In all these early manifestations, we saw woodcut in the service of the common people; we saw it used instead of other means of production for reasons purely utilitarian. But a change is at hand, for has not the crusader sown a seed throughout the land; has not the human mind been awakened from its mediæval lethargy? The humanist arises, seeking enlightenment and the solution of life’s problems amid the meager surviving relics and records of the art and thought of antiquity. Feudal conditions are grudgingly modified, under pressure from a new element, which brings about a gradual shifting of the balance of power, intellectually as well as economically and politically: the rise of the Town. During our early, turbulent centuries with their grim “simple plan, That he shall take who has the power, And he shall keep who can,”-- misery not only loved company, as the old proverb has it, but absolutely needed it. Groups of those, too weak singly to withstand the attacks of that vast, lawless element which lived by oppression and plunder, huddled themselves together, built themselves shelters, and intrenched themselves against the common foe. In the course of time, owing to an advantageous position or to intensity of commerce or industry, these one-time shelters grew into towns, rising in wealth, power, and independent spirit, girt about with strong walls and moats, each town a state within the state, protected by imperial grants and privileges, bound together by the common enmity of the feudal power, and within the walls by an ardent local patriotism. Strong in their guilds and associations, in touch with each other and with the world by the constant travel of merchants and craftsmen, the towns became not only centers of wealth, but also the bearers of progressive thought, of art, of mental enlightenment. Here the graphic arts might well originate and flourish, for here were their patrons, the burgher, the craftsman, the people.