  “In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands.”—Longfellow. YEAR by year, many a traveller on his way to Bayreuth, many a seeker after health at German baths, many an artist and lover of the old world, finds his way to Nuremberg. It is impossible to suppose that such any one is ever disappointed. For in spite of all changes, and in spite of the disfigurements of modern industry, Nuremberg is and will remain a mediÆval city, a city of history and legend, a city of the soul. She is like Venice in this, as in not a little of her history, that she exercises an indefinable fascination over our hearts no less than over our intellects. The subtle flavour of mediÆval towns may be likened to that of those rare old ports which are said to taste of the grave; a flavour indefinable, exquisite. Rothenburg has it: and it is with Rothenburg, that little gem of mediÆvalism, that Nuremberg is likely to be compared in the mind of the modern wanderer in Franconia. But though Rothenburg may surpass her greater neighbour in the perfect harmony and in the picturesqueness of her red-tiled houses and well-preserved fortifications, in interest at The facts as to the origin of Nuremberg are lost in the dim shadows of tradition. When the little town sprang up amid the forests and swamps which still marked the course of the Pegnitz, we know as little as we know the origin of the name NÜrnberg. It is true that the Chronicles of later days are only too ready to furnish us with information; but the information is not always reliable. The Chronicles, like our own peerage, are apt to contain too vivid efforts of imaginative fiction. The Chroniclers, unharassed by facts or documents, with minds “not by geography prejudiced, or warped The origin of the very name of Nuremberg is hidden in clouds of obscurity. In the earliest documents we find it spelt with the usual variations of early manuscripts—Nourenberg, Nuorimperc, Niurenberg, Nuremberc, etc. The origin of the place, we repeat, is equally obscure. Many attempts have been made to find history in the light of the derivations of the name. But when philology turns historian it is apt to play strange tricks. Nur ein Berg (only a castle), or Nero’s Castle, or Norix Tower—what matter which is the right derivation, so long as we can base a possible theory on it? The Norixberg theory will serve to illustrate the incredible quantity of misplaced ingenuity which both of old times and in the present has been wasted in trying to explain the inexplicable. The Heidenthurm—the Heathen Tower of the Castle—is so called from some carvings on the exterior which were once regarded as idols. Wolckan maintains that it was an ancient temple of Diana. For those carvings, he says, represent the figures of dogs and of two male figures with clubs, who must be Hercules and his son
Other ingenious historians, not content with imaginary details of heathen temples and sanctuaries, hint darkly “The Imperial fortress of Nuremberg began to be built fourteen years before the birth of Christ, the 9th of April, on a Tuesday, at 8 o’clock in the morning; but the town only twenty-six years after Christ, on the 3rd of April, on a Tuesday, at 8.57 A.M.” Thus spake the Astrologer Andreas Goldmeyer, in his “Earthly Jerusalem.” And yet, as Sir Philip Sidney sings, some “dusty wits can scorn Astrology!” Be that as it may, the history of our town begins in the year 1050. It is most probable that the silence regarding the place—it is not mentioned among the places visited by Conrad II. in this neighbourhood—points to the fact that the castle did not exist in 1025, but was built between that year and 1050. That it existed then we know, for Henry III. dated a document from here in 1050, summoning a council of Bavarian nobles “in fundo suo Nourinberc.” Of the growth of the place we shall speak more in detail in the chapter on the Castle and the Walls. Here it will suffice to note that the oldest portion, called in the fifteenth century AltnÜrnberg, consisted of the FÜnfeckiger Thurm—the Five-cornered tower—the rooms attached and the Otmarkapelle. The latter was burnt
down in 1420, rebuilt in 1428, and called the Walpurgiskapelle. These constituted the BurggrÄfliche Burg—the Burggraf’s Castle. The rest of the castle was built on by Friedrich der Rotbart (Barbarossa), and called the Kaiserliche Burg. The old Five-cornered tower and the surrounding ground was the private property of the Burggraf, and he was appointed by the Emperor as imperial officer of the Kaiserliche Burg. Whether the Emperors claimed any rights of personal property over Nuremberg or merely treated it, at first, as imperial property, it is difficult to determine. Various causes combined to promote the growth of the place. The temporary removal of the Mart from FÜrth to Nuremberg under Henry III. doubtless gave a great impetus to the development of the latter town. Henry IV., indeed, gave back the rights of Mart, customs and coinage to FÜrth. But it seems probable that these rights were not taken away again from Nuremberg. The possession of a Mart was, of course, of great importance to a town in those days, promoting industries and arts and settled occupations. The Nurembergers were ready to suck out the fullest advantage from their privilege. That mixture