My Student's Days at Greifswald--Victor Bole and his tragical End--A
Servant possessed by the Devil--My Brother Johannes' Preceptors and
Mine--My Father's never-ending Law Suits
Having acquired the certainty that the Hartmanns would never consent to
my father's return to Greifswald, my parents, like the conscientious
married couple they were, desired to bear in common the domestic
burdens. In the spring of 1528 my mother, after having let her dwelling
at Greifswald, joined her husband at Stralsund, where he had the
freeman's right and a tumble-down old house. My maternal grandfather,
Christian Schwarz, at that time city treasurer, kept me with him in
order to let me pursue my studies. I underwent the ceremonial of
installation, a kind of burlesque function of initiation applied to
novices. My tutor was George Normann, of the island of Ruegen, who
terminated his career in the service of the King of Sweden. I was the
reverse of a studious boy and fonder of roving about with my relative
in his journeys about Greifswald than of books. As a consequence my
mental progress was in proportion to my efforts.
There was at Greifswald a burgomaster named Victor Bole, belonging to a
notable family of the island of Ruegen. Before he attained his civic
honours he was a good evangelical and a zealous friend of the
preachers, but his apostasy was thorough. As much as he had supported
the ministry before his election, as much did he oppose them
afterwards. I remember seeing him at the meetings of the corporation
seated in the front place in virtue of his dual quality of eldest
member and burgomaster, more or less in liquor, browbeating and talking
everybody down (in High-German always). As he had taken part in several
expeditions, fighting was the invariable theme of his discourses. He
generally summoned the musicians, cymbal players and pipers before him.
"Dost thou know a war cry?" he asked of a piper. "Yes, certainly," was
the reply, while shrill notes rent the air. But the burgomaster was
beaming. "This, at any rate, is a useful kind of fellow; while that
Knipstro of Stralsund stammers in the pulpit about _pap_, _pap_, _pap_,
I am sure he could play a war cry. Then what's the good of him?"
"Those who laugh last laugh loudest," says the proverb. That same year,
1528, the King of the May was Bertrand Smiterlow. I walked in front of
him carrying his crown. Bole did Smiterlow the honour to prance by his
side, being very pleased to parade his servants and his horses, of the
latter of which he had four in his stable. If the skies had shown a
little bit more clement we should have been very happy. But though it
was the 1st May, there was not a bud nor a blade of grass to be seen.
On the contrary, the snow powdered our procession with large flakes,
both on coming and on going. As a consequence everybody was in a hurry
to get back again. Odd to relate, the seed did not seem to suffer.
After they had presented the crown to the May King in the city,
everybody galloped back to his own roof tree. When the burgomaster
reached his house he was taken with such violent colic that he had
scarcely time to hand his horse to his servant before he dropped down
dead. His neck was entirely twisted round, and his face was black. As a
matter of course, people ascribed it to a visitation of God for having
made fun of those who preached His Word.
In 1528 the States were called together at Stettin to ratify the pact
of succession between the Elector of Brandenburg and the Dukes of
Pomerania. The deputy of Greifswald, Burgomaster Gaspard Bunsaw, my
mother's first cousin, took me with him as page, or rather as
companion, and also to enable me to see something new. Our host had a
magnificent garden; on the banks of a vast lake uprose a vast tower
with an inside staircase, closed by a trap. One day that the company
was amusing itself in watching the carps from that tower, I hauled
myself up to the window out of curiosity, but I forgot the yawning trap
door behind me, and was flung right to the bottom. It was a miracle
that I did not break my neck, or, at any rate, my arms and my legs.
Heaven preserved me by means of its angels, who frustrate the tricks of
the Evil One.
At the age of five, Nicholas, the eldest son of Bertrand Smiterlow, was
already much taller and stronger than I; this incarnate fiend worried
all the children of the neighbourhood, and instead of reprimanding him,
his father took no notice of the complaints against him. This
indulgence bore such excellent fruit that in order to prevent disputes
and perhaps personal violence between young Nicholas' father and the
neighbours, Christian Schwarz considered it advisable to take Nicholas
to live with him, and so we shared the same bed. One morning as we were
dressing on the big locker at the foot of the bed, the youngster,
without saying a word and out of sheer mischief, hit me right in the
chest and made me tumble backward, a downright dangerous fall. The
grandfather gave a dinner-party to his children and other people. Late
in the evening the servants came with links to take their masters home.
