ier cities and the knights who
infested the trade routes leading to and from them. Still, these
belligerent relations were taken as a matter of course; and no
disgrace, in the modern sense, attached to the occupation of highway
robbery.

In consequence of the impoverishment of the knights at this period,
owing to causes with which we shall deal later, the trade or
profession had recently received an accession of vigour, and at the
same time was carried on more brutally and mercilessly than ever
before. We will give some instances of the sort of occurrence which
was by no means unusual. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nuernberg,
which was _bien entendu_ one of the chief seats of the Imperial power,
a robber-knight leader, named Hans Thomas von Absberg, was a standing
menace. It was the custom of this ruffian, who had a large following,
to plunder even the poorest who came from the city, and, not content
with this, to mutilate his victims. In June 1522 he fell upon a
wretched craftsman, and with his own sword hacked off the poor
fellow's right hand, notwithstanding that the man begged him upon his
knees to take the left, and not destroy his means of earning his
livelihood. The following August he, with his band, attacked a
Nuernberg tanner, whose hand was similarly treated, one of his
associates remarking that he was glad to set to work again, as it was
"a long time since they had done any business in hands." On the same
occasion a cutler was dealt with after a similar fashion. The hands in
these cases were collected and sent to the Buergermeister of Nuernberg,
with some such phrase as that the sender (Hans Thomas) would treat all
so who came from the city.

The princes themselves, when it suited their purpose, did not hesitate
to offer an asylum to these knightly robbers. With Absberg were
associated Georg von Giech and Hans Georg von Aufsess. Among other
notable robber-knights of the time may be mentioned the Lord of
Brandenstein and the Lord of Rosenberg. As illustrating the strictly
professional character of the pursuit, and the brutally callous nature
of the society practising it, we may narrate that Margaretha von
Brandenstein was accustomed, it is recorded, to give the advice to the
choice guests round her board that when a merchant failed to keep his
promise to them, they should never hesitate to cut off _both_ his
hands. Even Franz von Sickingen, known sometimes as the "last flower
of German chivalry," boast