¹ See Stargardt, N., ‘German childhoods: the making of a historiography’, German History, 16 (1998), pp. 1–15Google Scholar, esp. pp. 12–14, for an introduction to the sources available to historians of childhood and youth. For studies that have similarly exploited serial evidence produced by civic institutions as a source on children and youth, see the recent historiography on orphanages: Harrington, J. F., The unwanted child: the fate of foundlings, orphans, and juvenile criminals in early modern Germany (Chicago, IL, 2009)Google Scholar; Safley, T. M., Charity and economy in the orphanages of early modern Augsburg (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1997)Google Scholar; idem, Children of the laboring poor: expectation and experience among the orphans of early modern Augsburg (Leiden, 2005).

² For a summary of recent findings of quantitative research into student populations, see DiSimone, M. R., ‘Admission’, in de Ridder-Symoens, H., ed., A history of the university in Europe, ii: Universities in early modern Europe (1500–1800) (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 285–325Google Scholar; de Ridder-Symoens, H., ‘Mobility’, in de Ridder-Symoens, H., ed., A history of the university in Europe, i: Universities in the middle ages (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 280–304Google Scholar. Heavily influential in this field have been Frijhoff, W., La Société Néerlandaise et ses gradués, 1575–1814: une recherche sérielle sur le statut des intellectuels (Tilburg, 1981)Google Scholar; and Kagan, R. L., Students and society in early modern Spain (Baltimore, MD, and London, 1974)Google Scholar.

³ For an introduction to the social and cultural history of the early modern student experience, see DiSimone, ‘Admission'; Rexroth, F., ‘Ritual and the creation of social knowledge: the opening celebrations of medieval German universities’, in Courtenay, W. and Miethke, J., eds., Universities and schooling in medieval society (Leiden, Boston, MA, and Cologne, 2000), pp. 65–80Google Scholar.

⁴ Nowhere was this proximity closer than in the empire's bi-confessional towns. See François, E., Die unsichtbare Grenze: Protestanten und Katholiken in Augsburg (Sigmaringen, 1991), p. 227Google Scholar; Roeck, B., Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden: Studien zur Geschichte der Reichsstadt Augsburg zwischen Kalenderstreit und Parität (Göttingen, 1989)Google Scholar; Warmbrunn, P., Zwei Konfessionen in einer Stadt: Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648 (Wiesbaden, 1983)Google Scholar.

⁵ Strauss, G., ‘Success and failure in the German Reformation’, Past and Present, 67 (1975), pp. 30–63Google Scholar; idem, Luther's house of learning: indoctrination of the young in the German Reformation (Baltimore, MD, and London, 1978); idem, ‘The social function of schools in the Lutheran Reformation in Germany', History of Education Quarterly, 28 (1988), pp. 191–206. Despite significant criticism of Strauss's conclusions (see Friedrichs, C., ‘Whose house of learning? Some thoughts on German schools in post-Reformation Germany’, History of Education Quarterly, 22 (1982), pp. 371–7Google Scholar; Kittelson, J. M., ‘Successes and failures in the German Reformation: the report from Strasbourg’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 53 (1982), pp. 153–75Google Scholar), his work remains the first point of reference for English-speaking historians.

