DISCONTENT IN GERMAN LANDS. It happened that the first revolt to be successful in a large way broke out in Germany, and about the person of an Augustinian monk and Professor of Theology in the University of Wittenberg by the name of Martin Luther (1483-1546). Had it not centered about Luther the revolt would have come about some one else; had it not come in Germany it would have come in some other land. It was the modern scientific spirit of inquiry and reason in conflict with the mediaeval spirit of dogmatic authority, and two such forces are sooner or later destined to clash. Whether we be Catholic or Protestant, and whether we approve or disapprove of what Luther did or of his methods, makes little difference in this study. Over a question involving so much religious partisanship we do not need to take sides. All that we need concern ourselves with is that a certain Martin Luther lived, did certain things, made certain stands for what he believed to be right, and what he did, whether right or wrong, whether beneficial to progress and civilization or not, stands as a great historical fact with which the student of the history of education must take account. That the same or even better results might have been arrived at in time by other methods may be true, but what we are concerned with is the course which history actually took. [8] There were special reasons why the trouble, when once it broke, made such rapid entry in German lands. The Germans had a long-standing grudge against the Italian papal court, chiefly because it had for long been draining Germany of money to support the Italian Church. Germany's greatest minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1228), three centuries before Luther had sung to the German people how the Pope made merry over the stupid Germans. "All their goods will be mine, Their silver is flowing into my far-away chest; Their priests are living on poultry and wine, And leaving the silly layman to fast." Many positions in the German Church had been filled by the Pope with Italians, who not infrequently drew the perquisites, but did not reside in Germany. The princely and feudal Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and Salzburg, with their fortified castles and lands and troops and large governmental powers, frequently proved to be serious sources of irritation. The most widespread discontent, though, arose over the heavy church taxation, which drained the money of the people to Italy. The whole German people, from the princes down to the peasants, felt themselves unjustly treated, that the German money which flowed to Rome should be kept at home, and that the immoral and inefficient clergy should be replaced by upright, earnest men who would attend better to their religious duties (R. 150). It was these conditions which prepared the Germans for revolt, and enabled Luther to rally so many of the princes and people to his side when once he had defied authority.