Straubing--The Bridge--The Hauptstrasse--The Stadtthurm--The
Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche--Story of Agnes Bernauer--The
Ramparts--The Atzelburg--Ober Altaich--Bogenberg--Kloster
Metten--The Natternberg--Deggendorf--The Gnade Zeit--Confluence
of the Isar and the Danube--Rafts from Munich to Vienna--Nieder
Altaich--Hengersberg--Osterhofen--Hoch-winzer--Hofkirchen--Kinzing--
Hildegartsberg--Vilshofen--Collegiat Stift--The Sandbach--New Road
to Passau--Maximilian Joseph I., late King of Bavaria--Louis I., the
present Monarch--Statue of a Lion--Approach to Passau.
Straubing is pleasantly situated on the right bank of a small arm of
the river, or, as it might be called, a canal, through which part of
the noble stream has, of late years, been conducted to the very walls.
In front of it, the mountains, which, as I have already mentioned,
have retreated from the left bank, form a fine amphitheatre, in the
centre of which, the insulated Bogenberg rises like a pyramid. Like
most cities of any size and antiquity in Germany, Straubing is divided
into an Alt-Stadt and a Neu-Stadt. The old town is conjectured by some
to have been the Serviodurum Augusti of the Romans, the seat of the
Castra Augustana, etc., and traces of some entrenchments, supposed to
be Roman, are still to be seen just without the walls. The name of
“Straubinga” (“Curtis Regia”) first occurs in an instrument, dated A.D.
902. About forty years afterwards, we hear of the deeds of the noble
knights of Straubing and Stein. At the latter end of the tenth century,
Henry III. obtained the surname of Pious, by presenting Straubing to
his brother Otto, Bishop of Augsburg, who left it to the cathedral and
chapter of that place. It was governed by an officer called a Vice Dom,
till the commencement of the thirteenth century, when New Straubing was
built, and the old town re-annexed to the Duchy of Bavaria. Frederick
the Handsome, of Austria, besieged and took it in 1319. In 1332, Louis
the Bavarian lay before the town from the 4th of July till the 24th of
August, when, provoked by its obstinate resistance, he threw a bridge
over the Danube, by Kagers, and, making a desperate assault at the
Spital-gate, succeeded at last in carrying the place by storm. His
son, Duke William, first husband of Matilda of Lancaster, built the
castle on the Danube, A.D. 1356. It is now converted into barracks. In
1393, Straubing was entirely destroyed by fire, and the conflagration
having begun at a joiner’s, no person of that trade was permitted to
reside in the city from that time till the year 1540. It was most
vigorously defended against the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, in 1633. The
burgomaster, Höller, an excellent marksman, shot upwards of thirty of
his best officers from the ramparts. In 1635, Straubing was visited by
a dreadful pestilence. In 1704, it was taken by the Austrians, and, in
1780, the best half of it fell a second time a prey to the flames. The
loss was estimated at more than a million of florins.
Straubing in its present state is cheerful and tolerably regular, but
more like a Dutch than a Bavarian town; the bridge across the Danube
is pretty, and the gate which terminates it fantastic. On entering the
Hauptstrasse or High-street, the eye is attracted by a quadrangular
tower, forming part of the Rath-haus or Guildhall, and much prized by
the Straubingers, who consider it the most ancient relic in the place;
but it seems to have been a terrible annoyance to Professor Schultes,
who neglects no opportunity of expressing his antipathy to it, and
astonishment that any reverence for its antiquity should prevent the
removal of a building, which hinders people from looking through the
town like a telescope. This Stadt-thurm as it is called is two hundred
feet high, and is now surmounted by a tin spire, with four smaller
pinnacles at the corners. There are two Latin inscriptions upon it, one
proclaiming its erection in 1208, and the other its renovation in 1783.
The largest building in the town is the Pfarr, or Collegiat Kirche,
commenced about 1432, and finished in 1512. In a small chapel in the
churchyard of St. Peter’s, in the Alt-stadt, is a red marble tablet,
on which reclines the effigy of a female surrounded by the following
inscription, “Anno Domini, +MCCCCXXXVI+, +XII+ Die Octobris, Obiit
Agnes Bernauerin. Requiescat in pace.”
[Illustration: A marble tablet dedicate to Agnes Bernauer.]
The fate of this unfortunate lady has furnished the subject for a
tragedy to the Count of Torring Seefeld, and one more deeply affecting
is scarcely to be found in the page of history.
Albert, the only son of Duke Ernst of Bavaria, was one of the most
accomplished and valiant princes of the age he lived in. His father
and family had selected for his bride, the young Countess Elizabeth
of Würtemberg. The contract was signed and the marriage on the point
of taking place, when the lady suddenly eloped with a more favoured
lover, John Count of Werdenberg. The tidings were brought to Albert at
Augsburg, where he was attending a grand tournament given in honour
of the approaching nuptials, but they fell unheeded on his ear, as
his heart, which had not been consulted in the choice of his bride,
had just yielded itself, “rescue or no rescue,” to the bright eyes of
a young maiden whom he had distinguished from the crowd of beauties
that graced the lists. Virtuous as she was lovely, Agnes Bernauer had
obtained amongst the citizens of Augsburg, the appellation of “the
angel:” but she was the daughter of a bather, an employment considered
at that period, in Germany, as particularly dishonourable. Regardless
of consequences, however, he divulged his passion, and their marriage
was shortly afterwards privately celebrated in Albert’s castle at
Vohberg. Their happiness was doomed to be of short duration. Duke
Ernst became possessed of their secret, and the anger of the whole
house of Munich burst upon the heads of the devoted couple! Albert was
commanded to sign a divorce from Agnes, and prepare immediately to
marry Anna, daughter of Duke Erich of Brunswick. The indignant prince
refused to obey, and being afterwards denied admission to a tournament
at Regensburg, on the plea of his having contracted a dishonourable
alliance, he rode boldly into the lists upon the Heide Platz, before
the whole company declared Agnes Bernauer his lawful wife and duchess,
and conducted her to his palace at Straubing, attended as became her
rank. Every species of malice and misrepresentation was now set at
work to ruin the unfortunate Agnes. Albert’s uncle, Duke Wilhelm, who
was the only one of the family inclined to protect her, had a sickly
child, and she was accused of having administered poison to it. But
the duke detected the falsehood and became more firmly her friend.
