WE have watched the dawning sun of Nuremberg’s greatness rise over the forest till now it has reached the Mittags-quarter. We have seen, to change the metaphor, the little foundling of the swamps grow year by year till at last she has arrived at the full strength and beauty of womanhood. For it was under Maximilian that Nuremberg reached her prime: it was under him and his successors that the greatest of her sons flourished. She was lavish as a princess in the adornment of her person. Once in 1447, and again in 1491, for instance, we find her voting some 500 florins to gild the Beautiful Fountain (SchÖner Brunnen), which had been placed in the Hauptmarkt 1385.[16] She was already adorned with those churches which in her old age are still her brightest jewels.

Once completed, these churches were not regarded merely as houses of prayer, but rather as the books of God, where the divine history of the Redemption might be read and illustrated. The Christian fervour of the artists led them to give their best and sincerest work to the decoration of them. So that in the course of time the churches came to represent for the people museums constantly open, historic galleries of sacred art, to which one masterpiece after another was added.

Whilst such men as Adam Krafft and Peter Vischer were giving their life-work to the beautifying of the churches, sculpture and painting also were turned to the adornment of domestic and public life. The mansions of the merchant princes still bear witness to the wealth of the burgesses, and to the vigour of the artistic impulse of this period. Every house, apart from architectural splendour, was decorated with a painting, whether of some symbol or the patron saint of the family. The very aspect of the streets spoke to the importance of the rÔle which art played in the life of the town. The influence of the town reacted no less surely on the art of the period. Albert Durer, for instance, in spite of his wide experience always speaks in his art, like his master Wolgemut, in the Nuremberg dialect. The intense patriotism and the deep religious feeling which formed so intimate a part of the lives of the citizens are reproduced in their art and literature,

SCHÖNER BRUNNEN
SCHÖNER BRUNNEN

giving the greatest examples of them the added charm of locality. Their love of science was no less genuine than their love of art. In June 1471, a few weeks after the birth of Albert Durer, Johannes Muller, (surnamed Regiomontanus in allusion to KÖnigsberg, his native village) the great mathematical genius, “the wonder of his generation,” took up his abode at Nuremberg, making her the true home of physical and mathematical science and contributing mightily to her reputation as “the capital of German art, the most precious jewel of the Empire, the meeting-place of art and industry.” “I have chosen Nuremberg for my place of residence,” he writes, “because there I find without difficulty all the peculiar instruments necessary for astronomy, and there it is easiest for me to keep in touch with the learned of all countries, for Nuremberg, thanks to the perpetual journeyings of her merchants, may be counted the centre of Europe.” Inspired with the eager desire to know everything, so characteristic of his age, he was equally desirous to impart his knowledge. We may trace to his influence Durer’s book on geometry and his beautiful chart of the heavens. Muller introduced popular science lectures, and organised the manufacture of astronomical and nautical instruments. His most famous pupil was Martin Behaim the constructor of the first globe and the adventurous navigator, whose monument (1890) may be seen in the Theresien Platz. Behaim in 1492 indicated on his terrestrial globe the precise route followed six years later by Vasco da Gama when he doubled the Cape of Good Hope. It was Behaim, too, who suggested to Magellan the first idea of the strait which bears his name. Behaim’s famous globe is kept in the Behaim House, which is in the Ægiden Platz, next to the house of Koberger, the printer, and opposite the statue of Melanchthon (by Burgschmiet, 1826).

Maximilian, “the last of the knights,” had taken a considerable part in the government before he succeeded his father in 1493. The Nurembergers, who always had an eye for a strong man, had already shown their loyalty to him. He had stayed amongst them at the house of Christopher Scheurl (father of the famous Dr Scheurl), and whilst there would seem to have amused himself light-heartedly enough. When about to depart, we are told, he invited twenty great ladies to dinner; after dinner, when they were all in a good humour, the Margraf Frederick asked Maximilian in the name of the ladies to stay a little longer and to dance with them. They, it is said, had taken away his boots and spurs, so he had no choice. Then the whole company adjourned to the Council House, several other young ladies were invited, and Maximilian stayed dancing all through the afternoon and night and arrived a day late at Neumarkt where the Count of the Palatinate had been expecting him all the preceding day.

As Emperor, Maximilian stayed at the Kaiserburg. A brilliant assembly attended his first Reichstag. Masques, dances, tourneys and so forth are recorded with gusto by the chroniclers. The Emperor, they say, entertained all the ladies of the town at dinner and provided them with two hundred and forty sorts of dishes. No wonder he was popular!

Nuremberg was not allowed to be content with supplying Maximilian with partners in the ball-room. In 1499 she had to support him in his disastrous war with Switzerland. The Nuremberg contingent was under Willibald Pirkheimer and Wolf PÖmer. Beautifully dressed in red and white uniforms these soldiers earned the reputation of cowardice and treachery. Such imputations were, let it be confessed, not unfrequently cast upon Nuremberg courage; but on this occasion the Emperor took their part and refuted the charge.

