[p. 516]
|516| the condition of calculated force did not of course come about all at once, but on the contrary took place through a legal constitution. After the Public Peace one could indeed regard Germany more as a state than nowadays. Through the feudal constitution public power was splintered into very many parts, but because of the multitude of the parts individual ones were not powerful enough to oppose the whole. But as if fate had absolutely not destined Germany for such a condition, it soon overcame the weariness of lawlessness and the attempt at a firmer coherence through the Public Peace by the deeper interest of religion, which divided the peoples for ever.
[5. Religion]
Cross-reference: The counterpart is the long Remark to § 270.
Amid all the storms of the lawless condition of the times of feuds, both with regard to the estates against one another and against the universal, a certain coherence of the whole subsisted. Although the fulfilment of obligations seemed to depend not only on the free will of the estates in general but on the wills of individuals, and the legal coherence seemed very weak, there prevailed on the other hand an inner coherence of minds. With equality of religion, and because the burgher estate, which had not yet risen, had not brought the great multiplicity into the whole, princes, counts and lords could regard one another as closer and sooner as a whole and accordingly act as a whole. There was no state power present opposed to individuals and independent of them, as in the modern states; state power and the power and free will of individuals was one and the same. But these individuals were rather of a will to let themselves and their power subsist together in one state.
But when, through the rise of the imperial cities, the
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.