CHAPTER III.

THE CITIZEN AND HIS SHOOTING FESTIVALS. (1300-1800.)

It is on the simple truth, that every man is only valuable to his nation and State in proportion to his work, that the power and pride of citizenship rests; that is to say, in so far as he contributes to the welfare of others. But eighteen hundred years were necessary to establish this principle, and to make it perceptible to Germans, and still does the struggle continue to realize it, to introduce into the cities free competition instead of the corporate privileges of guilds, and into the State the right of personal character against the rights of birth. And yet it is only since this truth has penetrated into society, morals and legislature, that a sure, and as far as man can judge, indestructible foundation has been formed for the vitality of the nation. So slow has been the progress here of modern development.

It was from the capacity and the pride of the working citizen that the conviction arose in the German mind of the value of work. It first made the serf a free labourer of the commonalty; then it created a wealthy citizen class which spread itself firmly between the other classes; then it helped to add science to the mechanical labour and art of the citizen, and thus made him the representative of intellect, the guardian of civilisation, and the centre of the national strength. By this he ceased to be one of a class, and formed the essential element of the nation.

Nothing is more instructive than to observe the way in which the power of the German citizen became effective. However great was the industry, and however much developed the technical skill of handicraft under the Roman supremacy, the collective industrial activity lay under the ban of disregard. In the cities indeed at the beginning of the great migration, the remains of a sumptuous life still continued amidst marble columns and the vaulted halls of costly baths; and the guilds of the old handicrafts, with their chapels and exchanges were not only the casual forerunners of the later guilds of the middle ages, but perhaps their real progenitors, from whom the Germans acquired numerous handicraft implements and technical dexterities; nay, even many noble customs. But a great portion of the handicraft of antiquity was not the work of freemen: at least where anything of the nature of manufactures paid well, slave labour increased. Nevertheless, many freed men entered the old guilds; having been furnished by their masters with a small capital, they bought themselves into a Roman corporation: but it must be observed, that not only was such handicraft held to a certain degree in contempt by the full citizens up to the latest time, but the artizans, according to Roman tradition, were allowed little share in the government of the city; they had, together with undeniable local patriotism, a deficiency of the political culture, the self-respect, and the capacity of self-defence of free-born citizens.

Even among the ancient Germans, who came with the great migration, manual labour was not considered the most honourable occupation of the warrior; the poor alone used to cultivate the fields or to forge weapons at the smithy; long did the feeling remain, that there was less honour in earning money than in taking the property of others, in the shape of imposts or booty. Under such a condition of insecurity and violence did the cities arise. They were surrounded by strong walls, and shut out from the country, as once were the cities of old Latium; they were the refuge of oppressed country people, not only from the incursions of enemies, but also from the numerous small tyrants of the open country. For centuries they were governed by privileged free-born citizens, merchants, and speculators, similar to the Roman Empire; but under the patricians, the guilds were strengthened in the course of long and often bloody struggles within the walls; they acquired a share in the government, with essentially equal rights and equal duties. As a free man capable of bearing arms, the German citizen found that he could obtain riches, consideration, and affluence by means of his handicraft and his art. At the end of the middle ages, it became clear that the intellectual life of Germany had taken root in the cities.

Undoubtedly handicraft was under different conditions to what it is now. Whilst the common produce of individual mechanical labour was accurately defined in respect to material, form, and price, and the creative energy of individuals was entirely restrained by the traditions of their city and guild, a creative tendency appeared in all that required more delicate handling. The painter still rubbed his colours himself, and melted the varnish, but he also carved in wood, and engraved copper-plates. Albert Duerer still sold in the market stalls picture sheets with woodcuts, for which perhaps he himself made the letter-press, Whilst the arrangements of houses and churches frequently remained fixed, even in respect to size, in all fundamental points, the countless and often too florid details of the arabesques in the stonework showed the inward satisfaction with which the builder, when permitted the free exercise of his own fancy, followed the impulse to give expression to his own mind. The goldsmith was also designer and modeller; he took pleasure in making every article of value a work of art, into which he threw his whole soul. But it was just this union of restrictive tradition and free invention which was so beneficial to the handicraft of the cities, developing everywhere greater wealth, higher morality and culture. Throughout the whole country the cities became like the knots of a net of free societies, to which the gentry of the rural districts, far behindhand in civilisation, were in constant hostility. Long did an active hatred continue betwixt the money-getting citizen and the predatory landed proprietor; and on both sides there was bitter animosity. It is true that the noble order of Landowners were held in greater consideration; they were sustained by the pride of noble blood and of military skill, and by a multitude of prerogatives and privileges; but in fact the money-making citizen had already acquired the best rights, for so completely did he engross the whole culture and wealth of his time, that without him the country would have relapsed into barbarism.