⁶ For an introduction to recent work on German pre-university education, see Ehrenpreis, S. and Schilling, H., eds., Erziehung und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung: Forschungsperspektiven, europäische Fallbeispiele und Hilfsmittel (Münster, 2003)Google Scholar. See also Albrecht-Birkner, V., Reformation des Lebens: Die Reformen Herzog Ernsts des Frommen von Sachsen-Gotha und ihre Auswirkungen auf Frömmigkeit, Schule und Alltag im ländlichen Raum (1640–1675) (Leipzig, 2002)Google Scholar; Ehrenpreis, S., ‘Sozialdisziplinierung durch Schulzucht? Bildungsnachfrage, konkurrierende Bildungssysteme und der “deutsche Schulstaat” des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts’, in Schilling, H. and Behrisch, L., eds., Institutionen, Instrumente und Akteure sozialer Kontrolle und Disziplinierung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), pp. 167–85Google Scholar; LeCam, J. L., Politique, contrôle, et réalité scolaire en Allemagne au sortir de la guerre de Trente Ans (3 vols., Wolfenbüttel, 1996)Google Scholar; Töpfer, T., Die ‘Freyheit’ der Kinder: Territoriale Politik, Schule und Bildungsvermittlung in der vormodernen Stadtgesellschaft: Das Kurfürstentum und Königreich Sachsen, 1600–1815 (Stuttgart, 2012)Google Scholar. Thorough archival work on individual educational institutions is rare. The exception are the studies carried out by Anton Schindling and his students, most importantly Schindling, A., Humanistische Hochschule und freie Reichsstadt: Gymnasium und Akademie in Strassburg, 1538 –1621 (Wiesbaden, 1977)Google Scholar (still indispensable); Bruning, J., Das pädagogische Jahrhundert in der Praxis: Schulwandel in Stadt und Land in den preussischen Westprovinzen Minden und Ravensberg, 1648–1816 (Berlin, 1998)Google Scholar; Mährle, W., Academia Norica: Wissenschaft und Bildung an der Nürnberger Hohen Schule in Altdorf, 1575–1623 (Stuttgart, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁷ Neugebauer, Töpfer, and Keller are noteworthy in having addressed local responses to territorial educational policy, though pupils’ educational strategies have also not been examined by these studies. Keller, K., ‘“ … daß wir ieder zeith eine feine lateinische schul gehabt haben”: Beobachtungen zu Schule und Bildung in sächsischen Kleinstädten des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts’, in Gräf, H. T., ed., Kleine Städte im neuzeitlichen Europa (Berlin, 1997), pp. 137–68Google Scholar; Neugebauer, W., Absolutistischer Staat und Schulwirklichkeit in Brandenburg-Preussen (Berlin, 1985)Google Scholar; Töpfer, ‘Freyheit’.

⁸ Sorokin, P. A., Social and cultural mobility (New York, NY, 1927)Google Scholar. For a summary of recent research on social mobility in early modern Germany, see Heimes, D., Sozialstruktur und soziale Mobilität der Koblenzer Bürgerschaft im 17. Jahrhundert (Trier, 2007), pp. 34–9Google Scholar. See also Bolte, K. M. and Recker, H., ‘Vertikale Mobilität’, in König, R., ed., Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung: Soziale Schichtung und soziale Mobilität, v (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 40–103Google Scholar; Boudon, R., L'inégalité des chances: la mobilité sociale dans les sociétés industrielles (Paris, 1973)Google Scholar; Schulze, W., Ständische Gesellschaft und soziale Mobilität (Munich, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁹ LaVopa, A. J., Grace, talent and merit: poor students, clerical careers, and professional ideology in eighteenth-century Germany (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 28Google Scholar, 38. At Halle and Frankfurt, where no centralized entrance exam existed as in Württemberg, a far larger number of sons of artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants as well as a large number (10 per cent in general) of ‘others’ (peasants, workers, domestic servants) featured. At Halle (1768–71, 1785–7), 18.4 per cent artisans in theology, 6.1 per cent in law, 7.9 per cent merchants, industrialists, shopkeepers in theology, 9.6 per cent in law, 9.5 per cent ‘other’ in theology, 12.4 per cent in law. At Frankfurt/Oder (1771–5, 1781–5, 1791–5 in theology, 1771–2, 1781–2, 1791–2 in law), 20.3 per cent artisans in theology, 5.7 in law, 8.8 per cent shopkeepers etc. in theology, 11.9 per cent in law; 7.6 per cent ‘other’ in theology, 18.9 per cent in law.

¹⁰ For the now classic appraisal of the second half of the seventeenth century as a period of opportunity for the young, see Press, V., Kriege und Krisen, Deutschland 1600–1715 (Munich, 1991), p. 269Google Scholar.

¹¹ The literature on the early modern Republic of Letters and ‘men of learning’ is vast. For an introduction, see Verger, J., Men of learning in Europe at the end of the middle ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2000)Google Scholar; Bost, H., Un ‘intellectuel’ avant la lettre: le journaliste Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) l'actualité religieuse dans les ‘Nouvelles de la République des Lettres’, 1684–1687 (Amsterdam, 1994)Google Scholar; Bots, H. and Waquet, F., La République des lettres (Paris, 1997)Google Scholar; Lux, D. S. and Cook, H. J., ‘Closed circles or open networks: communicating at a distance during the Scientific Revolution’, History of Science, 36 (1998), pp. 179–211Google Scholar; Waquet, F., Le modèle francais et l'Italie savante: conscience de soi et perception de l'autre dans la République des lettres (1660–1750) (Rome, 1989)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Qui est-ce que la République des Lettres? Essai de sémantique historique', Bibliotèque de l'École des Chartes, 147 (1989), pp. 473–502; Waquet, F., Commercium litterarium: 1600–1750: la communication dans le République des Lettres = Forms of communication in the Republic of Letters: conférences des colloques tenus à Paris 1992 et à Nimègue 1993 (Amsterdam, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹² For the idea and reality of broad participation in scholarly debate, see Burke, P., ‘Erasmus and the Republic of Letters’, European Review, 7 (1999), pp. 5–17Google Scholar; Fumaroli, M., ‘La République des lettres’, Diogène, 143 (1988), pp. 131–50Google Scholar. For the Holy Roman Empire, this diversity is still best described by the classic article Trunz, E., ‘Der deutsche Späthumanismus um 1600 als Standeskultur’ (1931), reprinted in Trunz, E., ed., Deutsche Literatur zwischen Späthumanismus und Barock: acht Studien (Munich, 1995), pp. 7–82Google Scholar.

