Prussia

Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia at the present time covers 134,616 square miles and includes about 64.8 per cent of the area of the German Empire. It includes the greater part of the plain of northern Germany and of the central mountain chain of Germany. With exception of the small Hohenzollern district, the original domain of the Prussian royal family, it does not extend beyond the Main. However, in a south-westerly direction west of the Rhine it includes a considerable portion of the basin of the Saar and of the plateau of Lorraine. All the large German rivers flow through it, and it contains the greater part of the mineral wealth of Germany, coal, iron, salt, and potash. Of the area devoted to agriculture over 2.5 per cent are used for the cultivation of grain as follows: 25.91 per cent for rye, 15.37 per cent oats, 6.86 per cent wheat. In 1905 the population was 37,282,935, that is 61.5 per cent of the population of the German Empire. The annual increase of the population is about 1.5 per cent, but this results from the decline of emigration and the decrease of the death-rate. In 1905 about 11.5 per cent were Slavs, of whom 8.887 per cent were Poles. In religion 63.29 per cent were Protestants, 35.14 per cent Catholics, 0.13 per cent Jews. In 1895 34.18 per cent of the population was employed in agriculture, 38.7 per cent in manufactures. About one-half of all the manufacturing industries are carried on in the provinces of the Rhine, Westphalia, and Silesia. It is only since 1866 that Prussia has had its present area, and not until 1871 did it become the ruling state of Germany. Its present area and power are the result of a gradual development extending over more than seven centuries.

I. The beginnings of the state are connected with the bloody struggles and with the wonderful cultural and missionary labours by means of which the territories on the Baltic between the Elbe and Memel were wrested in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from the Slavs and won for Germany and the Catholic Church. In this era the region on the Vistula and the Pregel Rivers, which originally was the only part of the territory bearing the name of Prussia, was conquered by the Teutonic Knights in 1230 and converted to Christianity. In 1309 the Grand Master of the order transferred his residence to the Marienburg, a castle noted for its artistic importance, which has been restored by the Emperor William II. The order and the region ruled by the order attained their highest development in the years succeeding this especially under the government of Winrich of Kniprode (1351-82). Pomerania, the district along the coast to the right and left of the mouth of the Oder, continued to be ruled by its dynasty of Slavonic dukes, nevertheless it was also under German influence and was converted to Christianity in the first half of the twelfth century by St. Otto of Bamberg. The inland territory between the Elbe and Oder, and the region drained by the Warthe and Netze, first called the Electorate of Brandenburg and the New Mark, were acquired from 1134 onwards by the Ascanian line, which also had possessions in Saxony. Before long this line also gained the feudal suzerainty over Pomerania. In all three districts the Teutonic Knights, who carried on wars and colonized at the same time, had the principal share in reconstructing the political conditions. The Cistercian Order had also a large part in the peaceful development of civilization; the order founded flourishing monasteries beginning at Lehnin, and Chorin and extending as far as Oliva near Danzig, and Christianized the natives. In all these territories, though, numerous German cities were founded and German peasants were settled on the soil.

After the extinction of the Ascanian line in 1320 the Electorate of Brandenburg became a possession of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, and in 1373 of the House of Luxemburg. Under the new rulers the government and the country greatly declined and the nobility ruled with an iron hand. In order to restore order the last member of the Luxemburg line transferred Brandenburg, at first temporarily, then on 30 April, 1415, as a fief to Frederick of Hohenzollern. This was the birthday of the future great state of Prussia, for Prussia has not become a great power from natural, geographical, or national conditions, but is the product of the work of its kings of the House of Hohenzollern. Frederick I probably desired to make Brandenburg a great kingdom on the Baltic for himself; however, he limited himself to crushing the power of the nobles and then devoted his attention again to imperial affairs. During the next two centuries his descendants did not do much to increase the power of Brandenburg, and they never attained the power of the last members of the Ascanian line. The most important event was the “Dispositio Achillea” of 1473, by which Brandenburg was made the chief possession of the Hohenzollern family and primogeniture was established, as the law of its inheritance.

Of the Hohenzollern rulers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries only Frederick II (1440-70) and Joachim I Nestor (1499-1535) were men of any prominence. They were more successful in internal affairs than in the endeavour to extend the size and importance of their realm. Frederick II separated the towns of Brandenburg from the Hanseatic League, and forced them to become a part of the territory of Brandenburg. He also brought the clergy under the power of the state by aid of two Bulls of 1447, which he obtained from Pope Nicholas V, and laid the foundation of the later State Church system established by his family. His efforts to enlarge his territories were checked by the rapid development of the power of Poland at this time, which was followed by the rising importance of Hungary. The result was that all the German possessions along the coast of the Baltic were endangered; and the greater part of the territory of the Teutonic Knights, comprising the region of the Vistula, was conquered together with Danzig by the Poles after two wars: in the war of 1410-11 the Teutonic Knights were defeated by the Poles at the battle of Tannenberg; this was followed by the First Peace of Thorn; after the war of 1456-66 came the Second Peace of Thorn. The Poles also took part in the war which Frederick II waged with Pomerania over the possession of Stettin. When Frederick’s nephew and successor sought compensation for Stettin in Silesia, he was opposed by Hungary and had to retire there also.

As ruler Joachim I was even firmer than Frederick II. During his administration the nobility were forced to give up their freebooting expeditions. Following this example the ruling family of Pomerania, of which the most important member of this era was Bogislaw X (reigned 1478-1524), put an end to the excesses of the Pomeranian nobility also. In the provinces along the Baltic the nobility had then a force of armed men at their disposal probably equal to similar forces of the princes. Thus, for example, a family called Wedel had so many branches that in the sixteenth century it could at one time reckon on two hundred men among its own members capable of bearing arms. When these rode out to war with their squires and mounted men they formed a body of soldiers, which, owing to the scarcity of money, was difficult for the ruling princes to meet. Both in Brandenburg and Pomerania the establishment of order was followed by an improvement in the laws and the courts, and by a reorganization of the administration. This latter brought about the gradual formation of a class of civil officials, who had in part legal training, and who were dependent not on the nobility but on the ruling princes. The beginnings were also made of an economical policy. Joachim I sought to turn to the advantage of the Hohenzollerns the fact that the Wettin line ruling in Saxony, which up to that time had been of more importance than the Hohenzollerns, had paralyzed its future development in 1485 by dividing its possessions between two branches of the line. These two dynastic families, Wettin and Hohenzollern, were active competitors for the great spiritual principalities of the empire. In 1513 Joachim’s brother Albrecht became Archbishop of Magdeburg and Bishop of Halberstadt, and in 1514 Archbishop of Mainz. At the same time, another member of the Hohenzollern family, one belonging to the Franconian branch of the line, became Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, that is, he was the ruler of that portion of Prussia which still belonged to the order. In 1525 he brought about the secularization of the territory of the order, and made it a permanent possession of his family; in return for this, however, he was obliged to acknowledge the feudal suzerainty of Poland. Joachim was unable to maintain his claims to the right of succession on the extinction of the Pomeranian dukes, but had to give up the claim to feudal supremacy (Treaty of Grimnitz, 1529).

Of all the ecclesiastical principalities, Joachim’s successors were able to retain Magdeburg alone, and this only to the end of the century. In Prussia (1569) they obtained the right to joint feudal possession, and thus gained for the main branch of the family a claim to the Duchy of Prussia. Taken altogether, however, the Hohenzollern power declined very decidedly. The ruling branch in Brandenburg was badly crippled by debts, and the last member of the line ruling in Prussia was weak-minded. This enabled the Estates, which had rapidly developed in all German territories from the second half of the fifteenth century, to obtain great influence over the administration, both in Prussia and Brandenburg. This influence was due to the fact that the Estates, owing to their possessing the right of granting the taxes, were equivalent to a representative assembly composed in part of the landowners, the nobility, and the clergy, and in part of the cities, who controlled considerable ready money. At first the nobility was the most powerful section of the Estates. In order to keep the nobles well-disposed the ruling princes, both in Brandenburg and Prussia, and also in Pomerania, transferred to them the greater part of the princely jurisdiction and other legal rights over the peasants, so that the feudal lords were able to bring the peasants into complete economic dependence upon themselves and to make them serfs. As a result the influence of the nobility constantly grew. But as the nobles were men without breadth of view, and in all foreign complications saw the means of reviving the power of the princes and of imposing taxes, the strength of the three Baltic duchies waned equally in the second half of the sixteenth century. None of them seemed to have any future.

II. At this juncture the head of the Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern family, George Frederick of Ansbach-Bayreuth, persuaded the Brandenburg branch of the family to enter upon a far-reaching policy of extension which, in the end, resulted in leading the dynasty and the state over which it reigned into an entirely new path. Influenced by George Frederick, John George of Brandenburg (1571-98) strengthened his claim upon Prussia by marrying his daughter to the weak-minded Duke of Prussia, and secured for himself by another marriage a new reversionary right to the Duchy of Cleve-Jülich, the ruling family of which was nearing extinction. Up to this time Prussian policy had been entirely directed to gaining control in eastern Germany, and this marriage was the first attempt to make acquisitions in western Germany. During the reign of John Sigismund (1608-19) the ducal line of Cleve-Jülich became extinct in 1609, and in 1618 that of Prussia. Of the possessions of Cleve-Jülich, however, Jülich and Berg were claimed by the Wittelsbach family, and Brandenburg was only able to acquire Cleve and a few adjacent districts (1614); even the hold on this inheritance was for a long time very insecure. On the other hand Prussia was united with Brandenburg without any dispute arising because Poland in the meantime had become involved in war with Gustavus Adolphus and was obliged to act with caution. At about the same time the ducal House of Pomerania was nearing extinction, so that all at once the state ruled by the Hohenzollerns seemed to approach a great extension of its territories.

In 1613 John Sigismund became a Calvinist, a faith at that time which had a great attraction for all the energetic and ambitious among the German Protestant princes. The ruler of Brandenburg and Prussia became the son-in-law of the leader of the Calvinistic party, the Elector Palatinate, and his daughter married Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. However, on account of the great power which the Estates had acquired in his dominions John Sigismund was not able to undertake a vigorous policy. The Estates were strongly opposed to his adoption of Calvinism, and his promise to leave the Lutheran Confession undisturbed hardly satisfied them, nor were they willing to grant any money for his external policies. On account of these financial difficulties his successor, George William (1619-40), during the Thirty Years’ War, came near losing the territories just inherited; and he was not able to make good his claims to Pomerania when, in 1637, his right of inheritance was to be enforced. It became evident that the power of the Estates must be crushed and the people forced to pay their taxes regularly, before the Hohenzollerns could obtain firm possession of their newly acquired domain, establish their authority in Pomerania, and then build up their power in the Baltic coast lands in the valleys of the Oder and Vistula. George William’s chief adviser, Count Adam von Schwarzenberg, recognized this and made the attempt to carry out this policy; from 1637 he was engaged in a severe struggle with Sweden, to prevent the Swedes from taking possession of Pomerania.

The merit of finally carrying out this policy and of turning the small and far from cultured state into a strong instrument for political and military aggression belongs to the Great Elector, Frederick William (1640-88), and to his grandson, King Frederick William I (1713-40). In 1644 the Great Elector laid the foundation of the standing army with the aid of which his successors raised Brandenburg-Prussia to its leading position; Frederick William I increased the standing army to 83,000 men. In order to procure the resources for maintaining his army the Great Elector gradually reorganized the country on entirely different principles, and did his utmost to further the prosperity of his people so as to enable them to bear increased taxation. His grandson continued and completed the same policy. At this period a like internal policy was followed in all the states of the German Empire, including the larger ones. Nowhere, however, was it carried out in so rational and systematic a manner as in Brandenburg-Prussia, and nowhere else were its results so permanent. In this, not in its originality, consists the greatness of the political achievement of the Hohenzollerns. The Estates and their provincial diets were not opposed and put down on principle, but they were forced in Prussia and Cleve to grant what was needed for the army; the cities were then subjected to a special indirect taxation (excise duties), and in this way were withdrawn from the government of the Estates. The nobility, now the only members of the Estates, were subjected to personal taxation by reforms in the existing system of direct taxation, by the abolition of the feudal system, and especially by the introduction into Prussia of the general taxation of land. At the same time the control that the Estates had acquired over the collection and administration of the taxes was abolished, and the assessment and collection of the taxes was transferred to the officials of the Government, who had originally charge only of the administrative and commissariat departments of the army. All these officials were placed under a central bureau, the general commissariat, and a more rigid and regular state system of state receipts and expenditures was established. Among the changes were the founding of the exchequer, the drawing-up of a budget, which was prepared for the first time in 1689, and the creation of an audit-office. Moreover, there was a stricter regulation of the finances in every part of the Government, and an extension of the supervision of every branch of the administration by the fiscal authorities so as to include even the independent departments of the state, the result being that these bodies, especially the cities, were actually ruled by these officials.

These reforms reached their culmination in the founding of the “General Directory”, at Berlin, and of the Boards of War and Finance in the provinces in 1721. The result was that the entire official life of Prussia became bureaucratic, and financial considerations had the preponderating influence in the internal administration of the country, as is still strikingly noticeable. Those departments of national administration that yielded little revenue, or were apt to cost more than they could be counted upon to yield, were for the present neglected, or in part still left under the control of the Estates, in those cases where the Estates had acquired the supervision of them; such were, above all, the administration of law, ecclesiastical affairs, and the schools. On the other hand great attention was given to improving economic conditions, and gradually all the measures were used in Prussia that the genius of a Colbert had planned during the reign of Louis XIV to raise France to the place of the first power in the world. Accordingly the population was increased by encouraging the immigration of the Dutch, Huguenots, and finally of the Protestants, who were driven out of Salzburg. Much also was done to improve the soil and the breeding of cattle. In agreement with the prevailing principles of economics, i.e. as much money as possible should be brought into the country, but that its export should be prevented, manufacture and commerce were to be stimulated in every possible way. The Great Elector even established a navy and also founded colonies on the African Gold Coast; in 1717 Frederick William I sold the colonies. Many excellent officials were drawn from other countries to aid in the administration. However, the ruling prince was the centre of the Government. The result of this was that, as early as the latter years of the reign of the Elector, the principal boards of administration and the ministers presiding over them sank more and more into mere tools for carrying out the will of the ruling prince, and decisions were made, not in the boards, but in the cabinet of the prince. This method of administration became completely systematized in the reign of Frederick William I; consequently it is customary to speak of the cabinet government of Prussia. This form of administration was maintained until 1806.

The success of the organizing energy of the ruling princes was so evident that even before the end of the seventeenth century Leibniz said: “This country is a kingdom in all but name.” The lacking name of kingdom was given to the country when Frederick I (1688-1713), the son of the Great Elector, crowned himself on 18 January, 1701, at Königsberg, with the title “King in Prussia”, meaning of the former duchy. As long as the development of the internal strength of the country was backward there was little chance of gaining any important additions of territory, even though the great wars of the period made such efforts very tempting. The Great Elector was a man of uncontrolled and passionate character, and of much military ambition; it was very hard for him to let others reap where he had sown, for he had taken part in nearly all the wars of his era. Frederick William I also was alive to his country’s glory, but was more inclined to prepare for war than to carry it on; in many respects his character recalls that of the later William I. In this period the chief object of the foreign policy of the Hohenzollerns was to increase their possessions along the Baltic. Above all they desired to own Pomerania, which Sweden retained. By the Treaty of Westphalia the Great Elector received only Further Pomerania (Hinterpommern), which was of little value. He gained nothing from the first Northern War (1655-60) in which he took part; his victory over the Swedes in the battle of Fehrbellin (1675) proved fruitless. His grandson finally acquired Stettin and the mouth of the Oder in 1720, and Hither Pomerania (Vorpommern) did not become apart of Prussia until 1815. The Great Elector was more fortunate in obtaining the release of the Duchy of Prussia from the feudal suzerainty of Poland (1658), and was also able to increase its area by the addition of Ermland. He further desired to acquire Silesia. In these years the chief battlefield of Europe was the western part of the Continent. This was unfavourable for the schemes of the Hohenzollerns, for at that time they had no definite policy of territorial extension in western Europe, and consequently no interests of any importance there.

In the west the Great Elector limited himself to securing the lasting possession of Cleve (1667) and the occupation of the territories which France had secured for him in exchange for Pomerania, namely Minden, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg, which before this had been ecclesiastical principalities. These gave him strategetically important positions controlling points of crossing the Elbe and the Weser; but he could not obtain Magdeburg until 1666, and did not gain full possession of it until 1680. During the reigns of his son and grandson some small and unimportant territories to the west of these were obtained. Taken altogether Brandenburg-Prussia had by 1740 increased in area from 9000 square miles under the first Hohenzollern Elector and 31,600 square miles in the reign of John Sigismund to about 46,800 square miles with a population of about 2,250,000. Up to now the bulk of the area of the country had lain towards the east, but from this period onward the preponderating part of its territories began to be found in the west. The wife of the Great Elector belonged to the family of the Princes of Orange, and this led the Elector to consider Holland in his foreign policy; in 1672 especially this influenced him to take part in the war between Holland and Louis XIV. He also gave more attention to imperial affairs than his immediate predecessors. In the politics of the empire sometimes he sided with the emperor. At times, however, he adhered to the views held by the German ruling princes of that time that there was an inner Germany consisting of the various states of the empire, and that this was the real Germany, the interests of which did not always coincide with those of Austria or of the reigning emperor. He believed that the real Germany must at times maintain its interests against Austria by the aid of one of the guaranteeing powers of the Peace of Westphalia, viz. France and Sweden. The only times he paid no attention in his policies to his duty as a prince of the empire was at the beginning of his reign when influenced by religious prejudices, and towards its end when disappointed by the Peace of St.-Germain-en-Laye (1679).

Another sign that the Prussian state was becoming gradually involved in the affairs of western Europe was the fact that as a second wife the Great Elector married a Guelph, to which family the wives both of his son and grandson belonged. In the second half of the seventeenth century the Guelph line founded the Electorate of Hanover in north-western Germany, the only state in this section of Germany that, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, could in any way compete with Brandenburg-Prussia for the leading position. The founding of the Academy of Berlin is due to Sophia Charlotte, wife of Frederick I. The same royal couple established the University of Halle, which soon gained a European reputation on account of its professors Thomasius and Christian Wolf and the institutions for the poor founded by Professor Francke. The fine addition in the royal castle at Berlin and the splendid statue of the Great Elector by Andreas Schlüter were both works of this reign.

III. Frederick II, The Great (1740-88), son of Frederick William I, had probably more intellectual ability than any other Hohenzollern known to history; he had in him a touch of genius. What checked development and exercise of his ability was, however, that he seemed from his natural predispositions, and from the way in which in youth he looked upon life, to be born for entirely different conditions than those prevailing in the Prussia of that era. He was more inclined to literature and music than to official routine work and military service, and early became a free-thinker. He preferred the literature of France and despised that of Germany, and was indifferent to Prussia and its people. When a young man these tastes led to conflicts with his father, who resolved on this account to exclude Frederick from the succession, and imprisoned him for several years in the fortress at Küstrin. Frederick was then married against his will, by the advice of Austria, to the Princess Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, personally an excellent and good woman. He finally learned self-control and applied himself with gradually increasing zeal and intensity to the civil and military affairs of the state, but he did this not from a sense of pleasure in such occupations, but from one of discipline and necessity. This may be the reason why in his civil administration and in the aims of his foreign policy he showed little originality in comparison to his natural abilities. On the other hand, in the conduct of war the king showed extraordinary energy, great intellectual activity, and ceaseless personal attention to his task. In his foreign policy Frederick followed the principles of his predecessors and sought above all to develop his domain towards the east. The precarious position of Austria at the beginning of the reign of Maria Theresa was taken advantage of by Frederick to begin a campaign in Silesia in Dec., 1740. As a pretext for the war he took the treaties of succession of his forefathers with the rulers of several of the smaller Silesian duchies, made in 1537, for the nonfulfilment of which Austria seemingly was alone to blame.

He gained the battle of Mollwitz 10 April, 1741, and on 5 June formed an alliance with France, the chief of the other opponents of Maria Theresa; the intervention of England led him to agree to a truce on 9 October, which enabled Austria to make its military force equal to that of France. In alarm Frederick advanced into Moravia, gained the battle of Chotusitz, 17 May, 1742, and in the Peace of Breslau, of 1 June of the same year, obtained from Austria the whole of Silesia, excepting the Countships of Glatz, Troppau, and Teschen. As in the war between Austria and France, which still went on, the advantage of the former continually increased, Frederick once more formed an alliance with Austria’s opponents and began a campaign in Bohemia in Sept., 1744, but was obliged to withdraw from this province in December. His position in Silesia now became precarious, but he extricated himself by the victory at Hohenfriedberg, 4 June, 1745, and then defeated the enemy, already on the march to Berlin, at Soor 20 Sept., at Katholisch-Hennersdorf 23 Nov., and at Kesselsdorf 15 Dec. By the Peace of Dresden of 25 Dec., 1745, Frederick retained Silesia. Maria Theresa, however, was not willing to give up Silesia without further effort. Consequently after peace had been made between Austria and France, Kaunitz, who was now Maria Theresa’s minister of foreign affairs, sought to form more friendly relations with France and to strengthen those already existing with Russia. So little, however, was attained in France that Kaunitz wished to drop the negotiations, but Maria Theresa’s persistence and the measures taken by Frederick in 1756 led to the formation of the alliance. Made uneasy by the weakness of France, Frederick did not maintain the amicable relations that had existed until then between himself and that power. When war broke out between England and France over the colonies in 1755-6, England negotiated with Russia for the sending of auxiliary troops. Frederick feared to permit such auxiliaries to march through Prussia and offered to guarantee England’s possession on the Continent himself (Convention of Westminster, Jan., 1756).

