specially concerned here to note the sudden popularity during this
period of two imaginary constitutions dating from early in the
previous century. From the fourteenth century we find traces, perhaps
suggested by the Prester John legend, of a deliverer in the shape of
an emperor who should come from the East, who should be the last of
his name; should right all wrongs; should establish the empire in
universal justice and peace; and, in short, should be the forerunner
of the kingdom of Christ on earth. This notion or mystical hope took
increasing root during the fifteenth century, and is to be found in
many respects embodied in the spurious constitutions mentioned, which
bore respectively the names of the Emperors Sigismund and Friedrich.
It was in this form that the Hussite theories were absorbed by the
German mind. The hopes of the Messianists of the "Holy Roman Empire"
were centred at one time in the Emperor Sigismund. Later on the role
of Messiah was carried over to his successor, Friedrich III, upon whom
the hopes of the German people were cast.

_The Reformation of Kaiser Sigismund_, originally written about 1438,
went through several editions before the end of the century, and was
as many times reprinted during the opening years of Luther's movement.
Like its successor, that of Friedrich, the scheme attributed to
Sigismund proposed the abolition of the recent abuses of feudalism, of
the new lawyer class, and of the symptoms already making themselves
felt of the change from barter to money payments. It proposed, in
short, a return to primitive conditions. It was a scheme of reform on
a Biblical basis, embracing many elements of a distinctly communistic
character, as communism was then understood. It was pervaded with the
idea of equality in the spirit of the Taborite literature of the age,
from which it took its origin.

The so-called _Reformation of Kaiser Sigismund_ dealt especially with
the peasantry--the serfs and villeins of the time; that attributed to
Friedrich was mainly concerned with the rising population of the
towns. All towns and communes were to undergo a constitutional
transformation. Handicraftsmen should receive just wages; all roads
should be free; taxes, dues, and levies should be abolished; trading
capital was to be limited to a maximum of 10,000 _gulden_; all
surplus capital should fall to the Imperial authorities, who should
lend it in case of need to poor handicraftsmen at 5 per cent.;
un