Thus the civil law everywhere triumphed.
It became the juridical expression of the political, economical, and religious change which marks the close of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the modern commercial world.
It must not be supposed, however, that no resistance was made to it.
Everywhere in contemporary literature, side by side with denunciations of the new mercenary troops, the _Landsknechte_, we find uncomplimentary allusions to the race of advocates, notaries, and procurators who, as one writer has it, "are increasing like grasshoppers in town and in country year by year." Whenever they appeared, we are told, countless litigious disputes sprang up.

He who had but the money in hand might readily defraud his poorer neighbour in the name of law and right.

"Woe is me!" exclaims one author, "in my home there is but one procurator, and yet is the whole country round about brought into confusion by his wiles.

What a misery will this horde bring upon us!" Everywhere was complaint and in many places resistance.
As early as 1460 we find the Bavarian estates vigorously complaining that all the courts were in the hands of doctors.

They demanded that the rights of the land and the ancient custom should not be cast aside; but that the courts as of old should be served by reasonable and honest judges, who should be men of the same feudal livery and of the same country as those whom they tried.