Civilizations

by Laurent Binet

  All the same, there were limits to this revolt, and the Anabaptists – who believed that children should not have the religion of the nailed god imposed on them through the rite of baptism until they were old enough to reason for themselves – paid for this heresy with their lives. Likewise, the peasants, who had imagined that Luther was their saviour, a champion of the poor, had been massacred when they rose up demanding justice on earth as in heaven. Not only had Luther refused to support them, he’d even exhorted the princes to cut the throat of every single rebel.

  Frederick the Wise and Philip the Magnanimous, those eminent prince-electors converted to Lutheranism, had accomplished this task with zeal and diligence, killing the leaders and mutilating all their followers. After that, the German countryside was filled with thousands of men without noses or ears.

  The simultaneous coming of Ferdinand and Atahualpa had rekindled the embers of those past infernos.

  On one side, the Lutheran princes saw the Seville Edict as an inspirational model for religious peace in Germany. They were counting on Atahualpa’s arrival in his northern provinces to put pressure on Ferdinand before his coronation. They calculated that they ought to be able to wrest concessions from the new emperor who, faced with the united forces of France and Spain, not to mention the threat of Suleiman at his back, could not afford to alienate the German princes, even if they were Lutherans.

  On the other side, the German peasants, having learned of the agrarian reforms that had swept first Spain and now the Netherlands, felt hope grow in their hearts once again. They saw the Inca as a new Luther, or perhaps a new Müntzer.

  The souls of Germany, that strange region peopled by wild-eyed ghosts and misty visions, were more troubled than ever. Armies of the noseless gathered silently. They remembered their heroes of bygone times, their broken dreams. They wept at mention of Poor Conrad. But they gritted their teeth, too. The names of the cutler Kaspar Preziger, of Jean de Leyde, of Jan Mattys, and especially of the great Thomas Müntzer, danced on the lips of mutilated men who, when evening fell, would tell their children terrible stories about the past. Some of those old ghosts reappeared, as if resuscitated, from the hiding places where they had taken refuge so long ago that everyone had thought them lost for ever. Atahualpa’s arrival produced miracles. A vagabond wandering out of the woods claimed he was Pilgram Marpeck, the Anabaptist. The fur trader Sebastian Lotzer and his friend the blacksmith Ulrich Smid turned up in Swabia making all their old demands again as if not a single day, not a single harvest, had passed.

  ‘Each parish has the right to appoint its own pastor, and to dismiss him if he behaves badly. The pastor must preach the Gospel, simply and clearly, with no human amendments. For it is written that we can only come to God through the true faith.’ So they spoke and the thick breath of the plains lapped against the faces of those who stopped digging to listen.

  ‘The pastors shall be paid from the great tithe. A potential surplus shall be used to pay for the poor of the village and for the war tax. The small tithe shall be cancelled for it has been invented by men, since the Lord God created cattle for mankind, free of charge.’ So they spoke and the falcon shrieked approvingly from the grey sky above.

  ‘The long practice of serfdom is an outrage because Christ redeemed all of us with his precious bloodshed, from the shepherd to the highest-placed, with no exceptions. Scripture says that we are and that we want to be free.’ So they spoke and their friend the forest responded with the rustling of leaves.

  ‘It is unbrotherly and against the word of God that the poor man does not have the right to catch game, fowl and fish. For, when the Lord God created man, He gave him dominion over all animals, the bird in the air and the fish in the water.’ So they spoke and the dark forest responded with the growling of beasts.

  ‘The lords have taken possession of the woods. If the poor man needs something, he has to buy it for double its worth. Therefore, all the woods that were not bought shall be given back to the community so that each man can satisfy his needs for timber and firewood.’ So they spoke and the bark in the dry woods crackled joyously, ominously.

  ‘The extra labour demanded of us should be considerably reduced because our kinsfolk served only according to the word of God.’ So they spoke and then they added: ‘The lords must not demand any extra labour without a new agreement.

  ‘Many properties are not worth the rent demanded. Honest men shall inspect these properties and fix a rent in accordance with justice, so that the peasant does not work for nothing because all workers have the right to be paid fairly.’ So they spoke and frozen crows rained from the sky like stones.