Thus he became the aid of the Reformation, and the victim of the Thirty Years' War. But even after the devastation of that period, he, the weak and impoverished artizan of the city, felt himself a privileged man, whose prosperity depended on the superior rights he possessed. He endeavoured carefully to guard against strangers the privileges of his guild, of his patrician chamber, and of his community; he was only helpless in his relations with his sovereign. He was still an order in the new state, from which other orders were excluded. His work had lost much of its excellence, and this weakness has lasted up to the present day. Not only were trade and commerce impeded, but the technical skill of most of the artizans became less. Wood carvings and painted glass had almost perished, the arts of stone and wood carving were at the lowest ebb, and the houses were built small, tasteless, and bare. Printing and paper, which the small printing presses had deteriorated already before the war, continue poor even in our century. Equally so were the arts of the metal workers, goldsmiths, and armourers. The works of the cabinet-maker alone maintained their excellence through the rococco time, though even the _chef d'[oe]uvres_ of the celebrated Meister von Neuwied could not compare with the artistic chests of the Augsburgers about 1600; the art of weaving also, especially damask, came into fashion soon after 1650, but not in the cities preeminently. The new trades which attained to great importance, like that of peruke-maker, were of doubtful value to the national industry.

Equally great was the change which took place after the Thirty Years' War in the social life of the citizens, in their intercourse with each other and with strangers. In a former volume it was shown to what an extent individuals withdrew into their families. It is worth the trouble of examining more nearly what they lost by this. First, that feeling of self-dependence which the most diffident man acquires by frequent intercourse with strangers, the capability of co-operating with others in a larger sphere, of representing a conviction, acting in a manly way, and not submitting to any affront or unjust treatment, but at the same time yielding up pride and pretensions to the common weal; added to this the skill to organise themselves in new positions and more extended society, and to accommodate themselves to these altered circumstances. Such a tone of mind, the groundwork of all man's political capacity, was to be found in abundance at an earlier period. The power of the Empire and of the princes having become very weak, the aptitude of individuals to act in masses was strongly developed, but after the war the laws of the newly-formed states pressed with such an iron hand, that all the art and practice of self-government was lost.

This change shall be here shown, in a single phase of citizen life--the great prize shooting festivals. They are more especially adapted to give a picture in detail of the stately and splendid public life of the German citizen in olden times, and to show that we are only now beginning--though certainly with higher aims--again to attain to what our ancestors had already found.

It has been a German custom, older than Christianity, to celebrate the awakening life of nature in May. This has always been a martial feast, in which the fundamental idea of the old heathen faith, the victory of the awakening divinities of nature over the demons of winter, was dramatically represented. In the rising cities it was the warlike youth of the freeborn citizens who lead the May sports, and in the Hohenstaufen time these sports assumed the form of fashionable knightly festivals. Thus in the year 1279, at Magdeburg, on the borders of the Rhine, where Saxon blood had formed one of the strongest fortresses of German life against the Sclavonian, the Whitsuntide feast was celebrated quite in knightly style. The young mounted yeomen arranged a great tournament in their Elbe island "the Marsh," under their Maigraf, Bruno von Stoevenbecke; the arrangements were all written down, and the merchants of Goslar, Hildesheim, Braunschweig, Halberstadt, and Quedlinburg invited. They came splendidly-equipped, and courteously broke a lance with two young comrades of Magdeburg in front of the city, and then rode festively through the gates to the island on which many tents were pitched. The prize settled by the Magdeburgers for this May tilt was, like the figure on their coat-of-arms, a maiden.[58] An old merchant from Goslar won the beautiful Sophie; he took her with him and married her, giving her so good a dowry as to enable her to live ever afterwards honourably.

A century later, in May 1387, the Magdeburgers celebrated a great festival on the "Marsh," and again they contended for a maiden; but the combat was no longer in the style of a tournament, such as their bishop held at the same time on the other side of the city, but it was in a great archery court. To this archery meeting they again invited the friendly cities of Brunswick, Halberstadt, Quedlinburg, Aschersleben, Blackenberg, Kalbe, Salza, and Halle. A citizen of Aschersleben won the maiden.

