WORLD’S OLDEST CHARITY

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 August 1934, Page 4

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 Lack 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 cour.les at a rental to each amounting to 4/- a year. This Fugger charity is especially notable because it was the first public recognition by the weathy 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 Augburg 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 out in six streets enclosed within three gates, the settlement church at one eiid. Each house accommodate.s two families, one upstairs and one down, bat each family hits a. separate entrance.

“For,” said Jakob Fugger the Second, who took the lead among his brothers in establishing the charity, “our houses arc to be for old people, and old people who are thrown much together become quarrelsome, and in this our settlement we would have peace and happiness.” So, beside the door leading to the three little rooms downstairs is another door opening on 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 in 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 in these days, 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, stiil comes from the common pump at the street corner as it did 400 years ago. There is a better pump now, but that is all.

KEEN 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, for the family still continues, is still rich, and has become ennobled. These tenants 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 marks and 40 pfennigs, which is about 4/-. These are the only requisites. The prayers for the Fugger family have evidently been heard and heeded, for the rich merchants of their day the Fuggers alone have continued to prosper. At the height of their fame their chief rivals and competitors rvere the Welsers, also of Augsburg, which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had become the greatest of tho commercial cities of the world, and its merchants the bankers and financial agents of kings and emperors. The Weiser family received in 1525, 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 Welsers actually did control that country, including its enormously rich silver mines, until 1545, when the Spaniards established their own colony and governorship.

But despite 1 silver mines ami territory the Weiser prosperity faded. .Us surviving members;, ennobled also, are to-day poor and inconspicuous. The Fuggers are rich, titled, and famous, with castles in Austria and Germany and branches 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 tlic first Fugger in 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 lo rival the greater merchants of (he 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 thciein. Soon 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. lu business by went further afield than his predecessors. First, in return for loans granted to the Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol, he became owner of Urn rich silver mines of Hall in that principality. Then, with other me>chants of Augsburg, including the Welsers, he formed a combination for working (he copper mines of Hu.ugarv and obtained control of the Venetian copper market. And he lent money lo other potentates.

' AJaximillian 1., the drearner 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 revenues of two counties, Kirchberg and Weissenhorn. Failing to redeem tho security, a later branch of the uggci family became rulers thereof with the dignity of counts. In fact, it became the rule that Jakob Fugger should regularly lend the unthrifty Emperor fresh sums in order to redeem old loans, gnd it was truly the fact that the bread that appeared on IVlaximillian’s table bad 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 Chari—v- of Hapsburg became- German Homan Emperor in 1519 by dint of aid from Jakob Fugger’® coffers, as Jakob did not fail to remind the Em-

I'-ror later. The German ( lectors v.ere notoriously hard up and the imperial crown was going to the highest bidder. If Francis 1. of France the opponent of Charles, could raise more money than the Hapsburgs lie would become Emperor. A syndicate of G’enucse bankers was pacing Ciiarp- ' d' ction expenses, but tliey could not provide enough. He appealed to Jakob Fugger and got the cash.