Nuremberg knew at any rate how to fight her own battles. Throughout this period we find her engaged in continual quarrels with the Markgrafs of Brandenburg. The Burggraf Frederick once made Elector, had parted with the Burggrafship, sold it, all but the title, to the burghers in 1427. But principalities and territories were retained in that quarter, and about these, and their feudal rights and boundaries and tolls, endless trouble arose. Some fifty years later actual furious war resulted between the Elector Albert Achilles and the jealous citizens—a war in “which eight victories are counted on Albert’s part—furious successful skirmishes they call them; in one of which Albert plunged in alone, his Ritters being rather shy, and laid about him hugely, hanging by a standard he had taken, till his life was nearly beaten out. Eight victories, and also one defeat wherein Albert got captured and had to ransom himself. The captor was one Kunz of Kauffungen, the NÜrnberg hired General at the time, a man known to some readers for his stealing of the Saxon princes (Prinzenraut, they call it), a feat which cost Kunz his head.”[19] Such quarrels continued, for the Markgrafs did not relinquish their efforts to extend their powers. Details it would be wearisome to give, but they illustrate the general family tendency of the Hohenzollern. It is characteristic that they were generally successful in their claims (all cases, it was now decided, arising from Nuremberg property outside the walls were to be tried by the Landgericht, of which the Markgraf was president), and based on this success still greater claims in the future.

The memoirs of GÖtz von Berlichingen furnish us with an interesting account of the Battle of the Forest of Nuremberg (1502), which affords a good example of the sort of thing continually occurring in those days.

Towards the end of May it was rumoured in the town that warlike preparations were being made in Ansbach, the headquarters of the Markgraf. The feelings of the citizens were still further roused by the fact that the Markgraf had taken under his protection an enemy of Nuremberg. The day of the Affalterbacher Fair was at hand. The prospect seemed so threatening that the Council sent a specially large contingent—2000 men, with a “Wagenburg” and cannon under the command of the Magistrate Hans von Weichsdorf, Wolf Haller, and Wolf PÖmer—to escort their citizens who went to attend the fair. An accidental explosion of powder when they were starting seemed ominous. At home they kept a small force under Ulman Stromer, who drew up between the Frauen- and Spitler-Thor. On the day of the fair, the Markgraf appeared with a large force of knights, Swiss and local soldiery. Amongst them was GÖtz von Berlichingen, who was only twenty-two years of age. The following manoeuvers then took place. In the morning some sixty horsemen were seen driving off the cattle about a quarter of a mile south of Nuremberg. Ulman Stromer thereupon marched out and took up a strong position, under protection of his guns, and drove the horsemen back into the woods, “for they did not find it very amusing: it is not everybody who likes to hear the cannon roar,” says GÖtz. The retreat of the enemy enticed Ulman Stromer to follow them with his carts and cannon into the wood. Suddenly he came upon the Markgraf Casimir with his main army. Though outnumbered, the Nurembergers did not lose their courage, but fired with such effect that the riff-raff of the enemy

FRAUEN THOR
FRAUEN THOR

cleared off, leaving the knights and Switzers to do battle. Under cover of a strong fire, “so that nothing could be seen for smoke,” Stromer tried to form a “Wagenburg” (waggon fortress), by having the carts driven round so as to form a circle about the men and guns, hoping to be able to wait in this extemporised fort till reinforcements should arrive from Affalterbach. GÖtz boasts that it was he who prevented this manoeuvre from being executed. For he killed one of the drivers, and so interrupted the completion of the circle. The Brandenburgers were thus enabled to rush in, and compelled the citizens to take to flight. At this juncture the reinforcements came up, but it was too late. A general rush for safety to the town took place. On the bridge over the moat there was so great a crush of refugees that many were forced over into the water. Luckily the cannon on the Frauen Thor kept the Markgraf at a safe distance. Within the town a terrible panic had occurred. GÖtz, indeed, says that the place could easily have been taken—a statement not very easy to believe. At any rate, the Markgraf did not attempt it, but marched back to Schwabach to hold a service of thanksgiving, whilst the Nurembergers revenged themselves on the peasants whom they had taken prisoner. Intense indignation was felt and expressed against the Markgraf: prisoners were torn to pieces in the streets. At last a curious peace was arranged, to begin on July 1st, but not before. Each side tried to damage the other as much as possible before that day came, and the Council, in order to get in a good final blow, burned the Markgraf’s castle of SchÖnberg at the last moment. A peace thus inaugurated did not, as may be imagined, produce any lasting good feeling between the two parties. In the very next year fresh trouble arose over one Heinz Baum, a Nuremberg citizen who had come down in the world and been put into prison by his creditors. As soon as he was released, he left the town, threw up his citizenship, and, after writing various threatening letters to the Council, he surprised Hans Tucher, a Nuremberg patrician, when riding out to his country seat, and kept him prisoner till he was ransomed. With the Markgraf’s secret support, Baum proceeded to seize and keep in the stocks till ransom was paid all the citizens he could lay his hands on. Though the Emperor outlawed him, he pursued his way unhindered, protected by the Markgraf, till 1512, when Nuremberg bought off his chief supporter, and Heinz Baum retired to Bamberg, where he died poor but unpunished.