During this century there was a great change in the life and constitution of the German cities; the patrician youth with their knightly customs were no longer the representatives of the power of the burgher class, the commonalty of the city already began to feel themselves masters, and their weapon, the cross-bow, gained the prizes. Soon after 1300, the societies of Archers arose in the German cities, with their regulations, archery houses, and yearly shooting festivals; as a brotherhood they erected an altar or built a chapel, and obtained from the Pope's Legate absolution for all who attended the mass, which they established on the day of their patron saint, the holy St. Sebastian. These guilds were favoured by the city magistrates, who helped to arrange the great prize shootings of their city. But however much the citizen bow superseded the knightly lance at the feasts of arms of the cities, some of the terms of knightly language continued long in use. The prizes were still in the sixteenth century called "_ventures_;" still longer did the term "_tilting_" denote the contention between individual marksmen who had shot into an equal number of circles, and a "course" signified a certain number of shots.

After the time of that archery court of the Magdeburgers, mutual shooting festivals are mentioned by the chronicles of other cities. They were quite common, at least in southern Germany, about 1400; for example, Munich sent its archers almost every second year to contend in the neighbouring cities, and the "customs" of the public shootings were already at that period firmly established. Thenceforward they spread over the whole of Germany, increasing in magnitude and splendour. They, as well as the German burgher-class, were at their highest acme about 1500; in the century of the Reformation they became more extensive and costly, and more diversified in customs and characteristics, but shortly before the Thirty Years' War they showed many symptoms of decline. The increasing power of the princes, and the commencement of modern court splendour, were mixed up with the old customs--the festivals became very costly, and a refined love of pleasure began to appear.

Prize-meetings were not only established in the cities, they were held sometimes by the princes and wealthy nobles, as early as the fifteenth century, and still more frequently when in the century of the Reformation armour and lances declined in importance. The great landed proprietors of the neighbourhood, or the princes of the country, were received as honoured guests at these meetings of the cities. Still the archers were for the most part citizens, and the occasional princes and nobles were placed under their banners. At an early period even free peasants were allowed to enter the lists, but this became rare in Germany after the Peasant War, though they continued to do so in Switzerland, where a powerful peasantry have never ceased to exist. The equal right of all, without distinction of ranks, both as to prizes and penalties, is a citizen characteristic, and by far the greatest number of associations, as well as the most important, came from the cities.

During so long a period many of their usages altered, and others were developed in different provinces, but yet the unity of their proceedings from the Oder to the Rhine, from the Alps to the Vistula, is very striking. They represent during this whole period a brilliant phase of German life, the noble hospitality exercised by martial city communities towards other friendly cities. The self-respect of the citizen found in them its most powerful expression. Many characteristic qualities of our forefathers are more especially perceptible in them; pride in their own city, a lively and sensitive feeling of honor even with respect to friends, satisfaction in appearing in processions, whether on serious occasions or in sport, and in representing with dignity, and above all, pleasure in showing, on public occasions, among many thousands, their manliness, worth, and charity in word and deed.

If a prize shooting was determined upon in a city, messengers bore the proclamation of the council, and frequently also of the archery association, to their good neighbours far in the country. The number of cities invited was sometimes very great. In 1601, 156 cities were invited to one shooting festival, held at Halle, and archers came from fifty, though the weather was bad and the prizes not high. At Strasburg seventy places were represented in 1576, in 1573 there were 187 cross-bow men sent from thirty-nine places to Zwickau, amongst them were three Swabian peasants from Goeppingen, all of whom, to the great vexation of the proud citizens, won prizes. At the cross-bow shooting at Ratisbon, in 1586, thirty-five towns were represented by 210 cross-bow men. At the costly prize-shooting in 1614, at Dresden, twenty-one of the invited cities sent representatives, but eleven did not. But the hospitality was not limited to those alone who were invited: at an earlier period special prizes were, assigned to those who came from greater distances; thus the Augsburgers, in 1508, rejoiced that a German marksman came even from Paris, and another time a marksman, who came from Striegau, in Silesia, obtained a golden ring, the prize for strangers. Sometimes it was expressly denoted in the invitation that every qualified man was welcome, or the places invited were requested to spread the notice among the nobles and archers of their neighbourhood. When the feasts became very costly, the uninvited guests were, though allowed to shoot, not entitled to a share in the chief prizes which had been assigned by the giver of the feast. That such limitations were, however, not usual is shown by the grief of the two Amstaedters, who, at the cross-bow shooting at Coburg in 1614,[59] were excluded by the Duke Johann Casimir from his principal prizes; they wished to return home, and were with difficulty persuaded to remain.

