It struck across the path of their daily life, leaving behind it a track hardly conceivable to-day.

For one of the salient symptoms of the change which has taken place since that time is the disappearance of local centres of activity and the transference of the intensity of life to a few large towns.

In the Middle Ages every town, small no less than large, was a more or less self-sufficing organism, intellectually and industrially, and was not essentially dependent on the outside world for its social sustenance.
This was especially the case in Central Europe, where communication was much more imperfect and dangerous than in Italy, France, or England.

In a society without newspapers, without easy communication with the rest of the world, where the vast majority could neither read nor write, where books were rare and costly, and accessible only to the privileged few, a new idea bursting upon one of these communities was eagerly welcomed, discussed in the council chamber of the town, in the hall of the castle, in the refectory of the monastery, at the social board of the burgess, in the workroom, and, did it but touch his interests, in the hut of the peasant.

It was canvassed, too, at church festivals (_Kirchweihe_), the only regular occasion on which the inhabitants of various localities came together.