ities of a
world commerce," says Dr. Lindsay, "led to the creation of trading
companies; for a larger capital was needed than individual merchants
possessed, and the formation of these companies overshadowed,
discredited, and finally destroyed the guild system of the mediaeval
trading cities. Trade and industry became capitalized to a degree
previously unknown.... This increase of wealth does not seem to have
been confined to a few favorites of fortune. It belonged to the mass of
the members of the great trading companies.... Merchant princes
confronted the princes of the state and those of the church, and their
presence and power dislocated the old social relations."[22]

This enormous increase of wealth manifested itself in every form of
senseless luxury. Of refinement there was little; pleasures were coarse,
indulgence was beastly. "Preachers, economists, and satirists," says Dr.
Lindsay, "denounce the luxury and immodesty of the dress both of men and
women, the gluttony and the drinking habits of the rich burghers and of
the nobility of Germany. We learn from Hans von Schweinichen that
noblemen prided themselves on having men among their retainers who could
drink all rivals beneath the table, and that noble personages seldom met
without such a drinking contest. The wealthy, learned, and artistic
city of Nuernberg possessed a public wagon which every night was led
through the streets, to pick up and convey to their homes drunken
burghers found lying in the filth of the streets."[23]

Such were the manners of the house of mirth at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. It might be supposed that when luxury was so riotous
the poor would have plenty, but that is never the case. Profusion at the
top of the social ladder means poverty at the bottom. The world has
never yet been so rich that waste did not work harm to the neediest.
Even if the poor had been actually no poorer in these flush days than
they had been when manners were simpler, the glaring contrasts would
have been maddening. But multitudes of them were, no doubt, not only
relatively but positively poorer; the destruction of the guilds of
labor, the displacements in industry, had left great numbers not only of
the peasantry and the artisans but also of the poorer nobles in
practical destitution. The organization of society was giving strength
to the strong and weakness to those of no might--thus exactly reversing
Mary's prophecy of what her royal Son should