INTRODUCTION

Summary

About the middle of the seventeenth century, during a period answering in length to a man's life, the majority of European states underwent those searching reformations by which their future character was to be determined. Then, after a long and bloody war, had the equal recognition of religious beliefs and the independence of territorial powers been established in the German kingdom. Then had the absolute authority of the royal power in France and the preponderance of aristocratic tendencies in Poland been definitely wrought out. The mutual relationships of the Scandinavian confederacy, and also the position of the government in each kingdom, had been firmly settled. In the one, which had been exposed to invasion, the result had been the strengthening of the royal power through the necessities of resistance; in the other, of which the policy had been aggressive, but was so no longer, the preponderance of the aristocracy had been established. Next to these, the autocracy in Russia arose in connexion with the Greek Church, and the dominion of Austria over Bohemia and Hungary in connexion with Roman orthodoxy. In the other kingdoms also, even in the Ottoman, similar antagonisms produced in their conflict permanent and decisive results.