German Life and Manners as seen in Saxony at the present day: with an account of village life, town life, fashionable life, ... of Germany at the present time: illustrated with songs and pictures of the student customs at the University of Jena

Chapter I

— VILLAGE LIFE; AND MORE PARTICULARLY THAT OF THE LITTLE SAXON VILLAGE OF MOHRA, FORMERLY THE HOME OF THE OLD LUTHER FAMILY. A STUDENTS' DUEL AT JENA. GERMAN LIFE & MANNERS AS SEEN IN SAXONY AT THE PRESENT DAY: WITH AN ACCOUNT OF VILLAGE LIFE— TOWN LIFE— FASHIONABLE LIFE- DOMESTIC LIFE— MARRIED LIFE— SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY LIFE, &c., OF GERMANY AT THE PRESENT TIME: Illustrate WITH SONGS AND PICTURES OF THE STUDENT CUSTOMS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA. ET HENRY MAYHEW, AUTMOn OF "LONDON LABOUR AND LONDON TOOE," "GREAT WOULD OF LONDON," ETC. LONDON: Wm. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 1805. The Eight of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved. PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. The very extensive circulation enjoyed by the previous editions of Mr. Henry Mayhew's "German Life and Man ners as seen in Saxony/' has induced his Publishers to issue that amusing work in a cheaper and more condensed form, to suit the requirements of the reading public at large.

Of the truthfulness and vivacity of Mr. Mayhew's sketches of domestic life at Eisenach, and of student life at Jena, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. His strictures are certainly severe, and at times too forcibly expressed, but their justness has never been called into question by any one really conversant with the inner de tails of Saxon households. It may be true, that he did " nothing extenuate," but it is at least equally true, that he has " set down naught in malice." His disgust and in dignation at the filthy and penurious habits, the vulgar pretentiousness, the coarse and clownish manners of the people in whose land he was a sojourner, may occasionally have betrayed him into the use of language opposed to the honey -tongued fashion of the day ; but his delineations of "society" in Eisenach, and at Jena, are not the less vivid publishers' notice.

VIII and life-like. They are, indeed, perfect photographs, and should be carefully studied by all who have any idea of fixing their own residence in Saxony. In the present edition, care has been taken to omit every passage in the least degree calculated to offend the most fastidious taste. The plain facts are left to speak for themselves. The pruning knife has also been applied to certain digressions of a somewhat rambling character, and a few chapters have been passed over, full, indeed, of valuable information, but perhaps for that very reason unacceptable to the general reader. The admirable illustrations which graced the more voluminous and costly edition are, for the most part, given in the present one, and add not a little to its attrac tiveness. In conclusion, the Publishers take this opportunity of announcing their intention to issue a series of interesting works in a similar form, and at a similar price, in the belief that, even amid the prevailing plethora of light, but highly-seasoned literature, there are still thou sands who would prefer a more wholesome and substantial repast. CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PA'JE

The Luther Village on the Saxon Moors 3

The Saxon Servants 99

Chapter XII

Before Marriage 110 CHAPTER XHI. Marriage Customs 119 CHAPTER X1T. After Marriage 131

CHAPTER XV.

From the Cradle 139

CHAPTER XVI.

To the Grave 144

CHAPTER XVII

The Schools of Eisenach 158

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the Modern Currend Schools in Eisenach CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTER XIX PAGE

Of the Old Currend School in Eisenach at the Time of Martin Luther 188

CHAPTER XX.

The Forest-School and Forest-Students, the Forest-Men, and the Expense of Fuel in Saxony 202

CHAPTER XXI.

Student Life at Jena 214

CHAPTER XXII.

Of the Beer- Drinking Customs at Jena 236 CHAPTER XXIH. Of the Drinking-Bouts of the Jena Students 261

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of the Duels at Jena 296

CHAPTER XXV.

Three Fights in Jena 318

CHAPTER XXVI.

Ancient Religion of Thuringia 333

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Old Pagan Feast of Summer's Victory, as it is Kept at the Present Time in the Thuringian Capital 343

CHAPTER XXVIII

- The "Feast of Summer's Victory," as Formerly Celebrated in Eisenach . . CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PALlE The Different Kinds of Legends . 3/0

CHAPTER XXX.

