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PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE
IN THE
FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
VOL. I.
PICTURES
OF
GERMAN LIFE
In the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries.
BY
GUSTAV FREYTAG
Translated from the Original by
MRS. MALCOLM.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.--IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.
1862.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The great interest which these graphic Pictures of Life in Germany have created in that country, has induced me to translate them. The object of the distinguished author seems to have been, to convey a lesson, a warning, and at the same time an encouragement to his countrymen, derived from the experience of the past; whilst he demonstrates to other nations how it is, that a people so superior in intellectual power, has remained so far behind in social and political development.
I have also felt as an additional reason, that at the present moment, the British public must take a deep interest in everything connected with the past, and future, of the country in which the daughter of our beloved Queen has cast her lot, and which was the Fatherland of the revered Prince, who has been a source of blessing to England for so many years, and whose irreparable loss we now so deeply deplore.
GEORGIANA MALCOLM.
CONTENTS.
FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.
Introduction.--Life of a German proprietor, 300, 200, and 100 years ago--In what respect the life of the past appears alien to us--Greater repression of the individual mind--Significance of the last four centuries
CHAPTER I.
Scenes From The Hussite War (1425)--Emigration of Germans to the east after the thirteenth century--Silesia and its Sclave Princes--Colonization, the blessing of free labour recognized-- Character and fate of the German Silesians--Contrast of the Bohemians--Narrative by Martin von Bolkenhain--Consequences of the Hussite war and subsequent fate of the Silesians
CHAPTER II.
A German Lady Of The Royal Court (1440)--Development of the popular mind in the Hussite time--Life at Court--The last of the Luxemburgers--The Hungarian Crown--Narration of Helen Kottanner--Struggles of conscience in the fifteenth century
CHAPTER III.
A Travelling Student (1509)--Characteristics of the fifteenth century--Introductions in the sixteenth century--Excitement in the people, wandering propensities, exciting news, Landsknechte, art of printing--German learning; the Humanitarians--The Latin schools, the children of the people as scholars--Narrative Of Thomas Platter--Influence of the Latin schools upon the people
CHAPTER IV.
The Mental Struggles of a Youth, and his Entrance into a Monastery (1510)--The wants of the popular mind--The church--Brotherhoods; Indulgences--Opposition to them--Narrative Of Friedrich Myconius
CHAPTER V.
Out of the Cloister into the Struggle (1522)--The storm among the people--Luther's popularity--Narration of Ambrosius Blaurer--The knight from the Wartburg--Narrative of Johann Kessler
CHAPTER VI.
Doctor Luther (1517 to 1546)--His importance to us--The tragic in his life--Distinct periods in it--His father--Mental struggle in the monastery, and how he delivered himself from it--His character in 1519--Three letters to the Pope--An inward struggle--Luther as a writer--At the Wartburg--Adherence to Scripture, and defects in his method--The marriage of priests--Return to Wittenberg--His political position--The crisis--How he married--Activity of his latter years--His spirit, his family, his God, his temptations, and ideas of the end of the world--From the funeral discourse of Melancthon--Letter of Luther to the Elector Friedrich the Wise, March, 1522
CHAPTER VII.
German Princes At The Imperial Diet (1547)--Luther and Charles V.--The Roman Empire--Possibility of a new confirmation--The man wanting--Princes of the sixteenth century--Charles V.--Narrative of Bartholomäus Sastrow--Weakness of the Imperial power--Alliance of the German opposition with France--Internal disorganization of the empire
CHAPTER VIII.
A Burgher Family (1488)--Insight into the lower circles of German life--Increasing popular strength--Social superiority of the Protestant provinces (1542)--Insecurity of life--Family History Of Bartholomäus Sastrow
CHAPTER IX.
The Marriage and Housekeeping of a Young Student (1557)--The female sex among the Germans--Position of women in the middle ages--Marriage considered as an alliance between families--The betrothal--Narrative of Felix Platter
CHAPTER X.
Of a Patrician House (1526 to 1598)--The patricians rich and educated--Hans Schweinichen's account of the riches of the Fuggers--Their women--Clara Pirkheimer and Argula von Grumbach--Letters of a Lady of the Glauburg Family
CHAPTER XI.
German Nobility In The Sixteenth Century (1500)--False position in the nation--Unproductiveness--Gradual change--Character of Götz von Berlichingen--Extract from his Autobiography--Character of Schärtlin--Narrative Of Schärtlin--Hans von Schweinichen and Duke Heinrich von Liegnitz--Narrative Of Schweinichen--Transition to modern life
CHAPTER XII.
German Ideas of the Devil in the Sixteenth Century (1500)--The introduction of German traditions concerning him; change in the middle ages--Luther spiritualizes the ideas regarding the devil--Activity of the devil in the new Church--Compacts with the devil after Luther's time--Favourable position of the possessed--The money devil at Frankfort--Satan exorcised from one possessed--Witches--Dreadful persecutions--Gloomy state of men's minds at the end of the sixteenth century
DEDICATION.
To my dear Friend Solomon Hertzel.
Without your knowledge I dedicate this work to you, who have taken so kind an interest in it, whose excellent library has so often helped when other sources failed, and where, as industrious collectors, we have examined so many old flying sheets and manuscripts.
To you also these records of the olden times, in which the private life and feelings of the writers are portrayed, are especially valuable, for by them a clear light is thrown on events in our political history which till now have been only occasionally noticed, and we may discover from them how the German people have felt, suffered, and lived.
If these records of individuals can be judiciously arranged according to periods and their position in life, it appears to me that an instructive insight may be obtained into the gradual development of the mind of the German people.
I have endeavoured to carry this out from the middle ages to the beginning of the present era.
What I have added of my own is simple explanation: I have avoided saying anything where it could be given in the original; only where the old records fail to give a complete picture have I supplied the deficiency.
As there are very few who can read the language of the fifteenth, or even the seventeenth, century with ease, I have thought it necessary to translate the records into modern German, but at the same time to preserve something of the old style.
Accept kindly then, my friend, what of right belongs to you, for your flag waves on every vessel that I launch; and I trust that the freight that I have this time prepared, may meet with your hearty approbation.
GUSTAV FREYTAG.
Siebleben, 8th October, 1859.
INTRODUCTION.
In vain does the German seek for "the good old times." If even the pious zealot who condemns Hegel and Humboldt as the greatest of Atheists, or the conservative proprietor who is struggling for the privileges of his order, were to be thrown back into one of the last centuries, he would feel first unmitigated astonishment, then horror, at the position in which he would find himself placed. What now appears to him so desirable would make him miserable, and he would be driven to despair at the loss of all the advantages of that civilization which he at present so little appreciates.
Let a German proprietor endeavour to realize to himself the position of one of his ancestors in the year 1559. Instead of the house he has now, built in the old German style, surrounded by its English pleasure-grounds, he would find himself shut up in a gloomy, dirty, and comfortless building, placed either on a height destitute of water, and exposed to the cutting blasts of the wind, or else surrounded by the fœtid smells of stagnant ditches. It is true that three generations back dim panes had been added to the small windows,[[1]] and large stoves of Dutch tiles, which were fed with logs from the neighbouring forest, kept the cold out of the sitting-rooms; but the accommodation was limited, as it was occasionally necessary to defend the house against attacks from the citizens of the nearest town, roving bands of marauders, or reckless soldiers bent on revenge because they had been cheated of half their pay by the neighbouring prince.
Comfortless and dirty is the house, for it is occupied by many others beside the family of the owner: younger brothers and cousins, with their wives and children, numberless servants, amongst them many of doubtful character, men-at-arms, labourers, and in 1559, mercenaries, may be added. In the court-yard, from the dung-heap is heard the cry of children quarrelling, and from round the kitchen fire the no less inharmonious sound of wrangling women. The children of the house grow up amongst horses, dogs, and servants; they receive scanty instruction in the village school; the boys keep the geese[[2]] and poultry for their mother, or they go with the village people to the wood to collect wild pears and mushrooms, which are dried for the winter meal; the lady of the castle is housekeeper, head cook, and doctor of the establishment, and is well accustomed to intercourse with lawless men and to the ill-treatment of her drunken husband. She is faithful, a thorough manager, proud of her escutcheon, of the gold chains and brocades belonging to the family; she looks suspiciously on the dress and finery of the wives of the counsellors of the town, who she considers have no right to wear sable and ermine, velvet dresses, pearls in their hair, and precious stones round their necks. The love and tenderness of her nature frequently gave elevation to her countenance and manners; but in those days, both in the homes of the nobles and in the courts of princes, much was considered decorous and was permitted to women of the highest character in familiar conversation which now would be condemned as unseemly in the wife of a common labourer.
The daily life of the landed proprietor is one of idleness or wild excitement. The hunting is certainly excellent. Where the forest has not been laid waste by the reckless stroke of the axe, grow the stately trees of the primeval wood; the howl of the wolf is still heard in the winter nights; the hunters sally forth on horseback, with spear and cross-bow, against beasts of prey, stags, roedeer, and the wild boar, and all adopt the habits of the rough hunters. But whilst hunting, even in his own wood, every one must be provided with weapons against other foes than the wolf and the boar. There are few hunting-grounds concerning which there is not some quarrel with a neighbour or feudal lord, who often claims the right of following the chase up to the squire's castle; the squire is also set at defiance by the peasants of the nearest village, whose crops have been laid waste by the stag and the boar, and who hates the master of the castle for having beaten or thrown him into prison for crossing the path of the chase; and not unfrequently an arrow whistles through the darkness of the wood with other aim than a wild animal; or an armed band breaks through a clearing, and then begins a race for freedom and life. We will suppose the game to be brought home and cut up in the castle yard; then follows the banquet, with endless drinking of healths and wild revelry, and seldom a night passes without the whole party breaking up in a state of intoxication. Drunkenness was at this time a national evil, prostrating alike the powers of princes, nobles, and people. The guests at the hunt and the banquet are of the same rank as their host--some are old cavaliers, constantly swearing, and relating anecdotes of the knightly feats they have performed in the greenwood against the traders and townspeople; others a younger race, hangers-on of the great feudal lords, who proudly wear the gold-laced caps given by these lords to their vassals.
Thus the week passes away. On Sunday it is considered a duty to attend the village church, and listen to the preacher's endless sermon, which generally breathes hatred to Calvinists or Papists, and denounces the factious Schwenkfeld or the apostate Melancthon. There is but little intercourse with foreign countries: the country gentleman gratifies his curiosity by buying from the itinerant pedler what was then called a newspaper, being a few quarto sheets published at intervals in the towns, containing very doubtful intelligence, such as a horrible fight having taken place between the sons of the Turkish sultan, a young maiden being possessed by the devil, or the French king having been struck on the head by one of his nobles. Sometimes the young squire listens to the songs of ballad singers, who recite similar news to old popular tunes, or, what is still more welcome, satirical verses on some neighbour, which the singer has been paid to propagate far and wide through the country. The reading which gives most pleasure at home, is either some astrological absurdity, such as a prophecy of old Wilhelm Friese or Gottfried Phyllers, or a description of the funeral festival of the Emperor Charles V. at Augsburg; besides these, theological writings find their way into the castle.
This life, which in spite of all its excitement is so meagre and monotonous, is sometimes varied by the discovery of a murdered man in the fields, or by some old woman of the village being accused of witchcraft. These incidents give rise to judicial proceedings, in the first case tardy and of little interest, in the latter fierce and bloodthirsty.
There are other annoyances in these times from which the landed proprietor is seldom free,--lawsuits and many difficulties. His father had sought to obtain money for the payment of his debts on the highway in his breastplate and saddle, and thus revenged himself for his injured rights. But now a new age has begun, and law asserts its supremacy over the self-will and independence of individuals; it is however an uncertain, dilatory, distorted law, which overlooks the powerful, and too often favours the wealthy. The young squire still rides his charger, armed with lance and pistol, but he is no longer eager to obtain fame and booty in war. The foot-soldier with pike and musket, and light-horseman of the town have outstripped him. Even at the tournament he prefers running at the ring; and if perchance he should encounter in the lists any person of distinction, he finds it more advantageous to allow himself to be unhorsed, than to contend manfully.
The condition of his peasantry is wretched: they have sunk from freemen to slaves; the rent they have to pay in labour, corn, and money, swallows up their earnings, yet he benefits little by it. The roads being bad and unsafe, it is impossible to export his produce: he is just able to keep himself and his household, for his income is small; everything has become dear; the new gold which has been brought to Europe from America is amassed in the great commercial towns, and is of little advantage to him, and he is unable to maintain the state suitable to his position.
He holds obstinately to all he considers his right, and supports or resists his feudal lord according to his personal advantage; occasionally he follows him to the Imperial Diet. But in the Provincial States, he eagerly resists the impost of new taxes; he has no real love of his country, and only feels himself German in opposition to Italians and Spaniards, whom he hates; but looks with a selfish interest on France, whose King burns cursed Calvinists and engages German Lutherans at high salaries. The province in which he lives has no political unity; the sovereignty of his feudal lord is no longer a firm edifice, and his attachment is therefore only occasional. His egotism alone is firm and lasting, a miserable hateful egotism, which has scarce power to excite him to deeds of daring, not even to bind him to others of his own class. Rarely does the feeling of his own social position ennoble his conversation or actions; his education and knowledge of the world are not greater than those of a horsedealer of the present day.
A century has passed, it is the year 1659--ten years since the conclusion of the great German war. The walls of the old castles have been shattered, foreign soldiers have encamped within them, whose fires have blackened the ruins, and whose fury has emptied the granaries and destroyed all the household goods. The squire has now erected a new building with the stones of the old one; it is a bare house, with thick walls, and without ornament; the windows look on a miserable village, which is only partly built, and on a field which, for the first time for many years, is prepared for cultivation; the flock of sheep has been replenished, but there are no horses, and the peasants have learned to plough with oxen. The owner of the house has no longer to provide for the horses of troopers and knights; a coach stands in a hovel,--a kind of lumbering chest on leather straps, but nevertheless the pride of the family. The house is surrounded by walls and moats with drawbridges; massive locks and strong iron work defend the entrances, for the country is still insecure. Gipsies and bands of marauders lurk in the neighbourhood, and the daily conversation is of robberies and horrible murders. There is great regularity both in house and village, and strict order is kept by the squire amongst his children, servants, and retainers; but many wild figures may be still seen about the court-yard,--disbanded soldiers who have taken service as messengers, foresters, halberdiers, &c. The village school is in sad decay, but the squire's children receive instruction from a poor scholar. The squire wears a wig with flowing curls; instead of the knightly sword, a slender rapier hangs at his side; in society his movements and conversation are stiff and formal; the townspeople call him your honour, and his daughter has become "fraulein" and "damoiselle;" the lady of the house wears a bunch of keys at her side; she is great in receipts and superstitious remedies, and her repose is troubled by ghostly apparitions in the old tower of the castle. When a visitor approaches, the spinning-wheel is hidden, an embroidered dress is quickly put on, the scanty family treasures of silver goblets and tankards laid out on the sideboard, a groom, who is just capable of making a bow, is hastily put into livery, and perfumes are burnt in the room. The young squire when he visits appears as a gallant à la mode,--in lace coat and wig, and pays the most fulsome compliments to the lady of the house; he is her most devoted slave, he extols the daughter as a heart-enslaver, and declares that she is quite angelic in her appearance; but these finely turned compliments are bad sauce to coarse manners, and are generally interspersed with stable language and oaths. When conversation begins to flow more freely, it is directed by preference to subjects which are no longer ambiguous, and women listen, not with the naïveté of former times, but with secret pleasure, to the boldness of such language, for it is the fashion to relate improper anecdotes, and by enigmatical questions to produce a pretty affected embarrassment in the ladies. But even such conversation soon wearies, and the wine begins to circulate, the hilarity becomes noisy, and they finish by getting very drunk, after the old German fashion. They smoke clay pipes, and cavaliers of high breeding take snuff from silver boxes. The chase is again the amusement of the country gentleman: he tries to exterminate the wolves, which during the late war have become numerous and insolent; he exhibits rifles among his hunting gear, but no longer mounts his steed as an armed knight; his armour is rusty, his independence is gone, war is carried on by the soldiers of the Prince, and he appears at court only as the obsequious servant of his illustrious lord.
He is still firm in his faith, and adheres to the rites of the Church; but he holds in contempt the theological controversies of the clergy, and does not object to holding intercourse with unbelievers, though he prefers Jesuits to zealous sectarians. The pastor of his village is poor and devout, and from living amongst lawless men, has lost much of his priestly pride; he strives to support himself by agriculture, and considers it an honour to dine at the squire's table, and has in return to laugh at his patron's jokes, and retail the news of the day. When it is a fête day at the castle he presents a pompous poem, in which he calls on Venus, the Muses and Graces, to celebrate in Olympus the birthday of the lady of the house. On such days there is music at the castle, and the viola da gamba is the fashionable instrument. Once a week the newspaper is brought to the castle, from thence it is sent to the parsonage, then to the schoolmaster and forester: the chief reading besides this consists of tedious novels and histories of adventures, or anecdotes of ghostly apparitions and discoveries of treasure; sometimes also dissertations on the phenomena of nature, the first glimmering of a more intellectual literature. The squire interests himself in politics; he distrusts Sweden, and abhors the regicide tendencies of England, but admires everything French, and whosoever can give him news of Paris is a welcome guest. He attends the Diet, but it is only for the sake of maintaining the privileges of his order; he lounges in antechambers, and by bribery endeavours to secure for his relations some appointment about the court. He unwillingly allows his son to study law, with the hope that he may, as royal counsellor, advance the interests of his family; in short, he looks upon the court and the government as wine vats to be tapped, so as to afford him a good draught. Germany is to him a mere geographical spot, which he neither loves nor hates; his family or his order are all that he serves or cares for, and if one abstracts from him his high pretensions, and compares the remains of the kernel with the men of our own time, we should find more sense and rectitude in the stubborn head of a corporation of the smallest town than in him.
Again a century has passed, a time of little energy or national strength, and yet great changes have taken place. The year 1759 is in the youth of our grandfathers; numberless remembrances cling to our hearts; it will be sufficient to recall a few. The squire's house has no longer a bare front: a porch has been added, supported by stone pillars; the staircase is ornamented with vases; over the hall door a rudely carved angel holds the family arms emblazoned on a spiral shell. On one side of the building lies the farm-yard, on the other the garden, laid out with trim beech hedges and obelisks of yew. The old whitewashed walls are almost all covered with plaster-of-paris, and some are highly ornamented. There is an abundance of household furniture beautifully carved in oak or walnut; near the ancient family portraits hang modern pastil pictures, amongst them perhaps the daughter of the house as a shepherdess with a crook in her hand. In the apartments of the lady of the house there is a porcelain table with coloured tankards, small cups, pug-dogs, and Cupids of this newly discovered material. Propriety reigns everywhere with a strict stern rule; women and servants speak low, children kiss their parents' hands, the master of the house calls his wife "ma chère," and uses other French phrases. The hair is powdered, and the ladies wear stiff gowns and high head-dresses; violent emotions or strong passions seldom disturb the stiff formality of their carriage or the tranquillity of the house.
The squire has become economist, and looks a little after the farming; he tries by selecting choice breeds to improve the wool of his flocks, and raises carefully the new bulb called the potato, which is to be a source of unfailing nourishment to man and beast. The mode of life is quiet, simple, and formal. The mother shakes her head about Gellert's 'Life of the Swedish Countess;' the daughter is delighted with Kleist's 'Spring,' and sings to the harpsichord of violets and lambs; and the father carries in his pocket the 'Songs of a Grenadier.' Coffee is placed before the visitors, and on high holidays chocolate makes its appearance. Everything is managed by government officials, and much is required of the country gentleman, who has to pay taxes without being consulted: he is a person of more consideration than the citizen, but is now far removed from the prince. The great noble looks with contempt on him, and it is well for him if he does not feel the weight of his stick: the officials of the capital interfere with his farming; they order him to dig a drain, to build a mill, even to plant mulberry-trees, and send him the eggs of silkworms, insisting upon his rearing them. It is a weary time; the third, or Seven years', war is raging between the king and emperor; the squire is walking about his room, wringing his hands and weeping. How is it that this hard man has so completely lost his composure? The letter on the table has informed him that his son, an officer in the king's army, has come unscathed out of the fight at Cunnersdorf; why then does he weep and wring his hands? His King is in distress; the state to which he belongs is in danger of destruction, and it is for this that he grieves. He is greater, richer, and better than any of his ancestors, for he has a fatherland; the training of his generation is rough, manners coarse, and government despotic; his knowledge of the world is not greater than that of a subordinate official of the present day, but this feeling within him, either in life or death, makes him a man.
Life in every period of the German past was much rougher than now; but it is not the hardships of individuals which make the old time appear so strange to us, it is that the whole mode of life, in every thought and feeling, is so essentially different. The reason of this difference is, that at all periods of the past the mind of the individual was less free and more subordinate to the spirit of the nation; we may see this especially in the middle ages, but it may still be observed in the last century.
There was no such thing as public opinion. The individual submitted his conscience to the approbation of those with whom he lived; he committed to them his honour, interests, and safety, and only felt that he existed as a member of the society, thus rendering the necessity of union more urgent. How strikingly this tendency of the old times was exemplified in the clubs of Hanseatic stations! The constraint within their closed walls was almost monkish. Every word and gesture at the dinner-table was regulated, and this rule was maintained by severe punishments. The soldiers who roamed about together in troops from all parts of Germany, made laws for themselves, by which they kept the strictest discipline, each being accuser and judge of the other. Upon a sea voyage the passengers selected from amongst themselves a magistrate, judge, and police-officer, who declared the law, imposed fines, and awarded even bodily punishment; and if at the conclusion of the journey any individual wished to free himself from this control, he had to take an oath that he would not revenge himself for any annoyance or injury he might have suffered under the ship's law; and it was the same with pilgrimages to the Holy Land, especially where it was question of any dangerous enterprise. For instance, when, in the year 1535, five-and-twenty men from Amberg undertook to explore the cavern of the "awful" mountains, their first act at the entrance to the caverns was to choose two leaders, and take an oath of obedience to stand by one another in life or death.
The same feature is to be found amongst the artists of the middle ages: thus did the life of individuals first find its full expression, in association with others.
One peculiar charm which we find in the national character of those early ages, is the union of a strong love of freedom with a spirit of obedience. To this characteristic of the old times may be added another. All, from the emperor to the wandering beggar, from their birth to their death, from morning till night, were fenced in by customs, forms, and ceremonies. A wonderful creative genius produced endless pictures and symbols, by which everything on earth was idealized. By these means was expressed the way in which the people understood their relations with God, and the right direction of all human energy; there were also many mysterious rituals which served as means of defence against the supposed influence of unearthly powers. Even in law mimic and figurative proceedings were laid down. Whoever sought revenge before a court of justice for the murder of a relative, had everything as to garments and gestures, the very words of the accusation, and even their complaints, prescribed to them. Every transfer of property, every investiture and contract, had its significant forms and precise words, on which its legality depended. The knights were summoned to the lists by the herald; the bride was claimed and the guests invited to the wedding by fixed forms of speech; it was considered of importance which foot was placed first on the ground in the morning, which shoe was first put on, and what stranger was first met on going out; also, how the bread was laid on the table at each meal, and where the salt-cellar was placed. All that concerned the body, the cutting of the hair, baths, and bleeding, had their appointed time and appropriate regulations. When the agriculturist turned up the first clod, when he brought in the last sheaf, leaving a truss of corn in the field, in short, all the incidents of labour had their peculiar usages; there were customs for every important day of the year, and they abounded at every festival. Many relics of these remain to our day; we maintain some for our amusement, but most of them appear to us useless, senseless, and superstitious.
Many of these practices had been derived in Germany from the heathen faith and ancient laws and customs. The Church of the middle ages followed in the same track, idealizing life. The services became more frequent, the ceremonials more artificial. In the same way that it had sanctified the great epochs of life by the mystery of its sacraments, it tried, rivalling the heathen traditions, to influence even the trifling actions of every-day life. It consecrated fountains and animals, and professed that it could stop the effusion of blood and turn away the enemy's shot by its blessing. Its endeavours to make the spiritual perceptible to the senses of the multitude, produced many proverbs and symbolical actings, which gave rise to the dramas of the middle ages. But whilst it thus met the imaginative tendencies of the people, its own spiritual and moral character was injured by all these outward observances; and when Luther accused the Church of thirty-seven errors, from the sale of indulgences, to the consecrated salt, and the baptism of bells with their two hundred godfathers, he was not in a position to perceive that the old Church had given growth to these excrescences, by having yielded too much to the imaginative disposition of the German popular mind.
The artisans liked to reproduce the formulas of their religion and guilds for their amusement: dialogue and gesture were interchanged, and thus dramatic representations arose. The initiated and best informed of every class became known by this; they had an opportunity of showing their nature under the traditional form. In such a way every young nation tries to represent life, and among the Germans, this inclination, together with the love of mystery, worked most powerfully in the same direction. It gave much opportunity for dramatic acting, though it was a peculiarly undramatic period in the life of the people, for words and characteristic gestures do not flow from the inward man; they come with imposing power from external circumstances, leading, forming, and restraining the individual.
Such union of order and discipline belongs to the epic time of the people.
How the German mind outgrew these bonds we shall learn from the following stories of the olden time. In the course of four centuries the great change was accomplished--a powerful action of the mind brought freedom in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and a fearful political catastrophe brought destruction in the seventeenth.[[3]] After a long deathlike sleep the modern spirit of the people awoke in the eighteenth century.
PICTURES OF GERMAN LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
SCENES FROM THE HUSSITE WAR.
(about 1425.)
Among the events of the thirteenth century, the wonderfully rapid colonization of the Sclave country east of the Elbe has never been sufficiently appreciated. In the course of one century a numerous body of German emigrants of all classes, almost as many as now go to America, spread themselves over a large tract of country, established hundreds of cities and villages, and united it for the most part firmly to Germany. Nearly the whole of the eastern part of Prussia extends over a portion of the territory that was thus colonized.
The time however of this outpouring of national strength was not the heroic period of Germany. The enthusiasm of the Crusades, the splendour of the Hohenstaufen, the short reign of German chivalry, and the greatest elevation of German art, were at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century, whereas the colonization of the Sclave frontier was carried on with most energy towards the close of it. This was the period when Neumark and Prussia were conquered, and Lausitz, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Rugen, and Silesia colonized. But there was a striking difference in the case of Silesia; for whilst in the other Sclave countries the people were crushed by the iron hand of the conqueror, and were compelled to adopt German habits of life, Silesia became the centre of a quiet, peaceful colonization, which spread itself far and wide over, the frontier towards the east.
