KARL IV. proceeded to confirm the privileges of the town for a cash consideration. That was the way of mediÆval monarchs. We have seen that the finances of Nuremberg were not at this moment in a very flourishing condition. There is little doubt that the heavy payment she was called upon to make to the King was one of the chief causes which led to the great persecution of the Jews which soon broke out.

The Jews are first mentioned in Nuremberg in 1288. They were then personally free. They could hold land and live after their own laws. Medicine was their chief profession; for money-lending—at first without interest—was originally the business of the monasteries. It was one of the most unfortunate results of the Crusades that they stirred up feeling against the Jews. Persecutions began, and a change took place in the personal position of the Jews. They had now to wear a special dress and to cut their beards, whilst the Christians luxuriated in beards as long as they could possibly grow them. When the Christians were no longer allowed to take interest for money lent, the Jews stepped in, being under their own laws, as money-lenders. In many places they were forbidden to follow any other profession than that of usury. By a charter of the Hohenstaufen another important change was wrought in their condition. They were made directly subject to the King and Empire (KÖnigliche Kammerknechte). For this protection they had to pay a tax direct to the Imperial treasury. Their riches grew in spite of all sorts of commercial disabilities, and with them grew the value of this tax. One good result of this was that it interested the King in their favour. He did not care to see his golden geese slain, and their property confiscated by the towns. In Nuremberg it was possible for the Jews to become citizens on the payment of a certain sum of money. In 1338, it appears from an old Burgher list, there were 212 Jewish citizens. Ten years later, when the Black Death was devastating Europe, it was said that the Jews had poisoned the wells and purposely propagated the plague in order to annihilate the Christians. They were accused of all sorts of sacrilege and unnatural crimes. A frightful persecution broke out. All along the Rhine thousands of them were burnt at the stake.

The Austrian poet Helbing echoed the public sentiment, during a later persecution, when he exclaimed, “There are too many Jews in our country. It is a shame and a sin to tolerate them. If I were King, if I could lay my hand on you, Jews, I tell you in truth I would have you all burnt.” And this is the opinion of the humanist, Conrad Celtes, in his praise of Nuremberg:—

At Nuremberg there were other reasons for the outbreak. In old days the Jews had been told to build their houses in the modern DÖtschmannsplatz. Their synagogue stood on the site of the present Frauenkirche. Hence the space between the Rathaus and the FleischbrÜcke was all the market-room the Christians had. The increasing numbers and prosperity of the Jews, in this, the best site of the town, was very distressing to observe. So it came to pass that in 1349, on the strength of a document signed by Karl, in which he undertakes to ask no questions if anything should happen to the Jews at the hands of the people or the Council, the Christians pulled down the Jewish houses, and made the two large market-places, called to-day the Hauptmarkt and the Obstmarkt. Between these they built, to the glory of God, the beautiful Frauenkirche. As for the Jews, “The Jews were burnt on St. Nicholas’ Eve, 1349,” is the laconic report of Ulman Stromer, chronicler.[8] The modern Maxfeld is supposed to have been the scene of this atrocity. Such is the origin of those picturesque market-places, where to-day beneath the shadow of St. Sebald’s shrine, St. Mary’s church and the stately Rathaus, the Beautiful Fountain pours its silvery waters, and the peasants sell the produce of the country, sitting at their stalls beneath huge umbrellas, or leading the patient oxen which have drawn their carts to the city.

