Michael Samuels
Reprinted from the American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin 127:33-37
Additional articles available at http://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/resources/articles/
The maker, his creations, and his customers
Caspar Zellner was born on 31 December 1661 in Zell am Wallersee, which was situated within the Holy Roman Empire and is just a day’s walk to the northeast of the city of Salzburg (Zell and Salzburg are in present-day Austria). His birth placed him in the fourth of eight generations of Zellner men engaged in the manufacture of firearms (see Appendix 1). His great-grandfather, Hans (noted in records in 1524), forged gun barrels in Zell am Wallersee. Caspar’s grandfather, Georg (activity noted in records from 1594 until 1634), was noted as a “Maker” of firearms in the Urbargut in Zell am Wallersee and was specifically noted for his manufacture and delivery of arms to the lifeguard (army) of Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (reigned 1587-1612) in the Castle Hohensalzburg. The Prince-Archbishop was both the secular and ecclesiastical ruler of his territories—the archbishopric. Interestingly, Georg Zellner is the first of the Zellner family documented as residing in this Urbargut at Zell am Wallersee. An Urbargut is a peasant estate that is under the manorial lordship of, usually, a Duke. But, in this case, the Archbishopric of Salzburg, which was ruled by Georg’s big customer Archbishop von Raitenau, administered this Urbargut.