*ytr'^\ 
 
 '^•^AINTED-BY- ^ 
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 ^ SCRIBE D^ BY ^ 
 
 KKSBK 
 
ALBRECHT DURER'S HOUSE. 
 
NUREMBERG 
 
NUREMBERG 
 
 PAINTED BY ARTHUR G. 
 BELL • DESCRIBED BY 
 Mrs. ARTHUR G. BELL 
 PUBLISHED BY ADAM 
 AND CHARLES BLACK 
 SOHO SQUARE • LONDON 
 
.r^'^^ ^ 
 
 '^>^, ^'V^ 
 
 Published April, 1905. 
 
Note 
 
 The water-colour drawings reproduced in 
 this book were, with one exception, done 
 on the spot direct from nature, and the 
 greater part of the letterpress was written 
 at Nuremberg, the remainder from notes 
 made during a long residence there. 
 
 NANCY BELL. 
 
 Rastgarth, 
 
 SOUTHBOURNE, HaNTS. 
 
 March. 1905. 
 
 255101 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Burg of Nuremberg. ...... I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Connection of the Hohenstaufen Family with 
 
 Nuremberg ........ 2z 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Convents and Churches of Nuremberg founded in the 
 
 Thirteenth Century . . . . . . jz 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Town of Nuremberg in the Thirteenth Century 5+ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The History and Growth of Nuremberg in the Four- 
 teenth Century ....... 7® 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Nuremberg under Karl IV. and Wenceslas I., with the 
 Building of the Frauenkirche and the Carthusian 
 Monastery ........ 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Nuremberg under Ruprecht I., Sigismund I., and 
 Frederick III., with the Building of the Third 
 Wall and Opening of the Extra-mural Cemeteries. 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Golden Age of Nuremberg, her Rapid Decline and 
 
 Modern Revival . . . . . . .124 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Nuremberg of To-day . . . . . . • '53 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 2. The BailifTs Dwelling, with the Vestner Turm . 
 
 3. Looking up to the Vestner Turm 
 
 4. The Schwedenhof on the Burg .... 
 
 5. Old Houses on the Pegnitz .... 
 
 6. The Karlsbriicke, with the Spires of St. Sebald . 
 
 7. A Group of Roofs, w^ith the Spires of St. Lorenzo 
 
 8. The Henkersteg, with the Wasserturm 
 
 9. The Inner Lauferturm ..... 
 
 10. The White Tower, or the Inner Spittler Turm, with 
 
 Part of the Second Wall 62 
 
 11. The Oriel Window of St. Sebald's Parsonage . . 74 
 
 12. The Market-place, with the Neptune Fountain and 
 
 Frauen Kirche ....... 94 
 
 13. Part of the Outer Wall above the Pegnitz . . .106 
 
 14. Where the Pegnitz enters Nuremberg . . .112 
 
 15. Part of the Inner Wall near Albrecht Diirer's House . 140 
 
 16. The Fleischbriicke . . . . . . .144 
 
 17. Court of No. l6 Krahengiiszchen . . , . l62 
 
 18. The Nassau House and the Tugendbrunnen . .164 
 
 19. The Schoner Brunnen and the Frauen Kirche . .166 
 
 20. The Children's Playground on the Pegnitz, with the 
 
 Jewish Synagogue . . . . . . .170 
 
9 
 
 NUREMBERG 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 
 
 Many are the memories, tragic and gruesome, 
 inspiring and pathetic, that gather about th? name 
 of Nuremberg, now a thriving commercial city, 
 once a favourite stronghold of the beloved 
 Frederick Barbarossa, whose virile and noble per- 
 sonahty still seems to dominate the Burg and its 
 precincts. Proud of her hardly-won indepen- 
 dence, yet deeply loyal to the Imperial House 
 with which her fortunes were so long bound up, 
 full of reverent affection for the master spirits 
 who raised their native town to so high a position 
 as a centre of intellectual and aesthetic culture, in 
 mediaeval and early Renaissance times, Nuremberg 
 retains unbroken many links with the past, and 
 in her crowded thoroughfares starthng contrasts 
 are of almost hourly occurrence. 
 
 Intensely conservative, yet abreast with the 
 latest achievements of scientific progress, she has 
 
 1 
 
2 NUREMBERG 
 
 through all her vicissitudes retained the individual 
 character which is, alas I becoming ever more 
 rare amongst continental cities. Her electric cars 
 dash past slow-moving country carts of the heavy 
 old-world fashion, familiar to Albrecht Dlirer and 
 Hans Sachs, drawn by gentle cows or patient 
 oxen ; her numerous factories belch forth black, 
 poisonous smoke, unchecked by the sanitary 
 inspector ; ladies decked out in the height of 
 the latest Parisian fashion, rub shoulders in 
 public vehicles with peasant women wearing short, 
 bright-coloured petticoats, black kerchiefs folded 
 across the breast, and the heavy turban head- 
 dresses introduced at the time of the Crusades. 
 Amongst the soberly dressed merchants and shop- 
 keepers a gi'oup may now and then be seen of 
 the modern representatives of the old Tyrolean 
 huntsmen, in the picturesque short green jackets 
 and waistcoats, breeches ending above the knee, 
 and knitted stockings leaving the ankles bare, the 
 final touch of medisevalism supplied by the high, 
 pointed felt or broad-brimmed green velvet hats 
 finished off with a bunch of cock's feathers. 
 
 In the Market-place, dominated by the time- 
 honoured Frauen Kirche, old women who might 
 have posed for Holbein wait patiently for custom 
 behind their stalls, piled up with fruit and veget- 
 jibles, beneath umbrellas that have been handed 
 down from generation to generation. 
 
THE BURG OF NURE^IBERG 8 
 
 Round about the modern representative of the 
 Schoner Brunnen, and the rephca of the Neptune 
 Fountain that was sold to the Emperor Paul of 
 Russia, women gather as of yore to gossip in the 
 early morning and the gloaming, and in the heat 
 of the day panting dogs and weary cattle gaze 
 wistfully at the falling water, that is not for 
 them, unnoticed by the crowds of tourists, who, 
 intent upon their guide-books, miss the significance 
 of the teeming hfe about them. 
 
 From the gloomy recesses of the underground 
 cells of the Rathaus, still haunted, as they seem 
 to be, by the spirits of the tortured and often 
 innocent prisoners who there breathed their last, 
 after undergoing nameless sufferings, or from the 
 dim room in the Five-cornered Tower, where the 
 grim Iron ISIaiden awaits in vain fresh \nctims 
 for her cruel embrace, the student of history 
 may pass in a few minutes to the automatic 
 restaurant, where he can obtain pretty well any- 
 thing he fancies to eat and drink by putting a 
 ten-pfennig piece into the right slot, and listen 
 to the ear-splitting strains of mechanical musical 
 instruments, kept constantly at work by juvenile 
 enthusiasts. 
 
 ' To trace the gradual evolution of Nuremberg 
 from a solitary watch-tower, rising up in lonely 
 grandeur above the surrounding forests, to the 
 fair city girt about with a strong and picturesque 
 
 1—2 
 
4 NUREMBERG 
 
 enceinte, as described in Hans Sachs' famous eulogy, 
 is no easy task. It has, however, been to a great 
 extent successfully achieved with the aid of still 
 existing relics and the collateral evidence of con- 
 temporary records, that have been again and again 
 sifted by historians, so that it is possible to obtain 
 a very clear idea of the appearance and condition 
 of the town at various periods of her eventful 
 career. Moreover, in her museums and private 
 libraries are preserved many quaint old prints of 
 mediaeval Nuremberg ; and several modern German 
 artists, such as Wanderer, Heim, and Ritter, have 
 in their paintings, now in the Rathaus, St. 
 Catherine's Church, and elsewhere, endeavoured 
 not unsuccessfully to reconstruct the environment 
 of their historical subjects. 
 
 Of the origin or the meaning of the name of 
 Nuremberg absolutely nothing is known with any 
 certainty, and of the many conjectures hazarded on 
 the subject not one has been generally accepted.^ 
 To some the German Niirnberg is simply a con- 
 traction of the words Nur, ein. Burg, or only a 
 castle ; others think it is derived from the Sclavonic 
 Nura, signifying a hiding- or lurking-place, whilst 
 others assume the first form of the name to have 
 been Civitas Montis Noricum, or the city on the 
 hill. Noricum in course of time was shortened 
 into Noris, and the town is still often alluded to in 
 literature as the Jungfrau Noris, the human head 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 6 
 
 on the eagle of the ci\'ic arms being assumed to be 
 that of a woman, though it really originally repre- 
 sented an Emperor, and received its feminine 
 character in the sixteenth centurj'. The eagle 
 maiden and Noris gradually became identified in 
 the popular imagination, and the two names are 
 now sometimes used as convertible terms. 
 
 Whatever may have been the origin of the word 
 * Nuremberg,' there can be Uttle doubt that the 
 earliest settlers on the site of the future town, 
 gathered about the base of the grand rock that 
 rises up abruptly from the wooded plains watered 
 by the Pegnitz, but at what date that rock was 
 first turned to account as the foundation of a 
 watch-tower it is impossible to determine. Archae- 
 ologists and historians are, however, agreed in 
 beHe\ing that the oldest of the existing buildings 
 collectively knouii as the Burg, is the Five-cornered 
 Tower,' the name of which, though it at first sight 
 appears misleading, really accurately describes it, a 
 slender supplementaiy defence ha^'ing been added 
 to it on one side, so that from a certain point of 
 view a fifth angle appears. Who built this quauit 
 old tower there is no e\'idence to prove, the theory 
 that it was of Roman origin being quite untenable ; 
 but the probabihty is that it was not erected until 
 about the middle of the tenth century. That it 
 was in the first place hewn partly out of the Hving 
 rock, supplemented by material brought from a 
 
6 NUREMBERG 
 
 distance, is also probable ; but it has evidently been 
 more than once restored, if not entirely rebuilt. 
 Rising from the foot of the three plateaux of the 
 Burg, it was most Hkely strengthened soon after its 
 completion by an encircling wall, of which, how- 
 ever, no trace now remains. It is always desig- 
 nated by the townspeople as Alt Niirnberg, an 
 incidental proof of its great age ; and battered 
 though it is by the wear and tear of many cen- 
 turies, it still triumphantly defies decay. Fitted up 
 as a museum of relics of the past, chiefly instru- 
 ments of torture, it is a survival of a rugged age 
 that was still dominated by the grim spirit of 
 mediaevalism. A winding staircase leads up from 
 floor to floor, and in the dim light of the narrow 
 rooms the horrible implements brought from the 
 prisons of the Rathaus and of the Vehmgericht 
 have found a fitting resting-place. Amongst them 
 is the terrible Iron Maiden of gruesome fame, 
 from whose embrace no victim ever escaped aUve. 
 It is said that kissing the Verfliichte Jungfrau, as 
 the Iron Maiden was called, was a punishment 
 reserved for those charged with political offences, 
 who were, of course, often guiltless of the crimes 
 attributed to them. After a night spent in her 
 presence, the doomed man was compelled to touch 
 the cold lips of the Iron Maiden with his own, 
 when the figure opened, revealing a number of 
 long spikes, into which the prisoner was forced. 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 7 
 
 The folding-doors then closed, and when life was 
 extinct the body was dropped through a trap-door 
 into a pit beneath it.^ 
 
 The Iron Maiden of the Five-cornered Tower 
 belonged to the niunicipahty of Nuremberg, and, 
 according to a tradition that is probably only too 
 well founded, she had a rival in a yet more horrible 
 Jungfrau, the property of the Vehmgericht, who, 
 when a \4ctim was reserved for her, was set up 
 against the wall of the towTi, near the present 
 Maxthor. She was 7 feet high, and her long arms 
 bristled ^nth sharp knives, which, when her attendant 
 executioner touched her foot ^\'ith his own, closed 
 upon her prey, cutting the body into a thousand 
 pieces, that were flung into the waters of the 
 Fischbach that then ran hard by. This punish- 
 ment was called ' being given to the fishes,' and is 
 said to have been inflicted upon a woman and a 
 girl as late as 1769. 
 
 It is impossible to say how long atime elapsed 
 before the Five-cornered Tower was supplemented 
 by other buildings, but it is accepted as proved 
 that the Othmar Chapel, destroyed by fire in 1420 
 and replaced in 1428 by the present Walpurgis 
 Chapel, was, if not actually contemporaneous with 
 *Alt Niirnberg,' built soon after it. It stands 
 opposite to its grim companion, firom which a deep 
 trench divided it, and on to it has been built a 
 massive square tower of unkno^Mi date. Of Uttle 
 
8 NUREMBERG 
 
 architectural beauty, the Walpurgis Chapel is 
 chiefly interesting as occupying a site hallowed by 
 the prayers of the earliest dwellers on the Burg. 
 It was given in 1267 by the then reigning Burg- 
 graf to the Convent of St. Egidius, and di^dne 
 service was celebrated in it until the time of the 
 Beformation, since which it has not been used- 
 Next in date to the Othmar Chapel is the so-called 
 Heidenturm, the name of which is misleading, as 
 it is certainly not of heathen origin, and the carved 
 figures on its eastern end, that led to the mistake, are 
 evidently Romanesque work. It rises up in solemn 
 dignity on the left of the entrance to the castle, 
 and contains two chapels, one above the other, 
 now entered from the modern palace, and described 
 in connection with it. 
 
 Not far from the Heidenturm, on the right 
 hand going up to the castle, is a nineteenth-century 
 two-storied house, enclosing within it the celebrated 
 Deep AVell, 335 feet below the surface of the 
 ground, supposed to be contemporaneous with the 
 foundation of the Burg, though access to it has 
 been greatly improved, for it is recorded that in 
 1559 the Rat of Nuremberg resolved to have it 
 restored, the obtaining of water from it being both 
 difficult and dangerous. Hewn in the living rock, 
 the making of the well is said to have occupied 
 thirty years, and to have been the work of 
 prisoners, part of whose punishment it was that 
 
THE BAILIFF'S DWELLING, WITH THE 
 VESTNER TURM. 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 9 
 
 they should never see the light of day. They were 
 compelled, it is further related, to fetch the water 
 needed for the town from the castle by a sub- 
 terranean passage that still connects the Deep 
 Well with the Rathaus/ 
 
 The guide, who at present (1905) is a young girl 
 who was born and brought up within the precincts 
 of the Burg, enables visitors to judge of the depth 
 of the well by lowering lighted candles into it, 
 reflecting its surface on to a looking-glass, and by 
 dropping water into it, six seconds elapsing before x 
 the resulting splash is heard. 
 
 Yet another relic of the early days of the 
 Burg is the little house known as the Bailiff's 
 Dwelling, supposed to have been originally part of 
 a tower that commanded the entrance to the 
 Freiung, an open space stretching in a southerly 
 direction fi'om it to the outer wall of the Burg, 
 between the Emperor's castle and the Burggraf's 
 castle, to the latter of which it belonged. 
 
 On the parapet of the Freiung the marks are 
 shown, said to have been made by the hoofs of the 
 horse of the robber-knight ApoUonius von Gai- 
 lingen, generally called Eppelein, who is credited 
 with having escaped the death to which he was 
 justly condemned by springing across the moat and 
 galloping away. The remarkable incident is sup- 
 posed to have occurred about 1380, and the story 
 goes that the knight, who had stolen a great 
 
 2 
 
10 NUREMBERG 
 
 treasure belonging to the city of Nuremberg, was 
 shut up in the Five-cornered Tower to await his 
 execution. On the day fixed for it he was being 
 escorted towards the gates of the Burg, when he 
 saw his beloved horse being led away. Turning to 
 the captain of his guard, he begged to be allowed 
 to bid farewell to his ' dear old friend Hans,' and, 
 touched by his gallant bearing, the officer con- 
 sented. As Eppelein patted the horse, he whispered 
 in his ear, and then, suddenly springing upon his 
 back, put him to the leap. Before the captain 
 realized what had happened, his prisoner was far 
 away. As a matter of course, he was supposed to 
 have been in league with the evil one, and the fact 
 that his servant disappeared at the same time as 
 himself, though the gates of the Burg were closed, 
 lent credence to the belief; indeed, the servant 
 was thought by some to have been the Devil in 
 disguise. 
 
 In the opinion of Herr MummenhofF, whose 
 insight into archaeological problems is well known, 
 the Freiung, which was the scene of this remark- 
 able occurrence, did not, as was long supposed, get 
 its name from the fact that it commands a grand 
 view of the open country, but because it enjoyed 
 rights of sanctuary, any fugitive from justice who 
 took refuge within its boundaries being guaranteed 
 freedom and peace for three days, a privilege from 
 which murderers were, however, excluded in lt341. 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 11 
 
 On the lofty wall separating the Freiung jfrom 
 the Burg, and with the garden of the Bailiff's 
 House at its base, runs a picturesque covered way, 
 with numerous openings, called the Watchman's 
 Secret Passage. By its means the patrolling guard 
 could overlook the whole of the precincts of the 
 Burg, as well as of the moat and outer defences, so 
 that it formed an admirable means of guarding 
 against surprise. The secret way is now let to a 
 tenant with a small modern house that has been 
 built on to the inner side of the wall, nearly op- 
 posite the Deep Well. It serves as a storehouse 
 for apples, etc., and thus forms a very interesting 
 link between the remote past and the present 
 everyday life of the Burg, that, unlike so many 
 historic castles, is in thorough touch with modern 
 life — a fact adding very greatly to its charm. 
 
 In spite of the popular belief, which it is even 
 now very difficult to eradicate, that the castle on 
 the Burg is the very one that first rose from the 
 lonely rock, there are really scarcely any remains 
 either of the earliest Imperial Palace or of the 
 residence of the Burggraves, to whom the care of 
 the Burg was confided by the Emperor. It is 
 generally supposed that the latter occupied the site 
 of the present Kaiserstallung, which was built as a 
 granary for the town in 1494 and 1495, was later 
 used as an Imperial stable (hence its present name), 
 and is now a barrack. A few slight relics of the 
 
 2—2 
 
12 NUREMBERG 
 
 palace it replaces are preserved near by, but hidden 
 by ivy and other creepers ; and Herr Mummenhofi 
 describes a whole series of defensive works, of 
 which the tradition alone remains. The Kaiser- 
 stallung is flanked at one end by the Five-cornered 
 Tower already described, and at the other by that 
 known as the Luginsland, built in 1377, and there- 
 fore of later date than the Vestner Turm, which is 
 the most conspicuous feature of the Burg, and was 
 built in 1313, though the picturesque round roof 
 and the turret with the pointed spire were not 
 added until the sixteenth century. 
 
 The Vestner Turm was at first known as the 
 Sinwel, a name signifying round, and was erected 
 to enable the guardians of the Burg to overlook 
 the town. It played a very important part in the 
 history of Nuremberg, for it was from it that the 
 hot-blooded young aristocrats who dwelt on tlie 
 Burg, used to watch their opportunity to swoop 
 down on the defenceless citizens. It was, indeed, 
 with a view to playing the spy on these marauders 
 that the townsfolk resolved to build a watch-tower 
 of their own, to which they gave the appropriate 
 name of the Luginsland, or the outlook on the 
 land, its four towers commanding a view in every 
 direction. 
 
 In the Sinwel, or Vestner Turm, is preserved the 
 horn that used to be blown from it in case of 
 alarm, whether of fire or the approach of an enemy. 
 
LOOKING UP TO THE VESTNER TURM. 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 13 
 
 Watch is still kept from its turret, which is connected 
 by telegraph and telephone with the town, the 
 guardian making the round every quarter of an 
 hour ; and from it a very fine view is obtained of 
 Nuremberg itself, and of the glorious scenery that 
 surrounds it. 
 
 The old man, Christ A¥ildner by name, who 
 has now (1905) charge of the Vestner Turm, and 
 has been associated with it for a long spell of years, 
 is deeply attached to it, and has written a charming 
 httle monograph, describing its characteristics with 
 considerable skill. Forgetting the role it played in 
 olden times, when the Luginsland rose up in rivalry 
 to it, he claims that it has guarded the fair 
 Jungfrau Noris for centuries, resisting — and here, 
 perhaps, he is right — the gnawing tooth of time as 
 no other building of Nuremberg has done. 
 
 The Imperial Castle, built on the highest of 
 the three plateaux, from which rise the various 
 towers, etc., that are collectively known as the 
 Burg, has, unfortunately, in spite of its venerable 
 external appearance, been so much modernized 
 that very little of its original character remains. 
 In 1893 it lost one of its most valued relics of 
 the past, by the death of the fine elm, of which 
 only the blackened stump, draped with creepers, 
 now remains in the central courtyard, said to have 
 been planted by St. Cunigunda in gi-atitude for 
 the escape of her husband, St. Henry, who saved 
 
14 NUREMBERG 
 
 himself from falling down a precipice, to the brink 
 of which he had ridden, by clutching at the branch 
 of a tree. 
 
 A modern staircase leads up from the court- 
 yard to the living-rooms of the palace, rebuilt as 
 recently as 1856, and as the works of art collected 
 in them are, with some few exceptions, modern, it 
 is not until the chapels in the Heidenturm, now 
 entered from the castle, are reached, that any real 
 sense of the continuity between the past and the 
 present is felt. 
 
 The chapels, though one is of considerably 
 earlier date than the other, practically form one 
 building, the lower portion of which is dedicated 
 to St. Margaret, whilst the upper is known as 
 the Kaiserkapelle, a wide opening in the centre 
 of the latter enabling worshippers in both to share 
 in the same services. The Chapel of St. Margaret 
 is generally supposed to have belonged to the 
 first castle that rose up on the Burg, and to have 
 been used as a burial-place for the Emperors and 
 Burggraves. Beneath its floor were found, some 
 few years ago, the skeletons of two bodies, over 
 which much controversy has been waged, certain 
 authorities believing them to be the remains of two 
 members of the Hohenstaufen family, whilst others 
 think they are those of two of the earliest Burg- 
 graves. In any case, the gloomy, crypt -like 
 character of their resting-place is thoroughly suit- 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 15 
 
 able for a mortuary chapel. The massive pillars 
 that uphold the circular vault were evidently, as 
 was the custom when the building was erected, 
 placed in position before the capitals were hewn, 
 whilst the slender marble columns of the later 
 Kaiserkapelle have finely-carved capitals and bases. 
 Some attribute the building of the upper chapel 
 to Conrad III., the first Hohenstaufen to occupy 
 the Burg ; others to his successor, the much-loved 
 Frederick Barbarossa, who, as is well known, was 
 very often resident in Nuremberg. Possibly it 
 may have been begun by Conrad and completed 
 by Frederick. 
 
 A quaint legend, very significant of the creduhty 
 of the time in which it was evolved, is related 
 in connection with the building of the upper 
 chapel, some versions making Conrad III., others 
 Frederick I., one of the chief figures in the won- 
 drous tale. The chapel, so goes the story, had been 
 begun, and was already considerably advanced, 
 when news was received that a royal guest who 
 had arranged to pay a visit to the castle some 
 months later, would be at the gates of the Burg 
 in a few days. Conrad or Frederick was most 
 anxious that the chapel should be finished before 
 the great event, and by his eagerness so impressed 
 the workmen and everyone concerned, that they 
 worked day and night in the hope of meeting his 
 Avishes. 
 
16 NUREMBERG 
 
 The task, however, seemed hopeless, as four 
 
 marble columns which were to be brought from 
 
 Italy had not yet started on their journey, 
 
 and it was impossible to supply their place with 
 
 any other material. No one was more anxious 
 
 about the matter than the chaplain, a certain 
 
 Father Cyril, and one night he had a terrible 
 
 dream, in which the Devil appeared to him and 
 
 made an extraordinary offer. He would bring the 
 
 four marble columns from Italy in time if the 
 
 priest would give him his soul in exchange for 
 
 them. Naturally the holy man hesitated to pay 
 
 so high a price, whereat his visitor went so far 
 
 as to add, *I can bring all your pillars, one by 
 
 one, more quickly than you can say Mass. If I d^ 
 
 so, will you pay the forfeit V Father Cyril ponV 
 
 dered a moment and then consented to the bargain, 
 
 reflecting that, if the evil one should win, he 
 
 himself would be the only loser, whilst the Devil 
 
 would, for once, have aided in a holy cause. Only 
 
 one condition did the reckless priest make: the 
 
 other party to the wager must not start until the 
 
 bell calling the congregation to the service should 
 
 cease ringing. * Agreed,' said the Devil, and 
 
 seated himself on the top of the unfinished church 
 
 to wait for the signal. The instant it was given 
 
 he was off, a fearful storm breaking over the 
 
 chapel as he disappeared in a mass of cloud, rent 
 
 by lightning. The fury of the elements raged 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 17 
 
 unchecked all through the celebration of Mass, 
 and three times the De\dl dashed in, bringing 
 with him one column. As he entered the sacred 
 building for the fourth time, however, he heard 
 the last solemn words : ' Dominus vobiscum ita 
 missa est.' He reahzed at once that he was 
 beaten, and as the exhausted priest fell almost 
 Ufeless before the altar, the evil one flung the last 
 column upon the ground, breaking it in half with 
 the force of the blow. 
 
 When the workmen arrived the next morning, 
 they found three richly-carved pillars in the right 
 position, and a fourth in two halves lying near. 
 The news of the extraordinary event was quickly 
 noised abroad, and Father Cyril, who was long in 
 recovering from his swoon, was eagerly cross- 
 examined. He could scarcely at first beheve in his 
 own salvation, and feared that his spiritual superiors 
 would never forgive this traffic with the evil one. 
 The Emperor, however, pleaded his cause so elo- 
 quently with the Bishop who came to consecrate 
 the miraculously completed church, that he was 
 absolved. He was even allowed to take part in 
 the solemn service of thanksgi\ing that was held 
 when the expected royal guest arrived. 
 
 Whatever may have been the origin of this 
 remarkable legend, or the cause of the join in one 
 of the pillars, now marked by an iron ring, there is 
 no doubt that the marble of which the columns are 
 
 3 
 
18 NUREMBERG 
 
 composed came from Italy, and that the chapel of 
 which they form so distinctive a feature is a true 
 gem of Romanesque architecture. With the 
 building beneath it, it is a poem in stone, and its 
 ornamentation, dating from several different periods, 
 links it with the golden age of German art, when 
 the great masters of carving, sculpture, and painting 
 vied with each other in the decoration of the 
 churches of Nuremberg. The carving in wood 
 representing the Last Supper, above the high 
 altar, with the paintings of the wings of the 
 triptych, of which it forms the centre, all of very 
 early date and unknown authorship, are very 
 beautiful, and lead up, as it were, to the more 
 highly - finished works of Veit Stoss and Adam 
 Kraft in the choir, and the finely-chiselled heads 
 that adorn the western wall are true masterpieces 
 of the sixteenth century, though the name of their 
 author has not been preserved. Very interesting 
 also is the Imperial Oratory, entered from the 
 palace by a short flight of steps, built in 1519 for 
 Charles V., and recently well restored, the removal 
 of the disfiguring plaster on its walls revealing 
 some really fine frescoes. From it the Emperor, 
 undisturbed himself, can look down upon the 
 double chapel and join in the services that are 
 still held in it when the castle is occupied. 
 
 The living rooms of the palace, constantly altered 
 and added to as they have been to meet the tastes 
 
THE BURG OF NUREMBERG 19 
 
 of the various Imperial owTiers who have used 
 them jfrom time to time, retain, unfortunately, 
 but little of the fascinating aroma of the past, that 
 gives so great a charm to the older portions of the 
 Burg. The chief kitchen is, however, said to be 
 that used in the time of Frederick Barbarossa, to 
 which two others were added in 1477 and another 
 somewhat later. The entrance gateway is supposed 
 to be identical with that set up in 1520, replacing 
 a very much older one, and modified by order of 
 the B^t of Nuremberg in 1562. A specially fine 
 feature of one of the Emperor's private rooms is 
 the ceiling painted by Hans Spi*inginklee in honour 
 of the \Hsit of Charles V. ; and, amongst the inter- 
 esting domestic rehcs of times gone by, the stoves 
 in the larger apartments deserve special recogni- 
 tion, many of them being true works of art, 
 although the humble purpose they served has led 
 to their being depreciated. Those designed by 
 Hirschvogel are especially fine, but amongst the 
 older ones by unknown designers are some of great 
 beauty. 
 
 It is indeed remarkable that so homogeneous 
 and harmonious an appearance should be presented 
 by the various buildings of the Burg, dating as they 
 do from so many different periods, and reflecting 
 the requirements of no less than three totally dis- 
 tinct and often hostile communities — the Imperial 
 and Burggravine households and the representatives 
 
 3 — 2 
 
«0 NUREMBERG 
 
 of the town. Whether the precincts of the strong- 
 hold be entered through the Himmels Thor at the 
 top of the Burgsstrasse, or from the outer circum- 
 vallation by way of the Vestner Thor, dominated by 
 the great tower of the same name, the effect is 
 equally impressive and dignified ; nor, in spite of the 
 many comparatively modern houses within the 
 walls, is there anything to detract from the general 
 sense of congruity and fitness. The sixteenth- 
 century cottages behind the nineteenth-century 
 house, enshrining the Deep Well, and the quaint 
 mediaeval buildings of the Schwedenhof, are one 
 and all in thorough touch with their surroundings. 
 It is indeed a noteworthy element of the unfading 
 charm of the Burg that human lives are still lived 
 in it, and that ever fresh associations are growing 
 up beneath its protecting shadow. It is no isolated 
 survival of a forgotten, or at the best dimly-remem- 
 bered past ; it takes its share in the life of to-day, 
 shaping that of to-morrow, and inspires in its 
 inhabitants the strong affection given only to a 
 home. 
 
 Something of the same wielding of the past and 
 present is a feature of the glorious view of Nurem- 
 berg and its surroundings from the summit of the 
 Vestner Turm, the balconies of the Palace and 
 the Freiung, for the near and the distant are 
 welded into one symmetrical whole, over which 
 ever broods the spirit of the long ago. All modern 
 
THE SCHWEDENHOF ON THE BURG. 
 
**«"«» 
 
 ^*l> 
 
THE BUrI? of NUREMBERG 21 
 
 incongruities, such as the electric tram lines, the 
 huge shops, the teeming, black-coated crowds, are 
 lost, whilst the sea of red-tiled roofs and lofty 
 chimneys remain much what they were when the 
 city was the home of Albrecht Diirer and Adam 
 Kraft. 
 
