnitude. Austria, espe- 

 cially, from small beginnings, rose to be the pre- 

 ponderant power in Germany. Originally a mere 

 military frontier or 'mark' of the empire of Char- 

 lemagne, and therefore called Oester-reich, or 

 * Eastern government/ it had been raised to the 

 rank of a duchy ; and when Rudolph of Hapsburg 

 came to the empire, he took this Austrian duchy 

 from its possessor, who had opposed his election, 

 and conferred it on his own son Albert (1283), 

 afterwards emperor. Around this small nucleus 

 the Austrian Hapsburgs gathered from time to 

 time new acquisitions, mostly by marriage with 

 heiresses, until their possessions attained the 

 dimensions of an empire. In 1438, Albert II. 

 Duke of Austria, was chosen Emperor of Ger- 

 many ; and from that time the German emperors 

 were all Austrians, so that the history of the 

 Austrian dynasty becomes henceforward identical 

 with the history of the German Empire. 



A great- accession to the possessions of the | 

 house of Austria was made by the marriage of 

 Maximilian, son of Frederick III. to the heiress I 

 of Charles the Rash, Duke of Burgundy. At 

 Charles's death, Burgundy Proper was appro- 

 priated by the French monarch, but the rest of 

 the duke's dominions, including the whole of what 

 we now call the Netherlands and Belgium, came 

 into the possession of Maximilian's son, Philip, 

 and finally of Philip's son, Charles (Charles V.), j 

 who by his mother's side was also heir of the I 

 Spanish monarchy. 



Switzerland. Helvetia, up to the end of the ! 

 thirteenth century, had formed part of the German 

 Empire, governed in some districts by lords and 

 bishops, and in others by municipal corporations, 

 as in other parts of the empire. Three districts, 



126 



under the name of cantons, enjoyed a sort of self- 

 government under a peculiar imperial grant 

 the cantons of Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden. 

 Albert, son of the Helvetian count, Rudolph of 

 Hapsburg, who had been made Emperor of Ger- 

 many, sought to convert the whole of Helvetia 

 into a principality of his own. The mountaineers 

 rose in insurrection (1308), and the three cantons 

 forming a league, the new people were called 

 Swiss, after the name of one of the cantons. 

 According to tradition, the popular hero in this 

 war was the famous William Tell. Other cantons 

 were soon added to the confederacy, and the two 

 great battles of Morgarten (1315) and Sempach 

 (1386) convinced the Austrian dukes that further 

 efforts against the Swiss were vain. In 1500, the 

 independence of the Swiss as a nation was 

 formally recognised by the emperor Maximilian. 



Italy. T^i? Italian Republics. On the decay 

 of the imperial authority, the cities of Northern 

 Italy formed a congeries of small independent 

 states, bearing the name of republics, though some 

 of them were more aristocratic than democratic. 

 It frequently happened that ambitious individuals 

 raised themselves to the position of petty despots. 

 Of the families that thus rose to importance in 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most 

 remarkable were the Visconti, and afterwards the 

 Sforzas in Milan, and the Medici in Florence. 

 Cosmo and Lorenzo dei Medici (1448-1492), whose 

 great fortune arose from commerce, rivalled princes 

 in their munificent patronage of learning and the 

 arts ; and a son of Lorenzo's became Pope Leo X. 

 (1513-1521). 



The histories of Genoa and Venice, during the 

 period in question, consist chiefly of mutual wars, 

 occasioned by commercial rivalry. At first the 

 Genoese were the more successful ; but in 1380, 

 the loss of a great sea-battle near Chioggia crippled 

 their power, and gave the sovereignty of the sea 

 to the Venetians. From that time, Genoa, torn by 

 political factions among its citizens, was obliged 

 to lean on foreign support. Meanwhile, the 

 Venetians, growing wealthy and wealthier by 

 their commerce with the East, extended their 

 domain at home, detaching Verona, Padua, Cre- 

 mona, and other cities from the dukedom of Milan, 

 and adding them to their own republic. 



The States of the Church. In the pontificate of 

 Nicholas III. Rudolph of Hapsburg formally relin- 

 quished the feudal rights of the German emperors 

 over the territories of the Church (1278), and made 

 the popes the acknowledged temporal sovereigns, 

 as they had long been the virtual. Still the state 

 was distracted by the contentions of the powerful 

 families, the Colonnas, Orsini, and others. In the 

 beginning of the fourteenth century, a quarrel 

 broke out between Pope Boniface VIII. and King 

 Philip of France, which led to important conse- 

 quences. Boniface, who rivalled Gregory VII. 

 in asserting the papal power, interfered between 

 Philip and his vassals. When the king asserted 

 the independence of the French crown, the pope 

 retaliated by excommunicating him ; but the 

 French, including the clergy, gathered manfully 

 round their monarch, and laughed at the pope and 

 his fulminations. The most important result of 

 this struggle was, that it produced a permanent 

 antagonism between the French crown and the 

 papacy; so that it became the object of the French 

 king to procure the election of a Frenchman to 



