The Fuggerei is a remarkable foundation. In the anniversary year of 2021, its 500th anniversary alone and its continued operation to this day are cause for admiration. Some fortunate coincidences have contributed to the fact that the foundation's purpose can still be fulfilled after half a millennium; but not least, the concept of the institutional foundation proved to be forward-looking and enabled the foundation's practice to be adapted to the respective social changes. This article will explain why this is the case. A comparison with Augsburg's foundation practice at the turn of the modern era helps to clarify the profile of the Fuggerei Foundation. Its characteristics can be summarised as follows:
Firstly, the Fuggerei is a foundation that reflects its municipal connection in a special way. Its establishment is based on a public-private legal structure, a public-private partnership, if you will. Secondly, from the purpose of the foundation down to
The Fuggerei Foundation was consistently integrated into the material structure of the estate, support and challenge were consistently linked and help was understood as enabling people to help themselves. With communal anchoring and work orientation, the Fuggerei Foundation reflects two guiding principles of the time, which - thirdly - are linked in a double reference to the common good. For the beneficiaries, like the founder, had to orientate themselves towards the bonum commune and 'bear fruit' for the common good. As modern or secular as such ideas may seem, they should not be played off against the religious justification of the foundation's actions. Rather, at their core they stem from religious motives
and thought contexts.
Residential foundations before the Fuggerei - the example of the Antonspfründe
The originality of the Fuggerei Foundation and the change in foundation practice it represents becomes particularly clear when compared with a foundation set up around 100 years earlier, in 1410, by the then richest Augsburger Lorenz Egen (c. 1360/70-1418), which his son Peter (c. 1414-1452) expanded in the 1440s. The social and societal development of the bourgeois Egen family, who were allowed to call themselves "von Argon" from 1442 and acquired a prestigious country residence in the wider Augsburg area in the form of Baumgarten Castle, shows clear parallels with the rise of the Fuggers a few decades later. The hospital dedicated to St. Anthony the Hermit in the neighbourhood of Egen's house provided full care for twelve old, infirm men who were no longer able to work, first and foremost with living space in their own rooms, but also with clothing, meals to be eaten together and, if necessary, nursing care, which was provided by specially employed servants and maids. Such foundations were called "twelve-brother houses" because of their "apostolic" number of twelve.
In addition to the prerequisites on the part of the destinataries, their duties, described in detail in 1445, are of particular interest: Like the monks, the men, who were uniformly dressed in black loden, had a daily routine filled with prayer and worship, the centre of which was the house chapel built by Lorenz Egen and provided with its own priest - also designed as the burial place of the founding family. Other regular services were held in the neighbouring Dominican monastery church. After getting up in the morning, 15 paternosters and 15 Hail Marys had to be said at the tomb, followed by mass, first in the chapel and then at the Dominican monastery, where vespers and Compline were also held in the evening. Before both meals, the men said three paternosters and three Hail Marys. Before going to bed, they also gathered again at the tomb to perform the same prayers as in the morning. On the anniversaries of the founders, an additional 50 paternosters and the same number of Hail Marys were required. With its abundance and precise definition of liturgical obligations on the one hand and the no less detailed provisioning of the twelve men on the other, the Egen Twelve Brothers' House is typical of the medieval form of social foundation.
The Fuggerei Foundation
Jakob Fugger and his brothers Georg and Ulrich, who died in 1506 and 1510 respectively, must have had first-hand knowledge of the concept and practice of the Antonspfründe foundation, which continued to operate according to its original purpose until the 1540s. Less than 70 years after Peter von Argon had written down the provisions of his father's foundation, Jakob Fugger himself realised the idea of a social foundation. He made his first purchase of buildings and land on what would later become the Fuggerei site at Kappenzipfel in Jakober Vorstadt on 26 February 1514, seven and a half years before the actual foundation charter was written. Two years later, further acquisitions were made. The contract concluded between the city and the founder on 6 June 1516, which is cited above all as the source for determining the famous rent cap, refers to this and other possible purchases. Under the condition that the residents would not have to pay more than ain guldin reinischer jerlichs haus zinß, the Fugger's funds used to build and maintain housing were always to be exempt from taxation. Even today, the annual rent for a flat in the Fuggerei is known to be one Rhenish guilder, now converted to 88 cents.
