Note 656 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Mediæval songs tell us that this hatred of the peasantry is much older than the Renaissance:
“Si quis scire vult naturam, Maledictam et obscuram Rusticorum genituram Infelicem et non puram Denotent sequentia,” etc.
Carmina Medii Æri (Florence, 1883), p. 34; the song belongs to the thirteenth century.