 It is in the evening light, when the sun has set, 
 but before the after-glow has faded away, that the 
 illusion is most complete. Then, as the twinkling 
 hghts of the houses shine out one by one, and the 
 towers and spires of the churches and the fortifica- 
 tions emerge slowly from the gathering gloom, the 
 throbbing glow of electricity from the huge goods- 
 station beyond, that might come from some forest 
 conflagration, forming a luminous background, 
 Nuremberg becomes once more a mediaeval city. 
 Her long stretches of dreary manufacturing suburbs 
 are blotted out, their faint illuminations seeming 
 to be but the watch-fires of a warlike host, en- 
 camped in the open country, or of some charcoal- 
 burners preparing for the vigil of the night. Then 
 the very air seems to throb with romance ; the 
 voices of the children playing below are hushed 
 as they whisper to each other. ' See ! there comes 
 out the White Tower ; how it shines through the 
 dark, and look how bright the towers of St. 
 Sebald are to-night !' 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CONNECTION OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 
 WITH NUREMBERG 
 
 It can only have been for a very short time that 
 the Burg, which has for so many centuries domi- 
 nated Nuremberg, was in any strict sense isolated. 
 The very fact that it was occupied by the Emperor, 
 if only for a few weeks at a time, must have led to 
 an influx of settlers in the neighbourhood ; and 
 when, as probably happened soon after the building 
 of the first castle, the first Burggraf was appointed, 
 he in his turn must have attracted many followers. 
 The scattered fishermen's huts on the Pegnitz and 
 those of the woodcutters in the forest, must soon 
 have been supplemented by the forges of the 
 blacksmiths, who shod the horses of the nobles, 
 and the homes of the armourers, who forged the 
 weapons of the knights. Moreover, the Burg and 
 its dependencies were most likely quite unequal to 
 the housing of the numerous retainers of the Burg- 
 graves, who, though they probably camped in tents 
 outside the walls in the summer, must have re- yj 
 quired some shelter in the long severe winter. 
 
 22 
 
THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 23 
 
 The earliest actual mention of Nuremberg occurs 
 in an edict, dated from it under the name of 
 ' Nourenberc,' on July 20, 1050, by the Emperor, 
 Henry HI., who the same year summoned his 
 nobles to meet him there. Henry is also said to 
 have been the first to confer on the town the rights 
 of holding a market and issuing her own coinage, 
 which, of course, would imply that the place was 
 already of considerable importance. Some say the 
 market was only temporarily transferred from 
 Fiirth, then already a large \411age, to Nuremberg ; 
 but as there is no record that the pri\dlege was 
 ever taken away from the former, the significance 
 of the incident remains the same. From that time 
 the ^dsits of the Emperors, who, through the 
 many accidents that befell them, succeeded each 
 other w4th tragic rapidity, appear to have been 
 pretty frequent, and when Conrad III., the first 
 Hohenstaufen, took up his residence in the castle 
 soon after his election in 1137, the first of the 
 three walls that w^ere later to encircle the town 
 was probably already completed. 
 
 The first wall of Nuremberg, in the opinion of 
 the best German authorities, enclosed but a small 
 area, and is supposed to have run from the western 
 side of the Burg in a southerly direction, across 
 what is still known as the Weinmarkt, beyond 
 which it bent eastwards, till it reached the swampy 
 meadows by the Pegnitz, that then, as now, cut 
 
24 NUREMBERG 
 
 the inhabited districts in half. Thence the river 
 itself formed the boundary for some little distance, 
 and the wall is supposed to have started again from 
 what is now the Spitalplatz, and to have run north- 
 wards to the so-called Tetzelgasse, where a relic of 
 it remains in the form of the Romerturm, named 
 after the family to which the house into which it 
 was later converted belonged. The wall then 
 passed over the hill now occupied by the church 
 and square of St. Egidius, skirted along the seven 
 rows of weavers' houses still standing, built in 1448 
 for the use of Swabian immigrants, to the Frosch- 
 turm — the name of which is very suggestive of the 
 marshy district from which it rose — now replaced 
 by the modern Maxthor. 
 
 The church of St. Egidius, or St. Giles, supposed 
 to have stood just outside the first wall, originally 
 belonged to a monastery of Scotch Benedictine 
 monks, and was built for them in 1140 by 
 Conrad III. on the site, according to tradition, of 
 a very much older chapel dedicated to St. Martin, 
 erected by Charlemagne — of whose presence in the 
 neighbourhood there is, however, no historical 
 evidence — in gratitude for his escape when he had 
 lost his way when hunting in the forest. 
 
 The church and monastery, with the exception 
 of three small chapels, were burnt down in 1696, 
 and between 1711 and 1718 another building was 
 erected in their stead which is a truly melancholy 
 
THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 25 
 
 example of the decadence of ecclesiastical architec- 
 ture, which had then fully set in. Hideous 
 galleries disfigure the interior, but the altar-piece 
 is a fine copy of a ' Descent from the Cross,' by Van 
 Dyck, and on the wall behind are two charming 
 bas-reliefs in bronze — one of the 'Entombment' by 
 Peter Vischer, the other attributed to his son Hans. 
 Fortunately the three chapels that escaped the 
 flames, named respectively after Saints Eucharius 
 and Wolfgang and the Tetzel family, are fine 
 examples of late Romanesque architecture, the 
 vaulting resembling that of the Kaisercapelle of 
 the Burg, whilst the note of the approaching change 
 to the Gothic style is struck by the combination of 
 round and pointed arches. Iii the Tetzel Chapel 
 are a few fragments of very ancient stained glass, 
 a much mutilated ' Coronation of the Virgin,' by 
 Adam Kraft, and a quaint ' Crucifixion ' of much 
 earlier date, in which the incident of casting lots 
 for the coat without seam is very graphically 
 rendered. 
 
 The principal streets of the town of Conrad III. 
 and Frederick Barbarossa were : that called Unter 
 der Vesten,the present Burgstrasse, and the old Berg- 
 strasse, now the Albrecht Diirer Strasse, the former 
 leading straight down from the Burg itself, the 
 latter from what is now called the Thiergartner 
 Thor, and between the two were numerous narrow 
 lanes with wooden houses, no traces of which 
 
 4 
 
26 NUREMBERG 
 
 remain, though the foundations of a few somewhat 
 later buildings near the chief market-place are 
 supposed to be still what they were in the twelfth 
 century. 
 
 Conrad III., who died in 1152, was succeeded by 
 his nephew, Frederick I., who seems from the first 
 to have had a great affection for Nuremberg, and who 
 resided in the Burg at intervals for a considerable 
 length of time. He probably added considerably 
 to the castle, if not to the chapel, and it was in the 
 former that he held his last Council before he 
 started on the fatal journey to Palestine from which 
 he was never to return. Of noble presence, his 
 handsome features constantly, it is said, lit up by a 
 genial smile, his ready courtesy, even to the most 
 humble of his subjects, and his princely generosity, 
 were long remembered by the people of Nurem- 
 berg, whose descendants still look back with pride 
 upon the days when the Prince of the ruddy locks 
 and beard, that won him the nickname of Barbarossa, 
 was a familiar figure in the streets of the old town. 
 None mourned more truly than the faithful burghers 
 when the terrible news came that Frederick had 
 been drowned in Cilicia whilst bathing, on June 10, 
 1190, and though they were loyal to his son and 
 successor, Henry VI., who had been crowned 
 Emperor during his father's lifetime, they never 
 transferred their affections to him. 
 
 For centuries mothers still told tales of Frederick 
 
i 
 
OLD HOUSES ON THE PEGNITZ, 
 
THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 27 
 
 Barbarossa's wonderful deeds to their little ones, 
 who were brought up to believe that he is not really 
 dead, but is still sleeping peacefully in some lonely 
 mountain cave, his beard growing ever longer and 
 longer as he awaits the call of his people in their 
 need. Now and then he turns his head to listen 
 for that call, and to find out whether the ravens are 
 still circhng above his resting-place, for when they 
 cease to do so the moment for his resurrection will 
 have come. 
 
 > Many years before his death Frederick Barbarossa 
 gave to Conrad, a young scion of the then rising 
 house of HohenzoUern, the office of Burggraf of 
 Nuremberg, already a very important position, for 
 it implied the dignity of a Prince of the Empire, 
 and the new Burggraf knew well how to turn it to 
 account. Under his energetic rule the privileges 
 of his office rapidly increased until they became 
 scarcely inferior to those of the Emperor himself, 
 and from that time until the Burg and all its 
 dependencies passed into the possession of the town 
 the Burggraves were a power to be reckoned with, 
 constantly at feud with the citizens, and not rarely 
 also with the Emperors, to whom they were 
 nominally subject. 
 
 The son of Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VI., 
 cared comparatively little for Nuremberg, so that 
 the Burggraves had things very much their own 
 way. The new Emperor, however, occasionally 
 
 4—2 
 
28 NUREMBERG 
 
 held his Court in the Burg, and a certain writer, 
 with more imagination than regard for truth, 
 describes a great tournament that took place in 
 his honour in 1197, on which occasion the Rat, 
 who could then have had no existence, gave a 
 great banquet in the Town Hall, which was not 
 built until several centuries later, to the Princes 
 and nobles who had come to take part in the 
 contest. 
 
 Henry VI. died in 1197, and two successors 
 were simultaneously elected by the rival parties in 
 the State. These were Philip of Swabia, a younger 
 son of Frederick Barbarossa, and Duke Otto of 
 Brunswick, son of Henry the Lion. The former 
 was murdered in 1208 by Otto of Wittelsbach, 
 whose ancestors were for a long period Burg- 
 graves of Nuremberg, the appointment having been 
 given to one of them in 1127 ; and the surviving 
 monarch. Otto of Brunswick, who was a man of 
 little character, was superseded during his lifetime 
 by Frederick II., a son of Henry VI., who seems 
 to have inherited many of the noble qualities of his 
 grandfather, Frederick Barbarossa. He, too, was 
 devoted to Nuremberg, and to him the town owed 
 her first charter, which was granted on November 8, 
 1219. The original document, with its seal, is pre- 
 served amongst the Imperial archives at Munich, 
 and is, of course, looked upon as a most valuable 
 historical relic. Except for a few words that are 
 
THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 29 
 
 now undecipherable, it is what it was when it was 
 issued from the Burg of Nuremberg, and bears 
 clear witness to the relations between the Emperor 
 and the city. It confirms many privileges con- 
 ferred by Frederick's predecessors, and to these 
 adds several others, including the significant one 
 that Nuremberg should henceforth owe allegiance 
 to none but the Emperor, a clause that has been 
 very eagerly discussed, for it raises the question : 
 did the town belong to the reigning Emperor, 
 of whatever house, or was it the private property 
 of the Hohenstaufen family ? Moreover, the fact 
 that this famous charter makes no reference to the 
 rights of the Burggraves over the Burg or over the 
 town, is significant of the illegality of the devices 
 they were so fond of advancing and so ready to 
 maintain at any cost. 
 
 Not long after the granting of this charter 
 Frederick II. left Germany for Italy, appointing 
 his young son Henry his representative during his 
 absence, and placing him under the guardianship 
 of Engelbert, Archbishop of Cologne. Henry was 
 then only ten years old, so that the Empire was, 
 until his majority, practically governed by the 
 prelate. 
 
 The young Prince spent much of his time m 
 Nuremberg with his mother, and it was there that 
 he was married in 1225 to Margaret, daughter of 
 the Archduke Leopold of Austria. At the same 
 
30 NUREMBERG 
 
 time Duke Henry of Austria, brother of the bride, 
 was married to Agnes, a daughter of Landgraf 
 Hermann of Thuringia, and a great festival was 
 held in honour of the double wedding, which was, 
 however, saddened by an unfortunate occurrence. 
 It is related that a platform was erected in the 
 Kittersaal, now the dining-hall of the Palace, for 
 the spectators of the dancing, and that it suddenly 
 fell with a crash upon the merrymakers, killing 
 seventy of them, including many noble knights and 
 fair ladies. 
 
 It is said to have been in the same room that the 
 terrible news was brought to the newly-wedded 
 Prince that his beloved guardian, the Archbishop 
 of Cologne, had been murdered by his young 
 nephew, the Duke of Isenberg. Overcome with 
 grief, Henry, turning to the knights who were 
 standing about him at the time, inquired what 
 steps they considered should be taken to bring the 
 assassin to justice. A quarrel arose, and from hot 
 words the disputants came to blows. The struggle 
 spread to the passage and staircase leading to the 
 hall, and the latter gave way, crushing many in its 
 fall. In the end the Duke of Isenberg was out- 
 lawed and excommunicated, but his life was 
 spared. 
 
 The rest of Henry's life was clouded by a quarrel 
 with his father, whose constant and prolonged 
 absences from Germany caused much confusion 
 
THE HOHENSTAUFEN FAMILY 31 
 
 and mischief. It is said that Heiiry grieved greatly 
 over the estrangement, and was on his way to ask 
 forgiveness of Frederick, when the news was brought 
 to him that his father had decided to take from 
 him all his dignities, and transfer them to his half- 
 brother Conrad. Henry, therefore, unfortmiately 
 gave up the idea of seeing the Emperor, who 
 would probably gladly have hailed the chance of 
 reconcihation, and endeavoured to escape by secret 
 flight. He was, however, followed and brought 
 back, losing his personal Hberty as well as his 
 kingdom. He was imprisoned first in one strong- 
 hold and then in another till his death, which took 
 place in 1242. Frederick II. died eight years later ; 
 his son, Conrad IV., followed him to the grave in 
 1254 ; and by the death in 1268 of his grandson 
 Conradin, who was beheaded at Naples after the 
 Battle of Taghacozzo, which lost him his last hope 
 of winning back his paternal heritage, the noble 
 house of Hohenstaufen came to an untimely end. 
 True, the last son of Frederick II., Enzio, at one 
 time King of Sardinia, lived on until 1270, but he 
 had been a prisoner in Bologna for twenty years 
 before his death, and his sister Katherine died a nun 
 in a French convent in 1279. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CONVENTS AND CHURCHES OF NUREMBERG FOUNDED 
 IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Throughout the period of the supremacy of the 
 Hohenstaufens Nuremberg continued to grow 
 rapidly, many new houses rising up within the 
 original boundaries of the city, whilst several 
 convents, with the churches associated with them, 
 were built outside the walls. The Benedictine 
 monastery of St. Egidius, already referred to, was 
 ere long succeeded by an Augustinian convent, 
 which was burnt down soon after its completion 
 and replaced by another on a different site, since 
 removed, and now part of the Germanic Museum. 
 In the thirteenth century many monks of the 
 then recently-founded Mendicant Orders flocked to 
 Nuremberg, at that time devoted to the Catholic 
 faith. ' They resembled,' says an orthodox chro- 
 nicler, ' the four rivers of Paradise,' whilst a heretic 
 annahst likens them to the plague of locusts that 
 ate up all the fohage and fruit of the land. For 
 the Franciscans, a convent, of which a few relics 
 still remain, was built near what is now called the 
 
 32 
 
MEDI.i:VAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 33 
 
 Museum bridge, long known as that of the Bare- 
 footed Friars, whilst part of a monastery that 
 belonged to the Carmelite brethren was until 
 recently used as a post-office. The Dominicans 
 were not long in following the rival Orders, and 
 their eloquent preachers are said to have won over 
 many waverers to the CathoUc faith. 
 
 A wealthy citizen, named Otto Winkler, is 
 credited with having given the Preaching Friars a 
 site and aided them in building their monastery, 
 which now belongs to the municipahty and con- 
 tains the valuable town Ubrary, which, in addition 
 to the Archives of the City, includes 2,000 valu- 
 able manuscripts, collected chiefly by Hieronymus 
 Paumgartner and Erasmus Ebner. Amongst these 
 are the so-called Machsor, bearing date 1311, 
 containing a complete collection of Jewish hymns 
 and prayers inscribed on vellum ; autograph letters 
 from Luther, Melancthon, and Gustavus Adolphus, 
 poems by Hans Sachs, with many other priceless 
 treasures. A unique collection of early printed 
 books, drawings and old prints, with many thou- 
 sands of volumes of reference, combine to make 
 the old home of the Dominicans a perfect store- 
 house of wealth for the student of history, litera- 
 ture, and art. 
 
 As a matter of course, the Poor Clares, as the 
 sisterhood founded by St. Clara of Assisi was 
 called, were also early represented in orthodox 
 
 5 
 
 ^i 
 
84 NUREMBERG 
 
 Nuremberg. They were, it is said, preceded by a 
 little party of nuns known as the Penitents, who 
 were supposed to be under the special patronage 
 of Mary Magdalene, and in 1240 established them- 
 selves outside the walls of the town. In 1274 
 their Order was incorporated with that of the Poor 
 Clares, and a convent was built for the united 
 community on the site of the inner Frauenthor, 
 now destroyed, which was named after the holy 
 women. In course of time the convent became a 
 celebrated place of education, and until the Re- 
 formation it was the fashion amongst the well-to-do 
 citizens of Nuremberg to send their daughters to it. 
 In 1295 yet another convent for nuns was erected 
 outside Nuremberg, for a sisterhood that bore some- 
 thing of the same relation to the Dominican 
 as the Poor Clares did to the Franciscan Order. 
 They were named after St. Catherine, and, accord- 
 ing to popular belief, were at first represented 
 only by a few women who lived in huts on the 
 banks of the Pegnitz and went about visiting the 
 sick. A certain wealthy citizen, however, resolved to 
 build a convent for them, and set aside a portion 
 of his land for the purpose. His daughter, whose 
 name was Catherine, took a great interest in the 
 matter, but considered her father's gift far too 
 small. The story goes that, thinking the end 
 justified the means, she bribed the workmen who 
 were marking out the boundaries to widen their 
 
MEDIAEVAL CX)NVENTS AND CHURCHES 36 
 
 extent. They did so in the dead of the night, and 
 when the donor came in the morning to see how 
 the work was progressing, he jumped to the some- 
 what hasty conclusion that a miracle had been 
 performed by St. Catherine, who he said had 
 e\'idently intervened. He therefore made a free 
 gift of the larger piece of ground, and the convent 
 was built on a more extensive scale. Fired by his 
 example, other rich men bestowed gifts on the 
 community, till it became one of the wealthiest in 
 the neighbourhood. Xot until the Reformation 
 did the prosperity of the convent decline, and its 
 church, which is still standing, was long one of the 
 most frequented in Nuremberg. It is recorded that 
 when the Emperor Charles V. was in the city in 
 1541, the citizens firmly refused to allow his con- 
 fessor to perform Mass in it. It became secularized, 
 and the famous Meistersingers of Nuremberg, of 
 whom Hans Sachs was so noted a member, used to 
 hold their meetings in it, a fact commemorated by 
 Wagner, who has made it the scene of an episode 
 in his drama of the ' Meistersinger. ' 
 
 Of the Convent of St. Catherine none of the 
 buildings remain but the entrance gateway, with a 
 figure of the titular saint on one side, in the Peter 
 Vischer Strasse. The church, however, though 
 deprived of all its ecclesiastical fittings, is still much 
 what it was when first erected. It contains an 
 interesting reproduction of a bas-rehef, the original 
 
 5—2 
 
36 NUREMBERG 
 
 of which is in the Germanic Museum, represent- 
 ing Hans Sachs in the pulpit addressing his pupils, 
 who are picturesquely grouped below ; and the 
 whole of one of the walls is occupied by a large 
 oil-painting by Ritter, the famous deaf and dumb 
 artist, of the market-place of Nuremberg as it was 
 in the sixteenth century, in which the famous 
 gooseman, who has been immortalized by Pancras 
 Labenwolf in the figure on the Fountain of the fruit 
 market described below, is twice introduced. 
 
 The earliest church founded in Nuremberg 
 independently of a monastery seems to have been 
 that named after St. Sebald, to whom, according 
 to a tradition dear to the hearts of the people, 
 the town owed far more than to the protection 
 afforded by the Burg the frequent presence of 
 the Emperor, the fruitfulness of the neighbourhood, 
 its richness in game, or even the rights secured to 
 the citizens by charter. 
 
 The legend of St. Sebald is indeed one of the 
 most beautiful that has been evolved by popular 
 imagination, so full is it of poetry, and so vividly 
 does it reflect the simple faith in the almighty 
 power of God, working through His chosen human 
 instruments, that for so many centuries charac- 
 terized the sturdy peasants of Franconia. 
 
 As is the case with all legends of the saints, 
 that of St. Sebald is variously told, being coloured 
 by the different media through which it has passed. 
 
MEDIAEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 37 
 
 The most generally received version is that he 
 was the son of a King and Queen of Denmark, 
 who had long earnestly prayed to God to give 
 them a child. When they had abandoned all 
 hope of an answer to their appeal, a son was 
 granted to them, who from his earhest childhood 
 seemed to be set aside for some high mission. 
 He was educated at Paris, gi'eatly distinguishing 
 himself by his eager attention to his studies, and 
 winning the devotion alike of his teachers and his 
 fellow-pupils. On his return home at the age of 
 eighteen, a marriage was arranged for him with a 
 beautiful young girl of noble birth, but he had 
 already resolved to dedicate his hfe to God alone, 
 and though he yielded to the pressure put upon 
 him so far as to go through the marriage ser\'ice 
 with his bride, he explained to her as soon as 
 they were alone together that he could be her 
 husband in name only. How she received this 
 startling announcement the legend does not say, 
 but the young Prince, ha^'ing exacted a promise 
 from her not to give the alarm until he was out 
 of reach, fled from the palace that same night. 
 He was never seen or heard of by his parents 
 again, who mourned deeply over his loss, but, at 
 the same time, were able to rejoice that their 
 beloved son had chosen what they felt was the 
 better part. 
 
 After being alone in the forest for some years 
 
38 NUREMBERG 
 
 praying and fasting, the future saint made his 
 way to Italy, where he was joined by a young 
 disciple named Dionysius, who henceforth became 
 his devoted attendant, and for whom he conceived 
 a very deep affection — so deep, indeed, that he 
 condoned offences on his part that he would 
 certainly never have forgiven in himself. The 
 story goes, for instance, that once when Dionysius 
 had drunk the wine the holy man kept by him 
 for the use of the sick, and in fear and trembling 
 brought the empty pitcher to his master, St. 
 Sebald, who knew everything, refilled it with a 
 word, his ready forgiveness proving that his sanctity 
 did not set him altogether above human weaknesses. 
 
 St. Sebald is said to have worked for some 
 years with the early missionaries, the brothers 
 Saints Willibald and Winibald, and to have been 
 sent by them to convert the heathen in Lombardy. 
 However that may be, the rumour of his extra- 
 ordinary sanctity soon spread far and wide. It 
 was whispered that he was constantly attended by 
 an angel, who brought him food and drink when 
 he was exhausted with travelling and preaching ; 
 but possibly it was only Dionysius, who was taken 
 for a heavenly visitor, for he was never weary of 
 waiting upon the master, who was more than a 
 father to him. 
 
 Miracles of a most extraordinary character are 
 supposed to have everywhere marked the course 
 
MEDLEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 39 
 
 of St. Sebald. On one occasion, for instance, 
 when a heathen or heretic made fun of his teach- 
 ing, the preacher prayed earnestly to God to give 
 a sign that he had spoken the truth, and even as 
 the words left his hps the ground opened beneath 
 the feet of the scoffer, who sank up to his neck 
 into the cleft. In his agony the man cried aloud 
 to St. Sebald for help, declaring that he would 
 never again doubt his word, and the holy man, 
 who was as tender-hearted as he was devout, 
 released his enemy with a word. 
 
 From Italy St. Sebald wandered, it is said, into 
 Bavaria, crossing the Danube, over which there 
 was then no bridge, on his cloak, and in due time 
 came to the forests of Franconia, where his wan- 
 derings were marked by ever fresh wonders. A 
 poor man who gave him shelter let him drink 
 out of a costly borrowed glass, but as the saint 
 restored it to him it feU to the ground and was 
 broken into a thousand pieces. St. Sebald, 
 however, joined them together with a toucli, 
 anticipating a similar miracle said to have been 
 performed by St. Antony of Padua many cen- 
 turies later. 
 
 On another occasion the holy man aided a 
 labourer to find his oxen when they had strayed 
 in a dense wood, by pointing his finger, from which 
 shot rays of light, in the direction in which they 
 had gone. When a churlish peasant, in whose 
 
40 NUREMBERG 
 
 house St. Sebald had asked to be allowed to rest 
 one bitter winter's day, refused to light a fire, the 
 wanderer told him to bring some icicles from the 
 roof. The man obeyed, wondering what his 
 strange guest would ask for next, and, to his 
 intense astonishment, St. Sebald quickly set fire 
 to them, inviting the peasant and his wife to 
 warm themselves, as he was doing. 
 
 As was but natural, all these miracles made 
 St. Sebald very popular in Franconia, and from 
 far and near crowds flocked to hear him preach or 
 to ask his aid in their troubles. Hard work and 
 fasting presently led to a breakdown, and the 
 missionary was compelled to rest. Fears were 
 even entertained for his life, and one day a disciple 
 asked him if there was anything he could fancy 
 that would tempt him to eat. St. Sebald, who 
 was but human after all, replied that he would 
 dearly like a bit of fish — a simple desire apparently, 
 but one very difficult to grant in those days of the 
 supremacy of the nobles. It was, indeed, a penal 
 offence then (as, by the way, it still is) to take fish 
 from the Pegnitz, or even to buy it in the market 
 until the Burggraf's steward should have chosen 
 what was needed for the castle. The penalty for 
 the crime was a severe one — no less than to be 
 blinded with a red-hot iron — yet a friend was found 
 who dared to brave even that for the sake of the 
 beloved saint. Whether the fish was taken straight 
 
MEDLEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 41 
 
 from the river or secretly bought, the legend does 
 not say, but just when the peasant who had secured 
 it was nearing the house where St. Sebald lay, the 
 poor man was caught by the Burggraf s officers, 
 and condemned to be blinded. After he had been 
 deprived of his sight, the unfortunate peasant was 
 led to the bedside of St. Sebald, who, greatly 
 touched by his devotion, at once restored him by 
 laying his hands upon his eyes, with a prayer to 
 God for help. 
 
 These were but a few of the wonderful deeds 
 performed by the holy missionary during his life- 
 time ; and after his death his power is said to have 
 become even greater, so that the presence of his 
 relics in Nuremberg added much to the glory and 
 prosperity of the town. Before he breathed his 
 last he was asked where he would like to be buried, 
 and replied that he would leave God to decide, 
 only directing that his bier should be placed in a 
 cart to which two unbroken oxen were to be yoked, 
 adding : * Where they take my body, there let it 
 remain.' His instructions were followed, and the 
 animals, all untutored though they were, drew 
 their burden, without a moment's hesitation, to a 
 little wooden chapel dedicated to St. Peter, on the 
 site of the present St. Sebald, said to have been 
 founded by St. Boniface, of whose presence in the 
 neighbourhood there is, however, no historic record. 
 
 The sacred remains were buried in the choir, but 
 
 6 
 
42 NUREMBERG 
 
 a few years later the chapel was struck by light- 
 ning, after which the coffin was removed to the 
 Church of St. Egidius, where many signal proofs 
 were given of the saint's potent influence for good 
 or evil 
 
 The monks of St. Egidius were, of course, 
 anxious to keep the treasure that brought renown 
 and wealth to their convent, but amongst them 
 was a young lay-brother who was disposed to scoff 
 at their enthusiasm, and used secretly to jeer at the 
 dead saint. One night he even went so far as to 
 steal into the chapel when the brethren had all 
 retired to rest, and to open the coffin that lay 
 before the altar. There he saw the holy man, 
 with no signs of decay about him, and with a 
 smile of heavenly peace upon his lips ; but even 
 then undaunted, the intruder pulled the holy 
 man's beard, crying out : ' Well, old fellow, what a 
 lot of people you have fooled !' Bitterly, however, 
 did the scoffisr rue his folly, for the next moment 
 he received a terrible blow on the side of his face, 
 driving one of his eyes into his head. 
 
 That St. Sebald forgave the insult and healed 
 his enemy is a matter of course ; but for all that, 
 he objected to remaining any longer in the place 
 where he had been so rudely treated. Three 
 times, it is said, his coffin was missed from 
 St. Egidius, and found beside the ruins of its first 
 resting-place. It was therefore finally resolved 
 
MEDIEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 43 
 
 that a church should be built there for its recep- 
 tion. A building of some kind was probably 
 erected in the tenth century, but it was not until 
 two centuries later that the present church was 
 begun, and it has been very much modified since 
 its first completion. 
 
 The original form of the new building seems to 
 have been that of a basilica, but the eastern end 
 was pulled down in 1361, and replaced by the 
 present beautiful Gothic choir that is now (1905) 
 undergoing thorough restoration. The nave prob- 
 ably remains much what it was when it formed 
 part of the original basilica, but the towers at the 
 western end are of fifteenth-century origin. The 
 result of the difference of date of the various 
 features is a certain want of harmony in the 
 general effect of the exterior, but this is fully 
 atoned for by the exquisite beauty of the decora- 
 tion that enriches every part, and is indeed a poem 
 in stone in many cantos, in which many gifted 
 craftsmen, who cared nothing for worldly fame 
 so long as they could promote the glory of God, 
 gave material form to their spiritual conceptions. 
 Every delicate spire orfinial seems to breathe forth 
 the yearning of the human after the divine ; every 
 piece of sculpture, from the life-sized figure of 
 Christ on the cross at the west end (ascribed to 
 Hermann Vischer the elder), that compels the 
 attention of the most callous passer-by, to the 
 
 6—2 
 
44 NUREMBERG 
 
 crowded groups in the *Last Judgment' of ^^eit 
 Stoss, above the small eastern door on the south 
 side, is instinct with religious feeling, bearing 
 witness to the faith that animated its creator, 
 and even at this late day teaching, not in vain, the 
 ancient truth that it is the Spirit which giveth life. 
 Perhaps the most beautiful of the purely decora- 
 tive carving of the exterior of St. Sebald is the 
 exquisite tracery of the lace-like canopy above the 
 Bridal Door, so called because the bride and bride- 
 groom used to stand beneath it during the first 
 part of the marriage service. Flanked by the 
 quaint figures of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, and 
 dominated by those of the Holy Mother with the 
 Infant Saviour, and of St. Sebald holding a model 
 of his church, the Bridal Door is one of the finest 
 and best preserved of the portals of Nuremberg. 
 It contrasts forcibly with the solemn grandeur of 
 the masterpiece of sculpture not far from it on the 
 north wall: the wonderful *Schreyer Monument,' 
 so named after the wealthy citizen who commis- 
 sioned and paid for it. It represents in bas-relief 
 the final scenes of the Passion and victory over 
 death of Christ, and in its composition and execution 
 its author, Adam Kraft, greatest of the workers 
 in stone of Nuremberg, put forth all his remarkable 
 powers of imagination, all his mastery of material 
 and technique. The central scene — the Saviour 
 sinking beneath the cross, which, by the way, is of 
 
THE KARLSBRUCKE, WITH THE SPIRES OF 
 ST. SEBALD. 
 
MEDIEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 45 
 
 the T shape generally adopted by German artists 
 of the sixteenth century — is almost painful in its 
 intense realization of the weariness and pain of the 
 Sufferer, whilst the Resurrection on the left, with 
 the soldiers wearing the armour of the artist's time, 
 graphically expresses the Redeemer's joy at the 
 completion of His long and arduous struggle. 
 
 On the right is a beautiful 'Entombment,' the 
 mourning women seeming, in the midst of their 
 grief, to feel rehef at the ending of the pain ; and 
 set in a fine landscape in the background are, on 
 one side. Calvary, with the thieves already on their 
 crosses, though that of our Lord is empty, and on 
 the other a charming \*iew of old Nuremberg. 
 
 It is characteristic of the time at which this fine 
 creation was completed, as well as of the artist's 
 indifference to recognition of his work, that a huge 
 lantern, still in situ, should have been hung opposite 
 the centre of the monument, hiding the chief scene, 
 so that the design cannot even now be satisfactorily 
 seen as a whole. 
 
 The oldest part of the interior of St. Sebald's is 
 the chapel dedicated to St. Peter at the western 
 end, generally called the Loffelholz, several mem- 
 bers of the old German family of that name having 
 been buried in it. At its entrance is a fine bronze 
 font, vn\h good bas-reliefs, said to have been the 
 first important piece of metal- work cast in Nurem- 
 berg, in which the future Emperor Wenceslas was 
 
46 NUREMBERG 
 
 baptized. The pillars that uphold the roof of the 
 western end of the great church have finely-carved 
 capitals, the walls are adorned with quaint old 
 frescoes, and above the main arch is a gallery 
 known as the Engelschorlein, or angels' choir, for 
 the use of choristers ; the lofty nave, with its com- 
 bination of round and pointed arches, marking the 
 transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic 
 style, leading up to the beautiful choir, with fine 
 old stained-glass windows, that is now (1905), how- 
 ever, boarded up for restoration. 
 
 The shrine of St. Sebald, one of the greatest 
 treasures not only of the beautiful building that 
 contains it, but also of the town of Nuremberg, 
 generally stands opposite the high-altar of the 
 choir, where it harmonizes well with the architec- 
 ture forming its setting ; but it is now removed to 
 one side of the nave, where, built round as it is 
 with a wooden hoarding, it suffers temporary eclipse. 
 The exquisite details can, it is true, be examined, 
 but no real idea can be obtained of its fine propor- 
 tions, or of the unique harmony of every part. 
 
 Executed, as the master himself has stated in 
 Gothic letters inscribed upon its base, ' to promote 
 the glory of God Almighty and St. Sebald,' the 
 shrine is justly considered the most perfect piece of 
 metal work in the world — a masterpiece of design 
 and execution that remains to this day exactly as it 
 was when it left the mould in which it was cast, for 
 
MEDIAEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 47 
 
 it has never been touched with file or with chisel, 
 and the fine bronze of which it consists shows no 
 sign of deterioration. 
 
 The Sarcophagus itself dates from 1397, and 
 consists of an oaken chest enriched with beaten 
 plates of gold and silver, within which are the relics 
 of the saint ; and the commission to make a fitting 
 shrine for it was given to Peter Vischer in 1507. 
 Aided by his five sons, he worked incessantly at 
 his grand design for twelve years, paid for his 
 arduous toil by voluntary contributions alone, that 
 did little more than meet the cost of the materials 
 required. For this, however, he cared nothing, for 
 he had long eagerly desired to be appointed to the 
 task, and had, it is said, already made more than 
 one model of a shrine somewhat resembling that 
 finally executed. 
 
 The beautiful creation rests upon twelve large 
 snails, with a dolphin at each corner, and at the 
 base of the four pillars that uphold the miniature 
 Gothic chapel, with its delicately moulded canopy, 
 are statuettes of Hercules, Perseus, Samson, and 
 Nimrod, each with an attendant female figure, 
 typical respectively of Justice, Wisdom, Temper- 
 ance, and Strength. The Shrine is further enriched 
 by noble presentments of the twelve apostles and 
 the chief prophets, supplemented by some fifty 
 other figures, including groups of happy-looking 
 children, some playing with musical instruments. 
 
48 NUREMBERG 
 
 others with animals, and giving a charming touch 
 of naivete to an otherwise solemn design, the whole 
 forming a perfect poem in bronze, a dream of 
 beauty translated into imperishable material. 
 
 No less effective are the bas-reliefs of the 
 Miracles of St. Sebald that adorn the plinth on 
 which the sarcophagus rests. The subjects repre- 
 sented are the Refilling of the Pitcher of Dionysius, 
 the Punishment of the Man who mocked at the 
 Preaching of the Saint, the Conversion of the 
 Icicles into a blazing Fire, and the Restoration of 
 the Blind Man to sight. The story is in each case 
 told with dramatic force, but unfortunately the 
 columns that cut each of the compositions in half 
 rather spoil their effect, that is further neutralized 
 by the iron railing protecting the shrine from too 
 close an approach. 
 
 Although they are at present (1905) invisible, 
 there are many other fine works of art in the 
 Church of St. Sebald, including several bas-reliefs 
 by Adam Kraft on the walls of the choir, and some 
 interesting early paintings above the side-altars. 
 The great Crucifixion above the high altar, by 
 Veit Stoss (one of his latest productions), the 
 decorations of the choir-stalls, and a small carving 
 in wood, attributed to Albrecht Diirer, are also full 
 of interest. 
 
 Second only in importance to St. Sebald's Church 
 is that of St. Lorenzo, or Laurence, the older 
 
MEDIAEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 49 
 
 portion of which dates from about the same time 
 as the western end of the former. It is supposed to 
 occupy the site of a much earher chapel dedicated 
 to the Holy Sepulchre, of which no trace now 
 remains. In general appearance the church of San 
 Lorenzo greatly resembles that of St. Sebald, the 
 long, low roof of the main building being unrelieved 
 by pinnacles, whilst the choir, considerably loftier 
 than the nave, and the towers of the west end, rise 
 up with almost painful abruptness. To atone for 
 this, however, the sculptures on the chief entrance, 
 that date from the fourteenth century, are very beau- 
 tiful, well preserved, and of great interest, prophetic 
 as they are of the remarkable advance made in 
 plastic art in Germany in the fifteenth century. 
 
 The interior of St. Lorenzo is of very great 
 structural beauty, with its massive pillars and 
 well-proportioned roof, its finely- carved clerestory 
 gallery running all round the choir, its sacristy, 
 with the winding staircase leading to the upper 
 story, and its many side-chapels. It is, moreover, 
 a perfect storehouse of German mediaeval and 
 Renaissance art. The windows of the east end are 
 among the best preserved examples of early stained 
 glass in Europe ; some of them — notably the one 
 giving scenes from the wanderings of the Children 
 of Israel and that with incidents of the Passion of 
 Christ — are exquisite ahke in design and colour. 
 The carvings of Veit Stoss, especially the ' Cruci- 
 
 7 
 
50 NUREMBERG 
 
 fixion ' over the high altar and the quaint circular 
 * Angelus ' suspended from the roof of the choir ; 
 the tapestries of the chapels, with their realistic 
 renderings of scenes from the lives of Saints 
 Catherine, Lawrence, and other martyrs ; and, 
 above all, the Ciborium, or Pyx, of Adam Kraft, 
 are all unique of their kind. The last-named is 
 generally spoken of as its author's masterpiece, 
 although the palm should certainly be given rather 
 to the Schreyer monument of St. Sebald's Church, 
 for the Ciborium is somewhat wanting in the 
 solemn grandeur generally characteristic of the 
 great sculptor's designs. Indeed, with the excep- 
 tion of the kneeling figures — portraits of Adam 
 Kraft and his two assistants — upholding the 
 structure, the sculptures are wanting in the life- 
 like virility which is the main factor in the fine 
 effect of the scenes from the Passion on the wall of 
 St. Sebald's ; whilst the Gothic canopy, with its 
 tapering pinnacles and redundancy of ornamenta- 
 tion, distract the attention from what should be 
 the absorbing interest of the central subject. 
 V Many curious legends have in the course of 
 centuries gathered about the old church of St. 
 Lorenzo, two of which, as especially characteristic 
 of the time when they were evolved, are well worthy 
 of relation. In the lower part of one of the windows 
 on the right-hand side of the choir can be seen the 
 figure of a monk with a rope round his neck, com- 
 
A GROUP OF ROOFS. WITH THE SPIRES OF 
 ST. LORENZO. 
 
MEDIAEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 51 
 
 memorating a certain Brother Lambertus, who 
 committed suicide in his despair when the spiritual 
 advisers he had long trusted in accepted the teach- 
 ing of Luther, leaving him alone on the other side 
 of the abyss that yawned between the Roman 
 Cathohcs and Protestants. The agony of Lam- 
 bertus was intensified by the fact that he was in 
 love with a young girl who returned his affection, 
 and, being a heretic, would have seen no sin in 
 their marriage. The struggle with his conscience 
 was too great for the monk, and in trying to 
 escape from one crime he committed another, for 
 one morning he was found hanging dead from a 
 rope he had fastened to a stanchion of a window in 
 St. Lorenzo. His body was cut down and flung 
 outside the town as unworthy of Christian burial, 
 but his spirit long haunted the scene of his tragic 
 fate. 
 
 On the upper part of a flight of stone steps, 
 leading to a little oratory on the south side of the 
 nave of St. Lorenzo, is a carving of a rat, supposed 
 to be opposite a portion of the wall behind which 
 a monk who had been false to his vows was 
 immured and left to die of starvation, but who 
 was saved from death by the devotion of a young 
 girl, who managed to convey food to him. That 
 he still hved was betrayed by a rat having been 
 seen issuing from a crack in the wall with a piece 
 of bread in its mouth. The stones were removed, 
 
 7—2 
 
52 NUREMBERG 
 
 and the prisoner was found to be still in good 
 health. His preservation was looked upon as a 
 miracle, and he was allowed to go free, on condi- 
 tion that he left Nuremberg never to return — a 
 rare piece of leniency indeed in those days of 
 indifference to human suffering. Whether his 
 exile was cheered by the companionship of the 
 friend to whom he owed his life the legend does 
 not say. 
 
 The only other still existing church of Nurem- 
 berg that was founded in the thirteenth century is 
 that of St. Jakob, or St. James, which was restored 
 in 1824, and so much altered that little of the 
 original structure remains. It was given as early 
 as 1209 by the Emperor Otto IV. to the German 
 Order of Jerusalem, and the letter conveying the 
 property, contains what is supposed to be the first 
 reference to any building in Nuremberg outside the 
 precincts of the Burg. St. Jakob's served as the 
 chapel of the Order for several centuries, and 
 Roman Catholic services were held in it until 16<34, 
 when it was transferred to the Protestants by 
 Gustavus Adolphus. The Altar-piece is a very 
 fine example of early German painting and sculp- 
 ture, the central portion containing a number of 
 figures carved in wood by an unknown predecessor 
 of V^eit Stoss, whilst on the wings are paintings 
 attributed to Michael Wolgemut. Above is a re- 
 production of the celebrated Nuremberg Madonna, 
 
MEDLEVAL CONVENTS AND CHURCHES 53 
 
 described below in connection with the Carthusian 
 Monastery, which contrasts greatly with the com- 
 paratively crude work beneath it. In one of the 
 side-chapels on the left is a beautiful group, carved 
 in wood, of St. Anne, with the Virgin as a child of 
 about twelve on one knee, and the Infant Saviour 
 on the other ; a favourite subject with German 
 artists, in spite of the manifest anachronism of 
 representing the Holy Child and His Mother as 
 children together) ; and on the waU of a chapel 
 on the right is a charming httle bas-rehef in stone, 
 bearing date 1532, of Christ taking leave of His 
 Mother, in which the effect of hght and shadow 
 is remarkably fine. 
 
X 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TOWN OF NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 Long before the churches of St. Sebald and 
 St. Lorenzo were completed, it had become neces- 
 sary to supplement the first wall of Nuremberg 
 with a second, embracing a much wider area, 
 though it followed to a great extent the same 
 course as its predecessor. This wall is supposed 
 to have been begun as early as the twelfth, possibly 
 even in the eleventh, century, and to have enclosed 
 the whole of the parishes of St. Sebald and St. 
 Lorenzo, though it left outside the church of 
 St. Jakob and the house of the German Knights 
 of Jerusalem, which were long connected with 
 each other by a wooden passage. 
 
 The course of the second wall can still be 
 distinctly traced, and the two most noteworthy 
 relics of it are the so-called Mannerschuldturm, 
 or Male Debtors' Tower, guarding the entrance 
 of the Pegnitz into the old town, and the Wasser- 
 turm, or Water Tower, protecting its exit. The 
 former rises from an island in the river, and 
 
 54 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 55 
 
 behind it can still be seen, jutting up from the 
 water, a mass of masonry — with a picturesque 
 group of alders growing on it — that formed part of 
 the projecting buttresses intended to break the 
 force of the stream. The Mannerschuldturm was 
 originally connected by a wooden bridge kno\\Ti as 
 the Schuldbriicke, or Debtors' Bridge, with a 
 similar tower, the Weiberschuldturm, reserved for 
 female debtors, now completely destroyed, though 
 traces can still be made out of the spring of the 
 connecting arch on the grim face of the Manner- 
 schuldturm. 
 
 The Wasserturm, also often called the Hang- 
 man's Tower, because the pubhc executioner used 
 to live in a house on the bridge, known as the 
 Henkersteg, connecting it with a smaller tower 
 still standing on an islet of the river, is even more 
 imposing than the IMiinnerschuldturm, for it is a 
 very massive square structure, still one of the most 
 striking features of Nuremberg. 
 
 Unique survivals of a deeply interesting time, 
 these two weather-worn buildings are wonderfully 
 well preserved ; and judging from the manner in 
 which they are built, the wall to which they be- 
 longed must have presented an appearance as 
 remarkable for its picturesque beauty as for its 
 strength. In spite of the fact that their surround- 
 ings are not really the same as when they were 
 erected, there is nothing incongruous about them ; 
 
56 NUREMBERG 
 
 the quaint old houses looking down upon the river, 
 with their high-pitched, gabled roofs, their red tiles 
 mellowed by time, their projecting balconies, 
 draped in summer with masses of creepers, 
 probably greatly resemble those whose sites they 
 occupy. It is difficult, for instance, to realize that 
 the venerable-looking inn known as the Wein- 
 stadel, and the quaint, one-storied house bridging 
 over the space between it and the Wasserturm, are 
 really more than one hundred years younger than 
 the Henkersteg, or that not one of the churches 
 or houses in sight of the Mannerschuldturm was 
 ever looked upon by the debtors imprisoned in it. 
 The groups formed by the Wasserturm, Henker- 
 steg, and Weinstadel may not unjustly be called 
 the heart of mediaeval Nuremberg, whilst the 
 lonely Debtors' Tower might be one of its hands 
 still stretched out to ward oiF the intruder. There 
 is, in fact, something in touch with them all even 
 in the most modern developments of the life that 
 now throbs about them, for all the year round the 
 Trodel, or rag-market, is held on an island of the 
 Pegnitz dominated by the Wasserturm, and at 
 certain times fairs take place on the vacant spaces 
 near the bridge replacing the Schuldbriicke. It 
 is, of course, only here and there that a real old 
 costume is seen, but there is a strong mediaeval 
 flavour about some of the wares that are displayed 
 for sale. 
 
THE HENKERSTEG, WITH THE WASSER 
 TURM. 
 
>^^^.dliHkHdkikiil-^ 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 57 
 
 The course of the second waU can be followed 
 from almost any point most convenient to the 
 pedestrian, but perhaps the simplest plan is to start 
 from the modern Maxthor, and passing thence out- 
 side the seven rows of weavers' houses, already 
 referred to in connection with the first wall, go 
 down to the tower, known as the Inner Laufer- 
 schlagturm, of fifteenth-century origin, that takes 
 its name from its striking clock, said to be the first 
 introduced into Nuremberg. Near to this tower, 
 which probably replaces a much earlier one, is 
 still distinctly visible the shooting-trench used by 
 cross-bowmen, extending to the foundry known 
 as Auf dem Sand, rising from the river bank and 
 occupying the site of a group of huts, in which 
 dwelt the first smelters of the newly - founded 
 town. Beyond this foundry the wall is supposed 
 to have made a considerable detour, though all 
 trace of it is gone, to the spot where the present 
 Neugasse and Heugasse abut on to the Spital 
 Platz, where rose the now lost jNlahler, or Muller 
 Turm. Thence it crossed the Spital Platz, and 
 with numerous towers rising up at intervals 
 probably resembling the Miinnerschuldturm, de- 
 scribed above, it passed down to the river, crossing 
 both arms of the stream by way of the Schiitt 
 Insel, with the aid of the bridges already referred 
 to, and strengthened by the two Debtors' Towers. 
 
 From the southern side of the Pegnitz the wall 
 
 8 
 
68 NUREMBERG 
 
 continued its course to the so-called Inner 
 Frauenthor, destroyed in 1499, now replaced by a 
 fifteenth-century gateway, and between its site and 
 the point of departure from the river, several open 
 spaces remain that formed part of the old shooting- 
 trench. One of these is behind the principal 
 theatre, whilst beneath what is now the Konig- 
 strasse, with its rows of lofty modern houses, ran 
 the deep outer moat, still represented by a vast 
 cellar, upheld by massive pillars, and extending 
 beneath the fifteenth-century Mauthaus, or Toll- 
 house, designed by Hans Behaim, now, after many 
 vicissitudes, divided up into shops. Thence the 
 so-called Frauengasslein, still flanked by mediaeval 
 arsenals, at present used as storehouses for hops, 
 leads to the Farbergasse, broken here and there 
 by bridged-over relics of the shooting-trench, and 
 retaining a few fragments of the original wall. 
 From the Farbergasse the fortifications ran along 
 what is now the Breitgasse, leading to the Spittler- 
 turm, also called the White Tower, the lower 
 portion of which is supposed to have belonged to 
 the original thirteenth-century building, whilst the 
 upper portion is of very much later date. The 
 Spittlerturm is so called because it was near a 
 hospital connected with the church of St. Jakob, 
 or, rather, with the chapel of St. Elizabeth, 
 which was part of it until the Reformation, and 
 is now represented by the large modern church 
 
THE INNER LAUFERTURM. 
 
w 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 59 
 
 of the same name, a circular building in the late 
 Renaissance style. Against the outside of the 
 Spittler Thor nestles a very picturesque fragment 
 of the fortifications of the second wall, but from 
 it to the river all trace of that wall is lost. It 
 is, however, generally supposed to have run past 
 the sites of the great brewery built over the filled- 
 in moat in 1671, now belonging to the Tucher 
 family, and of what is known as the Unschhtthaus, 
 originally a granary, but later converted into a 
 school. Thence the wall crossed the Pegnitz by 
 means of two bridges, one destroyed, the other, that 
 of the Henkersteg dominated by the Wasserturm, 
 both already described. From the latter, though all 
 remains of it are lost, it is known to have gone in 
 an almost straight direction up the hill crowned 
 by the Burg, skirting along the present Albrecht 
 Diirer Strasse, and joining the fortifications of the 
 castle near the site of the Thiergartnerturm. 
 
 During the interregnum which succeeded the 
 death of Frederick II. in 1250, by which time it 
 is probable that the second waU was already com- 
 pleted, Nuremberg suffered greatly, as did all the 
 towns of the empire, from the lawlessness result- 
 ing from the fact that every petty prince and baron 
 felt free to oppress and plunder the people. In 
 1256, the city, which, in virtue of the charter 
 granted to her by Frederick II., greatly prided 
 herself upon her position as a free Imperial town, 
 
 8—2 
 
60 NUREMBERG 
 
 found it necessary in self-defence to join the 
 Rhenish League, to which all the chief communi- 
 ties of Bavaria already belonged. This, however, 
 only served to protect her from her enemies with- 
 out the city, and did not save her from much 
 oppression at the hands of the BurggTaves, who, 
 though the power of life and death had been taken 
 from them in 1219, and given to the Schuldheiss, 
 or chief magistrate of the town, appointed by and 
 responsible to the Emperor alone, now once more 
 arrogated to themselves the old privileges, relying 
 upon the fact that in the disorganized state of the 
 country, there would be no serious interference 
 with their exactions. 
 
 Many touching stories are told of the strained 
 relations in this terrible time between the dwellers 
 on the Burg and the townsfolk, which, though they 
 cannot be proved to have any foundation in 
 historical fact, yet reflect so vi\ddly the state of 
 society, as well as the actual appearance of Nurem- 
 berg and its environs, in which their scenes are laid, 
 that it is worth while to relate one of the most 
 typical. 
 
 In 1260, says an old chronicle, there dwelt in 
 the palace that then occupied the site of the 
 Kaiserstallung, and was destroyed in 1419, a happy 
 married couple, Count Frederick of Hohen- 
 zollem and his wife Elizabeth, with their six 
 children — four girls and two boys. The latter. 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 61 
 
 Hans, aged eighteen, and Sigismund, aged sixteen, 
 were the joy and pride of their parents' heart, wor- 
 shipped by their young sisters, and idohzed by the 
 retainers of the Burggraf. They were especially 
 devoted to the chase, and the wild forests sur- 
 rounding their home were so rich in game, that 
 scarcely a day passed without an expedition being 
 undertaken against the fierce bears and wolves, that 
 often wrought terrible destruction amongst the 
 flocks and herds of the farmers, sometimes even 
 carrying off young children. A terrible tragedy, 
 indeed, had just occurred, almost within sight of 
 the Burg, when a boy and a girl aged ten and six 
 were devoured by wolves in the very sight of their 
 parents, who had left them alone at home, whilst 
 they went up to the castle to pay their tithes, 
 giving them strict injunctions not to go outside 
 the house till their return. 
 
 Conrad, the boy, had promised obedience, but 
 his sister, Agnes, was too young to understand, 
 and the door ha\'ing been unfortunately left ajar, 
 she opened it to peep out. The sim was shining 
 brightly, and the little maid was tempted to 
 run out, her brother calling her back in vam. 
 Laughing merrily, she defied him to catch her, 
 but all too soon her merriment was changed to 
 terror, for a great wolf sprang out of the wood 
 near by and seized her by the throat. Conrad 
 rushed to the rescue, armed only with a stick. 
 
62 NUREMBERG 
 
 but he was, of course, powerless against the 
 terrible assailant, who, after tearing Agnes to 
 pieces, turned upon the brave boy. His last cry 
 of agony was heard by the unfortunate parents as 
 they were hurrjdng home, expecting to find every- 
 thing as they had left it. Their horror can be 
 better imagined than described when they saw the 
 wolf feasting on the mangled remains of their 
 children. They succeeded in driving the murderer 
 away, and their first thought was of revenge. In- 
 stinctively they laid the blame of the tragedy on 
 the Burggraf, whose business it was to protect his 
 retainers. If, they argued, his servants had done 
 their duty and destroyed the wolves in the neigh- 
 bourhood, their dear ones would not have fallen 
 victims. With a composure truly wonderful under 
 the circumstances, they collected all that was left 
 of their children, put the bleeding relics into a 
 basket, and made their way to the Burg. 
 
 It was now late in the evening, and after a 
 successful day's hunting, in which Hans and Sigis- 
 mund had greatly distinguished themselves by their 
 courage. Count Frederick, his wife, and the boys 
 were at supper in the great haU with a large party 
 of guests. Presently a noise was heard outside 
 the door, and the soldiers on guard were seen 
 to cross their spears to prevent someone from 
 entering. The Count, however, who was always 
 ready to grant audience to suppliants, ordered the 
 
THE WHITE TOWER, OR THE INNER SPITTLER 
 TURM. WITH PART OF THE SECOND WALL. 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 63 
 
 men to lower their weapons, and as they did so 
 the bereaved parents rushed in, the mother carry- 
 ing a basket on her back, the father wringing his 
 hands and shouting abuse of the Reichsvogt, as he 
 called the Count, a significant title, proving that 
 the Burggraf was still looked .upon as the chief 
 magistrate of the town. 
 
 Arrived at the upper end of the hall, the mother 
 flung the contents of her basket at the feet of the 
 Count and Countess, who with their boys, their 
 guests, and numerous retainers, gazed in horror 
 at the gruesome relics of what but a few hours 
 before had been two beautiful children, whilst 
 the father cried : ' There ! take my little ones, 
 torn to pieces whilst I and their mother were bring- 
 ing your tithes of honey — torn to pieces, I say, by 
 the wolves your servants should have destroyed. 
 Let their bleeding hmbs serve for tithes in future, 
 for no more will you ever receive from me !' 
 
 Pity for the childless parents swallowed up the 
 wrath of the Burggraf at this extraordinary address, 
 and the Countess came forward to take the hand of 
 the mother, entreating her to be comforted. ' Our 
 men,' she said, ' shall go forth at once to slay 
 the wolf that did the awful deed,' whilst the 
 guests ^'ied with each other in their offers of money 
 to atone for the loss. It was, however, all in 
 vain ; nothing, said the father, could bring back 
 the children, and he presently led his weeping wife 
 
64 NUREMBERG 
 
 away, leaving the bleeding remains where they had 
 been cast down. Count Frederick ordered them 
 to be reverently buried, and it was arranged that a 
 great wolf-hunt should be held the next morning 
 in the immediate precincts of the Burg. There 
 had, alas ! the Burggraf admitted, been some 
 foundation for the charge brought against him, for 
 of late the wolves had been neglected for the 
 pleasure of chasing the deer at a comparative 
 distance from the Burg. There should be no 
 faihng in that direction in future. 
 
 That same night the Countess Elizabeth had a 
 terrible dream, in which she saw her own boys 
 lying bleeding on the ground, and when early the 
 next morning the horn sounded to summon every- 
 one to start for the wolf-hunt, she besought her 
 husband not to let Hans and Sigismund go. The 
 boys were already standing beside their horses 
 ready to mount, when the Count came to tell them 
 that their mother wished them to remain at home ; 
 but they pleaded so eagerly to be allowed to go 
 that their father had not the heart to forbid it. He 
 promised his wife, however, that special care should 
 be taken of them ; he would tell off half a dozen 
 men to remain with them throughout the hunt ; it 
 was impossible that any harm could come to them ; 
 the terrible dream had been but the result of the 
 horrible incident of the evening before. So the 
 whole party started, the Countess watching her 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 65 
 
 sons go in an agony of fear, convinced that she 
 would never see them aUve again. 
 
 It seemed at first as if her presentiment had 
 indeed been unfounded, for all went well at the 
 hunt. Many wolves and two or three bears were 
 hunted down and killed, the boys taking an eager 
 share in the slaughter, and the party were happily 
 returning to the castle, discipline so far relaxed that 
 Hans and Sigismund were allowed to ride with the 
 hounds a Httle in advance of their escort, so as to be 
 among the first to get home again, when, just as the 
 entrance to the Burg was reached, a horrible incident 
 occurred. Outside one of the huts belonging to 
 the smiths in the service of the Burggraf, a little 
 child was sitting, who, the weather being cold, had 
 been wrapped by his mother in the hide of a wolf, 
 which completely enveloped him. The dogs mistook 
 him for one of the hated animals they were trained 
 to destroy at sight, and before anyone could inter- 
 fere, they had torn themselves free from the leashes 
 in which they were held. FaUing upon the child, 
 they quickly crushed out his Ufe, and in a moment 
 the whole settlement was in an uproar. In the 
 confusion no one realized how purely an accident 
 the tragedy had been, and with one accord the 
 inhabitants of the huts flung themselves upon 
 Hans and Sigismund, who, though they made a 
 gallant defence, were both killed. The former fell 
 beneath a blow from the hammer of the father 
 
 9 
 
66 NUREMBERG 
 
 of the murdered child ; the latter was drowned 
 in the moat into which he had fallen, covered with 
 wounds. By the time Count Frederick reached 
 the scene all was over, and the villagers were 
 fleeing in every direction, pursued by the huntsmen 
 who were vowing sevenfold vengeance. 
 
 Broken-hearted though he was at the awful 
 sorrow that had so suddenly overtaken him, the 
 Burggraf called back his men, forbidding them to 
 inflict any punishment until the matter had been 
 fully inquired into. Then, having given instruc- 
 tions that the bodies of his sons should be carried to 
 the chapel of the Burg, he rode sadly forward to 
 break the dreadful news to his wife. The Countess 
 showed no surprise, for she said she had known all 
 along that she would see her boys no more. She 
 even pleaded for mercy on the perpetrators of the 
 crime, who she was convinced had been maddened 
 for the time, by what must have appeared to them 
 a wanton outrage. The legend ends abruptly with 
 the laconic remark that when the Burggraf sent 
 next day to examine into the matter, the smiths 
 had all taken their departure with their wives 
 and children, for Donauworth, where they were 
 beyond the jurisdiction of the Count, and secure 
 from his vengeance. It is related, however, that 
 from the date of the tragic incident a fine of 
 seven hellers was paid every Michaelmas Day 
 to the Burggraf by the successors of the smiths 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTTURY 67 
 
 in the ^-illage until 1386, when it was remitted 
 by Frederick V. 
 
 It seems to have been about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century that the power, long centred 
 in the Burggraf and later transferred to the 
 Schuldheiss of the to^Ti, was first given to, or perhaps 
 merely assimilated by, a Rat, or Council, appointed 
 by the citizens. The change, whenever it occurred, 
 was, of course, of deep significance and importance, 
 implying as it did the substitution of real for 
 nominal municipal independence. The magistrate 
 had pre^dously been chosen by the Emperor, and 
 was assisted by certain carefuUy selected burghers, 
 who, after gradually superseding the authority of 
 the Schuldheiss, finally dispensed mth his assistance 
 altogether. 
 