  ‘Punishments by fine must be amended by new rules. In the meantime, there must be an end to arbitrary punishments and a return to the old written rules.’ So they spoke, but this was before Luther’s betrayal.

  ‘Many have appropriated meadows and acres belonging to the community. We want to take them back into our common hands.’ So they spoke and the shadow of Atahualpa now glided above those words.

  ‘The inheritance tax must be abolished altogether. Never again shall widows and orphans be robbed contrary to God and honour.’ So they spoke, like owls hooting at nightfall.

  ‘If any article herein does not conform to the word of God or is proved unjust, it must be cancelled. We must not establish any further articles that might be against God or bring harm to our fellow man.’

  49. Little Johan

  Caught between the hammer of solar heresy and the anvil of the furious peasantry, the princes were unsure what to do. Those in the north and the east, who were Lutherans (partly because they saw it as a way of confiscating the immense riches of the church of the nailed god), distrusted Ferdinand, the guardian of ancestral beliefs, opposed to any rupture with the great priest in Rome, but also their bulwark against the Turk. Nevertheless, they knew from experience that the peasants’ anger went far beyond the question of communion and other points of ritual, which were only secondary issues for people living in abject poverty. And while that anger rumbled ever louder, the princes of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg were left in a state of uncertainty, awaiting instructions from Wittenberg, the city in the state of Brandenburg where Luther lived.

  Things were not at all the same in the west and south, in the regions of Westphalia, Alsace and Swabia, where the princes wished to end the revolt now before it grew, like a farmer drowning a litter of kittens. They paid mercenaries to clean up the countryside and the towns.

  During this clean-up, some landsknechts were pursuing a gardener from Strasbourg, whom they considered a troublemaker because he went from village to village preaching the right to cut trees, hunt and fish. One day, when they thought they were about to flush him out of a farm where he’d taken refuge, they found only his wife and his newborn son. They killed both of them cruelly. The news of this vile murder quickly spread through the whole land. As the dead baby’s name had been Johan, soon all the talk in the villages and farms and shops was of avenging ‘der kleine Johan’. So it was that this new brotherhood took the place of the old Poor Conrad rebellion, seeking not only justice but vengeance, too.

  But their anger, however legitimate, however inflamed by the crime, was not enough to withstand the halberds and muskets of the mercenaries. The peasants remembered all too well how, barely two harvests before, the head of their leader, Thomas Müntzer, had rolled in the sawdust, joining the rotting corpses of a hundred thousand of his followers in the fields.

  It need hardly be said that neither Luther nor the emperor had come to their rescue. Today, though, the situation had changed.

  They sent a messenger to Brussels, asking for help from Atahualpa, protector of the poor, because they knew that without outside support they could expect nothing from the Duke of Lorraine (the entirely misnamed Antoine the Good) but exemplary punishments and their general ruin.

  Atahualpa was in no hurry to return to Spain. He felt drawn by a city in the east, only a single day’s horse ride f
rom Brussels: Aix-la-Chapelle, where his rival Ferdinand was due to be crowned. He knew that, as long as he stayed in Belgium, the new emperor would not dare get close enough to attend his coronation, unless he declared war on Atahualpa. But that would mean bringing his army across Germany, leaving his eastern flank exposed.

  The king of Spain, prince of the Belgians, sovereign of the Netherlands, lord of the Berbers, decided to support Little Johan’s rebellion, so he sent his troops into Alsace, with Chalco Chimac at their head.

  Overwhelmed by the combined fury of the peasants and the Inca’s invincible army, the Duke of Lorraine was promptly crushed. The city of Metz, where Antoine the Good had taken refuge, opened its gates to the assailants because the merchants and the craftsmen sympathised with the peasants’ plight: their claims were reasonable, they thought, and they were ‘often cut down and eaten up without cause’. Nevertheless, Chalco Chimac was unable to take the duke prisoner because the enraged peasants seized him, along with his brother the Duke of Guise, and tore them apart, before hacking them into smaller pieces and carrying their heads around on spikes.

