Sophie of Brandenburg

What people wore

Commoner daily attire and accessories

Ordinary men wore simple tunics, pants often made of wool or linen, and carried belt pouches, while women commonly wore dresses with aprons, sometimes carrying keys or knives on their belts. For warmth or adornment, women added capelets, and unmarried girls were known to wear velvet headbands.

Daily life

School costs in pfennigs

Families sometimes paid quarterly school fees ranging from 12 to 18 pfennigs, while some also had to provide a log of wood during winter.

Work

Daily wages for city laborers

In 16th-century cities like Zwickau and Nuremberg, skilled tradespeople such as carpenters and masons earned between 15 and 26 pfennige per day, while simple daily tasks like weeding paid about 8 pfennige with food provided. Additional benefits sometimes included bathing money, as guilds often mandated regular time off for hygiene.

Music

Wedding musician pay based on social status

City councils regulated the musicians employed for weddings based on social status, with pay for brass and wind players reaching two guilders, while bagpipers and fiddlers received half a guilder.

At the table

Rare Festive Pastries

For ordinary families, sweet pastries fried in fat, known as Nonnenfürzle, were rare festive delicacies served on special occasions like church festivals. They were made from choux pastry and, according to local tradition, were named for the hissing sound they made as steam escaped in the hot fat.

Getting around

Uncomfortable carriage travel for the wealthy

While carriages existed, they were largely used by the sick or wealthy, as they were uncomfortable, unsprung, and known for their squeaky axles.

What it cost

Dramatic loss of purchasing power for bread

In 1565, a miner in the Erzgebirge could buy nearly 6 kilograms of bread with his daily wage of 24 pfennige, but by the famine years of the early 1570s, that same wage bought only 1.3 kilograms.