While they were waiting for that purpose, Nicholas began to play them
tricks, which they endured from fear of the grandfather. Rendered bold
by impunity, Nicholas struck some of the servants on the lips, but one
of these retorted by a box on the ears which sent Nicholas whining to
his grandfather. After the banquet the lanterns were lighted, and
everybody was preparing to get home quietly when Bertrand Smiterlow,
drawing his knife, rushed at the offending servant, who was lighting
his master on his way, and wounded him seriously in the shoulder. On
account of all this Christian Schwarz preferred to send me back to
Stralsund to leaving me to enjoy the risky society of Nicholas. The boy
grew up and his faults with him, for they amused his father, who
encouraged them while nobody dared to say a word in protest. Nicholas
had reached the age of twenty-seven when travelling to Rostock, he
stopped for the night at Roevershagen. Some travellers, knowing his
quarrelsome character, preferred to take themselves and their
conveyance to the inn opposite. One of these had a sporting dog, which,
running about, found its way into the hostel where Smiterlow was
staying. The latter tied up the animal, did not send it back, and next
morning the rightful owner saw it being taken away on a leash.
Naturally, the man claimed his dog. Smiterlow, instead of giving him a
civil answer, takes aim at him; the other, more prompt, quickly fires a
bullet into the thigh. Smiterlow, in his wounded condition, got as far
as Rostock, had his wound attended to; nevertheless died a few days
later in consequence. The merchant continued his route without
troubling himself, and no one lodged a complaint. Bertrand Smiterlow
contracted the itch in the back; father and son, therefore, had their
just reward. Heaven preserve me from criticizing the descendants of
Herr Smiterlow, to whom I am doubly related, but I trust that mine will
bring up their children in a more severe discipline and in the respect
of their fellow-men.
In 1529 the English pest which had already been spoken of during the
previous year, carried away many people at Stralsund. My mother had two
attacks, from both of which she fortunately recovered. Being _enceinte_
with my brother Christian, she ordered, like the good housewife she
was, a general cleaning before her confinement. It so happened that we
had a servant-girl who was possessed. Nobody had the faintest suspicion
of this. When, at the moment of cleaning the kitchener and cooking
utensils, she began noisily to fling about saucepans, frying-pans,
etc., crying at the top of her voice, "I want to get out, I want to get
out." Her mother, who lived in the Zinngiesser Strasse (Pewterers'
Street), had to take her back. The poor girl was taken several times in
a sleigh to St. Nicholas's, and they exorcised her after the sermon.
Her case, as far as the answers tended to show, was as follows: The
mother had brought new cheese at the market. In her absence, the
daughter had opened the cupboard and made a large breach in the cheese;
the mother, on her return, had expressed the wish that the devil might
take the perpetrator of this thing, and from that moment dated the
"possession." The girl had, nevertheless, been to Communion since; how,
then, could the Evil One have kept his position? The priest,
interrogated on that point, had answered: "The scoundrel, who has
hidden himself under a bridge, lets the honest man pass over his head";
in other words, during the sacramental act, the Evil One hid himself
under the girl's tongue. The Evil One was excommunicated and exorcised
by the faithful on their bended knees. The formula of exorcism was
received with derision. When the priest summoned him to go, he
exclaimed: "I am agreeable, but you do not expect me to go with empty
hands. I want this, and that, and the other." If they refused him one
thing he asked for something quite different; and inasmuch as one of
the faithful had remained "covered" during prayers, the Evil One
politely snatched up his hat, and if God had let him have his own way,
hair and skin would have accompanied the headgear.
At about the same period I witnessed an analogous fact. Frau Kron, an
honest and pious matron, was possessed by a demon; the minister was
preparing to drive it out at all costs when Frau Wolff entered. She was
a young woman who surpassed her sisters in the art of beautifying her
face, arranging her cap, and posing before the looking glass. When the
evil spirit caught sight of her, he shouted. "Ah, you are here, are
you? Just wait a bit till I arrange your cap before the mirror. Your
ears shall tingle, I can tell you."
To come back to our own servant. When the power of mischief noticed
that the time for tormenting her had passed away, and that the Lord was
granting the prayers of the faithful, the Evil One asked in a mocking
tone a pane of the belfry's window, which request was no sooner
accorded to him than the pane shivered into ever so many splinters. The
girl, however, ceased to be possessed; she married in the village, and
had several children.
My brother Johannes had for his first tutor Herr Aepinus, before the
latter had his doctor's degree,[14] and afterwards Hermannus Bonus,[15]
who would have been pleased to settle at Stralsund with fifty florins
per annum, but the council of that particular period did not contain
one member who had had a university training. Like the princes the
council inclined towards papism, and looked askance at men of letters;
hence, it rejected Bonnus' overtures. The latter soon afterwards became
the tutor of the young King of Denmark, for whose use he composed his
_Praecepta Grammaticae_, which was much more easy than the Donat
Grammar, and prevails to the present day under the title of the
_Grammatica Bonni_. At his return from Denmark, Bonnus was appointed
superintendent at Lubeck, where he is interred _honorifice_ behind the
choir.
