Shadows of My Father

by Christoph Werner

  When I now look back from my sickbed, I can see what a turbulent time it was for me and my family. The religious strife in the land of Brandenburg will serve as an example.

  It will be seen at once that those in power, religious or otherwise, had little concern for the common people, who had great fear that they might believe in the wrong faith and therefore be condemned to hell. Since the Augsburg Settlement of 1555 between Ferdinand (the German or, more exactly, Roman king, also king of Bohemia, Croatia, and Hungary, acting for his brother, Emperor Charles V) and the imperial estates, the principle of cuius region, eius religio was to be followed, which simply meant the subjects had to follow the faith of the ruler.

  It is not difficult to write the above statement, but what it really meant for the believers was something different.

  It had become a truism among the people that a defection from the popish faith would mean eternal damnation. Now suddenly there was the old or even a new pastor in the pulpit who said that was no longer true. Good deeds were no longer the way to salvation; rather, pure faith alone could win it. And what good deeds one had done! And what money had been spent on indulgences, even purchased for sins still to be committed, to be on the safe side!

  There were some who had completely ruined themselves purchasing indulgences and were wasting away in the debtor’s prison. And all that should no longer be true? Admittedly, the new preacher or even the old one who had been converted to the new faith talked convincingly and made everything less expensive through the abolition of the good deeds and the indulgences. Also, one need no longer keep in mind so many saints, in fact none at all, if you came to think of it. To simply believe was much cheaper. Of course, the church was no longer so colorful, and the preacher in his black robe looked like a dun crow. But that could be endured.

  Then the ruler got it into his head that it was better for him to return to the old church and thus be rewarded by the emperor. Otherwise, he his land was taken away, which then was forcefully returned to the old faith, as had happened to the archbishopric of Cologne after the Cologne War. Now the church was again gorgeously decorated, mass was read in Latin—which, by the way, also had its advantages because one could catch up on one’s slumber—and good deeds once again gained in importance and again cost money, though the trade in indulgences was attenuated, or rather indulgences were supposed to be given free. But purgatory was again a frightful prospect. One really did not know what to believe in.

  Thank heavens such changes back and forth did not occur in Brandenburg, though even here it was not always simple.

  For example, during a church inspection the preacher, with the approval of his congregation, refused to read mass in German. Others secretly gathered their sheep in the woods and read the Catholic mass. This was severely punished by the Protestant authorities. The preacher mentioned lost his parish and emigrated to Catholic southern Germany. The parish, of course, had to comply with the new order; they could not all emigrate. Legally speaking there was the jus emigrandi, the right to emigrate, but that was available only to the well-to-do.

  When the emperor triumphed in the Schmalkaldic War, his soldiers raged in the Protestant lands, laid waste the churches, and even hanged Lutheran pastors in their churches.

  Brandenburg, the land of my new lord, was originally a sworn enemy of my father’s Reformation. Joachim I, Nestor, brother of Cardinal Albrecht, elector of Mainz, and archbishop of Magdeburg, was a determined enemy of Dr. Martin Luther and was correspondingly quite often thoroughly berated by my father. He has been spoken about previously.

  My new master, Elector Joachim II, son of Joachim I and nephew of Cardinal Albrecht, was the first elector who declared himself for the new faith. As mentioned, his mother, the Danish princess Elisabeth, was an admirer of my father and had to flee from Berlin under cover of the night and seek the protection of the Saxon elector Johann. As a boy, I met her in my parents’ house, where she lived once for a period of three months in modesty and adoration of my father.

  The rage of her husband was immense. He even threatened to bury her alive in a wall if ever he could get hold of her.

  You see, reader, walling in, or the fear of it and the legends about it, occur several times in my memoirs, first, because common people often talked about it and, second, because of my profession I often pondered how long a person could endure without food and drink and how they would behave in such a state. When after many years the walls were broken up, one could see how desperately the immured people had scratched and scraped at the walls and attempted to get out into God’s fresh air. Though it did not always end like that. Often it only meant—and I think this is what was intended for the mother of my elector—that the person was to be imprisoned for life or at least threatened with this.