¹³ On the issue of distinction within the Republic of Letters, see Goldgar, A., Impolite learning: conduct and community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 (New Haven, CT, London, 1995)Google Scholar. On conflicts over rank among university scholars, see Füssel, M., Gelehrtenkultur als symbolische Praxis: Rang, Ritual und Konflikt an der Universität der Frühen Neuzeit (Darmstadt, 2006)Google Scholar. On ‘family universities’, see Asche, M., ‘Über den Nutzen von Landesuniversitäten in der Frühen Neuzeit – Leistungen und Grenzen der protestantischen “Familienuniversität”’, in Herde, P. and Schindling, A., eds., Universität Würzburg und Wissenschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit (Würzburg, 1998), pp. 133–49Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Algazi, G., ‘Scholars in households: refiguring the learned habitus, 1480–1550’, in Daston, L. and Sibum, O., eds., Science in Context 16:1–2, Special issue: Scientific Personae (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 9–42Google Scholar; Algazi, G., ‘Eine gelernte Lebensweise: Figurationen des Gelehrtenlebens zwischen Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit’, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte: Organ der Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 30 (2007), pp. 107–18Google Scholar.

¹⁵ The classic quantitative studies of education of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s can basically be divided into two strands: those connected to the French Annales school (for instance Compère, M.-M., Les collèges français 16e–18e siècles (3 vols., Paris, 1984–2003)Google Scholar; Frijhoff, W. and Julia, D., École et société dans la France d'ancien Régime (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar; Julia, D., ‘Les sources de l'histoire de l’éducation et leur exploitation’, Revue française de Pédagogie, 27 (1974), pp. 22–42Google Scholar; Julia, D., Revel, J., and Chartier, R., Les universités européennes du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle: histoire sociale des populations etudiantes (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar) and those discussing the so-called seventeenth-century ‘educational revolution’ (Simon, J., ‘The social origins of Cambridge students’, Past and Present, 26 (1963), pp. 58–67Google Scholar; Stone, L., ‘The educational revolution in England, 1560–1640’, Past and Present, 28 (1964), pp. 41–80Google Scholar).

¹⁶ While primary education played a role in much of Bourdieu's work from the 1960s onwards, the two books which had the most direct impact on historical studies of schooling in France were Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.-C., Les héritiers (Paris, 1964); idem and idem, La reproduction (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar. See also Girard, A., ed., ‘Population’ et l'enseignement (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ For Julia's and Frijhoff's methodology see Julia, ‘Les sources’. In some rare cases, a further problem existed when an individual possessed both a popular Christian name and surname. In order to avoid accidentally merging together the records of different individuals, merging was undertaken along the lines of the following principles: 1. An exact match or a match of close variants (‘Hanß = Johann’, ‘Kroba = Croba’) had to exist in both first name and surname; 2. One further field recording personal information (e.g. origin, accession date, further career, father's occupation, etc.) had to produce an exact match. 3. If a record fell out of the pattern of attendance in an extreme fashion, it was assumed that the records were referring to two distinct individuals. What this meant in practice was that it was generally believed to be unlikely that someone studying in the Prima/Secunda in 1662 would reappear in the Septima in 1668.

¹⁸ The author's forthcoming book on the Zwickau Latin school will explore the role of the early modern school as a scholarly habitat. Extant work on the school is largely antiquarian and has neglected the matriculation records as a source on the school's pupils. As an introduction, see Herzog, E., Geschichte des Zwickauer Gymnasiums: Eine Gedenkschrift zur Einweihungsfeier des neuen Gymnasialgebäudes (Zwickau, 1869)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ For the history of Zwickau in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, see Bräuer, H., Zwickau und Martinus Luther: die gesellschaftlichen Auseinandersetzungen um die städtische Kirchenpolitik in Zwickau (1527–1531) (Karl-Marx-Stadt, 1983)Google Scholar; Bräuer, H., ‘Zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung Sachsens nach dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg’, Dresdner Hefte: Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte, 11 (1993), pp. 13–24Google Scholar; Karant-Nunn, S. C., Zwickau in transition, 1500–1547: the Reformation as an agent of change (Columbus, OH, 1987)Google Scholar.

