Count Frederick III of Ortenburg, however, did not lose himself completely in politics. The Gottscheers, among others, saw to it that he couldn't do that. Their third generation born in the land, who knew little about the origins of its grand- and great-grandparents, had matured. It attempted to live within the meager existential conditions of the "Ländchen." To be sure, it managed barely to survive by farming, but only after much of the woodland originally assigned to the settlers was cleared. Thus, the woods could no longer supply them with sufficient lumber and firewood. This predicament was, of course, caused by the increase in population. Self-interest may have had a part in it, too. The peasants began to fell trees in the woods of the lord. They got into such a fierce argument
about the right and the extent of the felling in the woods of the lord that eventually blood was shed.
The reaction of the lord to these happenings was very typical of the Ortenburgers. He did not respond with repression and force, because he realized that the woods of the peasants no longer could meet their increased needs. In addition, to eliminate a constant source of discontent, he passed a "wood law" in 1406, the "forest
right." He gave the peasants limited use of the lord's woods. Still centuries later, the Gottscheers referred to the "old rights and the forest right" when they were harassed by less humane lords.
It is noteworthy that Count Frederick issued the forest law in Reifnitz and not in Gottschee. Apparently, the central administration of the Ortenburgian fiefs in Lower Carniola had already been moved to Reifnitz before the turn of the century. The Chronik of Burkard Zink permits the conclusion that Count Frederick III gave building commissions to the building master Hans Schwab in 1409. (See Grothe, page 215.) The same source also tells us that the Countess Margaretha was also concerned with Gottschee. Thus, according to Zink, she sent her secretary, whom she had had trained for this purpose, to Rieg, where he served as priest for nearly thirty years. Zink knew so much about this because this priest was his uncle.
Unfortunately, Margaretha is also associated with the death of her husband. According to an unconfirmed legend, she is said to have poisoned him at a banquet - it must have been in 1418. Supposedly, she had spread poison on one side of the blade of a tableknife, cut an apple with it, and handed the poisoned half to her unsuspecting husband (see Huschberg). Who would want to do injustice to this pious Swabian woman? To be sure, the very attempt to clarify the background of this alleged murder of her spouse forces one to conclude that Margaretha could not have had an obvious motive. That she could not give her husband a second male heir was not her fault and no reason to murder a man at whose side she lived the life of a princess. She also could not expect to gain a great inheritance since there was the inheritance agreement between Ortenburg and Cilli. And the counts of Cilli themselves - did they have a motive? The only motive one could possibly come up with is the wish to take possession of the Ortenburgian inheritance as quickly as possible. But since Frederick was also related to Emperor Sigismund by way of the House of Cilli, the Cillians surely did not consider murdering their relative.
But who could gain so much through the death of Frederick of Ortenburg that the revelation of his murder in public carried less weight than his continued existence? Only if we clearly illuminate the political sphere of influence in which the swordbearer of Aquileia moved, do we find a likely motive. To be sure, it is hardly more than a strong suspicion that cannot be substantiated. The exceedingly courageous and swiftly moving "Condottiere" from Carinthia/Carniola was a thorn in the side of the Republic of Venice. He held a key position in the constant disputes between it and the emperor. Of course, he did not succeed in militarily conquering the City of Lagoons on the upper Adriatic - something the emperor himself could not manage because of lack of funds - but he dealt it severe losses. Because of the lack of funds, the emperor also found himself forced to agree to a five-year truce with Venice on April 17, 1413. It was often broken by both sides but was not completely forgotten. The Ortenburger, however, disappeared from the political-military stage. He withdrew to his estates in Carniola. Extensive battles between the Venetians and the emperor only began again precisely five years after the signing of the truce, namely on April 18, 1418.
And herewith the motive of the Venetian Republic as the author sees it:
If one opportunely eliminated the most capable warrior of the emperor, one saved a lot of time, a lot of money, and - Venetian blood. The disputed legend of the poisoned apple certainly does not take care of the details of the murder. That it took place is certain. Venice might also have smuggled a paid murderer into the court of the count with the assignment of striking before April 18, 1418. The politicians of the land-hungry sea-power on the upper Adriatic, however, had enough imagination to spread the rumor that Countess Margaretha had murdered her husband.
In 1420 Venice conquered the patriarchal state and forced the patriarch to move his seat from Udine to the City of Lagoons. This seems to confirm the above thoughts. Countess Margaretha died in 1420 and, in the same year, the emperor gave the countships of Ortenburg and Sternberg in fief to the counts of Cilli. They could henceforth call themselves "Counts of Cilli and Ortenburg." However, Gottschee, which was still not firmly established and in need of assistance, had lost its benevolent protector. The era of the counts of Ortenburg had ended full of sorrow.
