II. The Rich Product of the Saxon Mines

The land from which the spark was to fly forth that should kindle the whole world into flame was Saxony. We have seen how important the silver mines were for Bohemia in the fourteenth century; how they had intensified social antagonisms and increased the power of the country and its rulers. In the fifteenth century the produce of the Bohemian mines diminished, while, on the other hand, those of Saxony – namely, in Meissen and Thuringia – reached a dizzy height of prosperity. The silver wealth of Freiberg had been well known in 1171, its mining laws becoming the foundation of mining legislation throughout the whole of Germany. At the close of the fifteenth century, however, it was outdone by Schneeberg, where, in 1471, fresh veins of ore were discovered, which for some time were the most productive of all German silver mines. In 1492 mining was started at Schreckenstein, and in 1496 the foundation-stone was laid of the mining town of Annaberg. In 1516 the mines of Joachimsthal came into prominence (they were partly Bohemian and partly Saxon); in 1519 those of Marienberg.

In Thuringia the most important mine was at Mansfeld. It had been worked since the twelfth century, and yielded copper as well as silver and gold, the bituminous marl-slate being conveyed to Venice, where the process of separation was better understood than in Germany.

The rapidly increasing wealth in the precious metals promoted production and trade in Saxon cities. Erfurt became rich and powerful as the Saxon emporium for trade to the south (Venice), while Halle and, later, Leipzig were the chief marts for the north. North and south, commerce developed most actively in the direction both of production and trade. The line commercial intercourse took from Saxony to Italy passed through Nurenberg and Augsburg, and contributed much to the powerful position taken by these towns from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. With commerce, production also developed, while art and local trade flourished in the above-mentioned towns.

But it was not only town life that was influenced by the rich mines of Saxony their effect in the country was perhaps even greater.

The demand for wood at the mines was an important item it was required partly as timber in the construction of the shafts, for the laying of tracks (with wooden rails, as we see them represented in Agricola’s book On Mines), &c., and partly and especially for fuel in smelting the ore. A regular traffic in wood became quite necessary, and we find that it was already the object of many commercial treaties in Saxony even in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Other natural products were required in the mining districts, which lay, as a rule, in unproductive mountainous regions at a high altitude, where but little corn grew – much too little to support the crowd of people who gathered about a large mine. The mountain peasants being unable to cultivate the corn for themselves, were forced to buy it. The development of the mines, therefore, greatly promoted the commerce in wheat as well as in wood. It formed, for example, the chief revenues of Zwickau, which lay on the road from the Saxon “Lowlands” to the “Highlands”.

Hence at a very early date the peasants and lords of the soil in Saxony became producers of commodities for the market; and, having once found a market for their produce, it was a matter of indifference to them what they cultivated, provided their productions were saleable. It was not even necessary that it should be wheat, the market for which was circumscribed, while that for plants used in manufacture was much more extensive, e.g., woad, which was used for blue dyes. Nowhere in Germany was this cultivation so widely developed as in Saxony, especially in Thuringia, the centre of the industry being Erfurt. Even at the beginning of the seventeenth century, woad is said to have been cultivated in three hundred villages of Thuringia, though the competition from indigo was already very strong. The antagonism between the territorial lords and the peasants which was engendered by this development must, consequently, have reached a great height at the beginning of the Reformation in Saxony. The value of land was very great, and so was the greed of the nobles for it. The system of money duties and the avarice shown by the princes and nobility were most remarkable, as was also the great dependence of the peasantry on the merchants and cultivators. Capitalists, princes, and nobles seized upon the whole profits arising from this commercial prosperity. Thanks to the rapid increase of the precious metals, and the decrease in the cost of production, the price of agricultural produce arose enormously. In Saxony, the centre of the mining wealth, the rise in prices must have been particularly mischievous, for it did not in the least benefit the peasantry, while in the cities it was the cause of serious strikes.

For this reason, we find that class antagonism at the beginning of the Reformation was peculiarly bitter in Saxony, exactly as it had been a hundred years before in the neighbouring country of Bohemia. But in the latter country the mining population had represented a conservative power. Their proletarianism was only in its infancy; the miners were counted among the privileged classes, and, being Germans, were necessarily regarded as partisans of the traditional order of things, i.e., of the sovereign and the Pope. Since that time the proletariat element among miners, and the working of mines by capitalists, had made enormous strides; but in Saxony the miners were not strangers to the country; they possessed no privileges which the overthrow of the existing order of things could affect, but, on the contrary, came more and more into conflict with the ruling powers during the last decade before the Reformation. Far from opposing any revolutionary movement, they were quite ready to join any such that broke out, and their numbers, their aptitude for arms, and the economic importance of their profession, gave them a power with which statesmen had to reckon.

