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The former consisted of about three hundred families; the latter were divided into seven trades, guilds, ог companies-namely, cutlers, weavers, bakers, shoemakers, smiths, tanners, and vintners. Originally the government of the city was entirely in the hands of the nobility, all offices in the magistracy being filled from their ranks; but in process of time the growing power of the burghers became too great for total exclusion from them; and, after many attempts, at first ineffectual, they were ultimately admitted to participate in some degree in the privilege of self-rule. From that period the opulence and importance of Coblentz may be said to take their rise. The spirit of commerce and industry soon made it one of the principal places on the Rhine; one of the chief emporiums of traffic on that greatest highway of civilized Europe in the middle ages. It was then that the city extended itself, so as to cover not only the peninsula on which it at present stands, but also the opposite shore of the Mosel, now without the vestige of a residence, and the narrow strip of land lying between Ehrenbreitstein and the river, together with the little valley running at right angles from it with the Rhine.

In the year of grace 1282, Arnold, Archbishop of Treves, then sovereign of Coblentz, proposed to surround it with a wall, and fortify it against external assailants. It was very poorly protected in this respect; and the citizens, therefore, at once acceded to his proposal. To carry out his design he suggested a tax, which was immediately acquiesced in also; and the work

Then known as. Lützel-Coblenz, or Little Coblentz

was vigorously prosecuted, to the great satisfaction of both parties. But the jealous burghers soon discovered that the archbishop intended to erect a citadel for the increase of his own power, as well as bulwarks for their defence from others; and they accordingly demurred to any further interference on his part with the affairs of their city. The erection of the walls was in consequence suspended; and the tax levied for. their support discontinued.

Under the short reign of Henry, the second Archbishop of Treves of that name (A.D.1286), who immediately succeeded Arnold, the works for the defence of Coblentz commenced by his predecessor were resumed, and considerable progress made towards their completion. They were, however, interrupted, as before, by the jealous spirit of the citizens, who deemed that the design of Arnold to build a citadel was countenanced by Henry, and that this prelate only waited a favourable opportunity to carry it into full effect. A civic insurrection ensued; and a civil war of two years' duration between the archbishop and the burghers of Coblentz was the consequence of this attempt at encroachment on the one side and of resistance on the other. The contest, which was of a most sanguinary nature while it lasted, terminated in favour of Henry, who inflicted the severest punishment upon the promoters of the revolt. During the remainder of his rule, Coblentz gave him no further cause of uneasiness, and no other disturbance took place within its walls until his death.

Diether, his successor was not, however, so

fortunate. The see of Treves was at this period split into two factions, partisans of two hostile candidates for the archiepiscopal throne, Of this favourable conjunction of affairs the citizens of Coblentz at once availed themselves; and once again they proceeded to assert their local independence. Their efforts were crowned with success; they won back their ancient privileges, of which they had been deprived by Henry; and while Diether lived they enjoyed the fullest freedom.

On his death, however, which took place A.D. 1854, their political circumstances once more underwent a change, for the worse. Baldwin of Luxembourg, his successor, was a man of the most consumate abilities, and of the most unbounded ambition. The first act of his government was to enforce the almost abject obedience of all his subjects; his every other effort was directed to the extension of his dominion, and to rendering the principality over which he ruled the most powerful under the empire. Among other cities of the see of Treves, which he promptly subdued, was Coblentz; and never once afterwards had he occasion to complain of the refractory spirit which previously animated its inhabitants. He was, however, the great benefactor of the place: for he strengthened its defences against external violence; freed the shores of the river which belonged to him, both above and below it, from robber-barons and rapacious knights; extended the fortifications of Ehrenbreitstein, then Hermannstein; built the old bridge over the Moselle; established peace and order among all classes of the community, which com

posed the civic population; and effected, by the authority of the papal see, very many necessary reformations in the discipline of the church. He died in the fulness of his fame and glory; fame and glory, it should, however, in justice be added, more of temporal than of a spiritual character the fame and glory of a politic prince rather than of a pious prelate-A.D. 1367.

Kuno von Falkenstein, who followed Boemund the Second, the immediate successor of Baldwin (A.D. 1388), in the archbishopric of Treves, was a worthy disciple of that great man. Like Baldwin, he was ambitious, and like him, too, he was possessed of transcendent abilities; but circumstances favoured him far more than ever they had done his predecessor; and the extent of his dominions, long before his death, was as wide as ever the heart of that prelate could have wished. He governed, at the same time, the archdiocesses and principalities of Treves, Mentz, and Cologne, to each of which he had been freely elected for his great power and high reputation; and in right of his sovereign sway over these the three chief electorates of the empire, he became sole master of all the fertile country on both sides of the Rhine, from Speyers to Holland. After a fortunate reign of twenty-one years, he died in the castle of Kunoberg, also known as Thurnberg, but more commonly called the Mause, on the right bank of the river, almost impending over Welmich, and nearly opposite to St. Goar, A.D.1388.

For the period of a century and upwards after his death, a succession of inefficient prelates, alternately opposed and supported by different

parties of their subjects, occupied the archiepiscopal throne of Treves. But though, during these turbulent proceedings, the citizens of Coblentz, it is to be presumed, were not inactive spectators of the ever-shifting scene, little mention is made of their city in the local history of the archdiocess.

The last archbishop of any note was John, Markgraf of Baden, who, supported by the emperor and the pope, assumed the electoral insignia, A. D. 1456, and became the worthy successor, though, it must be acknowledged, at a wide interval of time and talent, of his long defunct predecessors in the see of Treves, Baldwin of Luxembourg and Kuno von Falkenstein. Under his auspicious government Coblentz increased in prosperity, and extent, and populousness; and, next to Mentz and Cologne, became the most important city on the shores of the Middle Rhine.

An honest old chronicler draws the following picture of the social state at that period which will, it is to be presumed, cast considerable light in the way of illustration upon many of the legends and traditions, and much of the history in these pages

"There be among the German folk much distinction of rank, and many grades of that distinction. The first grade consists of the clergy; the second of the nobles-in which latter there are several varieties, such as princes, counts, barons, knights, and gentle folk;---the third, of the burghers and peasantry. The princes take

* Vide Note pag 9.

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