ponents
owed their most important victories. As to the intellectual life of
Germany, there was still less of that amongst the nobility after the
time of Hutten. How few noble names do we find in the long list of
reformers, scholars, poets, architects, and artists! The first occur in
the seventeenth century, when we find those of the members of the
_Palmenordens_, the author of the 'Simplicissimus,' and of some noble
rhymers belonging to the Silesian school of poetry or to the Saxon
court. One may well ask how it happened that an order so numerous,
holding such an advantageous position with respect to the people,
should have accomplished so little in this great field of action, which
up to the time of the Hohenstaufen was especially in the possession of
the nobility. And even with the most favourably disposed judgment, it
would be difficult to ascribe to the landed nobility of the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, any
beneficial influences on any one of the great currents of life in
Germany.

In fact the lower nobility--considered as an order--had been, since the
time of the Hohenstaufen, a misfortune to Germany. It was after the
beginning of the thirteenth century, when the difference betwixt the
noblemen and freeholders had been established by the laws, by the
interests and inclinations of the Emperor, and by the limited ideal,
which was formed by the aristocratic body, that the nobility gradually
decayed. In the cities, undoubtedly, the old dominion of the privileged
freeman was broken in the last period of the middle ages; there, in
spite of all hindrances, a quicker circulation of popular strength had
established itself. The labourer could become a citizen, the
experienced citizen could rise to be the ruler of his city, or of a
confederation of cities, and be the leader of great interests. But the
landed nobleman after the beginning of the thirteenth century sank
gradually into a state of isolation; labour was a disgrace to him, his
acres were cultivated by dependent vassals, and he naturally
endeavoured as much as possible to separate himself from them. Ever
heavier became the oppression by which he kept them down; ever higher
rose the pretensions which he, as lord of the land and soil, raised
against his own people.

But the oppression of the agriculturist was not the worst consequence
of the privileged position of the noble. If he found it to his
advantage to treat his beas