Chapter IV (1)

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE CLIPPERS OF MONEY, AND PUBLIC OPINION.

Monotonously did the death wail sound in the chronicles and records of fellow-sufferers. Where thousands were saved, millions were ruined and destroyed. The war was destructive of house, wealth, and life, alike in town and country. Manifold was the work of the destroying forces, but a higher force was unceasingly at work to ward off final ruin.

It is a marvellous circumstance, that in the same year in which the war in Germany expired, the interest of the people in public affairs was so far developed as to originate the first newspapers. In matters of faith, moral feeling and the judgments of individuals had for a century worked, but in politics it was only rarely and feebly that serious diversity of opinion was ventured to be expressed by private individuals. It was just when the recruiting drums of the princes were beating at every muster-place that public opinion began its first political struggle in the press. On an important social question, the intellectual leaders of the people rose up against the immorality of their own Sovereigns. We shall endeavour here briefly to exhibit the course of public opinion, and show what was stirred up and carried away by it during the war. It may more especially be discovered in the literature of the flying-sheets, which contended for and against the Bohemian King, condemned the _Kipper_ and _Wipper_, and did homage to the great Gustavus Adolphus, but at last became itself, like the nation, meagre and powerless.

It was after the beginning of the sixteenth century that the people began to receive news through the press, in a double form. One of these forms was a single sheet printed on one side, almost always ornamented with a woodcut, and after the sixteenth century, with a copper-plate engraving, under which the explanatory text was generally rendered in verse. In these flying leaves were communicated the appearances in the heavens, and comets; very soon also battles by land and sea, portraitures of the celebrities of the day, and the like. Much of the good humour, and coarse jests of the Reformation time are to be found in them. The art of the wood carver was in constant activity, and we find many characteristic peculiarities of the talents of the great painters impressed upon it. The other form was that of pamphlets, especially in quarto, frequently also ornamented with woodcuts. They gave information of every novelty; coronations, battles, and newly discovered countries; by them every striking event flitted through the country. After the Reformation, they increased enormously in number. All printing-houses gave birth to them under the titles of newspapers, advices, reports, and couriers. Besides these, there were the small controversial writings of the Reformers, sermons, discourses, and songs. Very soon also the Princes began to make use of the invention of printing, to inform the public of their quarrels, and to gain partisans. Private individuals whose rights were injured contended with their opponents, whether city magistrates or foreign rulers, in pamphlets. During the whole of the sixteenth century the aim of the small, not theological, literature, was first to impart news, and afterwards to serve the interests of individuals or princes, or to make known the views of those in power. The opinions of individuals upon political affairs were principally conveyed in a form which was then considered particularly ingenious, as pasquinades or dialogues. These small news sheets were innumerable, and their spread was rapid; after the Reformation it became a separate branch of industry. The booksellers, or as they were then called, stationers, who offered these newspapers for sale in their shops and stalls, and introduced them to the markets of foreign cities, made a dangerous competition with the printers, bookbinders, and illuminators. Important newspapers were everywhere pirated. Along the great trade and post roads, more particularly of the Rhine and southern Germany, certain trading and printing establishments made special gains from the communication of the daily news; for example, Wendelin Borsch, at the Tiler's Hut in Nuremberg, about 1571, Michael Enzinger at Cologne, at the end of the century, and others. These sheets at first were published very irregularly, but they already contained a correspondence from different cities, in which not only political, but mercantile intelligence was given.[32] At last, in 1612, appeared here and there separate newspaper sheets in numbers, and in a certain degree of continuity. Meanwhile it had been long the custom of the merchants to make such communications to their mercantile friends with some regularity, so that there already existed news-writers who were in the habit of forwarding written newspapers. This method of spreading intelligence had come to Germany from Italy. In Venice, from the year 1536, there were _Notizie Scritte_, written news in successive series, which continued there till the French Revolution. There also, appeared the first regular newspaper shortly before 1600, which it is stated took the name of _Gazzetta_ from a little coin which was the cost of the single numbers.

Soon after, the German newspapers began to appear regularly. In 1615 the first weekly newspaper was published at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, by Egenolf Emmel, bookseller and printer. In opposition to which, in 1616, the Imperial deputy postmaster Johann van der Brighden, published a competing paper called 'Political Notices.' From these two undertakings resulted the oldest German newspapers, the 'Frankfort Journal,' and the 'Oberpostamts Zeitung.'

But these and other weekly papers were for a long time, only news sheets in which opinions on the facts communicated were carefully withheld. The great stream of public opinion still continued for two centuries to run in the old direction; the flying leaves and occasional brochures.

