With that about I tourned my hedde,
And sawe anone the fifth rout
That to this lady gan lout,
And doune on knees, anone, to fall,
And to her tho besoughten all,
To hiden hir good workes eke,
And said, they yeve not a leke
For no fame, ne soch renoun,
For they for contemplacioun,
And Goddes love had it wrought,
Ne of fame would they nought.
CHAUCER: THE HOUSE OF FAME.
On the next occasion when our little Summerford circle was ready to hear
some more of Arnstein’s Chronicle, they were informed by Atherton that
four years of the manuscript were missing,—that such intervals were only
too frequent,—in fact, the document was little more than a collection of
fragments.
‘The next entry I find,’ said he, ‘is in 1324, and the good armourer, in
much excitement, begins with an exclamation.
1324. _July. St. Kylian’s Day._—What a day this has been! Strasburg,
and all the states which adhere to Louis, are placed under the bann.
The bells were ringing merrily at early morning; now, the Interdict
is proclaimed, and every tongue of them is silent. As the news flew
round, every workman quitted his work. The busy stalls set out on
either side of the streets were left empty. The tools and the wares
lay unlooked at and untouched. The bishop and the clergy of his
party, and most of the Dominicans, keep out of sight. My men are
furious. I have been all day from house to house, and group to
group, telling the people to keep a good heart. We shall have a sad
time of it, I see. It is so hard for the poor creatures to shake off
a fear in which they have been cradled.
The clergy and the monks will pour out of Strasburg, as out of a
Sodom, in shoals. A mere handful will stay behind,—not nearly enough
to christen those who will be born and to shrive those who will die
in this populous city. They may name their price: the greedy of gain
may make their fortunes. The miserable poor will die, numbers of
them, in horror, unable to purchase absolution. And then, out of the
few priests who do remain, scarcely any will have the courage to
disobey the pope, and, despite the Interdict, say mass.
’Tis an anxious time for either party. Louis has most of the states
on his side, and the common voice, in all the towns of the
Rhineland—(in the princely Cologne most of all), is, I hear, loud in
his favour. The Minorites will be with him, and all of that sort
among the friars, who have little favour to lose with his Holiness.
But France is with the Pope against him; Duke Leopold is a doughty
adversary; John of Bohemia restless and fickle, and no doubt the
Pope will set on the Polacks and pagan Lithuanians to waste most
horribly all the north and eastern frontiers. Since the victory of
Mühldorf, Frederick has lain in prison. That battle is the
grievance. The enemies of the Emperor are more full of rancour than
ever. Yet, with all the mischief it may bring in the present, what
lover of the Fatherland can sorrow therefor? Gallant little
Schweppermann, with his lame foot and grey hair, and his glorious
two eggs, long may he live to do other such deeds![96] Louis holds a
high spirit at present, and goes about under the bann with a brave
heart. But it is only the outset as yet. I much fear me he may lack
the staunchness to go through as he has begun. There is store of
thunder behind at Avignon. Methinks he hankers, like a child, mainly
after the lance and sword and crown of Charlemagne, to dress him out
perfectly withal King of the Romans, and seeth not the full bearing
of the very war he wages.
We shall not be idle. It is already proposed to send off troops to
the aid of Louis. I have half a mind to go myself; but home can ill
spare me now, and I render the Emperor more service by such little
influence as I have in Strasburg. To-morrow, to consult about the
leagues to be formed with neighbouring towns and with the Swiss
burghers, to uphold the good cause together.
* * * * *
1326. _March. St. Gregory’s Day._—Duke Leopold died here yesterday,
at the Ochsenstein Palace.[97] After ravaging the suburbs of Spires,
he came hither in a raging fever to breathe his last. The bishop
told him he must pardon the Landgrave of Lower Alsace from the
bottom of his heart. They say he struggled long and wrathfully
against the condition, till, finding the bishop firm in refusing
absolution on other terms, he gave way. But, just as he was about to
receive the host, a fit of vomiting came on, wherein he presently
expired, without the sacrament after all.
