shall subscribe for ten compleat Books shall for the same price have eleven compleat Books in Quires deliver'd to him IX Because several Gentlemen do complain that they have been deceived by several Proposers in this nature therefore for the punctual performance of what is here undertaken the Bookseller Moses Pitt has already given sufficient Security to Sir Joseph Williamson one of his Majesties Principal Secretaries of State and President of the Royal Society for performance of his Engagement and Proposals X. It is requested that every Subscriber to this great Undertaking would be pleased to set down the County and place of his Habitation together with directions how to send to him to the end that notice may be given him according as the Work goes forwaad WHereas his most Sacred Majesty has been Graciously pleased for the promoting of this Design to permit that his Collections of Maps and Descriptions of Countries may be perused that such of them as have not yet been published and are thought proper for this work may be taken into it and whereas his Royal Highness and his Highness Prince Rupert have been also pleased to promise the same favour and the like has been done by the Right Honorable Sir Joseph Williamson one of his Majesties Principal Secretaries of State and President of the Royal Society and also by the most learned Dr. Isaac Vossius who is pleased to communicate his most copious and exquisite Collections and it is hoped that the same will be done by several other persons of Honour and Quality therefore it is humbly desired that all Gentlemen who have any particular Maps or Relations of new Discoveries or any more perfect descriptions of places already known would be pleased to send the same to the said Moses Pitt who will give sufficient security for the safe return of the same unprejudiced and if they shall be thought proper by the persons hereafter mentioned to be inserted he will take care that it shall be done and that the obligation shall be thankfully acknowledged in such manner as shall be to their own best satisfaction May 3 1678. WE whose names are here subscribed not doubting but that this Work will be of great Use and for the Honour of the Nation and being desired by Moses Pitt to give him our Assistance that he may be the better enabled to perform it do promise that we will from time to time at spare hours both give our Advice for the carrying on of the Work and further since he offers to refer himself to us in divers of his Proposals we will observe how he makes them good and give an account thereof to Sir Joseph Williamson President of the Royal Society or to the President of the said Society for the time being Chr. Wren Isaac Vossius John Pell W. Lloyd Tho. Gale Rob. Hook UPon perusing these preceding Proposals we whose Names are underwritten well approving and highly commending this Design of the said Moses Pitt do for his encouragement not only subscribe our selves for one or more Copies of the said Book but also do recommend so Noble and Useful a Design to the rest of the Nobility and Gentry throughout his Majesties Dominions The KING' 's most Excellent Majesty The QUEEN'S Majesty His Royal Highness the Duke of YORK Her Royal Highness the Dutchess of YORK Her Highness the Lady ANN. His Highness CHARLES-LEWIS Elector Palatine of the RHINE His Highness Prince RUPERT JAMES late Lord Archbishop of St. Andrews ALEXANDER Ld. 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a petty Judg of any small Province or Territory and such an interpretation the word will bear tho it be not so usual as the former For Grave as we have shew'n before signifies a Judg as well as Count and Landt may as well denote a small Province as large Territory Burg Burgrave in the Teutonic tongue signifies a Castle or Fort whence Burggrave is no more then Praefectus Castellanus a Grave or Count â—â— a Castle or any other fortified place The four chief Burgraveschafts of the German Empire are those of Stromberg Noremberg Magdeburg and Rheineck besides which there are several of less note The Territories which anciently belong'd to the Bishoprick are now since the late death of Augustus Administrator of Halle and Magdeburg come into the hands of the Elector of Brandenburg But the Title remains still with the Dukes of Saxony to whom both Title and Territory were heretofore given by the Emperor Rodulph I. who at the same time annex'd the Burggrafschaft of Noremberg to the Graves von Zollern which is since made a part of the Marquisate of Brandenburg How great the power of these Marggraves was formerly the Author of the Saxon-Spiegel informs us when he says Palatinus seu Palansgravius Imperatoris Judex est Burggravius vero id est perpetuus Castellanus Judex Marchionis i. e. a Count Palatine may sit Judg in a Case wherein the Emperor is a Party and a Burggrave has the priviledg of passing sentence upon a Marquiss And Besoldus assures us that the Bishops also were under the Jurisdiction of a Burggraf Aliquando etiam says he speaking of this Title of Honour in Episcopatibus exercebant Jurisdictionem unde Peucerus lib. 5. Chronic. eos illarum terrarum Judices esse censet quae Imperatorum donatione Ecclesiis accesserunt But all this is to be understood of the four chief Burggraves before-mention'd and not of others of an inferior rank who had little more then the name of Burggrave or at most never had any Jurisdiction more then the bare and naked signification of their Title would allow them which was only to be the Governors of some Castle or Fort. Such I fancy were the Ancestors of the Noble