A History of Germany in the Middle Ages (Classic Reprint)

American writer, should first launch his adventurous craft on the tide of English popular favour, rather than entrust it to the currents, likely to be more favourable or less dangerous, of his own native depths. This has come about in great part by accident. I happened to be on this side of the ocean when this volume reached its completion, circumstances prevented my return to A merica, and yet I was eager without delay to try my experiment on the public. For it is an experiment. A part from the question as to whether or not I am capable of putting life and spirit into the vast body of facts and events that concern the past of so enormous a political creation as Germany, I have been assured from competent side that there is not sufficient interest in the subject to warrant a work like the present. My belief is, that if there is not, there ought to be. Not to speak of the breathlessly exciting incidents of the German Reformation, nor of the proud emancipation of the grand modern empire from the trammels of disunity and disorganization, there is that in the fortunes and misfortunes of a Charlemagne and Henry IV., of a Barbarossa, a Henry VI. and an Emperor Frederick II., which should stir the heart,of any observer, no matter what his nationality. The rise and fall of the mediaeval German Empire is in itself a subject boundlessly interesting, boundlessly important. Open your eyes, oh ye students of men and of institutions, and see how Europe has come to be what it is, and how near it came to being something quite different! If Italy had remained under the sway of Germany, if Frederick Barbarossa or his successors had done away with the papal power, as they often 1T his volume is intended to be the precursor of two others covering the whole of German
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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