THE TRAVELLING STUDENT.
(1509, and following years.)
The fifteenth century passed away. To us Germans it appears an
introduction to the great events of the following one,--a period of
earnest but imperfect striving towards improvement. The excitement of
the masses in the great half-Sclave population of the Roman empire had
brought death and destruction over the German provinces, and the
fanaticism of the Hussites had appeared to exhaust itself in the
burning ruins of hundreds of cities and villages; but the same feeling
had stirred the hearts of two generations, and in the next century the
flame again blazed forth, more powerful and unquenchable, a pillar of
fire to all Europe. The house of Luxemburg had passed away; its last
heirs had mortgaged the Hungarian crown to the Austrian Hapsburgers,
and bequeathed to them their claims to the wide and insecure
acquisitions of their race. In the next century Charles V. made them
the greatest dynasty of the world. It was a century of strife and
reckless egotism, and on all sides arose knightly associations and
confederacies; but it was also a time when the German mind, having
become more practical in its tendencies, arrived at the greatest of all
new discoveries,--the art of printing; when, in spite of fighting on
the highways and bloody quarrels within the cities, commerce and trade
began to flourish; when citizens and peasants acquired the habits of
regular soldiers; when the German merchant established his supremacy on
the northern seas, while the Italian navigator pressed on through the
mists of boundless oceans, to unknown regions of the earth; finally, it
was the time in which the Alpine mules bore, together with the spices
of the East and the papal bulls, the manuscripts of a foreign nation,
by means of which a new enlightenment was spread over Germany,--the
early dawn of modern life.
With the sixteenth century began the greatest spiritual movement that
ever roused a nation. This century has for ever impressed its seal on
the spirit and temper of the German people. A wonderful time, in which
a great nation anxiously yearning after its God, sought peace for the
burdened soul, and a moral and mental aim for a life hitherto so poor
and joyless.
This effort of the popular mind to found a new collective life by a
deep apprehension of the eternal, produced a political development in
Germany which is strikingly distinct from that of other nations. The
whole powers of the nation were so engrossed in this passionate
struggle, that it sank into a state of extreme exhaustion: the
political concentration of Germany was delayed for centuries; most
fearful civil wars were followed by a deathlike lassitude; German was
divided from German, and a deep chasm was formed between the new and
the middle ages. The result was, that a large portion of the German
people, who might carry back their history in uninterrupted continuity
up to the struggles of Arius and Arminus, now regard the time of the
Hohenstaufen, and even the imperial government of the first Maximilian,
as a dark tradition; for their state polity, their rights, and their
municipal laws are hardly as old as those of the free states of North
America. The oldest of the proud nations that arose from the ruins of
the Roman empire, is now in many respects the youngest member of the
European family. But whatever may have been the influence of the
sixteenth century on the political formation of the fatherland, every
German should look back to it with respect, for we owe to it all which
now is our hope and pride; our power of self-sacrifice, our morality
and freedom of mind, an irresistible impulse for truth, our art, and
our unrivalled system of science, and lastly, the great obligation
which our ancestors have imposed upon us of accomplishing what they
failed in. It is especially now, in the midst of a political struggle
for German national life, that it would be useful to us to consider how
this struggle began three centuries and a half ago.
Whoever attempts to examine the German mind at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, will observe a secret restlessness, something like
that of migratory birds when spring approaches; this indefinite impulse
reproduced frequently the old German love of wandering. Many causes
combined to make the poor restless and desirous of novelty. The number
of vagrants, young and old, such as pedlers, pilgrims, beggars, and
travelling students, was very great; many of the adventurers went to
France, but the greater part to Italy.
Wonderful reports came from distant lands. Beyond the Mediterranean,
in the countries contiguous to Jerusalem (which was annually visited by
the German pilgrims), a new race and a new and obnoxious religion had
spread itself. Every pilgrim who came from the south related in the
hostelries tales of the warlike power of the Turks, of their polygamy,
of the Christian children whom they stole and brought up as slaves,
and of danger to the Christian islands and seaports. On the other hand
the fancy was led from the terrors of endless seas to the new gold
lands,--countries like paradise, coloured tribes who knew nothing of
God, and endless booty and dominion for believing Christians. To this
was added the news from Italy itself,--how discontented the inhabitants
were with the pope, how wanton the simony, and how wicked the princes
of the Church.
