Skip to main content

Full text of "History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages;"

See other formats 


lUSTQMMirBP  THl 


GERMAN   PEOPLE 


THE   GERMAN   PEOPLE 

VOL.  XV. 


Demy  8vo.     25s.  per  2  Vols. 

HISTOEY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE  at  the 
Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.    By  Johannes  Janssen. 

Vols.  I.  and  II.      Translated  by  M.  A.  Mitchell  and 

A.  M.  ClIEISTIE. 

Vols.  III.— XVI.     Translated  by  A.  M.  Cheistie. 


LOXDON : 

KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRyBNER  &  CO.  Ltd. 


HISTORY  OF  THE 
GERMAN  PEOPLE 
AFTER  THE  CLOSE 
OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

By  Johannes  Janssen 

VOL.  XV. 

COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— PRIVATE 
LIFE  OF  THE  DIFFERENT  CLASSES- 
MENDICANCY   AND   POOR   RELIEF 

TRANSLATED    BY   A.  M.  CHRISTIE 


LONDON 
KEGAN    PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER   &   CO.  LTD. 

DRYDEN    HOUSE,  GERRARD    STREET,  W.  ^ 

1910  ^T\     \ 


{The  rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved.) 


CONTENTS 


OF 


THE    FIFTEENTH   VOLUME 


Conditions  of  Culture  and  Civilisation  among  the  German 
People  from  the  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  the 
Beginning  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

BOOK  IV 

ECONOMICAL,  SOCIAL,  RELIGIOUS  AND  MORAL  CONDITIONS. 
WITCHCRAFT  AND  WITCH-PERSECUTION. 

Part  I 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

L  Commerce  and  Capital — Usurers  :    Christian  and  Jewish    .       1 

German  commerce  in  the  sixteenth  century — AlHances  with  Italy 
and  France — The  Frankfort  Fairs — The  prosperity  of  Antwerp 
trade  distui'bed  by  the  Revolution,  1-5. 

Navigation  obstructed  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Scheldt — Com- 
mercial rise  of  Amsterdam,  5-6, 

Effects  of  the  Church-schism  on  the  Hanseatic  League — The 
Hansa  towns  oppressed  by  Denmark — The  '  Sund-Toll '  the 
'  gold-mine  '  of  the  Danish  kings,  6-9. 

The  Hanseatic  Leaguers  oppressed  by  Norway  and  Sweden,  9-12. 

The  Hanseats  in  England — Edward  VI.  and  Queen  EUzabeth — 
German  market  flooded  with  Enghsh  cloth  and  wool  wares — 
Downfall  of  the  Hanseatic  League  in  England,  12-17. 

Complete  ruin  of  the  Hanseatic  League — Causes  of  this  ruin, 
17-19. 

Tariffs  in  the  Empire — Tariffs  raised — Civil  '  tariff '  war  among 
the  Imperial  Estates,  20-21. 

'  Land-pest '  of  foreign  hawkers  and  vendors,  21-24. 

^lonopoly  and  forestalUng  associations — Their  evil  influence  on 
trade — Increase  of  bankruptcy,  especially  in  Augsburg,  24-25, 

h  2 


Vi  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAX  PEOPLE 

CHAPTKR  ^^^^ 

Imperial  statute  of  1577  against  monopolists  and  price-raisers, 

2G. 
Trading-association  of  the  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony — Other 

disastrous  monopolist  enterprises,  26-29. 
Pomerania  reduced  to  misery  through  the  bankruptcy  of  the 

Loitzes  in  Stettin,  29-31. 
Contemporaries  on  the  '  godless  usury  '  of  the  time — A  Dominican 

urges  the  people  to  earn  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  brow 

— Burgomaster  Brockes  on  the  usury  in  Liibeck — Opinions  of 

Sebastian  Franck  and  ZwingU,  32-35. 
Canon  law  and  usury — Conscientiousness  of  Orlandus  Lassus,  35. 
Luther  in  favour  of  the  economic  aspects  of  Canon  law  and  against 

usury,  3G-37. 
The  preachers  and  usury — George  Lauterbecken  against  Martin 

Bucer,  37-38. 
The  Protestant  nobility  and  usmy,  38-39. 
Usury    in    the    Dithmarschen    district,    in    Schleswig-Holstein, 

Pomerania  and  other  Protestant  territories,  39-40. 
John  Mathcsius  on  the  fourteen  different  kinds  of  usury — Com- 
plaints from  other  contemporaries,  41-42. 
The  Jesuit  George  Scherer  and  other  Catholic  preachers  on  the 

usury  prevalent  in  CathoUc  districts,  42-45. 
Imperial  and  local  laws  against  Jewish  usury,  46-47. 
Jewish  usury  in  the  Tyrol  and  in  the  Archdiocese  of  Mayence, 

47-48. 
Protestant    utterances    concerning    Jewish    usury — Sayings    of 

Luther  and  Jodokus  Elirhardt,  49-51. 
The  Jew  question  and  the  Hessian  preachers  (Martm  Bucer — 

George  Nigrinus),  51-54. 
The  Theological  Faculty  at  Giessen  in  1612  on  the  Jews,  54-55. 
South  German  preachers  and  princes  against  the  Jews,  55-59. 
Influence  of  the  Jews  among  the  nobles,  59-60. 
Increased  hatred  of  Jews  among  the  Protestants — '  The  Clmstian 

slaves  to  the  Jews,'  60-63. 
Jews  and  Christians  blamed— Consorters  with  Jews,  and  Juda- 

izers,  who  suck  the  people  dry,  63-66.     Jewish  and  Cliristian 

usuries — '  The  uncircumcised  Jews  worse  than  the  circumcised 

ones,'  66-69. 
Falsification  of  coinage  by  the  Christian  Jews,  69. 

II.  Minting  and  Mining 70 

Confusion  and  want  of  organisation  in  the  mint  system — Imperial 
mint-ordinances  and  other  preventive  measui'es  all  useless, 
70-71. 

Complaints  of  contemporaries  on  the  debasing  of  coin,  71. 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLUME  vii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

'  Foreign  (inferior)  money  '  takes  the  place  of  '  good  German 

money  '  in  the  Empire — Evil  results  of  this,  72-76. 
Pamphlet  of  the  year  1612  on  the  universal  falsification  of  money, 

76-78. 
In  1606,  5000  different  sorts  of  money  in  circulation,  78. 
'  Fraudulent  coining-dens,'  78. 
Complaints  about  falsification  of  coins,  79. 
Sovereigns  as  coin-falsifiers,  80. 
The  Frankfort  Fair  '  the  chief  centre  for  the  introduction  and 

circulation  of  bad  coins,  81. 
'  Minting  iniquities  of  all  kinds  '  ;  the  consequent  rise  in  the  value 

of  good  sorts  of  money,  82-86. 
The  plague  of  '  cliiDpers  and  snippers,'  86-87. 
Direst    punishments     prove   almost  useless     against   the   false 

coiners,  87-89. 
Fear  of  a  '  rising  of  the  common  people '  on  account  of  the  pre- 
valent mint  grievance,  89. 
The  Hildesheim  clironicler,  John  Oldecoj),  on  the  influence  of  the 

Church-schism  on  the  coinage  system,  89-90. 
The  decline  of  the  coinage  system  in  close  connection  with  the 

decline  of  the  mines,  90. 
The  great  falling  off  of  the  Tyrolese,  Saxon,  JMansfeldian  and 

other  German  mines,  90-97. 
Inefficiency  and  fraudulency  of  the  mining  officials,  97-99. 
The  Brunswick  councillor  of  mines,  Lohneiss,  on  the  decUne  of 

the  mines,  99-100. 
Lengthened  shifts  and  poorer  wages  with  the  rising  prices  of  the 

necessaries  of  hfe,  100-103. 
Strikes  and  riots  amongst  the  miners  ^\■ho  were  poorer  '  than  the 

beggarfolk,'  103-106. 

III.  Industry     ..........   107 

Decay  of  industrial  trades  in  the  sixteenth  century,  107. 

Deterioration  of  the  guilds — Difficulties  put  in  the  way  of '  master- 
pieces,' 107-109. 

Abuses  in  the  guild-system,  109-111. 

Decline  of  the  guilds  in  the  sixteenth  century,  112. 

Quarrels  between  the  guilds  and  jealousy  among  the  members,  113. 

Complaints  of  the  degeneration  of  the  guild  system,  113-119. 

Degeneracy  of  the  guild  system  in  Demmin,  119-120. 

The  Brunswick  Councillor  of  Mines,  Lohneiss,  on  the  abuse  of 
guild  privileges,  121. 

Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse  on  the  depravity  of  the  handicrafts- 
men, 122. 

Downfall  of  the  joiirneymen  clubs,  partly  in  consequence  of  the 
introduction  of  the  new  doctrine,  123-124, 


viii  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

The  journeymen  exploited  by  the  masters  of  crafts,  125-126. 

Abolition  of  the  '  Good  Monday,'  127. 

Edicts  against  the  '  Geschenkte  Handwerkc '  ('  feasts  of  Welcome '), 

128. 
'  Drinking  and  gorging  '  of  the  masters,  129-130. 
Complaints  of  the  Nuremberg  fustian-weaver  and  linen-weaver 

journeymen  against  their  masters,  130-134. 
Melancholy  position  of  the  Nuremberg  apprentices,  135-136. 

I\\  Peasant  Life — Effect  on  Agriculture  of  Unumited  Hunt- 
ing— Deciine  of  Agriculture         .         .         .         .         .137 

Position  of  the  German  peasantry  after  the  social  revolution  of 

1525 — Utterances  of  Sebastian  Franck,  137-140. 
Pamphlet   of   1598  on  the  distressed  position  of  the  German 

peasants,  140-141. 
Melanchthon  and  Luther  on  tlie  unhmited  power  of  rulers  over  the 

peasants,  141-144. 
The  Roman  law  unfavotu-able  to  the  peasants — Pamphlet  of 

Husanus  on  bond-service — New  slavery,  144-145. 
Decline  of  the  peasant-class  in  Pomerania  and  Riigen — Seizure 

of  peasant  farms — '  Bauer  und  Schafer  Ordnung  '  of  Duke 

Philip  II.  of  Pomerania,  145-150. 
Bond-service  in  Mecklenburg  and  Schleswig  Holstein,  150-152. 
Peasant  subjection  made  more  severe  in  Brandenburg,  152-158. 
The  peasants  in  the  Oberlausitz  (Upper  Lusatia)  as  it  were  under 

Turks  and  heathen,  158-159. 
Tyranny  over  the  peasants  in   the  Saxon  electorate — Piteous 

descriptions  of  the  Saxon  preachers  (Gregory'  Strigenicius — 

Cyriacus       Spangenberg  —  Bartholomew       Ringwalt  —  John 

Sommcr),  159-169. 
'  Peasant-fleecers  '  among  the  '  Evangelicals,'  170. 
Sebastian  Miinster  pleads  for  the  down-trodden  peasants,  171. 
'  Officials  and  clerks '  a  plentiful  curse  to  the  common  people, 

172. 
The  peasants  oppressed  by  the  Hessian  officials,  173-175. 
Nigiinus  on  '  the  Egyptian  bond-service  of  the  poor  man,'  175. 
Frischlin  on  the  barbarous  treatment  of  the  peasants  by  the  nobles, 

175-176. 
Peasant-fleecing  by  a  Tyrolese  nobleman,  176-178. 
Oppression  of  the  peasants  in  Bavaria,  178-180. 
Infliction  of  the  '  Robot '  on  the  peasants  in  Austria,  181. 
Peasant-rising  in  tlic  Austrian  territory,  182. 
Rightmindedness  of  numbers  of  Austrian  feudal  lords,  183-185. 
Peasant-rising  in  Upper  and  Lower  Austria  in  the  years  1 594-1597, 

185-180.     Complaints  from  the  insurgents  below  and  above 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLUME  IX 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

the  Enns — Justness  of  these  complaints — '  Robot '   Ijurdens, 

186-192.     The  Austrian  peasants  in   1597  sacrificed  to   the 

feudallords,  192-194. 
The  right  of  unUniited  chase  and  its  effects  on  agricultiu'e,  194-19.5. 

Cyriacus  Spangenberg  on  the  '  devil  of  the  chase,'  195. 
The   '  Jag-Teufel '   of  the  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony — Huge 

extent  of  the  hunting  preserves  in  liis  land,  195-200. 
'  Hunting-mania  of  the  princes  '  in  the  Duchy  of  Saxony — Com- 
plaints of  contemporaries,  200-201. 
Game  conditions  and  hunters  in  Brandenburg,  201-202. 
Complaints  of  contemporaries  concerning  the  damage  by  game  in 

Hesse  :    next  to  the  sovereigns  '  the  unreasoning  animals  were 

lords  of  the  land,'  203-205. 
Ravages  by  game  in  Franconia,  205-207. 
The  hunt-books  of  Dukes  VVilham  IV.  and  Albert  V.  on  the 

game  in  Bavaria — Superabundance  of  game  in  Wiirtemberg, 

207-208. 
Hunt-socages  in  the  Duchy  of  Saxony — Complaints  of  these  by 

the  Estates,  208-212. 
Consequences  of  the  hunting-mania  of  the  princes  and  lords, 

212-214. 
Cost  of  hounds  and  falcons — Hunting  goes  on  all  the  year  round — 

Sunday  hunts,  214-215. 
The  '  hunting-devil  hand-in-hand  with  the  devils  of  drunkenness, 

passion  and  bloodshed,'  215. 
The  hunting-laws  of  the  high  magnates  '  written  as  it  were  with 

letters  of  blood,'  215-217. 
Saxon,  Brandenburg  and  Hessian  hunting-laws,  217-219. 
Hessian  fishing-laws,  219. 
Hunting  legislation  in  Wiirtemberg — Increase  of  game  preserves, 

221-222. 


Part  II 

I.  Princes  and  Couht  Lite        .......  223 

The  princes'  courts  increased  continually  in  grandeur  and  bril- 
liancy dm-ing  the  sixteenth  century — Examples  of  this  magnifi- 
cence— Shoals  of  Court  servants,  223-227 

I.  '  Drinking-Princes  '  and  Court  Festivities. 

All  the  vices  of  the  period  collected  together  at  the  Courts  :  among 
these  vices  the  '  devil  of  drink  '  rules  supreme — Complaints 
of  contemporaries  on  this  score,  228-229. 


X  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

CHAPTER  ^^^ 

The  vice  of  unlimited  drinking  at  the  Courts  of  those  who  call 

themselves  evangelical,  229-230. 
Princes  who  generally  lead  sober  lives,  230-232. 
The    Saxon    Electors    '  first    and   foremost   as  mighty   topers,' 

232-234. 
Elector  Christian  II.   of  Saxony   '  a  monster  of  almost  daily 
drunkenness  and  debauchery ' — Extracts  from  the  Saxon  Court- 
preacher    Michel    Niederstetter's     funeral     sermon     on     this 
prince,  234-23G. 

'  Jovial  princely  life  with  plenty  of  di-inking,'  237-238. 

From    the   Diary   of   Duke   Adolf   Frederick   of   Mecklenburg- 

Schwerin,  238. 
The  proverbial '  Pomeranian  drinking  orgies,'  238-239. 
Utterances    of    contemporaries    on    the    '  princely    drunkards,' 
240-241. 

Giant  beer-barrels  of  many  princes  (the  Heidelberg  tun), 
242. 

'  Princely  carousals '  of  many  of  the  bishops — Gebhard 
Truchsess,  243. 

]Memoirs  of  the  Silesian  knight,  Hans  von  Schweinichen,  on  the 
princely  drunkards  of  the  sixteenth  centm-y,  243-247. 

Excessive  drinldng  of  the  Palatine  Elector  Frederick  IV.  ;  heavy 
drinking  at  the  Hessian  Court — '  AppaUing  behaviour '  of 
Christopher  Ernest  of  Hesse,  248-250. 

Excessive  drinking  of  the  '  pious  '  Landgrave  Ludwig  of  Wiirtem- 
berg,  250-251. 

The  Court-preacher  Lucas  Osiander  and  Martin  Bucer  '  wliite- 
wash '  the    immoderate  drinking  of  the  Protestant  Princes, 
252-253. 

Outlay  in  princely  visits  and  weddings — Examples  in  point — 
Expenditure  at  the  weddings  of  Giinther  XLI.  of  Schwarzburg 
and  John  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg  (200  to  300  dishes  served 
up) — Costs  of  princely  weddings  according  to  H.  von  Schwein- 
ichen—Show  dishes,  253-260. 

Development  of  the  cuhnary  art — '  Extraordinary  skiU  '  of  the 
cook-artist  Marx  Rumpolt — Extracts  from  liis  cookery-book — 
Sundry  examples  of  the  '  woeful  progress  and  superfluity  of 
cookery  ' — Recipe  for  an  OUapodrida,  260-263. 

Fireworks  and  other  Court  festivities,  263-264. 

Saxon  masquerades  and  pageants,  264-266. 

Festivities  at  the  chiistening  of  the  Brandenburg  Margrave 
Christian,  266. 

Grotesque  processions  at  the  Court  festivities,  267-268. 

The  French  ballet  introduced,  268. 

'  Princely  solemnities  '  in  Lent  and  other  '  princely  diversions  ' — 
Fondness  for  pet  animals,  269-270. 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLTOIE  Kl 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

2.  Princely  Finery   in  Clothes  and  Jewels — Oames  of  Fortune, 

and  Gold-mahing. 

The  princes'  luxury  in  clothes  and  jewels,  270-273. 
Expenditure  on  furs  and  costly  jewellery,  273-275. 
Outfit    of    a    German    King's   daughter   in   the  middle  of   the 

fifteenth  century,  275. 
Outfits  of  German  Princes'  daughters  oince  the  middle  of  the 

sixteenth  century,  275-277. 
Princely  wedding-presents,  277-279. 
Purveyors  of  these  costly  articles,  279. 

The  princes'  love  of  gambUng  illustrated  by  examples,  279-280. 
The  'sacred  art'  of  alchemy,  280-281. 
Alchemists  at  the  Hessian,  Saxon  and  Brandenburg  Courts,  281- 

284. 
Duke  John  Frederick  II.  of  Saxony's  relations  to  the  alchemist 

Sommering  and   the   Court   lady,    Anna   Maria   von  Ziegler, 

284-286. 
Duke  Julius  of  Brunswick  imposed  upon  and  robbed  by  cheating 

gold-makers — Sommering  and  Anna  Maria  von  Ziegler  shown  up 

and  punished  as  impostors,  286-291. 
Alchemists  at  the  Wiirtemberg  Court,  292-295. 
Alchemy  in  Munich  and  Innsbruck,  295-296. 
Rudolf    II.    as    cliief   protector    of    the    travelhng    alchemists, 

296-298. 
Princes'   '  enormous  retinues  '  on  their  visits  and  journeys  to 

watering-places,  298-300. 
Princes  burdened  by  debts  and  impoverished  in  almost  all  German 

territories,  300-301. 
Constant  demands  for  fresh  taxes  from  the  Elector  Augustus  of 

Saxony,  301-304. 
Demands  for  taxes  by  the  Elector  Christian  II.  of  Saxony,304-308. 
Extravagance  at  the  Court  of  Duke  Francis  I.  of  Lauenburg, 

308-309. 
'  Wretched  financial  condition  '  in  Pomerania  and  Mecklenburg, 

309-313. 
Terrible  tale  of  debts  and  disruption  of  civil  power  in  Branden- 
burg and  Brunswick,  313-314. 
Political   anarchy   in   most   of    the   South-German    territories. 

315-316. 
'  Memou'S  of  a  princely  personage  '  on  the  banki'upt  condition  of 

the  land,  316-317. 
Oppression  of  the  people  by  the  insolvent  sovereigns,  317-318. 
The  Margrave  Edward  Fortunatus  of  Baden  and  '  his  maimer  of 

life  beyond  all  measure  abominable ' — The  Margravate  of  Baden 

'  as  it  were  in  a  perpetual  fire-bath,'  318-320. 


Xll 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIVIAN  PEOPLE 


PAGE 

^^^Debts  of  the  Margravate  of  Ansbach-BajTcuth  and  the  Duchy  of 
Wurtemberg,  321. 
How  Duke  Chiistopher  of  Wurtemberg  justified  his  demands  for 

taxes,  321-323. 

Wanton  extravagance  under  Dukes  Ludwig,  Frederick  and 
John  Frederick— Growing  financial  anarchy  in  then-  domains, 

323-325. 

Inordinate  Court  splendour  and  '  complete  exhaustion  of  the  land 
in  Bavaria  under  Albert  V.  and  WiUiam  V.— Bavarian  over- 
drafts and  fresh  impositions,  326-328. 

Order  and  good  management  in  state  affairs  and  sobriety  of  life 
since  the  accession  of  Maximihan  I.  of  Bavaria— Judgment  of 
the  Augsbm-g  Protestant,  PhiUp  Hainhofer,  and  the  Belgian, 
Thomas   Fyens— Praise    of    the    Catholic    town    of    Munich, 

328-330. 
Gleams  of  fight  at  Protestant  Courts— The  Saxon  Electress  Anna, 

330-331. 

II.  Life  of  the  Xobles       ....••••  332 

Luxury  and  excess  of  the  nobles  in  eating  and  drinking— Opinion 

of  Spangenberg,  332-333. 
Wedding  expenditure  among  nobles  and  knights — Instances  of 

this  in  the  different  parts  of  Germany,  333-336. 
Increased  display  in  clothes  and  ornaments,  337-339. 
*  Inordinate  debts '   the  consequence  of   '  excessive  pomp  and 

expenditure,'  339. 
Complaints  of  contemporaries  concerning  '  the  unspeakable  outlay 

in  di-ess  and  ornaments,'  foreign  fashions  and  the  effeminacy 

in  dress  and  display,  339-342. 
'  Lazy  effeminate  fives  of  the  young  nobility,'  342. 
'  Philandering  and  di'iving  about  in  coaches,'  343. 
Few  edif5dng  pictures  of  fife  among  the  nobles  given  by  preachers 

— ^Utterances    of    Luther,    Nicholas    Selnekker,    David    Veit, 

Spangenberg  and  Aegidius  Albertinus,  343-347. 
Contemporaries  on  the  drinking  orgies  of  the  nobifity,  348. 
Immoral  dances — Cursing,  swearing  and  blaspheming,  348-349. 
The  nobles  and  Chvirch  property,  349-351. 
The  squires  take  to  shop-keeping  and  trading,  also  to  forestaUing, 

351-352. 
Gerhard  Lorichius  on  the  nobles,  352. 
French  influence  among  the  nobifity,  352-353. 

III.    BUBGHER   AND   PeASA>-T   LiFE  ....  .  354 

General  judgment  passed  in  a  '  Christian  sermon  of  1573,'  354. 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLUME  xiii 

CHAPTER  PAOE 

1.  Dress  and  Fashion — Means  of  personal  Embellishment — Gold 
and  Silver  Ornaments — Extravagance  among  the  Lower  Classes. 

Outlay  on  dress  and  the  craze  for  eccentric  fashions  continually 

on  the  increase,  354-356. 
Joacliim  Westphal  on  the  incessant  changes  of  fashion,  356-357. 
Tlie  '  Pluderliose '  (trunk-hose),  a  plain  token  of  the  gorruption 

of  the  age— A  folk  song  on  the  '  Pluderhose,'  357-358 
Musculus  on  the  '  Coiu-t  devil,'  359-361. 
The  devil  and  the  Pluderhose,  361. 

The  Pluderhose  worn  by  all  classes,  even  by  school-boys,  361. 
'  The  folhes  in  male  fashions — Remarks  of  contemporaries  thereon, 

362-364. 
Contemporary  descriptions  of  the  dress  of  women  and  young  gh-ls 

— Enormous  outlay  on  ruffs  and  trains,  364-367. 
Painting,  powdering  and  smearing  the  face  now  common  among 

burghers'  wives  and  daughters  and  young  men — Utterances  of 

other   contemporaries — Recipes    for    beautifying    the  person, 

367-370. 
The  folhes  of  fashion  practised  on  children,  370-371. 
Inordinate  expenditure  in  dress  and  adornment  at  weddings  and 

other  family  festivities — Strigenicius  on  the  sumptuous  bridal 

di'ess  of  women — Remarks  by  other  contemporaries — Wedding 

attire  of  a  bridesmaid — Magnificence  of  the  wedding  presents, 

371-376. 
Sumptuary  Laws  against  burgher  luxmy,  376-377. 
Germany  poor  through  ruinous  pomp — Misuse  of  velvet  and  silk, 

377. 
Smart    di-ess    of    servant-maids    and    artisans'     apprentices — 

Sumptuary  regulations  to  check  tliis,  378-382. 
Luxru-y   and  extravagance  in  dress  among  the   bm-gher  folk, 

382-385. 
Imperial  pohce  edict  and  provincial  ordinances  against  smart 

clotlring  among  the  peasants,  384-385. 
Futihty  of  the  laws  for  expenditm-e,  385-386. 
Unhealthy  luxury,  386. 

2.  Eating  and  Drinking— Family  Festivities  and  Public  Amuse- 
ments— '  Regular  Banquets  of  Burghers  and  Peasants ' — 
Wines  and  Beers — Brandy  Drinking — Length  of  Life. 

Luther  and  the  preachers  on  the  '  hoggish  vice  '  of  drunkenness — 

The  '  Sauf  '  or  sow  order,  387-389. 
John    Mathesius    and    Pancratius    on    '  inhuman    orgies    and 

carousals,'  389-391. 
The  Hessian  pastor  Hartmann  Braun  on  the  consequences  of  the 

prevalent  drunkenness,  391-392. 


xiv  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

PAGE 
CHAPTER  ,  ^  .  X-        1-  1 

Hartmann  Braun,  Strigenicius  and  Evemus  on  tippling  preachers, 

392-393. 
Growing  gluttony  and  drunkenness  in  Catholic  lands— Aegidius 

Albcrtinus  on  the  taverns  and  pubUc-houses,  393-394. 
The  sin  of  ckunkenness  driven  to  the  highest  pitch  by  the  custom 

of  toasting— John  George  Sigwart  and  Aegidius  Albertinus  on 

toasting  and  drinking  healths,  395-396. 
Professional  eaters  and  drinkers  perambulate  Germany  and  show 

off  their  arts  for  money,  397. 
'  Opportunities    for    chinking  '—The    '  Special-Frass  '    and    the 

'  Quassfeste  ' — '  To  diink  freely  is  to  Germanise,'  398-399. 
The  hospital  banquets— The  lawyers'  repast  whilst  inventories 

were  being  taken  and  during  law-sessions,  399-400. 
'  The  disgusting  eating  and  drinking  at  weddings  '—Descriptions 

by  Schoppius  and  Spangenberg,  401-403. 
Ribald  proceedings  on  the  occasion  of  weddings  in  the  Saxon 

electorate,  in  the  Black  Forest,  in  Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol, 

403-405. 
Drinking  and  swilling  at  funerals,  405-406. 
'  Murderous  jollifications  '  at  church  fairs  and  carnivals— Gluttony 

and  mummery,  406-407. 
Frivolous  carnival  festivities  at  Nuremberg  described  by  Ukich 

Wirsung,  407-409. 
Deatlis  from  drinking  and  carousing,  409-410. 
The    rulers    to    blame    for    this    excessive    drinking    and    its 

consequences,   410-411. 
Reasons  of  the  inefficacy  of  countless  sumptuary  ordinances — 

The  latter  give  proof   of    the    increase    of    wantonness    and 

extravagance — Luxury  at  weddings,  410-412. 
Marx  Rumpolt  on  the  subject  of  '  suitable  burgher  and  peasant 

banquets,'  413-414. 
Tricks  of  all  sorts  with  %vine  '  a  higlily  profitable  trade  '■ — Ordin- 
ances against  adulterating  and  poisoning  wine,  415-416. 
Manufactures  in  beer,  416. 
Growth  of  brandy-ch'inking  in  to\Mi  and  country— Pernicious 

results    therefrom — JNIagisterial   ordinances    against   excessive 

brandy-diinking,  417-419. 
Decreased  longevity  resulting  from  inordinate  drinking — Utter- 
ances of  contemporaries,  native  and  foreign,  on  this  subject — 

Lazarus  von  Schwendi  on  the  decline  of  the  German  nation, 

420-424. 

IV.  Beggars — Poor  Laws — Robbery  of  the  Poor — Catjses  of 
Growing  Pauperism — Lsf crease  of  Beggars  and  Vagabonds    .  425 

Sebastian  Brant,  Thomas  Murner  and  John  Schweblin  on  the 
proceedings  of  beggars — Relic-bearers  and  pardoners,  425-427. 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLUME  XV 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

The  pamphlet  '  Liber  vagatorum,  der  Bettleroi'den,'  428-429. 
Municipal  poor-laws  in  the  Netherlands — The  Ypren  poor-laws, 

429-43 L 
Mendicant  ordinances  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  Vienna,  Cologne, 

Niu'emberg,  Wiirzbui'g  and  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  431-435. 
Hospital  ordinances  and  voluntary  sick-niu'sing  at  the  close  of 

the  Middle  Ages — The  nursing  association  of  the  Alexians — The 

Beghine,   436-438. 
Geiler  von  Kaisersberg  on  '  Mercifulness  for  the  love  of  God,'  and 

the  meritoriousness  of  good  works,  439-441 . 
Markus  von  Weida  on  almsgiving  as  a  '  strict  command  '  and  for 

the  avoidance  of  deadly  sin,  442-443. 
Geiler  von  Kaisersberg  on  genuine  alms-giving  and  on  sham- 
paupers  and  '  Bettler-Narren,^  443-445. 
Geiler  von  Kaisersberg  recommends  the  Strasburg  Council  to 

institute  an  organised  system  of  poor-relief,  445. 
Imperial  recesses  of  1497,  1498,  1500  and  1530  on  mendicancy, 

446-447. 
The  poor-relief  ordinance  of  the  Wiirzburg  Bishop  Conrad  III., 

447-448. 
Decisions  of  the  Cologne  Provincial  Synod  of  1536  on  poor-reUef, 

448-449. 
Hospital     conditions    at    Wiirzburg,    Vienna    and    Innsbruck, 

449-451. 
Pamphlet  of  the  Frankfort  beneficed-preacher  Valentin  Leuch- 

tius,  451. 
Luther  on  putting  down  pubhc  begging,  452. 
Pauper  ordinances  in  Protestant  towns,  452-453. 
First  complete  reorganisation  of  the  poor-relief  system  in  the 

spirit  of  the  '  new  Evangel '  by  Carlstadt  and  Link,  453-455. 
Protestant  pauper  ordinances  and  poor-boxes,  Wizel's  opinion 

about  them,  455-457. 
The  '  Gotteskasten '  becomes  a  Judas'  purse,  457. 
Complaints    of  contemporaries   on  the  poor-box  ordinances  in 

Wiirtemberg,  Hesse,  Brandenburg  and  Saxony,  457-460. 
The  Lutheran  Wolfgang  Russ  on  Protestant  poor-rehef,  460. 
Empty   poor-boxes  in  Frankfort-on-the-Maine   and   Hambm-g, 

460-461. 
The  managers  of  the  Hambm'g  orphanage  on  the   '  merciless 

hardness '   of  the   cash-keepers — Condition  of   the  Hamburg 

orphanage,  461-464. 
Luther  on  the  dechne  of  benevolence,  the  '  cruel  heartlessness ' 

among  the  new  rehgionists  and  the  generosity  of  their  CathoUc 

forbears,   464-468. 
Judgments    pronounced    by   new-reUgionist   preachers   on    the 

benevolence  of  their  Cathohc  ancestors  and  the  decUne  of 


Xvi  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

CHAPTER  PXQE 

charity  among    the  Protestants — Facts  wliich  confiim  these 

opinions,   469-471. 
Protestant  preachers  allow  that  the  new  doctrine  of  justification 

by  faith  alone  everywhere  cuts  the  nerve  of  voluntary  sacrifice, 

472-473. 
Lack  of  care  for  the  poor  and  sick  on  the  Protestant  side  at  times 

of  pestilential  diseases,  47-3-475. 
Self-sacrifice  and  courage  of  the  Jesuits  and  fear  of  death  among 

the  new-religionists  in  plague  times,  475-477. 
Terrible  significance  for  the  poor-reUef  system  of  the  squandering 

of  Church  goods,  477-478. 
Murner  and  Luther  on  the  '  plunder  and  robbery  of  Church 

goods,'  477-479. 
Complaints  of  other  contemporaries   about  the  dissipation  of 

Church  property,  480. 
Protestant  utterances  on  the  misuse  of  Church  property — Woeful 

phght  of   the  preachers — Instances  of  dissipation  of  Chiu'ch 

goods,   481-484. 
Complaints  from   Protestant   districts   on   the  robbery   of   the 

churches  and  the  poor,  484-486. 
Protestant  utterances  on  the  consequences  of  this  '  robbery  of 

God ' — The  '  JuMan  devil  of  the  evangelical  Church-robbers,' 

487-488. 
Contemporary  preachers  on  the  misuse  of  Church  property — The 

pamphlet  of  John  Winistede  '  against  the  Chiirch -robbers  of  the 

present  day,'  488-490. 
Complaints  from  the  poor  and  needy  of  the  misuse  of  Church 

property,  490-492. 
Contemporaries  on  the  curse  attending  stolen  Chm'ch  goods,  493. 
Ten  years'  scarcity  from  1525-1535 — Insolvency  of  the  towns 

after  the  Smalcald  war,  493-498. 
Causes  of  the  growing  distress  :   war — luxury  and  debts — years  of 

plague  and  famine — adulteration  of  food,  498. 
The  preacher  Thomas  Rorarius  on  the  decay  of  all  well-being, 

498-500. 
The  causes  of  '  impoverishment  and  ruin '  according  to  a  sermon 

of  the  year  1571, 500-501. 
Lohneiss  and  Rorarius  on  the  causes  of  impoverishment,  501-502. 
Berthold    Holzschuher's  plan    of    social    and    poUtical    reform, 

502-503. 
The  generally  prevalent  idleness  one  of  the  chief  plagues  of  the 

time,  503. 
Lutlicr  against  the  '  idle,  vagabond  beggarfolk  ' — Concerning  the 

villainy  of  sham  beggars,  503-506. 
Description  of  the  entire  system  of  mendicancy  in  Ambrosius 

Pape'a  '  Bettcl-  und  Garte-Teufel,  506-509. 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  VOLUME  xvii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Mendicancy  in  the  towns — Enactments  against  it,  509-510. 
Contemporaries  on  beggars  and  gipsies — Enormous  number  of 

vagrant  b^gars,  510-512. 
Development  of  larceny  out  of  mendicancy  and  vagabondism — 

Contemporary  accounts  of  this  criminal  riff-raff,  513-514. 
Discharged  Landsknechts,   the  so-caUed  '  Gartende  Knechten,' 

the  worst  of  all  the  robbing  and  murdering  crew,  515-516. 
The  plague  of  beggars  and  vagrants  in  Bavaria  and  Baden — 

Gipsies,  516-517. 
Insecurity  in  Wiirtemberg  and  Hesse,  517-518. 
Waylaying,  liighway  robbery  and  murder  in  Mid-Germany  and 

the  Saxon  electorate,  518-520. 
Incendiarism  in  the  Harz  and  in  the  Oberlausitz,  520-521. 
Highway  robbery  and  murder  in  Mecklenburg  and  Pomei'ania, 

521-524. 
Vagrants,    highway-robbers    and    incendiaries    in  Brandenburg, 

524-526. 

Index  of  Places  ........    527 

Index  of  Persons         ........    536 


HISTOEY 


OF 


THE    GERMAN    PEOPLE 

AT  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 


PART  I 


CHAPTER  I 

COMMERCE    AND    CAPITAL — USURERS  :    CHRISTIAN 

AND   JEWISH 

German  trade  in  the  sixteenth  century  no  longer 
enjoyed  the  high  position  which  it  had  reached  by  the 
close  of  the  Middle  Ages,i  although  down  to  the  middle 
of  that  century  it  still  retained  an  important  place  in 
the  commerce  of  the  world. ^ 

'  See  our  statements,  vol.  ii.  p.  56  ff. 

2  **  '  The  symptoms  of  decline  in  German  trade,'  says  Steinhausen 
{Der  Kaufmann  in  der  deutschen  Vergangenheit),  'became  more  marked 
in  the  second  half  of  the  (sixteenth)  century,  and  manifold  were  the  causes 
which  contributed  to  this  falling-off.  Germany  had  undergone  a  complete 
revolution  in  its  internal  economy  ;  in  comparison  to  the  brilliant  pros- 
perity of  France,  England  and  Holland,  it  had  become  reduced,  politically, 
commercially  and  intellectually  to  a  state  of  abject  dependence.  First 
and  foremost  among  the  causes  which  had  weakened  and  impaired  the 
economic  forces  of  Germany  may  be  reckoned  the  political  conditions 
of  the  country.  Whereas  France,  England  and  Holland  had  all  three 
achieved  national  consoUdation  and  unity,  Germany  was  a  prey  to  internal 

VOL.  XV.  B 

/^7 


2  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  South  Germany  the  towns  of  Augsburg  and 
Nuremberg,  with  their  financial  and  industrial  strength, 
remained  still  for  a  long  period  the  centre  of  foreign 
trade.  Their  relations  with  Upper  Italy  were  especially 
close.  Between  Italy  and  Germany,  indeed,  in  spite 
of  the  new  trade  route  through  Portugal,  extensive 
commercial  relations  were  kept  up  in  many  directions. 
The  greater  the  increase  of  luxury  in  Germany  the 
greater  was  the  sale  of  all  those  finer  cloths,  silk  fabrics, 
and  stufis  inwrought  with  gold  and  silver,  which  were 
brought  over  from  Italy.  In  Augsburg  the  Fuggers  ^ 
and  the  Welsers  had  nearly  the  whole  money-trade 
with  Italy  in  their  hands,  and  down  even  to  the  middle 
of  the  century  numbers  of  Nuremberg  merchants 
carried  on  extensive  Italian  business,  especially 
with  Venice.  Itahan  merchants  and  money-changers, 
on  the  other  hand,  estabhshed  themselves  in  South 
Germany.  The  Venetian,  Bartholomew  Viati,  who  had 
come  to  Nuremberg  in  1550  in  needy  circumstances, 
rose  by  commerce  and  money-dealing  to  be  one  of 
the  wealthiest  merchants.  He  died  worth  1,240,000 
florins.  Another  great  Italian  merchant  in  Nuremberg 
was  Torisani  of  Florence.  The  long  series  of  Franco- 
German  and  Spanish  wars,  which  hindered  Italy 
from  attaining  to  settled  order,  worked  perniciously 
also  on  the  trade  between  Germany  and  Italy ;    but 

division  and  the  working  of  antagonistic  forces.  The  religious  dissensions 
enormously  aggravated  the  evil,  and  added  to  them  were  the  foreign 
and  civil  wars  (of  equally  sinister  result  to  Italy,  so  closely  bound  up 
with  us  by  commerce)  which,  as  the  Suabian  Circle  said  in  1582,  "  were 
alone  sufficient  to  have  brought  the  whole  German  empire  to  decay  and 


ruin."  ' 


'  **  Cp.  Elvrenberg,  Das  Zeitalter  der  Fugger,  Jena  1896  (2  vols.),  and 
Orupp,  Oeldwirlschaft,  19G,  fol.  202. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  3 

it  was  the  increasingly  anarchic  condition  of  Germany 
herself,  and  the  consequent  '  weakness  and  decline  ' 
of  German  burgher  life,  that  first  caused  a  serious 
breach  in  the  commercial  relations  of  the  two  countries.^ 
With  France,  pre-eminently  with  Lyons,  Germany 
still  kept  up  lively  commercial  intercourse,  and  the 
Frenchman,  Innocent  Gentillet,  praised,  in  1585,  the 
honesty  and  uprightness  of  German  merchants. 
'  These  merchants,'  he  wrote,  '  do  not  overcharge 
the  purchasers,  and  do  not  seek  to  make  unfair  profits 
out  of  people  who  do  not  understand  the  true  value 
of  goods/ ^  Very  unpraiseworthy,  on  the  contrary, 
was  the  part  played  by  the  greater  German  merchants 
during  the  wars  of  Charles  V.  with  France.  Thinking 
only  of  their  own  commercial  advantages,  they  laid 
themselves  out,  in  return  for  favourable  storage  rights 
and  free  passes,  to  supply  frequent  large  loans  to 
the  French  crown,  and  advanced  immense  sums  in 
this  way ;  not  only  Protestant  auxihary  troops,  but 
German  capital  of  Protestant  bankers,  contributed 
to  support  the  hostile  endeavours  of  the  French  mon- 
archy against  the  German  empire.  The  reward  for 
such  dealings  did  not  fail.  When  the  Augsburg  mer- 
chants, who  alone,  independently  of  the  merchants 
of  other  imperial  cities,  had  a  claim  of  700,000  crowns 
on  France,  sent  a  deputation  in  1559  to  King  Francis 
II.,  they  received  '  good  assurances,'  but  no  money. 
The  merchants  of  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg  became 
*  the  sport  of  the  French  Treasury.'  ^ 

'  Falke,  Gesch.  des  Handels,  ii.  21  ff.     Hofler,  BetracMungen,  5  ff. 
-  Fischer,  Gesch.  des  teutschen  Handels,  ii.  445-446. 
'  V,  Stetten,  i.  536  ;  cp.  Falke,  Gesch.  des  Handels,  ii.  40-41.      **  Ehren- 
berg,  ii.  98  ff.,  166.     See  our  statements,  vol.  vi.  461,  n.  2. 

B  2 


4  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Like  Augsburg,  Frankfort-on-the-Maine  also  be- 
came one  of  the  most  important  money  and  exchange 
marts.  To  the  fairs  held  at  Frankfort  buyers  and 
sellers  flocked,  not  only  from  all  parts  of  Germany 
and  the  Netherlands,  but  also  from  France  and  Italy, 
from  Poland  and  England  ;  German  and  foreign  mer- 
chants concluded  their  bargains  there,  exchanged 
their  goods,  made  out  their  orders.  The  town  was 
called  '  the  chief  of  all  the  fairs  in  the  world.'  ^ 

The  richest  mine  of  wealth  for  South  Germany 
was  its  trade  with  Antwerp.  Before  the  outbreak 
of  the  pohtico-religious  revolution  in  the  Nether- 
lands, Antwerp,  as  the  emporium  of  Portuguese  and 
Spanish  trade,  the  connecting  point  and  the  chief 
market  of  the  whole  world-trade,  had  held  one  of 
the  first  positions  in  the  north-eastern  and  north- 
western parts  of  Europe ;  over  one  thousand  foreign 
mercantile  houses  were  estabhshed  there ;  even  kings 
had  their  factories  and  settlements  in  this  town.  At 
Antwerp,   it  was   said,   more   extensive   business  was 

'  The  fair  and  stock- exchange  system  developed  at  Frankfort,  as 
compared  with  Genoa,  as  Grupp  {Geldwirtschaft,  202)  points  out,  '  in 
much  more  primitive  forms.  Here  barter  and  ready  money  was  the 
rule  ;  but  there  was  no  uniform  standard  of  exchange  and  banking. 
For  every  separate  town  and  state  there  was  a  separate  rate  of  coinage, 
and  wlien  the  Emperor  wanted  to  introduce  uniform  minting  the  council 
opposed  the  measure.  This  liindered  any  vigorous  growth  of  the  Frank- 
fort money  market,  and  German  trade  and  industry  were  consequently 
thrown  back.  The  Frankfort  exchange  maintained  itself  indeed  through 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  unfortunate  history  of  later  Germany,  but 
Frankfort  merclmnts  were  mostly  foreigners,  above  all  English,  Dutch 
and  also  Italian.'  The  praise  of  the  Frankfort  fairs  was  sung  by  the 
distinguislied  Henry  Stephanus  in  a  special  pamplilet:  Francofordiense 
emporium  sive  Francofordienses  nundinae,  a.  1.  1574.  A  reprint  of  this 
pamphlet,  now  very  rare,  has  been  prepared  by  Isid.  Liseux,  Paris, 
1875. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  5 

accomplished  in  one  month  than  at  Venice,  during 
its  best  times,  in  two  years. ^  The  storms  of  the  revolu- 
tion disturbed  the  prosperity  of  this  town,  as  indeed 
that  of  the  Netherlands  in  general.  When  the  Itahan 
writer,  Luigi  Guicciardini,  who  in  the  year  1566  had 
drawn  a  brilUant  picture  of  this  prosperity,  republished 
his  book  in  1580,  he  added  the  words  :  '  The  present 
time  is  to  the  earlier  one  which  I  have  here  described, 
as  is  night  to  day.'  ^ 

By  the  downfall  of  Antwerp  the  whole  Khine 
commerce  lost  its  significance.  The  Imperial  Estates 
quietly  allowed  the  Dutch  to  bar  free  passage  and  navi- 
gation on  the  Rhine  and  to  use  this  river  for  reducing 
the  empire,  in  its  most  productive  and  prosperous 
territories,  to  complete  dependence  on  themselves. 
'  All  commerce  and  exchange,'  said  the  free  and  imperial 
cities  in  1576,  in  a  petition  to  the  Estates  assembled 
at  Ratisbon,  '  are  obstructed,  the  taxes  and  imposts 
become  higher  and  higher.'  Trade  had  indeed  suffered 
no  shght  depression  through  the  wars  with  France ; 
this,  however,  was  not  so  serious  as  long  as  the  passage 
to  the  Netherlands  and  to  the  sea  remained  open  ; 
but  since  through  the  Dutch  insurrection  trade  had 
lost  its  nearest  opportunity  with  eastern  and  other 
kingdoms  and  lands,  the  land  and  waterways  had 
become  deserted,  food  had  grown  very  scarce  in  the 

'  See  our  statements,  vol.  viii.  p.  11.  **  See  also  Ritter,  Deutsche 
Gesch.,  i.  46 ;  the  work  of  Ehrenberg  quoted  at  p.  2,  and  also 
Lotz  in  the  Allg.  Ztg.  1897,  Bail.  No.  134,  and  Grupp,  Geldwirtschaft, 
200. 

-  Ranke,  Filrsten  und  Volker,  i.  435  £f.  **  Cf.  A.  v.  Peez,  Wie 
verlor  Siiddeutschland  seinen  Anteil  am  Welthandel  ?  (How  did  South 
Germany  lose  its  share  in  the  world-commerce  ?)  Allg.  Ztg.  1900,  Beil. 
No.  63. 


6  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

dominions  of  all  the  imperial  princes,   and  the  poor 
people    were    everywliere    so    distressed    by    the    long 
continued  reign  of  high  prices  that  if  these  crushing 
evils   '  were  not  speedily  remedied  by  the   action   of 
His  Imperial  Majesty  and  the  Electors,  a  pitiful  down- 
fall of  the  common  fatherland  must  inevitably  set  in/  ^ 
Nevertheless,   of   anything  in   the   shape   of   '  serious, 
efficient    intervention '    there    was    no    question.     Six 
years   later,    in   1582,    the   Electors   of   Mayence   and 
Treves  said  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  that  *  whereas 
German  conomerce,  hitherto  free  and  unhindered  right 
away  to  the  sea,  was  now  bound  with  heavy  chains, 
they  would  in  future  only  be  able  to  carry  on  trade 
with  the  permission  of  the  Dutch ;  ~  the  Dutch  and 
the   Spaniards   behaved    as   though    they    were    "  un- 
limited lords  in  the  empire."  '    Like  the  Rhine,  the 
Scheldt  (Escaut),  too,  was  closed  to  the  Germans,  and 
an  arbitrary  system  of  tolls  and  imposts  crippled  the 
backbone    of    their    commerce.     It    was    Amsterdam 
pre-eminently   which   undermined    all    German    trade, 
and    German   merchants   themselves   had   a    hand   in 
founding  the  commercial  might  of  Amsterdam ;    this 
town  for  some  length  of  time  owed  its  well-being  chiefly 
to   the   Hanseatic   League,  which  had  transferred   its 
habitat  thence  from  Antwerp. ^ 

The  Hanseatic  League,  towards  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth, 
had   ruled   the   world-commerce  of  the  north-western 

'  Falke,  ZoUwesen,  162-163. 

-  See  oiir  statements,  vol.  ix.  35  ff.     Quetsch,  294-295. 

='  Fischer,  ii.  642.  Hofler,  Beirachiimgen,  8  ff.  **  Cf.  G.  von  Below, 
'Die  Schadigung  der  Rhcinfischerei  dui-cli  die  Niederlander  in  der 
zwciten  Hiilfte  des  16ten  Jalirhunderts,'  in  the  Zeiischr.  fiir  Sozial  und 
Wirtschaftsge-ichichtc  (AVciniar,  18t)6),  iv.  119  ff. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^-USURERS  7 

half  of  Europe ;  then,  however,  it  had  begun  to  sink 
gradually  to  its  downfall,  chiefly,  indeed,  owing  to 
the  increasing  political  powerlessness  of  -  the  empire, 
which  was  unable  to  render  it  any  support  in  its  contests 
with  rising  foreign  nations,  and  also  in  consequence  of  the 
growing  and  universal  state  of  religious  dissension, 
which  hindered  any  compact,  uniform  existence  of  the 
League.^ 

In  the  Scandinavian  North,  where  in  the  two  first 
decades  of  the  century  the  League  still  maintained  its 
old  supremacy,  and  where  in  1523  by  its  marine  power 

^  Concerning  the  effects  of  the  Church  schism  on  the  Hanseatic  League 
the  Protestant  Barthold  says  in  his  History  of  the  Hansa,  iii.  295-296  : 
'  Just  as  our  fatherland  brought  only  malediction  on  itself  by  the  new 
Church  schism,  so  too  the  Reformation  brought  little  of  good  to  the 
Hanseatic  League.  Fkst  of  all  the  change  in  the  confession  of  faith 
estranged  from  the  Lutheran  Hansa  towns  not  only  the  Emperor  as  their 
appointed  protector,  but  also  many  places  in  which,  as  in  Cologne,  Osna- 
briick,  Miinster,  Paderborn,  Dortmund,  the  old  Church  had  retained  its 
hold  either  permanently,  or  for  a  time.  Secondly  the  League,  with  the 
Protestant  princes,  misused  to  aUen  ends,  involved  our  trading  towns, 
whose  security  and  advantage  depended  entirely  on  strict  impartiaUty, 
in  perilous  and  costly  imperial  wars,  brought  them  into  dependence  on 
the  princes,  and  widened  very  materially  the  breach  already  beginning. 
Further,  the  fanaticism  of  the  next  generation  made  it  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  institute  common  trade  alliances  ;  the  Christian  world, 
forgetful  of  all  historic  relations  and  material  advantages,  divided  itself 
into  Catholic  and  non-Catholic  ;  the  Hanseatic  merchant  was  no  longer 
merely  a  merchant,  but  an  enthusiast  for  his  creed  and  a  spreader  of  the 
poison  of  heresy,  and  as  such  he  was  not  only  avoided  and  feared,  but  was 
himself  in  danger  of  losing  hfe  and  property.  Finally,  heated  partisanship 
in  religious  doctrinal  controversies  worked  such  a  transformation  in  the 
shrewd,  unprejudiced  character  of  the  Hansa  League,  and  brought  it  to 
such  a  degree  under  the  influence  of  intolerant,  domineering  pastors,  that, 
absurd  as  it  seems,  Lutheran  "  new-religiousness  "  came  to  be  regarded 
as  a  necessary  Hanseatic  qualification,  and  a  Lutheran  papacy  endeavoured 
to  make  use  of  the  Hanseatic  League — weak  as  it  had  already  shown 
itself — as  an  instrument  for  bringing  back  differently  thinking  members, 
such  as  Bremen,  to  the  true  salvation.' 


8  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

it  had  broken  the  Northern  Union,  it  now  soon  lost 
the  key  to  its  might— the  Danish  Seas.  It  was  under 
the  dominion,  not  so  much  of  the  Danes  and  Swedes 
as  of  its  neighbours  and  countrymen  the  Holsteiners, 
and  the  German  princes  alhed  with  the  latter.  After 
Christian  of  Holstein  had  ascended  the  Danish  throne 
as  Christian  III,,  and  with  the  help  of  the  Smalkald 
princes,  in  1535,  had  inflicted  on  the  town  of  Liibeck 
a  decisive  defeat,  the  pohtical  importance  of  the 
Hanseatic  League  had  gone  to  the  ground,  its  whole 
position  had  received  a  death-blow ;  dominion  over 
the  Sund  and  the  German  Ocean  was  snatched  from 
the  Germans,  1  and  venal  German  peers  were  found  to 
defend  the  Sund-toll  introduced  by  Christian  as  an 
undoubtedly  just  measure.^ 

This  Sund-toll  was  the  actual  '  gold  mine  '  of  the 
King.  '  It  seems  worthy  of  credence,'  wrote  Samuel 
Kircher  in  an  account  of  travels  in  1586,  '  that  the 
Sund  is  the  greatest  source  of  revenue  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Denmark.'  ^ 

The  most  oppressive  of  the  taxes  was  the  lastage- 
tax  imposed  in  1563,  which  amounted,  for  instance,  to 
ten  thalers  for  a  load  (or  last)  of  corn,  to  one  thaler 
for  six  ship's  pounds  of  bacon,  one  thaler  for  a  load  of 
salt,  and  for  every  empty  salt-carrying  ship,  to  a  quarter 
of  a  Joachims-thaler  for  every  load  of  salt  it  was  able 
to  carry.  '  The  lastage  tax/  said  Liibeck  in  the  name 
of  the  League  at  the  Diet  at  Augsburg  in  1582,  '  was 
such  a  burden  that  if  it  was  not  abohshed,  the  town 

'  See  our  Ptatements,  vol.  v.  484,  485.     **  And  Schafer,  Oesch.  von 
Mnemarh  (Gotlia,  1893),  iv.  328  ff. 

-  Barthold,  Gesch.  der  Hansa,  iii.  423. 
•'  Bibl.  des  Literarischen  Vereius,  86,  57. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL-USURERS  9 

and  all  the  citizens  would  in  a. few  years  come  to  utter 
ruin,  and  nothing  but  a  waste  city  would  be  left,  whilst 
all  ready  money  would  flow  into  Denmark.'  And 
yet  not  alone  Liibeck  and  the  Hansa  towns,  but  all 
people  in  general  who  wanted  to  navigate  to  and  from 
the  Baltic  Sea,  were  oppressed  by  this  monstrous  tax 
which  inordinately  heightened  the  price  of  all  goods. 
Emperor  and  Estates,  in  order  to  remove  this  intolerable 
grievance,  should  issue  an  edict  to  the  effect  that  '  all 
subjects  of  the  Danish  King,  in  their  trading  in  the 
Empire,  should  be  charged  with  equally  high  tolls  and 
duties,  or  else  that  the  Hansa  League  should  be  entitled, 
by  sentence  of  the  Imperial  Chamber,  to  indemnify 
themselves  on  the  German  provinces  of  the  Danish 
King.' 

However,  the  Emperor  and  the  Estates  only  passed 
the  resolution  that  in  their  name,  but  at  the  expense 
of  the  Hansa  towns,  an  embassy  should  be  sent  to 
Copenhagen  to  make  the  necessary  representations  to 
the  King.  Not  even  this  decision  was  carried  into 
effect.  The  sole  result  of  Liibeck's  petitioning  was 
that,  for  a  certain  space  of  time,  a  double  salt-tax  was 
imposed  on  the  town  by  the  King.i 

Under  King  Christian  IV.  the  Hansa  towns  were 
treated  in  the  most  disgraceful  manner.  '  In  his  king- 
dom,' he  informed  them,  '  they  possessed  no  rights 
whatever  ;  with  gifts  and  offerings  they  were  to  appear 
humbly  before  his  throne  ;  he  should  impose  as  many 
taxes  as  he  chose,  for  he  was  the  manager  in  his  own 
monarchy,  and  had  to  give  account  to  nobody.'  ^  The 
revenue  which  the  Sund-toll  brought  in  to  the  Danish 

1  Haberlin,  sii.  286  ff.     Sartorius,  iii.  111-114. 
"  Sartorius,  iii.  114-120. 


10  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

throne  within  half  a  century  is  reckoned  at  something 
over  twenty  miUions  of  gold.^ 

In  Norway  and  Sweden,  also,  the  Hanseatic  Leaguers 
were  burdened  with  unheard-of  taxes.  The  estabhsh- 
ment  that  held  its  ground  longest  was  the  '  Konitoor  ' 
at  Bergen,  but  it  could  not  permanently  stand  out 
against  the  competition  with  other  nations,  notably 
with  the  Dutch  and  the  English  ;  the  German  merchants 
there  were  treated  by  the  Kings  hke  subjects,  until  at 
last  the  burghers  of  the  town  took  possession  of  most 
of  the  courts  and  dwelling-rooms  of  the  Komtoor  and 
drove  the  Germans  out. 

In  Sweden  the  members  of  the  Hansa  League  had 
lost  all  their  traditional  hberties  in  1548  through 
Gustavus  Vasa.  When  they  appealed  to  his  successor 
Eric  XIV.  for  the  restoration  of  these  liberties  thev 
received  in  1561  the  answer  :  '  These  liberties  were  in 
opposition  to  the  laws  and  the  prosperity  of  the  kingdom ; 
only  "  out  of  favour  "  would  the  King  grant  to  the 
towns  of  Liibeck,  Hamburg,  Dantzic  and  Rostock  (but 
not  to  the  other  Hansa  towns)  the  right  of  free  trade 
in  the  maritime  towns,  but  this  only  on  condition  that 
in  each  town  of  the  League  his  (the  King's)  subjects 
should  be  allowed  to  have  a  house  of  business,  and  that 
to  him  himself  would  be  granted  in  all  the  territories 
belonging  to  the  said  towns  the  right  of  free  enhstment 
of  men  to  be  used  by  him  in  case  of  war,  in  any  way 
he  might  please ;  besides  this,  all  the  towns  must 
abstain  from  any  commerce  with  the  Russians.'  In 
1561  Eric  invaded  Esthland  and  took  possession  of 
Reval,  deprived  the  Hanseats  in  the  following  year 
of  the  right  of  navigating  the  river  Narva,  which  had 

'  Sa^torius,  iii.  112. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^-USURERS  11 

become  Russian,  and  aimed  at  bringing  to  '  his  '  town 
of  Reval  the  monopoly  of  Russian  trade.  Thereupon 
Liibeck,  meagrely  supported  by  the  sister  towns,  em- 
barked once  more  on  a  bitter  war  for  this  '  fountain  ' 
of  all  might.  It  was  its  last  war.  For  seven  years 
(1563-1570)  this  heavy  and  gruesome  contest,  which 
sent  many  thousands  to  their  death  and  plunged  the 
town  of  Liibeck  in  a  frightful  state  of  bankruptcy, 
dragged  on  its  length.  The  Peace  of  Stettin  in  1570 
promised  the  Liibeckers  free  intercourse  with  Russia, 
but  the  treaty  was  no  sooner  made  than  broken  ;  at 
the  end  of  the  century  the  German  towns  were  again 
almost  entirely  excluded  from  trade  with  Russia,  and  the 
Swedish  crown  had  become  the  inheritor  of  the  Hansa 
League  in  the  domain  of  the  Baltic,  and  possessor  of 
most  of  its  inland  settlements.  At  Novgorod,  where 
formerly  the  Hanse  League  had  held  nearly  all  the  trade 
in  its  hands,  the  German  settlement  had  at  that  time 
completely  succumbed.  Franz  Nyenstadt,  who  visited 
the  German  court  there  in  1570,  found  only  some  shght 
remains  of  the  stone  church  of  St.  Peter,  one  single 
small  apartment,  and  a  wooden  hut  which  served  him 
and  his  servant  as  shelter.  Of  the  '  ancient  glory  ' 
nothing  more  was  to  be  seen.  When  in  1603  the 
Hanseats  entered  into  negotiations  with  the  Czar, 
Boris  Godunov,  in  order  to  recover  their  former  trading 
rights  in  Russia,  the  great  monarch  refused  the  right 
of  existence  to  the  Hansa  League;  to  the  Liibeckers 
only  would  he  grant  a .  free  charter,  and  the  Liibeck 
merchants  (Novgorodfahrer)  who  traded  with  Novgorod 
quartered  the  portrait  of  the  Czar  in  their  arms.i 

1  Sartorius,  iii.   133-183,     Schlozer,   Verjall  der  Hansa,  95,  207,  227, 
No.  364.     Beer,  ii.  407-408. 


12  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'  So  long  as  the  Hansa  League/  wrote  Quade  von 
Kiiickelbach  in  1609,  'retained  its  power,  the  might 
of  foreign  nations  could  not  increase  and  grow ;  but 
when  care  was  no  longer  taken  to  protect  the  rights  and 
legitimacy  of  the  Hansa  towns,  not  the  might  only  but 
the  arrogance  of  foreign  peoples  together  with  intolerable 
pride,  hfted  itself  up,  and  became  so  insolent  that  they 
thought  they  need  fear  no  one  but  might  persecute  with 
war  ill  the  most  gruesome  manner,  wheresoever  and 
whomsoever  they  chose.'  ^ 

In  England,  under  King  Henry  VIL,  the  time  had 
long  gone  by  when,  according  to  the  words  of  the 
President  of  the  London  '  Stahlhof,'  the  Hansa  Leaguers 
had  the  whole  kingdom  '  under  their  thumbs ' ;  ^  but 
until  beyond  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  they 
continued  to  dominate  the  Enghsh  market  by  their 
trade  and  their  industrial  zeal.  And  if  under  Henry 
VIII.  their  position  seemed  at  times  in  such  danger  that 
Hamburg,  for  instance,  in  1540  thought  it  advisable 
to  remove  all  the  bare  cash  and  silver  vessels  from 
the  head-quarters  of  the  League,  viz.  the  *  Stahlhof,'  ^ 
nevertheless  the  King  always  took  them  back  again 
under  his  protection,  because  he  looked  upon  them  and 
used  them  as  natural  alhes  against  the  Emperor  and 
the  Cathohc  powers,  and  needed  their  support  and  their 
loans  in  his  financial  affairs.  *•  Henry's  successor,  Edward 
VI.,  granted  them  again  in  1547  complete  restitution 

'  Qiiadc  von  Kinckelbach,  Teutsche  Nation  Herligkeit  (Cologne  on  the 
Rhine,  IGOO),  p.  389  ;   cf.  390,  392. 
-  Sartorius,  iii.  394. 

•'  Fischer,  ii.  009.     Concerning  the    'Stahlhof    see  our  statements, 
vol.  ii.   p.  44. 

'  Schanz,    Englische    Handelspolitik,    i,    226.     Falke,  Geschichte    des 
Ilandds,  ii.  102. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  13 

of  old  privileges  and  liberties,  but  by  so  doing  lie  brought 
on  himself  the  violent  opposition  of  English  merchants. 
*  The  Hansa  Leaguers/  the  latter  complained  in  1551, 
'  command  the  Enghsh  markets,  settle  at  their  pleasure 
the  prices  of  imports  and  exports,  and  have  in  this 
very  year  exported  44,000  pieces  of  Enghsh  cloth, 
whereas  we,  being  less  privileged,  have  only  been  able 
to  export  1100  pieces/  ^ 

In  consequence  of  these  complaints,  Edward,  in 
1552,  declared  all  the  Hanseatic  rights  and  privileges 
to  be  null  and  void,  and  raised  the  duty  on  Hanseatic 
goods  from  1  per  cent,  to  20  per  cent.  Queen  Mary, 
who  succeeded  Edward  in  1553,  was  more  favourably 
disposed  to  the  Hansa  Leaguers;  she  gave  them  back 
their  old  liberties,  at  the  same  time  requiring  that 
Enghsh  citizens  in  the  Hansa  towns  should  have  the 
same  liberties  granted  them.  To  this,  however,  the 
Hanseats  would  not  agree.  Foolishly  and  unreasonably 
they  repudiated  equahty  of  rights  with  the  Enghsh,  and 
obstinately  refused  the  latter  in  the  Baltic  towns  the 
privileges  which  they  on  their  part  had  claimed  in 
England.^ 

Then  as  before  they  demanded  of  the  English  crown 
the  confirmation  of  their  ancient  '  well-earned '  rights, 
but  they  could  not  in  any  way  gain  their  point  with  a 
sovereign  hke  Queen  Ehzabeth,  who  went  on  the  policy  of 
'  keeping  down  all  that  was  foreign  in  her  kingdom  '  and 
of  advancing  by  every  possible  means  the  steadily  growing 
development  of  Enghsh  commerce.  The  endeavours  of 
the   confederate   towns,    through    '  pleadings  from  the 

'  Sartorius,  iii,  313,  324. 

■  Cf.  D.  Schafer  in  the  Jahrbiicher  fiir  Nationalokonomie  (new  series), 
vii.  96  ff. 


14  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Emperor  and  the  Empire '  to  move  the  Queen  in  their 
favour,    were    all    unavailing.     The    Enghsh    minister 
Cecil,  so  the  directors  of  the  London  factory  reported 
to  Liibeck  in  February  1568, '  had  rated  the  honourable 
towns,    on    account    of    their    representations    to    the 
Emperor,  with  language  almost  rude  and  vulgar ' ;   they 
were  in  fact  also  themselves  convinced  that  the  entreaties 
of   all   the   potentates   of   the   whole   of   Christendom 
'  would  have  no  result  with  this  Queen/  i     Ehzabeth 
was  kept  only  too  well  informed  by  the  reports  of  her 
ambassadors  of  the  internal  dissensions  of  the  empire, 
and  of  its  incapacity  to  support  the  North  German 
trading  towns  with  serious  and  warlike  measures  ;  many 
Protestant  German  princes  were  in  her  pay  and  service, 
and  even  among  the  Hansa  towns — mutually  discordant 
— she  knew  how  to  find  promoters  of  her  own  endeavours. 
Eagerly  Hamburg   opened  its   gates   to   the   so-called 
'  merchant    adventurers '  ~   (English    traders)   and  con- 
cluded with  them  in  1567  a  formal  treaty  for  ten  years, 
by  which  the  English  obtained  free  exit  and  entry  and 
'  privileged  residence/     In  1568,  four,  in  the  following 
year  twenty-eight,  Enghsh  ships  laden  with  cloth  and 
wool,  the  latter  to  the  value  of  700,000  thalers,  came 
into  the  port  of  Hamburg  ;    and  thence  the  Enghsh 
wool  and  cloth  trade  penetrated  further  and  further 
into  the  interior  of  the  empire.^     '  Hamburg,'  wrote 

'  Sartorius,  iii.  348. 

-  **  Of.  Ehrcnborg,  Hamhurg  rind  Engkind  in  Zeitalter  der  Konigin 
Elimbelh,  Jena,  1896.  See  also  Schafer,  '  Deutschland  und  England  in 
Welthandcl  des  16tcn  Jalirhunderts  '  (Preuss.  Jahrb.,  83  ff.,  269  ff.),  who 
says  that  it  was  not  only  energy  and  discipline  but  also  '  reckless  violence, 
flattfiing  representations,  malicious  calumny,  brutal  violation  of  rights, 
friiudulcnt  over-reaching  and  adulteration  '  which  brought  victory  to  the 
English. 

•'  FalUe,  Zollwc.scn,  183. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  15 

the  Liibeckers  in  1581,  'was  the  cause  of  all  the 
misfortune,  because  it  separated  itself  and  independently 
of  the  rest  accorded  privileges  to  the  Enghsh  ;  whenever 
at  Diets  of  the  League  they  had  wanted  to  confer 
together  on  this  question  the  Hamburg  delegates 
always  said  they  had  orders  to  leave  the  meeting/ 
'  It  is  only  reasonable  to  complain  that  it  has  now, 
alas,  come  to  this,  and  we  can  see  it  before  our 
eyes,  that  to  our  disgrace,  ridicule  and  final  ruin,  the 
principal  members  are  falhng  away  from  us,  are 
pulhng  down  what  we  build  up,  and  making  such 
a  breach  between  us  and  the  Komtoors  that  to  all 
eternity  it  will  never  be  possible  to  bring  them 
together  again  and  repair  the  mischief  done.  All 
this  proceeds  solely  from  pernicious  egotism,  which 
is  the  one  source  of  all  the  misfortune  and  ruin  of 
the  society/  ^ 

Still,  in  1554  the  Hanseats  had  within  ten  months 
exported  36,000  pieces  of  cloth  from  England,  and  they 
estimated  their  gains  by  this  transaction  at  £61,254 
sterhng,  or  385,896  Karlsgulden.^  But  already  in  the 
last  third  of  the  century  the  real  English  trade  in  cloth 
and  wool  dominated  the  German  m.arkets.  The 
Enghsh  cloths  and  Enghsh  wool,  the  Hansa  represented 
to  the  Imperial  Estates  in  1582,  had  become  at  least 
half  as  dear  again,  and  of  the  200,000  pieces  which 
were  exported  by  Enghshmen,  three-quarters  at  least 
came  to  Germany ;  the  German  cloth  manufacturers 
were  reduced  to  such  extremity  that  numbers  of  towns 
which  had  before  counted  many  hundreds  of  cloth- 
makers  and  journeymen  innumerable,  were  now  either 
entirely   without  master  workmen,    or   else   had  very 

'  Sartorius,  iii.  357  ff.,  387-388.         -  Ibid.  iii.  333-335. 


16  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

few  ;  and  these  few  were  obliged  to  content  themselves 
with  making  inferior  cloth.  At  the  fairs  at  Frankfort 
it  was  principally  Enghsh  cloth  that  was  sold.  In  a 
memorandum  of  the  Saxon  electoral  comicillors  in  1597 
it  was  pointed  out  that  by  the  high  prices  which  the 
*  merchant  adventurers '  charged  for  their  cloth  nearly 
a  million  of  money  went  yearly  to  England,  that  the 
empire  was  drained  of  ready  money,  and  the  subjects 
impoverished,  for  there  was  now  scarcely  a  single 
servant  or  peasant  girl  who  did  not  have  some  of  her 
wearing  apparel  made  of  Enghsh  cloth  ;  at  the  same 
time  the  business  of  the  cloth-makers  was  being  ruined 
and  food  getting  scarce.  Whereas  foreign  cloth  was 
imported  in  such  quantities  and  wool  exported  in  an 
equally  extensive  manner,  trade  and  business  in  home 
cloth,  formerly  sent  in  such  large  quantities  to  Poland 
and  other  neighbouring  countries,  were  also  in  a  parlous 
condition.!  At  the  end  of  the  century,  in  the  Nether 
Saxon  circle  alone,  it  was  reckoned  that  within  fifty 
years  about  thirty-two  milhons  of  gold  guldens  had 
gone  out  of  the  country  for  purchasing  Enghsh 
cloth.^ 

The  imperial  edict  issued  on  August  1,  1597,  in 
consequence  of  the  unwearied  importuning  of  the 
Hansa  that  '  all  Enghsh  people  and  Enghsh  wares 
should  within  three  months  be  banished  from  all  parts 
of  the  empire,'  resulted  only  in  shame  and  infamy  ; 
in  consequence  of  this  edict  the  Hanseats  saw  the  last 
miserable  remnant  of  their  former  commercial  supre- 
macy annihilated  in  England.     On  January  23,  1598, 

'  Falke,  Zollwesen,  197. 

'  Haberlin,  xii.  273  ff.    Falke,  Geschichte  des  Handels,  ii.  109 ;  Zollwesen, 
190.     Fischer,  ii.  620  ;  cf.  Jahrbikher  fiir  Nationalokonomie,  vi,  250,,  n.  405. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  17 

the  mercliants  of  the  London  '  Stahlhof '  received  orders 
from  the  Queen  '  within  fourteen  days  to  evacuate 
England,  with  the  exception  of  the  subjects  of  the  King 
of  Poland,  provided  they  renounced  their  connection 
with  the  Hansa/  All  that  the  Hanseats  could  obtain 
was  a  respite  of  a  few  months.  At  the  end  of  July 
the  Privy  Council  instructed  the  Lord  Mayor  and  the 
Sheriffs  of  London  to  take  possession  of  the  '  Stahlhof '  in 
the  name  of  the  Queen  and  to  drive  the  Germans  out 
of  their  houses.  On  the  latter  opposing  resistance  to 
the  seizure  of  their  property  and  showing  themselves 
unwilhng  to  go,  the  Lord  Mayor  threatened  violence, 
and  '  so  finally,'  wrote  the  Stahlhof  brethren  to  Liibeck, 
*  because  no  other  course  was  possible,  with  sorrow  in 
our  hearts,  the  alderman  walking  in  front,  and  we  others 
following  behind,  we  went  out  of  the  gate,  and  the  gate 
was  closed  after  us  :  we  were  not  even  allowed  to 
remain  there  for  the  night.     God  have  pity  on  us  ! '  ^ 

While  thus  the  downfall  of  the  Hansa  had  become 
an  accomplished  fact,  the  English,  despite  all  imperial 
decrees,  asserted  themselves  in  the  empire.  Neither 
from  Elbing  nor  from  Stade  could  the  merchant  adven- 
turers who  had  established  their  settlements  there  be 
driven  out.  In  the  one  year  1600,  for  instance,  these 
traders  exported,  besides  coloured  cloth  of  all  sorts, 
60,000  pieces  of  white  linen  to  the  value  of  more  than  a 
milhon  pounds  sterling. ^ 

'  Added  to  all  the  hopeless  dangers  to  which  the 
Hansa  was  exposed  from  foreign  potentates,  was  the 
melancholy   fact   that   in   proportion   as   its   external 

^  Sartorius,   iii.    404-408.      Lappenberg,    Urkundliche    Geschichie    des 
Londoner  Stahlhofs  (Hamburg,  1851),  p.  102  ft". 
'  Faike,  ii.  HI. 

VOL.  XV.  C 


18  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

commerce  declined,  the  iiitemal  dissensions  between 
the  Hansa  towns  themselves  and  their  mutual  jealousy 
went  on  increasing ;  in  a  petty  shopkeeper  spirit  the 
members  of  the  League  shut  themselves  up  from  each 
other  and  endeavoured  to  hinder  all  interchange  of 
business  amongst  themselves  by  every  variety  of  hmita- 
tion,  by  enforced  monopohes,  by  staple  and  deposit 
laws/ 

Thus  the  Bremen  and  Llineburg  Hanseats  com- 
plained of  a  tax  arbitrarily  imposed  at  Hamburg ; 
Upper  Rhenish  towns  complained  that  at  Hambiu^g 
they  had  to  pay  herring  tax,  freight  duty  and  tonnage  ; 
the  Saxon  towns  that  the  goods  which  they  sent  to 
Hambm-g  they  were  obhged  to  sell  at  low  prices  and  to 
pay  an  oar-tax.  In  hke  manner  Rostock  complained  of 
Liibeck  on  account  of  imposition  of  taxes,  Minden  of 
Bremen  for  hindering  navigation/  'Anything  in  the 
nature  of  beneficial,  harmonious  consultation  could  no 
longer  be  effected ;  '  as  if  in  despair  the  Hanseatic 
syndic-general  John  Domann  exclaimed  in  1606,  in  a 
'  Song  of  the  German  Hansa  ' : 

Vorzeiten  ward  ihr  Hanse, 

Beriihmet  mit  der  Tat ; 
Jetzt  sagt  man  seid  ihr  Ganse, 

Von  sclilechter  Tat  und  Rat. 

(Formerly  you  were  Hanseats 

Famous  for  your  deeds  ; 
Now  say  they  you  are  geese 

Of  deeds  and  counsel  bad.)  - 

But  just  as  in  the  midst  of  peace  the  Hansa  towns 

•  Sartorius,  ui.  530,  note.  Wachter,  Histor.  Nachlass,  i.  230  ff. 
Schmollcr,  Nalionalokonomische  Ansichten,  266  ff. 

'  Zeitschr.  fiir  Hamburgs  Gesch..  ii.  457  (of.  455) ;  cf.  Histor.-polit.  BL, 
121,  101. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  19 

fought  each  other  with  imposition  and  augmentation 
of  fresh  tolls  and  duties,  so  in  the  empire  in  general 
a  similar  warfare  was  carried  on  between  all  the  separate 
districts. 

The  state  receipts  in  taxes,  the  empire's  most 
fruitful  and  certain  source  of  revenue,  had,  at  the  close 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  become  completely  broken  up  ;  the 
custom-houses  also  had  gradually  passed  into  the 
possession  of  territorial  lords  and  their  subjects.  The 
sovereign-toll-right  was  no  longer  inherent  in  the  royal 
power,  but,  on  the  contrary,  recognised  by  the  latter  as 
a  privilege  of  the  College  of  Electors.  Charles  V. 
promised  in  his  election  charter  of  1519  that  *  whereas 
the  German  nation  and  Holy  Roman  Empire  was  already 
taxed  to  the  uttermost  both  by  land  and  water,'  he 
would  not  without  the  advice,  knowledge  and  will 
of  the  electors,  sanction  the  imposition  of  any  new 
taxes,  nor  the  augmentation  of  any  old  ones.  A 
proposal  made  at  the  Nuremberg  Diet  of  1523,  for  a 
fresh  imperial  toll,  which  was  intended  by  means  of  a 
completely  organised  system  of  frontier  duties  to  tax 
the  whole  foreign  trade  of  Germany  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  Imperial  Chamber,  the  Imperial  Government  and 
the  management  of  the  public  peace  (Landsfrieden), 
was  shipwrecked  by  the  opposition  of  the  towns,  which, 
in  view  of  the  innumerable  custom-houses  aheady 
existing,  did  not  wish  to  see  fresh  ones  erected.  ^  What 
Charles  V.  had  promised  in  his  election  charter  the 
succeeding  emperors  were  also  obhged  to  promise ;  all 
the  same,  however,  in  order  to  procure  themselves 
devoted  servants  and  followers  among  territorial  lords 
and  communities,  they  were  wont  to  make  fresh  taxes 

'  See  our  remarks,  vol.  iii.  317  ff. 

c  2 


20  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

or  to  increase  old  ones  on  their  own  sole  authority  ;  or 
at  any  rate  to  support  similar  attempts  on  the  part 
of  the  electors.^ 

The  territorial  princes,  also,  regardless  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  empire,  took  upon  themselves  to 
impose  fresh  taxes  or  increase  old  ones,  and  thus 
*  through  the  heightened  prices  of  all  indispensable 
goods  the  German  nation  from  one  decade  to  another 
became  more  and  more  crippled  and  drained/  Austria 
and  Brandenburg  were  the  first  to  assert  the  uncon- 
ditional independence  of  territorial  lords  in  the  matter 
of  taxation  towards  the  empire  and  the  other  princes. 
Some  of  the  j)rinces  raised  taxes  to  three  or  four  times 
their  original  amount.  Such  had  been  the  case,  for 
instance,  since  1566,  in  Pfalz-Zweibriicken  in  all  the 
custom-houses  of  the  Count  Palatine.  At  Laubach 
and  Erbach,  within  a  circuit  of  half  a  mile,  the  rate  of 
taxation  for  nine  carts  and  one  carriage  was  eighty 
florins,  for  a  single  horse  in  a  cart,  four  florins  and 
eight  albuses.  From  Bremen  upwards  the  number  of 
toll-gates  within  twenty-three  miles  amounted  to  twenty- 
two  ;  the  tax  for  a  barrel  of  wine,  from  Dresden  to 
Hamburg,  payable  at  thirty  toll-gates,  was  nine  thalers, 
nine  groschen,  four  pfennig.  In  consequence  of  the 
revolution  in  the  Netherlands  the  taxes  were  so  enor- 
mously raised  that  in  1594,  for  instance,  the  tax  for  a 
cartload  of  wine,  from  Cologne  to  Holland,  was  forty 
thalers,  as  against  eight  thalers  in  former  years,  for  a 
load  of  herrings,  from  Holland  to  Cologne  forty-eight 
and  fifty  thalers,  instead  of  six  to  eight.     Every  ship 

'  Margrave  Hans  von  Kustrin  stated  in  his  will  of  June  29,  1560, 
that  he  had  been  favoured  w  ith  so  many  new  taxes  on  land  and  water, 
that  these  brought  him  in  more  ready  money  than  all  the  lands  he  held 
of  the  Emperor.     Mdrk^che  Forschungen,  xiii.  482. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  21 

which  wanted  to  pass  from  the  Waal  into  the  Rhine 
had  to  pay  a  toll  of  125  florins. i 

Among  the  Imperial  Estates,  from  the  greatest  to 
the  least,  there  reigned,  both  as  regards  taxation  and 
export  laws  by  which  the  different  districts  obstructed 
each  other,  a  civil  war  of  all  against  all :  at  imperial  and 
circle  diets  they  incessantly  raised  complaints  against 
each  other  and  blamed  each  other  reciprocally  for 
'  oppression  and  loss  of  all  industry  and  commerce.'  ^ 

'  Added  to  the  highly  oppressive  and  almost  in- 
tolerable land  and  water  taxes  which  are  the  ruin  of  all 
inland  trade,  there  is  also  the  insecurity  of  the  imperial 
roads  and  highways,  which  are  beset  with  so  great 
danger  to  merchants  and  their  goods  from  highway 
robbers.'  ^ 

'  Another  kind  of  plague,'  so  the  merchants  almost 


1  Falke,  Zollwesen,  147  ff.,  159,  170  ff.,  202  ff.,  221.  Schmoller  in  the 
Zeitschr.  fiir  preussische  Geschichte  und  Lnndeskunde,  19,  290  ff. ;  cf. 
Schmoller,  Nalionalokonomische  Ansichten,  646-647.  In  the  duchy  of 
Bavaria  there  were  twenty-seven  water  and  eighty-nine  land  tolls.  A 
new  tax  introduced  in  1548  by  Duke  William  IV.  for  agricultural 
products  and  cattle,  taken  out  of  the  country,  realised,  for  instance, 
in  the  fifteen  custom-houses  of  the  Straubing  exchequer  in  the 
very  first  year  more  than  1963  florins.  The  receipts  of  the  Maut  at 
Straubing  amovinted  in  1550  to  1214  pounds,  in  1571  to  2348  pounds,  in 
1583  to  5981  florins  (the  proportion  between  the  pound  and  the  gulden  was 
about  28 :  100),  in  1589  to  10,525  florins.  Cf.  the  instructive  treatise  of 
J.  Mondschein,  Die  Straubinger  Donaumaut  im  IGten  Jahrhundert  (pub- 
lished in  connection  with  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  royal  Realschule 
at  Straubing,  1887),  ss.  155,  188,  194. 

2  **  Concerning  the  customs  war  of  Pomerania  and  Brandenburg  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  cf.  Spahn,  Verfassungs-  und  Wirtschaftsgeschichie  des 
Herzogtums  Pommern,  150  ff.,  where  besides  SchmoUer's  article  {Zeitschr. 
fiir  preuss.  Geschichte  u.  Landeskunde,  19)  documentary  material  is  also 
made  use  of. 

'  Of  public  inseciirity,  highway  robberies  and  incendiaries  we  shall 
treat  in  a  later  section. 


22  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

universally  complained,  as  seriously  affecting  small 
inland  traders,  '  is  the  swarm  of  hawkers  and  vendors 
who  perambulate  the  towns  and  villages,  and  who  are 
not  proceeded  against,  as  for  the  protection  of  inland 
trade  they  ought  to  be,  with  suitable  prohibitions  and 
punishments/  '  Almost  in  all  places,"  said  the  Suabian 
Circle  in  1582,  in  a  memorandum  to  the  Diet  at  Augsburg, 
'  the  foreign  Savoyards  and  hawkers  are  to  be  seen,  and 
it  is  not  only  to  the  common  people  in  the  villages  and 
hamlets  that  they  offer  their  goods,  but  they  pester 
the  nobihty  and  the  upper  classes  in  all  the  castles, 
courts,  convents  and  private  dwellings,  beyond  all 
bearing.  And  they  offer  the  common  people  the  induce- 
ment of  brmging  their  goods,  such  as  stuffs,  groceries 
and  all  necessaries  to  their  very  door,  and  also  allow 
them  credit  for  a  period  of  time  (though  they  make 
them  pay  all  the  more  heavily  in  the  end),  so  that  they 
may  be  paid  in  the  autumn  and  harvest-time  with 
fruits  and  wine,  and  thus  they  entice  the  poor  people 
to  themselves  in  such  a  manner,  that,  in  order  to  avoid 
cash  payments,  they  no  longer  go  to  the  towns  and 
to  the  markets  to  make  their  purchases,  but  wait  for 
these  foreign  hawkers.  At  the  time  when  the  fruits 
and  the  wine  are  gathered  in  these  hawkers  appear  again, 
demand  their  payment  and  take  the  poor  man's  stock 
of  provisions  out  of  his  very  hand.  In  some  places 
they  have  actually  gone  so  far  as  to  hire  storerooms 
and  cellars  to  keep  the  fruit  and  the  wine.  In  this  way 
they  send  up  the  prices  of  all  victuals,  drain  the  poor 
man,  restrict  the  trade  of  the  country,  enrich  themselves 
by  usury,  pay  no  taxes  anywhere  themselves,  and  are 
subject  and  submissive  neither  to  the  empire  nor  to 
the   Estates.     Serious  measures    should,  therefore,   be 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  23 

enforced  in  the  empire  for  the  abohtion  of  this  evil  and 
the  exclusion  of  all  foreign  traders  from  the  country/  ^ 
Nevertheless  the  evil  continued  as  before.^ 
But  the  pernicious  effect  on  trade  and  commerce  of  all 
this  foreign  hawking  was  in  no  way  comparable  to  that 
of  the  trading  associations  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
buying  up,  and  raising  prices,  concerning  which  com- 
panies, even  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  through- 
out the  whole  sixteenth  century,  it  was  continuously 
complained  at  imperial,  circle,  and  provincial  diets  that 
they  were  to  blame  not  only  for  the  increased  prices  of 
provisions  and  wares,  but  also  for  the  increase  of  imports 
into  and  the  decrease  of  exports  from  the  empire. "^ 

Almost  at  every  diet  stringent  orders  were  issued 
against  these  injurious  practices,  orders,  however,  which 
were  never  put  into  effect.*     Against  the  undertakings 

1  Haberlin,  xii.  612-614.     **  Cf.  Gnipp,  Oeldwirtschaft,  204. 

^  The  Basle  Guild  said  in  1598  concerning  the  foreign  hawkers : 
'  They  swarm  about  everywhere  from  house  to  house  and  from  farm  to 
farm,  in  the  hostels  of  towns,  and  in  country  inns,  and  they  may 
be  seen  daily  crowding  outside  churches  at  weddings  and  on  other  such 
occasions  ;  they  also  frequent  the  markets  and  delude  the  country-folk 
especially  with  their  false  wares  which  they  offer  as  cheap  bargains.' 
Geering,  574  £f.  In  Bavaria  in  1605  the  complaint  was  raised  that  '  The 
Savoyard  vendors  perambulate  the  whole  land,  defraud  the  peasants  and 
other  people  with  their  goods,  and  have  actually  vaults  to  house  their 
wares  in.'  v.  Freyberg,  i.  Beilage,  p.  18  ;  cf.  p.  31.  In  Brandenburg 
an  edict  was  issued  against  tlie  foreign  hawkers  in  1536.  Mylius,  vi. 
Part  I.  38-39.  In  Wiirtemberg  it  was  decreed  in  1549  that  '  the  Italian 
and  other  foreign  vendors  should  no  longer  be  allowed  to  sell  in  towns  and 
villages,  but  only  to  attend  the  usual  yearly  markets.'  Reyscher,  xii.  165  ; 
cf.  577  and  ii.  304. 

^  See  our  statements,  vol.  ii.  80  ff.,  and  vol.  iv.  154-156.  **  See  further 
Wiebe,  Zur  Oesch.  der  Preisrevolution  des  I6ten  u.  Vlten  Jahrhunderten, 
Leipzig,  1895,  and  also  Histor.-polit.  Bl.,  118,  434  ff.,  where  there  are  also 
fuller  details  respecting  the  opinions  of  contemporaries  on  the  rise  of 
prices.     See  also  Grupp  in  the  Allg.  Ztg.,  1897,  Beil.  No.  99,  100. 

■•  Concerning  the  edicts  of  the  years  1524-1577,  cf.  Fischer,  iv.  802-809. 


24  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIVIAN  PEOPLE 

of   the   trading  companies  and   the  great   capitahsts, 
individual  merchants  with  only  small  capital  at  their 
disposal  were   powerless.     As  early  as  1557  the  town 
delegates  assembled  at  Ratisbon  said  in   an   address 
to   King  Ferdinand   I. :     'If  it  should  come  to  pass 
that  general  business  and  trade  in  the  Holy  Empire 
were  to  become  so  greatly  hmited  and  restricted  as 
to  be  solely  in  the  hands  and  the  power  of  a  few  persons 
of  fortune,  this  would  not  only  lead  to  the  final  downfall 
and   ruin   of   the   honourable   towns,    but   would   also 
cause  grievous  disaster  to  all  the  subjects  of  the  empire/  ^ 
If,  as  often  happened,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
there  was  a  suspension  of  payment  by  the  trading  com- 
panies or  the  great  capitalists,  countless  numbers  who 
had   greater   or   smaller   shares   in    the    undertakings, 
or  who  had   lent  them  money   on  usurious   interest, 
were  plunged  into  ruin  ;    sometimes  whole  neighbour- 
hoods  were   ruined.     When,   for  instance,   the   Hoch- 
stetters  at  Augsburg,  who  '  for  a  time  had  a  million 
gulden    invested    in    their    company,'    failed    in    1529 
to  the  amount  of  800,000  gulden,   not  only  princes, 
counts  and   nobles,   but    also    peasants,    men-servants 
and    maid-servants  suffered    great    loss."       Since   the 
middle  of  the  century  bankrupts  had  been  very  plentiful 
in  Augsburg.     In  1562  six  merchant   houses  of   good 
standing  had  involved  their  creditors  in  heavy  losses. 
George  Neumayr,  in  1572,  defrauded  his  creditors  of 
200,000  gulden.'^     When    in   1574   the    association    of 

'  Frankfurter  Beichstagsakten,  64^  fol.  206. 

-  Concerning  the  enterprises  and  the  bankruptcy  of  the  Hochstetters 
sec  our  remarks,  vol.  i.  87. 

^  V.  Stetten,  Geschichte  von  Augsburg,  i.  541,  551,  604.  Wagenseil,  ii.  293. 
**  Concerning  the  increase  of  bankruptcy,  especially  in  Augsburg,  see 
also  Steinhausen,  Der  Kaufmann  in  der  deutschen  V ergangenheit,  86  ff. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  25 

the  Manliclis,  consisting  of  commercial  parvenus,  de- 
clared itself  bankrupt  with  debts  to  the  amount  of 
700,000  gulden,  and  in  the  same  year  three  other 
merchants  failed,  the  number  who  were  ruined  in 
consequence  was  so  great  that  the  Bishop  of  Augsburg 
announced  from  the  pulpit  that  whoever  in  future 
should  lend  money  to  the  trading  companies,  would  be 
excluded  from  Holy  Communion.  Melchior  Manlich, 
father  and  son,  and  the  son-in-law  Karl  Neidhard, 
escaped  punishment  by  flight ;  i  the  council  found 
themselves  compelled  to  institute  a  severe  ordinance 
*  on  account  of  the  many  great  failures  which  had 
happened  for  some  time  past  among  merchants  and 
other  persons  who  had  wasted  their  own  and  other 
people's  fortunes  in  riotous  living/^  In  the  year  1580 
'  countless  numbers  of  people  were  injured  and  reduced 
to  poverty '  in  consequence  of  suspension  of  payment 
by  the  Augsburg  monopolist,  Conrad  Roth,  whose 
extravagant  business  undertakings  had  been  promoted 
by  an  illustrious  chief,  the  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony, 
in  spite  of  an  imperial  law,  renewed  in  1577,  against 
monopolists  and  price-raisers. 

In  this  law  it  was  said  :  '  Although  monopolies  and 
fraudulent,  hazardous,  and  improper  forestalling  have 
been  forbidden  not  only  in  ordinary  written  laws,  but 
also  in  public  imperial  recesses,  under  pain  and  punish- 
ment, such  as  loss  of  all  goods  and  chattels  and  banish- 
ment from  the  land,  nevertheless  these  said  statutes, 
recesses,  and  edicts  have  not  hitherto  been  executed 
in  a  full  and  proper  manner,  but  on  the  contrary, 
within   a   few   years   numbers   of  great   companies   of 

1  V.  Stetten,  i.  604,  610,  611.     Fischer,  iv.  34-36,  835-836. 
-  V.  Stetten,  i.  631. 


26  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERAIAN  PEOPLE 

merchants  have  been  formed,  and  sundry  strange 
persons,  wholesale  and  retail  dealers,  have  arisen  in 
the  empire,  who  have  managed  by  force  and  violence 
to  get  into  their  own  hands  all  sorts  of  wares  and 
mercantile  produce,  also  wine,  corn,  and  other  suchlike 
commodities  from  the  greatest  to  the  least,  in  order  to 
rule  the  market  and  to  fix  on  these  goods  whatever  value 
they  themselves  thought  fit,  or  to  bind  over  the  buyer 
or  seller  not  to  part  with  such  goods  to  any  but  them- 
selves, at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  agreed  upon/ 

All  these  injurious  dealings,  buying-up  and  fore- 
stalling, and  suchlike  deahngs,  associations  and  com- 
pacts were  henceforth  to  be  forbidden ;  the  over- 
reachers  were  to  be  subjected  to  confiscation  of  their 
goods  and  banishment  from  the  country ;  magistrates 
who  were  dilatory  in  enforcing  punishment  were  to  be 
fined  one  hundred  marks  of  refined  gold ;  anyone  bringing 
monopohsts  into  notice  was  to  receive  a  fourth  part 
of  the  delinquent's  forfeited  property. 

Elector  Augustus  did  not  trouble  himself  about 
these  edicts.  According  to  a  contract  with  King 
Sebastian  of  Portugal  and  his  successor,  Henry,  the 
Augsburg  merchant  Roth  was  to  be  the  sole  recipient 
of  all  the  pepper  coming  from  India  to  Lisbon  and  to 
sell  it  at  a  fixed  price  in  the  European  kingdoms. 
Augustus  constituted  himself  the  business  associate 
of  Roth ;  the  latter  contemplated,  with  the  help  of 
the  electoral  moneys,  to  get  the  whole  pepper  trade 
into  his  own  hands,  and  then  to  raise  the  price  of 
pepper  at  his  own  liking ;  and  not  of  pepper  only,  but 
also  of  cinnamon,  cloves,  muscat  nuts,  and  all  other 
small  spices,  which  came  from  the  same  source  and  by 
the  same  route  :    by  monopolist  management  of  the 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  27 

whole  grocery  and  drug  produce  of  India,  he  and  his 
coadjutor  hoped  to  reahse  untold  gain.  For  the 
pepper  only  the  net  yearly  returns  were  estimated 
at  more  than  38,000  gold  gulden.  A  bank  was  to  be 
founded  at  Leipzig ;  a  new  imperial  post  service  was 
to  connect  together  all  the  greater  trading  towns,  which 
by  degrees  should  be  drawn  into  the  spice  trade,  and 
a  regular  shipfaring  connection  was  to  be  estabhshed 
between  Leipzig  and  Lisbon.  In  order  not  to  attach 
his  own  princely  name  to  a  trading  business,  and 
thereby  bring  on  himself  '  all  sorts  of  annoyance  respect- 
ing the  increased  price  of  pepper/  and  to  avoid  all 
later  reproaches  on  the  score  of  an  enterprise  condemned 
by  imperial  edicts,  the  Elector  constituted  three  of  his 
most  trusted  chamber  officials  into  a  '  Thuringian 
pepper-trading  company  at  Leipzig.'  This  company 
had  to  conclude  the  contract  with  Eoth  &  Sons  in 
the  Elector's  name  and  at  his  risk.  In  1579  enormous 
cargoes  of  pepper  came  to  Leipzig  and  were  partly 
stored  in  three  electoral  vaults  on  the  Pleissenburg. 
But  already  the  next  year,  after  Portugal  had  gone  over 
to  Spain,  and  the  Spanish  Government  refused  to  renew 
the  contract,  there  followed  the  crash  of  the  Augsburg 
merchant-house.  Numbers  of  people  were  plunged  in 
ruin.  Roth  himself  disappeared  suddenly  from  Augs- 
burg, and  put  an  end  to  his  life  by  poison.  In  his 
first  alarm  at  the  disaster  the  Elector  wrote  that 
'  business  must  be  carried  on  still,  even  though  it 
should  cost  a  man  per  month.'  Soon  afterwards, 
however,  he  adopted  the  line  of  paying  off,  as  much  as 
possible,  the  debts  of  his  '  trading  company.'  To 
this  end  he  caused  an  embargo  to  be  laid  on  all  the 
stores  of  pepper  lying  at  Hamburg,  Antwerp,  Frankfort- 


28  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

on-tlie-Maine,  and  Venice  to  the  account  of  Roth,  and 
on  all  those  on  the  road  to  Leipzig,  in  which  proceeding 
his  position  as  prince  of  the  Empire  stood  him  in 
sood  stead.  The  electoral  chamberlain,  Hans  Harrer, 
who  had  heen  in  the  company,  ended  hke  Roth  by 
suicide.^ 

The  alchemist  Sebald  Schwertzer  wanted  to  incite  the 
Elector  Augustus  to  another  lucrative  monopolising 
enterprise.  He  suggested  to  him  to  get  all  the  tin 
mines  into  his  hands  by  gradually  buying  them  up  : 
'  the  costs,"  he  said,  '  would  soon  be  covered  by  the 
tin  trade  if,  for  the  numerous  purchasers,  there  was  only 
one  seller.'  All  they  had  to  do  therefore,  since  tin  was 
as  necessary  as  daily  bread,  was  to  keep  back  the  sale 
for  a  length  of  time  and  the  price  would  go  up  enormously. 
But  the  electoral  chamber  councillor  Hans  von  Bernstein, 
in  a  memorandum  of  the  year  1583,  uttered  warnings 
against  such  a  proceeding,  because  tin  rose  and  fell 
rapidly  according  to  the  quantity  required,  and  could 
not  always  be  turned  back  into  money.  He  appealed  to 
the  fact  that  the  Augsburg  merchants  Meyer,  who  had 
some  time  ago  made  an  attempt  to  get  all  the  tin  into 
their  own  hands,  had  failed  for  want  of  purchasers  and 
had  lost  more  than  a  ton  of  gold  on  the  undertaking, 


'  J.  Falke,  'Des  Kurfursten  August  portugiesischer  Pfefferhandel,' 
in  V.  Weber's  Archiv.  fur  die  Sdchsische  Oescli.,  v.  390-410,  and  Kurfiirst 
August,  307-321.  Roth  also  sent  the  Elector,  amongst  other  things, 
tobacco  plants,  from  which  '  miraculous  balsam  could  be  prepared,  which 
would  heal  all  manner  of  wounds  and  cuts.'  The  amount  of  the  bargain 
concluded  between  Roth  and  King  Sebastian  of  Portugal  was  reckoned 
as  3(10,000  gulden.  Greiff,  90,  n.  104.  **  In  1529  the  Fuggers  had 
already  suffered  considerable  pecuniary  losses  in  consequence  of  their 
share  in  the  Spanish  spice  trade.  Cf.  Habler  in  the  Zeitschr.  des  Histor. 
Ver.  fur  Schwaben,  19,  (1892)  25-45. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  29 

besides  causing  great  public  injury,  so  that  the  mining 
and  tin  trade  had  been  at  a  standstill  for  years. ^ 

Through  unfortunate  monopolising  schemes  one  of 
the  most  famous  Augsburg  houses,  that  of  the  Welsers, 
failed  in  1614,  to  the  extent  of  586,578  gold  gulden.^ 

'  How  a  whole  large  district  could  be  injured  by 
extortionate  usurious  trading  and  money-dealing '  was 
shown  by  the  bankruptcy,  amounting  to  twenty  tons 
of  gold,  or  two  million  thalers,  of  '  Loitz  Bros.'  at 
Stettin. 

*  At  this  time  '  (1572),  wrote  the  Pomeranian  noble, 
Joachim  von  Wedel,  who  entered  details  on  the  subject  in 
his  '  Housebook,'  Pomerania  fell  victim  to  the  greatest 
calamity  that  could  be  imagined,  and  the  people  began, 
all  too  late  when  the  evil  was  irremediable  and  the  land 
prostrate  on  its  back,  to  bethink  them  and  be  aware  of 
the  fraudulence  and  cheating  of  those  iniquitous  money- 
gorgers  worthy  of  eternal  malediction,  the  Loitzes. 
These  land  pests  are  of  low  origin,  peasants  by  birth 
from  the  village  of  Clempin  near  Stargard ;  not  so  very 
many  years  ago  they  came  to  Stettin  as  servant  or 
peasant  lads,  where  through  marriage  they  acquired  the 
position  of  burghers.  Business  going  well  with  them, 
they  further  took  to  banking,  which  in  time  they 
carried  on  with  emperors,  kings,  electors  and  princes. 
They  also  began,  in  addition  to  their  private  business, 
to  entertain  on  a  grand  scale,  living  in  luxury  and 
splendour,  drawing  to  themselves  lordships,  convents, 
castles,  towns,  villages,  and  this  all  out  of  other  people's 
purses ;   they  were  also  friends  with  the  noblest  of  the 

^  Falke,    August,    298-299.      Frankfurter    Zeitung,    1890,    No.     121. 
Ziveites  Morgenhlatt,  Feuilleton. 
•^  Greiff,  99,  n.  169. 


30  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

land,  till  at  last  they  attained  to  so  great  popularity, 
credit  and  esteem  that  nothing  was  refused  them.  All 
of  whom  they  asked  it  went  bail  for  them  both  at  home 
and  abroad ;  whoever  had  money  brought  it  to  their 
feet ;  whoever  had  it  not,  got  it  through  others,  at  third 
or  fourth  hand,  and  brought  it  to  the  Loitzes  ;  in  short, 
all  who  could  manage  to  get  into  business  relations  with 
them,  thought  their  fortunes  were  made  and  esteemed 
themselves  already  rich.  And  all  this  came  about 
because  no  money,  however  high  the  rate,  was  too  dear 
for  them.  On  100  gulden  they  would  promise  10  or 
20  per  cent,  or  more;  they  created  sham  capital  by 
adding  interest  still  due  to  the  real  capital  and  paying 
interest  on  interest,  besides  making  presents  of  horses, 
costly  effects,  and  other  gratifications,  luxuriously 
feasting  the  people  from  whom  they  hoped  for  gain, 
offering  them  hospitahty,  entertaining  them  well  and 
lavishly,  with  music  and  all  sorts  of  fun  and  merriment, 
and  in  the  midst  of  drinking  and  carousing  obtaining 
pledges  to  their  agreements  and  bonds.  And  these 
money-grabbers  and  Pomeranian  pests  had  their  deahngs 
also  with  burghers  and  peasants,  overseers  and  guardians, 
widows,  convents,  churches  and  hospitals,  rich  and  poor, 
with  anyone  in  short  who  could  raise  any  money ; 
and  they  also  had  their  special  vultures  and  falcons, 
who  spied  about  and  searched  out  every  corner,  flutter- 
ing here  and  fluttering  there,  and  wherever  they  smelt 
money  snapping  it  up  and  takmg  it  into  their  net,  so 
that  the  land  was  completely  cleared  and  purged  of 
money,  and  scarcely  anything  left,  so  that  an  honest 
man  in  his  need  could  often  not  manage  to  borrow 
100  gulden.  Yea  verily,  they  did  not  even  spare  the 
Lord  of  the  land  :    through  their  accomphces  holding 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  31 

out  great  hopes  of  profit,  he  lent  the  King  of  Poland  a 
huge  sum  of  money,  about  100,000  thalers,  which  at 
this  very  hour  is  still  due.  Just  as  everywhere  outside 
the  land,  in  the  Mark,  in  Mecklenburg,  Meissen,  Prussia, 
Holstein  and  elsewhere,  they  borrowed  quantities  of 
money,  for  which  the  Pomeranians  were  security  and 
by  which  they  suffered  great  injury  and  damage,  till  at 
last  the  too  highly  strung  bow  snapped,  and  they  had  to 
play  the  game  of  bankruptcy,  and  they  treated  their 
creditors  all  equally,  giving  each  as  httle  as  the  other. 
And  in  the  nick  of  time  they  escaped  from  the  smoke 
and  took  refuge  in  Prussia,  where  they  had  before- 
hand obtained  from  the  King  of  Poland  the  lordship 
of  Tiegenhof,  and  safe  conduct  and  security ;  and  they 
left  the  cart  sticking  in  the  mud,  so  that  things  were 
in  a  woful  pHght  in  this  country.'  After  '  warning, 
abusing,  pleading  and  insisting  had  all  been  tried  in 
vain,  the  matter  was  at  last  brought  to  law  in  the  princes' 
courts,  and  then  there  was  such  quarrelling  and  disputing, 
excepting,  protesting  and  appealing  as  to  matters  of 
debt,  that  everything  else  was  forgotten.  The  advocates, 
procurators,  and  executors,  whom  Baldus  rightly  calls 
the  pest  of  Europe,  had  the  best  of  the  whole  business, 
for  all  that  was  left  over  fell  entirely  to  their  share." 

The  country  was  brought  to  such  misery  that  an 
open  war,  at  the  end  of  which  land  and  home  return  to 
their  rightful  owners,  had  been  preferable. 

'  Many  people  had  been  deprived  for  ever  of  their 
houses  and  possessions,  their  fiefs  and  heritages,  many 
famihes  had  seen  their  hereditary  lands  transferred  to 
others  and  to  strangers,  without  any  hope  of  ever  being 
restored  to  their  position  and  dignities.  All  the  heart- 
ache, discord  and  hatred  that  was  thus  engendered  can 


32  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

better  be  imagined  than  described.  In  short,  Pomerania 
is  now  ahnost  turned  upside- down  and  money,  property, 
credit  and  ahnost  all  well-being  have  been  engulfed. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  it  will  be  a  long  and  weary  time 
before  the  country  gets  over  this  visitation,  or  recovers 
her  former  condition  and  credit.'  ^ 

'  We  hear  ahnost  everywhere,'  preached  a  Dominican 
in  1581,  '  complaints  of  one  disaster  after  another  in 
commerce  and  in  money-dealing,  and  among  trades- 
people, artisans,  councillors,  distinguished  families, 
counts  and  noblemen,  we  see  daily  what  numbers 
formerly  in  a  good  position,  in  the  enjoyment  of  wealth, 
prosperity  and  esteem,  become  impoverished  and 
ruined,  bring  wife  and  children,  relations  and  others  to 
misery,  and  not  unfrequently  end  in  taking  their  own 
hves.  Whence,  however,  comes  all  this  misfortune  and 
ruin  ?  In  most  cases  it  comes  from  no  other  cause  than 
that  the  unchristian,  godless  love  of  gold  has  seized  on 
everybody  and  all  classes.  Whoever  has  anything  to 
stake,  instead  of  engaging  in  some  honest  and  strenuous 
work  to  support  his  belongings,  shuns  all  effort  and 
trouble,  and  thinks  to  grow  rich,  and  over-rich  in  a  short 
time,  by  all  sorts  of  speculation  and  money-deahng, 
deposits  with  merchants  and  societies,  high  interest,  and 
usmious  contracts.     Have  not  the  towns  become  full  of 

'  Wedel's  Hausbuch,  248-252,  See  also  Baltische  Sticdien,  xi.  81-91, 
and  the  letter  of  Duke  Boguslaw,  xiii.  of  February  27,  1605,  in  Dahnert,  i. 
1033.  **  Concerning  the  economic  ruin  of  the  Pomeranian  towns 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  see  also  Spahn,  Verfassimgs-  und  Wirtschafts- 
geschichte  des  Herzogtimis  Pommern,  163  fit".  '  Nevertheless,'  writes 
Spahn  (p,  167),  '  the  towns  were  not  without  their  share  of  blame  for  their 
economic  ruin.  The  people  who  inhabited  them  should  have  been  brought 
up  in  hard  work  in  order  to  be  worthy  of  their  natural  wealth  ;  for  although 
they  thought  of  nothing  but  gain,  they  were,  notwithstanding,  no  trading 
people,  and  still  less  an  ideaUjt  people.' 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  33 

such  lazy  idlers  ?  And  the  number  of  such  among  the 
nobility  is  no  less  great.  So  long  as  these  people  are  in 
luck  and  are  receiving  high  usurious  interest,  they 
parade  about  like  princes,  wear  extravagantly  costly 
clothes  and  ornaments,  give  grand  banquets  and 
entertainments,  gorge  and  drink  in  a  manner  which  is 
a  scandal.  But  then  comes  the  crash,  from  numberless 
causes  which  cannot  all  be  enumerated,  in  this 
thoroughly  fraudulent  business  of  trading,  money- 
changing  and  usury.  Those  who  wanted  to  grow  rich 
in  haste  lose  their  interest  with  their  capital,  have 
squandered  what  else  they  possessed,  and  are  reduced 
to  all  the  misery  which  I  have  described.  Oh  this  unholy 
and  accursed  money-making  and  wanting  to  grow  rich 
without  being  willing  to  work  and  toil,  as  God  ordained 
that  every  man  should  when  He  said  to  Adam  :  ''  In 
the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat  bread  !  "  That 
this  command  is  thrown  utterly  to  the  wind  by  all 
this  usurious  money-dealing  and  practice,  I  regard 
as  the  greatest  crime  and  vice  of  our  present  days, 
and  the  cause  from  which  of  necessity,  through  the 
just  punishment  of  God,  disaster  after  disaster  must 
ensue.'  ^ 

John  Brockes,  oldest  burgomaster  of  Liibeck  (|1585), 
wrote  on  this  subject  for  the  warning  and  admonition  of 
children  :  *  In  these  my  days  and  times  there  has  come 
about  such  unheard-of  oppression  and  unchristian, 
godless  taxing  and  over-reaching  in  trade  and  commerce 
and  in  money  investments  as  has  never  been  known 
before  in  all  the  world's  history  :    and  this  usury  has 

^  A  sermon  on  the  command  of  God :  '  In  the  sweat  of  thy  brow 
shalt  thou  eat  bread,'  preached  in  the  Cathedral  at  Freiburg  by  L.  Berthold 
of  the  Dominican  Order  (1581), 

VOL.  XV.  D 


34  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

been  practised  by  leading  burgomasters  and  councillors 
and  citizens,  and  by  members  of  the  nobility  from  the 
land  of  Holstein  in  their  money  affairs,  so  that  numbers 
of  burghers  through  inadvertence,  or  through  pride  and 
pomposity,  wanting  to  cut  a  fine  figure  and  have  grand 
doings  with  foreign  money,  and  being  forgetful  of  God, 
brought  God's  wrath  upon  them  to  their  great  misfortune, 
for  they  devoured  and  were  devoured  and  took  no  heed 
for  the  future  until  ruin  was  at  their  throats.  Moreover, 
they  were  to  such  an  extent  involved  and  entangled 
together  in  these  money  matters,  had  signed  for 
each  other  and  stood  security  for  each  other,  and  so 
were  all  impoverished  and  ruined  together,  and  they 
defrauded  many  honourable  men  who  had  guaranteed 
for  them,  so  that  those  had  to  pay  who  could,  and  those 
who  couldn't,  to  escape  as  they  could,  and  numbers, 
even  young  people,  who  had  been  ruined  by  going 
bail,  died  of  broken  hearts.'  'My  children  and  heirs,' 
says  Brockes  in  conclusion,  '  I  have  written  this  for  a 
mirror  and  a  warning  for  you  all,  that  you  may  fear  God, 
maintain  yourselves  in  humihty  and  industrious  work, 
and  not  cast  about  for  more  extensive  business  until 
God  wills  to  give  it  you.  For  those  who  think  to  grow 
rich  in  haste  and  by  force  generally  end  in  poverty  and 
bankruptcy.'  ^ 

Sebastian  Franck  had  already  written  in  his 
Chronicle :  '  It  has,  alas,  come  to  this,  that  work  is  looked 
upon  as  a  disgrace ;  so  much  so,  that  it  is  scarcely  ever 
now  apphed  to  honourable  ends,  and  all  parents  admonish 
their  children  not  to  work  too  hard,  but  rather  to  feed 
themselves  in  idleness  on  other  people's  misfortunes. 

•  Brockes,  i.  84-85  ;  cf.  Falke,  Oesch.  des  Handels,  ii,  407-408. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAIr— USURERS  35 

What  sort  of  honourable  business  goes  on  now  amongst 
Christians  and  Christian  tradespeople,  societies,  usurers, 
stockbrokers,  money-changers,  we  indeed  perceive  all 
too  plainly  ;  it 's  all  nothing  but  stockbroking,  buying- 
up,  monopolising,  and  filling  the  whole  country  with 
useless  transactions  and  machinations,  to  everybody's 
disadvantage/  ^  Zwingli  also  complained  that  '  nobody 
would  any  longer  earn  a  maintenance  by  work/  "^ 

The  old  ecclesiastical  canonical  teaching  on  property 
and  its  acquirement  tlirough  honourable  work,  on  the 
dignity  and  consecration  of  work,  as  well  as  the  old 
religious  laws  and  interdictions  as  regards  interest  and 
usury,3  still  remained  in  force  and  were  constantly 
inculcated  afresh ;  also  the  imperial  legislation,  even 
when  it  introduced  milder  laws  with  regard  to  loans — 
and  this  in  full  accord  with  the  canonical  teaching — 
only  recognised  as  legal  the  taking  by  the  lender  of  a 
part  of  the  profits  made  in  farming  or  trading,  and 
protected  the  borrower  against  usurious  abuse  :  interest 
on  unproductive  loans  was  not  allowed.^ 

How  conscientiously  orthodox  Catholics,  towards 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  held  themselves  bound 
by  the  Church  interdicts  against  interest  is  shown,  for 
instance,  by  the  celebrated  composer,  Orlandus  Lassus. 
For  a  sum  of  4400  gulden  lodged  by  him  in  the  Bavarian 
ducal  treasury,  5  per  cent,  interest  was  paid  him ;  but, 
after  the  death  of  Albert  V.  (f  1579),  he  sent  back  to 
Albert's  successor,  William  V.,  the  amount  of  the  interest 
'  from  Christian  good  zeal  and  conscience  and  according 

^  Chronik,     270.       Cf.     Schmoller,     Nationalokonomische    Ansichten, 
471  ff. 

^  Schmoller,  482.  ^  See  our  statements,  vol.  ii.  90-96. 

^  Endemann,  Studien,  ii.  156,  316-317. 

D  2 


36  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

to  the  godly  instruction  and  careful  solicitude  of  our 
holy,  universal  mother,  the  Church.'  ^ 

Luther,  although  in  other  respects  he  fiercely  opposed 
the  canon  law,  was  decisively  on  its  side  in  its  economic 
aspects,  as  is  plainly  seen  from  his  *  Sermon  vom  Wucher ' 
(1519),  his  pamphlet  *  Von  Kaufhandlung  und  Wucher' 
(1524),  his  *  Vermahnung  au  die  Pfarrherren  wider  den 
Wucher  zu  predigen  '  (1540).  Melanchthon  also  (in 
spite  of  the  love  he  had  otherwise  for  Roman  law)  and 
a  group  of  other  notable  Lutheran  theologians,  such  as 
Brenz  and  Bugenhagen,  held  firmly  to  the  canonical 
regulations  and,  after  the  example  of  Luther,  zealously 
opposed  all  receivers  of  interest  as  usurers,  oppressors 
and  blood-suckers  of  the  needy  working  people,  regardless 
of  the  fact  that  they  thereby  brought  on  themselves 
the  hatred  of  a  '  certain  class  of  people.'  When  the 
Lutheran  superintendent,  Phihp  Caesar,  published  a 
pamphlet  against  usury  in  1569,  things  had  come  to 
such  a  pass,  even  among  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel, 
that  he  complained  bitterly  as  follows  :  '  The  preachers 
who  defend  usury  *'  inveigh  largely  "  against  the  opposite 
teaching,  against  the  preachers  who  teach  thus,  and 
against  the  rulers  who  give  employment  to  such 
preachers.  We  preachers  who  declaim  against  taking 
interest  on  money  stir  up  against  ourselves  the  hatred 
of  the  whole  world.  The  blame  of  this  is  in  great 
measure  yours,  you,  our  brethren  in  office,  who  constitute 
yourselves  champions  of  the  usurer,  or  even  practise 
usury  yourselves.  It  is  to  be  lamented  that  not 
ordinary  persons  only,  but  even  professors  of 
theology  of  note,  defile  themselves  with  such  flagrant 

'  V.  Hormayr,  Taschenhuch,  new  series,  22,  264. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  37 

vices,  and  in  their  blindness  do  not  scruple  to  defend 
this  abominable  usury,  in  opposition  to  the  express 
teaching  of  Holy  Scripture  and  the  clear  judgment  of 
the  better  portion  of  the  Church  at  all  times/ 1  The 
Mansfeld,  later  on  Brandenburg- Kulmbach  councillor, 
George  Lauterbecken,  in  his '  Kegentenbuch,'  fell  foul  of 
Martin  Bucer  because  he  was  wilhng '  to  allow  Christians 
out  of  100  gulden  to  take  one  every  month,  that  is 
12  gulden  yearly/  '  What,'  said  he,  '  has  become  of 
the  book  which  Dr.  Luther,  of  blessed  memory,  wrote 
to  the  pastors  about  usurers,  admonishing  them  with 
great  earnestness  to  preach  against  avarice  and  usury, 
so  that  they  might  not  be  partakers  of  the  sins  of  usurers, 
but  might  rather  let  the  latter  die  Hke  wild  beasts, 
not  administering  the  sacraments  to  them  nor  admitting 
them  into  the  Christian  community  ?  Nobody  thinks 
any  more  about  it.  Where  in  all  these  lands,  although 
we  pretend  to  be  evangehcal,  is  anyone  repulsed  from 
the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar  on  account  of  usury  ? 
Where  does  anyone,  according  to  the  ordinance  of  the 
Church,  forbid  usurers  to  make  wills  and  testaments  ? 
Where  do  we  ever  see  one  of  the  set  buried  in  the 
flaying-place — one  even  who  has  been  all  his  hfe  the 
very  worst  of  usurers,  and  whom  the  children  in  the 
street  have  known  as  such  ? ' 


'  Ph.  Caesar :  '  Universa  propemodum  doctrina  de  usura,  testimoniis 
Sacrosanctae  Scripturae  et  Doctorum  puxioris  Ecclesiae  a  tempore  Apos- 
tolorum  ad  hanc  nostram  aetatem  fundata,  stabilita  et  confirmata,  quae 
hoc  postremo  mundi  tempore  invalescentis  prorsus  et  dominantis  Avari- 
tiae  ab  omnium  ordinum  hominibus  utiliter  legi  potest '  (Basileae  [1569]), 
pp.  72,  74,  92.  Concerning  the  prescripts  of  Luther,  Melanchthon,  Bugen- 
hagen  and  so  forth,  26  sqq.,  50-52,  63  sqq.  Caesar  at  p.  15  even  appeals 
to  St.  Bridget  against  the  usurers.  See  also  K.  Kohler,  Luther  und  die 
Juristen  (Gotha,  1873),  pp.  59  ff.,  119,  121. 


38  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'  Yea,  verily,  they  grow  so  proud  and  haughty  that 
they  dare  defy  the  preachers  :  ''  Let  them  rail  at  us  from 
the  pulpits  for  being  usurers,"  say  they,  "we'll  read 
them  a  lesson  ;  "  thus  they  so  intimidate  the  poor  parsons 
that  these  are  forced,  some  of  them,  to  keep  silence ; 
the  others  see  that  they  can  do  httle  to  mend  matters, 
and  so  let  things  go,  for  they  can  get  neither  help  nor 
support  from  the  rulers,  who  meanwhile  go  on  themselves 
practising  the  usury  which  they  ought  to  punish/  ^ 

In  a  trial  at  law  which  Martin  Bucer  instituted  in 
1538  against  the  anabaptist,  Jorg  Schnabel,  the  latter 
said  :  '  It  was  given  out  that  the  new  Church  was  better 
than  the  Popish  Church  ;  but  he  had  separated  himself 
from  it  because  the  practice  of  usury  was  double  as  great 
in  it  as  in  the  old  Clim'ch.  Under  the  papacy  it  used 
not  to  happen  that  the  poor  were  driven  from  house 
and  home,  but  now  they  were  thus  driven  out/  On 
20  gulden  two  to  three  were  taken  as  interest.  =^ 

The  Flacian  theologian,  Joachim  Magdeburgius, 
who  was  guided  by  Luther's  precepts,  complained 
especially  of  the  practice  of  usury  which  had  obtained 
among  the  Lutheran  nobihty.  '  The  squires,'  he  said, 
'  loan  to  their  own  peasants  a  malter  of  corn  at  18  or 
20  groschen  the  bushel  when  its  market  value  is  only 
10  or  12  groschen.  Thus  the  poor  man  has  already 
lost  half  a  malter  on  every  malter  before  he  puts  the 
corn  in  the  sack,  and  he  must  then  pay  the  squire 
back  the  next  year  at  the  most  disadvantageous  time, 
at  Martinmas  that  is,  when  all  the  rents,  taxes,  duties 
and  tithes  are  due,  and  when  corn  is  cheapest,  he  must 
hand  over  his  corn  all  in  a  lump  at  great  loss  and  damage, 

'  Quoted  by  Scherer,  Drzy  %i,nd€rschiedliche  Predigten,  57-58. 
2  Niedner's  Zeitschrift  fiir  hislor.  Theologie,  xxviii.  628,  632. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  39 

and  give  back  the  bushel  at  the  rate  of  10  or  12 
groschen,  though  very  soon  after  he  might  have  sold 
it  for  18  or  20  groschen.  The  poor  man  thus  loses 
another  half-malter,  and  so  gives  2  malters  for  1 ;  that 
is,  100  per  cent,  is  taken  from  him  in  usury;  and 
usury  of  this  sort  is  so  common  in  Thuringia  that  no 
other  trade  is  more  so.'  ^ 

Not  merchants  only,  but  also  nobles,  the  Elector 
Augustus  complained  on  November  5, 1569,  had  hitherto 
'  made  great  usurious  transactions '  at  the  Leipzig 
fairs,  frequently  with  those  who  were  constrained  by 
necessity  to  borrow  money,  '  exacting  on  100  gulden 
a  yearly  interest  of  15,  20,  30,  40  and  even  more 
gulden.'  2 

In  the  Dithmarschen  district  usury  had  grown  to 
such  extremes  in  1541,  that  in  six  months  interest 
was  exacted  to  the  amount  of  13-s.  on  half  a  gulden, 
and  20  gulden  on  20  gulden  (100  per  cent.).  In  1585 
Duke  Adolf  of  Schleswig-Holstein  issued  a  penal  edict 
against  the  '  abominable  usury  and  fleecing '  which 
was  practised  without  scruple  in  all  places  in  buying 
corn,  in  borrowing  and  other  business  transactions. 
'  The  usurers,'  he  wrote,  '  in  a  short  space  of  time 
take  two,  three  and  more  pfennig  on  one,  and  so  the 
simple  poor  are  frightfully  drained  from  day  to  day, 
and  with  wife  and  children  brought  to  starvation.' 
Cases  of  distraint  increased  to  such  an  extent  that 
within  a  short  space  of  time  many  houses  changed 
hands  four,  five,  and  even  nine  or  ten  times. ^ 

'  Scherer,  Drey  underschiedliche  Predigten,  54. 

'^  Codex   Augusteus,  i.   1046-1047  ;    cf.    also    1055-1059,  the    renewed 
usury  laws  of  the  years  1583  and  1609. 
•'  Neocorus,  ii.  141,  293,  382. 


40  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Duke  Barnim  of  Pomerania-Stettin  said  in  a  Pro- 
vincial Diet  Recess  of  January  10,  1566  :  '  The  practice 
of  usury  is  gaining  ground  inordinately  in  our  land, 
so  that  many  people  have  the  audacity  to  take  6, 
8,  10  and  even  12  florins  on  100,  whilst  others,  by 
exacting  rack  rents  and  compound  interest,  drain 
the  country  of  its  cash  which  then  they  use  for  usury 
on  a  greater  scale  in  other  lands/ 

'  Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass,'  he  complained 
in  September  of  the  same  year,  '  that  in  time  of  need, 
throughout  the  whole  land,  not  even  2000-3000  gulden 
can  be  raised  at  a  reasonable  rate  of  interest/  ^  In 
a  Pomeranian  peasant  ordinance  of  1616  it  says : 
'  From  one  gulden  four  groschen  interest  is  taken  yearly, 
from  one  bushel  of  corn  a  quarter  of  a  bushel/  ~ 

In  other  districts  similar,  if  not  worse,  instances 
occurred.^ 

'  The  accursed  people,'  wrote  the  Marburg  judicial 
procurator,  Sauwr,  in  1593,  '  have  now  another  way  of 
carrying  on  usury ;  they  do  not  take  money  for  money 
but  they  lend  money  on  corn,  meadows  and  acres, 
by  which  means    they  get   at  least  15  or  20  gulden 

1  Dahnert,  i.  496,  506. 

2  Ibid.  iii.  837. 

:t  **  'J  know  one  person,'  says  Erasmus  Sarcerius  (1555),  '  who  exacts 
for  a  loan  of  8  fl.,  3  fl.  interest,  i.e.  2,1^  per  cent.  ;  another  who  takes 
18  bushels  of  corn  on  24  fi.,  and  a  third  5  talers  for  30.'  See  Neumeister, 
'  SittUche  Zustande  im  Mansfeldischen,'  in  the  Zeitschr.  des  Harzvereins, 
XX.  525,  note.  In  Nuremberg,  especially  in  the  epoch  when  the  financial 
resources  of  the  repubhc  were  nearly  exhausted,  the  curse  of  usury  grew  in 
the  most  luxuriant  manner.  Hence  the  numerous  but  fruitless  mandates 
and  efforts  for  cutting  down  the  evil  at  the  roots.  Equally  futile  were 
earnest  consultations  at  council  boards,  as  in  1537  and  1565 :  '  For 
although  papal  law  forbade  usury,  the  imperial  legislation  took  the 
opposite  Une  and  allowed  a  certain  amount  of  usury  to  both  Christians 
and  Jews.'     Knapp,  Das  alte  Nilrnberger  Kriminalrecht,  p.  250. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  41 

per  cent,  yearly.  And  in  order  that  the  roguery  shall 
not  be  discovered,  they  draw  up  a  written  statement, 
in  which  it  is  made  out  that  distraint  is  hmited  to 
5  per  cent,  for  the  creditor."  ^  The  inspectors  of  the 
Circle  Schliichtern  in  the  county  Hanau-Miinzenberg 
reported  in  1602  that  '  usury  was  so  common  that  on 
a  loan  of  20  gulden  a  cartload  of  hay  was  exacted  as 
interest.'  ^ 

John  Mathesius  described  fourteen  different  methods 
of  practising  usury  which  were  in  vogue,  amongst 
others  :  '  They  either  take  10  or  20  gulden  a  year 
on  100  gulden,  or  1  groschen  a  week,  or  in  Jewish 
fashion  46  groschen  a  year  on  100,  without  the  interest 
on  arrears,  or  else  they  lend  a  handicraftsman  20 
gulden,  for  which  he  is  expected  to  do  all  the  work 
in  the  usurer's  house.' ^  Zacharias  Poleus  aired  this 
grievance  in  a  tragedy  in  which  he  makes  the  peasants 
complain  that  besides  paying  12  per  cent,  on  loans, 
they  have  to  make  presents  as  well.*  The  Meissen 
superintendent  Gregory  Strigenicius  wrote  in  1598  :  '  A 
yearly  percentage  of  54  thalers  and  4  groschen  is  very 
often  taken.  The  imperial  laws  allow  5  per  cent., 
thus  usurers  of  this  sort  exact  ten  times  as  much  as  is 
legal,  and  still  pretend  to  be  good  Christians.'  ^ 

The  preacher  Bartholomew  Ringwalt  was  able  to 
report  that  on  80  thalers  as  much  as  250  thalers  had 
actually  been  taken. "^ 

In   a   pamphlet   addressed   to   *  the   great   money- 


^  Sauwr,  Preface  Bl.  B'-. 

"  Zeitschrift    des   Vereins    filr  hessische  Oeschichte  und  Landeskunde, 
New  Series,  v.  192,  201. 

^  Postilla  prophetica,  222''.  ''  Palm,  Beitrage  121. 

^  Diluvium,  186.  '^  Die  lautere  Wahrheit,  31. 


42  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

usurers,  the  hell- juries,  the  hell-hounds  and  wolves, 
&c./  the  author  exclaims  :  '  We  ought  to  hold  usurers 
in  abhorrence  ;  it  would  be  no  wonder  if  we  should  spit 
on  them  in  the  road.  The  usurer  is  rightly  treated 
as  a  murderer,  robber,  bandit,  vagabond,  devil's 
associate,  we  ought  indeed  rather  to  deal,  eat,  drink, 
associate  with  a  Turk  or  a  heathen  than  with  a  great 
usurer  ;  they  ought,  also,  not  to  be  buried  with  other 
Christians  ;  it  is  not  too  much  disgrace  for  them  to  be 
buried  in  the  flaying-place.'  ^ 

How  matters  stood  in  Catholic  districts  with  the 
practice  of  usury  and  with  the  contempt  of  Church 
laws  and  commands,  is  shown  by  numerous  utterances 
of  the  Jesuit  George  Scherer.  '  Usurious  and  unlawful  con- 
tracts,' so  he  preached,  '  have  to  such  an  extent  gained 
the  upper  hand,  that  neither  help  nor  counsel  serve 
any   longer    against    them.^     We  preachers   are    too 

'  Der  Wucherer  Messkram  und  Jarmarht  (1544),  Bl.  K4''-L.  L^. 
Cf.  Spiegel  des  Geitz  .  .  .  wider  die  grewlichen  Finantzereien,  &c.  (written 
in  rhyme  by  a  simple  layman),  Magdeburg,  1586.  **  '  Usury,'  wrote 
George  Engelhart  Lohneiss  (p.  304),  '  has  gained  head  to  such  an  eltent 
that  even  great  and  distinguished  people  are  infected  with  this  scandalous 
vice,  and  we  are  expected  to  honour  and  esteem  these  usurers  more  than 
other  reputable  people  ;  for  princes  and  lords  are  their  dupes,  taken 
captive  with  such  usurious  gold  that  they  cannot  choose  but  do  what  is 
exacted  of  them.  Likewise  the  land  and  the  people  are  their  Mancipia  or 
bond-servants,  whom  they  di-ain  and  ruin  with  then-  unchristian  usury,  pre- 
tending all  the  time  to  be  themselves  Christians.  When  a  poor  circumcised 
Jew  takes  a  penny  interest  per  week  from  a  gulden,  everybody  cries  out 
murderer.  But  when  an  uncircumcised  Christian  Jew  takes  from  a 
gulden  as  much  as  a  dreier  or  a  kreuzer,  or  even  a  groschen,  this 
forsooth  must  not  be  called  Jewish  usury.  Item,  the  poor  Jew's  small, 
trivial  usury  sticks  in  everybody's  throat ;  they  all  cry  out  at  him  and 
will  have  him  turned  out ;  but  when  the  Christian  Jew  takes  his  10,  12, 
15  or  more  per  cent,  and  turns  his  money  over  several  times  in  the  year, 
nobody  thinks  of  driving  him  oi;t.' 

-  Scherer,  Postille,  681^ 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  43 

weak  against  this  usury  ;  we  may  cry  out  and  write 
against  it  as  long  as  we  will,  they  care  not  a  jot,  but 
go  on  just  the  same  as  ever.  But  such  disobedience 
should  not  make  the  preacher  weary  of  lifting  his 
voice  like  a  trumpet  unceasingly  against  this  Mammon, 
so  that  he  should  not,  by  his  silence,  constitute  himself 
a  participator  in  the  sins  of  others.  Whether  preaching 
against  usury  bears  fruit  or  not,  the  preacher  has  at  any 
rate  fulfilled  the  duty  of  his  office  and  saved  his  own 
soul.'  '  Like  a  sin-flood  usury  has  overwhelmed  the 
whole  world.'  '  Through  this  accursed  usury  we  rob 
our  neighbour  of  house  and  home  and  all  that  he  has  ; 
the  usurer  has  a  wonderful  knack  of  doing  this  !  Many 
a  one  lends  1000  gulden,  but  only  pays  500  in  cash,  and 
pays  this  in  money  of  such  sort  that  the  borrower  must 
lose  upon  it ;  the  other  500  he  pays  back  in  damaged 
wares,  priced  at  the  highest,  in  rotten  cloth,  in  unsound 
credit  notes,  in  glutinous  wine,  in  hmping  horses,  and 
so  forth ;  in  this  way  he  makes  up  the  full  sum  and 
sticks  on  to  it  8  per  cent,  profit.  Is  not  this  an  un- 
christian and  deviHsh  kind  of  usury  ? '  '  Common 
thieves  are  not  at  all  times  employed  in  stealing,  but 
only  occasionally  at  night-time  or  else  in  a  secret 
hidden  manner ;  they,  moreover,  ashamed  of  their 
robberies,  go  about  with  downcast  eyes,  and  daie  not 
look  anyone  cheerfully  in  the  face  ;  but  the  usurer- 
thieves  rob  and  steal  both  by  day  and  by  night,  their 
hoards  increase  every  hour  and  they  take  less  rest 
than  a  weathercock.  They  do  it  all  openly  and  without 
any  shame  and  consort  daily  with  great  princes  and 
lords,  sit  in  grand  offices  and  wear  golden  chains. 
Yea,  verily,  these  big  thieves  often  condemn  the  small 
ones  to  be  hung,  just  as  if  only  common  stealing  was 


44  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIVIAN  PEOPLE 

forbidden  and  not  miicli  more  open  robbery  and  usury.* 
By  stern  imperial  laws  the  Jews  had  been  forbidden 
the  practice  of  usury,  '  but  the  Christians  of  the  present 
day  far  outstrip  the  Jews  in  putting  the  knife  on  Christian 
throats  :  those  Jews  who,  years  ago,  w^ere  bound  to 
wear  yellow  rings  on  their  clothes/  ^ 

But  '  with  the  Christians,'  says  another  Cathohc 
preacher  in  1585,  '  as  many  worldly  wiseacres  say,  we 
must  deal  very  softly  when  it  is  a  question  of  usurers 
and  usurious  contracts  and  investments ;  it 's  only  the 
Jews  that  we  must  abuse,  trample  under  foot,  spit  on 
as  enemies  of  God  and  man.  With  your  leave,  my  good 
sir  and  Christian  usurer,  I  hold  that  baptised  Jews 
deserve  far  worse  and  dire  punishment  than  the 
unbaptised  ones,  and  that  the  godless  vice  of  usury, 
which  has  passed  from  the  Jews  to  the  Christians,  is 
practised  more  zealously  by  the  latter  than  by  the 
former.' 

*  By  this,'  the  preacher  goes  on,  '  I  do  not  mean  in 
any  way  to  exonerate  the  usurious  Jews  who  will  not 
work,  but  are  only  intent  in  scratching  together  im- 
moderate gains  by  the  most  iniquitous  ways  ;  for  these 
men  diabohcally  fleece  the  poor,  inexperienced,  neces- 
sitous Christian  people,  artisans  and  peasants,  and 
understand  how  in  an  equally  masterly  way  to  draw 
into  their  nets  the  frivolous  portion  of  the  higher  classes, 
bent  only  on  money-making,  display,  and  extravagant 
spending.  The  universal  complaint  of  usury  and  other 
injurious  deahngs  of  the  Jews  is  well-founded,  no  less 
than  is  the  outcry  against  careless  and  suspicious  high 
lords  and  rulers,  who  look  on  calmly  at  the  despoihng 

'  Drey  undcrschiedUche  Predigten,  22,  27,  31-33,  44-45,  47. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  45 

of  the  people  by  the  Jews,  as  though  it  were  all  lawful, 
and  let  it  go  unpunished,  or  actually  row  in  the  same 
boat  as  the  Jews/ 

*  But  that  the  Jews  should  be  driven  out,  as  many 
wish,  I  consider  unnecessary.  If  they  could  be  brought 
to  conform  to  the  laws  of  the  empire,  that  is  to  work 
and  earn  their  bread  by  honest  trades,  and  to  carry  on 
at  the  public  free  fairs  and  yearly  markets  upright 
commerce  and  deahngs  such  as  the  laws  of  the  empire 
do  not  forbid,  and  if  they  would  be  content  with  the 
interest  allowed  them  by  the  empire — 5  per  cent,  and 
no  more — we  might  suffer  them  to  dwell  among  the 
Christians  as  a  people  dispersed  by  the  judgment  of  God. 
But  who  will  see  to  it  that  all  this  is  carried  out  ?  So 
little  supervision  has  there  been  hitherto  that  the  Jews 
are  lazier  miscreants  at  the  present  day  than  ever 
before,  they  take  interest  up  to  40,  60,  80,  and  even 
more,  per  cent.,  and  have  the  audacity  to  do  things 
which  were  strictly  forbidden  by  Charles  V.  and  the 
Imperial  Estates  in  the  Eecess  at  Augsburg  in  1530,  and 
again  most  emphatically  in  the  years  1548  and  1577, 
in  the  following  words  :  "  Whereas  in  some  places  in  the 
empire  of  the  German  nation  the  Jews  carry  on  usury, 
and  not  only  borrow  on  heavy  bonds,  securities  and 
special  mortgages,  but  also  lend  money  on  stolen  goods 
and  through  such  practices  oppress  and  impoverish  the 
poor,  needy  and  unwary  people  more  than  anyone  can 
calculate ;  we  herewith  do  decree,  ordain  and  insist 
that  by  nobody  in  the  Holy  Empire  shall  Jews  who 
practise  usury  be  housed,  fed  or  dealt  with,  that  also 
in  this  empire  these  same  Jews  shall  have  neither 
protection,  nor  safe  conduct,  and  that  in  no  courts  of 
justice  shall  claims  for  their  usurious  profits  be  upheld. 


46  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Any  people  who  tolerate  Jews  in  their  niidst  must 
control  them  in  such  manner  as  to  ensure  their  abstaining 
from  usury  and  usurious  deahng,  and  earning  their 
hvehhood  by  suitable  labour  and  handicraft,  just  as  all 
rulers  do  with  their  own  subjects  for  the  common 
good."  Thus  the  laws  prescribed.  Nevertheless  what 
we  see  before  our  eyes  and  learn  from  daily  ex- 
perience is  exactly  the  opposite,  and  hence  arises 
the  inveterate  hatred  of  the  people  towards  the  Jews, 
and  their  desire  to  see  them  ruthlessly  driven  out  of  all 
lands.'  1 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  Bavarian  Provincial  Ordinance 
of  1553  decreed  that '  Jews  were  no  longer  to  be  allowed 
to  dwell  or  to  carry  on  any  dealings  in  the  principality 
of  Bavaria  ;  no  subject  was  to  enter  into  any  contract 
or  business  with  a  Jew  either  within  or  without  the 
country :  if  any  subjects  contracted  debts  to  Jews 
through  buying,  lending  or  selling,  the  debts  would 
fall  to  the  exchequer."  ^ 

In  the  Tyrol,  where  frequent  complaints  were  also 
uttered  that  the  poor  subjects  were  indebted  to  the 
Jews  for  many  thousands  of  gulden,  the  Jews  were,  it 

'  A  useful  and  well-grounded  sermon  and  admonition  against  the 
avarice  and  usury  of  the  present  world,  compiled  from  the  Holy  Scriptures 
and  Catholic  teaching  by  William  Sartorius,  chaplain  at  Ingolstadt 
(1585),  pp.  5,  8,  9.  The  imj)erial  laws  on  Jewish  usury  of  the  years  1530, 
1548,  1551,  1577  in  the  new  collection  of  the  Imperial  Recess,  ii.  342, 
No.  27  ;  599,  No.  21 ;  622,  §§  78-79  ;  and  iii.  383-390,  No.  20.  **  The 
towTi  of  Ehingen  received  in  1559  the  privilege  to  forbid  any  Jew 
from  buying  land  or  lending  money  upon  it.  Charles  V.  had  already 
in  1548  conferred  a  similar  privilege  on  the  manorial  lord  of  the  lordships 
of  Ehingen,  Schelklingen,  and  Berg,  Conrad  von  Bemelberg.  According 
to  this  writ  no  burghers  were  to  have  any  dealings  with  Jews,  or  to 
borrow  from  them  :  if  they  did  the  borrowed  money  was  to  be  forfeited. 
Schniid  in  the  Histor.-Jahrb.,  xvii.  91. 

-  Bayerische  Landesordnung,  fol.  167,  169. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  47 

is  true,  driven  out  of  certain  localities,  but  to  a  general 
expulsion  of  the  race  Archduke  Ferdinand  II.  and  his 
government  would  not  agree.  Supposing  such  a  measure 
were  adopted,  said  the  Government  in  1570,  it  would  be 
necessary  for  the  Jews,  before  their  departure,  to  be 
repaid  what  was  owing  to  them  by  the  subjects,  and 
this  would  be  impossible  ;  besides  which  the  banished 
people  would  very  soon  again  effect  their  return,  and  if 
they  were  to  settle  down  in  the  neighbouring  territories 
of  foreign  lords  they  might  cause  even  greater  evil.  If 
only  the  Jews,  it  had  been  said  already  in  an  earlier 
manifesto  of  the  Government  of  1558,  would  work  hke 
other  people,  desist  from  their  vihfications  of  the 
Christian  rehgion,  and  abstain  from  usury,  there  would 
be  no  objection  to  their  being  tolerated  in  the  country. 
An  attempt  was  made  to  protect  the  subjects  in  some 
measure  against  '  usurious  contracts  '  by  intensifying 
the  regulations  against  Jewish  usury  by  compelhng  the 
Jews  to  settle  their  loan  af^^airs  before  the  magistrates 
and  forbidding  them  to  sell  their  notes  of  hand  to 
Christians. 

'  Usurious  contracts,'  however,  were  not  concluded 
by  Jews  only.  When  Sigmund  of  Welsberg  was 
required  to  send  the  Jews  out  of  his  lordship,  Telvana 
in  South  Tyrol,  he  answered :  '  Certainly  the  Jews 
take  from  20-40  per  cent.,  but  the  Christians  also 
ask  20  per  cent,  and  many  more  people  are  driven 
out  of  house  and  home  by  them  than  by  the  Jews  ; 
for  none  but  movable  goods  are  pledged  to  the  Jews, 
whereas  the  Christians  are  also  assessed  on  their 
houses  and  property  and  that  for  very  trifling 
debts.'  In  Bregenz  20-30  per  cent,  was  frequently 
exacted ;     one   merchant   in   Rattenberg   in   the   year 


48  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

1584  was  paid  4  gulden  interest  a  week  on  100 
gulden.  1 

In  the  archbishopric  of  Mayence,  the  xirchbishop 
Sebastian  von  Heusenstamm  (1545-1555)  on  the  strength 
of  the  imperial  legislation  had  ordered  all  the  Jews  out 
of  his  diocese  and  had  strictly  charged  them  and  his 
subjects  on  pain  of  severe  penalty  to  abstain  in  future 
from  buying,  lending,  and  so  forth  by  usurious  contracts  ; 
however,  '  the  unattached  Jews  Uving  under  alien 
authorities,'  so  wrote  Archbishop  Daniel  Brendel,  of 
Homburg,  in  1558,  '  troubled  themselves  no  whit  about 
this  injunction,  but  continued  to  lead  the  poor  simple 
subjects  into  irrevocable  ruin/  The  archbishop  renewed 
the  orders ;  renewed  them  again  in  1577,  in  1579 
ordered  all  the  Jews  to  be  driven  out  of  the  Rheingau, 
but  all  these  '  strenuous  measures  '  were  just  as  futile 
as  those  of  Archbishop  Wolfgang  von  Dalberg  decreed 
in  1583  '  under  pain  of  severe  punishment/  In  1605 
the  interest  exacted  by  the  Jews  rose  to  the  height  of 
20-25  per  cent.,  and  their  debtors  were  over  and 
above  this  expected  to  '  be  ready  with  honorariums.'  ^ 

Similar  conditions  were  found  to  prevail  in  Protestant 
districts,  and  among  the  Protestants,  indeed,  the 
*  ingrained  hatred  of  the  people  for  the  Jews  was  most 
loudly  voiced,  a  hatred  chiefly  fostered  by  a  variety  of 
pubHcations  in  which  the  Protestants  derided  the  Jews 
and  not  infrequently  attributed  to  them  the  worst  of 
crimes,  poisoning  fountains,  especially  ritual  murders. ^ 

1  Hirn,  i.  424-425,  444. 

'  Fuller  details  are  given  by  K.  A.  Schaab,  Diplomatische  GescMchte 
der  Juden  zu  Mainz  und  dessen  Umgebung  (Mainz,  1855),  p.  177  flf. 

^  See  L.  Geiger,  '  Die  Juden  und  die  deutsche  Literatur,'  in  the 
Zeitschr.  jiir  die  GescMchte  der  Juden  in  Dezdschland,  vol.  ii.  297-374. 
John  Fischart,  also,  in  1575,  directed  a  disgusting  satirical  poem  against 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPlTAIr— USURERS  4.9 

'  What  things  are  coming  to  in  Germany  no  one 
knows/  said  the  Lutheran  preacher,  Jodokus  Ehrhardt, 
in  1558,  '  but  one  hears  everywhere,  nowadays,  nothing 
but  complaints  of  inordinate  sins  and  vices  of  all  sorts, 
of  ruin  of  trade  and  commerce,  of  impoverishment  on 
the  one  hand  and  luxury  and  extravagance  on  the  other, 
till  the  last  groschen  has  flown  from  the  pocket,  but  not 
a  single  complaint  is  so  common,  amongst  high  and  low, 
theologians,  preachers,  scholars,  and  indeed  all  classes 
of  society,  as  that  concerning  the  usury  of  the  Jews, 
those  blasphemers  of  Grod  and  enemies  of  Christ,  those 
stinking,  gnawing  leeches  who,  wherever  they  creep  in, 
suck  the  life-blood  of  the  Christians  and  drive  them  out 
of  house  and  hom.e  into  beggary.  Whatever  measures 
are  taken  against  these  most  harmful  worms  and 
blood-suckers  are  all  fruitless.  Therefore  it  would  be 
well  if  in  all  places  they  were  proceeded  with  as  Father 
Luther  advised  and  enjoined  when,  amongst  other 
things,  he  wrote  :  "  Let  their  synagogues  and  schools 
be  set  on  fire,  and  let  who  can  throw  brimstone  and 
pitch  into  the  flames  ;  if  anyone  could  throw  in  fire  from 
hell  it  would  be  good  indeed  ;  and  whatever  will  not 
burn  let  it  be  heaped  over  with  earth  and  kept  covered 
up  that  no  human  being  may  see  a  stone  or  a  brick  of  it 
to  all  eternity.     Likewise  let  their  houses  be  pulled  down 

the  Jews.  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  374  ff.  See  similar  vehement 
diatribes  against  the  Jews  in  Olorinus  Variscus  (preacher  John  Sommer 
of  Zwickau),  Geldtklage,  415-446.  '  It  is  very  instructive,'  says  Geiger,  369, 
'  to  note  how  in  the  attitude  of  the  writers  and  the  nation  towards  the 
Jews,  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  differed  from  each  other. 
Hatred  enough  existed  in  the  first  of  these  two  centuries  ;  of  outbursts 
of  hatred  there  was  no  lack  ;  nevertheless  the  general  tone  is  milder.' 
Geiger  refers  especially  in  proof  of  this  to  the  utterances  of  Trithemius, 
quoted  by  us  in  vol.  ii.  91,  97,  101  f. 

VOL.  XV.  E 


50  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  destroyed,  and  let  them  all  squat  under  sheds  or 
tents  like  the  gypsies,  that  they  may  learn  that  they  are 
not  lords  in  our  land.  Further,  the  Jews  must  be 
deprived  of  all  right  of  thoroughfare  in  the  streets,  for 
they  have  nothing  to  do  in  this  country.  If  the  lords  and 
the  princes  do  not  interdict  such  usurers  free  passage  of 
the  streets  by  law,  they  may  gather  together  in  a  mob, 
for  they  will  learn  out  of  my  book  what  the  Jews  are 
and  how  we  ought  to  deal  with  them,  having  no  regard 
to  the  safety  of  their  persons.  They  must  be  forbidden 
usury  of  every  kind,  and  all  their  ready  money  and  their 
treasures  in  silver  and  gold  must  be  taken  from  them, 
and  put  aside  to  be  preserved,  for  all  that  they  possess 
they  have  stolen  from  us  by  usury,  which  is  the  only 
way  they  have  of  getting  a  hvelihood.  I  hear  it  said 
that  the  Jews  give  large  sums  of  money  and  are  thus 
useful  to  the  lordships.  Yes,  indeed,  but  out  of  whose 
pockets  do  they  give  these  sums  ?  Not  out  of  their  own, 
but  out  of  those  of  the  lordships  and  the  subjects, 
whom  they  rob  and  plunder  by  usury.  And  so  it  comes 
to  this,  that  the  lordships  take  from  the  subjects  what 
the  Jews  give  them  :  i.e.  the  subjects  must  let  themselves 
be  fleeced  for  the  Jews  in  order  that  the  latter  may  be 
able  to  remain  in  the  country,  and  be  free  to  lie,  cheat, 
curse  and  thieve.  Hov/  those  villainous  Jews  must 
laugh  in  their  sleeves  to  see  how  disgracefully  we  let 
ourselves  be  fooled  by  them !  They  all  the  time  growing 
rich  on  our  sweat  and  blood,  whilst  we  are  poor  and 
drained  to  the  dregs.  They  fleece  us  to  the  bones,  the 
lazy  rascals  and  idle  curmudgeons ;  they  eat,  drink  and 
have  good  times  in  our  houses,  and  in  return  they  curse 
our  Lord  Christ,  our  churches,  our  princes,  and  all  of 
us ;  threaten  us  with  and  wish  us  death  and  all  disaster 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  51 

without  ceasing.  God's  wrath  is  so  great  against  them, 
that  mercy  and  pity  only  make  them  worse  and 'worse, 
while  severity  makes  them  very  Httle  better,  therefore 
again  I  say,  away  with  them/'  Such  were  the  true  and 
wise  injunctions  which  the  God-enhghtened  Father 
Luther  gave,  and  things  would  have  been  far  better  and 
more  Christian  in  German  lands  if  his  advice  had  been 
followed.  But  the  Jews  and  the  Jews'  friends,  with 
their  monies  and  their  presents  and  their  loans  to  princes 
and  lords  in  their  necessity,  have  known  how  to  evade 
all  difficulties  and  turn  everything  to  their  own  advan- 
tage, so  that  we  Christians  are  still  continuously  drained 
and  plundered  by  the  Jews  and  their  usury,  and  are 
now  httle  better  than  servants  and  slaves  to  them, 
simply  because  they  were  not  treated  as  Luther  advised, 
who  had  such  fatherly  intentions  towards  us  Germans. 
And  even  now,  in  order  that  at  last  things  may  grow 
better,  every  prince  and  ruler  ought  to  take  to  heart  and 
follow  Luther's  advice  and  admonition.'  ^ 

'  Ehrliardt,  Bl.  A- — B.  Luther's  Bedencken  und  Vermahnungen 
enjoyed  great  esteem  among  the  Protestant  theologians.  Lucas  Osiander 
the  Elder,  in  1598,  sent  Luther's  8hemhamphoras  to  Duke  Frederick 
of  Wiirtemberg,  in  support  of  his  petition  for  the  expulsion  of  all  Jews 
from  the  land.  (Moser's  Patriot.  Archiv.,  ix.  266.)  With  the  same  object 
in  view,  the  theological  faculty  at  Giessen,  in  1612,  had  Luther's  utterances 
reprinted.  {Theolog.  Bedencken,  8-14.)  When  in  1538  the  Jew  question 
was  eagerly  discussed  in  Hessian  government  circles,  the  Landgrave 
Philip  appealed  to  his  court  theologians  for  advice.  Bucer  drew  up  a 
memorandum  which  was  signed  at  Cassel,  in  1539,  by  himself  and  six 
Hessian  preachers.  In  this  memorandum  (printed  in  Bucer's  pamphlet. 
Von  den  Juden,  [Strasburg,  1539])  the  question  is  discussed  from 
a  religious  and  an  economic  point  of  view.  There  could  only  be 
one  true  religion,  it  was  argued,  and  therefore  '  contradictory  and  false 
reUgions  must  be  most  severely  punished  and  in  no  way  tolerated.  Kings, 
princes  and  towns  could  not  be  condemned  for  not  tolerating  Jews  in 
their  midst  and  for  finally  driving  them  out.'  If,  however,  any  rulers 
wished  to  show  the  Jews  tolerance,  '  they  must  subject  them  to  various 

E  2 


52  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERI^IAN  PEOPLE 

In  like  strain  spoke  also  the  Hessian  Superintendent, 
George  Nigrinus,  in  1570  :  '  God  the  Lord  had  decreed 
that  the  Jews  should  be  "  a  bye- word  and  a  mockery 
among  all  nations/'     Thence  it  followed  undeniably  that 

restrictions  ;  for  instance,  the  authorities  must  most  firmly  insist  that  the 
Jews  shall  not  erect  any  fresh  synagogues.'  In  economic  respects  Bucer 
declares  that  every  ruler  is  bound  to  see  to  it :  '  I. — ^That  the  Jews  shall 
nowhere  lend  money  to  anyone  on  usury.  II. — That  all  traflfic  in  old 
goods,  and  all  mercantile  deaUngs  shaU  be  forbidden  them.  For  so  long 
as  they  consider  that  they  have  the  right  to  defraud  us  and  to  get  unlawful 
possession  of  what  belongs  to  us,  as  though  according  to  the  meaning  of 
their  law,  they  were  to  be  our  lords  and  we  their  servants,  they  will  always 
contrive  to  get  the  better  of  Christians  in  any  business  dealings  they  may 
have  with  them.  III. — Has  not  the  Lord  uttered  this  threat  against  the 
Jews  (Deut.  28,  v.  43,  44),  "  The  stranger  that  is  within  thee  shaU  get 
above  thee  very  high ;  and  thou  shalt  come  down  very  low.  He  shall 
lend  to  thee,  and  thou  shalt  not  lend  to  him  ;  he  shall  be  the  head  and 
thou  shalt  be  the  tail "  ?  This  divine  threat  our  rulers  must  fulfil  against 
the  Jews,  and  not  set  themselves  uj)  to  be  more  merciful  than  Mercy  itself, 
God  the  Lord,  although  it  is  indeed  no  mercifulness  but  rather  unmerci- 
fulness  to  spare  the  wolves  to  the  injuiy  of  the  sheep,  the  poor,  pious 
Chi'istians.  They  must,  therefore,  in  such  wise  treat  the  Jews,  accoi'ding 
to  God's  righteous  and  merciful  judgment,  that  they  may  not  be  above 
but  below  the  Chiistians,  that  they  may  be  the  tail  and  not  the  head. 
For  the  Jews,  in  their  unbeUef  and  scorn  of  Christ,  together  with  the  blood 
of  the  Lord,  of  his  beloved  apostles  and  of  so  many  martyrs,  which  by 
their  own  wish  and  by  the  just  judgment  of  God  stUl  cUngs  to  them, 
ought  to  be  made  to  suffer  severely  under  godly  rulers.  Now,  however, 
they  are  able  to  boast  (and  it  is  not  a  boast,  but  a  fact)  that  they  are 
our  lords  and  we  their  servitors,  and  not  the  other  way  round  as  God 
has  decreed.  For  tlu-ough  their  advantageous  lending,  buying  and 
seUing  they  get  everything  away  from  us  and  ours,  while  they  themselves 
parade  in  idleness  and  arrogance  with  the  sweat  of  our  people,  and  of 
almost  the  poorest  among  them.  They  comport  themselves  also  in  such  a 
manner  that  neither  they  nor  their  children  wiU  do  any  domestic  service 
for  us,  though  often  enough  our  people  become  their  servants  ;  for  they 
can  always  find  among  om-  people  some  who  wiU  light  their  fires,  cook, 
scrub,  and  do  other  work  for  them  on  their  Sabbath.  And  if  in  any  places 
they  should  still  be  allowed  to  carry  on  usury,  and  only  the  selling  old 
goods  and  trading  should  be  forbidden  them,  seeing  how  clever  and 
cumiing  they  are,  how  unscrupulous  and  unconscientious  in  fore- 
stalling and  outwitting  us,  thinking  verily  that  they  are  doing  God  a 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  53 

it  was  not  right  to  encourage  and  protect  them  in  such 
a  way  that  they  could  carry  on  unhindered  all  their 
abominable  usury,  fleecing  and  secondhand-deaHng, 
living  idle  lives  in  luxury  and  arrogance  on  the  sweat  of 

service,  they  will  without  a  shadow  of  doubt  so  manage  that  they  will 
soon  be  above  us  and  not  below  us,  the  head  and  not  the  tail.  Therefore 
no  Christian  I'ulers,  to  whom  religion  and  good  policy  are  dear,  must  allow 
these  enemies  of  Christ,  the  Jews,  to  carry  on  any  mercantile  business 
or  to  trade  in  old  goods.  IV. — Furthermore  they  must  not  even  throw 
open  to  them  those  more  respectable  and  profitable  handicrafts  in  which 
the  value  of  the  work  depends  on  the  probity  and  skill  of  the  worker, 
but  must  keep  them  down  to  the  very  lowest  and  least  profitable  kinds 
of  work,  such  as  mining,  digging,  making  ramparts,  chopping  wood  and 
stone,  burning  chalk,  sweeping  chimneys,  cleaning  out  drains,  flaying, 
butchering,  and  so  forth.  For,  as  has  already  been  said,  the  curse  has 
been  laid  on  them  by  the  merciful  Lord  God,  that  with  the  nations  among 
whom  they  dwell  they  shall  be  the  lowest  and  the  tail,  and  treated  with 
the  greatest  hardship.'  At  the  end  of  this  memorandum  the  preachers 
wrote  as  follows  :  '  We  the  undersigned  preachers  unanimously  recognise 
this  statement  as  clear  in  itself,  as  truly  Christian,  and  in  accordance  with 
Divine  Writ ;  thus  we  are  all  of  one  mind  on  the  question  of  law.  But, 
as  to  the  question  of  fact,  whether  it  is  advisable  to  tolerate  the  Jews 
any  longer  in  the  principality  of  Hesse,  the  preachers  who  live  in  the 
country  cannot  feel  any  confidence  that  the  conditions  and  regulations 
herewith  laid  down  from  divine  and  imperial  laws  will  be  fulfilled  ;  con- 
trariwise, in  view  of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  government  and  also  of 
the  Jews'  cunning  bribes  and  intrigues,  they  are  compelled  to  fear  that  if 
the  Jews  are  retained  here  any  longer  it  will  bring  certain  peril  to 
religion  and  to  the  sustenance  of  the  poor,  and  insure  profit  to  no  one. 
Accordingly  we  recognise  and  conclude  that  it  would  be  better  and  more 
profitable,  as  matters  now  stand  in  the  principality,  not  to  tolerate  the 
Jews  any  longer.'  The  Landgrave,  meanwhile,  showed  himself  more 
lenient  towards  the  Jews  than  his  court  theologians.  He  issued  a  manifesto 
to  the  officials  of  Cassel,  in  which  the  advice  of  the  preachers  was  dis- 
regarded. A  few  days  later  the  princely  manifesto,  as  well  as  the 
theologians'  memorandum,  found  its  way  into  the  hands  of  the  Jews, 
who  were  naturally  infuriated  with  the  intolerant  preachers.  In  order 
to  pay  off  the  latter  they  forthwith  published  their  memorandum  with 
the  Landgrave's  answer  ;  they  also  extolled  the  tolerance  of  the  Catholic 
Church  as  opposed  to  the  intolerance  of  the  evangelical  parsons.  Paulus, 
Die  Judenfrage  und  die  hessischen  Prediger  in  der  Reformationszeit. 
Katholik,  1891,  i.  317-324. 


54  HISTORY  OF  THE  GER]VIAN  PEOPLE 

the  poor,  yea,  verily,  of  tlie  poorest  of  the  Christians. 
They  ought,  according  to  God's  judgment  and  ordinance, 
which  he  laid  on  them  as  a  special  punishment,  to  be 
kept  to  service  and  manual  labour,  so  that  they  might  be 
reminded  of  their  abominable  sins.  They  complain 
bitterly  that  they  are  poor,  captive  people,  and  utter 
this  complaint  daily  in  their  prayers,  as  though  they 
were  hindered  by  Christ  from  returning  to  their  own 
land.  But  whatever  devil  has  brought  them  into  this 
land,  let  him  take  them  out  of  it  again.  All  the  roads 
are  open  to  them  ;  who  keeps  them  back  ?  How  often 
have  they  not  been  driven  out  by  force,  and  yet  we 
cannot  get  rid  of  them.  Would  God  that  all  rulers 
would  imitate  God's  wrath  and  expel  them  by  force  from 
the  land,  or  else  keep  them  in  subjection  and  service 
as  they  themselves  kept  the  Gibeonites  and  other 
peoples.'  If  the  rulers  will  not  drive  them  out  with  their 
odious  usury,  '  it  would  be  better  to  allot  them  a  desert 
place  to  themselves,  a  village  or  a  hamlet  where  they 
might  build  and  work  for  their  hving  like  other  people  ; 
this  would  be  far  better  than  keeping  them  here  and  there 
amongst  our  poor  people  to  suck  their  hf  e-blood.  If  they 
dwelt  alone  and  were  obliged  to  support  themselves  by 
their  own  labour  they  would  have  to  forego  a  great  deal 
of  self-gratification,  like  other  peasants,  and  would  not 
be  able  to  ride  the  high  horse  as  if  they  were  nobles.'  i 

The  theological  faculty  at  Giessen,  which  republished 
this  memorandum  in  1612,  also  invoked  the  wrath  of 
God  on  all  those  who  befriended  the  Jews.  '  It  is  well 
known,'  they  said,  '  that  in  human  and  divine  justice 
alike  the  Jews  are  bound  to  render  all  service,  obedience 

'  Theolog.  Bedencken,  21-27  ;  cf.  Goedeke,  Orundriss,  ii.  506,    No.  2, 
Geiger,  338-339,  in  the  article  quoted  above,  p.  48,  n.  3. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  55 

and  submissiveness  to  the  Christians  as  the  rightful 
bond-servants  and  vassals  of  the  latter,  and  it  is 
therefore  contrary  to  divine  and  worldly  justice  that 
a  Jew  should  in  any  way  whatever  hold  his  head  above 
a  Christian,  or  in  the  least  degree  show  the  latter  scorn 
or  cause  him  annoyance.  It  cannot  therefore  but  be 
a  very  great  scandal  for  a  Christian  to  be  constrained 
and  coerced  on  account  of  a  Jew,  especially  for  the 
sake  of  vile,  filthy,  usurious  lucre,  and  the  rulers  ought 
rather  to  execute  divine  and  human  justice  against 
the  Jews/  The  Jews  had  scandalously  abused  the 
privileges  accorded  them  by  the  imperial  laws  :  *  they 
ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  maintain  their  synagogues, 
they  must  be  kept  to  all  sorts  of  menial  work,  and 
they  must  be  taught  a  Httle  manners,  so  that  they 
might  learn  that  they  were  not  lords  but  bond-servants/ 
'  Above  all,  the  Jews  must  be  debarred  from  their 
accursed  usury  ;  for  it  is  undeniable  that  by  it  they 
transform  themselves  into  rich  gentlemen,  while  the 
Christians  on  the  other  hand  are  kept  down  by  them 
and  reduced  to  direst  poverty,  &c.,  &c.  No,  no,  my 
good  friends,  the  laudable  emperors  have  not  given  you 
any  freedom  to  practise  your  insolent  villainies,  your 
poisoning,  your  overweening,  inhuman  mercilessness, 
injustice  and  blood-sucking  against  the  Christians/  ^ 

The  court  preacher,  Lucas  Osiander,  had  spoken  no 
less  strongly  in  1598.  '  The  Jews,'  he  said,  '  are  an 
accursed  race,  rejected  and  anathematised  by  God ; 
they  are  the  devil's  bond-servants  in  body  and  in  soul/ 
'  Wherever  they  install  themselves  in  a  country  they 
ruin  the  poor  subjects  by  their  usury  and  other  such 
deahngs,    and    bring    them    to    beggary.     AVhen    they 

^  Theolog,  Bedencken,  2-8. 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

give  bargains  to  the  people  from  whom  they  expect 
to  benefit,  and  even  make  them  presents,  it  is  all  done 
at  the  expense  of  the  poor  subjects,  whom  they  fleece 
unmercifully,  and  whosoever  is  led  by  them  does  not 
soon  "  find  himself  on  a  green  branch  again/'  They 
have,  for  instance,  a  good  place  at  the  Rottweil  court 
of  justice,  whose  heavy  sentences  of  ban  and  exile 
reduce  their  debtors  to  utter  ruin/ 

Accordingly  he  admonished  Duke  Frederick  of 
Wiirtemberg  that  '  if  a  ruler  wished  to  see  his  poor  sub- 
jects grow  poorer  and  poorer  and  finally  lose  all  their 
goods  and  chattels,  he  had  only  to  consent  to  this  ac- 
cursed race  setthng  in  his  territory. '  Chri  stian  evangelical 
lords,  he  said,  who  had  been  well  reformed,  '  had  driven 
out  the  Jews  and  never  let  them  come  back  again.'  ^ 

The  preacher  Eberlin  of  Giinzburg,  in  his  funeral 
sermon  on  Count  George  II.  of  Wertheim  (flSSO),  praised 
this  prince  because  '  he  had  rescued  his  subjects  from 
the  great  land  plague  of  Jewish  usury,  by  which  so 
many  people  were  ruined  and  driven  to  beggary.'  - 

The  Calvinist  Elector  Frederick  III.  of  the  Palatinate 
would  also  not  tolerate  Jews  in  his  dominion,  and 
directed  his  successors,  in  his  will,  to  keep  them  for 
ever  out  of  the  Palatinate,  not  only  because  they  were 
'  notorious  despoilers  of  the  poor  subjects,  land  plagues, 
traitors  and  dangerous  practitioners,'  but  also,  which 
was  the  worst  part  of  it,  because  '  they  were  blas- 
phemers of  God  and  avowed  enemies  of  our  Kedeemer, 
and  of  all  those  who  honoured  and  confessed  His 
name.'"     '  But  in  spite  of  banishment  and  prohibition 

'  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv,  ix.  257-266. 

-  Cf.  A.  Kaufinann  in  the  Archiv  des  histor.  Vereins  fur  Unterfranken 
und  Aschaffenburg,  xx.  9-10. 

