lzburghers collected more especially at small shooting
meetings of their districts; so also the Franconians north of the
Maine. A lasting union of middle-sized and smaller places existed
there. This Franconian union comprehended in the sixteenth century,
together with Wuerzburg and Schweinfurt, forty-one cities and forty-two
villages with free peasants, particularly from the bishopric of
Wuerzburg and the royal county of Henneberg.

The chief prize was a neck chain--"The Jewel of the Country"--which the
victor wore round his neck for a year, and which imposed upon the
victorious place the duty of giving the next shooting meeting. If the
community of the union who had to give the feast was small and poor,
the meeting was badly attended. Thus at Neustadt, on Saale, in 1568,
only delegates from eighteen cities and three villages appeared. The
small participation of the village communities, at this period, is a
proof that their strength was diminished in comparison with the former
period. Another group comprehended the possessions of the House of
Saxony; the Thuringians and many Franconians and Meisseners who sent
the garland to one another. These also zealously maintained the
cross-bow at their prize-shootings; the popinjay was seldom erected,
except at smaller meetings, where it was long upheld. At these
festivals the Franconians, up to and beyond Nuremberg, were regular
guests; some of the Suabians and more of the German Bohemians. But, on
the frontiers of this group, at Halle, another association began, the
centre of which was Magdeburg; here the popinjay was more frequent.
Thus at the great prize-shooting at Halle, in 1601, the expression
"shooting court" appears, and many special usages. This circle embraced
the Harz cities up to Brunswick, and the Altmark, and reaches further
to the east and north, for the people of Halle sent their invitations
as far as Berlin, Brandenburg, and even Griefswald. Again, the cities
of the great province of Silesia were in close union, with Breslau for
their centre point; there the popinjay shooting attained to its highest
development, and the festivals were very frequent. Competition was not
unfrequent between two cities; thus, in 1504, between Liegnitz and
Neisse, when the Breslauers said, in answer to the invitation of
Neisse, that they had already accepted the invitation of Liegnitz,
and therefore could not go. The chief places of meeting of the cities
of middle Rhine were Cologne a