ray of light had been left intact to comfort suffering humanity. It
was laughable that we had gone out to rescue a crown for an empire
that was no longer there. The Greek from Chios, my clever teacher,
Theodoros Antoniades, had done the right thing. He had fled from
his homeland before the last pillars and columns shattered and, in
this bad moment, I derived comfort from one thing only and that was
in the thought that I should do as he had and set off into the unknown
devoid of property, homeland, wishes and hopes.
It degraded me that I did not think once then of Mechthild Grossin,
but that too would come by and by.
We walked slowly and the Mater Leprosorum talked to me constantly,
but I heard little in my state of dizziness. But the little I did
hear was each time like a bolt of lightning on a thundery night.
The leper mother told me how the poor man had spoken to her softly
out of the blue before the sick bay of St John's Church.
In Ofen in Hungary leprosy fell on the German contingent that had
gone there with the crown. Many soldiers in the detachment had died
there, many others had simply stayed. Some had died on the way.
Only Michael Groland had got back home, supporting himself on his
knight's sword.
"Nobody knows him here in St John's hospice," said the cousin. "Even
his own mother would not know him any more. I did not recognize him.
You would not recognize him. God's hand has smitten him horribly.
Your friend has descended into hell, misery has buried him alive.
Today he has lost all the vanity of earthly desires. Tell me what
we should do, my son! His will is to remain missing. Will you comply
with it? Will you take upon yourself the burden of silence when it
comes to Mechthild?"
Mechthilde! Mechthilde! That was the name that pushed me even deeper
into the abyss and yet alone had the potential to redeem me. I began
to remember her name again.
I asked my cousin a direct question. "You did not recognize him, cousin
Cecilia, but you saw him. You are a mother to these lepers. You have
the answer. Is there any hope of him recovering? Is there any hope that
we can have him back again if we wait a year, two years, ten years?"
Cousin Stollhoferin lowered her head and thought about this for a long
time. We stood on the bridge at the New Gate and those who guarded it
had already uncovered their heads before the leper mother. My cousin
bowed to me and said: "God's will be done and He is wholly good as He
is wholly awesome. I will not mention the homecoming of her betrothed
to Mechthild."
Then I remembered that night, that sleepless night, that followed this
day of horrors and I weighed my strength to bear with discretion the
fate of my two friends through years to come.
"He can bear it!" said my cousin as if she could read the innermost
thoughts of my heart as from a slate. "He can bear it. He is a true
knight. He has fought for the crown of life and will attain it."
I too was able to bear it.
The summer air is still full of the wails that are buzzing about in
the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus. How this same air would tremble if
that wild and fiery Franciscan there could speak as urgently as the
drops of black ink now flowing from my quill pen down onto a white
sheet of parchment. From leaving my room to go to the hospice of Saint
John to coming back to it again my life had changed. Nothing was left
of the person who had gone out only two hours before. Everything now
seemed strange to me and when I lay there on my bed that night the
darkness was like a tombstone in a crypt. I lay awake all night without
being able to move. In the sick bay of Saint John my friend and brother
also lay awake among the legion of the lost and waited, as did I, for a
new day to dawn in abject misery.
And dawn broke, it was day and I could not understand how people went
back to their daily work. It came as a shock to me that people in Banner
Street did not stop and point to my house quite grief-stricken. I thought
that even my worst enemy would have done as much.
I only understood that people were going about the hard business of earning
a living when I saw my friend's poor betrothed, having stepped through the
narrow door of her house into the garden, wander calmly amid the autumnal
trees, over fallen branches through brown bushes. My teacher of Greek
Theodoros came and saw at a glance that I was ill and asked after me most
anxiously. He took leave of me shaking his head. Then a messenger came
from Konrad Senior and Peter Junior with a document. It demanded legal
support and advice from me because of a charitable foundation of these
gentlemen for an enclosed order of nuns, and this was a good thing, for
the act of doing this plunged me once more into the hurly-burly of a
working day and did not leave me without anything to do as my grief would
have wished. Other people whose futile needs and disputes I had to settle
and decide according to the rule of law in Nuremberg, came and went and
I was obliged to converse with them till evening and then night came round
again. This was a very good thing, but it did not save me from the dread
inspired by darkness.
