Altogether the patrician party, though still powerful enough, was at the opening of the sixteenth century already on the decline, the wealthy and unprivileged opposition beginning in its turn to constitute itself into a quasi-aristocratic body as against the mass of the poorer citizens and those outside the pale of municipal rights.

The latter class was now becoming an important and turbulent factor in the life of the larger cities.

The craft-guilds, consisting of the body of non-patrician citizens, were naturally in general dominated by their most wealthy section.
We may here observe that the development of the mediaeval township from its earliest beginnings up to the period of its decay in the sixteenth century was almost uniformly as follows:[1] At first the township, or rather what later became the township, was represented entirely by the circle of _gentes_ or group-families originally settled within the mark or district on which the town subsequently stood.

These constituted the original aristocracy from which the tradition of the _Ehrbarkeit_ dated.

In those towns founded by the Romans, such as Trier, Aachen, and others, the case was of course a little different.
There the origin of the _Ehrbarkeit_ may possibly be sought for in the leading families of the Roman provincials who were in occupation of the town at the coming of the barbarians in the fifth century.