elevated moment. A great silence fell yet again in close proximity
to us, so that only the light clink of armour and the jingling of
weapons could be heard and out of the valley ascended the never
ending victory roar of thousands of German men who had accompanied
us on this journey, but could not share the honour of being the
first to enter the citadel.
Now we saw with amazement all around us the walls reaching up to
heaven behind which the Luxemburger had hidden the treasure he had
borrowed as his own property. We saw the three inner courtyards,
one upon the other, stretching up to the clouds. We saw the royal
residence in all its splendour before us and the clergy that served
it, the deacon, the four canons and the castle chaplains. We strode
from gate to gate, from one resounding drawbridge to another, as
far as the church of St Catherine where we all, pushed up close to
one another, knelt with the electoral prince in silent prayer before
we dared to approach the even greater inner sanctum, the chapel of
the Holy Cross.
Now all courtyards and passageways, all halls and rooms in the castle
were filled with German helmets, storm hoods, spears and swords.
Where formerly only the foremost men and noblest lords in Bohemia
were allowed to set foot, where even the king himself trod lightly,
today the least of men who had come out for the crown had more right
to be. In the king's private chambers Nurembergers laid their pikes
against the brightly painted walls or hung their axes on hooks on
richly gilded wainscoting.
There was still a drawbridge that had not been lowered, still a gate
barred with nine locks. This was the drawbridge that led to the
Church of the Cross. These were the nine locks that guarded the
crown of a Holy Roman Emperor. This drawbridge was lowered and these
locks were opened for no-one else normally apart from the king and
the guardians of the crown. Men in armour with drawn swords kept
watch here day and night.
But who today had a greater right to be admitted to this treasure,
King Sigismund or us?
At a signal from the electoral prince all our banners were lowered
and the raised drawbridge, which was still barring our way, now
came down. Then the nine locks on the gate were heard to clatter
open and we entered the sacred space in deep silence. From the
ceiling and the walls and pillars a red, green and blue fire shone
towards us. The place shone everywhere with the adornment of the
most precious stones and now only a high, artful golden grille
still separated us from the Holy of Holies.
Then I felt a heavy hand upon my shoulder. It was the armoured
hand and arm of my friend who had come up behind me.
We had supported each other whenever one of us had stumbled on
the way. We had covered each other with our shields and the
weapon of one had a hundred times turned away death from the
other, but what more can I say of myself and Michael Groland
other than that we were in the imperial army's procession to
Karlstein? Both of us were merely two drops in the stream and
all that we were able to experience on the way the whole army
likewise learned with pain or with pleasure, in glory or in
ignominy.
Suddenly here on the turret of Charles the Fourth's castle, in
the church of the Holy Cross, before the shrine in which the
imperial crown jewels were kept, we got our own lives back.
My friend and brother, Michael Groland, bent his mouth to my
ear and spoke softly: "Pray for my happiness. Here in this place,
after so much effort on our part to attain it, here before the
inner sanctum of the German people, pray for me that I might win
a crowning glory for myself one day!"
A lightning flash did not come out of the golden niche from the
lance of Saint Maurice or from the sword of Charlemagne to strike
my wild friend for his strange and daring words. But a deep down
shudder, a cold feeling and a fiery flame went through my legs.
At that moment however the castle deacon with his chaplains and
canons intoned a Gloria. All those present joined in the singing
and the pictures on the walls, the painted images set in precious
stones of all the stars of heaven in the lofty vault, the nobles
of the Empire swayed in the flaming red light that the evening sun
threw through the gaudy windows. Everything swayed around me
and never did the noise of the greatest battle ever amaze me as
much as this moment did. I said the prayer for my friend and for
the love of him before the imperial crown itself.
Tolle! Lege! Listen to the cries of the people from the churchyard
of Saint Sebaldus. The whole of the rest of the town is as silent
as the grave. All of Nuremberg's sins and vanities have gathered
together and fled to one spot. Listen how thousands are addressed
about their misery! That monk there in the pulpit is really going
deep into their hearts! They might well cry out, they might well
beat their breasts as the grim Franciscan calls them to penitence,
but what are the words he is shrieking in comparison to the sweet,
soft voice that spoke to me? Of what importance is what the monk
says in comparison with the warning I received in the days of my
youth?
