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[Illustration: Charles the Fifth.]
BARTHOLOMEW
SASTROW
BEING THE MEMOIRS OF
A GERMAN BURGOMASTER
Translated by Albert D. Vandam. Introduction by
Herbert A. L. Fisher, M.A.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_.
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
1905
Contents
PART I
Introduction
CHAPTER I
Abominable Murder of My Grandfather--My Parents and their Family--Fatal
Misadventure of my Father--Troubles at Stralsund--Appeal of the
Evangelical Preachers
CHAPTER II
My Student's Days at Greifswald--Victor Bole and his tragical End--A
Servant possessed by the Devil--My Brother Johannes' Preceptors and
Mine--My Father's never-ending Law Suits
CHAPTER III
Showing the Ingratitude, Foolishness and Wickedness of the People, and
how, when once infected with a bad Spirit, it returns with Difficulty
to Common-Sense--Smiterlow, Lorbeer, and the Duke of Mecklenberg--Fall
of the Seditious Regime of the Forty-eight
CHAPTER IV
Dr. Martin Luther writes to my Father--My Studies at Rostock and at
Greifswald--Something about my hard Life at Spires--I am admitted as a
Public Notary--Dr. Hose
CHAPTER V
Stay at Pforzheim--Margrave Ernest--My extreme Penury at Worms,
followed by Great Plenty at a Receiver's of the Order of St. John's--I
do not lengthen this Summary, seeing that but for my Respect for the
Truth, I would willingly pass over many Episodes in Silence
CHAPTER VI
Travels in Italy--What happened to me in Rome--I take Steps to recover
my Brother's Property--I become aware of some strange Particulars--I
suddenly leave Rome
CHAPTER VII
From Rome to Stralsund, by Viterbo, Florence, Mantua, Trent, Innspruck,
Ratisbon and Nuremberg--Various Adventures
PART II
CHAPTER I
I am appointed Pomeranian Secretary--Something about my diurnal and
nocturnal Journeys with the Chancellor--Missions in the Camps--Dangers
in the Wake of the Army
CHAPTER II
A Twelve Months' Stay at Augsburg during the Diet--Something about the
Emperor and Princes--Sebastian Vogelsberg--Concerning the Interim
Journey to Cologne
CHAPTER III
How I held for two Years the Office of _Solicitator_ at the Imperial
Chamber at Spires--Visit to Herr Sebastian Muenster--Journey to
Flanders--Character of King Philip--I leave the Prince's Service
PART III
CHAPTER I
Arrival at Greifswald--Betrothal and Marriage--An Old Custom--I am in
Peril--Martin Weyer, Bishop
CHAPTER II
Severe Difficulties after my Marriage--My Labours and Success as a
Law-writer and Notary, and subsequently as a Procurator--An Account of
some of the Cases in which I was engaged
CHAPTER III
The Greifswald Council appoints me the City's Secretary--Delicate
Mission to Stralsund--Burgomaster Christopher Lorbeer and his
Sons--Journey to Bergen--I settle at Stralsund
Illustrations
Charles the Fifth _frontispiece_
Martin Luther
Stettin, Wittenberg, Spires
The Diet of Augsburg
An Execution at the time of the Reformation
Ferdinand the First
Melanchthon
View of Stralsund
INTRODUCTION
If we wish to understand the pedestrian side of German life in the
sixteenth century, I know of no better document than the autobiography
of Bartholomew Sastrow. This hard-headed, plain-spoken Pomeranian
notary cannot indeed be classed among the great and companionable
writers of memoirs. Here are no genial portraits, no sweet-tempered and
mellow confidings of the heart such as comfortable men and women are
wont to distil in a comfortable age. The times were fierce, and passion
ran high and deep. One might as well expect to extract amiability from
the rough granite of an Icelandic saga. There is no delicacy, no charm,
no elevation of tone in these memoirs. Everything is seen through plain
glass, but seen distinctly in hard and fine outlines, and reported with
an objectivity which would be consistently scientific, were it not for
some quick touches of caustic humour, and the stored hatreds of an
active, unpopular and struggling life. Nobody very readily sympathizes
with bitter or with prosperous men, and when this old gentleman took up
his pen to write, he had become both prosperous and bitter. He had
always been a hard hitter, and at the age of seventy-five set himself
down to compose a fighting apologia. If the ethics are those of Mr.
Tulliver, senior, we must not be surprised. Is not the blood-feud one
of the oldest of Teutonic institutions?
I frankly confess that I do not find Mr. Bartholomew Sastrow very
congenial company, though I am ready to acknowledge that he had some
conspicuous merits. Many good men have been naughty boys at school, and
it is possible that even distinguished philanthropists have tippled
brandy while Orbilius was nodding. If so, an episode detailed in these
memoirs may be passed over by the lenient reader, all the more readily
since the Sastrovian oats do not appear to have been very wildly or
copiously sown. It is clear that the young man fought poverty with
pluck and tenacity. He certainly had a full measure of Teutonic
industry, and it argues no little character in a man past thirty years
of age to attend the lectures of university professors in order to
repair the defects of an early education. I also suspect that any
litigant who retained Sastrow's services would have been more than
satisfied with this swift and able transactor of business, who appears
to have had all the combativeness of Bishop Burnet, with none of his
indiscretion. He was just the kind of man who always rows his full
weight and more than his weight in a boat. But, save for his vigorous
hates, he was a prosaic fellow, given to self-gratulation, who never
knew romance, and married his housemaid at the age of seventy-eight.
A modern German writer is much melted by Sastrow's Protestantism, and
apparently finds it quite a touching spectacle. Sastrow was of course a
Lutheran, and believed in devils as fervently as his great master. He
also conceived it to be part of the general scheme of things that the
Sastrows and their kinsmen, the Smiterlows, should wax fat and prosper,
while all the plagues of Egypt and all the afflictions of Job should
visit those fiends incarnate, the Horns, the Brusers and the Lorbeers.
For some reason, which to me is inscrutable, but which was as plain as
sunlight to Sastrow, a superhuman apparition goes out of its way to
help a young Pomeranian scribe, who upon his own showing is anything
but a saint, while the innocent maidservant of a miser is blown up with
six other persons no less blameless than herself, to enforce the
desirability of being free with one's money. This, however, is the
usual way in which an egoist digests the popular religion.
Bartholomew Sastrow was born at Greifswald, a prosperous Hanseatic
town, in 1520. The year of his birth is famous in the history of German
Protestantism, for it witnessed the publication of Luther's three great
Reformation tracts--the _Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation_, the _Babylonish Captivity_, and the _Freedom of a Christian
Man_. It seemed in that year as if the whole of Germany might be
brought to make common cause against the Pope. The clergy, the
nobility, the towns, the peasants all had their separate cause of
quarrel with the old regime, and to each of these classes in turn
Luther addressed his powerful appeal. For a moment puritan and humanist
were at one, and the printing presses of Germany turned out a stream of
literature against the abuses of the papal system. The movement spread
so swiftly, especially in the north, that it seemed a single
spontaneous popular outburst. But the harmony was soon broken. The
rifts in the political and social organization of Germany were too deep
to be spanned by any appeal to merely moral considerations. The Emperor
Charles V, himself half-Spanish, set his face against a movement which
was directly antagonistic to the Imperial tradition. The peasants
revolted, committed excesses, and were ruthlessly crushed, and the
violence of anabaptists and ignorant men threw discredit on the
Lutheran cause. Then, too, dogmatic differences began to reveal
themselves within the circle of the reformers themselves. There were
disputes as to the exact significance and philosophic explanation of
the Lord's Supper. A conference was held at Marburg, in 1529, under the
auspices of Philip of Hesse, with a view to adjusting the differences
between the divines of Saxony and Switzerland, but Luther and Zwingli
failed to arrive at a compromise. The Lutheran and the Reformed
Churches now definitely separated, and the divisions of the Protestants
were the opportunity of the Catholic Church. The emperor tried in vain
to reconcile Germany to the old faith. Rival theologians met, disputed,
formulated creeds in the presence of temporal princes and their armed
retainers. In 1530 the Diet of Augsburg forbade Protestant teaching and
ordered the restoration of church property. Then a Protestant league
was signed at Smalkald by John of Saxony, by Hesse, Brunswick-Luneberg,
Anhalt, and several towns, and the emperor was defied. This was in
1531. It was the beginning of the religious wars of Germany, the
beginning of that tremendous duel which lasted till the peace of
Westphalia in 1648, the duel between the League of Smalkald and Charles
V, between Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, between the Protestant
North and the Catholic South.
