THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 105 



princes, prelates, counts, knights, and gentlemen, to 

 discountenance and severely punish drunkenness." ^ 

 Karl IV. declared that " the vice is greatly on the 

 increase, that it leads to blasphemy, murder, and 

 manslaughter, and that such vices and crimes have 

 rendered the Germans, whose manliness was so 

 famous in olden times, despised and contemned of 

 all foreign nations." ^ 



A temperance propaganda arose among the 

 Germans. " Orders of Temperance " were founded. 

 " Those were not mere associations of the ' moral 

 suasion class.' Some of them were founded and 

 governed by emperors, princes, and counts, others 

 by ecclesiastics or burghers. . . . The records of 

 some of them would delight the heart of a modern 

 suppressor of the liquor traffic from the severity 

 with which they show the rule to have been 

 enforced." ^ Nevertheless, German intemperance 

 became a by-word among the nations. As wine 

 cheapened, and came more and more within the 

 reach of the poorer classes, drunkenness culminated. 

 The low price of wine in 1539 has been com- 

 memorated in a proverb — 



"Tausendfiinfhundertdreissig und neun 

 Galten die Fasser mehr als der Wein.'' 

 (" In fifteen hundred and thirty-nine 



The casks were valued at more than the wine.") ■> 



1 Callowitz, quoted by Samuelson, " History of Drink," p. 104. 



2 Op. cit., p. 104. ^ Op. cit, p. 106. * Op. cit, p. 113. 



