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PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE

IN THE

EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.

SECOND SERIES.

VOL. I.

PICTURES

OF

GERMAN LIFE

In the XVIII^th and XIX^th Centuries.

Second Series.

BY

GUSTAV FREYTAG

Translated from the Original by

MRS. MALCOLM.

COPYRIGHT EDITION.--IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1863.

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

CONTENTS.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.

Introduction.--The nation and the individual--Aim of the book--Peculiarities in the development of the German people since the Thirty Years' War

CHAPTER I.

Life of the German Peasant (1240-1790).--The duration of modern nations--German agriculture in the time of the Romans, the Carlovingians, and the Hohenstauffen--Description of the peasants by Neidhart von Reuenthal--Narrative of young Helmbrecht, by Wernher the Gardener--The fifteenth century--The Peasant War--Eberlin von Günzburg--Condition of the peasants after the war; their service and burdens; their different condition according to districts, and deterioration by oppression--First signs of improvement--Description of the German peasant by Christian Garve--Insurrection of the peasantry in 1790, and their present position

CHAPTER II.

The Life of the Lower Nobility (1500-1800).--The country nobles in the sixteenth century--The court nobles--The detrimental effects of the Great War--Description of a wealthy nobleman from 1650-1700--Patents of nobility--Description of the life of the newly-ennobled merchants from 1650-1700--The country nobles and Krippenreiters from 1660-1700--Description of the same from "The Nobleman," by Paul Winckler--Better condition after 1700--Privileges of the nobles--Introduction of a new culture--Gellert--Union of the nobles with the citizens

CHAPTER III.

The German Citizen and his Shooting Festivals (1300-1800).-Gradual development of the citizen class--Decline after the Thirty Years' War--The prize shooting as an example of their former wealth and importance--May feasts of the old citizens--Prize shooting before 1400--Preparations for the festival--The Pritschmeister and procession--Prizes and fortune's urn--Hospitality, and conclusion of the festival--Zurich and Strasbourg--Differences of the festivals according to districts--Their decline--Description of the Breslau "Königschiessens" of 1738, by Kundmann

CHAPTER IV.

The State Policy and the Individual (1600-1700).--The dissolution of the German Empire--The Prince's parties--The despotic official administration--The statesmen after the war--The insecurity of the subject; its influence on the character--Characteristics of the State system in a flying sheet of 1678--Tendencies up to 1740

CHAPTER V.

The "Stillen im Lande," or Pietists (1600-1700).--Tendencies of Protestantism till 1618--Consequences of the war--The older Pietism--Spener--Hatred of worldly pleasures--The women--Self-contemplation and social intercourse--Good effects on morals--The revival--Characters of Petersen and his wife--Narrative of Johanna Eleonora Petersen--Narrative of Dr. Johann Wilhelm Petersen--Fate of this couple, and their revelations--The later Pietism and its aberrations--Opposition--Lamentations of the student, Ernst Johann Semler--Progress of the people through Pietism

CHAPTER VI.

The Dawning of Light (1750).--Changes in the human mind from the invention of printing--Mathematical discipline and natural science--Law--Philosophy and its position with respect to theology--The leaders--Change of literature by Wolf and his disciples--Description of a German city about 1760, its police and artisans--The gentry--Merchants and their commerce--Ecclesiastics, teachers, and schools--Post and travelling--Dress and manners--Sentimentality, tears, and self-contemplation--Marriage a business matter--Women and house duties--Narrative of Johann Salomo Semler--Letter from a bride to her bridegroom in the year 1750

PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE.

Second Series.

INTRODUCTION.

The Man and the Nation! The course of life of a nation consists in the ceaseless working of the individual on the collective people, and the people on the individual. The greater the vigour, diversity, and originality with which individuals develop their human power, the more capable they are of conducing to the benefit of the whole body; and the more powerful the influence which the life of the nation exercises on the individual, the more secure is the basis for the free development of the man. The productive power of man expresses itself in endless directions, but the perfection of all powers is the political development of the individual, and of the nation through the State. The mind, the spirit, and the character are influenced and directed by the political life of the State, and the share which the individual has in the State is to him the highest source of honour and manly happiness.

If in the time of our fathers and grandfathers the German contemplated his own position among other men, he might well question whether his life was poor or rich, whether hope or sorrow predominated; for his earthly position was in every way peculiar. Whilst he felt with pleasure that he was in the enjoyment of a free and refined cultivation, he was daily oppressed by the harsh despotism, or the weak insignificance of his State, in which he lived as a stranger without the protection of the law; he looked with pride on the gigantic workings of German science, but he perceived, with bitter sorrow, that millions of his countrymen were separated by a deep chasm from the highest results of scientific labour. He found himself amidst the working of a popular energy, which ventured with heroic courage on the boldest conclusions in the realm of mind; and, on the other hand, saw around him narrow-hearted obstinacy, where simple and close results ought to have been the aim. He felt with thousands an eager desire for an object of life which would exalt and animate him, and again he found himself surrounded and shackled by narrow-mindedness and by provincial and local exclusiveness. Whoever should thus feel, may well inquire whether we Germans are old or young, whether it is destined by fate that the German nature should only find expression in the individual virtuosoship of art and science, or whether an harmonious development of the nation in its practical and ideal tendencies, in labour and enjoyment. State, church, science, art, and industry, lies before us in the future: whether we shall ever again, as members of a great State, play the part of masters in Europe, which old records inform us our ancestors, in remote ages, won by their swords and the energy of their natures. There is still a time in our memory when hope was so faint, that one may be excused for giving a doubtful answer to such questions.

After the War of Freedom, the decay of the old method of culture became the characteristic of the time; but we now approach, with youthful vigour, new ideas and an energetic will, to a new and higher climax. In the characters of that past time we find, only too frequently, isolation, hopelessness, and deficiency in political morality; in the new time we have a sharper vision, a higher interest for the nation as a whole, and a power of viewing things in a practical light which makes us feel the need of close union between all of like mind. The realism, which is called, either in praise or blame, the stamp of the present time, is in art, science, and faith, as in the State, nothing but the first step in the cultivation of the rising generation, which endeavours to spiritualise the details of present life in all directions, in order to give a new tendency to the spirit.

But, though it may be no longer necessary to cheer the soul with hope, yet it is a pleasing task to demonstrate the point to which we have attained in comparison with the past, and in comparison with other civilised nations; why we were obliged to remain behind in many things which our neighbours possess in abundance, and why we have made other acquisitions in advance of them. It is instructive for us to make such inquiries, and the answer that we shall find may be instructive to other nations. No individual can give a satisfactory solution to each single question; even the strongest mind can but imperfectly comprehend the great life of his nation: the clearest eye and the most ingenuous judgment is contracted in comparison with the great unity of the people. But, however imperfect may be the portrait given by individuals of the life of their nation, yet each contemporary will discover some main features of the picture lying in his own soul, more especially he who stands in the same grade of cultivation with the delineator.

This kind of delineation of the period of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, was the object of the former series of pictures of the past life of Germany; the following will be a sketch of some of the phases of development of German character during the last century up to the present day. Again shall the narratives of those who are gone, as well as the living, portray the times in which they figure; but the nearer we approach the present, the less do the records of individuals give an impression of the nature of the general community. First, because from the greater proximity we are able more accurately to distinguish the individual from the community, and also, because the diversity of character and the difference of culture become ever greater the further the German mind advances in profound investigation; therefore these examples will probably lose for the reader some of the charm afforded by those of former centuries. And in addition to this, the records of these latter times are far more known and realised by our popular writers. Lastly, the political history, as well as the development of the German mind, since the time of Frederick the Great, has, through copious works, become the property of the nation. It is not therefore intended here to enter upon a representation of the scientific mind, or of the political condition of the nation; but only to represent those phases of the spirit and social circumstances, which more especially define the character of a people. By these the continuity and many peculiarities of our present cultivation will be illustrated.

The new time began in Germany, after the invention of printing, by a struggle in which Germans broke the fetters of the Papal Church of the Middle Ages, and passed from submissive belief in authority, to an energetic, independent search after truth. But they did not at the same time succeed in building up a compact monarchy out of the unsymmetrical feudalism of the Middle Ages. The Imperial House of Hapsburg became the zealous opponent of the national development. Owing to this opposition arose the power of separate territorial princes, and the political weakness of Germany became the more perceptible, the more the rising vigour of the nation demanded an answering development of political energy. From this the German character suffered much. Ecclesiastical disputes were for a long period the only national interest; there was but too great a deficiency in Germans of that pride and pleasure in a fatherland, and of that whole circle of moral feelings, to which political independence gives life, even in the most obscure individual.

After the Reformation it became the fate of the German nation to develope its character under conditions which were materially different from those of the other civilised people of Europe. In France, the Protestant party was struck down with bloody zeal by the crown under the despotic government of Louis XIV.; and the Revolution was the growth of this victory. In England, the Protestant party gained the dominion under the Tudors; the struggle against the Stuarts and the completion of the English constitution was the result. In Germany, the opposition of parties was not followed either by victory or conciliation; the result was the Thirty Years' War, and the political paralysis of Germany, from which it is only now beginning to recover.

This Thirty Years' War, the worst desolation of a populous nation since the national exodus, is the second period of German history which gave a peculiar tendency to the character of the people. The war shattered into ruins the popular strength, but it also certainly removed the dangers which threatened German cultivation, by the alliance of the Imperial House with the Roman Hierarchy. It also separated the Imperial State, politically, from the rest of Germany; what was lost to France in the west by the Hapsburgers, was gradually regained to Germany in the east by another Royal House. The great destruction caused by the war, changed the State life of Germany to a hollow form; it threw the Germans almost two centuries back, in comparison with their English kinsmen, in wealth, population, and political condition. It must again be repeated that it destroyed at least two thirds, probably three fourths of the population, and a still greater portion of their goods and cattle, and deteriorated the morals, arts, education, and energies of the survivors. Out of these remains of German life, the modern character of Germans was slowly and feebly developed--individual life under despotic government.

It is this period, in which our popular strength was slowly raised from the deepest degradation, which will be here portrayed by the narratives of contemporaries. Again a great time, but a period of German development of which the last and highest results have not yet become history.

The way in which the people raised themselves from this abyss is peculiar to the Germans. Marvellous as was the destruction, so also was the revival. More than one nation has been overpowered by outward enemies or cast down under political oppression, each of which has had to undergo special trials which have given them from time to time a hopeless aspect, but through the whole course of history a renovation has been effected, so that the strengthening of the State has gone hand-in-hand with intellectual progress. When the Greeks during the Persian war felt their own political worth, their science and art blossomed almost simultaneously; when Augustus had given a new support and constitution to the declining Roman republic, there began forthwith a new Imperial culture in enjoyment-seeking Rome: the intellectual life, from Horace and Virgil to Tacitus, followed the destiny of the State; the increased expansive power of the Empire ever gave a wider stretch and stronger independence to individual minds. And again in England,--when the war of the Red and White Roses was ended, when the people peacefully danced round the maypole, and a brilliant court life enforced courtly manners upon the wild Barons, when daring merchants and adventurers waylaid the Spanish galleons, and conveyed the spices of India up the Thames,--then the popular energies found expression in the greatest poetic soul of modern nations. Even in France the splendid despotism of Louis XIV., after the wars of the Huguenots and the Fronde, gave suddenly to the tranquillised country a brilliant courtly bloom of art and literature. It was quite otherwise in Germany. Whilst everywhere else the State might be compared to the body whose abundant energy calls forth the creative development of the nation, in Germany, since the Thirty Years' War, owing to the awakening popular energy, a new national civilisation has gradually arisen in a shattered, decaying government, under corrupting and humiliating political influences of every kind,--first dependent upon strangers; then independent and free; finally, a shining pattern for other people, producing blossoms of poetry, and blossoms of science of the greatest beauty, of the highest nobility, and the greatest inward freedom: it was developed by individuals who were deficient in just that discipline of the mind and character, which is only given to them when they are members of a great State. The German culture of the eighteenth century was indeed the wonderful creation of a soul with out a body.

It is still more remarkable that this new national cultivation helped, in an indirect way, to turn the Germans into political men. From it the enthusiasm and struggle for an endangered German State, passions, parties, and at last political institutions were developed. Never did literature play such a part or solve such great problems, as the German, from 1750 to the present day. For it is thoroughly unlike the modern endeavours of other nations, who from patriotism, that is to say, from the need of political progress, mature an objective literature. In these cases art and poetry serve, from the beginning, as handmaids to politics; they are perhaps artificially fostered, and the artistic and scientific worth is probably less than the patriotic aim. In Germany, science, literature, and art only existed for their own sake: the highest creative power and the warmest interests of the educated classes were engrossed with them alone; they were always German and patriotic, in opposition to the overpowering French taste; but, with the exception of a few outbreaks of political anger or popular enthusiasm, they had no other aim than to serve truth and beauty. Nay, the greatest poets and scholars considered the political condition under which they lived, as a common reality out of which art alone could elevate mankind.

As therefore in Germany art and science desired nothing but honourable exertion within their own sphere, their pure flames refined the sensitive disposition of Germans till it was hardened for a great political struggle.

Before giving pictures of the German character during the last two centuries, we will endeavour to portray the peculiarities which are developed in the family relations of the different classes of ancient Germany, both the peasantry, the nobility, and the citizens. But the aim of the book is to show how, by means of the Hohenzollern State, Germans changed gradually from private to public men; how dramatic power and interest entered into lyrical individual life; how the Burgher class was strengthened by increasing education, and the nobility and peasantry submitted to its influence; finally, how it cast aside the specialities of classes, and began to form characters according to its own needs and points of view.

CHAPTER I.

THE LIFE OF THE GERMAN PEASANT.

(1240-1790.)

In seven hundred years the independent life of the Greeks terminated; about a thousand embraces the growth, dominion, and decline of the Roman power; but the German Empire had lasted fifteen hundred years from the fight in the Teutoburg Forest,[^[1]] before it began to emerge from its epic time. So entirely different was the duration of the life of the ancient world to that of the modern; so slow and artificial are our transformations. How rich were the blossoms which Greek life had matured in the five centuries from Homer to Aristotle! How powerful were the changes which the Roman State had undergone, from the rise of the free peasantry on the hills of the Tiber to the subjection of the Italian husbandmen under German landlords! But the Germans worked for fifteen centuries with an intellectual inheritance from the Romans and the East, and are now only in the beginning of a development which we consider as peculiar to the German mind, in contradistinction to the Roman, of the new time, to the ancient. It is indeed no longer an isolated people which has to emerge from barbarism by its own creations; it is a family of nations more painstaking and more enduring, which has risen, at long and laborious intervals, from the ruins of the Roman Empire, and from the intellectual treasures of antiquity: one nation reciprocally acting on the other, under the law of the same faith.

The Romans from free peasants had become farmers, and they were ruined because they could not overcome the social evil of slavery. The German warriors also, in the time of Tacitus, took little pleasure in cultivating their own fields, and were glad to make use of dependents. It was only shortly before the year 1500, that the German cities arrived at the conviction that the labour of freemen is the foundation of prosperity, opulence, and civilisation. But in the country, even after the Thirty Years' War, the mass of the labourers--more than half of the whole German nation--were in a state of servitude, which in many provinces differed little from slavery. It is only in the time of our fathers that the peasant has become an independent man, a free citizen of the State: so slowly has the groundwork of German civilisation and of the modern State been developed.

All earthly progress does not take the straight course which men expect when improvement begins; thus the position of the German husbandman in 1700 was worse in many respects than a hundred years before; nay, even in our time it is not comparatively so good as it was 600 years earlier, in the time of the Hohenstaufen.

The German peasant for centuries lost much that was valuable in order to attain a higher condition; his freedom and elevation to citizenship in our State was effected in an apparently indirect way. At the time of the Carlovingians more than half the peasants were free and armed, and the pith of the popular strength; at the time of Frederick the Great, almost all the country people were under strict bondage,--the beasts of burden of the new State, weak and languishing, without political object or interest in the State. Somewhat of the old weakness still clings to them.

We shall therefore first take a short review of an earlier period, comparing it with the peasant life of the last two centuries.

What the Romans mention of the condition of the German agricultural districts, is only sufficient to give us a glimpse of ancient peasant life. According to their accounts, the Germans were long considered to be a wild warrior race, who lived in transition from a wandering life to an uncertain settlement, and it was seldom inquired how it was possible that such hordes should for centuries carry on a victorious resistance to the disciplined armies of the greatest power on earth. When Cheruskers, Chattens, Bructerers, Batavers, and other people of less geographical note, occasioned terror, not only to single legions, but to large Roman armies, not once, but in continual wars for more than one generation,--when a Markomannen chief disciplined 70,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry after the fashion of legions; when a Roman, after a century of devastating wars between the Rhine and the Elbe, puts before us with great emphasis the powerful masses of the Germans,--we may conclude that single tribes which, with their allies, could sometimes bring into the field more than 100,000 warriors, must have counted a population of hundreds of thousands. And we equally approach to a second conclusion, that such a multitude in a narrowly limited space, surrounded by warlike neighbours, could only exist by means of a simple, perhaps, but regular and extensive cultivation of field products. That the agriculture of the Germans should appear meagre to the Romans, after the garden cultivation of Italy and Gaul, is comprehensible; nevertheless they found corn, millet, wheat, and barley; but the common corn of the country was oats, the meal of which they despised, and rye, which Pliny calls an unpalatable growth of the Alpine country, productive of colic. But in the year 301, the corn which made the German black bread, was introduced as the third article of commerce in the corn bourse of Greece and Asia Minor. And from barley the German brewed his home drink, beer; he also brewed from wheat.

Now we know that in the time of the Romans, most of the German races lived in a condition similar to that in which it appears from records they lived shortly after their great exodus, in the early centuries of the Christian era: sometimes on single farms, but generally in enclosed villages, with boundaries marked out by posts. They had a peculiar method of laying out new village districts, and the Romans found it difficult to understand the mode of farming customary to the country. Probably the dwellers in the marshes near the North Sea had, as Pliny writes, made the first simple dykes against the encroachments of the water; already were their dwellings built on small hillocks, which, in high tides, raised them above the water, and their sheep pastured in the summer on the grass of the new alluvial soil;[^[2]] but further from the coast the peasant dwelt in his blockhouse, or within mud walls, which he then loved to whitewash. Herds of swine lay in the shadows of the woods,[^[3]] horses and cattle grazed on the village meadows, and long-woolled sheep on the dry declivities of the hills. Large flocks of geese furnished down for soft pillows; the women wove linen on a simple loom, and dyed it with native plants, the madder and the blue woad; and made coats and mantles of skins, which had already borders of finer fur introduced from foreign parts. Well-trod commercial roads crossed the territory from the Rhine to the Vistula in every direction. The foreign trader, who brought articles of luxury and the gold coins of Rome in his wagon to the house of the countryman, exchanged them with him for the highly-prized feathers of the goose, smoked hams, and sausages, the horns of the ure ox and antlers of the stag, fur skins, and even articles of toilet, such as the blonde hair of slaves, and a fine pomade to colour the hair. He bought German carrots, which had been ordered as a delicacy by his Emperor Tiberius; he beheld with astonishment in the garden of his German host, gigantic radishes, and related to his country-people that a German had shown him honeycombs eight feet long.

The warlike householder, it is true, held his weapons in higher esteem than his plough, not because agriculture was unimportant or despised, but because in the free classes there was already an aristocratic development. For, although the warrior did not employ himself in any field labour, he insisted upon his household cultivating his ground, and his bondmen had to pay a tribute in corn and cattle. The bondman dwelt with his wife and child near his master in special huts, which were erected on the land that was allotted to him for cultivation. Freemen were not only associated in communities, but several races were joined in one confederacy, being by the old constitution knit together by religious memories and public worship. The boundaries of the province were marked out, like those of the village, by casts of the holy hammer, and consecrated by processions of divine cars. Notwithstanding the numerous feuds of individual tribes, there were many points of union which served to reconcile and keep them together,--blood relationship and marriage alliances, similitude in customs and privileges, and, above all, the feeling of the same origin, the same language, and those pious rites which keep alive the memory of ancient communion.

Although the German of Tacitus appears to us as a fierce warrior, who, clothed in skins, watched with spear and wooden shield over the abatis which guarded his village against the assaults of enemies; yet this same German is shown, by the results of new researches, to have been a householder and landlord. He looked with satisfaction on the great brewer's copper which had been wrought by his neighbour, the skilful smith; or he stood in coloured linen smock-frock before the laden harvest wagon, on which his boy was throwing the last sheaf of rye, and his daughter placing the harvest wreath with pious ejaculations.

The German is incomprehensible to us, when, according to the Roman, he worshipped Mercury as the highest god; but we can realise the figure of the Asengott Woden, when we see the connection, of the wild hunter of our traditions and the sleeping Emperor of Kyffhäuser, with German antiquity. Now, we know how lovingly and actively the gods and spirits hovered round the hearths, farms, fields, rivers, and woods of our forefathers. From this tendency also the old Chatte or Hermundure has been transformed into a Hessian or Thuringian householder, who in the twilight looks wistfully up to his rooftree, on which the little household spirit loves to sit, and who, when the storm rages, carefully covers the window-openings, in order that a spectral horse's head from the train of the wild god who rides on the blast may not look into his hall.

Even from the productions of the Germans in that century that were most full of heart and soul, their songs, which no careful hand transcribed on parchment, we may draw some conclusions. Their oldest kind of poetry is not entirely unknown to us,--the native epic verse, with its alliterations--and in some of the popular songs and proverbs which have been preserved, we still find the ancient love of contests of wit and of enigmas, with which a troubadour delighted his hearers by the hearth of the Saxon chief.

After the great national exodus, written records begin slowly to appear in Germany. They came, together with that irresistible power which changed so much of the whole spirit of the German people,--with Christianity. However energetically religion turned the mind into new paths, and however fearful was the destruction occasioned by popular tumults at that period of immigration, the changes in the Germans arising from both sources were not sufficient to shatter everything ancient into ruins. We are too apt to consider the national exodus as a chaotic process of destruction. It is true that it drove from their homes many of the most powerful German nationalities that were located in and beyond East Germany, and the depopulated domiciles were filled with the Sclavonians who followed. The Bavarians migrated from Bohemia to the Danube; the Suevi, Allemanni, and Burgundians, southwards to their present localities. The names of old nationalities have disappeared, and new ones have spread themselves far across the Rhine. But nearly half the Germany which was known to the Romans--the wide territory from the North Sea to the Thuringian woods and the Rhone, from the Saal to near the Rhine--retains, on the whole, its old inhabitants; for the Thuringians, the Chattens, and indeed most of the races of Lower Saxony, only came in partial swarms; they probably greatly diminished in marching through foreign lands, and by emigrations of their kinsmen; they were also, as for example the Thuringians, frequently intermingled with foreign hordes, who settled among them. But the nucleus of the old inhabitants remained through all fluctuations, and maintained their own old home traditions, peculiarities of speech, customs, and laws.

About the year 600 the oldest law books and records in the new Franconia, afford us the richest insight into the life of the German countryman. Each had a right to a holding, generally of 30 morgans, on the common land, the morgan being decided according to the nature of the soil. On each holding there was a yard fenced round, closed by a gate, within which was the dwelling-house with stables and barn, and by the side of it a garden; and in the southwest of Germany frequently a vineyard. These homesteads formed villages divided by lanes; it was only in part of Lower Saxony that the inhabitants of the marsh and hilly country lived in separate farms, in the midst of their holdings. But amongst most Germans the holding is not a connected tract of land. The collective arable land of the village was divided into three portions--winter, summer, and fallow fields; each of these fields, according to soil and situation, again into small parcels; and in each of these parcels in every field each holder had his share. Thus the arable land of every holding consisted of a number of square acres which, lying dispersed through the three principal divisions of the village district, gave, as far as possible, an equal measure of land in each. Besides this, a share of the pastures, meadows, and wood of the community belonged to the holding; for round the arable land lay the meadow land of the community, and its woods, in which were the treasured acorns. Already the boundaries were carefully marked, and on the boundary hills boys received blows on their cheeks and had their ears pulled, and already was it called an old custom to set up a small bundle of straw as a warning on a forbidden footway. Already we find the property not unfrequently divided, where the vassals dwell in the house and farm, the grades of their vassalage and their burdens being various. The households of freemen also contained bondservants, who differed little from Roman slaves; only in the service of God could they be equal with the free; they shared in all the holy usages of the Church; they could become priests and perform marriages with the permission of their masters, but the master had a right over their life.

Among the farms of freemen and vassals might be found the farm of a larger landed proprietor, who had a manor house with a hall, and a great number of huts for domestics and labourers. For as yet, artisans, wheelwrights, potters, armourers, and goldsmiths were most of them bondmen; as the number of markets and cities were small, their influence in the country was still unimportant. All kinds of grain were cultivated in the fields, which are now used in our succession of crops, and in the gardens, almost all the vegetables of our markets, also gherkins, pumpkins, and melons; the laws were vigilant for the protection of the orchards. The clergy brought from Italy costly grafts, and peaches and apricots were to be found in the gardens of the wealthy. Already the old Bavarian house began to appear, formed of beams, with galleries outside, and its flat projecting roof; and it may be assumed also, that the old Saxon house with its heathen horses' heads on the gable ends, its thatched roof over the porch, its hearth, sleeping cells, and cattle stalls, spread widely over the country, and that the Thuringians, even then, as in a century later, lived in the unfloored hall, in the background of which a raised daïs--the most distinguished part of the house--separated from the hall the women's apartments and the sleeping-rooms. Dwellings were seldom without a bathhouse; for their winter work the women descended into their underground chamber, which had already astonished the Romans, where stood the loom; the places for the mistresses and servants were separated. In the court-yard fluttered numerous poultry, amongst them swans and even cranes, which, up to the Thirty Years' War, were treasured as masters of the German poultry yard. The greatest pleasure of the countryman was the training of his horse, and the steeds which were used in war were of great value. They pastured with their feet hobbled; any one was severely punished who stole them from their pasture; the impositions of horse dealers also were well known, and the laws endeavoured to afford protection against them. All the South Germans fastened bells round the necks of their cattle, and the Franconians round the swine in the woods.

Every means of ascertaining the relative number of bond and freemen in the time of Charles V. is deficient, even in that part of the country which had for a long time been won over to Christianity; yet we see distinctly that the whole strength of the nation lay in the masses of free yeomen. But even in his time, larger landed proprietors, tyrannical officials, and the not less domineering Church, eagerly endeavoured to diminish the number of the free by obtruding upon them their protection, and thus placing them under a gentle servitude. The position of the free peasant must have been frequently insupportable; the burdens laid upon him by the monarchy were very great, such as the tithes, the military service, and the supply of horses and vehicles for the journeys of the king and his officials. There was no law to protect him against the powerful, and he was especially tormented by robber hordes and the violence of his neighbours. Therefore he found safety by giving up his freedom, surrendering his house and farm into the hands of a powerful noble, and receiving it back again from him. Then he delivered to his new master as a symbol of his service, a fowl from his farm yard, and a portion of the produce of his field or of his labour as a yearly tax. In return for this, his new master undertook to defend him, and to perform his military service for him by means of his own followers.

Thus began the diminution of the national strength of Germany, the oppression of the peasants, the deterioration of the infantry, and the origin of the feudal lords, and of their vassal-followers, from which arose in the next century the higher and lower German nobility. Every internal war, every invasion of foreign enemies,--of Normans, of Hungarians, or of Sclaves,--drove numerous freemen into servitude, and without ceasing did the Church work to recommend itself or its saints as feudal lords to repentant sinners.[^[4]]

Yet about the year 1000, under the great Saxon emperors, the free peasant had still some consciousness of strength. The bondman, indeed, was still under severe oppression; he was slightly esteemed, and obliged to give outward proof of the difference between himself and the freeman, by bad dress and short hair. The free peasant then wore the long linen or cloth dress of a similar cut to the Emperor himself; with his sword by his side he went to the assembly under the tree, or to the judgment stone of his village. And if he descended from four free ancestors, and possessed three free hides, he was, according to Saxon law, higher in rank than some of the noble courtiers who had serf blood in their veins, and whoever injured him had to make atonement as to one of princely blood. It was then he began to cultivate his fields more carefully; it appears to have been about this time that the practice arose of ploughing a second time before sowing the summer seed. In the neighbourhood of rich cloisters, fine garden-culture progressed, vineyards were carefully cultivated, and in the low countries of the Rhine, in Holland and Flanders, there was a husbandry of moor and marsh grounds, which in the next century was carried by numerous colonists of these races, into the Elbe country, and far into the east.

The peasant in the time of Otto the Great, had become a good Christian, but the old customs of the heathen faith still surrounded him in his house and fields, his phantasy filled nature, beasts, and plants with warm life. Whatever flew or bounded over his fields, whether hare, wolf, fox, or raven, were to him familiar forms, to whose character and fate he gave a human turn, and of whom with cheerful spirit he used to sing in heroic terms, or tell beautiful tales. In his house were numerous trained birds; and those were valued the highest which could comport themselves most like men. The starling repeated in a comic way the paternoster; the jackdaw welcomed him on his return home; and he rejoiced in the dance of the trained bear. He loved his cattle with all his heart, he honoured his horses, oxen, cows, and dogs with the names of the ancient gods, to whom he still continued to attach ideas of dignity and sanctity. This craving for familiar intercourse with all that surrounded him was the peculiar characteristic of the German peasant in the olden time. This great love of beasts, tame birds, dogs and horses continued long, as late as Luther's time, a few years before the great peasant war. A true-hearted peasant having in the fullness of his joy kissed his decorated foal upon the neck, a lurking monk who happened to see it, cited him before the ecclesiastical court, and inflicted a heavy fine upon him, because it was unseemly. On this account Karsthans clenched his fists at the priests.[^[5]] In the eleventh century, the countryman still sang by his hearth the stirring heroic songs, the subject-matter of which is in part older than the great exodus,--those of Siegfried and the Virgin of Battle Brunhild, of the treachery of the Burgundian King, Gunthar; of the struggle of the strong Walthar with Hagen, and of the downfall of the Nibelungen. Though his language was clumsy in writing, it flowed from his lips solemn and sonorous, with full terminations and rich in alternations of the vowels. Still had the solemnly spoken word in prayer, in forms of law, and in invocations, a mysterious power of magic effect: not only is the meaning of the speech, but also its sound full of significance. A wise saw was the source of great good fortune to him who possessed it; it could be bought and sold, and the buyer could return it again if it was useless to him.

About the beginning of the twelfth century there was a change in the life and position of the peasant. The disquiets and passions of the Crusades reached him also by degrees. To the serf, who lived in an insecure possession of his hut, from which the landed proprietor could eject him and his children, it was very attractive to obtain, by a sign affixed to his shoulder by the hand of a priest, freedom for himself, exemption from rent and other burdens, and the protection of the Church for his family left at home. From this the Lord of the Manor was himself in danger of losing his husbandmen, and becoming a beggar by the departure of his serfs; in order therefore to avert this danger bondmen had often the inheritance of their possessions given to them, and greater personal freedom, thus the position of serfs became more favourable. Besides this, the distinction between the old freemen and bondmen, both in the agricultural districts and the cities, was obliterated by the new societies of citizens and officials. In the cities bond and free-men were under the same law; in the palaces of princes, freemen claimed the same privileges which were originally for the advantage of the vassal retinue of territorial lords, and both bond and free-men bore, as serving men, the knightly shield.

We can obtain an insight into the spirit of the country-people of this period, and many details of their life. Since the middle of the twelfth century, the manuscripts of the Hohenstaufen time have handed down to us many invaluable features of the life of the lower orders. We discover, with astonishment, from these sources, that the countryman of that time formed a portion of the national strength, very different from what he did some centuries later. The thriving peasant lived on his farm; the young people gambolled about, blythesome and fond of enjoyment, on the village green and in the lanes; the countryman passed through life in the calm consciousness of strength, the preserver of old customs, in contradistinction to the nobleman, with his new-fangled modes, who adorned himself with foreign discourse and language, and with great pretentions set up distinguished court usages in opposition to country manners. Great was the pleasure of the country people in the awakening of nature: impatiently did the maidens await the breaking forth of the first catkins on the willow and hazel; they look for the leaves that burst from the buds, and search the ground for the first flowers. The earliest summer game is with the ball, in the village streets or on the tender grass of the green,--it is thrown by old and young, men and women. Whoever has a coloured feather ball to throw sends it with a greeting to her he loves. The agile movements, the powerful throw, the short cheer to friends and opponents, are the pleasures both of players and spectators. When sunny May comes, then the maidens get their holiday attire from the press, and twine wreaths for their own hair and that of their friends. Thus they go, crowned with garlands and adorned with ribbons, the hand-glass as an ornament by their sides, with their playfellows to the green; full a hundred maidens and women are there assembled for the dance. Thither also hasten the men, smart also is their dress, the waistcoat trimmed with coloured buttons, perhaps even with bells, which for a long time had been the most choice attire of persons of distinction; there is no want of silk, nor in winter of fur trimmings. The belt is well inlaid with shining metal, the coat of mail is quilted in the dress, and the point of the sword, in walking, clinks against the heel. The proud youths are defiant, take great pleasure in fight, and are jealous of their own importance. Vehement is the energy displayed in the great dances, they are venturesome in their springs, jubilant in their joy; everywhere there is the poetry of enjoyment of the senses. The chorus of bystanders sing loudly to the dance, and the maidens join softly in the melody. Still greater becomes our astonishment when we examine closer the rhythm and words of these old national dances, there is a grace not only in the language but in its social relation, which reminds us much more of the ancient world than of the feelings of our country people. Introductory strophes, which extol in countless variations the advent of spring, are followed by others which have little coherence, and are, as it were, improvised, like the schnader hüpflen, which is still retained in Upper Germany among the popular dances. The subject is often a dispute between mother and daughter, the daughter dressing herself for the festivity, the mother wishing to keep her back from the dance; or it is the praise of a beautiful maiden, or droll enumerations of dancing couples; often the text conveys attacks upon opposite parties amongst the dancers, who are depicted and turned into ridicule. Parties are easily formed amongst the dancers, the opponents are challenged in caustic verses; the glory of the young lad is not to put up with any slight, and to be the most vigorous dancer, cheeriest singer, and the best fighter. The dances are followed by feasting, with loud and boisterous merriment. The winter brings new pleasures; the men amuse themselves with dice, and with sledging on the ice, and the people assemble in a large room for the dance. Then stools and tables are carried out; the music consists of two violins; the conductor begins the melody, and the head dancer leads off. The rondes and other dances are various in character; more antique and popular is the measure and text of the chain dance in the old national style of two parallel rows; the winter dances are more artistic and modish. For in the song dances, which we may consider as the beautified copy of the old rhythm and text, the courtly law of triplets in the strophes is everywhere followed; one perceives in them the imitation of Romanesque knightly customs. Among the different kinds of dances may be mentioned the Sclave Reidawac. The noble dances and drinks with the peasants in these village diversions, though with the pride of more refined manners; but however much he may be inclined to ridicule those around him, he fears them, not only their fists and weapons, but also the strokes of their tongues. The long-haired and curly peasant offers the goblet to the Junker, and snatches it back as he attempts to grasp it, places it then according to court custom before drinking, on his head, and dances through the room, then the knight rejoices if the goblet falls from the lout's head and is spilt over him; but the knight has no scruple in making use of contemptuous oaths, when the indignant village youths call him to account for having shown too much attention to their wives and sweethearts.

