Our brother Johannes, who often sought out bathhouses, taught us, however, that too high hopes in this respect should not be nursed, as something very important had to be part of the relationship between man and woman, which is love, which, he pointed out, was not to be found in bathhouses.
Our father had known nothing about one of Johannes’s favorite pastimes and would, if he had, have scarcely approved. He had, in his famous treatise “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,” demanded that the “Women’s Houses” be abolished, and he repudiated the argument that reputable wives and daughters were safer if unmarried young men attended those houses. This, Father had written, is an unchristian approach.
Through my anatomical studies as studiosus medicinae, I knew about the bodily nature of women and also, theoretically, what must happen in order to completely enjoy them. And what I personally had for this purpose seemed to be of sufficient quality.
That was all well founded, but it did not explain the mysterious charm, the feminine attraction, even when they were not beautiful, that they exerted on me. Was it perhaps their cleverness, not to be confused with dry erudition, which I had already as an adolescent admired in my mother? Their ability to lead the man, without his noticing it, into believing that he was the master? Was it the combination of the more spiritual things with their so-different physique, their apparent nearer connection to God’s nature and creativity—which so enticed me that at times I believed I was losing my mind—that made me dizzy when a beautiful girl smiled at me? Sometimes, before I met Anna, I believed that the Devil could well be behind it. Did not the people believe the Devil himself could be seduced by a woman and that it was not always the other way ’round?
Later I was to realize that there were other things that love was made of: an aura of unrealizable hopes, the insatiable desire, and secret tears. For never can one become united completely with a beloved; always there remains an incomprehensible distance, and always in vain a man tries to overcome it. Or he seeks to remedy it by constantly pursuing new women.
Folly, because man and woman were created differently, incompatible to the end. But the desire for complete harmony remains.
And again later, after a long marriage to my Anna, I realized that all that has just been described was replaced by a deep familiarity, a selfless mutuality, and the final wish that God take us to himself, not separately, but together one day. This wish of ours, like almost all others, was not fulfilled. And therefore I sit here alone before these lines and yearn to meet again with the love of my life. Now, in my last days, because I feel that the end is near, it seems to me as if I had existed only as a mirror that receives and then throws back a glow of the beloved, a reflection dark and not of great use.
But at the beginning there was a beautiful and promising woman, Anna von Warbeck, whose sight did not allow those thoughts to come to the surface but replaced them instead with an unordered mixture of longing, feeling, lust, and excessive imagination concerning the joys she had in store for me.
Rumors began to spread while I was studying in Torgau, a whispering and gossiping not only at the market by servants and marketwomen but also in respectable homes, hostels, and the university halls, in which Mother, though lying bedridden with illness, shared that the young Anna von Warbeck would be levied a penalty of several guldens by the council of Torgau because of an offense against the electoral dress code. She wore, it was said, a very beautiful damask skirt with a velvet train and appeared boldly in the town, where such clothing had been reserved for the nobles. It was overlooked, apparently, that Anna was of noble birth though obviously only of lower nobility. It was mainly, as can be understood, the females who vilified the maiden and called on their men on the council and in the guilds to do something about it. Because if the women could not dress as they wished, then certainly a young unmarried maiden who strutted around so insolently should not be allowed to, either.
We students would catch sight of the maiden when she, accompanied by her maid, walked through the town. We admired her slender figure of middle size, got a glance at her brown eyes, and I would often stand with my friends and stare quite openly at her. It seemed to me that though in the main she stared chastely at the ground, she distinctly saw me and tried to conceal a little smile so that I did not know what was happening to me. And a friend of mine, another student of medicine who was familiar with the Warbeck family, told me one evening in the Ratskeller over a beer that the maiden with her parents had inquired extensively about me and the welfare of my mother.
And on a day in the autumn, she actually appeared at Mother’s sickbed, bringing nourishing food and wine and spices as gifts, and spent a long time conversing with her, which my mother naturally told me about, and told me openly that she very much liked Anna, who would be a very good match for me. And that she had requested she come again the following week and that I should endeavor to be present on that day and moreover hurry with everything required, because she had not much more time and would gladly see us both united.
My mother had probably wanted to hurry also because she believed the daughter of a noble would not so quickly come my way again. She herself came from a noble’s family, and she lost that status with her marriage. So it can well be that she wished the same for Anna, though the latter behaved very respectably toward the widow of the famous reformer but could at the same time not quite hide the fact that she was of noble descent. Even the heart of my good mother had its hidden parts, which made me love her all the more because that was utterly human.
And so it happened that she could still bless our union. We met each other, fell in love, as the English say, according to my acquaintance Shakspeare, and began to see each other as often as possible.
It is not for me to put on paper in too great a detail what happened in my well-heated student’s room the first time I succeeded in persuading her to visit me there. I will only say that she was not without experience for her twenty-one years—which I can recommend to all young men, lest they in their ignorance fumble around through impatience—I was at the time twenty years old, so that everything proceeded all right. If she was a virgin when she came to our marriage is nobody’s concern; I was at any rate content and loved her as she was. And it all went very quickly then. My mother could yet consecrate our engagement, and on the 5th of February, which I have since designated as my lucky day, AD 1553, we were married in Torgau and later moved to the house of my parents in Wittenberg, where I continued my studies.
