WORLD’S OLDEST CHARITY

Evening Star, Issue 21824, 13 September 1934, Page 10

WORLD’S OLDEST CHARITY

GOING STRONG AFTER 400 YEARS The world’s oldest charity, precursor of all housing schemes in. every country, is established in the southern Bavarian city of Augsburg. It dates back to the year 1519, and is still going strong after more than 400 years. It is called “The Fuggerei’ because it was established by the brothers Fugger of Augsburg, then the world s most famous merchants and moneylenders, and it provides homes for 106 poor couples at a rental to cacli amounting to 4s a pear. Tbis ‘'Fugger charity is especially notable because it was the first public recognition by the wealthy of the responsibilities entailed by their wealth, the Fuggers thus setting an example followed later by many who have taken the path on which the brothers in Augsburg in the sixteenth century were the pioneers. The Fuggerei is a miniature city within a city. It consists of fifty-three tiny houses of two storeys each, set “but in six streets enclosed within three gates, the settlement church at one end. Each house accommodates two families, one upstairs and one down, but each family has a separate entrance. “ For,” said Jakob Fukker the Second, who took the lead among his brothers in establishing the chanty, “ our houses are to be for old people, and old people who are thrown much together become. quarrelsome, "and in this our setlement we would have peace and happiness.” So, beside the door leading to the three little rooms downstairs is another door opening bn to the stairs leading upward, and there can be no dispute as to which of the old couples housed therein shall sweep the hall or provide the cheap cocoa matting which covers it, or whether the stairs are best plain or carpeted. All is peace m the Fuggerei, in that respect at least. Behind each house' is a little garden. In each apartment is a bedroom, a living room, and a tiny kitchen, with a small" American stove, the pipe leading into a great stone chimney. This is an innovation. The original dwellings of the sixteenth century knew no stoves. There was then an open fireplace, with a hole in the ceiling above to carry the smoke to the chimney. Water, however, still comes from the common pump at the street corner, as it did 400 years ago. There is a better pump now, but that is allKEEN COMPETITION. Competition for the homes in the Fuggerei is keen. There is always a long waiting list. The occupants, for life or during good behaviour, are selected by the Fugger descendants, tor the family still continues, is still rich, and has become ennobled. These ten4nts must be old people and good Catholics and once daily they must go to the settlement church to say a prayer for the Fuggers. Once a year they pay their nominal rent of 4 mai ks and 40 pfennigs, which is about 4s. These are the only requisites. The prayers for the Eugger family have evidently been heard and heeded, for of the rich merchants of their day the Fuggers alone have continued to prosper. At the height of their fame their chief rivals and competitors were the Welscrs, also of Augsburg, which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had become the greal> est of the commercial cities of the world,' and its merchants the bankers and financial agents of kings and einWelscr family received in 1528 in return for favours to his Christian Majesty of Spain, such a notable concession as the whole of Venezuela, then newly discovered, for colonisation and exploitation, and the Welscrs actually did control that country, including its enormously rich silver mines nntd 1,545, when the Spaniards established their own colony and governorship. But despite silver mines and territory the Welser prosperity faded. Its surviving members, ennobled also, are to-dav poor and inconspicuous. the Fuggers are, rich, titled', and famous, with castles in Austria and Germany and bi-anches extending into the nobility of half the countries of _ Europe. The archives of their house, including the newsletter they received _ from • their agents in distant countries in the days before newspapers were dreamed of, are among the most valued possessions of the Austrian State Library in Vienna. FOUNDER OF THE CHARITY. Approximately a century after the appearance of the first h ugger m Augsburg the house of Fugger entered upon the period of its greatest prosperity under Jakob,, second of the name. Under his rule the house branched out into real world trade. , It became the ambition of Jakob to rival the greatei merchants, of the Venetian Republic. In the. Fondaco dei Tedeschi, on the Grand Canal in Venice, where in his youth he had served an apprenticeship, he established a great, branch trading house. Giorgione and Titian painted the frescoed walls and princely hospitality was dispensed therein. opo. ll Jakob’s ambition was realised. His wealth rivalled that of the Florentine Medici. All Europe heard of Jakob Fugger—“ the rich Fugger.” It was this Jakob Fugger who originated “ the Fuggerei ” in Augsburg. In. business he went further afield. than his predecessors. First, in return for loans granted to the Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol, he became owner of the rich silver mines of Hall m that principality. Then, with other merchants of Augsburg, including the Welsers. he formed a combination tor working the copper mines of Hungary, and obtained control of the Venetian copper market. And he lent money to other potentates. Maximillian 1., the dreamer and matchmaker, when on the German throne, quickly found his way to Jakob Fugger’s money chests. It began by his pawning with Jakob the reyemies of two counties, Kirehberg and Weissenhorn. Failing to redeem the security, » later branch of the Fugger family became rulers thereof with the dignity of counts. In fact, it became the nils that Jakob Fugger should regularly lend the unthrifty emperor fresh sinus in order to redeem old loans, and it was truly the fact that the bread that appeared on Maxiinillian’s table had metaphorically already been eaten in advance, for' the emperor pawned all kinds of resources, _ even to the “ subsidies we shall receive at the forthcoming imperial Diet.” After Maximillian’s death Charles V. of .Hapsburg became German Roman Emperor in 1519 by dint of aid from Jakob Fugger’s coffers, as Jakob did not fail to remind the emperor later. The German electors were notoriously hard up, and the Imperial crown was going to the highest bidder. If Francis I. of France, the opponent of Charles, could raise more money than the Hapsburgs he would become emperor. A syndicate of Genoese bankers was paying Charles's election expenses, but they could not provide enough. He appealed to Jakob I ugger and got the cash*