THE MARRIAGE AND HOUSEKEEPING OF A
YOUNG STUDENT.
(1557.)
The chief charm of the life of the olden time consists in the graceful
manifestation of those feelings which give brightness to our life; the
passions of lovers, the deep affection of husband and wife, the
tenderness of parents, and the piety of children. We are enabled in
each period of the past to distinguish the universal attributes of
human nature, nay, even the specific German characteristics of love and
marriage, but these tender relations are precisely those which are
often enveloped in much that is transitory and enigmatical. We have
often to seek mild and humane feelings under repulsive forms.
But two things have always been valued in Germany. In the first place
it was a pre-eminent peculiarity of the Germans that they honoured the
dignity of the female sex. Their women were the prophetesses of the
heathen time, and, according to the laws of the people, whosoever
killed a maiden or widow had to atone for it by the severest
punishment. In times of strife and war, women enjoyed protection of
person and property. Whilst Totila, Prince of the Goths, destroyed the
men in Italy, the honour and life of the women were preserved, and the
misbehaviour of a Goth to a Neapolitan woman was punished with death.
It moreover appears from the Sachsenspiegel, that the same laws
prevailed in the North even during the time of the cruel Hussite wars.
Of all the misdeeds of the Spanish soldiers who accompanied Charles V.
into Germany in the sixteenth century, their ill-treatment of women
excited the greatest indignation. The infamous conduct of some Passau
soldiers of the Archduke Leopold towards the women of Alsace, even in
1611, was particularly repugnant to the people, and was commented on in
their news-sheets. It was not till the Thirty years' war that the
coarseness became universal, and women were looked upon as the booty of
licentious men.
This respect for women and chaste family life was considered by the
Romans the highest quality of the Germans. Even Christianity, which
spread from the Roman to the German countries, could not place women
and marriage on a higher footing; on the contrary, its ascetic
tendencies served to lower them. The full enjoyment of the pleasures of
the world were no longer allowed to man; passionate devotion to a
beloved husband was easily mistaken for a wrong to heaven and the holy
Redeemer. On the other hand men fixed their eyes on the heavenly
Virgin, whose especial favour they might win by despising the women of
earth. At the time of the Saxon Emperors this tendency of the mind
reached its highest point. In those days education was confined to the
cloister; there the daughters of the nobility were educated; there men
weary of sin retired; and there also, enthusiasm sought for the highest
enjoyment of love, which seemed unattainable in marriage without danger
to the salvation of the soul. Secret sensuality mixed even with the
worship of the highest objects of faith.
But the heart of man could not long rest satisfied with ideal love in
heaven. When, under the first Hohenstaufen, education, manners, and
good taste were only to be found among the feudal nobility, they
hastened to transfer to the women of this world the devotion and
veneration which had been exclusively confined to the Virgin Mary. The
courtly worship of woman began, new conventional forms were introduced
for the intercourse between man and woman, accompanied in Germany with
a strong intermixture of Italian manners. The man had to give proof of
his love by heroic deeds and adventures, and his lady-love was
surrounded by an atmosphere of poetry, and veiled in ideal perfections,
as we may perceive in the numerous minne-songs of that time. But
neither the dignity of woman, nor the fundamental morality of marriage,
was increased by this chivalrous devotion, and it became a cloak for
reckless profligacy. Sometimes even a married woman had a knight
devoted to her service; he was invested kneeling before his liege lady,
and she, laying her hands between his, confirmed his allegiance by a
kiss. From that time he wore her colours; he was bound to be faithful
to her, and she to him, and in some cases they lived together as man
and wife; and there were even instances in which the Church gave its
sanction to these improper unions.
This knightly service often led men into the greatest follies. For
instance, Pierre Vidal of Toulouse went about on all-fours in a wolfs
skin, in honour of his lady, till he was beaten and bitten almost to
death by the shepherds and sheep dogs; and Ulrich von Lichtenstein, who
rode through the whole country in woman's clothes, challenging all the
knights, and had his finger and upper lip cut off in honour of his
lady, drank the water in which she had washed, and when he returned
from his expeditions, was nursed by his wife. These are not the worst
examples of the horrible eccentricities to which this knightly devotion
led. The result was such as might be expected,--the glitter of romance
soon disappeared, and coarse profligacy remained in its nakedness.