The contract between the imperial city and the founder - a feat of integration
However, these and other financial details are less the actual purpose of the contract - the reduction in the tax burden achieved with the agreement seems too insignificant; in any case, the Fuggers paid a flat-rate wealth tax shortly afterwards, from 1520. In essence, the aim was rather to clearly define the legal status of the foundation's land and its inhabitants through the tax stipulations. Jacob promised in advance for himself and his future heirs that he would pay the customary tax on widerred according to the amount of the purchase price of the acquired and yet-to-be-acquired goods. In other words, the property tax on "lying assets" had to be paid every year. A tax liability is then also recognised in principle for all other expenses associated with the expansion of the settlement, precisely by exempting it under certain conditions - namely the rent cap. The founder and his successors thus unconditionally confirmed that the Fuggerei belonged to the legal sphere of the imperial city. The subsequent clause in the contract also expressly states that the inhabitants of the settlement, like all Augsburg residents and citizens, are subject to the city authorities.
The treaty made it possible to successfully avoid potential legal conflicts between the town and the founders in the long term - unlike the unauthorised establishment of the chaplaincy of St. Anton by Lorenz Egen in 1410, which led to a conflict with the mother parish of St. Moritz, admittedly motivated by canon law. At the same time, however, the agreement of 1516 achieved even more by assigning the founders themselves their social place within the community as burghers of Augspurg and establishing their subordination to the city's legal system. The agreement is therefore an expression of a mutual desire for political and social integration. In contrast to the Antonspfründe, which is more likely to be assigned to the ecclesiastical sphere and can be structurally and memorially assigned to Egen's House, the Fuggerei Foundation is inscribed in the municipal legal sphere from the outset and appears to be a private-communal co-operation project.
Support and challenge - structures for self-help
Irrespective of its fiscal aspects, the rent reduction was a key element of support for the Fugger's foundation idea. In 1516, Jacob expressed his intention to take over the house rent for poor, needy citizens and inhabitants of Augsburg who openly did not want the almshouse - craftsmen and day labourers are mentioned as examples - and to provide more comfortable housing. They are to have and live in more comfortable housing on the land. For the group of people described - the so-called disguised poor - a significant reduction in rent could indeed be a decisive help. However, if the inhabitants of the houses at the Kappenzipfel were required to make any payment at all, this was probably not least intended to make them realise that they were not to regard themselves as passive recipients of alms, but were in principle tenants obliged to make their own contribution or provide something in return. In contrast to the Twelve Brothers of the Antonspfründe, they enjoyed no other provision apart from housing.
Rather, the support that Jakob Fugger offered the residents of his estate went beyond rental assistance and consisted of creating a structure that would systematically strengthen their willingness and ability to help themselves. This is because the overall architectural concept of the Fuggerei is consistently geared towards disciplined labour. This appears to be a way of escaping social decline. Accordingly, no squares or front gardens in the estate invite people to 'idle' lingering, and gates and fixed closing times discourage people from wandering around the city, especially at night. The layout of the residential foundations discussed as models in Flanders or Venice, for example, was designed differently: here, central squares were deliberately intended to facilitate encounters between residents, while churches or chapels were intended to bring them together for prayers or church services. The construction of the Fuggerei Chapel of St Mark, on the other hand, was not planned until 1580. Historian Benjamin Scheller therefore came to the conclusion that the work ethic was formally inscribed in the architecture of the settlement. This prioritisation would not have been compatible with extended, even communal prayer obligations that had to be synchronised with the daily routine, as was the case in Egen's Zwölfbrüderhaus.
