German Culture Past and Present | Page 3

established, and in 1501 the Imperial Aulic Council. Maximilian
also organized a standing army of mercenary troops, called
Landesknechte. Shortly afterwards Germany was divided into Imperial

districts called circles (Kreise), ultimately ten in number, all of which
were under an imperial government (Reichsregiment), which had at its
disposal a military force for the punishment of disturbers of the peace.
But the public opinion of the age, conjoined with the particular
circumstances, political and economic, of Central Europe, robbed the
enactment in a great measure of its immediate effect. Highway
plundering and even private war were still going on, to a considerable
extent, far into the sixteenth century. Charles V pursued the same line
of policy as his predecessor; but it was not until after the suppression of
the lower nobility in 1523, and finally of the peasants in 1526, that any
material change took place; and then the centralization, such as it was,
was in favour of the princes, rather than of the Imperial power, which,
after Charles V's time, grew weaker and weaker. The speciality about
the history of Germany is, that it has not known till our own day
centralization on a national or racial scale like England or France.
At the opening of the sixteenth century public opinion not merely
sanctioned open plunder by the wearer of spurs and by the possessor of
a stronghold, but regarded it as his special prerogative, the exercise of
which was honourable rather than disgraceful. The cities certainly
resented their burghers being waylaid and robbed, and hanged the
knights wherever they could; and something like a perpetual feud
always existed between the wealthier cities and the knights who
infested the trade routes leading to and from them. Still, these
belligerent relations were taken as a matter of course; and no disgrace,
in the modern sense, attached to the occupation of highway robbery.
In consequence of the impoverishment of the knights at this period,
owing to causes with which we shall deal later, the trade or profession
had recently received an accession of vigour, and at the same time was
carried on more brutally and mercilessly than ever before. We will give
some instances of the sort of occurrence which was by no means
unusual. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nürnberg, which was bien
entendu one of the chief seats of the Imperial power, a robber-knight
leader, named Hans Thomas von Absberg, was a standing menace. It
was the custom of this ruffian, who had a large following, to plunder
even the poorest who came from the city, and, not content with this, to

mutilate his victims. In June 1522 he fell upon a wretched craftsman,
and with his own sword hacked off the poor fellow's right hand,
notwithstanding that the man begged him upon his knees to take the left,
and not destroy his means of earning his livelihood. The following
August he, with his band, attacked a Nürnberg tanner, whose hand was
similarly treated, one of his associates remarking that he was glad to set
to work again, as it was "a long time since they had done any business
in hands." On the same occasion a cutler was dealt with after a similar
fashion. The hands in these cases were collected and sent to the
Bürgermeister of Nürnberg, with some such phrase as that the sender
(Hans Thomas) would treat all so who came from the city.
The princes themselves, when it suited their purpose, did not hesitate to
offer an asylum to these knightly robbers. With Absberg were
associated Georg von Giech and Hans Georg von Aufsess. Among
other notable robber-knights of the time may be mentioned the Lord of
Brandenstein and the Lord of Rosenberg. As illustrating the strictly
professional character of the pursuit, and the brutally callous nature of
the society practising it, we may narrate that Margaretha von
Brandenstein was accustomed, it is recorded, to give the advice to the
choice guests round her board that when a merchant failed to keep his
promise to them, they should never hesitate to cut off both his hands.
Even Franz von Sickingen, known sometimes as the "last flower of
German chivalry," boasted of having among the intimate associates of
his enterprise for the rehabilitation of the knighthood many gentlemen
who had been accustomed to "let their horses on the high road bite off
the purses of wayfarers." So strong was the public opinion of the noble
class as to the inviolability of the privilege of highway plunder that a
monk, preaching one day in a cathedral and happening to attack it as
unjustifiable, narrowly escaped death at the hands of some knights
present amongst his congregation, who asserted that he had insulted the
prerogatives of their order. Whenever this form of knight-errantry was
criticized, there were never wanting scholarly