France and Austria now agreed to help each other in case of attack by Frederick (First Alliance of Versailles, 1 May, 1756). Upon this Frederick, led perhaps by fear of attack by a coalition stronger than himself, perhaps also by the hope of making fresh gains by daring seizures, began a third war, the Seven Years’ War, with Austria, taking as a pretext the advance of the Austrian troops. Without any declaration of war he advanced into the Electorate of Saxony, which was friendly to Austria, and besieged Dresden 9 Sept., but the Saxon troops kept up a longer resistance than he had counted upon, so it was 1757 before he could begin a campaign in Bohemia. In the meantime Russia and Austria had signed an alliance for war against him 2 Feb., 1757; in addition both the Empire and Sweden declared war against him, and on 1 May, 1757, France and Austria agreed in the Second Alliance of Versailles to adopt the offensive together against him. Frederick’s opponents could produce a force of 430,000 men, while he with the aid of England and Hanover (Treaty of 11 January, 1757) controlled about 210,000 men. It was most important for him to force the matter to a conclusion as quickly as possible, before the means of his still poor country were exhausted. On 6 May he won a bloody battle near Prague, but on 18 June he was defeated near Kollin and suffered losses by the new Austrian commander Daun which he could not repair. Frederick was forced to return to Saxony, while the French defeated the Hanoverian army at Kastenbeck on 6 July, and the Russians defeated a Prussian army at Grossjägerndorf on 30 Aug. However, the Russians and French did not form a junction with the Austrians quickly enough. When finally the united French and Imperial army advanced, Frederick defeated the joint forces badly at Rossbach on 5 Nov., and then turned against Daun, who had entered Silesia and had taken Breslau. Frederick defeated him at Leuthen on 5 Dec. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick continued to lead the Hanoverian and Prussian forces that fought against the French and drove the latter to the Rhine in the battle of Crefeld, 23 June, 1758. The progress of the war in the east did not equal the great expectations aroused by the success at Leuthen. In 1758 the Russians advanced. Frederick maintained himself against them at Zorndorf, 25 August, but the battle was not decisive, from here he hastened to Saxony, where the troops he had left behind were threatened by Daun, and he was surprised by Daun at Hochkirch on 14 Oct.

At the end of 1758 the majority of his officers were dead, and he could only fill the gaps among the soldiery by the compulsory enlistment of mercenaries. His treasury was empty, and he struck debased coin. He exhausted the resources of Saxony. On the other hand the Austrian army was always ready for the field, and the Austrian artillery was superior to his. Accordingly his opponents in the campaign of 1759 forced Frederick to take the defensive. The united Russians and Austrians decisively defeated Frederick at Kunersdorf on 12 August. The result was a series of capitulations. Frederick lost Saxony, the greater part of Silesia was taken from him in 1760-61, largely by Laudon. What saved him, besides his own energy, was the gradual dissolution of the alliances between his enemies. France began to withdraw in the Third Alliance of Versailles of 30-31 December, 1757. At first Russia and Austria drew all the closer together in the Treaty of St. Petersburg of 1 April, 1760. The Russians plundered Berlin in Oct., 1760. At this most critical moment Frederick maintained himself only by the almost unexpected victory of Torgau, 3 Nov., 1760, which enabled him once more to occupy a secure position in Saxony. As early as 1761 the Russian interest in the war began to decline, and when in January, 1762 Peter III, an admirer of Frederick, became tsar, he took sides with Frederick (truce in March, peace 5 May, alliance 19 June). It was also an advantage to Frederick that Turkey began a war against Austria. In July, 1762, Peter III was succeeded by the famous Catherine II. She wished to have a European peace, and continually urged Maria Theresa to yield. On the Rhine Ferdinand of Brunswick continued to keep the French in check. As the French were also successful in their war with England, they withdrew from the struggle against Frederick by the preliminary Peace of Fontainebleau (3 Nov., 1762). The imperial army broke up. Finally Austria also grew weary of the struggle.

On 15 Feb., 1763, the Peace of Hubertusburg closed the Austro-Prussian war. Frederick retained Silesia, but made no new acquisitions. However, his personal importance and the respect for the military prowess of Prussia were so greatly increased that henceforth Prussia was treated by the other countries as a great power. After this Frederick’s administration was a peaceful one. He was able to increase his realm by taking part in the First Partition of Poland (1772), whereby he gained Polish Prussia with the exception of Danzig and Thorn. The War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-79), which Frederick declared against Austria to prevent Bavaria becoming part of that monarchy, caused but little bloodshed. In the Peace of Teschen Austria abandoned all claim to the Bavarian succession. In 1781 Frederick took part in the “Naval Alliance of Neutral Powers”. This was formed by Catherine II, and intended mainly to limit the power of England on the Baltic, but it was of small importance. It should also be mentioned that in 1744 East Frisia became a part of Prussia by inheritance.

The most important measure of domestic policy carried out by Frederick in the first half of his reign with the help of his minister Cocceji, was the reorganization of the department of justice, which had been neglected during the reign of his father. After the Seven Years’ War his personal influence became more manifest in the other departments of state. It must be confessed, however, that at the same time he obstinately adhered both to the forms and principles of government that he had inherited. At the most it was only in isolated cases that power was exercised with moderation or that the administration was modified in harmony with the spirit of the times, although this spirit, animated by humanitarian ideas and a tolerance arising from indifference, was also alive in him. He even exaggerated many of the objectionable sides of the old system of government. He ruled the country and especially the new provinces as an enlightened despot, exclusively from the cabinet, though as a writer he approved of Rousseau’s views as set down in the “Social Contract”. In addition he employed the higher officials as if they were subalterns. The officials throughout the country during his reign developed more and more of a tendency to treat the people and especially the middle classes with bureaucratic contempt. Though proud of their victories in the Seven Years’ War, the people manifested no consciousness of their belonging to a unified Prussian State. It is true that in the last years of his reign Frederick regarded it as his duty to inspire the entire Prussian people in their economic and social feelings with the sense of their direct relations to the Government, so that every Prussian in all his doings should have in view not only his own personal advantage but also the welfare and strengthening of the state. Practically, however, this idea, only led him to accentuate the social differences, the abolition of which was demanded by the needs of the time. At the end of his reign the Prussian State, of which he was more than ever the monarch, ended just as at the beginning of this rule, with the president of each district. As regards his economic policy, he held on to the worn-out mercantile system.

The great errors of this policy, e.g., the neglect of agriculture, the failure to abolish serfdom, the retention of the double system of taxation (direct for the country and indirect for the cities), a system that paralyzed all economic development, the maintenance of the excessively high system of protection with its many internal duties, were due to this cause. The same may be said of many of his failures, such as the mercantile enterprises which he founded, or his partial failures, such as the transfer of several industries, in particular the porcelain and silk industries, to the leading provinces of the state. His adherence to the mercantile system of economics was necessitated by his adherence to the one-sided conception of national finances which led the Prussian Government to provide for the economic prosperity of the population, with the intention of bringing as much money as possible into the country in order to have it for government purposes. Frederick, therefore, made no changes in the financial theories of Prussian policy. These theories led him, for instance, in imitation of French fiscal methods, to introduce the Regie, i.e. to farm out the customs and indirect taxes, and to make the sale of tobacco, coffee, and salt absolute monopolies. The Regie made him very unpopular. It is all the more surprising that, notwithstanding the reactionary character of his internal policy, he made the country politically capable of performing all the unusual tasks that he imposed on it, that he changed his possessions into a well-regulated state, and that he succeeded, by political measures, in repairing the terrible injuries of the Seven Years’ War in a comparatively short time. Large extents of moor-land and swamp were brought under cultivation, a hundred thousand colonists were settled in deserted districts, and the revenues yielded by manufacture and industry were decidedly increased. The great estates were aided to pay off their debts by encouraging union credit associations, and Frederick sought to regulate and give independence to the circulation of money by founding the Prussian Bank. In harmony with the spirit of the times he also undertook a comprehensive codification and revision of the laws of the state, which was completed after his death and culminated in the publication of the general “Prussian Statute Book” of 1794; Suarez was the chief compiler.

Towards the end of his reign he encouraged the efforts made on behalf of the Catholic public schools by the provost Felbiger, and those for the Protestants by Freiherr von Zedlitz and the cathedral canon Rochow, but he never at any time gave the schools sufficient money. The new code laid down the principle that the public schools were a state organization. Frederick’s government, internal and foreign, was marked by a mixture of strong and weak characteristics. It was the policy of a man of genius who was entirely devoted to his task; too intellectual and enlightened to be a reactionary, but one who showed himself greater in carrying out and in utilizing the policies of his predecessors, than in establishing what was necessary to ensure the future development of the state. Great as were his achievements, he ended by paralyzing Prussia’s vital powers and engaged the resources of the country in a direction opposed to its development. Frederick gave Prussia the position of a Great Power. But, outside of his personal importance, this position of the state rested exclusively on its military power, not yet, as in the case of the other Great Powers, upon the area of the country and the economic efficiency of the population. Consequently, the position of Prussia as a Great Power needed to be placed on a stronger basis. Its people had to make marked advances culturally, and develop a real national spirit. Furthermore, the effort must be made to bring the future development of Prussia into close connexion with the leading movements of the coming generation, so that the roots of its life should receive fresh nourishment. Both problems could best be solved by furthering the transfer towards the west of the centre of gravity of the Prussian states already begun under Frederick’s predecessors. This western development of his territory was also a policy furthered by Frederick, but he pursued it unwillingly and cared little for it. By this one-sidedness he lessened his services to Prussia when he enlarged his territories in the district of the Oder and Vistula, where the foundations of the state had been laid during the Middle Ages.

There is no doubt that in 1757-58 the coalition formed against him would have crushed him had not Hanover fought on his side and given him the strategic control of north-western Germany. As even after 1763 he regarded Austria, as the deadly enemy of Prussia, he could not fail to see that for strategic reasons it was absolutely necessary for Prussia to have the whole of north-western Germany within its sphere of influence; but he did nothing to attain this end. Moreover, he could not abstain from interfering in imperial politics in order to keep Austria from making southern Germany dependent on itself. He, therefore, urged on the War of the Bavarian Succession against Austria in 1778-79, and in 1783 was for a time the leader of the “League of Princes” formed among the German princes of the empire against Joseph II. However, all imperial, that is to say, German politics were distasteful to him. By his example he, more than any one else, contributed to smother all interest in the empire on the part of the German statesmen. He preferred rather to rest Prussian policy on that of Russia, and to lay his political schemes in the east of Europe. In like manner in his internal administration he deliberately neglected his western provinces, although it was just this part of his kingdom that lay in the centre of the rising economic life of Europe, and contained, along with Silesia, the mineral treasures that in the future were to make the country and its population rich. It was also the population of this section that was to prove itself unusually energetic and capable in economic life. Fortunately for the realm Frederick’s excellent minister of commerce, Heynitz, did not neglect the western provinces. In these provinces the young Freiherr von Stein passed the first years of his career in the service of the Government. During Frederick’s reign the eastern provinces of Prussia were also brought into connexion with the cultural development of the civilization of Western Europe. In order to meet the growing demand of England for grain, their great estates were worked on a capitalistic basis. The younger civil officials and nobility admired England as a model country and were full of interest in all the liberal ideas of the period. Prominent among these was Theodore von Schön. But a number of other young jurists called for a constitution. The University of Königsberg had a large share in producing this development. One of its professors, Kraus, a political economist, spread the theories of Adam Smith; another professor was Kant, who also started with the English philosophy.

During Frederick’s reign a novel element found its way into the Prussian State. By the conquest of Silesia, Prussia for the first time acquired a province that was predominantly Catholic; in annexing Polish Prussia it annexed one that was half Catholic. Up to then the only Catholics in Prussia were a few in Cleve. During the reign of the Great Elector, Catholic Ermland also became a part of Prussia, but this province never was considered of much importance. The church privileges of the Catholics here as there rested upon national treaties. As a rule they were respected. However, a strict watch was kept that the position of the Catholics should be an exceptional one. Attempts to introduce Protestantism among them were encouraged. In ecclesiastical matters Frederick followed in the path of his predecessors. Being a free-thinker the tolerance of his predecessors, based on treaty obligations, became under him a policy merely of religious indifference. “In my kingdom, each may go to Heaven after his own fashion”. He provided for the religious and educational needs even of the Catholics, and showed favour to the Jesuits. Still, in his reign Catholics were not allowed to hold office except inferior ones. In its foreign policy the State remained the champion of Protestant interests. This policy could be continued, notwithstanding the great increase in the number of Catholics, because the population of Prussia was accustomed to obey the Government without claiming any rights for itself. In the course of time difficulties would naturally arise from this policy.

IV. When Frederick II died the area of Prussia was about 78,100 square miles and its population 5,500,000. Since 1740 the annual revenues of the State had risen from 7,500,000 to 22,000,000 thalers; the national treasury contained 54,000,000 thalers. Frederick’s successor, his nephew Frederick William II (1786-97), was a man of some ability, but was soon led astray by his taste for loose living, and fell under the influence of bad counsellors, such as the theologian and Rosicrucian von Wöllner, and Colonel von Bischoffswerder. Frederick William III (1797-1840) was a man without much ability, somewhat like a subordinate official in instinct, of good intentions but little force. In consequence of the Revolution whose spirit spread throughout Europe the demands of the new era made themselves heard in Prussia also. Both the ministry and the cabinet were constantly occupied with plans for reform, but there was a lack of united and harmonious working and of ability to come to a decision. Dangerous agitations arose among the civil officials. Government by the cabinet became intolerable to the ministers, as the administration was no longer exercised by the king himself but by the secretaries of the cabinet, who during this reign were von Beyme, Lombard, and Mencken. Thus the zeal for reform only increased the dissatisfaction, and very little was accomplished. In foreign politics Frederick William II disavowed the opposition to Austria when he signed the Reichenbach Convention of 27 July, 1790, with the Emperor Leopold II. In 1792 he even became an ally of Leopold’s in the war with France, in order to combat the “principles” of the Revolution. His army, however, accomplished but little in this war, and on 5 April, 1795, he signed a separate treaty of peace with France at Basle, thus deserting Austria. For a number of years following this treaty he and his successor, Frederick William III, pursued a policy of neutrality in the great events of Western Europe. Still they sought to gain advantages out of them. According to the Treaty of Basle, Frederick William II agreed with France upon a line of demarcation by which nearly all of northern Germany was declared neutral under the protection of Prussia. Prussia worked energetically for the secularization of the Catholic ecclesiastical principalities, and by agreement with France in 1802 obtained the Dioceses of Paderborn, Fulda, a part of Münster, Eichsfeld, the domains of several abbeys, and the cities of Erfurt and Dortmund; the decision of the imperial delegation of 1803 confirmed it in the possession of these territories.

Prussia kept a close watch upon the fate of Hanover in the wars between Napoleon and England, being desirous to annex Hanover if possible. For a considerable length of time Napoleon tempted Prussia by holding out the hope of this acquisition, and in 1806 by the plan of a North German Confederation of which Prussia was to be the leader, Frederick William II even sought to gain territory in southern Germany. By an agreement made with the Hohenzollern Line of southern Germany he obtained in 1791 the Principalities of Ansbach and Bayreuth; in 1796 he made an unexpected attack upon Nuremberg but soon vacated it. None of these undertakings were conducted with much energy or with any clearly-defined end in view, for at the same time the political plans of Prussia in Eastern Europe exceeded her strength. Not only did Prussia obtain Danzig and Thorn in the Second Partition of Poland (1792), but in the Third Partition (1795) she acquired the central basin of the Vistula, with Warsaw as its capital. Prussia now included the entire basins of the Oder and Vistula. But it was no longer possible to make the eastern territories the preponderating part of the State. Besides the country was now half Slavonic, and the majority of its inhabitants were henceforward to be Catholic. The old Prussian territories had by this time been brought to a higher state of culture and had become in some measure capable of meeting the demands made upon them. The State now undertook another task: this was to bring the demoralized Polish provinces into order, to organize them, bring them to economic prosperity, and give them civil officials and teachers. In 1806 Prussia became involved in a war with Napoleon, which made evident the confusion of its internal affairs, and its lack of strength. Its army, led by the grey-haired Ferdinand of Brunswick, was cut to pieces in the battles of Jena and Auerstädt, fought on the same day (14 Oct.), after a skirmish at Saalfeld; Prince Louis Ferdinand died 18 October. Most of the fortresses capitulated without any real resistance. The bureaucracy of government officials lost its head and acted in a cowardly manner. The people were apathetic. The king, however, made some resistance, with the aid of Russia. Napoleon wished to make an end of Prussia as a State, and only the intercession of Russia preserved for the Hohenzollern dynasty a part at least of its territories. By the Peace of Tilsit, 9 July, 1807, Prussia lost the Franconian provinces and all those west of the Elbe, as well as the Polish acquisitions outside of Polish Prussia. Moreover, French troops were garrisoned in the districts still remaining to it, and an enormous war indemnity was demanded (Convention of Königsberg, 12 July, 1807).

However, Prussia’s terrible humiliation, notwithstanding all its mournful results, first opened the way for the exercise of those energies of the country that had been until now suppressed. The king showed great endurance in his misfortunes. His wife Louise made herself the intermediary between him and the men from whom the restoration of the country was to come. During the war Scharnhorst the future reorganizer of the Prussian army had had his first opportunity to distinguish himself at the battle of Eylau, 7-8 February, 1807. In the winter of 1806-07 the philosopher Fichte delivered his celebrated “addresses to the German nation” at Berlin. In the spring of 1807 the king appointed Count Hardenburg, a native of Hanover, minister of foreign affairs, but was obliged to dismiss him in July at Napoleon’s bidding; the count, however, still continued to advise the king. Shortly after the Peace of Tilsit Scharnhorst was given charge of military affairs. From this time the army consisted only of natives of the kingdom, the soldiers were better treated, a thorough education was required from those desiring to become officers, and the people were gradually accustomed to the idea of universal military service, until it was introduced by the law of 3 Sept., 1814. On 5 October, 1807, Freiherr von Stein, a native of Nassau, was placed at the head of all the internal affairs of Prussia. With his appointment the real reform minister came into power. He was able to retain his position only a year, but this sufficed to impress on the legislation of the time a character of grandeur, although he could not control its details. Stein found the kingdom reduced in reality to the present province of East Prussia, and there the liberal officials were already preparing radical changes. The law of 9 Oct., 1807, was already enacted, according to which the peasant serfs were declared free; every Prussian was authorized to hold landed property and to follow any occupation he chose. Stein only signed the decree. The law made it necessary to readjust all peasant holdings and the taxes upon them. This readjustment dragged on during a number of years, and was not finally completed until the middle of the century.

After Stein’s retirement this measure frequently proved the economic ruin of the peasants. Another consequence of this law, as completed by the law on trade taxation, Oct., 1810, and by the Edict of 7 Sept., 1811, was the adoption by Prussia of liberty of occupation. Prussia led the way in this reform in Germany. Stein’s chief personal interest was in the reform of the constitution and of the administration. His desire was to create a union between the Government and the people that was then lacking, to awaken in the Government officials a spirit of initiative and responsibility, to enkindle in Prussia popular sentiment for Germany. The lesser offices in Prussia were to be divided into two classes; the former following the historical and geographical divisions of the country (provinces, circles, communes); the second determined wholly by the needs of the Government (Regierungsbezirke). The duties of the former were to be performed by administrative bodies, who were to act as the representatives or as the deputies of the people; the latter by government officials. With the administrative body, in some cases, a government official was associated (provincial president); in other cases certain government duties were confided to their heads. (Landrät, Bürgermeister). On the other hand representatives of the people were to have a share in the Government, and in the course of time, as a counterpoise to the ministerial bureaucracy, the members of the national diet were to be elected from the provincial diets. Stein substantially gave the franchise only to land owners. He desired that the people in general should be prepared for taking part in the Government by the schools and universities. Freedom of action was to be restored to the state officials by putting an end to cabinet government, and giving each minister the independent administration of his own department. Personally, Stein was only able to initiate these reforms by the municipal legislation of 19 Nov., 1808, and the “laws on the changed constitution of the highest administration of the realm” of 24 Nov., 1808. His fiery temperament and his strong German sympathies made him too impatient. Together with Scharnhorst he planned measures to rouse the German people for a war against Napoleon. Consequently he was obliged to resign. Moreover, he did not sufficiently gauge the peculiarities of Prussia, particularistic, dynastic, and bureaucratic. His work, however, did not perish.

In 1810 the University of Berlin was founded as the great national centre of education; in 1811 the University of Breslau. In 1810 Hardenberg re-entered the Government and as chancellor carried on the work of reform systematically until his death in 1822. He skilfully managed the king and accommodated himself to the peculiarities of the Prussian character: like Stein he thoroughly believed in the necessity of a complete reconstruction of the State. He made special efforts to reform the system of taxation, but he was not able to do this at once. In 1810 and 1815 he even promised to call a national parliament. After his own fashion he liberalized or bureaucratized Stein’s plans, often taking the Napoleonic legislation for his model. Only the opposition of the Prussian nobility prevented him from sacrificing the very corner-stone of Stein’s reform of the administration (1812) by substituting the French system of prefecture and municipality for the self-governing institutions of district and city. These reforms led to the awakening of a sense of nationality both in the educated classes and the common people; and when in 1813 Napoleon returned defeated from Russia the whole population of Prussia rose of their own accord for king and country, and also for the liberation of Germany about which the kings had not concerned themselves.

During the War of Liberation of 1813-14 and 1815 the Prussian army had a large share in the overthrow of Napoleon. At the Peace of Paris (20 May, 1814) and the Congress of Vienna, which rearranged the map of Europe, Hardenberg represented Prussia. He desired to form a permanent agreement in policy between Prussia and Austria, while the king preferred to join his interests with those of Russia. At the important moment (Nov., 1814) the king decided against his minister, whereby a fresh European war was nearly kindled. The question was whether the greater part of western Poland should henceforth belong to Russia, and what compensation Prussia should receive for its share of Poland. Russia was successful, and only Polish Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Posen were given to Prussia. As a compensation for the loss of Warsaw, Prussia demanded Saxony. Owing to Austria’s opposition it received only the present Prussian province of Saxony and, instead of the remainder of Saxony, the Westphalian and Rhenish provinces, where before 1802 it had possessed only small districts. Austria hoped that in this way Prussia would be so entangled in Western Europe that it could no longer pursue a policy of neutrality, such as it had adopted after the Treaty of Basle. By this means, however, the centre of gravity of Prussia was completely shifted towards Western Europe. Henceforth Prussia could scarcely give up the military control of northern Germany; should opposition arise, it must endeavour to incorporate into its own territories the districts between its eastern and western provinces. It soon felt the temptation to become the leader of Germany, especially as Austria at the same time gave up its old possessions in Swabia and on the Rhine, and had no longer any territories in Germany. In 1814-15 the area of Prussia was increased to 108,000 square miles, and its population reached 10,500,000. The geographical and political changes which took place in 1807-15, years of suffering and war, had been too rapid. Much remained to be done. Reactionary forces asserted themselves once more. Until 1840 old and new ideas struggled against each other, even among the ruling statesmen. The reactionary tendencies, especially of the era of Frederick the Great, reappeared with the king’s approval.

