had the township acquired a charter of freedom
or certain immunities than a new antagonism showed itself between the
ancient corporation of the city and the trade-guilds, these
representing the later accretions. The territorial lord (if any) now
sided, usually though not always, with the patrician party. But the
guilds, nevertheless, succeeded in ultimately wresting many of the
leading public offices from the exclusive possession of the patrician
families. Meanwhile the leading men of the guilds had become _hommes
arrives_. They had acquired wealth, and influence which was in many
cases hereditary in their family, and by the beginning of the
sixteenth century they were confronted with the more or less veiled
and more or less open opposition of the smaller guildsmen and of the
newest comers into the city, the shiftless proletariat of serfs and
free peasants, whom economic pressure was fast driving within the
walls, owing to the changed conditions of the times.

The peasant of the period was of three kinds: the _leibeigener_ or
serf, who was little better than a slave, who cultivated his lord's
domain, upon whom unlimited burdens might be fixed, and who was in all
respects amenable to the will of his lord; the _hoeriger_ or villein,
whose services were limited alike in kind and amount; and the _freier_
or free peasant, who merely paid what was virtually a quit-rent in
kind or in money for being allowed to retain his holding or status in
the rural community under the protection of the manorial lord. The
last was practically the counterpart of the mediaeval English
copyholder. The Germans had undergone essentially the same
transformations in social organization as the other populations of
Europe.

The barbarian nations at the time of their great migration in the
fifth century were organized on a tribal and village basis. The head
man was simply _primus inter pares_. In the course of their wanderings
the successful military leader acquired powers and assumed a position
that was unknown to the previous times, when war, such as it was, was
merely inter-tribal and inter-clannish, and did not involve the
movements of peoples and federations of tribes, and when, in
consequence, the need of permanent military leaders or for the
semblance of a military hierarchy had not arisen. The military leader
now placed himself at the head of the older social organization, and
associated with his immediate followers on terms approaching equa