The Imperial Crown
A story by Wilhelm Raabe (1831-1910)
On the fifty-third day of the siege, one and a half thousand years
after the fall of Rome as a republic and nine hundred and seventy
seven years after Odoacer the Barbarian had exiled the boy emperor
Romulus Augustulus to the estate that had once belonged to Lucullus
in Catania, Constantinople had fallen. God placed two empires and
twelve kingdoms in the hands of the son of Murad, Mehmet the Second.
What Christendom in its comatose dullness, tearing itself to pieces
in wars of religion and feuds between peoples and their princes,
had been unable to defend itself against, had now happened. The
great bogeyman had finally arrived.
On Saint Lawrence's day in the year 1453 an old man sits in a narrow
room in a house on the Banner Mountain in Nuremberg writing what we
are about to read. The low window looks out on a small vegetable
patch and up to the town wall beyond. The small room is bare and
without any ornament, but the sun shines down on the garden, the day
is pleasant and the sky is blue.
It is quiet and yet not quiet. The writer's room does indeed face
the town and the streets, but a strange noise and a humming sound
buzzes through the air and the brave old high protective walls and
towers resonate most singularly. The writer's room is also filled
with a humming and ringing and wondrous rushing. Someone insecure
and not in control of their thoughts and their quill would find it
hard today in Nuremberg to execute calligraphy with stylus, ink,
paper and parchment.
The grey-haired old man now and again holds his head in his hands
and listens to the ruckus, but it does not have the power to disturb
him. His eye only looks to the sky for a moment with just a little
less pensiveness. He does not, however, put down his quill for such
trifles.
He has talent as a scribe and has something to say of lasting value
despite the sounds and interplay of colours of the world outside.
Tolle! Lege! Take and read! Let us see what Saint Augustine has to
say on the subject: "I heard come from a neighbouring house a soft
and gentle voice repeating itself as if a boy or girl were speaking:
Tolle! Lege! Take and read! And my face was drained of colour and
I wondered if these words were part of a children's game but could
not remember ever having heard them before. And, suddenly, tears came
to my eyes and I stood up interpreting this as a voice from heaven!"
That's it in a nutshell! Thanks to this great privilege, by the grace
of God, I too heard this siren voice, half that of a child, half that
of a messenger of the Most High and discovered the Logos that made
sense of worldly hubbub and gave me peace. Like Augustine I no longer
breathed the air of bread and circuses, of the military might of the
Emperor and his erstwhile glory nor indeed the splendour that once
was Rome.
I heard and saw--things wonderful to tell of and describe. While I
was still young I saw a bright light in the gloom. While I was still
young my life also underwent a change.
What does the great bell Benedicta in the church of Saint Sebaldus
want with its solemn tolling? What do the other bells in all the
belltowers of my home town want by ringing so? I can hear their tones,
both near and far, intermingle with each other. I can hear my brothers
and sisters making their way through streets and marketplaces singing
psalms and plaintive hymns. I hear the people tramp like the roar of
a faraway river breaking its banks.
To the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus, to the sound of its iron clapper
voice they stream as one: Vox ego sum vitae, voco vos, orate, venite!
(I am the voice of life, I am calling you to pray, come!) Friar Johannes
Capistranus is standing in the stone pulpit outside the walls of the
church to preach about the pagan victory, the fall of the Eastern
Empire, the coming of the Anti-Christ and the end of the world. His
call to repentance has been tolled out by all the bells. In all the
towns through which he has passed people have lit fires and thrown on
them with cries and sobs their ephemeral vain things: dice and board
games, little bells and sledges, quilted hoods and pointed shoes. This
they will do today too in Nuremberg, rid themselves a hundredfold of
aids to sensuality and find themselves beset by courtly love and the
pride of life yet again tomorrow as they were yesterday and are today.
Truly this zealous Franciscan friar speaks well. The whole of
Christendom, to whom he addresses himself, has learnt that. He does
not speak to bandy words with the foolish and the weak. He tugs at
the heartstrings of the strongest man. He spares no-one. He grips
men in armour so that even their iron breastplates become no more
than the flimsy garment that a woman wears. He seizes them and
those who wear crowns on their helmets must get down on their knees
like the women who have come here from the cradles of their children,
like the young women who have been weaving garlands and gathering
bunches of flowers, who have come here from their spindles and their
looms. Brother Johannes speaks well. He drowns out the sound of
the bells, but how could he drown out the gentle voice that once
spoke to me?
I have no more board games and dice games, pointed shoes and modish
clothes to throw into the flames. I do not need to jostle with the
others at the church of Saint Sebaldus. How potent the words of
that fiery monk Johannes Capistranus though! The great unrest he
has caused in the feelings of the people in this town has laid hold
of me too. I have not been able to defend myself against them and
so here I sit on St Lawrence's day in the year of the fall of
Byzantium and write down what I experienced in my youth when the
crown belonging to the German people was almost lost and when I too
was led to fight for it along with others. While the town heaves
and swells and thunders like a far-off sea, I am writing what the
gentle voice once said that set me so soon on the way through life
and that penetrated both my ear and heart in the wildest and the
most anarchic of times.
