POST-MEDIAEVAL GERMANY We have in the preceding chapters sought to give a general view of the social life, together with the inner political and economic movements, of Germany during that closing period of the Middle Ages which is generally known as the era of the Reformation.

With the definite establishment of the Reformation and of the new political and economic conditions that came with it in many of the rising States of Germany, the Middle Ages may be considered as definitely coming to an end, notwithstanding that, of course, a considerable body of mediaeval conditions of social, political, and economic life continued to survive all over Europe, and certainly not least in Germany.
We have now to take a general and, so to say, panoramic view embracing three centuries and a half, dating from approximately the middle of the sixteenth century to the present time.

Our presentation, owing to exigencies of space, will necessarily take the form of a mere sketch of events and general tendencies, but a sketch that will, we hope, be sufficient to connect periods and to enable the reader to understand better than before the forces that have built up modern Germany and have moulded the national character.

In this long period of more than three centuries there are two world-historic events, or rather series of events, which stand out in bold relief as the causes which have moulded Germany directly, and the whole of Europe indirectly, up to the present day.

These two epoch-making historical factors are (1) the Thirty Years' War and (2) the Rise of the Prussian Monarchy.
Owing to the success of Protestantism, with its two forms of Lutheranism and Calvinism in various German territories, the friction became chronic between Catholic and Protestant interests throughout the length and breadth of Central Europe.