Balks played a peculiar role, especially during the fifteenth and six teenth centuries. Bathing was, according to ancient Teutonic ideas, a necessity of daily life, and, as the narrow limits of the cities and the con sequent smallness of many houses did not permit every dwelling to have a bath-room, the magistrates instituted public baths for the use of the poorer classes. The wealthier people patronized private bathing estab lishments, which were generally better supplied with conveniences than the domestic bath-rooms.
Bathing establishments (Jig. 4) offered means not only for proper ablu tion of the body, but likewise for the care of the hair; they also exer cised special functions for the preservation of health, for, in accordance with the current views of the period respecting the corruption of human nature, the human body, even in the case of individuals whose constitu tions were perfectly sound, was supposed to require constant medical treatment. This consisted chiefly in bloodletting, so that bleeding and cupping were connected with bathing (Jig. 4). As places of amusement were scarce, the bathing-houses gradually became pleasure-resorts where both sexes met. The scandals that at length arose in connection with them led to their abolition by the civil authorities.
Medical Science.—The medical art of those early times occupied a low plane. The skill of the physician (p. 5) was almost entirely con fined to the discovery of the patient's temperament and complexion— whether he was by nature hot or cold, moist or dry—and the diagnosis was based principally upon the examination of the urine, although medical science had long been taught theoretically in the universities and medical works were printed at an early date.
It makes one shudder to recall the experiments which were made upon the bodies of the people, especially upon women in confinement and upon young children. It required all the native vitality of the race to counter act the effects of those ignorant tamperings with nature. However, in the sixteenth century anatomy began to be carefully studied: Vesalius, indeed, brought this science to a considerable degree of perfection toward the middle of that century.
Figures 9 and m represent a store and a merchant's office: these, and also Figures 1-5, are copied from wood-cuts by Jost Amman, a famous engraver of the latter part of the sixteenth century.
General Slate of Sociely.—While the seeds which were subsequently to reach an unforeseen development had begun to germinate under the protection of the city-walls, everything outside had yet to struggle with the greatest difficulties. International law was scarcely thought of.
Wars no longer resulted in enslaving the conquered, as was the case in antiquity, but non-combatants were still pursued by fire and sword. Even in times of peace the ownership of property outside the limits of the jurisdiction or territory to which an individual belonged was measured by his ability to protect it. On the high seas every seafarer was a freebooter toward strangers of all other nations. On shore the German scarcely had a country, divided as it was into a thousand petty sections, in all of which but his own lie was regarded as a stranger.
The robber-knights of the Middle Ages developed into the highwaymen and footpads of modern times. Feuds or private warfare prevailed down to the eighteenth century, as is evidenced by the strife between the citi zens of Nordlingen and the counts of Oettingen. As late as 1521 the country squires of Franconia, who had vowed vengeance against the citi zens of Nuremberg, did not consider it beneath their dignity to detain any straggler from that city who had the misfortune to fall into their hands, and to dismiss him only after stripping him and cutting off his right hand. The cities with scant process of law hanged, beheaded, or broke upon the wheel all such marauders whom they captured, and during the Reformation combined for the last time in an effort to destroy these nests of robbers. Import duties formed an extortion of another kind. Every petty sovereign closed the boundaries of his district (which was often composed of many scattered bits of territory), and permitted his rivers and roads to be traversed only on payment of heavy toils.
Commerce.—It is easy to imagine how severely commerce must have suffered under such circumstances; yet in spite of it all the merchants even of the inland cities had ships on every sea, and in wealth and splendor of living vied with princes. Venice ranked first among mercantile cities, and developed a plutocracy whose power has never since been equalled. Long, armed trains brought goods from the seaports, transporting them across the Alps on pack-mules, and through Germany in heavily-laden wagons over wretched, unpaved roads. From station to station it was necessary to hire guards, kept for this purpose by the sovereign of the territory, to protect the train against attacks of robbers. All possible accidents had to be taken into account in commercial enterprises, and the energy and resources of a mercantile class which could under these unfavorable circumstances successfully cope with difficulties of such mag nitude deserve our highest admiration.