It must also be remembered that from the end of the fourteenth century on to the beginning of the sixteenth, however varied the cries and watchwords of the insurgents may be, one persistent note of detestation of the priests (the _pfaffen_) is always heard; and, from the way in which Jews and priests are continually linked together in one common denunciation, it may be inferred that the hatred arose more from the intolerable pressure of clerical extortion than from any feeling of irreligion. The t.i.thes, great and small, and the means taken to exact them, were a galling burden.
"The priests," says an English writer, "have their tenth part of all the corn, meadows, pasture, gra.s.s, wood, colts, lambs, geese, and chickens.
Over and besides the tenth part of every servant"s wages, wool, milk, honey, wax, cheese, and b.u.t.ter; yea, and they look so narrowly after their profits that the poor wife must be countable to them for every tenth egg, or else she getteth not her rights at Easter, and shall be taken as a heretic." As matter of fact, many of these t.i.thes, extorted in the name of the Church, did not go into the pockets of the clergy at all, but were seized by the feudal superior and went to increase his revenues. Popular feeling, however, seldom discriminates, and feudal and clerical dues were regarded as belonging to one system of intolerable oppression. Besides, the rapacity of Churchmen went far beyond the exaction of the t.i.thes. "I see," said a Spaniard, "that we can scarcely get anything from Christ"s ministers but for money; at baptism money, at bishoping money, at marriage money, for confession money-no, not extreme unction without money! They will ring no bells without money, no burial in the church without money; so that it seemeth that Paradise is shut up from them that have no money.
The rich is buried in the church, the poor in the churchyard. The rich man may marry with his nearest kin, but the poor not so, albeit he be ready to die for love of her. The rich may eat flesh in Lent, but the poor may not, albeit fish perhaps be much dearer. The rich man may readily get large Indulgences, but the poor none, because he wanteth money to pay for them."(58)
In spite of this hatred of the priests, it will be found that almost every insurrectionary movement was impregnated by some sentiment of enthusiastic religion, with which was blended some confused dream that the kingdom of G.o.d might be set up on earth, if only the priests were driven out of the land. This religious element drew some of its strength from the Lollard movement in England and from the Taborite in Bohemia, but after 1476 it had a distinctly German character. Its connection with what may almost be called the epidemic of pilgrimages, the strongly increased veneration for the Blessed Virgin, and the injunctions laid upon the confederates in some of the revolutionary movements to repeat so many _Pater Nosters_ and _Ave Marias_, seem to lead to the conclusion that much of that revival of an enthusiastic and superst.i.tious religion which marked the last half of the fifteenth century may be regarded as an attempt to create a popular religion apart from priests and clergy of all kinds.
One of the earliest of these popular uprisings occurred at Gotha in 1391, when the peasantry of the neighbourhood and many of the burghers of the town rose against the exactions of the Jews, and demanded their expulsion.
It was an insurrection of debtors against usurers, and was in the end put down by the majority of the citizens. From this date onwards to 1470 similar risings took place in many parts of Germany, prompted by the same or like causes-the exactions of Jews, priests, or n.o.bles. The years 1431-1432 saw a great Hussite propaganda carried on all over Europe.
Countries were flooded with Hussite proclamations, and traversed by Hussite emissaries. Paul Crawar was sent to Scotland, and others like him to Spain, to the Netherlands, and to East Prussia. They taught among other things that the Old Testament law about t.i.thes had no place within the Christian Church, and that Christian t.i.thes were originally free-will offerings,-a statement peculiarly acceptable to the German peasantry. All Germany had learnt by this time how Bohemian peasants, trained and led by men belonging to the lesser n.o.bility, had routed in two memorable campaigns the imperial armies led by the Emperor himself, and how they had begun even to invade Germany. The chroniclers speak of the anxiety of the governing cla.s.ses, civic and rural, when they recognised the strength of the feelings excited by this propaganda. The Hussite doctrine of t.i.thes appears hereafter in most of the peasant programmes.