How powerful a passion the love of wandering became in the German people at this period, is a point we will not attempt to enter upon. The expeditions of the Hohenstaufens into Italy, and still more the Crusades, had roused and excited the masses, who became restless and eager for foreign adventure; and the life of the peaceful labourer in Germany was full of danger, indeed almost insupportable. Pious monks, enterprising nobles, even princely brides were to be seen knocking at the doors of their peasantry, and trying to induce the young labourers to follow them to Poland. But little is known concerning this emigration; we do not even know from what province the great stream of Silesian wanderers flowed. There are grounds for thinking that most of them came from Magdeburg, Thuringia, and perhaps Franconia. There is no mention of it in the ancient manuscripts or chronicles; the only evidence concerning it might perhaps be found in the Silesian and Thuringian dialects, but even these have not been sufficiently investigated. We have however more knowledge as to who invited the Germans into the country of the Oder. It was the Sclavonian dukes of the Piasten family, who were then rulers of the country.
At the end of the twelfth century a race of ancient Polish princes resided on their paternal inheritance in Silesia; inferior to these were numerous Sclave nobles, and below them again a much oppressed and enslaved people. The country was thinly populated, and poor both in capital and labour. The heights of the Riesenberge and the plains of the Oder were clothed with wood; between them stretched out miles of desolate heath. Herds of wild boars laired in the swamps, bears picked the wild honey from the hollow trunks of the trees, and the elks fed on the branches of the pine; the beaver made its home beside the rivers, the fish eagle hovered about the ponds, and above him soared the noble falcon. The beaver and falcon were more valuable in the eyes of the princes than their serfs. The peasants looked from their miserable huts with horror on the lords of the water and air, for the preservation of which they had to pay exorbitant penalties. What the earth yielded freely they had to collect for their rigorous masters and the Church. They had to pay tribute from the water and the heath of fish and honey, and heavy imposts on their arable land, sheaves of corn, grain and money; and a certain amount of service was required of them. The greater part were serfs; few were free. And not only the peasants, but also the artisans and tradesmen of all kinds lived in every gradation of servitude, ground down by oppression without hope or pleasure in their work. The Sclave cities only differed from the villages in being a larger collection of bare huts, surrounded by a moat and wooden palisades, and usually situated in the vicinity of a nobleman's castle, under whose protection they lived. In peaceable times markets were held in the towns. Even till the end of the twelfth century the merchants often made their payments, as in Poland, with the tails of martins and skins of squirrels instead of money. But the Silesian mines were already being worked; they yielded silver and gold, copper and lead, and mining, which was considered the nobleman's right, was carried on actively. Mints were erected in all the great market towns, and, as in Poland, the coinage was changed three times a year; and the princes derived some of their income from tolls on the market-places, butchers' stalls, and public-houses.
Such was the country that was then ruled by the royal Piasten families under the Polish sovereignty, which, however, was often disputed, and sometimes entirely thrown off. A great dissimilarity might however be discerned in the different branches of the family. The Piastens of Upper Silesia united themselves closely with Poland, and kept up the Sclave habits in their country, so that even at the present day a Sclave population is to be found there; but the rulers of Lower Silesia adhered to the Germans. It was their policy to marry the daughters of the German princes: they set the highest value upon everything German, and German manners were introduced into the court; their children were sent to travel in Germany, and often brought up there, so that in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Piasten family was held in great consideration throughout that country; they sought for knighthood from their relations in the west, and out of courtesy to them dressed their followers in their colours. They knighted their own nobles with the German straight sword, instead of using the crooked Sclave sabre; they preferred getting drunk on malmsey and Rhine wines, instead of the old mead. The German dances were in great request among the ladies of the court.
In this way a numerous German nobility was established in the country, for these courtiers or adventurers and their relations soon became landed proprietors, and the Sclavonian institution of the Castellan was replaced by the German feudal tenure. But an influx of priests and monks tended still more to the promotion of German habits; a stream of them poured incessantly from the west into the half-civilized country. Monasteries, cloisters, and other pious establishments sprang up rapidly, and became as it were the strongholds of German life; for the brotherhoods of the west sent their best and most distinguished members, and continued to furnish them with learning, books, and spiritual energy. The princes, nobles, and clergy soon became aware of the difference between German and Sclave labour; under the latter, large tracts of country yielded little produce, except wood from the forest and honey from the heath. The landed proprietors therefore, with due regard to their own interests, introduced everywhere German labour. Thus in Silesia the great truth first dawned upon men, on which rests the whole system of modern life, that the labour of free men, can alone give stability to a nation and make it powerful and prosperous. The landed proprietors gave up the greater part of the claims which, according to the Polish law, they had upon men who dwelt on their property, and which were so exorbitant that they derived but little benefit from them. The princes granted the inhabitants as a favour, the right of founding cities and villages in accordance with German law, that is to say, free communities, and this privilege was eagerly sought after, especially by the ecclesiastical bodies, such as Cistertians, Augustines, &c.
A regular method was pursued in founding these communities; but the fate of the villages was very different from that of the cities in the latter part of the middle ages. In the cities, as the body politic continually gained fresh strength, their rights and independence increased; the burgesses acquired by purchase the mayoralty, with its rights and jurisdiction; whilst, on the other hand, the villages were unable to protect themselves from the exactions of the landed proprietors and the burdens laid upon them by their princes; they lost much of their freedom, and many rights they had possessed at their foundation in the thirteenth century were only restored to them in the beginning of this present one.
It was thus that after the beginning of the thirteenth century a new German race sprang up with a surprising rapidity, bordering on the Oder, between the Reisenberge and the plains of Poland. The emigration continued for a considerable period, and the quiet struggle between the German and Polish races lasted long after the former had gained the predominance; indeed, in some districts it has not yet ceased. But for the most part the pliant Sclave race of Silesia peaceably adopted the new customs, as it was very advantageous to put themselves under German law. And thus the new race showed in its dialect, manners, and education a new phase of the German popular character which one may perceive has arisen from the union of the German and Sclave races.
The people who thus sprang up were not destined to an easy life, and it required all the excitability they derived from the Sclaves, together with the higher capacity they inherited from the Germans, to preserve them from annihilation. Driven in like a wedge between Bohemia and Poland quite to the vicinity of Hungary, they contended with all these nations, dispensing blows and receiving them from their stronger neighbours. They were never able to attain to the independence of a united people. However strong particular communities and confederations became when it was a question of external enemies, the Silesians were almost always divided.
In the fifteenth century the country was visited by that terrible scourge the Hussite war. It is in that fearful time, when the fanatical warriors of the chalice burnt the Silesian villages and cloisters, and threw everything ecclesiastical into the flames, when the land was devastated for nearly a century by the horrors of war, that the peculiar Silesian character may be traced in contradistinction to that of the races dwelling in the adjoining country.
Whilst in the regions adjoining the Oder, and still farther off by the shores of the Baltic, the German race, proud of their recent conquest over the Sclaves, desired to improve themselves by union with Germany, a great Sclave population had arisen in the middle of the German states, the toughest and most stable of all that family: it was firmly incorporated in the Empire, and had long been under the influence of German culture. Prague in the beginning of the fifteenth century might have passed for a German city, for not only in its laws and commerce, but also in science and art it exhibited all the vigour and independence of German life. About 1289 the King of Bohemia rode as a German elector to the election of the Emperor, and waved the golden glass at the coronation; the Bohemian minstrels and chroniclers wrote in the Swabian language and style, and Bohemian artists painted pictures of saints and windows for the German churches. Under the Luxemburgers Bohemia became the centre of the empire. The Bohemian throne was adorned with the German Imperial eagle and crown, and the flower of Germany's youth flocked to the many-turreted Moldavian city, in order to win in the first German university a nobler patent of nobility than the sword could give. It seemed then for a considerable period as if this fine compact Sclave country, lying with its mountain ramparts in the midst of Germany like a gigantic fortress, was likely to become the kernel of a great united empire, spreading far beyond the Rhine on the west, and to the Vistula on the east, or even perhaps to the swamps of the Theis. But just at this time an energetic reaction of Sclave popular feeling was roused in Bohemia against the Germans, and a long struggle ensued which fearfully shook the political, religious, and social life of Germany, rent the unity of the Roman Catholic Church, weakened the empire and threw it into confusion, depopulated large districts by a war full of cruelty, and amidst the flames of burning cities and the waning of millions, gave the death-blow to the Holy Roman Empire of the middle ages. It was the peculiar destiny of Germany that this great struggle should first break out among the teachers and scholars in the halls of the universities, and that the funeral pile of a Bohemian professor should give a new direction to the policy of German princes and people.
The auto-da-fé of Huss did not appear to the Germans a very striking or blamable occurrence; people in those days were hastily condemned to death, and there hardly passed a year that the torch was not laid to the stake in every large city. However great the grief and indignation of the national party of Bohemia might be at these proceedings, the wild fanaticism of the people was first roused by another, and greater crime of the reckless Emperor Sigismund, who, at the head of the orthodox German fanatics, began the strife by the great massacre in 1420; this outrage gave the Bohemians the strength of despair, and was the beginning of the wars which raged between the Germans and the Sclaves to the end of that century. Even after dissensions had broken out amongst the Bohemians themselves, and after the death of Georg von Podiebrad, feuds continued, and predatory bands spread themselves over the neighbouring lands, the people and nobility of Bohemia as well as those of the suffering frontier lands became lawless, and a hatred of races, less passionate but more savage and more enduring, took the place of fanaticism.
No land suffered more from the terrors of the Hussite time than Silesia, and it must be confessed that the Silesians showed to less advantage in this century than at any other period of their history; by the division of their country they were politically weak, and quite unfitted to withstand by their own strength the attacks of powerful enemies; when danger approached a feeling of the helplessness of their position came over them and disheartened them; but whenever they could breathe more freely, they became overbearing and full of high-flown plans which generally ended in nothing. As neighbours they were bitter enemies of the Bohemians, and from hatred to them, zealous in their orthodoxy; they were actively engaged in the first disgraceful devastation of Bohemia, and thus, by breach of faith, brought down on themselves the vengeance of the Bohemians. As in the Roman time the truth of a Carthaginian was a byword, so now in Silesia was that of a Bohemian; but the Silesians had no right to reproach the Bohemians with breach of faith. Their dangerous position did not make them more careful, and they allowed their possessions and cities to be destroyed from the want of timely succour; they were always irritating their enemies and causing fresh attacks by their insolent witticisms and small perfidies. Their vigour and elasticity, however, were most enduring; as often as the Bohemians burnt down their cities and villages, they rebuilt them, and patched up whatever would hold together; they never tired of irritating the heretical Girsik, as they called Georg von Podiebrad.[[4]] If, however, they were in need of his assistance, they tried to appease him by a present of a hundred oxen. After a time, however, their hatred became more manly; they took up arms and fought him valiantly; and when at last he sank into the grave, they had the satisfaction of feeling that they had embittered the life and thwarted the ambitious plans of this determined character by their perpetual opposition.
It is the beginning of this unhappy period which is described in the following narrative. It is taken from the report of a merchant in Bolkenhain,[[5]] named Martin, the fragment of his notes which we possess, published by Heinrick Hoffman (in Scriptores rerum Lusaticarum I., 1839).
"In the year of our Lord 1425, the Hussites appeared one Saturday evening before the town of Wünschelburg. On Sunday, about the time of vespers, they made breaches in the walls, and by their overwhelming force gained an entrance. The people flew to the house of the mayor,[[6]] which was a high stone building. When all the men and women had arrived there, they set fire to the city from the mayor's house, and thought thereby to save themselves; but the Bohemians waited till the fire had burnt out, then rushed in a powerful body against the stone house, endeavouring to storm and undermine it. Then followed a parley: the mayor let himself down to the Hussites by means of a coarse tilt,[[7]] that he might negotiate with them whether the citizens should be allowed to go free. He was so long absent in the town that the people began greatly to fear, especially the pastor of the town, who was godfather to the mayor; he called out to them, asking whether the mayor was still below, requiring him to show and report himself, and come back to them; whereupon the mayor returned to the house and was again drawn up. When he had come up, his godfather the pastor asked how it had gone with him, and whether he had obtained from the enemy freedom for himself and his chaplain. Then spake the mayor: 'No, godfather; they give no mercy to priests!' Then the pastor and his chaplain were sore troubled, and said, 'How miserably you abandon and betray me, be God Almighty your judge. When aforetime I wished to fly, you bade me remain with you, saying you would abide by me for good or for evil, even unto death; and you said, Shall the shepherd fly from his sheep? And now, alack, evil is the day, the sheep fly from the shepherd.' Then spake the women and the citizens' wives to him, weeping, 'We will disguise you and your chaplains, and will bring you down with us safely.' Then spoke the pastor Herr Megerlein, 'That, please God, will I never do. I must not disavow my office and dignity, for I am a priest and not a woman; but look to it well, you men; see in what a pitiful way you deliver me over to death to save yourselves.' No one heeded these complaints; but the two chaplains allowed themselves to be disguised, and carried children on their shoulders--not so the pastor.
"Whilst they thus held converse together, the mayor agreed with the citizens on what terms they would surrender. They then went down, one after the other, and the Bohemians and Hussites were there in front of the building, and made prisoners of them all; they allowed only the women and children to go free. But many of the women, maidens, and children had been in such fear that they had taken refuge in the cellars; so when the fire reached them they were suffocated and perished. Now when all in the house had surrendered, there remained only the pastor, with a few journeymen and artisans who had been unable to purchase their liberty, and who feared death and imprisonment; these the pastor exhorted as follows: 'Dear companions, look well after your necks, and be firm, for if they make you prisoners they will torment and martyrize you.' Then they replied they would do as he advised. But when they saw that the citizens had all surrendered, great fear came over them, and they went down and submitted themselves; but the pastor remained there with an old village priest to the last. Then the Hussites went up to them and brought them down, and led them into the midst of the army and the multitude. Then Master Ambrosius, a heretic of Grätz, being present, spoke to these gentlemen in Latin: 'Pastor, wilt thou gainsay and retract what thou hast preached? thus thou mayst preserve thy life; but if thou wilt not do this, thou must be burnt.' Then answered Herr Megerlein the pastor, and said, 'God forbid that I should deny the truth of our holy Christian faith on account of this short pain. I have taught and preached the truth at Prague, at Görlitz, and at Grätz,[[8]] and for this truth will I gladly die.' Then one of them ran and fetched a truss of straw, which they bound round about his body so that he could not be seen; they then set fire to the straw, and made him, thus surrounded by flames, run and dance about in the midst of the multitude, till he was suffocated. Then they took him as a corpse and threw him into a brewer's vat of boiling water; they also threw in the old village priest, and let them boil therein; thus they were both martyred; but the two chaplains of whom I have before spoken, came out with the women concealed in women's clothes, and the child that one of these priests bore on his arm began to weep and to cry after its mother, and the priest tried to comfort and quiet it. So the Hussites discovered by the voice that it was a man, and one of them took the veil off him; then he let fall the child, took to flight, and ran with all his might; they followed after and killed him. The other came away with the women and children. This happened at Wünschelburg.
"1429. Soon after this the Hussites returned home, but remained there scarcely six weeks; they called out for another campaign, collected again in great strength, and passed into the land of Meissen. The Meisseners, however, were strong in the field, with others such as Brunswickers, Saxons, and people from the marshes, also some from the Imperial cities. The Hussites entered the country with fire and sword, killing and taking prisoners and living lawlessly. Now when the Hussites had advanced to where a large army of Meisseners and people from the Imperial cities were collected together, they encamped opposite to them, and threw up a barricade of waggons. When the armies were thus lying opposite each other they exchanged letters. The Meisseners wrote thus:--'Oh! you apostates from the faith, and cursed heretics, we shall, God willing, fight you to-morrow, and make you food for the dogs.' To which the Hussites thus replied:--'Oh! you hounds, we shall, God willing, make you food for the dogs, only wait for us to-morrow.' When it was still quite early on the following morning, the Hussites prepared themselves for the fight; they first heard mass, than ate and drank their fill, and when they moved forward to begin the fight, they received intelligence that the Meisseners had fled. When they heard this, they hastened onward and chased them two whole days. When they found they could not catch them, they deliberated, and dividing themselves spread all over the country, burning, killing, and making prisoners, and entering the towns from which the people had retired.
"1443. The country armed and prepared itself, and raised a troop of four hundred horse. It was known that the Bohemians and Hussites intended making an inroad upon the country, therefore the States encamped themselves some miles from Schweidnitz by Bögendorf, in order to watch the enemy, as they knew not at what point they would enter. But Hein von Czirnan had a presentiment that they would come to Bolkenhain (where he had settled), as did indeed happen; therefore he sent a horseman in all haste to Bolkenhain, to inform the burgomaster, and beg him to set a strong and vigilant watch, as he had certain intelligence that the enemy would enter the country in that quarter. The burgomaster sent warning to the villagers, but Hein von Czirnan's messenger arriving only in the evening, the watch not being well established in the city, the enemy appeared on the walls at the dawn of morning; for they had approached the city early in the evening and concealed themselves behind the hills and among the rocks, and had in the night quite at their leisure prepared ladders. The ladders were short, each of four rundles, so that four of these ladders could hardly reach up the wall; but the first piece of ladder had in front a little wheel; when this was placed, not being fixed, it advanced up the wall. The other ladders were so contrived that one fitted into the other, and fastened together by an iron band. With such cunning and malice had they so early set to work against us. They had placed these same ladders in the night by the walls where the city and hill were highest, the ladders were so broad and wide that two of the enemy could mount at a time. As now at daybreak they had placed many of the ladders, they began to ascend four at once, but when they arrived at the top of the wall they found no passage on it towards the city, and were obliged for some distance to slide and creep along till they came to a watch-house, where they found some steps; so, alas! they came upon us in the city. And when in this way many of them had assembled, they began to cry and to holloa out most terribly, like devils. This took place the last Thursday before Bartlemy-tide. When we heard this terrible noise and tumult, we were woefully frightened, and every one that was able fled to the towers of the gate, church, or any other tower that was accessible; but we could not get into the stronghold, as the enemy had surrounded it, and whoever attempted to enter it was slain. As the people of the city thus concealed themselves, the Hussites went in great troops about the town; some rushed to the churches, others to the best houses; about eight came to my house and forced themselves up into the shop, and placed two of their number with naked swords at the door, and let no one enter the house till they had plundered and divided the whole of my shop and goods. My wife was at that time in the midst of her confinement, God be merciful to her, and she had in her room many valuable things, such as her bed-linen and her clothes; they treated her however with such respect, that no one entered her room. But two of them who were well known to her, and to whom she had shown great kindness, went to the door of her room, told her how they pitied her, and brought her secretly a coverlet and bed-cover, and said, 'Good woman, they will soon set fire to the city, therefore lose no time in being carried to the cellar with all that you desire to save, for we shall be off immediately.' When they had pillaged all the houses they would gladly have left the town, but could not, for the inhabitants who had taken refuge in the towers and gate-houses, threw down stones upon them, so that they could not pass through the gates, however much they wished it. At last they found an old gate which for many years had been walled up; this they broke open, and carried through it all their plunder, with which they loaded their waggons, and intended to return to Bohemia; they fired the city, and marched off to Landshut. When the troops of the provincial states assembled at Bögendorf beheld such a great smoke and fire, they said to one another, 'It is indeed at Bolkenhain, or in its neighbourhood;' then they started off at full speed for Landshut, and overtook their enemies. When therefore the Bohemians and Hussites began to retrace their steps, they perceived a great host of our town-people coming towards them over the Galgenberg; so they in great fear took to flight. Then our people fell upon them, and the men who had charge of the waggons loaded with our goods, abandoned them and fled for refuge into the woods; thus we deprived them of their plunder, and made many prisoners, both horse and foot, who were distributed among the cities."--So writes Martin of Bolkenhain.
This endless war ruined German Silesia: the plains lay waste and desolate, and most of the German peasantry in this century of fire and sword sank into a state little removed from that of the Sclave serfs. The smaller cities were burnt down and impoverished, and only a few of the larger ones have since attained any degree of importance. The Silesian nobles became rude and predatory; they learnt from the Bohemians to steal cattle, to seize merchants and traders, and to levy contributions on the cities. The princes in their endless disputes with one another allied themselves sometimes with the Bohemians, and shared their booty with them; indeed, some of them took pleasure in a wild robber life, carrying it on even in their own country. These deeds of violence and lamentable struggles continued quite into the sixteenth century, till the Reformation gave a new bent to this lively and impressible race, and brought with it new sufferings.
Through all these times the Silesians retained their love of orderly arrangements, even in the most desperate situations. When, for example, in the year 1488, Duke Hans of Sagen, one of the lawless characters who figured in the border wars, imprisoned seven honourable counsellors of his own city, Glogau, in a tower, and starved them to death because they had refused to act contrary to a solemn engagement; these seven martyrs, in a truly German manner, punctually and conscientiously kept a diary of their sufferings, and left in writing, prayers to the Almighty for mercy and a happy death; but it is a truly Silesian and almost modern trait, that the writer of this fearful journal had a certain gloomy pleasure in reflecting on his painful fate, and in the last lines he wrote before his death, he endeavoured to depict the destitution of his situation by mentioning that he had been obliged to use the black of the burnt wick as ink.[[9]]
In the century of the reformation, the Silesians, as might be expected of a people of such quick susceptibilities, were for the most part zealous for the new teaching. They had been bound by strong ties to the old Church, like most of the other races; for it was partly at the call of the Church that their ancestors had come into that country; notwithstanding which, almost the whole people freed themselves from Rome, and manfully ventured life and property for their convictions. And most severely was their constancy tried; for the supreme power, which had been in Polish and Bohemian hands, had now fallen into those of the House of Austria.[[10]] Of all the countries under the power of the House of Hapsburg, Silesia is the only one which did not make a sacrifice of the new faith to the iron hand of reaction, but maintained a desperate resistance even into the eighteenth century. These were indeed two most unhappy centuries; the Thirty years' war laid the country waste, and not a third part of the former population escaped from the brutality of the soldiers, or from pestilence, or famine. But just at this time, when the whole of Germany had become one vast burial-ground, in which not even the loud wail of sorrow was heard, the genius of Silesia, as the representative of Germany, entered on the only domain in which advance was possible. Whilst they were still exchanging blows with the Imperial soldiers, they took pleasure in poetry and songs. Already the delicate and polished writings of the vapid Opitz gave pleasure amidst the coarse language of the camp; but truly refreshing to the heart was the short; humorous laugh of Logau, at a period when nothing was to be seen save sad or angry faces. The whole of the educated Silesians were eager to sympathize with Opitz, Logau, Gryphius, and Günther, and to vie with them in making heroic verses. Their songs have few charms for us, but we must always feel thankful to them that they had the power of giving expression to the ideal feelings of Germany. It was a great thing to be able to show at such a time, when the coarse and the commonplace overlaid the German life, that there was still something beautiful on earth, and a more intellectual enjoyment than could be found in dissolute revelry, and also that behind the grey and colourless sky which overspread the land, there was another world, full of brilliant colours, and of nobler and more refined feelings.
But whilst the songs of the Silesian "Swans and Nightingales" were held in honour by the other German races, and the fame of the Silesian poets rose high, the worldly position of the Silesians themselves was lamentable. The Thirty years' war was followed by a century of persecution and oppression, which so diminished their energies, that at last it appeared as if they would fall into the same condition as that in which they had found the Sclaves,--a death-like apathy, and a future without hope. The Silesians never became utterly downcast, for they took every opportunity of enjoying themselves, but it was only in feasting and revelry. When, however, the misery of the country was at the highest, the Prussian drum sounded on the frontier from Müncheberg, and the trumpets of the Ziethen hussars pealed along the same roads on which five hundred years before the first song of the German colonists had resounded with the good words, "We come in God's name."
The Germanizing of the country was not thoroughly accomplished till it was conquered by Prussia; it is only since that time that the Silesians have become conscious of being an integral part of the German nation. What was begun by the Sclave Piastens of the thirteenth, was concluded by the German Hohenzollern of the eighteenth, century.
CHAPTER II.
A GERMAN LADY OF THE ROYAL COURT.
(about 1440.)
Many incidents may be found in the descriptions of the struggles between the Silesians and Hussites, which are characteristic of the minds and manners of the people in their epic period. We are made sensible of the great dissimilarity between the past and present by the style of Martin's narration. In his scanty yet graphic description he gives us the facts, but makes no reflections on them. The writer undoubtedly feels how noble and manly was the death of the Pastor Megerlein; but he does not consider it necessary, and, indeed, seems to want the facility and confidence requisite, to give expression to his judgment.
Decisions hastily taken were on the impulses of the moment as hastily given up. The pastor, even when abandoned by his flock, still advised resistance to the young men that remained, though there was little hope of saving himself; but he rejected the proposal of his Hussite friend, and met death like a man. Little value was set upon human life: hard hearted and cruel, the people murdered each other without compunction; yet the infuriated Bohemians kept respectfully out of the sick woman's room, and the plunderers with touching zeal requited past kindness. We find unbridled egotism together with heroic self-denial, rude levity with the deepest religious convictions: the minds of individuals moved in a narrow circle, but with firmness and decision.
An insight into the mental struggles of the fifteenth century may be supplied by another narrative, in which the life and feelings of a clever and strong-minded woman are made known. The circle in which she moved was the court of the German emperor's daughter. Few of our court officials are aware, how much their office has increased in comfort, honour, and decorum since the days of their predecessors, at whose heads the Emperor Wenzel threw his boots, or on whom Margaret Maltash used to inflict blows with her clenched fist. It was necessary for the men and women of a court in former centuries to have strong nerves and good health, to bear heat and cold, to endure in winter the draughts of badly constructed dwellings, and in summer whole days of riding on rough hacks: men had to drink deep and yet keep sober longer than their worthy masters, if they would not be blackened with coals, and trodden under foot by them and other drunken princely guests; the women of the court had to jest with crowds of drunken men with rough manners, or to have their nights' rest disturbed by the clashing of naked swords, or by the cries of an excited multitude. It actually happened once at the Imperial court, that there was no money in the chest for the purchase of new shoes, and frequently the honest citizens declined to furnish the court with the necessary supplies of bread and meat. Most of the great courts led a wandering life, and on their journeys, bad inns, worse roads, and scanty fare were by no means their greatest discomforts: the roads were unsafe, and the reception at the end of the journey was often doubtful.
The scenes we are about to portray are of a Hungarian court, but the royal family and the narrator are German. It is the court of Queen Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Sigismund, widow of Albrecht of Austria, king of Hungary, who died in the year 1439. The German Imperial race of Luxemburg was, after Charles IV., the least worthy of renown of all who have ruled over central Europe, and the Emperor Sigismund was one of the worst of his race. His daughter Elizabeth suffered under the curse of her house: it was her fate to throw Hungary into confusion and weakness; but as she must be judged from history, it appears she was somewhat better than her father or her reprobate mother: she had a feeling of her own dignity, and was, unlike her parents, a person of distinguished manners. This did not hinder her committing, for political purposes, unworthy actions, which every age has stigmatized as mean; but she attached people to her by that fascination of manner which often takes the place of better qualities.