The importance of Nuremberg was still further enhanced by the part she took in the war of the Bavarian Succession. In 1503 George the Rich of Bavaria had died without male issue. According to the feudal right, his lands ought to have gone to the male heir, but, hating as he did his natural successors, his cousins Albrecht of Bavaria and Wolfgang, he had made his daughter his sole heiress, and married her to her cousin Ruprecht (third son of the powerful Philip, Elector of the Palatinate), whom he adopted as his son and made governor of a great part of the country. On the death of Duke George, Ruprecht succeeded, but Albrecht and Wolfgang raised such strenuous protest that the Emperor, after repeated attempts to arrange a compromise, was obliged to outlaw Ruprecht and all his supporters, his father the Elector Philip included. War was the inevitable result. The Emperor and other princes, amongst whom was the Markgraf of Brandenburg, gave their support to Albrecht, who promised them a share in what was conquered. Many of Philip’s possessions were close to Nuremberg. Albrecht was therefore able to entice her to fight for him, promising her in return for her aid 40,000 gulden, with all the Palatinate towns and the value of all George’s towns that she might manage to take. With the aid of three special cannon, called the Owl, the Falcon, and the Fishermaid, capable of shooting balls of 263 pounds weight, the Nuremberg army captured a considerable number of Palatinate towns. But even after the deaths first of Ruprecht and then of his brave widow, who had carried on the struggle like another Margaret of Anjou, the war still dragged on on behalf of their little sons, and the Palatinate party were actually getting a little the best of it when, at a Reichstag in Cologne, Maximilian at length arranged a successful compromise.

Nuremberg was allowed to keep what she had taken, and now had more land than any other free town in the Empire. It was a doubtful blessing. She was involved in constant wars to keep it, in further quarrels with the Markgraf over the rights of Fraisgericht,—of jurisdiction in matters of life and death in the newly acquired towns, and she had to pay largely increased contributions to the Empire. Altogether she was impoverished rather than benefited by her new property.

We have now to trace the story of the celebrated feud with GÖtz von Berlichingen—the warrior knight, the chivalrous and charitable, the brave, free-booting noble, GÖtz of the Iron Hand. Such is the character Goethe gave him when he centred in him, as the heroic champion of the privileges of the Free Knights, the interest of his Shakesperian drama. Truth, however, compels us to declare, that though men like GÖtz or Franz von Sickingen, the Robin Hoods of Germany, had the qualities of a certain rough justice and courage, they were, for the rest, wholly undeniable brigands. The love of destruction, disorder, and rapine, and the hatred of authority were their chief motives. They used their rights as pretexts for violence and devoted themselves to brigandage as to a legitimate vocation and organised industry. They were, indeed, little better than leaders of bands of robbers, the wolves of civilisation.

It was in 1495 that Maximilian, ever anxious to promote peace and order within the borders of his Empire, abrogated by edict the right of private war under the penalty of the ban of the Empire—a penalty which involved the dooms of outlawry and excommunication. Thus the “last of the Knights” gave the death-blow to the chivalry of the Middle Ages. Hitherto every German noble holding fief directly from the Emperor had been on his own property a petty monarch, as it were, subordinate to the Imperial authority alone. These proud military barons,—an ever-increasing host of petty lords, since the rule of inheritance in Germany was division among the male heirs—esteemed above all other privileges the right of making war on each other, or on the towns, with no other ceremony than that of three days’ notice in writing (Fehdebrief). The evils and dangers of this privilege are clear, but they were left untouched by the Golden Bull. With the advance of civilisation, which was ever opposed to the feudal system, this Faustrecht had come to be regarded as intolerable by such princes, bishops and free towns as suffered from the consequent disorder of the country and the marauding expeditions of the free-knights. For the residence of every baron had become, as we have seen, a fortress from which, as his passions or avarice dictated, a band of marauders sallied forth to back his quarrel or to collect an extorted revenue from the merchants who presumed to pass through his domain. Princes and bishops, abbots and wealthy merchants of the towns banded together, therefore, to enforce the new ordinance and to suppress the petty feudatories, who, like GÖtz, struggled to maintain their privilege and independence. Under Sigismund various efforts had been made to suppress the harrying of the knights and many robber-nests on solitary rocks were taken. When taken the robbers, especially those of the lower class, were made short work of and dealt with in various ways—ways best illustrated by a visit to the torture chambers of the castle. There was one Hans Schuttensamen, for instance, on whose head the Council put a price. A citizen of Bamberg came forward and claimed the reward, saying he had shot him. After he had received the money his story was found to be a stretch of the imagination and he was burnt accordingly. Ten years later (1474) the robber also got burnt.

So bitterly were these knights hated and feared that even the great tourneys, such as the one recorded in 1446,[20] when all the neighbouring nobles came in from the surrounding country and tilted and displayed their skill and valour in the market-place, were very unpopular with the peace-loving burghers.