Death too soon deprived her of this noble protector, and the fate of
the poor duchess was immediately sealed. Taking advantage of Albert’s
absence from Straubing, the authorities of the place arrested her on
some frivolous pretext, and the honest indignation with which she
asserted her innocence, was tortured into treason by her malignant
judges. She was condemned to die, and on Wednesday, October 12th, 1436,
was thrown over the bridge into the Danube, amidst the lamentations of
the populace[14]. Having succeeded in freeing one foot from the bonds
which surrounded her, the poor victim, shrieking for help and mercy,
endeavoured to reach the bank by swimming, and had nearly effected a
landing, when a barbarian in office, with a hooked pole, caught her by
her long fair hair, and dragging her back into the stream, kept her
under water until the cruel tragedy was completed. The fury and despair
of Albert on receiving these horrid tidings were boundless. He flew to
his father’s bitterest enemy, Louis the Bearded, at Ingolstadt, and
returned at the head of an hostile army to his native land, breathing
vengeance against the murderers of his beloved wife. The old duke,
sorely pressed by the arms of his injured son, and tormented by the
stings of conscience, implored the mediation of the Emperor Sigismund,
who succeeded after some time in pacifying Albert, and reconciling
him to his father, who, as a proof of his repentance, instituted a
perpetual mass for the soul of the martyred Agnes Bernauer. Albert
afterwards married Ann of Brunswick, by whom he had ten children.
The ramparts of this town are now almost entirely demolished, and
the fosses turned into kitchen-gardens. The former were once planted
with mulberry-trees, but they were destroyed during the late war,
when Straubing, though not absolutely stormed or invested, suffered
considerably from the constant passage of troops, and the skirmishing
in its neighbourhood. The Straubingers are more celebrated for good
living than hard work.
“On y mange et digére
Compère, compère;
On y fait bonne chere
Voilà tout le mystère!”
is the quotation of Prof. Schultes, and may with great propriety be
applied to many bodies corporate, of more pretension than the humble
one of Straubing.
The whole country was lighted up by a glorious sunset as we entered the
town to satisfy our curiosity and our appetite, and some time before
we returned from those important occupations, the “twilight grey” had
“in her sober livery all things clad.” We had determined on passing the
first night on board, in order to reach Vilshofen by breakfast-time
the following day, as from that place we understood the scenery would
become too interesting to admit of haste, or travelling after dark,
and preparations had been accordingly made by our little crew. The
sides of the zille were boarded up, and straw and boat-cloaks so
arranged as to make us a very comfortable couch, upon which we had no
sooner stretched ourselves than the word was given, and by the light
of the stars we dropped gently down the river, passing the Atzelburg
and Hockstetter-hof on the right bank. The former, also called the
Aciliusburg, is conjectured by some to have been the retreat of the
Roman Consul Acilius, when exiled for the _crime_ of Christianity, and
originally named from him Acilia Augusta. In its neighbourhood are some
entrenchments believed to be Roman. Reibersdorf, Kleinau, and Ebling
are villages on the right bank. Near the latter the small stream of the
Aitrach joins the Danube. On the left is Lenach, remarkable only as
having been purchased by the monks of Altaich in 1139, for ninety-five
Pf. Pfennige, about five shillings, English.
Notwithstanding the precautions we had taken, I was too cold as
well as too curious to sleep; and as the moon got up so did I, and,
seating myself by the cabin door, looked on the gradually brightening
landscape, and listened to the songs of the boatmen who, as they lazily
plied their unwieldy paddles, warbled in their own peculiar style--a
style rendered familiar to London ears, by the interesting “Rainer
family,” for it is not confined to the Tyrol--several wild but pleasing
melodies. It is very provoking that the English should be, perhaps,
the only people who have no idea of singing in parts; an untutored
boatman, peasant, or soldier of almost any of the continental nations
will suddenly strike in with an extemporary and very creditable bass,
though the air be led off by an utter stranger to him. On the banks
of the Main at Aschaffenburg, and at Möhdling in the Wienerwald, I
was particularly struck with this pleasing talent, and have noticed
it repeatedly both in France and Switzerland. The complaint that the
English are not a musical nation is in my opinion better borne out
by this circumstance, than by the alleged deficiency of celebrated
composers, or the want of taste in the mixed audiences of our Concert
Rooms and Theatres. There is certainly no comparison between “the
native wood-notes wild” of a Devonshire ploughman, and those of a
Bavarian bauer.