of races, to which we have referred, resulted in remarkable business energy—energy which soon found scope in the conduct of the business which the natural position of Nothing in the middle ages was more conducive to the prosperity of a town than the reputation of having a holy man within its borders, or the possession of the miracle-working relics of a saint. Just as St. Elizabeth made Marburg so St. Sebaldus proved a very potent attraction to Nuremberg. We shall give some account of this saint when we visit the church that was dedicated to him. Here we need only remark that as early as 1070 and 1080 we hear of pilgrimages to Nuremberg in honour of her patron saint. Another factor in the growth of the place was the frequent visits which the Emperors began to pay to it. Lying as it did on their way from Bamberg and Forcheim to Regensburg the Kaisers readily availed themselves of the security offered by this impregnable fortress, and of the sport provided in the adjacent forest. For there was good hunting to be had in the forest which, seventy-two miles in extent, surrounded Nuremberg. And hunting, next to war, was then in most parts of Europe the most serious occupation of life. All the forest rights, we may mention, of woodcutting, hunting, charcoal burning and bee-farming belonged originally to the Empire. But these were gradually acquired by the Nuremberg Council (Rat), chiefly by purchase in the fifteenth century. In the castle the visitor may notice a list of all the Emperors—some thirty odd, all told—who have stayed there—a list that should now include the reigning Emperor. We find that Henry IV. frequently honoured Nuremberg with his presence. This is that
Henry IV. whose scene at Canossa with the Pope—Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire waiting three days in the snow to kiss the foot of excommunicative Gregory—has impressed itself on all memories. His last visit to Nuremberg was a sad one. His son rebelled against him, and the old king stopped at Nuremberg to collect his forces. In the war between father and son Nuremberg was loyal, and took the part of Henry IV. It was no nominal part, for in 1105 she had to stand a siege from the young Henry. For two months the town was held by the burghers and the castle by the PrÆfect Conrad. At the end of that time orders came from the old Kaiser that the town was to surrender. He had given up the struggle, and his undutiful son succeeded as Henry V. to the Holy Roman Empire, and Nuremberg with it. The mention of this siege gives us an indication of the growth of the town. The fact of the siege and the words of the chronicler, “The townsmen (oppidani) gave up the town under treaty,” seem to point to the conclusion that Nuremberg was now no longer a mere fort (castrum), but that walls had sprung up round the busy mart and the shrine of St. Sebald, and that by this time Nuremberg had risen to the dignity of a “Stadt” or city state. Presently, indeed, we find her rejoicing in the title of “Civitas.” The place, it is clear, was already of considerable military importance or it would not have been worth while to invest it. The growing volume of trade is further illustrated by a charter of Henry V. (1112) giving to the citizens of Worms Zollfreiheit in various places subject to him, amongst which Frankfort, Goslar and Nuremberg are named as royal towns (oppida regis). We may note at this point, however, that the Chroniclers declare that the town fell into the hands of the enemy, through the treachery of the Jewish inhabitants and was plundered and burnt. By this destruction they account for the absence of all earlier records, and are left at liberty to evolve their theories as to the history of previous days. They add that when the town was rebuilt (1120) the Jews chose all the best sites for their houses, and retained them till they were driven out. The first statement was an easy invention. The second, very probably true in effect, points to the reason—commercial jealousy—but does not afford an excuse for the shortsighted and unchristian persecution of the Jews which disfigures the record of the acts of Nuremberg. With the death of Henry V., which occurred in 1125, the Frankish or Salic Imperial line ended. For the Empire, though elective, had always a tendency to become hereditary and go in lines. If the last Kaiser left a son not unfit, who so likely as the son to be elected? But now a member of another family had to be chosen. The German princes elected Count Lothar von Supplinburg, Duke of Saxony. This departure was not without influence on the fortunes of Nuremberg. The question arose whether Nuremberg had belonged to the late Imperial house as private or imperial property. Did it now belong to the heirs of that house or to the newly-elected Emperor? In fact, part of the possessions, which had passed from the Salian Franks to the heirs, Conrad and Frederick, Dukes of Swabia, of the house of Hohenstaufen, was now demanded back by Lothar as being imperial property. Nuremberg was numbered among these possessions and became the head-quarters of the war which followed between the Kaiser and the two brothers. In 1127 the town had to stand another It was to the above-mentioned Kaiser Conrad that the chronicles attribute the foundation of the