Nuremberg, then, joined the Swabian League to suppress such knights as chose still to indulge in the forbidden Club Law or Faustrecht. It was not long before she came into direct collision with GÖtz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand. GÖtz, who had a fine gift for chastising the gutter-blooded citizens of a free town, had long been anxious to try conclusions with the men of Nuremberg. He carried out his intention on a very futile pretext. The Nurembergers, it seems, had pursued and fought in the adjacent woods some unknown knights, who had refused, when challenged, to give their names as honest knights and fled. Now, some years after, Hans von Geislingen, brother of one George, who was the Squire of Eustace of Lichtenstein and was killed on this occasion, demanded blood-money for his brother, and on being refused, he seized some Nuremberg citizens and merchants’ caravans. He was outlawed, but this did not prevent GÖtz von Berlichingen from helping him. George, he declared, had been his page (a statement that had the defect of being untrue), and he demanded a large sum of money in compensation. When this was refused GÖtz did not send an Absagebrief, or letter of notice of war, but merely a note saying that he was considering, with his friends, how to get compensation. His bitterness was further increased by the action of the Council, who shortly afterwards decapitated Sebastian von Seckendorf, a knight who had long been a source of annoyance, and whom they had at last been successful in catching. Suddenly, and without warning, GÖtz and his friends swooped down on a party of fifty-five Nuremberg merchants who were travelling back from the fair at Leipzig, under the escort of the Bishop of Bamberg. These he plundered and took prisoners as they were crossing the Rednitz, near Forcheim. GÖtz did not treat his prisoners too gently, but used the art of torture to persuade them to offer huge ransoms. The news of this seizure caused consternation and surprise in Nuremberg. GÖtz’s letter of notice came only nine days later to the Council. Spies were sent out to discover his whereabouts: the town was prepared for a siege, and 800 mercenary soldiers were hired. GÖtz was outlawed. But the Council were accused of being slack to avenge, what they called “a handful of small merchants, not of patrician families,” and Maximilian was not willing to be plunged into an Imperial war “to recover a merchant’s sack of pepper.” What he did do was to attempt to bring about one of his favourite compromises. The Markgraf was appointed to arbitrate, and his award was that Nuremberg should pay a certain sum. As is not unusual in the case of arbitrations, the money was not paid. GÖtz, laughing at the sentence of outlawry that had been passed upon him, protected by the princes who resented peace and order in an Empire, continued to ravage, burn and pillage, until the Swabian League was renewed, at the end of 1512, to keep the “eternal peace,” at which Maximilian aimed. Nuremberg once more joined the League, on Maximilian’s injunction, though she distrusted the alliance with the Markgraf thereby involved. The League, however, decided in January 1513 to take strong measures to repress the outlawed nobles and to destroy the castles of the robber-knights. But the Emperor objected, and said that he wanted to arrive at a peaceful compromise with GÖtz. The Nurembergers replied that they would be content if the latter paid over a sum of money sufficient to compensate the merchants for the losses they had suffered. At the same time they took prisoner a robber-knight who was a friend of the Markgraf, and to procure his release the Markgraf promised to arrange peace for them with Hans von Geislingen. This he succeeded in doing. GÖtz, however, remained at war, proud and obstinate in spite of all mediation. Again and again the League threatened war, the Emperor temporised, and GÖtz plundered, until at last Maximilian got it arranged that GÖtz should pay 14000 florins damages. These were subscribed chiefly by his supporters, such as the Bishop of WÜrzburg, who also persuaded him to cease from his career of robbery.

Maximilian died in 1519. He had shown himself a good friend to the Nuremberg artists. No doubt his patronage and his keen interest in art and literature had been partly responsible for the good work of this period. He was himself an author, for he had a considerable share in the Weisskunig and the Theuerdank—the latter, a poem which describes allegorically the private life and ideals of the Emperor, being chiefly executed by Melchior Pfinzing, his secretary, the Provost of St. Sebald’s and builder of the Parsonage. Of the artists, he frequently employed Peter Vischer and Veit Stoss, whilst he showed the greatest appreciation of Albert Durer, to whom he gave a pension of 100 florins. When at Nuremberg in 1512 Maximilian with the aid of Willibald Pirkheimer and others, planned a colossal Holzschnittwerk, or wood-cut picture, “The Triumph,” in which he himself was, as usual in the works of art he inspired, to be idealised as the greatest of princes. Durer was to draw part of it. Ninety-two blocks did Durer design for the Triumphal Arch in the course of the next two years. Amongst other works for this patron we may mention The Triumphal Car, the Crucifixion, and the ornamental borders of the famous Book of Hours. Finally when Maximilian held the diet at Augsburg in 1518, Durer, who was one of the commissioners sent by the town of Nuremberg, drew the Emperor’s portrait from the life, “in the little room upstairs in the palace.” From this sketch he painted the picture now at Vienna, another version of which is in the German Museum at Nuremberg. Durer was as good a courtier as artist. Melanchthon tells us how Maximilian was endeavouring to draw a design which he wished Durer to carry out, but kept breaking the charcoal in doing so. Durer took the charcoal and, without breaking it, easily finished the drawing. Maximilian, somewhat vexed, asked how this was, to which the artist replied, “I should not like your Majesty to be able to draw as well as I. It is my province to draw and yours to rule.” Aliud est plectrum, aliud sceptrum. The hand that wields the sceptre is too strong for the brush.

