This was the beginning of Pawnings to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be?
Jobst thereby came into Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as Tutor or Guardian, which he had hitherto been.

Into Brandenburg; and there was no chance of repayment to get him out again.
COUSIN JOBST HAS BRANDENBURG IN PAWN.
Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself.
Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown domains, winking hard at robber-barons, and the like;--and after a few years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself, under a Statthalter (VICEREGENT, more like a hungry land-steward), whom nobody took the trouble of respecting.

Robber-castles flourished; all else decayed.

No highway not unsafe; many a Turpin with sixteen quarters, and styling himself EDDLE HERR (noble Gentleman), took to "living from the saddle:"-- what are Hamburg pedlers made for but to be robbed?
The Towns suffered much; any trade they might have had, going to wreck in this manner.

Not to speak of private feuds, which abounded _ad libitum._ Neighboring potentates, Archbishop of Magdeburg and others, struck in also at discretion, as they had gradually got accustomed to do, and snapped away (ABZWACKTEN) some convenient bit of territory, or, more legitimately, they came across to coerce, at their own hand, this or the other Edle Herr of the Turpin sort, whom there was no other way of getting at, when he carried matters quite too high.