The desire for education spread all over Germany in the fifteenth century. Princes and burghers vied with each other in erecting seats of learning. Within one hundred and fifty years no fewer than seventeen new universities were founded. Prag, a Bohemian foundation, came into existence in 1348. Then followed four German foundations, Vienna, in 1365 or 1384; Heidelberg, in 1386; Köln, in 1388; and Erfurt, established by the townspeople, in 1392. In the fifteenth century there were Leipzig, in 1409; Rostock, on the shore of what was called the East Sea, almost opposite the south point of Sweden, in 1419; Cracow, a Polish foundation, in 1420; Greifswald, in 1456; Freiburg and Trier, in 1457; Basel, in 1460; Ingolstadt, founded with the special intention of training students in obedience to the Pope, a task singularly well accomplished, in 1472; Tübingen and Mainz, in 1477; Wittenberg, in 1502; and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, in 1507. Marburg, the first Reformation University, was founded in 1527. The craving for education laid hold on the burgher class, and towns vied with each other in providing superior schools, with teachers paid out of the town’s revenues. Some German towns had several such foundations. Breslau, “the student’s paradise,” had seven. Nor was the education of girls neglected. Frankfurt-on-the-Main founded a high school for girls early in the fifteenth century, and insisted that the teachers were to be learned ladies who were not nuns.(24) Besides the classrooms, the towns usually provided hostels, where the boys got lodging and sometimes firewood (they were expected to obtain food by begging through the streets of the town), and frequently hospitals where the scholars could be tended in illness.(25)