Frederick has been now at liberty some months. Louis visited him in
his prison. To think of their having been together all their
boyhood, and loving each other so, to meet thus! Frederick the
Handsome, haggard with a three years’ imprisonment—his beard down to
his waist; and Louis, successful and miserable. They say Frederick
cut off his beard at first, and sent it, by way of memorial, to John
of Bohemia, and that when he went back to his castle he found his
young wife had wept herself blind during his captivity. He swore on
the holy wafer to renounce his claim to the empire. The Pope
released him from his oath soon after, but he keeps his word like
knight, not like priest, and holds to it yet. It is whispered that
they have agreed to share the throne. But that can never be brought
to pass.
Heard to-day, by a merchant, of Hermann.[98] He is travelling
through Spain. I miss him much. Before he left Strasburg he was full
of Eckart’s doctrine, out of all measure admiring the wonderful man,
and hoarding every word that dropped from his lips. Eckart is now
sick at Cologne, among his sorrowing disciples. Grieved to hear that
the leeches say he hath not long to live.
A long conversation with Henry of Nördlingen.[99] He has journeyed
hither, cast down and needy, to ask counsel of Tauler. Verily he
needs counsel, but hath not strength of mind to take it when given.
Tauler says Henry has many friends among the excellent of the earth;
all love him, and he is full of love, but sure a pitiful sight to
see. His heart is with us. He mourns over the trouble of the time.
He weeps for the poor folk, living and dying without the sacraments.
But the Interdict crushes his soul. Now he has all but gathered
heart to do as Tauler doth—preach and labour on, unmoved by all this
uproar, but anon his courage is gone, and he falls back into his
fear again as soon as he is left alone. He sits and pores over those
letters of spiritual consolation which Margaret Ebner has written to
him. He says sometimes she alone retains him on the earth. Verily I
fear me that, priest as he is, some hopeless earthly love mingles
with his friendship for that saintly woman. He has had to flee from
his home for refusing to perform service. Strasburg, in that case,
can be no abiding place for him. I see nothing before him but a
wretched wandering, perhaps for years. I cannot get him to discern
the malice of Pope John, rather than the wrath of heaven, in the
curse that withers us. I gave him a full account of what the Pope’s
court at Avignon truly is, as I gathered from a trusty eye-witness,
late come from thence, whom I questioned long the other day.[100] I
told him that gold was the one true god there—our German wealth,
wrung out from us, and squandered on French courtiers, players,
buffoons, and courtezans—Christ sold daily for it—the palace full of
cardinals and prelates, grey-haired debauchees and filthy mockers,
to a man—accounting chastity a scandal, and the soul’s immortality
and coming judgment an old wife’s fable;—yea, simony, adultery,
murder, incest, so frequent and unashamed, that the Frenchmen
themselves do say the Pope’s coming hath corrupted them. I asked him
if these were the hands to take up God’s instruments of wrath to
bruise with them his creatures? But all in vain. There is an
awfulness in the very name of Pope which blinds reason and strikes
manhood down, in him, as in thousands more.
* * * * *
A.D. 1332. _Fourth week after Easter._—But now awaked from the first
sleep I have had for the last three days and nights. I set down in a
word or two what hath happened, then out to action again. Last
Wednesday, at the great festival, the nobles, knights, and senators,
with a brave show of fair ladies, banqueted at the grand house in
the Brandgasse.[101] Within, far into the night, minstrelsy and
dancing; without, the street blocked up with a crowd of serving men
and grooms with horses, torch-bearers, and lookers-on of all
sorts—when, suddenly, the music stopped—they heard shouts and the
clash of swords and shrill screams. There had been a quarrel between
a Zorn and a Müllenheim—they drew—Von Hunefeld was killed on the
spot, another of the Zorns avenged him by cutting down Wasselenheim;
the conflict became general, in hall, in the antechambers, down the
great staircase, out on the steps, the retainers took part on either
side, and the fray ended in the flight of the Zorns, who left six
slain in the house and in the street. Two were killed on the side of
the Müllenheims. All who fell were of high rank, and several of
either faction are severely wounded. They draw off to their
quarters, each breathing vengeance, preparing for another conflict
at daybreak. All the rest of the night the Landvogt and Gotzo von
Grosstein were riding to and fro to pacify them—to no purpose. Each
party declared they would send for the knights and gentry of their
side from the country round about. I was with Burckard Zwinger when
we heard this. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘or all is lost. Off, and harangue the
people. I will get the best of the burghers together.’ We parted.
