Efferding.--Ottensheim.--Kloster-Willering.--Linz.--The Platz.--The
Landstrasse.--The Schlossberg.--The Landhaus.--The Theatre.--The
Bridge.--The Pöstlingberg.--View on leaving Linz.--Steyereck.--The
River Traun.--Ebelsberg.--Luftenberg.--Monastery of St.
Florian.--Tillysburg.--Spielberg.--Mauthausen.--Ens.--Origin and
History of the City.--Antiquities discovered in its neighbourhood.
From Aschach to Ottensheim is one labyrinth of islands, through
which few boats venture without a pilot, as the current of the river
is continually changing its course, and the deep channel or ditch
(_Graben_) as the boatmen here call it, through which they have safely
steered a few days before, may upon their second visit be transformed
into a sandbank, or blocked up with trunks and branches of trees,
washed into it by the floods that so frequently occur in this part of
the country. While passing through this archipelago, the banks of the
river are seldom visible, but fortunately there is nothing upon them to
make that circumstance a matter of regret. The whole country between
Aschach and Willering is said to have been formerly the basin of one
vast lake, cradled amongst the mountains of Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper
Austria, and the name of Ilmersee, which appears in the thirteenth
century, is quoted in confirmation of the tradition. The White Tower of
Hartkirchen is shortly seen on the right bank. The Catholic minister
of this church, and his cook-maid, were cruelly murdered here, by the
revolted peasantry in 1626. Pupping, celebrated for a dead saint, and
Bergheim for a beautiful brewer_ess_[40], whose strong beer and bright
eyes distracted the heads and the hearts of her customers, and might
have sorely tempted the holy St. Otmar himself, had the good man been
living at the time.--Waschpoint, Wörth, and two or three other small
villages on the same bank all passed, were ached Efferding, one of the
oldest places on the Danube. The beautiful Chrimhilt, the heroine of
the Nibelungen-lied, is said, in that poem, to have rested here upon
her journey into Hungary. One of the Schaumbergs bought the little town
from the Bishop of Passau in 1367, for four thousand florins; and at
the extinction of that family, it came to the Starrhembergs, who built
a castle here, still called the Burg. A rich and valiant family, of
the name of Schifer, founded and liberally endowed an hospital here,
as early as 1325, and expressly commanded that, when there was not a
sufficient number of sick and poor in the town of Efferding to fill the
hospital, the governor should send out “into the highways and hedges,
and compel them to come in.”
On the 1st of September, 1632, the combined peasantry burned the
suburbs, and, on the 25th, defeated the nephew and namesake of the
great and merciless Tilly, but, shortly afterwards, were themselves
defeated by the Imperial troops with great slaughter. Upwards of three
thousand of the unfortunate men, who fell at various periods in this
neighbourhood, lie buried here, as did also their leader, Fadinger,
till Herberstorf had the body disinterred, and carried to Seebach,
where it was flung into a hole beneath the gibbet. The historian Kurz
has preserved the receipt for the money paid to the ministers of this
paltry vengeance. The Bavarians plundered Efferding in 1704 and 1742,
and it suffered considerably during the last war, from the continual
fighting in its neighbourhood. A dozen small villages are scattered
on each bank, between Efferding and Ottensheim; and the Ihn, the
Bösenbach, and the Rodel, wind amongst them to the Danube. At one of
these little places, named Hartheim, dwelt in 1620 a lady of the family
of Aspan, the fame of whose wealth, according to Hoheneck, determined
a Prince of Saxony to make a personal proposal of marriage. Travelling
incognito with only two attendants, he fell, near Efferding, into the
hands of the rebel peasantry, who, taking the unfortunate suitor for
a spy, put him and his domestics instantly to the sword. At length,
we approached the square white tower, which had been for some time
gleaming above the intervening islands; and as we issued from amongst
them, the little market town of Ottensheim, with its chateau and
church, all grouped as with an eye to effect, upon a gentle eminence
projecting into the Danube, gradually glided into view. On a house in
the market-place, is the figure of a child in a cradle, surmounted by a
canopy, and underneath it are the following lines:
“Im 1208 Jahr.
Da Ottensheim noch nicht genannt war,
Ist Kaiser Otto Auserkohren
Alhier in diesen Haus geboren.”
What _Emperor_ Otto, the worthy composer of this distich intended us to
believe was born here in 1208, I cannot pretend to determine, as the
fourth and last emperor of that name was elected as early as 1197; and
that the place was not called Ottensheim before that period, appears to
be another equally unfortunate assertion.
Leopold II., Duke of Austria, who died in 1194, sold Wechsenberg,
_Ottensheim_, Grein, and Hartenstein, to Otto von Schleung, “mit
leuth und gut,” (with people and property,) for six hundred pounds
of silver. In the fourteenth century, Heinrich von Neuhaus, Peter
von Sternberg, and Ulrich von Landstein, laid waste this part of the
country to the walls of Ottensheim, and began a feud, which desolated
Upper Austria for upwards of one hundred years. In 1626, a body of the
insurgents, under a leader named Christoph Zeller, established their
head-quarters at Ottensheim; and the French plundered the town, both in
their disastrous retreat in 1742, and their victorious march to Vienna
in 1809. Ottensheim, however, has recovered from its many disasters,
and drives a tolerably brisk trade in linen, wood and fruit, pit-coal
and alum. Between Ottensheim and Kloster-Willering, which faces it,
there is another rapid race of the river, that forms quite a little
sea of billows. Kloster-Willering lies at the foot of the fir-crowned
Kirnberg, which, rising on the right bank, extends its forest-covered
masses as far as Linz. The Kloster was originally the castle of the
Knights of Willering, descended from the old Counts of Kirnberg.
