THE REVOLT OF THE KNIGHTHOOD.
We have already pointed out in more than one place the position to
which the smaller nobility, or the knighthood, had been reduced by the
concatenation of causes which was bringing about the dissolution of
the old mediæval order of things, and, as a consequence, ruining the
knights both economically and politically:--economically by the rise of
capitalism as represented by the commercial syndicates of the cities;
by the unprecedented power and wealth of the city confederations,
especially of the Hanseatic League; by the rising importance of the
newly-developed world-market; by the growing luxury and the enormous
rise in the prices of commodities concurrently with the reduction
in value of the feudal land-tenures; and by the limitation of the
possibilities of acquiring wealth by highway robbery, owing to imperial
constitutions on the one hand and increased powers of defence on the
part of the trading community on the other:--politically, by the
new modes of warfare in which artillery and infantry, composed of
comparatively well-drilled mercenaries (_Landsknechte_), were rapidly
making inroads into the omnipotence of the ancient feudal chivalry,
and reducing the importance of individual skill or prowess in the
handling of weapons, and by the development of the power of the princes
or higher nobility, partly due to the influence which the Roman civil
law now began to exercise over the older customary constitution of
the Empire, and partly to the budding centralism of authority--which
in France and England became a national centralisation, but in
Germany, in spite of the temporary ascendancy of Charles V., finally
issued in a provincial centralisation in which the princes were _de
facto_ independent monarchs. The imperial constitution of 1495,
forbidding private war, applied, it must be remembered, only to the
lesser nobility and not to the higher, thereby placing the former in
a decidedly ignominious position as regards their feudal superiors.
And though this particular enactment had little immediate result, yet
it was none the less resented as a blow struck at the old knightly
privilege.
The mental attitude of the knighthood in the face of this progressing
change in their position was naturally an ambiguous one, composed
partly of a desire to hark back to the haughty independence of
feudalism, and partly of sympathy with the growing discontent among
other classes and with the new spirit generally. In order that the
knights might succeed in recovering their old or even in maintaining
their actual position against the higher nobility, the princes, backed
as these now largely were by the imperial power, the co-operation of
the cities was absolutely essential to them, but the obstacles in the
way of such a co-operation proved insurmountable. The towns hated
the knights for their lawless practices, which rendered trade unsafe
and not infrequently cost the lives of the citizens. The knights for
the most part, with true feudal hauteur, scorned and despised the
artisans and traders who had no territorial family name and were
unexercised in the higher chivalric arts. The grievances of the two
parties were, moreover, not identical, although they had their origin
in the same causes. The cities were in the main solely concerned
to maintain their old independent position, and especially to curb
the growing disposition at this time of the other estates to use
them as milch cows from which to draw the taxation necessary to the
maintenance of the Empire. For example, at the Reichstag opened at
Nürnberg on the 17th November, 1522--to discuss the questions of the
establishment of perpetual peace within the Empire, of organising an
energetic resistance to the inroads of the Turks, and of placing on
a firm foundation the Imperial Privy Council (_Kammergericht_) and
the Supreme Council (_Reichsregiment_)--at which were represented
twenty-six imperial towns, thirty-eight high prelates, eighteen
princes, and twenty-nine counts and barons--the representatives of the
cities complained grievously that their attendance was reduced to a
farce, since they were always out-voted, and hence obliged to accept
the decisions of the other estates. They stated that their position
was no longer bearable, and for the first time drew up an Act of
Protest, which further complained of the delay in the decisions of the
imperial courts; of their sufferings from the right of private war
which was still allowed to subsist in defiance of the constitution;
of the increase of customs-stations on the part of the princes and
prince-prelates; and, finally, of the debasement of the coinage due to
the unscrupulous practices of these notables and of the Jews. The only
sympathy the other estates vouchsafed to the plaints of the cities was
with regard to the right of private war, which the higher nobles were
also anxious to suppress amongst the lower, though without prejudice
of course to their own privileges in this line. All the other articles
of the Act of Protest were coolly waived aside. From all this it will
be seen that not much co-operation was to be expected between such
heterogeneous bodies as the knighthood and the free towns, in spite of
their common interest in checking the threateningly advancing power of
the princes and the central imperial authority, which was for the most
part manned and manipulated by the princes.