It was thus that one of her attendants, Helen Kottenner, was devoted to her with the most unshaken fidelity; she was bed-chamberwoman and governess to the young princess, a child of four years old, and at the same time she was confidante and counsellor of her mistress. Her ardent loyalty and motherly love for the little king Ladislaus made her the most zealous partisan of his family. She secretly stole for her sovereign the Hungarian crown, and she carried the little Ladislaus through the swamps of Hungary and the rebellious magnates to his coronation, and became his instructress when fate separated him from his mother. It was remarkable that this woman, in a stirring time, when writing was troublesome and difficult even to men, recorded the important events of her life and her share in politics in the shape of a memoir. Our surprise at so unusual a circumstance increases, when we examine closely the fragment of her memoirs which is preserved to us. Her narrative is strikingly detailed, clear, and graphic.
There is no doubt that the fragment is genuine: it was published at Leipzig, 1846, with some explanatory remarks by Stephen Endlisher, from the manuscript still preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna (No. 2920), under the title, 'From the Memoirs of Helen Kottenner, 1439, 1440.' The principal event recorded is the theft of the Hungarian crown, by which the coronation of the child Ladislaus was effected.
To enable the reader to understand this, we must mention that up to the present time a mysterious importance has been attached by the Hungarians to the crown of the Holy Stephen, "die heilige," without which no one could become rightful King of Hungary; and this mysterious importance has, as is well known, added many romantic adventures to the long and sorrowful history of this crown. When King Albrecht died, his widow Elizabeth had not given birth to the heir who was to secure the succession of the throne of Hungary. Amid the fierce and egotistical quarrels of the nobles who then decided the fate of the country, two large parties may be distinguished,--the national and the German. The national party was desirous of giving the throne to the King Wladislaus of Poland, whilst the Germans sought every means of preserving it to the royal family of Germany. Helen Kottenner writes as follows:--
"Her highness the noble Queen came to reside at Plintenburg,[[11]] and many Hungarian lords with her. These went down to the vaults and brought up from thence a chest in which was kept the holy crown, which they took out with its case: there were many seals to this, which they broke open, and looked to see that it was all right. I was present. Then they placed the holy crown in a small chest. This was standing near a bed in which lay the noble Queen, about to be confined, and in the same room with her were two maidens, one called Barbara, the daughter of a Hungarian lord, the other called Ironacherin, and there was a wax taper for a nightlight, as is the custom amongst princesses. One of these maidens got up in the night, and upset the light without perceiving it; and a fire broke out in the room, and was burning so near the chest that it was singed, and a hole as large as a hand's breadth was burnt in a blue velvet cushion that layover the chest. Now observe this wonder: the King who was to wear the holy crown was yet within his mother's womb, and they were scarcely two fathoms apart from the chest, and the evil one would gladly have injured them by the fire; but God was their protector, and caused the Queen to awake at the right time. I was then with the young princess. Then came the maidens and bade me quickly rise up, as there was fire in the chamber wherein lay my honoured lady. I was sore afraid, rose up hastily, and went into the room, which was full of smoke: having extinguished the fire, I let in fresh air to clear away the smoke, so that the noble Queen might be able to remain there. In the morning the Hungarian lords waited on my honoured lady. Her highness told them what had happened in the night, and how nearly both she and the holy crown had been burnt. Then the lords were much amazed, and they advised that the holy crown should be replaced in its chest, and carried again down to the vault from whence it had been taken; which was done at once. The door was sealed again as before, but with fewer seals. And the Hungarian lords desired that the castle might be given over to her cousin, Lassla Wan von Gara,[[12]] which was also done. Herr Lassla Wan took possession of the castle, and placed it under the superintendence of a Burgrave.
"After all this had happened, the noble widow, my honoured lady, departed for Ofen, in great anxiety of mind, because the Hungarian lords wished her to take another husband; and the King of Poland was the one whom her cousin Lassla Wan was desirous she should choose. This, however, she would not do, as her doctors had assured her she would bear a son: she hoped that this might prove true, but not having any certainty thereof, she was undecided how to act. Then the noble Queen had begun to consider and devise how she could get the holy crown from the Hungarian lords. These Hungarian lords would have been glad for the confinement of the noble Queen to have taken place at the Plintenburg; but that did not please her highness, and she would not return to the castle; for having weighed the matter well, she had reason to fear that were she there, she and her child might be forcibly detained; still less could she think of going there now, as she was endeavouring to obtain possession of the holy crown. The noble Queen had taken her youngest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, with her from the castle, as also myself and two young maidens, and left all the others there. Every one was astonished that her highness should leave the remainder of the court up at the castle; the reason was known only to God, her highness, and myself.
"The noble Queen went with her youngest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to Komorn. Here Count Ulric von Eily[[13]] came to visit her highness,--a faithful friend, with whom she consulted by what means she could bring away the holy crown from the Plintenburg. Then came my honoured lady to me, desiring that I should undertake it, as there was no one else she could trust, or who knew so well the locality. This sorely troubled me; for it was a dangerous venture for me and my little children, and I turned it over in my mind what I should do, for I had no one to take counsel of but God alone; and I thought if I did it not, and evil arose therefrom, I should be guilty before God and the world. So I consented to risk my life on this difficult undertaking, but desired to have some one to help me. Then I was asked whom I should consider fit for this: I proposed a Croat whom I thought faithfully devoted to my lady. He was called into secret council, and we laid before him what we desired of him: the man was so terrified that he changed colour, and became as one, half dead: he would not consent, and went forthwith to the stable for his horse. I know not whether it came to pass through his own awkwardness, or if it was the will of God, but an account was received at court that he had had a bad fall from his horse, and as soon as he recovered he made the best of his way to Croatia; so the plan was delayed, and my honoured lady was very sorrowful that one who was so weak hearted should know of the affair, and I also was in great anxiety.
"When the time came that the Almighty had ordained that this great work should be done, He sent us a Hungarian who was willing to undertake to obtain the holy crown; his name was the....[[14]]; he set about it in a wise and manly manner. We arranged what we should require, and took certain keys and two files. This man who was about to venture his life--as I was mine--in this affair, put on a black velvet dressing-gown and a pair of felt shoes, and in each shoe he placed a file, and he hid the keys under his dress. I took my honoured lady's little seal and the keys of the front door; at the side of the door there was a chain and hook; we had before we left put on a lock, so as to prevent any one else from putting another. When we were ready, my honoured lady sent forward a messenger to the Plintenburg, to let the Burgrave and the maidens know that the latter were to prepare themselves to join her highness at Komorn, as soon as the carriage arrived. When the carriage which was to be sent for the maidens, and also the sledge which was to convey me and my confederate were ready, two Hungarian noblemen were directed to accompany me. We proceeded, and information was given to the Burgrave, that I had arrived for the maidens. He and the other courtiers were surprised that I had left my young mistress, because she was so little, and they all knew well that I was rarely allowed to do so. The Burgrave was ill, and had intended to place his bed near the first door of the place where the holy crown was kept; but God ordained that his illness should increase, and he was unable to sleep there, and he could not place servants there, it being in the women's apartment; therefore he placed a cloth over the padlock, which we had placed on the chain, and sealed it up.
"When we arrived at the Plintenburg, the maidens were right glad to find they were to rejoin my honoured lady: they immediately made preparations, and had a trunk made for their clothes; this occupied a long time, even up to the eighth hour. My confederate came also into the apartment of the women, and jested with the maidens. Now there was a little heap of fire-wood lying near the stove, under which he hid the files; but the servants who waited on the maidens observed this, and began to whisper among themselves. I heard them, and forthwith told him; this frightened him so much that he changed colour, but he took the files away and concealed them elsewhere, and said to me, 'Woman, take care that we have a light.' And I begged of the old woman to give me some tapers, because I had many prayers to say, for it was the first Saturday night after the carnival. I took the tapers and hid them near me. When the maidens and every one else slept, there remained in the small room besides myself, only the old woman whom I had brought with me, who did not know a word of German, nor anything about my business; she had also no knowledge of the house, and lay there sleeping soundly. At the right time my confederate came through the chapel and knocked at the door, which I opened and closed again after him. He had brought a servant with him to help him, who was called by the same Christian name as himself, and was bound to him by oath. I then intended to give him the tapers, but they had disappeared. I was in such terror that I knew not what to do, and the business had well-nigh miscarried only for want of the lights. Then I bethought me that I would go and quietly awake the woman who had given me the tapers; and I told her the tapers were lost, and I had yet some time to pray; so she gave me more. Then I was glad, and gave them to him with the keys and the little seal of my honoured lady, that he might fasten and seal everything up again. I gave him also the three keys which belonged to the first door. He took off the cloth with the seal of the castle, which had been placed on it by the Burgrave, opened the door and went in with his servant, and worked so hard at the other locks that the noise of the knocking and filing became alarming. But though the watchers and the Burgrave's people were more than usually vigilant that night in the care of the crown, yet Almighty God stopped their ears, so that they did not hear the noise. I however heard it all, and kept watch in great trouble and anxiety. And I devoutly prayed to God and the Holy Virgin that they would support and help me; yet I was in greater anxiety for my soul than for my life, and I prayed to God that He would be merciful to my soul, and let me die at once there, rather than that anything should happen against his will, or that should bring misfortune on my country and people. Whilst I was thus praying, I heard a loud noise and rustling, as if many armed men were at the door through which I had admitted my confederate, and it appeared to me as if they desired to break open the door. In great fear I rose from my knees, and was about to warn him to desist from his work, when it occurred to me to go first to the door, which I did; when I came to the door, the noise was at an end, and no one seemed to be there; then I bethought me that it was a spirit, and went again to my prayers; and I vowed to our dear lady a pilgrimage to Zell[[15]] barefooted, and until I could fulfil it, I would every Saturday night forego my feather bed, and also as long as I lived would make an especial prayer to the Holy Virgin, thanking her for her favour, and begging her to express my gratitude to our dear Lord Jesus Christ, for the great mercy which out of his compassion He had shown me. Whilst I was still at my prayers, I thought again that there was a great noise and rustling of armour at the other door, which was the special entrance into the women's room; and this frightened me so much that I trembled and perspired all over, and thought it was surely not a spirit, but that they had gone round to this door whilst I was still standing at that of the chapel. I knew not what to do, and listened to find out whether the maidens had heard anything. But I heard no one, then I went slowly down the small stairs through the chamber of the maidens, to the door which was the usual entrance into the women's apartments; when I came to the door there was no one. Then was I glad, and thanked God, and went again to my prayers, and bethought me it was the devil who wished to hinder our business.
"When I had ended my prayer I got up, and determined to go to the vault and see what they were doing: the man met me, and told me to rejoice, as it was all accomplished. They had filed away the locks of the doors, but that on the case was so fast they could not file it, and were obliged to burn the wood. From this arose a great smoke, and I was again in much anxiety lest inquiry should be made about it; but God averted this danger. As we had now got the holy crown we closed the doors again, and fixed on other locks instead of those we had broken, and put on them again the seal of my honoured lady: we made fast the outer door, and replaced on it the cloth with the seal of the castle, as had been done by the Burgrave, and as we had found it. And I threw the file into the privy that was in the women's apartments; and if it were broken open, the file would be found in evidence of the truth of all this. The holy crown we carried out through the chapel, wherein rest in God the remains of St. Elizabeth; and I, Helen Kottenner, owe to this chapel a priestly garment for the mass, and an altar cloth, which shall be paid by my honoured lord, King Lassla. My confederate took a red velvet cushion which he opened, and taking a portion of the feathers out, placed the holy crown therein, and then sewed it up again.
"In the meanwhile it was almost daylight, the maidens and every one had arisen, and we were to depart: now the maidens had in their service an old woman, who my honoured lady had commanded should have her wages paid, and be left behind, that she might return home to Ofen. When she had received her wages she came to me, and told me that she had seen a curious thing lying before the stove, and did not know what it might be. I was much alarmed at this, for I saw plainly that it was part of the case in which the holy crown had been kept; and I did my best to persuade her not to believe her own eyes; but I went secretly to the stove, and threw the fragments that I found into the fire, that they might be entirely burnt; and I took the woman with me on the journey. Every one was surprised at my doing this; but I said that I intended asking my honoured lady for a benefice at St. Martins at Vienna for her, which I afterwards did.
"When the maidens and the retinue were ready to depart, my confederate took the cushion in which the holy crown was concealed, and commanded his servant to carry it from the house to the sledge on which he and I were to sit. Then the good fellow took the cushion on his shoulders, and threw over it an old cowhide with the tail on, which hung down behind, and every one who saw it began to laugh.
"When we arrived in the market-place we would gladly have had something to eat, but could find nothing except herrings. When we had eaten a little, and assisted at the usual mass in the Church, the day was far advanced, and we had to go that day from the Plintenburg to Komorn, which was full twelve German miles off. On mounting the sledge I took great care not to sit on the corner of the cushion in which the holy crown was concealed, and thanked God Almighty for all his mercies; yet I often turned round to see if any one followed us; and there was no end to my anxiety, for my thoughts troubled me much.
"On arriving at the inn where we intended to dine, the faithful servant to whom the care of the cushion was intrusted carried it into the chamber, and laid it on a table before me, so that it was under my eye the whole time that we were eating; and before starting, the cushion was replaced. We journeyed onwards, and about dark arrived at the Danube, which was still frozen over, but the ice in some places was very thin. When we were half way across the river the ice gave way under the carriage in which the maidens were, and it was upset; they raised a great cry, for it was so dark they could not see each other. I was in great fear that we, with the holy crown, should be lost in the Danube; but God was our help, so that no one got under the ice, but many things from the carriage fell into the water under the ice. Then I took the Duchess of Silesia and the principal maidens into the sledge with me, and we, with all the others, got safe over the river. When we arrived at the castle of Komorn, my confederate took the cushion with the holy crown, and carried it to a place of safety, and I went to my honoured lady the noble Queen, who received me graciously, and said, 'That with God's help, I had been a good messenger.'
"The noble Queen received me in bed, and told me how she had suffered during the day. Two widow ladies had come from Ofen to her highness, bringing with them two nurses, one was the midwife, the other the wet-nurse; and the latter had brought her child with her, which was a son, for the wise people think that the milk which comes with a son is better than that which comes with a daughter. These women were to have gone with her highness to Presburg, where she was to have been confined, for according to their reckoning her highness had yet another week to go; but either the reckoning was wrong, or, as I said to the noble Queen, it was God's will: her grace told me that the women from Ofen had given her a bath, after which her pains had come on. I discovered from this that the birth was now approaching. The women from Ofen were staying in the market-place, but we had a midwife with us, called Margaret, who had been sent to my honoured lady by the Countess Hans von Schaumberg, as being particularly good, which she was. Then I said, 'Honoured lady, it seems to me that you will not go to-morrow to Presburg;' so her highness got up and began to prepare herself for the event. Then I sent for the Hungarian housekeeper who was called Aessem Margit, who came immediately, and also the maiden called Ironacherin, and I hastened to call the midwife whom the Countess von Schaumberg had sent. She was in the room with my young lady,[[16]] and I said, 'Margaret, rise quickly, for the hour of my honoured lady is come;' the woman being heavy with sleep answered, 'By the holy cross, if the child is born to-night we shall hardly go to Presburg to-morrow;' and she would not get up. The contest between us appeared to me so long that I hastened back to my honoured lady, lest anything should go wrong, as those who were with her did not understand such things; and she inquired, 'Where is Margaret?' and I gave her the foolish answer of the woman; and her highness said, 'Go again quickly, and bid her come, for this is no jesting matter.' I hurried back in great anger, and brought the woman with me; and in less than half an hour after she came to my honoured lady, Almighty God sent us a young King. The same hour that the holy crown came from the Plintenburg to Komorn, the King Lassla was born. The midwife was sharp-witted, and exclaimed, 'Honoured lady, grant me my wish, and I will tell you what I have in my arms.' The noble Queen answered, 'Yes, dear mother;' and the nurse said, 'I have a young King in my arms.' This made the noble Queen very happy: she raised her hands to God, and thanked Him for his mercy. When she had been arranged comfortably in her bed, and no one was with her save I alone, I knelt down and said to the Queen, 'Honoured lady, your Highness must thank God as long as you live for his great mercy, and for the miracle which He has wrought in bringing the crown and the King together in the same hour.' The noble Queen replied, 'It is indeed a great miracle of God Almighty, the like of which has never happened before.'
"When the noble and faithful Count Ulric von Eily heard that a King and friend was born to him, who was both his lord and cousin, he was overjoyed, as were also the Croats, and all the lords and attendants on the court. The noble Count von Eily had bonfires made, and they had a procession on the water with torches, and amused themselves till after midnight. Early in the morning they sent for the Bishop of Gran to come and christen the young King: he came, accompanied by the pastor of Ofen, Master Franz. And my honoured lady desired that I should be godmother; but I answered, 'Honoured madam, I am bound to obey your Highness always, but I beg of you to take the Aessem Margit instead of me,' which her Highness did. When the noble King was to be baptized, we took off the black dress from the young princess, which she had worn for the great and dear prince, King Albrecht, and put on her a golden dress woven with red; and the maidens were all gaily dressed to the honour and praise of God, who had given an hereditary King to the people and country.
"Not long after, there came certain intelligence that the King of Poland was approaching, and had designs upon Ofen, which proved true. It became therefore necessary to make secret and hasty preparations for the coronation; and my honoured lady sent to Ofen to get cloth of gold for the coronation dress of the little King Lassla; but this took so long a time that we feared it would be too late, for the coronation must take place on a high festival, and Pentecost, which was the first, was near at hand, so that it was necessary to make haste. Now there was a rich and beautiful vestment for the mass which had belonged to the Emperor Sigismund; it was red and gold, with silver spots worked on it; this was cut up and formed into the first dress of the young King that he was to wear with the holy crown. I sewed together the small pieces, the surplice and the humeral, the stole and the banner, the gloves and the shoes; and I was obliged to make these secretly in the chapel with bolted doors.
"In the evening, when every one had gone to rest, my honoured lady sent for me to come to her immediately; this made me fear that something had gone wrong. The noble Queen's thoughts had been wandering to and fro, and she said to me, 'What would you advise? our affairs are not going on well; they desire to stop us on our way; where shall we conceal the holy crown? It will be a great misfortune if it falls into the hands of the enemy.' I stepped aside for a little while, wishing to reflect and to pray to the mother of all mercy to intercede with her Son, that we might manage our business so that no evil should accrue from it. Then I returned to the noble Queen and said, 'Honoured lady, with deference to your wisdom, I will advise what seems good to me: your Highness knows well that the King is of more importance than the holy crown; let us lay the holy crown in the cradle under the King, so that wherever God leads the King there will the crown be also.' This counsel pleased her Highness, who answered: 'We will do so, and thus let him take care of the crown himself.' In the morning I took the holy crown and packed it carefully in a cloth, and laid it in the mattress of the cradle, for his Highness did not yet lie on a feather-bed; and laid there also a long spoon, such as we use for mixing the child's pap. This I did to make any one who felt in the cradle, believe that what lay therein was the vessel in which the pap for the noble King was prepared.
"On the Tuesday afternoon before Whitsunday the noble Queen set out with the young King, the noble Count von Eily, the Croatian counts, and the Dukes of Lindbach. A large boat had been prepared for the noble Queen, her son, and daughter; and many good people went on board with them, so that the boat being heavy laden was scarce a hand's breadth above the water: there was much fear and danger, especially as the wind was high; but God took us prosperously over the river. The young King was carried in the cradle by four men, most of them armed, and I myself rode by the side of it. He had not been carried far when he began to cry violently, and would not remain in the cradle; so I descended from my horse and carried him in my arms: and the roads were bad, for there had been much rain; but there was a pious knight there, Herr Hans of Pilach, who conducted me through the swampy ground.
"We went on in great anxiety, for all the peasants had fled from their villages into the wood, and most of them were vassals of the lords who were our enemies; therefore, when we came to the mountains, I dismounted from my horse and took the noble King out of his cradle, and placed him in the carriage, wherein sat the noble Queen and her young daughter Elizabeth; and we women and maidens formed a circle round the noble family, so that if any one fired at the carriage we should receive the shots. And there were many foot-soldiers who went on both sides of the carriage, and searched in the underwood, lest there should be any enemies there who might injure us. Thus, with God's help, we crossed the mountain without hurt. Then I took the noble King again out of the carriage, and placed him in his cradle, riding by the side of it: we had not gone far when he began again to cry; he would not remain in the cradle or carriage, and the nurse could not quiet him. Then I took him up in my arms and carried him a good bit of the way; the nurse also carried him till we were both tired, when I laid him again in his cradle; thus we continued to change during the whole of our journey. Sometimes it rained so that the noble King was quite wet. I had brought a fur pelisse with me for my own wear, but when the rain was very heavy I covered the cradle with it, till it was wet through, I then had it wrung out, and again covered the cradle with it as long as it was wanted. The wind also was so high that it blew the dust into the cradle, so that the King could hardly open his eyes; and at times it was so hot that he perspired all over, and from that a rash broke out upon him afterwards. It was almost night when we arrived at the inn; and when every one had eaten, the gentlemen placed themselves round the house in which the royal family were, and made a fire, keeping watch all night, as is the custom in the kingdom of Hungary. The next day we journeyed to Weissenburg.
"When we arrived near Weissenburg, Miklosch Weida of the free city rode to meet us, accompanied by full five hundred horse.
"When we went through the marshy ground the young King began again to cry, and would not remain in the cradle or carriage; and I was again obliged to carry his Highness in my arms, till we arrived in the city of Weissenburg. Then the gentlemen sprang from their horses, and formed themselves into a wide circle of armed men, holding naked swords in their hands, and I, Helen Kottenner, had to carry the young King in the midst of this circle; and Count Bartholomä of Croatia went on one side of me, and another on the other side, to do honour to the noble King; thus we went through the city till we arrived at the inn. This was on Whitsun eve.
"On our arrival my honoured lady sent for the elders of the city; she showed them the holy crown, and gave directions to prepare everything that was meet for the coronation, according to the old usages. And there were certain burghers there, who remembered the coronation of the Emperor Sigismund, having been present at it. On Whitsun morning I got up early, bathed the young King, and dressed him as well as I could; then they carried him to the church, where all the Kings were crowned, and there were many good people there, both ecclesiastics and laymen. When we arrived at the church they carried the young King to the choir, but the door of the choir was closed; the citizens were within, and my honoured lady was outside the door with her son, the noble King. My honoured lady spoke Hungarian with them, and the burghers answered her Highness in the same language: her Highness took the oath instead of her son, for his Highness was only twelve weeks old that day. When all this was accomplished according to the old customs, they opened the door and let in their rightful lord and lady, and all the others who were summoned, both ecclesiastics and laymen. And the young Princess Elizabeth stood up by the organ, that her Highness might not be injured in the throng, as she was only just four years old. When the service was about to begin, I had to raise up the young King that his Highness might be confirmed. Now Miklosch Weida had been appointed to knight the young King, because he was a genuine Hungarian knight. The noble Count von Eily had a sword which was thickly ornamented with silver and gold, and on it was a motto that ran thus: 'Indestructible.' This sword he gave to the young King that his Highness might be knighted with it. Then I, Helen Kottenner, raised the young King in my arms, and the knight of the free city took the sword; and he gave the King such a blow that I felt it on my arm. This the noble Queen, who stood near me, remarked, and said to the knight of the free city: 'Istemere nem misertem!' that is to say, 'For God's sake do not hurt him!' to which he replied: 'Nem;' that is to say, 'No,' and laughed. Then the right reverend prelate, the Archbishop of Gran, took the holy oil, and anointed the noble child, King; and the dress of cloth of gold, such as is worn by kings, was put on the noble child; and the archbishop took the holy crown and placed it on his head; and thus he, King Albrecht's son, grandson of the Emperor Sigismund, who throughout all holy Christendom is recognized as King Lassla, was crowned at Weissenburg by the Archbishop of Gran, with the holy crown, on Whitsunday. For there are three laws in the kingdom of Hungary which must not be departed from, as without them no king is deemed legally crowned. One of these is, that a king of Hungary must be crowned with the holy crown; another that it must be done by the Archbishop of Gran; and the third, that it shall take place at Weissenburg. When the archbishop placed the crown on the head of the noble King Lassla, he held his head quite upright with the strength of a child of a year old, which is seldom to be seen in children of twelve weeks. After the noble King, seated in my arms, had been crowned at the altar of St. Stephen, I carried him up a small staircase to a high gallery, according to custom, and the prescribed ritual for the festival was read; but there being no golden cloth for the King to sit on, after the old usage, I took for the purpose a red and gold cover lined with ermine from his cradle; and whilst the noble King was held upon the golden cloth, Count Ulric von Eily held the crown over his head during the chanting of the office.
"The noble King had little pleasure in his coronation, for he wept aloud, so that all in church heard him; and the common people were astonished, and said, 'It was not the voice of a child of twelve weeks; it might be taken for that of a child of a year old, which, however, he was not. Then knighthood was conferred by Miklosch Weida on behalf of the noble King Lassla. When the office was completed I carried the noble King down again, and laid him in the cradle, for he was very tired from sitting so long upright. Then he was borne to St. Peter's church, where I was again obliged to take him out of his cradle and place him on a chair, as it is the custom for every king when crowned to be seated there. Again I carried his Highness down and laid him in his cradle; and he was taken from St. Peter's church, followed by his noble family on foot, back to the inn. The only one who rode was Count von Eily, for he had to hold the holy crown over the head of the noble King, that every one might see it was the holy crown which had been placed on the head of the holy St. Stephen and other Hungarian Kings. Count Bartholomä carried the orb, and the Duke von Lindbach the sceptre; a legate's staff was borne before the noble King, because he did not hold any part of Hungary on feudal tenure from the holy Roman Empire; and the sword with which his Highness had been knighted was also carried before him, and pence were scattered among the people. The noble Queen was so humble and showed such respect to her son, that I, poor woman, had to walk before her, next to the noble King, because I had held his Highness in my arms at the anointing and coronation. When the noble King had arrived at the inn, he was put to rest, as his Highness was very tired. The lords and all others went away, and the noble Queen remained alone with her son. Then I knelt down before her, and reminded her of the service which I had rendered to her Highness and the noble King; and also to her other children and members of the royal family. Thereupon the noble Queen gave me her hand and said, 'Rise up, and if please God our affairs prosper, I will exalt you and your whole race. You have well deserved it, for you have done for me and my children what I myself could not have done.' Then I inclined myself humbly, and thanked her Highness for her kind encouragement."
Thus far Helen Kottenner. History tells us in what consternation the party of King Wladislaus of Poland was placed by the robbery of the crown, and also how the crown itself was mortgaged by the Queen to the Emperor Frederick III., but of the after life of Helen Kottenner we know nothing.
What interests us most in this narrative is the night scene in which the holy crown of Hungary is purloined, and the mental struggles of a strong female character. But these inward struggles and scruples of conscience assume to the daughter of the fifteenth century a palpable form: they become to her an outward reality that mysteriously assails her. Her soul is not tormented with thoughts alone that accuse and excuse each other, but with delusive appearances that strike her with terror.
