Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/bartholomewsastr00sastiala
BARTHOLOMEW
SASTROW
BEING THE MEMOIRS OF
A GERMAN BURGOMASTER
Translated by Albert D. Vandam. Introduction by
Herbert A. L. Fisher, M.A.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
1905
Contents
[PART I]
[CHAPTER I]
Abominable Murder of My Grandfather--My Parents and their Family--Fatal Misadventure of my Father--Troubles at Stralsund--Appeal of the Evangelical Preachers
[CHAPTER II]
My Student's Days at Greifswald--Victor Bole and his tragical End--A Servant possessed by the Devil--My Brother Johannes' Preceptors and Mine--My Father's never-ending Law Suits
[CHAPTER III]
Showing the Ingratitude, Foolishness and Wickedness of the People, and how, when once infected with a bad Spirit, it returns with Difficulty to Common-Sense--Smiterlow, Lorbeer, and the Duke of Mecklenberg--Fall of the Seditious Regime of the Forty-eight
[CHAPTER IV]
Dr. Martin Luther writes to my Father--My Studies at Rostock and at Greifswald--Something about my hard Life at Spires--I am admitted as a Public Notary--Dr. Hose
[CHAPTER V]
Stay at Pforzheim--Margrave Ernest--My extreme Penury at Worms, followed by Great Plenty at a Receiver's of the Order of St. John's--I do not lengthen this Summary, seeing that but for my Respect for the Truth, I would willingly pass over many Episodes in Silence
[CHAPTER VI]
Travels in Italy--What happened to me in Rome--I take Steps to recover my Brother's Property--I become aware of some strange Particulars--I suddenly leave Rome
[CHAPTER VII]
From Rome to Stralsund, by Viterbo, Florence, Mantua, Trent, Innspruck, Ratisbon and Nuremberg--Various Adventures
[PART II]
[CHAPTER I]
I am appointed Pomeranian Secretary--Something about my diurnal and nocturnal Journeys with the Chancellor--Missions in the Camps--Dangers in the Wake of the Army
[CHAPTER II]
A Twelve Months' Stay at Augsburg during the Diet--Something about the Emperor and Princes--Sebastian Vogelsberg--Concerning the Interim Journey to Cologne
[CHAPTER III]
How I held for two Years the Office of Solicitator at the Imperial Chamber at Spires--Visit to Herr Sebastian Münster--Journey to Flanders--Character of King Philip--I leave the Prince's Service
[PART III]
[CHAPTER I]
Arrival at Greifswald--Betrothal and Marriage--An Old Custom--I am in Peril--Martin Weyer, Bishop
[CHAPTER II]
Severe Difficulties after my Marriage--My Labours and Success as a Law-writer and Notary, and subsequently as a Procurator--An Account of some of the Cases in which I was engaged
[CHAPTER III]
The Greifswald Council appoints me the City's Secretary--Delicate Mission to Stralsund--Burgomaster Christopher Lorbeer and his Sons--Journey to Bergen--I settle at Stralsund
Illustrations
[Charles the Fifth ]frontispiece
[An Execution at the time of the Reformation]
[INTRODUCTION]
If we wish to understand the pedestrian side of German life in the sixteenth century, I know of no better document than the autobiography of Bartholomew Sastrow. This hard-headed, plain-spoken Pomeranian notary cannot indeed be classed among the great and companionable writers of memoirs. Here are no genial portraits, no sweet-tempered and mellow confidings of the heart such as comfortable men and women are wont to distil in a comfortable age. The times were fierce, and passion ran high and deep. One might as well expect to extract amiability from the rough granite of an Icelandic saga. There is no delicacy, no charm, no elevation of tone in these memoirs. Everything is seen through plain glass, but seen distinctly in hard and fine outlines, and reported with an objectivity which would be consistently scientific, were it not for some quick touches of caustic humour, and the stored hatreds of an active, unpopular and struggling life. Nobody very readily sympathizes with bitter or with prosperous men, and when this old gentleman took up his pen to write, he had become both prosperous and bitter. He had always been a hard hitter, and at the age of seventy-five set himself down to compose a fighting apologia. If the ethics are those of Mr. Tulliver, senior, we must not be surprised. Is not the blood-feud one of the oldest of Teutonic institutions?
I frankly confess that I do not find Mr. Bartholomew Sastrow very congenial company, though I am ready to acknowledge that he had some conspicuous merits. Many good men have been naughty boys at school, and it is possible that even distinguished philanthropists have tippled brandy while Orbilius was nodding. If so, an episode detailed in these memoirs may be passed over by the lenient reader, all the more readily since the Sastrovian oats do not appear to have been very wildly or copiously sown. It is clear that the young man fought poverty with pluck and tenacity. He certainly had a full measure of Teutonic industry, and it argues no little character in a man past thirty years of age to attend the lectures of university professors in order to repair the defects of an early education. I also suspect that any litigant who retained Sastrow's services would have been more than satisfied with this swift and able transactor of business, who appears to have had all the combativeness of Bishop Burnet, with none of his indiscretion. He was just the kind of man who always rows his full weight and more than his weight in a boat. But, save for his vigorous hates, he was a prosaic fellow, given to self-gratulation, who never knew romance, and married his housemaid at the age of seventy-eight.
A modern German writer is much melted by Sastrow's Protestantism, and apparently finds it quite a touching spectacle. Sastrow was of course a Lutheran, and believed in devils as fervently as his great master. He also conceived it to be part of the general scheme of things that the Sastrows and their kinsmen, the Smiterlows, should wax fat and prosper, while all the plagues of Egypt and all the afflictions of Job should visit those fiends incarnate, the Horns, the Brusers and the Lorbeers. For some reason, which to me is inscrutable, but which was as plain as sunlight to Sastrow, a superhuman apparition goes out of its way to help a young Pomeranian scribe, who upon his own showing is anything but a saint, while the innocent maidservant of a miser is blown up with six other persons no less blameless than herself, to enforce the desirability of being free with one's money. This, however, is the usual way in which an egoist digests the popular religion.
Bartholomew Sastrow was born at Greifswald, a prosperous Hanseatic town, in 1520. The year of his birth is famous in the history of German Protestantism, for it witnessed the publication of Luther's three great Reformation tracts--the Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, the Babylonish Captivity, and the Freedom of a Christian Man. It seemed in that year as if the whole of Germany might be brought to make common cause against the Pope. The clergy, the nobility, the towns, the peasants all had their separate cause of quarrel with the old régime, and to each of these classes in turn Luther addressed his powerful appeal. For a moment puritan and humanist were at one, and the printing presses of Germany turned out a stream of literature against the abuses of the papal system. The movement spread so swiftly, especially in the north, that it seemed a single spontaneous popular outburst. But the harmony was soon broken. The rifts in the political and social organization of Germany were too deep to be spanned by any appeal to merely moral considerations. The Emperor Charles V, himself half-Spanish, set his face against a movement which was directly antagonistic to the Imperial tradition. The peasants revolted, committed excesses, and were ruthlessly crushed, and the violence of anabaptists and ignorant men threw discredit on the Lutheran cause. Then, too, dogmatic differences began to reveal themselves within the circle of the reformers themselves. There were disputes as to the exact significance and philosophic explanation of the Lord's Supper. A conference was held at Marburg, in 1529, under the auspices of Philip of Hesse, with a view to adjusting the differences between the divines of Saxony and Switzerland, but Luther and Zwingli failed to arrive at a compromise. The Lutheran and the Reformed Churches now definitely separated, and the divisions of the Protestants were the opportunity of the Catholic Church. The emperor tried in vain to reconcile Germany to the old faith. Rival theologians met, disputed, formulated creeds in the presence of temporal princes and their armed retainers. In 1530 the Diet of Augsburg forbade Protestant teaching and ordered the restoration of church property. Then a Protestant league was signed at Smalkald by John of Saxony, by Hesse, Brunswick-Luneberg, Anhalt, and several towns, and the emperor was defied. This was in 1531. It was the beginning of the religious wars of Germany, the beginning of that tremendous duel which lasted till the peace of Westphalia in 1648, the duel between the League of Smalkald and Charles V, between Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, between the Protestant North and the Catholic South.
In the initial stage of this combat the great military event was the rout of the Smalkaldic allies at Muhlberg, in April, 1547, where Charles captured John Frederic of Saxony, transferred his dominions--save only a few scattered territories in Thuringia--to his ally, Maurice, and reduced all north Germany save the city of Magdeburg. It seemed for a moment as if this battle might decide the contest. Charles summoned a Diet at Augsburg in 1548, and carried all his proposals without opposition. He strengthened his political position by the reconstitution of the Imperial Chamber, by the organization of the Netherlands into a circle of the empire, and by the formation of a new military treasury. He obtained the consent of the Diet to a religious compromise called the Interim which, while insisting on the seven sacraments in the Catholic sense, vaguely agreed to the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, and declared that the two questions of the Communion in both kinds and the celibacy of clergy were to be left till the summoning of a free Christian council. The strict Lutheran party--and Pomerania was a stronghold of strict Lutheranism--regarded the Interim as a base betrayal of Protestant interests. Their pamphleteers called it the Interitum, or the death-blow, and the conversion of a prince like Joachim of Brandenburg to such a scheme was regarded as an ominous sign for the future.
In reality, however, the success of the emperor rested upon the most brittle foundations. That he was chilly, reserved, un-German, and therefore unpopular was something, but not nearly all. The princes of Germany had conquered practical independence in the thirteenth century, and were jealous of their prerogatives. The Hanseatic towns formed a republican confederacy in the north, corresponding to the Swiss confederacy in the south. There was no adequate central machinery, and the Jesuit order was only just preparing to enter upon its career of German victories. The Spanish troops made themselves detestable, outraging women--a dire offence in a nation so domestic as Germany--and there was standing feud between the famous Castilian infantry and the German lansquenets. The popes did not like the emperor's favourite remedy of a council, and busily thwarted his ecclesiastical schemes. Henry II of France was on the watch for German allies against a powerful rival. The allies were ready. A great spiritual movement can never be stifled by the issue of one battle. For good or evil, men had taken sides; interests intellectual, moral, and material had already been invested either in the one cause or the other; there had been brutal iconoclasm; there had been ardent preaching, so simple and moving that ignorant women understood and wept; there had been close and stubborn dogmatic controversy; there had been the shedding of blood, and the upheavals in towns, and the building of a new church system, and the growth of a new religious literature. Almost a whole generation had now been consumed in this controversy, a controversy which touched all lives, and cemented or divided families. The children were reading Luther's Bible, and singing Luther's hymns, and learning Luther's short catechism. Could it be expected that such a river should suddenly lose itself in the sand? Nevertheless there is something surprising in the quick revolution of the story. In 1550 Maurice of Saxony intrigues with the Protestants, and in the following year definitely goes over to their side. In 1552 the emperor has to flee for his life, and the Peace of Passau seals the victory of the Protestant cause.
One of the first provinces to be conquered for Lutheranism was the duchy of Pomerania. John Bugenhagen, himself a Pomeranian and the historian of Pomerania, was the chief apostle of this northern region, and those who visit the Baltic churches will often see his sable portrait hanging side by side with Huss and Luther on the whitewashed walls. Sastrow gives us an excellent picture of the various forces which co-operated with the teaching of Bugenhagen to effect the change. In Eastern Pomerania there was the violent propaganda of Dr. Amandus, who wanted a clean sweep of images, princes, and established powers. There was the democratic movement in Stralsund, led by the turbulent Rolof Moller, who, accusing the council of malversation, revolutionized the constitution of his city. There was the mob of workmen who were only too glad of an excuse to plunder the priests and break the altars. But side by side with greed and violence there was the moral revolt against "the fables, the absurdities, and the impious lies" of the pulpit, and against the vices of priest and monk. The recollection of the early days of Puritan enthusiasm, when the fathers of the Protestant movement preached the gospel to large crowds in the open air, as, for instance, under "St. George's churchyard elm" at Stralsund, remained graven on many a lowly calendar. Even the texts of these sermons were remembered as epochs in spiritual life. Sastrow records how, ceding to the request of a great number of burgesses, Mr. Ketelhot (being detained in the port of Stralsund by contrary winds), preached upon Matthew xi. 28: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; and then upon John xvi. 23: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you"; and, finally: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations." The general pride in civic monuments proved to be stronger than the iconoclastic mood. Certainly the high altar in the Nicolai Kirche at Stralsund--probably the most elaborate specimen of late fifteenth-century wood carving which still survives in Germany--would have received a short shrift from Cromwell's Ironsides.
It was Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, of Stralsund, who brought Protestantism into the Sastrow family. He had seen Luther in 1523, had heard him preach at Wittenberg, and became a convert to the "true gospel." Smiterlow's daughter Anna married Nicholas Sastrow, a prosperous brewer and cornfactor of Greifswald, and Nicholas deserted the mass for the sermon. Their eldest son, John, was sent to study at Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon. He became something, of a scholar, wrote in praise of the English divine, Robert Barns, and was crowned poet laureate by Charles V in 1544. The second son was Bartholomew, author of these memoirs. Three years after his arrival the family life at Greifswald was rudely disturbed. Bartholomew's father had the misfortune to commit manslaughter (uncharitable people called it murder), and Greifswald was made too hot to hold the peccant cornfactor. The father of our chronicler lived in banishment for several years, while his wife brought up the children at Greifswald, and carried on the family business. It happened that Bartholomew's great-uncle, Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow the second, of Stralsund, was at that time residing at Greifswald. He possessed the avuncular virtues, had his great-nephew taught Latin, and earned his eternal gratitude. In time the heirs of the slain man were appeased and 1,000 marks of blood-money enabled the elder Sastrow to return to his native city. He did not, however, remain long in Greifswald, but sold his house and settled in the neighbouring city of Stralsund, the home of his wife's relations. Bartholomew received his early education at Greifswald and Stralsund, but in 1538 was sent to Rostock (a university had been founded in this town in 1415), where he studied under two well-known pupils of Luther and Melanchthon, Burenius and Heinrich Welfius (Wulf). The teaching combined the chief elements of Humanism and of Protestant theology, the works of Cicero and Terence on the one hand, and the De Anima of Melanchthon on the other.
Meanwhile (1534-37) there were great disturbances in Stralsund. An ambitious demagogue of Lubeck, George Wullenweber, had involved the Hanseatic League in a Danish war. Smiterlow and Nicolas Sastrow thought that the war was wrong and foolish, and that it would endanger the interests of Stralsund. But a democracy, when once bitten by the war frenzy, is hard to curb, and regards moderation in the light of treason. Stralsund rose against its conservative council, forced Smiterlow to resign and compelled the elder Sastrow to remain a prisoner in his house for the period of a year. Father and son never forgot or forgave these years of plebeian uproar. For them the art of statesmanship was to avoid revolution and to keep the people under. "I recommend to my children submission to authority, no matter whether Pilate or Caiaphas governs." This was the last word of Bartholomew's political philosophy.
In 1535-6 the forces of the Hanse were defeated both by land and sea, and the war party saw the error of its ways. Sastrow was released, and his uncle-in-law was restored to office to die two years later, in 1539. But meanwhile things had gone ill with the Sastrow finances. Some skilful but dishonest ladies had purchased large consignments of cloth, not to speak of borrowing considerable sums of money from Nicholas Sastrow, and declined to pay their bill. During his imprisonment Nicholas had been unable to sell the stock of salt which he had laid in with a view to the Schonen herring season. A certain Mrs. Bruser, wife of a big draper, with a hardy conscience, had bought 1,725 florins' worth of the Sastrow cloth of the dishonest ladies. The Sastrows determined to get the money out of the Brusers. Bruser first avowed the debt, and then repudiated it, taking a mean advantage of the civic troubles of Stralsund and the decline of the Smiterlow-Sastrow interest. Thereupon began litigation which was not to cease for thirty-four years. The case was heard before the town court of Stralsund, then before the council of Stralsund, then before the oberhof or appellate court of Lubeck, and finally before the Imperial court of Spires. Bartholomew accompanied his father on the Lubeck journey, obtained his first insight into legal chicanery, and was, no doubt, effectually inoculated with the anti-Bruser virus. In 1541 the elder Sastrow obtained permission to return to Greifswald, and Bartholomew attended for a year the lectures of the Greifswald professors. The family circumstances, however (there were by this time five daughters and three sons), were too straitened to support the youth in idleness. Accordingly, in June, 1542, the two eldest sons left their home, partly to seek their fortunes, but more especially to watch the great Bruser case, which was winding its slow and slippery course through the reticulations of the Imperial Court at Spires.
There is no need to anticipate the lively narrative of Bartholomew's experiences in this home of litigation long-drawn-out. The reader will, however, note that he was lucky enough to come in for a Diet, and has an excellent story to tell of how the emperor was inadvertently horsewhipped by a Swabian carter. On May 19, 1544, Sastrow received the diploma of Imperial notary, and a month later he left Spires and entered the chancellerie of Margrave Ernest of Baden, at Pforzheim. This, however, was destined to prove but a brief interlude. In the summer of 1545 Sastrow is in the service of a receiver of the Order of St. John, Christopher von Löwenstein, who, after his Turkish wars, was living a frolicsome old age among his Frisian stallions, his huntsmen and his hounds. The picture of this frivolous old person, with his dwarf, his mistress, and his chaplain, is drawn with some spirit. Sastrow, who had so long felt the pinch of poverty, was now luxuriating in good fare and fine raiment. He has little to do, plenty to eat and drink, and his festivity was untempered by moral considerations. "Do not think to become a doctor in my house," said the genial host, and it must be confessed that the surroundings were not propitious to the study of the Institutes.
The news of John Sastrow's death put an end to this jollity. The poet laureate had been crossed in love, and sought oblivion in Italy. The panegyrist of Barns entered the service of a cardinal, and died at Acquapendente, without explaining theological inconsistencies, pardonable perhaps in lovelorn poets. Bartholomew determined to recover the property of his deceased brother, and set out for Italy on April 8, 1546. He walked to Venice over the Brenner, thence took ship to Ancona, and then travelled over the Apennines to Rome, by way of Loretto. The council was sitting at Trent, but theological gossip does not interest our traveller so much as the alto voices in the church choirs, and "the tomb of the infant Simeon, the innocent victim of the Jews." Nor is he qualified to play the rôle of intelligent tourist among the antiquities and art treasures of Italy. He was not a Benvenuto Cellini, still less a Nathaniel Hawthorne, bent on instructing the Philistine in the art of cultured enthusiasm. "A magnificent palace, a church all of marble, variously tinted and assorted with perfect art, twelve lions and lionesses, two tigers and an eagle that is all I remember of Florence."
Many modern tourists may not remember as much without Sastrow's excuses. Italy was by this time by no means a safe place for a German. Paul III was recruiting mercenaries to help the emperor to fight the League of Smalkald, and the Spanish Inquisition was industriously raging in Rome. It was sufficient to be a German to be suspected of heresy, and for the heretic, the pyre and the gibbet were ready prepared. It would be difficult to conceive a moment less propitious for aesthetic enjoyment. "Not a week without a hanging," says Sastrow, who was apparently careful to attend these lugubrious ceremonies. The excellence of the Roman wine increased the risk of an indiscretion, and by July Sastrow had determined that it would be well to extricate himself from the perils of Rome.
His reminiscences of the papal capital are vivid and curious. We seem to see the cardinal sweating in his shirt sleeves under the hot Italian sun, while his floor is being watered. Heavy-eyed oxen of the Campagna are dragging stone and marble through the streets to build the Farnese palace and splendid houses for the cardinals; the whole town is a tumult of building and unbuilding. Streets are destroyed to improve a view. If one of the effects of a celibate clergy is to promote immorality, another is to improve the cuisine of the taverns. Upon both topics Sastrow is eloquent, and there are too many confirmations from other quarters to permit us to doubt the substantial accuracy of his indictment.
By August 29, 1546, Sastrow was back at Stralsund. Through the good offices of Dr. Knipstrow, the general superintendent, he secured a post in the ducal chancellerie at Wolgast. His acuteness and industry obtained the respect of the Pomeranian chancellor, James Citzewitz, and he was given the most important business to transact. On March 10, 1547, he accompanied the ducal chancellors in the character of notary on a mission to the emperor. Ten years before the Dukes of Pomerania had joined the League of Smalkald, and they were now thoroughly alarmed at the Imperial victory at Muhlberg, and anxious to make their peace with Charles. The journey of the envoys is full of historical interest. Sastrow had to cross the field of Muhlberg and received ocular assurance of the horrors of the war and of the barbarities practised by the Spanish troops. He was a spectator of the humiliation of the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, at Halle, and to his narrative alone we owe the knowledge of the ironical laugh of the prince, and the angry threat of the emperor. From Halle the Pomeranian envoys followed Charles to Augsburg, having the good fortune to fall in with the drunken but scriptural Duke Frederick III of Liegnitz, of whose wild doings Sastrow can tell some surprising tales.
It must have been an astonishing experience, this life at Augsburg, while the Diet was sitting. The gravest theological and political problems, problems affecting the destiny of the Empire, were being handled in an atmosphere of unabashed debauchery and barbarism. Every one, layman and clerk, let himself go. Joachim of Brandenburg consented to the Interim for a bribe, and the Cardinal Granvelle, like Talleyrand afterwards, was able to build up an enormous fortune out of "the sins of Germany." In the midst of the coarse revels of the town the horrid work of the executioner was everywhere manifest. And, meanwhile, the grim emperor dines silently in public, seeming to convey a sullen rebuke to the garrulous hospitality of his brother Ferdinand, and to the loose morals of the princes.
The cause of the Pomeranian mission did not much prosper at Augsburg, and Sastrow and his friends pursued the emperor to Brussels, where they were at last able to effect the desired reconciliation. For the services rendered on this occasion Sastrow was made the Pomeranian solicitor at the court of Spires. The second Spires residence was clearly a period of honourable and not ungainful activity. Sastrow is busy with ducal cases; he makes another journey to the Netherlands in order to present Cardinal Granvelle with some golden flagons, and has occasion to admire the treasures of the great Flemish cities. The seagirt Stralsund, with its thin gusty streets, high gables, red Gothic gateways and tall austere whitewashed churches could not, of course, show the ample splendours of Brussels or Antwerp. Then, too, upon this Flemish voyage he saw King Philip and was impressed by the young man's stupid face and stiff Spanish formality. Such a contrast to his father Charles! Again he was sent on a mission to Basle, carrying information about Pomerania to Sebastian Munster, the "German Strabo," as he loved to hear himself called, that it might be incorporated in that learned scholar's universal cosmography. In 1550, however, Sastrow became aware that his position was being undermined by the councillors at Stettin. He accordingly gave up his ducal appointment, and determined to confine himself to private practice. He marries a wife (January 5, 1551), settles at Greifswald, and builds up a prosperous business, and from this date his memoirs are mostly concerned with the cases in which he was engaged.