  With the ancients, the Romans, burying alive was the punishment for vestal virgins who had, during their thirty years in office, broken their oath of virginity. Later nuns sometimes had to suffer the same fate if they could not curb their fleshly lust and ended in the walls of nunneries. There were, by contrast, the recluses, who let themselves become walled in voluntarily to achieve a higher degree of holiness. They had a small opening through which they would be given food and drink. Sometimes, in times of war and unrest, they were forgotten. It was of interest to me how long a person could live without observing the laws of Hygieia.

  Back to those who were not immured.

  True, my Herr Joachim II had to swear to his father that he would remain faithful to the Catholic Church, but after his father had died in Stendal, AD 1535, and after four years of thorough deliberation, he declared himself for the new belief. He did not join the Schmalkaldic League, though, but like Maurice of Saxony sought a medium position between the Catholic emperor and the Lutherans.

  By doing so, he could keep his country out of the struggles, for which I admired him. His son, the electoral prince, was even in the emperor’s entourage during the Battle of Mühlberg, and his brother, Hans von Küstrin, had strengthened the emperor’s army by joining it with seven hundred riders, which was done according to the imperial constitution. In the Wittenberg talks about—then still—Elector John Frederick as well as in the talks in Halle about Landgrave Philipp of Hesse, he acted as mediator.

  It was quite pleasant to serve such a reasonable and moderate prince, if only for a short time, after the excesses of my previous master. In religious matters he proceeded very cautiously. For example, in order not to awaken the enmity of the Catholic party, he retained many of the popish ceremonies in the service. In general, he was good-natured but, unfortunately, succumbed to drinking. Often in the mornings I was summoned to the residence, where I then tried with mild teas and cold compresses to better the aftereffects of the nightly binges. He moaned every time and promised me and himself that he would say good-bye to beer and wine, but in this he succeeded only very imperfectly.

  No doubt he was weak. At the same time, he maintained a grand court but forbade his subjects ostentatious clothing and squandering of money. His court theologian, Musculus, real name Meusel, successor to the mild and reasonable Agricola, who had helped set up the Augsburg Interim, ingratiated himself with the elector by means of a book against unnecessary luxuriousness in clothes titled About the Satanic, Unruly, Dishonorable, Sloppy Trouserdevil and Admonition and Warning of Same. This title characterizes the man, who was a blustering and strict Lutheran and did not help the new church by his repressiveness in word, writing, and life.

  Applauded by him, the elector once ordered three sons of rich citizens, who had strutted around the residence in Berlin in slit baggy pantaloons, for which many feet of cloth had been needed, to be stuck into a publicly displayed cage as a warning against excess.

  The elector himself, though, did not deny himself anything and thus ruined the finances of his country. When Emperor Maximilian II was crowned AD 1562, the elector of Brandenburg came with an entourage of 47 noblemen; 11 councillors, scholars, and doctors; and 452 horses. Imagine the costs
alone for the horse feed, rent for their stables in the coronation city of Frankfurt, the stable boys, the harness keepers and harness makers, the farriers, etc. And for all this and much more, the land of Brandenburg, with its poor sandy soil and even poorer forests and meager mineral resources, had to pay.

  When in the year of 1569 the elector was invested with the Duchy of Prussia as a covassal, this was of course celebrated in grand style. To the High Mass he rode on a golden-colored horse, clothed in a robe of sable fur decorated with gold pads and expensive cloth. I accompanied him in his entourage on my modest little horse and was quite glad that I did not indulge myself in such foolish necessities. Also, my wife did not force me to appear so sumptuously clothed, though of course she always saw to it that I was dressed properly and in a style befitting my state.

  Only once did I succeed in talking to the prince in a moderating way. He liked tournaments and jousts with sharp weapons, where many men were injured, their bones were broken, and sometimes their limbs were cut off. Horses were wounded and had to be killed, harnesses were dented, swords and spears were broken, and the like. The tournament master, who had for quite a time suffered from these losses, created for me a list of expenses with which I was able to influence my lord toward moderation, but, alas, not for long, so that noteworthy economies did not result.