The Story of the Wonderful Loves of Tannhauser and Venus, and of the Singers' Contest at the Wartburg ..... 387

CHAPTER XXXI.

Story of the Charity of the "Holy Elizabeth" . . . .396

CHAPTER XXXII.

The Story of the Stolen Princes 405

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The Story of Frederick with the Bitten Cheek . . . .413

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Story of " Ludwig the Iron " 419

CHAPTER XXXV.

The Story of the Crippled Meat-Carrier of the Brandenburg . . 425

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Story of " Cock-Crow " Farm and the Black Mason who Built it 431

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Why is Germany so Poor ?........

Chapter I. The Luther Village On The Saxon Mooes

" Thank the powers and the ' extra post, ' " we said to ourselves, as the postilion cracked his whip and blew his bugle on entering the queer mud-built little place, " at last we are in Mohra — Mohra, the native place of Hans Luther, the great German Pieformer's father, and from time immemorial the home of the ancient Luther family." In Mohra ! a little village on the outskirts of the Thuringian forest, a good thousand miles away from London, and at least an hour's journey from any town in which there is either a post-office, a money-changer's, or even a butcher's or a baker's shop. Linen-drapers and apothecaries, — those twin children of luxury, begotten by the astute love of having one's daughters, as well as one's dinners, richly-dressed, — have long since disappeared from the thoroughfares during our journey; and now (for we write this description in Mohra itself), the principal hotel in the place has no greater delicacy in its larder than black puddings — or " red sausages " as the Germans style them — and black bread, with a chopin or two of " einfaches," (or literally, infinitesimally-small) beer, for the regalement of the traveller.

But whereabouts is this Mohra? — this primeval home, whither crinolines and dinner-pills have not yet made their way — this land of ox-wa"ons, rather than locomotives, where the ladies wear truncated black-silk extinguishers, in the place of " sailors' hats " GEBMAN LIFE AND MANNERS. and the gentlemen incase their feet in Holzpantoffeln (wooden slippers), instead of "patent leathers." Where on the earth is this little Arcadian colony to be found ? Search the best map in Germany, and even with the strongest magnifying glass you will not discover the name of the locality ; Murray, too, is "reticent" (to adopt the pet phrase of modern litterateurs) on the subject; and even the guide-books, specially descriptive of the topography of Thuringia, tell you only that, as you walk over from Eisenach to " Bad Liebenstein," you can just see, when a little way beyond Etterwinden, the church-steeple to the right bristling above the horizon.

What may be the precise latitude and longitude of the " Dorf che.n " (literally Thorpkin) bearing the name of Mohra, Heaven and Sir John Herschel only know. Suffice it to learn that it lies on the borders of Saxe-Meiningen, close to Saxe-Weimar, not above an hour or two from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and, indeed, in the immediate vicinity of Saxe-Everything. For, in these parts, kingdoms are as closely packed as parishes in the city of London, and princes swarm as thickly as beadles about St. Paul's on the Anniversary of the Sons of the Clergy. Accordingly, when mid way between Marksuhl and Salzungen (as the railway whisks us through the Thuringian forest from Eisenach to Meiningeu), the watchful eye may "sight" the little village, consisting of about as many houses as there are in a child's box of toys, with the cottages huddled together under the lee of the hills, — like a flock of sheep in a storm — and lying far away on the moors (der Moor grundj from which the townikin, or city-cule, or boroughlet, or wick ling, (whichever you please, dear reader) is said to derive its name.

The village itself is about the same size and shape as the tongue-like block of buildings dividing the Strand from Holywell Street, and consists of some seventy or eighty detached houses (mostly with large farmyards adjoining them) arranged in two long parallel lines, called respectively the Upper and Under Lanes. It contains about as many distinct families as there are houses, and numbers altogether just upon six times as many inhabitants as amilies, or not quite 500 men, women, and children ; so that the whole population might be comfortably stowed away in a middling sized garrison, a factory, an emigrant ship, or even the gallery of the Victoria Theatre. Indeed, the little church, whose nave is hardly bigger than one of our large furniture vans, affords ample accommodation for all the church-goers, even though none but the very little children stay away.

