Europe

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The conception of Europe as a distinct division of the earth, separate from Asia and Africa, had its origin in ancient times. The sailors of the Aegean Sea applied the Semitic designations Ereb (sunset, west) and Acu (sunrise, east) to the countries lying respectively west and east of the sea; in this way it became customary to call Greece and the territory back of it Europe, while Asia Minor and the parts beyond were named Asia. At a later date the mass of land lying to the south of the Mediterranean was set off as a distinct division of the earth with the name of Libya or Africa.

POSITION, BOUNDARIES, AND AREA

Europe is a large peninsula forming the western part of the northern continent of the Eastern Hemisphere. On the north and west it is separated from North America by the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans; on the south by the Mediterranean Sea from Africa and Western Asia. In the east there is no clear natural division from the continental mass of Asia. Such a dividing line may be drawn along the crest of the Ural and Mugadzhar Mountains, the Emba River, Caspian Sea, and the lowlands of the Manitch River, or through the depression that, starting from the Gulf of Obi, extends through the valleys of the Obi, Irtysh, Tobol, and Emba Rivers. The political boundary extends beyond the Ural Mountains towards the east, and beyond the Ural River to the south and west runs along the range called Obtschei Syrt and the Usen River, and encloses within the eastern boundary of Europe the whole of the Caucasus. The most northern point of Europe is North Cape (71 deg. 12 min. N. lat.) on the Island of Mageroe belonging to Norway; the most western point is Cape da Roca (9 deg. 31 min. west of Greenwich) in Portugal; the most southern is Cape Tarifa (35 deg. 59 min. 53 sec. N.) in Spain; the Continent extends as far to the east as 65 deg. longitude east of Greenwich. Its greatest length from north to south is 2,398 miles, from west to east, 3,455 miles. The statement as to the extent of its area varies, according to the position assigned to its eastern boundary, from 3,672,969 sq. miles to 4,092,660 sq. miles. This measurement includes the polar islands Iceland, Nova Zembla, and Spitzbergen, but not the Canary, Madeira, and Azores Is.

CLIMATE, FLORA, FAUNA

The climatic conditions of Europe are very favourable. Almost the entire continent, excepting the northern point, belongs to the temperate zone. At the same time it is much warmer than other countries in the same latitude, as, for instance, than eastern North America, because along its western coast flows the Gulf Stream, which leaves the coast of Florida with a temperature of 68 deg. Fahr. and raises the normal temperature on the Portuguese and Spanish coast about 7.2 Fahr. deg., of the British coast by 9 to 14.4 Fahr. deg., and of the Norwegian coast, about 14.4 to 18 Fahr. deg. Since there is no chain of mountains traversing Europe from north to south, as is the case with North America, the influence of the Gulf Stream extends far into the interior of the mainland. On the borders of the Arctic Ocean a rigorous climate prevails, summer is short, and during the greater of the year the temperature is below freezing. This northern region has polar vegetation; the rolling plains called tundras are found on the peninsulas of Kanin and Kola and at the mouth of the Petchora. The sub-arctic zone is found south of this in the Scandinavian Peninsula down to 60 deg. N. lat.; here the climate of the coast, influenced by the sea, in milder in winter and cool in summer. The part of Europe properly included in the temperate zone is divided into the following regions: the countries lying on the Atlantic, Great Britain, Brittany, the Channel, and northwestern Spain; this section has moderate temperature and large rainfall; west and middle Europe, with an inland climate, less heavy rainfall (about 19.7 inches), and moderate changes of temperature (27 to 45 Fahr. deg.); in this section the southern part of France forms an exception, as also the depression of the Upper Rhine, and the mountains. Beyond this is the section of Eastern Europe or Russia, with a completely inland climate, the variations of temperature amounting to 45 Fahr. deg., and the rainfall to less than 23.6 inches. Finally comes the section of the Euxine comprising the great Hungarian plain, the plain of the Balkan provinces, and southern Russia; in this division the spring is moist and warm and midsummer, hot and dry. The depression of the Caspian belongs to the dry zone of Asia.

