The Story of Nuremberg

by Cecil Headlam

Maximilian died in 1519. He had shown himself a good friend to the Nuremberg artists. No doubt his patronage and his keen interest in art and literature had been partly responsible for the good work of this period. He was himself an author, for he had a considerable share in the Weisskunig and the Theuerdank—the latter, a poem which describes allegorically the private life and ideals of the Emperor, being chiefly executed by Melchior Pfinzing, his secretary, the Provost of St. Sebald’s and builder of the Parsonage. Of the artists, he frequently employed Peter Vischer and Veit Stoss, whilst he showed the greatest appreciation of Albert Durer, to whom he gave a pension of 100 florins. When at Nuremberg in 1512 Maximilian with the aid of Willibald Pirkheimer and others, planned a colossal Holzschnittwerk, or wood-cut picture, “The Triumph,” in which he himself was, as usual in the works of art he inspired, to be idealised as the greatest of princes. Durer was to draw part of it. Ninety-two blocks did Durer design for the Triumphal Arch in the course of the next two years. Amongst other works for this patron we may mention The Triumphal Car, the Crucifixion, and the ornamental borders of the famous Book of Hours. Finally when Maximilian held the diet at Augsburg in 1518, Durer, who was one of the commissioners sent by the town of Nuremberg, drew the Emperor’s portrait from the life, “in the little room upstairs in the palace.” From this sketch he painted the picture now at Vienna, another version of which is in the German Museum at Nuremberg. Durer was as good a courtier as artist. Melanchthon tells us how Maximilian was endeavouring to draw a design which he wished Durer to carry out, but kept breaking the charcoal in doing so. Durer took the charcoal and, without breaking it, easily finished the drawing. Maximilian, somewhat vexed, asked how this was, to which the artist replied, “I should not like your Majesty to be able to draw as well as I. It is my province to draw and yours to rule.” Aliud est plectrum, aliud sceptrum. The hand that wields the sceptre is too strong for the brush.

Maximilian was, in many aspects of his character, a typical product of the Renaissance. Nuremberg had felt the full force of the revival of learning, the new stimulus in art and literature which was being brought to the West from Constantinople by the Jews and Greeks who had been driven out by the Turks. Not a few of the knights and pilgrims, too, must have passed through Nuremberg on their return from the Crusades, and her growing commerce with the East and West and Italy would tend to keep her in touch with the developments which were taking place in the world of ideas, and which were tending inevitably towards the Reformation. She had been among the first to welcome and to practise the new “German art” of printing. Between 1470, when Johann Sensenschmidt had brought Gutenberg’s invention to Nuremberg, and the end of the century, twenty-five printers received the rights of citizenship. Johannes Regiomontanus printed here in 1472 his Kalendarium Novum. But Anthoni Koberger was the most celebrated man in the trade. Over two hundred different works, mostly in large folio, were issued from his twenty-four printing presses before 1500. The “prince of booksellers,” as one of his contemporaries calls him, he had agents in every country, and sixteen depôts in the principal towns in Christendom. The first work of art which left his presses was a magnificent illustrated Bible, published in 1483, and printed from blocks he had obtained from Henry Quentel of Cologne. But, besides the Bible and theology, the press poured forth a stream of literature of every kind, spreading new ideas with unexampled rapidity, and giving expression to thoughtful criticism or popular satire of established abuses. Under such influences as these it was felt that a new era of progress was at hand. 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. She was, in fact, one of the first towns to express sympathy with Martin Luther, when he nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door of Wittenberg, in protest against what Erasmus had called “the crime of false pardons,” the sale of Indulgences, to which Leo X. had resorted in order to raise money for a little war.

Luther came to Nuremberg in the course of the next year (1518) and stayed in the Augustinerkloster. His friend Leirck, we are told, had to buy him a new cowl, in order that he might appear in fitting costume before the Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, where he was summoned to answer for his heresies. None the less the Cardinal received at Nuremberg a great welcome next year, and Luther’s followers continued at present to perform the rites and cling to the old forms of the Church. Reform, not revolution, was what they still hoped for. But the stream of events carried them rapidly with it. Willibald Pirkheimer, thanks to a satire against Eck, the bitter opponent of Luther, was included in 1519 in the Papal Bull, by which Luther was excommunicated. The Council, annoyed by the excommunication of Pirkheimer and Lazarus Spengler (Clerk of the Council), refused to interfere with the printing and publishing of Luther’s works, and gradually passed over to his side. To show how little they respected this decree of excommunication, they actually sent Spengler to represent the town at the Diet of Worms. For Charles V. held his first Reichstag (1521) at Worms, and not at Nuremberg, because of an outbreak of plague there. (Outbreaks of plague were not uncommon at Nuremberg, nor were they surprising. For all refuse was always thrown into the Pegnitz on the understanding that “the river would eat up all the dirt.”) It was at this Diet of Worms that Luther made his Confession of Faith, and fought single-handed against Pope and Emperor the great battle for the right of freedom of conscience. When, as the result, the ban of the Empire had been passed upon him and all his works, and the report was abroad that violent hands had been laid on him, Albert Durer, who had followed him from the first, wrote in his diary, expressing at the same time the opinion of the nation; “Whether he lives or whether he has been murdered, I know not; but he has suffered for the Christian faith and has been punished by the unchristian Papacy.” That, too, was the opinion of all the more important men in Nuremberg. Cautious in expressing their feelings at first, after a time the people boldly showed their dislike of monasteries and their approval of the new movement.