There is yet one more change of place and occupation to be noticed in this bustling life. In 1555 Sastrow was enticed to Stralsund by the offer of the post of secretary, and for the next eight-and-forty years, till his death in 1603, he lived in that town, battling in the full stream of municipal politics, councillor in 1562, burgomaster in 1578, and frequently chosen to represent the city on embassies and other ceremonial occasions. A Rubricken Bock, or collection of municipal diplomata testifies to another branch of his useful activities. Enemies were as plentiful as gooseberries, and he never wanted for litigation. His second marriage created a scandal, and furnished an occasion for the foeman to scoff. But the choleric old gentleman was fully capable of taking care of himself. "At Stralsund," he says, "I fell full into the infernal caldron, and I have roasted there for forty years." But he took good heed that the enemy should roast likewise, and at the age of seventy-five began to lay the fire. The first two parts of the memoirs were composed in 1595, the third at the end of 1597, doubtless on the basis of some previous diary. They were composed for the benefit of his children, that they might enjoy the roasting. We too now can look on while the flames crackle.
HERBERT A. L. FISHER.
New College,
Oxford.
[PART I]
[CHAPTER I]
Abominable Murder of My Grandfather--My Parents and their Family--Fatal Misadventure of My Father--Troubles at Stralsund--Appeal of the Evangelical Preachers
My father was born in 1488, in the village of Rantzin, in the inn close to the cemetery, on the road to Anclam. Even before his marriage, my grandfather, Johannes Sastrow, exceeded by far in worldly goods, reputation, power and understanding, the Horns, a family established at Rantzin. Hence, those Horns, frantic with jealousy, constantly attacked him, not only with regard to his property, but also in the consideration he enjoyed among his fellow-men; they did not scruple to attempt his life. Not daring to act openly, they incited one of their labourers to go drinking to the inn, to pick a quarrel with its host, and to fall upon him. Their inheritance, in fact, was so small that they only needed one ploughmaster. What was the upshot? My grandfather, who was on his guard, got wind of the affair, and took the offensive. The emissary had such a cordial reception as to be compelled to beat a retreat "on all fours," and even this was not accomplished without difficulty.
The enmity of the Horns obliged my grandfather to look to his security. About the year 1487, in virtue of a friendly agreement with the old overlord Johannes Osten von Quilow, he redeemed his vassalage (lastage), and acquired the citizenship of Greifswald, where he bought a dwelling at the angle of the Butchers' Street. Thither he gradually transferred his household goods. Johannes Sastrow, therefore, left the Ostens and became a citizen before my father's birth.
The infamous attempt occurred in this way. In 1494, there was a christening not far from Rantzin, namely at Gribon, where there lived a Horn. In his capacity of a near relative my grandfather received an invitation, and as the distance was short, he took my father, who was then about seven, with him. The Horns took advantage of the opportunity; on the pretext of paying a visit to their cousin, they repaired to Gribon. They had come down in the world, and they no longer minded either the company or the fare of the peasantry; consequently, during the meal that followed they sat down at the same table with my grandfather. When they had drunk their fill towards nightfall, they all got up together to have a look at the stables. They fancied they were among themselves; as it happened one of our relatives was hiding in a corner, and heard them discuss matters. They intended to watch Sastrow's going, to gallop after him and intercept him on the road, and to kill him and his child. My grandfather, having been warned, immediately took the advice not to delay his departure for a moment. Taking his son by the hand, he started there and then. Alas, the atrocious murderers who were lying in wait for him in a clearing, trampled him under their horses' hoofs, inflicted ever so many wounds; then, their rage not being spent, they dragged him to a large stone on the road, and which may be seen unto this day, chopped off his right hand at the wrist, and left him for dead on the spot. The child had crept into some damp underwood, inaccessible to horses; the fast gathering darkness saved him from being pursued. The labourers on the Horn farm, driven by curiosity, had mounted their cattle; they picked up the victim, and pulled the child from his hiding place. One of them galloped to Rantzin, whence he returned with a cart on which they laid the wounded man, who scarcely gave a sign of life, and, in fact, breathed his last at the entrance to the village.
The nearest relatives realized the inheritance of the orphan, sold the house, the proceeds of the whole amounting to 2,000 florins.[[1]] Lords who allow their vassals to amass similar sums are rare nowadays. The child was brought up carefully; he was taught to read, to write and to cipher, afterwards he was sent to Antwerp and to Amsterdam to get a knowledge of business. When he was old enough to manage his own affairs, he bought the angle of Long Street and of Huns' Street, on the right, towards St. Nicholas' Church, that is, two dwelling houses and two shops in Huns' Street.[[2]] One of these houses he made his residence; the other he converted into a brewery, and on the site of the shops he built the present front entrance. All this cost a great deal of trouble and money. He was an attractive young fellow with an assured bit of bread, so he had no difficulty in obtaining the hand of the daughter of the late Bartholomäi Smiterlow, and the niece of Nicholas Smiterlow, the burgomaster of Stralsund.[[3]] Young and pretty, rather short than tall, but with exquisitely shaped limbs, amiable, clever, unpretending, an excellent managers, and exceedingly careful in her conduct, my mother unto her last hour was an honest and God-fearing woman. My father's register shows that the marriage took place in 1514, the Sunday after St. Catherine's Day; the husband, as I often heard him say, was still short of five and twenty.
At the fast just before Advent, in 1515, Providence granted the young couple a son who was named Johannes, after his paternal grandfather; he died in 1545, at Aquapendente, in Italy. In 1517, in vigilia nativitatis Mariae, my sister Anna was born; she died on August 16, 1594, at the age of seventy-seven; she was the widow of Peter Frobose, burgomaster of Greifswald. On Tuesday, August 21, 1520, at six in the morning, I came into the world and was named Bartholomäi, after my maternal grandfather. I leave to my descendants the task of recording my demise, to which I am looking forward anxiously in my seventy-fifth winter.
The year 1523 witnessed the birth of my sister Catherine, a charming, handsome creature, amiable, loyal and pious. When my brother Johannes returned from the University of Wittemberg, she asked him what was the Latin for "This is certainly a good-looking girl?" "Profecto formosa puella," was the answer. "And how do they say, 'Yes, not bad?'" was the next question. "Sic satis," replied Johannes.
Some time after that, three students from Wittemberg, young fellows of good family, stopped for a short while in our town, and Christian Smiterlow asked his father, the burgomaster, to let them stay with him. The burgomaster, who had three grown-up daughters, invited my sister Catherine. Naturally, the young people talked to and chaffed each other, and the lads themselves made some remarks in Latin, which would, perhaps, have not sounded well in German to female ears. One of them happened to exclaim: "Profecto formosa puella!" "Sic satis!" retorted Catherine, and thereupon the students became afraid that she had understood the whole of their lively comments.
In 1544 Catherine married Christopher Meyer, an only son, but an illiterate, dissipated, lazy and drunken oaf, who spent all his substance, and ruined a servant girl while my sister was in childbed. God punished him for his misdeeds by bringing abject misery and a loathsome disease upon him, but Catherine died at twenty-six, weary of life.
My sister Magdalen was born in 1527; she died a single woman at twenty-two. These five children were born to my parents in Greifswald; the last three saw the light at Stralsund; namely, in 1529, Christian, who lived till he was sixty; in 1532, Barbara, who only reached eighteen; and in 1534, Gertrude.
From their very earliest age my sisters were taught by my mother the household and other work appropriate to their sex. One day while Gertrude, who was then about five, was plying her distaff--the spinning wheel was not known then--my brother Johannes announced the news that the Emperor, the King of the Romans, the electors, the princes and counts, in short all the great nobles, were to foregather at a diet. "What for?" asked Gertrude. "To look to the proper government of the world," was the answer. "Good Lord," sighed the child, "why don't they forbid little girls to spin."
The pest of 1549 took away my mother, Gertrude, Magdalen and Catherine. As her daughters were weeping bitterly my mother said: "Why do you weep? rather ask the Lord to shorten my sufferings." She died on July 3. On the 16th it was Gertrude's turn. Magdalen was also dying; she left her bed to get her own shroud and that of Gertrude out of the linen press, and bade me be careful to fling only a little earth on her sister's grave, because she herself would soon be put into it; after which she returned to her bed and expired on July 18, the morning after Gertrude's burial. Magdalen was the tallest and most robust of my sisters, an accomplished manageress, hardworking, and her head screwed tightly on her shoulders. Catherine sent me all this news on September 9, two days before her own death of the plague. She did not try to disguise her approaching end; on the contrary, she prayed fervently for it, and bade me be resigned to it. She had had two children by her worthless husband; I undertook the care of the boy, Christopher Meyer, and my sister Frobose at Greifswald mothered the girl, who was but scantily provided for. Christopher gave me much trouble; neither remonstrance nor punishment proved of any avail; when he grew up he would not settle down, and practically followed in the footsteps of his father, yielding to dissipation, and indulging in all kinds of vice. Nevertheless, I made him contract a good marriage which gave him a kind of position. He left two sons; the elder was placed by his guardians at Dantzig, with most respectable people, who, however, declined to keep him. The younger remained with me for two years, going to school meanwhile, and causing me greater trouble than was consistent with my advanced age. But I had hoped to do some good with him; alas! he was so bent upon following his father's example as to make me rejoice getting rid of the cub.
My sister Barbara had been sent to Greifswald; when the plague abated, my father recalled her, for he was old, wretched and bowed down with care. Barbara was only fifteen, very pretty, amiable and hardworking. She married Bernard Classen, then a widower for the second time. My father did not like this son-in-law, against whom he had acted in the law courts for the other side; but Classen was not to be shaken off, and finally obtained my father's consent. The wedding took place on St. Martin's Day (November 11), 1549. On my return from Spires, I paid a visit to the young couple; my brother-in-law showed me the window of his study ornamented with my monogram and name, taking care to mention that he had paid a Stralsund mark to the glazier; I loosened my purse-strings and counted the sum to him, but the proceeding did not commend itself to me after the protestations of friendship my father had conveyed to me from Classen's part.[[4]]
In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, where Doctor Martin Luther so courageously made his confession of faith, Duke Bagislaw X, the grandfather of the two dukes at present reigning, received from His Imperial Majesty Charles V the solemn investiture under the open sky and with the standards unfurled, to the great displeasure of the Elector of Brandenburg. The imperial councillors were instructed to bring the two competitors to an agreement at Nuremberg, or to refer the matter further to His Majesty in case of the failure of negotiations.
In 1522 occurred the disturbances in connexion with Rolof Moller, a young man of about thirty, if that. His grandfather had been burgomaster, and in consequence he had detained in his possession a register of the revenues and privileges of the city. Having summoned a number of citizens to the monastery of St. John, he tried to prove by means of said register the enormous revenues of the city, and to accuse the council of malversation; after which he invaded the town hall, took the councillors to task, and treated them all like so many thieves, including one of his own relatives, Herr Schroeder, whom he reproached with being small in stature, but big in scoundrelism. Burgomaster Zabel Oseborn indignantly denied the accusation, and worked himself into such a state of excitement that he had to be conveyed home. In consequence of these slanders Moller constituted himself a following among the burghers; his numerous adherents chose forty-eight of their own (double the number of the members of the council), to exercise the chief power; the council saw its influence annulled, an act defining the limits of its competence and rules for its conduct was presented for signature to the councillors, and they were furthermore required to take the oath. Herr Nicholas Smiterlow alone resisted; hence, during the whole period of their domination, namely up to 1537, the Forty-Eight made him pay for his courage by unheard-of persecutions.
The primary cause of this agitation, so disastrous to the city, was the absence of a permanent record-office. The burgomasters, or the secretary, took the secret papers home with them[[5]]; at the magistrate's death those documents passed to the children and grandchildren, then fell into the hands of strangers; and the natural result were indiscreet revelations hurtful to the public weal.
Johannes Bugenhagen, the Pomeranian, and rector of the school of Treptow on the Rega, converted several monks of the monastery of Belbuck to the pure faith. They left the monastery. Among them should be mentioned Herr Christian Ketelhot, Herr Johannes Kurcke, and Herr George von Ukermünde, whom the Stralsund people chose as their preacher. But when, after three sermons at St. Nicholas', he saw the citizens resolved to keep him, in spite of the council who forbade him the pulpit, when he saw the papist clergy increase their threats, and the dukes expel Ketelhot and Kurcke from Treptow, he was siezed with fear and went away in secret.[[6]]
Johannes Kurcke was about to set sail for Livonia, intending to engage in commerce there, when he was detained at Stralsund to preach, in the first place in the St. George's cemetery, then at the cloister of St. Catherine, and finally at St. Nicholas'. He died in 1527, and was buried at St. George's.
Ketelhot had been prior of the monastery of Belbuck during sixteen weeks. At the instigation of the Abbot Johannes Boldewan, the same who had given him the prior's hood, he left for the living of Stolpe, and preached the Gospel there for some time. The slanders of the priests induced the prince to prohibit him. In vain did he claim the right to justify himself by word of mouth and in writing before the sovereign, the prelates, the lords and the cities. He failed to obtain a hearing or even a safe-conduct. As a consequence he went to Mecklenburg, intending to adopt a trade; but unable to find a suitable master, he came to Stralsund determined to take ship for Livonia. Contrary winds kept him for several weeks in port; this gave him the opportunity of hearing the fables, absurdities and impious lies delivered from the pulpit; he beheld the misconduct of the priests, their debauchery, drunkenness, gluttony, fornication, adultery and worse. Acceding to the wish of a great number of burghers, and the Church of St. George's being too small to hold the crowd, he preached on the Sunday before Ascension Day under the great lime tree of the cemetery. He first took for his text Matthew xi. 28: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; then John xvi. 23: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you"; and finally: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations." In spite of the opposition of the council, which felt inclined to yield to the frantic protestation of the clergy, the burghers practically forced Ketelhot to come into the city, and made him preach at St. Nicholas'.
In 1523, Duke Bogislaw, accompanied by four hundred horsemen, proceeded to Nuremberg to settle his disagreement with the Elector of Brandenburg. Among his suite were Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow and his son Christian. The lad, lively and strong for his age, made his horse curvet and prance, so that it threw him and crushed him with all its weight. Young Smiterlow was deformed all his life; but when it became evident that there was no remedy, his father sent him to the University of Wittemberg; but for the accident he would have placed him in business at Lubeck.
On his way home Duke Bogislaw stopped at Wittemberg to see Luther, the turbulent monk. Before they had exchanged many words, the prince in a jocular tone said: "Master Doctor, you had better let me confess to you." Luther, however, replied very quickly: "No, no, gracious lord! Your Highness is too exalted a penitent, and I am too lowly to give him absolution." Luther was thinking of the august birth of his interlocutor, who, moreover, was exceedingly tall of stature, but the Duke took the reply as an allusion to the gravity of his backslidings, and dismissed Luther without inviting him to his table.
During the absence of Duke Bogislaw, the images were destroyed at Stralsund as I am going to narrate. On Monday of Holy Week, 1523, Frau Schermer sent her servant to St. Nicholas' for a box containing relics which she wished to have repaired.[[7]] Some workmen, noticing that a sacred object was being taken away, began to knock down everything; their constantly increasing numbers ran riot in the churches and in the convents; the altars were overtoppled, and the images thrown to the four winds. With the exception of the custodian of St. John's, monks and priests fled from the city. Thereupon the council issued an order that everybody had to bring back his loot on the following Wednesday to the old market. The burghers only obeyed reluctantly; they only restored the wooden images, but the more valuable ones were not to be found. Two women were brought before the council; the woman Bandelwitz deliberately defied the burgomaster, looked him straight into the face and addressed him as follows: "What dost thou want with me, Johannes Heye? Why hast thou summoned me before thee? What crime have I committed?"
"Thou shalt know very soon," replied the burgomaster, and had her put under lock and key. The same fate befell the other woman. In the market place the partisans of the old doctrines had taken to arms and were much excited, while the evangelists loudly expressed their indignation at this double incarceration. Bailiff (or sheriff) Schroeder made his appearance on horseback, and showed with a kind of affectation a communion cup he had confiscated, and swore to "do" for all the evangelicals. Leaping on to a fishmonger's bench, L. Vischer cried in a thundering voice: "Rally to me all those who wish to live and die for the Gospel."[[8]] The greater number rallied to his side. From the windows of the Town House the councillors had been watching the scene, and they began to fear for their personal safety when they should wish to go home. Rolof Moller went upstairs to make the situation clear to them; the two women were discharged after an imprisonment of less than an hour, and the Council asked the burghers to let the matter rest there, professing their goodwill towards them; but the crowd, slow to abate its anger, occupied the place up to four o'clock, after which the councillors could make their way without danger.
When Duke Bogislaw returned, the Stralsund council endeavoured to persuade His Highness that the destruction of the images had taken place in spite of them. In his great anger the prince would not hear of any justification; he accused the people of Stralsund of having failed in their duty towards religion as well as against the sovereign who was the patron of the city's churches. He added that the devil would bring them to account for it. The duke died on September 29 of the same year at Stettin, leaving two sons, George and Barnim.[[9]]
The disturbances, nevertheless, continued, for the burghers saw with displeasure that the council, following the example of Princes George and Barnim, persisted in popish practices, thereby delaying the progress of Evangelism. On the Monday of St. John, 1524, Rolof Moller, at the head of a big troop of men, made his appearance in the old market place and, mounted also on a fishmonger's stall, began addressing the people, who applauded him. The dissensions between the magistrates and the burghers became more accentuated every day, and plainly foretold the ruin of public business. Moller observed no measure in his attacks on the council. He was just about thirty, clever, and, with an attractive personality, he might count upon being sooner or later elected burgomaster. It was only a question of time. His presumption blinded him to the reality; intoxicated with popular favour, he allowed himself certain excesses against the council, took his flight before his wings had grown, and dragged a number of people down with him in his fall. The city itself did not recover from the effects of all this for close upon a century.
Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, a personage of great consideration, a clever spokesman, and of a firm and generous disposition, was a member of the council for seventeen years. Duke Bogislaw, who fully appreciated his work, took him to the conference at Nuremberg. The journey enabled the burgomaster to hear the gospel preached in its purity, and to become aware of the fatal error of papism. At Wittemberg he heard Luther preach. As a consequence, he was the first to proclaim the wholesome doctrine in open council, though the opposition of that body prevented him from supporting the propagators of the true faith when they kept within reasonable limits. He interposed between the council, the princes, and the exalted personages of the land, who were still wedded to papism, and Rolof Moller, the Forty-Eight, and their adherents who wished to carry things with too high a hand. Smiterlow told the council to show themselves less unbending with the burghers in all just and reasonable things. On the other hand, he exhorted the citizens to show more deference to the magistrates, giving the former the assurance that the preachers should not be molested, and that the gospel should not be hampered in its course. Unfortunately, his efforts failed on both sides.
Then the crisis occurred. The ringleaders--among the most turbulent, Franz Wessel, L. Vischer, Bartholomäi Buchow, Hermann Meyer and Nicholas Rode lifted Rolof Moller from his fishmonger's bench--took him to the Town House, and made him take his seat in the burgomaster's chair.[[10]] The council was compelled to accept Rolof and Christopher Lorbeer as burgomasters, and eight of the citizens as councillors. In order to save their heads, the magistrates found themselves compelled to share with their sworn enemies both the small bench of the four burgomasters and the larger bench of twenty-four councillors. As for Smiterlow, his was the fate of those who interfere between two contending parties, the peacemakers invariably coming to grief like the iron between the anvil and the hammer. When Rolof Moller entered the burgomaster's pew Smiterlow left it, and inasmuch as his consummate experience foretold him of his danger he came to Greifswald with his two sons to ask my mother's hospitality.[[11]]
The tolerance shown at this conjuncture by the young princes George and Barnim was due to two reasons. In the first place they expected to get the upper hand of the city without much trouble after it became worn out with domestic dissensions. Secondly, a band of zealots, with Dr. Johannes Amandus at their head, scoured the country, especially Eastern Pomerania, inciting the people to break the images, and preaching from the pulpit the sweeping away of all refuse, princes included. In the eyes of the papists, those people and the evangelicals were but one and the same set, and as their number happened to be imposing, the princes considered it prudent to lay low.
The flight of the priests and monks gave the magistrates the opportunity of listening to the preaching of Christian Ketelhot and his colleagues. In a short while the council's eyes were opened to the true light, and in accord with the Forty-Eight and the burghers themselves, they assigned the churches to the evangelical preachers; the monastery, that is, the supreme direction of all the ministers and servitors of the church being confided to Ketelhot, who exercised it for twenty-three years, in fact, up to the day of his death. Canons and vicars had taken the precaution to collect all the specie, valuables and title deeds, amounting to considerable sums; they entrusted to certain councillors of Greifswald chests and lockers filled with chalices, rich chasubles and various holy vessels. They occasionally converted these into money and handed to the debtors certain annuities at half-price. Consequently, the hospitals, churches, and pious foundations lost both their capital and their income. A long time after these events the sons of my relative, Christian Schwartz, dispatched to me for restitution to the council of Stralsund, a sailor's locker which had stood for forty years under their father's bed. It contained velvet chasubles embroidered with silver and pearls, in addition to a couple of silver crucifixes. Though their rules forbade the monks of St. John to touch coined metal, the father custodian did not scruple to carry away with him all that the convent held in clinking coin and precious objects.
Called to the ministry by a small group of citizens who had not given a thought to the question of his salary, Ketelhot had no other resource for his daily sustenance than the city "wine cellar" and The King Arthur.[[12]] He found hospitable board and good company, but the life was detrimental to his studies. A Jew with whom he flattered himself he was studying the lingua sancta induced him to announce from the pulpit the error a Judaeo conceptus. As a consequence the council promptly appointed Johannes Knipstro as superintendent at Stralsund. He was the first that bore the title there, and Ketelhot neither suffered in consideration, rank, nor benefices. He remained all his life primarius pastor, and his effigy at St. Nicholas, facing the pulpit, is inscribed with the words: Repurgator ecclesiae Sundensis. Appointed in 1524, Knipstro, by his talent and solicitude, succeeded in leading Ketelhot back to the right path, for he broke for ever with the error. The two ministers lived in the most brotherly understanding. Ketelhot was no more jealous of the superintendent than Knipstro, took umbrage at the title of primarius pastor. They were not vainglorious, as were later on Runge and Kruse. Gradually the dukes admitted that the evangelicals, far from making common cause with the zealots of Eastern Pomerania, energetically opposed them. The Stralsund preachers were henceforth left in peace; they were more firmly established in their functions, and neither the council nor the citizens were any longer molested for having called them.
I now beg to resume the story of my family from the year 1523. My parents started house-keeping in the midst of plenty; they had a mill and a brewery, sold their corn, butter, honey, wool and feathers, and were even blessed with the superfluous. Everything was so cheap that it seemed easy to make money. It seemed as if the golden age had returned. Nevertheless, prosperity had to make room for misfortune.
