Nuremberg

“ The heart of Nuremberg was most enamoured of the coat, sword and sceptre of Charlemagne, for it was the greatest honour for that dear town that it had formerly been singled out as the repository of the crown jewels and to have them back again everyone in Nuremberg, no matter how lacking in sense or obtuse he might be, would have gladly laid down his life to his last drop of blood. ”

“ It is here that the mighty dead of the White City are sleeping the sleep that knows no waking; but, as we seek the graves of Durer, Sachs, or Pirkheimer, we pass along the rows of flat tombstones quietly, with hushed voices and reverent steps, as if dreading to disturb{266} even the silence of their inviolable repose. [64] On every side of us are emblems of the past glory and pride of Nuremberg. ”

“ For, apart from the beauty which Nuremberg owes to the wonderful grouping of her red roofs and ancient castle, her coronet of antique towers, her Gothic churches and Renaissance buildings or brown riverside houses dipping into the mud-coloured Pegnitz, she rejoices in treasures of art and architecture and in the possession of a splendid history such as Rothenburg cannot boast. ”

“ As you wander round the city tracing the line of the old walls, you are struck by the general air of splendour. Most of the houses are large and of a massive style of architecture, adorned with fanciful gables and bearing the impress of the period when every inhabitant was a merchant, and every merchant was lodged like a king. The houses of the merchant princes, richly carved both inside and out, tell of the wealth and splendour of Nuremberg in her proudest days. ”

“ He dwelt in a fine lodging high up in the tower above the city, and he could look down from his windows, as God Almighty looks down on the earth from the bright heavens, over Nuremberg, and the fortress on the hill, the wide ring of forest which guards it on the north and east and south, the meadows and villages stretching between the woods, and the walls and turrets of our good city, and the windings of the river Pegnitz. ”

“ And it is necessary to secure confidence in the Nuremberg merchant in two directions: his honesty and the capital at his command. Our business friends, far and near, must be permitted to continue to rely upon our trustworthiness as firmly as upon rock and iron. If we brought the arrogant Italian to say of us that, amongst the German cities who were blind, Nuremberg was the one-eyed, we ought now to force them to number us amongst those who see with both eyes, the honest, trust-inspiring blue eyes of the German. ”

“ True it is that outside the moat, beneath the smug grin of substantial modern houses, runs that mark of modernity, the electric tram. But let us for the moment forget these gratifying signs of modern prosperity and, turning to the left ere we enter the Frauen Thor, walk with our eyes on the towers which, with their steep-pitched roofs and myriad shapes and richly coloured tiles, mark the intervals in the red-bricked, stone-cased galleries and mighty bastions, till we come to the first beginnings of Nuremberg—the Castle. ”

“ The eyes of Europe turned to the scene in curiosity and alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay, expected soon to lend its name to a more decisive battle than that of Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and the storm rolled away from Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony. Near Lutzen fell the thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the victory, half lost, was purchased by the death of the king. Fortune, which had never forsaken him in his lifetime, favoured the King of Sweden even in his death, with the rare privilege of falling in the fulness of his glory and an untarnished fame. ”

“ Nuremberg, at any rate, continues always to act as if she were a free town of the Empire. She was acutely conscious of the dignity of her charter. The great object for which the European towns, and Nuremberg among them, were all this time struggling was a charter of incorporation and a qualified privilege of internal self-government. Emperors and princes might try to get hold of a rich city like Nuremberg, and treat it as their private property, but, once she had won her charter, she was determined to remain a Reichstadt, and to enjoy all the privileges and liberties of a free city. ”

“ Over the old imperial city, with its marvels and its oddities, hung a fragrance which in other places had long ago been blown away by the winds of political change and enlightenment." [1] Nuremberg is, in very deed, a splendid old town, but it is easy to understand the special attraction there must have been for two budding Romanticists in its medievalism, its old Catholic churches, its old houses with the Nibelungen heroes above the doors. Their enthusiasm over the treasures of beautiful Nuremberg is, truth to say, far more natural than the long blindness of the eighteenth century to them. ”