THE LUTHER VILLAGE. 5 The people here are mostly Acker-baucrn (literally acre-peasants) and day-labourers (Tage-lvhner), and possess altogether, among them, some 4000 acres of land ; for such is the extent of the " Gemeinde," i. e. of the entire landed property belonging to the little community. Now this would give an average of about half a hundred acres to each of the four-score families located in the village. Some, however, have as many as 150 and even 200 acres, and many, ou the other hand, only one ; while, owing to the law of " Gavelkind " which prevails here, and gives to each member of the family an equal share of the land, on the decease of the former proprietor, the soil has come to be so divided and sub divided, that even they who are lucky enough to hold more than a hundred acres, are the owners of as many different strips of land, situate in as many different places.

Hence the large farms in Mohra are merely an aggregation of petty ones, made up of an infinite variety of small patches, like a beggar's coat ; and what would go far to constitute a comparatively wealthy yeoman in other parts, serves merely to establish a magnified form of Irish cottier in these. It is superfluous, therefore, to add that all the appliances of "high-farming'' are entirely unknown in Mohra; indeed, the best idea we can give the reader as to the utter absence of all such implements as reaping machines, or threshing machines, even in the largest " economies " (as the farms are called) in the village, is to cite the fact that, during our stay at the school-master's house there, the daughter of the burgomaster (for even Mohra has its mayor) came over to dance one evening, and after waltzing for an hour or so begged to retire, though it was barely eight, saying she was sorry she was obliged to leave so soon, but she had to be up at one in the morning to go thresh ing in her father's barn.

In a town consisting mainly of peasants, of course handicrafts men and mechanics cannot be expected to flourish. There is only one carpenter among the Mohra population, and even he, from dearth of work at his own trade, has been forced to take to the more lucrative occupation of swineherd. One shoemaker, too, is there in the village ; but, said the pastor of the place to us, "Neither does he thrive, poor man!'' Nor are there any builders, for the houses are all of the " wattle and dab " style of structure, so that neither masons nor bricklayers are required, where the walls consist only of mud and wicker-work, rather than bricks or stones. On the other hand, not less than eight, or just a tithe of the four-score householders in the little colony, are woodcutters— a fact which is not only suggestive of the sylvan character of the country round about, but recalls the story of Hans Luther having followed the same occupation in these parts, as well as of Martin's mother having often carried home the bundles on her back, with her little ones, each laden with a faggot on his head, trotting by her side.

As we walked out towards Lauterbach early the other morning, we met several of these Mohra woodmen trudging along to the woods, some with their huge saws slung quiver-like at their back (the shark-like teeth stuck in a narrow wooden groove, or "sheath," as it is called, by way of protection) and with their hatchets over their shoulder ; and others with a long bill-hook, that seemed like an attenuated note of interrogation, borne, as if it were a halberd, high in the air. Even the few handicraftsmen numbered among the village population can hardly be said to be handicraftsmen proper, being rather a kind of mongrel type — half-boor, half artizan ; for the smiths and the tailors are, many of them, small farmers ; while the weavers, like the woodcutters, ply their trade only in the winter, and in the summer abandon the shuttle, as the others lay aside the axe, for the sickle and the scythe, the spade and the hoe.

Indeed, the two watchmen, whose duty it is alternately to guard the tiny colony by night, and to sound every hour on a horn under the windows of the sleeping peasants, from bedtime till day-break ; and who are allowed a pair of strong shoes every year, in consideration of their continually parading the streets from night till morning — even these are the cowherd and swineherd of the little community by day ; one half of their time taking care of the villagers themselves, and the other half minding their cattle and their pigs. Nor are the officials — the temporal and spiritual authorities of the hamlet — of a less agrarian character ; for the Herr Pastor has his flock, not only in a figurative, but in a literal sense of the term, aud finer sheep cannot be seen for miles around. The schoolmaster, on the other hand, is renowned for breeding the biggest calves in the parish, and cultivates early peas and young potatoes as well as youthful intellects ; while the burgomaster, or Schultheiss, as he was called till a few years back, is simplv the greatest boor in the parish ; and being a kind of petty magistrate as well as a small farmer, dispenses a rude form of agrarian justice, and cuts his chaff with equal alacrity.