At the beginning of the war even the distant readers were compelled to be violent partisans. Everywhere appeared controversial writings, opinions, councils, and deliberations. The nation was rent into large parties by this intellectual strife, and it is instructive to see how the writings of the disputants stand in exact relation to the success which their party had achieved. Till the battle of the Weissen Berge nine tenths of all the narratives and controversial writings are Protestant; they reached full a thousand in number. Hatred to the Jesuits blazed fiercely; bitter was the rancour against the Emperor, and incessant were the cautions against the League. After Prague, Strasburg was the centre of their warlike activity. Whilst at Prague the libel-writer von Rörig, as _Huss-redivius_, made his voice heard vehemently in many 'Political Discourses' against his adversary Sturm: the _magisters_ of Strasburg, after the fashion of Boccalini, made accusations against the same opponent, before Apollo and the high court of Parnassus; but their Apollo had to deliver human and explicit oracles. The answers in defence are cautious and uncertain, as during the whole war the Catholic party were generally not a match for the Protestants in the serious warfare of the pen. But the speedy flight of the new King of Bohemia suddenly changed the physiognomy of the literary market. The secret writings obtained as booty from the Bohemian party were published by their opponents; and about these bulky quartos there raged for years a battle of petty flying-sheets. Revengeful, and joyfully triumphant, the Imperialists sounded their pæan. It is true that in their brochures there was still some moderation, for they were obliged to spare the Lutheran Saxons; but so much the more irritably did they attack the enemy, in countless pictorial sheets and satirical verses. Endless and merciless were the satires on the fugitive winter King, he, the proud and witless one, with his wife and children, were depicted in every kind of pitiful situation, seeking their bread, departing in bad waggons, and digging a grave for themselves.

This strife was interrupted by another, which will ever be of high interest. It was the storm of the German press against the "_Kipper_ and _Wipper_."

Of all the terrors at the beginning of the war, nothing gave such vague apprehension to the people, as the sudden depreciation of the coinage. To the fancy of the suffering generation, the evil became so much the greater, as in the gloomy frame of mind of that period it appeared to occur suddenly, and everywhere roused the most frightful passions, discord in families, and hatred and strife between debtors and creditors, leaving behind, hunger, poverty, beggary, and immorality. It made honourable citizens gamblers, drunkards, and profligates, it drove preachers and schoolmasters from their offices, brought opulent families to beggary, plunged every government into miserable confusion, and threatened the dwellers in cities, in a thickly populated country, with famine.

It was the third year of the war; its flames had already carried destruction over Bohemia and the Palatinate, and the ruins were still glowing, on which the Imperial troops erected the cross of the old faith. A sultry atmosphere loured over the country; throughout the empire, in every class, men armed themselves, and anxiety for the future pervaded all. But intercourse with the provinces in which the war was at first located, was then comparatively small. The countries exposed to its fury were, with the exception of the Palatinate, provinces belonging to the Emperor; and on the Elbe and lower Rhine, in Thuringia, Franconia, and the territories of lower Saxony, it was still a question whether the danger was approaching home. In August, 1621, the peasant had the prospect of a moderate harvest; in trade and commerce there was some degree of stagnation, but there was much of that excited eagerness which is the natural offspring of a great defensive movement, and manly youths were more allured than intimidated by the wild conduct of the soldiery. It had indeed been long remarked, that there was something unusual about the money which circulated in the country. The good heavy Imperial coin became more and more scarce, in its place much new money was current, badly coined, and of a red colour. The increasing rise in the price of foreign goods appeared still more strange. Everything became dearer. Whoever wished to make a present to a godchild, or to pay foreign tradesmen, had to give an increasing _agio_ for his old pure Joachim's thaler. But in the local trade, betwixt town and country, the extensive new coinage was taken without hesitation, indeed it was exchanged or bartered with an increased activity. The mass of the people did not observe that the different kinds of coin with which it was the custom to pay, became in their hands, worthless lead; but the sharper ones, who had an inkling of the state of things, became, for the most part, accomplices in the dishonest usury of the Princes. It may be distinctly perceived how the people came to a knowledge of their situation, and we still feel dismayed at the sudden terror, anguish, and despair of the masses, and are struck by the anxieties and manly indignation of the thoughtful; and in reading the old narratives, we still feel somewhat of the indignation with which the guilty were regarded. When we consider the many wonderful errors of public opinion at that time, and the well-meaning zeal of individuals who gave good counsel, we may be permitted in this period of calamity and humiliation, to feel a proud satisfaction at the sagacity with which even then, some men of the people discovered the ground of the evil, and, in one of the most difficult national questions, found the right answer, and by it a remedy, at least for the worst misfortunes. Before we attempt to give a picture of the "_Kipper_ and _Wipper_" years, we must make some remarks on the coining of that period.

In the olden time, all technical dexterity was environed with dignity, secrecy, and an apparatus of forms. Nothing is more characteristic of the peculiarity of the German nature, than its virtuosoship; even the most monotonous handicraft was ennobled by an abundance of lively additions. As soon as the spirit of the artisan was excited by the genial pleasure of creating, his imagination was occupied with images and symbols, and he turned his skill dexterously to high, nay even to holy things. What we have described as applicable to all the handicrafts of the middle ages, was so especially to the art of coining. A feeling of his self-importance was strong in the coiner; the work itself, the handling of the precious metals fresh from the fire, was considered ennobling. The obscure chemical processes, which were surrounded, through alchemy, with a wilderness of fantastic forms, had a far more imposing effect upon the workers, than can be understood by the rational fabricators of our century. To this was added the responsibility of the service. When the coiner took the assay weight out of its beautiful capsule, and placed the little acorn cup on the artistically worked assay balance, in order to weigh the remnant in it, he did this with a certain consciousness of superiority over his fellow-citizens.[33] When he purified the silver assay from lead in the cupel, and the liquid silver first overflowed, shining with delicate prismatic colours, and then, the variegated stream being rent, the bright gleam of the silver passed like lightning through the molten mass, this silver gleam filled him with reverential astonishment, and he felt himself in the midst of the mysterious creations of the spirits of nature, which, whilst he feared, he was yet able to control by the art of his handicraft, as far as his knowledge reached. After that period, in the order of things, the coiners formed themselves into a close corporation, with masters, associates, and apprentices, and held jealously to their privileges. Whoever was desirous of stamping the Holy Roman Imperial coin was first obliged to give proof of his free and honourable lineage, to do lowly service for four years, during this period to wear, according to custom, a fool's cap, and to allow himself to be punished and beaten when inexpert or in the wrong; then at last he was admitted to the business of coining, and entered as an associate in the brotherhood of Imperial coiners.