²⁰ On the territorial changes the Ernestine and the Albertine Saxonies underwent after the War of the Smalkaldic League, see Schindling, A. and Ziegler, W., eds., Die Territorien des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung: Land und Konfession 1500–1650, ii: Der Nordosten (Münster, 1990)Google Scholar.

²¹ In many ways, Daum's record of pupils during his years as rector is as much a personal record as it is a preparatory notebook for an official one. Daum noted not only the names and the forms of the pupils who attended, but added information that caught his interest, sometimes many years after a pupil had left his institution. There are three separate versions of the matriculation records during the period of Daum's rectorship. The most comprehensive one is a set of notebooks in Christian Daum's handwriting, bound together in one volume: St A Zwickau, iii z 4 s 341, Matrikel von der Hand Christian Daums 1662/75. The other two versions are copies of Daum's records, presumably made by Daum's successors: St A Zwickau, iii z 4 s 339, Matrikel des Gymnasiums zu Zwickau 1662–(1738). Vorn auch Leges Ac.; St A Zwickau, iii z 4 s 343, Cat. Discipul. (Gymn. Cygn.) 1662–99.

²² A comprehensive treatment of the problems involved in the prosopographical study of university matriculation records is given in Heyd, M., Between orthodoxy and the Enlightenment: Jean-Robert Chouet and the introduction of Cartesian science in the Academy of Geneva (The Hague, Boston, MA, and London, 1982), pp. 245–9Google Scholar. Daum began keeping the matriculation register in 1662, the year he became rector of the school, and continued it until he died, after which his successors continued keeping these records, albeit with considerably less care and attention to detail. Loose sheets of previous matriculation records have survived, but not in a continuous form, so that it is impossible to reconstruct the careers of individual students at the school prior to Daum's rectorship: St A Zwickau, iii z 4 s 340, Matrikelmaterial, z. T. spätere Abschriften, lose Blätter, 1616ff.

²³ The dataset assembled on the basis of Daum's handwritten records reconstructs the careers of all pupils in the years 1662–9, and those of the higher four forms for the years 1670–82.

²⁴ The idea that the seventeenth century was a crucial period in the history of pedagogy has been put forward continually by historians interested in underlining above all else the prominent place of Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius) within it. The focus on Comenius has repeatedly been challenged since it has led to other reformers as well as long-term trends in Central European pedagogy being neglected or, worse, wrongfully ascribed to him. S. Ehrenpreis, ‘Erziehung und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung. Forschungsprobleme und methodische Innovationen’, in Ehrenpreis and Schilling, eds., Erziehung und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung, pp. 19–34; Ross, A. S., ‘The Colbovius Sendbrief and the reception of Comenian pedagogy in Saxony’, in Chocholová, S., Pánková, M., and Steiner, M., eds., Johannes Amos Comenius: the legacy to the culture of education (Prague, 2009), pp. 134–41Google Scholar; Schlee, H., Erhard Weigel und sein süddeutscher Schülerkreis: Eine pädagogische Bewegung im 17. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg, 1968)Google Scholar.

²⁵ See in particular the historiography on the effect the war had on universities, Evans, R. J. W., ‘German universities after the Thirty Years’ War’, History of Universities, 1 (1981), pp. 169–90Google Scholar; Frijhoff, W., ‘Surplus ou déficit? Hypothèses sur le nombre réel des étudiants en Allemagne à l’époque moderne (1576–1815)’, Francia, 7 (1979), pp. 173–218Google Scholar; and, most recently, Kossert, T., Asche, M., and Füssel, M., eds., Universitäten im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (Potsdam, 2011)Google Scholar.

²⁶ For reasons of clarity, the term ‘form’ has been chosen over the term ‘class’ to describe the division of the curriculum into levels of proficiency.