This activity of the senses, which clothes with an appearance of outward life all that rises in the soul, of the fearful and incomprehensible, is generally and peculiarly characteristic of the early life of every people. The souls of individuals are not sufficiently free to enable them to understand the inward struggles of their own minds: they begin by contending against what torments them, as if it were an outward form or enemy. Such were the noble struggles of Luther; and when the incomparable English poet of the sixteenth century caused his tragic hero to struggle with the apparitions of murdered men, and with the dagger which was the implement of his crime, this conception, which we consider as a highly poetical and spiritual creation, had a far deeper truth for him and his spectators.
CHAPTER III.
THE TRAVELLING STUDENT.
(1509, and following years.)
The fifteenth century passed away. To us Germans it appears an introduction to the great events of the following one,--a period of earnest but imperfect striving towards improvement. The excitement of the masses in the great half-Sclave population of the Roman empire had brought death and destruction over the German provinces, and the fanaticism of the Hussites had appeared to exhaust itself in the burning ruins of hundreds of cities and villages; but the same feeling had stirred the hearts of two generations, and in the next century the flame again blazed forth, more powerful and unquenchable, a pillar of fire to all Europe. The house of Luxemburg had passed away; its last heirs had mortgaged the Hungarian crown to the Austrian Hapsburgers, and bequeathed to them their claims to the wide and insecure acquisitions of their race. In the next century Charles V. made them the greatest dynasty of the world. It was a century of strife and reckless egotism, and on all sides arose knightly associations and confederacies; but it was also a time when the German mind, having become more practical in its tendencies, arrived at the greatest of all new discoveries,--the art of printing; when, in spite of fighting on the highways and bloody quarrels within the cities, commerce and trade began to flourish; when citizens and peasants acquired the habits of regular soldiers; when the German merchant established his supremacy on the northern seas, while the Italian navigator pressed on through the mists of boundless oceans, to unknown regions of the earth; finally, it was the time in which the Alpine mules bore, together with the spices of the East and the papal bulls, the manuscripts of a foreign nation, by means of which a new enlightenment was spread over Germany,--the early dawn of modern life.
With the sixteenth century began the greatest spiritual movement that ever roused a nation. This century has for ever impressed its seal on the spirit and temper of the German people. A wonderful time, in which a great nation anxiously yearning after its God, sought peace for the burdened soul, and a moral and mental aim for a life hitherto so poor and joyless.
This effort of the popular mind to found a new collective life by a deep apprehension of the eternal, produced a political development in Germany which is strikingly distinct from that of other nations. The whole powers of the nation were so engrossed in this passionate struggle, that it sank into a state of extreme exhaustion: the political concentration of Germany was delayed for centuries; most fearful civil wars were followed by a deathlike lassitude; German was divided from German, and a deep chasm was formed between the new and the middle ages. The result was, that a large portion of the German people, who might carry back their history in uninterrupted continuity up to the struggles of Arius and Arminus, now regard the time of the Hohenstaufen, and even the imperial government of the first Maximilian, as a dark tradition; for their state polity, their rights, and their municipal laws are hardly as old as those of the free states of North America. The oldest of the proud nations that arose from the ruins of the Roman empire, is now in many respects the youngest member of the European family. But whatever may have been the influence of the sixteenth century on the political formation of the fatherland, every German should look back to it with respect, for we owe to it all which now is our hope and pride; our power of self-sacrifice, our morality and freedom of mind, an irresistible impulse for truth, our art, and our unrivalled system of science, and lastly, the great obligation which our ancestors have imposed upon us of accomplishing what they failed in. It is especially now, in the midst of a political struggle for German national life, that it would be useful to us to consider how this struggle began three centuries and a half ago.
Whoever attempts to examine the German mind at the beginning of the sixteenth century, will observe a secret restlessness, something like that of migratory birds when spring approaches; this indefinite impulse reproduced frequently the old German love of wandering. Many causes combined to make the poor restless and desirous of novelty. The number of vagrants, young and old, such as pedlers, pilgrims, beggars, and travelling students, was very great; many of the adventurers went to France, but the greater part to Italy.
Wonderful reports came from distant lands. Beyond the Mediterranean, in the countries contiguous to Jerusalem (which was annually visited by the German pilgrims), a new race and a new and obnoxious religion had spread itself. Every pilgrim who came from the south related in the hostelries tales of the warlike power of the Turks, of their polygamy, of the Christian children whom they stole and brought up as slaves, and of danger to the Christian islands and seaports. On the other hand the fancy was led from the terrors of endless seas to the new gold lands,--countries like paradise, coloured tribes who knew nothing of God, and endless booty and dominion for believing Christians. To this was added the news from Italy itself,--how discontented the inhabitants were with the pope, how wanton the simony, and how wicked the princes of the Church.
And those who brought these tidings into the city and country were no longer timid traders or poor pilgrims, but sunburnt hardy troopers, bold in aspect, and well accoutred; children of neighbours, and trustworthy men, who had accompanied the Emperor as mercenaries to Italy, where they had fought with Italians, Spaniards, and Swiss, and now returned home with all kinds of booty, gold in their purses, and the golden chains of knighthood round their necks. The youths of the village gazed with respect on the warrior who thrust his halberd into the ground before the inn, and took possession of the rooms for himself and his guests, as if he were a nobleman or a prince; for he, the peasant's son, had trodden under foot Italian knights, and dipped deep into the money coffers of Italian princes; had obtained full dispensation from the Pope for his deeds, and, it was even whispered, a secret blessing which made him invulnerable. The lower orders began for the first time to have an idea of their own strength and capacities; they felt that they also were men; the hunting-spear hung in their huts, and they carried the long knife in their belt. But what was their position at home? The use of their hands and their teams was required by the landed nobleman for his fields; to him belonged the forest and the game within it, and the fish in their waters; and when the peasant died, his heir was obliged to give up the best of his herd, or its worth in money. In every feud in which the nobleman was engaged they were the victims: the enemy's soldiers fell upon their cattle, and they themselves were shot down with arrows, and imprisoned in dark dungeons till they were able to pay ransom. The Church also sought after their sheaves and concealed money. Dishonest, cunning, and voluptuous were the deans, who rode through their villages, falcon on hand, with troopers and damsels; the priests, whom the peasants could neither choose nor dismiss, seduced their wives, or lived scandalously at home. The mendicant monks forced their way into their kitchens, and demanded the smoked meats from their chimneys, and the eggs from their baskets. All the communities throughout Southern Germany were in a state of silent fermentation, and already, at the end of the fifteenth century, local risings had begun, the forerunners of the Peasant war.
But more wonderful still was the influence of the new art, through which the poorest might acquire knowledge and learning. The method of multiplying written words by thousands was discovered on the banks of the Rhine in the middle of the fifteenth century. The printing of patterns by means of wooden blocks had been practised for many centuries, and frequently single pages of writing had in this way been struck off; at last it occurred to a citizen that whole books might be printed with cast metal type. Its first effect was to give intelligence to the industry of the artisan, and a way was thus opened to the people of turning their mental acquirements to profit.
The learning of the middle ages still occupied the professors' chairs at the German universities, but it was without soul, and consisted in dry forms and scholastic subtleties. There was little acquaintance with the ancient languages, Hebrew and Greek were almost unknown; the solid learning of the olden times was taught in bad monkish Latin; the Bible and Fathers of the Church, the Roman historians, institutes and pandects, the Greek text of Aristotle, and the writers upon natural philosophy and medicine, were found only in dusty manuscripts; nothing but the commentators and systematizers of the middle ages were ever expounded or learnt by heart. Such was the state of things in Germany. But in Italy, for more than a century, mental cultivation had begun, from the study of Roman and Greek poets, historians, and philosophers. The men of high intellect on the other side of the Alps rejoiced in the beauty of the Latin language and poetry, admired the acute logic of Cicero, and regarded with astonishment the powerful life of the Roman people. Their whole literature entwined itself, like the tendrils of a creeper, round the antique stem. It was soon after the invention of printing, and during the war carried on by the Germans in the Peninsula, that this new Humanitarian learning was gradually introduced into Germany. The Latin language, which appeared to the Germans like a new discovery, was industriously studied in the classical schools, and disseminated through the means of manuals. The close attention and long labour necessary in Germany to acquire the foreign grammar, acted as discipline to the mind. Acuteness and memory were strongly exercised; the logical construction of the language was more attended to than the phonetic; the grandeur and wisdom of the subject, more than the beauty and elegance of the style: the German mind required more exercise, therefore the result was more lasting, because the mastery had to be gained over two languages of different roots. A number of earnest teachers first spread the new learning; among these were Jacob Wimpfeling and Alexander Hegius, Crato of Udenheim, Sapidus, and Michael Hilspach. To these may be added the poets Henry Bebel and Conrade Celtes, Ulrich Zasius the lawyer, and others; in close union with them were to be found all the men of powerful talent in Germany; Sebastian Brand, author of Narrenschiffs, and also the great preacher John Geiler of Kaisersberg, although he had been brought up in the scholastic teaching.
They were sometimes led by their knowledge of ancient philosophy into secret speculations upon the being of God, and all were opposed to the corruptions of the Romish Church; but their opposition differed from that of Italy in this respect, that the German mind gave it more elevation. It is true that many of the Humanitarian teachers considered the German language as barbarous; they Latinized their names, and in their confidential letters took the liberty of calling their countrymen unpolished; they hated the despotic arrogance with which the Romish priests looked down upon them and their nation; yet they did not cease to be good Christians. Besides their unceasing attacks on the vices of the Italian priesthood, they ventured, though with hesitation and caution, upon an historical critique on the foundation of the claims of the Papacy. They were united in bonds of friendship, and formed one large community. Bitterly persecuted by the representatives of the old scholastic school, they nevertheless gained allies everywhere,--in the burgher houses of the Imperial cities, in the courts of the Princes, in the entourage of the Emperor, and even in the cathedral chapters and on the Episcopal thrones.
The mental culture of these men, however, could not keep a lasting hold on German life; its groundwork was too foreign to the real needs of the mental life of the people; its ideal, which it had gathered from antiquity, was too vague and arbitrary; its fantastical occupation with a bygone world, of whose real meaning they knew so little, was not favourable to the development of their character. Some indeed became forerunners in the struggle of faith, but others, offended by the roughness and narrowness of the new teaching, fell back to the old Church which they had before so severely judged. One of this school, the enthusiastic and high-minded Ulrich von Hutten, who was passionately German, and attached to the teaching of Luther, suffered for his devotion to the popular cause.
In the beginning of the century, however, the Humanitarians carried on almost alone the struggle against the oppression under which the nation groaned. They exercised a powerful influence on the minds of the multitude; even what they wrote in Latin was not lost upon them, and the rhymesters of the cities were never weary of propagating the witticisms and bitter attacks of the Humanitarians in the form of proverbs, jocose stories, and plays.
The desire for learning became powerful amongst the people. Children and half-grown boys rushed from the most distant valleys into the unknown world to seek for knowledge; wherever there was a Latin school established, there the children of the people congregated, often undergoing the greatest sufferings and hardships, demoralized by the uncertainty of their daily life; for though the founders and managers of the schools, or the burghers of the cities, gave these strangers sometimes a roof over their heads, and beds to lie on, they were obliged for the most part to beg for their daily subsistence. Little control was exercised over them; only one thing was strictly enjoined,--that there should be some method in the lawlessness of their life; it was only under appointed forms, and in certain districts of the city, that they were allowed to beg. When the travelling scholar came to a place where there was a Latin school, he was bound to join the association of scholars, that he might not make claims on the benevolence of the inhabitants, to the prejudice of the schoolmaster or of those already there. An organization was formed among these scholars, as was always the case where Germans assembled together in the middle ages, and a code was established, containing many customs and demoralizing laws, with which every one was obliged to comply; besides this there was the rough poetry of an adventurous life, which few could go through without injury to their characters in after life. The younger scholars, called Schützen, were, like the apprentices of artisans, bound to perform the most humiliating offices for their older comrades, the Bacchanten: they had to beg and even to steal for their tyrants, who in return gave them the protection of their strength. It was considered honourable and advantageous for a Bacchant to have many Schützen, who obtained gifts from the benevolent, on which he lived; but when the rough Bacchant rose to the university, he was paid off for all the tyrannical injustice he had practised towards the younger scholars: he had to lay aside his school dress and rude manners, was received into the distinguished society of students with humiliating ceremonies, and was obliged in his turn to render service and to bear rude jests like a slave. The scholars were perpetually changing their schools, for with many the loitering on the high roads was the main object; their youth was passed in wild roving from school to school, in begging, theft, and dissoluteness. Whilst we rejoice in finding a few individuals who, by strength of mind and ability, rose through all this to intellectual preeminence, we must bear in mind how many a pet child died miserably under some hedge, or in the lazar-house of a foreign city, whose youthful minds had looked forward with hope to reaching the same goal.
The instruction in the Latin schools was very deficient, for a book was a rare treasure: the boys had often to copy the text for themselves, and the old grammar of Donat still served as the groundwork by which they learned to read Latin. There was still much useless scholastic pedantry, and what was then admired as elegant Latin, has somewhat of a monkish flavour. But the great teacher Wimpfeling took every opportunity of selecting examples which might excite the boys to honesty, integrity, and the fear of God; he endeavoured to impart not merely the knowledge of forms, or the subtle distinctions of words, but the spirit that flows from the ancients. The mind was to be ennobled; intellect and faith were to be advanced; learning was to act as a preservative against war, to promote peace, the greatness of states, and the reformation of the Catholic Church, for its object was knowledge of the truth.
Some idea of the life of a travelling student has been preserved to us in the description of Thomas Platter, the poor shepherd boy from Visperthale, in the Valais, later a renowned printer and schoolmaster at Basle; his autobiography has been published by Dr. Fechter, Basle, 1840. In those days no travellers in search of the picturesque had begun to roam in the wild mountain valley from which the Visp rushes towards the Rhone, nor to visit Zermatt, the Matterhorn, and the glaciers of Monte Rosa. The shepherd boy grew up amidst the rocks, with no companions but his goats; his herd straying into a corn-field, or an eagle hovering threateningly above him, his climbing a steep rock, or being punished by his severe master, were the only events of his childhood; how he was cast out into the wide world from his solitude he shall himself relate.
"When I was with the farmer, one of my aunts, named Frances, came to see me; she wished me, she said, to go to my cousin, Herr Anthony Platter, to learn the Scriptures; thus they speak when they want one to go to school. The farmer was not well pleased at this; he told her I should learn nothing: he placed the forefinger of his right hand in the middle of the left, and went on to say, 'The lad will learn about as much, as I can push my finger through there.' This I saw and heard. Then said my aunt: 'Who knows? God has not denied him gifts; he may yet become a pious priest.' So she took me to that gentleman. I was, if I remember right, about nine or ten years old. First it fared ill with me, for he was a choleric man, and I but an unapt peasant lad. He beat me cruelly, and ofttimes dragged me by the ears out of the house, which made me scream like a goat into which the knife had been stuck; so that the neighbours oft talked of him as if he wished to murder me.
"I was not long with him, for just at that time my cousin came, who had been to the schools at Ulm and Munich, in Bavaria; the name of this student was Paulus of Summermatten. My relations had told him of me, and he promised that he would take me with him to the schools in Germany. When I heard this I fell on my knees, and prayed God Almighty that He would preserve me from the 'Pfaffs,'[[17]] who taught me almost nothing and beat me lamentably, for I had learned only to sing a little of the Salve, and to beg for eggs with the other scholars, who were with the Pfaff in the village.
"When Paulus was to begin his wanderings again, I was to go to him at Stalden. Simon, my mother's brother, dwelt at Summermatten, on the road to Stalden: he gave me a gold florin, which I carried in my little hand to Stalden. I looked often on the way to see that I still had it, and gave it to Paulus. Then we departed into the country, and I had to beg for myself, and to give of what I got to my Bacchant Paulus: on account of my simplicity and countrified language, much was given to me. At night going over the Grimsel Mountain we came to an inn; I had never seen a kachelofen,[[18]] and as the moon shone on the tiles, I imagined it was a great calf: I saw only two tiles shining, which were, I imagined, the eyes. In the morning I saw geese. I had never seen any before, and when they hissed at me I thought they were devils, and would eat me; so I cried out and ran away. At Lucerne I saw the first tiled roofs.
"Afterwards we went to Meissen: it was a long journey for me, as I was not accustomed to travel so far and to obtain food on the road. There were eight or nine of us travelling together; three small Schützen, the others great Bacchanten, as they are called; amongst all these I was the smallest and youngest. When I could not keep up well, my cousin Paulus came behind me with a rod, or little stick, and switched me on my bare legs, for I had no stockings, and bad shoes. I do not remember all that happened to us on the road. Once when we were talking together on the journey, the Bacchanten said it was the custom in Meissen and Silesia for the scholars to steal geese and ducks, and other such food; and nothing was done to them on that account, if they could escape from those to whom the things belonged. One day, when not far from a village, we saw a large flock of geese, and the herdsman was not with them; then I inquired of my fellow-Schützen when we should be in Meissen; as then I thought I might venture to kill the geese; they answered, 'Now we are there.' So I took a stone, threw it at one of the geese, and hit it on the leg; the others flew away, but the lamed one could not rise. I took another stone, and hit it on the head, so that it fell down. I ran up and caught the goose by the neck, carried it under my coat, and went along the road through the village. Then came the gooseherd running after me, and called aloud in the village, 'The boy has stolen my goose!' I and my fellow-Schützen fled away, and the feet of the goose hung out behind my coat. The peasants came out with spears to throw at us, and ran after us. When I saw that I could not escape with the goose, I let it fall, and sprang out of the road into the bushes; but two of my fellows ran along the street, and were overtaken by two peasants. Then they fell down on their knees, and asked for mercy, as they had done them no harm; and when the peasants saw that it was not they who had killed the goose, they returned to the village, taking the goose with them. But when I saw how they hastened after my fellows, I was in great trouble, and said to myself: 'Ah, my God! I think I have not blessed myself this day.' (For I had been taught to bless myself every morning.) When the peasants returned to the village, they found our Bacchanten in the public-house, for these had gone forward; and the peasants desired that they would pay for the goose: it would have been about two batzen; but I know not whether or no they paid. When they joined us again, they laughed, and asked how it had happened. I excused myself, as I had imagined it was the custom of the country; to which they said it was not yet the right moment.
"Another time a murderer came to us in the wood, eleven miles on this side of Nuremberg, who wished to play with our Bacchanten, that he might delay us till his fellows joined him; but we had an honest fellow amongst us called Anthony Schallbether, who warned the murderer to leave us, which he did. Now it was so late that we could hardly get to the village; there were very few houses, but there were two taverns. When we came to one of these the murderer was there before us, and others besides, without doubt his comrades; so we would not remain there, and went to the other public-house. As they themselves had already that night had their food, every one was so busy in the house, they would not give anything to us little lads; for we never sat at table to our meals; neither would they take us to a bedroom; but we were obliged to lie in the stable. But when they were taking the bigger ones to their bedroom, Anthony said to the host: 'Host, methinks you have strange guests, and are not much better yourself. I tell you what, place us in safety, or we will treat you in such a way that you will find your house too narrow for you.' When they had taken them to rest (I and the other little boys were lying in the stable without supper), some persons came in the night to their room, perhaps among them the host himself, and would have opened the door; but Anthony had put a screw before the lock inside, placed his bed before the door and struck a light; for he had always wax tapers and a tinder-box by him, and he quickly woke up the other fellows. When the rogues heard that, they made off. In the morning we found neither host nor servants. When they told us boys about it, we were all glad that nothing had happened to us in the stable. After we had gone from thence about a mile, we met with people, who when they heard where we had passed the night, were surprised that we had not all been murdered; for almost all the villagers were suspected of being murderers.
"Our Bacchanten treated us so badly that some of us told my cousin Paulus we should escape from them; so we went to Dresden; but here there was no good school, and the sleeping apartments for strange scholars were full of lice, so that we heard them at night crawl on the straw. We then left and went on to Breslau: we suffered much from hunger on the road, having nothing for some days to eat but raw onions and salt, or roasted acorns and crabs. Many nights we lay in the open air; for no one would receive us into their houses or at the inns, and often they set the dogs upon us. But when we arrived at Breslau, everything was in abundance; indeed so cheap that we poor scholars overate ourselves, and frequently made ourselves ill. We went at first to the chapter school of the Holy Cross, but when we found that there were some Swiss in the parsonage house at St. Elizabeth, we went there. The city of Breslau has seven parishes, and each its separate school: no scholar ventured to sing in another parish; if he did the cry of 'Ad idem, ad idem,' was raised, and the Schützen collected together and fought. It is said that there were at one time some thousands of Bacchanten and Schützen who all lived on alms; it is also said that some of them who were twenty or thirty years old, or even more, had their Schützen who supported them. I have often of an evening carried home to the school where they lived, for my Bacchanten, five or six meals. People gave to me willingly because I was little, and a Swiss, for they loved the Swiss.
"There I remained for some time, as I was very ill that winter, and they were obliged to take me to the hospital; the scholars had their own especial hospital and doctors, and sixteen hellers a week are given at the town hall for the use of the sick, which provided for us well. We were well nursed and had good beds, but there were lice therein, beyond belief, as big as hempseed, so that I and others would much rather have lain on the floor than in the beds. It is hardly possible to believe how the scholars and Bacchanten were covered with lice. I have ofttimes, especially in the summer, gone to wash my shirt in the water of the Oder, and hung it on a bush to dry; and in the mean time cleared my coat of the lice, buried the heap, and placed a cross over the spot. In the winter the Schützen used to lie on the hearth in the school; but the Bacchanten lived in small rooms, of which there were some hundreds at St. Elizabeth; but during the summer, when it was hot, we lay in the churchyard, like pigs in straw, on grass which we collected from before the houses of the principal streets, where it was spread on Sundays; but when it rained we ran into the school, and if there was a storm we chanted almost all night the responsoria and other things with the succentor. We often went in summer after supper to the beerhouses to beg for beer: they gave us the strong Polish peasant beer, which, before I was aware of it, made me so drunk that even when within a stone's throw from the school I could not find my way to it. In short, we got sufficient nourishment, but little study.
"In the school of St. Elizabeth, nine bachelors always read together at the same hour in one room, for there were no printed Greek books in the country at that time; the preceptor alone had a printed Terence: what was read, therefore, had first to be dictated, then parsed and construed, and lastly explained; so that the Bacchanten when they went away carried with them large sheets of writing.
"From thence our eight went off again to Dresden, and fell into great want. We determined therefore one day to divide ourselves; some were to look out for geese, some for turnips and onions, and one for a kitchen pot; but we little ones went to the town of Neumarkt, to get bread and salt, and we were to meet together in the evening outside the town, where we were to camp out, and then cook what we had. There was a well about a stone's throw from the town, near which we wished to pass the night; but when they saw our fire in the town, they began to shoot at us, yet did not hit us. Then we retired behind a bank to a little stream and grove; the big fellows lopped off branches and made a kind of hut, some plucked the geese, of which we had two; others put the heads and feet and the giblets into the pot, in which they had shred the turnips, others made two wooden spits and roasted the meat; when it had become a little brown, we ate it with the turnips. In the night we heard a kind of flapping: we found there was a pond near us which had been drained in the day, and the fish were struggling in the mud; then we took as many of them as we could, in a shirt fastened on a stick, and went away to a village, where we gave some of them to a peasant, that he might cook the others for us in beer.
"Soon after we went again from thence to Ulm, there Paulus took with him another lad called Hildebrand Kalbermatter, son of a Pfaff: he was quite young, and had some cloth given to him, such as is made in that country, for a little coat. When we came to Ulm, Paul desired me to go about with the cloth begging for money to pay for its making up; in this way I got much money, for I was well accustomed to begging in God's name, for the Bacchanten had constantly employed me in this, so that I had hardly ever been taken to school, and not once taught to read. Going thus seldom to the school, and having to give up to the Bacchanten all I got by going round with the cloth, I suffered much from hunger.
"But I must not omit to mention that there was at Ulm a pious widow, who had two grown-up daughters; this widow had often, when I came in the winter, wrapped up my feet in a warm fur, which she had laid behind the stove on purpose to warm them, and gave me a dish of porridge and sent me home. I was sometimes so hungry that I drove the dogs in the streets away from their bones, and gnawed them; item, searched for the crumbs out of the bag, which I ate. After that we returned again to Munich: there also I had to beg for money to make up the cloth, which nevertheless was not mine. The year following we went once more to Ulm, and I brought the cloth with me, and again begged on account of it; and I remember well that some one said to me, 'Botz Marter! is not the coat made yet? I believe you are employed in knavish work.' We went from thence, and I know not what happened to the cloth, or whether or no the coat was ever made up. One Sunday, when we came to Munich, the Bacchanten had got a lodging, but we three little Schützen had none; we intended therefore to go at night to the corn market, in order to lie on the corn sacks; and certain women were sitting in the street by the salt magazine, who inquired where we were going. When they heard that we had no lodging, a butcher's wife who was near, when she saw that we were Swiss, said to her maid, 'Run and hang up the boiler with the remains of the soup and meat; they shall stay with me over the night; I like all Swiss. I served once at an inn in Innspruck, when the Emperor Maximilian held his court there: the Swiss had much business to arrange with him; and they were so friendly that I shall always be kind to them as long as I live.' The woman gave us good lodging, and plenty to eat and drink. In the morning she said to us, 'If one of you would like to remain with me, I would give him food and lodging.' We were all willing to do so, and inquired which she wished to have: when she had inspected us, as I looked more bold than the others, she took me, and I had nothing to do but to get the beer, to fetch the meat from the shambles, and to go with her sometimes to the field; but still I had to provide for the Bacchant. This the woman did not like, and said to me, 'Botz Marter! let the Bacchant go, and remain with me; you shall not beg any more.' So for a whole week I did not return to my Bacchant, nor the school; then he came to the house of the butcher's wife, and knocked at the door; and she said to me, 'Your Bacchant is there; say that you are ill.' She let him in, and said to him, 'You are truly a fine gentleman; you should have looked after Thomas, for he has been ill, and is so still.' Then he said to me, 'I am sorry for it, lad: when you can go out again, come to me.' Some time after, one Sunday, I went to vespers, and when they were over, my Bacchant came up to me and said, 'You Schütz, if you do not come to me, I will trample you under foot.' This I determined he should not do, and made up my mind to run away. That Sunday I said to the butcher's wife, 'I will go to the school and wash my shirt.' I dared not tell her of my intention, for I feared she would speak of it. So I left Munich with a sorrowful heart, partly because I was leaving my cousin, with whom I had gone so far (though he had been so hard and unmerciful to me), and also on account of the butcher's wife, who had treated me so kindly. I journeyed on over the river Isar, for I feared if I went to Switzerland, Paulus would follow me, and beat me, as he had often threatened. On the other side of the Isar there is a hill. I seated myself on the top, looked upon the town, and wept bitterly, because I had no longer any one to take an interest in me, and I thought of going to Saltzburg, or Vienna, in Austria. Whilst I was sitting there a peasant came with a waggon, which had carried salt to Munich: he was already drunk, though the sun had only just risen. I begged him to let me sit in it, and I went with him till he unharnessed the horses in order to give them and himself food; meanwhile I begged through the village, and waiting for him not far from it, fell asleep. When I awoke I again wept bitterly, for I thought the peasant had gone on, and it appeared to me as if I had lost a father. Soon, however, he came, and was still drunk, but called to me to sit in the cart, and asked me where I wished to go; I replied, 'To Saltzburg.' When it was evening, he turned off from the road, and said, 'Get down, there is the road to Saltzburg.' We had gone eight miles that day. I came to a village, and when I got up in the morning everything was white with rime, as if it had snowed, and I had no shoes, only torn stockings, no cap, and a scanty jacket. Thus I travelled to Passau, and intended to get on the Danube and go to Vienna, but when I came to Passau they would not admit me. Then I thought of going to Switzerland, and I asked the guard at the gate the nearest way to Switzerland: he answered by Munich. I said, 'I will not go by Munich, I had rather travel ten miles, or even more, out of the way to avoid it.' Then he pointed out the way by Friesingen. There was a high school there, and I found some Swiss, who inquired of me from whence I came? In the course of a few days Paulus arrived: the Schützen told me that the Bacchant from Munich was looking for me. I ran out of the gate as if he had been behind me, and travelled to Ulm, where I went to the widow's house, who had so kindly warmed my feet, and she received me, and I was to guard the turnips in the field, and did not go to school. Some weeks after, a companion of Paul's came to me, and said, 'Your cousin is here, and is seeking for you.' He had followed me for eighteen miles, as he had lost in me a good provider, I having supported him for some years. When I heard this, although it was night, I ran out of the gate towards Constance. I again wept bitterly, for I was sorry to leave the kind widow.