Cholo and Ulrich of Willering, Barons of Weremberg, established some
Cistertian monks here in 1146. Ulrich went to Palestine, from whence
he never returned. With him his family became extinct, and the whole
of his great possessions fell to the fortunate monks of Willering.
They soon wheedled themselves into the confidence and favour of all
the noblest and richest families of Upper Austria, many of the heads
of which joined their fraternity. The Archdukes of Austria themselves
highly patronized this Kloster, and freed it from all tolls and taxes;
and it shortly became so powerful, that it assumed a species of
jurisdiction over all the other establishments of its order, upon the
banks of the Danube, as far as Engelhardszell. One of its abbots, in
1544, played it a scurvy trick. He was a Nürnberger by birth, and named
Erasmus Villicus. Scarcely had he been raised to this enviable dignity,
when he took unto himself a wife, and one fine night disappeared with
the lady, and all the jewels of the Kloster! From that period, a chain
of misfortunes seems to have attended it. It was twice or thrice
plundered during the insurrections; nearly burned to the ground in
1733; suffered in an action between the French and Austrians, in 1742;
and by an inundation in 1787, when the Danube overflowed its banks to
the height of full seven fathoms.
After washing the walls of Kloster Willering, the Danube enters another
beautiful valley, skirted on one side by the dark forests of the
Kirnberg, and on the other by groves of a lighter green, interspersed
with cottages and gardens, over which, in the distance, rise the spires
of Pöstlingberg, announcing to the traveller the vicinity of Linz. On
the brink of each bank runs a carriage-road, the one on the right being
the high post-road to Regensburg and Nürnberg, and that on the left
leading to Ottensheim, Grammetstetten, and Landshag. This beautiful
valley is the favourite promenade of the Linzers, who flock on a fine
summer afternoon through the woods on the right bank, to a hunting
lodge in the Kirnbergerwald, near which stand the ruins of Helfenberg,
the cradle of the old Counts of Kirnberg; and in the winter go in
sledges to Willering, and the neighbouring places, to drink wine, beer,
and coffee, smoke, knit, and hear music.
Having rounded the point of land overlooked by the lofty
Pöstlingberg,--the city of Linz,--the capital of Upper Austria,--with
its long wooden bridge, gradually makes its appearance. Beneath the
rocks on the right bank, stands a long line of houses and chapels, some
romantically situated in little clefts of the rocks, and surrounded by
firs and pines. This place is called the Calvarienberg (Mount Calvary),
and is the scene of numberless processions and religious ceremonies of
the Catholic inhabitants of Linz.
Linz is a handsome, clean, and cheerful looking city, and the
inhabitants may be said to partake the good qualities of their
town. The Linzer women are famed for beauty, if we may believe
the guide-books, and who would dare to doubt them upon such a
subject?--honestly, however, I cannot say I remarked any extraordinary
difference between the lasses of Linz, and their Bavarian neighbours.
The young females of the lower and middling classes, throughout the
south of Germany, are in general plump, good-humoured looking girls,
with florid complexions, large laughing blue eyes, snub noses, and
light hair. Amongst the nobility and gentry, indeed, are some of the
loveliest creatures I ever saw, and more resembling our own sweet
countrywomen than the females of any other nation in Europe. But, as
honest Cowley says:
--“Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape,
Who dost in every country change thy shape:
Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white,
Thou flatterer, who comply’st with every sight:
--Who hast no certain what nor where;
But vary’st still, and dost thyself declare
Inconstant as thy she-professors are!--”
Who shall define thee?--
Amongst the men a very visible alteration in person had taken place,
even before we arrived at Linz. There appeared to me considerably
more of the Greek and Italian than the German cast of feature in the
Austrian countenance. Long aquiline noses, dark eyes and swarthy
complexions were new objects to me in German faces. Civility, kindness,
and good humour, however, reigned in the hearts and manners of both
sexes; and after the gloomy pictures I have seen so frequently drawn
in England, of the degraded and miserable condition of the people
of Austria, it was curious enough to mark the content and gaiety
that, at least, appeared to pervade every class of his Imperial
Majesty’s subjects. Having tasted nothing since our single cup of
coffee at Aschach, we hastened to the Golden Lion, the best inn we
saw upon the Platz, and made a capital breakfast, in an apartment on
the first floor, fitted up precisely like an English coffee-room,
the windows commanding a good view of the Platz, which (it being a
market morning) presented a lively and interesting appearance. It
is a fine, spacious, oblong square, between eight and nine hundred
feet in length, and upwards of three hundred broad[41], surrounded on
three sides by handsome houses built of freestone, (some of these five
stories high,) and ornamented with a twisted column, surmounted by a
gilt glory, erected by the Emperor Charles VI., in 1713, in memory
of a great plague. South of this column, the square was filled with
market-people and purchasers. The ground was covered with their large
flat baskets, containing all kinds of provisions. By the side of each
stood the vendor, in his or her provincial costume; and amongst the
motley crowd moved the mistresses and maidens of Linz, the former
dressed “à la Française,” with the exception of short sleeves, and
long gloves tied above the elbow, a fashion peculiar to Germany; and
the latter in their little jackets, coloured petticoats, and splendid
caps of gold brocade, entitled “Linzer hauben,” modelled, one would
suppose, from the gorgeous crest of a Chinese or golden pheasant.
Exactly facing our windows was a large house, where, over the _porte
cochère_, the Austrian Eagle (that “rara avis in terris, nigroque
simillima _cygno_” _with two necks_) sprawled upon a yellow board,
all legs and wings, like a bird of prey on a barn door, and under it
paraded a tall mustachoed Austrian grenadier sentinel, in white and
black uniform, black gaiters, and portentous bear-skin cap, while half
a dozen soldiers of other regiments lounged about the gateway of the
Kaiserlich,--Königlich,--something or other, that I could not exactly
make out, and added considerably to the picturesque effect of the whole
scene.
