the Walpurgiskapelle. These constituted the Burggraefliche
Burg--the Burggraf's Castle. The rest of the castle was built on by
Friedrich der Rotbart (Barbarossa), and called the Kaiserliche Burg. The
old Five-cornered tower and the surrounding ground was the private
property of the Burggraf, and he was appointed by the Emperor as
imperial officer of the Kaiserliche Burg. Whether the Emperors claimed
any rights of personal property over Nuremberg or merely treated it, at
first, as imperial property, it is difficult to determine. The castle at
any rate was probably built to secure whatever rights were claimed, and
to serve generally as an imperial stronghold. Gradually around the
castle grew up the straggling streets of Nuremberg. Settlers built
beneath the shadow of the Burg. The very names of the streets suggest
the vicinity of a camp or fortress. Soeldnerstrasse, Schmiedstrasse, and
so forth, betray the military origin of the present busy commercial
town. From one cause or another a mixture of races, of Germanic and
non-Germanic, of Slavonic and Frankish elements, seems to have occurred
among the inhabitants of the growing village, producing a special blend
which in dialect, in customs, and in dress was soon noticed by the
neighbors as unique, and stamping the art and development of Nuremberg
with that peculiar character which has never left it.

Various causes combined to promote the growth of the place. The
temporary removal of the Mart from Fuerth to Nuremberg under Henry III.
doubtless gave a great impetus to the development of the latter town.
Henry IV., indeed, gave back the rights of Mart, customs and coinage to
Fuerth. But it seems probable that these rights were not taken away again
from Nuremberg. The possession of a Mart was, of course, of great
importance to a town in those days, promoting industries and arts and
settled occupations. The Nurembergers were ready to suck out the fullest
advantage from their privilege. That mixture of races, to which we have
referred, resulted in remarkable business energy--energy which soon
found scope in the conduct of the business which the natural position of
Nuremberg on the south and north, the east and western trade routes,
brought to her. It was not very long before she became the center of the
vast trade between the Levant and Western Europe, and the chief emporium
for the produce of Italy--the "Handelsmetropole" in fact of South
Germany.

Nothing in the Middle Ages