1631
Brave deeds have been done by the burgher dames of some of the German
cities collectively. Without being of the first class of Golden Deeds,
there is something in the exploit of the dames of Weinsberg so quaint
and so touching, that it cannot be omitted here.
It was in the first commencement of the long contest known as the strife
between the Guelfs and Ghibellines--before even these had become the
party words for the Pope's and the Emperor's friends, and when they only
applied to the troops of Bavaria and of Swabia--that, in 1141, Wolf,
Duke of Bavaria, was besieged in his castle of Weinberg by Friedrich,
Duke of Swabia, brother to the reigning emperor, Konrad III.
The siege lasted long, but Wolf was obliged at last to offer to
surrender; and the Emperor granted him permission to depart in safety.
But his wife did not trust to this fair offer. She had reason to believe
that Konrad had a peculiar enmity to her husband; and on his coming to
take possession of the castle, she sent to him to entreat him to give
her a safe conduct for herself and all the other women in the garrison,
that they might come out with as much of their valuables as they could
carry.
This was freely granted, and presently the castle gates opened. From
beneath them came the ladies--but in strange guise. No gold nor jewels
were carried by them, but each one was bending under the weight of
her husband, whom she thus hoped to secure from the vengeance of the
Ghibellines. Konrad, who was really a generous and merciful man, is said
to have been affected to tears by this extraordinary performance; he
hastened to assure the ladies of the perfect safety of their lords,
and that the gentlemen might dismount at once, secure both of life and
freedom. He invited them all to a banquet, and made peace with the Duke
of Bavaria on terms much more favorable to the Guelfs than the rest of
his party had been willing to allow. The castle mount was thenceforth
called no longer the Vine Hill, but the Hill of Weibertreue, or woman's
fidelity. We will not invidiously translate it woman's truth, for there
was in the transaction something of a subterfuge; and it must be owned
that the ladies tried to the utmost the knightly respect for womankind.
The good women of Lowenburg, who were but citizens' wives, seem to us
more worthy of admiration for constancy to their faith, shown at a
time when they had little to aid them. It was such constancy as makes
martyrs; and though the trial stopped short of this, there is something
in the homeliness of the whole scene, and the feminine form of passive
resistance, that makes us so much honor and admire the good women that
we cannot refrain from telling the story.
It was in the year 1631, in the midst of the long Thirty Years' Was
between Roman Catholics and Protestants, which finally decided that
each state should have its own religion, Lowenburg, a city of Silesia,
originally Protestant, had passed into the hands of the Emperor's Roman
Catholic party. It was a fine old German city, standing amid woods and
meadows, fortified with strong walls surrounded by a moat, and with gate
towers to protect the entrance.
In the centre was a large market-place, called the Ring, into which
looked the Council-house and fourteen inns, or places of traffic, for
the cloth that was woven in no less than 300 factories. The houses were
of stone, with gradually projecting stories to the number of four or
five, surmounted with pointed gables. The ground floors had once had
trellised porches, but these had been found inconvenient and were
removed, and the lower story consisted of a large hall, and strong
vault, with a spacious room behind it containing a baking-oven, and a
staircase leading to a wooden gallery, where the family used to dine. It
seems they slept in the room below, though they had upstairs a handsome
wainscoted apartment.
Very rich and flourishing had the Lowenburgers always been, and their
walls were quite sufficient to turn back any robber barons, or even any
invading Poles; but things were different when firearms were in use, and
the bands of mercenary soldiers had succeeded the feudal army. They
were infinitely more formidable during the battle or siege from their
discipline, and yet more dreadful after it for their want of discipline.
The poor Lowneburgers had been greatly misused: their Lutheran pastors
had been expelled; all the superior citizens had either fled or been
imprisoned; 250 families spent the summer in the woods, and of those who
remained in the city, the men had for the most part outwardly conformed
to the Roman Catholic Church. Most of these were of course indifferent
at heart, and they had found places in the town council which had
formerly been filled by more respectable men. However, the wives had
almost all remained staunch to their Lutheran confession; they had
followed their pastors weeping to the gates of the city, loading
them with gifts, and they hastened at every opportunity to hear their
preachings, or obtain baptism for their children at the Lutheran
churches in the neighborhood.
The person who had the upper hand in the Council was one Julius, who had
been a Franciscan friar, but was a desperate, unscrupulous fellow, not
at all like a monk. Finding that it was considered as a reproach that
the churches of Lowenburg were empty, he called the whole Council
together on the 9th of April, 1631, and informed them that the women
must be brought to conformity, or else there were towers and prisons for
them. The Burgomaster was ill in bed, but the Judge, one Elias Seiler,
spoke up at once. 'If we have been able to bring the men into the right
path, why should not we be able to deal with these little creatures?'
Herr Mesnel, a cloth factor, who had been a widower six weeks, thought
it would be hard to manage, though he quite agreed to the expedient,
saying, 'It would be truly good if man and wife had one Creed and one
Paternoster; as concerns the Ten Commandments it is not so pressing.' (A
sentiment that he could hardly have wished to see put in practice.)
Another councilor, called Schwob Franze, who had lost his wife a few
days before, seems to have had an eye to the future, for he said it
would be a pity to frighten away the many beautiful maidens and widows
there were among the Lutheran women; but on the whole the men without
wives were much bolder and more sanguine of success than the married
ones. And no one would undertake to deal with his own wife privately,
so it ended by a message being sent to the more distinguished ladies to
attend the Council.
