CHAPTER VI.

Doctor Luther (1517 to 1546)--His importance to us--The tragic in his
life--Distinct periods in it--His father--Mental struggle in the
monastery, and how he delivered himself from it--His character in
1519--Three letters to the Pope--An inward struggle--Luther as a
writer--At the Wartburg--Adherence to Scripture, and defects in his
method--The marriage of priests--Return to Wittenberg--His political
position--The crisis--How he married--Activity of his latter years--His
spirit, his family, his God, his temptations, and ideas of the end of
the world--From the funeral discourse of Melancthon--Letter of Luther
to the Elector Friedrich the Wise, March, 1522

CHAPTER VII.

German Princes At The Imperial Diet (1547)--Luther and Charles
V.--The Roman Empire--Possibility of a new confirmation--The man
wanting--Princes of the sixteenth century--Charles V.--Narrative of
Bartholomaeus Sastrow--Weakness of the Imperial power--Alliance of the
German opposition with France--Internal disorganization of the empire

CHAPTER VIII.

A Burgher Family (1488)--Insight into the lower circles of German
life--Increasing popular strength--Social superiority of the Protestant
provinces (1542)--Insecurity of life--Family History Of Bartholomaeus
Sastrow

CHAPTER IX.

The Marriage and Housekeeping of a Young Student (1557)--The female sex
among the Germans--Position of women in the middle ages--Marriage
considered as an alliance between families--The betrothal--Narrative of
Felix Platter

CHAPTER X.

Of a Patrician House (1526 to 1598)--The patricians rich and
educated--Hans Schweinichen's account of the riches of the
Fuggers--Their women--Clara Pirkheimer and Argula von Grumbach--Letters
of a Lady of the Glauburg Family

CHAPTER XI.

German Nobility In The Sixteenth Century (1500)--False position
in the nation--Unproductiveness--Gradual change--Character of Goetz
von Berlichingen--Extract from his Autobiography--Character of
Schaertlin--Narrative Of Schaertlin--Hans von Schweinichen and Duke
Heinrich von Liegnitz--Narrative Of Schweinichen--Transition to modern
life

CHAPTER XII.

German Ideas of the Devil in the Sixteenth Century (1500)--The
introduction of German traditions concerning him; change in the middle
ages--Luthe