The Burgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Century German Town

Erasmus Schenk von Limpurg, one of Anna’s lovers, was a royal and a womanizer. According to some local history books, he was a hero of the Protestant Reformation in Hall, though he carefully balanced Catholic and Protestant obligations throughout his life. His family’s influence in the region was declining by the time of his affair with Anna, while Hermann Büschler’s local influence was at its peak. Still, Anna and Erasmus’s differing ranks precluded any possibility of a formal romantic relationship. A substantial record of their secret correspondence has survived, permitting a remarkably intimate snapshot of their troubled relationship.

Most of Anna and Erasmus’s letters to each other reveal a preoccupation with keeping their relationship secret and with planning their meetings, with many disagreements about who should visit whom. Both declared their love for one another regularly; however, “[W]hatever Erasmus’s professed love for Anna may have meant to him, it did not necessarily include attentiveness and fidelity” (47). Anna often brought up Erasmus’s womanizing (for example in Letter 3) (48). Similarly, Erasmus’s jealousy regarding Anna’s affair with Daniel Treutwein became a dealbreaking sore spot for Erasmus toward the end of their correspondence, as Letter 23 demonstrates (74).