The scribes in towns and monasteries have outlined the story of the
German people's collective grief such as they must have experienced
it subsequent to the disgrace perpetrated in Constance, have put it
down on parchment and paper outstandingly year by year, day by day
so that in future happier generations will be able to leaf through
the blood-spattered pages. Everyone knows how things were then in
the Empire, how a place for human happiness and peace of mind was
nowhere to be found other than behind the highest walls of the most
fortified towns, and even there only under the gravestones in
churches or the grass of churchyards. Everyone knows how the Hussites
victoriously and ever more victoriously came and went and how the
fiery glow that had risen from Lake Constance was not for many long
and dreadful years extinguished among the people of Germany. And
as it was for the citizens of the Empire, so also was it for the
imperial crown that found no resting place anywhere on its native
earth. The sword of Charlemagne had lost its power, the lance of
Saint Maurice no longer moved in its sheath to defend the splendour
of the Holy Germanic Roman Empire. Emperor Sigismund now had to
spirit away the crown jewels to Blindenburg in Hungary, to hide them
among the Huns. It was to Hungary then that my dear friend and
brother, the good knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz, was obliged
to escort them on behalf of the town of Nuremberg and he could not
refuse to render this service, even though, before the altar in the
Church of the Cross at the heart of the Luxemburger's Bohemian
citadel, he had just dedicated himself, in the joy of victory, to
the service of seeking another crown for himself.
By order of the electoral prince he was prevented from riding home
with us. His way took him to Hungary--for the sake of the Empire's
crown jewels he worked his way through ruin. Only in the year 1423
did he come back from Ofen in the depths of despair. But never
have greater honours been bestowed on a man by a woman than those
bestowed on him after he had sunk into misery and all the waves of
earthly wretchedness had swallowed him up. Truly he had won for
himself the crown as he called the highest virtue attainable!
As only a tiny group of healthy and fighting-fit men did we come
back from the army's journey to Bohemia and came once again to the
Laufer Gate in Nuremberg after Castle Karlstein and our town was
also glad of the few who came home and a civic reception was made
ready for us in the highest of spirits. As the councillors, the
citizens and the fairest damsels had escorted us as far as that
gate on our outward journey, so now they waited for us there and
I called out from my horse on reaching the gate to Mechthilde,
pale with fright at the absence of our friend, the good news that
Michael Groland had not been killed in the battle with the Hussites
but that he was still alive, as happy and courageous as ever, and
had only been called away to reap new honours.
The young lady bowed to us, hand on heart. We rode on through the
streets past St Egidia to the Herrenmarkt. And on the way a
hundred people at least reached out their hands to me while I was
still on the horse including Theodoros Antoniades the Greek. Our
army's journey lay like a bad dream behind us and well might we
enjoy our homecoming, for who was there in this throng of people
who had not forgotten on what poor and shaky grounds the splendour
of Nuremberg had been founded! Had the Greek from Chios not been
there on hand, even I might have forgotten that these strong men
and these high walls had not been thought strong or high enough to
trust them with the imperial crown jewels that we had rescued at
so high a cost.
Once we had reached the Herrenmarkt we each sought the comfort of
our own homes. I found on Banner Mountain all my friends and
relatives gathered and all most eager to hear what I had to tell
them of my struggle against the Hussites. The members of the
Grosse family too came to see us from the neighbouring house and
among them was Mechthild. Then I talked as if I were speaking to
the whole wide circle of devout men and women but, ultimately, I
was only talking to Mechthild and she understood that very well.
But I could not make known to her in that crowd of the curious
the most intimate thing that had been confided in me before the
crown of the great emperor Charlemagne in the Church of the Cross
in Castle Karlstein. I would have to save that up for a quieter
time when none of our friends and relations were turning round to
look at us. This time also came and then the white roses on the
cheeks of Mechthilde blushed red. Red they remained at the oath
Michael Groland had sworn before the crown and red they remained
through winter, spring and summer and they were a gift from God
to the pride and joy of the young, loving maid. Now there were
no more mysteries between myself and her and nor could there be.