Breakfast over, we repaired to the _polizey_, to reclaim our passports,
exchanged on landing for a printed paper containing, in German, French,
and Italian, an injunction, under certain pains and penalties, to
present yourself to the police, within twenty-four hours after your
arrival; those secured, we rambled over the town, which has nothing
particularly worth notice in the way of buildings. There is a tolerably
handsome church near the post-office, and polizey-direction; in a
long airy street, (the landstrasse) that runs right out into the
country; for, unlike continental towns in general, Linz has no gloomy
gateways or frowning barriers; a light turnpike a little way out of
the town on the high-road, painted, as they all are in Germany, with
the colours of the empire or kingdom, and resembling, exceedingly,
the now nearly exploded barber’s pole, alone indicates the spot where
the land-traveller must exhibit his passport and pay the little
weg-geld or road-toll, to an officer stationed for that purpose at a
neighbouring cottage. A little arch, under which you pass into the
Platz from the bank of the Danube, is dignified by the name of the
Wasser-thor; and you are directed to the Haupt-thor, the Schmidt-thor,
and the Land-haus-thor, as you might in London be directed to Ludgate,
or to Holborn-bars, but the Thor itself has long vanished. Riesbeck,
who travelled through Germany in 1780, speaking of Linz, says, “the
city is open on all sides, and the town and country seem so united,
that if my spirit of knight errantry would allow it, I would pitch
my tent, and lay my travelling staff up, here;” and gives honourable
testimony to “the industry, happiness, and prosperity of the eleven
thousand inhabitants who dwell in it.” If the late wars have occasioned
any decrease of its prosperity, they have either not had that effect
upon its population, or the inhabitants have been singularly fortunate
in repairing damages, since the peace. Their number is now, by two
different accounts, estimated at sixteen, and twenty thousand. From
the Schlossberg, on the west of the city, you have a fine view over
the Danube and the surrounding country. Upon this rock anciently stood
the citadel of Linz, in which Richard Cœur de Lion, it is said, was
feasted as he returned from his long Austrian captivity. The Archduke
frequently resided here, and Rodolph II. considerably enlarged it. The
Emperor Ferdinand I. still further enlarged and beautified it. It was
afterwards converted into barracks, and, finally, into an hospital,
which was burned down in 1800. Upon its site a commodious workhouse
has been erected; and the poor now eat their crumbs upon the spot
where formerly stood “the rich man’s table.” There are many charitable
establishments[42] and public schools in Linz, as well for Catholics
as Protestants, and some considerable manufactories, one of which (the
Imperial and Royal Woollen Cloth Manufactory) is a little town in
itself.
The Landhaus, the Guildhall of Linz, (or rather, the Government House
of Upper Austria, where the president and eight counsellors appointed
for the administration of justice in the country above the Ens,
hold their sessions,) stands on the promenade, and was originally a
Franciscan convent, built, in 1287, by Eberhard von Walsee. From a
window of this building, the shot was fired that mortally wounded the
rebel captain, Stephen Fadinger. Near the Landhaus is the new theatre.
The old one was destroyed by the fire in 1800, which reduced to ashes
the greater part of this quarter of the town. The erection of the
present building cost ninety-six thousand florins. Under the same roof,
is the Redouten-Saal, or Assembly Room for masquerades, balls, etc.
The old chroniclers are not agreed as to the origin and foundation
of Linz. Lazius would trace it to the Roman _Lentium_, or _Lentia_,
destroyed by the Huns. Bruschius, in his rhyming panegyric, says,
“Hanc quis condidit primus, quo tempore et anno,
Nominis aut hujus quæ sit origo vetus;
Vix poterit dici: siquidem Germania fustos
Non tantâ scripsit religione suos,
Quanta vel Græci fecerunt laude, vel ipsi
Ausonii proceres Romuleique patres.”
Under Louis the Child, Linz was known as a toll-place on the Danube,
and the seat of the Counts of Kirnberg. The last of this family sold,
according to Lazius, the whole of his dominions to the Markgraves
of Austria. When the Emperor Frederick II., “the pupil, the enemy,
and the victim of the church,” was excommunicated by Pope Gregory
IX. the second time, in 1236, Linz was besieged by the powers of the
King of Bohemia, the Duke of Bavaria, the Patriarch of Aquileia, and
the Bishops of Bamberg, Freysingen, and Passau. Frederick, however,
assisted only by Albert, Count of Pogen, relieved the good city, and
took one of the church militant, the Bishop of Passau, prisoner. During
the reign of Rodolph of Hapsburg, Linz was plundered by Henry, Duke of
Bavaria; and, in 1335, the Emperor Louis the Bavarian here invested
the Dukes of Austria with Carinthia and the Tyrol, and entered into an
offensive and defensive alliance, to secure the succession of those
countries against the pretensions of the King of Bohemia and his
heirs[43]. In 1481, the whole city was destroyed by fire, with the
exception of the castle and one street. The Emperor Frederick III.
caused it to be rebuilt and considerably enlarged, and declared it, in
1490, the capital of Upper Austria. He bought the village of Urfar,
till then only inhabited by fishermen, and, flinging a wooden bridge
over the Danube to it from Linz, it, in a short time, became a kind of
suburb to the city. On the 19th of August, 1493, Linz lost its imperial
benefactor. Frederick died in this city, of which he may almost be
called the founder, at the advanced age of seventy-eight, and after a
reign of fifty-three years, the longest of any emperor since the days
of Augustus. He had been afflicted with a cancerous ulcer in his leg.
