Under Maximilian,
the Diet became an effective council, fist-right was abolished,
independent robber-lords put down, civilization began to effect an
entrance, the system of circles was arranged, and the empire again
became a leading power in Europe, instead of a mere vortex of
disorder and misrule. Never would Charles V. have held the position
he occupied had he come after an ordinary man, instead of after an
able and sagacious reformer like that Maximilian who is popularly
regarded as a fantastic caricature of a knight-errant, marred by
avarice and weakness of purpose.
At the juncture of which we are writing, none of Maximilian's less
worthy qualities had appeared; he had not been rendered shifty and
unscrupulous by difficulties and disappointments in money matters,
and had not found it impossible to keep many of the promises he had
given in all good faith. He stood forth as the hope of Germany, in
salient contrast to the feeble and avaricious father, who was felt to
be the only obstacle in the way of his noble designs of establishing
peace and good discipline in the empire, and conducting a general
crusade against the Turks, whose progress was the most threatening
peril of Christendom.
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