In the programme all the conditions of the prize-shooting were accurately enumerated; with fire-arms the weight of the ball, and with the cross-bow the length of the bolt was accurately defined; for the latter the size was generally established by a parchment ring, the distance from the stand to the target was given in feet, and the length of the usual foot was expressed by black lines in the programme. Sometimes they measured by paces, in that case two of the stranger competitors, a neighbour from the nearest city, and one from the most distant, stepped the distance and settled it together.

The number of shots also allowed to each was affixed on the butt and target. At the smaller meetings in ancient times, they were about twelve, fifteen, or sixteen; later, at the great meetings, they rose to thirty, forty, or even more shots. With fire-arms the shooter sometimes fired three shots in succession from his place, but with the cross-bow only one, and they shot in divisions, quarters, and standards, sometimes arrayed under banners according to the towns. At the grand cross-bow shooting at Ratisbon, in 1586, a pattern meeting of moderate size, the Protestant and Catholic places were carefully divided. Then each of the three, four or five standards had to shoot in a definite time; when all the standards had shot once, it was called one shot, or one course, the best shot of each standard of each course was called the bull's eye.

The most ancient weapon was the cross-bow, with steel bow and bolt, which was stretched by a pulley; it began to supplant the hand bow and arrow shortly before 1400, but the latter was still used in the army for some time, for example, in the Burgundian War, nay, it was sometimes used in the sixteenth century, at the shooting games.[60] The cross-bow, after 1400, became shorter and more handy, and at the end of the prize-shooting festivals, a smaller one was used with a trigger for amusement. The cross-bow was drawn in braces, or secured in a network, so that no accident might arise if it sprung; the bolt with an iron point and a feather shaft was provided for the popinjay, with filed iron teeth, which, in hitting, split the joints of the wood; the pointed or, later, the blunt bolt served for target practice; the archer shot without a rest. The cross-bow, up to the Thirty Years' War, was considered by the prize-shooters as the most distinguished weapon, and continued so, even long after it had been supplanted by fire-arms in war and in the chase; it was more especially retained by the aristocratic party, the princes and patricians. If a prize-shooting with crossbow and fire-arms was announced, the competition between the cross-bow and the arbalat was at the beginning, the fire-arms at the conclusion with inferior prizes; much of the fun of the festival was attached to the cross-bow shooting. But at the beginning of the sixteenth century, at all the prize shootings, the use of fire-arms had increased at least twofold.

About the year 1400, fire-arms began to be heard at the prize-shooting festivals. At Ausgburg, in 1429, hand-guns and muskets were used, and guns with small lead balls. In 1446 the first prize shooting with arquebuses and muskets was held; afterwards the hand-gun in its various forms always prevailed. The practical Swiss were among the first to give the preference to fire-arms. As early as 1472, at the great prize shooting at Zurich, only guns were announced; after that, at important festivals, both weapons had prizes assigned to them, but at smaller ones frequently only fire-arms. The gun of the prize-shooter, up to 1600, was the smooth hand-gun for one ounce balls, with a straight or crooked stock,--all grooves were forbidden.[61] The shooter fired without a rest; the gun when fired was not to rest upon the shoulder; it was not to be supported by any strap in the sleeve or round the neck; it was only to be loaded with one ball; the gun was only to have a small round sight at the end. After 1600 rifled weapons, for the first time, received prizes at special meetings. At Basle, in 1605, a prize shooting for arquebuses was announced, the distance 570 feet, the target two and a half feet round the nail; and for muskets with crooked or straight grooves and balls of one ounce--distance, 805 feet; target, three and a half feet. It must be mentioned, by the way, that sometimes at great shooting festivals heavy guns were also used, such as arquebuses, falconets and serpents, as in Strasburg 1590, at Breslau in 1609, and frequently at Leipsic, where these exercises were preferred; however splendidly these festivals, after the pattern of the old prize shootings, were appointed, they had more especially a practical aim, and were not generally attended by strangers.

