The beginnings of modern history are inextricably bound up with the beginnings of the Reformation. It is a common belief that the Reformation in Europe worked a radical change in the doctrines of religious men, raising up two parties with diametrically opposing creeds. Such a conception, however, is misleading. The Reformation was not so much a religious as a political revolt. It was the natural outcome of a growth in the power of northern Germany at a moment when Rome was losing her political prestige. The alliance between the German Empire and the popes of Rome had its origin in a need of mutual assistance. Western Europe consisted, at the accession of Charlemagne, of many independent principalities at war among themselves, and what they needed was a powerful protector to adjust their various disputes. Later this need of a protector became still more urgent, when Germany and France fell under different rulers, and the German Empire began to be threatened by the monarchy across the Rhine. Rome, by reason of her spiritual supremacy, was the arbiter to whom the northern nations naturally turned, and she found ready recompense for her services in the treasures poured generously into her lap. Such was the basis of the Holy Roman Empire. But by the beginning of the sixteenth century all this had changed. Germany was no longer weak. Her little principalities had become cemented together under an emperor well able to repel every invasion of the French. Society had made vast progress, not only in its comforts, but in its demands. Rome, on the other hand, had lost her prestige. In Italy, where the brutality and licentiousness of the popes were open to every eye, people had long since lost all reverence for the Church. This feeling did not spread readily across the Alps; but it came at last, and at a moment when Germany no longer needed aid. A nation guarded by the strong arm of Maximilian could ill brook new levies to feed the extravagance of its decrepit ally, and the infamous practices of Tetzel served as a timely pretext to shake off the burdensome alliance of the papal see. The abuses of popery were little more than a war-cry, while the real struggle of the Reformation was against the political supremacy of Rome.