Engelhard’s-zell--Rana-riedl--Marsbach--Wesen
Urfar--Waldkirche--Hayenbach--The Schlägen--The Rhine and the
Danube contrasted--Ober Michl--Neuhaus--Aschach--The paper-money of
Austria--Castle of Schaumberg--Environs of Aschach--Ober Walsee--Story
of Hans von Eschelberg--Sketch of the Insurrections in the seventeenth
Century.
No sooner had our boat touched the land, beside the little white-washed
custom-house at Englehard’s-zell, than it was surrounded by a swarm of
officials, one of whom, in the uniform of the Austrian police, which
is, I believe, the same as that of the customs, viz. grey with green
facings, etc., desired us to land; and, at the same time, we were
hailed from the shore by a gentlemanlike personage, in plain clothes
and a foraging cap, with “Messieurs, parlez-vous Français?” On our
answer in the affirmative, he requested us to follow him into his
bureau. Having inspected our passports, he asked us if we had anything
to declare: I replied, not to our knowledge. Had we any snuff or
tobacco? Neither of us smoked or took snuff. Had we any almanacks, or
sealed letters? No. Had we any wine, or beer? “Monsieur, nous avons
fini tout ça en buvant à la santé de sa Majesté l’Empereur.” (Off went
his cap; the Austrians never mention, or hear mentioned the title
of their sovereign without uncovering.) Bread, butter, etc.? We had
finished that too, and would be obliged to him if he would inform us
where we could get some more. The catechism ended, he returned us our
passports properly countersigned, and we concluded that we should be
spared the trouble of unpacking. But, upon returning to the bank, we
found our portmanteaus and sacs-denuit, with the bundles and knapsacks
of our crew, spread out in awful array along a bench, in front of
the Wirths-haus or inn, facing the landing-place. Our friend soon
reappeared, and the portmanteaus, etc. being opened, he inspected their
contents very closely; but with none of the rudeness which generally
characterizes persons in his situation. He looked very suspiciously
at our little travelling library, and examined the title-page of
nearly every book; my papers and drawings were also glanced at, but
no questions were asked. He seemed amazingly pleased with our English
dressing-cases, upon the razors in which, particularly, he looked with
a covetous eye. “Ah! messieurs, vous avezlà des jolies choses!” and,
courteously bowing, he wished us a pleasant journey, and retired.
Having replenished our basket of provisions, and re-embarked our
baggage, we bade adieu to Engelhardszell. Its environs are very
beautiful, and there was formerly here a Cistertian monastery, to which
its inhabitants gave the name of Angelorum Cella, from whence probably
its present appellation. This monastery was founded A.D. 1293, by the
wealthy and powerful House of Schaumberg. In 1571, the whole community
died of the plague, and the building remained uninhabited nearly one
hundred years. Shortly after its re-establishment, it suffered from a
fire that broke out in the kitchen, and was rebuilt at the beginning
of the seventeenth century. The old Pfarr-kirche, or parish church,
was built as early as 1230. In 1551, another church was erected for the
same purpose, apparently, as that to which the Maltheser-kirche was
formerly applied in Ratisbon. The horses were here brought annually
to the door of the church, and allowed a peep at Saint Pancras, whose
effigy graced the altar. This sight, and a few oats at the same time
administered, were supposed to preserve them from all disorders for
a twelvemonth. Napoleon gave Engelhardszell to the Prince of Wrede,
who still possesses the domain, and hunts here occasionally. In 1626,
the revolted peasantry cast chains and ropes across the Danube here,
to prevent the Bavarians from assisting Herberstorf at Linz. In 1703,
the Bavarians built here a small flotilla, with floating batteries,
and threw a bridge of boats across the river to facilitate their
communication with Bohemia.
