TWO MEDIEVAL TOWNS

Evening Star, Issue 22817, 27 November 1937, Page 9

TWO MEDIEVAL TOWNS

THEIR CHARM AND INTEREST IMfNSSHINS OF PROFESSOR BENHAM Two medieval walled towns which appealed to Professor Benham as especially interesting during his tour of Central Europe early this year were Rothenburg, in Germany, and Dubrovnik, in Jugoslavia. “ The little town of Rothenburg is a real gem,” writes Professor Benham. “ Situated on a small hill, it overlooks a fertile valley and plain which, as is tho case throughout Germany, is intensely cultivated. This plain is traversed by the river Tauber, hence this particular town is distinguished from another Rothenburg as Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber. The town as it exists to-day dates from tho fourteenth century ; that is, it has been in existence for 600 years. It is enclosed in a continuous stone wall with 20 towers at fairly regular intervals, and was and is entered by five gateways, each with its own tower. The walls are sufficiently thick to allow a footway some 3ft or 4ft wide made of wooden planks along its upper surface. This runs along inside the battlements which rise above it and is supported partly by timber brackets. The uprising battlements are perforated by many narrow slits for the discharge of arrows and the small guns in use in those early days. This walk is covered by a roof of tiles, which slopes outwards so as to protect the defenders and throw off the projectiles of the attackers. “ At intervals along the walk are stone steps leading down to the ground within; and to-day one may walk almost all the way round this battlemented town, though here and there along its course the planks of the footway or the wooden supports are so rotten as to be dangerous, so that here one reads that ascent ‘ ist vorboden.’ “ All the dwellings are within this wall, but between it and them is a wide space in which, so far as I could see, is stored the manure for the surrounding gardens. The houses retain to the full their medieval characters; red roofs, white or cream coloured plaster walls, on which one sees a variety of ornamentation, such as pictures of groups of medieval folk, in colours, mottoes inscribed in black Germanic lettering; quotations from poets or, at any rate, verses, in the same lettering; or carved and painted coats of arms of the former inhabitants. Frequently the date of the building is given, and I noted such dates as 1220. 1240, 1327, etc. Some of the houses have a marble tablet recording the name of a distinguished former owner, with some account of the work done by him which rendered him fam°U ‘ B ‘' The population to-day is 9,000, who all dwell within the walls. Formerly the town was a quarter the present size, for traversing an inner circle of the tower are three gates—with their towers the last remnants of an earlier wall of the thirteenth century; and the former moat,_ which ran outside this earlier wall, is now filled up; but near, one tower is an hotel, in the cellars of which are stohe arches of a bridge which crossed this moat. “ In the centre of the town is a wide area, the platz, or market place, with the Town Hall, or Rathhaus, and other municipal buildings surrounding it. From this open platz there lead off several streets, most of them narrow, affording passage to one vehicle at a time, but two main streets are wide enough for two vehicles. The streets are cobbled—that is, the roadway is formed of small rounded stones three or four inches in diameter, very rough travelling for motor cars- , “ One of the houses on the platz is named the Drinking House, which is at right angles to the Rathhaus, and since the year 1406 has been used by the town aldermen for their carousals. On the wall facing the platz is an interesting clock with a window at each side Of it. When the hour of midday strikes the shutters close, the windows Open, and one sees in each window the figure of an historical person. For here is a record of an event which was of the greatest importance to the Rothenburgers of the seventeenth qentury. The town was entered during *he Thirty Years War, which lasted from 1618 till 164 R, by the leader of the enemy, Tilly, who was a Catholic, whereas tho Rothenburgers were Protestant. When Tilly reached the town and ordered his array to burn and plunder, as was even then the custom, and to put to the sword the, councillors, the women and their children met him in the platz or market place and begged him for mercy. Meanwhile the butler, or as legend says liis daughter, offered Tilly some of the local wine. It is said that he had never tasted wine before, and they presented it to him in goblet or beaker containing three litres—more than five pints. After he had drunk the wine his mood changed and he became more complaisant, and there and then vowed that if anyone there could drain off the goblet of wine in one draught without taking breath he would spare the town. Nusch, the bnrger-meieter or mayor, accepted the challenge and emptied the goblet without drawing breath. “ So Field-marshal Tilly spared the town and the inhabitants. This event is celebrated every day by this clock, for in one window is the figure of the mayor Nusch slowly lifting the goblet to his lip* and slowly elevating it till it is upright and empty, while in the other window Tilly looks out, moving his head and lifting his arms to express his surprise. That goblet is preserved in the town hall or the museum, and . the episode is still termed the “ Meiater trink.’ I saw a replica of this goblet in a little tavern whose date is 1208, and for 700 years has been in continuous use as a tavern. It is such things as these—the great period of time during which towns and houses and customs have been in existence—that give a traveller in Europe such thrills, at any rate to anyone with the slightest imagination or historical sense. “The ancient Rathhaus dates from 1250, and though the front of it was burnt down and a Renaissance building erected in the sixteenth century, yet the side remains, with its square tower —itself an unusual feature—which attains a height of 165 ft. One of the churches—that dedicated to St. Jakob—is a Gothic building of the year 1373, and. contains a remarkable altar made in 1474 by the well-known sculptor Tilman Riemenscheid, a_ celebrated carver in wood. The nltnrpieco represents the Last Supper, the figures in which have very expressive faces, and is altogether a very beautiful work of art. “ One day I lunched at a cafe which was formerly the home of a burgomeister famous in the annals of the town—one Toppler, and the house dates from 1377. All this and more may be seen by every visitor. But the town has, of course, not only a long history, but one of many stirring events. It was an old Franconian stronghold, and the town was originally under the protection of a castle occupied by the Counts of Ilothenberg. The earliest recorded in a document lived in 804, and the counts continued to succeed each other as the town grow, till • jn 1172