Such is the aspect of village life given us in the songs of Neidhart von Reuenthal, the most witty and humorous songster of the thirteenth century. All his poetry dwells on the joys and sufferings of the peasantry, and the greater part of his life was spent amongst them. He has the complete self-dependence of a refined and cultivated man, but in spite of that, he had not always the advantage over the country people. A peasant youth, Engelhard, occasioned him the greatest sorrow of his life. It appears that he had made his love Friderun, a peasant girl, unfaithful to him; the thorn remained in the heart of the knight as long as he lived; but afterwards, also, in his courtship of the village maidens, the nobleman had much to fear from the wooing of the young peasants, and was frequently tormented by bitter jealousy.

This connection of the knight, Neidhart, and the peasantry was no exception in the beginning of the thirteenth century; for though in the period that immediately followed, the pride of the nobles, with respect to the citizen and peasant, quickly hardened into an exclusive class feeling, yet in 1300, when knightly dignity was in great request, and pride in noble quarterings had risen high, at least in Swabia, Bavaria, and Upper Austria, still the knight married the daughter of the rich peasant, and gave him his daughter in marriage; and the rich peasant's son became vassal and knight, with one knightly shield.[^[6]] Even in the sixteenth century this state of things continued in some provinces--for example, in the Isle of Rügen. After the Reformation also, the wealthy peasants put themselves on an equality with the nobles. They lived, as a nobleman of that time relates, arrogantly and contentiously, and these lamentable marriages were not unfrequent.

Some score of years after Neidhart, in the same districts of Germany, the idealism of knighthood, its courtly manners and refined form, were lost; a large portion of the nobles had become robbers and highwaymen. The ceaseless and sorrowful complaints of the better sort of the nobility testify how bad were the doings of the greater part. In comparison with such fellows, in spite of their privileges, the peasant might well regard his own life with pride. It was still with a sense of wealth and power that he entered on the beginning of a hard period. At this time a travelling singer, Wernher, the Gardener, gave a portraiture of the life of the peasantry, particularly rich in characteristic features--a picture of the times of the highest value, and a poem of great beauty. Unfortunately only an abstract of the contents can be given here; but even in extracts, his narrative gives a surprising insight into the life of the country people in 1240. The poem, "Helmbrecht," is edited by Moriz Haupt, according to the manuscripts in volume iv. of the Zeit periodical on German antiquity.

"The old former, Helmbrecht--in Bavaria, not far from the Austrian frontier--had a son. The blonde locks of the young Helmbrecht hung upon his shoulder; he confined them in a beautiful silk cap, embroidered with doves, parrots, and many figures. This cap had been embroidered by a nun who had run away from her cell on account of an amour, as happens to so many. From her, Helmbrecht's sister, Gotelind, learned to embroider and sew; the maiden and her mother deserved well of the nun, for they gave her a cow, much cheese, and eggs. The mother and sister attired the boy in fine linen, a doublet of mail and a sword, with a pouch and mantle, and a beautiful surcoat of blue cloth, adorned with gold, silver, and crystal buttons, which shone bright when he went to the dances; the seams were trimmed with bells, and whenever he bounded about in the dance, they tinkled in the ears of the women.

"When the proud youth was thus attired he said to his father, 'Now I will go to court; I pray you, dear father, give me somewhat to help thereto.' The father answered, 'I could easily buy you a swift steed that would leap hedge and ditch; but, dear son, desist from your journey to court. Its usages are difficult for him who has not been accustomed to it from his youth. Take the plough and cultivate the farm with me, thus will you live and die in honour. See how I live--true, honourable and upright. I give my tenths every year, and have never experienced hatred or envy throughout my life. Farmer Ruprecht will give you his daughter in marriage, and with her many sheep and pigs, and ten cows. At court you will have a hard life, and be deprived of all affection; there you will be the scorn of the real courtiers,--in vain will you endeavour to be like them; and, on the other hand, you will incur the hatred of the peasants, who will delight in revenging on you what they have lost by the noble robbers.' But the son replied, 'Silence, dear father. Never shall your sacks graze my shoulders; never will I load your waggon with dung; that would ill suit my beautiful coat and embroidered cap; and I will not be encumbered with a wife. Shall I drag on three years with a foal or an ox, when I may every day have my booty? I will help myself to strangers' cattle and drag the peasants by their hair through the hedges. Hasten, father, I will not remain with you any longer.' Then the father bought a steed, and said, 'Alas, how this is thrown away!' But the youth shook his head, looked at himself and exclaimed, 'I could bite through a stone so wild is my courage; I could even eat iron. I will gallop over the fields, without care for my life, in defiance of all the world.' On parting from him his father said, 'I cannot keep you--I give you up; but once more I warn you, beautiful youth, take care of your cap with the silken birds, and guard your long locks. You go amongst those whom men curse, and who live upon the wrongs of the people. I dreamt I saw you groping about on a staff, with your eyes out; and again I dreamt I saw you standing on a tree, your feet fall a fathom and a half from the grass. A raven and a crow sat on a branch over your head, your curly hair was entangled; on the right hand the raven combed it, and on the left the crow parted it. I repent me that I have reared you.' But the son exclaimed, 'Never will I give up my will as long as I live. God protect you, father, mother and children.'

"So he trotted off and rode up to a castle, whose lord lived by fighting, and was glad to retain any who would serve him as a trooper. There the lad became one of the retainers, and soon was the most nimble of robbers. No plunder was too small for him, and none too great; he took horses and cattle, he took mantles and coats, what others left he crammed into his sack. The first year everything went according to his wishes; his little vessel sailed with favourable winds. Then he began to think of home; he got leave of absence from the court, and rode to his father's house. All flocked together--man and maid-servant did not say, 'Welcome, Helmbrecht;' they were advised not to do so. But they said, 'Young gentleman, God give you welcome!' He answered, 'Kindeken, ik yunsch üch ein gud leven'[^[7]] (Children, I wish you a good life). His sister ran and embraced him; then he spoke to her, 'Gratia vestra!' The old people followed, and oft embraced him; then he called to his father, 'Dieu vous salut!' and to his mother he spoke in Bohemian, 'Dobraybra!' The father and mother looked at one another, and the latter said to her husband, 'Goodman, are we not out of our senses? it is not our child; it is a Bohemian or a Wend.' The father exclaimed, 'It is a foreigner; he is not my son whom I commended to God, however like he may appear to him.' And his sister Gotelind said, 'He is not your son, he spoke Latin to me; he must truly be a priest.' And the servant, 'From what I have seen of him he must belong to Saxony or Brabant; he said ik and Kindeken; he must, undoubtedly, be a Saxon.'

"Then the master of the house spoke in homely phrase, 'Are you my son Helmbrecht? Show your respect for your mother and me by speaking a word of German, and I myself will rub down your horse--I, and not my servant.' 'Ei wat segget ihr Gebureken? min parit,[^[8]] minen klaren Lif soll kein bureumaun nimmer angripen' (What are you boors saying? my steed and my fine body shall be touched by no boors). Then the master of the house, quite horrified, replied, 'Are you Helmbrecht, my son? In that case I will this very night boil one hen and roast another; but if you are a stranger--a Bohemian or a Wend--you may go to the winds. If you are of Saxony or Brabant, you must take your repast with you; from me you will receive nothing, though the night should last a whole year. For a Junker, such as you, I have no meal or wine; you must seek that from the nobles.'

"Now it had waxed late, and there was no host in the neighbourhood who would have received the youth, so, having weighed the matter, he said, 'Truly I am your son, I am Helmbrecht; once I was your son and servant.' The father answered 'You are not him.' 'But I am so.' 'Tell me the four names of my oxen.' Then the son mentioned the four names, 'Auer, Räme, Erke, Sonne. I have often flourished my switch over them; they are the best oxen in the world; will you recognise me now? Let the door be opened to me.' The father cried out, 'Gate and door, chamber and cupboard, shall all be opened to you now.'

"Thus the son was well received, and had a soft bed prepared for him by his sister and mother, and the latter called out to her daughter, 'Run, fetch a bolster and a soft cushion.' That was put under his arm and laid near the warm stove, and he waited in comfort till the meal was prepared. It was a supper for a lord; finely minced vegetables with good meat, a fat goose as large as a bustard, roasted on the spit, roasted and boiled fowls. And the father said, 'If I had wine it should be drunk to-day; but drink, dear son, of the best spring that ever flowed out of the earth.'

"The young Helmbrecht then unpacked his presents for his father, a whetstone, a scythe, and an axe, the best peasant-treasures in the world; for his mother, a fur cloak, which he had stolen from a priest; to his sister, Gotelind, a silk sash and gold lace, which would have better suited a lady of distinction,--he had taken it from a pedlar. Then he said, 'I must sleep, I have ridden far, and rest is needful for me to night.' He slept till late the next day in the bed over which his sister Gotelind had spread a newly washed shirt, for a sheet was unknown there.

"So the son abode with his father.

"After a time the father inquired of his son what were the court customs where he had been living. 'I also,' he said, 'went once when I was a boy, with cheese and eggs to court. The knights were then very different from now, courteous, and with good manners; they occupied themselves with knightly games, they danced and sang with the ladies; when the musician came with his fiddle, the ladies stood up, the knights advanced to them, took them elegantly by the hand, and danced featly; when that was over, one of them read out of a book about one Ernst;[^[9]] all was carried on then with cheerful familiarity. Some shot at a mark with bow and arrows, others went out hunting and deer shooting; the worst of them would now be the best. For now those are esteemed who are liars and eaves-droppers, and truth and honour are changed for falsehood; the old tournaments are no longer the custom, others are in vogue instead of them. Formerly one heard them call out in the knightly games "Hurrah, knight, be joyful!" There now only resounds through the air, "Hunt knight, hunt; stab, strike, and mutilate this one, cut off this man's foot for me, and the hands of that one, and hang the other for me, or catch this rich man who will pay us a hundred pounds." I think, therefore, things were better formerly than now. Relate to me, my son, more of the new manners.'

"'That I will. Drinking is now the court fashion. Gentlemen exclaim "Drink, drink; if you drink this, I will drink that." They no longer sit with the ladies, but at their wine. Believe me, the old mode of life which is lived by such as you, is now abjured both by man and woman. Excommunication and outlawry are now held in derision.'

"'Son,' said the father, 'have nothing to do with court usages, they are bitter and sour. I had much rather be a peasant than a poor courtling, who must always ride for his living, and take care that his enemies do not catch, mutilate, and hang him.'

"'Father,' said the young man, 'I thank you, but it is more than a week that I have drank no wine; since then I have taken in my girdle by three holes. I must capture some cattle before my buckle will return to its former place. A rich man has done me a great injury. I saw him once riding over the standing crops of my godfather the knight; he shall pay dear for it. I shall trot off his cattle, sheep, and swine, because he has trampled over the fields of my dear godfather. I know another rich man who has also grievously injured me; he eat bread with his tartlets; by my life I will revenge that. I know yet another rich man who has occasioned me more annoyance than almost any other; I will not forgive it him, even if a bishop should intercede for him, for once when he was sitting at table he most improperly dropped his girdle. If I can seize what is called his, it shall help me to a Christmas dress. There is yet another simple fool who was unseemly enough to blow the froth of his beer into a goblet. If I do not revenge that, I will never gird sword to my side, nor be worthy of a wife. You shall soon hear of Helmbrecht.'

"The father answered 'Alack! Tell me who are the companions who taught you to rob a rich man if he eats pastry and bread together.' Then the son named his ten companions; 'Lämmerschling (lamb devourer), Schluckdenwidder (ram swallower), Höllensack (hell sack), Ruttelshrein (shake press), Kühfrass (cow destroyer), Knickekelch (goblet jerker), Wolfsgaumen (wolf's jaw), Wolfsrüssel (wolf's snout), and Wolfsdarm (wolf's gut)[^[10]]--the last name was given by the noble Duchess of Nonarra Narreia--these are my schoolmasters.'

"The father said, 'And how do they name you?'

"I am called Schlingdengau. I am not the delight of the peasants; their children are obliged to eat porridge made with water; what the peasants have is mine; I gouge the eyes of one, I hack the back of another, I tie this one down on an ant-hill, and another I hang by his legs to a willow.'

"The father broke forth. 'Son, however violent those may be whom you have named and extolled, yet I hope, if there is a righteous God, the day will come when the hangman may seize them, and throw them off from his ladder.'

"'Father, I have often defended your geese and fowls, your cattle and fodder, from my associates, I will do it no more. You speak too much against the honour of my excellent companions. I had wished to make your daughter Gotelind the wife of my friend Lämmerschling; she would have led a pleasant life with him; but that is over now, you have spoken too coarsely against us.' He took his sister Gotelind aside, and said to her secretly, 'When my companion, Lämmerschling, first asked me about you, I said to him; you will get on well with her; if you take her do not fear that you will hang long upon the tree, she will take you down with her own hands and carry you to the grave on the cross-road, and she will fumigate your bones with frankincense and myrrh for a whole year. And if you have the good fortune to be only blinded, she will lead you by the hand along the highways and roads through all countries; if your foot is cut off, she will carry your crutches every morning to your bed; and if you lose your hand, she will cut your bread and meat as long as you live. Then said Lämmerschling to me, "I have three sacks, heavy as lead, full of fine linen, dresses, kirtles, and costly jewels, with scarlet cloth and furs. I have concealed them in a neighbouring cave, and will give them to her for a dowry." All this, Gotelind, you have lost, owing to your father; now give your hand to a peasant, with whom you may dig turnips, and at night lie on the heart of an ignoble boor. Go to your father, for mine he is not; I am sure that a courtier has been my father, from him I have my high spirit.'

"The foolish sister answered, 'Dear brother Schlingdengau, persuade your companion to marry me, I will leave father, mother, and relations.' The parents were unaware of the conversation held secretly by the brother and sister. The brother said, 'I will send a messenger to you, whom you are to follow; hold yourself in readiness. God protect you, I go from hence; the host here is as little to me as I to him. Mother, God bless you.' So he went on his old way, and told his companion his sister's wish. He kissed his hands for joy, and made obeisance to the wind that blew from Gotelind.

"Many widows and orphans were robbed of their property when the hero Lämmerschling and his wife Gotelind sat at their marriage feast. Young men actively conveyed in waggons and on horses stolen food and drink to the house of Lämmerschling's father. When Gotelind came, the bridegroom met her, and received her with, 'Welcome, dame Gotelind.' 'God reward you, Herr Lämmerschling.' So they gave each other a friendly greeting. And an old man, wise of speech, rose, and placing both in the circle, asked three times of the man and the maiden, 'Will you take each other in marriage, yea or nay?' So they were united. All sang the bridal song, and the bridegroom trod on the foot of the bride.[^[11]] Then was the marriage feast prepared. It was wonderful how the food disappeared before the youths, as if a wind blew it from the table; they eat incessantly of everything that was brought from the kitchen by the servants, and there remained nothing but bare bones for the dogs. It is said that any one who eats so immoderately approaches his end.[^[12]] Gotelind began to shudder and to exclaim, 'Woe to us! Some misfortune approaches; my heart is so heavy! Woe is me that I have abandoned my father and mother; whoever desires too much, will gain little; this greediness leads to the abyss of hell.'

"They had sat awhile after their meal, and the musicians had received their gifts from the bride and bridegroom, when a magistrate appeared with five men. The struggle was short; the magistrate with his five, was victorious over the ten; for a real thief, however bold he may be, and willing to confront a whole army, is defenceless against the hangman. The robbers slipped into the stove and under the benches, and he who would not have fled before four, was now by the hangman's servant alone dragged out by the hair. Gotelind lost her bridal dress, and was found behind a hedge terrified, stripped, and degraded. The skins of the cattle which the thieves had stolen were bound round their necks, as the perquisite of the magistrate. The bridegroom, in honour of the day carried only two, the others more. The magistrate could sooner have been bribed to spare a wild wolf than these robbers. Nine were hung by the hangman; the life of the tenth was allowed to the hangman as his right, and this tenth was Schlingdengau Helmbrecht; the hangman revenged the father, by putting out his eyes, and the mother, by cutting off a hand and a foot. Thus the blind Helmbrecht was led with the help of a staff, by a servant, home to his father's house.

"Hear how his father greeted him: 'Dieu salue, monsieur Blindman, go from hence, monsieur Blindman; if you delay, I will have you driven away by my servant; away with you from the door!'

"'Sir, I am your child.'

"'Is the boy become blind, who called himself Schlingdengau? Now do you not fear the threats of the hangman or all the magistrates in the world! Heigh! how you 'ate iron' when you rode off on the steed for which I gave my cattle. Begone, and never return again!'

"Again the blind man spoke. 'If you will not recognise me as your child, at least allow a miserable man to crawl into your house, as you do the poor sick; the country people hate me; I cannot save myself if you are ungracious to me.'

"The heart of the host was shaken, for the blind man who stood before him was his own flesh and blood--his son; yet he exclaimed with a scornful laugh, 'You went out daringly into the world; you have caused many a heart to sigh, and robbed many a peasant of his possessions. Think of my dream. Servant, close the door and draw the bolt; I will betake me to my rest. As long as I live, I had rather take in a stranger whom my eyes never beheld, than share my loaf with you.' Thus saying, he struck the servant of the blind man. 'I would do so to your master, if I were not ashamed to strike a blind man; take him, whom the sun hates, from before me!' Thus did the father exclaim, but the mother put a loaf in his hand as to a child. So the blind man went away, the peasants hooting and scoffing at him.

"For a whole year he endured great hardships. Early one morning when he was going through the forest to beg bread, some peasants who were gathering wood saw him, and one of them from whom he had taken a cow called to the others to help him. All of them had been injured by him, he had broken into the hut of one and stripped it; he had dishonoured the daughter of another; and a fourth, trembling like a reed with passion, said, 'I will wring his neck; he thrust my sleeping child into a sack, and when it awoke and cried, he tossed it out into the snow, so that it died.' Thus they all turned against Helmbrecht. 'Now take care of your hood.' The embroidery which the hangman had left untouched was now torn, and scattered on the road with his hair. They allowed the miserable wretch to make his confession, and one of them broke a fragment from the ground and gave it to the worthless man as gate money for hell fire. Then they hung him to a tree.

"If there be still any children living with their father and mother who feel disposed to be jovial knights, let them take warning from the fate of Helmbrecht."

Thus ends the story of young Helmbrecht, who was desirous of becoming a knight. And such on the whole we may consider was the condition and disposition of the free peasantry at the beginning of the long period of decline, which loosened the connection of the German Empire, founded the power of the great princely houses, made the burgher communities of fortified cities rich and powerful, and which was also the beginning of that wild time of self-help and free fraternization of cities, as of nobles. But the details of the changes which the German peasant underwent from 1250 to 1500, can no longer be accurately discerned by us. The wild deeds of violence and oppression of the robber-nobles, drove the helpless into the cities, and the enterprising into foreign countries. There were always opportunities of fighting under the sign of the cross against Sclavonians, Wends, and Poles, and on the east of the Elbe, broad countries were opened for the weapons and the plough of the German countryman. There was agitation also in the minds of men. The new despotism of the Roman papacy and of the fanatical Mendicant friars, drove the Katharers on the Rhine, and the Stedingers in Lower Saxony, to apostacy from the church. Where the free peasants were thickly located and favoured by the nature of their country, they rose in arms against the oppression of feudal lords. In the valleys of Switzerland and in the marsh lands on the German ocean, the associated country people gained victories over the mailed knights, which still belong to the glorious reminiscences of the people. But in the interior of Germany, the peasantry under the increasing oppression of the nobles and a degenerate church, became weaker, more incapable, and coarser; ever more powerfully did the barons lord it over them. Even the resident free peasant of Lower Saxony was cast down from the place of honour, which he once maintained above the knightly serving man. The consciousness of a higher civilisation and more refined manners caused the citizen also to despise the countryman,--his love of eating, his rough simplicity, and his crafty shrewdness were treated with endless derision.

And yet the countryman in the fifteenth century still retained much of his good old habits and somewhat of his old energy. He still continued to extol his own calling in his songs, and was inclined to view with ridicule the unstable life of others. In a well-known popular song, three sisters married--one a nobleman, another a musician, and the third a peasant. Both brothers-in-law came with their wives to pay a visit at the peasant's farm. "There the gay musician played, the hungry nobleman danced, and the peasant sat and laughed." At the end of the fifteenth century a dancing scene in a Hessian village is described in a city poem, the same customs as in the time of Neidhart, only wilder and coarser. The proud labourers come from different villages, armed with halberds and pikes, to dance under the Linden tree; the parties are divided by distinctive marks, willow and birch twigs and hop leaves on the shoulder and on the cap. From one village the whole four-and-twenty labourers are clothed in red plush, with yellow waistcoat and breeches. A gaily-attired maiden, a favourite dancer, will only dance with one party, sharp words follow, and weapons are drawn, the citizen, being a clerk, is persecuted with such forcible, pungent words, that he is obliged to withdraw himself by ignominious flight from the wild company.[^[13]]

The life of the countryman within the village gates was still rich in festivals and poetical usages, his privileges--so far as they were not interfered with by deeds of violence--were valuable, and interwoven with his life; and all his occupations were established by customs and etiquette, by ceremonies and dramatic co-operation with his village association.

But the oppression under which he lived became insupportable. After the end of the fifteenth century he began to make a powerful resistance to his masters.

It is probable that the great agitation in the European money-market contributed to the excitement of the countryman. The sinking of the value of metal since the discovery of America, was considered by producers at first as a lasting rise in the price of corn. To the peasant every sheffel of corn, and his labour also, became of higher value; and, in the same measure, both were of higher importance to the landed proprietor. It was natural, therefore, that the peasant should take a proportionate view of his freedom, and here and there think of relief from his burdens, whilst it became the interest of the landed proprietor to maintain his servitude--nay, even to increase it. Yet, one need not ascribe the great movement to such reasons. The pride of victory of the Swiss who had prostrated the Knights of Burgundy, the self-dependence of the new Landsknechts, and, above all, the religious movement, and the social turn which it took in South Germany, made a deep impression on the mind of the peasant. For the first time his condition was viewed by the educated with sympathy. The countryman was almost suddenly introduced into the literature as a judge and associate. His grievances against the priesthood, and also against the landed proprietors, were ever brought forward in popular language with great skill. A few years before, he had played the standing rôle of a clown in the shrove-tide games of the Nürembergers, but now even Hans Sachs[^[14]] wrote dialogues full of hearty sympathy with his condition, and the portraiture of the simple, intelligent, and industrious peasant, called Karsthans,[^[15]] was repeatedly assumed, in order to show the sound judgment and wit of the people against the priests.

But, dangerous as the great peasant insurrection appeared for many weeks, and manifold as were the characters and passions which blazed forth in it, the peasants themselves were little more than an undulating mass; the greater part of their demagogues and leaders belonged to another class; on the whole, it appears to us that the intelligence and capacity of the leaders, whether peasants or others, was but small, and equally small the warlike capacity of the masses. Therefore here where the peasant for the first time is powerfully influenced by the literary men of the period, more pleasure is experienced in the contemplation of the minds that roused up his soul. It was the case here, as it always is in popular insurrections, that the masses were first excited by those who were more influential and far-sighted, nobler and more refined; then they lost the mastery, which was seized by vain, coarse demagogues, like Andreas Karlstadt and Thomas Münzer. But the way in which, in this case, the more rational lost their control is specially characteristic of that time.

Next to Luther, no individual before the war exercised so powerful an influence on the dispositions of the country people of Southern Germany, as a barefooted Franciscan, who came among the people at Ulm from the cloisters of the Franciscan monastery, Johann Eberlin von Günzburg. He had many of the qualities of a great agitator, and was one of the most amiable among those that figure in the early period of the Reformation. More than any other, he took up the social side of the movement. In the year 1521, he published, anonymously, in the national form of a small popular flying sheet, his ideal of a new state and a new social life. The old claims which were subsequently drawn up by a preacher, in twelve articles, for the peasantry, are to be found, with many others, collectively in the fifteen "Bundesgenossen."[^[16]] The eloquence of Eberlin irresistibly influenced the listening multitudes; a flow of language, a poetical strain, a genial warmth, and at the same time a vein of good humour and of dramatic power, made him a favourite wherever he appeared. To that was added a harmless self-complacency, and just sufficient enjoyment of the present moment, as was necessary to make his success valuable and the persecutions of his opponents bearable. And yet he was only a dexterous demagogue. When he left his order from honourable convictions, with a heart passionately excited by the corruption of the church and the distress of the people, he could hardly pass, even according to the standard of the time, for an educated man; it was only by degrees that he became clear on certain social questions; then he conscientiously endeavoured to recal his former assertions; with whatever complacency he may speak of himself, there is always a holy earnestness in him concerning the truth. He had, withal, a quiet, aristocratic bias; he was the child of a citizen; his connections were people of consideration, and even of noble origin; coarse violence was contrary to his nature, in which a strong common sense was incessantly at work to control the ebullition of his feelings. He clung with great devotion to all his predecessors who had advanced his education, especially to the Wittemberg reformers. After he had restlessly roamed about the South of Germany for many years, he went to Wittemberg; there Melancthon powerfully influenced the fiery southern German; he became quieter, more moderate, and better instructed. But later he belonged--like his monastic companion, Heinrich von Kettenbach--to the preachers who collected round Hutten and Sickengen. This personal union, which lasted up to Sickengen's catastrophe, kept the national movement in a direction which could not last. For a short time it appeared as if the religious and social movement of South Germany, even if not led, could be made use of, by the noble landed proprietors; it was an error into which both the knights and their better friends fell; neither Hutten nor Sickengen had sufficient strength or insight to win the country people really to them. This came to light when Sickengen was overpowered by the neighbouring princes. The peasants became the most zealous assistants of the princes in persecuting the junkers of the Sickengen party and burning their castles; this warfare may, indeed, be considered as the prelude to the present war. It had unshackled the country people in the neighbouring provinces, and accustomed them to the pulling down of castles. A dialogue of the year 1524 has been preserved to us, in which the fury of the country people against the nobles already breaks forth.[^[17]]

From that period the decided demagogues gained the ear of the peasants, and the moderate amongst the popular leaders lost their supremacy. Eberlin had once more, at Erfurt, an opportunity of showing, as a mediator, the power of his eloquence over the revolted peasant hosts; under its influence the assembled populace fell on their knees, pious and penitent; but the weakness of his advice made this last endeavour fruitless. He died the following year, and with him passed away most of the poetry of the Reformation.

Cruelly was the revolt against the terrified princes punished, and the smaller tyrants were the most eager to bring the conquered again under their yoke. Yet in South Germany and Thuringia there was a real improvement in the condition of the country people; for it happened at a period in which a learned class of jurists spread over the country, and the working of Roman law in Germany became everywhere perceptible. The point of view taken by the jurists of the Roman school, of the relations between the landed proprietors and their villeins, was indeed not always favourable to the latter; for the lawyers were inclined to fix every kind of subjection upon the peasant from the deficiency in his right of property in his holding; but they were equally ready to recognise his personal freedom. Thus, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the old serfdom which still existed in a very harsh form in many provinces was mitigated, and villeinage substituted. Besides this, a more patriarchal feeling began to prevail among the higher German Sovereigns, and in the new ordinances which they projected in conjunction with their clergy, the welfare of the peasantry was taken into consideration. This was the case above all with the Wettiner princes in Franconia, Thuringia, and Meissen; and, lastly, with Elector August. The authority, also, of the Saxon chancery, which had been established in Germany since the fifteenth century, contributed essentially to this, by making the Saxon laws a pattern for the rest of Germany.

But some ten years before the Thirty Years' War, an advance in the pretensions of the nobles became apparent, at least in the provinces beyond the Elbe; for example, in Pommerania and Silesia. Under weak rulers the courtly influence of the nobility increased, the constant money embarrassments of the princes raised the independence of the States, which granted the taxes; and the peasants had no representatives in the States, except in the Tyrol, East Friesland, the old Bailiwick of Swabia, and a few small territories. The landed proprietors indemnified themselves for the concessions made to the princes by double exactions on the peasantry. Serfdom was formally re-established in Pommerania in 1617.

It was just at this period of reaction that the Thirty Years' War broke out. It devastated alike the houses of the nobles and the huts of the peasants. It brought destruction on man and beast, and corrupted those that were left.[^[18]]

After the great war--in the period which will be here portrayed--a struggle began on the part of the landed proprietors and the newly established Government against the wild practices of the war time. The countryman had learned to prefer the rusty gun to handling the plough. He had become accustomed to perform court service, and his mind was not rendered more docile by disbanded soldiers having settled themselves on the ruins of the old village huts. The peasant lads and servants bore themselves like knights, wearing jack-boots, caps faced with marten's fur, hats with double bands, and coats of fine cloth; they carried rifles and long-handled axes when they came together in the cities, or assembled on Sundays. At one time perhaps these had been useful against robbers and wild beasts; but it had become far more dangerous to the nobles and their bailiffs, and still more insupportable to their villeins,--it was always rigorously forbidden.[^[19]] The settlement of disbanded soldiers, who brought their prize money into the village, was welcome; but whoever had once worn a soldier's dress revolted against the heavy burdens of the bondsman. It was, therefore, established that whoever had served under a banner became free from personal servitude; only those who had been camp-followers continued as bondsmen. The inhabitants of the different States had been interspersed during the war; subjects had wilfully changed their dwellings, and established themselves on other territories, with or without the permission of the new lords of the manor. This was insupportable, and a right was given to the landed proprietor to fetch them back; and if the new lord of the manor thought it his interest to protect them, and refused to give them up, force might be used to recover them. Thus the noblemen rode with their attendants into a district to catch such of their villeins as had escaped without pass-tickets.[^[20]]--The opposition of the people must have been violent, for the ordinances even in the provinces, where villeinage was most strict--as, for example, in Silesia--were obliged to recognise that the villeins were free people, and not slaves. But this remained a theoretical proposition, and was seldom attended to in the following century. The depopulation of the country, and the deficiency in servants and labourers, was very injurious to the landowner. All the villagers were forbidden to let rooms to single men or women; all such lodgers were to be taken before the magistracy, and put into prison in case they should refuse domestic service, even if they maintained themselves by any other occupation--such as labouring for the peasant for daily hire, or carrying on business with money or corn.[^[21]] Through a whole generation we find, in the ordinances of the territorial lords, bitter complaints against the malicious and wilful menials who would not yield to their hard conditions, nor be content with the pay assigned by law. It was forbidden to individual proprietors to give more than the tax established by the provincial States. Nevertheless, the conditions of service shortly after the war are sometimes better than they were a hundred years later; in 1652 menials in Silesia had meat twice in the week; but in our century there are provinces where they get it only three times in the year.[^[22]] The daily pay also was higher immediately after the war than in the following century.

Thus was an iron yoke again bound slowly round the necks of the undisciplined country people, closer and harder than before the war. During the war small villages, and still more the single farms, which had been so favorable to the independence of the peasants, had vanished from the face of the earth; in the Palatinate, for example, and on the hills of Franconia, they had been numerous, and even in the present day their names cling to the soil. The village huts concentrated themselves in the neighbourhood of the manor house, and control over the weak community was easier when under the eye of the lord or his bailiff. What was the course of their life in the time of our fathers will be distinctly seen when one examines more closely the nature of their service. A cursory glance at it will appear to the youth of the present generation like a peep into a strange and fearful world. The conditions under which the German country people suffered were undoubtedly various. Special customs existed, not only in the provinces, but in almost every community. If the names by which the different services and imposts were designated were arranged they would form an unpleasant vocabulary.[^[23]] But, notwithstanding the difference in the names and extent of these burdens, there was an unanimity throughout the whole of Europe on the main points, which is, perhaps, more difficult to explain than the deviations.

The tenths were the oldest tax upon the countryman--the tenth sheaf, the tenth portion of slaughtered beasts, and even a tenth of wine, vegetables and fruit. It was probably older in Western Germany than Christianity, but the early church of the middle ages cunningly claimed it on the authority of scripture. It did not, however, succeed in retaining it only for itself; it was obliged to share it with the rulers, and often with the noble landed proprietors. At last it was paid by the agricultural peasant, either as a tax to the ruler or to his landlord, and besides as the priest's tithe to his church. However low his harvest yield might be valued, the tenth sheaf was far more than the tenth share of his clear produce.