We have mentioned above the grievances of the artisans at this period. It must not be supposed that they were altogether down-trodden and miserable. Pecuniarily they must have been comparatively well off. For from this time, up to the middle of the Thirty Years War, the Nuremberg workmen flourished in reputation and execution. Their numbers were large; their work was distinguished for its beauty and durability. Their metal work in particular was famous; and they maintained its excellence for a long while, fostered by the system of masters and apprentices, which in this case led to a real desire to reach or improve upon a high standard of sound and artistic work. Even to-day you can hardly walk ten yards in Nuremberg without coming upon some perfect piece of ironwork, such as the railings round the wells or in front of the Frauenkirche. In the German Museum[9] there are two rooms full of locks and hinges, which, if once seen and studied by the modern manufacturer of inferior wares, should almost certainly make him cease from his evil ways. Or, if the reader wish for an example of the wide gulf which separates the good from the indifferent, let him secure a genuine specimen of those old waterpots (Butte), in which women so picturesquely carry water on their backs from the wells, and compare it with a modern imitation. These old workmen took a pride in their work. They were not, however, for that reason contemptuous of a little relaxation. They had their general holidays. We know Victor Hugo’s description of All Fools’ Day in Notre Dame de Paris. And here, in Nuremberg, we find the butchers and cutlers asking and obtaining from Karl the right to hold a carnival, and to dance in silks and velvets like the great families. This right was afterwards extended to all the trades. SchembartlÄufer the carnival was called. Every year the dance took place. By degrees the great people began to take part in it. The good burghers were very fond of dancing, as we shall have further occasion to notice. In time all sorts of rites and ceremonies grew up round the celebration of this holiday, which not even the presence of the enemy or the plague could induce the artisans to omit. Like Don’t-care Hippocleides, they would dance. Masks were worn, spears and crackers carried, and a special costume designed for each year. Popular songs and pasquinades were sung and published. Personalities of course were rife. In 1523, for instance, a man appeared dressed in “Indulgences.” Not a little rough buffoonery of one sort or another found place. To conclude the proceedings, a so-called “Hell,” made of fireworks, was let off in front of the Rathaus. And so to bed, as Pepys would have written.

The influence of the Reformers proved fatal to indulgence in this sort of wild hilarity. The celebration of the carnival was finally forbidden in 1539, much to the annoyance of the people.

In 1349 Karl issued from Nuremberg the declaration of public peace (he was always an eager promoter of Landfrieden—public peaces) for Franconia—to last for two years. In this arrangement Nuremberg was accorded the same standing as other Imperial cities and received, under Karl, equal political rights with the princely and other communities. A board of representatives of each town or district was to sit periodically at Nuremberg and see to it that the peace was kept. Whilst the King tried to preserve order in this way, peace leagues were also common in these times of feuds. So we find Nuremberg joining the league of the Swabian towns.

It was at Nuremberg that Karl, when he returned from being crowned at Rome (1356), held a famous Reichstag and issued the Golden Bull, so-called from the golden seal, or bulla, appended to the deed, which determined the method of electing the emperors and reduced the number of electors to seven. The place where the first twenty-three articles of this important law were published is still known as the house “Zum Goldenen Schild,” in the Schildgasse. The old custom by which the newly chosen Kaiser held his first Reichstag at Nuremberg was made law by the Golden Bull—a law in later times frequently ignored. By the Golden Bull, also, towns were forbidden to league together, which was a very burdensome provision secured by the influence of the princes, but, luckily for the towns, not able to be enforced.

The Golden Bull, acknowledging, as it did, the power and increasing the territorial rights of the great princes, and rousing the envy of those who were not made electors, held in it the seeds of the dissolution of the Empire. It encouraged, in effect, all the petty princes to exceed their powers and to encroach on the rights of the towns. The Nuremberg Burggraf was no exception to this rule. From this time forward he is continually coming into conflict with the town. The quarrel began over the Geleitsrecht, right of convoy and customs. The Emperor in 1357 gave to the Burggraf certain rights of way which enabled him to exact toll from the merchants on their way to Frankfort. Now this was a direct infringement of the charter given them a few years before forbidding all unjust or unusual taxes. They appealed on the strength of this and the Kaiser revoked the right. But the question crops up again and again. A little later we find the Kaiser, in recognition of his indebtedness to the Burggraf for past services, giving him the office of Chief Magistrate of the town together with large revenues therefrom. The town, anxious to have the magistracy under its own control, wished to buy it from the Burggraf. The Kaiser, with a view to sharing the proceeds, raised the price at which it was to be sold, so that in 1385 the town had to redeem the magistracy and taxes for the exorbitant sum of 8000 gulden.