I am from an old and resourceful Nuremberg family. I studied, not
without diligence and understanding, law in Prague before moving to
Leipzig when the Hussite heresy began to trouble us. I wielded my
sword for my town and the Empire, had command of the town of Gleven
in hard-fought battles and was the town's envoy to the Republic of
Venice and to the Queen of Naples, Joanna the Second. Marsilio
Ficino called me his friend and Cosimo de' Medici took me into his
Platonic Academy in Florence. I am master of my own body and master
in my own house. I am a wealthy man and am tired of life.
Tired of life? Perhaps not, but I have had many long years of
experiencing it and Brother Johannes at St Sebaldus today has
nothing to tell me.
Truly I am not tired of life, but like the saintly bishop of Hippo,
Aurelius Augustinus, I know that the games of grown-ups are called
business and, as I early rejected the games of my youth, so I have
now foresworn the games of adults. I am now at peace by the grace
of God.
At peace! I am still pleased with my great and splendid alma mater,
its art and its cleverness, the favour and the fame it enjoys among
nations. I take pleasure in remembering the beauty of the world,
how, for instance, I can bring to mind the shining of the Tyrrhenian
sea in the sunshine even today. I take pleasure in the noble men
and women who have met with me under Germany's sky as well as that
of Italy. Truly I have seen much in the world, truly I have lived
and live still. Only today it is not of the earth's splendour I
write under this tolling of bells occasioned by one who is preaching
atonement at the church of Saint Sebaldus.
With heartfelt devotion I have always supported my home town and it
has been second to no other town for me no matter how fair the
laurel groves that town was steeped in. Others may boast of their
Arno and the blueness of their Adriatic. I prize the town of my
father and my mother. It has always lain quietly inside me when I
thought of them along life's byways. I hold dear in this place and
in this hour the town that was there to witness the birth of
Mechthild Grossin.
When I was young my father's house was full of people, full of life.
That life has gradually faded and grown silent, one voice after
another. My parents are dead and my brothers and sisters too. I
have been left on my own and my footfall in this old house is the
only one now that those of a veritable host of friends and
relations have gone to echo on the stairs and in the passages and
rooms. And so too I am excluded from those rooms which once were
full of cheerful noise and overlook the gaudy street. I sit once
again in that room that was mine as a boy and after, when I was
a student in Prague. A narrow space is enough for me, a bare
wall preferable to one that has been decorated. I love my garden
more than the tumultuous streets and the treetops that come up as
far as my windowsill give me more pleasure than the parades of
noble and not so noble families, of the councillors and clergy of
this gracious town of Nuremberg.
I have left the proud rooms of the front of the house with their
decorations, ornaments, carvings and weapons on display to the
spiders and the maids. It is my youth that has brought me in old
age back to my tiny schoolroom. It is my garden and the garden in
which Mechthild Grossin played as a little girl and strolled in
as a young woman that have brought me back here.
But I did not live alone then in the small room. In the year
1390 the knight Hans Groland with his brother Ulrich had placed
his Laufenholz stables in the town of Nuremberg on the open
market and both brothers had sworn that neither they nor any of
their descendants would sell the property to anyone other than
a citizen or a citizeness of Nuremberg. When in 1392 the great
bell of Saint Sebaldus was blessed, both brothers had already died
and Hans's son, Michael Groland, became my father's ward and was
brought to our home as no-one else wanted to take him in. My
father's guardianship extended to little more than the wild young
squire himself for the Groland family had managed their affairs
badly from of old and for the last scion of their race little
remained of ancient property rights. His parents, however, had
held the stables in perpetuity from the time of Emperor Ludwig
the Second of Bavaria.
The wild young squire Michael was my friend and Mechthild Grossin
grew up to be his bride. Their voices too are silent now and their
footsteps no more heard. Tolle! Lege! Tolle! Lege!
From the time of Conrad Hainzen onwards, who was called Conrad the
Leper and then Conrad the Great, no more imposing family has arisen
in Nuremberg and on the strong tree with a hundred branches no
fairer blossom than Mechthild Grossin whose father on Banner Mountain
was my father's neighbour. For me it is a miracle, even if it is
not one, that today, withered and grey, I can overlook the window of
the fair maid's summer garden, while she departed this life many
years ago as she left her room in all her youthful beauty.
Yes, she left and no-one was able to stop her--not her father, not
her mother, not the might, power and reputation of the great town nor
those of her great and honourable family.
She listened to the voice of love and followed the promptings of her
forefather. Tolle! Lege!
It was a one-year-old child that was brought to my father in his
home and grew to be like a young eaglet that fell out of its
parents' nest and was taken home by a beekeeper under his arm. My
father learnt the hard way what it is to feed a bird of prey. But
I, who was only slightly older than Squire Michael, took pleasure
in having a good playmate until we were both eligible bachelors and
had gone from being playmates to being friends for life until death
came to part us.
