Though the narrative of Sastrow gives us a view of the hard struggle of a rising family, and that of Felix Platter shows to what shifts even a vigorous life may be reduced, yet one must not forget that the intellectual life of Germany was rich and varied in its aims and tendencies. Worldly-minded education, opulence, and the pleasures of social enjoyment were concentrated in the patrician families of the great Imperial cities, who, however, often manifested bad taste in their refinement; but at the same time arts and commerce called forth all their energies, and whatever sense of beauty then existed, was to be found especially in these circles. In the great cities of Switzerland, the Low Countries, and the seaports of the German Hanse Towns, there was a peculiar development of the patrician order; but it was the patrician families of the great commercial cities of South Germany, and amongst these more especially those of Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Frankfort on the Maine, and Cologne, that exercised the greatest influence on the luxury, industry, and learning of Germany. Members of the old families had once governed the cities with aristocratic rule; they were still the most influential citizens, accustomed to conduct great affairs, and to represent the highest interests; they were generally merchants or large landed proprietors. Most of the Church benefices were possessed by their families; they were the first who used to send their sons into Italy, the land of their mercantile friends, to study law, thus making preparation in Germany for the rising Humanitarian learning. Many of them were heads of mercantile firms, councillors and confidants of German princes; they were united together by family alliances, and not less by community of commercial interests and had extended themselves everywhere; they chiefly determined the German policy of the Imperial cities, and they would have exercised a decisive influence on the newly formed German life, had they been less conservative in their tendencies, and had they not by their self-interest become sometimes un-German.
They represented the moneyed power of Germany; the Emperor and princes obtained loans from them, and they were the medium of the greater; part of the money and exchange transactions, when these were not in the hands of the Jews. The great firms of Fugger and Welser and their partners formed a great trading company, which carried on traffic not only with Italy and the Levant, but also beyond Antwerp and the Atlantic Ocean. Through them, German trade monopolized that of the East and West Indies; they bought a whole year's harvest from the King of Portugal, they united themselves with Spanish houses in unlimited speculations, undertook journeys to Calcutta, and settled on their own account the prices of the sugar and spices of the East, which were then of greater importance in the German cookery than now.
This command over capital was regarded with great dislike by both princes and people. Through these trading companies much ready money passed out of the country, and all objects of luxury rose in price; complaints were general, for the diminution in the worth of money, occasioned by the introduction of the American gold, was mistaken for the raising of prices by the merchants. Not only Hutten, who was deeply imbued with the prejudices of his own class, but even the Imperial Diet was jealous of the power of these great moneyed companies; among the people also, the antipathy to them was general, and the Reformers shared the opinions of their cotemporaries as to the detriment of such domination over capital.
Yet even then, it may be observed that these great merchant princes had not all the same tendencies. The Welsers of Augsburg, for example, in 1512, took an active interest at Rome on behalf of Reuchlin, and that great scholar owed his deliverance from the hands of the Dominicans, more perhaps to their secret influence than to the refined rhetoric of his enthusiastic admirers in Germany. On the other hand, the Fuggers were considered by the people as reckless moneyed men and Romanists; as enemies of Luther and friends of Eck, who was suspected of being in their pay; for they had charge of the money affairs of the Elector Albrecht of Mayence, and of the Romish curie, and one of the Fugger's clerks accompanied the indulgence chest of Tetzel, and controlled the incoming receipts, on which the banking-house of the Archbishop of Mayence had made advances. The Emperor, Charles V., received the most solid support from these powerful firms, as their interests were generally concurrent with his; with the people, however, "Fuggerei" became the common term for usury. We learn the family tendency for outward splendour and intercourse with the great, from the description which Hans von Schweinichen gives of their opulence in the year 1575.