The one policeman, indeed, who constitutes the entire " execu- THE LUTHER VILLAGE. 7 tive " portion of the village Government, is the only official who seems to have a pure and unmixed vocation ; though we doubt much whether he is not occasionally pressed into the rural service, and set to scare the crows off the land at sowing-time, as well as to drive away the beggars at other seasons. But if there are few pure mechanics and artizans, there are still fewer tradesmen in Mohra : if the manufactures do not flou rish there, at least one might expect to find some faint indication of commerce — were it only as much as a chandler's store — in the neighbourhood. But no ! you might as well look for a shop in Belgrave Square as in the Ober-and Unter-gasse of the Thuringian village ! Not a goldsmith's, nor a magazin des modes, nor a hair dresser's, nor a bookseller's, nor a maison de deuil, nor a pastry cook's, nor a doctor's, nor a banker's — no ! nor a pawnbroker's establishment exists in the place.

Neither is there a club-house, a casino, a theatre, a cafe chantant, a billiard-room, a mechanics' institute, a salon de lecture — nor even a prison — to be found from one end of the village to the other. The Gasthaus, or hostelry, indeed, is the only Magazin in the place — the Wilde Mohr (or " Savage Blackamoor," as the inn is called) doing the solitary bit of trade carried on in the parish ; for there, and there only, are coffee, sugar, candles, tobacco, and salt retailed, together with the most watery beer and the most fiery " Schnapps," to the villagers. Once during the fortnight which we passed in the neighbourhood, we saw an enterprising pedlar go up the Rohrigs-gasse with a string of felt over shoes and slippers dangling from his hand. But beyond this bold venture on the hawker's part, and the sight of an occasional horse being shod outside one of the smiths' doors, there was not a sign of trade or commerce visible in the whole parish.

So that one went along wondering what on earth the boors did with their money, or whether they really had any at all of the current tissue paper of the realm in their possession ; for, as they generally pay their wages in kind, and grow, not only their own food, but also the shirts and chemises, coats and petticoats of the entire family, it was not at all improbable that even the richest bauers, though they might be worth some thousands in pigs, cows, sheep, and land, had hardly a paper thaler, or a plated groschen to bless themselves with. What the amusements of such a people may be, beyond the annual excitement of the Eirmes (the harvest festival), the occa sional jollification of a Feiertag (a general holiday), the mild delight of a glass of einfaches Bier at the tavern on the Sunday evening, or the spasmodic pleasure of seeing a pig killed once every half year, we cannot presume to say.

But certainly, so far as we saw, there was not a pack of cards, nor a chess-board, nor a newspaper, aud hardly a book, in the place. The grown-up folk seemed to be in the barn and out in the fields, and the young ones in the school, from daybreak till nightfall ; so that, by the time they had given the pigs their supper and finished their own, and the cattle had been bedded up for the night, they were too ready for rest themselves to beheve that there was any better enjoyment of an evening than sleep. Nor have the women and girls any more time for pleasure than the men. A German, " who has seen the world " is generally horrified at what he calls the laziness of English and American wives and daughters ; and assuredly in Deutschland the female portion of the population work as hard as the cows.

Mohra, too, makes no exception to the national rule ; for, Heaven knows, there is not much embroidery-work done by the ladies there. On the contrary, the daughters, even of the richest bauers in the vil lage, rise usually at one in the morning throughout the " fore winter " (as it is called) to go threshing in the barn, and continue working away with the flail till breakfast-time ; after which the barn-floor is swept, and the girls proceed to break and swingle flax, till four in the evening, when they have to give the pigs their supper, and bed up the cattle for the night. Then the family Abend mahi (evening meal) is got ready, and by the time this is finished, it is generally six or seven o'clock, which, at that season of the year, is the usual hour for bed. In the " after winter," i.e. from Christmas till the spring-time, the invariable occupation is spinning — spinning from six in the morning till ten at night — the flax that before Christmas they had been engaged in dressing.