The forests of Europe flourish in the temperate zone. In Norway they are composed chiefly of pine; the only deciduous tree found in the highest latitudes is the birch (betula odorata); the forests of pines and deciduous trees are found south of 61 deg. N. lat.; this region is further characterized by grass-lands, heaths, and moors. The cultivated land, which in Central and Western Europe is about sixty to seventy per cent, is divided into farm land, cultivated forest land, grass and pasture land. From north to south the succession of grains is as follows: barley, rye and oats, wheat, especially in France and Hungary, and maize. Potatoes are cultivated on less fruitful soil. In this region native fruits are the apple, pear, and cherry; finer kinds of fruit trees, as the peach, apricot, plum, and of nut trees, the walnut and almond, have been introduced from the south. In this region the grape is also cultivated; its northern limit, extending from the mouth of the Loire, passes to Paris and the Rhine near Bonn, then towards the Unstrut and Saale Rivers, and reaches its most northerly point on the Oder below 52 deg. N. lat.; the limit of its cultivation here turns to the south-east until it reaches the Sea of Azov. The region of the Mediterranean, that is the Iberian Peninsula, Provence, Italy to the foot of the Alps, and the Balkan Peninsula south of 42 deg. N. lat., has a subtropical climate. Here flourish trees and bushes which are always green; among those that are cultivated for their products are the citron, orange, fig, almond, mulberry, and pomegranate trees. The fauna of Europe is in accord with the climate and vegetation. In Northern Europe are found the polar bear, polar fox, and reindeer; in the region of forests live the bear, wolf, and lynx, which have, however, almost disappeared; the region of the Mediterranean contains numerous reptiles.

CHRISTIANITY

European civilization is founded on that of the East; from Western Asia and Egypt Europe received its food-plants, domestic animals, method of writing, numerals, the beginnings of art and science, and the higher forms of state organization and religion. The various States of Greece, the European neighbour of Asia, transmitted these by trade and the foundation of colonies to the countries lying on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean and to Southern Italy. Rome from its central position imparted them to Western and Northern Europe and united the civilized parts of the continent into a great empire. At the time of its greatest extent imperial Rome included, on European soil, the present countries of Italy, Spain, France, England, Germany west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, the countries bordering on the Danube as far as the Black Sea, and the whole Balkan Peninsula, besides all the islands of the Mediterranean. Christianity, too, came from the East by way of Greece and Rome. The connexion existing between the various Roman provinces and the wide prevalence of the Latin and Greek tongues were most favourable to its spread. When the structure erected by the Caesars fell to pieces, the Christian Faith not only entered into its inheritance but also subdued all those barbarian peoples that had up to then defied the imperial power. The Gospel was brought to Rome by colonies of Jewish Christians who kept up close relations with Palestine, their mother country. St. Paul brought Christianity to Greece on his second journey (49-52 A.D.) when he founded, with the aid of Silas, Timothy, and Luke, Christian communities in Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, and Corinth. St. Paul's great letters and his journeys to Italy, perhaps also to Spain, prepared the way for the close connexion between the Roman and Greek Christians and strengthened them for the work of spreading the Gospel. In fact the first persecution under Nero in 64 was not able to crush the new movement, and the same is true of the many other later persecutions.

