=182. Decline of feudal power with the rise of mercenary armies.=—A large part of the new revenues was spent by governments in strengthening their military position. Feudal lords were good fighters in the old-fashioned way, and would not give up their local power without a struggle. They had to yield finally, however, before the standing armies which kings called into existence towards the close of the Middle Ages. Feudal lords loved to fight, but they were only amateurs, after all, and did not make fighting a business. The mercenaries, on the other hand, whom kings collected as soon as they could afford the expense, were professionals, who submitted to a certain amount of discipline because they could make a living by doing so. Enterprising men collected a number of recruits, taught them to use their arms, and drilled them until they counted for far more than an equal number of untrained men; the leaders studied tactics and strategy, and knew how to make the most of their superiority. The leaders were perfectly willing to let their troops to any one who could pay the price, but as feudal lords were always in want of ready money the advantages of the new armies went almost entirely to the kings. The introduction of gunpowder in warfare increased the superiority of the mercenary armies, by adding to the value of training, and here again the kings, with ready money to invest in the latest improvements, had an advantage. =183. Growth in power of the central government as shown in the development of taxation.=—By the year 1500 the process had gone so far that many of the states of Europe had assumed a shape substantially like that which they have to-day; and feudalism as a great political force was dead. Government could now proceed to develop on the basis of an extended territory. Some measure of the gain of the central government in power can be had by noting the increase of its resources from taxation. English taxes yielded about half a million pounds in the sixteenth century, seven and a half million in the next century, and about forty million towards 1800. In little over a hundred years the yield of taxes in Prussia increased twenty-eight fold. The revenue system was still crude and wasteful. Every European state followed at one time or another the practice of raising money by selling the right to hold an office. Every European state lost money, not only by the inefficiency of the revenue system, but also by corruption of officials; often half or more of money that the people paid in taxes never reached the treasury. In spite, however, of these inevitable faults, national resources were concentrated as they had never been before, and the central government gained a power before unknown.