The Church did little to improve this state of things. There were
individual popular preachers who courageously advocated marriage and
chastity, but it was at this very time that the celibacy of the secular
clergy was established, and that the mass of the people were reduced to
bondage by the feudal lords. The purity of marriage and the happiness
of families were not promoted either by the position of the village
priest living in his parish without a legal wife, nor by that of the
proprietor who had to give his sanction to marriages, received tribute
on account of them, and even laid shameful claims on the person of the
bride.
On the other hand there arose in the cities a fresh and vigorous life,
and from the fourteenth century, the citizens became the best
representatives of German cultivation and manners, as once the
ecclesiastics had been, and afterwards the nobles. Owing to the close
proximity of the dwellings in the city, and the smallness of their
houses, the intercourse between man and woman became more strictly
defined, and on the whole a practical sound conception of life took the
place of chivalrous fancies; citizen habits followed courtly manners;
ladies were won by cautious wooing instead of by daring heroic deeds;
maidenly modesty attracted more than haughty assumption; instead of the
wild knightly life of the nobles, which frequently separated man and
wife, and violently severed the marriage tie, the woman now obtained a
quiet sway in the well-regulated house, and the bold courtesy of the
knight was replaced by a considerate, though strictly regulated and
sometimes rather formal, expression of heartfelt esteem.
The conception of propriety and purity was different, however, from
what it is now. At the time of the Council of Constance, the refined
Poggio relates with great satisfaction how at Baden near Zurich, the
most fashionable bath of the fifteenth century, he had seen German men
and women bathing together, and how delightfully naive their
familiarity was. And even a century later Hutten praises this German
custom in contradistinction to the Italian morals, which would have
made this practice impossible. So tolerant still were the German
Humanitarians.
Marriage, however, was considered by our ancestors less as a union of
two lovers, than as an institution replete with duties and rights, not
only of married people towards one another, but also towards their
relatives--as a bond uniting two corporate bodies. The relations of the
wife became also the friends of the man, and they had claims on him as
he had on them. Therefore in the olden time, the choice of husband and
wife was always an affair of importance to the relatives on both sides,
so that a German wooing, from the oldest times up to the last century,
had the appearance of a business transaction, which was carried out
with great regard to suitability. This perhaps takes away from German
courtship, somewhat of the charm which we expect to find where the
heart of man beats strongly; but this circumspect method of weighing
things is a characteristic sign of an earnest and great conception of
life. If a man desired to ask a woman in marriage he had to go through
several solemn family negotiations. First the wooing, for which he had
to employ a mediator; not always the lather or any other head of his
family, but often some man of consideration in the town or country.
This ambassador was generally accompanied by the wooer himself with a
troop of his companions: if it took place in the country, they rode in
solemn procession. If the family of the maiden was favourably disposed,
they considered this as the preliminary step, and fixed a time for the
negotiations between the families to take place. Formerly the man had
to buy his wife from her family; but when this old custom fell into
disuse, there still remained the arrangements concerning the dowry
which the bride had to bring to her husband, and the jointure which he
had to settle upon her. There were added to this, though not compulsory
yet as a standing custom, presents of the man to the parents, brothers,
and sisters of the bride, or from the bride to the family and best-men
of the bridegroom. After this consultation, followed the betrothal,
which had to take place in the presence of the rightful guardians:
amidst the circle of witnesses, both parties had solemnly to declare
that they would take each other in marriage; after which a ring was
placed on the finger of the bride by the bridegroom; they embraced and
kissed, thus showing the passing of the maiden into the family and
guardianship of the man. After this betrothal, a certain space of time
having elapsed, the termination of which was in many places legally
fixed, the solemn fetching home of the bride to the house of the
bridegroom took place. Again there was a solemn procession to the house
of the maiden, and even if the bridegroom was present he was obliged to
have a spokesman, who once more wooed her before the assembled family,
and gave her over to the bridegroom; then she was taken in procession
to the house of the latter, where the bridal feast was held. It was a
bad custom in the middle ages, that this repast was got up with an
extravagance which far surpassed the means of the bridal couple; and
there were numerous police regulations endeavouring to limit the luxury
in music, dishes, and the number of tables[52] and feast days.