When the dissolute Duke Hemrich von Liegnitz with his majordomo was at Augsburg, the splendour of this house appeared to the Silesian noblemen as quite fabulous. Schweinichen, who was more accurate in specifying the sums of money and prices than was necessary considering the endless debts of his master, gives the following narrative.[55]
"Herr Max Fugger once invited his Princely Highness to dinner. Such a banquet have I never beheld, the Roman Emperor himself could not have been entertained better: there was superabundant splendour; the repast was spread in a hall where more gold than colour was to be seen; the floor was of marble, and as smooth as if one was walking on ice; there was a sideboard placed along the whole length of the hall, which was set out with drinking-vessels and notably beautiful Venetian glasses; there must have been, as one says, the value of more than a ton of gold. I waited on his Princely Highness when the drinking began. Now Herr Fugger gave to his Princely Highness for a drinking-cup, an artistically formed ship of the most beautiful Venetian glass; when I took it from the sideboard and was going across the hall, having on my new shoes, I slipped up, and fell upon my back in the middle of the hall; the wine poured about my neck, the new red brocade dress which I had on was quite spoilt, and the beautiful ship was broken into a thousand pieces. Though this created great laughter amongst all, yet I was told that Herr Fugger said privately he would rather have lost a hundred gulden than that ship; it happened, however, without any fault on my part, for I had neither eaten nor drunk; but when later I became intoxicated I stood firmer, and did not fall a single time even in the dance. Meanwhile the lords and all others were very merry. Herr Fugger took his Princely Highness a walk through the house, a prodigious great house, so great that the Roman Emperor at the Imperial Diet found room in it for himself and his whole court. Herr Fugger showed his Princely Highness, in a turret, a treasure of chains, jewels, and precious stones, and of curious coins and pieces of gold the size of a head, and he himself said that they were worth more than a million of gold. Afterwards he opened a chest that was full of nothing but ducats and crowns up to the brim; these he estimated at two hundred thousand gulden, which had been remitted to him in exchange by the King of Spain. Then he led his Princely Highness up to the turret, which was paved half way down from the top with good thalers; he said there were about seventeen thousand. He showed his Princely Highness great honour, but also his own power and possessions: it is said that Herr Fugger had enough to buy an empire. He gave me, on account of my fall, a beautiful new groschen which weighed about nine grains. His Princely Highness expected also a good present, but got nothing but a good drinking bout. At that time Fugger bestowed the hand of his daughter on a count, and gave two hundred thousand thalers, besides jewels, as her dowry.
"As his Princely Highness had very little ready money he sent me to Herr Fugger to borrow four thousand thalers; but he decidedly declined doing this, excusing himself quite politely; however the following day he sent his steward to me to be introduced to my lord, through whom he presented to his Princely Highness two hundred crowns, a beautiful goblet worth eighty dollars, and besides that a splendid horse with black velvet housings."
Together with this taste for display we find in other patrician families at the beginning of this century far higher aims in life. The firms of Pentinger at Augsburg, and Perkheimer at Nuremberg were the focus of the noblest interests of the nation; the heads of these houses were men of princely opulence, landed proprietors and merchant princes, statesmen and warriors, and at the same time men of learning and research. It was for families like these that Albert Dürer painted his best pictures; to them the travelling Humanitarians resorted; every elegant verse, every manly sentiment or word of genius, were there first heartily appreciated. As councillors and patrons in worldly concerns, as liberal proprietors of valuable libraries and of first-rate cabinets of antiquities, as hospitable masters of rich households, they knew how to do honour to all who brought to their houses intellect, knowledge, and refinement.[56]
In these families, the women also frequently received an education which went further than the knowledge of cooking, spinning, and the prayer-book; the daughters of these households gained what was seldom to be found in the castles of the princes or in the mansions of the landed nobility,--a heartfelt interest in the sciences and arts with which the friends of the family were occupied. There is a peculiar charm for us in the contemplation of the first female characters who were ennobled by the dawn of a new civilization. Constance Peutinger, who twined the laurel wreaths for Hutten; Caritas Perkheimer, the suffering abbess of Clarenklosters at Nuremberg, and later Philippine Welser, the wife of the Emperor's son, all belonged to the class of German patricians; they were sensitive natures often oppressed and wounded in this rough and thorny period.
It was especially when a woman took part in the literary struggle that she was destined to suffer, this however rarely happened; the best known instances are those of Caritas Pirkheimer and Argula von Grumbach, born at Stauffen; both experienced how bitter it is for women to take part in the disputes of men. The Roman Catholic Caritas wrote a letter full of reverence to Emser, and had to go through the trial of seeing her letter printed by the Lutheran party with contemptuous marginal notes. The Lutheran Argula, the friend of Spalatin, sent an admonitory letter to the rector of the university at Ingoldstadt, when it had compelled Arsatius Seehofer by imprisonment and a threat of the stake, to recant seventeen heresies, which he had propounded to the students from the writings of Melancthon. Argula bravely took the master's part, whom she called a child of eighteen years old, and offered to go to Ingoldstadt herself to defend the good cause against the university. She was in consequence of this, maliciously assailed in verse, against which she valiantly defended herself in counter-rhymes. The last years of Caritas and her mild brother were embittered by the rude attacks of the Protestant rabble and their teachers. Argula was banished from the Bavarian court, and her husband was dismissed in disgrace from his court appointment.