Towards the end of the first century, under Clement, the head of the Church at that time, there was a close bond between Rome and Corinth. It is also to be assumed that in the meantime all the commercial cities on the coasts of the Mediterranean had Christians in their midst, and that before long the regions adjoining these cities accepted the Gospel. According to tradition the Church in Gaul was founded by Trophimus, who was sent there by St. Paul; to Crescentius, a disciple of the Apostles, is ascribed the preaching of the Gospel in Vienne and Mainz; and to Dionysius the Areopagite, the founding of the Church of Paris. To Eucharius and Maternus, two disciples of St. Paul, are attributed the founding of the Churches of Trier and Cologne. It is certain that flourishing dioceses arose in Lyons and Vienne during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-80). At the beginning of the third century, according to the testimony of Tertullian (Adv. Judaeos, i), various tribes of Gaul had accepted Christianity. At about the same date Irenaeus (Adv. haereses) speaks of Churches in Germany, and the new faith had at that time spread into all the provinces of the Spanish Peninsula. According to the Venerable Bede (Histor. gentis Angl., I, iii), the first missionaries came to England during the reign of Pope Eleutherius (177-90). By the opening of the third century the British Church had spread beyond the Roman possessions in Britain and may even have embraced Ireland. In the meantime the barbarians living along the northern boundaries of the Roman Empire had begun their migrations and predatory incursions. Along this border lived the tribes of the Teutonic family, divided by the Oder into the East Germans and West Germans. The East Germans included the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Burgundians, Vandals, Heruli, Rugii, and Scyrri. The West Germans were divided into the Ingvaeones or Germans on the sea-coast, including the later Frisians and Anglo-Saxons; the Istvaeones or the Germans of the Rhine, including the Franks between the Weser and Rhine; the Hermiones, among whom were the later Thuringians and the upper German tribes of the Alamanni and Bavarians (Bajuvarii). As early as the years 161-80 the Marcomanni, a West German tribe, advanced as far as Aquileia; they were defeated, but introduced northern elements into the population. After this failure the current of the migration divided into two streams: one to the south-east, the migration of the East Germans; one to the south-west, the migration of the West Germans. Of the East Germans, the Goths reached the lower Danube and the Black Sea and divided, according to these respective positions, into the Ostrogoths and Visigoths. In 375, on account of the pouring in of Asiatic hordes through the gateway of the nations between the Urals and the Caspian, the Ostrogoths came under the power of the Huns. The Visigoths, who were also hard pressed, retreated towards Transylvania and received land somewhat south of this from the Emperors Valens and Theodosius. When, after the death of Theodosius, the Roman Empire was divided in 395 into the Western and Eastern Empires, ruled respectively by his sons Honorius and Arcadius, the Visigoths under Alaric plundered Thrace and Greece and, with the permission of Arcadius, settled in Illyria. From here they pressed toward Italy and in 410 even entered Rome. They then turned towards South-Eastern Gaul and in 419 founded the first German kingdom on Roman soil, its capital being Toulouse; they also conquered a large part of Spain. In 507 the Visigoths were forced to give up their possessions in Gaul to the Franks, and in 531 the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom was transferred to Toledo.

The recall from the Rhine of the Roman legions needed for the struggle against Alaric left the way to the south-west open to two other East German peoples, the Burgundians and the Vandals. The Burgundians, who had formerly lived between the Oder and the Vistula, crossed the Rhine in 406 and founded a kingdom having its capital at Worms; in 437 this kingdom was broken up by the Roman governor Aetius, but another arose in 443 around Geneva and Lyons; this, however, in 532, was absorbed into the Kingdom of the Franks. In 406 the Vandals left their home on the northern slope of the mountains called Riesengebirge, and in union with the Alani and Suevi passed through Gaul into Spain; the Visigoths drove them out of Spain into the Roman provinces in Africa, whence for a long time they controlled the Mediterranean and in 455 ravaged Rome. In 476 Odoacer, the leader of the mercenaries made up of Heruli, Rugii, and Scyrri, seized the government and called himself King of Italy. At almost the same time the Ostrogoths in Pannonia were again free, as the power of the Huns was broken in the great battle on the Catalaunian Fields near Châlons-sur-Marne in 451. Theodoric, the King of the Ostrogoths, conquered Odoacer in 489 and created a kingdom (493-526) that embraced Italy, Sicily, a part of Pannonia, Rhaetia, and the Province; this kingdom went to pieces in 553. The Ostrogoths were followed by the Lombards, a tribe of the lower Elbe, who, passing through Pannonia, reached Italy in 568 under their King Alboin; it was not until 771 that the Lombards were brought under subjection by the Franks. All these peoples were to disappear in order, by their absorption into the civilization of Rome, to bring about the union of Christianity, the state religion of Rome since the time of Constantine the Great, with a more stable power, the united West Germans.

The West Germans, although their migrations were not very extended, had changed their habitations as follows: in the fourth century the Alamanni advanced into Alsace and in the fifth century took entire possession of it, spreading towards the north as far as Coblenz. The Franks were divided into the Ripuarian and Salian Franks; the former settled on both sides of the middle and lower Rhine, the latter advanced from the Scheldt to the Somme. Towards the end of the third century the Saxons advanced from the Elbe to the Rhine; in the fifth century, with the aid of the Angles, they conquered Britain; the former inhabitants of Britain took refuge in Wales and France and gave their name to Brittany. The Frisians settled on the coast and islands of Schleswig-Holstein; the Thuringians spread from the lower Elbe to the southern bank of the Main. The Bajuvarii went farthest south. At the time of the birth of Christ they lived in modern Bohemia; about 500 their territory extended from the Lech to the Enns and from the Danube to the junction of the Eisack and the Adige. The region occupied by the tribes just named enlarged the scene of European history; all that was now needed was the political and spiritual union of these peoples to make them the leading people of Europe. The political union was brought about by the Franks, the spiritual union by Christianity. In the end these were combined into a form of theocracy which, by a rapid series of victories, conquered not only Southern Europe, but also Middle and Eastern Europe as well.