We soon came in sight of Ober-Altaich, a celebrated Benedictine
kloster. A Druidical altar is said to have been destroyed here by
the holy Parminius, who, with his own hand, cut down the oak under
which it stood, and caused a chapel to be erected upon the spot. The
convent was founded by Duke Uttilo II. A.D. 731, who brought thither
twelve Benedictine monks and an abbot from Reichenau, in the Lake of
Constance. The Hungarians destroyed it in 907, and it was a ruin for
nearly two hundred years, when Count Frederick of Bogen rebuilt it,
and, with his wife and sons, so liberally endowed and patronised it,
that in the thirteenth century there were no less than one hundred and
eighteen monks here, most of them of noble birth; and the dignity of
prince was granted to its abbots by Louis the Brandenburgher. In 1634,
Ober-Altaich was burnt by the Swedes, but shortly afterwards rose from
its ashes, more magnificent than ever,--a circumstance, says Schultes,
not at all surprising when you consider that, in spite of their vow
of poverty, the holy brotherhood enjoyed an annual income of thirty
thousand florins (between four and five thousand pounds sterling,) an
immense sum for this part of Germany, where a florin in the hands of a
native will go nearly as far as a pound in England. Passing the mouth
of the little Kinzach, and the villages of Saut and Hundersdorf, we
at length approached the long-seen Bogenberg. Upon its summit lie the
last crumbling relics of an old fortress, the Stammschloss[15] of the
once-dreaded Counts of Bogen. Germany in the times they flourished was,
as the Legate Cupanus described it in his letters to Rome--a den of
thieves. The deplorable state into which the whole empire was plunged
by the quarrels between the popes and the house of Swabia, the almost
total annihilation of the imperial power by the death of Conrad IV.,
and the interregnum that followed the death of Richard King of the
Romans, in 1271, is vividly described by contemporary writers, one of
whom, in the language of scripture, exclaims, “In those days there
was no king in Israel, and every one did that which was right in his
own eyes.” “The earth (says another) mourned and languished, Mount
Lebanon was shaken from its foundations, and the moon was turned into
blood[16].” The terms noble and robber were synonymous, and the higher
the rank the more lawless and rapacious were the deeds of the titled
ruffian. The castle of Bogen was admirably adapted for a bandit’s hold.
Seated upon the apex of a pyramidical rock, inaccessible but by one
narrow pass on its eastern side, which a handful of determined men
might keep against a host, and commanding a view over nearly half the
dukedom of Bavaria, its lawless lord watched from its battlements, like
a vulture, the approach of his unsuspecting prey, and, pouncing upon
it, bore it up in triumph to his mountain eyrie, where he feasted at
his leisure in security. The domains of the Counts of Bogen extended
from Regensburg to the Ilz, and from the shores of the Danube far into
Bohemia. Their friendship and alliance were sought by King and Kaiser,
by the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Markgraves of Austria; and their feuds
with the Counts of Ortenburg deluged the land repeatedly with blood.
But bigotry and superstition lost them what rapine and murder had won.
Their revenues filled the coffers of greedy abbots, and their castles
were gradually transformed into convents. An image of the Virgin was
one day seen floating upon the Danube, and drifting ashore near the
little market-town of Bogen, which lies at the foot of the mountain, on
its western side, rested on a stone on the bank. Count Answin, struck
with so _miraculous_ an occurrence, presented the castle of Bogen to
the kloster of Ober Altaich, which his brother Frederick had founded.
Forty years afterwards, Count Albert I. of Bogen was wheedled out of
the castle of Windberg by another holy fraternity; and about the middle
of the thirteenth century the family became extinct, by the death of
Count Albert IV., who had followed the unfortunate Emperor, Frederick
II., to the Holy Land. Ludmilla, the mother of this last Count of
Bogen, was a Bohemian Princess; and, on the death of her husband,
Albert III., Louis II., Duke of Bavaria, becoming enamoured of her
from report, offered her marriage, provided, says the chronicle, he
should like her upon a personal acquaintance. Ludmilla consented to
this proposition, and the duke visited her accordingly. Suspecting,
however, the sincerity of his protestations, she one day requested
him, as in a joke, to plight his troth to her in a tapestried chamber,
and to consider the figures of three knights, worked in the hangings,
as witnesses of the contract. The duke, to humour this apparently
childish fancy, smilingly held up his hand, and took the oath required
of him, when, to his utter astonishment, three living knights, “good
men and true,” stepped out from behind the tapestry, where they had
been purposely concealed by the cunning Bohemian, and compelled the
ensnared potentate to ratify his pledge[17]. The church of our Lady
of Bogen, erected in honour of the miraculous image before-mentioned,
stands beside the ruins of the castle, and from six to eight thousand
pilgrims have been known at one time to congregate about its far-famed
shrine. It has been several times injured by lightning, and its roof
carried away by the high winds, a natural consequence of its exposed
situation. A thunderstorm burst over it on Whit-Tuesday, A.D. 1618,
during one of these meetings, and the lightning having fired the
steeple, such confusion ensued, that fourteen persons were crushed
to death[18]. The Bogenberg and its vicinity have been fertile in
miracles. A ridiculous story is told by Æmilius Hemmauer, a prior of
Ober-Altaich, about a moving altar, and in the little market-town is
shown a tooth of St. Sebastian, over which water is poured into a
goblet; and it is gravely asserted that whoever drinks of this water,
need fear no infectious disorder for twelve months to come. The little
rivers Bogen and Menach join the Danube near this spot, and on the
opposite shore are the villages of Absam and Hermansdorf.
As the Danube approaches its confluence with the Isar, its banks become
bolder and more interesting; a crowd of villages present themselves,
amongst which the most important are Pfelling, whence a considerable
quantity of wood is sent to Vienna; Irlbach, the principal depôt
for the corn of the Dunkelboden, before the Danube washed the walls
of Straubing; and Wischelburgh, on the site of the Roman Bisonium,
destroyed by the tremendous Attila.
