On the 3rd of July, 1520, Holbein fulfilled what was then the requirement of almost every guild, and purchased his citizenship; a citizenship to reflect unfading honour on Basel, and of which she has ever been justly proud. And somewhere about the same time he married Elsbeth Schmidt, a tanner's widow, who had one child, Franz.

PLATE 7.
FIGHT OF LANDSKNECHTE
Washed Drawing. Basel Museum
Click to [ENLARGE]

For the past four or five years Basel had been steadily becoming more and more democratic. And at a period when its élite were scholars and printers and civic officials of every origin,—when the illegitimate son of a Rotterdam doctor was the true prince, and Beatus Rhenanus, the grandson of a butcher, was his worthy second in the reverence of Basel,—the widow and son of a reputable tanner and a rising young artist, who had already the suffrages of the most influential citizens, would find no doors closed to them on the score of social disabilities. The friendship of such men as Erasmus, Froben, Bonifacius Amerbach, and the Mayor,—all conspicuous stars in the Church party,—would have ennobled a man of less genius than Holbein in the eyes of his fellow-citizens; and rightly. But as to the exact locality in which Holbein set up his first married roof-tree—that Bethel of sacred or saddest dreams—no documentary evidence has yet come to light. Circumstantial evidence, however, amounts to a strong probability in favour of the Rheinhalde of Great-Basel.

If there was an emblem peculiarly abhorrent to the Basilisk (the Device of Basel) it was the Crescent-and-star. But nothing could better serve to recall the rough outline of Basel in Holbein's day than this very emblem. As the Rhine suddenly swerves from its first wild rush westward and races away, northerly, to the German Ocean, it shapes the hollow of the crescent in which Little-Basel (Klein-Basel) nestled as the star; and, appropriately enough, since it was here that the Catholic's Star of Faith rallied when overcome across the river, where curved the crescent of Great-Basel (Gross-Basel). And the relative proportions of the two would be fairly enough represented by the symbols respectively used.

Great-Basel's northern face was protected by the Rhine, while the stout city wall secured its convex curve. Of this wall the eastern horn was St. Alban's Gate; its north-west was St. John's Gate (St. Johann Thor); beside which stood the decaying Commandery of the Knights of Malta, which had contributed a large sum toward the expanded wall, in order to be included within it. And just as these spots still mark the horns of the old crescent, the Spalen Thor shows where it had its greatest depth, midway between the other two.

A straight line running due north-east from this Spalen-Thor would cross the big square of the Fish-market (Fischmarktplatz) pretty nearly as the uncovered stream of the Birsig, or "Little Birs," did before the quaint little bridge, which then united the two halves of the Fischmarkt, was absorbed in the paving over of stream and square before Holbein's day. This same straight line would of itself draw the "Old Bridge" (Alte Brücke) with approximate exactness, the even then ancient bridge which centred the star of Klein-Basel to its crescent. And in the Historical Museum, where the Barefooted Friars worshipped then, we may still see the grotesque piece of clockwork, the wooden "Stammering King" (Lällenkönig), that for centuries used hourly to roll great eyes and stick out its tongue a foot long across the river from the Gross-Basel end of the bridge. It is often said that this monster was set up as a public token of the hatred which the triumphant Protestantism of the south bank felt for the stubborn Catholicism of Klein-Basel. But the thing was a famous ancient joke before party feeling turned it into a gibe.

Bonifacius Amerbach's home, the "Emperor's Seat" (Kaiserstuhl, now 23, Rheingasse), was in Klein-Basel. Johann Amerbach had bought it, near to his beloved friends, the Carthusians. In 1520 the good old man had slept for six years in the cloisters of the monastery; where to-day the children of the Orphan Asylum play above his grave.

But all the conditions of Holbein's daily life would lead him to prefer Basel proper, and to choose the quarter in which he bought a home eight years later. This was then the western quarter of Gross-Basel, along the river-face of which ran the high southern and western bank of the Rhine, the Rheinhalde, now St. Johann Vorstadt. About where the present Blumenrain ends stood the arch, or Schwibbogen. Further on still stood the "Gate of the Cross" (Kreuzthor), by the House of the Brothers of St. Anthony, the ancient Klösterli of Basel. Before the Commandery of St. John got themselves included within the city wall the Kreuzthor was its western gate. The whole district of ze Crüze, so called because its boundaries were crosses before towers replaced them, has however become absorbed in the St. Johann Vorstadt, while the Kreuzthor has disappeared altogether. The quarter was a favourite one with members of the Fishers' Guild and with decent folk of small means.

As early as 1517 the Fishers' Company had extended itself so greatly as to become a notable institution of the Vorstadt, including many members from Klein-Basel also; while its military record was a proud one. But it was in this year, while Holbein was making his visit to Lucerne and beyond, that this guild took the more truly descriptive name which it bears to this day, that of the "Vorstadt Association" (Vorstadtgesellschaft). And to this association, which in after years gave him a famous banquet, Holbein, we know, belonged later on, if not now.

Every day would take him to the Fischmarkt,—the great square humming with activity, crowded with inns, public-houses, shops, booths, dwelling-houses,—the trade mart of every nationality. The Cornmarkt near by, now the Marktplatz, with its almost finished Rathaus, was the centre of official civic life. When the great bell clanged on the Rathaus, and its flag was flung out, not only every professional soldier, but every guild and every male above fourteen, knew his appointed place at the wall, and took it. But every day, and all day, the Fischmarkt flung out its peaceful standards, or rallied men to this side or to that with the tocsin of its presses,—the old Amerbach printing-house "of the Settle" (zum Sessel), which was Johann Froben's home and printing-house in 1520.