Just as the fifth century passed into the sixth (481-511) Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, forcibly subdued the most important of the surrounding tribes; he led them to embrace Christianity after his own conversion. Clovis first united what was left of the Roman Empire on the Seine and Loire with his own domain and made Paris his capital. After this he subdued the Alamanni on the Rhine, Mosel, Lower Main, and Neckar; as the champion of the doctrines of Roman Christianity, he conquered the King of the Arian Visigoths near Poitiers (507) and seized the Visigothic territory between the Loire and the Garonne. By overthrowing the petty Salian chiefs and the royal family of the Ripuarian Franks, he made himself the ruler of all the Frankish tribes. The work was completed by his four sons, who seized the territories of the Thuringians and Burgundians, forced the Ostrogoths to give up Provence and Rhaetia, and obtained by treaties sovereignty over the Bajuvarii.

Thus was laid the foundation of the Franco-Christian Empire which opened to Christianity a new missionary field to be won over to the Faith only by properly trained apostles. The training was given in the monastic institutions which, in imitation of the East, had now spread over all of Western Europe. One of the chief factors in the conversion of the heathen was the Order of St. Benedict of Nursia, encouraged by Gregory the Great. The precursors of the Benedictines were St. Patrick (432) and St. Columba (about 550), who converted Ireland and Scotland, while the Anglo-Saxons received Christianity from the Benedictine Augustine (596), who had been specially sent by Rome. At the death of St. Patrick there were in Ireland several bishops, numerous priests and many monasteries; his own see was Armagh. Columba founded the celebrated monastery on the Island of Iona, between Ireland and Scotland, which was the centre of the Scotch missions and dioceses. The Abbot Augustine and his companions erected the metropolitan Sees of Canterbury (Durovernum), York (Eboracum), and the see of London; in the course of the seventh century the successors of Augustine, Mellitus and Theodore of Tarsus, completed his work.

A glorious band of self-sacrificing apostles of the Faith, from Columbanus and Gallus to Boniface, carried Christianity from the British Isles to the Continent. They founded their work on what scanty remains of Christianity still existed in the former Roman provinces. In the fifth century Severinus and Valentinus laboured in south-eastern Germany. They found the remains of nearly obliterated sees in Lorch, Pettau, Windisch in Switzerland, Chur, Basle, Strasburg, Avenches in Switzerland, Martigny, and Geneva, but the Teutonic migrations and the disorders consequent on them had almost destroyed the life of the Church. About 610 Columbanus crossed the Vosges mountains, where he had founded the monasteries of Annegray and Luxeuil, and came to Lake Constance; here from Bregenz as a centre he preached Christianity, while his companion St. Gall became the founder of the celebrated monastery of St. Gall. In the early part of the seventh century the monks Agilus and Eustasius, of the monastery of Luxeuil, preached the Gospel in Bavaria; they were followed by Rupert of Worms and Emmeram of Aquitaine. St. Corbinian laboured as the first Bishop of Freising, and Kilian in Würzburg. Ecclesiastical life on the Rhine was largely developed by Bishops Nicetius of Trier, Cunibert of Cologne, Dragobodo of Speyer, Amandus, Lambert, and Hugo of Maastricht. The Gospel was brought to the Frisians by Wilfrid of York and Willibrord of Northumbria; the latter erected a see at Utrecht. Willibrord's companion, Suidbert, went into the countship of Mark in the region of the Weser, Lippe, and Ruhr Rivers; the brothers Ewald laboured with little success among the Saxons. An organization including all these countries was not established until the appearance of the greatest of the apostles of the Germans, St. Boniface. He entered on his career in the time of the Carlovingian Mayors of the Palace, who were destined to realize the union of Church and State in Western Europe.