Family of the Wassenaers in Holland who as Grotius tells us were formerly Burggraves of a great Castle erected in the place where Leyden now stands which City had been before destroy'd by the Normans For tho those men were Lords of the Rhine and as such demanded Toll of all Vessels that traded upon that River as far as their Territories reach'd which priviledg their Successors always afterwards challeng'd yet they never advanc'd to that heigth as to have any inspection over Marquisses In old Memorials and other papers of State registred by the High Dutch Antiquaries we shall often meet with the words Burggraf and Landtgrave in a literal signification and not as Titles of Honour in which sense we have hitherto spoke of them For tho Burggrave in the ordinary acception of the word and as a Title of Honour denotes one that hath the command of some eminent Fort in the Empire yet it may be also and is often in ancient Dutch writers used to signifie one that hath the command of any obscure and inconsiderable Castle whereby the Governor obtains the name of Burggrave tho he cannot reach the Dignity And because Landt signifies a small as well as larger Territory and Grave may properly enough be used to denote any man invested with any sort of Jurisdiction therefore the word Landtgrave is sometimes applied to ordinary Barons Next after these several sorts of Counts or Earls the Freyherrn or Barons Freyherrn take place in the Catalogue of the German Nobility The word signifies as much as Domini liberi free Lords or Barons such as are not Tenants to nor have any dependance upon any superior Landlord So that sometimes we find Freyen and Freyherrn used synonymously by some of the German writers and then an High Dutch Freyherr is no more then a Scotch Laird which is a Title any Scotch man will pretend to who has got but as much free-land as will yeild him twenty shillings a year But ordinarily the Title is only given to such as hold considerable Territories and Jurisdictions from the Emperor and are Proceres proximo post Comites gradu ornati as Paurmeister defines Barones And the most considerable Heraulds and Lawyers of the German Nation have maintain'd the assertion That a Freyherr differs only from a Grave in Name and Title but is the same thing in Dignity and Jurisdiction Besoldus determines the difference thus Ex moribus nostris Comiti Baro aequiparatur nullumque inter eos censetur esse discrimen nisi quod Baro non est investitus de Comitatu qui tamen aliis in rebus suscipiendis honoribusque administrandis haudquaquam Comite inferior censetur i. e. By our German Customs a Baron is equal to a Count only the former is ceremoniously Invested into his Territories but in no other thing as conferring of Honours and the like is he inferior to the later Some reckon up six kinds of Barons in the German Empire and give them their several names thus 1. Such as are stiled simply Freyen without the additional Title of Herr that is Free-men of whom before 2. Freyherrn or Free Lords such are the Freyherrn zu Walpurg zu Aulendorff and the like 3. Semper-Freyen or Semper Liberi which is a Title given to the four chief Barons of the Empire who are sometimes otherwise stiled simply Freyherrn zu Limburg Dussis Weysterburg und Alwalden 4. Herrn or Lords such are the Herrn zu Plauwen Herrn zu Krannichfelt c. 5. Edle Herrn or Noble Lords as the Counts of Mansfelt write themselves Edle Herrn zu Heldrungen c. 6. Such as are stiled barely Edlen or Noblemen as the Baron of Overfurst is usually stiled Edle van Overfurst Sometimes the word Edle is put after the mention of the Barony Thus in an old Charter granted by Magnus Duke of Brunswic in the year 1360 as 't is cited by Paurmeister we read Evert von Werberge de Edle for Everard Baron of Werberg But 't is doubtless true what some of the German Lawyers affirm that Freyen Freyherrn Edlen Herrn and Herrn are only so many different words which signifie one and the same Order and Dignity and may each of them be English'd Barons Whether the Title of Semper-Freyen be a word which distinguishes the rank of the four above-mention'd chief Barons of the Empire from all others is a question disputable enough Semper-Freyen Some draw the original of that Title from the solemn words of semper ingenuus existat which as they pretend may be met with in some Copies of old Manumissions And hence they conclude that such as to this day retain the name of Freyherrn are descended from such Ancestors as were ancient Barons in the Empire Others more probably guess that the word Semper was only
superadded to the Title of Freyherr to denote the antiquity of those four who bear this name in the rank of Barons Paurmeister gives his opinion of the case proposed in these words Ego Baronum genera nulla esse arbitror quocunque nomine Semper-Freyen Freyherrn Edle Herrn vel singulariter Freyen Herrn Edle vel Die Edle appellantur Nobilitate ac Dignitate pares esse Omnes enim generali vocabulo Herrn comprehenduntur ut perpetuo habet Decretorum Comitiorum subscriptio Von der Graven und Herrn wegen i. e. I do not think there are any different kinds of Barons but that whatever Title they may have whether Semper-Freyen Freyherrn Edle Herrn Freyen Herrn or Edle they are all of them notwithstanding of equal Nobility and Dignity since they all agree in the general Title of Herrn as we find the Decrees anciently pass'd in the Diets subscribed Von der Graven und Herrn wegen i. e. by assent and authority of the Counts and Barons And as Herrn is a common name for all sorts of German Barons so is Herrschaft a general name for a