Not only Hutten, who was deeply
imbued with the prejudices of his own class, but even the Imperial Diet
was jealous of the power of these great moneyed companies; among the
people also, the antipathy to them was general, and the Reformers
shared the opinions of their cotemporaries as to the detriment of such
domination over capital.

Yet even then, it may be observed that these great merchant princes had
not all the same tendencies. The Welsers of Augsburg, for example, in
1512, took an active interest at Rome on behalf of Reuchlin, and that
great scholar owed his deliverance from the hands of the Dominicans,
more perhaps to their secret influence than to the refined rhetoric of
his enthusiastic admirers in Germany. On the other hand, the Fuggers
were considered by the people as reckless moneyed men and Romanists; as
enemies of Luther and friends of Eck, who was suspected of being in
their pay; for they had charge of the money affairs of the Elector
Albrecht of Mayence, and of the Romish curie, and one of the Fugger's
clerks accompanied the indulgence chest of Tetzel, and controlled the
incoming receipts, on which the banking-house of the Archbishop of
Mayence had made advances. The Emperor, Charles V., received the most
solid support from these powerful firms, as their interests were
generally concurrent with his; with the people, however, "_Fuggerei_"
became the common term for usury. We learn the family tendency for
outward splendour and intercourse with the great, from the description
which Hans von Schweinichen gives of their opulence in the year 1575.

When the dissolute Duke Hemrich von Liegnitz with his majordomo was at
Augsburg, the splendour of this house appeared to the Silesian noblemen
as quite fabulous. Schweinichen, who was more accurate in specifying
the sums of money and prices than was necessary considering the endless
debts of his master, gives the following narrative.[55]

"Herr Max Fugger once invited his Princely Highness to dinner. Such a
banquet have I never beheld, the Roman Emperor himself could not have
been entertained better: there was superabundant splendour; the repast
was spread in a hall where more gold than colour was to be seen; the
floor was of marble, and as smooth as if one was walking on ice; there
was a sideboard placed along the whole length of the hall, which was
set out with drinking-vessels and notably beautiful Venetian glasses;
there must have been, as one says, the value