"I crossed the lake, and arrived at Constance; and as I went over the bridge I saw some of the Swiss peasant girls with their white petticoats. Oh my God, how glad I was! I thought I was in heaven. When I came to Zurich I saw there some people from the Valais, big Bacchanten, to whom I offered my services for getting food, if they in return would teach me; but I learned no more with them than with the others. After some months Paulus sent his Schütz Hildebrand from Munich, to desire me to return to him, and said he would forgive me; but I would not go back, and remained at Zurich, where however I studied little.
"One Antonius Venetz from Visp in the Valais persuaded me to go with him to Strasburg. When we arrived there we found many poor scholars, but no good school; there was however a very good one at Schlettstadt, so we went there. In the city we took a lodging with an old couple, one of whom was stone blind; then we went to my dear preceptor, the late Johannes Sapidus, and begged him to receive us. He asked from whence we came, and when we said out of Switzerland, from the Valais, he answered, 'The peasants there are bad, for they drive all their Bishops out of the country; if, however, you study industriously, I will take little from you, if not, you must pay me, or I will take the coat off your back.' That was the first school in which it appeared to me that things went on well. At that time learning, especially that of languages, was gaining ground--it was the year of the Diet at Worms. Sapidus had once nine hundred students, some of them fine scholars, who afterwards became doctors and men of renown.
"When I came to this school I knew little, could not even read the Donat. Though I was eighteen years old, I was placed among the little children, and looked like a hen amidst her small chickens. One day when Sapidus called over the list of the scholars, he said, 'I find many barbarous names, I must try to Latinize them.' He then called over the new names: he had turned me into Thomas Platterus, and my fellow, Anthony Venetz into Antonius Venetus, and said, 'Which are the two?' We stood up and he exclaimed, 'Poof! what measly Schützen to have such fine names!' this was partly true, especially of my companion, for I was more accustomed to the change of air and food.
"When we had stayed there from autumn to the following Whitsuntide, a great many fresh scholars arrived, so that there was not sufficient to support us all; and we went off to Solothurn, where there was a tolerably good school, and more food; but we were obliged to be so constantly in church that we lost all our time; therefore we returned home.
"The following spring I went off again with my two brothers. When we took leave of our mother, she wept and said, 'Am I not to be pitied, to have three sons going to lead this miserable life?' It was the only time I ever saw my mother cry, for she was a brave, strong-minded woman, respected by every one as honourable, upright, and pious.
"I came to Zurich, and went to the school of the monastery of our Lady. About this time it was reported that a thoroughly good and learned but severe schoolmaster was coming from Einsiedeln. I seated myself in a corner not far from the schoolmaster's chair, and I thought to myself, in this corner will I study or die. When he (Father Myconius) entered, he said, 'This is a fine school (it had only just been built); but methinks you are a set of ignorant boys: but I will have patience with you, if you will only be industrious.' I knew that if it had cost me my life I could not have declined a word, even of the first declension; but I could repeat the Donat by heart from beginning to end, for when I was in Schlettstadt, Sapidus had a bachelor who plagued the Bacchanten so grievously with the Donat, that I thought it must be such a good book, I had better learn it by heart. I got on well with Father Myconius: he read Terence to us, and we had to conjugate and decline every word of a whole play; and it often happened that my shirt became quite wet, and my sight seemed to fail me with fear; and yet he had never given me a blow, except once with the back of his hand on my cheek. He read also the Holy Scriptures, and to these readings many of the laity came, for it was the time when the light of the holy Gospel was beginning to dawn. If at any time he was severe with me, he would take me home and give me something to eat, and he liked to hear me relate how I had gone all through Germany, and how it had fared with me.
"Myconius was obliged to go with his pupils to church at the monastery of our Lady, to sing at vespers, matins, and mass, and conduct the chanting. He said to me once, 'Custos (for I was his custos), I would rather hold four lectures than sing one mass. Dear son, if you would sometimes chant the easy masses for me, requiems, and the like, I will requite it to you.' I was well content with this, for I had been accustomed to it, and everything was still regulated in the popish manner. As custos, I had often not enough wood to burn in the school, so I observed which of the laymen who came to it had piles of wood in front of their houses: there I went about midnight and secretly carried off wood to the school. One morning I had no wood; Zwinglius was to preach at the monastery early that morning, and when they were ringing the bells, I said to myself, 'Thou hast no wood, and there are so many images in the church that no one cares about them.' So I went to the nearest altar in the church, and carried off a St. John, and took him to the stove in the school, and said to him, 'Jögli, now thou must bend and go into the stove.' When he began to burn, the paint made a great hissing and crackling, and I told him to keep quiet, and said, 'If thou movest, which however thou wilt not do, I will close the door of the stove: thou shalt not get out unless the devil carry thee away.' In the mean time came Myconius' wife; she was going to hear the sermon in the church, and in passing by the door, said, 'God be with you, my child, have you heated the stove?' I closed the door of the stove, and answered, 'Yes, mother, I have already warmed it;' but I would not tell her how, for she might have tattled about it, and had it been known, it would have cost me my life. Myconius said to me in the course of the lesson, 'Custos, you have had good wood to-day.' When we were beginning to chant the mass, two Pfaffs were disputing together in the church; the one to whom the St. John belonged said to the other, 'You rogue, you have stolen my St. John;' and this dispute they carried on for some time.
"Although it appeared to me that there was something not quite right about Popery, I still intended to become a priest. I wished to be pious, to administer my office faithfully, and to ornament my altar. I prayed much, and fasted more than was good for me. I had also my saints and patrons, and prayed to each for something especial; to our Lady, that she would be my intercessor with her child; to St. Catherine, that she would help me to learning; to St. Barbara, that I might not die without the sacrament; and to St. Peter, that he would open the door of heaven to me; and I wrote down in a little book what prayers I had neglected. When I had leave of absence from the school on Thursdays or Saturdays, I went into a confessional chair in the monastery, and wrote the omitted prayers on a chair, and counted out every sin one after another; then rubbed them out, and thought I had done my duty. I went six times from Zurich with processions to Einsiedeln, and was diligent in confession. I often contended with my associates for the Papacy, till one day M. Ulrich Zwinglius preached on this text from the gospel of St. John:--'I am the good shepherd.' He explained it so forcibly, that I felt as if my hair stood on end; and he showed how God will demand the souls of the lost sheep at the hands of those shepherds who caused their perdition. I thought, if that is the true meaning, then adieu to priestcraft, I will never be a Pfaff. I continued my studies, began to dispute with my companions, listened assiduously to the sermons and to my preceptor Myconius. There still continued to be mass and images at Zurich."
Thus far Thomas Platter. His struggle in life lasted some time longer: he had to learn rope-making in order to support himself; he studied at night, and when Andreas Kratander, the printer at Basle, had sent him a Plautus, he fastened the separate sheets on the rope by means of a wooden prong, and read whilst he was working. Later he became a corrector of the press, then citizen and printer, and lastly rector of the Latin school at Basle. The unsettled life of his childhood was not without its influence on the character of the man; for however great his capacities, he displayed neither energy nor perseverance in his undertakings.
It was among the thousands who, like the boy Thomas, thronged to the Latin schools, that the new movement won its most zealous followers. These children of the people carried from house to house with unwearied activity their new ideas and information. Many of them never arrived at the university; they endeavoured to support themselves by private tuition, or as correctors of the press. Most of the city, and in later times the village schools were occupied by those who could read Virgil, and understand the bitter humour of the Klagebriefes, de miseria plebenorum. So great were their numbers that the reformers soon urged them to learn, however late, some trade, in order to maintain themselves honestly. Many members of guilds in the German cities were qualified to furnish commentaries to the papal bulls, and translate them to their fellow-citizens; and subtle theological questions were eagerly discussed in the drinking-rooms. Great was the influence exercised by these men on the small circles around them. Some years afterwards they, together with the poor students of divinity who spread themselves as preachers over all Germany, became a great society; and it was these democrats of the new teaching who represented the Pope as antichrist in the popular plays, harangued the armed multitudes of insurgent peasants, and made war on the old Church in printed discourses, popular songs, and coarse dialogues.
In this way they made preparation for what was coming. But however clearly it had been shown by the Humanitarians that the Church had in many places falsified the Holy Scriptures, however humorously they had derided the tool of the Inquisition--the baptized Jew Pfefferkorn, with his pretty little wife--and however zealously the small school teachers had carried among the people the colloquies of Erasmus on fasting, &c., and his work on the education of children, yet it was not their new learning alone that gave birth to the Reformation and the spiritual freedom of Germany. Deeper lay the sources of this mighty stream; it sprang from the foundation of the German mind, and was brought to light by the secret longings of the heart, that it might, by the work of destruction and renovation, transform the life of the nation.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MENTAL STRUGGLES OF A YOUTH, AND HIS
ENTRANCE INTO A MONASTERY.
(1510.)
Great was the wickedness of the world, heavy the oppression under which the poor suffered, coarse the greed after enjoyment, boundless the covetousness both of ecclesiastics and laymen. Who was there to punish the young nobleman who maltreated the peasants? who to defend the poor citizen against the powerful family unions of the rich counsellors? Hard was the labour of the German peasant from morning till evening, through summer and winter; pestilence was quickly followed by famine and hunger: the whole system of the world seemed in confusion, and earthly life devoid of love. The only hope of deliverance from misery, was in God; before Him all earthly power, whether of Emperor or Pope, was weak and insignificant, and the wisdom of man was transitory as the flower of the field. By his mercy men might be delivered from the miseries of this life, and compensated by eternal happiness for what they had suffered here; but how were they to obtain this mercy? by what virtues could weak men hope to gain the endless treasure of God's favour? Man had been doomed from the time of Adam to will the good and do the evil. Vain were his highest virtues; inherited sin was his curse; and if he obtained mercy from God, it was not by his own merits.[[19]]
These were the questions that then struggled within the agonized hearts of men. But from the holy records of Scripture, which had only been a dark tradition to the people, went forth the words; Christ is love. The ruling Church knew little of this love; in it God was kept far from the hearts of men: the image of the Crucified One was concealed behind countless saints, who were all made necessary as intercessors with a wrathful God. But the great craving of the German nature was to find itself in close connection with the Almighty, and the longing for the love of God was unquenchable. But the Pope maintained that he was the only administrator of the inexhaustible merits of Christ; and the Church also taught, that by the intercession of saints for the sins of men, an endless treasure of good works, prayers, fasts, and penances were made available for the blessing of others; and all these treasures were at the disposition of the Pope, who could dispense them to whom he chose, as a deliverance from their sins. Thus, when believers united together in a pious community, the Pope was able to confer on such a brotherhood the privilege of passing over from one to the other, the merits of the saints, the surplus of prayers and masses, as well as of good works done for the Church.
In the year 1530, Luther complained that the number of these communities was countless.[[20]] An example will show how rough and miserable their mechanism was, and the "Brotherhood of the Eleven Thousand Virgins," called "St. Ursula's Schifflein," is selected, because the Elector, Frederick the Wise, was one of the founders and brothers. The collection of spiritual treasures given by statute to enable the brotherhood to obtain eternal happiness, amounted to 6,455 masses, 3,550 entire psalters, 200,000 rosaries, 200,000 Te Deum Laudamus, 1,600 Gloria in excelsis Deo. Besides this, 11,000 prayers for the patroness St. Ursula, and 630 times 11,000 Paternosters and Ave Marias; also 50 times 10,000 Paternosters and Ave Marias for 10,000 knights, &c.; and the whole redeeming power of these treasures was for the benefit of the members of the brotherhood. Many spiritual foundations and private persons had gained to themselves especial merit by their great contributions to the prayer treasures. At the revival of the society, the Elector Frederick had presented a beautiful silver Ursula. A layman was entitled to become a member of the brotherhood if he once in his life had repeated 11,000 Paternosters and Ave Marias: if he repeated daily thirty-two, he gained it in a year, if sixteen, in two, and if eight, in four years: if any one was hindered by marriage, sickness, or business, from completing this number of prayers, he was enabled to enter by having eleven masses read for him; and so on. Yet this brotherhood was one of the best, for the members had not to pay money; it was to be a brotherhood of poor people who wished only to assist each other to heaven by mutual prayer; and we maintain that these brotherhoods were the most spiritual part of the declining Church of the middle ages.
The indulgences, on the other hand, were the foulest spot in its diseased body. The Pope, as administrator of the inexhaustible treasure of the merits of Christ, sold to believers, drafts on this store in exchange for money. It is true that the Church itself had not entirely lost the idea that the Pope could not himself forgive sins, but only remit the penances the Church prescribed; those, however, who held these views, individuals of the university and worthy village priests, were obliged to be careful that their teaching should not come into open collision with the business of the seller of indulgences. For what did the right teaching of their own Church signify to the papists of the sixteenth century? It was money that they craved for their women and children, their relatives, and princely houses. There was a fearful community of interests between the bishops and the fanatical members of the mendicant orders. Nothing had made Huss and his tenets so insupportable to them as the struggle against the sale of indulgences: the great Wessel had been driven out of Paris into misery for teaching repentance and grace; and it was the sellers of indulgences who caused the venerable Johannes Vesalia to die in the prison of a monastery at Mayence, he who first spoke the noble words, "Why should I believe what I know?"
It is known how prevalent the traffic in indulgences became in Germany in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and how impudently the reckless cheating was carried on. When Tetzel, a well-fed haughty Dominican, rode into a city with his box of indulgences, he was accompanied by a large body of monks and priests: the bells were rung; ecclesiastics and laymen met him, and reverentially conducted him to the church; his great crucifix, with the holes of the nails, and the crown of thorns, was erected in the nave, and sometimes the believers were allowed to see the blood of the Crucified One trickling down the cross. Church banners, on which were the arms of the Pope with the triple crown, were placed by the cross; in front of it the cursed box, strongly clamped with iron, and near these on one side, a pulpit from which the monk set forth with rough eloquence the wonderful powers of his indulgences, and showed a large parchment of the Pope's with many seals appended to it. On the other side was the pay table, with indulgence tickets, writing materials, and money baskets; there the ecclesiastical coadjutors sold to the thronging people everlasting salvation.[[21]]
Countless were the crimes of the Church, against which all the wounded moral feelings of the Germans were roused. The opposition spread all over Germany; but the man had not yet appeared, who, by a fearful inward struggle, discerning all the griefs and longings of the people, was preparing to become the leader of his nation, which would in his determined character, see with enthusiasm its own mind embodied. For two years he had been teacher of natural philosophy and dialects in the new university of Wittenberg, and was still lying in the dust of the Roman plains, looking with pious enthusiasm at the towers of the holy city appearing on the verge of the horizon. In the mean while we may learn from the experiences of a Latin scholar, what was working in the souls of the people.
Frederick Mecum (Latinized into Myconius[[22]]) was the son of honest citizens of Lichtenfelds, in Upper Franconia, and was born in 1491. When thirteen years of age, he went to the Latin school of the then flourishing city of Annaberg, where he experienced what we propose giving in his own words. In 1510 he went into a monastery, and as a Franciscan he was one of the first, most zealous, and faithful followers of the Wittenberg professors. He left his order, became a preacher at the new church in Thuringia, and finally pastor and superintendent at Gotha, where he established the Reformation, and died in 1546. The connecting link between him and Luther was of a very peculiar nature; he was not only his most intimate friend in many relations of private life, but there was a poetry in his connection with him which spread a halo round his whole life. Seven years before Luther began the Reformation, Myconius saw in a dream the vision of that great man, who calmed the doubts of his excited heart; enlightened by his dream, the faithful, pious German discovered in him the great friend of every future hour. But another circumstance gives us an interest in the narrator. However unlike, this gentle, delicately organized man may appear to his daring friend, there was a striking similarity in the youthful life of both, and much which is unknown to us of Luther's youth may be explained in what Myconius relates of his own. Both were poor scholars from a Latin school; both were driven by their inward struggles and youthful enthusiasm into a monastery, and found there only new doubts, greater struggles, and years of torment and anxious uncertainty instead of that peace for which they so passionately longed. To both was the shameless Tetzel the rock of offence, which stirred up their minds, and determined the whole course of their future life: finally, both died in the same year,--Myconius seven weeks after Luther, having five years before, been restored to life from a mortal illness by Luther's letter of invocation.[[23]] Few of Frederick Myconius' works have been printed: besides theological essays, he wrote a chronicle of his own time in German, in which he describes with the greatest detail his own labours and the state of Gotha. "The dream" which he had the first night after he entered the monastery is well known, and has often been printed. In the dream the Apostle Paul presents himself to him as his leader, and, as Myconius in after years fancied, had the form, face, and voice of Luther. This long dream was written in Latin, but we find a German translation of the introduction, in a manuscript of the same date, in the Duke's library at Gotha, from which we give the following extracts:--
"Johannis Tetzel of Pyrna in Meissen, a Dominican monk, was a powerful preacher of the papal indulgences. He tarried two years in the then new city of Annaberg for this object, and so deluded the people that they all believed there was no other way to obtain forgiveness of sins and eternal life, than by the sufficiency of our own works, which sufficiency he added was impossible. But there was one way remaining, namely, to obtain it by money from the Pope: so we bought the papal indulgence, which he called forgiveness of sins and a certain entrance into eternal life. Here I could relate wonder upon wonder, and many incredible things which I heard preached by Tetzel for two years at Annaberg, for he preached every day, and I listened to him assiduously. I even repeated his sermons by heart to others; imitating his delivery and gestures; not that I did it to ridicule him, but from my great earnestness, for I considered it all as oracular, and the word of God, which ought to be believed; and what ever came from the Pope I considered as if it were from Christ himself.
"At last, about Whitsuntide, 1510, he threatened to take down the red cross, close the door of heaven, and extinguish the sun, adding, that we should never more have the opportunity of obtaining remissions of sins and eternal life for so little money, as it could not be hoped that this benevolent mission from the Pope would return again as long as the world lasted. He admonished every one to take care of his soul, and those of his friends, both living and dead, for that now was the accepted time, now was the day of salvation. And he said, 'Let no one neglect his own eternal happiness, for if ye have not the papal letter, ye cannot be absolved from many sins, nor, casibus reservatis, by any man.' Printed letters were publicly affixed to the walls and doors of the church, in which it was promised that, as a token of thanks to the German people for their piety, from henceforth till the close of the sale, the indulgence letters and the full power of remission should be sold at a less price; at the end of the letter, underneath, was written, pauperibus dentur gratis,--to the poor who have nothing, the letters of indulgence shall be given without money, for God's sake.
"Then I began to deal with this commissary of indulgence wares; but in truth I was led and encouraged hereto by the Holy Spirit, although I myself knew not at the time what I did.
"My dear father had taught me in my childhood the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed, and insisted upon my continually praying; for, said he, all that we have is from God alone, and He gives it us gratis, and He will lead and direct us if we pray to Him diligently. Of the papal indulgences, he said, they were only nets with which money was fished out of the pockets of the simple, and one could not assuredly obtain for money the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But the priests became angry when such things were said. When, therefore, I daily heard in the sermons nothing but praise of the indulgences, I doubted whom I should most believe, my dear father, or the priests as teachers of the Church. But though I had doubts, I believed more the instructions of the priests than those of my father. The only thing I could not, however, allow, was, that the forgiveness of sins could only be obtained by money, especially when it was question of the poor. Therefore, the clausula at the end of the papal letter, pauperibus gratis dentur propter Deum, pleased me wonderfully.
"As at the end of three days, the cross, together with the steps and ladder to heaven, were to be taken down with extraordinary solemnity, the spirit led me to go to the commissary, and beg of him letters of remission out of charity to the poor. I declared that I was a sinner, and poor, and needed forgiveness of my sins, which I ought to receive gratis. The second day, at the time of vespers, I entered the house of Hans Pflock, where Tetzel with the confessors and crowd of priests were assembled together. I accosted them in the Latin language, and entreated that they would, according to the command in the Pope's letter, allow me, a poor lad, to obtain the absolution of all my sins gratis, and for God's sake, 'Etiam nullo casu reservato,'--without reserve, and thereupon they should give me the 'literas testimoniales,'--written testimony, of the Pope. The priests were much astonished at my Latin speech, for it was at this time a rare thing, especially with young boys; and they went speedily out of the room into the next apartment, where was Herr Commissary Tetzel. They laid before him my request, and begged of him to give me gratis the letter of indulgence. At last, after holding long counsel, they came again, and brought me this answer: 'Dear son, we have carefully laid your petition before the Herr Commissary, and he bids us say he would gladly grant it, but he cannot; and if he were to do so, this concession would become powerless, and of no avail. For he has shown us that it is clear from the Pope's letter, it is those only qui porrigent manum adjutricem,--those who help with the hand, that is, those who give money, that will certainly partake of the merciful indulgences and treasures of the Church, and of the merits of Christ.' And this they told me all in German, for there was not one among them who could speak three words of Latin rightly.
"But I again renewed my petition, and showed them, how in the papal letter the holy father had commanded that these indulgences should be freely given to the poor, for God's sake, more especially as it was therein written: ad mandatum Domini papæ proprium, that is, by his highness the Pope's own commands.
"Then they went again to the proud, haughty monk, and begged him to grant my petition, for I was a deep-thinking and eloquent youth, who deserved that more should be bestowed upon him than upon others. But they brought back the same answer. I remained firm, however, and said that they did great injustice to me, a poor boy whom neither God nor the Pope would shut out from grace, and whom they wanted to discard for the sake of a few pence, which I had not. Then followed a dispute. They said I must give something, however little, if it was only a few groschen, that the helping hand might not be wanting. I answered, 'I have it not, I am poor.' At last it came to this, I was to give six pfennige, to which I replied again, 'I have not a single pfennig.' They tried to persuade me, and conferred together. At last I heard them say that they were in anxiety on two points; first, they must on no account let me go without the indulgence, as this might be a concerted plan, and lead to mischief hereafter, for it was clearly written in the Pope's letter that indulgences were to be given free to the poor; but on the other hand, it was necessary to take something from me, that others might not hear that they were given away gratis, in which case a whole crowd of poor scholars and beggars would come and demand them. They need not have had any anxiety on this account, for the poor beggars would rather seek for bread to drive away their hunger.
"After they had taken counsel they came again to me, and offered me six pfennige, that I might give it to the commissary; by this contribution they said that I should become one of the builders of the church of St. Peters at Rome, a slayer of the Turks, and partaker of the indulgence and grace of Christ. But I spoke out freely, stirred by the Holy Spirit, and said that if I was to buy indulgence and remission of sins, I could sell one of my books, and obtain it with my own money; but I wished to have it given me freely for God's sake, or they would have to answer before God, for having trifled with the happiness of my soul for the sake of six pfennige, when both God and the Pope desired that I should be partaker of the forgiveness of sins for charity sake. I said this, but truly did not know how it stood with the letters of indulgence.
"After this speech the priests inquired of me from whence I had been sent, and who had instructed me to deal with them about this matter. Then I told them the simple truth, how it was that I had not been told or sent by any one, or induced to come by other men's counsel, but had of myself made this request, in full trust and confidence in the free and charitable gift of forgiveness of sins; and I had never before in my life spoken to, or dealt with such great people, for I was by nature modest; and if I had not been constrained by my great thirst for the mercy of God, I should not have ventured on so high an undertaking. Then they again offered me the indulgence, but in this way: I was to buy it with six pfennige, and these pfennige were to be returned to me for myself. But I remained firm that he who had the power should give me the indulgence free; and if he would not, I would commend the affair to my dear God, and resign myself into his hands; and so they dismissed me.
"The holy thieves were however sorrowful over this affair. I too was somewhat troubled that I had not got my indulgence; yet I also rejoiced that in spite of them there was one in heaven who would forgive the sins of the penitent sinner, without money and without price, according to the text which I had often repeated in church: 'As I live, saith the Lord God, I would not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live.' Ah, dear Lord God, thou knowest that I have not lied or invented.
"I was so overcome by all this, that whilst I was going home to my lodging, I was dissolved in tears. When I arrived there, I went into my room and took the crucifix, that always lay on the table in my study, placed it on the bench, and fell down before it on the ground. I cannot here describe it, but I then felt the spirit of prayer and grace, which thou, my God and Lord, pouredst out upon me. The purport of my prayer was this, I beg that thou, dear God, wouldst be my father, and wouldst forgive me my sins. I resign myself to thee altogether and entirely; thou mayest do with me what thou pleasest, and though the priests will not be merciful to me without money, be thou my merciful God and Father.
"Then I found that my whole heart was changed: I felt vexed with all worldly things, and imagined that I was quite wearied with this life. Only one thing I desired, which was, to live for God and to please Him. But who was there that could teach me, and how was I to effect this? For the Word, the light and life of men, was throughout the whole world buried in the darkness of human traditions and the mad idea of 'good works.' Of Christ nothing was said, nothing was known of Him; or if He was mentioned, He was represented to us as an angry and terrible judge, whom his mother and all the saints in heaven could hardly appease, or persuade to be merciful even by tears of blood; and it was said that He, Christ, would cast those men who repented, for seven years into purgatory for every mortal sin: there was no difference between the pains of purgatory and those of hell, except that they were not eternal. But now the Holy Spirit gave me the hope that God would be merciful unto me.
