The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
the Dukes of Pomerania and some other minor Powers transferred from the original Saxon Circle. Archbishop Berthold’s greatest wish was realised in the proposal to include Max’s hereditary dominions in the ninth and tenth Circles of Austria and Burgundy. Thus every large tract of imperial territory became part of a Circle, save only the foreign kingdom of the Cechs. Definite names were given to the older Circles, and in each Circle a Captain appointed by it was empowered to carry out with the help of a force of cavalry the decisions of the imperial Chamber. The Estates however took alarm at the proposal to put the Captains of the Circles at the head of an armed force; and the result was that the division of the Empire into ten Circles never came into working order until after Maximilian’s death, and even then certain small districts were left outside the system.
The Diet of 1512 was practically the last of the reforming Diets. The chief interest in the immediately succeeding period centred round the renewal of the Swabian League. This confederacy had for a generation powerfully contributed towards the peace and welfare of South Germany. It had extended its limits, until it included not only the Estates of Swabia, but Rhenish and Franconian magnates such as the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Mainz, and the Bishop of Würzburg. But it comprehended within it very diversified elements, and the lesser Estates looked with jealousy upon the increasing influence of the greater princes upon its policy. Conspicuous among these magnates was Ulrich, the turbulent and unruly young Duke of Wurtemberg. The split declared itself when the princes refused to take a share even in paying the cost of the destruction of the robber-nest of Hohenkrahen in the Hegau, which the League, inspired by the Emperor, now captured after a short siege. Accordingly when the League was renewed for ten years in October, 1512, the Duke of Wurtemberg with his allies, the Elector Palatine, the Bishop of Wurzburg, and the Margrave of Baden, were excluded from it. The excluded princes promptly set up a counter-league, which in 1515 received the adhesion of Frederick the Wise of Saxony. Thus the element of disunion, which had prevented any organised combination of the Empire as a whole, now also threatened to destroy the most successful of the local unions of parts of the Empire. In the midst of this confusion, the last Diets of Maximilian’s reign were even more incompetent than their predecessors. The characteristic features of these years were the war of Franz von Sickingen against Worms and the feud between Ulrich of Wurtemberg and the Swabian League. The Emperor was now conscious of his impending end. In the hope of furthering his grandson’s election as his successor, he relieved Sickingen from the ban which had been pronounced against him. The aggrieved Estates refused in their turn their help against the disobedient Ulrich. New troubles now arose to complicate the situation. The early triumphs of Francis I deprived Maximilian of his last hopes of acquiring influence or territory in Italy. After Marignano his military impotence was clearly demonstrated to all the world, while his shifty and tortuous diplomacy became a bye-word for incompetence. Since 1517 ecclesiastical troubles had assumed an acute shape by the crusade of Martin Luther against papal Indulgences. But the old Emperor still calmly pursued his way, finding amusement with his literary and artistic schemes, and occupying himself more solidly in preparing the way for the world-Empire of his grandson Charles, and in setting the administration of the Austrian hereditary lands on a more satisfactory basis. He was still as full of dreams as ever and talked so late as 1518 of leading a crusade against the Infidel. But the contrast between his projects and achievements was never more strikingly brought out than in the last months of his life. The great schemes of the Diet of Innsbruck were in no wise carried out. The imperial coffers were so empty that Maximilian could not pay the tavern bills of his courtiers. Bitterly vexed at the indignities to which his poverty exposed him, he left Tyrol and travelled down the Inn and Danube to Wels. There, prostrated by a long-threatened illness, he breathed his last on Jaliuary 19, 1519.