The Glauburgs were one of the most distinguished patrician families of Frankfort-on-the-Maine; Hutten had been very intimate with some members of this family, and had at one time indulged in the charming dream of establishing himself at Frankfort and marrying one of them. Even the ardent spirit of Hutten was powerfully attracted by their splendid opulence and highly refined life. He eagerly disclaimed the suspicion that he intended to take away his bride to the rocky home of his family. He wooed the maiden with more consideration than was his wont, and Arnold of Glauburg was his confidant. But it was a short dream; his destiny soon tore him away. The following letters from two ladies will introduce us into this patrician family; they are printed in the Frankfort archives of J. C. von Fichard, 1811-1815. The first is the letter of a mother to her son, in which she recommends to him a maiden for his wife, in order to withdraw him from the revolutionaries of Wittenberg and the neighbourhood of Luther; a letter which is characteristic of the position of women in a family, and written by one possessed of energy and a practical understanding, who was accustomed to rule, and not without a disposition to intrigue; her son was the nephew of that Arnold of Glauburg, the son of Johann, to whom Hutten sent with hearty greeting his dialogue Febris.
1526.
From Margaret Horng[57] at Frankfort, to her son John
von Glauburg at Wittenberg.
"Having given you first, dear Johann, my friendly greeting, know that
we are all well in health, praise and thanks be to God, and hope to
hear the same of you. Dear Johann, after I had last written to you, the
wife of Johann Knoblauch died, to whom God be merciful. She was my good
friend, and her death has caused me as great grief as the decease of my
two blessed husbands, which was however a great calamity to me; but
what God wills we must bear with patience. She and I came here the same
year, and lived so friendly together that neither ever angered the
other with a word. On her death-bed she commended to me her two
daughters as if I were her sister, and begged that I should take care
of their dowry, if I should live till they married. One of them is now
marriageable, an elegant, well-formed maiden; she is in height like
your step-sister Anna, which is also her name, and she is a clever
housekeeper, so that he who has her for a portion will not be ruined by
her; I foresee that her father will soon establish her, for there are
three who woo her, two of them are noblemen, and the third is Johann
Wolf Rohrbach, the son of Frau Ursula at the green gate, who is now
grown up and has been with his mother since Easter. Although he is only
nineteen years old, yet it is the wish of his mother and his friends to
establish him whilst she is still alive. For now no one knows what to
do with their sons, that they may learn and study what is for their
soul's salvation, and not be led astray: for when they have long
studied, and spent much money, it is of little advantage to many of
them, and perhaps it would have been more profitable to them, to have
retained the innate honesty and simplicity which they have from God,
than that they should study, and not rightly understand the Scripture,
and that then the devil should lead them astray through pride, and
others with them because they are learned and know how to talk well.
Such men lead the people into great error. I would gladly write much to
you thereupon, but having promised in my last letter that I would not
write to you again thereof, I will not do so whilst you are at
Wittenberg; for you imagine that you are in safe keeping in Wittenberg.