^  Kluckhohn,  Friedrich  der  Fromme,  387. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  57 

of  trading  with  Christians,  the  Jews/  said  the  revised 
Palatine  provincial  ordinance  of  1599,  '  continue  as  before 
to  practise  usury  to  the  injury  of  the  inhabitants/  J 

In  Wiirtemberg  Duke  Ulrich  had  aheady,  in  1536, 
issued  a  command  for  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews,  '  those 
gnawing,  mischievous  worms  ' ;  '  but  all  the  same  they 
forced  their  way  back  again,  so  that  Duke  Christopher 
endeavoured  to  prevail  on  the  Imperial  Estates  to 
expel  them  once  for  all  from  the  whole  empire. ^  Simul- 
taneously with  Osiander,  in  1598,  the  Wiirtemberg 
Provincial  Estates  petitioned  the  patron  of  the  Jews, 
Duke  Frederick,  to  free  them  from  those  '  gnawing 
worms/  '^ 

Osiander  considered  the  Jews  all  the  more  dangerous 
because  they  were  magicians,  and  as  such  associates 
and  servants  of  the  devil.  •'^ 

'  It  is  precisely  through  these  magic  arts  of  theirs," 
said  the  preacher  Jodokus  Ehrhardt  to  his  congregation, 
'  that  the  Jews  have  so  much  luck  with  their  usury 
and  are  able  to  bring  the  common  people,  the  princes, 
and  the  great  lords,  all  alike  into  their  nets  ;  for  the 
devil  helps  them  as  his  faithful  lovers,  servants  and 
associates,  till  they  have  bewitched  the  Christians 
and  got  them  into  their  power  with  their  usury  and 
other  practices."  ^ 

Henry  Schroder  of  Weissenburg  had  even  fuller 
details  to  give  about  them.  '  The  Jews,"  he  declared 
in  1613,  '  are  the  agents  of  the  devil."  '  These  blas- 
phemers and  enemies  of  Christian  blood  have  among 
their  Rabbis  some  who  can  compel  the  devil  to  bring 

^  Neumann,  Gesch.  des  Wivchers,  334.  -  Reyscher,  xii.  112, 

^  Sattler,  Herzoge  von  Wiirttemberg,  iv.  132. 

*  Moser,  Patriotisches  ArcMv,  ix.  274-286. 

^  In  the  passage  quoted  above,  note  1,  p.  56.     '^  Ehrhardt,  Bl.  B^. 


58  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

them  a  little  wooden  or  stone  image,  and  whoever 
wears  this  image  on  his  neck,  to  him  no  ruler  can 
refuse  a  request,  or  show  any  disfavour.  By  this 
means  they  get  to  know  who  has  money  and  where 
money  is  to  be  raised.  So  that  at  all  times  they  are 
the  people  who  find  the  cash  for  lords  and  princes. 
Thus  they  gain  favour  in  court ;  one  such  princely 
digger  for  devil's  hoards  may  have  about  him  a  thou- 
sand Jews,  all  intent  upon  fleecing  men,  filing  coins, 
forging  seals.  And  all  this  goes  on  unpunished  ;  it 
is  the  work  of  the  necromancer,  the  devil  who  is  their 
lord  protector.  With  the  help  of  the  devil  they 
spirit  away  all  our  good  luck  when  we  have  any 
dealings  with  them;  they  bewitch  those  who  borrow 
from  them  so  that  they  are  unable  to  pay  back, 
till  the  interest  has  grown  larger  than  the  sum 
borrowed/  ^  '  But  however  much,'  says  Jodokus 
Ehrhardt,  'people  may  attribute  to  the  magic 
arts  of  the  Jews,  if  they  want  to  know  for  what  reasons, 
in  spite  of  their  fleecing  of  the  people,  they  obtain 
so  much  favour  and  promotion  with  princes,  counts 
and  nobles,  let  me  tell  them  that  the  chief  of  these 
reasons  is  that  these  great  lords  are  deeply  in  debt  to 
the  Jews,  and  that  without  their  help  they  could  not 
hold  their  heads  above  water :  this  is  universally  known ; 
I  abstain,  out  of  respect  for  the  kings  and  princes,  from 
mentioning,  as  I  could,  many  by  name  among  whom  it 
is  well  known  that  this  sort  of  thing  is  lamentably 
common.'  '  And  consequently  in  the  territories  of 
these  rulers  the  Jews  can  grub  and  burrow,  and  drain 
and  cheat  the  poor  subjects  as  much  as  they  hke.'  ^ 

1  Scheible,  S^haltjahr,  v.  216,  219-220. 

2  Ehrhardt,  Bl.  W. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  59 

Detailed     information    comes    to    us    from    many 
quarters. 

Thus,  for  instance,  Melchior  of  Ossa,  at  the  close  of 
the  Middle  Ages  Statthalter  to  Count  WilHam  of  Henne- 
berg,  reports  :  '  The  little  country  is  full  of  Jews  who 
cruelly  and  grievously  oppress  the  poor  subjects.  They 
enjoy  more  protection  and  favour  and  more  privileged 
access  to  the  Count  William  than  do  the  councillors  or 
honourable  and  distinguished  personages.'  All  in  vain 
did  Ossa  represent  to  the  Count  that '  Rulers  were  bound 
to  protect  their  subjects  against  ruin,  and  that  he  would 
have  a  heavy  reckoning  with  God  for  having  counten- 
anced the  Jews  in  practising  such  excessive  usury  :  one 
Jew  alone  at  Untermaasfeld,  near  the  fortress  of  Henne- 
berg,  had  more  than  500  peasants  under  his  thumb 
who  were  obliged  to  pay  him  usurious  interest.'  Worse 
things  still  were  told  of  the  Jews  of  Meiningen  and 
Schleusingen  ;  uninvited  they  dared  present  themselves 
in  the  Count's  bedchamber,  and,  a  thing  unheard  of  in 
the  empire,  they  were  allowed  to  purchase  hereditary 
property.  In  vain  also,  at  Ossa's  request,  did  the 
Provincial  Estates  intervene.  Count  William  declared 
that  he  would  stand  by  his  hounds  and  his  Jews  against 
the  whole  world.  Ossa  concludes  his  report  with  the 
words  '  God  have  pity  on  us ! '  ^ 

A  synod  in  Cassel  com.plained  bitterly  in  1589  of  the 
Jews  '  who  were  chiefly  instrumental  in  keeping  the  nobles 
above  water.'  Squire  Werner  of  Gilsa  is  said  to  have 
declared  openly  before  a  whole  community  that  he  would 
hke  to  see  the  village  of  Zimmersrode  burnt  to  the 
ground,  and  he  would  then  give  all  the  acres  and  meadows 
into  the  hands  of  Jews  only.     '  The  people  were  brought 

'  von  Langenn,  M.  von  Ossa,  151-152. 


60  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

to  such  extremity  by  the  Jews  that  on  Sunday  and 
on  high  Christian  festivals  they  were  obhged  during 
service  time  to  brew  their  beer,  kill  their  cattle  and 
commit  field  robberies  for  them/  ^ 

'  The  poor  Christians/  it  was  elsewhere  complained, 
'  are  obliged  to  do  everything  for  the  Jews  that  the 
latter  exact  of  them.  And  this  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  they  are  so  terribly  in  debt  to  the  Jews  with 
high,  usurious  interest  and  compound  interest  that 
frequently  they  have  httle  or  nothing  that  they  can  call 
their  own.  Often  and  often  the  fruits  of  the  field  are 
promised  to  the  Jews  long  before  they  are  garnered  in, 
and  how  much  is  left  for  the  poor  peasants  themselves 
and  their  wives  and  children  ?  Tell  me,  I  pray,  how 
much  cattle  of  their  own  do  the  peasants  possess  in  those 
places  where  Jews  are  settled  ?  Does  it  not  all,  or 
almost  all,  belong  to  the  Jews  ?  And  those  of  the  nobles 
who,  being  themselves  indebted  to  the  Jews,  are  their 
friends  and  abettors,  allow  all  this  to  go  on  unpunished, 
do  not  protect  the  poor  man  on  his  land  against  the  devil 
of  usury,  as  they  ought  in  justice  to  do,  but,  far  from  it, 
go  on  giving  the  Jews  protection  and  support  when  the 
government  of  the  land  has  ordered  their  expulsion.' ^ 

When  in  the  margraviate  of  Ansbach-Bayreuth,  in 
1558,  stringent  orders  were  issued  that  any  Jew  setting 
foot  in  the  land  without  a  safe-conduct  should  be  an 
outlaw,  and  any  money  due  to  him  by  the  subjects 
should  be  forfeited,  the  Jews  estabhshed  themselves 
firmly  among  the  nobles,  until  in  1582  another  princely 
edict  was  issued  enjoining  that  without  further  ado 
they  were  to  be  expelled  from  all  the  lands  of  the 

'  Zeilschr.  filr  hessische  Gesch.  und  Landeskunde,  vi.  312-314. 
-  Ehrhardt,  Bl.  B^ 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  61 

nobles.  Hatred  of  the  Jews  was  so  intense  in  the 
margraviate  that  in  the  tax-roll  they  were  dehberately 
placed  below  the  cattle ;  at  public  tribunals  they  were 
rated  and  scolded  hke  unbeheving  Chaldaeans  and 
heathen,  and  an  oath  from  a  Jew  was  not  recognised 
'  because  they  had  no  souls  and  no  God/  ^  '  The  Jews 
are  enemies  of  God  and  of  His  Son/  said  the  Bayreuth 
Superintendent-General,  Christopher  Schleupner,  in 
1612,  to  the  Margravine  Maria,  warning  her  earnestly 
against  showing  favour  to  and  '  admitting  into  the 
country  the  accursed  land- destroying  Jews.'  '  The  curse 
of  God,'  he  said,  '  followed  these  outcast  people  and  laid 
all  houses  and  lands  waste ;  they  were  assassins  who 
put  to  death  emperors,  kings,  electors  and  princes,  and 
had  not  even  spared  the  highly  laudable,  princely  house 
of  Brandenburg ;  they  practised  unutterable  usury,  as 
indeed  was  known  from  the  calculations  made  by  learned 
people  in  pamphlets  showing  that  those  who  exact  two 
pfennig  a  week  on  one  gulden  in  twenty  years  with 
one  florin,  do  the  Christians  out  of  51,854  florins, 
13  schillings  and  3J  pfennig.'- 

But  in  this  quotation  Schleupner  was  at  fault. 
He  no  doubt  based  his  statement  on  the  '  Table  of  calcu- 
lated rates  of  usury  published  in  the  same  year  by  the 
Giessen  theological  faculty,  showing  what  amount  one 
gulden  at  fifteen  batzen  interest  will  reahse  in  twenty 
years,  with  the  capital  added  in.'  This  table  was  taken 
from  a  little  book  written  in  1531  '  as  a  warning  to  the 
Christians  against  the  usury  of  the  Jews.'  It  says,  for 
instance  :  '  Two  Frankfort  pennies  a  week  for  one  gulden 
produces    interest    as   follows :    in    the    first   year,  11 

^  Lang,  iii.  316-318.  *  Kraussold,  241-245. 


62  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

schillings,  5  pfennig ;  in  the  next  year,  1  gulden,  4  schilhngs, 
and  6  hellers  ;  in  the  third- year,  2  gulden,  6  schilhngs ; 
...  in  the  twelfth  year,  110  gulden,  18  schillings, 
6  hellers;  ...  in  the  twentieth  year,  2592  gulden, 
17  schillings,  4  hellers.  Item,  20  florins  in  twenty 
years  according  to  this  calculation,  51,854  florins, 
3  sch.,  6 J  hellers.'  ^  Thus  Schleupner  gave  the 
interest  calculated  on  twenty  florins  as  that  of  one 
only. 

Among  the  people  such  reckless  statements  as 
this  must  have  contributed  to  raise  their  hatred  of 
the  Jews  to  the  pitch  of  which  Ehrhardt  says  '  in 
every  single  Jew  they  saw  nothing  but  the  devil 
incarnate.'  ^ 

'  The  devilish  practice  of  the  Jews  with  usury ' 
amounted  fully  to  four  hellers  a  week  for  one  gulden.  ^ 
This,  however,  would  be  more  bearable  if  they  were  not 
allowed  so  much  other  sort  of  fleecing.  '  They  are 
suffered  to  have  a  hand  in  every  kind  of  trade  and 
industry,  and  to  rob  the  Christians  in  every  possible 
manner,  as  we  see  daily  before  our  eyes  in  all  the  places 
where  they  have  intruded  themselves.'^ 

Phihp  von  AUendorf  had  already  complained  on  this 
score  in  1535  in  his  poem  *Der  Juden  Badstub';  in 
earher  times  the  Jews  had  only  been  allowed  to  practise 
usury  with  money ;  now,  however,  there  was  not  a  single 
trade  left  of  which  they  had  not  become  possessed  ; 
they  did  business  in  wine,  corn,  hnen,  woollen  goods, 

1  Theolog.  Bedencken,  28.  2  Ehrhardt,  Bl.  C. 

^  At  Nuremberg,  in  1618,  a  pubHc  pawnhouse  was  erected  for  the 
protection  of  the  needy  burghers  who  were  obhged  to  give  the  Jews  a 
weekly  payment  of  three  hellers  out  of  every  gulden.  Siebenkees,  iv. 
570-571. 

'  Ehrhardt,  Bl.  C-. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  63 

velvet,  silk,  spices,  &c.     '  They  were  the  largest  traders 
in  the  land/ 

So  tight  they  now  put  on  the  screws, 
We  Christians  slaves  are  to  the  Jews, 
A  heart  of  stone  it  eke  might  touch 
That  they  should  harry  us  so  much, 
That  they  should  screw  us  down  so  tight 
And  no  one  dare  improve  our  pUght. 

In  Germany,  as  in  their  Promised  Land,  they  were 
freer  than  any  people  in  Christendom/  In  a  '  comedy  ' 
known  already  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  called  'Das  Wohlgesprochene  Urteil  eines  weib- 
lichen  Stiidenten  '  or  '  der  Jud  von  Venedig,"'  the  Jews 
are  blamed  because,  however  narrow  were  the  limita- 
tions imposed  on  their  trade  and  business,  they  never- 
theless spread  themselves  so  far  around  that  they  not 
only  got  into  their  hands,  by  their  usury,  the  property 
of  many  nobles  and  commoners,  but  also  poached  on 
royal  preserves,  'getting  their  fingers  in'  to  royal 
regaha,  taxes  and  revenues.  *  Naked  and  empty  they 
must  be  driven  out,  then  the  land  would  be  free  from 
such  vermin,  and  the  subjects  would  no  longer  depend 
more  on  lending  and  borrowing  than  on  handicraft 
and  industry/  ~ 

But  '  however  thick  we  may  pile  it  on  the  Jews,' 
says  a  leaflet  of  the  year  1590, '  is  it  not  almost  laughable, 
if  it  were  not  tragic  ?  Who  is  it  who  lets  them  thus 
traffic  without  shame  or  scruple?  Who  helps  them? 
Who  is  there  who  can  do  without  them  ?     Who  without 

'  Der  Juden  Badstvh.  '  Ein  anzeygung  jrer  mannigfeltigen,  sched- 
lichen  Hendel  zur  Warnung  aUen  Christen '  (1535),  Bl.  B.  l\  C.  2, 4.  In  the 
years  1604  and  1611  the  poem  was  reprinted ;  cf.  Goedeke,  Grundriss,  ii. 
281,  No.  30. 

^  Meissner,  Die  englischen  Komodianten  in  Oesterreich  (Vienna,  1884), 
pp.  132,  133  ;  cf.  106. 


64  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

their  help  could  fleece  the  poor  peasants  down  to  the 
very  marrow,  as  has  now  become  the  custom  ? ' 

The  Jew's  guilt  is  a  score, 

The  Christian's  ten  times  more.^ 

The  way  in  which  economic  conditions  '  in  life, 
trade  and  business,'  had  shaped  themselves  is  graphic- 
ally depicted  in  a  '  serious  admonition  to  the  whole  of 
evangelical  Germany  '  of  the  year  1616.  '  We  make 
war  upon  and  exhaust  the  poor  people  daily,  we  take 
presents  and  usury  from  them,  and  we  not  only  suffer 
that  the  Jews  and  the  Christians  should  ruin  each  other, 
but  we  actually  lend  the  Jews  money  ourselves  in  order 
to  secure  their  help  in  draining  the  life-blood  from 
our  poor  fellow-Christians.  What  has  been  the  result 
of  God's  training  during  so  many  years  by  the  en- 
lightening evangel  ?  What  has  God's  goodness  and 
long-suffering  produced  ?  It  has  verily  brought  up 
wolves  which  bite  and  devour  the  poor  people.' 

'  The  tremendous  Jewish  extortions  proceed  from 
idleness  which,  in  the  towns  especially,  has  gained  the 
upper  hand.  For  the  fruits  of  idleness  are  essentially 
lounging,  gambling,  extravagance  in  dress  and  house- 
keeping, making  a  fine  display,  whence  follow  all  sorts 
of  artful  devices  and  tricks  for  getting  hold  of  money. 
Now,  when  in  town  and  country  the  young  are  thus 
brought  up  and  instructed,  what  can  be  hoped  for  when 
these  young  people  have  grown  to  maturity  ?  The 
Jews  are  their  schoolmasters,  godless  usurious  people 
are  their  fathers  and  closest  friends.' 

'  We  look  at  each  other  and  ask  :  how  comes  it  to 
pass  that  there  is  thus  no  money  among  the  people  ? 

1  Judenspiess  und  Christenspiess,  *bya  simple  but  thoughtful  layman  ' 
(1590),  p.  2. 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  65 

What  is  the  reason  why  everything  is  so  dear  ?  It 
comes  in  very  great  measure  from  the  fact  that  we  have 
an  inordinate  number  of  idhng  financiers  and  extortion- 
ers among  us,  who  do  no  useful  work  of  any  sort,  but 
amass  enormous  gains  with  very  httle  capital  by  follow- 
ing the  usurious  practices  of  the  Jews  and  other  usurious 
Christians.  Money  goes  out  of  the  land  to  buy  silk, 
velvet,  passementerie  and  costly  wares,  also  foreign 
wine  and  all  sorts  of  lickerish,  new  and  rare  spices. 
And  nobody  consumes  these  things  in  greater  excess 
and  superfluity  than  these  said  idle  usurers,  extortion- 
ers, pensioners,  and  people  living  on  their  rents,  Jews 
and  Jews'  associates.' 

By  reason  of  these  capitalists  living  on  unearned 
incomes,  the  working  people  became  reduced  to  regular 
bond-service.  'Every  working  man  in  his  particular 
calhng  was  obliged  to  labour  and  pay  for  such  people 
as  well  as  for  the  Jews  themselves.  Since  people  need 
money,  they  are  obliged  to  run  after  these  extortioners, 
because  no  other  means  are  at  hand.  In  this  way  our 
Christian  Jews,  by  dint  of  bills  and  writs,  appropriate 
the  houses  and  goods  of  the  poor ;  they  sweat  and 
bleed  them  to  death  :  a  murder  in  the  eyes  of  God. 
For  all  who  are  tributary  and,  as  it  were,  holding  a 
feof  must  hang  on  to  their  lords,  must  think,  speak 
and  do  whatever  their  feudal  lord  or  squire  dictates 
or  wishes.  Thereby  freedom  is  lost,  votes  are  sold, 
and  servitude  more  oppressive  than  of  yore  is  entered." 

'  Still  more  lamentable  is  it  that  when  the  father 
dies  and  the  poor  widows  and  orphans  are  left,  the  oppres- 
sion, blood-sucking  and  extortion  attain  their  climax  ; 
the  poor  bereaved  families  are  driven  to  beggary  or 
even  to  the  grave — and  all  this,  forsooth,  must  not  be 

VOL.  XV.  F 


66  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

called  murder.  Do  we  imagine  that  the  righteous  God 
will  not  take  vengeance  when  such  rack-renters  and 
Judaizers  great  and  small  make  the  poor  man's  poverty 
even  more  crushing,  increase  misery  beyond  all  measure, 
ruin  towns  and  villages,  as  it  were  rob  and  plunder 
them  ?  ' 

'  Our  fathers  and  forbears  protected  the  poor,  and 
lent  money  to  those  in  need  at  four  per  cent,  interest, 
as  is  seen  from  old  letters  of  credit ;  in  all  their  deahngs 
they  were  merciful,  pitiful  and  honourable.  They 
were  plainly,  simply  and  respectably  clothed,  their 
hands  and  their  hearts  were  set  on  work  and  honesty  ; 
whereas  nowadays  the  majority  wear  whole  shoploads 
of  clothes  and  their  hands  and  their  hearts  are  not  busy 
with  work,  virtue  and  honesty,  but  with  wanton,  luxuri- 
ous dress  and  adornment :  they  are  nothing  more  or 
less  than  sign  boards  of  feminine  and  unsteady  minds.' 

'  Everybody  in  all  classes,  high  and  low,  learned  and 
unlearned,  burghers  and  peasants,  rich  and  poor,  is 
saying :  this  state  of  things  cannot  last  in  the  long 
run,  it  must  soon  break  up.  Who  has  told  this  to 
everybody  and  to  the  common  people  ?  In  very 
truth  their  own  consciences.  Therefore,  since  at  the 
present  day  this  is  recognised  by  the  common  people, 
it  would  be  well  if  our  intelhgent  pohticians  and  coun- 
cillors, in  all  places,  were  one  day  to  join  together  in  a 
better  alHance  and  say  out  frankly  why  it  is  that  our 
commonwealth  cannot  long  stand,  and  what  is  to  be 
done  in  order  that  we  may  return  to  and  remain  in 
national  well-being.  Otherwise  the  destruction  and 
ruin  of  the  German  nation  by  foreign  war  is 
inevitable.'  ^ 

'  Reformatio  Evangelicorum,  8-17,  36,  40, 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAI^USURERS  67 

A  Catholic  priest,  Wolfgang  Stadlmeyer,  curate  at 
Metten,  who  in  the  years  1589  and  1590,  '  for  the 
benefit  of  all  and  every  good-hearted  Christian  '  gave 
an  enlightening  account  of  '  all  the  conditions  which 
had  arisen  out  of  extortionate  interest  and  usury,'  and 
in  so  doing  '  came  to  speak  about  the  despoiling  of  the 
Jews,'  put  the  following  question  :  '  How  could  the 
Jews  have  succeeded  in  working  so  much  mischief 
and  ruin  with  their  usury  and  usurious  contracts,  money 
dealings,  and  all  their  other  financial  proceedings,  if 
the  Christians  had  not  everywhere  played  into  their 
hands,  and  by  their  laziness  in  work,  their  extravagance 
and  love  of  display,  come  to  need  the  Jews'  assistance, 
and  only  too  gladly  run  after  them  and  participated 
in  their  "  manoeuvrings  "  ?  People  complain  of  the 
Jews  only,  and  forget  to  say,  as  in  justice  they  should, 
Mea  maxima  culfa,  my  own  fault  is  the  greatest. 
Had  we  acted  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  canon 
laws  and  the  fathers  and  instructors  of  the  Church, 
who  forbid  all  interest  and  usury  on  pain  of  severe 
punishment,  and  had  we  earned  our  livelihoods  by 
honourable  work  in  industries  and  trade  as  is  every- 
body's duty,  we  should  not  have  come  to  all  this  misery 
and  ruin,  which  are  now  seen  in  all  classes.  For  Church 
laws  and  edicts  the  majority  now  care  no  whit ;  they 
laugh  at  and  ridicule  those  that  are  still  opposed  to 
taking  interest  and  usury  on  money.  Of  those  who 
have  a  httle  money  and  property,  especially  the  young 
generation,  only  a  few  care  nowadays  to  work  industri- 
ously ;  they  prefer  to  lounge  about  idly,  to  spend  money, 
and  make  a  dash  ;  they  want  to  grow  rich  at  one  go 
by  interest,  bonds,  money-changing,  and  all  sorts  of 
nefarious  arts  and  practices.     In  all  this  the  Jews  are 

F    2 


68  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

their  best  helpers  and  masters.  And  everything  goes 
to  the  profit  of  the  Jews  and  the  Christian  Jew-associates, 
to  the  ruin  of  all  those  among  the  burghers  and  the 
peasants  who  earn  their  daily  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their 
brow,  and  the  uncircumcised  Jews  are  often  much 
worse  than  the  circumcised  ones/  '  In  former  days 
usury  brought  people  into  ridicule  and  disgrace.  A 
usurer's  house  or  den  was  always  called  the  devil's 
property  ;  no  right-minded  person  would  have  borrowed 
a  light  from  him  ;  the  children  in  the  street  fled  from 
such  people.  Now,  however,  Christianity  has  increased 
to  such  an  extent  that  people  take  their  hats  of!  to 
usurers ;  when  Jews  die  they  are  buried  with  great  splen- 
dour like  any  pious  Christians.'  Burghers  and  peasants 
came  to  ruin  through  the  usurers  ;  money  and  property 
came  into  the  hands  of  few.  '  Possessions  that  have 
long  been  very  dear  and  precious  to  some  owner,  must 
be  valued,  sold  for  half  the  price,  in  order  that  the 
usurer  might  have  his  money  with  interest.'  '  When 
all  the  members  of  the  community  have  each  some- 
thing, then  things  go  well ;  but  when  property  gets 
into  a  heap,  it  is  the  ruin  of  the  country.' 

'  Only  when  all  has  gone  to  sixes  and  sevens,  when 
a  small  band  of  Jews  and  Christian  Jews  have  got  all 
the  money  and  land  into  their  own  hands,  when  money 
alone  is  productive,  and  labour  has  consequently  become 
unproductive,  when  most  of  the  artisans,  burghers 
and  peasants  are  sold  out  and  impoverished,  and 
reduced  to  beggary,  then  only  will  it  be  recognised 
how  more  than  wise  were  the  Church  and  her  holy 
teachers  and  the  canon  law  in  their  enactments  against 
interest  and  usury,  and  in  classing  usurers  with  robbers, 
incendiaries  and  thieves,  putting  them  under  the  ban, 


COMMERCE  AND  CAPITAL— USURERS  69 

refusing  them  Christian  burial,  and  treating  their 
wills  and  testaments  as  invalid ;  and  how  salutary 
and  useful  these  stringent  laws  and  penalties  have  been 
to  the  whole  nation,  high  and  low,  however  much  the 
idle  money-grabbers,  usurers,  financiers,  and  fleecers  of 
the  people  may  rage  at  and  abuse  them.'  i 

As  '  a  special  kind  of  usury  and  extortion  which 
the  Jews  and  the  Jews'  associates  practised  not  only 
among  mercantile  people,  but  also  among  princes, 
counts  and  lords,  and  municipal  authorities,  to  the 
direst  ruin  of  the  subjects,  and  the  heightening  of  the 
prices  of  all  food  and  wares,'  Stadlmeyer  describes 
'  the  most  unholy  proceedings  with  coinage,  viz. 
adulteration,  clipping,  falsification,  and  transporting 
good  coinage,  and  everything  else  connected  with 
this  godless  traffic'  '  Wherefore,'  he  concludes,  '  it 
would  be  no  wonder  if  God  were  to  set  fire  to  all 
the  produce  of  the  mines  in  punishment  of  these 
offenders.'  ^ 

^  B.  Stadlmeyer,  Kurtze  dock  niitzliche  Lehr  vom  Geitz  und  seinen  Frilchten 
allermeist  aber  vom  Wucher,  dem  gemeynen  Laster  (dedicated  to  the  hereditary 
marshal  of  the  Tyrolese,  Balthasar  Trautson,  baron  zu  Sprechenstein  und 
Schroffenstein),  Ingolstadt,  1859,  pp.  34,  53,  108,  112-113.  (Predigt) 
vom  Zinsnehmen  und  Wuchern  tmd  was  damals  fiir  Schaden  und 
Verderbniss  erfolgt  (Ingolstadt,  1590),  pp.  4-5,  8. 

-  Vom  Zinsnehmen,  11. 


70  HISTORY   OF  THE   GERMAN  PEOPLE 


CHAPTER  II 

MINTING   AND   MINING 

Another  cause  of  most  serious  damage  to  German 
trade  and  commerce,  as  well  as  to  the  whole  internal 
economy  of  the  nation,  was  the  unspeakable  confusion 
and  disorganisation  which  prevailed  in  the  mint  system, 
and  which  increased  from  decade  to  decade.  Amid  the 
growing  anarchy  in  all  financial  and  monetary  affairs 
the  general  condition  of  people  and  of  state  presented 
a  melancholy  aspect. 

Imperial  mint  ordinances  of  1524,  1551  and  1559, 
as  well  as  earher  and  later  recesses  and  imperial  edicts, 
intended  to  remedy  the  evils,  all  proved  futile.  The 
emperors  who  issued  them  took  not  the  slightest  trouble 
to  enforce  them  in  their  hereditary  lands  ;  '  for  many 
years  it  was  impossible  to  arrive  at  instituting  a  uniform, 
constant,  and  genuine  system  of  coinage  in  the  empire.' 
After  the  hope  of  effecting  unity  by  means  of  imperial 
statutes  had  been  abandoned,  the  management  of  the 
mint  was  made  over  to  the  Circle  administration  ;  but 
the  decision  of  the  Frankfort  Assembly  of  Deputies  in 
1571  to  erect  mint-houses  for  the  different  circles  was 
not  carried  into  effect.  Smaller  mint  associations  also 
which  were  formed  between  South  German  towns, 
between  Rhenish  electors  and  between  Hanseatic  towns 
failed  to  produce  any  improvement.     In  consequence 


MINTING  AND  MINING  71 

of  the  religious  disturbances  the  Estates  were  so 
estranged  from  and  hostile  to  each  other  that  they  even 
fought  each  other  in  the  matter  of  coinage.  All,  even 
the  least  important  of  them,  claimed  independent  mint 
rights  and  exploited  them  to  their  own  advantage  in 
every  imaginable  way.  They  overreached  each  other 
as  much  as  possible  by  melting  down  the  large  good 
coins  and  substituting  for  them  small  inferior  kinds  of 
money,  and  they  even  went  so  far  as  to  defraud  each 
other  by  adulteration  of  coins,  especially  in  regard  to 
alloy.  In  addition  to  the  innumerable  different  minting- 
places  aheady  existing  there  sprang  up  a  multitude  of 
coining  dens,  in  which  falsification  of  coins  was  practised 
on  a  large  scale.  ^ 

Nearly  everything  connected  with  coinage  turns  on 
'  draining  and  squeezing '  the  industrious  members  of 
society,  and  the  manoeuvrings  that  went  on  to  this  end 
were  diverse  and  manifold.  Some  of  the  dodges  are 
recounted  by  Cyriakus  Spangenberg  in  1592.  He 
writes,  for  instance  :  '  The  great  lords  do  not  act  rightly 
when  they  shut  their  eyes  and  allow  their  ministers  to 
strike  coins  below  the  standard  value  in  order  that  they 
may  have  more  money  for  themselves.  Item,  when  for 
their  own  personal  ends  they  allow  false  coins  to  be 
smuggled  into  the  country.  Item,  when  the  rulers 
suppress,  or  even  prohibit  for  a  time,  the  inferior 
coinage  and  substitute  a  worse.  Then,  after  one,  two 
or  three  years,  httle  by  little,  liberate  it.  Then  once 
again  withhold  and  forbid  the  worse  coins,  and  thus  once 

^  See  Bode,  93  ff.  SchmoUer,  Ansichten,  620  ff.  Newald,  Osterr. 
Miinzwesen  unter  Maximilian  II.,  &c,,  pp.  18  ff.,  23,  65,  76,  194.  Friese, 
Miintzspiegel,  206-207.  **  Concerning  the  disorganisation  of  the  coinage 
system  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  see  also  Steinhausen, 
Der  Kaufmann  in  der  deutschen  Vergangenheit,  p.  87  ff. 


72  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

more  effect  a  substitute,  in  order  to  reap  the  same  profit 
afresh.  Also  when  they  pay  their  vassals  their  wages, 
or  buy  from  them  with  hght  weight  coin,  but  refuse 
to  take  similar  money  from  them  in  exchange  for  corn, 
wood  and  other  articles,  compelhng  them  to  pay  for 
such  things,  and  also  to  pay  their  taxes  with  heavy 
weight  coin/  ^ 

Bitter  complaints  were  also  raised  against  the 
merchant  and  trading  societies  for  their  oppression  and 
bleeding  of  the  people  not  only  by  usurious  interest  but 
also  by  manipulation  of  the  coinage.  '  These  merchants,' 
said  the  Frankfort  preacher  Melchior  Ambacli  in  1551, 
*  far  outstrip  the  Jews  in  usurious  practices ;  they 
despoil  and  ruin  all  the  princes  in  the  land,  get  possession 
through  usury  and  financing  of  all  the  coins  of  the 
realm,  they  chp  and  wash  them,  and  then  afiix  to 
them  whatever  value  best  suits  themselves.  In  all 
these  proceedings  they  think  very  httle  about  the  poor 
Lazarus  lying  hungry  at  their  door.'  ~  '  These  godless 
people,'  wrote  an  Esslingen  chronicler,  '  carry  on  such 
an  amount  of  coin-making  that  it  is  quite  lamentable. 
The  plague  take  the  coin-debasers  !  '  ^ 

Another  grievance,  incessantly  aired  at  all  imperial, 
deputy  and  mint  diets,  was  '  that  German  money  so  rich 
in  weight  and  value  '  was  sent  abroad  in  an  excessive 
manner.  '  I  know  from  personal  experience,'  wrote, 
for  instance,  George  Ilsimg,  baihff  of  Suabia,  fi'oni 
Augsburg  to  the  Emperor  on  December  21,  1569,  '  that 
a  goodly  number  of  well-known  merchants  in  this  town 

'  Niitzlicher  Tractat  vom  rechten  Gebrauch  und  Missbrauch  Jer  Miintzen, 
in  Friese,  Miintzspiegel,  Appendix,  239  tf. 
•  Anbach,  Klage,  Bl.  D  4. 
•'  Pfaff,  Gesch.  von  Esslingen,  722. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  73 

have  within  four  months,  openly  and  despite  the  Mint 
regulations  and  the  imperial  coinage  statutes,  sent  out 
to  Venice  and  thence  on  to  Turkey  more  than  500,000 
gulden  at  an  interest  of  50  per  cent.  From  this  it 
follows  that  not  only  here  in  Augsburg,  but  also  in 
Nuremberg,  there  is  such  a  dearth  of  money  that  all 
business  is  at  a  standstill ;  no  tradesman  can  any  longer 
deal  with  other  tradesmen,  nor  get  hold  of  any  money  ; 
and  all  this  is  having  a  most  injurious  efiect  not  only 
on  the  general  prosperity  of  Germany  but  also  on  the 
whole  of  Christendom/  According  to  a  trustworthy 
report  there  were  at  that  time  more  thalers  and  gulden 
in  Constantinople  and  Alexandria  than  could  be  ob- 
tained in  the  whole  Roman  Empire,  '  so  that  the  Turk 
can  now  make  war  upon  us  not  on  the  strength  of  his 
own  but  of  our  money,  which  is  conveyed  to  him  freely 
and  openly  for  the  sake  of  sinful  gain/  ^^ 

In  place  of  '  the  good  German  money  '  all  sorts  of 
inferior  foreign  coins  were  brought  into  the  country  and 
circulated,  and  however  often  '  this  unholy  practice, 
which  exhausted  the  empire,'  was  forbidden,  it  never- 
theless made  such  rapid  strides  in  the  course  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  that,  as  the  Emperor  declared  in 
1607, '  it  was  just  as  if  we  said  to  the  foreigners  :  "  Come, 
take  our  good  money  and  make  bad  false  coins  out  of 
it :  we  will  accept  them  as  gladly  as  the  good  ones/' '  ^ 
In  the  Italian  States,  where  there  was  a  lack  of  mines, 
German  gold  and  silver  money  was  brought  into  the 
mints ;  ^  in  Holland  it  was  melted  down  into  gold  and 

'  Reichsiagshandlungen,  de  anno   1570,  vol.  i.  529-531,  in  the  Frank- 
fort Archives. 

■  Hirsch,  iii.  329. 

=*  Ibid.  ii.  162,  350.     Fischer,  iv.  697-698. 


74  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

silver  ingots  ;  ^  in  Poland,  German  imperial  thalers  were 
made  into  inferior  coins,  but  in  the  sale  of  their  goods 
the  Poles  would  not  accept  payment  in  their  own  coins, 
which  had  been  smuggled  into  the  empire.^  '  In 
A.ugsburg  and  Nuremberg,'  wrote  the  imperial  treasurer, 
Zacharias  Geizkofler,  in  1607,  '  there  are  a  number  of 
traders  who  make  coarse  silver  ware  in  great  quantities, 
whole  bathing  sets  for  instance,  out  of  our  good  coins, 
and  send  these  articles  to  Poland  where  they  are  again 
made  into  coins/ -^ 

In  Russia,  as  the  Jesuit,  Anton  Possevin,  wrote 
from  Moscow  in  1581,  soUd  German  thalers  were  made 
into  rubles  and  smaller  coins  ;  in  Tripolis,  according 
to  a  report  of  the  Augsburg  physician,  Rauwolf,  in 
1573,  Turkish  coins  were  made  out  of  old  Joachims- 
thalers.-*' 

There  were  also  in  the  empire  '  quantities  of  different 
kinds  of  foreign  coin,  of  which  not  merely  10  or  20, 
but  actually  50,  60,  and  70  per  cent,  were  below  the 
genuine  legal  standard. ^  In  Wiirtemberg  and  Suabia 
there  were  only  a  few  imperial  coins,  scarcely  anything 
but  inferior  and  heavily  clipped  Spanish,  Italian,  and 
Polish  money.  The  Franconian  circle  was  also  deluged 
with  bad  foreign  coins."  ^'  The  Bavarian  towns  and 
markets  complained  in  1605  :    '  There  were  probably 

1  Fischer,  iv.  688.  2  Hirsch,  iii.  144,  155,  198,  293. 

•^  Ihid.  291.  See  the  complaints  of  the  deputies  from  the  imperial 
cities  of  the  year  1550  in  Hhsch,  i.  319.  For  Upper  and  Lower  Silesia 
Ferdinand  I.  issued  in  1546  a  'coin  and  silver  pagament  mandate'  in 
which  he  decreed  the  punishment  of  death  by  fire  of  exporting  '  silver 
and  "pagament"  from  the  country,'  without  regard  to  the  rank  of  the 
offender.     Steinbeck,  i.  168. 

'  Fischer,  iv.  700,  707.  '"  Hirsch,  iii.  328. 

«  Ibid.  32,  138,  217.     Sattler,  v.  175.     Fischer,  iv.  644. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  75 

over  200,000  white,  foreign,  bad  pfennigs  in  circula- 
tion/ 1  '  The  result  of  all  this  highly  pernicious  ex- 
porting of  good  German  money  and  smuggling  in  of 
bad  foreign  coins  was  plain  to  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
world  ;  everybody  was  bewaihng  the  state  of  things, 
but  with  the  want  of  imity  and  the  disorganised  con- 
dition of  the  empire,  nobody  knew  how  to  improve 
matters. ' 

'  From  the  tolerance  of  inferior  bad  foreign  coins 
there  resulted  pre-eminently,'  as  was  pointed  out  in 
the  Recess  of  a  Mint  Assembly  at  Nordlingen  in  1564, 
'  higher  prices  and  scarcity  of  all  foodstuffs  and  other 
necessaries  and  the  daily  fall  and  debasing  of  coinage. 
Foreign  nations  bring  into  the  empire  the  bad,  inferior 
coins  which  have  been  struck  out  of  good  German 
gold  and  silver,  and  pass  them  off  on  the  unwary, 
simple,  poor  man ;  change  and  transport  the  good  coins, 
and  thus  the  empire  of  the  German  nation  is  entirely 
drained  of  its  good  gold  and  silver.  What  losses  are 
by  this  means  incurred  by  all  classes,  high  and  low, 
on  their  yearly  incomes,  earned  and  unearned,  their 
rents,  interest  and  so  forth,  and  also  how  greatly 
such  persons  are  injured  by  the  base  foreign  coins, 
who  invest  their  ready  money  and  interest,  and  then 
receive  all  their  income  in  such  inferior  coin,  any  reason- 
able being  can  calculate  for  himself.'-  In  a  memo- 
randum of  the  Franconian,  Bavarian  and  Suabian 
Circle  of  1585,  this  was  dwelt  on  still  more  emphati- 
cally :  '  All  reasonable  people  must  recognise  that 
unless  steps  are  taken  to  avert  the  evil,  lords,  rulers, 
subjects  and  bond-servants  must  inevitably  all  go 
to    ruin    together    owing    to    this    criminal    tolerance. 

^  von  Freyberg,  i.  44.  2  jjirsch,  ii.  18. 


76  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Commerce  itself  will  be  destroyed  if  this  unhappy 
state  of  disorganisation  is  much  longer  connived  at ; 
for  although  many  people  let  themselves  be  persuaded 
that  if  this  bad  money  were  repudiated  all  business 
dealings  would  be  completely  upset  and  ruined,  it  is 
nevertheless  according  to  common  sense  and  daily 
experience  to  say  that  no  good  or  useful  trade  or  industry 
has  ever  maintained  itself  in  the  long  run  by  the  use  of 
inferior,  foreign,  and  forbidden  coin.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  always  found  that  countries  and  nations  are  ruined 
by  bad  coinage,  and  that  the  lack  of  good  coinage  is 
always  an  unmistakable  sign  that  the  ruin  of  the  land 
and  empire  will  speedily  follow.'  i 

But  all  admonitions  were  '  as  words  uttered  to  the 
wind."  In  1607  things  had  come  to  such  a  pass  that 
there  were  scarcely  any  large  gold  or  silver  imperial 
coins,  but  only  foreign  inferior  coins  made  out  of 
German  gold  and  silver,  and  the  few  large  coins  that 
were  still  current  had  risen  inordinately,  and  still 
day  by  day  were  exchanged  at  prices  fixed  arbitrarily 
by  private  persons !  '  The  whole  currency  of  the 
empire  was  almost  reduced  to  debased  foreign 
coins,  and  there  was  more  speculation  in  coins  than 
in  wares.' 

'  If  we  look  away,'  says  a  pamphlet  of  1612,  '  from 
the  fraudulent  abstracting  of  good  German  money, 
as  w^ell  as  from  the  innumerable  kinds  of  bad  foreign 
money  with  which  we  are  cheated,  and  turn  our  eyes 

1  Geizkofler's  Bedencken  of  the  year  1607,  in  Hirsch,  iii.  286-287.  Cf.  the 
Brandenbui-g-Ansbach  memorandum  of  1602,  in  Hirsch,  iii.  208.  The 
archducal  chamber  in  the  Tyrol  complained  in  1590  as  follows  :  '  It  has 
come  to  pass  that  wealthy  merchants  find  more  profit  in  the  exchange  of 
money  than  in  the  distribution  of  their  wares.'     Hirn,  vii.  584,  n.  4. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  77 

to  the  German  mint-owners  themselves,  what  can  we 
say  about  them  ?  There  are  no  doubt  some  honourable 
princes  and  persons  of  lower  rank,  who  would  not 
knowingly  defraud  the  poor  with  bad  money,  but  I 
cannot  mention  any  such  by  name.  On  the  other  hand  I 
have  often  heard  thoughtful  and  upright  men  say  :  "If 
you  talk  of  rare  birds,  in  our  times,  in  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  of  the  German  nation,  an  upright,  honest 
mint-master  is  about  the  rarest  that  can  be  found." 
And  in  truth  there  is  such  an  amount  of  falsifying, 
debasing,  remodelling  of  values  according  to  arbitrary 
caprice,  going  on  incessantly  with  the  coinage,  and  all 
to  the  inordinate  oppression  of  the  poor,  who  are 
utterly  in  the  dark  as  to  whether  they  have  good  or 
false  coin,  half,  a  third  or  a  quarter  of  the  right  value 
of  their  money,  or  how  long  the  good  money  will  retain 
its  value,  and  are  completely  at  sea  with  all  the  in- 
numerable coins  that  are  in  circulation  whether  inland, 
or  (and  these  are  the  most  numerous)  foreign  ones.  I 
estimate  the  number  of  such  coins  at  2000-3000, 
but  it  may  be  very  much  larger.'  ^  Undoubtedly 
it  was  larger.  The  mint-contractor,  Bartholomew 
Albrecht,  in  1606,  in  a  memorandum  to  the  im- 
perial court,  said  :  '  There  are  about  5000  kinds  of 
coin  with  different  dies  in  circulation,  and  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  learn  whence  these  different  coins 
come.'  2 

'  All  the  world,'  this  pamphlet  goes  on,  '  mints  in 
Germany  nowadays  and  issues  coins.  Circumcised  Jews, 
and  still  worse  uncircumcised  ones,  all  manner  of  low 

^  Wider  die  verbrecherischen  Munzherren  und  Milnzfdlscher  (they  must 
bend  or  break)  (without  locaUty,  1612),  p.  2. 

-  Newald,  Osterr.  Miinzivesen  unter  Maximilian  II.,  &c.,  p.  77. 


78  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

riff-raff  and  vagrants  become  mint-masters,  and  even 
governors,  for  many  of  the  Estates  of  the  empire  are 
not  ashamed  to  lease  or  sell  their  minting  rights  for 
good  money  or  advantageous  bargains,  and  thus  for  a 
long  time  a  godless  state  of  things  has  prevailed,  and 
it  is  growing  worse  every  year/  i 

This  complaint  was  well  founded. 

'  Fromi  time  immemorial,'  wrote  the  Emperor 
Maximihan  II.  in  1571,  '  we  had  had  in  our  mints 
none  but  honest  pious  workers,  trained  to  their  business. 
Since,  however,  the  fraudulent  coining  dens  have  been 
started,  "  loose  wanton  fellows,  called  mite-makers," 
have  managed  to  get  into  the  mints  here  and  there. 
In  addition  to  these  there  are  in  many  places  forgers, 
braziers,  locksmiths,  linen  and  wool  weavers,  and  many 
more  of  this  sort  who  have  abandoned  their  own 
trades,  and  are  now  employed  by  avaricious,  money- 
getting  mint-managers  to  make  false  counterfeit 
coin.' " 

In  1576  the  Emperor  intimated  to  the  Estates  that 
'  if  affairs  were  not  better  looked  into,  every  impecunious 
merchant,  Jew  and  goldsmith  would  turn  into  a  mint- 
manager,  and  these  people  persuade  the  lords  that 
it  is  in  their  power  to  procure  them  some  great  advan- 
tage, that  they  might  even  in  return  for  the  concession 
of  the  yearly  coining  give  them  40,  50,  or  even  100 
gulden  for  one  gulden  ;  in  secret,  however,  they  do 
these  lords  and  others  out  of  many  thousands  of  gulden, 
not  to  mention  the  fact  that  these  same  lords  in  whose 
names  this  false  coinage  is  minted,  lose  their  good  repute 
and  must  naturally  expect  all  sorts  of  bad  talk  about 
themselves.     It    has   been   well   said   that    a   prince's 

1  See  above,  n.  1,  p.  77.  -  Hirsch,  ii.  116. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  79 

uprightness  might  be  known  by  three  things,  viz. 
keeping  the  streets  clean,  fiilfihnent  of  his  promises,  and 
the  character  of  his  mint/  '  And,^  said  the  Emperor 
in  conclusion,  '  there  is  no  worse  kind  of  robbery  than 
wittingly  to  coin  false  money/  ^ 

As  regards  the  '  godless  transactions  '  that  went  on 
in  selling  and  leasing  mints  there  were  incessant  and 
ever-louder  complaints  at  numerous  Mint  Diets  from 
the  different  Circles  one  against  the  other.  Thus,  for 
instance,  in  a  report  of  the  Lower  Rhine  Circle  concerning 
the  coining  of  money,  it  says  :  '  In  the  Upper  Rhine 
Circle  there  have  been  found  mint-owners  who  for  their 
own  profit  and  for  the  sake  of  shameful  usury,  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  imperial  constitution,  have  sold  their 
mint  rights  to  other  financial  persons.'  Things  had 
come  to  such  a  pass  that  '  the  management  of  the  Mint 
was  allowed  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  godless  Jews  and 
egotistical  traders,  and  the  end  of  it  will  be  that  every 
private  individual  iii  the  high  department  of  the  Mint 
will  proceed  at  his  own  caprice  and  hourly  give  different 
values  to  the  different  coins,  altering  and  raising  them 
at  his  pleasure." " 

'  According  to  the  report  on  the  Mints, '  wrote  Geizkofler 
in  1607,  '  small  coins  are  minted  which  are  20,  30, 
40,  and  even  more  per  cent,  below  standard,  bearing 
the  heads,  titles  and  names  of  ecclesiastical  and  secular 


^  Hirsch,  ii.  239-240.  '  Dishonest  mint  owners  not  only  went  to 
greater  and  greater  lengths  in  the  decreasing  of  values,  but  even  dared 
to  use  the  dies  of  upright  princes,  who  had  to  go  through  the  sickening 
experience  of  seeing  coins  of  very  false  value  bearing  their  own  names, 
arms  and  Hkenesses.  Coins  moreover  which  had  proceeded  from  mints 
whose  governors  were  so  highly  respected  that  no  one  dared  bring  a 
reproach  against  them.'     Klotzsch,  i.  321. 

2  Hirsch,  iii.  242-243. 


80  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

princes  who  have  leased  for  a  yearly  income  or  sold 
their  mints  to  private  persons,  both  Christians  and 
Jews,'  1 

It  was  especially  the  '  smaller  Estates  of  the  empire 
that  were  given  to  breaking  and  melting  the  good, 
larger  coins  and  minting  bad,  inferior  ones,  such 
as  half-batzen,  drei-kreuzers  and  pfennigs,  and  thus 
deriving  great  profit  for  themselves.'  It  was  calculated 
that  a  mint- owner  with  six  workers  could  in  one  week 
produce  as  many  as  400  or  more  marks  in  half-batzen  : 
hence  '  this  sort  was  made  in  very  large  quantities  ' ;  ^ 
every  mint-worker  could  earn  seven  to  nine  florins  a 
week  by  half-batzen. ^  As  great,  if  not  greater,  '  were 
the  profits  from  the  production  of  hght,  bad  and  inferior 
pfennigs.'  The  counts  of  Erbach  and  Wertheim  coined 
such  pfennigs  in  large  quantities ;  ^  '  the  counts  at 
Solms,  the  Rhinegraves  and  others,'  so  runs  the  com- 
plaint of  the  Lower  Rhine  Circle  in  1602,  '  in  some 
places  employed  over  twenty  persons  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  oppressing  the  poor  people,  and  the  mint 
pays  the  rulers  2000,  or  maybe  1500  florins.'  '^     Count 

^  Hirsch,  iii.  287.  In  1612,  Geizkofler  wrote  in  a  memorandum 
to  the  Emperor :  '  Things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  with  the  mints 
that  not  only  every  one  of  the  Estates,  however  insignificant,  has  his 
own  way  with  the  weight  and  value  of  the  coins,  but  even  the  trades- 
people and  merchants  raise  or  sink  the  value  of  different  kinds  of  money 
from  day  to  day,  as  indeed  the  daily  experience  of  the  subjects  of  the 
Empire  in  the  damage  they  sustain  indisputably  shows.'  Liinig, 
Staatsconsilia,  i.  772. 

2  Hirsch,  ii.  349.  '  Ibid.  289.  '  Ibid.  84. 

'"  Ibid.  iii.  303.  The  Ratisbon  Imperial  Recess  of  1603  said : 
'  At  this  imperial  assembly  it  came  out  that  in  several  places,  especially  in 
the  Upper  Rhine  Circle,  there  had  been  found  mint  owners  who  employed 
twenty  and  more  workers  solely  for  the  fabrication  of  bad  coins  not 
coming  up  to  the  requirements  of  the  mint  ordinance,  and  showing  a 
deficiency  of  20,  23,  24,  26,  and  more  gulden  per  cent.'    Neue  Sammlung  der 


MINTING  AND  MINING  81 

Ludwig  von  Stolberg,  at  Konigstein  in  the  Taiinus,  in 
1573  had  313,608  pfennigs  struck  out  of  438  marks 
within  four  months  ;  in  Frankfort  itself  out  of  every 
mark,  instead  of  the  prescribed  700,  he  coined  856 
pfennigs  ;  in  1568  there  had  already  been  a  complaint 
from  the  Council  of  '  the  bad  Konigstein  coins  which 
are  minted  here.'  ^ 

The  Palatine  Counts  Richard  von  Simmern  and 
George  Hans  von  Veldenz  and  other  princes  coined  such 
bad  half-batzen  that  '  each  gulden  worked  out  at  two- 
thirds  or  even  three-quarters  above  standard  ; "  half- 
kreuzers  were  sometimes  '•'  to  the  grievous  damage  of  the 
poor  man  "  coined  at  17-26  gulden,  pfennigs  at  more 
than  40  gulden  above  their  true  value ;  thus  out  of  100 
gulden  actually  75  were  lost.'  ^ 

The  Frankfort  Fair  was  described  as  the  most 
iniquitous  place  for  the  introduction  and  circulation  of 
bad  coins.  '  Ahnost  all  bad  coins,  dreikreuzer  and 
half-batzen,'  such  was  the  complaint  made  at  a  Fran- 
conian  Circle  Diet  at  Nuremberg  in  1585,  '  come  from 
the  Netherlands  and  the  Khine  to  Frankfort,  whence 
they  are  distributed  in  the  Franconian  Circle,  so  that  it 

Eeichmhschiede,  iii.  511.  In  1570  it  was  said  in  the  Recess  of  the  Spu-es  Diet : 
'  Although  according  to  the  Mint  edict  of  1559  only  636  pfennigs  go  to  the 
Cologne  mark,  and  of  the  hellers  out  of  a  pure  Cologne  mark  (feine 
Kolnische  Mark)  not  more  than  11  gulden  5  kreuzer  must  be  produced, 
it  is  nevertheless  notorious  how  audaciously  the  famous  edict  is  defied, 
as  some  mints  coin  800  pfennigs  out  of  a  mark,  some  even  900  ;  likewise 
with  the  hellers  there  is  no  limit,  and  they  frequently  buy  up  good  im- 
perial coins,  throw  them  into  the  crucible,  recoin  them  into  bad 
pfennigs  or  heUers,  and  flood  the  country  with  them.'  Neue  Sammlung, 
iii.  304. 

^  P.    Joseph    in    the  MitteiJungen  des   Vereins  fiir  Gesch.  und  Alter - 
tumskunde,  in  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  vi.  207-208,  217,  218. 

-  Bjrsch,  ii.  300  £f. 

=*  HaberUn,  xv.  489,  and  xx.  6,  316.     Hksch,  iii.  257  ;  cf.  262. 
VOL.  XV.  G 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

is  very  disastrous  to  this  circle  to  carry  on  trade  and 
industry  with  Frankfort  and  the  Ehine/  ^ 

At  the  Frankfort  Fair  it  was  easier  to  set  bad  coins 
in  circulation,  as  in  the  great  crowd  of  strangers  and 
foreigners  gathered  together  there  was  less  risk  of  being 
at  once  recognised  as  a  false  coiner  ;  inferior  half-batzen, 
groschen  and  pfennigs  were  taken  there  '  in  cartloads 
and  barrelfuls/  " 

In  Austria,  so  it  was  said, '  whole  herring  barrels  full 
of  pfennigs  of  extraordinarily  inferior  value  were 
brought  into  the  imperial  hereditary  lands.' ^ 

In  Brandenburg  the  Elector  John  Sigismund  com- 
plained in  1617  that  his  country  was  flooded  with  bad 
pfennigs.  '  It  is  well  known  that  one  single  man  has 
brought  as  many  as  25  cwt.  of  such  pfennigs  into 
the  land ;  others  have  pronounced  themselves  ready, 
in  return  for  a  sum  of  2000  thalers  in  Eeichs- 
groschen,  to  pay  back  within  three  weeks  3000  thalers 
in  pfennigs.  Nobody,  however,  will  take  these  pfennigs 
from  our  subjects  at  their  old  value,  and  so  they  remain 
on  their  hands,  and  many  a  man,  although  he  has  plenty 
of  these  pfennigs  to  pay  with,  can  get  neither  bread  nor 
beer  for  them  ;  those  who  dwell  on  the  borders  and  have 
anything  to  sell,  keep  quite  clear  of  our  lands.' ^ 

Similar  complaints  were  made  in  Pomerania,^  where 
the  secret,  fraudulent  traffic  in  coined  metal  was  in  the 

1  Hirsch,  ii.  330-334. 

"^  P.  Joseph,  see  above,  p.  1,  n,  81.  Haberlin,  xx.  311.  **  At 
Strasburg  in  1589  the  Council  issued  an  order  against  falsifiers  of  coin 
and  distributors  of  inferior  sorts  of  money  to  the  effect  that  they  should 
be  deprived  of  all  their  posts  and  honourable  offices.     Reuss,  113. 

•'  Newald,  Osterr.  Miinzwesen  unter  Maximilian  II.,  &c.,  p.  77. 

■*  Myhus,  iv.  Abt.  1,  1187. 

'=  Dahnert,  i.  605  ;  cf.  iii.  645. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  83 

hands  of  the  numerous  Scotchmen  who  had  migrated 
there.  These  people  bought  up  the  full- weight  coins  of 
the  land  with  bad  moneys  in  order  to  melt  them  down, 
and  set  bad  money  in  circulation,  i 

In  Mecklenburg  the  Provincial  Estates  complained 
in  1609  that  '  out  of  good  silver,  by  addition  of 
copper,  bad  coins  were  struck  and  spread  among  the 
people.'  ^ 

Fear  was  expressed  that  '  if  this  sort  of  minting  and 
coining  went  on  much  longer  there  would  at  last  be 
nothing  but  small,  bad  sorts  of  copper  money  in  the 
country ' ;  whereas  formerly  '  no  copper  coins  had  been 
minted  in  the  empire,  nowadays  copper  was  gaining 
pre-eminence,  because  gold  and  silver  failed.'  "^  '  Where- 
as the  bad  sorts  of  money,'  wrote  the  Upper  Saxon 
General-mint- warden,  Christopher  Biner,  in  1609,  '  are 
now  so  common  and  in  full  sway,  so  much  so  that  scarcely 
any  others  are  current,  silver  coinage,  unless  the  rulers 
proceed  rigorously  against  this  abuse,  will  be  at  last 
completely  superseded  by  copper  coinage. '  ^  In  a  rhymed 
dialogue  entitled  '  Neues  Gesprach  von  dem  jetzigen 
unertraghchen  Geldaufsteigen  und  elenden  Zustand  im 
Miinzwesen  '  the  coins  discourse  about  their  rise  and 
fall: 

When  gold  and  silver  metal  far 

And  wide  adulterated  are, 

Where  at  last  will  coin  be  found 

That  has  the  proper  ring  and  sound  ? 

Is  it  not  a  shame  and  brand 

That  Jews  should  mint  in  German  land  ? 


'  Riemann,  602.  "  Franck,  Buch  xii.  96. 

^  In  the  pamphlet,  p.  3,  quoted  above  at  p.  77,  n.  1. 
^  Klotzsch,  ii.  449. 

G  2 


84  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

The  copper  says  : 

For  your  complaints  no  whit  I  care, 
The  case  brings  honour  to  my  share  ; 
For  silver  only  and  for  gold 
Was  any  friendship  shown  of  old  ; 
Copper  then  took  a  place  behind, 
But  things  quite  altered  now  you  '11  find, 
Gold  and  silver  now  have  fled 
And  copper  come  up  in  their  stead. 
How  will  it  please  your  honours  when 
From  copper  money 's  made  for  men  ?  ^ 

From  the  enormous  circulation  in  the  empire  of  bad 
foreign  money,  and  all  sorts  of  small  German  money 
intentionally  coined  below  standard  value,  there  had 
resulted  a  rise  in  the  value  of  the  good,  large  coins  of 
which  the  inevitable  consequence  was  a  serious  rise 
in  the  prices  of  all  commodities.  Formerly  the  imperial 
thaler  (Reichsthaler)  was  worth  only  60  kreuzer ; "  at 
the  Diet  of  1556  it  was  settled  that  68  kreuzer 
were  to  be  equal  to  1  thaler ;  in  1585  the  thaler 
was  raised  to  about  74  kreuzer,  in  1596  to  84,  in 
1607  to  88,  in  1616  to  90,  in  1618  to  92.3    Abeady 

^  Without  locaUty,  1609.  '  It  cannot  be  denied,'  wrote  the  Duchess 
EUzabeth  of  Brunswick  in  1545,  '  that  in  a  few  years,  owing  to  the  quantity 
of  minting  that  went  on  in  these  and  all  the  surrounding  lands,  great 
damage  accrued  ;  for  when  there  was  not  a  sufficient  supply  of  silver 
they  made  the  alloy  too  coarse,  and  debased  nearly  all  the  coins.'  Von 
Strombeck,  Deutscher  Fiirstenspiegel. 

2  Hirsch,  iii.  150. 

^  Cf.  Roscher,  Deutsche  N ationaldhonomik  au  der  Grenzscheide,  329. 
Geizkofler's  Bedencken  in  Hirsch,  iii.  288.  In  Hesse,  in  1592,  the  imperial 
thaler  was  worth  32  albuses  =  24  groschen  =■  18  batzen  ;  in  1607  it  was 
raised  to  33  albuses  ;  in  the  years  1608-1609  to  34  ;  in  1610  to  36  ;  in  1610- 
1612  to  40  ;  in  1613-1615  to  44 ;  in  1616-1618  to  48  albuses.  Jalirhilclier  fiir 
Nationalokonomie,  xix.  156-157.  In  the  County  of  Lippe,  whose  coins  were 
in  evil  repute,  the  thaler,  in  1606,.  was  stUl  worth  24  Fiirstengroschen ;  later  it 
was  fixed  at  56,  and  even  63  Fiirstengroschen.  Falke,  Gesch.  des  Handels,  ii. 
384.  Concerning  the  rise  in  value  of  'the  good  and  genuine  imperial  thaler'  in 
Northern  Germany,  which  occurred  in  1536-1618,see  the  Kur-Braunschweig- 
Liineburg  Landesordnungen  und  Gesetze,  iii.  (Gottingen,  1740),  400-406. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  85 

in  1576  it  was  stated  in  a  memorandum  sent  to  the 
Estates  of  the  empire  :  '  Whereas  all  too  many  inferior 
coins  are  made  in  the  land,  it  comes  about  that  not  only 
thalers  and  other  good  coins  are  broken  up,  but  the 
good  thalers  and  gold  guldens  that  are  left  over  rise 
enormously  in  value,  and  thus  all  the  electors,  princes 
and  estates  sustain  the  greatest  loss  and  damage,  for 
they  lose  nearly  the  third  part  of  their  yearly  incomes 
solely  because  the  inferior  coin  is  more  and  more 
used  in  the  country ;  for  in  former  years  with  26 
albuses  of  coin  of  the  land  one  gold  gulden  could  be 
bought,  because  26  albuses  were  equal  to  the  value 
of  one  gold  gulden  ;  now  one  must  give  36  albuses  in 
exchange  for  a  gold  gulden,  the  loss  by  which  is  easy 
to  reckon.'  ^  As  regards  the  effect  on  trade  of  all  this 
inferior  coinage,  a  report  of  the  Suabian  Circle  Diet 
of  1584  said :  '  The  comitry  is  in  the  greatest  danger ;  if 
these  abuses  are  not  checked  it  will  soon  come  about 
that  solely  by  reason  of  these  bad,  inferior  batzen 
commerce  will  be  at  a  deadlock,  greatly  to  the  loss  and 
detriment  of  the  whole  German  nation,  and  land  and 
people  must  inevitably  be  ruined/  ^ 

'  To  all  other  evils  there  was  added  the  falsification 
of  coins,  which  went  on  with  gathering  force,  just  hke  a 
highly  lucrative  handicraft,  and  was  effected  in  manifold 
ways,  by  chpping,  cementing,  breaking,  washing,  filter- 
ing, casting,  replating  and  granulating  ;  '  mint-masters 
themselves  joined  with  their  workmen  in  this  criminal 
business.3 


1  Hirsch,  ii.  238.  -  Ihid.  ii.  301. 

■'  Under  the  heading  '  Miinz-Verfalschen '  the  register  of  the 
second  and  third  volumes  of  the  Miinzarchiv  of  Hirsch  gives  a  mass  of 
references  in  proof  of  this. 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

After  the  last  third  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
number  of  so-called  '  Kipper  und  Wipper  '  (clippers  and 
sweaters)  grew  to  the  height  of  a  veritable  land  plague 
and  national  pestilence.  Towns  which  minted  good 
coins,  for  instance  Augsburg  in  1573,  were  the  most 
exposed  to  this  clipping  and  snipping.^  At  a  coin- 
testing  Diet  at  Frankfort-on-the-Oder  in  1573,  the 
General-mint- warden  of  the  Upper  Saxon  Circle  said : 
'  From  the  small  coins,  unequal  in  weight,  the  heavier 
pieces  were  picked  out  and  only  the  hghtest  were 
left  in  circulation  :  these  had  then  to  be  recoined  at 
a  loss.  The  Jews  were  blamed  for  this,  but  the 
Christians  had  also  learnt  the  trick  very  well  indeed, 
and  it  had  become  quite  common  among  them,  in 
spite  of  the  penalty  of  death  by  fire  which  was 
attached  to  it,  because  in  reality  no  punishment 
ever  followed  :  it  was  most  urgently  necessary  to  put 
a  stop  to  this  evil  practice  of  clipping."  But,  how- 
ever much  people  complained,  the  abuse  went  on 
unchecked.^ 

In  1586  some  of  the  Hansa  towns  were  accused  of 
having  carried  on  clipping  and  snipping  and  other  ne- 
farious arts. 3  At  Easter  1604  the  'clipping'  business 
was  begun  at  the  fair  at  Leipzig.*  Simultaneously 
also  it  was  started  in  the  Mark  of  Brandenburg.  "^ 
In  1609,  Wolf  Kramer,  General-assayer  of  the  Upper 
Bhine  Circle,  said  that  the  coins  were  often  clipped 
to   such   an   extent   that  out  of  one   hundred   ducats 

'  Haberlin,  ix.  74  ;  cf.  Hirn,  i.  593,  concerning  the  old,  good  Tyrolese 
coins. 

-  Falke,  Kurfurst  August,  xlvi.  51. 

•'  Fischer,  iv,  655.  ^  Vogel,  331. 

■'  Kiister,  Antiquitates  Taiigermundenses :  II.  Rittners  altmdrkisches 
Geschichtshurh,  23. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  87 

ten,  twelve,  thirteen,  or  more  pieces  were  wanting.^ 
In  1614  a  Diet  for  testing  coinage  was  held  at 
Ratisbon  in  consequence  of  '  the  almost  universal  pre- 
valence of  this  iniquitous  practice  of  money- clipping/  - 
Among  the  mint-masters  there  were  frequent  com- 
plaints that  the  merchants  clipped  and  sweated  the 
heaviest  coins.-^ 

Side  by  side  with  clipping,  the  '  genuine  false  minting 
was  at  many  periods  and  in  many  places  in  the  fullest 
swing,'  in  spite  of  the  frightful  penalties  attached  to 
false  coining.  When  in  1564  a  goldsmith,  who  had 
cast  false  coins,  was  condemned  to  death  by  fire  in 
accordance  with  the  criminal  ordinance  of  Charles 
v.,  the  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  approved  of  this 
sentence  because  '  such  rascally  tricks  as  falsification 
of  coin,  &c.,  had  become  so  extremely  comimon  that 
the  rigour  of  the  sword  must  be  enforced  as  an  example 
and  a  warning  to  others ' ;  whereas,  however,  the 
offender  had  '  only  cast  9  fl.  groschen,'  he  wished  to 
mitigate  the  punishment  to  '  both  ears  being  cut 
off  at  the  pillory,  a  false  thaler  being  branded  on  the 
criminal's  forehead,  and  banishment  from  the  country 
for  hfe.'  The  following  year  eight  men  were  sent  to 
prison  at  Leipzig  and  at  Pirna  for  false  coining/     Count 

^  Drei  unterschiedl.  newe  Miinzedicta,  &c.  (Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 
1609),  p.  25. 

2  V.  Stetten,  i.  811. 

^  '  Miinzprobationsabscliied  des  obersachsischen  Kreises  vom  7.  Mai 
1618,'  in  Hirsch,  iv.  107. 

-*  Falke,  Kurfiirst  August,  36-37.  The  Englishman,  Jolui  Taylor, 
says  in  his  accounts  of  his  travels,  written  from  Hamburg  in  1616  :  '  They 
have  in  this  country  extraordinary  modes  of  death  by  torture,  varying 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  crimes  committed :  for  example,  anyone 
who  falsifies  a  prince's  coin  is  punished  by  being  boiled  to  death  in  oil, 
and  moreover  the  victim  is  not  put  at  once  into  the  vessel,  but  by  means 


88  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Ludwig  von  Stolberg  charged  the  council  at  Frankfort- 
on-the-Maine  with  not  keeping  close  enough  watch  on 
the  false  coiners,  and  on  the  Jews  who  set  their  pro- 
ductions in  circulation.^  The  town  council  of  Cologne 
was  accused  in  1582  of  having  harboured  and  let  off 
without  punishment  persons  who  had  a  large  quantity 
of  false  crowns  about  them,  some  of  which  they  had 
circulated.^  The  Westphalian  Circle  at  a  Mint  Diet  in 
1584  issued  a  proscription  against  false  thalers  '  which 
were  all  copper  inside  with  a  thick  plating  of  silver 
outside.'  3  At  a  Mint  Diet  at  Ratisbon  in  1595 
false  thalers  were  shown  which  were  not  worth  more 
than  two  pfennig  the  mark,  and  which  had  been  coined 
by  David  Kissmeier  from  Pomerania.^  Three  years 
later  the  Duke  of  Jiilich's  mint-master  came  under 
suspicion  '  as  regards  the  stamping  of  false  gold  gul- 
dens.' '5  Under  the  die  of  the  Abbot  of  Stablo 
false  thalers,  not  worth  more  than  eight  batzen,  were 
issued."^  In  Brandenburg,  the  Elector  John  Sigismimd 
sold  the  mint  which  he  had  erected  at  Driesen  on 
the  Pohsh  frontier  to  a  mint-master  who  then  set 
in  circulation  counterfeit  Hungarian  ducats,  thalers 
and    groschen.^      In    Pomerania    clever    rogues   were 

of  ring  and  rope  hung  up  under  the  shoulders  he  is  let  down  gradually 
into  the  oil,  first  his  feet,  then  his  legs,  so  that  his  flesh  is  stewed 
on  him  while  he  is  still  alive.'  Zeitschr.  fiir  Hamburger  Oesch.,  vii.  463. 
In  Bremen  in  1519  a  false  coiner  was  burnt  in  a  pan  in  the  public 
market-place,  and  another  one  was  boiled  in  a  kettle  at  Osnabriick 
in  1531.  Tlie  same  Zeitschr.,  iv.  369-370.  Other  cases  of  the  sort 
occurred  at  Augsburg  and  Nuremberg  in  1563,  1564,  1617,  &c.  Knapp, 
p.  260. 

'  P.  Joseph,  see  above,  p.  81,  n.  1. 

-  Hirsch,  ii.  286.  ^  Haberlin,  xiv.  53. 

■»  Hirsch,  iii.  50.  -  Ibid.  118  ff. 

"  Ibid.  ii.  221.  7  lud.  iv.  25. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  89 

able  to  strike  shillings  out  of  copper  and  then  stew 
them  in  tartaric  acid  till  they  had  the  appearance 
of  genuine  coins.  ^  In  Brunswick  the  government 
under  Duke  Frederick  Uhich  forced  on  the  subjects, 
as  imperial  coins  of  full  value,  false  groschen,  thirty 
of  which  it  was  pretended  were  worth  an  imperial 
thaler,  but  which  in  reality  were  not  worth  IJ  pfennig 
apiece.-  In  many  places  in  the  empire  quantities  of 
worthless  iron  and  pewter  and  tinplate  pfennigs  were 
palmed  off  on  the  '  poor,  simple  country  people  '  instead 
of  good  money.3 

In  the  last  decade  before  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
the  entire  mint  system  had  lapsed  into  such  a  wretched 
and  intolerable  condition  that  '  a  rising  of  the  common 
people  so  heavily  laden  with  taxes  and  burdens,  a 
rising  worse  even  than  any  peasant's  war  had  been, 
seemed  imminent.'^  Many  of  the  Imperial  Estates 
themselves  in  the  years  1611  and  1615  dreaded  '  a 
rising  of  the  common  people,'  on  account  of  the  pre- 
valent coinage  abuses.'' 

1  Riemann,  610.  Bode,  166. 

^  Hirsch,  ii.  288,  and  iii.  142. 

^  '  Wider  die  verbrecherischen  Miinzlierren  und  Miinzfalscher,' 
see  above,  p.  77,  n.  1. 

'  See  the  documents  in  Hirsch,  iv.  3,  67.  **  Interesting  infor- 
mation concerning  tlie  mint  system  of  the  sixteenth  century  may 
be  found  in  the  chronicle  of  John  Oldecop  of  Hildesheim,  published 
by  Euling.  '  At  this  time,'  writes  this  chronicler  in  1510,  '  every- 
thing remained  at  the  right  price  because  the  coinage  was  good 
and  not  falsified,  and  coins  were  never  struck  oiit  of  other  coins.  If  at 
this  time  anyone  was  found  to  have  cUpped  coins,  that  person  was  hung  ; 
he  who  struck  false  coins  was  stewed  alive  in  a  pan  tiU  his  flesh  fell  from 
his  bones.  In  those  days  the  rulers  were  satisfied  with  the  taxes  and  rents 
of  their  tenants  and  did  not  connive  at  the  burghers  and  peasants  who 
enriched  themselves  by  practising  fraud  and  cunning  towards  their 
neighbour's  or  towards  strangers.     In  those  days  people  were  obhged  to 


90  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIMAX  PEOPLE 

The  decline  of  iniTiting  was  closelv  connected  with 
the  dechne  of  the  mining  industry.^ 

'  ^Miile  all  good  gold  and  silver  coinage,'  says  the 
Wiiitemberg  councillor,  George  Gadner.  in  a  memo- 
randiun  on  mintage  of  the  year  1594,  '  had  quite  dis- 
appeared from  the  whole  of  Germany,  and  those  of 
the  Imperial  Estates  who  did  not  possess  mines  of  their 

go  at  least  twice  a  year  to  confession  ;  and  confession  kept  many  back 
from  wickedness.  And  this  fact  was  first  realised  when  Dr.  Martin  Luther 
forbiide  confession  and  (though  this  is  publicly  denied)  attributed  salvation 
to  faith  alone '  (p.  33).  That  Luther  did  actually  forbid  confession  cannot 
exactly  be  said,  but  certainly  '  confession '  dropped  out  as  useless  with 
Luther  s  advent :  with  him  '  penitence  '  is  only  alarm  of  the  conscience, 
and  faith,  whence  proceeds  forgiveness.  It  is  therefore  legitimate  to 
connect  the  cessation,  the  giving  up  of  confession  with  Luther.  Hergen- 
rother,  Kirchenge-sch.,  iL  253.  The  later  coinage  troubles  as  weU  as  the  high 
prices  (cf.  107-108)  are  also  attributed  by  Oldecop  directly  to  the  Lutheran 
doctrine.  '  In  this  year  (1554)  the  freedom  of  the  Lutheran  teaching 
produced  numbers  of  false  coins,  not  only  in  silver  money  but  also  in 
gold  gulden.  Many  false  thalers  were  coined ;  some  were  too  light, 
some  were  of  lead,  some  of  copper  and  of  false  granulation.  Besides 
which  the  rulers  in  whose  countries  the  false  thalers  are  coined,  allowed 
inscriptions  to  be  fraudulently  stamped  on  them,  and  they  did  this  so 
skilfully  that  anyone  not  examining  the  thaler  very  closely,  might  have 
thought  it  was  a  good  thaler  and  coined  by  this  or  that  pious  prince.  False 
cmrency  and  rubbishy  pfennigs  were  innumerable.  Thieving,  wickedness 
and  falsehood  were  regarded  at  this  period  as  a  means  of  livelihood  and  as 
good  business  transactions.  Some  of  the  small  shopkeepers  and  other 
tradespeople  made  coins  out  of  coins,  nine  to  the  silver  groschen  or  three 
Mathier  (a  small  coin  current  in  Lower  Saxony).  The  financiers  took  the 
coins  from  Hildesheini  to  Leipzig,  where  they  gave  four  pfennigs  for  one 
silver  groschen,  when  they  had  had  nine  pfennigs  struck  to  one  silver 
groschen.  Others  carried  their  shop  goods  into  the  country  round  about, 
or  to  a  camp,  and  changed  their  false  coins  into  thalers  and  gold.  Then, 
when  their  own  coins  were  given  back  to  them  in  payment  for  groceries  or 
silk  stuffs  they  would  not  take  them.  These  defrauders  and  cheats  were 
scattered  aU  over  the  country  and  the  rulers  connived  at  it  and  let  their 
btu-ghers  enrich  themselves  by  such  dishonesty,  so  that  their  taxes  and 
dues  might  be  all  the  higher  '  (p.  380). 

^  Concerning  the  mines  and  their  yield  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
see  voL  iL  pp.  39^^. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  91 

own  stamped  and  circulated  nothing  but  bad  provincial 
coins  of  inferior  value  struck  from  good  imperial  money, 
no  other  money  could  be  brought  into  the  empire 
because  of  the  failure  of  the  fountain-head,  the  mines. 
For  nearly  all  mines  in  Germany  have  fallen  of!,  are 
dug  out  and  exhausted,  many  important  veins  are 
dried  up,  and  still  more  excellent  mining  works,  as  well 
in  Bohemia  and  Meissen  as  in  other  lands,  have  sunk 
so  much  and  have  become  so  flooded  that  they  cannot 
be  worked  at  a  profit,  and  no  more,  or  at  least  very  few, 
fresh  veins  can  be  found  ;  the  result  of  which  is  that 
not  so  much  silver,  by  a  long  way,  can  be  produced  as 
forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  and  consequently  the  ruined 
mint  cannot  recover  its  former  status/ ^  Mine-owners 
and  directors  of  mints  spoke  as  follows  :  '  It  is  known 
to  everybody  in  what  a  parlous  condition  the  mines  all 
over  Germany  are  at  present,  so  that  a  silver  mark 
costs  twice  or  three  times  as  much  as  formerly.  If, 
therefore,  coins  were  struck  of  the  same  weight  and 
value  as  of  old  when  silver  could  be  obtained  at  much 
less  cost,  the  expense  would  be  greater  than  the  profit, 
and  the  mines  would  have  to  be  left  unworked.  As, 
however,  it  is  better  to  get  a  httle  than  to  get  nothing, 
debasement  of  coinage,  which  is  the  only  way  out  of 
the  difficulty,  should  not  be  forbidden.'  ^  '  Not  before 
it  is  time,'  says  a  Mint  Report  of  the  Upper  Rhine  Circle 
of  1607,  '  it  is  being  perceived  that  the  mines  are  ex- 
hausted and  do  not  yield  anything  hke  their  former 
produce,  notwithstanding  which  the  expenses  of  working 
them  have  increased  in  every  way  during  the  last  half- 

^  Hirsch,  iii.  28,  30.     Sattler,  v.  Beilagen,  p.  97  ff. 

-  Quoted  in  Paul  Welser's  Politischer  Discurs  vorti  Miinzivesen  (1601) 
in  Hirsch,  iii.  177. 


92  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

century,  have  indeed  become  half  as  much  again/ 1 
It  was  also  pointed  out  by  Zacharias  Geizkofler  in  the 
same  year  that  '  the  mining  industry  in  all  parts  of 
Germany  was  at  a  very  low  ebb  ;  the  cost  of  raising 
the  ore  from  great  depths  and  poor  veins,  as  well 
as  the  men's  wages,  and  all  the  necessary  materials 
and  victuals  have  risen  in  price  by  half  or  even  more/  ^ 
Nuremberg  merchants,  in  the  following  year,  drew 
attention  to  the  '  great  dechne  in  the  Tyrolese,  Saxon 
and  Mansfeld  mines/  ^ 

As  early  as  1526  delegates  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony 
and  the  Counts  of  Mansfeld  complained  at  a  Mint 
Diet  that  '  at  the  present  time  the  mines  were  in  a 
condition  more  retrograde  than  progressive/  ^-  When 
George  Agricola  in  1546  described  the  wealth  of  the 
old  silver  mines  of  Freiberg,  Annaberg,  Schneeberg, 
and  Geyer,  where  silver  was  found  in  massive  quantities, '^ 
the  most  productive  times,  when,  for  instance,  the 
Annaberg  silver  ore  within  nine  years  (1496-1505) 
amounted  to  about  400,000  gulden,'''  had  long  since 
gone  by.  After  1559  the  expenditure  at  Annaberg 
during  several  years  exceeded  its  receipts/  At 
Schneeberg,  where  in  1581  over  21,000  thalers,  and  in 
1582  over  11,000  thalers,  were  distributed  among  the 
companies  the  yield  of  531  marks  of  silver  in  1593 
fell  to  306  marks  in  1594,  to  140  marks  9  lot  in  1598, 


1  Hirsch,  iii.  345.  2  md.  292.  =*  Ibid.  ii.  350. 

^  Newald,  Osterr.  Miinzwesen  unter  Ferdinand  I.,  p.  11. 
^  Falke,  Kurjiirst  August,  177. 
"  See  our  remarks,  vol.  ii.  p.  39  f. 

'  Falke,   Kurfurst  Avjgvst,    171.     **  Of.    Mitteilungen  des   Freiherger 
Altertumsvereins,  35  (Freiberg  in  Saxony,  1899),  57  fE. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  93 

and  to  83  marks  12  lot  in  1599.^  In  the  Oberharz 
seventeen  silver  mines  were  worked,  which  from  1539 
for  about  ten  years  yielded  a  certain  amount  of  produce  ; 
after  that  time,  however,  silver  mining  went  rapidly 
backwards.-  The  Mansfeld  slate  quarry,  which  for  a 
time  had  yielded  18,000  cwts.  of  copper  yearly,  sank  to 
such  an  extent  that  out  of  seventeen  smelting  houses 
scarcely  seven  still  remained.  ^  In  the  margraviate 
of  Ansbach-Bayreuth  the  yield  of  the  mines  at  Gold- 
kronach  was  once  estimated  at  1500  gold  guldens  a 
week  ;  ^'  in  1586  the  expenses  of  the  mine  were  5000  fl., 
while  the  output  was  only  500  fl. ;  in  the  Diirrenwaid  it 
was  complained  that  9000  fl.  had  been  spent,  and  only 
33  fl.  silver  produced ;  in  forty-four  years,  against  a 
yearly  gain  of  825  fl.,  2778  fl.  had  been  expended, 
not  reckoning  the  pay  of  the  mining  officials  ;  ^  an 
overseer  of  mines  at  Jagerndorf,  giving  his  opinion  in 
1599  on  the  Bavarian  mines,  said  that  in  the  process 
of  smelting  metal,  coals,  wood  and  time  were  wasted 
by  all  the  artificial  and  alchemical  means  employed  5 
alchemy  had  unfortunately  gained  too  much  head 
among  the  mining  people  ;  there  were  more  mining 
officials  than  workers. '^  In  Wiirtemburg,  also,  the 
expenses  of  mining  were  generally  greater  than  the 
receipts.''  In  Switzerland,  at  a  session  of  a  Diet  in 
1585,  it  was  stated  that  '  to  mint  coinage  of  equal 
value  to  the  imperial  coinage  was  not  only  very  difficult, 


1  Fischer,  iv.  238-239. 
-  Zeitschr.  ties  Harzvereins,  xvii.  14. 

'  Kohler,  xvi.  1.     Concerning  the  decline  of  the  mine  Harzgerode, 
see  Kohler,  xiv.  300  fE. 

'  Fischer,  iv.  236.  ^  Lang,  iii.  241,  253,  255. 

«  Ibid.  251.  ^  Fischer,  iv.  239. 


94  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

but  quite  impossible,  owing  to  the  dearth  of  silver,  for 
the  mines  that  had  been  available  in  the  country  in 
former  years  had  all,  or  most  of  them,  been  worked 
out/ 1 

The  mines  that  were  in  the  worst  state  of  collapse 
were  those  in  the  Tyrol  which  had  formerly  yielded  such 
enormous  produce.  Foreign  trading  associations,  especi- 
ally those  of  Augsbui'g,  had  long  subjected  these  mines 
to  a  most  wasteful  and  oppressive  exploitation.  For 
instance,  in  the  years  1511-1517  the  association  of  the 
Hochstetters  had  possessed  themselves,  from  the  mines 
at  Schwaz,  of  no  less  than  149,770  marks  of  refined 
silver  and  52,915  cwts.  of  copper.  The  Fuggers,  in 
1519,  obtained  from  mines  at  this  samiC  place,  given 
to  them  in  mortgage,  200,000  gulden  annually." 
Other  important  trading  houses  and  associations, 
such  as  the  Brothers  George  and  Sebastian  Andorfer, 
the  Tanzels,  the  Hofers,  and  so  forth,  also  amassed 
prodigious  profits  at  Schwaz  for  a  long  time.^  The 
dechne  was  so  remarkable  that,  for  instance,  the  profits 
reaped  by  the  Fuggers,  13  per  cent,  on  the  capital 
in  1549,  in  1555  had  sunk  to  not  more  than  3J  per 
cent.^ 

Several  of  the  foreign  trading  associations,  which  had 
got  the  whole  mining  industry  into  their  own  hands, 
became  bankrupt :  Starhen  und  verdarben  (they  died 
and  were  ruined),  as  the  Treasury  put  it,  on  mining. ^ 
Whereas  in  former  days  the  territorial  government 
had  received  annually  40,000  marks  and  more  in 
silver.  Archduke  Ferdinand  II.,  in  1569,  found  himself 

1  Hirsch,  ii.  324-325.  2  Greiff,  94.  =<  Peetz,  46,  49. 

■*  Zeitschr.  des  histor.  Vcreins  fiir  Schwaben  und  Neuburg,  ix.  210. 
*  Him,  i.  548-550.     Peetz,  153. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  95 

compelled  for  a  matter  of  2000  marks  owed  to  his 
brother,  the  Emperor  Maximilian  11. ,  to  beg  for  an 
extended  term  of  credit. ^  Mining  operations,  he  wrote 
to  his  brother  in  1570,  became  more  costly  every 
year;  in  many  of  his  mines  he  had  already  renomiced 
socage  and  tithes,  he  gave  gratuities  and  aids  out  of 
his  other  chamber-revenues,  and  still  numbers  of 
his  mines  had  fallen  in,  while  the  costs  of  working 
them  were  higher  than  the  gains. ^  The  silver  and 
copper  mine  discovered  at  Rohrerbiihel  in  1539 
yielded  in  1552  over  22,000  marks  in  silver  alone ; 
in  the  reign  of  Ferdinand  II.  it  only  yielded 
7000-8000  marks;  the  Falkenstein  mine  near  Schwaz, 
which  had  formerly  supplied  the  territorial  prince's 
treasury  with  a  yearly  average  sum  of  20,000 
gulden  clear  profit,  in  1564  produced  only  15,000 ; 
in  1572  only  7000  gulden.'^  One  after  another  of 
the  mining  companies  withdrew ;  instead  of  twenty 
there  now  remained  only  four,  and  these  latter, 
in  the  years  1557  and  1558,  suffered  a  loss  of  30,000 
gulden. 

'  Most  of  the  veins  and  the  finest  ones,  which  had 
formerly  existed  everywhere  in  large  numbers,  were 
now,'  they  complained,  '  altogether  or  almost  worked 
out,  and  nothing  substantial  could  now  be  dug  out  of 
them  as  had  been  done  formerly :  this  was,  perhaps, 
the  consequence  of  their  sins  and  a  punishment  from 

^  Hirn,  i.  555. 

^  V.  Sperges,  111-126.  Newald,  Osterr.  Miinzwesen  unter  Maximilian 
II.,  &c.,  p.  20  ;  cf.  23. 

^  V.  Sperges,  120.  Hirn,  i.  540,  543-544.  Peetz,  49.  Cf.  A. 
Schlossar,  '  Von  versclioUenen  Tiroler  Bergwerken,'  in  the  Beilage  zur 
Munchener  Allgem.  Zeitung,  1884,  Nos.  106,  209  ;  1886,  Nos.  313,  314. 
**  And  Iser-Gaudenthurm,  143  if. 


96  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERJklAN  PEOPLE 

God.'  ^  In  the  main  it  was  the  result  of  the  long 
course  of  depredation  in  working  only  the  best  veins 
that  now  no  longer  brought  in  anj^hing.  '  Most  dis- 
astrous also  '  was  the  calamity  at  Eattenberg  on  the 
Geyer.  In  this  place  where,  fi'om  1588  to  1595,  498,733 
stars  of  silver  and  copper  ore  (the  star  reckoned  at 
108-110  pounds)  had  been  extracted,  the  yield  sank 
in  the  years  1612-1619  to  177,784  stars  of  copper;  in 
1619  only  4-5  lots  of  silver  was  obtained  from  1  cwt. 
of  ore,  and  finally,  only  2  lots.^ 

Much  more  considerable  was  the  dechne  of  the 
Bohemian  mines. 

The  Kuttenberg  mine,  in  1523,  had  still  yielded 
far  above  13,000  marks  to  the  Mint ;  in  1542  it  had 
sunk  to  such  a  degree  that  it  required  a  \\^eekly  outlay 
of  600  fl.  while  it  brought  nothing  in.  Under  Maxi- 
milian II.  it  brought  only,  on  an  average,  26,000  gulden 
into  the  imperial  treasury.  In  1616  it  was  stated 
bv  the  chief  mint-master  and  other  rehable  witnesses 
that,  during  the  last  ten  years,  a  loss  of  805,368  Meissen 
Schocks  had  been  sustained  on  the  mining  oj^erations 
at  Kuttenberg.3  In  Joachimsthal,  in  the  years  1550-1560, 
the  annual  clear  profits  had  amounted  to  40,000-60,000 
thalers,  but  they  fell  gradually  to  12,000  thalers  ;  in 
1590  they  were  not  more  than  6837,  in  1599  only  2354, 
in  1616  only  1806  thalers."*  This  once  so  populous 
city  sank  into  abject  poverty.^  The  committees  of 
inquiry  instituted  under  the  Emperor  Matthias  every 

^  Zeitschr.  des  histor.  Vereins  fiir  Schivaben  und  Neubwrg,  ix.  210-211. 
-  V.  Sperges,  127.     Peetz,  159. 

^  Gmelin,  90.     Fischer,  ii.  674.     Mosch,  i.  178-179.      Xewald,  Osterr. 
Munzwesen  unter  Maximilian  II.,  &c.,  pp.  217-218. 

*  GmeUn,  100-102.     Fischer,  iv.  234-235. 

*  Mosch,  i.  340. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  97 

two  or  three  years  for  the  purpose  of  investigating  the 
causes  of  the  continually  increasing  dechne  of  mines, 
and  of  smoothing  down  the  frequent  dissensions  of 
the  officials  amongst  each  other  and  with  outsiders,  had 
no  result.  '  The  disgraceful  bickering,  quarrelling, 
hatred,  and  envy,'  it  says  in  one  of  their  reports, 
*  which  go  on  among  the  officials,  have  been  hitherto 
the  reason  why  both  Germans  and  foreigners  have  lost 
all  taste  for  mining  operations,  and  the  mines  have 
been  brought  to  complete  ruin/  ^ 

Almost  in  all  districts  where  mining  operations  went 
on,  complaints  were  rife  concerning  the  inefficiency  or 
the  fraudulence  of  the  mine  officials. 

In  Saxony  in  the  years  1536,  1554,  1568  and  1589, 
stringent  ordinances  for  mining  works  were  issued,  but 
with  regard  to  the  execution  of  these  ordinances  we 
read  in  a  pamphlet :  '  All  the  underhandedness  and 
WTongdoing  that  go  on, in  the  mining  works,  and  how 
the  blessing  of  God  is  driven  away  by  force,  are,  alas,  open 
as  the  day."  '  It  was  above  all  necessary,'  this  pamphlet 
said,  '  that  there  should  be  a  thorough  examination 
into  the  affairs  of  the  mines,  and  that  the  revenues 
should  be  accurately  tested,  the  expenses  properly 
calculated,  the  iniquitous  cheatings  of  the  miners  and 
the  officials  punished  and  stopped,  and  things  put  on 
a  better    footing  than  had  existed  hitherto,  in  order 

'  Newald,  220.  Concerning  the  inadequateness  and  inferiority 
of  the  mine  officials  in  Silesia,  see  Steinbeck,  i.  238-239.  The  Silesian 
master  of  mines,  Hans  Unger  (1597),  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  yet 
the  Silesian  treasury  recommended  him  to  the  imperial  court  treasury  at 
Vienna  for  a  post.  The  pay  of  such  mint-masters  was  also  a  sorry  matter, 
as  well  as  their  outward  position.  Hence  incessant  complaints  from 
them  concerning  their  owTi  poverty,  constant  fault-finding  with  the 
officials,  and  distrust  of  the  company. 

VOL.  XV.  H 


98  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

that  all  tliose  things  which  were  so  criminal  before 
God,  and  which  certainly  were  largely  the  reason  why 
the  blessing  which  formerly  attended  the  mines  no 
longer  fell  so  richly,  should  be  henceforth  given  up, 
that  strangers  should  be  enticed  to  co-operation  and 
attracted  into  the  country,  the  great  treasures  still 
hidden  in  the  earth  be  discovered,  and  those  already 
discovered,  be  put  to  the  proper  use.  The  mining 
people  flatter  themselves  that  they  have  more  under- 
standing of  mines  than  anybody  else  ;  but  they  are  very 
greatly  deceived,  for  they  always  come  upon  people 
elsewhere  who  are  able  to  give  them  information  about 
great  things  hitherto  unknown.  However,  this  beauti- 
ful jealousy  has  grown  to  such  notorious  dimensions  that 
whenever  anybody  has  appeared  who  had  fresh  light 
and  instruction  to  offer  concerning  mining  matters,  such 
an  one  has  been  laughed  at  as  a  conceited  blockhead, 
and  his  proposals  so  calumniated  at  the  Treasury, 
that  he  has  been  obliged  to  withdraw  in  great  disgrace, 
or  else  he  has  been  so  hampered  and  thwarted  in  every 
way  that  he  has  had  no  alternative  but  to  succumb 
and  withdraw.'  ^ 

In  Hesse  the  Committee  of  Mines  of  the  Margrave 
Moritz,  composed  chiefly  of  foreigners,  squandered 
considerable  sums,  and  enriched  itself  at  the  expense 
of  the  country  ;  at  last  complete  bankruptcy  ensued. 
The  Director  of  the  Mines,  George  Stange,  on  whom 
the  blame  of  this  bankruptcy  fell,  defended  himself  in 
1618,  in  a  letter  to  the  Chancellor  and  the  councillors  : 
'  Under  such  management,'  he  said,  '  when  nobody 
knew  who  was  cook  and  who  was  scullion,  the  mining 
operations  could  not  possibly  go  on  ;   all  the  stored  ore 

1  Richard,  252-253. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  99 

was  melted  down  at  Iba,  and  copper  was  produced 
at  a  loss,  what  came  out  of  the  mine  was  put  back  into 
it  again,  so  that  there  was  no  longer  any  trade  .  .  . 
the  managers  at  Iba  and  E-ichelsdorf  kicked  up  a 
shindy ;  in  Kichelsdorf  the  former  contractor,  John 
Drachstadt,  wasted  50,000  gulden  on  buildings.'  i 

Among  the  '  twelve  principal  reasons  why  numbers 
of  important  mines  had  gone  to  ruin  and  become 
reduced  to  swamps,'  the  Brunswick  councillor  of  mines, 
George  Engelhart  Lohneiss,  who  had  observed  much 
disorder  and  many  abuses,  mentioned  in  the  first  place^ 
in  a  work  dedicated  to  Duke  Frederick  Ulrich,  that : 
'  The  mines  are  worked  and  officered  by  lazy,  drunken, 
insolent,  low  people,  who  have  no  understanding  of 
mining  work  and  are  unable  to  direct  the  mining 
operations. 

'Another  cause,'  he  said,  'is  that  the  rulers  of  the 
land  paid  so  Httle  for  the  metals,  such  as  silver,  lead, 
copper,  and  so  forth,  and  in  addition  took  the  ninth 
or  the  tenth  part  for  themselves,  and  did  not  contribute 
anything  to  the  heavy  expenses,  either  in  gratuities  or 
in  remission  of  charges,  and  did  not  consider  that  all 
the  items  such  as  wood,  coals,  carriage,  tallow-candles, 
iron,  leather,  provisions,  and  labour,  involved  in  the 
working  of  a  mine,  had  risen  enormously  in  price,  and 
that  all  privileges  and  ordinances  were  disregarded. 

'  For  these  reasons  the  men  no  longer  take  any 
interest  in  working  at  the  mines,  they  become  negligent, 
abuse  and  rail  at  the  mines,  say  it's  all  nothing  but 
fraud  and  self-interest,  and  thus  many  are  frightened 
away,  &c.,  &c.' 

'  Again,  not  the  least   of   the  reasons  is  that  the 

'  Rommel,  Neuere  Oeschichte  von  Hessen,  ii.  676-677. 

u  2 


100  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

corporation  is  not  careful  to  see  that  the  workmen  are 
paid  punctually  and  with  good  coins,  or  else  that  these 
coins  have  risen  so  highly  in  value  that  they  lose  several 
groschen  on  them,  also  that  instead  of  being  paid  in 
coin  they  have  to  accept  from  the  foremen  and  officials 
corn  and  so  forth  at  the  dearest  prices,  and  have  to 
drink  the  beer  they  brew  themselves/  ^ 

A  very  great  and  special  grievance  among  the 
miners  was  the  introduction  in  many  of  the  mines  of  a 
longer  shift,  that  is,  a  longer  day's  work. 

According  to  the  old  German  mining  laws  the  shift 
was  commonly  fixed  at  eight  hours  a  day,  and  this 
time  was  very  seldom  extended. ^  In  1553  Ferdinand  I. 
renewed  for  Austria  the  edict  issued  by  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  I.,  in  which  it  is  enjoined  that :  '  Each 
worker  shall,  according  to  traditional  usage,  each  day 
before  and  after  noon,  except  on  Sundays  and  on 
Saturday  afternoons,  work  for  half  a  shift  (four  hours).' 
'  In  the  high  mines  round  Schlaming,  Villach,  Steinfeld, 
Gross-Kirchheim  and  Katzthal,  where  the  workmen 
take  their  food  with  them  and  are  obhged  to  remain  up 
in  the  heights  for  fourteen  days,'  he  adds,  '  they  shall 
only  do  four  shifts,  reckoned  at  ten  hours  each,  and 
they  shall  be  paid  for  the  two  weeks  at  the  rate  of  three 
weeks.' 3     According   to  the   Bavarian   and   Salzburg 

1  Grundlicher  und  ausfiihrlicher  Bericht  von  Bergiverken,  &c.  (Leipzig 
edition,  1690),  pp.  49-50. 

'  See  our  remarks,  vol.  ii.  73  ff.  **  According  to  the  researches  of 
Neuberg,  Oosler's  Bergbau  bis  1552  (Hanover  1892),  p.  230,  the  day's 
work  in  the  renowned  Rammelberg  mines  was,  do\vn  to  1476,  Umited  to 
six  hours ;  in  this  year,  however,  an  eight  hours'  shift  was  estabhshed  ; 
but  in  1544  the  legitimate  shift  of  seven  hours  was  restored ;  whether 
this  change  came  about  thi-ough  the  agency  of  the  journeymen  unions, 
and  whether  it  had  any  socio-political  significance  is  not  evident. 

•'  Bucholtz,  Gesch,  der  Regierung  Ferdinand  des  Ersten,  viii.  244. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  101 

mine  ordinances  also,  the  day's  work  was  eight  hours, 
and  the  number  of  working  days  in  the  year  amounted 
to  260.1 

In  later  times,  however,  in  numbers  of  mines  the 
working  day  was  extended  to  twelve  hours  with  one 
hour's  pause ;  for  instance,  in  the  Nassau- Katzenelnbogen 
mine  regulations  of  1559,  and  in  the  Brunswick 
regulations  of  1593.^  '  When  the  bell  has  rung,' 
writes  Lohneiss  respecting  North  German  mines,  'the 
workmen  at  the  stroke  of  four  must  go  to  the  mines  and 
stay  there  till  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  they 
will  be  rung  off  by  the  foreman,  and  then  again  rung 

^  Peetz,  XX.  166-192.  The  Salzburg  Archbishop  Matthias  Lang  in  a  mine 
ordinance  of  the  year  1532  alludes  also  to  this  old  tradition  :  '  In  our 
diocese  and  land,  in  the  lower  mines,  the  hours  of  work  shall  everywhere 
be  5J  shifts  for  one  week,  and  eight  full  hours  to  the  shift :  four  hours  before 
noon  and  four  hours  after  noon,  up  to  Saturday,  when  every  workman, 
who  has  worked  the  four  hours  before  noon,  may  stop  work.  And  if  two 
whole  holidays  occur  in  the  week,  the  wages  shall  be  kept  back  for  only  one 
day,  but  the  men  shall  be  expected  to  work  all  the  more  industriously 
on  the  other  days  so  as  to  make  up  for  lost  time.  But  in  the  upper 
mines  where  the  workmen  take  their  food  with  them  and  have  to  stay 
the  whole  week,  there  shall  only  be  four  shifts  to  the  week,  but  ten 
hours  to  the  shift.'  Lori,  217-218,  §  27.  Likewise  Elector  Frederick  11. 
of  the  Palatinate,  in  an  Upper  Palatine  mine  ordinance  of  1548, 
enjoined  that  '  Work  shall  be  continued  for  eight  full  hours,  and  until 
the  foreman  rings  the  beU  the  men  shall  not  leave  the  place.'  Lori, 
259,  §  115.  For  the  mines  in  Silesia  the  regulations  were  :  '  The  workmen 
work  for  three  seven-hour  shifts,  with  an  hour  between  shifts  going 
and  coming  back.  In  the  night-shift  from  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  to 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  they  only  work  in  case  of  necessity,  and 
then  the  workmen  cheer  and  enhven  each  other  with  singing.  Double 
shifts  are  not  allowed.  As  on  Sundays  and  festivals  work  is  suspended, 
so  too  on  Saturday  no  work  is  to  be  done,  in  order  that  the  workpeople 
may  have  time  to  buy  their  provisions.  In  case  of  necessity,  for  instance 
if  there  is  an  inflow  of  water,  or  danger  of  the  sides  falling  in,  and  so  forth, 
exceptions  may  be  made.'  Steinbeck,  i.  209.  Six-  and  seven-hour  shifts 
were  the  rule  in  many  mines  ;  see  Achenbach  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  Bergrecht, 
xii.  110,  note,  and  Achenbach,  Gemeines  deutsches  Bergrecht,  290. 

-  Achenbach  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  Bergrecht,  xii.  110-111,  note. 


102  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

back  at  twelve  o'clock.  The  hour  from  eleven  to 
twelve  is  called  the  free  hour  for  eatuig  and  resting. 
But  as  soon  as  it  has  struck  twelve  each  one  must  go 
back  into  the  mine  to  his  work  and  remain  there  till  four 
in  the  afternoon,  and  that  is  the  day-shift.  Then 
another  bell  will  be  rung  for  the  night-shift  men  to 
begin.  These  also  have  a  free  hour  from  seven  to  eight 
in  the  evening,  and  they  must  remain  at  work  till  three 
in  the  morning :  and  so  on  and  so  on  from  one  shift 
to  the  other.  These  are  called  the  twelve-hour  shifts, 
and  they  are  suspended  on  Sundays  and  feast  days  of 
obligations.'  If  under  special  stress  of  circumstances  '  in 
order  that  the  workmen  might  be  able  to  hold  out,'  shifts 
of  only  six  to  eight  hours  were  allowed,  the  men  were 
obhged  to  make  up  for  it  by  working  also  on  the  holidays  : 
the  hammer  and  crowbar  had  to  pass  from  the  outgoing 
to  the  incoming  miner  without  stoppage  of  work.  The 
shifts  of  the  carpenters,  masons,  pit-diggers  and  other 
day  labourers,  lasted  in  summer  from  four  in  the 
morning  till  five  in  the  afternoon,  and  in  the  winter 
from  five  till  four.^ 

The  wages  of  the  miners  were  meted  out  very 
sparely.  *  Experience  shows,'  says  Lohneiss,  '  that  most 
of  the  workers  in  mines  had  nothing  more  than  what 
they  earned  weekly  by  the  dour  toil  of  their  hands, 
work  through  which  they  often  sustained  injury  and 
loss  of  health,  became  lame  or  cripples  for  hfe,  or  indeed 
lost  their  very  lives,  leaving  sickly,  uneducated  children 
behind  them.'  Here  let  it  be  said  that  every  workman 
was  obliged  to  give  two  pfennigs  a  week  to  the  journey- 
men's fund,  from  which  fund  when  he  was  disabled  from 

•  Griindlicher  und  ausfiihrlicher  Bericht  (see  above,  p.  100,  n.  1),  pp.  241 
243. 


MINTING  AND  MINING  103 

work,  or  his  family  were  in  want  after  his  death,  they 
received  the  weekly  sum  of  6-10  groschen  ;  this,  however, 
was  not  much  help  to  them.  '  It  was  therefore  to  be 
hoped  that  whereas  most  of  the  mining  people  were 
impecunious  and  poor,  the  rulers  would  show  themselves 
benevolent  and  kind  towards  the  sick  and  wounded.'  ^ 
Duke  Juhus  of  Brunswick,  who  boasted  in  1576  that 
he  had  raised  the  yearly  profits  of  his  mines  in  the 
Harz  by  84,000  gulden  higher  than  his  father  had  done, 
paid  the  workmen  so  badly  that  in  1578  he  wrote  to  the 
Landgrave  William  of  Hesse  :  '  They  are  obliged  to 
content  themselves  with  convent  fare,  i.e.  small  beer 
and  water,  because  they  get  low  wages."  ^ 

While  the  price  of  provisions  rose  continually,  the 
workmen  were  kept  at  'their  old  wages."  Thus,  for 
instance,  it  says  in  a  Schwaz  chronicle :  '  After  a  year 
of  plague  (1565)  prices  had  almost  doubled  as  compared 
with  former  years,  but  the  wages  of  the  poor  miners 
were  not  raised  :  at  the  present  time  they  cannot  even 
earn  a  blessed  loaf  of  bread ;  they  drag  on  in  direst 
poverty."  3 

At  the  same  time,  as  Lohneiss  justly  points  out  in  his 

1  p.  46. 

-  Bodemann,  200-201,  207. 

^  Hirn,  i.  557.  '  Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  owners 
of  the  mines  actually  went  on  the  plan  of  diminishing  the  workmen's 
wages.  The  way  in  which  this  was  done,  at  Hammereisenbach  in  the 
Schwarzwald,  for  instance,  was  not  only  to  pay  less  for  the  work,  but  to 
load  the  men  with  greater  burdens  and  expenses.  Before  1594  a  workman 
received  nine  kreuzer  out  of  the  bucket  of  hewn  black  ore,  and  two  batzenfor 
red  ore  ;  this  pay  was  lessened  by  one  kreuzer  on  each  bucket.  Formerly 
the  cost  of  working  the  mines,  the  digging  and  tunnelling,  together  with 
the  machinery  and  repairs,  was  defrayed  by  the  owners  ;  but  later  on 
the  expenses  were  charged  to  the  miners,  who  thus — not  to  mention  other 
losses — had  their  time  for  paid  piece-work  considerably  reduced.'  Mone 
in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xii.  388-389. 


104  HISTORY  OF  THE  GER>L4N  PEOPLE 

*  Reasons  for  the  Decline  of  Mines/  the  workmen  were 
made  to  pay  the  highest  prices  for  the  necessaries  of  hfe. 
This  was  especially  the  case  when  the  mines  were  in 
the  hands  of  money-grabbmg  trading  societies.  It  was 
calculated  in  1556,  by  the  Treasury  of  the  territorial 
prince  at  Innsbruck,  that  the  mining  companies  by 
their  consignments  of  corn  to  the  workmen  had  reaped 
a  profit  of  20,000  gulden.  In  vain  did  Archduke 
Ferdinand  II.  represent  to  the  owners  that  they  ought 
to  have  regard  for  the  poor  workmen  and  sell  them 
corn  at  a  moderate  price.  When  the  proprietors  of  the 
mine  also  took  the  baking  trade  into  their  hands,  the 
workmen  had  to  complain  that  the  loaves  were  too 
small,  and  also  that  damaged  goods  were  sold  to  them, 
and  that  oatmeal  was  actually  mixed  with  the  flour. 
'  It  is  strange,'  the  Treasury  remarked  to  the  companies, 
'  that  you  gentlemen  of  such  high  and  honourable 
standing  and  traditions  should  make  such  a  to-do 
with  your  bread-baking  and  bring  on  yourselves  such 
odium.'  1 

A\Tien  in  the  years  1562-1565,  and  again  in  1571,  in- 
fectious diseases  broke  out  among  the  mining  circles  of 
the  Unterinntal,  occasioning  great  distress  and  poverty, 
the  companies  troubled  themselves  no  whit  about  the 
sufferers ;  Archduke  Ferdinand,  on  the  other  hand, 
displayed  the  oft-praised  '  generous  trait  of  the 
Austrian  blood '  by  giving  imhmited  plenary  power 
to  spend  charitable  gifts  and  to  advance  money  to 
sick  families,  '  even  if  some  disadvantage  should 
ensue,'  that  is  to  say,  they  were  not  to  count  on 
being  paid  back.- 

'  Hiin,  i.  557-558.  -  Ibid.  556. 


MINTING  ANT)  MINING  105 

The  resentment  of  the  workmen  in  the  mining 
districts  at  the  lengthening  of  the  working  hours  and  the 
raising  of  prices  often  cuhninated  in  fierce  onthreaks  of 
defiance  taldng  the  shape  of  strikes,  or  of  dangerous 
riots.i  On  the  occasion  of  a  riot  on  the  Rohrenbiihel  in 
1567,  the  delegates  of  the  petitioners  represented  to  the 
Emperor  that '  they  were  obhged  to  work  for  eight  hours 
on  a  stretch,  and  that  mining  operations  were  very 
dangerous  ;  during  the  last  twenty-six  years  700  work- 
men had  succmnbed  through  explosions  ;  food  was  up 
at  starvation  prices ;  cheese  for  instance  was  sold  by  the 
company  to  the  people  for  double  the  price  they  them- 
selves gave  for  it ;  as  the  time  spent  in  coming  and 
going  to  their  work  was  not  taken  into  account  the 
depth  of  the  mines  made  the  shifts  much  too  long ; 
for  piece-work  also  they  were  paid  much  too  little/ 

The  archducal  commissioner  entrusted  with  the 
business  of  examining  into  these  grievances  said  that 
*  the  agitation  had  been  chiefly  got  up  by  people  who 
had  the  smallest  deposits  ui  the  funds  of  the  corporation 
and  who  were  most  lai-gely  in  debt  to  them,  but  that  the 
complaints  about  high  prices  and  the  length  of  working- 
hours  were  justifiable/  The  Ai'chduke  addressed  a 
grave  letter  of  admonition  to  the  mine-owners  and 
brought  the  eight-hoiu'  shift  do^\Ti  to  six  hours.- 

How  justified  the  complaints  of  low  wages  were, 

^  Concerning  a  rising  at  Schwaz  in  1525,  cf.  v.  Sperges,  252,  253. 
**  Concerning  strikes  in  the  same  place  in  the  years  1548  and  1583,  cf. 
Iser-Gaudenthurm,  164  S.  Concerning  journeymen  riots  in  Schwaz  since 
1589,  see  Zeitschr.  des  Innsbrucker  Ferdiimndeums,  1899,  p.  127  flf'.,  where 
also  there  are  fuller  details  iilx)ut  the  bad  behaviour  of  the  Fuggers  to 
their  miners  ;  see  especially  p.  157  ff. 

2  Beiirdge  zur  Geschichte,  Statistik,  Naturkunde  und  Kunst  von  Tirol 
und  Vorarlberg,  i.  257.     Hun,  i.  560. 


106  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  liow  great  was  the  poverty  and  distress  of  the 
workmen,  is  shown  by  a  government  report  of  1571  ; 
while  the  usual  price  of  a  star  of  rye  in  the  mining 
districts  was  50  kreuzer,  a  workman  earned  barely 
one  gulden  a  week.  An  ore-sifter  received  24  kreuzer 
a  week,  a  barrow-man  30  kreuzer,  a  windlass-man 
36-48,  a  hewer  45  kreuzer.  '  For  such  pay,'  ■^\rrote 
the  Treasurv  in  1575,  '  one  would  not  care  even  to 
climb  the  mountains.  Verily  these  people  are  poorer 
than  beggars.'  ^ 

Industrial  and  agricultural  day-labourers  were  in 
equally  evil  plight  throughout  the  sixteenth  century. 

^  Hirn,  i.  659  ff.,  where  there  are  fuller  details  about  riots  and  agitation. 


107 


CHAPTER  III 

INDUSTRIAL    TRADES 

Trade  and  industry,  which  had  been  highly  flourishing 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  in  the  sixteenth  century  fell 
decade  after  decade  into  worse  conditions  owing  to  the 
religious,  pohtical,  and  social  unrest,  the  civil  wars, 
the  ever-increasing  decay  of  commerce,  the  perpetual 
multiplication  of  taxes,  and  the  growing  insecurity  of 
business  resulting  from  the  rotten  condition  of  the  Mint 
and  the  exhaustion  of  the  mines/  i 

The  more  the  burgher-class  declined  from  its  former 
proud  height,  the  narrower  and  pettier  did  the  guild 

^  Concerning  the  economic  decline  in  the  sixteenth  century  Schanz 
(Gesellenverbdnde,  134)  says :  '  Commerce,  which  is  the  mainspring  of 
industry,  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  the  export  of  German  products  into 
foreign  markets  had  been  made  impossible  by  the  numberless  territorial 
taxes  and  tolls.  German  industry  was  thus  thrown  back  almost  entirely 
on  the  home  market,  in  other  words  on  the  open  country.  Agriculture, 
completely  paralysed,  only  yielded  to  a  few  ground  lords  a  respectable 
income,  for  the  great  bulk  of  the  peasantry  it  could  not  supply  a  decent 
liveUhood.  The  latter  were  quite  unable  to  buy  the  majority  of  articles 
fitted  for  export,  and  the  unequal  distribution  of  incomes  now  struck 
a  heavy  blow  at  home  industrial  produce.'  **  '  German  industrial  labour,' 
writes  Grupp  {Geldwirtschaft,  293),  'went  more  and  more  backwards, 
municipal  culture  decUned,  and  a  natural-economical  reaction  set  in. 
The  causes  of  this,  apart  from  the  intellectual  and  religious  fightings  and 
warfare,  which  created  a  disposition  unfavourable  to  practical  effort, 
lay  in  the  inordinate  craze  for  speculation  which  was  cormected  with  the 
beginnings  of  money  industry.  Honourable  labour  was  either  despised 
or  exploited.     Wages  sank,  while  the  prices  of  commodities  rose.' 


108  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

spirit  become  in  the  different  towns.  Each  town  strove 
to  exclude  all  the  others  from  all  competition  in  indus- 
tries, and  almost  each  one  was  paralysed  by  endless 
guild  disputes  and  quarrels  which  were  fought  out 
within  its  walls.  The  existing  trade  regulations  fell 
into  a  state  of  torpor.  The  guilds,  which  had  been 
called  into  existence  to  protect  labour  and  enable  it  to 
become  profitable,  now  revoltingly  violated  the  rights 
of  remunerative  work,  and  forfeiting  their  original 
character — in  the  best  sense  of  the  word  democratic — 
they  degenerated  httle  by  little  into  a  caste  aristocracy, 
into  regular  monopolies.  They  transformed  them- 
selves, as  far  as  possible,  into  societies  for  befriending 
and  enriching  a  definite  number  of  master  families 
who  aimed  at  ruling  and  exploiting  the  money  market 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  other  members.  For  this 
purpose  the  number  of  masters  was  diminished,  and 
it  was  made  so  difficult  to  journeymen  to  attain  to 
mastership,  that  almost  only  the  sons  of  masters,  or 
men  who  had  married  the  widows  or  daughters  of  masters, 
could  achieve  an  independent  position.  At  any  rate  the 
free  attainment  of  mastership  was  burdened  with  the 
most  hampering  conditions.  Now  it  was  decreed  that 
the  candidates  must  have  spent  their  time  of  appren- 
ticeship— not  seldom  extending  over  five  or  six  years — 
in  the  town  in  question  ;  now  it  was  required  that 
during  this  time  they  should  only  have  worked  for  a 
definite  number  of  masters,  now  that  they  should  have 
been  born  on  the  very  spot. 

The  master  tailors  at  Constance  demanded  of  the 
council  in  1584  that '  only  those  who  after  their  appren- 
ticeship had  served  another  ten  years  at  the  handicraft 
should  be  ehgible  for  mastership.'     Many  of  the  guilds 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  109 

would  only  admit  to  the  rights  of  mastership  men  who 
had  '  master-houses '  or  shops  of  their  own.^  The  test  for 
mastership  {'  the  master-piece ')  was  made  more  and  more 
difficult  and  expensive.  In  Esshngen,  for  instance,  the 
Tailors'  Guild  in  1557  insisted  on  the  making  of  a  whole 
wardrobe,  which  among  other  articles  was  to  include 
a  coat,  hose,  doublet,  cap  and  mourning  cloak  for  a 
nobleman,  an  embroidered  cloak  for  a  noblewoman, 
a  purple  cloak  and  damask  doublet  for  a  burgher,  a 
shamlot  cut-away  cloak  and  an  '  Augustinian  '  of  satin 
for  an  unmarried  daughter,  a  long  cloak  of  shamlot  for 
a  doctor,  and  so  forth.  Not  seldom  the  guilds  required 
as  tests  for  mastership  the  execution  of  all  sorts  of 
difficult  and  rare  pieces  of  work,  which  nobody  would 
ever  want  to  buy,  and  which  would  only  serve  as 
spectacular  curiosities  to  be  kept  in  the  houses  of  the 
masters.  Besides  all  this,  successful  candidates  had 
so  many  costs  to  defray  on  investiture,  so  much  to  pay 
the  masters  for  food  and  drink,  that  needy  journeymen 
were  obHged  at  the  outset  to  renounce  all  thoughts  of 
competition.^ 

'  Guilds  and  master-pieces,'  said  the  Bavarian  pro- 
vincial ordinance  of  1553,  '  were  originally  instituted  to 
secure  the  maintenance  of  good  order  and  respectability 
and  as  a  safeguard  against  the  admission  to  mastership 
of  any  who  were  not  noted  for  good  conduct  and  for 
skill  and  experience  in  their  work.'  But  this  old  and 
laudable  tradition  *  is  now  grievously  abused  by  the 
hand- workers  all  over  the  land  :  they  have  adopted  the 

1  Schanz,  132-133.  Concerning  the  introduction  of  the  six  years' 
apprenticeship  in  the  lace-making  and  leather  industries  at  Nuremberg 
and  other  towns  after  1531,  see  Schonlank,  371  ff. 

•  See  L.  Wassermann,  Das  Meisterstruck  in  der  Alien  und  Neuen  Welt, 
Jahrg.  19  (Einsiedeln,  1885),  pp.  717-719. 


110  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

plan  of  insisting  that  those  who  wish  to  become  masters 
shall  be  burdened  not  only  with  immoderate  taxation  and 
expense,  but  also  with  the  task  of  making  unnecessary 
and  useless  "master-pieces/'  so  that  men  who  by  their 
skill  and  proficiency  are  fitted  for  mastership,  are  ex- 
cluded from  it  and  made  objects  of  scorn  if  they  cannot 
meet  the  unreasonable  costs  imposed  on  them,  or  execute 
these  difficult  and  useless  "  master-pieces." '  ^ 

The  sons  of  many  of  the  hand-workers,  although  of 
honourable  descent  and  blameless  conduct,  were  alto- 
gether denied  entrance  to  the  guilds.  The  imperial 
police,  accordingly,  in  1548  found  it  necessary  to  issue 
the  injunction  that '  the  linen  weavers,  barbers,  coopers, 
millers,  tax-gatherers,  pipers,  trumpeters,  and  those 
whose  parents  and  children  are  honest  and  w^ell-behaved 
should  henceforth  by  no  means  be  excluded  from  guilds, 
corporations,  and  offices,  but  should  be  admitted  to 
them  hke  other  honourable  artisans.'  ^ 

At  Gorhtz,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  Guild  of  Shoemakers  once  refused  to  admit  a  young 
man  to  apprenticeship  in  the  trade  because  his  father 
and  grandfather  had  been  millers,  and  he  was  therefore 
to  be  looked  on  as  a  miller ;  the  butchers  of  this  place 
rejected  a  butcher  who  sought  admittance,  because  his 
stepfather  was  a  potter.^ 

The  Recess  of  the  Augsburg  Diet  of  1594  mentioned 
as  special  abuses  of  the  guild  system  that  *  in  some  of 

^  Bayerische  Landesordnung,  fol.  126'^-128.  See  below,  p,  115  f.,  the 
remarks  of  Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg  in  1567. 

'  Ordnung  und  Reformation  guter  Policey,  aufgerichtet  auf  dem  Reichstag 
zu  Augsburg  1548,  in  the  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  ii.  605. 

•^  The  Court  of  Sheriffs  at  Magdeburg  declared  itself  against  the  pre- 
sumption of  both  these  guilds  ;  cf.  Th.  Neumann,  Magdeburger  Weistumer, 
195-202. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  111 

the  towns  the  masters  of  crafts  form  new  corporations 
and  make  it  a  rule  that  an  apprentice  must  go  on 
learning  for  another  three  or  four  years,  and  they  actually 
presume  to  find  fault  with  old-established  masters  of 
crafts  in  other  towns,  men  who  learnt  their  business 
thoroughly  well  years  before,  according  to  the  original 
guild  rules,  earned  their  mastership  and  carried  on  their 
trade  peacefully  for  a  long  time  without  any  interference 
from  anyone ;  and  they  abuse  and  discharge  their 
journeymen,  who  learnt  under  them  before  the  existence 
of  the  new  corporations  and  rules,  and  compel  them 
either  to  go  elsewhere  and  learn  their  trade  over  again, 
or  else  to  submit  to  punishment.  Further,  in  many 
places  the  masters  have  the  impudence  to  refuse  to 
work  for  a  chent  who  has  had  work  done  for  him  bv 
another  master,  albeit  he  has  duly  paid  for  the  work. 
The  workmen,  moreover,  rise  against  the  masters; 
they  lock  out  other  employes  and  so  deprive  trades 
in  town  and  country  of  the  necessary  hands.  ^  i 

In  consequence  of  the  numerous  abuses  continually 
cropping  up,  the  former  independence  and  judicial 
powers  of  the  guilds  were  more  and  more  restricted 
by  the  State  authorities.  The  imperial  police  ordinance 
of  1530  had  still  left  the  judgment  respecting  quarrels 
among  the  hand- workers  to  the  interested  guilds ; 
the  ordinance  of  1577,  however,  decided  that  all  matters 
whatever  belonging  to  handicrafts  were  to  be  referred 
to  the  magistracy.'^     In  Vienna,  Ferdinand   L,  in  an 

^  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  iii.  442. 

-  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  ii.  345,  and  iii.  398.  The 
writer  on  national  economy,  Christopher  Besold,  recommended  giving  the 
guilds  autonomy  over  all  their  own  affairs,  in  so  far  as  these  were  not  in 
opposition  to  the  laws  of  the  State  or  to  good  morals.  Contracts  for 
monopolising  goods,  for   keeping  up  prices,  for  limiting  purchasers  in 


112  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

handicrafts'  ordinance  issued  in  1527  in  conjunction 
with  the  Committee  of  Estates  of  his  hereditary  lands, 
and  renewed  in  1552,  had  abeady  abohshed  the  cor- 
porations and  guilds  with  all  their  '  self-made  statutes, 
ordinances,  &;c/  No  handicraft  was  to  organise  a 
general  company  or  meeting  without  the  knowledge 
and  consent  of  the  burgomaster  and  council ;  every- 
thing must  be  subject  to  magisterial  oversight.^ 

Thus  the  independent  existence  of  the  guilds  was 
struck  at  the  roots.  But  State  interference  was  neces- 
sary for  the  protection  of  those  who  bought  and  used 
the  goods,  because  very  often  the  honesty  of  the  pro- 
ducers of  goods  could  no  longer  be  depended  on.^ 
Thus,  for  instance,  in  1563  the  Nuremberg  Council 
discovered  that  the  greater  number  of  the  master 
glaziers  often  used  bad  Bohemian  window  glass  instead 
of  good  Venetian  ware,  not  only  for  new  work,  but 
for  daily  mending  and  repairing,  charging  the  same 
as  for  Venetian  glass.  The  joiners  had  to  be  forbidden 
*  to  paste  painted  paper  over  worm-eaten  wood,  thus 
producing  sham  new  work.'  In  view  of  '  obvious 
danger  and  deceit '  the  whole  body  of  working  gold- 
smiths were  forbidden  in  1562  '  to  silver-plate  brass 
and  copper  beakers.'  ^ 

With  the  incessant  quarrels  that  went  on  between 
the  different  guilds  the  magistrates  had  enough  to 
do.     From  fear  of  too  strong  competition  the  guilds 

their  free  choice  among  the  guild-masters,  drinking  away  the  money  fines 
which  ought  to  flow  into  the  poor-box,  these  things  were  not  to  be  allowed 
them.     See  Roscher,  Deutsche  Naiioruilokonomik  an  der  Grenzscheide,  322. 

'  Bucholtz,  Ferdinand  der  Erste,  viii.  263  ff. 

•  Cf.  A.  Bruder  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  gesammte  Staatswissenschaft, 
xxxvi.  486. 

•'  Stockbauer,  x.  15,  16. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  113 

divided  the  various  works  more  and  more  sparingly 
and  anxiously  amongst  each  other,  prescribed  in  each 
case  with  the  utmost  exactness  what  the  men  were  to 
work  at  and  how  much  they  were  to  do,  and  watched 
with  suspicious  eyes  lest  any  act  of  overreaching  should 
come  up  for  reproof.  Even  masters  of  closely  related 
trades  were  prevented  from  exceeding  the  regulation 
Hmits  of  production.  Whenever  cases  occurred  of 
violation  of  this  rule  of  the  corporation,  endless  bicker- 
ing, complaining,  and  mutual  recrimination  were  almost 
sure  to  follow.  At  Strasburg,  for  instance,  a  ten  years' 
quarrel  went  on  after  1507  between  the  clothmakers 
and  the  clothshearers  over  the  right  of  using  certain 
colours.  In  1522  the  clothmakers  at  Strasburg  were 
accused  by  the  fullers  of  having  encroached  improperly 
on  their  privileges.  Still  less  did  the  non-related 
guilds  spare  each  other.  Now  the  tradesmen  and  shop- 
keepers complained  of  the  clothiers  for  manufacturing 
knitted  hose  and  gloves,  now  the  clothmakers  fell  foul 
of  the  dealers  in  old  clothes  and  the  drapers  because 
they  also  traded  in  a  new  kind  of  serge,  a  soft  woollen 
material,  which  they  (the  clothmakers)  could  not 
prepare,  and  so  interfered  with  the  market  of  the 
clothiers  and  weavers ;  next,  the  hatters  were  to  blame 
for  interference  of  this  sort.  Envy  and  suspicion  gave 
rise  to  endless  lawsuits,  especially  after  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Scarcely  was  one  disposed 
of  than  another  began  ;  not  unfrequently  several  were 
going  on  side  by  side,  as  well  as  those  which  guild  journey- 
men brought  against  each  other  or  against  their  guilds.  ^ 

'  Fuller  details  are  given  in  W.  Stieda,  '  Zunfthandel  im  sechzehnten 
Jahrhundert,'  in  the  Histor.  Taschenbuch,  Folge  vi.  Jahrg.  iv.  307-352. 
'  The  causes  of  the  lawsuits  were  usually  unimportant  and  the  result  of  the 
VOL.  XV.  I 


114  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIVIAN  PEOPLE 

When  the  woollen  drapers  at  Salza  in  Saxony, 
who,  according  to  an  agreement  with  the  clothmakers 
of  that  place,  might  only  display  their  foreign  cloths 
in  half  their  breadth,  spread  them  out  in  their  full 
width,  the  clothmakers  feared  that  this  would  lead 
to  the  ruin  of  their  trade.  The  whole  guild,  consisting 
of  200  masters,  appeared  in  1558  before  the  Elector 
Augustus,  who  was  travelling  through  the  town,  and 
did  pubhc  homage  to  him,  in  order  to  procure  the 
abolition  of  this  grievance,  so  that  '  their  trade  might 
not  be  reduced  to  beggary/  ^ 

This  '  cancerous  disease,'  for  such  the  guild  system 
had  now  become,  attacked  also  the  public  service  of 
the  streets ;  hke  the  handicraftsmen,  messengers  and 
carriers  began  to  regard  themselves  as  associations 
with  unimpeachable  privileges.^ 

Any  member  of  a  guild  who  invented  a  better 
instrument,  by  means  of  which  quicker  and  cheaper 
work  could  be  done,  fell  a  victim  to  the  jealousy  of 
his  brother-members,  who  managed  with  the  help 
of  the  magistracy  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
use  of  such  new-fangled  tools.  Thus  by  magisterial 
command  technical  progress  was  summarily  arrested. 

infinity  of  ordinances  which  multiplied  beyond  measure,  and  the  strict 
observance  of  which  in  all  their  particulars  was  a  sheer  impossibility. 
Wherever  the  lawsuits  are  concerned  with  the  admission  of  new  members, 
the  grossest  egotism  is  displayed.  The  long  duration  of  the  quarrels,  the 
prolixity  and  discursiveness  of  the  letters  of  complaint  and  defence  made 
these  disputes  seem  intolerable.'  '  In  these  quarrellings  we  detect  one  of 
the  reasons  of  the  dechne  of  the  once  flourishing  and  highly  respected 
institution  of  guilds.'  '  Whoever  follows  attentively  this  "  beginning  of 
the  end,"  will  see  plainly  that  the  two  following  centuries  were  bound  to 
carry  the  guild-system  further  and  further  along  the  line  of  descent '  (pp. 
351,  352). 

'  Falke,  Kurfiirst  August,  239. 

-  A.  Flegler,  Zur  Gesch,  der  Posten,  31. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  115 

Even  at  Nuremberg  in  1572  a  master  of  the  thimble 
trade  '  who  had  invented  and  used  a  new  kind  of 
turning-wheel,  greatly  to  his  own  and  his  trade's 
advantage,  but  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  other  masters, 
was,  on  the  complaints  of  these  masters,  forbidden  hj 
the  magistrates,  under  pain  of  severe  punishment, 
to  use  this  wheel  any  more/  Likewise  a  master  of 
the  pinmakers'  guild  who  had  invented  a  new  kind 
of  pohshing  tool  was  ordered  in  1585,  under  penalty 
of  a  fine  of  50 fl.,  'to  put  it  away  at  once,  not  to  use 
it  any  more,  still  less  to  teach  the  use  of  it  at  home 
or  abroad/  ^ 

Everywhere  it  was  complained  that  the  masters  of 
handicrafts,  to  the  great  injury  of  purchasers,  by  union 
and  association,  fixed  the  prices  of  their  goods,  raised 
them  as  they  liked,  and  punished  those  members  of 
their  guilds  who  worked  or  sold  at  cheaper  rates. 
'  We  know  from  positive  experience,'  says  an  imperial 
pohce  ordinance  of  1577,  '  that  the  hand-workers  in 
their  guilds,  or  otherwise  sometimes,  combine  and 
agree  together  that  no  one  of  them  is  to  sell  the  articles 
he  has  made  at  a  cheaper  rate  than  the  others,  thus 
causing  a  rise  in  prices,  and  obhging  those  who  want 
to  buy  these  said  articles  to  pay  whatever  the  guilds 
have  agreed  upon/  - 

'  Some  years  ago,'  said  Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtem- 
berg  on  October  31,  1567,  '  an  ordinance  was  issued 
for  the  tailors'  trade  at  Stuttgart,  in  the  hopes  that 
this  ordinance  would  be  fruitful  of  good  to  the  com- 
munity at  large  and  also  to  the  trade,  but  the  tailors 
abused    it    shamefully.     They    agreed    together    that 

^  Stockbauer,  39.  '"  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsahschiede,  iii.  397. 

I  2 


116  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

henceforth  none  of  them  should  work  for  the  burghers 
in  their  own  houses ;  also,  in  some  places,  that  a  tailor 
should  only  work  in  his  own  village  where  he  hved, 
and  not  in  other  villages  or  places ;  and  thus  our 
subjects  have  been  debarred  from  employing  many 
capable  tailors  whom  they  may  happen  to  like.  Also, 
they  settled  among  themselves  what  each  one  is  to 
be  paid  for  his  work,  and  that  no  member  is  to  take 
less,  and  if  any  one  should  do  so,  he  is  to  be  punished. 
Accordingly  it  happened  at  Lorch  that  a  poor  tailor 
was  fined  10  schillings  in  punishment  for  having  made 
plain  hose  for  two  kreuzer,  and  for  not  doubhng  the  price  ; 
likewise  for  having  taken  an  apprentice  for  two  gulden, 
which  he  was  told  was  much  too  httle  :  he  ought  to 
have  charged  him  twelve  or  fourteen  gulden.'  Since 
the  '  agreement '  in  question  wages  had  risen  to  nearly 
half  as  much  again. ^ 

To  escape  the  extortion  of  the  guilds,  many 
towns  broke  through  the  old  guild  restrictions.  Thus 
the  council  of  Ulm  took  great  pains  to  encourage 
competition  between  foreign  weavers  and  those  of 
Ulm.  In  Augsbujg,  Stuttgart,  Tiibingen,  free  butchers' 
stalls  were  set  up  with  a  notice  that '  here  every  butcher, 
even  though  he  did  not  belong  to  the  town  guild,  might 
sell  meat.'  ^  At  a  Bavarian  Provincial  Diet  in  1608 
it  was  decreed  that,  '  in  Munich,  not  only  should  free 
stalls  be  started,  but  that  cattle  should  be  bought 
and  cut  up  without  the  intervention  of  the  butchers.' 

This  Diet  was  moreover  made  the  occasion  for 
discussing  all  sorts  of  defects  and  abuses  in  the 
guild     system,     and     measures    were    proposed     for 

1  Reyscher,  xii.  345-346. 

*  Schmoller,  Natiotwlokonomische  Ansichten,  524. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  117 

remedying  the  palpably  decadent  condition  of  indus- 
trial trade. 

Amongst  these  suggestions  were  the  following : 
'  Whereas  there  is  a  dearth  of  skilful  workmen,  every- 
thing turns  on  providing  the  necessary  number  of 
skilled  and  experienced  artisans.  Foreign  skilled  masters 
must  also  be  countenanced.  The  children  of  the  poor 
must  be  helped  in  learning  some  trade ;  this  might  be 
done  by  the  erection  of  a  seminary  for  hand-workers. 
Special  resistance  must  be  offered  to  the  so-called 
"  Kniittelbiinde,"  the  secret  clubs  formed  among  the 
hand -workers  for  advancing  prices.  Most  of  the  ordin- 
ances for  hand-workers,  ratified  by  the  authorities, 
require  revision ;  this  should  be  set  about  without 
delay.'  The  Munich  industrial  deputy  insisted  among 
other  things  that '  the  poorer  industries  should  be  given 
a  helping  hand ;  these  were  kept  down  by  a  few  rich 
handicraftsmen.'  Among  the  many  hindrances  to  the 
prosperity  both  of  industry  and  commerce  were  :  the 
maintenance  by  alms  of  idlers  who  were  capable  of 
work,  the  exploitation  of  the  land  by  forestallers  and 
hawkers,  the  craze  for  dressing  in  foreign  fabrics,  the 
falsification  of  the  coinage,  the  extensive  export  of  raw 
inland  materials,  and  last,  but  not  least,  the  forcing 
of  young  people  into  learned  professions,  official  life, 
and  court  service.  '  Excessive  study  was  a  hindrance 
to  industrial  work.  When  a  man  had  acquired  a 
httle  learning  he  became  ashamed  of  his  position ;  his 
son  must  study  in  order  to  better  himself.  If,  then, 
the  son  spends  all  his  time  in  study,  without  coming 
ad  gradum,  he  is  unfit  for  a  trade,  aspires  to  court 
service,  or  to  an  office  or  higher  post,  stakes  his  fortune 
on  it,   and  remains  a  poor  journeyman,   whereas  he 


118  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

might  have  been  a  wealthy  tradesman.  And  so  all 
the  handicrafts  and  all  skilled  knowledge  of  them  are 
lost  to  the  country,  and  for  many  generations  we 
shall  never  achieve  any  sort  of  continuity  and  good 
standing  in  business,  nor  attain  to  understanding,  skill 
and  credit/ 

As  an  especially  serious  hindrance  to  industrial 
trade  some  speakers  instanced  the  fact  that  the  land 
was  overrun  with  '  mischievous  caterers  to  the  palate  * 
— bakers,  brewers,  butchers,  pubhcans,  cooks,  and  so 
forth,  whereby  the  food  of  the  poor  became  ever 
dearer.  Others  denied  the  pernicious  effects  of  these 
trades;  any  cheapening  of  food  must  cause  the 
producers — the  peasants — to  suffer  ;  only  the  artisan 
would  profit  by  it :  '  it  would  be  more  easy  for  him  to 
sit  in  the  ale-house,  and  he  would  not  sell  his  goods 
any  the  cheaper.'  The  chief  cause  of  high  prices  and 
scarcity  lay  in  the  taste  for  superfluity  and  gormandising, 
and  in  thriftlessness  :  '  The  artisan  was  too  fond  of 
good  hving  and  was  sure  to  have  a  young  cock  on 
his  table  before  the  Prince  of  the  land.'  The  ducal 
councillors  also  spoke  to  this  effect :  '  The  artisans 
should  refrain  from  extravagance  and  luxury  in  eating, 
drinking,  and  dress."  ^ 

Before  the  issue  of  the  new  territorial  ordinance  of 
1616,  which  aimed  at  abolishing  the  most  flagrant 
abuses  in  industrial  life,  but  reserved  for  the  future 
any  thoroughgoing  reform  of  the  guild  system  and 
of  the  various  branches  of  manual  industry,"^  the 
court  council  at  Munich,  in  a  memorandum  to  Duke 
Maximihan  I.,  had  proposed  the  wholesale  abolition  of 
the  guilds,  '  which  were  injurious,  devoid  of  usefulness, 

1  V.  Ereyberg   u.  353-365.  '  Ihid.  209  flf. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  119 

oppressive  to  tlie  poor  impecunious  burghers,  and 
the  cause  of  unnecessary  expense/  ^ 

As  in  Bavaria  and  elsewhere,  so  too  in  Saxony- 
heavy  complaints  were  made  concerning  the  deteriora- 
tion of  the  guild  system.  '  The  handicraft  masters, 
formerly  expert  and  honourable  men,'  said  a  preacher 
in  1550,  '  are  in  these  days  almost  entirely  taken  up  with 
their  own  selfish  extravagances,  and  with  getting  prices 
up,  while  their  work  all  the  time  is  often  altogether  bad 
and  worthless  ;  and  they  promote  their  own  interest 
in  a  very  reprehensible  manner  by  their  ancient  privi- 
leges which  nobody  is  to  be  allowed  to  reform/^ 
Elector  Maurice,  who  entered  the  lists  against  them 
in  this  same  year,  said  :  '  The  artisans  busy  themselves 
greatly  about  extravagant,  unsuitable  clothing,  and 
attend  more  to  drink  than  to  work,  for  which  reason  they 
not  only  overcharge  the  people,  but  demand  drink- 
money  for  their  journeymen  as  well ;  the  masters 
in  the  tov/ns  manufacture  goods  of  as  inferior  a  kind  as 
possible/  3 

A  vivid  description  of  these  degenerate  conditions, 
coinciding  with  the  reports  from  other  towns,  is  given 
in  a  pamphlet,  also  belonging  to  1550,  by  the  council 
of  the  town  of  Demmin  in  Pomerania.  It  says  in 
it  among  other  things  :  '  On  admission  to  the  guild 
of  wool-weavers,  the  young  brother  who  has  sent  in 
his  "  master-piece '"  has  to  treat  the  whole  guild 
to    a    collation,    consisting    of    1    ox,    8    sheep,    48 

^  Wolf,  Maximilian  der  Erste,  i.  357. 

-  A  Sermon  against  Idleness,  Qluttony  and  other  Vices,  by  L.  B.  Jonas 
(1550),  p.  5. 

^  Codex  Augusteus,  i.  67.  Concerning  the  heavy  oppression  of 
the  people  by  the  guilds,  see  also  the  '  Resolution  '  of  the  Elector  Christian 
II.  in  1612,  I.e.  i.  178-179. 


120  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

chickens,  6  barrels  of  beer,  with  onions,  butter,  pepper, 
and  other  condiments  to  the  value  of  18  marks ; 
and  on  the  second  day,  rolls,  butter  and  cheese  to  the 
value  of  25  marks/  If  he  marries  outside  of  the 
business  he  must  make  his  wife  a  member  by  giving 
a  feast  which  costs  20  gulden,  besides  so  many  etceteras 
that  '  the  total  amoimt  of  his  expenses  is  262  marks/ 
'  All  that  a  young  man  has  scraped  together  and 
earned,  he  has  to  disburse  all  at  once,  and  if  he  wants 
to  buy  a  stock  of  wool  he  has  nothing  left.  And  if  any 
member  through  his  own  diligence  gets  on  his  feet  again, 
it  is  resented  against  him,  and  in  order  to  involve  him 
again  in  expenses,  young  and  old  impose  themselves  on 
him  as  guests.  When  quarrels  occur  among  members 
of  the  same  guild  they  instantly  summon  the  parties 
concerned  before  their  "  morning  court "  in  order  to 
impose  fines  on  them  and  so  have  something  to  get 
drink  with.  In  the  shoemakers'  guild,  widowers  or 
widows  who  marry  again  and  want  to  remain  in  the 
business,  must  not  make  any  shoes  for  nine  months. 
The  tailors  seldom  do  any  good  work,  and  they  spoil 
all  their  customers'  clothes.  The  guild,  made  up  of 
glovers,  leather-cutters,  and  shopkeepers,  takes  not  the 
half  only,  but  treble  and  fourfold  in  interest.  But 
whatever  the  guilds  make  by  their  extortion  they 
squander  on  the  great  festival  days,  on  the  Sunday  after 
Trinity,  carnival,  and  above  all  at  Whitsuntide ;  and 
in  order  to  multiply  the  number  of  feast  days  it  has 
become  the  evil  custom  in  all  the  guilds  to  change  the 
aldermen  every  year.' 

'  The  most  dissolute  orgies,'  says  this  pamphlet, 
*  take  place  at  the  most  joyful  of  all  festivals,  at  Whit- 
suntide.    The  wool-weavers  begin  their  holiday  fourteen 


INDUSTRIAL   TRADES  121 

days  before  Wliitsun  week,  and  continue  it  for  fourteen 
days  after,  so  that  their  revebies  last  for  five  weeks  ; 
even  on  the  day  of  the  feast,  instead  of  thinking  about 
the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  march  past 
the  church  with  fifes  and  drums  sounding.  The  mill- 
and  farm-boys  flock  after  them,  and  such  a  noise 
of  fifes  and  drums,  such  a  yelhng  and  shrieking  goes 
on  during  divine  service,  that  the  preacher  is  obliged 
to  pause  until  the  wild  hubbub  is  over;  so  that 
God's  Word  is  obliged  to  give  way  to  these  rascally 
fellows.'  1 

A  no  less  unpleasant  account  of  things  is  given  by 
the  Brunswick  councillor  of  mines,  George  Engelhart 
Lohneiss. 

'  In  all  places,'  he  says,  '  there  is  such  unchristian 
deahng  in  raising  the  prices  of  work  and  wares  that  not 
the  burghers  only  but  the  nobles  and  the  poor  peasant 
folk  also  are  defrauded  and  drained  to  the  utmost,  while 
the  masters  daily  idle  away  their  time  at  weddings, 
christenings  and  other  gatherings  and  convivialities, 
dress  their  wives  and  children  grandly,  do  no  work 
themselves,  leave  the  journeymen  to  look  after  the 
business  by  which  they  and  their  household  are  to 
be  fed.  Moreover  they  keep  up  the  dignity  of  their 
mastership  to  such  an  extent  that  very  few  journey- 
men, however  skilful  they  may  be,  can  themselves 
become  masters,  and  so  as  there  are  very  few  masters, 
these  few  raise  the  price  of  their  work  as  much  as 
they  like. 

'  Such  privileges  and  corporations  are  moreover  very 
much  misused,  and  the  burghers  and  the  people  are  in 

'  H.  Riemann,  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  preussische  Geschicht  u.  Landeskunde, 
iii.  603-606. 


122  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  highest  degree  overcharged,  for  the  masters  agree 
together  that  no  member  is  to  do  his  work,  or  sell 
anything  at  a  cheaper  rate  than  another,  for  although 
handicrafts  are  municipal  business  it  does  not  follow 
that  it  should  rest  with  guilds  and  guild-masters  to 
decide  who  are  competent  workmen  and  who  shall  be 
enrolled  as  members,  which  privilege  they  use  entirely 
for  their  own  benefit  and  to  the  great  detriment  of 
their  neighbours.  Tf  they  tax  and  drain  the  people 
at  their  own  pleasure,  the  government  has  a  right  to 
take  their  privileges  away  from  them/  ^ 

Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse  also  complained  on  the 
score  that  the  masters  of  crafts  not  only  conferred 
together  in  their  guild  chambers  as  to  the  prices  of  their 
goods,  but  also  punished  any  members  of  their  guilds 
who  undercharged."  Concerning  the  degeneracy  of  the 
hand- workers  the  Landgrave  said  in  1600  :  '  On  work- 
days the  masters  and  the  journeymen  flock  in  shoals  to 
christenings,  weddings  and  wine  bouts,  and  when  they 
cannot  go  to  these  they  drink  brandy-punch  in  the  morning 
and  go  to  beer  parties  in  the  taverns  in  the  afternoon  ; 
all  this  time  the  buyers  must  wait  for  the  sellers  eight 
days,  or  more  perhaps,  until  the  guild  gentlemen  have 
drunk  themselves  out,  and  then  they  must  pay  for  the 
bespoken  goods  at  whatever  rate  it  pleases  the  besotted 
vendors  to  ask.  Hence  the  high  prices  of  goods.  For 
the  handicraftsman  does  not  provide  for  his  house  and 
his  children,  but  for  his  own  stomach,  he  invests  his 
coins  in  liquid  wares,  and  when  he  cannot  wash  his 
mouth  with  wine,  or  foreign  beer,  he  must  have  roast 
capon  and  such  hke  ;  on  Simdays  and  festivals  he  holds 
carousals   at   the  expense  of   the  whole  week,   while 

^  Lohneiss,  498-499.       -  Rommel,  Neuere  Gesch,  von  Hessen,  ii.  652, 


INDUSTRIAL   TRADES  123 

the  journeymen,  who  are  not  allowed  to  promenade 
about  as  much  as  the  masters  on  work-days,  swim  so 
lustily  in  beer  on  Sunday  to  the  tune  of  their  week's 
wages,  that  when  Monday  comes  they  haven't  a  farthing 
left  in  their  purses  ;  then  they  lounge  about  idly  in  the 
market-places,  stare  at  the  windows,  fall  to  gossiping 
and  chattering,  or  indulge  in  idlers'  pastimes,  which 
are  profitable  neither  to  burgher  hfe  nor  to  the  art  of 
war,  such  as  target  shooting,  nine-pins,  football  and  other 
trumpery,  whereby  they  often  commit  thefts,  murders, 
and  all  kinds  of  misdeeds.'  ^ 

Between  masters  and  journeymen,  in  the  course  of 
the  century,  strong  antagonism  had  grown  up  almost 
everywhere. 

After  many  battles  with  the  masters,  especially  during 
the  fifteenth  century,  the  journeymen  had  succeeded 
by  means  of  their  workmen's  clubs  in  gaining  for 
themselves  an  assured  and  honoured  position.^  At 
the  end  of  the  century  these  clubs  reached  their  zenith ; 
then,  however,  dechned  rapidly.-^ 

1  Rommel,  ii.  728.     Landau,  Materielle  Zustdnde,  348-349. 

^  See  oiir  remarks,  vol.  ii.  24-27. 

*  *It  is  quite  a  mistake  in  considering  mediaeval  industrial  life  to 
lay  aU  the  stress  on  the  guilds  and  associations  of  the  Masters  ;  the  share 
which  the  journeymen  had  in  industrial  legislation  and  in  the  guild 
assemblies,  their  strict  upholding  of  honour  and  integrity  within  their 
trades,  their  influence  on  apprentice  life,  their  great  care  for  the  regulation 
and  the  supply  of  work,  all  these  are  factors  which  secured  them  a  very 
important  position  in  the  then  management  and  organisation  of  industry.' 
'  The  journeymen  knew  how  to  raise  their  social  position  higher  and 
higher,  and  to  procure  for  their  clubs  a  worthy  place  in  the  group  of 
mediaeval  corporations.'  '  Alert  and  vigorous,  they  were  always  swift 
and  resolute  in  action  whenever  it  was  necessary  either  to  defend  an  old 
traditional  right  or  to  fight  for  a  new  one  ;  they  held  class  honour  high 
and  dear,  and  they  never  hesitated  to  defend  it  against  the  proudest  of  the 
corporations;  merry  and  jovial,  somewhat  refined  by  their  "  Wanderjahre," 
they  knew  well  in  their  time  of  prosperity  (about  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 


124  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Wherever  the  new  doctrinal  teaching  made  its  way, 
the  rehgioiis  brotherhoods  of  journeymen  (which  were 
also  most  of  them  benevolent  institutions  for  sick 
workmen)  went  to  ruin,  and  the  journeymen  lost 
thereby  their  chief  protection  against  the  masters  to 
whose  extortion  and  exploiting  they  not  seldom  fell  a 
prey.i 

The  abolition  of  festival  days  did  not  benefit  the 
men,  but  only  the  masters. 

*  Since  the  introduction  of  the  Evangel,'  said,  for 
instance,  the  Strasburg  journeymen  furriers  in  1529 
in  a  memorandum  to  the  council,  the  festivals  had 
been  abohshed,  but  their  weekly  wages  had  not  been 
raised  by  a  farthing ;  on  the  contrary,  for  the  period 
between  Christmas  and  St.  James'  Day  their  pay  had 
been  diminished  by  the  masters,  'whereby  we  poor 
journeymen  are  put  to  hard  straits  and  with  all  our 
toilsome  work  can  barely  earn  our  daily  bread,  and 
still  less  get  clothes  or  look  to  bettering  ourselves.  But 
since  considerably  greater  profits  accrue  to  the  masters 
through  this  change,  we  hope  that  in  justice  to  our- 
selves, our  earnings  on  piecework  will  in  no  way  be 
lessened.'  ^ 

century)  how  to  make  their  festivals  the  most  popular  in  the  towns.' 
'  All  the  more  is  it  to  be  regretted  that  these  associations  only  retained  for 
so  short  a  period  the  heights  they  had  conquered.'  Schanz,  Zur  Geschichte 
der  deutschen  Gesellenverbdnde,  128-130. 

^  '  One  of  the  most  important  results  of  the  Reformation  as  far  as 
journeymen  were  concerned  was  the  dissolution  of  the  brotherhoods 
founded  on  a  religious  basis.  Wherever  there  were  no  secular  associations 
in  existence,  the  Reformation  once  more  reduced  working-men  to  isolated 
units,  while  the  masters  remained  banded  together  in  then-  guilds  and 
corporations,  and  were  able  to  oppress  the  men  for  their  own  selfish  ends.' 
Schanz,  64-65. 

2  Ibid.  247-248. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  125 

The  day's  work  of  the  journeymen  was  often  ex- 
tended to  fifteen  or  sixteen  hours. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  masters  of  the  guild  of  sword- 
furbishers  in  Liibeck,  Hamburg,  Liineburg,  Wismar, 
Rostock,  and  Strasburg  in  1555  settled  that :  '  Every 
journeyman  in  our  trade,  who  wishes  to  act  rightly 
and  piously  by  his  master,  shall  be  at  the  workshop 
at  four  in  the  morning.  If,  however,  any  man  should 
sleep  till  five,  he  must  then  work  till  nine  in  the  evening, 
be  it  winter  or  summer.  The  fourteen  days  which 
the  journeymen  of  our  trade  in  Hamburg  have  so 
long  been  allowed  for  going  to  the  ale-house,  shall 
no  longer  be  granted  them.'  Master  or  journeyman 
who  acted  contrary  to  this  '  Christian  and  praiseworthy 
regulation  '  were  to  be  summoned  before  the  corporation, 
and  in  case  of  their  refusing  to  mend  their  ways  or 
submit  to  pimishment,  they  were  to  be  handed  over  to 
the  magistracy.^  A  specially  severe  ordinance  against  the 
journeymen  was  issued  in  1573  by  the  braziers  of  Liibeck, 
Brunswick,  Rostock,  Stralsund,  Wismar,  Liineburg,  Mag- 
deburg, Bremen,  Greifswald,  Hildesheim,  Stade,  Han- 
over, Gottingen  and  Fiensburg.  They,  too,  demanded 
for  four  days  in  the  week  sixteen  hours'  work,  and  for 
Thursday  and  Saturday  fourteen  hours ;  only  every 
three  months  were  the  men  to  have  a  free  Monday ; 
if  they  took  a  hohday  on  any  other  Monday  they  were 
to  forfeit  the  day's  wages  and  food.  The  weekly 
wage  was  fixed  once  for  all,  and  was  to  be  the  same 
'  for  small  or  great  jobs.'  Also,  '  no  beer  was  to  be 
given  them  on  the  working  premises,  but  only  "  Kovent " 
(small  beer).'  If  the  workmen  rebelled  against  these 
and    other    harsh    rules    on    points    of    detail,    took 

1  Rudiger,  588-589. 


126  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

themselves  off,  and  settled  doAvn  in  other  places,  they 
were  to  be  treated  in  all  the  towns  of  the  corporation 
as  '  traitors  and  persecutors '  of  the  trade,  and  not  to 
be  encouraged  anywhere,  unless,  after  full  expiation, 
they  were  taken  back  out  of  favour.^  The  smiths 
in  the  Wendish  towns  had  to  work  from  three  in  the 
morning  till  six  in  the  evening ;  the  ship  carpenters 
in  Liibeck  from  5  a.m.  till  6  p.m.^ 

The  master  joiners  at  Freiburg  in  the  Breisgau 
settled  in  1539  that  the  men  must  be  at  their 
work,  summer  and  winter,  from  4  a.m.  till  7  p.m.^ 
At  Niu'emberg  the  daily  working  hours  of  the  cloth- 
makers  were  thirteen,^  of  the  ropemakers,  fifteen.^ 

The  cruelly  overworked  journeymen  could  scarcely 
be  blamed  if  on  Monday  they  wished  to  be  free  for 
half,  or  even  the  whole  of  the  day,  especially  as  they  did 
not  dare  hold  their  social  club  gatherings  on  Sunday.^ 
At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  half- 
hohday  on  Monday  was  allowed  them  pretty  regularly, 
sometimes  weekly,  sometimes  fortnightly,  for  exercise 
and  bathing."^  At  Strasburg  in  1536  the  following 
decree  was  issued  for  the  locksmith  and  spurmaker 
journeymen  :  '  Those  whose  wages  are  eight  kreuzer 
and  no  less,  may  have  Monday  afternoon  free.'  ^  The 
journeymen  joiners  in  the  Breisgau  could  only  have 
a  half-hohday  on  Monday  when  there  was  no 
festival  day  during  the  week.'^     The  towns  of  Liibeck, 


'  Rudiger,  564-572.        ^  Wehrmann,  Liibecker  Zunftrollen,  406,  448. 

^  Schanz,  2G1.  ■»  Stockbauer,  33.  ^  Schonlank,  601. 

8  Schanz,  114-116.     Schonlank,  601. 

'  Stahl,  Das  deutsche  Handwerk,  313  ff.     Schanz,  114-115. 

«  Schanz,  254.  »  Ibid.  261. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  127 

Hamburg,  Liineburg,  Wismar,  Rostock,  and  Molln, 
agreed,  in  1574,  that  the  journeymen  hatmakers  should 
have  Monday  free.  '  But  if  a  journeyman  takes  more 
than  Monday  for  hohday-making,  he  shall  have  hohdays 
the  whole  week,  and  pay  6s.  into  the  master's  box  into 
the  bargain.'  ^ 

Just  as  the  general  conditions  of  industrial  trade 
had  degenerated,  so  too  there  came  over  '  the  good 
hohday-Monday '  a  phase  of  deterioration  which  led 
in  many  towns  to  its  restriction  or  complete  abohtion. 
'  On  these  good  Mondays,*  says  an  edict  of  the  Council 
of  Nuremberg  in  1550,  'the  workmen  did  scarcely 
anything  but  drink  and  carry  on  all  sorts  of  dis- 
orderly immoral  proceedings :  and  not  on  those 
Mondays  only,  but  on  following  days  also  they  wronged 
their  masters  and  evaded  their  work ;  therefore  they 
must  in  future  continue  at  their  work  on  Mondays  till 
vesper  time,  and  the  remaining  part  of  the  day  they 
could  spend  "  in  their  drinking-bout  and  other  dis- 
orderly ways.''  For  the  weeks  in  which  festivals 
occurred,  the  "  good  Monday "  was  to  be  entirely 
abolished.'  ^  The  Bavarian  government  ordinance  of 
1553  wanted  the  Monday  hoHday  to  be  given  up  alto- 
gether because  '  it  led  to  improper  shirking  of  work, 
unprofitable  dissipation,  and  other  evils  ;  artisans  who 
henceforth  persisted  in  keeping  the  "  good  Monday " 
were  to  be  punished.' ^  The  order,  however,  had  so 
little  result  that  it  had  to  be  renewed  in  1616  '  under 


^  Rudiger,  554. 

2  Schonlank,  600.      **  See  also  Schonlank's  interesting  work,  Soziale 
Kampfe,  132  ff. 

■'  Bayerische  Landesordnung,  fol.  128. 


128  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

pain  of  severe  pimisliment.'  ^  The  abuses  that 
cropped  up  may  be  estimated  by  a  Baden-Durlach 
ordinance  of  1554,  by  which  innkeepers  were  forbidden 
on  the  '  good  Mondays  '  to  keep  the  workmen  in  bands 
more  than  the  one  day  or  to  supply  them  with  more 
than  the  ordinary  meal. 

Special  opportunities  for  drinking  and  disorderly 
conduct  were  afforded  by  the  so-called  Geschenkte 
Handiverke,  that  is  to  say,  those  corporations  which 
made  it  a  rule,  on  the  arrival  of  any  wandering  journey- 
man at  their  town,  to  make  him  a  present,  with  which 
present  a  drinking  party  of  all  the  journeymen  was 
connected.  This  custom  not  seldom  led  to  all  sorts 
of  improper  excesses.  Thus  an  edict  issued  in  Austria 
in  1550  for  the  tanners  and  Muscovy-hides  workers  said : 
'  In  several  places  where  these  trades  are  carried  on, 
there  occur  in  one  week,  on  the  arrivals  and  departures 
of  journeymen,  not  merely  one  or  two,  but  four  and 
five  evening  gatherings  and  collations,  from  which 
ensue,  not  only  waste  of  time  and  other  evils  in  the 
workshops,  but  all  sorts  of  disorder,  vice,  murdering, 
and  disgraceful  conduct.'  ^ 

^  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  Oesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xxix.  434.  The  Drubeck 
pastor  Balthasar  Voigt,  in  his  drama  of  1616,  described  the  swinish  life  of 
the  artisan  journeymen  in  these  words  : 

They  keep  '  good  Monday  '  like  the  devil. 

Drink,  fight,  commit  all  sorts  of  evil ; 

On  Tuesday  badly  then-  heads  ache, 

On  Wednesday  with  despair  they  quake, 

On  Thm-sday  holiday  still  keep, 

But,  so  sore  doth  Elsslein  weep, 

On  Friday  to  the  shop  they  find 

Their  way,  and  work  as  they  're  inclined. 

Thus  the  week  drags  on  amain. 

On  Sunday  drink  begins  again. 

2  Bucholtz,  Ferdinand  der  Erste,  viii.  270. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  129 

In  the  imperial  police  ordinances  of  1530,  1548, 
1559,  and  later,  and  also  in  many  provincial  police 
ordinances  and  municipal  regulations,  the  GescJienkte 
Handtverke  were  most  emphatically  forbidden  ;  but  all 
these  orders  were  as  a  rule  nullified  by  the  dogged  resis- 
tance of  the  German  journeymen  class.  When  the  town 
council  at  Augsburg  on  August  21,  1567,  put  a  stop  to 
the  practice,  the  sword- furbishers  and  coppersmiths  rose 
up  in  a  body  and  left  the  town :  the  council  were  conse- 
quently obliged,  towards  the  end  of  the  year,  to  rescind 
their  decision. ^ 

Friendly  relations  between  the  masters  and  their 
journeymen  and  apprentices  now  seldom  existed ;  to 
the  selfish  employers,  cutting  down  wages  and  food  as 
much  as  possible,  there  stood  too  frequently  opposed 
discontented  and  defiant  workmen,  who  only  worked  in  a 
slovenly  manner,  and,  on  the  evidence  of  innumerable 
contemporaries,  having  no  rehgious  or  moral  backbone, 
squandered  or  drank  up  all  their  earnings,  and  fell 
victims  to  immorality.  The  upright  and  serious- 
minded  Hans  Sachs  as  early  as  1535  makes  '  Dame 
Labour '  complain  that  handwork  is  despised,  because 
the  workmen  are  stinted  of  their  proper  pay  and  thereby 
incensed  and  driven  to  poverty  : 

.  .  .  This  makes  them  rabid,  turbulent. 
Each  on  his  own  advantage  bent ; 
The  humblest  of  them  follow  suit. 
And  much  spoilt  handiwork  's  the  fruit, 
Idle  they  grow,  and  negligent. 
Gambling,  drunken,  gluttonous  to  boot.^ 

1  V.  Stetten,  i.  578.  Fuller  and  fresh  details  concerning  the  importance 
of  the  GeschenJcte  Handwerke  for  the  journeymen  and  the  latter's  resistance 
to  then-  abohtion  are  given  in  Schonlank,  355-357,  376  ff.  **  and  in 
Soziale  Kdmpfe,  77-97. 

"  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  p.  323. 

VOL.  XV.  K 


130  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  this  drinking  and  gorging,  the  masters  at  Nurem- 
berg and  elsewhere  encouraged  them  by  their  own  bad 
example.  When  the  Nuremberg  Council  in  1550  forbad 
the  journeymen  to  misuse  the  '  good  Monday/  ^  they 
added  the  following  admonition  :  '  Whereas  the  un- 
necessary and  excessive  manner  in  which  the  handwork 
journeymen  abuse  the  "  good  Monday "  and  other 
times  of  leisure  is  greatly  the  result  of  the  masters' 
daily  carousing  and  wine-drinking,  the  honourable 
Council  addresses  to  the  former,  their  fellow-citizens 
and  burghers,  the  masters  and  their  handworkers,  a 
quite  fatherly  and  sincere  exhortation,  that  they  would 
set  a  good  example  to  their  journeymen  and  others 
in  their  service,  abstaining  from  excessive  tippling  and 
wine-drinking,  especially  on  working  days,  so  that 
God's  wrath  may  not  be  increased  against  them  ;  and 
above  all  that  their  wives  and  children  may  be  saved 
from  the  terrible  habit  of  following  them  to  the  wine 
taverns  and  accustoming  themselves  to  drink,  and  that 
thus  all  good  and  profit  may  accrue  to  their  souls  and 
their  bodies.'  ^ 

What  sort  of  complaints  were  raised  by  the  journey- 
men, and  how  bitter  the  relations  between  them  and 
their  masters  had  become,  is  learnt  from  three  documents 
belonging  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century.-^ 

In  the  first  of  these  the  local  and  the  general  company 
of  the  fustian  weavers'  trade  complained  to  the  council, 
in  the  last  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century,  concerning 

'  See  above,  p.  126. 
2  Schonlank.  600. 

=*  We  are  indebted  for  these  to   the   admirable  work  of  Schonlank, 
604-612. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  131 

the  masters'  intention  to  raise  the  weekly  charge  for 
bread  from  50  pfennig  to  80.     '  When  corn  was  quite 
cheap  and  we  might  have  bought  our  bread  for  less, 
we  paid  the  50  pfennig  without  murmuring ;    therefore 
the  masters,   in   the   present   scarcity,  might    have   a 
little  consideration  for  us,  and  act  justly  by  us.     They 
ought  also  to  bethink  them  that  there  is  not  the  same 
risk  with  our  trade  as  with  some  others  which  may  stick 
for  want  of  work ;    for  we  have,  thank  God,  a  good 
trade  that  does  not  stick,  but  there  is  always  plenty  of 
work,  if  only  there  were  enough  workpeople  to  do  it, 
therefore    they    cannot    bring    forward    the    plea    for 
oppressing  us  with  higher  bread-money.'    '  The  food  with 
which  the  masters  were  bound  to  supply  them,  as  they 
very  well  knew,  was  much  better  formerly  than  now, 
and  also  they  used  to  have  a  drink  of  beer  handed  them 
at  table,  which  was  now  given  up.'     '  Besides  this,'  the 
journeymen  went  on  to  say,  '  we  had  formerly  for  our 
recreation  from  work  seven  festivals,  and  these  still  go  on 
in  other  foreign  workshops,  but  here  five  of  them  have 
been  cut  off,  and  we  now  have  only  two :  the  Carnival 
and  Lichtgenss  (Candlemas?).     Furthermore  no  cheese  is 
now  given  us  with  our  supper,  as  used  to  be  done  :   our 
food  is  much  less  in  quantity  also  than  in  former  years. 
The  journeymen  in  other  places  do  not  give  more  than 
5  or  6  kreuzer  for  their  bread,  and  moreover  they  are 
not  blamed  and  pimished  as  we  are  here.     For  if  we, 
in  great  need,  drink  a  small  glass  of  beer,  or  rest  from 
work  for  an  hour,  w^e  are  at  once  censured  and  docked 
of  our  money,  though  we  cannot  always  drink  water  ; 
for  we  work  under  the  earth  in  damp,  reeking  vaults,  we 
are  obliged  to  inhale  a  quantity  of  dust  and  other  noxious 
matter,  and  we  cannot  all  of  us  get  on  with  only  water 

K  2 


132  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

to  drink  always. i  From  this  it  also  follows  that  many 
of  us  become  ill,  and  your  excellencies  have  to  send  us 
to  the  hospital  or  some  other  place,  which  all  comes  from 
the  above-mentioned  wrongs  and  oppression,  and  that 
we  poor  workmen  are  so  badly  treated  by  the  masters 
in  respect  of  food  and  other  matters/ 

'  And  in  addition  to  all  this,  w^e  have  very  low  pay. 
When  working  on  large  pieces  and  doing  the  best  work, 
we  can  only  earn  half  a  gulden  in  the  week,  and  on  small 
pieces  scarcely  an  ort,  a  quarter  of  a  gulden.  Besides 
which  we  must  produce  the  same  work  whether  the 
yarn  is  good  or  bad,  whether  we  work  for  a  long  or  a 
short  time  at  a  job  ;  we  are  also  obliged  to  buy  candles 
for  the  masters'  work,  which  is  not  the  custom  in  any 
other  trade  ;  also  to  pay  6  pfennig  for  washing  a  shirt, 
all  which  is  not  so  in  other  places,  let  alone  bath-money, 
clothes  and  other  necessaries  of  hfe.  If  then  the  bread- 
money  was  raised  to  80  pfennig  the  workmen  employed 
on  small  pieces  w^ould  not  be  able  to  earn  in  the  week 
as  much  as  they  would  have  to  pay  the  master  for  bread 
and  light  alone.  Out  of  what  then  are  we  to  buy  the 
other  things  we  want  ?  It  is  therefore  impossible  that 
we  can  give  in  to  the  masters'  demands  or  allow  the 
50  pfennig  to  be  raised  :  it  would  be  better  for  us  to 
seek  a  hving  elsewhere.' 