“ A CITY LIVING ON THE PAST Nuremberg, or Nurnberg, was built, I believe, about the beginning of time. At least, in an old black-letter history of the city which I have seen, illustrated with powerful wood-cuts, the first representation is that of the creation of the world, which is immediately followed by another of Nuremberg. No one who visits it is likely to dispute its antiquity. ”

“ Nuremberg and the Reformation
“Trading Staple of the German World in old days, Toyshop of the German World in these new, Albert Dürer’s and Hans Sachs’ City.”—Carlyle.
WE have watched the dawning sun of Nuremberg’s greatness rise over the forest till now it has reached the Mittags-quarter. We have seen, to change the metaphor, the little foundling of the swamps grow year by year till at last she has arrived at the full strength and beauty of womanhood. For it was under Maximilian that Nuremberg reached her prime: it was under him and his successors that the greatest of her sons flourished. ”

“ Nuremberg is a wonderful old city, and looks as if it were cut out of an old picture-book. The streets seem to stretch themselves along just as they please. The houses do not like standing in regular ranks. Gables with little towers, arabesques, and pillars, start out over the pathway, and from the strange peaked roofs water-spouts, formed like dragons or great slim dogs, extend far over the street.
Here in the market-place stood Knud, with his knapsack on his back. ”

“ If indeed everything good and right that ever was done in Nuremberg must have once been done there for the first time, our good town shall now see that a grey-headed old woman with gout in her toes can sail over seas, from the Pegnitz even to the land of the barbarian Heathen and Cairo! ”

“ Some chroniclers drag in the name of Drusus Nero (Neronesberg) and refine upon the point, debating whether we ought not rather to attribute this camp to Tiberius Claudius Nero; and others, again, suggest that Noriker, driven out by the Huns, settled in this favourable retreat in the heart of Germany, and laid the foundations of Nuremberg’s greatness. All we can say is that these things were or were not: but they have no history. After all, why should they have any? But those who prefer precision to truth shall not go empty away. ”

“ North and south and east and west of me, in endless multitude, the roofs and spires of Nuremberg rose splendid and sparkling in the sunshine. North and south, and east and west, in city and lager lay scores of thousands of armed men, tens of thousands of horses--a host that might fitly be called invincible; and all come together in its defence. But, in corners, as I went along I heard men whisper that Duke Bernard's convoy had been cut off, that the Saxon forage had not come in, that the Croats were gripping the Bamberg road, that a thousand waggons of corn had reached the imperial army. ”

“ The facts as to the origin of Nuremberg are lost in the dim shadows of tradition. When the little town sprang up amid the forests and swamps which still marked the course of the Pegnitz, we know as little as we know the origin of the name Nürnberg. It is true that the chronicles of later days are only too ready to furnish us with information; but the information is not always reliable. The chronicles, like our own peerage, are apt to contain too vivid efforts of imaginative fiction. ”

“ Their love of science was no less genuine than their love of art. In June 1471, a few weeks after the birth of Albert Durer, Johannes Muller, (surnamed Regiomontanus in allusion to Königsberg, his native village) the great mathematical genius, “the wonder of his generation,” took up his abode at Nuremberg, making her the true home of physical and mathematical science and contributing mightily to her reputation as “the capital of German art, the most precious jewel of the Empire, the meeting-place of art and industry.” ”

“ The Trade of Nuremberg is very much fallen off; for besides that the Toys and Knick-knacks which were formerly made in this City are much out of fashion, especially in Germany, the Manufactures which the Margraves of Bareith and Anspach have settled in their Dominions do considerable Prejudice to Nuremberg.
The Inhabitants of this City may be, (at least I think 'em so) the honestest People in the World, but they are the most horrible Complimenters that I know. ”