And those who brought these tidings into the city and country were no
longer timid traders or poor pilgrims, but sunburnt hardy troopers,
bold in aspect, and well accoutred; children of neighbours, and
trustworthy men, who had accompanied the Emperor as mercenaries to
Italy, where they had fought with Italians, Spaniards, and Swiss, and
now returned home with all kinds of booty, gold in their purses, and
the golden chains of knighthood round their necks. The youths of the
village gazed with respect on the warrior who thrust his halberd into
the ground before the inn, and took possession of the rooms for himself
and his guests, as if he were a nobleman or a prince; for he, the
peasant's son, had trodden under foot Italian knights, and dipped deep
into the money coffers of Italian princes; had obtained full
dispensation from the Pope for his deeds, and, it was even whispered, a
secret blessing which made him invulnerable. The lower orders began for
the first time to have an idea of their own strength and capacities;
they felt that they also were men; the hunting-spear hung in their
huts, and they carried the long knife in their belt. But what was their
position at home? The use of their hands and their teams was required
by the landed nobleman for his fields; to him belonged the forest and
the game within it, and the fish in their waters; and when the peasant
died, his heir was obliged to give up the best of his herd, or its
worth in money. In every feud in which the nobleman was engaged they
were the victims: the enemy's soldiers fell upon their cattle, and they
themselves were shot down with arrows, and imprisoned in dark dungeons
till they were able to pay ransom. The Church also sought after their
sheaves and concealed money. Dishonest, cunning, and voluptuous were
the deans, who rode through their villages, falcon on hand, with
troopers and damsels; the priests, whom the peasants could neither
choose nor dismiss, seduced their wives, or lived scandalously at home.
The mendicant monks forced their way into their kitchens, and demanded
the smoked meats from their chimneys, and the eggs from their baskets.
All the communities throughout Southern Germany were in a state of
silent fermentation, and already, at the end of the fifteenth century,
local risings had begun, the forerunners of the Peasant war.
But more wonderful still was the influence of the new art, through
which the poorest might acquire knowledge and learning. The method of
multiplying written words by thousands was discovered on the banks of
the Rhine in the middle of the fifteenth century. The printing of
patterns by means of wooden blocks had been practised for many
centuries, and frequently single pages of writing had in this way been
struck off; at last it occurred to a citizen that whole books might be
printed with cast metal type. Its first effect was to give intelligence
to the industry of the artisan, and a way was thus opened to the people
of turning their mental acquirements to profit.
The learning of the middle ages still occupied the professors' chairs
at the German universities, but it was without soul, and consisted in
dry forms and scholastic subtleties. There was little acquaintance with
the ancient languages, Hebrew and Greek were almost unknown; the solid
learning of the olden times was taught in bad monkish Latin; the Bible
and Fathers of the Church, the Roman historians, institutes and
pandects, the Greek text of Aristotle, and the writers upon natural
philosophy and medicine, were found only in dusty manuscripts; nothing
but the commentators and systematizers of the middle ages were ever
expounded or learnt by heart. Such was the state of things in Germany.
But in Italy, for more than a century, mental cultivation had begun,
from the study of Roman and Greek poets, historians, and philosophers.
The men of high intellect on the other side of the Alps rejoiced in the
beauty of the Latin language and poetry, admired the acute logic of
Cicero, and regarded with astonishment the powerful life of the Roman
people. Their whole literature entwined itself, like the tendrils of a
creeper, round the antique stem. It was soon after the invention of
printing, and during the war carried on by the Germans in the
Peninsula, that this new Humanitarian learning was gradually introduced
into Germany. The Latin language, which appeared to the Germans like a
new discovery, was industriously studied in the classical schools, and
disseminated through the means of manuals. The close attention and long
labour necessary in Germany to acquire the foreign grammar, acted as
discipline to the mind. Acuteness and memory were strongly exercised;
the logical construction of the language was more attended to than the
phonetic; the grandeur and wisdom of the subject, more than the beauty
and elegance of the style: the German mind required more exercise,
therefore the result was more lasting, because the mastery had to be
gained over two languages of different roots. A number of earnest
teachers first spread the new learning; among these were Jacob
Wimpfeling and Alexander Hegius, Crato of Udenheim, Sapidus, and
Michael Hilspach. To these may be added the poets Henry Bebel and
Conrade Celtes, Ulrich Zasius the lawyer, and others; in close union
with them were to be found all the men of powerful talent in Germany;
Sebastian Brand, author of Narrenschiffs, and also the great preacher
John Geiler of Kaisersberg, although he had been brought up in the
scholastic teaching.
They were sometimes led by their knowledge of ancient philosophy into
secret speculations upon the being of God, and all were opposed to the
corruptions of the Romish Church; but their opposition differed from
that of Italy in this respect, that the German mind gave it more
elevation. It is true that many of the Humanitarian teachers considered
the German language as barbarous; they Latinized their names, and in
their confidential letters took the liberty of calling their countrymen
unpolished; they hated the despotic arrogance with which the Romish
priests looked down upon them and their nation; yet they did not cease
to be good Christians. Besides their unceasing attacks on the vices of
the Italian priesthood, they ventured, though with hesitation and
caution, upon an historical critique on the foundation of the claims of
the Papacy. They were united in bonds of friendship, and formed one
large community. Bitterly persecuted by the representatives of the old
scholastic school, they nevertheless gained allies everywhere,--in the
burgher houses of the Imperial cities, in the courts of the Princes, in
the entourage of the Emperor, and even in the cathedral chapters and on
the Episcopal thrones.