monastery of St. Ægidius, on the site of the chapel, St. Martin’s, which Charlemagne was reputed to have built. To Conrad also, with less show of likelihood, they ascribe the widening of the city. Widened the city has been more than once, as we can tell by the remains of walls and towers. It seems to have been the policy of the Hohenstaufen Kaisers to favour Nuremberg. They often held their court here. The greatest of them—the greatest and wisest of the Kaisers since Charlemagne—Frederick I. Barbarossa, to wit, lived in the castle in 1166. It was he, in all probability, who built the Kaiserliche Burg, and erected, over the Margaretenkapelle, the Kaiserkapelle, a grander and more splendid chapel of marble, which was certainly completed in the twelfth century. Of the remarkable Double Chapel thus constructed we shall have more to say later on. Meanwhile we must content ourselves with calling attention to the very similar Double Chapel at Eger in Bohemia. It was through Barbarossa that Nuremberg became “It was in those same years,” says Carlyle, “As to the Office, it was more important than perhaps the reader imagines. In a Diet of the Empire (1170) we find “This is a place to give a man chances, and try what stuff is in him. The office involves a talent for governing, as well as for judging: talent for fighting also, in cases of extremity, and, what is still better, a talent for avoiding to fight. None but a man of competent superior parts can do that function; I suppose no imbecile could have existed many months in it, in the old earnest times. Conrad and his succeeding Hohenzollerns proved very capable to do it, as would seem; and grew and spread in it, waxing bigger and bigger, from their first planting there by Kaiser Barbarossa, a successful judge of men.” Nuremberg continued to receive marks of Imperial favour. The importance to which she had now grown is illustrated by the fact that Frederick II., son of Barbarossa, held a very brilliant Reichstag here in 1219, and on this occasion gave to the town her first great Charter. The first provision of this Charter, by which the town is declared free of allegiance to anyone but the Emperor, is of special interest, seeing that it raises the question whether Nuremberg was really the private property of the Imperial family, or only owed allegiance to the Emperor as such. Probably Frederick did not intend to alienate Nuremberg from himself and A few years later Frederick, in order to carry out his plans with regard to Italian lands, appointed his ten-year-old son as King of Rome and as his successor to the German Empire. Then leaving the young King in Germany under the guardianship of Bishop Engelbert of Cologne, he went to Italy, and was crowned Emperor by the Pope. Young Henry held his court in Nuremberg in 1225. In the castle, in November, a double festival was celebrated—the marriage of the young King with Margaret, daughter of Duke Leopold of Austria, and of the brother of the bride, Duke Henry of Austria, with Agnes, a daughter of the Landgraf Hermann von ThÜringen. At this double wedding, as some chroniclers aver, or at the wedding of Rudolph von Hapsburg (1284), as is more probable, a terrible catastrophe occurred. For just as the numerous assembly of nobles and ladies had begun to dance in the hall, the platform erected for spectators fell in, and about seventy nobles, knights, and girls were crushed to death. It was certainly in the middle of this festival that the horrible news arrived that the Archbishop of Cologne, the young King’s adviser, had been murdered, from motives of revenge, by his nephew, Duke of Isenburg. “Such deeds were then very frequent,” says the Abbot Conrad von Lichtenau, “because the doers thereof hoped to obtain pardon by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” Three days after his marriage the young King had to sit in judgment on the culprit at the Kaiserburg. This was but one example of the lawlessness of the times. Violence was not often so swiftly punished. Germany had fallen on evil days, and worse were in store for her. The absenteeism of her Emperors was producing its inevitable result. One after another, the Emperors “had squandered their talents and wasted the best strength of their country in pursuit of a fancy, and never learned by the experience of their predecessors to desist from the dangerous pursuit. Instead of turning their attention to the development of their country, to the curtailment of the powers of the nobility, to the establishment of their thrones on enduring foundations, they were bewitched with the dream of a Roman-imperial world-monarchy, which was impossible to be realised when every nation was asserting more and more its characteristic peculiarities and arriving at consciousness of national and independent life. The Emperors were always divided between distinct callings, as Kings of Germany and Emperors of Rome. The Italians hated them; the popes undermined their powers, and involved them in countless difficulties at home and in Italy, so that they could not establish their authority as emperors, and neglected to make good, or were impeded in attempting to make good, their position as kings in Germany. The bat in the fable was So it came to pass that when the line of Hohenstaufen went