But the countryman had, in the first place, to render service to the landed proprietor, both with his hands and with his team; in the greatest part of Germany, in the middle ages, three days a week,--thus he gave half of the working time of his life. Whoever was bound to keep beasts of burden on his property was obliged to perform soccage, in the working hours, with the agricultural implements and tools till sunset; the poorer people had to do the same with hand labour--nay, according to the obligations of their tenure, with two, four, or more hands, and even the days were appointed by the landlords: they were well off if during such labour they received food. These obligations of ancient times were, in many cases, increased after the war by the encroachments of the masters--chiefly in Eastern Germany. These soccage days were arbitrarily divided into half or even quarter days, and thereby the hindrance to the countryman and the disorder to his own farm were considerably increased. The number of the days was also increased. Such was the case even in the century which we, with just feelings of pride, call the humane. In the year 1790, just when Goethe's "Torquato Tasso" made its first appearance in the refined court of Saxony, the peasants of Meissen rose against the landowners, because they had so immoderately increased the service that their villeins seldom had a day free for their own work.[^[24]] Again in 1799, when Schiller's "Wallenstein" was exciting the enthusiasm of the warlike nobility of Berlin, Frederick William III. was obliged to issue a cabinet order, enjoining on his nobility not to lay claim to the soccage of the peasants more than three days in the week, and to treat their people with equity.

The second burden on the villeins was the tax on change of property by death or transfer; the heriot and fine on alienation. The best horse and the best ox were once the price which the heir of a property had to pay to the landowner for his fief. This tax was long ago changed into money. But though in the sixteenth century, even in countries where the peasant was heavily oppressed, the provincial ordinances allowed that peasant's property might be bought and sold, and that the lord of the peasant who sold could take no deduction upon it,[^[25]] yet in the same province in 1617, before the Thirty Years' War, it was established that landlords might compel their villeins against their will to sell their property, and that in case no purchaser should be found they themselves might buy it at two-thirds of the tax. It was under Frederick the Great that the inheritance and rights of property of villeins were first secured to them in most of the provinces of the kingdom of Prussia. This ordinance helped to put an end to a burden on the country people which threatened to depopulate the country. For in the former century, after the landowners had resolved to increase the revenue of their estates, they found it advantageous to rid themselves of some of their villeins, whose holdings they attached to their own property. The poor people, thus driven from their homes, fell into misery; and the burdens became quite unbearable to the remaining villeins, for they were expected by the landed proprietor to cultivate those former holdings, whose possessors had hitherto by their labour assisted in the cultivation of the whole estate. This system of ejection had become particularly bad in the east of Germany. When Frederick II. conquered Silesia there were many thousand farms without occupiers; the huts lay in ruins, and the fields were in the hands of the landed proprietors. All the separate homesteads had to be reformed and reoccupied, furnished with cattle and implements, and given up to the farmer as his own heritable property. In Rügen this grievance occasioned a rising of the peasantry, in the youth of Ernst Moritz Arndt; soldiers were sent thither, and the rioters were put in prison; the peasants endeavoured to revenge themselves for this by laying in wait for and slaying individual noblemen. In the same way in Electoral Saxony as late as 1790 this grievance occasioned a revolt.

The children also of villeins were subject to compulsory service. If they were capable of work they were brought before the authorities, and, if these demanded it, had to serve some time, frequently three years, on the farm. To serve in other places it was necessary to have a permit, which must be bought. Even those who had already served elsewhere had once a year--frequently about Christmas--to present themselves to the lord of the manor for choice. If the child of a villein entered into a trade or any other occupation, a sum had to be paid to the authorities for a letter of permission. It was considered a mitigation of the old remains of feudalism, when it was decided that the daughters of peasants might marry on to other properties without indemnifying their lord. But then the new lord had to greet the other in a friendly letter in acknowledgment of this emancipation.[^[26]] The price which the villein had to give for the emancipation of himself and his family varied extremely, according to the period and the district. Under Frederick II. it was reduced in Silesia to one ducat per head. But this was an unusually favourable rate for the villein. In Rügen, at a still later date, the emancipation was left to the valuation of the proprietor; it could even be refused: a fine-looking youth had there to pay full a hundred and fifty, and a pretty girl fifty or sixty, thalers.

But the peasant was employed in other ways by the landed proprietor. He was bound to aid, with his hands and teams, in the cultivation of the estate; he was also bound to act as messenger. Whoever wished to go to the town had first to ask the bailiff and lord of the manor whether they had any orders. No householder could, except in special cases, remain a night out of the village without the previous sanction of the magistrate of the place. He was obliged to furnish a night watch of two men for the nobleman's mansion. He had, when a child of the lord of the manor was to be married, to bring a contribution of corn, small cattle, honey, wax, and linen to the castle; finally, he had almost everywhere to carry to his lord his rent-hens and eggs, the old symbol of his dependence for house and farm.

But what was still more repugnant to the German peasant than many greater burdens, was the landlord's right of chase over his fields. The fearful tyranny with which the right of chase was practised by the German princes in the middle ages, was renewed after the Thirty Years' War. The peasant was forbidden to carry a gun, and poachers were shot down. Where the cultivated ground bordered on the larger woods, or where the lord of the manor held the supreme right of chase, a secret and often bloody war was carried on for centuries betwixt the foresters and poachers. As long as wolves continued to prowl about the villages, the irritated peasant dug holes round the margin of the wood which he covered with branches, and the bottom of them was studded with pointed stakes. He called them wolf-pits, but they were well known to the law as game-traps, and were forbidden under severe penalties. He ventured to let such portions of ground as were most exposed to be injured by game, to soldiers or cities, but that also was forbidden him; he endeavoured to defend his fields by hedges, and his hedges were broken down. In the Erzgebirge of Saxony the peasants, in the former century, had watched by their ripening corn; then huts were built on the fields, fires were lighted in the night, the watchers called out and beat the drum, and their dogs barked; but the game at last became accustomed to these alarms, and feared neither peasant nor dog. In Electoral Saxony, at the end of a former century, under a mild government, where a moderate tax might be paid as indemnity for damage to game, it was forbidden to erect fences for fields above a certain height, or to employ pointed stakes, that the game might not be injured, nor prevented seeking its support on the fields, till at last fourteen communities in the Hohnstein bailiwick in a state of exasperation combined for a general hunt, and frightened the game over the frontier. The logs which the sheep dogs wore round their necks were not sufficient to hinder them from hurting the hares, so they were held by cords on the fields. But the countrymen were bound, when the lord of the manor went to the chase, to go behind the nets and, as beaters, to swing the rattles. The coursing, moreover, spoilt his fields, as the riders with their greyhounds uprooted and trampled on the seed.

To these burdens, which were common to all, were added numerous local restrictions, of which only some of the more widely diffused will be here mentioned. The number of cattle that villeins were permitted to keep was frequently prescribed to them according to the extent of their holdings. A portion of the pasture land upon his holding before seed time, and of the produce after the harvest, belonged to the landowner. This right, to which pretensions had been already made in the middle ages, became a severe plague in the last century, when the noblemen began increasing their flocks of sheep. For they made demands on the peasants' fields generally, when fodder for cattle was failing: how, then, could the peasants maintain their own animals?

As early as 1617 it was held as a maxim in Silesia, that peasants must not keep sheep unless they possessed an old authorisation for it. The keeping of goats was altogether forbidden in many places. This old prohibition is one of the reasons why the poor in wide districts of Eastern Germany are deprived of these useful animals. Elector August of Saxony in 1560 denounced in his ordinances the pigeons of the peasants, and since that time they have been prohibited in other provincial ordinances. Other tyrannies were devised by the love of game. Shortly after the war it was held to be the duty of peasants to offer everything saleable, in the first instance, to the lord of the manor,--dung, wool, honey, and even eggs and poultry: if the authorities would not take his goods, he was bound to expose them for a fixed period in the nearest town; it was only then that the sale became free. But it was truly monstrous, when the authorities compelled their subjects to buy goods from the manorial property which they did not need. These barbarisms were quite common, at least in the East of Germany, after 1650, especially in Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia. When the great proprietors drew their ponds and could not sell the fish, the villeins were obliged to take them, in proportion to their means, at a fixed rate. The same was the case with butter, cheese, corn, and cattle. This was the cause of so many of the country people in Bohemia becoming small traders, as they had to convey these goods into neighbouring countries, often to their own great loss.[^[27]] In vain did the magistrates in Silesia in 1716 endeavour to check this abuse.[^[28]]

We will only mention here the worst tyranny of all. The nobleman had seigneurial rights: he decreed through the justices, who were dependent on him, the punishments of police offences: fines, imprisonment, and corporal punishment. He was also in the habit of using the stick to the villeins when they were at work. Undoubtedly there was already in the sixteenth century, in the provincial ordinances, a humane provision, which prohibited the nobles from striking their villeins; but in the two following centuries this prohibition was little attended to. When Frederick the Great re-organized Silesia, he gave the peasants the right of making complaint to the government against severe bodily punishment! And this was considered a progress!

But other burdens also weighed upon the life of the peasant. For, beside the landowner, the territorial ruler also demanded his impost or contribution, a land-tax or poll-tax; he could impress the son of the peasant under his banner, and demand waggons and gear for relays in time of war. And again, above the territorial ruler, was the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, which claimed in those parts of Germany where the constitution of the circles was still in force, a quota for their exchequers.

The peasants, however, were not everywhere under the curse of bondage. In the old domain of the Ripuarian Franks, the provinces on the other side of the Rhine from Cleves to the Moselle, and the Grafschaft of Mark, Essen, Werden, and Berg, had already in the middle ages freed themselves from bondage: those who had not property as landowners were freemen with leases for life. In the rest of Germany, freedom had taken refuge in the southern and northern frontiers, on the coasts of the North Sea and among the Alps. East Friesland, the marsh lands on the coasts of the Weser and the Elbe up to Ditmarschen,--those almost unconquerable settlements of sturdy peasant communities,--have remained free from the most ancient times. In the south, the Tyrol and the neighbouring Alps, at least the greatest portion of them, were occupied by free country-people; in Upper Austria also the free peasantry were numerous; and in Steiermark the tenths, which was the chief tax paid to the landed proprietors, was less oppressive than soccage was elsewhere. Wherever the arable land was scarce, and the mountain pastures afforded sustenance to the inhabitants, the legal condition of the lower orders was better. On the other hand, in the countries of old Saxony from the time of the Carlovingians, with the exception of a few free peasant holdings, a severe state of bondage had been developed. The Brunswickers, the dwellers on the Church lands of Bremen and Verden, were in the most favourable condition, those of Hildesheim and the Grafschaft of Hoya in the worst. In the bishopric of Münster the soccage service of villeins was generally changed into a moderate money payment; the only thing that pressed heavily on them was the compulsory leading, and the necessity of buying exemption from their burdens. On the other hand, the right of the landed proprietor over the inheritance of villeins existed to the greatest extent. As late as the year 1800 the country-people, who--exceptionally--desired to save money, endeavoured to preserve their property to their heirs, by fictitious transactions with the citizens; consequently more than a fourth portion of the Münster land remained uncultivated. A similar condition, in a somewhat milder form, existed in the bishopric of Osnabruck. Among the races of the interior, Hessians, Thuringians, Bavarians, Suabians, and Allemanni, the number of free peasants was continually decreasing during the whole of the middle ages: it was only in Upper Bavaria that they still formed a powerful part of the population. In Thuringia also the number of freemen was not inconsiderable. There the rule of the princes over the serf peasantry was lenient.

Far worse, except in a large part of Holstein, was the condition of all the countries east of the Elbe,--in fact wherever Germans colonized Sclave countries, that is almost half present Germany; but worst of all was the life of the villeins in Bohemia and Moravia, in Pomerania and Mecklenberg: in the last province villeinage is not yet abolished. It was in these countries that villeinage became more oppressive after the Thirty Years' War; only the free peasants, and the "Erb-und Gerichtsscholtiseien," as they were still called in memory of the circumstances of the old Germanization, formed themselves into a pauper aristocracy.

In the last century it might easily be perceived, from the agriculture and the prosperity of the villagers, whether they were freemen or serfs; and even now we may sometimes still discover, from the intelligence and personal appearance of the present race, what was the condition of their fathers. The peasants on the Lower Rhine, the Westphalian inhabitants of the marshes, the East Frieslanders, the Upper Austrians and Upper Bavarians, attained a certain degree of prosperity soon after the war; on the other hand, the remaining Bavarians, about the year 1700, complained that the third portion of their fields lay waste, and we learn of Bohemia in 1730 that the fourth part of the ground which had been under culture before the Thirty Years' War was overgrown with wood. The value of land there was lower by one half than in the other provinces.

Undoubtedly those freemen were to be envied who felt the advantage of their better position, but only a small portion were so fortunate. Generally, even in the eighteenth century, freemen with little or no land of their own, preferred being received as villeins on some great landed property. When Frederick I. of Prussia, shortly after 1700, wished to free the serfs in Pomerania, they refused it, because they considered the new duties imposed upon them more severe than what they had hitherto borne. And in fact the free peasants were scarcely less burdened with new service than those who had been the villeins of the old time.

It is difficult to judge impartially of the human condition which developed itself under this oppression. For such a life looks very different in daily intercourse, to what it does in the statute-book. Much that appears insupportable to us was made bearable by ancient custom. Undoubtedly the kind-hearted benevolence of the nobles, of old families who had grown up with their country-people through many generations, mitigated the severity of servitude, and a cordial connexion existed between master and serfs. Still more frequently the brutal selfishness of the masters was softened and kept within bounds by that prudence which now influences the American slaveholders. The landed proprietor and his family passed their lives among the peasants, and if he endeavoured to instil fear, he also had cause for fear. Easily on a stormy night might the flames be kindled among his wooden farm buildings, and no province was without its dismal stories of harsh landlords or bailiffs who had been slain by unknown hands in field or wood. However much we may admit the goodness or prudence of masters, the position of the peasants still remains the darkest feature of the past time. For we find everywhere in the scanty records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an unhealthy antagonism of classes. And it was the larger portion of the German people which was ruined by this oppression.[^[29]]

Men even of uncommon strength and intelligence seldom succeeded in extricating themselves from the proscribed boundaries by which their life was fenced in. Ever greater became the chasm which separated them from the smaller portion of the nation, who, by their perukes, bagwigs, and pigtails, showed from afar that they belonged to a privileged class. Up to the end of the seventeenth century these polished classes seldom entertained a friendly feeling towards the peasant; on all sides were to be heard complaints of his obduracy, dishonesty, and coarseness. At no period was the suffering portion of the people so harshly judged as in that, in which a spiritless orthodoxy embittered the souls of those who had to preach the gospel of love. None were more eager than the theologians in complaining of the worthlessness of the country people, among whom they had to live; they always heard hell-hounds howling round the huts of the villeins; their whole conception of life was, indeed, dark, pedantic, and joyless. A well-known little book, from the native district of Christopher von Grimmelshausen, is especially characteristic. This book, entitled "Des Bauerstands Lasterprob"--the exposure of the vices of the peasant class[^[30]]--never ceased to point out from the deeds of the villagers, that the lives of the peasantry, from the village justice to the goose-herd, were worthless and godless; that they were in the habit of representing themselves as poor and miserable, and of complaining on all occasions; that they were rude and overbearing to those whom they did not fear; that they considered none as their friends, and ungratefully deceived their benefactors. This book is much more cruel than "The Lexicon of Deceit," by the hypochondriacal Coburger Hönn, which some centuries later analysed the impositions of all classes,--and amongst others, those of the peasants,--alphabetically, morosely, and with apt references.

To such defects, which are peculiar to the oppressed, others must, indeed, be added, the consequences of the long war and its demoralization. In the rooms of the village inns, about 1700, neither candlesticks nor snuffers were to be seen, for everything had been pilfered by the wayfarers; even the prayer-book had been stolen from the host; a small looking-glass was a thing not to be thought of, though 500 years earlier the village maiden, when she adorned herself for the dance, took her little hand-glass with her as an ornament; and if a householder lodged carriers, he was obliged to conceal all portable goods, and to lock up all barns and hay-lofts. It was even dangerous sometimes for a traveller to set foot in an inn. The desolate room was filled, not only with tobacco-smoke, but also with the fumes of powder; for it was a holiday amusement of the country people to play with powder, and to molest unlucky strangers by throwing squibs or small rockets before their feet or on their perukes; this was accompanied by railery and abuse.[^[31]] We are frequently disposed to observe with astonishment, in these and similar complaints of contemporaries, how the German nature maintained, amidst the deepest degradation, a vital energy which, more than a hundred years after, made the beginning of a better condition possible; and we may sometimes doubt whether to admire the patience, or to lament the weakness, which so long endured such misery; for, in spite of all that party zeal has ever said in excuse of these servile relations, they were an endless source of immorality both to the masters, their officials, and to the people themselves. The sensuality of landed proprietors, and the self-interest of magistrates and stewards, were exposed to daily temptation at a period when a feeling of duty was weak in all classes. More than once did the sluggish provincial governments exert themselves to prevent bailiffs from compelling the peasant to feed cattle, sow linseed, and spin for them; and foresters were in ill repute who carried on traffic with the peasants, and winked at their proceedings when the stems of the lordly wood were felled.[^[32]] What was the feeling of the country people against the landed proprietors, may be concluded from the wicked proverb which became current about 1700, and fell from the mouth of the rich Mansfeld peasant--"The young sparrows and young nobles should have their heads broken betimes."[^[33]]

Slowly did the dawn of a new day come to the German peasant. If we would seek from whence arose the first rays of the new light, we shall find them, together with the renovation of the people, in the studies of the learned, who proclaimed the science, which was the most strange and most incomprehensible to the country-people, then called philosophy. After the teaching of Leibnitz and Wolff had found scholars in a larger circle of the learned, there was a sudden change in the views held about the peasant and his state. Everywhere began a more human conception of earthly things, the struggle against the orthodox errors. We find, again, in the scholars and proclaimers of the new philosophy, somewhat of the zeal of an apostle to teach, to improve, and to free. Soon after 1700 a hearty interest in the life of the peasant appears again in the small literature. The soundness of his calling, the utility and blessings of his labour, were extolled, and his good qualities carefully sought out; his old songs, in which a manly self-consciousness finds graceful expression, and which had once been polished by the single-minded theologians of the sixteenth century, were again spread in cheap publications. In these the poor countryman modestly boasts that agriculture was founded by Adam; he rejoices in "his falconry"; the larks in the field, the swallows in the straw of his roof, and the cocks in the farm-yard; and amidst his hard labour again seeks comfort in the "heavenly husbandman, Jesus."[^[34]]

On the other hand, there was even help in the severity of a despotic State. The oppressed peasant gave, through his sons, to the ruler the greater part of his soldiers, and, through his taxes, the means of keeping up the new State. By degrees it was discovered that such material ought to be taken care of. About 1700 this may everywhere be perceived in the provincial laws. The Imperial Court, also, was influenced in its way by this awakening philanthropy. In 1704 it even gave a grand privilege to the shepherds, wherein it declared them and their lads honourable, and graciously advised the German nation to give up the prejudice against this useful class of men, and no longer to exclude their children from being artisans, on account of magic and plying the knacker's trade. A few years afterwards it gave armorial bearings; it also granted them the rights of a corporate body, with seal, chest, and banner, on which a pious picture was painted.[^[35]] More stringent was the interference of the Hohenzollerns, who were themselves, during four generations, the princely colonists of Eastern Germany. Frederick II. made the most fundamental reforms in the conquered provinces; many examples are cited of the blessings resulting from them. When he took possession of Silesia, the village huts were block-houses, formed from the stems of trees, and roofed with straw or shingles, without brick chimneys; the baking ovens, joined on to the houses, exposed them to the danger of fires; the husbandry was in a pitiful plight; great commons and pastures covered with mole-hills and thistles, small weak horses, and lean cows; and the landed proprietors were for the most part harsh despots, against whom the clumsy Imperial and magisterial administration could scarcely enforce any law. The King carried on three severe wars in Silesia, during which his own soldiers, the Austrians, and the Russians, consumed and ravaged the province. Yet, only a few years after the Seven Years' War, 250 new villages and 2000 new cottages were erected, and frequently stone houses and tiled roofs were to be seen. All the wooden chimneys and all the clay ovens had been pulled down by the conqueror, and the people were compelled to build anew; horses were brought from Prussia, and the sheep shorn once in the year; peat cutters from Westphalia, and silkworm-breeders from France, were introduced into the country. Oaks and mulberries were planted, and premiums were given for the laying out of vineyards. At his command the new potato was introduced; at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, by the celebrated patent of the Minister of Justice, von Carmer, commons and general pastures were abolished, and divided among separate holders. With far-sighted forethought, a state of things was introduced which has only recently been carried out. The inheritance of property, also, was secured by law to the villeins. The peasant obtained the right of complaint to the royal government, and this right became for him a quick and vigorous law, for, however much the King favoured the nobility when it was serviceable to the State, yet he was constantly occupied, together with his officials, in elevating the mass of tax-payers. The most insignificant might present his petition, and the whole people knew, from numerous examples, that the King read them. Many of this great Prince's attempts at civilization did not succeed; but on all sides the pressure of a system was felt which so assiduously raised the strength of the people, in order to utilise them to the utmost in the State. Nowhere is the work of this mighty ruler so thankfully acknowledged by contemporaries as by the peasantry of the conquered province. When, on his numerous journeys through Silesia, the country-people thronged round his carriage with respectful awe, every look, every fleeting word that he addressed to a village magistrate was treasured as a dear remembrance, handed down carefully from generation to generation, and still lives in all hearts.

Ever greater became the sympathy of the literary classes. It is true that poetry and art did not yet find in the life of the peasant, material which could foster a creative spirit. When Goethe wrote "Hermann and Dorothea," it was a new discovery for the nation that the petty citizen was worthy of artistic notice; it was long, however, before any one ventured lower among the people; but the honourable philanthropists, the popular promulgators of enlightenment in the burgher classes, preached and wrote with hearty zeal upon the singular, uncouth, and yet numerous fellow-creature, the peasant, whose character frequently only appeared to consist of an aggregate of unamiable qualities, but who, nevertheless, was undeniably the indispensable foundation of the other classes of human society.

One of the most influential writings of this kind was by Christian Garve, "Upon the Character of the Peasants, Breslau, 1786," taken from lectures given shortly before the outbreak of the French revolution. The author was a clear-sighted, upright man, who was anxious for the public weal, and was listened to with respect throughout the whole of Germany, whenever he spoke upon social questions. His little book has a thoroughly philanthropic tendency; the life of the peasant was accurately known by him as it was by many others who were then occupied with the improvement of the country people. The propositions which he makes for the elevation of the class are sensible, but unsatisfactory; as indeed are almost all theories with respect to social evils. Yet, when we scan the contents of this well-meaning book, we are seized with alarm; not at what he relates concerning the oppression of the peasant, but at the way in which he himself seems necessitated to speak of two-thirds of the German people. They are strangers to him and his contemporaries: it is something new and attractive to their philanthropy to realize the condition of these peculiar men. There is an especial charm to a conscientious and feeling mind in ascertaining clearly, what is the exact nature and cause of the stupidity, coarseness, and evil qualities of the country people. The author even compares their position with that of the Jews; he discusses their condition of mind much in the same way that our philanthropists do those of gaol prisoners; he sincerely wishes that the light of humanity may fall on their huts; he compares their sloth and indolence with the energetic working power which, as was even then known, the colonists developed in the ancient woods of the new world. He gives this well-meaning explanation of the contrast, that in our old and as it were already becoming antiquated state, the many work for the one, and a multitude of the industrious go without remuneration, therefore zeal and desire are extinguished in a great portion of them. Almost all that he says is true and right, but this calm kindliness, with which enlightened men of the period of Immanuel Kant and the poetic court of Weimar regarded the people, was unaccompanied by the slightest suspicion, that the pith of the German national strength must be sought in this despised and ruined class; that the condition of things under which he himself, the author, lived, was hollow, barbarous, and insecure; that the governments of his time possessed no guarantee of stability, and that a political state--the great source of every manly feeling, and of the noble consciousness of independence--was impossible, even for the educated, so long as the peasant lived as a beast of burden; and little did he think that all these convictions would be forced upon the very next generation, after bitter sufferings in a hard school, by the conquest of an external enemy. His work, therefore, deserves well to be remembered by the present generation. The following pages depict not only the condition of the peasantry, but the literary class. Garve speaks as follows:--

"One circumstance has great influence on the character of the peasantry: they hang much together. They live far more sociably one with another than do the common burghers in the cities. They see each other every day at their farm work; in the summer in the fields, in the winter in the barns and spinning-rooms. They associate like soldiers, and thus get an esprit de corps; many results arise from this: first, they become polished after their fashion, and more acute through this association. They are more fit for intercourse with their equals; and they have better notions than the common artisan of many of the relations of social life; that is to say, of all those which occur in their class and in their own mode of life. This constant intercourse, this continual companionship, is with them, as with soldiers, what lightens their condition. It is a happy thing to hare much and constant companionship with others, if they are your equals; it gives rise to an intimate acquaintance and a reciprocal confidence, at least in outward appearance, without which no intercourse can be agreeable. The noble enjoys this advantage; he associates for the most part only with his equals, being separated by his pride from those below him, and he and his equals live much together, as leisure and wealth enable him to do so. The peasant enjoys singular advantages from opposite reasons. His insignificance is so great that it prevents his having the wish, still more the opportunity, of associating with those above him; he hardly ever sees anything but peasants, and his servitude and his work bring him frequently in companionship with these his equals.

"But this very circumstance causes the peasants to act in a body; thus the inconveniences of a democratic constitution are introduced, so that a single unquiet head from their own body exercises great power over them, and often influences the whole community. It is, moreover, the reason why persons of another class have so little influence over them, and can only sway them by authority and compulsion. They seldom see or hear the judgments, conceptions, and examples of the higher orders, and only for a brief space.

"I have long studied the special signification of the word tückisch, which I have never heard so frequently as when the talk has been of peasants. It denotes, without doubt, a mixture of childish character, of simplicity, and weakness, with spite and cunning.

"Every one, without doubt, remembers having seen faces of peasant boys, in which one or both eyes leer out, as if by stealth, from under the half-closed eyelids, with the mouth open and drawn into a jeering yet somewhat vacant laugh, with the head bent down, as if they would conceal themselves; in a word, faces which depict a mixture of fear, shamefacedness, and simplicity, with derision and aversion. Such boys, when one speaks to or requires anything of them, stand dumb and motionless as a log; they answer no questions put to them by the passersby, and their muscles seem stiff and immovable. But as soon as the stranger is a little way off, they run to their comrades, and burst out laughing.

"The low condition of the peasant, his servitude, and his poverty produce in him a certain fear of the higher orders; his rearing and mode of life make him on the one hand unyielding and insolent, and on the other, in many respects, simple and ignorant; the frequent antagonism of his own will and advantage, to the will and the commands of those above him, implants in his mind the germs of animosity. Thus, if the failings of his class are not counteracted by his personal qualities, he becomes such as the boy described, especially in his demeanour to his superiors. It is these superiors and lords of the peasants who are to blame for his tückischen character. He will use dissimulation in place of open resistance; he will be humble and yielding, nay, even appear devoted in their presence; but when he thinks he can act secretly, he will do everything against their will and interest. He will think of tricks and intrigues, which, nevertheless, are not so finely woven but that they may be easily seen through.

"One may discover two main differences, both in the fate and the character of the peasantry. He who is entirely under subjection, who sighs under the yoke of a complete slavery, will, under usual circumstances, submit to everything with apathy, without attempting the least resistance, and even without a wish to lighten his own lot; he will throw himself at the feet of any one who will tread on him. But if he is roused from this torpor by special circumstances, by agitators, by a cunning and bold leader, then he will become like a raging tiger, and will lose at once, with the humility of the slave, all the feelings of humanity.

"The half-serf who has property, and enjoys the protection of the laws, but under more or less burdensome conditions, is bound to the glebe, and at the same time to the service of the proprietor, to whose jurisdiction he is amenable; this peasant does not usually bear his burdens without wincing. There is no fear that he will endeavour to throw them off his neck by open violence as a rebel; but he will carry on a continual secret war with his master. To diminish his profit, and to increase his own, is a wish that he has always at heart, and an object which covertly, and as often as is practicable, he endeavours to pursue. He practises crafty and small thefts on the property of his master, and does not consider them so disgraceful as if he did the same by his equal. He is not the entirely humble slave, nor yet the dreaded enemy of his master, but he is not an obedient dependent, from free will and a good heart; he is that which probably has been intended to be expressed in some sort by the word tückisch.

"One may add, as an ingredient or as a consequence of the 'tückischen' nature, a certain amount of stubbornness which distinguishes the peasant when his mind is agitated, or when a prejudice is once rooted in him. His soul in this case appears to become stiff, like his body and his limbs. He is then deaf to all representations, however obvious they may be, or however capable he might be, in an impartial state of mind, of seeing their justice. The lawyers employed in the lawsuits of peasants will sometimes have known such individuals, in whom it is doubtful whether the obstinacy with which they cling to an obviously absurd idea, arises from their blindness or from determined malice. Sometimes whole communities become thus addle-headed. They then resemble certain crazy people, who, as it is expressed, have a fixed idea, that is, a conception which their mind takes up incessantly or returns to on the slightest occasion, and which, however false it may be, can neither be removed by the evidence of the senses nor by the representations of reason, because it is not really in the mind, but has its foundation in the tenor of their organization."

Thus speaks Christian Garve. His final counsel was: "Better village schools." Some among the landed proprietors acted with a similar philanthropic feeling. We would gladly say that their number was great; but the frequent complaints to the contrary, and the zeal with which benevolent commentators bring forward individual examples--like one Rochow, of Rekahn, who established village schools at his own cost--justify the conclusion that such benevolence would have been less striking had it been more frequent. In fact it required individuals to be very prudent in showing their good feeling for the peasants in deeds, as it was often observed that they gave their service far more willingly to strict nobles than to citizen proprietors; and that when these, with a warmer feeling for the peasant, wished to show him kindness, their goodwill sometimes met with a bad return. Thus a citizen proprietor, taking possession of his property, gave each of his peasants a present in money, and showed consideration for them in many ways; the not unnatural consequence was, that they renounced all service to him, and broke out into open resistance.

Whilst the German philanthropists were anxiously thinking and writing for the countryman, a storm was already brewing on the other side of the Rhine which in a few years was to destroy in Germany also, the servitude of the peasants, together with the old form of government. About 1790 the peasants began to occupy themselves eagerly with politics. The schoolmaster read and explained the newspapers to them; the hearers sat motionless, amidst thick tobacco smoke, all ears. In Electoral Saxony some already made use of the new circulating library in the neighbouring city.[^[36]] In the Palatinate, and in the Upper Rhine, the country people became disturbed, and refused service. In the same year, in the richest part of Electoral Saxony, in the Lommatzscher district, and on the property of the Graf von Schönburg, a peasant revolt once more broke out. Once more did the insurgents seize the weapon of the slave, the wooden club with iron hoops. The peasants, by a deputation, renounced all villein service to the landholders; they sent to the neighbouring communities; from village to village hastened the secret messengers; the magistrates, in the service of noblemen, were expelled or beaten with sticks; the quiet parishes were threatened with fire and sword; in every village saddled horses were standing to send information to the neighbours of the march of the military. There were the same secret conspiracy, the same outbreak, spreading with the speed of lightning, the same union of measureless hate, with a natural feeling of their rights, as in the peasant war of the sixteenth century. Reciprocal agreements were laid before the landed proprietors, which most of them subscribed amicably; and severe nobles were threatened with the worst. Their demands quickly increased; soon they required, not only exemption from tenths and soccage service, but also the reimbursement of fines that had been paid. The peasants collected in troops of more than a thousand men; they threatened the town of Meissen, and attacked small detachments. But they never withstood larger divisions of military. The most daring bands threw their caps and clubs away, as soon as the cavalry were ordered to charge through them. One of the chief leaders, a stubborn, daring old man of seventy years of age, while still in chains, complained of the faintheartedness of his bands. The movement was suppressed without much bloodshed. It was characteristic of the time, that the landowners, from fear, did everything in their power to bring about a mutual forgiveness and forgetfulness, and that the condemned, during their penal labour, were separated from other criminals and treated with leniency; they were also excused the prison dress. From records of that period it may clearly be seen how general was the feeling among the higher magistrates, that the position of the peasant did not come up to the requirements of the times.

Two years later, also, the German peasants in the Palatinate and in the Electorate of Mainz danced round the red cap on the tree of freedom. Incessantly did French influence overspread Germany. The State of the Great Frederick was shattered; Germany became French up to the Elbe. In the new French possessions, villeinage and servitude were abolished, with a haste and recklessness which was intended to win the people to the new dominion. The Princes of the Rhine Confederation followed this example, with greater consideration for those whom they patronised; but still under the strong influence of French ideas. In Prussia the Governments and people saw, with alarm, how insecure was the constitution of a State which employed so much the bodies and working powers of the peasants, and took so little account of their souls. In the year 1807 the great change in the relations of the country people began in Prussia; the definition of the rights of the landowners and peasants has lasted there, with many fluctuations and interruptions, for half a century, and has not yet arrived at a full conclusion.

At this period the position of the countryman throughout Germany has so improved, that no other progress of civilization can be compared to it. The villein of the landowner has--with the exception of Mecklenburg, where the condition of the middle ages still exists--become the free citizen of his State; the law protects and punishes him and the landowner alike; he sends representatives, not of his class only, but of the nation, in union with the other classes of voters, to the capital; he has legally ceased everywhere to be a separate order in the State--in many provinces he has laid aside, with his present dress, his old frowardness; he begins to dress himself à la mode, and--sometimes in a clumsy, unpleasing form--to take his share in the inventions and enjoyments of modern civilization. But, however great these changes may be, they are not yet great enough generally, in Germany, to give the countryman that position which, as a member of the State, a citizen, and an agriculturist, he must attain, if the life of the people is to give an impression in all respects of perfect soundness and power. His interest in, and comprehension of, that highest earthly concern of man--the State--is much too little developed; his craving for instruction and cultivation, considered on the whole, is too small; and in the larger portion of the Fatherland his soul is still encumbered by some of the qualities which are nurtured by long oppression, hard egotism, distrust of men differently moulded, litigiousness, awkwardness, and a deficient understanding of his rights and position as a citizen. The minds which have shaken off the old spell are still in the form of transition which gives them a specially unfinished and unpleasing aspect.

