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.
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.