We have now reached that point in our narrative where the history of modern Sweden takes its start. With the close of the war of independence those features which mark the face of mediæval Sweden disappear, and a wholly new countenance gradually settles upon the land. Nor is this transformation peculiar in any way to Sweden. Early in the sixteenth century all Europe was passing from mediæval into modern history. In the Middle Ages there was but one criterion for every question that arose, and that criterion was the past. Whatever had been, should continue. All Church dogmas were settled by an appeal to the ancient Fathers; all political aspirations were fought out on the basis of descent. Tradition was the god of mediæval Europe. At last, however, questions arose for which tradition had no answer. On the Renaissance in Italy, on the invention of printing and of gunpowder, on the discovery of America, the ancient Fathers had not spoken. On these things, therefore, which raised the greatest questions of the age, men had nothing for it but to do their thinking for themselves. The practice thus evoked soon spread to other questions, and gradually men grew bold enough to venture opinions on certain stereotyped matters of religion. As all the world knows, the Reformation followed, and from an age of blind acceptance Europe passed to an age of eager controversy. Instead of searching to find out what had been, men argued to determine what it was desirable should be. If tradition was the characteristic of mediæval, policy is the characteristic of modern, history. Some old dogmas, like the divine right of kings, still linger; but since the fifteenth century kings have had little chance whose claims conflict with the balance of European power.