The mental culture of these men, however, could not keep a lasting hold
on German life; its groundwork was too foreign to the real needs of the
mental life of the people; its ideal, which it had gathered from
antiquity, was too vague and arbitrary; its fantastical occupation with
a bygone world, of whose real meaning they knew so little, was not
favourable to the development of their character. Some indeed became
forerunners in the struggle of faith, but others, offended by the
roughness and narrowness of the new teaching, fell back to the old
Church which they had before so severely judged. One of this school,
the enthusiastic and high-minded Ulrich von Hutten, who was
passionately German, and attached to the teaching of Luther, suffered
for his devotion to the popular cause.
In the beginning of the century, however, the Humanitarians carried on
almost alone the struggle against the oppression under which the nation
groaned. They exercised a powerful influence on the minds of the
multitude; even what they wrote in Latin was not lost upon them, and
the rhymesters of the cities were never weary of propagating the
witticisms and bitter attacks of the Humanitarians in the form of
proverbs, jocose stories, and plays.
The desire for learning became powerful amongst the people. Children
and half-grown boys rushed from the most distant valleys into the
unknown world to seek for knowledge; wherever there was a Latin school
established, there the children of the people congregated, often
undergoing the greatest sufferings and hardships, demoralized by the
uncertainty of their daily life; for though the founders and managers
of the schools, or the burghers of the cities, gave these strangers
sometimes a roof over their heads, and beds to lie on, they were
obliged for the most part to beg for their daily subsistence.
Little control was exercised over them; only one thing was strictly
enjoined,--that there should be some method in the lawlessness of their
life; it was only under appointed forms, and in certain districts of
the city, that they were allowed to beg. When the travelling scholar
came to a place where there was a Latin school, he was bound to join
the association of scholars, that he might not make claims on the
benevolence of the inhabitants, to the prejudice of the schoolmaster or
of those already there. An organization was formed among these
scholars, as was always the case where Germans assembled together in
the middle ages, and a code was established, containing many customs
and demoralizing laws, with which every one was obliged to comply;
besides this there was the rough poetry of an adventurous life, which
few could go through without injury to their characters in after life.
The younger scholars, called Schuetzen, were, like the apprentices of
artisans, bound to perform the most humiliating offices for their older
comrades, the Bacchanten: they had to beg and even to steal for their
tyrants, who in return gave them the protection of their strength. It
was considered honourable and advantageous for a Bacchant to have many
Schuetzen, who obtained gifts from the benevolent, on which he lived;
but when the rough Bacchant rose to the university, he was paid off for
all the tyrannical injustice he had practised towards the younger
scholars: he had to lay aside his school dress and rude manners, was
received into the distinguished society of students with humiliating
ceremonies, and was obliged in his turn to render service and to bear
rude jests like a slave. The scholars were perpetually changing their
schools, for with many the loitering on the high roads was the main
object; their youth was passed in wild roving from school to school, in
begging, theft, and dissoluteness. Whilst we rejoice in finding a few
individuals who, by strength of mind and ability, rose through all this
to intellectual preeminence, we must bear in mind how many a pet child
died miserably under some hedge, or in the lazar-house of a foreign
city, whose youthful minds had looked forward with hope to reaching the
same goal.
The instruction in the Latin schools was very deficient, for a book was
a rare treasure: the boys had often to copy the text for themselves,
and the old grammar of Donat still served as the groundwork by which
they learned to read Latin. There was still much useless scholastic
pedantry, and what was then admired as elegant Latin, has somewhat of a
monkish flavour. But the great teacher Wimpfeling took every
opportunity of selecting examples which might excite the boys to
honesty, integrity, and the fear of God; he endeavoured to impart not
merely the knowledge of forms, or the subtle distinctions of words, but
the spirit that flows from the ancients. The mind was to be ennobled;
intellect and faith were to be advanced; learning was to act as a
preservative against war, to promote peace, the greatness of states,
and the reformation of the Catholic Church, for its object was
knowledge of the truth.
Some idea of the life of a travelling student has been preserved to us
in the description of Thomas Platter, the poor shepherd boy from
Visperthale, in the Valais, later a renowned printer and schoolmaster
at Basle; his autobiography has been published by Dr. Fechter, Basle,
1840. In those days no travellers in search of the picturesque had
begun to roam in the wild mountain valley from which the Visp rushes
towards the Rhone, nor to visit Zermatt, the Matterhorn, and the
glaciers of Monte Rosa. The shepherd boy grew up amidst the rocks, with
no companions but his goats; his herd straying into a corn-field, or an
eagle hovering threateningly above him, his climbing a steep rock, or
being punished by his severe master, were the only events of his
childhood; how he was cast out into the wide world from his solitude he
shall himself relate.
"When I was with the farmer, one of my aunts, named Frances, came to
see me; she wished me, she said, to go to my cousin, Herr Anthony
Platter, to learn the Scriptures; thus they speak when they want one to
go to school. The farmer was not well pleased at this; he told her I
should learn nothing: he placed the forefinger of his right hand in the
middle of the left, and went on to say, 'The lad will learn about as
much, as I can push my finger through there.' This I saw and heard.
