Note (III.)—Page [14], line 25.
DECAY OF THE FREE TOWNS OF GERMANY.—IMPERIAL TOWNS (REICHSTÄDTE).
According to the German historians the period of the greatest splendour of these towns was during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were then the abode of wealth, of the arts and sciences—masters of the commerce of Europe—the most powerful centres of civilisation. In the north and in the south of Germany especially, they had ended by forming independent confederations with the surrounding nobles, as the towns in Switzerland had done with the peasants.
In the sixteenth century they still enjoyed the same prosperity, but the period of their decay was come. The Thirty-years’ War hastened their fall, and scarcely one of them escaped destruction and ruin during that period.
Nevertheless, the Treaty of Westphalia mentions them positively, and asserts their position as immediate States, that is to say, States which depended immediately upon the Emperor; but the neighbouring Sovereigns, on the one hand, and on the other the Emperor himself, the exercise of whose power, since the Thirty-years’ War, was limited to the lesser vassals of the empire, restricted their sovereignty within narrower and narrower limits. In the eighteenth century fifty-one of them were still in existence, they filled two benches at the Diet, and had an independent vote there; but, in fact, they no longer exercised any influence upon the direction of general affairs.
At home they were all heavily burdened with debts, partly because they continued to be charged for the Imperial taxes at a rate suited to their former splendour, and partly because their own administration was extremely bad. It is very remarkable that this bad administration seemed to be the result of some secret disease which was common to them all, whatever might be the form of their constitution; whether aristocratic or democratic it equally gave rise to complaints, which, if not precisely similar, were equally violent; if aristocratic, the Government was said to have become a coterie composed of a few families: everything was done by favour and private interest; if democratic, popular intrigue and venality appeared on every side. In either case there were complaints of the want of honesty and disinterestedness on the part of the Governments. The Emperor was continually forced to interpose in their affairs, and to try to restore order in them. Their population decreased, and distress prevailed in them. They were no longer the abodes of German civilisation; the arts left them, and went to shine in the new towns created by the sovereigns, and representing modern society. Trade forsook them—their ancient energy and patriotic vigour disappeared. Hamburg almost alone still remained a great centre of wealth and intelligence, but this was owing to causes quite peculiar to herself.
Note (IV.)—Page [19], line 14.