In the initial stage of this combat the great military event was
the rout of the Smalkaldic allies at Muhlberg, in April, 1547,
where Charles captured John Frederic of Saxony, transferred his
dominions--save only a few scattered territories in Thuringia--to his
ally, Maurice, and reduced all north Germany save the city of
Magdeburg. It seemed for a moment as if this battle might decide the
contest. Charles summoned a Diet at Augsburg in 1548, and carried all
his proposals without opposition. He strengthened his political
position by the reconstitution of the Imperial Chamber, by the
organization of the Netherlands into a circle of the empire, and by the
formation of a new military treasury. He obtained the consent of the
Diet to a religious compromise called the Interim which, while
insisting on the seven sacraments in the Catholic sense, vaguely agreed
to the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, and declared that
the two questions of the Communion in both kinds and the celibacy of
clergy were to be left till the summoning of a free Christian council.
The strict Lutheran party--and Pomerania was a stronghold of strict
Lutheranism--regarded the Interim as a base betrayal of Protestant
interests. Their pamphleteers called it the _Interitum_, or the
death-blow, and the conversion of a prince like Joachim of Brandenburg
to such a scheme was regarded as an ominous sign for the future.
In reality, however, the success of the emperor rested upon the most
brittle foundations. That he was chilly, reserved, un-German, and
therefore unpopular was something, but not nearly all. The princes of
Germany had conquered practical independence in the thirteenth century,
and were jealous of their prerogatives. The Hanseatic towns formed a
republican confederacy in the north, corresponding to the Swiss
confederacy in the south. There was no adequate central machinery, and
the Jesuit order was only just preparing to enter upon its career of
German victories. The Spanish troops made themselves detestable,
outraging women--a dire offence in a nation so domestic as Germany--and
there was standing feud between the famous Castilian infantry and the
German lansquenets. The popes did not like the emperor's favourite
remedy of a council, and busily thwarted his ecclesiastical schemes.
Henry II of France was on the watch for German allies against a
powerful rival. The allies were ready. A great spiritual movement can
never be stifled by the issue of one battle. For good or evil, men had
taken sides; interests intellectual, moral, and material had already
been invested either in the one cause or the other; there had been
brutal iconoclasm; there had been ardent preaching, so simple and
moving that ignorant women understood and wept; there had been close
and stubborn dogmatic controversy; there had been the shedding of
blood, and the upheavals in towns, and the building of a new church
system, and the growth of a new religious literature. Almost a whole
generation had now been consumed in this controversy, a controversy
which touched all lives, and cemented or divided families. The children
were reading Luther's Bible, and singing Luther's hymns, and learning
Luther's short catechism. Could it be expected that such a river should
suddenly lose itself in the sand? Nevertheless there is something
surprising in the quick revolution of the story. In 1550 Maurice of
Saxony intrigues with the Protestants, and in the following year
definitely goes over to their side. In 1552 the emperor has to flee for
his life, and the Peace of Passau seals the victory of the Protestant
cause.
One of the first provinces to be conquered for Lutheranism was the
duchy of Pomerania. John Bugenhagen, himself a Pomeranian and the
historian of Pomerania, was the chief apostle of this northern region,
and those who visit the Baltic churches will often see his sable
portrait hanging side by side with Huss and Luther on the whitewashed
walls. Sastrow gives us an excellent picture of the various forces
which co-operated with the teaching of Bugenhagen to effect the change.
In Eastern Pomerania there was the violent propaganda of Dr. Amandus,
who wanted a clean sweep of images, princes, and established powers.
There was the democratic movement in Stralsund, led by the turbulent
Rolof Moller, who, accusing the council of malversation, revolutionized
the constitution of his city. There was the mob of workmen who were
only too glad of an excuse to plunder the priests and break the altars.
But side by side with greed and violence there was the moral revolt
against "the fables, the absurdities, and the impious lies" of the
pulpit, and against the vices of priest and monk. The recollection of
the early days of Puritan enthusiasm, when the fathers of the
Protestant movement preached the gospel to large crowds in the open
air, as, for instance, under "St. George's churchyard elm" at
Stralsund, remained graven on many a lowly calendar. Even the texts of
these sermons were remembered as epochs in spiritual life. Sastrow
records how, ceding to the request of a great number of burgesses, Mr.
Ketelhot (being detained in the port of Stralsund by contrary winds),
preached upon Matthew xi. 28: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; and then upon John xvi. 23:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in
My name, He will give it you"; and, finally: "Go ye therefore and teach
all nations." The general pride in civic monuments proved to be
stronger than the iconoclastic mood. Certainly the high altar
in the Nicolai Kirche at Stralsund--probably the most elaborate
specimen of late fifteenth-century wood carving which still survives in
Germany--would have received a short shrift from Cromwell's Ironsides.
It was Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, of Stralsund, who brought
Protestantism into the Sastrow family. He had seen Luther in 1523, had
heard him preach at Wittenberg, and became a convert to the "true
gospel." Smiterlow's daughter Anna married Nicholas Sastrow, a
prosperous brewer and cornfactor of Greifswald, and Nicholas deserted
the mass for the sermon. Their eldest son, John, was sent to study at
Wittenberg, where he made the acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon.
He became something, of a scholar, wrote in praise of the English
divine, Robert Barns, and was crowned poet laureate by Charles V in
1544. The second son was Bartholomew, author of these memoirs. Three
years after his arrival the family life at Greifswald was rudely
disturbed. Bartholomew's father had the misfortune to commit
manslaughter (uncharitable people called it murder), and Greifswald was
made too hot to hold the peccant cornfactor. The father of our
chronicler lived in banishment for several years, while his wife
brought up the children at Greifswald, and carried on the family
business. It happened that Bartholomew's great-uncle, Burgomaster
Nicholas Smiterlow the second, of Stralsund, was at that time residing
at Greifswald. He possessed the avuncular virtues, had his great-nephew
taught Latin, and earned his eternal gratitude. In time the heirs of
the slain man were appeased and 1,000 marks of blood-money enabled the
elder Sastrow to return to his native city. He did not, however, remain
long in Greifswald, but sold his house and settled in the neighbouring
city of Stralsund, the home of his wife's relations. Bartholomew
received his early education at Greifswald and Stralsund, but in 1538
was sent to Rostock (a university had been founded in this town in
1415), where he studied under two well-known pupils of Luther and
Melanchthon, Burenius and Heinrich Welfius (Wulf). The teaching
combined the chief elements of Humanism and of Protestant theology, the
works of Cicero and Terence on the one hand, and the _De Anima_ of
Melanchthon on the other.