Then said my aunt: 'Who knows? God has not denied him gifts; he may yet
become a pious priest.' So she took me to that gentleman. I was, if I
remember right, about nine or ten years old. First it fared ill with
me, for he was a choleric man, and I but an unapt peasant lad. He beat
me cruelly, and ofttimes dragged me by the ears out of the house, which
made me scream like a goat into which the knife had been stuck; so that
the neighbours oft talked of him as if he wished to murder me.
"I was not long with him, for just at that time my cousin came, who had
been to the schools at Ulm and Munich, in Bavaria; the name of this
student was Paulus of Summermatten. My relations had told him of me,
and he promised that he would take me with him to the schools in
Germany. When I heard this I fell on my knees, and prayed God Almighty
that He would preserve me from the 'Pfaffs,'[17] who taught me almost
nothing and beat me lamentably, for I had learned only to sing a little
of the Salve, and to beg for eggs with the other scholars, who were
with the Pfaff in the village.
"When Paulus was to begin his wanderings again, I was to go to him at
Stalden. Simon, my mother's brother, dwelt at Summermatten, on the road
to Stalden: he gave me a gold florin, which I carried in my little hand
to Stalden. I looked often on the way to see that I still had it, and
gave it to Paulus. Then we departed into the country, and I had to beg
for myself, and to give of what I got to my Bacchant Paulus: on account
of my simplicity and countrified language, much was given to me. At
night going over the Grimsel Mountain we came to an inn; I had never
seen a _kachelofen_,[18] and as the moon shone on the tiles, I imagined
it was a great calf: I saw only two tiles shining, which were, I
imagined, the eyes. In the morning I saw geese. I had never seen any
before, and when they hissed at me I thought they were devils, and
would eat me; so I cried out and ran away. At Lucerne I saw the first
tiled roofs.
"Afterwards we went to Meissen: it was a long journey for me, as I was
not accustomed to travel so far and to obtain food on the road. There
were eight or nine of us travelling together; three small Schuetzen, the
others great Bacchanten, as they are called; amongst all these I was
the smallest and youngest. When I could not keep up well, my cousin
Paulus came behind me with a rod, or little stick, and switched me on
my bare legs, for I had no stockings, and bad shoes. I do not remember
all that happened to us on the road. Once when we were talking together
on the journey, the Bacchanten said it was the custom in Meissen and
Silesia for the scholars to steal geese and ducks, and other such food;
and nothing was done to them on that account, if they could escape from
those to whom the things belonged. One day, when not far from a
village, we saw a large flock of geese, and the herdsman was not with
them; then I inquired of my fellow-Schuetzen when we should be in
Meissen; as then I thought I might venture to kill the geese; they
answered, 'Now we are there.' So I took a stone, threw it at one of the
geese, and hit it on the leg; the others flew away, but the lamed one
could not rise. I took another stone, and hit it on the head, so that
it fell down. I ran up and caught the goose by the neck, carried it
under my coat, and went along the road through the village. Then came
the gooseherd running after me, and called aloud in the village, 'The
boy has stolen my goose!' I and my fellow-Schuetzen fled away, and the
feet of the goose hung out behind my coat. The peasants came out with
spears to throw at us, and ran after us. When I saw that I could not
escape with the goose, I let it fall, and sprang out of the road into
the bushes; but two of my fellows ran along the street, and were
overtaken by two peasants. Then they fell down on their knees, and
asked for mercy, as they had done them no harm; and when the peasants
saw that it was not they who had killed the goose, they returned to the
village, taking the goose with them. But when I saw how they hastened
after my fellows, I was in great trouble, and said to myself: 'Ah, my
God! I think I have not blessed myself this day.' (For I had been
taught to bless myself every morning.) When the peasants returned to
the village, they found our Bacchanten in the public-house, for these
had gone forward; and the peasants desired that they would pay for the
goose: it would have been about two batzen; but I know not whether or
no they paid. When they joined us again, they laughed, and asked how it
had happened. I excused myself, as I had imagined it was the custom of
the country; to which they said it was not yet the right moment.
"Another time a murderer came to us in the wood, eleven miles on this
side of Nuremberg, who wished to play with our Bacchanten, that he
might delay us till his fellows joined him; but we had an honest fellow
amongst us called Anthony Schallbether, who warned the murderer to
leave us, which he did. Now it was so late that we could hardly get to
the village; there were very few houses, but there were two taverns.
