ermany,
I must either quote one writer or a thousand; and I had rather trust to
one faithful guide, than transcribe, on credit, a multitude of names
and passages. That guide is M. Pfeffel, the author of the best legal
and constitutional history that I know of any country, (Nouvel Abrege
Chronologique de l'Histoire et du Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776,
2 vols. in 4to.) His learning and judgment have discerned the most
interesting facts; his simple brevity comprises them in a narrow space.
His chronological order distributes them under the proper dates; and
an elaborate index collects them under their respective heads. To this
work, in a less perfect state, Dr. Robertson was gratefully indebted
for that masterly sketch which traces even the modern changes of the
Germanic body. The Corpus Historiae Germanicae of Struvius has been
likewise consulted, the more usefully, as that huge compilation is
fortified in every page with the original texts. * Note: For the rise
and progress of the Hanseatic League, consult the authoritative history
by Sartorius; Geschichte des Hanseatischen Bandes & Theile, Gottingen,
1802. New and improved edition by Lappenberg Elamburg, 1830. The
original Hanseatic League comprehended Cologne and many of the great
cities in the Netherlands and on the Rhine.--M.]

It is in the fourteenth century that we may view in the strongest light
the state and contrast of the Roman empire of Germany, which no longer
held, except on the borders of the Rhine and Danube, a single province
of Trajan or Constantine. Their unworthy successors were the counts of
Hapsburgh, of Nassau, of Luxemburgh, and Schwartzenburgh: the emperor
Henry the Seventh procured for his son the crown of Bohemia, and
his grandson Charles the Fourth was born among a people strange and
barbarous in the estimation of the Germans themselves. [150] After the
excommunication of Lewis of Bavaria, he received the gift or promise
of the vacant empire from the Roman pontiffs, who, in the exile and
captivity of Avignon, affected the dominion of the earth. The death
of his competitors united the electoral college, and Charles was
unanimously saluted king of the Romans, and future emperor; a title
which, in the same age, was prostituted to the Caesars of Germany and
Greece. The German emperor was no more than the elective and impotent
magistrate of an aristocracy of princes, who had not left him a village
that he might call his own. His best prerogati