In the course of that year (1523), in fact, George Hartmann, the son-in-law of Doctor Stroïentin,[[13]] bought of my father a quantity of butter. A violent discussion having occurred between them, Hartmann, who was on his way to Burgomaster Peter Kirchschwanz with a short sword belonging to the latter, went instead to his mother-in-law to pour his grievances into her ears. This haughty and purse-proud woman, full of contempt for very humble folk because she happened to have married a doctor and a ducal counsellor (I omit for charity's sake some details which I shall tell my children by word of mouth), that woman, I say, presented her son-in-law with a hatchet, saying: "There, go to market with this piece of money, and buy a bit of courage." Emboldened by a safe-conduct of the prince, which Doctor Stroïentin had got for him, Hartmann fell in with my father at the top of the Sporenmacher Strasse. He was going to the public weigh-house to have a case of honey weighed, and he had not as much as a pocket knife wherewith to repel an assailant armed with a sword and a hatchet. He rushed into a spurmaker's shop, getting hold of a large pitchfork, but the bystanders wrenched it out of his hands; moreover, they prevented him taking refuge in the gallery. Thereupon my father snatched up a long stick with an iron prod standing against the wall, and going back into the street, shouted:
"Let the fellow who wants to take my life come out and show himself." At these words, Hartmann issued from an adjoining workshop. Not satisfied with his short sword and his hatchet, he had taken a hammer from the anvil and flung it at my father, who warded it with his stick, though only partly, for my father spat blood for several days. The hatchet went the same way, and just caught my father on the shoulder. The double exploit having imbued him with the idea that the game was won, the aggressor made a rush with his bare sword, but my father spitted him on his iron-prodded pole, and Hartmann dropped down dead. This is the true account of this deplorable accident. I am quite aware of the version invented by the ill-will of the others, which is to the effect that my father having found Hartmann altogether disarmed behind the stove in the spurmaker's room, straightway killed him on the spot. These are vain rumours, nugae sunt, fabulae sunt.
My father sought asylum with the "black" monks, to whom he was known. They hid him at the top of the church in a recess near the vault. In a little while Doctor Stroïentin, at the head of his servants and of a numerous group of followers, came to search every nook and corner of the convent. Naturally, he went into the church, and the fugitive, fancying it was all over with him, was going to speak in order to prove his innocence; fortunately Providence closed his lips and shut his enemies' eyes. In the middle of the night the monks smuggled him over the wall. Keeping to the high road, he succeeded in reaching Neuenkirchen, where a peasant's cart, sent by his father-in-law, was waiting for him. He managed to squeeze himself into a sack of fodder by the side of a sack of barley. Doctor Stroïentin stopped the vehicle on the road. The driver told him he was going to Stralsund. "What have you got there?" asked the doctor, beating the sacks with him. "Barley and my fodder," was the answer. "Have not you noticed any one going in a great hurry either on horseback or on foot?" "Yes; I saw a man galloping as hard as he could in the direction of Horst. I may have been mistaken, but I fancy it was Sastrow, of Greifswald, and I was wondering why he should be scouring the highway at that hour of night." Stroïentin wanted to hear no more. He turned his horse's head as fast as it would go in the direction of Horst.
My father reached Stralsund without further trouble; the council gave him a safe-conduct, which was only a broken reed in the way of a guarantee, for he had to deal with proud, rich and powerful enemies. Doctor Stroïentin, His Highness' counsellor, took particular advantage of the fact that Hartmann enjoyed the protection of Duke George. My father went from pillar to post in Denmark, at Lubeck, at Hamburg, and other spots; finally, he appeased his suzerain by paying him a considerable sum in cash; then, after long-drawn negotiations, his father-in-law succeeded in reconciling him with his adversaries. The expiatory fine was 1,000 marks, but Greifswald, where the family of the deceased resided, remained closed to him. Nor did the 1,000 marks prove any benefit to the son of Hartmann; the contrary has been the case. Misfortune pursued him without cessation in his health, his wealth, his wife and children.
At the gates of Stralsund stood the monastery of St. Brigitta; monks and nuns inhabited different parts. A wall divided the gardens. It was, however, by no means high enough to prove an obstacle to a nimble climber. It is the monks that did the cooking, and the dishes came to the nuns in a kind of lift large enough for one person. How the vow of chastity was observed was proved on the day of the invasion of the convent, when the skeletons, head and bones of new-born children were found everywhere.
At the period of the invasion of the churches and the monasteries, Franz Wessel, who at that time had discharged the functions of councillor for more than a twelvemonth, was charged with preventing at St. Catherine's the abstraction of precious objects. In order to cut short the idolatrous practices, he had a trench dug at the door of the garden of eighteen ells long, in which the images were buried. On the Holy Thursday, between four and six in the morning, the nuns whose retreat had been attacked were taken to St. Catherine's. Wessel received them courteously on the threshold of the cloister, took the abbess by the hand and intoned the popish hymn Veni, sponsa salvatoris, etc. The abbess begged of him to cease this joking, and rather to welcome her with some flagons of wine. Wessel objected that the hour was too early to begin drinking.
I have narrated the circumstances which compelled Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow to take refuge at my mother's with his two sons, Nicholas and Bertrand. The first-named, a doughty young man, good-looking and of independent character, had with great credit to himself terminated his studies. I have rarely seen such beautiful handwriting as his. Impatient to see the world, he felt himself cramped in Pomerania, and when he heard that Emperor Charles had an army in Italy, he induced his father to give him an outfit and to allow him to join it. Provided with a well-lined purse, he joined the Imperial troops, took part in the storming and sacking of Rome, got a great deal of loot, but fell ill and died.
Fate proved not more lenient to Doctor Zutfeld Wardenberg, also the son of a burgomaster. Berckmann and other writers have made him pass as a great prelate. Be this as it may; he certainly fancied himself a member of the Trinity which rules the universe. In his official functions he observed no law but his own sweet will. His own house contained a prison, and he behaved as if the council did not exist. In short, he wound up by setting the magistrates against him to such an extent that one night he judged it prudent to leave the city. His brother, Joachim, opened the gates to him without authority--a piece of daring which cost him ten weeks of imprisonment in the Blue Tower. At the sacking of Rome, Zutfeld Wardenberg tried to hide himself among the invalids of a hospital. He was soon discovered, killed, and everything taken away from him. In the church of St. Mary, at Stralsund, stands the handsome mausoleum he had prepared for himself, together with an epitaph setting forth his titles, but his body lies somewhere at Rome, no one knows where.
Burgomaster Smiterlow was as frank in his speech as he was open of heart. When he conversed in the street his strong and clear voice could be heard a couple of yards off. All his speeches began with "Yes, in the name of Jesus." One day, after dinner, he went into his stables where, as a rule, he had three horses; he saw one of his stablemen strike one of the animals with a pitchfork, saying, in imitation of himself, "In the name of Jesus." Smiterlow snatched the implement away from him, then stuck it between his shoulders so that he dropped down, and quietly remarked: "Now and again I cause people to cry 'In the name of all the devils.'"
According to the custom of the papists, my mother went at half-past twelve, especially during Lent, to recite a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria before each of the three altars of her ordinary church. She always took her little Bartholomäi with her. On one occasion I sat down on the steps of the first altar and began to relieve nature; when she passed on to the second, I followed her and continued the operation, which I finished on the third. When my mother perceived what had occurred she rushed home in hot haste and sent a servant with a broom to repair the mischief. Seeing how young she was when separated from her husband and left with four young children, it is not surprising that my mother had moments of sadness and discouragement. One day that she was cutting up some dry fish, a piece fell from the block. I picked it up. Without noticing my mother stooped at the same time, and as I was rising, the edge of the hatchet cut my forehead. The scar was never effaced. The Lord be praised, though, the accident had no further consequence.
Hartmann's family having received satisfaction, my father appointed to meet his wife and his children at the manse of Neuenkirchen. It was in the autumn and the pears were ripe. After having shaken down and eaten as many as they could, the children began to pelt each other with them. A big pear dropped under the hoofs of a couple of horses tied to a large pear tree. When I stooped to get hold of it, one of the animals dealt me a severe kick at the temple. There was general consternation, and the wound being seemingly dangerous, we came back immediately to town, and I was taken to the doctor.
The Dukes George and Barnim came to Stralsund with four hundred horsemen; they received homage and confirmed the privileges of the city. As for the claims of the priests, it was decided to refer them to the Imperial Chamber. Burgomasters, councillors, burghers, preachers (in all about threescore), were summoned to depose on oath before the Imperial Commissioners, sitting at Greifswald. The lawsuit cost the city a considerable sum; the clergy practically flung the money away, but the rector, Hippolytus Steinwer, began to perceive that the chances were turning against them, and one day he was found dead. It was believed he had strangled himself from vexation. That event put an end to the litigation. The priests returned one after another to Stralsund.
Gradually the sobered citizens began to open their eyes to the serious prejudice which was being done to public and private interests by the agitation of Moller. On the other hand, the princes had learned to know Smiterlow during the journey to Nuremberg; they were also aware of the esteem in which he had been held by their father. All those feelings showed themselves on the occasion of the rendering of homage. Rolof Moller was obliged to leave the city, and Burgomaster Smiterlow re-entered it on August 1, 1526. Moller, after a stay of several years at Stettin, received permission to come back to Stralsund, Smiterlow giving his consent; but scarcely a fortnight after his return had gone by when he died, it was said, of grief; and the assumption was sufficiently plausible.
Hence, Smiterlow spent the time of his exile at my mother's, at Greifswald, while his house at Stralsund sheltered my father. The wives of the two banished men went constantly and at all seasons from one town to another, through hail, snow, rain, frost and cold, and also to the great detriment of their purse and their health.
I have often been told afterwards I was a restless, energetic child. I often went up to the tower of St. Nicholas's, and on one occasion I made the round of it outside. My mother, standing on the threshold of her house, facing the church, was a witness of the feat, and dared scarcely breathe until her son came down safe and skin-whole. It would appear that little Bartholomäi had his reward at her hands.
While at Greifswald I had already been sent to school. Besides reading, I was taught declension, comparisons and conjugation, according to the grammar of Donat; after which we passed to Torrentinus. On Palm Sunday I was selected to intone the Quantus; the preceding years I had sung at first the short, then the long Hic est. What an honour for the child and for the parents! It was a real feast, for as a rule the sharpest boys are chosen those who, undeterred by the crowds of priests and laymen, bring out their clearest notes, especially for the Quantus. The continuation of this story will, however, soon show how, from being sanguine, my temperament became melancholy, and how my gaiety and recklessness vanished.
[CHAPTER II]
My Student's Days at Greifswald--Victor Bole and his tragical End--A Servant possessed by the Devil--My Brother Johannes' Preceptors and Mine--My Father's never-ending Law Suits
Having acquired the certainty that the Hartmanns would never consent to my father's return to Greifswald, my parents, like the conscientious married couple they were, desired to bear in common the domestic burdens. In the spring of 1528 my mother, after having let her dwelling at Greifswald, joined her husband at Stralsund, where he had the freeman's right and a tumble-down old house. My maternal grandfather, Christian Schwarz, at that time city treasurer, kept me with him in order to let me pursue my studies. I underwent the ceremonial of installation, a kind of burlesque function of initiation applied to novices. My tutor was George Normann, of the island of Rügen, who terminated his career in the service of the King of Sweden. I was the reverse of a studious boy and fonder of roving about with my relative in his journeys about Greifswald than of books. As a consequence my mental progress was in proportion to my efforts.
There was at Greifswald a burgomaster named Victor Bole, belonging to a notable family of the island of Rügen. Before he attained his civic honours he was a good evangelical and a zealous friend of the preachers, but his apostasy was thorough. As much as he had supported the ministry before his election, as much did he oppose them afterwards. I remember seeing him at the meetings of the corporation seated in the front place in virtue of his dual quality of eldest member and burgomaster, more or less in liquor, browbeating and talking everybody down (in High-German always). As he had taken part in several expeditions, fighting was the invariable theme of his discourses. He generally summoned the musicians, cymbal players and pipers before him. "Dost thou know a war cry?" he asked of a piper. "Yes, certainly," was the reply, while shrill notes rent the air. But the burgomaster was beaming. "This, at any rate, is a useful kind of fellow; while that Knipstro of Stralsund stammers in the pulpit about pap, pap, pap, I am sure he could play a war cry. Then what's the good of him?"
"Those who laugh last laugh loudest," says the proverb. That same year, 1528, the King of the May was Bertrand Smiterlow. I walked in front of him carrying his crown. Bole did Smiterlow the honour to prance by his side, being very pleased to parade his servants and his horses, of the latter of which he had four in his stable. If the skies had shown a little bit more clement we should have been very happy. But though it was the 1st May, there was not a bud nor a blade of grass to be seen. On the contrary, the snow powdered our procession with large flakes, both on coming and on going. As a consequence everybody was in a hurry to get back again. Odd to relate, the seed did not seem to suffer. After they had presented the crown to the May King in the city, everybody galloped back to his own roof tree. When the burgomaster reached his house he was taken with such violent colic that he had scarcely time to hand his horse to his servant before he dropped down dead. His neck was entirely twisted round, and his face was black. As a matter of course, people ascribed it to a visitation of God for having made fun of those who preached His Word.
In 1528 the States were called together at Stettin to ratify the pact of succession between the Elector of Brandenburg and the Dukes of Pomerania. The deputy of Greifswald, Burgomaster Gaspard Bunsaw, my mother's first cousin, took me with him as page, or rather as companion, and also to enable me to see something new. Our host had a magnificent garden; on the banks of a vast lake uprose a vast tower with an inside staircase, closed by a trap. One day that the company was amusing itself in watching the carps from that tower, I hauled myself up to the window out of curiosity, but I forgot the yawning trap door behind me, and was flung right to the bottom. It was a miracle that I did not break my neck, or, at any rate, my arms and my legs. Heaven preserved me by means of its angels, who frustrate the tricks of the Evil One.
At the age of five, Nicholas, the eldest son of Bertrand Smiterlow, was already much taller and stronger than I; this incarnate fiend worried all the children of the neighbourhood, and instead of reprimanding him, his father took no notice of the complaints against him. This indulgence bore such excellent fruit that in order to prevent disputes and perhaps personal violence between young Nicholas' father and the neighbours, Christian Schwarz considered it advisable to take Nicholas to live with him, and so we shared the same bed. One morning as we were dressing on the big locker at the foot of the bed, the youngster, without saying a word and out of sheer mischief, hit me right in the chest and made me tumble backward, a downright dangerous fall. The grandfather gave a dinner-party to his children and other people. Late in the evening the servants came with links to take their masters home. While they were waiting for that purpose, Nicholas began to play them tricks, which they endured from fear of the grandfather. Rendered bold by impunity, Nicholas struck some of the servants on the lips, but one of these retorted by a box on the ears which sent Nicholas whining to his grandfather. After the banquet the lanterns were lighted, and everybody was preparing to get home quietly when Bertrand Smiterlow, drawing his knife, rushed at the offending servant, who was lighting his master on his way, and wounded him seriously in the shoulder. On account of all this Christian Schwarz preferred to send me back to Stralsund to leaving me to enjoy the risky society of Nicholas. The boy grew up and his faults with him, for they amused his father, who encouraged them while nobody dared to say a word in protest. Nicholas had reached the age of twenty-seven when travelling to Rostock, he stopped for the night at Roevershagen. Some travellers, knowing his quarrelsome character, preferred to take themselves and their conveyance to the inn opposite. One of these had a sporting dog, which, running about, found its way into the hostel where Smiterlow was staying. The latter tied up the animal, did not send it back, and next morning the rightful owner saw it being taken away on a leash. Naturally, the man claimed his dog. Smiterlow, instead of giving him a civil answer, takes aim at him; the other, more prompt, quickly fires a bullet into the thigh. Smiterlow, in his wounded condition, got as far as Rostock, had his wound attended to; nevertheless died a few days later in consequence. The merchant continued his route without troubling himself, and no one lodged a complaint. Bertrand Smiterlow contracted the itch in the back; father and son, therefore, had their just reward. Heaven preserve me from criticizing the descendants of Herr Smiterlow, to whom I am doubly related, but I trust that mine will bring up their children in a more severe discipline and in the respect of their fellow-men.
In 1529 the English pest which had already been spoken of during the previous year, carried away many people at Stralsund. My mother had two attacks, from both of which she fortunately recovered. Being enceinte with my brother Christian, she ordered, like the good housewife she was, a general cleaning before her confinement. It so happened that we had a servant-girl who was possessed. Nobody had the faintest suspicion of this. When, at the moment of cleaning the kitchener and cooking utensils, she began noisily to fling about saucepans, frying-pans, etc., crying at the top of her voice, "I want to get out, I want to get out." Her mother, who lived in the Zinngiesser Strasse (Pewterers' Street), had to take her back. The poor girl was taken several times in a sleigh to St. Nicholas's, and they exorcised her after the sermon. Her case, as far as the answers tended to show, was as follows: The mother had brought new cheese at the market. In her absence, the daughter had opened the cupboard and made a large breach in the cheese; the mother, on her return, had expressed the wish that the devil might take the perpetrator of this thing, and from that moment dated the "possession." The girl had, nevertheless, been to Communion since; how, then, could the Evil One have kept his position? The priest, interrogated on that point, had answered: "The scoundrel, who has hidden himself under a bridge, lets the honest man pass over his head"; in other words, during the sacramental act, the Evil One hid himself under the girl's tongue. The Evil One was excommunicated and exorcised by the faithful on their bended knees. The formula of exorcism was received with derision. When the priest summoned him to go, he exclaimed: "I am agreeable, but you do not expect me to go with empty hands. I want this, and that, and the other." If they refused him one thing he asked for something quite different; and inasmuch as one of the faithful had remained "covered" during prayers, the Evil One politely snatched up his hat, and if God had let him have his own way, hair and skin would have accompanied the headgear.
At about the same period I witnessed an analogous fact. Frau Kron, an honest and pious matron, was possessed by a demon; the minister was preparing to drive it out at all costs when Frau Wolff entered. She was a young woman who surpassed her sisters in the art of beautifying her face, arranging her cap, and posing before the looking glass. When the evil spirit caught sight of her, he shouted. "Ah, you are here, are you? Just wait a bit till I arrange your cap before the mirror. Your ears shall tingle, I can tell you."
To come back to our own servant. When the power of mischief noticed that the time for tormenting her had passed away, and that the Lord was granting the prayers of the faithful, the Evil One asked in a mocking tone a pane of the belfry's window, which request was no sooner accorded to him than the pane shivered into ever so many splinters. The girl, however, ceased to be possessed; she married in the village, and had several children.
My brother Johannes had for his first tutor Herr Aepinus, before the latter had his doctor's degree,[[14]] and afterwards Hermannus Bonus,[[15]] who would have been pleased to settle at Stralsund with fifty florins per annum, but the council of that particular period did not contain one member who had had a university training. Like the princes the council inclined towards papism, and looked askance at men of letters; hence, it rejected Bonnus' overtures. The latter soon afterwards became the tutor of the young King of Denmark, for whose use he composed his Praecepta Grammaticae, which was much more easy than the Donat Grammar, and prevails to the present day under the title of the Grammatica Bonni. At his return from Denmark, Bonnus was appointed superintendent at Lubeck, where he is interred honorifice behind the choir.
When my brother left the school at Lubeck, my parents made many heavy sacrifices to keep him at Wittemberg for several years, where, notwithstanding some delicta juventutis, he studied with advantage.
My tutor's name was Matthias Brassanus. At the outset of his career he had been a monk at the monastery of Camp, but at the suppression of the institution he had lived at Wittemberg at the cost of the prince, like Leonard Meisisch, the future court preacher and minister at Wolgast, and afterwards pastor at Altenkirchen--a downright Epicurean pig! Brassanus, on the other hand, was a small, polite, temperate, well-bred, evenly balanced man. After his stay at Wittemberg he became the preceptor of George and Johannes Smiterlow, and afterwards rector scholae. Their worships of Lubeck having prevailed upon the council of Stralsund to part with this able teacher, Brassanus devoted the whole of his life successfully directing the school of Lubeck.
I profited as much by the lessons as my natural restlessness of character permitted. There was a great deal of aptitude, but the application failed. In the winter time I ran amusing myself on the floating ice with my fellow-scholars of my own age. Johannes Gottschalk, our ringleader, always got scot-free, thanks to his long legs, while the rest of the gang (and I was invariably with them) took many enforced footbaths in order to get safely to the banks. My father, in crossing the bridge had occasion more than once to witness the prowess of his son, who received many a sound drubbing when he came to dry himself before the stove, for my father was a choleric gentleman. In summer I was in the habit of bathing with my chums behind Lorbeer's grange, which at present is my property. Burgomaster Smiterlow, having noticed me from his garden, told of me, and one day, while I was still asleep, my father planted himself in front of my bed, flourishing a big stick. He spoke very loudly while placing himself into position, and I was obliged to open my eyes. The sight of the club told me that my hour had come; I burst into tears and pleaded for mercy. "Very well, my good sir," said my father; when he called me "my good sir" it was a bad sign. "Very well, my good sir, you have been bathing; now allow me to rub you down." Saying which, he got hold of his weapon, pulled my shirt over my head, and did frightful execution.
My parents brought us up carefully. My father was somewhat hasty, and now and again his anger carried him beyond all bounds. I put him out of temper one day when he was in the stable and I at the door. He caught up a pitchfork and flung it at me. I had just time to get out of the way; the pitchfork stuck into a bath made of oak, and they had much trouble to get it out. In that way the Evil One was frustrated in all his designs against me by Providence. In a similar case, my mother, who was gentleness and tenderness itself, came running to the spot. "Strike harder," she said, "the wicked boy deserves all he gets." At the same time she slyly held back the arm of her husband, preventing the stick from coming down too heavily. Oh, my children, pray that the knowledge may be vouchsafed to you of bringing up your family in the way they should go. Correct them temperately, without compromising either their health or their intelligence, but at the same time do not imitate the apes who from excess of tenderness, smother their young.
Rector Brassanus insisted upon his pupils being present when he preached. Some were clever enough to get away on the sly; they went to buy pepper cakes, and repaired afterwards to the dram shop. The trick was done before there was time to look round. When the sermon drew to its close, every one was in his place again, and we went back to school as if nothing had happened. One day, however, we drank so much brandy that I felt horribly sick and vomited violently, and found it impossible either to keep on my legs or to articulate a syllable. The strongest of my schoolfellows took me home. My parents were under the impression that I was seriously ill; had they suspected the real cause of my malady, their treatment would have been less tender. When, at last, I avowed the truth, the fear of punishment had long ago vanished. The adventure was productive of some good. It inspired me with a thorough disgust for brandy, so that I could not even bear the smell of it.