As the only means of relief, he submitted to amputation; but, from the
unskilfulness of the surgeon, and the vitiated state of his blood, a
second amputation was necessary. He bore these painful operations with
extreme fortitude, and gave a singular proof of his characteristic
phlegm. Taking the severed limb in his hand, he said to those who were
present, “What difference is there between an emperor and a peasant? or
rather, is not a sound peasant better than a sick emperor? Yet I hope
to enjoy the greatest good which can happen to man: a happy exit from
this transitory life.” He seemed to be in a fair state of recovery,
but his rigid observation of a fast, during which, in opposition to his
medical attendants, he would take nothing but melons and water, brought
on a dysentery, which, in his debilitated condition, became fatal.
I agree with Schultes in thinking that an equestrian statue of this
benefactor of Linz would be a more handsome and appropriate ornament
for its principal square, than the column before mentioned. In 1521-2,
the Archduke Ferdinand, afterwards emperor and founder of the German
branch of the House of Austria, solemnized, at Linz, his nuptials with
Anne, Princess of Hungary and Bohemia. Thrice, during the remainder of
that century, was Linz visited with the awful scourge of pestilence. In
1620, the whole of Upper Austria was pledged to Bavaria; and, during
the insurrections as already related, Linz was invested by the peasants
under Fadinger, and its suburbs were reduced to ashes. Keppler, the
famous astronomer, who at that time resided in them, lost some valuable
MSS. in the flames. Linz was thrice stormed during those disturbances.
In 1741, Linz was taken possession of by the allied French and
Bavarian army, under Marshal Bellisle and the Elector, and in the three
unsuccessful struggles of Austria against Napoleon in 1800, 1805, and
1809, it suffered, in common with other towns upon the Danube, the
various _mis_fortunes of war.
The wooden bridge across the Danube, I have already said, was first
built in 1490, but there is mention made of a bridge as early as 1106.
It is conjectured, however, that it must have been a bridge of boats
only, as the first regular bridge across to Urfar was certainly that
thrown over by Ferdinand[44]. A stroll across this bridge, which is
upwards of one thousand feet in length, through the little town of
Urfar, (for though it merely looks like the suburb of Linz, it has
risen to the dignity of a _markt_[45],) and up the steep Pöstlingberg,
to the church and observatory on its summit, would, no doubt, repay
any one for the trouble if he could afford the time, as far as an
extensive and beautiful view goes; but, as my object was to travel
through Austria, and not merely look over it, as a certain respectable
personage is said “to look over Lincoln,” nothing but a view being to
be gained by it, I declined the invitation; and having revictualled our
bark, for we always dined on board, about twelve o’clock, we
“All got under weigh,
And bude a long adieu to”--
the capital of Upper Austria.
The retrospective view, after we had left Linz about a quarter of a
mile behind us, was exceedingly beautiful, as beautiful, perhaps, as
the view on leaving Passau, but of quite a different character. The
city lay on our left, the beach before it crowded with people, and
piled with merchandise,--a regiment of infantry marching out of the
Wasser-thor, drums beating and colours flying; the bridge, alive with
passengers, stretched across the gulf, from whence the Danube rushed
panting out, and then spread itself, right and left, like a calm bright
lake before us. In front, gradually rising from the water’s edge,
and spotted with the white straggling buildings of the little town of
Urfar, towered the majestic Pöstlingberg, cultivated to its summit,
and crowned by its church and observatory. More to the right arose the
Pfenningberg, equally lofty, and similarly chequered with corn and
meadow land. Between them, lay a soft green valley, in the bosom of
which nestled the old village of Magdalena, the spire of its ancient
church just peeping above the trees. A cloudless deep blue sky formed
the back ground of this rich and laughing picture, that gladdened the
heart, and filled it “almost to overflowing” with love and gratitude to
that ineffable spirit, the Great Architect and
“Author of this Universe,
And all this good to man! For whose well-being,
So amply, and with hands so liberal,
He hath provided all things.”
Looking forward on our course, a crowd of little villages appeared
on the left bank of the river, which again meandered amongst woody
islands, and received, just below a small hamlet called Furth, the
tiny stream of the Kitzelbach. Farther on, upon the same bank, rose
the half burned chateau of Steyereck, upon a small hill, in front of
the forest-covered mountains which again line that side of the river.
The little market-town of Steyereck is hidden behind the poplars of
an island close to the shore. Steyereck was formerly a place of some
commercial importance[46], but the Danube has receded of late years
considerably from its walls; and the large sand-banks it has left
behind it, prevents the lading or unlading of vessels, which now
seek some more fortunate town. A little trouble and expense would,
it appears, remove the sand, and restore the Danube to its original
channel, thereby not only greatly benefiting Steyereck, but all the
surrounding country, which is now, from the new course of the river,
subjected to continual inundations, disasters that this work would
greatly diminish in number, if not entirely prevent. No measures have
as yet, however, been taken to effect this desirable purpose. The
worthy Austrian would be considerably improved, could a little of the
persevering industry of the Hollander be infused into his composition.
Steyereck belonged originally to the monks of Kremsmünster, but,
as early as 1136, it had fallen into the power of a family named
Khuenringe, who lorded it over the greater part of the Nordwaldes.
Albert, of Khuenringe, sold the Castle of Steyereck, in 1280, to
Ulrich von Kapell, surnamed “The Long,” who, in the famous battle
of Marchfield, between the Emperor Rudolph I. and Ottocar, King of
Bohemia, rescued the valiant founder of the House of Hapsburg from a
gigantic Thuringian knight, named Valens, who had unhorsed and wounded
him, and, by his courage and exertions, decided the fortune of the day.