The class, however, which derived the greatest increase of strength from the wealth of the mines was the absolute monarchy, a class which, besides being the most revolutionary of any, was most favoured by all the tendencies of the age.

Although the eager rush for gold and silver was increasing, most of the princes found difficulty in satisfying their need for money by means of taxes and imposts. It was different, however, with the princes within whose territories lay the rich silver and gold mines. Of these the best-filled coffers were possessed by the sovereigns of Saxony. The inheritance of the two brothers, Ernest and Albrecht (1485), had been divided into two parts, Ernest receiving the chief portion, Thuringia; Albrecht the lesser, Meissen. But the silver mines in the mountains had not been divided; they remained the common property of both houses, the revenues being simply shared. Thanks to these revenues, the Saxon princes of the sixteenth century played a prominent part in Germany, taking precedence after the Emperor of Germany.

Paradoxical as it may appear, the residue of the Imperial power at that time rested to a great extent only upon the impecuniosity and avarice of the German princes, especially of the Prince-Electors. The latter had, in reality, become independent sovereigns. If they tolerated the Imperial dignity, it was chiefly in order to find a purchaser to whom they could sell a part, and in truth a very trifling part, of their sovereign rights. The same role which was played at the close of the old Roman Republic, first by the rabble of the capital, and subsequently by the Pretorian mob, was enacted by the Prince-Electors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Every Imperial election was to them a most profitable business, the noble lords taking money in bribes from all the candidates, and finally giving their votes to the highest bidder.

Perhaps the most disgraceful episode in this traffic of elections occurred when the nomination of a successor to Maximilian I was in view, an episode which began during this Emperor’s lifetime and lasted from 1516 to 1519. The two dynasties which had been contending for predominance in Europe, and had alternately made a tool of the pontifical power, now sued also for the Imperial crown – the French dynasty of Valois, and the House of Hapsburg, the centre of whose dominion had slipped away from Germany to Spain.

Nearly all the Electors accepted money from both Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain.

The only prince who took no money was the Elector Frederick of Saxony (of the Ernestinian line, to whom Thuringia had fallen). The other Electors, hankering after the treasures of the joint possessors of the silver mines in Meissen, offered the Imperial crown to him-of course for corresponding fees. But Frederick rejected the offer, well knowing it was not worth the price, and turned the choice upon the House of Hapsburg. Notwithstanding the Tyrolean mines and the flourishing commerce of the Hapsburg Netherlands, in spite also of the might of Spain at their back, the Hapsburgs appeared to threaten the independence of the German princes less than did Francis I, who already possessed a well-organised and compact France.

We will not enter upon the other considerations which demanded the election of Charles, such as the danger from Turkey, &c.

The Elector of Saxony not only became the emperor-maker by virtue of his riches and power, but he was also the centre of the opposition made by the German princes against the Emperor and Pope in their struggle for independence.

The University of Wittenberg, founded by Frederick in 1502, undertook the intellectual guidance of the movement, which was at once inimical to the Pope and friendly to the princes. Luther, who had been a professor in this school since 1508, and had fallen under its influence, finally became its spokesman and the confidential friend and protégé of the Prince-Elector. These events are too well known to require being dealt with in detail. Every one knows how, in 1517, Tetzel came to Saxony to extort money from the people or Pope Leo X. by the sale of indulgences; how Luther attacked him, quarrelled with him, and was carried further than he at first intended by the intervention of the Vatican; how out of the “monk’s quarrel” arose the rebellion of the whole nation against the Pope, and how the latter tried to intimidate the former by his anathemas (1520). But Luther, feeling sure of his prince’s aid, defied the Pope and burnt his Bull; he dared even to defy the newly-elected Emperor, Charles V, who summoned him before the Imperial Diet at Worms (1521). Charles, however, could not deal with him as Sigismund had dealt with Huss, for he knew that the monk was supported by the greater part of the German nation, and particularly by the powerful Frederick of Saxony. Hence the monarch upon whose dominion the sun never set did not dare to interfere openly with Frederick and Luther.

Thus Saxony became the intellectual centre both of the aristocratic opposition to Rome, which proved victorious, and of the democratic, which was crushed. In Thuringia a number of small towns, such as Mühlhausen and Nordhausen, succeeded in maintaining their freedom from princely rule. Erfurt also could count itself a free town. At the beginning of the Reformation it was the chief commercial city of Central Germany, though it was soon to yield its place to aspiring Leipzig, which had already surpassed the old trading town of Halle. The Erfurt University was considered the most eminent in Germany. It became the seat of the new German Humanism, which united itself to the kindred movements in Italy and France, and sought to emulate them in spirited contempt for traditional beliefs.

It was, however, not only the learned and civic, but also the communistic, opposition, that found its greatest support in Saxon towns.