A still more powerful impulse to revolts was given by the tragic fate of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. Charles was the ideal feudal autocrat. He was looked up to and imitated by the feudal princes of Germany in the fifteenth as was Louis XIV. by their descendants in the end of the seventeenth century. The common people regarded him as the typical feudal tyrant, and the hateful impression which his arrogance, his vindictiveness, and his oppression of the poor made upon them comes out in the folk-songs of the period:
"Er schazt sich kunig Alexander gleich; Er wolt bezwingen alle Reich, Das wante Got in kurzer stund."
He even came to be considered by them as one of the Antichrists who were to appear, and for years after his death at Nancy (1477) many believed that he was alive, expiating his sins on a prolonged pilgrimage.
When this great potentate, who was believed to have boasted that there were three rulers-G.o.d in heaven, Lucifer in h.e.l.l, and himself on earth-was defeated at Granson, routed at Morat, routed and slain at Nancy, and that by Swiss peasants, the exultation was immense, and it was believed that the peasantry might inherit the earth.(59)
-- 6. The religious Socialism of Hans Bohm.
During the last years of this memorable Burgundian war a strange movement arose in the very centre of Germany, within the district which may be roughly defined as the triangle whose points were the towns of Aschaffenburg, Wurzburg, and Crailsheim, in the secluded valleys of the Spessart and the Taubergrund. A young man, Hans Bohm (Boheim, Bohaim), belonging to the very lowest cla.s.s of society, below the peasant, who wandered from one country festival or church ale to another, and played on the small drum or on the dudelsack (rude bagpipes), or sang songs for the dancers, was suddenly awakened to a sense of spiritual things by the discourse of a wandering Franciscan. He was utterly uneducated. He did not even know the Creed. He had visions of the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to him in the guise of a lady dressed in white, called him to be a preacher, and promised him further revelations, which he received from time to time.
His home was the village of Helmstadt in the Tauber valley; and the most sacred spot he knew was a chapel dedicated to the Virgin at the small village of Niklashausen on the Tauber. The chapel had been granted an indulgence, and was the scene of small pilgrimages. Hans Bohm appeared suddenly on the Sunday in Mid-Lent (March 24th, 1476), solemnly burnt his rude drum and bagpipes before the crowd of people, and declared that he had hitherto ministered to the sins and vanities of the villagers, but that henceforth he was going to be a preacher of grace. He had been a lad of blameless life, and his character gave force to his words. He related his visions, and the people believed him. It was a period when an epidemic of pilgrimage was sweeping over Europe, and the pilgrims spread the news of the prophet far and wide. Crowds came to hear him from the neighbouring valleys. His fame spread to more distant parts, and chroniclers declare that on some days he preached to audiences of from twenty to thirty thousand persons. His pulpit was a barrel set on end, or the window of a farmhouse, or the branch of a tree. He a.s.sured his hearers that the holiest spot on earth, holier by far than Rome, was the chapel of Our Lady at Niklashausen, and that true religion consisted in doing honour to the Blessed Virgin. He denounced all priests in unmeasured terms: they were worse than Jews; they might be converted for a while, but as soon as they went back among their fellows they were sure to become backsliders. He railed against the Emperor: he was a miscreant, who supported the whole vile crew of princes, over-lords, tax-gatherers, and other oppressors of the poor. He scoffed at the Pope. He denied the existence of Purgatory: good men went directly to heaven and bad men went to h.e.l.l. The day was coming, he declared, when every prince, even the Emperor himself, must work for his day"s wages like all poor people. He a.s.serted that taxes of all kinds were evil, and should not be paid; that fish, game, and meadow lands were common property; that all men were brethren, and should share alike. When his sermon was finished the crowd of devotees knelt round the "holy youth," and he, blessing them, pardoned their sins in G.o.d"s name.