“Terra Rudolphus hostium cinctus globo
Multorum, et unus jam pedes vim sustinet.
Ulricus alis advolans Capellides,
Ceu sæva raptis ursa pro catulis nova
Irrumpit acie, ferro iter per inimicos secat,
Alio reservat Cæsarem statuens equo, etc.”
+Calaminus in Rudolpho Ottocaro.+
It remained in the family of the Kapellers till the extinction of the
male branch in 1409, when the last daughter of that house married
Heinrich von Lichtenstein. In 1569, one of the Lichtensteins sold
Steyereck to Christopher Jörger, of Tolleth; and, in 1635, the town and
castle were given as a dower with Elizabeth Jörger, to David Ungnad,
Count of Weissenwolf, who built the present chateau. In 1770, the
lightning fired the building, and a valuable library and collection of
pictures were utterly consumed.
Nearly facing Steyereck, is the mouth of the green and beautiful river
Traun, which, rising out of the Grundel-See in the romantic Steyermark,
flows through the lakes of Hallstädter and Gmünden, and swelled by
the Ager, the Alben, and the Krems, hurries, foaming under the bridge
of Ebelsberg, into the Danube. Ebelsberg, or Ebersberg, which lies
on the right bank of the Traun, and is visible from the Danube, is
a place of great antiquity[47], and the scene of a desperate battle
between the French and the Austrians, fought on the 3d of May, 1809.
General Claparede’s division stormed Ebelsberg from the bridge across
the Traun, under a tremendous fire of artillery directed against the
bridge, by the Austrian Field-Marshal Hiller. Claparede succeeded in
carrying the place, but with dreadful slaughter. Another column of
French, who had passed the river higher up, upon entering the town,
revenged the death of their comrades most fearfully upon the Viennese
volunteers who had so bravely defended it, three hundred of whom were
burned alive in the castle, the town having taken fire during the
assault, and the rest cut to pieces, From twelve to sixteen thousand
men fell in this terrible conflict; and the banks of the Traun, from
Ebelsberg to the Danube, were literally covered with slain[48].
The Emperor Arnulph gave Ebelsberg, then called Eporesburg, to the
monks of Kremsmünster, A.D. 893, together with the confiscated
property of a Count Engelschalk, who carried off the Emperor’s natural
daughter. Arnulph feigned forgiveness, and luring the Count back from
Zwentibold, whither he had fled with the Princess, delivered him over
to the diet at Ratisbon, who condemned him to lose his eyes, and his
nephew Wilhelm, his head. In the year 900, Count Sighard (whose name
is handed down to the modern traveller, by the little post town of
Sighardskirchen, near Vienna) built a castle at Ebelsberg, which was
destroyed on the defeat of the Germans by the Hungarians in 993. A new
castle was built shortly afterwards on the same spot, and destroyed by
Frederick of Austria in 1242, in consequence of the excesses committed
by Rudiger, Bishop of Passau, who, in conjunction with the Lords of
a castle at Obernberg on the Inn, kept the whole intervening country
in a state of terror. It was again rebuilt, and Rodolph of Hapsburg
defeated here one hundred and twenty knights, previous to his battle
with Ottocar. In 1586, this third castle was destroyed by fire. Stephen
Fadinger established his head-quarters here in 1626, and arrested the
Imperial Commissioners. In the August of that year the peasants were
defeated at Ebelsberg, with the loss of two thousand men.
Below Steyereck, the left bank alone is hilly; the right resumes the
flat, sedgy appearance it presented from Regensburg to Straubing.
Luftenberg, an old place upon the left bank, commanding a fine view
over the opposite country, is principally remarkable as the spot where
the fanatical visionary Laimbauer held forth in 1635-36. He entrenched
himself, with the wretched enthusiasts who followed him, in the church
of Frankenberg, and after wounding and killing many of the officers
sent to apprehend him, from its windows, left his disciples to be burnt
alive. He was, however, taken in his attempt to escape the flames, and
executed at Linz. The monastery of St. Florian now appeared on our
right, and shortly afterwards the chateau called Tilly’s Burg. St.
Florian, to whose honour the monastery was erected, suffered martyrdom
A.D. 303, at Lorch on the Ens, where, by order of a commander named
Aquilinus, he was thrown from the bridge into the river, with a stone
round his neck. His spirit appeared to a matron, and directed her where
to find and where to bury his body; and over his grave, as the story
runs, an altar was first erected, then a church, and lastly a kloster.
Stephen Fadinger had his head-quarters here in 1626.
Tilly’s Burg is a large square building with four towers, and said to
contain as many windows as there are days in the year, a peculiarity
attributed to at least a dozen places in England, and I believe
generally reported of every mansion with more windows than one would
take the trouble to count. On the spot where this chateau now stands,
once arose the tower of the castle of Volkerstorf, the seat of one of
the most ancient and powerful families in Austria. Some warriors of
that name fought at Constanz as early as 948. In 1146 a Volkerstorf
accompanied Duke Leopold to the tournament at Zurich. Ortolph von
Volkerstorf stabbed Henrich Wittigo, secretary to the Emperor Frederick
II., in the monastery of St. Florian, for which deed he and his brother
were banished, their property confiscated, and their castle destroyed.
In the Diet of Augsburg, A.D. 1275, Bernhard von Volkerstorf spoke
vehemently against Ottocar, King of Bohemia, whom he openly accused
of attempting to poison his own wife, and of tyrannising over Austria.