Karl, as far as one can make out, tried to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare, first helping the town and then the Burggraf, partly because he was indebted to both for their aid, and partly because the issue of a new charter was a proceeding which brought cash into the Imperial treasury. For directly or indirectly charters were always paid for. This accounts to some extent for the mass of contradictory decrees which survive to perplex the modern historian. Such a little compliment as the following, for instance, which we find at the end of a charter dated 1366, had doubtless its origin in a cash transaction:—

The relations between the Burggraf and the town continued to be so strained that they almost came to blows in 1367 over the building of a wall. This wall was run up in forty days by the citizens, completely cutting off the approach from the castle to the town, and thus protecting the town from all hostile attacks of the Burggraf. The quarrel thereby occasioned dragged on for ten years before it was settled by an Imperial decree. Much to the chagrin of the Burggraf, the Kaiser, in deciding the dispute, unexpectedly favoured the town. We can hardly be surprised that the Burggraf, still smarting from this humiliation, was inclined to interpret as an act of aggression the building by the citizens of the tower “Luginsland” (1377),[10] which, besides commanding, as its name implied, a wide view of the surrounding country, would serve also as a watch-tower whence the actions of the Burggraf might be observed and forestalled. “Man pawet in darÜmb das man darauf ins marggrafen purk mÖcht gesehen,” says one chronicler.

Before all this, the future King Wenzel had been born in Nuremberg and baptised in St. Sebalduskirche. The chronicles say that at the baptism of the Imperial child—with whose birth Karl was so pleased that he remitted the Imperial taxes of the town for a year—the font was not clean, and that, as the baptismal water was being warmed in the Parsonage, a fire broke out and the whole of the choir adjoining it was burnt down. Only the beautiful (fourteenth century) oriel window remained uninjured by the flames.[11] The present parsonage was built by Pfinzing, the author of the Theuerdank, of whom more anon.

On the day of the baptism it is recorded that the Emperor displayed to the people from the gallery over the door of the church the Imperial insignia and relics which he had brought from Prague to the new Frauenkirche.

This Wenzel, or Wenceslas, of whom we have spoken, succeeded his father when he was but seventeen. Half-idiot, half-maniac, addicted to drunkenness and hunting, he was not the man to restore order in an Empire which had already fallen into a state of chaos. He was one of the worst Kaisers and the least victorious on record. He would attend to nothing in the Reich, “the Prague white beer and girls of various complexions being much preferable,” as he was heard to say. The result was that his reign was a period of feuds, the golden era of free or robber knights. Club-law, or Faustrecht, as it was called—the right of private warfare—was the order of the day. The history of Nuremberg resolves itself into the police-news of the period, the record of the sallies and outrages of such knights as Ekkelein von Gailingen, whose headquarters were at Windsheim, some thirty miles off, and who was the GÖtz von Berlichingen of the fourteenth century. The old castles which the traveller sees from time to time on the banks of the Rhine, or on the ravines and large brooks which flow into it, were then no picturesque ruins, rendered interesting by the stories which were told about their former inhabitants, but constituted the real and apparently impregnable strongholds of this robber-chivalry.

On the east wall of the castle, near the Five-cornered Tower, they will show you to this day two hoof-shaped marks, which are said to be the impressions left there by the hoofs of Ekkelein (or Eppelein) von Gailingen’s gallant steed. For this freebooter, Ekkelein, who had long been feared, admired, and even credited with magical powers, was at length captured by the Nuremberg burgher-soldiers and condemned to death. Shut up in the castle, he pined in the dungeon until the day arrived on which he was to expiate his crimes with his life. When he was brought out into the yard for execution, he begged, as a last request, that he might be allowed to say farewell to his favourite horse and his servant JÄckel. The beautiful charger, neighing with pleasure, was brought. Ekkelein put his arm round its neck and embraced it lovingly.

“If only, before I die, I might once more feel myself on his back!”