"After this I began to consider how I was to enter upon a new course of life. I saw the sinfulness of the whole world, and of the whole human race. I saw my own manifold sins which were so very great. I had heard somewhat of the great holiness and of the pure and innocent life of monks; how they served God day and night, were separated from all the wickedness of the world, and lived a temperate, pious, and chaste life, performed masses, sang psalms, and were always fasting and praying. I had also seen something of this plausible life, but I did not know that it was the greatest idolatry and hypocrisy.
"I consulted with my preceptor, the master Andreas Staffeltstein, who was rector of the school; he advised me to enter the newly built Franciscan monastery, and for fear I should change my mind through any long delay, he went himself with me to the monks, praised my talents and intellect, and boasted that in me alone amongst all his scholars he had perfect confidence, that I should become a truly godly man.
"I desired, however, beforehand to mention my undertaking to my parents, and to hear their opinion upon it, as I was their only son and heir; but the monks showed me out of St. Jerome that I ought not to regard father or mother, but leave them, and take up the cross of Christ. And they quoted the saying of Christ: 'No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God;' and thus they pressed me to become a monk. I will not here speak of the many bonds and fetters with which they bound and shackled my conscience. They told me I could never henceforth be happy if I did not at once accept the offered grace of God; and as I would rather have died than have been deprived of the grace of God and eternal life, I at once consented, and promised that I would in three days return to the monastery, and commence my year of probation, as it is called; that is, I would become a pious, devout, and God-fearing monk.
"On the 14th of July, in the year 1510, about two o'clock in the afternoon, I entered the monastery, accompanied by my preceptor, some of my schoolfellows, and certain devout matrons, to whom I had partly explained why I entered the ecclesiastical order. I then gave my blessing to all who had thus accompanied me, who with many tears implored for me God's grace and blessing. And so it came to pass that I went into a monastery. Dear God, thou knowest that this is all true. It was not a life of idleness nor good living that I sought, nor yet the odour of sanctity, but I wished to please thee, and to serve thee well.
"Thus for a time I groped on in great darkness."
CHAPTER V.
OUT OF THE MONASTERY INTO THE CONFLICT.
(about 1522.)
The storm broke loose; it convulsed the whole nation as with electric fire: the words of the Augustine of Wittenburg rolled through the land like peals of thunder, and every clap betokened an advance and a victory. Even now, after three centuries and a half, this prodigious movement has an irresistible fascination for the German people. Never, from its first existence, had the nation revealed its innermost being so touchingly and grandly. All the fine qualities of the German mind and character burst forth at this time; enthusiasm, self-devotion, a deep moral indignation, an intense pleasure in systematic thought, and an inward seeking after the highest. Every individual took his share in the strife. The travelling trader over the fire at night contended for or against the indulgences, the countryman in the most remote villages heard with astonishment of the new heretic whom his spiritual father cursed in every sermon, and the women of the villages no longer gave willingly to the mendicant monks. A sea of small literature overflowed the country, a hundred printing-presses were in activity, spreading abroad the numerous controversial writings, both learned and popular; parties raged in every cathedral and parish church; everywhere men of resolute character amongst the ecclesiastics declared themselves for the new doctrines, whilst the weaker ones struggled with timid doubts; the doors of the monasteries were opened, and the cells soon became empty. Every month brought to the people something new and unheard of.
It was no longer a quarrel between priests, as Hutten had in the beginning contemptuously called the dispute between the Wittenberger and Tetzel; it had become a war of the nation against the Romish supremacy and its supporters. Ever more powerfully rose the image of Luther before his cotemporaries. Banished, cursed, persecuted by Pope and Emperor, by princes and high ecclesiastics, he became in four short years the idolized hero of the people. His journey to Worms was described in the style of the Holy Scriptures, and the over-zealous placed him on a footing with the martyrs of the New Testament.[[24]] The learned also felt themselves irresistibly drawn into the struggle; even Erasmus smiled approbation, and Hutten's soul fired up in the cause of the new teacher, he no longer wrote in Latin, but broke forth in German, more stormy and wild than the Wittenberger, with a fire that consumed himself, the knight fought his last fight for the peasant's son.
The man on whom for half a generation the highest feelings of his nation were concentrated, now enters upon the scene. Yet before we endeavour to understand his mind, it is well to point out, shortly, how his peculiar character worked upon impartial cotemporaries. We first take the witness of a moderate and truthful mind, who never personally knew Luther, and who later, in a middle position between the Wittenberger and the Swiss reformer, had reason to be dissatisfied with Luther's stubbornness. Ambrosius Blaurer, born in Constance, of noble family, was a brother of the old Benedictine monastery of Alpirsbach, in the wildest part of the Black Forest; he was afterwards a writer of sacred poetry, and at the time we are speaking of, thirty years old. He had left the cloister in 1523, and fled to his family. At the instigation of his Abbot, the Stadtholder of the principality of Würtemberg demanded that he should be sent back to the monastery by the Burgomaster and council of Constance. Blaurer published a defence, from which the following is taken. He became shortly after a preacher in Constance, and on the restoration of Duke Ulrich, one of the reformers of Würtemberg, and died at a great age at Winterthur. What he praises and blames in Luther may be considered as the general view of his character taken at that time by earnest minds.
"I call God and my own conscience to witness that no wilfulness or frivolous motive drove me out of the monastery, or excited me to abandon it. Vulgar rumour reports, that monks and nuns have left their convents on account of their aversion to its tranquil life, and that they might live in carnal freedom, and give vent to their wilfulness and worldly desires. But I was actuated by honourable and weighty reasons, and great troubles and urgings of conscience, on account of the word of God. I hope that all the circumstances of my departure will show neither levity, wantonness, nor unseemly purpose? I laid aside neither cowl nor capouch except for a few days after my departure for my greater security, till I had reached my place of refuge. I neither left to fight, nor to carry away a pretty wife, but I went forthwith as quickly as I could to my much loved mother and relations, who are undoubted Christians, and are held in such honour and esteem in the city of Constance, that it is certain they would never counsel or help me in any unworthy undertaking.
"Therefore I trust that my previous conduct and course of life will relieve me from any suspicion of unseemly or wilful intentions; for although I may not boast myself before God, yet I may before men glory in the Lord, that I, whether in the cloister or the school, here, and wherever I have been, have retained a good repute and esteem, with much love and favour, on account of my uprightness. You yourselves have heard the messengers from Würtemberg acknowledge that there was no complaint or evil report of my conduct or manner of life at the monastery of Alpirsbach, but that I have behaved myself well and piously; all they can say against me is, that I have concerned myself too much with what they call the seductive and cursed teaching of Martin Luther, whose writings I have read and adhered to, and preached them, contrary to the command of the abbot, publicly to the laity in the monastery; and when this was forbidden me, I yet continued secretly, and as it were in a corner, to infuse them into the souls of some of the young gentlemen there. With such praise from my fathers and brethren I am well content, and can justify myself for this one misdeed, as a Christian, from the word of God, and I hope that my defence will serve to remove false and ungrounded suspicions, not only from me, but also from others.
"When in the course of the last year, the works and opinions of Martin Luther were spread abroad and became known, they came into my hands before they had been condemned and forbidden by the ecclesiastical and lay authorities; and like other newly printed works, I saw and read them. In the beginning, these doctrines appeared to me somewhat strange and objectionable, and contrary to the long-established theology and clever teaching of the schools, in opposition also to the papal and ecclesiastical rights, and to the old, and, as I then considered them, praiseworthy customs and usages of our forefathers. But it was not less evident to me that this man interspersed everywhere in his teaching clear and distinct passages from the Holy Scriptures, according to which all human teaching ought to be guided and judged, accepted or rejected. I was much amazed, and stirred up to read these doctrines, not once or twice, but frequently, with much industry and earnest attention, and to weigh and compare them with the evangelical writings to which they constantly appealed. The longer I did this, the more I perceived with what great dignity the Holy Scriptures were treated by this learned and enlightened man,--how purely and delicately he handled them, how cleverly and well he everywhere brought them forward, how skilfully he compared and weighed them one with the other, and how he explained the dark and difficult texts, by bringing forward others that were clearer and more comprehensible. I saw also that there was great mastership in his treatment of the Scriptures, and that it afforded the most substantial aid to a right understanding of them, so that every intelligent layman who industriously studied his books, could distinctly perceive that these doctrines were true and Christian, and had the firmest foundation. On that account they impressed themselves on my mind, and deeply touched my heart: it was to me as if a veil had fallen from before my eyes; I felt they were in no wise to be distrusted, like those of so many other school teachers that I had formerly read, because their aim was neither dominion, fame, nor worldly enjoyment, but to place before us, only the poor, despised, and crucified Christ, and to teach us to live a pure, moderate, and sober life, conformable in all things to the doctrine of Christ; and they were therefore too hard and self-denying for the ambitious and many beneficed priests and doctors, puffed up with pride and vain glory, who sought in the Scriptures their own honour and fame, more than the Spirit of God. Therefore would I rather give up all my worldly means and life itself, than be deprived of them, not for the sake of Luther, who, except as he appears in his writings, is unknown to me, and being only a man, may, like other men, be in error; but for the sake of the word of God, which he holds so clearly and distinctly, and explains so victoriously and triumphantly from the fullness of his undaunted spirit.
"The enemy endeavoured to embitter this honey to us by representing that Luther was testy and irritable, aggressive and sarcastic; that he attacked his opponents the great princes and ecclesiastical and lay lords, with audacity; had recourse to abuse and slander, and forgot all brotherly love and Christian moderation. He had, it is true, often displeased me by this, and I would not desire any one to do the like; but I could not on that account reject and cast aside his good Christian teaching, nor even condemn him in these respects; and for this reason, that I could not read his mind, nor the secret counsels of God, as perhaps it might be the means of drawing people from his teaching. And as it was not his own cause, but the divine word that he defended, much allowance should be made for him, and all should be attributed to zealous indignation for God. Even Christ, the source and pattern of all meekness, severely rebuked before others the stubborn and stony-hearted Pharisees, and called them false hypocrites, painted sepulchres, sons of harlots, blind leaders of the blind, and also the children of the devil, as may be seen in the gospels. (Matt. xii. 15, 23; John viii.) Perhaps Luther would gladly speak well of many if he could do so with truth; he may not think it fitting to call those who are in darkness, enlightened; nor rapacious wolves, good shepherds; nor the unmerciful, merciful; for without doubt, had God not been more merciful to him than they have been, he would not now be upon earth. But however this may be, I will not defend him in this place, but laying aside his expressions of contempt and abuse, accept with thankfulness the earnestness of his valiant Christian writings for our amendment.
"As I openly persevered in what I had undertaken advisedly, and would not desist at the bidding of any one, being bound as a Christian not to do so, the displeasure of my superior at Alpirsbach, and certain others of the monastery, greatly increased, and the sword of God's anger began to cause division and discord between the brothers. I was peremptorily ordered to abstain from my undertaking, and also not to speak of these matters with others; but as I could not do this, being bound to yield obedience to God's commands, rather than to those of man, I earnestly begged of my Abbot and monastery, that they would graciously give me leave of absence. I wished for a year or two to support myself at some school or elsewhere, without being any expense to the monastery, and perhaps in the mean while, by a godly examination of the cause of our discord, it might be brought to a peaceable end.
"This being however refused by them, I resolved, after having taken counsel with many wise, learned, and God-fearing men and friends, to leave the monastery." So far Ambrosius Blaurer.
Whilst brother Ambrosius was yet looking anxiously from the windows of his cell, over the pines of the Black Forest into the free expanse, another was riding out of the gate of a princely castle near the woodclad mountains of Thuringia. Behind him lay the dark Drachenschlucht; before him the long ridge of the magic Hörselberges, wherein dwelt an enchantress, to whom the Pope, that wicked forgiver of sins, had once driven back the repentant Tannhäuser. But the dry stick which the Pope had then thrust into the ground, brought forth green foliage during the night; God himself confuted the Pope. The poor penitent man no longer required the Bishop of Rome to enable him to find mercy and grace from his heavenly Father; but the wicked Pope himself would descend into the jaws of the old dragon.
The exterior of the man who was riding down from Wartburg to Wittenberg, shall be described by a young student who was travelling with a friend from Switzerland to Saxony. His narrative is well known, yet we must not omit it here.
His name was John Kessler; he was born at St. Gallen, in 1502; his parents were poor citizens; he attended the school of the monastery there, studied theology at Basle, and went early in the spring of 1522 with a companion to Wittenberg, to continue his studies under the Reformers. In the autumn of 1523, he returned to his native town, and as the new doctrines had not yet taken root there, being very poor he determined to learn a trade, and became a saddler. He soon collected a small community round him, taught and preached, laboured in his workshop, wrote books, and became at last schoolmaster, librarian and member of a council of education. He had an unpretending, pure nature, with a heart full of love and gentle warmth, but he took no active part in the theological controversies of his time. His narrative begins as follows:--
"When we were travelling to Wittenberg to study the Holy Scriptures, we arrived at Jena in Thuringia, in, God knows how wild a storm; and after many inquiries in the city for a lodging wherein we might pass the night, we could not find any; everywhere lodging was denied us, for it was Shrovetide,[[25]] when pilgrims and strangers were little cared for. So we determined to leave the town, and endeavour to reach a village where they would lodge us. In the mean while we met at the gate an honest man, who spoke kindly to us, and inquired where we were going so late, as there was neither house nor farm that we could reach before night; besides which, it was a road that was difficult to find; therefore he advised us to remain there.
"We answered: 'Dear father, we have tried all the inns to which we have been directed, and having everywhere been refused a lodging, we are obliged to proceed further.' Then he asked us whether we had made inquiry at the Black Bear; and we replied: 'It has never been mentioned to us; tell us, dear father, where we shall find it.' He then showed us a little way out of the town, and when we came to the Black Bear, behold, the landlord, instead of refusing us, as all the others had done, came to meet us at the door, and not only received us, but kindly begged of us to lodge there, and took us into a room.
"There we found a man sitting alone at a table, and before him lay a book; he greeted us kindly, and bid us approach and sit by him at the table; for we were seating ourselves quietly on a bench close to the door, as our shoes (if one may be allowed to write it) were so covered with mud and dirt, that we were ashamed to enter the room on account of our dirty footmarks. He invited us to drink, which we could not refuse, and as we found him so kind and cordial, we seated ourselves by him at his table as he had asked us, and called for a quart of wine, that we might return his civility by asking him to drink. We supposed him however to be a knight, as he was dressed in hosen and jerkin, with a red leather cap, and without armour, and sat, according to the custom of his country, with a sword at his side, with one hand resting on the pommel and the other clasping the hilt. His eyes were black and deep set, flashing and sparkling like stars, so that one could hardly bear to look at them.
"Shortly after, he asked where we were born, but answered himself: 'You are Swiss; from what part of Switzerland do you come?' We replied, 'From St. Gallen.' He then said, 'If you are going, as I hear, to Wittenberg, you will find there some good countrymen of yours, Dr. Jerome Schurf and his brother Dr. Augustin.'
"We said, 'We have letters to them;' and we proceeded to inquire: 'Can you inform us, sir, whether Martin Luther is now at Wittenberg; or if not, where he is?'
"He answered, 'I know for certain that Luther is not now at Wittenberg, but will return soon. Philip Melancthon is however there, who teaches Greek, and others who teach Hebrew. In truth I would advise you to study both, as they are needful for the right understanding of the Holy Scriptures.' We replied, 'So help us God! as long as He grants us life, we will not desist till we have seen and heard this man; for on his account we have undertaken this journey, as we learn that he will overthrow the priesthood, together with the mass, that being a service founded on error. As we have been brought up by our parents, and destined from our youth to be priests, we are anxious to hear what his teaching is, and what authority he can bring forward for such propositions.'
"After we had thus spoken, he inquired: 'Where have you studied hitherto?'--Answer: 'At Basle.'--Then he said: 'How are things going on at Basle? Is Erasmus of Rotterdam still there, and what is he doing?'
"We replied: 'We only know, sir, that all is going on well, and that Erasmus is there; but what he is about is unknown to and concealed from every one, as he keeps himself quite quiet and private.'
"This manner of talk appeared to us very strange in the knight; how could he know everything relative to the two Schurfs, of Philip, and Erasmus, and also be aware of the necessity of learning Greek and Hebrew? He introduced occasionally Latin words, so that we bethought us he must be more than a common knight.
"'Dear sons,' he said, 'what do they think in Switzerland about Luther?'
"We answered: 'Sir, there, as everywhere, opinions vary. Many cannot exalt him sufficiently, and thank God who has manifested his truth through him, and exposed error; but many condemn him as a cursed heretic, especially all the ecclesiastics.'
"He answered: 'I can well imagine it of the priests.'
"Thus holding converse, we became quite at home with him, so that my companion took up the book that was lying before him and opened it. It was the Hebrew Psalter; he put it down again quickly and the knight drew it towards him. Then my companion said: 'I would give one of my fingers to be able to understand this language.' He answered, 'You will have no difficulty in comprehending it, providing you devote yourself to it industriously; I also desire to know more of it, and study it daily.'
"In the mean while evening drew on, and it became quite dark. The landlord came to the table, and when he learned our longing desire to know Martin Luther, he said, 'Dear comrades, if you had been here two days ago, you would have succeeded, for he was here, and sat at this table, and,' pointing with his finger, 'in that very place.' We were much vexed and provoked that we had missed him, and laid the blame of it on the muddy bad road which had delayed us; but we said, 'We rejoice, however, that we are in the same house and sitting at the same table at which he sat.'
"At this the landlord laughed and went away. After a little while the landlord called to me to come to him outside the door of the room. I was frightened, and thought that perhaps without intending it I had done something that was unbecoming.
"Then he said to me, 'As I know that you wish to hear and see Luther; it is he who sits by you.'
"I took this for a joke, and said, 'I see indeed, good sir, that you wish to banter me by imposing upon me a false Luther.' He answered, 'It is he most assuredly; but do not show that you think so, or that you recognize him.' I assented, but did not believe him. I went again into the room, and placed myself at the table; and was anxious to tell my companion what the landlord had said. At last I turned to him and whispered secretly, 'The landlord has told me that this is Luther.' He would not believe it any more than I, and said, 'He perhaps told you that it was Hutten, and you did not rightly understand him.' As the dress and bearing reminded me more of Hutten than a monk like Luther, I was persuaded that he had said it was Hutten, as the beginning of both names sounded so much alike: what I further said, was as if spoken to the knight, Herr Ulrich von Hutten.
"In the mean while there arrived two merchants, who intended to remain there all night: after they had taken off their travelling dresses and spurs, one of them laid down near him an unbound book. Then Martinus asked what kind of book it was; and he answered, 'It is Dr. Luther's exposition of some of the gospels and epistles, just printed and published; have you not yet seen it?' Martinus said, 'I shall soon get it.' The host now desired us to arrange ourselves at table, as it was time to eat; we begged of him to have consideration for us and give us something separate, but he replied, 'Dear comrades, place yourselves by these gentlemen at table, I will charge you moderately.' When Martinus heard this, he said, 'Come here, I will settle for you with the landlord.'
"During the meal, Martinus spoke many kind and godly words, so that the merchants as well as ourselves were mute before him; attending more to his words than to the viands before us. Amongst other things, he lamented with a sigh that the princes and lords just then assembled at the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg, on account of the troubles of the German nation, and for the sake of the pending proceedings concerning God's word, were only inclined to waste their time in costly tournaments, sledge drives, vanity, and dissipation, when fear of God and Christian prayer would be of more avail. 'But such are our Christian princes.' He further said, 'There was hope that evangelical truth would bear more fruit among the children and descendants who were not poisoned by papal errors, and might yet be grounded in pure truth and the word of God, than among the parents in whom error was so deeply rooted that it could hardly be eradicated.
"Then the merchants gave their opinions freely, and one of them said, 'I am a simple layman, and understand little of these disputes, but I must speak of things as I find them; Luther must either be an angel from heaven, or a devil out of hell. I would gladly, however, give ten gulden to confess to him, for I believe he could and would give me good instruction.' Then the landlord came to us, and said secretly, 'Martinus has paid for your supper:' that gave us much pleasure, not for the sake of the money and food, but for the hospitality shown us by this man. After supper the merchants rose and went to the stable to look after their horses; in the mean while Martinus remained alone with us in the room; we thanked him for the honour he had done us, as well as for the gift, and as we did so we showed him that we took him for Ulrich von Hutten; but he said, 'I am not Hutten.'
"Then the landlord coming in, Martinus said, 'I have become a nobleman to-night, for these Swiss have taken me for Ulrich von Hutten.' The landlord replied, 'You are not him, but Martinus Luther.' Then Martinus laughing as if it were a joke, said, 'These take me for Hutten, you for Luther, soon I shall become a Markolfus.'[[26]] After this talk he took a long glass of beer, and said, according to the custom of the country, 'Drink with me a friendly glass with God's blessing;' and when I was going to take the glass from him, he changed it, and offered instead a glass with wine, saying, 'The beer is foreign to you, and you are unaccustomed to it, drink the wine.' Meanwhile he rose and threw his tabard over his shoulders, and took leave. He held out his hand to us, and said, 'If you go to Wittenberg, greet Dr. Jerome Schurf for me.' We replied, 'We will do that with pleasure, but how must we designate you, that he may understand your greeting?' He answered, 'Say nothing further than that he who is coming sends you greeting; he will immediately understand these words.' So he departed from us and went to rest.
"Afterwards the merchants returned into the room, and called to the landlord to bring them something to drink; in the mean while they had much talk about the guest, and wondered who he could be. The landlord declared it was Luther, and the merchants were soon convinced of it, and regretted that they had spoken so unbecomingly before him, and said, 'They would rise at an early hour in the morning, that they might see him before he started; and would beg of him not to be angry with them, as they had not known who he was.' This they did, and found him in the morning in the stable; but Martinus answered them, 'You said last night at supper that you would give ten gulden to confess yourself to Luther; when you do so, you will see and learn if I am Martinus Luther.' He did not make himself further known, but mounted his horse and rode off to Wittenberg.
"On the following Saturday, the day before the first Sunday in Lent, we presented ourselves at Dr. Jerome Schurf's house to deliver our letters. When we entered the room, behold we found there the knight Martinus just as we had seen him at Jena, and with him were Philippus Melancthon, Justus Jodocus Jonas, Nicholas Amsdorf, and Dr. Augustin Schurf, who were telling him what had happened during his absence from Wittenberg: he greeted us, and laughing, pointed with his finger, and said, 'This is the Philip Melancthon of whom I told you.'"
There is nothing more remarkable in the truthlike narrative of Kessler, than the cheerful tranquillity of the great man whilst riding through Thuringia under ban and interdict, his heart filled with anxious care, on account of the great danger with which his doctrines were threatened by the fanaticism of his own partisans.
CHAPTER VI.
DR. LUTHER.
(1517-1546.)
Even the most enlightened Roman Catholics look with horror upon Luther and Zwinglius as originators of the schism in their old Church. It is to be hoped that such views may disappear in Germany. All sects have reason to thank Luther for whatever depth and spirituality now remains in their faith: The heretic of Wittenberg was as much the reformer of German Roman Catholics as of Protestants; not only, because in the struggle with him the teachers of the Roman Catholic Church were obliged to erect at Trent a firmer building on the ruins of the Church of the middle ages, but because he left the impress of his mind on the character of the people, in which we all equally partake. Some things for which the obstinate and pugnacious Luther contended, against both Reformers and Catholics, have been condemned by the free judgment of modern times. His doctrines, vehement and high strained, wrung from a soul full of reverence, were in some weighty points erroneous, and he was sometimes bitter, unjust, indeed harsh to his opponents; but such things should not lead Germans astray, for all the deficiencies of his nature and education disappear in the fullness of blessing, which streamed from his great heart into the life of his nation.
To few mortals has it been granted to exercise such an influence on his cotemporaries and on after times, as has fallen to the lot of Luther: his life may be divided into three periods. In the first, the character of the man was formed; it was powerfully influenced by the surrounding world, but from the depths of human nature, under the pressure of individual character, thoughts and convictions were gradually strengthened into resolutions which broke forth into action, and the individual commenced a struggle with the world. Then followed another period, one of more energetic action, of more rapid development and of greater triumph. Ever greater became the influence of the individual on the world; powerfully did he draw the whole nation along with him; he became their hero and model; the inward life of millions seemed concentrated in one man.
But a single individual, however powerful in character, however great his aims, could not long dominate over the spirit of a nation, the life, strength, and wants of which are manifold. The man is under the constraint of the logical consequences of his thoughts and actions; all the spirits of his own deeds force him into a fixed limited path; but the soul of a people requires for its life, incessant working with the most varied aims. Much that an individual cannot bring himself to receive, is taken up by others in opposition to him. The reaction of the world begins: it is first weak, and from many quarters, with various tendencies and little authority; then it becomes stronger and more victorious. Finally, the inward spirit of the individual life confines itself within its own system, and becomes only a single element in the formation of the people. The end of a great life is always full of secret resignation, mixed with bitterness and quiet suffering.
And thus it was with Luther. The first of these periods ended with the day on which he affixed his Theses; the second continued till his return from the castle of Wartburg; the third till the beginning of the Smalkaldic war and his death. It is not our intention to give his life here, but only to describe shortly how he became what he was. There was much in him which, only viewed from a distance, appears strange and unpleasing, but the more closely we examine his character, the greater and more amiable we find it.
Luther rose from the peasant class; his father left Möhra, a place amid the forests of the Thuringian mountains, which was half peopled by his kindred, to engage in mining in the district of Mansfeld; thus the boy was born in a cottage, where the terrors inspired by the spirits of the pine woods, and dark fissures which served as entrances to the mine in the mountains, were still strong and vivid. His mind was no doubt often occupied with the dark traditions of the heathen mythology; he was accustomed to perceive in the terrors of nature, as well as in the life of man, the work of the powers of darkness. When he became a monk, these recollections of his childhood blended themselves with the figure of the devil, and the busy tempter always wore the same aspect to his imagination as the mischievous hobgoblins that frequent the hearth and stable of the countryman.
