OF CHURCH HISTORY. BY DR. JOHN C. L. GIESELER. Translated from the Fourth Revised German Edition, BY SAMUEL DAVIDSON, LL.D., AND REV. JOHN WINSTANLEY HULL, M.A. A NEW AMERICAN EDITION, REVISED AND EDited BY HENRY B. SMITH," PROFESSOR IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINA27, NEW YORK. VOL. II.-A.D. 726-1305. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1857. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE sixteen years which have elapsed since the appearance of the Third Edition of the volume here presented to the public, have been so uncommonly rich in the production of materials, and in encouragement to further researches into this very period, that a new and thoroughly revised edition may well be expected from me. Traces will every where be found, that the volume here presented has undergone such revision. Though the increase in the number of sheets is comparatively insignificant (this edition is only two sheets larger than the former), yet I have labored to find place for new matter, by curtailing, and by omitting much that was superfluous, particularly in the quotations. Two new paragraphs are added, § 81. on Art employed in the service of the Church, and § 82. on the Kalend-guilds. While I mention the latter, I can not forbear from expressing my surprise that, although in an altered form they are still so often met with in Northern Germany, they have never yet been made the subject of any general historical description, entering into their origin and their character; great as is the number of accounts of separate Kalendguilds, which are mostly occupied with their external history. The last thirty years constitute a period richer in historic lore than any that has ever yet been. A vast number of sources of history have been drawn forth from concealment, or issued in a more correct form. Countless treatises have thrown a new light on dark questions. Upon almost all portions of history we have received works which are remarkable for thorough investigation, views full of genius, or attractive modes of representation. If this period of scientific activity in the cause of history seems now to be brought to a close, the question arises, whether the reason lies only in outward circumstances, or also in the fact, that the inter est felt among our people in history has been weakened by the powerful agitations of this year. It is an unmistakable truth, that a portion of the men of the day, who have taken the most ' active part in the late agitations, appear to have broken away from history altogether, and to wish to shut their eyes to any development connecting present events with the history of the past. Just as though all that has been hitherto established had forfeited its claim to endure; as though their object were now to build anew from the foundation, upon ground completely leveled, without any regard to the buildings which stood there before. In all history, the history of the French Revolution alone seems to be recognized by them as their guide from step to step in their career. However, the impulse of a small party must not be mistaken for the actual opinion of the German nation, though every artifice be tried to represent it as such. No German race desires to break entirely with its history. Great indeed would be the misfortune if a party were to succeed in interrupting the natural development of events by an arbitrary constitution. It would stand without root in the people. The handiwork of one party would quickly be dislodged by that of another; and Germany would be plunged into a whirlpool of change, continually stirring up the very depths of society. This is true in a political, true also in an ecclesiastical point of view. But artificial creation in the room of natural development is even more dangerous on ecclesiastical than on political ground, because Church interests are bound up in a closer reciprocal relation with the inmost feelings of the people, its religion, and its morality. For this reason it appears to me of yet higher importance, that here there should be no precipitation; that even necessary alterations in the constitution of the Church should be delayed, until the political balance of the country be more firmly established, and, in consequence, men's minds again recovered to a calmer and more collected state. We can not overlook the fact, that the existing ecclesiastical antagonisms, the palæologian as well as the neologian, have grown up in open warfare with the old State: that for this very reason the political parties, because they could not otherwise be brought into operation, have repeatedly taken refuge in the religious; and that, |