God grant it may be true, and that you will find it so. Further, dear
Johann, know wherefore I now write to you thus---- an honourable person
has just told me that the wife of Johann Knoblauch had desired her
husband, if you and your belongings should ask his daughter in
marriage, and the daughter were willing, that he should give her to you
rather than to any other. To this I answered, that I did not know your
inclinations, but would write and inform you of this, and whatever
answer I got from you I would communicate to this person. Therefore,
dear son, I make known to you that the maiden pleases me well in all
her ways, better than any other with whom I am acquainted; and the
mother has always been an honourable steadfast woman. Therefore, I am
well pleased that she is not of a fickle nature, for whoever has not an
apt and steadfast wife, be she ever so polished and rich, will become a
poor miserable man. Therefore, dear Johann, follow my advice, for I
give you faithful counsel. It is true there are eleven children to
provide for, some of whom are still little, but possibly may become
fewer in number, and there is a good fortune, the greater part of it in
landed property. Therefore bethink you, dear son, I do not wish to
constrain you to change your condition, but it would be the greatest
pleasure to me were you to enter this family, for looking into the
future, I can see no place that would altogether suit you so well as
this one. Dear Johann, if this idea should please you, and you should
wish to see her and that she should see you beforehand, come here in
the first week of Lent with any travelling companions that you like, to
give you security on the road; but keep your purpose to yourself,
saying nothing of it to your companions till a day or two before your
departure, then tell Justinian that you are going home. But do not tell
him why you wish to go home, but make it appear as if it were on
account of your property which you wish to regulate, as I had written
to you so strongly in my last three letters about it, declining to
administer it any longer, as is indeed my intention, if you will in
nowise take my advice. There is good reason why you should prevent his
saying a word, in order that it should remain secret. Dear Johann, I
beg of you to bethink yourself of how the times are, and that it is not
fitting for you to remain longer unsettled. Ah! may my brother-in-law
Herr Hammann find a wife also for Justinian now; it would do him no
harm, as he leads a life of pleasure; and let it not be with him as it
was with his deceased cousin Blasius, who had so accustomed himself to
a profligate life that no one could persuade him to marry till he
became old and had lost his health; he had no child, and now his wife
is betrothed again to a nobleman, one Schenk of Schweinsburg. They say
she will soon celebrate her nuptials: God grant her happiness."
Thus far the letter: the wish of the prudent mother was fulfilled; her son returned, as she had so cautiously charged him to do, to Frankfort; he married the maiden of her choice, and they lived together forty years in happy matrimony.
Though we can obtain no other particulars of him and Anna Knoblauch, yet we find accounts of members of the same family, towards the end of the century, which characterize in a charming way the position of a bride with her betrothed. A grandson of the above mentioned, the rich patrician Adolf von Glauburg of Frankfort, made acquaintance, when on a visit at Nuremberg, with the beautiful Ursula Freher, daughter of the city Syndic of Nuremberg, and sister of the renowned scholar and statesman, Marquard Freher of Heidelberg. The charms and agreeableness of the lady were celebrated throughout Swabia. The following letters were written by her to him, from Nuremberg to Frankfort during the time of betrothal.
1598.
I.
"To the noble and honourable Johann Adolf von Glauburg, to the hands of my dearly beloved Junker.
"Most noble, honourable, amiable, and dearly beloved Junker, I have received with heartfelt joy your letter, together with the chain, and rejoice to hear you are in health, but learn with regret that your dear sister and son are not well; may God Almighty restore them according to his holy will. Amen. As regards us, we are, thank God, tolerably well, may He thus long preserve us all. Dearly beloved Junker, my father would gladly have written to you, but your letter arrived too late, and the messenger waiting at the gate is in haste, so that he cannot do it now, but will take the first opportunity.
"Dearly beloved Junker, with respect to the chain I have no directions to give you; as your wish is, so is my content, what pleases you pleases me also. The chain which I have here I will carefully preserve, and when God brings you to us I will take the opportunity of returning it to you; it is much too splendid for me. As to the picture, it is ready all but the dress, at which the painter is still working, and thinks it will be quite finished in about ten days. I have great fear that when the picture comes to you, it will be said the Junker need not have gone so far, he might have found the like of her at Frankfort.
"As concerns the bracelets, I have not yet got them; there is yet plenty of time, but I will send after them.
"Dearly beloved Junker, I have nothing more to write to you now, I beg of you kindly to excuse this miserable letter, which has been written in haste; another time I will give you something better.
"No more now than kind greetings to you and your dear ones, from me and my honoured mother, and we commend you to the care and protection of God Almighty. Given the 12th September.
"Your loving and always faithful
"Ursula Freherin."
II.
"Most noble, honourable, dearly beloved, and much trusted Junker, may my truth and love, together with my greetings and good wishes, be to you beyond all other love and possessions. I received your letter with pleasure, and learned from it with heartfelt joy of your well-being. It is even so with us, for which we thank the gracious God; may He continue his grace to you and all of us. Amen.
"As concerning the marriage, my honoured father and mother have deliberated thereon, and have agreed that, please God, it shall take place on the 13th of November, as the Junker will find more amply detailed in my honoured father's letter.
