Читать книгу The Pictures of German Life Throughout History - Gustav Freytag - Страница 11

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 Schützen, 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 Schützen, 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 Schützen, 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-Schützen 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-Schützen 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 Schützen collected together and fought. It is said that there were at one time some thousands of Bacchanten and Schützen 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 Schützen 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 Schützen 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 Schützen 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 Schütz, 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 Schützen 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 Schütz 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 Schützen 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, 'Jögli, 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.