Abominable Murder of My Grandfather--My Parents and their Family--Fatal Misadventure of My Father--Troubles at Stralsund--Appeal of the Evangelical Preachers

My father was born in 1488, in the village of Rantzin, in the inn close to the cemetery, on the road to Anclam. Even before his marriage, my grandfather, Johannes Sastrow, exceeded by far in worldly goods, reputation, power and understanding, the Horns, a family established at Rantzin. Hence, those Horns, frantic with jealousy, constantly attacked him, not only with regard to his property, but also in the consideration he enjoyed among his fellow-men; they did not scruple to attempt his life. Not daring to act openly, they incited one of their labourers to go drinking to the inn, to pick a quarrel with its host, and to fall upon him. Their inheritance, in fact, was so small that they only needed one ploughmaster. What was the upshot? My grandfather, who was on his guard, got wind of the affair, and took the offensive. The emissary had such a cordial reception as to be compelled to beat a retreat "on all fours," and even this was not accomplished without difficulty.

The enmity of the Horns obliged my grandfather to look to his security. About the year 1487, in virtue of a friendly agreement with the old overlord Johannes Osten von Quilow, he redeemed his vassalage (lastage), and acquired the citizenship of Greifswald, where he bought a dwelling at the angle of the Butchers' Street. Thither he gradually transferred his household goods. Johannes Sastrow, therefore, left the Ostens and became a citizen before my father's birth.

The infamous attempt occurred in this way. In 1494, there was a christening not far from Rantzin, namely at Gribon, where there lived a Horn. In his capacity of a near relative my grandfather received an invitation, and as the distance was short, he took my father, who was then about seven, with him. The Horns took advantage of the opportunity; on the pretext of paying a visit to their cousin, they repaired to Gribon. They had come down in the world, and they no longer minded either the company or the fare of the peasantry; consequently, during the meal that followed they sat down at the same table with my grandfather. When they had drunk their fill towards nightfall, they all got up together to have a look at the stables. They fancied they were among themselves; as it happened one of our relatives was hiding in a corner, and heard them discuss matters. They intended to watch Sastrow's going, to gallop after him and intercept him on the road, and to kill him and his child. My grandfather, having been warned, immediately took the advice not to delay his departure for a moment. Taking his son by the hand, he started there and then. Alas, the atrocious murderers who were lying in wait for him in a clearing, trampled him under their horses' hoofs, inflicted ever so many wounds; then, their rage not being spent, they dragged him to a large stone on the road, and which may be seen unto this day, chopped off his right hand at the wrist, and left him for dead on the spot. The child had crept into some damp underwood, inaccessible to horses; the fast gathering darkness saved him from being pursued. The labourers on the Horn farm, driven by curiosity, had mounted their cattle; they picked up the victim, and pulled the child from his hiding place. One of them galloped to Rantzin, whence he returned with a cart on which they laid the wounded man, who scarcely gave a sign of life, and, in fact, breathed his last at the entrance to the village.

The nearest relatives realized the inheritance of the orphan, sold the house, the proceeds of the whole amounting to 2,000 florins.^[1] Lords who allow their vassals to amass similar sums are rare nowadays. The child was brought up carefully; he was taught to read, to write and to cipher, afterwards he was sent to Antwerp and to Amsterdam to get a knowledge of business. When he was old enough to manage his own affairs, he bought the angle of Long Street and of Huns' Street, on the right, towards St. Nicholas' Church, that is, two dwelling houses and two shops in Huns' Street.^[2] One of these houses he made his residence; the other he converted into a brewery, and on the site of the shops he built the present front entrance. All this cost a great deal of trouble and money. He was an attractive young fellow with an assured bit of bread, so he had no difficulty in obtaining the hand of the daughter of the late BartholomÄi Smiterlow, and the niece of Nicholas Smiterlow, the burgomaster of Stralsund.^[3] Young and pretty, rather short than tall, but with exquisitely shaped limbs, amiable, clever, unpretending, an excellent managers, and exceedingly careful in her conduct, my mother unto her last hour was an honest and God-fearing woman. My father's register shows that the marriage took place in 1514, the Sunday after St. Catherine's Day; the husband, as I often heard him say, was still short of five and twenty.

At the fast just before Advent, in 1515, Providence granted the young couple a son who was named Johannes, after his paternal grandfather; he died in 1545, at Aquapendente, in Italy. In 1517, in vigilia nativitatis Mariae, my sister Anna was born; she died on August 16, 1594, at the age of seventy-seven; she was the widow of Peter Frobose, burgomaster of Greifswald. On Tuesday, August 21, 1520, at six in the morning, I came into the world and was named BartholomÄi, after my maternal grandfather. I leave to my descendants the task of recording my demise, to which I am looking forward anxiously in my seventy-fifth winter.

