HISTORY OF EUROPE. [231 



architects, painters, and sculptors ; 

 and vast expenses were undergone 

 in buildings, picture?, and statues. 

 Thus the Italians were drawn off 

 from their former way of life, which 

 was military and frugal, and addict- 

 ed themselves to the pursuit of re- 

 fined and expensive pleasures. A 

 taste for these pleasures was ex- 

 tended by degrees to neighbouring 

 nations : while, by the improve- 

 ment and extended course of navi- 

 gation above-noticed, the luxury 

 of Asia and America was added to 

 that of the ancients. — A great uni- 

 formity in the costume and mode of 

 life had hitherto prevailed ; but 

 now, to all other expenses there 

 was added that arising from a never- 

 ceasing change of the fashions, in 

 clothes, equipage, and the furniture 

 of houses. 



The far greater share of all those 

 expenses, fell on the barons which 

 enabled them to support, and whose 

 dignity seemed to require them. In- 

 stead of vieing with each other in 

 the numbers and boldness of their 

 retainers, they became emulous of 

 each other in the splendour and ele- 

 gance of their houses and tables. 

 This involved them in such heavy 

 debts, that if they did not sell, 

 or otherwise alienate, their lands 

 (which it was not, indeed, at first 

 in their power to do*) they were 

 at least obliged to convert into 

 money, for the payment of their 

 creditors, the military services due 

 to them from their vassals : which 

 was done partly by way of rent, 

 and partly by way of lease or fine. 

 Thus the vassal, instead of a military 

 retainer, became a tenant. As the 

 baron, or seigneur, accepted money 



from his vassals, instead of military 

 service, so the king was under the 

 necessity of accepting pecuniary 

 contributions, instead of personal 

 military service from the seigneur 

 or baron. The nobility and gentry 

 assembled in diets and parliaments, 

 for the maintenance of mercenary 

 armies, voted sums of money to be 

 levied on the people, grown rich by 

 trade, and disspirited for want of 

 military exercise. Such forces were 

 at first raised only for present exi- 

 gencies, and kept on foot no longer 

 than the circumstances that occa- 

 sioned them. But princes soon 

 found pretences for making them 

 perpetual ; the principle of which 

 was the garrisoning of frontier 

 towns and fortresses. The officers 

 and soldiers of these mercenary ar- 

 mies depending, for their subsist- 

 ence and preferment, as much upon 

 the prince, as the former militias 

 did upon the barons, the sword 

 was transferred from the hands of 

 subjects into those of kings, and 

 war was converted into a trade to 

 which multitudes had recourse, for 

 the means of living. Nay, many of 

 the barons themseVes, being re- 

 duced to poverty, by their expensive 

 way of living, took commands in 

 those mercenary troops ; and, being 

 still continued hereditary members 

 of diets, and other assemblies of 

 state, after the loss of their vassals, 

 whom they formerly represented, 

 they were now the readiest of all 

 men to load the people with heavy 

 taxes ; which were employed by 

 armies, fortresses, and garrisons; 

 and all these still increasing with 

 the increasing ambition of victori- 

 ous princes, the jealousies of their 



• In England it is well known the nobility and gentry were not permitted to 

 break the ancient entails or to alienate their estates, until an act was made for this 

 purpose, in 1509, by Henry VII. 