But these strict regulations, which were again confirmed to the brotherhood by the Emperor Maximilian II., in 1571, had even then ceased to have the effect of making the corporation honourable and upright. Equally inefficient were the attempts at control, by the decisions of the Imperial Diet and the Sovereigns. At the inspection of every piece of coin the master of the mint had with him a warden, who proved the texture and weight of the coin. The ten Circles of the Empire held yearly approbation days, in order, mutually, to compare their coin and to reject the bad; every Circle was to be represented by a warden-general; for every Circle an appointed number of mints were established, in which the lesser rulers were to have their money specially coined: but all these regulations were only imperfectly carried out.

There were undoubtedly some Sovereigns and mint-masters then in the country who were faithful, but they were few in number; and generally a mint-master, who was considered capable by a German Circle, and worked in a legal mint, was concerned in many strange practices. It was difficult to exercise control over these imperfect coining proceedings; the temptations were great, and morality in general much lower than now. From the Sovereign down to the understrapper and Jewish purveyor, every one concerned in coining deceived the other. The Sovereign allowed the master of the mint for a series of years to work and become rich; he perhaps permitted in silence the coin of the country to be debased, in order at the right moment to proceed against the guilty, from whom then he squeezed out by pressure, like a sponge, all that they had sucked up for many years drop by drop. It did not avail them that they had long quitted the service, for after many years greedy justice would reach them: but the mint-master, who was not in the convenient position of the lion, to be able to secure his booty by a single stroke of the paw, was in the habit of industriously overreaching his masters, the purveyors, nay even his cashiers, the associates, and the apprentices, not to mention the public. The other assistants did no better; every man's hand was against the other, and the curse, which according to the proverb lies on the gold of the German dwarf, appears in the seventeenth century to have depraved all who transmuted the shining metal into money. The common method of transacting the business was as follows.

The master of the mint purchased the metal, defrayed the costs of the stamping, and paid a tax to the Sovereign for every Cologne mark which he struck, which it appears amounted generally to about four good groschen: but he had to pay dear for fine silver, and the wages and other accessories were continually rising in price. If he paid the tax, from one to two thousand marks, weekly to the lord of the mint, he concealed from him the fifty marks which he had struck over and above, and retained the tax upon them for himself; furthermore, he was a sharp coiner, that is to say, he deducted from the money about half a grain in the amount of silver required by the law; he always struck a hundred marks in weight, two ounces too light, which was remarked by no one, and when he knew that the money was to be sent directly into foreign countries, especially to Poland, he was bolder in deducting from the weight. His dealings with the purveyors who procured the metal for him, were not more upright. There was carried on then, throughout the whole of Germany, a secret traffic, which was severely prohibited by the law, and traced with much sagacity by the gate-keepers of the cities, a traffic in false money. What was acquired by the soldier as booty, or stolen by the thief from the church, was smelted by the receivers of stolen goods into flat cakes or conical masses, which in the language of the trade were called "ingots" and "kings;" whatever was clipped from the money in diminishing the proper quantity of silver, or had otherwise to be carefully consigned under a false name, was poured out of the smelting crucible over moist birchen-twigs, and thus granulated: but besides this, by being incessantly bought up, the good coin was exchanged for bad, the small money-changers, most of them wandering Jews, journeyed from village to village far across the frontiers of the German Empire, and collected, as the ragmen do now, their wares from the soldiers, countrymen, and beggars. All the medals of distinguished persons, all coats-of-arms and inscriptions, horse and man, wolves, sheep and bears, thalers and hellers, the saints of Cologne and Treves, and the medallions of the heretic Luther, were bought up for the mint, collected and exchanged. The concealed wares were then packed into a vessel with ginger, pepper, and tartar, and paid toll duty as white lead, wrapped up in bales of cloth and frankincense. There were travelling waggons with false bottoms, which were specially prepared for such transports. A still better safeguard was an ecclesiastic as a travelling companion; but the best of all was a trumpeter, who gave the trader the appearance of being a prince's courier. If it happened that a distinguished lord was travelling towards the same country, it was expedient to bribe him, for he and his suite, their waggons and horses, were never examined at the city gates. Sometimes the agent disguised himself as a distinguished lord or soldier, and caused the burden to be conveyed by the trooper's horses or his servants. Sometimes the mint-master was obliged to travel to the frontier to meet the agent, under the pretext of paying a visit to some friend. Then the costly goods were carried far from the dwellings of men, across lonely heaths, or through the clearings of a wood, from one hand to another, on a merchant's parole.