However, government by cabinet order was not re-established. The higher officials, who under Frederick the Great had been the king’s executive tools, now practically carried on the Government in the name of the king. The minister Nagler spoke of “the limited intelligence of the subject”. The promise to call a national representative assembly was limited to the case of the State needing a national loan; but care was taken that no such necessity occurred. The Prussian Government not only took part in all the attempts of Austria and Russia since 1818 to suppress all revolutionary and politically liberal movements among the people, but even showed the greatest zeal and severity in doing so; e.g. the persecution of student societies, the imprisonment of Jahn, the order forbidding Arndt to lecture, and the expulsion of Görres from Germany. Partly through attachment to the king, with whom they had been united in common sufferings and partly because of the generally excellent behaviour of the officials, the people of the old Prussian provinces maintained an attitude of expectancy. With the new provinces, however, serious friction arose. Having belonged to France during the years 1795-1814, these provinces had grown accustomed to democratic forms and frequently had a racial dislike to Prussians. The struggle began with the question whether the Prussian statute-book should replace the French “Code civile” in the province of the Rhine. The conflict was intensified by the appointment of many old Prussian officials to positions in the Rhineland and was greatly augmented by quarrels about methods of Church government and the claims of the State in matters of religion. The territories annexed in 1814-15 were mostly peopled by Catholics. Hitherto the State had controlled the Catholic Church authorities of the kingdom in the same way as the Protestants. This not only aroused the opposition of the democratically-inclined Rhenish provinces, but also excited the resistance of the new western Catholic movement, which, without much regard to diplomacy, strove to secure complete liberty for the Church by vigorous defence of her rights.

The question in what cases it was the duty of the Catholic priest to bless mixed marriages was the accidental but highly opportune occasion of bringing the matter to an issue. The Archbishop of Cologne, von Droste zu Vischering, led the opposition. The Prussian Government imprisoned him in a fortress as a “disobedient servant of the state”. A powerful popular commotion throughout the Rhine country was the result; this gained its echo in a Polish national movement in Posen, where Archbishop Dunin resisted the marriage laws and was arrested. Success was on the side of the Catholics and the new provinces. But alongside of these after effects of the spirit of Frederick II the Stein-Hardenberg policy continued to gain ground, especially after 1815. The reform of taxation was now carried through under the direction of the statistician J. G. Hoffmann. Organization of the provinces was completed, and an edict granting provincial diets was issued in 1823. General communal legislation was postponed because the economic and social conditions of the eastern and western provinces still differed widely. Allenstein and Johannes Schulze did much for education. Under the lead of the king, the Government compelled the union of the Lutheran and the Reformed churches; in order to give the union a firm basis, a new liturgy was issued in 1821. The old Lutherans who opposed the union of the two denominations were subjected to severe police restraint. By the Papal Bull “De salute animarum”, and the Brief “Quod de fidelium”, two Catholic church provinces were erected 16 July, 1821: the Archdiocese of Gnesen-Posen, with the suffragan Diocese of Culm; and the Archdiocese of Cologne, with Trier, Münster, and Paderborn as suffragans. In addition the exempt Bishoprics of Breslau and Ermland were established. The bishops were to be elected by the cathedral chapters, but were to be directed by the pope not to choose any person not acceptable to the king. The endowment of the bishoprics with landed estates proposed in 1803 was not carried out; hitherto the State has provided yearly subventions in accordance with the budget of the ministry of worship. Prussia’s greatest progress at this time was in the field of political economy. The post office was well organized by Postmaster-General Nagler.

By the law of 26 May, 1818, Prussia changed from a prohibitive high tariff to a low tariff system, almost completely suppressed the taxes on exports, and maintained a high duty only on goods in transit. It thereby simplified its administration of the customs, and made business easier for its subjects, but the law fell heavily on the provinces belonging to other German states that were surrounded by Prussian territory, and gradually effected the states of middle and southern Germany, whose traffic with the North Sea and the Baltic had to be carried on across Prussian territory. After violent disputes a Zollverein (customs union) was gradually formed; the first to join with Prussia in such a union were the smaller states of Northern Germany, beginning with Sondershausen in 1819; in 1828 Hesse-Darmstadt; in 1831 Electoral Hesse; from 1 Jan., 1834, the kingdoms of Southern Germany, Saxony, and the customs and commercial union of the Thuringian States. By the beginning of 1836 Baden, Nassau, and Frankfort had also joined. With the exception of the non-Prussian north-western districts, besides Mecklenburg and the Hanseatic cities, all non-Austrian Germany was now economically under Prussian hegemony. The different states joined the Zollverein by terminable agreements. Each of the larger states retained its own customs administration; changes in the Zollverein could only be made by a unanimous vote. These states simply agreed in their economic policy and in the administration of the customs. They did not form a unified Germany from an economic point of view. The men who deserve the chief credit for the establishment of the Zollverein are Motz (d. 1830) and his successor Nassen. From the first, Prussia was determined that Austria should not be admitted as a member of the new customs union. Politically this union did not bring its members into closer alliance, but it was probably the cause of a great increase of their economic prosperity. The greatest benefit from it was gained by the Prussian Rhenish provinces. Consequently the trading element of the Rhineland, generally Liberal in politics, gradually grew friendly to the Prussian Government; it hoped to be able to dictate Prussia’s economic policy in the course of time. The result was that political conditions within the country improved. In all its other relations to the newly acquired provinces the State had been forced to give way (e.g. the continued existence of the “Code civile”) or would have to in the future (e.g. in its ecclesiastical policy). Now the Rhenish provinces began to divide politically. The State was furthermore consolidated by gaining the sympathetic support of the teachers and professors as an after effect of the patriotic movement in the War of Liberation and partly owing to its energy in the cause of education. The Prussian political system, of meddling with everything, perhaps justified by necessity, was at this time philosophically defended and glorified by the philosopher Hegel.

V. Frederick William IV (1840-61) in his youth had enthusiastically taken part in the War of Liberation, and afterwards in all the efforts for the reorganization of the State. His character was inconsistent; while a man of ability, he was subject to the influence of others. Soon after his accession he conciliated the Catholics (Johann Geissel as coadjutor of Cologne; establishment of a Catholic department in the Ministry of Worship and Education). Although personally a Conservative, he appointed some moderate Liberals to places of prominence. He first called forth opposition among the doctrinaire and radical elements of the eastern provinces by condemning their ideas of popular sovereignty and popular representation on the occasion of his coronation at Königsberg. In accordance with Stein’s original plan he intended to give to Prussia a legislature chosen by the several provincial diets. Too much time was spent in discussion without coming to any decision. In the meantime the western provinces also joined the movement for more liberal institutions, largely as a consequence of the debates in the provincial diet of the Rhine, in 1845. The restlessness was increased by economic distress, especially among the weavers of Silesia, by contradictory ordinances issued by the Government, and by the discovery of a national Polish conspiracy in the province of Posen. Finally in Feb., 1847, the king summoned to Berlin a “first united diet”, composed of all the provincial diets. The authority of the united diets was to be small, its future sittings were to depend on the pleasure of the king. The more liberal element of the eastern provinces wished to reject this diet as in-. sufficient. The more politic liberals of the western provinces, however, gained the victory for the new diet, for they hoped in this way to attain to power in the State. The united diet was opened 11 April, 1847. Passionate differences of opinion showed themselves in the debates over the wording of an address to the king, in which, although moderately expressed, the demand for such a “national parliament” as had been promised in 1815 was put forth. Motions made in favour of the granting of a national parliament, and finally the refusal of the diet to take decisive action on a proposed railroad loan, so angered the king that he closed the sessions of the diet towards the end of June. Throughout the country the movement to obtain a parliamentary chamber directly elected by the people was kept up.

When in March, 1848, there was danger that the revolution would break out in Prussia, on 7 March the king made the concession that the united diet should meet every fourth year. On 14 March he summoned the second united diet to meet at the end of April, but he was not willing to concede the election by the people and a written constitution. On 15 March barricades were built in the streets of Berlin. On the evening of 17 March the king decided to grant a constitution, to set the date of the assembling of the second united diet for 2 April, and to take part in the movement for forming a German national state. Notwithstanding the announcement of this decision, bloody fighting broke out in the streets of Berlin 18 March. The next day the king withdrew the troops who were confronting those in revolt. In Posen the Poles gained control of the Government, while the Rhine province threatened to separate from Prussia and to become the first province of the future united Germany, On 20 March Frederick William announced that Prussia would devote its entire strength to the movement for a united Germany, and to maintaining the rights of Germany in Schleswig and Holstein by war with Denmark. At the end of the month the king entrusted the Government to the Rhenish Liberals. The brief session of the second united diet had for a time a quieting effect, the Radical element predominated in the Prussian National Assembly which opened 22 May, and the king’s ministers, chosen from the Rhenish Liberals, were not able to keep it in check. During the summer the Conservative element, especially that of the old Prussian provinces, bestirred itself and held the “Junker Parliament”; founded the “Kreuzzeitung”, and won influence over the masses by appealing to the sentiments of Prussian particularism and loyalty to the king. When the Radicals favoured street riots, sought to place the army under the control of parliament, and resolved upon the abolition of the nobility, of kingship by the grace of God, and demanded that the Government should support the revolutionary party in Vienna, the king dismissed his Rhenish ministers. In the German movement also they had, in his opinion, failed. The war in Schleswig-Holstein had brought Prussia into a dangerous European position (Armistice of Malmö, 26 Aug., 1848).

The king now commissioned Count Brandenburg on 2 Nov. to form a Conservative ministry. The most important places in it were given to men from the old Prussian provinces. On 9 Nov., 1848, the National Assembly was adjourned and removed from Berlin. Martial law was proclaimed in the city. On 5 Dec. the National Assembly was dissolved, and a constitution was published on the king’s sole authority. Nearly all the Liberal demands of the National Assembly were granted in it, and the upper and lower houses of parliament provided for. Much was done to meet the demand of the Catholics for the complete liberty of the Church. After the failure of the Rhenish Liberal Government, the king hoped for support from the Catholics of the western provinces, and this was at first given. In order to satisfy public opinion a series of laws, intended to meet Liberal wishes, was promulgated in the course of the next few weeks. In accordance with the recently imposed constitution, a new chamber of deputies was immediately elected and opened 26 Feb., 1849, in order that it might express its opinion on the Constitution. However it came to no agreement with the Government. The three-class system of election, which is still in force, was now introduced for elections to the second chamber. In each election district all voters who pay taxes are divided into three classes, so that one-third of the taxes is paid by each class; each class elects the same number of electors, and these electors elect the deputies. Upon this the Radicals abstained from voting. The Conservatives were in the majority in the new chamber. The revision of the Constitution could now be proceeded with, and it was proclaimed on 31 Jan., 1850. According to its provisions Prussia was to be a constitutional kingdom with a diet of two chambers; great power was left to the Crown, which was moreover favoured by obscurities and omissions in the document. After the convulsions of 1848 Prussia had much need of rest. During this year the course of the German national movement had, however, excited the hopes of the king that Germany would acquire the unity which even he desired to see, and that Prussia would, as a result of this unity, be the leader of the German national armies, or perhaps control the new state.

The Liberals were estranged from the king in the autumn of 1848, and the wish was frankly expressed, if not fulfilled, that the future constitution of Germany should be decided in agreement with Austria, and if possible in agreement with all other German princes. These difficulties led the king to decline the German imperial crown when it was offered to him by the Frankfort assembly in April, 1848. He would not accept it from a parliament claiming its power from the sovereignty of the people. Soon after this, influenced by General Radowitz, he himself decided to open new negotiations on the question of German unity. The intention was that Prussia should unite with other German states that were ready to join in a confederation called the “union”, and that the union should adopt a constitution and have a diet. This confederation was to form a further indissoluble union with Austria, by which each should bind itself to assist the other in defending its territories. As Prussia had aided the principalities of central Germany to suppress internal revolts in the spring of 1849, these countries did not at first venture to disagree with Prussia, as appears from the agreement of 26 May with Saxony and Hanover, called the “union of the three kings”. Nearly all the smaller principalities joined also. Bavaria, however, refused to enter the union, and Austria worked against this plan. In the summer of 1849 Austria proposed to the Prussian Government that the two powers should revive the old German Confederation which had been cast aside the year before, and should henceforth lead it in common (“Interim”, 30 Sept., 1849). Russia, which had generally supported Prussia, now upheld Austria. Nevertheless the king, although much opposed by members of his Government, persisted in his scheme of a union. The constitution planned for the union was laid before a diet of the principalities belonging to the union, summoned to meet at Erfurt.

The Diet in session from 20 March to 29 April, 1850, accepted the Constitution. Upon this Austria encouraged the states of central Germany to form a confederation among themselves to which neither Prussia nor Austria should belong. This confederation was to act as a counterbalance to Prussia and at the same time was a menace to the Prussian supremacy in the Zollverein. In the autumn of 1850 war between the two parties seemed unavoidable. Russia, however, not wishing an open rupture, urged both sides to mutual concessions. Prussia now finally gave up its scheme of the “union”, and promised to re-enter the federal diet (Agreement of Olmütz, 29 Nov., 1850; further conferences, Jan. to April, 1851). The dispute between the two powers as to which should control the Zollverein continued for two years longer. The ability of Prussia to accomplish the difficult task of defeating the attacks of Austria was probably due to the expert knowledge and clearness of the chief representative of its economic policy, Rudolf von Delbrück, and to the fact that Hanover joined the Zollverein in Sept., 1851. Still, concessions had to be made to Austria in the Treaty of 19 Feb., 1853, which crippled the Zollverein until 1865. In all questions of foreign politics the relations between Prussia and Austria remained suspicious and cool. Prussia felt that the dispute had resulted in a painful weakening of its European position. The damage was further increased by the irresolute policy of the king during the Crimean War, which caused England to try to exclude Prussia from the congress at Paris in 1856. A small group of Prussian politicians, especially Bismarck, began to urge an aggressive policy and the seeking of support from Napoleon III for such a policy, but neither Frederick William IV nor his brother William who succeeded him would listen to the suggestion.

As regards the internal condition of the country, after the close of the revolutionary movements the Conservatives obtained a large majority in both houses of the Prussian Diet. The more determined members of the Conservative party in the diet demanded a complete restoration of conditions existing before the revolution. They were supported in these demands by the camarilla which had been active at the court since 30 March, 1848, and among the members of which were the brothers Leopold and Ludwig von Gerlach. Among the measures desired by the Conservatives were: abandonment of the German national policy; limitations of Prussian policy to northern Germany, closer connexion with England; the adoption of free trade as an economic policy; restoration of judicial and police power on their estates to the nobility; alteration of the Constitution of 1850; and restoration of the Protestant character of the country. Otto von Manteuffel, who had been minister-president since Nov., 1850, was able to defeat the most extreme demands. His chief effort was to suppress all parties as much as possible, and to make the Government official body once more the great power in the State. Up to 1854 there were bitter disputes as to the constitution of the upper house of the diet. At last it was agreed that it should be composed partly of representatives of the great estates, partly of representatives of the large cities and universities, and partly of members independently appointed by the king. The bureaucratic administration established by Manteuffel led to many arbitrary acts by the police, who were under the supervision of Minister of the Interior von Westphalen; the result was much bitterness among the people. Von der Heydt, Minister of Commerce, pursued a sensible policy, declining to favour concentration of capital, and protecting the small mechanical industries that were threatened with a crisis. From 1854 the influence of the churches over the primary schools was strengthened by the regulations issued by Raumer, Minister of Worship and Education. A defection from the Conservative party, led by von Bethmann-Hollweg (grandfather of the present Chancellor of Germany), was of little parliamentary importance, but apparently influenced the heir to the throne. In the same way the “Catholic Fraction” (1852), formed to oppose the re-establishment of the Protestant character of the State, proved to be only temporary.

In 1857 the king fell ill, and on 23 Oct., 1857, he appointed his brother William to act for him; on 26 Oct., 1858, William was made regent. All extremes of policy and religion were distasteful to William, and he began his reign with many misconceptions of the position of domestic politics. He therefore dismissed Manteuffel and formed his first ministry, the ministry of the “new era”, of men of the Bethmann-Hollweg party and of moderate Liberals, the premier being Prince Karl of Hohenzollern. He desired by this selection to assure the public of an evenly balanced nonpartizan administration. The Liberals, however, regarded it as a sign that the moment had come to repair the failure in 1848 to obtain a parliament and a Liberal form of government for Prussia. The war between Austria and France in 1859 obliged William to give his entire attention to the reorganization of the Prussian army, which was still dependent on the law of 1814, and had shown many deficiencies when mobilized on account of the war. In Dec., 1859, the regent appointed von Roon minister of war. A bill laid before the Diet in 1860 called for the reconstruction of the military forces, which since the War of Liberation had been disorganized; the army was once more to be a centralized professional force, and at the same time be enlarged without a great increase of expense. The Diet avoided taking any positive stand on the question. William, however, went on with the reorganization. In Jan., 1861, he became king (1861-88). In June, 1861, most of the Liberals united in the Radical “German party of progress”. The elections at the end of the year placed this party in the majority. Bills upon questions of internal politics that were intended to meet Liberal wishes were laid before the Diet in vain, nor did the resumption of the policy of the “union” by Count Bernstorff, Minister of Foreign Affairs, nor the commercial treaty with France in 1862 pacify the Liberals. A conflict between the Crown and the Diet began. The money demanded for the army was refused in 1862.

In Sept., 1862, the king called Bismarck to the head of affairs. He was ready to carry on the administration without the approval of the budget. In 1863 Bismarck dissolved the lower house of the Diet, took arbitrary measures against the Press, and sought to bring the Liberals in disfavour with the people by a daring and successful foreign policy. His first opportunity for this came when strained relations developed between the German Confederation and Denmark in regard to the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The upper house of the Diet now refused to grant the money for the expenses of the war against Denmark. Bismarck nevertheless carried on the war jointly with Austria; among its events were the successful storming of the Düppeler entrenchments on 18 April, and the crossing to the Island of Alsen in the night of 28-29 June, 1864. Even these events caused public opinion to change. At the next election the Conservatives were in the majority, and signs of disruption in the “German party of progress” were evident. The disputes which arose between Austria and Prussia as a result of the war with Denmark caused Bismarck to go to war with Austria in the early summer of 1866. The “party of progress” was now completely divided. At a fresh election for the House of Deputies on 3 July, accidentally the day of the victory of Königgrätz (Sadowa), the Conservatives gained one-half of the seats. The enthusiasm over the defeat of Austria and over the definite settlement thereby of Prussia’s leading position in non-Austrian Germany was so great that the difficulties besetting the internal policies could be regarded as removed. Bismarck made retreat easy for his opponents by asking indemnity for the period in which he had carried on the administration without a budget. The greater part of the “party of progress” now became supporters of Bismarck under the name of the “National Liberal” party; the leaders of the National Liberals were Twesten, Lasker, and Forckenbeck. Only a small section of the former “party of progress”, under the leadership of Waldeck, and Schultz-Delitzsch, remained in the opposition. As time went on Bismarck found it more convenient to manage parliamentary business through the National Liberals, and consequently made more concessions to Liberalism both in Prussia proper and throughout the kingdom than were in harmony with Prussian Conservative traditions.

In return the Liberals gradually abandoned their opposition to the military form of government in Prussia, and avoided disputes concerning constitutional law. Prussia received a large increase of territory by the war with Austria. After it had gained in 1865 Lauenburg, it also obtained Schleswig and Holstein, and with them a good maritime position, with Kiel as a naval station on the Baltic. Before this, early in 1868, it had obtained Wilhelmshafen from Oldenburg as a naval station on the North Atlantic. The war also gave to Prussia the Kingdom of Hanover, Electoral Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau, and the city of Frankfort-on-the-Main. Its area was increased to 132,000 square miles, its population to 20,000,000; at present the population numbers about 40,000,000. A still more important gain was that its western and eastern provinces were now united, and that it had complete military control of northern Germany. The additions of territory gave Protestantism once more the preponderance, as the Protestants now numbered two-thirds of the population. The Catholics of the new districts belonged ecclesiastically partly to the church province of the Upper Rhine, partly to the exempt Bishoprics of Osnabrück and Hildesheim; no change was made in these relations. An Apostolic prefecture was connected with Osnabrück, to which the Catholics of Schleswig-Holstein belonged.

VI. Prussia had now reached the goal which for three hundred years it had steadily sought to attain. Its ambitions were now satisfied; it ceased to pursue an independent foreign policy and directed that of the new German Confederation that was established under its headship in 1867-71. At first, both in southern Germany and in the small countries adjacent to Germany, it was feared that Prussia would continue its policy of conquest in order to create a “Greater Prussia”. This, however, was a mistaken opinion, as is also the belief that the German Empire is simply the heir to the position of Prussia as a great power. It is true that Bismarck after 1871 seems to have held this view, and to have regarded it as the sole task of his foreign policy to secure what had been attained by large military forces, by a peaceful policy of treaties, and by directing the attention of the other great powers to questions outside of central Europe. Soon, however, the empire was confronted by new and far-extending problems and combinations with which Prussia had never had to reckon. So after 1866 only the domestic policy of Prussia comes under consideration. After the war with Austria its first task was to combine the new provinces with the old in its state organization. This was much more easily accomplished than the similar task in 1815, both because the populations were more easily adapted to each other, and because the Government proceeded more circumspectly. It was only in Hanover that a strong party, that of the Guelphs, maintained a persistent opposition. The war had also made it possible for Prussia to restore the efficiency of the Zollverein. The resulting great economic development of Germany was of much benefit to Prussia’s western provinces, for the commerce of the Rhine and the manufacturing districts of the lower Rhine and Westphalia rapidly grew in importance. Berlin also shared in the general increase of prosperity, it became a city of a million inhabitants, a centre of wealth, was almost entirely rebuilt, and covers a larger area each year. In its active mercantile life it is a symbol of the present character of Prussia just as Potsdam, near by, still preserves the character of the Prussia of the era of Frederick the Great.

