the additional advantage of catering for the rising spirit of
individualism, which was so characteristic of the age.

His second great innovation, so far as the divine constitution of the
Church was concerned, and the one which secured ultimately whatever
degree of success his revolution attained, was the theory of royal
supremacy, or the recognition of the temporal ruler as the source of
spiritual jurisdiction. But even this was more or less of an after-
thought. Keen student of contemporary politics that Luther was, he
perceived two great influences at work, one, patronised by the
sovereigns in favour of absolute rule, the other, supported by the
masses in favour of unrestricted liberty. He realised from the
beginning that it was only by combining his religious programme with
one or other of these two movements that he could have any hope of
success. At first, impressed by the strength of the popular party as
manifested in the net-work of secret societies then spread throughout
Germany, and by the revolutionary attitude of the landless nobles, who
were prepared to lead the peasants, he determined to raise the cry of
civil and religious liberty, and to rouse the masses against the
princes and kings, as well as against their bishops and the Pope. But
soon the success of the German princes in the Peasants' War made it
clear to him that an alliance between the religious and the social
revolution was fraught with dangerous consequences; and, at once, he
went to the other extreme.

The gradual weakening of the Feudal System, which acted as a check
upon the authority of the rulers, and the awakening of the national
consciousness, prepared the way for the policy of centralisation.
France, which consisted formerly of a collection of almost independent
provinces, was welded together into one united kingdom; a similar