Note 276 — XXII

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Mentz, then the capital of Germany, contained a population of about 100,000 inhabitants. It was the most powerful city of the empire, the great city where the emperors were crowned. In the fourteenth century, it was so strong that it could send out of its walls 10,000 armed citizens to destroy the strongholds of the noble robbers who had ravaged its commerce.