Amid the decaying knighthood there was, as we have already intimated,
one figure which stood out head and shoulders above every other
noble of the time, whether prince or knight; and that was Franz von
Sickingen. He has been termed, not without truth, "the last flower of
German chivalry," since in him the old knightly qualities flashed
up in conjunction with the old knightly power and splendour with a
brightness hardly known even in the palmiest days of mediæval life. It
was, however, the last flicker of the light of German chivalry. With
the death of Sickingen and the collapse of his revolt the knighthood of
Central Europe ceased any longer to play an independent part in history.
Sickingen, although technically only one of the lower nobility, was
deemed about the time of Luther's appearance to hold the immediate
destinies of the Empire in his hand. Wealthy, inspiring confidence
and enthusiasm as a leader, possessed of more than one powerful and
strategically-situated stronghold, he held court at his favourite
residence, the Castle of the Landstuhl, in the Rhenish Palatinate,
in a style which many a prince of the Empire might have envied. As
honoured guests were to be found attending on him, humanists, poets,
minstrels, partisans of the new theology, astrologers, alchemists, and
men of letters generally; in short, the whole intelligence and culture
of the period. Foremost among these, and chief confidant of Sickingen,
was the knight, courtier, poet, essayist and pamphleteer, Ulrich von
Hutten, whose pen was ever ready to champion with unstinted enthusiasm
the cause of the progressive ideas of his age. He first took up the
cudgels against the obscurantists on behalf of Humanism as represented
by Erasmus and Reuchlin, the latter of whom he bravely defended in
his dispute with the Inquisition and the monks of Cologne, and in his
contributions to the _Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum_ we see the youthful
ardour of the Renaissance in full blast in its onslaught on the forces
of mediæval obstruction. Unlike most of those with whom he was first
associated, Hutten passed from being the upholder of the New Learning
to the rôle of champion of the Reformation; and it was largely through
his influence that Sickingen took up the cause of Luther and his
movement.
Sickingen had been induced by Charles V. to assist him in an abortive
attempt to invade France in 1521, from which campaign he had returned
without much benefit either material or moral, save that Charles was
left heavily in his debt. The accumulated hatred of generations for
the priesthood had made Sickingen a willing instrument in the hands
of the reforming party and believing that Charles now lay to some
extent in his power, he considered the moment opportune for putting his
long-cherished scheme into operation for reforming the constitution
of the Empire. This reformation consisted, as was to be expected, in
placing his own order on a firm footing, and of effectually curbing the
power of the other estates, especially that of the prelates. Sickingen
wished to make the Emperor and the lower nobility the decisive factors
in his new scheme of things political. The Emperor, it so happened,
was for the moment away in Spain, and Sickingen's colleagues of the
knightly order were becoming clamorous at the unworthy position
into which they found themselves rapidly being driven. The feudal
exactions of their princely lieges had reached a point which passed
all endurance, and since they were practically powerless in the
Reichstags no outlet was left for their discontent save by open revolt.
Impelled not less by his own inclinations than by the pressure of his
companions, foremost among whom was Hutten, Sickingen decided at once
to open the campaign.
Hutten, it would appear, attempted to enter into negotiations for the
co-operation of the towns and of the peasants. So far as can be seen,
Strassburg and one or two other imperial cities returned favourable
answers; but the precise measure of Hutten's success cannot be
ascertained, owing to the fact that all the documents relating to the
matter perished in the destruction of Sickingen's Castle of Ebernburg.
It is certain, however, that operations were begun before any definite
assurances of help had been obtained, although had the first attempts
had any appearance of success there is little doubt that such help
would have been forthcoming.
The campaign was unfortunate from the beginning. Nevertheless, but
one of the associated knights saw that the moment was inopportune.