the Emperor Barbarossa granted it a charter, and it remained a ‘ free ’ town until 1802, when it, became annexed to Bavaria. Rothenburg figured frequently in the disturbances of those early days, and the men seem to have been brave warriors, for we read that ‘ jnany of the strongholds of the robber barons could not withstand the stormings of the llobhenburgers.’ DUBROVNIK. “In contrast to Rothenburg, planted as it is on a small hill above a valley * flowing with milk and honey',’ is this Yugoslavian town of Dubrovnik, rising from the very waters of the Adriatic, which bathes its high stone walls. It occupies a peninsula, and is overlooked by a range of bare limestone hills reaching a height of 2,000 ft or more ••Founded in the seventh century by an expedition from Corinth, Dubrovnik — or, as it used to be called, Ragusa—was long an independent republic. Its walls date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but were rebuilt after an earthquake which wrecked the town in the seventeenth century. As is usual with these walled towns, towers (here square) and bastions which are here circular occur at intervals along the landward sides. At one corner there is a remarkably strong tower like a citadel rising up above the rest, forming what one author calls a stupendous fortification.

“ The wall was formerly surrounded by a moat of water, but this is now empty, and a cultivated public garden. The wall is pierced by a northern gateway, and at the southern side are two small gateways which lead only to the wharf or quay round the small boat harbour, to-day suitable merely for fishing boats, yachts, and sintill Steamers, but in medieval times was used by the great vessels for which Ragusa was then famous, as being an important commercial centre. The word ‘ argosy ' is derived from the word ‘ ragusa ’ by rearrangement of the letter's, and an argosy referred to these great snips that sailed out of Ragusa (Dubrovnik). “ On the walls enclosing the quays may still be seen- the Targe stone ‘ loops ’ to which these vessels were tied up. The entrance to the town from the land is only by the large north gate: here one crosses the old moat bn a bridge which is still provided with tackle used in old days for raising and lowering the drawbridge. This leads to an imposing gateway capable of being closed by a door of wood strengthened with iron, with large locks. Thence one passes down a flight of stone steps which leads to an inner gateway less protected, and so one passes into the main street. This runs along a valley which until the thirteenth century was a marsh dividing the Latin isle of Ragusa from the forest settlement of Dubrovnik (forest town) on the lesser slopes of Mount Serzion. Here within the walls is the shopping quarter and the habitations of fisherfolk and labouring classes and others of the poorer people; small houses ranged along very narrow passages or alleys which run at right angles to the mam street and others parallel to it. The main street is, however, wide and with such shops as attract the tourists. No wheeled traffic is allowed to enter within the walls—indeed, it is impossible for it to do so. Here, too, are the various buildings of medieval times. At the end of this street is an open place with the cathedral, dating, however, only from the seventeenth century, as the older one was destroyed by the earthquake of 1667. It is dedicated to the patron saint St. Blasiua, or St. Blaize. When I was there I found this most appropriate, as the sun blamed down on us with all its power. Facing the main street is the palace of the former rectors or governors, for Dubrovnik was then an city, or, rather, a republic. Like Venice or Florence, it has been successively occupied by Hungarians, Turks,_ Austrians; now it is merely a provincial town of Yugoslavia. The front of this small but elegant palace, which is one of the masterpieces, has a row of six beauti-fully-carved stone pillars supporting an arcade. Near by, too, is the ancient Customs House, similarly colonnaded. It was already ancient in 1440, for it is referred to in a document of that time. Within is a court surrounded by cloisters, from which open a number of doors,' each of which is to-day named after some saint. The reason for this I was unable to ascertain. Here in this old building is the civic centre, with the offices of town clerk, etc. Facing the main street also is a tall square clock tower or campanile dating from 1480.

