An enduring stereotype! Of course, in our era, these were exclusively male students, and tattered trousers were a sign of poverty, there being no money to replace them — not a fashion statement, as today.

Here all the student’s clothes look pretty tatty, not just his hose, and his shoes are beyond repair — and don’t think that’s a book on the ground in front of him, it’s a gameboard, together with other symbols of the dissipation that have led to his impoverishment, drinking glasses, playing-cards and a bag for dice (see print detail below).

The text scribbled above his head reads — in a mix of Latin and German — Nunquam paargelt, Semper zerißen hosßen [never any cash, always ripped hose]. This macaronic tag — in a variety of spellings! — often occurs unillustrated in the albums, and was even adopted as the motto of at least two Swiss noble families, Ulrich von Englisberg (d.1602), and von Gielsberg/Gladtburg — there is even mention of a waffle-iron decorated with the arms of von Englisberg and this motto (if still extant, it should be in the Historisches Museum, Bern).

Jakob von der Heyden, never one to miss a trick, included the motif in his print-book, Pugillus Facetiarum (Strasbourg 1608, 1618) — though his student’s trousers are not tattered and ripped as they should be — as in the album painting above — but, rather, fashionably slashed. Gambling with dice would seem to be

the reason for the young man’s present poverty, but the full context of the print hints at another reason for his ‘purgatory of the purse’:

This Italian triad describing woman as a ‘paradise for the eyes, hell for the spirit and purgatory for the purse’ we have already discussed at https://albumamicorumear-e4qvahs764.live-website.com/monks-behaving-badly/

The illustration below, dated 1645, on an orphaned leaf in the Frommann Collection in Stuttgart, seems similarly to be missing the point, both young men being adequately trousered!

Trousers as they should be worn by normal impoverished students can be seen in this miniature in the album of Nicolaus Rost, painted in 1617, captioned Viel Lust Wenig gelt [much fun, little money] — are they perhaps singing drunkenly?

Discussion of the impoverished, archetypal Bummelstudent, Cornelius, whose image, sitting in his chaotic study, is far and away the most popular in he albums, I reserve for another occasion.