Yes, we were boys in the time of the wild and merry king Wenceslas
and the way things stood in the Empire at that time and the feuds
the town had on its hands with Heinrich von Buchteck, Georg von
Wichsenstein, Sybold Schelm of Bergen and dozens of other thorns
in its side, even the careworn face of my father, the keeper of
the public purse who had to keep an eye on the town's treasure,
seals and documents, could often not repress with its grim lines
the youthful merriment in the house on Banner Mountain. And that
fateful day in Rense that brought to a wondrous end the splendour
of King Wenceslas on German soil was really not able to put paid
to the splendour of o u r youth.
In the year of Our Lord 1400 Mechthild Grossin was born into this
vale of tears in the house next door to us. In the reign of King
Ruprecht Squire Groland von Laufenholz and myself became young men.
Look at that sun! It lies like gold over the grey wall of the
town and the turret of the watchtower opposite my window. In my
north-facing room it cannot of course penetrate, but I see it as
I saw it in the days of my youth. Why is the monk at Saint
Sebaldus preaching about the end of the world? The world won't
come to an end because Constantinople has fallen into the hands
of the heathen, because the Holy Roman Empire's fortresses are
threatened, because poor mankind wanders into sin as it has to
wander in pain and inexpressible misery! A friendly swaying moves
the trees of my youth. They bow to each other over the gates that
separate neighbours' gardens. The unsteady shadows of branch and
leaf dance on the ground. The happy birds hop and flutter in
the treetops. The summer flowers of my youth bloom in my garden
and in the gardens of my neighbours. The world defends itself
today as it did in olden days through beauty and loveliness
against the words of the angry monk. Tolle! Lege! Take and
read and understand rightly and take care not to attribute a
false meaning to the word that is opened up to you and stands
for your life and the life of your contemporaries!
When Michael and I had become young men and played our part in
torchlit dances and bearded masques, our neighbour's little
girl slipped through the green hedge and came shyly and yet
deliberately to the bower where we first sat with our teacher
Theodoros Antoniades, exiled from Chios, whose evil star had
led him, to prove a real blessing to me, to Nuremberg. In
his flight from the Turks he had only been able to take with
him a few rolled-up parchments and books he had written himself
and his language, which was like a revelation to me and fell
on my soul like a rainbow. I helped the homeless refugee to
live and he taught me his Greek tongue and tried to teach it
to my friend and would perhaps have managed it if the child
had not stuck her curly little head into the green bower.
Master Theodoros was just drawing his first gamma on the
table with a piece of chalk when the child appeared and Greek
went out of the window for the wild child Michael Groland von
Laufenholz. He caught up the child with a laugh, lifted her,
made much of her and disrupted the lesson in no uncertain way.
I told him off severely, but he laughed all the more and the
girl got no further than the alphabet. But his fate was
decided thereby and so was mine.
The little girl came to every lesson that we held in the
garden and, though Michael did not continue to annoy us any
further, he seated his little friend on his knee and she,
Mechthild, learnt more from Master Theodoros Antoniades than
Michael did, for she listened attentively and quietly enough
to him and watched with big, earnest eyes the careworn face
of the wise, banished teacher. After the lesson she ran
more or less wild admittedly and she and Michael Groland
chased each other through the garden round bushes and trees
so that all the neighbours stuck their heads out of their
windows and women and young women working for the owner of
the House of the Golden Shield leaned on their garden fence
in happy astonishment and witnessed smiling the game between
the young child and the grown-up one. Even the ancient
landlady, the owner's old mother in the House of the Shield,
who was newly married when the Emperor and his Empire's
representatives had held council in the presence of the
Golden Seal, who had knelt before the house's altar next to
the Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, even she came, supported
by her staff and her granddaughter's arm, to the fence and
took pleasure in the pleasure evinced by the two youngsters.
Tolle! Lege! This old mother, Anna Grundherrin, on whom
such a great honour was bestowed by Emperor and Empire, took
upon herself an even greater honour after in the cause of
mercy and humility. She was the first Mater Leprosorum, the
first patroness of the lepers, Usslingerin's first helper,
and as I am writing not of the Emperor or the Empire, but of
myself and my own family, no more need be said of the Golden
Seal, but a lot about the lepers, and truly I have a sad right
to, as will be recognized after I have put this quill down
tonight.
In the year of Our Lord's Grace 1394 the hearts of Christians
first turned to lepers hereabouts. At that time there was a
pious preacher in the town, Master Nicholas at the Holy Spirit
Hospice. He it was who first succeeded, with God's help, in
waking the hearts of the people in Nuremberg. He began in his
church to preach sermons for the lepers and made a loud appeal
for charitable actions to alleviate this great, inexpressible
misery and appealed above all to kindly women, stirred their
hearts and they responded to his call.
The first three devout women to turn up were: the Usslingerin,
then Anna Grundherrin from the Golden Seal and then Anna
Weidingin. They started by feeding the lepers, for three days
in Holy Week to begin with--Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and
Good Friday. And others followed their example and then others
and a shining work of charity came out of it. Then more than
two thousand lost ones came to the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus
where the fiery friar Johannes Capistranus is now holding forth
and sat down in an orderly fashion at table and a foundation
was enthusiastically founded then for all time, the Leprosy
Foundation, and tasks were assigned as by right and because
they were cheap to be carried out by women. The eldest woman
was named the Mother of the Sick.
