o the peasant should have as
his device the common shoe of his class, laced from the ankle through
to the knee by leathern thongs, and the banner whereon this emblem was
depicted was accordingly made. The movement was, however, betrayed and
mercilessly crushed by the neighbouring knighthood. A few years later
a similar movement, also having the _Bundschuh_ for its device, took
place in the regions of the Upper and Middle Rhine. This movement
created a panic among all the privileged classes, from the Emperor
down to the knight. The situation was discussed in no less than three
separate assemblies of the States. It was, however, eventually
suppressed for the time being. A few years later, in 1512, it again
burst forth under the leadership of an active adherent of the former
movement, one Joss Fritz, in Baden, at the village of Lehen, near the
town of Freiburg. The organization in this case, besides being
widespread, was exceedingly good, and the movement was nearly
successful when at the last moment it was betrayed. Even in
Switzerland there were peasant risings in the early years of the
sixteenth century. About the same time the duchy of Wuertemberg was
convulsed by a movement which took the name of the "Poor Conrad." Its
object was the freeing of the "common man" from feudal services and
dues and the abolition of seignorial rights over the land, etc. But
here again the movement was suppressed by Duke Ulrich and his knights.
Another rising took place in Baden in 1517. Three years previously, in
1514, occurred the great Hungarian peasant rebellion under George
Daze. Under the able leadership of the latter the peasants had some
not inconsiderable initial successes, but this movement also, after
some weeks, was cruelly suppressed. About the same time, too, occurred
various insurrectionary peasant movements in the Styrian and
Carinthian alpine districts. Similar movements to those referred to
were also going on during those early years of the fifteenth century
in other parts of Europe, but these, of course, do not concern us.

The deep-reaching importance and effective spread of such movements
was infinitely greater in the Middle Ages than in modern times. The
same phenomenon presents itself to-day in backward and semi-barbaric
communities. At first sight one is inclined to think that there has
been no period in the world's history when it was so easy to stir up
a population as the present, with our newspapers, our telegraph