When my brother left the school at Lubeck, my parents made many heavy
sacrifices to keep him at Wittemberg for several years, where,
notwithstanding some _delicta juventutis_, he studied with advantage.
My tutor's name was Matthias Brassanus. At the outset of his career he
had been a monk at the monastery of Camp, but at the suppression of the
institution he had lived at Wittemberg at the cost of the prince, like
Leonard Meisisch, the future court preacher and minister at Wolgast,
and afterwards pastor at Altenkirchen--a downright Epicurean pig!
Brassanus, on the other hand, was a small, polite, temperate,
well-bred, evenly balanced man. After his stay at Wittemberg he became
the preceptor of George and Johannes Smiterlow, and afterwards _rector
scholae_. Their worships of Lubeck having prevailed upon the council of
Stralsund to part with this able teacher, Brassanus devoted the whole
of his life successfully directing the school of Lubeck.
I profited as much by the lessons as my natural restlessness of
character permitted. There was a great deal of aptitude, but the
application failed. In the winter time I ran amusing myself on the
floating ice with my fellow-scholars of my own age. Johannes
Gottschalk, our ringleader, always got scot-free, thanks to his long
legs, while the rest of the gang (and I was invariably with them) took
many enforced footbaths in order to get safely to the banks. My father,
in crossing the bridge had occasion more than once to witness the
prowess of his son, who received many a sound drubbing when he came to
dry himself before the stove, for my father was a choleric gentleman.
In summer I was in the habit of bathing with my chums behind Lorbeer's
grange, which at present is my property. Burgomaster Smiterlow, having
noticed me from his garden, told of me, and one day, while I was still
asleep, my father planted himself in front of my bed, flourishing a big
stick. He spoke very loudly while placing himself into position, and I
was obliged to open my eyes. The sight of the club told me that my hour
had come; I burst into tears and pleaded for mercy. "Very well, my good
sir," said my father; when he called me "my good sir" it was a bad
sign. "Very well, my good sir, you have been bathing; now allow me to
rub you down." Saying which, he got hold of his weapon, pulled my shirt
over my head, and did frightful execution.
My parents brought us up carefully. My father was somewhat hasty, and
now and again his anger carried him beyond all bounds. I put him out of
temper one day when he was in the stable and I at the door. He caught
up a pitchfork and flung it at me. I had just time to get out of the
way; the pitchfork stuck into a bath made of oak, and they had much
trouble to get it out. In that way the Evil One was frustrated in all
his designs against me by Providence. In a similar case, my mother, who
was gentleness and tenderness itself, came running to the spot. "Strike
harder," she said, "the wicked boy deserves all he gets." At the same
time she slyly held back the arm of her husband, preventing the stick
from coming down too heavily. Oh, my children, pray that the knowledge
may be vouchsafed to you of bringing up your family in the way they
should go. Correct them temperately, without compromising either their
health or their intelligence, but at the same time do not imitate the
apes who from excess of tenderness, smother their young.
Rector Brassanus insisted upon his pupils being present when he
preached. Some were clever enough to get away on the sly; they went to
buy pepper cakes, and repaired afterwards to the dram shop. The trick
was done before there was time to look round. When the sermon drew to
its close, every one was in his place again, and we went back to school
as if nothing had happened. One day, however, we drank so much brandy
that I felt horribly sick and vomited violently, and found it
impossible either to keep on my legs or to articulate a syllable. The
strongest of my schoolfellows took me home. My parents were under the
impression that I was seriously ill; had they suspected the real cause
of my malady, their treatment would have been less tender. When, at
last, I avowed the truth, the fear of punishment had long ago vanished.
The adventure was productive of some good. It inspired me with a
thorough disgust for brandy, so that I could not even bear the smell of
it.
My daily playmate was George Smiterlow, for we were neighbours, nearly
relatives, and of about the same age, I being but a year older than he.
One day he cut me with his knife between the index and the thumb, and I
still bear the scar.
