nderneath the heavy portcullis and through the
outer rampart, he finds himself in the plain outside, across which a
rugged bridle-path leads to a large quadrangular meadow, rough and
more or less worn, where a considerable crowd has already assembled.
This is the _Allerwiese_, or public pleasure-ground of the town. Here
there are not only high festivities on Sundays and holidays, but every
fine evening in summer numbers of citizens gather together to watch
the apprentices exercising their strength in athletic feats, and
competing with one another in various sports, such as running,
wrestling, spear-throwing, sword-play, and the like, wherein the
inferior rank sought to imitate and even emulate the knighthood,
whilst the daughters of the city watched their progress with keen
interest and applauding laughter. As the shadows deepen and darkness
falls upon the plain, our visitor joins the groups which are now fast
leaving the meadow, and re-passes the great embrasure just as the
rushlights begin to twinkle in the windows and a swinging oil-lamp to
cast a dim light here and there in the streets. But as his company
passes out of a narrow lane debouching on to the chief market-place,
their progress is stopped by the sudden rush of a mingled crowd of
unruly apprentices and journeymen returning from their sports, with
hot heads well beliquored. Then from another side-street there is a
sudden flare of torches, borne aloft by guildsmen come out to quell
the tumult and to send off the apprentices to their dwellings, whilst
the watch also bears down and carries off some of the more turbulent
of the journeymen to pass the night in one of the towers which guard
the city wall. At last, however, the visitor reaches his inn by the
aid of a friendly guildsman and his torch; and retiring to his
chamber, with its straw-covered floor, rough oaken bedstead, hard
mattress, and coverings not much better than horse-cloths, he falls
asleep as the bell of the minster tolls out ten o'clock over the now
dark and silent city.

Such approximately would have been the view of a German city in the
sixteenth century as presented to a traveller in a time of peace. More
stirring times, however, were as frequent--times when the tocsin rang
out from the steeple all night long, calling the citizens to arms. By
such scenes, needless to say, the year of the Peasants' War was more
than usually characterized. In the days when every man carried arms
and knew how t