Then the crowd surged round him, tearing at his clothes to get some sc.r.a.p of cloth to take home and worship as a relic; and the Niklashausen chapel became rich with the offerings of the thousands of pilgrims.
The authorities, lay and clerical, paid little attention to him at first.
Some princes and some cities (Nurnberg, for example) prohibited their subjects from going to Niklashausen; but the prophet was left untouched.
He came to believe that his words ought to be translated into actions. One Sunday he asked his followers to meet him on the next Sunday, bringing their swords and leaving their wives and children at home. The Bishop of Wurzburg, hearing this, sent a troop of thirty-four hors.e.m.e.n, who seized the prophet, flung him on a horse, and carried him away to the bishop"s fortress of Frauenberg near Wurzburg. His followers had permitted his capture, and seemed dazed by it. In a day or two they recovered their courage, and, exhorted by an old peasant who had received a vision, and headed by four Franconian knights, they marched against Frauenberg and surrounded it. They expected its walls to fall like those of Jericho; and when they were disappointed they lingered for some days, and then gradually dispersed. Hans himself, after examination, was condemned to be burnt as a heretic. He died singing a folk-hymn in praise of the Blessed Virgin.
His death did not end the faith of his followers. In spite of severe prohibitions, the pilgrimages went on and the gifts acc.u.mulated. A neighbouring knight sacked the chapel and carried away the treasure, which he was forced to share with his neighbours. Still the pilgrimages continued, until at last the ecclesiastical authorities removed the priest and tore down the building, hoping thereby to destroy the movement.
The memory of Hans Bohm lived among the common people, peasants and artisans; for the lower cla.s.ses of Wurzburg and the neighbouring towns had been followers of the movement. A religious social movement, purely German, had come into being, and was not destined to die soon. The effects of Hans Bohm"s teaching appear in almost all subsequent peasant and artisan revolts.(60) Even Sebastian Brand takes the Niklashausen pilgrims as his type of those enthusiasts who are not contented with the revelations of the Old and New Testaments, but must seek a special prophet of their own:
"Man weis doch aus der Schrift so viel, Aus altem und aus neuem Bunde, Es braucht nicht wieder neuer Kunde.
Dennoch wallfahrten sie zur Klausen Des Sackpfeifers von Nicklashausen."(61)
And the Niklashausen pilgrimage was preserved in the memories of the people by a lengthy folk-song which Liliencron has printed in his collection.(62)
From this time onwards there was always some tinge of religious enthusiasm in the social revolts, where peasant and poor burghers stood shoulder to shoulder against the ruling powers in country and in town.
The peasants within the lands of the Abbot of Kempten, north-east of the Lake of Constance, had for two generations protested against the way in which the authorities were treating them (1420-1490). They rose in open revolt in 1491-1492. It was a purely agrarian rising to begin with, caused by demands made on them by their over-lord not sanctioned by the old customs expressed in the _Weisthumer_; but the lower cla.s.ses of the town of Kempten made common cause with the insurgents. Yet there are distinct traces of impregnation with religious enthusiasm not unlike that which inspired the Hans Bohm movement. The rising was crushed, and the leaders who escaped took refuge in Switzerland.
-- 7. Bundschuh Revolts.
In the widespread social revolt which broke out in Elsa.s.s in 1493, the peasants were supported by the towns; demands were made for the abolition of the imperial and the ecclesiastical courts of justice, for the reduction of ecclesiastical property, for the plundering of Jews who had been fattening upon usury, and for the curbing of the power of the priests. The Germans had a proverb, "The poor man must tie his shoes with string," and the "tied shoe" (_Bundschuh_), the poor man"s shoe, became the emblem of this and subsequent social revolts, while their motto was, "Only what is just before G.o.d." This rebellion, which was prematurely betrayed, did not lack prominent leaders. One of them was Hans Ulman, the burgomeister of Schlettstadt, who died on the scaffold affirming the justice of the demands which he and his companions had made, and predicting their future triumph.