The result of the great economic development was a renewed growth in influence of the Liberal party, which, however, did not last beyond 1877. From 1870 the Liberals were opposed by the new and strong Centre party, in which the great majority of the non-Liberal, Catholic population of the western provinces were combined. The opposition between the Centre and the Liberals made it possible for the Conservatives to gain time to form a more effective political organization than any they had had before, and to regain for the elements holding to old Prussian traditions a marked influence upon Prussia’s domestic policy, notwithstanding the fact that since 1866 the western provinces included the greater part of the territory and population of the country. From 1871 the Government took part in the struggle in which Liberals and Catholics fought out their opinions. It restricted the share of the churches in the direction of primary schools, and passed laws that destroyed the ruling position of orthodoxy in the Protestant church system. It sought to bring the clergy once more under the power of the State. During the eighties Bismarck abandoned the Kulturkampf, so far as government interference in Catholic church life extended. There was no essential change in the policy affecting the Evangelical Church. The Evangelical Church has a supreme church council, and by the law of 1873 it received a synodal and parish organization; in 1876 a general synod was established by law. Few changes were made in the school laws. The final decision concerning them has not yet been reached, as in the Constitution of 1850 a special law of primary schools was promised, and this promise must now be fulfilled. A bitter struggle arose over this question. The bill of 1891 was dropped as too liberal; that of 1892 was withdrawn on account of the opposition of the Liberals. After this the matter was allowed to rest. In 1906, owing to the necessities of the situation, a law was passed by a combination of the Government with the Conservatives and National Liberals, with the tacit consent of the Centre. The question to be settled was who should bear the expense of the public schools?

It was laid down that the public schools were in general to be denominational in character; but that everywhere, as exceptions, undenominational public schools were permissible, and in two provinces, Nassau and Posen, should be the rule. The share of the Church in them was not defined, and the struggle as to its rights of supervision still continues. The general level of national education is satisfactory. Only .04 per cent of the recruits have had no schooling. In 1901 there were 36,756 public primary schools, of which 10,749 were Catholic. These schools had altogether 90,208 teachers, and 5,670,870 pupils. Only 315 primary schools were private institutions. For higher education Prussia has 10 universities, 1 Catholic lyceum, 5 polytechnic institutions, and 2 commercial training colleges. Unfortunately there grew out of the Kulturkampf not only the conflict over the schools, but also the conflict against the Polish population. The Government has always distrusted the Poles. This distrust has been increased by the democratic propaganda among the Poles, by their progress in economic organization, and their rapid social development. Moreover, the rapid increase of the Polish population and its growing prosperity have enabled the Poles to outstrip the German element, which does not seem capable of much resistance, in the provinces of East and West Prussia, and of late in Silesia. In 1885 the Government began a land policy on a large scale. The scheme was to purchase from the Poles as many estates as possible with government funds, to form from these farms to be sold by the Government on easy terms, and by establishing villages to settle a large number of German peasants in these provinces, which, on account of the many baronial estates, were thinly populated, and thus to strengthen the German element in them (1890, law for the forming of these government-leased, or sold, farms; 1891, law for a bank in support of these holdings). The Government began by banishing large numbers of Poles, then set systematically to work to germanize the Poles by limiting the use of their language; thus, even in purely Polish districts, Polish was almost entirely excluded from the public schools as the language of instruction, even for teaching religion. With exception of a break in the early part (1890-94) of the reign of William II, this anti-Polish policy has been carried on with steadily increasing vigour. At last in 1908 the Government by law acquired the right to expropriate Polish lands for its colonizing scheme, as voluntary sale of such lands had almost entirely ceased. So far no use has been made of this authority. The harsh policy of the Government greatly promoted the growth of Radicalism among the Poles; of late, however, the more sober elements seem to have regained influence over them. Besides the increase of the Polish population in the eastern provinces, there has also been a large emigration of Poles into the western provinces, factory hands, so that in some of the western election districts the Poles hold the balance of power.

Outside of its Polish policy Prussia since 1870 has done much for agriculture. Mention should be made of the founding of the central credit association fund, the first director of which was Freiherr von Huene, a member of the Centre party of the Prussian Diet. The reform of the system of taxation, however, was the main cause of the improvement and reorganization of the entire economic life. Indirect taxes were restored, the direct taxes of the country were based on an income-tax, from which very small incomes were exempted. The income-tax was supplanted by a moderate property tax. The taxes on profits were left to the communes for their purposes. Preparations for the tax-reform were made from 1881 by Bitter, Minister of Finance, and the reform was carried out (1890-93) by Miquel, Minister of Finance, a former leader of the National Liberal party. The introduction of the reform was simplified by the fact that only one-eleventh of the direct taxes were needed for the requirements of the Government, and of this eleventh the income-tax yielded 80 per cent. Five-sixths of the revenues of the Government come from the surplus earnings of the railways, as since 1879 nearly all the railways within its territories have been purchased by the State. As these surpluses vary they effect the uniformity of the budget, especially in periods of economic depression. Since 1909, however, provision has been made for this in the budget. The purchase of the railways by the State affected for some time the improvement of the waterways, on account of the advantage to the State of the railway revenues. In 1886 the improvement of water communication, which is still urgent in the eastern provinces, was taken up both in the form of a regulation of the rivers and in the form of a canal policy. In 1897 a bill was laid before the Diet, which sought to relieve the railways from overtaxing with freight, by a comprehensive construction of canals from the Rhine to the Oder. The bill was rejected. It was once more brought up, and this time the provision was included that the Government should have a monopoly of the towing on the canals to be built. The bill was accepted in this shape in 1905.

One result of the Government improvements of the waterways is its endeavour to limit the entire freedom of river navigation which has grown up in Germany on the basis of the acts of the Congress of Vienna. So far the Government has not been able to overcome the opposition to this plan in the empire and the neighbouring states; a bill to this end is before the Diet. Since 1870 Prussia has also considered large schemes for improving the organization of the administration. The organization of the district and country communes had not been settled in the earlier period; the organization of the provinces had also to be perfected. The law regulating the administration of the districts was passed in 1872 under the influence of the National Liberal party; the law affecting the provinces in 1875. At the same time a law, which met with general approval, in regard to the entire administrative jurisdiction was carried. In 1897 the difficulties were finally removed which up to then had prevented the Government from obtaining a law to regulate the country communes. This was effected by abandoning the effort to have one law for the entire country, and by passing one simply for the eastern provinces, where the need was most pressing. Since then there has been no further legislation as regards the organization of the administration. In the future new and large questions as to administration will have to be settled, which in the meantime are being discussed by a commission appointed by the king in 1908, who are to report directly to him. Of late, public opinion has also been occupied with constitutional questions, especially of the Centre and the parties of the Left for the adoption of the imperial system of electing the Reichstag in Prussia. The Government is not ready for this, and desires only to modify the three-class system. The first bill for this did not meet with the approval of the Prussian Diet, and was withdrawn in May, 1910.

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PRUTZ, Preussische Gesch. (4 vols., 1899-1902). Among earlier histories should be mentioned: STENZEL, Gesch. des Preussischen Staats (5 vols., 1830-54), extends to 1763; RANKE, Zwölf Bücher Preussischer Gesch. (5 vols., 1874); DROYSEN, Gesch. der preuss. Politik (14 vols., 1855-86), extends to 1756. Reviews of historical works on Prussia appear regularly in the semi-annual Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preussischen Gesch. Authorities: LEHMANN, Preussen und die katholische Kirche seit 1640 (1807), up to now 9 vols.; Urkunden und Aktenstücke zur Gesch. des Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (1864–), up to now about 20 vols.; Protokolle und Relationen des Brandenburgischen Geheimen Rates aus der Zeit des Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm (5 vols., 1889–); Politische Korrespondenz Friedrichs des Grossen (32 vols., 1879–); Preussische und österreichische Akten zur Vorgeschichte des 7. jährigen Krieges, eds. VON VOLZ and KÜNTZEL (1899); Acta Borussica. Denkmäler der Preussischen Staatsverwaltung im 18. Jahrhundert (1892–), in course of publication; Briefwechsel König Friedrich Wilhelm III und der Königin Luise mit Kaiser Alexander, ed. BAILLEU (1900); Preussen und Frankreich von 1795-1807, ed. IDEM (2 vols., 1881-87); Denkwürdigkeiten des Staatskanzlers Fürsten von Hardenberg, ed. RANKE (5 vols., 1877); Aus den Papieren des Ministers Th. von Schön (1877-83); VON HUMBOLDT, Politische Denkschriften, ed. GEBHARDT (3 vols., 1903-04); Wilhelm des Grossen Briefe, Reden und Schriften, ed. BERNER (2 vols., 1906); PUFENDORF, De rebus gestis Friderici Wilhelmi Magni electoris Brandenburgici commentariorum libri XIX (Berlin, 1695); FREDERICK THE GREAT, Works; WADDINGTON, Le Grand électeur Frédéric Guillaume de Brandebourg. Sa politique extérieure (1905–); PAGES, Le Grand Electeur et Louis XIV, 1660-68 (1905); SCHMOLLER, Umrisse und Untersuchungen zur Verfassungs-usw. Gesch., besonders des Preussischen Staats im 18. und 19. Jahrh. (1898); KOSER, König Friedrich der Grosse (2 vols., 1893-1903); CARLYLE, History of Frederick II of Prussia (6 vols., 1858-65); Die Kriege Friedrichs des Grossen, ed. by the GROSSER GENERALSTAB (1890–), in course of publication; BROGLIE, Frédéric II et Marie-Thérèse, 1740-42 (2 vols., 1883);. IDEM, Frédéric II et Louis XV, 1742-1744 (2 vols., 1885); HÜFFER, Die Kabinetsregierung in Preussen und Johann Wilhelm Lombard (1891); IDEM, Amastasius Ludwig Mencken (1891); ULMANN, Russisch-Preussische Politik unter Alexander I und Friedrich Wilhelm III bis 1806 (1899); LEHMANN, Freiherr von Stein (3 vols., 1902-04); CAVAIGNAC, La formation de la Prusse contemporaine, 1806-13 (2 vols., 1891-98); TREITSCHKE, Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert (5 vols., 1848, 1879-94); KNAPP, Die Bauernbefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Teilen Preussens (2 vols., 1887); ZIMMERMANN, Gesch. der Preussisch-Deutschen Handelspolitik (1892); PARISET, L’Etat et l’Eglise en Prusse sous Frédéric Guillaume I (1897).

MARTIN SPAHN Transcribed by Kenneth M. Caldwell Dedicated to the loving memory of my Austrian Catholic grandparents, Jacob Meshnik and Maria Spreitzer Meshnik.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Prussia

(Ger. Preussen) is a kingdom of the new German Empire, virtually embracing within its own history the story of the whole empire, in which it is the guiding and ruling power. Before its recent aggrandizement, it consisted of two large tracts of land extending from Russia on the east to Holland and Belgium on the west, south of the Baltic and north of Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, etc., but separated from each other by the kingdom of Hanover, the duchies of Mecklenburg and Oldenburg, the electorate of Hesse-Cassel, duchy of Nassau, and some minor states. In 1866, Prussia received large accessions of territory, having annexed the kingdom of Hanover, the duchies of Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Sleswig and Holstein, the free city of Frankfort, and some districts of Bavaria and Hesse- Darmstadt. The area of Prussia was thus increased from 108,212 Eng. sq. miles to 137,066, and the population from 19,304,843 to 24,106,847, of whom 23,746,790 formed the civil population, and 310,055 the military, the average density of the population being 176 per Eng. sq. mile. The variation in density is considerable, the greatest being in the manufacturing district of Dusseldorf, in the Rhine province, where it is four times the average, and smallest in the district of Kislin, Pomerania, where it amounts to three fifths of the average. Prussia is now divided into eleven provinces and three annexes, with a population, according to the official census for 1885, as follows:

Eng. sq. m. Pop. Dec. 1185.

1. Prussia24,8803,367,704

2. Posen11,3301,715,618

3. Pomerania12,1301,505,575

4. Silesia15,6664,112,219

5. Brandenburg15,5052,342,411

6. Saxony9,7292,428,367

7. Westphalia7,7712,204,580

8. Rhine province10,2894,344,527

9. Hesse-Nassau5,9431,592,454

10. Hanover14,8462,172,702

11. Sleswig-Holstein6,959995,873

12. Principlity of Hohenzollern45366,720

13. City of Berlin51,315,287

About 88 per cent. of the population are Germans. Of the Slavonic tribes, the most numerous are Poles, numbering two and a quarter millions. In Brandenburg and Silesia there are about 85,000 Wends, and in East Prussia upwards of 147,000 Lithuanians; while Western Prussia has rather more than 10,000 Walloons using the French language, intermixed in its generally German population, and Silesia has nearly 59,000 Bohemians or Moravians-making in all two and a half millions who do not use the German language, or who employ it only as secondary to their native tongues. Three distinct classes are recognised in Prussia namely, nobles, burghers, and peasants. To the first belong about 177.000 persons, including the high officials of the state, although that number does not comprise the various mediatized houses, of which sixteen are Prussian, and others belonging to different states, but connected with Prussia by still existing or former territorial possessions. The burgher class includes, in its higher branches, all public-office holders, professional men, artists, and merchants; while the peasantry to which belong all persons engaged in agricultural pursuitsare divided into classes, depending on the number of horses employed on the land, etc.

I. History and Religion. The lands bounded by the Baltic and now constituting East Prussia, and the adjoining territory on that side of the Oder, form the original home of the Prussians within the vast territory they now occupy. These lands were early occupied by Slavonic tribes, nearly allied to the Lithuanians (q.v.) and the Letts. It is conjectured that they were visited by Phoenician navigators in the 4th century B.C.; but beyond the fact of their having come into temporary conflict with the Goths and other Teutonic hordes prior to the great exodus of the latter from their northern homes, little is known of the people till the 10th century, when they first appear in history under the name of Borussi, or Prussians. They were then a small but vigorous people, and had made themselves a terror to their neighbors by bold inroads, when the race of the heroes and sea- kings arrived from Norway and Sweden. Scandinavian Goths settled in the country, and the southern shores of the Baltic sounded with the praise of the exploits of Starkodder and Ragnar Lodbrog.

1. Mythological Period. In the oldest historic times, doubtless, the primitive inhabitants Prussians, Lithuanians, Ulmarugians, Curlanders, Livonians, etc. worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars, and the powers of nature generally. The Scandinavians, who were further advanced in the arts of war and of peace, better armed, and skilled in agriculture, then brought in new gods, among them the three supreme rulers, Perkunos, Potrimpos, Pikollos, and most probably all their other deities. Much has been written and argued on the question whether the three mentioned names, or the gods to whom they are said to have belonged, really existed, or whether they were mere inventions of some imaginative chroniclers. There are even writers who have discovered in them the three persons of the Holy Trinity. We shall not dwell on these speculations, but briefly state iwhat we positively know of the ancient mythology of a people which occupies such a high rank among the nations of Europe. Besides the three mentioned, there was another important deity, called Curcho, the giver of food. His image stood at the foot of many a holy oak. There was one at the place where the city of Heiligenbeil was afterwards built. The apostle of the Prussians cut the venerable tree with a hatchet, and this circumstance gave the town its present name.

There were spread over the whole country sacrificial stones, or altars, on which milk, mead, honey, beer, flour, meat, fish, etc., were offered to the god. Every year his image was made anew, out of wood, on the consecrated spots; it was clothed in goat-skins and crowned with herbs and ears. Then it was carried about amid the shouts of the populace; dances and sacrifices ensued. The inferior gods, in large number, have been divided, not, perhaps, very properly, into gods of the heavens, of earth, of the water, of men, of the cattle, of the lower world, into gods of labor, gods of trade, into good and bad gods. This was, no doubt, a kind of worship of nature, similar to that which we find among all half-civilized nations. The holiest place in the land was Romowe. Only a priest was allowed to approach it. There were but few exceptions. Thus, by special favor, a powerful ruler was permitted to come near the consecrated spot, and to speak to the Griwe, or high-priest. But not even those great personages were suffered to come near the sanctuary, the ever-verdant oak, and the gods that stood below it; for it was surrounded with a fence formed by long pieces of white linen, something like a most primitive tabernacle. To a great distance the land around the sanctuary, and the wood which encircled, it was consecrated. No one could enter this forest, which occupied many square miles; and if, unwittingly, some wretch put his foot into it, his life was forfeited to the offended deities. No tree was felled there, no wild animal chased. Besides this celebrated Romowe, there were other places of the same kind spread all over the country, and whose names, commencing with Ronzas, and partly preserved to our days, are expressive of calm and holiness. We find quite a number of such names in Lithuania. In Prussia the trees were held holy, as among the ancient Germans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Rugians, Holsteinians, and kindred peoples. There existed also single oaks and linden-trees which were held in particular veneration as being the seats of some divinity; they were approached with pious horror and deep reverence. The oak of Heiligenbeil, with a circumference of forty feet and a diameter of nineteen, was the most celebrated. Some mountains enjoyed the same honors. The best-known of them was near Brandenburg, at a short distance from the Frische Haff: Near the holy woods and trees there were, as a rule, holy fields, which never were touched by the plough. We also find holy springs, from which no one could take water unless he previously offered a sacrifice: their water was believed to be a sure medicine against certain diseases. There were also holy lakes, either in a separate place or connected with the sanctuaries and forests: no one was allowed to fish in their waters.

The gods adored in those consecrated places were, besides those already named: Okopirn, the god of the air and of tempests; Swaixtix, the god of the starsa most important god in the North, with its long winter nights; Bankputtis, the god of the sea; Antrimpos, the angry god, who excites the waves; Wurskeite and Szwambxaite, the protectors of cattle and poultry, worshipped extensively in the whole country; Gardebis and Janztiubobis, the protectors of oxen and sheep; Perdoitos, the god of trade, who made the sea propitious to the mariner, and was specially honored on the sea- coast; Puskaitis, the god of woods and trees, who lived under the foliage, and whose dwelling-places mwere held particularly holy. This god had, throughout the country, a number of sanctuaries, where he was attendmed by a multitude of strange, dwarf-like beings, which the imagination of the people had fitted out and ornamented in the most fantastical manner. Perqubrius gave fertility to the fields; Zemlberis strewed the earth with seeds, and covered it with flowers and herbs; Pelwitte filled with riches the houses and the barns; Ausweikis was the god of health, resorted to by the sick and invalid. To these must be added quite a number of female deities. Jawvinna watched over the germination and growth of corn; Melletele covered the meadows and gardens with herbs and grass; Strutis was the goddess of the flowers; Gobjlaja was the goddess of riches and opulence; Guze led the wanderers through deserts and gloomy forests; Swaigsdunoka, the bride of the stargod, directed the heavenly bodies on their path; Laima was the obstetric goddess, and fixed the destinies of the new-born.

The bad goddesses were, the sanguinary Gittine, who brought painful death; Magila, the wrathfiul deity, who visited cruel misfortunes upon those she disliked; Launle, who intervened in human affairs now sportively, now malignantly, leading the wanderer astray by will-o’-the- wisps, seizing upon helpless children, etc. Besides these gods and goddesses, there were tutelary spirits spirits of the woods, of the waters, of the earth, most of them servants of the god Puskaitis men of the woods, dwarfs, elfs, called barstucs, or perstiks. Similar to these were the nightly spectres, who at twilight left their dark recesses to seek food. They were appeased by putting sacrificial meat in lonesome spots; thus they became guardians of house and barn, and the childish fancy shaped and ornamented them in the quaintest manner. The animal kiingdom, also, held many objects for worship. The snake was the object of particular veneration, being the favorite of Potrimpos. Snakes were believed to be a blessing for the house and household, to be immortal, and to gain renewed youth with each change of skin. They were dutifully fed in the holes of old oak-trees, and gladly admitted into buildings and chambers. Barren women fed them with milk, imploring at the same time the blessings of Laima. Carelessness towards them was attendled with misfortunes of all kinds. This regard for the snake continued in Prussia and in the neighboring countries till long after the introduction of Christianity. The horse, especially the white horse, was in great honor among all Northern peoples, as mwell as among the Germans, as a spirit of prophecy was said to dwell in him. All white horses were consecrated to the gods, and no one would have dared to mount a steed of that color. To beat or damage it was a capital crime. Among the birds, the owl enjoyed special regard, because it was believed that she predicted to her friends the coming mishaps.

The gods being so numerous, it was but natural that the priests should form a very large body. At their head stood the Griwe, almost a god himself, so great was the veneration in which he was held among all the nations of the North. The waidlotes, griwaites, siggones, wurskaiti, pustones, saitones, burtones, and swakones were the members of a powerful hierarchy, and exercised an unlimited influence upon those superstitious tribes. There was no lack of female priests either; and it would seiem that female deities were attended exclusively by female priests, as male gods were worshipped only by male priests. Yet it is not likely that sacerdotal women were admitted into the Romowe, as the Griwe, as well as all other priests, had to remain in single blessedness.

A transgression of this law was visited with capital punishment, the culprit, being dragged away from the holy ground and burned alive. There is some contradiction between this stern enforcement of the law of virginity and the way in which the body of female waidlotes was recruited. If a woman had been sterile in marriage, and became, after the death of her husband, the mother of a son or of a daughter by an unmarried man, she was considered as holy, and was admitted to the number of the female priests. As far as the institutions of the ancient Prussians are known, they exacted from their priests a pure, pious, and holy life. Those only could be admitted among the superior priests, the grivites, who, during many years, had shone by an exemplary life; and even the relations whom the Griwe wished to be received into the sacerdotal body had to prove that their conduct had been unblemished, or they were rejected. The priests were supported entirely by the people, for we do not find any mention of their being addicted to agriculture or any art or trade. The sacrifices and offerings were their principal income. They received beer, milk, fruits, animals, tissues for sacerdoral garments, etc. Libations were offered to the gods, and the liquid offering was drunk by the priest. Sometimes this sacrifice was attended with quaint ceremonies. At the great springfestival, the priest filled a cup with beer, took it between his teeth without touching it with his hands, drained it, and then threw it over his head. Those behind him caught it, filled it with beer, and brought it back to him a second and a third time. The act of emptying three times the cup was intended in honor of the three great gods; the throwing of the cup mwas the sacrifice brought to them, which human handus durst not touch. After this ceremony the cup circulated from mouth to mouth. Each worshipper took it between his teeth, emptied it, and with his teeth the neighbor took it from him. Finally, the benedicticio was given to the people; a banquet ensued, in which intoxicating, beverages were so plentifully tasted that the solemnity generally ended in bloody work, as is the case, even in our days, with Poles, Lithuanians, and other nations.

2. Introduction of Christianity. We here substantially give the account found in Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v.

Several attempts to introduce the Christian religion into Prussia had been fruitless. St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, died April 23, 997, a martyr to his faith, while endeavoring to convert the people to Christianity. Bruno, of the falmily of the Barons von Querfirt, who, after renonncing his canoiuny and entering the Benedictine congretgainmi of Camaldoli, had repaired to Prussia in 1008, to preach there the Gospel and convert those pagan tribes, also suffered martyrdom (Feb. 11, 1008). The endeavors of the Polish princes to Christianize the Prussians by force were still most unsuccessful. As the acceptance of the Christian eligion had been made a condition of peace by Boleslas, duke of Poland, about 1018, they consideied the Christian communion as an obnoxious consequence of unhappy warfare, as a yoke imposed by the foe, and they shook it off every time when they felt strong enough to do so. Thus the disinclination to the new worship increased continually, until it reached the very pitch of hatred and disgust. Meanwhile Otto, bishop of Bamberg (1124), preached with success in Pomerania, and Christianity by degrees reached the banks of the Vistula. The first Christian ruler in Pomerania, Subislas I, founded in 1170 near Dantzic, the monastery of Oliva, which became a seminary whence the seed of the Christian faith was in time to spread over Prussia’s soil.