Repeated divisions of the kingdom, disputes as to succession, civil wars, and the power of the nobles almost brought the great Frankish kingdom to dissolution. It was saved from utter ruin by Pepin of Heristal, Mayor of the Palace (Major domus), who gradually took control of the government. In 687 Pepin won for himself the position of Mayor of the Palace of Neustria and Burgundy, in addition to that for Austrasia which he already held; in this way he reunited the kingdom. He then undertook the conquest of the tribes which had broken loose from the Frankish rule and encouraged the missions to the West Frisians. His son, Charles Martel, who was not less active, held a position of such power that he was able, in the great battle of Poitiers, 732, to protect Christian German civilization against the attempt of Islam to conquer the world. Pepin the Short, the son of Charles, brought about the union of Church and State which had so great an influence on the history of the world. Having obtained the title of king in 752, his first task was to defend Pope Stephen II, who had appealed to him for aid, from the attacks of the Lombards; this was followed by the so-called "Donation of Pepin," a grant of territory to the pope which was the foundation of the later States of the Church. Their mutual engagements fixed not only their own policy but also that of their successors. Like Pepin, his famous son, Charlemagne, lent his support to the Holy See, and all his conquests were undertaken for the good of the Church and Christianity. By successful campaigns against Aquitaine, the Lombards, Avars, Saxons, and Danes, and by treaties with the Slavic peoples, Charlemagne increased his domain until it extended from the Ebro and the Apennines to the Eider River in Schleswig-Holstein, and from the Atlantic to the Elbe and the Raab. His kingdom became a world-empire and he himself one of the great rulers of history, worthy of reviving the Western Roman Empire. He was crowned, Christmas Day, 800, by the pope, and the new empire rested essentially on the basis of an alliance with the Church. Its ideal was the Kingdom of God on earth, in which the emperor by Divine appointment is God's viceroy in order to lead and rule all races as divided into nations, classes, and distinctions of rank according to Divine will.

Pepin the Short had been filled with this lofty conception; consequently extraordinary success attended the missionary labours of the Church under both rulers. As early as 716, under the rule of Charles Martel, the Anglo-Saxon monk Winfrid, better known as Boniface, landed on the Continent; he was to be the reformer and organizer of German ecclesiastical life. He always laboured in union with Rome, and was himself a missionary in Frisia with Willibrord, then, in 722, in Hesse and Thuringia, and in 736, in Bavaria. Having been made an archbishop and having received authority from Rome, he founded a number of monasteries, e.g., that of Fulda, and the Bishoprics of Eichstätt, Würzburg, Buraburg, and Erfurt. By means of synods held every five years he brought about the closer union between the old and new dioceses, and placed the newly founded sees in Thuringia and Hesse, as well as those of Speyer, Worms, Cologne, Utrecht, Tongern, Augsburg, Chur, Constance, and Strasburg, under Mainz as metropolitan see, of which he became archbishop in 746. In the reign of Charlemagne the large territories of the Saxons and Avars were added to the lands thus organized, and these new regions also received missionaries and bishops. The result was the founding of the Dioceses of Bremen (787), Paderborn (806), Werden, and Minden in the country of the Engern, Osnabrück and Münster (785) in Westphalia, Halberstadt and Hildesheim (817) in Eastphalia; the metropolitan of all the Saxon sees was Bremen (834). The conversion of the Avars had been attempted by the Bavarian Duke Tassilo II; when the East Mark was founded the Avars came under the influence of the sees and monasteries established in this country; after their subjugation they were placed partly under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Salzburg and partly under that of the Patriarch of Aquileia.

From these points, Christianity, as formerly in the Roman Empire, extended beyond the boundaries of Charlemagne's dominions, and new tribes and peoples were evangelized, while, at the same time, Christian civilization was peacefully established within the Frankish Empire. The monastery of Corvey on the Weser, and the Sees of Bremen and Hamburg (831) were the mission centres for the northern provinces. The monk Anschar of Corvey, first Archbishop of Hamburg, laboured with great zeal as Apostolic legate in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; his successors were equally active as missionaries and bishops. However it was not until the reign of Canute the Great (1014-35) that the victory of Christianity in Denmark was assured; in 1104 Lund was made the metropolitan See of Scandinavia; in 1163 Upsala became the metropolitan See of Sweden, and about the middle of the twelfth century Trondhjem was made the same for Norway. Iceland was won for Christianity about the year 1000 and was divided into the two sees of Skalhold and Holum. The inhabitants of the Orkneys, Hebrides, Faroe, and Shetland Islands were converted about the same time as Iceland; they were at first placed under the metropolitan See of Hamburg- Bremen, which had been united in 849, and later under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan See of Norway.