Under the protection of the House of Hapsburg, the Volkerstorfs
returned to their native country, and rebuilt their castle in 1331. In
1558 it suffered materially by fire, and the last of the family having
embraced the Lutheran faith, the whole of his property was confiscated
in 1620, and the castle given, three years afterwards, by the Emperor
Ferdinand, to the famous Count Tserclas von Tilly[49]. In 1630-32, he
built the present chateau, on the site of the old castle, and in the
appellation of Tilly’s Burg buried all recollection of the ancient
Lords of Volkerstorf, whose once dreaded name is now only known to the
peasant of Austria, as that of a little insignificant village in the
neighbourhood of Ens. The last female of Tilly’s family, the Countess
Montfort, sold the Burg in 1730, to the Bavarian Baron von Weichs.
Near Tilly’s Burg is the old village of Kronau, known as early as the
times of Thassillo, Duke of Bavaria, by the name of Kranesdorf, and
on the left bank lie Hof-im-Schlag, Himberg, Auwinden, St. Georgen,
and two or three other small places, remarkable only for their great
antiquity. To the north of St. Georgen lies Frankenstein, where the
miserable followers of Laimbauer met their horrible fate.
We now approached the old square tower of Spielberg, which, together
with the steeples of the city of Ens, we had for some time seen in the
distance, backed by the glittering and rugged line of the Styrian Alps.
The ruin of Spielberg stands upon an Island near the right bank of
the Danube, and just in the angle formed by the stream, which, having
stretched away boldly to the south-east, here turns sharply off to the
north, and washes the walls of the market town of Mauthausen, which is
seen through a vista of islands at the extremity of a distant point
of land. Spielberg is admirably situated for a Raub-schloss, which
was of course its original character. Otto and Eckbert von Spielberg
were slain in Frederick Barbarossa’s Italian expedition, A.D. 1156,
and one Dittmar von Spielberg was present at the siege of Milan in
1158. In 1328, the family of Spielberg became extinct, the last of
that name, Eberhard, having previously sold the city and castle of
Ens to the Emperor Rudolph I., for six hundred marks. Reinprecht von
Walsee possessed Spielberg in 1329, and after passing through several
hands, it finally formed part of the dower brought by the Countess
of Weissenwolf to her husband in 1635. There is a small fall of the
river here, which was at one time considered dangerous by the timid
boatmen on the Danube, and has been confounded by some writers with
the celebrated Strudel, probably from one of the names given to it
by the schiffers, viz. Der Saurüssel[50]. It is also called by some,
the Neubruch: small boats seldom venture through it, though a slight
tossing would, I should imagine, be the only consequence. My companion
and I often laughed, to think how a smart English six-oared cutter
would astonish the natives here, who are certainly the clumsiest and
most fearful navigators in Europe. Mauthausen is said by the boatmen to
be half of Aschach, which, carried away by an inundation of the Danube,
floated with the current down to this spot,--a strange tradition, which
it is supposed has arisen from a fancied resemblance between the two
towns. Howsoever it came, it stands in a very pleasant situation,
directly opposite to the mouth of the Ens, and looking up that river
upon the city of Ens, and the far-distant peaks and glaciers of the
Styrian Alps. There was a bridge of boats here in 1809, but it was
destroyed by the Bavarians. The neighbouring tower of Pragstein was
occupied by the French in 1742. Mauthausen suffered severely in the war
between Rudolph and Matthias, and in the insurrections during the reign
of Ferdinand. There is a woollen-stocking and a leather manufactory
here, a dye-house of some celebrity, and a salt-market, from whence the
greater part of Bohemia is supplied.
The city of Ens is supposed to have been originally constructed out
of the ruins of the Roman Lorch, (indifferently called Laureacum,
Lavoriacum, Blaboriacum, Loriacte,) the station of the second Italian
legion, upon the site of which is still a little village of the name.
Ammianus Marcellinus is the oldest historian who makes mention of
Laureacum. Bruschius, Hansiz, and Aventine assert, that Lorch was
destroyed by Attila, on his march to Gaul; but the biographer of St.
Severin states, that two years after the passage of Attila, that holy
person arrived at Lorch from the neighbourhood of Vienna, and found it
flourishing, and a Christian priest established therein. The Huns might
have taken the left bank of the Danube, particularly as it was their
nearest road. From an inscription on the walls of Ens, it would appear
that two of the holy Evangelists themselves took the city under their
especial protection, and converted the people to Christianity[51].
St. Peter himself is also said to have preached the gospel here in
the year 49. In 454, Lorch is reported to have been preserved by the
prayers of St. Severin, but was afterwards destroyed by the Barbarians,
according to his own prediction in 737, when Bibilo, bishop of Lorch,
fled with his monks to Passau, as I have already mentioned in my
notice of that city. The authentic history of Ens, however, commences
during the reign of Charlemagne, when that Emperor, aware of the
importance of such a situation, pitched his tents at the mouth of
the Ens, which formed at that time the line of demarcation between
Bavaria and the lands of the Avars or Huns of Pannonia, that people
having, during the sixth and seventh centuries, “spread their permanent
dominion from the foot of the Alps to the sea-coast of the Euxine[52].”