All the city was astir. As I made my way from house to house, I sent
the people I met off to the market place to hear Zwinger. I could
hear their shouts, summons enough now, without any other. When I got
back to the Roland’s pillar, I found that his plain, home-thrust
speech had wrought the multitude to what we would, and no more.
Snatches of it flew from mouth to mouth, like sparks of fire,—he had
struck well while the iron was hot. ‘To the Stadtmeister!’ was the
cry. ‘The keys! The seal! The standard! We will have our standard.
Let the citizens defend their own!’ Most of the burghers were of one
mind with Zwinger, and we went in a body (the crowd shouting behind
us, a roaring sea of heads, and the bell on the townhouse ringing as
never before) to demand the keys of young Sieck. He yielded all with
trembling. By daybreak we had dispersed; the several corporations
repaired armed to their quarters; the gates were shut; the bridges
guarded; the walls manned. All was in our hands. So far safe. The
nobles, knights, and gentry of the neighbourhood came up in the
morning in straggling groups, approaching the city from various
quarters, with as many of their men as could be hastily gathered,
but drew off again when they saw our posture of defence. It was
truly no time for them. This promptitude has saved Strasburg from
being a field of battle in every street for counts and men at arms,
who despise and hate the citizens—whose victory, on whatever side,
would have been assured pillage and rapine, and, in the end, the
loss of our privilege to deal solely for ourselves in our own
affairs. Well done, good Zwinger, thou prince of bakers, with thy
true warm heart, and cool head, and ready tongue! To our praise be
it said, no deed of violence was done; there was no
blood-thirstiness, no spoiling, but a steady purpose in the vast
crowd that, hap what would, no strangers should come in to brawl and
rob in Strasburg.
While the gates have been closed and the Town Hall guarded, we have
been deliberating on a new senate. Four new Stadtmeisters elected.
Zwinger made Amtmeister. The magistracy taken out of the exclusive
hands of the great families and open to the citizens generally,
gentlemen, burghers, and artizans, side by side. The workmen no
longer to be slaves to the caprice of the gentry. The nobles are
disarmed for a time, to help them settle their quarrel more quickly.
I go the rounds with the horse patrol every night. The gates are
never to be opened except when the great bell has rung to give
permission. We sit in the Town Hall with our swords. I took my place
there this morning, armed to the teeth, and verily my Margarita
seemed proud enough when she sent me forth, with a kiss, to my new
dignity, clad in good steel instead of senatorial finery. We have
every prospect of peace and prosperousness. The nobles see our
strength, and must relinquish with as good a grace as they may a
power they have usurped. The main part of the old laws will abide as
before. All is perfectly quiet. There has been no mere vengeance or
needless rigour. I hear nothing worse than banishment will be
inflicted upon any—that only on a few. The bishop’s claws will be
kept shorter.
* * * * *
1338. _August. St. Bartholomew’s Day._—Now is the rent between clerk
and layman, pope and emperor, wider even than heretofore. Last month
was held the electorial diet at Rhense. The electors, by far the
greater part, with Louis; and their bold doings now apparent.
Yesterday was issued, at Frankfort, a manifesto of the Emperor’s,
wherein Benedict, he and all his curses, are set at nought, and the
mailed glove manfully hurled in his teeth. Thereby he declares, that
whomsoever the electors choose they will have acknowledged rightful
emperor, whether the pope bless or bann, and all who gainsay this
are traitors;—that the emperor is not, and will not be, in anywise
dependent on the pope. All good subjects are called on to disregard
the Interdict, and such towns or states as obey the same are to
forfeit their charters.[102]
It was indeed high time to speak out. Louis, losing heart, tried
negotiation, and made unworthy concessions to the pope, whereon he
(impatient, they say, to get back to Italy) would have come to an
agreement, but the French cardinals took care to cross and undo all.
