On the contrary, the unchartered guilds were the moat numerous and influential.

They exercised a vast influence upon the progress of the religious reformation, and the subsequent revolt of the Netherlands.

They ridiculed, with their farces and their satires, the vices of the clergy.
They dramatized tyranny for public execration.

It was also not surprising, that among the leaders of the wild anabaptists who disgraced the great revolution in church and state by their hideous antics, should be found many who, like David of Delft, John of Leyden, and others, had been members of rhetorical chambers.

The genius for mummery and theatrical exhibitions, transplanted from its sphere, and exerting itself for purposes of fraud and licentiousness, was as baleful in its effects as it was healthy in its original manifestations.