Meanwhile (1534-37) there were great disturbances in Stralsund. An
ambitious demagogue of Lubeck, George Wullenweber, had involved the
Hanseatic League in a Danish war. Smiterlow and Nicolas Sastrow thought
that the war was wrong and foolish, and that it would endanger the
interests of Stralsund. But a democracy, when once bitten by the war
frenzy, is hard to curb, and regards moderation in the light of
treason. Stralsund rose against its conservative council, forced
Smiterlow to resign and compelled the elder Sastrow to remain a
prisoner in his house for the period of a year. Father and son never
forgot or forgave these years of plebeian uproar. For them the art of
statesmanship was to avoid revolution and to keep the people under. "I
recommend to my children submission to authority, no matter whether
Pilate or Caiaphas governs." This was the last word of Bartholomew's
political philosophy.
In 1535-6 the forces of the Hanse were defeated both by land and sea,
and the war party saw the error of its ways. Sastrow was released, and
his uncle-in-law was restored to office to die two years later, in
1539. But meanwhile things had gone ill with the Sastrow finances. Some
skilful but dishonest ladies had purchased large consignments of cloth,
not to speak of borrowing considerable sums of money from Nicholas
Sastrow, and declined to pay their bill. During his imprisonment
Nicholas had been unable to sell the stock of salt which he had laid in
with a view to the Schonen herring season. A certain Mrs. Bruser, wife
of a big draper, with a hardy conscience, had bought 1,725 florins'
worth of the Sastrow cloth of the dishonest ladies. The Sastrows
determined to get the money out of the Brusers. Bruser first avowed the
debt, and then repudiated it, taking a mean advantage of the civic
troubles of Stralsund and the decline of the Smiterlow-Sastrow
interest. Thereupon began litigation which was not to cease for
thirty-four years. The case was heard before the town court of
Stralsund, then before the council of Stralsund, then before the
_oberhof_ or appellate court of Lubeck, and finally before the Imperial
court of Spires. Bartholomew accompanied his father on the Lubeck
journey, obtained his first insight into legal chicanery, and was, no
doubt, effectually inoculated with the anti-Bruser virus. In 1541 the
elder Sastrow obtained permission to return to Greifswald, and
Bartholomew attended for a year the lectures of the Greifswald
professors. The family circumstances, however (there were by this time
five daughters and three sons), were too straitened to support the
youth in idleness. Accordingly, in June, 1542, the two eldest sons left
their home, partly to seek their fortunes, but more especially to watch
the great Bruser case, which was winding its slow and slippery course
through the reticulations of the Imperial Court at Spires.
There is no need to anticipate the lively narrative of Bartholomew's
experiences in this home of litigation long-drawn-out. The reader will,
however, note that he was lucky enough to come in for a Diet, and has
an excellent story to tell of how the emperor was inadvertently
horsewhipped by a Swabian carter. On May 19, 1544, Sastrow received the
diploma of Imperial notary, and a month later he left Spires and
entered the chancellerie of Margrave Ernest of Baden, at Pforzheim.
This, however, was destined to prove but a brief interlude. In the
summer of 1545 Sastrow is in the service of a receiver of the Order of
St. John, Christopher von Loewenstein, who, after his Turkish wars, was
living a frolicsome old age among his Frisian stallions, his huntsmen
and his hounds. The picture of this frivolous old person, with his
dwarf, his mistress, and his chaplain, is drawn with some spirit.
Sastrow, who had so long felt the pinch of poverty, was now luxuriating
in good fare and fine raiment. He has little to do, plenty to eat and
drink, and his festivity was untempered by moral considerations. "Do
not think to become a doctor in my house," said the genial host, and it
must be confessed that the surroundings were not propitious to the
study of the Institutes.
The news of John Sastrow's death put an end to this jollity. The poet
laureate had been crossed in love, and sought oblivion in Italy. The
panegyrist of Barns entered the service of a cardinal, and died at
Acquapendente, without explaining theological inconsistencies,
pardonable perhaps in lovelorn poets. Bartholomew determined to recover
the property of his deceased brother, and set out for Italy on April 8,
1546. He walked to Venice over the Brenner, thence took ship to Ancona,
and then travelled over the Apennines to Rome, by way of Loretto. The
council was sitting at Trent, but theological gossip does not interest
our traveller so much as the alto voices in the church choirs, and "the
tomb of the infant Simeon, the innocent victim of the Jews." Nor is he
qualified to play the role of intelligent tourist among the antiquities
and art treasures of Italy. He was not a Benvenuto Cellini, still less
a Nathaniel Hawthorne, bent on instructing the Philistine in the art of
cultured enthusiasm. "A magnificent palace, a church all of marble,
variously tinted and assorted with perfect art, twelve lions and
lionesses, two tigers and an eagle that is all I remember of Florence."
Many modern tourists may not remember as much without Sastrow's
excuses. Italy was by this time by no means a safe place for a German.
Paul III was recruiting mercenaries to help the emperor to fight the
League of Smalkald, and the Spanish Inquisition was industriously
raging in Rome. It was sufficient to be a German to be suspected of
heresy, and for the heretic, the pyre and the gibbet were ready
prepared. It would be difficult to conceive a moment less propitious
for aesthetic enjoyment. "Not a week without a hanging," says Sastrow,
who was apparently careful to attend these lugubrious ceremonies. The
excellence of the Roman wine increased the risk of an indiscretion, and
by July Sastrow had determined that it would be well to extricate
himself from the perils of Rome.
His reminiscences of the papal capital are vivid and curious. We seem
to see the cardinal sweating in his shirt sleeves under the hot Italian
sun, while his floor is being watered. Heavy-eyed oxen of the Campagna
are dragging stone and marble through the streets to build the Farnese
palace and splendid houses for the cardinals; the whole town is a
tumult of building and unbuilding. Streets are destroyed to improve a
view. If one of the effects of a celibate clergy is to promote
immorality, another is to improve the cuisine of the taverns. Upon both
topics Sastrow is eloquent, and there are too many confirmations from
other quarters to permit us to doubt the substantial accuracy of his
indictment.
By August 29, 1546, Sastrow was back at Stralsund. Through the good
offices of Dr. Knipstrow, the general superintendent, he secured a post
in the ducal chancellerie at Wolgast. His acuteness and industry
obtained the respect of the Pomeranian chancellor, James Citzewitz, and
he was given the most important business to transact. On March 10,
1547, he accompanied the ducal chancellors in the character of notary
on a mission to the emperor. Ten years before the Dukes of Pomerania
had joined the League of Smalkald, and they were now thoroughly alarmed
at the Imperial victory at Muhlberg, and anxious to make their peace
with Charles. The journey of the envoys is full of historical interest.
Sastrow had to cross the field of Muhlberg and received ocular
assurance of the horrors of the war and of the barbarities practised by
the Spanish troops. He was a spectator of the humiliation of the
Landgrave Philip of Hesse, at Halle, and to his narrative alone we owe
the knowledge of the ironical laugh of the prince, and the angry threat
of the emperor. From Halle the Pomeranian envoys followed Charles to
Augsburg, having the good fortune to fall in with the drunken but
scriptural Duke Frederick III of Liegnitz, of whose wild doings Sastrow
can tell some surprising tales.