The agriculture of the German peasantry may still be considered as not having, on the whole, reached that point which is necessary for an energetic development of our national strength; nevertheless, we have reason to rejoice in having made great progress in this direction. Intellect is everywhere incessantly occupied in introducing to the simple countryman new discoveries--machines, seeds, and a new method of cultivation. In some favoured districts the agriculture of the small farmer can scarcely be distinguished from the well-studied system of the larger model farms. Nor has the German peasant, in the times of the deepest depression, like the oppressed Slavonian, ever lost the instinct of self-acquisition. For the very qualities which are his characteristics, enduring systematic industry and strict parsimony, are the groundwork of the highest earthly prosperity. There still subsists, however, in wide districts, the old thraldom of the three-course system with rights of common, and all the pressure which this system entails on individuals. Even well-tested improvements are therefore difficult to the countryman; because, with all his perseverance, he is yet wanting in enterprising activity, and because the great scantiness of his youthful instruction and technical education makes it difficult for him to comprehend anything new. Thus the development of the German peasant to greater inward freedom and capacity is steady, but slow. The noble landed proprietor also, from entirely different reasons, frequently neglects to raise the culture of the soil by energy, technical knowledge, and the utmost exertion of his power; and, in like manner, we find in other branches of production--in manufactures, trade, commerce, and political life--a corresponding slowness of progress. It places us still at a disadvantage in comparison with the better-situated countries of Europe. For the position of Germany among the States of Europe is such, that all other progress depends on the development of its own agriculture, that is, on the degree of intelligence and productive power which is perceptible in this primeval manly occupation. We have no command of the sea; we have no colonies, and no subjected countries, to which we can export the produce of our industry. If this circumstance is perhaps a surety for our stability, on the other hand it raises the vital importance which the German countryman and the system of his agriculture exercise on the other classes of the German people.

If therefore it is allowable to compare two very different phases of human development, one may well say that the peasant of 1861 has not yet gained, comparatively with the other classes of the people, the independence and the conscious power which existed six centuries ago in the provinces of Reithart von Reuenthal and Farmer Helmbrecht. And whoever would teach us from the life of the past, how it has happened that the strength of the nation has passed from the rural districts into cities, and that the nobleman has raised himself so much above his neighbour the peasant, must beware of asserting, that this depression of the country-people is the natural consequence of the establishment of a higher culture and more artistic forms of life by the side of the simple agriculture of the lower class. He who follows his plough will seldom be a member of a company which extend their speculations to the distant corners of the earth; he will not read Homer in the original, he will hardly read the work of a German philosopher upon logic, and the easy intercourse of a modern salon will scarcely be enlivened by his wit. But the results of the collective culture, of that which the learned find, which the artist forms, which manufacturers create, must, at a period when the nation is vigorous and sound, when accessible to the simple countryman of sound judgment, be comprehended and valued by him.

Is it necessary that our neighbour the countryman should so seldom read a good book, and still less often buy one? Is it necessary that he should, as a rule, take in no other newspaper than the small sheet of his own district? Is it necessary that it should be unknown to him, and unfortunately sometimes also to his schoolmaster, how an angle is determined, a parallelogram measured, and an ellipse drawn? Whoever would now place a poem of Goethe's in the hand of a peasant woman, would probably do a useless thing, and raise a dignified smile in a "well-educated spectator." Must all that we possess of most beautiful be incomprehensible to half our nation? Six hundred years ago, the poem of Farmer Helmbrecht was understood in the village parlour, and the charm of his sonorous verse, the poetry and the warm eloquence of his language, were appreciated; and the rhythm and measure of those old songs that accompanied the dances of the thirteenth century are just as elegant and artistic as the finest verses now in the poems of the greatest modern poets. There was a time when the German peasant had the same lively susceptibility for noble poetry which we now assume as the privilege of the highly educated. Is it necessary that the peasant of the present day should be deficient in it? The Bohemian village musician still plays with heartfelt delight the harmonious tones produced by the genius of Haydn and Mozart; is it necessary that few other musical sounds should be permitted to the German peasant than the stale measures of spiritless dances? All this is not necessary; something of the same barbarism benumbs our life which we perceive with astonishment in the time of Christian Garve.

What, however, we consider at first as one of the still remaining weaknesses of the peasants, is also the characteristic weakness of our whole culture, which has become too artificial, because it has bloomed in comparatively small and isolated circles of society, without the regulation and ever-increasing invigoration which the collective popular mind would have afforded it by cordial reciprocity and warm sympathy. The peasant's having for so many centuries been a stranger to social culture has, in the first place, made him weak, and also made the culture of the other classes too unstable, over-refined, and sometimes unmanly and impracticable.

CHAPTER II.

THE LIFE OF THE LOWER NOBILITY.

(1500-1800.)

The lot of the German peasant and of the German noble are closely bound together; the sufferings of the one become the disease of the other: the one has been lowered by servitude; the capacity, cultivation, and worth of the other to the State have been impaired by the privileges of a favoured position. Now both appear to be convalescent.

The lower German noble, before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, was experiencing an important transition; he was about to forget the traditions of the middle ages, and on the point of gaining a new importance at court. The predatory Junkers of the saddle had become quarrelsome, drink-loving landed proprietors.

At the end of the sixteenth century it was still difficult for the sons of the old robber associates to keep the peace. Whilst they were fighting with the pen, and intriguing at the Kammergericht,[^[37]] they were frequently tempted to take forcible revenge; not only the turbulent knights of the Empire in Franconia, Suabia, and on the Rhine, but also the vassals of the powerful princes of the Empire who were under the strong law of the land. Even where they were in the exercise of their rights, they preferred doing it by violence, from pride in their own power. Thus George Behr, of Düvelsdorf, in Pomerania, shortly before the storm of the Thirty Years' War broke upon his province, hired an armed band in order to obtain club law in a private quarrel; he also claimed supreme jurisdiction on his property, in 1628 he caused a former secretary of his family who had forged the seal of his master and drawn a false bond, to be hung on a gallows without any further ado, and at his leisure gave a laconic account of it to his duke.[^[38]]

Much of the old roistering remained in the daily life of the country noblemen; they were still prone, as once in the middle ages, to excite quarrels in the inns and under the village lindens. The young wore embroidered clothes with concealed weapons, an iron ring in the hat, and low morions; besides this, very long rapiers and stilettoes, and in the eastern frontier countries, also Hungarian axes. Thus they went in crowds to the popular festivals and marriages, especially when these took place in the households of the hated citizens. There they began quarrels with the populace and invited guests; they behaved with offensive petulance, and sometimes committed grievous outrages; they burst open the doors of the houses, broke into the women's rooms when they had gone to rest, and into the cellars of the householders. It was not always easy to obtain justice against the offenders, but in some provinces the complaints were so loud and general that, as for example in the Imperial hereditary lands, numerous ordinances appeared enforcing the duty of giving information of such villanies. Those most complained of were the rovers who settled here and there in the country. They were, in the worst cases, compelled to serve at their own cost against the hereditary enemy,[^[39]] so difficult is it to eradicate old evil habits. The quarrels also of the country nobles among themselves were endless. In vain were they denounced by the ordinances of the rulers, in vain did they declare that it was not necessary for the person challenged to come forward.[^[40]] The language of the Junker was rich in strong expressions, and custom had stamped some of these as unpardonable offences. At this period, after the termination of tournaments, armorial bearings and ancestors became of great importance; marriages with ladies not of noble birth became less frequent; they were eager to blazon coats of arms and genealogies, and endeavoured to show a pure descent through many generations of ancestors, in which there was frequently great difficulty, not only from the want of church books and records, but from other causes. Whoever endeavoured, therefore, to force a quarrel with another, found fault with his pedigree, his knightly position, name, and armorial bearings, and questioned his four descents. Such an offence could only be appeased by blood. To diminish these brawls, shortly before the Thirty Years' War, courts of honour were here and there introduced. The ruler of the country or feudal lord was president; the assessors, noblemen of distinction, formed the court of honour. The parties chose three companions, through whom letters of challenge and apologies were transmitted; and in order to make these subtle formalities easy to those who had little practice in writing, a form was accurately prescribed for such letters of summons.

Whilst thus the poorer nobles of the country struggled at home against the new régime, the more enterprising were led by the old German love of travelling into foreign parts. The noble youths willingly followed the drum, and even before 1618 it was a frequent complaint that the Junkers of the nobility had everywhere promotion in the army, whilst it was difficult for a man of worth and capacity, from the people, to rise from the ranks. Even before 1618 the heirs of rich families of pretension, travelled to France, there to learn the language and the art of war, and to cultivate their minds. Not only in Paris, but in other great cities of France, they congregated in such numbers, as do now the idle Russians and English; they only too often endeavoured to resemble the French in immorality and duels, and were even then notorious as awkward imitators of foreign customs. Even before 1618 most of the western German courts were so devoted to French manners, that French was considered the elegant language for conversation and writing. Thus it was in the court of Frederick the Palatine, the winter king of Bohemia.

The cleverest of the nobility, however, sought for fine manners, pleasures, and office in the courts of the numerous German princes. After the abdication of Charles V. a jovial life prevailed not only at the Imperial court, but also in those of the greater princes of the Empire, above all in Electoral Saxony, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and the Palatinate. Besides great hunting parties and drinking bouts, there were also great court festivals; masquerades, knightly exercises, and prize-shooting had become the fashion, especially at coronations, marriages, christenings, and visits of ceremony. The old tournaments were sham fights, fine scenic representations, in which the costume and the dramatic show were of more importance than the passage of arms itself. As early as 1570 they were arranged according to the Spanish custom, when the new fashion of running at the ring was introduced. Great stages, with mythological and allegorical figures, were drawn in procession on these occasions. The contending parties appeared in wonderful attire; they strove together for prizes, as challengers and knight-errants--manuten adoren and avantureros--or married men against bachelors, man against man and troop against troop, not only on horse but on foot But the weapons were blunt, the spears so prepared that they must break at the weakest shock, and the number of thrusts and passes which one could make against another was accurately prescribed. The whole was announced to the spectators by a cartel--written invitation or challenge: it was printed and posted up, and explained to the public. Some of these specimens of the composition of educated people of the court have been preserved to us; for example, a cartel of 1570, when the Emperor Maximilian II. had assembled a large circle of nobles around him, in which a necromancer, Zirfeo, announced that he knew of three worthy heroes enchanted in a mountain,--King Arthur and his companions, Sigestab the Strong, and Ameylot the Happy,--whom he would disenchant, and arouse to a struggle against adventurers. At the festival itself a great wooden structure was presented to view, which represented a rock with an infernal opening, ravens flew out of it, devils danced busily round its summit, and scattered fire about them; at last the magician himself appeared, made his incantations, the hill opened, the knights sprang up into daylight in ancient armour, and awaited the foreign combatants, who in equally strange costume encountered them. Even before 1600, gala days, including pastoral fêtes, were announced with a flourish by similar cartels, sometimes in verse, as, after the great war, were the common village weddings and fairs. These were especially welcome to the authorities and nobles, because in them etiquette was suspended, and many opportunities given for free pleasantry and confidential familiarity.

In some courts, as at that of the Anhaltiners, the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Duke Philip of Pomerania, the nobles had opportunities of turning their attention to education, and the acquisition of knowledge; at these courts they began already to take pleasure in the possession of objects of art. The Emperor Rudolph collected the pictures of Albert Dürer, and the princes and some of the wealthy nobles around them collected rare coins, weapons, drinking-cups, and the works of the goldsmiths of Nüremberg and the cabinet makers of Augsburg. The patricians of the great Imperial cities, superior in education to the court nobility, as political agents and managers of the Imperial princes, were the purveyors of these novelties of art to the German courts and their cavaliers. It was not an unheard-of thing to find a courtier who avoided long drinking bouts, and knew how to value a conversation upon the course of the world; nay, could even compose a Latin distich, and leave to his heirs a collection of books; and it was even considered honourable among the better sort to concern themselves about their households, and to increase, as far as possible, the revenues of their property.

On the whole, the importance of the nobility at court had increased even before the war, as well as the oppression which they exercised over their dependent country-people; yet, in an equal degree--nay, indeed, beyond them--the free strength of the nation irresistibly developed itself. The new culture of the Reformation period, introduced by burgher theologians and professors, brought into contempt the coarseness of the country Junkers. The business affairs of the princes and their territories, the places in the Kammergericht, the Spruch Collegien, or (consultative legal boards) of the Universities; indeed almost the whole administration of justice and government ceased to be in the hands of the nobles; the greatest opulence and comfort were introduced into the cities by trade and commerce. Thus, up to the year 1618, the nation was in a fair way to overcome the egotistical Junkerdom of the Middle Ages, and of putting down pretensions which had become incompatible with the new life.

It was one of the ruinous consequences of the great war, that all this was changed. It broke the strength of the burgher class, and the weakness of the nobility was fostered, under the protection which was secured to it in most of the provinces by the new military discipline of the princes and, above all, of the Imperial court, to the prejudice of the masses. As the income of the landed proprietor was diminished, he drew his chief advantage from the labour of the working peasant. The families of the country nobility being decimated, the Imperial court was very ready to procure a new nobility for money. In the course of the war the captain or colonel had willingly bought with his booty a letter of nobility and some devastated property. After the peace, these nobles by patent became a hateful extension of the order. A childish offensive tuft-hunting, a worship of rank, servility and a greed for titles and outward distinctions, were now general in the cities. The commercial cities on the North Sea were those that suffered least, and those countries most which were immediately dependent on the Imperial court. It was customary then in Vienna to accost as noblemen all those who appeared to have a right to social pretensions.

Among the mass of privileged persons who now considered themselves as a peculiar ruling class, in contradistinction to the people, there was undoubtedly the greatest difference in culture and capacity; but no injustice is done to many honourable, and some distinguished men, when the fact is brought forward, that the period from 1650 to 1750, in which the nobility ruled, and were of most importance, was the worst in the whole of the long history of Germany.

Undoubtedly, in the time of weakness since 1648, a most comfortable life was led by the wealthy scion of an old family, who possessed large property, and was protected by old alliances with influential persons and rulers. His sons gained profitable court appointments, or high military places; and his daughters, who were well dowered, increased the circle of his influential "friends." The landed proprietor himself had served in the army, had travelled to France or Holland, and brought with him from thence a number of curiosities; arms and painted articles from the Eastern nations, a hollow ostrich-egg, polished shells, artistically carved cherry-stones, and painted pottery, or marble limbs that had been dug up in Italy. He had, perhaps, somewhere favoured a learned man with his acquaintance, and received from time to time a ponderous legal treatise, or a volume of poems, with a respectful letter. He might have visited in his travels the courts of Anhalt or Weimar, and been created, by letters patent, a poet or author; he was member of the Frucht-bringende Gesellschaft[^[41]] (the Fruit-Producing Society), had a beautiful medal attached to a silk ribbon, on which his herb, sage or, mint--or, if he had been sarcastic at court--a radish, was represented; he bore the surname of "Scarifier," and comforted himself with the motto--"Sharp and Nutritious;"[^[42]] and he sometimes wrote letters on the improvement of the German mother tongue, unfortunately with many French phrases. For his own information he, with other cavaliers of education, took in, at considerable cost, a written newspaper, which a well-instructed man in the capital secretly sent to good customers; for it was revolting to him to read the common, superficial scribbling of the printed newspapers. He spoke some French, perhaps also Italian; and if he had been at a University, which did not frequently happen, he might be able to recite a Latin lucubration. In this case he was probably commissary of the ruler of the country, a dignitary of his province; then he had business journeys, and occasionally negotiations, and he managed, to the best of his power, what was intrusted to him, with the help of his secretaries. He was courteous, even to those who were beneath him, and was on good terms with the citizens. He looked down upon the people with confident self-complacency; he was, in fact, high bred, and knew right well that his nobility did not rest on many titles, nor on the knightly ensigns on his escutcheon; and he smiled at the Lions, Bears, Turks'-heads, and Wild men, which were painted on the coats of arms, and bestowed by the heralds' office at Vienna. He regarded with contempt the French nobility, among whom, through Paris merchants and Italian adventurers, too much foreign blood had been intermingled; on the Hungarians, who complacently allowed their nobility to be conferred for a bow and a chancery fee by the Palatine; on the Danes, whose noblemen had a monopoly of the cattle trade; and on the Italians, who made unceasing mésalliances. The fine-gentleman airs, also, of the greater part of his German equals annoyed him: for even at the meeting of his States he had frequent contentions for precedence, especially with the prince's councillors, who were not of the nobility, but wished to assert the privileges of their rank. If there were citizens and noble councillors in the same board, to these in the sittings, a higher position and seniority in office, gave the priority; but at banquets and all representations, according to Imperial decision, the nobleman, as he well knew, had the precedence. It was his usual complaint, that the nobles themselves assumed their titles, armorial bearings, and dignities, or sought them in foreign countries; also that, whoever had received the diploma of count or baron from the Imperial chancery, expected to be called Reichsgräfliche or Reichsfreiherrliche Gnaden, literally Countly or Baronial Grace, and speaks of himself in the royal plural.[^[43]] The worthy gentleman still retained some of the traditions of knighthood; a valiant officer was treated by him with respect, and he valued arms and horses much. The best adornment of the walls of his well-built house, besides the great family pictures, were beautiful weapons, pistols, couteaux-de-chasse, and every kind of hunting implement. By the side of the flower-garden, kitchen-garden, and orchard, lay a riding-ground, where were to be found apparatus for riding at the ring, or for breaking light wooden lances at the faquin, or quintin, a wooden figure. His horses had still Italian or French names,--Furioso, Bellarina, &c., for as yet the English blood had not been introduced; they had been bred from Neapolitan and Hungarian horses. Turkish nags, as now the pony, were much sought after; thoroughbred horses bore a comparatively higher price than now, for the long war had shamefully lowered the breed of horses throughout Europe. His dog-kennel was well furnished, for, besides bulldogs, he required hounds, pointers, and terriers; to these influential companions of his life he also gave high sounding names--Favour, Rumour, &c. It is true, the chase of the higher game was the right of his sovereign; but the hateful custom of baiting the game had been long ago introduced into the country from France. Thus he rode eagerly with his hounds after hares and foxes, or, by invitation, he accompanied[^[44]] some great lord deer-hunting, and received visits from some friendly court official, who had the command of some falcons, which were flown at crows. In October he was not ashamed of going after larks, and inspecting the sprynges. He began the day decorously, and ended it with pleasure; he regularly took an aperient, was bled, and went to church; he held every week his magisterial or justice days. After the morning greetings with his family, on leisure days he had his horses exercised; in the harvest week he rode to the fields, and looked after the reapers and the inspector. A great portion of his time was passed in visits which he received or made in the neighbourhood. At his repast, which took place soon after twelve, game played the principal part; if he had guests, seven or eight dishes were served generally at the same time. If conversation took a high flight, politics were cautiously touched upon, matters of faith very unwillingly; many fine sentences and maxims were still in vogue with people of the world; it was considered refined to quote writers of antiquity or elegant French authors without pedantry; the peculiarities of foreign nations, and also the curiosities of natural history, as known from reading and observation, were gladly discussed. It was considered good taste to inquire the opinions of individuals by turns. Such conversation, even among cavaliers of the highest quality, would appear to us more formal and pedantic than what we should meet with now in the society of poor schoolmasters; but even from this conversation, of which some accidental specimens remain to us, we may discover, in spite of a narrow point of view and numerous prejudices, the striving of the time for enlightenment and understanding of the world. Usually, indeed, the conversation runs on family stories, compliments, doubtful anecdotes, and coarse jokes. There was much deep drinking, and only the most refined withdrew from drinking bouts.

Sometimes a social meeting with ladies was arranged in another place, at an hotel or inn; then each lady provided some dishes, the gentlemen wine and music. If there was a bath in the neighbourhood, a journey to it was seldom neglected. Shooting matches were arranged, with appointed prizes, "the first was, then, an ox or a ram;" the gentlemen shot either together or with the populace. The dress, also, of the landed proprietor was splendid; his rank might be recognised from afar, for the old ordinances respecting dress were still maintained, and a value was placed upon their wardrobe, both by men and women, which we can now scarcely comprehend. Before the war no insignificant portion of the property was vested in velvet and gold embroidery, in rings and jewels; the greater portion of this was lost, but pleasure in such possessions remained, and the jewels of the daughter long continued an essential part of her dowry.

Numerous were the members of the household, amongst whom there were frequently some original characters. Perhaps, besides the tutor, there might be an old soldier of the great war, addicted to drinking, who knew how to relate many stories about Torstenson, or Jean de Worth; he taught the nobleman's son to fence, and "to play with the Banner."[^[45]] There seldom failed to be a poor relation of the family, who ruled over the kennel by the title of "Master of the Chase;" the preserver of mysterious hunting customs, he knew how to charm the gun, and had greater acquaintance with the infernal night-hunter than the pastor of the place thought right; he was considered as a trusty piece of old household furniture, and would assuredly have sacrificed his life without hesitation for his cousin; but he did not scruple to procure more wood for the peasant, with whom he drank at the inn, than was right; and if the old Junker had his couteau-de-chasse ornamented with silver, the origin of which was doubtful, the landed proprietor was obliged to wink at it.[^[46]]

Thus passed the life of a wealthy landowner between 1650 and 1700. It was perhaps not quite so worthy as it might have been, but it may have transmitted to the next generation family feeling and kindliness of heart. Yet it must be observed that it was only a very small minority of the German nobility who were in so favoured a position in the seventeenth century.

Those who wished to make their fortunes in foreign lands far from their families, were threatened with other dangers, from which only the most energetic could escape. The wars in Hungary and Poland, the shameful struggle against France, and a long residence in Paris, were not calculated to preserve good morals. The vices of the East, and of the corrupt court of France were brought by them into Germany. The old love of quarrelling was not improved by the new cavalier cartel, the profligate intercourse with peasant women and noble ladies of easy virtue, became worse by the nightly orgies of fashionable cavaliers, at which they represented festive processions with mythological characters, and draped themselves as Dryads, and their ladies as Venuses and nymphs.[^[47]] The old Landsknecht game of dice was not worse than the new game of hazard, which became prevalent at the baths and courts, and which foreign adventurers now added to those of the country.

But there are two more classes of nobles of that period who appear to us still more strange and grotesque, both numerous, and both in strong contrast to one another. They were designated as city nobles and country nobles, and expressed their mutual antipathy by the use of the ignominious terms Pfeffersäcke and Krippenreiter.[^[48]]

Vain and restless citizens strove to exalt themselves by acquiring the Emperor's patent of nobility. These patents had of old been a favourite source of income to needy German emperors. Wenzel and Sigismund had unsparingly ennobled traders and persons of equivocal character: in short, every one who was ready to pay a certain amount of florins. On the other hand, in 1416, at the Council of Constance, the princes and nobles of the Rhine, Saxony, Suabia, and Bavaria, had set up their backs, made a revision of their own circle, and cashiered the intruders. But the Emperor's patents did not cease on that account. Charles V. himself, who sometimes looked down on the German lords with galling irony, and willingly gave to his chancellor and secretaries the chance of perquisites, had the sad repute "of audaciously raising, for a few ducats, every salt-boiler to the order of nobility." Still more business-like were these proceedings under Ferdinand II. and his successor. For after the Thirty Years' War, not only the living, but the bones in the graves of their ancestors were ennobled, nay, the dead ancestors were even declared worthy of being admitted into noble foundations and to tournaments. At last, after 1648, this traffic of the Imperial court was carried on to such an extent that the princes and states at the breaking up of the Imperial Diet of 1654, and a hundred years later at the election of Charles VII., protested against the detriment which accrued to their own rights of sovereignty and revenues from such a privilege. The newly ennobled in the cities were therefore not to be exempt from the burdens of citizens, and the possessor of a property by villein tenure was not to be invested with the privileges attached to a noble estate. In vain did the Imperial court threaten those with punishment who would not concede the purchased privileges to its patents of nobility. Those also who were declared fit for tournaments and noble benefices, were not on that account received into any knightly order, or noble endowment, nor in any old noble provincial unions. The noble benefices generally did not take patents of nobility, as proofs of noble extraction; it was only the members of old noble families possessing no such patents who were admissible into these endowments. It was only exceptionally that these corporations gave way to a high recommendation. Even the court offices, those of chamberlain, groom of the bed-chamber, equerry, hunting and other noble pages, were privileges of the old nobility. The patents of nobility never forgot to celebrate the virtues and the services rendered both to the prince and commonwealth by the newly ennobled and his ancestors; but, as a zealous defender of the old nobility complains, it was too well-known that, in general, it was only for the "Macherlohn" (pay, for the making) that nobility was given.

In the larger cities, which were not the residence of princes, the position of the nobility was very different. In Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, the nobles had no political weight; on the other hand, at Nüremberg, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Augsburg, and Ulm, the old race of nobility lived in proud isolation from the rest of the citizens. Worst of all were the Nürembergers, who considered it even degrading to carry on commerce. Of two noble societies of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, one, the house of Alten-Limpurg, required of every member who presented himself for admission, eight ancestors, and that he should keep out of trade; the other society, of the house of Frauenstein, consisted mostly of newly-ennobled merchants "of distinction." In Augsburg, the old patricians were more indulgent to merchants: he who had married the child of a patrician family, could be received into the noble society. The remaining commercial cities of note, Prague and Breslau, were most amply supplied with newly ennobled merchants. There was bitter complaint that, under the Emperor Leopold, even a chimney-sweeper, whose trade was then in particularly low esteem, could for a little money procure nobility, and that frequently tradesmen, with patents of nobility in their pockets, might be found packing up herrings for their customers in old paper.

After the Thirty Years' War, officers also sought for patents of nobility, and they were often granted to them for their services, as also to the higher officials and members of the city administration in the larger cities.

It was through families who had taken part in the literary and poetical culture of the time, that patents of nobility in this and the following century entered into our literary class. Many poets of the Silesian school, nay, Leibnitz, Wolf, and Haller, were placed among the privileged of their time by patents of nobility, which they themselves or their fathers had acquired.

Wholesale traders were never esteemed in Germany, nor held in that consideration by the privileged classes of the people, which the great interest they frequently represented deserved. They had of old been mistrusted and disliked; this originated, perhaps, in the time when the astute Romans exchanged, among the simple children of Tuisko, the foreign silver coin, for the early products of the country. The feudal system of the Middle Ages required this disregard of wealth, and not less so Christianity, which commanded men to despise the riches of this world, and granted to the wealthy so little prospect of the Kingdom of Heaven. Since the time of the Hohenstaufen, after the nobles were constituted as a privileged order, the antagonism between the rich money-makers of the city and the needy warriors of the country, was more and more strongly developed. In the Hanse Towns of the north undoubtedly the warlike merchant obtained dominion and respect by his armed vessels, even in distant countries. But the rich and highly cultivated gentlemen of Nüremberg and Augsburg, were scarcely less distasteful to the people than to the princes and nobles who dwelt in predatory habits on the frontiers of their domain; it was not the Fuggers alone who were accused by the Reformers of usury and un-German feeling. After the Thirty Years' War, this enmity bore new fruit, and one can easily believe that the great merchants gave no little occasion to keep alive such antipathy. No human occupation requires such free competition and such unfettered intercourse as trade. But the whole tendency of the olden time was to fence in from the outer world, and to protect individuals by privileges; such a tendency of the time could not fail to make the merchant hard and reckless; his endeavours to obtain a monopoly, and to evade senseless laws with respect to the interest of money, gave the people, frequently with justice, the feeling that the gains of the merchant were produced by the pressure they exercised on the consumer. This feeling became particularly vigorous after the Thirty Years' War. Whilst in Holland and in England the modern middle classes were pre-eminently strengthened by widely extended commerce, German commerce--except in the larger sea-port towns--was prevented from attaining a sound development by the subdivision of territory, the arbitrary dues, the varying standard of money, and, not least, by the poverty of the people; on the other hand, there was constant temptation to every kind of usurious traffic. The diversity of German coinage, and the unscrupulousness of the rulers, favoured an endless kipperei: to buy up good coin at an advantage, to clip gold of full weight, and to bring light money into circulation, became the most profitable occupation. As now, multifarious stockjobbing, so then, illegal traffic in coined metal, was to a great extent the plague of commercial towns. It was not to be exterminated. If sometimes the scandal became too great, then indeed the governments tried a blundering interference: but their courts were hoodwinked. Thus, in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, the clipping of ducats was carried on to such an extent, that a special commission was sent from Vienna to the free Imperial city; Jews had been the colporteurs of Christian commercial houses, among which many great firms, whose names are still in existence, were the great culprits. The only result was that the Imperial commissaries pocketed the larger portion of the illicit gains.

Such wealth, acquired rapidly, and contrary to law, had, as now, all the characteristics of an unstable acquisition: it seldom lasted to the third generation. It turned the culprits into spendthrifts and pleasure-seekers; their arrogance and deficiency of culture, and their ostentation, became especially offensive to their own fellow-citizens. It was more particularly such individuals who bought patents of nobility; and it was assuredly no accident that, of the numerous noble families of this kind, many in proportion have become extinct.

One of the newly ennobled of such a circle kept his real name in the firm, but among his fellow-citizens he adhered jealously to the privileges of his new order. He liked to have his coat of arms carved in stone and richly gilt on the outside of his large house, but the stone did not guarantee long duration to its possessor. It was striking, for example, to observe in Breslau, how quickly the houses on the great crescent, which then belonged almost exclusively to the new patent nobles, changed their possessors. In the interior of the house ostentatious luxury was displayed, which in this period of misery was doubly grating to the people. The rooms were decorated with costly carpets, with Venetian mirrors of immense size, with silk hangings and tapestry, which on festive occasions were fixed on the walls or on a special framework, and afterwards removed. The women sewed diamond buckles on their shoes, and it was a subject of complaint that they would wear no lace that was not brought from Venice or Paris, and did not cost at least twenty thalers the ell; nay, it was reported of them that their night utensils were of silver. Great was the number of their lackeys; their carriages were richly gilt, the coachmen drove from a high box four horses, which were then harnessed abreast; but when the splendid equipage rattled through the streets, the people called out deridingly, "That the pot always tasted of the first soup." The rich man could well keep fine horses, as he at the same time traded in them; and the workmen in the business, the porter, carpenter, and apprentice, were put into the costume of lackeys, but the page who went behind the lady was generally a child from the poor school. In such houses there was also the most luxurious living. The invited guest was received with a formality that was then characteristic of the highly educated; the host met him on the staircase, and to one of the highest distinction went even to the house door; verbose were the compliments on receiving precedence or the higher place at table, and yet the greatest value was attached to not humbling themselves too much. As soon as they were seated at table, the buffet was opened, in which was a mass of costly plate. The dishes were large and the viands in keeping, but out of all proportion to the number of guests; the most expensive things were procured, with a refinement that still astonishes us; great pies, filled with various game, black game, pike liver, and Italian salad. The pheasants and partridges were caponed and fed, a brace cost as much as a ducat; it was thought horrible that these spendthrifts gave a gulden for a fresh herring, and from eight to ten thalers for a hundred oysters. To these were added the costly wines of the seventeenth century, Tokay, Canary, Marzenin, Frontignac, Muscat, and finally wine of Lebanon; at dessert there was no longer marchpane, but candied citron, the fashionable delicacy. The ladies sat adorned and silent. It was complained that their principal anxiety in the choice of a husband was, that their intended should be of rank, that they might follow near to the corpse at funerals, and have a high place at weddings. On such occasions they went little short of boxing each other's ears for precedence. So far was the eagerness for rank carried, that he considered himself materially better whose new patent of nobility dated ten years earlier than that of another; and these city nobles considered fresh creations in nowise their equals. Whoever had been lately ennobled was only called "Wohledel" (just ennobled), but he who had for some time been in possession of his patent, was called, "Hoch-and-edelgeborne Gestrengigkeit" (high and noble-born worship). Every effort was made to obtain a title in addition to their city dignity.

The military dignities also of the city were often occupied by the greenhorns of such families; a poor wight who had never been on a battle-field, with a staff thickly set with silver, with armed jäger behind him, might be seen passing daily from city gate to city gate, in order to parade before the people, and to receive the salute of the guard.

Only one thing was required of him, he must know how to handle his sword, for duels were part of the existence of the nobleman. It was desirable for him to have been at least once called out by cartel. He then rode with his second to the nearest village; behind a hedge he pulled off his riding-boots, put on light fencing shoes, fastened his long curly hair under his cap,[^[49]] took off his upper garments, and had to choose one of the rapiers which were presented to him. They fought in rounds, by cut and thrust, and a well-settled duel never failed to be followed by a reconciliatory drinking bout. They liked to boast of such heroic deeds.

Such were the "Pfeffersäcke," who were called also by the country nobles, "Heringsnasen" (flatnoses). This country nobility was of quite another stamp.

They were more numerous two centuries ago than at present. Besides the family seat, they possessed village-houses, and small farms. Sometimes a family had increased so much, that in the neighbourhood of an old estate, many villages were occupied by relatives; and still more frequently did branches of different families dwell indiscriminately in a village, in every grade of authority. Even in our century there have been middle-sized villages, enclosing ten, twelve, and more gentlemen's seats. In such districts, each little despot exercised dominion over a few miserable villagers, and had a seigneurial right to a portion of the village district; but the poorest had no real property, and sometimes only rented their dwellings. Thus it was in almost all the provinces of Germany, more especially east of the Elbe, in the colonised Sclavonian countries; also in Franconia, Thuringia, and Swabia. Many of the Junkers only differed from the other country people in their pretensions, and their contempt for field labour. Even before the war, most of them had been impoverished, and when peace came at last, they were in still worse plight. War and pestilence had made havoc among them, and the survivors had not become better. The more powerful had tried their luck as soldiers and partisans, differing little sometimes from highway robbers. During the war they had laid out their booty in the purchase of some small estate, on which they dwelt, restless and discontented. These fortunate individuals received frequent visits from old comrades, and then ventured to make raids from their property on their own account, which seldom ended without bloodshed. After the war they ceased plundering; but the lawlessness, the craving for excitement, the restless roving, and the inclination for wild revelry and quarrels remained in the next generation. They united themselves into a large company, which, in spite of endless brawls, continued to hold together, like entangled water-plants on a marsh. This family connection became a ceaseless plague to the better disposed, and a misfortune for the whole class; and more than any other evil retarded, during the following century, the culture, civilisation, and prosperity of the landed nobility.