“ Thou dost give to the poet bays, Immortelles for the deathless lays Chanted for thee, fair Nuremberg!
They are thy Lords of High Degree, Marvels of art who wrought for thee, Toiling on with tireless will Till the wondrous hands in death were still. Being dead, they yet speak, Nuremberg!
They were dust and ashes long ago; Over their graves the sweet winds blow; Yet they are alive whom men call dead— This is thy spell, when all is said; This is thy glory, Nuremberg! [464] A MATER DOLOROSA
Then down the street came Giacomo, flushed With wine and laughter. ”

“ Sebald. There, in a niche facing the altar, stands, thick-set and full-bearded, the modest, pious labourer, whose reputation had spread beyond the limits of Germany, and whose bronze work, if we may believe the chronicler, once “filled Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and the palaces of princes throughout the Holy Roman Empire.” Seldom did prince or potentate come to Nuremberg without paying a visit to Vischer’s workshop. ”

“ Once more, in October, he returned, drove the Imperial troops out of the Nuremberg territory, and took his last farewell of the town.{102}
The Treaty of Westphalia brought the Thirty Years War to an end in 1648, but not before the interruption of commerce and the extraordinary exertions she had made had reduced the resources of Nuremberg to a very low ebb, and saddled her with a load of debt from which she never recovered. When at last peace was announced, the festivals with which she celebrated it reflected the last splendour of the once prosperous city. ”

“ Nobody ever goes to Nuremberg but Americans," said a cynical British officer at Chamouny; "but they always go there. I never saw an American who had n't been or was not going to Nuremberg." Well, I suppose they wish to see the oldest-looking, and, next to a true Briton on his travels, the oddest thing on the Continent. The city lives in the past still, and on its memories, keeping its old walls and moat entire, and nearly fourscore wall-towers, in stern array. But grass grows in the moat, fruit trees thrive there, and vines clamber on the walls. ”

“ Even to-day you can hardly walk ten yards in Nuremberg without coming upon some perfect piece of ironwork, such as the railings round the wells or in front of the Frauenkirche. In the German Museum [9] there are two rooms full of locks and hinges, which, if once seen and studied by the modern manufacturer of inferior wares, should almost certainly make him cease from his evil ways. ”

“ There is, for instance, a document extant (1325) in which Ludwig grants immunity to the citizens of Nuremberg for having destroyed the castle “Zu dem Turm,” which belonged to one Conrad Schenk von Reicheneck, a robber-knight, and promises the castle shall never be rebuilt. Nor did the towns despise the advantages of combination. In 1340 we find Nuremberg entering into a league, for mutual protection and the maintenance of peace, with the Dukes of Bavaria, with Würzburg, Rothenburg, etc., and a number of spiritual and temporal lords. ”

“ The Domain of Nuremberg is even much larger than that of Hambourg, but the latter bears the Bell for Wealth. 'Tis said that Nuremberg has seven other Towns in its Territory, with 480 Villages and Parishes. Yet for200 all this 'tis not a rich City; for the Patricians pocket all the Money, and the Citizens are poor.
Next Day after my Arrival at Nuremberg I set out for Christian-Erlangen, a Town in the Margraviate of Brandenbourg-Bareith, which owes its flourishing State to a Colony of French People who fled out of France on account of their Religion. ”

“ During the Thirty Years War, the Jews in Fürth, oppressed by the Imperial troops, asked to be received back into Nuremberg. Some of the Council were ready to comply, on the receipt of a large payment, but the majority refused to have the “damaging rascals” within their walls. ”

“ Nuremberg, stimulated by the education of self-government and of commercial intercourse, did not fail to produce such independent humanists as Conrad Celtes, Dr Scheurl, Lazarus Spengler, Albert Durer, Willibald Pirkheimer, who could write as well as read, and preach as well as applaud the doctrines of necessary reform. ”

“ The people of Nuremberg process through the streets with psalms and litanies strewing ashes on their heads in the darkest corners of their houses and tomorrow they will resume their life of old. The noise of trumpets and trombones that imbues the story of my own life comes from the day after the Feast of Our Blessed Lady's Annunciation during Lent of the year 1424, for on this day the German imperial crown came back to Nuremberg. ”