Thus the habits which had been created through centuries of political ferment, subsisted when the nation was at rest in servitude, assuming baser and more selfish forms of ferocity.

The end of the sixteenth century witnessed the final degeneration and corruption of a mediaeval state of warfare, which the Renaissance had checked, but which the miseries of foreign invasions had resuscitated by brutalizing the population, and which now threatened to disintegrate society in aimless anarchy and private lawlessness.
It must not be imagined that governments and magistracies were slack in their pursuit of criminals.

Repressive statutes, proclamations of outlawry, and elaborate prosecutions succeeded one another with unwearied conscientiousness.

The revenues of states were taxed to furnish blood-money and to support spies.

Large sums were invariably offered for the capture or assassination of escaped delinquents; and woe to the wretches who became involved in criminal proceedings! Witnesses were tortured with infernal cruelty.