It appears to have been the custom, rarely deviated from by the puppet-shows of any nation or time, to have a comic character or buffoon, who intruded, even in the most tragical pieces, to give by his jests variety and relief to the performance. There was nothing odd or startling in this in the Middle Ages, when every great personage—emperor, king, or prelate—had his licensed jester attached to his household. M. Magnin is in some doubt as to the name first given to this character in Germany, unless it was Eulenspiegel (a name which in modern times has acquired some celebrity as a literary pseudonyme), or rather Master Hemmerlein, whose caustic sarcasm partakes at once of the humour of the devil and the hangman. Master Hemmerlein, according to Frisch, had a face like a frightful mask; he belonged to the lowest class of marionettes, under whose dress the showman passes his hand to move them. This author adds that the name of Hemmerlein was sometimes given to the public executioner, and that it is applied to the devil in the _Breviarium Historicum_ of Sebald. This will bear explanation. The word Hämmerlein or Hämmerling (the latter is now the usual orthography) has three very distinct meanings—a jack-pudding, a flayer, and a gold-hammer (bird). The German headsman, in former days, combined with his terrible duties the occupation of a flayer or knacker, charged to remove dead horses and other carrion; hence he was commonly spoken of as Master Hämmerlein.[7] It is difficult to say by what grim mockery or strange assimilation his name was applied to the buffoon of the puppet-show. We have little information, however, concerning Hämmerlein the droll, who appears to have had but a short reign when he was supplanted by the famous _Hanswurst_, to whom out-spoken Martin Luther compared Duke Henry of Brunswick. “Miserable, choleric spirit” (here Martin addresses himself to Satan), “you, and your poor possessed creature Henry, you know, as well as all your poets and writers, that the name of _Hanswurst_ is not of my invention; others have employed it before me, to designate those rude and unlucky persons who, desiring to exhibit finesse, commit but clumsiness and impropriety.” And that there might be no mistake as to his application of the word, he adds: “Many persons compare my very gracious lord, Duke Henry of Brunswick, to _Hanswurst_, because the said lord is replete and corpulent.” One of the consequences in Germany of Luther’s preachings, and of the more fanatical denunciations of some of his disciples and cotemporaries, was terrible havoc amongst church pictures and statues, including automatical images and groups, then very numerous in that country, and an end was at that time put to dramatic church ceremonies, not only in districts that embraced the new doctrine, but in many that adhered to Rome. Some of the performances were of the most grotesque description. They were particularly frequent in Poland,