Previous to the establishment of Oliva’s monastery the Prussians, however, had succeeded (in 1161) in making a stand against Boleslas IV of Poland, and for a time maintained a rude and savage kind of independence, which the disturbed condition of Poland prevented its rulers from breaking down. The fear of losing their freedom if they adopted Christianity made the Prussians obstinately resist every effort for their conversion; and it was not till the middle of the 13th century, when the knights of the Teutonic Order entered upon their famous crusade against them, that the Christian faith was foreally established among them. The aggressive inroads of the pagan Prussians on the territories of their Christian neighbors, and their advance into Pomerania, were the exciting causes of this important movement. Christianity was by the reverses of the Polish plinces thrown so vastly upon the defensive that the Pomeranian duke Grimislas, of Stargald and Schurtz, called in 1198 some knights of St John into his dominions, and delivered into their hands his castle of Stargard and some adjoining territories for operations against the Prussians.

The intimate commercial relations between Brunen and Livonia facilitated the woik of the missionaries, and gave easy access to the latter country. After the Christian religion had been introduced into Pomerania and Livonia, and an order of Christian knighthood had been founded for its aid and maintenance, the prospects in Prussia also seemed to brighten. Although the exertions of Gottfried, abbot of the monastery of Cistercians of Lukina (1207), in Poland, and of his fellow-monk Philip, who suffered martyrdom, were not attended with any enduring success, yet were two of the native princes converted. A few years afterwards appeared the man to whom was reserved the glorious achievement of introducing Christianity into Prussia. It was the Cistercian monk Christian, of the monastery of Oliva, a man distinguished by every virtue, and speaking fluently the German, Latin, Polish, and Prussian languages. In 1210 he obtained permission from pope Innocent III to go to Prussia with somne chosen companions, and his efforts were crowned with such brilliant success that in the fall of 1214, or at the beginning of 1215, he wnas appointed bishop of Prussia, the new converts having hitherto been committed to the pastoral care of the archbishop of Guesen. The number of the converted Prussians was considerable, and two of their princes, Warpodo, the ruler of the land of Lansania, and Suavobuno, who reigned in the land of Lubau, had made provisions for the maintenance of the bishop.

This partial triumph of Christianity excited the inner of the heathenish Prussians, who were, besides, maddened by the expeditions of Conrad, duke of Masovia. Help from abroad was sorely needed. Crusades, however, could not afford any lasting protection. The Order of the Knights of Christ, called also Brother-knights of Dobrin, founded in Livonia in 1225 by bishop Christian, on the pattern of the Knights of the Sword, was no match for the savage fury of the Prussians: at the very beginningr of the war all the knights, save five, were killed in lattle near the spot where Strasburgh was afterwards built. By bishop Christian’s advice, the Teutonic Order was applied to for assistance (1226). The grand-master, Hermann von Salza, asked consent of Fiederick II, who not only granted the request, but also promised his help, and confirmed the donations of land formally made to the order by duke Conrad of Masovia. After four years of negotiations, duke Conrad made a solemn grant to the order of the whole land of Culm, between the Vistula, Drewenz, and Ossa, with all the conquests they should add to it; while at the same time bishop Christian, and Gunther, bishop of Plock, renounced in their favor all their possessions, revenues, and patronal rights in those countries, reserving only their episcopal jurisdiction and their pontificalia. At the same time the popes, Gregory IX, in 1234, and Innocent IV, in 1244, declared the present and future conquests of the order feuds of the papal see (in jus et proprietatem B. Petri suscipimus et eam stub epeciali Sedis Apostolicct protectione et defensione perpetuo tempore permanere sancimus…. Te Conrade magister ejus domus annulo, nostro de terra-investimus, ita quod ipsa… . ullius unquam slubjiciatur dominiio potestatis; quae vero in fnturnm… de terra pagailornm in eadem provincia vos contigerit adipisci, firma et illibata vobis vestrisque successoribus soub jure et proprietae Sedis Apostolicoe eo modo statuimus permanenda’). An annual tribute was promised to the Roman court. At the same time the pope stipulated that in the newly acquired territories churches should be built, bishops and prelates appointed at his will, that a portion of the land should be granted to the latter dignitaries, etc. The grand-master selected Hermann Balk to be the leader of the knights he intended to send to Prussia, and the administrator of the land given to the order by duke Conrad; Hermann, probably of Westphalian birth, was not only a distinguished warrior, but a man full of wisdom and experience in all worldly matters; a pious knight, too, who, during a space of ten years had administered the possessions of the order in Germany, and gainied by his remarkable aptitude the full confidence of the grand-master. All other high functions were intrusted to equally distinguished persons, who, with a few knights and a considerable body of cavalry, set out on their way to Prussia. They arrived in 1228 in the dominions of Conrad of Masovia. Numerous as was their host, yet the Prussians counted a thousand warriors where they counted one. Conrad could assist them, but hardly make them formidable, by the addition of his forces, his weakness being the very cause which had made their expedition desirable. His land was torn by its unceasing troubles, and, besides, engaged in perpetual warfare with her neighblors. Pomerania, itself offered no prospect of help, as duke Swantepolk entertained but hostile relations with Conrad, and with Poland in general. It was a heroic daring in the Teutomnic Order to engage in their expedition undier such unfavorable circumstances. They began the war wiithout delay, assisted by bands of crusaders (1232), Gregory IX preaching the crusade against Prussia with unabating zeal. The land of Culm was occupied, with the help of Swantepolk of Pomeraneia, in spite of the desperate resistance of the Prussians. The order, at the same time that it constructed forts to insure the new conquests, helped German colonists in building cities in well-protected and fertile places. Thorn was reared first, soon afterwards Culm, both in 1232, and Marienwerder in 1233. The Prussians, disnmayed by the large body of troops arrayed on their frontier, and knowing perhaps that the crusades were engaged for the space of a year only, pretended to be unwilling to fight and inclined to receive baptism. Bishop Christian forthwith repaired to the district of Pomerania, in order to preach and to baptize. But a few days afterwards he was attacked by the pagans, his companions all killed, and the bishop himself led into captivity. The pope now recommended caution to the Dominicans in Prussia, and bade them beware of the wily stratagems of the heathens. A spell of cold weather having made the moorlands of Pomesania easy of access, the whole Christian army invaded that country at the beginning of 1234. The Pomeranians were defeated near the Sirgune River, in the neighborhood of a consecrated wood, after victory had been passing for several hours from host to host The battle was a most bloody one, and the spot where it had raged was, long after the event, called The Field of the Dead.’ As its final gain by the Christians was due to Swantepolk, an army of Pomesanians crossed the Vistula and laid waste the whole land of Pomerania. The monastery of Oliva, which had been recently put under papal protection was stormed and reduced to ashes. To protect the land of Culnm against the vengeance of the infuriated invaders, Hermann Balk erected the fort of Rheden in 1234, which was the origin of the city of Rheden. This kind of precaution was indispensable, as the crusaders dispersed after a year’s service, and the knights had to hold the country with their sole resources. There came other difficulties: the order and bishop Christian could not agree; there were grievous dissensions between the order and duke Conrad; a contest arose between Swantepolk of Pomerania and Henry of Breslau, and cut off, for the knights, all prospect of help from those quarters. The pope, informed of this state of affairs, sent his legate, bishop William of Modena, with most extensive powers, especially for the constitution to be given to the churches and for the distribution of bishoprics in the northern countries; and he announced the arrival of his legate and the object of his mission to the Christians in Livonia, Prussia, Gothland, Finland, Esthonia, Semgallen, and Courland. The legate arrived in Prussia at the beginning of summer in 1234, and exerted himself at once in compounding the dispute between bishop Christian and the order. The bishop had made a division of the land, taking two thirds as his share, and left only one third to the order; he had further exlpressed the opinion that the countries recently conquered for the Church were lawfully his. The legate did not approve of these views: he decided, in conformity with his instructions, that of all territories occupied and still to be occupied, two thirds should go to the order, with all revenues connected with them the dime, for instance; that tihe bishop should have olllv onne third for his share, but with this additional stipulation, that in the two thirds which went to the order, such advantages as could be enjoyed only by a bishop should also accrue to the latter. The bishop was obliged to submit to the legate’s decision. The difficulties between the order and dnke Conrad could not be so easily removed. The Knights of Dobrin had joined the Teutonic Order, and the latter had taken possession of the fort of Dobrii, with all its dependencies, in spite of the protest of the duke. The pope, in a bull of April 19, 1235, approved the fusion of the Brothers of Doblrin with the Teutonic Order, mainly at the request of the bishop of Plock. The latter and the plnpal legate, after negotiating through the summer moiuths, succeeded in October in restoringg concord. The knights delivered to Conrad the castle of Dobrin, with its dependencies, and received in exclange other territories, of which the most important was Slonzk, with its salt-mines. Gregory IX, in spite of his manifold Italian cares and troubles, endeavored with all his might to promote the enterprise of the order. The preaching of the crusade was not interrupted in Germany, and measures were taken to increaise the number of the knights. Fresh troops of crusaders having arrived from Germany, the war was resumed. Pomesania and Pogesania were conquered: with the former of these provinces the whole eastern shore of the Vistula was in the power of the order. Those of the enemy who surrendered were spared, experienced mild treatment, and were immediately christened by the priests who followed the army. Herman Balk and his knights endeavored to subdue by the influence of Christian meeknsess these savage spirits, whose faith in their gods was shaken by so great misfortunes. A chronicler says: Not like lords, but as fathers and brothers, they rode about the land, visited both the rich and the poor, invited the new Christians to their meals, took care of and nursed in their hospitals poor, sick Prussians, provided for widows and orphans whose husbands and fathers had perished in the war, and sent clever young men to Germany, especially to Magdeburg, to get well instructed in Christianity and in the German language, and to become afterwards teachers, in Prussia.’ It was at this time that Henry Monte, who became so distinguished afterwards, was brought up in the celebrated monastery school of Magdeburg. The expenses of these young men were paid with these alms gathered in Germany. The landmaster’s humane measures did not fail to make their impression even on the unconverted part of the nalion. All measures of coercion had been prohibited. Wherever the order established its authority churches were built: Thorn, Culm, Rheden, Marienwerder, had their churches. The city of Elbing built a church and a monastery in the first year of its existence. Even the open country had not been left without churches: we find in 1236 a mention of the parish of Postelin, in Pomerania. Some pious men exerted themselves in order to instruct the people in the Christian faith. The papal legate, William of Modena, preached with great success; he was powerfully assisted by the Domininicans, several of whom were masters of the Prussian language. The most distinguished among these monks was St. Hyacinth, who belonged to the house of the counts of Odrovanz, one of the oldest and most celebated of the families of Silesia. His father was count of Kliiski, and his uncle chancellor of Poland and bishop of Cracow. Hyacinth was born in 1185 in the castle of Gross-Stein, district of Gross-Strelitz, in Upper Silesia, and studied at Cracow, Prague, and Bologna. In the latter city he received the title of doctor of laws and theology. On his return home he was promoted to a canonry at the cathedral of Cracow, and assisted the bishop in the administration of his diocese. When his uncle Ivo of Kolski became bishop of Cracow, he went to Rome, and took along with him Hyacinth and his brother Ceslaus. In the year 1218, when St. Dominic was in Rome, both brothers entered the Dominican Order, and Hyacinth became one of the most active northern missionaries. Another powerful missionary was bishop Christian, but his dissensions with the order could only be detrimental to the cause of Christianity. In 1237 a pest- like disease spread over the dominions of the order, and caused many of the neophytes to waver in their new faith. On May 9, 1238, a treaty was concluded with Waldemar, king of Denmark, through the exertions of the papal legate: the king received the fort of Reval and the territories of Harrien and Wirland, while the order received the district of Ierwen; only no forts were to be built in the latter without the king’s consent. The king promised not to put any obstacle in the way of the order in their work of conversion, but to help them where he could: two thirds of the conquests were to go to the king, one third was the order’s share. Hermann Balk, thus assisted by the Danes, undertook an expedition against the Russians, who had invaded the diocese of Dorpat; but soon important events recalled him to Prussia. The knight Hermann von Altenburg, a pious man, but rigid and austere, whom the grand-master had intrusted with the administration of the dominions of the order during his absence, had not imitated the wise moderation and patient meekness of his superior. On hearing that a Prussian village had gone over to paganism again, he set fire to it, and priests and villagers perished in the flames. This created in the country bitter dissatisfaction, and the fruit of the restless labors and struggles of ten years seemed to be lost by one reckless act. Other misfortunes had come upon the order. Their old friend Swantepolk of Pomerania had become their foe: it was fortunate that the duke was threatened by other enemies, and found it prudent to make peace. Then Hermann Balk was recalled by the grand-master in 1238, and took his departure after providing for the good administration of the country; but he never saw it again. He died March 5 1239. On March 20 the noble grand-master, Hermann von Salza, died also, and was succeeded by Conrad, landgrave of Thuringia. Henry of Wida was appointed grand-master in Prussia. After protracted hostilities with the Prussians and duke Swantepolk of Pomerania, a treaty was concluded on Feb. 7, 1249, by which the provinces of Pomesania, Pogesania, Ermland, and Nataugen submitted to the order and promised conversion. The neophytes obtained all civil rights, were allowed to enter the ecclesiastical state, and to become members of regular congregations. These civil and other rights were forfeited by their eventual apostasy. The legate having put the question as to what worldly laws the neophytes wished to have introduced, and what tribunals they would most willingly recognise, they declared for the legislation of the Poles: this they were granted by the order. On being taught by the legate that all men were equal, they promised to give up their heathenist customs as to the burial of the dead, and those various ceremonies in which the distinctions of rank were preserved even after death, and to bury their dead in Christian cemeteries. They also promised to renounce polygamy; that no one should in future sell his daughlter to another man in mnatrimonly, nor buy at wife for himself or his son: that nobody should henceforward marry his mother- in-law, or the widow of his brotther, nor any person standing to him in a degree of relationship prohibited by the canon, without a license from the pope. No child should be admitted to inherit his or her parents’ estate if the matrimony of the latter had not been of such a description as to satisfy the exigencies of the Church. The killing or exposing of children was prohibited; the baptism of the new-born, within a short period, was made obligatory. As it was a consequence of the want of ecclesiastics and of churches that many children had remained unchristened, the parents promised to present them all for baptism in the course of a month. Such as should infringe upon the proscriptions, or who refused baptism for thenmselves, were to have theit goods confiscated, to be themselves covered with a slight garment, and expelled from the territory of the Christians. The Pomesanians promised to build thirteen churches from that time to the next Whitsuntide, the Warmians promised six, the Natangians three; each church to be properly fitted out with its ornaments, chalices, books, and other implements. It was agreed upon that if the neophytes failed to construct the churches promised by them, the knights should be empowered to levy a tax on their estates and build the churches themselves, even if it should be necessary to recur to violent means. They promised to attend worship, at least on Sundays and holydays. The order, in their turn, promised to furnish the churches with priests and estate in the course of a year. Most minute and careful provisions were made for the maintenance of the ecclesiastics. The neophytes further promised to keep the fasts prescribed by the Church, not to do any hard work on Sundays and holy-days, to confess their sins at least once a year, to partake of the Lord’s Supper at Easter, and, in general, to submit their conduct to the directions and teachings of the clergy. They pledged themselves to bring every year the dime into the granaries of the order; to defend the persons, honor, and rights of the order; to keep aloof from any treasonable practices against it, and to denounce such plots if they were known to them. The order had always, even during the excitement of the war, borne in mind the highest aim of their labors, the establishment and expansion of Christianity. Honorius III had committed to bishop Christian the care of establishing bishoprics, but he did not even succeed in fully organizing the bishopric of Culm. In 1236 Gregory II had enjoined on his legate to divide the new countries into dioceses, and to establish three bishops in them. In a bull of Oct. 1, 1243, the pope informed Christian that he had divided Prussia into four bishoprics, Culm being one of them. Christian was invited to make choice of one of these bishoprics, but to content himiself, according to the treaty concluded with the order, with one third of the land. Bishop Christian died in 1243 or 1244. His death greatly facilitated the legate’s discharge of his duties, who now had full powers to do as he deemed fit. The first diocese was to include the land of Culm, as far as it is bounded by the rivers Vistula, Drewenz, and Ossa, with the addition of the distrlict of Lobau; the so-called Sassenlalnd and the territory of Gilgenburg belonged also to the first diocese. The second diocese was bounded by the rivers Ossa and Vistula and the lake of Drausen, and reached upwards to the banks of the Passaluc or Passarge River; it comprised Quidin and Zanthis, and was called the diocese of Pomesania. The third diocese was bounded west by the Frische-Haff, north by the Pregel River, or the Lipza, south by the Dransen Lake and Passaluc River, and extended east to the boundaries of Lithuania. This was the diocese of Ermland. A fourth diocese was to comprise the yet independent countries bounded west by the Baltic Sea, north by the Memel, south by the Pregel, and east by Lithuania. This was subsequently called the diocese of Samlaud. The letgate, on April 10, 1244, assembled at Thorn the most distinguished clergymen of the neighboring countries the archbishop of Gnesen, the bishops of Breslau, Leszlau, and Plock, a number (of Polish abbots, the most considerable of the Teutonic Knights, and other men of high standing to take their advice on the constitution to be introduced into the new bishoprics. The Dominican Heidenreich (the faithful assistant of bishop Christian), who had been over ten years busy in the work of confession, was selected for the diocese of Culm. The Dominican Ernest, from Torgau, friend and companion of Heidenleich, who had, like him, worked many years for the expansion of Chrisitianity, was selected to be the first bishop of Pomesania. A brother-priest of the Teutounic Order, Henry of Strateich, was appointed bishop of Ermland. The diocese of Samlaud received in 1255 its first bishop in the person of Henry of Strittberg, a brother-priest of the Teutonic Order. His successor, Christian von Muhlhausen, a man distinguished by his piety as well as by his knowledge, and who was also a priest of the order, did not arrive in Prussia unitil 1276. The chapter was established first at Schonewik, near Fischauseu, then (in 1285) at Konigsberg. The bishops, owing to various impedmnents, did not occupy their sees at once. Bishop Heidenreich of Culm (whether the two others did the same cannot be ascertained) repaired to the papal court, and was consecrated by the pope himself at Lyons, probably in the course of the year 1245. By this time the legate, William of Modena, had airrived also at the court of Rome, anld was soon promoted to the bishopric of Sabina. It wasn’t an easy matter to find a successor to a man who had played such a prominent part in the religious organization of the north Prussia, Livonia, Courland, and Estonia, and displayed so much zeal, intelligence, and energy in most intricate affairs. The bishops of Prussia needed, above all, a man who had insight and influence enough to draw positive limits between the dioceses, and render the decisions in a number of concerns where no rules had as yet been agreed upon. In the year 1244, pope Innocent IV thought he had found such a man in the person of the administrator of the diocese of Linbeck, Ekbert formerly archbishop of Armagh, in Ireland. The legate was at the same time appointed archbishop of Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia. That the new archbishop might have an income proportioned to his dignity, the pope committed to him the bishophric of Chiemsee, which had just becomme vacant, and enjoined the archbishop of Saltzburgh to deliver into the hands of the archbishop of Prussia the administration of said diocese. Towards the end of April, 1246, the pope sent him the archiepiscopal pallium, and allowed him, at his request, to make use of it during his sojourn in Russia and in the church of Lubeck; but this right, was not to be extended to his successors. At the same time Ekbert went to Russia, to promote the fusion of the Russian and the Roman Catholic Church; and pope Innocent IV recommentded him to reward the zeal of the knights by appointing one of the priests of their order to one of the Prussian Bishoprics. Bishop Heidenreich of Culm first took in hand the administration of his diocese. The country had been devastated and neglected, was scantily populated, and churches were rare and separated by large intervals. The bishop had to induce colonists to settle in his diocese, and he succeeded so well that after five or six years he could think of the establishment of a cathedral church The cathedral was consecrated in Culm in 1251, and received the name of the Holy Trinity; at the same time a chapter was founded, under the rule of St. Augustine, and so richly endowed that, as soon as the revenue of the lands could be collected, forty canons might be held. Besides the churches, the number of which was continually increasing in cities and villages, the land of Culm had already several monasteries; for instance, a Dominictan monastery at Culm, and a Franciscan monoastery at Thorn.