Meanwhile the petty Jewish dealer carried at night, along byways over the frontier, his wallet full of old groschen, in the twofold fear of robbers and of the guardians of the law. The wallet, the broad-brimmed hat, and the yellow cloth border to the coat, the mark of a Jew of the Empire, was frequently seen at the mint. There existed between the dealer and the mint-master a confidential business connection, certainly not without a mental reservation; for it occasionally happened to the Jew that false thalers were found in one of the hundred marks which he delivered in thalers, or that the wallet together with the coin had become moist during the journey, which added some half-ounces to their weight, or that fine white sand became mingled with the granulated silver, and was weighed with it. For this the mint-master indemnified himself, by hanging the scales so that one side of the beam was shorter than the other, by causing the scales to spring up and descend slowly, notwithstanding the perpendicular position of the balance, in order to make the wares some half-ounces lighter, or by falsifying the weights altogether. What the masters did not do, the apprentices of the mint ventured upon. However cautious the purveyor might be during the smelting assay, they understood how to mix copper dust with the silver already weighed, in order to make the assay worse than it really was. Such was the state of the traffic even at those mints where there was still some respect for the law.

Besides the licensed coiners, there were others in most of the ten Circles, of easier conscience and bolder practice; not exactly false coiners in our sense of the term, although this was carried on with great recklessness; but nobles and corporations who had the right of coining, and prized it highly as a source of income; for, contrary to the Imperial decrees, which imposed upon them the duty of having their money coined in one of the approved mints of the Circle, they coined actively in their own territory. Sometimes they let their right of coining for a year's rent, nay, they even disposed of their mints to other princes as a speculation. These irregular coining places were called hedge mints, and in them a systematic corruption of money took place. No inquiry was made as to the right of the coiners; whoever knew how to manage fire and metal, engaged in this kind of work. There was little regard for the prescribed fineness of texture, and weight of the money; it was coined with false stamps, and the head of the ruler, with the date of a better period, were stamped on light coin; nay, in regular false coining, the stamps of foreign mints were often counterfeited. The brightness of the new coin was removed by tartar or lead water; and all this took place under the protection of the Sovereign. The disposal of the money thus coined required all the cunning and circumspection of the agents, and a line of industry was in this way formed, which we may presume occupied many intermediate hands. Thundering decrees had been fulminated for seventy years at the Imperial Diets and Assemblages of the circles, against the hedge mints, but without success. Indeed, after the introduction of good Imperial money, they became more numerous and active, for the work paid better.

Such was the state of things even before the year 1618. The sovereigns, small and great, required more and more money. Then some of the Princes of the Empire--the Brunswickers, alas! were among the first--began to outdo the proceedings of the most notorious of the hedge mints; they caused the coin of the country, both heavy and light, to be struck of a bad mixture of silver and copper, instead of silver, and soon it was only copper silvered. At last, as for example at Leipzig, a small angular coin was issued by the city, no longer of copper, which was of higher value, but of pure tin. This discovery of making money at little cost spread like a pestilence. From both of the Circles of Saxony it spread to those of the Rhine and Southern Germany. Hundreds of new mints were established. Wherever a ruined tower appeared firm enough for a forge and bellows, wherever there was abundance of wood for burning, and a road to bring good money to the mint and carry away bad, there a band of coiners nestled. Electors and nobles, ecclesiastical communities and cities outvied each other in making copper money; even the people were infected with it. For a century the art of making gold, and treasure digging had occupied the fancies of the people; now the happy time appeared to have arrived, when every fish-kettle could be turned into silver in the coiners' scales. A mania for money-making began. Pure silver and old silver gilt became continually and strikingly dearer in mercantile traffic, so that at last it was necessary to pay four, five or more new gulden for one old silver gulden, and the price of goods and the necessaries of life slowly rose; but that signified little to the multitude, so long as the new money, the production of which seemed to increase without end, was willingly taken. The nation, already excited, became at last madly intoxicated. Every one thought they had the opportunity of becoming rich without labour; all applied themselves to trafficking in money. The merchant had money dealings with the artisan, the artisan with the peasant. A general craving, chaffering, and overreaching prevailed. The modern swindling in funds and on 'Change, gives only a weak notion of the proceedings of that time. Whoever had debts hastened to pay them; whoever could get money from an accommodating coiner, in exchange for an old brewing vessel,[34] could buy therewith house and fields; whoever had to pay wages, salaries, or fees, found it convenient to do so in plated copper. There was little work done in the cities, and only for very high pay. Whoever had any old thalers, gold gulden, or other good Imperial money lying in their chests as a store in case of need, as was then the case with almost every one, drew out his treasure and was delighted to exchange it for new money, as the old thalers, in a most remarkable way, appeared to be worth four, nay even six and ten times as much as formerly. That was a jolly time. If wine and beer were dearer than usual, they were not so in the same proportion as the old silver money. Part of the gains were jovially spent in the public-house. Every one was disposed to give, in those times. The Saxon cities readily agreed, at the Diet at Torgau, to a great addition to the land tax, as money was to be obtained everywhere in superfluity. People also were very ready to contract debts, for money was offered everywhere, and business could be done with it on favourable conditions; great obligations therefore were undertaken on all sides. Thus a powerful stream carried away the people to destruction.