On the left bank, before we had entirely lost sight of Engelhardszell,
the chateau of Rana-riedl appeared in the distance, on the ridge of
a lofty mountain, its white and peaked turrets beautifully backed by
the deep blue sky. Beside the hill is a ravine, through which the
Rana-bach brawls into the Danube, turning a mill, and bringing down
firewood from the mountain forests of Bohemia. The name of this chateau
first appears in some deeds of the fourteenth century, towards the
close of which it belonged to a lady of the Rana family, who married a
knight, named Stephen von Schweinbach. Shortly afterwards, it became
the property of the grasping Bishops of Passau. Göllinger, Governor of
Scharding, besieged it in 1486, in the name of the Duke of Bavaria, but
was compelled to raise the siege by Hans Oberhaimer, the lord of the
neighbouring Castle of Falkenstein, who reinforced the garrison. Two
years afterwards, he returned and assaulted it with success. It was
recovered by the Bishopric in 1490, and lost to it entirely in 1501,
when it was taken by the Emperor Maximilian I., and pledged by him to
Henry von Preuschenk. Rudolph II. gave it to the Lords of Salburg in
1591; at the extinction of which family, it became the property of the
Counts of Clam, A.D. 1728. The villages of Ober-Rana and Nieder-Rana
lie one on each side of the Danube, a little below this spot; and
the river then making a sudden bend to the north, you come in sight
of the Castle of Marsbach, similarly situated to Rana-riedl. Otto of
Marsbach, in 1268, dispossessed, by force of arms, his father Ortulph,
of this castle, and declared war against the Bishop of Passau. Ortulph
bought it from his unnatural son, at the heavy price of four hundred
talents, which so reduced his finances that he was compelled to give
up the castle after all to Passau, in order to relieve himself from
his difficulties. In 1486, it came into the hands of the Lords of
Oberhaimer, who carried on a desperate system of plunder against all
unfortunate travellers, whether by land or by water. One of these
Oberhaimers attacked the boat of a counsellor of Steyer, Valentine
Rottenburgher, and carried off booty to the amount of seven hundred
florins, a considerable sum in those days. In 1610, the castle was
surprised by the Passauer-volk under Ramée; and, in 1626, Spatt, the
famous peasant chief, attacked it suddenly, and put the garrison to
the sword. Opposite to Marsbach, on the right bank, is Wesen, or
Wesen-Urfar, with its ferry. The family of Wesen became extinct in
1230, by the death of Erchinger von Wesen, who was captain-general of
the province of Enns, and lies buried at Engelhardszell. There is a
famous cellar here, hewn in the rock, by command of the chapter of the
cathedral of Passau, in which, it is said, you can turn a coach and
four. In 1626, Adolph, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, hastening with several
thousand men to the relief of Herberstorf, landed unfortunately near
this celebrated cellar. The temptation, I suppose, was too great for
poor human nature; and the armed peasantry, descending from the hills
before day-break, fell on the fuddled Swabians, as they lay “somno
vinoque sepulti,” and slaughtered the greater part of them. The Duke
himself narrowly escaped in his doublet, and with the loss of all his
property. On the same bank, but on the ridge of the mountain, and half
hidden by the dark firs that surround it, stands Waldkirche, with its
crumbling ruins, which some call the Castle of Waldeck, and others the
fortress of Wesen. The indefatigable Schultes has been able to gain
no information respecting it, except that it was bought some time ago
by a farmer from the Prince of Wrede, most likely with the view of
demolishing it, and building new huts with the old materials.
Nearly facing Waldkirche rises the ruin of Hayenbach, or Kirchbaum, as
it is called by the schiffers, upon the ridge of the long, lofty, and
nearly perpendicular mountain, which terminates the chain on this side
the valley, and forms a promontory, round which the river, suddenly
and rapidly wheeling, completely doubles itself, and enters a narrow
defile, the romantic, and I may say awful, beauty of which surpasses
all description. So acute is the angle here made by the Danube, that
the ruin of Hayenbach, though consisting of only one quadrangular and
not very lofty tower, now presents its northern side to the eye in
apparently the same situation that it did its southern side scarcely
ten minutes before. Enormous crags, piled one upon the other, to the
height of from three to four hundred fathoms; their weather-blanched
pinnacles starting up amongst the black firs and tangled shrubs, that
struggle to clothe each rugged pyramid from its base to its apex, form
the entrance to this grand and gloomy gorge through which the mighty
stream now boils and hurries, winding and writhing, till at length
you become so utterly bewildered, that nothing but a compass can give
you the slightest idea of the direction of its course. The Castle of
Hayenbach, which seems to guard this extraordinary pass, belonged, in
the fifteenth century, to the Oberhaimers, the Lords of Falkenstein
and Marsbach, of whom I have already spoken, and who, no doubt, found
it admirably situated for the prosecution of that predatory warfare
in which they “lived, moved, and had their being.” Falkenstein, with
which this Castle of Hayenbach, or Kirchbaum, is confounded, lies above
Rana, and is not visible from the Danube, and the same vague tradition
is attached to each ruin; namely, that it was originally built by
a knight of the thirteenth century, who, having slain his brother,
passed the rest of his days with an only daughter in that castellated
hermitage[31].
For upwards of an hour we glided through scenes increasing in
sublimity, and calling forth exclamations of wonder and delight, till
my companion and I mutually confessed that we had exhausted our stock
of epithets, and stood gazing in far more expressive silence on the
stupendous precipices which towered above us, almost to the exclusion
of daylight, their jagged sides
“Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn;”
and on the rapid stream that, like Milton’s Fiend,
“... Through the palpable obscure toiled out
His uncouth passage ...
... plunged in the womb
Of unoriginal night and chaos wild.”
The pencil of a Salvator Rosa could alone do justice to these wondrous
scenes. The grandest views upon the Rhine sink into insignificance,
when compared with the magnificent pictures which the Danube here
presents us at every turn. The two rivers would have admirably
illustrated Burke’s ‘Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.’ Nature has
contrasted them precisely according to the rules he has laid down in
the twenty-seventh section of his Third Part. “Sublime objects,” says
he, “are _vast in their dimensions_, beautiful ones _comparatively
small_: beauty should be _smooth and polished_; the great, _rugged and
negligent_: beauty should _shun the right line_, yet _deviate from it
insensibly_; the great, in many cases, _loves the right line_, and,
when it deviates, it often makes _a strong deviation_: beauty should
_not be obscure_; the great ought to _be dark and gloomy_: beauty
should be _light and delicate_; the great ought to be _solid, and even
massive_.” The substitution of the words “Rhine” for “Beauty,” and of
“Danube” for “great,” is nearly all that is necessary to change his
general comparison into individual portraits of these rival floods, if
rivalry may be said to exist between two opposite species of perfection.
