The Burgermeister's Daughter by Steven Ozment

Source of book: I own this

 

I am still disappointed that this book didn’t get purchased by our extended library system, although I guess it might be a bit more niche than some. But seriously. A sex scandal, a family feud, legal and cultural issues, and a pretty feisty person. And it all really happened in the 1500s - this isn’t fiction. 

 

 

The Burgermeister’s Daughter tells the story of...the Burgermeister’s daughter, namely Anna Buschler of Hall, and how her life became the center of a series of court cases involving inheritance, support, false imprisonment, and fraud. See? Exciting stuff, at least to a lawyer! And the reason we know as much as we do about the story is because it was all dragged into this series of increasingly nasty court cases, and therefore preserved and documented. 

 

So, here is some background information. In 16th Century Germany, many things that we now consider to be matters of freedom in 21st Century America were governed by laws and “customs” - essentially longstanding cultural standards that everyone knew, and most respected, and for which violations could be punished either by the community or by the courts in some cases. 

 

The first of these customs was that of the Marriage Contract, and how it affected Anna’s rights. For some reason, conservative-leaning people in our culture tend to look with disdain on Premarital Agreements (aka “prenups”) as somehow leading to divorce or being otherwise sketchy. As a lawyer, I do not see them that way, of course. But it turns out that they were fairly common in the Germany of 500 years ago - across class lines too: they were not just for the wealthy. A Marriage Contract would carefully spell out the rights of a widow and of the anticipated children of the marriage, and limit what the surviving parent could leave to his or her next spouse. 

 

Contracts like these worked in concert with inheritance laws, which, unlike our own, did not give parents freedom to disinherit children. Also, unlike England, Germany’s laws expected that children inherit equally, rather than the bulk going to the eldest male. 

 

In this particular case, the marriage was between Hermann, a wealthy politician, landlord, and wine merchant; and his wife, a daughter of a minor patrician, also with her own money. Because of the particular nature of the marriage - it was across class lines, because Hermann had wealth, but not a title - the Contract itself was quite specific about the wealth each brought into the marriage, and how the wealth accumulated would be divided after death. Specifically, the children had rights to most of the jointly accumulated wealth and all of their mother’s wealth, upon attaining majority. Hermann would be left with just what he brought in, and would have to divide that equally among his children on his death. 

 

Also fascinating is the way that sex and gender played out in this case. On the one hand, many of the laws and customs seem backwards and sexist now. On the other, women still ran many industries, and had arguably more economic power than they did in the 1970s - certainly much more than they would have in the Victorian Era. Furthermore, as Anna’s case shows, they had the ability to petition the court - and even get the sympathy and support of the court in some cases. Like any era, it was complicated, so to speak. 

 

Into this cultural and legal climate came Anna and Hermann, two stubborn and inflexible people more like each other than not. 

 

Anna’s mother died when she was in her early 20s. At that time, she was working as a servant for the local baron - a fairly prestigious job - but her father insisted that she come back home and keep house for him. She did so for the next five years or so, until he kicked her out without support. 

 

What had happened? Well, it came to light that Anna was in relationships with two men, and pretty clearly having sex with both of them. (As the book points out, sex in theory and sex in practice didn’t exactly match. Although the Protestant reformers were trying to tighten things up, the laws were actually pretty permissive in comparison to how they would be in later centuries.) 

 

Anna actually had some good reasons for what she was doing. One relationship was with the eldest son of the baron, who was a few years younger than her. Apparently, they had a relationship starting back in their teens, something pretty common. Although it would probably never lead to marriage - that wasn’t entirely out of the question, given Anna’s mother’s nobility. 

 

The second developed later, and was with a soldier twice Anna’s age - but likely a suitable match for her socially. Also, it appears that he was a pretty decent guy, if a bit financially irresponsible. He was definitely less of a prick than the future baron. It is possible that they may have married in the future. 

 

Anyway, Anna wrote letters (keeping a copy) to both men, and kept their responses, which is how we know what we know about the relationships. Her father discovered the letters, and kicked her out, which led to the lawsuits. Because she was, at that time, entitled to receive her inheritance. 

 

From there, of course, things went badly downhill. Hermann violated the safe conduct agreement given by the Hall Council (essentially the city judicial body), filed a competing lawsuit in a different jurisdiction, had Anna kidnapped, returned to his home, and then chained her to a table for six months before she managed to escape. Yeah, that escalated really fast. 

 

For the next 25+ years, Anna would be engaged in litigation against her family. First against her father (and against the Hall Council for allowing the kidnapping), then against her siblings after her father’s death. Like most protracted litigation, these cases didn’t result in a definitive win for anyone. Anna still ended up with less than the law should have given her, but a good bit more than her father and siblings wanted to give her. She died in her 50s with a case pending, which rendered it mostly moot, as her then-husband eventually gave up trying to get a widower’s portion, and she died childless. As an attorney who has litigated disputed estates, this is actually kind of the way things go. Nobody is ultimately happy, but the lawyers make some good money, usually. 

