One of the earliest of these popular uprisings occurred at Gotha in 1391, when the peasantry of the neighbourhood and many of the burghers of the town rose against the exactions of the Jews, and demanded their expulsion. It was an insurrection of debtors against usurers, and was in the end put down by the majority of the citizens. From this date onwards to 1470 similar risings took place in many parts of Germany, prompted by the same or like causes—the exactions of Jews, priests, or nobles. The years 1431-1432 saw a great Hussite propaganda carried on all over Europe. Countries were flooded with Hussite proclamations, and traversed by Hussite emissaries. Paul Crawar was sent to Scotland, and others like him to Spain, to the Netherlands, and to East Prussia. They taught among other things that the Old Testament law about tithes had no place within the Christian Church, and that Christian tithes were originally free-will offerings,—a statement peculiarly acceptable to the German peasantry. All Germany had learnt by this time how Bohemian peasants, trained and led by men belonging to the lesser nobility, had routed in two memorable campaigns the imperial armies led by the Emperor himself, and how they had begun even to invade Germany. The chroniclers speak of the anxiety of the governing classes, civic and rural, when they recognised the strength of the feelings excited by this propaganda. The Hussite doctrine of tithes appears hereafter in most of the peasant programmes. A still more powerful impulse to revolts was given by the tragic fate of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. Charles was the ideal feudal autocrat. He was looked up to and imitated by the feudal princes of Germany in the fifteenth as was Louis XIV. by their descendants in the end of the seventeenth century. The common people regarded him as the typical feudal tyrant, and the hateful impression which his arrogance, his vindictiveness, and his oppression of the poor made upon them comes out in the folk-songs of the period: “Er schazt sich künig Alexander gleich; Er wolt bezwingen alle Reich, Das wante Got in kurzer stund.” He even came to be considered by them as one of the Antichrists who were to appear, and for years after his death at Nancy (1477) many believed that he was alive, expiating his sins on a prolonged pilgrimage. When this great potentate, who was believed to have boasted that there were three rulers—God in heaven, Lucifer in hell, and himself on earth—was defeated at Granson, routed at Morat, routed and slain at Nancy, and that by Swiss peasants, the exultation was immense, and it was believed that the peasantry might inherit the earth.(59) § 6. The religious Socialism of Hans Böhm.