At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the pomp, pride, and licentiousness of the Teutonic Order drew upon it the especial hatred of the townsfolk; and amid the general wreck of religious houses none were more ferociously despoiled than those belonging to this Order.

There were, moreover, in some towns, the establishments of princely families, which were regarded by the citizens with little less hostility than that accorded to the religious Orders.
Such were the explosive elements of town life when changing conditions were tending to dislocate the whole structure of mediaeval existence.
The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 had struck a heavy blow at the commerce of the Bavarian cities which had come by way of Constantinople and Venice.

This latter city lost one by one its trading centres in the East, and all Oriental traffic by way of the Black Sea was practically stopped.

It was the Dutch cities which inherited the wealth and influence of the German towns when Vasco da Gama's discovery of the Cape route to the East began to have its influence on the trade of the world.

This diversion of Oriental traffic from the old overland route was the starting-point of the modern merchant navy, and it must be placed amongst the most potent causes of the break-up of mediaeval civilization.