Charles V pursued the same line of policy as his predecessor; but it was not until after the suppression of the lower nobility in 1523, and finally of the peasants in 1526, that any material change took place; and then the centralization, such as it was, was in favour of the princes, rather than of the Imperial power, which, after Charles V's time, grew weaker and weaker.

The speciality about the history of Germany is, that it has not known till our own day centralization on a national or racial scale like England or France.
At the opening of the sixteenth century public opinion not merely sanctioned open plunder by the wearer of spurs and by the possessor of a stronghold, but regarded it as his special prerogative, the exercise of which was honourable rather than disgraceful.

The cities certainly resented their burghers being waylaid and robbed, and hanged the knights wherever they could; and something like a perpetual feud always existed between the wealthier cities and the knights who infested the trade routes leading to and from them.

Still, these belligerent relations were taken as a matter of course; and no disgrace, in the modern sense, attached to the occupation of highway robbery.
In consequence of the impoverishment of the knights at this period, owing to causes with which we shall deal later, the trade or profession had recently received an accession of vigour, and at the same time was carried on more brutally and mercilessly than ever before.

We will give some instances of the sort of occurrence which was by no means unusual.