During the period of the Teutonic migrations the Slavs had come into contact with Christianity and were converted partly by Christian rulers, as in Thrace, Macedonia, Greece and Dalmatia, partly through the influence of neighbouring Christian countries, as in Carinthia. In 806 the Bishop of Passau undertook the conversion of Moravia; that of Pannonia was attempted by Archbishop Adalram of Salzburg (821-36). In both these countries a great missionary work was done by Cyril and Methodius; the latter, Methodius, became Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia. The work of converting Bohemia began in the year 845; the country was at first under the care of Ratisbon; in 973 a diocese was founded in Bohemia itself at Prague, which was suffragan to Mainz. Poland was brought to Christianity by its ruler Duke Mieczyslaw (963), and in 968 he erected the Bishopric of Posen. In the year 1000 Gnesen was made a metropolitan see, its suffragan sees were Kolberg (1065), Breslau (1000), and Cracow (1000). Finally, in the reigns of Heinrich I and Otto I the northern Slavs, living in regions subsequently German, namely the Wends, including those living in Pomerania, as well as the Obotrites and Sorbs on the Oder, Vistula, and Elbe, in Lausitz, and Saxony were forcibly Christianized. The new Sees of Havelberg, Brandenburg, Meissen, Zeitz, Merseburg, and Oldenburg (Stargard) served as points from which the work of conversion could be carried on; Magdeburg was the centre of the entire Slavonic mission.

It was during this same period that the Greek Church spread through the eastern part of Europe. In 955 the first Christian princess of Russia, Olga, was baptized at Constantinople; during the reign of her grandson Vladimir, baptized 989, Christianity became the religion of the country. In 864 the Bulgars, at the command of their prince Bogoris, accepted Christianity as a people, and from 870 were under the ecclesiastical control of Constantinople. A bishop sent from Constantinople introduced Christianity among the Magyars, or Hungarians; the work was completed by German missionaries sent in pursuance of the masterful policy of the Saxon emperors. The first Christian ruler of Hungary was Stephen (997-1038).

Many sacrifices, however, were still necessary in order to keep what had been gained for Christianity and to protect these gains against the threatened dangers of Mohammedanism and heathenism. These sacrifices were freely made by medieval Christian Europe. Under the careful training of their appointed guardians, the Catholic orders, the various nations and their rulers were filled with Christian thoughts and feelings. Although the conception of their respective positions held by the human representatives of the secular and spiritual power inevitably led to friction, especially in the age of the Hohenstaufen emperors, nevertheless all were conscious of their common duty to protect faith and civilization against foes both in Europe and outside of it. A convincing proof of this was the courageous struggle of Europe against the attempted inroads of Islam, and especially the expeditions of conquest to the Holy Land repeatedly undertaken by the various nations of Europe acting together. Spain, which since 711 had been almost entirely under the control of the Arabs, was able in 1212 to drive them as far back as Granada; in 1492 Granada also fell. From 878 Sicily had been in the hands of the Saracens, but it was freed by the courageous Normans (1061-91). The so-called Crusades (1061-1244) continued with interruptions for nearly two hundred years; among those who shared in them were monks, as Peter of Amiens and St. Bernard; bishops, as Otto of Freising; rulers of the greatest nations of Western Europe, as the German emperors, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II; the French kings, St. Louis and Philip II, and the English Richard the Lion-Hearted. Orders of knights, as the Order of St. John, were formed to take part in these expeditions. The original aim of the Crusades, the freeing of Palestine from the control of non-Christians, it is true, was not attained. But the power of Mohammedanism was weakened for a long time to come; the civilization of Western Europe, moreover, gained from the Orient the best the East had to give and thus was greatly aided in its development.