But a counter stream arose, first gentle, then continually stronger. Those were first to complain who had to live on a fixed income, the parish priests most loudly, the schoolmasters and poor misanthropes most bitterly. Those who had formerly lived respectably on two hundred gulden, good Imperial coin, now only received two hundred light gulden, and if, as often undoubtedly happened, the salary of some were raised about a quarter in amount, they could not even with this addition defray half, nay even the fourth part, of the necessary expenses. Upon this unprecedented occasion the ecclesiastics referred to the Bible, and found there an indisputable objection to all hedge minting, and began to preach from their pulpits against light money. The schoolmasters starved in the villages as long as they could, then ran away and increased the train of vagabonds, beggars, and soldiers; the servants next became discontented. The wages, which averaged ten gulden a year, hardly sufficed to pay for their shoes. In every house there were quarrels between them and their masters and mistresses. Men and maid-servants ran away, the men enlisted and the maids endeavoured to set up for themselves. Meanwhile the youths dispersed from the schools and universities, few parents among the citizens being sufficiently well off to be able to support their sons entirely during the period of education. There were however a multitude of scholarships founded by benevolent people for poor students. The value of these now suddenly vanished, the credit of the poor scholars in foreign towns was soon exhausted, many found it impossible to maintain themselves; they sank under poverty and the temptations of that bloody period. We may still read in the autobiographies of many respectable theologians, what distress they then suffered. One supported life in Vienna, by cutting daily his master's tallies for a four-penny loaf; another was able to earn eighteen batz[35] in the week, by giving lessons, the whole of which he was obliged to spend on dry bread.

There was increasing discontent. First among the capitalists who lived on the interest of the money which they had lent, which was then in middle Germany five, or occasionally six, per cent. For a time they were much envied as wealthy people, but now their receipts were often hardly sufficient to maintain life. They had lent thousands of good Imperial thalers, and now a creditor would pay them on the nail a thousand thalers in new money. They demanded back their good old money; they squabbled and laid their complaints before the courts; but the money which they had received back bore the image of the Sovereign and the old mark of value; it was legally stamped money, and the debtor could in justice allege that he had received similar money, both as interest and capital and for labour. Thus there arose numberless lawsuits; and the lawyers were in great perplexity. At last the cities and even the Sovereigns were embarrassed. They had willingly issued the new money, and many of them had coined it recklessly. But now for all their taxes and imposts they obtained only bad money, a hundred pounds of plated copper instead of a hundred pounds of silver, at the same time everything had become dear, even to them, and a portion of their expenses had to be paid in good silver. Then the governments attempted to assist themselves by new frauds. First they endeavoured to retain the good money by compulsion; now they suddenly lowered the value of their own money, and again threatened punishment and compulsion to all who gave less value for it. But the false money still continued to sink under the regulated value. Then some governments refused to take for the payment of taxes and imposts, the money of their own country which they themselves had coined. They declined taking back what they had stamped in the last year. Now for the first time the people discovered the whole danger of their position. A general storm broke loose against the new money; it sank even in daily traffic to a tenth of its nominal value. The new hedge mints were cried down as nests of the devil; the mint-masters and their agents, the money-changers, and whoever else dealt in money concerns, were the general objects of detestation. Then it was that they obtained in Germany the popular names of _Kipper_ and _Wipper_. These are Lower Saxon words: _kippen_ comes equally from the fraudulent weighing, as from the clipping of the money; and _wippen_ from throwing the heavy money out of the scales.[36] Satirical songs were sung about them; it was supposed that their names were heard in the call of the quail, and the mob cried out after them "_kippe di wipp_," as they did "_hep_" after the Jews. In many places the people combined together and stormed their dwellings. For many a year after the terrors of the long war, it was considered a disgrace to have acquired money in the _Kipper-time_. Everywhere disorders and tumults arose; the bakers would no longer bake, and their shops were destroyed; the butchers would no longer slaughter, on account of the prescribed tax; the miners, soldiers, and students raged about in a state of wild uproar; the city communities, deep in debt, became bankrupt, as for example the wealthy Leipzig. The old joints of the burgher societies cracked and threatened to burst asunder. The small literature urged on and excited the temper of the public mind, and was itself still further excited by the increasing discontent. The street songs began it, and the pictorial flying-sheets followed. The _Kippers_ were unweariedly portrayed with the flames of hell round their heads, their feet standing on an insecure ball, surrounded by numerous gloomy emblems, amongst which the cord and the lurking raven were not absent; or in their mints collecting and carrying off money, and in contrast to them the poor, begging; the different classes were depicted, soldiers, citizens, widows and orphans, paying to the money-changers their hard earnings; the jaws of hell appeared open, and the changers were assiduously shoved down by devils; all this was adorned, according to the taste of the times, with allegorical figures and Latin devices, made comprehensible to every one by indignant couplets in German.

