Admittedly, some people did not live comfortably, by which I do not mean the poor. Those have been having bad lives from the beginning, because it pleased God to create the poor and the rich. And the poor should count themselves happy, as their hopes to acquire eternal blessedness are infinitely greater than those of the rich, because Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
No, I am speaking of the well-to-do, the burghers with property, business, and trade; the master craftsmen, the farming townspeople, and the usurers; the clergy from a certain hierarchical stage upward; and the courtiers and others.
If those people remained loyal and quiet and did not spoil the elector’s and electoress’s good mood and the general peace, if they did not constantly examine their consciences and inquire about who sat in the dungeons and what was the most correct belief and did not demand to read adversarial, that is, Calvinistic, books, they could enjoy life in Dresden.
And people who did not require unconditional honesty or try to leave the electorate without permission of the elector had no need to be unhappy in the principality of Saxony.
I did well with my medical practice. My salary at the court was substantial and paid regularly, my ointments and drops sold well, and gold making in the elector’s laboratories appeared to progress. That is to say, it did not actually go forward visibly, but it yielded intermediate results that were good enough to keep the elector contented and hopeful.
My wife was well connected in Dresden and had found enough friends so that she did not suffer from boredom. Let me for the benefit of all husbands include here: Do not allow your wives to become bored. If this happens, the way to harlotry is not far.
Moreover, my wife agreed with me that generally we should become close only to people who tolerated our attitude in regard to policy and the religion of the state.
As I will relate forthwith, such an attitude was soon rewarded.
My reputation, or shall I immodestly say my fame, had spread in Saxony and neighboring lands so that several universities tried to lure me to a professorship at their medical faculties. Of course, this reached the elector’s ears and caused him to issue an order that was meant to keep me in Dresden. It reads as follows:
By Divine Right Augustus, Duke of Saxony, Elector, etc.
Highly Learned, Dear and Faithful Councillor:
For inevitable and important reasons, We can no longer tolerate that one of Our councillors or servants is in some way or other bound to a university in Our land. We therefore urgently, seriously, though graciously demand that—insofar as you want to remain in Our service—you as soon as possible send us in writing the renunciation of such academic obligations. We will then notify the university, and please mind well that this letter and demand is caused by Our highest necessity. We remain your most gracious Prince and Lord.
Torgau, February 15th, 1579
Augustus, Elector
To: Paul Luther, Our highly learned, dear, and faithful Archiator and Doctor of Medicine.
Clearly, it would have been very unwise to resist such an urgent and also honorable request.
There were other things, which I will add here in summary.
Because I complied and supplied the elector with the statement requested, a veritable cornucopia was dumped upon us—or at least the elector believed so.
From this my sickbed, it seems to me that he unflinchingly believed in my successful gold making.
First. As I had resolved to remain servant and councillor of the prince, my salary as archiator was increased, and I was promised that I would receive a percentage of the gold made in the future.
Second. The elector invested me as joint owner with some properties in the town of Dohna. Here he followed the request of my uncle Clemens von Bora. This fief had once been a burgrave’s free estate, meaning that it was not taxable. This sounded good, but in fact this fief brought me neither happiness nor profit but only unending quarrels with the relatives of my mother, who had become impoverished. But of course the elector had meant well.
Third. Equally well meant and, moreover, lucrative was that the elector made me the first receiver of a prebendary of the cathedral chapter of the town of Zeitz, which later was to go over to my descendants.
Fourth. AD 1577, my house in Dresden was signed over to me as my property.
Fifth. The climax of all these honors was to be AD 1581, the donation of the cloister estate Sornzig near Meissen. I am writing “was to be,” because it never got into my hands, though the elector personally had legal arguments with the Meissen cathedral chapter.
Sixth. Our son Johannes Ernst studied jurisprudence in Wittenberg successfully. In AD 1581, at twenty-one years of age, Johannes Ernst, at the instigation of the elector, was elected canonicus of the Zeitz cathedral chapter. This position paid so well that from then on I need not worry about his future life. From the provost and senior of the chapter I received a letter that made my wife and me very happy. In short, the letter told us that Johannes Ernst, because it was the elector’s will, was to become a canonicus of the chapter. For the entering of his name in the chapter’s roll, we had to pay a fee of ninety-four guldens.
Of course we sent the sum immediately and thus, to our relief, did not have to undertake the burdensome trip to Zeitz.
Verily, the canonicate paid well so that our son was even able to go on longer travels and could visit interesting and curious sights. Nevertheless, I hope that he takes good care of the money, because he needs it if he wants to find a wife. To our regret, he was much too hesitant in this matter. A wife brings order into one’s life and as a rule—I am saying “as a rule”—protects one against temptation.
Seventh. On November 15th, 1584, our daughter Anna was married in the ducal hunting lodge in Nossen with the blessings of the elector. We, the parents, were very much relieved, as we had started to doubt that she would find a good husband because she put great emphasis on social status, good looks, and character.