Different as the weapons so was the mark. The bird on the pole was very ancient. But when guests began to appear in numbers the bird was inconvenient. The duration of the shooting could not be reckoned upon; a violent wind easily diverted the course of the bolts. At last the pole fell altogether, or the bird broke off, before it was shot into splinters; the falling splinters also gave occasion to much quarrelling and discontent. The consequence was, that in the greater part of Germany, the more convenient shooting butt very soon supplanted the bird at all large cross-bow meetings; this was the case in Switzerland and Suabia. On the other hand, the Thuringians, Meisseners and Silesians, long adhered to the bird. In Breslau the popinjay shooting was practised in great perfection; there, after 1491, a heavy bird of silver, richly gilded, with gold chains and golden shield, and the city arms on the breast, was carried before the king of the shooters. But at the prize shooting of the Silesians many birds were set up of different colours and with prizes of different value. Thus in Breslau, in 1518, they set up three birds--red, green, and black; each person who knocked off one of the forty joints of the birds gained a silver spoon; but, besides this, there was also cross-bow shooting at a mark, a small square target. In the year 1560 there were again three at Breslau; and at the grand shooting at Loewenberg, in 1615, there were five birds. The fallen splinters which had not brought special prizes were weighed, and only those of half an ounce were of value.

But the butt targets, also for cross-bows and fire-arms, were various. For the cross-bow a small circular plate, sometimes plated, and the outer circle painted with a garland, was fixed on the dark shooting butt, and after each course exchanged for a new one; for the fire-arms there was almost always a hanging target, and in 1518 at Breslau a shield--that is to say, a painted wooden table. The distance from the shooting stand to the mark for the cross-bows was 340, and later 300 feet; for the fire-arms from 650 to 750 feet. These are wide distances for weapons so imperfect in comparison with our times. On special occasions, when any young princes attended the festival, nearer marks were prepared for them--a half distance,--and other prizes. At such shooting feasts the whole of the adjoining Court took part.

The preparations in the city began some months before the feast. The lodgings were prepared for the guests; the safety of the city was provided for; the goldsmiths worked in silver the prize cups and vases, and struck also medals and show specimens; the tailors stitched incessantly at new festival dresses for halberdiers, pages of honour, and motley personages; the shield painters drew arms, garlands, and ciphers, on more than a hundred standards. On the shooting ground the lists were marked; wooden boards brightly coloured, and adorned with representations of fir-trees, garlands, and colonnades; the interior of the shooting-house was newly painted, and later carpeted; shooting-stands and pavilions erected for the shooters, and clerks booths; outside the lists there were kitchens, bowling-grounds and booths; also a spring for the water-drinkers, which, in case of need, was newly dug. Especial care was taken, at these cross-bow meetings, of the small target where the bull's-eye was. As these cross-bow meetings were in all respects arranged in the most finished style, and were a pattern for other similar shooting-meetings, we will describe many of their usages. The target place was a large wooden building, that represented the front of a house with doors and many stories, or looked like a triumphal arch, or a temple with cupola towers, or sometimes like the high wooden altar of the sixteenth century, all beautifully painted with the colours of the city or country, ornamented with coats of arms and figures. At Strasburg, in 1576, there stood great sculptures, a griffin and a lion keeping watch on each side; beneath, in the middle of the building, was the butt, either covered with some dark colour or canvas. It could be turned round by mechanism, in order that after each course the bolts might be drawn out without danger, and the butt provided with a new circular plate, for the next shooting meeting of the society. Sometimes the whole heavy building which rose above it was movable, and turned to face the rows of seats for the different divisions of shooters. Beside the butt itself, there were in the building sometimes small projecting guard-houses, or little turrets, for the markers, from which they could watch the target without being hit. At the top of the building there was a complicated clock, with the ciphers from one to four on the dial-plate, and over it a bell. On the highest point stood generally a movable carved figure, often Fortune on a ball (for example, in 1576, at Strasburg; 1586, at Ratisbon; in 1614, at Dresden), which after a bad shot turned her back on the shooter; or as at Coburg, in 1614, a mannikin on a tower, who after a good shot waved a banner, or for a bad shot mockingly bit his thumb.