"Dearly beloved Junker, I understand thus much from your letter, that you would gladly come here once again before the marriage. If that were possible, it would certainly be a great joy to me, and would give hearty pleasure to all mine without exception. I will not therefore this time entreat of you, but will have all hope and confidence that it may come to pass, and that the Junker will not fail to pay a visit to me the poor forlorn one, to which I look with great longing. Dearly beloved Junker, know that the packet has not yet arrived. We have already sent after it several times, and the answer has been, it was expected every hour; as soon as it comes, your desire shall be attended to; I believe it will answer well. The wife of Dr. Reiner has already written to my honoured mother concerning it, and given it clearly to be understood that she is not to be forgotten in the bridal presents;[58] however she need not have been in anxiety about it, as she had already been thought of.
"Dearly beloved Junker, with respect to the shirts and collars, you must know that we are working zealously thereat, and as many as can be got ready shall be distributed.
"I have received the bracelets; accept, my dearly beloved Junker, my warmest thanks. They are much too pretty for my brown hands, but they please me well.
"As regards dress, undoubtedly my honoured father would like to do for one daughter the same as for the other, but as that cannot be on this occasion, he has consented to do something more. I have three taffety dresses; the flesh colour, one gold colour, and one black. We have the tailor still in the house, who is making a violet-coloured damask, and another dress in which I am to go to church, which is to be either of red satin or of black damask. Now I beg you will let me know which you would prefer.
"Dearly beloved Junker, I cannot venture to make further demands on my father; for this reason, that none of my sisters have had so much done for them, or such splendid things. But as you have so strongly admonished me, I will be so unreasonable as to ask somewhat of the Junker, first begging of you kindly not to take it amiss, as I do it at your own desire; and this is my petition, dearly beloved Junker: I wish you to send me a dress of whatever kind you like, whether flesh coloured or silver, that I may have greater change of dress.
"Dearly beloved and well-trusted Junker, I have another great request to make to you. You know that I have two sisters who love me, and whom I equally love well; I should like to give them some little thing as a present in your name, if it seems good to you. I have written this to you because you have desired me to speak out my wishes, therefore, I beg you, Junker, not to take it amiss of me. I do not write it with the idea that it must be, but that it may be done or left undone by the Junker at his pleasure.
"I send you, according to your desire, the measure of my beautiful stature; we have added nothing to it, but such as the maiden is, so is the measure. I hope that, God willing, they may soon see me tall and beautiful as I am.
"We have partaken with pleasure of the grapes you sent us, and kindly thank you for the same. If we get anything rare we will impart it to you.
"I am delighted that my picture pleases your youngest daughter so well, and that she has shown it so much honour; let her boldly kiss it; God grant that I may see her, and I will return it to her with interest.[59]
"The shoes which I must have for the pulling off,[60] I will have made as soon as possible of the best kind, as good as they can be made here, although here they are not in fashion. Dearly beloved Junker, I have one more petition to make in conclusion, namely, that you will make the best of my plain, simple, bad letter, for I intend it in all sincerity, and write from my open heart; and kindly favour me with an answer, which, at the same time, I would rather have by word of mouth, than in writing.
"No more from me but what is always pleasing and agreeable to you. Herewith I send to the Junker, together with his dearly beloved son and daughter, a hundred thousand greetings, and commend you and ourselves to God Almighty. Given the 10th October at Nuremberg.
"Yours true in heart as long as I live,
"Ursula Freherin."
III.
"Most noble, honourable, amiable, and dearly loved Junker, I send you my most kindly greeting, together with my love and truth. I received your letter with pleasure, and learned therefrom with heartfelt joy of the well-being of you and yours. As regards us, we have also to thank our dear and gracious God; may He continue his mercy to us all. Amen.
"I perceive from your letter that it is impossible for you to come to us before the marriage. This we are sorry to hear, and I am greatly disappointed. I quite thought you would come, and was heartily rejoiced thereat, and oft I ran to the window when I heard any sound of riding or driving. May our dear Lord God give us all health, and bring us together with joy.
