Today we’re still in Weil der Stadt, so I can tackle one as-yet unanswered question.
In the middle of the fountain that sits in front of the Weil der Stadt City Hall stands a medieval guy holding a shield that has on it a black eagle and the year 1537:

What’s really striking to me is that the statue is neither statue of Neptune or a statue of St. George and the dragon.  Those two motifs seem to figure prominently in medieval fountains all over Germany; Tübingen has one of each of those, in fact:

Neptune Fountain with the winter cover, Tuebingen

St. George and the dragon fountain, Tuebingen

But I’d never seen a statue like the guy in the fountain in Weil der Stadt. I thought perhaps he was the founder of the town, but then realized that 1537, the date on his shield, was a little late for that. Or perhaps he was a famous medieval-period mayor in the town; his robes and regalia kind of reminded me of the robes that mayors in little towns in England wear. Or at least used to wear; in 1980, I met the mayor of Lewes England, who was dressed up in all his ceremonial robes and regalia in order to greet a visiting group of high school students from New Jersey.  I was really struck by his robes and all the gold “jewelery” that went along with his outfit. The mayor of my hometown  in New Jersey certainly never dressed like that.

But I digress.

Anyway, I was struck by the fact that there was no sign near the fountain to explain who this guy was. So, I looked at the official Weil der Stadt Internet site when I got home. The history timeline for the town says that the fountain, built in 1537, is topped by a statue of Kaiser Karl V. In English we call him Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, a title he got during the 30 Years War in Germany. The black eagle on the statue’s shield has been the symbol of the ruling family in Germany since the time of Charlemagne; it also appears in one quadrant of the Weil der Stadt coat of arms, of course, but the shield on the fountain statue just has the eagle and the 1537 date.

Now, nothing particular had happened in Charles V’s campaigns in 1537, at least not that I’ve been able to ascertain in a brief search on the Internet. So I’m not quite sure why the town decided to build the fountain that particular year.

However, the city website’s history timeline notes that in 1538, Kaiser Karl V awarded the town a Weggeld as a reward for their devotion to the faith, since Weil der Stadt had remained a loyal Catholic town during the war.

As near as Chris and I could puzzle out (after consulting numerous online and paper dictionaries), a Weggeld is some sort of toll paid on a roadway.  So our guess is that in 1538 Charles granted the town the right to charge a toll on the road(s) in town. Kind of a twist on an old saying:  give a town a sack of money and you’ll make them wealthy for a day (or two);  give a town the right to collect money from every traveler who passes through town, and you’ll make the town wealthy forever.

OK, the real expression is really about a fish … but you get the idea.

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Book notes:

BTW, I ran across two books that are available on topics from the Weil der Stadt posts, so you don’t have to wait for me to write them.

First, one about Kepler and his mother:

Second, I found a fiction book about the life Princess Olga. It’s written by a German romance and young adult author, who unfortunately only offers the book about Princess Olga in German (although other books by her have been translated into English.) Anyway, I ran across the author’s page about the book,  which lists a cross-promotion deal with a cake shop that makes Olgebretzel. When the book was released 2009, the author gave readings at cake outlets around German,  and you could get discounts on purchases of Olgabretzel s a tie-in to the book.

Now that’s a sweet bit of marketing if ever there was one. 😉