tcullis without much challenge;
passing along streets lined with the houses and shops of the burghers,
in whose open frontages the master and his apprentices and _gesellen_
plied their trades, discussing eagerly over their work the politics of
the town, and at this period probably the theological questions which
were uppermost in men's minds, our visitor would make his way to some
hostelry, in whose courtyard he would dismount from his horse, and,
entering the common room, or _Stube_, with its rough but artistic
furniture of carved oak, partake of his flagon of wine or beer,
according to the district in which he was travelling, whilst the host
cracked a rough and possibly coarse jest with the other guests, or
narrated to them the latest gossip of the city. The stranger would
probably find himself before long the object of interrogatories
respecting his native place and the object of his journey (although
his dress would doubtless have given general evidence of this),
whether he were a merchant or a travelling scholar or a practiser of
medicine; for into one of those categories it might be presumed the
humble but not servile traveller would fall. Were he on a diplomatic
mission from some potentate he would be travelling at the least as a
knight or a noble, with spurs and armour, and, moreover, would be
little likely to lodge in a public house of entertainment.

In the _Stube_ he would probably see, drinking heavily,
representatives of the ubiquitous _Landsknechte_, the mercenary troops
enrolled for Imperial purposes by the Emperor Maximilian towards the
end of the previous century, who in the intervals of war were
disbanded and wandered about spending their pay, and thus constituted
an excessively disintegrative element in the life of the time. A
contemporary writer[13] describes them as the curse of Germany, and
stigmatizes them as "unchristian, God-forsaken folk, whose hand is
ever ready in striking, stabbing, robbing, burning, slaying, gaming,
who delight in wine-bibbing, whoring, blaspheming, and in the making
of widows and orphans."

Presently, perhaps, a noise without indicates the arrival of a new
guest. All hurry forth into the courtyard, and their curiosity is
more keenly whetted when they perceive by the yellow knitted scarf
round the neck of the new-comer that he is an _itinerans
scholasticus_, or travelling scholar, who brings with him not only the
possibility of news from the outer world, so important in a