²⁷ Kupke, A.-K., Die Kirchen- und Schulvisitationen im 17. Jahrhundert auf dem Gebiet der evangelisch-lutherischen Landeskirche Sachsen (Leipzig, 2010)Google Scholar; Müller, G., ‘Das kursächsische Schulwesen beim Erlaß der Schulordnung von 1580’, Programm des Wettiner Gymnasiums zu Dresden (1888), pp. 1–32Google Scholar; Paulsen, F., Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten vom Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zur Gegenwart: Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den klassischen Unterricht (3 edn, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1919)Google Scholar, vol. i;Schwabe, E., Das Gelehrtenschulwesen Kursachsens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Schulordnung von 1580: Kurze Übersicht über die Hauptzüge der Entwicklung (Leipzig and Berlin 1914)Google Scholar.

²⁸ See Fabian, E., M. Petrus Plateanus, Rector der Zwickauer Schule von 1535 bis 1546 (Zwickau, 1878), p. 14Google Scholar. The council might well have had reason for exaggerating the size of the student body to the elector in 1546, as it had just been granted the Grünhainer Hof for the school's use in 1542 and was still in the process of moving the school from its earlier building opposite St Mary's.

²⁹ Brown, J. H., Elizabethan schooldays: an account of the English grammar schools in the second half of the sixteenth century (Oxford, 1933), pp. 99–100Google Scholar.

³⁰ Though single sheets of matriculation material exist for the years 1617, 1622, 1630, 1639, and 1642, the information given in them is incomplete. In 1616, 294 pupils attended the school (the Secunda was missing this year), 1649: 145 (possibly 167), 1650: 182, 1653: 157.

³¹ For the long-term development of the total number of pupils of the school post-1687, I have made use of Herzog's figures. Köhler calculated population figures for the seventeenth century on the basis of the Zwickau Geschossbücher. He determined his figures by multiplying the number of householders by five. Comparison to the data of seventeenth-century Saxony's only extant complete census (1699) has suggested that the figures produced this way are very close to being accurate. Köhler, R., Der Einfluss des Dreissigjährigen Krieges auf die Bevölkerungszahl deutscher Städte, insbesondere auf die Zwickaus (Leipzig, 1920; proofread 1984), pp. 66Google Scholar, 68–72.

³² Karant-Nunn, Zwickau in transition, p. 182. Karant-Nunn expressed surprise at the high ratio of pupils at the school in relation to the approximate number of 7,000 inhabitants during the Reformation. However, Karant-Nunn was working on the assumption that the figure of approximately 900 pupils given by Schumann and the council was correct.

³³ This development was famously described by Eulenburg, F., Frequenz der deutschen Univeritäten von der Gründug bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar. The findings pertinent to the effect of the Thirty Years War on student numbers are summarized in Evans, ‘German universities’, p. 170. Eulenburg's figures have been subjected to much criticism. Most importantly, Willem Frijhoff pointed out that Eulenburg had not taken into account the widespread phenomenon of students matriculating at multiple universities. Frijhoff's drastic adjustments of Eulenburg's figures nonetheless left intact the conclusion that the number of students matriculating at German universities recovered almost immediately after the war, and that the ratio of students in comparison to the overall population was higher at this time than at any other time during the early modern period. Frijhoff, ‘Surplus ou déficit?’, pp. 205, 207, 210–14. For the purposes of this article, I have followed Frijhoff's figures.

³⁴ These issues are referred to in some detail in Frijhoff and Julia, École et société, pp. 11–44, though Julia and Frijhoff were more concerned with pupils’ social background, less where they came from.

³⁵ Literature on the peregrinatio academica is vast. A brief introduction can be found in Ridder-Symoens (ed.), A history of the university in Europe, ii, pp. 416–48; see also Asche, M., ‘“Peregrinatio academica” in Europa im Konfessionellen Zeitalter: Bestandsaufnahme eines unübersichtlichen Forschungsfeldes und der Versuch einer Interpretation unter migrationsgeschichtlichen Aspekten’, Jahrbuch für europäische Geschichte, 6 (2005), pp. 3–33Google Scholar; DiSimone, ‘Admission’; Irrgang, S., ‘Scholar vagus, goliardus, ioculator: Zur Rezeption des “fahrenden Scholaren” im Mittelalter’, Jahrbuch für Universitätsgeschichte, 6 (2003), pp. 51–68Google Scholar. For case-studies which mainly concentrate on the nobility, see Giese, S., Studenten aus Mitternacht: Bildungsideal und peregrinatio academica des schwedischen Adels im Zeichen von Humanismus und Konfessionalisierung (Tübingen, 2009)Google Scholar; Pietrzyk, Z., ‘Die Ausstrahlung Straßburgs im Zeitalter des Humanismus: Peregrinatio academica aus der polnisch-litauischen Republik und die Hohe Schule Johannes Sturms im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 158 (2010), pp. 193–240Google Scholar; Żołądz-Strzelczyk, D., Peregrinatio academica: studia młodzieży polskiej z Korony i Litwy na akademiach i uniwersytetach niemieckich w XVI i 1 poł. XVII wieku (Poznań, 1996)Google Scholar.