miserably out on the death of the ill-fated Conradin (1268), Germany was already involved in times of huge anarchy; “was rocking down,” as Carlyle puts it, “towards one saw not what—an anarchic Republic of Princes, perhaps, and of free barons fast verging towards robbery? Sovereignty of multiplex princes, with a peerage of intermediate robber barons? Things are verging that way. Such princes, big and little, each wrenching off for himself what lay loosest and handiest to him, found it a stirring game, and not so much amiss.” Towns like Nuremberg, on the other hand, found it very much amiss. Fortunately many of them were rich and strong, and took the task of preserving peace and order to some extent into their own hands. During the period of the Interregnum, as it was called (1254-1273), “die herrenlose, die schreckliche Zeit” of disturbance and lawlessness, when the electors—the bishops and princes of the land—could only agree in giving the crown to foreigners who would leave them alone and unhindered in their efforts to enlarge their powers and territories by fair or foul means, some curious transactions took place with regard to Nuremberg. There exists a document by which, in 1266, Conradin pledged to his uncle, Duke Ludwig of Bavaria, a number of possessions to raise money in order to pay back the loan which his former guardian had advanced to him, and which was used to acquire the town and castle of Nuremberg. The transaction is obscure. Possibly after the death of Conradin’s father, Conrad IV., Nuremberg was This much is known for certain from a contemporary document, that when, in 1269, Duke Ludwig and his brother Henry, as heirs of Conradin, divided the Hohenstaufen inheritance between them, they took equal rights over Nuremberg. That may have been, however, merely a paper phrase. Imperial and private rights were apt to get confused in the minds of the Hohenstaufen. Nuremberg, at any rate, continues always to act as if she were a free town of the Empire. She was acutely conscious of the dignity of her charter. The great object for which the European towns, and Nuremberg among them, were all this time struggling was a charter of incorporation and a qualified privilege of internal self-government. Emperors and princes might try to get hold of a rich city like Nuremberg, and treat it as their private property, but, once she had won her charter, she was determined to remain a Reichstadt, and to enjoy all the privileges and liberties of a free city. One interesting and important result this period of lawlessness had. The towns began to band themselves together in leagues—Der Rheinische StÄdtebund, 1254, was the first of these—for the purpose of defence against the plunder and rapine of the robber-knights, who had formerly been held in check to some degree by the sword and authority of the Emperors, but who now swooped down from their fortresses as they pleased on the merchants travelling from town to town, and robbed them or levied on them heavy tolls. Nuremberg joined this league: and it is in a document (1256) welcoming the entrance of Regensburg At last the Interregnum came to an end. It was mainly through Burggraf Frederick III. of Nuremberg that Rudolph von Hapsburg succeeded to the Empire. For this and other service the Burggraviate was made hereditary in his family. Under Rudolph the strong and just, who, after the demoralising period of anarchy, worked wonders in the way of tightening, whether A merchant complained that he had given his host a purse of 200 silver marks to keep, but the host denied having received them. The Emperor thereupon summoned the landlord and several citizens. They all came, naturally enough, in their best clothes. The landlord, in particular, wore a costly cap, which, as he stood before the Emperor, he twisted nervously in his hand. Rudolph took it from him and, putting it on, exclaimed that it would become even an Emperor. Then he went into the next room—apparently forgetting all about the cap. The landlord meanwhile was detained. The Emperor sent the cap to the landlord’s wife, with a request in her husband’s name that she should give the bearer that sack of money she knew about. The ruse succeeded, and whilst the landlord was emphatically asserting his innocence to the Emperor, the sack of money was produced to confound him. The wretch had to atone for his crime by the payment of a heavy fine. One other record of Kaiser Rudolph’s presence at Nuremberg we have. It is illustrative of the violence of those times. In 1289 a grand tournament was held in honour of the King. In the course of it Krafft von Hohenlohe had the misfortune to run his spear through the neck of Duke Ludwig von Baiern, and the latter died of the wound. In consequence of this mischance such strife arose between the followers of the Duke and those of the Kaiser that the Council had to take measures for the defence of the town. They barred the streets with chains and garrisoned the Rathaus as well as the towers and walls. Luckily the quarrel was smoothed over and no further disturbance took place. A few years later Graf Adolph von Nassau succeeded The new King Albert held his court at Nuremberg in 1298. His arrival brought many days of splendour and festivity to the town. For the King had his wife Elizabeth