 The earhest mention of the Hat, or Council of 
 Burghers, apart from the magistrate, occurs in a 
 manuscript bearing date 1526, in which the ac- 
 cession to the League of the Rhine of Regensburg 
 or Ratisbon is notified, which would point to the 
 conclusion that the citizens had known, as had the 
 petty Princes, how to turn to account the inter- 
 regnum, during which there was no Emperor to 
 support the claims of the Schuldheiss. The thin 
 end of the wedge once inserted, the Nuremberg Rat 
 gradually became more and more powerful, so that 
 by the time the state of anarchy came to an end — 
 through the election in 1272 of Count Rudolf of 
 
 9—2 
 
68 NUREMBERG 
 
 Hapsburg as Emperor — the Council was already a 
 force to be reckoned with. Its members, it is true, 
 met in a humble upper room in the Tuchergasse 
 (above a shop or warehouse that was destroyed in 
 1569), and it was not until 1332 that they removed to 
 a large house opposite the east end of St. Sebald's 
 Church, belonging to the Heilbronn convent, for 
 which they paid a high rent, and which still forms 
 part of the present Rathaus, begun in 1340. 
 ' The Burggraf of Nuremberg, Frederick III. of 
 Hohenzollern, had eagerly espoused the cause of 
 Rudolf of Hapsburg from the first, and as a reward 
 for his services the newly-elected Emperor made the 
 dignity hereditary in his family. At a Diet held in 
 the town in 1274, at which all the chief Princes of 
 the Empire were present, the monarch also conferred 
 many fresh privileges on the burghers, whose descen- 
 dants honour his memory almost as much as they do 
 that of Frederick Barbarossa. Rudolf's successor. 
 Count Adolf of Nassau, was also much attached to 
 Nuremberg, and during his brief reign held his 
 Court there three times. On his death, in 1298, 
 his son Albrecht was chosen King, and great dclat 
 accrued to Nuremberg through the coronation of 
 EUzabeth, the wife of the new monarch, in the 
 Church of St. Sebald's, in the presence of a vast 
 concourse of Princes and nobles. ^ In a word, the 
 century which had opened so gloomily, and during 
 which so many terrible struggles had taken place, 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 69 
 
 closed for Nuremberg, at least, in peace and pros- 
 perity. The foundations of her future wealth were 
 laid ; her town was an important mart on the 
 highroad between the East and the West ; her 
 citizens, many of them skilled craftsmen, were pro- 
 tected by a Council nominated by themselves, so 
 that it seemed as if all that was needed was time 
 for the maturing of the newly-founded institutions 
 and for the further development of the municipal 
 freedom already won. 
 
 / 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE HISTORY AND GROWTH OF NUREMBERG IN 
 THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The opening years of the fourteenth century were 
 saddened and disgraced throughout the whole of 
 Franconia, Nuremberg not excepted, by a furious 
 persecution of the Jews, in which many thousands of 
 innocent men, women and children were put to death 
 after suffering terrible outrages. For this revival 
 of the old hatred, there can be little doubt that the 
 exactions of the authorities, from the Emperor 
 downwards, were to a great extent responsible/ 
 The wealth of the Jews, whom no taxes seemed to 
 impoverish, aroused the jealousy of their fellow- 
 townsmen, and religious fanaticism fanned their 
 passions into a flame, which grew ever fiercer 
 through the circulation of reports of the atrocities 
 practised by the unbehevers in their religious 
 ceremonies. Young children are said to have 
 been enticed from their homes and subjected to 
 fearful tortures before death released them from 
 their sufferings, and it was even reported that the 
 consecrated Host had been taken from a Christian 
 
 70 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 71 
 
 church to be pounded in a mortar for use in some 
 diabolical rite. Blood, supposed by the ignorant 
 multitude to be that of the Redeemer Himself, had 
 issued from the desecrated elements, and no punish- 
 ment could be too severe for those who had been 
 guilty of a sacrilege so stupendous in its impiety. 
 That any of the Jews should have escaped in this 
 terrible time, is a proof of the extraordinary vitality 
 of the race. Driven out of the towns, the survivors 
 would gradually reappear, and though they were 
 subjected to all manner of restrictions, being com- 
 pelled to wear a peculiar dress, to shave off their 
 beards, and to confine themselves to quarters set 
 apart for them, they would soon be lending money 
 to their neighbours as of yore, amassing so much 
 wealth that the Emperor himself would often 
 borrow from them. From the first, indeed, Albrecht 
 of Nassau had been favourable to the Jews, and it 
 was due to his personal intervention that the first 
 persecution of the fourteenth century was arrested. 
 On hearing of the massacres, he hastened to make a 
 royal progress through Franconia, punishing the 
 ringleaders of the tumult, condemning some to 
 death, imprisoning others, and, with perfect im- 
 partiality, exacting a fine fi'om every town in which 
 any Jews had been done to death. 
 
 When, in 1308, this astute ruler was murdered, 
 from motives of private revenge, by his nephew, 
 John of Swabia, he was succeeded, after an inter- 
 
72 NUREMBERG 
 
 regnum of seven months, by Count Henry of 
 Luxemburg, who halted at Nuremberg on his way 
 to be crowned Emperor at Rome, and whilst there 
 confirmed the privileges granted to the town by 
 his predecessor, as well as the immunities conceded 
 to the Jews. Moreover, five years later he gave to 
 the favoured city a charter of the utmost possible 
 value, which he dated from Pisa, and in which he 
 referred to the Burg as the castrum et turris in 
 medio eius sita — that is to say, the castle with the 
 Vestner Turm — declaring that it should not be 
 separated from the town, but that, in the event of 
 the death of an Emperor, it should be the duty 
 of every owner of a residence {castellaniis) in its 
 precincts to give loyal aid to the Rat, or Council, 
 until such time as a new ruler should be elected. 
 
 Other significant clauses of this most important 
 charter were : that the Burgomeister was to exercise 
 full control over the markets and commerce of the 
 town ; that the Schuldheiss, or Imperial Magistrate, 
 should be responsible for and have full right of way 
 over the principal roads ; that he should once a 
 year take oath, in the presence of the Council, that 
 he would administer justice impartially to rich and 
 poor, in every case consulting the body of judges 
 known as the Schopfen. Moreover, the citizens 
 were protected from arbitrary imprisonment, and 
 were not to be tried by any but their own municipal 
 authorities. 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 73 
 
 Unfortunately, Henry VII., whose short reign 
 was so beneficent for Nuremberg, was poisoned 
 soon after the issue of this noteworthy charter, and a 
 struggle ensued between two rival candidates for the 
 Imperial dignity — Frederick, the son of Albrecht 
 of Nassau, and Ludwig of Bavaria, who belonged 
 to the Wittelsbach family. Both were crowned, 
 and it was not until a year later that the latter was 
 finally ^-ictorious, mainly, it is said, through the 
 timely aid of Burggraf Frederick IV. of Nurem- 
 berg, who turned the scale at the Battle of JNIuhl- 
 dorf by arri\dng in the nick of time with a body of 
 cavalry. The town had also greatly aided the 
 cause of LudA^^g by her hberal contributions of 
 money, and was rewarded by constant visits from 
 the new Emperor, who held his Court there no 
 less than twenty-one times between 1320 and 1349, 
 staying, of course, as a general rule, in the castle, 
 but occasionally, to the great dehght of the people, 
 accepting the hospitaUty of some wealthy citizen. 
 Every visit of the Emperor was signalized by some 
 new prixdlege being conferred on the town, so that 
 on his sudden death — it is supposed from poison — 
 in 1347, Nuremberg had become the most important 
 city in Bavaria. Her merchant princes now ranked 
 higher, in popular esteem at least, than the im- 
 poverished nobles, and within her walls rose up 
 many fine new buildings, some secular, others eccle- 
 siastical, several of which still remain to bear witness 
 
 10 
 
74 NUREMBERG 
 
 to the generosity of her burghers and the deep 
 rehgious faith which actuated them. • 
 
 During the reign of Ludwig the building of the 
 churches of SS. Sebald and Lorenzo proceeded 
 rapidly, and soon after his accession was erected 
 the Parsonage of the former, the celebrated Chorlein 
 or oriel window, of which is now replaced by a 
 copy, the original having been removed to the 
 Germanic Museum in 1901 to save it from destruc- 
 tion. The sculptures, representing the Nativity 
 and other sacred scenes, are ranked amongst 
 the finest existing examples of fifteenth-century 
 carving in stone. The Parsonage itself is said to 
 have been burnt at the time of the baptism of King 
 Wenceslas, as related below. In any case, it was re- 
 placed about 1512 by the present building, designed 
 by Melchior Pfinzig, secretary of the Emperor 
 Maximilian, and it was possibly in it that the poet 
 wi'ote much of the * Theuerdank,' with the author- 
 ship of which his Imperial master was credited. 
 
 At about the same time as the erection of the 
 first Parsonage of St. Sebald the httle Gothic 
 chapel of St. Moritz was removed from its original 
 site in the chief market-place to the one it now 
 occupies, which was then part of the chief cemetery 
 of Nuremberg. Until intramural burial was for- 
 bidden in 1517, St. Moritz's served as mortuary 
 chapel to St. Sebald's, and it was possibly not long 
 after its transference to the cemetery that the quaint 
 
THE ORIEL WINDOW OF ST. SEBALD'S 
 PARSONAGE. 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 75 
 
 little hostelry, the now world-famous Bratwurst- 
 glocklein, or Little Bell of the Fried Sausage, was 
 built on to its north side. This Ion received its 
 name from the fact that the bell, which is its sign, 
 used to be rung when the sausages were ready, and 
 it was first mentioned in 1400, when it was spoken 
 of as if it had already been long in existence. If 
 so, the fact is very significant of the customs of the 
 time at which it was erected, when the ecclesi- 
 astical authorities tolerated the construction of a 
 drinking-place against the wall of a sacred build- 
 ing, and the municipaUty responsible for the health 
 of the people permitted revellers to meet in a 
 burial-ground. The contrasts presented by the 
 merry scenes that no doubt constantly took place 
 in the Bratwurstglocklein and the sombre rehgious 
 ceremonial of the frequent funerals must indeed 
 have been very great. The good burghers were 
 evidently, however, not sensitive to incongruities, 
 though they were so superstitious that the mere 
 rumour of the presence of a \dsitant from the other 
 world would quickly have dispersed them. 
 
 In the Brat^vurstglocklein Albrecht Diirer, Adam 
 Kraft, Peter Vischer, Veit Stoss, Hans Sachs, and 
 their friends used often to meet to drink a glass of 
 beer together, so that the name of the little inn 
 soon became as well known as that of any of its 
 famous frequenters. Carefully preserved exactly 
 as it was when these choice spirits were amongst 
 
 10—2 
 
76 NUREMBERG 
 
 its guests, the low narrow room beneath the 
 sloping roof, with the massive oak ceiling, is always 
 crowded with pilgrims from far and near, drawn 
 together by the same attraction : the desire to do 
 honour to the memory of the great men who have 
 conferred on the hostelry something of their own 
 immortality. The humble little beerhouse indeed 
 retains, perhaps, more of the real atmosphere of 
 the Nuremberg of long ago, than any other 
 building in the town. In it English, Americans, 
 and Europeans of every nationality meet on 
 common ground, to touch glasses, in token of their 
 admiration for the gifted men who brought glory, 
 not only to their own land, but to the whole 
 human race. To every visitor a copy is given of a 
 poem by the Berlin poet, Achim von Winterfeld, 
 who has so caught the spirit of the spot that it 
 seems fitting to give a rough translation of it here : 
 
 ' Long, long ago, how long I cannot tell, 
 The world has known the famous Little Bell. 
 Years has it stood, and firm it stands to-day, 
 Nor ever yet has turned a guest away. 
 Not in wide thoroughfare or noble highway 
 We find its portal, but in modest by-way. 
 No lofty edifice attracts us here, 
 And yet 'tis sought by all from year to year. 
 A little chapel stands not far away 
 To share its loneliness from day to day. 
 Now confidently step within its portal, 
 And find content for tired and thirsty mortal. 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENT:URY 77 
 
 More than four hundred years ago they came 
 
 Who add to-day a lustre to its name. 
 
 The Meistersingers often tamed here 
 
 And rested, tasting sausages and beer. 
 
 Noble Pirkheimer, patron of all art, 
 
 Tossing a beaker, bravely did his part. 
 
 Hans Sachs, the cobbler, filled with poems divine, 
 
 Sat here and drank his flagon of good wine. 
 
 Here Adam Kraft, the gifted sculptor, came 
 
 And drained a measure to the hostel's fame. 
 
 Veit Stoss, the carver, with his craftsman's skill. 
 
 Up to the brim his goblet here would fill. 
 
 Here Peter Vischer would the chorus swell. 
 
 And drink his portion to the Little Bell. 
 
 But he who made its name and fame still surer 
 
 Was — need you ask ? — the master Albrecht Durer. 
 
 He and his confreres — may their praise endure ! — 
 
 Made for the Bell a fame both sound and sure. 
 
 So, dwelling on these things, I fain would tell 
 
 The glories of this far-famed Little Bell, 
 
 Where these great men so well and oft have drunk ; 
 
 I, too, beneath the board have gently sunk ! 
 
 So may the Bell, as year by year still passes, 
 
 Yet listen to the merry clink of glasses, 
 
 Recall again the happy days of yore, 
 
 Till life and death and time shall be no more.' 
 
 It seems to hav^e been soon after the building of 
 the celebrated little inn of the Bratwurstglocklein 
 that were founded the Hospital and Church of the 
 Holy Ghost, the former still very much what it was 
 when first completed, the latter so much spoiled 
 by restoration in the late Renaissance style, that 
 
tS NUREMBERG 
 
 it retains scarcely anything of its original appear- 
 ance. The hospital is partly built over a bridge 
 spanning the Pegnitz, nearly opposite to the Male 
 Debtors' Tower ; the church rises from the Spital- 
 Platz, and both were founded by Konrad Heinz, a 
 prosperous merchant surnamed Der Gross, or ' the 
 Great,' on account of his fabulous wealth. He was 
 much beloved by his fellow-citizens and also by the 
 Emperor Ludwig, who was, it is supposed, indebted 
 to him for many a timely loan. The story goes 
 that Konrad Heinz — who is always called Gross, his 
 family having adopted the nickname as if they 
 had a right to it— was inflicted by a painful skin 
 disease, the one drawback to an exceptionally 
 happy life, and that all remedies had failed to give 
 him rehef. He was, it is further related, led to 
 build the hospital and church in consequence of a 
 wonderful dream, that came to him one day when 
 he had fallen asleep in a beautiful garden he owned 
 outside the city. In this dream a brilliant light 
 suddenly streamed down upon a certain spot, and 
 irresistibly attracted by it, the sleeper approached 
 it, to find, to his intense surprise, that the ground 
 was strewn with gold and precious stones. When, 
 however, he stooped down to touch them, they faded 
 away, but he felt sure that they were still there, 
 though he could not see them, and to mark the 
 spot where they had appeared he collected a pile of 
 fallen leaves. Then, still in a deep sleep, he fetched 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 79 
 
 a spade and set to work to dig ; but it was all in 
 vain : he found nothing. When he awoke there 
 was no sign near him of anything unusual having 
 occurred ; but he was convinced that the dream 
 had been a message from God, and made a vow 
 that, should he find the treasure, he would spend 
 it in building a hospital. 
 
 The next day, as he was wandering about his 
 garden, thinking deeply of what had occurred, he 
 suddenly noticed a pile of leaves, on which the sun 
 seemed to shine with special brightness. Could 
 those leaves have been collected by himself in his 
 sleep, and did they mark the spot where the gold 
 and precious stones had lain ? Without a moment's 
 delay Konrad fetched the necessary tools, and, 
 asking aid from none of his servants, set to work to 
 explore the spot. After digging for many hours, he 
 was rewarded by coming to a chest full of old gold 
 pieces and jewels of extraordinary value, together 
 with a parchment, on which, in letters scarcely 
 legible, the finder of the secret hoard was informed 
 that it was his, to be used as he thought best. It 
 had been concealed in time of war, and its original 
 owner, who had probably intended to reclaim it 
 himself, had guarded against its dispersal by this 
 strange bequest. Konrad, of course, kept the oath 
 he had made, and dedicated the church and hospital 
 to the Holy Ghost, who alone, he said, could have 
 guided him to the hoard. Great indeed was the 
 
80 NUREMBERG 
 
 reward for his generosity, for the very first patient 
 who was received into his hospital, a poor old 
 woman, cured him of his skin disease with an oint- 
 ment of her own invention. Konrad now felt free to 
 marry, and in due course he became the father of a 
 family, who carried on his name and work after his 
 death. Before that took place he had reached the 
 highest position open to a burgher, for he was made 
 Schuldheiss of Nuremberg in the place of the 
 Burggraf Frederick, to whom the Emperor Ludwig, 
 much to the indignation of the citizens, had given 
 the office in gratitude for his help in winning the 
 crown. 
 
 Konrad Gross was buried in the Church of the 
 Holy Ghost, and his tomb, with his recumbent 
 effigy beneath a massive slab of stone, upheld by 
 the kneeling figures of eight patients who had 
 received shelter in his hospital, presents, in its 
 dignified simplicity, a marked contrast with the 
 florid over-ornamentation of the restored building 
 containing it. 
 
 The Hospital of the Holy Ghost is now entered 
 from the yard of the Noris Stift, a charitable institu- 
 tion of nineteenth-century origin ; but, in spite of 
 its modern approaches, the actual building presents 
 very much the same appearance as it did during the 
 lifetime of Konrad Gross. In the central courtyard 
 the quaint Heinz Fountain — the water of which 
 flows fi*om the ears of a squat figure wearing a 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 81 
 
 broad -brimmed hat — preserves the memory of 
 Kom'ad Gross's original name, and from the 
 windows of the rooms overlooking it, the modern 
 representatives of the first recipients of his bounty 
 look anxiously out at the visitors to their retreat, 
 wondering no doubt what can be the attraction in 
 a scene so monotonously familiar to them. The 
 whole place is full of the aroma of the past. A 
 peep into the kitchen reveals rows of shining 
 copper vessels and women in picturesque white 
 caps, busy preparing the meals of the patients ; 
 whilst from the plainly-furnished, but roomy and 
 well-ventilated chapel, a beautiful view of the 
 Pegnitz and of the Debtors' Tower is obtained. 
 
 The new buildings of the Noris Stift enclose a 
 very interesting relic of sixteenth-century archi- 
 tecture, a tiny chapel replacing a building of much 
 earlier date, that purports to be a copy of that of the 
 Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. A stone prie-dieu in 
 the anteroom is worn with the knees of countless 
 worshippers, and on the walls of the actual chapel 
 are the remains of interesting frescoes of the 
 Crucifixion and the Resurrection. 
 
 It was during the reign of Ludwig of Bavaria 
 that the older portions of the present Rathaus 
 were built, on the site of the house rented in 1332, as 
 related above, from the Heilbronn monastery. At 
 first the councillors were content with one large hall 
 for their deliberations, but all that now remain of it 
 
 11 
 
82 NUREMBERG 
 
 are the timber roof and part of the eastern fa9ade. 
 Beneath this hall was a deep cellar, which was 
 later — probably some time in the fifteenth century, 
 when the power over life and death had been given 
 to the Council — divided into the twelve cells still 
 shown to visitors, each about 2 yards square and 
 2 high, in which horrible sufferings were endured 
 by those confined in them, and where prisoners were 
 shut up until as late as 1804, when Napoleon I. 
 released those he found in them. 
 
 To the horrors of solitary confinement in the 
 narrow, unlighted, unventilated cells were often 
 added those of torture. In one of the larger of 
 the prisons the stocks still remain, in which some 
 unfortunates are known to have been left for five 
 years to linger slowly to death ; in another is the 
 rack, with an opening in the wall opposite to it, 
 through which the confessions wrung from the 
 often innocent victims could be heard by a spy of 
 the Council ; but the movable instruments of 
 torture have been removed, some to the Germanic 
 Museum, others to the Five-cornered Tower of the 
 Burg. 
 
 Through the low, narrow passages leading to 
 these awful dungeons the visitor is now (1905) 
 escorted by a young girl carrying a lantern, who 
 fails not to recall, with evident gusto, every grue- 
 some detail of the anguish endured by the prisoners, 
 from their first arrival, bound and helpless, after 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 their examination in the Council Hall, to their 
 removal after death to the dark death-chamber, 
 ironically called the chapel, where no prayers were 
 ever said for the departed soul. 
 
 To the so-called useful prisoners a somewhat 
 larger cell was assigned ; but it, too, was unhghted, 
 and it is scarcely less loathsome in atmosphere and 
 appearance than the dens of the condemned. Even 
 the gaoler's room would now be considered unfit 
 for human habitation, for it is absolutely without 
 ventilation. 
 
 A few extracts from a still extant Hst of pay- 
 ments made to one of the public executioners in 
 the service of the Rat, will serve better than 
 would many pages of description to illustrate the 
 small value set on human fife and suffering 
 by those responsible for assessing the sums 
 given: 
 
 For flogging a prisoner - - 30 kreutzers. 
 
 „ putting on the thumbscrews - 1 florin, 30 kreutzers. 
 
 „ branding 1 criminal - - 5 florins. 
 
 „ keeping up the fire, making the 
 pincers red-hot, and apply- 
 ing them - - - 5 florins. 
 
 „ breaking a prisoner on the 
 
 wheel - - - 6 „ 
 
 „ hewing off* one hand - - 3 „ 
 
 „ hewing off^ one finger - - 3 „ 
 
 ,, cutting off" the nose and ears of 
 
 one person - - - 3 „ 
 
 11—2 
 
84 NUREMBERG 
 
 For taking a dead body from the 
 wheel, burying it, or flinging 
 it into the pit known as the 
 Hohegericht reserved for 
 malefactors - - 9 florins. 
 
 Many stories are told of the injustice resulting 
 from the infliction of torture to induce confession, 
 prisoners often owning, when on the rack, to crimes 
 they had not committed, for the sake of the tem- 
 porary reUef to be won, though they knew that death 
 would probably be the final penalty. In the Church 
 of St. Lorenzo was long preserved a golden cup, in 
 memory of such an incident, said to have taken 
 place when Lud^^dg of Bavaria was in Nuremberg. 
 The cup belonged to a member of the great Imhof 
 family, and it was only used on special occasions, 
 when it was the duty of the house-steward, a man 
 named Veit, who had been many years in the 
 ser\dce of his master, to put it away with the rest 
 of the plate after the guests had left. 
 
 On this occasion the head of the family had 
 indulged a Httle too freely in wine, and Veit, who 
 had the honour of the family greatly at heart, had 
 been anxious lest his master should disgrace himself 
 by some solecism. All went well, however ; but at 
 the end of the feast the steward thought it desirable 
 to escort Herr Imhof to his room, so that the 
 banqueting-hall was left for a i^hort time without 
 his guardianship. Having seen his master safely 
 
NUREMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 85 
 
 into bed, Veit returned to the hall and at once 
 noticed, to his great dismay, that the precious cup 
 was missing. After seeking for it in vain, he went 
 to acquaint Herr Imhof with the loss, and was met 
 with a storm of abuse, the angry owner ordering 
 him to have the house searched at once, and when 
 no result ensued, Veit found, to his horror, that he 
 was himself suspected of the crime. ' It was your 
 business,' said his master, ' to see to the safety of 
 the plate, and, if the cup is not found, to prison 
 you go.' In vain the unfortunate steward pro- 
 tested his innocence ; he was dragged before the 
 Schuldheiss and thence to an underground dungeon, 
 where he was put to the torture again and again. 
 At last he could hold out no longer, and owTied 
 that he had taken the cup, though he was, of course, 
 quite unable to say what he had done with it. He 
 was condemned to be hung, and, as was customary at 
 that time, he was compelled to walk barefooted, 
 with his hands tied behind him, from the Rathaus to 
 the place of execution outside the Frauenthor. 
 With his last breath he protested his innocence, 
 declaring that he had not been himself when the 
 false confession was wTung from him. It is said 
 that the sight of his faithful servant in the last 
 extremity, so affected the owner of the cup that 
 he never held up his head or smiled again ; and 
 when, a few days after the tragedy, the missing 
 treasure was found in a safe in the wall of 
 
86 NUREMBERG 
 
 the hall, the secret of which was known only 
 to himself, his remorse almost destroyed his 
 reason. He had, he now feared, placed the cup 
 there when his wits were fuddled with drink, 
 probably whilst Veit was showing the last guest 
 out. He now ordered the remains of the unfortu- 
 nate steward to be disinterred, placed in a silver 
 coffin, and buried with great pomp in the Church 
 of St. Lorenzo. This done, Herr Imhof gave 
 himself up to justice, and, though the extreme 
 penalty for bearing false witness was not inflicted, 
 he had to bear the disgrace of knowing that in the 
 dead of the night, the executioner would place 
 upon the door of his house a mark proclaiming to 
 all the world the fact that its owner had deserved 
 death at his hands. 
 
 Into the network of subterranean cells described 
 above, abutted several passages, connecting the 
 Rathaus with the Burg, of which two only are 
 still passable, that leading to the Deep Well, 
 described above, and another that has its opening 
 in the private gardens of the Imperial Castle. 
 These, supposed to have been under the joint 
 control of the Burggraf and the Rat, were sup- 
 plemented by the latter with a number of other 
 passages leading out of the town in different direc- 
 tions. One of them which followed a very devious 
 course, ended in the forest beyond what are now the 
 pleasure-grounds of Dutzenteich, and is described 
 
NUREiMBERG IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 87 
 
 by an old chronicler as elaborately protected by a 
 series of iron doors, the keys of which were jealously 
 guarded by the Council, and by numerous stones, 
 each marked with a cross, only to be passed by 
 those who were in the secret of their manipula- 
 tion. In the midst of this labyrinth was, moreover, 
 a strongly-fortified chamber, the position of which 
 was known to three or four persons only, in which 
 was kept the treasure of the Rat. Once a year all 
 the underground passages were minutely inspected 
 by a trusted official, on whose report the necessary 
 repairs were promptly executed, for the safety of 
 the town often depended on the means of com- 
 munication with the outer world being kept open. 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast 
 than that presented by the modern Rathaus, A\dth 
 its vast, airy, well-lighted halls and corridors, and 
 the gloomy recesses beneath it, that should be 
 explored before the upper portions are visited, if 
 any real idea of the evolution of the whole is to be 
 obtained. It was not until the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century that the present building was 
 begun after the design of Hans Behaim, the archi- 
 tect of the Kaiserstallung and the Mauthaus, who 
 very cleverly dovetailed the new on to the old, 
 adopting the late Gothic style, but retaining the 
 original central hall and securing an excellent 
 general effect, although his work is a good deal 
 spoiled by the way in which the Hght is shut out 
 
88 NUREMBERG 
 
 by the lofty houses opposite. Additions were made 
 in the Renaissance style to the Behaim Rathaus 
 in the beginning of the sixteenth century by 
 Eucharias Holzschuher, and somewhat later the 
 fine west front was added by the brothers Jakob 
 and Hans WoliF, whilst the present form was given 
 to the whole in 1888 and 1889 by Dr. A. Essenwein, 
 who displayed great skill in the manner in which he 
 utilized even the limitations of the site. His Gothic 
 staircases, galleries, and court are especially fine, 
 and in the last is a beautiful bronze Fountain with 
 a charming statuette of Apollo drawing his bow, by 
 Hans Vischer, that may usefully be compared with 
 the one in an adjoining court of earlier date by 
 Pankras Labenwolf, with its graceful Genius sur- 
 rounded by dolphins, from whose mouths the water 
 flows. 
 
 Historically, the great hall and other rooms of 
 the Rathaus are, of course, full of interest, on 
 account of the important meetings that have been 
 held in them, but the modern works of art they 
 contain are not particularly valuable, though they 
 are dear to the Nurembergers as representing 
 incidents in the life-story of their beloved city. 
 They are, moreover, soon to be removed to a 
 gallery now being built for the paintings owned by 
 the municipaUty, so that their connection with the 
 town hall is but a temporary one. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 NUREMBERG UNDER KARL IV. AND ^VENCESLAS I., 
 WITH THE BUILDING OF THE FRAUENKIRCHE 
 AND THE CARTHUSIAN MONASTERY 
 
 V 
 
 At the time of the death of Ludwig IV. the 
 relations between the burghers and the Rat were 
 somewhat strained, for by slow degrees it had 
 become the custom to elect to the Council none 
 but members of the patrician families, a manifest 
 injustice, as it was chiefly to the merchants and 
 craftsmen that the city owed her prosperity. The 
 malcontents turned to account the confusion result- 
 ing from the sudden removal of the Emperor's 
 influence, and, after holding several secret meetings, 
 rose in revolt against the Rat, demanding a full 
 share in the municipal government. This was 
 refused, with the result that a great tumult arose, 
 the people collecting round the Rathaus, threaten- 
 ing to pull it down and put the councillors to death 
 if their grievances were not redressed. The members 
 of the Rat, who seem to have been but a timorous 
 set of men, fled at once, some, it is said, disguised 
 as women, whilst others were carried out of the 
 
 89 12 
 
90 NUREMBERG 
 
 town in coffins, as if to be buried in the cemetery 
 beyond the walls ; but, strange to say, none of them 
 made use of the elaborate secret passages described 
 above, which would seem to prove that they were 
 not constructed until a later date. The councillors 
 disposed of, the rebels proceeded to elect a new 
 Rat, composed chiefly of craftsmen, but with a 
 small leaven of patricians, who had sided with 
 them in the struggle. The reign of the democratic 
 council was but a brief one, and the only measure 
 of importance passed by it was the giving to the 
 burghers the privilege of forming guilds. Before it 
 had held many sittings came the news that the new 
 Emperor, Karl IV., was on his way to Nuremberg, 
 summoned by the exiled councillors to their aid. 
 The town had little reason to hope for mercy at the 
 hands of Karl, who had been the bitter enemy of 
 Ludwig, and had, indeed, been nominated Emperor 
 by the Pope during the latter 's lifetime. 
 
 Karl and his army halted at the village of 
 Mogeldorf, a short distance from the town, and 
 an envoy was sent to the Council, demanding 
 immediate submission, on pain of terrible penal- 
 ties. The greatest confusion already prevailed in 
 Nuremberg, the ringleaders of the revolt having 
 fled, leaving their followers all but penniless. There 
 was, therefore, nothing for it but to make the best 
 of the situation, and the citizens promptly declared 
 that they would gladly welcome the Emperor ; 
 
KARL IV. AND WENCESLAS I. 91 
 
 their quarrel had not been with him, and they 
 knew that he would see justice done to their 
 cause. 
 
 Partly, it is said, owing to the intervention of 
 Ludwig of Brandenburg, the son of the late 
 Emperor, Karl, gi-eatly to the surprise of the in- 
 surgents, did prove himself, to a certain extent, a 
 mercifiil judge. Some few only of the more promi- 
 nent rebels, including one of the leaders surnamed 
 Greisbart, or the Graybeard, were beheaded on 
 what is now known as the Kopfleinberg, not, as 
 was long supposed, in memory of their execution, 
 but of the Kopp family, who had a house near by, 
 in the present Adlerstrasse. Moreover, a heavy 
 fine was inflicted, which taxed the impoverished 
 resources of the burghers to the uttermost, so that, 
 to quote the words of an old chronicler, 'many 
 had to sell house and crust, clothes and furniture, 
 their tools, and all they possessed,' to provide their 
 share. 
 