³⁶ The term ‘intellectual vagrants’ is borrowed from LeGoff, J., Die Intelektuellen im Mittelalter (Munich, 1994), p. 31Google Scholar.

³⁷ For the medieval tradition of English grammar schools, see Jewell, H. M., Education in early modern England (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 92–130Google Scholar, esp. pp. 103–6; Orme, N., English schools in the middle ages (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Seaborne, M. V. J., The English school: its architecture and organization 1370–1870 (Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar; Courtenay, W. J., Schools and scholars in fourteenth-century England (Princeton, NJ, 1987)Google Scholar.

³⁸ On the provision of accommodation in Zwickau, see Daum's letter to a pupil's parent: RSB Zwickau, Konzeptbücher Daum, o. S., C. Daum to unknown recipient, Zwickau, 20 Nov. 1660.

³⁹ Hanckel's presence at the school is puzzling. Unlike the other pupils whose home was far from Zwickau, he was enrolled in the lowest forms. Did he travel alone all the way from Transylvania to Zwickau? Or had he moved with his family? Unfortunately, Daum gives no more information on his background.

⁴⁰ Johann Andreas Buchard (Volckenroda), Michael Cramer (Gleina), Christoph Biederman (Möckerlingen), Christoph Glaser (Lucka), and Johann Chrsitoph Bisserer (unidentified locality, ‘Thuringus’) were all pupils of the Prima/Secunda. Caspar Keilhauer (Gera) on the other hand was enrolled in the Septima in 1665, which is, however, not as exceptional as it might seem, as Gera is considerably closer to Zwickau (41 km) than the other Thuringian localities on record.

⁴¹ Wolfgang-Andreas Reyher (baptized St Catherine's, 27 Apr. 1652) graduated in the same year (1677) as did Siegfried Opel, baptized on 4 May 1660. Reyher first appeared in the Septima in 1665, only to disappear for four years and then reappear among the Duces of the same form. Opel's education was far more swift: he was enrolled in the Septima in 1669, then made an unusual jump to the Quarta either after one or two years, remained in this form until 1672 when he left the school, only to reappear in the Secunda/Prima in 1677.

⁴² Christoph Falck, a native of Bockau/Erzgebirge.

⁴³ Jobst Weinman, Johann Christian Günther, both from Zwickau.

⁴⁴ Strauss, Luther's house of learning, p. 188: ‘Obedient to this general principle of educational policy, rectors and schoolmasters in nearly every German city and territory submitted to the ecclesiastical or political authorities their Schulordnungen, lesson plans, timetables, and reading lists. The archives hold a stupendous mass of these documents. Owing to the drive for uniformity, they are very much alike, which makes it easy to summarize the contents of Latin education in the sixteenth century.’

⁴⁵ RSB Zwickau, Br.385.79, J. Sextus to C. Daum, Nuremberg, 17 Nov. 1666. The pupil on whose behalf the Franconia-based teacher Sextus was enquiring wished to come to Zwickau specifically in order to learn Greek.

⁴⁶ Grunelius described personal and financial troubles of a parent funding his son's stay at school in a separate section of his memoir (‘My son Johannes at school’): Grunelius, J., ‘Das Hausbuch des Johannes Grunelius’, in Waas, C., ed., Die Chroniken von Friedberg in der Wetterau, i (Friedberg, 1937), pp. 261–83Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Eulenburg, Frequenz, p. 24.

⁴⁸ Cf. Appendix.

⁴⁹ Schaller, K., Die Pädagogik des Johann Amos Comenius und die Anfänge des pädagogischen Realismus im 17. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg, 1962), p. 284Google Scholar. On the school of Elbing, where both German and Latin were taught in the lowest form, see Pawlak, M., ‘Die Geschichte des Elbinger Gymnasiums in den Jahren 1535–1772’, in Beckmann, S., ed., Kulturgeschichte Preußens königlich polnischen Anteils in der Frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen, 2005), pp. 371–94Google Scholar; Porożynski, H. and Rudnik, S., ‘Lutheran secondary schools in the 16th and 17th centuries Pomerania (Thorn, Elbing)’, in Golz, R., ed., Luther and Melanchthon in the educational thought of Central and Eastern Europe (Münster, 1998), pp. 139–45Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ In reference to the Zwickau Latin school, Karant-Nunn argued that both a different outlook as to what children needed to learn and high tuition fees kept artisans’ sons from the school during the Reformation period, and thus effectively made it an institution reserved to the town's patriciate and wealthy foreigners. Karant-Nunn, Zwickau in transition, pp. 189–92.

