In order to prevent the nobles from recovering political power, the absolutist monarchs enlisted the services of the faithful middle class, which speedily attained an enviable position in the principal European states. It is safe to say that the Protestant Revolution was one of many elements assisting in the development of this middle class. For the peasantry--still the bulk of European population--the religious and ecclesiastical changes seem to have been peculiarly unfortunate. What they gained through a diminution of ecclesiastical dues and taxes was more than lost through the growth of royal despotism and the exactions of hard-hearted lay proprietors. The peasants had changed the names of their oppressors and found themselves in a worse condition than before. There is little doubt that, at least so far as the Germanies and the Scandinavian countries are concerned, the lot of the peasants was less favorable immediately after, than immediately before, the rise of Protestantism. ADDITIONAL READING GENERAL. Good brief accounts of the whole religious revolution of the sixteenth century: Frederic Seebohm, _The Era of the Protestant Revolution,_ new ed. (1904); J. H. Robinson, _Reformation_, in "Encyclopædia Britannica," 11th ed. (1911); A. H. Johnson, _Europe in the Sixteenth Century_ (1897), ch. iii-v and pp. 272 ff.; E. M. Hulme, _Renaissance and Reformation,_ 2d ed. (1915), ch. x-xviii, xxi-xxiii; Victor Duruy, _History of Modern Times_, trans. and rev. by E. A. Grosvenor (1894), ch. xiii, xiv. More detailed accounts are given in the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. II (1904), and in the _Histoire generate_, Vol. IV, ch. x-xvii, and Vol. V, ch. i. All the standard general histories of the Christian Church contain accounts of the rise of Protestantism, naturally varying among themselves according to the religious convictions of their authors. Among the best Protestant histories may be cited: T. M. Lindsay, _A History of the Reformation,_ 2 vols. (1906-1910); Wilhelm Moeller, _History of the Christian Church_, trans. and condensed by J. H. Freese, 3 vols. (1893-1900); Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_, Vols. VI and VII; A. H. Newman, A Manual of Church History, Vol. II (1903), Period V; G. P. Fisher, _History of the Christian Church_ (1887), Period VIII, ch. i- xii. From the Catholic standpoint the best ecclesiastical histories are: John Alzog, _Manual of Universal Church History_, trans. from 9th German edition (1903), Vol. II and Vol. Ill, Epoch I; and the histories in German by Joseph (Cardinal) Hergen-rother [ed. by J. P. Kirsch, 2 vols. (1902-1904)], by Alois Knopfler (5th ed., 1910) [based on the famous _Conciliengeschichte_ of K. J. (Bishop) von Hefele], and by F. X. von Funk (5th ed., 1911); see, also, Alfred Baudrillart, _The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism_, Eng. trans. by Mrs. Philip Gibbs (1908). Many pertinent articles are to be found in the scholarly _Catholic Encyclopedia_, 15 vols.