Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/51

ELEMENTAKY SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 39 of the processions which were organised to pra}^ for victory over the infidels in time of war, and for deliverance from epidemics or tempests. A report sent by John Cochlaus from Nurem- berg in the year 1511 gives some idea of the value set on preaching, in the larger towns especially. He writes : ' The piety at Nuremberg is remarkable as well towards God as toward one's neighbour. The attendance at sermons is enormous, although preaching goes on in thirteen churches at the same time.' * The endowing of special preachers was not confined to the large towns. In the principality of Wurtemburg alone there were, in the year 1514, eleven such founda- tions — at Stuttgart, Waiblingen, Schorndorf, Blaubeuren, Sulz, Dornstetten, Bottwar, Balingen, Brackenheim, Neuffen, and Goppingen. The charter of the pulpit foundation in Waiblingen, (1462), in the chapel of St. Nicholas, exacted that the preacher be required to preach either in the chapel or parish church every Sunday, on the four principal feasts, on the Feasts of Our Lady and the Apostles, and on every Friday and Wednesday in the seasons of fast. In Stuttgart the pulpit endowment was the gift of a brotherhood ; in Goppingen and Schorndorf, of the whole congregation ; in Waiblingen and Balingen, 1 See Otto, p. 48. Meyer, pastor in Frankfort, 1511, often preached to between three and four thousand hearers. See Falk, Beurtlicilung des lbten Jahrhunderts, pp. 407, 408. There was so much preaching that a limit had to be set to it. We read, for instance, that John Turge, bishop of Breslau, allowed only one sermon to be preached on Sunday, in order that the Word of God should not be made common. In Lent, however, and at other solemn occasions, several sermons were preached, according to the ancient custom. See ' Preaching in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Cen- tury,' in the Schlesisches Kirclienblatt, 1873, pp. 337, 308. SeeFalk's Hist.-jpol Bl. (1878), lxxxi. 34-47.