She was now twenty years old and, as my wife assured me, still a virgin. The reader will understand that, despite certain liberties I was taking, I set a high value on the honor and purity of my own wife and daughter. I regard it as both wonderful and moving if at the end a woman can say of her husband that he was her first and only.
Obviously, Anna had found the right match. It was Nikolaus Baron Marschall von Bieberstein from Oberschaar at Arnsfeld. My wife, Anna, born von Warbeck, was quite proud of this marriage and the well-sounding title. During the marriage celebration, she walked proudly among the noble guest because she felt she was among her equals.
The barons of Bieberstein in the thirteenth century held the hereditary office of marshal and chamberlain with the margrave of Meissen, and in the end the office became part of their name. Tradition has it that the family had their origin in Halle on the Saale River and was founded by the Salzgraf—which was quite a reputable office among the Salters—Norbert von Schladebach. I felt at home with my daughter’s husband, as his origins reminded me of a place with which I felt—through the fate of my father—somehow connected.
At Arnsfeld I possessed an estate that I had leased, though the income was nothing to speak of. But there is no denying that this was a further sign of our well-being.
Not small, though, were the costs of the wedding and, naturally, the dowry of the bride, which, thanks to the efforts of my wife, will certainly last until the old age of the couple.
My wife and the high standing of the bridegroom as a baron demanded a generosity that I was somewhat unwilling to show. But finally I could not resist the constant arguments of my wife—one could sometimes call it nagging—and in the marriage contract signed over 1000 guldens to my daughter, that is, in fact, to her husband.
Here among my papers I can still find the bills I had to pay for Nikolaus Marschall’s nuptials with Anna Luther.
A word about Johann Friedrich, our youngest son, born in Weimar in
1562. He married Magdalena Ziegler from Nürnberg, who died of childbed fever when their first son was born.
His grandparents from his mother’s side looked after this grandson. Our son, a jurist, did not marry again and therefore could not take care of the child and keep him with him. Not long ago he moved in with his sister Anna in Arnsfeld, which I think is a sign of the good understanding between them.
Chapter 28
. . . in which much dying occurs and a little gold is made. My father once again appears in a strange way.
All things considered, my elector was not a bad sovereign. Certain dishonesties do, however, have to be admitted, as, per exemplum, the annexation of the County of Henneberg, which Augustus carried out by exploiting the guardianship of the sons of Duke John William of Saxony-Weimar. In addition to what I have already mentioned, the first postal service was introduced in Saxony; the Court of Appeal as well as other useful institutions were opened, such as the Privy Council and the Supreme Consistory; and an overall tax authority was founded. Saxony flourished; industry and trade and, with them, tax collections increased. Unfortunately, in regard to the Saxon attitude to the empire and confessional matters, the traditional narrow-mindedness prevailed.
As has been said, the elector had an admirable wife, whom he held in honor, though he had several liaisons and fathered a love-child, a girl named Katharina Sybilla, of whom I was the first to be notified.
Katharina Sybilla was well provided for and disposed of in an advantageous marriage. The electoress forgave her husband for good reasons. Unlike us common mortals, the lords and princes, often have to marry out of dynastic considerations and not out of love, and this is not unusual among them.
The electoress, however, even if she had wanted to, could not take such liberties. Her husband made her pregnant continuously so that in the end she gave birth fifteen times and thus had no chance to cultivate harlotry.
From AD 1550, when she was eighteen years old, until 1575 she gave birth every two years, often every year, so that one should not wonder that at fifty-three she was worn out and weakened and died on October 1, 1585, hopefully in God, but certainly in irreconcilable enmity against the Calvinists.
I tried my best to ease her dying, and I think that she would have had to suffer longer, weak and bedridden, had not my medical art, though involuntarily, I admit, sped her departure.
To strengthen her heart, I had prescribed her an extract of Digitalis purpurea, or purple foxglove, which obviously was overdosed. The electoress, after taking the medicine, became agitated and quite cheerful and was on the point of jumping out of bed, but then as quickly she faded and died. The reader can understand that I promptly poured the residue of the medicine away and washed out the glass thoroughly and decided not to apply this medicine in the near future. Rather, I determined to prepare new dosages and test them for the time being on poor patients out of the court.
The elector recovered surprisingly quickly from this loss and, to my astonishment, was not too distressed. Already on the 3rd of January, 1586, three months after the death of the princess, he married the twelve-year-old Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt, daughter of Prince Joachim Ernest of Anhalt, who adhered to the Calvinists and supported the Huguenots.
Therefore, I believe that our strictly Lutheran elector was driven by an abnormal lust when he married the child. When I caught sight of the bride for the first time, I saw a girl with a quite infantile body but a rather sensible face. Also, she was quite relaxed when the court accompanied the couple to their bridal bed, while the elector himself seemed to be in a rather agitated state.
Nobody knows what happened in the bridal bed. But everybody was surprised when next morning the above-mentioned Caspar Peucer was released from his prison in Pleißenburg Castle. The court was convinced that this could have resulted only from a successful wedding night and, consequently, the equally successful intercession of the bride.