The year 1523 witnessed the birth of my sister Catherine, a charming, handsome creature, amiable, loyal and pious. When my brother Johannes returned from the University of Wittemberg, she asked him what was the Latin for "This is certainly a good-looking girl?" "Profecto formosa puella," was the answer. "And how do they say, 'Yes, not bad?'" was the next question. "Sic satis," replied Johannes.

Some time after that, three students from Wittemberg, young fellows of good family, stopped for a short while in our town, and Christian Smiterlow asked his father, the burgomaster, to let them stay with him. The burgomaster, who had three grown-up daughters, invited my sister Catherine. Naturally, the young people talked to and chaffed each other, and the lads themselves made some remarks in Latin, which would, perhaps, have not sounded well in German to female ears. One of them happened to exclaim: "Profecto formosa puella!" "Sic satis!" retorted Catherine, and thereupon the students became afraid that she had understood the whole of their lively comments.

In 1544 Catherine married Christopher Meyer, an only son, but an illiterate, dissipated, lazy and drunken oaf, who spent all his substance, and ruined a servant girl while my sister was in childbed. God punished him for his misdeeds by bringing abject misery and a loathsome disease upon him, but Catherine died at twenty-six, weary of life.

My sister Magdalen was born in 1527; she died a single woman at twenty-two. These five children were born to my parents in Greifswald; the last three saw the light at Stralsund; namely, in 1529, Christian, who lived till he was sixty; in 1532, Barbara, who only reached eighteen; and in 1534, Gertrude.

From their very earliest age my sisters were taught by my mother the household and other work appropriate to their sex. One day while Gertrude, who was then about five, was plying her distaff--the spinning wheel was not known then--my brother Johannes announced the news that the Emperor, the King of the Romans, the electors, the princes and counts, in short all the great nobles, were to foregather at a diet. "What for?" asked Gertrude. "To look to the proper government of the world," was the answer. "Good Lord," sighed the child, "why don't they forbid little girls to spin."

The pest of 1549 took away my mother, Gertrude, Magdalen and Catherine. As her daughters were weeping bitterly my mother said: "Why do you weep? rather ask the Lord to shorten my sufferings." She died on July 3. On the 16th it was Gertrude's turn. Magdalen was also dying; she left her bed to get her own shroud and that of Gertrude out of the linen press, and bade me be careful to fling only a little earth on her sister's grave, because she herself would soon be put into it; after which she returned to her bed and expired on July 18, the morning after Gertrude's burial. Magdalen was the tallest and most robust of my sisters, an accomplished manageress, hardworking, and her head screwed tightly on her shoulders. Catherine sent me all this news on September 9, two days before her own death of the plague. She did not try to disguise her approaching end; on the contrary, she prayed fervently for it, and bade me be resigned to it. She had had two children by her worthless husband; I undertook the care of the boy, Christopher Meyer, and my sister Frobose at Greifswald mothered the girl, who was but scantily provided for. Christopher gave me much trouble; neither remonstrance nor punishment proved of any avail; when he grew up he would not settle down, and practically followed in the footsteps of his father, yielding to dissipation, and indulging in all kinds of vice. Nevertheless, I made him contract a good marriage which gave him a kind of position. He left two sons; the elder was placed by his guardians at Dantzig, with most respectable people, who, however, declined to keep him. The younger remained with me for two years, going to school meanwhile, and causing me greater trouble than was consistent with my advanced age. But I had hoped to do some good with him; alas! he was so bent upon following his father's example as to make me rejoice getting rid of the cub.

My sister Barbara had been sent to Greifswald; when the plague abated, my father recalled her, for he was old, wretched and bowed down with care. Barbara was only fifteen, very pretty, amiable and hardworking. She married Bernard Classen, then a widower for the second time. My father did not like this son-in-law, against whom he had acted in the law courts for the other side; but Classen was not to be shaken off, and finally obtained my father's consent. The wedding took place on St. Martin's Day (November 11), 1549. On my return from Spires, I paid a visit to the young couple; my brother-in-law showed me the window of his study ornamented with my monogram and name, taking care to mention that he had paid a Stralsund mark to the glazier; I loosened my purse-strings and counted the sum to him, but the proceeding did not commend itself to me after the protestations of friendship my father had conveyed to me from Classen's part.^[4]

In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, where Doctor Martin Luther so courageously made his confession of faith, Duke Bagislaw X, the grandfather of the two dukes at present reigning, received from His Imperial Majesty Charles V the solemn investiture under the open sky and with the standards unfurled, to the great displeasure of the Elector of Brandenburg. The imperial councillors were instructed to bring the two competitors to an agreement at Nuremberg, or to refer the matter further to His Majesty in case of the failure of negotiations.