The emperor even applied to Philip personally—asking the King of
France, forsooth, to suffer him to be king of the Romans—then,
finding that vain, is leagued with the English king, and war
declared against France. This sounds bravely. Shame on the electors
if they hold not to their promise now.
As to our Strasburg, we stand by the emperor, as of old, despite our
bishop Berthold, who, with sword instead of crook, has done battle
with the partisans of Louis for now some years, gathering help from
all parts among the nobles and the gentry, burning villages,
besieging and being besieged, spoiling and being spoiled; moreover,
between whiles, thinking to win himself the name of a zealous pastor
by issuing decrees against long hair growing on clerks’ heads, and
enforcing fiercely all the late bulls against the followers of
Eckart, the Beghards, and others.[103] Last year he tasted six
weeks’ imprisonment, having quarrelled with the heads of the
chapter. Rudolph von Hohenstein and others of the opposite party,
surrounded one night the house of the Provost of Haselach, where he
lay, and carried him off in his shirt to the Castle of Vendenti; and
smartly did they make him pay before he came out. We have full
authority to declare war against him, if he refuses now to submit to
Louis, as I think not likely, seeing how matters go at present. He
had the conscience to expect that we magistrates would meddle in his
dispute and take his part. Even the senators, who adhere mainly to
the Zorn family, were against him, and methinks after all he has
done to harass and injure us, we did in a sort return good for evil
in being merely lookers-on.
Tauler is away on a visit to Basle, where the state of parties is
precisely similar to our own, the citizens there, as in Friburg,
joining our league for Louis and for Germany; and the bishop against
them, tooth and nail.[104] My eldest boy (God bless him, he is
fifteen this day, and a lad for a father to be proud of) hath
accompanied the Doctor thither, having charge of sundry matters of
business for me there. Had word from him last week. They have
somehow procured a year’s remission of the Interdict for Basle. He
says Suso came to see Tauler, and that they had long talk together
for two days. Henry of Nördlingen is there likewise, and now that
the pope hath kennelled his barking curse for a twelvemonth,
preaches, to the thronging of the churches, wherever he goes.
A.D. 1339. _January._—The new year opens gloomily. Without loss of
time, fresh-forged anathemas are come, and coming, against the
outspoken emperor and this troublesome Germany. Some of the
preachers, and the bare-footed friars especially, have yet remained
to say mass and perform the offices; now, even these are leaving the
city. Some cloisters have stood for now two or three years quite
empty. Many churches are deserted altogether, and the doors nailed
up. The magistracy have issued orders to compel the performance of
service. The clerks are fairly on the anvil; the civil hammer
batters them on the one side, and the ecclesiastical upon the other
with alternate strokes.
Bitter wind and sleet this morning. Saw three Dominicans creeping
back into the town, who had left it a month ago, refusing to say
mass. Poor wretches, how starved and woe-begone they looked, after
miserable wanderings about the country in the snow, winter showing
them scant courtesy, and sure I am the boors less; and now coming
back to a deserted convent and to a city where men’s faces are
towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came into my
mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler’s, that we should show
mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends alike, for he that
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom
he hath not seen?[105] Ran after them, called them in, thawed them,
fed them, comforted them with kind words and good ale by the great
fire,—then argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they
must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. ‘And is it not,’
urged I, ‘a crueller that thousands of innocent poor folk should
live without sacrament, never hear a mass, perhaps die unshriven,
for the very same reason? Is not God’s law higher than the
pope’s,—do to others as ye would they should do unto you? Could you
look for other treatment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect
to be countenanced and sustained by them in administering the
malediction of their enemies?‘ Thought it most courteous, however,
to ply them more pressingly with food than with arguments.
