ented to his Princely Highness two hundred crowns, a beautiful
goblet worth eighty dollars, and besides that a splendid horse with
black velvet housings."

Together with this taste for display we find in other patrician
families at the beginning of this century far higher aims in life. The
firms of Pentinger at Augsburg, and Perkheimer at Nuremberg were the
focus of the noblest interests of the nation; the heads of these houses
were men of princely opulence, landed proprietors and merchant princes,
statesmen and warriors, and at the same time men of learning and
research. It was for families like these that Albert Duerer painted his
best pictures; to them the travelling Humanitarians resorted; every
elegant verse, every manly sentiment or word of genius, were there
first heartily appreciated. As councillors and patrons in worldly
concerns, as liberal proprietors of valuable libraries and of
first-rate cabinets of antiquities, as hospitable masters of rich
households, they knew how to do honour to all who brought to their
houses intellect, knowledge, and refinement.[56]

In these families, the women also frequently received an education
which went further than the knowledge of cooking, spinning, and the
prayer-book; the daughters of these households gained what was seldom
to be found in the castles of the princes or in the mansions of the
landed nobility,--a heartfelt interest in the sciences and arts with
which the friends of the family were occupied. There is a peculiar
charm for us in the contemplation of the first female characters who
were ennobled by the dawn of a new civilization. Constance Peutinger,
who twined the laurel wreaths for Hutten; Caritas Perkheimer, the
suffering abbess of Clarenklosters at Nuremberg, and later Philippine
Welser, the wife of the Emperor's son, all belonged to the class of
German patricians; they were sensitive natures often oppressed and
wounded in this rough and thorny period.

It was especially when a woman took part in the literary struggle that
she was destined to suffer, this however rarely happened; the best
known instances are those of Caritas Pirkheimer and Argula von
Grumbach, born at Stauffen; both experienced how bitter it is for women
to take part in the disputes of men. The Roman Catholic Caritas wrote a
letter full of reverence to Emser, and had to go through the trial of
seeing her letter printed by the Lutheran party with contemptuous
marginal notes. The Lutheran Ar