CHAPTER 
THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION._-THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL 
      
      
POPE-ASS AND THE  CARICATURES AGAINST THE 
-THE GOOD 
SHEPHERDS. 
THE reign of Folly did not pafs away with the fifteenth century-on 
the whole the fixteenth century can hardly be faid to have been 
more fane than its predeceifor, but it was agitated by a long and Eerce 
ftruggle to difengage European fociety from the trammels of the middle 
ages. We have entered upon what is technically termed the renaijiznce, 
and are approaching the great religions reformation. The period during 
which the art of printing began iirft to fpread generally over XVe-[tern 
Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of fatirical books and 
pamphlets, and a confider-able number of clever and fpirited fatirifts and 
comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth century, efpecially 
in Germany, where circumftances of a political cl1ara6ter had at an early 
period given to the intellectual agitation a more permanent Pcrength than 
it could eafily or quickly gain in the great rnonarchies. Among the more 
remarkable of thefe fatirilts was Thomas Murner, who was born at 
Straiburg, in 1475. The circumftances even of his childhood are 
fingular, for he was born a cripple, or became one in his earlieti infancy, 
though he was fubfequently healed, and it was fo univerfally believed 
that this malady was the effect of witchcraft, that he himfelf wrote after- 
wards a treatife upon this fubject under the title of " De Phitonico 
Contraetu." The fchool in which he was taught may at leait have 
encouraged his fatirical fpirit, for his matter was Jacob Locher, the fame 
who tranflated into Latin verfe the " Ship of Fools " of Sebaftian Brandt. 
At