When these preparations of the honest citizens approached their completion, it became necessary for the council to search out some of those minor officials of the festivities whose occupation is not what can be called very noble, but was quite indispensable, the _Pritschmeister_.[62] For a great festival, four, five, or more of these fellows were desirable; but they were not to be found in every city. If they were not at the place, they were sent for to Nueremberg and Augsburg, or wherever else in the country they happened to be wandering. It was a very ancient vocation that they followed At the same time that the fantastic city tournaments of the young patrician were transformed into the useful shooting exercises of the martial citizen, this tomfoolery had changed into a peaceful civic occupation, which retains something of the duties of the old herald, and not less of the old festive jesting of the roving fool. They were criers, improvisatori, police-officers, and buffoons of the prize shooters; they understood accurately the _convenance_, manners, and every ceremonial of the shooting-ground; gave good counsel to hesitating regulators of the festival; delivered the poetical festival speeches; punished light transgressions against the rules of the shooting-ground with the fool's baton; and even helped at the festive banquet, when necessary, by a rough joke, or even by serving. They had come from far, and knew how to deal with proud princes and strict councillors. When it was not festival time, they carried on a modest trade that did not require much perseverance. But sieve-making or the wool trade did not please them in the long run: at least they describe themselves, in the numerous verses they have left behind them, as poor devils,[63] who eagerly looked out for the rumour of some great festival at Court, and went many days' journey, speculating whether perhaps they might have an opportunity to exercise their office at some prize shooting. If they did not succeed in that, there still remained to them the pleasure, during the festival, of waiting upon old patrons among the shooters, and, by dint of toadying, of obtaining wherewith to fill their hungry stomachs; finally, they had the old consolation of poets, to describe in verses the occupation they had no longer the pleasure of joining in, and collecting remuneration for these verses. It is true that their descriptions of friendly and distinguished prize shootings are almost always in very bad rhyme; but they are very valuable to us, because they introduce us to the smallest details of those festivals. The office, too, of _pritschmeister_ is worthy of observation.

It is only in accordance with German nature to make the fool the police-officer of the festival. The blow of his baton strikes the lord as well as the peasant boy, and his irony lashes the arrogant prince's son, and brings the colour into the cheeks of the most impudent. The sensitive pride of the _Junker_,--every offence to which, from a yeoman of the guard, would have been resented as a deadly affront,--unresistingly suffered the _pritschmeister_, in the exercise of his office, to seize and drag him to the place of punishment. But even the jests of the _pritschmeister_ are deserving of observation, for they are lasting; an endless variety of tricks and pleasantries, a definite hereditary art of being merry, typical forms of foolery many hundred years old; and they were earned on with a certain earnestness,--nay, even pedantry. Undoubtedly these stale tricks had their irresistible effect only when men were disposed to be in a merry humour, but their antiquity makes them to us like woodcuts, in the angular lines of which there lies a certain charm. When, for example, at the end of the shooting, the unfortunate shooter, who had won the last prize, received this prize,--a sow with six young ones,--from the _pritschmeister_, who wished him happiness, and calculated at length the increase of the porcine family in his house from year to year, and that he would after three years become master of 2401 head, the hearers of the joke were not the less amused because they had heard the same reckoning made ever since their childhood on similar occasions; for it acts like a melody, that exercises its greatest magic on the hearer when it has become familiar to him.

The _pritschmeister_ knew well that it was his duty to be a fool. It is true, there were some proud fellows among them who were ashamed of their cap; but they were derided by their own companions. Thus in 1573, the _pritschmeister_ of Zwickau was serious and haughty; but he suffered for it under the contemptuous shrugging of the shoulders of his colleague, Benedict Edelbeck, who had wandered from Bohemia to the prize shooting, and knew better what became a _pritschmeister_. They bore also certain tokens of the fool,--the cap, and a striking variegated dress, in the colours of the city, which they kept as a festival present. At particularly distinguished shooting feasts they were very grandly attired; for example, at Coburg in 1614, there were five of them who wore the colours of the royal house,--yellow silk waistcoat, black hosen, yellow English stockings, long black and yellow knee ribands, beautiful Cordova shoes with silk ribands, a Spanish velvet hat with yellow feathers, a kasseke with loose sleeves, red, yellow, and black embroidery before and behind, with coats of arms; besides all this, the large club, and round the knee a string of bells, which rattled loud.