It must have been an astonishing experience, this life at Augsburg,
while the Diet was sitting. The gravest theological and political
problems, problems affecting the destiny of the Empire, were being
handled in an atmosphere of unabashed debauchery and barbarism. Every
one, layman and clerk, let himself go. Joachim of Brandenburg consented
to the Interim for a bribe, and the Cardinal Granvelle, like Talleyrand
afterwards, was able to build up an enormous fortune out of "the sins
of Germany." In the midst of the coarse revels of the town the horrid
work of the executioner was everywhere manifest. And, meanwhile, the
grim emperor dines silently in public, seeming to convey a sullen
rebuke to the garrulous hospitality of his brother Ferdinand, and to
the loose morals of the princes.
The cause of the Pomeranian mission did not much prosper at Augsburg,
and Sastrow and his friends pursued the emperor to Brussels, where they
were at last able to effect the desired reconciliation. For the
services rendered on this occasion Sastrow was made the Pomeranian
solicitor at the court of Spires. The second Spires residence was
clearly a period of honourable and not ungainful activity. Sastrow is
busy with ducal cases; he makes another journey to the Netherlands in
order to present Cardinal Granvelle with some golden flagons, and has
occasion to admire the treasures of the great Flemish cities. The
seagirt Stralsund, with its thin gusty streets, high gables, red Gothic
gateways and tall austere whitewashed churches could not, of course,
show the ample splendours of Brussels or Antwerp. Then, too, upon this
Flemish voyage he saw King Philip and was impressed by the young man's
stupid face and stiff Spanish formality. Such a contrast to his father
Charles! Again he was sent on a mission to Basle, carrying information
about Pomerania to Sebastian Munster, the "German Strabo," as he loved
to hear himself called, that it might be incorporated in that learned
scholar's universal cosmography. In 1550, however, Sastrow became aware
that his position was being undermined by the councillors at Stettin.
He accordingly gave up his ducal appointment, and determined to confine
himself to private practice. He marries a wife (January 5, 1551),
settles at Greifswald, and builds up a prosperous business, and from
this date his memoirs are mostly concerned with the cases in which he
was engaged.
There is yet one more change of place and occupation to be noticed in
this bustling life. In 1555 Sastrow was enticed to Stralsund by the
offer of the post of secretary, and for the next eight-and-forty years,
till his death in 1603, he lived in that town, battling in the full
stream of municipal politics, councillor in 1562, burgomaster in 1578,
and frequently chosen to represent the city on embassies and other
ceremonial occasions. A _Rubricken Bock_, or collection of municipal
diplomata testifies to another branch of his useful activities. Enemies
were as plentiful as gooseberries, and he never wanted for litigation.
His second marriage created a scandal, and furnished an occasion for
the foeman to scoff. But the choleric old gentleman was fully capable
of taking care of himself. "At Stralsund," he says, "I fell full into
the infernal caldron, and I have roasted there for forty years." But he
took good heed that the enemy should roast likewise, and at the age of
seventy-five began to lay the fire. The first two parts of the memoirs
were composed in 1595, the third at the end of 1597, doubtless on the
basis of some previous diary. They were composed for the benefit of his
children, that they might enjoy the roasting. We too now can look on
while the flames crackle.
HERBERT A. L. FISHER.
New College,
Oxford.
PART I
CHAPTER I
Abominable Murder of My Grandfather--My Parents and their Family--Fatal
Misadventure of My Father--Troubles at Stralsund--Appeal of the
Evangelical Preachers
My father was born in 1488, in the village of Rantzin, in the inn close
to the cemetery, on the road to Anclam. Even before his marriage, my
grandfather, Johannes Sastrow, exceeded by far in worldly goods,
reputation, power and understanding, the Horns, a family established at
Rantzin. Hence, those Horns, frantic with jealousy, constantly attacked
him, not only with regard to his property, but also in the
consideration he enjoyed among his fellow-men; they did not scruple to
attempt his life. Not daring to act openly, they incited one of their
labourers to go drinking to the inn, to pick a quarrel with its host,
and to fall upon him. Their inheritance, in fact, was so small that
they only needed one ploughmaster. What was the upshot? My grandfather,
who was on his guard, got wind of the affair, and took the offensive.
The emissary had such a cordial reception as to be compelled to beat a
retreat "on all fours," and even this was not accomplished without
difficulty.
The enmity of the Horns obliged my grandfather to look to his security.
About the year 1487, in virtue of a friendly agreement with the old
overlord Johannes Osten von Quilow, he redeemed his vassalage
(lastage), and acquired the citizenship of Greifswald, where he bought
a dwelling at the angle of the Butchers' Street. Thither he gradually
transferred his household goods. Johannes Sastrow, therefore, left the
Ostens and became a citizen before my father's birth.
The infamous attempt occurred in this way. In 1494, there was a
christening not far from Rantzin, namely at Gribon, where there lived a
Horn. In his capacity of a near relative my grandfather received an
invitation, and as the distance was short, he took my father, who was
then about seven, with him. The Horns took advantage of the
opportunity; on the pretext of paying a visit to their cousin, they
repaired to Gribon. They had come down in the world, and they no longer
minded either the company or the fare of the peasantry; consequently,
during the meal that followed they sat down at the same table with my
grandfather. When they had drunk their fill towards nightfall, they all
got up together to have a look at the stables. They fancied they were
among themselves; as it happened one of our relatives was hiding in a
corner, and heard them discuss matters. They intended to watch
Sastrow's going, to gallop after him and intercept him on the road, and
to kill him and his child. My grandfather, having been warned,
immediately took the advice not to delay his departure for a moment.
Taking his son by the hand, he started there and then. Alas, the
atrocious murderers who were lying in wait for him in a clearing,
trampled him under their horses' hoofs, inflicted ever so many wounds;
then, their rage not being spent, they dragged him to a large stone on
the road, and which may be seen unto this day, chopped off his right
hand at the wrist, and left him for dead on the spot. The child had
crept into some damp underwood, inaccessible to horses; the fast
gathering darkness saved him from being pursued. The labourers on the
Horn farm, driven by curiosity, had mounted their cattle; they picked
up the victim, and pulled the child from his hiding place. One of them
galloped to Rantzin, whence he returned with a cart on which they laid
the wounded man, who scarcely gave a sign of life, and, in fact,
breathed his last at the entrance to the village.
The nearest relatives realized the inheritance of the orphan, sold the
house, the proceeds of the whole amounting to 2,000 florins.[1] Lords
who allow their vassals to amass similar sums are rare nowadays. The
child was brought up carefully; he was taught to read, to write and to
cipher, afterwards he was sent to Antwerp and to Amsterdam to get a
knowledge of business. When he was old enough to manage his own
affairs, he bought the angle of Long Street and of Huns' Street, on the
right, towards St. Nicholas' Church, that is, two dwelling houses and
two shops in Huns' Street.[2] One of these houses he made his
residence; the other he converted into a brewery, and on the site of
the shops he built the present front entrance. All this cost a great
deal of trouble and money. He was an attractive young fellow with an
assured bit of bread, so he had no difficulty in obtaining the hand of
the daughter of the late Bartholomaei Smiterlow, and the niece of
Nicholas Smiterlow, the burgomaster of Stralsund.[3] Young and pretty,
rather short than tall, but with exquisitely shaped limbs, amiable,
clever, unpretending, an excellent managers, and exceedingly careful in
her conduct, my mother unto her last hour was an honest and God-fearing
woman. My father's register shows that the marriage took place in 1514,
the Sunday after St. Catherine's Day; the husband, as I often heard him
say, was still short of five and twenty.