⁵¹ Even though Press had described the period after the Thirty Years War as a time of opportunity for the young, he suggested that the importance of education in facilitating social mobility declined after the Thirty Years War: Press, V., ‘Soziale Folgen des Dreißigjährigen Krieges’, in Schulze, W. and Gabel, H., eds., Ständische Gesellschaft und soziale Mobilität (Munich, 1987), pp. 239–68Google Scholar, at p. 267. Press, however, concentrated almost exclusively on the higher echelons of the various German territorial administrations. In a relatively little known but insightful study, Weiss suggested that, while education might not help an individual rise very far up the social ladder, education could help a family to gradually improve its standing over several generations: Weiss, V., Bevölkerung und soziale Mobilität: Sachsen, 1550–1800 (Berlin, 1993), p. 148Google Scholar.

⁵² Fabian, E., ‘Die Errichtung eines Alumnats an der Zwickauer Schule (1544)’, Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und Deutsche Literatur und für Pädagogik, 2 (1899), pp. 25–34Google Scholar, 65–75.

⁵³ For the period under consideration, locating Zwickau residents in the parish records is actually easier than in the years before the Thirty Years War. The members of the suburban parish of St Maurice were ‘adopted’ by the parish of St Catherine's in the years between the destruction of St Maurice's in 1632 and its reconstruction in a new, likewise suburban location in 1680. For these years, all Zwickau baptisms and funerals therefore appear in the records of the inner-city parishes St Mary's and St Catherine's, which have survived in series. In order to answer the question asked at the beginning of this section, two samples were taken from the 770 individuals examined on the basis of the matriculation records. The first sample focuses on the pupils in the lowest form, the Septima, while the second sample examines the pupils of the Prima/Secunda. The records of St Mary's survive in manuscript, while the records of St Catherine's were destroyed during World War II; a microfilm exists, however, the data of which the archivist of the Nicolaigemeinde, Christof Kühnel, has recently entered into a database. I am greatly indebted to Herr Kühnel for the examination of these records on my behalf, and for generously sharing with me his knowledge of the history of the Zwickau parishes.

⁵⁴ It cannot be said whether the form was also divided along similar lines before 1669, though it does seem very likely that it was, considering the high numbers of pupils in the Septima in the previous years.

⁵⁵ 28 of 59 Firmani in 1669.

⁵⁶ Ratsakten, Mauritii 1617–19.

⁵⁷ Many early modern registers only gave an indication of which broad trade the father belonged to. What precisely he did, and at what particular place in the internal hierarchy of the trade he stood, was not stated. The records in Zwickau do make such distinctions possible, making it for instance easily possible to distinguish between the position of a cloth-dealer and a ‘cloth-preparer’ (Tuchbereiter), both distinct from the profession of a cloth maker (Tuchmacher) or a maker of trimmings (Bordenweber). The fact that it is possible to distinguish not just between broad trades, but a person's actual position within the trade is crucial if one wishes to generalize about the social standing of the pupils’ families. For one pupil, the commonness of his name (Hans Müller) made it impossible to tell whether he was the son of the locksmith Jeremias Müller (baptized St Mary's, 8 Oct. 1656) or the Kleinnagler (maker of small nails) Nicol Müller (baptized St Mary's, 17 Jan. 1661). For a further pupil, Georg Rodeck, the profession of the father could not be retrieved from the parish records, but was mentioned by Daum in the matriculation records as town crier (Stundenschreyer).

⁵⁸ There was a considerable degree of specialization among the smiths: one father worked as a Rinckenschmied (maker of strong chains used by wagoners), one as a Peilschmied (Beilschmied) (hatchet maker), one as a Sägenschmied (maker of saws), and another as a Spohrer (maker of spores).

⁵⁹ Both Seiffart and Eichhorn appear only once in the matriculation records.

⁶⁰ Of the 115 pupils enrolled in the Prima/Secunda between 1662 and 1682, Daum noted that 47 were from Zwickau, of which 39 can be traced in the parish records. For 32 of these boys, the profession of the father is given.