His father was a man of concentrated and energetic character, firm and decided, and gifted with a full measure of strong common sense: he struggled hard to attain wealth; he kept strict discipline in his house, and in later years Luther remembered with grief the severe punishment he had received as a boy, and the sorrow it had inflicted on his childish heart. The influence of the old Hans Luther on the life of his son lasted till his death in 1530. When Martin went secretly into a monastery at the age of twenty-two, the old man was violently angry, as he had intended to provide for his son by a good marriage. At last friends succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between them, and when the supplicating son approached his father, confessing that he had been driven by a fearful apparition to take the monastic vows, he replied to him in the following words: "God grant that it may not have been a delusion of the devil." He agitated still more the heart of the monk by the angry question: "You thought you were listening to the command of God when you went into the cloister; have you never heard that it is a duty to be obedient to parents?" This made a deep impression on the son, and when, many years afterwards, he was residing at Wartburg, cast out of the Church, and proscribed by the Emperor, he wrote to his father these touching words: "Do you still wish to withdraw me from the thraldom of the monastery? You are still my father, I your son; you have on your side the power and commands of God; on my side there is only human error. Behold, that you may not boast yourself before God, He has anticipated you, and taken me out himself." From that time he was as it were restored to the old man. Hans had once reckoned upon having a grandson for whom he would work, and to this idea he stubbornly returned, regardless as to what the rest of world thought; he soon therefore admonished him earnestly, to marry, and his persuasions had a great share in determining Luther to do so. When the father, who at a great age had become councillor of Mansfeld, was about to draw his last breath, and the priest bending over him asked him whether he died in the pure faith of Christ and the Holy Gospel, old Hans collected himself once more, and said shortly: "He is a rogue who does not believe in it." When, afterwards, Luther was relating this, he added admiringly: "That was indeed a man of the olden time." The son received the account of his father's death, in the fortress of Coburg; and when he read the letter, which his wife had conveyed to him with the portrait of his youngest daughter, Magdalen, he spoke only these words to his companions: "God's will be done, my father is dead." He arose, took his psalter, went into his room, where he wept and prayed, and returned with a composed mind. The same day he wrote to Melancthon with deep emotion, of the heartfelt love of his father, and of the entire confidence that existed between them. "Never did I despise death so much as I do now: how often do we suffer death by anticipation before we really die! I am now the eldest of my race, and I have a right to follow him."
Such was the father from whom the son derived the groundwork of his character, veracity, a steadfast will, an honest understanding, and circumspection in the management of business and in his dealings with men. His childhood was full of hardships, and he had much that was disagreeable to endure at his Latin school, and as a chorister; but he experienced also much good-will and love, and he retained, what is more easily kept in the smaller circles of life, a heart full of trust in the goodness of human nature, and respect for the great people of the world. His father was able to support him comfortably at the university of Erfurt; he was then full of youthful vigour, and took great delight in joining his companions in vocal and instrumental music. Of his mental life at that time we know but little, only that when in peril of death, in a storm, "a fearful apparition called to him from heaven." In his terror he vowed to go to a monastery, and quickly and secretly carried out his resolution.
It is here that our accounts of the state of his mind begin. At variance with his father, full of terror at an incomprehensible eternity, frightened by the anger of God, he began, in a convulsive struggle, a life of self-denial, penance, and devotion. He found no peace. All the highest questions of life stormed with fearful power over his distracted soul, which had no anchor to rest on. Strongly did he feel the need of being in harmony with God and the world, and all that he derived from his faith was unintelligible and repulsive. The mysteries of the moral government of the world were to his mind matters of the deepest import. That the good should be tormented and the wicked made happy, that God should condemn the whole human race with the monstrous curse of sin, because an inexperienced woman had eaten an apple, and that on the other hand the same God should bear with our sins, in love and patience; that Christ should sometimes repel upright people with severity, and at others receive adulterers, publicans, and murderers,--about all this, the wisdom of man becomes foolishness. He complained in these words to his ghostly counsellor, Staupitz: "Dear doctor, our Lord God does indeed deal terribly with us; who can serve Him when He deals such blows on all?" To which the answer was: "How could He otherwise bow down the stiff-necked?" This ingenious argument was of no comfort to the youth. In his earnest strivings to find the incomprehensible God, he tormented himself in searching out all his thoughts and dreams. Every ebullition of youthful blood, every earthly thought, appeared to him a shocking iniquity; he began to despair, and wrestled with himself in endless prayer, fasting, and mortification. On one occasion the brothers were obliged to break into his cell, where he had been lying the whole day in a state not far removed from insanity. Staupitz observed with warm sympathy the agitation and torments of his soul, and endeavoured, though only by rough consolation, to give it rest. Once when Luther had written to him, "Oh my sins! my sins! my sins!" his ghostly counsellor answered him: "You wish to be without sin, and yet have no real sins. Christ is the forgiver of mortal sins, such as the murder of parents, &c., &c. If you would have the help of Christ, you must have mortal sins to record, and not come to Him with such trifles and peccadilloes, making a sin out of every little infirmity."
The way in which Luther raised himself out of this despair decided the whole tenour of his life. The God whom he served appeared then as a God of terror, whose anger was only to be appeased by the means of grace given by the old Church, especially by continual confession, for which endless forms and directions were given, which were but cold and empty to the spirit. By the prescriptions of the Church and the practice of so-called good works, young Luther had not attained the feeling of true reconciliation and inward peace. At last a sentence from his spiritual adviser pierced him like an arrow: "There is no true repentance that does not begin by the love of God; the love of God, and the reception of it in the soul, does not follow, but precedes the means of grace enjoined by the Church." This teaching which came from Tauler's school became for him the foundation of a new, genial, and moral relation with God; it was a holy discovery to him. The change in his own spirit was the main point for which he must labour; repentance, penance, and expiation must proceed from the inward feelings of the heart. It was by his own efforts alone that man could raise himself to God. For the first time he experienced what direct prayer was. In the place of a distant God, whom hitherto he had sought in vain, by hundreds of forms and childish confessions, he beheld the image of an all-loving protector, with whom he could hold communion at every hour, whether in joy or sorrow, before whom he could lay every grief and doubt, who incessantly sympathized with, and cared for him, and, like a good father, either granted or denied the requests of his heart. Thus he learned to pray, and how ardent his prayers became! Now he was able to live in tranquillity, being daily and hourly in communion with his God, whom he had at last found; his intercourse with the Highest became more confidential than with those dearest to him on earth. When he poured out his whole soul before Him, he obtained rest, holy peace, and a feeling of inexpressible happiness; he felt himself a portion of God, and this sense of intimate communion with Him he preserved during the whole remainder of his life. He needed no longer the distant paths of the old Church; with his God in his heart he could defy the whole world. He already ventured to believe, that teaching must be false which laid such great weight on works of penance; that besides these there remained only cold satisfaction and ceremonious confession; and when later he learned from Melancthon that the Greek word for penance, "Metanoia," denotes literally "a change of heart," it appeared to him as a wonderful revelation. On this foundation was built that confidence of faith, with which he brought forward the words of Scripture in opposition to the prescriptions of the Church.
It was in this way that Luther, whilst still in the monastery, attained to inward freedom. The whole of his later teaching, his struggle against the indulgences, his unshaken firmness, and his method of scriptural exposition, all rest on the inward process by which as a monk he had found his God; and one may truly say that the new period of German history began with Luther's cloister prayers. Life soon placed him under its hammer, to harden the pure metal of his soul.
Luther unwillingly took the Professorship of Dialectics in the new university of Wittenberg, in 1508; he would rather have taught that new theology which he already began to consider the truth. It is known that in the year 1510 he went to Rome on the business of his order; how devoutly and piously he lingered in the holy city, and with what dismay he was seized on observing the heathenish character of the people of Rome, and the worldliness and corrupt morals of the ecclesiastics. But deeply as he was shaken by the depravity of the hierarchy, he felt that his whole life was still enclosed in it; out of it there was nothing: The exalted idea of the Roman Catholic Church, and its triumphant reign of 1500 years, fettered even the most powerful minds; and when the German in the dress of a Romish priest, and in danger of his life, contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, and stood in amazement before the gigantic pillars of the temples, which, according to tradition, had once been destroyed by the Goths little did the valiant man from the mountains of the old Hermunduren then think, that it would be his own fate to destroy the temples of the Rome of the middle ages, more completely than the brethren of his ancestors had done in the olden time. Luther returned from Rome still a faithful son of the great Mother, holding all heretical proceedings, as for example those of the Bohemians, in detestation. He sympathized warmly in Reuchlin's dispute with the Cologne inquisitor, and about 1512 had sided with the Humanitarians. But even then he began to find something in their teaching which separated him from them. When some years later he was at Gotha, he did not visit the worthy Mutianus Rufus, though he wrote him a very civil letter of excuse. Soon after, he was much wounded by the coldness and worldly tone of Erasmus's dialogues, in which theological sinners are turned into ridicule. The profane worldliness of the Humanitarians did not suit the earnest faith of Luther; it aroused that pride which had already taken root in his soul, and caused him afterwards to wound the sensitive Erasmus in a letter intended to be conciliatory. Even the form of literary moderation adopted by Luther at this time, gives us the impression of being wrung by the pressure of Christian humility from a stubborn spirit.
He felt himself already strong and secure in his faith: in 1506 he wrote to Spalatinus, who was the connecting link between him and the Elector, Frederic the Wise, that the Elector was of all men most knowing in secular wisdom, but in things pertaining to God and the salvation of souls, he was struck with sevenfold blindness.
Luther had reason for the opinion here expressed, for the domestic disposition of this sober-minded prince showed itself in his anxiety to provide for his home the means of grace bestowed by the old Church. Amongst other things he had a particular fancy for relics, and Staupitz, vicar-general of the Augustine monks in Germany, was at that time engaged in collecting these treasures for the Elector. This absence of his superior was very important to Luther, for he had to fill his place. He was already a man of high repute in his order; but though a professor at Wittenberg, he continued to reside in his monastery, and generally wore his monk's dress. He visited the thirty monasteries of his congregation, deposed priors, delivered strong rebukes on account of lax discipline, severely admonished criminal monks, and had become in 1517 a man of fully developed character and commanding powers; yet he still preserved somewhat of the trusting simplicity of the monastic brother.
Thus, when he had affixed the Theses against Tetzel to the church door, he writes confidingly to the Archbishop Albrecht of Maintz, the protector of the trader in indulgences. Full of the popular faith in the good sense and the good will of the governing powers, Luther thought--he often said so later--nothing was necessary but to represent straightforwardly to the princes of the Church the injurious effects and immorality of these malpractices.[[27]] But how childish did this zeal of the monk appear to the smooth and worldly prince of the Church! That which had roused such deep indignation in the upright man, had from the archbishop's point of view long been a settled question. The sale of indulgences was a much lamented evil in the Church, but unavoidable, as are to politicians many regulations not good in themselves, but necessary to preserve some great interests. The greatest interest of the archbishops and the guardians of the Romish Church was their dominion, which was to be won and maintained by such means of acquiring money. The greatest interest of Luther and the people was truth; here, therefore, their paths separated.
Thus Luther entered into the struggle, full of faith, still a true son of the Church, and with all the German devotedness to authority; but yet his firm connection with his God worked in him strongly against this authority. He was then thirty-four years of age, in the full vigour of his strength, of middle size, thin, but strongly made, so that he appeared tall by the side of the small delicate boyish figure of Melancthon. Fiery eyes, whose intense brilliancy was almost overpowering, glowed in a face in which one could perceive the effects of night watches and inward struggles. Though a man of great repute, not only in his order, but in the university, he was no great scholar; he first began to learn Greek with Melancthon, and soon afterwards Hebrew; he possessed no great compass of book learning, and never had any ambition to shine as a Latin poet. But he was astonishingly well read in the Holy Scriptures and some of the Fathers, and whatever he took up he worked out profoundly. He was unwearied in his care for the souls of his congregation, a zealous preacher, and a warm friend; he had a certain frank gaiety, together with a self-possessed demeanour, and much courteous tact; the certainty of his convictions appeared in his social intercourse, and gave a cheerful radiance to his countenance. He was irritable, and easily moved to tears; the trifling events of the day excited and disturbed him; but when he was called upon for any great effort, and had subdued the first agitation of his nerves--which, for instance, had overcome him on his first entrance at the Imperial Diet at Worms--he then attained a wonderful composure and confidence. He did not know what fear was; indeed, his lion nature took pleasure in the most dangerous situations. The malicious snares of his enemies, and the dangers to which his life was occasionally exposed, he seemed to consider hardly worth speaking about. The foundation of this more than human heroism--if one may venture to call it so--was the firm personal union between him and his God. For a long period, with smiles and inward gladness, he desired to serve truth and God by becoming a martyr. A fearful struggle still lay before him, but it was not caused by the opposition of men; he had to contend constantly for years against the devil himself; he overcame also the terror of hell, which threatened to obscure his reason. Such a man might be destroyed, but could hardly be conquered.
The period of struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the dispute about indulgences to his departure from Wartburg, the time of his greatest triumph and greatest popularity, is that of which perhaps most is known, and yet it appears to us that his character even then is not rightly judged.
Nothing in this period is more remarkable than the way in which Luther gradually became estranged from the Romish Church. He was sober-minded and without ambition, and clung with deep reverence to the high idea of the Church, that community of believers fifteen hundred years old; yet in four short years he departed from the faith of his fathers, and shook himself free of the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted. During this whole time he had to maintain the struggle alone, or at least with very few faithful confederates: after 1518 Melancthon was united with him. He overcame all the dangers of fierce encounters, not only against enemies, but against the anxious dissuasions of honest friends and patrons. Three times did the Romish party try to silence him by the authority of Cajetan, the persuasive eloquence of Miltitz, and the unseasonable assiduity of the pugnacious Eckius; three times he addressed the Pope in letters which are among the most valuable documents of that century. Then came the separation: he was anathematized and excommunicated; he burnt--according to the old university custom--the enemy's challenge, and with it the possibility of return. With joyful confidence he went to Worms, where the princes of his nation were to decide whether he should die, or henceforth live amongst them, without Pope or Church, by the precepts of the Holy Scriptures alone.
When first he published in print the "Theses against Tetzel," he was astounded at the prodigious effect they produced in Germany, at the venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the tokens of friendly approbation which he received from all sides. Had he done anything so very unprecedented? The opinions he expressed were entertained by all the best men in the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg sent the Abbot of Lehnin to him, with a request that he would withdraw from the press his German sermon upon indulgences and grace, however right its contents might be, the poor Augustine friar was deeply moved that so great a man should hold such friendly and cordial intercourse with him, and he felt inclined to give up the publication rather than make himself a lion disturbing the Church. He zealously endeavoured to refute the report that the Elector had induced him to engage in the dispute with Tetzel. "They wish to involve the innocent Prince in the odium that belongs to me only." He desired as much as possible to preserve peace with Miltitz before Cajetan; only one thing he would not do: he would not retract what he had said against the unchristian sale of indulgences. But this retraction was the only thing that the hierarchy required of him. Long did he continue to wish for peace, reconciliation, and a return to the peaceful occupations of his cell; but some false assertion of his opponents always reinflamed his blood, and every contradiction was followed by a new and sharper stroke of his weapons.
The heroic confidence of Luther is striking; even in his first letter to Leo X., dated the 30th May, 1518, he is still the faithful son of the Church; he still concludes by laying himself at the feet of the Pope; offers him his whole life and being, and promises to respect his voice as the voice of Christ, whose representative he is as sovereign of the Church. But in the midst of all this submission, which became him as a monastic brother, these impassioned words burst forth: "If I have deserved death, I do not refuse to die." And in the letter itself, how strong are the expressions with which he describes the insolence of the indulgence vendors! Honest, too, are his expressions of surprise at the effect of his Theses, which were difficult to understand, being, according to the old custom, composed of enigmatical and involved propositions. Good humour pervades the manly words, "What shall I do? I cannot retract. I am only an unlearned man, of narrow capacity, not highly cultivated, in a century full of intellect and taste, which might even put Cicero into a corner. But necessity has no law; the goose must cackle among the swans."
The following year all who esteemed Luther endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz, Spalatinus, and the Elector scolded, entreated, and urged. Even the Pope's chamberlain, Miltitz, praised his opinions, whispered to him that he was quite right, entreated, drank with, and kissed him; though Luther indeed had reason to believe that the courtier had a secret commission to take him if possible a prisoner to Rome. The mediators happily hit on a point in which the refractory man heartily agreed with them; it was, that respect for the Church must be maintained and its unity not destroyed; Luther therefore promised to keep quiet and to leave the disputed points to the decision of three eminent bishops. Under these circumstances he was pressed to write a letter of apology to the Pope; but this letter of the 3rd of March, 1519, though undoubtedly approved by the mediators and wrung from the writer, shows the advance that Luther had already made. Of the humility which our theologians discover in it, there is little; it is, however, thoroughly cautious and diplomatic in its style. Luther regrets that what he has done to defend the honour of the Romish Church has been attributed to him as a want of respect; he promises henceforth to be silent on the subject of indulgences,--provided his opponents would be the same, and to address a letter to the people admonishing them loyally to obey the Church,[[28]] and not estrange themselves from it, because his opponents had been insolent and he himself harsh. But all these submissive words could not conceal the chasm which already separated his spirit from that of the Romish Church. With what cold irony he writes: "What shall I do, most holy father? All counsel fails me; I cannot bear your anger, and yet know not how to avoid it. It is desired that I should retract; if by this what they aim at could be effected, I would do so without delay, but the opposition of my opponents has spread my writings further than I had ever hoped, and they have laid too deep hold on the souls of men. There is now much talent, education, and free judgment in our Germany: were I to retract, I should, in the opinions of my Germans, cover the Church with still greater shame; but it is my opponents who have brought disgrace in Germany upon the Romish Church." He concludes his letter politely. "Do not doubt my readiness to do more, if it should be in my power. May Christ preserve your Holiness. M. Luther."
There is much concealed behind this measured reserve. Even if the conceited Eckius had not immediately after stirred up the indignation of the whole university of Wittenberg, this letter could hardly have availed at Rome as a sign of repentant submission.
The thunderbolt of excommunication was launched; Rome had spoken. Luther, now restored to himself, wrote once more to the Pope; it was the celebrated letter, which, at the request of the indefatigable Miltitz, he antedated, the 6th of September, 1520, in order to ignore the bull of excommunication. It is the noble expression of a determined spirit which contemplates its opponent from its elevated position, grand in its uprightness and noble in its sentiments! He speaks with sincere sympathy of the Pope, and of his difficult position; but it is the sympathy of a stranger: he still mourns over the Church, but it is evident that he has already passed out of it. It is a parting letter written with cutting sharpness and confidence, but in a tone of quiet sorrow, as of a man separating himself from one whom he had once loved, but found unworthy.
Luther had in the course of these years become quite another man; he had acquired caution and confidence in intercourse with the great, and had gained a dear-bought insight into the political and private character of the governing powers. To the peaceful nature of his own sovereign nothing could be more painful than this bitter theological strife, which, though sometimes advantageous to him politically, always disquieted his spirit. Continual endeavours were made at court to restrain the Wittenbergers, but Luther was always beforehand with them. Whenever the faithful Spalatinus warned him against the publication of some new aggressive writing, he received for answer, that it could not be helped; that the sheets were already printed, already in many hands, and could not be withdrawn.[[29]] In intercourse also with his opponents Luther acquired the confidence of an experienced combatant. He was very indignant when in the spring of 1518, Jerome Emser had inveigled him at Dresden to a supper, at which he was obliged to contend with angry enemies; and still more when he heard that a begging Dominican had listened at the door, and had the following day reported all over the town that Luther had been put down by the number of his opponents, and that the listener had with difficulty restrained himself from springing into the room and spitting in his face. At the first interview with Cajetan, he placed himself humbly at the feet of the Prince of the Church; but after the second, he permitted himself to say that the Cardinal was as well suited to his business as an ass to play on the harp. He treated the polite Miltitz with corresponding civility; the Romanist had hoped to tame the German Bear, but the courtier himself was soon put in his proper position, and was made use of by Luther; in the disputation at Leipsic with Eckius, the favourable impression produced by Luther's unembarrassed, honest, and self-composed demeanour, was the best counterbalance to the self-sufficient confidence of his dexterous opponent.
But Luther's inward life demands a higher sympathy. It was a fearful period for him; he experienced together with a sense of elevation and victory, mortal anguish, tormenting doubts, and terrible temptations. He, with a few others, stood against the whole of Christendom, always opposed by the most powerful and implacable enemies; and these comprised all that he had from his youth considered most holy. What if he should be in error? He was answerable for every soul that he carried away with him. And whither was he taking them? What was there beyond the pale of the Church?--Destruction, temporal and eternal ruin. Opponents and timid friends cut his heart with reproaches and warnings, but incomparably greater was one pain, that secret gnawing and uncertainty which he dared not confess to any one. In prayer, indeed, he found peace; when his glowing soul soared up to God, he received abundance of strength, rest, and cheerfulness; but in his hours of relaxation, when his irritable spirit writhed under any obnoxious impressions, he felt himself embarrassed, torn asunder, and under the interdict of another power which was inimical to his God. From his childhood he had known how busily evil spirits hover around men, and from the Scriptures he had learned that the devil labours to injure even the purest. On his own path lurked busy devils seeking to weaken and entice him, and to make countless numbers miserable through him. He saw them working in the angry mien of the Cardinal, the sneering countenance of Eckius, and indeed in his own soul; and he knew how powerful they were in Rome. In his youth he had been tormented by apparitions, and now they had returned to him. Out of the dark shadows of his study rose the tempter as a spectre, clutching at his reason, and when praying, the devil approached him, even under the form of the Saviour, radiant as king of heaven, with his five wounds as the old Church represented him. But Luther knew that Christ only approaches weak man in his word, or in humble form, as He hung upon the cross; so by a violent effort he collected himself and cried out to the apparition: "Away with thee, thou vile devil!" then the spectre vanished.[[30]] Thus again and again for years did the stout heart of the man struggle with wild excitement. It was a gloomy conflict between reason and delusion; he always came out as conqueror, the primitive strength of his healthy character gained the victory. In long hours of prayer the stormy waves of excitement were calmed; his solid understanding and his conscience led him always from doubt to security, and he felt this expansion of his soul as a gracious inspiration from his God. It was after such experiences, that he, who had been so anxious and timid, became firm as steel, indifferent to the judgment of men, intrepid and inexorable.
He appeared quite another person in his conflicts with earthly enemies; in these he almost always showed the confidence of superiority, and especially in his literary disputes.
The activity he displayed from this period as a writer was gigantic. Up to the year 1517, he had published little; but after that he became not only the most copious, but the most popular writer of Germany. By the energy of his style, the power of his arguments, the fire and vehemence of his convictions, he carried all before him. No one had as yet spoken with such power to the people. His language adapted itself to every voice and every key; sometimes brief, terse, and sharp as steel; at others, with the rich fullness of a mighty stream his words flowed upon the people; and a figurative expression or a striking comparison made the most difficult things comprehensible. He had a wonderful creative power, and pre-eminent facility in the use of language; when he took his pen, his spirit seemed to emancipate itself: one perceives in his sentences the cheerful warmth that animated him, and they overflow with the magic creations of the heart. This power is very visible in his attacks upon individual opponents, and was closely allied to rudeness, which caused much perplexity to his admiring cotemporaries. He liked also to play with his opponents: his fancy clothed them in a grotesque mask, and he rallied, derided, and hit at this fantastic figure, in expressions by no means measured, and not always very becoming. But the good humour which shone out from the midst of these insults had generally a conciliatory effect, though not upon those whom they touched. Scarcely ever do we perceive any small enmities, but frequently inexhaustible kindness of heart. Sometimes forgetting the dignity of the reformer, he played antics like a German peasant child, or rather like a mischievous hobgoblin. How he buffeted his adversaries! now with the blows of an angry giant's club, now with the rod of a buffoon. He delighted in transforming their names into something ridiculous; thus they were known in the Wittenberger's circle by the names of beasts and fools: Eckius became Dr. Geek,[[31]] Murner[[32]] was called Katerkopf[[33]] and Krallen; Emser, who had his crest (the head of a horned goat) engraved on every controversial writing, was insulted by being changed into Bock;[[34]] the Latin name of the apostate Humanitarian, Cochläus, was translated back into German, and Luther greeted him as Schnecke (the snail) with impenetrable armour, and--it grieves one to say--sometimes as Rotzlöffel.[[35]] Still more annoying, and even shocking in the eyes of his cotemporaries, was the vehement recklessness with which he broke forth against hostile princes; the Duke George of Saxony, cousin to his own sovereign, was the only one he was occasionally obliged to spare. The profligate despotism of Henry VIII. of England was abhorrent to the soul of the German reformer, who abused him terribly, and he dealt with Henry of Brunswick as a naughty school-boy. It cannot, we fear, be denied that it was this alloy to the moral dignity of his character that acted as the salt, which made his writings so irresistible to the earnest Germans of the sixteenth century.
In the autumn of 1517, he had a controversy with the reprobate Dominican; in the winter of 1520, he burnt the papal bull; in the spring of 1518, he still laid himself at the feet of the Pope as the vicegerent of Christ; but in the spring of 1521, he declared before the Emperor, princes, and papal nuncios at the Imperial Diet at Worms, that he did not trust either in the Pope or the councils alone, but only in the witness of the Holy Scripture and the convictions of his own reason. He had now become a free man, but the papal interdict and the ban of the empire hung over him; he was inwardly free, but he was free like the wild beast of the forest, with the bloodthirsty hounds giving tongue after him. He had now arrived at the acme of his life: the powers against which he had revolted, and even the thoughts which he had excited in the people, began now to work against his life and doctrines.
It appears that already at Worms, Luther was warned that he must disappear for a time. The habits of the Franconian knights, among whom he had many faithful adherents, gave rise to the idea of carrying him off by armed men. The Elector Frederic planned the abduction with his confidential advisers; yet it was quite in the style of this Prince to arrange that he himself should not know the place of his confinement, that in case of necessity he might be able to affirm his ignorance. It was not easy to make this plan acceptable to Luther, for his valiant heart had long overcome all earthly fear, and with ecstatic pleasure, in which there was much enthusiasm and some humour, he watched the attempts of the Romanists who wished to take away his life; this, however, was under the disposal of another and higher power, which spoke through his mouth.[[36]] He unwillingly submitted; but however cleverly the abduction was arranged, it was not easy to keep the secret. In the beginning, Melancthon was the only one of the Wittenbergers who knew the place of Luther's concealment; but Luther was not the man to accommodate himself, even to the most well-meaning intrigue, and soon messengers were actively passing to and fro between the Wartburg and Wittenberg, so that whatever circumspection was employed in the care of the letters, it was difficult to prevent the spreading of reports. Luther in the castle, learned what was going on in the great world sooner than the Wittenbergers; he received accounts of all the news of his university, and endeavoured to raise the courage of his friends and to guide their politics. It is touching to see how he tried to strengthen Melancthon, whose unpractical nature caused him to feel bitterly the absence of his stronger friend. "Things must go on without me," Luther writes to him. "Only take courage and you will no longer need me; if, when I come out, I cannot return to Wittenberg, I must go out into the world. You are the men to maintain, without me, the cause of the Lord against the devil." His letters are dated from the "aerial regions," from "Patmos," from the "wilderness," "from among the birds who sing sweetly among the branches, and praise God day and night with all their powers." Once he endeavoured to be cunning: writing to Spalatinus, he enclosed a crafty letter, saying, that it was believed without foundation that he was at Wartburg. That he was living among faithful brothers, and that it was remarkable no one thought of Bohemia; it concluded with a not ill-natured thrust at Duke George of Saxony, his keenest enemy. This letter, Spalatinus, with pretended negligence, was to lose, that it might come into the hands of his enemies; but in such diplomacy Luther was by no means consistent, for no sooner was his lion nature roused by any intelligence, than he made a hasty decision to burst forth to Erfurt or Wittenberg. He bore with difficulty the tedium of his residence; he was treated with the greatest consideration by the commander of the castle, and this care showed itself chiefly, as was then the custom, in providing him with the best food and drink. The good living, the absence of excitement, the fresh air on horseback, which the theologian enjoyed, worked both on soul and body. He had brought with him from Worms, a bodily ailment from which arose hours of dark despondency, which made him incapable of work.