Such was the marriage ceremonial of the Germans. The old custom of the
bridal wreath, which was worn by both bride and bridegroom, was
introduced into Germany from Rome. The consecration of marriage by the
Church was only required from the time of the Carlovingians, and was
seldom neglected by the nobility, but did not become general among the
people till a later period. The Church had indeed raised marriage to
the dignity of a sacrament; but a feeling remained among the people
that Christianity looked coldly and sternly on it. Even in the
fifteenth century the consecration of marriage by the Church was not
entirely established, nor does it take place to this day in many places
before the fetching home of the bride.
In this respect also, Luther and the Reformation had a great influence.
From the sixteenth century the consecration of marriage by the Church
became in the Protestant countries the essential part of the ceremony;
from that time the old customs of betrothals and of fetching home the
bride were secondary considerations. It was not till after Luther and
the Council of Trent, that marriage became intimately connected with
the Christian faith in the German mind; for then the different
confessions endeavoured by educating and elevating the people, to make
them comprehend the moral and domestic significance of marriage.
And how was it with the heart of lovers? The following example will
show how true love germinated amidst all the various family interests.
Felix Platter, the son of Thomas Platter, burgher, printer,
schoolmaster, and householder at Basle, was born in 1536. His father by
unwearied activity had risen from the greatest poverty, and had up to
an advanced age to struggle with anxieties for his maintenance, and
with pecuniary embarrassments, in consequence of the constant extension
of his business. This hard battle with life had exercised its usual
influence on his mind; he had a restless spirit of enterprise, which
sometimes hindered him from steadily pursuing a plan; he had no real
self-confidence, was easily perplexed, irritable, and morose. His son
Felix, the only child by his first marriage, had on the contrary
inherited the joyous disposition of his single-minded mother; he was a
jolly warm-hearted lad, rather vain, passionately fond of music and
dancing, at the same time clever, open and ingenuous. He was still
almost a boy when his father sent him from Basle to the celebrated
medical college of the university of Montpellier. Felix having acquired
there, not only everything that medical science then offered, but all
kinds of French refinements, returned to the simple burgher life of his
native town: at the age of one-and-twenty he took his degree as doctor,
and married happily a maiden about whom he had been teased when a
child. He gained a great reputation, became Professor of the
university, and a man of opulence and consideration, and died at an
advanced age. He was of the greatest service to the city of Basle, by
his self-sacrificing activity at the time of the plague, and also to
the medical faculty of his university by his learning; and he was often
consulted as a physician of renown by persons of princely rank both in
Germany and France. He laid out a botanic garden at Basle, and
possessed a cabinet of physical science worthy of being shown for
money. Like his father, he wrote an account of part of his life: the
following fragment is taken from a printed edition of the manuscript,
entitled 'Thomas and Felix Platter, two Autobiographies, by Dr. D. A.
Fechter, Basle, 1840.'
The narrative begins with that day on which the young Felix returns
with all the self-confidence of a scholar to his native town.
"I was welcomed home by all my neighbours, and there was great
rejoicing; the servant-maid of the midwife, Dorly Becherer, as I learnt
afterwards, gained the _botenbrot_[53] from my intended, by running to
her father's house and screaming out the news, which she did so loud as
quite to frighten her. Supper was prepared, and some of my companions
who had heard of my arrival, and had forthwith come to visit me, stayed
for it. After supper we escorted them to the Crown inn, and going down
the Freienstrasse, my intended saw me passing by in my Spanish cap, and
she fled. The innkeeper, who had himself been wooing her, bantered me,
so that I perceived the affair was pretty well known: after that I
returned home.
"The following morning, Hummel came to me to take me about the town. We
first passed the Minster close, there Herr Ludwig von Rischach spied me
out, and was wondering who I was, because I wore a velvet barret cap
and arms: I made myself known to him; then I saluted Dr. Sulzer, pastor
of the Minster; afterwards, Dr. Hans Huber, who welcomed me kindly and
offered me his services; I made him a present of Clemens Marot, which
had been beautifully bound at Paris.
