Vitale Barberis Canonico

The Extraordinary “New” Sheep of Stolpen

Stolpen can be seen from a distance. Southern Saxony has gentle hills and becomes even more undulating towards Saxon Switzerland, where pleasant wooded knolls lead towards Bohemia. With Dresden behind you, heading straight towards the east, you come to the top of a hill and beyond this, the landscape dips down to a patchwork of cultivated fields, meadows, lines of trees and wooded areas. Down there, on the crest of an outcrop of black basalt, stands Stolpen Castle, and at the foot of the rock, the old village.

Further south, you come to Hohnstein, while to the west there is Lohmen, then Pirna, towards the Elbe which flows placidly directly to Dresden, to Hamburg and along the estuary into the North Sea. Stolpen, Hohnstein, Lohmen: a triangle of land dominated by a manor steeped in centuries of history, a triangle of land with a special history which, however, is no longer to be seen. 

Pages of a volume of Vitale Barberis Canonico historical Archives with fabric samples.

The Saxon Merino breed of sheep originated in this triangle of land. The Saxon Merino, which provides such lustrous wool today in southern Australia and Tasmania, has its origins in the Schäferei, namely the sheep farms in these small, rural communities, which flourished both in terms of agriculture and sheep breeding, but were also tormented over time by the passage of armies and battles which can be studied in history books today. Stolpen was the place where the first shot of the Seven Year War (1756 – 1763) was fired, that involved all of Europe with the exclusion of Italy, which for once, was a bystander.

Stolpen Castle as it was in 1758 in an engraving by Gustav Täubert from around 1850.

At the end of this conflict, Saxony was on its knees. It had been invaded and sacked by the Prussian army of Frederick the Great, but saved its independence at the cost of enormous damage. Thus, in order to revive agricultural economy, the Prince Regent of Saxony, Francis Xavier Wettin (1730 – 1806), while he was governing in the name and on behalf of his nephew who was still a child, contracted to receive a flock of Merino sheep directly from the flocks belonging to the Charles III; King of Spain. In the spring of 1765 the precious animals, 92 rams and 128 ewes, (although these numbers are uncertain), went on board at Cadiz. Two Spanish shepherds accompanied them, Andreas Moreno and his assistant Manuel. They disembarked in Hamburg on 28th July, and were put on display in the grounds of the Prince Elector’s palace in Dresden. Three days later, they were moved to Stolpen, where the manor park became their new home, in the Thier Garten, and also the farm of Gut Rennersdorf.

The presence of these bleating animals distracted the attention of the local population from the recent death of their most famous fellow countrywoman. On 31st March 1765, in fact, Anna Constantia von Brockdorff, Countess of Cosel, born in Stolpen in 1680, had passed away. After having been the mistress of Prince Augustus the Strong, this beautiful and audacious noblewoman fell into disgrace and was imprisoned in a tower of the castle in the village from 1716 until her last days. Almost 50 years of imprisonment! Her grave is still to be seen amongst the crumbling walls of the fortress.

The historical fabric of the archive.
The fabric of the Vitale Barberis Canonico collection.

The Spanish Merinos, initially cared for by the two Spanish shepherds, were also distributed between Hohnstein and Lohmen, and entrusted to local breeders who immediately started to cross-breed them with local sheep. The Spanish rams did their duty and those who were given both Spanish rams and ewes left enthusiastic comments to posterity. One witness among many can be found in the volume Gesammleter Unterricht von Schaafen Und Schäfereyen: Zum Behuf der dabey vorkommenden ökonomischen, Policey- und Cameral-Geschäffte, (a collection of useful lessons for shepherds), published in Leipzig in 1766 by Carl August Geutebrück. The Spanish sheep had only arrived one year before, and already there were surprising results. The Escorial rams had become very well adapted to the conditions at Stolpen and they had done their duty. The correspondent in the Gesammleter Unterricht von Schaafen und Schäferenen had succeeded in breeding 60 lambs from the Spanish rams, and also the ewes that had been tupped by the Saxon rams had had young. The young animals were very promising and had a fine, thick fleece.

The frontispiece of the volume Gesammleter Unterricht von Schaafen und Schäferenen zum Behuf der dabey vorkommenden ökonomischen, Policey- und Cameral-Geschäffte edited in Leipzig in 1766.

The initiative taken by Francis Xavier Wettin proved to be a winning one. And the best part was still to come. In 1765, Eliza Forlong, who determined the destiny of the Australian-Tasmanian breed of Saxon Merino, had not yet been born. She would not visit Saxony for the first time until 1828 and from then on, the Spanish-Saxon breed would be developed in an unforeseeable manner. At the end of 1765, the shepherds of Stolpen, Hohnstein and Lohmen were happy just to be able to repopulate the flocks that had been pillaged by the Prussians, but they immediately noticed that the fleece of their new sheep, which were called “Electorals” as they were born in the Electorate of Saxony, were extraordinary and that shearing the animals would be much more valuable than to butcher them for meat.

Stolpen Castle as seen by Albert Schiffner in about 1840. Saxon Merino sheep graze at the foot of the fortress.

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