In 1501 the peasants of Kempten and the neighbouring districts again rose in rebellion, and were again joined by the poorer townspeople. In the year following, 1502, a revolt was planned having for its headquarters the village of Untergrombach, near Speyer; it spread into Elsa.s.s, along the Neckar and down the Rhine. The _Bundschuh_ banner was again unfurled. It was made of blue silk, with a white cross, the emblem of Switzerland, in the centre. It was adorned with a picture of the crucified Christ, a _Bundschuh_ on the one side, and a kneeling peasant on the other. The motto was again, "Only what is just before G.o.d." Every a.s.sociate promised to repeat five times a day the Lord"s Prayer and the _Ave Maria_. The patron saints were declared to be the Blessed Virgin and St. John. The movement was strongly anti-clerical. The leaders taught that there could be no deliverance from oppression until the priests were driven from the land, and until the property of the n.o.bles and the priests was confiscated and their power broken. t.i.thes, feudal exactions of all kinds, and all social inequalities were denounced; water, forest and pasture lands were declared to be the common property of all. The leaders recognised the rule of the Emperor as over-lord, but denounced all intermediate jurisdictions.
The plan was to raise the peasants and the townspeople throughout all Germany, and to call upon the Swiss to aid them in winning their deliverance from oppression. The revolt was put down with savage cruelty; most of the leaders were quartered. Many escaped to Switzerland, and lay hid among the Alpine valleys.
One of these was Joss Fritz, who had been a soldier (_landsknecht_)-a man with many qualities of leadership. He had tenacity of purpose, great powers of organisation, and gifts of persuasion. He vowed to restore the _Bundschuh_ League. He remained years in hiding in Switzerland, maturing his plans. Then he returned secretly to his own people. He seems to have secured an appointment as forester to a n.o.bleman whose lands lay near the town of Freiburg in the Breisgau; and there, in the small village of Lehen, he began to weave together again the broken threads of the _Bundschuh_ League. He mingled with the poorer people in the taverns, at church ales, on the village greens on festival days. He spoke of the justice of G.o.d and the wickedness of the world. He expounded the old principles of the _Bundschuh_ with some few variations. Indiscriminate hatred of priests seems to have been abandoned. Most of the village priests were peasants, and suffered, like them, from overbearing superiors. The parish priest of Lehen became a strong supporter of the _Bundschuh_, and told his parishioners that all its ideas could be proved from the word of G.o.d. Joss Fritz won over to his side the "gilds" of beggars, strolling musicians, all kinds of vagrants who could be useful.
They carried his messages, summoned the people to his meetings in quiet s.p.a.ces in the woods, and were active a.s.sistants. At these meetings Joss Fritz and his lieutenant Jerome, a journeyman baker, expounded the Scriptures "under the guidance of the Holy Spirit simply," and proved all the demands of the _Bundschuh_ from the word of G.o.d.
