love between this couple and the cruel fate that they now shared, a
cry arose, an extraordinary cry. All of a sudden all the sick had
started to shout: "Lord, have mercy on us!" From the Church of the
Holy Ghost at the same time they had struck up with: "Gloria in
excelsis Deo!" The doors were thrown open and across from the high
altar lights and candles glimmered out into the night. The press
of people on all sides grew and a wave of them eddied round the
shrine containing the imperial crown jewels. In every street people
moved towards the portal of the Holy Ghost Church in droves as the
holy of holies was borne up the steps high upon the shoulders of its
chosen bearers. In the crowd no-one was in control of themselves any
more. I helped Cecilia Stollhoferin up from the ground and my Greek
master Theodoros and I protected her with our bodies. The beautiful
Mechthild was dragged off with the lepers and no longer visible when
the imperial crown was laid on the altar and one could finally look
for her. The storm and stress of the constant crush had slackened
off.
How we searched for her in the streets of Nuremberg! The cousins
and friends of the Grossen waited at the gates with drawn swords,
but hundreds of lepers in dark patches had now got as far as the
Church of Our Lady, were crossing the Herrenmarkt, going past the
Town Hall and across the wine market through the night back to the
New Gate. No-one in the course of that evening or that night was
able to glimpse the knight Groland von Laufenholz and the charming
Mechthildis in that awful procession.
At the New Gate I spoke to cousins and friends of the family. Truly
Brother Johannes Capistranus today in his pulpit has not shed his
heart's blood in his words as I did that night. With weeping and
gnashing of teeth the noble lords withdrew and noble ladies and young
ladies who were also related helped me to make sure that no wild
action was committed out of madness, impotence and grief.
When everything had calmed down, I followed alone the way that the
lepers had gone out of the town to the hospice of Saint John. It
was not quite dark, but there was still some light in the darkness
and when I came near to the stone cross, next to which the year
before a sword had stood in the ground, I made out a dark shape
sitting on the bench.
Shuddering I hesitated and called out to the shadow from afar.
Then a voice answered through the darkness: "Makarioi oi penthountes,
hoti autoi paraklethesontai! Blessed are those who mourn, for they
shall be comforted!"
It was the old faithful teacher, the homeless Greek man from the
island of Chios who spoke to me the words from Our Lord Jesus
Christ's Sermon on the Mount. I walked to him in silence and he
took my hand, said nothing else, but pulled me down to the stone
bench and pointed to the light streaming out of the windows of Saint
John's hospice.
There was a humming sound and a crowd both in the house and around
the house that was dreadful to hear and even worse to imagine during
the night like that. We sat there until after midnight in the cold
and dark and listened to the singing of lost souls and the sad tones
dying away towards dawn. We sat there numb to night, frost and cutting
wind. We sat there quietly, the Byzantine teacher and I, the old man
and the young one and there was no difference in our state of mind.
That was the night in which my whole life changed. Through the dirges
sung in Saint John's hospice I heard the sweet and childish voice as
Saint Augustine once did. From the earliest times onward down to the
present horrid time all that I experienced as I lived and breathed
went past me and behold, out of great suffering great peace grew.
Yes, I am a man and have become serene. The penance that Brother
Capistranus demanded of the people of Nuremberg today is not the
same as that imposed upon me by God's grace in the days of my youth
when we fought for the imperial crown and the imperial crown was
returned to us. I have witnessed with patience the barbaric noise
of earthly battles, with patience the passing play and change in
nature. Nevermore have I grieved when leaves in autumn turned to
grey and gold. I take too but a modest pleasure when a new spring
tempts forth fresh green grass to decorate the world. I have said
goodbye to fear and remained unswerving in my resistance to the
things that time has seen fit to torment me with.
Time's torments were appalling admittedly. Once more I rode out
against the Hussites and saw at Aussig Germans laid low. I came
home wounded from this bitter battle and found my friend and good
knight Michael Groland of Laufenholz no more in need of things of
earth. I encountered his wife in the streets, fine and upstanding
in the habit of a nun. She was supporting old Stollhoferin, the
leper mother and greeted me quietly. Foolish people made the sign
of the cross on account of her strange fate, but the time was at
hand when wise people too would envy her peace of mind. Mechthilde
Grossin had a great life and eventually succeeded to the title of
Mater Leprosorum. She picked up the name like a laurel wreath in
the miserable surroundings of Saint John's hospice from the floor
thereof and wore it like a crown till she died and there were many
who called her the imperial crown herself though that name never
got as far as her ears and would have had no meaning for her lofty
heart.
I saw much that was splendid: the wealth and the hubbub of Venice,
the ancient monuments of Rome and the sunshine and blue sea of
Naples. I became aware of everything with open eyes and, applying
my will and my knowledge to them, did not miss any of the things
that my daylight paths offered. I spoke before princes and the
senates of proud republics and my efforts for the health and good
of my noble home town did not go unrewarded. Now all that is
behind me. These are my twilight years.
In May of the year 1453 Constantinople fell into the hands of a
pagan foe. The half moon of Diana, the crest of Byzantium, stood
upon the Turkish field insignia against the cross of Christendom.
But the books and parchment rolls, written out laboriously by the
hands of monks and scribes, the noble manuscripts our good friend
Michael Groland, when we were young, elbowed off the table in the
garden bower, were put into the hands of humanity at large by the
new art of printing. Tolle! Lege!
Master Theodoros Antoniades was spared the experience of the total
collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire, but he saw the first printed
book and had wise things to say about it.
The Holy Roman Empire's crown is still in Nuremberg. Who will once
again bring honour to it in the world?