As among the people, so also among the educated, a fierce storm began to rage. The parish priests were loud in their invectives and denunciations, not only from the pulpit but also in flying-sheets. A brochure literature began, which swelled up like a sea. One of the first that was written against the new money was by W. Andreas Lampe, pastor at Halle. In a powerful treatise, 'On the last brood and fruit of the devil, Leipzig, 1621,' he proved, by numerous citations from the Old and New Testament, that all trades and professions in the world, even that of an executioner, were by divine ordinance; but the _Kipper_ was of the devil, whereupon he characterizes in some cutting passages the mischief which they had caused. He had to suffer severe trials, and though he loyally spared the authorities, yet he was threatened with proceedings, so that he found it necessary to obtain from the sheriffs' court at Halle a justification. He was soon followed by many of his clerical brethren. The controversial writings of these ecclesiastics appear to us clumsy productions; but it is well to examine them with attention, for the Protestant priesthood are always representatives of the cultivation and the rectitude of the people.

The preachers exorcised the evil one, and the theological faculty soon followed with the heavy artillery of their Latin arguments, and how bitter was the priestly anger, was shown for example by the consistory of Wittemberg, when they refused the Lord's Supper and honourable burial to the Kippers. Lastly we have the lawyers with their questions, informations, detailed opinions on coining and recapitulations. The answers which they gave in thick brochures were almost always very diffuse, and their arguments frequently subtile; still they were necessary, for the disputes concerning _meum_ and _tuum_ between creditor and debtor appeared interminable, and numberless lawsuits threatened to prolong insupportably the sufferings of the people. The principal subjects of investigation were, whether those who had lent good money were to be repaid capital and interest in light money; and again, whether those who had lent light money had a claim for the repayment of the full capital in good money. It must be remarked here that, in many cases which the law and the acuteness of lawyers did not reach, the dispute was ended by that true feeling of equity which was inherent in the people. For when the governments were generally bad, and legal justice was very costly and difficult to be obtained, much had to be accomplished by the practical sense of individuals. A little flying leaf, in which is related how the sound common sense of the village magistrate administered justice, was certainly not less useful than a massive half-Latin, half-German "_Informatio_."

In the flood of paper, which gives us information concerning the excitement of that period, there are certain sheets which more especially arrest our attention--the utterances of educated and experienced men, who know how to tell shortly and effectively in a popular form, from whence it all arose. Some of these flying-sheets, written at different periods of the Thirty years' war, have been preserved to us, in which we may even now behold with admiration, both energy of character, power of language, and genuine statesmanlike discernment. In vain do we inquire for the name of the author. We will only mention here one of these writings. Its title is, 'Expurgatio, or Vindication of the poor _Kipper_ and _Wipper_, given by Kniphardum Wipperium, 1622. Fragfurt.'

The author has chosen the valiant Lampe as the object of his attack, as the cautious zeal of the Saxon ecclesiastic whose distinguished colleagues were accused of being Wippers--for example, the notorious court preacher Hoe, the subservient tool of the Elector--had excited the indignation of a powerful mind. A manly judgment, and a very just democratic tone appears in the strong expressions of this writing. We may judge of its peculiar tenour from the following passages:--

"I have never yet seen a single penny, and much less an inferior coin, on which was to be found the names, arms, or stamp of _Kipper_ and _Wipper_, still less any inscription from the new quail call, _kippediwipp_. But one may truly see thereupon a well-known stamp or image, and the _Kipper_ or _Wipper_ will not appear even in the smallest letter of the alphabet.

"But if Herr Magister does not rightly understand the matter, let him ask who has bought the old saucepans at the highest price, in order to assist the coining; having done so, Herr Magister will truly learn who has coined the copper and tin money. For truly so many old pans in which so much good gruel or millet pap has been made, and so many coppers in which so much good beer has been brewed, are melted down and coined, and this not by the vulgar _Kipper_, but by the _Arch kipper_. For the others have no regale to coin, and if they, like the blood and deer hounds, have scented and hunted out such things, they have done so by the command of others, and thus are not to be so severely condemned as those (let them call themselves what they may) who have the regalie, and misuse it to the perceptible damage of the German States.

"No one now-a-days will bell the cat, or, like John the Baptist, tell the truth to Herod. Every one heaps abuse upon the poor rogues, the _Kippers_ and _Wippers_, who nevertheless do not carry on this business by their own authority, for all that they do takes place with the knowledge, consent, and approbation of the government. And alas, they have now-a-days many competitors. For as soon as any one gets a penny or a groschen that is a little better than another, he forthwith makes with it usurious profit. Therefore, as experience teaches, it comes to pass as follows: the doctors abandon their invalids and think far more of usury than of Hippocrates and Galen; the lawyers forget their legal documents, lay aside their practice, and taking usury in hand, let who will peruse Bartholus and Balbus. The same is also done by other men of learning, who study arithmetic more than rhetoric and philosophy; the merchants, shop-keepers, and other traders acquire now-a-days their greatest gains by their hardwares which are marked by the mint stamp.

