But some ten years before the Thirty Years' War, an advance in the pretensions of the nobles became apparent, at least in the provinces beyond the Elbe; for example, in Pommerania and Silesia. Under weak rulers the courtly influence of the nobility increased, the constant money embarrassments of the princes raised the independence of the States, which granted the taxes; and the peasants had no representatives in the States, except in the Tyrol, East Friesland, the old Bailiwick of Swabia, and a few small territories. The landed proprietors indemnified themselves for the concessions made to the princes by double exactions on the peasantry. Serfdom was formally re-established in Pommerania in 1617. It was just at this period of reaction that the Thirty Years' War broke out. It devastated alike the houses of the nobles and the huts of the peasants. It brought destruction on man and beast, and corrupted those that were left.[18] After the great war--in the period which will be here portrayed--a struggle began on the part of the landed proprietors and the newly established Government against the wild practices of the war time. The countryman had learned to prefer the rusty gun to handling the plough. He had become accustomed to perform court service, and his mind was not rendered more docile by disbanded soldiers having settled themselves on the ruins of the old village huts. The peasant lads and servants bore themselves like knights, wearing jack-boots, caps faced with marten's fur, hats with double bands, and coats of fine cloth; they carried rifles and long-handled axes when they came together in the cities, or assembled on Sundays. At one time perhaps these had been useful against robbers and wild beasts; but it had become far more dangerous to the nobles and their bailiffs, and still more insupportable to their villeins,--it was always rigorously forbidden.[19] The settlement of disbanded soldiers, who brought their prize money into the village, was welcome; but whoever had once worn a soldier's dress revolted against the heavy burdens of the bondsman. It was, therefore, established that whoever had served under a banner became free from personal servitude; only those who had been camp-followers continued as bondsmen. The inhabitants of the different States had been interspersed during the war; subjects had wilfully changed their dwellings, and established themselves on other territories, with or without the permission of the new lords of the manor. This was insupportable, and a right was given to the landed proprietor to fetch them back; and if the new lord of the manor thought it his interest to protect them, and refused to give them up, force might be used to recover them. Thus the noblemen rode with their attendants into a district to catch such of their villeins as had escaped without pass-tickets.[20]--The opposition of the people must have been violent, for the ordinances even in the provinces, where