“At the northern end of the town, near the entrance, are other churches and interesting monuments of various kinds, such as the curious ‘ fountain ’ of Onofrio, erected in 1440 by an architect of that name, to supply the town with water from the neighbouring hill. It is a circular structure pf some ten yards or so in circumference built of stone panels about four feet in height, which are supported by 16 pillars and roofed over with a rounded dome. , In the centre of each of these panels is a carved plaque, through which the water issues and flows into a circular cistern whose wall is of carved stone. It is totally, unlike one’s conception of a fountain, totally unlike fountains, elsewhere, for there is no upward jet of water, no overflowing in great sheets such as one sees in other fountains; this one is rather a place at which the populace draws off water for domestic use. bringing their jugs or other receptacles to be filled. For I expect that even to-day water is not laid on to the houses. At any rate I saw women and girls filling their buckets and so on at this well. There are two 14th century monasteries here with delicious garden enclosed by cloisters, one at each end of the town, Dominican and Franciscan. And I noted over the door of an apothecary’s shop a tablet bearing the words ‘ Domus Christie Founder 1420.’ It was the apothecary of one of the monasteries, for at that time the monks were healers of the body as well as .of the soul, or tried to he. Dubrovnik is full of these and other archaeological treasures. “ Unlike Rothenburg, there are, besides the dwellings within the wall, streets outside in which one finds the villas and houses of professional people, pensions and hotels, restaurants and transport agencies. The villas, with their gardens, creep some little way up the side of the hill, at the back of the walled town and along the sea const north and south, but of course the real interest lies inside the town walls.

“ I must not forget, however, the modern amenities of this town, namely —a tine cafe situated near the palace of the rector and abutting on the quayside, on to which it opens by large arched openings giving a view of the harbour and the sea beyond and the villas along the coast. Within the cafe are two pools with water lilies, each with a small fountain sending up a cooling spray; here one may have one’s tea or other drink and at the same time read the newspapers, which include the chief London papers, dailies and weeklies. “ There is a large first-class hotel to the north of the town where most tourists assemble, but I stayed at a small 1 pension ’ in a suburb, Bonini, built on the edge of a rocky cliff some 80 feet above the sea, where the dining terrace actually is built out over the sea, so that one looks down into the blue waters of the Adriatic* Prow

the garden steps lead down to the sea shore and one may thus bathe at any time, day or night . From the terrace one looks along the sea coast with its white stone houses embowered in their pleasing gardens. I found this preferable to the hotel, for here one met few tourists, the guests being mostly nationals.

“ In the middle ages Dubrovnik was a flourishing school of Serbian literature. It was a meeting place of the East and the West, a great trading centre, but the conquest of the Balkans by the Turks and later the misrule of Hungary .led to the ruin of commerce. To-day the industries include the manufacture of liqueurs, cheese, silk, leather and drawn-thread work, etc. The soil is fertile, dates, figs, and olives being cultivated. Formerly it produced the wine called Malmsey, a strong sweet wine also produced in Greece, but this ceased to be made after the vines were attacked by disease in 1852. Is there not a legend that a Duke of Clarence of England was got rid of.by drowning in a*‘butt of Malmsey?’ ”