The ruins on the banks of the Rhine, thickly interspersed as they are
with smiling villages, busy towns, and sunny vineyards, swarming with
holiday tourists, and echoing to the whips of Prussian postilions, and
the rattle of Prussian schnel-wagens, are more like modern antiques
erected on the confines of some gentleman’s park, than the bona fide
relics of that truly iron age, “the days of the shield and the spear.”
From Mayence to Cologne there is scarcely one mile of uninterrupted
wild scenery; and even if there were, the charm would be broken by
some pert galley, with its white awning and gaudy flag, some lumbering
Dutch beurtschiff, or, worse than all, the monstrous anachronism of
a steam-boat, splashing, sputtering, and fuming along at the rate
of twelve miles an hour. The mouldering towers that totter upon the
crags of the Danube, on the contrary, are surrounded by scenery rude
as the times in which they were reared, and savage as the warriors
who dwelt in them. Nothing seems changed but themselves. The solitary
boat that now and then glides by them, is of the same fashion as that
on which their marauding masters sallied down, perhaps, three hundred
years ago. The humble cottages that here and there peep through the
eternal firs, and the church that rears its dusky spire upon some
neighbouring hill, are of the same age. The costume of the poor
straggling fishermen and woodcutters around them is scarcely altered;
and, indeed, one cannot look upon their own walls, blackened by fire,
and crumbling in the blast, as they mostly are, without conjuring up
the form of their ancient lord newly returned from Palestine, and
finding his mountain-fastness burnt and pillaged by some neighbouring
knight or prelate, with whom he was at feud, and on whom he now
stands meditating swift and bloody retribution. For hours and hours
the traveller may wind through these rocky defiles without meeting
one object to scare the spirit of romance, which rises here in all
her gloomy grandeur before him. From Passau to Vienna there is but
one city, Linz, where the glare of modern uniforms, and the rumbling
of modern vehicles, would dissipate the spell; and, much as I admire
convenient and expeditious travelling, I should almost weep to see a
bustling post-road cut beside the lonely Schlägen[32], or a steam-boat
floundering and smoking through the Strudel and the Wirpel[33].
At the mouth of a small opening on the left bank, through which the
Kleine-Michl ripples into the Danube, stands Ober-Michl, the only
village of any consequence in this wilderness. In 1809, the Bohemian
landwehr, under Colonel Hartman, took many of the French boats laden
with provisions, near the spot. The Bavarian flotilla, under cover
of the night and by dropping silently down the stream, escaped their
notice. After passing two or three small groups of huts, another whirl
of the river to the north-east brought us in front of the remarkable
chateau of Neuhaus. Ranged along the brow of a perpendicular rock that
seems to bar your further progress, stand three distinct buildings,
(at least so they appear from the river,) giving you more the idea of
a town than a castle. Far beneath them, but still at a considerable
height from the water, upon a ledge of the rock, is perched a
quadrangular ruin, the Toll-tower, no doubt, where the retainers of
the Counts of Schaumberg, to whom Neuhaus belonged in the fourteenth
century, were stationed to exact the tribute from the trembling
schiffers.
In one of the many quarrels between the Counts of Schaumberg and the
Duke of Austria, Neuhaus fell into the possession of the latter, but
it was subsequently recovered, and many of the first nobles of Upper
Austria were Castellans of Neuhaus for the House of Schaumberg. In 1510
it was annexed to the empire by Maximilian I., and pledged, in 1536,
by Ferdinand I., for eight thousand silver pfennings, to the Baron of
Springenstein, to whose heir it was afterwards presented as a free
gift by Rudolph II. When the Turks, during the reign of the Emperor
Charles V. burst into Hungary, and threatened Austria with invasion,
Neuhaus was the asylum to which the women and children flew from all
quarters. In the war between Rudolph II. and his brother Matthias,
the troops raised by the former at Passau threw two chains across the
Danube at this spot, one of which was forged at Steyer, and the other
brought from Vienna, weighing not less than nine hundred pounds, and
secured them with eight anchors, and a guard of armed boats. During
the insurrections in 1626 also, the same measures were taken by the
peasants, who ill treated the Countess of Springenstein, and made her
a prisoner in her own castle. Neuhaus is at present, I believe, the
property of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis.
It is only on arriving at the very foot of the rocky wall, which
forms an impenetrable barrier to the further progress of the Danube
northward, that you perceive the outlet from this valley of precipices.