Barony which two words the High Dutch use in the same sense as we do Lord and Lordship We see then what the Title of Frey-herr signifies â—â—â—on And in the modern writings of the Germans we seldom or never meet with the word Baron tho this is as ordinary in Spain Italy France and England as the former is in Germany However Schottelius who made as diligent enquiry into the ancient monuments and records of the German Nation as any man whatever assures us that Bar or Baar in old Teutonic manuscripts signifies a Baron and is commonly there used instead of the more modern word Frey-herr And possibly there may be as just grounds for deriving Baro from the High Dutch as either the Latin or Greek For the Latin word Vir signifying a man separate and distinct from the vulgar by his virtue whence the generality of Critics derive Baro has in all probability been borrowed of the High Dutch in whose ancient Laws Baro or Barus and Foemina do usually occur for a man or woman The English Saxons call'd a man Æ¿er or Æ¿ar which the old Franks turn'd into Ber and afterwards Paro In Junius's Edition of the Codex Argenteus the Gothic word Wair is used for man and Waire in the plural for men Sometimes instead of Baron the Germans use the Title of Banner-herr â—â—nner-herr or Panner-herr which may be render'd Dominus vexillifer and signifies the same thing with Banneret I cannot certainly affirm that the word Banner-herr tho ordinarily met with in German writers is ever made use of to denote any High Dutch Title of Honour but only to express the Honorary Titles of other Nations What a Chivalier Banneret or Knight Banneret which the Germans usually render Banner-herr does signifie may be learn'd from the account which the Author of La division du mond gives of it Pour faire says he un Chevalier Banneret cest quant il a longement suyvy les guerres et que il a assez terres et revenue tant que il peult tenir et soudoyer cinquants gentils homes pour accompagnier sa Banniere Lors il peult licitement lever ladit Banniere et non autrement car nul autre home ne puit porter Banniere en Battaile sil n'a cinquant homes prestz pour battailler Which story of maintaining fifty men under him to accompany his Banner is in the end of the old printed Copy of Gesta Romanorum in French notwithstanding the assertion of some late Authors that a Banneret need have no more then twenty-five some say ten men under him The Germans call a Knight Ritter â—â—tter for the same reason as the Latins stiled him Eques because this Title was formerly never conferr'd upon any man that had not perform'd some gallant exploit in the field and who was dubb'd Knight by being accouter'd with a Sword and pair of Spurs One of our ancient English Poets Dan. Lydgate gives us a full explication of the Title of Ritter in these words Eques ab Equo is said of very right And Chevalier is said of Chevalry In which a Rider called is a Knight Arragoners done also specifie Caballiero through all that party Is name of worship and so took his ' ginning Of spores of Gold and chiefly Riding The first original of dubbing of Knights with a Sword came probably from the ancient custom of the Northern Nations of girding their young men with a Sword as soon as they were able to bear Arms. Nihil says Tacitus speaking of the ancient Germans neque publicae neque privatae rei nisi armati agunt Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris quam Civitas suffecturum probaverit Tum in ipso concilio vel Principum aliquis vel Pater vel Propinquus scuto frameaque Juvenem ornant Haec apud illos Toga hic primus Juventae honos Ante hoc Domus pars videntur mox Reipublicae Besides this Ceremony of giving a Lance or Target to such as were admitted members of the Empire they had another way of adopting Sons per arma Thus Theodoric King of the Eastern Goths in Italy adopted the King of the Heruli by a Charter still extant in Cassiodorus's Northern History And hence Justin the Elder being about to adopt Cosroes the King of Persia's Son was advised by Proclus his Chancellor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Procopius speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That it should be done according to the custom of the barbarous Nations who did not adopt Sons by Writing but by Arms. There are not so many several Orders of Knighthood in Germany as in most other European Nations Orders of Knighthood if we except those who have any Honour and Title of some particular Order sent them from the Kings of Spain England and Denmark For from these Princes several Dukes Counts and other Grandees of the Empire receive the honorary Titles of Knights of the Golden Fleece the Garter and the Elephant The Teutonic Order of Knighthood of which we have spoken something before in the Description of Prussia was first instituted under the walls of Acon or Ptolemais in the Holy Land altho Jacob de Vitriaco Polydore Vergilius Gretser and several other Historians of good note make the Order much more ancient After the City was taken by the Christians these new Knights who were most of them Citizens of Lubec and Bremen fix'd themselves at a Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary from whence they are sometimes stiled Equites Mariani Here they were setled under Henry Walpot von Passenheim their first Great Master in the year 1190. Afterwards when the Christians were beaten out of Syria they remov'd to Venice and thence to Marpurg in Hassia where as in several other parts of Germany their Convent was endow'd with fair revenues Whence some fancy they first got the name of Equites