However, if it is true, as is claimed with good reason, that the tendency to quantify piety had reached its peak on the eve of the Reformation, then the conception of the Fuggerei raises questions. Obviously, the foundation did not follow the rationality of a mathematics of salvation that was supposedly so plausible to commercial thinking, but instead used disproportionately more funds to achieve the same level of intercession from the beneficiaries than were required for the establishment and operation of Egen's Antonspfründe, for example. Were other motives possibly at the forefront of the Fuggerei Foundation or was it even an early example of an essentially profane foundation, religiously embellished only by a minimum of piety customary at the time?
Basic religious character and denominational practice
No, Jakob Fugger left no doubt that his initiative was rooted in religion. In the contract of 1516, he begins by describing his motivation for the foundation with the words: "He acts in praise of God the Almighty, his former mother, the Virgin Mary, and all heavenly things here for my own and my soul's eternal joy. The latter conviction of the salvific efficacy of his merciful work is surprisingly absent from the preamble of the foundation letter formulated five years later. However, this does not reveal that the founder had distanced himself from the old church and its teachings in the meantime: the letter as a whole, as well as individual statements, is unambiguously based on these. Instead, another revealing formulation has been added: the intention for the foundations dealt with in the 1521 document - in addition to the Fuggerei, these are the chapel at St Anne's and the prebend at St Moritz - is mentioned alongside praise to God, thanksgiving for the goodness and good fortune that he has shown us so far in our dealings with the good things. Business success is thus explicitly regarded as a gift from the Lord, which calls for a charitable gift in return that is pleasing to him.
This quasi-vertical dimension of the exchange of gifts ultimately also explains the immaterial consideration stipulated in the foundation charter, which is demanded of every Fuggeri resident: [A]ny person, young or old, if able, must say the patter noster, aue maria and a profession of faith once a day, i.e. - to put it clearly - to address God, so that the souls of the founder, his parents and siblings and those of his descendants - to be added: again through God's mercy - may receive help and comfort. The emphatic wording of the foundation letter leaves no doubt as to the binding nature of the request, even if it is only a very small amount of prayer, to the fulfilment of which each and every Hawsvolck must also commit themselves sufficiently in the future.
The theological context for the tangible idea of intercession is undoubtedly pre-Reformation, rejected by all reformers, but explicitly retained by the Catholic Church and was to develop into a confessional proprium. In this respect, in the case of the Fuggerei, it must be assumed that the intention of the foundation was not only religious in the general sense, but that it had a specific purpose that was only later regarded as typically Catholic, which had and still has fundamental significance for the beneficiaries, without, of course, taking up much of their time in everyday life.
It is this connection that limits the circle of beneficiaries to Catholics in the further course of the Fuggerei's history and to this day, while the documents themselves make no denominational differentiation at all. While this was simply not possible in 1516, in 1521 the deed of foundation merely adds the formulaic statement that the beneficiaries should be poor people. Even when the deed of foundation was renewed by Anton Fugger on 31 July 1548, the 'correct' confession was not expressly specified as a condition. In any case, Catholic worship had only been possible again in the city since the summer of 1547. In practice, therefore, a pragmatic handling of the confessional question must be assumed until the time when biconfessionalism was becoming established in Augsburg, i.e. until the second half of the 16th century.
This much at least is clear: the Fuggerei can in no way be interpreted as a profane foundation. However, this means that the question of the concept of the economy of salvation associated with its foundation must be asked again. If its function is not that of a 'prayer machine', then an expanded understanding of piety must be assumed. Obviously, Jakob Fugger not only regarded praying as an act pleasing to God, but honest labour was also accorded this status. His personal self-image as a merchant and that of his Augsburg environment coincided here with the ethos of late medieval mysticism. It recognised work as a form of worship and thus prepared the ground theologically for its later specifically reformatory appreciation. The concept of the Fuggerei was systematically orientated towards proper work as an expression of pious gratitude to God and the founder. The minor practical significance of prayer in the everyday lives of its inhabitants therefore only appears to be a secular feature of Jacob's foundation from the perspective of the present. Nevertheless, this resulted and still results in the foundation's special ability to adapt to the guiding tendencies of modern times and modernity, to secularisation and individualisation.