 The Emperor, after a triumphal entrance into 
 the town, at once proceeded to elect a new Council, 
 in which he included thirty-four nobles and only 
 eight craftsmen, who, of course, were in too hope- 
 less a minority to have any real influence. To 
 this Council was given the power of electing a 
 kind of upper chamber, known as the Great 
 Council, which, in certain cases, notably when the 
 town was at war, formed a kind of consulting 
 
 12—2 
 
92 NUREMBERG 
 
 committee. The one privilege that the artisans 
 hoped to have secured, that of forming guilds of 
 their own, was taken from them, and the right 
 of meeting in their own clubs, conferred upon 
 them by Ludwig IV., was also rescinded. 
 
 It is generally supposed that the revolt in 
 Nuremberg of 1348 was partly responsible for the 
 revived persecution of the Jews, which culminated 
 in the horrible massacre of 1349, that has left an 
 indelible stain upon the history of the town. 
 The fact that, in spite of all the disabilities under 
 which they laboured, there were at that date no 
 less than 212 well-to-do Jewish families living in 
 the restricted area assigned to them, and who 
 grew ever richer and richer, irritated the burghers 
 who had been so heavily mulcted for their brief 
 essay at self-government. A rumour circulated, 
 probably of malice prepense, that the Jews 
 had poisoned the wells of Nuremberg, added still 
 more to the growing rage against them, so that 
 any spark would have been enough to cause a 
 conflagration. 
 
 The Emperor, who appears to have shared the 
 popular hatred of the Jews, is said to have signed 
 a promise to make no inquiry, no matter what 
 happened to them, although by so doing he was 
 not only forgetting his own dignity, but cutting 
 the ground from beneath his feet, since every Jew 
 was compelled by law to pay to him a large sum 
 
KARL IV. AND ^VENCESLAS I. 93 
 
 for the right of domicile. The Council of Nurem- 
 berg, to whom it is supposed that this disgraceftil 
 document was given, lost no time in acting upon 
 it. True, the members of the Rat held aloof from 
 active participation in the horrors that followed, but 
 the people were every^vhere incited to make short 
 work of their - Jewish fellow- citizens. In the 
 course of a few days all the houses belonging to 
 them were pulled dowTi ; the synagogue, that 
 occupied the site of the present Frauenkirche, was 
 destroyed, and the cemetery desecrated. More- 
 over, the homeless families, after being subjected 
 to all manner of outrages, were driven outside the 
 town to the open space now occupied by the 
 beautiful park of Maxfeld, and there burnt to 
 death, as reported by various witnesses. 
 
 What Karl IV. thought of the terrible result of 
 his weak tampering with the e\dl passions of the 
 Nurembergers, history does not say. The Jews 
 were gone — reduced to ashes this time — so that 
 there really seemed no prospect of their return, 
 though the huge modern synagogue that now rises 
 from the banks of the Pegnitz proves that they 
 are largely represented in the modern town of 
 Nuremberg, where, as before, they still monopoHze 
 much of the trade and wealth. ^ The murderers of 
 the victims of 1349 lost no time in turning to 
 account the space won by the destruction of the 
 Jewish homes and places of worship. The markets 
 
94 NUREMBERG 
 
 were enlarged, and the site of the synagogue at the 
 east end of the principal one was set apart for the 
 erection of a Christian church. 
 
 It was not until five years later that the actual 
 foundations of the beautiful Frauenkirche were 
 laid, on a spot that still seemed to be stained with 
 the blood of the innocent, so that even now, in 
 spite of the charm of the surroundings of the 
 church, and the many ennobling memories con- 
 nected with them, the district still seems to echo 
 with a cry for vengeance. 
 
 Begun in 1355, the Frauenkirche was completed 
 in 1361, after the designs of Georg and Friedrich 
 Ruprecht, and is a good example of German Gothic 
 architecture. The quaint sculptures of the western 
 portal, from the hand of Sebald Schonhover, 
 are somewhat spoiled by the crudeness of their 
 colouring, though the general effect is good. 
 Above the porch is an ornate chapel, dedicated to 
 St. Michael, with a fine tower, in which is the 
 famous clock known as the Mannleinlaufen, made 
 in the sixteenth century by George Heuss, to replace 
 a similar one set up in memory of the issue from 
 Nuremberg of the Golden Bull of Karl IV., the 
 chief provisions of which are quoted below. The 
 figures adorning the face of the clock were cast by 
 Sebastian Lindenast, and represent the Emperor, 
 his heralds, and the seven electors, who, as the 
 clock strikes twelve, are set in motion by an in- 
 
THE MARKET-PLACE, WITH THE NEPTUNE 
 FOUNTAIN AND FRAUEN KIRCHE. 
 
i 
 
KARL IV. AND AVENCESLAS I. 95 
 
 genious mechanism. The Emperor, who is seated' 
 raises his sword, the heralds appear to blow their 
 trumpets, and the electors pass three times in front 
 of their hege lord, bowing their heads as they go. 
 
 The interior of the Frauenkirche is extremely 
 beautiful, and especially rich in art treasures. The 
 frescoes on the walls, which are very well preserved, 
 are of great interest, gi%^g graphic renderings of 
 the legends of St. Ursula and St. Catherine, \\dth the 
 * Denial of St. Peter ' and other scriptural subjects. 
 The large altar-piece, with Hfe-sized figures on a 
 gold ground, is a good example of early German 
 painting, and the Pergenstorfer monument, with 
 bas-reUefs by Adam Kraft, is one of that great 
 sculptor's best works, the faces of the kings, monks, 
 nuns, beggars, etc., adoring the Holy Mother and 
 Child, being all full of individual character. 
 
 Until the end of the fourteenth century the 
 chapel of St. ^Michael in the Frauenkirche served as 
 the treasury of the Imperial jewels and rehcs, which 
 were, however, later confided to the care of the 
 authorities of the Church of the Holy Ghost, but 
 were finally removed to Vienna, though the beautiful 
 casket which originally enshrined them, and the 
 chain from which it was suspended, are in the 
 Germanic Museum. 
 
 Whilst the building of the Frauenkirche was 
 proceeding, a certain wealthy citizen named 
 Conrad Waldstromer founded a home for pilgrims 
 
96 NUREMBERG 
 
 just outside the walls of Nuremberg, the chapel of 
 which, dedicated to St. Martha, and containing 
 some fine old glass, still remains in the present 
 Konigsstrasse, nearly opposite to the somewhat 
 later St. Klara, also originally part of a hospital, 
 but now used as a Lutheran place of worship. 
 
 In 1380 was begun the far more important 
 Carthusian convent, which forms the chief nucleus of 
 the Germanic Museum, a beautiful building in the 
 Gothic style. It owed its origin to Marquand 
 Mendel, a generous burgher, whose mother was 
 the daughter of Konrad Heinz, much of whose 
 property she inherited. Mendel lost his wife, to 
 whom he was deeply attached, after two years of 
 great happiness, and it was his grief for this 
 bereavement which led him to build the monastery. 
 
 The Gothic chapel and cloisters, round about 
 which clustered the cells of the monks, still remain 
 much what they were when they were first com- 
 pleted. In them are fitly housed a unique 
 collection of statues, bas-reliefs, shrines, and other 
 ecclesiastical relics, which, banished by the stern 
 restrictions of the reformed faith from the sacred 
 buildings they originally adorned, survive to bear 
 witness to the artistic genius and religious enthu- 
 siasm of their creators, still serving, even at this 
 late day, to stimulate the spirit of devotion, of 
 which they were the outward expression many 
 centuries ago. 
 
KARL IV. AND WENCESLAS I. 97 
 
 Amongst these priceless heirlooms of the golden 
 age of German art, two especially arrest and enchain 
 the attention : the so-called ' Nuremberg 'Madonna,' 
 a hfe-sized figure in wood of unknown authorship, 
 and the ' Rosenkranz ' of A'^eit Stoss, a bas-reUef in 
 the same material. Once seen, the Madonna, which 
 is supposed to have formed part of a large composi- 
 tion, probably a ' Crucifixion,' can never be for- 
 gotten. The exquisite figure of the mourning 
 mother is the very type of unselfish devotion 
 and spiritual exaltation, a perfect poem of human 
 love, as wnth head raised, as if hstening to the 
 last words of her Di\dne Son, and hands pressed 
 together in a gesture expressive of the deepest 
 anguish, she awaits the supreme moment when 
 death shall release Him from His sufferings. 
 
 The ' Rosenkranz ' of Veit Stoss is also a poem 
 in wood, but an epic poem of many stanzas, for the 
 wreath of roses that gives its name to the whole 
 work, and encloses a T-shaped cross with rows of 
 saints on either side of the shaft, is supplemented 
 by a terribly reahstic Last Judgment. The whole 
 is, moreover, set in a frame consisting of a series of 
 bas-reUefs, each but a few inches square, in which 
 a number of Bibhcal incidents, beginning with the 
 Creation of Eve and ending with the Resurrection, 
 are represented with truly dramatic force. 
 
 From time to time important additions have 
 been made to the buildings of the Museum, which, 
 
 13 
 
98 NUREMBERG 
 
 with its diversified contents, now forms a perfect 
 epitome of the history of Germany, aesthetic and 
 pohtical. The founder of the monastery would, 
 indeed, be surprised could he return to earth, to see 
 the use to which his rehgious foundation has been 
 put. He had, doubtless, hoped that it would 
 remain a monastery to the end, and before his 
 death, which took place in 1383, he had projected 
 the founding of another chapel, that of the original 
 building having been already too small to hold the 
 many worshippers who flocked to it. 
 
 Marquand's wishes were respected by his brother 
 Konrad, who built a supplementary chapel, now 
 replaced by a fire brigade station, and also a house 
 for the reception of twelve poor old men, which still 
 stands at the corner of the Corn Market, and can 
 be identified by a statue of one of the pensioners 
 on the outside. 
 
 Of a piece with the irony of building the 
 Frauenkirche to commemorate the massacre of 
 the Jews, was the issue by Karl IV. soon after 
 that gruesome event, of what was called *A 
 Declaration of Peace,' which was to last for two 
 years throughout Franconia. At the same time 
 the Emperor granted certain special privileges to 
 the craftsmen of Nuremberg, who, especially the 
 workers in metal, were already celebrated through- 
 out the empire, for the beauty and durability of 
 their work. They and their fellow-citizens, the 
 
KARL IV. AND WENCESLAS I. 99 
 
 cutlers and the butchers, were now permitted once 
 a year to ape the ways of the nobles, and to hold 
 festivals, at which they wore costumes as costly as 
 those of their social superiors. 
 
 The love of dancing and merrymaking was 
 indeed from the first inherent in the Teutonic 
 nature, and though much of the picturesqueness of 
 the open-air fetes of the burghers is now inevitably 
 lost, they still dehght in meeting together, dancing, 
 singing, and Ustening to music with the same en- 
 thusiasm as of yore. 
 
 After the issue of the ' Declaration of Peace,' 
 Karl IV. left Nuremberg, and it was not until 1355 
 that he was again in the town. In 1356 he issued 
 what is known as the Golden Bull par excellence, 
 on account of the yellow seal affixed to it, the first 
 twenty-three clauses of which were indited in a 
 house still standing in the present Schildgasse, 
 called 'Zum Goldenen Schild,' and distinguished 
 by a modern painting, representing Karl IV. on his 
 throne, with a golden shield at his feet. In this 
 famous Bull various matters affecting the whole 
 Empire were dealt with at length, but its chief im- 
 portance for Nuremberg was the fact that it made 
 necessary and legal what had hitherto been cus- 
 tomary only — the holding in that city of the first 
 Diet after the coronation of an Emperor. This 
 advantage was, however, to a great extent, neutral- 
 ized by another painfully retrogressive clause, for- 
 
 13—2 
 
too NUREMBERG 
 
 bidding the towns to combine for their common 
 defence, a direct contravention of privileges 
 previously conceded. 
 
 This was, of course, an encouragement of the 
 oppression of the people by the princes and nobles, 
 and its prejudicial effect was at once manifest in 
 Nuremberg, the Burggraf having lost no time in 
 acting upon it, by levelling taxes on the burghers 
 which had long before been remitted. 
 
 The Emperor, who was under private obligations 
 to the Burggraf, added fuel to the fire by making 
 him chief magistrate, with the result that he was 
 himself the judge in the constant disputes that 
 arose. The position soon became intolerable, and 
 in the end Karl consented to the citizens buying 
 back the right of choosing their own magistrate, for 
 a very large sum of money, which he shared with 
 the Burggraf. 
 
 Even then, however, peace was not secured, for 
 fresh quarrels were constantly arising, and at last, 
 in self-defence, the citizens built a strong wall to 
 keep the Burggraf and his people out of their 
 town, a proceeding that added insult to injury, for 
 it restricted the liberty of the proud occupants of 
 the Burg, whose servants could no longer go in or 
 out of the city without a special pass from the 
 Schuldheiss, and were unable even to go to the 
 markets to buy provisions for their master. 
 
 Finally, the matter in dispute was referred to the 
 
KARL IV. AND WENCESLAS I. 101 
 
 Emperor, who, to the surprise and disgust of the 
 Burggraf, decided against him. This encouraged 
 the citizens to build the Luginsland Tower, already 
 described in connection with the Burg, which, 
 though no trace of the wall that preceded it 
 remains, still bears witness to the courage and 
 determination of the burghers in the defence of 
 their rights. 
 
 As was inevitable, however, the decision of the 
 Emperor only served to increase the fury of the 
 Burggraf, who on one occasion drew up a long 
 indictment against the townsfolk, including the 
 significant accusation that they had violated the 
 sanctuary of the Freiung, by snatching from it a 
 criminal who had taken refuge in it, an incidental 
 proof that the right of asylum there was still 
 claimed. 
 
 With the astuteness that characterized him, Karl 
 kept up the feud until the end of his life, siding 
 first with one party and then with the other, exact- 
 ing a money reward from each according to circum- 
 stances. It was not, indeed, until nearly a century 
 later, when the Burggraf sold the Burg to the town, 
 that the chronic hostility really came to an end. 
 
 In 1361 an heir, the future King Wenceslas, was 
 born to the Emperor in Nuremberg, an event which 
 brought great honour and glory to the to^vn. A 
 rumour, set on foot no one knows how, did, how- 
 ever, get about that the child was not really the son 
 
102 NUREMBERG 
 
 of Karl and his wife, but of a blacksmith in the town, 
 for the infant born to the Empress was a girl. The 
 mother, knowing how bitter would be the dis- 
 appointment to her husband as well as to his 
 people, is said to have persuaded her attendTants to 
 change her child for the son of a cobbler born on the 
 same day. Whatever foundation there may be for 
 this strange story, it is certain that the Empress 
 showed an extraordinary affection for the black- 
 smith's daughter, and when she died at the early 
 age of sixteen, mourned as bitterly for her loss as if 
 she had, indeed, been her mother. 
 
 In due course the boy, whether Emperor's or 
 blacksmith's son, was baptized with great pomp in 
 the font still preserved in St. Sebald's Church, and 
 after the ceremony the Imperial jewels, brought 
 from St. Michael's Chapel, were exhibited to the 
 townsfolk, who were wild with joy at the eclat that 
 accrued to their beloved city. According to a 
 legend, as improbable as that relating to the black- 
 smith's son, the simple operation of heating the 
 water for the baptism of Prince Wenceslas led to 
 the burning down of St. Sebald's Parsonage, the 
 oriel window of which alone escaped the flames. 
 
 Wenceslas was , but a few months old when his 
 father betrothed him to the daughter of Burggraf 
 Friedrich V., and although the marriage never took 
 place, a son of the Burggraf eventually married the 
 sister of the Prince, a union that was very far from 
 
KARL IV. AND WENCESLAS I. 103 
 
 conducive to the interests of Nuremberg, increasing 
 as it did the arrogance of the occupants of the 
 Burg. 
 
 In 1^76 — the year, by the way, of the first use of 
 firearms in Nuremberg, that led to a complete 
 revolution in the system of defence — Karl IV. 
 succeeded, by dint of much bribery of the Electors, 
 in getting his thirteen-year-old son crowned King at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, coming thence to Nuremberg, 
 where the two monarchs held a brilliant Court, the 
 event being further celebrated by the granting of 
 many new priidleges to the burghers. 
 
 Karl IV. 's last visit to the city, with whose for- 
 tunes his own had been so long bound up, took 
 place a few months before his death in 1378. He 
 was succeeded by his son Wenceslas, a man of 
 character so utterly unlike that of his predecessor 
 as to lend colour to the rumour that there was no 
 blood-relationship between them. During the earher 
 part of the reign of the new monarch, Nuremberg 
 was involved in constant quarrels wdth the so-called 
 Free Knights, of whom, by the way, Eppelein von 
 Gailingen, whose story has already been related in 
 connection with the Burg, was one. As a rule 
 the town was able to hold her own in these petty 
 feuds, but before the deposition, in 1400, of the 
 incompetent Wenceslas, she was drawn into a far 
 more serious struggle — that between the great 
 Princes of the Empire and the Rhenish League. 
 
104 NUREMBERG 
 
 Nuremberg had been slow to join that important 
 body, organized for mutual defence, and she was 
 now the first to make peace with the enemy, a 
 concession for which she had to pay a very heavy 
 fine. Fortunately for her, however, the successor 
 of Wenceslas, Ruprecht von der Pfalz, whose can- 
 didature she espoused from the first, proved his 
 gratitude in many substantial ways, and when the 
 new century dawned, a fresh era of prosperity for 
 the town appeared to have begun. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NUREMBERG UNDER RUPRECHT I., SIGISI^nJND I., 
 AND FREDERICK III., WITH THE BUILDING OF 
 THE THIRD WAUL AND OPENING OF THE EXTRA 
 MURAL CEMETERIES 
 
 The newly-elected King Ruprecht entered Nurem- 
 berg for the first time on February 2, 1401, and in 
 a charter granted to the town soon after, he added 
 to her other privileges that of being quite indepen- 
 dent of the Burggraf in time of war — that is to say, 
 she was released from the obUgation of aiding him 
 with men and money in his private quarrels. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the reign of Ruprecht, 
 who would evidently have been a good friend to 
 Nuremberg, was a very short one. He died in 1410, 
 and his successor, Sigismund of Hungary, who won 
 his election mainly through the support of the Burg- 
 graf Frederick VI., was a man of weak and vacilla- 
 ting character, fond of display, and perfectly 
 reckless in incurring debt. Again and again he 
 borrowed large sums of money from Nuremberg, 
 "with httle if any intention of repaying them — an 
 incidental proof of the prosperity of the town, which 
 
 105 14 
 
106 NUREMBERG 
 
 throve greatly, in spite of the constant drain upon 
 its resources. 
 
 When, in 1427, the Burggraf Frederick, who 
 had purchased from King Sigismund the Margra- 
 vate of Brandenburg, and had ceased to attach 
 much value to his hereditary castle, offered to sell 
 it and all the property and rights connected with 
 it, except his title, to the municipality of Nurem- 
 berg, the suggestion was eagerly accepted. 
 
 After some httle negotiation the bargain was 
 struck, and for the large sum of 120,000 gulden 
 the ancestral home of the HohenzoUerns passed 
 into the possession of the town it had dominated 
 so long. The castle was in ruins, and all that 
 remained of the buildings connected with it were 
 the Five-cornered Tower and the Walpurgis Chapel, 
 but the proud burghers recked little of that. They 
 had, at last, rid themselves of the Burggrafs, whose 
 presence had been a constant menace to them ; 
 they were henceforth actually as well as nominally 
 independent of every authority but that of the 
 King or Emperor, and could justly pride them- 
 selves on being the citizens of a really free Imperial 
 city. 
 
 As Margrave of Brandenburg, Frederick of 
 Hohenzollern exercised a far greater political influ- 
 ence than he had ever done as Burggraf of Nurem- 
 berg, and he very quickly restored peace to the 
 whole of Franconia by the vigorous manner in 
 
PART OF THE OUTER WALL ABOVE THE 
 PEGNITZ. 
 
^ 
 
 m 
 
 '-**^---'' -■-■"■—-'■- ■ 1 ^'--' •■^"T iafif' ji__jl!liL 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. 107 
 
 which he repressed the brigandage of the robber 
 knights and maintained his o^vti supremacy over 
 the minor barons. Incidentally, this was of great 
 sernce to Nuremberg, which had suffered greatly 
 from the raids of the former, and was now able 
 to devote her fuU attention to her own internal 
 affairs, and to the development of her commerce. 
 Her first care was to include within her fortifica- 
 tions her new acquisition, and to strengthen the old 
 defences of the Burg, the latter a very necessary 
 work, as they had fallen into thorough disrepair. 
 
 It was not long before the advantage of the 
 concentration of power in one authority became 
 manifest, for the rehgious war that was to shake 
 the German Empire to its foundations had already 
 begun, and it was soon necessary for Nuremberg to 
 decide which side she would espouse. She had 
 been hitherto very loyal to the Catholic faith, and 
 in the early years of the fifteenth century several 
 heretics had been condemned to be burnt to death 
 for their opinions within her walls. In spite of 
 tliis, however, she was from the first disposed to 
 lend a willing ear to the reformers, and in 1414 a 
 cordial welcome was given to John Huss, when he 
 halted at Nuremberg on his way to the Council of 
 Constance. After his martyrdom in 1415, when 
 his followers, who were chiefly peasants, rose in 
 revolt, carrying for a short time all before them, 
 even taking several towTis by storm, Nuremberg 
 
 14—2 
 
108 NUREMBERG 
 
 took part against them. At one time it seemed 
 likely that the victorious Hussites would attack 
 the town, and every man, woman, and child was 
 pressed into the service to strengthen the defences, 
 but, thanks to the intervention of Frederick of 
 Brandenburg, who seems to have retained a certain 
 affection for his old home, Nuremberg escaped. 
 
 During the lull that succeeded the apparent 
 suppression of the Hussite rising Sigismund was 
 crowned Emperor at Rome, and to celebrate that 
 important event — his predecessors Wenceslas and 
 Ruprecht having been kings only — he gave to 
 Nuremberg yet another charter. Of this, one of 
 the clauses, since ignored, purported to secure to the 
 town the perpetual custody of the Imperial insignia 
 and relics, which were taken with great pomp to the 
 Church of the Holy Ghost, the citizens all assem- 
 bling in their gala costumes, to watch the proces- 
 sion escorting the treasures, in which walked all the 
 great dignitaries of the Church, the knights of 
 the Orders, the brotherhoods and the guilds that 
 had their headquarters in Nuremberg. The con- 
 demned prisoners in the Loch, as the underground 
 prisons of the Rathaus were called, were released, 
 and the dead bodies of the criminals hanging on 
 the gallows were cut down. 
 
 On the death of Sigismund in 1437 his stepson, 
 Albrecht of Austria, was chosen to succeed him, 
 and during the new ruler's brief reign of two years 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. 109 
 
 he held two Diets in Nuremberg. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his cousin, Duke Frederick of Austria, 
 who did not visit Nuremberg until 1442. On that 
 occasion he entered the city by the Spittler Thor, 
 first halting, it is related, for a brief space near 
 St. Jakob's Church, to kneel at a little table set up 
 in the road, on which were placed the skulls of 
 St. Sebald and St. J^awrence, though how the 
 latter came to be there history does not say. After 
 a few moments spent in prayer the Emperor rose, 
 the skull of St. Sebald was placed on his head, and 
 he remounted his horse, to ride, wearing this 
 singular crown, to the Church of St. Sebald, 
 where a solemn thanksgiving service was cele- 
 brated. 
 
 This was but the first of many visits paid by 
 Frederick III. to Nuremberg during his long 
 reign, in which the city was involved in many 
 troubles, one of the most serious being the feud 
 with the Margrave Albrecht Achilles, who tried to 
 recover the possessions sold by his father to the 
 town. Nuremberg was, however, able to hold her 
 own, and on the death of Frederick in 1493, in 
 spite of the constant drain upon her resources from 
 one cause or another, she was one of the wealthiest 
 cities of Franconia, at unity with herself, girt about 
 with a double circlet of walls and towers. Within 
 these fortifications, stiU to a great extent intact, 
 were enclosed not only many time-honoured 
 
110 NUREMBERG 
 
 churches, hallowed by the prayers of countless 
 worshippers, but also numerous stately pubHc 
 buildings and groups of comfortable private 
 homes, in which dwelt men whose names were 
 already becoming world-famous, for when the 
 fifteenth century dawned Adam Kraft was already 
 seventy years old, Michael Wolgemut sixty-six, Veit 
 Stoss fifty-five, and Albrecht Dlirer twenty-nine. 
 ' Though it was probably completed during the 
 reign of Frederick III., it is impossible to say 
 with any certainty when the third and last wall, 
 which gives to Nuremberg her distinctive character 
 as a fortified mediseval city, was begun, but it is 
 generally supposed to have been about the middle 
 of the fourteenth century. The Outer Laufer 
 Thor was erected in 1377, the Neue Thor in 1381, 
 the Outer Spittler Thor in 1385, and the Outer 
 Frauen Thor in 1390-1391. It was not, however, 
 until the thirteenth century that the towers bearing 
 the same names as these fourteenth-century gate- 
 ways, were added to the defences, rather as separate 
 strongholds than as integral portions of the walls. 
 The probability is, indeed, that many towers and 
 supplementary works, of which no traces remain, 
 connecting the main gateways of the town preceded 
 the enceinte which is still the glory of Nuremberg. 
 It seems to have been about 1426 that the 
 digging of the deep outer trench, three and a 
 half miles in circumference, and the building 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. Ill 
 
 of the outer wall, were begun, for an Order of 
 Council is still extant in which the work on the 
 former was arranged for in a very singular manner. 
 All householders with their children over five years 
 of age, and their servants, were compelled to work 
 at it one day in the course of every year, or if 
 unable to do so through physical infirmity, or for 
 any other vaUd reason, a substitute had to be 
 provided at the expense of the defaulter. Later, 
 exemption could be bought for the small sum of 
 ten pfennings, and in 1438 the compulsory labour 
 was finally remitted.* 
 
 The ditch and its protecting wall were com- 
 pleted in 1432, for an entry in the Baumeister- 
 buch of Councillor Tucher states, * then was the 
 ditch round the town finished, that took twenty- 
 six years to build,' the word ' ditch ' evidently 
 including the enceinte. The inner of the two still 
 existing walls is evidently considerably older than 
 the outer. It is about 21 feet high and 3 feet 
 thick, and is strengthened at intervals of from 
 120 feet to 150 feet by picturesque square towers 
 of varying height, no two alike, but all with high- 
 pitched, sloping, red-tiled roofs, connected with 
 each other by a covered passage, wdth openings 
 commanding the outer circumvaUation crowning 
 the wall between them. 
 
 The entrance into and exit of the Pegnitz from 
 the town, both, of course, exceptionally vulner- 
 
112 NUREMBERG 
 
 able points, were protected by towers of extra 
 strength, and the course of the stream was com- 
 pletely barred by what are called Schoss-gatter, 
 or oak poles cased in iron. The outer and con- 
 siderably lower wall, was also supplemented with 
 massive square towers, less lofty, but of much 
 greater bulk than those of the inner fortifica- 
 tion, and in them were stationed the archers, 
 who could command the moat in either direction. 
 These towers were also originally connected by a 
 covered passage crowning the outer wall, but 
 unfortunately little of that passage now remains. 
 In spite of this, however, an excellent idea can 
 still be obtained of the whole complex system of 
 defences, which rank, with those of Rothenburg, 
 that are even better preserved, amongst the finest 
 existing examples of mediaeval military architecture 
 in existence. 
 
 Fortunately the authorities of Nuremberg have 
 always recognised the value, from a historical as 
 well as an aesthetic point of view, of these unique 
 survivals of a vanished past. In spite of some few 
 gaps that unfortunately here and there break their 
 continuity, the walls and towers dominating the 
 deep moat, now converted into charming gardens, 
 orchards, and playgrounds for children, still form a 
 harmonious and picturesque whole. The slender 
 towers of the inner circle, their ruddy roofs 
 contrasting with the sombre gray of the stone- 
 
WHERE THE PEGNITZ ENTERS NUREMBERG. 
 
RUPRECHT L, SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. 113 
 
 work ; the squat shooting lodges, with their flights 
 of steps on either side ; the quaint gabled houses 
 wedged into every available space ; and the graceful 
 covered bridges spanning the Pegnitz, combine to 
 form a series of pictures of infinitely varied charm, 
 satisfying alike to the mind, the heart, and the eye. 
 They appeal, indeed, to each with equal force, for 
 the simple reason that they unconsciously fulfil the 
 essential principles of utihty and of art. They are 
 admirably fitted for the purpose for which they 
 were intended ; whilst their growth has been that 
 of natural, not artificial, development, and the hand 
 of time has mellowed, not injured, their beauty. 
 A walk along the Zwinger, as the space between 
 the two walls is called, provides a feast of dehght 
 at every turn, especially in the gloaming of an 
 autumn evening, when the sun is setting behind 
 the Burg and the whole scene is bathed in a radiant 
 glow of Hght. 
 
 It seems strange that at a time when such well- 
 built defences were growing up round Nuremberg, 
 there should have been no corresponding advance 
 in sanitary science, and that even as late as the 
 close of the reign of Frederick III. the interior 
 of the town should still have been squalid and 
 neglected, as is proved by the descriptions of con- 
 temporary chroniclers and the stories told of the 
 sufferings of the inhabitants from preventable 
 diseases. With few exceptions the houses and 
 
 15 
 
114 NUREMBERG 
 
 bridges were still of wood, and therefore subject to 
 rapid decay and easy destruction by fire. There 
 was no pavement, except in the market-place ; the 
 streets were narrow, and in wet weather knee-deep 
 in mud. The Pegnitz and its tributary the Frosch- 
 bach, which entered the city near the Froschturm, 
 now destroyed, often overflowed their banks, and 
 deep trenches had to be dug in the streets to carry 
 oif the surplus water. Cattle, pigs and dogs shared 
 the miserable huts in which the poor people con- 
 gregated, and even at the end of the century it 
 was no unusual thing for the dead bodies of animals 
 to be left to rot upon the ground outside even the 
 best houses. There were no watchmen to keep 
 order ; such a thing as drainage was unknown, and 
 all manner of refuse was allowed to accumulate in 
 the moat and outside the town. Under these cir- 
 cumstances it is little wonder that the plague, or, 
 as it was called, the Black Death, often wrought 
 havoc amongst the population, carrying off hundreds 
 daily, yet rarely leading to any real reform, for the 
 bodies of the dead were carelessly buried, and the 
 intramural cemeteries became fresh centres of 
 infection. 
 
