'The inquisitor replied that he had eaten and drunk with Hus, listened to many of his discourses and, in all his words and works, had, found him to be a true Catholic. A notarial instrument was drawn to this effect. It was signed by the inquisitor and copies were sent to the pope and to the Bohemian, king. After this, three barons in an assembly of nobles asked the archbishop whether he could accuse Hus of any error or heresy. The archbishop is Hus's mortal enemy, but he replied that he knew of no heresy by Hus and could make no accusation against him. Because, of all this, but mostly because of Hus's extreme popularity with the Bohemian people, Sigismund is determined to take Hus under his protection. He intends that Hus shall enter Konstanz in his train. He has commissioned John of Chlum and Wenzel of Duba to escort Hus to the royal camp Hus will leave Prague on 20 September.’
`Mama – this amiable man believes he is in God's special care. He knows nothing of the world and I fear he will fail to follow Sigismund's instructions and this could be politically most dangerous if he does not join with Sigismund's train and enter Konstanz'
`For your reference: Hus tells me he will lodge in Konstanz with a widow named Fida in the street of St Paul near the Snezthor
Cossa clumped Rosa's letter into a ball and flung it from himself `Why is the Church cursed with people like Hus?' he asked me rhetorically. `It has thousands of high. officers, all trained people – canon lawyers, administrators and theologians – but an ambitious priest like this one has to get attention for himself and worse, do it all in the name of sweetness and light.'
`If you think he is only ambitious and you want to shut him up,' I said, `make him a bishop.'
`Maybe ambitious was the wrong word. Hus is one of those professional saints who thinks he is helping the people by making trouble. He thinks that what he is doing isn't hurting anyone, except that every damned theatrical thing he does leads us closer to Church reform and all because he's one of those people who want to be loved. Come on, Franco Ellera, get the cards. We'll play a little tarocchini and maybe I'll get some of my money back.'
The papal household moved in ten-mile steps each day as it ascended the Alps. It stopped at the village of Tramin, then moved on upward until on 15 October, it reached Meran, ancient capital of the Tyrol on the right bank of the Passer, where Cossa was greeted by Frederick, Duke of Austria, his friend – who was Sigismund's enemy.
Frederick was not only ambitious, he was headstrong He held fortress castles near Konstanz. For that alone, Cossa saw him as invaluable. He was already in league with John of Nassau and the Marquess of Baden, two more of Cossa's rampant warrior friends. Cossa made a formal treaty with Frederick and gave him 16,000 florins to seal the bargain which made Frederick captain general of the papal troop's with an annual salary of 2000 florins. Cossa wanted to have protection when he needed it and Frederick promised him safe conduct anywhere against any man. It was probably the worst deal anyone made for himself in the century. With the kind of judgement he had; it is surprising Frederick ever made it beyond the cradle.
The ponderous household struggled up the narrow path of the valley of the Eisak, past Klausen to Brixen. From Brixen the mass of animals and men went up the Brenner to Innsbruck, then the road led west. They climbed the steep valley of the Inn – nine cardinals, thirty-one bishops and the. entire curia in the train. They kept climbing until they came at last to the chasmic glacier of the Riffler in St Anton, where they climbed to the Arlberg pass; over 6000 feet above the seas, through a wild, slanted valley. A work party had cleared the road through the powdery snow. Hundreds of horse’s hooves which had hardened, the way for the pope's red wagon had also pounded it into slippery ice. They were just beyond the little hospice of St Christopher when the wagon skidded crazily and overturned, sending the Holy Father rolling wildly, over and over, into the snowbank. Six pairs of hands pulled him out. Count Weiler, the papal physician, came running in to see if he were hurt. `'My epitaph came to me just as the carriage capsized,' Cossa said, grinning broadly. `It shall be "Here I lie in the name of the Devil," Not bad, hey, Abramo? Or should I have stayed in Bologna?'
The papal train moved; up again, to the valley of Klosterle. From the top, looking far down, Cossa saw the lake of Konstanz, called the Bodensee, glistening in the distance. Before them lay the city of Konstanz. `They trap foxes down there,' Cossa said.