When we came to one of these the murderer was there before us, and
others besides, without doubt his comrades; so we would not remain
there, and went to the other public-house. As they themselves had
already that night had their food, every one was so busy in the house,
they would not give anything to us little lads; for we never sat at
table to our meals; neither would they take us to a bedroom; but we
were obliged to lie in the stable. But when they were taking the bigger
ones to their bedroom, Anthony said to the host: 'Host, methinks you
have strange guests, and are not much better yourself. I tell you what,
place us in safety, or we will treat you in such a way that you will
find your house too narrow for you.' When they had taken them to rest
(I and the other little boys were lying in the stable without supper),
some persons came in the night to their room, perhaps among them the
host himself, and would have opened the door; but Anthony had put a
screw before the lock inside, placed his bed before the door and struck
a light; for he had always wax tapers and a tinder-box by him, and he
quickly woke up the other fellows. When the rogues heard that, they
made off. In the morning we found neither host nor servants. When they
told us boys about it, we were all glad that nothing had happened to us
in the stable. After we had gone from thence about a mile, we met with
people, who when they heard where we had passed the night, were
surprised that we had not all been murdered; for almost all the
villagers were suspected of being murderers.
"Our Bacchanten treated us so badly that some of us told my cousin
Paulus we should escape from them; so we went to Dresden; but here
there was no good school, and the sleeping apartments for strange
scholars were full of lice, so that we heard them at night crawl on the
straw. We then left and went on to Breslau: we suffered much from
hunger on the road, having nothing for some days to eat but raw onions
and salt, or roasted acorns and crabs. Many nights we lay in the open
air; for no one would receive us into their houses or at the inns, and
often they set the dogs upon us. But when we arrived at Breslau,
everything was in abundance; indeed so cheap that we poor scholars
overate ourselves, and frequently made ourselves ill. We went at first
to the chapter school of the Holy Cross, but when we found that there
were some Swiss in the parsonage house at St. Elizabeth, we went there.
The city of Breslau has seven parishes, and each its separate school:
no scholar ventured to sing in another parish; if he did the cry of 'Ad
idem, ad idem,' was raised, and the Schuetzen collected together and
fought. It is said that there were at one time some thousands of
Bacchanten and Schuetzen who all lived on alms; it is also said that
some of them who were twenty or thirty years old, or even more, had
their Schuetzen who supported them. I have often of an evening carried
home to the school where they lived, for my Bacchanten, five or six
meals. People gave to me willingly because I was little, and a Swiss,
for they loved the Swiss.
"There I remained for some time, as I was very ill that winter, and
they were obliged to take me to the hospital; the scholars had their
own especial hospital and doctors, and sixteen hellers a week are given
at the town hall for the use of the sick, which provided for us well.
We were well nursed and had good beds, but there were lice therein,
beyond belief, as big as hempseed, so that I and others would much
rather have lain on the floor than in the beds. It is hardly possible
to believe how the scholars and Bacchanten were covered with lice. I
have ofttimes, especially in the summer, gone to wash my shirt in the
water of the Oder, and hung it on a bush to dry; and in the mean time
cleared my coat of the lice, buried the heap, and placed a cross over
the spot. In the winter the Schuetzen used to lie on the hearth in the
school; but the Bacchanten lived in small rooms, of which there were
some hundreds at St. Elizabeth; but during the summer, when it was hot,
we lay in the churchyard, like pigs in straw, on grass which we
collected from before the houses of the principal streets, where it was
spread on Sundays; but when it rained we ran into the school, and if
there was a storm we chanted almost all night the responsoria and other
things with the succentor. We often went in summer after supper to the
beerhouses to beg for beer: they gave us the strong Polish peasant
beer, which, before I was aware of it, made me so drunk that even when
within a stone's throw from the school I could not find my way to it.
In short, we got sufficient nourishment, but little study.
"In the school of St. Elizabeth, nine bachelors always read together at
the same hour in one room, for there were no printed Greek books in the
country at that time; the preceptor alone had a printed Terence: what
was read, therefore, had first to be dictated, then parsed and
construed, and lastly explained; so that the Bacchanten when they went
away carried with them large sheets of writing.
"From thence our eight went off again to Dresden, and fell into great
want. We determined therefore one day to divide ourselves; some were to
look out for geese, some for turnips and onions, and one for a kitchen
pot; but we little ones went to the town of Neumarkt, to get bread and
salt, and we were to meet together in the evening outside the town,
where we were to camp out, and then cook what we had. There was a well
about a stone's throw from the town, near which we wished to pass the
night; but when they saw our fire in the town, they began to shoot at
us, yet did not hit us. Then we retired behind a bank to a little
stream and grove; the big fellows lopped off branches and made a kind
of hut, some plucked the geese, of which we had two; others put the
heads and feet and the giblets into the pot, in which they had shred
the turnips, others made two wooden spits and roasted the meat; when it
had become a little brown, we ate it with the turnips. In the night we
heard a kind of flapping: we found there was a pond near us which had
been drained in the day, and the fish were struggling in the mud; then
we took as many of them as we could, in a shirt fastened on a stick,
and went away to a village, where we gave some of them to a peasant,
that he might cook the others for us in beer.