Kloster-Metten, on the left bank, according to the legend, owes its
foundation to the following circumstances: A herdsman of Michaelbuch,
named Gamelbert, awaking from a deep sleep, in which he had been
indulging beneath a tree, found, to his surprise, a book lying upon his
breast. On examination he found it was written in English, and, though
he knew just as much of the language as the beasts that were grazing
before him, he immediately commenced reading it, and was so edified by
its contents, that he abandoned his flocks and herds, and, repairing to
Rome, became a Christian priest. On his way thither he baptised a boy,
whom he named Utto, and desired his parents to send the lad to him when
he became a man; they did so, and Gamelbert made over to him the care
of the souls of the worthy inhabitants of Michaelbuch. Utto, however,
had no great affection for his new calling, and leaving the poor souls
to take care of themselves, crossed the Danube, and wandered into the
Waldes, where he built a hermitage, in honour of the Archangel Michael,
near a spring, which is still called Utto’s Spring, and amused himself
with sundry curious pranks, amongst which was the rather difficult
one of hanging his axe upon a sunbeam! Charlemagne, hunting in the
neighbourhood, caught the holy hermit in the fact, and, astonished, as
well he might be, by so extraordinary a performance, promised to grant
him any boon he might be pleased to ask. Utto requested that a convent
might be built on the spot, and Kloster-Metten was erected at the
command of Charlemagne.
On the opposite side to Kloster-Metten, suddenly rises the remarkable
Natternberg the only rock on the right bank from Prufening to
Pleinting, a distance of upwards of eighty English miles. It is nearly
three hundred feet high; and on its summit are the ruins of another
castle, which belonged to the Counts of Bogen, who made it their
residence in 1232. The curious appearance of this mass of granite,
standing in solitary majesty upon this extensive plain, and cut off,
as it were, from its giant brethren of the Böhmer-Wald by the bright
and trenchant Danube, has given rise to many speculations amongst
the geologists of Germany; but while the learned are at loggerheads
respecting this natural phenomenon, the honest people who reside
in its neighbourhood, and who, therefore, surely have a right to a
voice on the subject, have settled the question completely to their
own satisfaction. The Devil, say they, hating the Deggendorfers, for
their piety, determined to destroy them outright; and, with that
intention, brought a rock from Italy, (none in the neighbourhood, I
presume, being suitable to his purpose,) with the malicious intention
of hurling it upon the devoted town of Deggendorf, and crushing
it, with all its inhabitants, into the Danube. Passing opposite to
Kloster-Metten, “half flying, half on foot,” with this formidable
missile under his arm, the bells of the convent rang for the Ave
Maria! The virtue of the holy sounds was immediately felt by the arch
apostate. “Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame,” he dropped
the mountain “like a hot potatoe,” and there, where it fell, it stands
to this day; an immutable proof of the power of bell-ringing, and a
monument of the piety and narrow escape of the Deggendorfers. In the
castle, on its crest, Duke Albert of Austria besieged his faithless
favourite Peter Ecker, A.D. 1347; and Henry of Landshut was educated
within its walls, from which circumstance he obtained the additional
sirname of the Natternberger. The castle was reduced to its present
ruinous state by the Swedes, and now belongs to a Count of Preising.
From the little place, called Fischerdorf, at the foot of the mountain,
the town of Deggendorf is seen lying in a beautiful valley, surrounded
by hills that rise in circles, each above the other, and having in
front the Danube; here broader than in any other part of Bavaria,
(nearly one thousand two hundred feet,) across which is a wooden
bridge, supported by twenty-six piers, but built so slightly, in order
that it may be easily removed to give an annual passage to the ice,
that Schultes says, it shakes under the curvetting of a single horse.
Of the ancient history of Deggendorf very little is known, its records
having been all destroyed; some by the Swedes, under Bernhard von
Weimar, and the rest by fire, in 1638.
Pilgrims, from all parts of Germany, flock to Deggendorf upon Saint
Michael’s eve, which is a celebrated Gnade-zeit, (time of grace,) when
absolution is granted to all comers, in consequence of some miraculous
circumstances that, in the year 1337, attended the purloining and
insulting of the Host by a woman and some Jews; who, having bought the
consecrated wafer from her, scratched it with thorns till it bled, and
the image of a child appeared; baked it, vision and all, in an oven;
hammered it upon an anvil, the block of which is still shown to the
pilgrim; attempted to cram it down “their accursed throats,” (I quote
the words of the original description,) but were prevented by the hands
and feet of the vision aforesaid; and finally, despairing to destroy
it, flung it into a well, which was immediately surrounded by a nimbus,
etc. I should not have noticed these disgusting falsehoods, but for
the melancholy fact, that the circulation of this trumpery story was
considered a sufficient cause, by the _pious_ Deggendorfers, for the
indiscriminate massacre of all the wretched Jews in the place; which
infamous and bloody deed was perpetrated the day after St. Michael,
sanctioned by _Christian_ priests, who, in grand procession, carried
back the indestructible wafer to the church, and solemnly approved,
in 1489, by Pope Innocent VIII., who issued his bull for the general
absolution abovementioned[19]. Above fifty thousand pilgrims assembled
here in 1801; and as late as 1815, so considerable were their numbers,
that the greater part of them passed the night in the streets of the
town, and in the fields in its neighbourhood.
The moon had set before we passed Deggendorf, but the night was light
enough to see the “Isar rolling rapidly,” through its many mouths, to
join the mighty Danube; and the spire of Plattling in the distance, a
tolerably sized market-town, where there is a bridge across the former
river, and the post-house, between Straubing and Vilshofen. Below
this bridge, the raft-masters of Munich, who leave that city every
Monday for Vienna, unite their rafts before they enter the Danube. They
descend the Isar upon single rafts only; but upon reaching this point
they lash them together in pairs, and in fleets of three, four, or six
pairs, they set out for Vienna. A voyage is made pleasantly enough
upon these floating islands, as they have all the agrémens without the
confinement of a boat. A very respectable promenade can be made from
one end to the other, and two or three huts erected upon them afford
shelter in bad weather and repose at night.