"With respect to the wreath, I thank you kindly, dearly beloved Junker, that you have informed me about it. I am quite persuaded that we shall give occasion for much rude gossip, from not knowing the customs amongst you, as they seem quite different to what they are here. I pray you to have the wreath made as it ought to be, and to send it to us as you propose in your letter. As to the other wreath, Frau Nützelin has instructed me how it ought to be, and I have ordered one with golden spangles, which shall be properly made. I am not satisfied about the bridal presents, as you have not written to me what I am to take for my sisters, and they will not say what they would like; I am fearful of taking too much, or too little, and yet wish to do exactly what is right; I hoped that you would let me know what, and how much they should have. As concerning mine, I hope I shall act so as to deserve them.
"Dearly beloved Junker, I have yet a great request to make to you concerning the shoes, if I may venture to do it, and you will receive it without displeasure. It is, however, a shame that I should trouble you with it, but it cannot be helped. I have had shoes made, and shown them to Frau Nützelin, who says they are good for nothing, being much too large; that they ought to be quite little, or they would laugh at me outright; and she has advised me to write to the Junker, and beg he will have them made down there, because being the fashion, they can make them better than here, where they are never worn; they could not at all understand me, even when I explained it to them fully, still they did not comprehend it; however I indeed have never seen one. I send you herewith, dearly beloved Junker, two ducats, and pray you to let your maid-servant see after it, it is my desire that you should not be troubled with it. They need not be very costly, there should be only the arms, or perhaps the name upon them, and they should not be large or long.
"My honoured mother begs that you will not take it amiss if she does not answer your letter now; she has so much to do, she has no leisure, but another time she will send you an answer.
"Dearly beloved Junker, I have nothing further to write except that yesterday I was at the wedding, I felt much because you were not here, and also not coming, and Nützel brought me home in your place.
"I have nothing further to say, and no leisure, as I must go to the wedding party. There remains only to send you and yours a hundred thousand kindly greetings from my honoured mother, my brothers and sisters, and to commend you to the care and protection of God Almighty.
"In great haste.
"Your true and loving brunette, and as long as I live,
"Yours in heart
"Ursula Freherin."
IV.
"Most noble, honourable, amiable, and dearly beloved Junker, may my kindly greeting and good wishes attend you.
"I have received your letter, and learned with heartfelt joy, of the well-being of you and yours; as regards us, we are, thanks and praise be to God, still well. May God Almighty so keep us all for ever, according to his will and pleasure. Amen.
"Concerning your letter, wherein you write that you wish to try my love and obedience, I did not long deliberate, because the time is now short, and I have taken a good deal out of the purse for myself and sisters, yet not with the intention that it should always go on so; and thus, dearly beloved Junker, your commands and my obedience are fully carried out, and I and my sisters do greatly and kindly thank you, and we hope, God willing, to thank you soon by word of mouth. I have also seen, after what you wrote, that the horses should be ready.
"I hope that I shall have executed your orders so that you may be brought safely through your dangerous journey, for it would assuredly be very painful to me, if on my account you were to be exposed to great danger.
"Dearly beloved Junker, we have heard with pleasure that you will come to us at the last inn, for in truth it will be necessary to instruct us as to all the arrangements.[61] May God Almighty give you health and happiness, and bring us together in joy. The last inn for sleeping will be Stockstadt; my honoured father will also write to you his instructions, and by them you will be guided.
"No more at present, than that you, dearly beloved Junker, your son and daughter, are heartily greeted by me and mine, and commended to the care and protection of God Almighty.
"In great haste.
"Your true and loving brunette, as long as I live
"Yours in heart
"Ursula Freherin."
In the beginning of the sixteenth century we find the names of the German nobles, Fronsperg, Hutten, and Sickingen, conspicuous in the three different ways in which the nobles then employed themselves,--the Army, the Church, and State, and the representation and maintenance of the rights and interests of the landed proprietors. But it appears strange that even up to the middle of the seventeenth century, men like these should have had so few of their own class following in their footsteps. From the time of Fronsperg to that of the Bohemian Junker Albrecht of Waldstein, and the wild cavalry leader Pappenheim, the whole of Germany produced no General of more than average skill from among the nobility. There were a few Landsknechte leaders of citizen extraction like Schärtlin, and some German princes, all however with more pretension than capacity, and it was principally to Spaniards and Italians that the family of the Emperor Charles V. and their opponents owed their most important victories. As to the intellectual life of Germany, there was still less of that amongst the nobility after the time of Hutten. How few noble names do we find in the long list of reformers, scholars, poets, architects, and artists! The first occur in the seventeenth century, when we find those of the members of the Palmenordens, the author of the 'Simplicissimus,' and of some noble rhymers belonging to the Silesian school of poetry or to the Saxon court. One may well ask how it happened that an order so numerous, holding such an advantageous position with respect to the people, should have accomplished so little in this great field of action, which up to the time of the Hohenstaufen was especially in the possession of the nobility. And even with the most favourably disposed judgment, it would be difficult to ascribe to the landed nobility of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, any beneficial influences on any one of the great currents of life in Germany.