As  a  specially  '  mischievous  abuse '  which  had 
invaded  handwork,  the  men  pointed  out  that  *  a  number 
of  married  workmen  are  admitted,  who  in  the  end,  your 
excellencies,  come  to  you  for  alms ;  most  of  these  also 
come  from  foreign  places,  where  they  have  committed 

^  These  cellars,  which  are  still  used  as  workrooms  in  the  Sieben  Zeilen 
on  the  Weberplatz,  are  '  by  no  means  among  the  worst  workrooms  of 
modern  Nuremberg.'     Schonlank,  604,  note. 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  133 

offences,  and  have  run  away  from  their  wives  and 
children.  Also  the  masters  employ  farm-servants  and 
village  weavers,  who  have  scarcely  been  apprenticed 
for  three  months,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  will 
take  whatever  is  offered  them,  whereby  we  journeymen, 
who  have  learnt  our  business  well  according  to  the 
rules  of  the  trade,  are  ousted.  Or  else  they  try  to 
keep  us  on  at  the  same  pay  they  give  these  burghers, 
which  is  damaging  to  society  at  large,  and  brings  our 
craft  into  discredit  with  foreign  workshops. 

'  Therefore  our  humble  petition  is,  that  your  excellen- 
cies would  graciously  make  the  provision  that  no  married 
man  shall  henceforth  be  received  here  and  encouraged 
who  comes  from  the  country,  unless  he  first  presents 
his  certificate  of  proficiency,  or  gives  other  sufficient 
guarantee  that  he  has  honourably  fulfilled  his  apprentice 
years,  and  learned  his  trade  according  to  usage,  so 
that  the  trade's  own  journeymen  be  not  ousted  or 
harmed  by  strangers.' 

What  precise  answer  the  masters  made  to  all  these 
complaints  has  not  become  known ;  but  the  spirit  in 
which  they  were  treated  is  seen  from  a  petition  sent  in 
by  a  member  of  the  brotherhood  of  hnen  weavers  to  the 
Council  in  July  1601  concerning  reduction  of  wages 
decreed  arbitrarily  by  the  masters,  concerning  improper 
use  of  the  fine  money,  which  had  not  even  been  put 
into  the  fund  for  the  poor  foreign  and  sick  workmen, 
but  spent  on  the  masters'  drinking  bouts,  and  finally 
on  account  of  the  victualhng.  '  They  gave  the  men 
one  pfennig  per  cent,  on  "  mottled  work  "  (kind  of  hnen 
wove)  but  only  half  pfennig  on  cloth ;  further  instead  of 
payment  of  the  weekly  six  kreuzers  "  the  bare  food  out 
of  the  kitchen."     Bread,  hght,  beer  and  other  things 


134  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

that  we  require,  we  have  to  buy  for  ourselves,  with 
our  own  money,  so  that  with  ten  batzen  we  can  scarcely 
hold  out  for  the  week.  A  pound  of  meat  costs  only  one 
batzen,  but  half  the  time  we  get  none.  Yet  of  this  we 
should  not  complain  if  we  were  reheved  of  other  unfair 
burdens.' 

With  regard  to  reduction  of  wages  the  men  stated 
that  since  Easter  *  for  every  ell  of  "  mottled  work  " 
two  pfennig  had  been  taken  off,  and  one  pfennig  from 
the  cloth.'  They  begged  that  the  Council  would  protect 
them  as  regards  the  wages  which  they  had  received  for 
many  years,  all  the  more  so  as  their  trade  was  not  one 
which  went  on  summer  and  winter  ahke,  but  on  the 
contrary  they  often  had  to  be  idle  in  the  winter,  and 
also  many  of  them  at  the  end  of  their  work  had  to  tramp 
the  country  for  bread. 

The  counter  report  of  the  masters  declared  all  these 
complaints  to  be  '  long-winded,  uncalled-for  chatter,' 
but  it  appears  that  even  in  the  master  guilds  there  were 
dissensions.  The  journeymen,  the  report  said,  were 
receiving  higher  wages  than  they  had  had  twenty-two 
years  before,  when  they  had  been  quite  satisfied. 
'  Whereas,  however,  before  this,  some  of  the  masters, 
out  of  jealousy  of  us,  began  giving  workmen  higher 
wages  than  had  been  the  previous  custom ;  this  induced 
many  to  leave  their  former  masters  for  those  who  paid 
higher  wages  :  agitators  soon  spread  the  cry  for  higher 
wages  all  round.'  They  could  not,  they  said,  give  the 
men  more  wages  for  twelve  or  twenty  years  to  come ; 
the  men  were  never  punished  unjustly  and  wantonly ; 
the  boxes  for  the  fines  were  never  emptied  by  the 
masters.  *  If  they  think  we  are  bound  to  put  as  much 
meat  as  they  hke  into  their  open  mouths  every  day,  and 


INDUSTRIAL  TRADES  135 

to  give  them  beer,  bread,  light  and  other  things  besides, 
let  them  know  that  we  are  not  bound  to  do  anything 
of  the  sort,  on  the  contrary  we  are  forbidden  to  do  so 
by  a  clause  in  our  ordinance  under  pain  of  punishment/ 
'  If  one  or  the  other  of  them  finds  their  master's  board  or 
wages  insufficient,  let  them  seek  more  elsewhere,  the 
door  and  the  gate  are  open  to  them ;  for  there  are 
plenty  of  workmen  everywhere  for  our  trade ' ;  '  other 
poor  foreign  loafers  wandering  about  the  country  and 
unable  to  find  work  have  often  been  glad  to  be  employed 
here.'  In  short,  the  leaders  in  the  complaints  were 
described  as  '  agitators  and  idle  fellows  who  thought 
more  of  drinking  and  swilling  than  of  working  industri- 
ously.' 1 

The  Nuremberg  bookmakers  on  one  occasion  at- 
tempted to  raise  the  workmen's  weekly  payments  for 
food  to  nearly  the  double,  to  a  sum  which,  as  the 
magistrate  said,  '  many  a  workman  could  scarcely  earn 
in  the  week,' "  so  that  all  his  work  would  have  gone  for 
food  only. 

How  httle  care  was  often  bestowed  by  the  guilds 
on  the  apprentices,  in  spite  of  all  the  old  and  com- 
mendable guild-regulations,  is  shown  by  an  admonition 
of  the  Nuremberg  Council  in  1595  to  the  gold  spinners, 
lacemakers,  and  wool  carding  tool  makers  :  '  Whereas 
also  the  poor  young  fellows,  especially  the  strangers 
who  have  no  one  in  the  town  to  care  for  them,  often 
have  their  health  seriously  affected  by  bad  conditions  of 
food  and  sleeping  accommodation,  and  bad  smells  which 
they  are  obhged  to  endure  in  their  small,  stuffy  rooms, 
the  above-named   three  trades  must  be  advised  that, 

1  Schonlank,  606-612. 

-  Without  mention  of  the  year,  in  Stockbauer,  34. 


136  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

henceforth,  whenever  an  apprentice  who  is  not  a  citizen 
of  this  town  becomes  infected  with  disease  and  ruined 
in  health  in  their  service,  they  will  be  bound  to  have  him 
doctored  at  their  own  expense/  The  Council  appointed 
for  each  of  these  three  industries  two  presidents  who 
were  to  take  care  that  the  apprentices  were  protected 
against  hunger  and  cold,  that  their  health  was  not 
injured,  that  they  were  not  ill-used  with  blows  and 
reproaches,  and  not  worked  beyond  their  strength 
and  power  of  endurance/ 

Simultaneously  with  the  deterioration  and  decline  of 
industrial  life  there  came  a  dechne  of  peasant  life  and 
agriculture,  which  had  an  even  more  injurious  effect  on 
economic  conditions. 

^  Stockbauer,  24. 


137 


CHAPTER  IV 

PEASANT  LIFE — EFFECT  ON  AGRICULTURE  OF  UNLIMITED 
HUNTING — DECLINE    OF    AGRICULTURE 

After  the  social  revolution  of  1525  had  been  extin- 
guished with  the  blood  of  the  peasants,  there  followed 
almost  throughout  the  whole  empire  the  most  distressing 
collapse  of  agrarian  conditions.^ 

The  peasant-class,  the  most  vigorous  and  numerous 
portion  of  the  people,  found  itself,  generally  speaking, 
without  protection  and  without  rights,  a  prey  to  the  arbi- 
trary will  of  those  in  power,  and  this  not  only  in  those 
districts  in  which  the  storms  of  revolution  had  raged, 
but  also,  and  even  to  a  greater  degree,  in  those  which 
had  remained  untouched  by  these  disturbing  influences.^ 

^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  i.  327,  on  agricultural  life  at  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  vol.  iv.  121  ff.,  143  ff.,  344  ff.,  on  the  social  revolution 
and  its  consequences. 

-  See  K.  J.  Fuchs,  '  Die  Epoclien  der  deutschen  Agrargeschichte  und 
AgrarpoUtik,'  in  the  Allgem.  Ztg.,  1898,  BeU.  70,  where  he  says :  '  The 
position  of  the  peasant-class  in  the  South-West  has  not  on  the  whole  become 
essentially  worse  since  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  quite  otherwise, 
however,  as  regards  the  course  of  development  in  the  North-East,  in  the 
lands  East  of  the  Elbe  wliich  were  not  Germanised  and  colonised  till  the 
twelfth  century.  Here  the  actual  decline  of  the  peasant-class,  the  gradual 
deterioration  of  the  position  they  had  acquired  as  colonists,  consequent 
on  the  formation  of  the  manorial  system,  and  of  large  landed  properties, 
begins  at  this  very  time.  First  of  aU  the  personal  conditions  of  the 
peasant  begin  to  suffer  :  he  is  bound  to  the  manorial  domain  so  long  as  he 
has  a  farm  holding  within  its  circumference ;  he  belongs  to  the  lord  of 
the  manor,  and  the  Reformation  further  impairs  his  rights  of  possession 
and  his  agricultural  status.     Through  the  change  in  the  constitution  of 


138  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

At  the  Spires  Diet  of  1526.  which  met  immediately 
after  the  subjugation  of  the  peasants,  the  imperial 
legislation  busied  itself  to  some  extent  with  the  cause 
of  this  down-trodden  and  persecuted  class.  It  was 
decreed  in  the  Eecess  of  August  26  that  those  subjects 
who  were  responsible  for  the  insurrection  were  to  be 
proceeded  against  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  them 
imderstand  that  the  "  mercy  and  lenity  of  their  rulers 
were  greater  and  more  benevolent  than  their  own 
unreasonable  action  and  behaviouj :  that  every  ruler 
should  have  power  and  authority  to  restore  to  their 
former  position  of  honour  all  those  subjects  who  had 
unconditionally  surrendered  and  received  pimishment  : 
they  may  be  allowed  to  act  as  judges,  counsel  and 
witnesses,  and  also  as  plaintifis  in  matters  concerning 
their  own  interests  and  through  their  spokesmen : 
justice  should  be  evenly  dealt  out  to  them  and  they 
were  to  abide  by  the  judges'"  sentences.'  - 

Xevertheless  only  a  few  of  the  rulers  made  use  of 
this  "  power  and  authority '  :  some  of  them,  especially 

the  army  that  took  place  at  this  period,  the  iiitroduction  of  merc«iary 
troops,  the  knights  who  in  this  region  could  not  be  territorial  lords,  and 
only  to  a  slight  extent  to\m  patricians,  tamed  thansrfres  into  farmers,  and 
began  at  once  to  enlarge  the  territory  belonging  to  their  o\m  knightly 
possessions  by  confiscating  what  had  hitherto  been  peasant  lands.  Xow 
begins  the  pulling  down  of  the  peasant-holdings  and  the  btiilding  up  of 
large  manorial  properties.'  As*  howeTer,  thiis  enormously  increased 
extent  of  manorial  land  was  now  as  before  worked  by  means  of  the  feudal 
service  of  the  peasants,  whose  number  went  on  diminisidaz.  these  services 
inTiItq>Iied  in  proportion  as  the  supply  of  peasants  decreased,  and  the 
peasamts.  in  order  that  they  should  not  run  away,  are  made  personally 
dependent,  or  hereditary  vassals.  The  introduction  of  Roman  law  also 
contributed,  though  not  to  the  extent  generally  believed,  to  the  injury  of 
the  personal  and  property  rights  of  the  peasants.  See  Knapp  in  the 
Zeiiddtr.  fir  BecMtagesdtichU,  xis.  (190S),  16  f .,  37  n..  42  c. 
'  Sent  Sammtlmng  der  Abschiedf,  ii  ^74,  |  6 ;  cf.  275,  §  8. 


PEASANT  LIFE  139 

ecclesiastical  princes,  such  as  the  Abbots  of  Murbach  and 
Maurusmiinster,  the  Bishops  of  Spires  and  of  Strasburg, 
showed  mercy  to  the  vanquished  peasants  ;  Archbishop 
Matthias  Lang  of  Salzbui'g  gave  orders  on  November  20, 
1526,  that  '  imjust  and  newly  introduced  impositions 
should  be  abolished ;  above  all  nobody  should  have  the 
power  to  claim  feudal  rights  over  people  and  lands  not 
held  in  vassalage  before/  ^  It  was  not  many  of  the 
princes  who  could  say  for  themselves  what  Duke 
George  the  Bearded  of  Saxony  wrote  regarding  the 
peasant  war  of  1527  to  the  Landgrave  Phihp  of  Hesse  : 
*  We  have,  God  be  praised,  taken  nothing  from  any- 
one ;  we  have  behaved  in  such  wise  towards  them  that 
no  one  can  accuse  us  of  having  used  violence  towards 
anyone ;  they  are  also,  thank  God,  not  so  greatly 
impoverished  ;  they  have  their  pennies  to  spend  like 
others,  and  they  can  render  aid  to  their  lords  hke  others 
and  better  than  others/  - 

In  numbers  of  peasant  ordinances  of  later  times 
there  is  not  a  trace  of  forcible  seizure  of  parishes  by  the 
rulers ;  for  instance,  in  the  ordinance  of  1544,  issued  for 
the  village  of  Kappel  near  Vilhngen,  whose  overlords 
were  the  cloister  of  St.  George  in  the  Schwarzwald, 
and  Squire  James  of  Freyburg,'^  and  in  the  ordinance 
issued  two  years  later  by  Bishop  PhiUp  of  Basle  for  the 
village  of  Schliengen.^ 

'  See  our  remarks,  vol.  iv.  351  f. 

-  Seidemann,  '  Briefwechsel  zwischen  Landgraf  Pliilipp  von  Hessen 
und  Herzog  Georg  von  Sachsen,'  in  Niedners,  Zeitschr.  fiir  histar.  Theologie, 
xix.  213,  214. 

^  Contributed  by  RotL  von  Schreckenstein  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir 
die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xxx.  442-456. 

^  Contributed  by  Bader  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins, 
xviii.  225-243. 


140  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  words  written  by  Sebas- 
tian Franck  in  1534  apphed  equally  to  the  German 
peasants  after  the  social  revolution  :  '  The  peasants  are 
everybody's  footstools,  and  hard  pressed  they  are  with 
socage,  dues,  tithes,  taxes,  tolls,  &;c/  With  this  lament- 
able position  of  theirs  and  with  the  hatred  which  filled 
their  hearts  towards  their  oppressors  we  may  connect 
what  Franck  added  :  '  They  are  none  the  more  pious 
for  all  this,  nor  are  they  a  simple,  peaceable  set  of  folk, 
but  on  the  contrary,  savage,  cunning  and  undisciphned/  ^ 

There  existed  no  longer  now  the  powerful  imperial 
central  authority,  such  as  formerly,  in  connection  with 
the  Church,  had  been  the  actual  basis  of  peasant  well- 
being,  had  protected  the  peasants  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  princes  and  nobles,  and  above  all  had 
saved  the  German  peasant-class  from  the  fate  which 
had  overtaken  the  Slav  agriculturist.-  '  There  is  now 
no  longer  any  Emperor,'  said  a  fugitive  piece  of  the 
year  1598,  '  for  many  long  years  no  more  any  Emperor, 
who  could  if  he  would  defend  the  cause  of  the  poor 
miserable  peasants,  in  these  restless,  dissentient  times, 
when  everyone  is  consumed  with  hatred  and  discontent, 
against  the  harpies,  the  extortioners  and  the  sweaters. 
Just  tell  me  what  is  done  at  all  the  many  imperial  and 
other  Diets  ?  Everything  imaginable,  but  nothing, 
nothing  whatever  that  is  of  any  use,  comfort  or  pro- 
tection to  the  poor  man  of  the  land  and  that  would 
serve  to  put  a  bit  in  the  mouths  of  their  oppressors, 
tyrants  and  fleecers.'  ^ 


>  Weltbuch,  Bl.  47.  -  See  Nitzsch,  i.  337-339,  and  ii.  3-9,  318. 

■'  '  Baueinklage  ob  der  arm  Mann  nicht  audi  zum  Recht  kommen 
soil  ?  '  (a  Flughlatt  of  1598),  p.  2.  Cf.  (D.  Sudermann).  Klag  der  armen 
Bauern  (Strasburg,  161(3). 


PEASANT  LIFE  141 

In  the  course  of  imperial  legislation  since  1526 
there  had  only  on  one  single  occasion  been  any  thought 
of  the  peasants,  and  that  was  when  in  the  Augsburg 
Recess  of  1555  the  owners  of  the  land  were  granted 
the  right  to  reduce  their  tenants  to  the  state  of  serfs 
and  bondmen.^ 

'  In  what  German  land/  the  fugitive  piece  of  1598 
goes  on,  '  does  the  German  peasant  still  enjoy  his  old 
rights  ?  Where  does  he  have  any  use  or  profit  of  the 
common  fields,  meadows  and  forests  ?  Where  is  there 
any  hmit  to  the  number  of  feudal  services  and  dues  ? 
Where  has  the  peasant  his  own  tribunal  ?  God  have 
pity  on  him !  All  this  and  other  things  belonging  to  the 
former  honourable  condition  of  the  peasantry  are  quite 
past  and  gone,  so  that  whoever  speaks  of  such  things 
now  is  told  that  he  is  an  enemy  of  the  overlords  and  a 
sedition-monger,  and  deserves  to  be  punished  in  life, 
Hmb  and  goods/  *  And  even  admired  theologians  are 
quoted  to  show  how  sharply  the  peasants  and  the 
"  rabble  "  must  be  looked  after,  so  that  they  may  not 
wax  wanton  again  and  defy  their  rulers  who  alone  have 
authority  over  them,  and  again  rise  up  against  them/  '^ 
Among  the  number  of  such  theologians,  Melanchthon 
especially,  under  the  lively  memory  of  the  social  revolu- 
tion, had  pronounced  himself  in  favour  of  the  unhmited 
power  of  the  rulers.  '  Each  individual,"  he  wrote,  '  is 
bound  to  give  whatever  the  secular  government  decrees, 
whether  it  be  tithes  or  octaves/  '  In  Egypt  the  people 
were  bound  to  give  not  a  tenth  only  but  a  fifth  part,  and 
all  property  was  the  King's  own,  and  this  enactment 

^  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,   iii.    19,  §  24.     Cf.  v.  Maurer, 
Fronhofe,  iv.  530. 

"  See  above,  p.  140,  n.  2. 


142  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

was  made  by  Joseph,  in  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  certainly 
dwelt,  and  he  oppressed  the  people  heavily  ;   neverthe- 
less they  were  obhged  to  pay  what  was  exacted/     '  On 
the  part  of  the  peasants  it  was  a  crime  and  an  offence 
to  refuse  to  be  bond-servants,  for  such  conduct  was 
contrary  to  the  Gospel  and  had  no  reason  in  it/    '  When 
the  subjects  had  any  complaints  to  make  concerning 
confiscation  of  the  communal  property  in  water  or  woods 
or  concerning  services  and  taxes,  they  ought  to  proceed 
to  law :   rulers  frequently  had  good  cause  for  enclosing 
common  lands,  in  order  to  tend  them  or  what  not,  and 
even  if  they  did  this  by  force,  they  must  not  be  opposed 
with  force.     Also  as  regards  the  imposition  of  penalties, 
the  peasants  had    not    the    right    to   lay  down    laws 
for    their    overlords ;     for    God    had    ordained    rulers 
for    the  purpose  of  warding  off  and  punishing  evil/ 
*  The   Germans,'   he  reiterated,    '  are    such   a   wanton 
and  bloodthirsty  people,  that  they  ought  to  be  kept 
down  even  more  rigorously ;    for  Solomon  says,  Pro- 
■  verbs  xxvi.  3,  "  A  whip  for  the  horse,  a  bridle  for  the 
ass,  and  a  rod  for  the  fool's  back ;  "  and  Ecclesiasticus 
xxiii.  :    "  Fodder,  a  wand  and  burdens  are  for  the  ass  ; 
and  bread,  correction  and  work  for  a  servant/' '  i 

Like  Melanchthon,  Spalatin  also  referred  to  Joseph 
respecting  the  burdens  of  the  peasants.  '  It  was 
indeed  a  greater  hardship  that  Joseph,  the  holy 
man  of  God,  should  have  imposed  a  tax  of  a  fifth 
part  over  the  whole  kingdom,  and  yet  this  ordinance 
was  well-pleasing  to  God.'  "" 

Luther,  who  also  required  unconditioned  obedience 
to  the  commands  of  rulers,  said,  in  1529,  that  the  peas- 
ants were  in  a  better  position  than  the  princes.     '  You 

^  Corf,  Reform.,  xx.  641  ff.     See  also  our  remarks,  vol.  iv.  362  ff. 


PEASANT  LIFE  143 

helpless,  boorish  peasants  and  donkeys,  won't  you 
understand  ?  May  thunder  and  Hghtning  strike  you  ! 
You  have  the  best  part,  namely  use,  profit  and  sap  from 
the  vine  clusters,  and  you  leave  the  husks  and  the  skins  for 
the  princes.  You  have  the  marrow  for  yourselves,  and 
will  you  be  so  ungrateful  and  not  pray  for  the  princes, 
and  not  be  willing  to  give  them  anything  ?  '  In  one  of 
his  sermons  on  the  first  book  of  Moses  he  said  it  would 
be  the  best  thing  for  them  if  servants  were  again  sub- 
jected to  a  sort  of  slavery  such  as  had  existed  among 
the  Jews.  '  "  Then  Abimelech,"  he  said,  "  took  sheep 
and  oxen,  and  men-servants  and  maid-servants,  and 
gave  them  to  Abraham  and  spake  unto  Sarah,"'  and  so 
forth.  Was  not  that  a  royal  gift  ?  Then  he  gave  them 
power  over  the  sheep  and  oxen,  and  men-servants  and 
maid-servants,  so  that  they  were  all  personal  property, 
and  the  owners  might  sell  them  as  they  liked  ;  and 
it  would  verily  be  almost  best  that  this  state  of  things 
should  be  revived,  for  nobody  could  control  and  tame 
the  populace  in  any  other  way.  Only  if  fist  and  force 
were  at  hand,  so  that  if  anyone  dared  to  grumble 
he  would  have  a  fist  on  his  head,  would  things 
be  any  better.'  The  '  pious,  holy  people  '  of  whom 
he  had  been  speaking  had  a  fine  government,  among 
the  heathen  also.  Now  we  don't  get  on.  A  man- 
servant in  those  days  was  worth  from  one  to  eight 
gulden,  a  maid-servant  from  one  to  six  gulden,  and 
they  were  obhged  to  do  what  their  mistress  wanted. 
And  if  the  world  is  to  go  on,  it  will  not  be  possible  to 
keep  it  under  control  unless  these  rules  are  revived. ^ 

That  servants,  as  Luther  puts  it,  were  '  personal 
property  like  other  cattle '  which   the  overlords  could 

1  See  our  remarks,  vol.  iv.  p.  363. 


144  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

buy  and  sell  at  their  pleasure,  was  also  maintained  to  be 
just  and  right  by  many  representatives  of  the  old  pagan 
Eoman  law. 

The  saying  in  vogue  amongst  nearly  all  lawyers  of 
importance  at  that  time,  '  All  is  legitimate,  and  not 
tyrannical,  that  can  in  any  way  be  backed  up  by  the 
statutes  of  the  Corpus  Juris,'  ^  was  fruitful  of  the  greatest 
injury  to  the  peasant-class. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  Mecklenburg  jurist,  John 
Frederick  Husanus,  in  a  pamphlet,  '  tJber  die  Leib- 
eigenen,'  worked  this  principle  out  in  detail ;  the  old 
slavery,  based  on  captivity  in  war,  had  been  in  the  main 
everywhere  abohshed  by  Christianity,  but  without  a 
system  of  slavery  corresponding  in  great  measure  to 
the  old  one,  a  town  could  not  exist.-  To  this  new 
servitude  the  peasants  especially  were  subjected,  and 
hence  a  landed  proprietor  had  miconditioned  right  to 
drive  them  at  any  time  out  of  their  holdings  and 
to  seize  the  peasants'  fields  as  manorial  property.^ 
'  The  slave-colonist  must  not  bring  an  action  against 
his  overlord,  he  must  render  him  services  and  dues, 
and  on  the  marriage  of  his  owner's  daughter  he  must 
contribute  to  her  outfit.  The  overlord  has  also  the 
right  to  tax  his  "  slave-colonist,"  to  inflict  corporal 
punishment  on  him,  to  seize  his  goods  and  chattels, 
and  even  to  hold  over   him  punishment   by  death.'* 

^  Reseller,  Deutsche  Nationalokonomik  an  der  Grenzscheide,  275-276, 
and  Gesch.  der  Nationalokonomik,  145. 

-  The  State  needed  a  system  of  servitude,  '  Vetustae  magna  ex  parte 
similem.' 

•''...  potest  eiicere  suo  fundo,  item  alio  transferre  et  viUam  suo 
arbitratu  sibi,  e  praediis  colonis  concessis  extruere.' 

''  Fuller  details  concerning  the  book  of  Husanus,  De  Iwminibus 
propriis  (1590),  are  given  in  Bohlau,  389  ff. 


PEASANT  LIFE  145 

The  jurist  Ernest  Cothmann,  who  planted  himself  on 
Husanus  and  was  regarded  as  a  practical  authority, 
insisted  that  the  mere  fact  that  a  man  was  a  peasant 
was  enough  to  estabhsh  his  bondage. ^ 

In  agreement  with  Husanus,  George  Schonborner 
von  Schonborn,  Chancellor  of  Hohenzollern,  also  said, 
in  a  work  on  State  law  of  the  year  1614,  that  actual 
slaves  no  longer  existed  in  Germany,  but  that  slavery 
was  on  the  whole  lawful,  because  the  ownership  or 
possession  of  what  a  ruler  had  acquired  by  force  and 
valour  was  just  and  legitimate.^ 

That  under  the  influence  of  such  principles  and 
assertions  of  theologians  and  jurists,  the  condition  of 
the  peasants  should  have  changed  greatly  for  the  worse, 
cannot  seem  surprising.  True,  there  are  yet  other 
considerations  here  to  be  taken  into  account.  For 
instance,  deterioration  of  peasant  life  is  found  in  the 
greater  part  of  North-East  Germany,  where  there  had 
been  no  violent  rising  of  the  peasants  and  where  therefore 
the  forcible  suppression  of  the  latter  could  not  be  excused 
on  the  plea  that '  by  sedition  and  insurrection  they  had 
forfeited  their  ancient  rights.'  ^  . 

1  Bohlau,  404  £f. 
.    ^  ' .  .  .  possessio  eius,  quod  virtute  et  fortitudine  domini  acquisitum 
est,  iusta.'     Rosclier,  Gesch,  der  Nationalokonomik,  145,  146. 

^  'So  long  as  there  were  ecclesiastical  ground  landlords,'  saya 
Grupp  {Niedergang  des  Bauernslandes,  102),  '  these  had  formed  a  sort  of 
counterpoise,  and  they  still  did  so  in  South  Germany.  But  in  North 
Germany  these  counterchecks  had  fallen  away,  causing  a  great  load  of 
oppressions  to  descend  on  the  peasants.  The  peasants  felt  this  instinc- 
tively and  were  therefore  not  inchned  to  throw  in  their  lot  with  the 
Reformation.  See  Spahn,  Wirtsclmftsgeschichte  Pommerns,  39.'  Further 
on  (p.  107  ff.)  Grupp  mentions  the  agrarian  causes  which  co-operated 
with  the  Roman  law  and  the  selfishness  of  the  squires :  '  The  ground- 
owners  were  obUged  to  secure  larger  profits  after  the  price  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  had  risen,  while  the  value  of  money  had  sunk.'  They  began  to 
VOL.  XV.  L 


146  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Western  Pomerania  and  in  Riigen  before  1540 
there  were  a  number  of  free  peasants  besides  those  who 
were  the  property  of  the  overlords.  Of  these  it  is  said 
in  the '  Pomerania '  of  Theodore  Kantzow,  private  writer 
in  the  Chancellery  at  Wolgast  (|  1542)  :  '  They  pay 
their  modest  rents  and  have  also  some  definite  service 
to  render,  at  Riigen  they  give  money  instead  of  service. 
These  peasants  are  of  good  standing  and  well-to-do, 
and  if  any  of  them  do  not  wish  to  hve  any  longer  on 
their  farms,  or  to  let  their  children  hve  on  them,  they 
sell  them  with  their  lord's  leave,  and  give  a  tenth  part 
of  the  purchase  money  to  the  landlord.  And  whoever 
succeeds  them  on  the  farm  also  gives  money  to  the 
landlord,  and  the  former  occupiers  go  away  with  their 
children  and  goods  wherever  they  like."  '  And  these 
peasants  who  hold  their  farms  on  hereditary  tenure,  even 
should  the  overlords  wish  to  turn  them  out,  will  not  go 
unless  they  want  to  do  so,  they  are  not  so  entirely 
dependent  and  are  at  hberty  to  go  where  they  hke.'  ^ 

Within  a  short  space  of  time,  however,  these  peasants 
in  Pomerania  and  Riigen  fell  a  helpless  prey  to  the 
nobles.  The  prosperity  and  the  influence  of  the 
peasant-class  were  forcibly  curtailed,  and  violation  of 
rights  and  customs  on  the  part  of  the  manorial  lords 

occupy  themselves  with  the  export  of  raw  materials,  the  traffic  in  corn, 
wool  and  cattle.  The  manifold  undertakings  in  which  the  nobles  engaged 
led  to  a  great  increase  of  business,  and  tliis  gave  occasion  to  the  well-known 
expropriations  of  the  peasants.  Concerning  the  serious  consequences  to 
the  peasants  of  the  transition  of  the  nobihty  from  military  pursuits  to 
agriculture,  see  also  W.  Meyer,  Guts-und  Leibeigentum  in  Lippe  seit 
Ausgang  des  Mittelalters  (HaUe,  1896),  21,  and  above,  Fuchs  in  the 
Allgem.  Ztg. 

'  Kantzow,  Pomerania,  ii.  418,  432.  **  See  v.  Briinneck,  Leibeigen- 
schaft  in  Pommern,  104  ff.,  and  Grupp,  Niedergang,  106,  116  ff.  See  also 
our  remarks,  vol.  i.  p.  312  f. 


PEASANT  LIFE  147 

rose  even  to  the  height  of  arbitrary  ejection  of 
hereditary  tenant-farmers.  A  nobleman  himself,  the 
Riigen  baihff,  Matthias  von  Norman  (f  1556),  com- 
plained in  the  middle  of  the  century  of  the  injury  that 
had  accrued  to  the  peasant-class  through  the  influence 
of  foreign  law,  of  the  bad  administration  that  went  on, 
the  decay  of  justice,  and  the  usurpation  of  the  nobles. 
'  The  poor,'  he  said,  '  are  bled  and  fleeced/  The  good 
old  conditions  of  possession  and  privileges  were  to 
such  an  extent  undermined  that,  as  Norman  briefly 
summed  up  the  situation  :  '  Everyone  now  does  what 
he  likes/  ^ 

The  so-called  '  Legen  der  Bauern,'  that  is  to  say,  the 
seizure  of  their  farms  by  the  knights,  had  at  that  time 
become  a  widely  prevalent  practice.  As,  however,  the 
farms  held  by  the  knights  on  their  own  '  Plough  '  were 
free  from  taxation,  the  incorporation  of  rateable  peasant 
farms  in  the  property  of  the  knights  materially  increased 
the  burden  of  the  remaining  ratepayers.  Accordingly 
the  towns,  at  a  Provincial  Diet  in  1550,  complained  of 
the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  knights,  who  refused  to 
pay  taxes  on  formerly  taxable  peasant  property.  When, 
however,  the  Duke  proclaimed  the  abolition  of  tax 
immunity  for  the  farms  which  the  knights  had  seized 
for  their  own  use,  the  towns  began  to  confiscate  peasant 
lands,  so  that  a  decade  later  the  territorial  lords  on 
their  part  complained  of  the '  Bauernlegen'  (expropriation 
of  farmers)  by  nobles  and  towns.^  '  Nobles  and  towns,' 
said  Duke  Barnim  in  a  Provincial  Recess  of  February  10, 
1560,  *  are  utterly  unscrupulous  in  the  wholesale  way  in 
which  they  turn  parsonages  and  glebe  lands  into  new 
sheepfolds  and  farms;  the  lands  are  unequally  rated,  many 

1  Gaede,  34,  40-41.     Fuchs,  49  ff.,  63.  '  Fuchs,  68,  69. 

L  2 


148  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

of  them  are  made  free  from  taxation,  many  of  the  knights, 
under  pretext  of  ancient  freedom,  refuse  to  give  anything 
from  their  httle  towns  and  hamlets,  and  so  the  land 
and  the  taxes  are  alike  reduced  to  a  low  ebb.'  i 

From  decade  to  decade  the  position  of  the  peasants 
grew  worse  and  worse.  '  The  laying  waste  '  of  taxable 
farms,  that  is,  the  confiscation  of  peasant  farms  for  the 
purpose  of  making  larger  sheepfolds  on  them,  had 
become  so  common,  that  a  ducal  decree  of  1600  made 
all  further  action  of  the  sort  dependent  on  the  permission 
of  the  territorial  lords.^  In  the  following  year  the 
Duke  decreed  that  in  the  case  of  his  giving  his  consent 
to  the  eviction  of  any  peasant,  without  any  fault  on  the 
peasant's  part,  the  manorial  lord  must  at  least  let  him  be 
free  to  go  away  with  all  his  goods  and  chattels  and 
without  demanding  compensation ;  '  the  poor  peasants,' 
he  said,  '  were  so  distressed  by  the  dearness  of  everything 
that  they  could  not  afford  any  longer  to  pay  for  a  couple 
of  oxen.'  3 

But  the  peasants  always  resisted,  whenever  possible, 
this  tyranny  of  the  landlords,  and  would  not  wilhngly 
submit  to  being  turned  out  of  their  farms,  and  so  finally, 
in  1616,  after  some  opposition  from  the  territorial 
government,  a  fresh  Peasant  and  Shepherd  Ordinance 
was  drawn  up  by  Roman  jurists  and  the  councillors  of 
noble  birth  and  proclaimed  by  Duke  Philip  II.,  and  by  this 
ordinance  the  power  of  the  manorial  lords  to  seize  peasant 
property  was  fully  recognised  and  the  peasants  were 
deprived  of  all  their  ancient  rights  and  all  title  to 
hereditary  possession.  '  The  peasants,'  so  ran  this 
document,   '  in  our  duchy  and  land  are  not  holders  by 

1  Diihnert,  i.  479.  •-  Ihid.  770.     Fuchs,  70. 

^  Dahnert,  i.  784,  789. 


PEASANT  LIFE  149 

perpetual  lease,  but  bond- servants  bound  to  yield  all 
sorts  of  undefined  feudal  services  without  limitation 
and  certainty.  Tliey  and  their  sons  are  not  free  to 
leave  their  farms  and  lands  without  the  consent  of  the 
rulers.  The  lands,  ploughed  and  unploughed,  and  so 
forth,  belong  simply  and  solely  to  the  local  landlord  and 
ruler,  so  that  the  peasants  and  colonists  have  no  dominion 
of  any  sort,  and  have  no  right  to  urge  that  they  and 
their  forbears  have  lived  on  the  farms  for  50,  60,  or 
even  100  years.  Therefore  neither  they  nor  their  sons 
are  free  to  leave  and  settle  elsewhere  without  the 
consent  of  the  rulers,  their  hereditary  lords,  and  if  the 
rulers  want  to  take  back  to  themselves  the  farms, 
fields,  and  meadows,  the  peasants  must  submit  without 
resistance.  Also  the  sons  of  freeholders,  millers  holding 
in  fee,  innkeepers  having  title-deeds,  must  also,  like 
other  peasants,  be  subject  to  the  manorial  lords  with 
servitude.'  ^ 

1  Dahnert,  iii.  835-836.  Cf.  Gaede,  41-46  ;  Fuchs,  71-73.  In  this 
enslavement  and  plundering  of  the  peasants  '  the  influence  of  jurists 
trained  in  Roman  law  is  unmistakable.'  **  See  also  Grupp,  Niedergang, 
110  ff.,  114.  The  De  hominibus  propriis  of  Husanus  of  Mecklenburg 
(1550)  (see  above,  p.  144,  n.  4),  which  is  at  the  basis  of  this  movement, 
also  acquired  influence  in  Pomei'ania.  In  Riigen  the  peasants  lay  under  a 
similar  yoke.  See  Fuchs,  53-63.  Concerning  the  evil  influence  of  Roman 
law  on  the  peasants  in  Pomerania  see  also  von  Briinneck,  Leibeigenschaft  in 
Pommern,  129  ff.  ;  and  in  the  same  work  see  135  ff.  concerning  the  Peasant 
Ordinance  of  1616.  The  author  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Ordinance 
bound  the  peasants  firmly  to  the  estate :  its  effects  were  twofold  :  it 
deprived  the  men  of  the  right  to  migrate  and  laid  upon  them  compulsory 
labour  without  limit  either  in  kind  or  in  time.  '  This  peasant  ordinance,' 
says  Grupp,  '  looks  like  an  overturning  of  peasant  conditions  in  favour  of 
the  ground-lords.'  Nevertheless,  this  did  not  happen  at  one  blow,  and 
these  opinions  must  in  many  points  be  accepted  with  reservation.  If 
the  peasants  were  called  bond-servants,  the  old  bond-service  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word  is  not  meant  thereby,  but  rather  peasant  obligations, 
a  mild  attachment  to  the  glebe  coupled  with  compulsory  services  to  the 


150  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Pomerania-Wolgast  great  princely  agricultural 
domains  were  formed  out  of  confiscated  peasant  farms, 
and  on  these,  as  on  the  lands  of  the  nobles,  the  services 
of  the  peasants  were  doubled.  The  Pomeranian  towns 
also,  with  appeal  to  the  Mecklenburg  jurist  Husanus, 
claimed  for  themselves  the  right  to  turn  out  the  peasants 
at  their  will  and  to  retain  the  farm  stock  and  utensils.^ 

In  Mecklenburg  at  that  time  the  peasants  had 
long  since  been  victims  of  that  '  new  slavery  '  which 
Husanus  pronounced  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of 
a  State.  There,  too,  bond-service  (formerly  unknown) 
on  the  basis  of  the  Roman  law  first  developed  itself  in 
the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  by  the  middle 
of  this  century  the  knights  enjoyed  '  power  of  Hfe 
and    property  '    over    the    Nether    Saxon    peasants. 


lord  of  the  land.  Lassitic  ownership  was  not  enforced  till  after  the 
Thirty  Years'  War ;  it  made  the  peasant  a  bondman,  and  took  from  him  the 
right  to  inherit  or  bequeath  land.  In  Brandenburg  also  possession  first 
became  lassitic  at  this  period.  See  also  BruchmiiUer,  Die  Folgen  der 
Befor7nation  u.  des  Dreissigjahrigen  Krieges  fiir  die  Idndische  Verfassung  u. 
die  Lage  des  Bauernstandes  im  ostlichen  Deutschland,  besonders  in  Bran- 
denburg. Crossen,  1897.  Concerning  the  change  in  the  position  of  the 
peasant-class  which  took  place  in  Pomerania  in  the  sixteenth  century,  see 
also  Spahn,  Verfassungs-  u.  Wirtschaftsgesch.  des  Herzogtums  Pommern, 
124  ff.  '  The  question  of  the  crushing  down  of  the  social  position  of  the 
peasants  occupied  the  nobles  at  the  Provincial  Diets  up  to  the  year  1616, 
when  the  hesitation  of  the  princes  helped  the  efforts  of  the  knights  to  gain 
the  day.  It  was  not  from  agrarian  interest  that  they  devoted  themselves 
for  such  a  length  of  time  to  peasant  concerns,  but  rather  from  financial 
considerations.  In  spite  of  a  few  antagonistic  utterances  scattered 
here  and  there,  the  dominant  impression  remains  that  if  the  Estates 
had  been  willing  to  pay  land  tax  for  the  farms  taken  over  and  worked 
by  themselves,  the  Dukes  would  have  had  little  to  say  against  the  ejecting  of 
the  peasants.  For  if  not  the  ejecting  also,  the  bleeding  and  sweating  of 
the  country  people  was  probably  nowhere  so  severe  as  in  the  princely 
domains'  (p.  124 ff.). 
'  Fuchs,  76-81. 


PEASANT  LIFE  151 

formerly  free,  now  in  bondage. ^  It  was  related  of  the 
squires  there  that '  they  fasten  their  peasants  a  whole  day 
behind  a  red-hot  stove  and  give  them  nothing  to  eat 
but  over-salted  herrings'  noses,  and  nothing  at  all  to 
drink.  No  wonder  if  their  thirst  drove  them  to  lick  the 
oven  !  '  ^  At  Neukahlen,  in  1562,  a  peasant  was  once 
punished  by  having  his  beard  firmly  wedged  to  a  block. ^ 
At  the  Diets,  the  towns  and  the  knights  raised 
endless  complaints  against  each  other  concerning  the 
peasants.  The  towns  complained  that  '  the  nobles 
took  from  their  peasants,  who  wanted  to  sell  their 
cattle,  for  every  heifer,  half  a  gulden,'  and  altogether 
did  not  allow  them  free  sale  of  their  produce.  The 
knights,  on  the  other  hand,  complained  that  '  in  the 
towns,  to  oppress  the  peasants,  a  certain  price  was 
put  on  corn  and  the  burghers  were  forbidden,  on  pain 
of  punishment,  to  pay  any  more  for  it ;  then  when 
the  peasants  bring  their  goods  to  the  town  they  have 
to  sell  the  corn  at  a  lower  price,  while  the  burgher 
arbitrarily  raises  the  price  of  his  goods  and  gives  the 
peasant  bad  coin  into  the  bargain.'  *  Everything 
that  others  did  for  their  own  benefit,'  says  Duke  Ulrich, 
'  was  at  the  expense  of  the  poor  peasants,  but  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  princes  to  look  after  the  peasants  as  well 
as  after  the  other  classes.'  ■^  How  the  princes  fulfilled 
this  duty  was  shown  in  1607  by  a  decision  of  the 
territorial  lords  at  a  Provincial  Diet  at  Giistrow.  The 
peasants  were  declared  to  be  mere  '  colonists '  who,  at 
command,  must  give  up  their  acres  to  the  ground-lord, 

^  '  Tho  Ghude  und  Live  mechtig,'  it  was  said  at  a  Provincial  Diet  in 
1555.     Hegel,  21L 

^  Fischart,  Geschichtklitterung,  95. 

^  Franck,  Altes  und  Neues  MecMenbnrg,  book  x.  107. 

'  Hegel,  197-198.     Franck,  book  ii.  75 ;  cf.'  xii.  73. 


152  HISTORY  or  THE  GER>L\X  PEOPLE 

and  who  could  not  claim  any  hereditary  rights,  '  even 
if  they  had  been  in  possession  of  the  land  from 
time  immemorial/  Only  when  it  was  a  question  of 
their  own.  privileges,  especially  as  regards  exemption 
from  taxes,  did  the  nobles  appeal  to  the  '  sanctity 
of  old  traditions/  They  went  on  svstematicallv  with 
the  work  of  laying  waste  the  peasants'  farms,  and 
killing  off  the  peasants ;  the  well-to-do  ones  were 
gradually  transformed  into  poor  serfs,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  country  towTis,  in  which  the  peasants 
had  been  wont  to  buy  all  their  necessary  supplies, 
suffered  irreparable  loss.  Before  long,  traffic  was  carried 
on  with  serfs  as  with  horses  and  cows/ 

A  change  of  like  melancholy  nature  came  over  the 
peasantry  in  the  duchies  of  Schleswig  and  Holstein. 
There,  too,  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  servitude 
first  gained  a  firm  foothold.  With  the  exception  of 
a  few  districts,  in  which  the  subjugated  Wends  had 
settled,  the  knights'  farms  were  originally  not  much 
larger  than  the  peasants' ;  it  was  only  through  forcible 
pulhng  down  of  whole  callages  that  they  acquired  their 
later  extensive  proportions.  Still,  at  the  present  day 
some  of  the  farm  premises  go  by  names  which  originally 
designated  the  boundaries  of  \dllages  that  had  been 
destroyed.  2 

In  Brandenburg  the  nature  of  peasant  subjection 
had  already  become  more  severe  towards  the  end  of 

*  Fuller  details  are  given  in  Bohlau,  359-409.  A.  F.  Glockner  in 
Lisch,  Jahrbiicher,  x.  387  S.  Boll;  Gesch.  Mecklenburgs,i.  352  ff.,  and  ii. 
142,  147,  569. 

"^  See  G.  Hanssen,  Die  Aufhebiing  der  Leibetgenschaft  und  die  Umge- 
staltung  der  gutsherrlich-bduerlichen  V erhdltnisse  iiberhaiipt  in  den  Her- 
zogtumern  Schleswig  und  Holstein  (Petersburg,  1861),  pp.  10-12.  Hanssen 
in  the  Archiv  der  politischen  Okonomie,  iv.  113,  n.  2. 


PEASANT  LIFE  153 

the  fifteenth  century ;  it  was  then  recognised  as  a 
^ed  principle  that  the  peasants  were  the  vassals  of 
their  squires,  i  Elector  Joachini  I.  did,  for  a  time, 
lend  a  full  hearing  to  the  frequent  complaints  of  the 
peasants  concerning  the  extension  and  strengthening 
of  manorial  power,  and  he  constantly  threatened  the 
knights  with  interference  from  himself  as  territorial 
lord.  Finally,  however,  he  went  over  entirely  to  the 
side  of  the  knights.  In  1527,  contrary  to  all  impartial 
legal  usage,  he  assured  them  that  he  would  never 
introduce  a  complaint  of  the  peasants  against  them 
before  the  accused  manorial  lord  had  expressed  his 
own  opinion  on  the  matter ;  and  even  then  he  would 
only  allow  the  peasants  to  take  legal  action,  if  he  did 
not  consider  the  explanation  of  the  knight  proprietor 
satisfactory.  In  order  to  frighten  off  the  peasants 
from  making  complaints  a  decree  was  issued  by  Joachim 
II.  in  1540,  and  again  by  John  George  in  1572,  to  the 
effect  that,  '  Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  knight  pro- 
prietors are  often  accused  at  coiu't  by  the  peasants, 
summoned  by  them,  and  involved  in  expenses,  be 
it    henceforth    understood    that   whenever    a   peasant 

*  Grossmann,  12  flf.  **  See  Kauscli,  Die  gutsherrlich-bduerlichen 
V erhaltnisse  in  der  Mark  Brandenburg  his  zur  Zeit  des  Dreissigjdhrigen 
Krieges  (Dramburg,  1900),  p.  21  ff.  '  On  the  whole  (since  this  condition  of 
servitude  had  developed)  the  poor  people  had  just  enough  to  Uve  and  pay 
their  dues.  Consequently  they  had  lost  all  interest  in  the  improvement  of 
their  property  and  in  the  progress  of  agricultui'e,  for  it  was  only  in  the  very 
smallest  degree  that  they  could  reap  the  fruit  of  their  own  industry. 
Under  the  pressure  wliich  weighed  them  down  and  the  narrow  limits  of 
their  outlook,  aU  spirit  of  endeavour,  all  striving  after  advancement,  was 
choked  in  the  peasant  class.  They  lived  from  day  to  day,  working  on  in 
stoUd  indifference.'  '  That  the  Mark  was  not  rent  in  pieces  by  the  peasant- 
war,  was  undoubtedly  less  owing  to  the  peasants'  contentedness  with 
their  position  than  to  the  strong  territorial  authority  and  power  possessed 
by  the  knights  '  (p.  26). 


154  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

complains  of  his  overlord  and  does  not  give  sufficient 
justification  for  his  complaint,  he  shall,  in  accordance 
with  our  chamber  reforms,  be  punished  by  imprisonment 
in  the  tower,  in  order  that  the  other  peasants  may 
learn  to  refrain  from  such  insolent  complaining/  ^  At 
the  same  time  the  manorial  lords  were  granted  full 
right  of  forcible  '  buying  out,  or  ejection  of  the  peasants,* 
for  the  purpose  of  extending  their  own  landed  property  : 
all  peasants  were  to  vacate  their  tenements  and  sur- 
render them  to  their  overlords  for  reasonable  compensa- 
tion, whenever  they  (the  overlords)  wanted  to  start  a 
new  farm  or  to  build  a  dower  house  for  a  wife.  Besides 
this,  the  groundlords  were  given  the  right  '  to  relegate 
refractory  peasants/  that  is,  to  turn  them  out  of  their 
farms  and  out  of  the  village  ;  if  a  peasant  did  not  pay 
his  rent  at  the  proper  time  '  the  landlord  was  entitled 
to  distrain  the  tenant  himself.'  ^  Even  though  it  was 
still  always  recognised  in  principle  that  the  peasants 
were  personally  free  beings,  it  nevertheless  distinctly 
tended  to  personal  unfreedom  that  at  numbers  of 
Provincial  Diets  it  was  settled  that  "  the  children  of 

1  Korn,  20.  Winter,  MdrUsche  Stdnde,  xix.  277-278.  Mylius,  vi.  Abt.  1, 
112.  Kausch,  32  :  '  According  to  the  reformed  legislation  of  the  Imperial 
Chamber  of  1540,  the  punishment  for  peasants  who  insolently  appealed 
against  their  overlords  was  six  weeks'  imprisonment  in  the  tower.  This 
seems,  however,  not  to  have  been  effectual  enough,  for  in  1602  the  Estates 
actually  insisted  that  corporal  chastisement  should  be  inflicted  on  such 
insolent  complainants,  and  that  a  similar  punishment  should  befall  those 
who  incited  the  peasants  to  unnecessary  complaints.' 

2  '  Thus  the  knights  were  invested  with  power  to  protect  themselves 
and  with  right  of  execution  in  their  own  affaii's  independently  of  the 
ordinary  courts  of  justice,  and  the  full  significance  of  this  state  of  things 
can  only  be  reahsed,  when  we  remember  how  clumsy  at  that  period  was 
the  machinery  of  the  Imperial  Chamber  at  which  alone  the  peasants 
might  complain,  the  distance  of  the  peasants  from  its  sessions,  the  above- 
mentioned  difficulty  of  going  to  law,  and  the  punishment  in  case  of 
losing  their  suit.'      Korn,  41.     **  Cf.  Kausch,  27  ff. 


PEASANT  LIFE  "  155 

the  peasants  were  bound  to  serve  tlie  overlords  as 
domestics  in  preference  to  other  employers.*  From  this 
there  grew  up  the  system  of  compulsory  domestic  ser- 
vice which  was  justly  regarded  as  most  hard  bondage. ^ 
Further,  the  peasants  were  forbidden  the  right  of  moving 
to  another  place,  and  the  right  of  being  received  in  any 
other  town  or  village,  unless  they  presented  a  certificate 
of  dismissal  from  their  former  overlord.  ^ 

The  eviction  of  the  peasants,  so  the  towns  complained 
in  1549,  caused  the  growth  of  the  country  proletariate, 
which  streamed  into  the  towns  and  became  a  burden 
on  the  poor  rates.^  In  the  Altmark  and  the  Priegnitz 
the  knights  themselves  complained  in  1606  that  '  the 

^  In  1594  the  Estates  of  the  Altmark  represented  to  the  Elector 
that :  '  Although  we  remember  and  are  well  aware  that  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Estates  it  is  in  such  wise  decreed,  we  nevertheless  venture  to  say  quod 
durissima  videatur  esse  servitus  et  contra  dispositionem  iuris  communis 
introducta,  nee  in  omnibus  Marchiae  locis  pariter  recepta,  which  had 
never  before  prevailed  in  the  Altmark.'  Korn,  32-33.  See  also 
Grupp,  Niedergang,  114.  Kausch  remarks  (p.  26  ff.) :  'At  first  it  was 
decreed  by  the  Provincial  Recess  of  1518  that  no  domestic  servant 
should  hire  himseK  out  in  service,  or  offer  himself  for  service,  unless 
he  had  first  offered  himself  to  the  overlord  under  whom  he  was  bom 
and  was  settled.  This  decree  was  renewed  at  a  number  of  Diets 
as  in  1534  and  1536.  Later  on  this  obligation  was  restricted  to  three 
years  (as.  in  a  domestic  servant  ordinance  of  1629  for  the  Mittel-Ucker 
and  Neumark).' 

2  **  <  lyj^g  natural  result  of  this  oppressive  subjugation  was  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country  largely  sought  escape  from  bondage  by  crowding 
into  the  towns  where  an  independent  existence  was  more  easily  within 
their  reach  and  the  wages  of  their  labour  came  to  them  undiminished. 
The  knights,  however,  found  a  way  of  putting  a  check  on  this  flight  from 
the  country.  Under  Albert  Achilles  the  law  had  already  been  enforced 
that  nobody  among  the  peasants  or  vassals,  not  even  their  servants,  might 
by  anyone  be  received,  housed  or  provided  for  without  their  master's 
knowledge  and  consent,  and  it  had  already  become  a  fixed  principle 
that  no  peasant  might  take  himself  off  without  producing  a  guarantor. 
Removal  abroad  was  altogether  forbidden.'     Kausch,  26. 

•'  Winter,  Mdrkische  Stdnde,  xx.  515. 


156  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

confiscation  of  peasant  goods  had  become  so  common 
that  it  caused  a"  great  deal  of  abuse  and  disorder ' ; 
peasant  lands  were  not  only  turned  into  knights' 
property  and  seats  of  the  nobles,  but  were  also  used 
'  for  widows'  jointures,  official  premises,  sheepfolds  and 
other  requirements  of  all  sorts.'  Some  of  the  peasants 
also  were  robbed  of  their  fields  and  meadows  ;  farmers 
were  turned  into  cottagers  (without  land),  and  on  these 
confiscated  lands,  just  as  if  they  were  knights'  property, 
no  taxes  were  paid,  so  that  the  country  sustained  great 
loss  from  failure  of  the  peasants'  taxes.  ^ 

^  Grossmann,  27,  n.  5.  **  What  Count  Anton  of  Oldenburg  in 
Bavaria  had  seen  he  quickly  imitated.  See  R.  AUmers,  Die  Unfreiheit 
der  Friesen  zwischen  Weser  unci  Jade  (Stuttgart,  1896)  and  K.  EUstaetter, 
'  Der  Untergang  der  Friesischen  Bauer nfreiheit,'  in  the  Frankf.  Zeitung, 
1897,  No.  159.  The  latter  remarks  in  the  appendix  to  the  monograph  of 
Allmers :  '  Count  Anton  profited  by  the  introduction  of  the  Reformation 
for  the  confiscation  of  the  extensive  ecclesiastical  lands.  The  property 
he  thus  seized  was  mostly  taken  under  his  own  management  and  the 
peasants  put  to  feudal  service  on  it,  and  such  hard  unlimited  service  it  was 
that  they  were  obliged  to  neglect  their  own  lands.  Further,  he  seized 
the  communal  land  which  hitherto  had  served,  above  all,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  pastors  and  churches,  as  well  as  for  defrayment  of  the 
dike-tax.  All  school  instruction  came  to  a  stop.  This  indeed  was 
obviously  the  intention  of  the  Count :  for  when  once  he  had  crushed  down 
the  peasants  mentally  and  morally,  and  made  them  incapable  of  defending 
their  rights,  it  would  not  be  difficult  for  him  to  crush  and  disable  them 
also  in  agricultural  respects,  and  finally  to  convert  them  into  complete 
bondsmen.  The  seizure  of  the  land  which  had  hitherto  borne  the  dike-tax 
resulted  in  greater  and  greater  neglect  of  the  dikes,  which  finally  became 
unfit  to  resist  the  invasion  of  floods.  The  peasants,  overburdened  with 
feudal  services  on  the  Count's  farms  and  with  the  construction  of  dikes 
for  his  benefit,  had  no  time  to  cultivate  their  own  land,  let  alone  to  keep 
the  dikes  in  repair.  The  salt-water  floods  ruined  the  soil  and  made  it 
unproductive  ;  every  flood  was  followed  by  a  ravaging  pestilence  wliich 
carried  off  all  the  animals  that  had  escaped  drowning,  and  marsh  fever 
enfeebled  the  men.  Added  to  these  evils  was  the  disgraceful  manner  in 
which  the  territorial  lords  abused  their  lights  of  jurisdiction  :  on  the  most 
trifling  pretexts  the  goods  of  the  peasants  were  seized  by  the  law-courts, 
and  the  whole  family  turned  out  of  house  and  home.     Soon  every  peasant 


PEASANT  LIFE  157 

The  peasant,  completely  tied  to  the  spot  and  at  the 
mercy  of  his  overlord's  hmnours,  was  burdened  with 
harder  and  harder  tasks  in  proportion  as  the  manorial 
estates  increased  in  extent  and  required  more  frequent 
services.  Formerly  the  amount  of  such  services  had 
been  hmited  to  three  or  four  working-days  in  the  year  ; 
later  on  the  knights  required  of  the  peasants  to  be  ready 
at  all  times  to  render  them  service.  In  the  electoral 
Mark,  under  the  Elector's  approval,  it  became  an 
estabhshed  rule  that  the  peasants  were  bound  to  yield 
unhmited  service  if  they  could  not  adduce  proof  of  an 
opposite  usage.  1  For  the  Neumark,  the  Elector  John 
George,  after  the  knights  had  taken  over  part  of  the 
very  large  amount  of  debts  outstanding  at  his  accession, 

came  to  be  regarded  as  the  property  of  one  or  other  of  the  Count's  farms ; 
the  once  strong,  sturdy  men  who  had  made  up  the  free  German  peasantry 
of  old  were  now  mere  serfs.  Count  Anton's  pohcy  was  systematically 
aimed  at  crushing  the  peasants  more  and  more.  The  abolition  of  their 
power  to  divide  the  ground  property  and  of  the  right  to  inherit  is  a  further 
step  in  this  direction.  The  consequences  of  the  forcible  suppression  of  the 
marsh  peasants  were  frightful.  At  the  time  of  Count  Anton's  death  the 
whole  country  was  in  a  state  of  decay  ;  agriculture  was  at  its  lowest  ebb. 
Only  on  the  Count's  own  estate  did  a  better  condition  of  things  prevail. 
Wide  tracts  of  peasant  land  lay  waste,  for  the  peasants,  owing  to  their 
heavy  feudal  services,  had  no  time  to  cultivate  their  own  fields,  and  under 
the  crusliing  load  of  manorial  taxes  they  often  could  not  afford  the 
necessary  Uve  and  dead  farming  stock.  The  sale  of  part  of  their  possessions, 
which  might  have  helped  them,  was  forbidden  them.  Numbers  of  peasant 
farms  were  left  standing  empty  and  fell  in  to  the  Count ;  the  owners  had 
either  been  drowned  by  floods  resulting  from  neglect  of  the  dikes  or  else 
they  had  left  the  country.' 

'  Korn,  33-35,  39.  G.  F.  Knapp,  Die  Bauernbefreiung  und  der 
Ursprung  der  Landarbeiter  in  der  dlteren  Teilen  Preussens,  i.  39-46; 
proofs  of  the  increase  in  labour,  in  Grossmann,  39  ff.  **  Cf.  also 
Kausch,  30  ff.  '  These  hard  services  often  drove  the  peasants,  especially 
those  who  had  no  right  of  tenure,  to  leave  house  and  home  and  go  across 
the  border.  From  the  Neumark  the  peasants  often  fled  to  the  neighbouring 
Poland,  taking  vidth  them  their  farm  utensils  which  belonged  to  the 
overlords'  (p.  32). 


158  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

informed  the  peasants  through  his  Statthalter  in  1572 
that  '  they  must  serve  the  squires  two  days  a  week 
with  carts,  ploughs,  and  manual  labour,  and  in  August, 
at  harvest-time,  as  often  as  they  were  wanted,  and 
must  also  help  them  with  cartage  and  labour  in  their 
building.'  But  that  the  squires  were  actually  not 
satisfied  with  these  concessions  is  shown  by  a  decree 
of  the  Elector's,  in  which  he  said  '  it  was  not  his  intention 
to  let  the  poor  peasants  be  tired  out  with  still  further 
services  beyond  these  two  days  ;  he  hoped  that  honour- 
able and  reasonable  nobles  would  not  behave  in  such 
an  unchristian  manner  to  their  people  as  to  burden  them 
with  further  services  beyond  these  two  days'  work,  which 
were  already  hard  enough  for  them. '  ^  The  word  '  Leibei- 
genschaft '  so  greatly  wished  for  by  the  squires  appears 
first  in  Brandenburg  in  a  legal  document  of  1653.- 

In  the  Oberlausitz  also  the  nobles  claimed  the 
right,  for  the  extension  of  their  estates,  to  buy  out  the 
peasants  against  their  will.  They  sold  the  peasants* 
goods  and  the  peasants  into  the  bargain,  just  as  suited 
them,  multiplied  their  personal  services,  exacted  house- 
hold service  from  their  children,  levied  oppressive  taxes 
on  all  inherited  lands,  and  compelled  the  peasants  to 
make  them  the  offer  of  their  land  produce  before  they 
had  taken  it  to  the  market.  If  a  peasant  wanted  to 
buy  himself  free,  his  son  or  his  daughter  forfeited  the 
whole  or  half  of  the  paternal  or  maternal  heritage ;  if 
any  of  them  went  away  without  leave  they  lost  their 
whole  property.  For  disobedience  to  their  overlords 
thirty-five  peasants  from  one  single  village  were  brought 
in  1540  before  a  court  of  justice  in  Gorhtz  ;  two  of  them 

1  MyUus,  vi.  Abt.  1,  101. 

'-'  Lette     and     von     Ronne,     'Die     Landeskulturgesetzgebung     dea 
Preussischen  Staates,'  i.  17.     Grossmann,  63. 


PEASANT  LIFE  159 

were  beheaded,  and  all  the  rest  banished  from  the 
land  ;  in  the  same  year,  from  another  village,  thirty- four 
peasants  were  thrown  into  prison  for  refusing  the 
excessive  services.  The  Gorlitz  burgomaster,  John 
Hass,  a  man  of  strict  aristocratic  sentiments,  said  that 
'  the  peasants  were  treated  like  pagans  and  Turks/  ^ 

In  Anhalt  and  in  the  electorate  of  Saxony  the 
condition  of  the  peasants  was  better  than  in  the  neigh- 
bouring lands.  In  Saxony  hereditary  vassalage  and 
socage  services  did  not  weigh  so  heavily  on  the  peasants 
as  in  the  Lausitz  and  in  Brandenburg.  This  favourable 
state  of  things  '  was  pre-eminently  due  to  the  Elector 
Maurice's  government  pohcy,  the  significance  of  which 
has  not  hitherto  been  done  justice  to.  What  in  other 
countries  was  first  attempted  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
viz.  keep  lists  of  the  services  due  from  peasants  in  fief, 
in  order  to  protect  them  from  unlimited  and  arbitrary 
pressure,  was  already  begun  in  the  Saxon  electorate  in 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.' 

In  the  official  court  rolls  and  books  of  entail  exact 
entries  were  made  of  all  that  was  worth  recording  in 
agricultural  matters.  The  institution  of  these  official 
books  is  the  most  important  service  achieved  by  the 
government  under  the  Elector  Maurice.^  All  the  reforms 
which  the  government  attempted,  whether  for  the 
raising  of  the  peasants'  position,  or  the  improvement 
of  agrarian  industry,  were  carried  through  without 
serious  objections  from  the  immediate  subjects  of  the 
prince,  but  met  with  frequent  resistance  from  his 
mediate  subjects,  whose  immediate  landlords,  the 
knights,  defended  their  chartered  rights.     The  feudal 

1  Kimmel,  Joh.  Hass,  8-10,  185-186  ;  cf.  172. 

■^  Wuttke,  Oesindeordnung  und  Gesindezwangsdienste  in  Sachsen,  p.  24. 


160  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

services  imposed  on  the  peasants  in  Saxony  were  those 
customary  all  over  Germany.  ^  A  glance  at  the  contents 
of  the  court  rolls  and  books  of  entail  of  the  knights' 
estates  shows  the  pleasant  fact  that  all  the  feudal 
services  were  nearly  throughout  moderate.  Only  con- 
cerning the  immediate  subjects  of  the  district  of  Lichten- 
walde  (book  of  entail  of  1502)  do  we  read :  '  they  must 
attend  as  often  and  whenever  they  are  sununoned,  with 
horses,  carts,  ploughs,  and  hands,  ready  for  service, 
and  there  is  no  rule.'  In  the  district  of  Dresden, 
according  to  the  book  of  entail  of  1547,  there  were  also, 
in  some  villages,  no  fixed  rules  for  enforced  services. 
'  When  they  are  wanted  they  must  help  hke  others,  for 
the  customary  wage.'  On  the  other  hand,  even  at  that 
early  date  efforts  were  being  made  to  change  personal 
service  into  money  payments.  In  the  district  of 
Nauenhof  (book  of  entail  of  1548)  and  manorial  estate 
of  Sachsendorf  (book  of  entail  of  1587)  all  services 
and  dues  were  akeady  computed  for  money,  and  in 
the  Erb-hrief  (register  of  succession)  of  the  district  of 
Voigtsberg  (1580)  it  says :  '  Concerning  the  services 
rendered  by  the  villages  we  have  no  record,  but  the 
services  of  the  people  appear  to  have  been  changed 
by  Duke  John  Frederick  into  money  payments.' 
Manorial  proprietors  made  contracts  with  their  vassals 
for  changing  their  services  into  money  fees.  The  State 
took  the  lead  in  this  innovation. 

In  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  the  Elector  Augustus 
all  the  hunting,  post,  kitchen,  and  cellar  socages  were 
computed  for  money.  Nevertheless  the  Elector  reserved 
to  himself  the  right  of  demanding  personal  service 
instead  of  money.     Towards  the  end  of  his  reign  the 

1  Wuttke,  27,  29. 


PEASANT  LIFE  161 

work  of  computation  came  to  a  standstill,  and  it  was 
not  resumed  again  till  the  reigns  of  Christian  II.  and 
John  George  I.  Under  the  latter  especially,  and  down 
to  the  times  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  it  went  on  again 
in  a  comprehensive  manner,  i 

In  spite  of  these  favourable  conditions,  heavy  griev- 
ances were  not  lacking  even  in  Saxony.  In  1569  the 
parishes  of  Reinsberg  and  Dittmannsdorf  addressed 
serious  complaints  against  their  manorial  lords  to  the 
supreme  court  at  Leipzig :  '  In  the  last  seed-time/ 
they  said, '  while  engaged  in  their  hard  field  labour  they 
had  suddenly  been  attacked  with  spears,  muskets,  and 
other  murderous  weapons  ;  some  of  them  had  been 
very  badly  knocked  about,  others  tortured  with  the 
thumbscrew,  and  taken  in  chains  to  prison ;  amongst 
their  number  were  thirty  women,  some  of  whom  were 
pregnant.     After  this  a  large  quantity  of  their  cattle 

1  **  Wuttke,  29.  At  p.  34  ff.  Wuttke  contributes  passages  from  a  MS. 
of  the  Royal  Library  at  Dresden,  Instruktion  fur  einen  Vorwerksver waiter, 
written  probably  about  1569.  At  p.  37  ff.  he  gives  an  '  order  for  food  for 
the  domestics,'  from  which  we  may  gather  that  the  servants  of  the  house- 
hold were  well  and  abundantly  fed.  '  Wages  also  had  greatly  risen  in 
Saxony  in  the  sixteenth  century.'  As  regards  compulsory  domestic  service, 
Wuttke  tliinks  the  materials  at  hand  warrant  the  belief  that  it  did  not 
exist '  as  an  organic  and  legal  system  in  Saxony  down  to  the  sixties  of  the 
sixteenth  centmy,  but  only  in  isolated  cases,  as  exceptions,  on  some  of  the 
manorial  properties.'  This  was  not  changed  till  the  reign  of  the  Elector 
Augustus,  who  '  in  the  middle  of  the  sixties  took  on  himself  the  personal 
administration  of  the  domains  and  met  with  difficulties  in  providing  an 
adequate  stafE  of  servants  for  the  estates.'  In  1568  he  introduced 
compulsory  household  service  for  his  immediate  subjects  on  manorial 
properties.  After  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  knights  also 
claimed  the  right  of  demanding  compulsory  service  from  their  peasants 
(p.  46  ff.)  ;  but  in  spite  of  aU  their  efforts,  before  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
this  right  was  not  recognised  as  belonging  to  them  ;  only  on  a  few  manorial 
estates  did  compulsory  service  gain  any  firm  footing  (p.  48).  It  was  not 
till  after  the  Thirty  Years'  War  that  compulsory  service  became  the  law 
of  the  land. 

VOL.  XV.  M 


162  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

was  penned  up,  and  some  of  it  had  sickened,  some 
starved,  or  come  otherwise  to  grief,  because  they  had  not 
been  able  to  feed,  milk,  or  tend  the  animals.  Besides  this 
the  overlords  had  taken  from  each  vassal  three  imperial 
thalers  in  money  or  seed-corn,  and  thus  raised  more  than 
200  gulden  out  of  the  parishes.  Many  of  the  peasants 
had  not  been  able  to  endure  imprisonment  any  longer, 
and  so  had  submitted  to  the  fresh  burden ;  the  rest 
were  enduring  still  harder  captivity  on  bread  and 
water.'  ^ 

When  in  1583  the  peasants  from  four  villages  went 
to  Dresden  to  complain  to  their  territorial  prince,  the 
Elector  Augustus,  of  excessive  building  socages  they 
were  rated  by  the  Elector  as  '  insurgents,'  and,  as  they 
declared,  actually  threatened  by  him  with  the  naked 
sword  :  160  of  them  were  kept  in  prison  for  more  than 
eight  days. 2  When  complaints  concerning  Henry  von 
Schonberg  were  addressed  to  the  territorial  government 
at  Dresden  in  1599,  by  the  peasants  of  four  villages 
who  were  his  vassals,  and  who  accused  him  of  '  having 
loaded  them  with  intolerable  socage  duties,  of  having 
thrown  them  into  a  disgusting  and  unwholesome  prison, 
and  of  having  himself  personally  attacked  them,' 
sentence  was  given  in  his  favour.^ 

In  1580  an  electoral  edict  was  issued  to  the  effect 
that  '  the  poor  peasants,  who  can  be  employed  all  the 
week,  are  not  to  be  burdened  on  Sunday  with  socages, 
services  and  other  duties,  for  even  cattle  and  dray  oxen 
are  allowed  to  rest  on  Sunday.'  •^ 

1  Fraustadt,  \}\  206-207.  2  md.  336-337. 

^  Ihid.  \^.  285-286.     Concerning  the  treatment  of  the  Pulnitz  vassals 
of  Hans  Wolf  von  Schonberg,  see  i^  371. 
•i  Beeck,  695. 


PEASANT  LIFE  163 

That  the  condition  of  the  country  people  in  the 
Saxon  electorate  cannot  be  so  very  favourably  regarded 
is  shown  from  the  pictures  which  Saxon  preachers 
sketch  of  the  treatment  of  peasants. 

'  Amongst  the  nobles  and  the  squires  of  the  land,' 

said,  for  instance,  the  Meissen  Superintendent  Gregory 

Strigenicius  in  1598,  '  there  are  only  a  few  who  have 

a  true  fatherly  heart  towards  the  poor  vassals/  '  Tyrants 

in  plenty  we  find  among  them  who  oppress  their  vassals 

so  cruelly  that  they  cannot  thrive  and  prosper  ;    they 

load  them  with  heavy  socage  duties  and  intolerable 

burdens,  so  that  all  through  the  week  they  are  hard  at 

work,  and  on  Sunday  they  employ  them  as  messengers, 

and  they  do  not  even  give  them  a  morsel  of  bread  in 

return/     '  Many  of  the  squires  treat  their  vassals  hke 

dogs,  so  that  they  may  well  say  :  "I  am  a  poor  man/' 

In  very  deed  ''  a  poor  man/'     If  a  vassal  happens  to  have 

done   something   amiss   these   cruel   tyrants   fine   him 

many  thalers,  which  they  only  spend  in  gorging  and 

swilhng,  and  if  the  poor  man  is  ruined  in  consequence  no 

pity  or  mercy  is  shown  him/     '  Many  of  them  build 

cottages  wherever  they  can  and  put  the  serfs  to  live  in 

them  in  order  to  raise  and  increase  their  taxes,  and 

never  think  to  ask  where  the  poor  men  are  to  get  the 

money  to  pay  the  taxes,   or  how  they  can  raise  it. 

What  profit  or  piety  these  overlords  bring  to  a  parish 

the  villagers  know  right  well.     When  the  poor  vassals, 

in  times  of  dearness,  need  corn  or  any  other  supplies, 

they  are  not  allowed  to  have  them,  for  the  cash  which 

they  are  worth,  but  on  a  loan  and  at  a  higher  price  ; 

they  also  mix  tares,  barley,  vetch  and  oats  together, 

and  all  must  pass  as  good  corn,  though  it  is  often  much 

more  like  pigs'  food  or  dogs'  food.     If  the  poor  people 

M    2 


164  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

cannot  pay,  they  are  at  once  despoiled  of  all  they 
possess,  even  should  they  have  to  go  naked,  and  not  even 
have  a  pair  of  shoes  left,  or  enough  money  to  buy  a  pair. 
Many  of  them  also  think  nothing  of  bloodshed,  and  if 
they  have  taken  the  lives  of  one  or  several  of  their  vassals 
they  do  not  trouble  themselves  about  it.  If  we  hold 
God's  word  before  them,  and  tell  them  they  have  done 
wrong,  they  say  :  "  What  do  we  care  for  the  Bible  ? 
Why  should  we  obey  the  priests  ?  We  mustn't  give  in 
too  much  to  the  priests  ;  they  want  to  get  the  govern- 
ment into  their  own  hands  and  start  a  fresh  papacy." 
It  is  impossible  to  tell  of  all  the  wickedness  and  violence 
that  proceed  from  these  people.'  ^ 

The  preacher  Cyriakus  Spangenberg,  a  man 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  conditions  of  peasant 
life,  utters  complaints  of  a  similar  nature.  In  his  'Adels- 
spiegel '  (mirror  of  the  nobility)  of  1591,  and  in  other 
writings,  he  puts  the  plainest  truths  before  the  princes 
and  nobles.  They  were  acting  very  shamefully,  he 
says  amongst  other  things,  '  by  imposing  heavy  un- 
endurable taxes  and  always  increasing  them  more  and 
more,  by  yearly  raising  the  rents,  and  the  wood-money 
and  the  mast-money  '  (money  paid  for  driving  pigs  in 
the  forest)  '  and  other  duties,  contrary  to  all  old  usage  ; 
and  thereby  inordinately  oppressing  the  poor  people.' 
'  They  also  act  very  unjustly  when  they  compel  the 
vassals  to  sell  them  corn,  wine  and  other  commodities  at 
times  of  cheapness,  and  then  to  buy  from  them  at  the 
dearest  times  when  they  could  buy  more  advantageously 
elsewhere.  Also,  when  they  compel  the  peasants  against 
their  will  to  leave  their  farms  or  to  sell  their  paternal 
heritage,   meadows,  fields,   gardens,   houses,   land  and 

'  Diluvium,  185. 


PEASANT  LIFE  165 

soil,  and  so  forth.  Also  they  leave  it  to  their  officials, 
their  sheriffs,  magistrates,  baihffs,  &c.,  to  fine  the  poor 
people  at  their  discretion  for  any  offence.  They  would 
indeed  be  sorry  if  their  people  were  always  good  and 
pious,  and  much  prefer  that  they  should  every  day 
have  something  to  confess '  (and  be.  fined  for  !).i 
Vehemently  did  Spangenberg  inveigh  against  those 
squires  who,  he  wrote,  '  behave  so  tyrannically  towards 
their  miserable  servants,  especially  when  they  are  poor, 
forsaken,  fatherless  children,  or  strangers  from  afar  off,  and 
treat  them  worse  than  dogs,  belabouring  them  at  their 
pleasure  with  whips  and  cudgels  even  when  they  don't 
deserve  punishment,  or  torturing  them  most  mercilessly. 
If  the  poor  creatures  fall  ill  with  the  plague,  murrain,  or 
any  other  complaint,  they  turn  them  out  like  dogs,  and 
do  not  take  the  least  notice  of  them,  or  only  leave  them 
in  some  out-of-the-way  corner  where  they  are  as  hkely 
as  not  to  die.'  '  Also  it  is  iniquity  beyond  any  Turkish 
or  heathenish  practice,  that  when  the  plague  attacks  one 
of  the  peasants'  houses  they  nail  up  the  doors  so  that 
nobody  can  get  out  to  fetch  help  for  the  poor  victims 
and  nobody  can  get  at  them  to  do  them  a  Christian 
service,'  &c.,  &c.-  In  another  place  Spangenberg 
spoke  out  very  strongly  against  those  squires  '  who 
erected  buildings  by  the  very  sweat  and  blood  of  the 
poor  so  that  the  stones  cried  out  of  the  walls  and  the 
beam  out  of  the  timber  answered  them,'  as  Habakkuk 
says  (Ch.  ii.  v.  11). ^ 


1  Frieze,  Miintzspiegel,  Appendix,  239-244,  260-261. 

'  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  411'',  431.  See  also  our  remarks,  vol.  xiv.  pp.  86-102, 
concerning  the  want  of  pity  towards  plague-patients  in  Protestant 
districts. 

^  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  74. 


166  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

The  preacher  Bartholomew  Eingwalt  put  the  follow- 
ing words  into  the  mouth  .of  a  squire  : 

Potz  Leiden,  Lord  God,  Sacrament, 
Cross,  martyr,  wounds  and  element ; 
This  was  my  motto  and  my  prayer 
When  my  young  lips  first  open  were. 
I  was  a  heartless  overlord. 
Stinted  my  vassals  in  their  board, 
Gave  them  neither  bread  nor  grog, 
Left  them  to  starve  Uke  any  dog. 
The  peasants  too  held  me  in  dread, 
With  toil  I  weU  nigh  drove  them  dead, 
Gave  them  no  rest  the  livelong  day. 
And  also  pawned  their  cows  away. 
Right  bitter  did  I  make  their  Uves, 
I  swore  at  them  for  rogues  and  thieves, 
And  let  the  world  hear  me  declare 
Not  half  as  good  as  me  they  were.^ 

John  Sommer,  preacher  at  Osterweddingen,  in  1613 
spoke  very  incisively  about  the  cruel  wrongs  of  the 
peasants  :  '  The  parents  and  the  forbears  of  the  lazy, 
idle  loungers  who  call  themselves  squires,  long  ago 
lent  the  peasants  very  scanty  money  on  their  fields, 
and  so  got  possession  of  them.  Now  they  cannot  be 
bought  back,  and  they  pass  from  father  to  son  by 
hereditary  right.  The  farmer  is  now  bound  to  pay 
yearly  heavy  rents  to  those  inheritors  and  to  carry 
the  sour  sweat  of  his  brow  to  town  for  the  benefit  of 
the  idle,  lazy  drones.  Even  if  the  peasants  have  enough 
money  to  pay  off  the  sum,  they  are  not  allowed  to  do 
so  ;  the  cunning  birds  of  prey  have  got  them  in  their 
clutches,  and  will  not  let  them  out  of  their  power 
again.  It 's  down  in  writing,  they  say  at  last,  and 
entered  in  the  register.  But,  oh  God,  what  an  in- 
congruity  that   is  !     When   the   field   was   transferred 

^  Christl.  Warnung  des  trewen  Eckarts,  Bl.  F.  5-F.  6. 


PEASANT  LIFE  167 

the  wispel  (24  bushels)  of  wheat  was  worth  about  8 
or  9  thalers  ;  but  I  found  in  church  registers  that 
in  1540  the  wispel  had  been  fixed  at  only  TJ  gulden, 
whereas  in  our  time  it  is  often  worth  20  or  24  thalers. 
But  it  happens  that  many  a  farmer  has  no  horses 
and  carts  of  his  own,  but  has  to  hire  them  at  the 
yearly  cost  of  12,  13  or  14  wispels  of  wheat.  Now 
let  any  wise  householder  say  how  they  can  possibly 
make  both  ends  meet  under  such  circumstances.  But 
when  the  peasant  dies  and  leaves  a  house  full  of  children 
behind  him,  then  first  is  the  lament  about  money  heard. 
For  according  to  Saxon  law  the  youngest  son  is  the  heir, 
and  takes  over  the  housekeeping.  The  property  is 
made  over  to  him  for  a  sum  of  money  with  the  consent 
of  the  ruler.  Out  of  it  he  must  pay  not  only  the  heavy 
yearly  rents,  but  also  his  brothers'  and  sisters'  share 
in  the  inheritance  for  a  certain  term,  besides  the  marriage 
portions  in  oxen,  swine,  sheep,  bedding,  chests  and 
trunks,  meat  and  beer,  which  he  cannot  refuse.  Which- 
ever way  he  now  turns  he  finds  nothing  but  debts, 
and  already  at  his  start  he  is  plunged  in  sorrow  and 
anxiety.  If  he  cannot  pay  up  everything  with  his  own 
stock  of  corn,  but  is  obliged  to  procure  more  from 
elsewhere,  either  from  the  landlord's  stores  or  from 
the  forestallers,  then  God  have  pity  on  him,  for  he  is 
then  obhged  to  give  about  2  thalers  more  per  wispel 
than  he  would  have  to  pay  in  ready  money  at  the 
market.  There  is  nowadays  not  enough  mercy  or 
pity  among  the  rich,  to  lend  the  needy  peasants  a 
few  wispels  of  corn  at  seed-time,  to  be  paid  back  again 
in  the  same  measure  at  harvest- time.  No,  nobody 
wants  that  sort  of  thing.  If  a  peasant  in  his  distress 
needs  a  little  money,  he  cannot  in  these  days  borrow 


168  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

it  at  any  ordinary  rate  of  interest,  but  is  obliged  to 
pay  a  mortgage  of  corn  on  it,  and  for  a  matter  of  100 
thalers  give  half  a  wispel  of  wheat,  or  maybe  13,  14, 
15  bushels  yearly/  ^ 

'  The  people  in  the  country,'  Sommer  goes  on, 
'  also  complain  very  bitterly  that  they  are  very  sharply 
dealt  with  by  the  law  officials,  that  the  latter,  on 
the  most  trivial  grounds,  exact  unreasonable  fines 
from  them,  so  much  so,  that  people  versed  in  the  law 
are  quite  astonished.  They  frequently  summon  them 
to  the  law-courts  if  they  are  accused  of  any  debts, 
and  often  exact  fine  from  the  accuser  as  well  as  from 
the  accused.  Yes  indeed,  they  are  always  ready 
to  distrain,  even  if  the  debt  is  not  more  than  half  a 
thaler,  so  long  as  they  can  fill  their  own  purses.  When 
the  peasants  apply  for  leave  to  hold  a  wedding,  the 
officials  allow  them  about  two  or  three  barrels  of  beer 
and  pretend  that  the  overlords  will  not  grant  them  any 
more.  But  if  they  pay  the  fine  or  give  a  thaler  on  every 
barrel  of  beer  then  they  may  have  as  much  as  they 
like  ;  then  it  is  no  longer  a  sin  to  drink  beer  and  it  does 
not  injure  the  peasants,  as  had  before  been  declared 
with  great  solemnity.'' 

'  There  is  also  much  complaining  in  the  comitry 
because  the  bailiff  does  not  have  the  barns  cleaned 
out  early  enough,  but  puts  it  off  till  nearly  the  middle 
of  the  harvest,  and  so  the  men  told  off  for  the 
cleaning  have  to  leave  their  rye  but  half  cut  down,  with 
the  evil  result  that  the  wheat  becomes  over-ripe 
before  the  rye  harvest  is  finished,  and  is  burst  open 
by  the  wind  and  the  grain  remains  in  the  field.  The 
people   furthermore   complain   that  in  the  middle   of 

^  Olorinus  Variscus,  GeldfJclage,  569-571. 


PEASANT  LIFE  169 

harvest-time,  when  they  ought  to  be  gathering  in  the 
corn,  they  are  often  called  away  by  the  baihff  to  work  in 
the  fields  of  the  overlords/ 

'  The  peasants  have  indeed  certain  contracts  and 
agreements  which  many  years  ago  were  ratified 
and  confirmed  by  the  seal  of  the  magistrates, 
but  these  are  no  protection  to  them,  as  I  have 
come  to  know  in  my  journeys  to  and  fro  through 
the  villages,  and  in  many  places  new  burdens  are 
imposed  on  them,  and  the  services  to  the  overlords 
are  multiphed/ 

'  Among  other  grievances  in  the  country  it  is  also 
complained  that  the  rulers  almost  yearly  raise  the  mill 
and  pubhc-house  taxes  and  so  increase  their  own  incomes, 
while  they  reduce  still  further  the  meagre  subsistence 
of  their  vassals/  '  What  can  the  poor  vassals  do  ? 
They  must  be  silent  and  put  up  with  all  the  injustice. 
Only  lately  I  was  also  informed  that  the  tax-gatherers 
and  officials,  at  the  time  for  fattening  the  pigs,  not  only 
overstock  the  forests  with  swine,  but  also  raise  the  price 
of  the  acorns  and  beechnuts  on  which  these  animals 
fatten.  The  poor  fellows  are  thus  cheated  out  of  their 
money.  They  bring  home  lean  swine  which  must 
further  be  fed  on  corn  if  they  are  to  be  of  any  use  to  the 
kitchen.  However,  as  this  is  well  known,  as  indeed  are 
other  grievances,  I  consider  it  quite  unnecessary  to 
trouble  you  with  any  further  information  on  the 
subject.'  1 

'  Almost  in  all  lands  peasant  fleecers  are  only  too 
well  known  to  the  people;  very  cruel  tyrants,'  says  a 
*  BauernMage '  of  1598,  '  who  are  not  much  better 
than  their  brothers  in  Livonia,  of  whom  it  is  known 

'  Olorinus  Variscus,  Oeldtklage,  560-569. 


170  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIMAN  PEOPLE 

that  they  take  dehght  in  playing  the  part  of  hangmen 
and  torturers  to  the  poor  peasants/  ^ 

In  Hesse  at  a  Provincial  Diet  in  1569  the  Landgrave 
Wilham  reproached  the  nobles  with  behaving  to  their 
vassals  as  though  they  were  Wends  or  Slavs,  and  as 
though  they  (the  nobles)  possessed  power  of  life  and 
death  over  them.  Some  of  these  tvrants  had  thrust 
quite  old  men  of  nearly  eighty  into  towers  and  stocks 
for  ver}^  shght  offences,  and  in  the  middle  of  winter, 
with  unheard-of  cruelty,  had  had  cold  water  poured 
over  them,  so  that  the  poor  men's  feet  had  frozen.^ 

*  Of  this  tyrannical  beating,  scolding,  fleecing, 
taxing,  &c.,'  wrote  the  Frankfort  preacher  Melchior 
Ambach  concerning  the  poor  peasants  in  1551,  '  there 
is  no  end,  and  there  is  less  mercy  among  these 
evangehcals  than  with  the  devil  in  hell  or  with 
unbeheving  Turks.  They  watch,  too,  like  jackdaws 
over  nuts,  to  see  how  they  can  punish  their  vassals 
with  money-fines.'  ^ 

'  Bauernklage  (cf.  above,  p.  140,  n.  3),  p.  7.  When  in  1564 
the  nobles  of  Livonia  who  had  been  subjugated  by  the  Swedish  King 
Eric  XIV.  begged  for  mercy,  they  received  from  the  King,  May  22,  the 
answer  :  '  He  would  only  restore  the  nobles  of  the  Wiek  to  the  enjoyment 
of  their  own  possessions,  and  Uberate  those  in  capti\'ity  to  him  if  the 
whole  body  of  knights  would  swear  by  a  Swedish  oath  that  they  would 
desist  from  the  unchristian  scourging  and  torturing  with  which  they  had 
hitherto  plagued  the  poor  peasants.'  The  Harriensers,  to  whom  Eric 
made  a  similar  condition,  said  that  '  there  was  such  a  multitude  of  re- 
fractory brutes  of  people  that  it  might  be  regarded  as  a  mercy  merely 
to  grant  them  their  lives  even  though  their  bodies  were  plagued  ;  but  the 
plaguing  and  torturing  must  by  no  means  be  given  up,  or  all  order  and 
discipline  would  be  at  an  end.'  Lossius,  i.  71.  In  a  rising  in  1560  of  their 
too  cruelly  down-trodden  peasants,  two  members  of  the  house  of  Uexkiill 
were  killed  (p.  81). 

^  Rommel,  Neuere  Gesch.  von  Hessen,  i.  256-257. 

^  Ambach,  Klage,  Bl.  C. 


PEASANT  LITE  171 

The  Nuremberg  dramatist,  Jacob  A3rrer  in  a  cbamatic 
piece  makes  a  peasant  complain  as  foUows  : 

I  have  a  peasant-fleecing  squire, 

Myself  and  family  he  crushes  down, 

I  scarce  dare  turn  lest  in  his  ire 

Into  a  dungeon  dark  I  should  be  thrown. 

I  have  to  serve  him  every  day. 

At  my  own  plough  I  ne'er  can  stay  ; 

Then  if  my  rent  I  cannot  pay 

In  such  a  passion  he  flies  straight, 

Xo,  not  one  hour  wiU  he  wait — 

The  greedy,  money -hung'ring  hound, 

Three  thalers  once  I  owed  him  ;   Zounds, 

So  furious  my  squire  grew 

That  to  the  butcher  quick  I  flew 

And  sold  one  of  my  oxen  twain. 

Now  came  the  ploughing  time  again, 

The  one  ox  would  not  draw  the  plough 

Alone,  and  so  I  fetched  my  cow. 

The  raging  tiger  heard  of  tliis 

And  said  that  I  had  done  amiss  ; 

Ten  gulden  then  he  bade  me  pay — 

I  covildn't  do  so  any  way.^ 

The  Basle  professor  Sebastian  Miinster,  an  excessively 
cautious  writer  inpohtical  and  rehgious  matters,  pleaded 
the  peasants^  cause  against  the  nobles  in  fervent 
language.  '  The  peasants,'  he  wrote  in  his  cosmogony, 
'  lead  a  most  ^Tetched,  down-trodden  existence.  Their 
houses  are  miserable  huts  of  mud  and  wood,  with  no 
floors  but  the  damp  earth,  covered  only  mth  straw. 
Their  food  is  black  rye  bread,  oat-meal  porridge  or 
boiled  grain  and  lentils.  Water  and  whey  are  ahnost 
their  only  beverages.  A  coarse  smock  frock,  a  pair 
of  Bundsckuhs,  and  a  felt  hat  make  up  their  attire. 
These  people  never  have  any  rest,  early  and  late  they 
are  hard  at  work.  They  are  often  obliged  to  serve 
their  lords  all  through  the  year,  to  plough  the  fields, 

^  Ayrer's  Dramen,  published  by  KeUer,  iv.  2602. 


172  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

SOW  the  seeds,  cut  down  the  fruit  and  take  it  to  the 
storehouses,  hew  wood  and  dig  ditches.  There  is 
nothing  that  these  poor  creatures  are  not  obhged  to  do, 
and  they  cannot  leave  of!  without  loss  to  themselves/  ^ 

Another  '  Bauernklage  '  of  1598  says  :  '  A  very 
special  and  serious  grievance  for  the  peasant  folk  in 
German  lands  is  the  enormous  increase  of  official  people 
and  of  writers,  who  feed  and  fatten  and  cut  a  dash  with 
money  and  land  at  the  expense  of  the  poor  man.  These 
harpies  and  blood-suckers  are  for  ever  inventing  new 
dodges  and  tricks  whereby  they  empty  the  sacks  of 
the  poor  man  to  fill  those  of  the  princes  and  manorial 
proprietors,  so  that  they  may  stand  in  high  favour  with 
the  latter  and  not  be  punished  by  them  when,  in  the 
teeth  of  all  justice  and  fitness,  they  fleece  and  cheat 
the  poor  for  their  own  benefit.  A  highly  renowned 
theologian  of  the  university  of  Leipzig  assured  me  not 
long  ago  that  his  father  had  told  him  that  the  number 
of  officials  and  clerks  was  not  a  quarter  as  large  in  his 
youth  as  it  had  become  in  his  mature  years,  and  that 
it  was  a  veritable  curse  to  the  common  people,  of  whom 
it  was  210W  said,  and  no  wonder,  "  These  are  the  years 
when  the  peasants  shed  tears."  '  - 

'  In  bygone  years/  wrote  the  Hessian  government 
secretary  Wigand  Lauze  in  1552,  '  there  was  in  many 
places  only  one  official  who  fulfilled  the  various  duties 
of  rent-master,  magistrate  and  pohce  officer,  and  yet  the 
duties  were  conscientiously  performed  ;  now,  however,  it 
has  come  to  this,  that  in  some  places  there  is  a  rent- 
master,  a  rent-clerk,  half  a  rent-clerk,  a  magistrate,  an 


^  Cosmogra'phey  (Basle  edition  of  1588),  Book  III.  cccclxxix.  a-b. 
^  Bauernklage,  p.  8.    (See  above,  p.  140,  n.  3.) 


PEASANT  LIFE  173 

assistant  magistrate,  two  or  three  policemen,  two  or 
three  toll-keepers,  corn  measurers,  burgraves  and  many- 
others  besides/  All  these  sub-officials  '  had  no  fixed 
yearly  salaries,  and  had  to  be  maintained  by  the  vassals ' ; 
notwitlistanding  that  the  latter  aheady  had  their  hands 
more  than  full  w^ith  their  ordinary  duties  and  expenses, 
fresh  oppressive  habilities  of  this  sort  were  continually 
imposed  on  them.  'For  some  of  the  officials  are  not 
content  that  the  poor  vassals  should  faithfully  and 
punctually  render  them  the  old  legitimate  and  traditional 
services,  but  whenever  they  take  into  their  heads  to 
build  themselves  great  edifices,  storehouses,  pleasure- 
houses,  &c.,  the  peasants,  if  they  wish  to  have  any 
peace,  are  obliged  to  supply  wood  from  their  own 
hereditary  groves,  and  even  to  wattle  and  dab  the  said 
pleasure-houses.' 

'  Likewise,  some  functionaries,  not  satisfied  with 
having  their  fields  worked  and  manured  at  the  peasants' 
expense,  buy  up  all  the  land  that  comes  into  the  market. 
These  new  acquisitions  must,  like  the  former,  be  worked 
for  nothing  by  the  same  poor  peasants  :  I  have  seen  as 
many  as  25  ploughs  at  work  on  one  such  functionary's 
field.  There  is  no  single  village  without  its  reeve  or  burgo- 
master to  whom  the  villagers  nmst  give  unpaid  service. 
If  the  princes  and  lords  were  to  inform  themselves 
thoroughly  as  to  the  way  in  which  their  poor  people 
are  treated,  I  believe  they  would  often  find  that  the 
services  which  they  are  obliged  to  perform  for  the 
officials  greatly  exceed  those  which  they  have  to  render 
the  overlords  themselves.' 

Often  and  often  a  poor  man  '  the  whole  week 
through  cannot  get  a  single  day  to  work  for  himself, 
and  so  it 's  wonder  enough  when  any  of  them  have 


174  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

even  one  gulden  of  their  own.  Many  of  them  could 
scarcely  buy  a  rag  for  their  bodies  or  store  a  loaf  in 
their  houses.  For  the  poor  men  to  complain  of  these 
grievances  was  useless,  and  only  served  to  increase  the' 
oppression.  For  the  officials  had  plenty  of  ways 
and  means  of  circumventing  the  petitioners  ;  they  had 
accomphces  at  court,  according  to  the  old  maxim  : 
'  "  Geselle,  schone  mein,  wie  ich  dein,  und  bedenke  dass 
wir  in  gleichen  Schulden  sind.'' '  (Friend,  spare  me,  as  I 
spare  you,  and  remember  that  we  are  in  the  same  boat.) 
'  Sometimes  too  the  officials  seize  the  petition-bearers 
by  the  throat.'  '  They  put  them  in  prison,  and  leave 
them  there  so  long  that  they  are  glad  enough  to  get 
out  at  any  price  and  ready  to  promise  never  again  to 
repeat  the  offence  :  and  so  many  hands  and  feet  are  tied 
together. '  There  were  indeed  some  good,  honest  officials, 
he  said,  and  he  himself  knew  a  few  such,  but  '  by  far 
the  greatest  number  fleeced  and  plagued  the  poor  man 
after  the  fashion  of  the  song  :  "  Schame  dich  fiir  nichts, 
davon  dir  nutz  mag  widerfahren.''  '  (Don't  stop  at 
anything  from  which  profit  may  accrue  to  you.)  '  In 
all  the  history  of  the  world  we  scarcely  read  of  anything 
like  it ;  they  are  bent  on  being  and  having  everything, 
while  the  poor  people  are  to  be  given  over  to  the  flayer 
and  to  have  and  to  keep  nothing.'  ^ 

'  When  any  one  of  these  officials,'  said  the  Hessian 
Superintendent  George  Nigrinus  in  1574  and  1582, 
'  has  a  hair's  breadth  of  authority,  he  will  not  move  a 
foot  himself,  all  peasants  must  be  at  his  beck  and  call. 
Of  the  gallows  which  stands  at  the  entrance  to  hell  it 
is  said  that  all  those  come  to  it  who  hold  an  office  and 
do  not  attend  to  it  and  make  the  most  of  it :    Hence 

1  Lauze,  ii.  409-418. 


PEASANT  LIFE  175 

they  prefer  to  do  too  much  rather  than  too  httle.  That 
is  to  say  they  do  not  scruple  to  give  orders  and  command 
this  and  that  in  their  Chief's  name  which  had  never  even 
entered  his  head.  As,  for  instance,  the  tax-gatherers, 
cellarers,  magistrates,  and  foresters  do,  behaving  as  if 
the  land  were  their  own,  and  plaguing  and  draining  the 
poor  man  in  the  name  of  their  overlords/ 1 

'  Could  Egyptian  bondage  and  servitude  have  been 
greater  or  more  oppressive,"  asks  Nigrinus  in  another 
place,  '  than  that  which  is  hung  nowadays  round  the 
neck  of  the  poor  man  ?  What  sighs  and  groans  daily 
fill  the  air  !  '  The  prophet  Isaiah  in  his  harangue  against 
tyrants  admirably  described  also  the  condition  of  things 
to-day,  '  but,  my  dear  Isaiah,  don't  you  come  to  us  in 
Germany  and  preach  thus  strongly  to  the  great  lords 
and  tyrants,  or  you  might  soon  have  to  take  yourself 
off  with  a  bloody  pate  ;  they  would  rend  you  not  only 
with  their  speech  but  with  their  teeth/ " 

No  more  than  Wigand  Lauze,  in  speaking  up  for 
the  poor  peasant,  attacked  the  good,  conscientious 
officials,  did  Nicodemus  Frischhn,  when  .in  1578  he 
delivered  an  address  to  the  university  of  Tiibingen  in 
defence  of  the  peasant  class  against  the  nobility,  in 
any  way  include  those  of  the  nobles  who  showed  them- 
selves 'gracious  and  kind  to  the  lower  classes,  who 
led  respectable,  sober  lives  at  home  and  were  honoured 
and  respected  abroad/  But  the  number  of  these,  he 
said,  was  small  compared  to  the  '  cyclops  and  flint- 
skinners,  the  noble  centaurs  and  inhuman  monsters 
who  behaved  in  a  godless  and  inhuman  way  to  the 
peasants/  '  What  can  be  said  of  the  brutal  passions 
which  those  curmudgeons,  those  man-eaters  or  cannibals 

^  Nigrinus,  Daniel  [1514:),  pp.  29-30.      '  Papistische  Inquisition,  726. 


176  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

among  the  nobles,  fly  into  with  their  peasants  ?  For 
how  many  noble  man-eaters  are  there  in  places  where 
punishment  is  loosely  administered,  who  have  not 
beaten  to  death,  or  nearly  so,  many  an  innocent  peasant  ? 
Did  you  ever  hear  that  they  were  tortured  or  hanged 
for  their  murders  ? 

'  Well,  well,  whatever  class  you  may  belong  to,  if, 
indignant  at  any  such  offence  of  a  peasant  fleecer,  you 
set  yourself  to  avenge  it,  may  God  forsake  me  if  all 
the  other  peasant  fleecers  do  not  hang  together  hke  a 
chain  and  stir  up  against  you  alone  a  mutiny  such  as 
we  read  of  in  the  time  of  Catihne  at  Rome.  If  you 
know  one  of  these  you  know  them  all :  they  all  speak 
in  chorus  :  with  such  curmudgeons  it 's  all  one  and 
the  same  :  one  is  guilty  of  the  deed  and  all  the  rest 
defend  him.  Verily  the  princes,  or  still  better  the 
Emperor,  would  be  conferring  a  benefit  on  humanity  if 
they  would  rid  the  world  of  such  inhuman  monsters  with 
their  horses,  castles,  and  all  their  belongings,  and  if 
when  they  caught  them  in  wicked  deeds  they  would  no 
.  longer  sufler  them  to  enjoy  their  noble  names  in  any  other 
way  than  that  of  being  the  most  exalted  personages  on 
the  most  exalted  wheel  of  torture,  as  before  these  times 
that  excellent  man  Erasmus  did  indeed  well  suggest.'  ^ 

A  most  flagrant  instance  of  the  way  in  which  tyran- 
nical peasant  fleecers,  though  most  severely  condemned 
in  a  court  of  law,  were  backed  up  and  protected  by 
all  their  own  class,  occurred  in  the  Tyrol  in  1568. 

Bartlma  von  Lichtenstein,  at   the   castle  Karneid, 

^  Strauss,  Frischlin,  179-182.  The  Tubingen  professor  John  George 
Sigwart,  in  1603,  gave  as  a  specimen  of  the  language  used  by  the  nobles 
concerning  the  peasants  :  '  We  ^dll  make  the  peasants  poor  and  help  them 
to  go  to  heaven,  and  may  the  devil  fetch  them  then.'     Sigwart,  122'^-123. 


PEASANT  LIFE  177 

had  been  put  in  prison  at  Innsbruck  by  the  Archduke 
Ferdinand  IL  on  account  of  inhuman  treatment  of  his 
vassals.  In  the  lawsuit  conducted  against  him  the 
evidence  brought  forward  referred  to  no  less  than  ninety- 
five  different  grounds  of  accusation.  The  procurator 
summed  up  the  case  as  follows  :  '  He  has  been  guilty 
of  criminal  offences  with  women,  he  has  caused  much 
cruel  suffering  to  respectable  people,  sparing  neither 
youth  nor  age,  torturing  them  with  thumb-screws,  cruel 
imprisonment,  very  meagre  diet,  freezing  of  their  bodies, 
punishing  them  after  their  imprisonment  with  stripes, 
blows,  thrashings,  &c.,  so  much  so  that  many  of  them 
were  quite  disabled  and  reduced  to  begging ;  for  their 
imprisonment  he  even  charged  them  great  costs  ;  with- 
out a  vestige  of  right  he  introduced  new  ground-taxes 
or  raised  existing  ones,  and  arbitrarily  seized  all  unappro- 
priated commons ;  in  short  nobody  could  obtain  justice 
from  him,  and  everybody  felt  his  tyranny."  During 
the  hearing  of  witnesses  many  of  his  vassals  showed 
their  mutilated  hands  in  order  that  the  judge  might 
see  for  himself  that  their  finger-nails  had  dropped  off 
in  consequence  of  hard  pinching.  To  subject  pregnant 
women  to  the  rack  gave  especial  delight  to  this  monster. 
A  maidservant  who  had  survived  the  tortures  of  the 
rack  was  thrown  by  him  into  the  horrible  castle  dimgeon 
and  left  to  suffer  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  the  plague  of 
vermin.  When  a  compassionate  associate  of  the  un- 
happy girl  wanted  to  take  her  some  food  which  she 
had  saved  from  her  own  supply,  she  was  unfortunately 
met  on  the  steps  by  the  son  of  the  wretch  Bartlma, 
who  did  not  fall  short  of  his  father  in  barbarity  to  the 
vassals,  and  who  was  also  guilty  of  the  grossest  excesses 

against  the  Church  and  the  most  holy  Sacrament  of 
VOL.  XV.  jsr 


178  HISTORY  OF  THE  GER3HAN  PEOPLE 

the  Altar.  The  young  man  knocked  the  food  out  of 
the  girl's  hand  and  gave  it  to  his  dog  to  eat.  A  few 
days  later  the  ha  If -putrefied  corpse  of  the  poor 
prisoner  was  found  in  the  castle  cistern.  Bartlma 
had  been  in  prison  for  eight  months,  and  sentence  of  loss 
of  all  his  estates  was  about  to  be  passed  against  him, 
but  on  the  apphcation  of  the  nobles'  tribimal  at  Bozen 
he  was  let  off  on  the  sole  condition  that  he  should 
not  take  revenge  on  those  who  had  given  evidence 
against  him  :  the  tribimal  was  to  dehver  the  judgment. 
Before,  however,  the  decision  had  been  pronounced 
the  Archduke  suddenly  upset  the  whole  proceedings, 
for  the  knight  of  Lichtenstein,  although  he  had  already 
committed  fresh  offences,  had  found  '  powerful  friends  ' ; 
and  now,  for  all  his  sins,  his  sole  punishment  was  a 
fine  of  1000  gulden  to  be  paid  to  the  territorial  prince. 
The  governor,  much  to  the  disgust  of  many  people, 
gave  the  guilty  man  every  possible  help.  Among  the 
members  of  his  own  class,  although  this  lawsuit  was 
described  in  the  law  documents  as  a  more  atrocious  one 
than  had  ever  been  heard  of  in  the  land,  his  knightly 
honour  and  reputation  were  so  far  from  forfeited  by  it, 
that  for  a  long  time  afterwards  important  and  confi- 
dential posts  were  entrusted  to  him ;  up  to  the  year 
1579  he  was  governor  of  part  of  the  T}t:o1,  and  up  to 
1582  an  assessor  of  taxes.  ^ 

In   Bavaria  conditions  were  on  the  whole   better 
than  in  North  Germany ;  -  nevertheless  there  also  there 

'  Hiin,  ii.  7-11. 

-  **  This  view  was  put  forward  by  Grupp,  Niedergang,  119  ft".  See  also 
Histor.-polii.,  Bl.  120,  p.  660  ff.  'For  various  reasons  manorial  properties 
could  not  be  developed  in  the  South  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  North. 
For  one  thing,  manorial  k.nd  was  never  so  much  enclosed  m  the  South, 
but  consisted  of  disjointed  parcels,  nor  was  there  so  much  export  business 


PEASANT  LIFE  179 

occurred  frequent  violent  outbursts  of  hatred  from  the 
ill-used  peasants  towards  their  aristocratic  oppressors. 
In  1581,  for  instance,  the  last  scion  of  the  ancient  race 
of  Griinbeck  at  Niederhausen  was  put  to  death  by  his 
own  peasantry ;  and  at  the  same  date  a  Giinzkofer  at 
Heybach,  and  a  Preysinger  at  Berg  in  the  Gau,  were 
also  killed  by  their  peasants.  ^  There  were  at  that 
time  in  Bavaria  only  a  few  peasants  left  who  had 
independent  property  of  their  own  and  any  wealth  to 
speak  of.  The  times  had  long  gone  by  when  numbers 
of  large  peasant  proprietors  could  have  sent  yearly  to 
the  market  2000  pigs  and  200  cows.-  Almost  the 
whole  of  the  peasantry  were  beholden  for  their  lands 
to  the  secular  and  spiritual  lords  of  the  manor  and 
burdened  with  heavy  dues,  taxes,  and  services.  In 
consequence  of  the  continual  rise  in  taxes  which  had 
gone  on  for  half  a  century,  and  that  chiefly  at  the  expense 
of  the  peasants  and  burghers,  and  also  by  reason  of 

in  the  South  as  in  the  North.  Then  also  the  groundlords  were  for  the 
most  part  ecclesiastics,  or  corporations  ;  in  Bavaria,  for  instance,  73  per 
cent,  of  the  ground  property  belonged  to  convents.  Finally  the  terri- 
torial legislation  in  the  South  did  not  allow  the  same  freedom  as  that  of 
the  North.  The  territorial  princes  were  less  dependent  on  the  manorial 
lords  ;  only  serfs  could  be  compelled  to  take  farms  and  remain  on  them  ; 
the  obligation  to  find  guarantors  never  existed.  The  services  of  the  peas- 
ants could  never  be  increased  and  compulsory  household  service  for  their 
children  existed  only  in  a  very  limited  degree.  The  manorial  lords,  or 
Hofmarkherren,  as  they  were  called,  endeavoured  to  procure  labour  by 
means  of  small  peasant  settlers  (cottagers)  and  day-labourers  ;  but  the 
legislation  of  the  land  forbade  repeatedly  during  the  years  1553  to  1605 
the  breaking-up  of  manorial  properties  and  covering  them  with  cottages. 
It  was  also  attempted  to  prevent  day-labourers  from  settling  down  on  the 
land  for  fear  of  their  becoming  dependent  on  pubhc  maintenance  and  also 
encroaching  on  the  common  pastures.  Thus  there  ensued  a  great  dearth 
of  labour,  and  the  groundlords  lost  then-  zest  for  turning  out  peasants.' 
'  Sugenheim,  Bayerns  Kirchen-  und  V olkszustdnde,  471.     Note  1,  243. 

"  V.  Koch-Sternfeld,  *  Beitrage  '  iii.  383. 

N  2 


180  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  depression  in  trade  and  industry  things  had  come 
to  such  a  pass  that  in  1593  the  Provincial  Estates  repre- 
sented to  the  ducal  government  that :  '  Since  the  year  1577 
the  vassals  had  given  up  twelve  times  the  twentieth  part 
of  their  capital ;  the  peasants  with  their  wives  and 
children  could  no  longer  keep  from  beggary ;  many  of 
them  already  lacked  bodily  food  ;  they  could  no  longer 
stock  their  land  with  horses  and  cattle  and  keep  it  in 
the  necessary  condition  of  cultivation.  Actions  for 
debt  came  almost  daily  before  the  law  courts ;  in 
the  inventories  of  the  legacies  of  the  dead  there  was 
seldom  anything  but  debts/  ^  Three  years  later  insur- 
rections occurred  here  and  there  among  the  peasants, 
especially  in  the  district  of  Burghausen  and  in  the 
county  of  Haag ;  they  were,  however,  promptly  put 
down  by  the  sternest  measures,  confiscation,  and  pun- 
ishment by  torture.-^ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  peasant  risings  which  took 
place  in  the  years  1594-1597  all  over  Lower  and  Upper 
Austria  assumed  a  very  dangerous  character.  The 
agrarian  grievances  brought  forward  at  that  period 
by  the  peasants  against  their  groundlords,  and  the 
consequent  proceedings  at  the  imperial  court  give  a 
deep  insight  into  the  agricultural  life  of  those  lands,  and 
merit,  therefore,  fuller  treatment. 

King  Ferdinand  I.  had  repeatedly,  in  the  years  1541, 
1542,  and  1552,  issued  ordinances  for  the  protection  of 
the  peasants  :  he  had  insisted  that  they  were  to  be  paid 
the  proper  market  price  for  the  produce  of  their  farms  ; 
that  no  usurious  forestalhng  was  to  be  carried  on  to  their 
detriment,  above  all  they  were  not  to  be  compelled  to 

^  Wolf,  Maximilian  der  Erste,  i.  112,  115. 
2  Wolf,  i.  374.     Czerny,  193,  n.  1. 


PEASANT  LIFE  181 

give  their  overlords  the  first  chance  of  buying  the  fruits, 
&c.,  which  they  wanted  to  sell,  that  is  to  say,  to  sell  them 
at  a  price  lower  than  the  market  price.  There  were 
ground  lords  who  sent  the  peasants'  farm-produce  as 
well  as  their  own,  when  the  corn  was  rising  in  price,  to  the 
market  by  the  peasants — the  cartage  being  exacted  as 
a  due  to  the  landlord  (Robot) — and  actually  insisted 
that  the  latter  'should  bring  back  a  fixed  price  and 
make  up  the  deficiency  out  of  their  own  pockets.'  ^  All 
this  was  forbidden  on  pain  of  severe  punishment.  A 
measure,  on  the  other  hand,  which  the  Provincial  Estates 
in  1563  had  extorted  from  the  Emperor  for  raising  the 
Tm'kish  aid,  was  in  the  highest  degree  oppressive  to  the 
peasants.  To  the  request  of  the  Estates  that  he  would 
'set  no  limit  to  the  overlords'  privilege  of  Rohotung 
(exacting  unpaid  service)  over  their  peasants,'  Ferdinand, 
at  any  rate,  only  agreed  under  the  following  proviso  : 
'  If  a  manorial  lord  oppresses  his  vassals  beyond  their 
means  and  beyond  ancient  usage  with  quite  unbearable 
burdens  and  socages  it  shall  be  permitted  to  the  said 
vassals  to  complain  at  the  imperial  tribunal,  or  at 
some  other  suitable  place,  to  the  appointed  magistrates, 
and  to  ask  that  their  complaints  should  be  looked 
into.'  2 

But  the  manorial  lords  troubled  themselves  very  little 
about  such  complaints  ;  very  many  of  them  not  only 
increased  the  existing  services,  but  also  made  other  exac- 
tions without  measure  or  rule :  what  to  th  e  peasants  seemed 
intolerable  in  the  way  of  '  burdens  and  feudal  services  ' 
these  gentlemen  thought  '  very  mild  and  lenient.'  Out 
of  the  concession  made  to  landlords  in  1563  that  the 
peasants  '  should  also  be  bomid  to  offer  those  of  their 

1  Bucholtz,  viii.  256-257.  ^  ji^id^  301-302. 


182  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

children  who  were  fit  for  household  service,  and  who  were 
not  needed  by  their  parents  or  relations,  first  of  all  to  the 
overlords  in  preference  to  anyone  else,  and  for  suitable 
remuneration,'  ^  there  grew  up  a  system  of  compulsory 
domestic  service  which  was  most  crushingly  oppressive 
for  the  peasants. 

In  Lower  Styria,  Carniola,  and  Croatia,  as  early  as 
1573  the  growing  burdens  of  ground-vassalage  led  to 
violent  uprisings  which  were  only  put  down  with 
difficulty  and  with  bloodshed,  and  which  did  not  lead  to 
the  abohtion  of  the  grievances.  When  the  Protestant 
Provincial  Estates,  in  order  to  frighten  him,  represented 
to  Archduke  Charles  in  1580  that  '  suspicious-looking 
people  from  the  Salzburg  district  were  passing  through 
the  land,  and  that  by  their  unscrupulous  talk  they 
might  easily  stir  up  the  peasants  to  a  fresh  outbreak,'  the 
only  answer  they  got  was  that  '  the  peasants  were  too 
well  satisfied  to  remain  in  peaceable  possession  of  their 
homesteads,  to  be  stirred  up  by  mere  words ;  un- 
doubtedly, however,  they  might  easily  be  moved  to 
rebelhon  by  the  endless  socages,  the  gratuities  wrung 
from  them,  the  harshly  enforced  death  duties,  the 
inordinate  punishments  inflicted  on  them  ;  instead  of 
spying  out  mere  talk  the  Estates  would  do  better  to 
see  that  the  vassals  were  not  so  cruelly  burdened,  and 
that  their  poverty  was  alleviated.'  ~ 

Many  of  the  landlords  may  certainly  be  credited  with 
sentiments  such  as  were  uttered  by  Wolf  von  Stubenberg 
when  in  1500  he  admonished  his  sons  as  follows  :  '  Behave 
generously  to  the  poor,  protect  them  from  taxes,  and  do 
not  take  the  death  oxen  ;    give  gladly  for  the  love  of 

'  Bucholtz,  viii.  285. 

2  Hurter,  Gesch.  Ferdinands  II.,  vol.  ii.  310-311. 


PEASANT  LIFE  183 

God/  and  by  Joseph  von  Lamberg,  High  Chamberlain 
to  the  Empress  and  afterwards  Governor  in  Carniola 
(t  1554),  who  taught  his  children  thus  : 

Crush  not  the  poor  man  down,  my  son, 
Let  justice  unto  him  be  done. 
Widows  and  orphans  well  protect, 
No  one  illegally  eject.  ^ 

What  the  general  state  of  things  was,  however,  may- 
be gathered  from  the  words  addressed  by  Archduke 
Charles  to  his  Estates.  He  said :  '  Owing  to  the  tyranni- 
cal, unchristian,  insupportable  and  crushing  oppression 
to  which  the  poor  are  subjected,  I  am  daily  importuned 
with  piteous  complaints  and  entreaties  for  help  and 
redress  ;  if  no  improvement  takes  place  it  will  not  be 
surprising  if  in  the  end  all  goes  to  ruin  in  the  land,  or 
God  Almighty  will  take  pity  from  on  high  on  the  poor 
people  oppressed  against  all  right  and  reason,  and  visit 
the  land  with  fearful  punishments.^  ^ 

AVhen  in  the  years  1594—1597  the  peasants  in  Lower 
and  Upper  Austria  rose  up  in  wild  revolt  they  announced 
emphatically  that '  they  had  only  banded  together  to  put 

^  Wolf,  Geschichtl.  Bilder  aus  Osterreich,  115.  There  is  a  benevolent 
spkit  also  in  the  rules  of  life  which  Bartelme  Klievenhiiller  laid  down  for 
his  eldest  son  in  1607.  '  Spare  the  poor  and  help  the  poor,'  he  says  among 
other  things,  '  be  fuU  of  love  towards  the  good  and  pious  vassals,  punish 
the  bad  ones  first  with  words,  then  with  imprisonment,  not  with  money 
fines,  lest  their  wives  and  children  who  are  innocent  should  starve.  For 
aU  the  benefits  you  confer  on  them  God  will  reward  you.  Be  merciful  in 
all  things,  condemn  no  one  to  death  ;  be  kindly  affectioned  to  the  poor, 
for  you  eat  of  theu*  alms,  and  what  you  give  to  them  will  be  doubled  unto 
you  again.  What  God  gives  you  on  earth,  and  aU  that  you  enjoy,  wife, 
childi'en,  cattle,  house,  farm,  &c.,  &c.,  is  not  your  own  ;  you  are  only 
stewards  of  it  aU.  Keep  good  discipline  among  your  vassals ;  take 
no  gifts  from  them  ;  spare  them  expenses  and  superfluous  taxation  ' 
(pp.  139-141). 

2  Hm-teu,  ii.  536. 


184  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

a  stop  to  the  great  innovations  which,  had  been  foisted  on 
the  poor  people  during  the  last  thirty  years/  or  as  they 
expressed  it  on  another  occasion,  '  to  put  down  all 
innovations  which  within  the  memory  of  man  had  been 
introduced  by  the  rulers/  ^ 

In  many  of  its  characteristics,  in  the  mixture  of 
complaints  both  of  a  rehgious  and  an  agrarian  nature, 
in  the  stirring  up  of  the  peasants  by  ringleaders  from  the 
ranks  of  moral  and  social  outcasts,  in  enforced  co-opera- 
tion of  peasants  who  had  no  cause  of  complaint  against 
their  overlords  and  who  would  not  wilhngly  have  joined 
in  the  revolt,  in  the  demand  for  '  Swiss  freedom,'  and  the 
abolition  of  all  taxes  and  services  made  by  numbers  of 
peasant  bands,  no  less  than  in  the  crimes  and  devastation 
perpetrated,  this  peasant  war  reminds  us  throughout  of 
the  great  social  revolution  of  1525.^ 

'  But  if  it  be  asked,'  says  a  pamphlet  of  the  year  1598, 
'  who  was  chiefly  to  blame  for  all  the  misfortune,  war, 
misery  and  ruin  which  happened  in  Austria,  by  which 
innumerable  people  were  visited  and  impoverished, 
thousands  turned  into  widows  and  orphans,  and  so 
forth,  one  can  only  answer  :  the  many  squires  and  over- 
lords who  treated  their  vassals  like  serfs,  heaping  on 
them  as  on  beasts  of  burden  intolerable  loads,  are  the 
chief  people  to  be  blamed.  Who  could  count  up  all 
the  endless  burdens  with  which  these  poor  oppressed, 

1  Raupach,  Evangel.  Osterreich,  192  fif.,  and  Erldutertes  Osterreich,  iii, 
114  ff. 

-  Fuller  details  are  given  by  Czerny,  p.  12  ff.  Another  point  of 
resemblance  between  the  two  rebellions  is  that  many  of  the  nobles,  so  long 
as  things  went  against  the  priests,  not  only  let  the  insm-gents  alone,  but  even 
promised  their  support  (cf.  p.  721).  '  Had  not  the  matter  become  so 
serious,'  wrote  a  news -reporter,  *  one  might  well  have  laughed  at  the 
peasant  war,  for  this  lather  had  been  poured  out  for  the  Catholics,  and 
now  the  evangelicals  themselves  were  being  washed  in  it '  (p.  101). 


PEASANT  LIFE  185 

fleeced  people  are  for  the  most  part  overwhelmed,  with- 
out any  justice  or  mercy  ?  '  ^ 

The  insurgents  below  the  Enns  who  did  not  bring 
forward  complaints  about  religious  annoyances  stated, 
among  other  things,  in  a  gravamen  sent  by  them 
to  the  imperial  tribunal  at  Prague,  that  '  the  ground- 
lords  were  never  tired  of  devising  fresh  burdens ; 
it  was  they  themselves  who,  by  their  oppression  of 
orphans,  drove  the  vassals  to  insurrection.  They  appro- 
priated the  legacies  of  the  fatherless  children,  and 
when  the  latter  had  reached  adult  age  they  established 
them  on  their  estates  and  farms  as  labourers,  and 
used  them  so  badly  that  they  ran  away  ;  in  punishment 
of  which  the  overlords  kept  possession  of  their  land. 
If  the  peasants  had  grown-up  children  capable  of  work, 
who  might  maintain  them  in  their  old  age,  they  were 
obliged  to  give  them  up  in  socage  to  their  overlords  ; 
if  by  abominable  treatment  they  were  driven  to  flight, 
the  parents  w^ere  expected  to  receive  them  back ;  if 
they  were  not  in  a  position  to  do  so  they  were  themselves 
punished  in  body  and  goods.  Formerly  it  was  the 
excellent  custom  that  persons  considered  punishable 
should  be  cited  before  a  law  court,  examined  and 
sentenced  by  the  judge  and  the  assessors  ;  now,  however, 
the  overlord  takes  the  law  into  his  own  hands  and 
pronounces  judgment  with  regard  to  his  own  purse ; 
where  formerly  a  matter  of  1-2  gulden  was  paid, 
now  30-40  gulden  must  be  forked  out ;  there  is  no 
more  any  question  of  legality  for  the  villagers.  Any 
complaints  sent  in  by  them  to  the  higher  courts  remain 
in  abeyance  and  are  never  settled.  The  burgraves 
and  officials  fleece  the  peasants  and  enrich  themselves. 

'  Bauernklage  (see  above,  p.  140,  n.  3). 


186  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Many  an  official  who  lias  entered  on  his  post  with  only 
10  gulden  in  his  pocket,  becomes  in  a  couple  of  years 
the  possessor  of  2000  gulden  in  cash  and  buys  the 
best  houses,  mills  and  estates,  which  obviously  can 
only  have  come  about  at  the  expense  of  the  peasants. 
At  the  harvest  socages  in  former  times  the  peasants 
were  given  food  and  drink  and  also  a  small  tip  ;  nowa- 
days they  do  not  even  get  a  "  thank  you,"  much  less 
any  payment  in  money.  Formerly  they  paid  4  kreuzer 
for  each  fruit  tree,  now  they  must  pay  18  kreuzer, 
which  is  exorbitant.  The  "  house  gulden,"  or  a  gulden 
on  every  house,  is  very  onerous.  If  a  peasant  buys 
a  house  he  is  obhged  to  pay  10  gulden  for  registration, 
which  was  not  the  custom  formerly,  besides  which 
the  overlords  count  up  the  purchase  money  and  take 
one  kreuzer  from  every  gulden  for  themselves.'  Of 
many  other  newly  introduced  burdens  the  peasants 
of  Lower  Austria  also  made  complaint.  ^ 

The  peasants  above  the  Enns,  who  demanded  the 
right  of  free  exercise  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  brought 
forward  the  same  complaints  in  secular  matters.  In  the 
first  place  they  complained  of  the  'freeing  money'  exacted 
by  the  groundlords  in  the  event  of  a  death  and  on 
property  changing  hands  among  the  hving.  'At  first 
the  rulers  exacted  this  Freigeld  on  immovable  goods 
only,  not  on  movable  ones,  and  only  in  case  of  pur- 
chase ;  now  they  had  invented  three  or  fom*  sorts 
of  death  duties,  besides  other  innumerable  taxes,  so 
much  so  that  a  third  or  a  half  of  the  peasants'  capital 
went  to  the  manorial  lords.  With  some  of  the  latter, 
things  had  come  to    such    an    unchristian   pass    that 

^    Th.    Wiedemann,    Gesch.    der    Reformation    und    Gegenreformation 
im  Lande  unter  der  Enns,  i.  496-498, 


PEASANT   LIFE  187 

a  wife  whose  husband  had  died  must  again  redeem 
the  whole  property  at  the  rate  of  10  gulden  on  every 
100,  as  the  case  might  be  ;  if  she  married  again,  the 
new  husband  must  again  for  the  third  time  pay  10 
gulden  on  100  ;  if  the  father  or  mother  wanted  to 
make  over  the  property  to  their  children  for  a  moderate 
price,  they  were  not  allowed  to  do  so  by  the  overlords  ; 
the  property  must  be  valued  by  experts  and  the  Freigeld 
paid  on  the  price  they  fixed/  Among  the  chief  points 
of  complaint  were  the  following  :  '  Many  rulers  take 
away  from  the  vassals  the  original  title-deeds  referring 
to  their  property,  alter  them,  keep  the  old  ones  and 
give  them  new  ones  which  are  full  of  new  manorial 
exactions,  and  they  charge  heavy  fees  for  their  work 
into  the  bargain.  Other  overlords  raise  the  taxes  and 
services  of  their  vassals  in  opposition  to  the  express 
contents  of  the  title-deeds/  Quite  intolerable  is  the 
manner  in  which  stewards,  court  secretaries,  servants 
and  officials,  incessantly  raise  and  add  to  the  tale 
of  clerks'  fees  :  the  petitioners  begged  that  a  definite 
and  reasonable  tax  should  be  fixed,  and  a  curb  put  on 
the  sharpers  by  whom  the  peasants  were  so  hardly 
and  culpably  treated.  V^ery  oppressive  also  were 
the  compulsory  payments  for  food  at  weddings  and 
other  festive  gatherings,  as  well  as  the  enforced  sale,  at 
a  cheap  rate,  of  all  their  orchard  and  farm  produce 
to  the  overlords.  As  regards  the  socages,  numbers 
of  peasants  had  to  do  service  either  with  cart  and 
horse  or  with  their  own  hands  and  bodies,  twenty, 
thirty,  or  even  more  days  every  year,  and  this  usually 
at  a  time  when  they  ought  to  be  working  on  their  own 
farms ;  they  had  to  leave  their  own  business  at  a 
standstill  and  procure   for  the   overlords  wine,   hme, 


188  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

corn,  bricks,  stones,  and  other  things,   besides  taking 
with  them  fodder  as  well.     While  parents  were  com- 
pelled  to   give   their   children,    as   though   they   were 
bondsmen,   against  their  will  into  the  service  of  the 
overlords,  they  themselves  were  often  obliged  to  hire 
strangers  to  work  for  them.     The  newly  enacted  tithe 
ordinance  was  most  damaging  to  the  peasants :   '  the 
tithable  people  did    not    dare  cut  down  or  gather  in 
their  corn  and  fruit,  which  they  had  been  obliged  to 
work  at  the  whole  year  through,  without  the  consent 
of  the  tithes-owner  ;    and  they  had  to  leave  the  corn 
when  it  was  cut  lying  in  the  field  until  the  latter  had, 
at  his  own  convenience,  taken  away  his  tithes,  although 
it  frequently  happened  that  when  the  last  quantity  was 
cut  down  the  first  had  already  been  spoilt  by  storms. 
Some  of  the  overlords  took  double  tithes,   especially 
of  hay  and  after-grass,  or  when  the  field  was  already 
bare,  or  planted  with  turnips,  a  tithe  of  these  had  to 
be  given  them ;   the  peasants  were  actually  burdened 
with   the  wretched   tithe   on   garden   produce,   hemp, 
and  flax,  besides  geese,  chickens,  eggs,  and  so  forth. 
The  tithe-owners  also  claimed  tithes  on  the  ground 
area  on  which  a  house  or  a  shed  was  built,  whereas 
from  time  immemorial  tithes  had  never  been  paid  on 
bare  ground,  but  only  on  the  corn  grown  on  the  land. 
Of  old  the  tithe- owner  had  always  taken  fair  payment 
in  money  from  the  tithable  person,  or  else  taken  the 
tenth  part  of  the  corn  honestly  from  the  barn."  ^ 

At  the  imperial  court  long  and  wearisome  trans- 
actions were  carried  on  with  a  view  to  stopping  the 
insurrection.  That  the  peasants'  taxes  had  been  raised 
the  Estates  could  not  deny,  but  in  justification  of  this  step 

1  Czerny,  363-3G9. 


PEASANT  LIFE  189 

they  represented  to  the  Emperor  that :  '  It  was  impossible 
to  put  taxation  back  on  its  old  footing  since  prices 
had  doubled  and  trebled.  Moreover,  they  said,  the 
peasants'  complaints  were  so  vague  and  undefined 
that  they  could  not  proceed  to  legal  action  concerning 
them.  The  peasants  had  no  right  to  assert  that  their 
revolt  was  caused  by  fresh  burdens  imposed  on  them  ; 
for  even  if  some  of  the  overlords  had  been  somewhat 
exacting  to  their  vassals,  this  had  not  been  the  case 
with  them  all.'  ^ 

How  much  of  it  all  had  really  happened,  however, 
and  how  true  and  well  founded  the  most  serious  of  the 
complaints  were,  came  clearly  to  light :  for  instance, 
that  the  groundlords  had  really  been  guilty  of  taking 
away  and  arbitrarily  altering  their  peasants'  title-deeds. 
'  Such  alterations  as  the  interpolation  of  the  death  and 
transfer  duties  and  other  innovations  in  the  new  title- 
deeds  substituted  for  the  old  ones,'  said  the  Emperor, 
*  were  wrong  and  unjust  and  must  be  put  a  stop  to.'^ 
That  the  complaint  of  inordinate  increasing  of  the 
transfer  duties  was  also  not  imaginary,  investigation 
proved  in  many  cases.  From  one  property,  valued  at 
1400  gulden,  300  gulden  had  been  paid  :  at  first  the 
widow,  on  taking  over  the  property  at  her  husband's 
death,  had  had  to  pay  the  transfer  duty ;  immediately 
after,  on  transferring  the  property  to  other  hands,  she 
had  been  obhged  to  pay  the  same  amount  again,  and 
when  a  short  time  after  she  herself  died  the  children 
had  again  to  pay  the  tax  on  the  maternal  property. 
Some  of  the  groundlords,  when  a  wife  or  a  husband 
died,  claimed  as  their  due  10  gulden  on  each  100 
gulden,  and  on  the  sale  or  transfer  to  other  hands  not 

1  Haberlin,  xx.  469.  '^  Czerny,  281. 


190  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

only  the  same  sum  again  but  also  5  per  cent,  as 
'  Anlait,'  whereby  not  only  the  movable  but  also 
the  immovable  property  was  taxed,  but  without 
previous  deduction  of  the  outstanding  debts.  Other 
groundlords  took  from  properties,  which  had  already 
been  redeemed  at  10  per  cent,  on  death  or  purchase, 
still  another  10  per  cent,  when  the  moneys  passed 
to  another  overlord;  hkewise  they  claimed  from 
moneys  in  Chancery  which  had  already  been  diminished 
by  10  per  cent,  death  duty,  and  from  marriage  dowries 
within  and  without  the  manorial  estate,  another  10 
gulden  on  every  100.  'A  vassal,'  said  the  nobles 
of  the  Hausruck,  '  may  give  his  child  as  marriage  portion 
up  to  30  gulden  free  of  tax ;  but  if  he  gives  more  he 
is  bound  to  pay  1  gulden  for  every  10.'  ^ 

'  The  peasants,'  said  the  manorial  lords  of  the 
Marchland,  '  would  be  well  able  to  meet  the  demands 
of  their  overlords  if  only  they  were  not  allowed  to  give 
more  than  30  gulden  as  wedding  portions,  or  to 
spend  more  than  30  gulden  in  wedding  festivities, 
or  to  give  more  than  5  gulden  a  year  to  each  male- 
servant  and  3  gulden  to  each  maid-servant,  or  to 
wear  fine  clothes  ;  they  should  not  be  allowed  to  buy 
cloth  which  costs  more  than  12  kreuzer  the  ell.'  - 

George  Erasmus,  Baron  von  Tschernembl,  who  later 
on,  with  the  brothers  Gottfried  and  Richard  von  Star- 
hemberg,  formed  the  '  Calvinistic  Triumvirate '  in  Upper 
Austria,  a  keen  representative  of  the  '  overlord  claims ' 
on  the  peasants,  spokesman  for  the  groundlords  at  the 
imperial  court,  expressed  himself  as  follows  in  a  private 
letter :  '  To  exact  death  and  transfer  taxes  from 
movable  goods  also  is,  to  speak  the  truth,  neither  in 

1  Czerny,  180,  288,  290.  -  Ibid.  15,  note. 


PEASANT   LIFE  191 

accordance  with  civil  law  nor  with  the  territorial  usage  of 
other  provinces.'  ^  All  the  same,  the  overlords  themselves 
would  not  give  up  this  claim :  to  do  so,  they  said,  would 
mean  the  depopulation  and  ruin  of  the  land.  If  a 
portion  of  the  vassals  had  old  title-deeds,  so  that  in  some 
places  the  transfer  tax  on  movable  goods,  or  the  Robot, 
have  never  been  customary,  the  charters  could  now  no 
longer  be  recognised  as  vahd,  since  by  their  insurrection 
they  had  forfeited  honour,  hfe,  goods  and  chattels. 
If  any  peasant  had  an  old  charter,  on  the  strength  of 
which  he  was  exempt  from  transfer  taxes,  and  yet 
through  long  custom  such  taxes  had  been  estabhshed, 
the  letter  of  the  title-deed  ought  to  be  disregarded  and 
the  custom  upheld.^ 

Next  to  the  transfer  taxes  the  Robot  was  one  of  the 
chief  grounds  of  complaint  from  the  peasants.  With 
the  convents  this  socage  only  extended,  as  a  rule,  to 
from  two  to  eight  days  or  services  in  the  year ;  but 
with  the  secular  estates,  on  the  contrary,  it  covered 
as  much  as  twenty-six  days  ;  for  twenty-four  days  at 
the  least,  they  demanded  of  the  imperial  tribunal,  the 
vassals  were  to  be  bound  to  render  Robot  socage.'^ 

As  compared  with  the  Robot  socages  of  the  peasants 
in  Pomerania,  Brandenburg,  Mecklenburg,  and  other 
North  German  districts,  these  exactions  were  very 
moderate.* 

At  first  there  was  anything  but  a  favourable  feehng 
in  the  imperial  court  towards  the  '  manorial  demands  ' ; 
their  unchristian  and  tyrannical  nature  was  represented 
to  the  Estates.  But  by  means  of  handsome  bribes, 
which  with  some  wealthy  persons  amounted  to  500 

'  Czerny,  180,  308.  -  Ibid.  309-311. 

^  Ibid.  290,  291.  ^  See  our  remarks  above,  p.  144  ff. 


192  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

ducats,  they  were  able  to  win  over  influential  friends 
and  patrons.  1  By  an  imperial  resolution  the  Robot 
was  reduced  to  fourteen  days  and  the  burden  of  the 
transfer  taxes  was  lightened,  but,  on  the  whole,  this 
tax  was  still  to  be  paid  on  movable  as  well  as  on  im- 
movable goods.  Cattle  and  fruits  were  still  as  before 
to  be  first  offered  at  a  cheap  rate  to  the  groundlords. 
Concerning  compulsory  household  service,  the  increase 
in  tithes  on  field  and  garden,  clerks'  fees,  and  other 
peasant  grievances,  the  court  did  not  go  into  detail. 

After  the  risings  in  Lower  and  Upper  Austria  had 
been  forcibly  put  down  in  1597,  the  insurgents  disarmed, 
and  numerous  executions  carried  out,  the  peasants  were 
left  at  the  mercy  of  the  manorial  proprietors.^     The 

1  Czerny,  163,  175,  195,  307  note,  312  note. 

2  Ibid.  313  ff.  (**  Huber,  iv.  306  ff.)  Even  if  it  was  also  proved 
by  the  examination  instituted  by  the  imperial  plenipotentiaries  that  the 
peasants  in  many  cases  had  made  unfounded  charges  against  their  over- 
lords, it  can  by  no  means  be  deduced  from  this  fact  that  after  the  sup- 
pression of  the  revolt  they  no  longer  dared  bring  forward  their  grievances, 
that  the  latter  had  been  '  very  seldom  justifiable,  or  at  any  rate  of  a  very 
unimportant  natm-e '  (Czerny,  353).  After  they  had  been  beaten  down  to 
the  ground  it  was  incumbent  on  the  peasant  to  avoid  everything  which 
might  provoke  the  wrath  and  vengeance  of  the  manorial  proprietors. 
When  Wolf  WiUiam  von  Volkensdorf,  during  the  negotiations  at  Prague, 
was  sent  by  the  Estates  of  Upper  Austria  to  the  commander-in-chief 
Morawski,  the  suppressor  of  the  insurrection  below  the  Enns,  he  satisfied 
himself  at  all  points  that  the  general  had  achieved  a  splendid  work, 
that  the  peasants  almost  went  down  on  their  knees,  and  took  off  their 
hats  when  they  saw  anyone  in  the  furthest  distance  ;  '  but,'  he  added, 
'  one  also  sees  a  great  many  of  them  who  are  keeping  guard  over  the 
pears  on  the  pear-trees,  for  he  (Morawski)  drags  with  him  140  peasants, 
of  whom  he  has  some  executed  daily,  while  others  are  continually  being 
brought  in  '  {I.e.  313).  Could  the  minutely  worded  peasant  complaints 
brought  forward  in  1597  by  the  imperial  commission  at  Zwettl  against 
eleven  groundlords  be  in  the  main  unfounded  ?  Those,  for  instance,  of  the 
peasants  of  Rapportenstein  and  of  the  district  of  Langensalza  against 
the  baron  of  Landau,  that  all  the  taxes  and  services  had  been  enormously 
raised — that  it  was  only  tliirteen  or  fom'teen  years  ago  that  the  house 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     193 

latter  laid  claim  to  all  the  soil  and  territory  in  the  land 
as  their  own  '  rightful  property ' ;  and  to  the  assurance 
of  the  peasants  again  and  again  reiterated,  both  in  word 
and  in  writing,  that  they  would  by  no  means  refuse  the 
taxes  necessary  to  the  territorial  prince,  they  simply 
made  answer  that  '  the  peasants  had  no  call  to  make 
assurances  of  any  sort  with  regard  to  the  taxes ;  the 
Estates  alone  had  the  right  to  levy  taxes  on  subjects, 
while  the  groundlords,  by  ancient  right  and  privilege, 
were  not  bound  to  pay  any  taxes.'  ^ 

Amongst  all  the  privileges  and  rights  which  the 
princes  and  lords  claimed  over  the  peasants,  none 
had  a  more  damaging  influence  nor  was  exercised  so 
cruelly  as  that  of  unlimited  chase. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  social  revolution  in  1524 
the  peasants   had  put   forward  as   a   fully  justifiable 

gulden  had  been  levied ;  that  the  fee  for  taking  or  leaving  a 
farm  had  formerly  been  not  more  than  24  kreuzer,  whereas  now  it 
amounted  to  2-4  gulden  ;  that  poor  vassals  who  had  formerly  paid 
7-8  kreuzer  must  now  pay  2  gulden ;  that  formerly  the  Robot  had 
meant  six  days'  manual  labour,  while  now  '  they  had  to  attend  whenever 
they  were  summoned,'  and  that  without  any  allowance  of  food  ;  that 
sons  and  daughters  were  forced  into  household  service  at  the  manors  for  a 
mere  '  mockery  of  wages  which  did  not  even  pay  for  mending  their  shoes,' 
and  so  forth.  See  some  of  the  complaints  in  v.  Hammer=Purgstall, 
Khlesl.  i.,  Urknndensammlung,  245-248.  How  well  the  groundlords 
understood  the  art  of  increasing  their  '  manorial  rights  '  is  shown,  for 
instance,  by  the  notes  of  Erasmus  von  Rodern  taken  down  at  Perg,  near 
Rohrbach,  in  the  upper  Miihlviertel.  In  the  year  1601  he  valued  these 
rights  at  2000  gulden,  in  1604  at  6050  gulden,  in  1605  at  8850  gulden. 
The  amount  realised  by  his  '  court  tavern  '  he  put  at  the  average  yearly 
sum  of  1000  gulden.  The  Giilt  (the  money  service  and  the  different 
tithes)  brought  him  in  in  1601  only  183  gulden,  but  in  1606  as  much  as 
440  gulden.  Cf.  the  instructive  and  interesting  pamphlet  of  L.  Proll,  Ein 
BUck  in  das  Hauswesen  eines  osterreichischen  Landedelmanns  aus  dem 
ersten  Viertel  des  ITten  Jahrhunderts  (Vienna,  1888),  pp.  17,  19-20. 
1  Czerny,  299-300. 

VOL.  XV.  0 


194  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

complaint  that  the  rulers  in  some  places  preserved 
game  to  their  (the  peasants')  immense  loss  and  damage  ; 
that  the  unreasoning  creatures  devoured  their  corn,  and 
that  they  were  obliged  to  bear  this  in  silence,  which  was 
contrary  to  the  law  of  God  and  of  neighbourly  kindness. 
'  But  what  the  country  folk  had  had  to  bear  before  they 
set  the  German  lands  on  fire  with  the  insurrection  was 
only  a  trifle  compared  to  the  tyrannous  yoke  which, 
after  the  suppression  of  the  revolt,  had  been  put  on 
their  necks  through  the  chase  and  the  chase  socages/  ^ 

'  The  princes  and  the  great  proprietors  '  looked  upon 
themselves  as  the  sole  lords  of  the  forest  game  ;  most  of 
them  claimed  not  only  the  higher  chase  of  the  red  deer 
and  black  boars,  but  also  the  small  chase  of  hares,  foxes, 
birds  and  partiddges  ;  to  the  peasant  almost  every  kind 
of  hunting  was  forbidden.  Not  only  were  the  manorial 
forests  enclosed,  but  in  many  places  even  the  private 
woods,  while  the  parishioners  were  more  and  more 
shut  out  from  their  use.  The  pursuit  of  the  chase, 
outraging  all  reason,  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  decline 
of  agriculture  and  the  impoverishment  of  the  peasants. 
By  the  continual  extension  of  their  pleasures  in  this 
direction  the  princes  and  lords  brought  the  whole 
population  into  misery,  so  that  there  was  justification 
for  the  question  :  Who  were  the  best  off,  *  das  lang 
gehegte  und  kurz  gehetzte  Wild,  oder  der  stets  gehetzte 
und  nie  gehegte  Untertan ' "  (the  long  cherished  and 
briefly  tormented  beast,  or  the  long  tormented  and  never 
cherished  peasant)  ? 

'  The  amount  of  loss,  suffering,  misery,  oppression 
and  ruin,'  wrote  Cyriacus  Spangenberg  from  his  own 
observation  in  1560,  *  which  accrue  to  the  poor  peasants 

^  Bauernklage  (1598),  Bl,  G.  '^  Falke,  Kurfiirst  August,  146. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     195 

through  the  chase,  are  not  to  be  reckoned  up.  There  is 
no  sense  of  pity  or  mercy  among  the  rulers,  who  will  not 
beheve  this  nor  take  the  matter  up.  The  animals  tear 
up  and  devour  all  the  corn  and  vegetables,  destroy  the 
seeds  before  they  have  come  up,  and  devastate  the 
land.  The  peasants  are  obhged  to  put  up  with  this  and 
dare  not  speak.  Their  cattle,  calves,  goats,  sheep,  geese 
and  chickens,  often  even  their  children  and  their  farm- 
servants,  are  injured  by  the  horses  and  hounds,  and  no 
compensation  is  given  them.  Besides  which,  when  the 
hunt  is  on  they  must  let  everything  go,  neglect  their 
own  business  and  endanger  their  bodies  and  lives,  in 
order  to  attend  their  overlords.  The  great  people  race 
and  gallop  through  their  fields,  meadows  and  gardens, 
after  a  hare,  or  a  brace  of  partridges,  or  some  other 
wild  game,  sparing  nothing,  not  even  the  vines  ;  the 
hedges  are  broken  down,  the  vegetables  trampled 
under  foot,  the  corn  trailed  on  the  ground,  the  pahngs 
and  vine  poles  knocked  down,  and  everywhere  immense 
damage  done  to  the  poor  people.  How  is  it  possible 
for  them  under  such  circumstances  to  thrive  and 
prosper  ?  And  when  they  have  lost  all  and  are  ruined 
how  can  they  pay  and  serve  their  overlords  ?  Has 
anyone  ever  met  with  such  injustice  even  among  the 
heathen  ? '  Spangenberg  reminds  the  princes  and  lords 
of  the  maxim  : 

To  hunt  for  pleasure  at  cost  of  the  poor 
Is  a  devil's  delight,  and  nothing  more.' 

Even  the  princes  who  were  most  alert  in  the  aug- 
mentation of  their  revenues  and  incomes,  such  as  the 
Elector  Augustus  of   Saxony,   subordinated  all  other 

1  Der    Jag-Teufel,     Theatr.     Diabol,     255*^ ;     cf.     253.     **  Osborn, 
Teufels-literatur,  152  f.     Schwappach,  ii.  618. 

0  2 


196  HISTORY  or  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

State  and  economic  considerations  to  their  linnting. 
Augustus  enlarged  the  area  of  the  territorial  game 
preserves  till  it  covered  vast  stretches  of  his  electorate. 
The  means  which  flowed  in  to  him  from  the  confiscation 
of  Church  property  he  used  for  the  purchase  of  large 
noblemen^s  estates,  whose  extensive  forests  were  specially 
adapted  for  enlarging  the  game  preserves.  ^  In  order 
that  the  wild  birds  and  game  might  conveniently 
disport  themselves  and  feed  among  the  fat  fields  and 
standing  corn  of  the  peasants  he  issued  the  command 
that  fields  were  not  to  be  enclosed.  '  You  are  not 
ignorant/  he  wrote  to  the  receiver  of  taxes  at  Pirna  on 
October  7,  1555,  '  of  the  reasons  for  which  it  has  been 
our  will  and  pleasure  to  do  away  entirely  mth  all  the 
villages  in  our  hunting  domain  in  the  mountains  on  the 
Bohemian  frontier,  and  to  remove  them  elsewhere ; 
Hkewise  on  what  conditions  it  was  afterwards  our 
pleasure  to  allow  them  to  remain  longer  in  the  same  place. 
Since,  however,  we  instructed  you,  among  other  things, 
to  pull  down  all  the  pahngs,  hedges,  fences,  and  so  forth, 
which  our  subjects  in  the  district  of  Konigstein  set  up 
for  the  protection  of  their  corn,  and  which  hinder  the 
free  course  of  our  wild  game,  though  in  some  cases  this 
has  been  done,  we  have  nevertheless  learnt  that  in  and 
about  the  villages  of  Struppen  and  Leupoldsheim  the 
hedges,  pahngs  and  other  obstructions  are  still  left 
standing,  we  herewith  instruct  and  command  that  all 
the  said  fences,  &c.,  in  the  said  villages  shall  at  once  be 
completely  pulled  do"\;\Ti,  and  that  you  yourself  shall  see 
that  it  is  done  and  shall  not  come  away  until  all  such 
obstructions  have  been  entirely  removed.'  Later  on 
he  gave -permission  for  the  fencing  in  of  fields,  but  ordered 

1  See  Fraustadt,  ii.  280-281,  and  i^  305  £E. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     197 

the  removal  of  all  goats  and  dogs,  excepting  chained-up 
dogs,  and  laid  on  the  peasants  the  obUgations  to  keep, 
outside  these  enclosed  fields,  a  few  acres  with  good 
crops  for  the  game,  and  in  every  village  Mark  to  keep 
at  least  three  fields,  300  ells  in  breadth,  open  for  the  game. 
The  tenants  in  the  district  of  Pirna  had  to  sow  every 
year  150  bushels  of  oats  for  the  game  and  were  only 
supphed  with  thirty-three  bushels.  ^  The  mountain  ore 
districts  were  also  planted  with  crops  for  the  wild  game. 
How  damaging  to  the  peasants  all  these  numerous 
game  preserves  were  is  seen  from  a  report  of  the  electoral 
councillor  Komerstadt,  who  wrote  to  the  Elector  Augustus 
concerning  a  preserve  stretching  from  Ebersbach  to 
Kalkreuth  and  thence  towards  Hayer.  He  says :  '  The 
sows  had  torn  up  the  meadows  as  with  a  pick-axe  ; 
he  had  seen  the  people  down  on  their  knees  putting 
back  the  clods  of  turf  with  their  hands,  not  without 
murmurings  in  their  hearts ;  over  1000  acres  of  grass 
land  had  been  turned  into  game  preserves,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  whole  district,  owing  to  the  poverty  and 
sandiness  of  the  soil,  lived  by  cattle-breeding ;  if  the 
pasture  land  is  destroyed  whole  villages  will  be  ruined.'  - 
It  was  said  among  the  people  that  the  Elector  must 
*  at  times  be  under  the  spell  of  a  specially  evil  spirit, 
since  he  allowed  his  vassals  to  be  so  cruelly  used  by 
unreasoning  animals.'  A  baker  from  Stolpen  stated  that 
between  Dresden  and  Stolpen,  on  the  bridge  in  the 
moorland,  he  had  met  with  a  ghost  which  had  charged 
him  to  petition  the  prince  to  do  away  with  the  wild 
game,  which  did  so  much  damage  to  the  peasants ;  for 
when  a  poor  man  had  sown  three  or  four  bushels  of  corn 

^  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  264-267. 
"  Falke,  Kurfiirst  Atcgust,  150. 


198  HISTORY  OF  THE  GER^L4N  PEOPLE 

he  only  reaped  two  ;  Augustus  might  at  least  allow  the 
peasants  to  frighten  away  the  game  from  their  fields.  ^ 

The  amoimt  of  damage  that  the  game  was  capable 
of  doing  may  be  measured  by  their  quantity.  On  October 
4,  1562,  the  Elector,  according  to  his  own  statement, 
in  one  single  hunt  on  the  Dresden  heath,  brought  down 
*  539  wild  swine,  52  of  which  were  boars  over  five  years 
old.^ 

On  December  30,  1563,  he  complained  that '  because 
the  boars,  owing  to  dearth  of  fodder,  were  not  nearly 
fat  enough,  he  had  been  obhged  to  give  up  further 
hunting,  after  killing,  however,  1226  animals,  including 
200  pigs,  500  two-year-old  boars,  and  526  quite  young 
ones.'-  In  1565,  during  the  shooting  season,  he  shot 
104  stags  with  his  own  hand ;  the  following  year  he 
killed  330.-^  At  the  hunts  of  November  1585  no  less 
than  1532  wild  boars  were  killed.^  The  Elector 
Christian  I.,  in  1501,  during  the  season  when  the  harts 
are  fat,  killed  227  stags,  127  deer,  and  a  number  of 
other  wild  animals.^  On  September  19,  1614,  '  a  wild 
beast  hmit  through  the  Elbe '  was  organised.  The  hst 
of  animals  killed  includes  28  stags,  19  does,  9  two-year- 
old  boars,  10  roes,  6  '  Kegler'  (?),  2  five-year-old  boars, 
and  so  forth.  The  banks  of  the  Elbe  were  laid  with 
nets,  the  game  was  driven  into  the  river  and  shot  from 
the  pontoon  shed,  while  the  court  looked  on  from  the 
banks.  "^ 

1  Weber,  Kurfiirsiin  Anna,  297.  -  Ibid.  242. 

'^  Falke,  Kurfiirst  August,  152.  ^  Miiller,  Annales,  204. 

'"  Ibid.  207. 

*  A  picture  on  the  walls  of  the  Saxon  hunting-castle  Moritzburg 
represents  this  wild  boar  chase.  Richard,  Krell,  ii.  333.  VSTaen  the 
Emperor  Matthias  was  in  Dresden  in  1617  he,  in  company  with  the  whole 
electoral  court  retinue,  looked  on  from  the  town-haU  for  five  hours  at 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     199 

In  the  year  1617  Philip  Hainhofer  saw  in  the  newly 
built  hunting-house  in  Alt-Dresden,  200  wagons  for  the 
transport  of  cloths,  nets  and  yarn,  with  which  *  fifteen 
miles  of  road  could  be  netted/  ^  'Nearly  every  year 
brought  a  blessing  in  game  to  the  prince's  kitchen ' 
quite  independently  of  the  enormous  quantity  of  game 
which  was  not  killed  by  the  Elector  in  person,  but  sent 
in  by  the  many  court  and  comitry  hunt-masters, 
foresters  and  gamekeepers.'-  A  hunt  retinue  consisted 
sometimes  of  4000  or  5000  men.'^ 

In  the  duchy  of  Saxony  *  the  royal  chase  went  on 
as  furiously  and  with  equal  mercilessness  to  the  poor 
people/  The  complaints  of  the  peasants  over  the 
terrible  ravages  of  the  wild  game  found  as  little  hearing 
as  did  those  of  the  forest  officials  that,  owing  to  the 
inordinate  quantity  of  game  the  trees  could  not  attain  to 
proper  development.  The  pastor  and  the  magistrate 
at  Jena  complained  bitterly.  The  wild  animals,  they 
said,  eat  up  the  young  seedlings,  and  the  fresh  shoots 
in  the  vines ;  many  a  poor  man  had  to  leave  off  work 
in  his  fields,  or  meadows,  or  vineyards,  because  he  did 
not  dare  frighten  away  the  game  ;  also  pointed  pahngs 
romid  the  vine  crops  were  no  longer  allowed  on  account 
of  the  game.  '  The  wild  game  are  losing  their  right 
to  their  name,'  wrote  the  court-preacher  Stolz,  '  and 
are  becoming  as  tame  as  a  herd  of  cattle  ;  they  trot  out 
of  the  woods  into  the  meadows,  fields,  vineyards,  and 

'  the  merry  hunt  going  on  on  the  Platz.^  '  Eight  large  bears,  10  stags, 
4  heads  of  game,  10  wild  hogs  and  17  badgers  were,  one  after  another, 
baited  and  killed,  and  finally  3  fine  martens  shot  down  by  the  Elector 
from  the  tall  fir-trees  which  had  been  set  up.'  Opel,  Anfdnge  der  Zeitungs 
presse,  70-71. 

1  Baltische  Shtdien,  ii.  Heft  ii.  141.  "  Glafey,  960. 

•'  Miiller,  Foracluingen,  i.  31. 


200  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

gardens,  forget  their  normal  food  which  God  has  pro- 
vided for  them  in  the  forests,  and  devour,  trample  on, 
ravage  and  destroy  what  has  grown  up  for  the  use  of 
man/  It  is  to  the  honour  of  the  preachers  at  court 
as  well  as  to  those  in  the  towns  and  villages  situated 
in  the  game-preserving  districts  that,  as  Duke  John 
Frederick  II.  wrote,  '  they  often  inveighed  fiercely  from 
the  pulpits  against  the  terrible  way  in  which  the  animals 
damaged  the  poor  people's  field  and  garden  produce  ; 
the  people  did  not  dare  set  foot  in  their  own  woods  for 
fear  of  disturbing  the  game,  still  less  make  any  use  of 
them/  After  a  time,  however,  the  preachers  were 
forbidden  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  people/ 

'  In  the  department  of  the  chase,'  so  the  Weimar 
councillors  informed  Duke  Frederick  William  in  1590, 
'  there  was  a  great  deal  of  unnecessary  expense  in 
servants,  food,  carriage,  and  other  things/  For  if  a  stag 
cost  100  fl.  it  was  an  expensive  pleasure  to  say  the  least. 
'  Then  everybody  is  complaining  that  the  quantity  of 
game  on  the  Ettersberg,  belonging  to  your  Grace,  is 
doing  so  much  harm  to  the  trees  that  it  is  to  be  feared 
the  manorial  forest  will  soon  be  turned  into  meadow 
land.  What  the  poor  suffer  from  damage  to  their  corn, 
and  whence  they  are  to  procure  rent,  taxes,  and  other 
things,  is  not  easy  to  imagine.'  ~ 

Duke  George  Ernest  of  Henneberg,  a  '  furious 
hunter,'  who  in  1581  killed  no  fewer  than  1003  red 
deer,3  received  the  following  protest  from  his  councillors  : 
*  To  your  Grace's  extreme  and  almost  blamable  injury 
it  has  been  found  that  up  to  the  present  day  the  chase 
is  the  root  and    cause   of    all  the    damage  and    ruin 

'  Kius,  Forstwesen,  182,  186-190.       -  Moser's  Patriotisches  Archiv,  iii.  285. 
^  liandau,  Beiirdge  zur  Geschichte  der  Jagd,  251-252. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     201 

sustained  in  the  lordship  of  Henneberg.  For,  not  to 
speak  of  the  inordinate  burden  which  is  laid  on  the  poor 
subjects  by  the  daily  hunting,  it  is  patent  to  all  that 
with  such  evils  and  annoyances  going  on  neither  govern- 
ment, nor  housekeeping,  nor  any  order  of  any  sort 
can  be  maintained.  All  household  and  government 
affairs,  and  the  ruler  himself,  are  at  the  mercy  of  un- 
reasoning wild  animals.  Everything  must  give  way  to 
the  chase.  Consultations  on  important  affairs  are  held  at 
any  inconvenient  time,  eating  and  drinking  takes  place 
at  odd  moments,  and  so  with  everything  else  :  all  day 
long  kitchens  and  cellars  stand  open,  and  what  is  worst 
of  all,  the  whole  mind,  thoughts,  and  will  of  our  ruler 
are  so  set  on  the  daily  pursuit  of  the  ruinous  chase  that 
hunting  and  kilhng  animals  has  come  to  be  regarded  as 
a  dehght  and  as  a  remedy  for  casual  illnesses.  From 
which,  besides  the  above-mentioned  disorder,  it  also 
follows  that  year  after  year  this  kind  of  dehght  must 
be  enjoyed  and  pursued  in  almost  all  districts,  whereby 
every  district  is  consumed  by  itself.'  ^ 

The  same  state  of  things  prevailed  in  other  districts. 
The  Elector  John  George  of  Brandenburg  wrote  in  1579 
to  the  Landgrave  William  of  Hesse  that  he  had  caught 
and  shot  436  stags,  190  head  of  wild  game,  4  bears, 
1363  boars,  and  150  foxes.-  In  1581  the  number  of 
his  trophies  amounted  to  679  stags,  968  head  of  game, 
26  wild  calves,  and  over  500  boars.^  From  Easter  1594 
to  Easter  1598  the  Elector  himself  shot  2350  stags 
and  2651  does.**  When  the  Landgrave  Wilham  of 
Hesse  was  on  a  visit  to  the  Elector  in  1589  he  wrote  from 
Kiistrin  that  at  one  of  the  hunts  got  up  for  him  by  his 

^  Landau,  ii.  ^  Moehsen,  Beitrdge,  94,  note. 

^  Landau,  250.  "  Mdrkische  Forschungen,  iii.  359. 


202  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

host  he  had  killed  60-70  stags,  without  counting  the  wild 
game,  and  on  another  occasion  100  stags.  ^ 

In  his  own  country  William  was  no  less  fortunate. 
In  1579  his  hunting  booty  was  900  wild  boars."  But 
this  number  was  small  m  comparison  to  the  feats  of 
the  Landgrave  Philip."^  In  1559  Phihp  wrote  to 
Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg :  *  At  this  boar-hunt 
we  had  fine  sport  with  our  young  dogs  and  caught 
over  1120  boars.  We  had  intended  to  have  60  more 
field  days,  but  as  we  found  that  the  boars  had  become 
thin,  we  did  not  go  on  hunting.'  In  1560,  1274  boars 
were  killed,  in  1563  as  many  as  2572,  and  yet  the  area 
of  these  hunts  had  been  confined  to  different  portions 
of  the  small  landgraviate.  In  1560,  even  before  the 
expiration  of  the  hunting  season,  Philip  killed  60  stags  ; 
from  June  1  to  August  1,  1561,  he  shot  81  stags  and 
trapped  96,  and  hoped  to  shoot  40  more  and  chase  60. 
The  snow  and  the  cold  of  the  winter  of  1570-1571 
destroyed  such  a  large  quantity  of  red  deer  and  other 
game  that  the  loss  was  estimated  at  3000  head  in  the 
Reinhardswald  alone.  In  1582  the  Landgrave  William 
of  Hesse  carried  off  a  booty  of  261  stags  and  391  head 
of  game  ;  his  brother  killed  280  stags  and  483  deer ; 
in  the  following  year  these  numbers  were  ahnost 
doubled,  and  from  year  to  year  the  booty  was  equally 
large.* 

In  Hesse  also  the  farmers  were  not  allowed  to  protect 
themselves  against  the  damage  done  by  the  game.     '  It 

^  Landau,  254.  2  Moehsen,  94,  note. 

3  **  During  his  captivity  (1547-1550)  '  the  Landgrave  PhiUp  turned 
his  attention  more  to  compensation  for  the  game  damages  than  to  the 
diminution  of  game  '  (ii.  623). 

^  Landau,  247-253.  Still  further  details  at  232-240.  Cf.  Weber, 
Aus  vier  Jahrhunderten,  i.  464. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     203 

was  shameful/  said  Landgrave  Philip, '  that  the  peasants 
should  refuse  to  let  his  game  go  into  their  fields  when 
he  allowed  their  cows  to  be  in  his  forests/  Thus  the 
peasants,  in  return  for  the  right  of  pasture  in  the  forests, 
were  to  give  up  their  fields  to  the  wild  game  J  In  1566, 
at  a  Provincial  Diet  at  Cassel,  the  Estates  complained  of 
the  '  tremendous  mischief  done  by  the  great,  fat  game 
animals  which  they  were  not  even  allowed  to  drive 
away  with  small  dogs/  Three  years  later  they  repeated 
their  complaint.  '  It  was  a  general  grievance,'  they 
said,  'that  the  princes'  wild  game  did  so  much  harm 
by  overrunning  and  trampling  down  the  crops/  The 
peasants  were  neither  allowed  to  drive  off  the  animals 
nor  to  fence  in  their  fields,  meadows  and  gardens,  and 
yet  they  were  expected  at  the  time  of  tax-collecting  to 
pay  the  groundlords  in  good  fruit,  &c.  '  For  their 
comfort  the  Estates  were  answered  that  the  lords  who 
had  the  cares  of  government  on  their  shoulders  must  be 
provided  with  sustenance  :  they  had  better  look  round 
and  see  what  went  on  in  other  countries/-  I21  the 
hunting  district  round  the  town  of  Cassel  the  populace 
were  forbidden  under  severe  penalty  to  snare  the  hares, 
'  and  consequently  these  animals  ran  about  the  gardens 
everywhere  almost  tame/  ^  To  the  Landgrave  Ludwig 
V.  the  parishes  of  the  district  of  Lichtenberg  and  the 
villages  of  Niederramstadt,  Treysa  and  Waschenbach 
sent  in  the  following  complaint :  '  Although  the  land, 
and  our  districts  in  the  mountains  especially,  no  longer 
yields  such  abundant  produce  as  formerly,  nevertheless 
the  small  supphes  which  God  Almighty  vouchsafes  to 
bring  forth  from  the  fields  yearly  for  the  maintenance 

^  Landau,  7.  ^  Rommel,  Neuere  Gesch.  von  Hessen,  i.  252,  255. 

^  Landau,  269. 


204  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

of  human  life  would  be  sufficient  for  our  wants,  and 
would  enable  us  better  to  bear  our  common  burdens,  if 
it  were  not  for  the  wild  animals  which  of  late  years 
have  preyed  on  our  fields  and  meadows  in  such  quanti- 
ties, and  which  go  on  multiplying  from  year  to  year,  and 
which  in  spite  of  our  yelhng,  screaming  and  watching 
break  through  the  fences  often  in  broad  daylight,  with- 
out any  timidity,  and  ravage  fruit  vines  and  corn.  Also 
w^hat  the  stags  may  happen  to  spare  in  the  vineyards 
and  the  orchards  the  wild  boars  make  havoc  of,  so  that 
the  poor  people's  labour  is  all  toil  and  trouble  in  vain, 
with  great  and  irretrievable  loss.  Oftentimes  with  all 
his  bleeding  sweat  the  peasant  cannot  earn  enough  to 
give  his  children  daily  bread  during  half  the  year, 
still  less  has  he  time  for  the  needful  farm  work,  and 
most  certainly  he  cannot  fulfil  your  Grace's  expecta- 
tions in  the  matter  of  yearly  rent,  dues  and  taxes.' 
The  petitioners  ended  with  the  assurance  that  if  this 
condition  of  things  was  not  amehorated  they  should  be 
obhged  to  leave  their  land  to  go  to  ruin,  and  cease  from 
agricultural  labour,  i  Ludwig,  however,  took  no  notice 
of  these  complaints.  Whosoever  spoke  against  his  wild 
game  '  hit  him  in  the  apple  of  his  eye,  so  dear  to  him  was 
it  and  the  chase,  that  he  cared  for  nothing  and  no  one 
else.'  ^  It  was  a  byword  in  the  land  of  Hesse  that 
next  to  the  princes  '  the  unreasoning  animals  were  the 
lords  of  the  land.' 