Isargemünd, situated in one of the many islands, at the confluence of
the rivers, is the only village on your right till you reach Thundorf,
where there is a ferry over to Nieder Altaich; on the left are the
Halbe-meile-kirche, and two or three small hamlets.
Nieder Altaich, another Benedictine convent[20], and, at one time, the
most important that the order possessed in Bavaria; its annual income
being not less than one hundred thousand florins; stands at the foot of
the frowning Böhmer-wald, which here again bends its bushy brows upon
the bright river. Saint Parminius is said to have acted the same scene
here which has already been described in the notice of Ober Altaich.
And Uttilo II., not contented with having founded that kloster, brought
hither an equal number of monks from the same monastery of Reichenau,
and established them in a like manner. Its abbot soon became the
richest in Bavaria; but the Hungarians, in the tenth century, ravaged
the country with fire and sword, and Nieder Altaich suffered the fate
of its prototype. In 990, however, it was rebuilt, and still more
richly endowed by the Emperor Otto, and Henry Duke of Bavaria. Saint
Gotthard came barefooted from Reichersdorf, where he was born in 965,
of humble parents, and from a monk became abbot, and lastly, bishop
of Hildesheim, where he died, A.D. 1035. The monks of Nieder Altaich,
it appears, gradually forgot the pious lessons and fair example of
Saint Gotthard; which, during his life, had materially improved the
reputation of the community; for in 1282, we find them making a riddle
of their abbot with arrows, from an ambush on the river side, as he
is crossing the ferry to Thundorf[21]. The abbots, themselves, also,
were many of them unworthy successors of that holy man. One of the last
superiors of this kloster, for instance, by name Augustin Ziegler, not
contented with expending annually upwards of ninety thousand florins,
ran the fraternity into a debt of nearly one hundred thousand before he
was _invited_ to retire from the cares of office, and live in peace at
Straubing, upon a slender annuity. In the “Topographischen Lexicon von
Baiern,” 2s., 508., is the following account of this worthy prelate,
who seems to have formed a very tolerable idea of the “otium cum
dignitate,” which should bless an abbot of Benedictines. “Besides his
valet he had two pages. On his name-day all the principal persons of
the government of Straubing assembled in the grand refectory of Nieder
Altaich. A band of trumpets and kettle-drums was in attendance, from
daybreak, facing his chamber window, and the moment his Excellency (for
he had purchased the title of a privy councillor) opened his eyes, the
pages undrew the curtains of cloth of gold, amidst a flourish from the
trumpets and kettle-drums without, while a battery of small mortars
proclaimed in thunder to the surrounding country, the dawning of the
name-day of this important personage.” His conduct, however, soon
became so notorious that he was compelled to resign, and retire upon
an annual allowance of two hundred ducats and ten eimers of wine. Ten
times has this kloster been burned down, and rebuilt each time more
magnificently; till at last, if we may believe Lackner’s account, the
very oxen of the community eat out of marble mangers--“pecora fecit in
marmore pabulari!”
A little beyond Nieder Altaich, upon the same bank, is the town of
Hengersberg, with its old castle, given, in 1212, by Altnann von
Helingersberg to Saint Mauritius, then abbot of that kloster. The
Danube formerly flowed over part of the bank, and, what is now the
lazzar-house, was, at that time, the river toll-house. At Hengersberg,
the Danube again turns from the Bohemian mountains, as wearied with
its unavailing efforts to penetrate the giant line; but the gentle
eminences which still skirt its left bank are enough to preserve its
superiority to that of the right, which, all the way from Ratisbon,
with the solitary exception of the Natternberg, had not presented
one hillock to break the long, low line of shore, more in keeping
with the sluggish stream of a Dutch canal, than with the rapid waves
of the “boiling Danube,” an epithet, by the bye, more descriptive
than any other of its singular current, which, whether running fast
or slowly, keeps up a constant whirling, eddying, and bubbling,
accompanied by a low hissing sound which (pardon, gentle reader, the
humble comparison) reminded our English ears of nothing so much as the
singing of a tea-kettle. After passing a handful of villages, whose
almost unpronounceable names shall be presented hereafter, in their due
order, to the curious in consonants, we glided by Osterhofen, a little
town on the side of a small hill, a short distance from the shore. It
is one of the oldest towns in Bavaria, and was the site of the Castra
Petrensia. The Avars, who desolated the banks of the Danube during the
sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, here suffered a serious defeat;
and the victory having been gained on an Easter Sunday, the town took
the name of _Oster_-hofen, and still bears in its arms a Paschal lamb.
In the meadow where the battle was fought, and named from that event,
“Oster-wiese,” stood Kloster Oster-hofen, erected in honour of, and
gratitude for, the defeat of the barbarians. Hither Uttilo II. brought
some more of his friends, the Benedictines; but the barbarians returned
in 765, thirsting for vengeance, and gratified it by razing the
Kloster to the ground. It was rebuilt, but the rest of its history is
neither clear nor interesting. The indefatigable Uttilo is supposed to
have been buried here, where also lie, according to report, which may
be said to _lie_ also, nine of the eleven thousand virgins who suffered
martyrdom with Saint Ursula at Cologne.
Below Osterhofen, on the left, are the picturesque ruins of the Castle
of Hoch-Winzer, or Ober-Winzer, over the little town of the same name.
