|
It is not far from Nuremburg, with which it is
often compared. But while Nuremburg possesses magnificent, artistic
monuments, it is entirely inadequate as an illustration of what a
medieval town was like. It is big, noisy and prosperous.
Rothenburg, on the other hand, offers a
complete and perfect idea of the environment amid which Germans of the
Middle Ages lived. It is set upon beautiful hills, still entirely
surrounded by ancient walls with their battlemented towers all unchanged
by the presence of the Twentieth Century. Through its gate runs the road
to yesterday, and once within, today grows very remote, and there are
actually incarnate before you the streets, the dwellings, the public
places, where men lived, and fought, and loved, and romanced five
centuries and more ago.
In nearly every other medieval city that the
writer has visited, the town has outgrown the old walls, and the new
buildings hide the ancient ramparts and prevent the approach presenting
to you that same picturesque view which the men of the Middle Ages had
of the towered walls and piled-up roofs and spires within. But, with the
exception of the houses that have sprung up along the road leading from
the little railroad station to the Roder-Tor, which is one of the city
gates, Rothenburg still lies wholly within the walls, so that from every
point of view, save the railroad station, the town looks now as you come
upon it exactly as it did in the Middle Ages-looks for all the world
like one of Howard Pyle's illustrations in his Arthurian stories.
The city is built upon a plateau that brings
the level country to its walls on every side but the west; here the land
falls steeply away directly from the base of the walls, to the valley of
the Tauber some three hundred feet below; and from these western walls,
and for miles along the river are some of the most beautiful sylvan
views in Bavaria. Indeed, it is this very combination of beauty both
within and without the walls to which Rothenburg owes the charm that so
endears it to visitors. And this charm lies in the unique blending of
rural beauty with a medieval picturesqueness absolutely unimaginable,
imparting in some subtle way a sense of profound and exquisite
peacefulness, a peacefulness that lingers in my memory as the dominant
fact of Rothenburg.
As we sat at dinner on the hotel balcony at
Wurtzburg and gazed across the darkening river to the castle fortress
silhouetted against the green sky, my friend, the architect, who will
always be a boy, exclaimed, " Let's go to Rothenburg now and get
the thrill of entering the walls at midnight! " So from nine
o'clock until almost twelve we crawled along in a half-lit train. We
changed to the little Rothenburg line at a station that seemed fittingly
mysterious in the dim light of an occasional lantern. From here on the
train had only third-class carriages, and only a passenger or two asleep
in the corners.
At Rothenburg the night air was cool and damp;
every now and then came the perfume of flowers. The hotel porter took
our baggage and we followed him. Presently we saw the dim line of a
lofty wall, the lift of a great tower; there was a bridge across a moat,
a weird space surrounded by walls, another tower only partly seen in the
darkness, and then a long street that seemed to come up out of a dream,
so empty was it, so still and so strange. A bell somewhere tolled
twelve, and we did thrill to the mystery and the adventure of it-to the
remoteness, not only of place, but of time, for we did not seem in the
Bavaria of today, but of the ancient time of knights and battles, of
mystery and romance.
From the corner room on the upper floor of the
hotel I looked out into the blackness of what I could sense was a vast
space. Far below I could hear the tinkle of running water, and from out
the night came again the faint odor of flowers, but there was nothing to
see until morning. Then the view was glorious. The hotel is built
directly on the walls at a point where they form an angle, sweeping
forward on either hand in a magnificent panorama of blended roofs and
towers and battlements, all a mass of soft reds and yellows. Directly
beneath the walls the ground drops away to the tiny river, crossed by a
curious twostory bridge, and then slopes upward again to the pastured
hills that roll gently away to the far horizon.
Out in the town one picture succeeds another
with every turn. Originally the walls were built to inclose a population
of about five thousand, and as the city grew, a second line of
fortifications was erected, which still forms the outer wall, as for the
last four hundred years or so the population has remained at about eight
thousand. The gateways of the older, inner line of defense create some
wonderfully interesting pictures, the most noted of which are the Markus
Tower, the White Tower, and, most famous of all, the Plonlein. This last
owes much of its extraordinary picturesqueness to the fact that the
street branches just before it, one fork leading to the Kobolzeller Gate
shown at the right, which is on the outer wall, and the other leading
through this Plonlein gate.
One of the most interesting of the outer gates
is the Klingen-Tor. To the right of this tower the wall is made
beautiful by climbing vines and pear and plum trees trained upon it
after the manner of English gardens. Mounting the wall at the
Klingen-Tor one can walk upon it for several miles around the city.