The history of the bishopric of Pomesania is little known in the first years of its existence: we only know that bishop Ernest had taken possession of his see in 1247. In 1255 he chose for his residence Marienwerder, and there the cathedral was erected. The first bishop of Erlnland, Henry of Strateich, died in 1249 or 1250. His successor was another priest of the Teutonic Order, Anselm, who had had a considerable share in the work of conversion and in the victories of the order. The division of the land was made in 1255: the bishop chose the middle part, in which the city of Braunsberg was situated. Bishop Anselm displayed indefatigable activity in the discharge of his duties; took wise measures for the education of youth, for the erection of new churches, etc. The bishops of Prussia lived for a long time in very distressing circumstances, owing to the frequent wars and to the disinclination of the neophytes to pay the dime. Not being able to live on the produce of their own lands, they had to live abroad. The archbishop of Prussia consulted the pope in regard to these inconveniences, and the pope agreed that each of the three bishops of Prussia could accept, for his subsistence and ecclesiastical feud, if it were transferred to him in a legal way; but he was to keep it, only as long as the situation of the Prussian Church made it desireable. The popes displayed indefatiguable vigor in assisting by all means in forming the Church. Their voice was continually heard exhorting priests and monks to repair to the new provinces and share in the work. In 1240 pope Innocent IV addressed a bull to the superiors of all monastic orders, in which he urged them to help the sister churches of Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia, where books were wanted, with their superabundant wealth in this respect, or to have copies made for them. Honorius III and Innocent III had done much for the inmprovement of the schools. Honorius, in a special bull, had invited Christian contributions for the purpose of establishing boys’ schools, in order to promote the work of conversion. The former legate, William of Modena, had greatly distinguished himself in these efforts: he had even learned the Prussian language, and translated Donatus for the Prussian schools. The bishops also exerted themselves strenuously for the estlablishlment of public instruction. We find traces of country schools in Ermland as early as 1251. By an agreement between bishop Anselm and the order, the knights, in their own domains, were empowered to engage and to dismiss schoolmasters. We infer that schools for the education of the young must also have existed in the most important cities, as Thorn, Culm, Marienwerder, Elbing, Braunsberg, and Konigsberg. But we have no historical datal on this point, and we may well admit that the protracted and savage warfare which made everything unustable in those countries during so many years did not allow any irregular development of public instruction. The work done in other countries by monastery schools was at that time of little importance in Prussia, the order not being favorable to the establishment of monasteries. Much was done by monasteries in cities, but their influence was shut up in the town halls, and, besides, their number and their means of influence were insufficient. Yet in the second half of the 13th century the necessity of providing the people with a Christian education was deeply felt. Not only were numerous churches built in the country, and priests called, but the cathedral chapters, as may be seen by the deed of fonundation of the Pomesanian chapter, were established for the express purpose that the Catholic faith should be more thoroughly taught. In consequence, only men of education and abilities were received into the chapters. Libraries were founded for the use of the ecclesiastics in the chapters; bishops endeavored to increase by donations the number of books; the pope himself came to the rescue, as we have seen above. The archbishop of Prussia was, as we know, at the same time papal legate: in this capacity he had many a contest with the Teutonic Order, and in such cases both parties are apt to exceed the limits of their rights. While the archbishop violated acknowledged rights of the order, the order made violent inroads upon the privileges of the archbishop. The sad consequences of these hostile relations appeared in 1248, when the establishment of a solid ecclesiastical constitution in the recuperated countries made an active interference of the archbishop necessary. The three bishops of Prussia Heidenreich of Culm, Ernest of Pomesania, and Henry of England together with the margrave Otto von Brandenburg, interposed their mediation in 1249, and promoted between the order and the legate mutual forgiveness for past wrongs and reconciliation for the future. The archbishop promised to assist the order by his preaching, and by every other means, as best he could, and to make no complaint, either at the papal court or before any other judge, as to the rights and privileges in dispute; while the knights, in their turn, promised to molest him no more, and pay him all due respect and veneration. At the same time the order pledged itself to pay 300 marks in silver at fixed times to the archbishop, while the latter engaged never to establish his residence in Prussia unless he had the express authorization therefor from the superior of the order. This convention was concluded Jan. 10, 1249. Yet the trouble was only temporarily improved. A complete reconciliation could only be brought about by the interference of papal authority; and the popes were just then otherwise engaged. The schism in the German empire was, as it were, repeated in the Teutonic Order: there was a double election. In such a time of discord, obligations and promises are easily forgotten, or at least neglected; and it sometimes becomes impossible, or at least difficult, to live up to one’s engagements. The dispute began again between the order and archbishop Allbert. But, as the inner dissensions of the order gave additional gravity to exterior troubles, the land-master, Dietrich von Gruningen, repaired to the papal court, and there represented the great disadvantages with which the missionary work would be attended if a good understanding could not be restored. Innocent summoned the land-master and the archbishop for the ensuing Easter. The archbishop anppeared at the appointed tine at Lyons, and the pope satisfied himself that he had exceeded his powers as a legate. In consequence, in September, 1250, the archbishop was forbidden to make any further use of his powers as legate, or to make any episcopal appointments in the future, either in Prussia, Livonia, or Estonia. But his archiepiscopal relations to the order needed also positive revaulation: the decision about these matters was given in 1251. The bishops Peter of Albano and William of Sabina (the former legate) and cardinal Giovaniii di San Lorenzo were commissioned by the pope to make arrangements. They negotiated on the ground of the reconciliation prepared in 1249 by the bishops and margrave Otto. Thus the dispute was allayed, Feb. 24, 1251, and bishop Bruno of Olmutz was requested by the pope to see to the faithful obhservance of the articles agreed upon. But at the same time the seeds of new dissension had been scattered. To give to the archiepiscopal dignity in the countries of the Baltic a firmer support, bishop Willian of Salbina directed, in the pope’s name, that the seat of the archbishop should be Riga, which was in many respects the most important and fittest city in those parts. After the decease of the actual bishop of Riga, or if his see should become vacant in any other way, the Church of Riga should become achiepiscopal, and be transfered to archbishop Albert. Meanwhile nothing should be altered in the situation of the bishop of Riga, and the archbishop should exercise in his diocese only his archiepiscopal jurisdiction. Nicolaus, bishop of Riga, died at the close of 1253, and Allert, in 1254, established himnself in Livonia. He had already been empowered to exercise again the power of a legate in Prussia, Livonia, and Esthonia. But in Prussia, his ordinances in ecclesiastical matters, and the exercise of his power as a legate, met with some obstacles: there were the liberties and privileges granted to the order by the popes: there were the peculiar relations existing between the bishops and the order, for under Heidenzieich’s successor the chapter of Culm had adopted the rule of the Teutonic Order, and the chapters of Samland and Pomesania had in their origin been filled with brothers of the order. The archbishop submitted these difficulties to the pope, and expressed a wish to be relieved of his duties as a legate so far as Prussia was concerned, discharging the same only in Livonia, Esthonia, and Russia. The pope complied with this wish, reiterating the old injunctions not to do anything in the lands of the order against the will of the same. Albert assumed in 1254 the dignity of archbishop of Riga, and found himself, as such, in quite new relations with the order in Livonia. The troubles which arose out of them were again disposed of at the papal court, whither both parties had again betaken themselves, Dec. 12, 1254. In the ensuing year pope Alexander IV, by a bull, received the Church of Riga, with all its enumerated possessions, into the protection of the apostle Peter; subordinated to it the bishoprics of Oesel, Dorpat, Wierland, Courland, Culm, Ermland, Pomesania, Samland, and Russia; defined with accuracy the rights and liberties of the archbishop, and delineated in all its bearings his situation in regard to the clergy of those countries and to the Teutonic Order. Thus the hierarchical affairs were settled. The order enjoyed in their lands the patronal rights; the bishops and chapters enjoyed them in their own territories. In the lands of the older the bishop could pretend only to what must needs be done by a bishop (salvis tamen episcopo in duabus fratrum partibus illis omnibus quae non possunt nisi per episcopum exerceri). Nothing now prevented the blessings of Christianity being poured over Prussia. But there were other obstacles in the way. The people had been converted under compulsion, and the the spirit of Christianity had poorly prospered in such a soil. The knights, to promote the knowledge of the German language, and bring about a gradual fusion of the Prussian and the German element, used to appoint German priests exclusively; the consequence was that the pastor could speak to his flock only through the ministry of an interpreter. With the exception of Ermland, all episcopal chapters were filled by brothers of the order, and thus the grand-master’s will was decisive in all episcopal elections. This was afterwards felt, when the order had hated much of its strictly clerical spirit, to be at some disadvantage. The order was often engaged in disputes with the bishlps; and the metropolitan land by their refusal to heed the papal interdict which such conduct brought upon them they set a bad example. In a moral point of view also the knights were not always shining lights; and it is a sorrowful truth that a number of members of the higher and lower clergy were not their superiors in this respect. Even the most zealous of the archbishops could not change this unfortunate state of things, the metropolitan tie of Ermland, Samland, and Pomesania with Riga, and of Culm with Guesen, being a very loose one. In the dominions of the order few monasteries were established, and not one could acquire might and influence by its wealth: the acquisition of real estate by ecclesiastical corporations, or even by individual priests, was subject to the agreement of the order, and this was usually withheld. The two Cistercian monasteries of Oliva and Pelplin were the (only exceptions: under the protection and by the liberality of the old dukes of Pomerania they had acquired such extensive possessions that they were surpassed by no other monastery, either in Pomerania or in Prussia.

The unhappy wars between the knights and the Poles and Lithuanians, together with the moral degeneracy of the order, led, in the 14th and 15th centuries, to the gradual decline of their supremacy. In 1454 the municipal and noble classes, with the co-operation of Poland, rose in open rebellion against the knights, who were finally compelled to seek peace at any rate, and obliged in 1466 to acccept the terms offered to them by the treaty of Horn, by which West Prussia and Ermland were ceded by them unconditionally to Poland, and the remainder of their territories declared to be fiefs of that kingdom. In 1511 the knights elected as their grand-master the mangrave Albert of Anspach and Baireuth, a kinsman of the king of Poland, and a scion of the Frankish line of the Hohenzollern family. Although his election did not inmmediately result, as the knights had hoped, in securing them allies powerful enough to aid them in emancipatitng themselves from Polish domination, it was fraught with important consequences to Germany at large, no less than to the order itself. The state founded by the order had, through the peculiar relations in which it stood to the papal see, through its great privileges, and through the weakness of the German emporers, secured a most independent situation, which was still strengthened by the circumstance that the bishops, being members of the order which ruled the land, had more interest with this worldly power than with the papal see. The monasteries could put no check on the omnipotence of the order, for, as a consequence of the nature of things, they were few in number. This, and the political situation of the time, facilitated the entrance of the Reformation into Prussia. The grand-master of the Teutonic Order, margrave Albert Von Brandenburg, endeavored in 1519 to shake off the feudal supremacy of the pope. The wish of suppressing, according to Luther’s advice, the foolish, nonsensical rule of the order, of taking a wife, and making of Prussia a worldly principality, induced him, afer the peace of Cracow, in 1525, to accept Prussia from the crown of Poland as a secular, hereditary feud.

Foreseeing that an example so momentous to the ecclesiastical dignitaries of Germany could not but arraign many adversaries against him, duke Albert looked about for allies, married the daughter of the king of Denmark in 1526, and, by renouncing Roman Catholicism, entered into the closest relations with the Protestants of Germany. Under the protection of king Sigismund of Poland he could stand his ground, and the protestation of the pope and of the members of the orders spoiled of their rights was just as ineffectual as the Acht pronounced against him by the emperor. Charles V had been powerless against him; and Maximilian, who would have been powerfully supported by the German nobility, did not care to declare war against the house of Brandenburg or to break the good understanding existing between himself and his brother-in-law, the king of Poland, especially as he lived in the hope that one of his sons would in time ascend the Polish throne. The duke’s example of adopting the new faith was followed by many of the knights of Prussia, and Lutheranism, especially through many considerate as well as coercive measures, made rapid progress. Indeed, the whole country now began to improve and thrive. Albert improved the mode of administering the laws, restored some order to the finances of the state, established schools, founded the University of Konigsberg (1544), and caused the Bible to be translated into Polish, and several books of instruction to be printed in German, Polish, and Lithuanian. Upon his death, in 1568, Protestantism had so strengthened in Prussia that there remainled not the least prospect of the Catholic Church getting the supremacy again. His son and successor, Albert Frederick, having become insane, a regency was appointed. Several of his kinsmen, in turn, enjoyed the dignity of regent, and finally his son-in- law, Johann Sigismund, elector of Brandenburg, after having held the admlinistration of affairs in his hands for some years, was, on the death of the duke in 1618, recognised as his successor, both by the people and by the king of Poland, from whom he received the investiture of the duchy of Prussia, which, since that period, has been governed by the Hohenzollern- Brandenburg house.

Here it will be necessmary to retrace our steps in order briefly to consider the political and dynastic relations of the other parts of the Prussian state. In the 12th century the northern Mark, comprising probably the territory between the Elbe and the Oder as far as its confluence with the Spree, was held by the immediate descendants of Albert, the Bear of Luxemburg, its first hereditary margrave, who, during the next two or three centuries, extended their dominions eastward beyond the Oder into Farther Pomerania. On the extinction of this line, known as the Ascanian house, a remote kinsman, Frederick VI, count of Hohenzollern, and margrave of Nurnberg, became possessed partly by purchase and partly by investiture from the enmperor of the Brandenburg lands, which, in his favor, were constituted into an electorate. This prince, known as the elector Frederick I, received his investiture in 1417. He united under his rule, in addition to his hereditary Franconian lands of Anspach and Bairenth, a territory of more than 11,000 square miiles. His reign was disturbed by the insubordination of the nobles and the constant incursions of his Prussian and Polish neighbors, but by his firmness and resolution he restored order at home and enlarged his boundary. It is said that he gained possession of the castles of his refractory nobles by the aid of a 24- pounder, known as the Faule Grete;’ but even this unwonted auxiliary was of no avail in a long war which he waged against the Hussites, who devastated the land and razed many of his cities in revenge for the part which Frederick had taken in acting as commander-in-chief of the imperial army that had been sent aganst them.

Under Frederick’s successors the Brandenburg territory was augmented by the addition of many new acquisitions, although the system of granting appanages to the younger members of the reigning house, common at that time, deprived the electorate of some of its original domains as, for instance, the Margravate of Anspach, which passed, on the death of the elector Albert Achilles, in 1486, as an independent state to his younger sons and their descendants. The most considerable addition to the electorate was the one to which reference has already been made, and which fell to the elector John Sigismund through his marriage (in 1609) with Anne, daughter and heiress of Albert Frederick, the Insane, duke of Prussia. In consequence of this alliance, the duchy of Cleves, the countships of Ravensberg, the Mark, and Limburg, and the extensive duchy of Prussia, now known as East Prussia, became incorporated with the Brandenburg territories, which were thus more than doubled in area.

The reign of John Sigismund’s successor, Georg Wilhelm (1619-40), was distracted by the miseries of the Thirty Years’ War, and the country was alternately the prey of Swedish and imperial armies; and on the accession of Georg Wilhelm’s son, the great elector Frederick William, in 1640, the electorate was sunk in the lowest depths of social misery and financial embarrassment. But so wise, prudent, and vigorous was the government of this prince that at his death, in 1688, he left a well-filled exchequer and a fairly equipped army of 38,000 men; while the electorate, which now possessed a population of one and a half million, and an area of 42,000 square miles, had been raised by his genius to the rank of a great European power (Chambers). His successors, Frederick III (1688-1713) and Frederick William I (1713-40), each in his own way increased the power and credit of Prussia, which had been in 1701 raised to the rank of a kingdom a most sirgnificant change not only in the secular, but also in the ecclesiastical history of that country. Sweden had sunk down from the eminence which it had held for a time as the leading Protestant power in the North; Prussia now rose to take the place from which Sweden was receding, and the apparently insignificant event of 1701 at Konigsberg was followed by very grave consequences, both for Germany and Europe.

3. Reformation Period. The religious history of this early period of Prussia’s aggrandizement is as full of interest as the secular. Its people, among whom, even in the 16th century, heathenish customs maintained their place side by side with Christian usages, were among the first to look favorably upon the new Gospel movement. The German order they had learned to despise, and, looking upon Christianity and knighthood as synonymous, they had steadfastly opposed conversion. But now, when a gospel was preached discarding and opposing the papacy and all its agencies, the people became ready converts; and the princes, accepting this great popular movement as insurmountable, suffered themselves to be borne along with the tide. In Prussia the priests even favored the new departure. From the success of the Reformation the princes expected the forfeited property of the Church, the priests expected wives, and the people freedom. So says Marx (Urachen der schnellen Verbreitung d. Ref. [Mayence, 1834]). In Prussia, even the bishop of Samland, George of Polentz (q.v.), and soon afterwards Queis, bishop of Pomerania, favored the movement; and the former finally placed himself at the head of it. and proclaimed on Christmas-day, 1523, in the cathedral of Konigsberg, with great joy, that the Saviour had been born once more for his people. In 1525 the progress of the new opinions was so great that when the country was converted into a secular dukedom the entire populace signified their cordial acquiescence, and rejoiced to rank themselves among the followers of Luther. A German liturgy was soon afterwards introduced, adhering as closely as might be to the ancient forms; the convents were changed into hospitals; and by the help of postils (q.v.), or expository discourses on the epistles and gospels, regularly sent from Wittenberg, the doctrines of the clergy were kept in general harmony with each other, and also with the tenets advocated in the Lutheran metropolis. The two bishops, together with three evangelical preachers Luther had sent Briesmann, Sperat, and Poliander had prepared a Church discipline (Agenda), and caused its adoption, under the title Artikel der Ceremonien u. anderer Kirchenordnung, by Parliament (Landtag) in December, 1525. In 1540 the discipline was enlarged, and in 1544 still further augmented. In 1530 a confession of faith, consisting of eleven articles, was promulgated, under the title Articuli Ceremoniarum e Germanico in Latinum Versi et nonnihil Locupletati, by a general synod at Konigsberg. This was the first compus doctrinae. When the Augsburg Confession was published (1530-31), Albert sent for a copy and caused it to be introduced into the Prussian Church by episcopal decree. But in 1544 Albert determined upon the future independence of the Prussian Church from Wittenberg, and to this end endowed the University of Konigsberg a high school which was destined not only to play a great part in the history of Prussia and of Germany, but of Poland also; for from this university much Scriptural knowledge spread to Poland, and gave rise to a strong reformatory movement there (comp. Krasinski, Hist. of the Ref. in Poland, 1, 158). But this university also became the source of a very serious theological controversy, m hich came very near destroying the Protestant Church of Prussia and seriously damaging the evangelical cause in all Germany. We refer to the Osiander (q.v.) controversy. It began in 1549. Osiander was that year lecturing at Konigsberg de lege et evangelio, and next year de justificatione. He died in 1552, but his son-in-law, Funk, continued to espouse Osiander’s views, and in the controversy which ensued so much bad blood was raised that in 1553 the leaders of opposition were obliged to quit the country; and when, later, the tide turned against the Osiandrians, Funk himself and two other leaders paid for their distinction with their lives, in 1566. SEE FUNK, JOHANN; SEE MORLIN, JOACHIM. Duke Albert then set about restoring the peace of the Church. He was not himself able to grapple with the far-reaching theological, anthropological, and soteriological questions which the Osiandrian controversy had raised. He had as suddenly turned from one side to the other as the prosperity of the Church seemed to demand. He had unsettled all and settled none, but he had, at least, the satisfaction of seeing one good result from the agitation. It made evident the need of a generally accepted Confession, and he intrusted its preparation to Morlin and Chemnitz, and in 1567 they brought out the Corpus Doctriince Prutenicum, also called Repetitio Corporis Doctrinoe Christianoe, which became the symbolical text-book of Prussia. Although it had been intended to abide, so far as the cultus was concerned, by the regulations of 1544, a revision was called for after the publication of the Repetitio, and in 1568 was brought out another Kirchenordung u. Ceremonien wie es in Uebung Gottes Worts v. Reichung der hochwurdigen Sakramente in den Kirchen des Herzogthunes Preussen gehalten werden soll. This finally established the evangelical cultus.

In 1548 the reforming party in Prussia was greatly strengthened by the arrival of multitudes of Bohemian brethren, who were ordered, under most severe penalties, to leave their country within forty-two days (May 4, 1548). Duke Albert offered them an asylum in his states, whither they migrated under the guidance of Mathias Sionius, the chief of the whole community.

Polish or West Prussia, together with the minor states of Courland and Livonia, gradually underwent a similar transformation, owing to many favorable influences. Luther’s pamphlets, exposing the weaknesses of the papacy and of Romanism, had free entrance in these countries. The bishop of Ermland, Fabian, not only raised no opposition himself, but, as the Romanists claim, was even anxious that the reform movement should succeed. Then the government of the Polish sovereign, Sigismund Augustus, by granting plenary freedom of religion to the towns of Dantzic, Thorn, and Elbing, greatly facilitated the triumph of the Protestant opinions, which was effected about the year 1560. Germany, at last, had conquered for herself by the Reformation the valiant Prussians, and in the borders of Slavic and Roman influence had firmly planted the seed of German culture and German Protestantism, which was to germinate and spread so marvellously. The evangelical Church of Prussia, which was always after in closest intimacy and most active co-operation with German Protestantism, to which it owed its origin, had nevertheless its own peculiar formation, and took for its development its own peculiar way. Most remarkable is the fact that the prince under whom the Prussian evangelical Church first established itself lived to see it rooted and grounded in doctrine, cultus, and discipline. Duke Albert died March 20, 1568.

4. Modern Period. Frederick I was distinguished for his rigid economy of the public money and an extraordinary penchant for tall soldiers, and left to his son, the great Frederick II, a compact and prosperous state, a well- disciplined army, and a sum of nearly nine million thalers in his treasury. Frederick II (1740-86) dexterously availed himself of the extraordinary advantages of his position to raise Prussia to the rank of one of the great political powers of Europe. In the intervals between his great wars, he devoted all his energies to internal improvement, by encouraging agriculture, trade, and commerce, and reorganizing the military, financial, and judicial departments of the State. By his liberal views in regard to religion, science, and government, he inaugurated a system whose results reacted on the whole of Europe; and in Germany, more especially, he gave a new stimulus to thought, and roused the dormant patriotism of the people. Frederick was not over-scrupulous in his means of enlarging his dominions, as he proved by sharing in the first partition of Poland in 1772, when he obtained as his portion nearly all West Prussia and several other districts in East Prussia. His nephew and successor, Frederick William II (1786-97), aggrandized his kingdom by the second and third partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795. Frederick William III (1797-1840), who had been educated under the direction of his grand-uncle Frederick the Great, succeeded his father in 1797, at a time of extreme difficulty, when Continental rulers had no choice beyond being the opponents, the tools, or the victims of French republican ambition. By endeavoring to maintain a neutral attitude, Prussia lost her political importance, and gained no real friends, but many covert enemies. But the calamities which this line of policy brought upon Prussia roused Frederick William from his apathy, and, with an energy, perseverance, and self-denial worthy of all praise, he devoted himself, with his minister, count Hardenberg, to the reorganization of the State. In the ten years which succeeded the battle of Waterloo, Prussia underwent a complete reorganization. Trade received a new impulse through the various commercial treaties made with the maritime nations of the world, the formation of excellent roads, the establishment of steam and sailing packets on the great rivers, and, at a later period, the organization of the customs treaty, known as the Zollverein, between Prussia and the other states of Northern Germany, and through the formation of an extended net-work of railways. The most ample and liberal provision was made for the diffusion. of educatioun over every part of the kingdom and to every class.

In like manner, the established Protestant Church was enriched by the newly inaugurated system of government supervention, churches were built, the emoluments of the clergy were raised, and their dwellings improved; but, not content with that, the king wished to legislate for the Church in accordance with a set plan, and determined to force a union of the Lutherans andl the Reformed, whose unhappy separation was painful to the devoted king. This union scheme was not new. A union tendency had shown itself early in the German Church, and attempts were made to bridge over the gulf which began to deepen between the Lutherans and the Reformed in consequence of the differences on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The so-called Concordia of Wittenberg in 1536 and the Augustana Variata of 1540, with which also the Reformed Synod agreed, are prominent proofs of this. For nearly half a century, John Duraeus (died 1680), an Anglican clergyman and an apostle of union, travelled about for the accomplishment of his great object; but each of the three great Protestant churches Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican contended not only for a faith in the Christ revealed in the Scriptures, which was the only basis of iunion insisted upon by him, but for all those peculiarities which separated it from the others.