Everything sprang up in a wave of enthusiasm! And although in
the breasts of women a slight flame remained, the interest of
the council soon waned in light and heat and finally went out
in the year 1401. Then there arose because of overcrowding a
decree whereby lepers should no more be allowed into the town,
that the healthy should be protected from them, and the Lord
Himself must intervene from heaven so that the good works and
words of Master Nicholas of the Holy Spirit Hospice should not
cause even greater grief than they already had.
The Lord acted speedily and sharply and sent sickness to the
town without the lepers being there and sent plagues that had
never happened before in human memory. Sick people ran through
the streets like the mad, for the scourge robbed them of sense
and reason and there was no distinction between rich and poor,
high-born and low-born and sane and insane.
The Lord in heaven acted sharply and once again in churches
sermons were preached on behalf of the lepers, and every
pulpit orator reproached his now penitent congregation with
what he described as God's punishment for cruelty to those
who could not help themselves. It was therefore soon public
as well as personal opinion that it should be decided and
openly proclaimed that the lepers be released from their hovels
outside the walls and again be allowed to beg for alms inside
the town. Mistress Anna Grundherrin replaced the Usslingerin
now as the Mother of the Sick.
Mistress Anna did not watch much longer the game between
Mechthild and Michael. She departed this life and received
a state funeral. Our children's games also hastened to their
end. The time came for both me and Michael von Laufenholz to
be packed off to university in Prague and we remained there
of our own volition, each in his own way, right up until 1409.
Now everybody knows what happened in that year, how the quarrel
between Realists and Nominalists was finally decided, how King
Wenceslas approved the use of German as a medium of instruction
at the new university of Prague founded by the Emperor Charles
the Fourth and how we left it, along with five thousand foreign
teachers and students and broke with the cream of the cream of
that famous school. But what was in deadly earnest for some of
us was for others an enjoyable game and to these, who laughed
the thing off, belonged my good roommate Michael and a great
deal of ink could be spilled in describing all the things he
got up to on the great procession from Prague to Leipzig. So
that nothing should be lacking to the new university that graced
the old one, Squire Michael Groland von Laufenholz came with us
to Leipzig and Margrave Friedrich the Serious had to welcome him
along with the others and could like it or lump it as he chose.
But in Leipzig too Michael stayed my good and faithful friend
and persevered for me and with me in our scholarly life until
the following year 1410. Then both of us went back home where
we found all our nearest and dearest still living including our
Greek teacher Theodoros Antoniades. Mechthild Grossin was now
ten having just outgrown her nanny, but, without a word of a
lie--pulcherrima puella infans!
And once more the old game between this child and the squire
started up. The rest of us, who all regarded the girl with
cordial affection and took pleasure in her beauty, were all
with almost cheerful jealousy pushed away by the crazy student
and warrior from his chosen one. The chosen one, however,
responded to his wondrous display of affection wholeheartedly
and clung to her handsome friend with heart and mind totally.
It was a frequent cause of laughter, but the two did not lead
each other astray and it would be a matter of great tenderness
how affection grew from day to day, changed and yet remained
the same until the year 1415 when Squire Michael Groland von
Laufenholz performed his first duty for the town and for a
further five years afterwards was lost to the friendship and
neighbourliness on Banner Mountain.
On 20 October 1414 the Bohemian cleric Jan Huss arrived in
Nuremberg with an imperial escort on his way to the Council
of Constance. He was well received and had fastened to all
the church doors in the town the following notice in German
and in Latin:
"Jan Huss is journeying to Constance where, with God's help,
he will defend to the end the beliefs he has held, still holds
and always will hold."
And the call for disputation was immediately echoed. Master
Albert, the parish priest of Saint Sebaldus, held enthusiastic
dispute with his Bohemian counterpart for a full four hours
till they had both come to a peaceful conclusion. And then
Master Jan, with a happy memory of the good reception he had
received in Nuremberg, continued on his way to the Council of
Constance, to incarceration and burning at the stake. Around
the time of the council my good friend, Squire von Laufenholz,
went missing. In the following year, 1415, the town council
of Nuremberg represented by Peter Volkhamer and the preacher
at the church of Saint Lawrence, Johann von Hollfeldt, along
with his factor, Ulrich Teuchsler, prepared itself to go to
Constance too. Squire Groland from Gleven went with them from
the town square as the leader of their military escort. He
delivered them to Constance happy and intact, was knighted by
the Emperor Sigismund himself and lost himself in Italy till
the year 1420.
The men our town council had sent to Constance came home and
told what they knew. My wild friend conveyed his thanks to
the town for soundly nurturing him, a thanks bordering on
tongue-in-cheekness, for he added that he hoped to pay them
back twice and three times over. All they had to do was to
be patient and to wait willingly. How it would come about,
he would be the first to admit that he did not know himself.
But time would fortunately attend to these matters, so that
all would come good in the end.
At this all heads were thoroughly shaken. But I for my part
knew best how the land lay in my friend's feelings and thoughts.