At this employment the men take part, even as the girls take their share of the more masculine work with the flail. In the spring, on the other hand, the Mddchen are busy in the meadows, bleaching the linen after the yarn has been made into cloth by the webster ; they have also then to be out in the fields, scattering the manure over the land, or else planting the potatoes, or hoeing the " Swedes," or picking the stones off tbe earth. Next, as the summer comes round, they must dig up the " earth apples," as the Dutch style them, help to make the hay, reap the corn, bind up the shocks, and gather the fruit. Nor is the labour list ended here : at every season of the year the girls must do all THE LUTHER VILLAGE. the washing of the household, as well as bake all the bread, chop all the sausage-meat, milk all the cows, besides fetching from the well all the water that is required for the cattle or the family, and carrying each time some ten gallons (100 lbs. weight) of fluid upon their backs in long conical tubs called Butten, that are strapped on to the shoulders.

Indeed, it was while the burgomaster's daughter was engaged in this not-particularlylady-like oc cupation, that we first had the pleasure of meeting that young lady. Such heavy work as this is, of course, to English minds, more fit for sturdy men than weak women ; and it forms by no means a pleasing picture to a person of the least refinement, to see a young girl with her body bent almost double, staggering along under the burden of nearly a hundred weight of fluid. Never theless, in Germany, a brother would rather have his sister drop with such a load than offer to carry it for her. The people tell you it is thought a disgrace for a man to be seen bearing burdens ; but they do not, on the other hand, consider it in any way un manly to allow a woman to do so. Accordingly, it is by no means an unusual sight to meet a market-woman, on the road to one of the large towns on a Saturday, with the Eorb on her back, laden to the nape of her neck, while the husband at her side calmly trudges along, with nothing but a stick in one hand and a pipe in the other ; the poor Frau labouring and panting away to keep up with her hulking and callous spouse.

But if the villagers are primitive and unpolished, assuredly the village itself is of the same character. It is, indeed, a kind of mud Switzerland — a little colony of clay " chalies," with their huge gables and broad eaves turned towards the road ; their doors, with porches as capacious as those of a country church, set at ihe side rather than the front of the houses ; and their bread and prune ovens, like enormous mud-heaps under a rude canopy of tiles, jutting out into the roadway. The walls of most of the houses are of a bright gingerbread colour, with the framework of iron-grey timbers showing, like a large trellis, through the "wattle and dab " work. Others are coloured a light pea-green, or a pale cream, and upon these the huge check pattern of the dark un painted beams stands out, with all the force of black and white, like a gigantic shepherd's plaid.

Some of the square compartments of plaster between the wooden framework, are ornamented with the most unartistic attempts at pictures of roses, tulips, and prancing horses ; roses like kidneys, tulips hke monster brandy-balls, and horses like rampant weasels. At the side of each house too, stands the farmyard, with its enormous barn, as big as a Lambeth Music Hall (for all the corn here is garnered, rather than stacked), stretching right across one side of the mucky quadrangle ; whilst, at frequent intervals, along each, or rather either, of the streets, there are wells of all forms and dimensions, from the double bucket dangling over a pulley the size of a railway wheel, down to the old Roman apparatus of a gigantic fishing rod, with a chain and pail at the upper end of it, instead of a hook and line.

The thoroughfares, moreover, are littered on either side with one long broken Hne of ploughs and empty carts, which are left outside of nearly every door, with an utter disregard of both weather and thieves ; and these, with the exception of a procession or two of geese, filing along, and cackling away, out in the middle of the road, are all that is to be seen in the streets of Mohra. But the main feature of the little village is the spot where the Wirthshaus — the principal (because the only) tavern — thrusts its little tin flag of a sign, no bigger than a child's pocket-handkerchief, out into the roadway. The sage, who stood godfather to the hostelry, and gave it its name of zum Wilden Mohren, evidently imagined that the wild moors, spoken of as having surrounded the village in former times, were a horde of barbarian black men, rather than part of a vast uncultivated bog ; and hearing that the village itself derived its title from these same moors of old, believed he could not do better than set up the portrait of some pot-valiant blackamoor for the insignia of the first hotel in the place.