At the fast just before Advent, in 1515, Providence granted the young
couple a son who was named Johannes, after his paternal grandfather; he
died in 1545, at Aquapendente, in Italy. In 1517, _in vigilia
nativitatis Mariae_, my sister Anna was born; she died on August 16,
1594, at the age of seventy-seven; she was the widow of Peter Frobose,
burgomaster of Greifswald. On Tuesday, August 21, 1520, at six in the
morning, I came into the world and was named Bartholomaei, after my
maternal grandfather. I leave to my descendants the task of recording
my demise, to which I am looking forward anxiously in my seventy-fifth
winter.
The year 1523 witnessed the birth of my sister Catherine, a charming,
handsome creature, amiable, loyal and pious. When my brother Johannes
returned from the University of Wittemberg, she asked him what was the
Latin for "This is certainly a good-looking girl?" "Profecto formosa
puella," was the answer. "And how do they say, 'Yes, not bad?'" was the
next question. "Sic satis," replied Johannes.
Some time after that, three students from Wittemberg, young fellows of
good family, stopped for a short while in our town, and Christian
Smiterlow asked his father, the burgomaster, to let them stay with him.
The burgomaster, who had three grown-up daughters, invited my sister
Catherine. Naturally, the young people talked to and chaffed each
other, and the lads themselves made some remarks in Latin, which would,
perhaps, have not sounded well in German to female ears. One of them
happened to exclaim: "Profecto formosa puella!" "Sic satis!" retorted
Catherine, and thereupon the students became afraid that she had
understood the whole of their lively comments.
In 1544 Catherine married Christopher Meyer, an only son, but an
illiterate, dissipated, lazy and drunken oaf, who spent all his
substance, and ruined a servant girl while my sister was in childbed.
God punished him for his misdeeds by bringing abject misery and a
loathsome disease upon him, but Catherine died at twenty-six, weary of
life.
My sister Magdalen was born in 1527; she died a single woman at
twenty-two. These five children were born to my parents in Greifswald;
the last three saw the light at Stralsund; namely, in 1529, Christian,
who lived till he was sixty; in 1532, Barbara, who only reached
eighteen; and in 1534, Gertrude.
From their very earliest age my sisters were taught by my mother the
household and other work appropriate to their sex. One day while
Gertrude, who was then about five, was plying her distaff--the spinning
wheel was not known then--my brother Johannes announced the news that
the Emperor, the King of the Romans, the electors, the princes and
counts, in short all the great nobles, were to foregather at a diet.
"What for?" asked Gertrude. "To look to the proper government of the
world," was the answer. "Good Lord," sighed the child, "why don't they
forbid little girls to spin."
The pest of 1549 took away my mother, Gertrude, Magdalen and Catherine.
As her daughters were weeping bitterly my mother said: "Why do you
weep? rather ask the Lord to shorten my sufferings." She died on July
3. On the 16th it was Gertrude's turn. Magdalen was also dying; she
left her bed to get her own shroud and that of Gertrude out of the
linen press, and bade me be careful to fling only a little earth on her
sister's grave, because she herself would soon be put into it; after
which she returned to her bed and expired on July 18, the morning after
Gertrude's burial. Magdalen was the tallest and most robust of my
sisters, an accomplished manageress, hardworking, and her head screwed
tightly on her shoulders. Catherine sent me all this news on September
9, two days before her own death of the plague. She did not try to
disguise her approaching end; on the contrary, she prayed fervently for
it, and bade me be resigned to it. She had had two children by her
worthless husband; I undertook the care of the boy, Christopher Meyer,
and my sister Frobose at Greifswald mothered the girl, who was but
scantily provided for. Christopher gave me much trouble; neither
remonstrance nor punishment proved of any avail; when he grew up he
would not settle down, and practically followed in the footsteps of his
father, yielding to dissipation, and indulging in all kinds of vice.
Nevertheless, I made him contract a good marriage which gave him a kind
of position. He left two sons; the elder was placed by his guardians at
Dantzig, with most respectable people, who, however, declined to keep
him. The younger remained with me for two years, going to school
meanwhile, and causing me greater trouble than was consistent with my
advanced age. But I had hoped to do some good with him; alas! he was so
bent upon following his father's example as to make me rejoice getting
rid of the cub.
My sister Barbara had been sent to Greifswald; when the plague abated,
my father recalled her, for he was old, wretched and bowed down with
care. Barbara was only fifteen, very pretty, amiable and hardworking.
She married Bernard Classen, then a widower for the second time. My
father did not like this son-in-law, against whom he had acted in the
law courts for the other side; but Classen was not to be shaken off,
and finally obtained my father's consent. The wedding took place on St.
Martin's Day (November 11), 1549. On my return from Spires, I paid a
visit to the young couple; my brother-in-law showed me the window of
his study ornamented with my monogram and name, taking care to mention
that he had paid a Stralsund mark to the glazier; I loosened my
purse-strings and counted the sum to him, but the proceeding did not
commend itself to me after the protestations of friendship my father
had conveyed to me from Classen's part.[4]
In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, where Doctor Martin Luther so
courageously made his confession of faith, Duke Bagislaw X, the
grandfather of the two dukes at present reigning, received from His
Imperial Majesty Charles V the solemn investiture under the open sky
and with the standards unfurled, to the great displeasure of the
Elector of Brandenburg. The imperial councillors were instructed to
bring the two competitors to an agreement at Nuremberg, or to refer the
matter further to His Majesty in case of the failure of negotiations.
In 1522 occurred the disturbances in connexion with Rolof Moller, a
young man of about thirty, if that. His grandfather had been
burgomaster, and in consequence he had detained in his possession a
register of the revenues and privileges of the city. Having summoned a
number of citizens to the monastery of St. John, he tried to prove by
means of said register the enormous revenues of the city, and to accuse
the council of malversation; after which he invaded the town hall, took
the councillors to task, and treated them all like so many thieves,
including one of his own relatives, Herr Schroeder, whom he reproached
with being small in stature, but big in scoundrelism. Burgomaster Zabel
Oseborn indignantly denied the accusation, and worked himself into such
a state of excitement that he had to be conveyed home. In consequence
of these slanders Moller constituted himself a following among the
burghers; his numerous adherents chose forty-eight of their own (double
the number of the members of the council), to exercise the chief power;
the council saw its influence annulled, an act defining the limits of
its competence and rules for its conduct was presented for signature to
the councillors, and they were furthermore required to take the oath.
Herr Nicholas Smiterlow alone resisted; hence, during the whole period
of their domination, namely up to 1537, the Forty-Eight made him pay
for his courage by unheard-of persecutions.
The primary cause of this agitation, so disastrous to the city, was the
absence of a permanent record-office. The burgomasters, or the
secretary, took the secret papers home with them[5]; at the
magistrate's death those documents passed to the children and
grandchildren, then fell into the hands of strangers; and the natural
result were indiscreet revelations hurtful to the public weal.
Johannes Bugenhagen, the Pomeranian, and rector of the school of
Treptow on the Rega, converted several monks of the monastery of
Belbuck to the pure faith. They left the monastery. Among them should
be mentioned Herr Christian Ketelhot, Herr Johannes Kurcke, and Herr
George von Ukermuende, whom the Stralsund people chose as their
preacher. But when, after three sermons at St. Nicholas', he saw the
citizens resolved to keep him, in spite of the council who forbade him
the pulpit, when he saw the papist clergy increase their threats, and
the dukes expel Ketelhot and Kurcke from Treptow, he was siezed with
fear and went away in secret.[6]
Johannes Kurcke was about to set sail for Livonia, intending to engage
in commerce there, when he was detained at Stralsund to preach, in the
first place in the St. George's cemetery, then at the cloister of St.