The rest were confident of success, and a pretext was speedily found
in the fact that Sickingen's feudal superior, the Archbishop of Trier
(Treves), had refused to compel two councillors of that city to repay
him 5000 Rhenish guilders (_gulden_) which he had paid as ransom for
them to a certain knight, Gerhard Börner, who had taken them prisoners.
This was a sufficient _casus belli_ for those times; and Sickingen
thereupon issued a manifesto in which he declared himself the champion
of the gospel, and announced his intention to free the subjects of
the archbishop from the temporal yoke of their tyrant, who had acted
against God and the imperial majesty, and from the spiritual yoke of
godless priests, and to place them in possession of that liberty which
the gospel (_i.e._, the new gospel of Luther) alone could afford.
It should be premised that on the 13th of August, previous to this
declaration of war, a "Brotherly Convention" had been signed by a
number of the knights, by which Sickingen was appointed their captain,
and they bound themselves to submit to no jurisdiction save their own,
and pledged themselves to mutual aid in war in case of hostilities
against any one of their number. Through this "Treaty of Landau,"
Sickingen had it in his power to assemble a considerable force at a
moment's notice. Consequently, a few days after the issue of the above
manifesto, on the 27th August, 1522, Sickingen was able to start from
the Castle of Ebernburg with an army of 5000 foot and 1500 knights,
besides artillery, in the full confidence that he was about to destroy
the position of the Palatine prince-prelate and raise himself without
delay to the chief power on the Rhine. The grand chamberlain of the
celebrated patron of letters and Humanism, Albrecht, Archbishop of
Mainz, Frowers von Hutten, was in the conspiracy; and it is almost
certain that Albrecht himself was secretly in accord with Sickingen's
plan for the destruction of his electoral neighbour. This is shown by
the fact that when the Archbishop of Trier appealed to him, as his
colleague, for assistance, Albrecht made a number of excuses which
enabled him to delay the sending of reinforcements until they were too
late to be of any use, whilst at the same time numbers of his retainers
and subjects served under Sickingen's banner.
By an effective piece of audacity, that of sporting the imperial flag
and the Burgundian cross, Franz spread abroad the idea that he was
acting on behalf of the Emperor, then absent in Spain; and this largely
contributed to the result that his army speedily rose to 5000 knights
and 10,000 footmen. The Imperial Diet at Nürnberg now intervened,
and ordered Sickingen to cease the operations he had already begun,
threatening him with the ban of the Empire and a fine of 2000 marks
if he did not obey. To this summons Franz sent a characteristically
impudent reply,[21] and light-heartedly continued the campaign,
regardless of the warning which an astrologer had given him some time
previously, that the year 1522 or 1523 would probably be fatal to
him. It is evident that this campaign, begun so late in the year, was
regarded by Sickingen and the other leaders as merely a preliminary
canter to a larger and more widespread movement the following spring,
since on this occasion the Swabian and Franconian knighthood do not
appear to have been even invited to take part in it.
After an easy progress, during which several trifling places, the most
important being St. Wendel, were taken, Franz with his army arrived on
the 8th of September before the gates of Trier. He had hoped to capture
the town by surprise, and was indeed not without some expectation of
co-operation and help from the citizens themselves. On his arrival he
shot letters within the walls summoning the inhabitants to take his
part against their tyrant; but either through the unwillingness of
the burghers to act with the knights, or through the vigilance of the
archbishop, they were without effect. The gates remained closed; and
in answer to Sickingen's summons to surrender, Richard replied that
he would find him in the city if he could get inside. In the meantime
Sickingen's friends had signally failed in their attempts to obtain
supplies and reinforcements for him, in the main owing to the energetic
action of some of the higher nobles. The Archbishop of Trier showed
himself as much a soldier as a churchman; and after a week's siege,
during which Sickingen made five assaults on the city, his powder ran
out, and he was forced to retire. He at once made his way back to
Ebernburg, where he intended to pass the winter, since he saw that it
was useless to continue the campaign, with his own army diminishing
and the hoped-for supplies not appearing, whilst the forces of his
antagonists augmented daily. In his stronghold of Ebernburg he could
rely on being secure from all attack until he was able to again take
the field on the offensive, as he anticipated doing in the spring.