In fact the lower nobility--considered as an order--had been, since the time of the Hohenstaufen, a misfortune to Germany. It was after the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the difference betwixt the noblemen and freeholders had been established by the laws, by the interests and inclinations of the Emperor, and by the limited ideal, which was formed by the aristocratic body, that the nobility gradually decayed. In the cities, undoubtedly, the old dominion of the privileged freeman was broken in the last period of the middle ages; there, in spite of all hindrances, a quicker circulation of popular strength had established itself. The labourer could become a citizen, the experienced citizen could rise to be the ruler of his city, or of a confederation of cities, and be the leader of great interests. But the landed nobleman after the beginning of the thirteenth century sank gradually into a state of isolation; labour was a disgrace to him, his acres were cultivated by dependent vassals, and he naturally endeavoured as much as possible to separate himself from them. Ever heavier became the oppression by which he kept them down; ever higher rose the pretensions which he, as lord of the land and soil, raised against his own people.
But the oppression of the agriculturist was not the worst consequence of the privileged position of the noble. If he found it to his advantage to treat his beast of burden, the peasant, with moderation, he was so much the more eager to make use of his landed rights in other directions. The highroads, the river that ran by his castle, afforded him the opportunity of laying hold of the goods of strangers; he levied imposts upon goods and travellers; he obtruded his protecting escort upon them, and robbed such as considered this escort unnecessary; he built a bridge where there was no river, in order to raise a toll; he designedly kept the roads in bad condition, because he chose to consider that the goods of travelling merchants, though under the Emperor's protection, so long as they were in waggons or in vessels afloat; if the waggons were upset or vessels ran aground, belonged, according to manorial right, to the possessor of the land. Finally he became himself a robber, and with his comrades seized whatever he could lay hands on; he took the goods to his house, plundered the travellers, and kept them prisoners till they could free themselves by ransom. Nevertheless there were certain regulated observances accompanying these robberies, according to which the conscientious Junker distinguished between honourable and dishonourable plunder. But this moral code had very little to justify it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were very few noblemen's houses which did not deserve the name of robber-holds, and still fewer out of which plundering attacks were not made.
But this life was most of all detrimental to the nobles themselves; their love of plunder, and their pugnacity, made them turn as much against their fellow-nobles as against the cities, and through the whole of the middle ages led to innumerable feuds. When the feud was notified by letter, some days previous to the beginning of hostilities, it was considered honourable. Any trifle was sufficient to occasion a feud: never-ending boundary disputes, encroachments on the chase, or the flogging of a servant, caused discord, even between old comrades and friendly neighbours. Then both parties strengthened themselves by the assistance of relations and dependents; they enlisted troopers, and endeavoured to learn through the medium of spies how they could gain an advantage over the property, house, or person of their adversary. The opulence of the cities, and the rancour entertained by the nobles against the rising independence of the citizens, gave an agreeable excitement to their feuds with the latter. Whoever was unable to establish a profitable feud of his own, united himself as an assistant to another, and thus old comrades were often by the chapter of accidents opposed, and then, in the full consciousness of doing their duty, would beat and even stab each other.