An agreement for mutual ecclesiastical recognition (tolerantia ecclesiastica) was formed on the principles of Calixtus at the religious conference at Cassel in 1661, and resulted in the transfer of the University of Rintein to the Reformed Church. But notwithstanding these conlcessions, which gave the appearance of a unionistic and tolerating tendency, the Lutheran divines, according to Tholuck, declared that they would rather hold communion with the papists, and regarded the hope that even Calvinists might be saved as a temptation of the devil (Geist d. luth. Theol. Wittenbergs, p. 115, 169, 211). Yet, after the Peace of Ryswick, when it became urgently important to have fraternal connections between the Protestant nations as a security against the dangerous exaltation of the Catholic powers, the house of Prussia took upon itself the task of adjusting the dissensions which prevailed, principally among the Lutherans, by a union of the two Protestant churches. The elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg, while accepting the Reformed creed in 1614, did nevertheless adhere to the Augsburg Confession like the Brandenburg and Hessian theologians at the Leipsic colloquiium in 16331 and his successors, the princes of Brandenburg and Prussia, who remained in the Reformed communion, always cherished a desire to bring their evangelical people to a better understanding, and, if possible, a union in the government and worship of the churches. The appointment of a few bishops constituted a part of the ceremonial at the coronation of the first king of Prussia (1700), but this suggested the idea of a union by the introduction of the form of government which prevailed in the Anglican Church. Temples of peace and union churches were, however, consecrated in vain. Leibnitz succeeded in breaking off the negotiations. There was, none the less, full confidence that the object would one day be brought of itself to a successful conclusion.

When the wars with France ended so favorably, the king thought the day auspicious for the consummation of the dream of his reigning ancestry, and by royal decree of Sept. 27, 1817 (the Jubilee of the Reformation), king Frederick William III declared the union effected. But the various Protestant churches refused to be joined in the Utopian union prescribed for them. New difficulties arose. The tendency to over-legislation was long the predominating evil feature of Prussian administration. The State, without regard to the incongruous elements of which it was composed, was divided and subdivided into governmental departments, which in their turn, under some head or other, brought every individual act under governmental supervision, to the utter annihilation of political or mental independence. The people, when they gradually began to comprehend the nature of this administrative machinery, saw that it made no provision for political and civil liberty, and demanded of the king the fulfilment of the promise he had given in 1815 of establishing a representative constitution for the whole kingdom. This demand was evasively met by the king, who professed to take high religious views of his duty as a sovereign, and its immediate fruits were strenuous efforts on his part to check the spirit of liberalism.

Every measure taken by other sovereigns to put down political movements was vigorously abetted by him. Siding with the pietists of Germany, he introduced a sort of Jesuitical despotism. The Landstande, or provincial estates, organized in accordance with the system of the Middle Ages, were the sole and inadequate mode of representation granted to Prussia in that reign, notwithstanding the pledge made to the nation for a full and general representative government. A further attempt made forcibly to unite Lutheran and Reformed churches by royal decree of Feb. 28, 1834, excited universal indignation, while the imprisonment, at a later period, of the archbishops of Cologne and Gnesen for their conduct in regard to the vexed question of mixed marriages involved the king in a long and fruitless dispute with the pope. In his ecclesiastical regulations, the king was generally assisted by the gentle Altenstein, his minister for public worship, with whose preferences for the Hegelian philosophy in the Church and in the schools he was often displeased, but whom he never would quite abandon. When the civil power had absorbed all authorities peculiarly ecclesiastical, the king established (1817) provincial consistories, whose duties were confined to matters exclusively spiritual, and did not include the location of clergymen; district and provincial synods, comnposed only of clergymen, and restricted within a narrow circle of duties, but intended to be an introduction to an imperial synod; and a ministry for public worship, which was to be the organ through which the ro al authority was exercised over the Church.

he oath which the clergymen were to take bound them to be the servants of the State as well as of the Church. The development which had taken place in the principles of Protestantism, and the modes of speech occasioned by the new scientific and literary education of the people, next rendered some alteration of the language of the Church indispensable. New liturgies were therefore introduced into some established churches without attracting much attention. A common form of worship seemed to become necessary by the union which bv the year 1821 had been outwardly effected. The theological commission appointed for composing such an instrument in Prussia accomplished nothing. The king then published an Agenda which had been adopted by his cabinet (1822) for the use of the court church, gave orders that it should be introduced into the garrison churches of his kingdom, and recommended it to all the congregations of the realm, instead of the conflicting and arbitrary forms which had previously been used in the different provinces. But it met with much opposition. The Reformed complained that it savored too much of the old ecclesiastical formula. They objected, too, to the burning of candles in broad daylight, and the kneeling and singing of the preacher before the altar, and the like, which seemed to them to betray a Roman Catholic spirit. The rigid Lutherans complained that it was not sufficiently orthodox, and was too much reformed. On the other hand, the adherents of the early theology of illuminism found it too orthodox, too much in sympathy with the old ecclesiasticism. They did not perceive in it their own theological opinions, but just the reverse; and it was from their standpoint that they very properly hesitated to make use of expressions and ceremonies with which thev could connect no other sense than one contradictory to their convictions. Some, also, were displeased with a heterogeneous political element which they discovered in it. But no general opposition to it was apparent until the government took some steps to draw over the churches by various temptations or by coercion, and some authors colltended that a strict conformity to the liturgy should be required by a law on the territorial system. In the midst of this confusion, no synodal constitution was carried into effect; for even the victorious political party took no pleasure in a measure which so forcibly reminded them of the promised representative system. It was only in Westphalia and the Rhenish provinces that a synodal form on the basis of ancient usages was introduced (1835), but even there the system left as much to be desired as it actually fulfilled.

The appointment of general superintendents (1829), with means at command for a very extensive sphere of personal influence, was looked upon as a restoration of the titular bishops to their former prelatical position, and hence as the commencement of a Protestant episcopacy The controversy now became legal, and the jurists and theologians pronounced their different opinions in answering the question as to how far the king, as the prince of the country, was authorized in prescribing his ecclesiastical usages to the people and in foisting a particular service upon them. It was only after inew negotiations and revisions, in which all possible consideration was shown for personal wishes and the traditions of the country, that the liturgy entered into full force (1830) as that of the United Evangelical State Church. By the union it was opposed even after this; and, as we have already seen, a second decree was necessary (1834) to give the stamp of the government anew to the effort. The result was a public outbreak. In Silesia, especially, there was much trouble, and the refractory spirit assumed an alarming form. Removals, military force, and emigration were the sad results; and finally there occurred a disunion among the Lutherans themselves some yielding to the force of circumstances, others pushing their cause to the utmost, and still others going to ruin in sectarianism. SEE LUTHERANISM

The accession of Frederick William IV, in 1840, seemed to open a better prospect to the friends of constitutional freedom, but the reality was scarcely equal to the expectations which had been warranted by the professions of the government. Still, new hopes and requirements had been excited, and a new life was infused into every department of the State. Every branch of science. art, and literature was understood to receive the attentive consideration of the sovereign, who professed to be actuated by a love of universal progress. He made similar professions in regard to religious toleration, but the pietistic tendencies of his government exerted a forced and prejudicial influence in public administration everywhere.

At an early period of his reign, the king had expressed his determination to allow the Church, over which the crown had acquired supreme power during the Reformation, freely to form for itself its own external organization. The transfer of a part of the ecclesiastic administration from the provincial governments to the consistories in 1845 might be construed as an expedient to get an easier control of the Church by the appointment of persons of a particular party. But when the provincial synods had assembled in 1844, composed of the superintendents of each of the six eastern provinces, and a clergyman chosen from each diocese, the king called a General Synod at Berlin not of representatives, but of distinguished persons in the Church, thirty-seven of whom were clergymen and thirty-eight were laymen. Under the presidency of the minister for public worship, during a session continued from June 2 to Aug. 30, 1846, this body, says Hase, which made no pretensions to a legal authority, but had no restraint on the expression of its opinions, and acted on conclusions drawn frot; the proceedings of the provincial synods, presented its views of the existing wants of the Church. Its plan for a future ecclesiastical consitution combined the consistorial administration proceeding directly from the crown with the synods proceeding directly from the congregations in regularly ascending circles. The assembly had not been convened without some reference to its nature, and only a single voice was raised in it in behalf of undisguised rationalism. But as the great majority there, as well as in the previous provincial synods, declared itself against not only unconditional freedom of instruction, but the compulsory obligation of creeds, the party led by the Evangelical Church Journal found itself in a decided minority.

The moral impossibility of compelling men to adhere to the old creeds was conceded; and yet it was thought indispensable to the completion of the union that a confession of faith should be formed, to serve as a formula for ordination. But the confession then composed expressed only those sentiments which are essential to Protestant Christianity in Scriptural language, and without the precision of theological science. The orthodox minority (fourteen to forty-eight), therefore, had reason to complain, notwithstanding all that was said for their satisfaction, that the adoption of the new confession was a virtual abrogation of the old. The only concession to those congregations and patrons who were especially attached to the Lutheran or the Reformed type of doctrine or worship was the assurance given them that they should have full liberty, without endangering the development and existence of the union, to use their respective confessions, if they wished, in a regular manner, to bring those clergymen whom they called under obligation to some creed. But the orthodox opposition from without, in whose eyes such a body seemed a robber-synod, in which Christ was denied, was powerful enough, at least, to postpone the execution of these enactmlenits, although the ecclesiastical authorities had given them a unanimous concurrence, and had pronounced them of urgent importance. The superior Consistory was the only court finally formed under them (January, 1848), but as this was not sustained by any contemporary synodal regulations, it was looked upon as a mere party authority.

While the government and the Church gained so little, the people became more and more restless. There was a general displeasure against the bureaucratic spirit of over-governing which characterized the administration and became daily more irksome to the nation. In the Church it resulted in the successful formation of free churches or Protestant communities espousing the interests of a rational Christianity. A contemporaneous excitement which had arisen in the Roman Catholic Church, as the result of the schismatic movement due to the stand taken by the chaplain Ronge on the exhibition of the so-called holy coat (q.v.) of Treves, further complicated the ecclesiastical relations. In the State, revolution ensued. The king and his advisers, underrating the importance of the movement of 1848 in Germany, thought they had satisfied the requirements of the hour by granting, a few unimportant reforms and making equivocal promises of further concessions. When at length, however, the citizens and troops came into collision, and blood was shed, Frederick William came forward as the proposed regenerator of his country, offering to lay down his royal title and merge his kingdom in the common fatherland, for the salvation of which he recommended a cordial union of all German princes and people in one bond, and proposing himself as the leader and guide of this new Germany. His own subjects, and at first many Germans in other states, were carried away by these Utopian schemes.

The publication of a political amnesty, the nomination of a liberal ministry, the recognition of a civic guard, the retirement of the prince of Prussia, the heir presumptive with whom every arbitrary measure of government was believed to originate and the summoning of a representative chanmber to discuss the proposed constitution all tended to allay the general discontent. But when the National Assembly at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1851, in disregard of the wishes othehe Prussian king, declined to accept his proffered services, and elected the archduke of Austria as lieutenant-general of Germany, his ardor in the cause of the fatherland cooled, his pledges to his own subjects were evaded as long and as completely as the occasion permitted, and his policy became more strongly tinged than before with the jealousy of Austria. His powerful co- operation in putting down the insurrection in Poland and the democratic party in Baden gave, however, ample proof of his determined opposition to every popular demonstration against absolutism. The only exception during his reign is the action of the Prussians in the war of the Sleswig-Holstein duchies, when the Prussians, acting in concert with the disaffected against their sovereign, the king of Denmark, occupied the ducal provinces in the name and on behalf of the diet. But this was the work rather of him who is now emperor of Germany, and is capable of explanation even trom an ultra-royalistic standpoint. The latter years of the reign of king Frederick William IV were characterized by great advance in the material prosperity and internal improvement of the country. Extensive lines of railway and post-roads were opened, the river navigation was greatly facilitated, treaties of commerce were formed with foreign countries, great expansion was given to the Prussian and North German Zollverein, the army was put upon a footing of hitherto unprecedented efficiency of arms and artillery, and the educational system of the country was still further developed. The political freedom of Prussia cannot, however, be said to have made equal advance. The Chambers which met for the discussion and framing of a constitutional mode of government were constantly interrupted and obstructed in the prosecution of their task; and the constitution, which is now established by law, was modified every year between 1850 and 1857, until it may be said to retain few of its original features.

In the Church also the great storm of 1848 wrought destructively. An ecclesiastical administration became odious, and count Schwerin, the minister for public worship, saw himself obliged to keep watch over the actions of the consistories, which finally so displeased him that he dissolved the superior consistory. He then appointed a committee to devise a synodal constitution, to be submitted to an imperial synod which should soon after be convened, that thus the Church might construct her future organization for herself. The outline of the electoral law for the appointment, of synods was published, and defended by counsellors of the crown versed in ecclesiastical law. It proposed that the deputies should be elected by the congregations, but that the existing synods should be made use of in the western provinces, and that district and provincial synods should be arranged so as to serve for electoral bodies in the eastern. Before the appointed synod could have its meeting, the revolution was throttled, and the government again abandoned all these liberal measures. It even denounced the clamor for a synodal constitution as an ill-concealed enmity to Christ (!), and the whole scheme of an election by the people as a denial of God (!). The constitution of Jan. 31, 1850, retained, with respect to religion, the whole essential spirit of the German fundamental laws. A collegiate supreme ecclesiastical council to decide internal affairs of the Church was formed by order of the king from the evangelical portion of the ministry of public worship, and a system of rules for the regulation of congregational affairs was bestowed upon the six eastern provinces. The supreme ecclesiastical council from that period governed the Church in the king’s name; and Von Raumer, the minister for public worship, in the presence of the Chambers, declared that the new doctrine was that the Evangelical Church exercises het constitutional right independently to regulate and administer her affairs, by entire separation from and consequent independence of the State, and by government according to her ancient constitution by the soverelgn as her most prominent member. By this happy thought anxiety for the independence of the Church was tranquilized, and the Chambers succeeded in repelling all complaints about violations of those articles of the fundamental law of the State which relate to the independence of the Evangelical Church. The plan for congregational government, which was looked upon as the basis of true ecclesiastical freedom, contained a suspicious limitation of the power of choosing the vestries and an extraordinary requisition that the private members should be bound by the three principal creeds, the confessions of the Reformation, and certain general laws for the Church which were yet unknown. In some of the eastern provinces this plan was protested against by parties opposed to each other, but it was at last gradually admitted into most of the congregations. The free congregations (numbering about forty in Prussia and the contiguous countries), which had in 1848, like almost all associations, taken some part in politics, and whose leaders had to some extent been involved in the movements of the day, had nearly all their houses of worship closed by the police under the new law against political societies. These proceedings were partially confirmed by the judicial courts; but some measures of the police seemed so inconsistent with the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the fundamental laws that inquiries were instituted respecting them even in the Chambers (1852), where the government had avowed its determination to exterminate by every legal means the whole system of dissent. The supreme ecclesiastical council excommunicated all the free congregations, without reference to the various tendencies among them, and pronounced their baptisms invalid, w.hile the civil courts punished every official act of their ministers as an invasion of the clerical office. Still there was conflict between civil and ecclesiastical authorities, and the crown saw itself perplexed daily with the disadvantages of dissent. By royal edicts of March 6, 1852, and July 12, 1853, the union movement was again given a new lease of life, the king having determined to do away with religious differences among all Protestants. The result was far from gratifying. In the verv next fall (October, 1853) Dr. Rupp started a new congregation, in which the Bible was accepted as the original source of truth, and the imitation of Christ was made the supreme end of life. All ecclesiasticism was ignored. In 1856 (Nov. 4-Dec. 5) a general conference assembled to remedy these dissensions, but it failed to accomplish anything. The king remained summus episcopus, but the Protestants retained by the constitution of Jan. 31, 1850, tit. ii, art. 12, liberty of conscience, and the more recent immigrations from foreign lands have made Prussia the home of Protestants of all shades of religious opinion.

The obvious benefits of the presbyterial and synodal constitution in the Rhenish and Westphalian churches, the fuller co-operation there of ministers and elders, the greater activity of the laity, the room afforded for the exercise of discipline, the variety of home mission work, and the facility for checking rationalistic tendencies, which had given the Rhenish and Westphalian branch of the Prussian Church so great a power and influence, were so apparent that it would have been impossible for the leading authorities of the Prussian Church not to desire to extend this form of government, modified by the consistorial constitution, over all her old provinces. Conseqttently a royal order of June 29, 1850, introduced the institution of the general Church courts, and by another of Sept. 10, 1873, it became definitively the platform for the congregations and synods there, while an extraordinary general synod for these provinces was announced. This synod was appointed by royal decree, to consist of the eleven general superintendents, of twelve deputies of the theological and the juridical faculties, of thirty members to be elected by the king, and of 150 members of the eight provincial synods, who were to be composed of not less than one third laymen and one third ministers. This general synod met for the first time from Nov. 24 to Dec. 18, 1875. The new ecclesiastical constitution of Prussia provides for a regular meeting of this general body at the call of the king every six years. The king is represented in it by the president of the Oberkirchenrath, the highest Church tribunal in the state. The jurisdiction and competency of the general synod, as summarized by a correspondent of The Central Christian Advocate, are shown by the following, which indicates also the nature of the connection between Church and State:

1. The General synod co-operates with the king’s functionaries for promoting the interests of the State Church on the basis of the evangelical confessions of faith.

2. Laws enacted by the king, as head of the Church, must have its assent. It may also propose new measures, but these cannot be laid before the king for sanction until the cultus minister has examined them and found nothing incompatible with the interests of the State in them.

3. It legislates exclusively on the amount of liberty of teaching within the Church; religious qualifications and ordination vows of the candidates of ministry: liturgies, hymnals, and catechisms: holy days to be introduced or abolished; and the form of discipline for refractory Chnrch members and ministers.

4. It controls the funds which the Oberkirchenrath had, and also the expenditure of the appropriations for the Church from the national treasury, which was in the hands of the cultus minister heretofore.

5. Regular and periodical taxes upon the congregations for Church purposes can only be levied by its consent.

6. It can incite the king’s functionaries (Oberkirchenrath and consistories) to greater activity by taking the initiative in proposing such new measures as are conducive to the Church’s welare. The Oberkirchenrath cannot reject them without giving its motives.

7. It preserves the union of the State Church interest by revoking any such resolutions of a prominent synod as may be incompatible with the Church at large.

The Advocate then continues as follows:

The king, as summus episcopus, governs the Church indirectly through its consistories one in each province composed entirely of theologians, except the president who must be a jurist, and directly through the Oberkirchenrath the highest Church tribunal in the state to whom the consistories are responsible.

Between the sessions of the general synod a cabinet, composed of seven members, carries out the measures of the general synod, and confers with the Oberkirchenrath respecting new measures.

It is not difficult for the members of the Lutheran and the comparatively few Reformed churches in Prussia to meet in the same synods, because the union movement has not only given rise to a common legislative and administrative basis. but prepared the members and congregations, notwithstanding all the value they assign to their particular creeds, to lay greater stress upon that which they have in common than upon that on which they differ. The Lutheran churches have the Confessio Augustana Invariata from June 25, 1530 (or the Augustana Variata from 1540), the Apologia Confessionis Augustanoe, the Articuli Smalcalderi, the Catechismus Minor and Major Lutheri, and the Formula Concordioe (1577). The Reformed Church has the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), which it highly values. The authority of these creeds the Minor Catechism and the Confessio Augustana perhaps excepted is not binding in all the details; and in the ordination vow no declaration of allegiance to the symbols is expected from the young minister, so that some of the creeds have nearly disappeared. So thoroughly has the old spirit of division died out that there is no longer any opposition to communion of the two bodies in the same church. Nor is this practice confined to the United Church of Prussia; it is equally prevalent in the other union churches of Germany, in the former duchy of Nassau, in Anhalt-Bernburg, Dessau, Birkenfeld, Baden, in the former electorate of Hesse, in Saxe-Weinar, in Hildburghausen, Waldeck, Wurtemberg, and in one part of the grand- duchy of Hesse. In East Friesland the union has extended only to the government, and not to worship or doctrine, in Rhenish Bavaria, in the union deed, stress is laid on the common scriptural ground of the churches.

With the accession of king William I, Prussia’s most brilliant page of history opens. The civil and ecclesiastical affairs of that country now became the history of a united, prosperous, and powerful people. Though Bismarck, as premier, himself controls pretty much all the measures civil and ecclesiastical; though he at first indicated by his lines of action a policy of absolutism and bureaucracy, time has unfolded a liberal and practical tendency in the government, and the only severe opposition now encountered is from the low social democracy in this country known as Communism and from the ultra-Romish subjects, who wage war against the repressive measures adopted by the government against Ultramontanism and Jesuitism, because of the dangers they brood against the State. SEE ULTRAMONTANISM. The war of 1866 with Austria established the superiority of Prussia in Germany; the war with France in 1870 solidified the work of the intervening years, and gave to the little kingdom the imperial power on the 170th anniversary of the day when the elector of Brandenburg assumed the crown of Prussia.

