A.D. 1332. Fourth week after Easter.—But now awaked from the first sleep I have had for the last three days and nights. I set down in a word or two what hath happened, then out to action again. Last Wednesday, at the great festival, the nobles, knights, and senators, with a brave show of fair ladies, banqueted at the grand house in the Brandgasse.[[101]] Within, far into the night, minstrelsy and dancing; without, the street blocked up with a crowd of serving men and grooms with horses, torch-bearers, and lookers-on of all sorts—when, suddenly, the music stopped—they heard shouts and the clash of swords and shrill screams. There had been a quarrel between a Zorn and a Müllenheim—they drew—Von Hunefeld was killed on the spot, another of the Zorns avenged him by cutting down Wasselenheim; the conflict became general, in hall, in the antechambers, down the great staircase, out on the steps, the retainers took part on either side, and the fray ended in the flight of the Zorns, who left six slain in the house and in the street. Two were killed on the side of the Müllenheims. All who fell were of high rank, and several of either faction are severely wounded. They draw off to their quarters, each breathing vengeance, preparing for another conflict at daybreak. All the rest of the night the Landvogt and Gotzo von Grosstein were riding to and fro to pacify them—to no purpose. Each party declared they would send for the knights and gentry of their side from the country round about. I was with Burckard Zwinger when we heard this. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘or all is lost. Off, and harangue the people. I will get the best of the burghers together.’ We parted. All the city was astir. As I made my way from house to house, I sent the people I met off to the market place to hear Zwinger. I could hear their shouts, summons enough now, without any other. When I got back to the Roland’s pillar, I found that his plain, home-thrust speech had wrought the multitude to what we would, and no more. Snatches of it flew from mouth to mouth, like sparks of fire,—he had struck well while the iron was hot. ‘To the Stadtmeister!’ was the cry. ‘The keys! The seal! The standard! We will have our standard. Let the citizens defend their own!’ Most of the burghers were of one mind with Zwinger, and we went in a body (the crowd shouting behind us, a roaring sea of heads, and the bell on the townhouse ringing as never before) to demand the keys of young Sieck. He yielded all with trembling. By daybreak we had dispersed; the several corporations repaired armed to their quarters; the gates were shut; the bridges guarded; the walls manned. All was in our hands. So far safe. The nobles, knights, and gentry of the neighbourhood came up in the morning in straggling groups, approaching the city from various quarters, with as many of their men as could be hastily gathered, but drew off again when they saw our posture of defence. It was truly no time for them. This promptitude has saved Strasburg from being a field of battle in every street for counts and men at arms, who despise and hate the citizens—whose victory, on whatever side, would have been assured pillage and rapine, and, in the end, the loss of our privilege to deal solely for ourselves in our own affairs. Well done, good Zwinger, thou prince of bakers, with thy true warm heart, and cool head, and ready tongue! To our praise be it said, no deed of violence was done; there was no blood-thirstiness, no spoiling, but a steady purpose in the vast crowd that, hap what would, no strangers should come in to brawl and rob in Strasburg.
While the gates have been closed and the Town Hall guarded, we have been deliberating on a new senate. Four new Stadtmeisters elected. Zwinger made Amtmeister. The magistracy taken out of the exclusive hands of the great families and open to the citizens generally, gentlemen, burghers, and artizans, side by side. The workmen no longer to be slaves to the caprice of the gentry. The nobles are disarmed for a time, to help them settle their quarrel more quickly. I go the rounds with the horse patrol every night. The gates are never to be opened except when the great bell has rung to give permission. We sit in the Town Hall with our swords. I took my place there this morning, armed to the teeth, and verily my Margarita seemed proud enough when she sent me forth, with a kiss, to my new dignity, clad in good steel instead of senatorial finery. We have every prospect of peace and prosperousness. The nobles see our strength, and must relinquish with as good a grace as they may a power they have usurped. The main part of the old laws will abide as before. All is perfectly quiet. There has been no mere vengeance or needless rigour. I hear nothing worse than banishment will be inflicted upon any—that only on a few. The bishop’s claws will be kept shorter.
