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Jakob Fugger became so rich that he loaned money to the Catholic Church to build the St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The Catholic church was panicking on how to repay those loans, that they started selling indulgences, and this lead to Martin Luther protesting, and launching Protestanism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Fugger
> In the year 1500, Jakob Fugger loaned the Vatican the money necessary to build the new St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, as well as other buildings within the Vatican. To repay Jakob the massive amount of money owed, Pope Leo X had to heavily tax the German people as well as sell indulgences, which was heavily unpopular with a large group of monks, including Martin Luther. Partly because of the corruption within the church, Martin Luther was prompted to write his Ninety-five Theses.
> ... Jakob Fugger was already representing his family business in Venice in 1473 at the age of 14
What is interesting (and maybe also telling to a degree) is that this "first public housing" isn't actually "public" housing, as in government-owned. It's private.
And I would obviously fail all three requirements to get housing there: Be an Augsburg resident, a Catholic, and a respectable person.
It is still in operation and is a nice place (sometimes a bit crowded...).
PS: the old purely mechanical doorbells are also still operational (can be seen in the photograph, the forged metal rod to the left/right of the entrances)
German version has more pictures: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuggerei
> purely mechanical doorbells
And very elaborate, too! Mechanical doorbells are pretty common here (old city, by US standards, on the west coast), but they are just a handle on the front of the door with a rod that goes through it to a bell on the inside.
Each house has a completely different design on its doorbell: when you come home in the middle of the night (and/or you're drunk), you can recognize your house among every other similar house on the row only by touch.
You goto pray 3 father-ours for the old fugger, so that he is released from purgatory.. and kukas iwa gets cheaper..
I love the thought that middle age philanthropy apparently carried potential for making the hackernews frontpage 500 years later.
You can imagine how immortal some ideas might get. Some brilliant spark, might be quoted down to heat death if we make it. If you make a idea that gets reproduced constantly - that is immortality.
There's one in the Netherlands that dates back to 1395: https://hofjesinhaarlem.nl/hofjes-in-haarlem/hofje-de-bakene...
One of my favourite subjects :)
Interesting that they still discriminate based on religion.
Now I wonder whether the rent changed.
Never changed, it’s still 88 cents per year. However utilities are not included so they make up the majority of the cost.
It is nonetheless extremely cheap (in comparison to rents in Augsburg and near-by Munich) and has life-changing consequences for the people living there, since they do not have to allocate a big amount of their income into housing.
In comparison: The average rent in Augsburg for a 60m³ flat is around 756 Euros (way more for new contracts and furnished flats), the median net income in Germany is ~ 2244 Euros.
One downside, if you're on the taller side, is that the doors in the Fuggerei are only like 5'8, though - and if you're taller than 6'4 or so, even the ceiling height becomes a problem. :D
I don't know why medieval homies built doors so short. They weren't short people. There's documented incidents of medieval kings accidentally dying from hitting their head on door lintels,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VIII_of_France#Death
- "Charles died in 1498, two and a half years after his retreat from Italy, as the result of an accident. While on his way to watch a game of jeu de paume (real tennis) in Amboise he struck his head on the lintel of a door.[22]."
This surprised me, as I'd heard otherwise. Per https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/how-tall-are-you/, "the average height of people who lived in the 9-11th centuries was comparable to ours today. It then declined slightly during the 12th through 16th centuries, and hit an all-time low during the 17th and 18th centuries – when those doorframes were made."
A 2.5 inch difference in mean heights isn't enormous, and I think doesn't fully explain what the parent comment was surprised by—the merely 5'8" (173 cm) tall doorframes in the Fuggerei. Considering individual variations, something like a quarter of medieval adults should be outright taller than that.
Perhaps they wanted to keep the heat in.
You should clarify that these are monthly figures, since the 88 cents rent quoted was the annual amount.
One Rhenish gulden was originally 3.8 grams of gold coin, that is 250 EUR in today's money.
Not much for a year long lease but not insignificant. I knew some subsidized properties charging that that much for a room.
The Wikipedia page says:
"As of 2020, the fee for a tour into the Fuggerei is 6.50 euro, over seven times the annual rent."
Really unfortunate name...