Maximilian was, in many aspects of his character, a typical product of the Renaissance. Nuremberg had felt the full force of the revival of learning, the new stimulus in art and literature which was being brought to the West from Constantinople by the Jews and Greeks who had been driven out by the Turks. Not a few of the knights and pilgrims, too, must have passed through Nuremberg on their return from the Crusades, and her growing commerce with the East and West and Italy would tend to keep her in touch with the developments which were taking place in the world of ideas, and which were tending inevitably towards the Reformation. She had been among the first to welcome and to practise the new “German art” of printing. Between 1470, when Johann Sensenschmidt had brought Gutenberg’s invention to Nuremberg, and the end of the century, twenty-five printers received the rights of citizenship. Johannes Regiomontanus printed here in 1472 his Kalendarium Novum. But Anthoni Koberger was the most celebrated man in the trade. Over two hundred different works, mostly in large folio, were issued from his twenty-four printing presses before 1500. The “prince of booksellers,” as one of his contemporaries calls him, he had agents in every country, and sixteen depÔts in the principal towns in Christendom. The first work of art which left his presses was a magnificent illustrated Bible, published in 1483, and printed from blocks he had obtained from Henry Quentel of Cologne. But, besides the Bible and theology, the press poured forth a stream of literature of every kind, spreading new ideas with unexampled rapidity, and giving expression to thoughtful criticism or popular satire of established abuses. Under such influences as these it was felt that a new era of progress was at hand. Nuremberg, stimulated by the education of self-government and of commercial intercourse, did not fail to produce such independent humanists as Conrad Celtes, Dr Scheurl, Lazarus Spengler, Albert Durer, Willibald Pirkheimer, who could write as well as read, and preach as well as applaud the doctrines of necessary reform. She was, in fact, one of the first towns to express sympathy with Martin Luther, when he nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door of Wittenberg, in protest against what Erasmus had called “the crime of false pardons,” the sale of Indulgences, to which Leo X. had resorted in order to raise money for a little war.

Luther came to Nuremberg in the course of the next year (1518) and stayed in the Augustinerkloster. His friend Leirck, we are told, had to buy him a new cowl, in order that he might appear in fitting costume before the Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, where he was summoned to answer for his heresies. None the less the Cardinal received at Nuremberg a great welcome next year, and Luther’s followers continued at present to perform the rites and cling to the old forms of the Church. Reform, not revolution, was what they still hoped for. But the stream of events carried them rapidly with it. Willibald Pirkheimer, thanks to a satire against Eck, the bitter opponent of Luther, was included in 1519 in the Papal Bull, by which Luther was excommunicated. The Council, annoyed by the excommunication of Pirkheimer and Lazarus Spengler (Clerk of the Council), refused to interfere with the printing and publishing of Luther’s works, and gradually passed over to his side. To show how little they respected this decree of excommunication, they actually sent Spengler to represent the town at the Diet of Worms. For Charles V. held his first Reichstag (1521) at Worms, and not at Nuremberg, because of an outbreak of plague there. (Outbreaks of plague were not uncommon at Nuremberg, nor were they surprising. For all refuse was always thrown into the Pegnitz on the understanding that “the river would eat up all the dirt.”) It was at this Diet of Worms that Luther made his Confession of Faith, and fought single-handed against Pope and Emperor the great battle for the right of freedom of conscience. When, as the result, the ban of the Empire had been passed upon him and all his works, and the report was abroad that violent hands had been laid on him, Albert Durer, who had followed him from the first, wrote in his diary, expressing at the same time the opinion of the nation; “Whether he lives or whether he has been murdered, I know not; but he has suffered for the Christian faith and has been punished by the unchristian Papacy.” That, too, was the opinion of all the more important men in Nuremberg. Cautious in expressing their feelings at first, after a time the people boldly showed their dislike of monasteries and their approval of the new movement.

