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

The 1520s were notoriously tumultuous years in Europe. They marked the beginning of the Habsburg-Valois wars between Spain and France in 1525; the sacking of Rome on May 6, 1527 by “mutinous Spanish and German soldiers” (127), as well as religious conflict between Catholics and Lutherans (including the rise of competing Protestant sects like the Anabaptists), characterized the era. This was the violent backdrop to Anna’s own pressing legal and familial conflicts.

Anna’s father refused to acknowledge her 1526 marriage to Hans von Leuzenbrunn until 1528, when he suddenly offered to make a deal with the couple regarding Anna’s maternal inheritance. With some exceptions, German law was strict regarding the maintenance of a child’s rightful inheritance upon the death of a parent, and it was not unreasonable for the Leuzenbrunns to expect Anna’s full maternal inheritance, especially given Anna’s marriage and her father’s remarriage to Elisabeth Krauss. Furthermore, a prior agreement between Hermann Büschler and his late wife regarding the “disposition of maternal and joint marital property by either surviving spouse” seemed to favor Anna’s position (131). However, the maternal inheritance Anna would finally receive was a mere 397 gulden instead of the expected 850. Still, the Leuzenbrunns signed this agreement, which favored Hermann Büschler and Anna’s brother, Philip.