A beautiful lake opens to the right near the point where the Grosse
Michl disembogues itself from a woody ravine; and the mountain chain
gradually sinking on each side, the river widens and widens till the
passenger would almost fancy it had completed its seaward course, and
that he was entering upon the broad and fathomless ocean. From the time
we had entered the gorge at Hayenbach to the period of our passing
Neuhaus, a passage of at least two hours, we had never caught even a
momentary glimpse of the sun. He now burst upon us in all the glory
of his setting, and we seemed absolutely to breathe more freely as we
emerged from between the stupendous galleries of granite and pine,
which had imprisoned us nearly all the way from Passau. The mists of
evening were fast settling upon bank and stream, as the lights of
Aschach began to twinkle in the distance; and before we could reach the
village on the opposite bank, where it was our steersman’s intention
we should sleep, it was quite dark. On going ashore, we found the
little inn, or rather public-house of the place, completely occupied
by the passengers and crew of the regular boat, that left Ratisbon the
morning before we did, and which our night’s voyage from Straubing
to Vilshofen had enabled us to overtake. On crossing the threshold,
however, of the dirty vault that “served it for parlour and kitchen and
all,” we blessed our stars that there was no room for us; and feeling
our way out again, for the clouds of smoke that rose around rendered it
impossible for us to rely solely on our visual faculties, we intimated
our intention of crossing the river to Aschach, where indeed we ought
to have been originally landed; but our pilot was either afraid
of the sandbank in front of it after nightfall, or there was some
understanding between him and the master of the public-house on the
left bank, postillions and boatmen generally getting their own board
and lodging gratis as a reward for bringing “grist to the mill,” enough
being invariably ground out of the said grist to indemnify the miller
for any liberality he may have been guilty of towards the bearer. A
lad soon made his appearance with a small boat, into which we jumped
with our portmanteaus, and were ferried over to the end of a jetty,
that has been thrown out from the bank, in consequence of the sand
deposited by the river, which has within the last few years receded
considerably from the town. Here we found tolerable accommodation, and
I lost no time in atoning to the drowsy god for the hours of which I
had defrauded him, the previous night, upon the water.
Aschach was a place of some importance, as early as the times of
Charlemagne. Thassilo, Duke of Bavaria, gave in the year 772, some
vineyards at Aschach to the monks of Krems-Münster. In the eleventh
century the knights of Aschach begin to be celebrated. The Counts of
Schaumberg possessed it during the middle ages, from whom it passed
to the Lords of Jörger. At present, as well as the lordship of Stauf,
it belongs to the Counts of Harrach. The history of this little
market-town, for nearly the two last centuries, is one uninterrupted
series of misfortunes. In 1626 it was not only taken and plundered by
the revolted peasantry, but was for some time their head quarters.
They endeavoured to chain up the Danube at this place, and obliged
the town of Steyer, which they had taken at their first rising,
to furnish them with a chain one hundred fathoms long, every link
weighing twenty pounds. Besides this chain, they threw across three
other, and a couple of stout ropes, trusting thereby to intercept
the provisions and reinforcements for the relief of Herberstorf’s
troops at Linz. But the Bavarian boats broke through this barrier, as
they had already done through a similar one at Engelhards-zell. In
the second insurrection, in 1632, the rebels surprised and plundered
Aschach again, and remained there till Colonel Traun burnt their
camp at Landshaag and dispersed them. In the contest with Bavaria,
in 1809, Aschach suffered considerably both from friend and foe; and
the removal of the custom-house back to Engelhards-zell in 1819, from
whence it had been brought at the commencement of the present century,
was a severe blow to the trade, which had begun to recompense the
inhabitants for their losses during the war. The extensive sandbank
which is yearly increasing before it, is an additional obstacle to its
commerce, and Schultes indulges in melancholy predictions respecting
the ultimate fate of this unfortunate little town. The wine made in its
neighbourhood, is remarkable only for its badness, and is the standing
joke of the inhabitants themselves; we must suppose, therefore, that
it has either sadly degenerated since Thassilo made the vineyards a
present to his friends at Krems-Münster, or that the fraternity were in
want of an immediate supply of vinegar. Aschach is the most northerly
point, on the Austrian Danube, where grapes are cultivated for that
purpose. But there is another piece of information respecting this
place, which is of more consequence than any I have yet mentioned, to
the modern traveller. The paper money (papier-geld) of Austria here
first comes into play, and the unapprised foreigner is astonished at
being apparently charged for his bed, supper, breakfast, or what not,
about four times as much as he has been in the habit of paying since he
entered the country of florins and kreutzers.
The gold ducat also, which has passed throughout Bavaria for 4 _fl._ 54
_k._, and even 5 _fl._ in some places, here falls to its regular value
of 4-1/2 florins only; and this sudden change is exceedingly perplexing
to the stranger who has but just become acquainted with the Bavarian
standard, in time to find it of no use to him.[34]
At day-break, after a hasty cup of coffee, we re-trod the jetty, and
found the boat waiting to take us over to our weitz-zille, which lay
moored besides the smoky wirtshaus before mentioned. We were soon
aboard and afloat again, and gliding by the mouth of the little river
Aschach that joins the Danube close below the town. By its side, on
a small hill, stand the scarcely visible remains of the castle of
Stauf, once the property, as indeed was, at that time, the whole
surrounding country, of the mighty Counts of Schaumberg, who have been
already so often mentioned; and, as the sun rose, his earliest beams
fell upon the splendid ruins of the cradle of that great and ancient
family--the once strong and beautiful castle of Schaumberg--still
beautiful in decay,--on a gentle acclivity, and backed by the finely
wooded mountains, on whose precipitous sides we had the previous day
gazed so long with mingled awe and admiration. Nor were its picturesque
white towers the only objects of attraction in the magnificent scene
which gradually expanded upon our sight, as the morning mist rose like
a curtain from before it. The broad river lay gleaming like a sheet
of burnished gold beneath us; before us a number of richly wooded
islands divided the glittering stream into twenty different channels
to the right and left. Looking westward, the mountains of Bavaria and
Bohemia stretched out their giant arms, as in despair at the escape
of the flood they had so long held in thrall. At the mouth of the
defile from which we had issued, stood the little town of Aschach.
