The Middle Ages 476 1500 PDF Download

This is a comprehensive account of the history of Prussia and the lands that became the modern state of Germany during the late Middle Ages ahead of the Renaissance. From the preface: "THIS volume completes the series of Lectures given by Bishop Stubbs on Germany in the Middle Ages. A previous volume dealt with the history of Germany from 476 A.D. to the middle of the thirteenth century; the present volume carries on that history to the close of the fifteenth century. While the earlier volume was concerned especially with the characters and careers of the Emperors in the Dark Ages, the present volume follows the history of Germany in a more detailed fashion, and may be described as a storehouse of facts and generalisations. No such history of Germany in the English language exists, and it may confidently be assumed that the appearance of this volume will be received with immense pleasure by all students of the History of Europe in the Middle Ages. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries present to the student of European history difficulties of no ordinary kind. The period which marks the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, and which saw the rapid break-up of a Christendom which had for its centre the Holy Roman Empire, and in its place the gradual formation of the modern European States-system, requires for its elucidation a close acquaintance with the history of Medieval Europe. No English historian has yet appeared who was so eminently qualified to undertake the task of describing the history of Germany and indeed of Europe during this period of transition as was Bishop Stubbs. In the present as in the previous volume the character-sketches are the work of a master hand, while the account of the institutions and constitution of Germany will enable the historical student to follow and to comprehend the peculiar and exceptional developments which took place in the Holy Roman Empire."