The sons of these poor landowners learnt to ride, dance, and fence, and perhaps the first rudiments of Latin from a poor candidate; then, if the father had connections, they served as pages at some small court, or to a distinguished nobleman. There they learnt, to a certain extent, good manners; and, more certainly, the weaknesses and vices of the higher orders. If they remained some years in noble service they were, according to old usage, declared capable of bearing arms, and released as Junkers with a gracious box on the ear. Then they returned to the parental estate, or the parents sold what they could spare to procure them an outfit befitting a gentleman, and sent them as aspirants for subaltern places in the Imperial army. Few of them prospered in the inglorious wars of that period; most returned home, after some campaigns, corrupted and poor both in honour and booty, to share with their sisters the paternal inheritance. Soon they differed little from the relations who had remained at home.

These landowners dwelt in buildings of clay and wood, roofed with straw or shingles,--a sufficient number of casual descriptions and drawings have been preserved to us; across the roof lay the great fire-ladders; the front and back doors of the hall were provided with crossbars for closing them at night. On the ground-floor was the large sitting-room; near it the spacious kitchen, which was a warm abode for the servants; next the sitting-room there was a walled vault, with iron gratings to the window, and if possible with iron doors, as a protection against thieves and fire,--whatever valuables a landowner possessed were kept there, and if a sum of money was deposited there, a special watchman was placed before the house. Above this vault, in the upper floor, was the bedroom of the master of the house; there was the marriage-bed, and there also was a concealed safe, either in the wall or floor, wherein some plate and the jewellery of the women were kept. The children, the tutor, and the housekeeper slept in small closets, which could not be warmed, divided by trellis-work. Sometimes a wooden gallery was attached to the upper floor, the "little pleasure walk;" there the linen was dried, the farmyard inspected, and the work of the women done. The house was under the special care of some old trooper, or poor cousin, who slept within as watcher. Wild dogs roamed about the farmyard and round the house during the night; these were specially intended to guard against beggars and vagrants. But all these measures of precaution could not entirely hinder the inroads of armed bands. Even a good-sized estate was an unsatisfactory possession. Most of the landowners were deeply in debt; ruinous lawsuits, which had begun during the war, were pending over hearth and hill. The farm was carried on wretchedly under the superintendence of a poor relation or untrustworthy bailiff; the farm-buildings were bad and falling into ruins, and there was no money, and frequently no good wood wherewith to renew them. For the woods had suffered much from the war; where there was an opportunity of sale, the foreign commanders had caused large forests to be felled and sold. In the neighbourhood of fortified places the stems were employed for fortifications, which then required large quantities of wood; and after the peace much was felled for the necessary erection of villages and suburbs. The farm also bore little produce. Not only teams, but hands, were wanting for the tillage; and the average price of corn, after the war, was so low that the product hardly paid for the carriage, and in consequence they kept few horses. New capital was difficult to acquire; money was dear, and mortgages on the properties of nobles were not considered an advantageous investment. They, undoubtedly, gave a certain amount of security; but the interest was too often irregularly payed, and the capital could not easily be recovered. The acquisition of mortgaged goods, also, by the creditor, was possible only in certain cases, and by tedious proceedings; it was sometimes even dangerous, for the friends and neighbours of the debtor would threaten the new possessor with their hatred. In the eastern frontier countries the dissatisfied creditors endeavoured to indemnify themselves by selling their bonds to Polish nobles. These procured the money by making reprisals on travellers from the district of the debtor, and taking the sum from the first comers. This had, indeed, happened before the great war; and repeated prohibitions show how much commerce suffered from those deeds of violence.[^[50]] By such evils even a sensible landed proprietor was soon easily thrown into a desperate position. A bad harvest, or a mortality among the cattle, would probably ruin him. But the chief evil was that a great number had not sense enough to occupy themselves perseveringly with their farming, and to limit their expenses within the certain income of the property. Thus few were prosperous. Most of them passed their lives amidst embarrassments, lawsuits, and endless debts; even those who had entered on the possession of their property with better hopes, became at last, like the greater number of those of their own class, members of the great association which the people nicknamed "Krippenreiter."

These impoverished gentlemen rode in bands from farm to farm; they invaded the neighbourhood like troublesome parasites whenever a feast was celebrated, whenever they scented the provisions in the kitchen and cellar. Woe to the new acquaintance whom they picked up at the houses of others; they immediately volunteered to accompany him home for a day or week. Where they had once quartered themselves it was very difficult to get rid of them. Not select in their intercourse, they drank and brawled with the peasants at the tavern; when drunk, they would do a citizen, with a full purse, the honour of receiving him into their brotherhood. Then kneeling amid broken glasses and flasks, the brotherhood was sealed, eternal fidelity sworn, and generally, he, was denounced as the worst scoundrel, who did not preserve unbroken friendship. Such brotherhood did not, however, prevent a great fight the very next hour. But, common as they made themselves on these occasions, they never forgot that they were "wild noblemen of ancient family." Citizens, and those who had patents of nobility from the Emperor might, indeed, become brothers. This kind of familiarity was after the way of the world, but he could not obtain the acknowledgment of family association conveyed by the terms "uncle" and "cousin;" and even if allied to them by marriage, he was not admitted to their relationship unless he were of noble race. Their children went about in tatters; their wives sometimes collected provisions from relations, and they themselves trotted over the stubble on shaggy horses, in old greatcoats, with a bit of carved wood instead of a second pistol in the old holster. Their usual place of rest was at the village tavern, or, if they came to a town, in the worst inn. Their language was coarse, full of stable expressions and oaths. They had adopted many of the usages of the rogues, both in language and habits; they smelt of "finckeljochen" (a bad kind of spirit) more than was agreeable to others. They were, indeed, ragamuffins; and, with all their pugnacity, without real courage. They were considered the pest of the country, and those who had anything to lose compared them to bluebottle-flies; more than once sharp decrees[^[51]] were issued against them by the different rulers, and even from the Imperial court, but they were, notwithstanding, haughty and thoroughly aristocratic-minded fellows. Their genealogy, their escutcheons, and their family connection were to them the highest things upon earth. Unbounded was the hate and contempt with which they regarded the rich citizens; they were always ready to begin a quarrel with the newly ennobled, if they did not give them their full titles, or presumed to bear a coat of arms similar to their own.

The following account will make us better acquainted with these fellows, and their mode of intercourse. It carries us to the right bank of the Oder in Silesia, a corner of Germany where "Krippenreiterei" was particularly bad. There, according to an old popular jest, the devil burst the sack when he endeavoured to carry off in the air a number of "Krippenreiters," and thus emptied out the whole rubbish on this district.

The following description is taken from the narrative entitled "The Nobleman," written a few years before his death, by Paul Winckler, a Silesian, political agent and councillor at Breslau of the great Elector; he died 1686. The narrative was first published after his death in two editions, and finally at Nüremberg, 1697-8. There is no great skill or invention in it, but it is the more useful here on that account. Winckler was a well-educated man of the world, and an eminent jurist, and his numerous travels and alliances, and accurate knowledge of the condition of the German landed proprietors, made him particularly capable of forming a sound judgment. He possessed also qualities which are not rarely found in a Silesian; he knew how to accommodate himself easily to the world, was a cheerful companion, impartial in judgment, and a lively narrator. His being a member of the "Fruchtbringende," or literary society, probably contributed to keep alive his interest in German literature, and encouraged him to modest attempts at authorship. But he was too sensible a man not to regard with contempt the purist pedantry with which the associates of his society endeavoured to raise the German poetry. "They sit behind the kitchen of Parnassus, and satisfy themselves with the odour of the roast." He was about fifty when he wrote his narrative, confined to his room by the gout. His object was to point out by a portraiture, what a right sort of nobleman ought to be; for it had been his fate, throughout his whole life, to live in business relations and personal intercourse with the nobles of different provinces. His wife was a descendant of the poet Von Logau, and he himself was nephew of Andreas Gryphius. His own experience undoubtedly gave him a peculiarly sharp eye for the absurdities of the privileged classes, but he was the true son of his time, and preserved at heart a deep respect for genuine nobility. His narrative, therefore, is not by any means a satire, though it has indeed been called so, and the delineations here imparted give a peculiar impression of being accurate portraits. That which has been a hindrance to modern narrators who have a moral tendency, has indeed been the case with him. He has clearly depicted what the nobles ought not to be; but his good characters fail in sharp outline and colouring, nay, they become tedious, because he brings forward their education and principles in lengthy conversations. His narratives may be compared with the tale Simplicissimus, but in creative power, fancy, and fulness of detail the Silesian is incomparably inferior. Grimmelshausen, however, though possessing greater poetic talent, has an inclination for the strange and fantastic, which reminds one of the style of the romance writers, and leaves an impression that what is there represented is not a thoroughly true picture of the time. From this defect the Silesian is entirely free; he narrates, in a lively and frank style, what he has himself seen, not much, nothing particular, but plainly and precisely.

The events of the narrative are very simple. The Dutch then held in German society about the same position in the German courts that was accorded to Englishmen not long ago, the importance of their nation being almost equal to a letter of nobility. A rich young Dutchman comes to Breslau, becomes witness of a duel between one of the new nobles and a country Junker, hears from his landlord a description of country life, visits the house of an extravagant "Pfeffersack," is invited by a young Herr von K., an acquaintance of former times, to a country seat, gains thereby much knowledge of the "Krippenreiters" from personal observation, hears an account of an adventure of a Silesian with an English officer, and passes the rest of the time of his country visit, in grave but very prosy conversation (in which the author introduces much of his own views and learning), upon the education of the soldier, upon the nobles by birth and those risen from trade, upon the state of politics, and upon the culture of the ancients in comparison with that of the present day, &c. On his return to Breslau, the Dutchman learns that the rich merchant who had before invited him to dinner, had become bankrupt and secretly absconded; his life is then related, and the hero leaves Breslau. Thus the whole long narrative contains only five descriptions which would be interesting: two of them will be given. Some coarse expressions are softened; they are a little shortened, and the language, only where it appears indispensable, modernised. First the landlord relates how he studied as the son of a tailor, then married a wealthy "Kretschmerin" (or landlady), and after her death, from an unfortunate striving to become great, bought a patent of nobility in order to settle in the country. He then continues thus:--

"A not very trusty friend advised me to settle in a part of the country where certainly the noble estate was at a low price, but of which the income also was small; another friend, it is true, advised me against this, and pointed out to me what vexations and crosses I should be exposed to from the 'Krippenreiters;' but this did not disturb me, as I knew I was a match for them with the sword, so I dismissed the useful warning from my mind. In short, I bought an estate for 6000 thalers, but soon discovered that I had exposed myself to the lightning, in avoiding the thunder, and that my good friend with his prophecy had shot very near the mark. For when I had scarcely half settled myself, a certain Junker, Vogelbach, with a couple of his associates, were the first to victimise me, as they call it. He lived about half a mile off; not that he had any property of his own, for he only rented a peasant's farm worth about 100 Imperial thalers, and spent his life, like others of the same sort, in 'Krippenreiterei.' How he maintained his wife and child I know not, but only that I frequently saw his wife with a cart and two ragged children on the estate of opulent nobles, collecting corn, bread, cheese, butter, and the like. They generally came once a month to beg all such articles of me. This Vogelbach was, as has been mentioned, the first who, with two of his associates, came to have a 'housewarming.' The first and second time they behaved themselves with some degree of discretion, wherefore I put before them what was best in the house. But this, in their opinion, was abundantly balanced by the honour of the noble brotherhood into which they had admitted me, and at last they could no longer refrain from their shabby tricks. 'It would become you, brother Kretschmer,' he began one day that he had filled himself with beer and brandy up to the eyes. But I made him remember these words by an unexpected box on the ear in such a sort that the good fellow was tumbled over into the middle of the room with his stool. My groom, a robust man who had been a soldier, and whom I had taken chiefly as a guardian spirit for the like cases of need, when he saw this, seized the other Junker W. by the collar, so that he could not stir. 'What,' said he, 'you villain, is it not enough for you to come here so constantly, to fill your hungry body and to fatten your meagre carcass? Do you choose to give my master this Deo gratias? The devil take me if one of you stir; I will so trim his Junker jacket, that there shall be a blue fringe on his bare back for six weeks.' 'We have nothing to do with these quarrels,' answered the two; 'if brother Vogelbach has begun one, he will know how to carry it out like a true cavalier.' The latter had meanwhile picked himself up, and was about to seize his sword. 'Keep your miserable blood-drawer in its scabbard,' I said, 'or I will assuredly stick the broken leg of this stool into you if you are not satisfied yet.' Thereupon he held his tongue, and went away with a black eye, accompanied by his noble companions. They mounted their horses and rode out of the gate. But as soon as they considered themselves safe, then they began to rail; they nicknamed me a hundred times a trade-fallen ostler. One of them tried to fire his pistol, but could not succeed; doubtless because there was neither cock nor trigger to the lock. At last they perceived that I was coming after them with half-a-dozen peasants; so they, hastened off, and sent me, about a fortnight afterwards, all three at the same time, a challenge, in the belief that I should never have the courage to meet them sword in hand in the open field; but they found themselves much mistaken.

"Being fearful, however, that the whole swarm of surrounding Krippenreiters would fall upon me, and unite in giving me a good drubbing, I took with me two troopers who were then in the country, and in the first pass gave V. such a good cut over the shoulder, that his sword fell from his hand, which he could no longer use. W. therefore lost at once all courage, so that on my second fight he was fain to make peace. No one conducted himself better than Michael von S., whom I had before considered the most faint-hearted. He fought well enough, till at last this threefold duel ended thus: the two companions were reconciled to me, but Vogelbach stipulated to have two more passes on horseback as soon as his arm should be healed, which, nevertheless, he has not carried out up to the present day.

"Thus I obtained rest from the brawls of 'Krippenreiters,' though there was no diminution of their visits; nevertheless, I soon experienced a much greater and more costly annoyance. My vendor had not only cheated me a good deal in the sale itself, but had concealed from me also an important redeemable interest; besides which, he had not given up all that was set down in the inventory. So I was obliged to bring a complaint against him before the government, and to employ an advocate. It was long beginning I was little disposed to do so; it was my wish to obtain the daughter of some good citizen with a few thousand thalers, and thereby to improve my housekeeping. But the false friend who over-persuaded me to the purchase, advised me to marry no one that was not of the old nobility, and also in the neighbourhood. 'In the first place,' said he, 'it is very uncertain whether the gentleman will meet with a rich party in Breslau, although he has got ennobled. But further, such city ladies as these have so little knowledge of country housekeeping that they do not even know a cow or an ox, nor what cheese or curds are. But the gentleman's household requires a mistress who has been brought up to it from her youth; such a marriage also is the only means of forming his children in time into country nobles.' With this view he proposed a lady of the neighbourhood, and offered himself to be the wooer. 'She is pretty, a good housekeeper, has some fortune, and is of old family; it will be impossible for the gentleman to find all that together in the city.' When I asked him what was the extent of her means, he boasted that it was 2000 thalers. I certainly doubted this, even then, as it was so large a marriage dower for the country, that any baron would have snapped at it; yet I let myself be persuaded at last, as the lady was not ill-educated, and my new nobility had driven all sound sense out of my brain. I soon found that the above pretended 2000 thalers sank to 400; even these were pending in a doubtful lawsuit, which would scarcely leave as much as would amount to the costs incurred, or as would pay for nuptials suitable to my position. Nevertheless, in the beginning I loved her on account of her good looks, and everything was knocked out of my head. As she had brought with her, however, no jewels, clothes, or other female ornaments, I inquired once of my lady mother-in-law where the chains, rings, and two taffeta dresses were, in which I had found my love dressed when I wooed her. But she answered me with a jeering smile, that if I had got her only in her shift I ought to be content, and feel thankful that such a noble family had demeaned itself so far as to give me their child, and they would still have trouble enough to wipe off this disgrace among their friends, who would decidedly not have consented to this marriage. But as concerned the dresses and ornaments, I must know that they had other daughters to think of and provide for. It was, besides, the custom in the country to procure a dress and ornaments which might do for two or three daughters; when one of them was smartly attired, it was the duty of the others to attend to the housekeeping, or if guests arrived, to feign illness, and content themselves with bed, till it was their turn. Therefore I must be satisfied, and if I would not let my wife appear so as to be a disgrace to me, I should, out of my own means, provide her with dress and ornaments befitting a noble lady. Thus all my ready money went, especially as the wedding had cost me much, for almost the whole province, with their wives, children, servants, and horses, fastened themselves upon me for a fortnight, and I could not rid myself of them so long as anything was to be found in the kitchen and cellar. Also what I procured for my wife was never rich and costly enough to please her and her mother; they always found some deficiency, and wished to have everything more perfect.

"Nevertheless, I controlled myself, and would have minded no expense, if I had only gained the smallest thanks for it; but what most pained me, was to feel that neither my wife nor any of her friends held me in the slightest consideration. Moreover my dear mother-in-law was a thoroughly malicious, proud, false woman, and as, according to the root of the tree, so are the leaves, her daughter followed in her footsteps. And as on this account I could no longer be fond of her, my groom often met with more friendly looks than I did. I had no reason to complain of her relatives not visiting me, for they did so oftener than I liked, and they did their best to consume all that they found. They thought that the devil would take them if they called me brother-in-law or uncle; the brotherhood must be considered all allegorical, and my mother-in-law took care, that the word 'son' should not escape her lips, especially if strangers were present. Never were they so comfortably together as when I was absent at Breslau or elsewhere; then they had the best opportunity to make themselves jolly at my expense, and they did so with some wine of which I kept three or four bottles in my cellaret for myself and my wife, and I found it quite empty when I returned home. Yet even that might have passed, if they had only not taken from me the corn from the ground, nay, even the cows and calves without my knowledge, and conveyed them away secretly for their noble relatives. But he who receives four thalers, and has to spend six, has no reason to care for a purse. So that I could easily calculate that in a short time I should become as good a Krippenreiter as my neighbours.

"But it pleased God to deliver me from this danger by the death of my beloved, who died in childbirth. Even under these circumstances I had to undergo a severe storm from my vexatious noble mother-in-law. She filled heaven and earth with her lamentations over the decease of her daughter, and wished to persuade all the world that the good woman had died of grief, that she had not married suitably to her position, and that it had been her (the mother-in-law's) fault I bore with her folly for a time, in hopes that the game would some day come to an end; but at last she broke out still further, and desired to have the ornaments and dresses I had bought for her daughter, and whatever else she had in her keeping, for another daughter. I threw at her feet some rags she had brought with her, and caused the corpse to be placed in a respectable coffin in the family vault, without inviting the mother-in-law or any other relations. I then determined to sell the property at the first good opportunity and betake myself again to the city.

"Sitting one evening thoughtfully at the window, looking at the servant doing his work, I accidentally observed that some one was at the gate defending himself with naked sword against the assault of the dog. I called out to the servant to hold back the dog, whereupon I was accosted by a well-dressed man with many compliments. 'My lord uncle,' he said, 'will not take it amiss if, according to knightly fashion, I do myself the honour of calling on you for a night's lodging in order to have the honour of making your acquaintance.' 'Not in the least,' I replied, 'if the noble gentleman will please to be satisfied.' I invited him in, and as the cavalier was so free with his cousinship, I could easily perceive that he was not of the neighbourhood. He soon let me know that he was a free knight of the Empire, from Alsace, and had been so ruined by the French, that he preferred turning his back upon his burnt property to submitting to their sway; now he was going to the Imperial court to seek military service. I could perceive the emptiness of this braggadocio from his knowing none of the noble families with whom I had made acquaintance in a former residence in Alsace. Therefore I dealt cautiously with the fellow, and the good lord and brother of the Imperial nobility was obliged to be satisfied with a straw mattress and pillow for his head. When I rose the next morning, I found neither Junker nor bedclothes, and missed, besides, my sword and pistols, which I had left in the sitting-room. I forthwith ordered my servants to mount and pursue him with clubs, and if they found the rascal, to knock him down and then let him escape, but bring back my things; for I was convinced that the man was a pickpocket, and that I should gain no advantage by his capture, but an expensive penal process, and have at last to pay for his hanging. The servants found him with his booty in the nearest wood, and executed my orders thoroughly. They brought my things back, but these cost me dear in the end; for, scarcely four days after, my place was burnt over my head in the night, without doubt by this rascal, so that I could hardly save the dwelling-house, but was obliged to look on at the destruction of the barns and stables, which with corn and cattle were burnt to the ground.

"This misfortune disgusted me so with country life, that I only built a couple of stalls for the remaining cattle, and shortly afterwards sold for 4000 thalers the property for which I had given 6000. After that I betook myself to the city."

Such is the narrative of the country householder to the young Dutchman. A few days after, the stranger had an opportunity himself of observing the life of an impoverished Silesian country noble. A young Herr von K., an educated and travelled cavalier, invited him to the property of his parents, and asked him to take a ride with him from thence to a neighbouring property where a christening was to be celebrated. The Herr von K. begged our hero to consent to allow himself to be introduced as a major in the Dutch service, "For I know," he said, "that otherwise these noble peasants will have no scruple in giving you the last place, and will show you no consideration, in spite of your superior education, and although, without impoverishing yourself, you might easily buy the whole of their property put together." What the Dutchman then observed he relates as follows:--

"The entertainment was of such a nature that there was no danger of the table breaking down under the weight of the dishes: a good dish of small fish with onion sauce, calf's head and trimmings, the whole interior of a pig in as many various dishes as there were parts, a couple of geese, and two hares; besides this, such rough watery beer, that one was soon obliged to have recourse to not much better brandy. In spite of this the society, which consisted of some twenty persons, was right merry, and the ladies more lively than the affected mercantile ladies of the city nobility. When the table was removed, a portion of the cavaliers danced about merrily to a couple of fiddles, and the room was filled with the fumes of tobacco. Then Frau von K. began, 'I have taken a fancy for this foreign cavalier, and have hopes that my son, who is also an officer, will be as much loved and esteemed in other places.' Frau Ilse von der B. answered, 'I, dear and honoured sister, am quite of another opinion. I could never exercise such tyranny on those belonging to me as to thrust them among these fierce soldiers, for I hear that they sometimes fare badly enough--have no warm beds for many nights, and besides, have no one to make them a mug of warm beer or bring them a glass of brandy. If I should hear that my son had been devoured by a long-necked Tartar, such as I have lately seen painted at Kretschem, I should be choked with grief. Therefore, I have thought it better to maintain my Junker Hans Christoph as well as I can on our little property at home. I must acknowledge that he has already cost me more than enough; for when I fitted him out as became a noble, my two best cows went, and I have not been able to replace the loss. But what does that matter; I see with pleasure that he knows how to behave himself like a nobleman. Only see, dear honoured sister, does he not dance nimbly, and hasn't he got a capital knack of whirling round with the ladies; he does not refuse to drink a glass of beer or brandy with any one; tobacco is his only pleasure in life; in all societies he makes himself so agreeable, that he sometimes does not come home for three weeks, possibly with a black eye. From that I can quite believe that he lays about him, and defends himself valiantly like a cavalier. Such also shall my Junker Martin Andres become.' The Junker who was standing by her, laid his head on the lap of his dear mother. 'The wild lad knows already that he is a Junker, therefore he does not desire to learn, but prefers riding in the fields with the young horsemen; he has already got into his head that he must wear a sword. This is a new anxiety to me, for I well know that in the end it will cost me a horse, and without special help from God, I shall have to part with a couple more cows. I must, however, buy him an alphabet, for his father always wished him to become a thorough scholar, as he himself was. Yes, if it cost nothing, and it were not necessary to buy so many expensive books for the learned lad, it would delight me. My eyes run with tears when I think how beautifully his honoured father said grace after meals, and did it as well as the pastor; also how he once recited before the prince, for a whole half hour, something, I know not what, in pure Latin. One thing pleases me much in my Martin Andres, that he has such a subtle, reflecting head. He himself suggested to me to help him sometimes to gain money, by allowing him to keep the redemption money for the stray cattle impounded on my fields. He is so intent upon this that he lurks the whole day in the corn to catch a couple of pigs or the like, whereby he has already gained as much as half a thaler. But, nevertheless, if I only knew for certain that my Junker Hans Christoph would prosper in this war business, like your noble sons, honoured sister, I would not let another year pass without endeavouring to persuade him to go. If he would but become for certain an officer or a baron, and obtain a rich wife. She, however, to suit me, must be of true, real, noble blood, for otherwise, I swear she should never be permitted to appear before me, even though she were up to her ears in gold. And who knows, dear honoured sister? I have all my life long heard that in other countries the nobility are not so good as with us, and that in Holland, from whence this officer comes, the women are driven to the market naked as God has created them, just like the cows. For my deceased honoured mother's sister, the dear Frau Grete von T. lived to see her son devil-ridden, and he brought home just such a wild woman. This so grieved her that she did not live much longer, and she could not be persuaded to see this wild woman more than once. But to return to my son. Junker Hans Christoph, if it should so happen that he were not sent among the Tartars, nor obliged to be a sentinel, I would try to persuade my old maid, who altogether reared and waited upon him, to accompany him for a year, and look after him, to wash his shirts and keep his head clean, and I would provide for her by sowing a half peck of flax seed on her account.'

"The Frau von K. would, probably have given a good answer to this nonsense, if she had not been led off to dance by Herr von K. Thus she left the old lady alone, with whom the Junker Vogelbach, who was present, and had a tobacco-pipe of a finger's length in his mouth, held this discourse:--'How are you--how fares it with you, my honoured and dear cousin? I observe that you rejoice to see Junker Hans Christoph enjoy himself. My word for it, he is an honest lad; I could have wished that he had been with me some days ago, when I had a tussle with a 'Peppersack' of Breslau; he would have seen with wonder how I belaboured the fellow; he had to beg for life, and afterwards to give a stately banquet in the best style to me and my seconds, at which we so enjoyed ourselves, that the good wine flowed like a river.' To this the old lady Von der B. replied: 'It is truly to your honour that, for the sake of a drinking bout, you make yourself so common with the citizens; and, above all, you, Junker Martin Heinrich, who are always hankering after wine, if only you can catch a glass, you drink in brotherhood with all sorts of people, be they citizens or nobles. Yes, you, indeed, as I have heard, call these Peppersacks uncle or cousin. If I could be sure of this, I swear that all my life long I will never call you cousin. Tell me, what is that scar you have on your forehead? Without doubt you have got it in another quarrel with them. That would do well enough if you would only not mix with the citizens.'

"'Do you take me for a fool,' said Junker Vogelbach, 'that I should call these fellows uncle or cousin, though the Emperor should have given them ever so grand a patent? Brother is well enough, so long as they give good wine; but we say, henceforth we will let the knaves alone.'

"Meanwhile the guests made themselves merry with tobacco, drinking, and varied converse, during which the Dutchman remarked, that, of the two tolerably well educated daughters of the host, one only was to be seen at a time at the dance, and each was dressed from head to foot the same as the other; from which he concluded that these good maidens were obliged to content themselves with one and the same dress, and that whilst one danced in the room, the other, who had retired, had to wait patiently without till her turn came again. 'Are not those dear children?' said their mother, who had seated herself with the other ladies, to Frau von der B.; 'they do all in so noble and suitable a style, it does my heart good to see how everything becomes them. If the Peppersacks in the city were to hang ever so much finery about them, the citizen would still peep out.' 'You say rightly,' said the other; 'my heart leaps within me when I see these city people swagger about in such fine dresses and ornaments, in their gilded carriages. Think I to myself, be as ostentatious as you will, were you every day, even to drink pearls instead of your best wine, you are still citizens, will remain citizens, and can never become equal to us.'

"Amidst such woman's prattle, laughing, shouting, dancing, and jumping, the night wore away, and as Von K. could well anticipate, that this entertainment would be concluded with the usual brawls and quarrels, he gave our Dutchman a wink, and retired with him to the house of a peasant of his acquaintance, where they passed the night on straw. The groom of the Herr von K. awoke them the following morning, saying, if they desired to witness a three-fold fight, in which Vogelbach would be the most distinguished combatant, they must rise quickly and betake themselves to a spot near the village, on the Polish frontier. Neither of them having any desire to do so, Von K., who felt ashamed that his countrymen were such ragamuffins, made a sign to his groom to be silent; they then mounted, and rode away conversing together pleasantly."

Here we conclude the narrative of Paul Winckler. About the year 1700, the habits of the country nobles became more civilised, their life more comfortable, and the bands of Krippenreiters became rarer. Still, however, individuals were sometimes tempted to defy the weak laws of the country, and repeatedly did the governments exert themselves against the cunning and violence by which unlawful possession was taken of the property of the deceased. Still did the greater part of the country nobles suffer from the burden of mortgages; frequent were the complaints about the rashness with which they were given and sold; and, as it is usually the custom to cheat in drawing up such mortgage-deeds, they far exceeded the value of the estate. Under these circumstances, there were everywhere legal auctions, where they were not prevented by feudal tenure or family regulations; only too frequently were the wax lights again seen burning, which, according to old custom, were burnt on the morning of an auction, and the duration of their flame marked the time during which the bidding of those who were desirous to purchase would be accepted.[^[52]]

In most of the districts of Germany the acquisition of a nobleman's estate depended on the Ritterrecht, or laws and usages prevalent among the nobility in that district. Undoubtedly this custom was not in accordance with common law, but almost everywhere the noble proprietors of the district formed a powerful corporation, which excluded those who were not noble from the fall enjoyment of seigneurial rights of Standschaft, and from their assemblies. Even where those who were not noble were capable of holding a fief, they were so only under limitations. Sometimes the citizens of certain privileged cities had the right of acquiring the properties of noblemen, but this expired as soon as they ceased to belong to the favoured city. An exception, also, was sometimes made in favour of the city councillors forming part of the government of the country, and members of the universities. But the general rule was that those not noble, could only occupy a property as a mortgage, not with seigneurial rights as a possession. Even those who had been ennobled were not free to acquire a nobleman's estate as a possession; it required the consent of the rulers of the country or of the noble States. In the Imperial hereditary provinces this right could only be obtained by those noblemen who were raised to some rank of the higher nobility; and even then this right had to be purchased in each individual case, and from the sovereign ruler, and secured by a diploma. The Emperor endeavoured to obtain money even from the old families by obliging them to renew this right by the purchase of a general diploma for all their members.

But the Imperial Court imposed other limitations, dividing, up to the most modern times, the last escutcheon of its nobility into Edle, nobles, Herren, gentlemen, and Ritter, knights. Whoever was transferred from the order of citizens to that of nobles or knights, could not be buried with mourning horses and escutcheons if he continued his vocation as a citizen. And so far did Imperial administration reach, that even in 1716 a noble lady was forbidden to marry a Lutheran ecclesiastic, because that would be unbecoming a noble.[^[53]]

But the approach of a new time may be clearly perceived, soon after 1700, in the life of the noble, as well as that of the peasant. It consisted in a better tone of feeling, both as head of a household and as a landed proprietor. A new literature started up suddenly, large and copious compilations, in which were introduced systematically the duties and secrets of agriculture, husbandry, and housekeeping; also of domestic and gentlemanlike education and training; they are respectable folios, handsomely bound and adorned with copper-plates, and it was considered meritorious to educate yourself from them. In 1682, von Hochberg had already dedicated his "Country Life of the Noble" to the landed proprietors of Upper Austria Soon after, the Count Palatine, Franz Philipp, under the name of Florinus, wrote a similar work, "To the Prudent Householder versed in the Law." Already, in Holstein, and soon after in Mecklenburg, the system of double rotation was introduced on the properties of the nobility. At the same time there was in most of the wealthy old families an increasing interest in art and science; it was thought becoming to have some historical and legal knowledge, to be acquainted with family traditions, and well versed in the aids to history, numismatics, and heraldry. The wives of the country nobles were benefitted by the deeper earnestness of the new pietism, and also, after 1700, from the sensible, sober character of the new culture. They were so often told that it was praiseworthy for a lady of rank to concern herself about her household affairs, and to bring up her children as Christian gentlemen in the fear of God, that one may well believe that these views entered into their daily life. About 1750, a travelled nobleman describes with pleasure what the daily work of the housewife ought to be. Indeed, a nobleman, in the middle of the last century, who lived peaceably on his property, and was tolerably wealthy, had a right to consider himself as one of the most fortunate representatives of his time. He lived uprightly, concerned himself about the great world no more than was necessary, lived in familiar family intercourse with the whole nobility of the neighbourhood, was only occasionally tipsy, reared his foals, sold his wool, and disputed with his pastor; by moderate strictness he got on tolerably well with his villeins, and had but rarely a suspicion how detrimental even to himself was the servitude of his labourers. If an old family was in danger of becoming impoverished, they were advised by the aforementioned zealous and well-meaning coadjutor of the noble, to marry with a rich heiress of the respectable citizen class, in case of necessity the family of the lady might be ennobled, and provided with ancestors on both father's and mother's side; the business, it is true, caused a small blot on their escutcheons, but it would be folly to regard that much.

