Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern

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.

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.

Getting around

Fast river travel downstream

Travelers could use rivers to move faster, sometimes reaching up to 150 kilometers in 24 hours when traveling downstream.

What it cost

Grain price surge during early 1570s famine

During the severe food crisis of the early 1570s, grain prices in Augsburg and Nuremberg soared to five to ten times their usual level.

Music

Professional city musicians, the Stadtpfeifer

Stadtpfeifer, or city pipers, were professional musicians employed by councils to perform on towers, in dance halls, and at public festivities using instruments like shawms, sackbuts, and slide brass.

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.