uring all diseases, restoring man to
perennial youth, and, in short, prolonging human life indefinitely;
and, finally, the search for the Philosopher's Stone, the happy
possessor of which would not only be able to achieve the first two,
but also, since it was supposed to contain the quintessence of all the
metals, and therefore of all the planetary influences to which the
metals corresponded, would have at his command all the forces which
mould the destinies of men. In especial connection with the latter
object of research may be noted the universal interest in astrology,
whose practitioners were to be found at every Court, from that of the
Emperor himself to that of the most insignificant prince or princelet,
and whose advice was sought and carefully heeded on all important
occasions. Alchemy and astrology were thus the recognized physical
sciences of the age, under the auspices of which a Copernicus and a
Tycho Brahe were born and educated.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Cf. Sebastian Franck, _Chronica_, for an account of a visit of
Paracelsus to Nuernberg.

CHAPTER IV

THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN TOWN

From what has been said the reader may form for himself an idea of the
intellectual and social life of the German town of the period. The
wealthy patrician class, whose mainstay politically was the _Rath_,
gave the social tone to the whole. In spite of the sharp and sometimes
brutal fashion in which class distinctions asserted themselves then,
as throughout the Middle Ages, there was none of that aloofness
between class and class which characterizes the bourgeois society of
the present day. Each town, were it great or small, was a little world
in itself, so that every citizen knew every other citizen more or
less. The schools attached to its ecclesiastical institutions were
practically free of access to all the children whose parents could
find the means to maintain them during their studies; and consequently
the intellectual differences between the different classes were by no
means necessarily proportionate to the difference in social position.
So far as culture and material prosperity were concerned, the towns
of Bavaria and Franconia, Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg, and perhaps,
above all, Nuernberg, represented the high-water mark of mediaeval
civilization as regards town life. On entering the burg, should it
have happened to be in time of peace and in daylight, the stranger
would clear the drawbridge and the por