A comparison between the countries round the Baltic and those round the Mediterranean in the middle of the sixteenth century sheds light L on conditions in the north at a time when the political situation was vastly different from the present one. Though in varying degrees, the European countries on the Mediterranean all had an ancient cultural heritage, and during the last few centuries they had evolved a new culture—the Renaissance—in conscious relation to classical antiquity. The former political disunity was partly overcome in France, was on the way to being overcome in the Iberian peninsula, but was still acute in Italy. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean, on the other side of an ‘iron curtain’, lay the cultural world of the Orient. For centuries it had given many impulses to southern Europe. Now the links were broken, and most of Europe's trade with the Far East followed new routes.

Similarly, in the middle of the sixteenth century the eastern and western sides of the Baltic belonged to different cultural spheres in religion, education, language and custom; the main line of demarcation was between Russia on the one side, and her neighbours Sweden-Finland and Poland on the other. But the dissimilarities to southern Europe were enormous. The northern countries were economically and culturally primitive compared with those in the south. The refinement of the Renaissance had as yet left only small traces in northern Europe, primarily in art. The Reformation's programme, however, had quickly and effectively reached northern Germany, Poland and Scandinavia, spreading not so much among the masses as in certain social groups—particularly the middle-class townspeople—and within government circles.