The Story of Nuremberg

by Cecil Headlam

As to the original extent of the city walls there are many theories. Most likely they embraced a very small district. According to Mummenhoff the first town wall ran from the west side of the Castle in a southerly direction over the modern Weinmarkt. (To reach it go straight down the Albert Durer Strasse, starting from Durer’s house.) Further on the wall struck eastwards (l) to the river, either leaving the swampy meadowland near the river free, or, as others hold, coming right down to the river banks. Then, leaving the river again near the Spitalplatz, it stretched northward, apparently from the Malerthor which was then in existence, to the Romer Tower in the Tetzelgasse.[28] This tower was probably not actually part of the wall but a fortified house, such as may be seen in many German and Italian towns, built by the dwellers in it for their own especial protection. A noble family of the name of Romer lived there in early times and gave their name to the house. But popular tradition has forgotten this fact and asserts that the tower dates back from Roman times.

From this spot the wall made a distinct bend to the east, ran over the Ægidien hill through the Wolfsgasse, where we may perhaps still recognise in one of the houses an old tower of the wall, and so on to the Fröschturm, or Frog’s Tower near the Maxthor of to-day.

A glance at the map will show us that Nuremberg, as we know it, is divided into two almost equal divisions. They are called after the names of the principal churches the St. Lorenz, and the St. Sebald-quarter. The original wall which we have just described included, it will be seen, only a small portion of the northern or St. Sebald division. With the growth of the town an extension of the walls and an increase of fortification followed as a matter of course. It became necessary to carry the wall over the Pegnitz in order to protect the Lorenzkirche and the suburb which was springing up around it. The precise date of this extension of the fortifications cannot be fixed. The chronicles attribute it to the twelfth century, in the reign of the first Hohenstaufen, Konrad III. No trace of a twelfth-century wall remains; but the chroniclers may, for all that, have been not very wide of the mark. The mud and wood which supplied the material of the wall may have given place to stone in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However that may be, it will be remembered that the lower part of the White Tower, which is the oldest fragment of building we can certainly point to dates from the thirteenth century. All other portions of the second wall clearly indicate the fourteenth century, or later, as the time of their origin. What, then, was the course along which ran this second line of fortifications?

Assuming that the reader has accompanied us on our short circuit of the imaginary first town wall—(there is no better way of acquainting oneself with the topography of the place and of coming upon the most picturesque bits of old Nuremberg than to work round the three lines of fortifications sketched here)—we will start again from the Maxthor, the nineteenth-century gateway on the north side of the town. From the Froschturm, which is near at hand, the wall ran alongside of the seven rows of houses (Zeilen) which were built by the Council in 1488 (on the old moat which had been filled in) for the immigrating Swabian weavers; and then from the Webersplatz by the Landauerkloster (used at the present time as a polytechnic school) straight down to the Lauferschlagturm. This tower, also called the inner Lauferturm, dates in its present form from the fifteenth century and in part from the sixteenth century. It derives its name from the striking clock which was put up in 1478, at a period when clocks with bells to mark the hours were still rare. Proceeding past the Lauferschlagturm we can trace clearly enough the shooting-trench, which was assigned to the cross-bowmen in 1485 and runs on to the former foundry of the coppersmiths “Auf dem Sand.” Presently before reaching the Pegnitz the wall made a sharp turn to the west: it is uncertain whether the present Neuegasse (which we must follow) ran inside or outside of it; at any rate the Mohler or Mahler Thor (Müllerthor) stood at the spot where the Heugässchen and Neuegasse run into the Spitalplatz. Leaving the Mohlerthor the wall crossed the Spitalplatz (l) and ran in a straight line, strongly protected by towers, across the two arms of the Pegnitz which encircle the Schütt Island. In the northern arm of the river, near the Synagogue (l), you may still distinguish a bit of ruined wall overgrown by alders, rising out of the water. This is the remains of the pier which once buttressed the town-wall against the current of the Pegnitz. On the island there are still two towers, the larger of the two being the Schuldturm or Debtor’s Tower for men (Männereisen) which bears the date 1323. Originally a corresponding tower for female debtors stood on the south bank of the river. But this, together with the connecting walls and the arch over the Pegnitz, was demolished in 1812. The bridge, which joined the two debtors’ towers, was called the Schuldbrücke, and the whole probably resembled the Henkersteg group at which we shall presently arrive. At any rate it is recorded that towards the end of the fifteenth century “they built dwellings for the townspeople on the old arch by the Debtors’ Towers, through which the Pegnitz formerly flowed into the town.”