As I was whittling a piece of wood, my sister Anna snatched it away
from me, and in trying to get it back again, I drove the chisel into my
right thigh up to the handle. Master Joachim Gelhaar, an excellent
_chirurgus_, renowned far and wide, began by probing the wound, and by
getting the bad blood out of it; after which he dressed it with a
cabbage leaf which was constantly kept moist. I was just recovering the
use of my leg again when I took it into my head to go to the wood with
my schoolfellows, for it was always difficult for me to keep still. The
fatigue thus incurred caused a relapse. Next morning I dragged myself
as far as the surgeon, who suspected my excursion, and swore at seeing
a month of his efforts wasted. I should have been in a nice predicament
if he had complained to my father.
In 1531, on the Monday before St. Bartholomew, they burned at
Stralsund, Bischof, a tailor who had outraged his own daughter, aged
twelve. The fellow was so strong that he jumped from the pyre when the
fire had destroyed his bonds, but the executioner plunged his knife
into him, and flung him back into the flames.
The following happened in June, 1532. A young fellow, good-looking, and
with most fascinating manner, but by no means well enough in worldly
goods, courted a more or less well-preserved widow, notwithstanding her
nine children of her first husband, which subsequently she increased by
another nine of her second. Tempted by the amiability, the appearance,
and the demeanour of the youngster, the dame consented to be his wife.
The happy day was already fixed, the viands ordered, and the
preparations completed, but the bridegroom was at a loss how to pay for
his wedding clothes, the customary presents and other things. Hence,
one fine evening he left the city, and in the early morn reached the
village of Putten, where, espying a ladder on a peasant's cart, he puts
it against the wall of the church, breaks one of its windows, gets
inside, forces the reliquary, possessing himself of the chalices, other
holy vessels, all the gold and silver work, not forgetting the wooden
box containing the money. After which, taking the way whence he had
come, he flung away the box and entered the city laden with the spoil.
A local cowherd, driving his cattle to the field, happened to pick up
the box. At the selfsame moment the sight of the ladder and of the
broken window sets the whole of the place, rector, beadle, clerk, and
peasantry, mad with excitement. The whole village is up in arms; the
neighbouring roads are scoured in search of the perpetrator of the
sacrilege. At twelve o'clock, the cowherd comes back with the box. He
is arrested; the patrons of the church, who reside in the city, have
him put to the torture. He confesses to the theft. There was,
nevertheless, the absolute impossibility for him to have got rid of the
stolen objects, inasmuch as he had been guarding his cattle during the
five or six hours that had gone by between the robbery and his arrest;
the slightest inquiry would have conclusively proved his innocence. In
spite of this, the confession dragged from the poor wretch by
unbearable pain, appears most conclusive. Condemned there and then, he
is there and then put on the wheel. The real culprit watched the
execution with the utmost composure.
The proceeds of this first crime were, however, by no means sufficient
to defray the cost of the wedding, and the bridegroom forced another
church. He took a reliquary and a holy vessel, reduced them to
fragments, and tried to sell them to some goldsmiths at Greifswald.
This time he was unable to lead the pursuers off the scent. Having been
arrested in the house of my wife's parents, he was racked alive, and
his body left to the carrion birds.
A similar tragedy took place between the Easter and Whitsun of 1544. I
anticipate events, because the horror of them was pretty well equal,
but there was a great difference in the procedure. In the one case,
deplorable acts, at variance with all wisdom, and disgraceful to
Christians; in the other place, a thoroughly laudable conduct,
consistent with right and reason. On his return from Leipzig, whither
he had gone to buy books, Johannes Altingk, the son of the late Werner
Altingk, a notable citizen and bookseller of Stralsund, was killed on
the road from Anelam to Greifswald. In consequence of active inquiries,
two individuals on whom rested grave suspicions, were incarcerated at
Wolgast. But the case was proceeded with more methodically than the one
I have just narrated. The magistrates went with the instruments of
torture to the prisoner, who seemed the least resolved. He made a
complete avowal. His companion and he had put up for the night at an
inn at Grosskistow; Johannes Altingk had taken his seat at their table
and shared their meal. Then, before going to bed, he had paid for all
three, showing at the same time a well filled purse. The scoundrels had
at once made up their minds between them to kill him at a little
distance from the inn on the foot-road, intersected here and there by
deep ruts, and where consequently there was only room to pass in single
file. "Next morning, then, when the young bookseller was marching along
between his fellow-travellers, I struck him at the back of the head;"
said the accused. "The blow knocked him off his feet; we soon made an
end of him altogether, and flung his body to the bottom of the deep
bog. With my part of the spoil I bought myself this hat and this pair
of shoes."