I had been the one closest to how the young eagle had pulled at
his chains from the day on which that unfledged nestling had
been brought to my father's house for the first time.
Now we sat alone, the Greek tutor Theodoros Antoniades and I,
in a small room during winter, in the bower during summer and
Michael Groland never once disturbed us by pushing parchments
across the table with his elbow and getting Mechthild to look
at the handwriting on them and laughing: "The world today is
still as merry as it was a thousand years ago! A whole sack
full of your Aristotle, Master Theodoros, does not outweigh it.
Laugh at them, child, these sullen fools, laugh and get bigger
and wait for me. We'll show this peevish world then that we
can still earn a wreath of flowers for ourselves on Judgement
Day with a brave heart and a merry mind!"
Mechthildis means heroine, mighty female warrior, and there is
no other name among men that has so noble a sound as this one!
I have grown old and see each year how the youth and the beauty
of women come to pass anew. But no bud, as far as my eyes can
reach, has opened to a blossom that was more sweet-natured and
more beautiful than that which grew to fullness in the great
neighbouring garden among sisters awaiting there the crowning
glory of its fate.
And it grew and unfolded while my brave friend was absent abroad
in the pursuit of feats of arms and knightly adventures. And
what we had all thought of in the final analysis as a children's
game became serious with a gravity that stretched far beyond our
poor life on earth. What my friend had spoken of laughingly as
fidelity and perseverance, Mechthild had stored up in her heart
and had waited for my friend patiently and quietly. It came as
a wonder to us all, for none of us knew anything about it until
the night of the feast of Saints Simon and Jude in 1420 when
the sweet mystery was revealed in the light of fires and the
noise of weaponry.
In the night of Saints Simon and Jude 1420 Christoph of Leining,
the dependent of Duke Ludwig the Bearded of Ingolstadt, captured
the walled town of Nuremberg with cunning and force after having
beforehand concluded a secret pact with the council of which few
were aware, although a thousand voices shouted the news of it to
the rest of the world afterwards.
Christoph of Leining conveyed his respects to the council to the
effect that the town need not stir. He, Sir Christopher, was
coming to inflict defeat on the local counts and the best that
could come out of such a feud could only be a positive thing for
the inhabitants of Nuremberg.
Not only did the council not stir, but it did something else,
over which the citizens of Nuremberg kicked up before Emperor
and Empire no little fuss. Namely, as the hordes of their
enemies lay hidden in ambush under their walls, the council
prepared for citizens of both sexes a dance at the town hall
and a most merry and most extraordinary dance night it was too.
At that time the elders, the town fathers did not take for
truth the gossip of the elderly and none of the young suspected
to what ends the strings behind their backs were being put to.
We had not wondered in the slightest at the sudden urge for
entertainment that had come over the town's leaders, upper
classes and the whole strict Collegium Septemvirorum but had
caught hold of pleasure by the wing without question as young
people do. We had gone out to team up with the fairest maidens
in the town and I had led off with Mechthild, the fairest of
them all. The men of the citadel, tempted by the noise of
kettledrums and music away from their fortress, we scarcely
paid attention to, although we were only too happy otherwise
with their swords, clubs and spears. The soldiers of the local
counts looked like our greybeards and how they, while the
dancers turned, strained to listen to events in the fortress
we had no inkling of.
Only once after that did I see Mechthild more beautiful than
that night of the feast of Saints Simon and Jude in the year
1420. That was on another day when the setting sun shone on
the portal of the Church of the Holy Ghost before the shrine
that bore the Imperial Crown and nightfall followed at once
upon that glorious brilliance.
On that eve of Saints Simon and Jude she appeared in the
joyous splendour of her youth and as she elegantly slipped
smiling through the winding movements of the round dance in
the glare of lights and torches, there was not a single eye
that did not follow the most beauteous child in Nuremberg with
joy and pride. I think that even those old men standing there
and waiting in such deadly earnest spared a glance and a word
for that fair maiden.
But the hour has come that Christoph Leininger has already
discussed with the council and he has been as good as his word.
Suddenly, with the general merriment at its height, there has
been a great shock, a flaring up, a trembling has descended on
the feast. A more undisciplined noise has added itself to the
brass and wind sections of the band. People have cried out in
the streets. Before anyone realised, the red glow from the
vanquished citadel came through the windows and over the pale
with fear faces of the guests of Nuremberg's honourable council.
Those in the know, the veterans, sprang up from their seats and
cried "Victory!" and "Freedom!" The swords of young men flashed
above the wreathed heads of young women and all the town's bells
sounded the alarm and the call to arms waking both children and
the sick. Men ran out into the streets with their weapons to help
the council and Christoph Leininger to win this dangerous game.
The feast and the dance in the town hall then came to an end it
has to be admitted, but another wilder feast and dance began.
Those burgers who, in their mocking and disdainful way, had stooped
to spoiling and offending the people's joy, were thrown to the floor
in the middle of the council chamber and disarmed. They might well
have cried out "Treachery!" but the town would rightfully rejoice
when the townsfolk learned just what, on this night, that roll of
the dice had been for.