This marauding life on the highways, in the woods and caverns, and with drunken companions, was neither favourable to their family life nor to their higher interests, nor was it even fitted to develop warlike capacity except among the subordinates. At the best, it only formed leaders of small bodies of mounted troopers for foraging expeditions and surprises. Sickingen himself, the most skilful specimen of a Junker of the sixteenth century, showed in his great and decisive feud, only very moderate talents as a general; and the capacities of Götz, in a military point of view, do not stand higher than those of an experienced serjeant of hussars. Thus wild, vicious, and detrimental to the community, was the conduct of even the quietest of the lower nobility. Their being a privileged order whose members considered themselves superior to citizen of peasant, who kept themselves apart from others, in marriage, business, law, manners, and ceremonials, made them for centuries weak, and their existence a misfortune to the people; but at the same time it saved them from the ruin consequent upon their disorderly life. On retrospect of the act itself, there is little difference to be seen between the robber who now waylays the wanderer on the lonely heath, and the country nobleman who about the year 1500 dragged the Nuremberger merchant from his horse and kept him in a dark prison upon bread and water, whilst the noble's wife made coats and mantles out of the stolen cloth. But three hundred and fifty years ago, the noble robber practised his evil deeds with the feeling, that though his actions were perhaps contrary to the decrees of an Imperial Diet, yet they were looked upon by the whole nobility of his province, indeed by the highest sovereigns of the country, as pleasant or at the worst as daring tricks. Certainly if he was caught by the city whose citizens he had injured, he might possibly lose his life, as does now a murderer on the high-road, but the law of the city was not his law, and if he died, his death would probably be revenged by other active comrades. However unreasonable were the laws of honour according to which he lived, he felt that these same laws were honoured by thousands whom he esteemed as the best upon earth. Thus it was possible, that amidst the greatest immorality and perversity, many manly virtues might be exhibited by individuals; fidelity to their word, devotion to their friends, and kind-hearted friendliness even to those whom they had robbed and imprisoned.
It was at this period, under the new Emperor Maximilian, that the memorable attempt was begun, to give a new constitution to the shattered body of the Empire, and with it the possibility of a new life. More than a century elapsed and three generations passed away before the lesser nobility could accustom themselves to the restraint of the new laws; but the princes and cities, however much they might quarrel together, had the greatest interest in enforcing obedience to these laws. It is however worthy of note, that while losing a portion of their wild straightforward resoluteness, they adopted the faults more especially belonging to the new epoch. How the change gradually took place, we will demonstrate here by a few examples.
A happy accident has preserved to us three autobiographies of well-known German nobles of different periods of the 16th century, those of Berlichingen, of Schärtlin, and of Schweinichen; one of them, so long as the German language lasts, will be intimately associated with the name of the greatest German poet. These three men, who flourished in the beginning, the middle, and the end of this celebrated century, were widely different in character and destiny, but all three were landed proprietors, and each of them has recorded the events of his life, so as to give an instructive insight into the social condition of his circle. The best known is Götz von Berlichingen; his memoirs were first published in 1731. The halo, with which three hundred years after his death, Goethe's charming poem has invested him, will make it difficult for the reader of his biography to separate the ideal delineation of the poet from the figure of the historical Götz. And yet this is necessary. For however modestly and lovingly Goethe has portrayed his character, he appears quite different in history. When as an old man, in a time to which he was a stranger, he wrote his life, he loved to dwell on the knightly exploits of his wild youth. It was not his line to enter into political questions; if he found himself in a crisis he acted according to the advice of his patrons,--the great sovereigns, who employed his strong arm and steadfast will for their own objects. When the peasant army broke into his territories, he and his kinsmen were utterly at a loss what to do, and wrote for advice. The answer was suppressed by his mother-in-law and wife, and he was left to his own judgment, and had not sufficient adroitness to withdraw himself from the thronging insurgents. Had he been like many of his cotemporaries, such as Max Stumpf, he would have abandoned the peasants in spite of all his vows. But although not really faithful to them, true to the letter of his word, he adhered to them till the four weeks were passed, for which he had bound himself though he was not in fact their leader but their prisoner. After that he lived some years in close imprisonment, then for a long time in strict confinement at his castle. He was surrounded by a new generation, engaged in vehement strife, and he himself was grieving the while that he had acted in the peasant struggle as an honourable knight, and that still true to his word, he had even now to count the steps which he was allowed to take beyond the gates of his castle. After sixteen years of solitary seclusion he was in his old age twice called to take part in the warfare of a younger race, which neither brought him adventures nor any opportunity to acquire fame or booty. When at last he died in peace at his Castle of Hornburg, at the age of eighty-two, Luther had been dead sixteen years, and the Emperor Charles V. had been interred in a cloister four years before; but the long period from the year 1525 occupies few pages in his autobiography, although it was written in the last year of his life. There will be given here fragments from his account of the Nuremberg feud.