Page:Balthasar Hübmaier.djvu/40

4 peasant with a gun in his hand became more than the military equal of the knight, whose armour was no protection against bullet or ball, and whose lance, sword, and mace lost all their terrors for the man in leather jerkin. Infantry, not cavalry, became the strength of armies. With this decline of the military power of the knights began also the decay of their social and political importance. They fought against their fate desperately, but they might as well have set themselves against the tides.

The first result of this social change was a marked increase in the power of kings and ruling princes. Feudalism made for decentralisation: it was anti-national, the apotheosis of individualism. That is to say, feudalism was this in practice. The great feudatories were always turbulent, always rebellious against the authority of their nominal suzerain, the king, so that the royal authority was a mere shadow. But in the sixteenth century this was rapidly changing: the power of the nobles was declining, while the royal authority was becoming a thing to be reckoned with and feared.

Parallel with this decline of the nobility, and contributing much to hasten the process, was another