The Fugger family
The head of the Fugger family, Johann, a weaver, set up in 1367 at Augsburg and founded a trading company which, under his sons and nephews, expanded greatly. Jakob, called ‘the Wealthy’ (1459-1525) purchased copper and silver mines in Hungary, Karinthia, Spain and the Tyrol. The Fuggers’ banking institute became the largest in Europe, its clients including popes, kings and emperors. Favoured by the financial dependence of the nobility, the Fuggers’ influence expanded throughout Europe and even to America. In 1530, Anton Fugger was elevated to count of the empire.
The sale of the Tyrol mines depended on the continual state of debt of the local princes. Already Sigismund the Wealthy had pawned his entire patrimony to Bavaria, and was consequently forbidden to exercise any public office by the social states in 1478. To pay off these debts, his successor Maximilian was obliged to borrow large sums from the Fuggers. He thus pawned his profits deriving from silver ore mining, which the Fuggers could sell on the free market. Only from 1522, and at Schneeberg from 1524, could the Fuggers participate directly as entrepreneurs in mining activity, initially somewhat reluctantly and on the insistence of the local prince. Commerce was easier, less risky, and offered greater profits.
In 1519, on the death of emperor Maximilian, Charles V of Haspburg and the King of France aspired to the imperial crown. Jakob Fugger then lent the Hapsburgs the incredible sum of 600,000 florins and saved their throne. This loan was mainly paid back with money from the Tyrolese mines. Tyrolese silver was thus an important factor in the history of the entire world. Politics then fell into the hand of a multinational group.
The crisis in the European silver industry after 1570 opened the way to the fall of the Fuggers’ enterprise. After a last profitable period from 1620 to 1655, all their properties remaining in the Tyrol region were expropriated without compensation. The descendants of what had been a world empire are now land-owners in Bavaria, with assets estimated at more than one billion German marks, and they still have considerable political influence.
According to popular tradition, the church was built far from the town so that the Val Ridnaun miners could be nearer to it, since they had spent a great deal of money on building it.
In the late 15th century, the prince of Brixen, Bishop Melchior von Meckau, had shares in 14 galleries and was thus the owner of almost one-third of all the Schneeberg galleries. Of course, the local prince also contributed to the mining industry. Due to the enormous demand for lead in the prince’s foundries in the low Inn valley, in 1507 Emperor Maximilian granted the Schwaz foundry workers – to the definite disadvantage of the entrepreneurs and mine owners who worked at Sterzing – pre-emptive rights to the ore extracted in the Sterzing-Gossensaß mining district and also assigned other financial benefits to them. Later, important entrepreneurial families from the North Tyrol and Salzburg (the Schlosser, Tänzl, Hofer, Paumgartner and Stöckl families) moved to Sterzing and purchased considerable rights in the Schneeberg galleries. In 1531, Hans Stöckl of Schwaz had a store for cereals, cheeses, woven materials and lard in the Kaufmann’s property and opened a flourishing shop supplying essential goods (Pfennwerthandel).
After 1500, mineral wealth attracted increasing numbers of financially solid enterprises from abroad to the Tyrol – mainly from southern Germany, including the Katzbeck, Manlich, Herwart, Haug, Lingg, Püml and Dreyling families, and the Fuggers.
Gradually, these families took the place of the local and Tyrolese entrepreneurs and acquired positions of eminence. In 1524, the Fuggers entered the mining district and established an administrator for their business at Sterzing. They mined in grand style and, unlike smaller competitors, also possessed the capital essential for investment. At Schneeberg, they owned 97.5 ‘quarters’* of 17 galleries and 264.5 ‘quarters’* of 15 galleries at Gossensaß. They also held mine shares at Le Cave, where they had their own foundry. They kept their ore in two depots, respectively at Ridnaun and Gossensaß, and in one at Pflersch and Sterzing. At Sterzing, they possessed at least three houses, distinguished by two ore samples. The Fugger houses may have been those with present-day numbers 22, 22/a and 22/b. Still today, Sterzing is called the Fuggers’ town.
Mining began to diminish after the middle of the 16th century. Gradually, the remaining owners offered to sell their properties to the prince who, in 1558, founded the Austrian Trading Society of Mines and Foundries, a kind of state company, which acquired an increasing number of mines. In 1578, apart from small, unimportant companies, the Fuggers and the local prince were the only owners still remaining in the area.
However, the Fuggers had foreseen the decay of mining, and in 1580 offered to sell the entire trade to the prince, but without success. Some mines were later closed, and many workers were dismissed or had to wait for months for their pay.
Around 1630, about 160 miners were still working at Sterzing, an enormous reduction in numbers, compared with the 1000 counted in 1486.
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