In  Franconia  these  '  unreasoning  animals  '  caused 
such  devastation  that  in  1580  the  persecuted  peasants 
declared  they  would  bear  it  no  longer,  they  would 
rather  let  everything  go  to  rack  and  ruin  and  even  face 
starvation.     The  Landgrave  William  of  Hesse  feared 

1  Landau,  147-148.  2  ij^i^^  i^ 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE     205 

that  in  his  land  also  the  same  sort  of  mutiny  might 
arise,  and  warned  his  brother  'to  remember  and  con- 
sider well  that  the  beginnings  of  the  peasant  war  were 
first  seen  in  Franconia.'  From  twelve  Franconian 
lordships  the  peasants,  under  the  lead  of  the  Syndicus  of 
Nuremberg,  sent  twelve  delegates  to  the  imperial  court, 
to  obtain  from  the  supreme  head  of  the  empire  help 
and  rescue  from  their  bondage.  The  Emperor  espoused 
their  cause  and  issued  stringent  orders  to  the  Franconian 
overlords,  especially  to  the  Margrave  of  Ansbach- 
Bayreuth,  that  they  were  not  to  make  game  preserves 
and  covers  anywhere  but  on  their  own  property, 
ground,  and  soil,  as  was  decreed  by  the  common  law, 
and  not  to  allow  such  preserves  and  covers  to  be  a  source 
of  damage  and  loss  to  others.  *  No  one  shall  be 
forbidden,"  he  said,  '  to  protect  his  ground  and  posses- 
sions, as  best  he  can,  against  the  wild  game  with  fences 
and  other  safeguards,  or  to  shut  off  his  sheep  from  the 
incursions  of  wild  animals,  and  the  field-crops  and 
fruit  trees  against  the  ravages  of  the  red  deer  and  the 
black  game.'  The  town  of  Nuremberg  procured  against 
the  margraves  an  imperial  edict  to  the  effect  that  '  the 
command  to  leave  the  fields  open  to  the  game,  so  that 
it  might  feed  unhindered  on  the  sweat  and  blood  of 
the  poor  man,  was  contrary  both  to  divine  and  human 
justice,  and  that  to  scare  and  drive  away  the  animals 
from  one's  own  ground  was  not  a  crime  for  which  a 
poor  man  should  be  punished  in  body  and  goods.'  ^ 

^  Landau,  145-146.  In  1541  the  Provincial  Estates  had  aheady 
represented  to  the  government  of  Ansbach-Bayreuth  that  '  theii 
burdens  were  unendurable  :  in  spite  of  the  general  height  of  prices  and 
the  great  poverty  which  compelled  many  to  go  away,  the  preserving  of 
game  had  increased  so  enormously  that  the  poor  peasants  could  not  tend 
their  lands  and  raise  their  corn,  &c.,  and  were  consequently  often  obliged 


206  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Nevertheless  the  imperial  coiiunands  remained 
ineffectual.  '  We  are  surrounded  by  forests,  and  are 
obliged  to  watch  day  and  night/  the  village  steward 
of  Linden  complained,  '  agriculture  is  completely  ruined 
by  the  game,  our  poverty  is  unspeakable/  The  mar- 
gravian  officials  of  Heilsbronn  affirmed  the  truth  of 
this  utterance.  '  The  quantity  of  game  is  incalculable,' 
it  says  in  a  petition  of  grievances  from  the  peasants 
of  Sehgenstadt  near  Meckendorf  in  1582,  '  all  the  fields 
are  devastated  by  the  wild  animals,  two-thirds  of  our 
harvest  crops  in  1581  were  nothing  but  stubble,  the  ears 
had  been  eaten  off  by  the  game.  We  pray  for  mercy, 
that  we  may  not  be  reduced  to  begging  and  going  off 
with  our  wives  and  children  into  misery.'  i  They  found 
no  mercy.  '  The  game  injuries,'  said  the  towns  of  the 
upper  mountain  district  in  1594,  '  proceed  chiefly  from 
the  huge  bears,  wolves  and  wild  boars  ;  the  stags  graze 
hke  tame  cattle ;  the  peasants  are  forbidden  to  erect 
high  fences ;  everything  is  going  to  ruin ;  '  they 
begged  that  the  prince  '  would  hsten  to  them  for  the 
love  of  God.''^  In  the  previous  year  the  knights  of 
the  Franconian  Circle  had  complained  on  this  same 
score,  '  they  had  had  to  suffer  untold  annoyance  from 
the  game.  Their  grounds  were  turned  into  wild 
gardens ;  the  hunting-grounds  were  extended  over 
the  property  of  the  knights.  If  a  nobleman  ventured 
to  exercise  his  rights,  he  was  threatened  that  he  would 
be  shot  down  hke  a  dog  and  sent  to  Ansbach ;  they 
were  attacked  in  the  open  street,  and  in  very  truth 
they  had  become  regular  bond-servants.'  ^ 

to  decamp  with  their  wives  and  children  and  sell  thek  cattle  to  save 
themselves  from  starvation.'     Muck,  Heilsbronn,  i.  402. 

1  Muck,  ii.  29,  474.  -  Lang,  iii.  275.  ■'  Ibid.  140-141. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING:    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      207 

How  matters  stood  as  regards  game  in  Bavaria  is 
seen  from  the  hunt-books  of  Dukes  Wilham  IV.  and 
Albert  V.  Under  WilHam,  in  the  one  year  1545,  no 
less  than  2032  deer  of  different  sorts  were  shot.  For 
the  years  1555-1579  the  entries  in  Duke  Albert's 
book  as  trophies  of  the  chase  are  :  2779  stags,  1784 
does,  220  fawns,  100  roes,  150  foxes,  50  hares,  525  wild 
boars,  2  bears,  23  squirrels  ;  the  total  amount  was 
5643  animals  which  he  slew  with  his  own  hand  in  1852 
hunting  expeditions.  The  number  of  hunt  days 
amounted  in  some  of  the  years  of  Albert's  reign  to 
80  and  95  ;  in  1574  to  100,  in  1564  to  103.  i 

According  to  the  land  ordinance  of  1553,  the  yassals 
had  at  any  rate  the  right  to  protect  themselves  against 
the  ravages  of  the  game.  '  A  poor  man,'  it  says  therein, 
*  is  at  liberty,  if  the  game  get  into  his  fields  by  day  or 
by  night  and  do  mischief  there,  to  drive  out  the  animals 
with  his  own  or  his  neighbour's  dogs.' "  Duke  Albert, 
however,  only  allowed  fences  round  the  game  preserves 
which  had  openings  at  all  four  corners,  through  which 
the  animals  could  pass  in  and  out  unhindered. ^ 
When  in  1605  the  Bavarian  Estates  made  complaints  of 
intolerable  damage  done  to  the  poor  people  by  the 
game  they  were  dismissed  with  the  answer  that  '  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  for  the  prevention  of  all  damage  ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  the  vassals  should  also  be  incited 
to  be  more  dihgent  in  the  pursuit  of  the  chase,  whereby 
they  would  themselves  avert  the  evil.'* 

^  '  Jagdregister  Herzog  Wilhelms  IV.  vom  Jahre  1545,  und  Ausziige  aus 
dem  Jagdbuch  Herzog  AlbrechtsV.  (1555-1579),'  contributed  by  F.  v.  Kobell 
and  Foringer  in  the  Oherhayerisches  Archiv.  fur  Vaterldnd.  Gesch.,  xv.  194-219. 

2  Landesordnung,  fol.  125*. 

^  Landau,  157.  **  Cf.  Sugenheim,  Bayerns  Kirchen-  und  Volks- 
zustdnde,  468  ff.  ^  v.  Freyberg,  i.  '  Beilagen,'  p.  5. 


208  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Wiirtemberg  the  Estates,  on  their  continuous 
petitioning  against  the  inordinate  quantity  of  game  pre- 
served, received  from  Duke  Frederick  in  1595  the  follow- 
ing assurance  :  '  In  order  that  our  obedient  prelates 
and  country  people  should  see  that  it  is  our  gracious 
intention  to  strike  at  the  very  root  of  this  grievance,  we 
have  resolved  that  henceforth  every  year,  instead  of 
allowing  only  three  principal  forests  to  be  hunted  over, 
there  shall  henceforth  be  hunting  in  four  forests  (not- 
withstanding that  it  may  often  be  arduous  and  some- 
times dangerous)  until  all  the  animals  have  been 
extirpated.  If  more  forests  were  hunted  over,  it 
would  still  be  of  no  use,  because  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  hunt  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to  do  away 
with  the  grievances  complained  of/  ^ 

The  Estates  had  to  be  content  with  this.  '  The 
noble  art  of  the  chase  as  the  chief  pastime  and  amuse- 
ment of  princes  and  other  aristocratic  personages  '  not 
only  resulted,  for  the  vassals,  in  the  devastation  of  their 
laboriously  planted  acres,  meadows,  vineyards  and 
gardens,  but  also  in  innumerable  hunting  services  which 
were  amongst  the  most  oppressive  of  the  feudal  socages, 
because  there  was  no  limit  to  them  and  they  were  im- 
posed with  the  utmost  arbitrariness.  The  peasants  were 
obliged  to  convey  all  the  hunting  paraphernalia  back- 
wards and  forwards  from  the  hunting  stables,  to  lead 
along  the  dogs,  to  help  in  beating  the  covers,  to  take 
home  the  game  that  had  been  shot,  to  make  pahngs  and 
hew  out  roads  and  paths  for  the  shooters."' 

^  Reysclier,  ii.  255. 

^  Cf.  Landau,  166.  **  Concerning  the  chase  socages  see  also  Schwap- 
pach,  ii.  609  £f.  :  '  There  was  no  fixed  Hmit  to  the  chase  socages,  and 
the  utmost  caprice  in  their  exaction  ;   they  were  often  imposed  with  utter 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      209 

In  the  duchy  of  Saxony  the  parishes  complained 
incessantly  of  the  increasing  hunt  services  that  were 
exacted,  and  of  the  numerous  calls  made  on  them  to 
cart  nets,  which  was  often  a  very  costly  business. 
Thus,  for  instance,  in  1551  the  villages  in  the  district 
of  Roda  appealed  to  the  territorial  prince  Duke 
John  Frederick  II.  on  the  score  that  numbers  of 
people  were  obliged  to  make  long  journeys  on  account 
of  the  wolf  hunts  and,  on  pain  of  a  fine  of  20  florins,  leave 
all  their  work  and  follow  the  hunt ;  this  had  actually 
happened  ten  times  in  the  winter.  Besides  this  they 
were  often  called  upon  to  attend  at  deer  and  boar  hunts 
in  the  middle  of  the  harvest,  when  they  had  to  leave  all 
their  corn  and  harvesting  at  a  standstill.  They  were 
poor  people,  they  had  only  poor  soil  where  corn  and 
grass  would  not  grow  so  well  as  in  other  places,  but  only 
wood,  thorn-hedges,  dry  patches  of  land  and  the  poorest 
grass  fields  ;  and  so  they  had  scarcely  enough  bread  to 
eat  and  were  obliged  with  their  many  little  children  to  go 
almost  naked  and  to  suffer  terrible  distress.  Added  to 
all  the  heavy  burdens  of  taxes  and  socages  the  new 
services  at  the  wolf  hunts  had  been  imposed  on  them. 
'  When  the  bailiff  comes  in  the  evening  and  orders  us  on 
pain  of  a  fine  to  be  up  early  in  the  morning  with  our  best 
implements  and  to  go  to  such  or  such  a  place,  we  are 
obhged  to  get  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Many  of 
us  have  no  trousers  or  other  clothes,  neither  shoes,  caps 

unscrupulousness  and  cruel  harshness.  For  one  single  hunting  expedition 
over  1000  men  were  frequently  requisitioned,  and  these  men  had  to  spend 
weeks  together  in  the  forest,  it  might  be  at  a  time  of  necessary  farm 
labour,  or  in  the  depths  of  winter,  taking  their  bullock  carts  with  them,  and 
not  receiving  a  morsel  of  bread.'  '  For  the  boar-hunts,  for  which  a  great 
many  were  often  wanted,  the  shepherds  and  butchers  were  obliged  in  many 
places  to  give  their  services '  (in  Hesse  for  instance).  See  Landau,  177. 
VOL.  XV.  P 


210  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

nor  gloves,  and  no  bread  in  the  house  ;  and  we  start  off 
and  go  a  mile  or  a  mile  and  a  half,  and  when  we  get  to  the 
spot  no  one  gives  us  a  bit  of  bread,  and  we  had  none  to 
take  with  us,  and  we  stand  about  there  cold  and  hungry, 
so  that  many  of  us  might  fall  sick  and  die  if  God  did  not 
give  us  special  strength.  When  at  last  we  get  back  home 
there  is  nothing  in  the  house  to  appease  our  hunger. 
The  next  day  we  are  summoned  again,  and  the  way  the 
bells  are  rung  at  night  is  enough  to  terrify  the  people. 
If  we  were  to  go  on  being  oppressed  in  this  manner 
it  would  not  be  possible  for  us  to  keep  ourselves  ahve, 
we  must  either  perish  with  cold  or  starvation  or  run 
away.' 

In  the  district  of  Eilenburg,  in  the  Saxon  Electorate, 
96  men  were  bound  to  yield  hunting  service,  in  the 
district  of  Kolditz  643,  in  the  district  of  Lauterstein 
700.  At  an  electoral  hunting  expedition  planned  in 
1564  the  peasants  were  called  on  to  supply  no  less  than 
155  wagons  and  1277  men.  The  vassals  of  the  district 
of  Griinhain  offered  in  return  for  the  remission  of  their 
hunting  services  to  supply  a  yearly  quota  of  100  men 
for  five  weeks  for  the  clearing  of  the  roads  in  the  district 
of  Schwarzenberg  and  to  pay  and  maintain  them  at  their 
own  expense.  Peasants  who  had  formerly  been  the 
vassals  of  convents  and  abbeys  now  experienced  a 
severity  of  oppression  unknown  to  them  when  they  were 
still  under  ecclesiastical  dominion.  '  In  the  times  of  the 
monks,'  so  the  electoral  steward  Lauterbach  recounted 
in  1562,  '  the  vassals  of  the  monastery  of  Altenzelle  were 
not  obhged  to  render  any  hunting  services,  for  the  monks 
did  not  hunt  game  and  boars  more  than  once  or  twice  in 
the  year,  and  they  paid  their  own  expenses,  and  they 

'  ELius,  Fiirstwesen,  193. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      211 

kept  their   own  foresters,  and  used  their  wagons  and 
those  of  the  convent  of  Zell  for  conveying  the  nets  and 
game,  and  all  the  service  that  was  claimed  was  paid  for 
with  money,  food  and  drink.     But  after  the  monastery, 
with  the  district  of  Nossen,  came  to  the  Elector,  the 
villages  of  Zell  were  bound  to  contribute  44  net-  and 
five  game-wagons,   and  these  obligations  were  multi- 
plied later  on/ ^     At  a  discussion  on  the  grievances  of 
the  land  at  a  Provincial  Diet  at  Torgau  in  1603  it  was 
stated  that,  '  as  regards  the  chase  and  its  services,  it 
had  been  repeatedly  complained  that  the  poor  vassals, 
often  those  who  formerly  were  quite  exempted,  were 
summoned  to  attend  in  great  numbers,  in  the  midst  of 
their  own  busy  work,  with  carts,  horses,  cloths  and  im- 
plements, and  they  also  had  to  draw  along  game- wagons 
and  lead  dogs ;  and  that  another  100  persons  or  more 
were  summoned  by  the  foresters  and  hunters,  for  these 
shooters,  hunters,  foresters,  attendants,  who  were  set  up 
in  authority,  treat  the  poor  people  without  the  least 
mercy,  and  force  them  into  their  service.     Often  for  a 
matter  of  a  few  foxes  or  hares  they  summon  100  men, 
keep  them  several  days  in  rain  and  snow,  with  other 
hardships  and  without  giving  them  any  food,  and  make 
them  bring  up  a  quantity  of  carts  and  horses  when  the 
lords  and  gentry  themselves  are  not  taking  part  in  the 
proceedings.'     The  peasants  were  not  allowed  to  fence  in 
the  fields  against  the  wild  game,  and  besides  this  they 
were  obhged  to  make  enclosures  for  the  game  and  to 
raise  oats  for  them.     In  the  years  1605  and  1609  fresh 
complaints  were  raised  by  the  Estates  :    '  In  spite  of  all 
promises  of  redress,  the  old  game  preserves  had  been 
enlarged,  and  fresh  ones  made ;    also  the  people  were 

^  Falke,  Kurfurst  August,  154-155. 

p  2 


212  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

obliged  to  leave  all  the  ground  bordering  on  the  game 
preserves  bare  of  crops,  for  the  animals,  especially  the 
wild  boars,  completely  devastated  the  fields,  meadows 
and  vineyards  ;  at  the  frequent  hunting  expeditions 
numbers  of  vassals  were  obliged  to  attend  for  weeks 
at  a  time  with  horses  and  wagons  at  their  own 
expense.'  ^ 

In  Hesse,  according  to  a  report  of  the  magistrates  in 
1595,  as  many  as  300  people  were  called  upon  to  serve  at 
the  hare  and  fox  hunts  and  even  to  take  the  place  of 
hounds.^  All  who  did  not  respond  to  the  summons  were 
subjected  to  severe  punishment.  In  1591  the  Hessian 
parishes  of  Allendorf  and  Verna,  because  the  men  did  not 
appear  at  the  right  time  at  a  hunt,  were  fined  80  thalers  ; 
in  1593,  28  shepherds  from  the  districts  of  Battenberg 
and  Frankenberg  lost  110  of  their  best  wethers  be- 
cause they  had  not  sent  their  dogs  to  the  hunt.  A 
master  huntsman  of  the  Landgrave  Maurice  discharged 
a  load  of  shot  into  the  body  of  one  peasant  who  had 
lingered  behind  in  the  chase,  struck  an  ear  off  another 
who  came  up  late  with  his  hounds,  and  slashed  in  two  the 
head  of  a  third  ;  it  was  not  till  he  cursed  the  Landgrave 
that  he  was  brought  to  trial.  ^ 

'  If  it  were  once  to  be  reckoned  up,'  wrote  a  Lutheran 
preacher  in  1587,  '  how  many  hundred  thousands  of 
people  in  Germany  are  yearly  kept  back  for  weeks  and 
even  months  together  from  their  work,  in  order  to 
serve  the  princes'  and  lords'  passion  for  the  chase,  it 
would  no  longer  be  asked  why  the  soil  was  less  produc- 

>  Codex  Augusteiis,  i.  162  sqq.  Frischius,  iii.  8.  J.  Falke,  Steuer- 
bewilligungen,  xxxi.  170,  and  Falke,  '  Verhandl.  des  Kiirfiirsten  Christian 
II.,  mit  seinen  Landstanden,  1601-1609,'  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  deutsche 
Kulturgesch  (Jahrg.  1873),  pp.  89-91. 

^  Rommel,  Neuere  Gesch.,  ii.  647,  '*  Landau,  169,  177. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING:    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      213 

tive  than  of  old,  and  wliy  poverty  had  become  so  great 
and  widespread,  and  was  constantly  increasing.  The 
principalities  and  lordshijDs  themselves  are  going  to 
ruin,  so  immense  are  the  manifold  expenses  of  the  hunt, 
with  servants,  hounds,  falcons,  &c.  If  everything  were 
to  be  counted  up,  it  might  well  be  said  that  a  stag  or 
any  other  piece  of  game,  before  it  is  brought  to  table, 
has  cost  50,  60,  or  even  more,  gulden/ 

Princes'  councillors  themselves  made  calculations 
of  this  sort.  In  Weimar  they  represented  to  Duke 
Frederick  William  that,  counting  the  expense  of  all  the 
many  hunting  servants  and  their  food,  a  stag  might 
be  said  to  cost  100  florins.  In  Dresden  the  price  of 
each  pound  of  game  eaten  at  the  Elector's  table  was 
reckoned  at  several  gold  ducats.^ 

In  1617  the  Elector  of  Saxony  had  500  huntsmen  in 
his  service,  not  counting  the  young  ones  ;  the  number 
of  his  hounds  was  reckoned  at  1000.^  The  keep  of 
every  single  hound,  at  the  then  value  of  money,  came 
to  12-13  thalers  a  year.^ 

'  Many  hundreds  of  hounds  were  considered  a 
necessary  equipment  for  a  princely  court.'  Duke  Henry 
Julius  of  Brunswick  appeared  at  the  boar-baiting  on 
the  Oberweser,  in  1502,  with  no  less  than  600  hounds. 
Landgrave  Ludwig  IV.  of  Hesse-Marburg  used  for  his 
hounds  only,  in  1582,  158  malters  of  rye.  Landgrave 
Maurice  of  Hesse-Cassel,  in  1604,  calculated  the  yearly 
feed  of  his  116  hounds  at  320  quarters  of  rye  and  280 

^  Richard,  Licht  und  Schatten,  244. 

^  Baltische  Studien,  ii.,  Heft  ii.  141-142. 

^  Landau,  97.  '  What  in  comparison  were  the  300  gulden  which  the 
Elector  spent  yearly  on  the  enlargement  of  the  hbrary  at  Dresden  ? ' 
Baltische  Studien,  ii.,  Heft  ii.  145. 


214  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

quarters  of  oats.^  The  princes'  falcons  also  swallowed 
up  large  sums  of  money.  Thus,  for  instance,  Landgrave 
Maurice  had  a  master  of  the  falcons,  with  one  servant  and 
two  boys,  who,  besides  fodder  for  two  horses,  were  paid 
370  gulden  a  year  ;  his  twelve  falcons  cost  312J  gulden, 
and  consumed  yearly  1425  pounds  of  beef,  230  chickens, 
and  52  score  of  eggs.- 

The  princes  and  lords  did  not  only  hunt  in  the  hunt- 
ing season,  but  the  whole  year  round.^ 

'  The  overlords  cannot  be  expected  to  sit  in  council 
all  day  long,'  wrote  Bartholomew  Ringwalt, 

But  that  the  whole  year  through, 
They  all  day  long  the  chase  pursue. 
And  seldom  do  in  council  sit 
Seems  unto  me  by  no  means  fit. 

He  addressed  a  '  woe  ! '  to  the  regents  : 

They  let  no  poor  down-trodden  wight 
Come  with  murmuring  in  their  sight. 
Also  the  game  in  summer-tide 
Injures  the  poor  folk  far  and  wide. 
And  with  the  never-ending  chase. 
They  're  plagued  to  death  in  every  place.^ 

'  Special  complaints  from  the  people  were  heard  in 
all  places  on  the  score  that  days  consecrated  to  God 
were  given  up  to  the  chase.'  '  The  worst  abomination 
of  all,'  wrote  Spangenberg,  '  is  that  even  on  Sundays  and 
Saints'  days,  at  the  very  time  of  the  services,  hunting 

'  BaUische  Studien,  ii.,  Heft  ii.  145.  **  How  considerable  the  game 
expenses  of  Archduke  Ferdinand  of  Tyrol  were,  is  seen  from  numerous 
documents  of  the  Innsbruck  government  archives.  For  instance,  for 
breeding  young  pheasants  200  gulden  were  spent  in  two  years  on  ants' 
eggs.  The  estimate  of  the  cost  of  a  single  hunting  expedition  is  4000 
gulden.  100  gulden  were  spent  on  one  occasion  for  the  transport  of 
falcons  from  the  Austrian  provinces  of  Suabia.     Hirn,  ii.  495. 

2  Landau,  336-337.  ='  Ibid.  115;  of.  128. 

"  Die  lauter  Wahrheit,  231,  236. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      215 

and  baiting  is  going  on,  and  one  hears  the  wild  beasts 
scampering  and  the  stinking  dogs  yeUing  all  through 
the  sermons,  and  the  Sabbaths  and  feast-days  are 
blasphemously  desecrated,  for  not  only  do  the  squires 
themselves  stay  away  from  church,  but  they  draw  off 
their  vassals  also  and  whole  villages  from  attendance 
at  God's  house/  ^ 

In  his  '  Jagdteufel '  he  adduced  as  a  special  reason 
for  the  custom  of  Sunday-hunting :  '  Our  great  lords 
drink  themselves  into  a  state  of  ill-health  and  debility, 
and  as  their  carousals  take  place  chiefly  on  Saturday, 
they  shirk  divine  service  in  order  to  recoup  their  strength 
by  the  chase.' " 

To  the  '  Jagdteufel,'  which,  according  to  the  pre- 
valent phraseology  of  contemporaries,  '  stood  in  com- 
pany with  the  "Saufteufel,"  '  there  was  further  added 
the  'Wut-  und  Blutteufel,'  'the  truth  of  which  cannot 
be  doubted,'  said  a  preacher,  '  when  we  consider  the 
gruesome  punishments  and  all  the  inhuman  treatment 
with  which  the  great  chiefs  and  lords  proceed  against 
the  poor  peasants  for  the  shghtest  infringement  of  their 
hunting  laws.'  '  A  bloodthirsty  heart,'  wrote  another 
preacher,  '  proceeds  from  no  cause  so  much  as  from 
constant  hunting  and  game  stalking  ;  '  '  to  start  a  chase 
with  human  beings  and  to  set  the  dogs  at  them  to 
tear  them  to  pieces  is  a  most  inhuman  and  barbarous 
proceeding.'"^ 

Duke  Maurice  of  Saxony  once  gave  orders  that  a 
poacher  should  be  punished  by  being  bound  between 
the  horns  of  a  stag  and  hunted  through  a  wood  with 
hounds,  so  that  the  poor  man  might  be  dashed  against 

>  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  393.  ^  Theatr.  Diahol.,  254. 

=*  Hoffpredigten,  Bl.  N, 


216  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  trees  and  thickets  and  torn  to  pieces.  ^  Another 
overlord  '  caused  a  vassal  who  had  killed  a  wild 
boar  to  be  hunted  in  the  Rhine  on  a  cold  winter's 
night,  and  obhged  him  to  stay  in  the  river  so  long  that 
he  was  quite  frozen/  "  The  Englishman  John  Taylor 
says  in  his  account  of  his  travels  in  Westphaha  in  1616  : 
*  In  some  places  there  it  is  as  dangerous  to  steal  or  to  kill 
a  hare  as  it  is  in  England  to  rob  a  church  or  to  murder  a 
human  being  ;  and  yet  it  only  costs  two  Enghsh  pennies 
to  put  the  miscreant  to  death,  for  the  best  and  the 
worst  is  only  a  bit  of  cord.'  ^  '  Such  a  perverted  spirit 
has  come  over  the  world,'  says  Spangenberg,  '  that  any- 
one is  more  hkely  to  obtain  mercy  from  an  overlord 
for  having  killed  two  or  three  peasants,  than  for  shoot- 
ing one  stag  or  deer.' ^  The  superintendent  George 
Nigrinus  also  wrote  :  '  It  would  fare  better  with  a  man 
for  kilhng  a  peasant,  than  for  shooting  a  wild  duck.'  ^ 
On  the  whole  the  hunting  laws  of  the  great  grandees 
may  be  said  to  have  been  '  written  in  blood.' 


^  Richard,  246.  **  The  story  of  an  Archbishop  of  Salzburg  who 
punished  a  man  for  killing  a  stag  by  having  him  sewn  up  in  the  stag's 
skin  and  thrown  to  the  dogs  in  the  market  place  (Kirchhof,  Wendunmuth, 
i.  485)  is  a  legend  got  up  by  the  Protestants  ;  see  Hauthaler,  '  Eine 
Geschichtsliige  iiber  den  Erzbischof  Michael  von  Salzburg '  (1554-1560), 
in  the  Salzburg.  Jcailiol.  Kirchenzeitung  (1895),  No.  11. 

-  Beck,  234  ;  he  refers  among  others  to  Doepler,  Theair.  poen.  et  execut. 
crimin.,  cap.  44. 

•'  Zeitschrift  fiir  Hamburger  Gesch.,  vii.  473.  **  In  the  Niu-emberg 
annals  may  be  read  the  shoi't  and  horrible  entry :  '  a.d.  1614,  June  30, 
Stephen  Tiiubner,  a  peasant  of  Schoppershof  near  Nuremberg,  had  his 
ten  fingers  chopped  off  on  the  Fleischbriicke  in  this  town,  and  was  banished 
in  perpetuity  from  the  town,  because  he  had  carried  off  a  great  qixantity 
of  the  Margrave's  game.  At  last  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Margrave 
(of  Ansbach),  who  had  him  hanged.'  See  Newald'in  the  Blatter  des  Vereins 
fiir  Landeshunde  von  Niederosterreich,  new  series,  xiv.  (1880),  p.  216. 

*  Landau,  147.  ^  Nigrinus,  Daniel,  68. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      217 

The  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  in  1572  issued  the 
following  ordinance  :  '  Whoever  does  any  damage  or  is 
guilty  of  poaching  in  the  princes'  game  preserves,  forests, 
woods,  (fee,  shall  be  driven  with  scourging  out  of  our  land 
into  perpetual  banishment,  or  else  shall  be  condemned 
to  the  galleys  for  six  years  with  perpetual  labour  in 
mines  and  such  like ;  should  these  punishments  not 
suffice  to  prevent  the  damaging  of  game,  the  Elector  will 
ordain  severer  ones/  ^  Seven  years  later  there  followed 
the  order  :  '  Everyone  guilty  of  doing  injury  to  game, 
and  caught  in  the  act,  shall  be  instantly  shot  dead 
without  mercy/  ^ 

In  1584  hanging  became  the  fixed  punishment  for 
simple  game  steahng,  and  the  same  punishment  was 
inflicted  on  all  who  aided  and  abetted  a  poacher.  ^ 

Later  Electors  renewed  these  enactments ;  Chris- 
tian I.  added  the  further  command  that,  'All  dogs 
taken  by  the  peasants  into  the  fields,  must,  in  order 
to  prevent  their  damaging  the  game,  have  one  of 
their  forefeet  cut  off/  An  electoral  edict  of  1618 
decreed  that,  '  Every  owner  of  a  dog  which  has  caused 
injury  to  game  shall  be  punished  with  imprisonment 


^  Frischius,  iii.   14.  ^  Codex  Augusteus,  ii.  524, 

=*  Ihid.  526-529.  Stisser,  493.  Falke,  Kurfurst  August,  149. 
Richard,  246.  Capital  punishment  for  poaching  on  game  preserves 
was  first  established  in  Saxony  by  a  mandate  of  the  Elector  Maurice 
in  1543.  See  Distel,  Zur  Todesstrafe  gegen  Wilder er  in  Kursachsen. 
Neues  aus  der  Oesetzgehung  und  Spruchpraxis  vor  dem  Mandate  vom  10  Okt. 
1584.  Eine  Archivsiudie  {Sep=Abdr.  aus  der  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  ges.  Straf- 
rechtswissenschaft),  Berlin,  1893.  The  usual  punishments  (according 
to  Schwappach,  ii.  644  £E.)  for  the  lighter  game  offences  consisted  in 
lengthy  prison  or  labour  sentences,  which  were  often  intensified  by  con- 
demning the  culprits  to  wear  the  so-called  poacher's  cap,  i.e.  the  horns  of 
a  stag  fastened  on  an  iron  hoop  ;  further,  by  various  bodily  penalties, 
putting  out  eyes,  chopping  off  hands,  whipping,  or  tratto  di  corda,  &c. 


218  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

or  compulsory  labour  at  the  Dresden  fortification 
works/  ^ 

Elector  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg  decreed  in  a 
hunting  ordinance  that,  '  Whoever  caught  a  fawn,  a 
young  roe,  or  a  wild  sow  in  the  forests  should  have 
both  his  eyes  put  out ;  whoever  shot  one  of  the  prince's 
hares  would  have  a  hare  branded  on  his  cheek/  -  In 
1574  Elector  John  George  intensified  the  punishment. 
*  Whoever  shoots  game,  also  wild  ducks,  and  other 
feathered  game,'  he  decreed,  *  has  incurred  in  our  lands 
the  penalty  of  the  gallows  ;  and  the  same  punishment 
shall  befall  those  who  shall  have  aided  and  abetted 
the  poachers  or  given  them  any  help  and  countenance.'  ^ 
As  irremittable  fines  to  be  imposed  for  poaching  offences 
Elector  John  Sigismund  decreed  in  1610  :  for  shooting 
a  hart,  500  thalers ;  for  shooting  a  doe,  400  thalers ;  for  a 
wild  calf,  200  thalers ;  for  a  roe,  100  thalers ;  for  a  hare,  50 
thalers  ;  this  last  sum  was  also  to  be  paid  by  anyone  who 
shot  a  mountain-cock,  a  blackcock,  a  bezel-hen,  or  a  part- 
ridge. For  a  wild  goose  or  a  crane  the  fine  was  40  thalers ; 
for  a  wild  duck,  10  thalers ;  for  a  wild  pigeon,  5  thalers.* 

Duke  Henry  Juhus  of  Brunswick  (1598)  also  decreed 
capital  punishment  for  poaching.^ 

^  Beck,  718.  Richard,  246.  The  nobles  who  transgressed  against 
the  hunting  laws  of  the  Electors  were  obliged  to  pay  heavy  fines  ;  thus, 
for  instance,  the  son  of  Hans  von  Wildebach  (about  1604)  had  to  pay 
500  thalers  for  having  baited  a  hare  (which  he  never  caught)  in  the  electoral 
hunting-grounds.    Zeitschr.  fiir  deutsche  KuUurgesch.  ( Jalirg.  1872),  p.  496, 

2  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vi.  p.  65.     Fidicin,  v.  291. 

■'  MyUus,  ii.  Abt.  iii.  4-5.  '  Ibid.  vi.  Abt.  i.  207  ;  cf.  iv.  Abt.  i.  523. 

*  Stisser,  492.  **  '  Poachers  and  receivers  of  stolen  goods,'  it  says 
in  a  code  of  instructions  of  Maximilian  II.  of  February  1,  1575,  for  his 
'  chief- country -master  of  the  hunt,'  in  Austria  below  the  Enns,  '  of  a  year's 
standing,  shall  be  punished  with  a  fine,  or  in  some  other  way.  If  they 
commit  a  second  offence  they  shall  be  hung.'  Newald  in  the  Blatter  fiir 
Landeskunde   Niederosterreichs,  new  series,  xiv.    (1880),   215.     See    also 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      219 

The  least  severe  punishment  which  Landgrave 
Phihp  of  Hesse  inflicted  for  poaching  was  gibbeting. 
On  the  cross-beam  of  a  gallows-tree  was  fixed  a  roller 
through  which  ran  a  rope,  and  to  this  rope  the  culprit, 
with  his  hands  bound  behind  him,  was  fastened.  He 
was  then  drawn  up  to  the  top  and  suddenly  let  down 
again,  but  only  so  far  that  he  remained  dangling  in 
the  air  and  never  touched  the  ground.  This  punishment 
was  all  the  more  cruel  because  the  unhappy  victim 
only  hung  by  his  arms,  which  were  thus  forced  back- 
wards in  an  unnatural  way  till  they  were  bent  over 
his  head.i  Severe  punishments  were  also  inflicted 
on  people  who  frightened  the  game  away  from  their 
own  fields.-  Landgrave  Wilham  IV.  of  Hesse  ordained 
on  July  27,  1567,  that  '  any  person  discovered  in  the 
act  of  poaching  should  be  trapped  like  a  wild  boar 
and  led  straight  to  the  gallows,  which  stands  on  the 
top  of  the  high  barbican,  and  be  hung  there,  so  that 
no  disputation  may  occur  as  to  his  destination  as 
before.'  ^  A  poacher  from  Gottesbiiren  had  his  right 
eye  put  out  and  a  stag-horn  branded  on  his  forehead  ; 
another  one  was  first  stretched  on  the  rack  and  then 
hanged.^  Not  less  severe  than  that  for  poaching  was  the 
punishment  for  fishing  in  the  manorial  ponds.  When 
the  Hessian  official  at  Eppstein  in  1575  sentenced  nine 
crayfish-stealers  to  punishment  in  body  and  hfe  and  had 
them  put  to  the  rack,  he  asked  the  Landgrave  Ludwig 
at  Marburg  if  the  sentence  (whether  the  halter  or  putting 
their  eyes  out)  was  to  be  carried  out  at  once.  Ludwig's 
counciflors,  after  examining  into  the  matter,  came  to  the 

'  Kaiser  Maximilians  II.  Jagdordnung  von  1575,'  by  Dr.  B.  Dudik  in  the 
Archiv.  fiir  osterreich.  Gesch.,  38,  341. 

1  Landau,  184.       -  Ibid.  138  ff.      ''  Ibid.  188-189.       '  Ibid.  188,  192. 


220  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

conclusion  that  the  malefactors  might  be  spared  this 
penalty  for  the  present :  scourging  and  banishment 
would  be  enough  ;  the  Landgrave,  however,  ordered 
the  immediate  execution  of  the  sentence.  ^ 

Margrave  George  Frederick  of  Ansbach-Bayreuth 
attached  capital  punishment  also  to  every  offence 
connected  with  small  game,  and,  not  satisfied  with 
putting  to  death  all  poachers  and  destroyers  of  game, 
in  1589  he  decreed  the  same  punishment  for  every 
subject  who  knew  of  such  offences  and  did  not  give 
information  to  the  magistrates.^ 

In  the  margraviate  '  the  breeding  of  game  and  the 
insolence  of  the  gamekeepers  to  the  peasants  are  in- 
tolerable ;  the  peasants  are  seized,  shut  up  and  tortured 
with  tyrannical  cruelty.'  ^ 

>  Landau,  Fischerei,  67.  It  was  ciistomary,  in  order  to  frighten  off 
thieves,  to  erect  gallows-trees  by  the  lakes  and  ponds  (p.  68).  Wliat  a 
large  number  of  these  gaUows  there  must  have  been  may  be  judged 
by  the  extensive  area  occupied  by  the  manorial  ponds.  In  Lower  Hesse, 
for  instance,  under  Landgrave  WiUiam  IV.,  the  princely  ponds  covered 
an  area  of  881  acres,  not  including  28  breeding  ponds.  In  Upper  Hesse, 
in  1570,  there  were  30  manorial  ponds,  and  13  breeding  ponds  besides. 
Landgrave  Louis  V.,  in  1.597,  set  up  a  new  pond  which  covered  1000  acres, 
and  in  1609  yet  another  which  covered  600  acres  and  cost  over  20,000 
gulden  (pp.  16-17). 

-  Muck,  i.  615.  **  Cf.  aLso  the  mandate  of  MaximiUan  I.  of  Bavaria, 
of  August  17,  1598,  in  v.  Freyberg,  ii.  23. 

*  Muck,  i.  618.  **  In  contrast  with  the  game  laws  of  other  princes, 
those  of  Archduke  Charles  were  distinguished  by  mildness.  Cf.  Hurter,  ii. 
354-355  ;  Peinlich,  Zur  Gesch.  der  Leibeigenschaft,  79  ff.  AH  the  same, 
however,  the  caprice  and  the  plaguing  of  the  forest-masters  and  forest- 
servants  became  insupportable.  Hurter,  355  ff.  In  the  Tyrol  the  princes' 
masters  of  the  hunt  would  only  tolerate  such  very  low  fences  that  the  game 
could  easily  get  over  them.  See  Hirn,  ii.  488  £f.,  where  there  are  fuller 
details  concerning  the  cruel  hunting  laws  of  Archduke  Ferdinand  II.,  a 
fanatical  hunter.  Some  of  the  details  given  here  seem  almost  incredible, 
but  they  are  confirmed  by  documentary  acts.  Thus,  for  instance,  a  man 
from  Burgau,  who  had  defended  himself  against  the  attacks  of  a  hound, 
was  punished  with  fining  and  imprisonment. 


UNLIMITED  HUNTING  :    DECLINE  OF  AGRICULTURE      221 

In  no  country  were  such  numerous  hunting  laws 
made  as  in  Wiirtemberg.  Duke  Uhich,  before  his 
banishment  in  1517,  had  aheady  issued  the  order  that, 
'  Whosoever  was  found  in  the  princely  forests  with 
muskets,  cross-bows,  or  any  other  weapons,  or  in  the 
fields  in  places  set  apart  for  the  small  game,  whether 
he  were  shooting  or  not,  should  have  both  his  eyes 
put  out/  1  After  his  reinstatement  he  reissued  the 
decree  that  '  all  poachers  should  be  severely  punished 
in  body,  life,  honom*,  or  goods :  he  himself  would 
like  to  see  both  their  eyes  put  out  also/  ~  In  1551 
Duke  Christopher  gave  orders  that  '  within  four  weeks 
all  vassals  should  give  up  their  muskets ;  whoever 
kept  back  a  musket  in  his  house,  or  was  met  in  the 
fields,  or  forests,  or  in  the  open  country  with  a  musket,  or 
a  firelock,  or  other  hand-gun,  on  foot  or  on  horse,  with 
or  without  ammunition,  should  be  subject  to  heavy 
disgrace  and  punishment/  When,  however,  '  the  ac- 
cursed riffrafi '  of  poachers  refused  to  be  intimidated, 
it  was  decreed  in  1554  that  '  whoever  harboured  or 
sheltered  a  poacher,  or  even  abstained  from  giving 
information  to  the  magistrates,  should  be  punished 
with  equal  severity ;  if  a  convicted  poacher  would 
not  confess  in  court  what  he  had  shot,  and  who  his 
associates  were,  he  was  to  be  sentenced  to  the  rack/  ^ 
Nevertheless  these,  hke  all  later  enactments,  owing 

'  Reyscher,  iv.  49. 

-  Strafbefehle  aus  den  Jahren,  1534,  1535,  1541,  1543.  Reyscher,  iv. 
70,  71,  77-78. 

•^  Reyscher,  16',  284  ft'.  On  January  8,  1610,  John  Frederick  issued  a 
general  rescript  to  the  eft'ect  that,  '  All  the  feathered  game  that  is  caught 
shall  go  nowhere  else  than  to  our  court  household  and  to  our  kitchen-master 
in  retuin  for  suitable  payment :  for  a  wild  duck,  12  kreuzer ;  for  a  hazel 
hen,  8  kreuzer  ;  for  a  field  hen,  6  kieuzer  ;  for  a  snipe,  5  kreuzer ;  for  a 
quail,  2  kreuzer.'     Reyscher,  16'',  227. 


222  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

especially  to  the  growing  distress  among  the  people, 
only  led  to  greater  and  greater  disaffection.  In 
Wiirtemberg,  as  everywhere  else,  '  the  starving  poor, 
who  saw  the  wild  game  in  such  quantities  around  them, 
and  saw  them  cherished  and  preserved,  while  they 
themselves  with  their  families  had  to  starve  and  were 
fleeced  and  sweated  in  a  heartrending  manner,  naturally 
wanted  now  and  then  to  eat  their  fill  and  have  their 
roast,  and  so  there  came  about  all  sorts  of  offences 
and  penal  refractoriness,  whereby  the  great  people 
were  themselves  punished/  '  Disguised  with  beards, 
masks,  and  even  in  female  attire,'  the  poachers  occasion- 
ally trooped  in  bands  through  the  woods  ;  they  threw 
down  poisoned  balls  which  rendered  the  animals  sense- 
less, so  that,  as  it  says  in  an  edict  of  the  territorial 
government,  '  those  of  the  court  retinue  and  others  who 
eat  the  poisoned  animals  also  become  senseless/  Not 
only  were  the  forest  servants  treated  so  badly  that 
they  no  longer  dared  attend  to  their  duties,  but  the 
dukes  themselves  were  frequently  in  peril  of  their 
lives.  Duke  Ludwig,  in  1588,  no  longer  dared  '  pursue 
the  pleasures  of  the  chase.'  i 

1  Reyscher,  ii.  134-136,  and  iv.  81-82, 166-168.  Frischius,  iii.  164-168, 
173.  Sattler,  v.  109.  **  The  Elector  of  Mayence  complained  in  a  letter 
to  the  Landgrave  Maurice,  on  November  3,  1617,  that  the  poachers  some- 
times went  through  his  game  preserves  in  bands  of  as  many  as  sixty. 
Landau,  193. 


223 


PART  II 
CHAPTER  I 

PRINCES    AND    COURT   LIFE 

In  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  court  hfe 
of  the  Princes  became  more  and  more  brilhant  and 
magnificent.  '  With  almost  every  death  of  a  prince/ 
wrote  a  preacher  in  1553,  '  the  number  of  pages  and 
servants,  of  secretaries  and  kitchen-masters,  increases, 
and  not  only  at  the  great  courts  but  also  at  the  small 
ones,  which  think  it  necessary  to  imitate  the  great  ones/ 
At  the  little  com't  of  the  Margrave  Hans  von  Klistrin 
the  retinue  consisted  of  284  persons,  who  all  received 
salaries.  1  John  George  of  Saxony,  administrator  of 
the  former  bishopric  of  Merseburg,  fed  every  day 
114  persons,  not  reckoning  the  servants  of  his  court, 
people  for  whose  keep  he  was  also  in  part  responsible. 
For  kitchen,  cellar  and  chandry  he  spent  weekly 
over  1000  florins.^  To  Duke  John  Frederick  11.  of 
Saxe-Weimar,  whose  territory  only  covered  77  square 
miles,  his  comicillors  wrote  in  1561  :  '  Your  Princely 
Highness  as  a  rule  provides  food  daily  for  400  persons 
at  50  tables  ;  for  kitchen  and  cellar  provisions  alone  (as 
the  kitchen  and  cellar  registers  show)  these  people  cost 

^  MdrJcische  Forschungen,  xiii.  446.         '  Miiller,  Forschungen,  i.  11-17. 


224  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

at  least  900  florins  a  week,  which,  not  reckoning  banquets 
and  etceteras,  comes  to  a  yearly  sum  of  46,800  florins/ 
For  making  their  clothes  'every  prince  and  every  princess 
kept  at  court  five  master-  and  four  constantly  employed 
working-tailors,  and  so  many  occasional  helps  besides, 
that  the  whole  number  was  seldom  under  thirty,  and  they 
occupied  three  tables  in  the  dining-hall/ ^  The  coun- 
cillors of  Duke  Frederick  Wilham  of  Saxe- Weimar  drew 
his  attention  in  1590  to  the  fact  that  the  yearly  sum 
which  came  from  the  ducal  domains  was  not  much  over 
30,000  gulden,  whereas  he  required  for  the  maintenance 
of  his  court  over  83,000  gulden  a  year ;  also  that  all 
the  corn  from  the  domains  was  used  for  the  servants 
and  court  retinue.  ^     From    Trinity   1557   to    Trinity 

1558  the  maintenance  of  his  court  cost  the  Elector 
.100,000  gulden.3  At  the  court  of  Duke  Wolfgang  of 
Pfalz-Zweibriicken,  according  to  a  bill  of  provisions  of 

1559  in  our  possession,  2296  persons  were  fed  in  one 
week.^  Landgrave  Wilham  IV.  wrote  on  March  14, 
1575,  with  regard  to  himself  and  his  brothers,  to  his 
brother  Phihp  of  Hesse-Rlieinfels :  '  Although  the 
landgraviate,  since  the  death  of  your  father  Phihp,  has 
been  divided  into  five  parts,  each  one  keeps  court  on 
a  grand  scale  with  a  large  retinue  of  noblemen  and 
commoners.  Our  family  is  also  noted  for  filhng  its 
courts  with  pompous  grandees  with  their  golden  chains 
together  with  their  wives  and  children.  To  these 
people  nothing  must  be  denied,  kitchen  and  cellar  must 

^  Kius,  Ernestinische  Finanzen,  98-99. 

"  Moser,  Putrioiisches  Archiv.,  iii.  275  ff. 

•'  **  See  Kurt  Treusch  von  Buttlar,  '  Das  tagliche  Leben  an  den 
deutsclien  Fiirstenhofen  des  sechzehnten  Jalii'hunderts,'  in  the  Zeitschr. 
fiir  Kulturgesch.,  1897,  p.  7. 

■»  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  OescJiichte  des  Oberrheins,  x.  289. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  225 

stand  open  to  them,  and  servants'  wages  are  thus  also 
greatly  increased.  They  think  this  gives  them  great 
importance,  for  they  leave  us  with  unwiped  mouths  and 
without  thanks,  laughing  at  our  silliness.  We  do  not 
stop  here,  however,  but  we  dress  our  ladies-in-waiting, 
our  pages,  also  the  squires  themselves,  all  in  velvet 
and  silk,  deck  out  our  horses  with  feathers  and  velvet 
trappings,  just  every  bit  as  though  we  were  civet-cats 
and  were  very  ill  at  ease  in  and  among  the  fashions  of 
our  own  country.'  '  Verily,  this  will  turn  out  badly  in 
the  end  and  have  evil  consequences,  especially  if  a  rough 
time  should  come  and  we  should  have  to  go  to  war.  For, 
indeed,  Italian  and  German  state  do  not  accord  together ; 
for  the  Italians,  even  if  they  do  wear  fine  clothes,  eat 
all  the  more  plainly  and  sparely,  and  are  content  with  a 
meal  of  salad  and  eggs,  while  we  Germans  must  stuff 
our  mouths  and  our  belhes  full ;  therefore  it  is  impos- 
sible to  mix  together  German  and  Italian  pomp.  The 
princes,  counts  and  nobles  who  attempt  this,  only 
spoil  both  and  reduce  themselves  withal  to  suffering 
and  want.'  '  In  this  respect  we  observe  no  hmits,  but 
in  addition  to  the  many  nobles  and  stately  ladies-in- 
waiting  at  our  courts,  we  saddle  ourselves  with  such 
numbers  of  sworn  doctors  and  chancellery  writers,  that 
there  is  scarcely  one  of  us  who  has  not  in  his  chancellery 
as  many,  if  not  more,  doctors,  secretaries  and  writers, 
receiving  higher  pay,  moreover,  than  our  august  father 
himself,  who  possessed  the  whole  land.'  'Furthermore, 
each  one  of  us  keeps  so  many  hunters,  cooks,  and  other 
servants,  so  that  there  is  a  special  huntsman  for  almost 
every  mountain,  for  every  stomach  a  special  cook,  and 
for  every  barrel  a  special  tapster,  which  verily  does  not 
lead  to  good  in  the  end.     We  will  keep  silence  respecting 

VOL.  XV.  Q 


226  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  huge  buildings  in  which  we  feel  strangely  lost,  hke- 
wise  the  gambhng  and  the  going  about  to  dances  and 
to  visit  foreign  princes,  both  which  amusements  quickly 
empty  our  purses.  For  although  in  some  places  we  are 
quits,  yet  often  our  expenses  are  as  great  as  if  we  stayed 
at  home,  since  we  all,  except  Landgrave  George,  arrange 
things  in  such  a  way  that  shoals  of  servants  are  left 
behind  in  our  houses  w^hen  we  go  away,  and  so  our 
absence  makes  scarcely  any  difference/  '  It  would  also 
be  well,'  Wilham  adds  in  a  postscript,  '  to  say  a  good 
deal  about  the  numerous  gratuities  and  the  high  wages 
which  many  servants  demand  of  us,  as  if  we  were  kings 
and  emperors/  ^  At  the  Wiirtemberg  court,  in  the 
dining-hall  of  the  lower  ducal  officials  and  court  retainers 
450  persons  were  fed  every  day  ;  in  the  knights'  hall 
the  prince's  table  and  the  marshal's  table  were  generally 
occupied  by  166  higher  officials  and  court  servants. ^ 
Duke  Wilham  V.  of  Bavaria,  in  1588,  fed  daily  no  less 
than  771  persons,  besides  44  persons  who  belonged  to 
the  court  retinue  of  the  duchess.-^  The  electors  in 
their  court  state  and  retinues  wanted  to  ape  kings. 
The  court  estabhshment  of  the  Elector  Frederick  IV. 
counted  678  persons.'^  When  the  Brandenburg  Pro- 
vincial Estates  represented  to  Elector  Joachim  II.  that 
in  view  of  the  general  distress  in  the  land  and  the  terrible 
amount  of  the  princes'  debts,  it  was  desirable  that  he 
should  discharge  his  superfluous  court  officials,  he 
replied  that  '  he  could  not  reduce  his  estabhshment 
without  impairing  the  dignity  of  his  electoral  estate, 

^  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv.,  iv.  165-172. 
"  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  132  f. 
='  V.  Freyberg,  Landstdnde,  ii.  451-454. 
■*  See  our  remarks,  vol.  ix.  p.  216. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  227 

for  an  Elector  was  as  high  as  a  King  in  the  empire.'  ^ 
The  Elector  Christian  I.  of  Saxony,  whenever  he  went 
out,  was  accompanied  by  fifty  young  noblemen  on 
horseback,  called  carabineers,  with  a  glittering  staff 
at  their  head ;  and  beside  these  there  walked  100 
picked  and  stalwart  men  who  were  called  Trabantes.^ 
Phihp  Hainhofer  of  Augsburg  saw,  in  1617,  in  the  elec- 
toral stables  at  Dresden,  176  riding  horses,  84  coach 
horses,  and  30  mules. ^  Many  of  the  princes  kept  from 
400  to  500  horses  in  their  stables. '^  As  regards  the 
'  superfluity  of  writer- folk  at  the  courts,'  which  was 
a  matter  of  universal  complaint,  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  at  the  death  of  Duke  Louis  of  Wiirtemberg  ( j*  1593) 
the  number  of  chancellery  clerks,  besides  the  government 
privy  councillors  and  the  court  registrars,  amounted  to 
ninety-four ;  in  the  Upper  Council  there  were  twelve 
councillors,  six  advocates,  five  secretaries,  and  twelve 
writers.^ 


Winter,  Mdrkische  Stdnde,  xx.  649-650. 
-  Richard,  Licht  und  Schatten. 

•'  Baltische  Studien,  ii.,  Heft  ii.  129.  ^  Theatr.  Diabol.,  410. 

'■>  Sattler,  v.  Beil.  ss.  90-93.     From  Duke   Gotthard  von  Kurland's 
Hofordnung,  letztes  Drittel  des  16'*""  Jahrhunderts  : 

His  '  Personel '   113  persons  and     77  horses; 
Her  '  Personel '   163  persons  and  141  horses. 

Total  276  persons  and  218  horses. 

16  tables  occupied  by  the  Court  retinue — 
In  money  the  cost  of  clothes  for  the  personal  staff  amounted. 

for  the  women  to  1622  thalers  ; 
for  the  men  to       1478  thalers. 

Total  3100  thalers. 

Monumenta  Livoniae  Antiquae,  ii. :  Historische  Nachricht  vom  Schloss  zu 
Mitau,  p.  13  ff.  There  is  a  very  interesting  calculation  of  the  table 
requisites  in  the  same  place,  21-23  ;  wages  of  court  servants,  22-24.    The 

q  2 


228  history  of  the  german  people 

1.  '  Drinking  Princes  '  and  Court  Festivities 

With  but  few  exceptions  all  contemporaries,  whether 
prejudiced  or  unprejudiced,  in  public  pamphlets,  in  ser- 
mons, or  in  private  letters,  in  their  reports  concerning 
court  life,  speak  in  a  way  which  cannot  but  produce 
an  appalling  impression  on  readers  and  hearers.  'All 
the  vices  of  the  time,'  say  they  with  one  accord,  'were 
united  at  the  courts  as  at  their  fountain-head,  and 
thence  distributed  through  the  land  among  all  classes. 
But  amongst  these  vices,  drunkenness,  the  "  Saufteufel " 
which  commandeered  so  many  other  devils,  ruled 
supreme.' 

'  What  numbers  there  are  among  the  princes  and 
lords,'  wrote  the  Brunswick  councillor  George  Engelhart 
Lohneiss,  '  who  are  not  only  themselves  addicted  to 
superfluous  drinking  but  who  also  bestow  large  gifts 
and  honours  on  wine-bibbers  !  Some  of  them  drink  to 
such  an  extent  that  they  remain  lying  on  the  ground ; 

yearly  court  consumption  of  food  was  200  oxen,  130  fatted  pigs ;  2000 
sheep,  500  lambs,  100  calves  from  Christmas  to  Easter  ;  1500  geese,  4000 
chickens,  25,000  eggs,  150  sucking  pigs,  '  game,  as  much  as  was  to  be 
obtained,'  and  so  forth  ;  80  awms  of  Rhenish  wine,  30  barrels  of  French 
wine,  &c. ;  1193  thalers  for  sweetmeats.  The  chancellery  used  30  reams  of 
paper.  **  See  the  article  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  Kulturgesch.,  1897,  p.  7  ff., 
quoted  above,  p.  224,  n,  3.  From  the  year's  account  of  the  Margrave  Hans 
von  Kiistrin  (1560)  for  the  purchase  of  meat  it  appears  that  at  least  1|  lb. 
per  head  was  consumed  ;  this  according  to  our  notions  seems  prepostei'ous. 
But  this  was  by  no  means  all,  for  the  account  in  question  does  not  include 
game,  which  it  was  not  necessary  to  buy.  It  is  needful  to  remember 
that  in  those  days  game  played  an  incomparably  larger  part  in  menus 
than  nowadays,  especially,  of  course,  in  the  princes'  courts  {I.e.  23). 
Concerning  the  immense  increase  of  officialdom  in  Pomerania  resulting 
from  the  great  augmentation  of  incomes  through  Church  robbery,  and 
for  the  brilliant  organisation  of  courts  since  the  Reformation,  see  Spahn, 
Verfassungs-  und  Wirtschaf*sgesch.  des  Herzogtums  Pommern,  p.  64  ff.  ; 
for  the  great  abuses  in  this  officialdom,  see  p.  78  ff. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  229 

others  die  in  a  few  days  ;  others  drink  themselves  to 
a  state  of  idiotcy  ;  and  so  forth/  i  John  Chryseus 
in  1545,  in  his  '  Hofteufel '  dedicated  to  the  Dukes 
John  Frederick  and  John  Wilham  of  Saxony,  describes 
the  proceedings  at  court  as  follows  : 

They  eat,  they  drink  at  such  a  rate, 
That,  faith,  it  is  a  glory  great 
When  one  can  drink  more  than  a  cow. 
Then  vomit,  and  drink  again  I  vow. 
It  is  the  custom,  it  'a  quite  fit, 
None  are  unused  to  it  one  bit, 
So  they  go  on  with  banqueting. 
With  eating,  drinking,  jubilating. 
Great  wickedness  thereby  comes  in. 
But  no  one  now  esteems  it  sin.* 

Nicodemus  Frischlin  says  of  the  inordinate  drinking 
at  courts  : 

Yea,  yea,  with  beakers  now  at  court  they  raise 
Drink  offerings  to  their  princes'  weal  and  ways  ; 
This  is  their  worshipping,  their  prayer  and  praise, 

and  thus  they  bring  on  themselves  all  sorts  of  illness, 
gout,  dropsy,  cohc,  and  fever.  ^  '  At  some  of  the 
Princes'  and  lords'  courts  things  are  so  arranged  that 
many  a  man  earns  more  and  fares  better  who  is  a 
monster  of  intemperance,  than  others  who  drudge  on 
steadily  at  their  toilsome  labours.'  ^  '  To  the  shame 
and  disgrace  of  the  holy  Evangel,'  says  a  Protestant 
pamphlet  of  1579,  '  the  vice  of  inordinate  drinking  reigns 
so  powerfully  at  those  courts  which  call  themselves 

'  Lohneiss,  142.  ^  Chryseus,  Hofteufel,  Act  2,  Scene  4. 

*  Strauss,  Frischlin,  108. 

*  Strigenicius,  Diluvium,  90  ;  cf.  Gr.  Wickgram,  Die  Biecher  Vincentii 
Obsopei  :  Von  der  kunst  zu  trinken  (Freiburg  i.  Br.,  1537),  BI.  E.  Olorinus 
Variscus,  Ethnogr.  mundi,  Bl.  G  4''. 


230  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

evangelical,  that  a  tolerably  sober  after  generation  will 
scarcely  credit  what  the  history  of  our  times  has  to 
say  on  the  subject.  Were  we  to  count  up  the  names 
of  'all  those  of  princely,  or  otherwise  high  birth,  who 
have  drunk  themselves  to  death,  we  should  have  a 
fine  long  hst  indeed.'  'How  can  I  keep  sober?"  say 
the  great  princely  lords  and  their  retinue ;  '  are  not  all 
the  rest  of  my  blood  pious  topers  and  drinkers  ?  It 
would  be  eccentric  and  wanting  in  manly  German 
strength  and  honour,  if  I  took  to  being  different  from 
them.'  1 

There  were,  nevertheless,  honourable  exceptions. 
Duke  John  Albert  I.  of  Mecklenburg  was  an  enemy  of 
all  excessive  drink.-  So,  too,  was  Duke  Juhus  of 
Brunswick.  In  1579  the  latter  issued  the  stringent 
order  that,  '  The  tutors,  marshals,  valets,  preceptors 
and  collaborators  in  attendance  on  our  young  noble- 
men and  lords  must  with  all  diligence  and  faithfulness 
see  to  it  that  our  sons  (and  especially  the  Duke  Henry 
Juhus,  postulate  Bishop  of  Halberstadt)  shall  not  only 
not  be  allowed  to  indulge  in  immoderate  drinking,  in 
gluttony  and  other  irregular  and  wild  modes  of  life, 
but  also,  in  their  highnesses'  presence,  there  shall  be  no 

'  Vom  newen  Saufteufel  unglaich  drger  denn  der  alte  (1579),  pp.  5-6.  **  See 
V.  Buttlar  in  the  Zeitschr.  filr  Kulticrgesch.,  1897,  pp.  25  ff.,  30.  The  author 
remarks  (p.  33) :  '  There  was  no  more  need  to  fast,  no  more  need  to 
confess.  For  untrammelled  childi-en  of  nature  Uke  these  country-born 
nobles  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  meant  a  great  deal  that  such  restraints 
should  fall  away.  The  "  Fressen  und  Saufen,"  which,  according  to 
SeckendorfE's  Teutscher  Fiirstenstaat,  was  a  disgrace  to  the  courts,  came 
into  vogue  ;  it  became  the  rule,  the  custom,  as  appears  only  too  plainly 
from  the  court  ordinances  ;  and  it  crushed  out  \y\ih.  the  force  of  all  that 
was  vulgar  and  low  any  noble  instincts  that  stUl  remained  in  a  despairing 
consciousness  of  duty.' 

-  Schirrmacher,  i.  766.  How  matters  stood,  however,  with  his  brother 
Duke  Christopher,  is  shown  by  Schirrmacher,  i.  284,  n.  2. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  231 

carousing  or  otlier  rowdiness,  or  rough  and  wild  behaviour 
with  words,  gestures  or  deeds,  so  that  the  young  men 
may  not  be  incited  and  led  on  to  irregularities.'  '  If  on 
the  visits  of  foreign  princes  and  nobles  it  is  thought 
necessary,  according  to  the  vicious  habit  which,  alas, 
has  become  too  prevalent  among  the  Germans,  to  have 
a  drinking-bout  the  sons  must  be  led  away  from  the 
table  as  soon  as  the  drinking  begins/  The  Duke  Henry 
Julius  was  henceforth  to  be  forbidden  to  take  part  in 
copious  drinking,  as  also  in  other  dissipation  and  wanton- 
ness/ Of  Prince  Christian  of  Anhalt  it  was  also  said 
by  Catholic  contemporaries  that  he  was  '  usually  sober 
in  his  habits '  and  abstained  from  '  immoderate  drinking ' 
and  would  '  not  allow  it  to  go  on  in  his  vicinity,'  in  this 
respect  '  being  a  somewiiat  rare  bird,  seeing  that  the 
opposite  was  always  flagrantly  the  case  at  all  princely 
convivialities/  ^ 

Among  the  Catholic  princes,  Duke  William  of  Cleves  ^ 
and  the  Bavarian  Dukes  Wilham  V.  and  Maximilian  I. 
were  distinguished  for  their  sobriety.  Phihp  Hainhofer, 
who  took  part  at  Munich  in  1613  in  the  wedding  festivi- 
ties of  the  Count  Palatine  Wolfgang  William  of  Neuburg 
with  the  Bavarian  Princess  Magdalena,  said  in  his 
account  of  his  travels  :  '  All  through  these  eight  days 
I  have  not  seen  one  man  intoxicated  or  the  worse  for 
drink,  which  is  indeed  admirable.  There  was  also  no 
more  "  toasting  "  at  meals  beyond  drinking  the  bride- 
groom's health  and  that  of  the  bride  and  of  the  House 
of   Bavaria/  *     At   the   courts,  also,  of   the   Austrian 

^  V.    Strombeck,     Deutscher    Fiirstenspiegel,     20.       See     Bodemann, 
Herzog  Julius,  226-227. 

^  See  Allgemeine  deutsche  Biographie,  iv.  145  flf. 
^  Zeitschr,  des  bergischen  Geschichtsvereins,  ix.  173. 
'  Hainhofer,  238. 


232  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Dukes  Charles  and  Ferdinand  '  the  vice  of  drunkenness 
was  unknown/  ^  On  the  other  hand  Archduke  Ernest, 
the  eldest  brother  of  Rudolf  11. ,  was  initiated  into  the 
habit  of  drinking  in  1575.  At  Dresden  in  this  year 
he  brought  on  himself,  by  excessive  wine-drinking,  '  a 
German  fever  which,  as  usual,  lasted  about  twenty-four 
hours  or  more  and  then  quite  left  him.'  By  his  Imperial 
Majesty's  command  he  was  obliged  while  there  to 
respond  to  all  the  toasts  drunk  to  him.^ 

At  the  Saxon  courts  '  constant  toping  was  an  old- 
established  evil  custom.'  For  a  mere  '  welcome ' 
it  was  necessary  to  drink  at  least  fourteen  beakers. 
At  times  there  was  as  much  as  26,000  firkins  of  wine  in 
the  electoral  cellar.  ^  The  Electors  themselves  were 
renowned  and  notorious  as  the  '  first  and  most  famous 
drinkers.'  When  the  Elector  John  Frederick  in  1545, 
with  his  cousin  Duke  Maurice,  held  his  last  '  friendly 
gatherings  '  at  Torgau,  at  Schweinitz  and  on  the  Schellen- 
berg  near  Chemnitz,  '  great  and  inordinate  drinking  ' 
went  on  everywhere.  At  the  '  drinking  wagers '  to 
which   the   Elector  invited   his   friends,   several  men, 


'  Concerning  Karl  von  Steiermark  (Styria)  it  is  said  :  '  Vini,  quod 
his  temporibus  non  immerito  laudes,  contentissimus  fuit.'  See  Hurter, 
ii.  318. 

-  V.  Bezold,  Rudolj  II.,  p.  8,  n.  2. 

^  Baltische  Studien,  ii.,  Heft  ii.  131,  137.  '  The  hearty  welcome ' 
which  had  to  be  drunk  on  the  occasion  of  grand  visits  and  festivitie.s 
was  a  bumper  of  four  or  eight,  in  many  places  actually  fifteen  or  sixteen 
measures.  Vulpius,  vii.  52.  **  Unlimited  drinking  at  the  Saxon  court  had 
become  such  a  matter  of  course  that  many  of  the  Princes  would  no  longer 
accept  an  invitation  to  Dresden  or  Torgau  because,  as  the  Duke  of  Branden- 
burg said  in  making  his  excuses,  '  they  were  made  so  drunk  each  time  that 
they  fell  full  length  on  the  floor,'  or  as  Joachim  Ernest  of  Anhalt  said 
to  a  relation,  '  they  went  there  like  men  and  came  away  like  hogs.' 
Ebehng  F.  Taubmann,  83. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  233 

amongst  them  Ernest  of  Schonberg,  *  drank  themselves 
to  death/  Comit  George  of  Mansfeld  came  near  to 
death  ;  Duke  Maurice,  although  till  then  he  had  been 
second  to  none  as  a  drinker,  was  beaten  by  John  Frederick 
and  had  to  be  taken  to  Dresden  in  a  litter,  in  a  very 
serious  condition  ;  his  life  was  despaired  of  for  a  long 
time/  At  a  convivial  gathering  at  the  Diet  of  Princes 
at  Naumburg  in  1561,  the  Rhinegrave  Pliihp  Franz 
drank  himself  to  death  with  malmsey.-  Drink  was 
also  the  ruin  of  Elector  Christian  L,  who,  at  the  court 
of  his  father  Augustus  at  Dresden,  '  from  youth  up 
was  accustomed  to  inordinate  intemperance/  '■^  As 
Electoral  Prince  he  wrote  in  June  1584  to  Christian  I. 
of  Anhalt-Bernburg  :  '  von  Biinau  has  told  me  that 
your  Excellency  is  no  longer  a  patron  of  drink,  for 
which  I  am  heartily  sorry  ;  I  wish  your  Excellency 
much  prosperous  and  happy  time  and  well-being  from 
God,  and  that  you  may  be  brought  out  of  such  errors 
back  into  the  right  faith/  The  wished-for  conversion 
quickly  followed,  for  only  four  weeks  later  Christian  was 
thanking  the  prince  for  having  helped  von  Biinau  to 
arrange  such  '  famous  drinking-bouts,'  and  declaring  on 
his  part  that  '  it  would  not  be  his  fault  if  in  course  of 
time  he  did  not  again  become  his  equal/  Letters  about 
'  good  honest  drinking-bouts  and  frequent  carousals  to 
the  honour  of  God  and   in   order   to   keep   his   boon 


'  Richard,  Licht  und  Schatten,  72-73. 

-  Groen  van  Prinsterer,  i.  48-52.  Cf.  Heppe,  Gesch.  des  Protestantismus, 
i.  405,  note. 

•*  For  an  evening  drinking-bout  at  Weida  held  in  honour  of  the  foreign 
grandees  who  were  on  a  visit  to  him,  tlie  Elector  Augustus  ordered  50 
firkins  of  wine  ;  each  firkin  contained  72  tankards.  V.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin 
Anna,  226. 


234  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

companion  up  to  the  mark,  were  "nuts  "  to  him/  '  The 
reason  why  this  letter  is  so  stupid  and  badly  written/ 
so  he  excused  himself  once  to  Prince  Hans  George  of 
Anhalt,  '  is  that  I  have  not  yet  altogether  got  over 
that  last  splendid  orgy,  and  my  hands  tremble  so  that 
I  can  scarcely  hold  my  pen.'  ^  The  Count  Palatine 
John  Casimir,  who  as  a  fourteen-year-old  boy  had 
already  to  be  exhorted  not  to  drink  away  reason  and 
understanding,-  told  the  Elector  Christian  of  Saxony  in 
1590  of  a  visit  which  he  had  paid  the  Margrave  George 
Frederick  of  Brandenburg  at  the  Plassenburg :  '  I 
spent  a  whole  day  at  the  Plassenburg  lying  in  bed  ;  I 
had  drunk  the  great  welcoming  ;  after  that  I  danced, 
and  then  drank  again,  while  the  host  was  obliged  to  go 
to  sleep  ;  then  I  danced  again  and  won  a  pretty  pearl 
wreath  ;  after  this  the  host  came  back  from  his  sleep, 
and  had  a  fat  Indian  cock  brought  in,  to  which  I  was 
invited,  with  other  jovial  fellows,  and  we  prepared  our 
host  for  another  sleeping-bout/  ^ 

There  were  numbers  of  '  brave  drinkers '  who,  like 
Veit  von  Bassenheim,  were  able  to  empty  three  times 
running,  at  one  draught,  a  silver  beaker  containing  eight 
bottles  of  wine.^ 

'  A  very  monster  of  almost  daily  drunkenness  and 
debauchery  '  was  the  Elector  Christian  11.  of  Saxony. 
When  in  July  1607  he  was  sojourning  at  the  imperial 
court  at  Prague  he  made  himself  a  pubhc  spectacle  by 
his  insobriety,  and  he  himself  boasted  that  '  he  had 
scarcely  spent  a  sober  hour  while  at  Prague.'^      By 

'  V.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  232.  -  Kluckhohn,  Briefe  1,  li. 

^  V.  Weber,  Kiirfiirslin  Anna,  233-234.      ^  Vulpius,  iii.  359. 
^  The  Bavarian  agent  Wiliicvin  Boden  wrote  on  July  15,  1607,  from 
Prague  to  Maximilian  I.,  that  Christian  had  indulged  the  whole  time  in  gula 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  235 

many  of  his  theologians  he  was  called  '  the  pious  heart '  ; 
but  he  never  opened  his  lips  except  to  utter  filthy  and 
obscene  talk.  The  finely  cultured  Belgian,  Daniel 
Eremita,  who  visited  the  German  courts  in  1609  in 
company  with  a  Florentine  ambassador,  drew  an  appal- 
ling picture  of  the  debauched,  drunken  life  and  doings 
at  the  Saxon  court.  In  the  Elector's  ungainly,  misshapen 
figure,  puffed  and  swollen  by  excesses  of  every  kind,  and 
in  his  red,  sensual  face  the  Belgian  saw  more  of  a  beast 
than  of  a  prince.  Seven  hours  long  they  sat  at  the  table 
at  which  there  was  no  other  entertainment  than  eating 
and  drinking  :  the  besotted  Elector  only  now  and  then 
made  an  indecent  remark  or  proposed  the  health  of  some 
prince,  diverted  himself  with  shaking  the  remains  of  the 
beaker  into  the  faces  of  the  servants,  and  boxing  the 
ears  of  the  court  fool.^  In  1611  the  Wild  and  Rhein- 
graf  at  Salni  signified  to  the  Elector  that,  '  Whereas  the 
ladies  of  the  court  always  sit  at  table,  it  is  fitting  that 
they  should  take  part  in  the  drinking  as  well  as  the 
others  ;  the  Duchess  of  Brunswick,  when  she  is  intoxi- 
cated, is  beyond  measure  idiotic  and  merry.'  ~      The 


et  crapula  :  '  De  ipsius  obscoenis  verbis  vix  ausim  scribere.'  The  Venetian 
ambassador  Soranzo  wrote  similarly  about  the  Elector :  '  I'eccesso  suo 
nel  bare  e  cosa  da  non  credere.'  Wolf,  Maximilian,  iii.  25,  n.  2.  Stieve, 
ii.  898,  n.  1. 

'  '  .  .  .  Immanis  bellua,  voce,  auribus,  omni  corporis  gestu  conveni- 
enti  destituta  :  nutu  tantum  et  concrepitis  digitorum  articulis  loquitui- ; 
nee  inter  familiares  quidem  nisi  obscoena  quaedam  et  fere  per  convitium 
iactat.  In  wiltu  eius  nihil  placidum,  rubor  et  maculae  e  vino  contractae 
oris  lineamenta  confuderant.  .  .  .  Septem  quibus  accumbebatur  horis, 
nihil  aliud  quam  ingentibus  vasis  et  immensis  poculis  certabatur,  in 
quorum  haustu  palmam  procul  dubio  ipse  dux  ferebat.  .  .  .'  In 
Le  Bret,  Magazin,  ii.  337-339. 

-  V.  Weber's  Archiv.  fiir  sachsische  Gesch.,  vii.  233.  Cf.  Schweinichen, 
iii.  222. 


236  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

drinking  of  the  high-born  German  ladies  was  not  less 
notorious  abroad  than  that  of  the  princes.  ^ 

In  a  funeral  sermon  preached  over  the  Elector 
Christian  11.  (f  1611),  the  Saxon  court-preacher  Michael 
Niederstetter  lamented  the  deceased  prince  as  a  '  father 
of  the  fatherland.'  '  The  extent  of  the  calamity  could 
not  be  exaggerated/  he  said,  '  nor  the  greatness  of  the 
loss  estimated.'  He  compared  the  Elector  with  Moses, 
but  he  specially  emphasised  the  fact  that  the  latter  had 
lived  120  years,  and  the  former  only  twenty-seven  years 
and  nine  months.  In  the  time  of  Moses  people  did  not 
then  shorten  their  lives  and  bring  on  untimely  death 
by  excessive  drinking.  '  The  servants  of  great  lords  and 
those  who  surround  princes,  should  not  tempt  and  lead 
them  on  to  drink  and  debauchery,  nor  encourage  them  to 
drain  great  goblets  to  the  health  of  other  lords  and 
princes."  ~ 

Still  more  emphatic  was  a  speech  by  Helwig  Garth, 
superintendent  in  Freiberg  :  '  His  electoral  Grace,  as  is 
known  to  all  and  cannot  be  denied,  had  a  certain  incHna- 
tion  to  strong  and  excessive  drink,  which  caused  him 
to  be  much  cried  down  now  and  again  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  above  all  by  the  enemies  of  the  holy 
Evangel :  for  he  was  compelled  to  be  their  reeling,  rolling 
Nabal,  their  boon-companion  and  champion- drinker."  ^ 

Concerning  the  Elector  John  George,  successor  to 
Christian  II.,  the  French  ambassador  Grammont  wrote  : 

'  Henry  IV.  of  France  said  it  had  been  suggested  to  him  to  marry  a 
German  wife,  '  mais  les  femmes  de  cette  region  ne  me  reviennent  nuUement, 
et  penserois,  si  j'en  avais  espouse  une,  de  devoir  avoir  tousjours  un  lot 
de  vin  couche  aupres  de  moy.'     Oeconomies  royales,  iii.  171. 

-  Drei  christliche  Predigten,  dbc.     Erste  Predigt.,  Bl.  B  3,  D  4. 

•'  Quoted  by  Kohler,  Lebenslzschreibungen,  ii.  113  note.  Cf.  Senken- 
berg,  24,  xi. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  237 

'  His  sole  occupation  was  drinking  immoderately  every- 
day ;  only  on  the  days  when  he  went  to  the  Holy  Com- 
munion did  he  keep  sober  in  the  morning  at  any  rate  ; 
to  make  up  for  this,  however,  he  drank  all  through  the 
night  till  he  fell  under  the  table.'  ^  The  gross  coarseness 
that  went  on  at  these  orgies  is  shown  by  a  letter  from 
the  Elector  to  the  Landgrave  Louis  of  Hesse  in  1617  : 
'  Your  Grace  is  not  ignorant  of  the  indiscretion  of  which 
on  your  departure,  and  the  evening  before,  the  servant 
George  Truchsess  was  guilty  at  your  court,  in  that  he  not 
only  spoke  against  our  dear  and  gracious  cousin  and 
foster-son,  Duke  Frederick  of  Saxony,  in  disgraceful 
threatening  language,  saying  that  he  should  throw  the 
candle  at  your  Grace,  but  also  the  next  morning,  in  the 
presence  of  your  Grace,  struck  our  Truchsess  Ulrich  von 
Giinderode  a  blow  in  the  face.'  -  '  Folly  and  drink,' 
said  the  mighty  toper  Wolfgang  von  Anhalt,  '  with  good 
honest  blows  are  spice  to  the  banquet,  and  still  better 
is  it  if  blood  is  seen  also,  for  this  gives  occasion  for 
another  bumper  to  drink  down  the  quarrel ;  what 
would  life  be  without  plenty  of  drinking.  It  was  not  for 
nothing  that  God  gave  us  princes  our  rich  vineyards.' ^ 
'  Suchhke  jovial  princely  hfe  with  good  honest  drink- 
ing, &c.,'  stands  out  plainly  in  the  diary  of  Duke 
Adolf  Frederick  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  beginning 
with  the  year  1611.    Of  the  years  1613-1618,  for  instance, 

'  Tholuck,  Das  hirchliche  Leben,  i.  214. 

-  Thilringisches  Provinzialblalt,  1839,  No.  84.  Cf.  Tholuck,  Das 
hirchliche  Leben,  i.  228-229. 

^  W ohlbeddchtige  Reden  von  etlichen  Trinkliebenden  (1621),  19.  Con- 
cerning these  di-unkavd  princes  see  v.  Weber,  Kurfurstin  Anna,  227-229. 
Of  Ludwig  von  Anhalt,  Eremita  writes :  '  Potum  .  .  .  nulla  necessitate 
ad  enormes  et  immodicos  haustus  patria  consuetudine  trahebat.'  Lc  Bret, 
Magazin,  ii.  344. 


238  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

we  read  :  '  My  brother  Passow  and  Rosen  have  had  a 
shindy  ;  my  brother  struck  out  at  Rosen  with  a  sword, 
and  his  pistol  went  off.  My  brother's  wife  swooned 
away  three  times  and  had  to  be  restored  with  water 
and  balsam/ — '  Count  Henry  of  Stolberg  spoke  to  my 
brother  and  told  him  that  he  ought  to  have  some  respect 
for  himself  and  his  wife,  whereupon  my  brother  struck 
out  at  the  Count  also  with  his  sword.  In  the  tumult  my 
brother's  fool  of  a  magister  struck  Rosen  a  blow  on  the 
head,  and  Rosen's  boy  left  some  wounds  in  the  magister's 
body.' — '  Gave  a  sound  thrashing  to  a  young  page  who 
had  drunk  himself  so  full  that  he  could  scarcely  ride 
away.' — '  Thrashed  my  valet  with  the  horse-brush.' — 
'  My  lady  mother  sharpened  her  tongue  on  me  :  one  has 
to  forgive  a  good  deal  to  these  viragos.' — '  Went  as  guest 
to  the  land-marshal  Hennig  Liitzow ;  when  I  went  to  bed 
Vollrad  Biilow  rated  the  painter  Daniel  Block  for  a 
rogue  and  a  fox,  in  return  for  which  the  painter  beat  him 
black  and  blue.' — 'Christian  Frederick  Blom  and  Duke 
Ulrich  have  had  a  quarrel  about  Anna  Rantzow,  whom 

Blom  calls  a  wh .     Duke  Ulrich  says  he  will  have  to 

answer  for  all  this,  and  that  he  'd  better  leave  him  out  of 
the  talk,  or  he  shall  have  to  call  him  a  rascally  liar.  .  .  . 
Dined  at  Verden  with  my  mother's  brother  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Bremen,  who  made  us  drink  great  quantities  of 
malmsey.  After  dinner,  my  uncle  introduced  his  mistress 
or  concubine,  Gertrude  von  Heimbrock,  with  whom  he 
ordered  me  to  dance.' 

The  Pomeranian  drinking  orgies  were  also  pro- 
verbial. ^  In  Pomerania  everyone  who  did  not  pledge 
in  the  customary  manner  had  to  submit  to  being 
'  ridden  to  the  horse-pond.'     Of  one  of  the  princes  it 

'  Besser,  Beitrdge  zur  Gesch.  der  Vorderstadt  Giisirow,  ii.  237. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  239 

is  said  that '  he  generally  drank  daily  at  least  20  great 
tankards  of  wine,  and  at  convivial  gatherings  even 
more ' ;  of  another,  that  he  was  '  very  much  addicted  to 
drink,  whereby  he  was  often  moved  to  passion  and 
wrath,  the  comrades  of  drink  ' ;  of  a  third,  that  '  he 
left  his  councillors  to  govern  and  gave  himself  up  to 
drinking,  which  often  led  to  much  awkwardness/  When 
Duke  Barnim  died  in  1603  '  there  was  not  much  sign  of 
mourning  observed  among  the  young  lords  ' :  '  those 
whom  on  account  of  their  position  such  conduct  least 
of  all  became,  were  a  good  deal  the  worse  for  drink  and 
enlivened  the  funeral  with  jokes  and  buffoonery/  The 
young  duke  Phihp  Julius  began  by  entirely  abjuring 
'  the  deadly  habit  of  drink,'  and  weaned  his  servants  from 
it.  But '  the  miracle  '  did  not  last  long ;  '  he  soon  turned 
round  again  and  went  back  to  the  old  German  ways/  ^ 
Dearest  brother,'  wrote  Duke  Christian  of  Holstein  in 
the  spring  of  1604  to  Franz  of  Pomerania,  '  I  thank  you 
heartily  for  the  good  company  and  the  good  drinking- 
bouts  I  enjoyed  with  you.  I  have  no  news  to  give  you 
except  that  Henry  von  Dorten  has  drunk  away  his 
fine  coat,  and  that  we  have  had  several  good  drinking- 
bouts.  I  shall  soon  come  to  you  again.  Farewell  and 
drink  well.  Live  according  to  the  pastor's  teaching  : 
"after  the  holy  days  you  are  free  to  drink  well  and  to 
let  the  heavenly  sackbuts  ring  on."  I  should  much  like 
to  know  if  you,  all  of  you,  have  been  as  jolly  tipsy  as 
we  have  .  .  .  ?  ' ~ 

True  *  there  were  numbers  of  sober-minded,  well- 
behaved  people  who  asked  themselves  whether  such 
drinking  was  really  authorised  by  the  divine  Scriptures 

1  V.  Wedel,  190,  388,  390-433,  453. 

2  Baltische  Studien,  ii..  Heft  ii.  172-173. 


240  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  the  holy  Evangel,  as  the  princes  continually  reiter- 
ated in  their  letters,  ordinances  and  commands  to  the 
people,  and  where  in  Holy  Writ  the  texts  sanctioning 
this  habit  were  to  be  fomid/  '  To  such  questions, 
however,'  says  a  Lutheran  preacher,  '  no  answer  has 
yet  been  given,  and  if  one  were  to  put  the  question 
pubhcly  one  would  run  great  risk  of  being  pronounced 
guilty  of  lese-majeste  ;  for  what  the  princes  do  is 
now  always  right,  and  we  must  not  grumble,  for 
tower  and  dungeon  were  not  built  for  nothing/  '  If 
on  the  other  hand  it  be  asked  who  has  given  the 
incentive  to  all  this  drinking  among  the  princes,  which 
is  such  a  terrible  offence,  and  such  a  bad  example  to  the 
people,  and  where  the  instigators  are  to  be  found,  I 
answer  that  it  is  well  known  to  many  persons  that  in 
very  many  places  it  is  largely  the  fault  of  the  councillors 
who  wish  to  govern  alone,  and  who,  when  the  prince  is 
senseless  with  drink,  have  every  opportunity  of  draining 
the  land.'  ^ 

Thus  in  Brunswick,  for  instance,  even  since  1613 
Duke  Frederick  Ulrich  had  been  kept  by  his  worthless 
favourites  in  a  constant  state  of  intoxication,  to  the 
ruin  of  the  country.-  The  Reuss-Gera  court-preacher 
Frederick  Glaser  spoke  his  mind  freely  in  1595  on  the 
blamable  habit  of  the  '  princely  drinkers  '  of  leaving 
the  affairs  of  State  to  their  councillors,  whereby  '  affairs 
are  so  managed  that  bad  becomes  worse.'  He  knew 
from  personal  experience  that  there  was  no  place  where 
more  was  eaten  and  drunk  '  than  at  the  courts  of  great 

'  'Von  der  jetzigen  Werlte  Lauften,  eine  kurtze  einfaltige  und  stille 
Predig  von  einem  Diener  am  Wort.'  Getruckt  in  Ueberall-  und  Nimmer- 
finden  (1619),  p.  3. 

2  Schlegel,  ii.  377-378. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  241 

lords  and  princes,  and  this  was  the  reason  why  every- 
thing went  on  so  badly  in  the  government/     *  It  is 
impossible/  so  he  admonished  the  young  princes  of  the 
land   on   their   accession   to   government,    '  that   such 
drunkards  should  make  good  rulers.     Young  sovereigns 
should  take  warning  by  those  who  when  they  meet 
together  think  it  the  finest  thing  to  sit  for  several  hours 
at  table,  and  whose  best  boast  it  is  to  make  each  other 
as  tipsy  as  possible,  so  that  they  lose  all  their  senses.'  ^    . 
'  Whereas    in    Italy    and    Spain,'    wrote    Aegidius 
Albertinus,   '  the  princes  and  lords  sit,  at  the  outside, 
two  hours  at  table,  the  Germans  go  on  champing  and 
chewing  and  filhng  their  stomachs  for  six,  seven,   or 
eight  hours,  and  sometimes  till  day  begins  to  dawn.' " 
'  Hence  it  is  no  wonder/  said  another  contemporary 
and  '  Minister  of  the  Word,'  '  that  such  thousands  of 
gulden  are  devoured  every  year  at  the  courts  of  the 
princes  and  lords  ;   the  spices  they  use  alone  run  away 
with  many  thousands.' ^      Duke  Julius  of  Brunswick 
drew  up  a  contract  on  February  18,  1574,  with  a  Dutch 
merchant  by  which,  up  to  Easter,  for  the  sum  of  4522 
gulden,  5  groschen,  and  6  pfennigs  all  sorts  of  spices  and 
groceries  were  to  be  supphed  to  the  prince's  household 
at  Wolfenbiittel,  amongst  other  things  213  pounds  of 
ginger,  313  pounds  of  pepper,  44  pounds  of  cloves,  48 
pounds  of  cinnamon,  30  pounds  of  saffron,  30  pounds  of 
anice,  150  pounds  of  large  and  small  capers,  2^  cwt.  of 
olive  oil,  10  cwt.  of  large  and  small  raisins,  4  cwt.  of 
almonds,  and  so  forth.^- 

'  In  his  Oculus  principis  (Leipzig,  1595)  in  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv, 
xii.  355-356. 

2  A.  Albertinus,  Der  Landsiortzer,  293-294. 

*  Von  der  jetzigen  Werlte  Lduften,  see  above,  p.  240,  n.  1. 

■•  Zeitschr.  des  Harzvereins,  iii.  312. 

VOL.  XV.  K 


242  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

*  As  if  for  a  memento  for  all  after  ages,  of  how  much 
was  drmik  at  their  courts/  said  another  preacher, 
*  some  of  the  princes  have  gigantic  beer-barrels  con- 
structed at  a  heavy  cost  to  the  land  and  the  poor 
sweated  vassals,  as  for  instance  the  world-famous 
tun  at  Heidelberg,  and  one  at  Groningen  in  the 
Halberstadt  district,  which  I  myself  have  seen  exhibited 
as  a  new  wonderwork/  ^  The  last  of  these  two  was 
.constructed,  in  the  years  1580-1584,  by  order  of  Duke 
Henry  Julius  of  Brunswick,  bishop-elect  of  Halberstadt, 
by  Michael  Werner  of  Landau,  who  also  made  the 
Heidelberg  barrel.  The  cost  of  this  Bacchanalian 
monument,  without  counting  the  wood,  was  over 
6000  Keichsthaler  ;  it  contained  over  160  fuders  of 
wine  (a  fuder  =  six  ohms)  ;  its  praises  were  widely 
sung,  and  in  a  religious  play  by  the  preacher  Balthasar 
Voigt,  written  for  performance  in  schools,  '  The 
Eg}'ptian  Joseph,'  2  it  was  described  minutely  as  a  most 
marvellous  structure.'^ 

The  fiercest  indignation  was  aroused  among  the  people 
by  the  '  princely  orgies '  of  many  even  of  the  bishops. 
When  the  electoral  councillor  Melchior  von  Ossa  visited 
Count  Franz  of  Waldeck,  Bishop  of  Miinster,  Minden  and 
Osnabriick,  in  1543,  with  a  view  to  enlisting  him  in  the 
Smalkald  League,  he  reported  that  '  the  Bishop  had 
been  engaged  almost  day  and  night  in  jovial  drinking, 
especially  with  Hermann  von  der  Malsburg,  so  that 
when  towards  morning  he  wanted  to  go  to  bed  it  was 
necessary  to  have  four  or  six  men  on  each  side  of  him 

^   Von  der  jetzigen  Werlte  Lduften,  see  above,  p.  140,  n.  1. 
-  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xii.  p.  26  f. 

^  Fuller  details  about  this  barrel  are  given  in  the  Zeitschr.  des  Harz- 
vereins,  i.  74-76,  77,  93-98. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  243 

to  drag  liini  along.     Even  then  he  fell  back  again  once. 
When  he  was  thoroughly  drunk  the  trumpets  and  drums 
were  struck   up.''     Count  John  of   Hoya,   Bishop  of 
Osnabriick,  Miinster   and  Paderborn,  also  loved   hard 
drinking  -  bouts.-      Concerning    the    deposed    Cologne 
Archbishop,  Gebhard  Truchsess  von  Waldburg,  it  says 
in  a  letter  of  1583  :    '  No  day  passed  by  in  which  he 
did  not  get  drunk — often  several  times  in  the  day,  and 
the  way  in  which   when   drunk   he  could   curse   and 
swear  was  well  known  to  those  around  him.'     At  the 
court    of     the    Bamberg    Bishop     John     PhiHp     von 
Gebsattel  the  condition  of  things  was  so  terrible  owing 
to   excessive    eating,    drinking,    and    immorality   that 
'  it  was  a  doubtful  matter,'  so  wrote  Bishop  Julius  of 
Wiirzburg   to   Duke  Maximihan   of   Bavaria   in   1604, 
'  whether  there  was  one  sober,  virtuous  person  there.' 
Likewise    at    the    court    of    the    Salzburg   Archbishop 
Wolf  Dietrich  von  Raittenau  there  was  '  overmuch  that 
was    scandalous    and    appalHng.'     When    the    Jesuits 
once  reproached  him  seriously  for  his  conduct  Wolf 
Dietrich  called  them  '  the  devil's  house  villains.'  '^ 

A  true  insight  into  the  '  princely  drinking  orgies  ' 
of  the  sixteenth  century  is  given  by  the  Silesian  knight 
Hans  von  Schweinichen,  who  acted  as  agent,  chamber- 
lain, court  marshal  and  escort  to  two  dukes  of  Liegnitz 
on  numbers  of  visits  to  German  courts,  and  kept 
a  diary  of  his  experiences  and  of  those  of  his  lords  at 
the  banquets  which  he  attended  with  them,  and  the 
drinkings  which  he  had  to  take  part  in. 

After  telling  of  his  abjuration  of  the  Protestant  faith 
and  describing  his  ancestry,  he  gives  a  short  account  of 

>  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vi.  p.  225.      -  M,  Lossen,  Der  Kolnische  Krieg,  232. 
^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  ix.  pp.  204,  377  f. 

K  2 


244  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

his  youthful  years  and  his  studies  in  company  with  a 
noble  of  Logau  and  with  the  young  Duke  Frederick  von 
Liegnitz,  whose  father,  Duke  Frederick  III.,  had  been 
since  1560  kept  prisoner  in  the  castle  of  Liegnitz  by  his 
eldest  son,  Henry  XI.  '  We  were  obhged  also  to  wait 
upon  the  old  gentleman  in  his  bedroom  ;  also  frequently, 
when  their  princely  graces  had  a  drinking-bout,  to  lie 
down  in  his  room,  for  "  princely  graces  "  do  not  like 
to  go  to  bed  when  they  are  intoxicated.  But  their 
graces,  while  in  custody,  were  Godfearing ;  evening 
or  morning,  drunk  or  sober,  they  always  said  their 
prayers,  and  all  in  Latin.'  ^  For  having,  by  command 
of  the  captive  Duke,  laid  a  pasquil  against  the  court- 
preacher  Leonard  Krauzheim,  '  a  vagabond  Franconian 
fellow,'  on  the  preaching  stool  in  the  castle  church, 
Schweinichen  was  obliged  to  leave  the  court  for  a  time. 
With  his  father  he  went  about  to  weddings  and  christen- 
ings, and  was  a  generally  prized  '  master  of  drinking.' 
'  In  former  times  it  had  happened  to  him  to  fall  under 
the  table  and  be  incapable  of  walking,  standing,  or 
speaking,  and  to  be  carried  away  as  if  dead.'  Soon, 
however,  he  was  able  to  say  that  '  he  considered  it 
impossible  for  anyone  to  make  him  thoroughly  drunk.' 
'  In  no  company,'  he  boasts,  '  was  there  ever  any  ill-will 
towards  me ;  for  I  ate  and  drank  with  them  all  half  or 
whole  nights  at  a  time,  and  was  always  ready  to  do  what 
was  wished.' 

In  1571  *  there  was  a  pack  of  lewd  fellows  in  the 
land  who  were  called  "  The  Seven  and  Twenty,"  who 
had  sworn  together  wherever  they  went  to  commit 
indecencies  and  to  behave  as  offensively  as  they  could. 

^  Concerning  the  doings  of  Frederick  III.  before  his  Ctistodia,  see  our 
remarks,  vol.  vi.  391  &. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  245 

For  instance,  none  of  them  were  to  pray,  nor  to  wash 
themselves,  and  they  were  to  stop  short  at  no  sort  of 
sacrilege  ;  often  there  were  four  or  five  of  them  together 
at  my  father's  house,  but  though  I  sometimes  was  in  their 
company  I  never  took  part  in  their  offensive  behaviour/ 

During  the  journeys  which  Schweinichen  made 
with  Duke  Ulrich  he  had  everywhere  the  glory  of 
being  the  last  on  the  '  battlefield  of  the  drinkers  ' ; 
'  the  fame  of  his  drinking  powers  went  from  one  court  to 
the  other/  At  Zelle,  at  Duke  William  of  Liineburg's, 
the  Liegnitz  and  Liineburg  squires  were  obliged  to 
'  drink  for  the  places  reserved  to  them  :  there  also  I 
remained  on  my  seat  to  the  end,  together  with  a 
Liineburg  squire ;  it  was  a  dead  heat  between  us/ 

In  the  masquerades  which  were  often  connected 
with  these  revellings,  as  a  sign  of  evangehcal  feehng, 
the  monastic  hfe  of  the  Cathohc  Church  was  ridiculed, 
'  Princely  Highnesses,'  says  Schweinichen  in  1574, 
'  were  at  this  time  over  jovial  with  dancing  and  drinking, 
and  especially  in  giving  "  mummeries/'  This  went 
on  for  nearly  a  whole  year  every  evening  in  the  town 
at  the  burghers'  houses.  Some  of  them  were  glad  to 
see  their  princely  Highnesses,  otliers  were  not.  There 
were  generally  four  monks  and  four  nims,  and  his 
princely  Highness  always  represented  a  nun.'  The 
Duke  also  went  to  other  places  '  in  a  great  wagon  in 
this  mummer  fashion ' ;  Schweinichen,  however,  as 
he  writes,  cared  very  httle  about  it,  for  '  in  these  masks 
it  was  a  curious  arrangement  that  the  young  ladies 
always  "  stepped  out "  with  the  nuns  (one  young  woman 
with  another  young  woman)  and  not  with  the  monks.' 
'  Once  when  the  Duchess  refused  to  sit  at  table  with 
her   husband's   mistress   the   Duke   gave   her   a   good 


246  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

box  on  the  ears  which  made  the  princess  stagger.  I 
rushed  up  and  caught  her  grace  in  my  arms  and  held 
her  up  until  she  could  escape  into  her  own  room.  My 
lord,  however,  wanted  to  follow  her  and  give  her  some 
more  blows,  so  I  ran  quickly  after  her  and  shut  her 
door  so  that  his  grace  could  not  get  in.  Whereupon  his 
princely  Highness  was  somewhat  enraged  against  me, 
and  informed  me  he  didn't  want  to  be  tutored  by 
me  ;  she  was  his  wife,  and  he  could  do  as  he  liked 
with  her.' 

Wherever  they  went  Schweinichen  was  obliged 
to  wait  upon  the  Duke  at  his  carousals  and  fight  out 
his  drinking  duels  for  him.  At  Dillenburg,  at  Count 
John  of  Nassau's,  where  drinking  was  kept  up  for 
five  days,  he  won  especial  glory.  '  In  the  morning  the 
Count  gave  me  a  welcome.  W^hen,  however,  on  the 
first  evening  I  had  the  glory  of  outdrinking  all  the 
Count's  servants,  the  Count  thought  he  would  revenge 
himself  secretly  on  me  with  the  "great  welcome,"  which 
consisted  of  about  twelve  flagons  of  w^ine.  Now  I  was 
very  anxious  to  "hold  the  fort,"  as  on  the  previous 
evening,  so  I  took  the  challenge  from  the  Count,  went 
to  the  door  and  tested  myself  as  to  whether  I  could 
empty  a  twelve-bottle  bumper  at  a  single  pull,  and 
I  found  that  I  could.  When  I  had  made  this  trial  of 
my  skill  I  had  the  bumper  filled  again  and  begged 
the  Coimt  to  allow  me  to  drink  to  his  servant.  The 
Count  had  already  been  told  of  this  and  was  well 
pleased.  So  I  offered  to  have  a  single-pull  drink  with  the 
marshal.  The  marshal  objected,  but  the  Count  in- 
sisted on  his  drinking  with  me.  When  I  drained  the 
beaker  a  second  time  all  the  lords  were  astonished  ; 
but  the  marshal  could  not  respond  to  my  toast  at  one 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  247 

gulp,  and  so  he  was  punished  by  having  to  drain  the 
goblet  twice,  but  only  with  a  number  of  gulps.  The 
marshal  was  so  tipsy  that  he  had  to  be  led  away. 
I,  however,  sat  the  meal  out.' 

When  Duke  Henry  was  deposed  by  the  Emperor  on 
account  of  his  disorderly  household  and  his  treacherous 
intrigues,  Schweinichen  entered  the  service  of  the 
new  duke,  Frederick  IV.  He  became  his  marshal 
of  the  household  and  went  on  regularly  every  week 
keeping  account  of  the  banquets  at  which  he,  with  his 
new  master,  had  '  drunk  stiffly.'  In  1589  he  accompanied 
Frederick  to  Holstein,  where  the  Duke  espoused  the 
daughter  of  Duke  John.  '  The  great  drinking  orgies 
that  went  on  daily  can  easily  be  imagined.  In  the 
morning  when  we  got  up  there  was  food  put  on  the 
table  and  we  drank  till  the  regular  meal-time  ;  and 
from  the  regular  meal-time  again  until  the  time  of  the 
evening  meal ;  those  who  then  "  were  ripe  "  dropped 
off.'  In  Berlin  also,  where  Frederick  IV.  visited  the 
Elector  of  Brandenburg  in  1591,  there  was  *  good 
strong  drinking  at  the  morning  meal.'  On  the  day  of 
departure  '  there  was  a  great  drinking-bout  at  break- 
fast, so  that  master  and  servants  got  thoroughly  tipsy.  ^ 
'  On  the  way  I  observed  that  my  valet  had  been  dis- 
placed from  his  seat  on  the  coach  by  the  drummer 
(who  always  rode  on  horseback,  but  was  now  quite 
drunk),  and  that  my  man  was  obhged  to  run  alongside 
of  the  coach.'  Schweinichen  would  not  put  up  with 
this  '  slight '  to  his  personal  dignity  and  complained  to 
the  Duke,  and  '  because  one  word  led  to  another,'  he 
writes,  '  his  princely  grace  became  enraged  and  was 
about  to  spring  at  me  with  his  rapier  :  I  did  not  budge, 
but  stood  ready  with  my  own  rapier.'     A  good  drink 


248  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

reconciled  the  angry  pair.  At  Liegnitz  the  prince 
and  his  servants  spent  nearly  every  day  in  rioting  ; 
even  before  they  got  up  in  the  morning  '  great  drinking- 
bouts  began/ 

The  Elector  Palatine  Frederick  IV.,  according  to 
Schweinichen's  account,  was  distinguished  even  beyond 
all  the  great  lords  already  mentioned,  and  beyond 
the  young  Duke  of  Brunswick  who  tried  to  make 
Schweinichen  '  drink  himself  dead,'  for  Frederick  IV. 
could  do  nothing  else  but  tipple.  Whole  weeks  together 
were  spent  by  Schweinichen  and  his  duke  at  the  Electoral 
Court  in  drinking  all  day  long.  The  same  thing  went 
on  at  Sultzbach,  where  the  Elector  and  his  guests  went 
to  stay  with  the  Count  Palatine  Otto  Henry.  ^  '  For 
the  putting  down  of  excessive  drinking,'  this  same 
Elector  Frederick  IV.,  towards  the  end  of  1601,  was 
made  '  Patron '  of  a  Temperance  Order  founded  by 
the  Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse.  For  the  space  of  a 
year  each  member  had  to  pledge  himself,  on  pain  of 
serious  punishment,  not  to  have  more  than  two  meals 
within  twenty-four  hours,  and  not  to  drink  more  at 
each  meal  than  seven  regulation  beakers  of  wine. 
The  size  prescribed  for  these  beakers  is  not  mentioned. 
'  In  order  also  that  no  one  might  have  to  complain  of 
thirst,  each  member  should  also  be  allowed,  at  both 
meals,  to  drink  beer,  mineral  waters,  julep,  and  other 
nasty  beverages  of  the  sort '  ;   foreign  and  spiced  wines, 

'  See  our  article,  '  Aus  dem  Leben  deiitscher  Fursten  im  sechzehnten 
Jahrlumdert,'  in  the  Histor.-poUt.  Bl.  (1876),  vol.  Ixxvii.  351-364,  428-444. 
Schweinichen's  Denhvurdigkeiten,  newly  published  by  H.  Oesterley, 
Breslau,  1878.  **  A  collection  of  accounts  of  the  ceremonial  at  different 
princely  festivities,  weddings,  funerals,  &c.,  &c.,  made  by  Schweinichen 
was  first  published  by  K.  Wutt)^e  under  the  title  Merkbuch  des  Hans  von 
Schweinichen.     Berlin,  1895. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  249 

mead,  and  intoxicating  beer  were  not  allowed.^  But 
the  Patron  of  this  Order  himself  brought  on  his  own 
premature  death  by  excessive  drinking.  Landgrave 
Maurice  also,  the  founder  of  the  Order,  although  a 
man  of  learning  and  of  many-sided  culture,  was.  by 
no  means  free  from  this  vice.  When  once  he  visited 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  at  Berlin  with  a  large 
retinue,  '  master  and  servants,  after  a  ten  days'  stay, 
went  to  Spandau  in  such  a  mighty  state  of  intoxication 
that  they  could  scarcely  find  the  gate  of  the  town.'  ~ 

At  the  Hessian  Court,  at  an  early  date,  '  matters 
were  no  better  than  elsewhere  in  respect  of  strong 
drinking.'  Landgrave  Philip  spoke  from  long  experi- 
ence when  in  1562  he  wrote  to  Duke  Christopher  of 
Wiirtemberg  :  '  The  vice  of  drunkenness  has  become 
so  common  both  with  princes  and  people  that  it  is  no 
longer  looked  on  as  a  sin.'  ^  The  year  before  he  com- 
plained to  the  same  Duke  :  '  Rumour  has  reached  us 
that  our  three  sons,  William,  Ludwig,  and  Philip,  are 
carrying  on  immoral  intercourse  with  certain  women.  .  .  .' 
He  had  called  them  to  account,  he  said.  They  did 
not  deny  the  excesses,  but  did  deny  most  emphatically 
that  they  had  used  violence  with  the  daughters  of  the 
populace,  &c. ,  &c.  The  Landgrave  begged  that  the  Duke 
would  take  his  son  Ludwig  into  his  court  and  lead  him 
to  the  fear  of  God  :  he  was  an  upright,  pious  young 
fellow,  and  a  good  sportsman  :  '  he  is  fond  of  drink, 
certainly,  and  it  is  not  good  for  him,  for  he  has  at 
times  suffered  from  serious  illnesses.'  He  therefore 
begged  the  Duke  not  to  allow  him  '  to  go  out  at  night 

^  'Die  Statuten  des  Ordens,'  in  Rommel,  ii.  357-361. 

'  Buchholtz,  Versuch,  iii.  479,  note. 

•^  Spittler  und  Meiners,  Gottinger  histor.  Magazin,  iii.  740  IT. 


250  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

into  other  houses,  or  to  disport  himself  in  the  streets 
at  night.'  ^  The  worst  offender  in  drunkenness  and 
in  the  vilest  profligacy  was  Christopher  Ernest,  one 
of  Phihp's  sons  by  his  liaison  with  Margaretha  von 
der.Sale.  This  prince  carried  on  in  such  an  appalling 
manner  at  the  castle  Uhichstein  that  the  three  Land- 
graves, William,  Ludwig,  and  Philip,  in  1570,  came  down 
upon  him  with  300  horse  and  500  foot  soldiers  and 
took  him  prisoner.  They  had  felt  compelled  to  take 
this  step,  they  said,  on  account  of  his  '  uninterrupted 
course  of  scandalous  vice,  and  in  response  to  the  com- 
plaints, prayers  and  distress  of  the  highly  aggrieved 
parents  of  the  disgraced  children.'  ^ 

When  Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg,  at  the 
desire  of  Phihp  of  Hesse,  took  the  latter's  son  Ludwig 
into  his  court,  he  wrote  to  the  Landgrave  :  '  So  far 
as  drinking  goes,  we  are  aware  that  his  Highness  has 
drunk  more  than  he  can  well  bear,  but  his  Highness 
will  not,  when  with  us,  have  the  same  opportunities 
and  enticement  to  excessive  drinking.'  ^  And  yet 
Christopher  himself,  no  more  than  Albert  V.  of  Bavaria, 
had  any  great  reputation  for  sobriety.  When  the 
young  Landgrave  Ludwig,  in  1561,  was  at  a  royal 
baptism  at  Neuburg,  his  father.  Elector  Frederick  III., 
wrote  :  '  If  only  my  son  can  keep  free  from  drink  in 
the  presence   of  Duke  Albert   of   Bavaria   and   Duke 

'  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv,  ix.  123-132, 

'  V.  Weber,  Kurjurstin  Anna,  300-401,  where  there  are  fuller  details 
about  the  scandalous  proceedings  of  Christopher  Ernest. 

■'  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv,  ix.  132-136.  **  In  a  letter  of  Count 
George  of  Wiirtemberg  to  his  nephew  Christopher  on  October  23,  1553, 
it  says  with  regard  to  immoderate  drinking  :  '  You  know  well  and  have 
often  experienced  that  it  is  very  bad  for  you  and  leads  to  disastrous 
results.'     Kugler,  Herzog  Christoph,  i.  398, 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  251 

Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg  ;    asthma  is  now  playing 
the  deuce  with  him/  ^     With  his  own  sons  Christopher 
had  much  trouble  owing  to  excessive  drinking.     After 
a  journey  to  Darmstadt  with  his  eldest  son  Eberhard, 
in  the  summer  of  1565,  he  was  obliged  to  reprove  him 
for  his  insobriety :  '  During  the  whole  journey  there  and 
back  you  were  drunk  nearly  every  day  tw^ce  a  day, 
not  to  speak  of  your  disorderly  behaviour  all  night, 
drinking,  screaming,  bellowing  like  an  ox,  wherever  we 
were,  at  Darmstadt,  Heidelberg,  and  elsewhere  ;    since 
then  there  have  been  very  few  days  when  you  have  been 
sober,   and  you  are   drinking  away  your  young  life, 
health,  strength,  understanding,  reason,  memory,  yea, 
verily,   your  soul's  salvation  and  eternal  Hfe/  ^     His 
son  Ludwig  also,  who  succeeded  him  in  the  government 
in  1568,  was  from  his  youth  addicted  to  drink,  and  it 
was  his  favourite  diversion  '  to  drink  others  on  to  the 
floor/     At   a    boar-baiting   he    made    two    Reutlingen 
delegates  and  the  town  syndicus,  whom  he  had  invited 
to  the  hunt,  so  dead  drunk  that  they  were  taken  away 
unconscious  in  a  cart ;    he  had  a  wild  boar  fastened 
behind    them,   and  sent  them  home  in  this  fashion.-^ 
At  last  he  did  not  know  what  sobriety  was.     His  Privy 
Councillor,    Melchior    Jiiger,    on   September    9,    15dl, 
reproached  him  with  having  reduced  inordinate  drinking 
to  such  an  inveterate  habit,  and  asked  him  what  other 
people  must  be  thinking  of  his  princely  Highness  who 
was  now  incapable  of  knowing  what  soberness  meant.^ 
All  the  same,  after  the  death  in  1593  of  this  Duke,  who 
received  from  his  court-preachers  the  surname  of  '  the 
Pious,'  an  official  panegyric  was   distributed   through 

1  Kluckholm,  Briefe  i.  209.  -  PEster,  ii.  59  ff. 

=*  Sattler,  v.  135.  ■*  lUcl.  134. 


252  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  land,  saying  that  '  all  the  days  of  his  life  he  had 
followed  godly  conduct,  and  had  been  a  sincere  enemy 
of  all  sins  and  vices,'  that  in  Wiirtemberg  and  other 
lordships  '  he  had  extended  the  kingdom  of  Christ/ 
Whereas,  however,  '  the  great  and  glorious  gifts  and 
graces  which  the  Almighty,  in  the  person  of  this  illustrious 
prince,  had  showered  on  the  land,  had  unfortunately 
been  little  recognised,  God,  in  punishment  of  the  land, 
had  removed  this  godly  prince  by  a  swift  and  all  too 
early  death.'  ^     '  To  whom  would  it  be  possible,'  asks 

^  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv,  ii.   129-140.     Strange  it  is  that  Moser 
could  describe  the  official  panegyric  as  '  a  touching  proof  of  the  love  of  the 
country.'     The  court  preacher,  Lucas  Osiander  the  Elder,  excused  the 
insobriety  of  the  Duke  in  the  following  words :     '  Although  at  times  his 
Princely  Grace,  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  his  constitution,  or  when  after 
a  joiu-ney,  or  after  much  and  weighty  business  he  was  tu-ed  and  exhausted, 
would  refresh  himself  with  generous  drink,  not  always  observing  the  rightful 
measure,  this  did  not  happen  from  any  evil  intention  to  disgrace  himself 
or  others  with  overmuch  diinking,  but  it  came  from  pure  good-heartedness 
and  the  desire  of  his  Princely  Highness  to  make  his  guests  merry   and 
jovial  at  his  table  ;  nobody  at  such  times  ever  heard  an  angry  or  improper 
word  proceed  from  his  lips,  but  only  friendliness  ;  he  usually  had  religious 
hymns  sung  at  such  times,  in  order  to  be  kept  in  mind  of  godliness  and  the 
fear  of  God.'    See  extracts  in  Strauss,  Frischlin,  573.    '  All  that  in  the  poor 
is  made  punishable,'    says  Hans  Wilham  Kirchhof  in  his  Wcndunmuth, 
'  is  ideahsed  and  made  the  best  of  with  the  rich,  in  so  much  that  when  they 
indulge  day  after  day  in  banqueting,  drunkenness  and  debauchery,  they 
are  proclaimed  altogether  free  from  insobriety  and  lust.'     '  If  they  go  to  bed 
on  their  heads,'  says  Glathart  Seidenweich  :    '  what  think  you,  was  not  our 
Lord  right  merry  ? '      See  G.  T.  Dithmar,  Aus  und  iiber  H.  W.  Kirchhof 
(Marburg,  1867),  p.  39.     **  Noteworthy  is  the  manner  in  which  Bucer 
'  whitewashed  '    the  immoderate  drinking  of  Duke  Ludwig  II.  of  Pfalz- 
Zweibriicken.     This  prince  died  when  only  thirty  years  old  (Dec.  3,  1582)  of 
consumption  brought  on  by  constant  indulgence  in  alcoholic  liquors.     With 
his  love  of  drink  he  combined  other  vices,  so  that  after  his  death  the  new 
religionist  preacher  Schwebel  was  in  sore  perplexity  as  to  the  funeral  sermon 
he  was  expected  to  preach.    He  turned  to  Bucer  for  advice.    Bucer  answered : 
'  Your  prince  was  afflicted  with  great  faults,  but  there  was  also  an  immense 
deal  of  good  in  him,  for  he  heard  the  word  of  God  gladly.     Now  it  is  a 
great  thing  to  hear  the  voice  of  God  and  not  to  set  oneself  hostilely  against 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  253 

a  contemporary,  '  to  count  up  all  the  evil  examples 
which  are  set  by  the  prince's  courts,  the  counts  and 
lords  and  all  the  great  people,  with  their  inhuman 
drinking  and  debauchery,  not  to  speak  of  immorahty  of 
all  sorts,  while  all  the  time,  as  nobody  can  deny,  the 
poverty  of  the  land  increases  from  year  to  year  !  To 
heaven  goes  up  the  sound  of  all  that  we  hear  about  every 
day  at  the  courts,  especially  at  princely  visits,  and  at 
festivities,  such  as  weddings,  christenings  and  suchhke/  ^ 
When  the  Dukes  Frederick  Wilham  and  Hans  of 
Saxe- Weimar,  '  in  company  with  several  counts,  barons, 
and  other  nobles,  visited  the  Landgrave  Louis  of 
Hesse  at  Marburg  in  1590,  they  began  at  breakfast  on 
July  8  by  drinking  a  fuder  and  three-quarters  of  wine 
(a  fuder  =  six  ohms)  and  IH  quarts  of  Paderborn 
beer.'  At  night  '  one  ohm  and  nine  quarts  of  wine 
were  given  in  Duke  Frederick's  bedroom  to  those  who 
had  been  playing  cards  there,  and  to  others  who  had 
been  in  attendance.'  '  The  total  quantity  served  at  the 
evening  meal  before  the  sleeping  draught  was  1  fuder 
(150  gallons),  13  viertel  (quarts),  and  3f  mass,  2  mass 
of  Spanish  wine,  16  viertel  of  Paderborn  beer.'  The 
next  day,  when  Landgrave  William  IV.  of  Giessen  had 
also  joined  the  party,  '  there  were  served  for  early 
morning  and  forenoon  drinks  2  fuders  ( =  300  gallons), 
11   quarts  of  wine,   and  12  quarts  of  Einbeck  beer  ; 

it,  as  do  those  who  are  not  born  of  God.  Then  also  he  was  faithful  to  his 
promises,  which  is  certainly  a  great  virtue  in  high  personages,  especially 
in  princes  ;  also  he  took  no  delight  in  bloodshed.  The  scandalous  vice  of 
drink  did  not,  however,  so  greatly  ruin  his  noble  mind,  as  to  make  him 
proceed  inimically  against  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  (that  is  the  new  doctrine). 
This  is  a  certain  proof  that  he  was  a  child  of  God  ;  for  those  who  are  not 
born  of  God  cannot  bear  or  tolerate  God's  word.'  Centuria  epistolarum 
ad  Schwebelium  (Bipont,  1597),  p.  191.  Histor.-poUt.  Bl.  107,  658  S. 
1   Von  der  jetzigen  Werlte  Lduften,  pp.  5-6. 


254  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

for  the  evening  meal,  2  fuders,  1  ohm  (30 J  gallons),  and 
5  quarts  of  wine,  |  quart  of  Einbeck  beer  ;  for  the 
"  nightcap  ''  6 J  quarts/  On  the  11th  and  12th  July 
the  quantity  drunk  was  2  fuders,  5  ohms,  19  quarts, 
and  3 J  fuders  of  spiced  beer  /  ^  At  the  wedding  of 
Princess  Anna  of  Saxony  with  Wilham  of  Orange, 
which  took  place  at  Leipzig  in  1561,  3600  firkins  of 
wine  and  1600  barrels  of  beer  were  drunk.-  The  con- 
sumption at  the  wedding  of  Giinther  XLI.  of  Schwarz- 
burg  with  the  Duchess  Katharina  of  Nassau  in  1560 
was  incomparably  greater.  The  '  veritable  accounts  ' 
of  these  festivities,  still  extant,  give  the  following 
figures :  '  20  barrels  of  malmsey,  25  barrels  of  Reinfall, 
25  fuders  of  Rhenish  wine,  30  fuders  of  Wlirzburg  and 
Frankfort  wine,  6  fuders  of  Neckar  wine,  12  barrels 
of  Brayhahn,  24  tuns  of  Hamburg  beer,  12  barrels 
of  Einbeck  beer,  6  barrels  of  Gosse  (a  kind  of  hght- 
coloured  beer),  6  barrels  of  Windisch  beer,  6  barrels 
of  Neustadt  beer,  10  barrels  of  Arnstadt  beer,  30 
barrels  of  Zelle  beer,  10  barrels  of  English  beer,  12 
barrels  of  Muhme,  100  barrels  of  spiced  beer';  'this 
calculation  does  not  include  all  the  herbs  that  were  used 
such  as  hart's-tongue,  sage,  mug- wort,  and  suchlike.' 
Also,  in  the  parsonage  for  the  wagon  drivers  and  other 
menial  servants,  1010  firkins  of  '  Landwein  '  and  120 
barrels  of  beer  are  entered.  The  consumption  of  spices 
of  all  sorts  corresponded  to  that  of  drinks.  '  For  persons 
both  of  high  and  low  rank  there  were  procured  amongst 
other  commodities,  120  stags,  126  roes,  150  wild  boars, 
large  and  small,  850  hares,  20  mountain-cocks,  300 
partridges,  35  heath-cocks,  200  snipes,  60  hazel  hens, 

1  Die  Vorzeit,  Jalirg.  1824,  pp.  286-291. 

2  Week,  351.     Vulpius,  i.  201-202. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  255 

85  "  schock ''  (a  "  scliock  "  =  three  score)  of  fieklf ares,  150 
Italian  cocks,  20  swans,  24  peacocks,  14  "  schock " 
Endvogel,  8  "  schock  "  of  wikl  geese,  100  oxen,  1000 
wethers,  70  "  schock ''  of  hens,  45  "  schock  "  of  tame  geese, 
172  capons,  245  suckmg  pigs  well  roasted,  200  sides 
of  bacon,  8  bullocks,  150  gammon  of  bacon,  16  fatted 
pigs,  200  barrels  of  preserved  game,  120  "  schock  "  of 
large  carps,  21  cwt.  of  pikes,  4  cwt.  of  large  eels, 
7  fuders  of  crabs,  3  tons  of  salted  pikes,  6  tons  of  salted 
salmon,  2  tons  of  sturgeons,  1  ton  of  salted  eels,  and 
a  great  many  other  kinds  of  fish  food/  ^  At  the 
dinners  of  the  princes  on  the  occasion  of  weddings 
and  christenings,  80,  100  and  even  200  different  viands 
were  served  up,~  the  last  number  being  that  of  the 
dishes  at  the  high  banquet  of  Duke  William  of  Bavaria 
in  1568.     '  Very  expensive  it  was  for  everybody  '  at 

'  Vulpius,  X.  187-190.  Cf.  the  list  of  provisions  consumed  at  the 
wedding  of  the  Margrave  Sigismund  at  Konigsberg  in  1594.  Vulpius, 
i.  202-203.  At  the  wedding  of  Duke  Eric  the  Younger  of  Brunswick  in 
1545  tlie  consumption  was  124  oxen,  36  bidlocks,  200  wethers,  3057 
chickens,  572  sides  of  bacon,  and  so  fortli ;  800  malters  of  rye,  44  malters 
of  rye  baked  for  the  dogs,  and  so  forth.  Archiv  des  Histor.  Vereins  fur 
Niedersachsen  (Jahrg.  1844),  pp.  304-306.  At  the  wedding  of  the  Saxon 
Elector  Christian  II.  in  1602,  the  number  of  tables  '  laid  for  the  ordinary 
household,  exclusive  of  the  princes'  tables  and  others,  was  180  every  day.' 
MiiUer,  Forschungen,  Lieferung,  i.  148. 

2  For  instance,  the  bill  of  fare  for  a  small  dinner  party  in  February 
1565,  at  the  christening  of  a  son  of  Prince  William  of  Orange,  was :  '  First 
course :  Red  carrots,  endives,  pomegranates,  citrons,  parsley,  salad 
imperial,  young  fowls  stuffed,  green  (young)  veal,  roast  capons,  blancmange 
tarts,  stuffed  mutton,  little  pasties,  English  pasties,  hot  game  pasties, 
young  goats  roasted,  I'oasted  pheasants,  spoon-bills,  doves,  herons,  wild 
geese  and  peacocks.  Second  course  :  Boiled  mutton,  boiled  lamb,  young 
geese  boiled,  young  fowls  boiled,  wild  boar,  stag  cooked  in  pepper,  hot 
capon  pasties,  pasties  of  lamb,  pasties  of  finches,  veal  pasties,  stuffed 
pasties,  roast  veal,  gigots  of  mutton  with  hachee,  roast  field-fowl,'  and 
so  on  through  four  courses  and  nearly  sixty  more  dishes,  v.  Weber, 
Kurfiirstin  Anna,  104-107. 


256  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  marriage  celebrated  in  November  1609  between 
Duke  John  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg  and  the  Branden- 
burg Margravine  Barbara  Sophia.  '  The  high  princely 
gaieties  lasted  full  eight  days.  There  were  gathered 
together  17  princes  and  22  princesses,  5  royal  and 
princely  ambassadors,  52  counts  and  barons,  over  500 
nobles,  and  100  countesses  and  noble  matrons  and 
young  ladies,  and  about  2000  burgher  attendants.  The 
dinner  at  the  princes'  table  consisted  of  two  courses 
of  forty  dishes  each,  and  a  third  course  at  which  sweet- 
meats of  all  sorts  were  served  up.  There  was  game  of 
every  kind,  wild  ducks,  j)heasants,  swans  and  peacocks, 
chamois  and  stags,  salmon,  lampreys  ;  artistic  dishes 
representing  objects  in  ecclesiastical  and  secular  history 
■ — for  instance.  Mount  Helicon  with  the  Hippocrene, 
the  Muses  and  Pegasus,  the  Actaeon  "  with  a  jovial 
hunt,''  and  the  Rape  of  the  Sabines,  side  by  side  with 
Susannah,  and  the  prophet  Jonah  in  a  ship  in  which 
were  concealed  sixty  pleasant-smelhng  crackers,  which 
went  off  one  after  another.'  i 

Hans  von  Schweinichen,  as  court-marshal  to  the 
Duke  of  Liegnitz,  makes  in  his  * Merkbuch ' -  'an 
approximate  estimate  of  the  expenses  at  a  princely 

^  Description  in  Pfaff,  Miszelhn,  81-90.  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche 
Kulturgesch.  (Jahrg.  1859),  pp.  266-271.  The  number  of  guests  even  at  the 
festivities  of  the  smaller  princes  often  verged  on  the  enormous.  At  the 
nuptials  of  Duke  John  Frederick  II.  of  Saxe-Weimar  with  Agnes,  widow 
of  the  Elector  Maurice,  in  1555,  so  many  people  were  invited  that  3700 
riding  horses  and  500  carriage  horses  were  requisitioned  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Weimar.  Kius,  Ernestinische  Finanzen,  12.  **  Accurate  lists 
of  the  guests  present  at  the  above  wedding  festivities,  as  well  as  of  all 
the  servants  and  attendants  employed  at  the  time,  are  given  by  Hans  von 
Schweinichen  in  his  Merkbuch.  He  gives  1200  horses  as  the  average 
number. 

-  **  p.  8  £f. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  257 

wedding  for  eight  days  and  1200  horses.'  According 
to  his  experience  he  reckoned  it  necessary  to  have 
'  56  Pohsh  oxen,  80  zeckels  (a  kind  of  sheep),  400  sheep, 
80  calves,  30  fatted  pigs,  10  bacon  pigs,  50  sucking-pigs, 
20  sides  of  smoked  pig  flesh,  100  smoked  shoulders,  40 
lambs,  30  Calcutta  hens,  36  "  schocks  ''  of  fatted  hens, 

5  "  schocks  "  of  fatted  geese,  4  smoked  brand  oxen,  8  wild 
boars,  12  stags,  9  does,  50  roes,  200  hares,  6  "  schocks  '* 
of  partridges,  1  "  schock  "  of  hazel-cocks,  30  heath-pouts, 

6  "  schocks  "  of  wild  ducks,  100  "  schocks ''  of  small  birds, 
30  "  schocks  ''  of  large  birds,  50  firkins  of  butter,  150 
"  schocks  "  of  eggs,  half  a  Parmesan  cheese,  20  Dutch 
cheeses,  besides  different  kinds  of  fish ;  the  spices 
also  are  reckoned  up  separately.  As  regards  beverages 
Schweinichen  thought  it  necessary  to  have  2  barrels  of 
Reinfall,  4  barrels  of  muscatel,  2  barrels  of  Roschall, 
300  firkins  of  Hungarian  wine,  200  firkins  of  Austrian 
wine,  40  firkins  of  Rhine  wine,  100  octaves  of  Schweid- 
nitz  beer,  100  quarts  of  Goldberg  beer,  20  quarts  of 
foreign  beer,  20  quarts  of  Liibeck  beer,  300  quarts  of 
home-brewed  beer.' 

At  the  marriage  of  Duke  John  George  of  Brieg  with 
the  Duchess  Anna  of  Wiirtemberg,  celebrated  at  Brieg 
on  September  16,  1582,  the  consumption  in  beverages 
was  :  1  '  788  firkins  of  wine  of  all  sorts,  92  octaves  of 
Strehlisch  and  Nimptsch  beer,  60  octaves  of  Scheps  (a 
kind  of  light  beer),  170  quarts  of  barley  and  wheaten 
beer.' 

At  the  marriage  of  Duke  Frederick  IV.  of  Liegnitz 
with  Maria  Sidonia  of  Teschen,  celebrated  at  Liegnitz 
on    January    20,    1587,-    the   quantity    of    provisions 

'  **  Schweinichen,  Merkbuch,  p.  27.  "  **  Il>id.  p.  68  ff. 

VOL.  XV.  S 


258  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

consumed  was:  '54  Polish  oxen,  6  cows,  97  goats,  267 
sheep,  55  calves,  16  pigs,  46  sucking-pigs,  12  lambs,  8 
wild  swan,  12  stags,  9  heads  of  venison,  54  roes,  179 
hares,  18  sides  of  bacon,  19  sides  of  smoked  pigs'  flesh, 
26  Scholtern  (?),  69  smoked  bullocks,  33  "  schocks  "  of 
hens,  12  hazel  hens,  8  Calcutta  hens,  5|  "  schocks  " 
and  5  partridges,  61  geese,  &c. ;  various  kinds  of  fish,  and 
of  beverages,  4931-  firkins  of  Hungarian,  Moravian,  and 
other  kinds  of  wine  (to  the  amount  of  1431  thalers,  13 
groschen),  23 i  firkins  of  Rhine  wine  (162  thalers),  4 
firkins  of  Neckar  wine  (19  thalers,  26  groschen),  4  barrels 
muscatel  (61  thalers,  25  groschen),  1  barrel  Reinfall  (19 
thalers),  78  octaves  of  Scheps,  492  octaves  of  home- 
brewed beer,  85  quarts  and  1  octave  of  Goldberg  beer/ 

A  similar  sort  of  catalogue  is  given  by  Schweinichen  i 
for  the  third  wedding  of  Duke  Frederick  IV.  with  the 
Duchess  Anna  of  Wiirtemberg,  widow  of  Duke  John 
George  of  Brieg  (October  24,  1594).  The  total  expenses 
of  these  festivities  for  kitchen,  cellar,  and  clothes  for  the 
court  servants,  was  15,088  thalers. 

When  Duke  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg  received  the 
Order  of  the  Garter  from  James  I.  of'  England  in  1603, 
he  had  a  banquet  prepared  in  the  great  Knights'  Hall 
at  Stuttgart  which  recalled  the  times  of  Lucullus. 
The  absent  monarch,  who  had  his  own  table  to  himself, 
was  regaled  with  ninety  different  kinds  of  dishes,  all  so 
choice  and  well  cooked  that,  as  one  of  the  company  said, 
they  might  have  dehghted  the  palate  even  of  an  Apicius. 
All  the  dishes  were  prepared  with  so  many  rare  and 
costly  spices  that  when  the  covers  were  taken  off  they 
filled  the  hall  with  fragrant  odours.  Amongst  the 
show  dishes,  which  were  also  meant  to  be  eaten,  there 

'  **  Merkbuch,  p.  149  ff. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  259 

were  pasties  of  all  sorts  of  the  most  ingenious  designs 
and  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  also  gold  and  silver  ; 
some  of  them  represented  birds,  swans  and  cranes 
standing  upright  and  stretching  their  necks  forward, 
and  many-coloured  peacocks  contemplating  themselves 
in  their  own  glasses.  As  for  the  fish,  some  were  served 
up  in  their  natural  shapes,  others  gilded  or  silver-plated, 
coloured  with  all  sorts  of  hues  and  enclosed  in  pastry. 
Amongst  the  show  dishes,  which  were  merely  intended  to 
be  looked  at,  there  figured  on  the  table  set  apart  for  the 
king  a  Hercules  of  enormous  size,  with  two  men  under 
his  feet  whom  he  was  cruelly  murdering  with  the  jaw- 
bone of  an  ass.  '  What  savageness  in  the  countenance,' 
writes  an  onlooker ;  '  what  cruelty  in  the  gestures ! 
how  artistic,  how  true  to  hfe  it  all  is  !  '  The  table  of 
Duke  Frederick  was  adorned  by  a  Minerva  standing  on 
crossed  arches  which  rested  on  four  pillars.  On  another 
table  were  five  wild  men  made  out  of  fresh  branches  of 
orange  and  lemon  trees.  ^ 

^  M.  J.  Schmidt,  Neuere  Gesch.  der  Deutschen,  vii.  170-175.  **  Con- 
cerning the  outward  appointment  of  the  princes'  wedding-tables,  K. 
Wuttke  remarks  {Merkbuch  des  Hans  von  Schweinichen,  p.  xiii.):  'In 
striking  contrast  to  this  superfluity  of  luxury  and  over-refinement  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  table  was  the  meanness  of  the  utensUs  and  furniture  used 
at  weddings  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  external  fittings  of  a  prince's 
wedding  dinner  table  would  seem  to  us  very  bare  and  homely  in  spite  of 
the  gilded  show  dishes  and  other  conceits.  Their  own  stock  of  silver 
hangings  and  covers  for  the  walls,  chairs,  and  benches  was  strikingly  poor, 
and  so  they  borrowed  these  articles  in  all  directions,  as  also  the  necessary 
tin  vessels,  dishes,  plates,  tankards,  and  even  tablecloths  and  napkins 
from  the  Corporations  of  the  princely  towns.'  Thus  at  the  wedding  of 
Frederick  TV.  of  Liegnitz,  on  January  20,  1587,  the  list  of  table  apparatus 
and  utensils  borrowed  in  the  town  was,  according  to  Schweinichen's  calcu- 
lation (Merkbuch,  p.  65),  '  1000  pewter  dishes,  59  dozen  plates,  52  beakers 
and  decanters,  48  common  beakers,  213  candlesticks,  178  table  napkins, 
218  tablecloths,  30  copper  cans,  48  pails,  36  large  cans,  60  dozen  tin  and 
wooden  spoons,  40  tables,  120  benches.' 

s  2 


260  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Whereas  in  earlier  times  '  the  pomp  and  splendour 
of  princes'  and  lords'  meals  depended  on  the  quantity  of 
dishes  served  up,  now  it  was  not  merely  variety  and 
choiceness  that  was  aimed  at,  but  also  ingenuity  and 
eccentricity/  '  The  culinary  business  developed  into  such 
a  high  and  important  art  that  the  Archduchess  Anna 
Katherine  of  Tyrol  compiled  with  her  own  hands  for  her 
five-year-old  daughter  a  cookery-book,  in  which  in  651 
recipes  she  described  every  dish  that  had  been  prepared 
during  the  year  in  the  kitchen  of  Archduke  Ferdinand  II. 
Amongst  the  multitude  of  directions  for  cooking  meat 
dishes  there  were  no  less  than  32  recipes  for  pigs' 
flesh.'  1 

The  preacher  Erasmus  Griininger  said  in  1605,  that 
*  eating  had  become  such  a  dainty  and  complicated 
business  that  more  learning  was  required  to  make  a 
cook  than  to  make  a  doctor.'  Gregory  Strigenicius 
spoke  to  the  same  effect :  '  Cooking  has  reached  such  a 
height  of  refinement  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  any 
human  being  to  learn  and  remember  all  it  involves, 
still  less  to  put  it  in  practice.  All  sorts  of  big 
books  are  now  written  and  published  on  the  sub- 
ject, giving  directions  for  preparing  every  variety 
of  dainty  morsels  and  dishes.  The  old  method  of 
the  Germans  is  no  longer  worth  anything ;  everything 
must  now  be  cooked  in  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  and 
Hungarian  fashion,  with  a  Polish  sauce,  or  a  Bohemian 
gravy.'  ^ 

The  best  proof  of  this  is  the  cookery-book  of  Marx 
Rumpolt,  the  master  cook  of  the  Elector  of  Mayence, 
published  by  Sigmund  Feyerabend  at  Frankfort-on-the- 

'  Hirn,  ii.  496-497.  -  Griininger,  243. 

^  Strigenicius,  Diluvium,  89, 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  261 

Maine  in  1581.  ^  '  Amongst  the  secular  arts/  he  said 
in  a  solemn  dedicatory  preface  addressed  to  the  Electress 
Anna  of  Saxony,  '  the  culinary  art  was  undoubtedly 
not  the  least ;  princes  ought  to  attach  more  importance 
to  their  cooks  than  to  all  their  other  servants  and 
officers,  let  them  be  ever  so  high  and  confidential ;  next 
to  the  chef-de-cuisine  the  cup-bearer  held  almost  the 
highest  and  noblest  office  at  the  court  of  a  prince  or  a 
lord/  Rumpolt,  '  a  Hungarian  by  birth,'  had  for  many 
years,  '  with  great  toil  and  labour,'  pursued  the  art  of 
cooking,  had  been  at  the  courts  of  many  lords,  and,  as 
he  reiterated  again  and  again  in  his  book  with  great 
emphasis,  '  had  not  presumed  to  describe  a  single  dish 
which  during  his  long  and  arduous  service  he  had  not 
made  with  his  own  hands/  ^  '  The  skill '  revealed  in 
this  book  '  by  which  foods  of  all  sorts  are  prepared  in 
German,  Hungarian,  Spanish,  Itahan,  and  French  ways 
is  certainly  great  and  rare,'  and  yet  Rumpolt  by  no 
means  considers  himself  the  greatest  culinary  artist ; 
he  modestly  exhorts  his  readers  '  not  to  seek  in  his 
book  so  much  for  the  grandeur  of  the  art,  as  for  his 
true  and  sincere  desire  to  be  of  service  to  others  :  he 
only  aimed  at  writing,  as  it  were,  an  introduction  to  the 
subject,  and  spurring  others  on  to  further  expertness 
and  perfection/  ^  For  instance,  after  describing  in 
detail  how  from  a  Kastraun  or  wether  forty -five  different 


'  Without  the  consent  of  the  author,  Feyerabend  published  a  new- 
edition  of  this  book  in  1587,  and  thus  got  into  hot  water  with  Rumpolt. 
See  Becker,  Jobst  Amman,  109-110.     Pallmann,  56. 

-  Rumpolt,  Preface  ;  fm-ther,  Bl.  4^-6''  and  clxxxiii.  A  copy  of 
this  extremely  rare  book  is  in  the  large  collection  of  cookery-books  of  Herr 
Theodor  Drexel  at  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  who  kindly  placed  it  at  my 
disposal. 

•'  Preface,  4''  and  p.  Ixiii''. 


262  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

dishes  could  be  made,  he  adds  :  '  You  can  make  still 
more  dishes  than  these  from  a  wether,  for  this  is  only 
a  short  introduction,  Szc'  ^  With  regard  to  oxen  also 
he  '  only  described  just  a  few  dishes  that  could  be  made, 
i.e.  83  different  kinds,  which  could  also  be  made  in  the 
same  way  from  a  cow,  &c.,  &;c.'  From  a  sucking-pig  he 
taught  32  preparations,  from  a  pig  43,  from  a  young 
goat  34,  from  a  stag  37,  from  a  capon  44,  from  a  pheasant 
22,  from  a  fieldfare  17,  from  an  eagle  9.  But  as  in  the 
days  of  the  Roman  Caesars,  so,  too,  the  taste  of  this 
period  called  for  all  sorts  of  dishes  of  nightingales, 
lapwings,  swallows,  cuckoos  and  gold-crested  wrens, 
which  '  were  good  to  eat  roasted  and  made  into  pies.' 
'  Small  birds  of  all  sorts  could  be  cooked  in  17  different 
ways,  but  sparrows  must  not  be  eaten,  for  they  were 
unwholesome.  Wild  and  tame  horses  also  came  under 
the  category  of  the  art.'  Likewise  the  unborn  calf  of 
does — a  lordly  dish  ! — snails  and  frogs.  An  artistic 
Ollapodrida  contains  90  ingredients.  Fishes  and  sweet- 
meats are  prepared  in  endless  variety.  Pastry  takes 
all  possible  forms :  castles,  men,  and  beasts. 

Not  without  reason  was  it  said  of  this  book  that '  as 
it  was  taken  entirely  from  life  one  could  clearly  see  from 
it  to  what  a  condition  of  perfection  and  luxury — a  con- 
dition, indeed,  highly  distasteful  to  many  thoughtful  per- 
sons— the  art  of  cooking  had  been  brought  in  the  very 
midst  of  all  the  excess  of  misery,  wailing  and  poverty 
of  these  last  distressful  times.'  *  It  would  seem  as  if, 
with  all  the  hundreds  of  different  dishes  which  according 
to  this  book  people  had  set  before  them,  they  must 
indeed  burst  with  eating,'  '  and  what  incalculable  ex- 
penses are  involved  in  it  all,  and  what  hundreds  and 

^  Bl.  xxix. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  263 

thousands  must  be  squandered  on  the  innumerable  other 
festivities,  the  fireworks,  ring-running,  carnival  merry- 
makings, theatre-ballets  and  what  not,  which  go  on  at 
the  princes'  courts,  and  which  are  described  as  though 
they  were  wonderworks  and  a  proper  princely  recreation, 
while  all  the  time  the  vassals  are  hungering  and 
starving.'  ^ 

Magnificent  displays  of  fireworks  were  among  the 
favourite  amusements  of  the  princes.  The  Elector  John 
CTCorge  of  Brandenburg,  in  1586,  when  entertaining 
at  Kiistrin  the  Elector  Christian  I.  of  Saxony,  the  Count 
Palatine  John  Casimir  and  a  few  other  princes,  organised 
a  grand  pyrotechnical  display  which  cost  6000  gulden.^ 
Likenesses  of  the  Pope,  the  Sultan,  the  Czar  of  Russia, 
the  Khan  of  the  Tartars  were  introduced  into  these  fire- 
works and  burnt ;  the  expenses  of  the  entertainment 
were  estimated  at  8000  ducats.  ^  At  a  display  of  fireworks 
got  up  by  the  Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse  in  honour 
of  the  christening  of  his  son  Otto  in  1594,  Mount  Hehcon, 
together  with  Pegasus,  went  off  in  fiames,  amid  rockets 
and  pillars  of  fire.  In  1596,  at  the  christening  of  his 
daughter  Ehzabeth,  '  there  was  a  grand  pyrotechnical 
display  in  which  60,000  squibs  and  fire-spitting  rockets 
were  shot  up  with  fearful  and  wonderful  cracking  and 
noise.'  Another  display  in  1600  was  of  equal  extent 
and  grandeur.^  Favourite  representations  in  this  fine 
were  Jason's  theft  of  the  golden  fleece,  the  carrying 
off  of  Proserpine,  the  judgment   of   Paris,   and  other 

'  Von  den  vielen  Anzeichen  so  uns  den  nalie  bevorstehenden  schrecklichen 
jungsten  Tag  verkilndigen.     Flugblatt  of  1593,  pp.  3,  5. 

'-  According  to  the  present  value  of  money,  80,000  marks. 

^  Moehsen,  551. 

■*  Rommel,  ii.  398.  Vulpius,  ii.  550.  A  display  of  fireworks  got  up  by 
Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg  in  1596  cost  1200  gulden.     Sattler,  v.  194. 


264  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

mythological  incidents  ;  coins  and  medals  were  actually 
struck  in  commemoration  of  this  festival.^ 

'  Incomparably  more  wonderful  and  costly  '  were 
the  masquerades,  prize-shootings,  ring-runnings,  pas- 
torals and  tournaments  which  frequently  took  place 
at  the  different  courts,  and  which  often  lasted  weeks 
at  a  time.  The  descriptions  and  illustrations  of  these 
performances  sometimes  filled  whole  folio  volumes. 
They  were  imitations  of  the  pictures  in  the  knights' 
books  of  knightly  battles  with  magicians,  fairies, 
sorcerers,  dragons,  and  history  and  mythology  were 
strangely  jumbled  up  together.- 

The  Saxon  '  Inventions  '  which  were  conducted  by 
Giovanni  Maria  Nosseni  of  Lugano,  who  entered  the 
Elector's  service  in  1574,  were  especially  renowned. 
The  wardrobe  appurtenances  were  kept  at  Dresden  in 
four  large  '  Inventionskammer,'  the  necessary  stage 
apparatus  and  machinery  in  a  special  '  Inventionshaus.' 
An  '  Invention  '  of  the  year  1601  cost  over  3000  thalers, 
another  the  following  year  about  2800  thalers.  One  got 
up  by  Nosseni  in  1598  for  the  Landgrave  Ludwig  V.  of 
Hesse-Darmstadt  cost  nearly  4200  thalers,  besides  a 
present  of  100  crowns  to  the  artist.'^ 

'  Vulpius,  i.  214  and  x.  464  note.  A  picture  illustrating  a  scene 
at  the  wedding  of  Duke  John  Henry  of  Cleves  with  the  unfortunate 
Jacobaa  of  Baden,  shows  an  obstacle  race,  and  moreover  at  the  very 
moment  in  which  the  barriers,  by  means  of  skilfully  managed  fireworks, 
are  made  to  throw  out  flames  and  balls  of  light  in  all  directions.  Hollow 
spears  were  used  which  went  off  like  fusees.  At  a  tournament  in  Diissel- 
dorf  the  earth  burst  open  with  thunder  and  lightning,  causing  wonder 
and  fear  to  the  spectators.  Zeitschr.  filr  deutsche  KuUurgesch.,  Jahrg. 
1859,  p.  327. 

■^  See  the  descriptions  of  festivities  of  this  sort  in  Vulpius,  ii.  543-550  ; 
iv.  239-245  ;  x.  464-469.  See  also  Wendeler,  Fischartstudien  des  Frei- 
herm  v.  Meusebach  (Halle,  1879),  pp.  106-107.     Cf.  Drugulin,  117,  n.  1326. 

3  Furstenau,  82-85. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  265 

On  the  occasion  of  a  '  ring-running  '  performance  at 
Dresden  in  1582  in  honour  of  the  marriage  of  the  Elector 
Christian  I.  three  Saxon  nobles  rode  forth  as  Venus, 
Pallas  and  Juno  ;  Bacchus  rode  on  a  donkey  between 
women  making  music ;  Actaeon,  as  a  stag  on  horseback, 
was  led  by  huntsmen  with  four  nymph-musicians  in  a 
reservoir  ;  a  fool,  a  scholar,  and  a  monk  rode  on  horses 
with  double  heads  ;  a  lady  on  horseback  dragged  three 
knights  after  her  with  chains.  The  Pope  also  was  led 
along  on  horseback ;  further,  an  angel  with  a  dragon, 
an  owl  with  a  flaming  nest  on  its  head,  out  of  which 
flew  three  young  owls.  At  another  '  ring-running  '  two 
years  later  the  god  Saturn  appeared  with  a  scythe  and  a 
child  in  his  hands,  and  carrying  several  other  children 
in  a  basket  on  his  back  ;  a  Saxon  nobleman  sat  as  a  sea- 
nymph  on  an  elephant,  whose  coverings  represented  the 
sea  and  sea-animals  ;  another  nobleman  on  a  winged 
horse  with  a  Mercury's  staff  in  his  hand,  was  preceded 
by  angels,  on  foot  and  on  horse,  carrying  lances  and 
sceptres.  1  When  the  Elector  Christian  II.  of  Saxony 
celebrated  his  nuptials  in  1602  with  the  Danish  Princess 
Hedwig,  '  Four  syrens,'  it  says  in  an  account  of  the  pro- 
ceedings, '  of  the  most  artistic  description  swam  on  the 
Elbe,  accompanied  by  Neptune  on  a  huge  whale  with 
four  horses.  The  "  ring-running  "  represented  drawings 
of  a  Eoman  "  Invention,"  of  a  Tartar  "  Invention  " 
with  winged  serpents  and  monkeys,  an  "Invention"  of 
gipsies,  another  of  young  ladies  in  brown  and  flesh- 
coloured  gowns,  with  mirrors,  swords  and  fiddles,  and 
an  adventurer  in  a  golden  breastplate  with  a  burning 
heart.  Then  came  a  monk  with  a  wheelbarrow  in 
which  was  an  old  woman ;    other  monks  followed  with 

^  See  Andresen,  ii.  4-8. 


266  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

bundles  of  straw  on  their  backs  in  whicb  were  fastened 
women  whose  veils  and  legs  hung  out ;  the  champion 
was  dressed  in  nun's  clothing.  Then  came  a  procession 
of  negroes  and  savages,  a  cart  with  Venus,  and  a 
herd  of  savage  women  decked  with  some  sUght  green 
drapery  on  one  side.  In  the  procession  of  hunters  there 
was  a  dragon  that  spat  fire,  and  a  mountain  on  which 
sat  a  maiden  and  a  bear.  In  the  fencing  match  held  at 
the  castle  nobody  received  money  unless  he  had  made 
his  opponent  bleed  ;  two  of  the  fencers  had  each  an  eye 
almost  put  out,  one  had  an  arm  almost  broken  in  two, 
many  left  the  scene  with  bloody  heads.'  ^ 

In  describing  the  festivities  at  the  baptism  of  the 
Brandenburg  Margrave  Christian  the  registrar  of  Colin 
on  the  Spree  writes  :  '  On  February  27,  1581,  the  lord- 
ships and  their  servants  and  court  retinue  dressed  them- 
selves up  in  all  sorts  of  colours,  fine  silks  and  other 
clothes,  some  hke  mountain  folk,  some  hke  monks,  who 
had  young  nuns  behind  them  on  their  horses,  some  like 
lions,  bears  and  elephants,  some  hke  peasants,  and  some 
also  like  young  ladies,  and  they  tilted  at  the  ring  with 
poles,  and  those  who  did  it  the  best  were  presented 
with  gold  and  silver  drinking-cups  and  honoured  with 
trumpeters  and  drummers  riding  before  them." 

'  On  the  same  day  also  the  son  of  the  Elector  of 
Saxony  exhibited  a  very  beautiful  httle  model  of  a 
house  exquisitely  adorned  with  gold,  silver,  and  silk 
tapestry,  on  which  stood  the  figure  of  a  boy  clothed  in 
coloured  linen  and  representing  Cupid,  the  son  of  Venus, 

'  Vulpius,  ix.  325-329.  **  See  also  the  account  of  the  procession  of 
Duke  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg  on  February  21,  1599,  in  Scheible,  Sclmlt- 
jahr,  iii.  115.  Here,  too.,  naked  ravages  from  America  were  introduced, 
besides  a  Venusberg  from  Arcady,  and  other  out-of-the-way  conceits. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  267 

clinging  to  an  iron  rod.  This  little  house  was  drawn 
along  by  two  swans,  whilst  very  lovely  music  was  played 
in  it,  and  then  several  beautifully  decorated  doves  flew 
out  of  it/  On  March  1,  Prince  Christian  of  Saxony  and 
Count  Burkhardt  von  Barby  appeared  in  a  golden  ship, 
which  moved  on  wheels  and  was  drawn  by  a  long- 
bearded  pigmy  '  who  behaved  very  strangely  and 
grotesquely/  The  next  day  '  at  10  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing a  very  pretty,  well- furnished  and  painted  little  house, 
suspended  on  ropes,  which  had  been  constructed  at  the 
tilt-yards  near  the  clock-tower,  and  filled  with  all  sorts 
of  artillery  and  explosives,  was  very  cleverly  set  on  fire 
by  a  flying  dragon,  and  out  of  it  burst  several  thousand 
squibs,  wonderful  to  see  and  hear,  and  therewith  ended 
the  joyous  christening  in  right  princely  and  glorious 
fashion/  ^ 

At  the  wedding  of  the  Landgrave  Otto  of  Hesse 
in  1613  the  representation  of  Actaeon  and  Diana 
with  her  naked  nymphs  was  followed  by  eight  grotesque 
processions,  then  a  shepherd's  play,  a  company  of 
seamen  and  Constantinople  crusaders  in  red  monks' 
hoods,  accompanied  by  Jesuits  and  nuns,  who  were 
blowing  pipes.  The  festivities  concluded  with  grotesque 
encounters  on  land  and  water  between  dressed-up 
Hessian  knights  and  giants,  dragons  and  tyrants,  fight 
ing  for  enchanted  or  captive  queens  and  their  daughters, 
and  an  enormous  display  of  fireworks,  which  Lighted 
up  the  whole  neighbourhood  of  Cassel.  ~  At  the 
wedding  of  Duke  Louis  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg 
in  1617  a  temple  of  Venus  was  erected  in  the 
great  nuptial  hall ;  Venus  was  represented  standing, 
beautifully    illuminated,    on    an    altar,    and    in    fi'ont 

^  Friedlander,  xiv-xv,  note.  -  Rommel,  ii.  397-398. 


268  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

of  her  sixteen  knights  in  white  raiment,  which  they 
threw  of!  to  an  accompaniment  of  music  in  order 
to  appear  in  the  ballet.^ 

French    ballets    became    the    fashion    at    German 
courts    towards    the    end    of    the    sixteenth    century; 
tasteless  and  inartistic  performances  in  which  dancing 
alternated    with    dialogues,    musical    recitative,    and 
sometimes    also    songs,     duets,    and    choruses.     They 
were  generally  arranged  by  the  great  lords  themselves, 
who  worked  at  the  composition  of  the  text  and  music 
and   arranged   the   programme   of   the   dances.     '  You 
must  be  pleased  to  admire  the  ballets,'  said  a  Dresden 
pubhsher  of  one  of  these  atrocities,   '  since  they  are 
the  invention  of  persons  to  whom  you  cannot,  without 
incurring    much    ill-favour,    always    speak   the    truth. 
It  is  not  from  ignorance  that  the  Egyptians  are  placed 
under  America,  but  those  who  were  graciously  pleased 
to  make  this  arrangement  have  important  reasons  for  it.' 
Dancing-masters  and  master-cooks  were    not  seldom 
amongst  the  '  artists  '  most  in  request.     At  Dresden  the 
*  springer,'  Adrian  Kothbein,  whose  business  it  was  to 
instruct  the  youthful  nobles  in  springing  and  dancing, 
had  a  yearly  salary  of  100  thalers  ;    in  1602  he  once 
received  a  gratuity  of  1000  gulden ;  ~     extraordinarily 
high  sums  when  compared,  for  instance,  with  the  pay 
of  professors  at  gymnasiums  and  universities. ^     Five 
Enghshmen  who  were  engaged  to  play  at  meal-times 
and  '  to  cause  amusement  by  their  skill  in  springing  ' 
had  been  receiving  at  Dresden,  since  1586,  free  board 
at  court,  a  yearly  salary  of  500  thalers,  40  thalers  for 
house  rent,  and  one  suit  of  clothes.* 

'  Rommel,  ii.  190  note.  -  Fiirstenau,  86-93. 

=*  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xiii.  119  ff.,  253.  *  Fiirstenau,  70-71. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  269 

Carnival — the  three  days  preceding  Lent — was 
always  considered  '  an  especially  blessed  season  for 
princely  solemnities/  Tn  1609  the  Lent  festivities 
at  Dresden,  which  were  got  up  in  honour  of  several 
princes  and  princesses  on  a  visit  there,  lasted  full 
eighteen  days  ;  within  six  days  no  less  than  forty- three 
*  ring-running  '  tournaments  were  held,  and  for  three 
successive  days  a  quantity  of  stags,  roes,  bears,  pigs, 
foxes,  wolves,  and  badgers  were  baited  on  the  old 
market-place.  1 

Prize  lights  between  wild  animals  were  also  sometimes 
arranged  at  these  festivities,  for  the  delectation  of  the 
personages  of  high  blood.  At  an  infant  baptism  at 
Dresden  on  September  26, 1614,  a  fight  was  got  up  in  the 
market-place  between  bears,  dogs,  wild  boars,  and  steers  ; 
at  a  sham  chase  and  fight  on  August  7,  1617,  eight 
bears,  one  of  which  weighed  over  7  cwt.,  were  seen 
among  the  wild  animals.  At  a  festival  at  Torgau  animal 
baiting  went  on  for  three  days ;  '  first  three  bears 
fought  with  oxen  and  Enghsh  hounds  in  the  open  field  ; 
then  twenty  wolves  were  baited  in  the  castle  yard,  and 
lastly  five  bears  were  set  to  fight  with  oxen  and  dogs.'  ^ 

'  Such  princely  diversions  as  these,'  some  writer 
complains  in  a  pamphlet,  '  brought  heavy  expenses 
to  many  lands  on  account  of  the  great  cost  of  feeding 
such  numbers  of  wild  animals.'  '  Other  princes,'  the 
same  pamphlet  goes  on,  '  take  more  delight  in  mon- 
keys, which  they  buy  for  a  large  sum,  and  treat  as 
though  they  were  reasonable  creatures.'  ^     The  Elector 

'  The  painter,  Daniel  Bretschneider,  had  to  represent  all  the  '  Inven- 
tions '  and  processions  on  66  folio  pages.  Sachsengriin,  i.  184  ff.,  232  ff., 
247  ff. 

2  Miiller,  Forschungen,  i.  144 ;  Annales,  312.     Grulich,  129-130. 

^  Von  dem  vielen  Anzeichen,  (fee.     See  above,  p.  263,  n.  1. 


270  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Frederick  IV.  of  the  Palatinate  once  paid  15  Konigs- 
thaler  for  a  monkey  J  Landgrave  George  I.  of  Hesse  had 
a  monkey  which  on  May.  20,  1595,  gave  birth  to  a  young 
one.  The  httle  creature  was  entrusted  to  the  wife  of 
a  cook  to  be  nursed  and  suckled,  and  the  Landgrave, 
who  at  the  time  was  at  Scliwalbach  for  a  mineral  water 
cure,  was  kept  daily  informed  as  to  its  health ;  a 
hkeness  of  it,  executed  by  the  painter  Peter,  was  sent 
to  him,  and  '  he  instructed  the  cook's  wife,'  so  Joachim 
von  Waldsburg,  tutor  to  the  young  princes,  reported, 
'  whenever  she  had  suckled  it  to  wrap  it  in  a  hnen 
cloth  and  warm  shawl,  in  whicji  it  lay  wonderfully  still 
at  night.' 


'  0, 


2.  Princely  Finery  in  Clothes  and  Jewels — Games 
OF  Fortune  and  Gold-making 

*  In  counting  up  the  incessant  carousals  and  drinking- 
bouts  and  the  equally  incessant  festivities,  and  all  else 
that  was  done  for  the  sake  of  amusement,  we  have  not  by 
a  long  way,'  so  runs  a  complaint,  '  got  to  the  end  of  the 
expenses  in  which  princes  and  lords  involved  the  people. 
To  these  must  pre-eminently  be  added  the  extravagant 
adornment  of  their  persons  wdth  clothes  of  costly 
materials,  with  gold,  silver  and  pearls  for  themselves 
and  their  belongings.  This  sort  of  thing  is  going  to 
such  inordinate  lengths  that  it  must  before  long  come 
to  a  stop.  Everybody  must  needs  strut  about  blazing 
in  silver  and  gold  ;  fresh  jewels  are  everlastingly  pro- 
cured, each  lot  always  finer  and  costlier  than  the  last. 
When  weddings  take  place    huge  wagons   are   needed 

1  WUle,  255. 

^  Archiv  fur  hessische  Geschickie  und  Altertumshunde,  xiii.  531-533. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  271 

for  conveying  all  the  grand  clothes  and  finery,  and 
one  person  outvies  another,  and  ancient  simplicity 
and  domesticity  are  not  to  be  met  with  any  more/  ^ 
The  court  dress  of  a  princess  was  as  follows  :  on  her 
head  she  wore  a  crown  of  pearls,  or  a  crown  with  gold  and 
pearls  wound  round  it,  or  a  coif  of  gold  and  silk  stuff 
with  pearl  stars  and  gold  loops.  Round  her  throat  was  a 
necklace  of  emeralds,  sapphires,  rubies,  and  pearls,  with 
a  pendant  of  precious  stones.  On  her  shoulders  she 
wore  a  collar  either  of  gold  or  velvet,  edged  with  gold 
or  silver  lace,  or  with  ermine  or  marten  ;  sometimes 
the  collar  was  made  of  white  damask  inwrought  with 
gold  and  trimmed  with  marten.  This  collar  was  fastened 
across  the  breast  with  a  gold  brooch  which  was  always 
set  with  emeralds,  sapphires,  rubies,  and  amethysts, 
and  had  an  emblem  of  some  sort  surrounded  with 
precious  stones.  The  gold  necklaces  were  in  part 
decorated  with  so-called  mill-stones  and  crank  wheels, 
gold  pot-hooks,  gold  pears  or  other  fruits.  The 
sleeves  were  artistically  embroidered  with  pearls  which 
represented  figures  of  all  sorts,  such  as  a  bird-catcher, 
in  four  sapphires  and  five  rubies,  an  emerald  lily,  three 
ruby  roses  and  a  diamond  triangle.  Quantities  of  costly 
rings  of  emeralds,  turquoises,  diamonds  and  rubies 
formed  part  of  this  splendour,  and  the  girdle  had  pearl 
cords  and  gold  fastenings.^  The  weight  of  the  clothes 
and  ornaments  worn  by  princesses  of  that  period  on 
festive  occasions  may  be  put  down  at  about  20  Ibs.^ 

'   Von  dem  vielen  Anzeichen,  &c.     See  above,  p.  263,  n.  1. 

-  From  the  description  in  Voigt,  Hofleben,  i.  130-132. 

^  See  the  Zeitschr.  des  Vereins  fur  Gesch.  und  Altertumskunde  Schlesiens, 
xiv.  Heft  ii.  417  :  The  upper  garment  of  the  Duchess  Barbara  von  Liegnitz- 
Brieg  weighed  3  lbs.,  the  pearl  cloak  10  lbs.,  the  great  gold  chain  2  lbs., 
and  so  forth. 


272  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

The  Electress  Anna  of  Saxony  wore  veils  on  which 
were  as  many  as  600  gold  beads  and  as  many  as  600 
pearls.^  The  young  Princess  Anna  Eleonore  of  Hesse- 
Darmstadt,  who  was  barely  fifteen  years  old,  possessed 
amongst  others,  in  1616,  ten  costly  dresses,  one  of  which 
was  worth  3100  florins  ;  and  a  skirt  of  cloth  of  gold, 
embroidered  with  pearls  and  gold,  which  had  on  it  pearls 
to  the  value  of  500  florins.-  Amongst  the  possessions  of 
the  Archduchess  Katharine  of  Austria  in  1549,  there  were 
'  7  necklets  adorned  with  diamonds,  rubies,  and  pearls, 
19  chains  and  bracelets,  7  golden  girdles,  12  bonnets, 
27  golden  coifs,  and  many  other  costly  articles/  ^ 

Like  the  princesses,  the  princes  also  on  festive 
occasions  hung  themselves  all  over  with  gold  chains, 
golden  eagles,  bracelets,  medals,  and  suchlike,  all  set 
with  precious  stones,  diamonds,  rubies,  and  sapphires. 
Duke  Albert  of  Prussia  once  had  a  neckband,  made  by 
the  jeweller  Arnold  Wenck  at  Nuremberg,  in  which  were 
8  large  and  small  sapphires,  11  ruby  roses,  38  ruby 
grains  large  and  small,  1  large  diamond,  29  of  various 
sizes  and  shapes,  and  6  emeralds.  For  another  diamond 
collar,  the  stones  of  which  were  ordered  from  Venice,  the 
Duke  paid  the  jeweller  2000  gulden.  A  medal  ordered 
by  him  cost  682  gulden  exclusive  of  the  price  of  the  work. 
From  George  Schulthess  of  Nuremberg  he  bought  a 
collection  of  all  sorts  of  jewels  to  the  value  of  4796 
gulden.*  The  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  commis- 
sioned the  Augsburg  merchant  Conrad  Roth  to  bring  him 
from  Lisbon '  a  string  of  large  pearls  to  the  value  of  about 

^  V.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  175. 

-  Archiv  fiir  hessische  Gesch.  und  Alter tumskunde.  x.  430-432. 
•'  Chmel,  Die  Handschriften  der  Hofbibl.  zu  Wien  (MSS.  of  court  library 
at  Vienna),  i.  245-259. 

^  Voigt,  Fiirstenleben,  241-245. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  273 

6000  ducats,  an  oriental  loadstone  of  the  best  kind, 
an  oriental  sapphire  to  be  hung  at  the  neck,  300  fine  cut 
cameos  to  hang  on  the  arm,  in  short  everything  rare 
that  came  from  India/ 1  A  coat  of  violet  velvet 
embroidered  all  over  with  spun  gold,  and  adorned  with 
41  rubies  and  diamonds,  was  charged  5000  thalers 
to  the  Elector.^  In  the  possession  of  the  Elector 
Christian  I.  of  Saxony  there  were  '  15  chains,  7  jewels, 
75  rings,  13  bracelets,  23  rare  articles  of  personal 
adornment,  amongst  them  a  chain  which  went  four 
times  round  the  neck,  and  to  which  the  portraits  of  the 
Elector's  ancestors  set  on  both  sides  with  51  rubies  and 
4  large  diamonds  were  hung  by  a  massive  pearl/  ^ 

What  immense  sums  were  spent  at  the  princely  court 
at  Wolfenbiittel  on  costly  furs,  amongst  which  sable 
ranked  first,  and  on  precious  stones,  is  seen  from  con- 
tracts made  in  1574  by  Duke  Julius  of  Brunswick  with 
Hans  Rautenkranz,  burgher  of  Brunswick.  On  January 
26  of  this  year  Rautenkranz  had  charged  5600  thalers  for 
sable ;  four  weeks  later  there  is  an  account  for '  6  skins  of 
sable  and  42  separate  pieces  of  very  fine  sable  at  5000 
thalers ;  a  very  large  emerald,  9000  thalers ;  a  diamond, 
3600  thalers ;  a  white  sapphire,  600  thalers ;  a  four- 
cornered  amaranth  of  emerald  set  in  a  ring,  200  thalers ; 
a  turquoise  set  with  gold,  350  thalers  :  total,  24,350 
thalers. '  ^  Sums  of  this  amount  were  spent  in  a  single  year. 

The  Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse,  as  is  reported, 
spent  sometimes  in  one  year  as  much  as  two  tons  of 
gold,  about  200,000  gulden,  in  purchases  at  the 
Frankfort    Fair."^     At    the    Wiirtemberg    Court   there 

'  Archiv  fur  sdchsische  Gesch.,  v.  334. 
^  V.  Weber,  Kurfurstin  Anna,  179. 
'*  Richard,  Licht  und  Schatten,  60. 

'  Zeitschr.  des  Harzvereins,  iii.  310.  ^  Rommel,  ii.  683. 

VOL.  XV.  T 


274  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

was  '  untold  wealth  of  costly  vessels  and  supercostly 
articles  of  adornment.'     On  the  occasion  of  an  archery 
contest  at  Stuttgart  in  1560,  the  target-master  Lienhart 
Flexel   saw   the   ducal    sideboard    covered  with   large 
golden  beakers  and  silver  flasks.     '  There  were  such  a 
quantity  of  silver  beakers/  he  says,  '  that  I  could  not 
count  them.'     He  also  saw  '  innumerable  silver  plates 
and  dishes,  with  many  thousands  of  gulden,  for  it  is  the 
fashion  to  eat  off  pure  silver.'^     'Duke  Frederick  of 
Wiirtemberg  appeared  at  a  festival  in  1605  sparkling 
with   more   than   600   diamonds.'  ~     The  most   costly 
collection  of  treasures  was  that  of  Duke  Albert  V.  of 
Bavaria.     For  a  '  Ballas  '  and  a  diamond  he  once  paid 
24,000  gulden,  for  a  jewel  10,500  gulden,  for  a  jewel 
with  pearls  12,000  crowns,  for  goldsmith's  work  which, 
he   had   executed   in   Munich   and   Augsburg   200,000 
gulden. 3    The  Mayence  Archbishop  Albrecht  of  Branden- 
burg  commissioned   an  Augsburg  goldsmith   in    1530 
with  the  execution  of  a  gold  cross  for  which  different 
jewels  to  the  value  of  at  least  40,000  gulden  were  used.^ 
To  what  an  extent  princely  pomp  in  clothes  and 
costly  ornaments  had  increased  in  the  course  of  the 
sixteenth  century  is  notably  seen  by  comparison  with 
the    wedding   outfits    of    princesses   of   earher    times. 
When  Anna,  daughter  of  the  Roman  King  Albert  II., 
was   married    on    June    20,    1446,    to    the    Margrave 
WilUam  III.  of  Meissen,  she  had  an  outfit  which  was 
imitated  in  the  following  year  by  King  Frederick  IV. 
on    the   marriage    of    his    sister    Katharina   with    the 
Margrave   Charles   of   Baden.     Anna's  trousseau  con- 

1  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  Kulturgesch.,  Jahrg.  1856,  p.  198. 

