The Roman law was especially favourable to the pretensions of the princes, and, from an economic point of view, of the nobility in general, inasmuch as land was on the new legal principles treated as the private property of the lord; over which he had full power of ownership, and not, as under feudal and canon law, as a _trust_ involving duties as well as rights.

The class of jurists was itself of comparatively recent growth in Central Europe, and its rapid increase in every portion of the empire dated from less than half a century back.

It may be well understood, therefore, why these interlopers, who ignored the ancient customary law of the country, and who by means of an alien code deprived the poor freeholder or copyholder of his land, or justified new and unheard-of exactions on the part of his lord on the plea that the latter might do what he liked with his own, were regarded by the peasant and humble man as robbers whose depredations were, if anything, even more resented than those of their old and tried enemy--the plundering knight.
The priest, especially of the regular orders, was indeed an old foe, but his offence had now become very rank.

From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards the stream of anti-clerical literature waxes alike in volume and intensity.

The "monk" had become the object of hatred and scorn throughout the whole lay world.