After this interrogatory, the judges, accompanied by the executioner
and his paraphernalia, went to the second prisoner, who denied
everything. It was in vain they pressed him and told him of his
accomplice's avowal; he went on denying everything. When they were
confronted, the one who had been first examined repeated all the
particulars of the crime, beseeching the other to prevent a double
martyrdom, inasmuch as the truth would be dragged from them by torture,
and the punishment was unavoidable. No doubt the Stralsund authorities,
those who had judged the above named perpetrator of the sacrilege,
would have put the accused on the rack without the least compunction or
ceremony, _de simplice et piano, sine strepitu judicii, quemadmodum
Deus procedere solet_. At Wolgast, on the contrary, though the hangman
had orders to hold himself in readiness, _ad actum propinquum_, the
magistrates preferred to exercise some delay. The prince had the bog
examined, but no body was found there. When taken to the spot, the
prisoner who had confessed his guilt recognized the place of the
murder, without being able, however, to point it out accurately. The
landlord and his wife at Gross-Kistow, when examined carefully, denied
having lodged any one at the period indicated.
Finally, a messenger of the Brandenburg March brought the news that an
assassin condemned to death confessed to having killed in Pomerania a
young librarian, for which crime two individuals were under lock and
key at Wolgast. When taxed with having almost caused the death of
innocent people by false avowals, the self-confessed murderer replied
that death seemed to him preferable to the "criminal question," as that
kind of torture was called. Their acquittal was pronounced on their
taking the oath to bring no further action.
But this only shows the precautions to be taken before applying the
instruments of torture to merely suspected men. On the other hand, it
has been shown over and over again that some of the guilty hardened to
that kind of thing will allow themselves to be torn to pieces sooner
than avow.
In that year (1531) Duke George died in the prime of his life. His
second wife was the sister to Margrave Joachim; they got rid of her for
about 40,000 florins, and she subsequently married a prince of Anhalt,
but finally she eloped with a falconer.
My mother having realized all her property at Greifswald, my parents
really possessed a considerable fortune in sterling coin, and they
called my father "the rich man of the Passen Strasse." It wanted,
however, but a few years to shake his credit and to impair the
happiness of his family. Without exaggeration, two women, named Lubbeke
and Engeln were the principal causes of our reverses. Not content to
buy on credit our cloth, which they resold to heaven knows who, they
borrowed of my father, fifty, a hundred, and as much as a hundred and
fifty crowns on the slightest pretext. The crown in those days was
worth eight and twenty shillings of Lubeck. They promised to refund at
eight and twenty and a half, and to settle for their purchases at the
same rate; but if now and again they happened to make a payment on
account of a hundred florins, they took care to buy at the same time
goods for double the amount. My mother did not look kindly upon those
two customers; she imagined that her money would be better invested at
five per cent., and she spared neither warnings, prayers, nor tears to
dissuade my father from trusting them. She even took Pastor Knipstrow
and others into her confidence to that effect. Finally, the account
came to a considerable amount, while the debtors were unable to pay as
much as twenty florins. Then it transpired what had become of the
cloth. The mother of one townsman, Jacob Leveling, had had 800 florins
of it; the wife of another, Hermann Bruser, 1,725 florins. Hermann
Bruser was a big cloth merchant who sold retail much cheaper than any
of his fellow-tradesmen.
My father having taken proceedings against his two customers as well as
against the woman Bruser, the latter and her husband promised to pay
the 1,725 florins. Nicholas Rode, who had married Bruser's sister, and
the syndic of the city, Johannes Klocke, afterwards burgomaster,
induced my father to accept that arrangement, and Bruser secured
conditions after having signed an acknowledgment beginning as follows:
"I, together with my legitimate wife, declare to be duly and lawfully
indebted to etc., etc." The syndic had drawn up this act with his own
hand. He had affixed his signature to it, and his seal, and Rode had in
the latter two respects done the same. But the period of the first
payment coinciding with the tumult against Nicholas Smiterlow, Bruser,
one of the ringleaders, thought he could have the whip hand of my
father as well as of the burgomaster. On his refusal to pay, the case
came before the court once more; and then, while denying his debt, in
spite of the formal terms of his declaration, Bruser denounced as
usurious agreements obtained by litigation. Klocke and Rode assisted
him with their advice and influence; the first-named, in his capacity
of a lawyer, conducted the suit, and quoting the _leges et doctorum
opiniones_, easily convinced his non-legally educated colleagues of the
council. The Westphalian Cyriacus Erckhorst, the son-in-law of Rode,
and a velvet merchant, plotted on his side. There were golden florins
for the all-powerful burgomaster Lorbeer, and pieces of dress-material
for Mrs. Burgomaster; so that, after long arguments on both sides,
Bruser was allowed to swear that he was ignorant of the affair, which,
moreover, was tainted with usury. My father could not conceive that
this personage would have the audacity to deny his signature, and,
supported in his supposition by Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, he did
not appeal against the judgment, and at the next sitting Bruser
appeared at the bar of the inner court, took the oath, and offered to
comply with the second part of the order; only, in consequence of the
absence of his witness he claimed a delay of a twelvemonth and a day,
which was accorded to him; after which my father appealed to the
council of Stralsund and afterwards to that of Lubeck.