crowned by the Archbishop Wigbold of Cologne in St. Sebalduskirche. Six thousand guests assembled on this occasion. There was no accommodation in the houses for so vast a gathering of strangers, many of whom, in spite of the wintry weather, had to camp out under canvas in the streets. It was about this time that one of the fearful periodical persecutions of the Jews—persecutions as unchristian as uneconomical—broke out over all Franconia. It was said that in Rothenburg the Jews had pounded the Host in a mortar and that blood had flowed from it. On the strength of this fabulous sacrilege a fanatic, called Rindfleisch, led a “crusade” against the unfortunate people. In WÜrtzburg the Jews were burnt and massacred in crowds and utterly extirpated. Many from the surrounding country sought refuge in Nuremberg, where they were hospitably received by their fellow-believers and were at first protected by the Rat. Rindfleisch and his bands of murderous fanatics were then at a safe distance. But, as these drew near, the hatred of the Jews, which had long smouldered among the people, broke out into flame. The Jewish quarter was then in the centre of the town, a very advantageous position. Their houses reached from the market where their synagogue stood, on the site of the present Frauenkirche, to the Zotenberg, the present DÖtschmannsplatz. Rich as a community, though they counted, then as ever, both the greatest and the least among their number, they were envied for their possessions and hated as people of a foreign faith. Nuremberg, In 1308 Albert was murdered by his nephew, John of Swabia—Parracida. The story of this murder is introduced, it will be remembered, at the end of Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. After seven months’ interval, Henry VII., Count of Luxembourg, was elected king. He, in the following year, held his court in Nuremberg, before departing to be crowned Emperor at Rome, in the midst of battle and strife with the Guelphs. Dating from Pisa, 1313, Henry granted Nuremberg a very important charter. Here are some of its provisions:— (1) The Imperial magistrate at Nuremberg shall protect the imperial or principal roads and have the right of way. (2) Once a year the Magistrate shall pledge himself before the Council to exercise impartial justice towards rich and poor, to judge and to arrange all matters with the counsel of the SchÖpfen (Bench of judges). (3) The Burgomeister and judges are given complete control over the markets, trade, and means of preserving order. (4) The Burg is not to be separated from the town. Generally, one may say, this Charter confirms and extends the self-governing privileges of the town. The magistrate is still an imperial officer, but his position is in acknowledged dependence on the Council, into whose hands the regulation of trade and the preservation of order are entrusted. Moreover, in another provision, the citizens are clearly protected against trial by outside authorities, and against arbitrary imprisonment. Scarcely had he marked his appreciation of Nuremberg “To us this is the interesting point: At one turn of the battle, tenth hour of it now ending, and the tug of war still desperate, there arose a cry of joy over all the Austrian ranks: ‘Help coming! Help!’—and Friedrich noticed a body of horse in Austrian cognisance (such the cunning of a certain man), coming in upon his rear. Austrians and Friedrich never doubted but it was brother Leopold just getting on the ground; and rushed forward doubly fierce; and were doubly astonished when it plunged in upon them, sharp-edged, as Burggraf Friedrich of NÜrnberg,—and quite ruined Austrian Friedrich! Austrian Friedrich fought personally like a lion at bay; but it availed nothing. Rindsmaul (not lovely of lip, Cowmouth so-called) disarmed him: ‘I will not surrender except to a Prince!’—so Burggraf Friedrich was got to take surrender of him; and the fight, and whole controversy with it was completely won.”—Carlyle. It was after this battle that the Kaiser, when eggs were found to be the only available provision in a country eaten to the bone, distributed them with the legendary phrase that still lives on the lips of every German child— “Jedem Mann ein Ey Dem frommen Schweppermann zwey.” “To every man one egg and to the excellent Schweppermann two.” Schweppermann was one of his generals, The story of how Ludwig shared his kingdom with his noble prisoner and united with him in such cordial affection that they ate at the same table and slept in the same bed, forms one of the best known and most romantic episodes in German history. Nuremberg, who had helped Ludwig with money and men, reaped her full reward. Ludwig showed great affection for her, staying continually within her walls (1320-1347), residing usually not in the castle, but with some distinguished citizen. Hence, and because the city stood by him throughout his quarrel with the Pope, he gave her many charters, confirming and increasing the rights and privileges of the burghers. He gave her permission, for instance, to hold a fair fourteen days after Easter for a month, and to issue her own decrees regarding it. From this arose the practice of the Easter Fair which still takes place. He granted her, also, freedom of customs in Munich, thus helping