Soon, reader, I will write about the next death but, before that, about gold.
Despite what I had told the elector about the material existence of the Lapis philosophorum, I was convinced of its existence. In the search for the stone, my father came to my aid, so to speak.
One day—it was in October AD 1585, shortly after the death of the electoress—I walked across the market on my way to the palace. My mood was gloomy, since the death of the electoress had wakened some doubts about my professional capability. In principle this is all right, because doubt leads the way to new insights in the art of healing. But today my gloom arose from the fruitless doubt that gnaws many of us and causes man to question his suitability for his profession and even the value of his whole life.
The October day, however, was not gloomy at all but was warm, the Elbe meadows still green and the leaves only just beginning to become golden. This improved my mood a bit, and I looked around me. A herb woman sat under a tent roof behind a table. This was surprising, as normally herb women do not hide under tent roofs. I became curious and stepped closer. She was old, wrinkled, and gray-haired. But her eyes were bright as in a young woman. Also, she still possessed some front teeth, though singly spaced. Her headscarf covered half of her head and was knotted under her chin. On the little table a cloth was spread, under which, it seemed, some things were hidden.
I suspected at once that she was a soothsayer in the guise of a herb woman, who here in Saxony could not openly practice her trade. I pretended to believe her guise and demanded, pointing to a stick from which herb bouquets were hanging, a bunch of poppy heads. She handed it to me, I paid the required groschen, and I turned to leave.
“Dr. Luther, I have something for you.”
Surprised, I stopped and turned around, because it was a man’s voice uttering these words. There stood a young man, perhaps twenty years old, dressed like a student and making a bow. He beckoned me to the back of the tent, which was separated by a blanket.
“How do you know me?” asked I.
“This is a very long story,” he answered. “Let me please first introduce myself. My name is Victorius Radschläger.”
“Go on, tell me.”
“When your Herr Father on the 2nd of July, AD 1505, experienced mortal fear in a raging thunderstorm on an open field near Stotternheim, in order to find protection from the thunderstorm and dry his clothes, he asked for help in a farmstead. This farm belonged to my great-grandfather Hermann Radschläger, who had the second sight. He also was a secret seeker for the unearthly, fairies, wood nymphs, specters, sprites, and the like. He believed if one met them, this could mean good luck or bad luck, depending on when one met them and how one behaved in the situation. He had in his house a number of strangely formed stones, roots, ossicles, plant remains, horns, and such things. There was even the withered testicle of a unicorn among his collection.
“My great-grandfather believed that these things had been created by spirits of nature or left behind as a sign to show the finder the way. There was also a piece of the tail of a werewolf and the handkerchief of a revenant, already used. About the latter, my great-grandfather was not quite sure whether it had perhaps belonged to a nachzehrer, which is a kind of vampire in North Germany feeding on dead human bodies, or an aufhocker, who is also a kind of vampire of varying appetites.
“Within the collection was the left hand of a bogman. One of Great-Grandfather’s neighbors once had brought the whole bogman from North Germany and sold it piecemeal to a chemist. The medicine made from it raked in a lot of money, though its efficacy against nightmares, once attributed to it, has not been brought down to us, or one considers the passing away of the people after they had taken the medicine as a positive effect, since naturally they can no longer have nightmares.”
Here the young man seemed to me to be rambling.
I asked him, therefore, to go in medias res, which he immediately understood. I was astonished, and he told me that he studied medicine in Jena and had been acquainted with the herb woman, whom he called Aunt Barbara, since his early years. She h
ad taught him many useful things about plants and their medicinal benefit.
“What,” I asked him, “have you got for me, and how come you know me at all?”
“Let me, Dr. Luther, continue my report; then the questions will answer themselves.
“When the thunderstorm had subsided and the guest, who had introduced himself as Martinus Luder, had traveled on, my great-grandfather and his grandson, my father, went to the place at which, the student Luder had told them, he was almost struck down by the lightning.
“Now I follow the records of my father, who kept a diary all his life and let me have it in trust on his deathbed.”
With this, the young man took a stack of yellowed sheets from his bag, which were bound together by a twine and protected by two little slats, like a book cover. “From now on, we hear my father speaking,” he said, and began to read:
Beside a tree that was cut in half and partly charred, I saw something twinkle in the burnt grass around us. I was just trying to grasp it when my grandfather took hold of my hand.
“Careful, my boy,” said he; “this seems to be a sky stone. Perhaps this is the lightning the Luder man had seen falling from the sky. Don’t touch it.”
Grandfather took me by my hand and led me to a fallen tree trunk in safe distance from the sky stone. We sat on the trunk.
“The phenomena and things of nature down here and in the sky,” he now said, “are not simply as they appear to the naked eye. Mostly they are signs and symbols and occur because they want to tell us something. For this they choose days, times of the day, and positions of the stars, which in their turn are of significance. Moreover, they let themselves be seen only by persons who are aware of their significance and who know how to respect the holiness of all the things of nature. And I believe we—you and me and our family—belong to this group.”
Shadows of My Father Page 31