  After the Reformation a number of sovereigns in Germany and Europe enjoyed a favorable period through the secularization of monasterial and other church properties. My elector, too, took in considerable sums of money, and though he had to share them with the country’s nobility, much remained in his chests. But this did not put an end to the financial problems, understandable considering the expenditures described. Even an excise tax on beer did not help. When the elector died, he left debts in the amount of 2,600,000 thalers.

  As with many of the great lords in Germany and elsewhere, it was the Jews who had to help procure money and avert bankruptcy. With this I come, as promised above, to the elector’s court Jew, Lippold ben Chluchim, first highly praised and then damned to hell and imprisoned in Spandau with the Beautiful Foundress.

  Lippold came from Prague and, with his father and brother, moved to Berlin about AD 1542. This was after Brandenburg was reopened to the Jews in 1539. After some years, he was employed by the elector as doctor, chamberlain, and treasurer, and he proved to be a skilled financial adviser so that he also became mintmaster. About his medical activities I learned nothing, and the elector did not talk to me about them. Lippold also became head of all Jews in Brandenburg.

  He was popular at court and with the well-to-do Berliners, because he lent money as a pawnbroker and only took small interest, three pfennigs a week for a thaler. When, after the elector’s death, an investigation was started against him, nearly twelve thousand gold and silver valuables still in pawn were found in his house, which, though not illegal, contributed to his misfortune.

  The investigation did not reveal any crime by Lippold, and so superstition had to be employed. He was accused of sorcery, of having murdered the elector by poisoning, and also of other things. The people stormed the Jew Yard and the synagogue standing there, and all Jews were banned from Berlin.

  Lippold was tortured and through monstrous agonies confessed to having poisoned the elector, which he could not have done, as we will see in a bit. He recanted, was tortured again, confessed again, and finally, in 1573, after having been pinched with red-hot tongs, was put on the wheel and quartered. A mouse that ran from under the scaffold during the execution was seen by the crowd and believed to be the Devil sorcerer who had just left the Jew.

  It is probable that those among the Berliners who had pawned their valuables rejoiced, because they would now get their possessions back without having to pay the Jew. The chancellor, Lampert Distelmeyer, returned the pawns, also their promissory notes, to Lippold’s debtors without requiring repayment. This was blatant injustice.

  I must here note a few things out of sequence. First, the passing away of Joachim II, because it is connected with Lippold, and then something regarding my family and my gold water.

  To report that Lippold had nothing to do with the death of the elector gladdens my heart. Unfortunately, I was at the time at the court of Margrave Hans von Küstrin or, more exactly, von Brandenburg-Küstrin, the brother of my lord, when the following happened.

  In midwinter, on January 3rd, AD 1571, the elector went hunting for wolves in Köpenick, and as he had drunk quite a lot, he did not pay attention to the icy wind and caught a heavy cold. There was no sensible person in Köpenick Castle who would have recommended him a hot drink, for example, hot and strongly spiced wine, and a bath, hot and with herbs. In addition, he suffered from an effluence on his foot, which for quite a time I had tried to heal, without success. Together with his cold, this led to his sudden death. Now, much too late, I was called back to Berlin from Küstrin by a messenger on horseback.

  I performed a thorough examination of my dead master, who was well preserved by the winter cold, wrote a careful report of all that had happened, and recorded also the witness reports of the people present. I could not find any trace of poisoning, and the mere presence of the court Jew was naturally no indication of a crime. It was said he had given the elector, on the evening before his death, a glass of malmsey that had been poisoned. The bottle from which the wine had come had no traces of poison. Also, on the Jew nothing was found.

  He was accused of causing the death of the elector because he was afraid he would be punished for the theft of a very valuable gold chain. In truth, he had followed the elector’s order and had made gold coins from the chain, with which the elector in his lavish generosity presented his guests on the evening before his death.

