15th century
The supremacy of the middle classes went hand in hand with the economic prosperity of the towns. The imperial dynasty of the Habsburgs was founded in 1437. Frederick III (1440-1493) lost Bohemia-Hungary to Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490); Maximilian I (d. 1519), who married Mary of Burgundy in 1478, organised the Empire on an aristocratic and federal basis in 1495. In 1499 Switzerland broke away from the domination of Austria. In 1495-1517 there were wars with Italy.
The attempt to make Prague the capital of the Empire miscarried. In the 15th century Cologne was the largest city in Germany, and its archbishop was the most powerful Elector. The council which met in Basle in 1431-1449 contributed to intellectual and artistic activity in the region of the upper Rhine.
Writers of the period were: Nicolas of Cusa (d. 1464), author of De Concordantia Catholica; J. Geiler von Kaisersberg (d. 1510), a disciple of John Gerson, who preached in Strasbourg; S. Brandt (the Ship of Fools, 1494; popular songs or Volkslieder; Passion plays). Philosophers such as Regiomontanus (d. 1476), humanist and astronomer, expressed the religious and cultural upheaval in Germany.
Printing began with Johann Gutenberg (d. c. 1468). The earliest ventures were in Strasbourg. Printing soon spread throughout Germany and central Europe (Cologne, 1464; Basle and Augsburg, 1468; Nuremberg and Vienna, 1470; Budapest, 1473; Cracow, 1474), opening up the way to humanism.
Music theorists of the period included K. Paulmann (1410-1473), organist in Munich, and Heinrich Finck (1445-1527), who spent some time in Poland.
16th century
The prominence of Nuremberg and Augsburg (trade with Venice, Antwerp; Lisbon and the Americas), the development of the capitalist economy (the Fuggers and the Welsers, merchant-bankers of Augsburg), the decline of the Hanseatic League which brought about the rise of German economic prosperity; 1501, Basle entered the Swiss Confederation, Imperial prestige, restored by the Habsburgs, triumphed with Charles V (1519-1556); war with France. Religious crisis and social troubles succeeded each other; 1522, Rebellion of the `Poor Barons'; 1524-1525, peasants' revolt; emancipation of the princes (Houses of Saxony, Bavaria and the Palatinate); 1546-1547, religious war; 1555, Peace of Augsburg, choice of confession left to the princes. Ferdinand I, Emperor (1556-1564), king of Bohemia-Hungary from 1526, and Rudolph II (1576-1612) made Prague their favourite residence.
The Reformation, 1520-1555: Luther (1483-1546); P. Melanchthon drew up the Confession of Augsburg (1530), charter of the Lutheran faith. About 1520-1540, iconoclasm in Germany, Alsace and Switzerland. The Lutheran rulers in the north and west confiscated ecclesiastical goods. But the Catholics reacted: William IV of Bavaria called upon the Jesuits (1542).
In literature and science, Emperor Maximilian, Weiskunig, 1512, Teuerdank, 1517; Ulrich von Hutten, pamphlets, 1514-1520; Luther, the Bible in German, 1522-1541. The Meistersinger (Hans Sachs, 1515-1558). Humanism developed (Erasmus in Basle, 1515-1529); C. Celtes, Reuchlin, Melanchthon; C. Peutinger, etc. The great publishing centres were Basle (Froben), Strasbourg (Grüninger, Knobloch), Nuremberg (Koberger). Theoretical works: Dürer, Book of Proportion, 1525; W. Dietterlin, Treatise on the Five Orders, 1598. Historical and scientific studies (Wimpfeling, Aventinus, Paracelsus, Agricola, C. Gessner) were numerous; publication in Nuremberg of the Treatise on Astronomy by the Pole Copernicus in 1543; in Basle, the Treatise on Cosmography by S. Münster in 1544. Tycho Brahe in Prague, 1597, was astronomer to Rudolph II; Kepler succeeded him in 1610: Astronomy, 1609.
Music was the international art. The court musicians, often Flemish, introduced Franco-Flemish and Italian influences, for example, in Munich, Orlando Lasso from Mons (about 1532-1594), precentor to Albert V and William V of Bavaria. The Lutheran chorale ( J. Walther, friend of Luther, 1496-1570; H. L. Hassler and J. Eccard) galvanised Germanic musical feeling which awoke to its real genius.