he aristocracy
thereabouts, for henceforth there would be no one to supply them with
durable tiles. Thereupon his companion burst out laughing, because,
said he, it had just occurred to him that he would not know where to
place his hat after his head had been taken off. These mildly humorous
remarks obtained for both of them a free pardon.

The aspect of those parts of the country where the war had most
heavily raged was deplorable in the extreme. In addition to the many
hundreds of castles and monasteries destroyed, almost as many villages
and small towns had been levelled with the ground by one side or the
other, especially by the Swabian League and the various princely
forces. Many places were annihilated for having taken part with the
peasants, even when they had been compelled by force to do so. Fields
in these districts were everywhere laid waste or left uncultivated.
Enormous sums were exacted as indemnity. In many of the villages
peasants previously well-to-do were ruined. There seemed no limit to
the bleeding of the "common man," under the pretence of compensation
for damage done by the insurrection.

The condition of the families of the dead and of the fugitives was
appalling. Numbers perished from starvation. The wives and children of
the insurgents were in some cases forcibly driven from their
homesteads and even from their native territory. In one of the
pamphlets published in 1525 anent the events of that year we read:
"Houses are burned; fields and vineyards lie fallow; clothes and
household goods are robbed or burned; cattle and sheep are taken away;
the same as to horses and trappings. The prince, the gentleman, or the
nobleman will have his rent and due. Eternal God, whither shall the
widows and poor children go forth to seek it?" Referring to the
Lutheran campaign against friars and poor scholars, beggars, and
pilgrims, the writer observes: "Think ye now that because of God's
anger for the sake of one beggar, ye must even for a season bear with
twenty, thirty, nay, still more?"

The courts of arbitration, which were established in various districts
to adjudicate on the relations between lords and villeins, were
naturally not given to favour the latter, whilst the fact that large
numbers of deeds and charters had been burnt or otherwise destroyed in
the course of the insurrection left open an extensive field for the
imposition of fresh burdens. The record of the proceedings of one of
the most impor