My daily playmate was George Smiterlow, for we were neighbours, nearly relatives, and of about the same age, I being but a year older than he. One day he cut me with his knife between the index and the thumb, and I still bear the scar.
As I was whittling a piece of wood, my sister Anna snatched it away from me, and in trying to get it back again, I drove the chisel into my right thigh up to the handle. Master Joachim Gelhaar, an excellent chirurgus, renowned far and wide, began by probing the wound, and by getting the bad blood out of it; after which he dressed it with a cabbage leaf which was constantly kept moist. I was just recovering the use of my leg again when I took it into my head to go to the wood with my schoolfellows, for it was always difficult for me to keep still. The fatigue thus incurred caused a relapse. Next morning I dragged myself as far as the surgeon, who suspected my excursion, and swore at seeing a month of his efforts wasted. I should have been in a nice predicament if he had complained to my father.
In 1531, on the Monday before St. Bartholomew, they burned at Stralsund, Bischof, a tailor who had outraged his own daughter, aged twelve. The fellow was so strong that he jumped from the pyre when the fire had destroyed his bonds, but the executioner plunged his knife into him, and flung him back into the flames.
The following happened in June, 1532. A young fellow, good-looking, and with most fascinating manner, but by no means well enough in worldly goods, courted a more or less well-preserved widow, notwithstanding her nine children of her first husband, which subsequently she increased by another nine of her second. Tempted by the amiability, the appearance, and the demeanour of the youngster, the dame consented to be his wife. The happy day was already fixed, the viands ordered, and the preparations completed, but the bridegroom was at a loss how to pay for his wedding clothes, the customary presents and other things. Hence, one fine evening he left the city, and in the early morn reached the village of Putten, where, espying a ladder on a peasant's cart, he puts it against the wall of the church, breaks one of its windows, gets inside, forces the reliquary, possessing himself of the chalices, other holy vessels, all the gold and silver work, not forgetting the wooden box containing the money. After which, taking the way whence he had come, he flung away the box and entered the city laden with the spoil.
A local cowherd, driving his cattle to the field, happened to pick up the box. At the selfsame moment the sight of the ladder and of the broken window sets the whole of the place, rector, beadle, clerk, and peasantry, mad with excitement. The whole village is up in arms; the neighbouring roads are scoured in search of the perpetrator of the sacrilege. At twelve o'clock, the cowherd comes back with the box. He is arrested; the patrons of the church, who reside in the city, have him put to the torture. He confesses to the theft. There was, nevertheless, the absolute impossibility for him to have got rid of the stolen objects, inasmuch as he had been guarding his cattle during the five or six hours that had gone by between the robbery and his arrest; the slightest inquiry would have conclusively proved his innocence. In spite of this, the confession dragged from the poor wretch by unbearable pain, appears most conclusive. Condemned there and then, he is there and then put on the wheel. The real culprit watched the execution with the utmost composure.
The proceeds of this first crime were, however, by no means sufficient to defray the cost of the wedding, and the bridegroom forced another church. He took a reliquary and a holy vessel, reduced them to fragments, and tried to sell them to some goldsmiths at Greifswald. This time he was unable to lead the pursuers off the scent. Having been arrested in the house of my wife's parents, he was racked alive, and his body left to the carrion birds.
A similar tragedy took place between the Easter and Whitsun of 1544. I anticipate events, because the horror of them was pretty well equal, but there was a great difference in the procedure. In the one case, deplorable acts, at variance with all wisdom, and disgraceful to Christians; in the other place, a thoroughly laudable conduct, consistent with right and reason. On his return from Leipzig, whither he had gone to buy books, Johannes Altingk, the son of the late Werner Altingk, a notable citizen and bookseller of Stralsund, was killed on the road from Anelam to Greifswald. In consequence of active inquiries, two individuals on whom rested grave suspicions, were incarcerated at Wolgast. But the case was proceeded with more methodically than the one I have just narrated. The magistrates went with the instruments of torture to the prisoner, who seemed the least resolved. He made a complete avowal. His companion and he had put up for the night at an inn at Grosskistow; Johannes Altingk had taken his seat at their table and shared their meal. Then, before going to bed, he had paid for all three, showing at the same time a well filled purse. The scoundrels had at once made up their minds between them to kill him at a little distance from the inn on the foot-road, intersected here and there by deep ruts, and where consequently there was only room to pass in single file. "Next morning, then, when the young bookseller was marching along between his fellow-travellers, I struck him at the back of the head;" said the accused. "The blow knocked him off his feet; we soon made an end of him altogether, and flung his body to the bottom of the deep bog. With my part of the spoil I bought myself this hat and this pair of shoes."
After this interrogatory, the judges, accompanied by the executioner and his paraphernalia, went to the second prisoner, who denied everything. It was in vain they pressed him and told him of his accomplice's avowal; he went on denying everything. When they were confronted, the one who had been first examined repeated all the particulars of the crime, beseeching the other to prevent a double martyrdom, inasmuch as the truth would be dragged from them by torture, and the punishment was unavoidable. No doubt the Stralsund authorities, those who had judged the above named perpetrator of the sacrilege, would have put the accused on the rack without the least compunction or ceremony, de simplice et piano, sine strepitu judicii, quemadmodum Deus procedere solet. At Wolgast, on the contrary, though the hangman had orders to hold himself in readiness, ad actum propinquum, the magistrates preferred to exercise some delay. The prince had the bog examined, but no body was found there. When taken to the spot, the prisoner who had confessed his guilt recognized the place of the murder, without being able, however, to point it out accurately. The landlord and his wife at Gross-Kistow, when examined carefully, denied having lodged any one at the period indicated.
Finally, a messenger of the Brandenburg March brought the news that an assassin condemned to death confessed to having killed in Pomerania a young librarian, for which crime two individuals were under lock and key at Wolgast. When taxed with having almost caused the death of innocent people by false avowals, the self-confessed murderer replied that death seemed to him preferable to the "criminal question," as that kind of torture was called. Their acquittal was pronounced on their taking the oath to bring no further action.
But this only shows the precautions to be taken before applying the instruments of torture to merely suspected men. On the other hand, it has been shown over and over again that some of the guilty hardened to that kind of thing will allow themselves to be torn to pieces sooner than avow.
In that year (1531) Duke George died in the prime of his life. His second wife was the sister to Margrave Joachim; they got rid of her for about 40,000 florins, and she subsequently married a prince of Anhalt, but finally she eloped with a falconer.
My mother having realized all her property at Greifswald, my parents really possessed a considerable fortune in sterling coin, and they called my father "the rich man of the Passen Strasse." It wanted, however, but a few years to shake his credit and to impair the happiness of his family. Without exaggeration, two women, named Lubbeke and Engeln were the principal causes of our reverses. Not content to buy on credit our cloth, which they resold to heaven knows who, they borrowed of my father, fifty, a hundred, and as much as a hundred and fifty crowns on the slightest pretext. The crown in those days was worth eight and twenty shillings of Lubeck. They promised to refund at eight and twenty and a half, and to settle for their purchases at the same rate; but if now and again they happened to make a payment on account of a hundred florins, they took care to buy at the same time goods for double the amount. My mother did not look kindly upon those two customers; she imagined that her money would be better invested at five per cent., and she spared neither warnings, prayers, nor tears to dissuade my father from trusting them. She even took Pastor Knipstrow and others into her confidence to that effect. Finally, the account came to a considerable amount, while the debtors were unable to pay as much as twenty florins. Then it transpired what had become of the cloth. The mother of one townsman, Jacob Leveling, had had 800 florins of it; the wife of another, Hermann Bruser, 1,725 florins. Hermann Bruser was a big cloth merchant who sold retail much cheaper than any of his fellow-tradesmen.
My father having taken proceedings against his two customers as well as against the woman Bruser, the latter and her husband promised to pay the 1,725 florins. Nicholas Rode, who had married Bruser's sister, and the syndic of the city, Johannes Klocke, afterwards burgomaster, induced my father to accept that arrangement, and Bruser secured conditions after having signed an acknowledgment beginning as follows: "I, together with my legitimate wife, declare to be duly and lawfully indebted to etc., etc." The syndic had drawn up this act with his own hand. He had affixed his signature to it, and his seal, and Rode had in the latter two respects done the same. But the period of the first payment coinciding with the tumult against Nicholas Smiterlow, Bruser, one of the ringleaders, thought he could have the whip hand of my father as well as of the burgomaster. On his refusal to pay, the case came before the court once more; and then, while denying his debt, in spite of the formal terms of his declaration, Bruser denounced as usurious agreements obtained by litigation. Klocke and Rode assisted him with their advice and influence; the first-named, in his capacity of a lawyer, conducted the suit, and quoting the leges et doctorum opiniones, easily convinced his non-legally educated colleagues of the council. The Westphalian Cyriacus Erckhorst, the son-in-law of Rode, and a velvet merchant, plotted on his side. There were golden florins for the all-powerful burgomaster Lorbeer, and pieces of dress-material for Mrs. Burgomaster; so that, after long arguments on both sides, Bruser was allowed to swear that he was ignorant of the affair, which, moreover, was tainted with usury. My father could not conceive that this personage would have the audacity to deny his signature, and, supported in his supposition by Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, he did not appeal against the judgment, and at the next sitting Bruser appeared at the bar of the inner court, took the oath, and offered to comply with the second part of the order; only, in consequence of the absence of his witness he claimed a delay of a twelvemonth and a day, which was accorded to him; after which my father appealed to the council of Stralsund and afterwards to that of Lubeck.
In due time my father started for Lubeck, and took me with him. At Rostock, we lodged at the sign of The Hop, in the Market Place. My father had a considerable sum upon him to pay cash for his purchases of salt, salted cod-fish and soap, and as a measure of precaution, he carried that money in his small clothes, for Mecklenburg was infested by footpads and highwaymen. While undressing, he dropped his purse under the bed, an accident which he did not notice until next day about twelve o'clock, when we had reached Bukow. As the court was just about to open it fell to my lot to take the road back to Rostock per pedes. On that day I could get no further than Berkentin, but very early next morning I was at Rostock. Naturally, I rushed to the inn and to the room. Luckily the servants had not made the beds. I soon espied the little bag and was in time to take the coach to Wismar. My father, uneasy on my account, was already reproaching himself for having let me go.
Their worships of Lubeck condemned Bruser to keep his written promise; he then appealed to the Imperial Chamber. The suit dragged along for several years; finally, the supreme decision was to the effect that it had been well judged, but improperly thrown into appeal in the first instance, and that in the second it had been faultily judged and properly sent for appeal. The defendant was condemned to pay the costs to be determined by the judge.
And now I may be permitted to give an instance of the disloyalty of the procurators of the Imperial Chamber. Doctor Simeon Engelhardt, my father's procurator, did not hesitate to write to him that he had won his case, and asked for the bill of costs of the two previous instances, so that he might hand them to the taxing judge and apply for execution. He added that the trouble he had taken with the affair seemed to him to warrant special fees. My parents, elated with the news, promptly transmitted the bill of costs and their fees for the execution. Engelhardt produced the cedula expensarum; Bruser's procurator requested copy, not without pretending to raise objection. Engelhardt delivered the required copy, leaving to the judge the case of designating the winning party; in other words, the one who had the right to present the designatio expensarum. Well, that right was adjudged to Bruser, who drew up the cedula after ours. Engelhardt was compelled to hold his tongue and my father had to pay 164 florins.
That point having been settled, they passed to the second membrum of the Stralsund judgment; namely, whether the conditions stipulated for by my father were tainted with usury? After such an expensive and protracted lawsuit, the court, considering that Bruser had failed in his attempt to bring proof, condemned him to fulfil his engagements. Against that sentence he appealed to Lubeck. Having been non-suited there, he wished to have recourse to the Imperial Chamber, but we signified opposition to the exceptio devolutionis. According to us, he had not complied with the privilege of Lubeck. Bruser's procurator maintained the contrary. The whole of the discussion bore entirely on the sense of the word "wann" inserted in the Lubeck vidimus. Was it a conjunctio causalis, cum posteaquam, or an adverbium temporis, quando? After long-drawn debates, the appeal was rejected, and Bruser had all the costs to pay.
Then, to frustrate his adversary, he pleaded poverty on oath, although he gave to his daughter as many pearls and jewels as a burgomaster's girl could possibly pretend to. Foreseeing the upshot of the lawsuit, he had already disposed of one of his houses; after which he bestirred himself to safeguard his dwelling-house, his cellar and his various other property from being seized. Nicholas Rode, he who had signed the obligation, deposed to that effect, a document professedly anterior to my father's claim, an act constituting in his favour a general mortgage on all Bruser's property. As a matter of course, this led to a new lawsuit, which occupied respectively the courts of Stralsund and of Lubeck and the Imperial Chamber. The latter registered Rode's appeal at the moment the Protestant States denied its jurisdiction. A suspension of six years was the result, but after the reconstitution of the chamber and the closure of the debates, I did not succeed, in spite of two years' stay at Spires, in getting a judgment.
Weary of being involved in law for thirty-four years, my father wound up by acquitting the heirs of Rode of all future liabilities in consideration of a sum of one thousand florins. As it happened the original debt was seventeen hundred and five and twenty florins; in addition to this, my father had refunded to Bruser one hundred and sixty-four florins expenses, his own costs exceeded a thousand florins and he had waited forty years for his money. The whole affair was nothing short of a downright calamity to our family; it interrupted my studies and caused the death of my brother Johannes. "Dimidium plus toto," says Hesiod, and the maxim is above all wise in connexion with a law-suit at the Imperial Chamber.
Writing, as I do, for the edification of my children, I consider it useful to mention here the subsequent fate of our godless adversaries. The seventy-fifth Psalm says: "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red, and he poured out of the same, but the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them." Yes, the Almighty has comforted me, he has permitted me to see the scattering of my enemies. The two principal ones, Hermann Bruser and his fraudulent wife, fell into abject misery; they lived for many years on the bounty of parents and friends; finally the husband became valet of Joachim Burwitz who from the position of porter and general servant at the school when I was young had risen to be the secretary of the King of Sweden. The devil, however, twisted Bruser's neck at Stockholm. He was found in his master's wardrobe, his face all distorted. His daughter, dowered in fraudem mei patris, did, for all that, not escape very close acquaintance with poverty. She sold her houses and her land; and at her death her husband became an inmate of the asylum of the Holy Ghost, where he is to this day. Bruser's son, it is true, rose to be a secretary in Sweden, but far from prospering, he committed all kind of foolish acts everywhere. His first wife, the daughter of Burgomaster Gentzkow,[[16]] died of grief at Stralsund, where he had left her with her children at his departure for Sweden. He was found dead one morning in his room; his descendants are vegetating some in the city, some in the country.
The author of the plot, the honest dispenser of advice, Johannes Klocke, managed to keep his wealth, but he was racked with gout and had to be carried in a chair to the Town Hall; he died after having suffered martyrdom for many years. The four sons of Nicholas Rode were reduced to beggary; the house Bruser sold in order to cheat my father actually belongs to my son-in-law. As for Burgomaster Christopher Lorbeer, so skilled in prolonging law-suits, does he not expiate, he and his, every day, the wrong in having lent himself to corruption. Erckhorst, the man who tempted him, was robbed while engaged in transporting from one town to another two large bundles of velvet, silk, jewellery and pearls, the whole being estimated at several thousands of florins. His second wife was the byword of the city for her levity of conduct; at every moment she was caught in her own dwelling-house and in the most untoward spots committing acts of criminal intercourse with her apprentices. What had been saved from the thieves was devoured by his wife's paramours. Absolutely at a loss to reinstate himself in his former position, Erckhorst made an end of his life by stabbing himself.
My father's other debtor, the woman Leveling, was left a widow with an only son. Her property in houses and in land yielded, it was said, a golden florin and a fowl per day. That fortune, nevertheless, melted away, and Leveling, worried by her creditors, was obliged to quit her house with nothing but what she stood up in. Lest her son, a horrible ne'er-do-well of fifteen, should spend his nights in houses of ill-fame, she kept a mistress for him at home; after that she married him at such an early age as to astonish everybody, but he cared as much about the sanctity of marriage as a dog cares about Lent. During the ceremonies connected with rendering homage to Duke Philip, the duchess lodged at Leveling's and stood godmother to his new-born daughter, which honour had not the slightest effect in changing the scandalous life he led with a concubine. One night, in company with a certain Valentin Buss, he emptied the baskets in the pond of the master of the fishmongers. An arrant thief, he was fast travelling towards the gallows. Buss, who wound up by going to prison, would have been hanged but for Leveling, who in order to redeem himself parted to the council with his last piece of ground, namely, that in which his father's body rested in the church. One day at the termination of the sermon, Leveling, sword in hand, pursued my father, who had just time to reach his domicile and to shut the door in his face. On the other hand, Master Sonnenberg, who sheltered the old woman Leveling while she was negotiating with her creditors, was not content with egging on her son to all sorts of evil deeds, but had the effrontery to say to my father: "I'll tame you so well that you shall come and eat out of my hands."
After having squandered his inheritance, Leveling died in the most abject poverty; his daughter Marie, the duchess' goddaughter, sells fish in the market. Such was the end of the wealthy popinjay. Mother and son followed the traditions of their family without having profited by the lessons of the past; one of the woman Leveling's relatives was, in fact, that Burgomaster Wulf Wulflam, reputed the richest man on that part of the coast,[[17]] whose wife was so fond of show and splendour that at her second marriage she sent for the prince's musicians from Stettin and walked from her house to the church on an English carpet. For her own wear she only used the finest Riga flax. So much vainglory was punished by the God of Justice, who expels from His kingdom the proud and haughty. The only thing she had finally left of all her magnificence was a silver bowl with which she went begging from door to door. "Charity," she cried, "for the poor rich woman." One day she asked from one of her former servants a shift and some linen for a collar to it. Moved with pity, the latter did not refuse. "Madame," she said, "this linen was made of the flax you used for your own wear. I have carefully picked it up, cleaned and spun it."[[18]]
The arrangement made by the Levelings with their creditors gave to my father the passage of the Muhlen-Strasse. Inasmuch as the premises were tumbling to pieces, masons, carpenters, stonecutters and plasterers were soon set to work and began by expelling the rats, mice and doubtful human creatures that had taken up their quarters there. The best tenement adjoining the city wall with a beautiful look-out on the moats and the open country was occupied by the concubine of Zabel Lorbeer. She was one of the three Maries, and had presented him with either seven or eight bastards. My father, finding the door locked one morning, ordered the workmen to knock down the wall which fell on the bed where the scamp and the girl were sleeping; the only thing they could do was to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Lorbeer brought up his progeny according to the principles that guided him; and finally had his son beheaded to save him the disgrace of the gallows.
A short digression is necessary in connexion with the three Maries.[[19]] They were sisters, exceedingly good-looking, but the poet's "Et quidem servasset, si non formosa fuisset," essentially applied to them. Many traps are laid for beauty, and they one after another fell into them. They lived on their charms, being particularly careful about their appearance and dress in order to attract admirers. Their attempts to obtain such notice were seconded by an unspeakable old crone, Anna Stranck, who had been a downright Messalina in her time, and of whom it was said that she could reckon on the whole of the city among her parentage, although she had neither husband nor children, but that she had had illicit intercourse with every male, young, old and middle-aged, fathers, sons and brothers. Anna Stranck invented for the use of the three Maries a kind of loose coif, the fashion of which our womenkind have religiously preserved; even those who have discarded it wearing a velvet hood based upon that model. They brought their hair, black or grey about two inches down on the forehead. Then came as many inches of gold lace or embroidery, so that the real cap, intended to keep the head warm did not in the least cover the brain. I am purposely quoting the name of Anna Stranck, for it is well to remind people to whom the headgear was due in the first instance; and may it please our dames to preserve it for ever in memory of the woman, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother of their husbands.
I now resume my personal narrative. During the rebuilding of this new property, I was fetching and carrying all the while. One day my father sent me to our own house for the luncheon for himself and for the carpenters. The workmen were just knocking down a chimney; they were working higher than the chimney on a gangway made of boards which at each extremity overlapped the stays. A great number of large nails were strewn about the scaffolding. I climbed up, with my arms full of provisions, but scarcely did I set my foot on the gangway than the gangway toppled over and I was flung into space, the nails descending in a shower on my head. I just happened to fall by the side of the open chimney; half an ell more or less and I should have been through its aperture on the ground floor. As it was, the accident proved sufficiently serious. I had dislocated my right elbow and horribly bruised my arm. They took me home, whence my mother took me to Master Joachim Gelhaar. He was absent, and inasmuch as the case seemed urgent, they had recourse to the barber in the Old Market, who dressed the bruises without noticing that the bone was dislocated. Next morning Master Gelhaar came. A simple glance was sufficient for him; he grasped my arm, pulled and twisted it and put the bones back into their sockets. But the limb was bruised and swollen and twisted. I shall never forget the pain I suffered. In a little while, though, I was enabled to go about the house as usual with one arm in a sling, and the other available for our childish pastimes.
The old beams and rafters of the premises under repair were stacked at our place. One day, while perched on one of the piles, I struck out with a hammer in my left hand; one of the beams rolled down and my leg was caught between it and the other wood. The pain made me cry out lustily, but it was impossible to disengage my leg. My mother was not strong enough for the task, and making sure that my leg was crushed, she shouted and fetched the navvies and the brewery workmen; they delivered me. When she was certain that no harm had come to me, my mother, still excited, treated me to a good drubbing. On New Year's Day, 1533, my father was elected dean of the Corporation of Drapers.[[20]]
[CHAPTER III]
Showing the Ingratitude, Foolishness and Wickedness of the People, and how, when once infected with a bad Spirit, it returns with Difficulty to Common-Sense--Smiterlow, Lorbeer and the Duke of Mecklenburg--Fall of the seditious Regime of the Forty-Eight
The ecclesiastical affairs of Stralsund had assumed more or less regular conditions; the Gospel was preached in all the churches without opposition either on the part of the princes or of the council. Smiterlow had sanctioned the return of Rolof Moller. Nevertheless, peace was not maintained for long, Lubeck, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar having revolted against their magistrates. In fact, at the death of King Frederick of Denmark, George Wullenweber,[[21]] burgomaster of Lubeck, having for his acolyte Marx Meyer, decided to declare war upon Duke Christian of Holstein.
According to Wullenweber, the conquest of Denmark was a certainty; and inasmuch as the magistrates of Lubeck, belonging to the old families, looked with apprehension on the enterprise, they were deposed and sixty burghers added to their successors.