While they were there, in comes my little Otto, opens his eyes wide
with wonder to see them, and presently breaks out with the words,
now on the tongue of every Strasburger, a rhyming version of the
decree:—
They shall still their masses sing,
Or out of the city we’ll make them spring.[106]
Told him he should not sing that just then, and, when he was out of
the room, bade them mark by that straw which way the wind blew.
I record here a vision vouchsafed to that eminent saint the abbess
Christina Ebner, of Engelthal, near Nurnberg. She beheld the Romish
Church in the likeness of a great minster, fair to see, but with
doors closed by reason of the bann. Priestly voices, solemn and
sweet, were heard to chant within; and, without, stood a multitude
waiting and hearkening, but no man dared enter. Then came there to
the nun one in the habit of a preacher, and told her that he would
give her words to speak to comfort the poor folk withal that stood
outside,—and that man was the Lord Christ.
And verily, in some sort, so hath God done, having pity upon us, for
through all Rhineland hath he moved godly men, both clerks and
laity, to draw nearer the one to the other, forming together what we
call the association of the _Friends of God_, for the better tending
of the inward life in these troublous times, for wrestling with the
Almighty on behalf of his suffering Christendom, and for the succour
of the poor people, by preaching and counsel and sacrament, that are
now as sheep without a shepherd, and perishing for lack of spiritual
bread.[107] Tauler is of the foremost among them, and with his
brethren, Egenolph of Ehenheim and Dietrich of Colmar, labours
without ceasing, having now the wider field and heavier toil, as so
few are left in Strasburg who will perform any church service for
love or money. Ah! well might the Abbess Christina say of him that
the Spirit of God dwelt within him as a sweet harping. He has
travelled much of late, and wherever he goes spreads blessing and
consolation; the people flock to hear him; the hands of the Friends
of God are strengthened; and a savour of heavenly love and wisdom is
left behind. His good name hath journeyed, they say, even beyond the
Alps, and into the Low Countries. Neither are there wanting many
like-minded, though none equal to him. He found at Cologne Henry of
Löwen, Henry, and Franke, and John of Sterngasse,[108] brother
Dominicans all of them, preaching constantly, with much of his own
fervour, if with a doctrine more like that of Eckart. In Switzerland
there is Suso, and I hear much of one Ruysbroek, in the Netherlands,
a man younger than Tauler, and a notable master in the divine art of
contemplation.
Among the Friends of God are numbers both of men and women of every
rank, abbots and farmers, knights and nuns, monks and artizans.
There is Conrad, Abbot of Kaisersheim: there are the nuns of
Unterlinden and Klingenthal, at Colmar and Basle, as well as the
holy sisters of Engelthal; the knights of Rheinfeld, Pfaffenheim,
and Landsberg; our rich merchant here, Rulman Merswin, and one,
unworthy of so good a name, that holds this pen. Our law is that
universal love commanded by Christ, and not to be gainsaid by his
vicar. Some have joined themselves to us for awhile, and gone out
from us because they were not of us; for we teach no easy road to
heaven for the pleasing of the flesh. Many call us sectaries,
Beghards, brethren of the Free Spirit, or of the New Spirit, and
what not. They might call us by worse names, but we are none of
these. The prophecies of some among us, concerning judgments to be
looked for at the hands of God, and the faithful warnings of others,
have made many angry. Yet are not such things needed, when, as Dr.
Tauler saith, the princes and prelates are, too many of them, worse
than Jews and infidels, and mere horses for the devil’s riding.[109]
So far from wishing evil, we mourn as no others over the present
woe, and the Friends of God are, saith Dr. Tauler again, pillars of
Christendom, and holders off for awhile of the gathered cloud of
wrath. Beyond all question, if all would be active as they are
active in works of love to their fellows, the face of the times
would brighten presently, and the world come into sunshine.
