Nuremberg, we find the butchers and cutlers asking and obtaining from Karl the right to hold a carnival, and to dance in silks and velvets like the great families. This right was afterwards extended to all the trades. _Schembartläufer_ the carnival was called. Every year the dance took place. By degrees the great people began to take part in it. The good burghers were very fond of dancing, as we shall have further occasion to notice. In time all sorts of rites and ceremonies grew up round the celebration of this holiday, which not even the presence of the enemy or the plague could induce the artisans to omit. Like Don't-care Hippocleides, they _would_ dance. Masks were worn, spears and crackers carried, and a special costume designed for each year. Popular songs and pasquinades were sung and published. Personalities of course were rife. In 1523, for instance, a man appeared dressed in "Indulgences." Not a little rough buffoonery of one sort or another found place. To conclude the proceedings, a so-called "Hell," made of fireworks, was let off in front of the Rathaus. And so to bed, as Pepys would have written. The influence of the Reformers proved fatal to indulgence in this sort of wild hilarity. The celebration of the carnival was finally forbidden in 1539, much to the annoyance of the people. In 1349 Karl issued from Nuremberg the declaration of public peace (he was always an eager promoter of Landfrieden--public peaces) for Franconia--to last for two years. In this arrangement Nuremberg was accorded the same standing as other Imperial cities and received, under Karl, equal political rights with the princely and other communities. A board of representatives of each town or district was to sit periodically at Nuremberg and see to it that the peace was kept. Whilst the King tried to preserve order in this way, peace leagues were also common in these times of feuds. So we find Nuremberg joining the league of the Swabian towns. It was at Nuremberg that Karl, when he returned from being crowned at Rome (1356), held a famous Reichstag and issued the Golden Bull, so-called from the golden seal, or _bulla_, appended to the deed, which determined the method of electing the emperors and reduced the number of electors to seven. The place where the first twenty-three articles of this important law were published is still known as the house "_Zum Goldenen Schild_," in the Schildgasse. The old custom by which the newly chosen Kaiser held his first Reichstag at Nuremberg was made law by the Golden Bull--a law in later times frequently ignored. By the Golden Bull, also, towns were forbidden to league together, which was a very burdensome provision secured by the influence of the princes, but, luckily for the towns, not able to be enforced.