When the country seemed almost ripe for the rising, Joss Fritz resolved to prepare the banner as secretly as possible. It was easy to get the blue silk and sew the white cross on its ground; the difficulty was to find an artist sympathetic enough to paint the emblems, and courageous enough to keep the secret. The banner was at last painted. The crucified Christ in the centre, a peasant kneeling in prayer on the one side and the _Bundschuh_ on the other, the figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, and the pictures of the Pope and the Emperor. The motto, "O Lord, help the righteous," was added, and the banner with its striking symbolism was complete. The League had the old programme with some alterations:-no masters but G.o.d, the Pope, and the Emperor, no usury, all debts to be cancelled, and the clauses mentioned above. The leaders boasted that their league extended as far as the city of Koln (Cologne), and that the Swiss would march at their head. But the secret leaked out before the date planned for the general rising; and the revolt was mercilessly stamped out (1512-1513). Its leader escaped with the _Bundschuh_ banner wound round his body under his clothes. In four years he was back again at his work (1517). In a very short time his agents, the "gild" of beggars, wandering minstrels, poor priests, pilgrims to local shrines, pardon-sellers, begging friars, and even lepers, had leagued the peasantry and the poorer artisans in the towns in one vast conspiracy which permeated the entire district between the Vosges and the Black Forest, including the whole of Baden and Elsa.s.s. The plot was again betrayed before the plans of the leaders were matured, and the partial risings were easily put down; but when the authorities set themselves to make careful investigations, they were aghast at the extent of the movement. The peasants of the country districts and the populace of the towns had been bound together to avenge common wrongs. The means of secret communication had been furnished by country innkeepers, old _landsknechts_, pedlars, parish priests, as well as by the vagrants above mentioned; and the names of some of the subordinate leaders-"long" John, "crooked" Peter, "old" Kuntz-show the cla.s.ses from which they were drawn. It was discovered that the populace of Weisenburg had come to an agreement with the people of Hagenau (both towns were in Elsa.s.s) to slay the civic councillors and judges and all the inhabitants of n.o.ble descent, to refuse payment of all imperial and ecclesiastical dues, and that the Swiss had promised to come to their a.s.sistance.
One might almost say that between the years 1503 and 1517 the social revolution was permanently established in the southern districts of the Empire, from Elsa.s.s in the west to Carinthia and the Steiermarck in the east. It is needless to describe the risings in detail. They were not purely peasant rebellions, for the townspeople were almost always involved; but they all displayed that mingling of communist ideas and religious enthusiasm of which the _Bundschuh_ banner had become the emblem, and which may be traced back to the movement under Hans Bohm as its German source, and perhaps to the earlier propaganda of the Hussite revolutionaries or Taborites. The later decades of the fifteenth and the earlier years of the sixteenth century were a time of permanent social unrest.
-- 8. The Causes of the continuous Revolts.
If we ask why it was that the peasants, whose lot, according to the information given in the _Weisthumer_, could not have been such a very hard one, were so ready to rise in rebellion during the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the answer seems to be that there must have been a growing change in their circ.u.mstances. Some chroniclers have described the condition of the peasants in the end of the fifteenth and in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and they always dwell upon their misery. John Bohm, who wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth century, says that "their lot was hard and pitiable," and calls them "slaves."(63) Sebastian Frank (1534), Sebastian Munster (1546), H. Pantaleone (1570), an Italian who wrote a description of Germany, all agree with Bohm. Frank adds that the peasants hate every kind of cleric, good or bad, and that their speech is full of gibes against priests and monks; while Pantaleone observes that many skilled workmen, artisans, artists, and men of learning have sprung from this despised peasant cla.s.s. There must have been a great change for the worse in the condition of the poorer dwellers both in town and in country.
So far as the townsmen are concerned, nothing need be added to what has already been said; but the causes of the growing depression of the peasantry were more complicated. The universal testimony of contemporaries is that the gradual introduction of Roman law brought the greatest change, by placing a means of universal oppression in the hands of the over-lords.
There is no need to suppose that the lawyers who introduced the new jurisprudence meant to use it to degrade and oppress the peasant cla.s.s. A slight study of the _Weisthumer_ shows how complicated and varied was this consuetudinary law which regulated the relations between peasant and over-lord. It was natural, when great estates grew to be princ.i.p.alities, whether lay or clerical, that the over-lords should seek for some principle of codification or reduction to uniformity. It had been the custom for centuries to attempt to simplify the ruder and involved German codes by bringing them into harmony with the principles of Roman law, and this idea had received a powerful impetus from the Renaissance movement.
But when the bewildering multiplicity of customary usages which had governed the relations of cultivators to over-lords was simplified according to the ideas of Roman law, the result was in the highest degree dangerous to the free peasantry of Germany. The conception of strict individual proprietorship tended to displace the indefinite conception of communal proprietorship, and the peasants could only appear in the guise of tenants on long leases, or serfs who might have some personal rights but no rights of property, or slaves who had no rights at all. The new jurisprudence began by attacking the common lands, pastures, and forests.