"Soon after we went again from thence to Ulm, there Paulus took with
him another lad called Hildebrand Kalbermatter, son of a Pfaff: he was
quite young, and had some cloth given to him, such as is made in that
country, for a little coat. When we came to Ulm, Paul desired me to go
about with the cloth begging for money to pay for its making up; in
this way I got much money, for I was well accustomed to begging in
God's name, for the Bacchanten had constantly employed me in this, so
that I had hardly ever been taken to school, and not once taught to
read. Going thus seldom to the school, and having to give up to the
Bacchanten all I got by going round with the cloth, I suffered much
from hunger.
"But I must not omit to mention that there was at Ulm a pious widow,
who had two grown-up daughters; this widow had often, when I came in
the winter, wrapped up my feet in a warm fur, which she had laid behind
the stove on purpose to warm them, and gave me a dish of porridge and
sent me home. I was sometimes so hungry that I drove the dogs in the
streets away from their bones, and gnawed them; item, searched for the
crumbs out of the bag, which I ate. After that we returned again to
Munich: there also I had to beg for money to make up the cloth, which
nevertheless was not mine. The year following we went once more to Ulm,
and I brought the cloth with me, and again begged on account of it; and
I remember well that some one said to me, 'Botz Marter! is not the coat
made yet? I believe you are employed in knavish work.' We went from
thence, and I know not what happened to the cloth, or whether or no the
coat was ever made up. One Sunday, when we came to Munich, the
Bacchanten had got a lodging, but we three little Schuetzen had none; we
intended therefore to go at night to the corn market, in order to lie
on the corn sacks; and certain women were sitting in the street by the
salt magazine, who inquired where we were going. When they heard that
we had no lodging, a butcher's wife who was near, when she saw that we
were Swiss, said to her maid, 'Run and hang up the boiler with the
remains of the soup and meat; they shall stay with me over the night; I
like all Swiss. I served once at an inn in Innspruck, when the Emperor
Maximilian held his court there: the Swiss had much business to arrange
with him; and they were so friendly that I shall always be kind to them
as long as I live.' The woman gave us good lodging, and plenty to eat
and drink. In the morning she said to us, 'If one of you would like to
remain with me, I would give him food and lodging.' We were all willing
to do so, and inquired which she wished to have: when she had inspected
us, as I looked more bold than the others, she took me, and I had
nothing to do but to get the beer, to fetch the meat from the shambles,
and to go with her sometimes to the field; but still I had to provide
for the Bacchant. This the woman did not like, and said to me, 'Botz
Marter! let the Bacchant go, and remain with me; you shall not beg any
more.' So for a whole week I did not return to my Bacchant, nor the
school; then he came to the house of the butcher's wife, and knocked at
the door; and she said to me, 'Your Bacchant is there; say that you are
ill.' She let him in, and said to him, 'You are truly a fine gentleman;
you should have looked after Thomas, for he has been ill, and is so
still.' Then he said to me, 'I am sorry for it, lad: when you can go
out again, come to me.' Some time after, one Sunday, I went to vespers,
and when they were over, my Bacchant came up to me and said, 'You
Schuetz, if you do not come to me, I will trample you under foot.' This
I determined he should not do, and made up my mind to run away. That
Sunday I said to the butcher's wife, 'I will go to the school and wash
my shirt.' I dared not tell her of my intention, for I feared she would
speak of it. So I left Munich with a sorrowful heart, partly because I
was leaving my cousin, with whom I had gone so far (though he had been
so hard and unmerciful to me), and also on account of the butcher's
wife, who had treated me so kindly. I journeyed on over the river Isar,
for I feared if I went to Switzerland, Paulus would follow me, and beat
me, as he had often threatened. On the other side of the Isar there is
a hill. I seated myself on the top, looked upon the town, and wept
bitterly, because I had no longer any one to take an interest in me,
and I thought of going to Saltzburg, or Vienna, in Austria. Whilst I
was sitting there a peasant came with a waggon, which had carried salt
to Munich: he was already drunk, though the sun had only just risen. I
begged him to let me sit in it, and I went with him till he unharnessed
the horses in order to give them and himself food; meanwhile I begged
through the village, and waiting for him not far from it, fell asleep.
When I awoke I again wept bitterly, for I thought the peasant had gone
on, and it appeared to me as if I had lost a father. Soon, however, he
came, and was still drunk, but called to me to sit in the cart, and
asked me where I wished to go; I replied, 'To Saltzburg.' When it was
evening, he turned off from the road, and said, 'Get down, there is the
road to Saltzburg.' We had gone eight miles that day. I came to a
village, and when I got up in the morning everything was white with
rime, as if it had snowed, and I had no shoes, only torn stockings, no
cap, and a scanty jacket. Thus I travelled to Passau, and intended to
get on the Danube and go to Vienna, but when I came to Passau they
would not admit me. Then I thought of going to Switzerland, and I asked
the guard at the gate the nearest way to Switzerland: he answered by
Munich. I said, 'I will not go by Munich, I had rather travel ten
miles, or even more, out of the way to avoid it.' Then he pointed out
the way by Friesingen. There was a high school there, and I found some
Swiss, who inquired of me from whence I came? In the course of a few
days Paulus arrived: the Schuetzen told me that the Bacchant from Munich
was looking for me. I ran out of the gate as if he had been behind me,
and travelled to Ulm, where I went to the widow's house, who had so
kindly warmed my feet, and she received me, and I was to guard the
turnips in the field, and did not go to school. Some weeks after, a
companion of Paul's came to me, and said, 'Your cousin is here, and is
seeking for you.' He had followed me for eighteen miles, as he had lost
in me a good provider, I having supported him for some years. When I
heard this, although it was night, I ran out of the gate towards
Constance. I again wept bitterly, for I was sorry to leave the kind
widow.