-  Pfaff,  Gesch.  von  Wirtemberg,  iv\  41-42. 

^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  197  ff. 

••  Archiv  fur  Unterfrank&n,  xxvii.  206. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  275 

sisted  of '  4  woollen  cloaks  for  herself  and  2  for  each  of 
her  ladies-in-waiting,  sleeves  and  jacket  of  damask  for 
a  gown  and  for  another  gown  sleeves  and  jacket  of 
"  Zemol/'  a  costly  silk  material.  Further,  3  gold  em- 
broidered cloaks  of  velvet  and  damask,  two  trimmed 
with  ermine  and  the  other  with  sable,  2  velvet  dresses 
and  one  of  damask,  trimmed  with  pretty  fur  ;  and  a  few 
"  Joppen  "  and  damask  jackets  besides/  Her  stock  of 
jewels  was  '  2  necklaces,  12  clasps,  32  rings,  finer  and 
commoner,  4  marks'  worth  of  pearls,  3  girdles,  12  great 
dishes,  4  small  ones,  1  adder's  tongue,  1  petrified 
fish  tooth  made  into  ornaments,  12  "  Khopph  "  (a  kind 
of  beaker),  8  white  beakers,  2  candlesticks,  12  spoons, 
2  stands  for  knives  and  spoons,  1  ewer,  2  pairs  of 
table-knives ;  a  gilded  carriage  with  six  horses  conveyed 
the  bride  to  the  bridegroom.'  ^ 

Very  different  from  this  outfit  of  a  king's  daughter 
in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  the  outfits 
given  to  the  daughters  of  princes  after  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  When,  in  1560,  Hedwig,  daughter 
of  the  Elector  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg,  was  married 
to  Duke  Juhus  of  Brunswick,  she  brought  with  her 
six  costly  necklaces,  amongst  which  were  :  '  1  necklace 
with  a  pendant :  in  the  necklace  7  diamonds,  13  rubies, 
and  14  pearls  ;  in  the  pendant  12  diamonds,  3  rubies, 
1  emerald,  and  7  pearls ;  1  necklace  with  pendant :  in 
the  necklace  3  diamonds,  4  rubies,  and  16  pearls ;  in 
the  pendant  1  ruby,  1  emerald,  6  small  diamonds,  and 
1  large  pearl ;  5  bracelets,  two  of  which  contained  each 
of  them  7  rubies  and  30  pearls  ;  10  ornaments,  amongst 
which  one  with  an  emerald,  2  diamonds,  1  ruby,  and 
1   large  pearl ;    another  ornament  with  3  diamonds, 

'  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  Kulturgesch.,  Jahrg,  1873,  pp.  451-453. 

T  2 


276  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

1  ruby.  1  emerald,  and  1  pearl ;  a  diamond  cross 
with  10  diamonds  and  3  hanging  pearls ;  20  rings, 
one  with  12  diamonds,  another  with  5  diamonds 
and  6  rubies  ;  9  gold  chains,  amongst  which  was  a 
chain  "  of  muzzle  shape  "  which  weighed  362  crowns, 
a  mailed  chain  which  weighed  326  crowns,  another 
chain  which  weighed  329  Rhenish  gold  guldens.  In 
her  stock  of  silver  there  were,  amongst  other  articles, 
1  silver  jug  and  beaker,  12  silver  dishes,  12  goblets, 
12  plates,  12  spoons.  Her  wardrobe  consisted  of : 
8  dresses  with  full  skirts  of  gold  brocade,  silk  damask, 
satin  and  velvet,  one  of  which  was  of  bright  golden 
yellow  embroidered  with  480  fine  pearls,  besides  which 
there  were  200  fine  pearls  for  ornaments ;  24  dresses 
with  narrow  skirts  of  gold  brocade,  silk  damask,  satin 
and  velvet,  amongst  one  with  embossed  gold  and 
silver  flowers,  and  a  stomacher  embroidered  with 
pearls  ;  10  petticoats,  one  of  which  was  red,  embroidered 
with  gold  and  edged  with  ermine ;  another  of  black 
velvet  with  a  red  gold  border  and  edged  with  ermine ; 
4  hned  dresses  of  gold  brocade,  satin,  velvet,  and 
silk  damask  ;  5  mantles  of  velvet,  satin,  and  silk  damask, 
one  of  which  was  of  black  velvet  with  a  quilted  border 
and  lined  with  marten  ;  a  red  silk  mantle  lined  with 
ermine ;  42  coifs,  mostly  of  silk,  silver,  and  gold ;  15 
girdles,  two  with  pearls,  the  others  mostly  of  silver  and 
gold ;  a  petticoat  of  red  silk  and  gold  lace  ;  22  niglit- 
gowns,  nearly  all  trimmed  with  silver,  gold,  and  silk 
lace.  She  also  brought  with  her  two  golden  carriages 
with  ten  horses.'  ^    In  the  case  of  the  outfit  of  Princess 

^  Bodemann,  Herzog  Julius,  209-214.  Cf.  the  '  Hochzeitsinventarium  ' 
of  the  Princess  EUzabeth  of  Saxony  of  the  year  1570  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur 
deutsche  Kulturgesch.,  Jahrg.  1870,  pp.  391-397.  Similar  details  about 
bridal  outfits  are  given  by  Havemann,  Elisabeth  von  Braunschweig,  107  ff. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  277 

Anna  of  Prussia,  who  was  married  in  1594  to  the  Elector 
John  Sigismund  of  Brandenburg,  the  cost  of  the  jewels 
alone  amounted  to  14,138  marks  silver ;  a  necklace 
with  32  diamonds,  pearls,  and  golden  roses  cost  1487 
gulden ;  another  cost  3000 ;  a  third  with  18  roses, 
amongst  which  were  5  ruby  and  4  diamond  roses, 
which  came  from  Nuremberg,  cost  3750  marks ;  a 
fourth  gold  necklace  cost  3115  marks.  The  number  of 
rings,  most  of  them  set  with  diamonds  and  rubies, 
was  144 ;  1745  marks  were  spent  on  pearls,  and  265 
marks  for  a  gold  chain.  The  quantity  of  material  used 
for  the  bride's  trousseau  was  '  16  pieces  of  velvet,  black, 
crimson,  and  orange-colour,  3  pieces  of  flowered  velvet, 
velvet  on  a  satin  ground,  6  pieces  of  satin  of  different 
colours,  80  ells  of  "  gladgolden  "  pieces,  silver,  white, 
yellow,  violet,  brown  and  green,  150  ells  of  striped 
gold  and  silver  Taletha,  1500  ells  of  silver  "Posament," 
1150  ells  of  silver  and  gold  "  Steilwork,"  all  sorts  of 
gold  and  silver  lace,  and  so  forth.'  ^ 

The  wealth  of  jewels,  clothes,  and  other  luxuries 
in  the  princesses"  outfits  were  equalled  by  the  wedding 
gifts.  At  the  marriage  of  a  prince  of  Jiilich  in  1585 
the  presents  covered  nine  tables ;  they  formed  a 
splendid  and  costly  collection  of  jewels,  necklaces, 
chains,  bracelets,  medals,  earrings,  besides  all  sorts 
of  drinking  vessels  in  the  shape  of  animals,  fish,  birds, 
and  also  ships  and  fountains.-  The  following  is  a 
list  of  the  wedding  presents  of  a  princess  of  Wiirtemberg 

'  Voigt,  Furstenkben,  235  ;  Hofleben,  i.  100.  **  In  Pomerania  the 
land  had  to  bear  the  cost  of  the  outfits  of  princes'  daughters.  At  every 
marriage  of  the  daughter  or  sister  of  a  prince  a  so-called  '  spinster-tax  ' 
was  levied.  See  Spahn,  Verfassungs-  und  Wirtscliafts-gesch.  des  Herzog- 
turns  Pommern,  xi.  115  £f. 

-  Zeitschr.  f-iir  deutsche  Kulturgesch.,  Jahrg.  1859,  p.  321, 


278  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

in  1610  :  'A  necklace  with  43  large  pearls,  worth  3225 
gold  gulden ;  a  pearl  chain  of  2280  beads,  worth 
4564  gulden ;  an  ornament  with  diamonds  at  2000 
gulden;  a  farure  of  diamonds  and  a  gold  chain  at 
1700  gulden ;  a  diamond  necklace,  1500  gulden ; 
another,  1400  gulden ;  a  third,  1600  gulden ;  a 
pearl  chain,  4000  gulden ;  a  farure  with  sapphires, 
4000  gulden ;  another  with  diamond  feathers,  about 
1000  gulden ;  a  necklace  with  diamonds  and  rubies, 
650  gulden ;  a  pearl  chain,  300  gulden ;  a  pair  of 
bracelets,  200  gulden  ;  '  the  territory  of  Wiirtemberg 
presented  her  with  a  gold  chain  of  five  rows,  worth 
200  gulden.i 

Amongst  the  principal  mercantile  houses  which 
supphed  the  princes  with  all  these  costly  articles  (chiefly 
from  Italy)  were  those  of  the  Florentines  Lorenz.  de 
Villani  at  Leipzig,  and  Laux  Endres  Jorisani  and 
Thomas  Lapi  at  Nuremberg.  But  the  great  German 
trading  houses  also  had  their  own  manufactories  for 
the  production  of  the  most  splendid  and  costly  gold 
and  silver  wares.  From  accounts  and  calculations  in 
our  possession  we  can  give  the  following  statistics  of 
the  high  value  of  these  goods.  Thomas  Lapi  in  1535 
estimated  a  piece  of  red-gold  satin  of  29  ells  at  313 
gold  gulden ;  a  piece  of  satin  of  drawn  gold,  12  ells 
long,  at  108  gold  gulden ;  and  a  piece  of  silver  satin  of 
drawn  silver,  12  ells  in  length,  at  108  gold  gulden. 
This  same  merchant,  in  1536,  sent  Duke  Albert  of 
Prussia  two  pieces  of  fine  gold  and  silver  cloth,  of 
which  the  gold  piece,  38  Nuremberg  ells  long,  cost 
380  gulden,  and  the  silver  piece  of  40  Nuremberg  ells, 
360  gulden.     Two  pieces  of  damask  of  red  and  ashen 

'  Moser,  Kleine  Schriften,  ix.  330.     Vulpius,  iv.  245-247. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  279 

grey  colour  at  170  gulden  were  not  thought  good  enough 
by  the  Duke  for  his  and  his  wife's  wear.^  The  May- 
ence  Archbishop  Albert  of  Brandenburg  once  ordered, 
through  the  Welsers  of  Augsburg,  two  cases  of  woollen 
and  silk  clothes  from  Venice,  for  which  he  remained  in 
debt  to  the  amount  of  1500  ducats  and  190  Venetian 
gold  gulden.^ 

Amongst  the  '  many  ways  by  which  the  princes' 
exchequers  were  plundered,'  Melchior  von  Ossa,  in  a 
'  political  testament '  sent  in  to  the  Elector  Augustus 
of  Saxony  in  1556,  mentioned,  in  addition  to  their  craze 
for  building,  '  their  inordinate  gambling.'  "^  '  What 
frightful  sums  are  squandered  and  lost,  often  in  a  few 
days  or  months,  by  this  high  playing,  which  is  almost 
the  daily  diversion  of  princes  and  lords,'  so  runs  a 
pamphlet, '  is  shown  from  the  experience  of  the  treasury 
accountants  who  have  to  supply  the  princes  with  money 
and  scarcely  know  how  to  produce  any  out  of  the 
exhausted  coffers.'  '^  Elector  John  Frederick  of  Saxony 
sometimes  gambled  away  in  one  day  500,  700,  1000 
gulden  ;  in  the  years  1538-1543  he  lost  19,282  gulden, 
in  1544,  within  twelve  weeks,  12,344  gulden.  John 
Frederick  the  Younger  of  Saxony,  in  1555,  when  he  was 
only  seventeen  years  old,  lost  300  florins,  and  four  years 
later,  864  florins.  Elector  Joachim  11.  of  Brandenburg 
gambled  away  in  a  short  space  of  time  40,000  gulden.^ 
In  an  account  of  the  expenses  of  the  Elector  John 
Sigismund's  Prussian  journey  from  July  11,  1608,  to 
August  23,  1609,  the  treasury  secretary,  John  Grabow, 

1  Voigt,  Filrstenleben,  237-240. 

^  Archiv  fiir  Unterfranken,  xxvii.  201-202  note. 

'■^  See  Glaser,  684. 

^   Von  den  vielen  Anzeichen,  dbc.     See  above,  p.  263,  n.  1. 

'"  Eaus,  Ernestinische  Finanzen,  9 ;  cf .  84. 


280  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

says,  concerning  '  card  money  '  for  his  lord  on  different 
days,  '  the  largest  sums  amomited  in  January  1609  to 
55,  77,  and  88  Reichsthaler ;  in  February  to  109, 135, 286 ; 
on  March  2  and  5,  to  333  Keichsthaler,  and  so  forth/ ^ 
On  May  10,  1613,  the  Elector,  '  while  playing  cards 
with  Maurice  of  Hesse  and  Joachim  von  der  Schulenberg, 
sent  for  233  thalers  8  groschen  and  paid  the  Landgrave 
600  thalers,  which  he  had  lost  to  him  at  former  games/  " 
The  Elector  Frederick  IV.  of  the  Palatinate  lost,  accord- 
ing to  his  accoimt-book,  from  August  9-24,  1599,  the 
sum  of  290  gold  gulden  ;  on  September  10,  50  gold 
gulden  and  99  gulden  ;  between  September  16  and  18, 
128  gold  gulden,  and  so  forth. ^ 

'  If  the  exchequers  and  purses  of  the  princes  and 
lords  have  been  emptied  by  extravagant  court  retinues, 
banqueting,  fireworks,  tourneying,  ring-running,  by 
magnificent  processions  and  masquerades,  luxurious 
clothes  and  ornaments,  jewels  of  gold  and  silver,  pearls 
and  diamonds,  and  last,  not  least,  by  building  and 
gambling,  the  gold-makers  (alchemists),'  so  said  the 
preacher  Leonhard  Breitkopf  in  1591,  '  ought  to  come 
and  fill  their  treasuries  again,  and  make  the  princes 
into  Croesuses  once  more  :  but  these  said  gold-makers 
are  the  biggest  and  most  shameless  scoundrels,  char- 
latans and  vagabonds,  they  defraud  princes,  lords  and 
people  alike  with  inordinate  prices  and  bring  them  to 
shame  and  derision.'  ^  The  preacher  John  Sommer  of 
Zwickau,  in  his  '  Geldtklage,'  reckoned  the  gold-makers 
who  '  insinuated  themselves  among  princes  and  lords, 
nobles  and  commoners,  as  one  of  the  causes  why  Germany 

'  IldrJcische  Forschungen,  xix.  355  flf. 

2  Ibid.  XX.  26,  note  1.  »  -YVjUe^  265  £f. 

''  Karfreikigspredigt,  Bl.  B- ;  see  our  remarks,  vol.  xii.  p.  293  f. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  281 

grew  poorer  every  year.'     '  Would  God,'  he  exclaims, 
that   the   eyes    of    the   Germans   might    be   opened, 
so  that  they  might  take  better  heed  to  these  money 
stealers.'  ^ 

These  alchemists  who  pretended  to  make  gold  and 
silver  out  of  baser  metals  formed  part  of  the  court 
retinue  of  most  of  the  princes.  Amongst  many  others 
the  Electors  of  Saxony,  of  Brandenburg,  and  of  the 
Palatinate,  the  Dukes  of  Brunswick,  the  Landgraves  of 
Hesse  had  at  their  courts  '  highly  renowned  laboratories  * 
for  the  production  of  gold  and  silver ;  many  of  the 
princes  also  themselves  diligently  studied  this  '  sacred 
art.'  '  My  councillors,'  wrote  Landgrave  William  IV. 
of  Hesse,  in  December  L571,  to  Duke  Julius  of  Brmis- 
wick,  '  are  not  well  pleased  with  me  for  devoting  myself 
to  these  arts  ;  they  would  rather,  as  indeed  it  would  be 
better,  that  I  should  remain  in  the  chancellery,  and 
watch  over  my  own  and  my  subjects'  affairs  ;  but 
who  could  sit  there  all  day  to  be  worried  to  death  ?  '  - 

In  Dresden  the  alchemists  were  in  special  request. 
The  court  laboratory  there  was  called  by  the  people 
the  '  gold-house.'  ^  The  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony, 
in  1578,  in  a  letter  to  an  Italian  alchemist,  declared  that 
he  was  already  so  far  advanced  in  the  art  that  out  of 
eight  ounces  of  silver  he  could  in  six  days  produce 
three  ounces  of  purest  gold.^'  The  '  iire-workers ' 
were  also  honoured  officials  at  the  court  of  Augustus 
and  were  richly  remunerated  by  him,  but  if  they  became 
too    mysterious    they  had    to    be   put    to    torture  to 

'  Olorinus  Variscus,  GeldtUage  (Magdeburg,  1614),  pp.  268-286. 
-  Havemann,  Gesch.  der  Lands  Braunschweig  und  Liineburg,  ii.  394. 
Kopp,  Alchemie,  i.  222  note. 
=*  Kopp,  i.  127. 
^  Vulpius,  ix.  547-548  ;  cf.  iii.  25.     v.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  273. 


282  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

get  at  their  secrets.  In  order  to  extract  from  the 
'  artist '  Velten  Merbitz  tlie  secret  of  making  silver 
out  of  mercury  the  Elector  in  1562  caused  him  to  be  put 
twice  on  the  rack  ;  the  second  time  the  man  was  kept 
two  full  hours  in  torture,  till  at  last  the  executioner 
said  he  must  stop  if  Merbitz  was  not  to  die  under  his 
hands.  Another  '  fire-artist/  Daniel  Bachmann,  who 
had  promised  to  find  the  philosopher's  stone,  to  handle 
and  to  coagulate  it,  and  to  make  1  cwt.  of  gold  within 
four  months,  went  mad  in  the  course  of  his  work.  He 
was  consequently  bound  with  a  chain  which  was  fastened 
to  the  wall  in  such  a  manner  as  to  allow  of  his  reaching 
the  oven  in  which  his  mixture  was  being  cooked.  The 
Elector  said  he  had  quite  sufficient  cause  for  punishing 
Bachmann  in  body  and  life,  but  as  the  man  was  not 
master  of  his  reason  he  should  be  content  with  banish- 
ing him  from  the  land  ;  but  if  ever  he  showed  himself 
again,  he  should  without  mercy  have  him  put  into  a 
bag  and  thrown  in  the  water.  ^  With  a  third  alchemist, 
David  Beuther,  who  was  at  his  court  from  1575-1582, 
the  Elector  had  also  unfortunate  dealings.  He  was  so 
favourably  disposed  towards  this  man  that  he  stood 
sponsor  to  one  of  his  children,  and  then  insisted  that  the 
wife  of  the  alchemist  should  no  longer  address  him  as '  Your 
princely  Grace,'  but  simply  call  him  '  Herr  Gevatter ' 
(godfather).  However,  Beuther  gave  himself  up  to  a 
dissolute  life,  and  in  spite  of  the  promise  he  had  made 
would  not  reveal  the  secret  of  his  art.  Accordingly  the 
Elector  issued  against  him  a  judicial  sentence  to  the 
effect  that '  owing  to  his  perjury  he  was  to  be  scourged, 
the  fingers  of  both  his  hands  were  to  be  cut  off,  and  he 
was  to  be  imprisoned  for  hfe,  so  that  he  should  not  be 

'  V.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  275-276. 


PRINCES  AND   COURT  LIFE  283 

able  to  take  his  art  to  other  courts/  ^  The  Electress 
Anna  helped  on  the  chemical  labours  of  her  husband. 
At  the  Castle  Annaburg  she  built  an  expensive  laboratory 
with  four  chemical  ovens,  which  were  constructed  in  the 
shapes  of  a  horse,  a  lion,  a  monkey,  and  an  osprey,  all 
Ufe  size.  The  osprey  sparkled  with  golden  wings  and 
inside  it  was  a  so-called  chapel.  The  building  with 
its  high  chimneys  looked  Hke  a  many-towered  church.^ 
After  the  death  of  her  husband  '  she  had  all  her  house- 
hold vessels,' so  says  a  report,  'made  of  gold  and  walled 
up  for  future  transportation  ;  but  not  content  with  this 
she  wanted  to  learn  the  secret  herself."  So  she  threat- 
ened the  imprisoned  Beuther  with  death,  unless  he 
revealed  his  secret,  and  the  alchemist  poisoned  himself. 
'  Her  conscience  was  not  very  easy  about  the  matter, 
and  she  commanded  the  executioner  to  keep  silence 
over  it.'  ^  In  order  to  extract  his  secret  from  the 
alchemist  Alexander  Setonius,  the  Elector  Christian  II. 
had  him  repeatedly  tortured  in  1603.* 

At  the  court  of  Elector  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg, 
within  ten  years,  no  fewer  than  eleven  alchemists  were 
counted  up  who  had  dissipated  considerable  sums.^^ 
One  of  the  most  famous  alchemists  was  Leonhard 
Thurneissen  zum  Thurn,  house  physician  to  Elector 
John  George  of  Brandenburg,  with  whom  numbers  of 
princes  and  princesses  were  in  personal  and  epistolary 
relations.  Duke  Christopher  of  Mecklenburg,  Duke 
Ulrich  zu  Giistrow,  the  Electoral  Princess  Katharina 
von  Kiistrin,  the  Margravine  EHzabeth  of  Ansbach,  and 

1  Schmieder,  311-315.     Kopp,  i.  149.     Kohler,  xvi.  6-7. 

2  Vulpius,  iii.  25  and  x.  153.  •'  Ibid.  x.  153-154. 
*  Schmieder,  342-343.     Kopp,  i.  127. 

^  Voigt,  Furstenlehen,  344.    **  Concerning  gold-makers  and  alchemists 
at  the  Lippe  Court,  see  Falkmann,  374  ff. 


284  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

others  used  to  send  distillers  and  laboratory  workers  to 
him  to  learn  from  him  all  sorts  of  secret  arts,  which  they 
would  then  carry  on  in  their  own  laboratories.  Thur- 
neissen  informed  the  Elector  amongst  other  things  that 
the  water  of  the  Spree  carried  in  its  course  gold  and  a 
fine  kind  of  glaze ;  the  gold  contained  twenty-three 
carats  and  half  a  grain  ;  in  some  places  of  the  Mark, 
he  said,  rubies,  emeralds  and  sapphires  could  be  found.^ 
'  In  the  holy  Easter  days  (1583)  .John  George  ap- 
pointed his  court  apothecary  Aschenbrenner,  who  was 
specially  fitted  for  the  post,  to  help  as  a  labor  ant  in 
some  occult  metallic  work  which  we  were  to  execute 
under  God's  guidance  and  to  work  at  in  a  special 
labor atorium.'  ^ 

The  unfortunate  Duke  John  Frederick  II.  of  Saxony 
fell  in  great  measure  a  dupe  both  to  alchemists  and 
angel-seers.  On  November  6,  1566,  he  had  concluded 
a  bargain  with  two  preachers,  Abel  Scherding  and 
Phihp  Sommering,  by  which  the  preachers  promised 
to  teach  the  Duke  the  secret  of  the  philosopher's  stone, 
on  condition  that  he  '  would  keep  this  gift  of  God 
to  himself."  For  their  first  experiment  in  the  art  he 
paid  them  760  thalers.^  Simultaneously  with  Som- 
mering there  appeared  in  Gotha  a  former  lady  of  the 
Dresden  Court,  Anna  Maria  von  Ziegler,  who,  according 
to  her  own  later  confession,  had  drowned  her  illegitimate 
child,  and  at  the  instigation  of  Sommering,  with  whom 
she  had  a  liaison,  had  poisoned  his  wife.  From  Duke 
John  Frederick,  whom  she  entirely  won  over,  she  received 
a  letter  written  in  his  own  hand  and  with  his  blood, 

1  Kopp,  i.  107  ff.     See  our  remarks,  vol.  xii.  297-299. 
-  In  V.  Ledebur's  Arcidv,  xv.  369-371. 
'  See  contract  in  Vulpius,  iii.  19-22. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  285 

saying  tliat  he  should  put  away  his  own  wife  and  marry 
her.  Before  the  world,  John  Frederick  had  given  her 
in  marriage  to  his  valet  and  court-fool,  Henry  Schom- 
bach,  styled  Schiel-Heinz  (Squinting  Harry).  After 
the  surrender  of  Gotha  and  of  the  Grimmenstein,^ 
Sommering,  Schombach,  and  Frau  Anna  fled  in  1571  to 
Wolfenbiittel,  to  try  their  luck  at  the  court  of  Duke 
Juhus  of  Brunswick.  To  their  company  belonged  also 
the  freebooter  and  highway  robber  Silvester  Schulfer- 
mann,  who  gave  himself  out  in  Wolfenbiittel  as  Frau 
Anna's  brother,  and  who  was  employed  as  assistant  by 
Sommering.  Fuller  details  which  came  to  light  con- 
cerning the  doings  of  these  swindlers  for  many  years  at 
the  court  of  Duke  Julius,  are  of  general  importance  in 
the  history  of  civilisation,  and  all  the  more  so  as  they 
are  connected  with  the  duping  and  fleecing  of  a  prince 
who  had  made  comprehensive  studies  in  almost  every 
branch  of  learning,  and  to  whom  the  affairs  of  his  country 
were  by  no  means  a  matter  of  indifference. 

While  other  princes  '  are  for  the  most  part  given  up 
to  the  devil  of  chase,"  Duke  Julius  wrote  once  to  his  step- 
mother, '  he  was  given  up  to  the  devil  of  the  mines."  ^ 
Therefore  Sommering  was  welcome  at  his  court  if  only 
for  the  promise  that  '  he  and  his  associates  were  able  to 
bring  the  mines  of  the  country  into  such  a  condition  that 
his  Princely  Grace  would  enjoy  200,000  a  year  more 
profit  from  them  than  before.'  Besides  this  they  would 
share  with  the  Duke  one  ounce  of  the  philosophical 
tincture  whereby  other  inferior  metals  were  turned  into 
gold,  and  that  ought  to  be  worth  a  princedom,  if  not  more. 
They  would  teach  him  the  process,  so  that '  Illustrissimus ' 
would  become  the  mightiest  potentate  of  all  Europe. 

'  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vii.  393  f.  -  Bodemann,  200. 


286  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

All  this,  according  to  a  formal  agreement  concluded  in 
1571,  was  to  happen  in  the  space  of  a  year,  in  return  for 
which  the  Duke  gave  the  adventurers,  together  with 
Frau  Anna,  lodging,   board   and  plentiful  supphes  of 
money  besides  a   documentary  promise   of   unhmited 
princely  protection.     Amongst  their  patrons  and  associ- 
ates at  the  court  was  the  pastor  Ludwig  Hahne,  of  Schlitz 
in  Hesse,  whom  the  Duke,  on  the  recommendation  of 
Sommering,    had    appointed    his    court    preacher    and 
spiritual  father,  although  the  man  was  in  disgrace  with 
the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  on  account  of  falsification  of  coin. 
Sommering,  who  was  appointed  Treasury,  Mines,  and 
Church  Councillor,  soon  acquired  overweening  influence 
both  in  religious  and  secular  matters.     A  written  docu- 
ment in  his  handwriting  is  signed  :  '  Philip  Therocyclus, 
the     prince's     constant,     faithful     treasury- councillor, 
though  all  devils  and  godless  folk  should  rage  at  him.' 
As  a  '  true  theologus,'  he  boasted  that  he  had  preserved 
the  churches  and  schools  of  the  duchy  from  the  poison 
of  the  Sacramentarians  and  the  Flacians,  and  had  taken 
good  care  that  not  a  single  Calvinist  from  Wittenberg 
should  ruin  the  people.     While  the  '  philosopher's  stone  ' 
in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  still  refused  to  reveal  itself, 
Sommering  and  his  collaborators  tried  to  keep  the  im- 
patient  Duke  contented  with   other  magic  acts.     He 
manufactured  'constellation'  musket  barrels,   not  one 
single  shot  from  which  could  fail  ;  he  bought  the  Duke  a 
'  lucky  hat,'  and  searched  for  the  herb  thalictron,  which 
conferred  understanding  and  wisdom.     He  also  set  to 
work  to  discover  the  mercurial  herb  which,  when  quick- 
silver was  poured   over  it,  exuded  a  wonderful  gold- 
coloured  sap.     Once,  so  he  said, '  a  he-goat  with  its  beard 
cut    off    had    stood  outside  the  door ;     his  chin  was 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  287 

wetted  with  mercurial  water  and  a  golden  beard  had 
grown/  To  procure  this  herb  a  special  messenger  was 
sent  to  Dux  in  Bohemia,  and  a  ducal  ambassador  who 
was  journeying  to  the  imperial  court  was  instructed  to 
find  out  this  rare  plant.  Further,  Sommering  at  the 
Duke's  wish  took  great  trouble  to  concoct  magic  pearls, 
and  he  also  used  a  corrosive  stone  to  prevent  the  invasion 
of  water  in  the  salt  works :  this  stone,  it  was  said,  would  eat 
a  channel  through  the  rock  and  let  the  water  out.  He 
also  concerted  with  the  Duke  as  to  whether,  by  poisoning 
the  meadows  with  arsenic  and  metalhc  smoke,  they  could 
not  curb  the  insolence  of  the  refractory  town  of  Bruns- 
wick. As  a  preservative  from  sore  throat  and  gout  he 
presented  the  Duke  with  a  toadstone  which  had  been 
taken  out  of  the  head  of  a  snake,  and  which  was  worth 
100  thalers  ;  against  the  plague  '  he  supphed  him  with 
a  preparation  of  lizard,  the  most  poisonous  of  reptiles, 
which  feed  only  on  falling  stars  and  sulphurous  matter. 
Frau  Anna  soon  got  the  Duke  completely  into  her  net, 
so  that  his  formerly  happy  relations  with  his  wife,  the 
Duchess  Hedwig,  were  for  years  long  completely  shat- 
tered. It  was  in  vain  that  his  sister,  the  Margravine  of 
Kiistrin,  warned  him  that  Sommering  was  a  runaway 
parson  who  had  left  his  lawful  wife  and.  joined  himself 
to  Ziegler,  and  that  he  was  misleading  and  bhnding 
him  (Duke  Juhus),  and  estranging  him  from  all  the 
gentlemen  of  his  court  and  all  his  friends.  Anna 
Ziegler,  his  sister  told  him,  had  been  an  immoral 
woman  for  twenty  years  :  she  had  heard  many  strange 
tales  of  all  her  doings  and  how  she  was  notorious  with 
Electors  and  Princes  all  over  the  empire.  Everyone 
knew  how  poor  they  were  when  they  came  to  Wolfenbiit- 
tel,  and  now  they  dressed  in  silk  and  velvet ;   the  Duke 


288  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

was  not  thought  well  of   by   all  worthy,   honourable 
people.'     In  an  '  account  of  Anna  Zieglerin '  sent  to  the 
Duke  by  a  faithful  subject,  all  the   different   arts  by 
which  this  woman,  in  conjunction  with  Sommering,  was 
befoohng  him  were  enumerated.     Amongst  other  things 
the  writer  said  :   '  They  make  out  to  my  lord  that  Theo- 
phrastus  Paracelsus  had  a  son  by  the  Duchess  of  Ottingen, 
and  that  this  son,  with  the  knowledge  and  wilhng  consent 
of  the  Count,  had  become  her  husband.     His  name  was 
Carolus,  and  he  excelled  Theophrastus  Paracelsus  and  all 
the  philosophers  that  have  ever  lived  on  earth.     He  was 
a  great  cabaHstic  philosopher,  and,  in  short,  in  all  his 
deeds  and  works  equal  to  God,  except  that  he  lacked 
immortahty.     He  alone  in  riches,  wisdom,  and  under- 
standing surpassed  all  emperors,  kings,  and  princes  in 
the  whole  world.   He  could  make  and  transform  all  metals 
into  real,  sohd  gold;  could  do  whatever  he  willed;  could 
go  hither  and  thither  and  become  invisible  when  he 
hked  ;  he  knew  all  that  had  ever  happened  and  all  that 
was  to  come  ;    nothing  was  impossible  to  him,  nothing 
hidden  from  him.      The  name  and  title  that  he  bears  is 
Carolus,  Count  of  Ottingen,  Lord  of  Hohenschwan  and 
Lower  Bavaria.     This  man  had  married  Anna  Zieglerin 
because  she  was  so  pure  and  chaste,  so  far  above  other 
women  and  hke  unto  the  angels.     If  he  could  only  get 
her  away  from  Wolfenbiittel,  and  if  the  Duke  and  her 
husband,  Henry  Schombach,  would  let  her  follow  him, 
he  would  give  her  husband  his  sister  with  20,000  Nd. 
He  would  hold  the  Duke  in   eternal  friendship   and 
present  him  with  the  philosopher's  stone.     With  Aima 
Zieglerin  the  Count  would  inaugurate  a  new  world,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  bring  forth  countless  numbers 
of  children  who  would  never  suffer   from   illness   and 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  289 

would  live  on  for  300,  400  or  600  years  like  our  ancestors 
at  the  beginning  of  the  world/  '  Anna  Zieglerin  was 
the  only  vessel  of  honour  and  pure  instrument  through 
which  this  could  be  brought  about.'  The  Duke  be- 
heved  all  these  tales,  and  gave  large  sums  of  money  to 
this  '  Count '  in  order  to  secure  and  retain  his  friendship  ; 
he  even  offered  the  '  Count '  his  daughter  in  marriage  : 
the  '  Count,"  however,  refused  her,  for  '  he  only  wished 
to  marry  Anna  Maria  Zieglerin,  the  altogether  purest 
and  chastest  woman  on  this  earth,  in  order  that  he 
might  spend  his  life  with  her  and  carry  out  his  project.' 
Frau  Anna  also  pretended  to  be  a  'star-reader.  She 
knew  all  about  the  heavenly  constellations,  and  regulated 
the  Duke's  dress  according  to  stars  ;  without  her  know- 
ledge he  must  undertake  nothing,  must  neither  travel, 

nor  engage  a  servant,  nor  make  any  plans.     The  Wh 

tells  the  Duke  all  sorts  of  devihsh  and  impossible  things 
and  bewitches  him  so  that  he  believes  them  all,  and 
carries  out  her  wishes.  Again  and  again  the  Duke  has 
said  that  when  his  wife  dies  he  shall  marry  Frau  Anna  ; 
when  he  mentions  her  name  he  uncovers  his  head  with 
the  greatest  reverence  ;  he  says  out  plainly  that  she  is 
a  special  creation  of  God,  a  woman  full  of  all  chastity, 
divine  gifts,  high  understanding,  and  that  there  is  none 
living  or  dead  who  has  ever  equalled  her  in  virtue.  How 
Satan  does  befool  great  people  ! '  '  Because  the  Duke,' 
this  accomit  goes  on  to  say,  '  has  sworn  an  oath  to  this 

Wh and  this  scoundrel  that  he  will  protect  and 

befriend  them,  their  vices  and  evil  deeds  never  come  to 
light,  and  are  never  brought  before  the  magistrates,  but 
the   Duke  carries  on  a  secret   game  with   them.     The 

Wh and  the  parson  persuade  him  not  to  trust  his 

councillors  and  nobles,  who,  they  say,  are  not  true  to 

VOL.  XV.  u 


290  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

him.  They  provide  him  with  other  coimcillors  who 
are  in  league  with  themselves,  and  so  change  the  govern- 
ment of  the  court,  filling  it  with  their  own  people.  What 
will  be  the  end  of  all  this  it  is  too  early  yet  to  say.     In 

short,  the  Wh and  the  parson  have  at  present  the 

control  of  the  Duke  in  their  own  hands.' 

Gradually,  however,  various  fraudulent  proceedings 
came  to  light,  and  Sommering,  Frau  Anna,  and  their 
collaborators  no  longer  felt  themselves  safe  at  court. 
In  1574,  when  the  Duke  was  on  a  visit  at  Berlin  with 
his  son-in-law,  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  they  formed 
a  plan  to  put  to  death  the  hated  Duchess,  and  then  to 
carry  off  all  that  they  could  collect  together  and  take 
themselves  out  of  the  country.  The  crime  was  not 
perpetrated,  but  the  plan  became  known  to  the  Duke. 
Other  treacheries  also  were  discovered.  Sommering, 
by  means  of  duplicate  keys,  had  got  access  to  the  Duke's 
correspondence  and  copied  out  a  number  of  his  most 
important  papers,  amongst  others  draughts  of  a  scheme 
for  overturning  the  constitution  of  the  empire  ;  he  had 
hoped  to  make  use  of  these  papers  for  his  own  advantage 
at  the  court  of  the  Saxon  Electorate  with  which  the  Duke 
was  constantly  at  strife.  The  criminals  escaped,  were, 
however,  arrested,  put  in  chains  and  subjected  to  the 
strictest  examination.  Sommering,  while  in  prison, 
attempted  to  commit  suicide.  He  declares  that  on  his 
calling  out,  '  Christ,  if  thou  wilt  not  help  me  send  a  devil 
to  help  me,'  a  devil  stood  before  him  in  the  shape  of  an 
executioner,  wearing  a  grey  hat,  and  told  him  he  could 
not  take  him  away  because  there  were  cross-bars  to  the 
window,  but  gave  him  a  knife  and  told  him  to  stab  him- 
self ;  he  tried  to  do  so,  but  the  knife  would  not  go  through 
his  body.      Before  his  imprisonment  he  had  made  the 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  291 

Duke  believe  in  the  great  services  he  had  rendered  the 
Church,  in  the  irreproachableness  of  his  conduct  and 
in  his  former  ministry  in  the  Church.  Now  he  was 
completely  unmasked.  '  We  have  discovered  in  these 
people/  Julius  wrote  to  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
'  so  much  roguery  and  villainy  that  your  Grace  will 
scarcely  believe  it  all ;  we  have  indeed  cause  for  thank- 
fulness to  God  that  by  His  mercy  the  diabolical  plot 
against  our  dearest  and  most  beloved  wife  and  other 
electoral  and  princely  persons  was  not  carried  out.' 
On  February  7,  1575,  the  penal  sentence  was  executed. 
Sommering,  Schombach,  and  Schulfermann  were  hanged 
and  quartered,  and  Frau  Anna  was  burnt  in  an  iron 
chair  ;  the  court  preacher  Hahne  was  later  on  put  to 
death  by  the  sword. 

But  all  the  unfortunate  experiences  which  the  Duke 
had  with  the  alchemists  did  not  deter  his  successor, 
Henry  Julius,  from  pursuing  the  search  after  the  philo- 
sopher's   stone    with  the   help  of   '  fire-philosophers.'  ^ 

^  A.  Rhamm,  '  Die  betriiglichen  Laboranten  am  Hofe  des  Herzogs 
Julius  von  Braunschweig,'  in  the  Feuilleton  der  Magdehurgischen  Zeitung 
(1882),  Nos.  565-573.  A.  Beckmann,  '  Therocyclus  in  Wolfenbuttel, 
1568-1575,'  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  KuUurgesch.  Jahrg.  1857,  pp.  551- 
565.  Algermann's  '  Berieht  in  v.  Strombeck,'  Feier  des  Geddchtnisses, 
200-203.  Kopp,  i.  125.  **  See  also  A.  Rhamm,  'Die  betriiglichen 
Goldmacher  am  Hofe  des  Herzogs  Julius  von  Braunschweig,  nach  den 
Prozessakten  dargestellt '  (Wolfenbiittel,  1885).  From  the  documents  here 
used  it  comes  out  that  Algermann  cannot  fully  be  trusted  as  a  safe  voucher. 
Cf.  p.  109,  n.  142.  The  first  person  who  detected  Frau  Anna  as  an  impostor 
was  the  Duchess  Hedwig.  Only  a  few  months  after  her  arrival  at 
Wolfenbiittel  Ziegler  complained  to  the  Duke  that  his  august  lady  had 
poured  the  vials  of  her  wrath  upon  her,  and  a  little  while  later  she  com- 
plained again  that  the  Duchess  was  very  hostile  towards  her ;  she  was 
willing  to  bear  her  cross,  she  said,  but  it  hurt  her  very  much  to  be  thus 
misunderstood  by  so  virtuous  a  lady,  and  as  she  had  come  to  know  her 
Princely  Grace's  penchant  for  the  pure  gospel  she  sent  her  as  a  present 
Martin  Luther's  books,  praying  that  the  Holy  Ghost  would  enlight<:-n  the 

u  2 


292  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'  What  proves  a  failure  the  first,  the  tenth,  or  even 
the  ninety-ninth  time,  may  well  be  a  great  success  the 
hundredth  time,'  so  spoke  men  of  learned  repute  ;  and 
John  Pontanus,  Professor  of  the  Healing  Art  at  the 
university  of  Jena,  and  later  at  Konigsberg  (|  1572), 
said  that  it  was  not  till  after  200  unsuccessful  attempts 
that  he  had  at  last  acquired  mastery  in  the  art  of  gold- 
making.^  No  wonder  then  that  the  princes,  though 
their  money  frequently  disappeared  in  smoke,  were 
always  ready  to  try  their  luck  afresh,  and  strove  to 
discover  all  possible  secrets  in  order  to  become  rich, 
and  to  behold  many  marvels. 

In  the  South  of  Germany  one  of  these  dauntless 
princes  was  Duke  Frederick  of  Wiirtemberg.  In  1596 
there  appeared  at  his  court  the  mighty  gold-maker 
George  Honauer,  from  Olmiitz  in  Moravia,  who  through 
his  fraudulent  practices  had  gained  such  renown  among 
the  people,  that  he  finally  gave  himself  out  as  a  baron 
and  called  himself  George  Honauer,  Herr  zu  Brumhofen 
und  Grobenschiitz,  was  on  familiar  terms  with  counts 
and  barons,  frequently  had  70  or  80  horses  in  his  stables, 
and  kept  his  own  equerry.  In  order  to  teach  his  art 
to  the  Duke  he  asked  for  and  obtained  36  cwts.  18  lbs. 
of  Mompelgard  iron,  besides  a  sum  of  gold,  but  after 
he  had,  as  he  said,  used  up  600,000  gulden,  after  three 
months  he  took  himself  off  secretly  and  robbed  the  Duke 
still  further  of  a  quantity  of  money,  jewels,  and  other 
things.  Whilst  he  was  being  pursued  the  Duke  had  a 
gallows-tree  made  out  of  the  iron  which  he  had  given  him 

pious  Pi'incess,  so  that  she  might  be  led  to  give  up  her  unjust  suspicions  ! 
But  the  Duchess's  mistrust  of  the  adventuress  was  not  to  be  overcome : 
I.e.    21  ;     cf.    76.      See    also    Sudhoff,    '  Geheimwissenschaften,'    in   the 
Allgem.  Ztg.  (1895),  Beil.  219. 
'  Kopp,  i.  224. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  293 

before.  It  was  painted  bright  red  and  was  eighteen 
feet  high.  On  the  top  of  it  was  placed  another  gallows 
hke  a  weathercock,  which  could  be  turned  round  by  the 
wind.  After  the  adventurer  had  been  caught  in  Oldenburg 
and  brought  back  to  Stuttgart,  chained  in  a  cart,  the  Duke 
had  him  dressed  in  a  coat  of  gold  tinsel,  with  hat,  shoes, 
and  feathers  to  match,  and  suspended  to  the  weather- 
cock. '  On  the  lower  four  quarters  of  the  gallows  he  had 
four  chains  made  to  hang  the  four  foremen  of  the  mine 
who  were  to  have  aided  and  abetted  Honauer  in  his 
trickery.  His  equerry  was  also  hung,  but  from  a  separate 
gallows  made  of  wood.  A  "rare,  unheard-of  broad- 
sheet "  made  the  event  known  to  the  German  people.'  ^ 
On  the  Duke,  however,  the  episode  made  no  im- 
pression. 

The  following  year  Frederick  made  a  contract  with 
another  gold-maker  from  Zurich,  who  promised  him,  out 
of  a  mark  of  silver,  to  make  at  least  3  J  ounces  of  genuine 
gold,  and  also  promised  to  teach  the  Duke  his  art.  He 
was  paid  forthwith  10,000  gulden,  and  made  several 
experiments  which  proved  successful  because  his  brother 
secretly  threw  gold  into  the  saucepan.  However,  his 
imposture  was  finally  discovered,  the  tincture  which  he 
had  given  the  Duke  was  found  to  be  false,  and  he,  too, 
without  trial  and  sentence,  ended  his  days  on  the 
gallows.  The  same  fate  befell  a  third  alchemist,  the 
Italian  Peter  Montanus.^ 

'  Account  in  Pfaff,  Miscellen,  70  ft".  Scheible,  Schaltjahr,  i.  45-50  ; 
see  our  remarks,  vol.  xii.  292  ff.  **  See  also  E.  Otto,  '  Alchimisten  und 
Goldmacher  an  deutschen  Fiirstenhofen,'  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  Kulturgesch. 
(year  1899),  p.  49  ff.,  where  a  partly  different  account  is  given.  See  also 
Cesky  casopis  historicky  (1895),  p.  272  ff.  Tobolka,  Georg  Honauer  aus 
Olmiitz,  ein  Alchimist  am  wurttemberg.  Hof. 

-  Account  in  Pfaff,  Miscellen,  74-80. 


294  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  November  1595,  Martin  Crusius,  Professor  of 
Philosophy  at  the  university  of  Tiibingen,  wrote  in  his 
diary,  and  from  prudence  wrote  it  in  Greek  :  '  From 
George  Weyganmeyer,  Hebrew  professor,  I  have  heard 
the  following  :  In  Stuttgart  there  are  two  Jews,  one 
from  Ferrara  who  is  called  Abraham,  and  the  other 
a  German.  Abraham  makes  gold,  changes  water 
into  wine  and  stone  into  bread.  The  Jew  says 
that  these  things  are  not  magic,  but  taken  out  of 
the  Jewish  Cabbala.  The  best  of  the  court  people 
are  not  well  pleased.  But  everybody  keeps  silence 
concerning  these  matters.  Good  Lord,  what  will 
be  the  end  of  it !  '  ^  But  the  court  preacher  Lucas 
Osiander  did  not  keep  silence.  In  1598  he  spoke 
seriously  to  the  Duke  about  his  patronage  of  the 
Italian  Jew,  against  whose  gold-making  he  had  already 
before  warned  him.  This  Jew,  he  told  the  Duke, 
was  a  magician  and  he  had  brought  other  Jews 
addicted  to  magic  into  the  country  ;  but  magicians 
were  associates  of  the  devil,  and  those  who  en- 
couraged them  would  share  in  their  ahenation  from 
God.  The  Duke,  angry  at  this  admonition,  told  his 
court  preacher  and  prelate  that  he  was  a  disreputable, 
good-for-nothing  parson,  a  slanderer,  a  liar,  and  a  child 
of  the  devil ;  the  Jew  had  substantial  proofs  concerning 
very  skilful  and  wonderful  matters ;  in  especial  he 
possessed  an  unknown  excellent  concoction  of  saltpetre 
and  powder  with  which  the  arsenals  of  the  country  were 
going  to  be  supplied. =^ 

Frederick    estabhshed    a    number    of    alchemists, 
maintained  at  his  own  expense,  in  the  little  town  of 

>  Weyermann,  Neue  Nacliricliten,  603. 

-  Correspondence  in  Moser,  Palriotisches  Archiv,  ix.  257-273. 


PRINCES   AND   COURT   LIFE  295 

Gross-Sachsenheim,  regardless  of  the  protests  of  the 
Provincial  Estates  who,  in  1599,  begged  that  he  would 
not  have  '  so  much  to  do  with  such  swindlers,  through 
whom  he  might  suffer  great  injury/  ^  In  the  years 
1605  and  1606  he  again  let  himself  be  imposed  on  by 
several  alchemists.  The  gold-maker  John  Henry  Miiller, 
a  former  journeyman  barber,  who  had  been  raised  to 
the  nobility  by  the  Emperor  Eudolf  II.  as  a  reward  for 
his  skill,  and  had  since  called  himself  von  Miillenfells, 
before  coming  to  Stuttgart  had  already  robbed  many 
other  princes — amongst  them  the  Margrave  Joachim 
Ernest  of  Ansbach  and  the  Elector  Frederick  IV.  of 
the  Palatinate — of  incredibly  large  sums ;  he  carried  on 
business  also  with  Frederick,  till  by  order  of  the  latter 
in  1607  he  was  hanged  on  the  gallows.-  When  Frederick's 
successor,  John  Frederick,  overwhelmed  with  debts, 
applied  for  help  to  the  Provincial  Estates  the  latter 
signified  to  him  that  '  if  he  would  rid  the  land 
of  the  alchemists,  a  whole  company  of  whom  had 
long  been  firmly  established  in  Gross -Sachsenheim, 
the  resources  of  his  treasury  might  soon  pick  up 
again."  ^ 

In  Munich  also,  according  to  the  report  of  Philip 
Hainhofer,  there  was  a  laboratory  or  distilhng-house  in 
which  gold  was  made.*  At  the  court  there,  a  runaway 
monk  from  Cyprus  disported  himself  under  the  assumed 
name  of  Count  Marco  Bragadino  ;  he  had  come  to 
Germany  in  1588  and  won  great  admiration  in  Vienna 
through  his  art  of  gold-making.     Two  black  bulldogs 

1  Sattler,  v.  230  ;  cf.  Kopp,  i.  126. 

^  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xxvi.  468-470.      Adelung,  vi. 
90-105. 

^  Sattler,  vi.  51.  '  Hautle,  129. 


296  HISTORY  OP  THE  GER]VIAN  PEOPLE 

which  always  accompanied  him  he  declared  to  be  his 
'  mediums  '  for  bringing  about  magic  results.  With 
the  help  of  the  Jesuits  he  was  exposed  as '  an  im- 
postor, and,  with  two  of  his  associates,  hanged  in  a 
cloak  covered  with  gold  tinsel.^  '  Alchemy  and  the 
art  of  making  gold  and  silver  out  of  a  substance 
which  is  not  gold  or  silver,'  it  says  in  a  pubhc  edict 
of  Duke  Maximihan,  '  ought  to  be  utterly  forbidden, 
because  these  arts  are  seldom  practised  without  magic 
and  superstition  and  suchlike  devil's  work.  Trans- 
gressors of  this  order  should  either  be  pmiished  with 
a  definite  fine,  or  in  default  of  this,  by  imprison- 
ment, banishment,  or  in  some  other  recognised  legal 
manner.'  ^ 

At  Innsbruck,  at  the  court  of  Archduke  Ferdinand 
II.  of  Tyrol,  wonderful  things  were  related  of  Saxon 
alchemists  '  who  made  copper  out  of  iron,  and  gold  out 
of  copper,  and  every  week  produced  100  marks,  from 
which  the  Elector  derived  great  profit.'  Experiments 
were  also  made  there.  Ferdinand  II.  had  his  own 
chemical  kitchen  and  was  in  frequent  intercourse  with 
alchemists.  The  gold-maker  Gabriel  von  Mayrwisen 
asked  him  in  1591  to  send  him  a  confidential  man  and 
said  he  would  give  him  a  few  millions  of  gulden.  Two 
years  later  Hans  Jager  of  Imst  informed  the  Duke 
that  he  and  others  of  his  trade  had  entered  into  an 
agreement  by  which  each  one  of  them  was  bound  to 
make  known  all  their  secrets  to  the  others  ;  one  of 
them,  however,  who  had  had  the  good  fortune  to 
discover  the  philosopher's  stone,  would  not  reveal  the 
secret  to  his  associates.     Hans  Jager  begged  Ferdinand 

'  Juvcncius,  Hist.  Soc.  Jesu  pars,  v.  388.     Kopp,  i.  174. 
'  Zeitschr.  fiir  deutsche  Kulturgesch.  (year  1873),  p.  102. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  297 

to  give  him  a  letter  of  recommendation  to  the  Emperor 
Rudolf  in  order  that  he  might  obtain  authority  from 
the  latter  to  compel  this  recreant  member  to  keep  to 
his  obhgations.^ 

Kudolf  II.  was  universally  regarded  as  the  chief 
protector  of  the  travelling  alchemists  from  all  the 
countries  of  Europe,  and  the  Court  of  Prague  was 
indeed  '  the  veritable  Mecca '  of  all  the  countless 
practitioners  who  occupied  themselves  with  magic, 
exorcism,  chiromancy,  astrology,  manufacturing  magic 
mirrors,  and  so  forth.  The  Emperor  always  kept  at 
least  twenty  alchemists  at  work  to  test  all  the  different 
methods  proposed  for  transmuting  metal.  On  many 
of  these  '  artists  '  he  conferred  nobility,  and  he  spent 
incredibly  large  sums  on  them.  His  court  alchemist, 
John  Dee,  son  of  a  London  wine-dealer,  on  the  strength 
of  royal  patronage,  lived  in  such  magnificence  that 
he  actually  refused  a  post  offered  him  by  the  Czar 
Feodor,  through  the  recommendation  of  English  mer- 
chants, which  would  have  meant  a  yearly  salary 
of  £2000  sterhng,  besides  entire  board  and  residence 
at  court.  The  English  gold  -  maker  and  magician 
Edward  Kelley,  an  apothecary,  was  raised  by  Rudolf  to 
the  dignity  of  a  knight  and  loaded  with  good  fortune ; 
the  Pohsli  impostor  Michael  Sendiwoj  was  made 
court  councillor  and  so  richly  remunerated  that  he  was 
not  only  able  to  buy  himself  a  house,  but  also  two 
large  landed  properties.  '  How  much  gold  Rudolf's 
chemical  kitchens  swallowed  up,'  says  a  report,  '  it 
is  impossible  to  calculate  '  ;  the  number  of  his  alchemists 
amounted,  during  the  course  of  his  long  reign,  to  200  ; 
'  and  down  to  his  last  years  he  never  for  a  moment 

1  Hirn,  i.  364-365. 


298  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

gave  up  the  hope  that  he  should  succeed  in  manu- 
facturing gold/  At  the  same  '  time  there  was  at 
court  such  a  scarcity  of  ready  money/  that  once, 
as  the  Bavarian  ambassador  Joachim  von  Donnersberg, 
in  July  1610,  wrote  to  Munich,  '  the  caterer  from  the 
court  kitchen,  who  had  only  one  gulden  in  his  purse 
and  was  applying  at  the  treasury  for  further  imburse- 
ments,  was  dismissed  with  the  words,  "  he  must  make 
the  gulden  go  as  far  as  he  could,  for  at  present  there 
was  nothing  to  hand."  '^  In  a  '  Diskurs  iiber  Eeforma- 
tion  des  Kammerwesens,'  addressed  to  the  Emperor 
Matthias  in  1616,  the  court  treasury  director,  Christopher 
Siegfried  von  Breuner,  estimated  the  debts  left  by 
Rudolf  II.  at  30,000,000  gulden.^ 

'  To  the  pleasures  and  recreations  of  all  sorts 
which  the  princes  indulged  in,  and  which  cost  the 
country  very  dear,  there  belonged  also,'  so  men  of  insight 
complained  at  the  time, '  the  frequent  visits  and  journeys 
to  baths,  and  the  meetings  and  gatherings  of  all  sorts, 
which  indeed  were  in  some  measure  necessary,  as 
when  imperial  and  other  Diets  were  visited,  but  which 
should  not  be  accompanied  with  such  magnificence 
and  endless  retinues,  and  inordinate  number  of  horses, 
amounting  often  to  many  hundreds,  or  even  many 
thousands.'  ^ 

'  J.  Svatek,  Kulturhistorische  Bilder  aus  Bohmen,  44  £E.,  64-86. 
Schmieder,  300-308.     Kopp,  i.  194-197. 

2  Hurter,  iii.  75. 

a  **  I'l^e  craze  for  travelling  increased  more  and  more  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  was  akeady  then  the  custom  to  educate  young  people 
by  foreign  travel.  The  grand  '  CavaUertour  '  comprised  almost  always 
the  Netherlands,  England,  France  and  Italy.  Steinhausen,  Gesch.  des 
deutschen  Briefes,  ii.  6,  where  it  is  pointed  out  how  extraordinarily  fast 
foreign  influence  worked  on  individuals  through  travelling.  Concerning 
the  effects  of  the  craze  for  travelling  in  those  days,  Steinhausen,  ii.  8,  says  : 


PRINCES  AND   COURT   LIFE  299 

At  the  Diet  of  Worms  in  1521,  the  Landgrave 
Phihp  of  Hesse  appeared  with  600  attendants  ;  the 
Elector  Frederick  of  Saxony  brought  400  horses  to 
Spires  in  1544.  In  1562  the  Elector  Augustus  of 
Saxony,  with  his  wife  and  a  few  princes  who  accom- 
panied him,  went  to  the  Diet  at  Augsburg  with  800 
horses,  and  in  1582  with  1146  horses,  among  which 
was  a  bodyguard  of  700  riders.  The  retinue  of  Duke 
Ulrich  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin  at  this  last  Diet  con- 
sisted of  112  persons,  150  carriage-horses,  and  about 
70  outriders ;  the  journey,  calculated  at  97  miles, 
was  spread  over  35  days  ;  the  expenses  of  the  journey 
and  of  residence  in  Augsburg  amounted  to  more  than 
20,000  thalers.^  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg  at  the 
Election  Diet  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  II.  (1562) 
had  a  suite  of  68  counts  and  lords,  with  452  horses 
and  a  number  of  servants,  although  the  electoral 
coffers  were  almost  empty  and  money  was  nowhere 
forthcoming,  so  that  the  Master  of  the  Exchequer, 
Thomas  Matthias,  in  Frankfort,  had  to  maintain  the 
court  on  his  own  capital  and  credit.^  When  the 
Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  went  in  1584  to  take  the 
baths  at  Schwalbach  he  had  a  bodyguard  of  16  riders, 
and  such  an  extensive  suite  that  he  required  200  more 
horses,  and  24  for  kitchen  and  cellar  wagons.  The 
day's  marches  were  so  short,  that  in  eighteen  days,  and 

'  We  must  not  be  blind  to  the  good  influences  of  this  custom,  but  still  it 
must  be  said  that  the  bad  influences  were  stronger,  and  under  the  many 
bad  ones,  the  contempt  for  the  mother  tongue  engendered  by  travelling 
was  the  worst,  and  it  was  also  the  one  most  animadverted  on  by  the 
preachers  of  the  day.'     See  p.  19. 

'  Kius,  Ernestinische  Finanzen,  6-7.  Lisch,  Jahrbiicher,  ix.  174-176, 
185,  199,  210. 

"'  Moehsen,  474  note,  479-480. 


300  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

at  immense  cost,  lie  scarcely  reached  his  destination.^ 
Archbishop  Wolf  Dietrich  von  Salzburg  in  1591  visited 
the  Gastein  baths  with  a  court  retinue  of  240  persons 
and  139  horses.-  The  Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse, 
on  a  journey  to  Berlin,  took  an  escort  of  3000  horse.^ 
At  a  Diet  held  at  Naumburg  in  1614  for  the  renewal 
of  the  hereditary  alliance  between  the  Electorates  of 
Saxony  and  Brandenburg,  and  Hesse,  the  escort  of  the 
Elector  John  George  I.  consisted  of  546  riding  horses, 
196  carriage  horses,  23  asses  of  burden ;  that  of  his 
brother  Augustus  was  116  persons,  121  riding  and 
carriage  horses  ;  that  of  the  Elector  John  Sigismund  of 
Brandenburg,  488  persons,  124  riding  and  363  carriage 
horses.^    The  wedding  journey  of  the  Elector  Palatine 

^  V.  Weber,  Aus  vier  Jahrhunderten,  ii.  21-27.  On  the  way,  at  Marburg 
and  at  Mayence,  there  were  '  good,  strong  drinking-bouts.'  v.  Bezold, 
ii.  229,  n.  2. 

2  Vulpius,  ix.  422.  **  When  the  Bamberg  Bishop  Ernest  of  Men- 
gerstorf,  in  1588,  prepared  for  a  journey  to  Carinthia,  78  horses  were 
ordered  for  the  bishop  and  the  higher  servants.  Twenty  court  squires,  nine 
chamber  valets,  the  episcopal  house  physician,  two  doctors  of  law,  the 
court  chaplain,  three  canons,  one  dean,  the  episcopal  pay-master,  two 
couriers,  two  trumpeters,  and  one  barber  made  up  the  retinue.  Beitrdgs 
zur  Kiinde  Steiermdrkischer  Geschichtsquellen  (1891),  xxiii.  23. 

^  Bucholtz,  Versuch,  iii.  479  note.  **  The  luxury  which  Fredei'ick 
of  Wiirtemberg  displayed  on  his  entry  into  Ratisbon  on  June  28,  1594, 
seems,  (according  to  the  account  of  the  Palatine  church  councillor.  Dr. 
Markus  zum  Lamm  [born  1544,  died  1606],  Thesaurus  picturarum,  Einziige, 
fol.  94,)  actually  to  have  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  Emperor.  He 
made  his  entry  with  650  outriders,  amongst  whom  were  eight  counts, 
four  barons,  and  over  100  nobles,  and  with  such  pomp,  splendour,  and  show 
as  no  Elector,  not  even  a  Prince,  at  that  time  ever  displayed,  yea,  verily, 
he  was  grander  and  more  magnificent  than  the  Emperor  himself,  as  far 
as  the  people  and  the  retinue  he  had  with  him  go  ;  for  they  were  all  dressed 
most  superbly  in  velvet  and  silk  overlaid  with  gold,  and  hung  about  with 
thick  gold  chains  ;  then  the  luxury  of  the  fifty  Burgundian  arquebussiers 
on  foot,  and  so  forth.  Steinhausen,  Zeitschr.  fiir  Kulturgesch.,  vi.  (Weimar, 
1899),  49. 

^  Muller,  Annales,  276-279. 


PRINCES   AND  COURT  LIFE  301 

Frederick  V.  in  1613,  when  with  an  escort  of  191  persons 
he  went  to  London  for  his  espousals  with  the  Enghsh 
King  James  I.'s  daughter,  cost  the  electorate,  burdened 
with  expenses  of  all  sorts,  £100,000  sterling.^ 

'  Inordinate  oppression,  debts  and  poverty,'  were 
the  subject  of  universal  complaint  in  almost  all  German 
territories.  '  Can  you  point  me  to  a  single  land  in  the 
empire,"  asked  a  preacher  in  1562,  '  where  wars,  ravages, 
and  high  prices,  taxes  and  socages,  and  everything 
in  the  nature  of  imposts  is  not  constantly  increasing 
owing  to  the  pomp,  extravagance,  dissipation,  craze 
for  building  of  the  princes,  the  bad  management,  and 
fraiidulence  of  the  councillors  and  officials,  and  excessive 
gratuities  to  those  who  do  not  deserve  them  ?  ' 

In  Saxony  the  Elector  Maurice  had  been  able  to 
prevail  on  his  Estates  to  take  over  600,000  gulden  of 
the  debts  of  the  territorial  prince. ^  Then  when  in 
1553  the  Elector  Augustus  succeeded  to  the  government 
he  found  a  load  of  debts  of  1,667,078  gulden ;  ten 
years  later  the  amount  exceeded  2,000,000,  and  yet 
in  between,  so  Augustus  reckoned  in  1563,  the  taxes 
on  drink  had  brought  him  in  1,900,000  gulden,  and 
his  exchequers  and  mines  had  brought  him  4,382,583 
gulden.  '  Where  it  has  all  gone  to,'  he  said,  '  God  only 
knows.'.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  henceforth  he 
would  look  after  his  affairs  better,  or  else  '  our  Lord 
God  will  be  angry,  and  I  shall  not  be  in  good  repute  with 
many  people.'  ^ 

He  increased  the  revenues  of  his  domains,  extended 
the  mine  regalia  over  the  whole  country,  and  endeavoured 

^  Hausser,  274  ;  see  our  remarks,  vol.  x.  516. 

2  Kills,  Krnestinische  Finanzen,  3. 

•'  V.  Weber's  Archiv  fiir  sdchsische  Gesch.,  vii.  220-221. 


302  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

as  far  as  possible  to  establish  princely  supremacy  over 
the  whole  industry  of  the  country.  In  order  to  convert 
the  iron  and  salt  works,  which  had  hitherto  been  carried 
on  to  the  account  of  the  Treasury,  into  a  government 
monopoly,  he  forbade  the  import  of  foreign  iron  and 
salt,  and  endeavoured  to  raise  the  price  of  both  these 
commodities  as  much  as  possible  by  means  of  legal 
coercion.^  As  with  the  chase,  so  too  with  fishing, 
everything  was  to  be  electoral  property.  In  1568  he 
issued  a  command  that  on  the  banks  of  all  ponds  and 
streams,  at  intervals  of  a  thousand  ells,  a  gallows  should 
be  erected,  and  that  anyone  caught  fishing  there  should 
without  mercy  be  hanged  on  the  nearest  gallows.  In 
1572  'some  defiant  criminals  who  had  been  guilty  of 
fishing  '  were  punished  by  the  gallows.'-  The  country 
was  taxed  more  and  more  heavily.  To  the  repeated 
prayer  of  the  Provincial  Estates  that  the  Elector  would 
reduce  the  expenses  of  his  court,  there  came  invariably 
the  answer  that  '  the  court  and  household  had  been 
curtailed  in  every  direction.'  ^  When  in  1565  Augustus 
came  forward  with  fresh  demands,  the  Estates  signified 
to  him  that '  the  subjects  were  beggared  by  the  quantity 
of  aids  and  taxes,  besides  which  the  Meissen  and  copper 
mine  circle  had  been  burdened  with  a  fresh  coal-tax, 
and  all  the  subjects  were  in  such  abject  poverty  that 
it  was  impossible  to  consent  to  another  tax."  In  April 
1567  a  meeting  of  a  committee  advised  the  Elector  to 
remember  that  '  the  last  taxes  due,  in  spite  of  every 
effort,  could  not  be  collected.  Owing  to  continuous 
failure  of  crops  and  to  high  prices,  most  of  the  poor 

^  Falke  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  KuUurgesch.  (year  1873),  p.  393. 

-  Ibid.  Kurfiirst  August,  122. 

^  Ibid.  SteuerbeunlliguTigen,  xxxi.  138,  151. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT   LIFE  303 

people  had  scarcely  any  bread  for  themselves  and 
their  children,  and  were  obliged  to  beg  for  it  from  others.' 
The  following  year  the  knights  and  the  towns  of  the 
Voigtland  petitioned  the  Elector  to  be  content  with 
the  drink- tax,  and  to  let  the  land-tax  (Schocksteuer) 
drop  out,  '  in  consideration  of  the  great  distress  and 
poverty  of  the  people,  who  were  reduced  to  eating 
saw-dust  and  clay,  and  many  of  whom  were  dying  of 
hunger  and  obliged  to  leave  their  holdings/  ^  In  1579 
Augustus  arbitrarily  burdened  the  corn  trade  with  a 
fresh  tax  of  six  pfennig  on  every  bushel  that  was 
bought.  '  This  tax,'  the  Estates  complained  in  1582, 
'  had  brought  poverty  to  its  knees  more  than  any  other ; 
the  poor  were  praying  as  loud  as  ever  they  could  pray 
that  the  Elector  would  in  pity  for  their  misery  abolish 
the  hated  rates  and  the  bushel  tax  at  once.'  Augustus 
granted  the  prayer,  but  only  on  condition  that  the 
land-tax  on  ground  and  soil,  movable  property  and 
industry  should  be  considerably  raised  :  150,000  florins 
were  to  be  returned  to  him  yearly.-  The  Elector  had 
looked  well  after  his  personal  interest ;  he  left  behind 
him  on  his  death  a  treasure  of  several  millions  ;  ?  but 
the  love  of  his  fleeced  and  impoverished  subjects  he 
did  not  take  with  him  to  the  grave.'* 

^  Falke,  Steuerbeivilligungen,  xxxi.  141,  144, 145.  In  a  Torgau  Chronicle 
it  was  related  of  the  year  1580  that  '  many  people  had  been  driven  by 
poverty  and  hunger  to  eat  the  husks  in  the  brewing-house.'     Arnold,  i.  792. 

^  Falke,  Stetierbeivilligungen,  xxxi.  151-152  ;  Kurfiirst  August,  287. 
Weisse,  iv.  160-173. 

•'  By  Weisse,  iv.  354,  the  treasure  is  actually  estimated  at  seven  milUon 
thalers. 

*  Archduke  Ferdinand  of  Tyrol  wrote  thereon,  on  February  6,  1586  : 
'  Sui  enim  subditi  et  potiores  quidem  ex  nobilitate  ipsi  alias  infensi  sunt, 
prouti  non  multis  abhinc  annis  plurimi  insidias  in  ipsum  struentes  veneno 
etiam  interimere  conati,  qui  deinde  detecto  scelere  ac  frauds,  extremo 


304  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Under  his  successors  this  treasure  disappeared  and 
the  electoral  debts  became  more  and  more  considerable 
from  year  to  year ;  the  taxes  and  imposts  also  greater. 
'  The  subjects/  wrote  the  court  preacher  Paul  Jenisch, 
in  1591,  '  are  so  denuded  of  all  means,  that  they  barely 
have  life  left  them/  ^  '  Taxation,  burdens,  fresh  tricks 
and  dodges  for  getting  money  go  on  increasing,'  said 
Nicholas  Selnekker,  'but  the  devil  takes  it  all  away 
again,  and  yet  the  lords  have  no  foreign  enemy/  ~ 

Duke  William  of  Saxe- Weimar,  who  after  the  death 
of  the  Elector  Christian  I.  (f  1591)  held  the  regency  till 
1601,  during  the  minority  of  Christian  11. ,  was  in  all 
the  affairs  of  the  empire  more  deserving  of  honour  and 
respect  than  any  other  prince  of  the  century,  but  he 
was  a  prince  '  who  was  nothing  less  than  economical 
and  a  good  manager/  Whereas  the  revenues  from 
the  different  exchequers  of  his  duchy  ought  to  have 
given  him  a  yearly  sum  of  over  80,000  gulden,  they  sank, 
through  bad  management  and  fraudulent  deahngs  of 
the  demesne  tenants,  to  30,000  gulden,  which  could  not 
be  paid  by  the  occupiers  but  only  by  borrowed  money. 
The  chancellor  and  the  councillors  in  1590  admonished 
the  Duke  as  follows  :  '  Your  Princely  Grace  constantly 
spends  large  sums  of  money  on  horses  :  we  reckon  that 
every  young  horse  costs  300  thalers,  and  most  of  them 
die  before  they  can  be  ridden  or  used ;  also  your  Grace 
might  well  desist  from  superfluous  "festivities,  journey- 
ings  to  and  fro,  banquets  and  such  like,  for  by  these 
things   the   treasury   is   drained.'     On   the   whole   the 

supplicio  affecti  sunt.'  v.  Bezold,  ii.  344.  The  Venetian  ambassador  Zane 
wrote  on  March  4.  1586,  to  the  Doge  that  Augustus  had  died  '  con  poco 
sentimento  delH  suditi  [a  gap  :  i  quah  ?]  furono  sempre  oltragiati  durante  la 
sua  vita  e  della  prima  moglie,  soreUa  del  re  di  Danemarcea.'  v.  Bezold,  ii.  353. 
'  Annales  Annaberg.,  45.  -  Auslegung  des  CI  Psalms,  360. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  305 

Duke  within  the  last  three  years  '  was  over  three  tons 
of  gold  to  the  bad.'     '  The  latest  accounts  show  that 
this  summer's  revenue  from  land-  and  drink-taxes,  is 
50,000  gulden  below  the  expenses,  and  it  is  presumable 
that  after  Michaelmas  things  will  not  be  any  better, 
but  that  the  deficit  will  be   greater.      If  every  year 
we  have  either  to  make  good  a  ton  of  gold  or  else  be 
in  debt,  your  Grace  must  in  the  end  be  ruined,  for  the 
whole  of  your  ordinary  revenue  would  not  suffice  to 
pay  the  interest   of    that    sum.     If,    then,    the   poor 
country  people  are  fleeced  and  drained  by  taxes,  you  will 
have   to   reckon   with   God's   heavy   punishment   and 
displeasure,  which  will  fall  on  master  and  man.     It  is 
uncertain,  moreover,  whether  the  money  can  be  obtained 
from  the  people.     And  even  if  they  were  wilhng  to 
give  it  they  are  no  longer  able  to  do  so.     If  the  poor 
are  oppressed  with  hunting-dues,  building-taxes,  service 
money,  double  drink-taxes,  it  will  be  giving  God  cause 
to  pour  out  His  wrath  more  heavily  upon  us.     This  evil 
dilemma,  however,  can  be  got  over  with  one  word,  that 
is,  parsimony,  economy,  good  management,  first  and 
foremost  in  the  personal  expenses  of  the  prince,  and 
in  the  whole  court  hfe.'  ^ 

In  the  Electorate  in  1601,  the  Estates,  notwith- 
standing that  they  were  well  acquainted  with  the 
miserable,  penniless  condition  of  the  people,  had 
consented  to  the  land-tax  being  raised  by  half  its 
former  amount.  They  did,  however,  maintain  intact 
the  regulation  that  the  game  preserves  and  hunting 
grounds  were  not  to  be  further  multiphed.  Then  when 
in  1605  Christian  II.  again  exacted  higher  taxes,  the 

'  M.osQV,PatriotischesArchiv,nl215-'2M.  Kius,  Ernestinische Finanzen, 
xxvi.  133-134. 

VOL.  XV.  X 


306  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

theologian  Polycarpus  Leiser  spoke  in  favour  of  the 
government  in  a  sermon  preached  during  the  provincial 
session  of  the  Diet.  '  The  high  and  mighty  rulers/  he 
said,  '  were  the  eyes  of  the  whole  country.  If  there  was 
anything  wrong  with  our  eyes  we  did  not  peer  into  them 
and  poke  at  them  overmuch,  but  we  covered  them  with  a 
clean  green  shade  and  did  what  else  we  could  to  stop 
the  flow  of  matter ;  thus  it  was  that  subjects  must 
cover  up  the  defects  of  their  rulers  and  imitate  pious 
obedient  children,  who  willingly  do  that  which  they 
see  written  in  their  parents'  eyes  ;  they  do  not  go  on 
disputing  about  it,  but  feel  sure  that  their  parents  have 
good  and  sufficient  reasons  for  what  they  command.'  ^. 
The  Estates,  however,  represented  to  the  Elector  that 
'  the  earlier  documentary  assurance  had  not  been 
fulfilled,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  game  had  every- 
where been  multiplied,  new  preserves  had  been  made 
and  old  ones  extended,  and  everywhere  the  hunting 
and  forest  officials  encroached  in  the  most  arbitrary 
manner  on  the  jurisdiction  and  rights  of  the  individual.' 
In  return  for  a  fresh  assurance  that  these  grievances 
should  be  at  once  and  finally  abohshed,  the  land-tax 
was  raised  by  one-third,  and  the  drink-tax  was  doubled. 
On  every  barrel  forty  groschen  had  now  to  be  paid 
instead  of  twenty,  or  indeed  of  ten  before  the  year  1555. 
Besides  which  a  special  tax  of  five  groschen  was  to  be 
paid  on  every  bucket  of  wine  till  the  year  1611.  Never- 
theless in  1609  the  Elector's  debts  had  again  mounted 
up  to  such  an  extent  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  get 
out  of  his  difficulties  without  the  help  of  the  Estates. 
The  Estates,  he  said,  must  furnish  enough  ready  money 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  court  for  two  years  to  come. 

^  Landtagsfredigt,  35,  39. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  307 

The  councillors,  however,  warned  him  against  summoning 
a  Diet,  for  he  would  then  be  required  to  give  an  account 
of  how  it  had  come  about  that  since  the  last  Diet,  in 
spite  of  the  heightened  taxes,  the  treasury  debts  had 
risen  so  much.  They  reminded  the  Elector  emphatically 
that  in  the  years  1601  and  1605  a  larger  sum  had  been 
granted  than  ever  before,  even  in  times  when  the  whole 
country  had  been  in  danger  from  warlike  enemies. 
This  had  so  drained  the  land  that  the  justices  in  the 
country  and  the  councillors  in  the  towns  had  been 
obhged  to  use  great  pressure  in  order  to  get  the  taxes 
that  were  due  from  the  poor  people.  '  If  the  Provincial 
Estates  were  to  learn  that  the  Elector  had  not  only 
granted  considerable  sums  to  subjects  of  his  own,  but 
also  to  numbers  of  foreigners,  whereby,  in  addition  to 
large  payments  to  jewellers  and  merchants  he  had 
heaped  debts  on  the  treasury,  intending  to  refer  these 
again  to  the  Diet,  they  (the  Estates)  would  be  hard  to 
move  as  regards  raising  further  taxes.'  Regardless  of 
this  admonition,  the  Elector  called  his  Estates  together 
and  demanded  that  '  the  faithful  subjects '  should 
not  only  go  on  paying  the  already  existing  taxes  for 
nine  years  more,  but  also  that  the  tax  on  drink  should 
again  be  materially  increased.  This  time,  however, 
the  Estates  seemed  bent  on  refusing  any  more  taxation, 
for  '  everywhere  there  was  nothing  but  ruin  and  retro- 
gression in  everything ' ;  nevertheless,  after  lengthy 
negotiations,  another  increase  of  the  land-tax  was 
sanctioned  under  the  solemn  promise  from  the  Elector 
that  '  he  would  incur  no  more  debts  in  future  and 
would  not  draw  any  more  on  the  treasury  without  the 
consent  of  the  Estates.'  But,  notwithstanding  this 
promise,  on  his  death,  in  1611,  his  debts  were  found 

X  2 


308  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

to  have  again  seriously  increased.^  The  court  main- 
tenance at  Dresden  at  that  time  swallowed  up  half  of 
the  revenues  from  all  the  exchequers  in  the  Electorate.^ 
The  court  preachers,  Michael  Niederstetter  and  Paul 
Jenisch,  in  their  funeral  sermons  on  the  Elector,  pointed 
out  plainly  enough  '  the  oppression  and  burdens  of  all 
sorts  which  had  been  tolerably  hard  and  sour  to  the 
poor  people,  especially  in  the  heavy  and  dear  times  when 
it  was  a  hard  matter  to  get  even  their  daily  bread/ 
The  Elector,  so  Jenisch  opined,  had  wished  to  avoid 
all  injustice  and  oppression  of  the  poor,  and  all  financing 
and  wrong-doing,  if  only  there  had  not  been  people  who 
thrust  themselves  in  and  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
carry  out  his  wishes/  ^ 

In  other  principalities  the  condition  of  things  was 
no  better. 

Duke  Ernest  11.  of  Liineburg  spent  about  double 
his  revenue  on  the  court  and  the  government.  In  the 
year  1600-1601  these  revenues  amounted  to  37,000 
gulden,  the  next  year  to  35,000  gulden,  while  the 
expenditure  in  these  two  years  came  to  122,000  gulden  ; 
he  bequeathed  to  the  little  principality  debts  to  the 
amount  of  527,000  gulden.^ 

At  the  court  of  Duke  Francis  I.  of  Lauenburg  the 
expenditure  reached  such  a  height  that  in  1567,  when 
the   youngest   daughter  was   to   be   married   to   Duke 

^  Falke,  Steuerbewilligungen,  xxxi.  110  S. ;  and  Falke,  '  Verhandlungen 
Christians  II.  mit  seinen  Landstanden,  1601-1609,'  in  the  Zeitsclir.  filr 
deutsche  KuUurgesch.  (year  1873),  pp.  80-91.  Weisse,  iv.  356.  Week, 
445. 

"  Muller,  Forschimgen,  i.  199-206,  209-212. 

^  Drei  christliche  Predigten  (the  first  sermon  at  Bl.  D-.,  the  second  at 
Bh  D^ 

■•  Havemann,  ii.  521-522. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  309 

Wenceslaus  of  Tesclien,  there  was  no  money  to  pay  for 
her  outfit,  '  Our  brother  Duke  Francis  and  his  Grace's 
wife/  Queen  Dorothy  of  Denmark,  on  September  9  of 
the  said  year,  informed  the  Electress  of  Saxony,  '  have 
written  to  us  to  ask  us  to  help  them  to  get  clothes  for 
their  daughter,  who  is  to  have  the  Duke  of  Silesia.  We 
have  answered  that  they,  as  the  parents,  must  find  the 
way  out  of  the  difficulty,  and  that  it  would  be  better 
for  them  to  spare  the  poor  child  some  of  their  own 
money,  which  will  otherwise  only  be  lost  or  badly  used. 
But  we  know  well  that  no  admonition  is  of  any  use. 
Our  brother  goes  on  in  the  same  way  and  squanders 
all  he  can  lay  hands  on,  and  his  children  are  now  growing 
up,  so  that  indeed  there  is  need  for  good  counsel  as  to 
how  things  are  to  be  really  mended.  Herewith  we  send 
your  Grace  eighteen  ells  of  "  Blyandt ''  to  give  the 
young  lady  from  us,  and  to  make  her  a  full  dress  ;  we 
feared  that  if  we  sent  the  stuf!  to  the  parents  it  might 
not  reach  the  young  lady."  ^ 

In  Pomerania  also,  '  through  the  pomp  of  the  court 
and  the  pressure  of  unfavourable  financial  conditions  ' 
under  John  Frederick  of  Pomerania-Stettin  (1569-1600), 
and  Ernest  Ludwig  of  Pomerania- Wolgast  and  his 
successors,  the  debts  of  both  reigns  rose  in  an  unheard-of 
measure.  The  result  for  the  country  was  an  increased 
burden  of  taxation,  fought  over  in  continuous  battles 
between  the  Duke  and  the  Estates.- 

'  V.  Weber,  Kurfiirstin  Anna,  45-46, 

2  **  See  Spahn,  Verfassungs-  unci  Wirtschaftsgesch.  des  Herzogtums 
Pommern,  p.  176  ff.  In  order  to  diminish  the  load  of  debts,  John  Frederick, 
at  Riigenwalde  in  1571,  and  again  at  Wollin  in  1575,  was  granted  four 
more  taxes  to  be  paid  the  four  next  years  at  Martinmas.  Notwithstanding 
that  in  1580,  after  two  years'  pause,  the  Treptow  Diet  had  sanctioned 
three  fresh  taxes,  the  Estates  in    1585  were  met  with   another  pile  of 


310  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Mecklenburg  the  private  property  and  tlie 
treasury  funds  of  Duke  John  Albert  (1547-1570), 
consisting  chiefly  of  sequestered  convent  goods,  were 
either  pawned  or  in  a  state  of  ruin,  and  owing  to  bad 
management  they  brought  in  very  little.  In  1553 
the  debts  of  the  country  had  risen  to  900,000  gulden. 
'  The  affairs  of  our  state,'  wrote  the  Duke  in  1568, 
'  have  been  most  wretched  for  many  years  ;  the  reason 
is  that  our  councillors  are  deceivers  and  liars.'  Under 
the  most  crushing  conditions  he  raised  loans,  but  he 
was  only  able  to  pay  interest  to  a  few  creditors,  and  to 
a  very  few  servants  their  salaries  ;  in  foreign  lands  he 
w^as  loudly  reviled  as  a  tardy  paymaster.^  When  in 
1571  at  a  Provincial  Diet  at  Giistrow  he  asked  for  a 
fresh  tax  the  nobles  said :  '  Fifteen  or  sixteen  years  ago 
the  Estates,  by  taking  over  the  debts  of  the  country, 
had  completely  freed  the  princely  houses  and  exchequers ; 
by  this  proceeding  and  by  other  burdens,  as  well  as  by 
the  dearness  of  the  times,  they  had  been  entirely  drained, 
and  the  poor  peasants  were  impoverished  and  had 
nothing  but  dry  bread  to  eat,  while  the  territorial  lords 
were  sumptuously  supplied  with  princely  incomes.' 
To  this  they  received  the  answer  :  '  The  former  oppres- 
sions had  not  been  so  injurious  to  the  knights  (the 
foremost  of  the  Estates)  as  to  the  lesser  classes ;  the 
lower  and  middle  classes  had  been  most  especially 
impoverished  :  the  knights  must  therefore  now  exert 
themselves   and    come   to   the   rescue  :     other   princes 

debts  of  136,666  gulden,  which  they  took  over  entirely  into  their  own 
management ;  in  consequence  of  this  the  sum  which  they  had  under- 
taken to  refund,  within  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  out  of  taxes 
not  required  to  meet  the  treasury  debts,  rose  to  472,426  gulden 
(p.  156). 

'  Lisch,  Jdhrbiicher,  viii.  84,  88  note  ;  i.  114,  and  xxiii.  79-80. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  311 

had  been  as  deeply  involved  in  debts  and  had  been 
freed  by  their  Estates/  At  a  Provincial  Diet  in  1572 
John  Albert  was  present  in  person,  and  made  known 
to  the  Estates  that  *  since  their  last  assembly  the 
princely  debts  had  still  further  augmented  ;  it  was  not 
a  question  of  whether  they  were  bound  to  give  help  : 
it  was  simply  a  question  of  how  and  by  what  means  the 
money  should  be  got  together.'  The  Estates  replied  : 
'  The  country  had  rehed  on  the  prince's  written  promise 
that  the  Estates,  after  they  had  this  once  taken  the 
debts  on  themselves,  should  never  again  be  troubled 
with  further  demands,  and  all  classes  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  had  exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost ; 
now,  however,  they  were  completely  drained  out ;  the 
knights,  who  were  supposed  to  be  a  free  Estate,  had 
levied  money,  corn  and  horses,  and  they  must  now  come 
to  the  help  of  their  poor  impoverished  peasants.  How 
strenuously  the  towns  and  the  peasants  had  exerted 
themselves  might  be  seen  from  their  ruined  houses ; 
many  of  them  had  already  sold  up,  others  would  soon 
follow  suit.'  The  towns  said  that  '  it  was  patent  to 
sight  that  their  poverty  and  distress  were  extreme.' 
The  delegates  from  Rostock  said  that  their  town  was 
on  the  verge  of  ruin,  already  burdened  with  a  debt  of 
400,000  gulden ;  '  the  town  of  Giistrow  complained 
especially  of  large  debts  and  much  poverty  among  the 
inhabitants ;  people  who  were  credited  with  good 
means  sent  their  children  out  in  the  dark  to  beg  for 
bread  from  door  to  door.'  This  last  complaint  evoked 
the  princely  remark  that  '  Giistrow  received  good  food 
from  the  court,  the  population  was  increasing,  and 
several  new  buildings  had  been  erected ;  its  poverty 
came  from  the  high  prices,  and  other  towns  were  as 


312  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

badly  oiT.^  On  the  demand  that  the  preachers  also 
should  contribute  to  paying  of!  the  ducal  debts,  the 
superintendent  Conrad  Becker,  on  June  30,  1572, 
addressed  to  the  territorial  princes  a  petition  to  the 
following  effect :  '  The  abbeys  and  cloisters  from  which 
the  poor  preachers  wdio  have  spent  their  patrimony 
in  study,  ought  to  receive  support,  are  done  away  with  ; 
the  preachers  have  to  suffer  hunger  and  want  in  their 
ministry  ;  they  have  been  obliged  in  these  hard  times  to 
pawn  or  sell  their  books  and  their  clothes,  in  order  to 
buy  bread  for  their  children  and  save  themselves  from 
starvation  ;  so  that  the  preachers  have  nothing  of  their 
own  ;  where  then  shall  they  get,  money  to  help  the 
Duke  ?  '  ~  When  the  country  towns  were  called 
upon  in  1582  to  provide  coaches  and  horses  for  Duke 
Ulrich's  journey  to  the  Augsburg  Diet,  the  prevaihng 
poverty-stricken  condition  came  out  strongly :  most 
of  the  towns  complained  of  penury,  distress  and  heavy 
loads  of  debts  ;  many  scarcely  possessed  horses  enough 
for  their  farming  operations  ;  others  had  no  money, 
'  only  one  coach,'  and  very  few  horses  to  send/^  At  a 
meeting  of  deputies  at  Wismar  in  1610,  Vicke  von 
Strahlendorf  said  that  he  had  attended  Provincial 
Diets  for  forty  years,  and  that  they  had  always  be- 
friended the  princes  ;  in  his  lifetime  at  least  1,400,000 
gulden  had  been  raised  by  taxes,  besides  trust  money 
which  had  been  advanced  ;  the  grievances  ought  to 
have  been  redressed,  but  there  had  been  no  result  at 
all/  *  At  the  court  of  John  VII.  of  Mecklenburg- 
Giistrow  the  debts  became  so  enormous  that  in  1590 

^  Franck,  AUes  und  neues  Mecklenburg,  Book  x.  192-197,  219. 
-  Schirrmacher,  ii.  292-294.  ^  Lisch,  Juhrbiicher,  ix.  173. 

^  Franck,  Book  xii.  116. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  313 

the  Duke  told  his  Estates  he  could  no  longer  hold 
out  in  his  distressed  condition  and  that  he  should  leave 
the  country.  He  ended  by  committing  suicide.  His 
widow  was  allowed  two  gulden  a  week  for  her  own 
maintenance  and  the  education  of  her  children  and 
thirty-three  shilhngs  a  week  for  payment  of  servants  ; 
she  lived  on  at  Liibz  in  a  tumble-down  house,  without 
beds  and  linen. ^ 

Among  the  lands  most  deeply  involved  in  debt  was 
the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg  since  the  time  of  Joachim 
II.  At  the  death  of  his  father,  Joachim  I.,  in  1535,  the 
finances  of  the  Mark  were  found  to  be  in  good  order, 
but  already  in  1540  the  Estates  were  obhged  to  take 
over  territorial  debts  to  the  amount  of  a  milhon  gulden  ; 
in  1542,  519,000  gulden  were  added  to  this  sum,  and  in 
the  following  year  not  even  the  interest  on  the  debts 
could  be  paid.  '  The  country,"  wrote  the  councillor 
Eustachius  von  Schheben  to  Joachim,  '  has  lost  all 
faith  in  your  Electoral  Grace;  securities  are  not  to  be 
obtained.'  The  Church  goods  were  all  squandered. 
Wherever  he  could  the  Elector  took  loans  from  his 
subjects,  and  thus  found  himself  compelled,  as  security 
for  the  interest  and  arrears,  not  only  to  mortgage  his 
treasury  funds  and  tax  revenues,  but  also  to  renounce 
important  rights  and  privileges  in  favour  of  his  creditors. 
Thus,  for  instance,  in  1541  he  made  over  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  town  of  Tangermiinde  to  the  magistrates  in 
return  for  a  loan  of  1000  gulden;  that  of  Werden,  with 
the  income  of  the  street  taxes,  for  800  gulden  ;  and  the 
jurisdiction  of  Neustadt-Eberswalde  for  200  gulden.  By 
the  year  1549  there  was  not  in  the  whole  of  the  crown 
lands  a  single  district  in  full  possession  of  the  Elector, 

•  Lesker,  73-74. 


314  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

who  acknowledged  that  he  had  been  obhged  to  borrow 
money  on  '  unchristian  and  ruinous  usury/  The  new 
pile  of  debts  amounted  in  the  same  year  1549  to  If 
million,  to  which  sum  by  1564  there  were  added 
no  less  than  1,700,000  to  1,800,000  thalers  ;  the  land 
became  completely  bankrupt,  as  the  Elector  went 
on  raising  fresh  loans  at  usurious  interest ;  at  his 
death  in  1571  his  debts  amounted  to  more  than  2 J 
milhons ;  in  1572  the  country  had  to  pay  3,689,980 
thalers/  Towards  the  end  of  the  century,  said  the 
Elector  Joachim  Frederick,  the  electoral  lands  were  so 
greatly  burdened  with  heavy  debts  that  it  was  a  difficult 
matter  to  pay  even  the  interest  on  them,  let  alone  the 
capital.  2 

In  Brunswick,  through  over-sumptuousness  of  court 
state  and  all  sorts  of  wanton  expenditure,  '  the  tale 
of  debts  after  the  death  of  Duke  Julius  was  most 
disastrous/  Juhus,  a  good  administrator,  who  had 
accumulated  wealth  especially  by  farming  the  mines, 
on  his  death  in  1589  left  his  successor,  Henry  Julius, 
a  treasure  of  nearly  a  million  gulden.  The  new  Duke, 
however,  kept  up  great  outward  pomp,  and  a  numerous 
staff  of  attendants  most  superbly  apparelled,  gave 
frequent  costly  banquets,  displays  of  fireworks,  mas- 
querades, dressed  his  mercenary  troops  in  uniforms 
of  unheard-of  costliness,  and  once  in  1605  spent,  on 
a  single  muster  of  these  troops,  the  sum  of  30,000 
thalers.  When  he  died  in  1613,  not  only  had  his 
father's    fortune    entirely    disappeared    without    any- 

•  Isaacsohn,  45  ff.  Winter,  Mdrlcische  Stdnde,  xix.  550-554,  and  xx. 
542-545.  Kius,  Ernestinische  Finanzen,  4.  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vi. 
p.  65  f. 

-  Kohler,  XX,  255. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  315 

one's  knowing  what  had  become  of  the  money,  but 
there  was  also  a  debt  of  1,200,000  thalers  on  the  prmcely 
treasury ;  more  than  one  nobleman  had  with  the 
treasury  an  account  of  a  whole  ton  of  gold.^  Under 
Duke  Frederick  Ulrich  there  followed  a  complete 
disruption  of  the  whole  State  organisation  ;  the  Duke 
was  in  such  a  constant  state  of  intoxication,  that 
he  could  not  easily  pull  himself  together  and  collect 
his  thoughts.  His  unworthy  favourites,  Anton  and 
Joachim  von  Streithorst,  and  their  associates  kept 
him  in  a  perpetual  state  of  drunkenness  and  assumed 
entire  dominion  over  the  duchy.  For  the  gratification 
of  their  luxurious  extravagance  they  squandered  first 
the  treasury  funds,  and  then  the  convent  goods ; 
they  devastated  the  forests  and  farmed  out  the  minting 
places,  whereby  the  most  inferior  money  became 
current ;  all  prices  rose  enormously  and  foreign  trade 
ceased  almost  entirely.  All  in  vain  did  the  widowed 
Duchess  beseech  her  son  in  the  most  touching  manner 
to  look  into  his  affairs  and  see  whether  all  was  well 
in  the  government,  or  whether  '  the  poor  were  not 
being  fleeced  and  trodden  down,  ecclesiastical  pro- 
perty tampered  with,  and  the  innocent  oppressed.'  ~ 
In  spite  of  the  universal  poverty  the  Council  of  Hanover, 
on  February  14,  1618,  organised  in  honour  of  the 
Duke  a  '  Shrove- Tuesday  festival,'  the  expenses  of 
which  amounted  to  nearly  5000  thalers. ^ 

As  in  North  Germany,  so  too  in  most  of  the  southern 
districts,  especially  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 

'  Bodemann,  Herzog  Julius,  ■  223.  Siiittler,  Geschichte  Hannovers,  i. 
331  ff.,  365,  377,  382.     Henke,  Calixtus,  i.  42.     Havemann,  ii.  504-507. 

-  Spittler,  Oesch.  von  Hannover,  i.  390  ff.  Schlegel,  ii.  377-378,  656-657. 
Neues  vaterldndisches  Archiv,  iv.  101-102. 

•*  Zeitschr.  des  Histor.  Vereins  fiir  Niedermchsen  (year  1873),  p.  24  note. 


316  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

century,  State  organisation  was  in  an  anarchical  con- 
dition.^ 

Concerning  the  Palatinate  during  the  reign  of  the 
Elector  Otto  Henry  (I  1559),  the  Countess  Palatine 
Maria,  wife  of  the  later  Elector  Frederick  IIL,  wrote 
to  Albert  of  Prussia  :  '  When  Otto  Henry  dies,  we  shall 
find  a  sum  of  debts  twice  as  big  as  the  whole  revenue 
of  our  principality."  ~  In  1562  Frederick  could  not 
manage  to  meet  his  son-in-law,  John  Frederick  of 
Saxony,  in  Thuringia  for  want  of  money.  He  could 
not,  he  said,  '  pay  for  hotel  accommodation  on  the 
journey.'  'With  care  and  anxiety,  early  and  late,  I 
have  to  think  and  contrive  how  I  shall  be  able  to  keep 
faith  and  promises  at  the  forthcoming  Frankfort  Fair.'  ^ 
Under  Elector  Frederick  IV.  the  debts  increased  to 
such  an  amount  that  the  Electoral  Master  of  the 
Exchequer  said  in  1599  that  the  Treasury  had  lost 
all  credit.  All  the  same,  the  court  household  of  the 
spendthrift  Frederick  IV.  consumed  yearly,  amongst 
other  articles,  400  hogsheads  of  wine,  2000  malters  of 
corn,  2500  malters  of  spelt,  9000  malters  of  oats.  Under 
his  successor,  Frederick  V.,  the  last  resources  of  the 
land  were  exhausted  by  an  expenditure  surpassing 
all  that  had  gone  before,  and  the  princely  treasury  was 
overwhelmed  with  debts.^ 

In  the  ' Aufzeichnungen  einer  fiirstlichen  Person''^ 
of  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  or  the  beginning  of  the 

^  The  unfavoui'able  condition  of  the  financial  affairs  of  Ferdinand 
II.  of  Tyrol,  especially  after  1580,  is  exhaustively  treated  by  Hirn,  i. 
644  If. 

^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  p.  131. 

■'  Kluckhohn.  Briefe,  i.  328,  334  :  cf.  30. 

*  See  our  remarks,  vol.  i\.  213  f.,  vol.  x.   516. 

*  Diary  of   a  princely  personage. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  317 

seventeenth  century,  the  following  remarks  occur 
concerning  the  bankrupt  state  of  the  land :  '  The 
houses  are  empty,  money  has  flown,  debts  have  in- 
creased, the  subjects  are  so  harassed  and  impoverished 
that  they  can  neither  work  for  us  nor  for  their  children  : 
they  have  mortgaged  their  lands,  disposed  of  many 
of  their  wagons  and  carts,  their  cows  and  sheep  are 
in  the  hands  of  the  usurers,  &c.,  &c.  Farms  are 
neglected,  dowries  swallowed  up,  all  rents  are  un- 
certain, many  tithes  are  lost,  dues  and  pensions  are 
unpaid,  the  incomes  have  dwindled  down.  Great 
sums  have  been  borrowed  at  usurious  interest.  In 
our  distress  we  have  so  far  been  unable  to  stretch 
a  helping  hand  to  our  poor  subjects  who  day  and 
night  have  to  rush  and  run  about  for  us — as  is  our 
duty.  Wherewith  shall  we  pay  the  servants  and  the 
poor  people  who  daily  murmur  and  sigh  ?  How 
shall  we  save  these  people  from  hunger  and  rags, 
that  they  be  no  longer  their  neighbours'  laughing- 
stock ?  '  1 

How  manifold  were  the  grievances  and  wrongs  of 
the  people  under  the  insolvent  princes  is  seen,  for 
instance,  from  a  promise  made  by  the  Margrave  Edward 
Fortunatus  of  Baden  to  the  Provincial  Estates  in  1589, 
that  '  the  burdens  introduced  under  the  Margrave 
Philip  (1569-1588),  such  as  salt  money,  socage  money, 
oats  money,  burial  money,  fresh-food  money,  increased 
body  and  death  dues,  fresh  wine  taxes,  fresh  taxes  on 
swine  feeding  in  the  woods,  and  all  else  that  in  these 
later  times  had  been  imposed,  contrary  to  old  tradition, 
should  be  abohshed ;    but  that  the  older  taxes,  and 

'  Contributed  by  v.  Weechin  ih.eZeitschr.  fiir  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins, 
xxxvi.  166-169. 


318  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  salt  monojDoly,  should  remain  m  force  until  the 
existing  debts  were  half  or  wholly  paid  off/  In  1582 
the  Provincial  Estates  had  sanctioned  an  income-tax 
on  both  movable  and  immovable  property,  on  capital 
and  on  loans,  a  tax  of  8  batzen  on  every  100  guldens' 
worth  ;  in  1585  they  had  raised  this  tax  to  12  batzen  ; 
in  1588  they  had  taken  over  300,000  gulden  of  the 
princely  debts. i  '  What  the  people  suffered  under 
Edward  Fortunatus  is  beyond  description.'  Con- 
temporaries who  condemned  the  iniquities  of  princely 
life  with  due  severity,  pointed  especially  to  the  '  verily 
appalhng  and  beyond  all  measure  abominable  life  '  of 
this  Margrave,  and  asked  :  '  Where  such  a  life  could 
be  led  year  after  year,  for  years  long  in  the  holy  empire, 
without  any  interference  from  the  supreme  authorities, 
and  no  cry  of  horror  from  all  the  princes,  must  not  the 
condition  of  the  State  have  been  unspeakably  foul  and 
rotten  ? ' "  By  drunkenness,  by  senseless  expenditure, 
and  by  low  excesses,  Edward  Fortunatus  brought  himself 
to  such  a  state  of  poverty  that  he  was  driven  at  length 
to  try  and  help  himself  up  again  by  highway  robbery 
and  falsification  of  coin.  '  He  rode  out  with  his  servants 
on  marauding  expeditions,'  says  a  trustworthy  report 
of  the  year  1595,  '  he  hid  in  cornfields  and  sprang  out 
to  rob  travellers  without  the  least  shame  or  compunction, 
he  overturned  merchants'  conveyances  and  took  from 
them  whatever  he  could.  He  did  all  this  freely  and 
openly,  had  the  plundered  people  bound  up,  counted 
out  in  their  presence  the  money  he  had  robbed  them 
of,   and  divided  it  as  he  pleased  among  his    robber 

'  V.  Weech,    '  Badische   Landtagsabschiede,'  in   the  Zeitschr.  jiir  die 
GeschicMe  des  Oberrheins,  xxix.  342,  354,  356,  359,  362-365. 
-  Von  den  vielen  Anzekhen,  see  above  p.  263.  n.  1. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  319 

associates.  Life  even  was  sometimes  taken  on  these 
occasions,  as  in  the  case  of  an  ItaHan  shopkeeper  who 
was  shot.  With  the  things  that  he  had  taken  from  his 
victims  the  Margrave  adorned  his  castle.'  False  coining 
he  carried  on  with  the  help  of  a  ruined  Italian  silk 
vendor,  Francesco  Muscatelli.  This  man,  with  a  '  special 
metalHc  mixture  '  of  his  own  invention,  made  Ferdinand 
thalers,  debased  thalers,  and  '  Portuguese '  worth  ten 
ducats,  which  were  put  in  circulation  at  the  Frankfort 
Fair.  The  Margrave  used  to  be  present  himself 
Avhen  the  coining  was  going  on,  and  worked  with  his 
own  hand  the  press  procured  from  Augsburg.  In 
order  to  get  stamp-cutters  he  had  recourse  to  coercion, 
and  he  considered  all  means  allowable.'  He  did  not 
even  shrink  fjom  attempts  at  assassination.  He  had 
intended  taking  the  life  of  one  of  his  cousins,  when  he 
was  a  guest  at  his  table,  by  means  of  a  poisoned 
water  concocted  by  Muscatelli.  The  crime  was  to  be 
perpetrated  when  his  cousin  Margrave  Ernest  Frederick 
came  to  Ettlingen  to  see  the  representation  of  the 
'  Passion.'  This  poisonous  water,  of  which  a  consider- 
able quantity  was  found  at  Baden  in  the  castle,  took 
effect  on  members  of  people,  as  contemporary  statements 
testify.'  '  The  Margrave  Fortunatus  also  resorted  to 
diabolical  magical  means  for  putting  an  end  to  the 
Margrave  Ernest  Frederick.'  '  This  was  to  be  accomp- 
lished by  means  of  a  httle  image  made  especially  for  the 
purpose,  representing  the  person  of  Ernest  Frederick. 
For  this  evil  work  he  intended  to  obtain  the  services  of 
Paul  Pestalozzi  from  the  Grisons.  '  He  had  taken  an  oath 
from  this  man  and  pledged  himself  with  him  to  the  act 
of  villainy,  and  also,  at  the  sacrifice  of  their  souls  and  their 
salvation,  they  had  bound  themselves  for  all  eternity  to 


320  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Satan/  i  '  The  Margrave  has  sunk  to  such  depths/ 
wrote  Dr.  Franz  Born  of  Madrigal  on  January  28,  1595, 
to  Duke  Wilham  of  Bavaria,  '  that  he  consorts  with  the 
most  wanton  people,  buffoons,  bawds,  freebooters,  necro- 
mancers, false  coiners  and  such  hke.  And  although  he 
has  had  honourable  chancellors  and  administrators,  the 
most  light-minded  people  have  been  employed  in  the 
administration  of  justice,  people  to  whom  no  injustice 
was  too  great  to  be  committed.  Through  all  this  the 
Margrave  has  come  down  to  such  depths  of  iniquity 
that  he  does  not  scruple  openly  to  profane  the  Sacra- 
ments of  Christ  to  horrible  magic  uses,  as  I  heard 
complained  of  from  the  lips  of  one  of  his  chaplains.  He 
wanted  to  obtain  the  chaplain's  help  for  the  devilish 
consecration  of  a  ring,  a  magnet  stone,  a  bewitched  book, 
a  picture,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  Margrave  Ernest 
Frederick.'  '  So  that  in  sinfulness  against  God  he  and 
his  people  have  desecrated  all  the  Holy  Sacraments 
in  a  way  which  I  would  rather  tell  by  word  of  mouth 
than  put  down  in  writing  ;  they  have  openly  invoked 
the  devil  and  committed  such  sinful  impieties  that  it 
would  be  no  wonder  if  God  were  to  destroy  the  whole 
land.'  '  The  Margrave's  followers,'  Franz  Born  goes  on, 
'also  behaved  most  insolently  and  arrogantly  in  the  towns, 
so  that  all  over  the  country  we  were  all  as  it  were  sitting 
on  a  volcano,  and  the  poor  people  were  in  a  constant 
agony  of  fear.  And  at  last  nobody  received  any  payment, 
nobody  had  anything  left,  and  not  even  the  necessary 
wax  and  oil  could  be  bought  for  the  service  of  God.'  - 

'  Grundlicher,  Wahrliafter  unci  Bestendiger  Bericht :  Was  sicli  zwischen 
dem  Markgrafen  Ernst  Friedrich  zu  Baden,  die,  und  zwischen  Markgraf 
Eduardi  Fortunati  Dienerschafft  und  ihm  selbst  verloffen,  <&!C.  (1595).  Of. 
Vidpius,  viii.  397-400 ;  Haberlin,  xix.  28-45. 

-  Vulpius,  iii.  175,  176. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  321 

In  the  Margraviate  of  Ansbacli-Bayreutli  in  1557 
the  debts  amounted  to  three  times  as  much  as  the 
revenue.  And  yet  in  the  same  year  the  Margrave 
George  Frederick  formed  the  plan  of  erecting  the  new 
Plassenburg ;  he  spent  on  this  building  a  srmi  larger 
than  the  whole  revenue  of  the  land  could  refund  in  four 
years.  In  1560  the  debts  of  the  small  principality  had 
risen  to  2,500,000  gulden  ;  the  court  household  con- 
sisted at  the  time  of  nearly  200  persons.  The  taxes 
levied  on  the  people  were  so  unbearable  that  in  1594 
the  town  questioned  '  whether  they  would  not  be  better 
off  under  the  Turks  ?  ^ 

In  Wiirtemberg  in  1550,  Duke  Uhich  had  left 
behind  him  debts  to  the  amount  of  1,600,000  gulden, 
which  entailed  payment  of  a  yearly  interest  of  80,000 
gulden.  In  1554  the  interest  which  Duke  Christopher 
had  to  pay  was  calculated  at  more  than  86,000  gulden. ^ 
The  country  in  this  year  become  responsible  for  the 
sum  of  1,200,000  gulden,  but  after  the  lapse  of  eleven 
years  the  treasury  debts  had  more  than  doubled.'^ 
In  want  of  fresh  taxes,  Christopher  wrote  in  1564 
to  his  councillors  :  '  Everybody  knows  what  all  the 
surrounding  lands  do  for  their  lords  and  rulers  to  help 
pay  off  their  debts.  The  imperial  hereditary  lands  in 
Alsatia,  Sundgau,  Breisgau,  Hochberg,  Hagenau  took 
over  the  whole  sum  of  debts,  and  soon  afterwards 
voted  300,000  gulden  of  ready  money,  and  in  addition 
to  this  levied  a  tax  of  one  rapp  on  every  measure  of 
wine,  which  comes  to  one  batzen  for  five  measures. 
Bavaria  some  years  ago  levied  a  tax  which  brought  in 

'  Voigt,  *  Wilhelm  von  Grumbach,'  in  Von  Raumer's  Histor.  Taschenbuch, 
vii.  163.     Lang,  iii.  19,  261,  277,  295.     See  our  remarks,  xi.  p.  132. 
'^  Kugler,  i.  292.  -^  Reyscher,  17'\  Ixx. 

VOL.  XV.  Y 


322  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

yearly  over  200,000  gulden,  and  at  the  last  Provincial 
Diet  she  took  over  the  whole  debts  together  with  the 
charges  thereon.  The  Palatinate  gave  the  Elector  over 
600,000  gulden  in  two  lots.  The  Margraviate  of  Baden 
has  agreed  to  increase  the  rate  of  their  existing  imposts 
for  fifteen  years,  and  I  am  told,  has  even  consented  to 
new  assessments.  Hesse  for  sixteen  years  made  over  to 
its  lord  the  "  tax  on  drink  "  as  they  call  it,  which  brings  in 
50,000  gulden  a  year,  besides  the  other  large  grant  which 
the  Estates  had  before  bestowed.  Saxony  and  other 
countries  acted  in  a  similar  manner.'^  The  councillors 
rephed  to  the  Duke  in  two  memorandums  :  '  The  court 
expenses  '  they  said,  '  must  imperatively  be  reduced ; 
they  had  gone  on  rising  during  his  reign  to  such  an  extent 
that  neither  the  Duke  nor  the  impoverished  country 
could  any  longer  defray  them.  There  must  therefore 
be  a  thoroughgoing  change  and  diminution  "especially 
as  regards  buildings,  provisions,  paying  other  rulers' 
debts,  wine  parties  and  toasts,  studs,  tapestry,  house- 
furniture,  castellans,  bears,  lions,  game,  swans,  pea- 
cocks, money  loans,  hunting-expenses,  farm  and  kitchen 
service  " :  the  exhausted  country,  after  all  that  it  had 
already  done,  could  not  with  any  propriety  be  further 
appealed  to.'  ^  None  the  less,  the  country,  in  1565,  in 
spite  of  all  the  grants  made  since  1554,  took  over  the  sum 
of  1,200,000  gulden  and  pledged  itself  also  to  go  on  paying 
the  interest  of  the  sum.^  After  the  death  of  Christopher 
in  1568,  things  became  even  worse  under  Dukes  Ludwig, 
Frederick,  and  John  Frederick.  The  land  was  yet  to 
learn  what  '  extravagance  really  was."  The  pleasure- 
house  built  by  Duke  Ludwig  at  Stuttgart  cost  three  tons 

'  Kugler,  ii.  582.  "  Ihid.,  584. 

»  Reyscher,  17^',  Ixx  ff. 


PRINCES  AND   COURT   LIFE  323 

of  gold.i  In  1583  the  Estates  took  over  600,000  gulden 
besides  the  interest.-  But  more  and  more  debts 
continually  followed.  Duke  Frederick  was  bent  on 
emulating  the  splendour  of  the  courts  in  Paris  and  in 
London  which  he  had  visited,  and  on  his  accession  he 
brought  French  noblemen,  financiers,  and  comedians 
into  Wiirtemberg.  After  obtaining,  in  1603,  the  honour 
so  long  sought  by  him  in  vain,  of  investiture  with  the 
Order  of  the  Garter,  he  repeatedly  sent  deputations  to 
London  with  costly  presents  on  the  occasions  of  the 
festivals  of  the  Order,  and  he  himself  kept  the  festival 
annually  with  great  magnificence.  In  1605  the  festivities 
at  Stuttgart  lasted  eight  whole  days.-^  In  1599  the 
Estates  had  urgently  implored  him  '  not  to  embark  in 
any  unnecessary  expenses  on  court  display  and  to  curtail 
the  superfluous  outlay  on  salaries  and  amusements.' 
But  that  very  year  he  had  held  a  carnival  at  immense 
cost,  with  processions  of  all  sorts,  allegorical  devices, 
tourneys,  and  costly  fireworks  which  greatly  enfeebled 
the  resources  of  his  treasury  and  of  the  church  goods  ' ; 
Svithin  six  years,'  the  Estates  complained,  'they  had 
granted  him  sixteen  tons  of  gold  ;  his  subjects  could  not 
pay  any  more  taxes.'  ^  In  1605  they  complained  again  of 
the  Duke's  *  unseemly  extravagance  and  luxury  in  all 
directions.'  Frederick  answered  :  '  Who  spends  all  the 
money,  if  not  the  people  themselves  ?  '  To  the  further 
complaint  of  the  Estates  that  the  staff  of  sick  nurses 
ordered  by  Duke  Ludwig  had  not  been  provided,  they 
were  answered  :  '  Thev  had  no  need  to  trouble  about 
that ;  it  could  not  be  done  ;  he  was  not  going  to  provide 
nurses.'     When  the  Estates  gave  fuller  details  as  to  the 

1  Spittler,  Gesch.  Wirtembergs,  190.  -  Reyscher,  ii.  333. 

=•  Pfaff,  Gesch.  Wirtembergs,  \i\  41-42.  '  Sattler,  v.  230. 

y  2 


324  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

districts  in  which  tolls,  taxes,  dues,  and  socages  had 
been    raised,    their    statements    were     flatly    denied : 
*'  Nothing  had  been  raised  ;    whoever  said  so  was  not 
speaking    the    truth.     The    people    often    complained 
without  cause/     The  Duke  did  not  deny  that   '  the 
Darmstadt  district  had  been  deprived  of  the  hunting  and 
preserving  rights  which  it  had  enjoyed  from  time  im- 
memorial, and  that  in  Wildbad,  contrary  to  old  tradition, 
a  tax  of  one  kreuzer  had  now  to  be  paid  on  every  trunk 
of  wood,  but  he  said  :    '  Peasants  have  no  business  to 
hunt ;    we  have  made  fresh  arrangements  about  forest 
management ;    let  those  who  want  wood  give  what  is 
right  and  fair/     The  complaints  of  the  town  and  district 
of  Brackenheim  that  the  allowance  of  wine  they  used 
to  have  at  harvest  time  was  no  longer  given  them,  was 
dismissed  with  the  answer :  '  We  have  abolished  super- 
flous   and  incessant  drinking,  as  is  right  and  fitting ; 
the  people  have  got  nothing  to  say  on  the  subject/  i 
Only  at  his  own  court  would  Frederick  consent  to  no  cur- 
taihng,  and  the  Estates  were  not  to  say  a  word  to  him,  not 
to  complain  but  simply  to  pay  up,  and  levy  fresh  taxes. 
In  1607  he  obHged  them  to  pay  another  princely  debt 
of  1,100,000  gulden ;    had  they  not,  they  were  told  for 
their   comfort,  taken   over    3,000,000    under   the  two 
last    Dukes.2      The    following    year,    when    Frederick 
died,  the  deficit  amounted    to  nearly  one  and  a  half 
millions  ;  the  cofiers  were  so  exhausted  that  all  disburse- 
ments had  to  be  made  with  borrowed  money. ^     This, 
however,  did  not  hinder  his  successor,  John  Frederick, 

^  '  Complaints  of  the  25  January,  1605,  and  Resolutions  of  the  Duke ' 
in  Moser,  Patriotisches  Archiv,  i.  332-342. 

2  Sattler,  v.  276.  Spittler,  Oesch.  Wirt^mlergs,  220-221.  Pfaff, 
Oesch.  Wirtembergs,  ii.  34-39. 

^  Pfaff,  ii^  54-55. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  325 

in  1609,  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage  with  Barbara 
Sophia,  daughter  of  the  Elector  Joachim  Frederick  of 
Brandenburg,  from  entertaining  hke  a  very  Croesus/^ 
Duke  Frederick's  'ahnighty  minister,'  Matthew  Enzhn, 
after  languishing  in  prison  for  several  years,  was  executed 
in  1613  as  an  embezzler  of  pubhc  money  and  a  traitor 
to  his  country.-  However,  the  new  councillors  also 
helped  to  increase  the  confusion  of  financial  matters. 
In  vain  did  a  committee  of  the  Estates  represent  to  the 
Duke  in  1610  that '  experience  showed  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  land,  owing  to  excessive  poverty,  could  not 
endure  the  heavy  taxation  imposed  hitherto  ;  also  that 
the  middle  and  well-to-do  classes,  who  owned  some 
thousand  guldens'  worth  of  property,  had  suffered  so 
much  from  a  succession  of  bad  harvests,  especially  in  the 
vineyards,  that  he  would  have  to  plunge  further  into  debt 
in  order  to  discharge  his  rents,  interest,  bounties  and 
household  expenses.'  ^  The  Duke  went  on  with  his 
extravagance,  regardless  of  the  complaints  of  the  Estates 
concerning  unnecessary  court  attendants,  festivals,  al- 
chemists and  musicians.  By  1612,  a  fresh  load  of  debts 
amounting  to  one  million  was  accumulated ;  '  no  one  knew 
where  all  the  money  had  gone.'  Weary  of  the  ever- 
lasting demands  for  money  the  Estates  would  no  longer 
assemble.^  The  yearly  deficits  they  had  had  to  refund 
had  amounted  in  1583  to  141,000,  in  1591  to  192,000, 
in  1607  to  200,000  ;  in  1618  it  had  risen  to  259,000.^ 

1  See  above  p.  253  £f. 

-  '  The  punishment  assigned  to  him,  that  he  was  first  to  have  his  right 
hand  cut  off,  and  his  head  laid  at  his  feet  and  then  be  stuck  on  a  post, 
was  remitted  because  he  was  a  remarkable  literatus,  and  had  already  been 
several  years  in  prison.' — V.  Hormayr,  Taschenhuch,  new  series,  xiii.  144. 

^  Sattler,  vi.  43.  ■•  Spittler,  Gesch.  Wirtemhergs,  223-230. 

°  Reyscher,  17%  Ixxix.  In  a  MS.  of  the  year  1600  we  read :  '  Three 
things  are  gaining  the  upper  hand  in  Wiirtemberg  :  blasphemy  of  God, 


326  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Bavaria  also,  as  the  Estates,  especially  under 
Dukes  Albert  V.  and  William  V.,  justly  complained  at 
almost  every  Diet,  the  magnificence  of  court  display  was 
quite  disproportionate  to  the  revenue  of  the  land.  After 
the  Estates  in  1568  had  granted  100,000  gulden  for  the 
costs  of  Duke  William's  wedding  they  were  startled  in 
1570  by  Albert's  declaration  that  the  sum  was  not 
sufficient ;  '  he  had  been  obliged  to  borrow  a  further 
sum  of  90,000  gulden,  which  the  country  must  now  pay  ; 
moreover,  owing  to  expensive  journeys,  diets,  multi- 
plying councillors,  diminution  of  receipts,  great  calls  had 
been  made  on  him,  to  meet  which  an  increase  of  taxation 
would  be  necessary.  The  Estates  pointed  to  the  com- 
plete exhaustion  of  the  land  and  the  present  height 
of  prices  which  obliged  the  farmers  to  mix  oats,  bran, 
and  even  bark  of  trees  with  their  bread,'  but  never- 
theless, they  undertook  a  debt  of  300,000,  and 
agreed  to  pay  20,000  gulden  into  the  treasury.  In 
this  same  year,  the  revenues  amounted  to  150,000 
gulden,  the  expenditure  to  more  than  414,000. 
In  1572  the  court  officials  alone  absorbed  100,000 
gulden,  a  sum  equal  to  the  whole  contents  of  the 
treasury  coffers.  For  the  payment  of  debts  the  Estates 
went  on  consenting  to  more  and  more  taxes,  but  at 
the  same  time  repeatedly  urged  the  Duke  '  for  God's 
sake  to  look  into  his  affairs,  especially  as  regards 
tailoring,    hunting,    singers   and    musicians,    buildings, 

drunkenness,  no  more  credit.  Three  things  are  grievous  in  Wiirtemberg  : 
much  game,  much  socage,  much  debt.  Three  things  are  unrelentingly 
punished  in  Wiirtemberg :  poaching,  failing  to  pay  taxes,  enraging  officials. 
Three  things  are  Ughtly  punished  or  not  punished  in  Wiirtemberg  :  murder 
and  insolence  by  nobles,  thieving  by  high  officials,  the  usurious  contracts 
and  title  deeds  of  the  rich.  Three  tilings  are  disappearing  in  Wiirtemberg  : 
ecclesiastical  revenues,  pubhc  money  and  provisions.' — Zeilschr.  flir  deutsche 
KuUiirgesch.,  year  1859,  pp.  791-702. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  327 

purchases,  and  presents.^     On  his  death  in  1579  Albert 
bequeathed   his    son   WiUiam   V.   a    burden   of  debts 
amounting  to  2,336,000  gulden.     By  1583  a  further  sum 
of  731,000  gulden  had  mounted  up,  and  the  Estates  had 
to  pay  it  off.     That  the  reduction  of  the  court  estabhsh- 
ment,  as  the  Duke  asserted,  had  been  thoroughly  carried 
out,  the  Estates  could  scarcely  aUow,  seeing  that  the 
retiime  of  WilUam  in  1588  consisted   of  771   persons, 
and  that  of  the  Duchess  of  44.     '  The  debt  imposed  on 
the  country,' said  the  Estates  in  the  same  year,  'was 
1,400,000  gulden  heavier  than  under  Duke  Albert,  and 
it  could  not  in  the  end  be  paid  under  those  princes  ;  how 
much  less  then  would  it  be  possible  when  the  land  had 
become  still  poorer.'     A\Tien  WiUiam,   in  1593,   smn- 
moned  a  Diet  at  Landshut,  he  appeared  there,  accom- 
panied by  his  wife,  his  brother  Ferdinand,  and  his  eldest 
son,  Maximihan,  and  with  an  escort  of  317  persons,  and 
346  horses,   and  demanded  of  his  Estates  that  they 
should  take  over  a  fresh  debt  of  1,500,000  gulden,  which 
had  accumulated  since  1588.     More  urgently  than  ever 
the  Estates  impressed  upon  him  that  '  they  could  not 
impose  fresh  taxes  on  the  peasants  without  fear  of  an 
insurrection,  for  they  were  already  well  nigh  beggared  ; 
twelve  times  already  since  1577  had  the  twentieth  part 
of  their  capital  been  wrimg  from  them  in  taxes  ;  since 
1563  the  country  had  granted  ten  millions  for  debts  and 
interest.'     Still  even  now  they  took  over  this  debt  of 
1,500,000,  in   addition  to  which  they  voted  a  yearly 
additional  grant  to  the  treasury  of  50,000  gulden,  a  rise 

'  V.  Freyberg,  Landsidnde,  ii.  373  S.  Concerning  Albert's  purchases 
in  costly  jewellery  see  our  remarks  above  p.  274.  **  Fuller  details  about 
the  absurdly  brilliant  and  costly  life  at  the  court  of  the  Bavarian  Hereditary 
Prince  WilUam  (later  Duke  WiUiam  V.)  at  Landshut  are  given  by  Traut- 
maim  in  the  Jahrbuch  fiir  Munchener  Ge^ch.  i.  236-247 


328  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

on  the  taxes  on  mead,  beer,  and  brandy,  and  a  salt-tax 
the  revenue  from  which  the  Duke  reckoned  at  100,000 
gulden.^ 

Not  till  WiUiam,  in  1598,  made  over  the  government 
to  Maximihan  I.  was  good  order  and  management  intro- 
duced into  state  affairs,  and  the  quiet  sober  life  at  the 
court  of  Miinich  made  a  favourable  impression  all 
round.  Wilham  in  his  simple  retired  life  devoted  him- 
self to  philanthrophy,  and  ate  his  meals  with  his  wife, 
off  earthen  plates.  '  Their  Highnesses,"  wrote  the 
Augsburg  Protestant,  Philip  Hainhofer,  who  visited  the 
court  of  Munich  in  1611,  '  have  a  covered  way  to  their 
Pilgrim  house,  in  which  they  constantly  give  hospitahty 
to  strangers  and  travellers,  whom  they  feed  and  clothe, 
and  to  whom  they  also  give  money ;  they  feed  daily 
twelve  poor  men  and  twelve  women  and  give  them 
clothes  twice  a  year  ;  they  visit  the  sick  and  the  poor, 
give  largely  in  alms,  and  they  are  indeed  patrons  of  the 
poor.'  The  Duke  wished  that  his  prayers  should  ascend 
to  heaven  on  the  two  wings  of  fasting  and  almsgiving, 
and  acted  up  to  the  maxim  '  to  whom  much  is  given,  of 
him  is  much  requred. '  '  At  the  court  of  Duke  Maximihan, ' 
Hainhofer  goes  on,  '  everything  is  very  plain  and  simple, 
compared  with  other  princely  courts.'  '  As  far  as  money 
expenses  go,  all  is  regulated  after  the  manner  of  ItaUan 
princes,  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  and  you  do  not  find 
many  tables  covered  and  loaded  in  the  knights'  halls 
and  in  the  "  Diirnitz." "  Through  this  economical 
regime  '  many  thousands  of  guldens  were  saved  every 
year,  and  old  debts  paid  off  at  this  Bavarian  court.' 

'  V.  Freyberg,  Landstdnde,  ii.  402  ff.     Rudhart,  Landstdnde  in  Bayern, 
ii.  224.     Sugenheim,  Bayerns  Zustiinde,  404  ff. 

^  A  room  that  could  be  heated.     Dining-  and  guest-room. 


PRINCES  AND  COURT  LIFE  329 

'  Superfluous  eating  and  drinking,  card  playing,  hunt- 
ing, tourneying  and  other  diversions  and  vanities  their 
Highnesses  do  not  care  for  ;  they  maintain  good  govern- 
ment, and  they  earn  great  respect  and  obedience  ;  they 
are  very  zealous  in  their  papal  religion,  confess  and 
communicate  frequently,  and  go  regularly  to  church ; 
they  are  also  diligent  in  the  council  chamber,  and  by 
their  godf earingness,  temperance.  Christian  life,  and  good 
example,  they  influence  their  officials  and  councillors  to 
be  pious  and  diligent  also/  In  1613'  Hainhofer  wrote 
again  from  Munich  :  '  At  this  court  there  is  excellent 
management  in  every  department,  punctual  payment, 
sober,  quiet  and  peaceful  living.  The  reigning  prince 
makes  himself  feared  and  loved  by  all  his  councillors ; 
he  is  at  work  early  and  late.'  Hainhofer  was  present 
in  this  same  year  at  Munich  at  the  marriage  of  the 
Count  Palatine  Wolfgang  WiUiam  with  the  Bavarian 
Princess  Magdalena,  and  wrote  about  it  as  follows  : 
'  The  princely  nuptials  are  over  and  all  went  off  well  and 
peacefully,  except  that  the  Count  of  Eisenberg  wanted  to 
fight  a  duel  with  a  "  Truchsess  "  of  Duke  Maximilian's  ; 
as  soon,  however,  as  Maximilian  heard  of  it  he  ordered 
them  to  keep  the  peace.'  '  Of  eating  and  drinking  there 
was  no  lack,  but  during  the  whole  eight  days,  I  did  not 
see  one  drunken  man,  or  one  man  even  the  worse  for 
drink.' 1  'At  court,  where  everything  was  served  in 
silver  dishes  and  eaten  off  silver,  it  is  a  wonder  that 
nothing  was  lost,  and  that  all  went  off  so  quietly,  just 
as  if  there  had  been  no  foreign  lordships  there.  Their 
Highnesses  managed  everything  extremely  well  and 
expeditiously.'  -  This  account  is  entirely  in  accordance 
with  what  the  Belgian,  Thomas  Fyens,  for  a  time  house 

1  See  above,  p.  231.  2  jn  Hautle,  63,  77-79,  164,  238,  239. 


330  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

physician  to  Maximilian,  wrote  to  Justus  Lipsius  on 
July  31,  1601,  about  the  duke,  the  court  life  and  the 
court  people.  '  The  town  of  Munich,'  he  added,  '  is 
certainly  beautiful,  populous  and  large,  it  has  very  high 
buildings,  and  very  clean  and  resplendent  streets,  and 
the  inhabitants  are  better  behaved  than  in  the  rest  of 
Germany/  i 

Justice  requires  it  to  be  stated  that  in  those  terrible 
times  there  were  some  Protestant  courts  which  shone 
as  centres  of  hght.  In  this  respect  the  Saxon  Electress 
Anna,  wife   of   Augustus   I.    of   Saxony,  is   especially 

'  '  Serenissimvis  Dux  noster  (Maximilianus)  et  coniux  eius  firma 
valetudine  sunt,  nihil  praeter  infoecunditatem  dolentes.  Principes  certe 
sunt  piissimi,  benignissimi,  et  prudentissimi.  Ipse  Dux  in  nullo  non 
scientiae  genere  versatus.  Latine,  italice,  gallice  est  peritissimus  ;  moribus 
modestus,  sapientia  maturus  et  circumspectus  in  loquendo,  in  vultu 
et  moribus  gravitatem  cum  quadam  benignitate  coniunctam  gerens.' 
'  Omnes  nobiles  aulici  modesti,  morati,  probi,  omne  vitium  ex  ista  aula 
exulat,  ebriosos,  ieves,  inertes  homines  Princeps  odit  et  contemnit.  Omnia 
ad  virtutem,  modestiam,  pietatem  comparata.  Senior  Dux  Guilielmus, 
moderni  Ducis  pater,  in  pubUco  nusquam  comparet,  cum  sua  sanctissima 
coniuge  Renata  vitam  quasi  monasticam  degit  apud  Patres  Societatis 
in  palatio,  quod  sibi  iuxta,  imo  in  collegio  eorum  exstruxit.'  '  Urbs 
Monacensis  est  certe  pulchra,  populosa,  magna  et  altissimis  constructa 
aedificiis,  nitidlssimis  et  mundissimis  strata  plateis.  Homines  magis  quam 
in  aha  Germania  morati.' — Petri  Burmanni,  Sylloge  epistolarum,  ii.  80,  81. 
Cf.  F.  Stieve,  '  UrteUe  iiber  Miinchen,'  in  the  Jahrbuch  fiir  Munchener 
Gesch.  i.  324.  **  A  fine  eulogy  was  bestowed  on  Munich  at  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Augustinian  monk  Milensius.  He  wrote : 
'  If  we  contemplate  the  zeal  of  this  town  for  the  old  Cathohc  faith,  the 
piety  of  the  dukes  and  the  burghers,  the  splendour  of  the  churches,  the 
reverence  for  the  clergy,  the  Uves  and  the  morals  of  all  the  inhabitants, 
who  are  distinguished  by  almost  monastical  chastity  and  reserve,  we  may 
well  say  that  the  whole  toAvn  is  as  a  cloister,  and  that  it  does  not  unde- 
servedly bear  its  name  (Monachium),  nor  does  it  without  right  bear 
monastic  insignia  (a  monk,  the  well-known  Munich  token)  on  its  coat  of 
arms.'  MUensius,  Alphabeium  de  monachis  et  monasteriis  Germaniae  et 
Sarmatiae  citerioris  Ord.  Erem.  S.  Augustini  (Prague,  1613),  105.  Paulus 
Hoffmeister,  229. 


PRINCES  AND   COURT  LIFE  331 

deserving  of  notice.  This  woman  of  uncommon  origin- 
ality and  moral  firmness  had  no  easy  post  by  the  side 
of  her  most  highly  irascible  and  passionate  husband. 
However,  she  had  learnt,  as  a  contemporary  says  in 
her  praise, '  when  Augustus  raged,  to  pacify  him  ;  when 
he  was  offended,  to  reconcile  him ;  when  he  refused  a 
petition,  to  obtain  his  consent.'  In  the  bringing  up  of 
the  fifteen  children  whom  Anna  presented  to  her  lord, 
she  was  most  conscientious  ;  in  times  of  illness  she 
shrunk  from  no  personal  sacrifice.  The  education  of 
the  children  was  conducted  on  the  principles  of  simph- 
city,  obedience,  and  religion.  With  noble  benevolence 
and  real  goodness  of  heart  Anna  looked  after  her 
subjects.  Til  is  same  woman,  however,  showed  almost 
unheard  of  stony-heartedness,  whenever  her  Luther- 
anism  was  called  in  question.  To  Calvinists  she  was 
as  intolerant  as  to  Catholics.  The  court  preacher  Mirus 
emphatically  praises  '  her  burning  zeal  against  the  now 
rampant  blasphemy  of  Calvinism.'  ^ 

^  **  Cf.  the  article,  composed  with  the  hel-p  of  Weber's  work  (Leipzig, 
1865) :  '  Eine  deutsche  Fiirstin  des  IGten  Jahrhunderts,'  in  the  Histor. 
polit.  Bl.  98,  333  ff.,  450  £f.,  512  fF. 


332 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


CHAPTER  II 


LIFE    OF    THE    NOBLES 


The  life  of  the  princes,  '  with  the  majority  of  them  made 
up  of  inordinate  eating  and  drinking,  innumerable  and 
lengthy  festivities,  pomp  and  luxury  in  dress  and 
adornment,  was  taken  as  a  model  by  nobles,  burghers 
and  peasants,  so  that,  as  was  plain  to  all  beholders, 
the  one  sought  to  outstrip  the  other/  ^ 

As  the  lesser  princes,  down  to  the  least,  copied  the 
greater  ones  in  every  imaginable  luxury,  and  were  in 
their  turn  taken  as  models  by  the  counts,  '  so  the  nobles 
in  their  castles  aped  the  extravagance  of  the  counts ' — 
above  all  in  eating  and  drinking. 

*  With  so  much  eating  and  drinking,^  wrote  Cyriacus 
Spangenberg  in  his  '  Adelsspiegel '  in  1594,  '  it  seems 
nowadays  as  if  people  were  deliberately  bent  on  stifling 

'  Von  den  vielen  Anzeichen,  &c.  Cf.  above,  p.  263,  n.  1.  **  Con- 
cerning the  thoroughgoing  social  revolution  which  came  about  towards  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Steinhausen  aptly  remarks  ('  Die  Anfange 
des  franzosischen  Literatur-  und  Kultureinflusses '  in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  vergl. 
Lit.  Gesch.,  new  series,  vii.  [1894],  372) :  '  Formerly  the  burghers  had  set 
the  fashion,  and  princes  and  burghers  were  scarcely  distinguishable  in  the 
manner  and  conditions  of  their  life.  But  now  the  burghers  had  to  stand 
back.  With  the  loss  of  their  political  might  their  moral  and  intellectual 
independence  collapsed  also,  while  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  growth  of 
territorial  power,  the  influence  of  the  princes  and  thek  courts  rose  higher. 
What  the  court  did  was  now  the  standard  of  society,  and  was  imitated  even 
in  the  sixteenth  century  and  still  more  so  in  the  seventeenth.  First  of  all 
the  nobles  copied  the  court,  and  then  the  burghers  followed  suit,  and 
became  more  and  more  servile.' 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  333 

and  destroying  nature.  There  is  verily  need  for  a 
good,  sound  reformation,  but  those  who  know  all  this 
and  who  ought  to  set  things  right,  are  so  intent  on 
keeping  up  state  and  splendour  that  they  give  others 
the  strongest  incitement  to  follow  their  example.  What 
goes  on  at  the  great  princes'  courts  at  christenings, 
weddings,  banquetings,  home-comings,  shootings  and 
so  forth,  is  not  only  v/itnessed  on  the  spot,  but  one  learns 
it  as  one  travels  about  from  the  appearance  of  the  poor 
people,  who  have  to  help  and  contribute  to  the  pomp, 
from  their  sorrowful  eyes  and  their  emaciated  bodies. 
And  what  the  nobles  see  at  the  princes'  courts,  they 
must  needs  copy  at  their  christenings,  dances,  &:c. 
Many  of  the  nobles,  if  only  one  friend  comes  to  dine 
with  another,  have  everything  served  a  la  count  or 
prince.  They  are  not  content  with  the  ordinary  food 
of  the  land,  good  fish  and  game,  but  must  have  all 
sorts  of  Italian  dishes,  and  outlandish  concoctions  of 
oysters  and  rare  birds,  fish  and  vegetables  brought 
from  a  distance  ;  also,  not  only  one  or  two  beverages, 
but  four,  five  and  even  more  kinds  of  wine,  without 
mentioning  malmsey,  Reinfall,  Spanish  and  French 
wines,  and  three  or  four  sorts  of  beer.  They  keep  up 
state  with  gilded  and  silvered  plates  and  dishes,  but 
where  has  God  decreed  that  man  should  eat  and  drink 
ofT  gold  and  silver  ?  '  ^ 

The  culinary  artist,  Marx  Rumpolt,  was  of  opinion 
that  for  a  banquet  of  counts  or  lords  about  sixty  dishes 
were  enough,  and  for  a  banquet  of  nobles,  forty-five 
or  even  fewer. ^  But  this  number  was  by  no  means 
sufficient  for  many  of  them. 

1  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  248-249. 

"  Rumpolt,  30''-37'',  where  there  is  a  Ust  of  dishes. 


334  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'At  the  wedding  banquet  of  a  Tyrolese  baron/  so 
Hippolytus  Guarinoni  relates, '  there  were  300  dishes  and 
100  sorts  of  confetti  and  dainties.  In  1610,  at  the 
wedding  of  an  ordinary  nobleman  at  Hall  there  were 
seven  tables  well  filled  with  wedding  gnests  or  wedding 
gluttons  ;  it  lasted  two  days  ;  at  every  table  there  were 
four  courses,  and  for  every  course  13  imposing  dishes  ; 
at  another  table  there  were  52  dishes ;  at  seven  tables 
364  dishes ;  at  two  m  eals  728  dishes  were  served ;  during 
two  days  1456  dishes.  I  say  nothing  here  of  all  sorts 
of  wine  and  of  all  the  crowd  of  drunken  people.'  In  the 
Tyrol  at '  festive  meals  '  there  were  sometimes  twenty 
kinds  of  wine  placed  before  the  guests.^  '  For  several 
years  past,'  it  says  in  an  ordinance  of  Duke  Maximilian  I. 
of  Bavaria,  of  March  26,  1599,  '  there  has  been  a  very 
marked  falhng  off  of  temporal  means,  especially  among 
the  knights  and  nobles,  owing  to  the  unnecessary  and  ex- 
travagant outlay  that  takes  place  at  weddings ' :  in  order 
to  reduce  this  expenditure  it  was  decreed  that  none  of  the 
nobles  should  in  future  spend  more  than  1000-1500, 
at  the  outside  2000  gulden,  on  their  wedding  festivities. ^ 

The  Bavarian,  Count  Ladislaus  zum  Hag  (f  1567), 
had  spent  nearly  42,000  gulden  on  wedding  festivities,  i.e., 
according  to  the  present  value  of  money,  half  a  milhon 
marks. 3  Duke  Henry  Juhus  of  Brandenburg,  in  1595, 
considered  it  a  great  piece  of  extravagance  for  the  young 
Burkhard   of   Saldern    to   have   had   at   his   wedding, 

*  twenty-eight  barrels  of  Einbeck  beer '  which  '  had  to  be 
sent  at  great  expense  to  the  scene  of  the  festivities.' 

*  Daily,'  he  said,  '  at  this  wedding,  500  horses  were  fed. 

1  Guarinoni,  793,  798,  804-805. 

2  Westenrieder,  Neue  Beitrdge,  i.  287-288. 
^  Kohler,  Miinzhelustigungen,  xv.  46. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  335 

*  At  the  home-coming  eighty  firkins  of  wine  were  con- 
sumed, besides  all  sorts  of  sweet  drinks,  double  Bruns- 
wick, Muhme,  Zerbst  and  Goslar  beer,  and  also  Hanover 
Briihan.  These  wedding  and  home-coming  expenses 
mounted  up  to  5,600  Reichsthaler/  During  this  home- 
coming Burkhard  had  had  everything  done  on  the  scale 
of  a  prince,  or  at  least  a  count,  had  feasted  fifteen  tables 
full  of  servants,  boys,  coachmen  and  players  with  twelve 
different  dishes  at  one  meal.  On  Sunday  they  were 
given  Muhme  to  drink  and  other  beer,  but  on  Monday 
and  Tuesday  drinks  of  another  kind,  as  much  as  they 
could  get  down.  At  his  own  and  the  bride's  and  their 
friends'  tables  there  were  such  grand,  splendid,  costly 
and  superfluous  dishes  such  as  had  never  before  been 
seen  at  the  tables  of  such -persons.  The  same  princely 
pomp  was  kept  up  also  at  the  dancing.  Players  and 
actors  had  been  procured  from  different  places,  and 
numbered  twenty-seven  in  all.^  In  Brunswick  itself 
there  had  been  grand  doings  when  the  Prince's  tutor, 
Kurd  von  Schwicheldt,  was  married  in  1580.  At  the 
festivities,  which  lasted  four  days,  there  were  guests  with 
600  horses  ;  on  each  of  the  four  davs  75  tables  were 
laid.  Amongst  other  provisions  that  were  consumed 
were  20  oxen,  36  pigs,  80  wethers,  40  calves,  80  lambs, 
32  sucking-pigs,  240  geese,  580  chickens,  12  stags  and 
heads  of  venison,  12  wild  swans,  16  roes,  50  hares,  20 
sides  of  bacon,  6  schocks  of  large  pike,  8  schocks  of 
carps ;  further,  6  hogsheads  of  wine,  2  barrels  of  malmsey, 
2  barrels  of  Ahcant  wine,  2  barrels  of  Rhine  wine,  12  tuns 
of  Hamburg  beer,  8  barrels  of  Einbeck  beer,  24  tuns  of 
Hanover  Briihan,  6  barrels  of  Zerbst  beer,  10  barrels 
of  '  Goslar  Krug,'  54  barrels  of  ordinary  Goslar  beer, 

'  Kohler,  xvi.  168. 


336  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

4  barrels  of  Brunswick  malmsey.  ^  '  Still  more  thirsty  for 
honest  drink  '  were  the  '  noble  throats  '  at  the  wedding 
of  Conrad  von  Sikingen  and  Elizabeth  von  Cronberg  : 
within  j&ve  days  they  drank  113  hogsheads  of  wine.^ 
The  coimcilior  of  the  Elector  of  Cologne,  Caspar  von 
Fiirstenberg,  calculated  the  expenses  of  his  son's  wedding 
in  1608  at  2500  thalers,  '  if  not  more.'  The  festivities 
lasted  from  the  12th  to  the  18th  of  October  ;  the  home- 
bringing  of  the  bride  to  the  Castle  Bilstein  began  on 
November  3,  and  '  four  days  were  spent  in  dancing, 
drinking  and  diversions.'  ^  At  the  wedding  festivities  of 
Herr  Burkhard  Schenk  with  the  widow  von  Hohenstein 
in  1598,  58  persons  from  among  the  nobihty  alone, 
were  invited  to  the  solemnity.*  But  all  the  counts 
and  princes  in  the  Empire  were  surpassed  by  the 
Bohemian  nobleman,  Wilham  von  Rosenberg.  When 
in  1576  he  was  married  to  Anna  Maria  of  Baden,  1100 
firkins  of  Hungarian,  Rhenish  and  other  German  wines 
were  drunk,  40  pipes  (about  12,000  measures)  of  Spanish 
wine,  903  barrels  of  barley  and  wheaten  beer,  and  so 
forth  :  the  horses  ate  37,033  bushels  of  oats.^ 

^  Bodemann,  Herzog  Julius  von  Braunschweig,  332-333. 

2  Die  Vorzeit.  Jahrg.  1825,  p.  177,  note.  ^  Pieler,  294-296. 

■*  Richard,  Ldcht  und  Schatten,  25-26. 

^  Vulpius,  i.  200-201.  Roscher,  Luxus,  56  ;  cf.  Chmel,  Hanclschrijten, 
i.  378.  **  At  other  kinds  of  festivities  also,  as  Schmid  points  out  in  the 
Histor.  Jahrbuch,  xvii.,  the  nobles  vied  with  the  princes  in  all  sorts  of 
costly  displays  and  pageants.  The  Ohringer  Oheramtsbeschreibung  gives 
an  account  of  one  of  these  masquerades  in  1570,  which  took  a  fatal  turn  ; 
at  Waldenburg  the  noble  ladies  dressed  themselves  as  angels,  and  the 
noblemen  disguised  themselves  '  in  horrible  attire  such  as  that  in  which 
it  is  customary  to  paint  the  bad  spirits.'  During  the  '  Mumtanz  '  the  yarn 
which  they  had  bound  tightly  round  and  round  their  arms  and  legs  took 
fire.  Two  nobles.  Count  Eberhard  von  Hohenlohe-Waldenburg,  and  his 
son-in-law,  Count  George  von  Tubingen,  died  of  their  wounds,  and  several 
others  were  obliged  to  remain  for  weeks  in  bed. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  337 

How  greatly  the  love  of  fine  clothes  and  costly 
jewellery  went  on  increasing  among  the  nobles,  is 
shown,  for  instance,  by  comparison  of  the  inventory 
of  the  Palatine  nobleman  Meinhard  von  Schonberg  in 
1598,  with  that  of  his  son  Hans  Meinhard  in  1616. 
The  father  possessed  only  a  few  articles  in  gold  and 
jewellery,  in  silver  utensils  only  1  can,  30  beakers, 
2  salt-cellars,  and  28  spoons ;  the  son,  on  the 
contrary,  had  amongst  other  things :  a  number  of 
silver  washing  bowls  and  jugs,  spoons,  plates,  candle- 
sticks, and  writing  things  ;  a  diamond  chain  set  in 
gold  with  115  links  ;  a  gold  rose  chain  of  40  diamonds  ; 
a  medal  set  with  63  diamonds ;  a  golden  rose  with  41 
diamonds  ;  9  diamond  buttons  ;  2  blue  enamelled  stars, 
each  with  7  diamonds  ;  a  gold  tuft  of  feathers  and  gold 
hat-clasp  with  23  gold  stars,  each  containing  7  diamonds. 
The  pearl  ornaments  alone  would  have  filled  two  closely 
written  folio  sheets.  The  increase  of  luxury  comes  out 
most  clearly  in  the  clothing.  The  entire  wardrobe  of 
the  father  is  catalogued  on  two  pages  ;  that  of  the  son 
takes  up  ten  full  sheets.  The  father  was  content  with 
two  or  three  coats  of  velvet  and  silk,  the  son  required 
more  than  seventy- two  complete  suits.  Most  of  the  son's 
clothes  were  of  satin  of  many  colom^s,  fined  or  slashed 
with  gold,  silver,  or  silk,  often  embroidered  with  both 
gold  and  silver.  In  place  of  the  biretta  we  find  twenty- 
one  costly  French  and  Spanish  hats,  and  hat-bands 
enough  to  match  every  different  coloured  suit,  embroi- 
dered with  gold,  silver  and  pearls.  There  were  also 
silk  stockings  of  different  colours  to  match  the  suits 
of  clothes,  with  gold  or  silver  clocks.  Also  for  every 
different  suit  special  garters  and  shoe  rosettes,  edged 
with   gold   and   silver   lace.     The   quantity   of  gloves 

VOL.  XV.  z 


338  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

embroidered  with  gold  and  silver  was  so  large  that  it 
seems  to  have  been  necessary  to  have  a  different  pair 
for  every  suit.  While  the  father  was  satisfied  with  his 
simple  wainscoted  room,  his  great  massive  bedstead, 
and  solid,  durable  wooden  chairs,  the  son  had  richly 
tapestried  apartments,  beds  of  velvet  and  silk,  em- 
broidered with  gold  and  silver  flowers.  The  father  left 
at  his  death  two  horses  and  a  well-battered  coach  ;  the 
son  left  fourteen  horses  with  splendid  accoutrements, 
the  hst  of  which  fills  eight  folio  pages.  Also  a  number 
of  velvet  saddles  embroidered  with  gold  and  silver  ; 
ladies^  saddles  are  also  in  the  hst,  and  stirrups  gilded 
and  plated.i  The  Brunswicker  Burkhard  von  Saldern 
had  a  saloon  built  to  his  house  the  decoration  of  which 
with  green  cloth  cost  several  thousand  thalers,  '  not 
including  the  painting  and  gold  work  that  was  on  the 
cloth.'  2  A  morality  preacher  complained  that  500-600 
guldens  were  often  given  for  one  bed.^  Count  Giinther 
of  Schwarzburg  in  1560  spent  10,000  Reichsthalers  on 
tapestry,   carpets  and  curtains  for  his  rooms.* 

^  Extract  from  the  inventories  in  Moser's  Patriot.  Archiv,  viii.  235-248, 
contributed,  without  reference  to  Moser,  by  Chr.  v.  Stramberg  in  the 
Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  Kidturgesch.  (year  1858),  p.  232-240.  In  the  wardrobe 
of  the  Countess  Hans  Heinrich  von  Schonberg  there  were  in  1605  numbers 
of  garments  worked  with  gold  and  silver,  '  45  pairs  of  large  cloths, 
and  besides  the  head  parures  and  other  jewellery,  1  loose  wrap,  an 
ornament  worth  one  hundred  gold  guldens,  15  small  link  chains  with  1 
ring  worth  200  gold  guldens,  1  pair  of  chains  worth  230  gold  guldens, 
2  linked  chains  worth  206  gold  guldens,  1  carcanet  worth  40  gold 
guldens,  1  small  chain  worth  27  gold  guldens,  besides  pearl  chains, 
gold,  gilded  and  silver  girdles,  bracelets,'  and  so  forth.  Fraustadt, 
i.  518. 

-  Kohler,  xvi.  168.  »  Theatrum  Diaholorum,  385. 

■•  Vulpius,  X.  190.  **  Caspar  von  Fiirstenberg  paid  120  Reichsthalers 
for  a  hat-band.  His  gold  ornaments  weighed  27  i  pounds,  2  ounces  ; 
for  half  this  sum  he  could  ha^/e  bought  a  magnificent  house  in  Mayence, 
with  vineyards  &c.,  &c.     Pieler,  163-164. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  339 

'  For  many  years/  it  says  in  a  pamphlet,  '  there  have 
been  but  few  among  the  nobles  who  have  not  complained 
of  great  and  excessive  debts ;  but  however  deep  in 
debt  they  may  be,  they  nevertheless  indulge  in  as 
much  pomp  and  extravagance  in  their  household 
furnishings  as  if  they  possessed  huge  fortunes/  ^  When, 
for  instance.  Count  Ulrich  von  Regenstein  in  1541  gave 
his  daughter  in  marriage  to  Count  Wolfgang  of  Stolberg, 
his  sum  of  debts  was  raised  to  an  appalhng  height ;  one 
portion  of  his  estates  was  mortgaged  and  many  others 
were  alienated,  but  nevertheless  he  let  the  bride  be 
taken  to  the  bridegroom  in  a  carriage  with  six  horses  ; 
four  horses  were  harnessed  to  the  carriage  containing 
the  clothes  and  jewels  with  which  she  was  provided, 
like  '  a  daughter  and  a  Countess  of  Eegenstein : '  350 
guests  and  horses  took  part  in  the  procession.  The 
prescribed  daughter's  dowry  of  8000  guldens  Ulrich 
could  not  pay,  and  he  got  himself  into  such  difficulties 
that  his  numerous  creditors  pursued  him  with  abusive 
letters  and  caricatm'es,  and  dragged  his  honour,  his 
house  and  his  race  most  offensively  in  the  mud.^ 

Contemporaries  universally  agreed  that  one  of  the 
chief  causes  of  the  insolvency  of  the  nobles  was  their 
'  unspeakable  extravagance  in  dress  and  ornaments/ 
'  Many  of  the  nobles,'  wrote  Cyriacus  Spangenberg, 
'  have  as  many,  and  more,  coats,  mantles,  cloaks,  and 
suchlike,  as  there  are  Sundays  in  the  year,  not  to  mention 

^  Von  den  vielen  Auszeichen.  cf.  above  p.  263,  n.  L 

-  Zeilschr.  des  Harzvereins,  vii.  4-32.  **  Extraordinary  luxury 
was  also  displayed  in  1591  at  the  wedding  of  Anton  Fugger  with  the 
Countess  Barbara  de  Montfori,  See  L,  Brunner,  '  Aus  dem  BUdungsgange 
eines  Ausburger  Kaufmannssohnes  am  Sclilusse  des  16ten  Jahrhunderts  ' 
in  the  Zeitschr.  des  Historischen  Vereins  fiir  Schwaben  und  Neuburg,  i. 
175  note. 

z  2 


340  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

of  the  numberless  hoods,  hats,  caps,  girdles,  gloves, 
chains,  necklets,  bracelets  and  rings/  i  Saxon  nobles 
wore  trunk-hose  of  silk  or  gold  stuffs,  of  which  60-80 
ells  were  used ;  many  of  them  even  required  130  ells. 
A  single  pair  of  hose  often  cost  more  than  '  the  whole 
revenue  of  a  village  came  to,'  so  that  numbers  of  nobles 
reduced  themselves  to  ruin  by  their  dress.  Coats  hned 
with  silk  and  velvet  were  also  worn,  and  these  cost  500 
gulden.  A  countess  was  known  to  have  had  made  for 
herself  a  golden  train  with  very  exquisite  work,  for  which 
she  paid  the  goldsmith  3500  gulden,  besides  150  gulden 
for  making  it.'  ~  It  was  regarded  as  an  important  reduc- 
tion of  noblemen's  expenses  that  it  was  settled  that  a 
suit  of  clothes  must  not  cost  more  than  200  gulden.^ 

'  Very  few  would  now  be  satisfied  with  the  old  manly 
style  of  dress  worn  by  the  German  nobles  in  former 
days.  It  was  old-fashioned,  they  said,  out  of  date.'  '  It 
has  also  come  to  this,'  wrote  Cyriacus  Spangenberg  in 
1594,  '  that  nothing  German,  let  alone  anything  ancient 
in  the  way  of  dress  goes  down  with  the  nobles  nowa- 
days ;  everything  must  be  foreign  :  Spanish  hoods, 
French  hose,  Hungarian  hats,  Pohsh  top-boots, 
Bohemian   bonnets,    Italian   stomachers    and    collars.'"' 

1  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  453. 

2  Richard,  Licht  und  Schaiten,  23.  Theairum  Diabolorum,  391,  400. 
Die  TeufelsiracM  der  Pluderhosen  (1592)  p.  391  ;   cf.  Vulpius,  i.  254. 

^  Cf .  the  '  Vereinbarung  melireren  adeligen  Faiuilien  im  Braun- 
scliweigischen  von  Jahre  1618  '  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  deutsche  Kidturgesch. 
(year  1856),  p.  109.  '  Even  dogs  '  so  the  morality  preachers  complained, 
'  often  had  such  costly  collars,  that  many  a  poor  man  with  his  wife  and 
children,  who  were  let  go  naked,  might  have  been  clothed  out  of  the 
money  spent  on  those  collars.' — Adelsspiegel,  ii.  454'J. 

4  **  Ijj  1562  the  Venetian  ambassador  Giacomo  Soranzo,  in  his  official 
reports  on  Germany,  had  akeady  said  that  the  German  nobihty  had 
adopted  Italian  and  Spanish  fasliions,  ne  vivono  secondo  Vantico  modo 
di  Germania. — Alberi,  ser.  1,  vol.  vi.  126. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  341 

Moreover,    everything   has    to    be   smart   and   many- 
coloured,    trimmed,    slashed,    frilled,   and   furbelowed : 
some  of  them  have  their  clothes  so  chopped  and  cut 
about  that  they  look  as  if  the  pigs  had  been  tearing 
at  them  and  eating  them  up.     And  yet  they  think  it  a 
very  exquisite  get-up  and  swear  they  look  mighty  well 
in  it.'     '  And  yet  it  does  strike  one  as  very  absurd  when  a 
young  gallant  (and  the  old  ones  look  still  more  idiotic) 
struts  about  with  a  pile  of  linen  crimped,  plaited,  folded, 
twisted  round  his  throat,  over  his  ears  and  his  head,  like 
a  bristly  hedge,  or  else  falling  down  over  his  shoulders 
— for  that 's  how  the  scandalous  ruffles  are  made  now — 
and  also  hanging  over  the  hands  as  eagles'  feathers  cover 
their  claws.     It  all  looks  as  hideous  as  possible  and  gives 
no  indication  of  a  manly,  robust  spirit.     Ah,  if  our  fore- 
fathers, the  brave,  splendid,  gallant  men  who  died  sixty, 
eighty,  hundred  years  ago,  could  come  back  again  now 
and  see  all  this  effeminacy  and  frivolity  in  their  descend- 
ants, what  do  you  think  they  would  say  about  it  ? 
They  would  despise  us,  not  only  for  such  feminine  ways, 
but  also  for  the  folly  of  spending  so  much  unnecessary 
money    on   such  unnecessary  and  also  improper  and 
scandalous    clothing.      One    squire    had     three    pairs 
of    hose    which    cost    him  800   crowns.     Is  it  not  a 
shame  ?     I  will  not  speak  here  of  other  unnecessary 
grandeur  which  has  lately  been  witnessed,  even  in  the 
matter  of  shoes,  which  are  made  of  velvet,  and  also  of 
gold  stuff,  and  embroidered  with  pearls.'  ^ 

'  Some  of  the  nobles,'  Spangenberg  goes  on,  '  find 
their  chief  dehght  in  gambling,  and  they  will  gamble 
away  at  one  sitting  several  hundreds,  or  even  thousands, 
of  gulden.     Others  take  pleasure  in  having  a  crowd 

1  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  443,  454. 


342  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

of  attendants  and  servants ;  they  have  their  own 
trumpeters,  lute  or  guitar  players,  pipers,  conjurers 
and  fools,  whom  they  dress  up  now  in  green,  now^  in 
red,  now  in  grey  or  blue,  now  in  Hungarian  or  Bruns- 
wickian  fashion,  now  with  broad  French  hats,  and  so 
on.  And  when  they  carry  on  all  this  unnecessary 
extravagance  in  eating,  drinking,  dressing,  building, 
gambhng,  they  say  '  "  Wliy  not  ?  Wliy  shouldn't  they 
do  it;  it's  their  own  money  and  they  may  do  what 
they  like  with  it ;  they  have  not  got  to  account  to 
any  one."  But  I  answer  them  and  say,  "No,  for 
all  property  is  only  lent  to  us  by  God;  we  are  not 
lords  over  it,  but  only  householders  appointed  by  God, 
to  whom  in  His  own  good  time,  we  shall  have  to  render 
account  to  a  farthing  of  how  we  have  spent  it."  '  ^ 

'  This  effeminacy  in  dress  and  luxury  went  hand 
in  hand  with  a  lazy,  effeminate  mode  of  hfe '  (especially 
am.ong  the  young  men)  ;  nevertheless,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that,  like  many  of  the  princes,  notably 
Albert  V.  of  Bavaria,  a  good  number  of  nobles  also, 
such  as  John  James  von  Fugger,  John  George  von 
Werdenstein,  H.  J.  von  Lamberg,  and  finally  the 
Thuringian  family  of  Werther=Beichhngen,  displayed 
noteworthy  literary  tastes."  '  The  young  nobles,'  wrote 
Count  Reinhard  von  Solms,  '  have  no  other  occupa- 
tion than  sleeping  till  high  noon,  and  the  rest  of  the 
day  loafing  about  idly,  flirting  with  the  women,  or 
playing  with  the  dogs,  and  then  drinking  half  through 
the  night ;    next  to  this,  all  their  thoughts  are  taken 

^  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  456,  457. 

-  See  Histor.  Jahrh.  xvii.  93,  note  1,  Here  there  are  fuller  details 
concerning  the  Werther  library,  which,  after  the  death  of  Philip  von 
Werther  (1588),  was  bought  by  the  Elector  Christian  I.  of  Saxony. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  343 

up  with  idiotic  dressing  and  adornment ;  and  when 
there  comes  a  serious  crisis,  a  campaign  perchance, 
they  care  only  for  elegance  and  daintiness  and  for  being 
well  dressed,  as  if  they  were  going  ofi  to  a  dance ;  for 
getting  as  many  horses  as  possible  of  one  colour,  and 
a  heap  of  gaily  dressed  lackeys,  and  other  unnecessary 
attendants  ;  besides  keeping  their  own  "  Kadruschke  '' 
on  a  special  coach,  pompously  arrayed — as  if  this  were 
a  fine  thing  to  do — then  trimming  their  beards  and  in- 
dulging in  frivolities  to  their  own  and  public  disgrace/  ^ 

'  Formerly,'  said  Duke  Julius  of  Brunswick,  in  1588, 
'  the  hardy,  joyous  Germans  were  renowned  among 
all  nations  for  their  manly  virtue ;  now,  however, 
their  brave  and  manly  prowess  and  chivalry  has  not 
only  markedly  decreased,  but  almost  altogether  dis- 
appeared, and  this  has  chiefly  come  about  because 
nearly  all  our  vassals,  servants  and  relations  alike, 
young  and  old,  give  themselves  up  to  philandering 
and  driving  about  in  coaches.  If  they  had  to  serve 
at  court  in  former  days  they  did  not  dare  appear  with 
coaches,  but  only  with  their  riding  horses/  ^ 

Of  the  life  of  the  nobles  in  general,  the  preachers 
especially  give  a  far  from  edifying  picture.  '  Drunken- 
ness," wrote  Luther,  '  which  like  a  sin- flood  has  deluged 

'  Spangenberg,  Adelssjnegel,  ii.  406''.  **  '  The  majority  of  the  nobles 
of  the  sixteenth  century,'  says  Steinhausen  {Gesch.  des  detdschen  Brief es,  i, 
1500),  'could  not  write,  or  at  any  rate  only  so  imperfectly,  that  the 
few  letters  which  they  had  to  indite  had  to  be  made  over  to  a  secretary.' 
See  I.e.  p.  152,  an  example  of  the  extremely  clumsy  style  even  of  those 
nobles  who  were  most  skilled  in  writing. 

-  In  V.  Hormayr,  Taschenbuch,  new  series,  xvi.  265-270.  Concerning 
the  coach-driving  of  the  riobles,  see  also  the  ordinances  of  the  Elector 
Augustus  of  Saxony,  of  March  26,  1580,  in  the  Codex  Aiufusteus,  i.  2185- 
2186,  and  of  the  Elector  Joachim  Frederick  of  Brandenburg,  of  March  24, 
1607,  in  Mylius,  iii.  part  2,  15. 


344  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

everything,  reigns  especially  among  tlie  nobles/  '  I 
remember  that  when  I  was  young  drinking  was 
considered  a  monstrous  great  scandal,  and  that  laudable 
princes  and  lords  stemmed  it  with  severe  ordinances 
and  punishments.  But  now  it  is  far  worse  among 
them  than  among  the  peasants  :  it  is  looked  upon  as 
an  aristocratic  virtue  ;  whosoever  will  not  join  them  in 
becoming  a  drunken  hog  is  despised.  But  what  indeed 
is  more  to  be  shunned  than  this  vice,  which  has  spread 
even  to  the  young,  who  have  learned  it  from  their  elders 
and  who  practise  it  so  shamelessty,  flagrantly  and 
unsparingly  that  they  are  ruined  in  their  earliest 
years,  like  young  corn  blighted  by  hail  and  rain  storms, 
for  nowadays  most  of  our  best  and  cleverest  young 
people,  above  all  among  the  nobles  and  at  court,  ruin 
their  health  and  lives  in  this  way  before  they  have  come 
to  years  of  discretion  ?  '  ^  '  The  nobles,'  said  Nicholas 
Selnekker,  in  1565,  '  are  for  the  most  part  epicures, 
filthy  pigs,  blasphemers,  pompous,  arrogant  fellows, 
disgusting  gorgers  and  drinkers,  given  up  to  all  sorts 
of  vice  and  iniquity,  regarding  all  honour  and  chastity 
as  a  dissfrace,  and  all  sin  and  scandal  as  honour,  and 
all  immorality  and  filthiness  as  something  to  boast  of ; 
all  God-fearing  people  on  the  earth  they  avoid,  and 
think  them  scarcely  worthy  to  be  shone  on  by  the 
beautiful  sun,  still  less  to  be  used  for  the  honour  of 
God  and  the  protection  of  the  land  and  its  inhabitants. 
Furthermore,  they  are  the  deadly  enemies  of  God  the 
Lord  and  of  His  Word,  and  treat  and  call  everything 
that  God  causes  to  be  said  to  them  as  priestly  cant, 
fables  and  folly.  They  set  their  strength  in  defiance 
and  arrogance ;    their  piety  in  blasphemy,   contempt 

'  See  o\ir  remarks,  vol,  iv.  145  ff. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  345 

of  Goers  word  and  contempt  of  all  its  ministers ;  their 
chastity  is  whoredom,  coarse  and  obscene  speech  and  ges- 
tures, devouring,  imbibing  and  vomiting  ;  their  rightful 
authority  is  turned  to  violence,  arrogance,  crime,  de- 
fiance, injustice,  despising  and  circumventing  everybody 
just  as  they  please.  Their  get-up  is  French,  their  breath 
stinks,  their  hands  and  feet  are  mangy,  they  are  always 
panting  and  gasping.  No  wonder  then  that  they  are 
almost  everywhere  despised  by  the  common  people.'  ^ 

The  preacher  David  Veit  said  in  1581  in  a  funeral 
sermon  on  Hans  von  Selwitz,  wdio  was  mortally  wounded 
in  a  nocturnal  fray  at  Jena  :  '  It  is  with  great  sorrow 
that  we  hear  and  experience  how  the  highest  in  the  land, 
those  who,  on  account  of  their  noble  birth  and  lineage, 
should  be  more  addicted  than  others  to  godliness, 
honour  and  virtue,  have  come  to  this,  that  they  think 
no  one  worthy  to  be  regarded  as  a  nobleman  who 
does  not  utter  the  most  terrible  and  blasphemous 
curses,  or  who  in  talking  about  matrimony,  about 
young  girls  and  women,  does  not  introduce  the  coarsest 
and  most  immoral  words  and  gestures.  How  utterly 
epicurean  and  depraved  they  have  become  in  the  matter 
of  drinking  is  as  broad  as  daylight.  Not  content  with 
small  cans  and  other  ordinary  drinking  utensils,  they 
use  tubs,  coops,  and  other  things  of  the  sort  which  are 
meant  for  the  unreasoning  cattle.  How  immorality, 
also,  gains  head  amid  such  kind  of  living  is  manifest 
to  all  and  truly  lamentable.'  ^ 

'  Auslegung  des  Psalters  (Nuremberg,  1565),  ii.  78  and  iii.  131. 

