Excerpt from Teachers in Germany in the Sixteenth Century: Conditions in Protestant Elementary and Secondary Schools
The Germany of the sixteenth century was a patchwork of states, two or three hundred in number, held loosely together in an empire which was almost entirely lacking in the essentials of a unified government. The states ranged in importance from the castle and village of some insignificant knight to the powerful principalities of the Electors. To the extent that the empire was lacking as an administrative organization, the various smaller units were able to develop something of local and provincial government. Such states as Hesse, the Palatinate, Bavaria, Brandenburg, and both Saxonies had progressed to a stage where they had at least the beginnings of the cameral form of government. The princes had their councils and their own supreme courts of justice, their own systems of finance and coinage and eventually the control of their own churches. While the councils were made up of nobles and lawyers who were subservient to their princes, they seem to have been able to give some guidance to legislation, both civil and ecclesiastical. With the development of the idea that the religion of a state is that of its prince, it became possible to crystallize the religious movements in the different states and develop a form of ecclesiastical organization which had hitherto been impossible.
This development of church government took the form of the consistorial system with the ruling prince as head of the church, general oversight being vested in him. The consistory, a modified medi?val episcopal court, was composed of lawyers and divines appointed by the prince and acting in his name. That is to say, the highest religious or ecclesiastical body in the state was under the control of the secular authority.
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