Two days successively he went out hunting; but his heart was with the poor hares and partridges, which were hunted by a host of men and dogs into a net. "Innocent little creatures! thus do the papists hunt." To preserve the life of a little hare he concealed it in the sleeve of his coat; then came the hounds and broke the limbs of the little animal within the protecting coat. "Thus does Satan gnash his teeth against the souls I seek to save." Luther had enough to do to defend himself and his from Satan; he had thrown off all the authorities of the Church, and now stood shuddering alone, only one thing remained to him, the Scriptures. The old Church had been continually expounding Christianity; traditions which were concurrent with the Scriptures, councils and decrees of the Pope, had kept the faith in constant agitation. Luther placed in its stead the word of Scripture, which while it brought deliverance from a wilderness of erroneous soulless conceptions, gave threatenings of other dangers. What was the Bible? There were about two centuries between the oldest and the newest writings of the holy book. The New Testament itself was not written by Christ, nor even always by those who had received his holy teaching from himself; it had been compiled long after his death, portions of it might have been delivered incorrectly; all was written in a foreign language that Germans could with difficulty understand. Expounders of the greatest discernment were in danger of interpreting falsely if not enlightened by the grace of God as the Apostles had been. The old Church had brought to its assistance that sacrament which gave to the priest's office this enlightenment; indeed the holy father assumed so much of the omnipotence of God, that he considered himself in the right even where his will was contrary to the Scripture. The reformer had nothing but his weak human understanding and his prayers.
It was indeed imperative that Luther should use his reason, for a certain degree of criticism upon the Holy Scriptures was necessary. He did not set an equal value upon all the books of the New Testament: it is known that he had doubts about the Revelations of St. John, and he did not much value the Epistle of St. James; but objections to particular parts never disturbed his faith in the whole; his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (with the exception of a few books) could not be shaken; they were to him what was dearest on earth, the groundwork of his whole knowledge; he was so thoroughly imbued with their spirit, that he lived as it were under their shadow. The more deeply he felt his responsibility, the more intense was the ardour with which he clung to the Scriptures.[[37]] A powerful instinct for what was rational and judicious helped him over many dangers; his penetration had nothing of the hair-splitting sophistry of the old teachers; he despised unnecessary subtleties, and with admirable tact he left undecided what appeared to him not essential. But if he was not to become a frantic or godless man, nothing remained to him but to ground his new doctrines on the words which were spoken and written fifteen hundred years before him, and he fell in some case into what his opponent Eckius called "Black-letter style."
Under these restraints his method was formed. If he had a question to solve, he collected all the passages in Scripture which appeared to him to contain an answer; he examined each passage to understand their mutual bearing, and thus arrived at his conclusions. By this mode of proceeding, he brought the Scriptures within the compass of an ordinary understanding; for example, in the year 1522, he undertook, out of the Holy Scriptures, to place marriage on a new moral foundation; he severely criticised the eighteen reasons given by ecclesiastical law, forbidding and dissolving marriages, and condemned the unworthy favouring of the rich in preference to the poor.
It was this same system which made him so pertinacious in his transactions with the Reformers in the year 1529, when he wrote on the table before him: "This is my body;" and looked gloomily on the tears and outstretched hands of Zwinglius. Never had that formidable man shown more powerful convictions, convictions won in vehement wrestling with his doubts and the devil. It may be considered by some as an imperfect system; but there was a genial strength in it, that made his own view more available to the cultivation and heart-cravings of his time, than even he himself anticipated.
Besides these great trials, the proscribed monk at the Wartburg was exposed to smaller temptations: he had long, by almost superhuman spiritual activity, overcome, what great self-distrust led him to consider as merely sensual inclinations; still nature stirred powerfully in him, and he many times begged of his dear Melancthon to pray for him concerning this.
It happened providentially, that just at this time at Wittenberg the restless spirit of Karlstadt took up the subject of the marriage of priests, in a pamphlet in which he decided that vows of celibacy were not binding upon priests and monks. The Wittenbergers were in general agreed on this question, especially Melancthon, who was perfectly unbiassed, as he himself had never entered into holy orders, and had been married two years.
Thus a web of thoughts and moral problems was cast from the outer world upon Luther's soul, the threads of which enclosed the whole of his later life. Whatever joy of heart and earthly happiness was vouchsafed to him henceforth, rested on the answer to this question. It was the happiness of his home that made it possible for him to bear the trials of his later years; by that the full blossom of his rich heart was first unfolded. So graciously did Providence send to him, just in the time of his loneliness, the message which was to bind him anew, and more firmly than ever to his people. Again, the way in which Luther treated this problem is quite characteristic; his pious spirit and the conservative tendency of his character strove against the hasty and superficial way in which Karlstadt reasoned. It may be assumed, that his own feelings made him suspicious as to whether this critical question was not made use of by the devil, to tempt the children of God; and yet the constraint upon the poor monks in the monasteries grieved him much. He examined the Scriptures, and easily made up his mind as to the marriage of priests; but there was nothing in the Bible about monks: "Where the Scripture is silent, man is unsafe." It appeared to him, withal, a laughable idea that his friends could marry, and he wrote to the cautious Spalatinus: "Good God, our Wittenbergers wish also to give wives to the monks! now they shall not so encumber me;" and he warns him ironically: "Have a care that you also do not get married;" yet this problem occupied him incessantly. Men live fast in great times. Gradually, by Melancthon's reasoning, and we may add by fervent prayer, he arrived at certainty. What, almost unknown to himself, brought about the decision, was the perception that it had become wise and necessary for the moral foundation of social life, that the monasteries should be opened. For nearly three months this question had been struggling in his mind; on the 1st November, 1521, he wrote the afore-mentioned letter to his father.
Unbounded was the effect of his words on the people; they produced a general excitement: out of almost all the cloister doors monks and nuns slipped away; it was at first singly and by stealth, but soon whole monasteries and convents dissolved themselves. When Luther in the following spring returned to Wittenberg, his heart full of anxious cares, the fugitive monks and nuns caused him a great deal of trouble. Secret letters were forwarded to him from all quarters, chiefly from excited nuns who had been placed as children in convents by harsh parents, and being now without money or protection, looked to the great Reformer for help; it was not unnatural that they should throng to Wittenberg. Nine nuns came from the foundation for noble ladies at Nimpschen, amongst them were a Staupitz, two Zeschau, and Catherine von Bora; besides these there were sixteen other nuns to take care of, and so forth. He was much grieved for these poor people, and hastened to place them under the protection of worthy families. Sometimes, indeed, it became too much of a good thing, and the crowd of runaway monks especially annoyed him. He complains: "They desire immediately to marry, and are unfit for every kind of work." He gave great scandal by his bold solution of this difficult question; and there was much that was very painful to his feelings; for amongst those who now returned in tumult to social life, though there were some high-minded men, others were coarse and dissolute. Yet all this did not for one moment make him turn aside; he became, according to his nature, more decided from opposition. When, in 1524, he published the history of the sufferings of a nun, Florentina von Oberweimar, he repeated in the dedication what he had so often preached: "God often testifies in the Scriptures that He desires no compulsory service, and no one can become his, who is not so in heart and soul. God help us! Is there nothing in this that speaks to us? Have we not ears and understanding? I say it again, God will not have compulsory service; I say it a third time, I say it a hundred thousand times, God will have no compulsory service."[[38]]
Thus Luther entered the last period of his life. His disappearance in the Thuringian forest had made an immense sensation. His opponents, who were accused of his murder, trembled before the indignation which was roused against them, both in city and country. The interruption, however, of his public activity was pregnant with evil to him; as long as he was at Wittenberg, the centre of the struggle, his word and his pen could dominate the great spiritual movement both in the north and south, but in his absence it worked arbitrarily in different directions, and in many heads. One of Luther's oldest associates began the confusion, and Wittenberg itself was the scene of action of a wild commotion. Luther could no longer bear to remain at the Wartburg; he had already been once secretly to Wittenberg; he now returned there publicly, against the will of the Elector. Then began an heroic struggle against old friends, and against conclusions drawn from his own doctrines. His activity was superhuman; he thundered incessantly from the pulpit, and his pen flew over the pages, in his cell. But he was not able to bring back all the erring minds, neither could he prevent the excitement of the people from gathering into a political storm. What was more, he could not hinder the spiritual freedom which he had won for the Germans, from producing, even in pious and learned men, an independent judgment upon faith and life, which was often opposed to his own convictions. Then came the dark years of the Iconoclastic and Anabaptist struggle, the Peasant war; and the sad dispute about the Sacrament. How often at this time did the figure of Luther arise gloomy and powerful above the disputants! how often did the perversity of men and his own secret doubts, fill him with anxious cares about the future of Germany!
In this wild time of fire and sword, the spiritual struggle was carried on more nobly and purely by him than by any one else. Every interference of earthly power was hateful to him; he did not choose to be protected even by his own sovereign, and would not have any human support for his teaching. He fought with a sharp pen, alone against his enemies; the only pile that he lighted was for a paper: he hated the Pope as he did the devil, but he had always preached toleration and Christian forbearance towards papists; he suspected many of having a secret compact with the devil, but he never burnt a witch. In all the Roman Catholic countries the stake was lighted for the confessors of the new faith, and even Hutten was strongly suspected of having cut off the ears of some monks; but so benevolent were Luther's feelings, that he had heartfelt compassion for the humbled Tetzel, and wrote him a consolatory letter. His highest political principle was obedience to the authorities ordained by God, and he never rose in opposition to them except when necessary for the service of God. On his departure from Worms, although on the point of being declared free from interdict, he was forbidden to preach; he did not, however, desist from doing so, but suffered great anxiety lest it should be imputed to him as disobedience. His conception of the unity of the Empire was quite primitive and popular; the reigning princes and electors, according to the laws of the Empire, owed the same obedience to the Emperor that their own subjects did to them.
During the whole course of his life he took a heartfelt interest in Charles V., not only in that early period when he greeted him as the "Dear youth," but even later, when he knew well, the Spanish Burgundian only tolerated the German reformation for political reasons: he said of him, "He is good and quiet; he does not speak as much in one year as I do in a day; he is the favourite of fortune:" he had pleasure in extolling the Emperor's moderation, discretion, and long sufferance; and after he had begun to condemn his policy, and to distrust his character, he still insisted upon his companions talking with reverence of the sovereign of Germany; for he said, apologetically, "A politician cannot be as candid as we ecclesiastics." In 1530 he gave it as his opinion, that it would be wrong in the Elector to arm in opposition to the Emperor: it was not till 1537 that he unwillingly adopted a more enlarged view; but even then, the threatened Prince was not to take up arms first. So strongly in this man of the people still dwelt the honourable tradition of a firm well-ordered state, at a time when the proud edifice of that old Saxon and Frank empire was crumbling into ruin; but there was no trace of servile feeling in this loyalty: when the Elector on one occasion desired him to write a plausible letter, his truthful feeling revolted against the Emperor's title of "Most Gracious Sovereign," for the Emperor was not graciously disposed towards him; and in his intercourse with people of rank he showed a careless frankness that shocked the courtiers. To his own sovereign he had with all submission spoken truths as only a great character can speak, and to which only a good heart will listen. He had in general a poor opinion of the German princes, though he esteemed individuals among them; frequent and just are his complaints of their incapacity, licentiousness, and other vices:[[39]] the nobles too he treated with irony; the coarseness of most of them displeased him extremely.[[40]] He felt a democratic aversion to the hard and selfish lawyers who conducted the affairs of the princes, courted favour, and tormented the poor; to the best of them he allowed only a doubtful prospect of the grace of God: his whole heart, on the other hand, was with the oppressed: he blamed the peasants sometimes for their obduracy and their usuriousness, but he commended their class, regarded their vices with heartfelt compassion, and remembered that he sprang from them. These were his views on worldly government, but he served the spiritual: he held firmly the popular idea, that there should be two ruling powers,--the Church, and the princes, and he thought he was justified in proudly placing the domination of the former above that of worldly politics. He strove indignantly to prevent the governing powers from assuming the control in matters pertaining to the care of souls and to the autonomy of his communities. He estimated all politics with reference to the interests of his faith and according to the laws of his Bible. When the Scripture seemed to be endangered by worldly politics, he raised his voice, indifferent where it hit: it was not his fault that he was strong and the princes weak, and it ought to be no reproach to him, the monk, the professor, and the shepherd of souls, if the allied Protestant princes withstood the cunning statesmancraft of the Emperor, like a herd of deer; he himself was so conscious that politics were not his business, that when on one occasion the active Landgrave of Hesse would not follow ecclesiastical advice, he was the more esteemed for it by Luther: "He has a good head of his own; he will be successful; he thoroughly understands the world."
Since Luther's return to Wittenberg a democratic agitation had been fermenting amongst the people. Luther had opened the cloisters, and now people desired to be delivered from many other social evils, such as the destitution of the peasants, the ecclesiastical imposts, the malversation of the benefices, and the bad administration of justice. The honest heart of Luther sympathized with this movement, and he exhorted and reproved the landed proprietors and princes; but when the wild waves of the Peasant war poured over his own country, when deeds of bloody violence wounded his spirit, and he found that factious men and enthusiasts exercised a dominion over the multitudes which threatened his doctrines with destruction, he threw himself with the deepest indignation into the struggle against the rough masses. Wild and warlike was his appeal to the princes; he was horrified at what had taken place: the gospel of love had been disgraced by the headstrong wilfulness of those who had called themselves its followers. His policy was right; there was in Germany, unfortunately, no better power than that of the princes; on them, in spite of everything, rested the future of the father-land, for which neither the peasant serfs, nor the rapacious noblemen, nor the dispersed cities of the empire, which stood like islands in the midst of the surging sea, could give a guarantee: he was entirely in the right; but in the same headstrong unbending way, which had hitherto made his struggle against the hierarchy so popular, he now turned against the people. A cry of dismay and horror was raised among the masses. He was a traitor. He, who for eight years had been their hero and darling, suddenly became the most unpopular of men: again his life and liberty were threatened; even five years afterwards it was dangerous for him to visit his sick father at Mansfeld, on account of the peasants. The anger of the multitude worked also against his teaching; the field preachers and new apostles treated him as a lost, corrupt man.
He was excommunicated and outlawed by the higher powers, and cursed by the people; even many well-meaning men had been displeased with his attack on celibacy and monastic life. The nobility of the country threatened to waylay the outlaw on the high-roads, because he had destroyed the convents in which, as in foundling hospitals, the respectable daughters of poor nobles were thrown in early childhood. The Romish party triumphed; the new heresy was deprived of that which had hitherto made it powerful; Luther's life and doctrines seemed doomed to destruction.
It was at this time that Luther determined to marry. Catherine von Bora had lived at Wittenberg for two years in the house of Reichenbach, the town clerk, afterwards burgomaster. She was a fine young woman of stately manners, the deserted daughter of a noble family of Meissen. Twice had Luther endeavoured to obtain a husband for her, as with fatherly care he had already done for many of her companions; at last Catherine declared that she would not marry any man, unless it were Luther himself, or his friend Amsdorf. Luther was astonished, but he came to a rapid decision. Accompanied by Lucas Kranach, he went to woo her, and was married to her on the spot. He then invited his friends to his marriage feast, begged for venison from the court, which it was the habit of the prince to present to the professors on their wedding days, and received from the city of Wittenberg, as a bridal present, wine for the feast. We would fain understand what passed through Luther's soul at that time; his whole being was strained to the uttermost; his strong and wild primitive nature was excited on all sides; he was deeply shaken by the evils arising up everywhere around him, the burning villages and slaughtered men. If he had been a mere fanatic he would have ended in despair; but above the stormy disquiet, which is perceptible in him up to his marriage, a bright light shone; the conviction that he was the guardian of the divine law amongst the Germans, and that in order to protect social order and morals, he was bound to guide and not to follow the opinions of men. However eagerly and warmly he might declaim in individual cases, he appears now decidedly conservative and more firmly self-contained than ever. He had, moreover, the impression that it was ordained that he should not live much longer, and many were the hours in which he looked forward with a longing to martyrdom. He concluded his marriage in full harmony with his convictions. He had entered fully into the necessity of marriage and its conformity with Scripture, and he had for some years pressed all his acquaintances to marry, at last even his own opponent the Archbishop of Mentz. He himself gives two reasons for his decision. He had robbed his father for many years of his son; it would be to him a kind of expiation, in case he should die first, to leave old Hans a grandson. Besides this, it was also an act of defiance; his opponents triumphed that Luther was humbled, all the world was offended with him, and by this he would give them still more offence.
He was a man of strong passions, but there was no trace of coarse sensuality; and we may assume that the best reason, which he did not, however, avow to any of his friends, was yet the most decisive, and that was, that there had long been gossip amongst people, and he himself knew that Catherine was favourably disposed towards him. "I am not passionately in love, but am very fond of her," he writes to one of his dearest friends. And this marriage, concluded contrary to the opinion of his cotemporaries, and amidst the derision of his opponents, was an act to which we Germans owe as much, as we do to all the years in which, as an ecclesiastic of the old Church, he had by deeds supported his theology. For from henceforth the father, husband, and citizen became also the reformer of the domestic life of his nation; and that which was the blessing of his earthly life, in which Roman Catholics and Protestants to this day have an equal interest, arose from a marriage contracted between an outcast monk and a fugitive nun. He had still, for one-and-twenty laborious years, to carry out the moulding of his nation. His greatest work, the translation of the Bible, which he had now brought to a conclusion, in union with his Wittenberger friends, gave him an entire mastery over the language of the people, a language, the richness and power of which first became practically known by this book. We know in how noble a spirit he undertook the work: he wished to produce a book for the people, for that purpose he studied assiduously the forms of speech, proverbs, and technical expressions used by them. The Humanitarians still continued to write clumsy and involved German, a bad resemblance to the Latin style. The nation now obtained for its daily reading a work which in simple words and short sentences gave expression to the deepest wisdom and the highest spiritual treasures. The German Bible, together with Luther's other writings, became the groundwork of the new German language; and this language, in which our whole literature and spiritual life have found expression, is an indestructible possession, which, though marred and spoilt, has even in the worst times reminded the different branches of the German race that they belong to one family. Individuals are now discarding their native dialects, and the language of education, poetry, and science which was created by Luther is the bond by which the souls of all Germans are united. Not less was done by this same man for the social life of Germany. Private devotion, marriage, the education of children, corporate life, school life, manners, amusements, all feelings of the heart, all social pleasures were consecrated by his teachings and writings; everywhere he endeavoured to place new boundary stones and to dig deeper foundations. There was no sphere of human duty over which he did not constrain his countrymen to meditate. By his numerous sermons and essays he worked on the public; by countless letters in which he gave counsel and comfort to inquirers he worked on individuals. He urged incessantly upon all the necessity of self-examination, and the duty of being well assured what was owing from the father to the child, from the subject to the sovereign, and from the chief magistrate to his community; the progress he thus made was important in this respect, that he freed the consciences of people; and in the place of outward pressure, against which egotism had haughtily rebelled, he substituted everywhere a genial self-control. How beautifully he comprehended the necessity of cultivating the minds of children by school instruction, especially in the old languages! How he recommended his beloved music to be introduced into the schools! How great his views were when he advised the magistrates to establish city libraries; and, again, how conscientiously he endeavoured to secure freedom of choice in matrimony! He had overthrown the old sacrament of marriage; but higher, nobler, and freer, he established the inward relation of man and wife. He had attacked the unwieldy monastic schools; everywhere in village and city, as far as his influence reached, flourished better institutions for the education of youth; he had removed the mass and the Latin chantings; he gave instead, to both disciples and opponents, regular preaching and the German chorale.
His desire to find something divine in all that was lovely, good, and amiable, which the world presented to him, always kept increasing. With this feeling he was ever pious and wise, whether in the fields, or in decorous gaiety among his companions, in his playfulness with his wife, or when holding his children in his arms. He rejoiced when standing before a fruit tree at the splendour of the fruit: "If Adam had not fallen, we might thus have admired all trees." He would take a large pear admiringly in his hands, and exclaim: "See, six months ago it was deeper under the earth than its own length and breadth, and has come from the extreme end of the roots; these smallest, and least thought of things are the most wonderful of God's works. He is in the smallest of his creations, even to the leaf of a tree or a blade of grass." Two little birds had made a nest in his garden, and flew about in the evening, being frightened by the passersby: he thus addressed them: "Ah, you dear little birds, do not fly away. I wish you well from my heart, if you could only trust me--though I own we do not thus trust our God." He had great pleasure in the companionship of true-hearted men; he enjoyed drinking wine with them, and conversation flowed pleasantly on both great and small matters; he sang, or played the lute, and arranged singing-classes. He delighted in the art of music, as it yielded innocent enjoyment. He was lenient in his judgment about dancing, and spoke with indulgence--fifty years before Shakespeare--of plays: "For they teach," said he, "like a mirror how every one should behave himself."[[41]]
Once when sitting with Melancthon, the mild and learned master Philip prudently moderated the too bold assertions of his vehement friend. Rich people were the subject of conversation, and Frau Kate could not resist remarking, eagerly, "If my husband had held such opinions he would have become very rich." Then Melancthon replied decidedly: "That is impossible, for those who thus strive after the good of the community cannot attend to their own interest." There was one subject, however, on which both men liked to argue. Melancthon was a great lover of astrology; Luther looked on this science with sovereign contempt; on the other hand, by his method of Biblical exegesis, and also by his secret political views, he had come to the conviction that the end of the world was near; and that appeared very doubtful to the sagacious Melancthon. When therefore the latter began with his signs and aspects of the heavens, and explained that Luther's success was owing to his having been born under the sign of the sun, Luther exclaimed: "I have no faith in your Sol. I am the son of a peasant; my father, grandfather, and ancestors have all been thorough peasants." "Yes," answered Melancthon, "but even in a village you would have become the leader, the magistrate, or the head labourer over all others." "But," exclaimed Luther, triumphantly, "I became a Baccalaureus, a master, and a monk; that was not written in the stars: after that, I quarrelled with the Pope, and he with me. I have taken a nun for my wife, and have had children by her; who has seen that in the stars?" Again Melancthon--continuing his astrological exposition--began to explain about the Emperor Charles; how he was destined to die in the year 1584. Then Luther broke out vehemently: "The world will not last so long, for when we have driven away the Turks, the prophecy of Daniel will be fulfilled, and the end of all things come, then assuredly the last day is at hand."
How amiable he was as the father of a family! When his little children were standing at the table watching eagerly the peaches and other fruit, he said, "Whoever wishes to see a picture of one who rejoices in hope, will see it truly portrayed here. Oh, that we could look as joyfully for the last day. Adam and Eve must have had far better fruits: ours are in comparison only like crabs. The serpent was then, I have no doubt, the most beautiful of creatures, amiable and lovely; it still has its crest, but after the curse it lost its feet and beautiful body." Looking at his little son, just three years old, who was playing and talking to himself, he said, "This child is like a drunken man; he does not know that he lives, and yet he enjoys life in security, jumping and skipping about." He drew the child towards him, and thus addressed him: "Thou art our Lord's little innocent, not under the law, but under the covenant of grace and forgiveness of sins; thou fearest nothing, but art secure and without cares, and what thou doest is pure." He then continued: "Parents always love their youngest children best; my little Martin is my dearest treasure: the little ones have most need of care and love, therefore the love of parents naturally descends. What must have been the feeling of Abraham when he had to sacrifice his youngest and dearest son? he could not have told Sarah about it; this journey must have been a bitter one to him." His beloved daughter Magdalen lay dying; he laments thus: "I love her very much, but, dear Lord, as it is thy will to take her to thee, I am content to know that she is with thee. Magdalen, my little daughter, thou wouldst willingly remain with thy father here, yet gladly goest to thy Father yonder." The child then said, "Yes, dear father, as God wills it." As she was dying, he fell on his knees by the bed, weeping bitterly, and praying that God would redeem her. She then passed away in her father's arms. When the people came to bury her, he addressed them as was usual, saying, "I am joyful in spirit, but the flesh is weak; parting is beyond measure grievous. It is a wonderful thing, that, though feeling assured of all being well with her, and that she is at peace, one should yet feel so sorrowful." His dominus, or Herr Kate, as he used to call his wife in his letters to his friends, had soon become an apt and thrifty housewife. She had great troubles; many children, her husband frequently an invalid, a number of boarders (masters and poor students), always open house--as it seldom happened that they were without learned or distinguished guests, and in addition to all, a scanty income and a husband who preferred giving to taking; and who once during his wife's confinement got hold in his zeal of the baby's christening plate to give in alms.[[42]] From the way in which Luther treated her, we see how happy his family life was, and when he made allusions to the glib chattering of women, he had no right to do so, for he was by no means a man who was himself scanty in words. Once, when his wife appeared much delighted at being able to serve up different kinds of fish from the pond in their little garden, the doctor was heartily pleased to see her joy, and did not fail to take the opportunity of making a pleasant remark upon the happiness of contentment. Another time, when he had been reading to her too long in the Psalter, and she said that she heard enough upon sacred subjects, that she read much daily, and could talk about them, "God only grant that she might live accordingly," the doctor sighed at this sensible answer, and said, "Thus begins a weariness of the word of God; new trifling books will come in the place of the Scriptures, which will again be thrown into a corner." But this close union between these two excellent persons was still for many years disturbed by a secret sorrow. We only learn what was gnawing at the soul of the wife, by finding, that when as late as the year 1527, Luther, being dangerously ill, took a last leave of her, he spoke these words:--"You are my true wedded wife, of that you may feel certain."
Luther's spiritual life was as much a reality to him as his earthly one. All the holy personages of the Bible were to him as true friends; through his lively imagination he saw them in familiar forms, and with the simplicity of a child he liked to picture to himself the various circumstances of their life. When Veit Dietrich asked him what kind of person he thought the Apostle Paul was, Luther answered quickly, "He was an insignificant, lean little man, like Philip Melancthon." He formed a pleasing image of the Virgin Mary: he used to say, admiringly, "She was a pretty, delicate maiden, and must have had a charming voice."
He preferred thinking of the Redeemer as a child with his parents; how he took his father's dinner to the timber-yard, and how when he had been absent too long, Mary asked him, "Where have you been so long, little one?"
The Saviour should be thought of, not as in his glory, nor as the fulfiller of the law, conceptions too high and terrible for man; but only as a poor sufferer, who lived among and died for sinners.