2  Eine  Predigt  iiber  der  Leiche  d;c.  (Jhena,  1581),  Bl.  E-.  Wolfgang 
Biitncr,  pastor  at  Wolierstedt,  wrote  .  in  1576  :  '  The  Lacedaemonians 
never  tolerated  among  them  fellows  basking  in  the  sun  or  wearing  slippers 
aU  day  long.  If  the  Lacedaemonians  could  see  our  squires  in  tliis  land 
to-day,  the  night  ravens,  the  beer  and  wine  bibbers,  the  gamblers  and 


346  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Similarly  wrote  Spangenberg  in  liis  '  Adelsspiegel ' : 
'  The  majority  of  the  nobles  are  addicted  to  drink.  They 
often  have  to  sell  or  mortgage  a  mill,  an  ale-house,  a 
pond,  a  carriage,  often  even  a  whole  village  in  order  to 
get  enough  Hquor  to  drown  themselves  in.  And  they 
are  not  satisfied  with  drinking  themselves  to  their  hearts' 
content,  but  they  compel  others,  often  with  curses,  to 
drink  with  them  interminably ;  they  drink  to  one 
another  by  rows  of  pots,  an  ell,  or  a  quarter  ell,  or  also 
less  in  length  ;  or  by  weight  of  so  many  pounds.  Some- 
times they  drink  out  of  two  glasses  at  a  time.  .  .  . 
Sometimes  they  put  small  hve  fishes  into  the  beer  and 
gulp  them  down  with  the  drink.  They  are  not  content 
with  glasses,  beakers,  flasks  &c.,  but  hke  pigs  they  drink 
out  of  tubs,  barrels,  skulls,  boots,  and  unmentionable 
articles.  Once  a  cat,  thrown  on  the  table,  was  torn  in 
two  and  then  used  as  a  drinking  vessel.  Some  would 
swallow  the  glass  itself  or  their  ruffles — which  did  them 
little  good.  For  thus,'  Spangenberg  goes  on,  '  does 
drinking  lead  people  to  inhuman  atrocities  and  make 
them  senseless,  mad,  beside  themselves,  as  though  they 
were  live  devils  out  of  hell'  Not  few  in  number  were 
the  '  drunken  brothers '  described  in  1598  by  the 
Bavarian  Ducal  Secretary  Aegidius  Albertinus,  who  when 
they  had  drunk  up  all  their  patrimony  went  from  one 
friendly  (or  unfriendly  !)  nobleman  to  another  and  helped 
him  to  do  the  same ;  or  even  went  from  one  convent  to 
another  and  caroused  in  these  as  though  they  were  only 
founded  for  the  use  of  such  drunken,  debased  fellows,  and 

the  whoremongers,  and  were  to  punish  their  devilish  indolence,  laziness 
and  sluggishness,  God  help  us,  where  would  our  pastor  and  our  chaplain 
at  St.  John's  Cathedral,  en  campo  flore  et  vacca  del  porta,  find  room  for 
their  bushy  beards  and  their  high  heels  ?  ' — Archiv  fiir  Liberaiurgesch.  vi. 
311. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  347 

not  for  the  maintenance  of  devout,  prayerful,  religious 
men.'  ^ 


^  De  conviviis,  76*',       Philip  Camerarius  gives  an  account  of  a  drinking 
tournament  at  the  wedding  of  a  nobleman  when  tho  prize  was  won  by  a 
man  who  in  a  few  hours  di-ank  eighteen  measures  of  wine.     Carpzov, 
Praciica  Nova,  iii.  374.     Concerning  immoderate  drinking  at  tho  court 
of   the  Count  of  Mansfeld  (1564),  see  Spangenberg,  Sdchsische  Chronika, 
70L     Of  Count  Christopher  Ludwig  von  Wertheim  we  read  in  a  report 
of  1612  :   '  Senior  goes  on  in  his  old  ways  at  Lowenstein.     Tho  silver  flask 
goes  round  day  and  night,  and  there  is  such  an  amount  of  drinking,  that 
according  to  the  accounts  of  the  Captain  von  Hall,  he  is  likely  to  reduce 
himself  to  insanity.' — A.  Kaufmann,  312.     Concerning  the  drunken  doings 
of  the  Hessian  squires  '  who  when  reeling  with  drink  staggered  about  in 
the  fields,  and  fired  guns,  with  the  result  that  one  of  them  was   killed,' 
see  the  letter  of  the  Landgrave  William  IV.,  of  October  1585  to  the  Mayor 
of  Homberg  in  Die  Vorzeit  (year  1823),  pp.   317-319.     Of  Jerome  von 
Schallenberg  it  is  said  :    '  He  has  lately  drunk  day  and  night  without 
ceasing  and  in  one  hour  he  died  in  the  tavern.' — v.  Hormayr,  Taschenbuch, 
new  series,  viii.  230.     A  truly  appalling  account  of  a  nobleman's  drinking 
bout  is  given  by  Bartholomew  Ringwalt  in  his  Speculum  Mundi  (Mirror 
of  the  World)  [1590]  Bl.  A  6''-D  4,  E  3-F  5  ;  see  our  remarks  vol.  xii. 
120-128.      Cardinal  Otto  of  Augsburg  founded,  in  1545,  with  forty-two 
counts  and  barons,  a  society  for  the  abolition  of  '  drinking  toasts,'  which 
were  the  ruin  of  the  nobles. — Histor.  Jahrb.  der  Gorres^Oesellschaft  (year 
1886),  p.  192.      Cliristopher  Vitzthum  von  Eckstadt  and  Vespasian  von 
Rheinsberg  announced  on  January  1,  1592  :    '  We  have  had  two  silver 
flasks  made  of  the  same  size  and  pattern,  and  each  person  shall  be  free, 
at  honourable  gatherings,  where  a  drink  of  welcome  is  a  matter  of  etiquette, 
to  drink  this  prescribed  measure  in  one  day  either  before  or  after  noon, 
three  times  at  the  utmost :  after  the  three  flasks  no  one  shall  di-ink  except 
for  thirst,  be  it  wine  or  beer.'     A  fine  of  1000  gulden  was  the  punishment 
for    exceeding    this    quantity. — Miiller,     Trinkstuhen,    727-728.     When 
Andreas  von  Roebell  obtained  a  canonry  at  Havelberg  from  the  Branden- 
burg Elector  John  George,  he  took  a  vow  on  January  26,  1577,  '  on  the 
honour  and  faith  of  a  nobleman,'  that  he  would  abstain  from  drunkenness 
and  that  he  would  not  drink  more  at  each  meal  than  two  good-sized 
beakers  of  beer  and  wine.     If  he  should  be  found  drunk,  without  electoral 
permission,  he  would,  as  soon  as  he  was  called  upon  to  do  so,  repair  to 
the  kitchen,  '  and  with  forty  stripes  save  one,  the  same  number  that 
had  been  inflicted  on  St.  Paul,  if  so  be  his  electoral  grace  should  order  it, 
he  would  submit  to  being  beaten  with  the  rod.' — v.  Hormayr,  Taschenbuch, 
new  series,  xx.  141-142. 


348  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'  Decried  to  the  uttermost,  and,  like  the  drinking- 
carousals,  a  most  iniquitous  example  for  the  people, 
were  the  mad,  villainous,  immoral  dances  which  were 
given  by  the  nobles,  and  were  veritable  devil's  schools 
and  orgies  in  town  and  country.'  i  They  were  often  of 
such  a  profligate  character  that  special  statutes  were 
drawn  up  concerning  them  for  the  protection  of  respect- 
able people.  Thus  for  instance  in  the  '  Statutes  for  the 
nobiUty's  dance  at  Delitsch  which  takes  place  annually 
on  the  festival  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,'  it  was  decreed 
that  '  each  person  in  dancing  shall  behave  properly  and 
morally,  not  throw  off  mantles,  run  and  scream,  carrying 
women  and  girls  along  with  them,'  &c.,  &c.  '  They 
shall  not  behave  wantonly  towards  the  women,  as  for 
instance,  tearing  off  their  hoods,  and  so  forth.'  '  Wild, 
bold,  ill-behaved  young  women,  who  set  a  bad  example 
to  other  worthy  and  discreet  ladies,  shall  be  turned  out 
by  suitable  means,  and  not  tolerated.'  '  The  unsteady, 
impudent  youngsters  were  admonished  not  to  attack 
the  watchmen  at  night :  transgressors  of  this  rule  were 
to  be  fined  ten  thalers.'  ^ 

The  gambhng  and  drinking  with  which  such  count- 
less numbers  of  the  nobles  disgraced  themselves  were 
closely  connected  with  'nocturnal  frays  and  tumults, 
often  ending  in  mortal  wounds,  and  with  the  now  almost 
universal  vice  of  swearing  and  blaspheming.'  '  Who,' 
asked  a  preacher  in  1561, '  has  ever  been  in  the  company 
of  nobles  without  having  been  shocked  most  of  the  time 
by  their  devihsh  cursing  and  swearing  ?  '  '  This  is  so 
notorious  that  the  small  number  of  thoughtful  members 
of  the  nobihty  acknowledge  without  scruple  that  this 

*  Vam  geilen  und  gottesidsterlichen  Tantzen  (1560),  p.  4. 
'  Curiosa  Saxon.,  1764,  p.  77. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  349 

accursed  vice  is  nowhere  so  common  as  in  their  class.' 
'  I  say  this  with  sorrow,  all  the  more  so  that  I  am  not 
an  enemy  of  the  nobles,  by  no  means,  on  the  contrary 
I  honour  and  respect  them  when  they  are  worthy  of  their 
name,  and  I  have  several  friends  amongst  them  who  are 
kind  to  me  and  my  children,  and  they  do  not  deny  that 
what  I  say  is  true/  ^  Enemies  of  the  nobility,  like 
Nicodemus  Frischlin  declared  that :  '  In  some  country 
districts  the  nobles  had  made  a  compact  together  and 
sworn  that  no  one  of  them  should  go  to  bed  or  get  up, 
that  none  of  them  should  greet  another  except  in  the 
Devil's  name.     I  shudder  to  talk  of  it.'  ^ 

'  Verily,'  writes  a  contemporary,  '  those  squires  are 
not  very  well  spoken  of,  who  let  their  parish  churches  go 
to  such  wrack  and  ruin  that  neither  roofs  nor  walls  are 
fit  for  anything,  but  in  such  a  tumbledown  condition 
that  you  can  see  through  them  everywhere ;  and  the 
people  during  service,  and  the  preacher  himself  in  the 
pulpit,  in  winter  when  the  weather  is  rainy,  can  scarcely 
keep  themselves  dry,  besides  which  these  churches  are 
often  as  dark  and  smoky  as  caverns.  They  also  fre- 
quently let  the  schools  built  by  their  forefathers  go  to 
ruin,  no  less  than  the  hospitals  and  sick-houses  built  by 
their  ancestors  out  of  Christian  love.  Formerly  a  great 
deal  of  money  was  spent  on  matins  books,  missals, 
antiphonia,  psalters,  beautifully  written  on  parchment ; 
then  everybody  gave  gladly  towards  providing  them, 
each  one  wanted  to  be  remembered  by  the  good  work ; 

1  'Vom  Fluchen  und  Gotteslastern,  insonders  unter  hohen  Personen,' 
Eine  Hausspredigt  (1561)  BI.  B.  und  C'. 

^  Strauss,  179  ff.  Frischlin's  description  of  the  nobles  in  his  Oratio  de 
vita  rustica  is  excessively  coarse,  but  in  its  main  features  scarcely  exagger- 
ated.    Of.  Wachsmuth,  v.  293. 


350  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERIklAN  PEOPLE 

but  now  when  a  squire  ought  to  buy  a  Bible  in  church 
there  is  nothing  but  reluctance  and  excuses/  i 

'  In  former  days  the  squires  thought  it  a  great  dis- 
grace if  each  one  of  them  had  not  contributed  something 
to  the  maintenance  of  divine  service.  They  would  give 
50,  100,  200  gulden.  But  when  do  we  hear  nowadays 
of  any  of  the  nobles  giving  10,  or  even  5  gulden 
towards  keeping  up  the  churches  and  schools,  which 
nevertheless  are  the  two  best  jewels  of  every  fatherland  ? 
Yea  verily,  if  only  they  would  leave  alone  that  which 
others  have  given  for  this  object ! '  ~  '  We  see,  hear,  and 
experience  daily  now,  as  is  happening  everywhere,  one 
grabs  from  the  church  and  appropriates  a  bit  of  rent, 
another  a  tithe,  a  third  a  plot  of  ground,  a  fourth  a 
meadow,  a  fifth  a  copse,  a  sixth  a  garden,  a  seventh  a 
vineyard,  an  eighth  a  hop-garden,  a  ninth  a  piece  of 
grazing  land,  a  tenth  a  fish-pond,  an  eleventh,  some  other 
appurtenage,  revenue  or  privilege.  In  short  they  all 
want  to  have  a  portion  of  oiu:  Lord  God's  garment,  and 
none  will  be  the  last.  There  were  of  old  numbers  of 
churches,  parsonages,  chaplaincies  and  schools  so  well 
endowed  and  provided  for  that  their  incumbents  and 
masters  were  comfortably  ofi  ;  but  now  they  are  no 
longer  so,  for  the  squires  take  the  parish  property  under 
their  own  control  and  give  the  pastors  what  they  hke ; 
they  take  the  fields,  they  themselves  covet  and  give 
w-orse  ones  in  exchange,  they  buy  up  land,  but  do  not  pay 
the  taxes,  and  practise  other  meannesses,  and  so  forth.' -"^ 
Bernhard  Hund,  councillor  of  Duke  John,  Elector 
of  Saxony,  has  often  said  :  '  We  nobles  have  added 
the  convent  goods  to  our  ovm  baronial  goods,  and  the 

1  'Vom  Fluchen  und  GottesEstern,'  Bl.  C.  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  392  -393". 
-  Ibid,  423='.  -i  Ibid.  394-395. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  351 

convent  goods  have  devoured  our  baronial  goods,  so  that 
we  have  neither  convent  goods  nor  baronial  goods  left/  - 
'  In  order  to  help  themselves  out  of  their  difficulties 
the  squires  now  generally  resort  to  all  sorts  of  commercial 
business,  shopkeeping  and  trading,  baking,  brewing  and 
selling  wine.  This  now  forms  part  of  the  hfe  of  the 
nobles,  and  it  would  at  any  rate  be  better  than  idhng 
about,  rechning  on  cushions,  and  emptying  jugs  and 
beakers  (though  the  nobles  of  the  past  did  not  think  it 
worthy  of  their  class),  if  only  this  trading  were  carried  on 
to  the  profit  and  good  of  their  subjects  ;  but  far  from  this 
being  the  case,  the  subjects  are  generally  in  the  highest 
degree  injured  by  this  new  pursuit  of  the  nobles,  as  is 
sufficiently  complained  of  in  all  directions  :  this  new 
aristocratic  occupation  has  indeed  become  a  new  form 
of  merciless  peasant  fleecing,  especially  when  the  nobles 
are  not  only  vendors  but  forestallers  and  raise  all  the 
prices/  '  Many  of  them  are  not  satisfied  with  turning 
into  merchants  and  shopkeepers,  with  usurping  all 
burgher  maintenance,  with  driving  oxen,  brewing,  baking, 
wine-selling  and  butchering,  but  what  is  far  worse  they 
become  monopolists,  buy  up  all  the  wine,  corn,  wool, 
hops  and  such  hke,  become  in  short  forestallers  and  then, 
further,  in  times  of  dearness,  fleecers  and  bleeders  of  the 
poor.  They  corner  the  wheat  for  times  of  scarcity,  buy 
the  worst  and  most  inferior  wines,  and  afterwards  free 
them  on  their  poor  toihng  vassals  at  as  high  a  price  as 
they  would  have  to  pay  for  good  wine.  They  brew  bad 
unwholesome  beer,  sell  it  at  an  equally  high  price,  and 
compel  the  poor  people,  on  j)enalty  of  a  large  fine,  to 
drink  this  mud-water,  and  when  they  are  tired  out, 
exhausted,  or  even  ill,  will  not  allow  them  to  buy  any 

'  Adelsspiegel,  ii.  64^ 


352  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

other  drink,  whether  wine  or  beer  anywhere  else.  They 
deal  in  all  kinds  of  food  hke  veritable  pork  butchers  and 
at  much  higher  rates  than  other  vendors  ;  they  compel 
the  butchers  to  keep  their  meat  until  they  (the  squires) 
have  sold  theirs  and  fleeced  their  lambs.  '  There  are 
some  also  who  rather  than  sell  their  fruits  to  their  poor 
vassals  at  a  low  price  will  let  them  be  devoured  by  mice, 
or  grow  alive  on  the  floor  and  fly  out  of  the  window, 
I  knew  one  such  man,  who  sooner  than  let  the  poor 
people  buy  his  corn  at  the  usual  price,  out  of  great  wicked- 
ness, had  it  all  shaken  down  from  the  window  into  the 
river  Saale.'  The  common  people  speak  of  the  nobles 
as  of  wolves  :  '  the  younger  the  better,"  they  say,  '  for 
the  young  ones  cannot  do  so  much  harm  as  the  old  ones.'  ^ 
As  regards  also  their  attitude  towards  all  that  was 
foreign,  especially  to  French  influences,  the  nobles  and 

'  Eine  Predig,  Ob  christliche  Barmherzigkeit  musse  ausgestorben  sein  ? 
(1569)  Bl.  A^  Adesspiegel,  ii.  347,  357,  461''.  Cf.  Strigenicius,  Diluvium, 
185.  **  Concerning  the  fight  between  the  nobles  and  the  towns  brought 
on  by  similar  proceedings  of  the  nobles  in  Pomerania  see  Spahn,  Ver- 
fassungs-  unci  WirischaftsgeschicMe  des  Herzogiums  Pommern,  163ff.  The 
convert  Gerhard  Lorichius,  then  pastor  in  Wetzlar,  wrote  as  follows  of 
the  nobles  :  '  Qui  hodie  nobihtatis  gloriam  sibi  vendicant,  prae  ceteris 
sunt  fere  omnes  inhumani,  iUiberales,  astuti,  feroces,  difficUes,  insuavos, 
intractabiles,  severi,  semper  ad  ulciscendum  si  quam  acceperunt  iniuriolam, 
proni .  .  .  Sunt  etiam  legum  egregii  contemptores  nobUistae  nostrates.  .  . 
Hie  assiduas  crajjulas,  vestium  et  luxum  phrigium  et  vanitatem  insanam 
praeteriero,  non  hie  molliciam  sardanapahcam  indicavero,  non  denique 
scortationes,  stupra  et  adulteria,  non  propudiosum  et  infandum  fastum, 

usuram    et   quaeque   avaritia   monumenta   profcram Quis   hodie 

latrocinando  grassatur  hberius,  quis  praedatur  audacius,  quis  pubUcam 
pacem  pertmbat  frequentius  atque  paludati  nostrates  et  eorum  ministri  ? 
....  Adeo  crudelitas  in  Germania  invalescit,  ut  etiam  sanguinarii 
homines,  homicidae  sacrilegi,  imo  etiam  qui  ferro  et  igne  omnio  devastant 
incendiarii,  nobilitatis  absolutae  gloriam  sibi  mereantur.'  Monotessaron 
passionis  Christi  Jesu,  cum  expositione  omnigenae  orthodoxae  doctrinae 
fecunda  .  .  .  authore  Gerhardo  Lorichio  Hadamario  (SaUngiaci  [Solingen] 
1553)  p.  118a. 


LIFE  OF  THE  NOBLES  353 

still  more  the  burghers,  imitated  the  princes.  For 
instance  it  had  become  the  fashion  among  Protestant 
Princes  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  intro- 
duce a  strong  French  element  in  the  education  of  their 
sons,  and  this  custom  spread  among  the  nobles.^ 

^  Concerning  the  spread  of  French  influence,  in  the  higher  circles 
■especially,  see  G.  Steinhausen's  treatise,  '  Die  Aufange  des  franzosischen 
Literatnr-  und  Kultureinflusses  in  Deutschland  in  neuerer  Zeit,'  in  Koch's 
Zeitschr.  fur  vergleich.  Literaturgesch.,  New  Series,  7  (1894),  especially  p. 
366  ff.,  370.  In  France  they  found  '  a  new  ideal  of  culture  and  life  which 
incited  them  to  imitation,'  p.  352.  See  also  the  same  author's  Gesch.  des 
deutschen  Brief es,  ii.  5  ff. 


VOL.  XV.  A.  A 


354  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


CHAPTER  III 

BURGHER   AND   PEASANT   LIFE 

'  If  anyone/  says  a  Christian  sermon  of  1573,  '  should 
want  to  describe  the  hfe  of  the  burghers  and  peasants  of 
our  time  he  must  begin  with  the  inordinate,  extravagant 
display  in  dress  and  jewellery  of  all  sorts,  which  is  now 
the  fashion  among  the  burghers  and  peasants,  and  even 
among  the  lowest  orders,  and  then  next  speak  of  the 
bestial  gorging  and  drinking,  of  the  inhuman  carousals 
and  drinking-bouts  which  go  on  in  town  and  country 
alter  the  example  of  the  princes  and  lords,  and  as  it 
were  in  the  highest  seat  of  government/  '  We  will 
first  therefore,"  the  preacher  goes  on,  '  deal  with  the 
devil  of  dress,  fashion,  adornment  and  pride,  and  then 
with  the  devil  of  gluttony  and  drunkenness  ' ;  '  pardon 
me,  dear  Christain  friends '  he  adds,  for  using  such  foul 
names,  but  I  can  do  no  otherwise  ;  for  I  wish  to  be  true 
and  to  speak  German  and  I  cannot  embellish  foul  things, 
things  that  are  most  highly  injurious  to  us  all,  with  fine- 
sounding  names/  ^ 

1.  Dress  and  Fashion — Means  of  Embellishment — 
Gold  and  Silver  Ornaments — Extravagance 
AMONG  the  Lower  Classes 

Extravagance  in  dress  and  a  craze  for  fashion  beyond 
all  measure  and  reason  was  a  characteristic  feature  of 

^  Ein  christlich  Predigt  wider  das  unmdssig  Schmucken,  Prassen  und 
Vollsavfen  (1578)  BI.  A. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  355 

the  closing  Middle  Ages,^  and  one  which  grew  more 
and  more  pronounced  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  maintaining  an  inverse  relation  to  the  declining 
prosperity  of  the  land.^  In  the  first  decades  after  the 
outbreak  of  the  religious  disturbances,  it  certainly 
seemed  as  if  '  greater  modesty  and  decorum  in  dress 
were  coming  in ' ;  very  soon,  however,  morahty 
preachers  had  to  complain  that '  from  their  own  observa- 
tion they  could  see  that  grandeur  and  shamelessness  in 
dress  were  increasing  from  year  to  year,  and  that  the 
fashions  were  more  capricious  and  expensive  than  ever 
before ;  and  that  the  craze  for  everything  foreign  was 
also  increasing.'  ^  '  Nearly  all  nations  and  countries,' 
wrote  Joachim  Westphal  in  1565,  *  keep  to  their  own 
special  costume  and  form  of  dress,  so  that  one  can  say  : 
that  is  a  Polish,  that  a  Bohemian,  that  a  Hungarian 
or  Spanish  costume.  We  Germans,  however,  have 
nothing  definite,  but  mix  everything  together  ;  Italian, 
French,  Slav  and  almost  Turkish  fashions ;  if  people 
were  to  judge  only  by  our  clothes  they  would  not  know 
what  to  make  of  us,  or  what  nation  we  belonged  to.'  * 
*  It  is,  alas !  well  known '  said  the  Meissen  Superintendent 
Gregory  Strigenicius,  '  that  with   Italian   clothes  and 

^  See  our  remarks  vol.  ii.  62-70. 

-  Steinhausen,  Gesch.  cles  deutschen  Briefes,  ii.  3  :  '  Luxury  and  extra- 
vagance, against  which  dress  and  wedding  ordinances  and  other  bye-laws 
waged  incessant  warfare  after  the  second  half  of  tlie  sixteenth  century,  were 
a  characteristic  feature  of  this  period.  BrilUancy  and  display  are  not  signs 
of  great  well-being,  but  the  accompaniment  of  a  universal  mania.  The  misery 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  could  not  eradicate  this  spirit.  Luxury,  despite 
all  the  numberless  ordinances  against  it,  flourished  more  and  more  ;  the 
decline  of  agriculture  necessitated  the  semblance  at  least  of  prosperity.' 

^  Predig  wider  den  uhermdssigen  und  unverschdmten  Kleiderschmuck 
(1542)  Bl.  A. 

•»  Der  Hoffartsteufel,  Bl.  B  7. 

2  A  2 


356  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

French  fashions  all  sorts  of  ItaUan  and  French  ways  and 
morals  and  numbers  of  foreign  words  are  brought  to 
Oermany.  It  is  a  bad  sign  when  the  customary 
dress  of  the  land  is  given  up  and  foreign  costumes 
adopted ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  nations 
we  imitate  in  dress  will  one  day  possess  themselves  of 
Germany/  ^ 

Concerning  the  incessant  changes  of  fashion  Joachim 
Westphal  said  in  1565  :  '  Who  could  or  would  recount 
all  the  manifold  wonderful  and  eccentric  shapes  and 
styles  in  dress,  both  for  ladies  and  gentlemen  and  the 
common  people,  which  have  come  in  and  gone  out  during 
the  last  thirty  years,  all  the  varieties  in  the  chains, 
cloaks,  mantles,  furs,  ruffles,  gowns,  caps,  collars,  hats, 
boots,  jackets,  petticoats,  doublets,  capes,  stomachers, 
hose,  shoes,  slippers,  firearms,  powder  flasks,  and  so  forth  ? 
We  have  had  to  be  in  turn  Polish,  Bohemian,  Hungarian, 
Turkish,  French,  Italian,  English  or  devilish,  Nurem- 
bergist,  Brunswickian,  Franconian  or  Saxon ;  and  every 
size  and  style  have  had  their  run :  short,  long,  narrow, 
wide,  plain,  plaited,  braided,  corded,  wadded,  gallooned, 
with  fringes,  with  tags,  with  rags,  whole  or  slashed  up, 
hned  and  unhned,  with  sleeves,  without  sleeves  ;  with 
foolish   headgear    party-coloured,    crumpled,    pointed, 

•  Strigenicius,  Jonas,  384  .  (**  See  also  the  complaints  of  the  Augus- 
tinian  Joh.  Hoffmeister  in  Paulus,  Hoffmeister,  361  S.).  With  the  evidence 
of  contemporaries  Julius  Lessing  is  not  in  agreement  when  he  says  in  his 
article  '  Der  Modeteufel '  (Berlin,  1884) :  '  We  regard  the  grave,  decorous 
dress  of  the  Reformation  period  as  a  faithful  expression  of  this  age  of 
manly,  vigorous  striving  '  (p.  9).  Far  more  appropriate  to  this  period 
was  the  exclamation  of  Moscherosch  (f  1669),  in  Philander  von  Sittewald  .> 
'  Come  hither  !  you  call  yourself  a  German  !  Your  whole  get-up  would 
tell  quite  another  tale.  No  sooner  does  a  senseless  Italian  fasliion  come 
up,  than  you  ill-advised  apes  must  instantly  imitate  it,  even  though  it 
should  vary  every  three  months.' 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  357 

blunt,  with  or  without  tassels  and  tufts ;  then  it  had  to 
be  of  leather,  felt,  cloth  or  hnen,  of  all  stuff  and  forms 
without  end  or  measure.  At  one  moment  is  worn  the 
Swiss  cut,  the  next  moment  the  cross-cut,  then  a  pea- 
cock-tail is  cut  in  the  hose,  and  this  produces  such  a 
scandalous  and  abominable  result,  that  a  pious  heart 
must  be  horrified  at  it.  For  no  thief  on  the  gallows 
can  dangle  backwards  and  forwards,  and  look  more 
ragged  and  tattered  than  the  present-day  hose  of  the 
swashbucklers  and  grandees.     Fie  for  shame/  ^ 

The  garment  here  alluded  to,  the  most  ridiculous  of 
all  fashion's  vagaries,  and  the  plainest  token  of  a  demor- 
alised period  was  the  trunkhose  which  came  into  vogue, 
in  the  Protestant  district  especially,  after  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  *  At  this  time,'  writes  Olde- 
cop  in  his  Annals  of  the  year  1555,  '  the  great  trousers 
came  in.'  'Schlodder'  or  slashed  hose  were  made  with 
6  ells  of  English  cloth  and  99  ells  of  Karteke  drawn 
through  great  shts  that  were  cut  in  the  thicker  material, 
which  only^came  down  to  the  knee ;  the  thinner  stuff, 
drawn  through  the  slits  hung  down  to  the  feet  in  folds 
and  plaits.  A  very  thin  silk  material,  Kartek  or  Arras, 
was  used  for  this  purpose,  and  as  much  as  30  or 
50  ells  were  often  needed,  so  that  the  '  Pluderhose  ' 
was  often  a  very  expensive  article  of  apparel.  It  was 
an  invention  of  the  Landsknechts  who  were  at  the 
head  of  the  fashion  and  dress  movement.  Accord- 
ing to  a  Nuremberg  chronicle  the  '  Pluderhose ' 
was  first  introduced  in  1553  in  the  camp  of  the 
Elector    Maurice    of    Magdeburg.^     Hans     Sachs,    in 

^  Hoffartsteufel,  I.  c. 

"  Falke,  Deutsche  Trachten-  und  Modenwelt,  ii.  45  ff.     Falke,  Zur  Kulhir 
und  Kunst  (Vienna,   1878)  p.   129   ff.      **  The  passage  from  Oldecop's 


358  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

1537,   makes  Beelzebub  say  to  Lucifer  concerning  the 
Landsknechts  : 

More  savage  folk  you  cannot  find, 
Their  clothes  are  of  the  wildest  kind, 
Slashed,  hacked  and  cut  in  strangest  guise. 
Part  of  their  legs  they  do  expose, 
The  other  part  has  great  wide  hose 
Hanging  right  down  to  their  toes. 
In  short  their  whole  form  is  most  evil 
Just  like  old  pictures  of  the  devil.  * 

In  a  folk  song  reprinted  from  a  lampoon  of  1555  it  says  : 

To  him  who  wants  to  know 

The  latest  curiosity, 

The  soldiers  folk  can  show 

A  hideous  atrocity. 

Hosen  they  make  now 

Down  to  the  ankle-bones  I  vow. 

They  hang  as  big  as  a  calf's  head. 

And  silk  withouten  bounds. 

No  money  's  spared  thereon. 

E'en  should  they  begging  go. 

Ye  nobles,  lords  and  princes. 

These  evUs  take  to  heart, 

To  rid  us  of  these  vices 

Do  each  of  you  his  part ; 

For  God  wiU  reckon  with  you, 

He  's  given  you  the  power, 

Break  down  the  wicked,  for  right  quickly 

Comes  God's  judgment  hour.  - 


Chronicle  is  now  printed  in  the  original  text  in  the  edition  of  EuUng, 
384  ff.  Oldecop  is  pleased  to  regard  this  shameless  and  costly  garment 
as  an  outgrowth  of  misapplied  evangelical  freedom,  and  to  make  Luther 
directly  responsible  for  it.  '  Now  I  know  full  well,'  he  writes,  '  whence 
this  devil  with  his  vanity  has  come,  for  at  the  beginning  of  this  "  freedom  " 
I  was  at  Wittenberg,  and  for  more  than  a  year,  and  I  bear  witness  before 
God,  and  wiU  stand  by  it,  that  the  seed,  birth  and  whole  progeny  of  this 
Hose-devil  has  come  from  nowhere  else  than  from  the  doctrine  of  Dr. 
Martin  Luther  at  Wittenberg '  (p.  386  of  the  edition  of  Euling).  Cf.  also 
Lau,  Bitch  Weinsberg,  iv.  257. 

^  Hans  Sachs,  published  by  A.  v.  Keller,  v.  123. 

^  Uhland,  Alte  hoch-  und  niederdeutsche  Volkslieder,  i.  525-531 ;  cf.  ii. 
1020  to  No.  192. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  359 

Some  of  the  princes  certainly  did  try  to  put  a  stop 
to  this '  devihsh  attire.'  Joachim  II.  of  Brandenburg,  for 
instance,  soundly  punished  the  wearers  of  it.  One 
man  who  figured  about  the  streets  in  '  Pluderhose/  and, 
to  make  himself  more  conspicuous  still,  had  a  musician 
playing  the  fiddle  in  front  of  him,  was  by  Joachim's 
orders  confined  for  three  days  in  a  prison,  through  the 
bars  of  which  he  was  on  view  to  the  pubhc,  and  the 
fiddler  was  made  to  play  before  him  all  day  long. 
Another  time  Joachim  punished  a  nobleman  who  went 
to  church  on  Sunday  in  grand  '  Pluderhose,'  by  having 
the  girth  of  his  hose  cut  away,  so  that  the  whole 
mass  of  toggery  fell  to  the  ground  and  the  nobleman, 
in  this  humihating  plight,  was  obliged  to  hurry  home 
amid  the  laughter  of  the  people.  Andreas  Musculus, 
the  superintendent-general  of  the  Middlemark,  pub- 
lished in  1555  his  '  Vermahnung  und  Warnung  vom 
zerluderten,  zucht-  und  ehrverwegenen  pludrigten  Hosen- 
teufel,'  1  in  which  he  demonstrated  that  all  those,  be 

1  See  Osborn,  TeufelsUteratur,  98  S.  Osborn  brought  out  at  Halle, 
in  1894  a  new  edition  of  Musculus's  Hosenteufel.  '  The  incentive  to  this 
publication'  saysW.  Kawerauin  the  AUgemeine  Zeitung,  1895,  Beil.  No.  212, 
'  is  not  without  its  comic  side.  On  a  certain  Sunday  in  1555  at  Frankfort, 
on-the-Oder,  the  Dean  of  the  Oberkirche,  Licentiate  Melchior  Dreger,  had 
preached  an  edifying  sermon  against  "  Pluderhosen,"  and  earnestly 
admonished  his  hearers  to  abstain  from  this  iniquitous  fashion.  When 
he  again  mounted  the  pulpit  the  following  Sunday,  behold — oh,  horror  of 
horrors  ! — just  in  front  of  him,  hanging  high  up  on  a  pillar,  he  saw  a  pair 
of  the  anathematised  trousers  which  some  rascal,  presumably  a  student, 
had  taken  great  trouble  to  fix  up.  Musculus,  the  superintendent-general, 
and  also  professor  at  the  Frankfort  university,  whose  whole  existence 
was  battle  and  strife,  was  not  the  man  to  let  such  an  offence  pass  unnoticed ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  set  heaven  and  earth  in  motion  to  find  out  the  delin- 
quent and  deHver  him  up  to  the  justice.  As,  however,  all  his  efforts 
were  futile,  on  the  day  of  the  Assumption  he  himself  mounted  the  pulpit 
and  with  the  whole  fury  of  his  vigorous  polemics  he  thundered  against  the 
'  zerluderte,  zucht-  und  ehrerwegene,  Pluderichte  Hosenteufel,'  whereby 
he  added  this  new  special  devil  to  the  Lutheran  Devil's  literature  of  that 


360  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

they  Landsknechts,  nobles,  people  of  the  court,  or  even 
of  still  higher  rank,  who  dressed  in  such  abominable 
devil's  hose,  were  sworn  and  abject  lieges  of  the  nether- 
most depths  of  hell.  '  These  new  hose-devils '  he  said 
'  were  the  cause  that  the  enemies  of  the  gospel  blasp- 
phemed  against  it  and  declared  that  whatever  people 
might  sing,  say  or  write  about  the  new  doctrine,  it 
was  not  possible  that  it  came  from  God/  '  A 
Christian,'  he  goes  on,  '  might  well  wonder  and  ask  him- 
self what  could  be  the  reason  why  such  clothing  was 
not  made  and  worn  by  any  but  by  Christians,  and  why 
it  should  be  nowhere  so  common  and  terrible  as  in 
those  very  lands  and  towns  in  which  God  had  poured 
out  His  grace,  and  had  caused  His  precious  Word  and 
pure  doctrine  to  be  preached.  For  if  any  one  had  the 
desire,  out  of  curiosity,  to  see  these  said  "  Pluderhosen  " 
in  all  their  horror  and  profusion,  he  must  not  seek  for 
them  under  the  papacy,  but  must  go  into  the  towns 
and  countries  which  were  now  called  Lutheran  and  evan- 
gehcal :  there  he  would  see  them  in  plenty,  and  his  heart 
would  be  sad  within  him,  and  he  would  be  appalled 
and  horrified  as  at  the  most  gruesome  sea-prodigy.'  i 

Other  preachers  inveighed  in  similar  style  against 
this  fashion,  and  gave  accounts  in  special  pubHcations 
of  all  sorts  of  portents,  and  tokens  which  were  evidence 
of  God's  displeasure  at  these  'Pluderhosen.'  For  in- 
stance, a  child  was  born  with  '  Pluderhose,'  and  ruffs 
round  its  neck  and  wrists  ;  the  devil  boxed  the  ears  of  a 
painter  who  had  portrayed  him  in  '  Pluderhose.' "     But 

period  '  (For  the  rest  of  this  note  readers  are  referred  to  the  German, 
vol.  viii.  p.  252,  n.  2  [thirteenth  and  fourteenth  editions]). 

'  In  the  Theatrum  Diaholorum,  'Der  Hosenteufel,'  433. 

-  See  Moehsen,  497-499.  Cf.  Spieker,  Andreas  Musculus,  166-175. 
**  See  also  Bartsch,  Sdchsische  Kleiderordnungen,  20. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  361 

in  spite  of  all  warnings  and  admonitions  the  new  fashion 
gained  the  upper  hand  among  artisans,  ^  shop-people, 
councils,    and    even    penetrated    among    the    highest 
classes.      *  All    nations/    wrote    Musculus,     '  ItaHans, 
Spaniards,    Frenchmen,    Poles,    Hungarians,    Tartars, 
Turks,  wear  the  same  kind  of  clothes  and  coverings  for 
their  bodies  that  have  come  down  to  them  from  their 
parents.     Germany  alone  has  become  so  possessed  by 
the  shameless  demon  of  dress,  that  there  is  nowadays 
less  modesty,  decorum  and  discretion  among  us  Ger- 
mans than  in  the  Venusberg,  although  we  all  boast  of  our 
respectability  and  morality :  but  we  haven't  as  much  of 
these  commodities  as  a  fly  could  carry  away  on  its  tail.'  ^ 
The  ruhng  authorities  could  not  stop  this  fashion,^ 
but  they  endeavoured  at  least  in  their  '  Dress  ordin- 
ances '  to  reduce  the  quantity  of  the  costly  material 
that   was   used   for   drawing   through   the   slits.     The 
Council   of   Brunswick   in   1579   fixed   12   ells   of  silk 
as   the   allowance   for   the   burghers ;    the   Council   of 

1  **  Among  students  also,  and  even  among  school  boys.  At  Witten- 
berg things  went  so  far  that  the  students,  owing  to  the  '  Pluderhose  ^ 
(the  purchase  of  which  sometimes  swallowed  up  the  yearly  revenue  of  a 
village),  could  no  longer  pay  their  college  fees.  In  1580  the  government 
ordered  the  bursars  of  the  Leipzig  university  not  to  wear  anything  slashed, 
whether  the  silk  were  above  or  beneath  the  article  of  clothing.  The 
school  ordinance  of  the  same  year  decreed  that  '  The  boys  were  not  to 
be  dressed  like  Landsknechts,  but  were  to  be  respectably  clothed  in  such 
apparel  as  is  customary  among  pious,  honourable  people  ;  and  the  masters 
must  not  allow  any  of  them  to  wear  '  slashed  Bloderhose,  plumed  hats,  great 
full  sack  sleeves,  slashed  shoes,  and  so  forth.' — Bartsch,  I.  c. 

"  Theatrum  Diabolorum,  432''. 

•'  **  In  1565  Count  John  of  Nassau  forbade  the  wearing  of  the  *  abomin- 
able long,  bagging  "  Pluderhose  "  on  pain  of  imprisonment  and  a  money 
fine ' ;  the  tailors  who  made  such  garments  were  to  be  punished  in  like 
manner;  Achenbach,  Oesch.  der  Staclt  Siegen  von  1530-1560,  p.  14. 
In  Nuremberg  a  man  in  '  Pluderhose '  was  hung  on  the  gallows  as  a  warning, 
to  others. 


362  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Magdeburg,  in  1583,  allowed  18  ells  of  Kartek  at 
the  utmost,  but  this  quantity  was  only  for  the  mayors, 
the  patricians  and  the  well-to-do  members  of  the 
community ;  the  Council  of  Rostock  in  1585  allowed 
12-14  ells  of  silk,  but  only  for  the  nobles. i 

Besides  the  '  Pluderhose  '  the  '  Gansebauch  '  (goose 
stomach)  was  another  of  the  most  abominable  articles 
of  male  apparel :  '  a  great  hanging  belly,"  wrote  Kirchhof 
in  1601,  '  which  the  tailors  stuff  out  with  wadding, 
a  disgraceful  object.'  -  In  1586  Lucas  Osiander  had 
already  preached  against '  the  horrible,  long,  stufied  out 
goose-belhes,  which  start  from  just  below  the  throat 
and  hang  down  a  long  way  below  the  girdle,  as  a  balcony 
hangs  from  a  house.'  To  be  specially  grand  the  pouch  was 
overlaid  with  strips  of  silk,  velvet  or  gold  material,  or 
hung  on  with  gold  and  silver  cords. '^  '  And  who  could 
tell  of  all  the  luxury  and  extravagance  which  the  greater 
number  of  men,  young  and  old,  indulge  in  ?  '  '  Eound 
their  hats  they  wear  gold  bands  with  clasps  and  rings, 
hke  women's  girdles.  Their  hair  must  all  be  roughed 
up  hke  an  angry  sow's,  and  behind  it  is  all  ragged  and 
jagged  as  if  a  young  kitten  had  been  scratching  at  it. 
They  look  for  all  the  world  like  a  Pohsh  peasant  creeping 
out  of  his  straw  in  the  morning.  Then,  too,  they  sport 
women's  ruffles  and  hang  gold  chains  round  their  throats. 
Their  sleeves  are  so  big  and  sausagey  that  they  look 
like  ammunition  bags.'  '  The  sleeves  are  so  large  and 
wide  that  the  arm  can  scarcely  carry  them.  Many  people 
hide  all  their  goods  and  chattels  in  them,  as  that  prince 
said  to  his  councillor  :  "I  take  it  you  have  all  your 
manorial    property    hidden    in   oiu^   sleeves !  "     These 

1  Falke,  Deutsche  Trachtenvelt,  ii.  49.  -  Wendunmuth,  ii.  200. 

3  Falke,  ii.  124.     Cf.  Strauss,  Kleider-Pausteufel,  24-30. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  363 

sleeves  are  gathered  in  at  the  wrist  so  as  to  form 
grooves.'  ^ 

'  If  we  were  to  dress  up  the  prodigal  son,'  wrote 
Caspar  Stiller  at  Freistadt,  '  during  his  period  of  riotous 
hving  according  to  the  present  fashion  of  our  country,  we 
should  have  to  say  of  him  that  he  wore  a  silk  mantle, 
had  a  rough  shock  head  with  a  fine  plumed  hat,  and 
a  pearl  circlet,  a  short  velvet  doublet  and  large  Lyons 
trousers,  a  beautiful  ruff  or  collar  of  costly  cambric, 
rings  on  his  fingers,  bracelets  on  his  arms,  a  fine  gold 
chain  round  his  waist,  a  sharp  rapier  at  his  side,  silk 
stockings,  a  wealth  of  thick-tasselled  knee-bands, 
pohshed  Cordova  leather  shoes,  and  velvet  slippers 
over  them.'  '  He  also  always  carried  some  sweet  scent 
about  him,  a  wreath  of  flowers  on  his  hat,  or  a  musk-ball 
in  his  hand  :  indeed  he  thought  it  necessary  that  all  his 
clothes  should  emit  a  pleasant  odour  round  about.'  ^ 

'  Any  one  who  wants  to  cut  a  fine  dash,'  says  a 
lampoon  of  1594,  '  must  not  dress  in  good  old  German 
style,  but  in  Spanish,  Itahan  or  French  costume,  and 
must  also  sport  the  manners  and  gestures  of  these  nations ; 
above  all  he  must  wear  a  high,  pointed,  cocked  up  felt 
hat,  a  great,  broad  ruff  and  a  bristhng  Markolfus  knot 
and  a  finely  trimmed  beard.'  ^ 

'  In  order  to  be  taken  for  persons  of  distinction  ' 
says  Aegidius  Albertinus,  '  some  men  wear  quite  long 
and  full  beards,  in  Greek  style,  others  cut  their  beards 
short  round  the  mouth,  leaving  only  two  long  cat's 

^  Richard,  Licht  und  Schatten,  51. 

'  Stiller,  Bl.  K  2"-K3,  Bl.  O  2. 

^  Scheible,  Schaltjahr,  iv.  131-132.  **  '  The  tailors '  said  Cyriacus 
Spangenberg  in  1570,  '  hacked  and  slashed  up  the  clothes  tiU  the  wearer 
looked  as  if  the  pigs  had  been  eating  out  of  him,  or  as  if  he  had  been  hanging 
on  the  gallows  for  a  week.' — Ehespiegel,  69''.     See  also  above  p.  341. 


364  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

tails  to  pull ;  others  shave  off  the  whole  beard  like 
Turks,  sometimes  leaving  two  points  or  a  tuft ;  others 
follow  the  French,  Spanish  or  Italian  '  marquis  '  fashion. 
*  Other  coxcombs  let  their  hair  grow  long,  so  that 
it  hangs  down  over  their  shoulders  ;  others  again  let 
no  hair  grow  at  all ;  they  go  about  with  necks  bare 
almost  down  to  the  hips,  and  have  themselves  fre- 
quently shaved,  bathed,  singed,  shampooed  and  some- 
times painted ;  they  use  costly  perfumes,  anoint 
themselves  with  rose-water,  with  precious,  sweet-scented 
balsam,  musk  and  civet ;  they  will  often  stand  a  whole 
hour  before  the  looking-glass ' ;  '  when  my  lord  goes 
out  of  the  house  he  looks  more  like  a  Spanish  doll  or 
a  woman  than  a  fine,  dignified  man/  ^ 

The  dress  of  women  and  young  girls,  in  large  towns 
and  small  ones,  and  also  among  the  peasants'  wives  and 
daughters,  who  all  imitated  what  they  saw  at  princes' 
courts  and  among  the  nobles,  was  quite^equal,  so  the 

'  Hausspolicey,  Part  iv.  118,''-!  19.  Of.  Aegidius'Albertinus,  Der  Welt- 
Tummel-  tmd  Schauplatz,  922-923,  926.  See  also  M.  Volcius,  Predigten, 
where  it  says  (pp.  70-71),  '  When  they  have  to  pay  one  or  two  hundred 
gulden  for  a  cloak  or  some  other  unnecessary  piece  of  finery  they  do  not 
pity  themselves  in  the  least.  But  if  they  are  asked  to  spend  as  many 
Batzen  or  Kreuzer  on  the  poor  for  the  love  of  God  they  think  they  will  be 
ruined.  Velvet  and  silk  are  no  longer  of  any  account ;  they  must  have 
still  costlier  materials  such  as  formerly  were  only  worn  by  princes,  and 
great  lords  and  potentates,  but  which  are  now  in  common  use  among  the 
burghers.  They  are  indeed  at  a  loss  to  procure  stuff  that  is  expensive 
enough.  There  are  numbers  of  conceited  coxcombs  who  when  they 
have  got  the  most  splendid  coat  that  can  be  made,  directly  they  see  some 
one  else  wearing  one  like  it,  will  have  no  more  of  it,  but  must  forthwith 
order  something  else  which  nobody  has  got.  Do  not  our  young  men 
stalk  about  in  great,  stuck  up,  terrible  ruffles,  which  almost  entirely 
hide  their  heads  ?  Our  young  nobles  and  bachelors  parade  the  streets 
with  locks  of  dirty  hair  on  a  half-shorn  head  ;  they  stilt  on  high  heels 
and  pointed  soles  like  goats  ;  the  ribbons  and  fluffy  stuff  round  their 
bodies  and  knees  and  shoes  make  them  look  like  mad  shaggy  dogs  or  like 
pouter-pigeons. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  365 

preachers  complain,    to    male    attire  in  extravagance, 
eccentricity,    immodesty   and   changeableness.     '  Folly 
of  this  sort  had  indeed  cropped  up  frequently  in  former 
times,    but    no    one    could    deny    that    it    was    now 
growing  worse  and  worse,  and  that  it  was  all  the  more 
pernicious  because  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the 
country,  as  was  plainly  manifest,  were  decreasing  daily." 
'  Burgher  women  and  their  young  daughters,'  so 
the  accounts  say,  '  wear  velvet  hoods  with  trimmings 
of  marten  and  ostrich  feathers,  and  clothes  made  of 
^'  nesselgarn  "  (nettle  yarn),  or  some  quite  transparent 
stuff.     Some  of  them  line  the  transparent  sleeves  with 
gold  tinzel  and  trim  their  dresses  with  gold  braid.     And 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  flounced,  frilled,  furbelowed, 
puffed,  ruffled,  embroidered  dresses,  and  the  petticoats 
which    nowadays    must    be    bedizened    with     pearls. 
Nothing  good  can  come  of  it,  and  misery  and  want 
quickly  follow.     '  And  in  order  that  the  idiotcy  of  us 
Germans  may  be  quite  unmistakable  there  must  also 
be  bells  in  the  get-up  ;    yes,  women  and  maidens  must 
wear  silver  bells  on  their  arms  !     Then,  too,  the  fine 
ruffles  must  hang  down  over  their  hands  so  that  they 
dip  and  drag  into  all  the  plates  and  dishes  ;   and  these, 
too,  must  be  so  transparent  that,  hke  a  cobweb,  they 
:scarcely  hang  together.     There  must  also  be  trains  to 
drag  in  the  mud  when  the  women  walk  out.     Another 
quite  new  dodge  is  to  stiffen  the  trains  with  wire  or 
old  fig-baskets  ;    this  used  to  be  done  with  felt.     They 
.also  wear  transparent  clothes  of  nettle  yarn  and  naked 
arms  and  open  throats.     Not  less  ridiculous  and  varied 
.are  the  ways  they  have  of  doing  up  their  hair.     Natural 
hair  counts  for  nothing,  it  must  be  bleached ;    they 
wear   fine,    thick,    large,    yellow   tresses,    borrowed   or 


366  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

bought.  It  is  now  a  common  practice  for  women  to 
cut  of!  the  hair  of  dead  people  who  had  pretty  hair,  and 
to  plait  it  in  with  their  own/  '  Women  also  make  their 
hair  into  a  boar-feme  :  they  drag  their  hair  up  over  a 
wire  frame — the  sticks  are  drawn  over  and  across  the 
uprights.  The  hair  was  drawn  up  from  the  forehead 
and  temples  and  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  it  mounted 
spirally,  with  many  twists  and  turns,  up  into  a  point, 
in  Itahan  fashion.  Fixed  firmly  in  the  heights  with 
hair-pins  and  wire,  and  plaistered  do^vn  with  sticky 
stuff,  the  coiffure  often  supported  a  heavy  weight  of 
ornaments,  pearl  ropes,  jewels,  and  other  precious 
things.'  '  Our  women  also  nowadays  procure  from  Italy 
tiny  velvet  hats,  not  meant  to  cover  the  head,  but 
only  for  ornament  and  vanity  ;  they  are  so  small  that 
they  do  not  cover  a  fourth  part  of  the  head,  and  it  looks 
just  as  if  a  woman  had  stuck  an  apple  on  her  head  and 
said  :   "  That 's  a  hat."  ' 

'  Who  could  count  up  all  the  tons  of  gold  that  are 
spent  on  such  unnecessary  female  toggery  in  a  single 
year,  in  a  single  small  town,  not  to  speak  of  the  large 
towns  ? '  '  Think  now,  for  God's  sake,  dear  reader,  how 
great  must  be  the  folly,  vanity  and  naughtiness  of 
these  women  who,  merely  for  washing  and  crimping 
a  rufHe  to  adorn  themselves  with,  pay  fifty  Eeichsthaler. 
Think  again  whence  it  is  that  so  many  great  ladies  and 
gentlemen  come  to  poverty,  trouble,  disgrace,  and 
disaster."  i 

A  special  channel  of  expenditure  was  the  fashion 
for  long  trains.  At  Nuremberg  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
a  decree  was  issued  forbidding  women  and  girls  to  wear 
gowns  '  that  trailed  more  than  a  third  of  an  ell  on  the 

^  Guarinoni,  67. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  367 

ground  ;   for  every  gown  longer  than  this  a  fine  of  three 
gulden  is  imposed  for  each  day  or  night  on  which  it  is 
worn/  1     '  Nowadays  burgher  women  and  their  young 
daughters,  even  in  very  small  towns,  sometimes  wear 
trains  two  ells  long  and  much  longer  ;   and  this  not  only 
as  an  exceptional  thing  at  festivities,  but  also  when 
walking  in  the  streets,  where  they  sweep  up  the  dust 
and  the  mud/     '  Oh,   you  senseless  women,'  exclaims 
Aegidius  Albertinus,  '  is  it  not  enough  that  on  your 
heads  you  wear  false  hair,  silk  and  gold  coifs  covered 
with  pearls,  high  hats  and  enormous  clumps  of  feathers^ 
that  you  hang  chains  and  necklaces  round  your  throats, 
and  girdles  round  your  waists,  and  cover  your  arms  with 
bracelets,  your  fingers  with  rings  ;  is  it  not  enough  that 
with  your  large,  ample  hoods,  your  frilled,  furbelowed, 
slashed,  puffed,  expansive  gowns,  you  sail  about  hke 
a  majestic  ship  with  sails  outspread  :    must  you  over 
and  above  all  this  drag  after  you  a  tremendous  tail  ? ' 
'  If  you  walk  out  in  the  winter  in  the  streets  you  sweep 
up  the  mud  with  this  tail ;  if  you  walk  out  in  the  summer 
you  stir  up  and  scatter  about  the  dust,  blinding  with 
grit  the  eyes  of  those  who  walk  behind  you  ;    people 
who  are  not  strong  are  sometimes  made  ill  by  all  this 
dust ;  they  get  coughs,  and  they  spit  out  and  curse  the 
women  who  are  walking  in  front  of  them  and  stirring 
up    so    much    dust.     Oh  costly  trains,  oh    fine,  fatal 
besoms,  with  which  you  so  dihgently  cleanse  the  streets 
and  sweep  up  the  dust  and  the  mud  !  '  ^ 

Another  flagrant  sign  of  corrupting  vanity  and 
luxury  complained  of  by  the  preachers,  one  which  in 
former  times  had  only  been  in  vogue  among  the  pampered 

^  Baader,  Niirnberger  Polizeiordnungen,  99. 
2  Hausspolizei/,  Part  iv.  212  ff.,  228^'  ff. 


368  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

ladies  of  the  higher  classes,  but  had  now  become  common 
with  the  bm:gher  women  and  their  daughters,  and  even 
with  young  men  and  dandies,  was  the  custom  of  *  rouging, 
of  painting  the  eye-brows,  and  smearing  on  all  sorts  of 
false  colours,  which  in  no  other  country  was  so  common 
among  the  lower  orders.'  '  It  is  supposed  to  produce 
great  beauty,  this  painting  and  daubing,  but  in  a 
short  time  it  makes  people  look  wrinkled,  sallow,  and 
ugly.'  1  '  The  ingredients  out  of  which  the  cosmetic  is 
made,'  ^vrites  Aegidius  Albertinus,  '  are  unwholesome 
and  nasty,  and  the  mixture  has  a  most  abominable 
smell,  as  those  know  best  who  prepare  it  and  have  to 
do  with  it.'  '  When  the  face  becomes  hot,  the  paint 
melts,  and  between  the  white  there  appear  streaks  of 
black,  yellow,  and  blue,  and  these  different  colours 
make  the  face  look  ugly  and  horrible ;  sometimes  the 
mixture  actually  trickles  down  in  drops.'  '  And  though 
they  may  say  that  this  only  happens  to  people  who  are 
not  adepts  at  the  art,  I  say  that  the  greatest  adepts, 
even  if  they  can  deceive  the  eye,  cannot  deceive  the  nose.' 
'  Certainly  women  would  consider  it  a  great  deformity 
and  disfigurement  if  they  had  six  fingers  on  their  hands  ; 
why  then  do  they  think  that  a  paste  three  fingers 
thick  improves  their  faces  ? '  ~  '  When  women,'  he  says 
in  another  place,  '  use  quicksilver,  fat  of  snakes,  the 
dung  of  adders,  mice,  dogs  and  wolves,  and  all  sorts 
of  other  disgusting,  stinking  things  (which  for  very 
shame  I  cannot  mention)  for  their  cosmetics,  and  smear 
their  foreheads,  eyes,  cheeks  and  Hps  with  this  poison, 
it  gives  them  for  a  while  a  bright-coloured,  shining 
face,  but  in  a  short  time  they  become  all  the  more  ugly 

^  J.  Reinhold,  Predig  uber  den  unbdndigen  Putzteufel  (1609),  p.  3. 
"  Hausspolizey,  Part  iv.  212  S. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  369 

and  old-looking,  and  when  they  are  forty  they  look 
as  though  they  were  seventy.'  ^  '  Meister  Fortius 
Vincentz,'  published  in  1593  under  the  title,  '  Schminke 
fiir  die  Jungfrawen  und  Weiber  die  sich  unterm  Ange- 
sichte  schon  machen  und  schminken,'  &c.,  an  interesting 
philippic  against  the  fashions  of  painting  and  hair- 
dressing  of  that  period.-  '  Women,'  wrote  the  preacher 
John  Reinhold  in  1609,  '  regard  the  books  which  have 
appeared  at  Frankfort  compiled  from  the  works  of 
the  Italian  surgeon  Leonardo  Fioravanti,  as  excellent 
treasuries  of  things  hitherto  unknown.  They  think  to 
find  in  them  all  the  secrets  and  mysteries  of  heaven 
knows  what  hidden  medicines,  and  to  learn  how  to 
preserve  their  beauty  :  they  buy  these  writings  at  great 
€ost  as  though  they  were  the  revelation  of  God  and 
priceless  treasures.'  ^  To  the  number  of  these  writings 
belonged  a  publication  which  appeared  at  Frankfort 
in  1604,  a  '  Kompendium  der  sekreten  Geheimnisse  und 
verborgenen  Kiinste,'  the  fourth  book  of  which  dealt 
with  all  '  sorts  of  cosmetics  which  women  are  in  the 
habit  of  applying  to  their  faces  and  breasts.'  '  The 
art  of  cosmetics,'  says  this  book,  '  was  no  less  thought 
of  at  that  period  than  were  medicine  and  surgery 
themselves.'  Amongst  other  things  it  taught  the 
preparation  of  an  oil  '  which  would  not  only  produce 
a,    beautiful    face,    but    also    a    cheerful    disposition ' ; 

'  Luzifer''s  Konigreich,  106-107.  **  Duke  Henry  Julius  of  Brunswick 
in  one  of  his  comedies  made  fun  of  the  women  who  paint  and  daub  their 
faces  and  make  the  image  of  God  into  a  devil's  mask  :  whereby  also 
they  injure  their  health  and  grow  old  and  wrinkled  before  their  time, 
^sometimes  even  become  quite  blind. — Schauspiele  des  Herzogs  Heinrich 
Julius,  82. 

■^  H.  Hayn,  Bibliotheca  Germanorum  erotica  (Leipzig,  1885),  p.  434. 

•'*  Wider  den  unbdndigen  Putzteufel,  Predig  von  J.  Reinhold  (1609), 
p.  5. 

VOL.  XV.  B  B 


370  HISTORY  OF  THE  GEmiAX  PEOPLE 

anotlier  oil  made  '  all  faces  which  were  rubbed  with 
it  so  bright  and  beautiful  that  they  shone  like  mirrors/  ^ 
Amongst  the  hundred  and  more  varieties  of  oil  which 
the  preacher  Frederick  Helbach  described  in  1605, 
there  was  also  a  magic  oil  invented  by  an  Italian  doctor  : 
'  Whoever  uses  this  oil  every  day  for  a  month  will 
appear  to  have  been  made  young  again  ;  but  whoever 
goes  on  using  it  for  more  than  a  year,  although  he  be 
old  will  look  like  a  young  person  again/  The  much 
used  balsam  oil,  also,  was  said  to  restore  youth ;  the 
effects  of  a  third  oil  were  learnt  by  a  famous  doctor  from 
a  woman,  w^ho  was  a  mistress  of  the  art  of  beautifying 
or  painting/  ~  *  It  is  also  the  fashion  nowadays,* 
Reinhold  says  fm-ther,  'for  the  sake  of  health  and  beauty, 
as  they  say,  to  drink  pearls  and  eat  precious  stones  ; 
and  one  hears  not  only  of  high  princely  and  noble 
personages,  male  and  female,  but  also  of  burghers' 
wives  and  daughters  and  young  dandies  and  fools, 
even  of  tradespeoples'  servants,  who  do  this,  if  only 
they  can  raise  enough  money/  ^  The  Strasburg  doctor 
Gualtherus  Ryfi  gave  a  recipe  '  ordered  by  one  of  the 
old  doctors,'  for  making  a  confection  of  precious  stones. 
'  This  concoction,'  he  said,  '  takes  away  the  pale, 
deadly  complexion  and  makes  people  look  blooming, 
gives  the  whole  body  a  pleasant  and  dehghtful  odom*, 
drives  far  away  all  melancholy,  sadness  and  dyspepsia, 
and  also  restores  to  strength  those  who  are  half  dead/  ^ 
Contemporaries  were  especially  struck  with  the 
fact   that   '  vain   and   frivolous   women   practised     on 

•  Compendium,  <t-c.     ' Translated  from  Italian  into  German  on  account 
of  its  manifold  usefulness '  (Frankfort,  1604),  p.  273-327. 
■  Helbach,  92,  103-104.  111. 
^   ]Vidir  den  rnibandigen  Putzteufel,  p.  5. 
^  Spiegel  und  Regiment  der  Gesitndtheit  (Frankfort,  without  date),  p.  204'V 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  371 

their  quite  yoiing  children  the  same  folHes  which  they 
indulged  in  for  themselves/  '  Is  it  not/  they  asked, 
*  a  matter  of  the  greatest  wonder,  that  it  is  becoming 
more  and  more  the  fashion  to  bedaub  little  girls,  and 
even  httle  boys,  of  four  to  eight  years  old,  with  cosmetics, 
to  paint  and  besmear  them,  and  to  carry  on  other 
frivoHties  with  innocent  childhood  ?  Dressing  them, 
for  instance,  in  velvet  and  silk,  hanging  pearls  and 
gold  chains  about  them  ?  *  i  In  a  Hamburg  dress 
ordinance  of  1583,  it  says  :  '  Whereas  during  the  last 
years  inordinate  smartness  has  obtained  in  the  dressing 
and  adornment  of  children,  and  young  boys  and  girls, 
we  herewith  forbid,  under  pain  of  considerable  punish- 
ment, the  putting  of  gold  hoods  on  children's  heads 
and  dressing  boys  up  in  silk  and  pearls  and  gold/ 
Two  years  later  this  ordinance  was  renewed  ;  ^  in  1618 
there  followed  the  enactment  that  '  Children  under 
eight  years  shall  not  wear  gold  chains  at  all ;  from 
eight  years  and  onwards  they  shall  not  wear  chains  that 
cost  more  than  20  gold  gulden ;  but  they  must  not 
wear  such  chains  on  their  arms,  and  also  they  must  not 
wear  velvet  clothes  embroidered  with  gold  or  silver/  ^ 

To  what  lengths  the  outlay  in  dress  and  ornaments 
went  was  especially  manifest  at  weddings  and  other 
family  gatherings. 

1  Reinhold,  I.e.     Cf.  p.  370,  n.  3. 

-  Voigt,  Die  Hamburgischen,  Hochzeits-  m.  Kleiderordnungen,  xvi.  47. 

^  Zeitschr.  fiir  Hamhurger  Gesch.  i.  560.  **  See  also  Bartsch,  Sdchsische 
Kleiderordnung,  23  ff.  The  above-named  writer  says  :  '  No  other  century- 
carried  extravagance  so  far  in  ornaments  of  gold,  silver,  pearls  and  precious 
stones  as  did  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
in  Germany.  But  Germany  was  by  no  means  at  the  head  in  this  respect ; 
nevertheless  the  expenditure  of  the  German  people  on  jewellery  at  that 
period  bears  no  comparison  to  that  of  our  own  day.  The  women  especially 
as  may  be  imagined,  lusted  after  it,  so  that  Luther  in  his  coarse  way  calls 
them  '  senseless  animals  who  are  insatiable  as  regards  ornaments.' 

B  B  2 


372  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

*  When  I  was  a  boy,'  wrote  the  Meissen  Suj^erin- 
tendent  Gregory  Strigenicius  in  1595,  '  the  young 
women  always  wore  at  wedding  festivities  silver  chains, 
and  velvet  girdles  with  silver  or  gilt  clasps.  This 
was  the  highest  ornamentation  at  that  time.  Now, 
however,  they  must  all  wear  gold  chains  which  go 
once  or  several  times  round  the  throat,  and  real  silver 
girdles  ;  the  lace  must  be  quite  stiff,  with  large  pearls 
and  must  be  made  in  the  most  ingenious  manner. 
People  are  always  wanting  something  new  and  rare. 
Whatever  is  strange,  foreign,  Turkish,  Spanish,  French, 
is  most  popular.  Everything  must  be  corded,  braided, 
crimped,  plaited  and  wondrously  embroidered.  More 
must  be  spent  on  dress  and  adornment  than  the  other 
household  expenses  of  a  whole  year  :  400  or  500  gulden 
more.  When  I  was  young,  a  father  of  a  family  could 
have  dressed  all  his  children  for  what  must  now  be  spent 
on  one  daughter  only.  Formerly  young  ladies  put 
their  wreaths  on  their  heads,  now  they  stick  their 
little  coronets  on  their  foreheads,  or  hang  them  on  one 
side,  on  one  ear  for  instance,  and  they  have  to  be 
fixed  on  so  that  they  should  not  fall  off.  Round  the 
throat  they  must  have  a  great,  long,  thick  ruffle  made 
of  the  costliest  cambric,  which  has  to  be  starched 
and  crimped  with  a  hot  iron,  and  supported  with  silver 
or  other  wire  made  especially  to  hold  up  these  ruffles.' 
*  The  sleeves  must  be  open  under  the  arms  so  that 
the  white  skin  may  be  seen  and  admired.  The  amount 
of  vanity  that  is  expended  on  the  skirts  is  patent  to 
every  one.  These  must  have  long  trains  of  velvet  and 
silk,  part  of  which  must  be  transparent  in  order  that 
the  gold  and  silver  lining  may  show  through.  Under 
the  trains  there  must  be  a  "  springer,"  and  in  this  a 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  373 

hoop,  in  order  that  the  skirt  may  describe  a  circle,  Hke 
a  bell,  and  spread  out  far  aild  wide.  In  these  structures 
they  roll  along  hke  beer  vats  ;  they  are  unable  to  enter 
or  leave  their  pews  in  church/  Half  in  despair,  Stri- 
genicius  adds  :  '  But  go  on  !  Who  knows  who  will 
tear  your  finery  to  pieces  :  maybe  brother  Landsknecht 
will  trim  his  hose  and  his  tatters  with  it/  i  '  One 
single  expensive  wedding  dress, ''  wrote  John  Sommer 
in  1613, '  is  no  longer  sufficient,  there  must  be  three,  four, 
five,  or  six  of  different  kinds  of  velvet  and  silk  materials 
so  that  the  bridegroom  may  dress  and  undress  two  or 
three  times  in  the  day.  Yea,  verily,  three  or  four  differ- 
ent coloured  velvets  are  often  used  for  one  doublet 
and  slashed  and  slit  so  that  each  one  may  be  seen. 
The  collars  must  be  trimmed  with  pearls,  and  there  is 
such  splendour  and  smartness  in  the  get-up  of  the 
bridegrooms  that  they  look  like  the  PJnglish  comedians 
at  the  theatre."  ^  '  At  weddings  in  Berlin  and  Colln-on- 
the-Spree,'  said  the  Elector  Joachim  Frederick  of 
Brandenburg  in  1604,  '  they  overload  themselves  with 
such  an  extravagant  quantity  of  clothes  and  other 
expenses  that  after  the  weddings  were  over  they  are 
obliged  to  send  their  clothes  to  the  rag  fair  where  they 
scarcely  got  half  the  original  price  back."*  ^ 

Not  seldom  '  the  cost  of  the  wedding  clothes, 
jewellery  and  other  splendour,  was  enormously  higher 
than  the  whole  amount  of  the  marriage  portion. 
Thus,  for  instance,  the  Frankfort  publisher  Sigmund 
Feyerabend,  in  1589,  gave  his  daughter  a  dowry  of 
600  florins,  while  he  spent  1000  florins  on  the  wed- 
ding.'*   When  Lucas  Geizkofler,  in  1588,  married  the 

^  Strigenicius,  Diluvium,  64-66.  -  Olorinus  Variscus,  '  Geldtklage,'  472j 
■*  Mylius,  i.  Part  1,  78.  ^  Pallmann,  63. 


374  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

daughter  of  an  Augsburg  patrician,  2000  gulden  were 
settled  on  him  out  of  the  pkternal  and  maternal  do^vry 
of  the  bride,  to  set  against  which  he  gave  his  bride 
2000  gulden  and  moreover,  as  a  '  morning-present,'  500 
gulden.  In  this  exchange  of  liberahties — dot  and  home- 
bringing  of  the  bride,  counter-dot  and  morning-gift  of 
the  bridegroom — the  bridegroom's  presents  to  his 
bride  were  :  two  gold  chains,  one  of  which  went  nine 
times  round  the  throat,  an  emerald  ring  and  a  gold  coif 
trimmed  with  pearls  ;  two  signet  rings  with  rubies 
and  diamonds,  one  ring  with  sapphires,  a  gold  bracelet 
and  a  pair  of  bracelets  with  Gesundsteine  (health  stones)  ; 
a  piece  of  satin,  a  piece  of  '  canasas,'  and  a  piece  of 
damask.  The  relations,  too,  received  handsome  presents 
in  jewellery  and  costly  materials.  According  to  an 
exact  calculation  which  Geizkofler  made,  the  nuptial 
expenses,  including  the  entertaining  of  the  guests, 
amounted  to  326  gulden  39  kreuzer  for  the  betrothal 
ceremonies,  and  for  the  wedding  itself  5873  gulden 
37  kreuzer.  1  The  wedding  of  the  Leipzig  doctor 
Jonas  Mostel  in  1618,  was  considered  highly  punish- 
able for  its  extravagant  costhness  by  the  Elector 
of  Saxony.  The  doctor  took  his  departure  with  no 
less  than  124  horses.  He  himself  rode  a  brown  nag 
with  costly  trappings  ;  the  horse's  bit  and  bridle,  and 
the  rider's  spurs  and  sword  were  gilded,  the  saddle 
had  a  velvet  covering  worked  and  braided  with  gold 
and  with  black  silk  let  in  :  he  wore  a  suit  of  brown 
silk  satin,  on  his  hat  was  a  plume  of  feathers  and  a 
jewelled  ornament,  and  the  horse  also  had  feathers 
on  his  head  and  tail.  At  the  church  service  the 
bridegroom     wore    '  a    fine,    black    velvet    suit,    the 

1  Wolf,  Lukas  Geizkofler,  145-149. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  375 

sleeves  of  which  were  made  of  gold  pieces,  and  a 
mantle  of  black  cloth  lined  with  velvet  the  colour  of 
his  suit  and  embroidered  with  strips  of  black  satin 
applique.'  The  bride  wore  '  a  brown  velvet  gown  with 
six  rows  of  wide  gold  braid  and  a  pearl  necklace  with 
pendant/  ^ 

Still  greater  pomp  was  displayed  by  the  Bunzlau 
burgomaster  Namsler  at  his  wedding  in  1614,  The 
bridesmaid  wore  in  her  artistically  dressed  hair  a  com- 
plete and  wonderful  flower-garden,  in  which  were 
252.  choice  flowers  with  leaves  and  stalks  painted  just 
hke  nature.  Large  chandehers  hung  from  her  ears,  and 
round  her  throat  was  a  great  gold  chain  with  diamond 
loops  and  lockets  ;  from  her  bosom  there  ascended  to 
the  height  of  an  ell  a  lace  ruffle  stiflened  with  wire, 
sewn  all  over  with  gold  spangles  and  edged  with  gold 
lace  ;  her  head  was  quite  hidden  in  it.  Her  rose  gown 
was  distended  by  a  hoop  ;  its  train,  twice  the  length  of 
the  garment,  was  edged  with  broad  gold  lace  ;  from 
stiffened  slits  in  the  sleeve  there  flowed  triple  rivers  of 
lace  ;  on  the  golden  stomacher  there  bloomed  a  whole 
garden  of  gay  silk  flowers  ;  her  white  gauntlet-gloves, 
embroidered  with  gold,  had  no  fingers,  and  they  left 
exposed  to  view  the  bright  rings  on  the  beautiful 
hands,  which  played  now  with  the  gold  watch  hanging 
on  the  left  breast,  now  with  the  three-quarter-ell  long  fan- 
mirror.  The  partition  line  between  the  bosom  and  the 
mountain  of  the  *  hoop  '  skirt  was  formed  by  a  girdle  tied 
round  the  waist.  The  stockings  were  white  silk  with 
gold  clocks.  The  whole  structure  with  all  its  rich  and 
massive  load,  swayed  backwards  and  forwards  on  a  pair 
of  high-heeled  shoes  of  red  silk  stufl  with  pointed  toes 

^  Weber,  Atia  vier  Jahrhunderten,  new  series,  i,  57-63. 


376  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

nearly  half  a  foot  long,  and  white  heels  of  very  great 
height/  1 

The  magnificence  of  the  wedding  presents  was  in 
keeping  with  that  of  the  festivities.  At  the  wedding  of 
the  chamberlain  of  the  Elector  of  Mayence,  Matthis 
Kreydt,  in  1603,  there  were  among  the  presents  a  gold 
pocal,  sixteen  gilt  beakers,  two  of  which  were  very  large 
and  worth  100  florins  apiece,  and  all  sorts  of  silver 
articles  to  the  value  of  1000  florins. ^ 

In  a  dress  ordinance  of  1530  leave  was  given  to 
merchants  and  tradesmen  to  wear  gold  rings,  and  to 
their  wives  to  wear  girdles  of  the  value  of  twenty  gulden, 
and  neck  ornaments  of  the  same  value  ;  their  daughters 
and  haaids  were  allowed  to  wear  hair  bands,  but  these 
were  not  to  exceed  ten  gulden  ;  the  wives  of  councillors 
and  patricians  might  wear  a  chain  worth  fifty  and  a  girdle 
worth  thirty  gulden.  But  this  '  ordinance  of  the  empire 
and  others  issued  later  on,  came  so  little  into  effect  that 
little  by  little  their  regulations  were  exceeded  fourfold  and 
fivefold,  as  was  shown  by  numerous  burgher  ordinances 
of  the  towns.  The  council  of  Weissenfels  was  obliged 
in  1598  to  forbid  the  burghers  to  wear  chains  above  the 
value  of  fifty  and  bracelets  above  that  of  twelve  gold 
gulden.^  In  Hamburg,  according  to  an  edict  of  1583, 
the  gold  chains  of  the  distinguished  burgher  women  were 
not  to  cost  more  than  180  gold  gulden,  and  their  best 
necklaces  not  more  than  100  gold  gulden  ;  girls  under 
fifteen  were  forbidden  to  wear  gold  chains  at  all.*     The 

'  From  the  report  of  Matheus  Ruthard,  who  also  describes  the  equally 
costly  dress  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  and  the  whole  wedding  festivities 
in  V.  Ledebur,  Archiv,  ui.  166-170. 

^  Archiv  fiir  hessische  Oesch.  und  AUertumskunde,  ii.  652,  655. 

'■*  Neue  Mitteilungen,  xv.  434 , 

'  Voigt,  Die  hamburgischen  Hochzeits-  und  Kleiderordnungen,  11-12,  15. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  377 

Brunswick  councillor  of  mines,  George  Engelhart 
Lolineiss,  inveighed  against  excessive  display  of  orna- 
ments, but  he  said  that  the  wives  of  tradesmen  or  shop- 
keepers might  be  allowed  to  wear  a  coif  worth  six  thalers  ; 
they  might  also  wear  a  head-band  worth  twenty  gold 
gulden,  and  bracelets  worth  five  gold  gulden,  but  not 
more.i 

'  The  highly  pernicious  display  with  silk  and  velvet 
and  other  costly  materials  which  was  impoverishing 
Germany  '  was,  according  to  the  statements  of  contem- 
poraries, '  habitual  with  all  classes,  even  among  common 
burghers  and  peasants,  artisans  and  servant-maids. 
The  material  required  in  Germany  during  one  year  (1597) 
simply  for  male  and  female  headgear  was  reckoned  to 
have  cost  from  300,000  to  400,000  gulden/  As  regards 
the  use  of  silk,  a  contract  was  made  at  the  Frankfort 
Fair  with  one  single  merchant  for  a  consignment  of  silk 
to  the  value  of  one  and  a  half  million.^ 

While  the  great  folk  were  vying  with  one  another  in 
splendour  and  blind  imitation  of  all  that  was  foreign,  the 
fashions  of  the  period  were  spreading  among  the  lower 
classes  of  society  and  superseding  the  old  simple  dress 
of  servants  and  working  people.  It  was  impossible,  so 
it  was  complained,  '  to  distinguish  maids  from  their 
mistresses  ;  luxury  in  dress  had  become  a  devouring 
poison  with  them  also.'  '  They  wear  fine  gowns  of 
velvet  and  silk,  fine  shifts  with  large  frills,  smart  red 

Cf.  Schwarten,  '  Verordnungen  gegen  Luxus  und  Kleiderpracht  in  Ham- 
burg,' in  the  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsche  Kulturgesch.  (year  1897),  p.  67  ff.  In 
the  Styrian  poUce  ordinance  of  1577,  it  is  decreed  that  '  ordinary  burghers 
may  wear  two  rings,  with  or  without  precious  stones,  but  not  above 
the  value  of  ten  gulden.'  The  more  distinguished  burghers  were  allowed 
to  wear  cloth  at  two  gulden  per  ell,  and  ornaments  to  the  value  of  thirty 
gulden. — Mayer,  Oesch.  der  Steiermark,  p.  282. 

'  Lohneiss,  281.  -  Goldast,  Poliiische  Reichshdndel,  555. 


378  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

boots  of  Russian  leather,  shoes  with  white  heels,  velvet 
girdles,  silk  fichus,  velvet  purses,  expensive  lace,  all 
sorts  of  silk  galloons,  red,  green,  yellow,  black,  white/ 
When  they  hire  themselves  out  to  service  they  do  not 
only  ask  for  sufficient  wages,  '  but  also  for  twenty-four 
•ells  of  cambric,  an  under  shift  and  an  upper  shift,  a  neck- 
collar  of  schamlot,  a  velvet  ribbon,  a  pair  of  dancing 
shoes,  a  pair  of  red  boots,  a  corset,  two  veils,  a  "  Brabant '' 
veil  and  an  ordinary  one/  ^  Lohneiss  insisted  that 
maid-servants  should  be  forbidden  to  wear  '  high 
scalloped,  tripping  and  clattering  shoes,  and  wide 
bagging  sleeves/  - 

'  With  the  maid-servants  the  journeymen  artisans 
were,  so  to  say,  in  competition/  '  Many  a  poor  journey- 
man,' wrote  the  preacher,  Martin  Bohemus,'at  Lauben, 
in  the  '  Oberlausitz,' '  wears  silk  stockings,  silk  breeches, 
a  silk  mantle,  a  silk  hat,  and  all  his  clothes  must  be  of 
velvet  and  silk.  Many  a  servant-maid  must  needs  mix 
silk  in  with  her  clothes,  at  the  cost  of  a  whole  year's 
wages  and  of  what  she  has  got  out  of  her  mistress,  in 
order  not  to  be  below  the  mark  in  smartness.  Women 
disport  themselves  in  men's  clothes  and  men  in  women's 
clothes,  which  God  has  expressly  forbidden  as  a  great 
piece  of  wantonness.'  ^ 

Preacher  Andreas  Schoppius,  of  Wernigerode,  said 
that  *  the  daughters  of  poor  town  or  country  people  and 

'  Reinhold,  Bl.  4.  '  Der  Tanzteufel,'  in  the  Theatrum  Diaholorum, 
222-223.  In  Jost  Amman's  Im  Frauenzimmer  ivird  liermeldt  von  allerhi 
schonen  Kleidungen,  dsc.  (Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  1586)  there  are  two 
pictures  of  Frankfort  maid-servants  :  v 

According  to  old  use  they  wear 
Rough  lioods  of  felt  upon  their  hair. 

.  When  a  maid-servant  goes  to  church  she  carries  her  stool  and  her 
mantle  on  her  arm.' 

-  Lohneiss,  281.  '^  Bohemus,  i.  777,  782. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  379 

maid- servants  adorned  themselves  in  a  style  which  a 
few  years  ago  would  have  been  too  good  for  the 
nobility/  ^ 

In  Hesse,  in  1610,  Hartmann  Braun,  pastor  at  Griin- 
berg,  complained  that,  '  Poor  day  labourers  wear  silk 
and  velvet.  Maid-servants  who  barely  earn  three  gulden 
in  the  year  must  go  about  in  elegant  shppers,  have  high- 
heeled  shoes,  and  wear  gowns  with  seven  or  nine  strips 
of  ribbon  sewn  round  the  bottom.-  Aegidius  Albertinus 
inveighed  against  the  female  servant  class  for  wearing 
trains  hke  the  great  ladies.^  '  The  artisans,'  M.  Volcius 
complains  in  his  sermons,*  '  go  about  in  velvet  and  silk, 
and  their  wives  wear  costly  clothes  trimmed  and  hung 
about  with  silver  and  jewellery,  as  though  they  belonged 
to  the  nobility.  .  .  .  Formerly  an  artisan  bought  himself 
one  outfit  of  common  stuff  for  two  or  three  florins,  which 
was  respectable-looking  and  suitable  to  his  station  :  now 
he  pays  as  much  for  cords  and  braids  to  trim  his  coat,  or 
to  the  tailor  for  making  it.'  '  Why  then  need  we  ask 
whence  come  poverty  and  high  prices,  and  why  there  is 
no  money  among  the  people  ?  This  godless,  deviUsh, 
inordinate  vanity  consumes  and  devours  all  the  money 
and  is  the  reason  that  everything  is  as  dear  as  possible  ; 
and  God  will  inevitably  punish  such  scandalous  pride.' 

That  the  morality  preachers  in  their  descriptions  of 
'  extravagant  luxury  in  dress  among  servants,  artisans, 
journeymen  and  suchlike  '  did  not  lay  the  colours  on  too 
thick,  is  shown  by  the  regulations  for  expenditure  issued 
by  princes  and  mimicipal  authorities. 

In  a  dress  ordinance  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony  in  1550, 

^  Triumphus  muliehris,  63. 

2  Niedners,  Zeitschr.  filr  histor,  Theologie,  44,  436, 

^  Hausspolizei/,  Part  4,  229. 

^l^Sechs  schone  Predigien  (1615), 


380  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

artisans  were  altogether  forbidden  to  wear  velvet,  satin, 
double  taffeta  and  other  expensive  silk  stuffs,  gold 
chains,  bracelets,  rings ;  all  servants,  male  and  female, 
were  forbidden  to  wear  silk  and  velvet,  gold  and  silver, 
foreign  cloths,  and  smart  trains  ;  especially  hoops,  and 
gold  wreaths ;  also  gold  guldens,  gold  beads  round  their 
arms  and  other  bracelets  ;  similarly  common  apprentice 
lads  were  not  to  wear  ostrich  or  other  feathers  of  all  sorts 
of  colours,  &c.,  &c.^ 

In  1551,  the  Estates  of  the  Oberlausitz  decreed  that 
*  working  men  and  day  labourers  in  the  country  and  the 
towns  must  not  wear  any  gold,  silver  or  pearls,  or  silk 
laces,  nor  embroidered  collars  to  their  shirts,  and  no 
feathers  of  ostriches  or  other  foreign  birds,  no  silk  hose 
bands,  or  cut-down  shoes,  or  birettas  ;  their  wives  and 
children  must  give  up  collars,  veils  with  gold  borders, 
gold,  silver  or  silk  girdles,  all  gold,  silver,  pearl  orna- 
ments, and  all  silk  attire.-  In  an  edict  issued  for  Berlin 
and  Colhi-on-the-Spree  the  Elector  Joachim  Frederick, 
of  Brandenburg,  said  in  1604  :  '  All  who  see  the  present- 
day  fashion  of  smartness  in  dress  among  people  of  all 
sorts,  men,  women  and  girls,  artisans,  and  especially 
maid-servants  in  these  two  towns,  and  compare  the 
dress  of  to-day  with  that  which  was  formerly  customary 
here,  must  own  with  surprise  that  vainty  and  pride  have 
risen  beyond  everybody's  means  and  are  still  continu- 
ally increasing,  especially  among  women,  who  almost 
every  month  appear  in  a  fresh  costume,  which  they  have 
either  adopted  or  themselves  originated,  and  none  will 
be  behind  the  other  in  this  respect,  however  poor  and 
needy  they  may  be/  *  Maid-servants  nowadays  strut 
about  so  proudly  and  smartly  dressed  that  one  can 

'  Cf.  Richard,  64-65.  -  Codex  Angusteus,  ii.  Part  3,  85. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  381 

scarcely  see  any  difference  between  them  and  the  families 
of  burghers/  Accordingly  he  decreed  that  henceforth 
maid-servants  must  be  forbidden,  mider  penalty  of  a 
fine,  to  wear  any  silk  clothes,  still  less  clothes  trimmed 
with  velvet,  or  to  put  any  gold  braids  or  cords  on  their 
heads.  ^  In  the  little  town  of  Hainan  the  day  labourers 
and  hand  workers,  together  with  their  wives  and  children 
and  the  maid-servants,  loaded  themselves  with  all  sorts 
of  finery  and  frippery/  '  Many  of  them,'  said  the 
council  of  the  town  in  1598,  '  spend  all  their  wages  on 
these  senseless  vanities,  thus  rushing  through  all  that 
they  earn  and  very  soon  coming  to  beggary/  The 
council  therefore  strictly  prohibited,  for  the  future,  the 
wearing  by  working  people  of  the  costly,  fanciful 
apparel  of  the  higher  classes ;  maid-servants  must  not  be 
allowed  to  hang  tomfoolery  round  their  throats  and  to 
set  themselves  up  above  their  mistresses/  ~ 

In  the  same  year  the  council  of  Weissenfels  issued 
a  burgher  ordinance  in  which,  among  other  things,  it 
was  said  :  '  Servants  and  day  labourers  shall  be  for- 
bidden to  wear  silk  and  velvet,  gold  and  silver,  braided 
and  fine  spun  foreign  or  outlandish  cloths,  smart  braids, 
trains  to  their  gowns  and  petticoats,  hoops  and  every 

^  Mylius,  V.  part  1,  78-80.  Cf.  the  ordinance  of  1580  in  Mylius,  v. 
abt.  1,  70.  The  ordinance  of  1604,  which  laid  down  laws  for  individual 
classes  in  general,  and  aimed  at  reducing  extravagance  in  expenditure, 
was  issued  by  the  Elector  in  1600,  but  kept  back  for  four  years  by  the 
magistrates  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  such  rules.  When 
at  last,  at  the  urgent  insistence  of  the  Elector,  it  was  ratified  and  pubUshed 
in  1604,  it  could  not  be  carried  into  effect,  '  because  the  inhabitants, 
especially  the  traders,  set  themselves  against  it.' — Fidicin,  v.  502. 

-  V.  Ledebur,  Archiv,  iii.  184-185.  Simultaneously  the  council 
decreed  that  '  Going  about  with  naked  breasts  exposed  to  view  is  most 
earnestly  forbidden  to  women  and  young  girls.'  '  The  fashion  of  men  and 
women  greeting  each  other  with  kissing  was  also  forbidden,'  p.  179,  180. 


382  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

kind  of  bracelet.  Journeymen  artisans  are  not  to 
wear  silk  stockings  and  large,  long  ostrich  feathers.'  i 

In  the  large  towns  still  greater  expenditure  was 
met  with.  For  instance,  in  1568,  the  council  of  Nurem- 
berg forbade  maid-servants  among  other  things  to  wear 
fillets  and  pearls  in  their  hair,  to  trim  their  gowns  and 
petticoats  with  velvet  and  silk,  and  to  wear  lace.^ 
The  council  of  Hamburg  insisted  in  the  years  1583 
and  1585  that '  maids,  nurses  and  other  servant  women 
should  not  wear  stomachers,  petticoats  or  gowns  of 
cochenil  or  other  such  bright  colours  ;  also  no  pearls, 
or  gold  ornaments,  no  hoops  round  their  clothes,  no 
high-heeled  pointed  shppers  or  shoes,  &c.,  &c.'  ^ 
In  an  ordinance  of  1618  the  Hamburg  council  forbade 
all  artisans  and  merchants'  employes  to  wear  '  velvet, 
caffar,  satin  or  damask  doublets,  hose,  or  sleeves, 
gloves  of  pearls  or  gold,  also  gold  seams  on  their  gloves, 
and  gold  and  silver  cords  on  their  clothes,  and  also  silk 
stockings  ' ;  their  wives  were  henceforth  not  to  wear 
velvet,  cafEar,  satin  or  gold  and  silver  braid  on  their 
gowns  ;  their  pearl  necklaces  were  not  to  be  above  the 
value  of  100  marks.^ 

'  The  same  luxury  and  extravagance  in  dress  and 
jewellery  which  prevailed  in  the  towns,  great  and  small, 
is  found,'  says  a  publication  entitled  '  Putzteufel ' 
(demon  of  dress),  '  almost  in  all  parts  of  the  empire, 
and  also  among  the  common  peasant  folk,  notwith- 
standing that  their  poverty  goes  on  increasing,  and 
that  the  number  of  quite  destitute  among  them  grows 

^  Neue  Mitteilungen,  xv.  435.  -  Siebenkees,  i.  98-100. 

^  Voigt,    Die    hamburgischen     Hochzeiis-    ii.    Kleiderordnungen,     xvii. 
47-48. 

■*  Zeitschr.  fiir  Hamburger  Gesch.,  i.  561-562. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  383 

larger  every  year ;  of  the  little  they  have  they  persist 
in  spending  one  part  on  clothes  and  finery,  the  other 
on  eating  and  drinking.  One  may  hear  them  say  : 
Why  should  I  stint  ?  I  would  rather  spend  what  I  have 
on  myself,  my  wife  and  children,  cut  a  dash  w^ith  it 
or  else  pour  it  down  my  throat,  than  give  it  to  the 
princes  and  nobles  in  taxes,  which  have  come  to  be  so 
exorbitant  and  which  drain  our  life-blood. '  John  Mathe- 
sius,  however,  gave  the  peasants  food  for  thought 
respecting  the  burden  with  which  they  were  oppressed  : 
'  When  peasants  '  he  said,  '  insist  on  dressing  in  gold 
and  velvet,  the  old  saying  is  verified,  '  Weidenkopf  und 
einen  solcher  stolzen  Bauern  muss  man  in  drei  Jahren 
einmal  behauen.'  (the  top  of  the  willow  tree  and  such 
proud  peasants  must  be  cut  down  once  every  three 
years).  And  who  knows  but  that  the  great  taxes 
come  from  this,  that  peasants  and  their  daughters  dress 
nowadays  like  poor  countesses.'  ^  Zacharias  Poleus,  of 
Frankenstein,  in  a  tragedy  of  1603,  makes  two  peasants 
discuss  together  the  wretched  condition  of  their  class  : 
amongst  other  things  usury  had  become  so  great  that 
12  per  cent.,  besides  presents,  was  exacted  from  the 
peasants ;  the  chief  fault  of  this,  however  was  the  extra- 
vagance in  dress  which  prevailed  among  themselves. 
Nowadays  when  a  peasant  woman  married  she  must 
*  have  everything  very  grand  '  : 

Whate'er  new-fangled  dress  she  sees 
That  she  must  have  at  once,  and  she  's 
No  whit  ashamed  of  wearing  it 
Though  for  her  class  it  is  not  fit, 
Nor  is  a  peasant  now  contented 
Unless  her  clorlies  are  ornamented 

^  Bergpostilla,  45. 


384  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Sumptuously,  in  every  place, 
With  silken  cords  and  velvet  lace, 
Embroidered  collars  now  they  dare 
Like  rich  and  noble  folk  to  wear  ; 
Nay,  velvet  is  too  poor  and  mean 
For  servant-maids  to-day  I  ween  ; 
Something  finer  they  must  get, 
With  pearls  and  gold  and  silver  set. 

Om  forefatliers  knew  nothing  of  this  finery,  but  were 
quite  content  with  a  suit  of  simple  cloth  or  hnen. 

But  nowadays  when  money 's  paid 
To  farmer's  man  or  servant-maid. 
Straight  they  go  and  spend  their  wages 
On  clothing  fit  for  lords  and  ladies. 
Silk  and  velvet  they  must  wear, 
Nothing  cheaper  :  I  do  swear 
No  nobleman  in  olden  time 
Was  clad  in  raiment  half  as  fine 
As  that  in  which,  now,  peasants  shine.  ^ 

In  an  imperial  police  ordinance  of  1530  it  says  : 
*  We  hereby  decree  that  the  peasants  shall  not  wear  any 
gold,  silver,  pearls  or  silk,  or  embroidered  collars  to 
their  shirts  worked  in  gold  or  silk,  nor  any  breast-cloth, 
ostrich  feathers,  silk  hose  bands,  scalloped  shoes  and 
buckles  ;  their  wives  are  forbidden  to  wear  collars  of 
all  sorts, '  tJbermiider  '  (?)  veils  with  gold  borders,  gold, 
silver  or  silk  girdles,  corals,  paternosters,  and  all  gold 
silver,  pearl  and  silk  ornamentation/  ^ 

A  Pomeranian  provincial  ordinance  of  1569  further 
^dded  to  this  decree  :  '  the  wives,  daughters  and  maid- 
servants  of   peasants  were   to    abstain    from   wearing 

'  H.  Palm,  Beitrdge  zur  Gesch.  der  deutschen  Literatur  (Breslau,  1877), 
p.  121-122. 

-  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  ii.  337.  **  In  the  Styrian 
police  ordinance  of  1577  (Augsbm-g,  Menger)  the  peasants  were  forbidden 
to  wear  gold  and  silver,  silk  stuflf  and  furs.  Mayer,  Gesch.  der  Steiermark, 
p.  282. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  385 

slippers    with   gold    tinsel,    and   also    Spanish    leather 

shoes  and  slippers/  ^ 

'  Just  as  the  burghers  in  Pomerania/  wrote  Kantzow, 
'  imitate  the  nobles,  so  the  peasants  will  in  no  way  be 
outdone  by  the  burghers,  and  they  now  wear  English 
and  other  good  cloths  of  as  fine  a  kind  as  formerly 
only  nobles  or  burghers  wore,  and  they  compete  with 
each  other  in  dress  in  a  way  which  they  can  very  ill 
afford/  ^  In  the  villages  of  Bill  and  Ochsenwarder 
belonging  to  Hamburg  the  farmers  and  cottagers  and 
their  wives  '  wear  velvet  and  silk  toggery  and  fringes, 
also  silk  and  damask  galloons,  and  collars  trimmed 
wdth  velvet.'  ^  The  same  was  the  case  everywhere  in 
the  north  and  the  south.  We  read  for  instance  in  a 
Salzburg  chronicle  :  '  Whenever  a  new  fashion  comes 
up  in  dress  or  anything,  each  one  thinks  he  must  be 
the  first  to  have  it ;  as  may  be  seen  from  the  peasantry 
round  about  Salzburg,  both  men  and  women,  also  ap- 
prentice lads  and  maid-servants  who  dress  in  velvet  and 
silk,  which  in  the  old  times  were  only  w^orn  by  knights 
and  ladies."  ^  It  was  '  pure  truth '  which  the  preacher  Bar- 
tholomew Hinojwalt  in  1585  put  into  the  following  rhvme  : 

There  's  nowadaj^s  in  every  land 
Great  taxing,  and  hard  times  at  hand, 
As  in  every  class,  I  ween, 
Is  all  too  plainly  known  and  seen. 
Yet  still  each  with  another  vies. 
In  pomp  which  lessens  in  no  wise. 
Garments  slashed  and  slit  and  torn 
Hacked  and  gashed  and  rift  are  worn, 


^  Dahnert.  iii.  817  :  cf.  the  enlarged  Schaferordnun^  of  May  16,  1616. 
in  Dahnert,  iii.  831-832.  -  Kantzow,  ii.  406-407. 

^  Voigt,    Der  hamburgische  Hochzeits-  unci  Kleiderordnungen,    27-28. 
Zeitschr.  fur  Hamhiirger  Gesch.,  vi.  524-52.5. 

•*  Scheible,  Kloster,  vi.  671-672. 

VOL.  XV.  C  C 


386  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERJklAN  PEOPLE 

Braided,  broidered,  trimmed,  bedizened, 
Stiff,  starched  rufEs  of  monstrous  size,  and 
Hoops  that  make  their  skirts  stick  out 
Like  tubs,  and  swing  and  sway  about. 
Alas  !  dear  God,  what  will  betide 
On  earth  through  this  gigantic  pride. 
Which  now  aU  German  lands  pervades, 
Without  distinction  in  all  grades  ?  ^ 

All  the  orders  concerning  expenditure  issued  for  the 
different  classes  by  the  princes  and  municipal  authorities 
remained  without  effect.  Then,  as  later  on,  the  words 
of  Lauremberg  in  his  poem,  '  Von  almodischer  Kleider- 
dracht '  held  good  : 

The  laudable  dress  regulations 

Are  neither  half  nor  wholly  kept. 
The  high  authorities'  intimations 

Into  the  rubbish-heap  are  swept. 

The  laws  for  expenditure  only  served  to  show  the 
greatness  and  stubbornness  of  the  evil,  as  well  as  the 
powerlessness  of  those  who  '  laid  down  laws  '  but  who, 
as  the  preacher  Reinhold  admirably  put  it,  *  themselves 
and  in  their  own  famihes  cared  for  no  laws,  and  who 
even  exerted  a  pernicious  influence  in  that,  by  their  own 
example,  they  incited  the  lower  classes  to  vanity  and 
the  love  of  pleasure. 

All  in  vain  did  morality  preachers  point  out  how 
plainly  the  luxurious,  extravagant  mode  of  hfe  now 
common  everywhere,  the  passion  for  dress  and  finery, 
the  excessive  love  of  eating,  drinking,  and  banqueting, 
betokened  a  lack  of  all  higher  intellectual  interests, 
and  the  decline  of  religion  and  morahty,  and  how  doubly 
ruinous  inordinate  expenditure  and  pleasure-seeking 
were  to  a  people  whose  outward  prosperity  was  con- 
tinually decreasing.2 

^  Hoffman  v.  Fallersleben,  B.  Ringwalt,  20-21. 

2  '  In  a  healthy  nation  luxor}'^  is  itself  healthy,  in  a  sickly  nation  it  is 


burgher  and  peasant  life  387 

2.  Eating  and  Drinking — Family  Festivities  and 
Public  Amusements — '  Regular  Banquets  of 
Burghers  and  Peasants  ' — Wines  and  Beers — 
Brandy  Drinking — Length  of  Life. 

'  When  I  was  still  young  '  wrote  Luther,  *  I  remember 
that  the  majority  of  people,  even  among  the  rich, 
drank  nothing  but  water  and  ate  the  very  plainest  food, 
and  that  which  was  easiest  to  obtain.  Many  people 
never  tasted  mne  till  they  were  thirty  years  old,  or  older. 
Nowadays  even  children  are  encouraged  to  drink" 
wine,  and  not  only  hght,  ordinary  wine,  but  the  strongest 
foreign  wines  and  also  spirits,  which  they  begin  with 
the  first  thing  in  the  morning.  '  Drmikenness,'  he 
adds,  '  has  become  a  common  habit  of  the  land.'  i 
Similarly  spoke  also,  in  1568,  the  theologian  James 
Andrea,  provost  at  Tiibingen  and  Chancellor  of  the 
university  :  '  The  vice  of  drimkenness  has  now,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  memory  of  man,  become  common, 
every^vhere  ;  our  dear  forefathers  under  the  papacy, 
as  I  have  often  heard  old  people  tell,  never  allowed 
drunkards  and  wine  bibbers  to  hold  pubhc  posts  ;  they 
were  shunned  and  fled  from  at  all  weddings  and  social 
gatherings  ;  street  boys  ran  after  them  and  marked 
them  as  useless,  godless  people  who  were  not  wanted 
anywhere  :    now,   on  the  contrary,  drunkenness  is  no 

sickly.  The  history  of  any  economic  institution  is,  in  small,  the  history 
of  the  whole  people.  As  long  as  the  national  wealth  is  on  the  increase, 
consumption  of  goods  likewise  increases  :  decay  sets  in  when  by  decreasing 
wealth  consumption  continues  to  grow.  Then  all  luxury  is  unwise.  But 
the  economic  decay  of  a  people  usually  goes  hand  in  hand  with  moral 
and  poUtical  decay.  Thus  in  decaying  nations  luxury  as  a  rule  is  immoral.' 
• — Roscher,  Luxus,  51,  53. 

^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  iv.  p.  150. 

c  c  2 


388  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

longer  regarded  as  a  disgrace  either  among  high  or  low 
classes/  '  Since  we  have  been  told  that  fasting  in  the 
papal  manner  is  no  good  work,  and  not  pleasing  to  God, 
but  wrong  and  sinful,  we,  that  is  the  great  majority  of 
us,  have  as  it  were  '  thrown  away  the  child  with  the 
bath  '  (thrown  away  the  good  with  the  bad),  and  instead 
of  fasting  we  have  taken  to  gorging,  sousing,  swilling 
and  banqueting,  and  when  any  one  speaks  to  us  of 
Christian  fasting  (or  temperance)  it  sounds  as  if  we 
were  being  admonished  to  become  popish  again/  ^ 

'  Those  who  wish  to  remain  in  favour  with  the 
people,  and  not  fall  into  great  disgrace,'  wrote  the 
Frankfort  preacher  Melchior  Ambach,  '  dare  not  punish 
the  swinish  vice  ;  for  to  be  tipsy  and  swinish  is  to  be 
"  merry,  jovial,  and  good  company,"  or  to  have  "  a 
good  carouse  or  a  good  drink,''  and  so  forth.  But  when 
they  find  out  that  "  somebody  or  other,  in  preaching, 
has  touched  this  dirt  "  they  let  fly  with  cursing  and 
blaspheming  hke  maniacs.'  ^  The  old  religionists,  said 
another  preacher,  speak  as  follows  concerning  this 
terrible  drunkenness  among  the  evangelicals  :  '  Look 
then,  are  those  the  Christians  ?  Are  those  the  evange- 
licals ?  Are  those  the  fruits  of  the  gospel  which  they 
boast  of  ?  A  fine  gospel !  May  the  devil  carry  off 
such  a  gospel.  If  it  were  the  true  gospel,  very  different 
fruits  from  these  would  follow  it.'  ^  *  To  exonerate 
themselves,'  said  the  preacher  Matthew  Friedrich  in 
1562,  '  these  drunken  sots  say  that  drinking  little  or 
much  is  not  a  sin  because  it  is  not  forbidden  in  God's 
word.     They  pretend  that  because  the  actual  words 

'1  DoUinger,  ii.  375-378. 

2  Von  Zusauffen  und  Trunchenheif,  dbc,    Frankfort  on  the  Maine,  1543. 

^  Theatrum  Diaholorum,  289''. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  389 

**  drink  neither  little  nor  much  '"  are  not  in  scripture, 
drunkenness  is  therefore  not  forbidden  there.  They 
say,  also,  I  am  never  more  fervent  in  prayer  than  when 
I  am  intoxicated.  I  must  drink  in  bed  ;  I  cannot 
sleep  unless  I  am  drunk.  St.  Paul  says.  Be  not  drunk 
with  wine,  but  he  does  not  mention  beer.  I  see  every- 
body else  drinking,  what  can  I  do  ?  Do  we  not  read 
that  Noah  and  Lot  drank  themselves  drunk  ?  '  In  many 
places  a  strange  new  order  was  instituted  which  called 
itself  the  '  Sauforden  '  (order  of  drinkers)  into  which 
no  one  was  admitted  who  could  not  drink  well,  eat 
to  excess,  sit  up  all  night,  endure  frost  and  cold,  and 
be  the  devil's  martyrs.' ^  The  Meissen  Superintendent 
Gregory  Strigenicius  also  speaks  of  this  order  :  '  There 
is  now  amongst  us  here  a  new  order,  the  "  Sauforden  " 
the  "  Centius  Brothers  "  as  they  call  themselves,  who 
pledge  themselves  to  be  ready  when  required  to  help 
each  mutually  in  drinking.'  ^ 

The  preacher,  John  Mathesius,  addressing  the  mine 
labourers  at  Joachimsthal  in  1557,  told  them  that  '  at 
the  swinish,  epicurean  and  inhuman  carousals  and 
drinking-bouts  they  begin  early  in  the  morning,  pour 
wine  and  beer  into  their  stomachs,  as  into  bucking 
tubs,  and  then  fall  to  brawling,  swearing  and  scolding 
as  at  a  peasant's  village  feast,  using  bad  language,  and 
mocking  the  Sacraments,  as  I  myself  have  witnessed 

1  Wider  den  Saufteufel,  C  7,  D  7  ff.,  K  4. 

2  Strigenicus,  Diluvium,  624.  **  Giordano  Bruno,  who  sojourned 
in  Germany  from  1586-1591,  ridiculed  the  Germans  in  his  Spaccio  delta 
bestia  triomfante,  as  drunkards,  unscrupulous  place-hunters  and  fawners, 
while  in  a  speech  which  he  delivered  at  the  end  of  his  professorsliip  at 
Wittenberg,  the  panegyric  character  of  which  is  unmistakable,  he  praised 
them  as  the  most  zealous  of  students.  See  Carriere  in  the  Deutsche  Revue, 
XV.  320  e. 


390  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

with  a  sorrowful  heart.  Moreover  all  the  wine  taverns 
are  full,  not  only  on  holidays,  but  all  through  the  week, 
and  the  mining  work  flags ;  what  would  happen  if  it 
stopped  altogether  ?  Women  also  keep  beer  stalls 
and  empty  jugs  and  glasses  and  roll  on  the  table  Hke 
peasants^  wives.  Young  women  are  no  longer  content 
with  wine  sipping,  but  must  needs  learn  to  swill  and 
gulp  like  men.  And  those  who  ought  to  put  a  stop  to 
it  gorge  and  drink  with  them.'  '  With  drunken  rulers, 
at  whose  council-boards  wine  is  lord  and  has  the  upper 
hand,  there  is  no  good  management,  but  each  one 
does  as  he  hkes.  By  gorging  and  swilHng  the  body 
becomes  heated  and  inflamed  and  Dame  Venus  and 
her  company  creep  in,  find  room  and  welcome  there, 
and  take  possession  of  the  mad  tipsy  lot.'  i  Mathesius, 
however,  did  not  take  up  a  very  strict  standpoint. 
*  God,'  he  said,  in  his  sermons, '  does  not  grudge  a  respect- 
able German  an  honest  glass  ;  many  people,  Hke  the 
Count  Palatine  Ludwig,  cannot  sleep  without  a  good 
drink  for  a  pillow.  Many  people  are  obliged  to  drink 
away  sorrow  and  care.  There  are  also  many  good  folk 
who  before  writing,  speaking,  or  undertaking  any  work, 
must  have  a  good  drink,  as,  for  instance.  Dr.  Scheid, 
Bishop  at  Segovia.  Doctor  Fleck  used  also  to  have  his 
httle  flask  of  malmsey  by  him  in  the  pulpit.  But  this 
praise  and  defence  of  wine  and  drinking  does  not  con- 
cern those  who  swill  and  tipple  and  drink  themselves 
into  a  state  of  idiotcy,  without  any  limit,  and  who, 
when  they  have  no  other  boon-companions  drink  with 
the  waggoners  and  servants,  and  go  on  drinking  all  day, 
turn  night  into  day,  wallow  in  dirt  and  filth  hke  pigs, 
&c.,  &c.'  =^ 

'  Mathesius,  Diluvmm,  13-lG.  ^  ji^^^^  i  f.  gj^  235'^-236. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  391 

Not  more  edifying  is  the  picture  sketched  by  Andrew 
Pancratius,  Superintendent  in  the  Voigtland,  in  1575  : 
'  When  people  meet  together  at  meals  they  sit  on  till 
one  or  two  in  the  night,  and  even  on  until  the  morning.' 
'  What  sort  of  conduct  and  hfe  results  from  this  swilling, 
is  very  evident  in  the  morning  ' ;  '  we  drink  ourselves 
poor,  and  ill,  and  into  hell  into  the  bargain/  '  But  what 
we  have  to  complain  of  much  more  seriously  is  that 
people  who  on  account  of  their  position  ought  to  main- 
tain authority  and  preserve  manly  dignity,  are  them- 
selves steeped  in  this  vice.'  i 

From  Hesse,  Hartmann  Braun,  pastor  at  Griinberg, 
wrote  in  1610  concerning  the  prevalent  vice  of  drunken- 
ness and  its  consequences  :    '  0  my  God,  preserve  us 
from    the    rowdiness    and    insolence    of    these    young 
fellows,  farm  boys  and  others,  who  thus  drink  them- 
selves full  of  wine  !     They  shout  and  bellow  at  night 
in   the  streets    hke  young   demons   from    hell.     They 
collect  outside  the  houses  of  magistrates,  the  houses  of 
preachers,  the  houses  of  councillors,  to  carry  on  their 
insolence.     They  hold  devil's  festivals  in  the  churchyard. 
They  chop  and  hack  the  hme  trees,  they  throw  stones  at 
the  windows  ;  even  there  where  the  rulers  and  preachers 
are  guests.     They  stick  up  pasquils  and  libels  of  all 
sorts  on  the  church  doors  and  town  halls.     They  tear 
off  the  wheels  from  carriages  in  which  people  are  driving, 
and  drag  them  into  other  streets,  or  throw  them  in 
amongst  the  trees  and  dash  them  to  pieces.     They 
break  open  the  shutters  of  the  shops,  carry  the  wares 
round  the  streets,  and  nail  them  up  in  the  burghers' 
houses.     They  break  the  windows  of  honest  burghers' 

^  Pancratius,  84-85,  143,  147.     Cf.  what  he  says  at  pp.  65-66  about 
young  journeymen  and  young  women. 


392  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

sitting-  and  bed-rooms  by  throwing  stones  at  them, 
whereby,  not  only  are  the  parents  and  children  fright- 
ened, but,  if  the  dear  God  did  not  grant  them  special 
protection,  the  little  children  sitting  at  table  or  asleep 
in  their  cradles  would  be  struck  and  killed/ 

Of  drink-loving  preachers  Braun  says  :  '  Such  an 
one  hangs  his  gown  on  a  nail,  puts  on  a  strange  hat, 
fastens  a  rapier  at  his  side,  and  figures  round  on  the 
dancing-place  ;  he  comes  with  a  trundle,  with  garden 
company,  with  topers,  repeats  at  table  a  strange 
extract  from  the  Pater  Noster  ' ;  '  it  is  through  such  as 
he  that  the  evangel  gets  a  bad  name  :  Eh,  Eh,  are 
these  evangelical  preachers,  who  set  such  examples  of 
impropriety  ? '  '  Drunkards  make  many  a  drinking  song 
about  their  preachers;  ah,  God,  Thou  knowest  how 
the  poor  preachers  in  the  villages  and  towns  must  suffer 
at  the  wine  carousals,  and  how  many  strange  nicknames 
they  carry  away  from  them/ 1  '  Many  a  preacher," 
said  Strigenicius,  '  will  sit  a  whole  night  drinking  till 
the  morning  and  then  get  up  into  the  pulpit  and  preach  ; 
he  is  full,  indeed,  but  not  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  but 
with  strong  wine,  and  he  babbles  out  whatever  comes 
into  his  head.  Many  a  one  is  so  tipsy,  when  he  has 
to  christen  a  child,  that  he  cannot  hold  it,  and  causes 
all  sorts  of  annoyance.  Many  of  them  go  about  uninvited 
into  houses  when  meals  are  going  on,  or  when  they 
know  there  will  be  a  good  drinking-bout,  Hke  a  St. 
Anthony's  sow,  let  themselves  be  pelted  with  sweet- 
meats, eat  and  drink  with  the  topers,  no  one  can 
equal  them,  they  can  put  up  with  anything  for  the  sake 
of  drink,  and  yet  they  call  themselves  ministers  of  the 

'  St.  Pauli  Pfingstspruch  von  der  leiblichen  und  geistigen  Trunkenheit 
(1610)  Bl.  B  2^  C  2^  D. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  393 

Word  and  servants  of  the  Lord.  They  drink  till  they 
cannot  keep  their  balance,  and  tumble  down  like  beasts 
and  have  to  be  carried  home.  They  cannot  step  over 
any  ditch  or  puddle,  but  fall  in  and  wallow  hke  sows. 
It's  a  sight  both  to  laugh  at  and  grieve  over.  But 
there  are  numbers  of  them  who  do  not  care  a  bit  if  all 
this  and  more  happens  to  them.'  ^  Sigmund  Evenius 
also  thought  it  '  highly  to  be  wondered  at '  that  '  at 
the  wedding  repasts  (concerning  the  irregularities  of 
which  an  extraordinary  book  might  be  written)  the 
preachers  were  always  present  and  joined  in  gorging, 
drinking,  making  coarse  jokes,  telling  wanton  anecdotes, 
backbiting  respectable  people,  shouting,  quarrelhng, 
fighting,  stabbing,  dancing,  and  suchlike  excesses  ;  ap- 
proving and  encouraging  such  unseemly  behaviour, 
giving  offence  to  the  right-minded,  and  strengthen- 
ing the  debauchees  and  Bacchus  brothers  in  their 
debauchery.'  ^ 

From  Catholic  lands  complaints  were  no  fewer  of  the 
'  gluttony  and  drunkenness  which  increased  from  one 
decade  to  another.'  '  Respectable  sobriety,'  wrote  the 
Bavarian  ducal  secretary  Aegidius  Albertinus  in  1598, 
'  has  gone  out  of  fashion  everywhere  and  in  all  classes  ; 
wholesome  moderation  has  little  place  ;  and  fuddhng 
and  wine  drinking  has  grown  into  necessity  and  habit 
which  cannot  possibly  be  overcome  ;  for  those  who 
ought  to  punish  and  put  a  stop  to  it  are  sick  with  the 
same  disease  ;  yea  verily  the  law-makers  are  the  first 
to  become  law-breakers.  The  one  runs  after  the  other  : 
the  noblemen  follow  the  lords  ;  the  lords  go  at  such  a 
pace  that  the  princes  can  scarcely  keep  ahead  of  them, 
or  win  the  goal ;  hence  it  is  no  w^onder  that  the  subjects 

^  Strigenicius,  Diluvium,  90^.  ^  Evenius,  139. 


'394  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

do  likewise.'  ^  In  another  place  Aegidius  says  :  '  He 
who  can  drain  the  very  biggest  glasses  and  beakers 
and  drink  the  largest  "  welcome/'  he  is  prince  among 
the  wine-geese  ;  he  who  can  sit  or  stand  the  longest 
and  hold  out  the  longest  in  drinking,  that  man  is  a 
brave  Saxon  fellow.  Yea,  to  his  eternal  memory  they 
inscribe  their  names  in  the  great  pocal  with  these  words  : 
Herr  Peter  Ochs,  Paul  Elefant,  and  so  forth,  drank  this 
glass  at  one  go  and  in  one  breath  and  gulp,  so  that  they 
might  well  have  burst  their  bladders.  Others  of  the 
"  Gansritter  "  (goose  knights)  would  have  hked  to  figure 
in  the  Chronicle,  and  so  they  had  their  names  and  coats 
of  arms  painted  in  the  windows  or  on  the  tables  of  the 
inns,  or  hung  them  up  in  the  drinking  rooms,  in  eternal 
memory  of  the  fact  that  here  they  drank  clean  away  the 
whole  of  their  inheritance.'  ~  Albertinus  gives  an 
appalling  description  of  the  pubhc  houses  which  '  not 
inaptly  came  to  be  called  the  abyss  of  hell.'  '  The 
taverns  and  fuddling-houses  are  now  nothing  else  than 
schools  of  every  earthly  and  helhsh  vice,  and  the  whole 
land  is  overrmi  with  them,  all  the  towns  and  markets 
crowded  and  almost  all  the  streets  laid  waste  by  them. 
In  these  places  night  is  turned  into  day,  and  day  into 
night.  Men  are  transformed  into  raging,  senseless, 
ferocious  wild  beasts  and  hogs.  If  any  one  is  in  search 
of  buffoons,  backbiters,  tricksters,  gamblers,  dicers, 
dancers,  cursers,  swearers  and  blasphemers,  fighters, 
wrestlers,  whores  and  scoundrels,  let  him  go  to  the 
taverns  where  he  will  find  a  jovial  crew  of  them.'  '  Oh 
how  many  men  go  into  the  taverns  fresh,  joyous,  and 

^  De  conviviis,  89. 

-  Liizifers  Konigreich   und    Sedengejaidt    oder    Narrenhatz,  329 ;    cf. 
Schultze,  210  ;  Scherer,  Postille,  470. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  395 

healthy,  who  have  to  be  carried  out  dead  !  '  It  is 
impossible  but  that  people  should  be  made  ill  with 
all  the  '  spurious,  counterfeit  adulterated  drinks  that 
are  sold  them  :  '  for  instance  bad  or  mouldy  wine  mixed 
with  alum  or  brandy,  mouldy  Franconian  wine  mixed 
with  chub-root,  wormwood,  sage,  &c.^ 

The  custom  of  drinking  toasts,  which  had  come 
generally  into  vogue,  and  at  which  the  opposite  party 
had  always  to  stand  the  test,  drove  the  vice  of  drunken- 
ness to  the  highest  pitch. 

'  The  habitual  topers,'  wrote  the  Tiibingen  professor 
John  George  Sigwart  in  1599,  '  are  not  satisfied  with 
the  wine  which  is  in  front  of  them,  but  fight  together 
with  drinking  vessels  as  with  spears  and  muskets. 
First  the  best  man  among  them  makes  an  attack  by 
proposing  an  all-round  drink.  Soon  afterwards  he 
invites  to  a  cross  drink  :  each  man  challenging  the  man 
who  faces  him.  Then  drinking  skirmishes  take  place 
between  small  parties,  mitil  at  last  the  topers  and  their 
guests  engage  in  formal  drinking  duels  :  man  to  man, 
or  two  to  two.  The  victory  rests  with  him  who  can 
empty  half  or  whole  a  measure  in  one  gulp,  without 
taking  breath  or  wiping  his  beard.  In  these  contests 
more  drink  runs  over  the  topers'  beards  than  many 
poor,  old,  needy  people  set  eyes  on  in  a  month.  Again, 
if  the  victory  rests  imdecided  between  two  drinkers, 
these  stand  a  wager.  The  one  who  drinks  the  other  to 
the  floor  is  the  conqueror.  iVt  times  presents  and  prizes 
are  offered  to  the  best  drinker.  In  short,  gambhng 
and  betting  is  resorted  to  to  make  the  wine  flow,  it 
often  comes  to  a  point  where  one  toper  has  to  pour  the 

^  Luzifers  Konigreich,  239-240.     On  life  in  the  inns,  see  also  Olormus 
Variscus,  Geldtklage,  189  ff. 


396  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

drinks  down  the  other's  throat.  And  for  these  per- 
formances they  are  not  content  with  native  wine  but 
must  have  strong  foreign  wines  *  which  formerly  were 
an  unheard-of  luxury  among  ordinary  people,  but  have 
now  become  quite  common/^  '  It  is  not  only  at  table 
and  during  the  meal  time  that  this  toasting  and  health- 
drinking  goes  on/  says  Aegidius  Albertinus,  '  but  after 
they  have  sat  hours  at  table  and  drunk  long  enough  and 
hard  enough,  they  then  first  begin  in  good  earnest. 
Then  they  drink  to  each  other  one,  two,  three,  four,  five, 
six,  ten,  twelve  little  glasses  of  "  St.  Johannes  Segen," 
all  standing  until  they  can  stand  no  longer,  nor  walk, 
nor  sit  upright,  nor  talk,  nor  even  loll  about,  but  one 
here,  another  there,  they  sink  down  on  the  benches,  or 
are  thrown  into  carts  like  calves  for  fatting,  and  carried 
away.  In  this  manner  the  drunken  sots  take  leave  of 
each  other  after  having  first  indulged  in  all  sorts  of 
swinish,  immoral  and  disgraceful  practices.'  -  Aegidius 
makes  his  '  Landstortzer  '  say  :  '  When  an  Enghsh- 
man  asked  me  how  I  liked  Germany,  I  answered  :  I 
like  it  uncommonly,  for  they  do  nothing  but  eat 
and  drink,  sing  and  dance  there.'  ^  They  drank  not 
only  out  of  glasses  and  beakers  but  '  they  had  learnt 
from  the  nobles  and  great  lords  *  to  use  also  dirty 
greasy  bowls,  jugs,  cans,  young  ladies'  shoes,  felt  hats, 
stockings,  &c.'  ^ 

1  Sigwart,  101-104.  "  Luzifers  Konigreich,  232-233. 

^  Der  Landstortzer,  289-290.  Concerning  the  shoals  of  books  on 
drinking  and  the  art  of  carousing,  see  our  remarks,  vol.  xii.  pp.  210-216. 

•*  See  above  p.  293  f.  Fischart,  Oescliichtklitterung  (edition  of  1590), 
pp.  28,  156.  Braun,  St.  Pauli  Pfingstspruch  (see  above,  392,  note),  Bl.  B. 
Guarinoni,  711.  '  The  little  word  "saufen"  itself,'  writes  the  preacher  Eras- 
mus Griininger, '  in  our  German  language  does  not  mean  simply  drinking  for 
necessity  or  for  reasonable  plc^asure,  but  it  means  :  pouring  in  against  will 
and  nature,  and  filling   oneself  so  full  of  wine  that  it  might  overflow : 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  397 

'  Eating  and  drinking  had  become  so  common/ 
says  a  preacher,  '  that  it  was  not  only  looked  upon  as  a 
special  art  and  entertainment  in  itself,  but  was  also 
turned  into  a  profitable  trade,  and  there  were  eating  and 
drinking  performers  who  went  about  Germany  to  fairs 
and  yearly  markets,  showing  of!  their  skill  for  money, 
and  often  coming  to  a  bad  end.  Once  at  the  fair  at 
Frankfort  a  professional  "Eater''  of  this  sort,  who 
charged  two  pfennigs  for  admission  to  the  sight,  swal- 
lowed straight  on  end  thirty  eggs,  a  pound  of  cheese  and 
a  great  loaf  of  bread  ;  but  when  he  attempted  to  repeat 
the  performance  on  the  same  day,  he  fell  down  dead. 
Another  of  these  fellows  at  Straubing  undertook  to 
appear  on  the  market-place  and  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
to  swallow  ten  measures  of  "  Landwein "  with  five 
measures  of  water  in  between.  But  he  was  not  any  the 
better  for  his  feat.  And  young  and  old,  little  boys  and 
little  girls  flock  to  the  show,  and  fiendish  parents  take 
their  quite  tiny  children  to  see  such  things  ;  and  children 
are  actually  trained  to  this  professional  eating  and 
drinking  in  order  to  make  money,  so  that  it  is  time  the 
chief  magistrates  looked  into  the  matter  and  put  a 
stop  to  such  a  devilish  trade.'  ^  Magisterial  interference 
came  at  Ratisbon  in  1596.  A  man  there  announced 
that  he  intended  to  show  of!  his  proficiency  in  the  art 
of  overeating  by  devouring  twenty  pounds  of  meat  at 
once  ;  but  the  magistrate  had  him  turned  out  at  the 
town  gate,  and  signified  to  him  that  people  should  not 
TQake  their  living  by  eating  but  by  working.  ^ 

As    regards    *  opportunities    for    drinking,'    wrote 
John    Sommer,    preacher    at    Osterweddingen,    '  there 

possibly  it  comes  from  the  Hebrew  word  saba,  which  means  to  get  drunk  ; 
or  soph,  which  is  the  same  as  schopfen  or  verschwenden  (squander). 
^  Ein  christlich  Predig,  Bl.  C.  "'    Gumpelzhaimer,  ii.  1014. 


398  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

are  plenty  of  them  in  Germany  every  month,  every  week, 
every  day/  *  Not  to  speak  of  the  orgies  at  weddings 
and  christenings,  they  have  now  invented  so  many 
excuses  for  convivial  gatherings  that  it  is  impossible  to 
describe  them  all.  Neither  Christmas  nor  Easter, 
Whitsuntide  or  Ascension  day  can  be  kept  in  a  Christian 
manner,  unless  Bacchus  is  worshipped  at  the  same  time, 
and  perhaps  more  even  than  God,  and  the  worship  of 
God  is  turned  into  worship  of  idols  performed  with 
liquid  veneration.  Side  by  side  with  all  these  high 
festivals  there  are  the  special  eating  and  drinking 
festivals  :  the  harvest  goose,  the  new  wine,  the  last-catch 
the  "  Weimal,''  the  welcome,  the  good-bye,  the  "  Licht- 
braten,"  the  "  Strafmal ''  (meal  imposed  as  a  fine), 
childbirth,  business  transactions  of  some  importance, 
the  opening  of  a  new  room,  special  friendly  meetings, 
shooting  match  meals.  In  one  place  is  kept  the  Wet 
Carnival,  in  others  St.  Martin  and  St.  Urban  are  feasted 
with  excessive  drinking.  The  dead  themselves  cannot 
get  out  of  the  clutches  of  Bacchus  until  the  sur- 
viving relatives,  friends  and  neighbours  have  sung 
them  a  requiem  from  cans  and  glasses,  with  the  juices 
of  grape  and  barley  oozing  out  of  their  eyes  :  such 
is  their  mass  for  the  dead.  What  shall  I  say  of  the 
dinners  given  by  the  gentry  on  occasions  of  promotion  ? 
or  of  professors",  doctors',  and  students'  carousals  ?  of 
all-night  boozes  ?  '  ^     To  all  these  occasions  one  might 

^  Olorinus  Variscus,  Geldtklage,  195-196.  Aegidius  Albertinus  in 
like  manner  (217-219)  counts  up  all  the  different  occasions  on  which  eating 
and  drinking  bouts  were  held,  and  designates  twelve  sorts  of  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  palate.  *  The  first  son  is  called  Dominus  praeveniens  or 
Squire  Friihzeiter,  for  before  the  eaters  are  out  of  bed  and  dressed  some- 
thing to  eat  and  drink  must  be  taken  to  them.'  '  The  first  daughter  is 
called  Frau  Bibania,  or  the  boozed  maid,  and  must  perpetually  have 
something  to  drink.  .  .  .' 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  39^ 

apply  the  saying  :    '  Gaudeanius,  glim  glam  gloria,  hand 
us  a  bumper,  that  we  may  vie  with  one  another  and 
see  who  drinks  the  most ;   whoever  is  ripe  let  him  drop 
off/    '  This  language  is  well  miderstood  by  true  Germans, 
the  genuine  hop-brothers,  through  whom  it  has  come 
about — little   to   the   credit   of   Germany — that   other 
nations  say  "  to  drink  freely  is  to  Germanise."  '  ^     In 
Ruppin,  at  the  election  of  new  members  of  the  council 
the  carousals  lasted  full  five  days.-     After  the  cere- 
monial opening  of  the  high  school  at  Altorf  in  1575, 
the  numerous   company  that  took  part  in   the  pro- 
ceedings sat  '  ten  hours  long  '  at  the  farewell  drinking.^ 
What  seemed  worst  of  all  to  serious-minded  men  was 
*  the  wolfish  plundering  of  the  poor  and  needy,'  when, 
for  instance,  on  the  occasion  of  setthng  accounts  at 
hospitals   '  great   feasts  and  banquets  were  given  at 
the  expense  of  the  poor- funds.'     '  Might  they  not  at 
such  hospital  banquets,"   asks   Guarinoni,    '  give  heed 
to  the  great  and  pitiful  complaints  of  the  poor,   for 
whom  these  endowments  were  given,   and  remember 
how  miserably  they  come  off  in  spite  of  all  the  revenues 
provided    for    them,   how  they  have    to  eat  suet  for 
butter,  bones  instead  of  meat,  bran  instead  of  flour  ? 
Have  you  not  been  startled  by  the  common  outcry, 
raised  not  without  reason,  that  they  have  in  this  way 

^  Theatrum  Diaholorum,  382. 

^  Tholuck,  Das  kircMiche  Leben,  233.  **  Weinsberg,  iv.  (published 
by  Lau),  82-84  gives  a  description  of  an  '  official  repast '  which  the  Amts- 
meister  gave  the  coopers'  guild  on  November  15,  1589  ;  Weinsberg  adds, 
p.  84,  '  And  this  is  what  goes  on  at  standard  dinners,  marriage  contracts, 
baptisms,  wedding  repasts,  official  repasts,  funeral  repasts  and  aU  such 
great  ceremonies,  not  only  the  first  day,  for  if  there  is  enough  food  left 
over,  the  friends,  neighbour^  ixnd  acquaintances  are  invited  again  for  the 
second  and  third  days.' 

^  Waldau,  Neue  Beitrdge,  i.  358. 


400  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

deprived  many  hospitals  of  their  own  and  indebted 
them  for  many  thousands  ?  '  ^  Equally  severe  censure 
was  passed  by  contemporaries  on  the  almost  universal 
<3Ustom  of  '  Frass  der  Juristen  '  (jurists'  repast)  when 
inventories  were  being  made  in  houses  after  a  death. 
*  Even  as  I  write/  says  Guarinoni  in  1610,  '  one  of 
these  inventories  in  the  house  of  a  deceased  burgher 
has  just  been  concluded.  The  assessors,  guardians, 
assigners,  notaries,  &c.,  did  not  sit  for  more  than 
fourteen  days,  and  during  the  pauses  they  ate  and 
drank  in  such  a  manner  that  it  seemed  as  if  that  was 
the  chief  purpose  for  which  they  had  come  there,  and 
whereas  it  was  thought  that  there  was  a  considerable 
fortune  to  be  dealt  with,  in  the  end  there  was  scarcely 
enough  left  for  the  poor  legatee  to  pay  for  his  yearly 
clothing.'  2  '  As  to  what  goes  on  at  the  law  assizes,* 
says  another  contemporary,  *  in  the  way  of  eating  and 
drinking,  each  to\^Ti  knows  how  to  sing  its  owti  little 
song  ;  above  all  is  it  known  to  the  poor  women  who 
are  condemned  to  be  tortured  as  witches  ;  for  while 
they  are  suffering  cruel  agonies  at  the  hands  of  the 
executioner,  the  gentlemen  of  the  tribunal,  and  the 
executioner  himself  are  heard  revelling  and  carousing 
like  mad.  May  God  Ahnighty  punish  these  demented 
wretches.  The  judgment-chambers  themselves  are  often 
turned  into  drinking-rooms.'  -^  At  Ratisbon  in  1596  the 
Council  passed  a  resolution  to  the  following  effect : 
'  Whereas  it  happened  a  few  days  ago  (as  indeed  it 
has  often  happened  before),  at  an  honourable  town 
assizes,    that   in   the   judgment-chamber   of   the   toMTi 

1  Guarinoni,  786-787.  "  Ihid.  782. 

^  Ein  christlich  Predig,  Bl.  D.     For  the  drinking  bouts  during  the 
torturing  of  the  witches  we  shall  bring  proofs  later  on. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  401 

hall  there  was  so  much  carousing  that  many  of  those 
present  had  to  be  dragged  out  by  their  arms,  it  is 
herewith  forbidden  to  hold  such  inordinate  revelhngs 
in  the  town  hall  or  in  the  judgment-chamber/  ^ 

'  The  abominable  amount  of  eating  and  drinking 
at  weddings/  was  the  most  frequent  subject  of  com- 
plaint. '  This  habit/  says  Andrew  Schoppius,  pastor  at 
Wernigerode,  '  is  injurious  to  the  whole  country,  for 
many  a  man  becomes  so  involved  in  debt  on  account 
of  wedding  expenditure  that  for  many  years  after, 
if  not  for  the  rest  of  his  hfe,  he  is  a  poor  man.  A 
whole  district  might  often  subsist  for  a  time  on  what 
is  needlessly  consumed  at  a  wedding,  yea  verily,  often 
left  to  spoil,  and  finally  thrown  to  the  cats  and  dogs. 
The  ruling  authorities  make  no  laws  against  this, 
or  else  they  do  not  keep  to  them ;  we  preachers  also, 
for  the  most  part,  let  pass  what  we  see  of  disorder,  im- 
propriety and  sin  at  weddings,  if  we  do  not  ourselves 
give  occasion  of  great  offence.'  '  A  specially  bad 
custom  has  crept  in  here  and  everywhere,  namely  that 
men-servants  and  maid-servants,  on  the  night  before 
a  wedding,  order  in  a  tun  of  beer  and  drink  it  all  up,  carry- 
ing on  at  the  same  time  all  sorts  of  impropriety,  using 

'  GumpelzJiaimer,  ii.  1017.  **  A  case  in  point  is  mentioned  by 
Schmid  in  the  Histor.  Jahrbuch,  xvii.  94.  '  The  town  of  Ehingen  in 
1398  got  possession  of  the  church  treasure  of  Alhnendingen.'  The 
accounts  of  the  so-called  *  Liebfrauenpflege  Allmendingen '  (charit- 
a,ble  foundation)  for  the  year  1591  contains  no  fewer  than  thirty-one 
■entries  for  different  eating  and  drinking  occasions  ;  for  instance,  item 
7  fl.  48  kr.  for  our  meal  after  making  up  the  accounts  ;  item  5  fl.  12  kr. 
for  wine  bought  in  the  town  liall  wlien  we  bought  the  chaplain's  corn  and 
oats  ;  item  3  fl.  48  kr.  when  Ulrich  Rieger  paid  his  debt ;  item  3  fl.  56  ki". 
spent  with  the  parson  and  the  mayor  when  these  made  a  present  of  fish  ; 
item  4  fl.  36  kr.  spent  with  the  Dettingen  peasants  ;  item  1  fl.  40  kr.  spent 
when  Herr  von  Geissingen  paid  a  visit  to  Ehingen. 

VOL.  XV.  D  D 


402  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

disgraceful  language,  singing  ribald  songs,  dancing, 
and  so  forth,  so  that  in  the  morning  they  are  all  tipsy  ; 
in  short,  they  behave  in  an  unchristian  and  devihsh 
manner/  ^  The  darkest  picture  of  wedding  proceedings, 
as  they  were  usually  carried  on,  is  in  Spangenberg's 
'  Ehespiegel '  of  1570.  '  Most  of  the  guests,'  he  says, 
'  drink  to  such  an  extent  that  they  can  neither  speak, 
see  nor  hear.  .  .  .  When  the  fools  have  drained  the 
pots  some  fall  asleep,  others  sink  down  in  a  corner, 
others  make  themselves  so  obnoxious  by  their  actions 
and  talk  that  they  would  disgrace  a  pig-sty.'  '  The 
company  of  drinkers  is  swelled  by  players  and 
prostitutes,  jugglers,  jesters,  and  suchhke  riff-raff ; 
these  are  called  upon  to  sing  their  low  songs  and 
doggerel,  and  to  carry  on  all  sorts  of  fool's  play  so  that 
the  young  people  standing  round  may  be  in  the  highest 
degree  disgusted.  At  the  dancing  which  takes  place 
after  the  banquet  the  proceedings  are  of  a  kind  not 
fit  for  description ;  the  young  people  seem  to  be  possessed 
by  the  devil  and  to  have  lost  every  vestige  of  decency  and 
honour.'  '  And  if  any  right-minded  youths  or  maidens 
are  revolted  by  such  goings-on  and  refuse  to  dance 
with  such  disreputable  devil's  heads  they  get  blows 
on  their  faces.  Such  villainy  ought  to  be  severely 
punished.'  Others  '  run  wild  about  the  streets  and 
roads  all  night,  beating  drums  and  disturbing  a  whole 
town  or  hamlet  with  their  shouting  and  yelling.  And 
when  they  have  turned  everything  topsy-turvy  in 
the  market  place,  tables,  benches,  &;c.,  shoved  carts  and 
carriages  into  the  stream  and  smashed  them  up,  climbed 
into  houses  by  the  chimney,  and  smashed  doors,  windows, 

^  Triumphis  muliebris,  127,  145  ;  concerning  Schoppius  see  our  remarks 
vol.  xii.  210  f. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  403 

tables  and  chairs,  and  done  nothing  but  mischief 
till  daybreak,  they  are  mighty  pleased  with  their 
performances  which  they  think  quite  masterly,  and 
expect  to  be  praised  for.  It  would  be  no  wonder  if  God 
were  to  let  the  earth  swallow  them  up.'  '  And  what 
makes  it  worse  is  that  people  are  not  satisfied  with  one 
day's  jolhfication  at  weddings,  but  they  go  on  for 
two,  three  or  four  days.  How  useful  all  this  is  to  the 
country  experience  shows.'  ^ 

That  Spangenberg's  account  was  not  exaggerated, 
is  shown  by  the  Church  Ordinance  of  the  Electorate  of 
Saxony  of  1580.  In  this  document  there  are  enactments 
against  the  '  very  disorderly  proceedings '  which  com- 
monly occur  at  weddings  in  the  village.  Before  the 
church  service,  in  the  house  of  the  bride,  '  improper  and 
highly  offensive  doings  go  on,  especially  among  the 
young  people ;  also  the  bride's  father  arranges  a 
lengthy  repast,  and  until  this  is  finished  the  preacher 
is  kept  waiting  in  the  church  ;  then  part  of  the  guests 
arrive  accompanied  by  the  bridegroom,  all  of  them 
generally  tipsy  and  reeling,  while  the  rest,  during  the 
service,  tear  about  the  village  or  the  churchyard  scream- 
ing and  bellowing.' " 

In  other  districts  there  was  just  the  same  senseless 
expenditure,  the  same  disreputable  procedure.  In  the 
Schwarzwald  the  peasants  themselves  described  the 
abuses  that  had  come  to  be  connected  with  weddings 
and  other  festive  occasions,  and  in  1608  they  appealed 
to  the  magistrates  for   help   in   remedying   the   evils. 

*  At  honourable  weddings,'  they  said  in  an  address, 

*  it  is  the  custom  now,  with  rich  and  poor  ahke,  on  the 
morning  of  a  wedding  to  flock  to  the  house  of  the  bride 

^  Ehespiegel,  273''-305.  -  Richter,  Kirchenordnungen,  ii.  443, 

D    D    2 


i04  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  sit  down  to  a  meal  of  soup,  fish  and  roast,  with  wine 
:in  superfluity,  of  which  all  partake  so  abundantly  that 
when  they  have  to  go  to  the  church — for  which  they  are 
often  not  ready  till  ten  or  eleven  o'clock — they  are  all  in 
such  a  state  that  the  only  signs  of  reverence  they  display 
are  yelhng  and  shouting,  drawing  out  their  pistols, 
knocking  off  hats,  and  all  sorts  of  other  fool's  play, 
as  if  they  were  holding  a  carnival.  They  go  on  in 
like  manner  when  tljey  come  out  of  church  and 
make  their  way  to  the  host's  house,  and  also  again 
during  the  dancing  which  takes  place  after  the  wedding 
repast.  Then  when  they  have  to  go  back  to  church 
for  the  offering,  they  stagger  about  from  one  side  to 
the  other,  &c.,  &c.'  The  peasants  begged  that  the 
magistrates  would  put  a  stop  to  these  disorderly  pro- 
ceedings and  would  settle  definitely  how  much  wine 
might  be  served  at  each  table  at  the '  Morgensuppe,'  and 
how  the  people  were  to  behave  in  order  that  they  might 
arrive  in  church  in  a  properly  devotional  frame  of  mind. 
At  later  weddings,  however,  there  was  just  as  much  ■ 
insobriety  and  rowdyism.  '  The  poor  impecunious 
people  would  gladly  escape  all  this,  but  they  cannot  do 
so,  for  fear  of  being  thought  unneighbourly,  and  also 
because  they  are  told  it  is  an  obligatory  custom ;  and 
vet  they  have  to  make  up  for  what  has  been  so  needlessly 
consumed  by  pinching  themselves  and  their  household 
ior  a  whole  year,  and  with  the  heavy  rents,  taxes  and 
dues  they  have  to  pay,  it  is  very  difficult  to  recoup.'  ^ 
In  Bavaria  similar  abuses  prevailed.  In  his  prin- 
cipahty,'  said  Duke  William  V.  in  an  ordinance  of  1587, 
'  when  there  was  a  wedding  among  the  common 
peasants    there    were    very    disorderly    and    offensive 

^  Gothein,  Die  oberrheinische  Lande,  40  £f.  to  p.  15. 


BURGHER  AND    PEASANT  LIFE  405 

proceedings  in  the  villages ;  when  the  bride  was 
fetched  from  her  house,  all  the  neighbours  got  so 
drunk  at  the  Suppe  that  they  arrived  at  the  church 
hallooing,  shouting  and  yelhng,  and  rioting  most 
disgracefully/  ^ 

Concerning  weddings  in  the  Tyrol,  Guarinoni  says  : 
'  What  a  scandal  it  is  on  wedding  days  to  see 
people  sitting  for  six  hours  at  table,  and  then  tumbhng 
about  in  the  dancing-house  and  lying  one  upon  the 
other  in  heaps  :  man  and  wife,  mother  and  daughter, 
brother  and  sister,  men-servants  and  maid-servants, 
young  girls  and  their  lovers.  In  one  word,  the  goings- 
on  at  weddings  are  of  a  kind  never  witnessed  among 
pagans,  or  Turks,  or  the  coarsest  and  most  shameless 
of  nations,  and  strangers  travelling  through  the  land 
may  well  wonder  and  ask  themselves  whether  this 
people  does  really  believe  in  Christianity  ?  '  ^ 

'  The  same  extravagant,  drunken  proceedings  that 
characterised    weddings    and    christenings,'  ^    wrote    a 

^  Westenrieder,  Neue  Beitrdge,  i.  287. 

"  Guarinoni,  722.  **  Concerning  the  luxury  in  food,  drink  and  dress 
the  love  of  pleasure  and  feasting  among  the  peasantry  of  Styria  see  Peinlich, 
Zur  Gesch.  der  Leibeigenschaft,  76  ff. 

3  **  Q£  ^;2^g  scandalous,  harmful  and  sinful  abuses  at  christenings,  the 
Nuremberg  patrician  Berthold  Holzschuher  gives  the  following  inter- 
esting description  in  a  socio-political  reform  article  of  the  year  1565  : 
'  When  the  child  is  eight  days  old  a  "  Weissat  "  or  "  Kindschenk  " 
must  be  held,  accompanied  by  eating  and  drinking,  at  which  more  guldens 
are  needlessly  squandered.  It  is  a  flagrant  shame  and  disgrace  that  the 
occasion  should  be  so  unsuitably  kept  and  so  much  time  wasted :  for 
to-day  it  is  at  one  neighbour's,  to-morrow  at  another's,  and  there  is  seldom 
a  village  where  two  or  three  christenings  are  not  held  every  week ;  this 
is  a  general  misfortune,  for  in  this  way  the  people  grow  poor,  squander  God's 
gifts  of  food  and  drink,  waste  their  time,  and  spend  it  sinfully  in  over- 
much eating,  drinking,  blaspheming  and  other  iniquities,'  Ehrenberg, 
'  Ein  finanz-  und  sozialpoUtisches  Projekt  aus  dem  16  Jahrhundert,' 
in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  die  gesamte  Staatswissenschaft,  xlvi.  (1890)  732. 


406  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

preacher  in  1573,  '  went  on  at  funerals,  as  I  myself 
witnessed  several  times  when  80,  100,  140,  160  even 
more  guests  were  invited,  and  to  my  deep  sorrow  I 
beheld  how  the  whole  crowd  of  them  became  tipsy ; 
fell  down  round  the  table  and  remained  lying  on  the 
ground  till  they  were  carried  away,  and  how  at  last 
bag-pipers,  lyre-players  and  drummers  were  actually 
brought  on  the  scene  in  order  to  play  to  the  soul,  as 
they  said,  and  accompany  it  to  heaven/  ^  '  The 
mourners,'  said  Sigismund  Evenius,  '  mostly  show 
mourning  only  in  their  dress,  without  any  real  grief  in 
their  hearts,  as  is  evident  from  the  feasting  that  goes 
on  in  the  house,  where  costly  viands  and  hqiiors  are 
consumed  in  huge  quantities  until  deep  into  the  night ; 
where  the  nearest  relatives  of  the  departed  are  forced 
to  drink  to  intoxication  for  the  good  of  the  soul/  ^ 

'  But  what  goes  on  in  the  way  of  drinking  and 
swilhng  at  the  church  fairs  and  regular  carnivals  '  says 
a  preacher  in  1573,  '  experience  teaches  us  every  year/ 
*  They  pour  liquid  down  their  throats  as  down  sluices, 
and  do  not  stop  till  they  have  driven  out  their 
senses/  ^ 

In  *  Fiinfzehn  Kirmesspredigten  *  (Fifteen  Church 
Fair  Sermons),  which  Erasmus  Winter,  preacher  in  the 
Altenburg  district,  pubhshed  in  1599,  the  general 
gluttony,  drunkenness  and  debauchery  which  prevailed 
during  the  days  of  the  church  fairs  are  described  more 
fully  by  an  eye-witness.  There  was  generally  so  much 
quarrelling,  fighting  and  bloodshed  at  these  times  that 
it  was  commonly  said  :  the  Kirmess  Ablass  is  a  bloody 
head/     To  attempt  to  punish  these  iniquities  was  Hke 

^  Ein  christlich  Predig,  PI.  C.  "  Evenius,  137. 

•^  Ein  christlich  Predig,  Bl.  C. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  407 

beating  the  water,  the  sole  result  to  bring  down  scorn, 
rating  and  calumny  on  one's  own  head/  ^ 

If  a  church  fair  meant  three  or  four  days  of  des- 
perate drinking,  a  '  proper '  carnival  often  lasted  five  or 
six  days,  during  which  there  was  often  so  much  fighting 
and  wounding  that  the  barbers  (surgeons)  used  to  say, 
church  fairs  and  carnivals  were  the  most  blessed  seasons 
of  the  whole  year/  In  an  edict  issued  in  February 
1615  by  the  Elector  John  George  of  Saxony  against  the 
carnival  mummeries  at  Leipzig,  it  says  :  '  At  the  last 
carnival  there  were  horrid  bands  of  men  in  abomin- 
able and  scandalous  dress  with  murderous  weapons, 
Turkish  swords  and  other  arms,  tearing  about  the 
market-place  like  senseless  brutes,  and  not  desisting 
till  they  had  wounded  each  other  in  the  skirmish  and 
some  of  them  had  been  Idlled.'  In  another  Electoral 
edict  of  March  1615  the  '  numerous  cases  of  slaughter 
which  ensued  at  the  carnival  in  the  capital  town  of 
Dresden '  were  animadverted  on.*^  '  Less  murderous,* 
but  quite  sufficiently  disreputable,'  were  other  carnival 
jollifications  at  which  the  princely  festivities  were  imi- 
tated and  all  sorts  of  scurrihties  were  indulged  in.  Thus, 
of  the  Nuremberg  carnival  in  1588  the  shopman,  Ulrich 
Wirsung,  wrote  :  *  We  had  also  a  merry  pantomime,  in 
which  figured  doctors,  surgeons  with  cupping  instru- 
ments and  apothecaries  with  large  syringes  ;  in  the  tail 
of  the  procession  which  represented  a  dragon,  there  was 
a  sick  person  lying  at  the  last  gasp,  and  two  mass^priests 
sitting  by  him  and  singing :  *  St.  Ursula  give  us  wine  and 

^  Winter,  Kirmesspredigten,  BI.  9,  11,  15,  17,  30.  In  order  to  deter 
his  congregation  from  such  a  vicious  mode  of  Ufe,  Winter  once  held  forth 
for  several  houi's  on  hell  and  its  punishments  :  tliis  sermon  fills  thirty-six 
pages  of  print.     Bl,  42''  ff. 

2  Ein  christUch  Predig,  Bl.  F.  •'  Godex  Aiigusteus,  i.  1481-1485. 


408  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

receive  this  sick  man.'  ^  The  mummers  had  dressed 
themselves  up  as  negro-women,  pagans,  harlots,  and 
wayfaring  women,  some  as  birds,  and  sea-nymphs,  some 
as  heathen  princesses,  shepherdesses,  enchantresses, 
nuns,  recluses,  others  as  merry-andrews,  monks,  and  so 
forth,  in  all  sorts  of  costumes,  one  more  strange  than  the 
other/  Amongst  numerous  other  '  mummeries '  there 
rushed  in  '  a  wild  troop  of  most  extraordinary  figures, 
with  horns,  beaks,  tails,  claws,  humps,  and  behind  all 
these  on  a  wild,  black  horse  came  Frau  Holda  the  wild 
huntress.  This  ferocious  troop  consisted  of  jovial 
drinkers  and  buffoons,  merchants'  sons,  shop-keepers' 
servants,  school-boys,  and  three  school-masters,  who  let 
their  voices  be  heard  loud  and  strong.'  There  were  also 
pupils  of  the  St.  Lorenz  school  dressed  as  shepherdesses 
who  sang  a  song.  A  carnival  of  this  sort  was  such  a 
'  jovial  time,  that  when  the  fools  woke  in  the  morning 
they  were  still  quite  tipsy,  and  tumbled  about  all  day  in 
the  streets.'  Next  came  Venusberg,  very  grandly  got  up 
with  all  the  joyous  court  of  Venus.  Dame  Venus  sat  in  a 
cockle-shell  carriage  drawn  by  doves,  surrounded  by  her 
lovely  maidens,  and  in  the  midst  of  them  all  sat  the  noble 
knight  Tannhauser.  '  Another  procession  had  joined 
itself  to  the  proceedings,  a  number  of  monks  and  nuns, 
who  kicked  up  a  rare  hubbub  ;  they  said  they  were 
flagellators  and  they  let  fly  wildly  at  each  other  so  that 
their  hoods  and  veils  whirled  round  mightily ;  twelve 
priestess-cooks,  jolly  carnival  butchers,  conducted  them- 
selves very  badly.  We,  however,  set  up  a  stage,  and 
performed  on  it,  briefly  and  well,  the  journeys  and  perils 
of  the  young  Tobias.'  '  When  we  had  finished  our  play, 
we  heard  that  a  very  distinguished  lady,  had  come  to 

'  Set.  Ursula,  da  nobis  vinum  et  recipe  aegrotum. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  409 

keep  the  carnival  with  the  ladies  of  Nuremberg.  Thinks 
I  to  myself,  who  can  she  be  ?  Then  there  appeared 
twelve  angels  with  great  golden,  fluttering  wings,  one 
of  which  had  his  name  inscribed  in  front  of  him,  and  it 
was  Gabriel.  The  people  said  '  the  angels  are  the  retinue 
of  the  distinguished  foreign  lady,  the  wife  of  the  Bishop 
of  Bamberg."  ^ 

In  1540  the  council  of  Nuremberg  had  a  small  cart 
constructed  for  carrying  away  the  drunken  people  lying 
in  the  streets.^ 

In  1557  the  council  had  to  complain '  of  the  numerous 
dangerous  wounds  daily  inflicted  owing  to  excess  of  wine 
drinking,  and  also  of  other  mitoward  acts  committed  by 
tipsy  men  and  women.'  ^ 

*  In  many  places  this  drinking  went  so  far  that  the 
tipsy  people,  at  princes'  courts  even,  as  was  known  all 
over  the  country,  often  remained  lying  dead  in  their 
places.'  ^  '  The  princely  councillors  in  the  duchy  of 
Wiirtemberg,'  it  says  in  Scherer's  postille,  '  once  made 
a  hst  of  400  persons  who,  between  the  autumn  and 
the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  died  at  banquets  and 
carnival  gatherings,  as  the  Lutheran  Manhus  writes.'^ 
'  In  the  Jahrbiicher,  good  wine,  because  so  many 
people  drank  themselves  to  death  with  it,  was  called 
homicide.'  ^    At  a  public-house  on  the  Bohemian  frontier 

1  Vulpius,  X.  390-407  ;  cf.  531,  where  the  date  1588  is  given.  The 
Bamberg  bishop,  Ernst  von  Mengerstorf,  under  whom  nearly  the  whole 
diocese  became  Protestant  (see  F.  Stieve,  Die  Politih  Bayerns,  ii.  387),  was 
present  at  this  carnival,  '  enjoyed  the  ridicule  of  clerical  matters,  and  was 
not  particular  about  jokes,  &c.,'  pp.  395,  397,  401. 

^  Vulpius,  X.  145.  ^  Waldau,  Vermischte  Beitrdge,  iii.  253. 

■*  Ein  christlich  Predig  Bl.  F. 

•'  Scherer,  Postille,  188.      It  happened  between  the  autumn  of  1540 
and  Lent,  1541.     Cf.  Volz,  Wiirltembergische  Jahrbiicher,  1852,  p.  179, 
«  Arnold,  i.  788. 


410  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

five  journeymen  drank  themselves  to  death  in  one  night ; 
at  Cassel  in  June  1596,  three  people  died  in  one  day  from 
drinking.  1 

'  When  I  reflect/  wrote  a  preacher  in  1573,  '  on  the 
drunkenness  and  the  quite  inordinate  tippling  and  all 
the  cursing,  swearing,  blaspheming,  debauchery,  killing, 
&c.,  which  results  from  it,  I  am  constrained  also  to  blame 
many  lords  and  rulers,  and  to  say  that  they  are  in  no 
slight  measure  themselves  the  cause  of  all  this  evil. 
And  this  not  only  because  they  themselves  set  a  bad 
example  in  this  respect  to  the  people,  but  also  because 
they  actually  encourage  drinking  by  the  erection  of 
breweries,  distilleries  and  taverns  ' ;  '  they  want  to  sell 
a  great  deal  and  receive  plenty  of  duty  and  excise.'  ^ 
For  the  same  reasons  the  preacher,  Erasmus  Sarcerius, 
in  1555,  mentioned  '  several  lords  and  nobles,  also  some 
of  the  councillors  in  towns,'  as  chief  promoters  of  the 
increasing  love  of  drink. ^  In  a  letter  from  Martin  Bucer 
to  the  Landgrave  Philip  of  Hesse,  on  May  19,  1540,  we 
jead :  '  The  vice  of  drunkenness  which  has  invaded  the 
country,  is  seen  at  its  worst  in  Marburg,  for  there  the 
town  councillors  are  wine  sellers.'  *  '  Whereas  drink,' 
said  the  preacher,  Ludwig  Milichius,  '  now  brings  in 
money  to  the  lords,  no  excess  is  so  great,  no  revelry  so 
drunken,  no  banquet  so  splendid,  no  carousal  so  godless, 
but  it  is  connived  at.  Organising  extravagant  wedding 
and  christening  feasts,  holding  church  fairs,  drinking  all 
night  long,  setting  up  one  or  two  taverns  in  every 
hamlet  and  corner,  all  this  is  admirable  because  it  pro- 
duces plenty  of  excise  money.'  ^ 

^  Kirchhof,  Wendunmuth,  i.  269  and  ii.  439. 

^  Ein  christUch  Predig,  Bl.  F.  •'  Zeitsch.  des  Harzvereins,  xx.  524. 

^  See  our  remarks  vol.  vi.  p.  91.       '"  Milichius,  ScJirap-Teufell,  Bl.  L. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  411 

'  At  the  same  time  the  lords  behave  very  honour- 
ably, and  issue  laws  and  ordinances  forbidding  so 
much  drinking  and  toasting,  and  such  excessive 
hospitality.  But  what  good  can  this  do  ?  The  people 
laugh  at  it  and  think  it  a  fine  joke.  One  hears  them 
say :  "  The  rulers  themselves  are  lying  ill  in  bed  and  they 
want  to  cure  others !     Let  them  begin  first  at  home."  '  ^ 

The  numerous  edicts  issued  by  princes  and  municipal 
authorities,  in  which,  under  threat  of  severe  punishment 
for  non-observance,  minute  rules  were  laid  down  for 
each  separate  class  as  to  how  much  expense  might  be 
incurred  at  family  festivities,  weddings,  christenings, 
funerals  and  so  forth,  how  many  guests  might  be  invited 
at  a  time,  and  what  sort  of  entertainment  was  to  be 
provided,  were  all  powerless  to  stem  the  tide  of  drunken- 
ness, lasciviousness  and  senseless  extravagance,  because 
the  legislators  themselves  set  such  a  bad  example  to  the 
people,  and  did  not  strike  at  the  roots  of  the  evil.  These 
laws  and  regulations  are  important,  however,  because 
on  the  one  hand,  they  show  what  in  those  days  was 
understood  by  *  reduction  of  extravagance,'  and  on  the 
other  hand,  they  represent  the  continuous  increase  of 
luxury  and  expenditure. 

Thus,  for  instance,  Joachim  I.  of  Brandenburg,  in 
a  pohce  ordinance  of  1515  for  the  regulation  of  wedding 
festivities,  hmited  the  number  of  guests  to  as  many 
as  could  be  seated  at  five  tables  in  case  of  rich  people, 
and  at  three  tables  for  the  common  people,  in  order, 
as  the  ordinance  said,  that  '  they  should  not  in  one 
day  get  through  as  much  food  and  drink  as  was  needed 
for  a  whole  year's  household  consumption.'  Further, 
wedding  festivities  were  not  to  last  more  than  two 

^  Ein  christlich  Predig,  BI,  F, 


412  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

days  :  a  fine  of  one  silver  mark  was  to  be  the  penalty 
for  infringement  of  these  regulations.  Thirty-six  years 
later,  in  1551,  the  Elector  Joachim  II.  issued  a  new 
ordinance,  in  which  he  decreed  that  '  none  of  the 
burghers  or  other  inhabitants  of  towns  were  to  invite 
more  than  156  guests  or  lay  more  than  thirteen  tables, 
except  the  tables  for  the  cooks,  maids,  waiters,  pipers 
and  drummers  ;  the  local  guests  were  not  to  be  enter- 
tained for  more  than  three  days,  the  foreign  ones  might 
stay  longer."  ^ 

According  to  an  ordinance  of  the  Nordhausen 
Council  issued  in  1549  the  number  of  persons  invited 
to  a  wedding  was  not  to  exceed  140,  and  the  cook  and 
the  bridegroom  had  to  state  on  oath  before  the  council 
how  high  was  the  number  of  guests  invited  and  what 
quantity  of  provisions  had  been  ordered. ^  In  a  Greifs- 
wald  wedding  ordinance  of  1592  artisans  were  limited 
to  eighty,  the  higher  class  burghers  to  120  famihes, 
foreigners,  however,  excepted. ^  A  pohce  ordinance  of 
the  town  of  Miinden,  in  1610,  decreed  that  at  large 
weddings  there  should  not  be  more  than  twenty-fom: 
tables  with  ten  persons  at  each,  at  small  ones  not  more 
than  fourteen  tables.*  Similarly  a  Hamburg  ordinance 
of  1609  decreed  that '  For  a  complete  or  "  wine-wedding  " 
not  more  than  240  persons  must  be  invited  ' :  in  the 
territory  belonging  to  the  town,  according  to  a  prescript 
of  the  year  1603,  weddings  were  not  to  last  more  than 
three  days.'  ^  At  Liibeck,  in  1611,  the  burgomaster 
had  to  take  proceedings  against  the  peasants  who 
*  kept  up  their  weddings  for  four  or  five  days  and  drank 

^  Moehsen,  494-495.  -  Neue  Mitteilungen,  v.  99. 

^  Baltische  Studien,  15  Jahrgang,  Heft.  ii.  p.  195,  200. 

^  Spittler,  Gesch.  des  Fiir&tentums  Hannover,  i.  380-381. 

^  Zeitschr.  fur  die  Gesch,  Hamburgs,  i.  547,  and  v.  467. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  413 

up  twenty  or  more  tuns  of  beer/  i  In  the  Brunswick 
district  also  the  common  peasants  entertained  twenty- 
four  tables  full  of  guests,  gave  ten  or  twelve  dishes  at 
each  meal,  and  drank  twenty  barrels  of  beer,  if  not 
more."  In  Wiirtemberg  Duke  Ludwig,  in  1585,  made  a 
stand  against  '  the  inordinate  drinking,  banqueting, 
and  extravagance  (especially  at  weddings),  which 
had  gained  ground  among  both  rich  and  poor,  so  much 
so  that  even  among  people  of  low  estate  and  small 
means  it  was  a  common  thing  to  have  ten,  twelve, 
sixteen  and  more  expensive  dishes  at  any  festive  meal, 
especially  at  supplementary  weddings ;  to  have  eight, 
nine,  ten  and  more  tables  only  for  women  "  giving 
suck  to  infants,"  and  young  girls/  ^ 

The  cook  artist  Marx  Eumpolt  in  1581  gave  a 
detailed  account,  '  from  many  years'  experience '  of 
the  way  in  which  '  proper  burgher  and  peasant  banquets 
should  be  given/ 

For  a  '  Friihmahl '  (early  meal)  at  a  burgher's 
banquet  he  considered  the  following  dishes  sufficient : 
^  First  course  :  stewed  beef  with  horse  radish,  capon- 
soup  garnished  with  smoked  meat  and  roast  hghts  ; 
a  well-filled  sucking  pig,  a  dish  of  sour  kraut  boiled 
with  smoked  bacon  and  old  hens.  Second  course  : 
peppered  pork  ;  roast  veal ;  a  leg  of  mutton  ;  roast 
pork ;  a  capon,  a  goose,  partridges,  birds,  a  lamb  or  kid 
— these  all  roasted  and  served  in  one  dish  ;  dried  beef 
with  juniper  berries ;  a  dish  of  rice  cooked  in  milk ; 
boiled  veal  yellow  with  lemons  ;  a  veal  jelly,  sour  and 
yellow.  Third  course :  baked  cakes,  Holhippen  (?), 
brown  cakes,  all  sorts  of  biscuits,  all  sorts  of  good  cheese  ; 

^  Brockes,  ii.  10-11  note.  -  Cf.  Lohneiss,  284. 

"*  Reyscher,  xii.  440-444. 


414  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

large  and  small  nuts/  For  a  '  Friihmahl  dinner  on 
fast-days  there  must  be  served  up  :  First  course  :  a 
wine  soup ;  boiled  eggs ;  poached  eggs,  blue-boiled 
carps  ;  preserved  eels,  yellow.  Second  course  :  spinach 
boiled  with  small  raisins  ;  baked  Koppen  ;  blue-boiled 
trout ;  Briicken  in  pepper ;  preserved  pike,  yellow 
a  la  Hungarian.  Third  course  :  stewed  crab  ;  stuffed 
stock-fish,  smoked  ;  plums  ;  blue-boiled  pike  in  bacon, 
a  pike  jelly.  Fourth  course  :  all  sorts  of  fruit,  biscuits, 
cakes  and  cheese.  ^ 

At  a  banquet  of  well-to-do  peasants  the  following 
was  the  rule  for  the  mid-day  meal  on  days  when  flesh 
meat  is  allowed.  First  course  :  soup  (the  broth  of  cut- 
up  beef)  ;  boiled  beef,  a  capon  and  dried  meat.  Second 
course  :  a  roast  goose,  a  roast  leg  of  mutton  larded  with 
sage,  a  roast  pig,  roast  chickens,  a  roast  of  veal  and 
sausages.  Third  course  :  sour  kraut  boiled  with  bacon 
and  sausages  laid  round.  Fourth  course  :  old  chickens 
preserved  in  jelly,  yellow.  Fifth  course :  pig- jelly 
(brawn).  Sixth  course :  apples,  pears,  nuts,  cheese, 
all  sorts  of  pastry,  cakes  and  biscuits. 

At  a  '  Nachtmahl '  (evening  meal)  also  in  six 
courses,  the  order  was  :  '  a  salad,  hard-boiled  eggs, 
sausage,  shces  of  ham,  dried  meat ;  good  chicken  broth 
with  ox  flesh ;  a  dish  of  all  sorts  of  coarse  roasts,  a 
green  cabbage  with  a  smoked  sucking-pig ;  preserved 
goshng  in  pepper,  and  finally  all  sorts  of  pastry,  cakes 
and  biscuits.  On  a  fast  day  the  peasants  were  satisfied 
for  the  '  Friihmahl '  with  pea-soup,  boiled  eggs,  blue- 
boiled  carps  with  vinegar ;  sour  kraut  with  dried 
salmon  and  baked  fish  and  roast  fish  on  the  kraut ; 
yellow   pike   boiled   a   la   Hungarian ;     a   white   jelly 

1  Rumpolt,  Bl.  38,  39. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  41& 

made  of  carps,  and  all  sorts  of  pastry,  cakes  and 
biscuits,  also  '  Steigleder  and  Stetzkiichlein' (?),  and 
apples,  pears,  nuts  and  cheese.^ 

At  the  grand  banquets  and  drinking  bouts  of  persons 
of  position,  as  well  as  at  those  of  burghers  and  peasants, 
it  was  customary,  besides  drinking  the  ordinary  wines, 
'  coarse  or  fine,  such  as  God  had  provided,  to  have  also 
artificial  wines,  for  the  preparation  of  which  great  skill 
and  experience  were  needed."  These  quahfications 
Rumpolt  possessed.  *  All  people  of  high  or  low  degree,, 
both  male  and  female,  he  taught  how  to  make  good, 
sweet  wine,  which  was  sweeter  than  fermented  wine, 
and  also  purer  and  clearer,'  also  *  many  costly  wines  of 
herbs,  spices  and  other  things,  also  spiced  wines  such 
as  borage  wine,  ox-tongue,  rosemary  .  .  .  orris,  sage, 
wormwood,  hyssop. 

