With the definite organization of Feudalism (q.v.), after the break-up of the Carolingian system they enter into the scheme of his newly constructed society as in some ways its most important units. Their selection is so largely influenced by the kings, whenever these chance to be men of weight, that the bishops come to be thought of as a kind of royal officials, and from this dose association with temporal affairs come those often well-founded charges of worldliness which are the moving cause of the clerical reform movement of the 11th century. In this movement for the betterment of society through an increased emphasis on the ascetic life Germany took less active interest than those southern regions, notably of France, in which it originated. German monasticism had from the beginning an eminently practical char acter. Its work had been largely that of the pioneer in a new cbuntry, developing industry by the improvement of the land and cultivating learning in the comparative security of its pro tected life. On the whole we hear little of the corruption that had often led to serious out breaks against the monastic system in the South. The leading abbacies in the houses for women as well as for men were often filled by members or intimate connections bf the royal families, and such persons, as for example, the abbots of Fulda, Saint Gallen, or Rcichenau, take their place alongside the bishops as feudal princes. Also their appointments, like those of the bishops, were greatly influenced by the policy of the government.
It is largely this close identification of the higher church offices with the royal power that leads to the most important struggle of the Middle Ages, the Wars of the Investiture (1075-1122). The direct issue in that long conflict was whether the German Church was to continue in its former intimate relation to the German king or was to become, through the process of the papal investiture, subject to a foreign political control. The outcome as expressed in the Concordat of Worms (1122), was in appearance a compromise based upon a division of the temporal from the spiritual powers of the episcopate; but in reality reso lute kings continued afterward, as before, to bring pressure upon the higher clerical appoint ments. During this period it is the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation who stands forth as the spokesman of all temporal powers against the aggressions of his colleague in the administration of the Christian world of the West, the successor of Saint Peter. The conflict is mainly political on both sides, but political ideas were during the strict mediaeval period hopelessly entangled with religious claims. The defeat of the imperial power in its efforts at aggrandizement in Italy was an ad vantage to the greater clerical powers in Ger many as it was also to the territorial lords. From the middle of the 13th to the middle of the 14th century Germany passed through that development of almost independent princi palities which were guaranteed by the Golden Bull of 1356. The control over the clergy
formerly exercised by the Emperor passed thus into the hands of a group of princes with whom the central power of .the Church has henceforth to deal. During the Con ciliar period (1408-48) it is they who present schemes of reform for the action of the Councils at Constance and Basel, and who enter into Concordats with the Papacy of the Reaction after 1448, by which it was hoped that the ever-increasing complaints against clerical abuses might forever be laid to rest.
The agitations of the Conciliar period, how ever, especially in Germany, had driven men into deeper reflection upon the actual sources of authority for religious faith and practice. Three directions of thought were thus stimu lated which were to move on side by side into the full current of the Protestant Reformation. These were the "evangelical," the mystical, and the intellectual. (1) The first of these found its support in the doctrines of Wicliffe in Eng land and Huss in Bohemia in regard to the ultimate authority of Scripture. Whatever in the thought or in the institutions of the Church was not plainly to be discovered in these original documents of Christianity was open to criticism and ought at least to be investigated. If not clearly deducible from Scripture it ought to he reformed. (2) The mystical tend ency of German thought was a reaction against the overgrown institutionalism of the later mediaeval Church. If it was true that the abso lute comprehension of God and the complete identification of the devout soul with Him was possible through a process of individual disci pline, then obviously the importance of all ecclesiastical mechanism was proportionately re duced. A formal priesthood might come to be rather an obstacle than an aid to the highest attainment of religious certainty. So, also, the most elaborate demonstrations of scholastic ingenuity were made unnecessary by this direct process of spiritual illumination. (3) The purely intellectual element came, in Germany, with the general awakening of the spirit of in qniry in the Revival of Learning. The serious northern mind turned at once away from the frivolities of mere intellectualism to its bear ings upon the vital problems of religion. The principle of "common sense)) found for the first time its application to religious as to other questions. Especially was this true in the field of textual study and criticism. The German Johann Reuchlin (q.v.) (d. 1522) was the first to break through the barrier of ignorant super stition that had prevented the study of Hebrew. The German Erasmus (q.v.) was the earliest scholar to approach the Greek New Testament in the true scholarly spirit.