"After that we went down Martin's Alley, and when we arrived at the
bottom of it, opposite the school, my intended, who was standing by the
bench saw me, though I did not see her; she ran into the school and
home again; and after that she no longer went to the shops of the
butchers, because they began to tease her. After dinner my father took
me to his property at Gundeldingen; he talked to me on the road, and
exhorted me not to speak too fast, as the French are apt to do, and
gave me an account of his household. I began immediately to prepare my
cypress lute, and to string the large harp which my father had formerly
played; and I put my books and manuscripts in order; thus I spent the
whole week.
"Meanwhile my father arranged matters that I might talk with my
intended, and she with me; he therefore invited Master Franz and his
daughter to come out to Gundeldingen the following Sunday afternoon; it
was the sixteenth of May, a merry spring day. I went out there after
dinner with Thiebold Schoenauer; we had sent on our lutes, and when we
entered the yard at Gundeldingen we saw two maidens standing there; one
was the cousin of the landlady, and engaged to Daniel the son of Master
Franz, the other was his daughter Magdalen, my intended, whom I greeted
cordially, as she did me, not without changing colour. Thus we got into
converse; her brother Daniel joined us; we walked about the property,
talking of divers things; my intended was modest, bashful, and quiet.
At three o'clock we returned to the house, and went up stairs; I and
Thiebold played the lute, and I danced the gaillarde, as was my custom.
Meanwhile, Master Franz, her father, arrived and welcomed me; we sat
down to table and had an evening drink as at supper, till it was late,
and time for us to return to town. On the road homewards, her father
and mine went in advance, and I and Daniel followed with the ladies in
friendly talk, when Dorothy, who was somewhat bold of speech, burst
forth, saying, 'When two are fond of each other they should make no
delay, for one knows not how quick a misfortune may come between them.'
Near the ramparts we separated, Master Franz and his party went home
through the Stein gate, and my father and his through the Eschemer
gate. We all went to bed full of curious thoughts about myself.
"My father-in-law and my father took counsel together, to make our
engagement sure. I began to love her very much, and urged it on. I also
was not disagreeable to her, which I had partly found out from herself,
when the wife of the butcher, Burlacher, my mother's cousin, had
invited us to her meadow before the Spalen gate to eat cherries, where
we had been able to speak openly. It was determined that Dr. Hans Huber
should make the proposal for me. When my father asked it of him, he
readily assented, appointed Master Franz in the forenoon to meet him at
the Minster, made the proposal, and gained his consent for a family
marriage counsel. In the evening, when Dr. Hans came to me, he
announced it to me with exultation, as was his wont, and congratulated
me; but informed me that my father-in-law wished the affair to be kept
quiet till my doctorate was over, when matters might proceed. I was
well satisfied therewith, as my future father-in-law was at last
inclined to consent. Formerly, he had always held back because he
feared that my father was greatly in debt, and because he had boarders;
for, as he said, he did not wish his daughter to be thrown into debts
and disquietudes. But when he heard from my father that his debts were
small in comparison with his property in land and houses, and that he
himself intended to do away with the boarders, he was satisfied; and so
much the more as Herr Caspar Krug, afterwards burgomaster, who had seen
me, advised him, and because his son Ludwig told him he ought to thank
God, as he had good hopes that I should become a renowned doctor, for I
had shown my skill in curing his wife (who was weak after giving birth
to two children) by giving her marchpane, which I had ordered when it
was not yet the custom to do so. So my father-in-law was at last well
pleased, and did not object to my going to his house to speak with his
daughter. Yet I did this mostly in his absence, and secretly. I entered
by the back door in the alley, and talked to her there in the lower
part of the house, with due propriety and honour. Her father did not
object, but appeared not to notice it; he also deferred matters as long
as he could, for he did not like to give away his daughter, who, as he
boasted, kept house so well for him.
"About this time, Thomas Guerin was engaged to Jungfrau Elizabeth of
the Falcon. He frequently came to me with Pempelfort, and begged of me
to arrange a musical serenade, to do homage to his love at the Falcon.
