Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, Episode 202, which is also episode 17 of

season 10, the Empire in the 15th century. In 1550, Spanish court records show that the

Augsburg armor Coleman Helmsmeet was paid in advance of 2,000 ducats for a full armor for King Philip

the second. And the final prize for this piece was 3,000 ducats. That is at the same time

when Raphael could charge at max 170 ducats for an altarpiece. And even the Renaissance

best paid artist Michelangelo received

just 3,000 gold coins for the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. So armor, along

with tapestries, were by far the most valuable artworks of the Renaissance. That was just one set

of armor, made for the most powerful monarch of the time.

But what about the thousands of soldiers he commanded?

Did they have armor?

Oh yes, they did.

Not quite as sophisticated and certainly not as decorated, but they did.

And where did these thousands of helmets and breast and backplates come from? Well,

from the same place where their prince's fancy metalwork came from, from Nuremberg and Augsburg.

Their swords came from Passau and Zollingen and their firearms from Zool. So how come these

mostly southern German cities became the armories of Europe, whose output

clad the armies that fought the never-ending wars of the 15th, 16th and 17th century?

How did they supersede Milan, the center of weapons production in the preceding century,

in terms of quality, scale and availability. And how did they create a tradition of

metalworking entrepreneurship that lasts until today? That is what we will look at in this episode.

But before you start, the usual thanks to our great patrons whose unwavering commitment

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