  Lippold’s innocence was clearly proved by my report and the written testimonies of the witnesses so that even Emperor Maximilian II, though without success, tried to persuade the authorities in Berlin to return Lippold’s property to his widow. But a legally acceptable trial for the cancellation of the original sentence was not allowed. The following statement was produced at the shameful trial. It had been gotten from Lippold under torture.

  According to the law clerk’s record, he confessed that he could ban the Devil in a glass and in a magic circle or any other vessel or figure, so powerful a sorcerer he claimed to be, and force him to do his will.

  He could also, with the Devil’s help, get into the closed and locked rooms of His Electoral Grace any time, day and night. He had connected himself with the Devil and devoted his body and soul to him. He had poisoned His Electoral Grace so that he had to die. Also, he had bewitched a black hen and buried it in the mint so that no coins could be made anymore.

  I had hardly finished my autopsy and dictated my findings of the causes of the elector’s death to the clerk when a messenger came from Küstrin with the news I should come at once. The margrave was dying, ten days after his brother. I was very sorry because the margrave was a diligent and economical prince whom I greatly respected, and it had occurred to me several times to leave Berlin, move to Küstrin, and offer him my services. Of course, I would have had to persuade my wife first, and I do not think that would have been easy. Now circumstances had spared me the decision and also a possible argument with her.

  Both princes died when I was not present, and so I could do nothing to help them. But thank heavens this did not harm my reputation as personal physician, as we will soon see. Perhaps my absence was even favorable, because their passing away could not be blamed on me. But, of course, my feelings were mixed, and I was greatly saddened because they were fine men and had always been good to me.

  There is a legend that the elector shortly before his death was my guest and that he in one big gulp emptied an entire silver cup that King Gustav Wasa of Sweden once presented to my father. This is really just a legend, and the death of the elector happened as described. However, this kind of talk showed how close I was to the elector in the eyes of the people.

  It is true that the
elector, before he died, ordered that two massive gold chains be given to me as a present for my good services. When a member of his staff presented them to me, I hesitated to accept them in view of the miserable finances of the land. I also remembered my father did not like to accept expensive gifts and always said that the Lord God would stand by those who trusted in Him. While I considered this and hesitated, my wife made clear her opinion with a simple look that quickly helped me to decide. I accepted the chains and thanked His Electoral Grace in many words.

  Much dying occurred at the time, and the Jews suffered badly, but in my family we had a blessed event. On Palm Sunday, AD 1569, our youngest child, a little boy, was born and baptized in the Palace Church with the name Johann Joachim. Godparents were Elector Joachim II; his daughter, Magdalena Elisabeth, widowed Duchess of Brunswick and Lüneburg; and my brother Johannes and our uncle Jacob, brother of my father, who was in his eightieth year and died AD 1571. One can, by the way, see that my wife and I, when naming our children, did not forget the advantage of the child or the christening presents. I do not think this is wrong or unseemly.

  Not more than one year later, there was another very joyful event in our family. Our elder daughter, Margarethe, married. At first I hesitated to agree because she was so young, fifteen years old. But my wife, Anna, called me foolish and pointed to the well-developed and visible state of maturity of our daughter as well as the good match that was offered. The bridegroom was Simon Gottsteig from Magdeburg, who was the mill overseer of the administrator of the prince-archbishopric of Magdeburg, John Frederick of Brandenburg, grandson of my lord, Joachim II, and his wife, Hedwig of Poland. I was now connected to the Hohenzollern as I had been earlier to the Wettins, to whom I was to return one day.

  To my greatest sorrow, Margarethe died one year ago, my only consolation being that my dear wife, who left me alone AD 1586, did not live to experience this. Margarethe was only thirty-seven years old and left several children, who, thanks to the position of her widower, are well provided for. Because the administrator of the archbishopric mainly resided in Halle or went hunting in the Letzling heath, Simon’s range of responsibilities was quite large as overseer and main bailiff.