 Many gruesome and some amusing stories are 
 told of the horrors attendant on the course of the 
 grim avenger of the sins against sanitary law, and 
 one of the most charming of the minor works of 
 art that enrich the streets of Nuremberg, com- 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. 115 
 
 memorates the hero of a marvellous escape from 
 death, during a severe visitation of the plague, that 
 took place some time in the fifteenth century. This 
 is the figure of a bagpipe -player by an unknown 
 master of the sixteenth century, which adorns a 
 fountain in theEbner Gasse — leading from the fruit- 
 market to the Spitalplatz — a spirited composition 
 which, strange to say, is scarcely alluded to by 
 writers on Nuremberg, and is rarely noticed by 
 visitors. Yet this wonderful musician is far more 
 lifelike than the rival statue, the popular gooseman 
 of the fruit-market. The bagpipe-player seems, 
 indeed, to radiate forth humour and the mere joy 
 of existence, from his merry eyes to his pointed toe, 
 eager to begin the dance, when the first note is 
 sounded on the pipes he is inflating, so that it is 
 almost a surprise that that note is never heard and 
 that the attitude of the player does not change. 
 
 The story goes that a certain bagpipe-player, 
 who was greatly beloved in Nuremberg, no festivity 
 being considered complete without him, started for 
 home one night, after supplying the music for a 
 dance, considerably the worse for all the treating he 
 had received. He had not gone far when sleep 
 overcame him, and he fell down in the midcjle of 
 the street. There he lay, unconscious of every- 
 thing, when the plague-cart came rumbling along, 
 the driver shouting to the people of the houses to 
 bring out their dead. The horse or ox dragging 
 
 15—2 
 
116 NUREMBERG 
 
 the already heavily-laden vehicle, unwilling to 
 tread upon the prostrate figure, stopped of its own 
 accord, and its master, taking it for granted that 
 the sleeper had fallen a victim to the plague, 
 promptly flung him into the cart. The jolting and 
 rumbling soon roused the musician from his stupor, 
 and great indeed was his terrified dismay when he 
 realized where he was. He screamed aloud, but 
 the driver, used to such sounds at that awful time, 
 took no notice, and the poor man had given himself 
 up for lost, when he remembered that he still had 
 his beloved bagpipes with him. He began to blow 
 on them, and to his own astonishment, instead of 
 playing the tune he intended, an exquisite strain 
 issued from the instrument which seemed to bring 
 him for a brief space into touch with heaven itself. 
 The beautiful music soon aroused the attention of 
 the driver, who at first thought it came fi-om the 
 spirit of one of the dead he was taking to their 
 last resting-place ; but, presently, perceiving the 
 bagpipe-player, the real state of things became 
 clear to him. The cart was stopped, and the man, 
 who had gone through so remarkable an adventure, 
 got down to return home, a changed character, for, 
 concludes the legend, he never again drank too 
 much or chose the middle of the street as a resting- 
 place, but hved to a good old age, respected as well 
 as loved by all who knew him. 
 
 Although it was not until the beginning of the 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK III. 117 
 
 sixteenth century that intramural burial was for- 
 bidden in Nuremberg, there were, of course, several 
 cemeteries beyond the waUs for the use of the out- 
 lying villages. Of these the earhest in date, and 
 now the most important as the last resting-place 
 of many great men, is that surrounding the Church 
 of St. Johannes, which was built about the end of 
 the fourteenth century. The church contains 
 several fine paintings and sculptures, including an 
 altar-piece by Michael Wolgemut and Veit Stoss, 
 and an even more interesting painting representing 
 the Crucifixion, attributed, probably with truth, to 
 Albrecht Altdorfer, in which the Devil is intro- 
 duced seated on the head of the impenitent thief, 
 whilst the soul of the less obdurate sinner is seen 
 escaping to heaven. The group of mourning 
 women at the foot of the cross is especially fine, 
 and the whole work is very tjrpical of the dawn of 
 the German Renaissance. 
 
 A large painting by an unknown hand of 
 Nuremberg as it was just after the completion of 
 the third waU, with figures in the costume of 
 the time in the foreground, is also worthy of 
 examination. 
 
 The charming little chapel near the chief 
 entrance to the Cemetery, built about a century 
 later than the Church of St. Johannes, and named 
 after its founder, a member of the Holzschuher 
 family, contains two interesting relics of the 
 
118 NUREMBERG 
 
 golden age of art in Nuremberg : the last work 
 of Adam Kraft, an Entombment in stone with 
 life-sized figures in full relief, which has, unfor- 
 tunately, been too much restored to have retained 
 any great aesthetic value, and an altar-piece in 
 carved wood by Veit Stoss. The latter is a true 
 masterpiece, representing the Resurrection, which 
 is, strange to say, in a state of great neglect, and 
 little known even by the residents of Nuremberg. 
 In it the beautiful lifelike figure of Christ stands 
 out against a fine landscape background, with the 
 town of Jerusalem in the distance, whilst in the 
 foreground the four guardians of the tomb, who 
 wear the armour of the fifteenth century, express 
 by their attitudes and gestures their astonishment at 
 the extraordinary event, one of them, who is only 
 half awake, seeming to exclaim ' Those Christians 
 were right after all.' On one wing of this dramatic 
 work Christ is seen in Hades, bending down to 
 aid the waiting spirits, whilst the evil one leans 
 over the door above Him, and is about to strike 
 Him on the head with a hammer — a detail very 
 significant of the grim humour of the gifted 
 carver who designed the remarkable composition. 
 
 Beautiful as are the works of art in the two 
 consecrated buildings of the Cemetery, they are 
 necessarily to a great extent eclipsed by the deep 
 human interest attached to the graves in the 
 Friedhof, as the Germans poetically call the burial- 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., IHEDERICK III. 119 
 
 ground, which include those of Albrecht Diirer, Veit 
 Stoss, Joachim van Sandraat, and Hans Sachs. The 
 Cemetery is indeed a true court of peace, where rest 
 together rich and poor, the gifted and the simple, 
 men whose names are household words through- 
 out the civihzed world, and humble villagers whose 
 lives were spent in absolute obscurity. No un- 
 sightly headstones, no paltry meretricious decora- 
 tions, mar the sense of repose of this sacred enclosure, 
 even the tombs of the greatest men being noticeable 
 chiefly for their quiet dignity, and marked only by 
 laconic inscriptions, or by bas-rehefs in bronze of 
 coats of arms or of some sacred subject. 
 
 These rehefs are, for all that, many of them true 
 and indestructible works of art, which will long out- 
 hve the stone tombs they adorn — priceless heirlooms 
 attesting alike the skill of the artist craftsmen who 
 designed and executed them and the reverent re- 
 cognition by their fellow-tow^nsmen of the citizens 
 they commemorate. Some few of the bas-reliefs, 
 none of which show the shghtest sign of obUtera- 
 tion, are, indeed, true gems of metal- work, notably 
 one with a group of kneeling figures beneath a repre- 
 sentation of the Crucifixion, one of the incident of 
 St. Martin giving his cloak to a beggar, and, above 
 all, the recumbent figures of Martin Ketzel and his 
 wife on their tomb at the base of the great stone 
 monument representing the Resurrection, attributed 
 to Adam Kraft, but certainly not from his hand. 
 
120 NUREMBERG 
 
 surmounted by a bronze bas-relief of the heavenly 
 choir, said to be by Peter Vischer. 
 
 It was this same Martin Ketzel who commis- 
 sioned Adam Kraft to design the famous ' Stations 
 of the Cross,' long the pride of Nuremberg, now, 
 all but two, replaced by copies, the originals having 
 been removed to the Germanic Museum to save 
 them from destruction. The story of their origin 
 reflects very vividly the state of religious feeling 
 in Nuremberg in the second half of the fifteenth 
 century, before the Reformation laid its paralyzing 
 hand upon the representation of sacred subjects. 
 Martin Ketzel, in gratitude for the prosperity that 
 had been granted to him, made a pilgrimage to the 
 Holy Land, where with reverend faith he visited 
 the scenes of the Redeemer's sojourn upon earth, 
 following His footsteps along the Via Dolorosa, 
 and becoming so fired with enthusiasm by his 
 realization of what the Passion of his Lord had 
 been, that he resolved when he got home to set 
 up in his native town an enduring reminder of 
 it. Before he left Palestine he made careful 
 measurements of the distances between the resting- 
 places of Christ, and though he unfortunately lost 
 his notes on the way home, he decided to return at 
 once to Jerusalem to do his pious work again. 
 
 Back again once more, Ketzel discovered, to his 
 great delight, that the distance between his own 
 house on the Thiergiirtner Platz and the entrance 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK HI. 121 
 
 to the Cemetery of St. Johannes was exactly the 
 same as that between the Judgment Hall and 
 Calvary. He therefore decided to make his own 
 home — which is stiU known as Pilatus Haus, 
 and is distinguished by the figure of a knight 
 in armour on the outside — the starting-point of 
 the new Via Dolorosa, and he lost no time in 
 commissioning Adam Kraft, who was then in 
 the prime of life and the zenith of his prosperous 
 career, to execute the sculptures to mark the 
 seven stations. The task was thoroughly con- 
 genial to the famous craftsman, and in an in- 
 credibly short time he produced seven remarkably 
 fine bas-reUefs in stone, as well as a very large 
 Calvary, with hfe-sized figures, which was erected 
 just inside the entrance to the Cemetery. The 
 bas-reliefs were set up on massive pillars, and 
 placed at intervals of about two hundred paces 
 between the Pilatus Haus and the Friedhof, along 
 what are now the Burgschmiede and Johannes 
 Strasse, and on each was engraved an inscription 
 explanatory of the subject represented. 
 
 When first completed, this series of compositions 
 must have been a perfect poem in stone, but un- 
 fortunately the copies do scant justice to the 
 originals, and of the glorious Calvary nothing 
 now remains but a few shapeless blocks of stone. 
 Strange to say, however, there is one small bas- 
 rehef by Kraft — a beautiful Entombment — on the 
 
 16 
 
122 NUREMBERG 
 
 wall of the cemetery, to the right of the gateway, 
 which, though it shows signs of deterioration, has so 
 far escaped the fate that has overtaken the Stations 
 and the Calvary. 
 
 Not far from the Johannes Friedhof, in the street 
 of the same name, is an interesting little fourteenth- 
 century chapel, dedicated to the Holy Cross, 
 formerly connected with a home for pilgrims, 
 and founded by a member of the Haller family, 
 after whom the neighbouring Haller Thor is 
 named. It contains a good altar-piece by Veit 
 Stoss and a few rehcs of early German painting 
 and carving of some little merit. 
 
 As a matter of course, it was not long before the 
 Johannes Friedhof became overcrowded, and to 
 meet the requirements of the ever- increasing 
 numbers of the dead, a new burial-ground dedi- 
 cated to St. Rochus, or St. Roch, in what is now 
 the Rothenburger Strasse, was opened towards the 
 close of the fifteenth century. In it is a charming 
 little chapel, the burial-place of the famous Imhof 
 family, who have been for so many generations 
 amongst the chief citizens of Nuremberg, and con- 
 tains, in addition to several finely-carved sixteenth- 
 century tombstones, a beautiful Crucifixion by 
 Veit Stoss. Beneath the latter is a very weird 
 representation of hell, in which the condemned 
 appear jostling each other as they stretch up 
 appealing hands from amidst the flames to three 
 
RUPRECHT I., SIGISMUND I., FREDERICK IH. 123 
 
 angels, Avho are bending down to release them at 
 the moment of the Redeemer's death. 
 
 The chief attraction of the St. Rochus cemetery 
 is, of course, the grave of Peter Vischer, which is 
 near the entrance on the right, and is marked by 
 two inscriptions and a laurel wreath. Like that of 
 St. Johannes, however, the Friedhof also contains a 
 number of very beautiful bas-reliefs in bronze, which 
 will repay careful study, but there is a total absence 
 of ostentation, the commemorations of the dead 
 seeming to be meant rather to inspire the living 
 with fresh hope and purpose, than to promote the 
 glory of those who are gone. The old woman who 
 now (1905) shows the chapel and acts as a guide to 
 the graves, evidently loves the place, and is ex- 
 tremely proud of her vine-draped cottage, with the 
 statue above the door of St. Rochus, the friend of 
 the plague-stricken. She takes it for granted that 
 every visitor must share her enthusiasm for the 
 treasures of which she is the temporary custodian, 
 and win show no sign of impatience however long 
 she is kept standing. She knows the whole history 
 of the Imhof family, and speaks of them with the 
 affection of a feudal retainer, evidently considering 
 their burial-place of equal, if not greater, import- 
 ance than that of Peter Vischer, who, after aU, was 
 but one of the people. 
 
 16—2 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG, HER RAPID 
 DECLINE AND MODERN REVIVAL 
 
 There is something very touching and creditable 
 to human nature in the deep veneration in which 
 the memory of the brilliant, astute, and fascinating 
 Emperor Maximilian, or Kaiser Max, as he is 
 lovingly called, is still held in Nuremberg, where 
 tokens of that veneration are met with at every i 
 
 turn, from the Burg and Rathaus to the modern | 
 
 hotels, several of which, notably the Kaiserhof and ] 
 
 the Hotel Maximilian, are named after him, and . 
 
 have the walls of their dining-halls adorned with 
 frescoes representing incidents of his remarkable 
 career. To the burghers of Nuremberg Kaiser 
 Max is the central figure of its golden age, 
 round whom are grouped the galaxy of great 
 craftsmen and painters who, in the second half of 
 the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth 
 century, raised their beloved town to its proud 
 position as a leader in the revival of art, that was 
 to bring about such extraordinary results for the 
 whole of Northern Europe. Like Frederick 
 
 124 
 
 I 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 125 
 
 Barbarossa, Maximilian is, in the imagination of 
 the Nurembergers, endowed with perpetual youth; 
 his faults are forgotten, his errors of judgment 
 condoned, and, could he return once more, all the 
 e\ils that are the result of so-called modern pro- 
 gress would, his admirers fondly beheve, disappear 
 as a matter of course. 
 
 Long before his father's death in 1493, Maxi- 
 mihan, w ho was crowned King of the Romans in 
 1486, was a famiUar figure in Nuremberg, taking a 
 considerable share in its local pohtics, and winning 
 all hearts by his genial manners and eager interest 
 in everything affecting the welfare of the town. 
 He is said to have entered it for the first time in 
 1489, when he rode in at the Neue Thor and took 
 up his residence in the house of Dr. Scheurl in the 
 liurgstrasse, in which the room where he took his 
 meals is still preserved exactly as it was when he 
 used it. On the eve of his departure from Nurem- 
 berg on this occasion, he gave a farewell entertain- 
 ment at an inn (the name of which has not been 
 preserved), to which all the young nobles and their 
 wives and sisters were invited. The story goes 
 that, as the evening wore on, the spirits of the 
 guests began to flag at the thought of so soon 
 losing their popular host, and some of the ladies 
 managed to delay his departure by hiding his boots, 
 which they refused to restore till he had joined 
 them in an impromptu dance. This made him late 
 
126 NUREMBERG 
 
 for his next engagement, for the merry party did 
 not break up until long after dawn the next day. 
 
 The young King spent the whole of the summer 
 of 1491 in the castle on the Burg, and when at 
 last in 1493 he became Emperor, none rejoiced more 
 heartily than did the people of Nuremberg. His 
 first Diet was held there, and from that time till his 
 death, in 1519, the cordial relations between him 
 and the burghers, though often strained, were never 
 really broken. In the still continued feud with the 
 Margrave of Brandenburg, the son of Albrecht 
 Achilles, who had espoused all his father's quarrels, 
 Maximilian's strong hand was of infinite service to 
 Nuremberg, and in the war of the Bavarian Suc- 
 cession, the town vigorously supported his side, 
 winning no little honour and glory as well as a 
 large accession of territory. Great, too, was the 
 boon conferred on her, as well as on the other cities 
 of the Empire, when Maximilian abrogated the 
 right of making private war, the punishment being 
 the ban of the Empire — a wise measure that finally 
 put an end to the raids of the robber knights and 
 barons, of whom the notorious Gotz von Berlich- 
 ingen of the iron hand, whose character has 
 been so strangely ideaHzed by Goethe, was one of 
 the chief. In the war with Switzerland, in which 
 the Emperor was involved in 1498, Nuremberg 
 aided him generously with men and money — so 
 generously, indeed, that when, a year later, the Rat 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 127 
 
 asked him to sanction a fresh expulsion of the 
 Jews from the city, he fomid it very difficult to 
 refuse. Far too enlightened to share the hatred of 
 the despised and hated race, and recognising to the 
 fuU the value to any town of such law-abiding 
 citizens as the Jews certainly were, MaximiUan 
 temporized as long as he could, but was finally 
 compelled to yield. Fortunately there was this 
 time no massacre, but directly the Imperial sanc- 
 tion had been obtained, every Jew was ordered 
 to leave Nuremberg, and on March 10, 1499, 
 hundreds were driven forth, taking with them aU 
 their household goods, and pursued beyond the 
 gates by the curses of the burgiiers. Their houses 
 were sold by JNIaximihan to the Rat, their burial- 
 place was desecrated, and its tombstones were used 
 for building. Until quite recently some of these 
 stones could still be identified, and on the out- 
 side of a house in the Judengasse, now pulled 
 down, a rhjnne was engraved which was long often 
 quoted by the Xurembergers : 
 
 ' Der Juden Stein ist geblieben. 
 Die Betriiger sind vertreiben 
 Ans diesem haus, das ist Wahr, 
 Im vierzehnhundert neun und neunzig jahr.'* 
 
 * ' The Stones of the Jews remain, 
 But the deceivers were driven forth 
 From out this house, and that's the truth, 
 In fourteen hundred and ninety-nine."' 
 
128 NUREMBERG 
 
 It was not until 1850 that the Jews were 
 permitted to return to Nuremberg, and for many 
 years after that they were still subjected to many 
 vexatious restrictions, no Christian being allowed 
 to give one of them shelter for a night, whilst 
 no man, woman, or child of Jewish birth could 
 walk in the streets alone. The Jews were them- 
 selves compelled to pay a Christian attendant, and 
 looking after them became a recognised profession. 
 Fifteen kreutzers a day was the usual fee, and many 
 a poor old woman got her Uvelihood by dogging 
 the footsteps of some unwilling patron. Gradually, 
 however, the disabilities of the Jews became 
 obsolete, and though they are still unpopular, they 
 have thriven and multiplied to such an extent 
 that they now form a very large proportion of 
 the population of the town. Crowds flock to the 
 services in the large modern synagogue in the 
 Spitalplatz ; and on September 19, the great 
 Jewish hohday, when quarrels are made up and 
 family feuds are healed, many of the chief shops 
 are closed, and scarcely a household or hotel retains 
 its full complement of servants. 
 
 As a matter of course, the expulsion of the 
 Jews was a great monetary loss to Maximilian, to 
 whom, as to his predecessors, every head of a 
 Jewish household had hitherto paid a fee for the 
 right of domicile, and it is no small proof of the 
 shrewdness of the monarch that he was able to 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 129 
 
 turn what seemed likely to impoverish him into 
 a source of profit. The citizens could no longer 
 borrow from the sons of Israel, and were at a 
 loss to know how to obtain ready money, but 
 their beloved Kaiser Max came to the rescue and 
 himself founded a lending-house, the profits of 
 which accrued to the Imperial Exchequer, thus 
 introducing into Nuremberg a system already 
 in vogue in Italy and in certain other German 
 cities, such as Augsburg. 
 
 Important as were the poUtical events that took 
 place in Maximihan's short reign of sixteen years, 
 his share in them would never have won for him 
 the unique position he occupies in the hearts of 
 the people of Nuremberg. It was not his strong 
 hand at the helm of Government, not his keen 
 business faculty, not even his popular manners 
 or his generosity to the towTisfolk, that endeared 
 him to them, but his love for and genuine 
 appreciation of the great artists who were his 
 contemporaries, and but for whom his life would 
 have been comparatively uninteresting. It was 
 when he forgot himself in his enthusiasm for them, 
 that he became the ideal Kaiser Max, whose 
 dehght it was to smooth the way for genius, and 
 who was often, if not always — for he was but 
 human, after aU — contented to shine with reflected 
 lustre. 
 
 Amongst the noble group of men to whom the 
 
 17 
 
130 NUREMBERG 
 
 Emperor accorded ungrudging recognition, prece- 
 dence must be given to Adam Kraft, the sculptor, 
 who was born in 1430, so that he was twenty-nine 
 years older than Maximilian, and had already 
 achieved many of his greatest triumphs whilst 
 Frederick III. was still on the throne. The son of 
 a well-to-do citizen, whose house, No. 7, Theresien 
 Strasse, with its noble courtyard and external 
 galleries, is still standing, the future sculptor had no 
 special difficulties to contend with at the outset of 
 his career. His fellow-citizens early recognised his 
 exceptional gifts, and special privileges, such as 
 having more than the usual number of workmen 
 under him, were accorded to him by the Rat. 
 He received many important commissions, and in 
 addition to the noble works of art already described 
 in connection with the building;? they adorn, 
 Nuremberg still retains many of his minor pro- 
 ductions, including a quaint bas-relief above the 
 gateway of the old weighing-house in the Winkler 
 Strasse and several statuettes on the corners of the 
 streets. Simple-hearted and full of religious en- 
 thusiasm, Adam Kraft cared little for fame or 
 money, and led a life so retired that scarcely any 
 details of it have been preserved. He is said to 
 have been able to work equally well with his left 
 and his right hand, and is credited with having 
 discovered a method, the secret of which he 
 revealed to none, of rendering stone soft before 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 131 
 
 he chiselled it ; but if he really practised anything 
 of the kind, it must certainly have been known 
 to his many assistants. He appears rarely to have 
 left home, and is supposed to have died in 1507, 
 but the place of his death or where his remains 
 rest are alike unknown, for the long-accepted 
 tradition that he breathed his last in the hospital 
 of Schwalbach has now been proved to be untrue. 
 
 A kindred spirit of Adam Kraft was Peter 
 Vischer, who belonged to a famous family of 
 bronze-founders, and may be said to have been the 
 pioneer of the Renaissance in Nuremberg, whilst 
 the great sculptor was the carrier on of Gothic 
 traditions. Much confusion has arisen with regard 
 to Peter Vischer, on account of his father and one 
 of his own sons having had the same Christian 
 name ; and a story is told of how Adam Kraft and 
 Stephen Lindenast, a famous worker in beaten 
 copper and the designer of the quaint Frauenkirche 
 clock, were his guests one night in the old house 
 owned by the Vischer family, known as Am Sand, 
 the site of which is still occupied by a foundry. 
 According to the oft-repeated legend, the three old 
 men, who often met to practise designing and 
 discuss art matters together, were so absorbed in 
 their work that they did not notice the entrance 
 of a guest, who had come in with a view to join- 
 ing them at their evening meal. Presently Peter 
 ^^ischer looked up, and remembered with dismay 
 
 17—2 
 
132 NUREMBERG 
 
 that there was no food in the house, for his wife 
 and all his children had gone into the country. 
 The visitor, however, readily understood the situa- 
 tion and stayed to chat with the artists, and the 
 incident of their unselfish absorption in their art 
 has been incorporated in a novel published at 
 Nuremberg in 1829, which purports to be founded 
 on a manuscript written by Jakob Keller, the 
 well-known patron of Albrecht Diirer. 
 
 The old man who acted as host on this occasion 
 must have been the father of the great Vischer, 
 who was born in 1455, and began his technical 
 education in the White Tower, then the town 
 foundry, under the control of the Vischer family. 
 The gifted young artist soon gave proof of excep- 
 tional talent, and his father sent him to the Nether- 
 lands to study, but beyond this fact very little is 
 known of his life. From the first he was so utterly 
 wrapped up in his work that he cared nothing for 
 distinction, and it was not until after his father's 
 death that he was made Master of the Guild of 
 Bronze - Founders. He lived in the house Am 
 Sand, where he was often visited by Maximilian, 
 until long after his marriage, and it was not until 
 he was the father of many grown-up children 
 that he removed to the unpretending but roomy 
 mansion, still standing, and now occupied by a 
 blacksmith, in the street named after him. 
 
 Peter Vischer, whose chief works in Nuremberg 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 133 
 
 are fully described elsewhere, married three times, 
 and had five sons, all of whom adopted his pro- 
 fession and aided him in his many arduous under- 
 takings. He died in 1529, and was buried in the 
 churchyard of St. Rochus, outside the city walls, 
 his tomb being then marked only with his 
 name, the date of his birth and death, and the 
 appropriate motto, Vitam non mortem recogita, 
 the bronze wreath and laudatory inscription now 
 distinguishing it having been added considerably 
 later. 
 
 "> With Adam Kraft and Peter ^^ischer may justly 
 be classed, so far as his art is concerned, the wood- 
 carver Viet Stoss, who was, however, a man of 
 very different character and temperament to either 
 of them. Born in 1440, at a time when it was the 
 custom to adorn churches and private residences 
 with carvings in wood, and the use of stone or 
 marble was comparatively rare, Stoss was from the 
 first surrounded with examples of beautiful work 
 by contemporaries and predecessors, though, strange 
 to say, the names of very few of their designers 
 have been preserved. It was not, in fact, cus- 
 tomary for the artists who created the treasures 
 wdth which the churches of Nuremberg were 
 enriched before the Reformation, to claim credit 
 for their productions, for it was enough for them 
 to have contributed to the glory of God and of 
 the saints commemorated. 
 
134 NUREMBERG 
 
 Very different accounts are given of the life of 
 Veit Stoss, who, though his childhood was spent in 
 Nuremberg, resided for many years in Cracow/ 
 where he won much renown by an altar-piece 
 and a number of choir-stalls carved for a church, 
 dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. On his return 
 home in 1496 his fellow-townsmen were some- 
 what unwilling to welcome him back, and he 
 suffered for some time from their persecution, 
 but his extraordinary skill as a carver soon won 
 him plenty of commissions. The Emperor from 
 the first fully appreciated his great gifts, and was 
 fond of watching him at work, but unfortunately, 
 in 1503, when Stoss was at the height of his 
 prosperity, he was falsely accused of forgery, and 
 condemned to be blinded. On account of his 
 great skill as an artist, however, this terrible 
 sentence was remitted, and he escaped with the 
 milder punishment of being branded on both 
 cheeks. He was also forbidden to leave Nurem- 
 berg, but the misery of his position after his public 
 disgrace was so great, everyone shunning him as if 
 he were a leper, that he ran away, and it was only 
 with great difficulty that the Rat induced him to 
 come back. 
 
 The unfortunate man was still unable to get 
 anyone to work for him, but Maximilian took 
 him into his own service, protecting him until 
 he himself died in 1519. After this Stoss had a 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 135 
 
 hard struggle, for he was always at daggers drawn 
 with the authorities and people of his native 
 town, and it was not until after his death in great 
 poverty in 1533, that they reahzed fully how great 
 a genius they had been persecutmg. The carvings 
 and the few paintings and engravings that have 
 been preserved bearing the signature of Veit Stoss, 
 are now among the greatest treasures of the art 
 collections of Germany, and it is indeed true of the 
 branded master, that he being dead, yet speaketh, 
 so noble is the lesson taught by his marvellous 
 creations. 
 
 Working simultaneously with the great trio of 
 master craftsmen, Adam Kraft, Peter Vischer, and 
 A^eit Stoss, were many other men of remarkable 
 talent — if not exactly of genius — amongst whom 
 must be specially named Augustin Hirschvogel, 
 who discovered the secret — long the exclusive pos- 
 session of certain Itahans — of enameUing pottery, 
 and who was the designer of much fine stained glass 
 as well as of many of the stoves, justly considered 
 fine works of art, preserved in the Castle on the 
 Burg, and in the private museums of Nuremberg. 
 The goldsmiths, amongst whom Wenzel Jamnitzer 
 and Ludwig Krug were the most celebrated; the 
 seal and die sinkers ; the armourers, especially Hans 
 Griinewalt and Wilhelm von \A"orms ; the gun- 
 smiths, notably Hieronymus Gartner ; the watch- 
 makers, of whom Peter Henlein was the most 
 
136 NUREMBERG 
 
 skilful, with many other men, whose beautiful 
 creations are still extant, though their names are 
 forgotten, aided in making Nuremberg for more 
 than half a century the very centre of art-craft- 
 manship, to which young aspirants for work and 
 fame flocked from far and near. 
 
 Whilst the various guilds, each forming a united 
 corporation of eager workers, bound together by 
 close ties of brotherhood, were bringing to per- 
 fection their various crafts within the walls of 
 Nuremberg, a gifted man, who never joined any 
 community, though he had many pupils, was in- 
 augurating the revival of painting that was to 
 culminate later in the magnificent creations of 
 Albrecht Diirer, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Holbein. 
 This was Michael Wolgemut, a true pioneer, in 
 whose paintings, most of which are at Nuremberg, 
 are shadowed forth the peculiar characteristics of 
 the German school. Born in 1434, so that he was 
 already a veteran when his great pupil, Albrecht 
 Diirer, was born, Wolgemut married in 1472 the 
 widow of Hans PleydenwurfF, and one of his 
 first pupils was his step-son Wilhelm, who made 
 some little reputation as a wood engraver, and is 
 said to have aided his master in designing the 
 drawings of the famous Nuremberg Chronicle^ 
 published in 1493. Wolgemut, who lived for the 
 greater part of his life in what is now No. 21, 
 Burgstrasse, died in Nuremberg in 1519, three 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 137 
 
 years after the painting of the celebrated portrait 
 by Albrecht Diirer, now in the Munich Gallery, 
 which has done much to keep his memory green. 
 
 Amongst the outsiders eager to participate in 
 the exceptional advantages offered by the en- 
 lightened city of Nuremberg, where talent was 
 sure of recognition, and there was no fear of any 
 true artist suffering from want of employment, was 
 a young Hungarian goldsmith, Albrecht Diirer, 
 whose name was, before his death, to be honoured 
 throughout the civilized world. Strange to say, 
 his arrival coincided with the celebration of the 
 wedding festivities of Philip Pirkheimer, the name 
 of whose son, WiUibald, is so intimately associated 
 with that of Albrecht Diirer the younger. 
 