But the fact that we knew of this mystery and the rest of the
world did not bound us to each other with chains of gold and in
the middle of that grey and devastated world we knew that our
greatest treasures were safe.
Truly that bold utterance, which the brave knight Michael had
whispered in my ear before the sanctuary of the German people
in Castle Karlstein, produced a fine and splendid resonance in
the breast of a certain quiet young lady that Michael Groland
had called his highest crown of all!
Now we lived again together as good neighbours through the winter
of 1422 and the spring and summer of 1423. And no fairy tale, no
golden legend was more full of wonders than that realm of bliss
that the young lady built up in silence. She was not in the least
anxious about her beloved. A wonderful unshakeable trust in the
fulfillment of all sweet hopes held her in its arms.
How could it have been wrong before God to have spoken proudly
and certain of victory those words that had been in the shimmering
light of the prize possessions of the German people? This love
was now well and truly covered by an imperial mantle, illuminated
by the crown of Charlemagne himself. There was no doubt in the
mind of Mechthilde Grossin that Charlemagne's sword and the holy
lance of St Maurice could not but lead her love safe and sound
through all dangers and that the solemn promise that had been made
in that high fortified place in Bohemia had made this love holy
and impossible to damage, beyond space and time.
Beyond space and time! There were no two ways about it! That
oath made in the Church of the Cross in Castle Karlstein defied
both space and time. That oath made before the holiest holy of
holies of the the Holy Roman Empire had borne bloom and fruit,
but, as far as this poor world went, the fruit had been lost in
misery and shame.
We later learned how the imperial crown jewels arrived with great
pomp and circumstance at the castle of Blindenburg, five miles
from the town of Ofen. Eberhard von Windek wrote how, on the
Wednesday before Christmas in the year 1422, the jewels had been
received with great delight there and installed. And our friend
and brother, the good knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz, was
present at the beginning of this new two-year stay for the jewels
abroad and we thought of him without a care in the world through
winter storms and snowfalls and also when spring arrived.
Spring was lovely that year. I pondered once more the Greek
texts of Master Theodoros Antoniades and the trust and happiness
of Mechthilde rubbed off on me. The hard work of learning the
noble language of the ancient Greeks was easier than ever to me.
Having said that, however, we no longer read Anacreon.
Bent over Homer's Iliad, the story of that epic war with Troy,
I fought once again in my head the battles I had fought with
the belligerent Hussites, and my old teacher, who had even more
hurt and atrocities to forget than I did, modestly praised me
for my aptitude. When summer came we once more had our desk
in that fair rose-filled bower up against Nuremberg's protective
city wall. We, that is to say the refugee from Chios and myself,
and now the maid came too, as in the days of her childhood, no
more shy and reserved, from the flowers, the sunshine and the
greenery of her own garden and sat there quietly all ears to
Homer's account of the various doings of noble Hector, fearless
Achilles and worthy Ajax and thought of the knight her friend
with music in her heart and awaited his homecoming from his
latest military expedition with love and fidelity.
The trees shed their blossoms over our writings. I cast my
parchment to one side in order to run after a multi-coloured
butterfly with Mechthild and even our master, the now grey
haired teacher, the old Greek banished and driven from his
homeland by a pagan foe, the homeless person, whose last ideal
abode, the glorious city of Constantinople, was now even more
at risk of violent assault and destruction than our German
homeland, laughed at our indiscipline and was able to smile at
our light and happy hearts.
Never had each blossom been so dear to me, each ray of sunlight
in the green foliage appeared so wonderfully bright as it did
that summer. My life drifted gently by between forgetfulness
and hope, through Homer's epic poem and Mechthild's happiness.
I no longer thought of that iron-clad time when I had fought
for a dream of gold.
Tolle! Lege! Tolle! Lege! Take and read. I heard these
words in the blowing of the autumn wind and, as with Saint
Augustine, I grew pale and "I wondered if these words were
part of a children's game, and I could not remember ever having
heard them before. Tears sprang in me and I got up and took it
to be a voice from God."
That autumn, in October of the year of Our Lord 1423, my friend
and good knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz came back to the
town of Nuremberg from Hungary as a poor, sick, lost soul, who
could now only use his sword as a staff to support himself and
the following relates how he came to arrive in this way.
