ost monotonous handicraft was ennobled by an abundance of lively
additions. As soon as the spirit of the artisan was excited by the
genial pleasure of creating, his imagination was occupied with images
and symbols, and he turned his skill dexterously to high, nay even to
holy things. What we have described as applicable to all the
handicrafts of the middle ages, was so especially to the art of
coining. A feeling of his self-importance was strong in the coiner; the
work itself, the handling of the precious metals fresh from the fire,
was considered ennobling. The obscure chemical processes, which were
surrounded, through alchemy, with a wilderness of fantastic forms, had
a far more imposing effect upon the workers, than can be understood by
the rational fabricators of our century. To this was added the
responsibility of the service. When the coiner took the assay weight
out of its beautiful capsule, and placed the little acorn cup on the
artistically worked assay balance, in order to weigh the remnant in it,
he did this with a certain consciousness of superiority over his
fellow-citizens.[33] When he purified the silver assay from lead in the
cupel, and the liquid silver first overflowed, shining with delicate
prismatic colours, and then, the variegated stream being rent, the
bright gleam of the silver passed like lightning through the molten
mass, this silver gleam filled him with reverential astonishment, and
he felt himself in the midst of the mysterious creations of the spirits
of nature, which, whilst he feared, he was yet able to control by the
art of his handicraft, as far as his knowledge reached. After that
period, in the order of things, the coiners formed themselves into a
close corporation, with masters, associates, and apprentices, and held
jealously to their privileges. Whoever was desirous of stamping the
Holy Roman Imperial coin was first obliged to give proof of his free
and honourable lineage, to do lowly service for four years, during this
period to wear, according to custom, a fool's cap, and to allow himself
to be punished and beaten when inexpert or in the wrong; then at last
he was admitted to the business of coining, and entered as an associate
in the brotherhood of Imperial coiners.

But these strict regulations, which were again confirmed to the
brotherhood by the Emperor Maximilian II., in 1571, had even then
ceased to have the effect of making the corporation honourable and
upright. Equally in