Both town and castle received this appellation from the considerable
vineyards which flourished here; but who the Lords of Winzer were,
or what feats they achieved, Schultes says he has not been able to
discover: all that is known about them is, that they lie buried at
Osterhofen. The Pandours reduced the castle to its present ruinous
condition in 1741[22]. Flinschbach, built, in 1230, by the Counts of
Bogen, and three or four other villages of still less note, on each
side of the river, enliven the scene, till the ruins of the Castle
of Hofkirchen rise on the left bank; in the fourteenth century, the
residence of the powerful Counts of Ortenburg, the sworn enemies of the
Counts of Bogen, and the terror of all navigators of the Danube. What,
with barefaced plundering, and the exercise of a self-erected right,
called “grundruhr,” which literally signifies grounding, scarcely
a vessel escaped the clutches of these robber lords. This right of
grundruhr entitled them to take possession of every vessel, with its
crew and cargo, that grounded upon any bank, shoal, or island, within
their domain. If it but grated on the sand, or brushed the shore, it
was immediately pronounced “grundrürhrig” by the armed vassals of
the noble bandit, who were continually on the watch, and who made no
scruple of chasing the unfortunate schiffers till they drove them
aground, and then coolly laid _legal_ claim to their property.
Nearly opposite Winzer is Kinzing, or Kinzen, the Castra Quintana, or
Augusta Quintanorum Colonia of the Romans, upon a small height, from
whence a little brook leaps into the Danube. Several miracles are
related of Saint Severinus, who resided here during the fifth century,
how he saved the place from inundation, by planting a cross on the
river’s bank; how he brought his dead friend Sylvin to life again, in
the wooden church that stood outside the walls, and how Sylvin took it
in exceeding ill part, and insisted on dying again immediately. “I beg
of thee, I conjure thee,” exclaimed the indignant Sylvin, “not to rouse
me from the rest which God has appointed for me! Why hast thou awakened
me? Why hast thou brought me back into a world, into which I never
more wish to return?” The Saint, I suspect, looked uncommonly silly on
receiving this unexpected rap on the knuckles: his apology, if one he
made, has not come down to us. The _fact_ is related on the authority
of a young peasant girl, who hid herself in the church, on purpose to
witness the miracle which she suspected was about to be performed; and
it would be the height of impertinence, under such circumstances, to
inquire into particulars.
By the time we had reached Kinzing,
“Morn, her rosy steps in th’ orient clime,
Advancing, sowed the earth with eastern pearl;”
And as we made the point which brought us in view of the fine old ruin
of Hildegartsberg, the sun rising immediately behind it shot his
glorious rays, like golden arrows; through the loop-holes and windows
of its bare and blackened walls, that frowned still darker from the
blaze of light behind them. It was a scene in which the spirit of that
daring artist, Turner, would have revelled. My companion, who had given
me tolerable proofs during our passage from London to Ostend; that he
could “sleep in spite of thunder,” was awakened by my raptures; and we
stood, at the head of the boat, gazing at the beautiful picture, and
basking in the welcome beams of “the great lamp by which the world is
blest,” till the river, suddenly taking a new direction, brought us
again into the shadow of the left bank, and showed us Vilshofen, with
its long light bridge and pretty gardens laughing in the sunshine, at
the farther extremity of the valley we had now entered. Little appears
to be known about Hildegartsberg further than that it was like so many
other castles on the Rhine, the Danube, etc., the hold of some robber
knight, noble, or priest, of the middle ages, and destroyed by Duke
Albert of Austria, in 1346.
That most delightful of all chroniclers, Froissart, who commenced
his interesting annals shortly after this period, gives a lamentable
account of the brutality and avarice of the nobility and clergy of
Germany. “When a German hath taken a prisoner,” (says he,) “he putteth
him into irons, and into hard prison, without any pity, to make him pay
the greater finance and ransom.”[23] Again, “They are a covetous people
above all other. They have no pity if they have the upper hand, and
they demean themselves with cruelty to their prisoners. They put them
to sundry pains, to compel them to make their ransoms greater; and, if
they have a lord or a great man for their captive, they make great joy
thereof, and will convey him into Bohemia, Austria, or Saxony, and keep
him in some uninhabitable castle. They are people worse than Saracens
or Paynims; for their excessive covetousness quencheth the knowledge of
honour;”[24] and Schmidt[25] tells us, that an archbishop thought he had
a fair revenue before him, when he built his fortress on the junction
of four “roads.”
Nearly facing Hildegartsberg is Pleinting, a small market-town, at
which the plain stretching from the gates of Regensburg, along the
right bank of the Danube, at last terminates, and the beauty of the
river really commences. The road from Straubing runs beside it, upon
a sort of terrace, and the sight of a post-chariot whirling along,
recalled our wandering thoughts from the dark but interesting ages
into which the contemplation of ruined tower and cloister grey had led
them, to the less romantic, but, in our situation, equally interesting
prospect, of a good inn and a capital breakfast. Alas! it seemed as
if neither were to be found in Vilshofen, or, at least, that it was
decreed we should not meet with them. Gilt lions, red stags, white
horses, and blue bulls; apples and orange trees, as a herald would say,
“proper;” crowns and coronets, and heads every way worthy of them;
suns, moons, and stars, “yea, the great globe itself,” swung to and
fro in the morning breeze, in every direction, and in endless variety;
but in vain, from spot to spot, “with courteous action, they waved us
to a more removed ground.” The exteriors of these caravanserais alone
were promising. If “houses of entertainment” they were, that quality
seemed entirely restricted to the outside. Their newly white-washed
walls, and neatly painted green doors and shutters, surmounted by one
of the glittering ensigns aforesaid, but served to make the dark gulf
of the long, low-roofed, rambling, unfurnished, smoky speise-saal,
appear more dreary, dirty, and uncomfortable; and it was some time
before even hunger, that least ceremonious of all sensations, could
induce us to make the plunge. Having at last screwed up our courage
to the sticking-place, we rushed into--the Moon, I believe; made the
hostess stare, by drinking four or five “portions” of coffee, which
turned out better than we expected, and ate a most respectable quantum
of tolerable “butter brod” and half a dozen eggs; for the whole of
which we paid twenty kreutzers (about sixpence English) each, being
then charged at least double what would have been demanded of their own
countrymen.