I can paint an unforgettable picture of that fated city for any Italian who had left the sun behind him as Cossa; and I had. A strong wind drove a light snow across the lake. It fell upon the thirty towers and gateways of the walled city of Konstanz, which had a population of 6000 people on the day Pope John XXIII entered the city. Two and a half months later, by the end of the first week of January 1415, Konstanz had 20,000 people; 60,000 by the end of February the same year.
While the Council of Konstanz met, the city would be the diplomatic and political, as well as the religious, centre of Christendom. Never before in the history of the Church had the imperial chances and the Roman curia settled down, together side by side. It was to be a running event unparalleled in European history.
Pope John XXIII entered Konstanz on Sunday, 28 October 1414, just after eleven o'clock in the forenoon, from the monastery of St Ulrich, at Kreuzlingen, where we had spent the night. After morning reflection, a procession was formed. Cossa, clad entirely in white like a priest at an altar, was accompanied by his cardinals, archbishops, bishops and by the curia. He was met at the door of the monastery by the clergy, of Konstanz bearing holy relics. Four magistrates conducted the Holy Father to his white horse, richly caparisoned in scarlet, with a great bell hung around its neck, and led by Bechtold di Orsini. and Count Rudolf of Montfort zu Scheer, who stood under a canopy of cloth of gold:
White horses in red-trappings led the procession, laden with clothing bags, followed by a white hackney carrying a silver-gilt chest with a monstrance in which was the Holy Sacrament. Then followed His. Holiness, surrounded by burning tapers. Near him was a priest who scattered coins to relieve the press of the crowds. Behind the Holy Father rode `the man with the hat', a huge parasol on a, long pole embroidered with red and yellow. On top of the hat there was a golden knob and on it a golden angel, holding a cross in his hand. The hat was so wide that it protected His Holiness from sun and rain. Behind the man with the hat rode the cardinals, two and two, in long red cloaks with their servants and pages. On their heads were broad red hats with long silken bands.
The procession made its way through the Kreuzlingen gate, then through-the Standelhofen and Schnetz gateways, and along a route which led through St Paul Gasse and Plattengasse to the cathedral, where it assembled and sang Te Deum Laudamus. The bells pealed until vesper time. Cossa passed through the chapel of St Margaret to the bishop's palace, where he settled in with his senior servants. The cardinals rode on to the houses and inns assigned to them. The marchesa occupied the Blidhaus on one side of the canon's court containing the bishop's palace, facing Wessenbergstrasse.
I liked Konstanz from the moment I entered it, First of all it was a German town, the second such I had set foot in since I was a boy of ten. I thought I had become an Italian, in the long process which had followed, but I had not. I was a German and Konstanz comforted me for that.
The city was founded in the fourth century and named after the Emperor Constantius Chlorus. The bishopric was transferred from Windisch to Konstanz in 560 AD because the town was well placed for cheap water carriage by the Rhine and from the lake, having good approach roads in all directions. The lake offered supplies of fish and facilities for the easy availability of flesh, produce, fodder, beer and wine. The drinking water was pure and the air was healthy – except in winter, as far as the Italians were concerned. I have never heard so much garlic-scented coughing.
The see of Konstanz stretched from Breisgau to the Allgau, from the Bernese Oberland to the middle reaches of the Neckar. Konstanz was a Swabian free imperial town. Jews were only occasionally persecuted there, a northern fashion. Its permanent
citizens were divided into eighteen guilds, from which the town council was elected annually.