A more lasting success, however, followed the attempts, patterned on the Crusades, to carry on wars of conversion and conquest in those territories of northeastern Europe peopled by tribes that had lapsed from the Faith or that were still heathen; among such pagans were the Obotrites, Pomeranians, Wiltzi, Sorbs, Letts, Livonians, Finns, and Prussians. The preparatory work was done in the twelfth century by missionaries of the Premonstratensian and Cistercian Orders. They were aided with armed forces by Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony, Albert the Bear of Brandenburg, Boleslaw of Poland, and St. Erik IX of Sweden. From the beginning of the thirteenth century Crusades were undertaken against Livonia, Semgall, a division of the present Courland, and Esthonia; Teutonic Knights conquered Prussia after a struggle that lasted more than fifty years. In Lithuania Christianity did not win the victory until 1368. After this only the Turks, in the south-eastern corner of the Continent, were a cause of alarm to Christian Europe for centuries. The decline of the power of the Eastern Empire drew the Turks over the Bosporus; in 1365 they had control of Adrianople; in the course of the fourteenth century the Serbs, Bulgars, Macedonians, and the inhabitants of Thessaly became their subjects. In 1453 the Turks took Constantinople, in 1461 Trebizond, in 1480 even Otranto in Apulia; after 1547 they owned half of Hungary. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that their possessions were reduced to their present boundaries, thus limiting Mohammedanism to a small part of the population of Europe.

At the beginning of modern times a great change took place in the boundaries of the European States. The cause was that ecclesiastical movement known as the Reformation, which placed in opposition to the unity of Catholicism in Western Europe the numerous religious associations that together form Protestantism. The apostasy of the various countries and cities, which began soon after Luther first appeared, was brought about by the most varied causes, described elsewhere, and was facilitated by the violent procedure of the petty princes who had absolute sovereign power over their subjects. The first of the ruling princes to make the change was Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (1525); he was followed by the Elector John of Saxony, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse (1527), and at almost the same date by nearly all the German imperial cities. The movement soon gained the northern countries, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Baltic provinces; these all gave their adherence (1530) to the so-called Augsburg Confession, while the upper German imperial cities, Strasburg, Constance, Lindau, Memmingen, held to the Tetrapolitan Confession of the so-called Reformed Church founded by Zwingli and especially strong in Switzerland. The Reformed Church also found adherents in the Palatinate, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century in Hesse-Cassel and Brandenburg. The Anglican Church was established in 1549 in Great Britain; in 1559 the French Reformed Church adopted the "Confessio Gallicana"; in 1560 the Scotch Reformed the "Confessio Scottica"; from 1592 the Reformation in Scotland adopted a Presbyterian form of government. Since 1562 the Reformation in the Netherlands has held to the "Confessio Belgica," and the Reformed Church in Hungary since 1567, to the "Confessio Hungarica." Soon the Counter-Reformation, called into life by the Council of Trent (1545-63) to prevent the loss of the whole of middle Europe, appeared; its success was assured by the aid of the Society of Jesus. In this way various princes and bishops who were desirous of doing their duty were enabled to hold their countries to the Catholic Church, as the Duke of Cleves, the Electors of Mainz and Trier, the Bishops of Augsburg, Würzburg, Bamberg, Münster, Constance, Basle, the Abbey of Fulda, but especially the Dukes of Bavaria and the Hapsburg dynasty within their Austrian provinces. Soon the hostility between the two ecclesiastical parties grew so bitter that a trifling incident sufficed to bring on a terrible religious conflict, the Thirty Years War (1616-48). Two religious confessional leagues confronted each other in Germany: the Catholic League, which was formed in 1609 among the Catholic States of the German Empire and had for its leader the vigorous Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and the Union in which, from 1609, most of the Protestant and cities combined under the leadership of Frederick IV of the Palatinate. Foreign powers -- Denmark, Sweden, and France -- also took part in the war. The result of the Thirty Years' War, confirmed in the Peace of Westphalia, laid the foundation of confessional relations as they now exist. Neither internal commotions nor seemingly mighty political revolutions, such as the illuminism of the French Encyclopedists and the German neo-classicists, the temporary supremacy of rationalism, and the French Revolution, with its consequent wars, greatly changed these relations. The present condition as developed during the course of the nineteenth century and up to the present time is as follows.