Here, on the 5th of September, 791, he encamped, and, after fasting
and praying for three days, proceeded on his expedition. The troops on
the left bank of the Danube were commanded by the Counts Thederich and
Meginfried; those on the right by the Emperor in person; and between
the two hosts upon the river floated a third body, with provisions
and necessaries for the whole army. In fifty-two days he penetrated
to the river Rab, destroying the rings or wooden fortifications of
the Avars, the first of which he found upon the Riederberge, by Tuln;
and would have carried his victorious arms still farther, had not a
contagious disorder killed nearly all his horses. In 805, we still hear
of Lorch, which, under the names of Lorahha and Loracha, is designated
as a villa regia, and mention is made of its market-place and of an
imperial judge, one Warner or Warnhar. After the death of Arnulph
the Bastard, the Hungarians burst into the country, and devastated
it beyond the Ens. The Bavarians rallied, and beat them back; and
Leopold, then Grenz-graf, or Count of the frontier, in the year 900,
slew upwards of 3000 of them on the left bank of the Danube. In the
same year, as a stronger check to their inroads, he erected on the Ens
a strong fortress[53] which he called Ensburg (Anasiburgum.) Buildings
gradually rose around it; and in proportion as the old Roman city of
Laureacum declined, its rival prospered, till their names became
confounded, and that of the new city predominating, a small village,
probably on the actual site of the Roman town, alone retains the
ancient appellation of Lorch. Richar, bishop of Passau, persuaded Louis
the Child, that the fortress of Ensburg stood upon ground belonging
to the monastery of St. Florian, and it was consequently ceded by the
sovereign to that establishment. The Hungarians snatched it from its
holy possessors in 907, when they defeated Louis, and slew the valiant
markgraf Leopold, brother-in-law to Carloman, the bishops of Salzburg,
Freysing, and Seben, three abbots, and nineteen counts. Leopold’s son,
Arnulf, defeated the Barbarians on the Inn, in 912, and Conrad I.
bribed them back over the frontiers in 918. After Arnulf’s death, the
Barbarians again invaded Bavaria, but were ultimately, at the close
of the tenth century, driven out of the country by the Markgraves,
Leopold the Babenberger, and Burkhard, who carried the war into the
enemy’s territories as far as Krems and Mölk. In a deed of the time
of Otho II., Ensburg is still spoken of as distinct from Lorch or
Lorach, and mention is made in the same deed of the church of St.
Laurentius, situated without the walls of Lorch. Now there is a church
of St. Laurence standing to this day, within ten minutes’ walk of the
city of Ens; and though it was built as late as the time of Maximilian
I., it is not improbable that it stands upon the site of the ancient
edifice[54]. In the important deeds by which Ottocar VI. made over the
steyermark to Leopold of Austria, Ens is called by one party a markt,
and by the other a village; and it is asserted by some writers that Ens
was first made a fortified town by Leopold, who built its walls with
the ransom of Richard Cœur de Lion![55] However this may be, and if
true, it is a very interesting circumstance, Ens certainly dates its
existence as a city from somewhere about this period, as, at the close
of the twelfth century, the Enser-fair was almost as much celebrated in
Germany as that of Leipzig is at present. Rudolph of Hapsburg received
the keys of Ens from the hands of a lord of Sumerau, and afterwards
bought the city, for six hundred marks, of Eberhard von Spielberg.
Duke Albert the Lame concluded here, in 1336, the peace with John, king
of Bohemia, which gave Carinthia to Austria, and the Tyrol to Charles,
the son of that monarch, afterwards Charles IV. The victorious army of
Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, penetrated as far as Ens during
the war with the Emperor Frederick III., and in 1532, the Turks, who
had burst into Hungary and Austria, headed by the Sultan himself,
pushed forward some troops to the walls of this city, between whom and
the burghers a desperate conflict took place upon the bridge. In the
insurrections of 1624, Stephen Fadinger summoned the town, and another
rebel-chief, named Wurm, cannonaded it, but it stood out against
both till relieved by Colonel Löbel, who defeated the peasants, and
burned their camp. In 1683, while Cara Mustapha lay before Vienna,
several flying parties of the Turks scoured the country around Ens, and
penetrated nearly to Linz. On the 4th of May, 1809, Napoleon had his
headquarters here, and received a deputation from the townspeople of
Mauthausen, which place he had threatened with bombardment.
In the centre of the Platz stands a tall bell or clock tower built by
Maximilian I. Some years ago a rib-bone was shown in it as that of
a giant. It had most probably formed part of the stock in trade of
an elephant, and was thought sufficiently curious to be removed to
Cuvier’s museum in Paris. Many Roman antiquities have been discovered
in Ens and its vicinity; some gold coins of the Emperor Probus, several
marble busts, and inscribed stones. Some of the latter are still to be
seen in the old Burg of Enseck.
Two large stone coffins without any inscription were dug out of the
Aichberg, a short distance from the town, in 1808. Some monumental
busts were also found, but they had been cut out of very bad sandstone,
and were much injured by time.
FOOTNOTES (CHAPTER V.)
[40] Our language is sadly off for feminine terminations. The German,
brauerinn, köchinn, gartnerinn, etc. are most badly translated by
female brewer, cook-maid, and woman gardener.
[41] The old rhyming chronicler, Bruschius, says,
“Passibus in longum patet area tota trecentis,
In latum centum passibus atque decem.”
[42] A tailor of Linz, named Kellerer, established an asylum for thirty
orphans; and in 1734, another tradesman, named Adam Pruner, bequeathed
one hundred and eighty-one thousand florins to the poor of the town,
the interest of which supports twenty-seven children, twenty-seven men,
and twenty-seven women. The Emperor Joseph II. and the Empress Maria
Theresa have also founded charities here.
[43] The Dukes of Austria were afterwards compelled to cede the Tyrol,
but Carinthia has ever since that period continued in the possession of
their House. Coxe’s Hist. i. 155, Pelzel, Schmidt, Struvius, etc.
[44] Bruschius tells us of a capuchin, named Waltherus,
“Qui nondum vinclis conjunctum aut pontibus Istrum
Emensus sicco dicitur esse pede.”
Perhaps the river was frozen at that time.
[45] In the campaign of 1809, damage was done in this little town alone
to the amount of 1,326,621 florins.
[46] Steyereck was once famous for its potteries; but the manufactories
have fallen to decay, notwithstanding the fine clay which is still to
be found in its neighbourhood.