Only a few years later Baron Friedrich, who became the first Elector
of Brandenburg sold the burnt-out ruin of the citadel of Nuremberg
complete with all accessories lock, stock and barrel and all rights
included to the Forest of Sebald and Lorenz reserving to himself only
the right of asylum and escort and the free movement of his subjects.
And thus no-one could show a greater right to the happiness of that
night in Nuremberg than Nuremberg itself and the Emperor. But I will
say no more of that, only that on that very same night of the feast
of Saints Simon and Jude along with Christopher of Leiningen another
knight, who had gone missing, climbed over the wall, sword in hand,
to do great service to the town as he had promised: my dear friend
and brother Michael Groland of Laufenholz, the wild squire Groland,
for whom our neighbour's beautiful daughter had been waiting in
that little garden since they had played together as children!
Through the hubbub of the town, down the lane that led to the castle,
from the citadel in flames, danced, swinging their drawn swords and
their clubs, with torches in their hands, the first of the happy
conquerors. Wave after wave of the excited populace palpitated
through the mayoral function room and we had enough to do stopping
old and young women from being crushed. The town elders had got up
from their raised seats and were happily stroking their grey and
white beards, nodding contentedly to anyone they knew in the crowd.
It was a long time, however, before one of them could make himself
heard over the overwhelming din. This only happened when, borne on
the shoulders of citizens, the first of the Leininger's messengers
were carried in, and then I felt how Mechthildis's arm, which was
linked to mine, suddenly trembled. The young woman had just
recognized her friend in the heaving turmoil over the heads of the
crowd, backlit by the red reflection of the burning castle. My
heart too rejoiced at the unexpected sight. Then all became silent
in the room before the mighty voice of the knight Michael Groland
of Laufenholz. Our friend then proclaimed the deed that had just
come to pass in fine detail, but the blare of trumpets and hooters
blocked it all out again. Friendship and affinity led us to the
knight and so it was that on that wild night male friend and female
friend were again reunited for the first time in years and wonderful
days ensued in the wake of this wonderful reunion.
Groland had rendered good service to the town of Nuremberg and the
town acknowledged it gratefully. But if he had slipped into the
heart of Mechthild almost as he had into Nuremberg Castle, now he
had to lay siege to her heart all over again before she was able
to confess that she had given it to him already while still a child.
This is the way women are and figures among the wiles that preserve
beauty and loveliness on earth in the midst of the anger, quarrels
and rages endemic to the times. However bad and bloody it may seem
to be around us we were quiet and happy and at ease in our twenty
first and twenty second springs.
Groland von Laufenholz now no longer elbowed us in the bower to spoil
our handwriting so that he could put a blooming life onto the table
in its place. The young woman stayed chastely in her garden, hidden
by thick foliage, and only seldom did her outer garments shine from
a distance through the green. But our Greek teacher Theodoros
Antoniades of Chios had just translated the poems of Anacreon into
Latin and read them out to us and had no more attentive listener than
my once rumbustious friend Michael Groland. He stole from me then
many a good sheet of first-rate parchment and I laughed when I came
upon him sitting there, tearing his hair out, trying to write German
verse like Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide and
Heinrich Frauenlob that the women of Mainz carried on their shoulders
to his grave and on whose tombstone they shed so much precious wine
that the church overflowed with it and men wrang their hands and tore
their hair out.
Thus we lived, truly, during those early days of the Hussite Wars!
And it was Mechthild who ushered us out of this unworldliness into
the world as it really was then--devastated, bloody, in flames--
and led us to fight for the imperial crown.
We had, as German men are apt to do, suddenly forgotten everything
to do with the present moment. We saw and heard nothing else apart
from our present happiness. We scarcely took in that already Johannes
Ziska of the Chalice, the captain of the Taborites so help them God,
had taken the field against us and, tired and frustrated, we paid
scant attention to the strange and great events that were occurring
within the very walls of our own home town. And truly there were
wonderful things afoot in it.
Already in 1421 Cardinal Brando Placentius di Regniostoli, the papal
nuncio, had come to Nuremberg to await, with the electoral princes and
the princes, the arrival of the Emperor. But Emperor Sigismund, held
back by an emergency, had had to establish a temporary court in Wesel
and only came to Nuremberg the following year, in 1422, to set up a
judgement seat and then, of course, there was an elegant assembly on
hand.
While Michael and I read the poets of ancient Greece with Master Theodoros,
the electors of Mainz, Trier and Cologne rode in, the Elector Palatine,
the Electoral Prince of Saxony and Friedrich von Hohenzollern, the Elector
of Brandenburg also came and with them, behind them and in front of them,
a countless throng of princes and prelates, barons and knights and some
emissaries from imperial free towns besides. In St Sebaldus Hermann von
Neunkirchen, the head of the Chapter of the Holy Cross, said high mass.
A crusade against the Hussites was called for and the papal legate, the
Cardinal di Regniostoli, placed the flag of the crusade into the hands of
the Emperor himself. The Emperor then put, along with the banner, a sword
in the hands of Friedrich the First as a sign he should lead the imperial
army and rescue the imperial crown.