The pa.s.sion for the chase, which became the more engrossing as the right to wage private war grew more and more dangerous, led to the n.o.bles insisting on the individual t.i.tle to all forest lands, and to the publication of such forest laws as we find made in Wurtemberg, where anyone found trespa.s.sing with gun or cross-bow was liable to lose one eye.
The attempt to reduce a free peasantry in possession of communal property to tenants on long lease, then to serfs, and, lastly, to slaves, may be seen in the seventy years" struggle between the Abbots of Kempten and their peasants. These spiritual lords carried on the contest with every kind of force and chicanery they could command. They enlarged illegally the jurisdiction of their spiritual courts; they prevented the poor people who opposed them from coming to the Lord"s Table; they actually falsified their t.i.tle-deeds, inserting provisions which were not originally contained in them.
The case of the Kempten lands was, no doubt, an extreme one, though it could be matched by others. But the point to be noticed is the immense opportunities for oppression which were placed in the hands of the over-lords by the new jurisprudence, and the temptation to make use of them when their interests seemed to require it, or when their peasantry began to grow refractory or became too prosperous. The economic changes which were at work throughout the fifteenth century gave occasion for the use of the powers which the new jurisdiction had placed at the disposal of landlords. The economic revolution from the first impoverished the n.o.bles of Germany; while, in its beginnings and until after the great rise in prices, it rather helped the peasantry. They had a better market for their produce, and they so profited by it that the burghers spoke of denying them the right of free markets, on the ground that they had begun to usurp the place of the merchants and were trafficking in gold by lending money on interest. The compet.i.tion in luxurious dress and living, which the impoverished n.o.bles carried on with the rich burghers, made the former still poorer and more reckless. We read of a n.o.ble lady in Swabia who, rather than be outshone at a tournament, sold a village and all her rights over it in order to buy a blue velvet dress. The n.o.bles, becoming poorer and poorer, saw their own peasants making money to such an extent that they were, comparatively speaking, much better off than themselves, so that in Westphalia it was said that a peasant could get credit more easily than five n.o.bles.
Moreover, the peasants did not appear to be as submissive to their lords as they once had been. Nor was it to be wondered at. The creation of the _landsknechts_ had put new thoughts into their heads. The days of the old fighting chivalry were over, and the strength of armies was measured by the number and discipline of the infantry. The victories of the Swiss over Charles the Bold had made the peasant or artisan soldier a power. Kings and princes raised standing armies, recruited from the country districts or from among the wilder and more restless of the town population. The folk-songs are full of the doings of these plebeian soldiers. When the _landsknecht_ visited his relations in village or in town, swaggered about in his gorgeous parti-coloured clothes, his broad hat adorned with huge feathers, his great gauntlets and his weapons; when he showed a gold chain or his ducats, or a jewel he had won as his share of the booty; when his old neighbours saw his dress and gait imitated by the young burghers,-he became a centre of admiration, and his relations began to hold themselves high on his account. They acquired a new independence of character, a new impatience against all that prevented them from rising in the world. It has scarcely been sufficiently noted how most of the leaders in the plebeian risings were disbanded _landsknechts_.(64)
The new jurisprudence was a very effectual instrument in the hands of an impoverished landlord cla.s.s to ease the peasant of his superfluous wealth, and to keep him in his proper place. It was used almost universally, and the peasant rebellions were the natural consequences. But the more determined peasant revolts, which began with the _Bundschuh_ League, arose at a time when life was hard for peasant and artisan alike.