1338. August. St. Bartholomew’s Day.—Now is the rent between clerk and layman, pope and emperor, wider even than heretofore. Last month was held the electorial diet at Rhense. The electors, by far the greater part, with Louis; and their bold doings now apparent. Yesterday was issued, at Frankfort, a manifesto of the Emperor’s, wherein Benedict, he and all his curses, are set at nought, and the mailed glove manfully hurled in his teeth. Thereby he declares, that whomsoever the electors choose they will have acknowledged rightful emperor, whether the pope bless or bann, and all who gainsay this are traitors;—that the emperor is not, and will not be, in anywise dependent on the pope. All good subjects are called on to disregard the Interdict, and such towns or states as obey the same are to forfeit their charters.[[102]]
It was indeed high time to speak out. Louis, losing heart, tried negotiation, and made unworthy concessions to the pope, whereon he (impatient, they say, to get back to Italy) would have come to an agreement, but the French cardinals took care to cross and undo all. The emperor even applied to Philip personally—asking the King of France, forsooth, to suffer him to be king of the Romans—then, finding that vain, is leagued with the English king, and war declared against France. This sounds bravely. Shame on the electors if they hold not to their promise now.
As to our Strasburg, we stand by the emperor, as of old, despite our bishop Berthold, who, with sword instead of crook, has done battle with the partisans of Louis for now some years, gathering help from all parts among the nobles and the gentry, burning villages, besieging and being besieged, spoiling and being spoiled; moreover, between whiles, thinking to win himself the name of a zealous pastor by issuing decrees against long hair growing on clerks’ heads, and enforcing fiercely all the late bulls against the followers of Eckart, the Beghards, and others.[[103]] Last year he tasted six weeks’ imprisonment, having quarrelled with the heads of the chapter. Rudolph von Hohenstein and others of the opposite party, surrounded one night the house of the Provost of Haselach, where he lay, and carried him off in his shirt to the Castle of Vendenti; and smartly did they make him pay before he came out. We have full authority to declare war against him, if he refuses now to submit to Louis, as I think not likely, seeing how matters go at present. He had the conscience to expect that we magistrates would meddle in his dispute and take his part. Even the senators, who adhere mainly to the Zorn family, were against him, and methinks after all he has done to harass and injure us, we did in a sort return good for evil in being merely lookers-on.
Tauler is away on a visit to Basle, where the state of parties is precisely similar to our own, the citizens there, as in Friburg, joining our league for Louis and for Germany; and the bishop against them, tooth and nail.[[104]] My eldest boy (God bless him, he is fifteen this day, and a lad for a father to be proud of) hath accompanied the Doctor thither, having charge of sundry matters of business for me there. Had word from him last week. They have somehow procured a year’s remission of the Interdict for Basle. He says Suso came to see Tauler, and that they had long talk together for two days. Henry of Nördlingen is there likewise, and now that the pope hath kennelled his barking curse for a twelvemonth, preaches, to the thronging of the churches, wherever he goes.
A.D. 1339. January.—The new year opens gloomily. Without loss of time, fresh-forged anathemas are come, and coming, against the outspoken emperor and this troublesome Germany. Some of the preachers, and the bare-footed friars especially, have yet remained to say mass and perform the offices; now, even these are leaving the city. Some cloisters have stood for now two or three years quite empty. Many churches are deserted altogether, and the doors nailed up. The magistracy have issued orders to compel the performance of service. The clerks are fairly on the anvil; the civil hammer batters them on the one side, and the ecclesiastical upon the other with alternate strokes.
Bitter wind and sleet this morning. Saw three Dominicans creeping back into the town, who had left it a month ago, refusing to say mass. Poor wretches, how starved and woe-begone they looked, after miserable wanderings about the country in the snow, winter showing them scant courtesy, and sure I am the boors less; and now coming back to a deserted convent and to a city where men’s faces are towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came into my mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler’s, that we should show mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends alike, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?[[105]] Ran after them, called them in, thawed them, fed them, comforted them with kind words and good ale by the great fire,—then argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. ‘And is it not,’ urged I, ‘a crueller that thousands of innocent poor folk should live without sacrament, never hear a mass, perhaps die unshriven, for the very same reason? Is not God’s law higher than the pope’s,—do to others as ye would they should do unto you? Could you look for other treatment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect to be countenanced and sustained by them in administering the malediction of their enemies?‘ Thought it most courteous, however, to ply them more pressingly with food than with arguments.