What a ringing of bells there was in Nuremberg! And, as the bells rang
and resounded in the air, the hidden gate opened that led from the big
garden of our neighbour into ours and through the narrow, hedged-off path
came the young woman who, as a little girl, had so much more happily slid
through the hedge's foliage, and now arose, serious and proud, and raised
us up from where we were sitting like the appearance of an angel from
heaven.
She stood before us angrily and spoke uninhibitedly. Groland and I
became tense and stayed on our feet, but the homeless refugee from Chios,
Master Theodoros Antoniades, covered his face with both hands and his
tears rolled down it between his fingers.
"Do you not know what has happened to the imperial crown?" the young
woman cried. "How can you sit here and while away the time with foreign
signs and words in a dead language while the crown, sceptre and sword of
your own living people is so hard pressed by an enemy of whom we knew
nothing before we ourselves, through our own stupidity, made him great?
What good are you doing while Emperor and Empire and all the people are
crying out for help to recover the crown that Charlemagne wore on his
sanctified head in Aachen? Master Theodoros, tell them that today they
need to have their armour on if they want to protect their women, their
children, their homes from death, disgrace and pulling down, if they do
not want to be exiled, strangers in a foreign land! How long will the
golden headband of the Emperor Constantine still shine forth, you men
of Byzantium? Did you Greeks not fight for the preservation of his
crown as was right and fitting? Woe unto your wives and daughters had
they not thrust a sword into your hand while there was still time!"
At this point Mechthild broke off her discourse with loud weeping, but
my crazy friend, the doughty knight Michael, lay down at her feet and
he too with tears in his eyes kissed the hem of her garment. She though
lightly touched his head and ran off. The exiled Greek among us picked
up his writings with trembling hands and his knees were shaking. Like
one pierced with a crossbow bolt he looked at us and said:
"Woe unto you if you do not hear what your children, the weaker sex and
the graves of your ancestors shout in your ears---woe indeed!"
And he too withdrew in giddy haste from the bower. In this way Michael
Groland and I were won over to the struggle for the imperial crown.
In the middle of turbulent Bohemia, where the Berounka flows, stood the
proud castle that the Emperor Charles, the Fourth of that name, whom
Bohemians idolized, had built and called after his own name--Karlstein.
There, next to the Bohemian crown jewels, lay the much greater treasures
of the Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne's crown, his sceptre, sword and
orb along with the Holy Lance which had pierced the side of Our Lord
and Saviour and all the rest. And they lay there contrary to right and
what had been promised.
Against right and what had been promised, for having broken the promise
he had given to the electoral princes that they would always be kept
safe in either Nuremberg or Frankfurt, the Luxemburger had sneakily
taken them to Castle Karlstein because all good fortune and favour was
owed to Bohemia and to the German part of his empire, whose head he was
and whose increaser he was ever to be, he granted little or nothing
other than the crumbs that fell from Bohemia's table.
From the year 1350 onwards ancient treasures had lain in Castle Karlstein,
which in 1422 men of Prague had besieged and overrun with wave upon wave
of armed might so as to bring the Holy Roman Empire's crown into their
possession and totally humiliate the German people and there was hardly
anything else one could say once they had made themselves masters of those
holy relics.
The heart of Nuremberg was most enamoured of the coat, sword and sceptre
of Charlemagne, for it was the greatest honour for that dear town that it
had formerly been singled out as the repository of the crown jewels and
to have them back again everyone in Nuremberg, no matter how lacking in
sense or obtuse he might be, would have gladly laid down his life to his
last drop of blood.
And so it was, after emperor and empire had placed themselves in the hands
of Nuremberg's council and citizens, that the following were conscripted--
two hundred footsoldiers, thirty cavalrymen, and Elector Friedrich of the
state of Brandenburg undertook to provide thirty snipers for the crusade
so that there was a mighty press of all these young heroes within the city
walls.
In response to our maiden's fine exhortation we too, Michael Groland and I,
went with the others and in the first days of September of the year 1422 we
sat there all three of us for the last time together, hopeful and happy,
amusing ourselves with bright thoughts about an uncertain future. What
Michael and Mechthilde had promised each other could be said with certainty
however. Their thoughts were of the brightest and their promise was one of
sublime happiness if the imperial crown could be rescued from our terrible
foe.
It was not long before we were with the army. Our friends and relations
gazed after us from the Laufer Gate and from the walls and we often, as we
rode out, turned our heads and looked back at the high wall where the fair
maid waved her scarf and next to her stood our Greek master, Theodoros
Antoniades, on the parapet with his careworn head supported by his hand,
lost in painful thoughts of his own harassed homeland.
And so, for the first time, I came to bear arms for the Empire in the
army's vanguard as its bannerman and truly a great honour was vouchsafed
to him who was permitted to take for himself a part in this trial and
tribulation.
This was the cruellest war I have ever seen and the territory that we
were crossing through looked for all the world as if the end times had
come to it. All the villages and most of the towns had been reduced to
fire-blackened rubble. The fields were strewn with bones and corpses.