The last decade of the fifteenth century and the first of the sixteenth contained a number of years in which the harvest failed almost entirely over all or in parts of Germany. They began with 1490, and in that year contemporary writers, like Trithemius, declare that the lot of the poor was almost unbearable. The bad harvests of 1491 and 1492 made things worse. In 1493, the year which saw the foundation of the _Bundschuh_, the state of matters may be guessed from the fact that men came all the way from the Tyrol to the upper reaches of the Main, where the harvest was comparatively good, bought barley there for five times its usual price, carried it on pack-horses by little frequented paths to their own country, and sold it at a profit.
In 1499 the Swiss refused to submit to the imperial proposals for consolidating the Empire. Maximilian or his government in the Tyrol resolved to punish them, and the Swabian League were to be the executioners. The Swiss, highly incensed, had declared that if they were forced into war it would be a war of extermination. They were as bad as their word. An eye-witness saw whole villages in the wasted districts forsaken by the men, and the women gathered in troops, feeding on herbs and roots, and seeing with the apathy of despair their ranks diminish clay by day.(65) The Swiss war was worse than many bad harvests for the Hegau and other districts in South Germany.
In 1500 the harvest failed over all Germany; 1501 and 1502 were years when the crops failed in a number of districts; and in 1503 there was another universally bad harvest. These years of scarcity pressed most heavily on the peasant cla.s.s. In some districts of Brandenburg, peasants were found in the woods dead of starvation, with the gra.s.s which they had been trying to eat still in their mouths. Cities like Augsburg and Stra.s.sburg bought grain, stored it in magazines, and kept the poor alive by periodical distributions. This cycle of famine years from 1490 to 1503 was the period when the most determined and desperate social risings took place, and largely explains them.(66)
Our description of the social conditions existing during the period which ushered in the Reformation has been confined to Germany. The great religious movement took its origin in that land, and it is of the utmost importance to study the environment there. But the universal economic changes were producing social disturbances everywhere, modified in appearance and character by the special conditions of the various countries of Europe. The popular risings in England, which began with the gigantic labour strike under Wat Tyler and priest Ball, and ended with the disturbances during the reign of Edward VI., were the counterpart of the social revolt in Germany.
From all that has been said, it will be evident that on the eve of the Reformation the condition of Europe, and of Germany in particular, was one of seething discontent and full of bitter cla.s.s hatreds,-the trading companies and the great capitalists against the "gilds," the poorer cla.s.ses against the wealthier, and the n.o.bles against the towns. This state of things is abundantly reflected in the folk-songs of the period, which best reveal the intimate feelings of the people. For it was an age of song everywhere, and especially in Germany. n.o.bles and knights, burghers and peasants, _landsknechts_ and Swiss soldiers, priests and clerks, lawyers and merchants-all expressed the feelings of their cla.s.s when they sang; and the folk-songs give us a wonderful picture of the cla.s.s hatreds which were rending asunder the old conditions of mediaeval life, and preparing the way for a new world.
This social ferment was increased by a sudden and mysterious rise in prices, affecting first the articles of foreign produce, to which the wealthier cla.s.ses had become greatly addicted, and at last the ordinary necessaries of life. The cause, it is now believed, was not the debasing of the coinage, for that affected a narrow circle only; nor was it the importation of precious metals from America, for that came later; it was rather the increased output of the mines in Europe. Whatever the cause, the thing was to contemporaries an irritating mystery, and each cla.s.s in society was disposed to blame the others for it. We have thus at the beginning of the sixteenth century a restless social condition in Germany, caused in great measure by economic causes which no one understood, but whose results were painfully manifest in the crowds of st.u.r.dy beggars who thronged the roads-the refuse of all cla.s.ses in society, from the broken n.o.ble and the disbanded mercenary soldier to the ruined peasant, the workman out of employment, the begging friar, and the "wandering student."
It was into this ma.s.s of seething discontent that the spark of religious protest fell-the one thing needed to fire the train and kindle the social conflagration. This was the society to which Luther spoke, and its discontent was the sounding-board which made his words reverberate.