So natural and so harmless did the request seem that his wish was granted. His groom placed the saddle and bridle on the horse, who, when his master mounted, shook his mane for joy. At first the faithful creature moved gently and proudly in the circle of the guard, looking round him and snorting. When Ekkelein patted his powerful, smooth neck, the muscles of the noble animal grew larger and the veins of his flanks swelled at the touch of the master’s hand. He spurned the ground, raised his fore-feet and threw himself forward into a thundering gallop. Lightly and gently the spur of the rider touched his sides: he rushed furiously round the court. Guards and jailors shrank back before the stones which his hoofs threw high into the air. But the gate was secure and escape not to be thought of. Then, whoever is able to read the eyes of dumb beasts might have seen flaming in those of Ekkelein’s charger a lament like this: “How, my noble master? Shalt thou die here? Shall thy knightly blood flow ignominiously in this miserable place! Shall I never again carry thee into the battle, or bear thee through the defiles and the forests, and never more eat golden oats out of thy brave hand! O my master, save thyself! Trust in me and my strength and the impossible shall become possible.” The horse raised himself. The knight struck both spurs into his sides, held breath and, stooping low, embraced with both arms the neck of the faithful steed, from whose hoofs showered sparks of fire. Before the burghers could stay them, before the guards could lift a finger, before breath could be drawn, the desperate spring was made and man and horse were over the parapet which overhung the moat 100 feet below. They leaped not—as it appeared to the incredulous eyes that peeped at them from the top of the battlements—to their destruction; for, after a huge splash and struggle in the waters of the fosse, horse and rider rose again to the surface, and, long before the drawbridge could be let down and his captors could pursue him, Ekkelein was away in the deep forest, galloping on his brave steed, well on the road to the impregnable castle of Gailingen. The dent made by the horse’s hoofs in the stones below is there to this day. Can we wonder if the story went round that it was his Satanic majesty who had presented the bold knight with this wondrous steed, the better to facilitate the various little errands with which he had entrusted him?

Fortunately for the burgesses of Nuremberg not every free-knight could rely on such diabolic means of succour, so that they were able to defend themselves with energy and success against the noble and aggressive freebooters. The Council saw to it that the fortifications were continually strengthened and they did not despise the aid of the newly-introduced blunderbuss.[12] Indeed, even in the field the burgesses and their mercenaries showed themselves a match for the free-knights. So confident was Nuremberg in her own resources that at first she refused to join the great league of all the Rhenish towns founded in 1381, but three years later she came in. Though the great princes of the Empire were very jealous of such leagues, the Kaiser managed to patch up a union, with himself at the head, between this league and the princes, and called it the “Heidelberg Union” for the maintenance of peace. However a year or two later the Dukes of Bavaria, jealous as ever of the towns, broke loose, and seized the Archbishop Pilgrim von Salzburg, a friend of the towns, and some Nuremberg merchants. The Kaiser, instead of taking strong measures at once, pursued his usual policy of shilly-shally. But in January 1388 a strong army of the League started from Augsburg, ravaging all Bavaria with fire and sword. To this army Nuremberg contributed some mounted mercenaries, and at the same time marched an army of her own—8000 strong, a very large army for those days—against Hilpoltstein, but without success. The war resolved itself into a struggle between the interests of the princes and of the towns. The towns failed to hold together, and paid the penalty in failure. They had commenced hostilities vigorously, but Nuremberg set the example of wavering. In a year or so she made peace on no very favourable terms, consenting to pay heavy indemnities. Still, the general result of the war, though the towns were not successful, was not to lower the status of the towns. So far as Nuremberg was concerned the administration of the war had been carried on by a Committee of the Rat—the Kriegsrat, which henceforth became permanent. As to the expenses, they were in part defrayed by a wholesale seizure of Jews and confiscation of their property. This disgraceful proceeding was done by the League in general (1385, and again in 1390), and countenanced by the Kaiser. Here is a characteristic story of that very feckless Kaiser, which will show how fit he was to govern the German Empire.

Wenzel, the story runs, demanded from the Nuremberg Council the key of the Stadtthor. The Council, though very loth to do so, gave him the key, on condition that he would grant them a request in return. The Kaiser consented. When he graciously inquired what it was they demanded, the Burgomeister asked for the key back again! The Kaiser was so enraged that he slapped the Burgomeister on the cheek, and rode off in a royal huff to Rothenburg. In revenge, on St. Margaret’s Day, when the consecration of the Schlosskapelle was celebrated, he allowed his followers to plunder the booths of the fair held round about the castle.