her trade. She already enjoyed a mutual Zollfreiheit with Berne and Heilbronn. All this amounts to evidence of the steadily increasing trade of Nuremberg. Already, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, her trade with Italy was considerable, in spite of the robber-knights and imperial requisitions. No paper privileges were, indeed, of much value, however often renewed, unless supported by power to resist the robber-knights who, from their castles, descended on the rich caravans of the peaceful merchants. That trade flourished now as it did, shows that the knights did not have matters all their own way. If the Emperors did little to preserve order in the empire, the towns were now fortunately strong enough and independent enough to protect themselves. When the knights proved too troublesome, the
citizens attacked their fortresses and burned them, and hanged the robbers from their own towers. There is, for instance, a document extant (1325) in which Ludwig grants immunity to the citizens of Nuremberg for having destroyed the castle “Zu dem Turm,” which belonged to one Conrad Schenk von Reicheneck, a robber-knight, and promises the castle shall never be rebuilt. Nor did the towns despise the advantages of combination. In 1340 we find Nuremberg entering into a league, for mutual protection and the maintenance of peace, with the Dukes of Bavaria, with WÜrzburg, Rothenburg, etc., and a number of spiritual and temporal lords. But if Nuremberg waxed in power and independence under the favour of Ludwig, the Burggraf also had claims on the King. To him therefore was given the office of Chief-Magistrate (Schuldheiss) and certain revenues from the town. This was not at all to the taste of the burghers. They grew restive under the Burggraf’s abuse of justice, and finally managed to buy back the office from him through the agency of their rich citizen Conrad Gross, with whom the King often stayed. Conrad Gross was an early specimen of that fine type of merchant princes who contributed so much in later days to the glory of Nuremberg. Barter—trade in kind—was now giving place to trade done with money drawn from the German mines. The merchant prince began to raise his head. Whereas the trader had hitherto been despised as a shopkeeper by the free-knights, the merchant, who could indulge in luxury of dress and household furniture, now began to look down on the knights as impecunious robbers. The time was at hand when the Italian Æneas Sylvius could write:— “When one comes from Lower Franconia and perceives this glorious city, its splendour seems truly magnificent. When It was Conrad Gross who, “longing to change his worldly goods for heavenly ones,” founded, in 1333, the “New Hospital of the Holy Ghost.” Within the church is the tomb of the founder. Additions were made to the hospital and church at the end of the fifteenth century. What is called the south building was erected on two arches over the water. In the courtyard of the hospital is a little chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, founded by George Ketzel in 1459. The church itself was restored in the seventeenth century, from which period dates the stucco work of the chancel. These things the visitor will see and appraise for himself. Meantime the following beautiful legend concerning the founder is worth recording:— A man of the family of Heinzen, afterwards called “Great” (Gross), fell asleep one day in his garden beneath the shade of a lime tree. He dreamed that he found a large treasure there, but had no spade with which to dig for it. To mark the place, therefore, he took a handful of leaves and laid them on the spot where the treasure was buried. When he awoke and walked round the garden, he came to a spot where it seemed that someone had purposely scattered lime leaves on the ground. Then he remembered his dream, and, since he thought the dream had not come to him without some reason, he called his men to help him, and vowed that if he found anything he would help the poor and sick with it. And indeed he found so great a treasure of silver and gold that he became very rich, and founded therewith the Hospital of the Holy Ghost. Ludwig had been a good friend to Nuremberg, and This story may have sprung from the unchastened imagination of the chroniclers, but we know as an historical fact that on June 4, 1348, the rebels opened the gates to soldiers of Ludwig, Markgraf of Brandenburg, eldest son of the late Emperor. He was excommunicated (for Karl was the Papal nominee) as his father had been. The city when it received him shared in his excommunication. The clergy tried to escape from the tainted city, but the people, having shut the gates, compelled them to read mass. A copy of a certificate from the Bishop of Clure to the clergy, testifying that they had only held mass under compulsion, is still extant. The rebels, then, were for the moment successful: the old Council was abolished and a new one chosen, It was therefore a good thing for Nuremberg when, in 1349, the opposition of the Wittelsbach party broke down, and terms were made which left Karl master of the situation. Nuremberg passed into his hands, and he proceeded to restore the status quo ante there. A new Council |
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