"From this we may perceive that the 'unhanged, thievish, oath-forgetting, dishonourable,' _Kippers_ and _Wippers_, though not indeed to be quite exculpated, are not so much to be condemned as if they were the _causa principalis_ of the ruin of the German States. I have, alas! assuredly great fears, that if once there is a delivery to the devil or hangman, the _Kippers_ and _Wippers_, changers and usurers, Jews and Jew associates, helpers and helpers' helpers, one thief with another, will all be hurled off to the devil, or be hung up at the same time together, like yonder host with his companions. Yet with a difference. For their principals and patrons will justly have the prerogative and pre-eminence, and indeed some of them have been already sent there beforehand. The others will shortly follow to the above-mentioned place, and it will then avail nothing on this journey downward, whether one treats them with _carmina_ or _crimina_, whether one passes judgment on them as criminals, or gives them laudatory poems--_facilis descensus Averni_--they will easily find the way, for they need no good fortune for that; the devil will couple them all with one cord, be the rogues ever so big. _Fiat_."

It is not improbable that a similar view of their social prospects in another world was impressed upon the rulers from many quarters. At all events, even they discovered that they could only be saved by the most speedy help; nothing would avail them but the reduction and hasty withdrawal of the new coinage, and a return to the good old Imperial coin. Thus the first fears of the princes and cities caused them to depreciate their new money, and to make use of these verdicts in order to express their abhorrence--not of very old date--of the bad coin, and they forthwith had the coin stamped honourably of due weight and alloy, as prescribed by the Imperial law. In order to put a stop to the excessive increase of prices, they hastened to put forth a tariff of goods and wages, which decided the highest price to be permitted. It is clear that this latter remedy could not be of more lasting use than the famous edict of Diocletian, thirteen hundred years before. The compulsion which, for example, it exercised over the city weekly markets, day labourers, and guilds, was only a temporary help for restoring the overflowing stream to its old bed.

This state of intoxication, terror, and fury was followed by a dreary reaction. Men gazed on one another as after a great pestilence. Those who had rested secure in their opulence had sunk into ruin. Many worthless adventurers now strutted, as persons of distinction, in velvet and silk. The whole nation had become poorer. There had not been any great war for a long time, and many millions in silver and gold, the savings of the inferior classes, had been inherited in city and village from father to son; the greater part of these savings had vanished in the bad times; it had been squandered on carousals, frittered away on trifles, and at last expended for daily food. But this was not the greatest evil; it was a still greater, that at this time the citizen, and countryman had been forcibly torn from the path of their honest daily labour. Frivolity, an unsettled existence, and a reckless egotism, had taken possession of them. The destroying powers of war had sent forth their evil spirits to loosen the firm links of burgher society, and to accustom a peaceful, upright, and laborious people to the sufferings and mal-practices of an army which shortly overran all Germany.

The period from 1621 to 1623 was henceforth called the "_Kipper and Wipper_" time. The confusion, the excitement, the trafficking, and the flying-sheet literature lasted till the year 1625. The lessons which the princes had learnt from the consequences of their flagitious actions did not avail them against later temptations. Even at the end of the seventeenth century it seems to have been impossible for them entirely to avoid hedge mints, and the continual recurrence of a depreciation of money.

Whilst Tilly was conquering Lower Saxony, and Wallenstein made great havoc in Northern Germany, small literature flowed in an under-current. After every engagement, and every capture of a city, there appeared copper engravings, with a text which described the position of the troops and the appearance of the city; irregular newspapers, and songs of lament conveyed the information of the advance of the Imperialists, and the destruction of the Mansfelders. In the midst of all this the people were dismayed by terrible decrees of the Emperor, who now from his secure position threw over the evangelicals, or compelled them by force to return to his Church, in spite of the fruitless intercessions of the Elector of Saxony. The Elector at last authorized the publication of a defence of the Augsburg confession, against the attacks of the Catholic theologians; this comprehensive work, called, 'The necessary Defence of the Apple of the Eye,' written in 1628, called forth immediately a theological war; both opponents and allies hastened in crowds to the field. 'Spectacles for the Evangelical Apple of the Eye;' 'A sharp round Eye on the Romish Pope;' 'Who has struck the Calf in the Eye? The Catholic Oculist or Coucher;' 'Venetian Spectacles on Lutheran Nose,' &c. These are specimens of the defiant titles of the most readable of the controversial writings. But this literary strife was drowned in the burst of loud outcries against Wallenstein, which pierced from Pomerania through all the German States, on account of the battle near Stralsund, and his shameful conduct towards the Pomeranian Duke and his country, and finally the horrible ill treatment of the men and women of Pasewalk. Again these lamentations changed into a shout of joy from all the Protestants. Again hope and confidence revived; this time it was a man, whom the nation, with the genuine German longing to love and honour, welcomed with shouts of jubilee. What had been wanting to the Germans for a century, came to them from the North, an idol and a hero. But he was a foreigner.

