Residing together in the Fugger palace, they still further added to the renown of their family by their patronage of the new learning and the fine arts. They took a distinguished place as patricians in the Rath of their native city, and they were raised by Charles V. into the ranks of the higher nobility as hereditary counts of the Empire, being also granted lands with hereditary jurisdiction. By their operations in finance, they still further increased the territorial acquisitions of their family. All contemporary writers descant on the pomp and magnificence of the Fugger establishment. The family continued to flourish up to the Thirty Years' War, in which they played a considerable part on the Imperial Catholic side. The history of the Fuggers, of their enrichment by gigantic mercantile operations on the basis of the world-market, of the new developments they gave to the time-old practice of money lending, and of the fresh energy and improved methods employed in their mining enterprises, affords a typical instance of the birth and rapid growth of the new constructive principle of capitalism--a birth and growth taking place _pari passu_ with the destructive processes of the disintegration of Feudalism. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The original book contained one unpaired double quotation mark. It was not clear where the missing quotation mark belonged, so no attempt was made to add it.