⁶¹ The Reyher family was one of the most influential families in the Zwickau patriciate. Wolfgang Andreas Reyher's father David had likewise been mayor for many years during the 1650s and 60s. St A Zwickau, Ratsherrenbuch, 23b.

⁶² Miethke, J., ‘Karrierechancen eines Theologiestudiums im späteren Mittelalter’, in Schwinges, R. C., Gelehrte im Reich: Zur Sozial- und Wirkungsgeschichte akademischer Eliten des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1996), pp. 181–209Google Scholar; P. Moraw, ‘Der Lebensweg der Studenten’, in Ridder-Symoens, ed., A history of the university in Europe, ii, pp. 225–54; de Ridder-Symoens, H., ‘Possibilités de carrière et de mobilité sociale des intellectuels-universitaires au moyen âge’, in Bulst, N. and Genet, J.-P., eds., Medieval lives and the historian: studies in medieval prosography (Kalamazoo and Michigan, MI, 1986), pp. 343–57Google Scholar.

⁶³ Pupils who did not go on to university are harder to trace. About a third of the Firmani of 1669 can be found in the register into which men who had been granted the rights of burghers of Zwickau were entered. St A Zwickau, iii y 1a–6b, Bürgerbücher (8 vols.), 1498–1854.

⁶⁴ About a quarter of the 1669 Firmani who could be traced in the burgher register were sons of master artisans.

⁶⁵ Daum mentioned the future location of 88 pupils. Of the pupils who went to university towns, 23 pupils are recorded as going to Leipzig, one as going to Leipzig and Wittenberg, 7 to Wittenberg, 12 to Jena. In the university matriculation records, a further 38 former pupils of the Prima/Secunda could be located in Leipzig, 6 in Jena, and 1 more in Wittenberg. All the pupils who Daum recorded as going to Leipzig, Jena, and Wittenberg can be found in the university matriculation records. Cf. Erler, G., Die jüngere Matrikel der Universität Leipzig, 1559–1809 (3 vols., Leipzig, 1909)Google Scholar, ii;Juntke, F., ed., Album Academiae Vitebergensis: Jüngere Reihe Teil 2 (1660–1710) (Halle, 1952)Google Scholar; Mentz, G. and Jauering, R., eds., Die Matrikel der Universität Jena, i (Jena, 1944)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Märker, A., Geschichte der Universität Erfurt, 1392–1816 (Weimar, 1993)Google Scholar, provides a brief overview of the state of academic affairs at the university of Erfurt during the seventeenth century.

⁶⁷ The records show 24 examples of double matriculation by Zwickau pupils, all of them at Leipzig University.

⁶⁸ For the phenomenon of early and multiple matriculation, see Juntke, ed., Album Academiae Vitebergensis: Jüngere Reihe Teil 2 (1660–1710), p. xiii. On the history of the ritual of academic deposition, see Füssel, M., ‘Riten der Gewalt: Zur Geschichte der akademischen Deposition und des Pennalismus in der Frühen Neuzeit’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, 32 (2005), pp. 605–47Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ For the 770 pupils under consideration, Daum included in the matriculation records information on the future employment of 15 pupils: Gottlieb Theophil Cramer (cantor), Christian Dörnel (cantor), Andreas Ebhard (‘now teaches in Zwickau’), Leonhard Ferber (‘obtained his Magister, is now pastor in Crossen’), Johannes Graf (co-rector in Freiberg), Georg Hörner (deacon in Rochlitz), Ludwig Günter Martin (‘doctor of law, practises in Annaberg’), Georg Friedrich Pezolt (archdeacon), Andreas Richtsteiger (Baccalaureus at the Lichtenstein Latin school), August Satorius (pastor), Georg Schmid (teacher of the lower forms and cantor), Johann Philipp Steinbach (succeded his father as teacher of the lower forms in Stangengrün), Gottfried Thym (pastor), Cornelius Vogel (pastor), David Winter (co-rector at Wittenberg).

⁷⁰ For these figures, see Weiss, Bevölkerung und soziale Mobilität: Sachsen, 1550–1800, pp. 124–63, esp. p. 148.

⁷¹ Frijhoff, ‘Surplus ou déficit?’; Frijhoff and Julia, École et société, pp. 84–9.

⁷² See Endres, R., ‘Adel und Patriziat in Oberdeutschland’, in Schulze, W., ed., Ständische Gesellschaft und soziale Mobilität (Munich, 1988), pp. 221–38Google Scholar, at p. 221.