The current age is one where anecdotal evidence however defined is frequently used as a window, a benchmark, through or beyond which a great many behaviors and attitudes are then explored, 'discusssed', and thus popularly deduced and then subsequently remembered by the public at large. But, just as easily, anecdotal examples are also dismissed summarily, simply because they are 'anecdotal.' Somebody told a story and that was it: somebody's story.
Still, when patterned examples accumulate, even in series' of anecdotes, people still will very often hold fast to the deductions or lessons retained when first confronted by a similar story. This is how we learn, however gradually. We make associations between what is known and the new thing or attitude, condition or behavior, before us. We compare. We judge, we act or react. But first, we draw associations from what we know as it compares to what we see now. Otherwise we likely won't recognize it at all and other more basic instincts - like fear - start in. When uncertainties abound humans retreat, unless we find associations we can come to trust in.
Again, in another example, in just a few pages, Thomas A Brady steers a path for us along numerous anecdotes, showing a pattern of uncertainties, and in several places, by differing groups over time, in his depiction of practical German notions and responses, both toward and against territorial gain and maintennance. This gives him an opportunity to show us their basic notions of 'protection' and security in an age that gave rise to such realities as terrritories, as they rose and multiplied. It seems that periods of great change are also understood as such because these are when the macro effects the micro and the personal. the individual eventually learns to effect the macro.
Disputants among the kings of Hungary rejected claims of the young Ladislaus to rule there, and nobles in Upper and Lower Austria 'staged feuds and raids' against Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, then the protector of the young heir of Emperor Albert II. The nobles sued to be co-regents with Frederich of the Imperial legacy of Sigismund and Albert in Austrian lands. Assemblies of such nobles called for the Archduke's crucifixion and 'Viennese burghers joined in with glee.' Lessers attracted to open rebellion raided the helpless on roads and in small towns. [p. 93]
In 1447, 'Austrian estates', and then again, in 1451, as many as 254 signatories demanded Frederich give up control of Ladislaus and release him to the Vienna Castle. It was only after Frederich returned, newly crowned Emperor and married in Rome, did he at last give up control of the young man and accede to the demand of the nobles. [p. 94]
In 1449, on St James' Day, a Franconian war among cities broke out. Nuremburg, Augsburg and Ulm were attacked by a league of princes from Brandenburg, Baden, Saxony, & Wurttemburg, Eichstatt. What had been a small feud expanded quickly into a regional war and then continued in wave upon wave and by some of the worst actors. The burning of towns or storehouses, or the threat of these exactions were the hallmark of Albert Achilles, an Imperial Elector of Brandenburg. For years he went after the burghers in the cities, but by 1462 thought the 'scoundrel bishops' as well 'both men and women, priest or laymen should be burnt.'
In 1461, Frederich's own brother, Albert tried to usurp him by besieging his family in Vienna Castle. Again, the burghers joined in by siding with Albert. But he died within a couple years as did the familial feud with it. [p. 95] Plenty of antagonists remained and uncertainties multiplied across the decades.
Not only errant nobles and burghers, but bishops and other clergy increasingly took matters into their own hands and then, managed appropriate 'protection'. Cities and their leagues could not always & reliably protect merchants or pilgrims from bandits or errant nobles and their demanded 'protections'. These ended up exacting private money into other private hands for merely avoiding greater violence. [p. 96]
In 1486 Federich proposed a Public Peace to the Diet. Finally, in 1495, Maximilian convinced the Diet of Worms to agree, at least, in 'a new law that declared ...'
"... no one, whatever his rank, estate, or position, shall conduct feud, make war on, rob, kidnap, ambush, or besiege another, ... nor shall he enter any castle, town, market, fortress, villages, hamlets, or farms against another's will, or use force against them, illegally occupy them, threaten them with arson, or damage them in any other way." [p. 97]
The problem would remain whoever the Emperor was. People of means had already begun to take matters into their own hands. Local conflicts continued to fester, ironing out differences among the many interests that remained all over.There were churchlands and benefices, inherited lands subject to centuries of parcelization and little left for individuals with a name, to call their own.
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650; University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009
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