But the old families were saved from sinking again into the people by numerous lucrative privileges. Very large was the number of benefices and prebends, and of sinecures in the cathedral church, in the orders of Malta and St. John, and in the monasteries of the nobles and other ecclesiastical endowments; and there was hardly an old family that had not some connection with them. Very general was the feeling among the nobility, that the Roman Catholic nobles were better off, because they could more easily provide for their sons and daughters; whilst the Protestant princes had seized most of the foundations. With pride, therefore, did the so-called knights of the Empire in Franconia, Swabia, and on the Rhine, look down upon the landed nobility; the Imperial capitulation not only assured them privileges, dignity, and greatness, but they were also closely united with the ecclesiastical princes and the foundations in their territories, and their families lived, with almost heritable right, to numerous ecclesiastical benefices. But, unfortunately, this support had not the effect of ensuring lasting prosperity to their families; nay, it was a chief cause of many becoming impoverished and corrupted in their isolation.

But still more fatal to the lower nobility was a privilege to which, even in the present day, they cling fast as a valuable advantage, and the lowering effect of which is not confined to them,--their right of admittance at court. The principle that any of the old nobility must have free access at court, and that it was not befitting a prince to have social intercourse in any other circle, acquired great importance after the year 1700. At this period the German courts gradually developed the tendencies which they have maintained up to the present day. The Imperial Court, and that of Louis XIV., were the pattern; but, at the same time, old home usages were continued at particular courts. Ever greater became the number of court appointments; needy princes even sold them for money.[^[54]] The lord steward was over the whole court. There was a marshal, called "Hofmarschall" who had charge of the royal household; on occasions of ceremony he marched in front, with his gold staff and keys, and at the festive table he stepped behind the chair of his gracious sovereign as soon as the confectionery was served. The lord high-chamberlain really superintended the wardrobe of his royal master; sometimes with the advice of the royal lady, his wife, and distributed the cast-off clothes, not only to the valet, but to poor cavaliers.[^[55]] His office also was important, for the costumes at most of the courts were numerous and various; it was only at the Prussian Court, and those connected with it, that the simple military coat of home-made cloth was the usual dress. Elsewhere, not only the gala dresses, but also the special costumes and fancy dresses for the high festivals, were subjects for great consideration, and it was no trifle for the chamberlain to ascertain accurately how the wardrobe at the different entertainments should be fittingly arranged; as when, for example, at the Turkish garden near Dresden the whole court appeared as Mussulmen, or when an extraordinary coronation dress was to be invented, as for the Elector Friedrich August of Saxony at the coronation at Cracow.[^[56]] Even the stable became noble; it was under the master of the horse, as the hunt was under the grandmaster of the chase. As ceremonial had become the peculiar science of court, it was represented at most of the great courts by a grandmaster of the ceremonies. None watched more jealously than the princes themselves the marks of honour which they were to give and receive at visits; if on a visit sufficient respect was not shown to them, they rode away in anger, and threatened reprisals. Endless, therefore, were the complaints and grievances laid before the Emperor and Aulic Council; and yet this jealous watch over externals was not the result of self-respect, for in dealing with the powerful they were but too deficient in this. Regulations concerning precedence were always being renewed; almost every new ruler had pleasure in thus showing his supremacy, but, in spite of all ordinances, the disputes about rank, offices, and titles were endless--worse than the men, were the ladies. In 1750, at one of the royal courts, all the ladies of the nobility left their places in church because the daughter of one of the newly ennobled officials--a "wirklichen Geheimerath"--sought for a place in their choir.

This wide sphere of trifling interests gave great importance to the nobility, calculating from the Imperial Court at Vienna down to the household of the baron of the Empire, who always maintained one or more poor Junkers in his circle; together with the collateral and lateral branches of the greater families, it might be estimated that there were somewhere about 5 or 600 court households in Germany, besides 1500 households of "Knights of the Empire;" so that, undoubtedly, there were more than 5000 court offices and employments. The enormous number of these court places was not advantageous to the manly character of the noble. To be able to endure with smiles the humours and roughness of an unbridled sovereign, to be complaisant as the pliant servant of the despot's licentious desires, and of the mistresses' establishment, was not the worst effect. He was in imminent danger of becoming so base that the coarseness of the poor Krippenreiter appeared comparatively virtuous. It was a period when the noble mother gave her daughter with pleasure into the arms of the profligate prince; and when the courtier gave up his wife to him for money. And it was not only done by poor nobles, but also by the offshoots of royal houses. The nobles in some German provinces took the opportunity of practising similar complaisance, even in our century, towards Napoleon's princes and marshals. But the worst was that the great mass of the court nobility drew also the families of landed proprietors, who were related to them, to their residences. Sensible men were never weary of complaining that the country nobles no longer dwelt on their properties to the great damage of their coffers and morals; but thronged to the neighbourhood of the princes to ruin themselves, their wives and daughters in the pestilential atmosphere of the court. But these were fruitless warnings in the greater part of Germany till the middle of the eighteenth century.

Those who had more manly ambition filled civil or military offices. There was a peculiar aspect, also, about these nobles that bore office. If the son of an old family studied law, he easily gained by his family connection the situation of councillor; and rose from thence, if clever and well informed, to the highest offices, even to be de facto a ruler of states, or political agent and ambassador at foreign courts. Besides divers rogues who were drawn forth in these bad times, there were also some men of education, worth, and capacity, among the German nobility of this class, who already in the time of Leibnitz formed the real aristocracy of the order. It became gradually customary for nobles to occupy the highest official positions and the posts of ambassadors, after they had become an established court institution; also the appointments of officers in the army. Whilst the Imperial armies, to which the young nobles from the greater part of Germany were attracted, retained, even after the reforms of Prince Eugene, somewhat of the aspect of the old Landsknecht army under the Hohenzollerns; the new organization of the Prussian army formed the ground-work of an excellent education for the officers. The Elector Frederic William had perceived that the wild country nobles of his devastated realm could be best turned to account in the army which he created amid the roar of cannon in the Thirty Years' War. He restrained their love of brawls by military discipline; regulated their rude sense of honour by esprit de corps and military laws; and gave them the feeling of being in a privileged position, by raising none but nobles to the rank of officers. Thus was effected one of the most remarkable changes in the civilization of the eighteenth century, especially when King Frederic William I. and Frederic II. had so emphatically declared that every prince of the Hohenzollern house must be both soldier and officer, wear the same coat, be under the same subordination and the same law of honour as the most insignificant Junker from the country.

Thus it happened that the descendants of many families that had lived as drones in the Commonwealth became closely bound up with the fondest recollections of the people. But this political privilege of the nobility became, it is true, even in the State of the Hohenzollerns, a source of new danger to the families of the nobility, and, which was still more important, to the State itself. We shall have occasion to speak of this later.

Thus the nobility, about 1750, were at their highest point--everywhere the ruling class. Thousands of their sons did homage, in both the great and small courts; scarcely a less number established themselves in the stalls of ecclesiastical endowments, occupied prebends and carried Imperial "panisbriefs"[^[57]] in their pockets. The softest seats in the senate, the foremost places in the State carriages of diplomats, were taken by them; almost the whole of the State domains were in their hands. But it was just at this period that a great change took place in the minds of the German people; a new culture arose, and new views of the value of the things of this world spread themselves, quietly, gradually, imperceptibly, no one knew how or from whence. The German sentences received a new cadence; German verses became less majestic, and soon even simple. This new seeking after simplicity spread still further. Certain bold enthusiasts ventured to despise powder, and perukes; this was contrary to all etiquette, but new ideas and new feelings came into circulation. Beautiful tender hearts, and the dignity of man were spoken of. Soon, also, distinguished personages among the nobility caught the infection, even Sovereigns; the Duchess of Weimar went with a certain Wieland in a carrier's cart; two Reichsgrafen von Stolborg were not disinclined to bend the knee to one Klopstock, and embraced by moonlight the citizen students.

Among the bel-esprits of the citizens who now gained an influence, none was more adapted to reconcile the nobles to the new times than Gellert. He was not genial: he knew well what was due to every one, and he gave every one his proper place; he had a refined, modest disposition, but was rather a pessimist; he was very respectable, and had a mild and benevolent demeanour towards both ladies and gentlemen. Great was the influence that he exercised over the country nobles of Upper Saxony, Thuringia, and Lower Germany. The culture of the new time soon got a footing in these families. The ladies especially opened their hearts to the new feeling for literature, and many of them became proud of being patronesses of the beautiful art of poetry, whilst the gentlemen still looked distrustfully on the new state of things. As in Germany, poetry had the wonderful effect of bringing the nobility into unprecedented union with the citizen class, so at the same time in Austria, music had for a time a similar effect.

But there were greater results than the mere poetical emotions with which Kalb, Stein, and the loveable Lengfelds received the German poets. Science now began to speak more earnestly and more powerfully. What she commended or condemned became, as if by magic, among hundreds of thousands, the law of life or the object of aversion. Not many years after 1750, in a wide circle of highly cultivated minds, which included the most vigorous of the burgher class, together with the noblest spirits among the nobility, the privileges which gave the nobles a position among the people, were considered as obsolete; and the State ordinances which preserved them were regarded with coldness and contempt.

Again there came a stern period; the noble generals of the Prussian army could not maintain the State edifice of the old Hohenzollerns; they were the first to give up the State of Frederick the Great, and pusillanimously to surrender the Prussian fortresses to a foreign enemy. One of the necessary conditions for the preservation and restoration of Prussia and Germany was, that the nobility must renounce their valued privileges in civil offices, and officers' appointment.

Since the rising of the people in 1813, the life and prosperity of the State has mainly rested on the power and progress of culture in the German citizen. The citizens are no longer, as in the middle ages, a class confronting the other classes; they form the nation. Whoever would place himself in opposition to it by egotistical pretensions, begins a hopeless struggle. All the privileges by which the nobility up to the present day have sought to maintain a separate position among the people, have become a misfortune and fatality to themselves. Many of the best among them have long comprehended this; they are in every domain of intellectual and material interests, in art, science, and State, the representatives of the new life of the nation. Even the country noble, who within the boundary of his village district holds faithfully and lovingly to the recollections of the olden time, has in some degree made friends with the new time, and in some sort yielded unwillingly to its demands. But among the weaker of them there remains even now somewhat of the hearty disposition of the old mounted rovers. The modern Junker is an unfavourable caricature of the nobility; if one observes closely, he is only a pretentious continuation of the old Krippenreiter. Under uniforms and decorations are concealed the same hatred of the culture of the times, the same prejudices, the same arrogance, the same grotesque respect for decaying privileges, and the same rough egotism with regard to the commonwealth. Not a few of these court and country nobles still consider the State like the full store-room of a neighbour, as their ancestors did two centuries ago; against these rise the hatred and contempt of the people.

CHAPTER III.

THE CITIZEN AND HIS SHOOTING FESTIVALS.

(1300-1800.)

It is on the simple truth, that every man is only valuable to his nation and State in proportion to his work, that the power and pride of citizenship rests; that is to say, in so far as he contributes to the welfare of others. But eighteen hundred years were necessary to establish this principle, and to make it perceptible to Germans, and still does the struggle continue to realize it, to introduce into the cities free competition instead of the corporate privileges of guilds, and into the State the right of personal character against the rights of birth. And yet it is only since this truth has penetrated into society, morals and legislature, that a sure, and as far as man can judge, indestructible foundation has been formed for the vitality of the nation. So slow has been the progress here of modern development.

It was from the capacity and the pride of the working citizen that the conviction arose in the German mind of the value of work. It first made the serf a free labourer of the commonalty; then it created a wealthy citizen class which spread itself firmly between the other classes; then it helped to add science to the mechanical labour and art of the citizen, and thus made him the representative of intellect, the guardian of civilisation, and the centre of the national strength. By this he ceased to be one of a class, and formed the essential element of the nation.

Nothing is more instructive than to observe the way in which the power of the German citizen became effective. However great was the industry, and however much developed the technical skill of handicraft under the Roman supremacy, the collective industrial activity lay under the ban of disregard. In the cities indeed at the beginning of the great migration, the remains of a sumptuous life still continued amidst marble columns and the vaulted halls of costly baths; and the guilds of the old handicrafts, with their chapels and exchanges were not only the casual forerunners of the later guilds of the middle ages, but perhaps their real progenitors, from whom the Germans acquired numerous handicraft implements and technical dexterities; nay, even many noble customs. But a great portion of the handicraft of antiquity was not the work of freemen: at least where anything of the nature of manufactures paid well, slave labour increased. Nevertheless, many freed men entered the old guilds; having been furnished by their masters with a small capital, they bought themselves into a Roman corporation: but it must be observed, that not only was such handicraft held to a certain degree in contempt by the full citizens up to the latest time, but the artizans, according to Roman tradition, were allowed little share in the government of the city; they had, together with undeniable local patriotism, a deficiency of the political culture, the self-respect, and the capacity of self-defence of free-born citizens.

Even among the ancient Germans, who came with the great migration, manual labour was not considered the most honourable occupation of the warrior; the poor alone used to cultivate the fields or to forge weapons at the smithy; long did the feeling remain, that there was less honour in earning money than in taking the property of others, in the shape of imposts or booty. Under such a condition of insecurity and violence did the cities arise. They were surrounded by strong walls, and shut out from the country, as once were the cities of old Latium; they were the refuge of oppressed country people, not only from the incursions of enemies, but also from the numerous small tyrants of the open country. For centuries they were governed by privileged free-born citizens, merchants, and speculators, similar to the Roman Empire; but under the patricians, the guilds were strengthened in the course of long and often bloody struggles within the walls; they acquired a share in the government, with essentially equal rights and equal duties. As a free man capable of bearing arms, the German citizen found that he could obtain riches, consideration, and affluence by means of his handicraft and his art. At the end of the middle ages, it became clear that the intellectual life of Germany had taken root in the cities.

Undoubtedly handicraft was under different conditions to what it is now. Whilst the common produce of individual mechanical labour was accurately defined in respect to material, form, and price, and the creative energy of individuals was entirely restrained by the traditions of their city and guild, a creative tendency appeared in all that required more delicate handling. The painter still rubbed his colours himself, and melted the varnish, but he also carved in wood, and engraved copper-plates. Albert Dürer still sold in the market stalls picture sheets with woodcuts, for which perhaps he himself made the letter-press, Whilst the arrangements of houses and churches frequently remained fixed, even in respect to size, in all fundamental points, the countless and often too florid details of the arabesques in the stonework showed the inward satisfaction with which the builder, when permitted the free exercise of his own fancy, followed the impulse to give expression to his own mind. The goldsmith was also designer and modeller; he took pleasure in making every article of value a work of art, into which he threw his whole soul. But it was just this union of restrictive tradition and free invention which was so beneficial to the handicraft of the cities, developing everywhere greater wealth, higher morality and culture. Throughout the whole country the cities became like the knots of a net of free societies, to which the gentry of the rural districts, far behindhand in civilisation, were in constant hostility. Long did an active hatred continue betwixt the money-getting citizen and the predatory landed proprietor; and on both sides there was bitter animosity. It is true that the noble order of Landowners were held in greater consideration; they were sustained by the pride of noble blood and of military skill, and by a multitude of prerogatives and privileges; but in fact the money-making citizen had already acquired the best rights, for so completely did he engross the whole culture and wealth of his time, that without him the country would have relapsed into barbarism.

Thus he became the aid of the Reformation, and the victim of the Thirty Years' War. But even after the devastation of that period, he, the weak and impoverished artizan of the city, felt himself a privileged man, whose prosperity depended on the superior rights he possessed. He endeavoured carefully to guard against strangers the privileges of his guild, of his patrician chamber, and of his community; he was only helpless in his relations with his sovereign. He was still an order in the new state, from which other orders were excluded. His work had lost much of its excellence, and this weakness has lasted up to the present day. Not only were trade and commerce impeded, but the technical skill of most of the artizans became less. Wood carvings and painted glass had almost perished, the arts of stone and wood carving were at the lowest ebb, and the houses were built small, tasteless, and bare. Printing and paper, which the small printing presses had deteriorated already before the war, continue poor even in our century. Equally so were the arts of the metal workers, goldsmiths, and armourers. The works of the cabinet-maker alone maintained their excellence through the rococco time, though even the chef d'œuvres of the celebrated Meister von Neuwied could not compare with the artistic chests of the Augsburgers about 1600; the art of weaving also, especially damask, came into fashion soon after 1650, but not in the cities preeminently. The new trades which attained to great importance, like that of peruke-maker, were of doubtful value to the national industry.

Equally great was the change which took place after the Thirty Years' War in the social life of the citizens, in their intercourse with each other and with strangers. In a former volume it was shown to what an extent individuals withdrew into their families. It is worth the trouble of examining more nearly what they lost by this. First, that feeling of self-dependence which the most diffident man acquires by frequent intercourse with strangers, the capability of co-operating with others in a larger sphere, of representing a conviction, acting in a manly way, and not submitting to any affront or unjust treatment, but at the same time yielding up pride and pretensions to the common weal; added to this the skill to organise themselves in new positions and more extended society, and to accommodate themselves to these altered circumstances. Such a tone of mind, the groundwork of all man's political capacity, was to be found in abundance at an earlier period. The power of the Empire and of the princes having become very weak, the aptitude of individuals to act in masses was strongly developed, but after the war the laws of the newly-formed states pressed with such an iron hand, that all the art and practice of self-government was lost.

This change shall be here shown, in a single phase of citizen life--the great prize shooting festivals. They are more especially adapted to give a picture in detail of the stately and splendid public life of the German citizen in olden times, and to show that we are only now beginning--though certainly with higher aims--again to attain to what our ancestors had already found.

It has been a German custom, older than Christianity, to celebrate the awakening life of nature in May. This has always been a martial feast, in which the fundamental idea of the old heathen faith, the victory of the awakening divinities of nature over the demons of winter, was dramatically represented. In the rising cities it was the warlike youth of the freeborn citizens who lead the May sports, and in the Hohenstaufen time these sports assumed the form of fashionable knightly festivals. Thus in the year 1279, at Magdeburg, on the borders of the Rhine, where Saxon blood had formed one of the strongest fortresses of German life against the Sclavonian, the Whitsuntide feast was celebrated quite in knightly style. The young mounted yeomen arranged a great tournament in their Elbe island "the Marsh," under their Maigraf, Bruno von Stövenbecke; the arrangements were all written down, and the merchants of Goslar, Hildesheim, Braunschweig, Halberstadt, and Quedlinburg invited. They came splendidly-equipped, and courteously broke a lance with two young comrades of Magdeburg in front of the city, and then rode festively through the gates to the island on which many tents were pitched. The prize settled by the Magdeburgers for this May tilt was, like the figure on their coat-of-arms, a maiden.[^[58]] An old merchant from Goslar won the beautiful Sophie; he took her with him and married her, giving her so good a dowry as to enable her to live ever afterwards honourably.

A century later, in May 1387, the Magdeburgers celebrated a great festival on the "Marsh," and again they contended for a maiden; but the combat was no longer in the style of a tournament, such as their bishop held at the same time on the other side of the city, but it was in a great archery court. To this archery meeting they again invited the friendly cities of Brunswick, Halberstadt, Quedlinburg, Aschersleben, Blackenberg, Kalbe, Salza, and Halle. A citizen of Aschersleben won the maiden.

During this century there was a great change in the life and constitution of the German cities; the patrician youth with their knightly customs were no longer the representatives of the power of the burgher class, the commonalty of the city already began to feel themselves masters, and their weapon, the cross-bow, gained the prizes. Soon after 1300, the societies of Archers arose in the German cities, with their regulations, archery houses, and yearly shooting festivals; as a brotherhood they erected an altar or built a chapel, and obtained from the Pope's Legate absolution for all who attended the mass, which they established on the day of their patron saint, the holy St. Sebastian. These guilds were favoured by the city magistrates, who helped to arrange the great prize shootings of their city. But however much the citizen bow superseded the knightly lance at the feasts of arms of the cities, some of the terms of knightly language continued long in use. The prizes were still in the sixteenth century called "ventures;" still longer did the term "tilting" denote the contention between individual marksmen who had shot into an equal number of circles, and a "course" signified a certain number of shots.

After the time of that archery court of the Magdeburgers, mutual shooting festivals are mentioned by the chronicles of other cities. They were quite common, at least in southern Germany, about 1400; for example, Munich sent its archers almost every second year to contend in the neighbouring cities, and the "customs" of the public shootings were already at that period firmly established. Thenceforward they spread over the whole of Germany, increasing in magnitude and splendour. They, as well as the German burgher-class, were at their highest acme about 1500; in the century of the Reformation they became more extensive and costly, and more diversified in customs and characteristics, but shortly before the Thirty Years' War they showed many symptoms of decline. The increasing power of the princes, and the commencement of modern court splendour, were mixed up with the old customs--the festivals became very costly, and a refined love of pleasure began to appear.

Prize-meetings were not only established in the cities, they were held sometimes by the princes and wealthy nobles, as early as the fifteenth century, and still more frequently when in the century of the Reformation armour and lances declined in importance. The great landed proprietors of the neighbourhood, or the princes of the country, were received as honoured guests at these meetings of the cities. Still the archers were for the most part citizens, and the occasional princes and nobles were placed under their banners. At an early period even free peasants were allowed to enter the lists, but this became rare in Germany after the Peasant War, though they continued to do so in Switzerland, where a powerful peasantry have never ceased to exist. The equal right of all, without distinction of ranks, both as to prizes and penalties, is a citizen characteristic, and by far the greatest number of associations, as well as the most important, came from the cities.

During so long a period many of their usages altered, and others were developed in different provinces, but yet the unity of their proceedings from the Oder to the Rhine, from the Alps to the Vistula, is very striking. They represent during this whole period a brilliant phase of German life, the noble hospitality exercised by martial city communities towards other friendly cities. The self-respect of the citizen found in them its most powerful expression. Many characteristic qualities of our forefathers are more especially perceptible in them; pride in their own city, a lively and sensitive feeling of honor even with respect to friends, satisfaction in appearing in processions, whether on serious occasions or in sport, and in representing with dignity, and above all, pleasure in showing, on public occasions, among many thousands, their manliness, worth, and charity in word and deed.

If a prize shooting was determined upon in a city, messengers bore the proclamation of the council, and frequently also of the archery association, to their good neighbours far in the country. The number of cities invited was sometimes very great. In 1601, 156 cities were invited to one shooting festival, held at Halle, and archers came from fifty, though the weather was bad and the prizes not high. At Strasburg seventy places were represented in 1576, in 1573 there were 187 cross-bow men sent from thirty-nine places to Zwickau, amongst them were three Swabian peasants from Göppingen, all of whom, to the great vexation of the proud citizens, won prizes. At the cross-bow shooting at Ratisbon, in 1586, thirty-five towns were represented by 210 cross-bow men. At the costly prize-shooting in 1614, at Dresden, twenty-one of the invited cities sent representatives, but eleven did not. But the hospitality was not limited to those alone who were invited: at an earlier period special prizes were, assigned to those who came from greater distances; thus the Augsburgers, in 1508, rejoiced that a German marksman came even from Paris, and another time a marksman, who came from Striegau, in Silesia, obtained a golden ring, the prize for strangers. Sometimes it was expressly denoted in the invitation that every qualified man was welcome, or the places invited were requested to spread the notice among the nobles and archers of their neighbourhood. When the feasts became very costly, the uninvited guests were, though allowed to shoot, not entitled to a share in the chief prizes which had been assigned by the giver of the feast. That such limitations were, however, not usual is shown by the grief of the two Amstädters, who, at the cross-bow shooting at Coburg in 1614,[^[59]] were excluded by the Duke Johann Casimir from his principal prizes; they wished to return home, and were with difficulty persuaded to remain.

In the programme all the conditions of the prize-shooting were accurately enumerated; with fire-arms the weight of the ball, and with the cross-bow the length of the bolt was accurately defined; for the latter the size was generally established by a parchment ring, the distance from the stand to the target was given in feet, and the length of the usual foot was expressed by black lines in the programme. Sometimes they measured by paces, in that case two of the stranger competitors, a neighbour from the nearest city, and one from the most distant, stepped the distance and settled it together.

The number of shots also allowed to each was affixed on the butt and target. At the smaller meetings in ancient times, they were about twelve, fifteen, or sixteen; later, at the great meetings, they rose to thirty, forty, or even more shots. With fire-arms the shooter sometimes fired three shots in succession from his place, but with the cross-bow only one, and they shot in divisions, quarters, and standards, sometimes arrayed under banners according to the towns. At the grand cross-bow shooting at Ratisbon, in 1586, a pattern meeting of moderate size, the Protestant and Catholic places were carefully divided. Then each of the three, four or five standards had to shoot in a definite time; when all the standards had shot once, it was called one shot, or one course, the best shot of each standard of each course was called the bull's eye.

The most ancient weapon was the cross-bow, with steel bow and bolt, which was stretched by a pulley; it began to supplant the hand bow and arrow shortly before 1400, but the latter was still used in the army for some time, for example, in the Burgundian War, nay, it was sometimes used in the sixteenth century, at the shooting games.[^[60]] The cross-bow, after 1400, became shorter and more handy, and at the end of the prize-shooting festivals, a smaller one was used with a trigger for amusement. The cross-bow was drawn in braces, or secured in a network, so that no accident might arise if it sprung; the bolt with an iron point and a feather shaft was provided for the popinjay, with filed iron teeth, which, in hitting, split the joints of the wood; the pointed or, later, the blunt bolt served for target practice; the archer shot without a rest. The cross-bow, up to the Thirty Years' War, was considered by the prize-shooters as the most distinguished weapon, and continued so, even long after it had been supplanted by fire-arms in war and in the chase; it was more especially retained by the aristocratic party, the princes and patricians. If a prize-shooting with crossbow and fire-arms was announced, the competition between the cross-bow and the arbalat was at the beginning, the fire-arms at the conclusion with inferior prizes; much of the fun of the festival was attached to the cross-bow shooting. But at the beginning of the sixteenth century, at all the prize shootings, the use of fire-arms had increased at least twofold.

About the year 1400, fire-arms began to be heard at the prize-shooting festivals. At Ausgburg, in 1429, hand-guns and muskets were used, and guns with small lead balls. In 1446 the first prize shooting with arquebuses and muskets was held; afterwards the hand-gun in its various forms always prevailed. The practical Swiss were among the first to give the preference to fire-arms. As early as 1472, at the great prize shooting at Zurich, only guns were announced; after that, at important festivals, both weapons had prizes assigned to them, but at smaller ones frequently only fire-arms. The gun of the prize-shooter, up to 1600, was the smooth hand-gun for one ounce balls, with a straight or crooked stock,--all grooves were forbidden.[^[61]] The shooter fired without a rest; the gun when fired was not to rest upon the shoulder; it was not to be supported by any strap in the sleeve or round the neck; it was only to be loaded with one ball; the gun was only to have a small round sight at the end. After 1600 rifled weapons, for the first time, received prizes at special meetings. At Basle, in 1605, a prize shooting for arquebuses was announced, the distance 570 feet, the target two and a half feet round the nail; and for muskets with crooked or straight grooves and balls of one ounce--distance, 805 feet; target, three and a half feet. It must be mentioned, by the way, that sometimes at great shooting festivals heavy guns were also used, such as arquebuses, falconets and serpents, as in Strasburg 1590, at Breslau in 1609, and frequently at Leipsic, where these exercises were preferred; however splendidly these festivals, after the pattern of the old prize shootings, were appointed, they had more especially a practical aim, and were not generally attended by strangers.

Different as the weapons so was the mark. The bird on the pole was very ancient. But when guests began to appear in numbers the bird was inconvenient. The duration of the shooting could not be reckoned upon; a violent wind easily diverted the course of the bolts. At last the pole fell altogether, or the bird broke off, before it was shot into splinters; the falling splinters also gave occasion to much quarrelling and discontent. The consequence was, that in the greater part of Germany, the more convenient shooting butt very soon supplanted the bird at all large cross-bow meetings; this was the case in Switzerland and Suabia. On the other hand, the Thuringians, Meisseners and Silesians, long adhered to the bird. In Breslau the popinjay shooting was practised in great perfection; there, after 1491, a heavy bird of silver, richly gilded, with gold chains and golden shield, and the city arms on the breast, was carried before the king of the shooters. But at the prize shooting of the Silesians many birds were set up of different colours and with prizes of different value. Thus in Breslau, in 1518, they set up three birds--red, green, and black; each person who knocked off one of the forty joints of the birds gained a silver spoon; but, besides this, there was also cross-bow shooting at a mark, a small square target. In the year 1560 there were again three at Breslau; and at the grand shooting at Löwenberg, in 1615, there were five birds. The fallen splinters which had not brought special prizes were weighed, and only those of half an ounce were of value.

But the butt targets, also for cross-bows and fire-arms, were various. For the cross-bow a small circular plate, sometimes plated, and the outer circle painted with a garland, was fixed on the dark shooting butt, and after each course exchanged for a new one; for the fire-arms there was almost always a hanging target, and in 1518 at Breslau a shield--that is to say, a painted wooden table. The distance from the shooting stand to the mark for the cross-bows was 340, and later 300 feet; for the fire-arms from 650 to 750 feet. These are wide distances for weapons so imperfect in comparison with our times. On special occasions, when any young princes attended the festival, nearer marks were prepared for them--a half distance,--and other prizes. At such shooting feasts the whole of the adjoining Court took part.

The preparations in the city began some months before the feast. The lodgings were prepared for the guests; the safety of the city was provided for; the goldsmiths worked in silver the prize cups and vases, and struck also medals and show specimens; the tailors stitched incessantly at new festival dresses for halberdiers, pages of honour, and motley personages; the shield painters drew arms, garlands, and ciphers, on more than a hundred standards. On the shooting ground the lists were marked; wooden boards brightly coloured, and adorned with representations of fir-trees, garlands, and colonnades; the interior of the shooting-house was newly painted, and later carpeted; shooting-stands and pavilions erected for the shooters, and clerks booths; outside the lists there were kitchens, bowling-grounds and booths; also a spring for the water-drinkers, which, in case of need, was newly dug. Especial care was taken, at these cross-bow meetings, of the small target where the bull's-eye was. As these cross-bow meetings were in all respects arranged in the most finished style, and were a pattern for other similar shooting-meetings, we will describe many of their usages. The target place was a large wooden building, that represented the front of a house with doors and many stories, or looked like a triumphal arch, or a temple with cupola towers, or sometimes like the high wooden altar of the sixteenth century, all beautifully painted with the colours of the city or country, ornamented with coats of arms and figures. At Strasburg, in 1576, there stood great sculptures, a griffin and a lion keeping watch on each side; beneath, in the middle of the building, was the butt, either covered with some dark colour or canvas. It could be turned round by mechanism, in order that after each course the bolts might be drawn out without danger, and the butt provided with a new circular plate, for the next shooting meeting of the society. Sometimes the whole heavy building which rose above it was movable, and turned to face the rows of seats for the different divisions of shooters. Beside the butt itself, there were in the building sometimes small projecting guard-houses, or little turrets, for the markers, from which they could watch the target without being hit. At the top of the building there was a complicated clock, with the ciphers from one to four on the dial-plate, and over it a bell. On the highest point stood generally a movable carved figure, often Fortune on a ball (for example, in 1576, at Strasburg; 1586, at Ratisbon; in 1614, at Dresden), which after a bad shot turned her back on the shooter; or as at Coburg, in 1614, a mannikin on a tower, who after a good shot waved a banner, or for a bad shot mockingly bit his thumb.

When these preparations of the honest citizens approached their completion, it became necessary for the council to search out some of those minor officials of the festivities whose occupation is not what can be called very noble, but was quite indispensable, the Pritschmeister.[^[62]] For a great festival, four, five, or more of these fellows were desirable; but they were not to be found in every city. If they were not at the place, they were sent for to Nüremberg and Augsburg, or wherever else in the country they happened to be wandering. It was a very ancient vocation that they followed At the same time that the fantastic city tournaments of the young patrician were transformed into the useful shooting exercises of the martial citizen, this tomfoolery had changed into a peaceful civic occupation, which retains something of the duties of the old herald, and not less of the old festive jesting of the roving fool. They were criers, improvisatori, police-officers, and buffoons of the prize shooters; they understood accurately the convenance, manners, and every ceremonial of the shooting-ground; gave good counsel to hesitating regulators of the festival; delivered the poetical festival speeches; punished light transgressions against the rules of the shooting-ground with the fool's baton; and even helped at the festive banquet, when necessary, by a rough joke, or even by serving. They had come from far, and knew how to deal with proud princes and strict councillors. When it was not festival time, they carried on a modest trade that did not require much perseverance. But sieve-making or the wool trade did not please them in the long run: at least they describe themselves, in the numerous verses they have left behind them, as poor devils,[^[63]] who eagerly looked out for the rumour of some great festival at Court, and went many days' journey, speculating whether perhaps they might have an opportunity to exercise their office at some prize shooting. If they did not succeed in that, there still remained to them the pleasure, during the festival, of waiting upon old patrons among the shooters, and, by dint of toadying, of obtaining wherewith to fill their hungry stomachs; finally, they had the old consolation of poets, to describe in verses the occupation they had no longer the pleasure of joining in, and collecting remuneration for these verses. It is true that their descriptions of friendly and distinguished prize shootings are almost always in very bad rhyme; but they are very valuable to us, because they introduce us to the smallest details of those festivals. The office, too, of pritschmeister is worthy of observation.

It is only in accordance with German nature to make the fool the police-officer of the festival. The blow of his baton strikes the lord as well as the peasant boy, and his irony lashes the arrogant prince's son, and brings the colour into the cheeks of the most impudent. The sensitive pride of the Junker,--every offence to which, from a yeoman of the guard, would have been resented as a deadly affront,--unresistingly suffered the pritschmeister, in the exercise of his office, to seize and drag him to the place of punishment. But even the jests of the pritschmeister are deserving of observation, for they are lasting; an endless variety of tricks and pleasantries, a definite hereditary art of being merry, typical forms of foolery many hundred years old; and they were earned on with a certain earnestness,--nay, even pedantry. Undoubtedly these stale tricks had their irresistible effect only when men were disposed to be in a merry humour, but their antiquity makes them to us like woodcuts, in the angular lines of which there lies a certain charm. When, for example, at the end of the shooting, the unfortunate shooter, who had won the last prize, received this prize,--a sow with six young ones,--from the pritschmeister, who wished him happiness, and calculated at length the increase of the porcine family in his house from year to year, and that he would after three years become master of 2401 head, the hearers of the joke were not the less amused because they had heard the same reckoning made ever since their childhood on similar occasions; for it acts like a melody, that exercises its greatest magic on the hearer when it has become familiar to him.