Their batons, often preposterously large, of leather or of split clacking wood, and sometimes gilded, had much to do on the shooting-ground. With them they cleared the lists of the thronging people, and punished those who transgressed the rules. Anyone who ran between the shooter and his mark after the clock was set, anyone who disturbed the shooters at their stand, who misbehaved from drunkenness or insolence, or who injured the weapons of strangers from wantonness or spite, fell under their jurisdiction without respect of rank; and this jurisdiction was exercised in a remarkable way. Far on one side of the shooting-ground was erected a conspicuous scaffold, on which were two coloured benches. This building was called, according to an old bitter jest, "the gallows;" and later, the "_pritschmeister's_ pulpit;" to it the culprit was led with many grotesque ceremonies, there laid upon the bench, and belaboured with the baton in a way which was neatly expressed in the old technical language by this sentence, "His head was cut off at the tail." At the same time the _pritschmeister_ delivered a discourse, which did not make his position more agreeable. One may conceive how attractive this practice of the law was to all who did not partake of it. The custom was carried on through the whole of Germany, most moderately by the serious Swiss, and decorously and impartially in the cities. At a later period, when great princes arranged shooting festivals, traces of royal humour are to be found, which enjoined the performance of this scene on minor personages for insignificant misdemeanours. Thus, after the prize shooting in 1614, Elector Johann Georg diverted himself by having not only some scullions, but even one of his bears cudgelled; the bear had to be chained to the bench. The _pritschmeister_ obeyed his Electoral Grace, but in his inward heart he felt that such things were not in his office.

As assistants to the _pritschmeister_, some of the most idle boys of the city were chosen, and they also were put in fool's attire. Among this insolent brood the most zealous guardians of the law were to be found; they easily learnt some of the tricks of their master, and they carried goose wings, wooden clappers, and short pipes. They fell like a pack of hounds on any peasant child that ran across the shooting-ground, and greeted such as had shot ill with grimaces and monkey gestures. At Coburg they went in procession in a great band, dressed in black linen with white seams and patches, following a tall dark man, who wore a similar dress, and trousers after the old Landsknecht fashion. He was the head shoemaker, Martin Pauker, a gloomy, haggard fellow, who never spoke a word, but during the whole shooting was incessantly assuming grotesque disguises. In the procession he trailed along an enormous linen banner, the doubtful badge of honour for those who had shot worst of all; but on the return home he bore the great kettle drum, which he allowed to be beat upon his back; on the shooting-ground he appeared as a wild man, enveloped in straw and brushwood; then as a monk or nun; but soon he came in a splendid dress, riding on an ass, and at last waddled about in bearskin; he was always disguising himself, always drunk and dismal, but he had his own quiet enjoyment in the whole affair.[64]

If _pritschmeisters_ were engaged by the givers of the feast, and the city was in repute for doing its duty, possessed good friends, and had announced grand prizes, there was sure to be a great concourse. The invited cities had the festival announced to their citizens by affixing public notices, or by proclamations. It was with them an affair of honour to be represented by good marksmen, and these frequently received money for their journey out of the city coffers, in return for which, when they went home, they handed over the silk banners they had won to the council or shooting society. These deputies were generally men of distinction; but besides these there were other citizens who went to the meeting at their own cost. Thus at Coburg in 1614, besides the four shooters who were sent by the city of Schweinfurt, one Hans Schuessler, a small, insignificant man, had come on his own account. His fellow-citizens looked askance at him and excluded him from their society, but he hit the bull's-eye at the first shot: then he jumped for joy, and exclaimed, "I was not good enough for my country people to bring me with them; now, God willing, I will do better still." He made the most bull's-eye shots, and won a beautiful goblet.

A day or two before the festivities, the strangers who came to shoot arrived from all parts. The council had to provide them with cheap quarters, and it was enjoined on the citizens that they were to abstain from annoying them. Many of the strangers met with a hospitable reception from some of the cities. If royal persons were invited, their arrival was announced by a courier; they were received by the council, lodged, and provided with the usual gift of honour,--wine, beer, and fish. Sometimes a preliminary shooting trial took place with the guests who had arrived before the first day of the festival; on such an occasion at Ratisbon in 1586, a beautiful large goat, covered with red Lund cloth, together with a beautiful banner, was presented by the council to the best shot. In Suabia and Bavaria a goat thus attired was often given at these smaller shooting trials.