There is some doubt as to the events which occurred during this
retreat to Ebernburg. Sickingen's adversaries asserted that not only
did his army destroy churches and monasteries, but that the houses
of the peasants in the surrounding country were plundered and burnt.
His friends, on the other hand, maintain with equal vehemence that
Sickingen and his followers confined themselves to wiping out of
existence as many as possible of the hated ecclesiastical foundations.
In spite of the obvious failure of the autumnal campaign, the cause
of the knighthood did not by any means look irretrievably desperate,
since there was always the possibility of successful recruitments the
following spring. Ulrich von Hutten was doing his utmost in Würtemberg
and Switzerland to scrape together men and money, though up to this
time without much success, while other emissaries of Sickingen were
working with the same object in Breisgau and other parts of Southern
Germany. Relying on these expected reinforcements, Franz was confident
of victory when he should again take the field, and in the meantime he
felt himself quite secure in one or other of his strong places, which
had recently undergone extensive repairs and seemed to be impregnable.
In this anticipation he was deceived, as will shortly be seen, for
he had not reckoned with the new and more potent weapons of attack
which were replacing the battering-ram and other mediæval besieging
appliances.
The princes, meanwhile, were not inactive. Immediately after the
abortive attack on Richard of Trier, Sickingen was placed under the
ban of the Empire (Oct. 8), but although the latter had temporarily
disbanded his army it was impossible for them to attack him at once.
They therefore contented themselves for the moment by wreaking
their vengeance on those of his supporters who were more easily to
be reached. Albrecht of Mainz, whose public policy had been that
of "sitting on the fence all round," was fined 25,000 gulden for
his lukewarmness in supporting his colleague, the Elector of Trier.
Kronberg, near Frankfort, which was held by Sickingen's son-in-law,
Hardtmuth, was taken by a force of 30,000 men (?); Frowen von Hutten,
the cousin of Ulrich, was driven from his Castle of Saalmünster and
dispossessed of his estates, whilst a number of the smaller fry equally
felt the heavy hand of the princely power. The chastisement of more
distant adherents to the cause of the knighthood, like the Counts of
Fürstenberg and Zollern and the knights of Franconia, was left over
until the leader of the movement had been dealt with.
This latter task was set about energetically, as soon as the winter
was past, by the three princes who had specially taken in hand the
suppression of the revolt, Archbishop Richard of Trier, Prince Ludwig
of the Pfalz, and Count Phillip of Hesse. In February, Sickingen's
second son, Hans, was taken prisoner, and shortly after the Castle
of Wartenberg was captured. An armistice which Sickingen had asked
for in order that the reinforcements he expected might have time to
arrive, was refused, since the princes saw that their only chance of
immediately crushing his power was to attack him at once. Towards the
end of April a large army of cavalry, infantry, and siege artillery
was called together at Kreuznach, not far from Sickingen's Castle of
Ebernburg. Franz, however, was no longer there. He appears to have
left Ebernburg for his strongest fortress at Landstuhl some weeks
previously, though how and when is uncertain. Here he hoped to be
able to hold out for at least three or four months, by which time his
friends could deliver him; and when the army of the three princes
appeared before the castle he sent back a mocking answer to their
summons to surrender, to the effect that he had new walls and they
had new guns, so they could now see which were the stronger. But
Sickingen had not realised the power of the new projectiles; and in
a week after the opening of the bombardment, on the 29th of April,
the newly-fortified castle on which he had staked all his hopes was
little better than a defenceless heap of ruins. In the course of the
bombardment Franz himself, as he stood at an embrasure watching the
progress of the siege, was flung against a splintered joist, owing
to the gun-stand against which he was leaning being overturned by a
cannon shot. With his side torn open he was carried down into a dark
rocky vault of the castle, realising at last that all was lost. "Where
are now," he cried, "my knights and my friends, who promised me so much
and who have performed so little? Where is Fürstenberg? where Zollern?
