tain number
of masters and apprentices,--all this condemned thousands to pauperism,
to a life of celibacy, and to vagabondage. When, in the course of the
sixteenth century, and for reasons to be mentioned later, the
flower-time of the towns was passing away, and their decline had set in,
the narrow horizon of the time caused the impediments to settlement and
independence to increase still more. Other circumstances also
contributed their demoralizing effect.

The tyranny of the landlords increased so mightily from decade to decade
that many of the vassals preferred to exchange their sorrowful life for
the trade of the tramp or the highwayman,--an occupation that was
greatly aided by the thick woods and the poor condition of the roads.
Or, invited by the many violent disturbances of the time, they became
soldiers, who sold themselves where the price was highest, or the booty
seemed most promising. An extensive male and female slum-proletariat
came into existence, and became a plague to the land. The Church
contributed faithfully to the general depravity. Already, in the
celibatic state of the priesthood there was a main-spring for the
fostering of sexual excesses; these were still further promoted through
the continuous intercourse kept up with Italy and Rome.

Rome was not merely the capital of Christendom, as the residence of the
Papacy. True to its antecedents during the heathen days of the Empire,
Rome had become the new Babel, the European High School of immorality;
and the Papal court was its principal seat. With its downfall, the Roman
Empire had bequeathed all its vices to Christian Europe. These vices
were particularly nursed in Italy, whence, materially aided by the
intercourse of the priesthood with Rome, they crowded into Germany. The
uncommonly large number of priests, to a great extent vigorous men,
whose sexual wants were intensified by a lazy and luxurious life, and
who, through compulsory celibacy, were left to illegitimate or unnatural
means of gratification, carried immorality into all circles of society.
This priesthood became a sort of pest-like danger to the morals of the
female sex in the towns and villages. Monasteries and nunneries--and
their number was legion--were not infrequently distinguishable from
public houses only in that the life led in them was more unbridled and
lascivious, and in that numerous crimes, especially infanticide, could
be more easily concealed, seeing that in the cloisters