DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0033
CHAPTER II.
durer’s birth-place and friends.
Tradition relates that S. Sebald, apostle of Franconia, was
the son of a Danish Prince. He had reached the prime of
manhood and was on the point of marriage when the divine
powers intervened and spirited him away to fifteen years of
meditation and prayer. History can alone be sure that the
Saint was an actual person, whencesoever and howsoever he
may have come, who, in the time of Charles the Great, wan-
dered preaching about the Franconian forests. Legend takes
up the tale and prattles on about miracles and what not, and
then relates that when the time came for Sebald to die, he bade
his fellows prepare for him a cart and set his body thereon.
And then the Apostle Peter guided the oxen to the chapel which
the Saint had built by the Pegnitz’ bank. And there the grave
was made and there to this day the saint’s bones abide; forthough
men have tried to remove them it is useless ; they always return
to the same spot. There in after centuries a great church was
built and within it was set the costly shrine of bronze which
Peter Vischer made, whose fame is known in all the world.
The hill of Niirnberg, as it came afterwards to be called, was
a strong strategic position. In early times therefore a castle
took its stand there, well-placed for attack or defence. And so
about castle and shrine there gathered a city, and walls crawled
round about it, and churches and houses, town-halls, store-houses,
weighing-houses and fountains sprang up within it. And the
Veste, growing stronger and older and more beloved with the
passing years, watched and still watches over all the plain
around.
durer’s birth-place and friends.
Tradition relates that S. Sebald, apostle of Franconia, was
the son of a Danish Prince. He had reached the prime of
manhood and was on the point of marriage when the divine
powers intervened and spirited him away to fifteen years of
meditation and prayer. History can alone be sure that the
Saint was an actual person, whencesoever and howsoever he
may have come, who, in the time of Charles the Great, wan-
dered preaching about the Franconian forests. Legend takes
up the tale and prattles on about miracles and what not, and
then relates that when the time came for Sebald to die, he bade
his fellows prepare for him a cart and set his body thereon.
And then the Apostle Peter guided the oxen to the chapel which
the Saint had built by the Pegnitz’ bank. And there the grave
was made and there to this day the saint’s bones abide; forthough
men have tried to remove them it is useless ; they always return
to the same spot. There in after centuries a great church was
built and within it was set the costly shrine of bronze which
Peter Vischer made, whose fame is known in all the world.
The hill of Niirnberg, as it came afterwards to be called, was
a strong strategic position. In early times therefore a castle
took its stand there, well-placed for attack or defence. And so
about castle and shrine there gathered a city, and walls crawled
round about it, and churches and houses, town-halls, store-houses,
weighing-houses and fountains sprang up within it. And the
Veste, growing stronger and older and more beloved with the
passing years, watched and still watches over all the plain
around.