Through the loop-holes are caught vistas of a country rich in orchards
and flowers, and on the town side there are repeated views of roofs and
towers. Here and there the wall broadens to a platform where ancient
cannon still stand, or the yet older machines for throwing heavy stones
at the besiegers. At one point, though not within the limits of this
walk, there is yet hanging the great iron cage in which the
Rothenburgers used to imprison their malefactors while the crowd would
gather below to watch the wretched victim slowly starve to death. But
today all the ancient cruelty has vanished from these most kindly and
simple folk. It may be the effect of the peculiar peacefulness of the
beautiful landscape that surrounds the town; or it may be the sense of
isolation that must inevitably come to men who live in an environment so
altogether of the past, but something has set them apart from even their
fellow Bavarians. A certain definite placidity is stamped upon their
kindly and intelligent faces; a certain well-defined grace of manner,
even in the little children, and a remarkable courtesy distinguish old
and young alike.
Everyone bows to the stranger, and the humbler
men doff their hats as they wish you good-morning. I was sitting on a
log down by the bridge one afternoon, when three little children, aged
perhaps three and five and six, approached, and each, with the utmost
gravity, proceeded to shake hands with me. I was so overcome that I
could think of nothing to say but, " How d'y' do, how d'y'
do," and as they gravely departed on their way, I heard the
youngest softly repeating to himself, " How de do, how de do."
There are flowers and vines everywhere, and
such flowers; never have I seen the like of the roses, the dahlias and
the asters that grow riotously around even the humblest cottage. And
never can one forget the great balcony of the Rathhaus, a blazing heap
of flowers and vines.
But this Rathhaus that now looks so a part of
the peaceful picture has seen many a cruel and bloody deed, for the
history of this ancient city has been a stirring one. First mentioned
historically in 804, it was incorporated as a free city by Barbarossa,
and has entertained kings and emperors as its guests, sometimes by
invitation and sometimes in spite of itself when armed invasion was
successful.
The zenith of its power as a factor in affairs
was under Burgomaster Toppler, late in the Fourteenth Century. He was
really a wonderful man, and made of his city a power felt throughout all
Germany so that distant princes sought his alliance. And then, just as
he was opening for Rothenburg a career of glory, his people conspired
against him. On the sixth of April, 1408, he was deposed, and a few
months later he died in prison; his name was blotted from the town
records, and his property confiscated. Now the town builds monuments to
his memory.
Following Toppler's death, the prestige of
Rothenburg waned; many of the wealthier citizens moved away, and so few
skilled artisans remained that builders from Nuremburg had to be
imported to design the buildings of the period. Then came the Peasants'
War, when mad revolt swept Rothenburg into a frenzy, and the town was
delivered first to the mob and later to the avenging aristocracy, who,
once in power, executed some sixty of the revolutionaries and drenched
this peaceful market-place in blood.
Even more vivid were those days during the
Thirty Years' War, when Tilly's conquering hosts stormed the walls.
Thirty thousand of his veterans assailed the city with continuous
assault for thirty hours. Every man in the city was on the defenses, but
at last, worn with sleeplessness, decimated by shot, their ammunition
exhausted, and their walls crumbling beneath them, the defenders
surrendered. Enraged at the loss inflicted upon his army, Tilly decreed
the death of the town councilors, the expulsion of the inhabitants and
the utter destruction of the city. But it so chanced that the
Burgomaster's daughter knew the secret of a marvelous punch, and while
Tilly raved she brewed the liquor, and, when the opportunity came,
presented it to him with bended knee. The effect was propitious; another
cup and then another, and then the great General summoned all the people
to the market square, and offered them their homes, their city and the
lives of their councilors if any one of them could drink at one draught
a hunting-horn filled with this marvelous punch. I have seen this horn,
now preserved in the museum, and take my word for it, it was a
tremendous task; but one Herr Nusch undertook the deed and won. And to
this day every year at Whitsuntide, there is enacted by the whole town
in costume the festival play of Der Meistertrink, or the Master Drink,
which Rothenburgers claim is among the oldest of Germon folk plays. But
the spirit of the place was crushed, and a century or so later a band of
thirty soldiers forced the gates and exacted a tribute from the city.
True, in 1800 the townspeople plucked up courage to defeat a band of
seventeen French soldiers who demanded the surrender of the town, but
two years later it opened its gates to the forces of Bavaria, of which
kingdom it then became and has since remained a part.
There is not that wealth of folklore and legend
in Bavaria that so enriches the region of the Harz; in fact, I know of
but one tale connected with Rothenburg that is worth the telling, for a
translation of which I am indebted to SchaufHer's Romantic Germany. The
church of St. James is thrown directly across a street that takes its
way along a gloomy passage underneath. Upon a time when prosperity had
made the townspeople forgetful of evil and its author, the Devil thought
it behooved him to reestablish himself in the public mind, so one dark
night he lurked in this passage, and, seizing the first passerby, threw
him with great force against the wall. " The body fell down dead,
but the soul stuck to the stones and you can see it there yet, sort of
black, with brown spots."
Up to a few years ago Rothenburg remained
unknown to the tourist, but of late it has been discovered, and until
the recent war the summer always found it filled with visitors, most of
whom were English. A little while at most and Rothenburg will be on the
beaten track, but for a time it is sure to retain its individuality and
charm.
|
