ed of having among the intimate associates
of his enterprise for the rehabilitation of the knighthood many
gentlemen who had been accustomed to "let their horses on the high
road bite off the purses of wayfarers." So strong was the public
opinion of the noble class as to the inviolability of the privilege of
highway plunder that a monk, preaching one day in a cathedral and
happening to attack it as unjustifiable, narrowly escaped death at the
hands of some knights present amongst his congregation, who asserted
that he had insulted the prerogatives of their order. Whenever this
form of knight-errantry was criticized, there were never wanting
scholarly pens to defend it as a legitimate means of aristocratic
livelihood; since a knight must live in suitable style, and this was
often his only resource for obtaining the means thereto.

The free cities, which were subject only to Imperial jurisdiction,
were practically independent republics. Their organization was a
microcosm of that of the entire empire. At the apex of the municipal
society was the Buergermeister and the so-called "Honorability"
(_Ehrbarkeit_), which consisted of the patrician clans or _gentes_ (in
most cases), those families which were supposed to be descended from
the original chartered freemen of the town, the old Mark-brethren.
They comprised generally the richest families, and had monopolized the
entire government of the city, together with the right to administer
its various sources of income and to consume its revenue at their
pleasure. By the time, however, of which we are writing, the
trade-guilds had also attained to a separate power of their own, and
were in some cases ousting the burgher-aristocracy, though they were
very generally susceptible of being manipulated by the members of the
patrician class, who, as a rule, could alone sit in the Council
(_Rath_). The latter body stood, in fact, as regards the town, much in
the relation of the feudal lord to his manor. Strong in their wealth
and in their aristocratic privileges, the patricians lorded it alike
over the townspeople and over the neighbouring peasantry, who were
subject to the municipality. They forestalled and regrated with
impunity. They assumed the chief rights in the municipal lands, in
many cases imposed duties at their own caprice, and turned guild
privileges and rights of citizenship into a source of profit for
themselves. Their bailiffs in the country districts forming part of
thei