  Politics were not forgotten, however. They submitted to the Inca’s representative a new draft of the old claims written long before, by their Swabian brothers. Chalco Chimac sent it on to Brussels. A half-moon later, the Inca’s response arrived. I recopy here the original document, which I have before me, annotated in Atahualpa’s own hand.

  50. The Twelve Articles of the Alsatian Peasantry

  Article 1

  The Gospel must be preached according to truth, and not according to the interests of lords and priests.

  Everyone may practise his religion freely, as long as he participates in the festivals of the Sun.

  Article 2

  We will pay no more tithes, great or small.

  Agreed.

  Article 3

  Interest on land rent will be reduced to five per cent.

  It will be abolished and replaced by a system of labour rotas.

  Article 4

  All rivers and lakes must be free.

  Agreed.

  Article 5

  The forests will be restored to the community.

  Agreed.

  Article 6

  Game will be free.

  Agreed, but only during certain periods determined by the Inca, during festivals of the Sun and certain other festivals. This in order to preserve the existence of game.

  Article 7

  There will be no more serfs.

  Agreed.

  Article 8

  We will elect our own representatives. The sovereign will be whomever we choose.

  Refused.

  Article 9

  We will be judged by our peers.

  Agreed, as long as the nomination of judges is endorsed by the Inca or his representatives.

  Article 10

  Our bailiffs will be elected and dismissed by us.

  Refused. This is the prerogative of the Inca, but you are free to submit your candidates.

  Article 11

  We will pay no more taxes once we die.

  Agreed. In each case, the deceased’s family shall receive financial aid from the commune and food from the personal reserves of the Inca.

  Article 12

  All the communal lands taken by our lords will be restored to the commune.

  Agreed.

  51. Charlemagne

  As soon as the terms of the agreement were discovered, a huge explosion shook the whole of Germany.

  The Alsatian peasants’ victory encouraged the others. Now, all over the German countryside, even the most miserable, isolated peasant knew that he was no longer alone but could count upon a formidable, providential, quasi-divine force capable of overcoming all princes; a force, moreover, that seemed inclined to help the lower orders.

  Indeed, Atahualpa sent his troops wherever his aid was requested. He himself led his soldiers into Westphalia. Thus was he able to see with his own eyes the temple in Aix-la-Chapelle where Charles had been crowned emperor. He was able to sit on Charlemagne’s throne, to touch with his own hands that great man’s gilded tombstone. He had learned to admire and envy Charlemagne while listening to Pedro Pizarro reading tales of Roland, Angelica, Medoro and Bradamante. And that, probably, was how an idea came to germinate inside the royal skull, and to grow, day after day, like a papa sprouting in all directions in the bitter solitude of the dark earth.

  Wherever they rebelled, in the wake of Little Johan, the peasants held up their emblem of a lace-up shoe and a flag in the colours of the rainbow. Atahualpa decided to take the rainbow emblem for himself. It struck him as a banner worthy of Charlemagne’s empire.

  52. Augsburg

  The Diet was Germany’s equivalent of the Cortes, except that it gathered not only the local princes and sovereigns but representatives of the Empire’s cities. But these were so numerous, Germany still being a smorgasbord of tiny states, that the assemblies were attended by literally hundreds of people.

  A Diet had been summoned in Augsburg, an imperial city on the borders of Swabia and Bavaria. The Inca, who was now master of all western Germany, naturally had the right to attend. But the presence of Ferdinand in the vicinity made it difficult, perhaps even impossible, for him to go there, particularly since Ferdinand now saw clearly that this foreigner had not only stolen the Spanish throne but had his eyes on the Empire too. In Ferdinand’s mind, he and Atahualpa had been engaged in a fight to the death ever since the day his brother was killed, and he considered the looming conflict inevitable. And so he began massing his troops in Bavaria, which was, for him, the gateway to Germany, but also now a buffer state separating him from Swabia, which was almost entirely occupied by Atahualpa’s armies.