II. Religious Statistics.

1. General. According to the census of 1885, of the 28,318,470 inhabitants of Prussia, 18,244,405 returned themselves as belonging to the Evangelical National Church; of these, 13,266,620 are of the United Church, 2,905,250 Lutherans, and 465,120 of the Reformed Church. Of those who are not of the National Church, there are 40,630 Lutherans, 35,080 Reformed, 4711 Moravians, 13,023 Irvingites and Baptists, 36,668 Mennonites, 4693 Anglicans, Methodists, etc., 9,620,326 Catholics, 1437 Greek Church, 10.360 German Catholics, 21,823 Freethinkers, etc., 366,575 Jews, and 2594 of various other beliefs. The Old Catholics are mentioned below. The Roman Catholic population of Prussia decreased so rapidly after the introduction of Protestantism that at the accession of Frederick II in 1740 there were only 50,000 Catholics in a population of 2,150,000 souls; the proportion of the Catholics to the Protestants was, in other words, one to forty-three. The kings did not recur to coercive measures, but the majority of the inhabitants of Prussia hated Romanism, and caused it to undergo heavy trials. When Prussia acquired Silesia, and after the division of Poland, it was less of a Protestant power. The number of the Catholics was so considerably increased, especially after the treaty of Luneville (1801), that both communions were represented by nearly equal numbers. This was again changed by the treaty of Tilsit, the two treaties of Paris, and the congress of Vienna. At present the Evangelical Church constitutes a majority in the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein (99 per cent.), Pomerania (97), Brandenburg (95), Saxony (93), Hanover (87), Hesse-Nassau (70), and Prussia (70); the Roman Catholic Church in Hohenzollern (93 per cent.), the Rhine provinces (73), Posen (64), Westphalia (53), and Silesia (51). Of the Jews, fully one half live in the eastern (formnerly Polish) provinces. The members of all churches recognised by the government enjoy equal civil rights. The Old Catholics (q.v.) have been recognised as a part of the Roman Catholic Church, and the bishop elected by them as a bishop of the Catholic Church. Other denominations (Baptists, Methodists, German Catholics, and Free Congregationalists) are barely tolerated, though the constitution guarantees full religious liberty. The Greek Church is also represented in Prussia. One of the Greek communities belongs to the Philippins (q.v.), a branch of the Greek Raskolniks, who seceded in the 17th century from the Orthodox Greek Church. Like the Mennonites, they refuse the military service. Their principal colony is at Alt-Ukta, in the kiingdom of Poland. The Mennonites are tolerated, with some restrictions: they cannot increase their real estate, because the military service is in contradiction with their religious opinions. They are in consequence in a state of emigration, and their number decreases. Since 1830 they enjoy the same civil rights as all other Christian subjects. The Roman Catholic Church is directed by the two archbishops of Posen and Gnesen, and Cologne, under whom stand the four bishoprics of Culm, Munster, Paderborn, and Treves. The two episcopal sees of Breslau and Ermland are directly under the jurisdiction of the pope; while the district of Glatz, in Silesia, belongs to the archbishopric of Prague, and Katscher, in Upper Silesia, to that of Olmutz. In 1864 the Protestants had rather more than 9000 licensed places of worship, with 6500 ordained clergymen; and the Roman Catholic Church nearly 8000 churches and chapels, with upwards of 6000 priests. In 1867 there were 24,382 churches of all denominations. and 224 monastic or conventual establishments, with 5613 inmates, mostly devoted to purposes of education, or nursing the sick.

2. Edcation. Education is compulsory in Prussia, and its management and direction are under the control of the State. In no country are better or ampler means supplied for the diffusion ot knowledge among all classes of the community. Prussia has nine universities, viz. Konigberg, Berlin, Greifswald, Breslau, Halle, Bonn, Kiel, Gottingen, and Marburg, with 12,823 students, and two Catholic colleges at Braunsberg and Munster. At the close of 1889 there were in Prussia 37,000 schools and educational establishments of every kind, exclusive of the universities; and of these 787 were colleges or gymnasia, about 1000 classical private schools, 58 normal, about 700 art, trade, and industrial schools, and about 30,000 public elementary schools, with 45.000 teachers and about 4,000,000 scholars. (See below.) The management of the elementary national schools is in the hands of the local communities; but the State appoints the teachers, and in part pays their salaries, the remainder being supplied by the public. In addition to the libraries of the several universities, there is the Royal Library of Berlin, with 750,000 volumes and about 16,000 MSS. Among the numerous scientific, artistic, andt literary schools and societies of Prussia, the following are some of the more distinguished: the Academy of Arts, founded in 1699; the Royal Museum of Arts; the Academy of Sciences; the Natural History, Geographical, and polytechnic societies of Berlin; the Antiquarian Society of Stettin; the Breslau Natural History and Historical societies, etc.

3. Charities. Prussia has a large number of benevolent institutions, towards thle maintenance of which the State gives annually albout 16,000 sterling. In 1861 there were about 1000 public civil and military infirmaries, in which upwards of 170,000 patients were under treatment, and between 7000 and 8000 poor- and alms-houses; while 800,000 poor received support through these institutions or by extraneous relief. Prussia is supplied with asylums for thhe deaf and dumb, the blind and the maimed, and has good schools for training midwives, nurses, etc.

4. Churches. We append a sketch of the principal German churches, because it will in some manner enrich the article, and will, besides, greatly add to what has been said in the article GERMANY SEE GERMANY . The sketch and the statistics are taken from the report of the Pan-Presbyterian Council in Edinburgh in 1877.

I. Constitution. Each German state and each free city has a Church of its own, in which the princes or the magistrates, by whose co- operation the churches were reformed, have to some extent, since the Diet of Speyer in 1526, enjoyed the supreme administrative power. This power they generally exercise by proxy, i.e. through the minister of worship (Prussia, Baden, Saxe-Altenburg, grand-duchy of Hesse, Mecklenburg, Wurtemberg); in other cases through the Supreme Church Council, or Oberkirchenrath (Prussia, 1849, 1850; Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1819; Badin); or through the general superintendents, the consistories, and superintendents. To some extent, likewise, for the last twenty-five or thirty years, the governments have shared the administration of the Church with the district, provincial, and general synods (Prussia, Wurtemberg, Baden, Bavaria, Oldenburg. This form of Church govelrnmnent is called the consistorial (Konsistorialverfassung).

The German churches have derived much benefit from the hands of the princes; but the fact that these exercise the right of control has often hindered the development of the energies, the liberality, and the practical sense of the lay element and the members of the congregations at large, as well as prevented the co-operation of the ministers and the people in Church work. Like the noble king Frederick William IV of Prussia, who longed to resign his episcopal functions into the proper hands, some of the best princes have felt the necessity of giving more self-government and liberty to the churches, and the presbyterial and synodal constitution in the newly developed form in which it has been given in Prussia is an endeavor in this direction.

In some of the Reformed churches, as in the Palatinate, the mode of government is similar to that of the Lutheran churches; but in others the presbyterial and synodal constitution was developed.

The presbyterial and synodal constitution was transplanted by fugitives, members of the French and Walloon congregations in London (which John a Lasco had organized according to the fonrm he had set up in East Friesland), to the lower part of the Rhine, to the duchies of Julich, Cleves, Berg, and Mark, which form now the northern half of Rhenish Prussia, and a part of Prussian Westphalia; it was recognised and developed by the Congress of Wesel (1568) and the Synod of Emden (1571), was introduced into the duchy of Nassau (Synod of Herborn, 1586), and with some modifications, at the end of the 17th century, adopted even by the Lutherans in the territories of Cleves and Mark. This form of Church government was in 1835 confirmed by the Kirchenordnung for the churches in Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia. These churches, the Lutheran as well as the Reformed, are essentially Presbyterian, i.e., besides the ministers, each congregation has a body of elders and also of deacons. The duty of the elders is, along with the ministers, to take the oversight of the congregations, and further their well-being in all respects, especially by Christian discipline. The deacons serve the Church by works of love for the poor and afflicted. The ministers, elders, and deacons form the presbytery of the congregation (the Scottish Kirk session), the duty of which is to advance the edification of the Church, to promote whatever is good, and to discourage all that is evil. The members of this presbytery are elected for four years. Besides the presbytery there is, in larger congregations, a mnre numerous representative body (die Representation), the number of which varies according to the size of the congregation, and may amount to sixty, seventy, or more members. This body has to consult and decide in matters of greater importance, and especially when ministeres or elders are to be elected. In the Reformed Calvinistic Lippe-Detmold, in 1851, such a representative body was instituted besides the presbytery.

All the ministers and one deputy from each congregation form the district synod (the Scottish presbytery), which meets yearly under the superintendent, who is elected freely for six years by and from the members of the synod. His most impportant duties are the oversight of the ministers and presbyteries, the administration of the property of the congregations in the district, the exercise of discipline, the information and encouragement of the members as to the home mission work of the district, and the preparation for the next provincial synod. The superintendents, along with deputies from the district synods (each of these sending one minister and one elder), form the provincial synod, the president of which is elected for six years, and which has for its special function to watch over the doctrine and the spiritual affairs of the Church. The proceedings of the synod require, however, to be confirmed by the competent authorities of the State. The provincial synod meets every third year, but on extraordinary occasions it may be convened by the president. The control of the affairs of the Rhenish and Westphalian Church is in the hands of the minister of worship, the Consistory of Rhenish Prussia, and that of Westphalia, and the government of the province. The general suplerintendents of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia, who are appointed by the king, act along with the consistories, but are independent of them.

In Baden similar provincial or diocesan and igeneral synods have existed since the union in 1821. The diocesan synods are held every third year, the general every seventh. Two thirds of the body of the diocesan synods are ministers, and only one third laymen, who are not elected by the representatives of the congregations, but by electoral districts. To the general synod two dioceses send one minister, and the ruling elders (Kirchengemneindenrathe) of four dioceses send one layman, who, however, must be a memblr of a representative body of the Church. The grand-duke nominates a president, a theological professor of the University of Heidelberg, and some lay and ministerial members, to the Snpreme Church Council (Oberkirchenrath). The synod has a legislative, disciplinary, and consultative character, and it has the initiative in the grovernment in the Church. Without its concultence no law can be enacted bearing on the governnment, doctrine, and worship of the Church.

In Wurtenmberg yearly diocesan synods welre instituted by the edict of Nov. 18, 1854, to take care of the moral and spiritual welfare of the congregations and of the poor throughout the diocese, to control the ministers and the elders, and to consult on matters of importance. These are composed of all the ministers, and of as many elders of each congregation as it has ministers. These alre to be elected by the representative body of the congregation, the so-called Church councillors. A select committee has in the interval the direction of the affairs of the dioceses.

In Bavaria on the other side of the Rhine, according to the union deed of 1818, there are diocesan and general synods. The number of the lay deputies varies with the number of the evangelical inhabitants of the diocese, so that the lay element preponderates. The yearly diocesan synods have partly a function of oversight, and partly of consultation. The general synod meets every fourth year, and has the right of resolution, and expressing its wishes when there is a vacancy in the consistory.

In Bavaria on this side of the Rhine yearly diocesan synods are held for consultation and for the election to the geeneral synod. The whole of the ministers and an equal body of elders, elected by the officials of the congregation, take part. The general synod is composed of one ministerial deputy from each diocesan district, one elder from every two diocesan districts, and one deputy of the theological faculty of Erlangen. The general synod has only the right of advice, resolution, and protest.

Similar district and general synods are in Lutheran Oldenburg, Hesse, and Mecklenburg. The Lutheran churches of the province of Hanover and of Nassau, though their territory belongs now to Prussia, have still synods for themselves.

II. Statistical Notices.

(A.) Churches.

(1.) Evangelical Church.

(a) Prussia. On Dec. 1, l885, the German empire had 46,855,704 inhabitants, of whom 29,369,847 were Evangelicals, 16,785,734 Catholics, and 563,172 Jews.

(b.) Other German States. Bavaria had, Dec. 1, 1875, 5,024,832 inhabitants, 1,340,218 Evangelicals, 1055 Evangelical parishes, 1584 Evangelical churches, 1332 Evangelical ministers; on the average, belong to each Evangelical parish 1348, to each church 848, to each minister 1102. There are 81 superintendents.

(2.) Catholic Church.

(a.) Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria has 2826 parishes, 1022 benefices, 6157 priests and 3,448,453 members; each parish has 1220, and each priest 560 people. The State paid in 1874-75 to the Catholic Church 59,450, to the Protestant consistories 16,903.

The Catholic Church in Prussia has 3 Church provinces, 9 archdioceses and bishoprics. 2974 parishes and benefices, 6072 priests, 4 seminaries for priests. According to the Budget for 1874, the government paid for the Catholic Church 102,065; in Alsace and Lorraine for the Catholic worship there was paid, for 1876, 128,708.

In the German empire Bavaria has 25 bishoprics, 10,353 parishes and benefices, 17,898 priests, and 13,903,026 members (in 1871).

(b.) Old Catholics. According to the report of the fourth Old- Catholic Synod, given in May, 1877, at Bonn, there are now in Prussia 35 Old-Catholic congregations with 6510 independent members; in Baden, 44 congregations with 5670 independent members; in Bavaria, 34 congregations with 3716 independent members; in Oldenburg, 2 congregations with 104 indepenedent members; in Wurtemberg, 1 congregation with 94 independent members; 56 ministers are connected with the Old Catholics; they have in Germanyy at least 121 congregations, and 16,557 independent members.

In May, 1876, the same numbers of the congregations were reported, only in Bavaria the number had fallen to 31. Sixty ministers were at that time connected with them, 4 more than now. They numbered in May, 1876, in Prussia, children included, 20,504; in Baden, 17,203; in Bavaria,

(B.) Schools.

(1.) Universities. In the winter session of 1875-76 there studied theology at Leipsic 337; at Tubingen, 233; at Halle, 187; Berlin, 162; Erlangen, 134; Gottingen, 78; Jena, 64, Bonn, 51; Kiel, 50; Strasburg, 50; Marburg, 45; Konigsberg 44; Breslau, 39; Greifswald, 33; Rostock, 25; Giessen, 23; Heidelberg, 9; together, 1565: in the Summer session of 1875 there were 1637 students of theology.

(2.) High Schools. The kingdom of Prussia has, according to Dr.Wiese’s historical-statistical work on the higher schools, 221 gymnnasia (155 Evangelical, 50 Catholic, 16 mixed), 32 progymnasia, 92 Realschulen (in which languages, the arts, and sciences are taught 76 Evangelical, 16 Catholic), 22 higher middle-class schools, 27 provincial trade-schools, 91 seminaries for young teachers (61 Evangelical, 25 Catholic, 4 Jewish, 1 mixed), 267 higher schools for young ladies (the Germans call them schools for daughters), 35 institutions for the deaf and dunmb, 14 for the blind, and 7 higher military schools. The number of scholars in these high schools amounted in 1874 to 128,000, that of the teachers to 6900; the cost was 1,020,750.

(C.) Christian Associations.

(1.) Mission to the Heathen. Germany has eight of the sixty-three Evangelical Mission Societies for the heathen, of which only the Moravian Mission stands in an immediate connection with the Church. Of the 1559 mission stations and 2132 missionaries, Germany supports 274 stations and 470 missionaries; Germany and German Switzerland, 502 missionaries. Germany contributed for mission purposes in one year, 107,000.

In 1890 the German missions had

CountriesStationsMissionar iesCommuni cantsScholars

South Afr.5818036,7926,524

West Afr.13420238,9518,987

Eng. India6217631,19711,149

Dutch India111173870

China17342,485729

Austr.1028305292

West Indies485338,21612,129

Esquimau Lands19723,073621

Orient24553,1381,746

This represents about 500 stations, 825 missionaries, 145,000 communicants, 128,600 members, 42,000 scholars, and 107,000 expenses.

The Basle Mission (established 1815) has 209 missionaries and 45 principal stations in West Africa, East Indian, and China, 9803 Christians and 20,907 natives under its care, and 8513 children in the schools; expenses 36,000.

The Rhenish Mission Society (established 1828 in Barmem) has 131 missionaries, 56 principal stations in Africa, China, and East India, and about 19,250 expenses. The Hermannsburg Mission (established 1849) has 70 missionaries, 66 stations in America, Africa, East India, Australia, New Zealand, and an income of 14,466

The Berlin Mission Society (established 1824) has 71 missionaries, 471 stations in Africa (Capeland, Orange, Free State, British Kafirland, Natal, and the Transvaal Republic), with 10,218 baptized people, and an income of about l5,500.

(2.) Mission among the Jews. in Germany there are the Society of Friends of Israel in Basle, besides four Jewish missionary societies.

The Berlin Society (established 1822) works at Berlin, has two ordained missionaries, one layman, one or two colporteurs, and an income of 800.

The Rhenish-Westphalian Society for Israel (established 1844) works in Rhineland, Westphalia, Hesse, and the neighborhood; has one ordained missionary, one lay missionary, one colporteur, and an income of 780.

The Evanngelical Lutheran Central Association for Israel (established 1849) has one missionary, a house for proselytes, and is supported by the Lutheran Church of Saxony, Bavaria, Hesse, etc.

The Society of Friends of Israel in Strasburg is small.

(3.) Home (Inner) Missions, etc. Space fails to name all the smaller or larner Hoime Mission associations which can be found in the different parts of Germany.

It may only be mentioned that the 2700 deaconesses of the thirty- four German Deaconesses’ institutes are not only employed in hospitals, but, at least in part, for the visitation of the sick and the poor, and for instruction in the numerous schools for little children, for which purpose the institutions at Nonneweier, Kaiserswerth, and Hanover train deaconesses; that so many Sunday-schools have sprung up in the last ten or fifteen years in Prussia that a central committee is formed at Berlin; and that the Rhenish and Westphalian Sunday-school Union at Elberfeld and Barmen, the conferences of which are excellently attended, can organize particular district uniions, in order to influence more vigorously the many Sunday-schools.

We cannot speak of the associations and institutes in the different provinces of Pruussia viz. Saxe-Weimnar, Wurtemberg, Lippe- Demold, and Alsace-Lorraine which take care of and educate orphan children; nor can we describe the work of the many refuges for neglected children in all parts of Germany, nor that of the twenty institutions for fallen women, and partly for fallen men, nor that of the thirty-five associatios and institutions for dismissed prisoners.

Very important for protecting from evil young men who go to the towns are the Christian Homes, upwards of 100 in number, in which the young working-man finds cheap and clean lodgings and meals, a friendly Christian word, and very often the necessary work. The second Christian Home at Berlin (established in 1869), from Oct. 1, 1874, to Jan. 1, 1876, lodged 16,060 young men, on 39,000 nights. In these homes the numerous Young Men’s Christian Associations have comfortable quarters. In Germany there are four large unions of Young Men’s Christian Associations. The union of the Rhenish-Westphailian Young Men’s Associations, which has its headquarters at Elberfeld, comprises about 120 associations; the Eastern Union, which has its centre at Berlin, has about 100 associations, with 3000 members; the union in the kingdom of Saxony has 16 associations, with 300 members; the South German Union has its 25 associations, with 500 members, chiefly in Wurtenmberg and Baden. Besides these, young clerks have formed two separate unions.

In Germany, besides the Canstein Bible Institution, which does only the printing of the Bible, there are 25 Bible societies, the largest of which is the Prussian Principal Bible Society at Beilin, with 162 branch societies, Since its establishment in 1814 it has spread more than four million copies of the Bible. All the 25 Bible societies in 1875 distributed 186,000, and since their establishment more than 8,000,000 copies. The 35 or 40 small or larger Tract and Colportage societies have done and are doing much to promote the reading and understanding of the Bible. Great importance is now attached to the creation of a better popular literature and ot a better daily press, and there are already five daily political papers with an earnest Christian tendency.

It is encouraging that associations like those at Elbereld and Barmen, for promoting a better Sunday’s rest, begin to work, and it is a very hopeful sign that there are such societies as the Central Committee of the Home Mission in Prussia, which has been so long and so ably presided over by Dr. Wichern; the Evangelical Society for Germany, which has its centre at Elberfeld and Barmen; the Baden Colportage Society; and that the Ranhe Haus, near Hamburg, the John’s Institution, near Berlin, the Barmene Mission- house, and the Crischona, near Basle, help to prepare earnest young men for the services of city missionaries, colporteurs, and evangelists: and that such societies as the Evangelical Society send out men who visit the people from house to house, go to the poor and the sick, help the ministers in large parishes, hold Bible classes, and conduct Sunday-schools and Young Men’s Associations, aind other meetings. The Evangelical Society has now 22 colporteurs and city imissionaries, and some travelling preachers and evangelists. It has in the last year begun popular apologetical lectures in large towns with nmuch success, and it is quite certain that much more can and must be done by it for Germany.

It is encouraging to think that about 45 ordained ministers are at work in the German home-mission field; yet manuy more are wanted; many doors are open for a larger and freer distribution and proclamation of the Word of God.

There is, besides, to be noticed the Reformed Church in Bentheim and East Friesland, consisting of 9 congregations, with 6 ministers. Its standard is the Heidelberg Catechism. The body was formed about thirty years ago, after failing to induce the Church authorities to make certain reforms which it earnestly desired. It has no connection with the State. It is understood to be in correspondence with the German Reformed Church in North America, with a special view to the formation of a college for training ministers.

Another noteworthy movement to be mentioned here is the Free Evangelical Church of Germany. In June, 1860, a number of Christians in Breslau, capital of Silesia, in Prussia, formed themselves into a Church, Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in government, under the conviction that the National Protestant Church in that province was in many ways corrupt and unfaithful. They objected particularly to the Lutheran view of the sacraments, and to the altars, images, and candles which the Lutherani retain; to the prevalent neglect of the doctrines of grace, and to the recognition of the king as first bishop’ of the Church. Not being prepared to join the Reformed Church of East Friesland, in consequence of their observing festivals, and for other points of difference, they formed themselves into the Free Evangelical Church of Germany. There are three ministers of this Church, who have just formed themselves into a presbytery. There are deacons and elders in the congregatiouns, and an annual conference of elders. The conference has adopted the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The members of this Church aim at the conversion both of Jews and Gentiles. The Church has been fostered by one, himself a convert of the Jewish mission at Breslau, who takes a deep interest in Jewish missions.

III. Literature. See Kux, Organismus u. Statistik des preuss. Staates (Leips. 1842, 2d ed.); Frantz, Handb. des preuss. Staates (Quedl. and Leips. 1854-55); Hase, Church Hist. 288, 374, 453, 456; Hagenbach, Church Hist. 18th and 19th Cent. (see Index); Alzog, Universal Kirchengesch. (see Index in vol. ii); Scriptures Rerum Prussicarum (Lips. 1863 sq.); Voigt, Gesch. Preussens, vol. i, iv; Bender, De Veterum Prutenorum Diis (Braunsb. 1865); Beitriage z. Kirchenyesch. des 19ten Jahrhunderts (Augsb. 1835); Ellendorf, Die kathol. Kirche Preussens (Rudolfst. 1837); Ranke, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and Hist. of Prussia (Loui. 1849, 3 vols. 8vo); Krabbe, Die evangel. Landeskirche Preussens (Berl. 1849); Kurtz, Church Hist. ii, 56, 327, 401; Baur, Religious Life in Germany (Lond. 1870, 2 vols. 8vo); Brit. and For. Ev. Rev. Oct. 1875, art. iv; Dorner, Hist. of Prot. Theol. ii, 400 sq.; Edinb. Rev. April, 1874, art. iii; Lend. Qu. Rev. April, 1874, art. i; Chambers’s Cyclop. s.v., which we have used in the treatment of secular history, though without accepting its extreme anti-Prussian expressions.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature