ties of our forefathers are more especially perceptible in them;
pride in their own city, a lively and sensitive feeling of honor even
with respect to friends, satisfaction in appearing in processions,
whether on serious occasions or in sport, and in representing with
dignity, and above all, pleasure in showing, on public occasions, among
many thousands, their manliness, worth, and charity in word and deed.

If a prize shooting was determined upon in a city, messengers bore the
proclamation of the council, and frequently also of the archery
association, to their good neighbours far in the country. The number of
cities invited was sometimes very great. In 1601, 156 cities were
invited to one shooting festival, held at Halle, and archers came from
fifty, though the weather was bad and the prizes not high. At Strasburg
seventy places were represented in 1576, in 1573 there were 187
cross-bow men sent from thirty-nine places to Zwickau, amongst them
were three Swabian peasants from Goeppingen, all of whom, to the great
vexation of the proud citizens, won prizes. At the cross-bow shooting
at Ratisbon, in 1586, thirty-five towns were represented by 210
cross-bow men. At the costly prize-shooting in 1614, at Dresden,
twenty-one of the invited cities sent representatives, but eleven did
not. But the hospitality was not limited to those alone who were
invited: at an earlier period special prizes were, assigned to those
who came from greater distances; thus the Augsburgers, in 1508,
rejoiced that a German marksman came even from Paris, and another time
a marksman, who came from Striegau, in Silesia, obtained a golden ring,
the prize for strangers. Sometimes it was expressly denoted in the
invitation that every qualified man was welcome, or the places invited
were requested to spread the notice among the nobles and archers of
their neighbourhood. When the feasts became very costly, the uninvited
guests were, though allowed to shoot, not entitled to a share in the
chief prizes which had been assigned by the giver of the feast. That
such limitations were, however, not usual is shown by the grief of the
two Amstaedters, who, at the cross-bow shooting at Coburg in 1614,[59]
were excluded by the Duke Johann Casimir from his principal prizes;
they wished to return home, and were with difficulty persuaded to
remain.

In the programme all the conditions of the prize-shooting were
accurately enumerated; with fire-arms the weight of the ba