Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Volume Ii Part 18

[Footnote 12: A mocking allusion to the mountainous country of Bavaria.]

[Footnote 13: It was especially John the Baptist, who, according to the third chapter of St. Luke, was the merciful protector of soldiers; but at the beginning of the Reformation the difference between the Baptist and Evangelist was little understood by Landsknechte, nor indeed by all ecclesiastics.]

[Footnote 14: Bilwiz-kind, same as child of the devil. Bilwiz is an old name for magician or hobgoblin.]

[Footnote 15: One is tempted to change this pa.s.sage to an old heathenish form: "Whoever falls by honourable weapons on the field of battle, will be carried to Walhalla by the virgins of battle; those who contend with the sorcery of the G.o.ds of death, Helja takes to herself."

We find the name of Black Kaspar for the devil even in the sixteenth century.]

[Footnote 16: Konigl. schwedischer Victorischlussel a. a. O.]

[Footnote 17: Zimmermann, Goth. Msc. a. a. O.]

[Footnote 18: Grimmelshausen speaks of the art of rendering invulnerable as credible, but as a thing long known. He was more interested in the superst.i.tion which was prevalent in 1660--the art of becoming invisible and of witchcraft. At the end of the century magic rods were common, and familiar spirits powerful. Wunderbares Vogelnest.

ii. Th. Satyrischer Pilgram ii. Th.]

[Footnote 19: Mullenhof, Sagen. S. 231.--Femme, Pommesache Sagen. Nr.

244.]

[Footnote 20: Philander von Sittewald, "Gesicht von Soldatenleben."]

[Footnote 21: Grimmelshausen, "Seltsamer Springensfeld."]

[Footnote 22: _Dionys Klein. Kriegsinst.i.tution_, 1598, 8. _S_. 288.]

[Footnote 23: Simplicissimus i. 3, 9, and Philander von Sittenwald, 'Soldatenleben.']

[Footnote 24: Grimmelshausen, 'Springenfeld.']

[Footnote 25: Lump, German for ragam.u.f.fin.]

[Footnote 26: Philander von Sittewald, 'Soldatenleben.']

[Footnote 27: Moscherosoh und Grimmelshausen, a. v. O.]

[Footnote 28: At the beginning of the war it was customary for people to conceal their treasures in the dung-heaps.]

[Footnote 29: The parish receiver, Johann Martin at Heldburg, writes, for example, on the 13th September, 1640, on behalf of the helpless pastor, and proposes his removal, because in this village there remained only a widow and another woman, and he himself could not obtain a groschen from the annual fees of his district, which formerly amounted to some hundred thalers.]

[Footnote 30: This was the time in the Thirty years' war when the German princes and dukes coined base money. When one prince had obtained possession of the coinage of another he melted it, and made it into new money by alloying it with copper and other metals.]

[Footnote 31: Botzinger gives this account to his children.]

[Footnote 32: In a sheet of this kind, ent.i.tled, 'A Noteworthy Hungarian and the Netherlands New Newspaper,' 1599, has already the form and contents of a modern newspaper. It contains a short correspondence with different cities, in the form of eleven letters; amongst them reports of four vessels which had come to Amsterdam with spices, and of a new toll which the court at Brussels had levied on merchants' goods, of ten stivers on each pound of silk.]

[Footnote 33: The sources of the following description were taken from the flying-sheets and brochures, first of the year 1620-24, and also from the later writings of the sixteenth century upon coinage, a rich literature.]

[Footnote 34: The new money was almost pure copper boiled and blanched; this lasted a week, and then it became glowing red. The bottles, kettles, pipes, gutters, and whatever else was of copper, were taken away to the mint, and made into money. An honest man could not venture to lodge any one, as he could not but fear that his guest might wrench away his copper in the night, and carry it off. Wherever there was an old copper font in a church, it was taken to the mint; its sanct.i.ty did not save it; those sold it who had been baptized in it. Muller, 'Chronika von Sangerhausen.']

[Footnote 35: A batz was four kreuzer.]

[Footnote 36: In the decrees of the Diet the words do not occur before the Thirty years' war; they appear to be new in 1621.]

[Footnote 37: In 1770 the population was only 2126; but in 1845 it had increased again to 4500.]

[Footnote 38: The Emperor was sovereign of Silesia, as King of Bohemia.]

[Footnote 39: The bunch of keys in the middle ages was not only an important symbol of right, but also the popular weapon of women.]

[Footnote 40: We have to thank Professor Bruckner of Meiningen, for the communication of the following summary: it is printed in 'Memorials of Franconian and Thuringian History and Statistics,' 1852.

In nineteen villages of the former domain of Henneberg there were in the years-- 1634 1649 1849

Families 1773 316 1916 Houses 1717 627 1558 In 17 villages--Cattle 1402 244 1994 13 " Horses 485 73 107 12 " Sheep 4616 -- 4596 4 " Goats 158 26 286]

[Footnote 41: Brazier here means tinker and scythe-sharpener. The oldest accounts of them are in a free paraphrase of the 1st Book of Moses, in rude verses, which were at all events written before 1122; printed in 'Hoffmann's Fundgrubben,' 2. There they are represented as foreign Jew traders. These remarkable verses are as follows:--

"From Ishmael come the Ishmaelitish people; They go peddling throughout the wide world; We call them braziers.

Oh! what a life and habits are theirs!

On all they have for sale There is a blot, and it is unsound.

If he, the brazier, buys anything, Good or bad, one must give him somewhat over; And if he sells his wares He never replaces the damaged ones.

They have neither house nor home-- Every place is alike to them; They rove through the country, And cheat the people with their tricks: Thus they deceive mankind.

They rob, but not openly."]

[Footnote 42: Here, and further on, he gives the fixed characters of the old Italian comedy.]

[Footnote 43: Some tedious pa.s.sages are shortened, and it is necessary in one place to soften the angry expressions for the reader of this book.]

[Footnote 44: They did not fail to make an engraving of the mysterious doves, which appeared shortly after with an interpretation.]

[Footnote 45: A copper coin in the south of Germany.]

[Footnote 46: A Swiss farthing.]

[Footnote 47: The Diet was then held at Baden, because the foreign diplomatist could best be entertained there.]

[Footnote 48: It was particularly offensive to them, as an elder sister of Anton Ulrich's wife had just married the master of the Ducal Chapel, Schurmann, at Meiningen.]

THE END.