“Wake up! Now may the dawn be seen;
And singing in a thicket green
I hear a tuneful nightingale,”

wrote Hans Sachs, in a poem which had no small influence in forwarding the reformation movement. So, in many of his later prose dialogues, he upholds liberty of conscience and freedom of opinion in religious matters. The Council, in deference to the Emperor, made a bare pretence of stopping the publication of Lutheran writings. So half-hearted were they that the Papal Legate demanded that stronger measures should be taken, and that Lutheran preachers should be imprisoned. But the Council pursued its policy of keeping the peace between both parties, taking a middle course and siding with neither reactionary nor revolutionary. That policy could not be pursued for long. The Council had to yield, not unwillingly, to public opinion. At a meeting of representatives of the towns at Rothenburg, held there in 1524 because forbidden by Imperial edict to meet at Spires and to discuss religious matters, Nuremberg was very bold and “gave three brave Christian reasons” why they should not obey this edict. She organised a further meeting of the towns at Ulm, and for herself began to determine on a new form of worship. The Sacrament was now administered in both kinds, and Mass was read in German, with Lutheran omissions, by the Prior of the Augustin Monastery. Both the Parish Churches followed his example. The Council excused themselves for allowing this by saying that they did it to avoid an uproar among the people. The Bishop of Bamberg held an inquiry, and summoned the officiating priests before him. They denied his power to judge them, and his sentence of excommunication was practically ignored. Other towns followed the example of Nuremberg, and imitated her Lutheran services. Meanwhile the dislike of the people for monasteries and nunneries broke out more vehemently. The air was full of satires and cartoons directed against nuns and monks. Hans Sachs was not silent on this point. At last the Council ordered these institutions to be handed over to the guidance of the Lutheran preachers. Charitas Pirkheimer, the virtuous and accomplished abbess of the Klarakloster, friend and correspondent of Durer and sister of Willibald, has left us in her memoirs a touching account of the manner in which she was torn from her beloved convent, over which no breath of scandal had ever passed, and which contained many of the daughters of the best families in Nuremberg. These memoirs are well worth looking at by those who care to see the other side of the question, and to make the acquaintance of a beautiful and fascinating character. Unfortunately we have no space in this little book to deal with them here.

Shortly after this an organised discussion between the representatives of the old and new orders of religious belief was held before the Council. One by one, twelve points of doctrine were put to the heads of the Lutheran, Carmelite, Augustin and Dominican bodies, and each answered after his kind. The Catholic party finally claimed that the decision between them should be referred to the University; but Osiander, declaring that God’s word was the only salvation, wound up the discussion with a bold and eloquent speech, and called upon the Council for an immediate decision. The Council gave their vote for the Lutheran case, and thus formally threw in their lot with the Reformation. The following year saw a whole series of decrees from the Council carrying out Lutheran principles. Thus, chiefly no doubt in deference to the popular demand—for these were the days of the terrible Peasant wars—the property of the priests was ordered to be taxed. There was little violence. The influence of the gentle Melanchthon, who came to Nuremberg in 1525, did much to smooth down any tendency to brutality, or harsh treatment of the monks and nuns. Even in the first flash of religious excitement education was not neglected. The educational movement inaugurated by Luther’s letter to the towns asking them to found schools, met with eager support at Nuremberg. Through the agency of Hieronymus Paumgärtner and Spengler, Philip Melanchthon was induced to come and assist at the founding of a new gymnasium for secondary education. No expense was spared, and Melanchthon brought a brilliant staff of teachers with him. The institution was established in the buildings of the Ægidienkloster. But the school languished. Nuremberg, after all, was a town of shopkeepers, and, though some were ready to pay for masters, few were ready to pay, or spare the time, for their sons’ higher education. The school was at last moved to Altdorf, and grew into the University there. The present gymnasium was refounded in 1633. Melanchthon’s statue, mentioned above, stands in front of the building erected in 1711 on the site of the old monastery which together with the church was burnt down in 1699. Conrad III. is said to have built the church for the Benedictine Order in 1140. Three chapels remain—the Eucharius, the Wolfgang, and the Tetzel chapels, of which the first is the oldest, and affords an interesting example of the transition style (see p. [260]).

The Council all this time had a difficult part to play: it had to show itself both strong and conciliatory. When the Peasants’ War broke out, Nuremberg, the capital of Franconia, was not unaffected by it though