wrote Hans Sachs, in a poem which had no small influence in forwarding the reformation movement. So, in many of his later prose dialogues, he upholds liberty of conscience and freedom of opinion in religious matters. The Council, in deference to the Emperor, made a bare pretence of stopping the publication of Lutheran writings. So half-hearted were they that the Papal Legate demanded that stronger measures should be taken, and that Lutheran preachers should be imprisoned. But the Council pursued its policy of keeping the peace between both parties, taking a middle course and siding with neither reactionary nor revolutionary. That policy could not be pursued for long. The Council had to yield, not unwillingly, to public opinion. At a meeting of representatives of the towns at Rothenburg, held there in 1524 because forbidden by Imperial edict to meet at Spires and to discuss religious matters, Nuremberg was very bold and “gave three brave Christian reasons” why they should not obey this edict. She organised a further meeting of the towns at Ulm, and for herself began to determine on a new form of worship. The Sacrament was now administered in both kinds, and Mass was read in German, with Lutheran omissions, by the Prior of the Augustin Monastery. Both the Parish Churches followed his example. The Council excused themselves for allowing this by saying that they did it to avoid an uproar among the people. The Bishop of Bamberg held an inquiry, and summoned the officiating priests before him. They denied his power to judge them, and his sentence of excommunication was practically ignored. Other towns followed the example of Nuremberg, and imitated her Lutheran services. Meanwhile the dislike of the people for monasteries and nunneries broke out more vehemently. The air was full of satires and cartoons directed against nuns and monks. Hans Sachs was not silent on this point. At last the Council ordered these institutions to be handed over to the guidance of the Lutheran preachers. Charitas Pirkheimer, the virtuous and accomplished abbess of the Klarakloster, friend and correspondent of Durer and sister of Willibald, has left us in her memoirs a touching account of the manner in which she was torn from her beloved convent, over which no breath of scandal had ever passed, and which contained many of the daughters of the best families in Nuremberg. These memoirs are well worth looking at by those who care to see the other side of the question, and to make the acquaintance of a beautiful and fascinating character. Unfortunately we have no space in this little book to deal with them here.

Shortly after this an organised discussion between the representatives of the old and new orders of religious belief was held before the Council. One by one, twelve points of doctrine were put to the heads of the Lutheran, Carmelite, Augustin and Dominican bodies, and each answered after his kind. The Catholic party finally claimed that the decision between them should be referred to the University; but Osiander, declaring that God’s word was the only salvation, wound up the discussion with a bold and eloquent speech, and called upon the Council for an immediate decision. The Council gave their vote for the Lutheran case, and thus formally threw in their lot with the Reformation. The following year saw a whole series of decrees from the Council carrying out Lutheran principles. Thus, chiefly no doubt in deference to the popular demand—for these were the days of the terrible Peasant wars—the property of the priests was ordered to be taxed. There was little violence. The influence of the gentle Melanchthon, who came to Nuremberg in 1525, did much to smooth down any tendency to brutality, or harsh treatment of the monks and nuns. Even in the first flash of religious excitement education was not neglected. The educational movement inaugurated by Luther’s letter to the towns asking them to found schools, met with eager support at Nuremberg. Through the agency of Hieronymus PaumgÄrtner and Spengler, Philip Melanchthon was induced to come and assist at the founding of a new gymnasium for secondary education. No expense was spared, and Melanchthon brought a brilliant staff of teachers with him. The institution was established in the buildings of the Ægidienkloster. But the school languished. Nuremberg, after all, was a town of shopkeepers, and, though some were ready to pay for masters, few were ready to pay, or spare the time, for their sons’ higher education. The school was at last moved to Altdorf, and grew into the University there. The present gymnasium was refounded in 1633. Melanchthon’s statue, mentioned above, stands in front of the building erected in 1711 on the site of the old monastery which together with the church was burnt down in 1699. Conrad III. is said to have built the church for the Benedictine Order in 1140. Three chapels remain—the Eucharius, the Wolfgang, and the Tetzel chapels, of which the first is the oldest, and affords an interesting example of the transition style (see p. 260).

The Council all this time had a difficult part to play: it had to show itself both strong and conciliatory. When the Peasants’ War broke out, Nuremberg, the capital of Franconia, was not unaffected by it though

ROTHENBURG
ROTHENBURG

she suffered less than her neighbours—Rothenburg for example. But the new-found spiritual freedom preached from Lutheran pulpits was likely to be misinterpreted by the lower classes in the town, as it had been by the peasants outside, and construed into temporal licence. The Council, therefore, whilst striving not to cause any irritation, had to take strong measures to repress the outbreaks which occurred within the walls, when the peasants, whom GÖtz von Berlichingen had joined, were ravaging and rioting through the country in their barbarous struggle for emancipation. First of all the Council very wisely expelled Thomas MÜnzer, the mad, well-meaning fanatic and agitator, and then promised the peasants to remain neutral, as long as they did not ravage her territory or tamper with her citizens. Still, for a few months, Nuremberg was in imminent danger. She might have fallen into the hands of the rebels at any moment in the May of this year (1525). The Council, realising the peril, remitted some of the tithes, as a sop to the peasants, and sent urgent appeals for aid to the Swabian League. But the thunder-cloud passed by without breaking over Nuremberg, and she, to her credit be it recorded, when the revolt was crushed, was not slow to speak on behalf of towns like Rothenburg which had taken the side of the peasants. The result of her intervention was to preserve for us the walls and fortifications of Rothenburg. The illustration shows the towers and gateways there which recall the White Tower and Lauferschlagthurm at Nuremberg.