Vilshofen was the Villa Quintanica of the Romans, and is situated
at the confluence of the river Vils with the Danube. Rapoto, Count
of Ortenburg, fortified it in the eleventh century; and its history
from that period is little more than an unbroken narrative of takings
and retakings, plunderings and burnings, down to the end of the last
war. Its principal trade is in beer; for a particular sort of which
beverage it has been long celebrated: and its principal building
is an ecclesiastical establishment, for which I cannot find an
English name to my liking, that owes its foundation to the following
circumstance:--Heinrich Tuschl, knight of Saldenau, upon ocular proof
of his wife’s infidelity, condemned the miserable woman to be walled up
alive, abjured the company, and shunned the sight of females, and left
the greater part of his property in 1376 to found this establishment.
Upon the charter was written:
“2 Hund an ain Bain;
Ich Tuschl bleib allain.”
“Two dogs to one bone;
I Tuschl bide alone.”[26]
Having re-embarked and passed under the wooden bridge, on the centre
of which is a crucifix, we passed by Hacheldorf, which forms a kind
of suburb to Vilshofen, and the market town of Windorf, famous for
boat-building. Near Hansbach the little Wolfach falls into the Danube;
and below this spot the river boils over numberless sunken rocks,
many of which show their white heads above the water, studding the
stream in all directions. Shortly afterwards the river narrows, and a
slight fall, or what our sailors call a race, ensues. The watermen,
who magnify the little difficulties of this navigation into the most
astounding dangers, call this “das gefürchtete Sandbach!” The cottages
on the banks now assumed a Swiss appearance, being all of wood, with
galleries across their gables, and far-projecting roofs. A slight
change was also perceivable in the costume of the women; the little
black silk cap, with its long ribbon streamers, had given place to a
dark-coloured cotton handkerchief, bound closely round the head, and
tied in a knot behind, the ends hanging down. The impetus given to the
current by the little fall now carried us merrily along, to the great
delight of our lazy boatmen, who made it a point of conscience not to
wag a finger when they could possibly avoid it, past Gaishofen, where
a small stream called the Gaisach joins the Danube, and Heining on the
right bank, and Dobelstein (formerly called Engelberg) on the left.
For a new road cut through the rocks on the very brink of the river,
by which nearly six English miles are saved in posting to Passau,
Bavaria and its visiters are indebted to Maximilian-Joseph, the father
of the present monarch, Louis I. who, treading in the footsteps of his
excellent sire, inherits not only his crown but the affection of his
people; and by his unbounded kindness and liberality to the professors
of the fine arts, has obtained throughout the continent the honourable
addition to his style, of “the King of the Learned.” In the tour, of
which this descent of the Danube formed a part, I travelled nearly all
over Bavaria, and had the gratification of hearing the praises of its
king from all lips and in all places; not the mere mouth-homage which
betrays itself by the cold precision of the language in which it is
couched, but the ebullition of feeling rushing pure from the heart,
and leaping the barriers of ceremony in its honest ardour. “Our king
is a good fellow,” is the homely but expressive phrase in which his
character is invariably summed up by all who speak of him. Shortly
after he came to the throne, he disbanded an expensive body-guard, and
on being questioned as to the policy of the act, he replied, “We are at
peace; why should I burden my people with an unnecessary expense? as
for myself, I want no regiment to protect me, my fellow-citizens are my
body-guard.” In a very handsome new street erecting in Munich by his
order, there is an unseemly gap occasioned by an antique isolated house
standing edgeways in the centre of the modern buildings. On expressing
our surprise that it was allowed to remain there, we were told that it
belonged to an old general, who had resisted every proposal for its
demolition, and it having been suggested to the king to compel him, his
answer was, “No, no, let him have his way; he is an old man, and has
perchance but a few years to live; I will not abridge their number by
annoying him.” His majesty frequently takes a country walk alone, or
with but one attendant, and, dressed like a farmer, chats freely and
jocularly with the peasantry; never leaving them, however, without some
mark of his bounty.
I cannot be expected to vouch for the truth of these anecdotes as
far as regards their details or the exact expressions used, but they
are amongst the many in general circulation; and an excellent modern
tourist has justly remarked, that “an anecdote in general circulation,
even though not strictly true in point of fact, will commonly be
accordant to the character of the person of whom it is related, and
will thus be a correct, though perhaps a fictitious illustration of his
mode of acting.” The person of Louis is worthy his noble character;
intelligence and spirit are visible in every line of his countenance;
a high forehead, large and deeply-set dark eyes, to which a profusion
of black hair, pushed carelessly off the temples, and dark upturned
mustachios, would give something like an expression of fierceness,
were it not for the benignant smile which plays about his mouth
when addressing you. His queen, too, is renowned for her beauty and
affability; and, in short, a more handsome and deservedly popular pair
never graced a continental throne.
But to return to the Danube, from whence I have wandered to pay my
humble tribute of praise to one of the best of monarchs. By the side
of the new road before mentioned is the statue of a lion-couchant
upon a pedestal, and placed upon a jutting rock, with an inscription
beneath it stating the chaussée to have been made by command of
Maximilian-Joseph I., King of Bavaria. In a few minutes after you have
passed this monument, the towers of the church of Maria-hilf appear
above the hills, and shortly afterwards the cathedral of Passau, and
the old fort of Oberhaus on the opposite height, are seen rising over
the foliage of an island in the centre of the river. The approach to
the city between the island and the left bank is most beautiful; and
whoever is acquainted with the scenery of the Rhine will immediately
acknowledge, that it has not improperly obtained the appellation of
“the Coblentz of the Danube.”
