says of the condition of the country under Charles V.: "There was not
in Anjou, in Touraine, in Beauce, in Orleans, and up to the very
approaches of Paris, any corner of the country that was free from
plunderers. They were so numerous everywhere, either in little castles
occupied by them, or in villages and the countryside, that peasants and
tradesmen could not travel except at great expense and in mighty peril.
The very guards told off to protect the cultivators of the soil and the
travellers on the highways, most shamefully took part in harassing and
despoiling them. It was the same in Burgundy and the neighbouring
countries. Some knights who called themselves friends of the King,
whose names I am not minded to set down here, kept brigands in their
service, who were every whit as bad. What is more strange is that, when
these ruffians went into the cities, Paris, or anywhere else, everybody
knew them and pointed them out, but none durst lay hands on them."

The condition of Germany was but little superior to that of France. The
central authority, if that can be called central which was always
shifting its position, was unequal to restrain the violent. Its
pretensions were in inverse proportion to its efficiency. The Emperor
was too far off to see to the policing of the Empire, too weak to
enforce order; and his long absences in Italy left the German lords and
lordlings to pursue their own courses unrestrained. When the Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa visited the Baron van Kingen in his castle near
Constance, the freiherr received him seated, because, as he said, he
held his lands in fee of none but the sun. Although he was willing to
receive the Emperor as a guest, he refused to acknowledge him as his
lord. If this was the temper of the petty nobility in a green tree,
what must it have been in the dry. After that the great houses of
Saxony and Swabia had been crushed out by the policy of the Papacy, it
was to the interest of the electors to keep the Emperor weak; and the