mble of their poem. They wander poor
and full of cares into the free expanse of nature; then comes joyful
news of a shooting meeting. It was undoubtedly traditional, and it was
a fitting and refined beginning, which one learned from the other.]

[Footnote 64: Wolfgang Ferber. "Gruendliche beschreibung eines Armbrust
Schiessens zu Coburg." 1614.]

[Footnote 65: A square coin.]

[Footnote 66: Welser-Gasser, "Chronika von Augspurg," p. 182.]

[Footnote 67: Compare vol. ii of "Pictures of German Life," chap.
"Rogues and Adventurers."]

[Footnote 68: Benedict Edlbeck, pritschmeister: "Ordentliche
beschreibung des grossen Schiessen in Zwickau," 1574, p. 82.]

[Footnote 69: Even the valiant Quad von Kinkelbach counts this as one
of the wonders of Frankfort: "Teutscher Nation Herlichbuit," 1609, p.
171. Compare it with Christoff Roesener: "Ehren Tittel der Ritterlichen
Freyen Kunst der Fechter," 1589, p. 4. The _Federfechter_ gave their
freedom to their scholars at princes' courts; also, for example,
at Dresden, 1614, at the great Schaufechter which followed the
prize-shooting, where a Fechter was stabbed by a rapier.--Wolffgang
Ferber's "Relation eines fuernehmen Stahlschiessens zu Dresden," 1614.]

[Footnote 70: Derisive terms applied to certain localities.--_Tr_.]

[Footnote 71: Invitation circular of the Kehlheimers in "Bairische
Annalen."]

[Footnote 72: The Swiss also were subject to the _pritschmeister_. In
the woodcut on the title-page of the curious poem "Aussreden der
Schuetzen von Hans Heinrich Grob, Zuerich, 1602," there is delineated a
rifle shooting, in which the _pritschmeister_, in complete fool's
dress, is castigating two Shooters in the way above described.]

[Footnote 73: Called Koenigsschiessen, as a king was elected for the
occasion.--_Tr_.]

[Footnote 74: An open space round the town.--_Tr_.]

[Footnote 75: A court entertainment, representing life in an
inn.--_Tr_.]

[Footnote 76: Von Rohr, "Ceremoniel-Wissenschaft," p. 261.]

[Footnote 77: "_De ratione status in Imperio nostro Romano-Germanico_,
1640." The expression is not invented by Chemnitz, it had been
introduced before him in diplomatic jargon by the Italians--their
_ragione di Dominio_, or _di Stato_ (in Latin, _ratio status_; in
French, _raison d'estat_; in German, _Staatsklugheit_) denotes the
method of dealing in the finesses of politics, a system of unwritten
maxims of government in which only practical statesmen were versed.]