By the time the full French delegation arrived, in February, there were to be 30,000 horses stabled in the town, and as many as 31 barges loaded with hay and straw were counted in a single day alongside the quay at St Conrad's Bridge. 36,000 beds were provided for transient strangers. By day and night the streets were alive with the minstrelsy of the great lords, echoing with hundreds of fifes, trumpets and bagpipes. On feast days everything gave way to jongleurs and players, to tiltings, feasts and processions. Jugglers, pickpockets, whores, lottery operators, jewellers, bakers, barbers, gamblers, pharmacists, cooks, bankers, goldsmiths, pawnbrokers, cobblers, pimps and tailors from seventy towns in Europe had rushed to this place. Chiromancers foretold. Poets sang. There were 29 cardinals, whose combined households numbered 3056 attendants. Although the average-size household was 105 people, my own numbered 126 because Cossa forced me to carry 37 waiters who belonged on his staff. There were 338 bishops from everywhere, hundreds of prelates, prebends, protonotaries, abbots, provosts, patriarchs, and hundreds of learned doctors from every university. 171 doctors of medicine with 1600 assistants hung out their name plates. Each space was utilized to hold-these people and almost every other space – and surely the best of them was the leased property of the syndicate which Cossa and the Marchesa di Artegiana owned. 5300 simple priests and scholars came to Konstanz, and 39 archdukes, 141 counts, 32 princely lords, 71 barons and 1500 knights with 20,000 squires. Ambassadors from 83 parts of Asia, Africa and Europe attended.
Pope John XXIII was established as head of the council with 24 secretaries, 12 court officers and a household which had grown to 674 persons, not including his 37 waiters.
Work was provided for those without funds repairing the city wall, widening the moat and mending streets, although there were no urgent works to be done. The really poor priests, courtiers and scholars were enabled to earn money for their living. They were paid eighteenn pfennigs a day for food and lodging. It was something. During the morning they were excused from work to get alms from priests, which were amply distributed every day. It was ordered that no one was allowed to mock at these workers or to speak ill of them.
The municipal banking monopoly was not maintained. Through intervention by the pope, the bankers of Florence, representing Europe's leading money market, were represented strongly; foremost among these was the Medici bank, whose manager, Bartholorneus de Bardis, settled in at the Haus zur Tonnen. The Florentine bankers appeared in Konstanz with great splendour and their luxury was everywhere admired. The principal coins in circulation were the schilling and pfennig although prices were fixed in gulden. Each foreign banker had to pay the town six Rhenish gulden a month for carrying out their business. In 1414, the city council had re-opened its mint which had been out of use since 1407 and, with the agreement of the ten towns around: the lake, issued pfennigs.
A small army of over 1200 whores worked Around the clock, the less gifted living 30 to a room, and in baths and in the empty wine butts which lay about the streets. There were theatricals. Bishop Weldon of Semley exhibited short plays between courses at banquets which the English held at the Haus zum Goldenen Schwert, showing The Coming of the Three Kings, The Birth of Our Lord and The Slaughter of the Innocents. There were extravagant Florentine processions. Women who could sing were objects of wonderment. The sermons of Pierre d'Ailly, as well as the official protocols and circular letters of the council and the religio-political tracts of Jean Gerson were disseminated by the thousands. The minnesinger Oswald von Wolkstein confessed in a sweet poem that he had found a paradise in Konstanz
`Women here, like angels wooing,
Beautiful in splendour bright,
They have been my heart's undoing,
They possess my dreams at night.
The fairest fair in dainty dresses,
With jewels are in auburn tresses,
The rose-red lips on blushing faces,
When sorrow trips and leaves no traces.
`So great is the host of the most dainty dames and damsels,' Benedict de Pileo. wrote, `who surpass the snow, in the delicacy of their colouring, that you might rightly say of Konstanz, as Ovid declared of Rome, that Venus herself reigns in this city.'
Venus operated mainly under the name of Bernaba Minerbetti for the more expensive, high-quality women. She managed 107 of the most costly, replacing them as often as necessary during the four years of the council. It was an enormous business, but it was buttressed by the marchesa's organization of the jewellers, goldsmiths and furriers who sold the same wares over and over again as they were turned in to Bernaba by the courtesans. The marchesa supervised the multi-level accounting, medical and intra-mural brokerages of these enterprises, as she did the inns, produce, wine, restaurant and beer businesses in Konstanz, overseeing the direct management of Bernaba Minerbetti,, who was assisted by me whenever I could find a moment.