Catherine, and finally at St. Nicholas'. He died in 1527, and was
buried at St. George's.
Ketelhot had been prior of the monastery of Belbuck during sixteen
weeks. At the instigation of the Abbot Johannes Boldewan, the same who
had given him the prior's hood, he left for the living of Stolpe, and
preached the Gospel there for some time. The slanders of the priests
induced the prince to prohibit him. In vain did he claim the right to
justify himself by word of mouth and in writing before the sovereign,
the prelates, the lords and the cities. He failed to obtain a hearing
or even a safe-conduct. As a consequence he went to Mecklenburg,
intending to adopt a trade; but unable to find a suitable master, he
came to Stralsund determined to take ship for Livonia. Contrary winds
kept him for several weeks in port; this gave him the opportunity of
hearing the fables, absurdities and impious lies delivered from the
pulpit; he beheld the misconduct of the priests, their debauchery,
drunkenness, gluttony, fornication, adultery and worse. Acceding to the
wish of a great number of burghers, and the Church of St. George's
being too small to hold the crowd, he preached on the Sunday before
Ascension Day under the great lime tree of the cemetery. He first took
for his text Matthew xi. 28: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; then John xvi. 23: "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name,
He will give it you"; and finally: "Go ye therefore and teach all
nations." In spite of the opposition of the council, which felt
inclined to yield to the frantic protestation of the clergy, the
burghers practically forced Ketelhot to come into the city, and made
him preach at St. Nicholas'.
In 1523, Duke Bogislaw, accompanied by four hundred horsemen, proceeded
to Nuremberg to settle his disagreement with the Elector of
Brandenburg. Among his suite were Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow and
his son Christian. The lad, lively and strong for his age, made his
horse curvet and prance, so that it threw him and crushed him with all
its weight. Young Smiterlow was deformed all his life; but when it
became evident that there was no remedy, his father sent him to the
University of Wittemberg; but for the accident he would have placed him
in business at Lubeck.
On his way home Duke Bogislaw stopped at Wittemberg to see Luther, the
turbulent monk. Before they had exchanged many words, the prince in a
jocular tone said: "Master Doctor, you had better let me confess to
you." Luther, however, replied very quickly: "No, no, gracious lord!
Your Highness is too exalted a penitent, and I am too lowly to give him
absolution." Luther was thinking of the august birth of his
interlocutor, who, moreover, was exceedingly tall of stature, but the
Duke took the reply as an allusion to the gravity of his backslidings,
and dismissed Luther without inviting him to his table.
During the absence of Duke Bogislaw, the images were destroyed at
Stralsund as I am going to narrate. On Monday of Holy Week, 1523, Frau
Schermer sent her servant to St. Nicholas' for a box containing relics
which she wished to have repaired.[7] Some workmen, noticing that a
sacred object was being taken away, began to knock down everything;
their constantly increasing numbers ran riot in the churches and in the
convents; the altars were overtoppled, and the images thrown to the
four winds. With the exception of the custodian of St. John's, monks
and priests fled from the city. Thereupon the council issued an order
that everybody had to bring back his loot on the following Wednesday to
the old market. The burghers only obeyed reluctantly; they only
restored the wooden images, but the more valuable ones were not to be
found. Two women were brought before the council; the woman Bandelwitz
deliberately defied the burgomaster, looked him straight into the face
and addressed him as follows: "What dost thou want with me, Johannes
Heye? Why hast thou summoned me before thee? What crime have I
committed?"
"Thou shalt know very soon," replied the burgomaster, and had her put
under lock and key. The same fate befell the other woman. In the market
place the partisans of the old doctrines had taken to arms and were
much excited, while the evangelists loudly expressed their indignation
at this double incarceration. Bailiff (or sheriff) Schroeder made his
appearance on horseback, and showed with a kind of affectation a
communion cup he had confiscated, and swore to "do" for all the
evangelicals. Leaping on to a fishmonger's bench, L. Vischer cried in a
thundering voice: "Rally to me all those who wish to live and die for
the Gospel."[8] The greater number rallied to his side. From the
windows of the Town House the councillors had been watching the scene,
and they began to fear for their personal safety when they should wish
to go home. Rolof Moller went upstairs to make the situation clear to
them; the two women were discharged after an imprisonment of less than
an hour, and the Council asked the burghers to let the matter rest
there, professing their goodwill towards them; but the crowd, slow to
abate its anger, occupied the place up to four o'clock, after which the
councillors could make their way without danger.
When Duke Bogislaw returned, the Stralsund council endeavoured to
persuade His Highness that the destruction of the images had taken
place in spite of them. In his great anger the prince would not hear of
any justification; he accused the people of Stralsund of having failed
in their duty towards religion as well as against the sovereign who was
the patron of the city's churches. He added that the devil would bring
them to account for it. The duke died on September 29 of the same year
at Stettin, leaving two sons, George and Barnim.[9]
The disturbances, nevertheless, continued, for the burghers saw with
displeasure that the council, following the example of Princes George
and Barnim, persisted in popish practices, thereby delaying the
progress of Evangelism. On the Monday of St. John, 1524, Rolof Moller,
at the head of a big troop of men, made his appearance in the old
market place and, mounted also on a fishmonger's stall, began
addressing the people, who applauded him. The dissensions between the
magistrates and the burghers became more accentuated every day, and
plainly foretold the ruin of public business. Moller observed no
measure in his attacks on the council. He was just about thirty,
clever, and, with an attractive personality, he might count upon being
sooner or later elected burgomaster. It was only a question of time.
His presumption blinded him to the reality; intoxicated with popular
favour, he allowed himself certain excesses against the council, took
his flight before his wings had grown, and dragged a number of people
down with him in his fall. The city itself did not recover from the
effects of all this for close upon a century.
Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, a personage of great consideration, a
clever spokesman, and of a firm and generous disposition, was a member
of the council for seventeen years. Duke Bogislaw, who fully
appreciated his work, took him to the conference at Nuremberg. The
journey enabled the burgomaster to hear the gospel preached in its
purity, and to become aware of the fatal error of papism. At Wittemberg
he heard Luther preach. As a consequence, he was the first to proclaim
the wholesome doctrine in open council, though the opposition of that
body prevented him from supporting the propagators of the true faith
when they kept within reasonable limits. He interposed between the
council, the princes, and the exalted personages of the land, who were
still wedded to papism, and Rolof Moller, the Forty-Eight, and their
adherents who wished to carry things with too high a hand. Smiterlow
told the council to show themselves less unbending with the burghers in
all just and reasonable things. On the other hand, he exhorted the
citizens to show more deference to the magistrates, giving the former
the assurance that the preachers should not be molested, and that the
gospel should not be hampered in its course. Unfortunately, his efforts
failed on both sides.
Then the crisis occurred. The ringleaders--among the most turbulent,
Franz Wessel, L. Vischer, Bartholomaei Buchow, Hermann Meyer and
Nicholas Rode lifted Rolof Moller from his fishmonger's bench--took him
to the Town House, and made him take his seat in the burgomaster's
chair.[10] The council was compelled to accept Rolof and Christopher
Lorbeer as burgomasters, and eight of the citizens as councillors. In
order to save their heads, the magistrates found themselves compelled
to share with their sworn enemies both the small bench of the four
burgomasters and the larger bench of twenty-four councillors. As for
Smiterlow, his was the fate of those who interfere between two
contending parties, the peacemakers invariably coming to grief like the
iron between the anvil and the hammer. When Rolof Moller entered the
burgomaster's pew Smiterlow left it, and inasmuch as his consummate
experience foretold him of his danger he came to Greifswald with his
two sons to ask my mother's hospitality.[11]
The tolerance shown at this conjuncture by the young princes George and
Barnim was due to two reasons. In the first place they expected to get
the upper hand of the city without much trouble after it became worn
out with domestic dissensions. Secondly, a band of zealots, with Dr.