Anna was the daughter of the court counselor and vice-chancellor of our elector John Frederick, Magister Veit von Warbeck, whom I never met since he had already died in 1534. I was yet proud of my father-in-law, dead or not, because he had translated the French novel of Peter of Provence and the beautiful Magelone into German. He had given the manuscript of the novel as a wedding gift to his pupil, the future elector John Frederick, and the translation as well. Georg Spalatin, who had become a good friend of Warbeck’s, issued the novel in Augsburg in 1535. The book was famous in all German lands and was joyfully received by many of the literate. Maids and lads would have the story read aloud or told again and again because it spoke of such a beautiful and firm love that overcame all obstacles. Especially the boys would swear to their loves that they would certainly act like Peter of Provence and therefore expected of their girlfriends the loyalty of Magelone.
Veit von Warbeck was famous as the translator of the book, and Anna and both her brothers were not less proud of their father and his renown, which also fell on them. No wonder that my Anna after our wedding no longer went with downcast eyes, still gossiped about by the jealous wenches. She did not allow herself to be annoyed, paid her guldens to the council in Torgau only with reservations, and directed a letter to Elector Maurice with the request that since she was after all a noble, she should be allowed to continue to wear the clothing of the aristocracy. This letter I have, with hundreds of other sources, lying now before me, and it touches me to tears by its directness an
d lovable bearing and charming and graceful writing, done so long ago.
One can now think whatever one wants about Maurice of Saxony, of whom I had previously had nothing good to say, but one cannot think that he had nothing to do. It was a busy time for him. Alliances changed, negotiations with the Roman and Bohemian King Ferdinand, brother of Emperor Charles V, with Henry II of France, with the imperial cities, electors, and relatives—all these took time and strength, just as the paternal care and monitoring of the recently founded and now already meritorious national schools of Pforta, Naumburg, and Meissen, which he had founded. And exactly in this situation he had to deal with the bickering of women and the council of the town of Torgau and Wittenberg University relating to their dress code. And my Anna with her letter was amid of all that. Only later did I remind her—mildly, because she did not love stubborn opposition—of that, and she said that she was then young and foolish and would behave differently today.
At any rate, Elector Maurice of Saxony wrote to the town council of Torgau on the 30th of January, 1552, arguing that Anna’s father had been a court counselor of noble origin. Moreover, the garment was a princely gift and sewn before the Torgauer dress code was drafted:
Therefore We allow her to wear such skirts honorably and desire that you should also let her do as she wishes and spare her the imposed fine. I further request that you behave toward her in a way that she has no reason to complain.
By divine right, Moritz, Duke of Saxony, Elector.
I add here that Maurice was not the first who had to busy himself with such things. Already in 1546, the year of my father’s death, Wittenberg University had complained to our elector John Frederick that the new dress code would place the magisters behind the nobles, because they forbade them to wear velvet trains. The elector expressed himself quite helpless and suggested in the end that the professors should create their own dress code for the university, and he would approve it.
One sees that the electors may choose the emperor and influence the fortunes of the world, but with the dress code, where above all the nature of women prevails, their power ends. So I learned early to absolutely not meddle in any question of my Anna’s costume or clothing, whatever the cost.
Anna brought a good dowry to the marriage, though modesty forbids me here from naming its worth, and together with my inheritance and the inexpensive apartment in my parents’ house, the Black Monastery, I could without great concern devote myself to my studies. They were the seven liberal arts with trivium: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics; and quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Latin as well as Greek I had already acquired from my teachers Melanchthon and Veit Oertel von Windsheim before my entry into the Facultas Artium. With a bachelor of arts, I concluded my work at the Arts Faculty and began my study of medicine.
Except for arithmetic, I found the fields of study not difficult. I had a good ability to memorize the materials, which then in the Faculty of Medicine especially benefited me in the acquisition of the doctrines and sciences of the ancient scholars. Also I did well in the numerous repetitions and disputations, their main goal being the consolidation of the lecture contents and the preparation for the earning of the first academic degree.
Already in 1557, under the deanship of the renowned physician Jacob Milich, I graduated to doctor of medicine. My doctoral lecture I called “Oratio de pulmone et discrime arteriae tracheae et oesophagi,” which for the readers who do not feel at home with Latin I translate as: “Lecture About the Lungs and the Distance Between the Trachea and the Esophagus.”
The minimum age for graduation in medicine was established as twenty-six years old. The reason was that with the acquisition of the doctor’s degree, one might freely practice, and one did not want to demand of the women suffering from illness that they allow a too-youthful doctor to look at their bodies. But because I already had the appearance of a man and was married, they made an exception for me. The other conditions: successful studies including the required disputations, freedom from severe physical disability, and the proof that one had spent a year accompanying a doctor of the faculty on his visits to the sick—a measure that I cannot praise enough because of its great value in the acquisition of medical skills—all of which I had fulfilled. I could also in good conscience make the required oath that I would not take revenge on the doctors and professors doing the testing if I were not to pass the examinations.