In due time my father started for Lubeck, and took me with him. At
Rostock, we lodged at the sign of _The Hop_, in the Market Place. My
father had a considerable sum upon him to pay cash for his purchases of
salt, salted cod-fish and soap, and as a measure of precaution, he
carried that money in his small clothes, for Mecklenburg was infested
by footpads and highwaymen. While undressing, he dropped his purse
under the bed, an accident which he did not notice until next day about
twelve o'clock, when we had reached Bukow. As the court was just about
to open it fell to my lot to take the road back to Rostock _per pedes_.
On that day I could get no further than Berkentin, but very early next
morning I was at Rostock. Naturally, I rushed to the inn and to the
room. Luckily the servants had not made the beds. I soon espied the
little bag and was in time to take the coach to Wismar. My father,
uneasy on my account, was already reproaching himself for having let me
go.
Their worships of Lubeck condemned Bruser to keep his written promise;
he then appealed to the Imperial Chamber. The suit dragged along for
several years; finally, the supreme decision was to the effect that it
had been well judged, but improperly thrown into appeal in the first
instance, and that in the second it had been faultily judged and
properly sent for appeal. The defendant was condemned to pay the costs
to be determined by the judge.
And now I may be permitted to give an instance of the disloyalty of the
procurators of the Imperial Chamber. Doctor Simeon Engelhardt, my
father's procurator, did not hesitate to write to him that he had won
his case, and asked for the bill of costs of the two previous
instances, so that he might hand them to the taxing judge and apply for
execution. He added that the trouble he had taken with the affair
seemed to him to warrant special fees. My parents, elated with the
news, promptly transmitted the bill of costs and their fees for the
execution. Engelhardt produced the _cedula expensarum_; Bruser's
procurator requested copy, not without pretending to raise objection.
Engelhardt delivered the required copy, leaving to the judge the case
of designating the winning party; in other words, the one who had the
right to present the _designatio expensarum_. Well, that right was
adjudged to Bruser, who drew up the _cedula_ after _ours_. Engelhardt
was compelled to hold his tongue and my father had to pay 164 florins.
That point having been settled, they passed to the second _membrum_ of
the Stralsund judgment; namely, whether the conditions stipulated for
by my father were tainted with usury? After such an expensive and
protracted lawsuit, the court, considering that Bruser had failed in
his attempt to bring proof, condemned him to fulfil his engagements.
Against that sentence he appealed to Lubeck. Having been non-suited
there, he wished to have recourse to the Imperial Chamber, but we
signified opposition to the _exceptio devolutionis_. According to us,
he had not complied with the privilege of Lubeck. Bruser's procurator
maintained the contrary. The whole of the discussion bore entirely on
the sense of the word "_wann_" inserted in the Lubeck _vidimus_. Was it
a _conjunctio causalis, cum posteaquam_, or an _adverbium temporis,
quando_? After long-drawn debates, the appeal was rejected, and Bruser
had all the costs to pay.
Then, to frustrate his adversary, he pleaded poverty on oath, although
he gave to his daughter as many pearls and jewels as a burgomaster's
girl could possibly pretend to. Foreseeing the upshot of the lawsuit,
he had already disposed of one of his houses; after which he bestirred
himself to safeguard his dwelling-house, his cellar and his various
other property from being seized. Nicholas Rode, he who had signed the
obligation, deposed to that effect, a document professedly anterior to
my father's claim, an act constituting in his favour a general mortgage
on all Bruser's property. As a matter of course, this led to a new
lawsuit, which occupied respectively the courts of Stralsund and of
Lubeck and the Imperial Chamber. The latter registered Rode's appeal at
the moment the Protestant States denied its jurisdiction. A suspension
of six years was the result, but after the reconstitution of the
chamber and the closure of the debates, I did not succeed, in spite of
two years' stay at Spires, in getting a judgment.
