The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

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СКАЧАТЬ sword, for duels were part of the existence of the nobleman. It was desirable for him to have been at least once called out by cartel. He then rode with his second to the nearest village; behind a hedge he pulled off his riding-boots, put on light fencing shoes, fastened his long curly hair under his cap,^[49] took off his upper garments, and had to choose one of the rapiers which were presented to him. They fought in rounds, by cut and thrust, and a well-settled duel never failed to be followed by a reconciliatory drinking bout. They liked to boast of such heroic deeds.

      Such were the "Pfeffersäcke," who were called also by the country nobles, "Heringsnasen" (flatnoses). This country nobility was of quite another stamp.

      They were more numerous two centuries ago than at present. Besides the family seat, they possessed village-houses, and small farms. Sometimes a family had increased so much, that in the neighbourhood of an old estate, many villages were occupied by relatives; and still more frequently did branches of different families dwell indiscriminately in a village, in every grade of authority. Even in our century there have been middle-sized villages, enclosing ten, twelve, and more gentlemen's seats. In such districts, each little despot exercised dominion over a few miserable villagers, and had a seigneurial right to a portion of the village district; but the poorest had no real property, and sometimes only rented their dwellings. Thus it was in almost all the provinces of Germany, more especially east of the Elbe, in the colonised Sclavonian countries; also in Franconia, Thuringia, and Swabia. Many of the Junkers only differed from the other country people in their pretensions, and their contempt for field labour. Even before the war, most of them had been impoverished, and when peace came at last, they were in still worse plight. War and pestilence had made havoc among them, and the survivors had not become better. The more powerful had tried their luck as soldiers and partisans, differing little sometimes from highway robbers. During the war they had laid out their booty in the purchase of some small estate, on which they dwelt, restless and discontented. These fortunate individuals received frequent visits from old comrades, and then ventured to make raids from their property on their own account, which seldom ended without bloodshed. After the war they ceased plundering; but the lawlessness, the craving for excitement, the restless roving, and the inclination for wild revelry and quarrels remained in the next generation. They united themselves into a large company, which, in spite of endless brawls, continued to hold together, like entangled water-plants on a marsh. This family connection became a ceaseless plague to the better disposed, and a misfortune for the whole class; and more than any other evil retarded, during the following century, the culture, civilisation, and prosperity of the landed nobility.

      The sons of these poor landowners learnt to ride, dance, and fence, and perhaps the first rudiments of Latin from a poor candidate; then, if the father had connections, they served as pages at some small court, or to a distinguished nobleman. There they learnt, to a certain extent, good manners; and, more certainly, the weaknesses and vices of the higher orders. If they remained some years in noble service they were, according to old usage, declared capable of bearing arms, and released as Junkers with a gracious box on the ear. Then they returned to the parental estate, or the parents sold what they could spare to procure them an outfit befitting a gentleman, and sent them as aspirants for subaltern places in the Imperial army. Few of them prospered in the inglorious wars of that period; most returned home, after some campaigns, corrupted and poor both in honour and booty, to share with their sisters the paternal inheritance. Soon they differed little from the relations who had remained at home.

      These landowners dwelt in buildings of clay and wood, roofed with straw or shingles,--a sufficient number of casual descriptions and drawings have been preserved to us; across the roof lay the great fire-ladders; the front and back doors of the hall were provided with crossbars for closing them at night. On the ground-floor was the large sitting-room; near it the spacious kitchen, which was a warm abode for the servants; next the sitting-room there was a walled vault, with iron gratings to the window, and if possible with iron doors, as a protection against thieves and fire,--whatever valuables a landowner possessed were kept there, and if a sum of money was deposited there, a special watchman was placed before the house. Above this vault, in the upper floor, was the bedroom of the master of the house; there was the marriage-bed, and there also was a concealed safe, either in the wall or floor, wherein some plate and the jewellery of the women were kept. The children, the tutor, and the housekeeper slept in small closets, which could not be warmed, divided by trellis-work. Sometimes a wooden gallery was attached to the upper floor, the "little pleasure walk;" there the linen was dried, the farmyard inspected, and the work of the women done. The house was under the special care of some old trooper, or poor cousin, who slept within as watcher. Wild dogs roamed about the farmyard and round the house during the night; these were specially intended to guard against beggars and vagrants. But all these measures of precaution could not entirely hinder the inroads of armed bands. Even a good-sized estate was an unsatisfactory possession. Most of the landowners were deeply in debt; ruinous lawsuits, which had begun during the war, were pending over hearth and hill. The farm was carried on wretchedly under the superintendence of a poor relation or untrustworthy bailiff; the farm-buildings were bad and falling into ruins, and there was no money, and frequently no good wood wherewith to renew them. For the woods had suffered much from the war; where there was an opportunity of sale, the foreign commanders had caused large forests to be felled and sold. In the neighbourhood of fortified places the stems were employed for fortifications, which then required large quantities of wood; and after the peace much was felled for the necessary erection of villages and suburbs. The farm also bore little produce. Not only teams, but hands, were wanting for the tillage; and the average price of corn, after the war, was so low that the product hardly paid for the carriage, and in consequence they kept few horses. New capital was difficult to acquire; money was dear, and mortgages on the properties of nobles were not considered an advantageous investment. They, undoubtedly, gave a certain amount of security; but the interest was too often irregularly payed, and the capital could not easily be recovered. The acquisition of mortgaged goods, also, by the creditor, was possible only in certain cases, and by tedious proceedings; it was sometimes even dangerous, for the friends and neighbours of the debtor would threaten the new possessor with their hatred. In the eastern frontier countries the dissatisfied creditors endeavoured to indemnify themselves by selling their bonds to Polish nobles. These procured the money by making reprisals on travellers from the district of the debtor, and taking the sum from the first comers. This had, indeed, happened before the great war; and repeated prohibitions show how much commerce suffered from those deeds of violence.^[50] By such evils even a sensible landed proprietor was soon easily thrown into a desperate position. A bad harvest, or a mortality among the cattle, would probably ruin him. But the chief evil was that a great number had not sense enough to occupy themselves perseveringly with their farming, and to limit their expenses within the certain income of the property. Thus few were prosperous. Most of them passed their lives amidst embarrassments, lawsuits, and endless debts; even those who had entered on the possession of their property with better hopes, became at last, like the greater number of those of their own class, members of the great association which the people nicknamed "Krippenreiter."

      These impoverished gentlemen rode in bands from farm to farm; they invaded the neighbourhood like troublesome parasites whenever a feast was celebrated, whenever they scented the provisions in the kitchen and cellar. Woe to the new acquaintance whom they picked up at the houses of others; they immediately volunteered to accompany him home for a day or week. Where they had once quartered themselves it was very difficult to get rid of them. Not select in their intercourse, they drank and brawled with the peasants at the tavern; when drunk, they would do a citizen, with a full purse, the honour of receiving him into their brotherhood. Then kneeling amid broken glasses and flasks, the brotherhood was sealed, eternal fidelity sworn, and generally, he, was denounced as the worst scoundrel, who did not preserve unbroken friendship. Such brotherhood did not, however, prevent a great fight the very next hour. But, common as they made themselves on these occasions, they never forgot that they were "wild noblemen of ancient family." Citizens, and those who had patents of nobility from the Emperor might, indeed, become brothers. This kind of familiarity was after the way of the world, but he could not obtain the acknowledgment of family association conveyed by the terms "uncle" and "cousin;" and even СКАЧАТЬ