y kept
legible, on the shafts of the Gothic arches,--from floor to groin, long
rows of them;--and produce, with the other tombs, tomb-paintings by
Durer and the like, thoughts impressive almost to pain. St. Elizabeth's
LOCULUS was put into its shrine here, by Kaiser Friedrich II. and all
manner of princes and grandees of the Empire, "one million two hundred
thousand people looking on," say the old records, perhaps not quite
exact in their arithmetic. Philip the Magnanimous, wishing to stop
"pilgrimages no-whither," buried the LOCULUS away, it was never known
where; under the floor of that Church somewhere, as is likeliest. Enough
now of Marburg, and of its Teutsch Ritters too.

They had one or two memorable Hochmeisters and Teutschmeisters; whom
we have not named here, nor shall. [In our excellent Kohler's
_Muntzbelustigungen_ (Nurnberg, 1729 et seqq. ii. 382; v. 102; viii.
380; &c.) are valuable glimpses into the Teutonic Order,--as into
hundreds of other things. The special Book upon it is Voigt's, often
cited here: Nine heavy Volumes; grounded on faithful reading, but with
a fatal defect of almost every other quality.] There is one Hochmeister,
somewhere about the fiftieth on the list, and properly the last real
Hochmeister, Albert of Hohenzollern-Culmbach by name, who will be very
memorable to us by and by.

Or will the reader care to know how Culmbach came into the possession
of the Hohenzollerns, Burggraves of Nurnberg? The story may be
illustrative, and will not occupy us long.

Chapter VII. -- MARGRAVIATE OF CULMBACH: BAIREUTH, ANSPACH.

In the Year 1248, in his Castle of Plassenburg,--which is now a
Correction-House, looking down upon the junction of the Red and White
Mayn,--Otto Duke of Meran, a very great potentate, more like a King than
a Duke, was suddenly clutched hold of by a certain wedded gentleman,
name not given, "one of his domestics or dependents," whom he had
enraged beyond forgiveness (signally violating the Seventh Commandment
at his expense); and was by the said wedded gentleman there and then cut
down, and done to death. "Lamentably killed, _jammerlich erstochen,"_
says old Rentsch. [P. 293. Kohler, _Reichs-Historie,_ p. 245. Holle,
_Alte Geschichte der Stadt Baireuth_ (Baireuth, 1833), pp. 34-37.]
Others give a different color to the homicide, and even a different
place; a controversy not interesting to us. Slain at any rate he is;
still a young man; the last male of his line. Whereb