Johannes Amandus at their head, scoured the country, especially Eastern
Pomerania, inciting the people to break the images, and preaching from
the pulpit the sweeping away of all refuse, princes included. In the
eyes of the papists, those people and the evangelicals were but one and
the same set, and as their number happened to be imposing, the princes
considered it prudent to lay low.
The flight of the priests and monks gave the magistrates the
opportunity of listening to the preaching of Christian Ketelhot and
his colleagues. In a short while the council's eyes were opened to the
true light, and in accord with the Forty-Eight and the burghers
themselves, they assigned the churches to the evangelical preachers;
the monastery, that is, the supreme direction of all the ministers and
servitors of the church being confided to Ketelhot, who exercised it
for twenty-three years, in fact, up to the day of his death. Canons and
vicars had taken the precaution to collect all the specie, valuables
and title deeds, amounting to considerable sums; they entrusted to
certain councillors of Greifswald chests and lockers filled with
chalices, rich chasubles and various holy vessels. They occasionally
converted these into money and handed to the debtors certain annuities
at half-price. Consequently, the hospitals, churches, and pious
foundations lost both their capital and their income. A long time after
these events the sons of my relative, Christian Schwartz, dispatched to
me for restitution to the council of Stralsund, a sailor's locker which
had stood for forty years under their father's bed. It contained velvet
chasubles embroidered with silver and pearls, in addition to a couple
of silver crucifixes. Though their rules forbade the monks of St. John
to touch coined metal, the father custodian did not scruple to carry
away with him all that the convent held in clinking coin and precious
objects.
Called to the ministry by a small group of citizens who had not given a
thought to the question of his salary, Ketelhot had no other resource
for his daily sustenance than the city "wine cellar" and _The King
Arthur_.[12] He found hospitable board and good company, but the life
was detrimental to his studies. A Jew with whom he flattered himself he
was studying the _lingua sancta_ induced him to announce from the
pulpit the _error a Judaeo conceptus_. As a consequence the council
promptly appointed Johannes Knipstro as superintendent at Stralsund. He
was the first that bore the title there, and Ketelhot neither suffered
in consideration, rank, nor benefices. He remained all his life
_primarius pastor_, and his effigy at St. Nicholas, facing the pulpit,
is inscribed with the words: _Repurgator ecclesiae Sundensis_.
Appointed in 1524, Knipstro, by his talent and solicitude, succeeded in
leading Ketelhot back to the right path, for he broke for ever with the
_error_. The two ministers lived in the most brotherly understanding.
Ketelhot was no more jealous of the superintendent than Knipstro, took
umbrage at the title of _primarius pastor_. They were not vainglorious,
as were later on Runge and Kruse. Gradually the dukes admitted that the
evangelicals, far from making common cause with the zealots of Eastern
Pomerania, energetically opposed them. The Stralsund preachers were
henceforth left in peace; they were more firmly established in their
functions, and neither the council nor the citizens were any longer
molested for having called them.
I now beg to resume the story of my family from the year 1523. My
parents started house-keeping in the midst of plenty; they had a mill
and a brewery, sold their corn, butter, honey, wool and feathers, and
were even blessed with the superfluous. Everything was so cheap that it
seemed easy to make money. It seemed as if the golden age had returned.
Nevertheless, prosperity had to make room for misfortune.
In the course of that year (1523), in fact, George Hartmann, the
son-in-law of Doctor Stroientin,[13] bought of my father a quantity of
butter. A violent discussion having occurred between them, Hartmann,
who was on his way to Burgomaster Peter Kirchschwanz with a short sword
belonging to the latter, went instead to his mother-in-law to pour his
grievances into her ears. This haughty and purse-proud woman, full of
contempt for very humble folk because she happened to have married a
doctor and a ducal counsellor (I omit for charity's sake some details
which I shall tell my children by word of mouth), that woman, I say,
presented her son-in-law with a hatchet, saying: "There, go to market
with this piece of money, and buy a bit of courage." Emboldened by a
safe-conduct of the prince, which Doctor Stroientin had got for him,
Hartmann fell in with my father at the top of the Sporenmacher Strasse.
He was going to the public weigh-house to have a case of honey weighed,
and he had not as much as a pocket knife wherewith to repel an
assailant armed with a sword and a hatchet. He rushed into a
spurmaker's shop, getting hold of a large pitchfork, but the bystanders
wrenched it out of his hands; moreover, they prevented him taking
refuge in the gallery. Thereupon my father snatched up a long stick
with an iron prod standing against the wall, and going back into the
street, shouted:
"Let the fellow who wants to take my life come out and show himself."
At these words, Hartmann issued from an adjoining workshop. Not
satisfied with his short sword and his hatchet, he had taken a hammer
from the anvil and flung it at my father, who warded it with his stick,
though only partly, for my father spat blood for several days. The
hatchet went the same way, and just caught my father on the shoulder.
The double exploit having imbued him with the idea that the game was
won, the aggressor made a rush with his bare sword, but my father
spitted him on his iron-prodded pole, and Hartmann dropped down dead.
This is the true account of this deplorable accident. I am quite aware
of the version invented by the ill-will of the others, which is to the
effect that my father having found Hartmann altogether disarmed behind
the stove in the spurmaker's room, straightway killed him on the spot.
These are vain rumours, _nugae sunt, fabulae sunt_.
My father sought asylum with the "black" monks, to whom he was known.
They hid him at the top of the church in a recess near the vault. In a
little while Doctor Stroientin, at the head of his servants and of a
numerous group of followers, came to search every nook and corner of
the convent. Naturally, he went into the church, and the fugitive,
fancying it was all over with him, was going to speak in order to prove
his innocence; fortunately Providence closed his lips and shut his
enemies' eyes. In the middle of the night the monks smuggled him over
the wall. Keeping to the high road, he succeeded in reaching
Neuenkirchen, where a peasant's cart, sent by his father-in-law, was
waiting for him. He managed to squeeze himself into a sack of fodder by
the side of a sack of barley. Doctor Stroientin stopped the vehicle on
the road. The driver told him he was going to Stralsund. "What have you
got there?" asked the doctor, beating the sacks with him. "Barley and
my fodder," was the answer. "Have not you noticed any one going in a
great hurry either on horseback or on foot?" "Yes; I saw a man
galloping as hard as he could in the direction of Horst. I may have
been mistaken, but I fancy it was Sastrow, of Greifswald, and I was
wondering why he should be scouring the highway at that hour of night."
Stroientin wanted to hear no more. He turned his horse's head as fast
as it would go in the direction of Horst.
My father reached Stralsund without further trouble; the council gave
him a safe-conduct, which was only a broken reed in the way of a
guarantee, for he had to deal with proud, rich and powerful enemies.
