Germany in the later middle ages was a site of monumental turbulence and change. The Hanseatic League was revolutionizing commerce, emperors and popes were fighting over the right to control the church, the black death decimated the population, towns and cities emerged as important political entities and the infamous Habsburg family rose to become the dominant ruling family of the lands. William Stubbs' history of Germany from the beginning thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century provides brilliant insight into this period of transition. The lands of the Holy Roman Empire and its neighbors underwent cataclysmic transformation through the course of these centuries as they left the world of the dark ages behind and moved forward towards modernity. Famous figures from Germany's history leap from the page, such as Frederick II, John Huss, and Maximilian I, as Stubbs' prose brings them to life. "the account of the institutions and constitution of Germany will enable the historical student to follow and to comprehend the peculiar and exceptional developments which took place in the Holy Roman Empire." Arthur Hassall Stubbs' history of Germany from 1200 to 1500 is a magnificent book that sheds light upon an understudied period in the story of this remarkable region. William Stubbs was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and later served as Bishop of Chester and Bishop of Oxford. Stubbs was widely considered to have been in the front rank of historical scholars both as an author and a critic, and as a master of every department of the historian's work, from the discovery of materials to the elaboration of well-founded theories and literary production. His book Germany in the Later Middle Ages, 1200-1500 was based upon a number of lectures given by Stubbs and was published in 1908. Stubbs had passed away in 1901.