ts of
priestly debauchery, which naturally reflected also upon the nuns. The
cloister of Gnadenzell is reported to have been a pleasure resort for
the neighboring nobility, who there celebrated nightly orgies and
infamous dances; Count Hans von Lupfen, A. D. 1428, chided the prioress,
in a document of historical interest, for having failed to remove in
time the nuns who had become pregnant, and for having thus given cause
to the neighbors to complain that "the cloister walls were resounding
with the cries of babies." Bishop Gaimbus, of Castell, reports to the
Pope (June 20, 1484) of the nunnery of Loflingen, near Ulm, that, at an
investigation for reforms, the majority of the nuns were found "in an
advanced state of motherhood" (_in gesegneten Leibesumstanderi_).

Sebastian Brant's _Ship of Fools_ (1494) gives a terrible picture of the
sins and follies of the era; never has there been such a heavy freight
of perverse and wicked fools from all ranks and walks of life.

Thomas Murner's _Conjuration of Fools_ (Narrenbeschworung), fourteen
years later, shows the mediaeval ideals in the caricature to which they
had degenerated. The old conditions that had produced lofty and genuine
ideals had died away, nothing remained but the shell, the mere form and
outline. The satire against the dissolute world, the chastisement of it
by stinging words and sarcastic writings, proves simply the righteous
anger which the good and patriotic men of the time felt regarding the
national degradation; a total reform became a dire necessity. This was a
Titanic task indeed, for during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
intellectual barrenness, spiritual corruption, and luxuriant debauchery
prevailed. The worst feature was the chain of vice which, through apish
imitation, was transmitted from the debased women of the upper classes
to the women of the bourgeoisie, and from the latter to the peasants.

The new fashions were not only hideous, but became even obscene: "What
nature wants to be concealed, that do they expose and prostitute. Shame
upon the German nation!" are Brant's harsh words. The famous preacher
Geiler von Kaisersberg thunders from the pulpit words hardly expressible
in modern language: "Women's dresses are so short that they conceal
nothing in front or behind, the upper garments are so cut down that the
bosom is visible. Then again the trains are as long as tails. Women
imitate man's foolish garb: the ridiculous high pointed sh