Marx Meyer was a working blacksmith with a handsome face and figure. Being a skilful farrier he had accompanied the cavalry in several campaigns, and his conduct both with regard to his comrades and the enemy had been such as to gain for him the highest grades. He was created a Knight in England and amassed a considerable fortune. His rise in the world filled him, however, with inordinate pride and vanity. Nothing in the way of sumptuous garments and golden ornaments seemed good enough to emphasize his knightly dignity. He had a crowd of retainers and a stable full of horses, for like the majority of folk of low birth, he knew of no bounds in his prosperity. Odd to relate, he was courted by people of good condition; women both young, rich and well-born fell in love with this, and it would appear that he gave them no cause to regret their infatuation. I have read a letter written to him by one of the foremost ladies of quality of Hamburg: "My dear Marx, after having visited all the chapels, you might for once in a way come to the cathedral." May his death be accounted as an instance of everlasting justice.
In June 1534 the councillors of the Wendish cities,[[22]] apprehending a disaster and being moreover exceedingly grieved at this struggle against the excellent Duke of Holstein, foregathered at Hamburg to consider the state of affairs. Wullenweber, however, presumptuous as was his wont, became more obstinate than ever and rejected with scorn most acceptable terms of peace. Hence, the Stralsund delegate, Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, addressed the following prophetic words to him: "I have been present at many negotiations, but never have I seen matters treated like this, Signor George. You will knock your head against the wall and you shall fall on your beam end." After that apostrophe, Wullenweber, furious with anger, left the council-chamber, made straight for his inn, had his and Meyer's horses saddled and both took the way back to Lubeck, where immediately after his arrival Wullenweber summoned his undignified council and the aforementioned sixty burghers, who between them decree in the twinkling of an eye a levy of troops; dispatching meanwhile to the council of Stralsund a blatant sedition-monger, Johannes Holm, with verbal instructions and a missive couched substantially as follows: "Wullenweber is zealously working to bring principalities and kingdoms under the authority of the cities, but the opposition of Burgomaster Smiterlow has driven him from the diet. In spite of this, the struggle is bound to continue, so it lays with you to act."
Nothing more than that was wanted to stir the whole of the citizens against Smiterlow. The Forty-Eight came to tender their condolence to Burgomaster Lorbeer who was secretly jealous of his colleague. Pretending to be greatly concerned, he exclaimed: "This is too much, impossible to defend him any longer." His hearers took it for granted that Smiterlow was left to their discretion, while, according to Lorbeer himself, the ambiguous words merely signified: "Smiterlow has so many enemies that I can no longer come to his aid."
At Smiterlow's return, the fire so skilfully fed by Lorbeer broke into flame. People hailed each other with the cry, "Nicholas the Pacific is here." The delegate had to deliver an account of his mission to the burghers summoned to that effect at six in the morning, at the Town Hall, with the city-gates closed and the cannon taken out of the arsenal and placed in position in the Old Markets The crowd poured into the streets, and at the Town Hall itself people were crushing the life out of each other. When Nicholas Smiterlow came to his statement that he had opposed Wullenweber's warlike motions, there was a hurricane of cries, curses and insults; it sounded as if they had all gone stark mad at once. It was proposed to fling the speaker out of the window; an axe was flung at the Councillors' bench and in endeavouring to intercept the weapon the worshipful Master Kasskow was severely wounded. One individual placed himself straight in front of the burgomaster. "You scum of the earth," he yelled; "did you not unjustly fine me twenty florins? Now it is my turn." "What's your name?" asked Smiterlow. "That's right," he said on its being given; "it was a piece of injustice, he ought to have had the gallows. I was sheriff at the time and the council instructed me to fine you twenty florins. My register of fines can show you that I did not keep them for myself, but spent them for the good of the city." His interlocutor wished to hear no more and disappeared in the crowd.
It should also be noted that the beggars who generally hung about the burgomaster's dwelling were all the while vociferating under the windows of the Town Hall. "Fling Nicholas the Pacific down to us," they shouted; "we'll cut him up and play ball with the pieces." One of the Forty-Eight having asked, "What do you think of it, my worthy burghers?" the rabble yelled, "Yes, yes," without the faintest idea of the nature of the question. Somebody thereupon observed, "Why are you shouting 'Yes'? Are you willing to hand over the public chest?" Thereupon there was an equally unanimous and stentorian "No." Unquestionably the devil had occasion on that day to laugh at the people in his sleeve.
This martyring of the first burgomaster, an eminent, virtuous man, who had, moreover, attained a certain age, was prolonged till seven o'clock at night. Finally, he received the order not to leave his quarters. Similar injunctions were inflicted on my father in his capacity of nephew by marriage to the burgomaster, and to Joachim Rantzow for having exclaimed, "Gently, gently; at least give people a chance to explain themselves."
The soldiers and sailors were enjoined at the sound of the drum to man the galleys, and a strict watch was kept. At night a strong squad encamped in front of Smiterlow's dwelling; the soldiers, among other pastimes, amused themselves with firing at the front door; the bullets passed out at the other side of the passage through a circular glazed aperture. There were many hours of anguish for the burgomaster, his wife and children, who expected at every moment to have their home invaded by the mob.
On the Monday of St. John they elected two burgomasters, namely, Joachim Prütze, the erewhile town clerk, an honest and sensible man, and Johannes Klocke, the actual town clerk and syndicus. Seven burghers were elected councillors; with the exception of Secretary Johannes Senckestack, who had had no hand in the thing, they were all honest, uninteresting folk, as simple-minded as they were upright and virtuous. Johannes Tamme, for instance, a worthy and straightforward man, replied to the artizans and others who came to complain of the bad state of business: "Make your mind easy; it will change now that seven capable people form part of the council." Antique simplicity indeed. Nicholas Baremann boasted of earning ten marks each time he left his home. One day he went into the cellar to look at a barrel of salt-fish, he was accompanied by a servant who was not altogether right in his head. In those days men wore round their necks a very narrow collar of pleated tulle. While the master was bending over the fish, the servant with one blow of his hatchet clean cut his head off. Instead of taking flight he quietly went back to his work. When interrogated about the motive of his crime, he replied that his master presented his neck so gently as to make the operation merely child's play. In spite of his unquestionable mental state, the murderer was broken alive on the wheel.
My father was practically imprisoned for fifteen months in his own house, whence resulted an enormous loss to his own business, for in view of the coming herring-fair at Falsterbo, in the province of Schonen,[[23]] his cellar and hall were packed with Luneburg salt; there was also a considerable quantity of dried cod, besides a big assortment of cloth, and amidst all this he was forbidden to cross the threshold of his house and no one was allowed to come and see him. My mother was, moreover, pregnant at the time, and as the date of her confinement drew near my father asked for leave to take up his quarters with a neighbour until it was over. His petition was refused, and at the critical moment he found himself compelled to get into the adjoining house by the roof. He was also prevented from personally inviting the godparents.
George Wullenweber and his undisciplined followers opened the hostilities by sea and by land. In this bitter struggle the Duke of Holstein preserved the advantage, though he fought as one against two, but the Almighty was on his side. Humiliated by these reverses, with their prestige diminished and threatened with an ignominious fall, the fribbling authors of the war expected to save everything by substituting another chief for Wullenweber. After a week of negotiations the emissaries of Lubeck, Rostock, and Stralsund assembled at Wismar offered to Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg the throne of Denmark. The act, drawn up in due form and signed and sealed by Lubeck, Rostock and Wismar was dispatched to Stralsund, the signature and seal of which was wanting to it. The fine phrases of the Lubeckian message got the better of the opposition of the council; the Forty-Eight broke open the casket containing the great seal, affixed it to the document and sent it back to Wismar.
Every rule had been strictly observed; the Duke of Mecklenburg invited the representatives of the cities for the next day to a banquet, at which the act was to be handed to him. But during the morning itself the delegates of Stralsund, under the pretext of wishing to examine the parchment, asked to look at it, and Christopher Lorbeer, borrowing a pocket-knife of his colleague, Franz Wessel, cut the strings of the Stralsund seal, after which they made off as far as their carriage would let them. They were half-way to Rostock while the other ambassadors were still waiting for them with dinner. Undeterred by this, Albrecht, accompanied by his wife, her ladies, servants, horses and dogs, took the road to Copenhagen, like a legitimate sovereign.
Lorbeer himself, his children, and the rest of his relations have sung in all manner of keys the resolute--others would say, the audacious--conduct he displayed on that occasion; nobody, whether townsman, rustic or alien was to remain ignorant of the feat; and to this day people keep repeating that Burgomaster Lorbeer, scorning all danger (non enim sine periculo facinus magnum et memorabile), made himself illustrious by this signal act, by this heroic exploit. If, however, we turn the leaf, what do we read? Qui periculum amat peribit in eo; real courage will never be confounded with reckless audacity. That the act was provided with the great seal of Stralsund is a fact known to the representatives of Lubeck, Rostock and Wismar, who handled the document on the strength of which, when ratified by the Forty-Eight, Duke Albrecht went and shut himself up in Copenhagen, where he sustained a siege, and practically obliged Stralsund to make the same sacrifices for him the other cities had made. Consequently, one has the right to ask: "Where was the advantage of detaching the seal?" If Lorbeer had utilized his energy in keeping in port vessels, soldiers and ammunition, then he would have rendered a signal service, and, besides, prevented the waste of much money. Do Lorbeer's admirers imagine that Duke Albrecht would not have avenged the outrage when once his throne was consolidated? The least he would have done was to close the Sound against us, and to hamper our commerce everywhere. Verily they are right, the citizens who keep on praising the mad trick of Lorbeer.
Burgomaster Smiterlow bore his enforced retirement with admirable patience. Instead of meddling with public affairs, he assiduously read the Holy Scriptures, and spent most of his time in prayer. He finally knew by heart the Psalms of David. As a daily visitor to his home, I can say that no bitter word ever fell from his lips. He often repeated, "They are my fellow-citizens; the Lord will move their spirit. It is my duty to suffer for the love of my children."
Our gracious prince, Duke Philip, sent to request the liberation of the burgomaster. The envoys were told that the answer would be sent to them to the hostel. The discussion was a very long one, after which they deputed the very host of the envoys, Hermann Meier, together with Nicholas Rode, the one as illiterate as the other, and both densely ignorant on every subject. Hermann Meier, who was a native of Parow, had amassed much property in cash, in land, and in houses. Being the owner of the two villages of Parow, he had practically for his vassals his uncles and his cousins, whom he ruled at his will. Nicholas Rode was a well-to-do merchant, but who had never associated with people of condition. Hermann Meier had undertaken to address the envoys, but he began to stumble at the first sentence, and finally, stricken dumb altogether, he left his colleague behind, rushed from the room, and went helter-skelter down the stairs. When he reached the yard, he fell altogether ill with excitement. Nevertheless, he plucked up his courage and went back--to apologize, as one would suppose. Not at all. Scorning all exordium, and without even giving the envoys their titles, he went straight to the point. "The council and the Forty-Eight," he said, "have decided in the name of the citizens that we should signify to you as follows: Inasmuch as they did not consult the prince to inflict the confinement, they shall not consult him to annul it." Verily, a speech worthy of the orator and of those who sent him, similes habent labra lactucas. I wonder what would happen if somebody took it into his head to-day to address a prince in that manner. Considering that all the magistrates of that period were of most mediocre capacity (I am using a mild term), two suppositions are admissible. It was either the intention of the Forty-Eight to make the young duke ridiculous by choosing such delegates, or the three or four intelligent members of the council declined this foolish mission.
The embassy had, however, one result. My father was summoned to the Town Hall, where he was told that he could recover his freedom in consideration of a fine of a hundred marks. He wished to know what fault he had committed, and was told not to "argufy." "Hundred marks or the collar. You can take your choice." As a matter of course my father chose the former, although the only crime that could be imputed to him was his marriage with the niece of Burgomaster Smiterlow. The same mode of procedure was applied to the case of Joachim Rantzow, an honest and honoured citizen, who subsequently became a member of the council.
Shortly after this Councillors Nicholas Rode and Nicholas Bolte came to enjoin Burgomaster Smiterlow, in conjunction with two of his relatives, to sign a document already engrossed and provided with the wax for three seals. According to them it was the only means to end his captivity and to avoid all further and even more serious dangers. In this piece of writing Burgomaster Smiterlow confessed to having been a traitor to the city, a perjurer, guilty of the most infamous conduct, and to have forfeited all his rights. The two councillors made it their special business to paint the situation in the most sombre colours. Terror-stricken and dissolved in tears, the burgomaster's wife implored her husband to accede to the request of these two fanatics until the Lord Himself could come to his aid. Unmanned by all this, Smiterlow asked my father to seal the act with him. "No," exclaimed the latter, "I shall not sign your dishonour." But his two sons-in-law, overcome by the tears of their mother-in-law, affixed their seals. Thereupon the burgomaster, escorted by the two councillors, his two sons-in-law and my father, repaired to the Town Hall. On their way, he went into the St. Nicholas' Church, knelt down in the stall near the great St. Christopher, and said a short prayer.
The council of the Forty-Eight was holding its meeting in the summer council-room. Requested by Christopher Lorbeer to resume his usual seat, Smiterlow refused. "I cannot do so," he said, "after the document I have just signed." Nevertheless, they insisted until he took his seat. Then he addressed them, reminding them that he had travelled in the city's service a hundred and odd days (I have forgotten the exact number, for I was only sixteen years old). "If it can be proved that I have spent one florin unnecessarily, been guilty of one neglect or caused a single prejudice, I am ready to yield all I possess and my life besides. If, on the other hand, I can show my innocence, then can I count upon the same protection as that enjoyed by the other citizens; that is, frequent the churches, cross the bridges, appear in the market place, and attend to my business in all freedom and security." The reply being affirmative, he rose from his seat, wished the council a peaceful term of administration, and, followed by his nearest relatives, went back to his home.
The situation remained the same until 1537. Strong in the consciousness of his own honesty, and leaving the Forty-Eight to govern at their own sweet will, Smiterlow remained perfectly tranquil in his retirement. He was an assiduous churchgoer, and when the weather was fine, took excursions into the country accompanied by his daughters, his sons-in-law, my parents and their family. His jovial disposition delighted them all.
On the other hand, the Forty-Eight were constantly assailed by fear. The success of the war became more and more doubtful, in spite of the sacrifice of hundreds of lives, in spite of the pillaging of the Town Hall, in spite of the enormous sums wasted--thrown into the water, it would be more correct to say. They converted the bells of the city and of the villages into money; all these took the road to Lubeck, where, to our disgrace be it said, the mark of Stralsund can still be seen on a bronze pile-driver. Twice did the citizens, from the highest to the lowest, pay the tax of the hundredth halfpenny on the strength of their oath.
When they saw their power tottering, the Forty-Eight imitated the unjust steward of St. Luke, and compelled the community to confirm, renew and extend the infamous declaration violently dragged from the council of 1522. The new act had apparently some good in it. It enjoined upon the magistrates judicious rules of conduct which, however, were not at all within their competence. In reality, the ancient council acknowledged to have incurred by its resistance a fine which was remitted to them by their magnanimous successors. It took the engagement to favour the cause of the Forty-Eight. No dissension, misunderstanding, accusation or recrimination, whether relating to the past or the present, would in future be tolerated. Any contravention to that effect entailed upon the councillors the loss of their dignities; upon other citizens, the loss of their civic rights; upon women and children, a fine of fifty florins, payable by the father or husband, and going to the fund for public buildings.
That much was decided on the Friday after Candlemas, 1535. Nevertheless, the Forty-Eight kept trembling in their shoes. The very next year witnessed the promulgation of another decree, threatening with the utmost bodily penalty any and every one, young or old, rich or poor, magistrate or simple burgher who should decline the responsibility of the expedition to Denmark, or should influence others on the subject. This act was transcribed sequentially to that of 1535, with the formula: Given under our administration anno and day as above. Hence it was antedated. It was a clumsy trick, for a unique act does not admit of a codicil. But does the ass ever succeed in hiding its ears?
In 1536, on the day of Esto Mihi, Duke Philip married, at the Castle of Torgau, Fräulein Marie, sister of the Duke of Saxony, Johannes Friedrich. The marriage rites were performed by Dr. Martin Luther, who after the ceremony said to the husband: "Gracious prince and lord, Should the event so much desired be somewhat tardy in coming, let not your Highness be discouraged. Saxum means stone, and nothing can be drawn from a rock without time or patience. Your Highness shall be included in my prayers: semen tuum non deficit." The duchess, in fact, gave birth to her first child only about four years later.
The punishment of the wicked and the triumph of the just marched abreast, inclusio unius est exclusio alterius et e contra. Amidst the torments of hell the damned watch the bliss of the happy ones whom they have persecuted on earth. I am bound to insist upon this antithesis while pursuing my narrative. I expect no thanks, for men are so thin-skinned as to cause them to quiver at the slightest touch; and that is the reason why all those who have written on Stralsund, such as Thomas Kantzow, Valentin Eichstedt,[[24]] and Johannes Berckmann passed their pens to their successors when they got as far as 1536. I have no desire to flatter or to find fault, but I intend to speak the real truth, however disagreeable it may turn out to be. My sole concern is to preserve the dignity of history. If people will take the trouble to read carefully the authors just named, and especially Berckmann, otherwise the Augustine monk, his impertinent libels will enable them to appreciate the usefulness of the present pages. The approval of honest folk is the only reward I care for; the rest is of no consequence.
It is almost incredible that the Duke of Mecklenburg should have committed the blunder of yielding to the suggestions of Wullenweber, whom all good citizens virtually disavowed. Never was there a more unjust war. In disposing of a country which, on no assumption whatever, could possibly belong to them, the cities caused an incalculable prejudice to the Duke of Holstein, the Lord's anointed, the legitimate, well-beloved, and expected sovereign. He showed great firmness. The leader of a powerful army, and master of its communications by sea and by land, he was fully aware of his superiority to an adversary who, shut up in Copenhagen, only thought of pleasure, hunts and banquets. In spite of his just resentment, magnanimous Christian obtained a victory over himself, and while the surrender of the city was being negotiated, he sent provisions to the Duchess of Mecklenburg, at that time in childbed. This was tantamount to giving her charity. After the retreat of Duke Albrecht, Charles made a triumphal entry into Copenhagen, where he was crowned in 1537, and the presence at the pomp and ceremony of the coronation of the ambassadors of the cities was calculated to give him complete satisfaction. As for the Duke of Mecklenburg, he had learned to his cost the folly of disregarding the words of the Holy Spirit: "My son, fear thou the Lord and the king, and meddle not with them that are given to change: for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?" (Proverbs xxiv. 21, 22).
At Lubeck the pitiful collapse of the council brought about the reinstatement of the old magistracy. In a spirit of pacification they gave Wullenweber the captaincy of Bergendorf; but Wullenweber, while crossing the territory of the Abbey of Werden, was seized by order of Christopher, bishop of Bremen, who handed him over to his brother, Duke Heindrich of Brunswick. After a cruel captivity at Wolfenbüttel, and in consequence of indictments as numerous as they were grave (especially from Lubeck, represented by his secretary), he was sentenced to death in September, 1537, and his body quartered. At the taking of the fortress of Wardenburg, Duke Christian captured Marx Meyer, his brother Gerard Meyer, and a notorious Danish priest. These three were executed by the sword, quartered, and their bodies shown on the rack to the great satisfaction of the Danish people and the honest Lubeckenaars so long oppressed.
Nicholas Nering, a citizen of those parts, had sold to Johannes Krossen a farm with all its live stock and belongings, but, according to him, he had reserved for himself the foal of a handsome mare, if it should happen to be a colt, and a colt it turned out to be. At the period of its weaning, in 1535, he claimed the young animal. Krossen contested the claim. Thereupon, according to the evidence of his step-son, Peter Klatteville, who was about fifteen, and whose evidence was recorded in the black register of the court, Nering, not to be outdone, mounted his black horse, the lad trotting barefooted by his side, and both went at five a.m. to Krossen's farm. Nering got the colt out of the stables while the youngster kept watch. Nering hid his spoil for three weeks at Schwartz's, at the new mill, and after having made Peter promise to keep the secret on the penalty of the most terrible punishment.
Different is the version recorded in the new register, written on parchment and bound in white sow's skin. "In 1536, on the Monday after Reminiscere, Nicholas Nering, accused of pillage, has confessed before the court that riding along the Frankische landstrasse, after passing the gate, he noticed three colts; that moved by a wicked inspiration, he had gone up to them and thrown the leash over one of these, and fastened it to the pommel of his saddle, and in that way brought it to his own stables. After having heard the above confession, it was decided to take Nicholas Nering outside the city and hang him on the gallows."
Nicholas Nering's bad reputation did not dispose the council in his favour; hence all his friends had employed him to restore the colt in order to prevent the matter going into the courts, but he had proved obstinate. While he was in his cell, he repeated that he was indifferent to death, but that he deplored the calamities which his execution would entail. It was an evident proof of his having concocted a scheme of vengeance with his confidants. This became obvious enough after his death, when his kindred left the city and began setting fire to mills, homesteads and villages of the neighbourhood, and recruiting accomplices by sheer weight of money. Two of these malefactors were taken at Bart, and put on the rack. At Stralsund they arrested ten individuals at once, among others, Christian Parow, the dean of the drapers, and Johannes Blumenow, the dean of the shoemakers. Young Peter Klatteville confessed to having set the New Mill on fire at the instigation of his mother, Nering's widow. Three were put on the rack; they declared having received of Parow ten marks for committing the crime, and the ministers who conducted them to the execution had much trouble to make them retract the accusation in the presence of the crowd. The following is the version in the Annales of Berckmann, one of the ministers: "This is what I have personally seen. When Parow took his stroll in the market place, the raven of Barber Grellen ran to peck at his legs, so that Parow considered it the best part of valour to quit the place. I am bound to admit, though, that this bird was in the habit of annoying the peasants who happened to wear wide linen breeches. Parow, who was an old man, did not pay sufficient attention to his appearance as to have his breeches properly pulled up like those of his companions; hence, there is nothing to prove that Providence made use of the raven to declare which kind of death Parow deserved."
Berckmann is simply nothing more nor less than Satan's slave when he tries to make Parow odious. It is true that this worthy man signed and sealed the avowal of his forfeit; the act happened to fall into my hands when I was secretary of the city. I destroyed it, in that way saving an honourable family from future affronts, without causing any damage to the public welfare. Besides, this concession was known to every one. It had in the opinion of those who gave themselves time to think the same value as that of Burgomaster Smiterlow branding himself as a traitor and an infamous creature. During the inquiry, everybody could see how incensed Parow was with the Nerings. If he did give them ten marks, it was because the money was extorted from him bit by bit by a certain Smit who perished on the rack. Nering's stepson Klatteville even declares that Parow came one day to his mother and had a long conversation with her. He does not know what Parow said to her, but he seemed heartbroken at the behaviour of the Nerings, for he wept like a child and went away weeping. In the draper's company no one ever objected to sitting next to him at table, except Olaff Lorbeer, a ridiculous personage, and the son of one of the principal faction-mongers. He always overwhelmed the good old man with his coarse allusions.