It was a gloomy afternoon and I had sat on the window seat in a
curiously melancholic frame of mind, but not in my own room,
rather in the main room that connected with the street. I sat
there quietly, disinclined to work or study. Over the rooftops
and gable ends a strong wind blew, quickly driving grey clouds
through the sky, and people too were in a hurry in the streets,
for everyone wanted to be home. And yet I felt strangely ill
at ease in mine.
The walls pressed in on me, the ceiling sank and the wind that
was moving the embroidered pictures on the wall hangings and
making the weapons of my forebears hung on columns clink slightly
took my breath away more than the pear-shaped gag that a torturer
uses to stop the mouths of felons in a torture chamber. Then a
messenger came, a boy who looked in a hurry sent by my cousin,
Cecilia Stollhoferin. He caught his breath with difficulty and
delivered and spoke out a greeting from her in the name of God
and told me that, outside the New Gate, in the hospice for the
sick of Saint John, someone was waiting to speak to me. My cousin
was at that time what was termed the mother to the lepers--Mater
Leprosorum, the oldest of those do-gooding women of patrician
descent who, as a result of the edifying sermons of Master Nicholas
in the church of the Holy Ghost, had been the first to reach out
to these poor sick people for the sake of God as I have already
written in a previous sheet of this chronicle. This hasty summons
surprised me somewhat, yet I responded to it immediately with a
right good will and would, as any good person in Nuremberg would,
have done the same at any hour of day or night, irrespective of
whether the leper mother had summoned me from a wedding feast, a
baptism or a morgue to her higher service.
While I was despondent like this, my cousin's summons seemed to
me of all things the most bearable that could happen to me. The
pressure weighing down on my soul lifted at the seriousness of
this call for assistance. A grey sky and a bad mood no longer
had power to oppress me. I sent the messenger back with a warm
greeting to my cousin, put on a mantle as quickly as possible
over my dappled tunic and went out on that dark autumn day.
The human turmoil, into which I was straightaway admitted outside
in the street, released me completely from the attacks of my bad
demons. From the bay window of the Grossen house Mechthild waved
me a greeting with a friendly smile. I could well have marvelled
at myself being now quite a different person from the one I had
been only an hour before, but that I did not do, but berated
myself as a fool and walked on and on, past the ruins of Leininger's
citadel, to the New Gate.
On the way many a good friend greeted me and stopped me with a
"Where are you off to then?" When I told them where I was going,
they shrugged their shoulders and looked at the threatening clouds
and one or another of them invited me to this pub or that pub for
the night. As I knew that Master Theodoros would have no more need
of me that day, I accepted an invitation and promised myself a
lively evening for long after the night bell had sounded.
In this way I arrived before the gate and intended, despite all
that my cousin might present me with, to hold on to my good mood
come what may. But that day, which had failed to please me at
home, pleased me even less outside in front of the city wall. The
field there was bare and the trees stood stripped of leaves and the
wind, which had already been having its own way in the streets, had
no longer anything to cage it and tame it. It romped about and
went from place to place as it willed and scared dry dust into
violent swirls in the air and laughed disdainfully at the oncoming
dusk. I pulled my cloak more tightly around me and walked on in
a sprightly fashion to the Hospice of Saint John.
At that time there was only a sort of shed for the sick, erected
in 1323 next to the church by the Lords of Tezeln, out in the open.
The great Churchyard of the Holy Grave was not yet available. At
present anyone can go there and reflect upon the first gravestone
that shows Saint Sebastian bound to a tree trunk with an inscription
dating back to 1427:
This day there was an awful and piteous moaning;
Thirteen died including me in the house I was alone in.
Truly the great churchyard was not set up in vain at the time that
it was.
In the year 1423 the house of the sick stood next to the church,
both on their own in the middle of a field, surrounded by scant
undergrowth. The former of these two buildings was a low, long
drawn out edifice, away from which a wanderer was glad to turn his
face if he ever took the road that far into the country. The place
was, even in glorious summer, not a welcoming sight. Even the
year's fairest blossoms were impotent to ward off a shiver. But
today the sky was grey and black clouds were moving in over the
roof of the sick bay and black ravens flapped their wings around
it as on a high place where there were gallows. No living soul
could have pictured a worse ossuary.