Wenzel, in fact, let things go their own gait in the Empire. Knights plundered and traders quarrelled as they would. The Kaiser indulged in bouts of drinking, in long hunting forays, and in insane fits of rage. At last the princes began to dispense with his presence. They called a Reichstag at Frankfort and sent to him demanding a regent. Then Wenzel roused himself, returned to Nuremberg, and proclaimed a public peace (1397). A crusade against the turbulent knights in the valley of the Pegnitz was undertaken and proved successful. Their castles were taken and Wenzel forbade them to be rebuilt. This was but a momentary outburst of energy on his part. He soon resumed his old indifference. In 1400 the discontent of the princes came to a head. Wenzel was deposed: Ruprecht von der Pfalz was chosen King and, after some cautious hesitation, was finally accepted by the towns.

In a charter confirming her privileges Ruprecht granted to Nuremberg the care of the Reichsburg at all times, and made the town independent of the Burggraf in the time of feud,—excused them, that is, from assisting him in his little wars. Nuremberg gave Ruprecht active support in the proceedings against Wenzel; her chief exploit being the capture of Rothenburg after a siege of five weeks. When Ruprecht died (1410) Jobst and Sigismund were competitors for the Kaisership, Wenzel too striking in with claims for reinstatement. Both the former were elected, so that Germany rejoiced in as many Kaisers as Christianity had Popes. Happily Jobst died in three months, and Sigismund, chiefly through the faithful and unwearied diligence of Burggraf Frederick VI. of Nuremberg, became Kaiser, “an always hoping, never resting, unsuccessful, vain and empty Kaiser. Specious, speculative, given to eloquence, diplomacy, and the windy instead of the solid arts: always short of money for one thing.” This last fault affected Nuremberg in more than one way. In the first place it necessitated the borrowing of heavy loans from her. Throughout the fourteenth century and onwards the Kaisers asked and received very large loans (pleasantly so-called) from Nuremberg. Wenzel, Ruprecht and Sigismund demanded ever larger and increasingly frequent donations. Sometimes, but not very often, the citizens were rewarded by the concession of a charter or the ratification of some procedure on their part. But the price was, of course, out of all proportion to the value of the thing purchased. As an example of these dealings we may instance the “loan” exacted by Sigismund in 1430, which amounted to 9000 gulden, besides other requisitions in the same year. One sees, at any rate, that Nuremberg must have been sufficiently full-blooded to endure being bled in this manner. But it was this same impecuniosity on the part of the Kaiser which led him to sell outright, for a total sum of 400,000 gulden, the Electorate of Brandenburg, with its land, titles and sovereign electorship and all to Burggraf Frederick, who already held it in pawn. This step was, in its immediate results at least, distinctly advantageous to Nuremberg. Clever and energetic, the Burggraf set about suppressing the robber-knights and establishing order.

That was a piece of work highly acceptable, we may be sure, to the merchants of Nuremberg. Were they not concerned in bringing fish and wool from the North, to exchange them in Italy and Venice for the silks and spices of the East?

In 1414 we catch a glimpse of the sombre figure of John Huss, the reformer, the Bohemian successor of Wiclif, passing through Nuremberg. The people here seem to have sympathised with his views. He explained his position to the clergy and council, and they invited him to return to them if he fared successfully at Kostnitz. But there he met his martyrdom. His supporters, the down-trodden peasantry of Bohemia, thereupon rose in a revolt, which Empire for a long while utterly failed to suppress. Nuremberg had exhibited no great enthusiasm against heretics. Though, in 1399, she had burnt six women and a man for heresy, yet she had given Huss a warm welcome. But the devastation wrought by the Hussite army alienated all sympathy, and on the suppression of the “heretics,” Nuremberg joined in the universal rejoicings of all steady-going merchants. She had taken occasional part in the Hussite wars; but chiefly through paying money instead of sending a proper contingent of men—a fact which illustrates the narrow, selfish and lazy policy of the town communities where the Empire was concerned. It was impossible for the Emperor to keep order with insufficient means of police. For the Emperor got not a foot of German territory with his Imperial crown. He was merely the feudal head, and as such found it very hard to get troops or money from the German people. Most of the members of the Empire—petty princes and Imperial towns alike—were concerned chiefly not with the ordering of the Empire but with becoming sovereign in their own territories. There was very little feeling of Imperial unity. If the Empire did not do its duty by the towns, the towns did very little for the Empire, beyond supplying money.