Johannes Blumenow, condemned to death on Tuesday, was only led to the scaffold on the following Thursday. I saw the execution. The corpse remained on the wheel, wrapped up by means of a cord in the blue dress he wore every day. This was done in order to prevent the crows from going to work too quickly. This Blumenow, a lively, though grey-haired fellow, the dean of the shoemakers, was the wealthiest of the Forty-Eight. He was very ambitious for the burgomastership which, he flattered himself, he could discharge better than any body. At the last burgomaster's banquet, that of Nicholas Sonnenberg, Frau Blumenow said to the matron next to her: "I did not wish to come, but I ought to know what to do when our turn comes to give the banquet." I have seen Blumenow busy cleaning skins and during that time many a notable personage clad in furs bowed down before him with more respect than before any former burgomaster. Berckmann attributes no other wrong to him than that of having induced Nering to renounce his citizenship (that is honest enough); but, he insinuates they had made up their minds to ruin him because he had in his possession the famous act elaborated by the Forty-Eight. What a pity it is that Berckmann sets so little store by the truth. Who compelled him to commit so many foolish fabrications to paper? With a little trouble on his part he could have learnt that about forty years previously a priest had been assassinated in his dwelling. The murderer remained unknown until Blumenow, being put to the torture, confessed to being the author of the crime. He had counted upon a big sum of money, but the victim did not possess more than a few pence. That, my very dear Berckmann, was what brought Blumenow to the scaffold. The sedition mongers had taken their precautions so well in the act of 1535 and in its appendix that, but for the Nering lawsuits, the honest part of the community would have never had the joy of seeing their oppressors pay for their misdeeds.
I have already recounted the pitiful end of Rolof Moller; the whole of his line was overtaken with similar punishment. His eldest son, George, who had been my schoolfellow at Rostock, was only a stripling when he caught a nameless disease through frequenting a certain class of women. He wanted to play the young country squire, did little work and spent much. His stepfather took him away from his studies, and sent him to England to learn the language of the country, and then to Antwerp, to get an insight into business. The young fellow, however, continued his spendthrift ways, and it became necessary to recall him. Rolof Moller's second son, for a mere trifle, stabbed in the open street his cousin with whom he had been drinking claret at an apothecary's. The name of Moller is fated to be extinguished in a short time.
What shall I say about Burgomaster Lorbeer, the instigator of the three riots, and especially of the third against Smiterlow? Everybody is aware of the contempt into which he fell even during his lifetime, and of the horrible malady that carried him slowly to the grave. After his death his wife and daughters still believed themselves to be the masters, as in the days when visiting an estate of the city they were greeted with the formula of reception, "Be welcome, dear ladies, on thy lands," and when the passers-by hailed them with a "God preserve you, young and dear burgomasters." This deference had inflated their presumption to such an extent that they lost all respect for both the council and the law courts. They ended up by exhausting the Divine patience.
The master-miller Nicholas Hildebrand was not the least influential among the Forty-Eight. A busybody, self-interested, he meddled with everything that could bring water to his milldam. Having had certain private reasons for retiring to Wolgast, he intrigued so barefacedly as to compel the duke to imprison him; and inasmuch as nobody dreamt of interceding for him, he spent the whole winter in a cell. At his discharge his legs were frost-bitten and he was eaten up with vermin. Another active and restless firebrand, the erewhile tailor Marschmann, who came to Wolgast to escape his creditors, kept Hildebrand company the whole of the winter. Knigge took to making false coin; but for Doctor Gentzkow, whose step-daughter he had married, the capital sentence passed on him would not have been commuted into banishment. Christian Herwig died in abject misery. They had given him the nickname of Count Christian, because in his prosperous days he strutted about in his best dress, one hand on his hip, and taking up the whole width of the street by himself. His wife became an inmate of the St. John's Asylum. One of his daughters, a downright slattern, had to beg her bread and was found dead one morning; the rest vegetated in the most sordid conditions. Nicholas Loewe, a quarrelsome creature who tried to look like a captain in his white dress set off with red velvet, in the end considered himself lucky at the St. John's Asylum to don the grey small clothes provided for him by charity. Long before his death he became stone blind. His daughter Anna was the talk of the town. I could easily extend this list, for, as far as I recollect, not one of those sedition-mongers escaped the punishment inflicted by the Almighty on rebels unto the third and fourth generations.
Stralsund, there is no doubt, is likely to feel for a long while the pernicious effects of Rolof Moller; but just as history praises Cambyses, that arch-tyrant, monstrum hominis el vera cloaca diaboli for having ordered the death of the prevaricating judge and for having had his skin nailed on the judgment seat; so on one point, and on one only, are the sedition-mongers entitled to commendation. They replaced the banquets of the burgomaster and the councillors by presents of goldsmith's work or by a piece of silver. Nowadays the city receives from the burgomaster a piece of silver-gilt; a councillor merely gives a piece of silverwork. The guilds have also done away with the banquets of reception and election. Instead of foolishly wasting their money in gormandizing, the new dean or the new companion offers a present of silver which does duty at the fêtes and gatherings, so that nowadays the wooden and pewter goblets have made room for silver tankards. On Twelfth Night the council and the corporations make a display of their treasure, to show to the public that it is not only intact, but increased.
After the tragedy of the Passion comes the glory of Easter Day. Nicholas Smiterlow had suffered civil death; and among certain individuals on the magistrates' bench the password had gone round to prevent his resurrection. When, however, the disastrous issue of the war but too plainly confirmed the prophecies of the old burgomaster, the ironical nickname of "pacific" became the chief claim to his glory. Councillors and burghers in plenary meeting assembled, dispatched two of the former to him with the request for him to repair to the Town Hall. Burgomaster Lorbeer tried to stop the mission by rubbing his arm and saying that the letter of avowal signed by Smiterlow was a most indispensable document on that occasion, inasmuch as it was a question of annulling it. His attempt to redress the balance of his own game by a delay of twenty-four hours was a failure. His objection was simply put aside, and the secretary went at once to Blumenow's for the said letter, together with the pact imposed by the Forty-Eight. When Smiterlow entered the council-room all the burghers cried, "Here is our beloved father, Nicholas the Pacific." He was conducted to his former seat, above Lorbeer's; they begged him to give them the help of his experience, and they promised that henceforth he should be exempt from all missions and embassies. Standing on the treasury chest, so as to afford a sight to everybody, the secretary tore the famous agreement into two, and detached Smiterlow's seal from it. But the burghers were not at all satisfied, and shouted to him to stick his penknife into and to lacerate the letter of avowal in a similar fashion. And thus ended the domination of the Forty-Eight.
Faithful--perhaps too faithful--to his habit, the ex-Augustine monk Berckmann limns Smiterlow in the falsest colours. He fancies he is using irony when he exclaims, "Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow was a fine specimen of a man, conscious of his own worth, handsome, eloquent, prudent and wise, and enjoying much consideration from princes and nobles." It so happens that all this is simply so much bare truth, and added to all these merits, Smiterlow had the fear of God and a wide knowledge of the Scriptures. The Annales of Master Gerhard Droege quote him as the oldest patron and protector of the Evangelical ministries; hence, everything that Berckmann writes in connexion with or about him is inexact. Here is an instance. Berckmann states that Smiterlow was confined to his bed twelve weeks, while in reality he was taken ill one Sunday and died the next Tuesday, in 1539. His son George, my junior by a twelvemonth, was burgomaster for twenty-two years. He had inherited all his father's virtues; he went through similar ordeals, and was vouchsafed the same comforts from on high, and I see no reason to modify my letter to Duke Ernest Ludwig. That prince, egged on by the caballers of his court, exclaimed at the news of Smiterlow's demise, "I had two enemies at Stralsund. Smiterlow is dead, and the devil will soon take Sastrow." I wrote to His Highness as follows:
"Gracious prince and lord,--The defunct burgomaster was neither bad naturally nor of base condition. His loyalty towards your Highness and Stralsund never failed, as could be proved by his numerous services. If he could have changed a farthing into a florin to the advantage of the city he would unquestionably have done so. Neither he nor his ever cheated the treasury. Hard-working, just and incorruptible, his speech expressing the feelings of his heart he, was a slave to duty, and severe or lenient as circumstances and persons dictated. Not at all obstinate, he was particularly amenable to reason, for the public weal was his sole guide. He administered the law with the strictest impartiality. A foe to dissipation and excess, he led a useful and retired life; though frugal and saving, he never remained behind where honour demanded the spending of money. The greatest harmony prevailed between him, his wife, and his servants. Though he had not pursued the ordinary course of studies, he was endowed with supreme wisdom. He had a most wonderful memory, and an equally wonderful gift of elocution. As a loyal subject, I can but address to God one prayer. The King of the Persians, Darius, prayed for as many zopyres as a pomegranate contains pips; may your Highness be enabled to count as many Smiterlows in the city and in the fields, not to mention the court; and while including the latter I wish to cast no reflection on any one. What then are we to think of those who dare to slander the defunct and to blacken his character in your Highness' eyes, besides causing grief to his wife, his children and his friends?"
Everybody on the other hand would freely admit that Rolof Moller was overbearing, presumptuous, crafty, greedy, ungrateful, relentless, and turbulent. Smiterlow and Moller were so utterly different in character as to be unable to breathe the same air. At the council, in church, nay in the city itself, the presence of one was sufficient to drive away the other. Great, therefore, was the surprise when George Smiterlow married Moller's niece. How would people, for whom the space of a large city seemed insufficient, agree under the same roof, at the same board, in the same bed? What strange communicatio idiomatum was going to result from that marriage? Hence, I should openly disadvise the election of such a Smiterlow for the council, and least of all should I make him a burgomaster, for they have many more of their mother's than of the father's characteristics; in hac lucta duarum diversarum naturarum the Mollers appear to have had the advantage.
Nevertheless, this new generation is still sufficiently young to be susceptible of improvement. From the bottom of my heart I wish it may be so, for the sake both of its reputation and its welfare.
I have written the foregoing pages somewhat oppressed by the thought of the ill-will I am drawing on my devoted head in praising Smiterlow at the expense of Rolof Moller. The descendants of the latter will never forgive me. But I derive consolation and strength from the appreciation of educated men. They know that the historian's duty is to go straight for his aim, and to proclaim the truth, whether for good or evil, whether it pleases or displeases, and let come what may. I recommend to my children submission to the authorities, no matter whether Pilatus or Caiaphas governs. For the good of their soul and the welfare of their body they ought never to make pacts with sedition-mongers.
[CHAPTER IV]
Dr. Martin Luther writes to my Father--My Studies at Rostock and at Greifswald--Something about my hard Life at Spires--I am admitted as a Public Notary--Dr. Hose
My parents recalled me in 1538, having discovered that at Greifswald I more often accompanied my grandfather in his strolls than sat over my books. I attended school during the stay of a twelvemonth at the paternal home.
One instance will show into what kind of hands the chief power had fallen. In 1539, Duke Philip, travelling to Rügen with his wife, made his first entry into Stralsund, and Burgomaster Christopher Lorbeer, who fancied himself to be the incarnation of eloquence, made the following speech to him: "Philip, by the grace of God, Duke of Stettin, Pomerania, of the Cassubes and the Wends, Prince of Rügen, and Count of Gutzkow, the council is indeed very pleased to see you. Be welcome." In subsequent days I have often been chaffed about this speech; usher Michael Kussow, among others, never opened the door to me without crying out, the moment he caught sight of me, "And indeed Philip, by the grace of God ..."
My brother Johannes had been admitted magister--the first of thirteen--at Wittemberg, and on leaving he brought with him a letter from Dr. Luther to my father, who, in consequence of the Bruser-Leveling lawsuit, had stayed away for many years from the Communion table. The letter was couched as follows: "To the honourable guildmaster, Nicholas Sastrow, my good friend: Grace and peace be with you. Your dear son, magister Johannes, after having expressed to me his sorrow at your having kept away for many years from the Holy Communion table--which absence is calculated to create a bad example--has requested me to rescue you from that dangerous path. Not one hour of our lives in reality belongs to ourselves. His filial solicitude, therefore, induced me to send you these present lines. Let me exhort you as a Christian, as a brother, according to the precept of Christ, to change your resolution, and well to remember the much greater sufferings of the Son of God, who forgave His executioners. Bear in mind that at your last hour you will be bound to forgive, as a brigand who is tied to the gallows forgives. Wait for the decision of the court before whom your suit is pending, but do not forget that nothing prevents you from participating in the Holy Supper. If it were otherwise I myself and our princes would have to remain away from the Holy Board until our differences with the papists be settled. Leave the matter in the hands of the law, and say to yourself for the comfort of your conscience: 'It is the judge's place to decide where lies the right; meanwhile, I forgive those who have wronged me and I will partake of the Holy Communion.' You consider yourself as having been wronged. You have had recourse to the courts; it is they who shall decide. Nothing can be more simple. Take in a friendly spirit this exhortation which was prompted to me at the instance of your son. May God watch over you, Amen. Wednesday after Miser. Dni. 1540. Martinus Luther."
I trust my descendants will transmit religiously from generation to generation the autograph of the saintly man to whom the whole world owes gratitude and affection. Together with this letter, and as a proof of the wise outlay of the paternal allowance, my brother brought home with him a number of his poemata printed in a volume. My parents' means not admitting of his being maintained in a foreign land, he spent nearly four years at home, studying all the while. Besides the Progymnasmata quaedam, issued from the Lubeck press in 1538, he published in 1542 at Rostock an Elegia de officio principis dedicated to Duke Magnus of Mecklenberg; and in the same year at Lubeck, a Querela de Ecclesia and the Epicidion Martyris Christi Doctoris Ruberti Barns, which caused a good deal of trouble both to him and his printer.[[25]]
At the advice of my brother, my parents sent me to study at Rostock with Arnoldus Burenius and Henricus Lingensis. My brother, who became intimately acquainted with the latter, wrote to him that I had already gone through the ceremony of initiation; but the students found out that since then I had gone back to school at Stralsund, and each day my entrance at the lectorium caused a fearful tumult.[[26]] The depositor having pulled me by my cloak, I hurled a large inkstand which I happened to have in my hand at him. The ink soaked his long grey mantle with black fastenings, a fashionable garment of the time. Verily, I got my reward, when, for the sake of peace, I submitted a second time to the ordeal. It literally rained blows. The depositor pressed my upper lip with his wooden razor and the wound was a long while healing, for no sooner did it close up than my food, and, above all, salted things inflamed it once more.
The two magistri directed in common the purses (scholarships or otherwise) of the Arnsburg, which was the most numerous, as it consisted of thirty students. We took our meals at Jacob Broecker's, and we paid sixteen florins per annum for our breakfast and two other meals, plus, in the summer afternoons, some curdled milk or other refreshments.
At the end of two years my parents complained of the expense involved in my stay at Rostock; they were, moreover, displeased at my leaning towards theology. In fact, I felt neither old enough nor sufficiently advanced in learning to choose between the different faculties, but being unwilling to relinquish my studies I exposed my difficult position to my tutors, who at once decided to forego their fees, and also induced our host Broecker to feed me for eight florins per annum.
Truly, I had to lay the table, attend at meals, to clear it, and in addition to this to look after young Broecker, who was about my size and who was afterwards confined at Ribbenitz, to dress and undress him, to clean his shoes and to arrange his books. On the other hand, there were certain services to be rendered to magister H. Lingenfis. I had to brush his shoeleather, make his bed, keep his room heated, accompany him to church and to other places, and to carry his lantern in winter. It seemed very hard to me at first not to be served any longer, and not to sit down to meals with my college chums, but there was no help for it.
Besides, we had fallen into good hands. Arnoldus Burenius read us twice Cicero's Offices, which he interpreted in a thoroughly artistic manner, and afterwards the orations pro Milone, pro rege Deiotaro, pro Marco Marcello, pro Roscio Amerino, pro domo sua, and the de Aruspicum responsis, the Epistolae familiares, the long and beautiful chapter ad Quintum fratrem, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, etc. His colleague expounded Terence, the Dialectica Molleri, even the Sphaera Joannis de Sacrobusto, the Theoriae planetarum, the Computum ecclesiasticum Spangenbergii, the libellus de Anima Philippi, and finally he presided over useful exercitia styli et disputationum.
My bedroom fellows were Franz von Stetten and Johannes Vegesack, the nephew of the Bishop of Dorpat, who kept him on a grand footing, and allowed him the staff of servants of a grand seigneur rather than that of a youngster. Vegesack practised all kind of sword-play, but I have heard that after the death of the bishop, he became a schoolmaster in Livonia. My private tutor, Danquart, coached him in the praecepta grammaticae, gave him themes to treat in German, and corrected his exercises.
The money we received from our parents had to be handed to our tutor Lingenfis; he gave it back to us as we needed it. We were bound to make notes of even our most trifling expenses. My tutors showed much interest in me, either out of consideration for my brother or because of my own unwearied application. I, on the other hand; served them zealously and faithfully, and was always at their bidding. The cross looks of my fellow-students, however, suggested the advisability of a change of residence; my brother counselled Greifswald.
In 1540 Duke Philip came to Greifswald for the ceremony of receiving homage. The exiles came with him; some held the tail, others the harness of his horse. My father was specially invited by the prince to hold the stirrup. The duke took up his quarters at Hannemann's, his wife with the Stoïentins. Frau Stoïentin, her daughter, her grandson, and all the relatives, when doing obeisance to the princess, claimed the upholding of the decree of expulsion against my father. The duchess specially recommended two of her principal officers to transmit the request to her august spouse; but the latter's reply effectually prevented her from returning to the charge, and the gates of Greifswald were reopened to my father.
I left Rostock in 1541. My stay at home was, nevertheless, very short. I soon transferred myself and my books to Greifswald, where I rented a room with Joachim Loewenhagen, the pastor that was to be of St. Nicholas' at Stralsund. Master Anthony Walter who shortly afterwards became rector of the Paedagogium of Stettin, instructed me in the Dialectica Caesarii. Master Kismann explained and interpreted Ovid's Fasti.
On Christmas Day, 1541, a vessel hailing from Colberg, and laden with barrels for Falsterbo, anchored at Stralsund. The coopers were in a great state of excitement, declared an embargo, and would not even allow the cargo to be sold at Stralsund.[[27]] In vain did the council guarantee proceedings against the purchaser of that merchandise; they went on agitating, refused to buy the barrels themselves, and replied with blows to those who spoke common sense. One burgher died from the consequences of their ill-treatment. They finally destroyed the barrels. Five people were arrested. Johannes Vogt, their dean, fled to Garpenhagen, but he was brought back to Stralsund and placed under lock and key. There was but a narrow escape from the executioner's sword. The coopers were summoned to the Town Hall, where the prisoners made their appearance with the iron collar round their necks and their hands and feet fettered. The corporation was fined four marks per head. Its privileges were withdrawn; it had, moreover, to rebuild at its own expense part of the city walls.
I have already mentioned that my brother Magister Joannes, had various poemata published at Lubeck and Rostock. From the latter city he returned by stage coach to Stralsund in company of Heinrich Sonnenberg and a woman. By their side rode Johannes Lagebusch and a good-looking young man, Hermann Lepper, who had been to the mint at Gadebusch to exchange 100 old florins for new coin. That money was in the carriage. A gang of thieves, or rather highwaymen, got wind of the affair. In consequence of the mild laws of repression, these gentry swarmed throughout Mecklenburg, and the names of the noblest families figured among them, which fact gave substance to the poet who wrote:
Nobilis et nebulo parvo discrimine distant,
Sic nebulo magnus nobilis esse potest.
Of course these lines do not apply to many honourable personages belonging to the nobility. But to return to my story.
When the travellers had got beyond the village of Willershagen they left the coach, and, provided with their firearms proceeded on foot, for the country was by no means safe. Instead of prudently escorting the vehicle the two horsemen went on in front. The brigands came up with them and entered into conversation. Suddenly one of them snatched the loaded pistol Lagebusch was carrying at his saddle-bow--the fashion of carrying two had not come in--fired it at Lepper, who was galloping back to the carriage, killing him there and then, while Lagebusch set spurs to his horse in time to warn Sonnenberg, who hid himself in the brushwood. My brother, armed with a pole, and standing with his back against the carriage to prevent an attack from behind, offered a stout and not unsuccessful resistance. He managed to wound in the thigh an assailant who, carried away by his horse, bit the dust further up the road. But another miscreant, charging furiously, sliced away a piece of my brother's skull as big as a crown (the fragment of bone that adhered to the skin was the size of a ducat), and at the same time dealt him a deep gash at the throat. As a matter of course, my brother lost consciousness; nay, was left for dead while the bandits sacked the carriage, caught the horse of their wounded comrade, but seeing that he could not be transported, abandoned him and decamped with their spoil. They, however, did not take the carriage team. In a little while Sonnenberg emerged from his hiding-place, and, with the aid of the driver, hauled my brother into the carriage. The woman bandaged his head and kept it on her knees. Lepper's body was placed between the legs of the wounded young man, and in that condition they reached Ribbenitz, where the surgeon closed the gash in the neck by means of pins.
The Rostock council promptly sent its officials to the spot. The brigand was conveyed to the city, but almost immediately after his being lodged in prison, he died without naming his accomplices. There was, moreover, no great difficulty in finding them out, but their friends succeeded in hushing up the whole affair; the authorities acted very mildly. The dead robber was nevertheless judged and beheaded. His head remained for many years exposed on a pike.
Lagebusch brought the news to Stralsund, and the Council immediately offered my father a closed carriage with four horses. We started that same night, provided with mattresses, and reached Ribbenitz next morning after daybreak. My brother was very weak. While the horses were stabled and after the court had drawn up a detailed report, we gave Lepper an honourable and Christian burial. We began our homeward journey at dusk, going slowly all through the night, and got to Stralsund at midday. Master Joachim Gelhaar attended to my brother, but in spite of his acknowledged skill, he did not succeed in curing the wound of the neck; the improvement of one day was counteracted the next. In the end they discovered that the surgeon of Ribbenitz had closed the wound askew; the edges did not join, and one had been flattened by means of a large copper pin, the head of which had disappeared. Master Joachim repaired the mischief, not without causing great pain to his patient, who, however, promptly regained his health.
After reading the Epicedion Ruberti Barns, the King of England sent ambassadors to threaten Lubeck, the book having been issued from Johannes Balhorn's presses. Although the author had no connexion with the city, the council nevertheless apologized for him on the ground of his youth. He had simply aimed at giving a specimen doctrinae, but to pacify the king, Balhorn was banished, and had to leave the city at sunrise. He was allowed to return a few months later.