where are they of Strassburg and of the Brotherhood? Wherefore, let
none place their trust in great possessions nor in the encouragements
of men." It must be alleged, however, in their excuse, that his
friends doubtless shared Franz's confidence in the impregnability of
the Landstuhl, and were not aware of the imminent straits he had been
in since the beginning of the attack. The messenger he had sent to
the distant Fürstenberg had been captured by the army of the allied
princes; Zollern knew of the need of his leader only with the news of
his death; Hutten's efforts to obtain help in Switzerland had been in
vain.
Seeing that now all was over and he himself on the point of death,
Sickingen wrote to the princes, requesting them to come and see him.
The firing at once ceased, and negotiations were entered upon for the
surrender of the castle. On the 6th of May Sickingen agreed to the
articles of capitulation, which included the surrender of himself and
the rest of the knights in the castle as prisoners of war, his other
retainers giving up their arms and leaving the castle on the following
day. The Landstuhl with all its contents was to fall, of course, into
the hands of the besiegers. As Franz signed the articles, he remarked
to the ambassadors: "Well, I shall not be long your prisoner".
On the 7th of May the princes entered the castle and were at once taken
to the underground chamber where Franz lay dying. He was so near his
end that he could scarcely distinguish his three arch-enemies one from
the other. "My dear lord," he said to the Count Palatine, his feudal
superior, "I had not thought that I should end thus," taking off his
cap and giving him his hand. "What has impelled thee, Franz," asked
the Archbishop of Trier, "that thou hast so laid waste and harmed me
and my poor people?" "Of that it were too long to speak," answered
Sickingen, "but I have done nought without cause. I go now to stand
before a greater Lord." Here it is worthy of remark that the princes
treated Franz with all the knightliness and courtesy which were
customary between social equals in the days of chivalry, addressing
him at most rather as a rebellious child than as an insurgent subject.
The Prince of Hesse was about to give utterance to a reproach, but he
was interrupted by the Count Palatine, who told him that he must not
quarrel with a dying man. The count's chamberlain said some sympathetic
words to Franz, who replied to him: "My dear chamberlain, it matters
little about me. It is not I who am the cock round which they are
dancing." When the princes had withdrawn, his chaplain asked him if
he would confess; but Franz replied: "I have confessed to God in my
heart," whereupon the chaplain gave him absolution; and as he went to
fetch the host "the last of the knights" passed quietly away, alone and
abandoned. It is related by Spalatin that after his death some peasants
and domestics placed his body in an old armourchest, in which they had
to double the head on to the knees. The chest was then let down by a
rope from the rocky eminence on which stood the now ruined castle, and
was buried beneath a small chapel in the village below.
The scene we have just described in the castle vault meant not merely
the tragedy of a hero's death, nor merely the destruction of a faction
or party. It meant the end of an epoch. With Sickingen's death one
of the most salient and picturesque elements in the mediæval life of
Central Europe received its death-blow. The knighthood as a distinct
factor in the polity of Europe henceforth existed no more.
Spalatin relates that on the death of Sickingen the princely party
anticipated as easy a victory over the religious revolt as they had
achieved over the knighthood. "The mock Emperor is dead," so the phrase
went, "and the mock Pope will soon be dead also." Hutten, already
an exile in Switzerland, did not many months survive his patron and
leader, Sickingen. The rôle which Erasmus played in this miserable
tragedy was only what was to be expected from the moral cowardice which
seemed ingrained in the character of the great Humanist leader. Erasmus
had already begun to fight shy of the Reformation movement, from which
he was about to separate himself definitely. He seized the present
opportunity to quarrel with Hutten; and to Hutten's somewhat bitter
attacks on him in consequence he replied with ferocity in his _Spongia
Erasmi adversus aspergines Hutteni_.