Dual orientation towards the common good
In addition to its religious dignity, labour had an eminently social dimension, which was particularly important in the imperial cities of the late Middle Ages. The discourse about the poor who were worthy or unworthy of support, which was reflected in poor laws such as those in Augsburg from 1459, 1491, 1522 and 1541, is an expression of this context: begging by people who were actually able to work was increasingly considered unacceptable and came under increasing pressure - not only, but especially with the Reformation. In 1541, begging was generally prohibited in the city. From then on, municipal aid was only granted in kind after an assessment of need by the so-called "Gassenhauptleute" (street wardens).
The restriction of the beneficiaries envisaged by the founder to those poor people who would benefit most from the help follows such ideas and also reveals the influence of commercial thinking. The wording receives no further explanation in the document of 1521; its meaning seems to have been clear to contemporaries. It probably meant that the support was particularly worthwhile if the beneficiary and his family were able to escape the socially precarious situation in the long term and build up reserves or assets for their future security. Surprisingly, the extent to which this purpose was actually achieved has not yet been sufficiently analysed. In any case, the requirement means that objective conditions as well as the personal suitability of applicants had to be scrutinised. Neediness and family situation, age, health or profession played an important role in the assessment, some of which were also recorded in the letter of endowment; but character traits, not least hard work or diligence, should also be considered.
It is noteworthy that the required favourable prognosis for social development opportunities corresponds with the practice of dealing with diseases that was developing at the same time. Those suffering from the 'leading epidemic' of the 16th century, the so-called 'Frenchmen' associated with syphilis, were also subjected to an assessment when they sought public help. They were only admitted to the Blatterhaus, where their treatment was financed by the city, if the outcome of the treatment was favourable. It is fitting that the so-called 'wooden house' for the French cure, which was set up in the Fuggerei in its early years, worked according to the same principle. In principle, the therapeutic treatment of the sick, who were considered curable, was also aimed at restoring their ability to work in order to rehabilitate the affected families, who were not to become a burden on the general public in the long term.
Both aspects - suitable disposition or favourable prognosis and transfer of the understanding of illness - can be found in condensed form on the three Latin inscription plaques affixed above the entrances to the Fuggerei in 1519, the text of which was commissioned by the Fuggers in Rome according to a note from 1534. Finally, the tablets briefly define the circle of recipients as frugi sed pauperie labourant[es]. On the one hand, the basic meaning of frugi is revealing, which is rendered in classical Latin as 'doing something in his way' and in which the idea of actively 'bringing fruit' (frugifer from frux, "fruit") resonates. Secondly, Classical Latin associates laborare in the sense of 'suffering from something' with illness; here it is used to refer to poverty (pauperies), which thus appears as an ailment of an economic nature from which one suffers or - and this is the original meaning of the word laborare - against which one 'labours' and 'works'.
It stands to reason that Jakob Fugger thought carefully about the linguistic design of the epitaphs before he consulted an obviously humanistically scholarly expert or had one consulted by his nephew Anton, for example, as the medium of the inscription, which was intended to be permanent, suggests particular care in the choice of words. If one also assumes that the design was not first commissioned from a foreign 'copywriter' in distant Rome, but that the intended message of the text was first discussed in Augsburg itself, then an Augsburg humanist and well-known inscription collector who was on friendly terms with the Fuggers and equally familiar with the conception of their foundation and the local situation comes into view: However, the involvement of the Augsburg town clerk Konrad Peutinger (1465-1547) in the design of the inscription seems plausible, not least for reasons of content - because of his familiarity with the discourse on the common good, which he enriched with a forward-looking perspective in terms of economic ethics in the contemporary debate on monopolies. According to Peutinger in an expert opinion written in 1530, the pursuit of personal advantage (privata utilitas), or self-interest, was closely linked to the common good (publica utilitas). Ultimately, if things were done in the right way (saltem honeste), the latter would be promoted by the former. Even if Peutinger's part in the creation of the epitaphs must ultimately remain speculation, the formulations on the plaques are likely to be the result of intensive reflection by the founder, possibly sharpened once again in exchange, and authentically reflect his intentions.