And full of sorrow began the rule of the Cillians. Brutal exploitation began immediately. Taxes were raised drastically. The Cillians even conducted their family affairs in part on Gottscheer soil. Count Hermann II was head of the house at that time. His son Frederick fell in love with a nobleman's daughter, Veronika von Dreschnitz. She belonged to the small household of his wife Elisabeth. In the greatest hurry, he had the Gottscheer peasants build an impenetrable "fortress" on the mountain that separates the Oberland from the Hinterland. He called it
Friedrichstein. This stony love-nest of the foreign count became a new stumbling block for the burdened peasants of the Ober- and Unterland. They not only had to raise it, but they were also forced to maintain it by statute-labor for an undefined period. It also brought misfortune to the two lovers. The lovers' bliss was of short duration because the old Count Hermann II did not rest until he had separated the pair. He had Frederick seized and brought to the Castle Osterwitz (Ojstrica). Veronica, however, was able to flee. She found her first hiding place in the village of Kuntschen in Gottschee. When she no longer felt secure there, she hurried on to friends at the castle near Pettau in Lower Styria. Hermann's bailiffs found her there. He held a mock trial for her. As desired, the judges condemned her to die. Two knights carried out the verdict in a large washtub, fittingly at Castle Osterwitz (Ojstrica). Frederick, who in the meantime had had his wife Elisabeth murdered, was, however, reconciled with his father and even became his successor after other events which are insignificant here.
Frederick's and Elisabeth's son Ulrich was then the last count of Cilli. He was secretly murdered in 1456 near Graz by order of King Ladislaus Hunyady. He was buried with a princely funeral in the old Ortenburgian protectorate Spittal an der Drau. But the thirty-six years of Cillian rule had sufficed to destroy the Gottscheers economically. The House of Hapsburg became the new feudal lord, again through an inheritance contract.
The German King and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III was the immediate ruler of Gottschee. He was, that is to say, simultaneously Duke of Carniola. The time of his reign: 1440 to 1493. The Hapsburgers, too, did not bring fortune to the Gottscheer peasants in the period that now began. Frederick did not wish to administer Gottschee himself. Instead he introduced a new means of exploitation: mortgaging. Herewith, port and portal were opened to the arbitrariness of the mortgage holder. At the same time, it would be unfair if one were to attribute the blame for the continued plundering and impoverishment of the "Ländchen" only to him and the Hapsburgs. For 125 years the Turks were responsible for that. Ten times they attacked Gottschee, murdering and burning, plundering, and taking hostages. Already during their first raid in 1496, they burned the market of Gottschee to the ground. The same fate was to befall the center of the settlement area still six more times.
The inhabitants of the burned-down market immediately set about to rebuild it, this time including defensive measures in anticipation of further attacks by the Turks. The original village of Gotsche had been located on the site where many centuries later the Church of Corpus Christi was built. They moved the new site directly to the Rinse. It is not known if the river formed a natural and almost circular arc there, or if the people directed the Rinse around the structure as a man-made moat. We should not dismiss the latter possibility, however. At the same time, they asked their feudal lord, the Duke and Emperor Frederick III, to grant it elevation to city status. It was granted-shortly after Easter in the year 1471 the monarch signed the document in Graz (see Grothe, page 215).
The emblem of the new city in Carniola has some historical features that do not appear in the documents. We will, however, refrain from reading more into the emblem or taking more from it than it could have contained when it was bestowed.
Saint Bartholomew, the patron saint of the parish church, is located in the left half of the inner shield. We have no reason to doubt that it is not the apostle by this name. In former times, much more so than today, he was considered to be the patron saint and intercessor of travelers. He had undertaken long trips as far away as India to spread the gospel. Thus, it is no coincidence that the chapel of Mooswald and the faithful who gathered in it were put under his protection. Sometime between 1339 and 1363 he himself then moved as church patron from
the "villa Mooswald" to "Gotsche" to accompany the Gottscheers on their way through their six-hundred-year history.
The saint appears in the emblem of the city of Gottschee as a fighter and thinker holding a broadsword and book. The weapon in the right hand most likely was to symbolize the readiness of the young city to defend itself against the attacker from southeastern Europe; the book in the left hand of the missionary represents the Holy Scriptures.
The fortress in the inner part of the emblem is more difficult to interpret. It could symbolize the ready defense of the city itself, such as Castle Friedrichstein, which was actually never conquered by the Turks, or it could represent a structural symbol for the fortification which the emperor had demanded for its elevation to city status.
Historically interesting from a linguistic point of view is the village name "Kotschew" in the outer circle of the emblem. It is very close to the dialectal "Gattscheab." Amazingly, however, we find that the document for the elevation to city status itself uses the written form. And where does "Gottschee" come from? The word is surely a further development of the "Gotsche" from the document of 1363, a copy of which, without any doubt, was in the archive of the court chancery at Vienna.
With regard to the number of inhabitants in the young city, we depend again on surmise. An estimate of 350 to 400 souls is more likely too high than too low. It probably sheltered mainly peasants whose farm work was made exceedingly difficult after the rebuilding because of the city fortification. Even though at that time already every peasant had necessarily to be a craftsman, some specialists in the basic trades - such as tailors, cobblers, smiths, cartwrights, coopers, and most of all carpenters, since dwellings made of brick were highly unusual at that time -
had most likely already joined them.