It was but yesterday that in his sermon Tauler repeated the saying
of one—an eminent Friend of God—‘I cannot pass my neighbour by
without wishing for him in my heart more of the blessedness of
heaven than for myself;‘—‘and that,’ said the good Doctor, ‘I call
true love.’ Sure I am that such men stand between the living and the
dead.[110]
1339. _March._—Much encouraged on hearing Dr. Tauler’s sermon on
‘Whose is the image and superscription?‘[111] It was the last part
that gladdened me more especially, when he was enforcing
watchfulness and self-examination, and yet showed that the command
might be obeyed by men such as I am, in the midst of a worldly
calling. Many, said he, complain that they are so busied with
outward things as to have no time to look inward. But let such, for
every six steps they have to take outward in their daily duty, take
one step inward, and observe their hearts, and their business will
be to them no stumbling-block. Many are cloistered in body while
thought and desire wander to and fro over the earth. But many others
do, even amid the noise and stir of the market-place and the shop,
keep such watch over their hearts, and set such ward on their
senses, that they go unharmed, and their inner peace abides
unbroken. Such men are much more truly to be called monks than those
who, within a convent wall, have thought and senses so distraught
that they can scarce say a single Paternoster with true devotion.
He said that God impressed his image and superscription on our souls
when he created us in his image. All true Christians should
constantly retire into themselves, and examine throughout their
souls wherein this image of the Holy Trinity lieth, and clear away
therefrom such images and thoughts as are not of God’s
impressing,—all that is merely earthly in love and care, all that
hath not God purely for its object. It must be in separateness from
the world, withdrawal from all trust and satisfaction in what is
creaturely, that we present God the image he hath engraven, clear
and free from rust. This image and superscription lies in the inmost
inmost of the soul, whither God only cometh, and neither men nor
angels, and where he delights to dwell. He will share it with no
other. He hath said, ‘My delight is in the sons of men.’ Thus is the
inmost of our soul united to the inmost of the very Godhead, where
the eternal Father doth ever speak and bring forth his eternal
essential Word, his only-begotten Son, equal in honour, power, and
worthiness, as saith the Apostle—‘He is the brightness of his glory
and the express image of his person.’ By him hath the Father made
all things. As all things have their beginning and source from the
Godhead, by the birth of the eternal Word out of the Father, so do
all creatures in their essence subsist by the same birth of the Son
out of the Father, and therefore shall they all return in the same
way to their source, to wit, through the Son to the Father. From
this eternal birth of the Son ariseth the love of God the Father to
his divine Son, and that of the Son to his divine Father, which love
is the Holy Ghost—an eternal and divine Bond, uniting the Father and
the Son in everlasting Love. These three are essentially one—one
single pure essential unity, as even the heathen philosophers bear
witness. Therefore, saith Aristotle, ‘There is but one Lord who
ordaineth all things.’
He, therefore, that would be truly united to God must dedicate the
penny of his soul, with all its faculties, to God alone, and join it
unto Him. For if the highest and most glorious Unity, which is God
himself, is to be united to the soul, it must be through oneness
(_Einigkeit_). Now when the soul hath utterly forsaken itself and
all creatures, and made itself free from all manifoldness, then the
sole Unity, which is God, answers truly to the oneness of the soul,
for then is there nothing in the soul beside God. Therefore between
such a soul and God (if a man be so prepared that his soul hangs on
nothing but God himself) there is so great a oneness that they
become one, as the Apostle saith, ‘He that is joined to the Lord is
one spirit.’
But there are some who will fly before they have wings, and pluck
the apples before they are ripe, and, at the very outset of the
Divine life, be so puffed up that it contents them not to enter in
at the door and contemplate Christ’s humanity, but they will
apprehend his highness and incomprehensible Deity only. So did once
a priest, and fell grievously, and bitterly mourned his folly, and
had to say, ‘Ah, most Merciful! had I followed truly the pattern of
thy holy humanity, it had not been thus with me!’ Beware of such
perilous presumption—your safe course is to perfect yourselves first
in following the lowly life of Christ, and in earnest study of the
shameful cross.
Methinks this is true counsel, and better, for our sort at least,
than Master Eckart’s exhortation to break through into the essence,
and to exchange God made manifest for the absolute and inscrutable
Godhead.