We have now reached the South or Lorenz-quarter of the town. From the river the wall ran straight on along the Nonnen-gasse to the inner Frauenthor, which was destroyed in 1499. Cross the Lorenzer Platz and go down the Theatergasse opposite. Behind the theatre there is still a piece of open ditch—the old Lorenzer shooting-trench, and near the old inner Frauenthor is the entrance to the Herrenkeller, which goes under the Königstrasse to beneath the Great Hall. The old moat was converted into this cellar, which is 447 feet long, and supported by twenty-six pillars. Over it the architect Hans Behaim erected the Neue Kornhaus and the Great Hall or Grosse Wage, a deep-roofed building, also called the Mauthaus, because it is now used as a Custom House. Going straight on down the north side of this hall we come to the Frauengässlein, a fascinating old street, which stretches behind the old arsenals (r) (now used as storehouses for hops) to the Färbergasse, and marks the further course of the walls, which, from the arsenals to the White Tower (Weissturm) is easily traced. For a considerable part of the old moat (Färbergraben) and a piece of the old wall, with its large curved blocks of sandstone black with age, are still visible. At the end of the Frauengasse turn first to the right and then to the left into the Breitegasse, when the White Tower will confront you. The lower portion of the White Tower, or inner Spittlerthurm as it used to be called (a name, like that of the modern Spittlerthor, derived from the St. Elizabethspital), is, as we have noted, thirteenth-century work. The tower was renovated in the fifteenth century and fitted, like the Lauferschlagturm, with a chiming clock. The outer gate (Vorthor) is still preserved. Keeping on the inside of the White Tower cross the Ludwig Strasse and go down the Waisen Strasse, which brings you to the Brewery. Keep on down the same street with first the Brewery and then the Unschlitthaus on the right till you reach the river.

Beyond the White Tower the moat was long ago filled up, but the section of it opposite the Unschlittplatz remained open for a longer period than the rest, and was called the Klettengraben, because of the burdocks which took root there. Hereabouts, on a part of the moat, the Waizenbräuhaus was built in 1671, which is now the famous Freiherrlich von Tuchersche Brewery. Here, too, the Unschlitthaus was built at the end of the fifteenth century as a granary. It has since been turned into a school.

We have now reached one of the most charming and picturesque bits of Nuremberg. Once more we have to cross the Pegnitz, whose banks are overhung by quaint old houses. Their projecting roofs and high gables, their varied chimneys and overhanging balconies from which trail rich masses of creepers, make an entrancing foreground to the towers and the arches of the Henkersteg. The wall was carried on arches over the southern arm of the Pegnitz to the point of the Saumarkt (or Trödelmarkt) island which here divides the river, and thence in like manner over the northern arm. The latter portion of it alone survives and comprises a large tower on the north bank called the Wasserthurm, which was intended to break the force of the stream; a bridge supported by two arches over the stream, which was the Henkersteg, the habitation of the hangman or Löb as he was called, of whom and of whose duties we shall have to speak in the next chapter; and on the island itself a smaller tower, which formed the point of support for the original, southern pair of arches, which joined the Unschlitthaus, but were so badly damaged in 1595 by a high flood that they were demolished and replaced by a wooden, and later by an iron bridge.

After the great Wasserthurm, all trace of the old wall is lost. Probably it stretched in a straight line across the Weintraubengässlein, along the back of the houses of the Karlstrasse, and across the Irrergasse to the Lammsgasse. Mummenhoff fancies that he can recognise one of the towers of it in an exceptionally high house on the north side of this latter street. There too stood the inner Neuthor. The houses at the back of Albrecht-Dürerstrasse show pretty clearly the further course of the wall until at the Thiergärtnerthurm it finally joined the fortifications of the Castle.

Thus we have completed the second circuit of the old Imperial town as it was in the thirteenth and most of the first half of the fourteenth centuries. It was then a city of no mean size for the middle ages, but it was far from having attained its full development. New monasteries and churches and new suburbs sprang up outside the new line of fortification. As usually happens, the majority of the dwellers outside the walls were of the lower class: but, besides their houses, there were, especially towards the east, splendid gardens and properties belonging to the patrician families and also several large buildings, including the Katherine and Clara Convents, the Mary Hospital, and the Carthusian Monastery (now part of the German Museum). Buildings of this kind, close to and outside of the gates of the old town, would, if they fell into the hands of an enemy, be a continual menace to the peace and safety of the burghers. Hardly, therefore, was the second line of fortifications completed when it became necessary to protect the new suburbs with wall and ditch like the old town. It may be noted that even when the new enceinte, that is the third or outer town wall, was finished, the second wall was still carefully preserved as a second line of defence. This was directly contrary to the advice of Macchiavelli “not to establish within the circuit of a city fortifications which may serve as a retreat to troops who have been driven back from the first line of entrenchments ... for there is no greater danger for a fortress than rear-fortifications whither troops can retire in case of a reverse; for once a soldier knows that he has a secure retreat after he has abandoned the first post, he does, in fact, abandon it and so causes the loss of the entire fortress.” The Nurembergers, however, never favoured any policy that could even remotely suggest that of burning their boats. For a long time they kept their second line of defence. Thus in 1509 it came to the notice of the authorities that “the inner moat near the arsenals and granaries were filled up with dirt and rubbish, which at some future time might do harm to the town, and the neighbours were forbidden to empty any more rubbish into the moat, and the town architect was ordered to see to it that what had been thrown into it was either levelled or taken out and that the parapet was renewed.” Similarly and in the same year the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of St. Katherinagraben (the present Peter Vischerstrasse) were refused leave to build a bridge over the existing moat.

That part of the town which lay between the second and third lines of fortification continued for a long time to retain something of a suburban character. People of small fortunes who came to settle in Nuremberg were at first admitted only into the district outside the older wall and were only allowed to move into the inner town after they had been domiciled in the outer town for several years. The suburban character of the outer town was and is still in some degree apparent also from the large open spaces there and, especially on the eastern side, from the extensive farms and gardens belonging to the richer citizens, such as the Holzschuhers, the Volkamers and the Tuchers.