On the second day after my meeting at the stone cross at the gate to Saint
John's Church I eventually came to the attention of my fair female next
door neighbour for the first time since then. I took it as good fortune
that Master Theodoros Antoniades had already been there before me and had
had misgivings about me being threatened by a serious illness. Mechthilde
was most understanding towards me and I had to laugh even with a broken
heart and I replied in a light tone that no bodily fragility oppressed me
and no hidden torment of love and no mean rejection had made my cheeks
pale so fast and furrowed my brow with such rapidity.
This was a time of change for me. These were days to make my bones rot
and crumble and the blood run thicker in my veins. By night and by day
I wandered through fields, gnashing my teeth as I did so in my struggles
with a gruesome ghost. The shadow of the hooded leper never once left
my side.
"If you force your way into his lostness, he will kill himself. He has
sworn he will!" said my cousin Cecilia. "He is a true knight. He wants
to bear his fate alone. His message to you through me is that you should
be happy, my son. You should think that he fell in battle or died in
Hungary. You should remember him amicably in the circle of your comrades
and not grieve for him."
"And what about Mechthild?" I asked. And cousin Cecilia waved me aside
and silently left me.
Friends and relations made more of me then than at other times of year,
but the hardest obstacle I had to overcome was Mechthilde's tender loving
care. November came and with it the first snow of winter. They danced
and feasted a lot and made a big thing of it in Nuremberg and pulled me
out of every hiding place and dragged me forcibly with threats to their
junketings to rid me of my fancies and to make my viscous blood flow
soundly and freely again. They had no idea what I saw in their banqueting
halls nor of what I was not permitted to talk about. Michael Groland's
sword, the sword of my friend and brother stood everywhere stuck in the
ground before me, stood to ward off every joy and every pleasure. How
could I reach out my own hand to the pretty, smiling girl who so friendlily
offered me hers so that I could dance with her? The sword stood everywhere
in my way, not just in the banqueting hall, but also in church, in lawyers'
chambers, in my own quiet room. I could not get past it--it stood there
on the defensive and all lust for life deserted me. There was no getting
away from that sword that my dear friend had once so happily and bravely
wielded.
The living corpse's bride to be was further transformed in her sweet trust
in God's goodness during November and December of that ill-fated year. She
too, in obedience to time-honoured custom, was not allowed to miss youthful
festivals and dances. Even she, a happy prisoner of hope, who would have
much preferred to stay behind in the peace and solitude of her little room,
had had to socialize and so we were always bumping into each other and her
fine trust and confidence made the frightful burden on my soul even heavier
from one day to the next. When she suddenly broke away from me, it was
like when a crossbow bolt is pulled from a wound in one's side and in the
red flow of blood that then spurts out the rubble and corpse-strewn waste
of the battlefield sinks around one, all is eclipsed and the whole world
vanishes before one's eyes.
Just before Christmas Mechthild came home beaming in all the fullness of
her happiness from the house of Sigmund Stromer where Barbara Stromerin
had made ready a festivity. Mysteriously and out of breath one of the
Grosse family maids summoned me that very same night to meet with her
young mistress. With her finger to her lips, half way between laughter
and tears, Mechthildis whispered to me that a great and precious piece
of news had gone from ear to ear in Herr Stromer's house among the female
guests. It was still a mystery, but still a truth for all that--the Holy
Roman Empire's crown, the sword and the mantle of Charlemagne was coming
back to Nuremberg; all the imperial treasures were returning to Nuremberg
as of right. There was no doubt about it. The Emperor wanted it, the
council knew about it and Barbara Stromerin had also known about it and
because of the good knight Michael Groland the great and splendid mystery
had circulated among the young women in the mayor's house, but without
his knowledge.