Still more to the south, the ruined castles of Stauf and Schaumberg,
and, far away in the south-east, but clearly defined against the blue
horizon, towered the Alps and Glaciers of the Steyer-Mark, their snowy
and fantastic peaks alternately tinted with pink and purple, and gold,
by the changeful glories of sunrise. It was, indeed, a most exquisite
panorama, and fully justifies the heroics of Professor Schultes,
though, in his enthusiastic admiration of the Danube, he is unjust to
the really beautiful Rhine. “An Englishman,” says he, “who had often
made the voyage of the Danube, and also that of the Rhine, from Mainz
to Utrecht, in search of the picturesque, showed me his journal of the
Rhine voyage. It contained only two words, ‘Toujours perdrix[35].’”
But to return to the Castle of Schaumberg. The picturesque ruins which
formed so fine a feature in the prospect before us, were, as I have
already said, the cradle and principal seat of the once terrible Counts
of that name. In the twelfth century, their signatures appear to many
deeds, spelt indifferently Schoumbergh, Schowenberch, and Schawenberch.
As late as 1548, the Schaumbergs were free counts of the empire, and
their names are entered in the Reichs-Matrikel, (the roll or register
of the empire,) as bound to furnish six horse and twenty-six foot men
at arms,--a slender contingent for a family that could, by lifting a
finger, have brought thousands into the field. Their domains extended
from the Bavarian frontier, beyond Linz, and included the market
towns and castles of Baierbach, Stauf, Aschach, Efferding, Neuhaus,
Flayenbach, Ober and Unter Wesen, Fichtenstein, Weidenholz, Mistelbach,
nearly the whole of the Donau-Thal, from Passau to Schaumberg, and
farther inland, in the old Traun-gau, Kammer upon the Attersee,
Frankenberg, Wildeneck, etc. etc. Wilhelm, son of Wernhard, Count of
Julbach, a descendant of one of the thirty-two children of Babo of
Abensberg, was the first lord of the castle who assumed the name of
Schaumberg, A. D. 1161. His successor, forming alliances with the
families of the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg, the Burggraves of Nürnberg,
and the Dukes of Austria, became gradually more and more powerful,
exacted heavy tolls on the Danube, at Neuhaus and Aschach, plundered
travellers, took their less powerful neighbours prisoners, for the
sake of extorting ransom, or compelling them to join their league,
and, in short, were worthy supporters of the famous “faust-recht” of
Germany.[36]
Sometimes, a twinge of conscience made them endeavour to propitiate
heaven, by letting its servants share a little in the plunder; and,
with this view, they founded, in 1325, the Kloster of Saint Niklas by
Passau, and, in 1323, the Convent at Baumgartenberg; and by degrees
permitted the boats, etc. appertaining to most of the surrounding
monasteries and convents, to pass Aschach toll free.
Notwithstanding their alliance by marriage, terrible feuds were
continually springing up betwixt the Counts of Schaumberg and the Dukes
of Austria; and the assistance which Henry of Schaumberg, in 1319, gave
to Frederick the Handsome, against Louis the Bavarian, is almost a
solitary instance of the families siding together in warfare. So much
were their valour and influence dreaded by the principal potentates
of Germany, that Albert II., Duke of Austria, surnamed the Lame, and
Louis the Bavarian, entered into a solemn contract at Passau in 1340,
by which they bound themselves never to make offensive or defensive
league with the Counts of Schaumberg.
In 1366, Albert III.[37], having made war upon Henry Count of
Schaumberg, the latter appealed to the Emperor Charles IV., who
appointed the Burggraves of Nürnberg and Magdeburg umpires between the
parties. The Burggraves decided in favour of Albert, and the Count
of Schaumberg and his descendants were declared subjects of Austria,
and the castles of Kammer, Neuhaus, and Fichtenstein forfeited to the
duchy, besides the immense sum, for that period, of twelve thousand
florins. Henry, enraged at this heavy sentence, took the first
opportunity of renewing the war with Albert, who in 1379 in person
besieged the castle of Schaumberg; and the contest was carried on with
great fury and bitterness, till Stephen, Duke of Bavaria, reconciled
the parties and induced Count Henry to hold the castles of Neuhaus and
Stauf, and the market town of Efferding, as fiefs of Austria. This
peace, however, was, as might have been expected, of no long duration.