The marchesa also handled the organization of the daily, and nightly information which the women were required to pass along. This intelligence was pooled, then shared with Cosimo di Medici – some of it, about 30 per cent of it, was shared with Cossa. Little happened in Konstanz, in the private or secret meetings of the council, or in the caucuses and courts of individual nations attending the council, which escaped the marchesa's attention.
Because she and Cossa controlled the main housing in Konstanz, as well as its provisioning, lodging and gambling industries, the armies of pilgrims swarming along the great trunk roads found that the cost of travel increased steadily the nearer they came to Konstanz: When they reached the town itself, the prices of food, drink and lodgings soared beyond any expectations. Buildings for the accommodation of visitors were erected around St Stephen's church and the Augustinian monastery. The quarters for the more important guests were assigned beforehand; claiming placards had been posted, which were removed by the nominated occupant, who then nailed up his own coat of arms outside the dwelling.
The college of auditors sat three times a week to settle disputes for rightful possession. The charge for a furnished room with a clean bed was one and a half gulden a month. The linen was changed once a fortnight. Stabling for a horse cost two pfennigs a day; his food about eight pfennigs. Peace within the city was well kept. When there was a robbery or murder, the authorities always; made sure that these could only have happened outside the town's walls and, during the period of the council, 560 bodies were found in the lake.
The profits from the uncommon enterprises operated by the marchesa and Cossa averaged 9300 gold florins a month,, never less than 115,000 florins a year, and over 400,000 florins over the duration of the holy congress. However, at the time of the pope's arrival at Konstanz, this was all in the future.
48
When Pope John XXIII entered Konstanz, Sigismund was hundreds of miles away at Aix-la-Chapelle, called Aachen by the Germans. A few days later, he was – at long last – to be King of the Romans.
Escorted by Nicholas Gara, her sister's husband, Queen Barbara journeyed from Buda to join her husband in coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. Sigismund had made intricate arrangements to be crowned at Aix on 21 October, so that he might appear formally as king of the Romans at Konstanz for the opening of the council. It was his plan to arrive at Konstanz before the pope, but there were difficulties. Two, of the electors told him the coronation date would be unacceptable to them, so Sigismund had to electioneer from Konstanz to Mainz to Frankfurt to Heidelberg to Wimpfen to Ansbach to Nuernburg to confer with all electors – `as if I were some little burgomaster accumulating supporters and contributors'. He had to listen to the clergy of each city intone the solemn introits again and, again: 'Behold the Lord cometh with the power and the kingdom in his hand. Let the tribes of the people serve thee and be lord over all the brethren.'
At last it was settled, despite the opposition of the electors of Berg and Brabant. Sigismund decided to ask the Duke of Juliers, the mayor and bai
liff of Aix-la-Chapelle, to guarantee his safety with four thousand horse.
The interior of the cathedral where the pope opened the council with a high mass had been altered to accommodate the convention: Here the delegates were to deliberate solemnly for the next four years, although then all of us thought we would be there for a much shorter time. The large altar in the choir was covered with boards.
Next to this altar, next to the small sacrament house, a wooden altar had been built, in front of which rested a beautiful chair to seat the pope when he took the sacrament while celebrating mass, and where
he could sit throughout the sessions to be seen from everywhere in the cathedral. In front of another altar, called the Tagmessaltar, a seat was placed for the absent King Sigismund.
As soon as the pope had said the mass on the morning of his arrival in Konstanz, I rose and announced that the opening of the business session would take place on 3 November. This was subsequently postponed until the 5th.
My announcement established how earnest the pope was that the council must be considered as a mere continuation of the Pisan Council at which Benedict XIII and Gregory XII had been declared heretic and schismatic and had been formally deposed. If Cossa could succeed in getting the assembly to follow this view, then it had to follow that he must be recognized as the canonical pope.
Before the arrival of the King of the Romans, the electors, the ambassadors from, the courts of Europe or from any nation except Italy, or of a single representative of Benedict or Gregory, the council went into session on 5 November, Cossa was elated. `This is going to be, another paper-built Council of Rome all over again,' he said to me gleefully. `Everyone who was there today is against Church reform. We can go through all the motions and be out of here in a month's, time.'
A Trembling Upon Rome Page 27