 The young wayfarer found all the world of 
 Nuremberg making merry over the marriage of 
 the well-known citizen. Crowds were collecting 
 to watch the dancing going on round the then 
 undecayed elm of St. Cunigunda, in the court- 
 yard of the Palace on the Burg, and it is signi- 
 ficant of the generous hospitahty that was then 
 in vogue that, perfect stranger though he was, 
 Diirer was at once admitted to a share in the 
 festi^^[ties, no one looking at him askance or asking 
 him whence he came. Still more remarkable does 
 it seem in these days of strenuous competition, 
 that he should, with very little delay, have obtained 
 the employment he sought, for a few days after 
 
 18 
 
138 NUREMBERG 
 
 his first appearance in Nuremberg he was taken 
 into the service of Hieronymus Holper, a master 
 goldsmith, with whom he worked for many years, 
 and whose daughter he married in 1467, taking up 
 his residence in what is now No. 20, Winkler- 
 strasse, a house that then formed part of the 
 large mansion of the Pirkheimers, and was known 
 as the Pirkheimer Hinterhaus. There in 1471 his 
 son Albrecht, the third of his eighteen children, 
 was born, six months before Willibald Pirkheimer 
 first saw the light. 
 
 On his marriage, Albrecht Diirer the elder was 
 made a master goldsmith, and set up in business on 
 his own account. He soon became recognised as 
 one of the best workers at his craft in Nuremberg, 
 and when the boy Albrecht was five years old he was 
 able to move to a larger house, now No. 27, Burg- 
 strasse, where he remained until his death in 1507. 
 
 In this house the future painter and engraver 
 spent many happy years, in spite of the rigid 
 economy necessitated by the claims of the many 
 little ones crowded into it, and he has himself 
 given a most charming picture of it, in his remini- 
 scences of his father and mother, to whom he was 
 devotedly attached. 
 
 As soon as the general foundations of the young 
 Albrecht's education were laid, he was apprenticed 
 to a goldsmith, but he had already made up his 
 mind to be a painter, and he was soon able to per- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 139 
 
 suade his father to buy his release. Possibly the 
 wonderful likeness of himself, now at Vienna, which 
 has been so often reproduced, drawn by the boy at 
 the age of thirteen, may have had something to do 
 with this leniency, for in it is already revealed the 
 extraordinary skill of draughtsmanship that was to 
 be one of the chief factors in the future master's 
 success. 
 
 In any case, when Diirer was fifteen years old, 
 he was admitted to the studio of Wolgemut, whose 
 house was but a few doors from his own, where he 
 worked very happily for three years, winning the 
 love and admiration of the veteran painter, who, 
 from the first, foresaw how entirely his own fame 
 would be eclipsed by that of his pupil, yet to the 
 end looked upon him almost as a son of his own. 
 
 In 1490 Diirer was sent to the Netherlands to 
 study, and is supposed to have gone thence to 
 Italy, though no record has been kept of his 
 experiences. On his return home after four 
 years' wandering, he married Agnes Frey, the 
 daughter of a wealthy citizen, not because he was 
 in love with her, but because the matter had been 
 arranged for him by his father — a fact that gave 
 rise to what has now been proved to be the 
 mistaken assertion, that he and his wife lived 
 unhappily together. 
 
 The young couple took up their residence in the 
 already crowded paternal home beneath the shadow 
 
 18—2 
 
140 NUREMBERG 
 
 of the Burg, and Albrecht set to work to earn his 
 own Hving. His ambition was still to become a great 
 painter, but with a view to making money he gave 
 up much of his time to engraving, with the result that 
 he achieved a success so brilliant in that direction, 
 as to eclipse his more ambitious works in colour. 
 
 In 1498 he published the first of his many 
 remarkable series of wood engravings, the illustra- 
 tions of the Apocalypse, and two years later appeared 
 his first copper-plate engravings illustrating the 
 Parable of the Prodigal Son. These were suc- 
 ceeded in rapid succession by the marvellous wood- 
 cuts of the ' Life of the Virgin,' the ' Greater 
 Passion,' and the ' Little Passion,' the copper- 
 plates of the ' Little Passion,' the ' St. Jerome,' 
 * Melancholia,' the ' Knight, Death and the Devil,' 
 the designs for the famous Prayer-Book of Maxi- 
 milian, the drawings for the Triumphal Car and 
 the Triumphal Arch of the Emperor, and many 
 other marvellous creations, all alike full of poetic 
 and religious feeling, and some few of them also 
 of grim and caustic humour. 
 V From the very first the success of the prolific 
 master as a painter and engraver was assured, whilst 
 his unique and fascinating personality won for him 
 the affection of all whom he admitted to intimacy. 
 The Emperor Maximilian seems to have fallen com- 
 pletely in love with him, treating him as friend and 
 equal. He granted him a pension of 100 florins a 
 
PART OF THE INNER WALL NEAR ALBRECHT 
 DURER'S HOUSE. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 141 
 
 year, was his constant patron, and delighted in 
 Avatching him at work.*^ 
 
 Unfortunately Diirer kept no record of any of 
 the conversations that took place between him and 
 his Imperial \dsitor, and many of the stories cur- 
 rent on the subject of their intercourse are merely 
 the outcome of the vivid imagination of their 
 narrators. The assertion, for instance, that the 
 Emperor granted Diirer a patent of nobility is 
 now proved to be false. The de\'ice used by the 
 artist on his seal, said to have been designed by 
 Maximilian, was, in fact, that of his father's crest 
 — two open doors with three steps leading up to 
 them, a play, it is supposed, on the original name 
 of the family, which was Thiirer, not Diirer, to 
 which simple motive the painter added a winged 
 figure surrounded with foliage, that he varied 
 according to fancy. 
 
 Even more constant a patron than the Emperor 
 was Diirer's old friend, the playfellow of his child- 
 hood, Willibald Pirkheimer, who was one of the 
 wealthiest citizens of Nuremberg, and in whose 
 possession the greater number of the artist's 
 masterpieces remained at the time of the latter *s 
 death. The letters viTitten to Pirkheimer during 
 a visit paid by Diirer to Venice in 1505 are a 
 wonderful revelation of their author's character, 
 and vividly reflect the relations between the cor- 
 respondents, as well as the deep undercurrent of 
 
142 NUREMBERG 
 
 melancholy that was one of the gifted master's 
 most distinctive characteristics. Possibly the fact 
 that no children were born to Diirer and his wife 
 may account in some measure for the sadness that 
 seems to have increased as time went on, in spite 
 of the full realization of every ambition he had 
 indulged in in youth. In 1502 Diirer's father 
 died, and in 1509 the artist found himself in a 
 position to buy the house opposite the Thier- 
 gartner Thor, which is now the greatly valued 
 property of the municipality of Nuremberg. 
 Thither he took his wife and his aged mother, who 
 Uved with him until her death in 1514, which was 
 so great a grief to him that he is said never to have 
 fully recovered from it. But for a few journeys to 
 execute commissions and a visit to Charles V. in 
 1519 to get his pension confirmed, Diirer spent the 
 rest of his life in Nuremberg, and died there in 
 1528, leaving all his property to his wife, who sur- 
 vived him for some years. He was buried in the 
 churchyard of St. Johannes, where, until 1820, 
 when a wreath of oak-leaves was added, nothing 
 distinguished his simple tomb from the hundreds 
 surrounding, it but an unostentatious plate bear- 
 ing his well-known monogram and the inscription : 
 
 ' Quicquid Alberti Dureri Mortale 
 Fuit, sub hoc conditur tumulo ; 
 Emigravit viii dies Aprile ; 
 M.D. XXVIII.' 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 143 
 
 Undoubtedly one of the very greatest artists 
 that ever Hved, and, in addition to this, an original 
 thinker, an accomplished mathematician, and an 
 eloquent ^Titer, thoroughly in touch with all the 
 best spirits of his day, as well as a man of excep- 
 tionally noble and upright character, one of the 
 first to espouse the principles of the Reformation, 
 Diirer was yet not fully appreciated during his life- 
 time by any but the select few amongst his fellow- 
 citizens. It was not until 1816 that the house in 
 which he lived for nineteen years and died was 
 marked by a medalhon, and not until 1840 that the 
 statue of him after the design of Ranch was set up 
 in the Albrecht Diirer Platz. It is, moreover, not 
 in his native city that his best works are to be found, 
 though at the present day admirable reproductions 
 of them are a speciahty of the town. Berlin, 
 Dresden, Florence, Prague, and Munich own his 
 finest paintings, and it is in the museums of foreign 
 countries that his original drawings and engra\Tngs 
 can best be studied. 
 
 Not only in the arts and crafts, but in science 
 and in Hterature, was Nuremberg able to hold 
 her own in the glorious years of her golden age. 
 The learned mathematician, Johannes JMiiller, 
 better known by his literary name of Regio- 
 montanus, deserted his native \illage of Koings- 
 berg to take up his residence in Nuremberg 
 in 1471. His pupil, INIartin Behaim, the enter- 
 
144 NUREMBERG 
 
 prising navigator who constructed the first ter- 
 restrial globe, still to be seen in the house he 
 occupied on the St. Egidien Platz, was born within 
 its walls about 1459, and from the famous printing- 
 press of Antonius Koberger, the godfather of 
 Albrecht Diirer, issued a constant stream of 
 chronicles, homilies, and learned treatises. The 
 renown of aU these intellectual workers, and of 
 the earnest thinkers who gathered about them, 
 has, however, been eclipsed by that of the humble 
 cobbler poet, Hans Sachs, whose merry verses, 
 full of vivid descriptions of the town he loved so 
 well, endeared him to the hearts of his fellow- 
 citizens, the greater number of whom were, if the 
 honest truth be told, far better able to appreciate 
 his witty outpourings than the works of art of his 
 great contemporaries. 
 
 Born in 1494, just one year after the accession 
 of the Emperor Maximilian, Hans Sachs was the 
 son of a prosperous tailor, who gave him an 
 excellent education, but, for all that, apprenticed 
 him to a shoemaker when he left school. After 
 serving his time the boy was allowed, as was 
 then the custom in every trade, to travel for a few 
 years before settling down to earn his own hving. 
 In his wanderings he made a special point of 
 becoming acquainted with the various guilds of 
 Meistersingers, who had taken the place of the 
 Minnesiingers, who in olden times used to roam 
 
THE FLEISCHBRUCKE. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 145 
 
 from stronghold to stronghold, to sing the praises 
 of the heroes and heroines of chivalry. From 
 them Hans Sachs learnt the laws that governed 
 their compositions, departure from which was 
 considered fatal to success, with the natural 
 result that his own early productions are want- 
 ing in the dehghtful spontaneity of his later 
 poems, so that his very eagerness in preparing 
 for his literary career hampered instead of aiding 
 him. Far more important, indeed, than the 
 influence of the INleistersingers was that exercised 
 over the ardent young traveller by the preachers 
 of the Reformation, who were then beginning 
 to rouse the people of Germany against the abuses 
 of Catholicism, and whose cause Hans Sachs 
 espoused from the first. 
 
 On his return home the poet settled down as a 
 shoemaker in a house stiU shown as his, in the 
 narrow street named after him, and a little later 
 he pubHshed his so-called masterpiece, which won 
 him admission to the Nuremberg Meistersinger 
 Guild.' This poem was the first of no less than 
 4,200 similar songs, written according to rule, that 
 would have attracted httle notice outside Nurem- 
 berg, and would long since have been forgotten 
 even there, had they not been supplemented by 
 an endless succession of truly original effusions, 
 instinct with humour, and many of them also 
 with religious feeling. So thoroughly, indeed, are 
 
 ^ 19 
 
146 NUREMBERG 
 
 they in touch with the spirit of the Reformation, 
 that they are said to have done more to further 
 its cause than the teaching of Luther himself. 
 Comparatively few were brought under the per- 
 sonal fascination of the mighty teacher himself, 
 or of his immediate followers, but the caustic 
 fly-sheets issued by Hans Sachs were disseminated 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 
 For many years the lowly-born poet — whose 
 best works are the ' Schwanke,' or ' Merry Tales,' 
 of which he published some 1,700 — was a central 
 figure in his native town, the chief guest at every 
 gathering of the burghers, the leader at all the 
 meetings of the Meistersingers, a power to be 
 reckoned with, whose influence, in spite of his 
 occasional coarseness, was thoroughly healthy and 
 beneficent. 
 
 The powers of description of Hans Sachs were 
 extraordinary, and his Eulogy of Nuremberg, in 
 which he dwells minutely upon every detail, gives 
 a more vivid picture of the city of Albrecht Diirer 
 than anything that has since been penned. Though 
 before his death Hans Sachs fell into some dis- 
 grace with the Rat for his plain speaking, and was 
 forbidden to publish any more of his satires on 
 the Roman priesthood, his life was singularly 
 free from trouble. He was twice married, the 
 second time to the lovely Barbara Harscher, 
 whom he has immortalized in one of his happiest 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 147 
 
 poems, ' Der Kiinstliche Frauenlob,' which reads 
 like a mediaeval song of love, and might have been 
 wTitten by one of the Minnesangers, for whom its 
 author had so great an admiration. Hans Sachs 
 died in 1596 in the house marked by a tablet 
 bearing his name, and was buried in the churchyard 
 of St. Johannes. 
 
 The death in 1519 of their beloved Kaiser Max 
 was a great blow to the people of Nuremberg, and 
 never again was their town the favourite residence 
 of the head of the State. Owing to an outbreak 
 of the plague, the new Emperor, Charles V., grand- 
 son of IMaximilian, held his first Diet at Worms, so 
 that it was there, not at Nuremberg, that Luther 
 made his famous confession of faith. By the time 
 Albrecht Dilrer and Hans Sachs had passed away, 
 the Reformation they had both done so much to 
 promote had obtained a firm hold in their native 
 city, and Dr. Scheurl, the son of Maximihan's 
 host of the Burgstrasse, with Diirer's friend and 
 patron, WiUibald Pirkheimer, had shared the 
 excommunication of Luther, but had not on that 
 account lost any of their popularity with their 
 fellow-citizens. 
 
 Slowly, but very surely, the great change was 
 effected, which, however beneficial from a religious 
 and political point of view, exercised a most 
 depressing influence over art production. Fortu- 
 nately, however, the revolution in Nuremberg was 
 
 19—2 
 
148 NUREMBERG 
 
 bloodless, and greatly to the credit of all concerned ; 
 it was not accompanied by the iconoclasm which so 
 often disgraced the adherents of the reformers else- 
 where. From the first, indeed, the people of 
 Nuremberg have been noted for their reverence 
 for the work of their great citizens, and though 
 most of the fine sculptures, carvings, and paintings 
 were removed from the churches, they are still, 
 with few exceptions, carefully preserved elsewhere.'^ 
 
 Luther's first visit to Nuremberg was paid in 
 1518, and in 1525 matters were so far advanced 
 that Melancthon came to the town to found a new 
 g^^mnasium, in which the principles of the reformed 
 rehgion were to be taught. The house in which 
 he lived, then part of the cloisters of St. Egidius, 
 opposite to which is a statue of him, is still stand- 
 ing, but the school never really flourished, and was 
 soon transferred to Altdorf. 
 
 In the civil war which resulted from the schism 
 in the Church, Nuremberg, as was ever her policy, 
 endeavoured to remain neutral, with the result 
 that she got into trouble with both sides. When 
 Charles V. visited the town in 1541, however, 
 she remained true to her Protestantism, thus 
 to a great extent alienating him ; and when the 
 Cathohc reaction, preceding the terrible Thirty 
 Years' War, set in, her position was a most painful 
 one. All through the remaining years of Charles' 
 harassed reign, Nuremberg had her full share in the 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 149 
 
 suiFerings of the Protestant party, and her troubles 
 culminated when, though still hankering after an 
 impossible neutrahty, she finally elected to espouse 
 the cause of Gustavus Adolphus, who had declared 
 that he should treat those who were not openly 
 with him as his enemies. 
 
 In 1632 the Swedish King entered Nuremberg, 
 welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm by the 
 people, whose sympathies had been with him all 
 through the war, and who had bitterly resented the 
 vacillating poUcy of the Rat. Gustavus was now 
 promised suppHes of men and money, and soon left 
 the city to rejoin his army at Fiirth, whence he 
 marched to the relief of Donauworth, then besieged 
 by Wallenstein. Three months later the terrible 
 news reached Nuremberg that the fierce Catholic 
 General was advancing in full force upon the town. 
 Gustavus Adolphus hastened back to the rescue, 
 and after the unfortunate city had endured a long 
 siege, a great battle was fought outside its walls, 
 near a hill then crowned by an outlying fortification 
 still called the Alte Veste, which is now marked 
 by a commemorative column 80 feet high. 
 
 In the long -sustained struggle of the Thirty 
 Years' War, the Swedes, though nominally vic- 
 torious, suffered far more than their enemies, 
 and Nuremberg never fully recovered from the 
 severe strain upon her resources. Famine and an 
 outbreak of the plague were added to her other 
 
150 NUREMBERG 
 
 sufferings, and when the victorious Gustavus 
 Adolphus rode through the streets, he could 
 scarcely believe the town to be the same as that 
 which had received him so heartily but a little 
 time before. A banquet was held in the Rat- 
 haus to celebrate the occasion, but it was paid 
 for by the King himself, and though the Council 
 voted the erection in his honour in the market- 
 place of a bronze fountain, which was duly cast, 
 there were not funds enough to set it up. The 
 pieces were sold in 1797 to the Emperor of Russia, 
 and the Neptune fountain, recently erected in the 
 Market-place opposite the Frauenkirche, is a 
 replica of the original design by Christoph Ritter 
 and Georg Schweigger. 
 
 The Peace of Westphalia, signed on October 24, 
 1648, secured to Nuremberg, as to the other cities 
 of the Empire, freedom of conscience and equal 
 political rights with her fellow Imperial cities, but 
 it was too late to restore her to her former position 
 as a leader. Her trade was not only paralyzed by 
 the heavy debts incurred during the Thirty Years' 
 War, but much of what remained was soon 
 diverted elsewhere through the opening of the 
 new route to Venice via the Cape of Good Hope. 
 •* In a vain and short-sighted attempt to regain her 
 old commercial supremacy, Nuremberg reverted to 
 the outworn principles of protection, and at a time 
 when she should have welcomed the influx of new 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF NUREMBERG 151 
 
 blood she closed her doors to foreigners — refusing, 
 for instance, to allow the exiled Flemish weavers 
 to enter them, with the result that the towns where 
 they took refuge were added to the already long 
 Hst of her rivals. Not until the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century was there any real return of 
 prosperity to Nuremberg, but after her absorption 
 into Bavaria in 1806, she began to share in the new 
 era of prosperity that had begun for the whole of 
 the province. The first railway in Germany was 
 that connecting Nuremberg with Fiirth, the open- 
 ing of which, in 1835, was commemorated by the 
 erection outside the walls of the former, opposite 
 the Spittler Thor, of a handsome fountain known 
 as the Kunstbrunnen. 
 
 Between 1818 and 1900 the population of the 
 constantly growing city of Nuremberg increased 
 from 26,854 to 170,000. To her excellent g^^mna- 
 siums, technical and commercial schools, flock 
 students from far and near ; her thriving trade is 
 protected by a Chamber of Commerce, but she 
 no longer looks askance on foreigners. Her 
 factories, of w^hich 250 are in full w^ork, give 
 employment to many hundreds of men and 
 women; her Industrial Museum is full of reaUy 
 good decorative w^ork by local artists ; she owns a 
 thoroughly well organized system of electric trams 
 — whose promoters have, however, held sacred the 
 fine old bridges that span the Pegnitz — and her 
 
152 NUREMBERG 
 
 railway is the junction for the chief arteries of 
 Southern Germany. In a word, Nuremberg is a 
 thriving modern city : a centre of commercial 
 activity, combining with the fascinating aroma 
 of mediae valism the comforts and luxuries of the 
 most advanced civihzation, that may well atone 
 to her in some measure for the fact that her sun 
 has set for ever as a factor in the political history 
 of the present day. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 
 
 The approach by rail to Nuremberg is full of 
 fascination, the line, after traversing the grandly 
 stern Rhineland, which, in spite of its undoubted 
 beauty, is somewhat wanting in homely charm, 
 entering the finely wooded valleys of Southern 
 Bavaria, dotted with picturesque villages, quaint 
 cottages, with the red-tiled, gabled roofs, clustering 
 about equally characteristic churches with lofty 
 spires and turrets. The fields and pastures, the 
 vineyards and hop plantations, undivided by 
 hedges, are enHvened with groups of peasants. 
 Men, women, and children, all equally hard at 
 work, are to be seen toiling in primitive fashion 
 with clumsy agricultural implements, such as the 
 hand-sickle, long since abandoned elsewhere, and 
 it is no unusual thing for a threshing-machine, 
 drawn by a pair of cows or oxen, to creep slowly 
 along whilst the driver trudges, half asleep, 
 beside it. 
 
 On the well-kept roads barefooted women walk 
 to and from their little holdings, bending beneath 
 
 153 20 
 
154 NUREMBERG 
 
 burdens far too heavy for them, or dragging 
 loads of sticks and fodder in hand-carts of the 
 roughest description. Here and there a tame 
 lamb is seen trotting hke a dog behind its owner 
 or walking proudly at the head of a flock of geese 
 under the care of a child scarcely bigger than itself. 
 Now and then, it is true, a jarring note is struck in 
 these scenes of idyllic simplicity by the rush past of 
 a motor-car or of a group of cyclists, who scatter 
 the pedestrians and their charges to the right and 
 left, reminding the watcher that even in these 
 unsophisticated districts, the trail of the serpent 
 of change is already leaving its disfiguring mark. 
 
 As the train nears Fiirth, the premonition of 
 the approaching destruction of all that is primitive 
 and rural becomes ever more and more accentuated, 
 and it is through a heavy pall of smoke, between 
 rows of unsightly houses, that the final stage of the 
 journey is performed, so that when Nuremberg 
 itself is entered, the mind is to some extent pre- 
 pared for the shock of finding that the much- 
 lauded mediaeval city is, after all, really thoroughly 
 modernized. It is not, indeed, until the enthusiast 
 for the past has become reconciled, or at least used, 
 to its complete merging with the present, that the 
 old is, as it were, rediscovered in the new. Gradu- 
 ally, however, one after another of the distinctive 
 features of the Nuremberg of the great craftsmen 
 of the golden age may be pieced together in the 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 155 
 
 imagination into something remotely resembling 
 the scenes with which they were familiar, and the 
 smouldering wrath of the disappointed student of 
 the long ago is quenched in relief that so much is 
 left to him after all. Yet it remains a fact that, 
 in the very midst of the older portions of the 
 to^\Ti, modern houses, some of them mere masses 
 of brick and mortar or of whitewashed stucco, 
 have been allowed to encroach upon priceless sur- 
 vivals of the glorious days gone by, here blocking 
 up a fine courtyard, there cutting in half a series 
 of sculptured galleries, or obstructing the approach 
 to some gem of Renaissance architecture, such as 
 an exquisitely proportioned spiral staircase, or a 
 perfect facade, designed by one of the true masters 
 of decorative art. 
 
 In spite, however, of all these drawbacks, the 
 heart of hearts of the Nuremberg of the great 
 craftsmen may still be said to beat true to them. 
 The street named after Albrecht Diirer, from 
 which a flight of steps leads down to the Wein- 
 markt, and the network of streets and alleys 
 radiating from tlie latter to the Theresienstrasse, 
 are all alike rich in deUghtful surprises for the 
 explorer, who combines with the patience needed 
 to seek them, the sympathetic imagination able to 
 restore to them their lost enWronment. 
 
 The unpretending house, now No. 20, VVinkler- 
 strasse, in which Albrecht Diirer was bom, near to 
 
 20—2 
 
156 NUREMBERG 
 
 which is the old Waage, or pubhc weighing -house, 
 with a quaint rehef by Adam Kraft on the out- 
 side ; that in the Burgstrasse, to which the Diirer 
 family removed when the future master was still a 
 boy, with the one in which he worked under Wol- 
 gemut — adjoining which, by the way, is a house 
 with a very beautiful dormer window of unusual 
 construction — and the Scheurl house, with a very 
 fine courtyard connected with it, remain what they 
 were in the golden age. Moreover, most impor- 
 tant of all, the homely dwelling in which Albrecht 
 Diirer lived for nineteen years and died, not only 
 fully retains its mediaeval appearance, but has the 
 rare distinction of commanding the very same 
 prospect as was familiar to its famous owner. 
 
 A simple, massively built, half-timbered struc- 
 ture, three stories high, with a lofty, sloping, red- 
 tiled roof, broken by several dormer windows, and 
 on the north side adorned with an open wooden 
 balcony, which may possibly have served as a studio 
 in the summer, the Diirer house is entered from the 
 street by a strong, iron-bound door, opening into a 
 wide but dimly lighted hall. From it a steep stair- 
 case leads up to the living-rooms, which are still, so 
 far as their actual structure, with the finely-chased 
 cabinets let into the walls, is concerned, exactly what 
 they were during the great master's occupancy. 
 
 It must not, however, be forgotten that after 
 Albrecht Diirer's death and that of his wife, the 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 157 
 
 now greatly treasured house changed hands again 
 and again, no special value ha^dng been attached to 
 it by the people of Nuremberg. Frau Diirer 
 bequeathed it to her sister, Frau Zinner, who sold 
 it in 1542 to a blacksmith, who is supposed to have 
 made alterations in it to meet the requirements of 
 liis trade. The large north window, for instance, 
 so often spoken of as that near to which Diirer 
 used to work, really merely fills in an opening made 
 by the owner for the convenience of his customers. 
 The blacksmith was succeeded first by one and then 
 another tenant, and it was not until 1816 that the 
 house was marked by the inscription : ' Hier wohnte 
 Albrecht Diirer.' 
 
 Ten years later, chiefly at the instance of Dr. 
 Campe, it was bought for the town from its last 
 o\\Tier for the sum of 1,675 florins. A medaUion 
 portrait of Albrecht Diirer was put up above the 
 entrance-door, and the house was confided to the 
 care of the Albrecht Diu-er Society, who for an 
 annual rent of 100 florins obtained the right of 
 holding their exhibitions in it. 
 
 It was intended to mark May 21, 1871, the 
 four hundredth anniversary of the painter's death, 
 by a great art festival, but the Franco-German 
 War rendered this impossible. That same year 
 was founded the so-called Albrecht Diirer Haus 
 Stiftung, and in 1875 an agreement was made 
 between it and the town, to the effect that the new 
 
158 NUREMBERG 
 
 society should, at their own expense, restore to the 
 home of the Diirers, as far as possible, the appear- 
 ance it presented during their lifetime. 
 
 With this end in view a collection was made, to 
 which many of the townsfolk contributed, of such 
 furniture and household utensils as were in use in 
 the sixteenth century, with the result that the 
 general effect is probably a very true one. On the 
 first story two rooms have been fitted up as a study 
 and living-room, and hung with excellent reproduc- 
 tions of the master's work, including the fine 
 Portrait of himself as a boy of thirteen, already 
 referred to, the quaint drawing sent by Diirer to 
 his doctor when he was ill away from home, in 
 which he appears as a middle-aged man, pointing 
 to his side to indicate the seat of his suffering, and 
 the well-known Portraits of the artist's father and 
 mother. In the upper story is a permanent exhi- 
 bition of good reproductions of a great number of 
 Diirer 's engravings and drawings, with some few 
 original sketches, to which additions are frequently 
 made, so that although, unfortunately, it has been 
 impossible to acquire any of the master's paintings, 
 an excellent idea can be obtained of the general 
 characteristics of his style. 
 
 The question of where Diirer worked in the 
 semi-obscurity of his home, the picturesque pale 
 green bottle-glass with which the leaded lattice 
 windows are filled, admitting but Httle light, has 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 159 
 
 been eagerly discussed, and it is generally supposed 
 that he used the large room on the second story for 
 painting and instructing his pupils, whilst his en- 
 graving was carried on in the smaller apartments 
 below. To the master's wife and mother the Uttle 
 upper chamber with the north window is assigned 
 as a sitting-room, it being near the kitchen, which, 
 with its massive ii*on door, is probably just what it 
 was in their time, though the cooking utensils and 
 crockery have been collected from far and near. 
 
 A few doors below the entrance to the Albrecht 
 Diirer house is that to the Pirkheimer Hof, once 
 the property of the artist's friend and patron, 
 Willibald Pirkheimer. In it is a perfectly pre- 
 served specimen of a small half-timbered house of 
 great beauty, probably of much earlier date than 
 its more celebrated neighbour, and a little further 
 down the street is another fine court with very 
 beautiful galleries which should not be passed by. 
 On each of the comer houses at the foot of the 
 steps leading from the Albrecht Diirer Strasse to 
 the Weinmarkt is a group of the Madonna and 
 Child, the one on the left a true masterpiece, the 
 figure of the Infant Sa\dour being especially fine, 
 whUst that on the right, of cruder workmanship, is 
 noticeable for its quaint realism. Looking up from 
 the Weinmarkt, the ancient street, wdth the town 
 waU as a background, and the steps with the two 
 Madonnas in the foreground, forms a most charm- 
 
160 NUREMBERG 
 
 ing picture, a true bit of unspoiled mediaevalism, 
 that it is to be hoped may long remain unaltered. 
 
 In the short Karlstrasse, connecting the Wein- 
 markt with the Karlsbriicke, of eighteenth -century 
 origin, are many beautiful relics of the long ago. 
 On the left, for instance, is an exquisite Gothic 
 Chorlein, and opposite to it, on the right, a Renais- 
 sance dormer window of less ethereal beauty, 
 belonging to a house with a grand courtyard, 
 from which a spiral staircase, bearing the date 1616, 
 leads up to the galleries overlooking it. 
 
 Between the Weinmarkt and the river the 
 appearance of the town is evidently very different 
 from what it was when the great masters of the 
 sixteenth century were familiar figures in the 
 narrow streets, but the noble timbered building of 
 the Weinstadel, with the little gabled house con- 
 necting it with the Wasserturm, already referred 
 to in connection with the second wall, with many 
 of the terraced houses overlooking the Pegnitz, are 
 possibly of even earlier date than the Diirer house 
 itself. 
 
 Though no building can rival in intensely human 
 interest the home of the master, who has done more 
 than any other man to promote the glory of his 
 native city, Nuremberg justly prides herself on the 
 many fine mansions that were built for her mer- 
 chant princes, and recall the glorious days of her 
 commercial prosperity. Amongst them the Tucher 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 161 
 
 House in the Hirschelgasse is especially interest- 
 ing as marking the transition from the Gothic to 
 the Renaissance style, combining as it does some 
 of the distinctive peculiarities of each. 
 
 Still in the possession and occasionally occupied 
 by a member of the family whose name it bears, 
 this house has been carefully preserved as it was 
 when completed in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. The low-ceilinged, massively constructed 
 rooms, with their oaken beams, the cabinets let 
 into the walls, with their richly ^^'Tought locks and 
 hinges, the finely decorated doors and the spiral 
 stone staircase, combine to give an impression of 
 strength, durability, and fitness, that is eminently 
 satisfying. Above the entrance-door is a beautiful 
 rehef in stone of Christ walking on the sea, which 
 seems to strike the keynote of the home, whose 
 inmates used to meet for daily prayer in the fine 
 Gothic chapel now used as a dining-room, that still 
 retains on the meeting-point of the ribs of the 
 vaulting a quaint representation of the Last 
 Supper, forming a pendant to the Tucher coat of 
 arms. 
 
