There are stories of shrews and of scolding, nagging women, concluding with: "Whoever has a nagging wife, shall rid himself of her as soon as possible, buy a good rope, hang her on a bough, take three big wolves and hang them beside her. Whoever saw gallows with worse skins? There the song has an end, God evil women to Hades send!" We cheerfully leave the foul atmosphere of a poetry which could not have sunk lower in form and spirit, and which, nevertheless, could not have existed but for its direct connection with the social sphere of which it treated and in which its roots were imbedded. And indeed we know also from incontestable historical evidence that while the privileges of the other three estates grew, a heavy slavery lay upon the fourth, the peasantry. When oppression lays its leaden hand too heavily upon a race or a class, it crushes out, gradually but surely, the divine instincts of the human soul. Munster, in his _Kosmography_, which appeared in 1545, speaks of "the low and wretched life of the peasants." Their houses are miserable hovels of dirt and wood, placed directly on the ground, and thatched with straw. Their food is black rye bread, oats or boiled lentils and peas. A coarse upper coat, two wooden shoes, and a cheap felt hat are their only clothing. These people have never peace or rest. Their masters they must serve through the whole year; there is nothing that the poor people must not do. The picture is completed by another author, who says: "The toilsome people of the peasantry are everybody's footrag, heavily laden and burdened with tasks of slavery, hard labor, interests, taxes, duties, etc." We will not unroll here the endless lists of personal and property dues which were imposed upon the unfortunate peasants of that period. The saddest aspect of that physical oppression is that the unfortunate people were not even conscious of their frightful moral subjugation. We have already mentioned that even the marriage of the serfs of both sexes depended upon the consent of their masters, the landed proprietor or, in most cases, of his steward, that the marital tax (_maritagium_) had to be paid for this consent, and that the body of the unfortunate peasant girl belonged to her oppressor, at least for the first night (_jus primce noctis_). The existence of this infamous right has been contested by German historians, but as proofs Scherr adduces two authentic documents of the years 1538 and 1543. All these facts are sufficient proof that the above literary remnants do not greatly exaggerate the moral and intellectual condition of that class, which is the basic element of every civilization.