The costly Bruser lawsuit had deprived my parents of the means of sending us to study in foreign countries, so they bought two horses and dispatched me and my brother to Spires to watch the progress of the affair, and to do as best we could for ourselves. We started from Stralsund on June 14, 1542. Our parents accompanied us as far as Greifswald, where we stopped one day to bid good-bye to our grandmother and the rest of the family. I was in high spirits. Johannes was dull and depressed. "Dear son," said our mother, "why this sadness? Look at Bartholomäi, how gay he is." "My brother," replied Johannes, "has no care weighing on his mind; he has no thought for the future."
We made for Stettin, then for Berlin and Wittemberg; in fact, "we rode straight on," as people say. At Wittemberg, Johannes ran against Dr. Martin Luther, standing before the bookshop near the cemetery. Dr. Luther shook hands with me. Philip Melanchthon and other learned personages gave us letters of introduction to the procurators and advocates of Spires.
Half-way between Erfurt and Gotha there is a big inn where we halted for half a day to rest our horses and to mend our clothes. We settled our bill before going to bed. Next morning on reaching Gotha my brother found he had lost his purse; he had left it under his pillow. It was a great misfortune, for we were not overburdened with means, and the look of the inn left but little hope of getting our own back again. Immediately after my horse had had its feed, I retraced my steps, galloping all the way. When I reached the hotel I tied up my horse and in the twinkling of an eye ran up to the room with the servant at my heels. We both flung ourselves on the purse. I had the luck of laying hands on it first, but I fancied he was entitled to a tip. If either the girl or the young man had come near the bed after our going we should have never seen our money again.
In spite of the gathering darkness, I was in the saddle again, for it would have been unwise to spend the night alone under such a roof. Half a mile (German) farther there was a nice village, and as night had set in altogether I made up my mind to stop there. The inn was full of peasants. It happened to be Sunday, and these worthy folk, who had noticed my riding by like possessed two hours before, said to each other: "Well, we were mistaken after all. It's His Highness' messenger." Thereupon the host told the servant to look to my horse; nothing would induce him to let me do it myself. He, moreover, insisted on my sitting down to the table immediately; they brought me boiled and roast meats and excellent wine. The peasants in their turn show me all kinds of attentions, and when I mention the settlement of my bill before going to bed, the host declares that he could not hear of such a thing, and moreover swears by all his household gods that he'll not let me go in the morning without a good basin of soup, and that if I were to stay for a week he would not accept a farthing, because he could never do enough for his gracious prince. They put me into a very white and very soft bed, where I slept long and soundly.
While I was enjoying every comfort, my poor brother was bemoaning his imprudence of having sent me to look for the purse. I did not know the country, the hotel had a queer appearance. I had not returned, although it had been settled that the town gates should be opened to let me pass. My brother's anxiety may therefore be readily imagined. He dispatched an express messenger with a description of myself, and that of the horse; the messenger passed the inn at the very moment I was starting. He recognized me and informed me of my brother's anxiety.
At Spires we put up at the Arbour, and when our horses were sufficiently rested my brother sold them to the landlord of the Crown. We could not afford, though, to stay at the inn, so we rented a small room with one bed, and with this we had to be content for more than five weeks. At meal times we went to eat three or four rolls under the city walls, after which we drank half a measure of wine at the tavern. The days when Bartholomäi Sastrow led the dance, and feasted at the big wine cellars like König Arthur and the Rathskeller were over.
Philip Melanchthon had recommended us to his half-brother, Doctor Johannes Hochel, procurator, and to Doctor Jacob Schenck, advocate at the Imperial Chamber. Thanks to the latter, Johannes found bed and board, mensa splendida et delicata at the provost's of the chapter, a great personage occupying the handsomest mansion of Spires, the habitual quarters of the Emperor. This provost entertained daily a number of guests, but he himself lived upon fowl broth and apothecary's stuff prescribed by his doctor. He was fond of listening to the discussions of his guests, some of whom sided with Luther and others with the pope. If, at the end of the debate, he now and again added a few words, it was simply to admit that he had never read "St. Paul," but that, on the other hand, he had read in Terence: "Bonorum extortor, legum contortor." He was practically in the same boat with the Bishop of Wurzburg, who is reported to have said: "I thank heaven that I have never read 'St. Paul,' for I should have become a heretic just like Luther."
On August 10, Dr. Hochel obtained a place for me at Dr. Frederick Reiffstock's, one of the oldest procurators of the Imperial Chamber, a most learned lawyer and excellent practitioner, who was altogether unlike the majority of the procurators at Spires. He had spent several years of his youth at Rome as auditor of the "Rote" (ecclesiastical jurisdiction). He was very conscientious and energetic. At the issue of the sittings, he immediately wrote to the party whose case had been called; then, the moment the minutes and other documents had been copied by his principal clerk, he sealed the whole, and deposited it in a large box on the table of his office. When this or that messenger came to announce his next departure the procurator examined the box to see whether there was anything to dispatch in that direction, and he marked on the outside wrapper the vail to be given according to the condition of the roads or their distance from the main ones. His practice was made up of princes, nobles, and eminent personages. One day he replied to Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg who had sent him a case, that, unless new facts could be adduced, he advised the withdrawal of the suit. The fees were nevertheless very considerable. The duke handed the case to Dr. Leopold Dick, who allowed himself to be directed to the juramentum calumniae and lost the whole affair.
My master had four sons, all of whom took their doctor's degree. The three elder had returned, one from France, the two others from Leipzig; hence I had three horses to take care of, and three rooms to keep heated. Doctor Reiffstock was determined I should not be idle. One day he placed before me a bundle of documents as thick as my hand but very well written. He told me to copy them, and then to collate them carefully with his second clerk. I was under the impression that it was a most important affair; when it was finished the procurator told me that he simply wished to give me something to do.
On December 14, 1542, an imposing deputation of the Protestant States repudiated as suspect the Imperial Chamber, and declared its decisions and enactments null and void until its complete reformation. The procurators immediately reduced their staff, and Dr. Reiffstock dismissed me, which grieved me very much. As I foresaw, my parents would think me guilty of some grave misconduct, but a letter from Johannes soon undeceived them.
Though a writer's place could easily be had away from Spires, I would not leave my brother or the city before the termination of the lawsuit. We also hoped that the chamber would be reconstituted at the next diet. For all these reasons combined I entered into the service of my father's procurator, Simeon Engelhardt. I might as well have taken service in hell. Dr. Engelhard was an honest man, but he and his family belonged to the Schwenkfeld sect.[[28]] He had three daughters and a son between eight and nine whom I had to teach his declensions and conjugations. The matron of the establishment was a virago of the worst description, mean and bitter-spoken, who grudged her husband his food. Often and often did I see her snatch the glass from his lips. People may think she did it for the best, lest he should get drunk. Not in the least; she did that kind of thing at the family table; besides, his worst enemy could not have called him a wine-bibber. The pewter goblet of each child (there were two grown-up daughters) held about the contents of a pigeon's seed-box. The cup was filled once with wine, twice with Mayence beer (an abominable concoction), after which you were at liberty to swill as much water as you pleased. As for the two servants and the two scribes, the pittance was meagre indeed. A piece of meat not as big as an egg, floating in beef tea pellucid to a degree. This was followed by cabbages, turnips, lentils, herbs, oatmeal porridge, dried potatoes, etc., even on fish days. At the end of the meal a goblet (?) of wine. Whoever was thirsty after that--a by no means uncommon state of things--could go and pull the well-rope. Truly, it would be difficult to say how much water I swallowed in that house.
Dr. Simeon Engelhardt had nearly as many lawsuits on hand as Dr. Reiffstock, about four hundred. Each document was copied four times. The first remained with the principal bundle of papers, the second was sent to the client, the third and fourth went to the registry of the court which kept one, wrote the word "Productum" on the other, and dispatched it immediately by the beadle to the procurator of the opposing party. There were two sittings per week, sometimes a third for fiscal cases.
The copying of the protocol and of the acts imposed very hard work upon us. Being only two clerks, there was no time, on court days, for swallowing a piece of bread. On the other hand, the mistress of the house took no notice of anything like that. What her daughters or the servant girls could have done, namely, laying the table, bringing the cold or hot water for washing up, clearing the table and getting rid of the dish-water; all this came to Bartholomäi's share, whether he happened to be head over heels in other work or not, and the master of the house did not dare to utter a syllable. Amidst the biggest stress of business, when we did without our meals, the lady cried across the yard: "Bartholomäi, will you mind troubling yourself to come and throw the dish-water away?" And as if the satire was not obvious enough, she added: "Look at the lazy scamp. He has not attended to the water at all." I was forbidden to go out without asking, even to call upon my brother. Nor was this all. In the morning I saved the servant girls marketing; a basket slung on my arm like Gretchen, I bought the provisions for the household; cabbages, turnips, bread, and what not, and when I came back there was faultfinding without end for not having haggled enough. On washing day, which came round too often to please me, I pumped the water. When the pump was out of order it was I who went down the well to repair the mischief. And I was not a child, but a young man of twenty-three. I was paying for the good times of Stralsund. At each visit my brother was bewailing my fate and preaching patience. "In days to come, when you shall have a wife, children, and servants of your own, you will be able to tell them of your less happy days."
When Mistress Engelhardt was in her "tantrums," she went about for a week without addressing a friendly word to her husband. At such periods her son Solomon would come into the office to tell me that his father was a dissipated brute who had not slept with his mother for a week, etc., etc. The youngest of the girls fell ill and died; her mother put the corpse into a sack in guise of a coffin. An old crone carried it to the cemetery on her back. One can only hope that she dug a grave and placed her burden into it, for no one accompanied the dead child; no one superintended the burial.
Thanks to his capital practice, made up of the nobles and the cities paying him yearly retaining fees, thanks also to the avarice of this virago, Dr. Engelhardt easily put aside two thousand florins per annum. He lent money to the client-cities at interest. For two years running I made payments of two thousand florins each on a simple receipt.
In 1543, on his return from Italy, the emperor hurried on his preparations for a war against the Duke of Juliers. Ulm and Augsburg cast some magnificent pieces of field artillery, with their carriages and wheels; and as it was considered easier to transport the carriages separately, a numberless troop of Swabian carters was engaged. His Imperial Majesty stayed at Spires, the artillery not being ready. Autumn overtook him, and as the roads of the Netherlands were very bad at that season, his Majesty, to his great vexation, had to defer the attack. One day, being on horseback, he hustled a waggoner whose team proceeded too slowly to his taste, and spoke, moreover, very harshly to him. The Swabian, who had no idea of the identity of his interlocutor, merely made a grimace and shrugged his shoulders. A smart rap with a riding crop from the emperor was the result. So far from submitting, however, the stubborn clown promptly belabours his assailant's head with his whip, uttering imprecations all the while: "May the thunder strike and blast you, you scum of a Spaniard," and so forth. Of course the emperor's suite laid hold of him, and he had to pay dearly for his mistake. Not so dearly, though, as he might have done if the colonels entrusted with inquiries and the drawing up of the indictment had not purposely dragged the thing along to let the emperor's anger spend itself. Charles had forgotten all about the affair. He probably thought that his orders had been carried out and that the Swabian culprit was comfortably swinging from this or that gibbet, when the said colonels and captains humbly submitted the reasons for his being pardoned. There was first of all the ignorance of the waggoner, secondly the often excessive roughness of the Spaniards towards these poor Swabians. Furthermore, there was the august leniency of all great potentates and the gratitude of which the army would feel bound to give proof, if it were exercised upon such an occasion as the present. The prince relented to the extent of deciding that the culprit should have his nose cut off in memory of the assault. The colonels and the captains expressed their respectful gratitude, and the condemned man learnt the commutation of his sentence with great joy. They cut off his nose flush with his face. He bore the operation with a good grace, and for the remainder of his life sang the praises of the emperor. For many years he could be seen urging his cattle along the roads between the Rhine and the Danube. I happened to come several times into contact with him at the inns. I asked him before other travellers about the nature of the accident that had cost him his nose, whether he had left it in the French country. "Nay, nay," he replied, and with great glee recounted his adventure, showering blessings on his Imperial Majesty.
While the emperor was warring in Africa, Martin van Rosse[[29]] profited by the diversion to work his own will in the Netherlands. He had, for instance, imposed a ransom on Antwerp on the penalty of burning it to the ground. His Majesty, having learnt that he was conducting the expedition as a landsknecht, felt curious to get a glimpse of this personage. Martin van Rosse was warned too late; the emperor was already there. He pulled up his horse before the rebel. The latter, dropping on his knee, begged that the past might be forgotten, and swore to shed his last drop of blood for the emperor, who touched him lightly with his stick on the shoulder, and forgave him everything. "We forgive you, Martin," he said, "but do not begin again."
On February 20, 1544, the Diet was opened at Spires. I have heard it said that the Elector Palatine Lewis always endeavoured to dissuade his Majesty from choosing that town, because his mathematicus had predicted that he should die at Spires. In consequence of this, perhaps, he presented himself in person to the emperor at the very beginning of the session, and at the end of a few days took his leave to return to Heidelberg, where he died on March 16.
In default of a church, the Elector of Saxony had religious service performed in a tavern where he had put up a seat for the ministers. Lutes, fifes, cornets, trumpets and violins, instead of an organ, constituted a most agreeable concert. The elector's horse was a most robust animal, and there was a stepping stone attached to his saddle.
On the eve of Maundy Thursday at sunset twenty-four flagellants of both sexes marched by in their shirts, their faces covered with pieces of stuff into which were cut holes for their eyes and mouth, their backs sufficiently bare for the birch provided with steel-pointed hooks to touch the flesh. It was a hideous spectacle, the hooks tearing pieces of flesh away, and causing the blood to trickle down to the ground. The penitents advanced very slowly, one by one, in two single files, divided as it were by Spanish gentlemen of high degree, each carrying a thick wax candle. The whole street was lighted with them. When they reached the church of the barefooted Carmelites the procession fell on its knees and dragged itself from the porch to the crucifix in the choir in that way. Near the entrance the surgeons dressed the wounds; rumour had it that two corpses were carried away.
The emperor washed the feet of twelve poor men; the King of the Romans did the same. Care had however been taken to ascertain that those people were in good health; nay, their feet had been washed beforehand. The two sovereigns with napkins round their waists merely dried the feet, after which they waited upon the poor at table. "Friends," they cordially said to them, "eat and drink."
Like all gatherings of eminent personages, this diet entailed a rise in the prices of food, but especially of fish. A Rhine salmon cost sixteen crowns; for half of one the purveyor of the Duke of Mecklenburg paid eight crowns.
A Spanish gentleman who had taken up his quarters with an amiable widow who was looking to his comfort, became imbued with the idea that she would not refuse him her favours; so one night he crept into her bed; but the widow having got hold of a knife plunged it into his body and killed him there and then. Of course, she did not know how to get rid of the body; but though certain of her own ruin, she did not stir from her home. Her anguish at the prospect of the consequences had reached its height when the emperor, informed of the real state of the case, sent to reassure her. The Spaniards came to take the body of their countryman, and to perform the last duties to it.
On March 20, 1544, the emperor granted the privilege of a coat of arms to my brother Johannes, and conferred the title of poet laureate[[30]] on him, in recognition of a poem dedicated to him. Johannes Stigelius also offered the emperor a scriptum poeticum. His Majesty replied to him through the pen of his vice-chancellor, Seigneur Jean de Naves: "Carmen placet Imperatori; Poeta petat, quid velit habebit; Si voluerit esse nobilis, erit; si poeta laureatus, erit id quoque; sed pecuniam non petat, pecuniam, non habebit." It might serve as a warning to Stralsund not to lavish its money on the first comer who thinks fit to dedicate some poor rhymes to it.
On May 19, 1544, I was made a notary by Imperial diploma. Prelate Otto Truchess, of Waldburg, bestowed upon my brother a gold chain for a carmen gratulatorium on the occasion of his recent installation in the see of Augsburg.
Doctor Christopher Hose, ex-procurator and advocate of Stralsund, who had been struck off on account of his evangelical faith, had built himself a handsome residence at Worms. He came to Spires during the Diet. A veteran practitioner, a straightforward and agreeable man, he was a favourite with his colleagues, and especially with the young ones. He was, however, highly esteemed by everybody, and nobody minded him exposing the astute moves of his adversaries. A learned doctor had invited him and several colleagues, Master Engelhardt among the number. When I got there with my lantern to escort my master home, the evening cup was being poured out, and whether I liked it or not, the host and Dr. Hose, who were acquainted with my family's circumstances, made me sit down at the lower end of the table and offered me cakes, pastry, etc. Thereupon Master Engelhardt got up brusquely and wanted to go. "Seeing that my servant is sitting down, I had better go. At any rate I shall not sit down again unless he remains standing to attend to me," he said. Dr. Hose, however, went on with his little speech to me. "Look you here, Pomeranian," he remarked, "the words 'procurator at the Imperial Court' are simply synonymous with those of hardened rogue, and that is the gist of the matter." (The latter was a favourite interjection of his.) "At your age," he went on, "I was also with a procurator who run up costs very heavily with his clients without doing much for them. Now, just listen to this story. A Franconian gentleman entrusted a most important case to my master, gave him a considerable retaining fee, and promised him another big sum at the end of the year. When the case had been put upon the rolls, the procurator put the documents relating to it into a bag, showing the names of the parties to the suit in large letters; after which he suspended the bag in the usual way with many others in the registry room with which you are familiar. At the end of the year he claimed his fees, announcing at the same time the termination of the suit and his hurrying on of the judgment. The client added to the sum agreed upon a gratification and a present for us, the engrossing and copying clerks. Nevertheless, he fancied the affair was dragging along, and one fine day he came to Spires and rung at our door, and on its being opened my master a once recognized the visitor. You are aware that procurators generally have their own rooms facing the door, in order to see who came in and went out. Thereupon my master runs to the registry chamber, takes down the bag in question, and places it on the table. After which he has the Franconian shown in, receiving him very cordially, imbuing him at the same time with the idea that he never loses sight of his documents. He also tells him that he was constantly demanding the execution of the judgment, but that he will insist still more strongly, and will send an express to his noble client. The latter departed exceedingly satisfied, after having offered a rich gift to the procurator's lady. Well, as a fact, the lawsuit was not even in its first stage.
"Take my word for it," he went on, "the procurators of the Imperial Chamber are past-masters of trickery, and that's the gist of the matter. If you have made up your mind to practise at Spires, Pomeranian, you must provide yourself with three bags: one for the money, one for the documents, and the third for patience. In the course of the suit you will see the purse get flatter, the documents grow bigger, and patience desert altogether; but you will comfort yourself with the thought that the emperor writes to you: 'We, Charles V, by the Grace of God Roman Emperor, Perpetual Aggrandizer of the Germanic Empire, King of Spain, the Two Sicilies, Jerusalem, Hungary, Dalmatia, etc., assure our dear and faithful Bartholomäi Sastrow, of our grace and goodwill.' Think of the pleasure and the honour of receiving that missive, while you are sitting in the inglenook amidst your family. Assuredly it is money well spent." That was the manner of Dr. Hose's discourse.
The diet dissolved. King Ferdinand with his two sons, Maximilian and Ferdinand, reconducted the landgrave. At their return there was a terrible storm, accompanied by hailstones as big as hazel nuts. In Spires itself several hundred florins worth of windows were broken. The cavalry, hussars and royal trabans fled panic-stricken; it was nothing less than a general rout, and the gathering darkness increased the confusion. The runaways only reached Spires after the gates were closed, and lay down in the outer moats in order to save their lives. King Ferdinand appeared on the scene, absolutely alone. He called and knocked, shouted his name, and finally succeeded in finding some one who recognized him, when of course the gates were thrown open, and they sped towards him with many torches. The first question of the king was about his sons; nobody had seen them come up. Thereupon more confusion, shouting, questioning, and contemplated saddling of horses; but just in the nick of time the princes rode up, escorted by a small number of men. The trabans pleaded mortal danger in excuse for their neglect of duty, and their wounds in fact confirmed the plea, for the king, having made them strip, could see how the hailstones had literally riddled their bodies. All declared that their mounts no longer answered the bit.
The reconstitution of the Imperial Chamber was adjourned. I should have regretted returning to the paternal roof before our lawsuit was in a fair way of being settled; on the other hand, life at Master Engelhardt's was intolerable in consequence of his accursed wife, who was a fiend incarnate. Her dreadful character inspired me from that day forward with an aversion for petticoat government, and I am likely to preserve it until I draw my last breath. My father's interest dictated resignation, for my stay at Spires in hurrying up affairs also saved expenses of procedure and of correspondence, the latter of which threatened to be heavy now and again, when a messenger had to be dispatched to Stralsund. I was sufficiently versed in the scribal art and in High-German to find employment elsewhere. I was offered a post at the chancellerie of the Margrave Ernest of Baden and Hochberg, Landgrave of Sansenberg, Overlord of Roetteln and Badenweiler, etc., whose residence was at Pforzheim. It was only six miles (German) distant from Spires, and I accepted.
I and my fellow-scribe had been constantly engaged in engrossing deeds. As a rule these were petitions addressed either to the emperor or to some prince in behalf of the Jews of Swabia or of the Palatinate, who paid largely. Our master left us free in that respect. He knew that we were not inclined to work for nothing. Eager to earn money we even encroached upon our hours of sleep in order to get all the possible benefit of the diet. We had, furthermore, the tips of clients in return for our promise not to neglect their affairs. The receipts were dropped into a solid iron box, secured to the window of the office. Dr. Engelhardt kept the key of it. We estimated the treasure at a hundred crowns, and looked forward with joy to its division. When I was about to leave, the procurator came into the office, opened the box in my presence, and emptied it. We gloated over the admirable collection of florins, crowns, and other specimens of beautiful German and Welch coinage. Master Engelhardt gave me a crown, another to my fellow-clerk, and pocketed the rest. Stupefied and dumbstricken we saw him walk away with the proceeds of our vigils and our labour. No! Dr. Hose did not libel Master Engelhardt.
[CHAPTER V]
Stay at Pforzheim--Margrave Ernest--My extreme Penury at Worms, followed by great Plenty at a Receiver's of the Order of St. John--I do not lengthen this Summary, seeing that but for my Respect for the Truth, I would willingly pass over many Episodes in Silence
My brother accompanied me as far as Rheinhausen. From thence I got to Bruchsall, the residence of the Bishop of Spires, then to Heidelsheim, Brettheim, and at last to patria Philippi, Pforzheim. I entered upon my duties at the Chancellerie on June 24, 1544. My brother Johannes went with his master to the baths of Zell, where he met with an honourable, young, and good-looking girl from Esslingen. The young girl's guardian and her kinsfolk (licentiates, the syndic of Esslingen, and other notables) allowed the couple to plight their troth, subject to the consent of our parents. It was agreed that my brother should proceed to Italy to get his doctor's degree, that he should get married on his return, and take his wife with him to Pomerania. Johannes asked me to go to Esslingen to see the young girl and her family; her birth, character and dowry left nothing to desire. We wrote home each on his side; my parents opposed a categorical refusal. After that I never saw my brother really in good spirits. The young girl married a wealthy goldsmith of Strasburg. When my mother informed us that she and her husband gave their consent, it was, alas, too late. Poor Johannes, undermined by regret, was visibly wasting away.