 The living-rooms on the first and second floors 
 share the almost solemn beauty of the entrance- 
 hall and chapel ; their leaded lattice windows \^4th 
 stained glass in the upper panes, after the designs 
 of Albrecht Diirer, look out upon a beautiful 
 garden. The fire-dogs, the oaken tables and chairs, 
 
 21 
 
162 NUREMBERG 
 
 the suit of armour by the ingle nook, the steel- 
 gauntleted gloves lying on the floor as if just 
 thrown down, the desk set in the angle of the 
 window, with writing materials ready for use, 
 with many another detail, produce a delightful 
 impression of homeliness and comfort. On the 
 panelled walls hang several quaint old paintings, 
 including an interesting representation of the 
 Iron Maiden of the Five-cornered Tower, with a 
 group of ladies in the costumes of the sixteenth 
 century looking up at her with evident admira- 
 tion. 
 
 Built nearly a century later than the Tucher 
 house, the Peller house, on the Egidien Platz, is 
 prophetic in its ornate ornamentation of the then 
 approaching change from the early to the late 
 Renaissance. Designed by Jakob Wolff, who, 
 with his brother Hans, aided in the additions to 
 the Rathaus described above, it was erected for 
 the wealthy merchant prince, Martin Peller, and 
 has recently been most carefully restored. The 
 fa9ade still presents an imposkig appearance, but 
 the effect of the interior is spoiled by the fact that 
 the rooms are filled with modern furniture on sale, 
 the present owner being one of the chief manufac- 
 turers of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Other noteworthy Renaissance houses of Nurem- 
 berg are the Toplar, on the Panierplatz, which 
 greatly resembles the Peller house ; the Kraft 
 
COURT OF No. i6 KRAHENGASZCHEN. 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 163 
 
 house, in the Theresienstrasse ; the Imhof house, 
 in the Tucherstrasse ; and the Nassau house, in the 
 Konigstrasse. The Kraft house, considered the 
 masterpiece of Hans Behaim the elder, is especially 
 noteworthy for the delicate lace-Hke car\angs of the 
 galleries overlooking the spacious court, in which 
 is a disused fountain with a charming Uttle bronze 
 statuette of St. Michael by Peter Vischer, designed 
 for the Imhof family, but replaced in their ancestral 
 home by a copy. The Imhof house was also de- 
 signed by Behaim, and its court, to which the dis- 
 tinctive name of the Historischer - hof is given, 
 rivals, if it does not excel, that of the Kraft house, 
 so fine are its proportions, so beautifully carved the 
 balustrades of its many galleries, which are filled 
 with flowering plants and draped with creepers in 
 the summer. 
 
 In the same street as the Imhof house, entered 
 from No. 15 on the opposite side, is a court, now 
 almost blocked up v\'ith unsightly modern build- 
 ings which must originally have been one of the 
 finest in Nuremberg, on account of its charming 
 sculptures, including a series of medaUion heads 
 of great beauty. In the Uttle alley known as the 
 Krahenzaschen, leading out of the Theresienstrasse, 
 nearly opposite the Kraft house, are two courts, 
 belonging to Nos. 6 and 7, which are weU worth 
 visiting, in one of which is a remarkably good 
 dormer window, and No. 10, Plobenstrasse still 
 
 21—2 
 
164 NUREMBERG 
 
 owns a solitary survivor of a series of figures of the 
 Apostles and a very quaint old window. 
 
 The Nassau house, the name of which is thoroughly 
 misleading, no member of the Nassau family having 
 lived in it, is supposed to date from about the end 
 of the sixteenth century, but by whom or for whom 
 it was built is not known. It is, however, certain 
 that it was for some time occupied by a charitable 
 institution founded by Karl Schusself elder, who 
 died early in the eighteenth century. The graceful 
 corner turrets, the well-proportioned roof, the finely- 
 carved balcony, the beautiful oriel window, and the 
 statue of Gustavus Adolphus on the eastern wall, 
 added in 1824, combine to give an appearance of 
 great dignity and refinement to this celebrated 
 house, which is now occupied by a dealer in anti- 
 quities, whilst its crypt has been converted into 
 a wine-cellar. Its position, opposite the western 
 portal of St. Lorenzo and the beautiful Tugend- 
 brunnen, is an exceptionally fortunate one, its old- 
 world character seeming to keep the heart of modern 
 Nuremberg in touch with the life of long ago. 
 
 Of the many bridges that span the Pegnitz and 
 add so greatly to the general picturesqueness of the 
 town, the finest are the Karlsbriicke, named after 
 Karl IV., and adorned with two obelisks com- 
 memorative of him ; the Museumbriicke and the 
 Fleischbriicke, the last one of the first to be built of 
 stone in Nuremberg, replacing a much older one 
 
THE NASSAU HOUSE AND THE TUGEND- 
 BRUNNEN. 
 
If 
 
 5^^^ ill 
 
 fl®t-k_i 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 165 
 
 of wood on which the mutilation of condemned 
 prisoners used to take place, at the entrance to 
 which is the figure of a bull,* bearing beneath it a 
 Latin inscription which may be roughly translated : 
 
 'All living things ai*e bom and grow, 
 
 But here you see a bull that never was a calf. ' 
 
 Even more distinctive of Nuremberg than the 
 bridges, which, after all, owe their chann rather to 
 the ^dews they command up and do^vn the river, 
 than to any special beauty of structure, are the 
 fountains of Nuremberg, amongst which the most 
 celebrated, though scarcely now the most beautiful, 
 is the Schoner Brunnen of the market-place, an 
 ornate, gorgeously - coloured Gothic canopy, en- 
 riched with many figures of heroes of the Bible 
 and of history, a copy of an earher fountain which, 
 so far as can be judged by the fragments pre- 
 served in the Germanic Museum, must originally 
 have been a fine work of art. The first Schoner 
 Brunnen was designed by Heinrich Behaim, and 
 erected between 1385 and 1396, whilst the iron 
 railing surrounding it, the work of Paul Kohn, 
 also now replaced by a copy, was not added until 
 1586. In the new railing has been faithfiilly 
 reproduced a bronze ring, which is always care- 
 
 * The horns of this bull were shot off some years ago 
 by an unknown hand, but new ones were given to it in 
 September, lOO-i. 
 
166 NUREMBERG 
 
 fully pointed out to visitors, the touching of 
 which is supposed to bring luck, for it is said 
 to have been made by a smith under sentence of 
 death who was promised his life if he could com- 
 plete it within a given time. With the hope of 
 earning a few pfennigs, the children of Nuremberg 
 still delight in telling the tale, with ever-varying 
 embellishments, to anyone they can persuade to 
 listen to them. 
 
 As is the case mth all the fountains of Nurem- 
 berg, the water is drawn from the Schoner Brunnen 
 through clumsy funnels, from which it is difficult 
 for children, and impossible for animals, to obtain 
 a drink. It is, indeed, often truly painful to see 
 horses, cattle, and dogs sniffing at the damp stones 
 near the plentiful supply of refreshment just out of 
 their reach, and it is greatly to be hoped that the 
 authorities of the town, who are so careful of the 
 comfort of the human inhabitants under their care, 
 may ere long provide drinking- troughs for the 
 dumb creatures who are unable to plead for them- 
 selves. 
 
 The recently-set-up bronze Neptune fountain, 
 opposite to the Frauenkirche, which would, by the 
 way, lend itself even more easily than the Schoner 
 Brunnen to adaptation for the refreshment of 
 animals, is a replica of the one already referred to 
 as having been ordered by the Council to com- 
 memorate the entry into Nuremberg of Gustavus 
 
THE SCHONER BRUNNEN AND- THE 
 FRAUEN KIRCHE. 
 
^TiniiiSimiaimi^ ' 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 167 
 
 Adolphus, after the raising of the siege. |The 
 general effect of the design, with the seated 
 Sea-god towering above his attendant dolphins, 
 who are belching forth copious streams of water, is 
 good, especially on a sunny weekday, when the 
 market-women and their customers are grouped 
 about the base of the fountain. The Schoner 
 Brunnen and the Neptune fountain are, however, 
 both really excelled by the far less pretentious 
 Tugendbrunnen of the Konigsstrasse, the work of 
 Benedict Wurzelbauer, and a very fine example of 
 German Renaissance plastic art at its best. The 
 figures of the Virtues with their symbols, grouped 
 beneath that of Justice, holding her sword and 
 scales, are full of grace and action. 
 
 Other noteworthy fountains of Nuremberg are 
 those already described in the courts of the Rathaus 
 with that of the Bagpipe-player in the Ebnergasse ; 
 the Wasserspeier, a copy of one by Bernini, set up 
 on the Maxplatz in 1687, in memory of a victory 
 over the Turks ; the Griibel Brunnen, with a 
 statue of Johann Conrad Griibel, a local poet who 
 flourished at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century ; and, dearest of all to the people of Nurem- 
 berg, the quaint Gansemannchen, or little goose- 
 man fountain of the fruit -market. The last- 
 named is surmounted by the figure of a country- 
 man holding a goose, with water flowing from 
 its mouth, under each arm, designed by Pancraz 
 
168 NUREMBERG 
 
 I^abenwolf, immortalizing the Dick Whittington 
 of popular local fame, who is said to have come 
 to the town a penniless lad, but to have made his 
 fortune with the aid of a pair of geese, given to him 
 by a farmer who took a fancy to him. 
 
 The foreigner who would fain see the good 
 burghers of Nuremberg at their best should make 
 a point of frequenting the excellent evening con- 
 certs given at all the best restaurants in the town in 
 the winter, and in the summer in the well-laid-out 
 grounds of the gardens of Rosenau, the park of 
 Maxfeld, and the shady woods bordering the wide- 
 spreading ponds of Dutzenteich, where boating is 
 added to the other attractions. To them the 
 well-to-do people of Nuremberg, fathers, mothers, 
 and children, flock in crowds on fine Sundays and 
 f(§te-days, to smoke, drink beer, and chat together, 
 as they listen to the excellent music provided for 
 them, content to remain seated in the same place 
 for many hours at a time. Music, beer, and 
 tobacco are, in fact, the foundation-stones of social 
 intercourse here, as elsewhere in Germany, and 
 from their earliest childhood boys learn to enjoy 
 them. It is no unusual thing to see little fellows 
 of five or six years old conducting the concerts 
 on their own account with a bit of stick, keeping 
 admirable time, and heaving deep sighs of regret 
 when the end of some long composition arrives. 
 All too soon, also, alas I they begin to drink their 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 169 
 
 beer, and it is difficult to imagine what Germany, 
 so successful a nation in spite of it, would become 
 without the enormous consumption of the national 
 beverage, which, though it does not, strange to say, 
 result in drunkenness, really gradually undermines 
 the constitution. 
 
 The stranger who joins the happy reunions in- 
 doors or out need fear neither molestation nor ridi- 
 cule, however ignorant he may be of the German 
 language, for courtesy to foreigners is now every- 
 where the rule, whatever may have been the case 
 during the South African War. An EngHshman's 
 halting attempts to make himself understood are 
 always met half-way, and there is sure to be an 
 expert interpreter at hand ready to smooth away 
 all his difficulties. True, he may have to wait 
 some little time for the refreshment which he has 
 ordered to arrive, but in an environment so fasci- 
 nating and so cordial, he would indeed be a churl 
 should he grumble at the delay. 
 
 Now and then the happy social gatherings of the 
 burghers end in dancing, if it be fine, in the open 
 air ; if it should be wet, in the large assembly-rooms 
 connected with every place of entertainment. No 
 prettier sight could be imagined than the scene 
 presented in the gloaming at Rosenau or Maxfeld, 
 as the gathering darkness gives a touch of mystery 
 to the moving groups — a darkness soon to be dis- 
 pelled by a blaze of electric hght. To the outsider 
 
 22 
 
170 NUREMBERG 
 
 there seems to be a total absence of conventionality 
 at these impromptu merry-makings, but, as a matter 
 of fact, there are certain stringent rules that must 
 be observed, their infringement being looked upon 
 as an unpardonable breach of good manners. Any 
 gentleman, for instance, may ask any lady, unless 
 she be betrothed — when her fiance's consent must 
 first be obtained — to be his partner, and it would be 
 considered an insult if she refused, but he must 
 only go twice round the circle, after which he is 
 expected to bow and retire, not again claiming 
 acquaintance with her. 
 
 No less happy than the gatherings of the well-to- 
 do in the public gardens are those of the children 
 of the poor on the banks of the Pegnitz, and, 
 beautiful as are the effects to be watched at 
 Maxfeld, at Rosenau, or at Dutztenteich, they 
 are excelled in homely charm, in humour, and in 
 pathos, by those to be seen at any hour of the day 
 in the summer holidays, beside the muddy stream 
 overlooked by the quaint terraced houses of old 
 Nuremberg. The boys with their well-patched 
 blue breeches, the sleeves of their shabby shirts 
 turned up, their closely-cropped heads, white arms 
 and legs gleaming in the sunshine, and many of 
 them with a pair of red bathing-drawers clutched 
 in one hand producing an effective touch of vivid 
 colour, are far more picturesque than the girls. The 
 latter are sorely hampered by their ragged petticoats 
 
THE CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND ON THE 
 PEGNITZ, WITH THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE. 
 
r 
 
 I 
 
NUREMBERG OF TO-DAY 171 
 
 as they paddle with their more fortunate brothers 
 in the shallow stream, the babies under their charge 
 rolling about on the grass near by, or tucked com- 
 fortably into little hand-carts, such as are sold as 
 toys in England. Not an hour passes without the 
 occurrence of some episode that appears of vital 
 importance to the light-hearted crowd, who are still 
 in the fairy-land of childhood, seeing everything in 
 its atmosphere of glamour. There is little quarrel- 
 ing, and in the roughest play a certain chivalry is 
 shown to the weak and helpless ; a cry from one of 
 the babies will arrest the happiest game ; and the 
 approach of a dog is hailed with delight : instead 
 of being teased or driven away, he is caressed and 
 enticed to join in the fun. 
 
 Now and then some httle pantomime shadows 
 forth the day, when the disturbing element of sex 
 will mar the present healthy absence of self- con- 
 sciousness. A crust of bread, once brown, now 
 black from much handling, or a bit of broken glass 
 or tinsel that has been picked up as a great treasure, 
 is offered by Hans to Gretchen, who scornfully 
 rejects it several times, before a whisper in her ear 
 brings a relenting smile to her lips ; or two older 
 boys nearly come to blows over which shall carry 
 Clarqhen's baby-sister home for her. Good-natured 
 camaraderie amongst themselves and ready submis- 
 sion to authority, a happy augury for the future, 
 are the chief characteristics of the gamins of Nurem- 
 
 22—2 
 
172 NUREMBERG 
 
 berg, who look forward eagerly to their term of 
 compulsory military service, whilst their sisters are 
 equally ready, as soon as they are old enough, to 
 take situations as domestic servants, knowing full 
 well that they are sure stepping-stones to homes of 
 their own. 
 
 The one temptation that the merry-makers by 
 the Pegnitz seem unable to resist appears to be 
 catching the fish that abound in its waters, still, as 
 in the days of St. Sebald, a penal offence. Swift 
 and sure is the punishment that follows detection, 
 and in the bright summer days many a culprit who 
 has been caught red-handed is marched off in the 
 custody of a policeman, after his ill-gotten booty 
 has been solemnly restored to its native element. 
 Then, for a brief space, silence falls upon the play- 
 ground, the babies are hastily snatched up, and 
 boys and girls tramp after their unlucky comrade ; 
 but very soon they all troop back again, the un- 
 toward incident is forgotten, and the paddling and 
 romping is resumed as happily as ever. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AcHiUiEs, Albreclit, 109, 126 
 
 Adolf of Nassau, 68 
 
 Adolphus, Gusta^Tis, 33, 52, 149, 
 
 164, 166 
 Albrecht Durer Haus Stiftung, 157 
 Platz, 143 
 Strasse, 25, 159 
 Albrecht of Austria, 108 
 
 of Nassau, 71 
 Altdorfer, Albretcb, 117 
 Alt Nfirnberg, 6, 7 
 Alte Veste, 149 
 Am Sand, 131, 132 
 Apollonius von Gailingen, called 
 
 Eppelein, 9, 10, 103 
 
 Bagpipe-player, Fountain of the, 
 167 
 
 Bailiff's dwelling, 9, 11 
 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, 1, 15, 19, 
 25, 27, 68, 125 
 
 Behaun, Hans, 58, 87, 163 
 Heinrich, 165 
 Martin, 143 
 
 Bergstrasse, 25 
 
 Bernini, 167 
 
 Boniface, St., 41 
 
 Brandenburg, Ludwig of, 91 
 
 Bratwurstglocklein, 75, 77 
 
 Breitgasse, 58 
 
 Burg, 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 
 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 
 28, 29, 36, 52, 59, 60, 61, 64, 
 72, 86, 101, 103, 107, 124 
 
 Burggraf Frederick IV., 78, 80 
 
 Burgschmiede Strasse, 121 
 
 27, Burgstrasse, 125, 136, 138, 
 147, 156 
 
 Campe, Dr., 157 
 
 Cartlmsian Convent, 53, 89, 96 
 
 Catherine, St., Church of, 4 
 
 Convent of, S5 
 Charles V., 18, 19, 35, 142, 147, 
 
 148 
 Chorlein, or Oriel Window of St. 
 
 Sebald's Parsonage, 74 
 Ciborium, or Pyx, of Adam Kraft, 
 
 50 
 Conrad III., 15, 23, 24, 25, 26 
 
 IV. 31 
 Conradin of Hohenstaufen, 31 
 Cranach, Lucas, 136 
 
 Debtors* Bridge, 55 
 Tower, 81 
 '^Declaration of Peace,' 98, 99 
 Deep Well, 8, 9, 11, 20, 86 
 ' Der Ktinstliche Frauenlob,' 147 
 Donauworth, 66 
 
 Diirer, Albrecht, the elder, 137, 
 138 
 Albrecht, the younger, 2, 
 21, 48, 75, 77, 110, 118, 
 132, 136, 144, 146, 147, 
 155, 158, 161 
 Albrecht, Society, 157 
 Frau, 157 
 house, 160 
 Dutzenteich, 86, 168, 170 
 
 Ebner, Erasmus, 33 
 Ebnergasse, 115. 167 
 Egidien Platz, St., 144, 162 
 Egidius, St, Church of, 24, 32, 42 
 
 Convent of, 8 
 Elizabeth, St., CTiapel of, 58 
 
 173 
 
174 
 
 NUREMBERG 
 
 Engelbert^ Archbishop of Cologne, 
 
 29, 30 
 Enzio of Hohenstaufen, 31 
 Eppelein. See Apollonius von 
 
 Gailingen 
 Essenwein, Dr. A., 88 
 Eucharius, St., Chapel of, 25 
 
 Farbergasse, .58 
 
 Fischbach, 7 
 
 Five-cornered Tower, 3, 5, 7, 10, 
 12, 82, 106, 162 
 
 Fleischbriicke, 164 
 
 Franconia, 70, 71 
 
 Frauengasslein, 58 
 
 Frauen Kirche, 2, 89, 94, 95, 98, 
 166 
 
 Frauen Kirche clock, 131 
 
 Fraueuthor, 34, 85, 110 
 
 Frederick I., 15, 26 
 
 II., 28, 29, 31, 59 
 
 III., 109, 110, 113, 130 
 
 v., 67 
 
 of Austria, 109 
 
 of Hohenzollern, 68, 106 
 
 of Nassau, 73 
 
 Freiung, 9, 10, 11, 20 
 
 Frey, Agnes, 139 
 
 Friedhof, Johannes, 122 
 
 Froschbach, 114 
 
 Froschturm, 24, 114 
 
 Ftirth, 151, 154 
 
 Gansemannchen Fountain, 167 
 Gartner, Hieronymus, 135 
 Germanic Museum, 32, 36, 74, 82, 
 
 95, 96, 120, 165 
 Giles, St., Church of, 24 
 Golden Bull, 94, 99 
 Greisbart, 91 
 
 Gross, Konrad, 78, 80, 81, 96 
 Griibel Brunnen, 167 
 
 Johann Conrad, 167 
 Griinewald, Hans, 135 
 
 Haller Thor, 122 
 Hangman's Tower, 55 
 Hapeburg, Rudolf, 67, 68 
 
 Harscher, Barbara, 146 
 Heidenturm, 8, 14 
 Heilbronn Convent, 68, 81 
 Heim, 4 
 Heinz Fountain, 80 
 
 Konrad, 78, 80, 81, 96 
 Henkersteg, 55, 56, 59 
 Henlein, Peter, 135 
 Henry III., 23 
 
 VI., 26, 27, 28 
 VII., 73 
 
 of Luxemburg, 72 
 the Lion, 28 
 Heugasse, 57 
 Heuss, George, 94 
 Himmels Thor, 20 
 Hirschelgasse, 161 
 Hirschvogel, Augustin, 19, 135 
 Historischer Hof, 163 
 Hohenstaufen, Conradin of, 31 
 Enzio of, 31 
 Katherine of, 31 
 Prince Henry of, 
 29, 30, 31 
 Hohenzollern, Count Frederick 
 
 of, 60, 66, 106 
 Holbein, Hans, 136 
 Holper, Hieronymus, 138 
 Holy Cross Chapel, 122 
 Holy Ghost, Church of the, 80, 
 95, 108 
 Hospital of the, 77, 
 80 
 Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of the, 81 
 Holzschuher, Eucharias, 88, 117 
 Hubs, John, 107 
 
 Imhof house, 163 
 Imperial Castle, 13 
 Industrial Museum, 151 
 Inner Frauenthor, 58 
 Inner Laufersclilagturm, 57 
 Iron Maiden, (5, 7, 162 
 
 Jakob, St., Church of, 52, 54, 68, 
 
 109 
 Jamnitzer, Wenzel, 135 
 
INDEX 
 
 175 
 
 Johannes^ St., Cemetery of, 117, ! 
 
 118, 121, 123, I 
 
 142, 147 
 Church of, 117 
 Johannes Strasse, 121 
 John of Swabia, 71 
 Judengasse, 127 
 
 Kaiserhof, 124 
 KaLserkapelle, 14, 15, 25 
 KaiserstaUung, 11, 12, 60, 87 
 Karl IV., 89, 90, 91, 93, 98, 99, 
 
 101, 103, 164 
 Karlsbriicke, 160, 164 
 Kartstrasse, 160 
 KeUer, Jakob, 132 
 Ketzel, Martin, 119, 120 
 Klara, St., Church of, 96 
 Koberger, Antonius, 144 
 Kohn, Paul, 165 
 Konigstrasse, 58, 96, 163 
 Kopfleinberg, 91 
 Kraft, Adam, 18, 21, 25, 44, 48, 
 
 75, 77, 95, 110, 118, 119-121, 
 
 130, 131, 133, 135, 156 
 Kraft house, 162, 163 
 Krahengaschen, 163 
 Krng, Ludwig, 135 
 Kanst Brunnen, 151 
 
 Labenwolf, Pankraz, 88, 168 
 League of the Rhine, 67 
 Library, Town, 33 
 Lindenast, Sebastian, 94 
 Stephen, 131 
 Loch, or underground prison, 106 
 Loffelholz Chapel, 45 
 Lorenzo, St., Church of, 48, 49, 
 
 51, 54, 84, 86, 109, 164 
 Ludwig IV„ 78, 80, 89, 90, 92 
 
 of Bavaria, 73, 74, 81, 84 
 Luginsland Tower. 12, 13, 101 
 Luther, 33, 147, 148 
 
 Mahler Turm, 57 
 Mannerschuldturm, or Male 
 
 Debtors' Tower, 54, 55, 56, 78 
 Margaret, St., Chapel of, 14 
 
 Martha, St., Church of, 96 
 
 Mauthaus, 58, 87 
 
 Maxfeld, 93, 168, 169, 170 
 
 Maximilian, Emperor, 74, 124, 
 152, 127, 128, 129, 
 130, 132, 134, 140, 
 141, 144, 147 
 Hotel, 124 
 
 Maxplatz, 167 
 
 Maxthor, 7, 24, 57 
 
 Meistersinger Guild, 145 
 
 Meistersingers, 35, 77, 144, 145 
 
 Melancthon, 33, 148 
 
 Melchior Pfinzig, 74 
 
 Mendel, Konrad, 98 
 
 Marquand, 96, 98 
 
 Minnesangers, 144, 147 
 
 Mogeldorf, 90 
 
 Moritz, St, Chapel of, 74, 94, 95, 
 102 
 
 Miiller, Johannes, 143 
 
 Muller Turm, 57 
 
 Mummenhof, Herr, 10, 12 
 
 Museumbriicke, 33, 164 
 
 Nassau, Count Adolf of, 68 
 
 house, 163, 164 
 Neptune Fountain, 3, 150, 166, 
 
 167 
 Neue Thor, 110, 125 
 Neugasse, 57 
 Noris Stift, 80, 81 
 Nuremberg Madonna, 52, 97 
 
 Othmar Chapel, 7, 8 
 Otto IV,, Emperor, 52 
 
 of Brunswick, 28 
 
 of VVittekbach, 28 
 Outer Laufer Thor, 110 
 
 Panierplatz, 162 
 Paumgartner, Hieronvmus, 33 
 Pegnitz, 23, 34, 54, 56, 57, 59, 78, 
 
 81, 93, 111, 113, 114, 151, 160, 
 
 170, 172 
 Peller House, 162 
 T'^Martin, 162 
 Pergenstorfer monument, 95 
 
176 
 
 NUREMBERG 
 
 Peter Vischer Strasse, 35 
 Pfalz^ Ruprecht von der, 104 
 Philip of Swabia, 28 
 Pilatus HauSj 121 
 Pirkheimer Ilinterhaus, 138 
 
 Hof, 159 
 
 Philip, 137 
 
 WiUibald, 138, 141, 
 147, 159 
 PleydenwurfF, Hans, 136 
 Plobenstrasse, 163 
 Pyx of Adam Kraft, 50 
 
 Rat of Nuremberg, 8, 19, 67, 72, 
 
 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 126, 127, 
 
 146, 149 
 Rathaus, 3, 4, 6, 9, 68, 81, 85, 
 
 86, 88, 108, 124, 162 
 Rauch, 143 
 Regiomontanus. See Muller, 
 
 Johannes 
 Ritter, Christoph, 4, 36, 160 
 Rittersaal, 30 
 Rochus, St., Cemetery of, 122, 
 
 123, 133 
 Romerturm, 24 
 
 ' Rosenkrauz ' of Veit Stoss, 97 
 Roseuau, 168, 169, 170 
 Rotheuburger Strasse, 122 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg, 67, 68 
 Ruprecht I., 105 
 
 Friedrich, 94 
 George, 94 
 
 Sachs, Hans, 2, 33, 35, 36, 75, 77, 
 
 119, 144, 145, 146, 147 
 Sandraat, Joachim van, 119 
 Scheurl, Dr., 125, 147 
 
 house, 156 
 Schildgasse, 99 
 Schoner Brunuen, 3, 165, 166, 
 
 167 
 Schopfen, or judges, 72 
 Schreyer Monument, 44-50 
 Schuldheiss, 60, 67, 72, 80, 100 
 Schuldbriicke, 55, 56 
 Schusselfelder, Karl, 164 
 SchwalbacliA 131 
 
 Schweigger, Georg, 150 
 
 Schiitt Insel, 57 
 
 Sebald, St., 21, 36-50, 54, 109 
 
 Bridal Door of Church 
 
 of, 44 
 Church of, 44, 45, 48, 
 
 49, 50, 68, 102 
 Parsonage of, 74, 102 
 Shrine of, 46, 47 
 Sigismund of Hungary, 105, 106, 
 
 108 
 Sin well Tower, 12 
 Spitalplatz, 24, 57, 78, 115, 128 
 Spittler Thor, 59, 109, 110, 151 
 Spittlerturm, 58 
 Springinklee, Haus, 19 
 Stations of the Cross, 121, 122 
 Stoss, Veit, 18, 44, 48, 49, 52, 
 75, 77, 97, 110, 117, 118, 122, 
 133, 134, 135 
 Synagogue, Jewish, 128 
 
 Tetzel Chapel, 25 
 family, 25 
 Tetzelgasse, 24 
 ' Tlieuerdank,' 74 
 Theresien strasse, 155, 163 
 Thiergartuer Platz, 120 
 
 Thor, 25, 142 
 Thiergartnerturm, 59 
 Thirty Years' War, 148, 149, 150 
 Toplar house, 162 
 Tuchergasse, 68 
 Tucher house, 160, 162 
 Tucherstrasse, 163 
 Tugend Brunnen, 164-167 
 
 Unter der Vesten, 26 
 
 Van Dyck, 25 
 Vestner Thor, 20 
 
 Turm, 12, 13, 20, 72 
 Vischer, Adam, 131 
 Hans, 25, 83 
 Hermann, 43 
 Peter the Younger, 25, 
 47, 75, 77, 120, 123, 
 132, 133, 135, 163 
 
INDEX 
 
 177 
 
 AVagiiefj S5 
 
 AValdstromer, Conrad, 95 
 AVallenstein, 149 
 AV'alpurgis Chapel, 7, 8, 106 
 AV'anderer, 4 
 AV'asserspeier, 167 
 Wasserturm, 54, 55, 56, 59, 160 
 Watchman's Secret Passage, 11 
 Weiberschuldtunn, 55 
 Weighhig-house, The old, 130 
 Weiumarkt, 23, 155, 159, 160 
 Weuistadel, 56, 160 
 Weuceslas, I., 45, 89, 103, 104, 
 108 
 
 King, 74, 101 
 
 Prince, 102 
 Westphalia, Peace of, 150 
 White Tower, 21, 58, 132 
 
 Wildner, Christ, 13 
 Willibald, 137 
 VV^inkler, Otto, 33 
 Winklerstrasse, 20, 130, 138, 155 
 Winterfeld, Achim von, 76 
 Wittelsbach, 73 
 Wolff, Hans, 88, 162 
 
 Jakob, 162 
 W^olfgang, St., Chapel of, 25 
 Wolgemut, Michael, 52, 110, 117, 
 
 13(J, 139, 156 
 Worms, Wilhelm von, 135 
 Wurzelbauer, Benedict, 167 
 
 Zinner, Frau, 157 
 *Zum Goldenen Schild,' house 
 called, 99 
 
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