possession of the Hohenzollerns, Burggraves of Nurnberg? The story
may be illustrative, and will not occupy us long.



Chapter VII.

MARGRAVIATE OF CULMBACH: BAIREUTH, ANSPACH.

In the Year 1248, in his Castle of Plassenburg,--which is now a
Correction-House, looking down upon the junction of the Red and
White Mayn,--Otto Duke of Meran, a very great potentate, more like
a King than a Duke, was suddenly clutched hold of by a certain
wedded gentleman, name not given, "one of his domestics or
dependents," whom he had enraged beyond forgiveness (signally
violating the Seventh Commandment at his expense); and was by the
said wedded gentleman there and then cut down, and done to death.
"Lamentably killed, jammerlich erstochen,"
says old Rentsch. [P. 293. Kohler, Reichs-Historie, italic> p. 245. Holle, Alte Geschichte der Stadt Baireuth
(Baireuth, 1833), pp. 34-37.] Others give a different
color to the homicide, and even a different place; a controversy
not interesting to us. Slain at any rate he is; still a young man;
the last male of his line. Whereby the renowned Dukes of Meran
fall extinct, and immense properties come to be divided among
connections and claimants.

Meran, we remark, is still a Town, old Castle now abolished, in
the Tyrol, towards the sources of the Etsch (called ADIGE by
Italian neighbors). The Merans had been lords not only of most of