 

One of the things that I liked most about the book was the way the author fills in information about history, politics, and culture. The story itself is fascinating, of course, but it is much richer understanding the political disputes between the aristocracy and the burghers, between the city (chartered by the crown) and the local nobles trying to enlarge their influence, between old and new money, and so on. Ozment thoroughly researched this book, and includes notes on his sources, most of which are primary. Everything is brought together to enrich the story and Ozment tells it in a compelling manner. 

 

One of the passages which stood out was the discussion of sex in the 16th Century. In some ways, society resembled ours. For example, through much of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, marriage was not the dominant lifestyle for adults, and those who did marry often waited until their late 20s for financial considerations. (Sound familiar?) However, the approach to the obvious issues was a bit different. Recognizing that that single young adults were a big portion of the population, society took a rather gendered approach to the problem. Catholicism encouraged young people - particularly women - to join religious orders. And, because men were not, in practice, expected to stay celibate (even as clergy, when it came to actual practice), city governments “established public brothels during the fifteenth century as an outlet for the sexual needs of single young men and as a measure of protection for the marriageable daughters of burghers, whose purity and good reputation were essential for the best possible marriage.” It is important to remember that in our own time, we have mostly criminalized sex work. While prostitution hasn’t disappeared, it has significantly shrunk incomparison to the past. More telling, perhaps, is that as recently as 100 years ago, a majority of middle-class men had their first sexual experience with a sex worker, whereas now an overwhelming majority do so with someone in their own age and class. This has led to a lot of pearl clutching from those who believe strongly in the sexual double standard. And, of course, this has led to Purity Culture, and all the sexual dysfunction and fallout that goes with that. This book is just another example of the way that Fundamentalism relies on lying about the past to push their agenda. Things were never the way they claim, and there was no golden age of chastity. 

 

Another fascinating mention is of the “sumptuary” laws. For those who didn’t study history or law, these might not be well known. For centuries, the law literally dictated what clothes each class could wear. If you weren’t a noble, you couldn’t wear certain expensive clothes, no matter how much money you had. Dressing outside one’s class was both a sin and a crime. Literally. The point, of course, wasn’t to prevent vanity, but to allow people to tell at a glance where someone fell in the social hierarchy. Which in turn determined if you bowed to someone, or expected them to bow. This is a sadly universal human tendency, to want to create and maintain hierarchies - and use them to determine whose lives truly matter and whose do not. 

 

Because all we have is the court record, it is not possible to know everything about the story. One of the gaps is exactly what all happened between Hermann and Anna during those years at home. She later accused him of refusing to consent to or arrange a marriage for her, letting her waste her most “marketable” years. The evidence was conflicting on this, and there is much that never fully came out. The author speculates that possibly Hermann thought he could arrange a marriage to a noble, but was not able to. This would have been in keeping with Hermann’s other documented attempts to crash the noble party, so to speak. But another possibility the author raises is that Hermann simply preferred that his daughter stay at home and serve him, as kind of a surrogate wife. (After he kicked her out, he had to short-lived and very miserable marriages, which ended in death (#1) and divorce (#2) in less than two years.) If so, this is kind of an early version of the “Stay At Home Daughter” trend in Christian Patriarchy. Women are expected to forgo an education or an independent life, and “practice” for being a wife by serving their father in the same capacity. And yeah, even without the sex, that’s totally gross. It does seem plausible that Hermann expected this kind of domestic labor and emotional support from his daughter after his wife’s death. 

 

The question of a marriage for Anna was an interesting legal one as well. First, if a daughter rejected a suitable match arranged by her father before age 25, then led an “unchaste” life, he could disinherit her. However, if he was negligent in finding a match, and she was not married by 25, he could not disinherit her, even for unchaste behavior, because her sexuality would at that point be blamed on her father for not giving her an appropriate outlet. As I said, the legal part of this is fascinating in so many ways. 

 

The epilogue is also quite interesting. The author notes that Hermann ended up losing in the battle every bit as much as Anna. Although he was elected Burgermeister numerous times by the Council before the first legal case, after that, he was removed from his position, and never regained it. Documentation and testimony in the cases show that the other council members believed that Hermann had in fact wronged Anna, and essentially ostracised him politically. The author also looks at the power struggles of the 16th Century as part of a greater movement toward separation of powers, which increasingly came to be seen as necessary to protect freedoms. In our own day, we can see that when a would-be tyrant like Trump comes to power, he seeks to consolidate all power to himself, calling any challenges by the legislative and judicial branches “treason.” Things never really change in that sense - separation of powers remains important, as does “politics,” in the sense of governance being a continuous compromise between competing interests. 

 

The Burgermeister’s Daughter is an enjoyable and enlightening book. Ozment has taken primary sources and woven them together to make a human and nuanced picture of compelling personalities in a fascinating time in history. Although lawyers will likely enjoy this book particularly, it isn’t just for us. Anyone who finds human drama and history interesting will enjoy this true story.