The Counts again declared themselves independent, and the struggle
continued with alternate success, till the church stept in out of pure
charity, scandalized to see such a waste of treasure, and like the
lawyer in the old story, settled the matter by swallowing the oyster
and leaving the shells to the disputants. One by one the contested
estates became the property of this and that kloster, till at length,
in 1548, the family of Schaumberg became so straitened for means,
that it could no longer defend the little that was left of its once
immense dominions, and acknowledging the feudal sovereignty of Austria,
became extinct in 1559 by the death of Count Wolfgang.--The castle
of Schaumberg at present belongs to the Prince of Starrhemberg, an
ancestor of whose family married one of the last female descendants of
the line of Schaumberg. There is a tradition that the Danube originally
ran beneath its walls, but there appears no foundation for such a
belief. The chapel and two watch-towers are still tolerably perfect:
on the walls of the former there are said to exist some paintings of
the fourteenth century; I regret exceedingly that my ignorance of the
fact, when I was in the vicinity, prevented my inspecting them. If they
really be of the date assigned to them, and in tolerable preservation,
they would be worth a pilgrimage.
A stone pillar near a brook, in the valley before the castle, is said
to record the fate of a Count of Schaumberg, who, though invincible in
battle or tournament, could not resist the charms of a fair maiden,
“armed at both eyes,” the daughter of a miller, in the valley of
Aschach. One night as he was riding to a rendezvous, his horse started
(as well he might) at the sudden appearance of a fiery dragon that
rushed out of a thicket before him, became unmanageable, plunged at
last with his master over a precipice into the swollen torrent below;
and the first object that met the unfortunate maiden’s sight when she
opened her casement in the morning, was the floating corses of her
noble lover and his favourite steed.
Nearly facing Aschach, on the left bank, is the poor little market-town
of Landshaag, formerly belonging to the convent of Niedernburg at
Passau, but now, of course, to Austria. This little place suffered
terribly during the insurrections of 1626 and 1632, from the rebels,
who in the latter year had their camp in its neighbourhood.
About half an hour’s walk to the eastward of this little town stands,
on the top of one of the Klausberge, in a forest of fruit-trees,
the ruin of Ober-Walsee. A castle was originally built here by the
Schaumbergs, but it was most probably destroyed by the celebrated
Ulrich of Walsee, governor of Styria, who suppressed the rebellion
which had broken out in these districts during the absence of Frederick
the handsome, Duke of Austria, in 1309, and repelled Otto Duke of
Bavaria, who attempting to profit by the intestine commotion, had
invaded Frederick’s dominions; Ulrich, before Frederick could hasten to
his assistance, had already subdued the refractory, and ravaged their
property with fire and sword. In return for this and other services
rendered to the Dukes of Austria by the family of Walsee, Rodolph IV.
gave permission to Eberhard von Walsee, in 1364, to build a strong
fortress on the Klausberge, a permission which, while it had the
appearance of a favour conferred upon the Lords of Walsee, furthered
the views of the Duke, inasmuch as it placed a strong curb upon the
neighbouring Counts of Schaumberg, the implacable enemies of the House
of Hapsburg. The descendants of Eberhard possessed this castle, which
received the name of Ober-Walsee, till the extinction of the male
branch in 1485, when the last female of the family, Barbara of Walsee,
in obedience to that power
“Qui tient sous son empire
Le genre humain les ânes et les Dieux,”
gave her hand to Count Siegmund of Schaumberg, one of the sworn foes
of her own house as well as that of Austria, and added both Ober and
Nieder-Walsee, a castle lower down on the Danube, to the possessions of
the Schaumbergs. In 1559 the family of Schaumberg became also extinct;
and Ober-Walsee, after passing through several hands, descended to the
Princes of Staremberg, who were also Lords of the neighbouring castle
and domain of Eschelberg.
Respecting one Hans of Eschelberg, Schultes has a rigmarole story,
which (unless he be jesting, and there is nothing to lead one to such
a conclusion) proves him, however well acquainted with the history of
his own country, unaccountably deficient in information regarding that
of others. This said Hans, who commenced his military career under
Louis the Bavarian, at the siege of Lindau, and received the honour
of knighthood from that Emperor, for his valiant exploits therein,
followed John, King of Bohemia, into Poland, and shared in the victory
of that monarch at Cracow; not finding himself sufficiently recompensed
for his services, accepted an invitation from Edward III. of England,
who was then besieging Calais, and assisted him in the reduction of
that place. So far so good; but not contented with claiming these
probable services for his hero, Herr Schultes, upon the strength of a
fragment of an old ballad, quoted by Hoheneck, makes him the bearer of
the English standard at the battle of Cressy, where, “mirabile dictu,”
he took the French king prisoner with his own hand (at Cressy!), while
his knightly companions slew John, King of Bohemia, and Peter, King
of Navarre! At a feast given on the field, in honour of the victory,
Edward III. paid Sir Hans of Eschelberg the distinguished compliment
of seating him between himself and the captive king, presented him
with one hundred marks of silver, etc. etc. He afterwards returned to
Germany, beat the Bohemians, became the champion of dukes, princes,
and bishops; flew back to his old friend Edward, when again investing
Calais, who rewarded him with more money and honours; returned again
to his native land, and, after thirty years of battle and victory
in all parts of Europe, died captain of the lands upon the Ens. The
Professor seems quite heart-broken that this doughty warrior has never
been mentioned by any historian, and perfectly unconscious of the way
in which the author of the old ballad, with the license or ignorance
of most of the romantic writers of the middle ages, has mixed up the
two perfectly distinct battles of Cressy and Poictiers, confounding
incidents, leaders, and periods, with the utmost sang froid and
complacency.