A review of the political history of Germany brings out Maximilian’s character almost at its weakest. Yet the impression derived from his calamitous European wars, his ineffective negotiations, and his pitiable shifts for raising money is even more unfavourable. Nevertheless the unsuccessful ruler was a man of rare gifts and many accomplishments. “He was,” says a Venetian, “not very fair of face, but well proportioned, exceedingly robust, of sanguine and choleric complexion, and very healthy for his age.” His clear-cut features, his penetrating glance, his dignified yet affable manner, marked him as a man of no ordinary stamp. He lived simply and elegantly, loving good cheer and delicate meats, but always showing the utmost moderation, and being entirely free from the hard drinking habits of most of the German rulers of his time. He was the bravest and most adventurous of men, risking his life as freely in the rough chase of the chamois among the mountains of Tyrol as in the tiltyard or on the field of battle. He was an admirable huntsman, and a consummate master of all knightly exercises. Good-humoured, easy-going, and tolerant, he possessed in full measure the hereditary gift of his house for combining kingly dignity with a genial kindliness that took all hearts by storm. He was equally at home with prince, citizen, and peasant. He had so little gall in his composition that, save Berthold of Mainz, he had hardly ever made a personal enemy. Frederick of Saxony eulogised him as the politest of men, and the Countess Palatine found him the most charming of guests. The personal devotion of the younger generation of princes to the Emperor did more than anything else to break up the party of constitutional reform. The rough Landsknechte called him their father; the artists and scholars looked to him for liberal support and discriminating sympathy; the Tyrolese peasantry adored him, and he was ever the favourite of women, whether of high-born princesses, or of the patrician ladies of Augsburg or Nurnberg. He relieved the tedium of his attendance at long Diets by sharing fully in the life of the citizens of the town at which the assembly was held. He attended their dances, their mummings, their archery-meetings, himself often winning the prize through his skill with the cross-bow and arquebus. Yet he was as readily interested in serious subjects as in his pleasures. His quickness was extraordinary, and the range of his interests extremely wide. He could discuss theology with Geiler and Trithemius, art with Dürer or Burgkmaier, letters with Celtes or Peutinger. On all matters of horsemanship, hunting, falconry, fortification, and artillery, he was himself an authority. Yet all these gifts were rendered ineffective by his want of tenacity and perseverance, by his superficiality, and by his strange inability to act with and through other men.
Maximilian was ever restless, a hard and quick, though by no means a thorough, worker, with real insight into many knotty problems and no small power of judging and knowing men. Keenly conscious of his own ability, and morbidly jealous of his own authority, he strove to keep the threads of affairs in his own hands, and seldom or never gave implicit confidence even to his most trusted ministers. He was a good-humoured and indulgent master, blind to the vices of his servants so long” as they pleased him or were found useful to him. But the same habit of mind that impelled him to act on his own initiative led him to prefer ministers of lowly origin who owed everything to his favour. These he treated indulgently and well, but regarded as mere secretaries, or agents for carrying out the policy which his master mind had conceived. Few princes of the Empire enjoyed his confidence, and among these none of the first rank. Yet among his better known servants were two Counts of the Empire, Henry of Fürstenberg, and Eitelfritz of Hohenzollern, Swabians both, as were so many of Maximilian’s favourites. As diplomatists he preferred Burgundians to Germans. The smaller posts he commonly filled up with his favourite Tyrolese. But the most famous of his ministers was Matthaeus Lang, an Augsburg burgher’s son, by profession a churchman and a lawyer, who early became his secretary, and served him with great fidelity for the rest of his life. Maximilian rewarded him nobly, forced the well-born Canons of Augsburg to accept their social inferior as Provost, and soon procured for him the bishopric of Gurk, the archbishopric of Salzburg, and a Cardinal’s hat. Leo X compared Lang to Wolsey, and wrongly supposed that both ruled their masters. Like Wolsey, Lang was accused of arrogance and venality, and became exceedingly unpopular. A like fate befel Maximilian’s minor ministers, the Tyrolese Serntein and Lichtenstein, and the Augsburger Gossembrot, head of the Tyrolese financial administration. Public opinion regarded them as corrupt and greedy and as ill-advisers of the popular Emperor. “His counsellors were rich,” said a contemporary, “and he was poor. He who desired anything of the Emperor took a present to his Council and got what he wanted. And when the other party came, the Council still took his money and gave him letters contrary to those issued previously. All these things the Emperor allowed.” The removal of Maximilian’s counsellors was one of the conditions imposed on Charles V before his election. Nor was their lot an easy one during