In the later developments of the Protestant revolution, we find Willibald Pirkheimer warmly supporting Luther with his pen, when Zwingle, denying the Real Presence, treated the Sacrament as symbolic, and was violently denounced by Luther for this view. Pirkheimer, however, was no blind follower of Luther. He, remembering his sister’s case, thought the monasteries and convents too hardly treated, and he saw, what Luther failed to see, that the peasant risings were the inevitable results of such times of upheaval and repression. He grew soured and disappointed with Luther. Like Scheurl, and, as he says (1528)—

However, in spite of splits, the wave of Protestantism was not diminishing. The answer to the Emperor’s order that stringent measures should be taken against the Lutheran heresy, and that the Edict of Worms should be carried out, was, that the towns, under the leadership of Nuremberg, banded themselves together with the Lutheran princes, and at the Diet of Spires (1526) it was decreed that “Each State should, as regards the Diet of Worms, so live, rule, and bear itself as it thought it could answer to God and the Empire.”

From this decree, which was an acknowledgment of the temporary breakdown of Roman Catholicism, resulting from the Emperor’s quarrel with the Pope, came the division of Germany into Catholic and Protestant States. Next year, when the Bishop of Bamberg commanded the priests of Nuremberg to observe the Roman Catholic ceremonies, the Council, whom he asked not to interfere with the carrying out of his order, were able to point to this Edict. In order, however, to be secure from the Swabian League, which was hostile to the new teaching, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and other towns, bound themselves together and protested against any interference, on the part of the League, in religious matters.

But in 1529 the Emperor had settled his quarrel with the Pope and returned to his loyalty to Rome. Taking advantage of this, the Papal party succeeded in passing a decree in the Reichstag confirming the Edict of Worms. The Lutheran princes protested against the decree, and so earned the name of “Protestants.” The Protestant communities assembled in Nuremberg, and sent a representative to the Emperor, who was in Italy, to complain. The Emperor, however, took a firm tone with them and declared the dispensation of Spires at an end. Philip von Hessen and other zealous leaders were now very eager to make a firm stand and to form a Protestant union against this fresh attempt to suppress the new teaching. But the Lutherans could not bring themselves to work with the Zwinglians. The influence of Luther and Osiander was sufficient to deter Nuremberg from joining in such a scheme. Wisely or not, she refused to belong to any union which might bring her into conflict with the head of the Empire. But, though she said she would not take up arms, she knew her own mind in religious matters. At a Reichstag held at Augsburg (1530) the Emperor was to be present. Owing to the exertions of the Nuremberg Council, the Evangelical party united to send the celebrated “Confession,” or statement of Lutheran doctrines, which was drawn up by Luther and Melanchthon, signed by Nuremberg and Reutlingen, and read to Charles. The representatives of Nuremberg also took with them a confession of faith, drawn up under the direction of the Council by Nuremberg theologians. A peaceful solution of the question was what they aimed at: a recognition of religious freedom brought about by argument, not by arms. For this reason, and because she had a great distrust of the Protestant princes (“The princes are princes,” it was said, “and if anything happens they will withdraw their heads out of the noose and leave the towns in the lurch”) Nuremberg would not join “the league of Schmalkalden,” formed by the Protestant princes to defend themselves from that crushing of the Lutheran heresy by the Imperial power, which the Diet now threatened. This league, in spite of Luther’s protest against opposition to the civil power, would have led at once to war, had not a Turkish invasion of Austria diverted Charles’ attention. Something like a religious truce was proclaimed, and Nuremberg sent a double contingent of men to help Charles.

It was, perhaps, in recognition of this proof of loyalty that Charles, on his way to Regensburg in 1541, held the Reichstag at Nuremberg for the first time. The town on this occasion was in a great state of festivity. The roads were strewn with sand; festoons and hangings brightened the streets which were lined by 5000 armed citizens. Bells were rung and cannon fired as Charles, clothed in black, with a felt hat on his head, rode into the town, beneath a magnificent red velvet canopy held by eight members of the Council in turn. He passed beneath a triumphal arch which had been erected near NeudÖrfer’s house, in the Burgstrasse. In the Rathaus a solemn act of homage was performed, and the Emperor confirmed all the privileges of the town. Costly gifts were lavished on him; fireworks were let off from the bastion then being built (see p. 115). The Council, in fact, though they would concede nothing, even at the Emperor’s request, on the religious question, showed themselves loyal and conciliatory. The bells of the principal churches were ordered to be rung at noon, to remind all good Christians to pray for protection against the Turks, the arch-enemies of Christianity. This ringing, called BetlÄuten, still takes place.