"I crossed the lake, and arrived at Constance; and as I went over the
bridge I saw some of the Swiss peasant girls with their white
petticoats. Oh my God, how glad I was! I thought I was in heaven. When
I came to Zurich I saw there some people from the Valais, big
Bacchanten, to whom I offered my services for getting food, if they in
return would teach me; but I learned no more with them than with the
others. After some months Paulus sent his Schuetz Hildebrand from
Munich, to desire me to return to him, and said he would forgive me;
but I would not go back, and remained at Zurich, where however I
studied little.
"One Antonius Venetz from Visp in the Valais persuaded me to go with
him to Strasburg. When we arrived there we found many poor scholars,
but no good school; there was however a very good one at Schlettstadt,
so we went there. In the city we took a lodging with an old couple, one
of whom was stone blind; then we went to my dear preceptor, the late
Johannes Sapidus, and begged him to receive us. He asked from whence we
came, and when we said out of Switzerland, from the Valais, he
answered, 'The peasants there are bad, for they drive all their Bishops
out of the country; if, however, you study industriously, I will take
little from you, if not, you must pay me, or I will take the coat off
your back.' That was the first school in which it appeared to me that
things went on well. At that time learning, especially that of
languages, was gaining ground--it was the year of the Diet at Worms.
Sapidus had once nine hundred students, some of them fine scholars, who
afterwards became doctors and men of renown.
"When I came to this school I knew little, could not even read the
Donat. Though I was eighteen years old, I was placed among the little
children, and looked like a hen amidst her small chickens. One day when
Sapidus called over the list of the scholars, he said, 'I find many
barbarous names, I must try to Latinize them.' He then called over the
new names: he had turned me into Thomas Platterus, and my fellow,
Anthony Venetz into Antonius Venetus, and said, 'Which are the two?' We
stood up and he exclaimed, 'Poof! what measly Schuetzen to have such
fine names!' this was partly true, especially of my companion, for I
was more accustomed to the change of air and food.
"When we had stayed there from autumn to the following Whitsuntide, a
great many fresh scholars arrived, so that there was not sufficient to
support us all; and we went off to Solothurn, where there was a
tolerably good school, and more food; but we were obliged to be so
constantly in church that we lost all our time; therefore we returned
home.
"The following spring I went off again with my two brothers. When we
took leave of our mother, she wept and said, 'Am I not to be pitied, to
have three sons going to lead this miserable life?' It was the only
time I ever saw my mother cry, for she was a brave, strong-minded
woman, respected by every one as honourable, upright, and pious.
"I came to Zurich, and went to the school of the monastery of our Lady.
About this time it was reported that a thoroughly good and learned but
severe schoolmaster was coming from Einsiedeln. I seated myself in a
corner not far from the schoolmaster's chair, and I thought to myself,
in this corner will I study or die. When he (Father Myconius) entered,
he said, 'This is a fine school (it had only just been built); but
methinks you are a set of ignorant boys: but I will have patience with
you, if you will only be industrious.' I knew that if it had cost me my
life I could not have declined a word, even of the first declension;
but I could repeat the Donat by heart from beginning to end, for when I
was in Schlettstadt, Sapidus had a bachelor who plagued the Bacchanten
so grievously with the Donat, that I thought it must be such a good
book, I had better learn it by heart. I got on well with Father
Myconius: he read Terence to us, and we had to conjugate and decline
every word of a whole play; and it often happened that my shirt became
quite wet, and my sight seemed to fail me with fear; and yet he had
never given me a blow, except once with the back of his hand on my
cheek. He read also the Holy Scriptures, and to these readings many of
the laity came, for it was the time when the light of the holy Gospel
was beginning to dawn. If at any time he was severe with me, he would
take me home and give me something to eat, and he liked to hear me
relate how I had gone all through Germany, and how it had fared with
me.
