Blog #2

       One thing that struck me as very interesting about 15th century Germany is the lack of rights that many people had. Being from the United States where rights as a citizen are guaranteed, it is hard to grasp the concept of a significant chunk of a population having limited rights. Schulze explains that nearly 80% of people lived on a farm or in a rural area while 20% of people lived in a city. In the rural area, very few had property rights though peasants did have rights to use the land. East of the Elbe River, farmers had even less rights and peasants in that area held practically no rights until the nineteenth century (page 37-39). In the cities, very few held citizenship rights. I can see where old families, governing officials and such were given citizenship rights, and to some extent I can see where domestic servants, and beggars would not, but it is astounding that people such as members of nobility and clergy were also excluded from citizenship rights. It seemed like the Church held a lot of authority at this time that it seems weird that clergy member were not given citizenship rights. Jews were another group excluded from citizenship rights which isn’t necessarily that surprising considering they have been persecuted since Biblical times. In two of the captioned pictures (page 34 and 41), Schulze describes the hardships of being a Jew whom had little rights, protection, and barred from most trades in the late Middle Ages. The other caption on page 41 explains how a city council used the time period between Emperors to drive Jews out of a city. Anti-Semitism has existed all around the world for centuries not just in Germany but my point is during this time when Germany doesn’t even technically exist as a country, the identity forming seems to be one of an unequal balance of power. Because many groups of people did not have rights, the identity of Germany seems to be made up of only the elite who had the rights to make political choices. So from an American stand point from a country that was essentially founded on the belief that everyone is equal, Germany’s early history was one where political instability defined their country.

This picture is of moneylending often done by Jews. Jews were not liked by Christians and were prevented  from most ways of making a living often including farming. Christians did not approve of lending money and charging an interest but Jews found it to be one way of making a living during this time period.
Picture and caption info from: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/religion/jews/middleages.htm accessed 9/6/12.

This map shows the Elbe River (highlighted in red) in present day Germany. This river seemed to be a dividing point during the 15th century between the east and west. It was easier for me to visualize and comprehend what I was reading once I had located where the Elbe River was. As I mentioned above farmers east of the river suffered more from the lack of established rights. Also from a caption from Shulze's book (pg 38), he explains that little information is known about the area east of the Elbe River during the High Middle Ages.
Picture from: http://www.turkopedi.com/elbe-irmagi.html accessed 9/6/12

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