The banks of the Danube, from Aschach to Linz, witnessed the greater
part of those bloody struggles between the two principal sects of a
religion revealed for the beneficent purpose of promoting “peace on
earth, good will towards men,” which convulsed the provinces of Upper
Austria during the seventeenth century; and as the actors in them have
already been mentioned more than once, and will be frequently named
hereafter, I shall venture to give, in as few words as possible, a
sketch of the insurrections of 1626 and 1632, particularly as they have
been merely alluded to by Schiller, in his history of the thirty years’
war, and Coxe, in his history of the House of Austria, the two most
elaborate works upon that period familiar to the English reader,--the
deeds of a Gustavus, a Wallenstein, and a Tilly, having naturally
occupied their attention, to the exclusion of all less generally
important circumstances.
The object which Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany, had most at heart,
from worldly as well as spiritual motives, was the extirpation of the
reformed religion. The battle of Prague had no sooner decided the fate
of Bohemia, than he tore, with his own hand, the memorable letter
of majesty extorted from Rudolph II. by the states of the kingdom,
in favour of the Protestants, and burnt the seal; and proceeded not
only to the revocation of the privileges granted to them by his
predecessors, which he had _not_ confirmed, but even of those which
had received his own unqualified approbation. He intimated to all the
Protestants in his dominions, that they must either abandon their
religion or their native country,--a bitter and terrible choice, which
excited the most violent commotions amongst his Austrian subjects,
and particularly in the district above the Ens. Upper Austria had
been, for some time, held in pledge by the Elector of Bavaria, for the
indemnification promised him by the Emperor for his assistance against
the Evangelic Union; and Count Adam von Herberstorf, who commanded the
Bavarian troops at Linz, had been guilty of unnecessary severities
towards its unfortunate inhabitants. On the 17th of May, 1626, the
flame, which had been long smothering, burst into a sudden and terrible
blaze, in consequence of some excesses committed by a straggling party
of Herberstorf’s soldiery. The Protestant peasantry flew to arms, and,
in two days, took and plundered the towns of Aschach, Grieskirchen,
and Baierbach, and the strong fortress of Velden. On the 20th of May,
Herberstorf marched against the rebels at Baierbach, with twelve
hundred men and some artillery, but was repulsed with great loss; and,
after having two horses killed under him, retreated in confusion to
Linz. The peasantry were now headed by one Stephen Fadinger, a hatter;
and, in about ten days from their first rising, mustered full seventy
thousand men, and possessed a park of thirty cannon. Within the first
eight days, Fadinger had made himself master of Wels, Kremsmünster,
Vöglabruch, and Gmünden, and in six more, with the exceptions of
Freystadt, Ens, and Linz, the whole of Upper Austria was overrun, and
subdued by the insurgents. Flushed with victory, Fadinger invested
Linz on the 25th of June, and would most probably have succeeded in
reducing it, had he not received a shot in the thigh from one of
Herberstorf’s musqueteers, in violation of a short armistice agreed
upon between the leaders, June 28th, of which wound he died in the
beginning of the following month[38]. His successor, Achaz Willinger
von Katterhof, a nobleman, had neither his talent nor his good fortune.
Steyer and Freystadt, which had fallen just before Fadinger’s death,
were retaken, fifteen hundred soldiers dispersed twelve thousand
peasants, in the neighbourhood of Ens; and, in two assaults upon Linz,
the Protestants were repulsed with terrible slaughter. The Austrian
commissioner had nearly succeeded in his charitable endeavours to
restore peace, when some fresh cruelty of Herberstorf’s, or the
soldiers under his command, kindled anew the torch of discord, and, by
another change of fortune, the peasantry cut to pieces the troops of
the Duke of Holstein-Gotton, at Wesen-Urfar, and successively defeated
the Bavarian general Lindlo, at Geyersberg, Count Preuner, at Haslach,
Herberstorf, near Gmünden, and even the valiant Löbel, at Wels. The
celebrated Pappenheim, however, whose mother Count Herberstorf had
married, retrieved the fortunes of his party, by beating the rebels
in three following battles at Efferding, Gmünden, and Vöglabruch, but
not without considerable difficulty, as he himself acknowledges in
a letter to Herberstorf. “It was,” he writes, “as if my cavalry had
to combat the massive rocks; for these peasants fought not like men,
but like infernal furies!” These reverses decided the fate of the
insurgents; and, though the Imperial commissioner himself declared that
the peasantry had not risen with treasonable intentions against the
Emperor, but were goaded into the act by the severity of Herberstorf,
nearly the whole of the prisoners were hung and quartered, or impaled.
Achaz Willinger, as he was a nobleman, was beheaded, and his body
delivered to the Jesuits, who had not been the least important actors
in this terrible tragedy.