"It's the return of summer, my friend!" cried Mechthild. "Blessed be
the Emperor for returning the crown to our safekeeping. All my companions
kissed me and we females were more pleased about it than the mayor and
his aldermen. You be pleased about it too, dear friend, and shake off the
grief that oppresses you and which I should like to redeem you from with
my own heart's blood. Why do you not wish to be happy with your brother
and myself now that the good old days will soon be with us again and twice
the good fortune?"
The friends of Barbara Stromer really were the first ones in Nuremberg to
know of the planned return of the imperial crown jewels, for they, the
mayor and the Collegium Triumvirorum, the three most highly placed people
in the town, had held the key to these treasures formerly and the key to
the gate of the town and its banners.
Mechthild had brought the news home from the mayor's wife's get-together
as a great mystery and made me swear not to divulge it, although it had
spread from the party already throughout the town and was arousing the
highest degree of jubilation in every heart.
There it was then! What I had borne alone in deference to my unhappy
friend and the leper mother as long as I could keep it secret, had now
to come out and there were no dams to throw up against it. The great
honour that had fallen to my native town was the straw that broke the
camel's back of our misfortune and on the same night on which Mechthild
had returned in such bliss from Sigmund Stromer's house, I confided my
fear and my suffering to Master Theodoros Antoniades. Of the hundreds
of people that I knew and interacted with, he was the only one to whom
I wanted to and could disclose all the misery in my soul.
The homeless Greek listened to me silently and with a deeply furrowed
brow. Then he said this to me: "On the island of Chios, under the
burning rubble of my home town, I left behind the corpses of my wife
and my young sons and daughters. My homeland is perishing, has perished.
The imperial eagle of the Eastern Roman Empire circles the old walls of
great emperors with weary wings. There is no salvation for the great
city of Constantinople. I carry a dead language among foreigners and
when they are pleased with its beauty, the pain of loss I feel is that
much greater. I carry my pain in silence, my son, and wait to see what
God will do. The world is coming to an end not only for the ancient
might and splendour of Byzantium. Who will care much for the time of
its fall when it finally comes? The youngest of the young are prematurely
old. Why should they care? Who still wants to defend himself against
the inevitable Day of Judgement? I remember that day when the fair maid
came to us and drove you two young men out to fight in that futile
struggle. If you want me to, my son, I'll tell Mechthild what fate has
had in store for her."
I led my Greek schoolmaster to my cousin Cecilia Stollhoferin, the leper
mother, and the following morning all three of us went to see the betrothed
of Michael Groland, opened up for her the Book of the Dead and pointed to
the entry in letters of flame that determined her fate.
There comes to my ear a sound of trumpets and trombones which does not
accompany the shouting coming from the churchyard of Saint Sebaldus. Hark
to the bells once again, Saint Benedicta first and foremost! Yes, now the
Preacher Johannes has said what he had to say. The people of Nuremberg
process through the streets with psalms and litanies strewing ashes on
their heads in the darkest corners of their houses and tomorrow they will
resume their life of old. The noise of trumpets and trombones that imbues
the story of my own life comes from the day after the Feast of Our Blessed
Lady's Annunciation during Lent of the year 1424, for on this day the
German imperial crown came back to Nuremberg.
Sigmund Stromer and Sebaldus Pfinzing had been sent by the town council to
Ofen, to King Sigismund, and, in total confidentiality and secrecy the
King of Rome had handed over to them the regalia. So secret was this
transaction that no more than six people knew about it. And a week after
Candlemas the great regalia were loaded by Nuremberg's twin envoys onto
a waggon whose drivers thought they were carrying a load of the fish they
call sturgeon. It was only when they were a mile from Nuremberg that the
drivers learned just what an honour they had been found worthy of and,
getting off their horses with fearful reverence, they humbled themselves
in the dust and venerated the imperial regalia on their knees.