The pritschmeister knew well that it was his duty to be a fool. It is true, there were some proud fellows among them who were ashamed of their cap; but they were derided by their own companions. Thus in 1573, the pritschmeister of Zwickau was serious and haughty; but he suffered for it under the contemptuous shrugging of the shoulders of his colleague, Benedict Edelbeck, who had wandered from Bohemia to the prize shooting, and knew better what became a pritschmeister. They bore also certain tokens of the fool,--the cap, and a striking variegated dress, in the colours of the city, which they kept as a festival present. At particularly distinguished shooting feasts they were very grandly attired; for example, at Coburg in 1614, there were five of them who wore the colours of the royal house,--yellow silk waistcoat, black hosen, yellow English stockings, long black and yellow knee ribands, beautiful Cordova shoes with silk ribands, a Spanish velvet hat with yellow feathers, a kasseke with loose sleeves, red, yellow, and black embroidery before and behind, with coats of arms; besides all this, the large club, and round the knee a string of bells, which rattled loud.

Their batons, often preposterously large, of leather or of split clacking wood, and sometimes gilded, had much to do on the shooting-ground. With them they cleared the lists of the thronging people, and punished those who transgressed the rules. Anyone who ran between the shooter and his mark after the clock was set, anyone who disturbed the shooters at their stand, who misbehaved from drunkenness or insolence, or who injured the weapons of strangers from wantonness or spite, fell under their jurisdiction without respect of rank; and this jurisdiction was exercised in a remarkable way. Far on one side of the shooting-ground was erected a conspicuous scaffold, on which were two coloured benches. This building was called, according to an old bitter jest, "the gallows;" and later, the "pritschmeister's pulpit;" to it the culprit was led with many grotesque ceremonies, there laid upon the bench, and belaboured with the baton in a way which was neatly expressed in the old technical language by this sentence, "His head was cut off at the tail." At the same time the pritschmeister delivered a discourse, which did not make his position more agreeable. One may conceive how attractive this practice of the law was to all who did not partake of it. The custom was carried on through the whole of Germany, most moderately by the serious Swiss, and decorously and impartially in the cities. At a later period, when great princes arranged shooting festivals, traces of royal humour are to be found, which enjoined the performance of this scene on minor personages for insignificant misdemeanours. Thus, after the prize shooting in 1614, Elector Johann Georg diverted himself by having not only some scullions, but even one of his bears cudgelled; the bear had to be chained to the bench. The pritschmeister obeyed his Electoral Grace, but in his inward heart he felt that such things were not in his office.

As assistants to the pritschmeister, some of the most idle boys of the city were chosen, and they also were put in fool's attire. Among this insolent brood the most zealous guardians of the law were to be found; they easily learnt some of the tricks of their master, and they carried goose wings, wooden clappers, and short pipes. They fell like a pack of hounds on any peasant child that ran across the shooting-ground, and greeted such as had shot ill with grimaces and monkey gestures. At Coburg they went in procession in a great band, dressed in black linen with white seams and patches, following a tall dark man, who wore a similar dress, and trousers after the old Landsknecht fashion. He was the head shoemaker, Martin Pauker, a gloomy, haggard fellow, who never spoke a word, but during the whole shooting was incessantly assuming grotesque disguises. In the procession he trailed along an enormous linen banner, the doubtful badge of honour for those who had shot worst of all; but on the return home he bore the great kettle drum, which he allowed to be beat upon his back; on the shooting-ground he appeared as a wild man, enveloped in straw and brushwood; then as a monk or nun; but soon he came in a splendid dress, riding on an ass, and at last waddled about in bearskin; he was always disguising himself, always drunk and dismal, but he had his own quiet enjoyment in the whole affair.[^[64]]

If pritschmeisters were engaged by the givers of the feast, and the city was in repute for doing its duty, possessed good friends, and had announced grand prizes, there was sure to be a great concourse. The invited cities had the festival announced to their citizens by affixing public notices, or by proclamations. It was with them an affair of honour to be represented by good marksmen, and these frequently received money for their journey out of the city coffers, in return for which, when they went home, they handed over the silk banners they had won to the council or shooting society. These deputies were generally men of distinction; but besides these there were other citizens who went to the meeting at their own cost. Thus at Coburg in 1614, besides the four shooters who were sent by the city of Schweinfurt, one Hans Schüssler, a small, insignificant man, had come on his own account. His fellow-citizens looked askance at him and excluded him from their society, but he hit the bull's-eye at the first shot: then he jumped for joy, and exclaimed, "I was not good enough for my country people to bring me with them; now, God willing, I will do better still." He made the most bull's-eye shots, and won a beautiful goblet.

A day or two before the festivities, the strangers who came to shoot arrived from all parts. The council had to provide them with cheap quarters, and it was enjoined on the citizens that they were to abstain from annoying them. Many of the strangers met with a hospitable reception from some of the cities. If royal persons were invited, their arrival was announced by a courier; they were received by the council, lodged, and provided with the usual gift of honour,--wine, beer, and fish. Sometimes a preliminary shooting trial took place with the guests who had arrived before the first day of the festival; on such an occasion at Ratisbon in 1586, a beautiful large goat, covered with red Lund cloth, together with a beautiful banner, was presented by the council to the best shot. In Suabia and Bavaria a goat thus attired was often given at these smaller shooting trials.

On the morning of the festival the pritschmeister, with the city band, went through the streets, calling the strangers to the meeting at the shooting-ground. The givers of the festival marched in solemn procession, the pritschmeister in front; behind, the markers, equally in new dresses and the colours of the city, their marking rods in their hands; then the trumpeters and fifers; next the dignitaries and marksmen of the city, followed by a train of young boys of the city, all dressed alike in festal attire, sons of families of distinction, who bore the small target banners; after them perhaps, led by a pritschmeister or some other jovial personage, the boys with the contumelious banners, the derisive distinction of the bad shots. Then came other boys, who bore coloured chests, in which were the bolts and the principal prizes of the shooting. The large and small goblets were either brought out during the procession, or placed in a special pavilion on the shooting-ground, under the care of the city police.

On the shooting-ground the drum was again beat, and the marksmen called together by the pritschmeister. The deputy of the city then delivered a solemn address of greeting, in which he called to mind the old friendship of the invited cities, and expressed his best wishes for the festival. The pritschmeisters went again with music round the shooting-ground, and one of them proclaimed aloud once more the programme of the invitation, and admonished the marksmen to collect together by cities, and choose their "siebeners" or "neuners." These were magistrates of the shooting-ground, the higher judges of shooting law; they were chosen out of the most distinguished men of the town, some by the givers of the feast, others by the shooters according to their districts. If the larger cities, Nüremberg, Augsburg, or Magdeburg, were among the guests at the beating of the drum, it was decided by them which should be chosen as representatives of the strangers. The free Imperial cities were more particularly designated for this, equally so any royal personages present, who often even undertook the wearisome task of "neuner." These were treated with particular distinction at the entertainment. Among them were the secretaries, frequently three, who noted down in special tents the announcements of the shooting. Every marksman had to show beforehand his bolts and bullets, cross-bow and gun; each bolt was examined, whether its iron point could pass through the opening of the parchment ring, for the thicker bolts made a larger opening in the target, and the measurement being taken from the edge of the hole to the centre point, the difference of thickness in one bolt would be prejudicial to the others. If the bolt was proof-worthy, the name of the possessor was written on the shaft, and only bolts so inscribed could be used. Every shooter had, besides, to make his money deposit before he was allowed to shoot. These preparations occupied many hours, often the greater part of the first day. The time was frequently filled up by a collation, given by the city council to the strangers who shot: in the earlier and more moderate period it consisted of wine, good beer, and simple food, fruit, cakes, butter and cheese. When the marksmen were inscribed and had made their deposits, they were divided into "quarters" or banners,--three, five, and more banners; frequently each "quarter" had its special stand.

Now at last began the great shooting in "courses," or "shots with the cross-bow," so that the "quarter" shot one after the other, each shooter one shot.

Opposite to the place of the target, in a special wooden building, were the stands of the shooters. But their method of shooting appears striking to us. Before the beginning of the course, a pritschmeister went over the shooting-ground with fifes and drums, and called the marksmen by divisions to their stands. They pressed forward to it in haste, and sat in rows, according to regulation, by lot, each in the stand to which his name was affixed. As long as the division was shooting, no one left his stand, and none of the neighbours must disturb them by word or movement. Thus they sat, cross-bow in hand; then the pritschmeister called out, "Marker, set the clock going." At the signal the hand was set in motion, each "quarter" being signified by the striking of the clock. During this time each marksman was to shoot; he shot sitting, at least such was the custom in the interior of Germany after the middle of the sixteenth century, but they were not allowed to support either themselves or their crossbows. When the hand had finished its circuit round the clock, the bell sounded, a steel mirror was lowered by a hempen cord, and covered the dial-plate, and a grating either rose from the earth, or descended from the wooden building in front of the butt, in order to guard it from the eager shooters. Then began the labours of the neuner, secretaries and markers. If the butt was movable, it was turned round. Behind it stood a table for the secretaries, the inscribed bolts were drawn out, the bull's-eye shot and those in the circles were transcribed, the farthest shot also was noted down. But the marker filled up the holes made by the bolts, blackened the injured places in the butt, and put on a new plate. In this way the collective divisions of marksmen having fired one shot, the bolts were borne in solemn procession with the pritschmeister, fifes and drums, to the shooting-house: there the less successful bolts were placed in the box of their owner, but those which had been distinguished shots were laid in an ornamental wooden Attrape; in Zwickau, in 1573, it was a large white swan, the city arms. The bolt of the bull's-eye had a place of honour, and the most distant had also a distinguished place. After this first course the distribution of prizes began.

They endeavoured to give marks of distinction in every direction, and to provide as many marksmen as possible with prizes; but our ancestors did not object to humiliate by bitter jests those who had performed ill. Prizes were awarded to those who hit the bull's-eye, also to those who had shot oftenest near it, and if his remaining shots were not near enough for him to gain a chief prize, he had a special present. But the great prizes were for the marksmen who, at the end of the shooting, scored the greatest number of shots in the circles. All who could not obtain a prize within the prescribed number of shots, had the right, before the end of the meeting, to contend among themselves for smaller prizes. All the prizes of the festival, were settled by the givers of the feast, and they were reckoned in the programme collectively with their worth in silver. Every shooter at the beginning of the festival before his name was inscribed, had to make a deposit of money; this deposit was not insignificant, and became higher in proportion to the pretensions of the festival. Whilst at a former period two gulden had been deposited, it rose to six and eight Imperial gulden in the last fifty years of the prize shootings; indeed they deposited as much as twelve Imperial thalers at the cross-bow shooting given by the elector Johann Georg at Dresden in 1614, which, according to the value of silver and corn, would answer to about thirty thalers of our money. But undoubtedly all prize shootings were not so aristocratic. A portion often of the deposits at these festivals was voluntary. The obligatory deposits were turned into secondary prizes, and these were distributed in small sums among as many of the shooters as possible. With the voluntary deposits, small articles of plate were frequently bought for an after-shooting. Sometimes also the giver of the feast spent something for this; in that case these deposits of the shooters were employed as small money prizes for the after-shooting.

With all the prizes at the great shooting feasts large and small banners were presented, with the colours of the town or country, and the arms or garlands, painted on them, and often also the value of the prize. To bear away such a banner was a great honour. The strangers took them proudly to their homes, and delivered them to the council of their city, or to their shooting brotherhood, who had paid the costs of their journey. Very modest at first were the prizes of the victors: they were long designated as "ventures:" a romantic charm still attached to the foreign word, which originated in the jargon of the old tournaments. A fine ram was the first prize at Munich about 1400, and at Kelheim in 1404. Soon afterwards an ox, a horse, or a bull, and the animals often covered with a valuable cloth: thus, in 1433, at Nüremberg, a horse covered with a red cloth was the best. The secondary prizes were small goblets, silver vases, girdles, cross-bows, swords, or a prize which has always been a special object of preference with the inferior shooters, and everywhere, up to modern times, has clung to shooting societies--material for a beautiful pair of small-clothes. He who came from the greatest distance to the shooting, received, at Augsburg, in 1425, a golden ring. But at the same place, in 1440, the first prize was already a sum of money, forty gulden; and the horses and cattle were the last. They rose rapidly in value at Augsburg in 1470; 101 gulden was the best, and about 1500 this sum became usual: in 1504, at Zurich, 110 gulden was the chief prize, 90 the second, and so in succession down to one gulden, all doubled for cross-bows and guns, and, which is not rare at the Swiss shooting meetings, all in money. The prizes continued to rise in value; at Leipzig, in 1550, for the cross-bow 300 gulden; at the great shooting meeting at Strasburg, in 1576, the first prize for rifle and gun was 210 Imperial gulden; at Basle, in 1603, for muskets (with rifled barrels), a goblet worth 300 gulden. This sum, according to the value of silver and corn, answers to 666 thalers of our money.

The chief prizes then, were money or plate, goblets and vases of all forms and sizes, of that elegance and taste which distinguished the work of the goldsmith in the sixteenth century. The deposits also were frequently paid in special coins and medals, which were coined for the festival, large and small, and also gilt,--often klippen.[^[65]] Sometimes a bull's-eye shot was rewarded by a klippe, which was hung to the victorious banner. At the costly cross-bow meeting at Dresden, for each bull's-eye shot was given on the banner a gilt medal, weighing five Imperial thalers--almost exactly a quarter of a pound of our customs weight. Smaller towns also coined medals and klippen; they continue as choice rarities in our collections of coins, and show the greatest diversity of emblems and devices, of size, form, and value. Small silver pieces were coined for children and the poor, and distributed in remembrance of the festivals.

But besides these good prizes, there were also tantalising prizes. The last shot who could make any pretence to a prize was honoured with a doubtful distinction,--he received, according to old custom, as has been already mentioned, amidst many derisive congratulations from the pritschmeisters the smallest money prize, and an animal of the pig tribe, great or small, sow or sucking-pig, according to the humour of the giver of the feast; besides that, a good prize banner, but with satirical figures on it. At the Coburg shooting, in the year 1614, it is reported that this banner was particularly and beautifully embroidered, but one may assume that its emblems did not occasion any great pleasure to the possessor. The banners and presents to the worst shots were a caricature of the prizes for the bull's-eye; and he who had made the worst shot of all was obliged, at least at the last period of the prize-shootings, to carry at the end of the festival, surrounded by the fools, a gigantic coarse banner of sackcloth. When the bolts of the bull's-eye shots and of the most distant shots were placed after the first course in their attrape, the pritschmeister went up to his pulpit; he then called forth with a loud voice the best shooter of the first course, and greeted him with a short extempore speech in doggerel rhyme, wherein he extolled his deserts and his prizes; he then announced to him that, as a memento of the shooting, he will receive a beautiful silk banner, to which was appended a silver klippe; besides this, a tin plate with a fried trout on it, a roll of bread, and a glass of wine, together with an orange. Skilful musicians, trumpeters or pipers, went before, and conducted him to his seat. Thus did the fortunate marksman march amidst music; the officials of the city delivered to him the banner and the coins, with the jovial plate of honour. Afterwards the pritschmeister distributed to the other circle shots, and finally he called to the unfortunate who had made the widest shot; he did not advance willingly; the pritschmeister bowed himself before him and said, "Look to it, you fine shot, that you learn your art better. I have here some lads who will teach you how to hit. You need pay them no money. Franz Floh, take the brush and sprinkle him with holy water; it is very possible that he is bewitched. Come, Hans Hahn, and ring your wooden bells about his ears! Yet I observe that you are a good Christian; you wish to leave something to others; therefore, dear tantalisers, take him under your protection; the man has deserved well of others; pipe a beautiful dance before him, and bite your thumbs at him, but be decorous, and do it behind his back. Bring him his gift of honour. First, a banner of the kind of satin in which peasants bring their oats to the city. The klippe which hangs on it is unfortunately only of tin; besides, there is a plate of wood, and on it a fine whey cheese; instead of the orange an apple, and in an earthen bowl a drink of light beer." Thus did the pritschmeister deride him, and at last presented him with a fool's cap and cock's feathers. Meanwhile the pritschmeister's boys yelled, rattled, and piped around the marksman, cut summersaults, and followed him with their grimaces up to his stand, whilst a bagpipe-player preceded him, and forced from his bags their most dissonant tones. It was afterwards seriously maintained by the marksmen that in this buffoonery those with the highest pretensions did not come off better than the rest. But to the person concerned it was very painful. He seldom succeeded in concealing beforehand the widest bolt, which always excited general displeasure. To princes who were present some consideration was shown: at least, the words of the pritschmeister to them, which are printed, sound very mild. If the sovereign himself had made the widest shot, one of his suite took it upon himself, as at Zwickau in 1573.

Thus was the festival carried on, round after round, each succeeded by the rewards. These interludes took not a little time; thus it happened that not more than seven or eight courses of shots took place in a day, still less at the great meetings.

At the end of the festival, in most of the districts in Germany, the shooting was interrupted by a pleasing custom which shall here be described as it took place, in the second half of the sixteenth century, in the cities of Suabia, Franconia, Thuringia, and Meissen. Many of the most distinguished maidens of the city went in procession, festively clad, accompanied by councillors, city pipers, and yeomen of the guard, to the shooting-ground. One of them carried, in an ornamental box, a costly garland--sometimes of silver and gold, with pearls and precious stones--another bore a beautiful banner. Their procession stopped on the ground; then the shooters of a friendly city were summoned, a herald of the city delivered an address, the maidens handed over to them, as a gift of honour from their city, the garland and banner, and invited them to a dance of honour. The invited thanked them in choice language in the name of their city; one of them placed the garland on his head, and they led the maidens in a stately dance over the shooting-ground. Such a garland imposed upon the city which received it the agreeable duty of giving the next prize-shooting. It was carefully kept, and mentioned in the programme of the garlanded city as the principal ground of the prize-shooting, in order that the garland might not wither. Afterwards, when the princes participated eagerly in the shooting, they also received garlands; if the prince was the giver of the feast, he bestowed the garland on one of the princesses. This old custom bound together the cities of a district in one great festive brotherhood. The dances on the open shooting-ground ceased about the year 1600.

But these great citizen festivals offered other opportunities of display of strength and art. When they were in their full vigour in the fifteenth century, there were public games arranged for the marksmen, and prizes appointed for the conquerors. In these games ancient traditions were maintained. They were prize contentions similar to that in the Niebelung, of Siegfried against Brunhild, hurling the stone, leaping, and running. They were in the programme in the prize-shooting of 1456; the Zuricher, Hans Waldmann, carried off the prize for leaping, who, later as Burgomaster, lost his proud head on the block. At the cross-bow shooting at Augsburg in 1470, a golden ring was prepared for him who could hurl furthest a stone of forty-five pounds weight, at an easy run, with three throws, according to the laws of the game; a knight, Wilhelm Zaunried, won the prize. Thus also at Zurich, in 1472, there were three prizes for hurling stones of fifteen, thirty, and fifty pounds. Christoph, Duke of Bavaria, won the golden ring at Augsburg in 1470, for leaping. The task was three springs on one leg with a run, afterwards a jump with both feet, then again three springs on the other leg, and a second jump. In Zurich, in 1472, leaps of three different kinds were prescribed: from the spot with both feet, in the run with both feet, and in a run three springs on one foot. All this was done with great earnestness, and was actually notified to the guests in the programme of the council. In prize races in 1470, at Augsburg, the course measured 350 paces; Duke Christoph, of Bavaria, won the gold ring also for running. At Zurich, in 1472, the length of the course was 600 paces. At Breslau, in 1518, the prizes for running were articles of the favourite pewter. Besides the men, sometimes horses ran: as at the rifle-shooting at Augsburg, in 1446, fourteen horses appeared in the lists; the prize was a piece of scarlet cloth; the conqueror was a horse of Duke Albrecht's, which he had sent from Munich for the races.[^[66]] At the races at the same place, in 1470, a horse of Duke Wolfgang's, of Bavaria, won a prize of forty-five gulden. Wrestling, and even dancing, obtained prizes, as in 1508 again, at Augsburg. And at the same place a whimsical prize was won by the person who could amuse the people with the greatest lies.

To these national popular amusements were added others not less old, but from the traditions of foreign life. The descendants of the Roman gladiators, whose rough struggles had once caused great scandal to strict Christians, led a despised life as roving fighters[^[67]] through the whole of the Middle Ages. In the fifteenth century they had taken refuge behind the city gates and in the guardrooms of the royal court, in various mercenary service, as fencing-masters, soldiers, police, valets, and messengers. Out of the secret brotherhoods which were formed by these strolling fighters had arisen associations which were openly tolerated; they were arranged in two societies, as Marxbrüder (the fraternity of St. Mark), and Federfechter (champions of the feather), which cherished a violent antipathy to each other. The Federfechter displayed a winged griffin on their armorial shield; they boasted of having received privileges from a Duke of Mecklenburg, and found later a mild patron in the Elector of Saxony. At the lists, when they raised their swords, they called out, "Soar aloft, feather; mark what we do; write with ink which looks like blood."[^[68]] The Marxbrüders, on the other hand, had for their armorial bearings a lion, and cheered themselves by the defiant rhyme, "Thou noble lion, elevate thy curly hair; thou perceivest the griffin; him shalt thou hew down and tear his feathers." They were privileged by King Maximilian in 1487. These masters of the long sword were under a captain, and their meetings were held at the harvest fair of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Thither resorted any one who wished to receive the freedom of their company; he had to fence with four masters, then in public meeting to accept a challenge from any one who chose to fight with him. If he stood the trial, he was struck with the sword of ceremony crosswise over the loins; he then took the oath of fellowship, and laid two golden guldens on the sword; then he received the secret sign of recognition of the brotherhood, and the right to instruct others in his art, and to hold fencing schools, that is to say, to arrange public fights. For a long time these public fights were a pleasure to princes and citizens; after the battle of Mühlberg, they enlivened the imprisoned Elector of Saxony during the great Imperial Diet at Augsburg. It was considered by the people an especial privilege for Frankfort, that it was the only town in which one could become a prize-fighter.[^[69]] The fighters made their way into the prize-shootings--already at Augsburg in 1508--especially when princes took a part in the civic pleasures. The procession, and many of the usages of the fighters, remind one strongly of the Roman gladiatorial games, though the combats seldom came to so bloody an end. The princes and cities hired whole bands of fighters, who attended at the prize-shootings and other great festivals. Thus at Stuttgardt, in 1560, the fighters strove in pairs on the shooting-ground; the royal ladies also drove out to see this combat; the first victor received a beautiful waistcoat of taffety; every other prize consisted of two thalers. At a cross-bow meeting at Zwickau, 1573, the Margrave of Anspach introduced a fighting band of forty men, against whom the Elector August of Saxony arranged his Federfechters. They contended for two days, in pairs, with the long sword, the wooden sword, the long spear, and the short lance, bareheaded, according to old custom, and some made many passes without conquering the other. There was much bravado in these combats, but they gave rise to great jealousy, violent blows, and bad wounds.

The society of fencers outlived the prize-shootings and the great war. They lost the old expressions for their art, but substituted French words, and maintained their position in the larger cities in spite of the foreign fencing-masters. In Nüremberg their public combats were forbidden shortly before 1700; but parties long ran high among the people for the two factions: there was no boy in the city who did not contend for the Marxbrüder or Federfechter, who frequently gave their performances in private houses. The last great fencing match took place, in 1741, at Breslau, in the churchyard of Magdalena. On the day when the young King of Prussia, with careless mien and dishevelled hair, and his small parade sword, came to receive the homage of the conquered Silesia on the throne of the Emperor Matthias, when the dawn of a new time broke over Germany, the old fencers, like shadowy figures of a distant time, performed once more their antics over the graves of a past generation, and then passed away.

Other popular amusements intruded themselves into the prize-shootings; the pleasures became more noisy, more abundant, and excited; and whoever takes a view of the shooting-ground at the end of the sixteenth century will see, from the proceedings of spectators, that times had altered. Formerly the marksmen, among them princes and nobles, had taken part in the public gymnastics; the Wittelsbacher had hopped on one leg among the citizens of the imperial town, and had hurled the heavy stone. At the end of the sixteenth century the nobles looked on, so also did the already genteel citizen-marksmen; but the peasant lads came in their Sunday attire, with their lasses, and performed their country dance for the amusement of others. There was great pleasure in seeing the peasant maidens compete in running for a camisol or a stomacher; high springs, fluttering dresses, and sometimes a tumble in their haste, excited especial satisfaction, and their village demeanour contributed to increase the enjoyment of others. It was more particularly the princes who took pleasure in all this; there seldom failed to be grotesque processions and dances of the country people, when a prince made the programme of the festival. The pert waggery of the pritschmeister to the country people excited a laughter on the shooting-ground which would be offensive to us. The dancers, in couples, garlanded with the red berries of the mountain ash, or with carrots, advanced on the ground; men threw themselves on unsaddled horses, and galloped past a goose which was hung above them, and the joke was, that they slid off their nags, and the like.

The amusement of the children, also, was provided for. There was a jesting fool, who, armed with a shield and short leather club, challenged any one to assail him with a lance. If the challenge was accepted, the fool knew so well how to parry the lance, throw his opponent on his back, and belabour him with his club, that the laugh was always on his side. Beside him stood (as at Ratisbon, in 1586) a wild man, who threw balls into his open mouth, nine balls for a kreuzer. A little mannikin was set on a pony: they threw at him with a ball, and whoever hit oftenest won something. Spirited boys climbed up a smooth pole to fetch a cock out of the basket which was hung at the top.

The shooting-ground was fenced in by barriers or ropes, but alongside it stood the tents and booths, where goldsmiths laid out their goblets, vases, spoons, and chains. The pewter-booths were great favourites, before which they gambled for household utensils, throwing dice in the brente, which was painted red and white, similar to our backgammon board; anxious faces thronged round the gambling-booths; vagrants and vagabonds staked more on the game than their last stolen penny; but they were not unobserved, for the city police in their festal attire paced gravely along these booths to see that no offence was committed to disturb the peace of the shooting-ground. Special attention was paid by the giver of the feast to the bowling-ground, which was then not so frequently found in town or country, as now. There were often two, indeed three, prepared for the festival; here, also, there were prizes affixed. Thus, at Breslau, 1518, an ox and pewter utensils were bowled for, on two grounds. In Silesia, Saxony, and Thuringia, they were favourite additions to the festival.

But of all that made the festival agreeable to the people, and attained to the greatest development, was an entertainment of a most doubtful character,--the fortune's urn, the modest ancestor of the state and other lotteries. As early as 1467 it made its appearance at the cross-bow meeting at Munich. In 1470, at the great prize-shooting at Augsburg, it was a well-known part of the programme; the prizes were goblets, materials for dress, velvet girdles, and weapons; there were twenty-two prizes, and more than 76,000 tickets, at eight pfennigs each; a cook won the best prize, which was an agreeable evidence to the people that it had been carried on honourably. By means of the rifle-shooting at Zurich, in 1472, the urn was introduced into Switzerland; the tickets there cost one shilling each. The drawing was much the same as now. There was scaffolding erected in the public place, before the council-house, and thereon a booth, in which the prizes were placed; beside it, the secretaries and the urns. There were two urns, into one of which the names of those were thrown who had drawn a ticket, in the other were the prizes and blanks; a boy of sixteen, who was placed between the urns, drew from both at the same time. First, the name was called out, then the prize or blank. The first ticket and the last in the urn with the names, won something; at Zurich, a ram; those who took many tickets got them cheaper. In 1504, at Zurich, the prizes were already in money; but in Germany the pleasant custom still continued at the prize-shootings for another century, of playing for artistic objects of value; the love of gambling was great, the women especially thronged round the urn; and, if one may judge from the lists of prizes that have been preserved, the inferior clergy of the old church amused themselves with fortune's um. Seldom, in the sixteenth century, did the urn fail to appear at the greater prize-shootings; it was an important concern, and the chroniclers recorded assiduously the prizes and fortunate winners. Thus, only to mention one year, there were, in Central Germany alone, in 1540, two urns of fortune; for there were prize-shootings at Frankenhausen and Hof; at the latter the drawing lasted five days; in both cities the last prize from the urn was the jocose prize--a sow, which had been introduced from the shooting-ground into the urn of fortune. In 1575, at Strasburg, the urn of fortune was very considerable; there were 275 prizes--the first, value 115 gulden; the sale of the tickets was so rapid that they were obliged to increase the number and the prizes in equal proportion. Count Palatine Casimir, an enterprising prince, had bought 1100 tickets, but did not gain much. The Zuricher guests also, with their pot of porridge, took some thousand tickets--in the name of the fortunate ship and of their native city--which, together, cost 101 gulden; for this they won silver to about half the amount. The drawing lasted fourteen days, and the throng of people about the urn was so troublesome that at last they were obliged to use force to secure the urn.

From these beginnings arose the lottery in Italy and Holland, in the sixteenth century; first, they played for wares, but soon for money, and it was used as a source of income by individuals, and then by communities. The first money lottery at Hamburg was established in 1615.

Such was the course of the great feasts of arms of our ancestors. For weeks did the multitude buzz about the shooting-ground and booths, and in the streets of the hospitable city. When the society of marksmen had finished the prescribed number of shots, all those to whom an equal number of circle shots had been scored had to shoot for their prize at a special target, and he who made the worst shot had the smallest prize. In the same way all shot for the knightly prize who had carried away no prize from the great shooting. The chief and the knightly prizes were solemnly delivered with the banner; the money prizes were in coloured silk purses, which hung to the banner; prizes and banners were arranged beforehand in long rows for show, for in the olden days they knew well how to make a grand display of such distinctions. Then followed generally an after shooting for the voluntary deposits of the shooters, more simple and unrestrained, and sometimes at other distances. Last, on the shooting-ground, came the great farewell oration of thanks from the giver of the feast, expressing once more to the guests the pleasure it had given to the city. Finally, there was the great march from the shooting-ground to the city. This was an important ceremony. All the splendour of the festival was again displayed in the long procession. Trumpets and pipes were blown, the big drum and the kettle-drums thundered, the pritschmeisters clattered with their bats; the dignitaries of the festival, councillors, and neuners, marched in front with their long silk scarfs; behind them the fortunate winners of the great prizes, each with his prize borne before him, and accompanied by two men of distinction. The other shooters followed under the banner of their "quarter," and proudly did each carry his prize banner; but the mocking banners also were sometimes to be seen in the procession, and humbly were they carried by their bearers; behind them came the young tomfools. Our ancestors were right when they moved with a feeling of elation in such processions. The dress was already rich in colour; men of even moderate income endeavoured to wear rich materials, silk and velvet, on such occasions. All were accustomed to show themselves before others, and knew well how to maintain a stately pace. With a feather on the cap or hat, the weapon by the side, and one arm supported on the hip under the mantle, they strode along in march time, placing their feet wide apart, as is the custom now, thus moving the body in an easy way, now towards the right, now the left.

Thus they went to the last evening entertainment; those who were departing had often the escort of their friends, for protection and honour, far into the country.

There is something very attractive to our feelings in this hospitality given to the shooters. Not only were they frequently provided with drink on the shooting-ground during the shooting-hours, and refreshed by a collation, but they were at least once, and generally oftener, entertained in the city, sometimes daily, by the councillors; besides this, there were evening dances, in which the daughters of the most distinguished families partook. These hospitalities to the guests, in the fifteenth century, though very hearty, were also very simple; but at a later period they became sometimes profuse, and when such a festival lasted a fortnight, or, as at Strasburg, as much as five weeks, they must have been very expensive to the givers of the feast; more than once did critical chroniclers complain of the immoderate demands on their city coffers. Loud reproaches were made even at Strasburg, and it was reported of the Löwenbergers, after their bird-shooting in 1615, that the city had exerted itself far beyond its powers; for all had been very costly and splendid. In the fifteenth century, they knew better how to calculate. The great cross-bow shooting at Augsburg, in 1470, cost the city more than 2200 gulden, a high sum according to the then value of corn; and yet the influx of strangers was so great that the Augsburgers afterwards said they had suffered no loss. But, indeed, the entertainment of the 466 stranger guests was very simple.

The number of marksmen at the earlier cross-bow shootings was not large. At Augsburg, in 1425, there were only 130; in 1434, 300; and in 1470, 466. After fire-arms had been introduced, at the great country meetings, the number of marksmen was double. Thus, in 1485, at St. Gallen, there were collected 208 cross-bows and 445 guns; and in 1508, at Augsburg, there were 544 cross-bows and 919 guns. According to the old arrangements of the shooting, this large number of men protracted the festival to a great length; consequently, in the sixteenth century, we find efforts sometimes made to limit the number of invitations, but to increase the deposits of the shooters; and it appears that a festival, with from 200 to 300 shooting-guests, was considered most agreeable; in that case it lasted a week; the individual became of more importance, and the body of men was easier to guide. Even with a moderate number of marksmen, the concourse of strangers was incomparably greater than it would be now. Each marksman was accompanied by a lad, who waited upon him with cross-bow or gun; if princes or nobles were invited, they arrived with a large retinue of junkers, servants, halberdiers, and horses; a large rabble of beggars and rogues also flocked together, and the watchmen of the city had to guard against theft, robbery, and fire.