What else did the Gottscheers do to arm themselves against the unrelenting enemy? The forest became their ally-forest preserves were set up and dense thorn hedges were planted in those spots of the terrain that were easily passable. For the protection of the inhabitants, the peasants set up "Tabore," in German, "Burg" (fortress), a fortress-like structure, by erecting walls around the church. Smaller and larger storage chambers were recessed in the walls.
The Gottscheers set up a chain of signal fires as a third permanent measure. Inevitably, they were the first to sight the enemy storming Lower Carniola. These so-called "Kreitfeuer" consisted of wooden piles which could be ignited at any time. They were manned day and night. The "Kreitfeuer" in the district of the castle of Pölland had to give the first signal. The next station to take up the signal was probably on Unterlag Mountain. The Spaher (858 m) near Preriegel most likely took over from there, and then other watches took up the vital fire signal and passed it on to Gottschee, and from there to Reifnitz and Laibach.
The Turk soon realized how unfavorable the chain of fires was for him and attempted to extinguish them by ferreting out their locations and then attacking and wiping them out.
These defensive measures of the Gottscheers could only slightly alleviate the damage inflicted by the Turks. Many lives were lost. As was its custom, the enemy also abducted from Gottschee boys for the elite corps, the "Janitscharen," and girls for slaves. Faced with rapidly spreading poverty and this persistent threat, the Gottscheers devised a kind of development aid, as one would call it today. It is not known who had suggested to the emperor and duke that they be granted a trade privilege outside their "Ländchen." In any case, on October 23, 1492, Frederick III signed a decree in which he permitted his Gottscheers, "in view of the ruination inflicted by the Turks," to be wandering traders of certain goods within the province. History recorded Frederick as a political magician. Many historians consider the betrothal of his son Maximilian I to Maria of Burgundy as his most significant political accomplishment. He was nonetheless considered to be a financial expert. If we disregard the fact that this "posthumous fame" was also due to the opening of new sources of revenues (taxes), then we have to emphasize here his empathy for the difficult situation in which the Gottscheers found themselves. He certainly realized that they, his subjects, could obtain cash in an unusual but perhaps successful manner. If they earned more, then the mortgage holder could raise their taxes and, in this way, the trade privilege would also be advantageous for the ruler. In the centuries that followed, the peddling patent or hawking, as the traveling about with goods was called somewhat derogatorily, actually showed itself to be clearly a source of cash. The patent which originally applied to all of the properties belonging to Reifnitz was namely renewed often. Empress Maria Theresa (1740—1780) alone renewed it three times and Joseph II (1780-1790) followed her example. The last renewal, which was then in effect to World War I, was granted in 1841. It will again appear - seemingly totally inorganically - in the twentieth century.
With what did the Gottscheers "travel about" at the beginning? The privilege of Frederick III mentions "cattle, linen and other things that they produced." The "that they produced" refers to wood carvings. Out of necessity, the first two or three generations of Gottscheers must already have developed a particular skill in the making of wooden household goods. To be sure, not everyone had the talent for carving and not everyone had the ability to travel about with the carved goods. Therefore, a certain division of labor must have occurred quite early, in
the sense that the women produced the "linen" for their own use as well as for the peddling trade. They handled the entire production process from the planting of the flax, its retting in the "Darra," the threshing and spinning to the weaving. Linen-weaving continued throughout the centuries and was still carried on here and there in the twentieth century. The spinning room was the traditional place in which original creations of the imagination, such as songs, stories of witches and devils, legends and tales, were spun and passed on.
The peddling trade seems to have been rather profitable. Otherwise it would be inexplicable why the Gottscheers again and again pushed for the renewal of their peddling patent. They surely did not do so only to ensure that it would not be forgotten, but also because they discovered unauthorized imitators. Normally, the peddling was done during the winter months; the traveling peasant returned to his farm in the spring. Repeatedly, particularly in the last 250 years, there were peddlers who settled away from home and established themselves somewhere as independent tradesmen. There are false assumptions about the number of peasants who participated in the peddling trade. Not all Gottscheer men since 1492 headed for the Austrian Alpine provinces in late fall as peddlers. Nature also was selective in this case. One is particularly reminded of the early stage of the colonization of Gottschee. Only the healthiest, strongest, and most steadfast voluntary settlers had the opportunity of passing the unspeakably difficult tests of clearing the virgin forest. Peddling, too, was a difficult undertaking into the nineteenth century. Whoever undertook it had to carry a "Kraxn" (basket container strapped to the back) piled high above the head with wooden goods and linen from village to village. Here one can ask what the men did when they had sold their native goods. Most likely, they then bought goods in their peddling district, which was simultaneously an enticement for opening a permanently established business.
Of course, no one has come up with any statistics about the number of these seasonal travelers. The estimates range from 500 to 700 men. As a whole, however, they performed a significant function in the cultural history of the small group of German people in the chalk-soil region. They were a living bridge from Gottschee to the whole German language region.
("Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer", Dr. Erich Petschauer)
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