Bells and people singing! Woodwinds and trumpets! We all turned out
when the approach of the envoys and the treasure they were bringing with
them was rumoured. By the thousand and ten thousand--men and women,
greybeards and children, we went to meet the crown. A greater day since
records began has not been listed in the town's chronicles. Before all
others though the heavy laden came as they did every year on the feast
of the Arms of Christ, as long as the regalia were kept in the town's
care, to lay their sorrows down in front of Our Lord's weapons and to
pray for redemption. All sick people who could walk knelt with others
at the roadside and all those who suffered from anguish of mind threw
themselves down next to those who had only bodily ailments. There
were no distinctions made between people. No class of people was
allowed to take precedence over any other class. Before the crown,
sceptre, sword and orb of the holy German race, before the holy iron
of the lance that opened Christ's side, before the five thorns of his
crown of thorns all were accounted equal, all brothers and sisters in
this vale of tears we call the world. In the ranks of the young women
went the saddest of them, Mechthilde, to the Church of the Holy Ghost,
where, in the middle of the institution founded by her ancestor, Konrad
Grossen, in the garden frequented by the lepers, the holy regalia had
their dwelling formerly and where they were now to be housed again.
A hundred years before one slept there--a rich man, a poor man, a leper
himself, Konrad, one of the Hainzen, there in the spot where today the
imperial regalia of the German people rest safely. He was sleeping in
his garden under a linden tree and there came to him in sleep a dream of
a great treasure that lay in the ground owned by his forebears. And the
place where the treasure was was also shown to him and the leper went
there in his dream and followed a bright light leading him on. In order
to mark the spot that had been indicated to him he grabbed a handful of
leaves from the linden tree and put them where the treasure was buried.
Then he woke up and remembered. When he wandered round the garden full
of doubt and did not know if he should take things at face value, he
found there the little heap of linden leaves and recovered with it a
belief in the truth of his dream. His family came to visit him and
listened to his wonderful story with astonishment. Then they started
to help him dig up the ground. Konrad the leper made a promise to
God that he would use anything he found in the service of the poor and
sick, and behold: a great treasure really was excavated from the garden
of the Hainzen of Pegnitz and Konrad kept to his vow. The hospice and
the Church of the Holy Ghost were founded and built on the strength of
the subterranean treasure, and now the imperial crown reposes in the
place where the leper's hand and will pointed out to architect and
stone masons the site they were about to build on. The man stricken
with leprosy, as I have already mentioned elsewhere in this chronicle,
was henceforth known as Konrad the Great and, by way of an eternal
memorial to him, Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian gave him in his coat of
arms the twenty-four linden leaves together with the hill to which he
took them in his dream.
While Mechthild Grossin has made her way to the porch of the Holy Ghost
Church to wait for the crown, I too have gone with my companions and
others to the door of this church. Half a mile from the town we caught
sight of the waggon and its escort.
The horses were indeed imposing in their harnesses and went with heads
bowed as if they knew what they were pulling. And Sigismund Stromer
and Sebaldus Pfinzing walked bareheaded on the right and the left of
the waggon respectively. The armed escort rode in silence and it was
quiet too in the crowd coming out of the town. The people's songs of
praise fell silent and one could only still hear in the distance the
bells ring out from all the towers of Nuremberg. Those who were on
horseback got down and knelt at the roadside still holding on to the
reins. Everyone knelt down and we watched as the waggon that was
laden with so great a treasure and had come here all the way from
Blindenburg in Hungary slowly moved towards us. And when it had gone
past each of us got up off our knees once more, joined the procession
and once again intoned songs of praise. In the town all the bells
rang more and more brightly and joyfully and from its walls and towers
too thousands rejoiced. Then we saw quite clearly how great a passion
play old Nuremberg was playing host to within its noble walls. There
was a throng from the gates of the town through all the streets and
market places like a raging sea, but even where the throng was thickest
that day no harsh words or blows were proffered. No knife or sword was
loosened from its sheath. Each person felt a restraining hand on their
heart and the wildest among them let themselves be pushed into corners
and dead ends without complaint.
Thus we moved on with the crown through the streets to the square in
front of the Church of the Holy Ghost. How I felt in that great swell
of people pushing and shoving me willy nilly I cannot put into words.