"Myconius was obliged to go with his pupils to church at the monastery
of our Lady, to sing at vespers, matins, and mass, and conduct the
chanting. He said to me once, 'Custos (for I was his custos), I would
rather hold four lectures than sing one mass. Dear son, if you would
sometimes chant the easy masses for me, requiems, and the like, I will
requite it to you.' I was well content with this, for I had been
accustomed to it, and everything was still regulated in the popish
manner. As custos, I had often not enough wood to burn in the school,
so I observed which of the laymen who came to it had piles of wood in
front of their houses: there I went about midnight and secretly carried
off wood to the school. One morning I had no wood; Zwinglius was to
preach at the monastery early that morning, and when they were ringing
the bells, I said to myself, 'Thou hast no wood, and there are so many
images in the church that no one cares about them.' So I went to the
nearest altar in the church, and carried off a St. John, and took him
to the stove in the school, and said to him, '_Joegli_, now thou must
bend and go into the stove.' When he began to burn, the paint made a
great hissing and crackling, and I told him to keep quiet, and said,
'If thou movest, which however thou wilt not do, I will close the door
of the stove: thou shalt not get out unless the devil carry thee away.'
In the mean time came Myconius' wife; she was going to hear the sermon
in the church, and in passing by the door, said, 'God be with you, my
child, have you heated the stove?' I closed the door of the stove, and
answered, 'Yes, mother, I have already warmed it;' but I would not tell
her how, for she might have tattled about it, and had it been known, it
would have cost me my life. Myconius said to me in the course of the
lesson, 'Custos, you have had good wood to-day.' When we were beginning
to chant the mass, two Pfaffs were disputing together in the church;
the one to whom the St. John belonged said to the other, 'You rogue,
you have stolen my St. John;' and this dispute they carried on for some
time.
"Although it appeared to me that there was something not quite right
about Popery, I still intended to become a priest. I wished to be
pious, to administer my office faithfully, and to ornament my altar. I
prayed much, and fasted more than was good for me. I had also my saints
and patrons, and prayed to each for something especial; to our Lady,
that she would be my intercessor with her child; to St. Catherine, that
she would help me to learning; to St. Barbara, that I might not die
without the sacrament; and to St. Peter, that he would open the door of
heaven to me; and I wrote down in a little book what prayers I had
neglected. When I had leave of absence from the school on Thursdays or
Saturdays, I went into a confessional chair in the monastery, and wrote
the omitted prayers on a chair, and counted out every sin one after
another; then rubbed them out, and thought I had done my duty. I went
six times from Zurich with processions to Einsiedeln, and was diligent
in confession. I often contended with my associates for the Papacy,
till one day M. Ulrich Zwinglius preached on this text from the gospel
of St. John:--'I am the good shepherd.' He explained it so forcibly,
that I felt as if my hair stood on end; and he showed how God will
demand the souls of the lost sheep at the hands of those shepherds who
caused their perdition. I thought, if that is the true meaning, then
adieu to priestcraft, I will never be a Pfaff. I continued my studies,
began to dispute with my companions, listened assiduously to the
sermons and to my preceptor Myconius. There still continued to be mass
and images at Zurich."
Thus far Thomas Platter. His struggle in life lasted some time longer:
he had to learn rope-making in order to support himself; he studied at
night, and when Andreas Kratander, the printer at Basle, had sent him a
Plautus, he fastened the separate sheets on the rope by means of a
wooden prong, and read whilst he was working. Later he became a
corrector of the press, then citizen and printer, and lastly rector of
the Latin school at Basle. The unsettled life of his childhood was not
without its influence on the character of the man; for however great
his capacities, he displayed neither energy nor perseverance in his
undertakings.
It was among the thousands who, like the boy Thomas, thronged to the
Latin schools, that the new movement won its most zealous followers.
These children of the people carried from house to house with unwearied
activity their new ideas and information. Many of them never arrived at
the university; they endeavoured to support themselves by private
tuition, or as correctors of the press. Most of the city, and in later
times the village schools were occupied by those who could read Virgil,
and understand the bitter humour of the Klagebriefes, _de miseria
plebenorum_. So great were their numbers that the reformers soon urged
them to learn, however late, some trade, in order to maintain
themselves honestly. Many members of guilds in the German cities were
qualified to furnish commentaries to the papal bulls, and translate
them to their fellow-citizens; and subtle theological questions were
eagerly discussed in the drinking-rooms. Great was the influence
exercised by these men on the small circles around them. Some years
afterwards they, together with the poor students of divinity who spread
themselves as preachers over all Germany, became a great society; and
it was these democrats of the new teaching who represented the Pope as
antichrist in the popular plays, harangued the armed multitudes of
insurgent peasants, and made war on the old Church in printed
discourses, popular songs, and coarse dialogues.
In this way they made preparation for what was coming. But however
clearly it had been shown by the Humanitarians that the Church had in
many places falsified the Holy Scriptures, however humorously they had
derided the tool of the Inquisition--the baptized Jew Pfefferkorn, with
his pretty little wife--and however zealously the small school teachers
had carried among the people the colloquies of Erasmus on fasting, &c.,
and his work on the education of children, yet it was not their new
learning alone that gave birth to the Reformation and the spiritual
freedom of Germany. Deeper lay the sources of this mighty stream; it
sprang from the foundation of the German mind, and was brought to light
by the secret longings of the heart, that it might, by the work of
destruction and renovation, transform the life of the nation.