Weary of being involved in law for thirty-four years, my father wound
up by acquitting the heirs of Rode of all future liabilities in
consideration of a sum of one thousand florins. As it happened the
original debt was seventeen hundred and five and twenty florins; in
addition to this, my father had refunded to Bruser one hundred and
sixty-four florins expenses, his own costs exceeded a thousand florins
and he had waited forty years for his money. The whole affair was
nothing short of a downright calamity to our family; it interrupted my
studies and caused the death of my brother Johannes. "_Dimidium plus
toto_," says Hesiod, and the maxim is above all wise in connexion with
a law-suit at the Imperial Chamber.
Writing, as I do, for the edification of my children, I consider it
useful to mention here the subsequent fate of our godless adversaries.
The seventy-fifth Psalm says: "For in the hand of the Lord there is a
cup, and the wine is red, and he poured out of the same, but the dregs
thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink
them." Yes, the Almighty has comforted me, he has permitted me to see
the scattering of my enemies. The two principal ones, Hermann Bruser
and his fraudulent wife, fell into abject misery; they lived for many
years on the bounty of parents and friends; finally the husband became
valet of Joachim Burwitz who from the position of porter and general
servant at the school when I was young had risen to be the secretary of
the King of Sweden. The devil, however, twisted Bruser's neck at
Stockholm. He was found in his master's wardrobe, his face all
distorted. His daughter, dowered _in fraudem mei patris_, did, for all
that, not escape very close acquaintance with poverty. She sold her
houses and her land; and at her death her husband became an inmate of
the asylum of the Holy Ghost, where he is to this day. Bruser's son, it
is true, rose to be a secretary in Sweden, but far from prospering, he
committed all kind of foolish acts everywhere. His first wife, the
daughter of Burgomaster Gentzkow,[16] died of grief at Stralsund, where
he had left her with her children at his departure for Sweden. He was
found dead one morning in his room; his descendants are vegetating some
in the city, some in the country.
The author of the plot, the honest dispenser of advice, Johannes
Klocke, managed to keep his wealth, but he was racked with gout and had
to be carried in a chair to the Town Hall; he died after having
suffered martyrdom for many years. The four sons of Nicholas Rode were
reduced to beggary; the house Bruser sold in order to cheat my father
actually belongs to my son-in-law. As for Burgomaster Christopher
Lorbeer, so skilled in prolonging law-suits, does he not expiate, he
and his, every day, the wrong in having lent himself to corruption.
Erckhorst, the man who tempted him, was robbed while engaged in
transporting from one town to another two large bundles of velvet,
silk, jewellery and pearls, the whole being estimated at several
thousands of florins. His second wife was the byword of the city for
her levity of conduct; at every moment she was caught in her own
dwelling-house and in the most untoward spots committing acts of
criminal intercourse with her apprentices. What had been saved from the
thieves was devoured by his wife's paramours. Absolutely at a loss to
reinstate himself in his former position, Erckhorst made an end of his
life by stabbing himself.
My father's other debtor, the woman Leveling, was left a widow with an
only son. Her property in houses and in land yielded, it was said, a
golden florin and a fowl per day. That fortune, nevertheless, melted
away, and Leveling, worried by her creditors, was obliged to quit
her house with nothing but what she stood up in. Lest her son, a
horrible ne'er-do-well of fifteen, should spend his nights in houses of
ill-fame, she kept a mistress for him at home; after that she married
him at such an early age as to astonish everybody, but he cared as much
about the sanctity of marriage as a dog cares about Lent. During the
ceremonies connected with rendering homage to Duke Philip, the duchess
lodged at Leveling's and stood godmother to his new-born daughter,
which honour had not the slightest effect in changing the scandalous
life he led with a concubine. One night, in company with a certain
Valentin Buss, he emptied the baskets in the pond of the master of the
fishmongers. An arrant thief, he was fast travelling towards the
gallows. Buss, who wound up by going to prison, would have been hanged
but for Leveling, who in order to redeem himself parted to the council
with his last piece of ground, namely, that in which his father's body
rested in the church. One day at the termination of the sermon,
Leveling, sword in hand, pursued my father, who had just time to reach
his domicile and to shut the door in his face. On the other hand,
Master Sonnenberg, who sheltered the old woman Leveling while she was
negotiating with her creditors, was not content with egging on her son
to all sorts of evil deeds, but had the effrontery to say to my father:
"I'll tame you so well that you shall come and eat out of my hands."
After having squandered his inheritance, Leveling died in the most
abject poverty; his daughter Marie, the duchess' goddaughter, sells
fish in the market. Such was the end of the wealthy popinjay. Mother
and son followed the traditions of their family without having profited
by the lessons of the past; one of the woman Leveling's relatives was,
in fact, that Burgomaster Wulf Wulflam, reputed the richest man on that
part of the coast,[17] whose wife was so fond of show and splendour
that at her second marriage she sent for the prince's musicians from
Stettin and walked from her house to the church on an English carpet.
