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APPLICATION OF THE METALS. CHAP. XVII.

not confined to ecclesiastics, but extended to theprinces, to the richer nobles, and in the free com-mercial cities to the more opulent burghers andmerchants.

It does not seem probable, however, that alarge proportion of the metallic wealth of thatage would permanently remain in the quiet pos-session of even religious communities. The warswhich were almost constantly carried on duringthe reign of the emperor Charles V. , and espe-cially those in Italy betwixt him and Henry I.of France, had exhausted the treasures of thesovereigns, and induced them to seize on muchof the ecclesiastical wealth to coin into money topay and support their armies. Among numerousinstances of pillage in that age is a remarkable oneof Henry I. of France, who stripped the tomb ofSt. Martin of a railing of massive silver, withwhich, in one of his fits of devotion, Louis XI. had encircled it. Another most striking instanceis that of the capture of Rome itself by the im-perialists under Bourbon in 1527- It is recordedthat neither the barbarous and heathen Huns ,nor the Vandals and Goths in former ages, hadextorted plunder by such outrageous means aswere adopted by the bigoted subjects of a catholicmonarch, who spared neither churches, monasteries,nor palaces, nor the houses of private persons, andwho collected booty to the amount of a millionducats.