I promised him this, but under the condition that a serenade should
also be given at any place that I chose. So we equipped ourselves, and
went, late after supper, in front of the house of my intended. We had
two lutes, I and Thiebold Schoenaur played together, afterwards I took
the harp, and Pempelfort the viola. The goldsmith Hogenbach whistled an
accompaniment, and it was altogether quite fine music; no one took any
notice of us, for my future father-in-law was at home. Then we went to
the Falcon, and there, after we had paid our court, we were admitted,
and had a splendid night-cup, with all kinds of sweetmeats; when we
were returning home, the watchmen stopped us at the Green King, but
they let us go after we had given them satisfactory answers. I often
took a walk to the house of my intended, but as far as possible,
secretly, and talked much whimsical nonsense, as lovers do, which she
answered discreetly. I dressed myself also, according to custom, for
then we wore only coloured clothes, and not black, except for mourning.
Certain persons now began to watch me, and once when I left the house
after supper, two men followed me, and would willingly have beaten me,
but I escaped, so that nothing happened to me.
"Soon after I had become a doctor my father urged that the marriage
should be concluded between me and the Jungfrau Magdalen; and
therefore, towards the end of September, he spoke to her father, and as
I had honourably and praiseworthily fulfilled everything, and the
matter had not remained secret, he could not object to settling
it--thereupon he gave a satisfactory answer, but kept always delaying
the affair, for, as aforesaid, he was unwilling to part with his
daughter. Meanwhile I was allowed to go to the house openly; but it
surprised me that it did not displease him, as it was not yet a settled
marriage, and, indeed, might never have taken place; our intercourse,
however, was carried on with all due propriety and honour, and we held
converse on divers discreet subjects, and had much joking and
bantering, and often I helped her to make electuaries, and thus we
passed the time. We had once particularly good fun; when on the eve of
St. Simon and St. Jude they rang the bells for the fair, I wished to
get a fairing from her. As her father was absent, I went secretly to
the back door of her house which was constantly open, and seeing no
one, as all were in the chamber below, I slipped up the stairs to the
garret, and looked out of the skylight in order to hear when the bells
rang in the fair at twelve. I waited for three hours, both cold and
weary; as soon as the bells began to sound, I slipped down and opened
the door of the room crying out, 'Give me a fairing,' thinking thereby
to surprise her. There was no one there, and the maid said, as she had
been told to do, that she was gone out; but she had hidden herself
under the staircase, and was waiting; soon after she hastened into the
room with the usual exclamation, and gained from me the fairing. This I
gave her handsomely, and she gave me one also. I wished to present her
with the little chain that I had brought with me from Paris, but she
begged me to keep it, as it might give occasion for gossip, and she
might have it at some other time; but she took the little beautifully
bound Testament which I had also offered her; thus we had our pastime
for a long period, as is usual with young people.
"After the fair at Basle, my father-in-law, as he could no longer
delay, began to prepare for the betrothal, and it was fixed for the
week after St. Martin's day. We came about four o'clock to his house;
there were assembled on his side Herr Caspar Krug, afterwards
burgomaster, Martin Fickler, and Master Gregorius Schoelin, and Batt
Hug, his friends, and his son Franz Jeckelmann; there were on our side
Dr. Hans Huber, Matthias Bornhart, and Henricus Petri. They negotiated
about the dowry, and my future father-in-law announced that his
daughter would bring with her more than three hundred pounds' worth of
property; of this there would be one hundred florins of ready money,
and the rest in clothes and linen. When they asked my father what he
would give, he replied he could not say; he had no child but me, and
all would be mine. But when they told him that he must name something,
as there might be changes (as did, indeed, afterwards happen),[54] he
answered that he had not reflected upon this, so he would name four
hundred gulden; but that as he could not give it me we should board
with him instead, for he had no money to give me, on the contrary he
was much in debt. Thereupon arose some disputing; my father-in-law
exclaimed that he would not expose his daughter to the discomfort of
the boarders, and would rather have us in his house, and censured my
father for being in debt, so that my father was much grieved, and if
the honourable company present had not interfered, the matter would
have remained unsettled. This was the first contretemps that happened
to me, and was a great grief both to me and to my intended, who had
heard all in the kitchen, and was in great trouble. However, the affair
was smoothed, as my father said he would gladly give up the boarders,
though it could not be done immediately. From that time my father was
somewhat out of sorts, which embittered the whole pleasure of my
nuptials. We were betrothed, and I presented my bride with the gold
chain I had brought from Paris; and my father-in-law gave the banquet,
with good entertainment and speeches, but there was no music, which I
should have liked best.