Accordingly, the tavern sign consists of a rude painting of the ideal black bandit, on his prancing Arab steed, with a sabre in one hand, and a pot of einfaches Bier in the other ; as if he were bidding the customers (like Queen Eleanor did Fair Rosamond in the good old times of Hairy the Second) choose between the steel and the poison. And now for a word or two about the costume of the people in this primitive little Saxon Arcadia. The young women have all tall black silk head-dresses, in shape like truncated sugar-loaves, stuck right on the crown of the head, and with the back embroidered with spangles and beads, and with long broad streamers of black ribbon reaching down to the waist. The front of this Deckel-miitze, as it is termed, is arched over either eyebrow, and has a long, narrow tongue, called the Schnauze (literally, the snout), dividing the forehead into two semi-circular compartments, and reaching almost to the bridge of THE LUTHER VILLAGE. the nose.

The fashion, it must be confessed; is more peculiar than pretty, and is too strongly suggestive of the long pendulous excrescence dangling over a turkey-cock's beak to be in the least pleasing. The rest of the peasant-girl's costume consists of a small short-waisted cloth jacket, with high-shouldered leg-of mutton sleeves, and a linsey-woolsey petticoat, with plaits as thick as the folds of a fan all round the waist, and the skirts cut very short, so as to afford an ample view of the blue-grey stockings, with their showy "clocks," and the neat embroidered shoes that finish the " full-length." Some of the Mddchen in the neighbourhood are of enormous height. The burgomaster's daughter, though not sixteen years old, stood nearly five feet ten in her shoes ; and we saw one young woman who was ouly in her seventeenth year, and yet might have looked over the head of some of our Life-Guardsmen.

Their features, too, are more regular than those of the German women generally, the cheek-bones being a little less sharp and angular, the nose somewhat less broad and flat, the nostrils less like an inverted " accent circomflexe," and the mouth not merely a long straight gash in the face. The more elderly among the peasant-women wear nearly the same dress as the younger ones, except that the Miitze with them is somewhat dumpier, the peak or " snout" of it somewhat longer, and the back of it a shade less elaborately embroidered and bespangled than those of the girls. Indeed, so marked a characteristic is the high cap and short petticoats of the female portion of the peasantry in these parts, that amidst the 500 souls making up the entire population of the village, there were only two dames astute enough to wear bonnets; and these were, in the words of our informant, the Frau Wirthin and the Frau Pastorin — or, in plain English, the one was the wife of the innkeeper and the other the wife of the minister of the village ; the last-mentioned lady having been represented to us as being especially vornehm (stylish), from the fact that she not only carried a Hut (bonnet), but had her dresses made down to her heels also.

The fashions for the gentlemen are somewhat of the same un gainly character. Such of the boors as are attached to the more ancient institutions of their country wear for full-dress, on the Sundays and holidays, a kind of postilion's jacket, leather breeches, and high Wellington boots, the latter being made in the same style as those worn by the coachmen at a London funeral. Others, however, who delight to appear in the newest mode, lay aside the ancient postilion's jacket, and sport a kind of green duffle dressing-gown, with leg-of-mutton sleeves, which the village " bloods" have got to consider more stylish as full dress within the last fifty years. The same continuations, however, are invariably worn on high-days and holidays — unless, indeed, the undertaker boots be exchanged for a pair of old-Freneh-Guard like gaiters ; and these, with either a huge funnel-shaped hat, as rough as a Shetland pony, or else a woolly fez-cap of sheep-skin, constitute the approved Sunday toilet among the better class of peasant proprietors.

A peculiar social custom among these simple village-folk is the mode in which the girls select what they call their " Cameraden" (female companions) and " keep company" with the boys whom they have accepted as sweethearts. In the house in which we lodged there were two young women — Augusta and Amelia, the well-behaved and hard-working daughters of the village schoolmaster — the one sixteen yeare of age, and the other, perhaps, some couple of years her senior. Each of these girls had a different set of " comrades ;" nor did the companions of the one sister associate with those of the other. Amelia's comrades, for instance, consisted of the younger girls, who had just left school ; and those of Augusta (the elder sister) of the grown young women of the village : and when either sister had to receive her comrades and their sweethearts at home, the other was obliged to go out to one of her own com rades' house, and pass the evening there ; for she was never allowed to remain in the society of her sister's companions.