The Nurembergers were energetic enough when it came to fortifying their town on the approach of the victorious Hussites (1430). The grim heretics advanced ravaging and destroying the country, depopulating the towns. Night and day, men, women and children worked at the walls, striving to render the place impregnable. But the danger passed away. Thanks to the Markgraf Frederick, who bought them off very cheaply, the Hussites returned, for the time, in peace to their homes.

Sigismund succeeded in being crowned at Rome in 1433, and on this occasion he knighted Sebald Behaim, of the great Nuremberg family of that name, and gave to Nuremberg a charter confirming her privileges and giving her the right to keep the Imperial jewels, insignia, and sacred relics for ever. These were brought with great pomp and rejoicing to the Church of the Holy Spirit (Neuenspital) and there they were kept and jealously guarded till 1796. They were shown with much ceremony once a year to the people. This occasion was a very popular festival down to the Reformation days. But in 1523 the relics were shown for the last time.

Frederick the Third we shall only mention for the sake of the picturesque ceremonial which occurred when he held his first Reichstag at Nuremberg, at Easter 1442. The Kaiser rode in at the Spittlerthor. In the middle of the street where he had to pass St. Jakobskirche a table was spread on which, besides a crucifix, were placed the heads of St. Sebald and St. Cyprian. The Kaiser dismounted, took the cross from the Abbot of St. Ægidius and kissed it.

Thereupon one of the holy skulls was placed on the Kaiser’s head, whilst the priests and choristers in surplices and birettas sang responses. The Kaiser and his retinue and all the priesthood then made a solemn procession to the Sebalduskirche. Here the Kaiser worshipped on his knees before the altar. The priest read the special collect over him, and, taking a handful of flax and tow, lighted it and, as it burnt, exclaimed in a loud voice, “Most illustrious Kaiser, sic transit gloria mundi.” Then the chorus of priests burst out into the strains of the Te Deum, and the Kaiser went his way in the world—a compromising Emperor who slept through a long reign to the no small detriment of Germany.

We must not think of the Nurembergers as altogether given up to trade and merchandise. They were capable of being stirred up into the deepest religious enthusiasm. I know not what reception they gave to the Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who (1451) came preaching through Germany, and passed through Nuremberg selling “Indulgences” like a cheap-jack, lowering his price from time to time to get rid of his stock. But the monk, Capistranus, a great preacher, who came in the following year, created so tremendous a sensation by his eloquence and by miracles which he wrought that the people, we are told, flocked in crowds, laden with their new-fashioned pointed shoes, their Schlitten (sledges—harmless enough one would have thought—but they were regarded as extravagant luxuries), and thousands of dice and cards, and burnt them all in the market-place.

Next year they were stirred again by the terrible news that the Turks had taken Constantinople. Eleven hundred burghers seized their arms and went as Crusaders to help the Hungarians in Belgrade against the infidel Turk.[14] But they did not do great deeds. Scarce a third of them returned at Christmastide. The rest had died of hardship or of disease. This gave the Council a distaste for Crusades. They took to discouraging the preachers who came to beat up recruits against Hussites or Turks. The town, it was found, had to support the widows and children of the dead Crusaders.

The preachings of the firebrand Johannes Capistranus had another evil result. The Jews since the persecution in 1349 had not been much molested, though continually squeezed for money by both Kaiser and Council. But the increase in their numbers, the riches they had accumulated through usury, and the eloquence of this monk all tended to rouse religious hatred.

“The hatred against the Jews is so general in Germany,” writes Froissart in 1497, “that the calmest people are beside themselves when the conversation turns on their usury. I should not be surprised if on a sudden a bloody persecution broke out against them all over the country. They have already been forcibly expelled from many towns.”