  Indeed, things appeared to be at a stalemate: Atahualpa was barring Ferdinand’s way to Aix-la-Chapelle, preventing him from being crowned, while Ferdinand barred Atahualpa’s way to Augsburg, preventing him from staking his claims before the Diet.

  The two armies faced each other, but neither dared attack. They observed. They waited fearfully. This waiting sapped minds and bodies. Ferdinand’s men, in particular, grew irritable and fell ill. But even Atahualpa’s army, having fought alongside the peasants against the Catholic princes, was now weary after its German campaign.

  Time froze on the Swabian plain.

  It was, once again, Higuénamota who found the solution to her friend and lord’s problem.

  The Cuban princess wrote personally to the king of France, suggesting that he send a message to Suleiman. The message was to read: ‘Ferdinand’s mind is elsewhere. Vienna could be yours.’

  Yet again, the Turkish army, which already occupied most of Hungary, went on the march.

  Warned of this threat, Ferdinand had no choice but to quickly return to Austria and protect its capital. His army, moreover, was succumbing to a strange disease that had spread first through Spain, then France, then Flanders, and then Germany: men fell into a fever, they lost their hair, and their bodies were covered in red patches and swellings. The first symptom of the disease was a canker on the manhood, the backside or the back of the throat. At first, people had feared the plague, which swept through entire countries and killed you in a matter of days, but this particular disease was not fatal: its sufferers recovered and, although they never got completely better, the traces of the disease gradually faded. They remained weakened, however, and the whole situation was bad for the troops’ morale. Ferdinand’s army was relieved to finally move out. The Turk was a fierce opponent, but at least he was familiar, while these Indians from the sea appeared to have God – or the devil – on their side.

  The path was clear for Atahualpa.

  When he arrived in Augsburg, he immediately held talks with the most powerful man in the city, and perhaps in the whole of Germany.

  In truth, Anton Fugger was so important that Atahualpa went straight to stay with him, before he had even presented himself to the Diet or the local authorities. The banker wel
comed him into his vast estate, situated in the heart of the city, just as he had once welcomed his predecessor, Charles Quint. The Inca liked Fugger’s palace, which was made of a sandy stone. It had a solid simplicity that reminded him of the buildings in Quito. (The truth is that he had never once set foot in Cuzco.) He enjoyed the feast that the banker had had prepared for him. And the beer wasn’t bad either.

  The two men had a lot to discuss.

  Anton Fugger was dressed simply, if a little strangely, even by the standards of the Fifth Quarter. He wore a black coat, with a collarless white shirt visible beneath it, and a hat in the shape of a wide, soft pancake. His hair was enveloped in a sort of bag and there was something vaporous about his beard, which was thick in places and patchy in others. His hands were concealed beneath fine white gloves.

  He spoke to the Inca in Italian, and the Inca replied in Spanish. But they understood each other well enough.

  In reality, each man had a clear awareness of his own interests and wanted to explain exactly what he had to offer. And, above all, what he expected in return.

  It was far from all the festivities, in Fugger’s office, that the two men sealed the alliance which, more than any other, would determine the great upheavals to come.

  In that office was a dresser with many drawers. Atahualpa, who could now read and write, recognised the names of cities on each of the drawers: Lisbona, Rom, Sevilla, Augsburg. Others were, as yet, unknown to him: Venedig, Nüerenberg, Cracaf …

  For his part, Fugger understood exactly why this man in a skirt with a feather crown on his head was sitting before him. He was here for the same reasons that had brought Charles Quint to him years before: the Empire was expensive, in two ways. First, you had to pay mercenaries to wage war. Second, you had to buy the votes of the great electors. The gold from beyond the seas was not arriving in Seville fast enough, and from there it was taking too long to reach his current location, not to mention that he then had to change it into ready cash. Fugger could advance enormous sums, which Atahualpa would swallow up in his conquest of the Empire. Atahualpa had to understand that, in exchange for his gold, Fugger would provide units of measure in the form of round coins. The Inca made a vague gesture with his hand. Money did not exist in that form in Tawantinsuyu, but he had perceived the ingenuity of this system since arriving in Spain.