"Great preparations were made for the marriage, which was to take place
on the following Monday, for my father considering that he had an only
son, wished, for the satisfaction of my father-in-law, to invite the
whole of his friends and other well-wishers; so invitations were sent
out on the Saturday to the relations and neighbours, and our good
friends the master and councillor of the Guild of the Bear, to some of
the high school, nobles, councillors, scholars, and also artisans with
their wives and children.
"On the following Sunday, the 21st of October, our banns were published
as is customary; the tables, and everything appertaining to the wedding
were arranged in both my fathers' houses; many helped, and Master Batt
Oesy, the landlord of the Angel, was cook. In the evening I went to my
father-in-law's house, watched them making the nosegays, and remained
with them till after supper. When I returned home I found Herr
Schreiber Rust, an old acquaintance of my father's, who had come out of
friendship from Burtolf to the wedding, and had brought with him a
beautiful Emmenthaler cheese. He was sitting at table with my father,
who was greatly disquieted, as to how he could feed and treat so large
a number of people as had been invited; he persuaded himself that it
would be impossible, and that he would disgrace himself, and he was
quite cross. Especially, when I came home, he began to scold me very
roughly for sitting always with my bride, and letting him have all the
trouble, instead of helping him; and he was so angry with me that Herr
Rust had enough to do to pacify and comfort him. This third cross and
embittering of the happiness of my wedding was very disquieting to me,
as I was not accustomed to be thus scolded, and had hitherto usually
been praised and well treated; I saw clearly how it would henceforth be
when there were two of us living at my father's cost, so that
everything would be rendered unpleasant to me. I went to bed full of
sorrow, and thought like a fool that I would like to withdraw from my
present position, if the door were only open to me.
"On the morning of the 22nd of October, St. Cecilia's day, I was still
dispirited, as I had slept little. I put on my bridegroom's shirt which
had been sent to me, with a gold embroidered collar and many golden
spangles on the short breast piece, as was the custom then, and over
that a red brocaded satin waistcoat and flesh-coloured breeches. Thus I
came down and found my father no longer so unjust, for when he had
begun to complain again, although there was a superfluity of
everything, he got a good chiding from Dorothea Schenkin, who was also
helping, and was a rough-spoken woman. When the marriage guests were
assembled, we went in procession to my father-in-law's house, and with
us Dr. Oswald Berus, who, in spite of his great age, was dressed in an
open satin waistcoat and a camlet coat, the same as mine, and a velvet
barret cap, like that which was placed on my head, when in front of my
bride's house, and this said cap was bordered with pearls and flowers.
"We went about nine o'clock to the Minster, and then the bride arrived
in a flesh-coloured cloak, led by Herr Heinrich Petri. After the sermon
they married us; I gave her a twisted ring worth eight dollars; then we
proceeded to the Jagdhof, where they gave us to drink. I led my bride
in, and they regaled her splendidly in the upper room.
"There were fifteen tables spread, which were well filled by more than
one hundred and fifty persons, not counting those who waited upon them,
and a number of them remained to supper. The entertainment proceeded
after this fashion: there were four courses in the following order, a
hash of mutton, soup, meat, fowls, boiled pike, a roast, pigeons,
capons, geese, rice porridge, salted liver, cheese, and fruit. There
were divers kinds of wines, amongst others Rangenwein, which was much
to the taste of the guests. The music consisted of Christelin the
trumpeter, with his viola; the singers were the scholars, who sang
among other things the song of the spoon; after the dinner, which did
not last as long as is now customary, Herr Jacob Meyer, the Councillor
of the Bear, broke up the party. Dr. Myconius led the bride to the
house of Dr. Oswald Berus, where there was dancing in the hall; there
were many persons, and some of them people of consequence. Master
Laurens played the lute, Christelin accompanied him on his viola, which
was then less used than now. I wished to do the courteous by my bride,
as I had been accustomed to do in France in dancing, but she being
bashful gently admonished me, so I desisted. I danced however, at
Myconius' suggestion, a gaillard alone.