Hutten had had to fly from Basel to Mülhausen and thence to Zürich,
in the last stages of syphilitic disease. He was kindly received by
the reformer, Zwingli of Zürich, who advised him to try the waters
of Pfeffers, and gave him letters of recommendation to the abbot of
that place. He returned, in no wise benefited, to Zürich, when Zwingli
again befriended the sick knight, and sent him to a friend of his,
the "reformed" pastor of the little island of "Ufenau," at the other
end of the lake, where after a few weeks' suffering he died in abject
destitution, leaving, it is said, nothing behind him but his pen. The
disease from which Hutten suffered the greater part of his life, at
that time a comparatively new importation and much more formidable
even than now-a-days, may well have contributed to an irascibility
of temper and to a certain recklessness which the typical free-lance
of the Reformation in its early period exhibited. Hutten was never a
theologian, and the Reformation seems to have attracted him mainly
from its political side as implying the assertion of the dawning
feeling of German nationality as against the hated enemies of freedom
of thought and the new light, the clerical satellites of the Roman
see. He was a true son of his time, in his vices no less than in his
virtues; and no one will deny his partiality for "wine, women, and
play". There is reason, indeed, to believe that the latter at times
during his later career provided his sole means of subsistence.
The hero of the Reformation, Luther, with whom Melancthon may be
associated in this matter, could be no less pusillanimous on occasion
than the hero of the New Learning, Erasmus. Luther undoubtedly saw in
Sickingen's revolt a means of weakening the Catholic powers against
which he had to fight, and at its inception he avowedly favoured
the enterprise. In "Karsthans," the brochure quoted from in the
last chapter, Luther is represented as the incarnation of Christian
resignation and mildness, and as talking of twelve legions of angels
and deprecating any appeal to force as unbefitting the character of
an evangelical apostle. That such, however, was not his habitual
attitude is evident to all who are in the least degree acquainted with
his real conduct and utterances. On one occasion he wrote: "If they
(the priests) continue their mad ravings it seems to me that there
would be no better method and medicine to stay them than that kings
and princes did so with force, armed themselves and attacked these
pernicious people who do poison all the world, and once for all did
make an end of their doings with weapons not with words. For even as we
punish thieves with the sword, murderers with the rope, and heretics
with fire, wherefore do we not lay hands on these pernicious teachers
of damnation, on popes, on cardinals, bishops, and the swarm of the
Roman Sodom--yea, with every weapon which lieth within our reach, _and
wherefore do we not wash our hands in their blood_?"
It is, however, in a manifesto published in July, 1522, just before
Sickingen's attack on the Archbishop of Trier, for which enterprise
it was doubtless intended as a justification, that Luther expresses
himself in unmeasured terms against the "biggest wolves," the bishops,
and calls upon "all dear children of God and all true Christians" to
drive them out by force from the "sheep-stalls". In this pamphlet,
entitled "Against the falsely called spiritual order of the Pope and
the bishops," he says: "It were better that every bishop were murdered,
every foundation or cloister rooted out, than that one soul should
be destroyed, let alone that all souls should be lost for the sake
of their worthless trumpery and idolatry. Of what use are they who
thus live in lust, nourished by the sweat and labour of others, and
are a stumbling block to the word of God? They fear bodily uproar and
despise spiritual destruction. Are they wise and honest people? If
they accepted God's word and sought the life of the soul, God would be
with them, for He is a God of peace, and they need fear no uprising;
but if they will not hear God's word, but rage and rave with bannings,
burnings, killings, and every evil, what do they better deserve than a
strong uprising which shall sweep them from the earth? _And we would
smile did it happen._ As the heavenly wisdom saith: 'Ye have hated my
chastisement and despised my doctrine; behold, I will also laugh at ye
in your distress, and will mock ye when misfortune shall fall upon your
heads'." In the same document he denounces the bishops as an accursed
race, as "thieves, robbers, and usurers". Swine, horses, stones, and
wood were not so destitute of understanding as the German people under
the sway of them and their Pope. The religious houses are similarly
described as "brothels, low taverns, and murder dens". He winds up