'  Out  of  benevolence  to  mankind,'  he  also  reports 
concerning  all  sorts  of  powerful,  secret  ways  of  doctoring 
wine,  *  which  a  father  ought  scarcely  to  teach  his  chil- 
dren.' These  must  only  be  done  in  secret  places 
so  that  people  may  not  learn  the  secret,  for  this  art, 
he  says,  is  known  to  very  few  and  for  its  great 
usefulness  is  worth  1000  gulden  to  a  wine  merchant  or 
retailer,  &c.- 

'  Wine-arts  '  of  all  sorts  were  a  highly  profitable 
business.  The  council  of  Leipzig,  in  1539,  found  itself 
obliged  to  issue  a  new  wine  ordinance  because,  '  owing 
to  the  adulteration  of  wine,  illness  increased  in  the 
towns  from  day  to  day,  and  the  doctors  complained  that 

1  Rumpolt,  Bl.  40-41. 

^  Ihidt  clxxxiv.-cxcvi.  The  preacher,  Frederick  Helbach,  devoted 
a  special  pamphlet  to  dealing  with  all  the  'medicated  and  herb  wines,' 
see  Helbach,  Vorrede,  A  2^ 


416  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

they  could  not  get  a  drop  of  good  pure  wine  for  their 
patients.  1  The  council  of  Cologne  in  1562  was  obliged 
to  issue  an  injunction  against '  new-fangled  wines  pre- 
pared with  bacon,  which  were  never  heard  of  formerly, 
and  which  are  highly  injurious  to  health/  -  By  ad- 
mixture of  brandy,  lime,  alum  and  other  unnatural 
ingredients,  *  wine '  wrote  Aegidius  Albertinus,'  is  terribly 

adulterated/  ^ 

'  They  were  also  very  skilful  in  all  sorts  of  ways  of 
manufacturing  new  kinds  of  beer.  Amongst  others 
they  made  '  rosemary  beer,  extremely  good  for  melan- 
cholia ' ;  '  scordien  beer,  good  against  poison,  cohc,  and 
female  troubles ;  lavender  beer,  which  powerfully 
strengthens  the  head,  and  is  also  very  valuable  against 
apoplexy ' ;  melissen  beer,  which  strengthens  the  heart 
and  the  spirits,  and  is  very  wholesome  and  useful  for 
women ;  also  giUiflower  beer,  allspice  beer,  brown 
betonian  beer,  jmiiper  beer,  laurel  beer,  wormwood 
l)eer,  and  sage  beer — this  last  removes  trembhng  in  the 
k:nee-caps  and  other  hmbs,  strengthens  growing  teeth  and 
makes  them  firm ;  wormwood  beer  is  very  good  for 
women  for  its  acts  against  barrenness  ;  also  pennyroyal 

^  Wassermann,  Lebensmittelfdlschung,  24-28.    Richard,  199. 

-  Zeitschr.  filr  deutsdie  Kulturgesch.  (new  series)  vol.  iii.  61-62. 

3  K.  V.  Reinhardstottner  in  the  Jahrh.  fiir  Milnchener  Gesch.  ii.  48.  For 
the  different  methods  of  adulterating  and  poisoning  wine,  see  Guarinoni, 
-678,  682,  683,  690,  695-696.  In  Uke  manner  groceries  and  spices  were 
often  adulterated  with  harmful  things,  '  whereby,  for  the  common  people 
there  resulted  sickness,  and  injury.'  See  the  Wiirtemberg  ordinance  of 
1563,  in  Reyscher,  xii.  325  ;  the  ReichspoUzeiordnung  of  1577  in  the 
Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  iii.  392  ;  the  Kurpfalzische  Landesord- 
nung  of  1582,  Tit.  23.  For  the  Tyrol  cf.  K.  Elben,  Zur  Lehre  von  der 
Warenfdlschung  (Freiburg,  1881,)  p.  55;  see  also  our  statements, 
vol.  ii.  p.  128  f.  and  vol.  iv.  158,  and  Olorinus  Variscus,  Ethnogr. 
3Iundi,  J  5. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  417 

beer,  hyssop  beer  and  other  kinds  were  praised  as  very 
health-giving/  ^ 

An  especially  fruitful  source  of  evil  was  the  increasing 
love  of  brandy  drinking.  The  woes  arising  from  this 
habit  were  sung  in  a  poem  of  the  year  1493.^  A  Nurem- 
berg police  ordinance  of  1496  says  :  *  Many  people  in 
this  town,  through  the  drinking  of  brandy,  are  daily 
guilty  of  serious  misconduct  and  disorder,  especially 
on  Sundays  and  feast-days/  From  experienced  doctors 
the  council  had  learnt  how  injurious  brandy  was  to  the 
health,  and  what  fatal  diseases  it  produced,  all  the  more 
so  as  it  was  distilled  from  substances  harmful  and 
injurious  to  man's  constitution.  Hence  it  was  enjoined 
that  in  future  no  more  brandy  was  to  be  sold  on  Sunday 
and  on  feast-days ;  on  working-days  it  might  be  bought, 
but  only  drunk  at  home,  and  not  more  of  it  than  one 
heller  or  pennyworth  a  day.^  In  the  course  of  the  six- 
teenth century  the  love  of  brandy  gained  ground  more 
and  more,  not  only  in  towns,  but  also  in  the  country."* 
In  an  enactment  issued  by  the  district  council  at  Nurem- 
berg, in  1527,  to  the  warden,  burgomaster  and  council  at 
Altorf,  it  was  complained  that  many  people  there  *  had 
no  shame  in  disgracing  themselves  with  brandy  drinking 
and  in  other  ways  in  the  pubhc  streets  and  also  in  inns 
and  taverns  on  Sundays  and  holy  days  whilst  preaching 

1  Stengel,  Bl.  D.  3^— E  2. 

"  See  our  remarks,  vol.  i.  (German)  454,  n.  2.  See  also  Waller's  AUes, 
ii.  805-809. 

^  J.  Baader,  Niirnberger  Polizeiordnungen,  in  the  Library  of  the 
Literary  Society  at  Stuttgart,  Ixiii.  264-265.  **  Schultz,  Deutsches  Leben, 
509. 

4  **  In  1522,  in  the  Trautenau  Chronicle  of  Simon  Hiittet  (published  by 
L.  Sclilesinger,  Prague,  1881),  it  is  said  of  a  schoolmaster  and  town  clerk, 
that '  he  drank  himself  to  death  with  brandy  at  the  "  Wet  King  "  public- 
house,  owned  by  old  Hans  Hoffmann.' — Schultz,  Deutschea  Leben,  509. 
VOL.  XV.  E  E 


418  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

was  going  on ' ;   suitable  punishment,  the  edict  said, 
must  be  inflicted  on  such  dehnquents.  because  '  this 
inordinate  drinking  was  productive  of  much  offence  and 
unchristian  behaviour,  with  contempt  and  desecration 
of   the  Word   of   God,   and  other  scandalous  results.' 
In  Nuremberg  and  its  suburbs,  as  also  in  the  country- 
round,    there    sprang    up    everywhere    at    that    time 
brandy  distilleries  which  paid  taxes  and  duties. ^     For 
Bavaria  the  Landesordnung  of  1553  decreed  that  '  no 
one   should   drink   more   than  two  pfennigs  worth  of 
brandy  per  day ' ;  as  highly  injurious  to  the  common 
people,    it   was    forbidden    under    severe    penalty    to 
make    brandy   out    of    '  wheat,    barley   and    suchlike 
grain.' "   *  The  early  masses,'  preached  the  Jesuit  Father, 
George  Scherer,  *  have  in  many  places  been  turned  into 
early  eating  and  early  brandy  drinking.'  ^     In  Hesse, 
in  1524,  a  general  prohibition  went  forth  against  selhng 
and  retaihng  brandy  ;    but  as  this  did  not  stop  the 
*  inordinate   brandy-drinking '   there   followed  another 
severe  ordinance  in  1559,  to  the  effect  that  '  no  more 
drinking  bouts  were  to  be  held  either  by  innkeepers,  or 
by  burghers,  peasants,  nobles  or  commoners,  and  that 
brandy  was  only  to  be  sold  to  men  and  women  who 
were  ill  and  infirm.'  *    How    futile   also   this   second 
ordinance  was  is  sho-wn  by  another  one  issued  for  the 
town  of  Griinberg  in  1579  :    *  Whereas  in  the  brandy 
shops  great  disorder  goes  on  and  much  offence  is  given, 
in  that  not  only  the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  but  also 
the  people   who   come   to   church   from  the   comitry, 
drink  themselves  drunk  before  and  during  the  service, 

^  J.  Baader,  '  Zur  Gesch.  des  Branntweins,'  in  the  Anzeiger  fur  Kunde 
der  deutschen  Vorzeit,  xv.  315-318. 

-  Bayer ische  Landesordnung,  97^,  98'\  ^  Scherer,  Postille,  446-. 

"*  See  0.  Stolzel  in  the  Jahrbiicher  fur  Nationalokonomie,  vii.  160,  161. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  419 

while  many  of  them  stay  away  from  church,  and  others 
go  there  in  a  state  of  intoxication,  it  is  herewith  decreed 
that  henceforth  brandy  drinking  shall  not  be  allowed 
either  before  or  during  service  time/  ^  '  The  high 
authorities/  preached  the  Meissen  Superintendent 
Gregory  Strigenicius,  *  have  strictly  enjoined  that  the 
disorderly  traffic  of  brandy  retailing  during  church 
service  time  and  afterwards  shall  be  given  up.  But 
Avho  attends  to  this  order  ?  There  is  so  much  carousing 
that  it  is  a  sin  and  shame,  and  strange  to  say,  it  goes  on 
chiefly  in  the  places  where  there  is  more  than  one 
judiciary  district.  If  one  magistrate  will  not  tolerate 
the  practice,  and  it  is  put  down  by  the  council,  the 
people  go  across  the  water,  over  the  bridges,  into  another 
district  where  the  authorities  connive  at  it  and  allow 
all  sorts  of  improprieties  to  go  on  during  church  time.'  " 
In  the  town  of  Zwickau,  in  1600,  no  less  than  34 
brandy  distilleries  are  mentioned  ;3  at  Zittau,  in  1577, 
the  number  was  over  40.  '  With  us,"  the  Zittau 
archdeacon,  Andrew  Winzinger,  complained,  'there  is 
no  end  to  gorging  and  drinking.  If  at  a  dinner  party 
each,  guest  has  not  drunk  so  much  that  he  can  neither 
walk  nor  stand,  if  the  party  has  not  lasted  on  far  into  the 
night,  then  it  has  been  no  proper  dinner  party.  In  this 
way  many  people  drink  themselves  prematurely  to 
death.'  In  Berlin,  in  1574,  brandy  might  still  only  be 
sold  in  apothecaries'  shops,  but  already  in  1595  the 
council   was  drawing  a   tax  from  brandy  distilleries.* 

1  Glaser,  133. 

""  Strigenicius,  Diluvium,  90'',  According  to  an  enactment  of  Duke 
Frederick  William,  in  1595,  brandy  was  only  to  be  distilled  from  wine  dregs, 
not  from  corn,  because  otherwise  the  price  of  corn  was  raised  too  high ; 
pigs  fattened  on  draff  caused  leprosy. — Codex  A^igustinus,  i.  1434-1438. 

^  Tholuck,  Das  kirchliche  Leben,  235.  '•  Moehsen,  488-489. 

K  E  2 


420  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Frankfort-on-the-Oder,  in  1604,  the  number  of  these 
distilleries  amounted  to  80 ;  they  were,  however, 
reduced  to  14  by  a  decree  of  the  council.  ^ 

John  Bussleb,  teacher  at  the  Egeln  school,  in  his 
comedy,  '  Ein  spiegel,  beide  wie  die  Eltern  ihre  Kinder 
auferziehen,  auch  die  Kinder  gegen  die  Eltern  sich 
verhalten  sollen  '  (A  mirror  showing  both  how  parents 
should  educate  their  children  and  how  children  should 
behave  to  their  parents),  impersonates  brandy  as  a  being 
bound  over  to  the  devil,  and  ascribes  to  it  very  special 
blame  for  the  immorality  and  depravity  of  the  time. 
A  son  who  has  laid  violent  hands  on  his  father,  and  who 
sinks  into  all  sorts  of  vice  and  shame,  cries  out  in  the 
play  :  '  Der  Branntewein,  der  sol  es  geben  ! '  Brandy 
is  to  blame  !  -  It  had  been  noticed  long  ago  that  in  conse- 
quence of  the  excessive  eating  and  drinking  in  Germany, 
*  the  ordinary  age  of  man  was  diminishing  in  a  surprising 
manner."  '  It  is  complained,'  wrote  Sebastian  Franck,  in 
1531, '  that  no  one  nowadays  grows  old.  For  this  we  have 
to  thank  the  fact  that  we  spoil  more  wine  than  our  fore- 
fathers drank,  and  that  we  eat  hke  hogs ;  how  can 
nature  stand  it  ?  I  firmly  believe  that  every  tenth 
person  dies  no  natural  death.  The  women  overeat,  the 
men  overdrink  themselves.'^  *Ach,  ach,'  said  another 
contemporary,  'it  is  the  fault  of  the  great  drinking- 
bouts,  that  scarcely  any  man  now  reaches  the  age  of 
forty,  &c.'  ^ 

The  same  wail  is  repeated  in  the  sermon  of  Erasmus 

1  Mdrlcische  Forschungen,  iv.  332. 

-  Zeitschr.  des  Harzvereins,  i.  352.  C!oncerning  prohibitions  of  brandy 
selling  in  the  Nassau  district,  see  Steubing,  177 ;  for  Basle  and  Strasburg, 
see  Geering,  578. 

^  Von  dem  greulichen  Laster  der  Trunkenheit,  Bl.  C.  C,  F-. 

"*  '  Der  Faulteufel '  in  the  Theatrum  Diaholorum,  363. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  421 

Winter,  published  at  Leipzig  in  1599  :  '  Owing  to 
immoderate  eating  and  drinking  there  are  now  few  old 
people,  and  we  seldom  see  a  man  of  thirty  or  forty  who 
is  not  afflicted  with  some  sort  of  disease,  either  stone, 
gout,  cough,  consumption  or  what  not/  i  The  preacher, 
Erasmus  Griininger,  in  1614,  also  bore  witness  to  the 
general  experience  that  '  owing  to  the  godless  drinking 
that  went  on,  longevity  in  Germany  was  continually 
decreasing/  '  When  people/  he  said, '  have  passed  the 
age  of  40  or  50  they  are  generally  of  no  more  use.  The 
time  when,  nowadays,  old  age  sets  in,  was  formerly  the 
time  when  people  began  to  marry,  and  were  at  their 
prime.  With  us,  at  that  age,  people  now  begin  to  break 
up  and  go  to  infirmaries.  When  guests  are  so  done  up 
after  a  party  that  they  have  to  be  carried  home  half-dead, 
things  have  come  to  a  pretty  pass.  What  is  going  to 
become  of  us  Germans  when  we  are  so  hard,  so 
merciless,  so  tyrannical  towards  our  ownselves !  '  ^ 
Foreigners  who  visited  Germany  made  the  same 
observations.  The  Venetian  Giacomo  Soranzo,  for 
instance,  in  1562,  ascribed  the  short  span  of  life  of 
Germans  to  immoderate  drinking.  '  Forty-seven  is  con- 
sidered quite  an  advanced  age  in  Germany,'  wrote 
Giovanni  Correr  to  Venice  in  1574.^  When  the  Margrave 
Hans  von  Kiistrin  became  very  ill  in  1570,  his 
physician  wrote  to  the  Elector  Joachim  II.,  of  Branden- 
burg, that  it '  was  doubtful  if  he  would  ever  recover,  for 
he  had  now  reached  the  great  age  of  58.'  ^ 

'  Because  we  storm  in  upon  ourselves  with  eating, 
drinking,'   said   the   Saxon    Elector's    court    preacher, 

1  Winter,  Encdnia,  166.  "  Gruninger,  230-231. 

^  Alberi,  Le  Relazioni  degli  Ambasciatori  Veneti,  ser.  i.  vol.  vi.  126,  179. 

■*  Mdrhische  Forschungen,  xiii.  425. 


422  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Micliael  Niederstetter,  in  1611,  in  his  funeral  sermon  on 
Christian  II.,  '  it  is  regarded  as  quite  a  miracle  if 
nowadays  anyone  lives  to  be  70  or  80  years  old/  ^ 
It  was  thought  something  quite  extraordinary  and 
out  of  the  way  that  Count  William  Werner,  of  Zimmern, 
when  he  died  in  1566,  had  reached  the  age  of  81.^ 
'  The  majority  of  people,"  wrote  the  Tyrolese  doctor, 
Hippolytus  Guarinoni,  in  1610, '  do  not  become  older  than 
30  or  40 ;  out  of  1000  people,  male  and  female, 
scarcely  one  lives  to  50,  only  one  in  5000  to  60,  and 
scarcely  one  in  10,000  to  70. ^  From  his  long  years" 
experiences  as  a  doctor,  Guarinoni  discussed  with  special 
attention  '  the  appalling  evil  of  drunkenness  among 
women  and  young  girls  and  the  terrible  consequences 
resulting  therefrom."  '^  In  every  300  persons,  he  assures 
us,  there  are  not  10  who  do  not  suffer  in  their  stomachs.^ 

^  Drey  christliche  Predigten,  Bl.  B.  3^'. 

-  Zimmerische  Chronik,  iv.  197-198. 

^  Guarinoni,  ii.,  12.  **  Long  before  Guarinoni,  Luther  had  made  the 
same  statement :  '  When  then  we  have  become  50  years  old  we  have 
worked  ourselves  out,  and  we  are  children  again.'  '  But  if  I,  Doctor 
Martin  Luther,  die  at  the  age  of  36,  I  do  not  beUeve  that  60  or 
100  of  you  will  live  as  long,  for  the  world  does  not  grow  old  nowadays.' — 
Collected  Works,  vii.  255,  256.  In  a  similar  strain  wrote  the  Protestant 
pastor,  Nicholas  Floras,  in  1583  :  '  Our'  whole  nature  is  deteriorating  and 
losing  its  vigour  and  power.  Out  of  thousands  you  scarcely  find  one 
who  reaches  70  or  80  years,  but  we  ourselves  are  the  cause  of  this, 
with  our  intemperate  Hving,  eating  and  drinking,  to  which  there  is  no  end 
or  limit.  Our  fathers  Hved  much  more  temperately,  and  accordingly  they 
attained  to  their  natural  age.  But  nowadays  those  who  reach  a  respectable 
age  are  few  in  number  ;  the  majority  die  before  they  are  40 ;  any  one 
who  lives  to  50  or  60  is  old  in  our  days.'  — Floras,  Auslegung  des  90 
Psalms  (Strasburg,  1583),  K.  6,  7.     See  DoUinger,  ii.  57. 

'  Guarinoni,  721-727  ;  cf.  772.  '  Consider,  dear  reader,  whence  it 
comes  that  nearly  all  young  children,  as  well  sucking  infants  as  those  just 
weaned,  suffer  in  their  cradles  from  gripes,  or  congenital  gout,  or  caries, 
that  most  of  them  die  of  these  comiilaints,  murdered  by  their  own 
mothers  ' — p.  723. 

^  Guarinoni,  817. 


BURGHER  AND  PEASANT  LIFE  423 

*  In  consequence  of  the  disorderly  lives  which  the 
people  lead/  wrote  the  Augsburger  Philip  Hainhofer  in 
the  diary  of  his  travels  in  1617,  *  we  have  met  nothing 
but  sick  folk  between  Nuremberg  and  Berlin/  ^ 

'  All  the  world '  was  forced  to  say  with  Lazarus  von 
Schwendi : 

Gluttony  and  drunkenness  have  grown 

To  honour,  and  as  common  have  become, 

As  though  we  had  but  these  pursuits  alone. 

We  see  thereby  the  German  nation 

Sinking  into  degradation. 

Its  strength  and  greatness  have  declined, 

No  heroes  as  of  old  we  find  : 

The  length  of  days  God  gives  to  man 

Is  shortened  by  one  half  its  span ; 

Of  us  the  maxim  old  is  true  : 

'  Drink  slays  far  more  than  warriors  do."  - 


^  Baltische  Studien,  ii.  Heft  ii,  15. 

^  '  Ermahnung  an  die  frommen  Teutschen,  unlangst  von  seinem  End 
gestellt.'  Precisely  the  same  was  the  judgment  of  Aegidius  Albertinus  : 
'  Far  more  people  die  from  overeating  than  through  war  or  the  sword.' 
Ohristi  Konigreich  und  Seelengejaid  (Munich,  1618),  p.  149.  Concerning 
gluttony  and  drunkenness  in  schools  and  universities,  see  our  remarks, 
vol.  xiii.  p.  82  ff.,  236,  277  f.,  282  £f.,  303  ff.  **  Germany,  says  so  important 
an  historian  of  civiHsation  as  Steinhausen  (Die  Anfange  des  franzosischen 
Literatur-  undKultureinflussesinDeutschland),  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  vergleicli- 
ende  Literaturgesch.  (new  series,  7,  1894,  361),  Germany,  in  the  second  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  shows  itself  in  a  decidedly  retrograde  condition, 
politically,  economically,  intellectually  and  morally.  This  was  felt  pretty 
generally.  Quite  apart  from  the  numbers  of  morality  sermons,  and  the 
countless  literary  products,  filled  with  complaints  and  warnings,  this 
feature  of  the  age  is  also  otherwise  manifest.  In  my  Geschichte  des  Deut- 
schen  Brief es,  vol.  i.  p.  181  ff.,  I  have  called  attention  to  the  melancholy 
views  of  life  expressed  at  this  period  in  letters  from  all  sorts  of  circles,  and 
in  spite  of  the  admission  that  utterances  of  tliis  sort  appear  at  all  times, 
I  still  maintain  that  they  are  especially  frequent  at  the  epoch  in  question. 
The  people  itself  is  aware  of  its  own  decUne.  '  O  Dudeslant,  Dudeslant,' 
writes  a  Nether  German  to  the  council  at  Brunswick  {I.  c.  vol.  ii.  p.  1), 
'ick  fruchte,  dat  Dudeslant  eyne  grote  strafe  avergan  wart '  (O  Germany, 
O  Germany,  I  fear  that  a  great  calamity  is  awaiting  the  German  land). 


424  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Under  such  conditions,  it  is  easy  to  understand,  that  the  nation  gave  itself 
up  unreservedly,  not  only  to  French,  but  to  all  foreign  influences.  The 
verses  of  Fischart,  who  himself  was  by  no  means  closed  against  what  was 
foreign,  are  well  known : 

Scarce  anyone  cares  nowadays 
For  liberty  and  honour's  ways ; 
With  freedom  we  all  trifle  now. 
To  foreign  modes  and  uses  bow. 


425 


CHAPTEE  IV 

BEGGAKS — POOR  LAWS — R0BBP:RY  OF  THE  POOR — 
CAUSES  OF  GROWING  PAUPERISM — INCREASE  OF 
BEGGARS    AND    VAGABONDS 

As  early  as  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
council  of  Basle  issued  a  memorandum  on  the  different 
methods  of  fraud  which  the  crippled  and  the  lame  went 
about  practising,  especially  on  the  Kohlenberg  in  front 
of  the  town.i  With  the  help  of  the  swindlers'  tricks 
and  swindlers'  slang  set  forth  in  this  memorandum, 
Sebastian  Brant,  in  1494,  in  the  sixty-third  section  of 
his  '  Narrenschiff/  depicted  all  these  proceedings  in 
vivid  colours.  Many  men,  still  young  and  strong  and 
able  to  work,  he  said,  go  about  begging,  and  early  teach 
their  children  the  same  trade.  In  order  that  the  chil- 
dren may  cry  and  scream  lustily  they  will  break  one  of 
their  hmbs  in  two  or  inflict  wounds  and  hurts  on  them. 
Then  again,  you  will  see  one  of  these  impostors  walking 
with  crutches  so  long  as  he  is  observed,  but  the  instant 
he  is  alone  he  can  do  without  his  crutches.  Another 
one  knows  how  to  feign  epilepsy  ;  others  crawl  about 
with  their  bodies  crumpled  up  and  bent  double ;  while 
yet  others  borrow  a  pack  of  children  and  perambulate 
the  country  with  them  : 

1   Ave-Lallemant,  i.  122-132.     **  iv.  57-58, 


426  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

For,  alas,  there  are  beggars  galore 

And  their  number  grows  more  and  more, 

For  begging  is  an  easy  trade, 

Except  for  those  in  need  of  aid  ; 

Otherwise  'tis  good  to  be 

A  beggar  flourishing  and  free. 

They  never  drink  inferior  wine. 

Aught  but  good  Reinfal  ^  they  decUne. 

Many  a  beggar  drinks  and  plays, 

Gorges  and  lives  luxurious  days  ; 

And  many  a  beggar  's  richer  far 

Than  either  you  or  I,  friend,  are. 

To  this  beggar  class  belonged  also  the  so-called 
relic-bearers  and  '  stationers  '  (=  pardoners),  who  went 
about  with  all  sorts  of  sham  relics,  and  who,  as  Brant 
says,  never  missed  one  of  the  Church  fairs,  at  which  they 
used  to  proclaim  piiblicly  how, 

They  carried  in  their  sack  the  hay 
Which  of  old  deep  buried  lay 
Beneath  the  Bethlehem  manger  ; 
A  leg  from  Balaam's  ass  they  bring, 
A  feather  from  St.  Michael's  wing, 
A  bridle  from  St.  George's  charger, 
A  '  Buntschuh  '  of  St.  Clara.^ 

In  the  mandate  of  the  Basle  council  it  is  expressly 
said  that  *  certain  people  go  about  with  reUcs  and 
pretend  that  they  are  priests,  and  wear  a  tonsm-e, 
although  they  have  not  been  ordained  and  are  ignorant 
men/    '  Some  of  them  possess  a  little  learning,  but  still 

'  Wine  of  RivogUa. 

-  Narrenschiff,  No.  63  ;  Von  Bettleren ;  edition  of  Goedeke  (Leipzig, 
1872),  p.  113-116.  In  the  poem  '  Des  Teufels  Netz  '  of  the  first  half  of  the 
fifteenth  century  (pubhshed  by  Barack  in  the  Bibliotheh  des  Literarischen 
Vereins,  Stuttgart,  1863),  there  is  a  vivid  description  (p.  201-203)  of  the 
beggars  and  vagrants,  who  cheat  the  people  by  shamming  bodily  infirmities 
and  live  in  luxury.  **  See  also  Schultz,  Deutsches  Leben,  227  ff.  Highly 
interesting  from  the  standpoint  of  the  history  of  civilisation,  and  hitherto 
far  too  little  noticed,  is  the  description  by  Matthias  von  Kemnat  of  the 
twenty-six  sorts  of  fraudulent  beggars,  with  their  slang  names,  '  Chronik 
Friedrichs  I,'  in  the  Quellen  ziir  hayerischen  und  deutschen  Geschichte,  ii. 
{Munich,  1862),  101  £f^ 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  427 

have  not  been  ordained,  and  they  say  that  they  are 
priests,  and  they  have  shaven  crowns  hke  priests,  and 
they  wander  round  about  the  country  saying  they  are 
far  from  home  and  have  come  from  Rome  or  elsewhere 
and  have  been  robbed,  and  thus  they  deceive  the  people/^ 

*  They  ought  by  rights  to  be  drowned,'  said  Thomas 
Murner,  in  his  '  Narrenbeschworung '  of  1512,  '  these 
scoundels  who  pretend  to  be  epileptics,  cripples,  maniacs, 
these  impostors  who  pretend  they  are  begging  for  holy 
shrines  and  churches,  these  pretended  priests  who  have 
a  boy  to  take  them  about,  beggars  and  pardoners  who 
haw^k  sham  relics,  cheat  God  and  the  whole  world, 
obtain  under  false  pretexts  commendatory  letters 
from  the  gentry,  setting  forth  how  they  suffer  from 
St.  Vitus'  dance  and  can  rest  nowhere ;  others  fall 
to  the  ground  with  foaming  mouths  ;  others  are  led  in 
chains  as  being  possessed  by  the  devil ;  others  again  have 
the  power  to  inflict  wounds,  and  their  hes  would  crack 
a  beam  :  they  have  the  pardon  of  the  saints  to  give  for 
pious  cash/  ~ 

John  Schwebhn,  hospital  master  at  Pforzheim,  said 
in  a  report  of  1522,  concerning  the  heavy  expenses 
which  were  incurred  by  the  '  collectors  '  who  go  about 
collecting  money  for  the  poor  and  the  hospitals,  on 
account  of  the  papal  bulls  to  be  obtained,  the  equipment 
and  board  of  the  collectors  and  so  forth,  that  out 
of  every  1000  gulden  that  were  collected  not  ten,  he 
believed,  were  left  over  for  the  poor.  '  For  apart  from, 
these  collectors  we  are  intolerably  pestered  by  number- 
less pardoners,  who  humbug  and  deceive  the  ignorant 

1  Ave-Lallemant,  i.  128,  130. 

2  Narrenbeschworung,   No.    16  ;     '  Der   verloren   Huf '    in   Goedeke's 
edition  (1879),  p.  59-63,  where  Murner's  expressions  are  also  explained. 


428  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

people ;  many  new  chnrclies  and  chapels  are  erected 
and  every  one  is  the  occasion  of  a  begging  crusade. 
Then  come  the  '  Aposteuzler '  renegade  monks  and 
vagabond  priests.  These  knocked-out  fellows  discover 
some  old  wayside  shrine  with  a  picture  in  it ;  the  one 
shrine  is  good  for  pestilence,  the  other  for  St.  Kiirius' 
plague,  the  third  cures  possessed  people,  the  fourth 
cures  mad  dogs,  the  fifth  protects  from  early  death,  and 
so  forth.  I  will  before  long,  if  I  have  time,  write  more 
about  these  people  from  my  own  experience,  for  the 
benefit  of  pious  Christians,  that  they  may  not  be 
imposed  upon  by  such  cheats."  ^ 

This  projected  account  is  very  probably  the  pam- 
phlet, circulated  in  numerous  editions,  entitled  :  *  Liber 
vagatorum,  der  Bettlerorden,'  '  dictated  by  a  highly 
worthy  Meister,  Nomine  Expertus  in  Trufis,'  '  for  the 
instruction  and  information  of  all  men,  and  for  the 
improvement  and  reform  of  those  who  need  bettering.^ 
The  book  is  divided  in  three  parts  :  the  beggars'  cadg- 
ing tricks,  some  notable  tricks,  and  a  slang  vocabulary. 
A  Dutch  translation  remarks  on  the  vocabulary  that  it 
was  the  work  of  a  hospital  master  who  had  the  book 
printed  at  Pforzheim  on  the  Rhine.-     At  least  twenty 

^  Ermanung  zu  dem  Questionieren  abzustellen  iiberfliissigen  Icosten.  Geben 
zu  Pforzen  am  ersten  Tag  des  Christmonat,  1522.  See  Ulilhorn,  ii.  336-337, 
433. 

-  Ave-Lallemant,  i.  202  ;  printed  Pforzheim  edition,  165-184  ;  the 
Low-German  translation  prepared  from  this  original  version  (of.  p.  142), 
185-206  ;  Uhlhorn,  ii.  515,  n.  12,  has  drawn  attention  to  the  passage 
quoted  by  us  from  this  last  edition,  and  certainly  to  our  knowledge  has 
been  the  first  to  express  the  opinion  that  Schweblin  was  the  author  of 
Liber  Vagatorum.  Like  Ave-Lallemant,  Uhlliorn,  and  certainly  with 
right,  considers  the  Liber  Vagatorum — '  Bettlerorden '  of  Pamphilus 
Gengenbach  (in  Goedeke,  P.  Oengenbach,  343-370)  only  a  rhymed 
version  of  the  Pforzheim  original  edition.  If  Schwebhn  is  the  author,  the 
*  booklet '  cannot  have  been  written  earlier  than  1523. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  429 

different   categories   of   beggars   are   distinguished   by- 
proper  names. 

To  guard  against  this  nuisance,  beggar  ordinances 
were  issued  in  nearly  all  the  large  towns,  and  municipal 
guardians  of  the  poor  were  appointed  by  the  town 
councils.  Parish  funds  were  organised,  and  their 
management  and  distribution  entrusted  to  the  town 
magistrates. 

The  best  poor-laws  were  those  of  the  Netherlands, 
where,  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
there  was  more  excellent  provision  for  the  care  of  the 
poor  than  in  any  part  of  the  empire.  This  poor-law 
system  was  in  close  connexion  with  the  hospitals.  For 
all  kinds  of  incapacitated  people,  for  infirm  old  men 
and  women,  for  cripples,  for  orphans,  hospitals  were 
founded  :  from  these  hospitals  aid  was  also  sent  to  the 
poor  in  town  and  to  needy  strangers.  The  so-called 
*  Holy  Ghost  tables,'  '  poor-tables,'  and  *  poor-houses  ' 
were  found  in  all  Dutch  towns.  In  Antwerp,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  every  parish  had  its 
poor-house,  which  also  received  within  its  walls  travellers 
passing  through  the  country,  and  afforded  them  sick 
nursing  if  necessary.  In  order  to  make  possible  an 
equal  rate  of  expenditure  in  the  different  parishes, 
the  council  appointed  a  committee  of  fourteen  persons 
who,  in  conjunction  with  the  managers  of  the  '  Holy 
Ghost  tables,'  were  to  superintend  the  care  of  the  poor 
and  report  to  the  parish  on  the  general  condition  of 
poor-law  expenditure.  With  a  view  to  still  greater 
uniformity  of  management  the  council,  after  the  middle 
of  the  century,  appointed  a  '  master  of  the  poor  '  at  the 
head  of  the  general  poor-law  administration,  with  a  staff 
of  councillors  under  him  whose  election  was  bound  up 


430  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

with  solemn  formalities.  The  men  chosen  were  obliged 
to  swear  an  oath  that  they  would  faithfully  watch  over 
all  the  poor,  and  then  they  received  the  '  Borse  der 
Barmherzigkeit '  (the  purse  of  charity).  They  were  to 
feed  the  hungry,  give  drink  to  the  thirsty,  clothe  the 
naked,  visit  the  sick,  comfort  the  forsaken,  plead  the 
cause  of  the  captives,  and  provide  for  the  burial  of  the 
dead.  They  were  invested  with  a  girdle  as  emblem  of 
the  bond  of  love  which  was  to  unite  them  with  the  poor. 
The  wives  also  of  these  poor-law  councillors  devoted 
themselves  to  the  care  of  the  poor,  and  showed  especial 
kindness  to  women  in  their  confinement  and  to  children. 
Further,  there  were  special  '  orphan-mothers '  and 
'  orphan-fathers,'  and  from  the  year  1495  an  actual 
'  Waisenkammer  '  or  fund  for  orphans.  For  the  care  of 
the  permanently  disabled,  such  as  lunatics,  bhnd  and 
dumb  people,  &c.,  two  councillors  were  set  apart,  one 
of  whom  was  chosen  from  the  burghers,  the  other  from 
the  artisans.  Burgomasters  and  justices  called  them- 
selves the  guardians  of  all  these  unfortunate  people. 
Thus,  while  an  attempt  was  being  made  to  unify  the 
management  of  the  poor,  the  system  became  more 
and  more  individualistic. 

In  Brussels,  Louvain,  Mechhn,  Ghent,  Bruges, 
Namur,  and  so  forth,  the  same  system  prevailed  as  in 
Antwerp.  The  council  at  Brussels  was  invested  by 
Pope  Nicholas  V.  in  1448  with  the  secular  management 
of  all  the  hospitals.  In  many  towns  the  services  of 
the  '  grey  sisters  '  were  employed  for  visiting  the  poor 
and  distributing  almsJ 

1  Fuller  details  on  this  subject  are  given  by  P.  Alberdingk  Tliijm  in  his 
Gesch.  der  W ohltdtigkeits-anstalten  in  Belgien  (Freibm-g  i.  Br,,  1887), 
pp.  94-196, 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  431 

Out  of  the  poor-law  system  as  it  had  long  existed 
in  the  Netherlands,  there  grew  that  model  system  of 
poor-law  administration  which  the  council  introduced 
at  Ypern  in  1524  or  1525,  and  which  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.  adopted  as  the  basis  of  the  poor-law  system 
for  the  whole  of  the  Netherlands.  The  Ypern  system 
went  on  the  divine  command  that  every  one  was  bound 
to  earn  his  living  according  to  his  powers,  but  those 
who  were  disabled  from  work  were  to  be  provided  for 
by  the  Christian  mercy  of  the  parish.  Begging  was 
entirely  forbidden.  The  various  kinds  of  poverty  were 
accurately  distinguished ;  the  spheres  of  charitable 
institutes  and  poor-houses  were  strictly  limited ;  con- 
cerning the  erection  of  charity  schools  and  the  treatment 
of  strangers  there  were  still  minuter  regulations ;  the 
whole  management  of  the  poor  was  placed  under 
uniform  administration.  ^ 

In  the  German  towns  the  first  thought  was,  at  least 
to  regulate  the  begging  system  by  definite  mendicant 
ordinances.  In  Vienna,  for  instance,  according  to  an 
ordinance  issued  by  the  Emperor  Frederick  III.  in  1442, 
a  Beggar-Master  was  appointed  with  full  control  over 
all  mendicants,  male  and  female,  native  and  foreign, 
and  authorised  to  punish  with  the  pillory  or  with 
imprisonment  all  '  immorality,  disorder  or  unseemly 
behaviour.'  It  was  the  business  of  this  official  to  see 
that  nobody  obtained  alms  by  begging,  'but  only  in 
an  honourable  way  when  really  needing  them,'  and 
'those  only  were  to  beg,'  said  the  ordinance,  'who  could 
say  the  Paternoster,  the  Ave  Maria  and  the  Creed,  and 
who  went  to  confession  at  least  once  a  year,  at  Easter.' 

^  Ehrle,  Beitrdge  zur   Gesch.   und  Reform  der  Armenpfiege   (Freiburg 
i.  Br.,  1881),  and  Ratzinger,  Armenpfiege,  442. 


432  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

To  such^fpersons,  and  to  such  only,  the  Beggar-Master 
gave  a  ticket  '  to  carry  about  with  them  in  order  that 
everybody  might  be  assured  of  the  legitimacy  of  their 
begging/  People  who  begged  without  necessity,  or 
who  went  about  deceiving,  were  first  to  be  quietly 
cautioned  by  the  Beggar-Master,  and  if  they  did  not 
attend  to  him,  to  be  punished. ^ 

With  regard  to  the  town  of  Cologne  it  was  resolved 
at  a  meeting  of  the  council  in  1446  that :  '  Whereas 
numbers  of  people,  male  and  female,  from  Itahan, 
French,  German  and  other  lands,  loafers,  vagabonds 
and  wastrels,  here  in  this  town  are  given  up  to  idleness 
and  obscenity,  although  they  are  strong  and  able  to 
work,  our  gentlemen  of  the  council  herewith  decree, 
as  they  have  already  decreed  before,  that  such  able- 
bodied  people,  be  they  men  or  women,  shall,  within 
three  days  from  the  time  of  this  meeting,  set  themselves 
to  work  to  earn  their  daily  bread.  Any  of  them  who 
do  not  obey  this  order,  but  remain  idle  after  the  pre- 
scribed time,  shall  be  driven  out  of  this  town,  and  if 
they  come  back,  a  halter  shall  be  put  round  their 
necks  and  they  shall  be  beaten  out  of  the  town  with 
rods/ ^ 

In  Nuremberg,  as  early  as  the  last  half  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  an  edict  for  the  regulation  of  the 
mendicant  system  was  issued  to  the  following  effect : 

1  Ulimorn,  ii.  456. 

2  Annalen  cles  Histor.  Vereins  fiir  den  Niederrhein,  Heft  28-29  (Cologne, 
1876),  p.  298.  **  Concerning  the  reasons  of  the  terrible  growth  of 
begging  in  Cologne  especially,  seeV.  v.  Woikowsky-Biedau,  Das  Armenwesen 
des  mittelalterlichen  Koln  in  seiner  Beziehung  zur  ivirtschaftlichen  und 
politischen  Geschichte  der  Stadt.,  Breslauer  Dissert,  p.  48  ff.  The  author 
comes  to  the  conclusion  (p.  62)  that  '  the  reproach  against  the  mediaeval 
system  of  poor  law,  that  it  was  an  essentially  indiscriminating  one,  and 
that  it  fostered  mendicancy,  is  not  justifiable.' 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      433 

'  Firstly,  nobody  shall  be  allowed  to  beg  outside  the 
churches  or  in  the  town,  and  nobody  shall  beg  inside 
the  churches  nor  inside  the  town,  unless  he  has  a  warrant 
from  the  town,  and  said  warrant  shall  be  given  him  in 
the  name  of  the  council  by  an  official  thereto  autho- 
rised/ Only  such  persons  might  receive  a  warrant 
(and  each  time  only  for  six  months)  for  whom  at  least 
two  or  three  rehab]  e  burghers  could  give  assurance  on 
oath  that  they  were  in  need  of  alms.  People  who,  on  the 
finding  of  the  proper  authorities,  '  were  able  to  continue 
their  journey  or  to  work,  and  were  not  deserving  of 
alms,  were  not  to  be  allowed  to  beg  or  to  receive  a 
warrant.'  Foreign  beggars  were  not  to  be  tolerated 
in  the  town  more  than  three  days/  The  so-called 
'  meat  and  bread  foundations '  which  the  burgher, 
Burkhard  Sailer,  founded  in  1388  and  placed  under 
the  control  of  the  council,  and  which  developed 
into  a  truly  '  wealthy  fund,'  thanks  to  the  endow- 
ments of  other  well-to-do  burghers,  and  above  all  in 
consequence  of  the  papal  indulgences  granted  to  bene- 
factors in  1460,  1474,  1479  and  1501,  were  not  available 
for  any  pubhc  beggars,  but  only  for  the  genuine  poor, 
and  among  these  for  the  very  poorest.  Here,  too,  it 
was  prescribed  that  '  two  honourable  and  trustworthy 
burghers,  who  were  acquainted  with  the  character  and 
hfe  of  the  applicants  must  first  give  them  a  warrant.' 
Those  considered  ehgible  for  ahns  were  presented  with 
a  leaden  counter.^  A  more  minute  mendicant  ordin- 
ance was  issued  by  the  council  in  1478  :  '  Almsgiving,' 
it  said,  '  is  a  specially  praiseworthy,  virtuous  work,  and 

1  Waldau,  Vermischte  Bntrdge,  iv.  328-331. 

2  '  Stiftungsbrief '  in  Waldau,  Vermischte  Beitrage,  iv.  381-390.  'See 
also  Th.  Volbehr,  '  Ein  Beitrag  zur  Gesch.  des  Armenwesen,'  in  the 
Miiteilungen  aus  dem  germanischen  Nationahnusemn,  ii.  211-215. 

VOL.  XV.  F  F 


434  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

those  who  receive  alms  unworthily  and  unnecessarily, 
Jay  a  heavy  burden  of  guilt  on  themselves/  In  order 
therefore,  that  the  poor  and  needy  ones  should  not  be 
deprived  of  their  alms  by  unworthy,  non-needy  beggar- 
men  and  women,  the  officers  appointed  to  distribute 
the  alms  shall,  before  granting  a  warrant  to  anyone, 
inform  themselves  accurately  as  to  the  '  condition, 
character  and  working  powers  of  the  applicants  ;  shall 
find  out  whether  they  are  married  or  single,  and  how 
many  children  they  have,  so  as  to  know  if  they  are 
really  deserving  of  alms/  Children  of  beggars,  above 
the  age  of  eight,  shall  not  be  allowed  to  ask  for  alms, 
because  they  are  certainly  in  a  position  to  earn  money  ; 
such  children  shall  be  helped  to  find  work  in  the  town 
or  in  the  country.  Those  among  the  poor,  male  and 
female,  who  were  granted  permission  to  beg  for  alms, 
were  entered  in  a  catalogue.  The  following  rules  were 
laid  down  for  them  :  '  They  must  not,  unless  they  are 
crippled,  lame  or  blind,  sit  idly  as  beggars  on  any 
working-day  outside  the  churches,  but  they  must 
employ  themselves  in  spinning,  or  some  other  work, 
according  to  their  capacity.  Any  one  afflicted  with  an 
open,  pitiful  wound  or  sore  on  the  body  or  limbs,  by 
the  sight  of  which  a  pregnant  woman  might  be  harmed, 
must  hide  such  wounds  and  not  expose  them  to  public 
view.'  Those  among  the  poor  who  were  ashamed  to 
ask  for  alms  openly  by  daylight  were  given  a  special 
warrant,  which  allowed  them  to  beg  in  the  dark  ;  in 
summer,  however,  only  during  the  two  first  hours,  in 
winter  during  the  three  first  hours  after  nightfall, 
and  never  without  carrying  a  lantern.  On  lying-in 
women  special  care  was  bestowed  by  *  honourable 
women.'     The  poor  from  foreign  countries  were  only 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.     435 

allowed   to  beg  on  a   few   specified   days   during   the 
year.i 

Like  the  council  of  Nuremberg,  the  Wiirzburg 
Bishop,  Rudolf  von  Scherenberg,  in  his  mendicant 
ordinance  of  1490,  by  restricting  the  care  of  the  poor 
to  the  parish,  testing  the  claims  of  the  native  poor, 
compelling  their  children  to  work  and  helping  them  to 
get  work,  insured  the  genuine  poor  against  loss  and 
encroachment  from  undeserving  beggars.^ 

In  Frankfort-on-the-Maine  the  first  municipal  dis- 
pensers of  alms,  three  councillors  and  one  burgher,  were 
nominated  in  1437.  Their  business,  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  council,  was  to  distribute  the  donations 
in  money  or  in  kind  presented  to  the  council  by  the 
burghers,  among  those  who  had  fallen  into  distress  and 
poverty,  although  they  had  spent  their  days  honourably ; 
among  the  poor  who  lived  on  their  own  honest  toil  and 
yet  had  not  sufficient  to  keep  them  in  comfort ;  among 
the  pious  poor  who  were  burdened  with  numbers  of 
children  whom  they  could  not  feed  ;  finally  among 
good  house-wives  who  were  going  through  their  con- 
finements or  expecting  to  be  laid  up.  The  distribution 
of  ahns  always  took  place  in  a  church.  In  1486 
the  council  decreed  that  only  those  who  had 
been  citizens  for  eight  years,  or  who  had  served 
that  length  of  time  in  Frankfort,  should  be  eligible  for 
m.unicipal  alms  ;  in  1495  '  certain  useless  persons  who 
were  not  really  in  need  of  alms  '  were  excluded  by  the 
council.      The  poor  were  granted  the  right,  on  certain 

^  Baader,  Polizeiordningen,  316-320. 

^  Concerning  this  Wiirzburg  and  unprinted  ordinance,  see  V.  Gramich  in 
the  Liter arische  Rundschau  filr  das  katholische  Deutschland,  1883,  Sp. 
500-501.     The  ordinance  confined  itself  strictly  to  the  Nurembergers. 

F  r  2 


436  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

days  in  the  week,  to  fetch  fire-wood  for  their  own  use 
from  the  town  wood ;  the  older  poor  were  received 
into  a  hospital  as  beneficiaries,  i 

As  with  the  distribution  of  alms,  so  in  the '  ordinances ' 
of  many  hospitals,  care  was  taken  that  only  persons  who 
were  really  needy  and  deserving  should  be  recipients 
of  charity.  Thus  the  Nuremberger  Conrad  Mendel 
stipulated  with  regard  to  the  hospital  which  he  founded 
and  placed  under  the  management  of  the  council,  that 
*  12  men  were  to  be  received  into  it,  to  the  honour 
of  the  12  holy  apostles,  all  of  whom  must  be  old, 
infirm  and  poor,  and  unable  any  longer  to  five  by  their 
own  work  ;  and  under  pain  of  excommunication  these 
men  shall  be  received  solely  for  the  love  of  God,  without 
any  regard  to  gifts  of  any  sort,  or  any  hope  of  temporal 
gain.  On  these  12  men  the  works  of  mercy  shall  be 
fulfilled,  feeding  the  hungry,  giving  drink  to  the  thirsty, 
clothing  the  naked,  visiting  the  sick.'  '  Idlers,  pubhc 
beggars,  rioters,  ill-conditioned  people  and  disreputable 
rifi-rafi  were  for  ever  to  be  excluded.  For  the  founder 
wished,  for  the  praise  and  glory  of  God,  to  provide  for  the 
comfort  of  hard  and  honest  workers  who  had  maintained 
themselves  by  strenuous  labour,  but  were  now  poor  and 
sickly,  and  were  of  good  character  and  respectabihty."  - 
Likewise  in  a  hospital  erected  in  Augsburg  in  1454, 
none  were  to  be  admitted  but  *  poor  men  who  could  no 
longer  carry  on  their  handicraft  on  account  of  age  and 
illness,  who  brought  with  them  a  respectable  record,  and 
who  had  never  begged  pubhcly  or  taken  alms/  A  hos- 
pital founded  at  Cologne  in  1450,  '  was  open  only  to  the 
very  poorest  and  most  infirm,  whether  citizens  of  Cologne 

1  Kriegk,  Burgertum,  163-166,  543.     Notes  145  and  146. 

'  '  Stiftungsbrief '  of  1388  in  Waldau,  Vermischte  Beitrdge,[iv.  178-193. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  437 

or  strangers/  Two  hospitals  in  Magdeburg  were  set 
apart  for  '  pilgrims  and  infirm  people  ' ;  nobody  was 
allowed  admission  there  for  payment  of  money  or  gifts/  ^ 
In  nmnbers  of  hospitals,  for  instance  at  Freiburg  and 
Lucerne,  free  places  were  bought  for  the  insane  ;  in 
many  towns,  as  in  Bamberg  in  1471,  in  Liibeck  in  1479, 
in  Esslingen  in  1500,  special  houses  were  built  for 
these  unfortunate  people.-      The  extremely  numerous 

*  Elenden-Herbergen  '  (shelters  for  the  miserable)  were 
erected  for  the  benefit  of  needy  travellers.  *  Elenden- 
Confraternities '  were  also  founded  for  this  purpose.^ 

'  Of  priceless  value,'  for  the  larger  towns  especially, 
was  that '  voluntary  devotion  to  the  care  of  the  poor  and 
the  sick  '  of  which  the   '  Weihegartlein  '  said  in  1509  : 

*  By  the  grace  of  God  there  are  in  our  towns  very  many 
hundreds  of  Brothers  and  Sisters  who  out  of  Christian 
love  and  benevolence  combine  together,  solely  for  the 
love  of  God,  to  minister  to  the  sick,  the  infirm,  the  de- 
mented and  the  lepers."  ^ 

Among  devoted  ministers  to  the  sick,  special  repute 
attached  to  the  associations  of  the  '  Wilhgen  Armen  ' 
(voluntary  poor)  or  the  Alexians,  a  society  of  lay  brothers, 
who  had  their  charitable  houses  in  Hildesheim,  Halber- 
stadt,  Treves,  Cologne,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Frankfort -on- 
the-Maine,  Strasburg,  Augsburg  and  elsewhere,  and  who 
devoted  themselves  to  the  care  of  male  patients,  especi- 
ally insane  persons,  and  the  burial  of  the  dead.  The 
cloister  reformer,  the  Augustinian  provost,  John  Busch, 
who  had  the  supervision  of  the  associations  at  Hildesheim 

1  Uhlhorn,  ii.  332-334.  '  Ulilhorn,  ii.  298. 

3  See  for  instance,  for  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  Biirgertum,  152-160. 
•*  Wyhegertlin    fur    alle    frummen    Cristenmenschen    (Mayence,    1509), 
Bl.  7. 


438  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  Halberstadt,  penned  in  1470  a  very  edifying  descrip- 
tion of  the  lives  and  work  of  the  Brothers  at  Hildesheim. 
'  The  inhabitants/  he  says,  '  are  in  general  very  much 
attached  to  these  Brothers,  who  watch  by  the  sick,  no 
matter  what  their  illnesses  may  be,  and  tend  them  day 
and  night  until  their  death,  fortify  them  in  what  is  good, 
cheer  and  hearten  them  in  their  last  fight  with  the  temp- 
tations of  the  devil,  and  then  attend  to  their  corpses  and 
carry  them  to  their  graves.'     '  They  do  these  works  of 
mercy  for  all  who  appeal  to  them/^     No  less  praise  was 
bestowed  on  the  zeal  of  the  Brothers  at  Halberstadt. 
The  Council  at   Cologne  testified  of  them  that   '  they 
are  ready  day  and  night  to  give  their  services  to  rich 
and   poor,  in  life  and    in  death,'    and   in  1487   made 
over  to   them   a    second    house.     Female    '  Alexians ' 
also    worked     actively    in    many    towns    in    nursing 
the   sick   in  hospitals  and  in  private  houses. ^     Praise 
of    a    more    meagre    description,    often    indeed  harsh 
censure,  was  the  reward  of  the  Beghine  houses  ;  never- 
theless,  many  of   these  developed,  in  the  second  half 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  blessed  service  of  ministra- 
tion to   the  sick   and   education  of   orphan   children.'^ 
Besides  these  associations  living  under  conventual  rule, 
there  were  in  many  places  free  brotherhoods  of  men 
and  women  for  voluntary  sick  nursing.     At  Strasburg, 
for  instance,  every  member  pledged  himself  to  devote 
one  day  and  night  of  every  year  to  sick  nursing.     On 
admission  of  members  to  the  brotherhood,  women  were 
asked  from  the  pulpit  to  collect  benevolent  gifts   for 
the  sick  people  from  house  to  house. ^ 

1  Grube,  Johannes  Busch  (Freiburg  i.  Br.,  1881),  pp.  243-247. 

2  Uhlhorn,  ii.  390-394. 

•*  See  Kittel,  Die  Beguinen  des  Mittelalters  im  siidwestlichen  Deutschhnd. 
Programm,  Aschaffenburg,  1859.  ■*  Uhlhorn,  ii.  389. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  439 

A  specially  prominent  place  as  '  Benefactor  and 
Father  of  the  Poor '  belongs  to  the  Strasburg  Cathedral 
preacher,  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg  (f  1510),  who  was 
also  particularly  serviceable  in  his  efforts  to  organise 
charity. 

The  spirit  of  Christian  love  towards  all  who  were  in 
need,  which  speaks  from  his  sermons  and  writings,  was 
in  no  way  different  from  that  which  permeates  all  the 
church  books  of  instruction  and  edification  of  that  period, 
but  in  clearness  of  thought  and  warmth  of  expression 
Geiler  surpasses  all  his  contemporaries. 

'  Mercifulness,  actuated  by  love  of  God,  was,'  so  he 
preached,  'the  most  precious  of  goods.'  *  Oh,  do  not 
despise  the  poor  on  whom  the  eye  of  God  rests,  of  whom 
the  Lord  is  ever  mindful,  for  whom  He  always  cares  ! 
Christ  was  born  in  poverty  and  lived  in  poverty ;  for 
the  sake  of  the  poor  He  came  into  the  world  to  proclaim 
the  Gospel  to  them.  He  thought  the  poor  worthy  to  sit 
at  meals  with  Him,  He  went  about  with  the  poor,  and  He 
preferred  their  company  to  that  of  the  rich  of  this  world. 
He  is  the  staff  of  hope  on  which  the  poor  lean,  while  you, 
my  friends,  lean  on  the  reed  of  riches  and  society,  which 
soon  breaks  and  pierces  your  hand.'  ^  '  I  never  remember 
hearing,'  he  said  with  St.  Ambrose,  '  that  any  one  ever 
died  a  bad  death  who  had  gladly  practised  charity 
towards  the  poor.  But  without  love  and  mercy,  no  one 
can  die  a  happy  death.'  '  He  that  hath  this  world's 
goods,  and  seeth  his  brother  have  need,  and  shutteth  up 
his  compassion  from  him,  the  love  of  God  is  not  in  him.' 
'  Have  you  no  money  or  goods,  then  give  your  heart, 
give  good  words.  Hear  what  the  Psalmist  says : 
"  Blessed  is  he  who  careth  for  the  poor  and  the  needy; 

•  De  Lorenzi,  ii.  48-49, 


440  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  Lord  shall  dehver  him  in  the  time  of  trouble." 
Understand  well :  "  He  who  works  for  the  poor/'  They 
cry  unto  us  those  torn  garments  of  the  poor,  those 
emaciated  forms  of  the  poor,  those  pallid  faces  of  the 
poor ;  the  old  age  and  the  infirmity  of  the  poor  cry 
unto  us  :  blessed  are  they  who  understand  the  poor 
better  than  their  words.  If  you  have  only  one  son,  let 
God,  in  the  person  of  this  poor,  be  your  second  son  ;  if 
you  have  two,  let  Him  be  third  .  .  .  such  is  charity."  ^ 

It  is  not  only,  however,  as  regards  temporal  and  out- 
ward goods,  wine,  bread,  money,  clothes  and  suchhke, 
that  we  must  extend  benevolence  to  the  poor,  but  also  as 
regards  inward  and  spiritual  goods,  the  milk  of  good 
doctrine  and  instruction  of  the  unlearned,  the  milk  of 
devotion,  wisdom,  consolation.  '  All  these  are  meant  by 
the  Word  of  God  when  it  says  how  the  Lord  '  will  set 
the  sheep  on  the  right  hand  and  the  goats  on  the  left, 
because  they  fed  the  poor,  gave  them  drink  and  clothing 
and  so  forth,  and  will  say  :  "  Come  ye  -blessed  of  my 
Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  ;  for  I  was  an  hungered  and  ye 
fed  me,  I  was  thirsty  and  ye  gave  me  drink,"  and  so 
forth.'  2 

"  Invite  to  your  feasts  the  poor,  the  maimed,  the 
lame  and  the  bhnd  "  according  to  the  admonition  of 
the  Lord,  and  you  will  be  blessed  because  they  have 
nothing  to  reward  you  with ;  for  your  reward  shall 
be  in  the  day  of  the  resurrection  of  the  just.'  Never- 
theless it  was  not  for  this  reason  that  they  must  practise 
charity.  '  Give  your  alms  out  of  love  to  God  without 
hope  of  reward  ;    give  abundantly  and  from  a  good 

1  De  Lorenzi,  i.  267  272,  414. 

^  The  passage  in  Hasak,  Der  christliche  Glaube,  375. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  441 

heart ;  do  not  drive  a  profitable  trade  with  benevolence  ; 
angle  not  for  great  fishes  with  the  worms  of  your  good 
deeds.'  ^ 

This  applied  to  all  the  good  works  of  a  Christian  ; 
those  only  were,  according  to  the  Church's  doctrine, 
well-pleasing  to  God  and  truly  meritorious,  which  were 
done  solely  out  of  love  to  God.  '  Be  not  anxious 
through  your  good  works  to  gain  heaven  or  escape 
hell,  but  simply  serve  God  because  He  is  your  Father/ 
*  Some  people  only  serve  God  in  order  to  obtain  eternal 
life,  which  is  also  a  creature  of  God  and  not  God  Himself  ; 
this  aim  in  your  good  works  is  imperfect  and  spoils 
your  works.'  '  Those  who  serve  God  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  for  their  own  benefit,  that  they  may  not  go 
to  hell,  those  seek  for  themselves  only.'  - 

1  De  Lorenzi,  ii.  251  and  iii.  130,  385. 

-  Predigten  von  dem  Baum  der  Seligkeit,  vii.  Predigt.  The  meri- 
toriousness  of  good  works  is  well  explained  in  a  book,  On  The  Love  of  God, 
published  in  Augsburg  in  1494.  '  No  human  work  is  truly  good  and 
virtuous  unless  it  begins  and  ends  in  God.  Love  to  our  neighbour  is  only 
truly  good  and  virtuous  if  it  is  founded  on  our  love  to  God,  that  is :  if  we 
love  God  above  all  and  our  neighbour  for  God's  sake.  Our  love  to  God 
must  include  love  to  our  fellow-men,  because  they  are  His  creatures 
and  He  commands  us  to  love  them,  to  wish  and  do  them  good  as  He  does, 
and  not  to  covet  the  goods  they  enjoy.  Our  alms  must  be  given  in  the 
same  spirit :  out  of  love  to  God  and  for  His  greater  honour  and  glory. 
And  likewise  all  good  works,  to  be  pleasing  to  God  and  meritorious, 
require  to  proceed  from  God,  to  be  done  with  God,  and  to  tend  to  God's 
glory.  The  impelling  motive  must  be  Divine  Love  ;  the  performance 
must  take  place  "  in  a  state  of  sanctifying  grace,"  i.e.  the  performer  must 
have  in  him  the  infused  virtue  of  charity  ;  lastly,  the  final  object  of  the 
good  deed  must  be  the  glory  of  God.' — In  Hasak,  Der  christliche  Glaube, 
163-164.  This  teaching  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  books  of  the  period. 
See  above  vol.  i.  48-54  (German).  Martin  Eisengiein  {Sine  Trostliche 
Predigt,  1565)  candidly  acknowledges  that  the  CathoUc  Church,  '  the 
mother  of  aU  that  believe  '  has  always  based  the  merit  of  good  works  on 
the  efficacy  of  the  grace  merited  for  us  by  Christ.  '  Wliosoever  dares 
to  assert  that  under  the  Pope  the  merits  of  Christ  were  ignored  has,  I 


442  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

With  regard  to  almsgiving  and  all  other  help  afforded 
the  needy,  not  for  the  sake  of  reward,  but  in  strict 
obedience  to  the  command  of  God,  and  for  the  avoidance 
of  deadly  sin,  there  are  as  strong  utterances  on  the 
subject  in  Geiler's  writings,  as  in  those  of  Markus  von 
Weida,  who,  in  an  explanation  of  the  Paternoster 
(1501),  says,  concerning  the  fourth  petition :  '  We 
shall  have  to  render  a  heavy  account  to  the  Lord  our 
God  for  the  use  we  have  made  of  our  temporal  bread 
and  goods  ;  for  we  are  servants  and  not  lords  of  it, 
and  they  are  not  given  us  for  ourselves  alone,  but  that 
we  may  share  them  with  others  at  proper  times  and  in 
suitable  ways,  that  is,  we  should  come  to  our  neigh- 
bours' help  in  their  time  of  need.  For  in  times  of 
need  all  things  are  in  common,  especially  among  us 
Christians/  '  Therefore,  we  ask  not  each  for  his  bread 
but  for  "  our  bread/'  The  rich,  who  do  not  help  the 
poor  in  their  need  and  give  them  alms,  are  guilty  of 
as  great  sin  as  if  they  took  another's  property  by 
force.  And  so  they  eat  the  bread  of  strangers  which 
in  the  end  will  not  profit  them.'  He,  therefore,  who 
would  not  eat  the  bread  of  strangers  must  be  as  Tobias 
taught  his  son  :  '  Turn  not  away  thy  face  from  any 
poor  man,  and  the  face  of  the  Lord  shall  not  be  turned 
away  from  thee.  As  thy  substance  is,  give  alms 
of  it  according  to  thine  abundance  ;  if  thou  have  little, 
be  not  afraid  to  give  alms  according  to  that  little ; 
for  thou  layest  up  a  good  treasure  for  thyself  against 
the  day  of  necessity/  ^     '  Nobody,  however,  must  dare 

think,  never  opened  the  books  of  approved  papal  theologians  or  even 
seldom  crossed  the  threshold  of  a  Christian  church.' — Hasak,  Herbstbhimen, 
xlii.  74. 

'  Hasak,  Die  letzte  Rose  oder  Erkldrung  des  Vaterunsers  nach  Markus  von 
Weida  (Ratisbon,  1883),  pp.  63-64.     See  the  '  Plenarium  '  of  1514  in  Hasak, 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  443 

think  that  he  ever  did,  or  could  do,  so  much  good  on 
earth  that  God  would  be  bound  in  justice  to  give  him 
his  heavenly  kingdom,  for  this  gift  can  only  come 
from  the  grace  of  God  and  by  virtue  of  the  bitter 
sufferings  of  Christ.'  i 

But,  however  earnestly  Geiler  urged  people  to  give 
alms  out  of  love  to  God  and  in  obedience  to  His  strict 
command,  he  was  equally  emphatic  in  his  warnings 
not  to  give  bhndly  or  to  any  and  every  beggar  and 
undeserving,  unworthy  importuner.  '  That  man  was 
a  fool,'  he  said,  '  who  did  not  bestow  his  gifts  in  the 
right  way,  at  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  measure.'  '^ 

Die  Himmelsstrasse  oder  die  Evangelien  des  Jahres  in  Erlcldrungen  fur 
das  christliche  folk  (Ratisbon,  1882),  pp.  330-331.  As  a  strict  command 
it  was  impressed  on  the  hearts  of  all  believers,  with  regard  to  the  poor  and 
the  sick :  '  If  thou  dost  not  provide  for  the  needy,  the  sick,  the  orphans 
and  the  infirm,  and  wilt  not  help  them  according  to  thy  means,  thou  art,' 
it  says  in  the  Wyhegertlin  fur  alle  frummen  Cristenmenschen  of  the  year 
1509  (Bl.  5), '  no  other  than  a  murderer  of  thy  neighbour.'  '  In  hke  manner,' 
says  the  Spiegel  des  Silnders  which  appeared  in  1470,  '  hast  thou  refused 
thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  or  seen  thy  fellow  Christian  in  sore  need  and  not 
come  to  his  help,  as  thou  well  mightest,  then,  as  St.  Paul  says,  thou  hast 
slain  him.'  Geffcken,  Bilderkatechismus,  Beil.  p.  64.  Similar  admonitions 
were  uttered  at  the  same  time  by  the  Spiegel  des  Christenglaubens  of  Ludolf 
of  Gottengen  :  '  When  a  man  sees  another  in  want  and  poverty,  leaves 
him  to  die  of  hunger  and  grief,  does  not  help  him  out  of  his  means,  he  is  a 
manslayer  in  the  sight  of  God.'  Geffcken,  Beil.  p.  95.  The  Himmelsstrasse 
of  1510  says  :  Against  the  tenth  commandment,  '  Thou  shalt  not  covet 
anything  of  thy  neighbour's  ' — all  those  commit  sin  who  withhold  the  works 
of  bodily  or  spiritual  benevolence,  or  alms,  those  who  do  not,  according 
to  their  means,  succour  the  poor  and  the  needy  in  time  of  want.  Hasak, 
Herbstblumen,  p.  110.  Markus  of  Lindau  in  his  explanation  of  the  ten 
commandments  sets  forth  identical  thoughts.  Cf.  Hasak;  Ein  Efeukranz 
.  .  .  (Ratisbon,  1889),  pp.  62,  110.  Contemporary  Beichtbiichlein,  e.g. 
the  one  published  at  Frankfort  in  1478,  exhort  the  penitent  to  examine 
his  conscience  as  to  '  whether  he  has  treated  the  poor  as  he  would  have 
treated  Christ.' 

^  Hasak,  Die  letzte  Rose,  44. 

-  De  Lorenzi,  ii.  251. 


444  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

By  this,  however,  he  did  not  mean  that  whenever 
a  poor  man  asked  for  a  morsel  of  bread  his  whole 
Hfe  must  be  inquired  into.  '  Like  Lazarus,  he  requires 
a  bit  of  bread.  He  may  be  a  very  sinful  man,  but  still 
he  is  worth  a  morsel  of  bread,  for  God  still  lets  the  sun 
ihine  on  him  and  gives  him  hfe,  air  and  water.'  ^  On 
the  other  hand  he  was  urgent  in  warning  people,  simple 
burgher  folk  especially,  against  the  sham  poor  who 
resorted  to  all  sorts  of  dodges  for  getting  as  much 
given  them  as  possible.  '  These  impostors,"  he  said,  *  you 
must  reject ;  for  every  time  you  give  them  alms  you 
injure  them  and  yourselves,  for  you  give  them  encourage- 
ment to  sin.'  ^ 

Concerning  these  humbugs  and  impostors  he  said 
in  his  sermons  on  Brant's  *  Narrenschiff '  of  the  year 
1498  :  '  Some  of  them  beg  although  they  can  well 
earn  their  own  living ;  able-bodied  beggars  who  give 
themselves  up  to  idleness  are  punishable ;  others, 
beg  out  of  greed  only,  in  order  to  get  a  lot  of  money, 
and  these  are  highly  reprehensible,  &c,,  &c.' 

Amongst  the  '  Bettler-Narren  '  he  reckoned  those 
who  did  not  '  organise  charity.' 

'  There  is  a  great  amount  of  begging  and  a  great 
number  of  beggars  here.  It  is  the  fault  of  the  gentlemen 
of  the  Council,  who  do  not  regulate  and  control  it. 
They  ought  to  appoint  people  to  see  into  this  matter. 
There  are  plenty  of  fimds  here  but  they  are  unequally 
distributed.  One  man  sometimes  gets  as  much  "  alms  " 
as  would  be  enough  for  five.'  ^ 

His    own    fixed  opinion    was    that    the    municipal 

>  De  Lorenzi,  i.  415.  -  De  Lorenzi,  iii.  179-180. 

^  Keiserspergs  Narrenschiff,  so    er  gepredigt  hat  zu    Strasshurg,   1498 
(Strassburg  edition,  printed  by  John  Grieninger,  1520),  Bl.  129''-130. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  445 

authorities  ought  to  find  means  for  putting  a  stop  to 
all  public  begging.  *  Happy  the  town/  he  said  in 
a  sermon  in  1497,  *  where  the  care  of  the  poor  is  so 
well  organised  that  there  are  no  beggars  there !  This 
might  be  the  case  in  Strasburg  if  only  people  went 
the  right  way  to  work.*  ^  The  matter  came  up  for 
discussion  by  the  Council  and  in  1500  an  ordinance 
was  issued  to  the  following  effect :  '  Provisions  have 
been  made  for  supplying  the  wants  of  the  needy  poor, 
and  it  is  therefore  decreed  that  in  future  neither  natives 
nor  foreigners  shall  beg  in  the  streets  or  in  and  outside 
of  the  churches/  The  tax-gatherers  received  orders  not 
to  allow  foreign  beggars  to  remain  in  the  town.^ 

The  following  year  Geiler  recommended  the  council 
to  estabhsh  an  organised  system  of  poor-relief.  It 
was  necessary,  he  said,  in  Strasburg,  as  indeed  through- 
out Christendom,  to  insure  that  alms  should  only  be 
given  to  the  genuine  poor  and  not  to  those  who  were 
least  in  need  and  least  worthy  of  them.  '  Do  not 
the  emperors  say  in  the  statute  book  :  "  It  is  our 
duty  as  men  to  provide  for  those  in  want  and  to  endeav- 
our that  the  poor  may  not  lack  for  food."  Upon  this 
emperors  and  princely  councils  should  act.  But  they  do 
not.  It  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  every  commmiity 
should  pro^dde  for  its  own.'  There  were  in  the  town 
large  charitable  funds  for  almsgiving,  but  provision  for 
right  distribution  of  them  was  lacking.  One  single 
official  was  not  enough  for  this  purpose.  The  town  should 
be  divided  into  six  or  seven  circles  and  a  supervisor 

1  L.  Dacheux,  Jean  Geiler  de  Kaysersberg  (Paris -Strasbourg,  1876), 
p.  91,  n.  2. 

-  Dacheux,  Geilersvon  Kmjsersberg,  XXI.  Artikel  und  Brief e  (Freiburg'i. 
Br.,  1877)  Notes  to  Article  xiii.  p,  67 


446  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

appointed  for  every  circle,  whose  duty  it  should  be 
to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  poor  and  to  see 
that  able-bodied  beggars  and  children  who  could  earn 
their  bread  were  kept  at  work,  and  that  only  the  really 
poor  and  those  unable  to  work,  were  made  recipients  of 
alms.i 

Though  Geiler  complained  that  the  Emperor  and  the 
Assembly  of  Princes  did  not  properly  interest  themselves 
in  the  condition  of  the  poor,  it  was  nevertheless  resolved 
in  the  Recesses  of  the  Diets  at  Lindau  in  1497,  at 
Freiburg  in  1498,  at  Augsburg  in  1500  that  '  Every 
ruler  should  seriously  consider  the  question  of  beggars 
and  begging,  so  that  nobody  might  be  allowed  to  beg 
for  alms  who  was  not  weak  and  infirm  in  body,  and 
who  was  not  reallv  in  need.  Also  that  the  children  of 
beggars  should  be  in  good  time  taken  from  their  parents 
and  put  to  some  handicraft  or  else  sent  into  service,  so 
that  they  might  not  always  be  dependent  on  begging.'  ~ 
At  the  Augsburg  Diet  of  1530  it  was  further  decreed  that 
*  every  ruler  shall  see  to  it  that  each  town  and  community 
feeds  and  maintains  its  own  poor,  and  nowhere  in  the 
empire  shall  foreigners  be  allowed  to  beg.  And  should 
any  able-bodied  persons  be  found  begging,  the  same 
shall  be  suitably  punished  according  to  the  law,   in 

1  Dacheux,  Geilers  XXI.  Artikel,  xiii,  p.  30-31.  The  facts  set  forth  in 
our  text  fully  meet  the  common  assertion  '  that  the  medieval  Chm'ch 
teaching  on  the  merit  of  good  works  favoured  indiscriminate  almsgiving, 
and  stood  in  the  way  of  organised  charity,  inasmuch  as,  to  secure  the 
reward,  it  was  deemed  sufficient  to  give  alms,  to  get  rid  of  one's  wealth 
without  regard  for  the  use  or  abuse  of  the  wealth  so  abandoned.  Whereas, 
since  salvation  by  faith  \^ithout  works  was  taught,  ahns  have  been  given 
from  a  less  selfish  motive,  viz.,  grateful  love  springing  from  faith,  the 
simple  wish  to  do  one's  duty.'  How  this  grateful  and  self-sacrificing  love 
worked  out  in  practice  will  appear  from  facts  soon  to  be  related. 

^  Neue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  ii.  32,  48,  80. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   447 

order  that  they  may  be  a  warning  and  example  to  others/ 
It  was,  however,  added  that :  '  If  any  town  or  district  is 
so  overcharged  with  poor  people  that  it  is  unable  to  feed 
them,  the  magistrates  shall  have  power  to  send  these  poor 
people,  with  a  written  warrant,  into  another  district/  ^ 
A  poor  relief  ordinance  issued  by  Bishop  Conrad  III. 
of  Wiirzburg  in  1533,  in  connexion  with  the  earlier  one 
of  1490  for  the  town  of  Wiirzburg,  was  specially  distin- 
guished by  benevolence  and  circumspection.  It  was 
decreed  therein  that  '  The  poor-relief  was  to  be  under 
the  management  of  six  honourable  burghers,  who  should 
keep  accurate  registers  of  all  the  poor  people  and  note 
down  full  particulars  about  every  separate  case.  Every 
poor  person  found  to  be  deserving  should  be  given  a  leaden 
counter  to  carry  about  with  him  or  her.  Poor  peoj)le 
afflicted  with  pox  or  the  French  disease  (syphilis)  must 
go  into  the  '  French  house  '  ;  other  sick  persons,  and 
above  all  servants  discharged  from  their  situations  on 
account  of  illness,  must  be  taken  into  the  poor-house 
and  tended  there,  in  order  that,  as  sometimes  happens, 
they  may  not  be  left  lying  friendless  on  the  ground. 
Further,  poor  women  who  are  near  their  time  of  lying-in 
laust  be  maintained  ;  poor  orphans  must  be  helped 
to  learn  some  industry  ;  poor  young  women  must  be 
granted  a  dowry ;  young  and  respectable  married 
couples  who  are  needy  shall  have  a  sum  of  money 
advanced  them  to  start  their  handicraft,  and  likewise 
poor  hucksters,  so  that  they  may  not  be  compelled  to 
risk  their  own  small  savings.  For  the  supervision  of 
beggars,  instead  of  the  four  mendicancy  baihf!s  who 

^  Ncue  Sammlung  der  Reichsabschiede,  ii.  343.  Renewed  at  the  Diet 
of  Augsburg  in  1548,  and  at  the  Frankfort  Assembly  of  Deputies  in  1577, 
Bl.  ii.  601  and  iii.  393. 


448  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

had  hitherto  served,  four  sworn  town  servants  were 
appointed ;  to  beggars  suffering  from  special  diseases 
a  special  place  was  assigned  for  collecting  their  alms  ; 
as  regards  the  poor  scholars,  only  those  who  attended 
the  school  were  allowed  to  obtain  alms  by  singing  in 
the  streets.  Further,  it  was  decreed  with  regard  to  the 
women  hving  on  daily  wages  that  when  the  time  of 
field  work  was  over  they  were  to  receive  alms,  but  that 
during  the  period  of  work  they  should  only  receive  alms 
if  their  husbands  were  ill,  or  they  had  children  to  suckle, 
and  were  thus  kept  from  work.  The  dispensers  of  alms 
were  also  to  visit  the  sick  and  inform  themselves  as  to 
their  needs.  ^ 

Among  the  German  Synods  which  busied  themselves 
with  the  question  of  the  care  of  the  poor,  the  Cologne 
Provincial  Synod  of  1536  stands  out  prominently.  The 
communal  poor-relief  system  of  the  Church  was  as  it 
were  focussed  in  the  hospitals,  which  not  only  had  to 
take  in  the  sick  and  disabled  poor,  old  men  and  women, 
orphans,  neglected  and  forsaken  children,  the  insane 
and  the  lepers,  and  give  shelter  two  nights  running  to 
strangers  passing  through  the  land,  but  also  to  feed  and 
maintain  the  poor  (who  do  not  beg  pubhcly)  in  their 
homes.  Every  parish  and  important  locality  was  to 
provide  such  a  hospital  for  the  benefit  of  the  local  poor. 
If  the  revenues  of  a  hospital  were  not  sufficient  for  the 
needs  of  all  the  poor  of  the  district,  the  pastor  was 
to  commission  a  few  trustworthy  people  of  the  parish 
to  make  collections  during  divine  service,  and  in  every 

^  Contributed  by  Scharold  in  the  Archiv  des  Histor.  Vereins  von 
U  Titer  franken  und  Aschaffenhurg,  v.  Heft  iii.  136-149.  Ordinances 
adapted  to  the  mitigation  of  the  begging  nmsance  were  also  issued  in 
the  bishopric  of  Bamberg  in  1546,  1569  and  so  forth. — Jack,  Bambergische 
Jahrhucher,  255. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.    449 

church  an  alms  box  was  to  be  set  up  for  the  benefit  of 
the  hospitals.  But  only  such  persons  were  to  receive 
help  and  support  who  were  disabled  by  illness,  infirmity 
or  age  from  earning  with  their  own  labour  their 
needful  food  and  clothing.  To  these  alone,  according 
to  the  canonical  regulations,  were  the  Church  rehef  and 
the  benevolence  of  the  clergy  and  laity  to  be  extended. 
Beggars  capable  of  work  and  people  who  were  not  in 
want  of  food  and  clothing,  but  only  begged  for  admission 
from  laziness  and  dislike  of  work,  were  not  only  to  be 
excluded  from  the  hospitals,  but  also  were  to  be  forbidden 
begging  of  every  description.  *  For  it  is  better,'  said 
the  Synod,  '  that  these  people  should  be  refused  the 
bread  of  charity,  than  that  they  should  be  encouraged 
in  their  sinful  idleness."  On  the  really  indigent  and 
needy,  however,  the  poor-relief  officers  were  to  bestow 
every  possible  care,  and  to  remember  that  he  was  a 
murderer  of  the  poor  who  neglected  their  welfare. i 

Heavy  and  shameful  abuses  existed  in  plenty.  What 
the  condition  of  things  was  in  Wiirzburg,  for  instance, 
before  Bishop  Juhus  Echter  von  Mespelbrunn  called  into 
being  his  splendid  Julius  Hospital  ^  is  shown  by  a  protocol 
of  the  cathedral  chapter  there,  dated  October  21,  1572  : 
*  The  dean  of  the  cathedral  reports  that  there  is  great 
disorder  in  all  the  hospitals  and  poor-houses,  and  that 
no  accounts  have  been  kept  in  them  for  a  number  of 
years ;  a  woman  was  lately  found  dead  in  the  street 
who,  without  doubt,  had  not  been  able  to  obtain  shelter 
in  any  of  these  places.'  ^  When,  for  instance,  the  Abbot 
Ulrich  Hackl  of  Zwettl,  in  1597,  was  commissioned  by 

'  Ehrle,  32.     Ratzinger,  Armenpflege,  469-470. 

-  See  our  remarks,  vol.  ix.  361  ff.  and  fuller  details  in  Buchinger,  247  ff. 

^  V.  Wegele,  TJniversiUit  Wiirzburg,  i.  143,  n.  3. 

VOL.  XV,  G  G 


450  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

the  Nether- Austrian  Government,  in  conjunction  with 
three  other  plenipotentiaries,  to  inquire  into  the  con- 
dition of  the  Vienna  burgher  hospital,  he  found  '  on  a 
surprise  visitation  unknown  to  and  unexpected  by  the 
hospital  master,'  that  nearly  400  persons  were  crowded 
together  in  nine  rooms ;  in  the  children's  ward  there 
were  thirty-five  children  and  eighteen  women  and  nurses ; 
in  the  school-children's  ward  forty- three  school-children ; 
in  the  lying-in  ward  fifty  women,  and  so  forth.  Often 
three  or  four  people  were  in  one  bed  ;  the  patients 
suffering  from  infectious  diseases  were  not  separated 
from  the  others ;  the  sick  rooms  were  very  uncleanly 
and  full  of  intolerable  stenches  ;  a  doctor  from  the 
medical  faculty  who  was  supposed  to  visit  the  patients 
twice  a  week,  had  not  put  in  an  appearance  for  more 
than  three  weeks,  and  he  never  visited  the  patients  in 
separate  rooms  at  all,  but  simply  had  their  urine  brought 
to  him  by  an  attendant,  and  prescribed  accordingly  ; 
but  often  the  patients  never  got  the  medicine  at  all,  or 
else  they  got  the  wrong  medicine.  The  hospital  master 
was  found  to  be  spending  on  himself  the  revenues  of  a 
benefice  which  had  been  founded  for  the  maintenance  of 
a  chaplain  for  the  hospital,  and  so  the  patients  were  left 
without  spiritual  ministrations,  and  many  of  them  died 
without  confession  or  communion.^  In  the  hospital  at 
Innsbruck  which  was  founded  by  King  Ferdinand  I., 
and  enlarged  by  Archduke  Ferdinand  II.,  and  was  under 
State  supervision,  the  government  was  often  obliged  to 
interfere,  because  nobody  took  any  interest  in  the  care  of 
the  poor  people,  not  even  in  their  burial.  Once  in  the 
winter  when  some  poor  sick  people  were  brought  from 

^  This  account,  compiled  from  the  Acts,  is  written  by  Stephen  Rossler 
in  the  Vienna  Vaterland,  1885. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  451 

a  distance  on  a  sledge,  and  the  hospital  was  overfull, 
they  were  laid  down  outside  the  building,  anywhere, 
in  the  snow,  and  left  to  their  fate.^  '  In  these  quarrel- 
some, schismatic,  hateful,  usurious,  unhallowed  times, 
says  a  '  Christhche  Klageschrift '  of  1578,  '  with  us 
Cathohcs  also  charity  such  as  our  forefathers  showed  to 
the  poor,  the  needy,  the  sick  and  plague-stricken,  has 
not  increased,  but  in  many  places  has  greatly  dimin- 
ished, so  that  these  poor  people  are  no  longer  christianly 
cared  for,  as  they  used  to  be  almost  everywhere,  and  as 
according  to  God's  command  and  the  ordinances  and 
statutes  of  the  Church,  they  ought  to  be."  In  order  to 
bring  back  to  works  of  mercy  and  Christian  love  '  those 
people  who  in  these  last  perilous  times  were,  alas,  so 
sunk  in  avarice  and  usury  that  they  had  almost  for- 
gotten all  piety,  virtue  and  devoutness,'  the  Frankfort 
abbey  preacher,  Valentine  Leuchtius,  published  in  1598 
and  dedicated  to  Bishop  Neithard  of  Bamberg,  a 
book  of  nearly  600  pages  entitled,  '  Historischer  Spiegel 
von  den  denkwiirdigen  Miraculn  der  vortrefflichen 
Tugend  der  Hospitahtat  und  Freigebigkeit  gegen  den 
armen  Diirftigen/  This  '  Spiegel '  (mirror)  was  to  serve 
as  proof  that  the  virtue  of  charity  did  not  consist  in 
mere  words,  'not  in  vainglorious  boasting  of  the  Hps 
and  the  tongue,  but  in  good  works  and  righteous 
actions,  in  present  help  and  in  heartfelt  pity  for  an- 
other's need  and  misery.'  - 

1  Hirn,  i.  493-494. 

2  Cologne,  1598.  Preface,  The  second  part  of  the  book,  Bl.  347''-393, 
deals  with  the  '  scandalous  vices  of  greed  and  usury  which  are  altogether 
opposed  to  the  virtues  of  benevolence  and  hospitahty.'  At  the  end  o  fthe 
Preface  the  author  begs  that  the  reader  '  will  remember  him  in  his  devout 
and  secret  prayers,  as  he  '  (the  author)  '  will  never  forget  the  reader. 
God  be  with  us  all ! ' 

G  G  2 


452  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Like  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg,  Luther  also,  in  liis 
address  to  the  nobihty  of  the  German  nation,  pleaded  for 
the  abolition  of  public  begging.  '  None  among  the 
Christians,'  he  says,  '  ought  to  go  about  begging ; 
every  town  ought  to  provide  for  its  own  poor,  turn  out 
all  foreign  beggars,  separate  the  genuine  poor  from 
tramps  and  vagabonds,  and  organise  systematic  relief 
for  the  deserving  poor/  '  There  should  also  be  a 
manager  or  guardian,  whose  business  it  would  be  to 
know  all  the  poor,  and  what  their  necessities  were,  and 
to  inform  the  council  or  pastor  concerning  them,  and 
what  was  the  best  way  of  proceeding/  Luther,  however, 
went  further  than  Geiler,  in  that  he  wished  all  the 
mendicant  monks  and  pilgrims,  by  whom  the  people 
had  hitherto  been  immeasurably  taxed,  to  be  done 
away  with. 

In  the  following  years  admirable  poor-relief  regula- 
tions were  formed  in  numbers  of  towns,  in  Augsburg  and 
Nuremberg  in  1522,  in  Strasburg  and  Ratisbon  in  1523, 
in  Breslau  in  1525.  The  Nuremberg  ordinance,  which 
in  all  essential  points  was  based  on  Catholic  views, i 
forbade  begging  altogether,  fixed  liberally  the  amount 
of  alms  to  be  dispensed  by  guardians  of  the  poor,  and 
aimed  at  giving  the  utmost  possible  help  to  straightened 
and  impoverished  burghers.  This  document  was 
extensively  printed,  and  in  a  Leipzig  edition  its 
results  were  praised  as  follows :  '  Now  the  streets 
and  churches  are  clear  and  free  from  crowds  of 
vagrants,  at  which  everybody  is  well-pleased.'  ^  In 
the  Strasburg  ordinance   also,    as    Geiler  had  already 

^  Fr.   Ehrle,   '  Die  Armenordnungen  von  Niirnberg   (1522)  unci  von 
Ypern  (1525),'  in  the  Histor.  Jahrbuch  der  Gorres-Gesellschaft,  ix.  450-479. 
-  Uhlhorn,  iii.  57. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.    453 

wished,  all    begging  was  put   down,  and  a  system  of 
poor-relief  established.  ^ 

The  first  attempt  at  complete  remodelling  of  the 
poor-rehef  system  was  made  by  Carlstadt  at  Wittenberg 
in  1532.  According  to  his  scheme  all  modes  of  begging 
whatsoever,  that  of  the  beggar  monks  also,  and  the 
collections  by  the  '  pardoners  '  and  in  the  churches 
were  to  cease.  All  the  rents  and  taxes  due  to  the 
houses  of  God,  the  clergy  and  the  corporations 
were  to  flow  into  one  common  chest,  and  out  of 
these  funds  the  clergy  and  the  poor  were  to  be 
provided  for,  and  capital  lent  out  to  the  burghers 
at  4  per  cent.  If  these  funds  did  not  suffice,  then 
everyone,  whether  priest  or  burgher,  must  pay  a  poor 
rate  in  proportion  to  his  means.^  This  ordinance, 
however,  did  not  come  into  play.  In  the  same  year 
Luther's  friend,  Wenceslaus  Link,  under  the  title  of 
'  Ekklesiastes  '  busied  himself  at  Altenburg,  for  the 
organisation  of  poor  relief  in  that  town,  and  another 
ordinance  was  issued,  but  without  any  result.  Towards 
the  end  of  October  of  the  following  year  Link,  in  a 
pamphlet  addressed  to  the  burgomaster  and  Council, 
inveighed  very  strongly  against  *  the  whole  roguish 
corporation,'  namely,  '  priestdom,  monkdom  and  all 
clerically  denominated  persons,  who  were  commonly 
addicted  to  idlemongering  and  belly-pampering,'  and 
insisted  that  '  donations,  foundations,  bequests  and 
suchlike  endowments  for  almsgiving  must  not  be  spent 
in  fostering  idleness  and  feeding  able-bodied  rascals.' 

'  **  See  A.  Baum,  Magistral  unci  Reformation  in  Strassburg  bis  1529 
(Strasburg,  1887),  p.  56-61.  According  to  Reuss,  Jmtice  criminelle,  86, 
the  prohibition  of  pubUc  begging  had  Uttle  result :  soon  afterwards  public 
mendicancy  began  again. 

-  Uhlhorn,  iii.  61. 


454  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

For  the  rest  he  had  nothing  encouraging  to  say  about 
the  organisation  estabhshed.  *  A  year  ago/  he  com- 
plained, *  it  was  attempted  to  set  up  a  common  fund 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  poor,  and  two  coffers  also 
were  placed  in  front  of  the  churches,  and  foreign  beggars 
and  school  children  running  round  begging  were  put 
a  stop  to.  But,  unfortunately,  not  only  have  these 
Christian  intentions  not  been  carried  out,  but  things 
have  even  gone  backwards,  so  that  many  pious  persons 
who  were  inclined  to  help  in  the  new  scheme,  have 
withdrawn  their  hands,  and  much  murmuring  has 
arisen  among  the  common  people.  I  have  frequently 
in  the  pulpit  endeavoured  to  stir  people  up  to  carry 
into  effect  these  Christian  attempts,  but  nobody  would 
take  the  matter  up.'  '  Where  love  is  cold  and  does 
not  help  the  needy,  God  sends  a  curse  and  with- 
draws the  blessing,  which  methinks  is  plainly  manifest 
here  at  Altenburg,  for  there  is  much  loss  of  temporal 
goods,  side-by-side  with  this  contempt  of  the  divine 
word ;  be  sure  also  that  God  will  visit  the  town  severely 
if  no  improvement  takes  place,  especially  in  the  matter 
of  this  common  fund  which  no  one  much  needs.' ^  In 
the  course  of  the  year  1523,  through  the  immediate 
influence  of  Luther,  an  ordinance  for  the  common  fund 
came  into  effect  in  the  Saxon  town  of  Leisnig.  To  this 
fund  all  religious  foundations,  all  convent  property  and 
pious  gifts  and  bequests  were  to  be  devoted.  It  was  to 
be  under  the  management  of  a  committee  of  ten  men 
elected  yearly  from  among  the  councillors,  the  nobles, 
the  burghers,  and  the  peasants,  and  to  be  used  by  them 

'  Von  Arheyt  unci  Betteln,  loie  man  solle  der  Faulheyt  vorkommen  und 
yederman  zu  Arheyt  ziehen  (1523,  at  the  end:  printed  at  Zwickau  by 
Jorg  Gastel),  Preface  (Friday  after  SS.  Simon  and  Jude,  1523),  Bl.  B.  3  fE. 
See  the  statements  of  Ehrle,  Armenordniingen,  474-475. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  455 

for  the  benefit  of  the  parochial  clergy  and  church 
officials,  the  German  schools  and  the  poor.^  The 
first  of  these,  however,  were  so  badly  looked  after, 
that  only  two  years  later,  in  1525,  Luther  complained 
that  the  people  of  Leisnig  would  drive  away  their 
preachers  by  hunger.  It  was  discovered  by  the  church 
inspectors  of  the  Saxon  Electorate  in  1529  that  the 
preacher  at  Ijcisnig  was  obliged  to  carry  on  a  trade  and 
to  maintain  himself  by  selling  beer ;  as  regards  the 
schoolmaster,  the  inspectors,  in  1534,  found  that  for 
five  years  no  salary  had  been  paid  him.^ 

By  degrees  all  Protestant  lands  and  towns  came 
to  have  their  own  poor  relief  systems  and  poor  funds 
under  the  management  of  men  who  were  sometimes 
called  deacons  or  Levites,  sometimes  simply  coffer- 
masters,  and  who  had  to  administer  the  poor  rehef 
according  to  strict  rules. 

Among  the  Catholics  severe  and  denunciatory 
opinions  were  pronounced  against  this  poor  relief. 

*  First  of  all,'  wrote  George  Wizel  in  1535,  '  I  bring 
against  them '  (the  sects)  '  the  charge  of  having  nearly 
everywhere  abolished  and  rendered  useless  the  stipends 
which  our  fathers  richly  bestowed  on  the  poor ;  which 
proceeding  is  not  only  contrary  to  love  but  also  to 
honesty  ;  contrary  to  love  because  it  injures  the  poor  ; 
contrary  to  honesty  because  it  sets  aside  the  last  wishes 
of  the  dead.  In  this  way  also  the  "Seelbad,''  the 
"Caren,*'  the  yearly  bounties  bestowed  on  a  certain 
number  of  poor  people,  the  free  meals  and  so  forth  have 
been  done  away  with,  and  thus  the  poor  suffer  privation.' 

'  Ehrle,    Armenordnungen,   473.     Uhlhorn,    iii.    62-64.     **  See   also 
Nobbe  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  Kirchengcsch,  x.  575. 

^  Burkhardt,  Sdchsische  Kirchen-  und  Schulvisitationen,  95-188. 


456  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

*  Altogether/  Wizel  said  in  another  place,  'the  poor 
are    treated   with    greater    harshness    than  formerly/ 

*  In  former  times  there  were  Christians  who  so  loved  the 
poor  and  the  beggars  that  they  called  them  their 
lords,  and  even  their  sons ;  they  washed  their  feet, 
made  their  beds,  cooked  their  food  and  waited  on  them 
at  table,  as  though  on  Christ  Himself.  Now,  however, 
it  has  come  to  this  that  entrance  to  the  town  is  for- 
bidden them,  they  are  driven  out  of  it,  the  gate  is 
closed  against  them,  as  though  the  poor  miserable  people 
were  devils  and  sworn  foes  of  every  land/^  The  old 
Catholic  spirit,  which  regarded  as  a  work  well-pleasing 
to  God  that  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  should  do  personal 
services  to  the  poor, '  as  to  Christ  Himself,'  had  become 
so  incomprehensible  that,  for  instance,  the  preacher 
John  Brenz  thought  it  quite  contemptible  when  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.  in  1544,  on  Maundy  Thursday,  at 
Spires,  washed  the  feet  of  twelve  poor  people.  '  Will 
the  Son  of  God,"  wrote  Brenz  to  Melanchthon,  '  be 
able  much  longer  to  endure  such  spectacles  ?  He  will 
not/  2 

As  regards  the  new  poor-boxes,  Wizel  saw  in  them 
a  proof  that  '  through  the  fault  of  this  party  all  good 
works  had  lost  their  dignity.'  '  Only  see,'  he  said,  '  how 
they  proceed  with  this  poor  box  which  is  in  truth  more 
an  usury  or  a  parsons'  box,  than  an  offering  to  God 


^  DoUinger,  i.  50,  55. 

^  '.  .  .  Haec  spectacula  filius  Dei  diu  perferre  posset  ?  Non  feret.' — 
Letter  of  April  22,  1544  in  the  Corp.  Reform,  v.  368.  It  was  equally 
repulsive  to  Bucer  that  the  Emperor  '  should  daily  repeat  long  prayers 
kneeling  on  his  knees,  should  Ue  on  the  ground  saying  his  rosary,  his  eyes 
fixed  on  an  image  of  the  Virgin  '  ;  Bucer  said  of  these  devotions  :  '  The 
Emperor  often  now  wars  against  Christ.' — Letter  to  Calvin  of  October  25, 
643,  in  Calvini  Opera,  xi,  634. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  457 

and  the  community/ ^  'The  new  poor-box  which  they 
have  set  up  chiefly  benefits  the  leaders  of  the  sects ; 
the  poor  get  scarcely  a  pfennig  of  what  is  collected  on 
Sundays.  The  amount  of  the  collections  is  meagre  in 
the  extreme  according  to  the  evidence  of  their  own 
complaints.  Only  the  very  fewest  are  in  favour  of  this 
poor-box,  and  nobody  denies  that  the  poor  and  needy 
live  more  hardly  and  starve  more  miserably  under  this 
new  rule  than  was  the  case  under  the  Roman  Church.'  ^ 

In  like  manner  wrote  the  abbot  of  St.  Michael's  in 
Liineburg  :  *  We  advise  the  autliorities  as  well  as  the 
community,  to  look  not  only  at  the  words  of  the  poor- 
box  preachers  and  their  deacons  or  cash-keepers,  but 
at  their  deeds.  For  the  poor  complain  now  much  more 
than  they  did  formerly.  Through  the  proceedings  of 
some  one  or  other  the  '  coffer  of  God '  (Gotteskasten) 
has  become  a  Judas'  purse.  What  becomes  of  what  is  put 
into  the  coffer  ?  This  is  best  known  to  the  cash-keepers 
and  their  preachers,  some  of  whom  expect  to  receive 
their  thousands.  I  keep  silence  as  to  the  way  in  which 
so  much  of  the  money  disappears,  so  that  no  one  can 
find  it.'  '  W^here  is  there  a  town  in  which  the  coffers  are 
placed  under  the  care  of  such  people  as  we  read  of  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  chapter  vi.  ?  Wherever  did 
the  deacons  of  those  days  preach  and  hunt  in  order 
to  get  the  goods  of  the  Temple,  the  revenues  of 
the  Jewish  priesthood,  into  their  own  coffers  or  con- 
trol ?  They  took  under  their  management  only  what 
their  brethren  in  the  faith  brought  them.' 

^  Dollinger,  i.  (2nd  edition),  35. 

^  Dollinger,  i.  64.  Uhlhorn,  iii.  104,  quotes  this  utterance  of  Wizel's, 
but  simply  omits  the  thoroughly  weU-founded  statement :  '  The  amount 
of  the  collection  is  meagre  in  the  extreme,  according  to  the  evidence  of  their 
own  complaints.' 


458  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

The  Hamburg  preacher,  Stephen  Kempe,  rephed  to 
the  Abbot  as  follows  in  1531  :  *  It  was  the  habit  of 
wicked  men  to  suspect  others.  What  warrant  have 
you  for  such  murderous  advice  to  the  magistrates  and 
the  community  ?  Do  the  poor  complain  ?  Who  are 
these  poor,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  The  wretched 
vagrants  and  imposters  ?  or  the  wretched  beggar- 
monks  ?  To  such  as  these  you  had  better  have  quoted 
2  Thessalonians,  iii.  10,  "  For  even  when  we  were  with 
you,  this  we  commanded  you,  that  if  any  would  not 
work  neither  should  he  eat/*  If  there  are  any  more 
of  these  "  poor  ''  let  them  come  to  the  front  and  show 
themselves,  that  we  may  see  what  they  are  and  what 
they  lack/ 

What  countless  numbers  of  poor  came  forward  and 
showed  themselves,  who  did  not  belong  to  the  class  of 
land  loafers  or  beggar-monks,  is  seen  from  the  history 
of  every  land  and  every  town.  Many  protestants 
and  protestant  rulers  foimd  reason  enough  for  '  looking 
at  the  hands  of  the  cash-keepers  '  according  to  the 
abbot's  advice,  and  for  not  despising  this  advice,  hke 
Kempe,  as  '  unjust,  seditious  and  blood-thirsty.'  i 

In  Wiirtemberg  the  Dukes  frequently  complained 
that  the  coffer-ordinances  were  not  properly  carried  out, 
and  that  the  poor  funds  were  badly  administered  and 
dissipated.  '  In  particular,'  says  one  of  these  ordinances 
in    1552,    '  certain  of   the   upper    and   under  officials, 

'  Staphorst,  part  II.  of  vol.  i.  234-237  ;  cf.  UliUiorn  iii.  103-104,  and 
75,  where  are  Kempe's  remarks  on  the  superiority  of  the  '  common  fund  '  to 
the  scattered  alms  and  gifts  at  the  doors,  which  the  Abbot  praised.  The 
'  Prowe-Bock,'  of  the  Abbot  against  which  Kempe  directed  his  polemics,  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find.  **  Concerning  this  lost  work  see  A.  Wrede, 
Die  Einf'dhrung  der  Reformation  im  Liineburgischen  durch  Herzog  Ernst 
den  Bekenner  (Gottingen,  1887),  p.  151  ff. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  459 

guardians  and  so  forth,  have  been  found  guilty  of  daily 
excesses  in  drinking  and  eating  by  which  they  have 
robbed  the  poor  funds :  hospital  money,  fruit  and  wine, 
and  also  immovable  goods,  have  been  used  by  them 
for  their  own  personal  advantage,  and  the  poor  have 
been  little  cared  for/  '  Among  the  poor  in  their  own 
homes  especially,'  wrote  Duke  Christopher  ten  years 
later,  '  there  were  now  and  again  cases  of  serious  want 
and  starvation :  nobody  would  take  an  interest  in  the 
poor,  and  so  systematic  collecting  for  the  poor  had 
been  given  up/  '  Moreover  the  revenues  of  the  hospitals 
and  of  other  charitable  institutions  were  used  for 
personal  gratification  and  not  for  those  in  need/  Duke 
John  Frederick  also  said  that  the  poor  relief  ordinances 
had  been  so  much  disregarded  that  the  hospitals  and 
the  poor  funds  had  been  subject  to  all  sorts  of  disorder, 
neglect  and  waste,  and  also  that  there  had  been  fraudu- 
lent dealings  with  the  poor-boxes,  so  that  the  poor  were 
wretchedly  provided  for.  According  to  a  decree  of  1614, 
well-to-do  people,  who  in  spite  of  admonition  would 
not  give  alms  at  all,  or  not  adequately,  were  compelled, 
according  to  their  means,  to  pay  a  weekly  poor-rate ; 
if  they  refused  to  pay  this,  they  were  to  be  punished 
by  a  money  fine  which  would  go  to  the  poor-box. ^ 

Concerning  the  '  Gotteskasten  '  in  Hesse,  a  Marburg 
Synod  of  1573  said  that  '  some  of  them  were  quite  at  a 
low  ebb,  and  some  had  only  a  fabulous  existence.'  ^ 

'  As  daily  experience  shows,  *  said  the  Elector  John 
George  of  Brandenburg  in  1573,  '  the  common  coffers 

1  Reyscher,  xii.,  319,  321-322,  340,  635-638,  656,  660  note, 
"  Rommel,  Neuere  Gesch.  von  Hessen,  i.  204.     The  Anabaptist  Jorg 
said  in  1538  that  the  melancholy  experiences  he  had  had  as  a  Protestant 
cashkeeper  had  driven  him  into  the  arms  of  the  Anabaptists. — Niedners, 
Zeitschr.  fur  histor.  Theologie,  xxviii.  627. 


460  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

decrease  more  and  more,  for  one  reason  because  owing 
to  the  bad  times  and  high  prices  the  number  of  poor 
to  be  helped  grows  larger  and  larger,  and  secondly 
because  no  one  any  longer  contributes  to  them/  ^ 

In  an  ordinance  of  1588  for  the  Saxon  electorate 
where  the  territorial  Prince  Augustus  exerted  himself 
strenuously  to  improve  the  system  of  poor-rehef,  it  says  : 
The  poor-boxes  '  are  almost  lost  to  memory/  ^ 

The  Lutheran  Wolfgang  Euss  puts  these  words  in 
the  mouth  of  the  people  :  '  Go  to,  we  have  indeed  come 
in  for  good  times  !  The  benefices  and  tithes  of  the 
parsons  must  do  everything  ;  they  can  bear  all,  they 
must  supply  everybody.  Is  it  not  a  happy  state  of 
things  1  We  dare  no  more  give  anything  for  the  love  of 
God  ;  no  beggar  is  any  longer  allowed  to  come  to  my 
house,  therefore  I  am  not  allowed  to  visit  any  in  their 
own  homes/  '  Among  rich  ladies  it  is  usual  for  each 
one  to  dispose  of  a  little  capital  for  her  private  expenses. 
They  have  a  purse  for  playing  cards,  a  purse  for  shop- 
ping, and  a  purse  for  daily  household  expenses  ;  but 
the  fourth  purse,  i.e.,  the  poor-bag,  has  got  no  bottom; 
this  one  is  made  of  devil's  skin  and  not  a  single  kreuzer 
(coin  with  a  cross)  will  stay  in  it,  and  none  comes  out  of  it 
either.  The  poor  beggars'  beggarly  common  coffer,  the 
parsons'  benefices  and  tithes  must  do  it  all.'  ^ 

In  Frankfort-on-the-Maine  the  average  amount  of 
collections  for  the  poor,  which  were  placed  under  the 
management  of  the  cash-keepers,  averaged  372  gulden  in 
the  years  1531-1536  ;  in  the  years  1555-1556  they  sank 
to  182  gulden,  and  in  1560-1561  to  149  gulden ;  *  in 
1583  they  had  become  so  insignificant  as  to  evoke  from 

'  Mylius,  i."  293.  ^  c^^y.  Augmteus,  i.  1429. 

'•'  DolUnger,  i.  233,  n.  49.  '  UhUiorn,  iii.  110-111. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   461 

the  town  council  the  statement :  '  In  this  town  people 
are  so  careful  and  sparing  in  the  bestowal  of  alms  that 
when  the  alms-boxes  are  opened  yearly  in  the  churches 
there  is  scarcely  enough  in  them — and  it  is  a  scandal  to 
have  to  say  this  of  Christians — to  keep  a  handful  of  poor 
people  out  of  want  during  the  year,  or  even  during  one 
month.  How  more  than  true  it  is  then  and  demon- 
strable that  the  majority  of  people  do  not  give  more  to 
the  poor  in  a  quarter  of  or  indeed  in  a  whole  year,  than 
they  spend  at  one  drinking-bout  in  a  tavern/  ^ 

The  condition  of  things  as  regards  poor-boxes  and 
poor  relief  was  particularly  melancholy  at  Hamburg, 
where  in  the  Middle  Ages  charity  towards  the  poor  had 
been  so  hberal  and  bountiful/  The  new  system  of  poor- 
rehef  which  came  into  existence  with  the  introduction  of 
the  new  doctrine,  soon  began  to  decline.  The  articles 
drawn  up  from  time  to  time  by  the  guardians  of  the  poor 
show  that  as  early  as  1558  meetings  for  considering  the 
wants  of  the  poor  seldom  took  place,  that  the  deacons 
had  to  be  kept  up  to  their  duties  by  fear  of  punishment, 
and  that  cases  of  punishment  frequently  occurred.  In 
1600,  the  guardians  themselves  acknowledged  that 
*  they  were  remiss  and  negligent  in  their  work,  did  not 
properly  superintend  the  business  of  poor-relief,  and 
were  discordant  and  divided  among  themselves."  They 
had  also  to  be  enjoined,  in  the  exercise  of  their  office, 
not  to  be  influenced  by  feehngs  of  friendship,  not  to 

'  Kirchner,  QescTi.  FranTcfurts,  ii.  430.  In  1587  the  council  decreed  that 
'  no  will  or  testament  should  be  confirmed  in  the  chancery  in  which  nothing 
was  bequeathed  to  the  common  coffer,  or  the  hospital,  or  to  the  town.' 

-  Koppmann,  Hamhurgs  IcircMiche  unci  WohMtigkeitsanstalten  im 
Mittelalter,  Hamburg,  1870.  Lappenberg-Gries,  Die  milden  Privat- 
stiftungen  zu  Hamburg  (2nd  edition  Hamburg,  1870),  xv,  ff.  Biisch, 
Histor.  Bericht  von  dem  Gange  und  fortdauernden  Verfall  des  Hamburger 
Armenwesens  seit  der  Zeit  der  Reformation,  Hamburg,  1786. 


462  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

accept  gifts  or  rewards,  but  to  have  regard  solely  to  the 
best  interests  of  the  poor.^  In  1613  the  Directors  of  the 
Orphan  House  addressed  to  the  council  a  petition  in 
which  they  said  :  '  Some  time  ago  we  were  obliged  to 
state  officially  that  the  poor  of  this  place  were  very 
badly  looked  after  and  provided  for  by  the  guardians  of 
the  "  Gotteskasten/'  It  is  a  matter  of  daily  experience, 
patent  to  all,  that  there  are  a  great  number  of  poor 
householders  who  are  driven  by  their  sore  need  and 
poverty  to  beg  from  door  to  door  at  the  burghers' 
houses,  and  they  complain  very  bitterly  that  they  get  no 
help  from  the  "  Gotteskasten/' '  '  There  are  also  a 
number  of  poor  widows  who  come  to  us  every  day  with 
complaints  that  they  have  so  many  children  that  they 
cannot  feed  them  by  their  own  toil ;  and  when  they 
apply  for  alms  from  the  "  Gotteskasten "  they  are 
repulsed,  and  are  therefore  compelled  to  bring  their 
children  up  to  begging  and  thieving  and  other  im- 
proper ways,  which  they  stick  to  all  the  rest  of  their 
lives,  and  from  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  turn  them, 
as  daily  experience  shows.  When  poor  people  are  laid 
up  with  illness,  little  or  nothing  is  given  them  from  the 
poor-boxes  and  they  are  left  to  die  in  great  misery 
without  any  help  :  of  such  cases,  were  it  necessary, 
more  than  enough  could  be  brought  forward/  Among 
these  poor  people  there  was  great  distress  and  misery ; 
on  behalf  of  numbers  of  them  they,  the  Directors  of  the 
Orphanage,  had  made  urgent  appeals  to  the  cash- 
keepers  and  given  them  exact  particulars  as  to  where 
they  lived,  how  many  children  they  had,  and  what 
were  their  wants  and  infirmities ;    but  not  only  had 

'  Kiehn,  i.  6.     W.  v.  Melle,  Die  Entwicklung  des  offentUchen  Armen- 
wesens  in  Hamburg  (Hamburg,  1883),  p.  19  ff. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      463 

no  help  been  forthcoming,  but  the  little  which  they  had 
had  before  from  the  '  Gotteskasten '  was  Mdthdrawn. 
The  petitioners  begged  especially  that  "pity  should  be 
shown  to  the  poor  heavily  burdened  widows  "  who 
had  young  babies  to  suckle,  or  weak  and  sickly  children, 
or  such  large  famihes  that  they  could  not  maintain  them 
by  washing,  charing,  spinning  and  other  female  work, 
even  if  they  could  get  washing  and  charing  to  do  ;  but 
as  they  were  often  naked  or  ill  clothed  no  one  would 
take  them  into  their  employment,  and  so  they  were 
reduced  to  spinning/' '  The  cash-keepers  were  all  at 
loggerheads,  but  the  council  should  consider  whether 
such  want  of  union  was  sufficient  reason  for  leaving  so 
many  poor,  aihng  widows  and  orphans  to  starve.  It 
was  much  to  be  desired  that  those  who  refused  to  befriend 
these  poor  sufferers  should  sometimes  visit  them  in  per- 
son, that  they  might  see  and  hear  for  themselves  their 
misery,  their  tears  and  sighs,  and  not  leave  everything 
to  be  done  by  the  cloisters  and  the  mendicancy  baihffs ; 
they  would  then  undoubtedly  bestir  themselves  to  im- 
prove matters,  and  would  take  these  things  more  to  heart. 
For  it  is,  alas,  a  matter  of  daily  experience  that  not  the 
poor  parents  only,  but  numbers  of  children  also  come  to 
ruin,  almost  starve,  lose  their  health  and  so  forth. 
And  there  are  also  frequent  cases  in  which  such  merciless 
hardness  drives  parents  to  put  their  children  out  in  the 
street,  and  run  away  from  them,  and  then  these  children 
are  brought  to  us  in  the  orphanage.  Others  tell  their 
children  to  get  out  of  their  way  and  do  not  care  what 
becomes  of  them,  so  long  as  they  are  rid  of  them  ;  they 
say  out  plainly  that  it  breaks  their  hearts  to  see  their 
children  starving  and  dying  before  their  eyes.'  In  short 
it  was  urgently  necessary  that  the  burgomaster  and  the 


464  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

council  should  themselves  look  seriously  into  these 
things,  in  order  that  the  poor  of  the  district  might  be 
helped  in  their  need,  and  better  looked  after,  and  that 
the  wrath  and  chastisement  of  God  might  not  descend 
upon  the  town/  In  excuse  of  the  cash-keepers  the 
petitioners  ended  by  saying  '  it  was  not  unknown  to 
them  that  the  ''  Gotteskasten ''  were  very  poorly 
supphed,  and  that  they  fell  short  every  year,  and  that 
it  was  hard  to  give  out  of  an  empty  hand/  Hence  the 
council  would  do  well  to  consider  as  to  ways  and  means 
by  which  the  '  Gotteskasten '  might  be  kept  full  *  for 
God  had  abundantly  blessed  this  town,  above  other 
towns,  as  well  in  population  as  in  good  food  and  good 
government,  and  it  was  a  great  scandal  before  God  and 
man  to  leave  the  poor  ''  quite  unaided  and  forsaken/' '  i 

This  orphanage,  whose  manager  pleaded  so  warmly 
the  cause  of  the  poor,  was  founded  in  1597,^  but  not  very 
satisfactorily  endowed  :  Twice  a  year,  by  order  of  the 
Council,  gifts  and  alms  were  collected  for  it  by  the 
Director,  and  the  Council  also  enjoined  the  clergy  to  ask 
for  generous  contributions  from  their  pulpits.  '  The 
managers,'  said  the  Council,  '  have  not  only  circum- 
stantially described  how  intolerable  the  burden  of  the 
orphanage  has  become,  both  because  the  institute  is 
filled  to  overflowing  with  orphans,  native  and  foreign, 
and  with  unhappy  foundlings  and  deserted  children, 
and  because  the  revenues  of  said  orphanage  have 
greatly  fallen  off  owing  to  low  rents  and  a  marked 
decrease  in  charitable  donations/  ^ 

This  decrease  of  benevolence  to  the  poor  and  of 
contributions  in  general  to  all  good  objects,  and  the 

'  Staphorst,  Part  I.,  vol.  iv.  677-683.     Kiehn,  i.  377-391. 

-  Kiehn,  i.  7  ff.  ^  Kiehn,  i.  348-349  ;   cf.  Staphorst,  649-650. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   465 

increase  of  an  insatiable  greed  of  gain  were  matters  of 
standing  complaint  among  the  Protestants.     Nobody 
spoke  more  strongly  and  more  frequently  on  the  subject 
than  Luther.     '  Under  the  papacy/  he  said,  '  it  snowed 
alms,  foundations,  legacies.    Under  the  Evangel,  on  the 
contrary,  no  one  will  give  a  farthing.'  ^     '  Under  the 
papacy  people  were  charitable  and  gave  gladly,  but  now 
under  the  Evangel  nobody  any  longer  gives  anything, 
but  they  all  fleece  each  other,  and  each  one  wants  to 
grab  all  for  himself  alone.     And  the  longer  the  Evangel 
is  preached,  the  deeper  do  people  become  sunk  in  avarice, 
pride  and  vainglory,  just  as  if  the  poor  beggar  was 
always  to  remain  here.'     '  All  the  world  fleeces  and  flays, 
and  yet  nobody  must  be  called  avaricious,  but  every- 
body is  a  good  evangelical  and  a  good  Christian.     And 
this  fleecing  and  flaying  in  done  to  nobody  so  much  as  to 
poor  Brother  Study,  and  to  the  poor  pastors  in  towns 
and  villages.'    '  These  must  stand  still  and  let  themselves 
be   skinned   and   strangled,    and   what    the   peasants, 
burghers  and  nobles  scrape  off  them  they  drink  and 
gorge  away,  or  spend  on  all  too  extravagant,  luxurious 
food  and  clothing ;    they  either  drive  it  down  their 
throats,  or  hang  it  round  their  necks.     Therefore  I  have 
often  said  that  such  a  state  of  things  cannot  last  much 
longer  ;   it  must  collapse  ;    either  the  Turks  or  Brother 
Veit  will  come  and  at  one  stroke  carry  off  all  that  people 
have  so  long  been  amassing  by  flaying,  fleecing,  robbing, 
and  thieving  ;   or  the  Day  of  Judgment  will  rush  in  and 
put  an  end  to  the  game.'  - 

In  other  parts  of  his  writings,  Luther  says  :   '  Under 
the  papacy  everybody   was  kind  and  merciful,   they 

1  Collected  Works,  xliii.  164. 
-  Collected  Works,  v.  264-265  ;  of.  23,  313. 
VOL.  XV.  H  H 


466  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

gave  joyfully  with  both  hands  and  with  great  reverence. 
Nowadays,   although  they  ought  to  show  themselves 
grateful  for  the  holy  Evangel,  no  one  will  give  anything, 
but  only  "  take/'     Formerly  every  large  town  could 
richly  support  a  few  cloisters,  not  to  speak  of  mass- 
priests    and    wealthy    foundations ;     now    they    even 
grudge  to  maintain  two  or  three  preachers,  spiritual 
ministers  and  instructors  of  youths  in  one  town,  even 
when  they  have  not  got  to  do  it  out  of  their  own  but 
out  of  alien  goods  which  are  still  left  over  from  the 
papacy/  ^     And    again :     '  Those    who    ought    to    be 
good  Christians  because  they  have  heard  the  gospel, 
are  harder  and  more  merciless  than  before ;    as  is  too 
plainly  patent  to  all  beholders.     Of  old,  when  under 
the  guidance  of  the  papacy  and  of  a  false  worship, 
people   were    obliged    to    do    good   works,    everybody 
was  ready  and  willing.     Now,   on  the  contrary,   the 
world  has  learnt  nothing  else  than  to  flay,  fleece,  and 
openly  rob   and  plunder  by  lying  and  cheating,   by 
usury,    forestalling   and   overcharging.     And   everyone 
acts   against   his   neighbour,    as   though   he    did    not 
regard  him  as  a  friend,  still  less  as  a  brother  in  Christ, 
but  as  a  murderous  enemy,  and  only  wanted  to  get 
everything  for  himself  alone.     This  goes  on  daily  and 
gains    head    without    intermission,    and    is    the    most 
common   practice   and   custom   in   all   classes,    among 
princes,    nobles,    burghers,    peasants,     in    all    courts, 
towns   and   villages,    yea   verily   in   all   houses.      Tell 
me,  where  is  there  a  town  however  large  that  is  pious 
enough  to  collect  together  as  much  as  would  maintain 
one  schoolmaster  or  pastor  ?      Yes  indeed,   if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  charitable  alms  and  endowments  of 

'  Collected  Works,  xiii.  123. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   467 

our  forefathers,  the  burghers  in  our  cities,  the 
nobles  and  peasants  in  the  country,  would  long  ago 
have  been  deprived  of  the  Evangel,  and  not  a  single 
poor  preacher  would  have  been  fed  and  clothed.  For 
we  will  not  do  it  ourselves,  but  we  take  and  seize  by 
force  what  others  have  given  and  founded."  '  Thanks 
also  to  the  dear  Evangel,  the  people  have  become 
so  abominably  wicked,  so  inhuman,  so  diabolically 
cruel  and  merciless,  that  they  are  not  content  with 
profiting  by  the  Evangel  themselves,  growing  fat 
thereon  through  plunder  and  robbery  of  Church  goods, 
but  as  far  as  others  are  concerned  they  starve  the 
gospel  completely  out.  You  may  count  upon  your 
fingers,  here  and  elsewhere,  all  that  they  give  and 
do  for  it,  they  who  profit  by  it  themselves,  for  our- 
selves, who  are  living  now,  there  has  long  been  no 
preacher,  no  scholar  able  to  teach  our  children  and 
descendants  what  we  have  taught  or  believed.'  '  Ought 
we  not  to  be  thoroughly  ashamed  of  ourselves  when 
we  think  of  our  parents  and  forefathers,  kings  and 
nobles,  princes  and  others,  who  gave  so  liberally  and 
so  benevolently,  even  to  superfluity,  to  churches, 
parsonages,  schools,  foundations,  hospitals,  &c.,  and 
by  all  which  they  and  their  descendants  were  not 
impoverished  ? '  ^ 

'  I  fear  me,'  he  said,  preaching  on  the  robbery  of 
widows  and  orphans,  '  that  we  are  in  such  wise  trifling 
with  the  Evangel,  that  we  are  a  greater  offence  to  God 
than  the  papists.  For  if  there  is  to  be  stealing  it  is 
better  to  steal  from  a  rich  man  than  from  a  poor  beggar, 
or  an  orphan  who  has  nothing  but  a  morsel  of  bread. 
Sirach  said  :     "  Do  not  the  widow's  tears  run  down 

1  Collected  Works,  xiv.  389-391. 

H  H  2 


468  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

her  cheek,  and  her  cry  against  him  that  causeth  them 
to  fall  ?  For  from  the  cheek  they  go  up  even  to  heaven, 
and  the  Lord  that  heareth  will  not  be  dehghted  with 
them.''  God  is  not  called  in  vain  the  Father  of  widows 
and  orphans,  for  if  they  are  forsaken  by  every  man 
God  still  looks  after  them  ! '  He  pronounced  a  woe  : 
'  Woe  unto  you  peasants,  burghers,  nobles,  who  grab 
and  scrape  up  everything  for  yourselves  and  pretend 
all  the  time  to  be  good  evangelicals/  ^ 

Because  people  were  so  charitable  under  the  papacy 
God,  in  reward,  gave  them  good  times  then.     '  Christ 
says  :    "  Give  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you  ;    good 
measure  pressed  down  and  shaken  together,  and  run- 
ning over,  shall  men  give  into  your  bosom."      And  this 
also  is  shown  by  the  experience  of  numbers  of  pious 
people    of  all  times,   who  before  our  day  gave  alms 
liberally  for  the  office  of  preaching,   for  schools,   for 
i^iQ  maintenance  of  the  poor,  and  so  forth,  and  to  whom 
God  in  return  gave  good  times,  peace  and  rest ;    hence 
the  proverb  which  has  gone  abroad  among  the  people 
and  which  confirms  what  I  have  said  :    '  Churchgiving 
does  not  hurt  any  one,  almsgiving  does  not  impoverish, 
ill-gotten  goods  do  not  profit.'     Hence  we  now  see  in 
the  world  the  opposite  of  what  was  seen  formerly  : 
because    such    insatiable    avarice    and    greed    prevail, 
and  nobody  gives  anything  to  God  or  man,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  they  take  for  themselves  what  others  have 
given,  thus  sucking  the  blood  and  the  sweat  of  the  poor. 
God  gives  us  in  reward  scarcity,   discontent  and  all 
sorts  of  misfortune,  until  at  last  we  shall  be  reduced 
to  eating  one  another  up,  rich  and  poor,  great  and  small, 
all  alike  will  be  devoured  by  each  other.'  '^ 

1  CoUected  Works,  xliv.  356-357.        =  Collected  Works,  xiii.  224-225, 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   469 

Similar  complaints  of  the  decrease  of  the  olden 
time  charity  towards  the  poor  which  helped  them 
by  benevolent  foundations  of  all  sorts  and  by  alms,  occur 
in  the  sermons  of  other  preachers  of  the  new  Evangel.  ^ 

'  Cruel  mercilessness/  wrote  the  preacher  Thomas 
Rorarius  in  1572,  *  has  gained  ground  everywhere ; 
almsgiving  is  considered  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  yet 
everyone  who  wished  to  give  proof  of  his  faith  ought 
to  abound  in  good  works  towards  his  neighbours  ' ; 
as  in  former  days  the  poor  had  been  abundantly  helped, 
so  ought  to  it  be  nowadays  :  only  the  merciful  would 
find  mercy  with  God.'  ^ 

*  Our  Catholic  ancestors,'  said  Andrew  Musculus, 
superintendent  general  of  the  Altmark,  'had  thought 
diligently  about  future  things,  and  in  order  to  ward 
of!  future  punishment  had  done  all  they  possibly 
could,  in  the  way  of  mortification,  fasting,  praying,  alms- 
giving, foundations  and  so  forth  ;  now,  on  the  contrary, 
people  thought  neither  of  heaven  nor  of  hell,  neither  of 

^  The  pi-eachers  of  the  Duchy  of  Pfalz-Zweibrucken  bear  witness  in  a 
joint  written  statement  of  May  21,  1599,  to  the  decrease  of  benevolent 
works.  '  Our  forefathers,'  they  complain,  '  richly  endowed  the  churches, 
but  nowadays  love  is  becoming  extinct,  for  very  few  give  anything,  and 
what  is  given  falls  far  short  or  is  misused.' — J.  Schwebel,  Teutsche  Biicher 
tmd  Schriften,  Part  II.  (Zweibriicken,  1598),  p.  348.  **  Stephen  Hering 
(Preacher  at  Gottleuben  in  Saxony),  in  Eine  guthertzige  warnungschrift  fur 
kiinfftigem  Unglilck  unsers  lieben  Vaterlandes  Deutscher  Nation  (Dresden, 
1609),  writes  as  follows  of  the  neglect  of  the  poor  :  '  If  this  is  not  true 
amongst  us,  why  did  the  pious  Christians  in  our  land,  for  some  length  of 
time  sing  at  their  meetings  : 

The  poor  are  in  their  need  forsaken, 
The  bread  from  out  their  mouths  is  taken, 
The  judgment  day  is  sure  at  hand. 
This  Church  hymn  is  by  Erasmus  Alberus  and  appeared  first  in  1548.     See 
Ch.  W.  Stromberger,  Erasmus^  Alberus'  Geistliche  Lieder  (Halle,  1857),  p. 
46.     According  to  this,  the  neglect  of  the  poor  was  treated  in  a  Protestant 
hymn  as  a  sign  of  the  coming  of  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
-  Fiinfundzwanzig  Predigten,  xxxv''.  93'',  154  ff. 


470  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

God  nor  of  the  devil/  '  Churches,  schools,  hospitals  are 
plundered,  robbed,  destroyed  ;  the  young  are  grievously 
neglected,  the  children  of  the  poor  are  shut  out  from 
study,  God's  poor  are  forsaken/  '  Pilfering,  steahng, 
taking,*  preached  Musculus  at  Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 
'  goes  on  without  ceasing,  nothing  is  sj)ared,  albeit 
it  is  the  blood  and  sweat  of  the  poor ;  the  devil  is 
especially  at  home  in  the  council-house/  '  The  old 
women  are  obhgecl  to  freeze  and  starve  in  tumble-down 
hospitals ;  their  rooms  are  very  dog-kennels ;  rats 
and  mice  swarm  in  their  beds  of  straw  and  nobody 
cares.  All  the  years  I  have  lived  I  have  never  seen 
the  poor  so  badly  looked  after  as  now,'  in  the  year 
1576.  '  The  cash-keepers  deserve  hell  for  their  treat- 
ment of  the  poor ;  they  will  not  allow  them  to  stand 
in  front  of  the  church  doors,  and  yet  they  will  give 
them  nothing.'  ^ 

Johann  Winistede,  preacher  at  Quedlinburg,  im- 
plored the  town  councillors  there  that '  They  would  give 
all  possible  diligence  to  seeing  that  the  poor  people  in 
the  hospitals  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  of  St.  John,  and  of  our 
Blessed  Lady,  were  well  cared  for,  and  that  the  funds 
intended  for  them  were  not  kept  from  them  or 
diminished.'  ^ 

In  the  Mansfeld  district,  according  to  the  report  of 
Erasmus  Sarcerius  in  1555,  the  care  of  the  poor  was 
quite  neglected  ;  the  hospitals  were  wretchedly  man- 
aged ;  the  funds  intended  for  poor  relief  were  fraudu- 
lently spent.' ^ 

^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vii.  299  ff.  Spieker,  Andreas  Musculus,  189- 
190,  288-290. 

-  Kurtze  Anzeigung,  Preface  Bl.  C. 

^  Neumeister,  '  Sittliche  Zustande  im  Mansfeldischen,'  in  the  Zeitschr, 
des  Harzvereins,  xx.  525,  526. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   471 

Tlie  town  of  Parchim  in  Mecklenburg  had,  in  1563, 
ten  hospitals  and  poor-houses  dating  from  Catholic 
times,  but  in  that  very  year,  owing  to  many  foundations 
having  been  dissipated,  the  number  had  to  be  reduced 
to  four.i 

As  regards  the  hospitals  founded  in  olden  times, 
Ambrosius  Pape,  Lutheran  pastor  at  Klein- Ammens- 
leben,  said  in  1586  :  *  It  is  a  great  and  punishable  evil 
that  they  no  longer  admit  poor  people,  but  only  rich 
ones.  Whoever  cannot  give  20  talers  or  50  or  100, 
need  not  seek  admission  to  these  hospitals/  '  The 
excuse  that  they  "  cannot  get  on  with  this  meagre 
income  "  will  not  hold  water,  for  people  may  be  ad- 
monished from  the  pulpits  that  every  Christian  ought 
to  contribute  something  according  to  his  means,  and 
open  a  benevolent  hand  towards  the  poor,  for  which  God 
would  richly  reward  him."  '  Further,  several  people 
might  be  sent  out  from  such  poor-houses,  to  make 
house-to-house  collections  for  them  ;  God  helping,  this 
would  be  approved  of  by  many  people,  not  only  because 
other  beggars  would  not  be  allowed  to  go  round  and  be 
a  nuisance  to  them,  but  also  because  these  organised 
beggars  would  pray  for  their  donors  and  benefactors  and 
wish  and  procure  them  all  sorts  of  blessedness/  '  To 
give  to  the  poor  according  to  one's  means  was  earnestly 
commanded  by  God  and  met  with  God's  unfailing 
reward/  Pape  quoted  in  proof  of  this  a  number  of 
Bible  texts,  for  instance  :  '  He  that  giveth  to  the  poor, 
lendeth  to  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord  will  reward  him  with 
interest ' ;  '  Almsgiving  delivers  from  all  sin,  and  from 
death';  'Water  quencheth  a  flaming  fire,  and  alms- 
giving resisteth  sins ' ;   '  Make  unto  you  friends  of  the 

'  Boll,  i.  390-399. 


472  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

mammon  of  iniquity,  that  when  you  shall  fail,  they 
may  receive  you  into  everlasting  dwellings/  i 

In  a  German  pamphlet  on  the  first  organised  system 
of  poor  rehef  in  the  Duchy  of  Zweibriicken,  published  at 
Zweibriicken  in  1557  by  the  General  Superintendent 
Cunemann  Flinsbach,  it  says  :  '  It  has  come  to  pass  in 
these  last  times  even  according  to  the  prophecy  of 
Christ,  Matthew  xxiv.,  where  he  says  that  in  the  latter 
days  the  love  of  many  will  wax  cold.  For  in  the  days 
of  the  Apostles  and  in  the  primitive  Church,  godly  zeal 
drove  Christians  to  give  gladly  for  the  love  of  God. 
This  too  was  the  case  with  some  of  the  Christian  emperors 
who  were  very  kind  to  the  poor  and  helped  them  in 
a  very  Christian  manner  in  their  distress.  And  under 
the  papacy  people  gave  abundantly  for  the  maintenance 
of  divine  worship  and  for  the  relief  of  the  poor.  But, 
alas,  in  these  our  days,  although  the  Evangel  and  God's 
Word  are  being  preached  in  truth  and  purity,  not  only 
has  this  zeal  to  help  the  poor  ceased,  but  when  the  poor 
are  deprived  of  the  funds  and  endowments  which 
were  intended  for  them,  the  world  does  not  protest. 
And  this  is  certainly  not  the  least  among  the  causes  of  the 
present  day  scarcity,  bad  crops  and  other  evils.' 

The  writer  then  proposes  schemes  for  poor  relief 
modelled  partly  on  the  Catholic  practice,  partly  on 
'  Christian,  well-ruled  churches,  such  as  were  to  be 
found  in  Saxony,  Wiirtemberg,  Strasburg  and 
elsewhere.'  ~ 

The  preachers  themselves  could  not  be  blind  to  the 
fact  that   the   new   doctrine   of   justification   through 

>  'Bettel-  und  Gaite-Teufel'  (see  below  p.  506  f.),  in  the  Theatnim 
Diabolorum,  ii.  183-184. 

-  **  See  Beitr.  zur  haijerischen  Kirchengesch.  iv.  279. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   473 

faith  alone,  everywhere  cut  the  nerve  of  vokintary 
sacrifice. 

'  However  much/  wrote  the  renowned  theologian, 
Andrew  Hyperius,  professor  since  1542  at  the  University 
of  Marburg, '  people  are  exhorted  to  benevolence  towards 
the  needy  and  distressed,  nobody  will  take  any  interest 
in  them :  it  is,  alas !  evident  that  all  feehng  of  love  is 
extinguished  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Preachers  must 
therefore  be  more  sparing  in  the  pulpit  with  the 
doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  alone,  they  must  incite 
their  congregations  to  good  works  and,  as  far  as 
this  is  possible,  bring  them  back  to  a  fruit-producing 
faith.'  1 

In  like  manner  spoke  the  Superintendent  General, 
Christopher  Fischer  :  '  Works  of  mercy  are  all  frozen  up, 
while  those  of  mercilessness  have  mightily  increased. 
Our  dear  forefathers  by  bequests  and  in  other  ways 
made  benevolent  provisions  for  the  maintenance  of 
churches  and  schools,  but  now,  alas !  we  see  every  day 
that  charity  towards  the  poor,  towards  hospitals,  towards 
poor  students  and  others  has  grown  quite  cold ;  the 
poor  are  fleeced  and  flayed,  and  ground  down  to  the 
uttermost  farthing.'  - 

'  With  our  forefathers,'  wrote  Sixt  Vischer,  pastor 
at  Liitzelburg  in  1608, '  works  of  charity  were  constantly 
practised  towards  the  poor  people  in  hospitals,  in- 
firmaries, and  lazarettos,  and  food,  drink,  cordials, 
money,  sheets,  shifts  and  other  necessary  articles  were 
given  to  them  in  abundance.     Where  now  are  there 

•  DoUinger,  ii.  215-216. 

'  Dollinger,  ii.  306-307.  See  also  what  Daniel  Greser,  in  1542,  superin- 
tendent at  Dresden,  says,  ii.  349-350  ;  further,  A.  Pancratius,  AUgemeine, 
immerwdhrende  geistliche  Practica  (Frankfort,  1605),  p.  66,  148. 


474  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

any  works  of  mercy  ?  Where  any  trust  and  faith,  where 
disciphne  and  respectabihty  ?  What  has  become  of  the 
conscience  of  the  nation  ?  '  ^ 

The  lack  of  voluntary  devotion  to  the  poor  for  the 
love  of  God  was  especially  evident  among  the  Protes- 
tants during  the  reign  of  the  pestilential  diseases  which 
became  so  frequent  in  Germany.  It  then  became  neces- 
sary to  employ  paid  sick-nurses,  and  those  available 
did  the  work  more  for  the  sake  of  a  hvehhood  than  out 
of  love. 2  '  Those  people,'  it  says  in  an  edict  of  the 
Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  of  April  21,  1572,  '  who 
are  appointed,  in  times  of  epidemics,  to  feed  the  sick,  and 
who  do  not  attend  to  them,  but  neglect  them  and  let 
them  die  of  hunger,  shall  be  punished  by  imprisonment 
or  banishment  from  the  country  according  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  offence.'  '  The  sextons,  or  other 
persons,  often  put  an  end  to  patients  who  are  lying 
on  their  death-beds,  and  then  rob  them  of  whatever 
they  find  by  them.  Such  persons  shall  be  punished 
with  the  wheel  as  robbers,  or  if  they  have  only 
put  an  end  to  the  patients  and  not  stolen  anything, 
they  shall  be  executed  with  the  sword.'  ^  In  Kempten 
in  1564,  from  fear  of  the  plague  which  had  broken 

'  Lutzelburgische  Bekehrung  (Munich,  1608),  p.  26-27.  The  Catholic 
polemic,  John  Nas,  did  not  on  the  whole  exaggerate  when  he  said  : 
'  Because  the  new  faith  is  so  powerful  that  it  alone  is  enough  for  salvation, 
all  works  of  mercy  have  ceased.  When  have  there  ever  been  as  many  poor 
people  as  now  ?  When  have  the  hospitals  been  as  poor  as  now  ?  What 
numbers  of  convents  have  been  confiscated  on  the  pretext  of  endowing 
hospitals,  and  yet  these  hospitals  have  never  been  so  much  in  debt  as 
now.  What  has  become  of  the  funds  left  to  schools  ?  How  many  poor 
people  have  been  fed  from  the  goods  of  the  convents  ?  The  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  faith  only  has  annihilated  the  whole  of  Christian  life  ;  through 
this  doctrine  Germany  has  been  brought  to  ruin.'  See  our  remarks,  vol.  x. 
102  ff, 

-  Uhlhorn,  iii.  131.  ^  Codex  Augusteus,  i.  118. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   475 

out,  the  preachers  visited  nobody  on  their  sick- 
beds.^ That  the  Jesuits  at  these  perilous  times 
showed  such  heroic  devotion  in  voluntary  service, 
excited  special  attention  among  the  Protestants.  After 
a  plague  in  Constance,  where,  in  1611,  three  Fathers  and 
three  Brothers  who  in  nursing  the  sick  and  dying  were 
themselves  overtaken  with  death,  the  preacher,  Henry 
Lauber,  wrote  :  '  The  enemies  of  the  Jesuits  in  Constance 
cannot  deny  that  at  the  time  of  infection,  when  all  the 
world  was  nearly  frantic  with  terror,  they  (the  Jesuits) 
showed  themselves  courageous  helpers  of  the  poor  sick 
people,  for  which  they  deserve  praise,  however  much 
we  may  disagree  with  them  otherwise/  In  a  chronicle 
of  Hall  it  is  said  :  *  During  the  plague  the  Jesuits  were 
especially  assiduous  in  giving  spiritual  and  temporal 
help  to  the  patients,  and  in  this  service  of  love  three 
Fathers  fell  victims  to  death.'  -  Among  the  Protestants 
magisterial  decrees  were  actually  issued  forbidding  people 
either  to  visit  the  sick  or  to  accompany  their  corpses  to 
the  grave.  When  Duke  Wolfgang  of  Zweibriicken 
issued  a  command  of  this  sort  on  December  2,  1563, 
the  preachers  of  the  district  of  Lichtenberg,  greatly  to 
their  honour,  represented  to  the  Duke  that  it  was  un- 
natural, unloving  and  unchristian  not  to  nurse  and  com- 
fort anyone.'^  '  Woe  unto  the  sick  among  us  evangehcals 
at  the  time  of  the  heavy  epidemic,'  said  the  above- 
mentioned  preacher,  Henry  Lauber,  in  the  second  decade 
of  the  seventeenth  century  ;    '  how  very  few  there  are 

'  Haggemiiller,  Gesch.  von  Kempten,  ii.  82. 

2  See  our  statements,  vol.  ix.  328  ff.,  where  there  are  also  fuller  details 
concerning  the  charitable  labours  of  the  Jesuits.  **  See  also  vol.  xiv,  pp. 
73  ff.  and  79  S. 

^  [J.  G.  Faber]  Stoff  fur  denkiinfiigen  Verfasser  keiner  pfalz-ztvei- 
briickischen  Kirchengesch,  ii.  24,  53,  60-63. 


476  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

among  us  willing  and  glad  to  help  them  ;  are  not  most 
of  our  people,  who  by  reason  of  their  faith  ought  to  have 
more  courage  than  the  Papists,  full  of  fear  and  terror  of 
death  ? — most  of  them  actually  leave  their  nearest  blood 
relations,  father,  mother,  child,  alone  and  comfortless  in 
sickness  and  death/  ^ 

Concerning  this  strange  phenomenon,  unknown 
among  the  Catholics  in  the  past,  George  Wizel  had 
already  remarked  :  '  Is  it  not  the  greatest  shame  that 
those  who,  as  follov/ers  of  the  Antichrist  (to  use  their 
language)  did  not  fear  the  plague  at  all,  or  at  any 
rate  very  little,  now  as  Christians  show  such  an  over- 
whelming dread  of  death  ?  Scarcely  anyone  visits 
the  sick  any  more,  nobody  dares  go  near  those  who  are 
stricken  with  the  plague.  Nobody  will  even  look  at  them 
from  a  distance,  and  everybody  is  seized  with  paralysing 
fear.  What  has  become  of  that  faith,  so  often  vaunted 
of  nowadays,  which  can  do  all  things,  where  is  our 
love  for  our  neighbour  ?  Tell  me,  pray,  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  if  there  has  ever  been  less  kindness,  less  love  among 
Christians  than  nowadays  ?  '  i  Luther  himself  is  the 
best  voucher  for  these  facts.  When  in  1539  an  infectious 
disease  broke  out  in  Wittenberg,  he  wrote  to  Wenceslaus 
Link  :  '  One  after  another  they  are  all  fleeing  away, 
and  one  cannot  get  either  a  bleeder  or  an  attendant. 
I  think  the  devil  must  have  possessed  the  people  ;  they 
are  all  so  disgracefully  timid  and  frightened  that 
brother  forsakes  brother,  and  sons  their  parents ' : 
he  was  pleased  to  see  in  all  this  a  judgment  of  God 
'  for  contempt  of  the  Evangel  and  for  devouring  greed.' 
In  a  letter  to  the  preacher,  Conrad  Cordatus,  he  men- 
tions the  same  facts,  but  seeks  a  different  explanation 

^   Von  WercJcen  christlicher  Barmherzigkeit,  Bl.  C,         -  Bollinger,  i.  64-65. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC,   477 

for  them.  '  Here  too  great  mercilessness  towards 
relations  has  been  shown,  which  has  caused  me  un- 
speakable grief,  and  has  tried  me  almost  more  than 
was  good  for  me.  It  is  quite  a  new  and  out  of  the  way 
plague  that  has  come  this  time,  for  Satan,  while  visiting 
few  with  the  disease,  is  as  it  were  striking  all  to  the 
ground  with  overwhelming  terror  and  driving  them  to 
flight ;  verily,  this  is  something  preposterous,  and  an 
entirely  new  manifestation  under  the  bright  and  mighty 
shining  of  the  Evangel.''  ^ 

The  whole  system  of  poor  rehef  was  grievously 
affected  by  the  seizure  and  the  dissipation  of  Church 
goods  and  of  innumerable  charitable  bequests  intended 
not  only  for  parochial  and  church  use  but  also  for 
hospitals,  schools  and  poor-houses. 

Luther  had  already  in  1523  expressed  the  fear 
that  '  the  Church  goods  would  come  to  be  scrambled 
for,  and  that  each  one  would  grab  what  he  liked,  as 
had  happened  in  Bohemia.'  ^  The  year  before  Thomas 
Murner  had  predicted  concerning  the  plunder  of  Church 
goods  : 

For  when  the  goods  they  all  have  taken. 
And  a  mighty  heap  have  maken, 
The  poor  will  get  as  fair  a  lot 
As  poor  men  in  Bohemia  got. 
There  too  the  people  thought  to  reap 
An  equal  portion  of  the  heap  ; 
But  lo  !  the  rich  man  took  the  whole 
And  left  the  poor  man  making  dole.-^ 

1  De  Wette,  v.  218-219,  225-226  ;  see  v.  134-135,  how  he  sought  to 
comfort  his  friend  Nicholas  Amsdorf  (November  25,  1538),  who  was  witness 
in  Magdeburg  of  the  same  facts.  Further  see  DoUinger's  explanations,  i. 
345-348,  and  our  remarks,  vol.  xiv.  pp.  67  ff.,  and  their  confirmation  by 
Paulus, '  Die  Vernachlassigung  der  Pestkrauken  im  16ten  Jahrhundert,'  in 
the  KathoUk,  1895,  u.  380  £f. 

-  Collected  Works,  xxii.  107,  110.      ^  See  our  remarks,  vol.  xi.  p.  341  f. 


478  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN    PEOPLE 

Later  on  Luther  said  that  everybody  '  wanted  to 
grow  fat  on  the  plunder  and  robbery  of  Church  goods/  ^ 
'  The  devil/  he  wrote,  '  is  trying  his  hand  with  all 
classes,  to  make  them  deal  dishonestly  with  the  Church 
goods  and  the  common  funds.  Great  lords  keep  house 
with  the  Church  goods  clearly  intended  for  better 
purposes.  What  the  ancestors  gave  and  bequeathed 
abundantly  for  the  poor,  they  want  to  keep  for  them- 
selves and  spend  as  they  hke.'  '  The  same  with  burghers 
and  peasants  and  that  which  they  ought  to  give  to  their 
pastors  :  one  sees  how  unfaithfully  they  act.  Hence 
it  follows,  as  the  prophet  Malachi  threatened,  that 
God's  wrath  is  so  manifest,  that  everybody,  the  great 
lords  as  well  as  the  burghers  and  peasants,  is  reduced 
to  beggary  through  these  said  goods.  This  could  well 
be  borne,  were  it  not  for  the  concomitant  evil  that 
schools  and  churches  fall  away  and  the  poor  people  are 
sadly  neglected.  This  is  the  work  of  the  devil  incarnate, 
who  sees  how  it  will  all  end.'  In  every  principahty,  every 
town,  every  village,  Luther  said,  '  there  was  need  for 
people  who  would  deal  honestly  with  the  Church  goods, 
who  would  have  regard  not  to  their  own  wants  and 
avarice,  but  to  the  necessities  of  those  to  whom  the 
goods  by  right  belonged,'  namely,  the  ministers  of 
the  Church,  the  poor,  and  indigent  boys  with  capacity 
for  study.  '  The  great  misfortune  is  that  we  have 
no  people  of  this  sort,  honest,  Godfearing,  and  capable, 
to  entrust  with  this  management.' " 

The  treatment  of  the  Church  ministers,  the  pastors 
and  preachers  grieved  Luther  most  deeply.     '  No  one 

'  **  In  1530  Luther  complained  that :  '  Every  peasant,  who  just  knew 
how  to  count  five,  grabbed  to  himself  fields,  meadows,  and  forests  from  the 
cloisters,' — Collected  Works,  xlvii.  229. 

-  Collected  Works,  iii.  270-271. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   479 

gives  anytliing   to   these   men/  he  said,  'and  what's 
more,  the  Httle  they  have  is  taken  out  of  their  mouths  by 
the  scandalous,  ungrateful  world,  the  princes,  nobles, 
burghers  and  peasants,   so  that  they  and  their  poor 
waives   and   children   are   obliged   to   suffer   want   and 
misery,  and  they  leave  destitute  widows  and  orphans 
behind  them/  ^     '  We  see  everywhere  how  the  ofhcial 
people,    the   tax-gatherers,   the   judges,    the   burghers, 
the  peasants,  and  their  workpeople  treat  these  servants 
of   God ;     they   hold   them   cheaper   and   lower   than 
cowherds  and   swineherds/  ~     '  So  too  do  the  nobles 
proceed   and   apj^ropriate   for   themselves   the   church 
benefices.     We  handed  over  to  them  the  great  abbey 
and  Church  goods  only  in  order  that  they  might  provide 
for  the  pastorates,  but  they  do  not  do  this.'  ^     *  The 
nobles   exact  the   most  menial   secular  services   from 
their   pastors,    they   turn   them   into   calef actors   and 
stove-heaters,  messengers  and  letter-carriers,  they  rob 
them  of  the  tithes  and  incomes    to  which  they  look 
for  sustenance  of  their  families,  and  all  the  time  these 
nobles  are  good  evangelicals  \  '      '  It  is  a  matter  of 
daily    experience,'    he    says    in    another   place,    '  that 
nobody,    neither   burghers,   peasants   or   nobles,   gives 
gladly  nowadays  a  farthing  to  the  Evangel    and  the 
preachers,  yea  verily,   they  all  of  them  much  prefer 
to  rob  the  poor  churches  of  all  that  was  given  them 
of  old/     In  the  villages  the  pastors  were  actually  obliged 
to  tend  the  cows  and  pigs  like  the  peasants.     '  The 
pastors  and  preachers  are  not  only  despised,  they  are 
also  badly  treated.'  * 

1  CoUected  Works,  xiii.  208.  2  Collected  Works,  ui.  47,  48. 

'^  Collected  Works,  Ixii.  293-294. 

-*  CoUected  Works,  vi.  182,  325  ;   cf.  214. 


480  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Luther  stands  by  no  means  alone  with  his 
complaints. 

'  Never  before/  wrote  Melanchthon  in  1528,  '  has 
the  attitude  of  the  world  been  so  unfriendly  and  odious 
as  to-day.  Some  folk,  who  pretend  to  be  strongly 
evangehcal,  take  possession  of  the  goods  which  were 
given  for  parsonages,  pulpits,  schools  and  churches, 
without  which  we  should  at  last  become  pagans.  The 
common  people  refuse  their  pastors  their  dues,  and 
those  indeed  chiefly  who  boast  most  of  being  evangehcal.^ 

'  The  ungrateful  world,'  wrote  John  Winistede, 
'  behaves  as  a  rule  in  such  a  way  to  the  pious,  faithful 
preachers,  that  while  they  are  serving  and  working, 
they  have  scarcely  anything  to  eat.  But  when  they 
become  infirm  and  ill,  and  die,  their  poor  wives  and 
children  must  go  about  asking  for  bread,  and  are  in 
fact  reduced  to  beggary.' 

*  The  first  poor  Lazarus,'  preached  Nicholas  Sel- 
nekker  in  1580,  '  is  the  churches  which  ought  to  be  so 
helped  and  looked  after  that  poor  pastors  and  preachers 
may  properly  fulfil  their  office  and  have  sufficient  main- 
tenance. For  we  see,  alas  !  and  experience  in  many 
places  that  many  poor  pastors  with  their  great  and 
arduous  work  have  difficulty  in  feeding  themselves  and 
their  families.'  ^ 

*  It  is  a  dire  extremity,'  said  the  preacher,  Hartmann 
Braun,  '  when  preachers  are  fed  with  dogs'  crusts,  and 

^  Unterricht  Phil.  Melanchthon  ivider  die  Lere  der  Wiederteuffer  aus 
dem  Lutein  verteutschet  durch  Justus  Jonas.  Wittenberg,  1528,  D.  3^. 
**  Luther's  friend,  Paul  Eber,  complains  that  the  ministers  of  the  Church 
are  denuded  and  left  to  starve,  and  prophesies  that  futm-e  times  will  show 
how  Uttle  blessing  spoUation  brought  those  who  '  warmed  and  fed  them- 
selves on  Church  goods.' — Sixt,  26. 

-  Kurtze  Anzeigung,  Bl.  H".  ^  Selnekker,  Drei  Predigten,  E.  iii. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  481 

their  children  have  only  a  scrap  of  bread  to  break,  so 
long  as  the  fathers  are  alive.'  ^ 

Even  if  some  of  the  preachers  were  liberally  re- 
munerated- their  number  was  small  in  the  extreme. 
Even  in  Nuremberg  the  incumbent  and  the  chaplain  of 
St.  Sebald  and  St.  Laurence  complained  to  the  council 
that  they  had  suffered,  and  still  were  suffering,  great 
scarcity  in  their  daily  food,  so  that  at  times  they  had  to 
endure  bodily  weakness  and  sickness,  and  could  not  get 
necessary  help."  ^  The  theologian,  John  Knipstro,  said 
that  as  preacher  at  Stralsund  he  would  have  been 
obhged  to  beg  from  door  to  door  if  his  wife  had  not 
earned  something  by  embroidery.  The  Superintendent, 
John  Frederus,  in  1547,  presented  to  the  Stralsund 
Council  a  pamphlet  '  Von  dem  rechten  Gebrauch  und 
Missbrauch  geistlicher  Giiter,'  in  which  he  begged 
urgently  '  that  at  least  necessary  provision  should  be 
made  for  preachers  starving  with  their  wives  and 
children : '  ^  the  Church  and  the  poor  were  being  robbed.^ 

It  was  indeed  '  a  great  and  atrocious  sin,'  said 
several  professors  of  the  Rostock  University  in  a  petition 
to  the  Dukes  of  Mecklenburg,  '  that  numbers  of  lords, 

'  Braun,  Zehn  christliche  Predigten,  116. 

-  See  above  p.  457,  what  the  Abbot  of  St.  Michael's  in  Liineburg  wrote. 
For  the  way  in  which  Bugenhagen  let  himself  be  bribed,  see  Paulsen, 
186,  n.  1. 

^  Waldau,  Vermischte  Beitrdge,  iv.  445-448. 

•*  Kosegarten,  i.  177,  195. 

^  As  regards  individual  cases  he  said  :  the  preacher  Andrew  Winter  has 
a  yearly  stipend  of  30  gulden  ;  on  this  sum  he  could  not  keep  his  house 
decently.  The  preacher  Alexander  Grote  had  only  23  gulden  a  year, 
out  of  which  he  had  to  pay  10  gulden  for  house  rent,  so  that  he  had 
only  13  left  for  other  expenses.  When  a  preacher  faithfully  fulfilled 
his  office  he  was  blamed,  abused  and  criticised,  every  mouthful  he  ate  was 
counted  up,  and  scarce  a  handful  of  respect  was  bestowed  on  him. — 
John  Frederus,  i.  33-34. 

VOL.  XV.  I  I 


482  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

in  former  times,  had  taken  possession  of  the  charitable 
foundations,  whereby  the  churches  all  over  the  country, 
and  especially  in  the  villages,  had  been  reduced  to  a 
lamentable  condition/  i  In  order  simply  to  keep  alive, 
the  preacher  at  Gnoien  in  Mecklenburg,  for  instance, 
was  obhged  in  addition  to  his  spiritual  office  to  fill  the 
post  of  chef  de  cuisine  and  tax-collector  to  a  prince.^  A 
Wesenberg  Church  inspectoral  protocol  of  1568  com- 
plained that  the  Church  revenues  which  the  squires  had 
not  taken  possession  of  were  drunk  away  in  beer  by  the 
peasants.^ 

In  Pomerania-Stettin,  in  1540,  Duke  Barnim  XI. 
found  '  from  daily  experience  that  the  property  in  lands, 
capital,  tithes  and  other  usufructs,  which  in  the  past 
had  belonged  to  the  parish  churches,  had  been  diverted 
by  the  patrons  or  founders  to  other  purposes,  or  stolen 
by  other  persons ;  that  capital  loans  and  interest  on 
loans  were  kept  back  by  the  debtors  in  spite  of  all  calls 
and  summonses :  a  '  sudden  collapse '  of  Church  adminis- 
tration was  threatening."  * 

'  It  has  alas,  come  about,"  said  the  Elector  Joachim  II. 
of  Brandenburg  in  1558,  '  that  each  one  would  gladly 
have  a  piece  of  the  garment  of  Jesus,  and  many  people 
do  all  diligence,  under  whatever  pretext  they  can,  to  get 
hold  of  and  enrich  themselves  with  the  Church  posses- 
sions." '^  '  In  opposition  to  the  divine  law  prescribed 
to  all  alike,"  says  a  decree  of  the  Elector  John  George  in 
1573,  *  each  one  tried  to  get  possession  for  himself  of 
the  Church  goods  and  revenues  which  our  dear  parents 

'  Krabbe,  Universitdt,  i.  567,  note.     -  Pranck,  ix.  181.     ^  Boll,  i.  206. 

*  Dahnert,  ii.  575.  Concerning  the  dissipation  of  Church  goods  in 
Earth  see  Baltische  Studien,  i.  196.  **  See  also  Spahn,  Verfassungs-  und 
Wirlschaftsgeschichte  des  Hertogtums  Pommern,  p.  111. 

'"  Mylius,  i.=^  268. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  483 

and  forefathers,  out  of  Christian  piety  gave  for  the 
benefit  of  churches  and  schools ;  people  presume, 
(sometimes  with  violence)  to  take  from  the  parsonages 
their  farms,  fields,  meadows,  and  woods,  their  tithes, 
rents  and  dues ;  the  village  pastors  especially  are 
deprived  of  all  that  wherewith  they  should  sustain  their 
poor  wives  and  children,  and  they  dare  not  for  very 
fear  complain  ;  sometimes  indeed  they  are  unable  to  do 
so  ;  a  special  attorney-general  should  be  appointed  to 
proceed  against  the  criminals/  i 

In  the  villages  and  the  small  towns  things  were  at 
the  worst.  In  1555  for  instance,  Erasmus  Sarcerius 
reported,  from  his  own  personal  experience,  in  the 
Mansfeld  district  amongst  others  :  '  The  great  lords 
endeavour  to  appropriate  the  feudal  rights  and  feudal 
possessions  of  the  clergy  and  allow  their  officials  and 
justices  to  take  forcible  action.  The  parsonages  are 
going  to  ruin  and  the  farm  buildings  belonging  to  them 
stand  empty.  The  administration  of  Church  property 
is  just  as  bad.  The  revenues  of  the  Churches  are 
frequently  not  paid,  nor  does  anybody  call  them  in. 
Church  capital  is  spent  in  making  roads  and  bridges  and 
giving  banquets,  and  it  is  lent  from  hand  to  hand  without 
hypothecary  security.  The  nobles  in  particular  are 
responsible  for  the  unpaid  Church  tithes  and  revenues, 
and  as  to  voluntary  donations  to  churches  and  bene- 
volent foundations,  they  are  quite  out  of  fashion. 
Nobles  and  burghers  treat  the  endowments  of  their 
forbears  as  if  they  were  their  own  property,  just  as  if  they 
had  not  been  given  for  the  honour  and  glory  of  God. 

1  Mylius,  i^.  299,  335,  337.  Concerning  the  confiscation  and  dissipation 
of  the  Church  goods  in  the  Brandenburg  district  see  our  remarks,  vol.  vi. 
57  ff. 

I  I  2 


484  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

Distant  parishes  are  often  amalgamated  so  tliat  it  is 
not  possible  for  one  central  authority  to  manage  them. 
For  how  can  old  pastors  preach  on  Sundays  in  three  or 
even  four  churches  ?  The  pastors  meanwhile  are  as 
poor  as  mice.  Bread  and  water  is  their  sole  diet ;  and 
many  of  them  indeed  are  obliged  to  buy  the  water  they 
drink.'  ^ 

'  Where  formerly/  wrote  the  Lutheran,  Anton  Prae- 
torius  in  1602,  '  there  were  two  or  three  preachers, 
now  there  is  scarcely  one.  Our  forefathers  built  abbeys, 
cloisters,  churches  and  hermitages,  and  endowed  them 
richly  with  yearly  rents  and  revenues,  so  that  there 
might  be  no  lack  of  Church  services  and  Church  ministers/ 
These  churches  have  been  confiscated,  and  their  revenues 
have  been  spent,  but  not  for  legitimate  purposes.  '  As 
King  Belshazzar  at  his  lordly  banquet  feasted  with  his 
mighty  captains  and  his  wives  out  of  the  plundered  gold 
vessels  of  the  temple,  and  drank  himself  drunk,  so  also 
are  the  great  ones  of  the  present  day  doing.  In  order 
that  they  may  have  grand  houses  and  servants,  Christ 
must  be  deprived  of  what  is  His  own.'  ^ 

Ceaselessly,  from  all  Protestant  lands  and  towns 
there  went  forth  complaints  concerning  the  plunder  of 
churches  and  of  the  poor,  and  countless  voices  testified 
to  the  already  palpable  results  of  this  robbery  of  God. 

'  Of  old,'  said  Deacon  Eckhard  Liincker  in  Marburg, 
in  1554,  in  a  funeral  sermon, '  the  ministers  of  churches 
and  the  poor  people  were  fed  and  maintained  by  the 

^  Zeitschr.  des  Harzvereins,  xx.  522-523. 

"  Pratorius,  1G9-170.  '  I  know  several  pastors  of  whom  the  one  has 
5,  the  other  6,  the  third  8,  the  fourth  10,  12  or  even  more  villages  (besides 
the  fields  and  meadows,  from  which  he  has  to  feed  himself),  to  look  after  : 
some  of  these  places  he  seldom  visits,  others  never,  and  the  inhabitants  also 
cannot  get  to  him. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  485 

tithes,  but  in  our  own  days  these  sources  of  income 
are  strangely  dispersed,  distributed  here  and  there  and 
anywhere  except  among  the  ministers  of  God  and  the 
poor  whose  property  they  are/  ^ 

'  When  the  change  in  rehgion  took  place,'  wrote 
Wolfgang  Kaufmann,  deacon  at  Mansfeld  in  1565,  every- 
body made  a  grab  at  the  Church  goods ;  they  seized 
all  the  endowments  in  the  shape  of  fields,  meadows, 
woods,  vineyards  and  houses,  which  had  been  intended 
for  churches,  schools  and  hospitals,  divided  them 
amongst  each  other  and  sold  them,  giving  the  clergy 
in  return  but  meagre  and  uncertain  pensions  :  they 
took  away  a  certainty  and  left  only  an  uncertainty  in 
its  place.' 

In  the  Palatinate,  the  Lutheran  Church  inspectors 
appointed  by  the  Elector  Otto  Henry,  in  a  memorandum 
addressed  to  him  on  November  8,  1556,  pointed  out  as 
regards  the  Church  goods  that :  '  Many  persons  both 
of  high  and  low  degree  had  sinned  grievously  before  God 
and  aroused  His  fierce  anger  against  them,  in  that  they 
had  gotten  into  their  own  hands  the  possessions  which 
had  been  given,  once  for  all,  to  God  and  to  His  Church, 
and  that  they  left  poor  servants  of  the  Church  to  suffer 
hunger  and  need,  wherefrom  it  resulted  not  only  that 
the  services  of  the  Church  were  despised,  but  also  from 
want  of  ministers,  altogether  given  up/  '  Experience,' 
they  went  on,  '  aheady,  alas  !  showed,  with  grievous 
injury  and  disgrace  to  the  German  nation,  how  httle 
such  plundered  Church  property  had  benefited  those 
who  had  stolen  it,  whether  the  robbers  were  of  higher 
or  lower  status  :  not  only  had  they  not  grown  richer 
through  their  robberies,  but  they  had  grown  poorer,  and 

'  Dollinger,  ii.  207  note.  -  Dollinger,  ii.  285. 


486  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

were  obliged  sometimes  to  mortgage  and  encumber  their 
lands.'  The  Elector's  Catholic  ancestors  had  acted 
better.  '  They  had  been  rich  and  powerful  electors 
and  rulers/  said  the  Lutheran  inspectors,  '  rich  in  lands 
and  in  people,  although  they  had  not  taken  to  themselves 
the  Church  goods,  but  on  the  contrary  had  administered 
them  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church,  and  had  richly 
endowed  the  churches  from  their  own  means.'  i 

'  Formerly,'  said  Andrew  Musculus  in  a  sermon  in 
1555, '  princes  and  lords  were  so  rich  that  without  taking 
Church  property  and  without  oppressing  their  subjects 
with  taxes,  they  were  able  to  build  such  great  buildings 
— cloisters,  abbeys,  hospitals — as  we  now  see  standing, 
in  addition  to  which  they  waged  great  wars,  and  they  still 
had  large  funds  left  over.  Nowadays  princes  and  lords 
take  back  again  what  their  grandfathers  gave  to  the 
Church,  oppress  their  subjects,  and  still  have  nothing. 
In  those  times  one  man  alone  was  able  to  erect  a  town,  a 
church,  or  other  large  edifices,  such  as  we  now  admire 
and  wonder  at,  but  which  a  whole  country  now  is  unable 
to  produce.'  Formerly  monks  and  clergy,  in  great 
numbers,  were  richly  provided  for,  and  yet  the  burghers 
and  peasants  had  plenty  left  over  and  remained  rich 
people.  '  Nowadays  the  nobles  take  the  farms  and 
meadows  away  from  the  churches,  the  peasants  give 
nothing,  the  burghers  hold  the  benefices  and  the  founda- 
tions— and  yet  nobody  has  anything,  and  all  are  beggars 
compared  to  our  forefathers.'  - 

It  was  not,  however,  only  the  churches  and  their 
ministers  that  were  robbed  by  the  confiscation  and 
dissipation    of    the    Church    goods,   but    also,    as    all 

^  Schmidt,  Anteil  der  Strassburger,  50-51. 

-  In  the  '  Hosenteufel '  in  Scheible,  Schaltjahr,  ii.  404-405. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  487 

Protestant  lands  and  towns  unceasingly  vociferated,  *  the 
poor  and  the  sick  and  all  sorts  of  indigent  people  who 
no  longer  benefited  by  the  charitable  endowments  and 
gifts  of  the  past.  Hence  the  wrath  and  vengeance  of 
God  must  inevitably  follow  this  robbery  of  God. 

*  All  Germany/  wrote  Nicholas  Medler,  superin- 
tendent at  Brunswick  in  1546,  '  stands  in  jeopardy  on 
account  of  this  robbery.  For  God  will  surely  punish 
this  wickedness  of  men  by  destruction  and  devastation 
greater  than  has  ever  been  heard  of.' 

In  the  same  town  the  superintendent,  Joachim  Morlin, 
inveighed  against  the  '  JuHan  (the  Apostate)  devil '  of 
the  evangelical  Church-robbers  in  the  words  :  '  Go  to, 
go  to,  be  you  who  you  may  who  have  grabbed  unto 
yourselves  the  Church  goods,  little  or  much,  secretly  or 
openly ;  you  have  laid  up  for  yourselves  a  dire  judgment, 
you  have  hung  a  heavy  burden  on  your  souls  and  con- 
sciences, for  which  you  will  have  to  answer  at  the 
judgment  day  of  God.'  All  the  pious  foundations 
of  our  forefathers  were  being  wrenched  away,  under 
the  clear  light  of  the  Evangel,  in  churches  and  in 
schools  God's  possessions  were  being  torn  out  of  His 
hands,'  &c.  In  short :  usury,  pubhc  theft  and  other 
great  sins  are  heinous  transgressions,  but  they  do  not 
injure  as  much,  by  a  long  way,  as  this  abominable  vice 
of  Church-robbery.'  '  Because  the  sin  is  too  monstrous, 
God  must  and  will  soon  intervene  with  grimmest  wrath, 
and  tighten  your  emptied  money-girdles  round  your 
waist  until  you  are  crushed  to  the  ground.  '  Be  your 
blood  over  vour  neck  !  '  ^ 

'  I  have  seen,'  wrote  the  preacher  Lampadius  at 
Halberstadt    in    1559,    '  how    in    some    principahties, 

^  Hortleder,  Von  Rechtmdssigkeit,  v.  1382-1383. 


