t class, the knighthood, or lower nobility, had
by this time become practically obsolete, mainly owing to the changed
conditions of warfare. But yet the class itself was numerous, and
still, nominally at least, possessed of most of its old privileges and
authority. The extent of its real power depended, however, upon the
absence or weakness of a central power, whether Imperial or
State-territorial. The attempt to reconstitute the centralized power
of the empire under Maximilian, of which the _Reichsregiment_ was the
outcome, had, as we have seen, not proved successful. Its means of
carrying into effect its own decisions were hopelessly inadequate. In
1523 it was already weakened, and became little more than a "survival"
after the Reichstag held at Nuernberg in 1524. Thus this body, which
had been called into existence at the instance of the most powerful
estates of the empire, was "shelved" with the practically unanimous
consent of those who had been instrumental in creating it.

But if the attempt at Imperial centralization had failed, the force of
circumstances tended partly for this very reason to favour
State-territorial centralization. The aim of all the territorial
magnates, the higher members of the Imperial system, was to
consolidate their own princely power within the territories owing them
allegiance. This desire played a not unimportant part in the
establishment of the Reformation in certain parts of the country--for
example, in Wuertemberg, and in the northern lands of East Prussia
which were subject to the Grand Master of the Teutonic knights. The
time was at hand for the transformation of the mediaeval feudal
territory, with its local jurisdictions and its ties of service, into
the modern bureaucratic state, with its centralized administration and
organized system of salaried functionaries subject to a central
authority.

The religious movement inaugurated by Luther met and was absorbed by
all these elements of change. It furnished them with a religious
_flag_, under cover of which they could work themselves out. This was
necessary in an age when the Christian theology was unquestioningly
accepted in one or another form by wellnigh all men, and hence entered
as a practical belief into their daily thoughts and lives. The
Lutheran Reformation, from its inception in 1517 down to the Peasants'
War of 1525, at once absorbed, and was absorbed by, all the
revolutionary elements of the time. Up to the last-menti