826 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
INTRODUCTORY. 
The question whether Strasburg and the Alsace belong by 
right to Trance or to Germany is an old one. It was raised 
long before the Franco-Prussian war, after which the disputed 
territory became again part of the German empire. In 1501, 
the famous humanist Jacob Wimpfeling published a treatise 
in Latin in honor of the city of Strasburg, 5 in which he proved, 
as he thought, by the hand of history, that Strasburg always 
had been a German city. 
It was not unnatural that this treatise should call forth op¬ 
position at a time when the kings of France were stretching 
out their hands towards the crown of the Holy Homan Empire 
(of the German nation). Besides, it was not very difficult 
to reject some of the rather unfounded historical proofs of 
Wimpfeling, who, e. g., claimed Pipin as a German simply be¬ 
cause his name had become proverbial. The opposition re¬ 
marked that with the same right King Solomon or Croesus 
might be claimed as a German. The chief attack upon Wim- 
pfeling’s “Germania” came from a man about half his age who 
had even enjoyed his hospitality, but who had set aside every¬ 
thing (so it appeared to Wimpfeling at least) for the sake of 
notoriety, and who attacked the older man in a most unmerci¬ 
ful manner. I refer to Thomas Murner’s “Germania nova,” 
published at Strasburg in 1502 and republished by Charles 
Schmidt together with the first part of Wimpfeling’s “Ger¬ 
mania” in 1874. 
Wimpfeling of course replied to this, 6 but not in a very 
5 Cf. Goedeke, “Grundriss,” vol. 2, p. 409. “Germania Jacobi 
Wimpffelingii ad Rempnblicam Argentinensem,” 1501. 
6 “Declaratio Jacobi Wimpfelingii ad mitigandum adversarium,” s. L 
et a. 4 Bl. 