The Civil War, which was the inevitable result of the formation of the Schmalkalden League, had only been postponed. The Emperor and the Catholic princes tried to reduce the Protestant princes to obedience, with the aid of Spanish soldiery, soon after the death of Luther. Though Charles had said he was going to attack the princes and not the towns, the northern towns promised help to the princes. Nuremberg, however, determined to obey the Emperor; she strove, in fact, to pursue, so far as possible, her usual policy of inactive neutrality. Money was paid to the Emperor: but, when urgent appeals for help came from the princes, the Council sent them privately a sum of money, but would take no further step for the Evangelical cause at present. The sympathy of the majority was, indeed, with the League, but they shrank from risking all the great wealth and privileges of the town for the common welfare and for the freedom of religious belief. NÜrnberg trage auf beiden achseln was the bitter sneer of the day. The temper of her citizens was sorely tried when the Emperor’s ill-behaved Spanish troops were quartered on them. Still, money was supplied loyally enough to the Imperial treasury. In religious matters they remained steadfast, politely but firmly forbidding the Emperor’s Confessor to read Mass to the nuns in the Katharinenkirche.

The result of Charles’ campaigns against the princes was to leave him apparently more powerful than any Emperor since Charlemagne. We can hardly wonder if, in the Reichstag of 1547, he tried to get himself recognised as supreme head of the Empire, not only in political, but also in religious matters. A year later he appointed a Commission which published the “Interim,” establishing a half-and-half religion for all not of the Roman Catholic faith. It was called the strait-waistcoat of German Protestantism. Papacy was thereby almost reintroduced. The work of Luther seemed entirely undone. This attempt at repressing Evangelical teaching roused the Nurembergers. Sermons thundered from the pulpit, and the Council was severely criticised. None the less they accepted the “Interim.” Osiander resigned his post and shook the dust of Nuremberg from off his feet. Others followed his example. But, in spite of protest, the Catholic reaction was, for the moment, successful. It could not last. The Spanish yoke was in itself intolerable. In 1552 the revolt of the princes, in alliance even with France, began. The Council pursued its old policy of neutrality—a policy destined this time not to pay. Money was contributed to the princes: devotion to the Emperor was expressed. So they thought they were safe. But the Markgraf of Brandenburg, Albert Alcibiades, who had declared for the Protestant cause, held only to the princes’ manifesto, that those who were not for them were against them. He turned his eyes on his old enemy, and seized the merchant-trains that were leaving the city in fancied security. Then, suddenly in May, he appeared with a strong force before Lichtenau—a castle and mart belonging to Nuremberg. The place fell into his hands, was burnt and razed to the ground. Next day he sent a message, bearing the Bourbon arms, to express his surprise that he had received no help from Nuremberg. In the name of the King of France and of the allied princes who “purposed to bring back and keep liberty in the dear Fatherland, and to establish a right and true Christian religion,” he demanded whether the town intended to join the league against the Emperor or not. She referred to her dealings with the princes. But the Markgraf, ignoring this subterfuge, moved on the city, and the Council, seeing that he was set on war, determined to stand a siege, and strained every nerve to strengthen the fortifications. The princes, indeed, remonstrated with the Markgraf; but in vain. He advanced, ravaging the villages, taking castles, burning and plundering all he could lay his hands on in his drunken and murderous march. When he arrived beneath the walls of Nuremberg, a truce of eight days was arranged till the Markgraf could hear from Francis I. of France. Meanwhile he busied himself with throwing up entrenchments. But before the eight days had expired, he opened fire on the city. Some cannon-shots struck the Ægidienskirche, in which a service was being held. One house in the Ægidiensplatz still bears the marks of shot that struck it on this occasion, says Dr Reicke. Meanwhile Nuremberg was not slow to defend herself. Her citizens returned the fire with energy, and made some successful sallies. Gold they seem to have used as well as steel; for the Markgraf, after one or two experiments, declared that he would hold no more parleyings with the Nurembergers, for that they had tried to corrupt one of his commanders.

The position of Nuremberg was now very serious. No help was to be expected from any quarter. When, therefore, the towns of Franconia and Swabia came forward at last to act as intermediaries, she welcomed them with every feeling of relief, and was easily persuaded to join, nominally, at any rate, the league against the Emperor. The Markgraf’s casus belli was now gone; but his demands knew no bounds. He insisted on a huge indemnity and the right to garrison the town. In face of this, continued resistance was the only course for Nuremberg. The siege began again with renewed vigour. The Markgraf, who boasted, between his curses, that murder and burning were his favourite pastimes, now thoroughly enjoyed himself. He destroyed, in this war, 3 monasteries, 2 small towns, 170 villages, 19 castles, 75 estates, 28 mills, and 3000 acres of wood. The position of Nuremberg thus became more and more difficult. Her trade and buildings were suffering severely: the forest was being burnt down. The lukewarmness with which she had espoused their cause made it not worth while for the princes to relieve her. The Markgraf, on the other hand, had received numerous reinforcements, and had won over the neighbouring towns to his side. At last, therefore, Nuremberg yielded on these terms (June 9, 1552):—

(1) She was to join the League on the same terms as Augsburg and the other towns.

(2) She was to demand no compensation for injuries inflicted.

(3) She was to pay a large indemnity in cash and war material.

(4) The Markgraf was to give back all the castles, etc., which he had taken.

(5) Matters in dispute between the two parties were to be decided by a commission of princes.