their number were positively opposed
to it, others cared little one way or the other. Their chief aim was
to strengthen and consolidate their power within the limits of their
own territories, and a weak empire was perhaps better adapted for
effecting this purpose than a stronger one, even though certain of
their own order had a controlling voice in its administration. As
already hinted, the collapse of the rebellious knighthood under
Sickingen, a few weeks later, clearly showed the political drift of
the situation in the _haute politique_ of the empire.

The rising capitalists of the city, the monopolists, merchant princes,
and syndicates, are the theme of universal invective throughout this
period. To them the rapid and enormous rise in prices during the early
years of the sixteenth century, the scarcity of money consequent on
the increased demand for it, and the impoverishment of large sections
of the population, were attributed by noble and peasant alike. The
whole trend of public opinion, in short, outside the wealthier
burghers of the larger cities--the class immediately interested--was
adverse to the condition of things created by the new world-market,
and by the new class embodying it. At present it was a small class,
the only one that gained by it, and that gained at the expense of all
the other classes.

Some idea of the class-antagonisms of the period may be gathered from
the statement of Ulrich von Hutten about the robber-knights already
spoken of, in his dialogue entitled "Predones," to the effect that
there were four orders of robbers in Germany--the _knights_, the
_lawyers_, the _priests_, and the _merchants_ (meaning especially the
new capitalist merchant-traders or syndicates). Of these, he declares
the robber-knights to be the least harmful. This is naturally only to
be expected from so gallant a champion of his order, the friend and
abettor of Sickingen. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the
robber-knight evil, the toleration of which in principle was so deeply
ingrained in the public opinion of large sections of the population,
may be judged from the abortive attempts made to stop it, at the
instance alike of princes and of cities, who on this point, if on no
other, had a common interest. In 1502, for example, at the Reichstag
held in Gelnhausen in that year, certain of the highest princes of the
empire made a representation that, at least, the knights should permit
the gathering in of the harvest an