Pforzheim is not a large place, and it has only one church. The town lies in a hollow amidst smiling plains, watered by a clear, health-giving stream, swarming with delicate fish. It is a charming place in the summer. The neighbouring lofty mountains are covered with dense, almost impenetrable forests full of game. Though lying in a valley, the castle commands the town. There are among the population a great many learned, modest, pleasant and well brought-up men. All the necessities of life, both in good and bad health, are at hand: apothecaries, barbers, innkeepers, artisans, etc.; in addition to these there are the canticles and sermons of the Evangelical religion. The life at court was conducted on economical principles, but on a very decent footing, however, and without the slightest attempt at parsimony unworthy of a prince. Yet the difference between their usages and those of Pomerania was great. The meals consisted of meat, fish, vegetables, dried figs, oatmeal porridge, cabbages and a fair ration of bread, and in a pewter goblet some ordinary wine, unfortunately in insufficient quantity, especially in summer. The counsellors were, however, served a second time. There was always plenty of work; there was a secretary of seventy, and a chancellor not much his junior, and the most morose of all doctors of law.
In 1545 Margrave Ernest concluded a pact of succession with his nephews; the negotiations were only waiting for an exchange of deeds. I was entrusted with the engrossing of one copy. The text was so long that it would scarcely hold on one skin of parchment; it was, therefore, necessary to write very close and small. I was rather frightened, for the chancellor was difficult to please; one might scrape and scratch till the erasure was invisible; he would light a candle in plain daylight, hold the deed before the flame, find out the flaw, and tear up the document while giving a strong reprimand.
I had been working at that copy for forty-eight hours, when all of a sudden an omission of at least a line struck me all at once. I had never been in such an awkward position in my life. I might count on several days' imprisonment; the only thing that could save me was a stratagem. The castle was on the heights, the chancellerie at the foot of them in the town itself. When the bugle sounded for dinner I stopped behind till everybody was gone; then in the twinkling of an eye I got hold of a cat, dipped its tail into the ink, and let it loose on the skin of parchment; the deed was all smeared over, the marks of the animals feet as distinct as possible. I shut it up and went to my meal. When it was over I let my colleagues go first; as they opened the door the cat flew at them, and on the table they caught sight of its latest masterpiece. At that moment I entered, and they showed me the disaster, explaining at the same time how the cat "went" for them. Naturally I played at being in despair, equally naturally they all tried to comfort me, and thus I came with flying colours out of what threatened to be an ugly scrape.
Whenever a condemned man was led to execution, Margrave Ernest made him come to him in order to reconcile himself with him. After having asked pardon of him for his compulsory sternness, he recommended him to show himself firm and bold, the blood of Jesus Christ having been shed not in order to save the righteous, but the unjust. Then he shook hands with him, and the wretched man was led away.
The Margrave had his apartments right over the principal entrance of the castle, so as to see everybody that came in or went out. One day he caught sight of the head cook taking away such a magnificent carp that its tail showed from under his cloak. "Just listen," exclaimed His Highness; "the next time you rob me, either take a carp less big or a longer cloak." While they were putting wine in his Highness's cellar, two cooks who were going into the town passed by; one had a couple of capons stuffed away in his belt. The Margrave called them to lend a hand, and wishing to be quick they flung off their cloaks. The scamp was not thinking about the birds, which began to peck at his arms while he was pulling the rope; thereupon they called all the serving wenches out to enjoy the spectacle. There is no need to add that they were the laughingstock of them all.
As there was to be a diet at Worms, I was anxious to have an interview with my brother. In order to save time I hired a trotter, which carried me in a day to Spires, and back the next morning to Pforzheim. The return journey, though, nearly cost me my life. I was leaving the hotel of Brettheim when I was hailed by a horseman coming out of another inn. "Whither are you going?" he asked. "To Pforzheim." "That's capital; that's my road; we'll ride together." A mile farther on a side path of which I knew enabled us to cut across the country, but at its other end they had put down four poles. Instead of turning back I urged my horse, which at first puts a forepaw betwixt the poles; it does not free itself in time, gets its hind leg in the wrong place, and finally falls on its left side. My companion shouts to me to catch hold of the animal's head to prevent its moving; then he jumps down himself, unbridles and unharnesses my mount, and after having told me to leave go its head, starts it with a smart stroke of his riding whip, while I am on the ground seated in my saddle, and with one spur caught in the belly-band. Had I been alone and without Divine help, I should have been dragged along and dashed to pieces. When all danger was over, the horseman told me that our roads parted on that spot. In vain did I remind him of his intention to go to Pforzheim; he wished me good-night, recommending me to the care of God and all His angels. I was anxious to offer him a finger's breadth of wine at the next inn; he declined my offer, on the pretext that its acceptance would cause too great a delay. I shall never cease to believe that my saviour was a holy angel.
Johannes approved of my intention to leave Pforzheim for Worms, where the diet would most probably proceed with the reconstitution of the Imperial Chamber. Then would be the right moment to return to Spires. The Margrave when I left, sent me half a golden florin, besides a court dress.
All at once there grew under my right nostril a pustule as big as a grain of barley; I punctured it frequently, and there came more blood from it than one could have imagined, but the kind of tumour did not disappear, not even when the surgeon whom I consulted cut it. It kept growing again, so, in order to destroy its root, as he said, he rubbed it with what I suppose was aqua fortis, for it caused me a horrible pain. I suffered most when going to Spires, owing to the cold and the wind; my nose swelled enormously.
On April 17 my brother accompanied me to Hütten, a mile and a half distant from Spires. There we parted, weeping bitterly; we had a presentiment that we should never see each other again, or even write. Next morning Johannes started for Italy.
His Imperial Majesty being detained in the Netherlands with gout, the king of the Romans opened the diet of Worms on March 24, 1545. Only a small number of princes came, so the emperor, when he arrived, prorogued the diet until the next year.
The spiteful, impious and fiendish wife of Procurator Engelhardt had made my life at Spires a misery, but at Worms I suffered hunger and thirst and all the wretchedness of downright distress. I wish this to be remembered not only by my children, but by all those who happen to read me. I carried the whole of my belongings upon me, namely: the court dress given to me at Pforzheim, two shirts, a sword with a silver tip to its sheath, and the six florins the Margrave had sent me, the whole constituting but a scant provision. The absence of the Emperor interfered with my livelihood; there was little work to do for copyists, and under those unfavourable conditions I stayed for twelve weeks. A canon, brother to Johannes' employer, gave me shelter during the first fortnight, after which he left for Mayence. The envoy of the dukes of Pomerania, Maurice Domitz, captain of Ukermünde, who knew my family very well, put, it is true, his purse at my disposal, knowing as he did that he would be reimbursed at Stralsund; the syndic of Lubeck was also at Worms with Franz von Sitten, my Rostock chum; neither the one nor the other would have refused to do me a service; borrowing meant, however, imposing new sacrifices upon my parents, so I preferred to suffer privation.
My nose caused me severe pain for a long while; when it gave me some respite, my mornings and afternoons were spent in walks, either with my countrymen from Mecklenburg, Pomerania or Lubeck, or with the friends I had made in Worms. Nobody had any idea of my being as poor as I was. At the dinner hour, when everybody repaired to the inn, I bought a pfenning's worth of bread, and the public fountain supplied the drink gratis; it was very rare that I took a little soup with a piece of meat as big as an egg in it, at the eating house. The owner of the establishment allowed me, in consideration of a kreutzer, to spend the night on a wooden seat; a bed would have cost half a batz (a batz was equal to about a penny of those days), and the wooden seat seemed preferable, inasmuch as I had sufficient "live stock" of my own, without picking up that of others. I sold the silver tip of my sword sheath, an iron tip as it seemed to me, to meet all my requirements. I subsequently disposed of one of my two shirts for what it would fetch; the six florins had melted away, and I wanted the wherewithal to buy dry bread. When my remaining shirt was dirty I went to wash it in the Rhine, and waited in the sun while it was drying; all this was so much money saved, no cost of laundry, soap, ironing or pleating.
My small clothes fell on my heels; I myself could no longer repair them. The "snip" at Worms would have asked not less than a batz; at Spires, on the other hand, it would have been done for half the price. So I made up my mind to go to Spires. I only reached the outer fortifications after the closing of the gates. Dying with hunger, thirst and fatigue, I lay down in the moat where I almost perished with cold. Next morning, at the tailor's, after having undressed, I sat huddled up all the while he was mending my clothes. I went back to Worms at a "double quick," having done twelve miles to save half a batz.
The constant want of nourishment had made me weak, and with my blood in a bad state, incapable of holding a pen if I had found any copying to do. My distress was at its worst when one of my kindest acquaintances the secretary of the Bishop of Strasburg, informed me that being in need of a writer, he was going to recommend me to his master, but the prelate said no because Pomeranians professed the Evangelical religion. Finally, through the good offices of the secretary of the Order of St. John, the chancellor succeeded in getting me a place at the receiver's of the said order. Great indeed, was the deliverance, and joy reigned in my heart instead of despondency. It was only later on that my eyes were opened to the dangers of my new condition.
On July 9, 1545, then, Christopher von Loewenstein, receiver of the Order of St. John for Lower and Upper Germany (he had been present at the taking of Rhodes by the Turks), engaged my services as a scribe. He promised me a complete dress and boots, such as his other servants received, but he did not stipulate the amount of my salary; he gave me to understand, though, that I should have no reason to grumble.
The function of receiver consisted in collecting the revenues of the various commanderies on account of the knights of Rhodes actually at Malta. At the demise of a commander, the receiver takes possession of the property of the defunct, and despatches it with the ordinary interest by means of bills of exchange to the Grand Master of the Order, who at that time was a Frankish gentleman, Don Jean de Homedes. The Grand Master confers for life the vacant benefice upon this or that knight who has distinguished himself before the enemy. The right of installing the new commander belongs to the receiver, who derives enormous profits from his office.
My master had, moreover, seven commanderies of his own; he was, therefore, perfectly justified in having eight horses in his stable like a great noble. He gave me the money to take the coach to Oppenheim, whence I was to proceed by water to Mayence, where he himself was to make a stay of several days. Mayence, Frankfurt and Niederweisel were the three commanderies which most often required his personal attention.
Niederweisel is an imperial town of the Wetterau, between Butzbach and Fribourg. Herr von Loewenstein spent the greater part of the year in a magnificent dwelling, replete with every imaginable comfort; spacious dwellings kept in excellent condition had been erected around a vast court; granges, stables, riding school, brewery and bakery, kitchens, atop of which were the refectory and the servants' quarters; at one end of the court the master himself occupied a handsome room and dressing-room, affording an uninterrupted view of the whole. A deep moat crossed by a drawbridge ran round the structure. And I, after having wanted the strictly necessary at Worms, found myself suddenly wading in plenty. The effect of the abrupt change of fortune may easily be imagined.
Though short in height, my master had won his benefices by his bravery at the siege of Rhodes. In his riper age he remained the soldier he had been in his youth. Daily feasting, succulent cheer, washed down by copious libations--a numerous company always around him--his revenues enabled him to lead that kind of expensive existence. The commandery being on the high road, landsknecht and horseman, sure of liberal entertainment, regularly made a halt there; the neighbours themselves were not more sparing with their visits; in short, gaming, feasting and drinking took up all the time.
The commander had practically a concubine under his own roof. He chose her with an eye to beauty, dressed and adorned her according to his means; when he wished a little more freedom, he married her to one of his equerries, gave her a home at Butzbach, and provided her against want. Butzbach being within a stone's throw of Niederweisel, he reserved to himself the option of seeing her when he liked. In my time, he lived with Marie Koenigstein, the daughter of the defunct town clerk of Mayence; she was, moreover, his god-daughter, and by her father's will his ward. Beauty, education, excellent manners, kindliness: all these and many other qualities were hers. Why had she not met with a more staid and sober guardian? She was about eighteen, when one fine day the commander came to Mayence in a closed carriage, sent for the young girl, told her to get in for a few moments and drove her as fast as the horses would carry them to Neiderweisel. So effectually did he hide her that for seven or eight weeks her brothers and relations did not know what had become of her. Finally, by dint of gifts, the commander succeeded in mollifying the brother, whom he sent to the Grand Master of the Order. As for Marie, she had everything she could wish for in the matter of silken gowns, gold-embroidered cuffs and sable furs.
I was lucky enough to find favour with the commander. Every peasant-tenant of the seven commanderies held his homestead on a lease; and I had a crown for each renewal. I wore a dress like that of the equerries. Madame Marie looked to my shirts, handkerchiefs and night-caps and kept them in good condition. A nice well furnished room, close to the drawbridge did duty both as a bedchamber and study. I had my meals at the commander's board with his guests, Marie, the chaplain and the three equerries. Well fitting clothes, a sword with a silver sheath-tip, and a golden ring on my little finger contributed greatly to transform me into a young gallant; my pitiful figure of Worms was completely transformed; I improved physically and found favour in the eyes of the fair.
As for my duties, they were not very heavy; the only commanderies that gave us trouble now and again were those of the Landgrave of Hesse; they grudgingly settled their dues in consequence of the antipathy of the landgrave, for my master, who did not worry himself much about religious matters, was neither a papist nor a Lutheran, only Knight of the Order. The intrigues of the court compelled Herr von Loewenstein, therefore, to summon the Hessian commanderies before the tribunals; and the results, as far as I was concerned, were frequent journeys to Cassel and to the chancellerie of Marburg.
The commander had a rich collection of bits, bridles, saddles and saddle-cloths; he kept three equerries, though only one bore that title; the stable held seven or eight young stallions from Friesland that had been bought at the Frankfort fair. When the commander went out on horseback, a frequent occurrence, I accompanied him with the equerries; he made us change our mounts each time and entrusted us with horses costing between sixty and seventy, while he himself only rode an indifferent cob not worth half-a-score of florins. His horses were all of the same colour; when he grew tired of that colour he sold the cattle at half-price or gave them away, just to get rid of them. On one occasion he fancied a good ambling animal; he had happened to meet with a dappled grey, strong, clean-limbed and a capital pacer. It was valued at a hundred crowns; he, however, soon afterwards offered it to the Elector of Mayence who was very anxious for it and reserved it for his personal use.
The commander kept a fool of about eighteen, but who had been downright mad from the day of his birth. On one occasion the fellow entered his master's room and told him that he had been embracing the cowherd's daughter in the shed. He spoke out plainly without the least disguise. "After dinner, we mean to begin again in the same spot," he added. "Beware of St. Valentine's evil," said the commander. "Yes, sir, at the stroke of twelve, at the grange; your Grace will be able to bear witness to it." The commander hurried up and arrived opere operato. He sent to Friburg for the operator and signified his sentence to the fool who kicked against it. The commander, however, promised him a pair of crimson boots. "True, will your Grace give me your hand on the promise?" said the idiot. The commander gave him his hand; thereupon the fool exclaimed: "Come, Master Johannes, make haste." The operator stretched him on a bench, where the other servants kept him motionless, for at the first cut of the razor he began to resist. Master Johannes proceeded quickly and surely.[[31]] ... The patient remained for nine days on his back on a narrow couch, bound hand and foot so that he could not move an inch. The commander had given instructions to treat him with every care.
Master Johannes very soon deemed the fool sufficiently recovered to get rid of him, but at the commander's wish he kept him for some time longer in his room to the great annoyance of Master Johannes' young and good-looking wife; the latter had a strong objection to the fool's telling all sorts of tales about herself and her husband, on whose doings he spied night and day. He became a great nuisance, for in spite of his operation he grew fat and saucy, and at the death of the Commander, Landgrave Philippe sent for him to come to Cassel.
The chaplain was a fine specimen of the young debauchee. Instead of preaching the pure doctrine of Luther he performed mass twice a week in the chapel of the commandery. To get to the chapel he had to go through the servants' refectory just at breakfast time. He simply sat down, got hold of a spoon and dipped it into the soup. "Master Johannes," said we, "you know it is forbidden to eat before the mass?" "Nonsense," he replied; "the Saviour gets through bolts and locks; the soup won't stop him."
Herr von Loewenstein owned an old ape, a strong customer, who could get into formidable passions. The animal, which was kept on a chain, would only allow its master, the baker and myself, to come near it. Most dangerous was it when showing its teeth, as if laughing. When I sat down within its reach, I dared not get up without its leave; perched on my shoulder, it amused itself by scratching my head, and I had to wait till it got tired; then I shook hands with it and I was allowed to go. One day a landsknecht, a handsome, well built fellow, tempted by the prospect of a good meal, came into the commandery. He carried a javelin, and the ape, who unfortunately was free of his chain, jumped at him, and after having wrenched the weapon from him, bit him in several places that it was most pitiful to see; after which it crossed the moat, climbed to its master's window, opened it, and made its way into the room. With one glance the commander perceived that the animal was in a rage; he endeavoured to soothe it with kindly words. It so happened that a silver dagger was lying near the window sill; our ape ties it round its waist; thereupon the commander gently draws the weapon from its sheath, plunges it into the animal, and notwithstanding its bites, holds it pinned down until the breath is out of it. There is no denying that an ape is a terrible creature when it gets on in years and grows big.
After the harvest our master wished to go partridge-hawking, for his hawks were well trained. As his dapple-grey was being brought round--the one that ambled so capitally--the unexpected visit of several strange horsemen interrupted the party; the commander gave me his hawk, telling me to go without him. Just as I am getting my right leg over the saddle the bird beat its wings, the horse frightened, gets out of hand of the groom, and I am caught in the stirrup; more concerned for the hawk than for my safety, I drop backward, the horse continues to plunge, drags me along, kicking me all the while, the commander and his frightened guests looking powerlessly on. Luckily my shoe and my left hose give way and stick to the stirrup, while I am left on the ground, with nothing more serious, though, than a couple of swollen limbs. Nevertheless, on that day I had a very narrow escape from death.
The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse constantly raising levies against the Duke of Brunswick, the commandery swarmed with colonels and captains.[[32]] They offered me the post of secretary; the arrangement was, in fact, concluded, but I did not wish to go except with the consent of the commander. He granted me my leave, though giving me to understand that I should not expect to return to his service after the war. And inasmuch as the war was to be a short one, the warning gave me food for reflection. The winter was coming on; I certainly had no wish for a repetition of my privations at Worms. I remained, for the following lines recurred to my memory:
Si qua sede sedes, et erat tibi commoda sedes
Illâ sede sede, nec ab illâ sede recede.
Several companies of landsknechten were reviewed; and nothing could have been more diverting than to watch the inspector examine the weapons and the shape of the men, their dress and their gait. He made them march past him rather twice than once. How each man tried to hide his shortcomings, and how those who were "passed" as fit blew themselves, and swaggered and talked loud and boastfully like the hirelings they were. The war came to an end on October 21, with the capture of Duke Henry of Brunswick and his son, Charles Victor; his second son, Philippe, hastened to Rome to ask for help of the pope.
At the autumn fair Herr von Loewenstein took up his quarters at Frankfurt with the whole of his household for six weeks. My old chum, Franz von Stiten, coming across me once more, I told him everything about my position, and when I had given him the address of the House of the Knights of St. John, he arranged to come and pay me a visit one morning before the commander was stirring. And, in fact, he came, and had a long conversation with Marie, to whom he gave particulars about my parents, birth, and family circumstances. The information still further disposed the damsel in my favour; in short, I am bound to confess that I lost all claim to the meritorious reputation of Joseph the chaste. Since then I have acknowledged my sin to the Almighty, and I have sufficiently expiated it during my journey to Rome to count upon my pardon; besides, amidst the privations, dangers and trials which I am about to relate, however just the punishment may have been, the Divine mercy has never failed me, sending me protection and deliverance as it did in its admirable ways.
While my master drank and gamed with his guests (he was rarely alone, and in Frankfurt less than elsewhere) I read, in the quietude of my own room, the Institutes, which I nearly always carried about with me. In vain did Herr von Loewenstein tell me again and again not to expect to become a doctor of law while I was with him. I did not fear any opposition from that quarter.
In February 1546 my master having been summoned to Spires, the habitual residence of the superior of the Order for Germany, only left Marie and myself behind at Mayence. A letter from my parents, telling me of the death of my brother in Rome, made me decide upon my journey to Rome. There was not the slightest trace left of the sufferings I had undergone at Worms; my health was excellent, I had a well-stocked wardrobe, and my purse was fairly lined. On the other hand, the loose morals of the Knights of St. John were calculated to take me to hell rather than to heaven; the money earned in such a service could not bring luck; it was better to spend it on the high roads, and to cut myself adrift from such a reprehensible mode of life. Undoubtedly the time had come. Besides, it was absolutely necessary to ascertain the circumstances of my brother's death; I knew the sum of money he had with him, and the idea of his having spent it in so short a time was inadmissible. I told my reasons, though not all, to Marie; we parted on the most amicable footing. In the letter she gave me for the commander, she informed him of the sum she had given me at my departure, leaving it to him to increase it. Herr von Loewenstein wished me happiness and luck, and advised me, if I valued my life, to abstain in Italy, but above all in Rome, from all theological controversy; finally, he added a double ducat to Marie's gift. From Spires I went a little out of my way to see my friends at Pforzheim; after having said goodbye to them I began my long journey, alone and on foot, under the holy safeguard of the Almighty.
[CHAPTER VI]
Travels in Italy--What happened to me in Rome--I take Steps to recover my Brother's Property--I become aware of some strange Particulars--I suddenly leave Rome
I started from Mayence on April 8, 1546, and after crossing an unknown country by bad roads, I reached Kempten, an ancient imperial city at the foot of the Alps, and the see of an important abbey. The unpleasant parts of the journey hitherto had been solitude and fatigue, when at a quarter of an hour from Kempten there appeared two wolves of very good size. They were making for a plantation of oaks on the other side of the road, but when they got to the highway, at a stone's throw from where I was, they stopped "to take stock of me." Evidently they were going to make a mouthful of my poor, insignificant person. What was I to do? To beat a retreat was practically to invite their pursuit. To advance was to lessen at every step the distance dividing us. Trusting to God's good will, I kept marching on, and the wolves disappeared in the underwood. I hurried on, to escape the double risk of meeting the carnivora again or to find the city gates shut against me, for night was coming on apace. At the hostelry nobody seemed surprised at the meeting, for the neighbouring mountains swarmed with large packs of the animals. What they wondered at was the manner in which I got out of the danger. I offered thanks to the Lord.