[47] In 1787, a stone coffin was dug up in the neighbourhood of
Ebelsberg, five feet long, and one foot two inches wide. On the breast
of the skeleton within lay a golden ring, of rather an oval shape, and
rude workmanship; at its feet was a drinking glass, which had contained
some clear liquid, but it was unfortunately broken, and the liquid
spilt, in the opening of the coffin. Vide _Kurz’ Beträge_, 3 Th. S.
xvii.
[48] General Jominy gives the following account of this sanguinary
affair, in his Political and Military Life of Napoleon. “Hiller had
abandoned the barrier of the Inn without fighting, but he resolved
to defend the passage of the Traun at the formidable position of
Ebersberg. A wooden bridge, thirty fathoms long, presented a more
fearful obstacle than that of Lodi, it being terminated by a walled
town, commanded by a castle, and crowned by heights of very difficult
access. To cross this bridge, in the face of thirty thousand men
and eighty pieces of cannon, was not an easy matter. Massena was
not ignorant of Napoleon’s intention to turn this impregnable post
by Lambach, but the impetuous valour of General Cohorn hurried him
into a sanguinary enterprise. Three Austrian battalions, that had
been imprudently left in front of the bridge, were overthrown, and
driven, at the point of the sword, to the gates of the town, which
were closed against them. Cohorn forced the gates, and penetrated
into the principal street. Massena supported him first by the rest
of Claparede’s division, and then by that of Legrand. A desperate
conflict was kept up from street to street, and from house to house.
Claparede had just possessed himself of the castle, when Hiller threw
four fresh columns into the town, who opened themselves a passage with
the bayonet. A horrible slaughter ensued; several houses took fire that
were filled with wounded and with combatants, whom the crowded state
of the streets prevented from escaping. War never presented a more
cruel scene. At length, tired with carnage, the Austrians abandoned
Ebersberg, and our troops debouched against the heights, where a still
more unequal combat commenced. The arrival of Durosnel’s division of
cavalry by the right bank, and the certainty that his position would
be turned by Lannes, decided Hiller at length to fall back with all
speed upon Enns.... This vigorous blow was still more honourable to
the French troops, as the greater part engaged in this business was
composed of soldiers who had never before seen a battle. It cost Hiller
from six to seven thousand men. We had to regret the loss of from four
to five thousand brave fellows, a great number of whom had fallen a
prey to the flames.”--_Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoléon._ 8vo.
Paris, 1827, tom. iii. pp. 181-3.
[49] This extraordinary man, the founder of the Bavarian army, and the
terror of the Protestants, used to boast before the battle of Leipsig,
of three things--viz. That he had never known woman, never been drunk,
and never lost a battle. “His strange and terrific aspect,” says
Schiller, “was in unison with his character. Of low stature, thin,
with hollow cheeks, a long nose, a broad and wrinkled forehead, large
whiskers, and a pointed chin, he was generally attired in a Spanish
doublet of green with slashed sleeves, with a small and peaked hat on
his head, surmounted by a red feather, which hung down his back. His
whole aspect recalled to recollection the Duke of Alba, the scourge of
the Flemings, and his actions were by no means calculated to remove the
impression.”--_Thirty Years’ War_, book ii. The author of L’Histoire de
Gustave Adolphe gives a similar account of his dress and person, and
adds, that the Maréchal de Grammont, going to see him out of curiosity,
met him at the head of his army, attired as described, and mounted
on a little grey hackney, with one pistol only at his saddle-bow.
“Lorsque le Maréchal s’approcha pour lui faire la révérence, Tilly,
croyant remarquer qu’il s’étonnoit de le voir dans cet équipage, lui
dit, Monsieur, vous trouvez peut--être mon habillement extraordinaire;
j’avoue qu’il n’est pas tout à fait conforme à la mode de France, mais
il est a mon gré, et cela me suffit. Je pense aussi que ma haquenée, et
ce pistolet tout seul, vous surprennent pour le moins autant que mon
accoûtrement; pour que vous n’ayiez pas mauvaise opinion du Comte de
Tilly, à qui vous faites l’honneur de rendre une visite de curiosité,
je vous dirai que j’ai gagné sept batailles décisives, sans avoir été
obligé de tirer une seule fois le pistolet que vous voyez là; et mon
petit cheval ne m’a jamais abandonné et n’a jamais balancé à faire son
devoir.”--p. 173.
[50] There being a place so called in the vicinity of the Strudel.
[51]
“Zu Enns St. Marx und Lucas lehrt
Das volck zu Christi Glaub bekehrt.
Hie ward versenkt St. Florian
In D’Enns der edle Rittersmann,
Maximilian da Bischoff war,
Mild gegen Armen immerdar;
Diess langt zu sondern Ruhm der Stadt
Die Gott also begnadet hat.”
[52] Gibbon, when speaking of this expedition, calls it “the triple
effort of a French army that was poured into their (the Avars’)
country, by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains, and along
the plain of the Danube.” _Decline and Fall_, vol. ix. p. 184.
[53] This building is still standing in the north-east quarter of the
city. It is now the property of Baron Rumeskirchen.
[54] In the Niebelunglied, which was compiled about this period, we
find Ens mentioned, by its present name, as one of the places visited
by Chrimhilt, on her journey into Hungary.
“Da sie uber die Traun kamen, bey _Ense_ auf das feld.”
[55] According to an old German writer quoted by Schultes, Ens was a
walled city as early as the year 900, and already of some consequence.
“Bavari citissime in id ipsum tempus (+A.D.+ 900) pro tuitioni illorum
regni validissimam urbem in littore Anesi fluminis muro obposuerunt.”
But, in this case, why is it called a village by Leopold, in the
twelfth century?