the feudal nobility, and in
increasing the royal authority. Kings, in the fifteenth century, were
the best protectors of the people, and aided them in their struggles
against their feudal oppressors. England, however, had made but little
advance in commerce or manufactures, and the people were still rude
and ignorant. The clergy, as in other countries, were the most
intelligent and wealthy portion of the population, and, consequently,
the most influential, although disgraced by many vices.

Italy then, as now, was divided into many independent states, and
distracted by civil and religious dissensions. The duchy of Milan was
ruled by Ludovico Moro, son of the celebrated Francis Sforza. Naples,
called a kingdom, had just been conquered by the French. Florence was
under the sway of the Medici. Venice, whose commercial importance had
begun to decline, was controlled by an oligarchy of nobles. The chair
of St. Peter was filled by pope Alexander VI., a pontiff who has
obtained an infamous immortality by the vices of debauchery, cruelty,
and treachery. The papacy was probably in its most corrupt state, and
those who had the control of its immense patronage, disregarded the
loud call for reformation which was raised in every corner of
Christendom. The popes were intent upon securing temporal as well as
spiritual power, and levied oppressive taxes on both their spiritual
and temporal subjects.

The great northern kingdoms of Europe, which are now so
considerable,--Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,--did not, at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, attract much attention. They were
plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of science or
religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The monarchs were
sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, the clergy
ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet insensible to
their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom and no appreciation
of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as Peter and Gustavus
Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were these northern nations
destined to be immediately benefited by the impulse which the
reformation gave, with the exception of Sweden, then the most powerful
of these kingdoms.

The Greek empire became extinct when Constantinople was taken by the
Turks, in 1453. On its ruins, the Ottoman power was raised. At the
close of the fifteenth century, the Turkish arms were very powerful,
and Europe again trembled befor