Six years had not elapsed before the continued persecution they
experienced, stirred up the Protestants again to resistance. In 1632
a second rising of the peasantry on the Ens was accompanied by the
same slaughter, and the same devastation; and in these two contests
alone, which are but trifling episodes in the sanguinary history of the
thirty years war, upwards of fifty thousand subjects of Austria, upon a
moderate calculation, were sacrificed to the childish superstition and
inveterate bigotry of its ruler. “The victory of the White Mountain,”
says Schiller, “put Ferdinand in possession of all his dominions. He
even received them with greater powers than his predecessors; since
their allegiance had been unconditionally pledged to him, and no
letter of majesty now existed to limit his sovereign authority. The
war was ended, if justice was his object; and if magnanimity was to be
united with justice, so was the punishment. The fate of Germany was
in his hands; the happiness and misery of millions were dependent on
his resolution. Never was a more important trust placed in a single
hand; never was the blindness of one individual productive of more
fatal consequences.” The barbarities committed on both sides, during
these conflicts, were horrible beyond description. The peasantry had
treasured up the recollection of the cruelties they had suffered at
the hands of Herberstorf and his soldiery, and now repaid them with
dreadful interest. Once goaded over the line of legal authority, their
ferocity knew no bounds: nor did they glut their lust of vengeance
upon the soldiery only; those of their own class and sect who did not
immediately gather round the standard of insurrection, were mutilated
or slaughtered without compunction. On the other hand the prisoners
taken by the Catholic party, were tortured and executed with a horrid
ingenuity, that might have edified a Sioux Indian, or a Spanish
inquisitor. Ferdinand would only remember that the inhabitants of
Upper Austria had risen seven times in thirty-seven years, and would
make no allowances for the provocations which had driven a naturally
loyal people to desperation. He had been told by his jesuits, that
Protestantism and rebellion were synonymous terms, and to Ferdinand II.
“the voice of a monk was the voice of God.” “Nothing on earth,” writes
his own confessor, “was more sacred in his eyes than the priesthood.
If it could happen, he used to say, that an angel and a clergyman were
to meet him at the same time and place, the clergyman should receive
his first, and the angel his second obeisance[39].” Gracious God! for
what wise purposes are men permitted to make Thy holy name a signal for
butchery, to turn the manna of Thy word into poison, and sow with the
brier and the thorn Thy “ways of pleasantness and Thy paths of peace.”
FOOTNOTES (CHAPTER IV.)
[31] Vide Baron von Schmidtburg’s ‘Tagebuche einer Donau-Reise.’
[32] The remarkable gorge from Hayenbach to Neuhaus is called by the
peasantry of the district, “In den Schlägen,” or Schlagleiten.
[33] The Strudel and the Wirpel are a fall and whirlpool in the Danube,
between Linz and Ips, of which hereafter.
[34] As soon as you reach Frankfort, the Prussian dollars and groschen
cease to circulate generally, and your bill is made out in the money of
the empire, that is, in florins or gouldens and kreutzers. The florin,
or goulden, is a mere nominal coin of the value of sixty kreutzers,
and the silver pieces in circulation are those of 3, 6, 10, 20, and 30
kreutzers each, so marked on the reverse. In Bavaria, the 10, 20, and
30 kreutzer pieces go for 12, 24, and 36 kreutzers; so that the gold
ducat, the real value of which is 4-1/2 florins, will, in Bavaria, pass
for 4 _fl._ 54 _k._, and sometimes five florins. In Austria, however,
the silver coins pass for no more than they are marked, and the ducat
drops to 4 _fl._ 30 _k._ The Venetian ducat, which is frequently met
with in Austria, is worth a few kreutzers more than the German ducat.
The paper florin, or goulden, is two-fifths, or, as the Austrians
calculate, four-tenths of a good or silver florin.
[35] The remark does not say much for the taste or discrimination of
the Englishman, whoever he might be. There is an endless variety upon
the Rhine, which yields to the Danube only in points of grandeur--in
breadth, extent, and boldness of scenery. In variety, it quite equals
the Danube, and, I should almost say, surpasses it.
[36] Literally “fist-right,”--the right of the strongest arm,--
“The good (?) old plan,
That they may take who have the power,
And they may keep who can.”
[37] Called, in the chronicles of the times, “Albert with the tress,”
because he wore a lock of hair, which he received either from his wife,
or from some other distinguished lady, entwined with his own, and
formed a society of the Tress, not unlike the commencement of our order
of the Garter: he was likewise called the Astrologer, from his fondness
for judicial astrology.--Coxe’s ‘History of the House of Austria,’
chap. 10.
[38] Fadinger was a strong fatalist. Upon his standards were inscribed,
by his order, the words, “Es muss seyn!” “It must be.”
[39] And yet, as was most just, this poor weak bigot was condemned to
see some of his dearest hopes frustrated by the treachery of one of his
vaunted saints. “A Capuchin friar,” exclaimed the deceived Emperor,
when the duplicity of the celebrated Father Joseph became apparent,
“has disarmed me with his rosary, and covered six electoral caps with
his Cowl.”