On the morning of the festival the _pritschmeister_, with the city band, went through the streets, calling the strangers to the meeting at the shooting-ground. The givers of the festival marched in solemn procession, the _pritschmeister_ in front; behind, the markers, equally in new dresses and the colours of the city, their marking rods in their hands; then the trumpeters and fifers; next the dignitaries and marksmen of the city, followed by a train of young boys of the city, all dressed alike in festal attire, sons of families of distinction, who bore the small target banners; after them perhaps, led by a _pritschmeister_ or some other jovial personage, the boys with the contumelious banners, the derisive distinction of the bad shots. Then came other boys, who bore coloured chests, in which were the bolts and the principal prizes of the shooting. The large and small goblets were either brought out during the procession, or placed in a special pavilion on the shooting-ground, under the care of the city police.

On the shooting-ground the drum was again beat, and the marksmen called together by the _pritschmeister_. The deputy of the city then delivered a solemn address of greeting, in which he called to mind the old friendship of the invited cities, and expressed his best wishes for the festival. The _pritschmeisters_ went again with music round the shooting-ground, and one of them proclaimed aloud once more the programme of the invitation, and admonished the marksmen to collect together by cities, and choose their "_siebeners_" or "_neuners_." These were magistrates of the shooting-ground, the higher judges of shooting law; they were chosen out of the most distinguished men of the town, some by the givers of the feast, others by the shooters according to their districts. If the larger cities, Nueremberg, Augsburg, or Magdeburg, were among the guests at the beating of the drum, it was decided by them which should be chosen as representatives of the strangers. The free Imperial cities were more particularly designated for this, equally so any royal personages present, who often even undertook the wearisome task of "_neuner_." These were treated with particular distinction at the entertainment. Among them were the secretaries, frequently three, who noted down in special tents the announcements of the shooting. Every marksman had to show beforehand his bolts and bullets, cross-bow and gun; each bolt was examined, whether its iron point could pass through the opening of the parchment ring, for the thicker bolts made a larger opening in the target, and the measurement being taken from the edge of the hole to the centre point, the difference of thickness in one bolt would be prejudicial to the others. If the bolt was proof-worthy, the name of the possessor was written on the shaft, and only bolts so inscribed could be used. Every shooter had, besides, to make his money deposit before he was allowed to shoot. These preparations occupied many hours, often the greater part of the first day. The time was frequently filled up by a collation, given by the city council to the strangers who shot: in the earlier and more moderate period it consisted of wine, good beer, and simple food, fruit, cakes, butter and cheese. When the marksmen were inscribed and had made their deposits, they were divided into "quarters" or banners,--three, five, and more banners; frequently each "quarter" had its special stand.

Now at last began the great shooting in "courses," or "shots with the cross-bow," so that the "quarter" shot one after the other, each shooter one shot.

Opposite to the place of the target, in a special wooden building, were the stands of the shooters. But their method of shooting appears striking to us. Before the beginning of the course, a _pritschmeister_ went over the shooting-ground with fifes and drums, and called the marksmen by divisions to their stands. They pressed forward to it in haste, and sat in rows, according to regulation, by lot, each in the stand to which his name was affixed. As long as the division was shooting, no one left his stand, and none of the neighbours must disturb them by word or movement. Thus they sat, cross-bow in hand; then the _pritschmeister_ called out, "Marker, set the clock going." At the signal the hand was set in motion, each "quarter" being signified by the striking of the clock. During this time each marksman was to shoot; he shot sitting, at least such was the custom in the interior of Germany after the middle of the sixteenth century, but they were not allowed to support either themselves or their crossbows. When the hand had finished its circuit round the clock, the bell sounded, a steel mirror was lowered by a hempen cord, and covered the dial-plate, and a grating either rose from the earth, or descended from the wooden building in front of the butt, in order to guard it from the eager shooters. Then began the labours of the _neuner_, secretaries and markers. If the butt was movable, it was turned round. Behind it stood a table for the secretaries, the inscribed bolts were drawn out, the bull's-eye shot and those in the circles were transcribed, the farthest shot also was noted down. But the marker filled up the holes made by the bolts, blackened the injured places in the butt, and put on a new plate. In this way the collective divisions of marksmen having fired one shot, the bolts were borne in solemn procession with the _pritschmeister_, fifes and drums, to the shooting-house: there the less successful bolts were placed in the box of their owner, but those which had been distinguished shots were laid in an ornamental wooden _Attrape_; in Zwickau, in 1573, it was a large white swan, the city arms. The bolt of the bull's-eye had a place of honour, and the most distant had also a distinguished place. After this first course the distribution of prizes began.

They endeavoured to give marks of distinction in every direction, and to provide as many marksmen as possible with prizes; but our ancestors did not object to humiliate by bitter jests those who had performed