Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/358

 346 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE peasant than to ten of us, and lie invests it as pleases him.' The appearance of the peasants who in 1476 flocked in thousands to hear the new prophet of the people, popularly called ' the trumpet of Niklashausen,' gives some evidence of their comfortable condition at the close of the fifteenth century in Northern and Central Germany: they had abundance of money, and wore jewels and fine clothes. The chronicler Stolle tells us that in one day 70,000 people were collected in Niklas- hausen, most of them peasants. They brought wax candles so large that it required from three to four men to carry them. The zeal of this ' prophet ' in denouncing vanity in dress and jewellery is evidence of the wealth of the peasantry. Wimpheling writes of the Alsatian peasantry : ' The prosperity of the peasants here and in most parts of Germany has made them proud and luxurious. I know peasants who spend as much at the marriage of their sons and daughters or the baptism of their infants as would buy a small house and farm or vineyard. They are extravagant in their dress and living and drink costly wines.' The amounts spent at patronal festivals and at marriages give the same evidence as to the peasants of Franconia. The Austrian chronicler Unrest says, in the year 1478, of the peasants of Carinthia that 'No one earns more money than they. It is generally acknowledged that they wear better clothes and drink better wine than the nobles.' 1 1 Unrest, pp. 631-642. For evidences of the comfortable condition of the Austrian peasants, see Bucholtz, Ferdinand der Erste, pp. B, 50, 53,