With Gutenberg's European
It will be recalled that movable type was available in China as far back as the 11th century, even though it was not extensively used until the 14th. See pages 564 and 685
invention of the movable type printing press in 1454, there was a great increase in books for all the people. This was one of the things which helped to terminate the Middle Ages. There were 20 German translations of the Bible before Luther and a scholar, Johannes Reuchlin, put the study of the Old Testament on a scientific basis, so that it played a big part in the coming Reformation. Reuchlin was a humanist; Albrecht Durer was an artist of the period; Johann Muller was a peak figure in mathematics and astronomy, devoting an entire book to trigonometry, describing Halley's comet, making longitude and latitude calculations and establishing himself as a stimulating teacher. Sculptors worked in bronze and wood. Lucas Cranach was another portrait painter of the calibre of Durer and Nicholas (Krebs) of Cusa (1401-1464) was one of the great philosophers of Germany. Some of his ideas live on in the philosophical system of Leibniz. Regular postal service was established by the end of this century. German universities had increased to 16.
After 1400 the eastward political drive was carried on, not by the empire, but by two quasi-independent states, Austria and Brandenburg-Prussia, or more properly by the two dynasties - Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns. The Emperor Sigismund gave the march of Brandenburg to Frederick of the Hohenzollern
The name comes from the ancestral castle atop Mt. Zollern in Swabia, but the family descended from the Teutonic Knights, who superimposed their Germanic origins over the original Prussian Balts, who eventually became extinct as a separate people. (Ref.
131 )
family in 1417. Through conquests, purchases and marriages, this territory continued to grow. (Ref.
184 ) In Bavaria, Duke Albert IV again united the area in the last half of the century and introduced the law of primogeniture, thus allowing Bavaria to enter the Reformation period strengthened and strongly Catholic. The Habsburg Maximilian I (1493-1519) was the first and only Renaissance king of Germany. Through his wife's inheritance (Mary was heiress to Charles the Bold of Burgundy) he acquired the Netherlands. He was well educated, patronized the arts and sciences and aspired to a writer. He was adored by the middle classes, even though the princes were less than enthusiastic. Germany was still not a state, but under Maximilian it might have been called a nation. Eventually, however, both the emperor and the territorial lords began to hire mercenary armies and thus initiated a military plague. After 1497, Jews were expelled from many German cities.
Austria
Upon reading the paragraphs above it is apparent that it is difficult to separate the history of Austria from Germany at this period, when the Habsburgs were also emperors of all Germany. When Frederick III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1452 he soon made Austria an archduchy. In 1474 the Habsburgs acquired the whole of Vorarlberg (on the border of Switzerland) and then in 1477 the Netherlands by marriage, as noted in the paragraph above. The inhabitants of Austria are, of course, basically Germanic, and the remarks about the German people above, can be easily translated to the Austrian populace. The only really negative feature of the century occurred in 1485, when King Matthias of Hungary occupied Vienna and stayed there for 5 years, actually assimilating Lower Austria and Syria into a temporary Hungarian Empire.
