The knights for the most part, with true feudal hauteur, scorned and despised the artisans and traders who had no territorial family name and were unexercised in the higher chivalric arts.

The grievances of the two parties were, moreover, not identical, although they had their origin in the same causes.
The cities were in the main solely concerned to maintain their old independent position, and especially to curb the growing disposition at this time of the other estates to use them as milch cows from which to draw the taxation necessary to the maintenance of the empire.

For example, at the Reichstag opened at Nuernberg on November 17, 1522--to discuss the questions of the establishment of perpetual peace within the empire, of organizing an energetic resistance to the inroads of the Turks, and of placing on a firm foundation the Imperial Privy Council (_Kammergericht_) and the Supreme Council (_Reichsregiment_)--at which were represented twenty-six Imperial towns, thirty-eight high prelates, eighteen princes, and twenty-nine counts and barons--the representatives of the cities complained grievously that their attendance was reduced to a farce, since they were always out-voted, and hence obliged to accept the decisions of the other estates.

They stated that their position was no longer bearable, and for the first time drew up an Act of Protest, which further complained of the delay in the decisions of the Imperial courts; of their sufferings from the right of private war, which was still allowed to subsist in defiance of the Constitution; of the increase of customs-stations on the part of the princes and prince-prelates; and, finally, of the debasement of the coinage due to the unscrupulous practices of these notables and of the Jews.

The only sympathy the other estates vouchsafed to the plaints of the cities was with regard to the right of private war, which the higher nobles were also anxious to suppress amongst the lower, though without prejudice, of course, to their own privileges in this line.
All the other articles of the Act of Protest were coolly waived aside.