Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. II.

by Gustav Freytag

"After this harangue of the town-clerk, Master Daniel the joiner, wishing to improve the matter, said: 'My very gracious ladies! Let it be understood by the women that this is a friendly conference, and that no constraint will be used; for it is not customary with my masters and the very wise council to hang a man before they have caught him.'

"At this inconsiderate and incautious speech, which did not in the least serve the council, Herr Mümer and Herr Notarius pushed him away; but among the assembled wives there was great laughter and uproar. 'Yea! yea! we understand well enough now; they compare us to people who are to be hanged. What fellows you are, one with the other! Oh you faithless rogues! you usurious corn-dealers! you woollen thieves! Thereupon the judge's wife called out: 'Silence! silence, you women!' and said to Master Daniel: 'Hear, dear brother-in-law, you do not understand the matter, and are also too few to compel us against our conscience. Oh, how God will punish you, and my husband also, who so openly acts against his conscience! Your dear deceased father, a dignified Lutheran ecclesiastic, taught you both very differently. Now you say you are good Roman Catholics. Your new faith is necessary for your roguish tricks; when you are drunk you speak shamelessly enough of the mother of God herself, and when you go to your bad women you speak of yourselves as the brothers of the Virgin Mary. Oh, if your gains were taken away from you, which you make from your offices and the common property of the town, and consume again in eating and drinking; if you were obliged to resume your joiners' trade again, and work vigorously to keep yourselves warm, how soon you would give up your Popery. May God punish you! Never shall you deprive us of our faith, you yourselves will yet be hanged on that account.'

"The burgomaster's wife said: 'If you had nothing else to say to us, the priest might have done that from the pulpit, and it would not have been necessary to confine us on that account. It is not thus I could be compelled to go to church. Under our former pastors and preachers it was a great pleasure to me to go to church, for I received there comfort from the word of God; now I am only scandalized and troubled when I go there. So that it cries out to God in heaven. As concerns the Easter offerings, every one is free; he who has to give may do so.' Hereupon the other women screamed out loudly: 'Yea, we will give to the priest, the devil, as his due.' The honourable envoys were terrified at such discourse, and begged to be allowed to withdraw, and said not a word further, but departed.

"Now when the honourable envoys returned to the King's judge, the priest and the other gentlemen had already gone away; they made their report, and also went home. The women were now released from their arrest. But this affair worked seriously in the head of the King's judge; he took it to heart that he had been so ignominiously led astray by his ideas, and feared that the upshot would bring him to eternal ridicule. He paced up and down the room, murmuring to himself; at last he said: 'Give me somewhat to eat.' When the table was spread, and dinner served up by his maid-servant and children,--a dish of crab, a piece of white bread and cheese and butter,--the worthy gentleman waxed wrath, took first the good bread, then the tin butter-mould with the butter, and threw them out of the window into the market-place; he threw the crab also all about the room, and seized upon the sausage which was also on the table, which the children would gladly have had, being hungry, as they had eaten nothing the whole day. Nay, he was so furious that he ran out of the room, dashing down the dishes and saucepans, and all that came to his hand, so that a great concourse of neighbours was brought together. After that, he ran up to his room and went on calling out and conducting himself as if it was full of people. The following morning he rose betimes and stole away, having delivered over his office to Dr. Melchior.

"That day the other gentlemen rested till towards evening; then the priest sent for the beadle, and commanded him to summon in his name and that of Dr. Melchior, as the vice King's judge, the wife of the burgomaster and the frau Geneussin to come to him at the parsonage early in the morning after mass. This the beadle did. The burgomaster's wife answered: 'Yea, yea, I will come, but I will first tell my lord.' But when the beadle came to Frau Geneussin, and announced the same to her, her son-in-law was with her, Herr Krekler, who was afterwards burgomaster, who thus answered for her: 'Are the priest and Dr. Melchior your masters? Are they the masters of my honoured mother-in-law? Reply that she will not come without the commands of the burgomaster.' This the beadle told to the burgomaster, who reflected thereupon, and at last said: 'For my part they may go, I am content, so the blame cannot be laid upon me.'

"On Friday morning, at the appointed hour, the wife of the burgomaster went to the priest and likewise the judge's wife, who however was not summoned, together with Frau Geneussin. Then the priest began to speak with them in the most friendly way; he begged them very politely to conform and accept the only holy religion which could make them blessed, as their lords had done. They would see what comfort they would find in it, and how well it would fare with them. To this the women forthwith replied: 'No, we were otherwise instructed by our parents, and former preachers; according to that we find ourselves right comfortable. We cannot reconcile ourselves to your religion.' Thereupon the priest said: 'You women may come to church or to me as oft as you please, when you have anxieties or scruples, and I will assuredly instruct you assiduously.' The women answered: 'Your reverence need not give yourself any trouble on our account, as we will not do so.' 'Ay,' said the priest, 'then set the other women a good example, and at least go to church and mass, and do not be a cause of offence to others who have already declared that they would go if the women went.' The women replied: 'We will not do it ourselves, but we will not prevent others from doing so; these are matters of conscience whereof none can judge but God.' Now when the priest saw that all was in vain, he entreated them thus: 'Ay, ay, yet at least tell the other women that you have begged for, and also obtained, fourteen days for consideration.' Then answered the women almost with indignation: 'No, dear sir, we were not taught to lie by our parents, and we will not learn it from you; we beg you will excuse us.' So they departed therefrom.

"But whilst the three women were with the priest, a great multitude of women collected together with marvellous rapidity, many more than on the first occasion. Herr Schwob Franze perceiving this, came running panting with haste to the burgomaster and said: 'Sir, I pray you for God's sake have a care, and prevent the priest from meddling with the women; they have assembled together again in a great multitude, the whole of the bread-market and all the houses in Kirchgasse are full of them; God help us, they will slay us, together with the priest. I made the best of my way out from them.'

"The good burgomaster was so ill in bed that he could neither move hand nor foot. He sent hastily to the priest and told him in plain German what a hazardous business he had begun, the like of which had never been heard of in any town. If he were to meet with any annoyance from the women the fault would be his own.

"Thereupon the priest said: 'Ah no! Herr Burgomaster, let not your worship be thus angered. I see that I have been led astray by that inconsiderate man Dr. Melchior, who represented the matter quite otherwise. I beg that your worship will signify to the women, that they may return to their homes; assuredly what has happened shall not happen again, of that I hereby assure your worship.' When the women heard this, and that nothing further had happened to the ladies, as has been related above, the women were well content, went home and laid aside their bundles and bunches of keys, nevertheless, not out of reach, that they might have them at hand day or night in case of need."

Here ends the old narrative. The priest was obliged the following year to leave Löwenberg ignominiously, as he would not desist from his scandalous proceedings. Amongst other things he had a public chop and beer-house erected for the old Silesian beer. The spiteful Dr. Melchior became afterwards in desperation a soldier, and was hanged at Prague. And the valiant women,--we hope they took refuge with their husbands at Breslau or in Poland.