It was not always easy for the givers of the feast to keep order between the inhabitants and the strangers, for, together with a natural heartiness and wish to adapt themselves to their guests, there was in many haughty minds a very sensitive pride of home and self-confidence, which inclined them, more than would be the case now, to turn into ridicule the unusual dress, manners, and language of strangers. Betwixt certain districts there always floated, like small thunder-clouds, certain old satirical sayings and ironical stories. Swiss and Suabians, Thuringians and Franconians, Hessians and Rhinelanders, reported laughable things of each other. But a word spoken when drinking, or a mocking reminder, might disturb the peace of the festival, or excite parties to sudden anger; and words of conciliation and redoubled friendliness were not always successful. Thus the "Seehasen"[^[70]] and the "Kühmelker" had a severe quarrel at the cross-bow shooting at Constance in 1458. A man from Constance, who was playing at dice with one from Lucerne, called the Bernese coin plappart, which he had won, a cow-plappart; the Lucerner fired up, blows and uproar followed. The Lucerne marksmen remained to the end of the festival; but they complained loudly that the laws of hospitality were broken, and their honour wounded. After their return home the people of Lucerne and Unterwalden raised the war-banner and fell on the territory of Constance, the inhabitants of which had to pay 5000 gulden as an expiation. Yet, in general, it was provided that such disturbances should be reconciled on the spot, or satisfaction given to the guests. Strictly were the shooting regulations administered by the chosen judges, and zealously did hosts and guests endeavour to enhance the feeling of duty in those belonging to them. Among the numerous specimens of city hospitality of that time the most pleasing is the kindly connection which existed for more than 100 years betwixt Zurich and Strasburg, frequently interrupted by many passionate ebullitions, but always renewed. In 1456, six years after the Swiss had established the first great shooting-feast at Sursee, in the country of Lucerne, some young Swiss, in the early dawn of morning, conveyed a large pot of hot millet porridge, in a vessel, from Zurich to Strasburg; they arrived in the evening; threw the famed Zurich rolls among the people, and delivered the still warm millet porridge to the council of the friendly city, as a token of how quickly their Swiss friends would come to their aid if they ever needed it in earnest; they danced the same night with the Strasburg maidens. After that, the excitement and sufferings of the Reformation knit new spiritual ties betwixt Zurich and the great imperial city. Bucer and the Swiss reformers, the literati and artists of both cities, had been in close alliance; though differences of confession had for a short time produced alienation. The Strasburgers had often experienced the hospitality of the Swiss. Now when, 150 years after the first journey of the porridge-pot, the city of Strasbourg had again announced a brilliant prize-shooting for crossbow and gun, and a strong detachment from Zurich had celebrated with them the first fortnight of the cross-bow shooting, then a number of young Zurichers, under the lead of some gentlemen of the council, determined to repeat the old voyage. Again, like their ancestors, they placed the great metal pot, weighing 120 pounds, filled with hot porridge, in the ship, and voyaged in the early dawn of morning, all dressed alike in rose and black, from the Limmat into the Aar, from the Aar into the Rhine, with trumpeters and drummers. The places by which the ship flew, in the sunny mid-day, greeted the jolly fellows with acclamations; in the evening they reached Strasburg, having been long before announced from the towers. The citizens thronged to meet them; delegates from the council greeted them; they carried the pot on shore and delivered it to the councillors; they scattered amongst the children of Strasbourg 300 strings of Zurich rolls, and again were the manly words spoken: "Quickly as we have come to-day in sport, we will come to help in earnest." And at the abundant supper the old homely dish, still warm, was enjoyed with pleasure. The Strasburger Fischart has described with hearty satisfaction the journey of the porridge-pot, and we find in his verses the warmth which then animated both hosts and guests. The course of the voyage of the porridge-pot, and even the sums which the Swiss deposited in the urn of fortune--"In the name of the fortunate ship and of the parent town"--were paid by the city of Zurich. In return they received the small silver utensils which were won in the urn by the Zurichers. The collective costs of the journey which Zurich then paid for its marksmen amounted to 1500 gulden.

It is of great interest to consider these brotherly festivals of the city communities, according to districts. In the middle of the sixteenth century, a journey from Nuremburg to Augsburg was neither so easy nor free from danger, as now from Leipsig to Zurich. The birds of prey of the country gladly flew from their castellated eyries into the woods which surrounded, in wide circles, the hospitable city; more than once was the fortunate marksman waylaid and robbed, by noble horsemen, of the beautiful purse with the guldens he had won, and his banner broken. Even to greater companies the road was insecure, and the travelling toilsome; the inns at small places were frequently very bad, without meat or drink. It is easily understood that at the largest prize-shooting, to which every unexceptional man was welcome, persons from a distance only took a part when accident had brought them into the neighbourhood. Therefore it is matter of surprise that the district to which cities sent their invitations was so large. The Wittenburghers were welcome guests at Ratisbon and the men of Stuttgart at Meissen. Sometimes accident or the friendship of distinguished citizens, knit these bonds of hospitality betwixt far-distant cities; then the invitations went forty, fifty, or one hundred miles. But, on the whole, we may divide these hospitable cities into groups. The Swiss, Suabians, and Bavarians were in close union. Augsburg, more than Nuremberg, was long the centre and pattern of these groups. To it belonged the Rhine as far as Strasbourg. The greatest and most splendid prize-shootings were for two centuries celebrated in this part of Germany. In Bavaria, about 1400, all the more powerful places were in firm intercommunion. There, the city whose marksmen, at one shooting, had won the first prize, was bound at the next shooting festival to produce the same first prize. Thus Kehlheim, which had won the ram at Munich, invited the Munichers, in 1404, to contend for it again.[^[71]] But smaller festivals also comprehended a wide circle. At Ratisbon, for example, the Bavarians and Suabians shot with the larger cities of Thuringia and Meissen; also with Lindau, Salzburg, and some places in Bohemia. The Tyrolese and Salzburghers collected more especially at small shooting meetings of their districts; so also the Franconians north of the Maine. A lasting union of middle-sized and smaller places existed there. This Franconian union comprehended in the sixteenth century, together with Würzburg and Schweinfurt, forty-one cities and forty-two villages with free peasants, particularly from the bishopric of Würzburg and the royal county of Henneberg.

The chief prize was a neck chain--"The Jewel of the Country"--which the victor wore round his neck for a year, and which imposed upon the victorious place the duty of giving the next shooting meeting. If the community of the union who had to give the feast was small and poor, the meeting was badly attended. Thus at Neustadt, on Saale, in 1568, only delegates from eighteen cities and three villages appeared. The small participation of the village communities, at this period, is a proof that their strength was diminished in comparison with the former period. Another group comprehended the possessions of the House of Saxony; the Thuringians and many Franconians and Meisseners who sent the garland to one another. These also zealously maintained the cross-bow at their prize-shootings; the popinjay was seldom erected, except at smaller meetings, where it was long upheld. At these festivals the Franconians, up to and beyond Nuremberg, were regular guests; some of the Suabians and more of the German Bohemians. But, on the frontiers of this group, at Halle, another association began, the centre of which was Magdeburg; here the popinjay was more frequent. Thus at the great prize-shooting at Halle, in 1601, the expression "shooting court" appears, and many special usages. This circle embraced the Harz cities up to Brunswick, and the Altmark, and reaches further to the east and north, for the people of Halle sent their invitations as far as Berlin, Brandenburg, and even Griefswald. Again, the cities of the great province of Silesia were in close union, with Breslau for their centre point; there the popinjay shooting attained to its highest development, and the festivals were very frequent. Competition was not unfrequent between two cities; thus, in 1504, between Liegnitz and Neisse, when the Breslauers said, in answer to the invitation of Neisse, that they had already accepted the invitation of Liegnitz, and therefore could not go. The chief places of meeting of the cities of middle Rhine were Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle; but the great prize-shootings of this country, which flourished at the end of the fifteenth century, were embittered by religious discord. It is remarkable that in the countries of Lower Saxony, on the North Sea and Baltic, where the old Hanse towns had founded such noble city unions, the prize-shootings were less frequent and distinguished. The most zealous supporters of them were the Swiss, Suabians, Thuringians, Meisseners, and Silesians. With the Swiss these great festivals attained the character of exercises of arms; they were practical and serious; the waggish humour and the tricks of the pritschmeister flourished in Middle Germany.[^[72]] It is not accidental that in the whole of the Protestant portion of the German empire, the power and comfort of the citizen have been most nobly developed.

If these particulars give only a very imperfect picture of the splendour, the opulence, and the independence which were developed in these festivals by the German cities in ancient times, yet they will succeed in making the reader feel, that though we have gained much in comparison with those times, we have also lost something. Only very lately it would have appeared hazardous to the greatest city communities to arrange festivals which, according to our rate of money, would cost perhaps more than fifty thousand thalers; not to do honour to the visit of some sovereign, but for the pleasure of German fellow-citizens, and which would last three or even five weeks, and commit many hundreds, or even thousands of guests during this period to the friendly hospitality, partly of individuals and partly of the city community. It is true that time has become more valuable to us, life is enjoyed more rapidly, and we compress into days what would have employed our ancestors for weeks. It is true that modern men seek recreation in summer in ways which were almost unknown three centuries ago. They isolate themselves from the bustle and hard daily labour of the world among mountain woods and alpine valleys; whilst our ancestors, on the contrary, sought pleasure and refreshment in large societies of men, and left the narrow boundaries of their walls,--the guild room and the council hall,--for those great re-unions in which they could gain honour and prizes by their own exertions. But it must not be forgotten that it was just in those last two centuries in which the great civic festivals became impossible, that many general interests were developed in German citizen life, which, however unsatisfactory they may be, form an immeasurable step in advance of the olden time. There is also a fundamental difference in culture which distinguishes us from our ancestors; but this difference does not rest on the necessary progress of a later race. We feel that the old brotherhood of cities and districts had something noble in it, in which our life is very deficient. The joyful self-assertion of man in social intercourse with others, the facility with which common usages unite together hundreds and indeed thousands, and, above all, the imposing vigour with which cities asserted their position, all this has been too long wanting to us. If it was seldom granted to our forefathers to feel, on the great occasions of life, the unity of German interests in Church and State, and through a common action and great triumph to ennoble the life of every individual, yet they knew at least how to open, by their fellowship, a domain in which expression was given to the German nature, to human relations and to community of spirit.

It is only within a few years that it has become a necessity to Germans to expand their life in this direction. It was no mere accident that made German men of science, in their wandering meetings, the first to give significant expression to some of the noblest interests of the nation by national association. They were followed by the singers and others, then the gymnasts, finally the shooters. We are now, after more than two centuries of preparation, again treading in the same path in which our ancestors so grandly trod, but with a freer and nobler feeling. It has been a long-denied pleasure for us thus to be able to vaunt ourselves. But we should at the same time be mindful, and it is the object of these pages to remind us, that the citizen-class of Germany has striven, for more than two centuries since the Thirty Years' War, to become again as powerful and manly in this respect as their ancestors were.

But even of that time of weakness, the century that followed the great war, a picture shall be given. But it must be short. The hospitable prize-shootings of the cities had ceased; here and there a ruler gave a family festival, or, as a special act of grace, a large country shooting meeting, at which prizes were awarded, and their subjects allowed to participate. In the cities the old shooting associations still existed, though in many cases robbed of their prize cups, chains, and jewels; even the cautious Leipzigers had not preserved the silver statue of their holy Sebastian. Many old customs were maintained in their desolate shooting houses; the cross-bow, at the popinjay and target, had dragged on a miserable existence; it lasts in a few cities as a curiosity up to the present day; the rifled weapon became naturalised; in larger communities the new Imperial nobility favoured shooting guilds and their old "Königsschiessen,"[^[73]] and these festivals acquired a stiff pretentious character of pedantic state action. This great change in the city festival,--the only meagre feast of arms which remained to the German citizen in the eighteenth century,--is apparent in a description of the Breslau shooting in the year 1738. It is found where one would hardly look for it, in the laborious work of the physician Johann Christian Kundmann, entitled "Beruhmte Schlesier in Müntzen," 1738, i., p. 128, and is given as follows, literally, with few omissions:--

"At this time the following solemnities were observed at the 'Königsschiessen.' On Whitsunday the king of the preceding year went with the elders, the Zwinger brotherhood, also with some invited friends, in some twenty carriages, out to the Zwinger.[^[74]] By the side of the carriage went the secretaries as servants, two outriders, the markers, and the king's own servant; they were received with kettle-drums and trumpets. After that, the perquisites of the king were read aloud to the shooters in the room, and those who wished to shoot for the kingdom were to sign their names with their own hand. Then appeared two gentlemen, commissaries of the worshipful and illustrious council, who are usually the two youngest councillors of the nobility; they wore Spanish mantles, trimmed with lace or fringe, and placed themselves opposite to the king in the room,--who stayed there in his kingly attire, bearing the great golden bird. The councillors state that they, as commissioners, have to be present at this shooting. After this the king goes to the shooting ground, accompanied by the commissioners, the elders, and shooters.

"As, according to old usages, a popinjay was to be the mark, a large carved bird with outspread wings was set up, instead of a target, and at this there were six courses, that is, each shooter fired six times. A small silver bird, or a large klippe, was attached to the king as a badge of honour, instead of the large gilt bird, which was too heavy and incommodious to carry. He kept the badge till one of the others had made the winning shot with a bullet. The king shoots always first, amidst the sounding of kettle-drums and trumpets. After these shots the new king is presented to the commissaries, by the zwinger-orator,--usually an advocate, with a well composed speech,--and the usual presents are presented to the king. The first gentleman of the council answers with a similar speech. After that they go to the zwinger repast, and when they rise from table the king is accompanied with kettle-drums and trumpets home. Or the king and the brotherhood march with music and wine round the city, and do honour thereby to their patrons and good friends. The Wednesday after, the king gives his usual silver shooting, at which there are six prizes of silver, that consist of cups and spoons. After the completion of this, the king gives his first entertainment.

"The Saturday following, early in the morning, about eight o'clock, the king is conducted, with his retinue, in his costly attire, before the illustrious and worshipful council in the council room, where the zwinger-orator again delivers an oration, and begs for the king all the immunities; the president answers with a similar speech, confirms him in his kingdom, conveys to him the regal dues, and concludes with congratulations. Then the day for the king's benefit is solicited, generally some Monday a few weeks later. This is a pleasure shooting of twelve courses. He who makes the best shot, and he who with gun and dice (the equally bad shots cast lots by dice), fails most, must both place themselves in front of the shooting-house. To the first a large orange will be delivered on a pewter plate, together with a glass of wine and a garland of roses, and some verses will be recited in his praise, when the kettle-drums and trumpets will sound. But he who has failed gets a whey cheese in a wreath of nettles on a wooden plate, together with a glass of beer, upon which the bagpipes and a small fiddle are played; the verses are generally very pungent, and the zwinger poets are frequently wont to recite truths in jest to their dear friends. Besides this, for each shot on the outer circle of the target in all the courses, a citron is given, and in like manner to every one who hits, a citron, an orange, or a curd cheese, which are painted on the target, together with other pictures characteristic of the time. Then they go to another meal, when the zwinger-orator and the first deputy of the council deliver speeches, and distribute the banners and prizes to the best shots and the victors in the twelve courses, with the sounding of kettle-drums and trumpets. Then the king gives a costly repast, which often lasts nearly till daybreak. Over the king hangs the great king's bird: he himself sits in a large arm chair. From thence the king is accompanied to the patrons and then home, and this solemnity generally finishes with some merriment. Finally, the king gives, the following day, a sausage shooting, and appoints a prize of silver and gold; this is again concluded by an entertainment, followed by dice playing for pewter."

Here ends the account of Kundmann. Of how little importance was such a "Königsschiessen" of the seventeenth century may be gathered from the description. The popular festival of the olden time had become a pretentious solemnity. To do everything in a genteel way was the great desire; only the wealthy could become kings; to drive in carriages, to be accompanied by servants, to give costly meals and expensive prizes, were the main objects; the shooting was a minor point: and it was very significant that the king was no longer expected to speak publicly before his fellow-citizens; he represented in dumb show; the advocate spoke for the citizen at the festival also. Lastly, it may be perceived that the remnants of some of the old jovial customs had still been retained; they stand out in contrast to the prudery and susceptibility of the time; the improvisation of the pritschmeister had ceased, and even the ironical verses on bad shots had to be prepared; gradually the reminiscences of a more vigorous time were laid aside as obsolete and absurd.

It was not, however, the wretchedness of the people alone,--the bitter fruit of the war,--that destroyed the great brotherly feasts of the citizen, nor yet the ruling tendency to haughty exclusiveness against all who held a modest position in life, but equally injurious was the peculiar stamp impressed upon even the best and most highly cultivated, after that period of humiliation.

It is time now to observe the great change in the German popular mind, which turned the martial citizen, who knew how to use powder and shot and to direct a gun, into the shy, timid gentleman, who hastened his steps when he heard near him the thump of the butt end of a musket, and feared lest his son should grow too tall, and come into the horrible position of having to shoulder a weapon in rank and file.

This change was effected by the new polity of the princes.

CHAPTER IV.

STATE POLICY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

(1600-1700.)

The last stage of the process of dissolution which the holy Roman empire passed through occupies the hundred and fifty years from Oxenstern to Napoleon. The mortal disease began in 1520, when Charles V., the Burgundian Hapsburger, was crowned Emperor of Germany; the death struggle itself did not begin till the election of Ferdinand II., the Jesuit protector, in 1620. The peal of bells that celebrated the Westphalian peace was a death-knell; what followed was the last slow destruction of an expiring organism. But it was also the beginning of a new organic formation. The rise of the Prussian state coincides precisely with the end of the Thirty Years' War.

Whether joy or sorrow ought to predominate in the consideration of such a period depends not only on the political point of view, but on the culture and character of those who form a judgment on it. To those who love to depict with poetic warmth the glories of a German empire, such as perhaps might have been, the advent and character of a time so poor in great men and in national pride can only be repugnant; whoever is in the unfortunate position of considering the interests of the Hapsburgers or those of the Order of Jesus as essentially German, will form an imaginary picture of the past, which will be as far removed from the reality, as the relique worship of the ancient church is from the free man's worship of God. But whoever investigates temperately and sensibly the connection of events, should be careful, in writing the history of this period, not to forget, in the hatefulness of appearances, to do justice to what was legitimate in the reality, and equally so, not for the sake of what, is good, to throw a veil over that which is odious. It is not purely accidental that it is only easy to one who is both a Protestant and a Prussian, to regard with conscious pride and a cheerful heart the historical development of the last two centuries.

Immediately after the peace of Münster and Osnabruck, two views of German politics confronted one another, the one which, in spite of the diminution of the Hapsburg influence and the decision of the Westphalian peace, still maintained the old traditions of Imperial supremacy, and the other that of the great territorial princes who sought to secure full freedom of action and independence for themselves, and who had, in fact, become sovereigns. The history of these opposing principles comprehends, in the main, the history of the political development of our fatherland up to the present day. Still do the two parties remain, but the aims and the means of agitation of both are changed, for above them has arisen a new formation, a third party. After 1648 it was the Imperial party who strongly proclaimed the unity of Germany; the political supremacy was claimed for the House of Hapsburg, and that was desired which is almost precisely what is at present termed the diplomatic and military lead Then weak public opinion, in which there was still a lively recollection of the old connection with the Empire, was for the most part, even among the Protestants, on its side, and the Imperial politicians endeavoured to enlist supporters through the press. If a few literary men, who stood up for German nationality in opposition to foreign influences, murmured at the weakness of the fatherland, the conclusion always presented itself to them, that the Emperor was pre-eminently entitled to revive the old supremacy of the Empire. At that time the strength of this party lay in the fact, that the only German state power of any magnitude was that of the House of Hapsburg, but their weakness consisted in this, that the policy of the Emperor was not in the main German, and that the bigotry and intrigues of the Vienna court did not inspire either the princes with fear, or the estates with confidence. On the other hand, the opposition party of princely politicians, looking to their own advantage, with very little consideration for the Empire, sought the isolation of individual states, the weakening of the connection of the Empire, the policy of the free hand and temporary alliances of the courts among themselves, instead of submitting to the power of the Diet; and their mutual union at the Diet, and in all diplomatic negotiations, tended to counteract the influence and policy of the Emperor. In the midst of this struggle betwixt two adverse principles, a new state arose in Germany, the princes of which, allying themselves sometimes with one party, sometimes with the other, endeavoured to make use of both, and collected round them a nation, which at the end of the eighteenth century appeared capable of a more vigorous development of German strength than the inheritance of the Hapsburgers. And so completely has the situation of Germany changed, that now the Imperial party acts with most of the German princes against the party of the new State. The old opponents have united in a struggle against the new party, both in the difficult position of having to uphold what is unsatisfactory, both under the fatal necessity of working against a long-cherished desire of the nation.

It was a desperate political situation which placed the centre of gravity of German power in the hands of individual German princes, and gave them the almost unlimited disposal of the property and lives of their subjects. The political weakness of Germany, the despotic sway and corruption of the rulers, the servility of the subjects, the immorality of the courts, and the dishonesty of officials, was the sad result, and has often been sufficiently pourtrayed. But with this time begins also the modern State life of Germany. The progress of a nation is not always understood and valued by contemporaries, the necessary changes are not always effected by great men; sometimes the good genius of a nation requires the bad, the insignificant, and the shortsighted, as instruments in a powerful reconstruction. Not in the French revolution alone has a new life proceeded from evil deeds: in Germany also, iron necessity, despotism, and contempt for old rights, have produced much that we now consider as the necessary groundwork of well-regulated State life.

The school of diplomats and statesmen who had been trained during the war in Germany, defended the interests of the German sovereigns up to the time of the French revolution. The endless peace negotiations brought together in Germany the most distinguished politicians of Europe. Pupils of Richelieu, able Netherlanders, countrymen of Macchiavelli, and the proud followers of Gustavus Adolphus. The struggle of antagonisms gave to a large number of talented Germans superabundant opportunities of forming themselves; for around the representatives of the great powers were more than a hundred political agents, writing and haranguing. From the passionate struggle which was brought to a conclusion at Münster and Osnabruck amid the constraint of ceremonials and with an appearance of cold tranquillity, from the chaotic confusion of numberless contending interests, and from the mountains of acts, controversial writings, replications, and projects of treaty, a generation of politicians was, after the peace, spread over the country, hard men, with stubborn will and indomitable perseverance, with gigantic power of work and acute judgment, learned jurists and versatile men of the world, with great knowledge of human nature, but at the same time sceptical despisers of all ideal feelings, unscrupulous in the choice of means, dextrous in making use of the weak point of an opponent, experienced in demanding and giving honour, and well inclined not to forget their own advantage. They became the leaders of politics at the courts and in the Imperial cities, quiet leaders or dextrous tools of their lords--in fact, the real rulers of Germany. They were the creators of the diplomacy and bureaucracy of Germany. Their method of negotiating may appear to us very prolix and pettifogging, but it is just in our time, when a superficial dilettanteism is to be complained of in diplomacy and State government, that the legal culture and sagacious dexterity of the old school should be looked back upon with respect. It was not the fault of these men that they were obliged to spend their lives in a hundred little quarrels, and that only few of them found themselves in the happy position of promoting a great and wise policy. But it will always be to their honour, that under unfavourable circumstances they more than once preserved the esteem and respect of the external enemies of Germany, for German diplomacy, where they no longer felt it for the power of German armies.

They regulated also the internal concerns of the devastated provinces of the new "State." According to their model was formed the official class, also the colleges of judges and administrators; often, it is true, more awkward and pedantic, but just as tenacious of rank, and not unfrequently as corruptible, as the chancellors and privy councillors on whom they depended. The new politicians carried on also important negotiations with the provincial Diets, and had no easy task to render them pliant or harmless. Ever since the end of the fifteenth century there existed, in almost all the larger territories of Germany, State representatives of the country, who voted the taxes, attaching conditions to such votes, and also giving their opinion on the application of the taxes; in the sixteenth century they had attained to increased importance, as they superintended a provincial bank, which assisted the Government in raising money. At the end of the great war, these provincial banks became the last and most important help, for they had strained their credit to the uttermost to provide a war contribution to rid the country of foreign armies. Thus after the peace they were most influential corporations, and the existence of the great portion of creditless sovereigns depended, in fact, upon them. Unfortunately the provincial States were ill fitted to be the true representatives of the country; they consisted for the most part of prelates, lords, and knights, all of them representatives of the nobility, who were, as regarded their own persons and property, exempt from taxes: under them were the deputies of the desolated and deeply involved cities. Thus they were not only inclined to lay the burden of these money grants upon the mass of the people, but it also became possible for the Government, through the preponderance of the aristocratic element, to exercise every kind of personal influence. Whilst the ruler drew the nobles of his province to his court, in order to divert himself in fitting society, his chief officials knew how to take advantage of their craving for rank and titles, and through offices, dignities, and gifts, and lastly by threats of royal displeasure, to break the resistance of individuals. Thus in the eighteenth century the States in most of the principalities sank into insignificance, in some they were entirely abolished. Still some continued to exist, and did not everywhere lose their influence and importance.

The sums, however, which they were able to grant did not by any means suffice for the new state--to maintain a costly court, numerous officials and soldiers. Regular imposts had to be devised which would be independent of their grants. The indirect taxes quickly increased to a threatening extent. The necessaries of life--bread, meat, salt, wine, beer--and many other things, were taxed to the consumers, at the end of the seventeenth century. The custom and excise officials were stationed at the city gates, and custom-houses were placed at the frontiers, for the merchandise which passed in and out. Commercial intercourse was made use of through stamped paper, even the pleasures of the subject were made available for the state; for example (in 1708 in the Imperial hereditary lands), not only public but private dances were taxed, and also, in 1714, tobacco. At last the poor comedians were likewise obliged to pay a gulden for each representation, and even the quack and eye doctors paid at each yearly market a few kreuzers, and heavy claims were made on the Jews. It was long before either people or officials could accustom themselves to the pressure of the new imposts; the tariff and the mode of levying it were always being altered, and frequently the governments saw with dissatisfaction their expectations disappointed. On the impoverished people the pressure of the new taxes fell very severely; loud and incessant were the complaints in the popular literature.

Meanwhile the subject worked with the plough and the hammer; he sat at the writing-desk, and saw around and over him everywhere the wheels of the great state machine; he heard its clicking and creaking, and was hindered, tormented, and endangered by its every movement. He lived under it as a stranger, timid and suspicious. In about six hundred great and small courts, he saw daily the splendid households of his rulers, and the gold-embroidered dresses of the court people; the lace of the lacqueys and the tufts of the footmen were to him objects of the highest importance, his usual topic of discourse. When the ruling lord kept a grand table, the citizens had sometimes the privilege of seeing the court dine. When the court, forming a sledge party, or a so-called wirthschaft,[^[75]] drove through the streets in disguise, the subjects might look on. In winter they might even themselves take a share in a great masquerade, but a barrier was erected which separated the people from the sports of the court. Once the prince had contended with the citizens, shooting at the same target, and was only treated in the jokes of the pritschmeister with somewhat greater consideration. Now the court were entirely separated from the people; and if a courtier condescended to notice a citizen, it was generally no advantage to the purse or family peace of the privileged one. Thus the poor citizen acquired an abject feeling. To obtain an office or title which would give him somewhat of this courtly power, became the object of his ambition, and the same even with the artisan. In the five or six hundred court establishments the desire for titles spread from the nobles and officials down to the lowest class of the people. Shortly before 1700 began the monstrous custom of giving court titles to the artisans, and with these an order of precedence. The court shoemaker tried by petitioning and bribery to obtain the right of nailing the coat of arms of his sovereign over his door; and the court tailor and court gardener quarrelled bitterly which should go before the other, for the tailor, according to the letter of the rule of precedence, went as a matter of course before the gardener, but the latter had obtained the right of bearing a sword.[^[76]] Wealth was the only thing besides rank that gave a privileged position. Whoever calls ours a money-seeking time, should remember how great was the influence of money in former times, and how eagerly it was sought by the poor. The rich man could, it was thought, effect everything. He could be made a nobleman, provided with a title, or by his presents put his rulers under an obligation to him. These presents, were in general received willingly. Greedily did the chancellor, the judge, or the councillor accept them, and even the most sensitive rarely withstood a delicately offered gift. The protection, however, obtained by the citizen in the new state was still very deficient; it was difficult for him to obtain justice against people of distinction and influence. Lawsuits in most of the German territories were endless. A difficult case of inheritance, or a bankruptcy business, would go on to the second and third generation. Government, with the best will, could not always punish even violent injury to property from burglary or robbery. It is instructive to investigate the proceedings against the bold robber bands; even when they succeeded in catching the delinquent, the stolen goods could seldom be restored to the owners. The neighbouring governments sometimes delivered up, on requisition and petition, the criminal who had found an asylum in their country, but such deliveries were generally preceded by special influence, and frequently by presents of money; but the confiscated possessions of the criminal were in many cases retained, and disappeared in the hands of the officials. When in 1733, at Coburg, a gold and silver manufactory was robbed, and strong suspicion fell on a wealthy Jewish trader, the proceedings were often stopped and interfered with, in consequence of the relations the Jew had with the court; and even after he was known to be in intimate connection with a band of robbers and murderers, the proceedings against his assistants could not be pursued further, because the magistrates of the place in Hesse where the robbers dwelt, helped their flight; and the further ramifications of the band, which spread to Bavaria and Silesia, could not be traced on account of the unwillingness of the tribunals. And yet this trial was carried on with great energy, and the person who had been robbed had made distant journeys and offered large sums. Everywhere the multiplicity of rulers, and the dismemberment of territories, were productive of weakness. The Margravate of Brandenburg and a portion of Lower Saxony formed almost the only great connected unity, except the Imperial possessions. In the rest of Germany lay interspersed many thousands of large and small domains, free cities, and parcels of land appertaining to the nobility. But even a modest pride in their own province could not be cultivated in individuals. For each of the countless frontiers occasioned far more isolation than in the olden time. Even in the larger cities, excepting in the cities on the Northern Ocean, municipal spirit had disappeared. Besides his own interests, the German had little to occupy him but the tittle-tattle of the day concerning family events and any remarkable news. It may be seen from many examples how trifling, pedantic, and malicious was the talk of the city for three generations, and how morbidly sensitive, on the other hand, men had become. Anonymous lampoons in prose and verse, an old invention, became ever more numerous, coarse, and malicious; they stirred up not only families, but the whole community of citizens; they became dangerous for the propagators, if they ever ventured to, attack any influential person or royal interests. Yet they increased everywhere; no government was in a position to prevent them; for an artful publisher easily found opportunity to print and distribute them on the other side of the frontier.

Under such circumstances some qualities were developed in the German character which have not yet quite disappeared. A craving for rank and title, servility to those who, whether as officials, or as persons of rank, lived in a higher position, fear of publicity, and above all a striking inclination to form a morose, mean, and scornful judgment of the character and life of others.

This gloomy, hopeless, discontented, and ironical disposition showed itself everywhere, after the Thirty Years' War, by individuals giving vent to their thoughts about the state within whose jurisdiction they lived. It is true that the Germans continued after the great war to take an interest in politics: newspapers of all kinds increased gradually, and bore the news to every house; confidential reports from the seats of government and great commercial cities were circulated; the half-yearly reports of fairs comprised an abstract of the occurrences of many months; and numberless flying sheets, representing party interests, appeared upon every weighty event, both internal and external. The execution of the king, in England, was generally condemned by German readers as a frightful crime, and the sympathies of the whole nation were long with the Stuarts; but shortly before William of Orange put to sea against James II. it was read and believed that James had ventured to substitute a false child as heir to the throne. No one, however, excited public opinion so strongly against himself as Louis XIV. If ever a man was hated by the whole of Germany, he was. It is remarkable, that whilst the manners of his court and the fashions of his capital were everywhere imitated by the upper classes, and even the people could not escape from their influence, his politics were from the first rightly estimated by them. Countless were the flying sheets which were scattered about from all sides against him. He was the disturber of the peace, the great enemy, and in the lampoons also the proud fool. After the Palatinate was laid in ashes, the people called their dogs Melac and Teras; after the taking of Strasburg, a deeper cry of woe passed through the land. Finally, when in the great War of Succession the German armies long kept the upper hand, a feeling of self-respect was excited, which appeared in the small literature of the day. Had there been a German prince who could have awakened an energetic patriotism in the weak people, this hatred would have helped him. But a powerful outburst of patriotic feeling was hindered by the political condition of the country; in Cologne and Bavaria, French printing-presses were at work, and German pens wrote against their own countrymen.

One cannot, therefore, say that the Germans were deficient altogether in political feeling in the century from 1640 to 1740, for it burst forth everywhere; even in works of imagination, in novels, and also in the drama, political conversation found a place, as did aesthetic talk in Goethe's time. But it was unfortunate that this feeling vented itself on the political quarrels of other countries, and that the transactions in Germany itself, excited less interest than the daily occurrences of the Parisian court, or the abdication of the Queen of Sweden. The indifferent public still continued to occupy itself as earnestly about comets, witches, appearances of the devil, a quarrel amongst ecclesiastics, disputes between councillors and citizens of some Imperial city, or the conversion of some small prince by the Jesuits, as about the battle of Fehrbellin. The preparations of the Turks and the war in Hungary were, perhaps, spoken of with a shake of the head; but to pay money for it, or render assistance, was seldom thought of; even after the siege of Vienna by the Turks, in 1683, Count Stahremberg was scarcely as interesting to the great German public as the spy Kolschitzky, who had brought the account from the city to the Imperial main army; his figure was engraved in copper in Turkish dress, and sold in the market. It is true he shared this glory with every distinguished thief and murderer who had ever been executed anywhere, to the great diversion of the public. Sometimes, indeed, the attention of the Germans was fixed with deeper interest on one man, the Elector of Brandenburg. In Southern Germany, also, he was spoken of respectfully; he was a powerful-minded prince, but, unfortunately, his means were small. This was the general opinion; but, as upon his character, so, likewise, upon other vital questions, did the German people give their opinion with as much tranquillity as if it were a question of the Muscovite Czar, or of the distant Japan, concerning which Jesuit accounts had been narrated centuries before. And this was not the result of the trammels of the press, though it certainly was much fettered; for, in spite of all the recklessness with which the ruling powers sought to revenge themselves on its unruly spirit, the multiplicity of states, and the mutual hatred of neighbouring governments, made it difficult to crush an unbridled press. It was other causes which made the people so indifferent to their own interests.