488  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

counties  and  towns,  the  clmrclies,  schools  and  poor 
funds  have  been,  and  still  are,  tampered  with,  given 
away,  drunk  up,  eaten  up,  misused  in  all  sorts  of  ways/ 
All  sorts  of  trickery  and  blasphemy  is  carried  on  with 
these  Church  goods.  But  those  who  deal  thus  criminally 
with  the  churches,  the  schools  and  the  poor,  they  have 
fire  in  their  own  houses,  as  the  prophet  Micali  said, 
and  are  burnt  up  by  it/ 

'  At  the  courts  of  great  princes  also,"  said  the  Pro- 
testant jurist  Melchior  KJriiger,  syndicus  of  the  town 
of  Brunswick,  all  these  goods  are  a  fire-brand  in  their 
coffers  and  treasuries,  and  bring  one  calamity  after 
another  on  land  and  people,  so  that  with  all  their 
scraping  and  grabbing  they  are  no  richer  one  day  than 
another/  '  It  would  indeed  be  a  pity,'  he  adds,  *  if 
they  did  grow  more  prosperous/ 

Erasmus  Alberus  said  :  '  They  take  away  the  goods 
of  the  churches  and  the  poor,  and  leave  the  needy  to 
suffer  want ;  they  take  the  bread  out  of  their  mouths, 
fleece  them  to  the  bone,  in  a  way  unheard  of  before; 
and  they  will  have  to  answer  in  hell  for  the  blood  of  the 
poor/ ^ 

With  equal  fearlessness  Nicholas  Selnekker  spoke 
of  the  '  blood-suckers  and  church-despoilers '  who, 
caring  nothing  for  churches,  schools  and  poor  people, 
rob  and  plunder  and  parade  about  with  the  riches  and 
booty  which  they  have  gotten  to  themselves  by  violence 
or  cunning  :  what  they  gave  away  of  the  sjDoil  was 
a  drop  in  the  ocean  :  '  they  give  a  fly  and  take  a  camel, 
or  if  they  give  a  paltry  farthing  they  steal  a  horse/  ~ 

^  Winistede,  Kurtze  Anzeigiing,  Bl.  B  1-2,  J  2''-3.  Hortleder,  Von 
Rechtmdssigheit,  v.  1381-1384,  1400-1401.  See  our  remarks,  vol.  vi. 
625  ff.  -  DolUnger,  ii.  344. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  489 

The  preacher  Bartholomew  Ringwalt  said  in  his 
poem  on  times  and  customs  '  Die  lauter  Wahrheit ' 
(1585)  :  '  With  robber  hands  they  seize  the  great  and 
small,  which  our  pious  ancestors  founded  in  the  dour 
sweat  of  their  toil ;  they  care  neither  for  the  hospitals 
nor  the  schools  in  which  the  children  of  the  poor  can 
be  educated,  and  as  a  righteous  punishment  for  their 
sin  they  will  be  ruined  in  house,  hoards  and  land/  i 

'  One  could  easily  name  seven  or  eight  princely 
houses,  or  houses  of  counts,'  said  the  court-preacher 
Basilius  Sattler  in  1618,  '  which  have  become  quite 
extinct  in  consequence  of  their  having  turned  ecclesi- 
astical property  to  mundane  uses/  ^ 

Special  attention  is  deserved  by  a  pamphlet,  which 
the  preacher  John  Winistede  pubhshed  in  1560,  under 
the  title  '  Wider  die  Kirchendiebe  jetziger  Zeit,'  and 
in  which  he  invoked  the  judgment  of  heaven  on  all  those 
who  not  only  stole  from  the  churches  and  the  charitable 
institutions  all  that  with  which  the  rich  had  in  former 
times  endowed  them,  but  who  also  took  away  what 
poor  widows  had  rung  from  the  distaff  and  what  poor 
artisans  had  spared  from  their  scanty  meals,  often  to 
the  detriment  of  their  own  heirs  !  '  They  grab  it  all  to 
themselves  as  though  it  was  their  own,  drink  and  make 
merry  with  it,  to  the  great  injury  and  distress  of  the 
poor/ 3 

'  And  if  they  do  leave  some  portion  of  these  con- 
fiscated church  goods  to  the  convent  schools,  they  only 
do  so  (as  indeed  the  work  in  these  schools  betrays  in 
many  places),  for  a  pretence,  as  if  they  were  doing 

1  See  present  work,  vol.  xi.  363-366. 

-  Sattler,  Oesch.  des  Flirstentmns  Hannover,  i.  415. 

^  Kurtze  Anzeigung,  Bl.  E. 


490  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

something  grand.  And  therefore  nobody  is  so  much 
benefited  by  these  said  convents  and  their  goods  as  the 
tax  collector  and  administrators  who  are  aheady  rich 
enough.  But  of  the  way  in  which  the  poor  teachers 
and  boys  are  treated,  fed  and  clothed  out  of  the  funds, 
many  pious  people  are  already  too  well  aware."  ^ 

Winistede  inveighed  in  t;he  most  immoderate  and 
passionate  language  against  '  the  Romish,  satanic  syna- 
gogues and  their  daughters,  that  is  to  say  the  abbeys 
and  convents  ' ;  he  demanded  that  '  all  Church  goods 
should  be  taken  away  from  the  papists ;  ^  but  '  three- 
fold worse/  he  said,  '  than  the  papists  were  the  tyrants 
and  oppressors  of  the  present  day,  who  under  the  pretext 
of  the  Evangel  divided  the  Church  goods  amongst  them.' 
'  They  sell  these  to  have  and  to  hold  as  if  they  were  their 
own,  transfer,  mortgage,  give  them  away,  bestow  them 
as  rewards  on  their  servants  or  other  unworthy  persons, 
lend  them  to  their  court  parasites,  who  dress,  drink  and 
gorge  extravagantly  out  of  them,  and  do  httle  or  nothing 
in  return  for  them,"  and  so  forth.  '  We  ought  to  pray 
against  them  in  the  words  of  the  eighty-third  Psalm : 
"  0  my  God  make  them  like  a  wheel ;  as  the  stubble 
before  the  wind."  It  would  serve  them  right  if  the 
Turks,  the  French,  the  Spaniards,  the  Muscovites,  or 
any  other  tyrants  were  to  plunder,  rob  or  consume  them 
with  fire,  and  avenge  their  robberies  and  thefts.'  ^ 

If  we  consider  all  these  utterances  of  Protestant  con- 
temporaries (and  their  number  might  easily  be  doubled 
and  trebled),  we  shall  find  full  justification  for  what  was 
said  on  the  Cathohc  side  in  1577  in  a  '  Klage  der  Armen 
und  Diirftigen  wider  die,  so  entweder  unter  dem  herr- 
lichen  Schein  des  heiligen  Evangelii  oder  auch   unter 

'  Bl.  D.  2\  -  Bl.  C  2"  ff.,  D  2.  ^  Bl.  G  3. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OE  THE  POOR,  ETC.  491 

Titel  und  Namen,  dass  sie  es  wollen  besser  anlegen  als 
die  Geistlichen,  die  Kircliengilter  gewaltiglicli.  zu  sich 
reissen.'  ^ 

'  In  a  criminal  manner/  says  this  complaint,  '  tlie 
Clinrch  goods  were  confiscated,  the  endowments  and 
donations  which  our  ancestors  gave  for  the  benefit  of  the 
poor,  taken  away :  and  now,  too,  benevolence  and  mercy 
are  withdrawn,  just  wlien  there  are  more  poor  than  ever 
on  the  earth,  and  all  deeds  of  charity  ought  to  flourish/ 

'  Besides  which,  all  clerical  fiefs  that  have  fallen  in 
through  death  have  been  seized  and  diverted  :  they  were 
true  alms  funds  and  intended  for  that  purpose,  but  they 
have  been  either  given  or  taken  away.  The  poor  very 
rarely  get  any  profit  out  of  them,  but  the  poor  have  to 
pay  the  rent  on  them,  which  they  never  did  before/ 
Likewise  the  Church  jewels,  which  had  been  given  in 
former  days  by  rich  and  poor,  were  carried  off,  but  no 
profit  accrued  to  the  poor  from  them/ 

'  It  was  said  indeed  that  the  donations  and  suchlike 
had  been  put  into  the  common  coffer,  out  of  which  they 
would  be  distributed  among  the  poor  ;  but  nobody  knew 
what  was  done  with  the  money.  How  could  the 
founders  find  out  whether  you  always  distribute  their 
common  funds,  or  what  you  do  ?  You  cause  a  great 
deal  of  suspicion,  and  many  a  one  must  wonder  what 
becomes  of  his  donation.  Would  it  not  have  been 
more  Christian  and  upright  if  you  had  left  the  above- 
mentioned  great  alms  funds  alone  to  be  used  as  was 
originally  intended,  especially  as  many  hundreds  of 
people  were  then  gladdened  by  them  whereas  now  only 
a  few  get  anything  ?  '  Some  insignificant  rents  go 
indeed  to  the  poor-chest,  but  the  fat  ones  go  to  the 

1  Ingolstadt,  6  pp. 


492  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN    PEOPLE 

vaults  and  cellars  of  the  rich.  The  coffer  has  become 
the  coffin  of  Church  goods ;  the  poor  may  look  on,  but 
they  are  not  for  them. 

'  Jf  the  priests  are  no  longer  to  have  the  Church  lands, 
then  neither  ought  you  to  have  them,  for  they  are  less 
suitable  to  you,  and  were  intended  for  them.  Who 
then  is  to  have  them  ?  I  answer  :  Give  them  to  the 
poor.  What  sort  of  a  Christian  are  you,  to  take  what 
does  not  belong  to  you  ?  '  and  so  forth. 

'  But  granted,'  the  author  goes  on,"  that  all  the  en- 
dowments do  go  into  the  coffers.  Whose  is  the  credit  ? 
Yours  or  the  founder's  ?  It  cannot  be  vours,  for  the 
endowments  are  not  yours,  and  you  have  not  contributed 
a  penny  or  a  farthing  to  them,  but  have  only  taken  what 
others  gave.  The  ancestors  put  in  and  you  take  out. 
The  ancestors  filled  the  coffers  and  you  empty  them. 
And  if  it  is  evangehcal  to  put  money  into  your  coffers, 
none  were  so  evangelical  as  the  ancestors,  because  they 
gave  the  most.  .  .  .  Which  is  the  most  evangehcal,  to 
give  or  to  take  ?  God's  Word  shall  answer  us  from  Acts 
XX., '  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.'  Accord- 
ins  to  this  our  ancestors  were  more  blessed  than  you  are. 
You  might  indeed  have  boasted  of  your  coffers  if  you 
had  filled  them  with  your  own  cash  without  the  help  of 
other  people's  money.  But  it  is  the  same  with  these  as 
with  ahBost  everything  else,  namely,  that  whatever 
good  your  sect  can  boast  of  you  have  got  from  the 
Church,'  &c.,  &c. 

'  The  stolen  convent  and  Church  goods,'  the  same 
author  says  elsewhere,  in  1578,  '  have  turned  to  dust, 
and  the  curse  of  God  lies  on  them,  as  the  Protestant 
themselves  declare  by  hundreds.  Is  it  the  poor  per- 
chance who  have  taken  them  ?     Has  poverty  become 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  493 

less,  and  not  rather  more  crushing  and  more  common 
by  far  than  it  was  before  the  rehgious  dissensions,  in  the 
times  of  uniform  Christian  faith  ?  Ask  this  question 
wherever  you  will  in  German  lands,  you  will  get  but  one 
answer,  and  you  can  see  it  for  yourself  in  villages  and 
towns.  1 

At  any  rate  poverty  had  by  no  means  grown  hghter 
in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century,  but  much  more 
crushing  and  imiversal,  and  the  begging  and  vagrant 
system,  which  people  had  tried  to  root  out,  had  become 
one  of  the  greatest  plagues  of  the  land,  and  grew  worse 
from  year  to  year  . 

The  terrible  effects  of  the  peasant  war,  in  the  districts 
where  it  had  raged,  were  such  *  as  in  all  futurity  could 
never  be  effaced  in  the  Holy  Empire."  ^  The  war  was 
followed  by  ten  years  of  scarcity  and  dearness,  a  term 
never  equalled  in  past  times.  Sebastian  Franck  wrote 
on  the  subject  in  1531  :  '  The  great  dearness  still  goes  on 
at  the  present  day  and  prices  rise  higher  and  higher  as 
regards  all  the  necessaries  of  life.  Many  people  ascribe 
this  state  of  things  to  the  fraudulence  and  the  usmious 
forestalhng  of  those  who  buy  up  everything  that  the 
common  people  have.    Then  when  they  have  it  in  their 

1  See  our  statements,  vol.  vii.  90  &.  **  See  further  the  pamphlet  Wie 
und  wass  massen  Gott  der  Herr  zii  alien  Zeiten  gestraffet  hah  die,  so  fre- 
ventlich,  wider  recht,  fug  imd  billichkeit  Geistliche  Gilter  eingezogen, 
Kirchen  und  Kloster  herauht  imd  eniunehret  haben.  Durch  ainen 
gutherzigen  christlichen  und  catholischen  heschrihen  (Ingolstadt,  1560) 
Here  (BL  H^''),  it  is  said  :  '  It  is  a  fact  beyond  all  doubt  and  a  matter  of 
daily  experience  that  one  single  convent  which  has  remained  unattacked 
and  unimpaired  in  its  old  conditions  is  of  more  profit  and  help  to  the  poor 
tenants,  indoor-poor  and  artisans,  than  are  ten  convents  that  have  fallen 
into  the  hands  and  the  power  of  the  tyrants.'  See  Paulus,  Hoffmeister, 
327  ff. ;  the  same  author's  pamphlet  on  Usingen,  89  ff.,  and  the  article  on 
Lorichius  in  the  KatJiolik,  1894,  i.  520. 

-  See  our  remarks,  vol.  iv.  344  ff. 


494  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

grip,  the  poor  man  has  to  pay  their  arbitrary  price. 
Formerly  no  period  of  high  prices  was  of  more  than  a 
year  or  half  a  year's  duration.  In  1527  wine  rose 
quickly  from  5  fl.  a  firkin,  to  25  and  30  fl.  ;  corn  also 
rose  rapidly,  but  almost  as  quickly  fell  again.  Nowa- 
days in  this  dishonest  world  high  prices  cannot  be 
stopped,  to  such  an  extent  is  everything  overcharged  and 
gambled  with."  But  the  want  and  distress  came  from 
other  causes  also  :  '  Because  the  common  people  are 
such  spendthrifts,  and  so  extravagant,  and  always 
saddle  themselves  with  expenses  beyond  what  they  can 
earn  or  afford,  Hve  from  day  to  day  and  are  so  evangeHcal 
— please    God ! — that    they    have    nothing    left    over.' 

*  The  farmers,  who  in  such  times  of  distress  should  come 
to  the  rescue,  have  nothing  themselves,  for  in  good  years 
they  have  spent  and  wasted  their  profits  and  are  now 
indebted  to  the  ground- lords.' 

*  If  in  the  good  years  people  saved  up  the  overplus 
and  if  the  common  people  were  not  so  extravagant  in 
food,  drink,  dress  and  feasting,  all  this  misery  and 
dishonesty  might  be  overcome.' i 

Later  on  the  Smalcald  war  '  inflicted  such  injuries 
on  the  very  foremost  and  richest  towns  that  they  never  * 
recovered.'  '  Thus  Augsburg,  which  had  lost  nearly 
3,000,000  gulden  by  this  war,  never  revived  again  after 
this  time.  In  1553,  '  whereas  there  was  scarcely  any 
ready  money  among  the  people,  and  the  yearly  revenues 
hardly  sufficed  to  cover  the  great  expenses  of  each  day,' 
the  town  was  obhged  to  borrow  money  from  noble 
families  and  merchants. 

In  1569,  apart  from  the  '  numerous  other  beggars,* 

*  1700  persons  were  given  alms  in  the  loan  house,  the 

'  Chronik,  724  fif. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.  495 

next  year  the  number  of  recipients  of  charity  rose  4000. '^ 
The  council  of  Memmingen  wrote  on  November  30, 
1553,  to  George  Besserer  of  Ulm  that  the  town  had 
been  plunged  into  such  insolvency,  poverty  and  ruin, 
so  loaded  with  taxes  that  the  expenditure  was 
greater  than  the  receipts,  and  it  had  been  necessary  to  sell 
the  great  revenues  which  they  had  from  lands. ^  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Maine  motioned  in  1547  for  a  diminution 
of  its  imperial  tax  in  proportion  to  its  '  present  reduced 
means.'  Aheady  before,  when  the  town  was  still  in  a 
flourishing  condition  this  tax  had  been  '  high  and  oppres- 
sive,' now  however  it  was  no  longer  endurable  in  view 
of  the  manifold  and  great  expenses  by  which  the  town 
had  been  exhausted  and  the  heavy  debts  with  which  it 
was  burdened,  and  also  the  overwhelming  damage  it  had 
suffered  from  both  the  armies  through  incendiarism 
and  quartering  of  the  soldiers. ^ 

Greater  still  were  the  ravages  of  lands  and  towns  by 
the  '  evangehcal  war '  of  the  Margrave  Albert  of  Branden- 
burg-Culmbach,^  and  later  on  by  the  wars  in  the  Nether- 
lands, the  inroads  of  the  Dutch  and  Spaniards  laying 
everything  waste. ^  '  Owing  to  the  continuous  dis- 
turbances, conflicts,  plunderings,  raids,  bad  harvests 
and  imperial  taxes,'  wrote  the  Elector  John  Adam  of 
Mayence  on  January  3,  1603,  '  most  of  the  territory  is 
so  exhausted  that  not  only  can  the  rulers  scarcely  make 
their  way,  but  the  subjects  have  little  else  than  dry  bread 

1  V.  Stetten,  i.  405,  500,  589,  592. 

2  In  the  Frankfort  Archives,  Mittelgewolbe,  T>.  43,  Fol.  318,  No.  1. 

3  '  Instruktion  des  Rates  fiir  Ogier  v.  Melem,'  in  the  Frankfort  Archives, 
Mittelgewolbe,  J).  42,  No.  21.,  Fol.  199. 

^  See  our  statements,  vol.  vi.  449  ff. 

*  See  our  statements,  vol.  ix.  236-242 ;  and  Stieve,  Die  Politik  Bayerns, 
u.  298  flE. 


496  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

to  eat,  and  tlie  old  imperial  taxes  cannot  be  collected, 
still  less  the  new  ones,  unless  a  house-to-house  visitation 
is  instituted  and  a  general  insurrection  thus  risked/  ^ 

'  On  account  of  the  Dutch  and  other  wars,"  says  a 
pamphlet  of  1598,  '  commerce  and  business  have 
decreased,  with  the  result  that  the  revenues,  taxes  and 
other  dues  of  the  princes,  counts  and  lords  are  daily 
diminishing.  Smartness  in  dress  (which  the  foreigners 
have  introduced)  is  gaining  the  upper  hand  ;  all  neces- 
saries of  life,  which  are  brought  from  a  distance,  and 
which  cannot  be  dispensed  with,  become  dearer  every 
day.  Whereas  everyone  wishes  to,  and  indeed  must,  live 
according  to  his  station,  the  subjects  are  hard  pressed, 
and  for  the  princes,  counts  and  lords,  of  whom  there  are 
so  many  and  whose  number  daily  increases,  their  own 
country  is  too  small  and  contracted.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  nobles,  of  whom  there  are  also  such  a  large 
number,  and  who  multiply  at  such  a  rate  that  they  do 
not  know  what  they  are  to  live  upon,  and  on  account  of 
the  number  of  their  children  (although  many  of  them  are 
wealthy),  with  all  their  revenues  they  cannot  make  both 
ends  meet.  And  in  some  principalities  where  bond- 
service— a  fruitful  source  of  poverty  for  land  and  people 
as  experience  shows — is  in  vogue,  the  poor  people  are 
so  grievously  plagued  and  oppressed  that  they  can 
scarcely  find  means  to  earn  a  bit  of  bread  for  their  wives 
and  children.  The  artisans  and  journeymen  in  the 
towns,  who  are  so  numerous  and  become  daily  more  so, 
to  such  an  extent  that  they  take  the  food  out  of  each 
others'  mouths,  can  hardly  manage  to  live.'  ~ 

1  Stieve,  Die  Politih  Bayerns,  ii.  628,  n.  4.  **  In  the  year  1597  the 
Westphalian  cu-cle  complained  that  since  the  last  imperial  Diet  it  had 
lost  1,000,000  gulden.— Hiiberiin,  xxi.  267. 

'  Stieve,  Die  Politik  Bayerns,  ii.  301. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   497 

How  the  debts  even  of  towns  formerly  the  richest 
grew  and  multiphed  is  shown  for  instance  by  Nuremberg. 
Before  the  war  with  the  Margrave  Albert  of  Brandenburg- 
Culmbach  the  mmiicipal  debt  of  this  town  amounted  to 
453,000  gulden ;  in  1600,  owing  to  the  dechne  of  com- 
merce and  the  block  in  all  industries,  it  reached  the 
height  of  3,475,000  gulden  ;  in  1618,  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  it  was  up  at  4,904,000.1  The 
Hanseatic  towns  were  in  a  similar  condition  of  dechne 
and  increasing  insolvency.- 

Added  to  wars  and  tumults,  to  the  dechne  of  com- 
merce and  industry,  to  the  continually  increasing 
falsification  of  coinage,  there  were  pestilential  diseases, 
which  had  never  been  so  frequent  as  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  which  carried  off  thousands  of  victims  and 
spread  misery  and  want  all  around.*^  Not  seldom  these 
diseases  were  the  result  of  periods  of  scarcity  and  starva- 
tion, during  which  all  sorts  of  things  injurious  to  health 
were  used  as  food.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  Bavaria  in 
the  years  1570-1572,  when  there  were  bad  harvests  and 
frightful  dearness,  plagues  spread  all  over  the  country.^' 
From  similar  causes  there  developed  in  the  Liineburg 
district  in  1581,  in  the  Silesian  mountains  in  1588-1593, 
in  Hesse  in  1596  '  a  poisonous,  infectious  malady, 
unknown  before  in  these  lands,  the  so-called  raphamia, 
or  spasms,   leaving  after  it   epilepsy,    catalepsy,  and 

'  Soden,  Kriegs-  und  Sittengesch.  Nurnbergs,  i.,  ii.,  and  iii.  392  ;  cf.  i.  376. 

-  See  above  pp.  4-19. 

^  See  vol.  xiv.  63  £f.  Concerning  the  plague  in  Wittenberg  in  the 
years  1527-1530,  see  the  letters  of  contemporaries  in  Buchwald,  Zur  Wit- 
tenberger  Stadt-  und  UniversiUitsgesch,  S.  iii.  5-23,  36  ff.,  44  ff.,  82.  ff., 
109.     Again  in  the  years  1538-1539,  I.e.  pp.  139  £f. 

•*  Westenrieder,  Neue  Beitrdge,  i.  304 ;  concerning  the  universal 
dearness,  see  Gumpelzhaimer,  ii.  948,  989. 

VOL.  XV.  K  K 


498  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

insanity.!  '  How/  said  a  preacher  in  1571,  '  how 
should  people,  the  poor  especially,  escape  all  sorts 
of  contagious  diseases  in  these  constant  times  of 
dearness  and  famine  when  they  eat  God  knows 
what  unwholesome,  disgusting  food,  rotten  corn, 
the  flesh  of  dogs  and  cats,  and  suchhke  improper 
things  ?  And  even  in  better  years  what  do  the  poor  get 
to  eat  ?  Are  not  all  food  commodities  adulterated  in 
the  most  fraudulent  manner  V  '^  'To  the  question.  Why 
in  many  parts  of  Germany  there  are  lepers,  plagues  and 
plague-houses  ?  I  answer,'  wrote  the  Tyrolese  physician 
Hippolytus  Guarinoni,  '  chiefly  because  of  the  unclean 
animal  food  which  is  generally  given  to  the  poor,  because 
it  is  feared  that  the  more  important  folk  might  dis- 
cover the  fraud  and  the  miscreants  come  to  merited 
punishment/  ^ 

'  This,'  wrote  Thomas  Korarius,  preacher  at  Giengen, 
in  1572,  '  is  the  complaint  uttered  nowadays  :  Ah,  God, 
that  things  should  have  become  so  miserable  in  our 
lands.  There  is  no  longer  any  settled  peace,  any 
happiness,  blessing  or  hope  in  the  world  ;  wherever  one 
turns  one  finds  lamentation  and  woe.  If  you  go  to 
Bavaria  everything  is  dear  ;  if  you  go  to  Suabia  things 
are  still  dearer ;    if  you  seek  for  peace  you  find  war.' 

*  An  impatient  man  of  the  world  might  w^ell  say  :  I 
wish  I  had  never  been  born,  or  that  I  had  died  long  ago, 
rather  than  suffer  myself  and  see  my  wife  and  children 
suffer  such  misery  as  is  going  on  all  over  the  world.' 

*  After  a  meal  that  has  cost  two,  three  or  more  batzen 

'  Sprengel,  iii.  107-111.     See  our  remarks,  vol.  xiv.  74. 
-  Predig  iiber  Hunger-  und   Slerbejahre    von  einem  Diener  am    Wort 
(1571),  Bl.  2. 

^  Guarinoni,  747. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   499 

one  still  feels  hungry,  whereas  a  few  years  ago  one 
could  have  an  excellent  meal  for  one  batzen.  If  you 
drink  anything  nowadays  it  does  you  no  good,  for  the 
drink  is  either  adulterated,  or  else  otherwise  inferior  : 
a  few  years  ago  this  or  that  wine  was  the  very  best ; 
if  you  drank  half  a  measure,  you  had  had  enough,  as 
both  stomach  and  head  witnessed,  and  you  were  merry 
and  good-humoured  after  it,  now  however  these  same 
wines  are  the  very  worst,  or  at  any  rate  not  worth  much, 
and  yet  they're  dear  enough  with  a  vengeance.  It  is 
the  same,  too,  with  all  trade  and  industry  :  everything, 
good  or  bad,  gets  dearer  day  by  day/  ^  The,  soil  too, 
is  deteriorating  ;  the  vineyards  no  longer  produce  such 
good  wine,  the  fields  do  not  yield  as  much  hay  and 
corn,  nor  the  trees  as  much  fruit  as  a  few  years 
ago/- 

'  I  find,'  said  Polycarpus  Leiser,  in  a  speech  at  Torgau 
in  1605,  '  that  food  is  deteriorating  very  much  and 
that  everything  is  double  the  price  it  used  to  be.  Indeed 
one  can  scarcely  procure  the  necessaries  of  life.  The 
stalls  are  empty  of  cattle,  the  waters  of  fish,  the  birds 
of  the  air  are  scarce,  burghers  and  peasants  grow 
poor.     Food  fails,  pride  augments  ;   in  swilling,  sousing 

'  Fiinfundzwanzig  Predigten,  Bl.  60''-61 :  39'',  41,  '  The  people  say 
now :  "  Since  the  Evangel  came  in,  all  good  things  have  gone  out."  ' 
'  When  God  punished  men  for  their  sins  with  poverty  and  hunger , 
nobody  would  put  up  with  such  punishment  for  the  love  of  the  Gospel, 
but  there  was  only  impatience,  murmuring  and  blasphemy  against  God 
and  His  Word.'  Andrew  Lang  in  the  '  Sorge-Teufel,'  Theatr.  Diabol., 
535 ;  cf.  537. 

-  Bl.  47''.  Among  his  corehgionists  Rorarius  heard  the  following  talk  : 
'  So  long  as  we  lived  under  the  papacy,  and  did  homage  to  the  dear  saints 
with  masses,  pilgrimages  and  so  forth,  we  had  a  golden  time  and  plenty 
for  all.  Since, that  time,  however,  now  that  we  have  forsaken  the  papacy 
and  the  service  of  the  saints  and  adopted  the  new  doctrine,  everything 
has  gone  to  ruin  and  we  have  no  morsel  to  gnaw  or  to  bite.'     Bl.  76i'. 

K  K  2 


500  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and   gorging    we    do    not    neglect   the    least    tittle.'  ^ 
'  Hundreds    are    asking    for    the    reasons/    said    the 
already  mentioned  preacher  in  1571,   '  why  in  lands, 
towns  and  villages,  everything  is  palpably  deteriorating 
and  going  to  ruin  ;   one  gives  this  reason,  another  that, 
but  most  of  the  causes  are  open  as  the  day ;    there 
are   wars   and   devastation,    incendiarism,    bad   crops, 
starvation,  plagues  and  pestilence,  stoppage  of  trade 
and  industry,  insecurity  of  roadways,  miserable  justice, 
draining    of    the    subjects    by    taxation,    immoderate 
tolls,  cheating  of  all  sorts  in  the  currency,  so  that  one 
can  scarcely  any  longer  get  a  good  pfennig,  and  on  the 
top  of  all  this,  as  though  all  the  world  were  out  of  its 
senses,  there  is  splendour  and  hixury  in  dress,  in  every 
class  beyond  its  means,  and  no  less  extravagance  in 
gluttonous    eating    and    drinking,    as    if    people    were 
bound   to   throw   away  whatever  they   have  in  their' 
hands.     Tell  me,  moreover,  how  many  there  are  who 
are  wilhng  to  do  honest  work,  and  who  do  not  much 
prefer  to  go  about  begging  and  to  live  at  the  expense 
of  others  ?     Have  not  beggars  become  innumerable  as 
though    they    came    up    from    the    bowels     of    the 
earth  ?  '     '  Another  by  no  means  slight  cause  of  all 
this    poverty    and    ruin    is   the  countless  number  of 
lightly    contracted     marriages,     when     people     come 
together   and  beget  children   without  knowing  where 
they   will   get    food    for    them,    and    so   come    down 
themselves    in    body    and    soul,     and     bring     their 
children  up  to  begging  from  their  earliest  years.'     '  I 
cannot  approve  of  this  sort  of  thing  that  Luther  has 
\mtten,'  said  a  preacher  :   "A  lad  should  marry  when 
he  is  20,  a  maiden  when  she  is  15  or  18,  and  leave 

'  Landiagspredigt,  31,  41. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   501 

it  to  God  to  arrange  how  they  will  maintain  their 
children.'*'  No,  people  should  not  think  of  marry- 
ing, and  the  magistrates  should  not  allow  them  to  do 
so,  before  they  are  sure  of  being  able  at  least  to  provide 
their  families  with  the  necessaries  of  hfe,  for  else,  as 
experience  shows,  a  miserable,  degenerate  race  is 
produced.'  i 

George  Engelhart  Lohneiss,  who  examined,  closely 
into  the  causes  of  this  general  poverty,  attributed  it 
very  largely  to  the  universal  growth  of  usury  and  to 
the  '  numerous  innovations,  and  all  the  fresh  pretexts 
devised  for  multiplying  taxes,  by  which  the  people 
were  so  oppressed  and  drained  that  they  had  to  pay 
away  all  that  they  managed  to  earn  and  scrape  to- 
gether.'    *  But  that  God  should  allow  so  much  taxation 

'  Predig  uber  Hunger-  unci  Sterbejahre,  Bl.  4.  Respecting  this  injunc- 
tion of  Luther  (Collected  Works,  xx.  85  ff.),  and  the  still  more  extreme  one 
of  Eberlin  von  Giinzburg :  '  As  soon  as  a  girl  is  15,  and  a  boy  18,  they 
should  be  given  to  each  other  in  marriage,'  Oscar  Jolles  remarks,  196  : 
'  These  demands  are  obviously  not  practicable  from  the  economic  point  of 
view,  but  from  the  ethical  standpoint  also  they  seem  to  us  extremely  doubt- 
ful. To  rush  into  marriage  without  prospect  of  sufficient  maintenance  is 
not  trusting  God  but  tempting  Him.  Such  marriages  are  extremely 
immoral  actions,  and  they  deserve  legal  punishment  on  account  of  their 
danger  to  the  community.'  '  Greater  evil  to  the  world  can  scarcely  be 
caused  in  any  way  than  by  such  marriages.  Even  in  the  most  favourable 
cases  such  early  marriages  must  have  a  deteriorating  influence  on  the 
physical  and  intellectual  culture  of  posterity.'  At  p.  207,  Jolles  quotes  a 
passage  from  Pufendorff  which  is  in  judicious  contrast  to  Luther's  opinion  : 
'  Matrimonii  autem  contrahendi  occasio  non  ex  sola  aetate  aut  generandi 
aptitudine  intelligitur  ;  sed  ut  copia  quoque  sit  decentis  conditionis, 
nee  non  facultas  alendi  uxorem  et  prolem  nascituram,  ac  ut  mas  quoque 
sit  idoneus  ad  gerendum  partes  patris  famiUas.'  '  Igitur  non  modo  non  est 
necessarium,  sed  stultum  insuper  iuvenes  animum  ad  uxores  adplicare, 
qui  sibi  suisque  nihil  nisi  strenuam  esuritionem  possint  polliceri,  ac  civita- 
tem  mendicabulis  sint  impleturi,  aut  qui  ipsi  supra  pueros  parum  sapiant.' 
'  Quite  consistently  also  Pufendorff  is  not  altogether  strongly  antagonistic 
to  celibacy.' 


502  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  oppression/  he  added,  '  is  on  account  of  our  sins, 
and  we  can  see  plainly  how  the  people  in  the  towns 
and  in  the  country  are  becoming  corrupted,  and  how 
all  classes  are  changing/  Chief  among  these  sins,  and 
the  foremost  cause  of  impoverishment,  was  the  '  inordi- 
nate eating  and  drinking  that  went  on,  the  misuse  of 
God's  gifts,  which  gave  rise  to  high  prices  and  dearth 
of  all  commodities  ' ;  and  the  second  cause  was,  '  the 
great  extravagance  in  costly  clothes/  But  people  are  as 
it  were  bhnd,  so  that  they  cannot  see  the  injury  and 
ruin  they  are  causing,  and  they  will  not  allow  any  one 
to  tell  them  of  it/  ^ 

The  preacher  Rorarius  also  gave  as  a  reason  for 
the  general  poverty  the  fact  that  '  nobody  is  content 
with  his  own  position  ;  everybody  wants  to  soar  higher 
than  he  can  afford  :  the  peasant  apes  the  burgher, 
the  burgher  the  nobleman  in  this  vicious  feastiug, 
banqueting  and  display/  '  Eating  has  grown  to 
gorging,  drinking  to  carousing/  '  People  will  not 
work,  but  only  lounge  about  idly/  Hence  the  lack 
of  thrashers,  ploughmen,  day-labourers,  men-servants 
and  maid-servants,  wilhng  to  serve  an  employer  for 
suitable  wages.  '  They  would  rather  beg  than  earn 
their  bread  honourably,  and  so  the  country  is  over- 
flowing with  mendicants.'  ^ 

1  Lohneiss,  304-305.     Of.  his  words  quoted  above  at  p.  121. 

-  Fiinfunclzimnzig  Predigten,  54",  72"-73,  75",  79".  **  The  rcaUsation 
that  the  people  were  everywhere  sinking  more  and  more  into  poverty 
stirred  the  Niiremberg  patrician  Berthold  Holzschuher  to  draw  up  a 
scheme  of  socio-pohtical  reform,  which  at  the  end  of  March  1565  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  town  council  of  Hamljurg  and,  as  it  appears,  to  other  towns 
and  princes  also.  As  causes  of  this  poverty  Holzschuher  begins  by  men- 
tioning hasty,  ill-considered  mu,rriages  :  '  the  common  people  marry  quite 
thoughtlessly,  and  marry  into  poverty,  which  becomes  all  the  more  serious 
when  God  gives  to  such  poverty  numerous  cliildren  who,  with  then-  parents, 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      503 

The  generally  prevailing  idleness  of  the  people  wa,s 
designated  as  one  of  the  most  cancerous  evils  of  the  da}^ 

In  1542  the  committee  of  the  Provincial  Estates  in 
the  Duchy  of  Saxony  said  there  was  a  dearth  of  servants 
everywhere,  because  everybody  preferred  begging  to 
working,  1 

'  Numbers  of  idle  men  and  women/  says  a  police 
ordinance  of  1550,  '  live  upon  alms  and  will  not  work ; 
although  they  are  quite  able  to  earn  their  living,  they 
prefer  idleness  and  begging,  and  this  makes  it  difficult 
to  get  day-labourers  and  servants.  An  electoral  decree 
against  beggars  (1588)  said  :    Young,  healthy,  strong 

soon  take  to  the  begging  trade.'  The  next  reason  he  gives  is  extravagance, 
especially  among  the  young,  in  dress  and  banqueting,  in  every  kind  of 
vanity  and  ostentation,  the  one  vying  with  the  other,  and  all  trying  to  out- 
do each  other  in  pomp  and  splendour  in  spite  of  the  smallness  of  their 
means.  '  Hence  it  follows  that  the  children  grow  up  in  the  midst  of  debt 
and  come  to  poverty,  and  when  they  marry  they  have  nothing  to  live  on, 
and  if  God  gives  them  children  they  have  a  hard  matter  to  feed  these  little 
ones  and  bring  them  up  according  to  their  ideas  of  grandeur,  and  the 
children  are  brought  to  the  same  misery  as  their  parents  were  in,  and  owing 
to  this  poverty  they  fall  into  evil  ways,  immorality  and  all  sorts  of  wanton- 
ness,' and  so  on.  For  the  prevention  of  such  conditions  Holzschuher 
deemed  it  necessary  that  human  beings  should  have  a  helping  hand  held 
out  to  them  as  soon  as  they  came  into  the  world.  This  must  be  managed 
by  means  of  a  compulsory  regulation  for  insuring  a  marriage  portion, 
whereby  for  every  new-born  infant,  at  least  one  thaler  shall  be  paid  to  the 
State  when  the  birth  is  registered.  When  the  child  grows  to  manhood  and 
marries,  on  presentation  of  the  government  bond  received  for  his  or  her 
deposit,  a  sum  equal  to  three  times  the  deposit,  is  to  be  paid  out  as  marriage 
portion.  Should  the  parents  be  too  poor  and  the  godfather  unwilling  to 
make  the  deposit,  then  the  State  can  remit  it,  and  the  young  people  abou^ 
to  marry  may  none  the  less  claim  a  marriage  gift  equal  to  three  times  the 
missing  deposit.  Holzschulier  calls  this  remission  a  work  of  mercy — 
whence  appears  the  sociaUstic  bent  of  his  mind.  Cf.  K.  Frankenstein,  '  B. 
Holzschuher,  ein  Sozialpolitiker  des  sechzehnten  Jahrhunderts,'  in  supp. 
to  the  Allg.  Zeitung,  1891,  n.  197,  and  Ehrenberg  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  die 
gesamie  Staatswissenschaft,  xlvi.  (1890),  717-735. 
^  Falke,  Steicerbcivilligungen,  xxx.  433. 


504  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

men  and  women  give  themselves  up  to  begging  and 
teach  their  children  the  same  trade,  so  that  in  all 
towns  and  villages  the  inhabitants  are  pestered  and 
annoyed  by  these  vagrants  in  all  the  streets,  lanes 
and  roads  .  .  .  fatherless  and  motherless  children  joam 
about  in  the  towns  and  in  the  country  begging  Uke  the 
adults/  1 

'  There  is  a  dearth  of  working  people,'  said  the 
Landgrave  Louis  of  Hesse,  in  L571,  '  because  most  of 
the  people,  as  experience  shows,  are  given  up  to  idleness  ; 
many  who  are  quite  able  to  earn  their  bread,  instead 
of  working,  go  about  begging  with  their  children/ 
The  I^andgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse  complained  even 
more  strongly,  in  1601,  of  the  '  idleness  and  begging  that 
was  gaining  ground  everywhere,  in  consequence  of 
which  workmen  were  difficult  to  get/  ^ 

Conditions  of  this  sort  prevailed  almost  everywhere. ^ 
'  The  whole  world,'  said  Luther  in  the  gospel  sermons 
of  the  Church  postilles,  '  is  full  of  useless,  cheating, 
wicked  scoundrels,  day-labourers,  lazy  artisans,  farm- 
servants,  maid-servants,  and  the  idle,  vagabond  beggar- 
folk  who  prowl  about  everywhere  unpunished  with  their 
tricks  and  their  impudence,  cheating,  humbugging,  and 
stealing  and  defrauding  the  genuine  poor  of  their  rightful 
dues/  *  As  a  warning  against  all  this  sort  of  riffraff,by 
whom  '  he  himself  had  been  humbugged  this  very  year 
more  than  he  liked  to  say,'  Luther  prepared  and 
prefaced,  in   the  years   1528  and   1529,  new  editions 

'  hand-AU,  Materielle  Zusidnde,3A4i.  Codex  Aug usteus,\.  1398, 1403  ff., 
1429  ff. 

-  Landau,  345  ff. 

:i  **  Qj^  ^i^g  Rhine  the  pest  of  vagrancy  was  at  its  worst  in  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century.     Cf.  Quetsch,  265  note. 

^  Collected  Works,  xiv.  391. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   505 

of  the  '  Liber  vagatorum '  ^  under  the  title  '  Von 
der  falschen  Bettler  Biiberei/  He  insisted  emphati- 
cally that,  '  Every  town  and  village  ought  to  be 
acquainted  with  its  own  poor,  as  put  down  in  the 
register,  so  that  they  might  know  how  to  help  them, 
but  that  alien  and  foreign  beggars  were  not  to  be 
tolerated  unless  they  could  produce  credentials.  For 
there  is  far  too  much  villainy  carried  on  amongst  them 
as  this  little  book  will  show.  And  if  every  town  were 
to  take  cognisance  of  its  own  poor  such  villainy  would 
soon  be  put  a  stop  to."  -  Nevertheless  so  little  was  this 
villainy  stopped  that  in  1560  Cyriacus  Spangenberg 
pubhshed  a  fresh  edition  of  the  'Booklet,'  because, 
said  he,  '  share  begging  and  trickery  has  so  gained  the 
upper  hand  that  scarcely  anybody  is  safe  from  imposture. 
Those  therefore  who  wished  to  be  forewarned  should 
read  this  book  carefully  ;  those  who  will  not  be  advised 
cannot  be  helped."  ^  Twenty  years  later  the  Superin- 
tendent Nicholas  Selnekker  complained  that  the  land 
was  full  of  beggars  '  who  practised  all  sorts  of  evil  and 
rascality,  thieving,  murder,  magic  and  so  forth."  The 
magistrates  he  said  ought  to  keep  a  watchful  eye  on 
them ;  but  who  could  possibly  get  rid  of  them  all.'  *  In 
order,  however,  to  help  as  much  as  possible  he  had  the 
'  Biichlein  von  den  Bettlern/  with  Luther's  preface 
published  anew  at  Leipzig,  and  said  in  his  own  preface 
that  '  there  were  plenty  of  funds  for  churches,  schools, 
hospitals  and  the  maintenance  of  the  poor,  if  only  the 
devil  incarnate  did  not  blind  our  eyes  and  take  such 
strong  possession  of  our  avaricious  hearts,  that  we 
sought  to  make  our  own  profit  and  riches  out  of  the 

1  See  above  p.  428.  -  Collected  Works,  Ixiii.  269-271. 

^  Ave-Lallemant,  i.  152,  154-155.      ^  Selnekker,  Drei  Predigten,  Bl.  H. 


506  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

alms  boxes.  '  There  are  too  many  land  loafers  and 
itinerant  scholars  going  about  with  rank  imposture 
and  tricker}^,  people  who  ought  not  to  be  tolerated  in 
a  well-regulated  community.  They  like  to  live  and 
enjoy  themselves  on  other  people's  toil,  to  beg  and  idle 
about ;  they  work  at  nothing  regularly,  and  only  annoy 
and  injure  other  people.'  '  It  is  also  very  harmful  and 
wrong  that  some  of  those  who  ought  to  forbid  and  stop 
these  practices,  themselves  take  bribes  from  Jews, 
gipsies,  jugglers,  treacle- water  vendors  and  other  lewd 
fellows — beakers,  money,  and  money's  worth — and 
leave  them  free  to  carry  on  their  "  Truphas  "  as  they 
call  it,  their  villainy,  imposture,  lying  and  cheating 
without  shame  in  Christian  places,  in  towns  and  villages, 
and  justify  their  proceedings  on  the  score  of  privileges, 
passes  and  old  traditional  usage.  Fie,  for  shame,  that 
they  should  ever  dare  mention  such  things  !  There 
cannot  be  a  spark  of  Christian  feeling  in  these  people 
who  are  ready  to  harbour  Turks,  Jews,  Muscovites,  the 
worst  of  villains,  yea  the  very  devil  himself,  if  only 
they  will  give  them  money.*  i 

A  full  description  of  the  entire  system  of  mendi- 
cancy was  given  by  Ambrosius  Pape,  Pastor  at  Klein- 
Ammensleben,  in  his '  Bettel-  und  Garte-  Teufel  of  1586.'® 
This  nuisance,  he  wrote,  became  more  and  more  terrible 
and  unbearable  because  no  one  had  the  courage  to 
oppose  it  resolutely,  and  because  the  magistrates  were 
negligent  in  inflicting  punishment  and  took  no  pains 
to  put  down  the  offenders.  '  Where  any  and  every 
scoundrel  is  free  to  carry  on  his  iniquity,  things  get 

'  Selnekkor,  Preface,  Bl.  N  3-4. 

-  Magdeburg,  1586-1587  ;  cf.  Goedeke,  Grundriss,  ii.  482  (**  See  also 
Osborn,  Tetifelsliteratur,  159  ff.),  printed  in  the  Theatrum  Diabolorum,  ii. 

158"-192. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   507 

worse  and  worse  and  the  godless  riffraf!  increases  from 
day  to  day,  as  has  happened  here  and  always  does 
happen.  Whereas  no  steps  were  taken  to  check  this 
evil  at  its  beginning,  and  it  has  spread  hke  a  cancer  and 
almost  covered  the  whole  land  and  choked  all  the  good 
seed,  the  matter  must  now  be  taken  up  in  good  earnest 
and  no  trouble  spared  to  help  in  its  suppression."  It 
was  for  this  reason  that  he  had  written  his  book  as  a 
'  faithful  and  bold  attempt '  by  which  he  might  perhaps 
succeed  in  raising  up  a  deliverer  for  the  nation  oppressed 
by  this  countless  horde  of  beggars,  &c.,  &c.^ 

Like  all  his  contemporaries  Pape,  too,  gave  as  reasons 
for  the  ever-increasing  plague  of  beggars,  the  general 
distaste  for  work  '  nobody  any  longer  caring  to  live  by 
toil,  but  all  wishing  to  have  good  times,  and  further  the 
prevalence  of  drunkenness,  the  way  in  which  fathers  of 
households  neglected  their  homes,  and  the  depravity 
of  the  populace,  whose  lewdness,  insolence,  dishonesty 
and  rascality  were  so  great  in  towns  and  villages  that 
it  was  impossible  to  write  enough  about  it  all.  Many 
kingdoms  had  been  impoverished  and  reduced  to  beggary 
through  the  special  visitation  of  God  on  account  of  their 
oppression  of  the  poor  and  the  robbery  of  ecclesiastical 
goods — churches,  schools,  hospitals  and  poor  houses, 
which  was  carried  on  by  high  and  low.^ 

First  among  the  beggars  who  infest  the  country 
Pape  puts  the  able-bodied  tramps  and  odd-jobbers,  '  the 
terror  and  torture  of  the  whole  land.*  Next  come  the 
idle  young  fellows  who  loathe  work  and,  in  company  of 
lewd  women  and  rogues,  rob,  steal  and  murder  wherever 
there  is  a  chance.  Akin  to  these  are  the  wandering 
musicians  who  ask  for  no  alms,  but  sell  their   songs 

'  Fol.  159  ff.,  18r\  -  Fol.  163^'  flf. 


508  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

and  tunes  and  waste  the  proceeds  in  rioting  ;  they  are 
mixed  with  every  mischief  going  on.  Then  we  have 
queer  treshers,  ditchers  and  such  who  can  find  no  work 
to  do,  no  master  to  serve.  Also  clerks  and  all  sorts  of 
artisans  who  tell  you  how  they  have  travelled  through 
many  lands,  and  lost  all  they  possessed  through  sickness, 
or  robbers.  Further,  vagrant  scholars,  by  word  or 
writing,  apply  for  a  viaticum,  a  trifle  to  help  them  on 
the  road  ;  preachers  '  and  other  common  folk  '  pretend 
to  have  suffered  persecution  and  exile  for  the  true 
religion  whereas  in  truth  they  have  been  removed  for 
their  evil  deeds  ;  numerous  old  and  worn-out  people, 
past  work,  drag  their  wretchedness  from  village  to 
village  and  are  present  at  every  feast.  Among  these 
beggars  there  are  many  downright  scoundrels  ever 
up  to  mischief.  Young  women  are  often  in  their 
company.  They  like  to  travel  together,  but  when  they 
approach  a  township  they  separate  in  order  to  multiply 
their  begging  power.  All  these  are  '  the  honest  poor.' 
Besides  them  there  are  the  impostors  who  '  have  a 
house  full  of  children  with  nothing  to  eat ' ;  pretended 
orphans  '  with  no  home  and  no  one  to  look  after  them  ; ' 
the  maimed,  the  lame,  the  bhnd  and  sufferers  from  the 
most  loathsome  and  most  painful  diseases  who  encumber 
churches,  squares  and  roads,  preying  alike  on  pubhc 
and  private  charity.  Many  have  learned  some  dodge 
to  simulate  illness  :  that  dodge  is  to  them  more  famihar 
than  the  Paternoster  and  more  pleasing  than  a  new  coat.' 

Pape  then  recounts  all  the  unfortunate  experiences 
he  himself  had  had  with  beggars,  especially  in  the  open 
country,  where  he  scarcely  felt  sure  of  life  and  property 
owing  to  the  swarms  of  strong-bodied  mendicants. 

In  short '  the  villainy  of  all  the  many  different  kinds 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   509 

of  beggars  was  greater  than  anything  ever  known  on 
earth  before.'  ^ 

In  the  large  towns  also  where  most  energetic  efforts 
had  been  made  to  do  away  with  the  nuisance,  mendi- 
cancy had  increased  in  an  appalling  manner.  In 
Liibeck,  for  instance,  in  1531,  the  council  had  prohibited 
begging  of  every  description,  but  already  in  1553  it  was 
necessary  to  issue  a  decree  to  the  effect  that  the  mendi- 
cancy officer  was  to  go  on  Sunday  morning  with  the 
bailiffs  to  all  the  churches  and  drive  the  beggars  into  the 
service,  and  also  forbid  them  to  expose  their  wounds 
shamelessly  to  view.-  In  Hamburg  the  council  com- 
plained in  1604  that  begging  had  so  gained  the  upper 
hand  in  the  town  that  the  burghers  and  other  inhabi- 
tants were  not  only  pestered  and  annoyed  by  it  from 
morning  to  night  and  also  all  through  the  night,  but  that 
no  respectable  man  who  had  anything  to  say  to  some- 
one else  in  the  house  or  out  of  it,  could  get  through  his 
talk  without  being  interrupted  by  a  beggar.'  ^  When 
Nicholas  Selnekker  in  1580  published  anew,  at  Leipzig, 
his  '  Biichlein  von  den  Bettlern,'  he  said  in  the  preface  : 
'  Here;  with  us,  Nuremberg  has  the  repute  of  not  allow- 
ing any  land  loafers,  beggars,  gipsies,  Jews,  jugglers, 
quack  doctors  and  such  hke  impostors  to  come  to  the 
pubhc  fairs  and  markets  in  the  town  or  district.'  ^  In 
Nuremberg  itself,  however,  one  heard  a  different  tale. 
In  spite  of  all  the  ordinances  frequently  used  against  the 
'  hanging  about  and  begging  of  natives  and  foreigners  ' 
in  the  streets  and  in  front  of  houses,  daily  experience, ' 
said  the  town  council  on  July  28,  1588,  '  shows  that 
hitherto  such  orders  have  met  with  scant  obedience.' 

"'  Fol.  166  ff.  -'  Ave-Lallemant,  i.  42  note. 

'•>  Staphorst,  Part  I.  of  Vol.  iv.  636.     Kiehn,  i.  260 ;  cf.  363. 
•*  Selnekker,  Preface,  n.  3. 


510  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

'  The  burghers  here  are  still  beyond  measure  annoyed 
and  tormented  with  vagrants,  beggars  and  riotous 
persons  and  with  the  howUng  and  screaming  of  httle 
boys  and  girls,  which  goes  on  day  and  night  in  the 
streets  and  in  front  of  the  houses,  especially  in  winter- 
time/ It  was  therefore  necessary,  the  council  said, 
to  issue  still  sterner  enactments  and  to  multiply  the 
number  of  mendicant  officers,  and  of  protective  measures. 
In  addition  to  penal  enactments  against  the  mendi- 
cants themselves,  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  were 
forbidden  on  pain  of  severe  punishment  to  hinder  the 
mendicancy  officers  in  the  fulfilment  of  their  duty,  '  to 
abuse  them,  assault  them,  or  in  any  way  check  them  by 
words  or  deeds/  Housing,  harbouring  and  smugghng 
in  useless,  mischievous  beggars,  rioters,  vagrants,  and 
other  disreputable  riffraff  was  again  prohibited  on  pain 
of  heavy  fines.  ^ 

The  proceedings  of  the  beggars  and  gipsies  in  Upper 
Suabia,  Alsatia  and  North  Switzerland  were  vividlv 
depicted  by  Nicodemus  Frischhn  in  a  comedy  of  the 
year  1597  ;  other  poets  too  described  the  pleasures  of 
beggar  hfe.~  '  The  beggars  and  vagrants  of  all  sorts ' 
wrote  Aegidius  Albertinus  in  1612,  '  prefer  loafing  about 
in  idleness  to  working  and  earning  their  bread  honom'- 
ably ' :  '  they  get  on  so  remarkably  well  in  this  way  that 
they  call  begging  the  golden  trade,  and  they  pursue  it 
in  a  masterly  manner  for  they  tramp  and  stroll  and  loaf 
through  all  lands,  up  and  down,  hither  and  thither, 
attend  all  the  yearly  markets  and  church  fairs,  and 
haunt  the  courts  of  all  the  princes  and  lords,  and  all 

'  Waldau,  Vermischte  Beitrdge,  iv,  498-505. 

-  See  our  statements,  vol.  xii.  159  ff.  **  Concerning  mendicancy  in 
Bern,  especially  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  see  Geiser, 
Gesch.  des  Armenwesens  im  Kanton  Bern  (Bern,  1894). 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   511 

the  abbeys  and  cloisters/  i     We  quote  the  following 
hnes  from  a  poem  on  the  beggars  at  the  Frankfort  Fair  : 

Always  the  first  these  folk  arrive, 

Old  ones,  young  ones,  big  ones,  small  ones. 

Hither  they  walli,  or  ride,  or  drive. 

Lots  of  children  hanging  round  them. 

From  twenty,  thhty  miles,  I  ween 

These  beggars  coming  here  I  've  seen. 

If  any  of  them  should  not  come. 

It 's  thought  there  's  something  wrong  at  home, 

'  Either  they  are  ruined  quite, 

Or  else  somebody  has  died.' 

Many  thousands  they  all  number. 

The  best  quarters  they  encumber, 

In  the  most  distinguished  streets 

All  these  vagabonds  one  meets. 

They  call  this  their  electoral  town, 

Here  sits  their  council,  here  they  crown 

Their  monarchs,  and  here  too  in  state 

Weddings  galore  they  celebrate. 

One  who  weds  outside  the  clan 

Becomes  a  scorned,  despised  man. 

Wide  extended  is  this  race. 

Gamblers  in  it  have  a  place. 

Wandering  scholars,  and  .  .  . 

Pedlars,  hawkers  .  .  .  - 

What  an  amount  of  poverty  there  was  and  what 
enormous  crowds  of  wandering  beggars  is  shown  by 
quantities  of  reports  of  undoubted  veracity.  In  1529, 
for  instance,  at  the  time  of  the  great  dearness,  there 
appeared  in  Strasburg  1600  alien  poor  who  were  lodged 
and  fed  in  one  of  the  suppressed  convents  until  the 
following  spring  ;  in  1530,  23,545  aliens  passing  through 
the  town  were  received  into  the  refuge  for  the  destitute. 
In  1566  on  a  certain  day  about  midsummer,  900  strangers 
driven  there  by  hunger,  were  counted.  The  council  let 
them   stay  one  night  in  the  refuge  for  the   destitute, 

1  Der  Welt  Tummel-  und  Schauplatz  (1612),  p.  384  ff. 
"  M.  Mangold,  Marckschiff,  in  Miiteilungen  des  Frankfurter  Alteriums- 
vereins,  vi.  347. 


512  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

gave  them  food  and  drink,  and  the  next  day  they  were 
marshalled  out  of  the  city  gate,  and  the  whole  enormous 
gang  trudged  off  to  go  and  beg  elsewhere.  From  St. 
John's  day,  1585-1586  the  number  of  vagrants  received 
into  the  said  refuge  was  41,058,  in  the  following  year 
there  were,  actually  58,561 ;  as  to  indigenous  paupers, 
the  council  during  these  last  two  years,  out  of  a  popula- 
tion of  30,000,  reported  no  less  than  142,203  cases  of 
recipients  of  charity,  i  At  Basle  there  were  sometimes 
in  one  year  40,000  ahens  to  be  dealt  with.-  Similarly 
in  Wiirtemberg,  '  there  was  an  overwhehuing  concom-se 
not  only  of  poor  women  and  children  from  neighbouring 
towns  and  hamlets,  but  also  of  indigenous  and  ahen 
disbanded  soliders,  land  loafers,  students,  musicians, 
writers,  schoolmasters,  lackeys  and  so  forth.'  ^ 

For  coimtless  nmnbers  of  people  without  homes, 
without  fixed  callings  and  dwelling-places,  begging 
became  a  regular  profession ;  vagabondism,  gaining 
continually  in  strength,  was  one  of  the  plainest  tokens  of 
the  weakness  and  disintegration  of  national  and  social 
life,  of  the  corruption  not  only  of  socio-pohtical  but  also 
of  rehgious  conditions.  '  Whereas,'  said  a  preacher  in 
1571,  '  the  highest  authority  in  the  Empire,  and  the 
provincial  and  municipal  authorities  have  lost  nearly  all 

1  Mone,  Zeitschr.  fur  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  i.151,  152,  155.  Rohrich, 
Gesch.  der  Reformation  in  Elsass,  i.  268  ff.  Jahrbucher  fur  Nationalokonomie 
und  Statistik,  new  series,  viii.  416.  In  Offenburg  also  there  were  '  shoals 
of  poor  i^eople  who  were  a  great  annoyance  to  the  burghers  every  Sunday,' 
Even  to  the  outlying  town  of  Wolfach  wandering  beggars  of  the  highest  and 
lowest  classes  came  in  crowds — nobles,  clergy,  schoolmasters,  students, 
burghers  and  peasants,  sick,  wounded  and  otherwise  infirm.  Zeitschr. 
fur  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xix.  161-163.  At  Wolfach,  for  instance,  in 
1600  there  were  among  the  recipients  of  charity  four  poor  itinerant  school- 
masters, in  1604,  '  one  schoolmaster  from  Chur,  with  his  wife  and  children  ; 
one  poor  schoolmaster  from  JIuntzingen.  ' 

-  Ochs,  vi.  305.  ^  Reyscher,  xii.  616 ;  cf.  635-636. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      513 

their  power,  and  princes  and  people,  from  top  to  bottom, 
are  ruined,  all  the  many  mandates  and  penal  edicts 
against  beggars,  vagrants,  land  loafers,  disbanded 
soldiers,  gipsies,  swindlers  of  every  description,  thieves, 
robbers,  murderers,  are  of  no  avail,  as  we  can  see  for 
ourselves  every  day.'  ^ 

Criminal  riffraff  of  every  kind  and  description, 
downright  swindlers  who  systematically  carried  on  fraud, 
pilfering,  robbery  and  murder,  were  the  outcome  of  the 
system  of  beggary  and  vagabondage,  and  increased  in 
equal  proportions. 

Contemporary  reports  on  the  proceedings  of  these 
people  border  on  the  incredible. 

'  The  lying  and  cheating  of  which  all  these  many 
kinds  of  beggars  are  guilty  might  be  bearable  if  it  stopped 
there,'  said  Ambrosius  Pape  in  his  '  Bettel-  und  Garte- 
TeufeV  '  but  it  does  not  stop  there  :  they  rob  and 
strangle  people  and  beat  them  in  such  an  abominable 
way,  that  one  scarcely  can  go  out  of  one's  house 
in  safety,  or  sleep  therein  in  quiet  ease.  If  a  wedding 
takes  place  in  any  village  they  come  in  swarms,  so 
that  there  are  often  more  of  them  than  of  invited 
guests,  and  one  wonders  whence  all  this  rabble  has 
sprung,  and  who  brought  them  the  news  that  here 
or  there  something  was  going  on.  Young  and  old, 
women  and  children,  they  fill  nearly  the  whole  court- 
yard, and  seating  themselves  in  row  after  row  take 
possession  of  four  or  five  tables,  and  almost  as  much 
food  is  carried  round  to  them  as  to  the  guests  who 
c  were  bidden.  Hence  the  prospect  of  a  wedding  in 
a  village  is  enough  to  give  one  "  the  blues."  I  have 
often  said  that  if  I  were  to  court  ten  times,  even  the 

'  Predig  iiber  Hunger-  und  SterbejaJire,  BI.  3. 
VOL.  XV.  L  L 


514  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

very  ricliest  of  brides,  and  to  have  wedding  festivities 
in  a  village,  I  should  verily  hesitate,  for  the  villainy 
that  goes  on  is  too  atrocious  and  there  is  no  fear  what- 
ever among  these  scoundrels.  In  wintertime  they 
force  their  way  into-  private  rooms,  and  sit  down  at 
the  table  or  round  the  stove,  so  that  one  can  neither 
go  in  nor  out/  '  After  cunningly  watching  their 
opportunities  in  houses  they  come  at  night,  break  in, 
steal  and  carry  off  what  they  like,  and  if  they  have  a 
grudge  against  the  householder,  and  are  bloodthirstily 
inclined,  or  perhaps  afraid  they  will  not  be  able  to 
complete  their  robbery  should  the  household  awaken, 
they  will  murder  all  whom  they  come  across,  as  is 
known  from  experience,  witness  the  case  of  the  pastor 
at  Ebendorf/  Pape  describes  many  frightful  murders 
which  took  place  in  his  immediate  neighbourhood,  all 
within  fourteen  days  :  *  so  horrible  that  to  hear  about 
them  might  well  make  one's  hair  stand  on  end  and 
one's  skin  creep.'  ^ 

Corresponding  descriptions  from  all  parts  of  Germany 
show  that  the  whole  country,  especially  since  the  second 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  a  prey  to  the  scourge 
of  swindling  beggars,  with  their  brutal,  inhuman  rob- 
beries, murders,  incendiarism  and  so  forth.  '  Would 
that  God,'  wrote  Hans  Sachs  in  1559,  '  might  send  us  a 
German  Hercules  to  rid  our  land  of  robbery,  murder 
and  torments  ;  for  nobody  is  safe  any  longer.'  ~ 

In  the  same  year  the  Franconian  Imperial  Estates 

1  Bl.  172,  180^  184  ff.     See  above  p.  506. 

-  Hans  Sachs,  published  by  Keller,  viii.  508.  Wlien  Lucas  Rem  of 
Augsburg  went  with  his  wife  from  Wildbad  to  Ulm  in  1535,  being  in  great 
fear  of  highway  robberies,  he  took  with  him  a  large  escort  of  horsemen 
and  footmen  ;  the  journey  lasted  from  the  12th  to  the  16th  of  September. 
GreifE,  Rems  Tagebuch,  28. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      515 

joined  together  in  a  league  simply  and  solely  '  on  account 
of  the  injurious  and  dangerous  plunderings,  swindlings, 
robberies,  murders,  &c.,  which  were  of  such  frequent 
occurrence  in  the  Holy  Empire.  They  had,  however, 
as  little  success  with  their  league  as  the  separate  Estates 
had  with  numerous  ordinances  against  all  the  mendicant 
crew.  Nor  could  there  be  any  result,  since  almost  the  only 
means  resorted  to  was  banishment,  and  so  one  magistrate 
drove  the  riffraff  to  another  magistrate,  and  it  was  kept 
in  a  continued  state  of  circulation  and  driven  to  the  per- 
petration of  the  most  manifold  crimes  and  iniquities.'  ^ 
*  The  worst  of  all  these  depredators  were  the  dis- 
charged Landsknechts,  gartende,  i.e.,  roving  soldiers, 
who  went  about  in  large  gangs,  quartered  themselves 
on  the  peasants  and  even  in  the  markets  and  small 
open  towns,  and  committed  the  foulest  excesses. 
In  their  train  followed  often  all  sorts  of  vagrant  riffraff, 
beggars,  male  and  female,  gipsies,  jugglers  and  the  like.' 
They  were  not  satisfied  with  plunder,  robbery  and 
murder,  but  they  also  set  fire  to  the  ripe  cornfields.- 

^  Landau,  Materielle  Zustdnde,  338  £f. 

'  The  historian  Aventin  said  with  truth  that  the  chief  cause  of  all  this 
evil  was  that  no  one  looked  after  the  discharged  soldiers.  '  It  is  a  great 
curse  from  God,'  he  wrote  in  1529,  '  that  those  who  have  to  risk  hfe  and 
body  for  the  pubUo  good,  for  land  and  people,  are  obliged  to  go  about 
begging,  have  no  assured  income,  no  Uberty  like  other  citizens  who  sit 
at  home  eating  and  drinking  to  excess,  skinning  and  scraping  the  poor. 
When  soldiers  are  wanted  anyone  is  accepted  regardless  of  character, 
and  golden  mountains  are  held  out  before  him  ;  when  they  are  no  longer 
wanted  they  are  treated  like  useless  dogs,  like  murderers  and  thieves. 
It  is  a  great  shame  on  us  Germans  that  men  who  risk  their  lives  for  King 
and  country  receive  no  pay,  and  a  greater  shame  it  is  that  we  rid  the 
land  of  them  by  hanging  and  disgrace.  Their  choice  lies  between  thieving 
and  begging.' — Aventin,  i.  216,  247-248.  **  Concerning  soldier  life  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  see  G.  Liebe,  Der  Soldat  in  der  deutschen  Ver- 
gangenheit  (Steinhausen,  Monographie  ztir  deutschen  Kulticrgeschichte,  i.), 
Leipzig,  1899. 

L  L   2 


516  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

In  Bavaria,  for  instance,  these  disbanded  soldiers 
formed  raiding  bands,^  against  whom  the  communities 
and  the  provincial  tribunals  were  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
warfare.  In  1565  they  burned  down  four  large  villages 
in  the  district  of  Pfaffenhofen  and  Schrobenhausen.^ 

*  The  accursed  race '  became  so  strong  that  Duke 
Albrecht  V.  was  repeatedly  obliged  to  order  a  general 
crusade  of  the  whole  country  against  the  malefactors. 

*  On  the  fifteenth  day  of  every  month,'  said  a  ducal 
*  edict  of  May  1,  1568,  all  '  guardians,  judges  and  poHce 

officials  shall  meet,  and  scour  the  country.'  All  who 
were  caught,  it  was  said  in  later  edicts,  were  to  be 
sent  to  the  galleys  or  hanged  with  a  rope.  A  ducal  order 
of  June  1579  strongly  reprimanded  the  punishable 
remissness  of  the  princely  chief  officials  who,  '  regardless 
of  the  multitude  of  mandates  issued,  allowed  all  the 
disbanded  soldiers,  roysterers,  beggars  and  land  loafers 
to  pursue  unchecked  their  plunder  and  ojDpression  of 
the  poor  subjects.'  ^  When  in  1593  the  Provincial 
Estates  described  the  distressed  condition  of  the  peasant 
class,  Duke  Maximihan  I.  answered  :  *  All  that  could 
be  done  for  the  peasants  was  to  be  done,  but  above 
all,  means  must  be  devised  for  ridding  them  of  this 
plague  of  disbanded  Landsknechts,  beggars,  &c.'  ^ 
Five  years  later,  however,  as  the  Duke  complained,  it 
was  still  notorious  what  the  poor  peasants,  especially  in 
the  hamlets  and  the  waste  lands,  suffered  through  night 
surprises  and  plunderings^  and  how  they  were  in  danger 
of  hfe  and  body  from  the  criminal  hordes  of  '  gartende 
knechten,'  roysterers,  beggars,  gipsies  and  so  forth,  a 
scourge  which  proceeded  chiefly  from  the  neglect  and 

'  See  Schmeller,  ii.  1179.  -  Westenrieder,  Beitrage,  viii.  296. 

=*  Westenrieder,  viii.  298  ff.      ^  Wolf,  Oesch.  Maximilians,  i.  114-115. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   517 

remissness  of  many  of  the  ruling  authorities  and  their 
officials.! 

The  same  objectionable  state  of  things  prevailed  in 
Baden.  In  1576  the  Margrave  Philip  II.  warned  his 
subjects  against  the  *  incendiaries '  who  had  again 
banded  together  in  the  country.  The  following  year 
three  fresh  edicts  were  issued  against  a  dangerous  *  gang 
of  incendiaries  who  were  to  be  known  by  red  buttons 
on  their  hats."  In  the  years  1581  and  1582  things 
had  come  to  such  a  pass  '  owing  to  several  bands  of 
robbers,  nmrderers  and  incendiaries  who  were  secretly 
aided  and  abetted  that  scarcely  anybody  was  safe  in 
his  own  house.'  '  It  also  happens  daily/  said  the 
Margrave  in  1582,  *  that  men,  forgetful  of  all  honour, 
run  away  and  leave  their  wives  and  children  behind 
them ;  for  their  punishment  their  wives  and  children 
shall  straightway  be  sent  after  them.' " 

Added  to  all  the  other  varieties  of  thieving,  murder- 
ing riffraff,  in  Baden,  as  elsewhere,  the  gipsies  w^ere  a 
fruitful  source  of  terror  to  the  peasants.  According 
to  a  report  of  1591  it  was  '  not  an  unfrequent  occurrence 
for  gangs  of  these  people,  mounted  or  on  foot,  to  fall  on 
villages,  and  by  plunder  or  fire  do  them  great  damage, 
or  else  to  attack  the  peasants  in  the  open  fields,  throw 
them  violently  down  and  rob  them.'  ^ 

What  were  the  conditions  in  Wiirtemberg  as  regards 
public  safety  is  seen  from  an  ordinance  of  Duke  Chris- 
topher of  1556,  which  says  :    *  Day  by  day  we  find  the 

^  Ernewerte  Mandata  und  Landtgehotl  Herzog  Maximilians  I.  vom  13 
Man  1398,  fol.  xxvii. 

^  See  the  evidence  for  this  of  1570-1584,  in  Roth  v.  Schreckenstein 
in  the  Zeitschr.  filr  die  Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,  xxx.  132,  149,  155-156^ 
402-412. 

^  J.  Bader,  Gesch.  der  Sladi  Freiburg,  ii.  88. 


518  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

incendiary  scoundrels  going  on  with  their  murderous 
work ;  not  only  are  houses  and  barns  burnt  down 
here  and  there,  but  whole  hamlets,  villages  and  castles 
are  devoured  by  fire,  and  that  so  quickly  and  unexpec- 
tedly that  the  old  people  often  cannot  escape  and  are 
cruelly  burnt  to  death  with  the  young  children/  ^ 

In  Hesse  in  1590  it  was  complained  that  '  all  sorts 
of   alien   beggars,    foreign  and  other  unemployed  riff- 
raff pour  into  the  town,  amongst  them  also  freebooters 
from  the   Netherlands.     These  people    commit  arson, 
lie  in  wait  for  travellers,  assault  and  rob  pedestrians 
in    the    roads,    often    even   in  the    neighbourhood    of 
populous  towns/     In  1600  an  edict  was  issued  by  the 
Count    of   Schaumburg   against  roving   GardenknecJits, 
land  loafers,  foreign  beggars,  planet  readers  and  other 
impostors,  who  greatly  oppressed  the  people  in  many 
ways,  but   especially    at    weddings    and    christenings, 
where  they  frequently  gathered  and  compelled  people 
to  give  them  charity.     Even  at  funerals  the  vagabonds 
actually  clamoured  for  alms.     The  house  of  mourning 
would  be  beset  by  a  crowd  of  beggars  and  children, 
all  asking  alms  of  the  mourners,  and  if  their  requests 
were  not  favourably  received,  they  would  proceed  to 
threats  and  defiance.     They  came  in  shoals  into  towns 
and    villages,    forced    themselves    into    houses    under 
the   semblance   of  beggars,   made  the  streets  unsafe, 
practised   robbery,    murder    and    incendiarism.     In    a 
written   document   of   the   Elector   of   Mayence   they 
were  described   as   '  indigenous   and   Itahan  beggars," 
in  a  Nassau  ordinance  as  'unemployed  and  gardende- 
knechte,  as  pedlars,   gipsies,   incendiaries,   lewd   rabble 
and   so    forth."     '  These    tramps    and    gardirer,'    says 

'  Reyscher,  xii.  295. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   519 

another  public  document,  '  go  about  chiefly  with 
falsely  trumped-up  tales  of  damage  they  have  suffered 
through  fire  or  floods,  or  some  other  disaster  that 
has  befallen  them,  such  as  imprisonment,  unjust 
banishment,  discharge  from  service,  religious  persecu- 
tion and  what  not ;  close  investigation,  however,  has 
always  shown  that  such  tales  are  rank  imposture/  ^ 

In  Saxony,  even  under  the  rule  of  the  Elector 
Augustus,  '  one  of  the  sternest  princes  in  the  Holy 
Empire,^  highway  robberies  and  incendiarism  increased 
continually  notwithstanding  that  sharper  and  sharper 
penal  edicts  constantly  went  forth.  Ordinances  of 
this  sort  were  issued  in  the  years  1555,  1559,  1561, 
1566,  1567,  1569,  1570,  1571,  1577,  1579,  1581,  1583, 
and  they  spoke  of  '  men  and  women  being  knocked 
down,  robbed  and  murdered  ' ;  thev  said  that  '  the 
fires  and  devastation  caused  by  these  scoundrels  were 
becoming  so  frequent  that  irreparable  damage  was 
being  done,'  that  '  on  account  of  the  disbanded  Lands- 
knechts  and  other  disreputable  thieves,  people  had  to 
protect  their  houses  against  robbery  on  Sundays 
and  feast-days ' ;  that  '  these  unemployed  loafers 
often  go  about  in  gangs  of  twenty  and  thirty  and  take 
people's  possessions  from  them  by  force ' ;  '  when 
fires  and  robberies  occur,'  it  was  said,  '  the  alarm  bell 
ought  to  sound  and  call  out  all  the  men  in  towns  and 
villages  to  help  and  defence,  and  pursuit  of  the  criminals.' 
Again,  '  under  the  name  of  gipsies  a  lewd,  desperate  mob, 
composed  of  Germans  and  people  of  other  nationahties, 
perambulate  the  country,  settle  themselves  among  the 
subjects,  rob  and  pilfer  and  commit  all  sorts  of  abomin- 
able  sacrilege,    sorcery   and   immorality ;     things   are 

^  Landau,  Materielh  Zustdnde,  339-340. 


520  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

growing  worse  and  worse/  ^  Under  tlie  administrator 
Frederick  William  of  Weimar  (Maximilian  was  a  minor) 
and  the  Electors  Christian  I.  and  Christian  II.,  and 
John  George,  almost  every  year  produced  similar 
descriptions  and  equally  stringent,  but  also  equally 
futile,  penal  decrees.  For  instance,  under  Christian  I. 
in  the  years  1588  and  1590  it  was  said  :  *  Foreign 
land  loafers  and  market  beggars  besiege  the  streets ; 
gipsies  armed  with  muskets,  commit  street  robberies  and 
do  violence  to  the  poor  people  in  the  country.'  ^  Near 
Leipzig  the  beggar  mobs  fought  regular  pitched  battles 
in  the  open  field.  In  1616,  says  a  report,  '  through 
the  crime  of  incendiarism  numbers  of  towns,  hamlets  and 
villages  were  almost  entirely  ruined."  ^ 

'  In  the  Harz  in  1586  incendiarism  raged  to  such  a 
frightful  extent  that  nobody  felt  safe  in  the  land,  ruins 
and  debris  were  everywhere  to  be  seen,  and  in  numbers 
of  villages  no  corn  could  be  had.'  In  July  1590,  all  the 
forests  in  the  countries  of  Wernigerode,  Regenstein, 
and  Hohenstein,  and  in  the  territory  of  the  Bishop  of 
Halberstadt  were  on  fire  for  several  weeks.  The  towns 
of  Heringen  and  Suhl  were  completely  rased  to  the 
ground  by  incendiarism.  ^  The  town  of  Tangermiinde 
was  set  on  fire  in  September  1617  by  six  incendiaries  : 
*  486  houses  with  53  barns  filled  with  corn  were  reduced 
to  ashes.'  ^ 

For  the  Oberlausitz  in  1590  the  order  was  issued 
that  '  the  garthnedite,  thieves  and  beggars  who  collected 
in  mobs,  were  to  be  followed  from  town  to  town,  from 

^  Codex  Augusteus,  i.  54,  155,  158,  690,  1403-1415. 
-  For  the  numerous    mandates    see  Codex  Augusteus,  i.   1431-1438, 
1439-1440,  1443-1446,  1449-1452,  1485-1488. 

•■*  Tholuck,  Das  kirchliche  Leben,  220.     Heydenreich,  275. 

^  Winnigstddts  Chron.  Halb.  in  Abel,  422.  ^  Pohlmami,  301-302. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.   521 

village  to  village,  from  hamlet  to  hamlet ;  in  their 
pursuit  the  towns  were  to  help  the  country  and  the 
country  the  towns,  to  the  best  of  their  abilities/  But 
'  in  spite  of  all  mandates/  said  the  Emperor  Rudolf  in 
1605,  '  murder,  adultery,  bloodshed,  turbulence,  vio- 
lence, in  short,  crimes  of  all  sorts,  increase  more  and 
more  among  the  unmannerly  nobles  and  other  lewd 
people  in  the  country  and  in  the  towns,  and  the 
authorities  do  not  do  their  duty  in  the  matter  of 
prompt  pursuit  and  punishment  of  offending  persons, 
but  either  help  them  to  escape  or  else  overlook  their 
misdemeanours/  ^ 

The  same  condition  prevailed  in  Mecklenburg. 
In  1540,  according  to  Sastrowe,  '  street-robbery  had 
become  quite  common  in  Mecklenburg  because  it  was 
not  severely  punished,  and  distinguished  members 
of  the  nobility  were  among  the  miscreants/  -  In 
1563  it  was  represented  to  the  Dukes  John  Albert  and 
Ulrich  that  '  assaults  and  street-robberies  were  gaining 
great  head  in  the  principality,  and  the  robbers  were 
not  severely  punished/  ^  On  the  complaints  of  the 
knights  concerning  the  gartendeJcnecJite,  the  vagrants 
and  beggars,  it  was  recognised  by  the  '  fatherly ' 
government  that  these  scoundrelly  people  were  especially 
burdensome  to  the  peasants,  and  therefore  '  the  poor 
peasants  '  must  bear  the  costs  of  getting  rid  of  them ; 
'  every  farm  was  to  contribute  towards  providing 
carts  and  horses  by  means  of  which  this  riffraff  might 
be  sent  out  of  the  country ;  for  it  was  certain  that 
the  poor  peasants  were  more  drained  by  these  vagabond 

*  Codex  Augusteus,  ii.  Part  iii.  117-120,  133-136. 

"  Sastrowe,  i.  196. 

^  Franck,  Altes  und  neues  Mecklenburg,  Buch  iii.  116-117. 


522  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

loafers  and  beggars  than  by  the  Turkish  taxes,  that 
these  beggars  cost  the  peasants  more  in  one  day  than 
one  cart  and  horses  in  the  year/  ^  Incendiarism,  too, 
raged  in  the  land.  A  ducal  circular  dispatch  of  1577 
made  all  the  different  magistracies  acquainted  with 
the  signs  of  the  incendiaries  and  thieves  who  were 
specially  sent  '  by  foreign  potentates  and  secret 
enemies  in  order  to  lay  towns  and  villages  waste  by 
fire ' ;  the  signs  are  all  the  same  as  those  used  by 
such  people  in  other  German  lands  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  in  Saxony,  Thuringia,  Brandenburg, 
Pomerania — tokens  in  the  form  of  a  bag-pipe,  a  spring- 
ing hon,  a  St.  Andrew's  cross,  an  arrow-point  with  a 
ring,  and  so  forth.^ 

In  Pomerania-Stettin  the  Dukes  Barnim  and  Philip 
announced  in  1549  that  they  had  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  and  the  Dukes 
of  Mecklenburg  concerning  measures  for  the  seizure  and 
punishment  of  the  hordes  of  street-robbers,  incendiaries, 
fighters,  and  terrorisers,  who  multiphed  daily.'  ^  In  a 
ducal  injunction  of  1560  it  said  :  '  There  are  numbers  of 
insubordinate,  insolent  people  who,  in  defiance  of  the 
peace  declared,  by  the  Holy  Empire,  and  of  our 
frequently  issued  earnest  mandates,  for  very  slight 
reasons,  often  without  any  given  reason,  send  out 
challenges  to  their  antagonists,  and  not  only  revenge 
themselves  on  the  latter  but  also  do  great  injury  by  fire, 
murder,  cattle  and  horse-stealing  to  whole  towns,  villages 

'  Franck,  Buch  xii.  64,  of  the  year  1607  ;  cf.  93-94  of  the  year  1609. 

"  Lisch,  Jahrbiicher,  26 :  Quartal-  und  Schlussbericht,  19.  Concerning 
the  '  Gartendeknechte '  and  other  land  loafers  in  Mecklenburg  see 
Franck,  Buch  xii.  64,  93-94. 

"*  Dahnert,  iii.  410,  412-413.  Cf.  also  Spahn,  Verjassungs-  und  Wirt- 
schaftsgesch.  des  Herzogtums  Pommern,  p.  125  ff. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC.      523 

and  hamlets.  Many  of  them  put  forward  as  excuse 
for  this  behaviour,  verbal  or  actual  insults  or  injuries 
sustained  by  them  ten,  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  and 
long  ago  nullified  by  years  ;  or  else  they  rake  up  the 
disciphne  and  punishments  inflicted  on  them  by  their 
masters  in  their  years  of  apprenticeship  or  service  ;  they 
band  together  with  other  low  riffraff  and  appear  in 
swarms  in  the  open  fields  armed  with  all  sorts  of 
weapons,  and  they  proceed  to  burn,  rob  and  murder 
in  the  parishes  in  which  their  enemies  are  settled  : 
against  all  such  criminals  the  authorities  shall  pro- 
ceed with,  corporal  punishment  and  execution  by  the 
sword  ;  in  the  most  serious  cases  the  miscreants  shall 
be  put  to  death  by  fire.i 

In  1569  a  Provincial  Diet  Eecess  threw  the  whole 
land  into  consternation  by  'a  credible  report  coming 
from  other  lands  and  princely  courts  that  no  less  than 
500  incendiaries  had  been  sent  to  Germany  and  had 
already  set  fire  to  towns,  villages  and  hamlets/  " 

By  a  ducal  ordinance  of  1569  it  was  decreed,  as  it 
had  been  decreed  in  Saxony,  that  when  the  number  of 
these  miscreants  was  so  great  that  the  inhabitants  of  a 
village  could  not  protect  themselves  against  them,  the 
alarm  bell  was  to  be  rung,  and  the  peasants  of  the  neigh- 
bouring villages  were  to  hasten  to  the  rescue.^ 

Reports  from  Brandenburg  were  equally  doleful. 
Already  in  1542  the  Provincial  Estates  had  complained 
of  '  the  numbers  of  foreign  beggars  who  gave  themselves 
up  to  incendiarism.*  At  a  Provincial  Diet  of  1549  it 
was  said  that  '  in  consequence  of  the  buying  out  of  the 

^  Dahnert,  iii.  414-415.  -  Ibid.  i.  533, 

3  Ibid.  iii.  418-419,  420,  604-605,  621,  821,  842-843. 
■*  Winter,  Mdrkische  SiundC;  xix.  592. 


524  HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

peasants  by  the  nobles  the  country  proletariat  was 
growing  and  burdening  the  towns ;  street-robbers  and 
violent  assaults  were  causing  great  insecurity  every- 
where.^ The  same  measures  for  security  were  applied 
as  in  Saxony  and  Pomerania,  but  '  no  help  or  improve- 
ment resulted  from  them/  By  a  command  of  the 
Elector  Joachim  II.  in  1565  it  was  decreed  that  '  In 
order  to  put  down  the  numerous  disturbers  of  public 
peace  the  nobles  were  to  be  on  the  alert  with  the 
peasants  and  take  them  prisoners  ;  and  if  they  were  not 
a  strong  enough  force,  they  were  to  soimd  the  alarm 
bell  and  summon  the  neighbours  to  help  in  arresting 
the  malefactors/^  but  so  httle  were  the  latter  intimi- 
dated by  this  enactment  that  they  still  persisted  in 
collecting  in  the  public  streets  and  roadways,  in  hamlets 
and  villages,  *  armed  with  muskets  galore,'  so  that  the 
Elector  John  George  in  1572  thought  necessary  to  issue 
'  an  improvement '  on  the  earlier  ordinances.  When- 
ever robberies  and  murders  occurred  in  a  village,  he 
decreed  that  all  the  neighbouring  villages,  man  for  man, 
were  to  hasten  up  with  the  best  weapons  they  could 
muster  and  pursue  the  murderers  and  robbers ;  they 
were  to  track  them  also  in  the  territories  of  neighbouring 
princes  with  whom  the  territorial  prince  of  the  molested 
district  had  an  understanding  on  the  matter. ^  Never- 
theless, as  a  fresh  electoral  edict  of  1584  was  forced 
to  recognise,  all  kinds  of  land-plagues,  Landsknechts, 
pond-diggers,  beggars  and  idlers  became  more  and  more 
numerous  and  daring,  the  chief  reason  of  which,  said 
John  George,  was  that  these  people  were  encouraged  by 

^  Winter,  MdrTcische  Stdnde,  xx.  515.  Edict  of  the  Elector  Joachim  II. 
of  1550  in  MyUus,  vi.  Part  1,  82-83. 

2  MyUus,  V.  Part  5,  2.  ^  Ibid.  v.  Abt.  V.  5-6. 


BEGGARS— POOR  LAW— ROBBERY  OF  THE  POOR,  ETC,  525 

tlie  residents  in  the  country,  who  liouscd  and  harboured 
them  and  bought  the  stolen  goods  which  they  carried 
round  for  sale.^  The  opinion  that  '  desperate  robbing, 
burning  and  murder  had  now  reached  such  a  heiglit 
that  they  could  not  grow  worse,  was  proved  wrong  by 
later  decrees  of  the  years  1590,  1595,  1596,  1599,  1603, 
1606, 1612, 1615, 1616,  for  each  one  of  these  spoke  of  con- 
tinually increasing  evil  conditions.  '  Burning,  begging 
and  brigandage  are  gaining  head  more  and  more  ;  the 
miscreants  become  more  and  more  irrepressible,'  said  an 
edict  of  1596 ;  and  three  years  later,  *  We  hear  daily 
complaints  of  the  increasing  iniquities  of  the  vagabond 
class/  '  The  system  of  private  warfare,'  said  the  Elector 
Joachim  Frederick  in  1603,  despite  all  the  corporal  and 
capital  punishment  that  has  been  enforced,  is  becom- 
ing so  common  in  almost  all  parts  of  our  principality, 
that  even  unknown  foreigners,  without  any  given  or 
known  reason,  scapegrace  godless  villains  belonging  to 
the  land,  who  have  not  been  allowed  to  carry  out  to  the 
full  their  iniquitous  wills  and  deahngs,  have  the  audacity 
to  send  letters  of  challenge  and  other  tokens  of  hostihty 
to  whole  towns,  hamlets,  communities,  villages,  thereby 
bringing  the  utmost  misery  and  ruin  on  scores  of  innocent 
people.  These  people  must  be  proceeded  against  with 
fire  and  sword.'  Nevertheless  after  the  lapse  of  three 
years  came  the  statement :  '  In  spite  of  all  earher  enact- 
ments, private  warfare,  incendiarism,  robbing  and 
plundering  by  gartendeknecJite  and  beggars  is  going 
on  unchecked  all  over  the  land ;  for  this  reason 
everv  individual  w^ho  aids  and  abets  the  criminals,  or 
who  does  not,  when  he  can,  give  information  concern- 
ing them  to  the  magistrates,  must  be  punished  hke  them 

1  Mylius,  V.  Abt.  V.  15  ;  cf.  28. 


526  HISTORY  OP  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 

with  fire  and  sword.'  Wliat  was  the  result  of  this 
decision  is  seen  from  a  decree  of  the  Elector  John 
Sigismund  in  1615 :  '  Never  before  have  the  numbers  of 
the  criminal  class  been  so  great  as  now ;  there  are  as 
many  as  sixty  of  them  to  one  gang,  and  they  join  to- 
gether in  quantities  and  have  never  perpetrated  more 
crime  than  nowadays.  They  blackmail  the  people  at 
their  will,  break  open  house  doors,  carry  off  what- 
ever suits  them,  seize  pedestrians  in  the  roads,  rob 
and  even  kill  them,  and  are  also  guilty  of  a  great  deal 
of  iniquity  and  murdering  in  the  towns.'  Towards  the 
end  of  the  following  years  matters  were  still  no  better. 

*  The  evil-doers  and  vagabond  crew  scoured  the  land 
in  strong  bands  "  wearing  armour,"  attacked  the  poor 
peasants,  often  even  in  districts  immediately  subject 
to  the  Elector,  cut  their  arms  or  other  hmbs  in  two, 
robbed  their  houses,  taking  what  they  liked  and  damag- 
ing the  rest,  in  short  gave  unbounded  vent  to  their 
savage  brutality  and  behaved  in  a  manner  never  before 
experienced  even  from  enemies.'  ^ 

^  '  Die  Kurf urstlichen  Mandate  aus  den  Jaliren  1590-1616,'  in  Mylius,  v. 
Abt.  V.  19-35  ;  VI.  Abt.  1. 187-189,  271-276,  andiii.  Abt.  I.  5-6.    **  Liebe, 

*  Zur  Vorgescliichte  des  Landstreicherwesens,  '  says  {Zeitschr.  fiir  deutsche 
Kulturgesch,  Jahrg.  1900,  p.  302  f.)  that  criminal  vagabondage  assumed 
a  threatening  character  before  the  Thuty  Years'  War,  and  afterwards 
grew  into  a  real  social  danger. 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


Aix-la-Chapelle,  437 

Alexandria,  73 

Alicant,  335 

Allendorf  (parish),  212 

Allmendingen,  401  {n.  1) 

Alsace  (Alsatia),  321,  510 

Altenburg  (duchy).  ^ee  Saxe- 
Altenburg 

Altenburg  (town),  453 

Altenzelle  (convent),  211 

Altmark,  the,  155  {n.  1),  469 

Altorf  (towi),  417 

Altorf  (university),  299 

America,  266  {n.  1),  268 

Amsterdam,  6 

Anhalt  (principalities),  159 

Anhalt-Bernburg     (principality), 
231  f. 

Anhalt-Dessau  (principality),  234 

Anhalt-Kothen  (principality),  237 

Annaberg,  92 

Annaburg  (castle),  282 

Ansbach-Bayreuth.  See  Branden- 
burg 

Antwerp  (town),  430 

Arnstadt,  254 

Augsburg  (bishopric),  25,  347  {n.  1) 

Augsburg  (confession,  1530),  186 

Augsburg  (Diet,  1500),  446  ;  (1530) 
45,  446  ;    (1547-1548)  110,  446  ; 

'    (1555)  141  ;   (1566)  86  ;   (1582)  6, 

r  8,  22,  299,  312  ;  (1594)110 

Augsburg  (town),  2  ff.,  25,  26  ff., 
72,  86,  87  {n.  4),  94,  129,  227,  274, 
279,  319,  328,  374,  384  {n.  2),  423, 
436,  437,  441  (n.  2),  452,  494, 
514  {n.  2) 


Austria  (hereditary  lands), "^20,  82, 
100,  HI,  128,  180-193,  213,  231 


Baden  (margraviate),  274 
Baden-Baden    (margraviate),    317, 

320  {n.  1),  517 
Baden-Baden  (to^^n  and  castle),  317 
Baden-Durlach  (margraviate),  128 
Baden  in  Switzerland  (Diet,  1585)  93 
Baltic,  the,  9,  11 
Bamberg     (Prince-bishopric),     243, 

300  (re.  2),  409,  448  (jj.  1),  451 
Bamberg  (town),  437 
Barth,  482  (n.  2) 
Basle  (bishopric),  139 
Basle  (canton),  23 
Basle  (town),  23  (?i.  2),  420  {n.  2), 

512 
Basle  (university),  171 
Battenberg  (district),  212 
Bavaria  (duchy),  21  (n.  1),  23  {n.  2). 

35,  46,  51,  74,  100,  109,  116,  127^ 

178,  207,  226.  231,  234  {n.   5), 

243,  250,  255,  274,  320 f.,  326-330, 

334,  342,  346,  393,  404,  418, 497  f., 

516 
Bavarian  circle,  75 
Bayreuth    (principality).        See 

Brandenburg-Ansbach,  &c. 
Belgium,  235,  329 
Berg,  46  {n.  1) 
BerginGau,  179 
Bergen  in  Norway,  10 
Berlin,  247,  290,  300,  373,  380,  419, 

423,  429 
Bern  (town),  510  {n.  2) 


528 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


BUI,  385 

Bilstein  (castle),  336 

Bohemia,   91,   96,   112,   196,  260, 

287,  336,  340,  355,  477 
Bozeo,  178 

Brackenheim   (town   and   district), 

324 
Brandenburg  (margraviate).       See 

Kur-Brandenburg 
Brandenburg  -  Ansbacli  -  Bayreuth, 

60,  76,  {n.  1)  93,  205,  217,  220, 

234,  283,  295,  321 
Brandenburg-Kulmbach,    37,    266, 

495    (c/.    Brandenburg-Ansbach- 

Bayreuth) 
Brandenburg-Kustrin,  20,  223,  227 

{n.  5),  283,  287,  421 
Bregenz  (to\vn),  47 
Breisgau,  321 

Bremen  (archbishopric),  238 
Bremen   (town),   7   [n.    1),   18,  20, 

87  {n.  4),  125 
Breslau  (town),  452 
Brieg,  257 
Bruges,  430 
Brunswick,  Brunswickian  land,  281, 

340  in.  3) 
Brunswick  (town),   125,  273,  287, 

336,  343,  356,  361,  423  («.  2), 

487 
Brunswick-Kalenberg    (duchy),    84 

{n.  1),  255  (n.  1) 
Brunswick-Liineburg  (duchy),  245, 

308, 497 
Brunswick  -  Wolfenbiittel  (duchy), 

89,  99,  101,  103,  121,  123,  218, 

228,  230,  242,  273,  275,  281,  285- 

288,  314,    336,   338,    343,     369 
{n.  1),  377,  488 

Brussels,  430 
Bunzlau,  375 
Burgau,  220  (n.  2) 
Burghausen  (stewartry),  180 
Burgundy,  300  {n.  3) 


Carinthia,  300  («..  2) 

Carniola,  182 

Calcutta,  257 

Cassel,  51  (n.  1),  203,  267,  4^.0 

Cassel  (Provincial  Diet,  1566),  203 


Cassel  (Synod,  1589),  59 

Clempin.  29 

Chur,  512  (n.  1) 

Colin- on-the-Spree,  266,  373,  380 

Cologne  (archbishopric),  243,  336 

Cologne     (Minting      Diet,      1584), 

88 
Cologne  (Provincial  Synod,  1536), 

448 
Cologne  (town),   7   [n.    1),   20,   88, 

416,  432,  436  f. 
Constantinople,  73,  267 
Constance  (town),  108,  475 
Copenhagen,  9 


Danzig,  10 

Darmstadt,  251 

Darmstadt  (district),  324 

Delitsch,  348 

Demmin,  119 

Denmark,  8,  265,  309 

Dettingen,  401  (n.  1) 

Dillenburg,  246 

Dithmarschen,  39 

Dittmannsdorf,  161 

Dortmund,  1  {n.  1) 

Dresden  (district),  160 

Dresden,  20,  161  {n.  1),  162,  198  f., 
213,  217,  227,  232,  264  f.,  281, 
284,    407,  469    [n.  1),  473  («.  2) 

Dresden  Heath,  198 

Driesen,  88 

Drubeck,  128  {n.  1) 

Diirrenwaid,  the,  93 

Diisseldorf,  264  {n.  1) 

Dux  (Bohemia),  287 


Ebendorf,  514 

Ebersbach,  197 

Egeln,  420 

Egypt,  141,  157,  268 

Ehingen,  46  (w.  l),401(n.  1) 

Eilenburg  (district),  210 

Einbeck,  253 

Elbe,  the,  137  {n.  2),  198,  265 

Elbing,  17 

England,  1  {n.  2),  4,  10,  1^  17,  87, 

216,  255,  258,  268,  297  f.,  357, 

373,  385,  896 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


529 


Enns,  the  (river),  185,  186,  192 
(«.  2) 

Eppstein,  219 

Erbach  tin  the  Palatinate),  20 

Erzgcbirge  Circle  (Mining  moun- 
tains) 196,  302 

Esshngen,  72,  109,  437 

Esthonia,  10 

Ettersberg,  the,  200 

Ettlingen,  319 

Europe,26,  31,285,  297 

Falkenstein,  the  (near  Schwaz), 

95 
Ferrara,  294 
Flensburg,  125 
Florence,  2,  235,  278 
France,  1  {n.  1),  3,  227  (n.  5),  236 

{n.  1),  260  f.,  268,  298  (n.  3),  323, 

333,  337,  340,  342,  352,  355    f., 

363,  372,  423  {n.  2),  490 
Franconia,    205,     244,    356,    395. 

514 
Franconian  Circle,  75,  81, 206 
Frankenberg  (district),  212 
Frankenstein,  383 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine   (Assembly 

of  Deputies,  1571),  70;    (1577), 

447 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine      (Election 

Diet,  1562),  299 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine    (Fair),    4, 

16,  82,  273,  316,  319,  377,  397, 

511 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine   (town),  4, 

27,  72,  81,  88,  170,  254,  260,  369, 

370  {n.  1),  373,  378  {n.  1),  388, 

435,  437,  442  {n.   1),  451,  460, 

495 
Frankfort-on-the-Oder   (town),   86, 
■    359(?i.  1),  420,  470 
Freiberg,  92,  236 
Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau  (town),  33 

{n.  1),  126,  437 
Freiburg  -  in  -  the  -  Breisgau     (Diet, 

1498),  446 
Freistadt,  363 

Gabaonitbs  (Gabianites),  54 
Gastein  (baths),  300 

VOL.  XV. 


Geissingen,  401  {n.  1) 

Geyer,  the,  92,  96 

Ghent,  430 

Giengen,  498 

Giessen  (town),  253 

Giessen  (university),  51  {n.  1),  54, 
61 

Gnoien  in  Mecklenburg,  482 

Goldberg,  257 

Gorlitz,  110,  159 

Goslar,  335 

Gotha,  284 

Gottesbiiren,  219 

Gottingen,  125 

Gottleuben,  469  (?^.  1) 

Greece  (modern),  363 

Greifswald,  125,  412 

Grimmenstein,  285 

Grisons,  the,  319 

Croningen  (in  the  Halberstadt  dis- 
trict), 242 

Gross-Kirchheim,  100 

Grosssachsenheim,  295 

Griinberg  (Upper  Hesse),  379,  191, 
418 

Griinhain  (district),  210 

Giistrow,  311 

Giistrow  (Provincial  Diet,  1571), 
310;  (1697)  151 


Haag  (county),  180 

Hadamar,  352  {n.  1) 

Hagenau  (district),  321 

Hainan,  381 

Halberstadt  (bishopric),  230,   242, 

520 
Halberstadt  (town),  438,  487 
Hall  in  the  Tyrol,  334,  475 
Hamburg,  10,  12,  14  f.,  20,  27,  87 

{n.  4),  125, 127,  254,  305,  371,  376, 

382,  412,  458,  461-464,  502  {n.  1), 

509 
Hammereisenbach,  103  {n.  3) 
Hanau-Miinzenberg  (county),  41 
Hanover,  125,  315,  335 
Hansa  to^ms,  4-19,  70,  86,  497 
Harrie,  Sweden,  170  {n.  1) 
Hartz,  the,  103,  520 
Harzgerode,  93 
Hausruck,  the,  190 

MM 


530 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Havelberg,  347  (n.  1) 

Heidelberg  (town),  169,  251 

Heilsbronn,  206 

Henneberg  (county),  59,  200 

Heringen,  520 

Hesse  (landgraviate),  Hessian  lands, 

51  (?i.  1),  84  [n.  3),  139,  172,  202, 

208    [n.  2),    218,  224,  249,  288, 

299,    322,    379,    410,    418,    497, 

518 
Hesse-Cassel  (landgraviate),  98,  103, 

122,  170,  202,  212,  218,  222  (n.  1), 

224,  248,  263,  273  f.,  281,  299, 

347  {71.  1) 
Hesse  -  Darmstadt     (landgraviate), 

202,  224,  264,  270,  272 
Hesse  -  Hirschfeld     (landgraviate), 

267 
Hesse-Marburg  (landgraviate),  212, 

219,  249,  253,  286,  504 
Hesse-Rheinfels  (landgraviate),  224, 

249 
Heybach,  179 
Hildesheim  (town),  89  {n.  5),  125, 

438 
Hochberg,  321 

Hohenlohe-Waldenburg,  336  (n.  5) 
Hohenschwan,  288 
Hohenstein  (county),  520 
HohenzoUern,  145 
Holland  (or  Netherlands),  1  {n.  1), 

5,  10,  20,  73,  257,  495 
Holstein   (duchy),   8,   31,   34,    152. 

{Cf.  Schleswig-Holstein) 
Homberg,  347  {n.  1) 
Hungary,   88,  258,  260.  336,   340, 

342,  356,  361 

Iba,  99 

Imst,  296 

India,  26,  273 

Ingolstadt  (town),  46  {n.  1) 

Innsbruck   (tomi),    104,   213,    296, 

450 
Italy  (Welsch),  2,  4,  73,  225,  241, 

261,  278.  281,  294,  298  {n.  3),  319, 

328,  333,  340,  355,  361,  363,  366, 

370,  432 

Jagerndorf,  96 
Jena  (town),  199,  345 


Jena  (university),  292 

Judaea,  Jews,  42-69,  72  f.,  77  f., 

83,  86,  292,  457,  509 
Jiilich-Cleves-Berg  (duchy),  88,  231, 

264  {n.  1),  277 

Kalkreuth,  197 
Kappel,  near  Villingen,  139 
Karneid  (castle),  176 
Katzthal,  100 
Kempten,  474 
Klem-Ammensleben,  471 
Kohlenberg,  the,  (near  Basle),  425 
Kolditz  (distrist),  210 
Konigsberg  (town),  255  {n.  1) 
Konigsberg  (universitj'^),  292 
Konigstein  in  Saxony  (district),  196 
Konigstein  in  the  Taunus,  81 
Kurbrandenburg  (margraviate  and 
electoral    principality),     20,     23 
(n.  2),  31,  61,  82,  86,  88, 149  (n.  1), 
152,  155  (n.  1),  159, 191,  201,  217, 
226,  232  (n.  3),  247,  263,  266,  277, 

279,  283,  291,  299,  313.  325,  347 
{n.  1),  359,  373,  380,  411,  459,  482, 
522  f. 

Kurhessen.     See  Hesse-Cassel 
Kurland  (duchy),  227  (n.  5) 
Kurpfalz  (Palatinate,  electoral  prin- 
cipality), 56,  100  (n.  4),  248,  270, 

280,  275,  300,  300  {71.  3),  316,  322, 
337,  390,  416,  (n.  3),  485 

Kursachsen  (Saxon  electorate, 
electoral  principality),  16,  20,  25, 
39, 87,  92, 97, 114, 119, 159  f.,  196, 
210,  216,  227,  232-237,  254,  256 
[n.  1),  261,  263-267,  272,  276 
(7k  1),  279,  281,  296,  299,  301, 
305,  322,  330,  340,  342  («.  2), 
356,  374,  379,  403,  407,  421,  454, 
460,  469  (?i.  1),  274,  474,  503,  519, 
523 

Kiistrm,  20  (71.  1),  201,  263 

Kuttenberg,  the,  96 

Laced^mon,  Lacedaemonians,  345 

(n.2) 
Landau,  242 
Landshut  (Provincial  Diet,   1593), 

327 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


531 


Landshut  (town),  327 

Langensalza  (district),  192  (n.  2) 

Laubach,  20 

Lauben,  378 

Lauenburg.     See  Saxe-Lauenburg 

Leipzig  (town),  27  f.,  39,  86,  254, 

278,  374,  407,  415,  420,  452,  505, 

509,  520 
Leipzig  (supreme  court  of  justice), 

161 
Leipzig  (university),  192,  361  (n.  1) 
Leisnig,  455 
Leupoldsheim,  196 
Lichtenberg  (district),  203,  475 
Liegnitz,  or  Liegnitz-Brieg  (duchy), 

243  f.,  256  f.,   259   {71.   1),   271 

(n.3) 
Liegnitz  (town),  244,  248,  257 
Lindan  (Diet,  1497),  446 
Lippe  (county),  84  [n.  3),  283  {n.  5) 
Lisbon  (town),  26,  272 
London,  297,  323 
London  (the  '  Stahlhof  ')  12  £f. 
Lorch,  116 
Lou  vain  (town),  430 
Lowenstein  (town),  347  {n.  1) 
Lower  Austria,  180,  184,  192,  218 

(to.  4),  450 
Lower  Bavaria,  288 
Lower  Germany,   423   [n.   2),   428 

{n.  2) 
Lower  Hesse,  202 
Lower  Rhine  Circle,  79  f. 
Lower  Saxony,  89  {n.  5),  150,  159 
Lower  Saxon  Circle,  89  {n.  5) 
Lower  Silesia,  74  (n.  3) 
Liibeck  (town),  9,  11,  14,  17,  33, 

125,  412,  437,  509 
Liibz,  313 
Lucerne,  437 
Lugano,  264 
Liineburg  (duchj^).     See  Brunswick- 

Liineburg 
Liineburg  (town),  18,  125,  457,  481 

(re.  2) 
Liitzelburg,  473 
Lyons  (town),  3,  363 

Madeigal,  320 

Magdeburg  (town),  42  {n.  \),  125, 
357,362,477  {n.  1) 


Mansfeld  (county),  37,  92,  470,  483 
Marburg-on-the-Lohn    (town),    40, 

219,  253,  300,  410,  484 
Marburg  -  on  -  the  -  Lohn     (Synod, 

1573),  459 
Marburg-on-the-Lohn   (university), 

473 
Marchland,  the,  190 
Mark.     See  Kurbrandenburg 
Marshes,  the,  155  {n.  1) 
Mayence     (archbishopric),    6,    48, 

222  (n.  1),  260,  274,  279,  376,  495, 

518 
Mayence  (town),  300,  338  [n.  4) 
Maurusmiinster  (abbey),  139 
Mechlin,  430 
Mecklenburg,    Mecklenburg    lands, 

31,  83, 150, 191, 230, 310, 481,  521 
Mecklenburg-Giistrow  (duchy),  150, 

310, 312,  521 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin  (duchy),  150 

237,  299,  471 
Meiningen,  59 
Meissen  (circle),  302 
Meissen  (margraviate),  31,  91,  274 
Meissen  (town),  41,  163,  355,  389, 

419 
Metten,  67 
Memmingen,  495 
Merseburg  (archbishopric),  156 
Minden  (bishopric),  242 
Minden  (town),  18 
Mittlemark,  the,   359.      (C/.  Kur- 
brandenburg) 
Molln,  127 
Mompelgard,  292 
Moravia,  258 
Moritzburg     (hunting-castle),     198 

(n.  6) 
Moscovites.     See  Russia 
Moscow,  74 
Miihl,  the,  192,  (n.  2) 
Munich  (Provincial  Diet,  1605),  23 

(to. 1)  ;  (1608) 116 
Munich  (to^vn),  116,  274,  295,  329 
Miinden,  412 
Miinster    i.    W.    (prince-bishopric), 

242 
Miinster  i.  W.  (town),  7  («.  1) 
Munzingen,  512  (to.  1) 
Murbach  (abbey),  139 

MM  2 


532 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Namur,  430 

Narwa,  the  (river),  10 

Nassau,    Nassau    lands,    254,    420 

{n.  2),  518 
Nassau-Katzenelnbogen     (county), 

101 
Nauenhof  (district),  160 
Naumburg    (Assembly   of   Princes, 

1561),  233  ;  (1614)  300 
Neckar,  the,  254,  258 
Neuburg,  250 
Neukahlen,  151 
Neumark,  the,  165  {n.  1),  157 
Neustadt  (Magdeburg  Circle),  254 
Neustadt-Eberswalde,  313 
Netherlands,   4,    20,    81,   241,    298 

{n.  3),  429,  495,  518 
Niederhausen  (in  Bavaria),  179 
Niederramstadt,  203 
Nordhausen,  412 
Nordlingen    (Coinage   Diet,    1564), 

75 
North  Germany,  14  (n.  2),  84,  101, 

137  {n.  2),  145  (w.  2),  178  (n.  2), 

191,315 
North  Sea,  7 
North  East  Europe,  4 
North  West  Europe,  4,  6 
Norway,  10 
Nossen  (district),  211 
Novgorod,  11 
Nuremberg     (Circle     Diet,     1585) 

81 
Nuremberg  (Chronicle),  216,  356 
Nuremberg    (Comage   Diet,    1526) 

92 
Nuremberg   (Imperial  Diet,  1523), 

19 
Nuremberg  (town),  2,  40  {n.  3),  62 

(n.  3),  73,  87  {n.  4),  92,  112,  115, 

126,  127-135,  171,  205,  216  {n.  2), 

272,  278,  357,  361  {n.  3),  366,  382, 

405  {n.  3),  407,  417,  432,  436,  452, 

481,497,  502  (n.  2),  509 


Oberharz,  93 
Oberlausitz,  378,  380,  520 
Ochsenwarder,  385 
Offenburg,  512  (w.  1) 
Ohringen  (Oberamt),  336  {n.  5) 


Oldenburg,  293 

Olmiitz,  292 

Osnabriick  (bishopric),  243 

Osnabriick    (towT;i),    7    {n.    1),    87 

{n.  4) 
Osterweddingen,  166,  397 


Paderbokn  (bishopric),  243 

Paderborn  (toAvn),  7  {n.  1),  253 

Parchim,  471 

Paris  (town),  323 

Perg,    near    Rohrbach,     the,    192 

{n.  2) 
Pfaffenhofen  (County-court),  516 
Pfalz  (Palatinate),  Palatine  lands. 

See  Kurpfalz 
Pfalz-Lautern    (principality),    234, 

263 
Pfalz-Neuburg    (principality),   231, 

329 
Pfalz-Simmern  (principality),  81 
Pfalz -Sulzbach  (principality),  248 
Pfalz-Veldenz  (principality),  81 
Pfalz-Zweibrucken  (duchy),  20, 224, 

252  (?i.  1),  469(?i.  1),  475 
Pforzheim,  428  {n.  2) 
Pima  (district),  196 
Pirna  (to^yn),  87 
Plassenburg,  the,  234,  321 
Pleissenburg  near  Leipzig,  27 
Poland,  4,  17,  31,  74,  88,  157  (n.  1) 

258,  260,  297,  340,  355,  362 
Pomcrania,  Pomeranian  lands,  29  f., 

31  f.,  82,  88,  119,  146,  150,  191, 

227  (n.  5),  277  {n.  1),  309,  352 

(n.  1),  385,  482,  522 
Pomcrania-Stettin  (duchy),  29,  40 

149       {71.     1),     239,    309,    482, 

522 
Pomerania-Wolgast    (duchy),    150, 

239,  309,  522 
Portugal,  2,  4,  26,  28  {n.  1) 
Prague  (imperial  court),  185,  234, 

297 
Priegnitz,  the,  155 
Prussia     (duchy),     31,     272,     277, 

278 


QUEDLINGBURG,  470 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


533 


Rammelsberg,  100  {n.  2) 
Rapportenstein,  1 92  {ii.  2) 
Ratisbon    (Mint    Diet,    1595),    88; 

(1614)  87 
Ratisbon  (Imperial  Diet,  1557),  24  ; 

(1576)5;  (1603)80(^.5) 
Ratisbon  (towi),   100  {n.   3),  297, 

400,  452 
Rattenberg-on-the-Geyer,  47,  96 
Regenstein  (county),  520 
Reinhartswald,  the,  202 
Reinsberg,  161 

Reuss-Gera  (principality),  240 
Reutlingen,  251 
Reval,  11 
Rheingau,  48 
Rhine,  Rhine  lands,  5,  21,  70,  82, 

215,  227   {n.   5),  254,  258,  335, 

512  (».l) 
Richelsdorf,  99 
Rivoglio  (Reinfall  wine),  254,  257, 

333,  426 
Roda  (district),  209 
Rohrerbiihel,  the,  95 
Rome  (ancient),  176,  262,  265 
Rome  (mediaeval  and  modern),  427 
Rome   (old   Roman  law),   36,    137 

(n.  2),  144,  145  {n.  2) 
Rome  (canon  law),  35,  68 
Rostock  (town),  10,  18,  125,  311, 

362 
Rostock  (miiversity),  481 
Rottweil,  56 
Riigen,  146,  149  {n.  1) 
Riigenwalde,  309  {n.  2) 
Ruppin,  399 
Russia,  11,  74,  263,  297,  378,  496, 

506 


Saale,  the,  352 

Sachsendorf     (knight's     property), 

160 
St.    George    in    the    Schwarzwald 

(monastery),  139 
Salza,  114 
Salzburg  (archbishopric),    Salzburg 

land,  100,  139,  182,  215  {n.  3), 

243,  300 
Salzburg  (chronicle),  385 
Salzburg  (town),  385 


Savoy  (duchy),  22 

Saxony  (electorate).     See  Kursach- 

sen 
Saxony  (Albertinc  lands),  139,  215, 

232  {n.  3),  300 
Saxe-AJtcnburg  and  Saxe-Woimar 

interchangeably     (duchy),     199, 

213,  223,  253,  30t,  407,  519 
Saxe-Lauenburg  (duchy),  308 
Saxc-Weimar    and     Coburg-Gotha 

interchangeably  (duchy),  199, 209, 

229,  256  {n.  1),  284,  316,  503 
Scandinavia,  7 
Schaumburg  (county),  518 
Scheldt,  the,  6 
Schelklingen,  46  {n.  1) 
Schellenberg,  the  (near  Chemnitz), 

232 
Schlaming,  160 
Schleswig  (duchy),   152.    {Cf.  Hol- 

stein) 
Schleswig-Holstein  (duchy),  39 
Schleusingen,  59 
Schliengen,  139 
Schlitz  (Hesse),  286 
Schliichtern  (circle),  41 
Schneeberg,  92 
Schoppershof     (near     Nuremberg), 

216 
Schrobenhausen,  516 
Schwalbach,  270,  299 
Schwarzburg  (county),  254 
Schwarzenberg  (district),  210 
Schwarzwald,   the   (Black   Forest), 

103  (n.  3),  139,  403 
Schwaz,  94,  103 
Schweidnitz,  257 
Schweinitz,  232 
Scotland,  83 
Segovia  (bishopric),  390 
Seligenstadt  (near  Meckendorf),  206 
Silesia,  97  (n.  1) 
SUesian  mountains,  498 
Slavs,  140,  170,  355 
South  Germany,  4,  70,  145  (n.  2), 

178,  292,  315 
South  Tyrol,  47 
South -West  Germany.  137 
Spain,   2,  4,   6,   27,"  74,  241,   253, 

260,   333,  337,  340  (n.  4),  355, 

361,363,372,490,495 


534 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Spandau,  249 

Spires  (bishopric),  138 

Spires    (Diet,    1526),    138;     (1544) 

299  ;  (1570)  80  {n.  5) 
Spree,  the,  284 
Stable  (abbey),  88 
Stade,  17, 125 
Stargard,  29 
Steinfeld,  100 
Stettin  (town),  29 
Stettin  (peace  of),  11 
Stolpen,  197 
Stralsund,  125,  481 
Strasburg,  (bishopric),  139 
Strasburg    (town),    82    {n.  2)    113, 

124  f.,  370,  420  (%.  2),  437,  445, 

452,  472,  511 
Straubing  (stewartry),  21 
Straubing  (town),  397 
Struppen  (village),  196 
Stuttgart,     115,     258,     274,    293, 

322 
Suabia,  72,  75,  498 
Suabian  circle,  1  {n.  2),  22,  75,  85 
Suhl,  520 
Sulzbach,  248 
Sund,  the,  8 

Sweden,  8,  10,  170  {n.  1) 
Switzerland,  93, 184,  357  ;  northern, 

510 


Tangermunde,  313,  520 
Tartary,  263,  265,  361 
Telvana  (lordship),  47 
Teschen  (duchy),  309 
Thuringia,  27,  39,  316,  342,  522 
Tiegenhof  (lordship),  31 
Torgau  (chronicle),  303  («.  1) 
Torgau    (Provincial    Diet,     1603), 

211 
Torgau  (town),  232,  269,  499 
Trautenau  (chronicle),  417  {n.  4) 
Treptow  (Provincial  Diet,  1580),  309 

{n.2) 
Treysa,  203 

Treves  (archbishopric),  6 
Treves  (town),  437 
Tripolis,  74 
Tiibingen  (town),  116,  336  (n.  5), 

387 


Tiibingen  (university),  175,  294, 
387,  395 

Turkey,  Turks,  42,  73,  159,  165, 
181,  263,  321,  355,  361,  364,  372, 
405,  407,  465,  490,  506,  522 

Tyrol,  47,  76  {n.  1),  92,  94,  176,  213 
{n.  5),  220  (n.  2),  260,  296,  303 
{71.  4),  316  {n.  1),  334,  405,  416 
{n.  3),  422,  498 


Ukeemabk,    the,    155    {n.    1)    ('in 

omnibus  marchiae  ') 
Ulm,  116,  495,  514  (n.  2) 
Ulrichstein  (castle),  250 
Unterinntal,  104 
Untermaasfeld,  59 
Upper  Austria,  180,  184-92 
Upper  Germany,  1  £f. 
Upper  Hesse,  219 
Upper  Italy,  2 
Upper  Palatinate,  100  {n.  4) 
Upper  Rhine,  18 
Upper  Rhine  Circle,  79,  80  {n.  5), 

86,91 
Upper  Saxony,  83 
Upper  Saxon  Circle,  86 
Upper  Silesia,  74 
Upper  Suabia,  510 


Venice,  2,  5,  28,  73,  234  {n.  5),  272, 

279,  303  (n.  4),  340  («,.  4),  421 
Verden  (bishopric),  238 
Verna  (parish),  212 
Vienna,  111,295,431,450 
Vienna,   Imperial  Court  Treasury. 

97 
Voigtland,  the,  303 
Voigtsberg  (district),  160 
'  Vorderosterreich  '  '  Vorlande,'  213 

{n.  5) 
Vorpommen.     See  Pomerania-Wol- 

gast 


Waal,  the,  21 
Waldeck  (town),  242 
Waldenburg.  336  (n.  5) 
Waschenbach,  203 
Weida,  233  (n.  3) 


INDEX  OF  PLACES 


535 


Weimar,  256 

Weissenburg,  58 

Weissenfels,  376,  381 

Wends,  170 

Wendish  towns,  126 

Werben,  313 

Wernigerode  (county),  520 

Wemigerode  (town),  378,  401 

Wesenberg,  482 

Westphalia,  216 

Westphalian  circle,  88,  496 

Wetzlar,  352 

Wiek,  the,  170  {n.  1) 

Wildbad,  324,  514 

Wismar  (Diet  of  Deputies,  1610), 
312 

Wismar  (town),  125 

Wittenberg  (theological  school), 
286,  361  {n.  1),  389 

Wittenberg  (town),  357  (n.  2),  453, 
476,  497  (n.  3) 

Wolfach,  512  {n.  1) 

Wolfenbiittel  (duchy).  See  Bruns- 
wick 

Wolfenbiittel  (town),  241,  285, 
287 


Wolferstedt,  345  (n.  2) 

Wolgast,  146 

Wollin,  309 

Worms  (Imperial  Diet,  1521),  299 

Wiirtemberg  (duchy),  23  {n.  2),  51 
(ft.  1),  561,74,90,  93,  110  (h.  1), 
115,  202,  208,  220,  226,  249-252, 
2.56,  2.58,  263  («.  4),  273,  278,  292, 
321-25,  409,  413,  416,  {n.  3),  472, 
512,  517 

Wiirzburg  (archbishopric),  243,435, 
447,  449 

Wurzburg  (town),  254,  447,  449 


Yperk  ( Ypres),  43 1 


Zelle  (Celle),  254.     See  Altenzelle 
Zimmersrode,  59 
Zittau,  419 
Zurich  (own),  293 
Zwcibriicken  (duchy),  472 
Zwettl  (abbey),  449 
Zwettl  (town),  192 
Zwickau,  48  {n.  3),  280,  419 


INDEX   OF   PEKSONS 


Abimelech  (patriarch),  143 

Abraham  (patriarch),  143 

Abraham  (alchemist),  294 

Adolf  (Duke  of  Schleswig-Holstein), 
39 

Adolf,  Frederick  I.  (Duke  of 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin),  237  fi. 

Agnes  of  Hesse  (Electress  of  Saxony, 
later  Duchess  of  Saxe-Gotha- 
Weimar),  256  (n.  1) 

Agricola  (Bauer),  George  (miner- 
alogist), 92 

Alber,  Erasmus  (preacher),  469  [n.  1) 
488 

Albertinus,  Aegidius  (court  secre- 
tary), 241,  346,  363  f.,  367,  379. 
393,  396,  398  {n.),  416,  423 
{n.  2),  510 

Albrecht  of  Brandenburg  (Cardinal- 
Archbishop  of  Mayence),  274 

Albrecht  V.  (Duke  of  Bavo.ria),  35, 
207,  250,  274,  279,  326  f.,  516 

Albrecht  of  Brandenburg  (Duke  of 
Prussia),  272,  278,  316 

Albrecht  Achilles  (Elector  of 
Brandenburg),  155  {n.  2) 

Albrecht  Alcibiades  (Margrave  of 
Brandenburg-Kulmbach),  495 

Albrecht  Barth.  (mint  contractor), 
77 

Alexander  VI.  (Pope),  433 

Alexians  (male  and  female),  437  f. 

Algermann,-291  {n  ) 

Ambach,  Melchior  (preacher),  72, 
170,  388 

Ambrose,  St.  (Doctor  of  the  Church) 
439 


Amman,  Jost  (painter),  378  {n.  1) 

Amsdorf,  Nich.  von  (theologian), 
477  {n.  1) 

Anabaptists,  38,  459  {n.  1) 
<   Andorfer,    George    (merchant),    94 

Andorfer,  Sebastian  (merchant),  94 

Andreae,  Jacob  (provost  and  chan- 
cellor), 387 

Anna  of  Austria  (Margravine  of 
Meissen),  274 

Anna  of  Prussia  (Electress  of 
Brandenburg),  277 

Anna  (Electress  of  Saxony),  330  f. 

Anna  of  Saxony  (Countess  of 
Orange),  254 

Anna  (Duchess  of  Wiirtemberg), 
257  f. 

Anna  Eleonora  (Princess  of  Hesse- 
Darmstadt,  later  Duchess  of 
Brunswick-Liineburg),  272 

Anna  Katharina  of  Mantua  (Arch- 
duchess of  Tyrol),  260 

Anna  Maria  of  Baden  (wife  of  Wilh. 
V.  Rosenberg),  336 

Anne  of  Denmark  (Electress  of 
Saxony),  261,  272,  283,  299, 
309 

Anton  (Count  of  Oldenburg),  156 
(n.l) 

Apicius  (a  Roman  epicure),  258 

Aschenbrenner  Mich,  (court  apo- 
thecary), 284 

Augustus  (Elector  of  Saxony),  26  £f., 
39,  87,  114  (n.  1),  160.  162,  197  flf., 
211,  216,  224,  233  {n.  3),  266, 
272,  279,  299  ff.,  330,  343  (?i.  2), 
474,  519 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


537 


Augustus  (Prince  of  Saxony),  300 
Augustinians,  330  {n.  1),  356  («.  1), 

437 
Austria,  House  of.     See  Habsburg 
Ave-Lallemant     Friedr.     Christian 

Benedict  (author),  428  {n.  2) 
Ayrer,  Jacob  (dramatist),  171 


Bachmann,  Daniel    (pyrotechnist), 

282 
Baldus  (de  Ubaldis,  teacher  of  law), 

31 
Barbara  Sophia,  Electoral  Princess 
of  Brunswick  (Duchess  of   Wiir- 
temberg),  256,  325 
Barby,  Burkhard  v.  (Count),  267 
Baniim  XI.  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 

Stettin),  40,  147,  482,  522 
Barnim  XII.  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 

Stettin),  148,  239 
Barthold,  Fr.  Wilh.    (historian),   8 

(n.2) 
Bartsch,   L.    (historian   of  civilisa- 
tion), 371  (n.  3) 
Beck,  F.  J.  216  (n.  1) 
Becker,    Conrad    (superintendent), 

312 
Beghins,  438 
Belshazzar     (King     of     Babylon), 

484 
Bemelberg,  Conrad  v.,  46  (n.  1) 
Bernstein,    Hans    v.    (privy    coun- 
cillor), 28 
Berthold,  Brother  (O.  Pr.),  33  {n.  1) 
Besold,   Christopher   (author),    111 

{n.2) 
Besserer,  George,  495 
Beuther,  David  (alchemist),  282  f. 
Biner,  Christopher  (warden-general 

of  the  Mint),  83 
Block,  Daniel  (painter),  238 
Blom,  Christian  Friedr.,  238 
Boden,  Wilhelm  (agent),  234  (n.  5) 
Boguslaw  XIII.,   Duke  of  Pomer- 

ania-Stettin,  32  {n.  1) 
Bohemus,  Martin  (preacher),  378 
Boris,  Godunow  (Czar),  11 
Born,  Franz  (doctor),  320 
Bragadmo,   Marco   (bogus    count), 
295 


Brant,  Sebastian,  425  f.,  444 
Braun,  Hartmann  (preacher),  379, 

391,  480  f. 
Breitkopf,     Leonhard     (preacher), 

280 
Brenz,  John  (theologian),  36,  456 
Bretschneider,  Daniel  (painter),  269 

in.  1) 
Breuner,       Christopher      Siegfried 

(court-chamberlain),  298 
Bridgit,    St.    (Queen    of    Sweden), 

37  (n.  1) 
Brockes  (burgomaster  at  Lubeck), 

412 
Brockes,  Joh.  (burgomaster),  33 
Briinneck,  Wilh.  v.  (teacher  of  law), 

149  {n.  1) 
Bruno,  Giordano,  389  (n.  2) 
Bucer,  Martin  (theologian),  38,  51 

(71.  1),  252(?i.  1) 
Bugenhagen     (Pomeranus),     John 
(theologian),     37     (n.     1),     481 
(n.  2) 
Billow,  VoUrad  v.  (nobleman),  238 
Biinau,  v.  (nobleman),  233 
Burleigh,      William      Cecil,      Lord 

(statesman),  14 
Busch,  Joh.  (Augustinian  provost), 

437 
Bussleb,  Joh.  (teacher),  420 
Biitner,     Wolfgang    (pastor),    345 
(n.  2) 


Calvin,   Calvinists,   56,    190,   286, 

331,  456  (n.  2) 
Camerarius,   Phil,    (the  jurist,  347 

(n.  1) 
Carlstadt  (Bodenstein),  Andr.  Rud. 

(theologian),  453 
Catharine  (Archduchess  of  Austria), 

272 
Catharine     of     Brunswick-Wolfen- 

biittel  (Margravmc  of   Branden- 

burg-Kustein),  287 
Catherine    of    Kiistrin    (Electoral 

Princess  of  Brandenburg),  283 
Catherine  of  Nassau  (Countess  of 

Schwarzburg),  254 
Catherine    of    the    Palatine    (Mar- 
gravmc of  Baden),  274 


538 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Casimir,    John    (Count    Palatine), 

234 
Caesar,  Phil,  (superintendent),  37 
Catilina,  176 
Cecil.     See  Burleigh 
Charles  V.  (emperor),  3,  12,  19,  45, 

46  {n.  1),  431,  456 
Charles     V.     (criminal     ordinance, 

Carolina),  87 
Charles  (Archduke  of  Styria),  182, 

220  {n.  2),  232  (to.  1) 
Charles    I.    (Margrave    of    Baden), 

274 
Christian  I.  (electoral  prince,  inter- 
changeably Elector  of  Saxony), 

198,  217,  227,  233  f.,  263,  265, 

267,  273,  296,  304,  503,  520 
Christian  II.   (Elector  of  Saxony), 

119  {n.  3),  161,  234  f.,  255  {n.  1), 

265,  283,  304  f.,  421  f.,  520 
Christian  (Duke  of  Holstein,  later 

Chr.  III.  King  of  Denmark),  8 
Christian  (Duke  of  Holstein),  239 
Christian    (Margrave    of    Branden- 

burg-Kulmbach),  266 
Christian    I.     (Prince    of    Anhalt- 

Bernburg),  231,  233 
Christian  IV.  (King  of  Denmark),  9 
Christopher  (Duke  of  Mecklenburg), 

230  (n.  2),  283 
Christopher    (Duke     of     Wiirtem- 

berg),  57,   110  {n.   1),   115,  202, 

221,  249  f.,  273,  321,  459,  517 
Christopher     Ernest     (Prince     of 

Hesse),  250 
Chryseus,  Joh.  (pastor),  229 
Conrad  III.  (Bishop  of  Wiirzburg). 

See  Thiingen 
Cordatus,  Conrad  (preacher),  476 
Correr,      Giovanni      (ambassador), 

421 
Cothmann,  Ernest  (lawyer),  145 
Crusius,  Martin  (philologist),  294 


Daniel    Brendel,    of    Homburg, 

(Archbishop  of  Mayence),  48 
Dee,  John  (court  alchemist),    297 
Dollinger,  Joh.  Jos.   Ign.    (theolo- 
gian), 460  {n.  1),  473  {7in.  1  and 
2),  477  (??.  1) 


Domann,  Joh.  (syndicus  general), 
18 

Dominicans,  32 

Donnersberg,  Joachim  v.  (am- 
bassador), 298 

Dorothea  of  Denmark  (Duchess  of 
Prussia),  279 

Dorothea  of  Saxe  -  Lauenburg 
(Queen  of  Denmark),  309 

Dorothea  of  Schleswig-Holstein 
(Duchess  of  Liegnitz),  245 

Dorten,  Heinr.  v.,  239 

Drachstadt,  Joh.  (mining  contrac- 
tor), 99 

Dreger,  Melchior  (licentiate),  359 

Drexel,  Theodore,  261  {n.  2) 

Durisani.     See  Torisani 


Eber,  Paul  (theologian),  480  {n.  1) 
Eberhard    (Count    of    Hohenlohe- 

Waldenburg),  336  {n.  5) 
Eberhard  (Duke  of    Wiirtemberg), 

251 
Eberlin  von  Giinzburg  (preacher), 

56,  501  (?i.  1) 
Echter    von    Mespelbrunn,    JuUus 

(Prince-Bishop     of     Wiirzburg), 

243,  449 
Edward  VI.  (Kmg  of  England),  12 
Edward  Fortunatus  (Margrave  of 

Baden-Baden),  318 
Ehrhardt,  Jodokus  (preacher),  49  ff. 

57  f.,  62 
Eisenberg,  v.  (Count),  329 
Eisengrein,  Martin  (vice-chancellor), 

441  {n.  2) 
Elizabeth  of  Brandenburg,  Duchess 

of    Brunswick-Kalenberg    (later 

Countess  of  Henneberg),  84  {n.  1) 
Elizabeth  of  Kiistrin  (Margravine  of 

Brandenburg-Bayreuth),  283 
Elizabeth,  Princess  of  Hesse-Cassel 

(later  Duchess  of  Mecklenbvirg- 

Giistrow),  263 
Elizabeth  of  the  Palatinate  (Duch- 
ess   of     Saxe  -  Gotha  -  Weimar), 

283 
Elizabeth    of   Denmark     (Duchess 

of      Brunswick  -  Wolfenbiittel), 

315 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


539 


Elizabeth,    Electoral    Princess    of 
Saxony    (Countess    Palatine    of 
Pfalz-Lautern),  276  {71.  1) 
Elizabeth  (Queen  of  England),  14, 

17 
Elizabeth     (Stuart)     of     England 
( Electoral  Princess  Palatine :  inter- 
changeably Queen  of  Bohemia), 
301 
Enzlin,  Matthew  (minister),  325 
Erasmus  of  Rotterdam  (Desid.).  176 
Erbach  (Counts  of),  80 
Eremita,  Daniel,  235,  237  {n.  3) 
Eric      II.      (the     yoimger,      Duke 
of    Brunswick  -  Kalenberg),    255 

in.l) 
Eric  XIV.   (King  of  Sweden),   10, 

170  in.  1) 
Ernest      (Archduke      of      Austria, 

governor    of    the    Netherlands), 

232 
Ernest    II.    (Duke    of    Brunswick- 

Liineburg),  308 
Ernest     Frederick     (Margrave     of 

Baden-Durlach),  319 
Ernest  Louis  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 

Wolgast),  309 
Etienne.     See  Stephanus 
Euling,  Karl  (Germanist),  89  {n.  5) 
Evenius,  Sigismund,  393,  406 


Feodor  I.  (Czar),  263,  297 

Ferdinand  I.  (King,  Emperor),  24, 
74  [n.  3),  100,  111,  180,  450 

Ferdinand  II.  (Archduke  of  Tyrol), 
47,  94,  104,  177,  213  (n.  4),  220 
(n.  2),  232,  260,  296,  303  {n.  4), 
450 

Ferdinand  (son  of  Duke  Albrecht  V. 
of  Bavaria),  327 

Fey er abend  Sigmund  (bookseller), 
260,  373 

Fioravanti,  Leon,  (surgeon),  369 

Fischart,  John  (poet),  48  (n.  1), 
424 

Fischer,  Christopher  (superinten- 
dent-general), 473 

Flacius,  Matthias  (Illyricus,  con- 
troversial theologian),  Flacians, 
38,  286 


Fleck  (doctor),  390 

Flexel,    Lienhard     (target-master), 

274 
Flinsbach,    Cuneman    (superinten- 
dent-general), 472 
Floras,  Nikolaus  (pastor),  422  {n.  3) 
Francis  I.    (Duke  of   Saxe-Lauen- 

burg),  308 
Francis  II.  (King  of  France),  3 
Franck,  Sebastian  (chronicler),  34, 

140,  420,  493 
Franz  (Duke  of  Pomerania-Stettin), 

239 
Frederick  III.  (interchangeably  IV. 

Emperor),  274,  431 
Frederick  I.  (Duke  of  the  Palatin- 
ate, the  Victorious),  426  (n.  2) 
Frederick    II.    (Palatine    Elector), 

100  {n.  4) 
Frederick   III.    (Palatine   Elector), 

56,  250,  316,  322 
Frederick    IV.    (Palatine    Elector), 

226,  247,  270,  280,  295,  316 
Frederick  V.  (Palatine  Elector,  the 

Winter  King),  301,336 
Frederick  III.  (Duke  of  Liegnitz), 

244 
Frederick  IV.   (Duke  of  Liegnitz), 

244,  257,  258,  259  {n.  1) 
Frederick  (Duke  of  Saxony),  160, 

237 
Frederick  (Duke  of  Wiirtemberg), 

51  {n.  1),  56,  208,  258,  263  (n.  1), 

266  {n.  1),  274,  292,  300  (n.  3), 

323 
Frederick  Ulrich  (Duke  of  Bruns- 

wick-Wolfenbuttel),  89,  99,  240, 

315, 488 
Frederick- William  (Duke  of  Saxe- 

Weimar,    Administrator    of    the 

Saxon  Electorate),  200, 213, 224f., 

253,  304,  419  (n.  2),  520 
Frederus,    Job.     (superintendent), 

481 
Freyburg,  Jacob  von  (squire),  139 
Friedrich  Matthaus  (preacher),  388 
Frischlin,  Nicod.  (philologist),  175, 

229,  349,  510 
Fugger  (the  family  of),  2,  28  (?;.  1), 

94,  105  [n.  1) 
Fugger,  Anton,  339  (n.  2) 


540 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Fugger,  Johaiin  Jacob,  342 
Fiirstenberg,  Caspar  v.  (councillor), 

338  {71.  4) 
Fyens,  Thomas  (house  physician), 

329 


Gadner,  George  (councillor),  90 
Garth,     Helwig     (superintendent), 

236 
Gebhard,  Truchsess  von  Waldburg 

(Archbishop  of  Cologne),  243 
Gebsattel,  Joh.  Phil.  v.  (Bishop  of 

Bamberg),  243 
Geiger,  Ludwig  (historian  of  litera- 
ture), 48  {n.  3) 
Geiler  von  Kaiser sberg  (cathedral 

preacher),  439^46,  452 
Geizkofler,  Lucas,  374 
Geizkofier,      Zacharias      (imperial 

treasurer),  74,  79,  80  {n.   1),   92 
Gengenbach,     Pamphilus     (printer 

and      controversial     dramatist), 

428  {n.  2) 
Gentillet,  Innocent,  3 
George     the     Bearded     (Duke     of 

Saxony),  139 
George   (Pfalzgrave  on  the  Rhine 

and  Duke  in  Bavaria,  Bishop  of 

Spires),  139 
George    I.    (Landgrave    of    Hesse- 
Darmstadt),  226,  270 
George  (Count   of   Tiibingen),  336 

(to.  5) 
George     (Count    of     Wiirtemberg), 

250  {n.  3) 
George     Frederick     (Margrave     of 

Ansbach-Bayreuth),  60,  205,  220, 

234,  321 
George  Hans   (Pfalzgraf  of  Pfalz- 

Saldenz),  81 
Gilsa,  Werner  v.  (squire),  59 
Glaser,  Fred,  (court-preacher),  240 
Gotthard  (Ketteler,  Duke  of  Kur- 

land),  227  (n.  5) 
Grabow,  John  (treasury-secretary), 

279 
Grammont  (ambassador),  236 
Gregory  I.  the  Great,  St.   (Pope), 

442  (n.  1),  446  {n.  1).  {See  '  Germ.' 

Vol.  8  for  these  notes.) 


Gregory  XIII.  (Pope),  265 

Greser,     Daniel      (superintendent), 

473  {n.  2) 
Grey  Sisters,  430 
Grote,    Alexander    (preacher),    481 

{11.  5) 
Griinbeck  (race  of),  179 
Griininger,        Erasmus        (court  - 

preacher),  260,  396  {n.  4),  421 
Guarmoni,     Hippol.     (house     phy- 
sician and  author),  334,  399  f., 

405  f.,  422,  498 
Giinderode,    Ulr.     v.     (Truchsess), 

237 
Giinther    XLI.    von    Schwarzburg 

(Count),  254,  338 
Giinzkofer  (noble  family),  179 
Guicciardini,  Luigi  (historian),  5 
Gundolzheim,   Phil.   v.    (Bishop  of 

Basle),  139 
Gustavus  I.,  Wasa  (King  of  Sweden), 

10  ff. 


Habakkuk  (prophet),  165 
Habsburg,  House,  Austria,  104 
Hackl,  Ukich  (Abbot   of    Zwettl), 

449 
Hag,  Ladislaus  zum  (Count),  334 
Hahne,  Ludwig  (pastor),  286,  291 
Hainhofer,   Philip,    199,   227,   231, 

295,  328,  423 
Hall,  V.  (captain),  347  {n.  1) 
Hans     (Duke     of     Saxe-Weimar), 

253 
Hans   (Margrave  of  Brandenburg- 

Custrin),  20  {n.  1),  223,  227  (n.  5), 

421 
Hans  George  I.  (Prince  of  Anhalt- 

Dessau),  234 
Harrer,  Hans  (chamberlam),  28 
Hass,  Joh.  (biu-gomaster),  159 
Hedwig,      Electoral     Princess     of 

Brandenburg  (Duchess  of  Brims- 

wick-WoHenbuttel),  275  £f.,  287, 

290 
Hedwig     of     Demnark     (Electoral 

Princess  of  Saxony),  265 
Heimbrock,  Gertrude  v.  (mistress), 

238 
Helbach,  Friedr.  (preacher),  370 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


541 


Henneberg,      George      Ernest      v. 

(Count),  200 
Henneberg,  Willi,  v.  (Count),  59 
Henry  XI.  (Duke  of  Liegnitz),  245; 

his  wife,  245 
Henry  II.,  Postliumus   (Prince   of 

Reuss-Gera),  240 
Henry  VII.  (King  of  England),  12 
Henry  IV.   (King  of  France),  236 

(n.  1) 
Henry  (King  of  Portugal),  26 
Henry   Julius  (Bishop    of    Halber- 

stadt  and  Muaden,  late  Duke  of 

Brunswick-Wolfcnbiittel),       213, 

218,  230,  242,  291  f.,  314,  334,  369 

{n.  1),  520 
Hering,  Stephen  (preacher),  469 
Hochstetter   (capitalist),  24  (n.  2), 

94 
Hoenstein,    Willi.    III.,    Count    of 

(Bishop  of  Strasburg),  139 
Hofer  (merchant  family),  94 
Hoffman,    Hans    (innkeeper),    417 

{n.  4) 
Hoft'meister,     Joh.     (Augustinian), 

356  (7i.  1) 
Hohenstein  (Countess),  336 
Holzschuher,  Berthold  (patrician), 

405  {n.  3),  502  {n.  2) 
Honauer,  George  (gold-maker),  292 
Hoya,  Joh.  IV.,  Count  of  (Bishoji 

of     Osnabriick,     Miinster     and 

Paderborn),  243 
Hund,  Bernh.  (councillor),  350 
Husanus,  Joh.  Friedr.  (lawyer),  145, 

149  {n.  1) 
Hiittel,  Simon  (chronicler),  417 
Hyperius,  Andr.  (theologian),  473 


Ilsung,  Geokge  (bailiff),  72 
Isabella  of  Portugal  (Empress,  wife 

of  Charles  V.),  183 
Isaiah  (prophet),  175 


Jager,  Hans  (gold-maker).  296 
Jager,  Melchior  (privy   councillor), 

251 
Jacobea    of    Baden    (Duchess    of 

Cleves),  264  (n.  1) 


James  I.  (King  of  England),  258 
Jenisch,  Paul  (court-preacher),  304, 

308 
Jesuits,    42,    243,    267,    296,    418, 

475 
Joachim   I.    (Elector   of   Branden- 
burg), 153,  313,  411 

Joachim  II.  (Elector  of  Branden- 
burg), 153,  217,  226,  275,  279, 
283,  299,  313,  359,  412,  421,  482, 
522,  524 

Joachim  Ernest  (Margrave  of 
Ansbach-Bayreuth),  216  {n.  2), 
295 

Joachim  Ernest  (Prmce  of  Anlialt- 
Bernburg),  233 

Joachim  Friedr.  (Elector  of  Bran- 
denburg), 314,  325,  373,  380, 
525 

John  (Elector  of  Saxony),  92, 
350 

John  VII.  of  Schonberg  (Arch- 
bishop of  Treves),  6 

John,  Duke  of  Holstein  (or  of 
Schleswig-Sonderburg),  247 

John  VII.  (Duke  of  Mecklenburg, 
Giistrow),  312 ;  his  widow, 
313 

John  (Duke  of  Saxe- Weimar).  See 
Hans 

John  VI.  of  Nassau-Dillenburg 
(Count),  246,  361  {n.  3) 

John  Adam  von  Bicken  (Arch- 
bishop of  Mayence),  495 

John  Albrecht  I.  (Duke  of  Mecklen- 
burg (or  of  Mecklenburg -Giis- 
trow), 230,  310,  522 

John  Casimir  (Count  Palatine  of 
Pfalz-Lautern),  234,  263 

John  Frederick  I.  (Elector  of 
Saxony),  232,  279,  299 

John  Frederick  (Duke  of  Holstein- 
Gottorp,  Protestant  archbishop 
of  Bremen),  238 

John  Frederick  (Duke  of  Pomer- 
ania),  309 

John  Frederick  the  Younger  (Duke 
of  Saxony),  279 

John  Frederick  II.  (Duke  of  Saxe- 
Gotha),  200,  209,  256  (w.  1),  284, 
316 


542 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Jolin  Frederick  (Duke  of  Wiirtem- 
berg),  221  {n.  3),  256,  295,  322  ff., 
459 

Jotin  George  (Electoral  prince 
otherwise  Elector  of  Branden- 
burg), 153,  157  f.,  201,  218, 
247,  263,  283,  290,  459,  482, 
524 

John  George  I.  (Administrator  of 
Merseburg,  later  Elector  of 
Saxony),  161,  213,  218,  223,  236, 
407,  520 

John  George  (Duke  of  Brieg),  257, 

John  George  of  Anhalt-Dessau. 
See  Hans  George 

John  Schweikart  (Archbishop  of 
Mayence),  222 

John  Sigismund  (Margrave,  later 
Elector  of  Brandenburg),  82, 
88,  218,  255  (?i.  1),  277,  279,  300, 
526 

John  Wniiam  (Duke  of  Jiilich- 
Cleves),  88,  264 

John  Will.  (Duke  of  Saxe-Coburg), 
229 

Jolles,  Oscar  (national  economist), 
501  (n.  1) 

Jorg  (Anabaptist),  459  {n.  2) 

Joseph  (Patriarch),  142 

Julius  (Duke  of  Brunswick-Wolfen- 
buttel),  103,  230,  242,  273,  275, 
281-291  {n.  1),  314,  343 


Kantzow,  Theodore  (privy  secre- 
tary), 146,  385 

Kaufmann,  Wolfgang  (Deacon), 
485 

Kelley,  Edward  (apothecary),  297 

Kemnat,  Matthias  v.  (clironicler), 
426  {n.  2) 

Kempe,  Stephan  (preacher),  458 

Ketteler.     See  Gotthard 

Khevenhiiller,  Barthol.  (nobleman) 
183 

Kircher,  Samuel,  8 

Kirchhoff,  Hans  Wilh.  (author), 
252  {n.  1),  362 

Kissmeier,  David  (mint-contractor), 
88 

Knipstro,  John  (theologian),  481 


Knoringen,  John  Egolf  v.  (Bishop 
of  Augsburg),  25 

Komerstadt  (councillor),  197 

Kramer,  Wolf  (Assayer-General), 
86 

ELranzheim,  Leonhard  (court- 
preacher),  244 

Kreydt,  Matthis  (valet),  376 

Kronberg,  Elizabeth  v.  (mfe  of 
Conrad  von  Sickingen),  336 

Kriiger,  Melchior  (syndicus),  488 


Lamberg,  H.  J.  v.,  342 

Lamberg,     Jos     v.     (chief     court 

chamberlain),  183 
Lamm,  Dr.    Markus   zum   (church 

councillor  to  the  Palatine  Elector) 

300  (n.  3) 
Lampadius  (preacher),  487  f. 
Landau  (Baron),  192  {n.  2) 
Lang,  Andreas,  499 
Lang,     Matthias     (Archbishop     of 

Salzburg),  100  (?i.  4),  139 
Lapi,  Thomas  (commercial  house), 

278 
Lassus,  Orlandus  (composer),  35 
Lauber,  Heim".  (preacher),  475 
Lauterbach       (electoral  -  steward), 

210 
Lauterbecken,  George  (councillor), 

37 
Lanze,  Wigand  fGovt.  Secretary), 

172  ff. 
Leiser,  Polycarpus  (superintendent), 

306,  499 
Lessing,  Jul.  (historian  of  art  and 

civilisation),  356  {n.  1) 
Leuchtius,      Valentine      (beneficed 

preacher),  451 
Lichtenstem,  Barthol.  v.  (knight), 

176  f. 
Link,     Wenzcl      (preacher),     453, 

476 
Lipsius,  Justus  (philologist),  330 
Liscux,  Isidore  (author),  4  (w.  1) 
Lohneiss,  George  Engelhard  (coun- 
cillor of  mmes),  42  («.   1),  102, 

121.228,  378,  502  (n.  1) 
Logau  (nobleman),  244 
Loitzes  (the  merchant  house),  29 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


543 


Lorichius,  Gerhard  (pastor),  352 
(n.l) 

LucuUus,  258 

Ludolf  V.  Gottingen  (religious 
writer),  442  (%.  1) 

Ludwig  VI.  (Count  Palatine,  later 
Palatine  Elector),  250,  390  . 

Ludwig  II.  (Duke  of  Pfalz-Zwei- 
briicken),  252  {n.  1) 

Ludwig  (Duke  of  Wiirtemberg), 
222,  250,  322 

Ludwig  V.  (Landgrave  of  Hesse- 
Darmstadt),  203,  219  (?i.  2), 
264 

Ludwig  IV.  (Landgrave  of  Hesse- 
Marbourg),  213,  219,  249,  253, 
286,  504 

Ludwig  (Prince  of  Anhalt  Kothen), 
237  {n.  3) 

Ludwig,  Friedrich  (Duke  of  Wiir- 
temberg), 267,  413 

Liincker,  Eckhard  (Deacon),  484 

Luther,  Martin,  Lutherans,  7  (n.  1), 
36  f.,  49  ff.,  89  (n.  5),  142  fif.,  212, 
240,  291  (/I.  1),  343  f.,  357  {n.  2), 
359  {n.  1),  360,  371  {n.  3),  387, 
409,  422  (n.  3),  446  {n.  2),  452  ff., 
460,  465,  478,  484,  501  {n.  1), 
504 

Liitzow,  Hemiig  (land-marshal), 
238 


Magdalena  of  Bavaria  (Countess 

Palatme  of  Neuburg),  231,  329 
Magdeburgius,  Joachim  (theologian), 

38 
Malachi  (prophet),  478 
Malsburg,  Hermann  v.  d.,  242 
Manhch,  Melchior  (father  and  son, 

merchants),  25 
Manlius  (a  Lutheran),  409 
Mansfeld  (Counts),  92,  347  (n.  1) 
Mansfeld,  George  v.  (Count),  233 
Margarete    Elise    of    Mecklenburg 

(Duchess    of    Mecklenburg-Giis- 

trow),  238 
Maria    of    Brandenburg-Kulmbach 

(Electress  of  the  Palatine),  316 
Maria    of    Prussia    (Margravine    of 

Ansbach-Bayreuth),  61 


Markus      von      Linden      (religious 

writer),  442  (n.  1) 
Markus  von  Weida  (religious  writer) 

442 
Mary  (Queen  of  England),  13 
Mathesius,  John  (pastor),  41,  383, 

389 
Matthias  (Emperor),  79,  96  f.,  198 

{n.  6),  298 
Matthias,   Thomas   (Master  of  the 

Exchequer),  299 
Maximilian     I.     (Emperor),     100, 

446 
Maximilian  II.  (Emperor),  14,  72, 

78f.,95f.,218(?i.  4),  287,299f. 
Maximilian   I.   (Duke  of   Bavaria), 

118,  231,  234  [n.  5),  243,  296,  328, 

334,  516 
Mayrwisen,    Gabr.    v.    (alchemist), 

296 
Medler,  Nich.  (superintendent),  487 
Melanchthon,    Philip,    36,    141    f., 

456,  480 
Melem,    Ogier    van    (deputy),  495 

(n.3) 
Mendel,  Conrad,  436 
Menger  (printer),  384  [n.  2) 
Mengerstorf,   Ernst  v.    (Bishop  of 

Bamberg),  300  {n.  2),  409 
Merbitz,  Velten  (alchemist),  281  f. 
Meyer  (merchants),  28 
Micah  (prophet),  488 
Michel    (Archbishop    of    Salzburg), 

215  {n.  3) 
Micralius,    John    (theologian),    145 

(n.  3) 
Milensius  (Augustinian),  230  (n.  1) 
Milichius,  Ludwig  (preacher),  410 
Mirus  (Saxon  court  preacher),  331 
Montanus,  Peter  (alchemist),  293 
Montfort,     Barbara,     Countess    of 

(wdfe    of    Anton    Fugger),    339 

{n.  2) 
Morawski  (Colonel),  192  (n.  2) 
Moritz  (Maurice)  Duke,  (otherwise 

Elector   of    Saxony),    119,    159, 

215,  217  {n.  3),  232  f.,  256  {n.  1), 

301,  351 
Moritz      (Landgrave      of      Hesse- 

Cassel),  98,  122,  212,  222  (?i.  1), 

249,  263,  273,  280,  300,  504 


544 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Morlin,   Joacliim   (superintendent), 

487 
Moscherosch,  Job.  Mich,  (satirist), 

356  {n.  1) 
Moser,     Eriedr.     Karl,  Baron  von 

(writer  on  state  law),  252  {n.  1) 
Moses,  236 

Mostel,  Jonas  (doctor),  374 
Miiller  (von  Miillenfels),  Job.  Heinr. 

(alchemist),  295 
Miinster,  Sebastian  (cosmographer), 

171 
Murad  III.  (Sultan),  263 
Murnor,  Thomas  (Franciscan),  427, 

477 
Muscatelli,  Fran,  (vendor  of   silk), 

319 
Musculus  (Meusel)  (superintendent- 
general),     Musculites,     359      ff., 

469  ff.,  486 


Namsler  (burgomaster),  375 
Nas,  Job.  (Franciscan),  474  {n.  1) 
Neidbard,  Karl  (merchant),  25 
Neithard     (Bishop     of     Bamberg). 

See  Tbiingen 
Neuburg,  K.  (national  economist), 

100  (n.  2) 
Neumayr,   George    (merchant),    24 
Niederstetter,       Michael       (court- 
preacher),  236,  308,  421 
Nigrinus,  George  (superintendent), 

52,  175,  216 
Nicholas  V.  (Pope),  430 
Noah  (patriarch),, 389 
Norman,  Matthew  (baibff),  147 
Nossemi,  John  Maria  (court  official), 

264 
Nyenstadt,  Franz,  11 


Oldecop,  John  (chronicler),  89 
{n.  5),  357 

Olorinus  Variscus.  See  Sommer, 
John 

Orange,  William  of.     See  William 

Osiander,  Lixcas,  the  Elder  (theo- 
logian), 51  [n.  1),  55,  57,  252 
{n.  1),  294 


Ossa,     Melcbior     v.     (Statthalter), 

59,  242,  279  f. 
Ottingen  (Counts  of),  288 
Ottingen,  Carolus  (pretended  count 

of),  288 
Otto  (Prince  of  Hesse-Cassel,  later 

Landgrave  of  Hesse-Hirscbfeld), 

263,  267 
Otto  Heinr.  (Palatine  Elector),  316, 

485 
Otto    Heinr.     (Coimt    Palatine    of 

Pfalz-Salzbacb),  248 


Pancratius,  Andr.  (superinten- 
dent), 391 

Pape,  Ambrosius  (pastor),  471,  506, 
513 

Paracelsus,  Theopbrastus,  288 

Passow  (nobleman),  238 

Paul,  St.  (Apostle),  348,  389,  442 
(n.  1) 

Pestalozzi,  Paul,  319 

Peter  the  painter,  270 

Philip  II.  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 
Stettin),  148 

Philip  I.  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 
Wolgast),  522 

Philip  (Landgrave  of  Hesse),  51 
(n.  1),  139,  202,  218,  249,  299, 
410 

Philip  (Landgrave  of  Hesse- Rheui- 
fels),  224,  249 

Phihp  II.  (Margrave  of  Baden- 
Baden),  317,  517 

Philip  (Bishop  of  Basle).  See  Gun- 
dolzheim 

Philip  von  AUendorf  (poet),  62 

PliiUp,  Franz  (Rhmegrave),  233 

Philip,  Julius  (Duke  of  Pomerania- 
Wolgast),  239 

Pius  II.  (Pope),  433 

Poleus,  Zacharias  (poet),  41,  383 

Pontanus,  John  (professor  of  the 
beabng  art),  292 

Portius,  Vmcenz,  369 

Possevin,  Anton  (S.J.),  74 

Praetorius,  Anton,  484 

Preysinger  (noble  family),  179 

Pufendorf,  Sam.,  Baron  v.  (pro- 
fessor of  law),  501  (n.  1) 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


545 


QtJADEN     VON     KiNCKELBACH,     M. 

(historian),  12  (n.  1) 

Raittbnau,  Wolf  Dietrich  (Arch- 
bishop of  Salzburg),  243,  300 

Rantzow,  Anna,  238 

Rautenkranz,  Hans,  273 

Rauwolf,  Leonh.  (physician),  74 

Regenstein,  Uh-ich  v.  (Count),  339 

Rei  chard  (Count  Palatine  of  Pfalz- 
Simmern),  81 

Reinhold,  John  (preacher),  369,  386 

Rem,  Lucas,  514  {n.  2) 

Renata  of  Lorraine  (Duchess  of 
Bavaria),  226,  328  ff. 

Rheinsberg,  Vespasian  v.,  347  {n.  1) 

Rhinegraves,  the,  80 

Rieger,  Ulrich,  401  (n.  1) 

Ringwalt,  Earth,  (preacher),  41. 
166,  214,  347  {n.  1),  385  ff.,  489 

Rodern,  Erasmus  v.  (nobleman), 
192  {n.  2) 

Roebell,  Andr.  v.,  347  (n.  1) 

Rorarius,  Thorn,  (preacher),  502 

Rosen  (nobleman),  238 

Rosenberg,  Wilh.  v.  (nobleman), 
336 

Rossler,  Stephan  (historian),  450 
(n.  1) 

Roth,  Conrad  (great  merchant),  25, 
272  f. 

Rothbein,  Adrian  (dancer),  268 

Rudolf  II.  (Emperor),  7  (n.  1),  9, 
73,  176,  181,  185,  188  f.,  205,  232, 
247,  295,  297,  300  {n.  3),  521 

Rumpolt,  Marx  [chef -de-cuisine), 
260-263,  333,  413 , 

Russ,  Wolfgang,  460 

Ruthard,  Matthew,  376~(r..  1) 

RyflF,  Gualtherus  (physician),  370 

Sachs,  Hans  (poet),  129,  357  f., 

514 
Sailer,  Burkhard,  433 
Saldern,  Burkhard  v.,  334,  338 
Sale,  Margareta  von  der  (mistress 

of  Philip  of  Hesse),  250 
Salm  (Wild  and  Rhinegrave),  235 
Sarah  (Abraham's  wife),  143 
Sarcerius,   Erasmus  (preacher),   40 

{n.  3),  410,  470,  483 
VOL.  XV. 


Sartorius,  William  (chaplain),  46 

Sastrowe,  B.  v.  (kniglit),  521 

Sattler,   Basilius  (court  preacher), 
489 

Sauwz,  Abraham    (judicial  procur- 
ator), 40,  41  [n.  1) 

Schallenberg,  Hieronymus  v.,  347 
{n.\) 

Scharold  (historian),  448  {n.  1) 

Scheid,  Matthias  (Bishop  of  Sego- 
via), 290 

Schenk,  Burkhard  v.,  336 

Scherding,  Abel  (preacher),  284 

Scherenberg,  Rudolf  (II.)  v.  (Bishop 
of  Wiirzburg),  435 

Scherer,  George  (S.J.),  42,  290,  418 

Schleupner,    Christopher    (superin- 
tendent-general), 61 

Schlieben,     Eustachius     v.    (coun- 
cillor), 313 

Schnabel,  Jorg  (anabaptist),  38 

Schombach,  Heinr.  (valet  and  court 
fool),  285,  288,  291 

Schonlaerg,  Ernst  v.,  233 

Schonberg,  Hans  Heinr.  v.  (Count), 
his  wife,  338  [n.  1) 

Schonberg,  Hans  Wolf  v.  (squire), 
162  (n.  2) 

Schonberg,  Heinr.  v.  (squire),  162 

Schonberg,    Meinhard    v.    (Counts, 
father  and  son),  337 

Schonborner,  v.  Schonborn  George 
(chancellor),  145 

Schonlank,  Bruno  (socio-politician), 
130  (n.  2) 

Schoppius,  Andr.   (preacher),  378, 
401 

Schroder,  Heinr.,  58 

Schulenburg,  Joachim  von  der,  280 

Schulfermann,    Silvester    (highway 
robber),  285,  291 

Schulthess,     George     (jewel     mer- 
chant), 272 

Schwebel,     Joh,     (preacher),     252 
(«.  1) 

Schweblin,  Joh.  (hospital  director), 
428  (n.  2) 

Schweinichen,    Hans    v.     (squire), 
243-248.  257  ff.,  259  (n.l) 

Schwendi,     Lazarus     v.     (military 
commander),  423 

N  N 


546 


HISTORY  OF  THE  GERMAN  PEOPLE 


Schwertzer,  Sebald  (alchemist),  28 
Scliwicheldt,  Kurd  v.,  335 
Sebastian  (King  of  Portugal),  26 
Sebastian  von  Heusenstamm  (Arch- 
bishop of  Mayence),  48 
Seckendorf    (historian    of    civilisa- 
tion), 230  {n.  1) 
Selnekker,     Nicolaus,     304,     344, 

480,  488,  505,  509 
Selwitz,  Hans  v.,  345 
Send  i  wo  j,  Michael  (covirt- councillor), 

297 
Setonius,     Alexander     (alchemist), 

283 
Sickingen,  Conrad  v.,  336 
Sigmund  III.  (King  of  Poland),  17 
Sigmund    II.,    Augustus    (King    of 

Poland),  31 
Sigwart,   John   George   (professor), 

176  {n.  1),  395 
Sixtus  IV.  (Pope),  433 
Sixtus  V.  (Pope),  263 
Solms  (Counts  of),  80 
Solms,  Reinhard  von  (Count),  342 
Solomon  (King),  142 
Sommer,  John   (Olorinus  Variscus, 

preacher),    48    (n.    3),   166,  280, 

281     (n.    1),   373,   398  (n.  1) 
Sommering     (Therocyklus),     Phil. 

(preacher),    284-291  ;   his     wife, 

284 
Sophia     of     Poland     (Duchess     of 

Brunswick- Wolfenbiittel,      step- 
mother of  Duke  Julius),  285 
Soranzo,  Giac.  (delegate),  340  {n.  4), 

421 
Soranzo,  Giov.   (ambassador),    234 

{n.  5) 
Spalatin,  George  (theologian),  142 
Spangenberg,  Cyriacus  (theologian), 

71,  164  f.,  194,  214,  216,  332,  339, 

343  (n.  1),  346,  363  (n.  3),  402, 

505 
Stadlmeyer,       Wolfgang       (parish 

vicar).  67  f. 
Stange,   George  (captain  of  mines), 

98 
Starhemberg,  Gottfried  (Count),  190 
Starhomberg.  Richard  (Count),  190 
Steinhausen,    George    (historian    of 

civilisation),  1  {n.  2),  298  {n.  3) 


Stephanus   (Etienne),     Henri   (II., 

printer),  4  (n.  1) 
Stiller,  Caspar  (preacher),  363 
Stolberg,  Henri  zu  (Count),  238 
Stolberg,  Ludw.  zu  (Count),  81,  88 
Stolberg,  Wolfg.  zu  (Count),  339 
Stolz  (court-preacher),  199 
Strahlendorf,  Vicke  v.,  312 
Streithorst,  Anton  v.,  315 
Streithorst,  Joachim  v.,  315 
Strigenicius,    Gregory    (superinten- 
dent),   41,    163,    229,    260,    355, 
372,  389,  392,  419 
Stubenberg,   Wolf  v.    (landed  pro- 
prietor), 182 

Tanzel  (merchant's  family),  94 
Taubner,    Stephan    (peasant),    216 

{n.  2) 
Taylor,  John,  87  {n.  4),  216 
Teschen,  Maria  Sidonia  v.,  257 
ThiJngen,  Conrad  (III.)  v.  (Bishop 

of  Wiirzburg),  447 
Thiingen,    Neithard    von    (Bishop 

of  Bombay),  451 
Thurneissen    zum    Thurn,   Leonh. 

(house  physician),  283 
Tobias,  442 
Torisani,  Laux  Endres  (capitalist), 

2,  278 
Trautmann,   Karl   (historian),   327 

{n.  1) 
Trautson,  Balth.  Baron  zu  Sprech- 
erstein  and  Schroffenstein  (here- 
ditary marshal),  69  {n.  1) 
Trithemius,  Job.  (abbot),  48  (??,.  3) 
Truchsess,  George  (servant),  237 
Truchsess  von  Waldburg  Otto  (Car- 
dinal-Bishop   of  Augsburg),    347 
(n.l) 
Tschermembl,      George      Erasmus 
(Baron),  190 

Uexkull  (Swedish  noble  house),  170 

(n.  1) 
Uhlhorn,  Gerhard  (Protestant 

abbot),  428  {n.  2).  458  {n.  1) 
Ulrich     (Duke     of     Mecklenburg- 

Schwerin),    151,    238.    245,    299, 

312,  522 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


547 


Qlrich     (Duke    of     Wiirtemberg), 

57,  220 
Un^er,  Hans  (master  of  mines),  97 

{n.  1),  20,  321 

Veit,  David  (preacher),  345 
Viati,  Barthol  (merchant),  2 
Villani,  Lor.  de  (merchant),  278 
Vischer,  Sixt  (pastor),  473 
Vitzthum,  V.  Eckstadt,  Christopher, 

347(??.  ]) 
Voigt,  Balth.  (pastor),  128  {n.  1),  242 
Volcius,  M.  (preacher),  364  {n.  1), 

379 
Volkensdorf,  Wolf  WUh.  v.  (lord  of 

the  manor),  192  (??..  2) 
Vulpius,    Christian   Aug.    (author), 

255  {n.  1) 

Waldeck,  Count  Francis  von 
(Bishop  of  Miinster,  Minden  and 
Osnabriick),  242 

Walsburg,  Joachim  v.  (chamber- 
lain), 270 

Wedel-Wedel,  Joachim  v.  (chron- 
icler), 29 

Welsberg,  Sigm.  v.,  47 

Welser  (family  of),  2,  29,  279 

Wenceslaus  (Duke  of  Teschen), 
308  f.  ;  his  wife,  308  f. 

Wenck,  Arnold  (goldsmith),  272 

Werner,     Michael     (cooper),  242 

Wertheim  (Counts  of),  80 

Wertheim,  Christoph.  Ludw.  v. 
(Count),  347  {n.  1) 

Wertheim,  George  II.,  v.  (Count), 
56 

Westphal,  Joachim  (preacher),  355 

Weyganmeyer,  George  (Hebraist), 
294 

Wildebach,  Hans  v.  (nobleman). 
217  {n.  4) 


William  IV.  (Duke  of  Bavaria),  21 

{n.  1),  207 
William  V.  (Duke  of  Bavaria),  35, 

226,    231,    255,    320,    326-330, 

404 
William  (Duke  of  Brunswick-Liine- 

burg),  245 
William  IV.  (Duke  of  Jiilich-Cleves), 

231 
William  III.  (Margrave  of  Meissen), 

274 
Wilham  IV.  (the  Wise,  Landgrave 

of  Hesse-Cassel),   103,   170,  201, 

219,  224  ff.,  249,  253,  281,  347 

(n.  1) 
William  (Prince  of  Orange),  254 
Winistede,    Joh.     (preacher),    470 

480,  489 
Winter,      Andr.     (preacher),     481 

{n.5) 
Winter,    Erasmus    (preacher),    407 

{71.  1),  420 
Winzinger,  Andr.  (Archdeacon),  419 
Wirsung,  Ulrich  (shopman),  407 
Wizel,  George,  456,  476 
Woikowsky-Biedau,  V.  v.  (national 

economist),  432  (re.  2) 
Wolf,  Dietrich  (Archbishop  of  Salz- 
burg).    See  Raittenau. 
Wolfgang  von  Dalberg  (Archbishop 

of  Mayence),  6,  48 
Wolfgang     (Duke    of     Pfalz-Zwei- 

brucken),  224,  475 
Wolfgang      (Prince      of      Anhalt- 

Kothen),  237 
Wolfgang  Wilhelm  (Count  Palatine 

of  Pfaiz-Neuburg),  231,  329 

Zane  (ambassador),  303  (n.  4) 
Ziegler,  Anna  Maria  v.  (adventur- 
ess), 284-291 
Zwingli,  Ulrich,  35 


END    OF    THE    FIFTEENTH    VOLUME 


Spottiswoode  &  Co.  Ltd.,  Printers,  Colchester,  London  and  Eton. 


o 

CO 

o 


m 
o 

o 
»-3 


tft 


5m  i^ — I 


O 


U 

o 

J3  OJ 


^       H 


u'SUi  xspuj   jay,,  -^cj  aapna 

)3)|30(j    pjBO   jCjBjqil   3IU3V 


19>[30J 


siqj    Luojj 

9AOUI9J 


; 


u 


^a 


AavHan 
mmi  JO  ummm