smouldering discontent with abuses in general; and this time, not
in one district only, but simultaneously over the whole of Germany.
The movement inaugurated by Luther gave to the peasant groaning under
the weight of baronial oppression, and the small handicraftsman
suffering under his _Ehrbarkeit_, a rallying-point and a rallying cry.

In history there is no movement which starts up full grown from the
brain of any one man, or even from the mind of any one generation of
men, like Athene from the head of Zeus. The historical epoch which
marks the crisis of the given change is, after all, little beyond a
prominent landmark--a parting of the ways--led up to by a long
preparatory development. This is nowhere more clearly illustrated than
in the Reformation and its accompanying movements. The ideas and
aspirations animating the social, political, and intellectual revolt
of the sixteenth century can each be traced back to, at least, the
beginning of the fifteenth century, and in many cases farther still.
The way the German of Luther's time looked at the burning questions of
the hour was not essentially different from the way the English
Wyclifites and Lollards, or the Bohemian Hussites and Taborites viewed
them. There was obviously a difference born of the later time, but
this difference was not, I repeat, essential. The changes which, a
century previously, were only just beginning, had, meanwhile, made
enormous progress.

The disintegration of the material conditions of mediaeval social life
was now approaching its completion, forced on by the inventions and
discoveries of the previous half-century. But the ideals of the mass
of men, learned and simple, were still in the main the ideals that had
been prevalent throughout the whole of the later Middle Ages. Men
still looked at the world and at social progress through mediaeval
spectacles. The chief difference was that now ideas which had
previously been confined to special localities, or had only had a
sporadic existence among the people at large, had become general
throughout large portions of the population. The invention of the art
of printing was, of course, largely instrumental in effecting this
change.

The comparatively sudden popularization of doctrines previously
confined to special circles was the distinguishing feature of the
intellectual life of the first half of the sixteenth century. Among
the many illustrations of the foregoing which might be given, we are