At the beginning of the inscription, the founders, gifted with wealth by God, are contrasted as subjects with the benefactors, who are working against their poverty. Their motivation for the foundation is justified both in religious terms (ob pietatem) and in a twofold social and societal way, relating to both the past and the future: because the brothers were born for the good of their community (qu[i]a bono reip[ublicae] se [esse] natos) and to set an example of outstanding generosity (ob [...] eximiam in exemplum largitatem), i.e. with the intention of inspiring imitation. The conviction of being in the world for the benefit of one's hometown gives rise to an obligation that is explicitly and naturally recognised and accepted. There is therefore no doubt that the founders' motivation is oriented towards the common good, but it is the multidimensional nature of this orientation that characterises the Fuggerei Foundation. For like the founders, all the inhabitants of the estate were committed to the common good by proving themselves worthy of the 'investment', the financial commitment made on their behalf, by being frugal and labouring, fruitful and industrious. The design and architecture of the settlement helped them to do this. And by (also) consistently seeking their private advantage, they (also) increased the public one. In this respect, the founders' actions set an example for them.
Outlook
According to research, the Fuggers opened up completely new avenues for private welfare for the poor. A look at the previously common support models in the city confirms this assessment. But did this also provide impetus for the future? How did the foundation system in the imperial city develop in general in the further course of the
16th and 17th century?
Possibly inspired by the Fuggerei Foundation, in 1558 the Protestant Susanne Neidhart († 1558) stipulated in her will that her three adjoining houses - which provided space for 13 flats - should be made available to the needy for "quite a bit of money". In addition, two rental donations are recorded for the second half of the 16th century, probably not by chance, made by Jakob Remboldt (1561) and Christoph Peutinger (1570), who were both connected by Catholicism and affinity. This involved the establishment of funds, the proceeds of which were used to grant annual rent subsidies of 5 and 4 fl. respectively to seven and three needy couples and three widows over the age of 50. These initiatives were clearly of secondary importance among the many Augsburg foundations of the time. More important, on the other hand, were foundations for medical and, above all, educational purposes, where the charitable focus was directed towards the needy and the poor sick and pupils and students in need of support. As in the case of the Fuggerei, such donations were investments in the bonum commune, as the aim was to restore labour power and thus ensure that families could provide for themselves or that young men were of benefit to the community after completing their studies.
At the same time, however, older foundation practices remained common for even longer, well beyond the 'caesura' of the Reformation. Both Catholic and Protestant foundations continued to provide selective support for the poor by feeding or clothing them, albeit in the face of a communal poor relief system that continued to develop at the same time. In most cases, benefactors joined existing foundations and institutions with endowments, as the decisive factor for independent institutional foundations was undoubtedly the financial resources available to only a few and which limited the creativity of a foundation initiative. In many cases, presumably also in the case of Neidhart's foundations, the bi-confessional situation in Augsburg seems to have encouraged competition and revitalised endowments. Only rarely, on the other hand, are the beneficiaries of both denominations explicitly envisaged.
Finally, the importance and prominence of the Fuggerei Foundation should not be overlooked: As the 16th century progressed, it was again Fugger foundations that stood out in terms of their scope and innovative content, such as the establishment of the so-called 'cutting house' for surgical operations or the decisively supported establishment of a Jesuit college as a central building block of the renewed Catholic education system in the city and beyond. Augsburg remained the central point of reference for the Fuggers' foundation initiatives. In this respect, it was precisely the generations of the family after Jacob who continued his legacy and took literally the call to act ob [...] eximiam in exemplum largitatem: to emulate the "example of generous generosity".