Drafting my speech on the lungs, etc., was not too difficult because there were the works of many authors to draw from, which I used without dread and excessive meticulousness. One does not have to name every source from which one draws, and the audience was anyway neither able nor willing in the one or two days of the lecture and disputation to carefully check every reference when above all in a speech they were only fleetingly mentioned.
Much more did they prefer drinking and eating at my expense, which understandably did not cause any wrinkles to depart from the white forehead of Anna. Anyhow, I was no longer surprised that so few bachelors of the arts graduated to a doctorate. Who could pay for it? And, as mentioned, my father in his time had gotten the money for his doctorate from the elector’s chest.
It is true that a doctorate in medicine was less prestigious than, for example, that of jurisprudence, which was regarded as accolade, the equal of the lesser nobles. But it was close, and so in relation to my nobly born Anna, I now felt somewhat better.
Therefore, not without pleasure I enjoyed the doctor’s privileges. The dress code made that status visible for everyone to see, and in processions we doctors had a distinct front place, as well as being allowed access to the court of the elector. In total, there were thirty distinct privileges for doctors.
When one considers that the first doctorate in medicine was awarded in the year 1280 to Taddeo d’Alderotto, personal physician to Pope Honorius IV, without any scientific merit but rather simply due to his high position, one can see the enormous progress that has occurred in the academic world.
Now I beg the reader for sympathy in regard to my and my Anna’s financial situation as I record how, at the time, the university staff and worthies from the town feasted at the expense of newly designated or already-appointed doctors, including me, and what other costs incurred.
Already on the Sunday preceding the graduation, the participants, among them the nobles of the town, council members, professors, bachelors, the beadle, and still other people, were strengthened for the coming ordeal with a dinner that included sweetmeats and good spiced wine.
On the evening of the graduation they were feasted again under the supervision of the faculty, the cost of which was provided again by the new doctor and the quality of which was not intended to bring shame to the faculty. The next day found the group together again, allegedly to eat the leftovers, resulting of course in an expensive banquet. On this occasion the overall bill was to be paid by the host—the new doctor.
In addition to those meals, there were to be provided fees to the faculty, to the president of the disputations, to the professors, the chancellor, the beadle, and the messenger who delivered the invitations to the event. Added to that was the required procurement of the new doctor’s hat, ring, and robe.
The most annoying requirement, however, was the bestowing of traditional gifts and honorariums, such as money for wine, gloves (sometimes made from deer leather), jerkins, berets, and cloths to various people because one could never be sure who was to be considered important. In the end, in spite of all caution and care, someone remained offended, and they would pursue one with malice as long as they were able to.
I hear today that the times have somewhat changed and that the doctoral candidate now must commit to a predetermined amount of money not to be exceeded. The list of my graduation costs compiled by Anna shows the irritating sum of 250 ducats.
Not included in the above cost is the payment to a few strong young lads who for the days of the feasting ensure there is order. It would sometimes happen in the past that some s
tudents who had not been invited to the doctoral meal, in spite of instructions from the chancellor to remain on those days in their dormitories and rooms, would fall upon the servers carrying food and drink to the meal, or the remaining food to the doctor’s room for the next day, and snatch bowls and bottles from them. Also, they sought to force their way into the feast and raise much noise.
In the end, everyone was exhausted and probably happy that the events were over. I can at least say that was true for myself and Anna, who for the most part stayed in the background during the festivities.
We went back to our rooms in the Black Monastery and, getting a warm fire going in the oven, fell into each other’s arms and enjoyed the warmth and our newly acquired status. I think also that Anna was not a little proud of me because I sensed she gave herself to me with a special intensity and passion. Perhaps she remembered at that moment that a doctorate in medicine, which, by the way, also applies to jurisprudence, served as qualification for a teaching post in theology, though only at a low level, and saw it as her duty to abandon herself in a particularly pleasing way.
Chapter 13
. . . contains Christophorus Silberschlag’s confession and is inserted at this point because it is the confession of a lost soul—God have mercy on him—that I only now, as I wanted to continue with my chronology, found among my various documents and sources. It rightly carries the number 13, the Devil’s dozen.
Christophorus Silberschlag’s confession:
I was seventeen years old and dwelt in my birthplace of Halle on the Saale River when I was called to Moritzburg Castle by the servant of the confessor of His Electoral Grace Cardinal Albrecht. It was a gray November morning with rain and snow falling, and the Saale River was high with raging water that pounded against the castle walls.
It was in the Year of the Lord 1529. My father belonged to the Brotherhood of the Salt Workers, and we lived below the Church of St. Gertrud, which was just being restored, in the Thal, or in the Halle, which the Thal or valley is also called. It is even today a dirty area in which one sinks into the mud if one steps off the narrow boardwalks that lie above it. The small houses seem to push against each other, and the smoke from the wood and straw being burned for the brine boiling hangs in hazy clouds over the dark roofs.
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