I was in a tearful and yet sweet state of ecstasy. My soul was trapped
and earthbound and yet hovered high up over things of earth and there
was in me a feeling of a splendid pardon I was torn away from. And
then we arrived in the square in front of the Church of the Holy Ghost
where with a legion of young women, councillors and clergy the town's
most unfortunate inhabitants awaited the coming of the regalia.
No barrier had been erected. All the sick and suffering who wanted
to go had been allowed to go. And there they all were--the unclean
from Saint John's hospice, the homeless of Saint Martha's parish, the
poor of every charitable foundation. They are all permitted to touch
the casket of the living presence with their hands and to implore for
help, for no sanctuary is held to be more gracious than this one that
contains the crown of the German people and the trappings of Christ!
Tolle! Lege! The restraining hand that all of us felt on their
hearts suddenly glowed in mine like fire then froze like ice. With
outstretched arms the leper mother was making a way through the crowd
for a hooded man and, on the steps of the church, I caught a brief
glimpse of Master Theodoros near a pale female face. With beating
heart I now set down what happened next.
The people were like a wall separating me from the two lovers and
holding me upright. I had now lost sight of Master Theodoros, the
hooded Michael Groland and my cousin Cecilia. But I could still see
over the heads of the crowd the fair pale virgin on the steps in the
last rays of the setting sun standing in the middle of her family and
looking down at the waggon with the holy casket and the bad, horrific
legion of the lost and sick. A memory came back to me then of that
time when, in the Church of the Holy Cross in Karlstein castle, the
good knight Michael Groland had knelt down next to me in front of the
imperial crown and swore that he would gain the Empire's other crown,
the best wife from the best town in the Empire. And as this thought
came to me there was a cry of amazement and the crowd drew back and
in the evening light I saw Mechthilde smiling over the heads of the
people and waving at the lepers. I felt myself shiver with fright
and watched the maid climb down and vanish from under the red light
that stained the portal of the Church of the Holy Ghost, but a sudden
racket moved the people mightily. Under the porch the other young
women raised their arms and cried out. The councillors too rushed
forward and climbed down. I was dragged forward by a human surge
and an arm grabbed me just in time and pulled me away from horses'
hooves just as the imperial regalia were passing. The horses had
reared and kicked out, but Master Theodoros Antoniades had saved me
from their hooves and the feet of the crowd. And behold, and I saw
before the shrine that concealed the most holy relics of the German
nation that love truly is stronger than death, yes, even a fate worse
than death.
In vain my friend and brother tried to draw back to the gruesome
crush of his co-sufferers. The sword that had stood between him
and the world outside the hospice of Saint John had no power here
to protect him. In vain the grey-haired leper mother threw herself
in Mechthild's way and tried to push her back with outstretched arms.
In vain her relatives, her parents and her brothers rushed up to
her. No-one was able to hold Mechthild back. She advanced with a
firm step and placed both her arms on the shoulders of the lost one
and laid her fair pale cheek against the hair shirt covering his
chest. Healthy people drew back in fear whereas the lepers of
Saint John's sick bay pushed forward. Deep silence descended.
"Michael," declared Mechthild. "Michael, look, you hid from me,
but here on the holy ground of my forebears I have won you back for
myself. I knew this moment would come when no power on earth could
stop me. How else could I have put up with life? Will you not now
keep your promise to me, my friend? The promise that you made before
the imperial crown? Today before the same crown, I am reminding you
of it. The earth is on its last legs, but we, you and me, have
survived. You will not drive me from you! You'll not hide any
longer from your bride, from your wife!"
Gently and yet almost wildly and with great panache she threw back
his monk's hood from his brow and for the first time since we had
said goodbye to each other in Castle Karlstein, I once again looked
on my friend's beloved face. The scourge with which God punishes
nations had not been kind to the proud knight and his fine head was
dreadfully impaired. The leprosy that was eating away at his strong
arms and feet and his brave true heart had rendered his face terribly
old and gaunt and consumed all the fire in his eyes. And his hitherto
so solid feet could not support this poor leper longer in his mixture
of misery and unspeakable good fortune. He fell down onto the bright
form of his betrothed and she bent down towards him as if she were
comforting a child.