this document, which he calls his bull, by proclaiming that "all who
contribute body, goods, and honour that the rule of the bishops may be
destroyed are God's dear children and true Christians, obeying God's
command and fighting against the devil's order;" and on the other hand,
that "all who give the bishops a willing obedience are the devil's own
servants, and fight against God's order and law".[22]
No sooner, however, did things begin to look bad with Sickingen than
Luther promptly sought to disengage himself from all complicity or
even sympathy with him and his losing cause. So early as the 19th
of December, 1522, he writes to his friend Wenzel Link: "Franz von
Sickingen has begun war against the Palatine. It will be a very bad
business." (_Franciscus Sickingen Palatino bellum indixit, res pessima
futura est._) His colleague, Melancthon, a few days later, hastened
to deprecate the insinuation that Luther had had any part or lot in
initiating the revolt. "Franz von Sickingen," he wrote, "by his great
ill-will injures the cause of Luther; and notwithstanding that he be
entirely dissevered from him, nevertheless whenever he undertaketh
war he wisheth to seem to act for the public benefit, and not for his
own. He is even now pursuing a most infamous course of plunder on the
Rhine." In another letter he says: "I know how this tumult grieveth
him (Luther),"[23] and this respecting the man who had shortly before
written of the princes, that their tyranny and haughtiness were no
longer to be borne, alleging that God would not longer endure it,
and that the common man even was becoming intelligent enough to deal
with them by force if they did not mend their manners. A more telling
example of the "don't-put-him-in-the-horse-pond" attitude could
scarcely be desired. That it was characteristic of the "great reformer"
will be seen later on when we find him pursuing a similar policy anent
the revolt of the peasants.
After the fall of the Landstuhl all Sickingen's castles and most of
those of his immediate allies and friends were of course taken, and
the greater part of them destroyed. The knighthood was now to all
intents and purposes politically helpless and economically at the door
of bankruptcy, owing to the suddenly changed conditions of which we
have spoken in the Introduction and elsewhere as supervening since the
beginning of the century: the unparalleled rise in prices, concurrently
with the growing extravagance, the decline of agriculture in many
places, and the increasing burdens put upon the knights by their feudal
superiors, and last, but not least, the increasing obstacles in the
way of the successful pursuit of the profession of highway robbery.
The majority of them, therefore, clung with relentless severity to the
feudal dues of the peasants, which now constituted their main, and in
many cases their only, source of revenue; and hence, abandoning the
hope of independence, they threw in their lot with the authorities, the
princes, lay and ecclesiastic, in the common object of both, that of
reducing the insurgent peasants to complete subjection.
Some few of the more chivalrous knights, foremost among whom was
Florian Geyer, retained their rebel instincts against the higher
authorities, and took sides with the popular movement. They fought,
however, in a forlorn hope. As we shall now see, provincial centralism,
as in Italy, and not national centralism as in France, England, and
Spain, was destined to be the political form dominant in Germany
far into the modern period. The disasters and discomfitures of the
Peasants' War, which we shall presently describe, removed the last
obstacle to the complete ascendancy of the provincial potentates, the
princes of the Empire; for this event was the immediate cause of the
final disintegration of mediæval life, and the undermining of the last
survivals of the free institutions of the communal village which had
lasted throughout the Middle Ages.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Franz said to the bystanders when the messengers of the
Council appeared: "Look at these old fiddles of the _Regiment_; only
the dancers lack. There is no dearth of commands, but only of those who
heed them;" and turning to the nuncios themselves, he bade them tell
the Imperial Stadthalter and the other gentlemen of the Council that
"they might make themselves easy, for he was as good a servant of the
Emperor as themselves. He would, if he had enough followers, so work it
that the Emperor would be able to get far more land and gold in Germany
than he could ever get abroad. He only meant to give Richard of Trier
a slight drubbing, and to soak his crowns for him which he had gotten
from France."
[22] _Sämmtliche Werke_, vol. xxviii., 142-201.
[23] _Corpus Reformatorum_, i., 598-599.