There was also a hedge that stretched for a long way round the
house and where the Roman road came into it a door. A stone
cross had been put up near it and under the cross was a bench
also made of stone.
As I came nearer I saw two forms under the cross. On the bench
sat a man wearing a long brown habit like a Capuchin monk with
his head deeply bowed and completely covered with a hood. A few
steps away from him stood my cousin. She too had bowed her head
and was wringing her hands as if in some great grief. And four
steps in front of them, back in the direction of the road, a
sword had been stuck in the ground as a warning not to come any
nearer.
Already I knew now from a distance the likely meaning of all this
and why my cousin Cecilia had bid me come. But who the hooded
man was I had no idea. I stood still near the sword and said:
"Good day to you, cousin. I am at your service. For mercy's
sake, who is it?"
A sudden shudder shook me to the core, but I still did not know
what I was about to learn.
"Who is it, cousin," I asked for the second time. The old woman
sobbed and raised her hands up to the glowering sky. The man in
the monk's habit supported his hooded head on his left hand and
gestured with the other to the sword sticking upright in the
ground.
Then I had another shock--a shock to end all shocks--that shook
me body and soul. I looked at the sword and reeled backwards as
if hit by a battle hammer. The world I looked on grew confused
before my very eyes. I staggered and cried out, loudly I cried
out.
This was the sword, the trusty sword, which had so often and so
merrily made the old house on Banner Mountain shake. This was
the sword that had shone next to me in the pitched battle against
the Hussites, the trusty weapon that had helped to deliver the
imperial crown out of enemy hands! This was the sword of my
friend, my blood brother's sword! The bent hooded man on the
stone bench in the brown habit of a pilgrim was the proud knight
Michael Groland of Laufenholz, my brother, more than my brother,
my friend, my joyful classmate and comrade in arms, poor Michael
Groland!
I swayed on my feet, staggered and fell. I fell head first into
soft sand and heard a great thunder in my ear and a sound like
whistling, like the whistle of the serpent in the Garden of Eden,
in my chest. And when I got back up the awful spectre had vanished
from the bench and so had the sword from the ground. But my
cousin, the leper mother, was still standing next to me, wrapped
in her black cloak. But I had knelt down, grasped the hem of her
garment and shouted:
"Mother, it isn't so! Tell me it isn't so, mother!"
My cousin took one of her hands out of the folds of her cloak as if
she wanted to pull my hands away, but she only covered her eyes with
it and said with a deep sigh: "It is so! Who can fight against
God's will?"
Then she pulled me up and laid her arm on my shoulder and turned
round back in the direction of the town. I pulled myself away from
her and pushed her back brutally and ran to the door of Saint John's
Church sick bay. She ran after me, held me back and shouted over
the wind:
"Come, my son. I won't let you and neither will he let you. Let
it be. He has taken an oath on it. No-one must come near him from
the land of the living. My heart bleeds like yours, my son. But
he's right and we must act in accordance with his will."
I called out: "Michael! Michael!"
My only answer was the sound of the sharp, hissing wind through the
dry grass. My old, grey-haired cousin had to support me, the strong
young man, and lead me like a child back to the road leading to the
town. My feet were like a weight of iron and my knees like broken
reeds. My eyes beheld chaos.
Woe is me, what had become of the world? There loomed the hundred
ramparts and battlements, gables and towers of the great dear town
of Nuremberg and over there on the left the ruin of the citadel,
which the brave knight Michael had also helped to conquer for our
beloved community. Never had my eye other than with joy and hope
rested thereon, whatever the way I chose to take to get there. Now
there was nothing left of it. Had flames with a thousand red tongues
suddenly licked the roofs, surrounded the towers and, as in a rush
of wind born of an apocalypse, swallowed the town whole, my view of
what was there could not have witnessed greater annihilation.
I was horrified by Nuremberg, how it looked, how it lay there darkly
under the dark evening sky. Flames had already licked the citadel.
There it lay, already blackened by torches, with burst roofs, broken
towers, demolished walls! What did I care now if the town around it
still stood upright?