Doctor Stroientin, His Highness' counsellor, took particular advantage
of the fact that Hartmann enjoyed the protection of Duke George. My
father went from pillar to post in Denmark, at Lubeck, at Hamburg, and
other spots; finally, he appeased his suzerain by paying him a
considerable sum in cash; then, after long-drawn negotiations, his
father-in-law succeeded in reconciling him with his adversaries. The
expiatory fine was 1,000 marks, but Greifswald, where the family of the
deceased resided, remained closed to him. Nor did the 1,000 marks prove
any benefit to the son of Hartmann; the contrary has been the case.
Misfortune pursued him without cessation in his health, his wealth, his
wife and children.
At the gates of Stralsund stood the monastery of St. Brigitta; monks
and nuns inhabited different parts. A wall divided the gardens. It was,
however, by no means high enough to prove an obstacle to a nimble
climber. It is the monks that did the cooking, and the dishes came to
the nuns in a kind of lift large enough for one person. How the vow of
chastity was observed was proved on the day of the invasion of the
convent, when the skeletons, head and bones of new-born children were
found everywhere.
At the period of the invasion of the churches and the monasteries,
Franz Wessel, who at that time had discharged the functions of
councillor for more than a twelvemonth, was charged with preventing at
St. Catherine's the abstraction of precious objects. In order to cut
short the idolatrous practices, he had a trench dug at the door of the
garden of eighteen ells long, in which the images were buried. On the
Holy Thursday, between four and six in the morning, the nuns whose
retreat had been attacked were taken to St. Catherine's. Wessel
received them courteously on the threshold of the cloister, took the
abbess by the hand and intoned the popish hymn _Veni, sponsa
salvatoris_, etc. The abbess begged of him to cease this joking, and
rather to welcome her with some flagons of wine. Wessel objected that
the hour was too early to begin drinking.
I have narrated the circumstances which compelled Burgomaster Nicholas
Smiterlow to take refuge at my mother's with his two sons, Nicholas and
Bertrand. The first-named, a doughty young man, good-looking and of
independent character, had with great credit to himself terminated his
studies. I have rarely seen such beautiful handwriting as his.
Impatient to see the world, he felt himself cramped in Pomerania, and
when he heard that Emperor Charles had an army in Italy, he induced his
father to give him an outfit and to allow him to join it. Provided with
a well-lined purse, he joined the Imperial troops, took part in the
storming and sacking of Rome, got a great deal of loot, but fell ill
and died.
Fate proved not more lenient to Doctor Zutfeld Wardenberg, also the son
of a burgomaster. Berckmann and other writers have made him pass as a
great prelate. Be this as it may; he certainly fancied himself a member
of the Trinity which rules the universe. In his official functions he
observed no law but his own sweet will. His own house contained a
prison, and he behaved as if the council did not exist. In short, he
wound up by setting the magistrates against him to such an extent that
one night he judged it prudent to leave the city. His brother, Joachim,
opened the gates to him without authority--a piece of daring which cost
him ten weeks of imprisonment in the Blue Tower. At the sacking of
Rome, Zutfeld Wardenberg tried to hide himself among the invalids of a
hospital. He was soon discovered, killed, and everything taken away
from him. In the church of St. Mary, at Stralsund, stands the handsome
mausoleum he had prepared for himself, together with an epitaph setting
forth his titles, but his body lies somewhere at Rome, no one knows
where.
Burgomaster Smiterlow was as frank in his speech as he was open of
heart. When he conversed in the street his strong and clear voice could
be heard a couple of yards off. All his speeches began with "Yes, in
the name of Jesus." One day, after dinner, he went into his stables
where, as a rule, he had three horses; he saw one of his stablemen
strike one of the animals with a pitchfork, saying, in imitation of
himself, "In the name of Jesus." Smiterlow snatched the implement away
from him, then stuck it between his shoulders so that he dropped down,
and quietly remarked: "Now and again I cause people to cry 'In the name
of all the devils.'"
According to the custom of the papists, my mother went at half-past
twelve, especially during Lent, to recite a Pater Noster and an Ave
Maria before each of the three altars of her ordinary church. She
always took her little Bartholomaei with her. On one occasion I sat down
on the steps of the first altar and began to relieve nature; when she
passed on to the second, I followed her and continued the operation,
which I finished on the third. When my mother perceived what had
occurred she rushed home in hot haste and sent a servant with a broom
to repair the mischief. Seeing how young she was when separated from
her husband and left with four young children, it is not surprising
that my mother had moments of sadness and discouragement. One day that
she was cutting up some dry fish, a piece fell from the block. I picked
it up. Without noticing my mother stooped at the same time, and as I
was rising, the edge of the hatchet cut my forehead. The scar was never
effaced. The Lord be praised, though, the accident had no further
consequence.
Hartmann's family having received satisfaction, my father appointed to
meet his wife and his children at the manse of Neuenkirchen. It was in
the autumn and the pears were ripe. After having shaken down and eaten
as many as they could, the children began to pelt each other with them.
A big pear dropped under the hoofs of a couple of horses tied to a
large pear tree. When I stooped to get hold of it, one of the animals
dealt me a severe kick at the temple. There was general consternation,
and the wound being seemingly dangerous, we came back immediately to
town, and I was taken to the doctor.
The Dukes George and Barnim came to Stralsund with four hundred
horsemen; they received homage and confirmed the privileges of the
city. As for the claims of the priests, it was decided to refer them to
the Imperial Chamber. Burgomasters, councillors, burghers, preachers
(in all about threescore), were summoned to depose on oath before the
Imperial Commissioners, sitting at Greifswald. The lawsuit cost the
city a considerable sum; the clergy practically flung the money away,
but the rector, Hippolytus Steinwer, began to perceive that the chances
were turning against them, and one day he was found dead. It was
believed he had strangled himself from vexation. That event put an end
to the litigation. The priests returned one after another to Stralsund.
Gradually the sobered citizens began to open their eyes to the serious
prejudice which was being done to public and private interests by the
agitation of Moller. On the other hand, the princes had learned to know
Smiterlow during the journey to Nuremberg; they were also aware of the
esteem in which he had been held by their father. All those feelings
showed themselves on the occasion of the rendering of homage. Rolof
Moller was obliged to leave the city, and Burgomaster Smiterlow
re-entered it on August 1, 1526. Moller, after a stay of several years
at Stettin, received permission to come back to Stralsund, Smiterlow
giving his consent; but scarcely a fortnight after his return had gone
by when he died, it was said, of grief; and the assumption was
sufficiently plausible.
Hence, Smiterlow spent the time of his exile at my mother's, at
Greifswald, while his house at Stralsund sheltered my father. The wives
of the two banished men went constantly and at all seasons from one
town to another, through hail, snow, rain, frost and cold, and also to
the great detriment of their purse and their health.
I have often been told afterwards I was a restless, energetic child. I
often went up to the tower of St. Nicholas's, and on one occasion I
made the round of it outside. My mother, standing on the threshold of
her house, facing the church, was a witness of the feat, and dared
scarcely breathe until her son came down safe and skin-whole. It would
appear that little Bartholomaei had his reward at her hands.
While at Greifswald I had already been sent to school. Besides reading,
I was taught declension, comparisons and conjugation, according to the
grammar of Donat; after which we passed to Torrentinus. On Palm Sunday
I was selected to intone the _Quantus_; the preceding years I had sung
at first the short, then the long _Hic est_. What an honour for the
child and for the parents! It was a real feast, for as a rule the
sharpest boys are chosen those who, undeterred by the crowds of priests
and laymen, bring out their clearest notes, especially for the
_Quantus_. The continuation of this story will, however, soon show how,
from being sanguine, my temperament became melancholy, and how my
gaiety and recklessness vanished.