inement, God be merciful to her, and she had in her room many
valuable things, such as her bed-linen and her clothes; they treated
her however with such respect, that no one entered her room. But two of
them who were well known to her, and to whom she had shown great
kindness, went to the door of her room, told her how they pitied her,
and brought her secretly a coverlet and bed-cover, and said, 'Good
woman, they will soon set fire to the city, therefore lose no time in
being carried to the cellar with all that you desire to save, for we
shall be off immediately.' When they had pillaged all the houses they
would gladly have left the town, but could not, for the inhabitants who
had taken refuge in the towers and gate-houses, threw down stones upon
them, so that they could not pass through the gates, however much they
wished it. At last they found an old gate which for many years had been
walled up; this they broke open, and carried through it all their
plunder, with which they loaded their waggons, and intended to return
to Bohemia; they fired the city, and marched off to Landshut. When the
troops of the provincial states assembled at Boegendorf beheld such a
great smoke and fire, they said to one another, 'It is indeed at
Bolkenhain, or in its neighbourhood;' then they started off at full
speed for Landshut, and overtook their enemies. When therefore the
Bohemians and Hussites began to retrace their steps, they perceived a
great host of our town-people coming towards them over the Galgenberg;
so they in great fear took to flight. Then our people fell upon them,
and the men who had charge of the waggons loaded with our goods,
abandoned them and fled for refuge into the woods; thus we deprived
them of their plunder, and made many prisoners, both horse and foot,
who were distributed among the cities."--So writes Martin of
Bolkenhain.

This endless war ruined German Silesia: the plains lay waste and
desolate, and most of the German peasantry in this century of fire and
sword sank into a state little removed from that of the Sclave serfs.
The smaller cities were burnt down and impoverished, and only a few of
the larger ones have since attained any degree of importance. The
Silesian nobles became rude and predatory; they learnt from the
Bohemians to steal cattle, to seize merchants and traders, and to levy
contributions on the cities. The princes in their endless disputes with
one another allied themselves sometimes with the