ippocrates and Galen; the lawyers forget their legal
documents, lay aside their practice, and taking usury in hand, let who
will peruse Bartholus and Balbus. The same is also done by other men of
learning, who study arithmetic more than rhetoric and philosophy; the
merchants, shop-keepers, and other traders acquire nowadays their
greatest gains by their hardwares which are marked by the mint stamp.

"From this we may perceive that the 'unhanged, thievish,
oath-forgetting, dishonourable,' _Kippers_ and _Wippers_, though not
indeed to be quite exculpated, are not so much to be condemned as if
they were the _causa principalis_ of the ruin of the German States. I
have, alas! assuredly great fears, that if once there is a delivery to
the devil or hangman, the _Kippers_ and _Wippers_, changers and
usurers, Jews and Jew associates, helpers and helpers' helpers, one
thief with another, will all be hurled off to the devil, or be hung up
at the same time together, like yonder host with his companions. Yet
with a difference. For their principals and patrons will justly have
the prerogative and pre-eminence, and indeed some of them have been
already sent there beforehand. The others will shortly follow to the
above-mentioned place, and it will then avail nothing on this journey
downward, whether one treats them with _carmina_ or _crimina_, whether
one passes judgment on them as criminals, or gives them laudatory
poems--_facilis descensus Averni_--they will easily find the way, for
they need no good fortune for that; the devil will couple them all with
one cord, be the rogues ever so big. _Fiat_."

It is not improbable that a similar view of their social prospects in
another world was impressed upon the rulers from many quarters. At all
events, even they discovered that they could only be saved by the most
speedy help; nothing would avail them but the reduction and hasty
withdrawal of the new coinage, and a return to the good old Imperial
coin. Thus the first fears of the princes and cities caused them to
depreciate their new money, and to make use of these verdicts in order
to express their abhorrence--not of very old date--of the bad coin, and
they forthwith had the coin stamped honourably of due weight and alloy,
as prescribed by the Imperial law. In order to put a stop to the
excessive increase of prices, they hastened to put forth a tariff of
goods and wages, which decided the highest price to be permitted. It is
clear that th