is manifest, it has been the cause of great Mischief and Inconvenience to Germany. Priests are <almost [fere]>a alwaies ready to receive, but never part with any thing. And whereas all other Clients dispose their Masters to favour them by their Presents [services], if a Priest be not fed with new Presents, he presently snarles, and imputes his Blessing as a wonderful [boundless] Obligation.b I should think, that the ancient Princes heaped their Bounties upon the Clergy of Germany, principally because they were made [to] believe [that] God [expected they should]c provide plentifully for that Order of Men.
And what has been spent by Germans in Journies to Rome, for [obtaining] the Imperial Crown? What Treasures and Men have been consumed in Italick Expeditions, in composing the Commotions stirr’d up by the Popes, and in protecting them against refractory men that have attack’d them, is not to be conceived. Nor has any Foreigner got much by attacking [occupying] <24> Italy, {the Spaniards excepted, who have stuck so many years in the Bowels of our(i) Country, that we have never yet been able to repell them.} Lastly, no Princes were oftner fulminated [banned] by that See than the German Emperors; nor was any of them more exercised by the frequent Seditions of the Churchmen than they. The principal cause[s] of all which misfortunes seem to have arisen from [hence, That they thought these Princes, who had this Title from the See of Rome, in which they took such pride, were obliged by it, above all other Men, to promote the Affairs of that See]:d Or otherwise, because that Order of Men [is above all others unwilling to be subject to the Soveraignty of another, and with Mother-Church, is ever seeking how to shake off the hated Secular Authority].a
{Yet I would have this understood with Salva reverentia sanctissimae sedis, [a saving the Reverence and Respect due]b to that most Holy See, to whose Judgment I most devoutly submit all this.}
Of the Members of which the present German Empire is composed.
Germany a potent State, tho’ much diminished as to its extent.
1. After the German Nation [peoples], by the help of the French [Franks], became one Body, it has in all times been thought one of the strongest States in Europe; and at this day it is not less regardable, on the account of its bulk, though great parts of it have been ravished <25> from it, and either annexed to other Kingdoms, or formed into separate and independent States.1 How much the German Empire is now less than it was anciently, has been [thoroughly] shewn by Hermannus Conringius, a most skilful man in the German Affairs, in his Book, de finibus Imperii Germanici, concerning the Bounds of the German Empire.2 But it will be enough for us to observe what she has at present.
The principal Members then of this Body are designed [designated] by the Title of The States [Estates] of the Empire, who have, as we express it, a Right to Sit and Vote in the Diet. Tho’ many of these are opposed [excluded] by others, |[or whose Right to be immediate States is disputed by other more potent States, who pretend they ought to represent them in the Diet]|:a The occasion of these Controversies is, because these Potent States would make those that are controverted Members of their own Provincial |[States]|,a and not of the general Diet.3 But then, as to the Families of the Princes, it is to be observed, that there regularly belongs to each House a certain number of Votes in the Diet <, according as the powers it possesses have customarily entailed a right to vote>; as some Houses have only one Vote, some two, some three, some four, and some five. In some Principalities the eldest Brother enjoys the whole Estate [ditio], and all the younger must be content with an Apanage,4 and in others, they have all a share, though not an equal one, with the eldest. Where the first of these is observed, the eldest [alone] represents the Person of the whole Family; |[where the latter, they may all come to the Diet, but they <26> have altogether but one Vote, of which they must all agree amongst themselves]|.b
Which are the Members of the Empire.
2. To prove a Person a Member of the States of the Empire, two things are commonly thought sufficient, 1. if his Name is in the Catalogue or Matricula of the |[States]|;c and 2. if he is obliged to pay what he contributes to the Publick, to the Empire, and not into the Exchequer or Treasury of any other [subordinate]a State. [Tho’ the plainest Proof is, to alledge the Possession of this Priviledge.]b [For] some pretend they have by mistake paid their quota into other inferiour States [another’s treasury]; and others say, [on the contrary,] that some others, by meer Usurpation [presumption], have passed by the Provincial Treasury [to which they belonged of Right,]+ and have flown with their share to the publick Treasury; and these Allegations are made, as men endeavour to [acquire or deprive others of the Right of being Members of the Diet respectively].c Nor was there ever yet any Matricula extant, in which nothing was wanting or redundant [excessive],d and about which there was not some Controversie; |[tho’ those that were published in the year 51, 56, 66. of the last Century, are thought [the most]+ authentick]|.e But I should however think, that the most ancient Matricula’s which represent many as Parts of the States of the Empire, who have been long since excluded out of the Diet, are [better than the latter, because they are nothing but Lists of those who were then in the Diet, when publick Instruments were made by publick Authority; and therefore fromthence undoubted Arguments may be made for both the <27> contending Parties].f But in the mean time, from this variety in the Matricula’s I may safely conclude, That in the most ancient times the number of the States of the Empire was never fixed and certain, [and that all that were enabled by their Wealth or Prudence, to contribute any thing to the Welfare of their Country, had liberty to be present in]a the Diet. Afterwards the Poorer [not being able to attend the Diet, by reason of the Expence and Charge, remained willingly at home];b and [that in after-times others, who would willingly enough have been there, were excluded by others, who were too powerful for them to contend with],c till the States were by degrees brought to the number we now see them.
It were too tedious for us to transcribe here a [whole] Matricula, but yet I shall represent the Principal of the States [the chief estates], as a thing absolutely necessary to the forming a Judgment of the Magnitude of this whole Body.
An account of the House of Austria.
3. Amongst the Secular Princes, we give the first Place to the House of Austria, not so much for its Antiquity, as on the score of the greatness of its Dominions, and because it has now for some Ages possess’d the Imperial Throne. This unusual Clemency of the Fates has raised this Family from a very mean original, to an invidious greatness.
Its Rise.
Rudolphus5 [, the first of these, who obtained the Imperial Dignity,]+ was Count of Hapsburg, and possessed a small Estate, nothing above his Condition and Title in the Borders [vicinity] of Switzerland, but then he was a good Souldier, and a man of Valour: |[There having been in his times an Interregnum <28> of about 20 years, the State of Germany was in great confusion and disorder. [So] the principal Princes of Germany met, and to put an end to these Calamities, resolved to elect [creato] an Emperor. Wernerus, then Bishop of Mentz, mentioned Rudolphus, who had civilly waited upon him in one of his Journeys to Rome, from Strasburg [Argentina] to the Alps, and he much extolled his Prudence and Courage [magnanimity], and the Electors of Cologne and Trier soon joined with him. Now he that is any thing well acquainted with the Temper of the Churchmen, will, without any difficulty, conjecture what occasion’d this great desire in the Bishop