The Lord went before the Hussite armies to punish the sins of the world
as a cloud of smoke by day and a column of fire by night. All colour
paled before the hot breath of the Taborites and there was nothing left
over behind it apart from waste land and darkness. And in the middle of
that wilderness, that howling wilderness, we knew that the high castle
was situated that was unlawfully concealing the crown jewels of our
people, though they were now being watched by good watchmen. With hot
breath and panting chest we ranged abroad to set the watchmen free and
rescue the crown.
We came to Saaz to begin with, not that it did us much good, for the
German nation was indeed fated not to have much luck in the course of
this brutal war. The great sin committed at Konstanz had to be atoned
for and it was!
Brother Johannes Capistranus, take note: Constantinople has fallen now
into the hands of the pagans. The eastern Roman Empire has vanished,
but we saved the German imperial crown, we, the citizens of the noble
town of Nuremberg, and Friedrich of Hohenzollern, the first electoral
prince of Brandenburg, who led us and bore on his shoulders the golden
shrine that hid the sceptre and the sword of Charlemagne, helping to
take them away from Karlstein, which the foreigner had built as a prison
for the greatest treasure of the German nation.
We came to Saaz to begin with, not that it did us much good. There was
a Herr von Plauen in the army, who wanted to set fire to this stronghold
of the Hussites with doves and sparrows to which he attached burning
twigs. But the birds, driven by pain, fluttered back to our own camp
and set that on fire so that we had to withdraw from the town and the
Taborites claimed yet another great victory. They shouted after us
from the walls. Swollen by the influx of the detachment of Count Ludwig
of the Palatinate we moved on through the wood, engaged in constant combat,
day after day.
Shield to shield, shoulder to shoulder we went on, leaving brave and dear
comrades in arms wounded and dead behind us with each step we took. The
wounded held their hands out after us and waved goodbye, but none of them
stretched out their hand to hold back those who were advancing. The worst
of them fought with their last ounce of strength for the imperial crown
and the one behind made a superhuman effort to push the one in front into
the way forward, grim though it was. We rode and fought as in a fever.
We laughed at the arrows that flew at us from the depths of the forest,
from behind each bush and rock. Feverish eyes shone, arms and fists had
a twofold increase in force and the smaller the army became, the more
splendidly the belief rose up in each chest in the final success of our
enterprise. We were all willing to die for Charlemagne's crown jewels
and therefore, as no-one paid death any attention, we had our way this
time and broke through the enemy hordes, through the wicked unfamiliar
forest, crossed over streams and mountains and beheld Castle Karlstein
as the first crusaders looked upon the battlements of the holy city of
Jerusalem!
First there was a cry and then a great silence. The wild wood before
us thinned out and from on high the golden crosses of the tower that
hid our treasure trove looked down on us. Another cry went up from the
declivity at our feet where the Hussite encampment stretched out and we
saw and heard them working at fever pitch with heavy rifles, mangonels
and grappling ladders. We saw too the guardians of the Holy Roman
Empire's treasure on the high walls of the citadel and Elector Friedrich
turned, brandishing his sword, and waved.
Then we broke out of the wood down into the valley to where the Hussites
were encamped, following the electoral prince, an angry river of fire.
There we fell upon the Taborites and flung our torches at their tents
and trampled on their bodies through the thick smoke and flames. Already
we had fought our way to the steep cliffs bearing the mighty castle on
top of them and saw above us, above the smoke and the throng of the
castle watch the waving of the imperial flag, heard the cries of joy of
the crown's guardians on the battlements and over and above all the noise
of battle, solemn and sonorous, the exalted tolling of the bell of the
Holy Cross, the tolling of the bell that swings over the shrine erected
to contain the Holy Roman Empire's imperial crown jewels.
The battle did not last long. We choked all those who would not yield
to us. We beat these men from Prague and drove them back from the walls
that they had so ruthlessly attacked. We won the one and only piece of
luck that German arms had had in that dreadful war against the continental
followers of Wycliffe's doctrines. We rescued for the German people its
holy of holies from the utmost degradation at the hands of foreigners and
brought it out of Bohemia that it might enjoy better days unmolested in
our empire.
The men of Prague fled and we pressed on up the steep path. Those above
us stretched out their tired hands to us from the battlements. We saw
them kneeling and we saw them dancing in their watchtowers, those brave
guardians of Charlemagne's crown. We pressed on up the steep and narrow
path, each of us in harness lifted and shoved by those climbing up
behind. We climbed up to the bronze gate, which had stood up so long and
so well to the attack by the Hussites. Prince Friedrich, who had led us
so ably to the imperial crown, let his bloody battleaxe dangle and took
his helmet from his head. The bronze gate opened to him and to us. The
first of us fell back now to join those behind them in sudden shyness and
holy dread. Our army came to a standstill having redeemed Charlemagne's
orb and sceptre. We saw the first inner courtyard full of sick and
wounded guardians. We saw the healthy with battle fatigue and weakened
by hunger. We had arrived with our leader, the electoral prince of
Brandenburg, at the right time. May that always be true in all the
centuries to come till the world really does come to an end!
They called down health and blessings on us as they stretched out to
us their drooping arms and embraced the vanguard of our relieving
army with heaving chests.