FOOTNOTES (CHAPTER II)
[14] Professor Schultes says, the date on the tombstone is incorrect,
and that it should be October 12th, 1435, as Albert married again 1436.
The bridge from which she was precipitated, was that which crossed the
old arm of the Danube, and no longer exists. The present bridge passes
over the new branch of the river, that washes the town and connects
its northern side with the Island called the Donauwiese, in which the
famous Sossau fair, which began on the Sunday after Michaelmas, and
lasted eight days, was formerly held.
[15] The original castle of a particular family--the cradle of the
race. _Schloss_ is, however, a most convenient word, as it not only
stands for a castle or a palace, but for those buildings which are both
or neither. The _chateaux_ of France, and the _seats_ or _mansions_ of
England.
[16] The Archbishop of Cologne, in a Letter to the Pope.
[17] Henry Döring has a ballad on this subject, entitled, “Die Zeugen,”
(the Witnesses.) Vide ‘Ruinen oder Taschenbüch zür Geschicte verfalener
Ritterburgen und Schlosser, etc. Wien, 1826. 1 Sammlung.’ One might be
pardoned for supposing the proverb of “Walls have ears,” to have arisen
from this adventure.
[18]
“Tausend sechs hundert zehn und acht,
Am dritten Pfingstag, nach Mittnacht.
Schlug das Wildfeur oben ein,
Lief aus dem Thurm in d’kirch hinein;
Die kirch gesteckt voll Kirchfarther war
Der brennets viel: zwey sturben gar.
In diesem Schreken, Strauss, und Brauss
Drang alle welt zur Kirchen auss;
Der gross Gewalt erdruckt ohnverschon
Vier manns und zehen weibsperson
Da liegn ihr in zwey Grabern todt
Drey Mann, sibn Weiber: tröst sie Gott.”
‘Hemmauer,’ a. a. O. 357.
[19] The whole of these circumstances, from the stealing of the Host
to the granting of the Bull, are represented in paintings on the walls
of the church. Nearly the same story is told at Bruxelles of three
miraculous wafers, which were stolen and stabbed by Jews, in 1369; and
for which imputed crime, several of that persecuted people were burnt
alive, by order of Duke Wenceslaus. The author of ‘Les Délices des
Pays Bas’ tells us, that, “Les hosties et les marques durent encore
aujourd’hui, et ne souffrent pas qu’on les approche _sans je me sçai
quelle horreur toute sainte_. On les garde pour un gage particulier de
la protection divine envers la ville de Brusselles.” Vol. i. p. 121.
It appears that the Deggendorfers owed the Jews a considerable sum of
money; it is, therefore, most probable that the story was got up to
enable them, as the debt grew troublesome, to wash it out in blood.
Vide ‘Das obsiegende Glaubenswunder des ganzen Christl. Churlandes
Baiern willsagen _unlaugbarer_ Bericht, etc.’ 8vo. Deggendorf, 1814.
[20] “So soon another,” says Schultes, “I think I hear the traveller
and the reader exclaim, who may not be acquainted with the magnitude
of this order.” And then he proceeds to give, from Hemmauer, the
following list of popes, priests, emperors, kings, etc. who had, up to
that time, embraced the Order of Saint Benedict: viz. “Sixty-three
popes, two hundred and twenty-three cardinals, two hundred and
fifty-five patriarchs, sixteen thousand archbishops, forty-six thousand
bishops, twenty-one emperors, twenty-five empresses, forty-eight
kings, fifty-four queens, one hundred and forty-six imperial and royal
children, and four hundred and forty-five sovereign princes and dukes!”
Donaufahrten, tom. i. 8. 374. note.
[21] Memoriale, seu Altachiæ inferioris memoria superstes, ex tabulis,
annalibus, diplomatis, etc. 6. Joan. Bapt. Lackner etc. Fol. Passavii,
1779.
[22] Schultes says, in 1740; but this must be a mistake, as Maria
Theresa was not crowned Queen of Hungary till the 25th of June, 1741;
and it was after that ceremony that, clad in deep mourning, with the
crown of St. Stephen on her head, and the scimitar at her side, she
made the affecting address to the Diet, which, rousing the whole
nation, brought its numerous tribes from the banks of the Save, the
Drave, the Teiss and the Danube, to the royal standard. These troops,
under the names of Croats, Pandours, Sclavonians, Warasdinians, and
Tolpaches, exhibited a new and astonishing spectacle to the eyes of
Europe. By their dress and arms, by the ferocity of their manners, and
their singular mode of combat, they struck terror into the disciplined
armies of Germany and France. Vide Coxe’s ‘History of the House of
Austria,’ 8vo. vol. iv. p. 442.--Baron Riesbeck, who also dates the
circumstance 1740, says, “When the Hungarian nobility took the field
for their _king_ Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops struck
the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen detachments
of these ‘_Diables d’Hongrie_,’ as they used to call them; but a
whole army, drawn up in battle array, unpowdered from the general to
the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a
sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles
or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough
skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes
darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres,
was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see.” (It must be
remembered that Riesbeck, though a German, writes in the character
of a Frenchman.) “Our oldest officers still remember the impression
these terrible troops made, and how difficult it was to make the men
stand against them, till they had been accustomed to their formidable
appearance.” Pinkerton’s Collect. vol. vi. p. 112.
[23] Liv. i. ch. 433.
[24] Liv. ii. ch. 125.
[25] Geschichte der Deutschen.
[26] The canons or prebends of this establishment have the
word “allain,” (“alone,”) inscribed upon their arms, their clothes,
and their houses. Schultes tells us that a wag Latinised it “Solus cum
sola.”