HE xiiijth chapter is about the Dallingers. These are they who stand before the churches, having been hangmen (although they have left it off i year or ii since), and chastise and whip themselves with rods, and will do pe[Pg 33]nance and pilgrimage for their sin and wickednesses. These often beg with much success. When they have practised for a while and cheated many people thereby, they become hangmen again, as before. Give to them if thou wilt; but they are all knaves who beg thus.
Of the Dützbetterins, or Lying-in Women.
HE xvth chapter is about the Dützbetterins. These are the beggarwomen who lay themselves before the churches all over the country. They spread a sheet over themselves, and set wax and eggs by them, as tho’ they were in childbed, and say, their babe died xiiij days ago, altho’ some of them have not had one these x or xx years; and they are called Dützbetterins. To these nothing is to be given,—causa: There lay once, at Strasburg, a man underneath a sheet before the cathedral, and it was pretended he was a woman in childbed. But he was taken by the town serjeants,[Pg 34] and put into a halsong, and in the pillory, and then he was forbidden the country. There are likewise some women who pretend they have been pregnant with a monster and have brought forth such, as did a woman who came to Pforzheim in the year one thousand five hundred and nine. This same woman said that a short time before she had given birth to a child and a live toad; and that this very toad she had carried to Our Lady at Einsiedeln, where it was still alive, and that it must have a pound of meat every day,—being kept at Einsiedeln as a miracle. Thus she begs alms as if she were on her way to Ach, to Our Lady. She had also a letter with a seal, which was proclaimed from the pulpit. The same woman, however, had a lusty young man whom she kept in food by such villany, sitting in an alehouse in the suburb waiting for her. All this was found out by the gate-keeper; and they would have been seized, but they had been warned and so took themselves off. Nota: All this was utter knavery.
Of the Süntvegers, or (pretended) Murderers.