John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1579

(This discussion of Hesse is continued from Note Nr. 1572, dated 17 January 2003 .  GWD WebMaster)

I continue with information on life in Eighteenth Century Germany with material from Heinemeier's " A Social History of Hesse ".  One area of Hesse was Darmstadt, which was ruled from 1676 to 1739 by Landgrave Ernst Ludwig.  He was unusual in that he adopted a tolerant attitude toward religion.  Over the protests of the Darmstadt council, he enacted an ordinance in 1691 granting enhanced rights to the small Jewish community in Darmstadt, or in any area with more than ten resident adult Jewish males.  They were allowed to worship openly on their Sabbath and other holidays.  They had no regular synagogue at first and it was not until 1735 that a Jewish widow opened her home as a synagogue.  The town council opposed the admission of Jewish peddlers, who they said had an adverse impact on their Christian competitors.  Even while upholding the rights of the Jewish people, the Landgrave took the opportunity to impose special taxes on them.  The Darmstadt Jewish community with about thirty heads of households had to pay an annual tax of 5,000 guilders a year for the maintenance of state hunting dogs and cavalry, plus other taxes.

The secular and church authorities opposed all other religions except the state-sanctioned Lutheranism.  Local church authorities squelched the suggestion that the Latin school be opened to orphan children of Catholic and Jewish faiths.  They did want these groups to become upwardly mobile.  The Protestant authorities less successfully opposed the Landgrave when he gave Catholics permission to worship in town.  The Landgrave's position may have originated with a Spanish actor, who was his favorite, and the state postmaster, who was a Catholic.

The Landgrave began planning for a new opera house beginning in 1709, using the talents of a borrowed French architect.  The work crew for this project consisted of forty cabinet makers, twenty carpenters, nine painters, four sculptors, and assorted masons, smiths, and other workers.  The architect complained because the workmen were too argumentative.  The opera house opened in 1711 amid the debts of the Landgrave to pay for the structure.

Ernst Ludwig's rabid attachment to hunting was the source of many complaints and placed him at loggerheads with the Town Council.  He had the local forest enclosed with hedges to protect and imprison the game animals.  The townspeople protested because they were accustomed to letting their pigs roam the forest for food.  A half dozen hunting lodges were erected within a short distance of Darmstadt at a substantial cost so that Ludwig and his son could enjoy their hunting.  Great impositions were made on the locals to provide hauling and bush-beating services in support of the hunts to which they made loud and widespread complaints.  Perhaps even worse was the damage caused by the hunters who rode through crops and fields with impunity.  A visitor in 1730 noted that the game thrived and it wandered up to the edge of the town causing more crop damage from their foraging.
(25 Jan 03)