in the Thirty Years’ War. Well worth seeing are the vaulted chambers, formerly used as stables, and the ruins of the church, which, in less pious times, became a hall, containing some windows which are specimens of the purest early Gothic. The trees and shrubs have grown in the roofless spaces so as in a measure to obscure the details of the architecture, standing as they do on an accumulation of rubble from the ruin of the upper part of the building. Around the machicolated walls wind pleasant walks, which lead past the remains of higher outworks into a kind of carefully kept shrubbery, and up to the crest of the hill, whence the castle is overlooked, and an extensive view of the reaches of the river on both sides is obtained. As we pass down again, we remark standing in the garden an image carved in stone of some four-footed animal, considerably mutilated. It is said to represent a hart which was shot there from the window of the castle by a fair countess, after it had long baffled the pursuit of her husband. He must have looked rather foolish when, in sportsman’s phrase, his eye was wiped by his wife.
The Counts of Wertheim are mentioned as early as 900 in the Turnirbücher. They were often at feud with the Bishops of Würzburg, from whom they transferred their allegiance to the Emperors. One of the towers of the castle is remarkable as having ten iron rings driven into it. It is said that on one occasion when a bishop came with a powerful force to besiege the castle, he boasted that his horses would pull it down into the Main, unless it were instantly given up to him. The Count of Wertheim, in defiance, drove these iron rings into the nearest tower, and asked the bishop if his men had brought the ropes to pull by them. He then sallied out with his men, and drove the episcopal forces away. Notwithstanding their disrespect to bishops, in the times of the Reformation, these Counts of Wertheim were deadly enemies to the movement. One of these swore that he would kill Luther, and hearing that the Reformer had arrived at Miltenberg, rode thither in all haste. Early in the morning he threw open the window of the room in the inn where he had slept, and, at the same time, he heard a window opposite opened, and saw standing before him a portly clergyman; entered into conversation with him, and then into controversy, which ended by his becoming a convert to the new doctrine. The clergyman was Luther himself. In the ancient collegiate church in the town below the castle hill, built 1382, is a monument of a Count of Wertheim, with two wives at his side—one with, and the other without, a rosary; but in all other repects exactly alike. It is said that that Count, who entertained a deep affection for his first wife, determined to marry again only in case he found a second lady precisely like her; that he travelled east, west, north, and south, and at last succeeded. The second differed from the first only in religion, as one was Catholic and the other Protestant. Probably the story arose from the artist of the monument having had but one model for both. Affixed to the wall of the church, near the door, is a very beautiful Gothic structure, which may have been a pulpit.
Opposite the church is a fine Gothic house, formerly a convent, and now used as a school. The peasants who assemble at Wertheim on market-days are remarkable for their costumes. Many of the men have long “Noah’s ark” coats of a grass-green colour, with large shovel hats, which give them a very clerical appearance. It is well known that the costumes of Noah and his family, which are so familiar to children, are to be ascribed to the fact that this dress has been in vogue for centuries in those parts of South Germany where toys are made. a.d. 326 is mentioned as the date of the first origin of the town of Wertheim, when the Frankish Duke Gunibald, with his Sicambrians, came up the Main and made a castle here. But the first information to be relied on was obtained by Schannat from the archives of Fulda. In the year 779 a Count Kunibert gave up his possessions at Wertheim, Bischofsheim, and other places to St. Bonifacius, whose bones were sent to Fulda. In 1009, Bishop Heinrich of Würzburg granted the town a privilege, by which all merchandise passing up or down the river was obliged to be exposed for sale for three days: in 1306, it was made a free imperial town by the Emperor Albert II., on the same footing as Frankfurt; and Ludwig, the Bavarian, assimilated its position to that of Gelnhausen. Wertheim sank, in consequence of the Archbishops of Mainz placing an embargo at Miltenberg on the trade of the river.
We now pass down the river to Hassloch. The scenery is everywhere much the same as on the upper course of the river in the Loop, save that the curves which the stream makes are shorter, and give it the appearance of a series of lakes. At intervals occur quarries of excellent sandstone, which reveal horizontal strata. Near Hassloch there is a rock on which that goddess or fairy of Teutonic mythology, Hulla or Holle, was said to rest, after carrying the peasants’ burdens for them. She was beneficent or the contrary, according to their behaviour; and if they displayed a selfish desire to profit by her supernatural assistance, could make herself exceedingly disagreeable. Then we pass through the Town Prozelten, a long, fortified old place with a castle overhanging it. There are three Prozeltens on the Main, the first called Long Prozelten, above Lohr; this one is the second; and the next is called Village Prozelten, a little farther on. The name appears corrupted from Berathesheldin. Its etymology is a riddle. Dorf, or Village Prozelten, appears to have been older than the Town, which doubtless clustered itself under the castle for protection. Farther down the river, on the other side, we see, through the vine-trellised arbour at “the Rose,” the ruins of the castle of Freudenberg, another Heidelberg in miniature. The town is said to have been devastated by the Huns in very early times. The castle is remarkable for one of those very old embossed towers often erroneously ascribed to the Romans, and probably copied by the Germans from their so-called rustic style.
There is a queer story connected with a ruined castle belonging to the family of Rüde von Collemberg. Here lived once a knight of savage disposition who was linked to a gentle wife. One