1339. _March 20._—Finished to-day a complete suit of armour for
young Franz Müllenheim. The aristocratic families bear the change of
government more good-humouredly than I looked for. Their influence
is still great, and they can afford to make a virtue of necessity.
Most of them now, too, are on the right side.
A great improvement—locking our doors at night.[112] This is the
first time I have thought to record it, though the custom has been
introduced these nine years. Before, there was not a lock to a
house-door in Strasburg, and if you wanted to shut it, on ever so
great a need, you had to work with spade and shovel to remove a
whole mountain of dirt collected about the threshold. Several new
roads, too, made of late by the merchant-league of the Rhineland.
Footnote 96:
Louis was indebted for this important victory to the skill of
Schweppermann. After the battle the sole supply of the imperial table
was found to consist of a basket of eggs, which the emperor
distributed among his officers, saying, ‘To each of you one egg—to our
gallant Schweppermann two.’—_Menzel._
Footnote 97:
See Laguille, _Histoire d’Alsace_, liv. xxiii. p. 271.
Footnote 98:
Many passages in his _Heiligenleben_ are altogether in the spirit of
Eckart, and have their origin, beyond question, in his sayings, or in
those of his disciples.—See pp. 114, 125, 150, 187 (_Pfeiffer_), and
also the extracts in Wackernagel, _Altd. Leseb._ p. 853.
Footnote 99:
See Schmidt’s Tauler, Appendix, p. 172, &c., where such information as
can be obtained concerning Henry of Nördlingen is given.
Footnote 100:
Compare Petrarch’s account in his letters, cited by Gieseler: ‘Mitto
stupra, raptus, incestus, adulteria, qui jam pontificalis lasciviæ
ludi sunt: mitto raptarum viros, ne mutire audeant, non tantum avitis
laribus, sed finibus patriis exturbatos, quæque contumeliarum
gravissima est, et violatas conjuges et externo semine gravidas rursus
accipere, et post partum reddere ad alternam satietatem abutentium
coactos.’
Footnote 101:
Laguille gives an account of this revolution, _Hist. d’Alsace_, p.
276.
Footnote 102:
Schmidt’s Tauler, p. 12.
Footnote 103:
Laguille, liv. xxiv. p. 280.
Footnote 104:
Schmidt, p. 22.
Footnote 105:
Tauler’s _Sermon on the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity_ contains
an exhortation to Christian love, remarkable for beauty and
discrimination. Tauler’s _Predigten_, vol ii. p. 591 (Berlin, 1841).
Footnote 106:
Schmidt, p. 14:—
‘do soltent sü ouch fürbas singen
oder aber us der statt springen.’
Footnote 107:
Schmidt’s Tauler, _Anhang über die Gottesfreunde_.
Footnote 108:
Passages from two of these mystics, Heinrich von Löwen and Johannes
von Sterngasse, are given among the _Sprüche Deutscher Mystiker_, in
Wackernagel, p. 890.
Footnote 109:
See Tauler’s _Predigten_, vol. ii. p. 584; and also, concerning the
charge of sectarianism, p. 595; and the services of the Friends of
God, vol. i. pred. xxvi. p. 194; pred. xi. p. 85.
Footnote 110:
_Ibid._, vol. ii. pred. lxvi. p. 594.
Footnote 111:
The sermon referred to is that on the _Twenty-third Sunday after
Trinity_, vol. ii. p. 598.
While he is careful to warn his hearers against the presumption of
attempting at once to contemplate Deity apart from its manifestation
in the humanity of Christ, he yet seems to admit that when the soul
has been thoroughly exercised in the imitation of Christ,—has become
conformed, as far as man can be, to his spirit and his sufferings,
then there commences a period of repose and joy in which there is an
extraordinary intuition of Deity, which approximates to that perfect
vision promised hereafter, when we shall see, not ‘through a glass
darkly,’ but face to face.—Vol. ii. p. 609.
Footnote 112:
Meiners, _Hist. Vergleichung der Sitten, &c., des Mittelalters_, vol.
ii. p. 117.