"After that we returned to my father's house to supper. When it began
to get late the guests took leave, and that there might not be too much
noise and joking, I hid myself in my father's room, where my bride also
had been secretly concealed, whose father wept so at parting with her,
that I thought they would be quite ill from crying. I led her into my
father's little room, and some of the women of her acquaintance came to
comfort her, to whom I gave some claret to drink, which I had kept in a
small cask behind the stove, and had made very good. When they
departed, my mother who was always cheerful, came and said that the
young students were seeking me, therefore we had better conceal
ourselves and go to bed; so she led us secretly by the back stairs up
to my room, where we sat for some time, and as it was very cold we were
half frozen, so we commended ourselves to God and went to bed; and none
of the students knew what had become of us. After a time we heard my
mother come up stairs above our room; there she sat and sang with as
sweet a voice as a young maiden, though she had reached a great age;
whereat my bride laughed heartily.
"On the Tuesday morning her bridesmaid Kathleen brought her the rest of
her clothes; we admitted her, and as she was a pleasant maiden, we had
much fun with her. After that the marriage guests collected again at
dinner, which took place at eleven o'clock, for then we had not turned
time topsy-turvy, as is the bad custom now. There were as many tables
laid as on the first day, and the entertainment was as ample; and there
was in addition the bridal porridge, which is now replaced by mulled
wine. After dinner they danced till night, and at supper there were
still many guests, especially the maidens, who all took leave and went
home in good time. There were many rich presents given at the marriage;
but of these I got only a small goblet and two ducats, the rest my
father took to defray the costs as far as they would, and later, as
soon as I earned something, I had to pay him for my clothes. My father
took also the hundred gulden that my wife had brought with her, and
paid it off likewise. My father-in-law made me no present, because, as
he afterwards told me, he had paid five gulden for me at the doctor's
capping feast, and therewith I ought to be content. The household gear
that my wife brought with her was not very good; an old pan in which
they had made her porridge, and a large wooden bowl in which her
mother's dinner had been brought to her during her confinements, and
other bad utensils, which were placed behind a screen in our room.
After that, our household arrangements were to be fixed and regulated
by my wife's advice, which required great consideration. My father
still continued to have boarders and all kinds of disquiet in the
house, so that we young married people were much harassed; we had
rather have kept house by ourselves, but we could not manage it; we
were obliged for nearly three years to board with my father, and I had
to make shift with my room, and to see the sick in the lower hall,
which was cold in winter. There was frequent offence taken because I
could not help towards the kitchen expenditure, for I had enough to do
to provide ourselves with clothes, and frequently had to pay what I had
just earned to the shops where I was still in debt for them; which was
thrown in my teeth, if I did not do it. Thus there were at times
quarrels, as often happens when old and young dwell together. Therefore
my wife would have been glad if we could have dwelt by ourselves, and
she would willingly have managed with very little; if my father would
have given the promised dowry and the hundred gulden which she had
brought to me, we could have subsisted upon that; but my father could
not do this, as he had no ready money; and I did not wish to anger, but
rather conciliate him, and so I spoke him fair, saying, we would have
patience till I got into better practice. All this grieved me because I
loved her much, and would gladly have maintained her as was meet for a
doctor's wife; therefore for a long time I treated her with less
familiarity and more ceremony; my father perceived this with
displeasure, and thought it ought not to be. I had not much to do
before the new year.
"There were many doctors at Basle when I came there, both graduates and
quacks, in the year 1557. Therefore I had to be very skilful to support
myself, and God has abundantly blessed me therein. From day to day I
got more practice both among the inhabitants of the town, and also
among the strangers, some of whom came to me and dwelt a long time
here, using my remedies, whilst others went away immediately, having
obtained my advice and prescription. Strangers also sent for me to
their houses and castles, whither I hastened, not staying long, but
returning home quickly, that I might attend to those at home as well as
in distant parts."