But presently up came tidings that not merely these few dames, whom they
might have hoped to overawe, were on their way, but that the Judge's
wife and the Burgomaster's were the first pair in a procession of full
500 housewives, who were walking sedately up the stairs to the Council
Hall below the chamber where the dignitaries were assembled. This was
not by any means what had been expected, and the message was sent down
that only the chief ladies should come up. 'No,' replied the Judge's
wife, 'we will not allow ourselves to be separated,' and to this they
were firm; they said, as one fared all should fare; and the Town Clerk,
going up and down with smooth words, received no better answer than this
from the Judge's wife, who, it must be confessed, was less ladylike in
language than resolute in faith.
'Nay, nay, dear friend, do you think we are so simple as not to perceive
the trick by which you would force us poor women against our conscience
to change our faith? My husband and the priest have not been consorting
together all these days for nothing; they have been joined together
almost day and night; assuredly they have either boiled or baked a
devil, which they may eat up themselves. I shall not enter there! Where
I remain, my train and following will remain also! Women, is this your
will?'
'Yea, yea, let it be so,' they said; 'we will all hold together as one
man.'
His honor the Town Clerk was much affrighted, and went hastily back,
reporting that the Council was in no small danger, since each housewife
had her bunch of keys at her side! These keys were the badge of a wife's
dignity and authority, and moreover they were such ponderous articles
that they sometimes served as weapons. A Scottish virago has been
know to dash out the brains of a wounded enemy with her keys; and the
intelligence that the good dames had come so well furnished, filled the
Council with panic. Dr. Melchior Hubner, who had been a miller's man,
wished for a hundred musketeers to mow them down; but the Town Clerk
proposed that all the Council should creep quietly down the back stairs,
lock the doors on the refractory womankind, and make their escape. This
was effected as silently and quickly as possible, for the whole Council
'could confess to a state of frightful terror.' Presently the women
peeped out, and saw the stairs bestrewn with hats, gloves, and
handkerchiefs; and perceiving how they had put all the wisdom and
authority of the town to the rout, there was great merriment among them,
though, finding themselves locked up, the more tenderhearted began to
pity their husbands and children. As for themselves, their maids and
children came round the Town Hall, to hand in provisions to them, and
all the men who were not of the Council were seeking the magistrates to
know what their wives had done to be thus locked up.
The Judge sent to assemble the rest of the Council at his house; and
though only four came, the doorkeeper ran to the Town Hall, and called
out to his wife that the Council had reassembled, and they would soon
be let out. To which, however, that very shrewd dame, the Judge's wife,
answered with great composure, 'Yea, we willingly have patience, as we
are quite comfortable here; but tell them they ought to inform us why we
are summoned and confined without trial.'
She well knew how much better off she was than her husband without her.
He paced about in great perturbation, and at last called for something
to eat. The maid served up a dish of crab, some white bread, and butter;
but, in his fury, he threw all the food about the room and out the
window, away from the poor children, who had had nothing to eat all day,
and at last he threw all the dishes and saucepans out of window. At last
the Town Clerk and two others were sent to do their best to persuade the
women that they had misunderstood--they were in no danger, and were
only invited to the preachings of Holy Week: and, as Master Daniel, the
joiner, added, 'It was only a friendly conference. It is not customary
with my masters and the very wise Council to hang a man before they have
caught him.'
This opprobrious illustration raised a considerable clamor of abuse from
the ruder women; but the Judge's and Burgomaster's ladies silenced them,
and repeated their resolution never to give up their faith against their
conscience. Seeing that no impression was made on them, and that nobody
knew what to do without them at home, the magistracy decided that they
should be released, and they went quietly home; but the Judge Seiler,
either because he had been foremost in the business, or else perhaps
because of the devastation he had made at home among the pots and pans,
durst not meet his wife, but sneaked out of the town, and left her with
the house to herself.
The priest now tried getting the three chief ladies alone together,
and most politely begged them to conform; but instead of arguing, they
simply answered; 'No; we were otherwise instructed by our parents and
former preachers.'
Then he begged them at least to tell the other women that they had asked
for fourteen days for consideration.
'No, dear sir,' they replied: 'we were not taught by our parents to tell
falsehoods, and we will not learn it from you.'
Meanwhile Schwob Franze rushed to the Burgomaster's bedside, and begged
him, for Heaven's sake, to prevent the priest from meddling with the
women; for the whole bevy, hearing that their three leaders were called
before the priest, were collecting in the marketplace, keys, bundles,
and all; and the panic of the worthy magistrates was renewed. The
Burgomaster sent for the priest, and told him plainly, that if any harm
befel him from the women, the fault would be his own; and thereupon he
gave way, the ladies went quietly home, and their stout champions laid
aside their bundles and keys--not out of reach, however, in case of
another summons.
However, the priest was obliged, next year, to leave Lowenburg in
disgrace, for he was a man of notoriously bad character; and Dr.
Melchior became a soldier, and was hanged at Prague.
After all, such a confession as this is a mere trifle, not only compared
with martyrdoms of old, but with the constancy with which, after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots endured
persecution---as, for instance, the large number of women who were
imprisoned for thirty-eight years at Aigues Mortes; or again, with the
steady resolution of the persecuted nuns of Port Royal against signing
the condemnation of the works of Jansen. Yet, in its own way, the
feminine resistance of these good citizens' wives, without being equally
high-toned, is worthy of record, and far too full of character to be
passed over.