For her own wear she only used the finest Riga flax. So much vainglory
was punished by the God of Justice, who expels from His kingdom the
proud and haughty. The only thing she had finally left of all her
magnificence was a silver bowl with which she went begging from door to
door. "Charity," she cried, "for the poor rich woman." One day she
asked from one of her former servants a shift and some linen for a
collar to it. Moved with pity, the latter did not refuse. "Madame," she
said, "this linen was made of the flax you used for your own wear. I
have carefully picked it up, cleaned and spun it."[18]
The arrangement made by the Levelings with their creditors gave to my
father the passage of the Muhlen-Strasse. Inasmuch as the premises were
tumbling to pieces, masons, carpenters, stonecutters and plasterers
were soon set to work and began by expelling the rats, mice and
doubtful human creatures that had taken up their quarters there. The
best tenement adjoining the city wall with a beautiful look-out on the
moats and the open country was occupied by the concubine of Zabel
Lorbeer. She was one of the three Maries, and had presented him with
either seven or eight bastards. My father, finding the door locked one
morning, ordered the workmen to knock down the wall which fell on the
bed where the scamp and the girl were sleeping; the only thing they
could do was to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Lorbeer
brought up his progeny according to the principles that guided him; and
finally had his son beheaded to save him the disgrace of the gallows.
A short digression is necessary in connexion with the three Maries.[19]
They were sisters, exceedingly good-looking, but the poet's "_Et quidem
servasset, si non formosa fuisset_," essentially applied to them. Many
traps are laid for beauty, and they one after another fell into them.
They lived on their charms, being particularly careful about their
appearance and dress in order to attract admirers. Their attempts to
obtain such notice were seconded by an unspeakable old crone, Anna
Stranck, who had been a downright Messalina in her time, and of
whom it was said that she could reckon on the whole of the city
among her parentage, although she had neither husband nor children, but
that she had had illicit intercourse with every male, young, old and
middle-aged, fathers, sons and brothers. Anna Stranck invented for the
use of the three Maries a kind of loose coif, the fashion of which our
womenkind have religiously preserved; even those who have discarded it
wearing a velvet hood based upon that model. They brought their hair,
black or grey about two inches down on the forehead. Then came as many
inches of gold lace or embroidery, so that the real cap, intended to
keep the head warm did not in the least cover the brain. I am purposely
quoting the name of Anna Stranck, for it is well to remind people to
whom the headgear was due in the first instance; and may it please our
dames to preserve it for ever in memory of the woman, mother,
grandmother and great-grandmother of their husbands.
I now resume my personal narrative. During the rebuilding of this new
property, I was fetching and carrying all the while. One day my father
sent me to our own house for the luncheon for himself and for the
carpenters. The workmen were just knocking down a chimney; they were
working higher than the chimney on a gangway made of boards which at
each extremity overlapped the stays. A great number of large nails were
strewn about the scaffolding. I climbed up, with my arms full of
provisions, but scarcely did I set my foot on the gangway than the
gangway toppled over and I was flung into space, the nails descending
in a shower on my head. I just happened to fall by the side of the open
chimney; half an ell more or less and I should have been through its
aperture on the ground floor. As it was, the accident proved
sufficiently serious. I had dislocated my right elbow and horribly
bruised my arm. They took me home, whence my mother took me to Master
Joachim Gelhaar. He was absent, and inasmuch as the case seemed urgent,
they had recourse to the barber in the Old Market, who dressed the
bruises without noticing that the bone was dislocated. Next morning
Master Gelhaar came. A simple glance was sufficient for him; he grasped
my arm, pulled and twisted it and put the bones back into their
sockets. But the limb was bruised and swollen and twisted. I shall
never forget the pain I suffered. In a little while, though, I was
enabled to go about the house as usual with one arm in a sling, and the
other available for our childish pastimes.
The old beams and rafters of the premises under repair were stacked at
our place. One day, while perched on one of the piles, I struck out
with a hammer in my left hand; one of the beams rolled down and my leg
was caught between it and the other wood. The pain made me cry out
lustily, but it was impossible to disengage my leg. My mother was not
strong enough for the task, and making sure that my leg was crushed,
she shouted and fetched the navvies and the brewery workmen; they
delivered me. When she was certain that no harm had come to me, my
mother, still excited, treated me to a good drubbing. On New Year's
Day, 1533, my father was elected dean of the Corporation of
Drapers.[20]