Much of that halo of light still surrounds the figure of Gustavus Adolphus, which distinguished him in the eyes of his cotemporaries so immeasurably above all other generals and princes. It is not his victories, nor his knightly death, nor the circumstance that he appeared as the last help to a despairing people, which makes him the one prominent figure in the long struggle. It was the magic of his great nature, as he rode over the field of battle, firm, self-contained, and as confident as unerring; from head to foot he was dignity, decision, and nervous energy. If one examines more nearly, one is astonished at the strong contrasts which combined in this character to form an admirable unity. No General was more systematic, fertile in plans, or greater in the science of war. Discipline in the army, order in the commissariat, a firm basis, and secure lines of retreat in every strategical operation, these were the requisites he brought with him to the conduct of the German War. But even he, the powerful prince of war, was driven by an irresistible necessity from his good system, but with the whole power of his being he incessantly stemmed the tide of the wild marauding war that raged around him. And yet this same systematic man bore within him a rash spirit of daring against the greatest hazards; his bearing in the battle was wonderfully elevated, like that of a noble battle steed. His eyes lighted up, his figure became more lofty, and a smile played on his countenance. Again, how wonderful appears to men, the union in him of frank honesty and wary policy, of upright piety and worldly wisdom, of high-minded self-sacrifice and reckless ambition, of heartfelt humanity and stern severity! And all this was enlivened by an inward confidence and freedom of mind, which enabled him to look in a humorous point of view on the distracted condition of the decaying Princes of the country. The irresistible power which he exercised over all who came under his influence, consisted principally in the freshness of his nature, his surpassing good humour, and where it was necessary, an ironical bonhomie. The way in which he managed the proud and wavering Princes, and the hesitating cities of the Protestant party, was not to be surpassed; he was never weary of exciting them to war, and alliance; he ever reverted to the same theme, whether to the Envoy of the Brandenburger, or when flattering the Nurembergers, or chiding the Frankforters.

He was closely allied, both by race and faith, to the Northern Germans; but he was a foreigner. This was thoroughly and constantly felt by the Princes. It was not alone distrust of his superior power which, till the bitterest necessity compelled them to union, kept aloof from him the irresolute, but it was the discovery in him of a new master; they revolted at the idea of this mighty non-German power, which so suddenly and threateningly arose in the empire. There was still to be found in a few of them somewhat of Luther's national idea of the empire. They had no hesitation in negotiating with France, Denmark, the Netherlands, nay with the unreliable Bethlem Gabor; all these were outside the Empire. Within its boundaries there was the fanatical Emperor and his insupportable General; they were new people to them, who might pass away as rapidly as they had become great; but the sovereignty of the German Empire was old, and they were the pillars of it. This conception was no longer in accordance with the highest policy, for the German Emperor had become the most mortal enemy of the German Empire. But such a feeling is not deserving of contempt; and the nation as well as most of the Princes, felt to the heart's core that their quarrel with the Emperor was in fact a domestic one, in which foreigners should have no concern. But the people, blinded by their delight in the dazzling heroism of the Protestant King, lost sight of these considerations. For two years public opinion paid homage to him, as it has never done since, except to the Great Frederic of Prussia. Every word, every little anecdote was carried from city to city, and loud acclamations greeted every success of his arms. It was not only the zealous Protestants who thus felt; even in the Catholic armies and in the states of the League, the scorn was quickly silenced which had been called forth by the landing of the "Snow King," and the number of his admirers continually increased. Many characteristic traits of him are preserved to us; almost every conversation that he had with Germans, gives an opportunity of discovering something of his nature. We will give here a short conversation, after his landing in Pomerania, recorded by a clever negotiator.

The Elector of Brandenburg had sent his plenipotentiary, Von Wilmersdorff, to persuade the King to conclude an armistice with the Emperor; he further wished to negotiate a peace between them, although Wallenstein had already deprived him of his dominions, and the Emperor had shown him every kind of disregard. The conversation of the King with the Envoy gives a good picture of his method of negotiating. He is here concise, firm, and straightforward, in spite of some mental reservation; and so perfectly self-possessed that he can allow his lively temperament to break forth without danger. The Envoy relates as follows:--

"After his Kingly Majesty had listened graciously to me, though when I came to the proposition of an armistice he rather smiled, he, no one being present, answered me circumstantially.

"'I had expected a different kind of embassy from my loving cousin; that is to say, that he would rather have come to meet me and united himself with me for his own welfare; and not that my loving cousin should be so weak as to lose this opportunity so providentially sent by God. My loving cousin will not comprehend the clear and evident intentions of his enemies; he does not discern the difference between pretexts and truth, nor consider that when this pretence shall cease, that is to say, when they have no longer anything more to fear from me, another will soon be found to establish himself in my loving cousin's country.

"'I had not expected that my loving cousin would have been so much terrified at the war as to remain inactive notwithstanding all the consequences to himself. Or does not my cousin yet know, that the intention of the Emperor and his allies is not to desist till the evangelical religion is entirely rooted out of the empire? my loving cousin must be prepared either to deny his religion or abandon his country. Does he think that anything else can be obtained by prayers, entreaties, or the like means? For God's sake let him reflect a little, and for once take _mascula consilia_. You see how this excellent prince the Duke of Pomerania was in the most innocent way,--having really committed no offence but only peaceably drunk his beer,--brought into the most lamentable condition, and how wonderfully he was saved under God's providence, _fato quodam necessario_--for he was constrained to do so--by making terms with me. What he did from necessity my loving cousin may do willingly.