In 1522 occurred the disturbances in connexion with Rolof Moller, a young man of about thirty, if that. His grandfather had been burgomaster, and in consequence he had detained in his possession a register of the revenues and privileges of the city. Having summoned a number of citizens to the monastery of St. John, he tried to prove by means of said register the enormous revenues of the city, and to accuse the council of malversation; after which he invaded the town hall, took the councillors to task, and treated them all like so many thieves, including one of his own relatives, Herr Schroeder, whom he reproached with being small in stature, but big in scoundrelism. Burgomaster Zabel Oseborn indignantly denied the accusation, and worked himself into such a state of excitement that he had to be conveyed home. In consequence of these slanders Moller constituted himself a following among the burghers; his numerous adherents chose forty-eight of their own (double the number of the members of the council), to exercise the chief power; the council saw its influence annulled, an act defining the limits of its competence and rules for its conduct was presented for signature to the councillors, and they were furthermore required to take the oath. Herr Nicholas Smiterlow alone resisted; hence, during the whole period of their domination, namely up to 1537, the Forty-Eight made him pay for his courage by unheard-of persecutions.

The primary cause of this agitation, so disastrous to the city, was the absence of a permanent record-office. The burgomasters, or the secretary, took the secret papers home with them^[5]; at the magistrate's death those documents passed to the children and grandchildren, then fell into the hands of strangers; and the natural result were indiscreet revelations hurtful to the public weal.

Johannes Bugenhagen, the Pomeranian, and rector of the school of Treptow on the Rega, converted several monks of the monastery of Belbuck to the pure faith. They left the monastery. Among them should be mentioned Herr Christian Ketelhot, Herr Johannes Kurcke, and Herr George von UkermÜnde, whom the Stralsund people chose as their preacher. But when, after three sermons at St. Nicholas', he saw the citizens resolved to keep him, in spite of the council who forbade him the pulpit, when he saw the papist clergy increase their threats, and the dukes expel Ketelhot and Kurcke from Treptow, he was siezed with fear and went away in secret.^[6]

Johannes Kurcke was about to set sail for Livonia, intending to engage in commerce there, when he was detained at Stralsund to preach, in the first place in the St. George's cemetery, then at the cloister of St. Catherine, and finally at St. Nicholas'. He died in 1527, and was buried at St. George's.

Ketelhot had been prior of the monastery of Belbuck during sixteen weeks. At the instigation of the Abbot Johannes Boldewan, the same who had given him the prior's hood, he left for the living of Stolpe, and preached the Gospel there for some time. The slanders of the priests induced the prince to prohibit him. In vain did he claim the right to justify himself by word of mouth and in writing before the sovereign, the prelates, the lords and the cities. He failed to obtain a hearing or even a safe-conduct. As a consequence he went to Mecklenburg, intending to adopt a trade; but unable to find a suitable master, he came to Stralsund determined to take ship for Livonia. Contrary winds kept him for several weeks in port; this gave him the opportunity of hearing the fables, absurdities and impious lies delivered from the pulpit; he beheld the misconduct of the priests, their debauchery, drunkenness, gluttony, fornication, adultery and worse. Acceding to the wish of a great number of burghers, and the Church of St. George's being too small to hold the crowd, he preached on the Sunday before Ascension Day under the great lime tree of the cemetery. He first took for his text Matthew xi. 28: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; then John xvi. 23: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you"; and finally: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations." In spite of the opposition of the council, which felt inclined to yield to the frantic protestation of the clergy, the burghers practically forced Ketelhot to come into the city, and made him preach at St. Nicholas'.

In 1523, Duke Bogislaw, accompanied by four hundred horsemen, proceeded to Nuremberg to settle his disagreement with the Elector of Brandenburg. Among his suite were Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow and his son Christian. The lad, lively and strong for his age, made his horse curvet and prance, so that it threw him and crushed him with all its weight. Young Smiterlow was deformed all his life; but when it became evident that there was no remedy, his father sent him to the University of Wittemberg; but for the accident he would have placed him in business at Lubeck.

On his way home Duke Bogislaw stopped at Wittemberg to see Luther, the turbulent monk. Before they had exchanged many words, the prince in a jocular tone said: "Master Doctor, you had better let me confess to you." Luther, however, replied very quickly: "No, no, gracious lord! Your Highness is too exalted a penitent, and I am too lowly to give him absolution." Luther was thinking of the august birth of his interlocutor, who, moreover, was exceedingly tall of stature, but the Duke took the reply as an allusion to the gravity of his backslidings, and dismissed Luther without inviting him to his table.

During the absence of Duke Bogislaw, the images were destroyed at Stralsund as I am going to narrate. On Monday of Holy Week, 1523, Frau Schermer sent her servant to St. Nicholas' for a box containing relics which she wished to have repaired.^[7] Some workmen, noticing that a sacred object was being taken away, began to knock down everything; their constantly increasing numbers ran riot in the churches and in the convents; the altars were overtoppled, and the images thrown to the four winds. With the exception of the custodian of St. John's, monks and priests fled from the city. Thereupon the council issued an order that everybody had to bring back his loot on the following Wednesday to the old market. The burghers only obeyed reluctantly; they only restored the wooden images, but the more valuable ones were not to be found. Two women were brought before the council; the woman Bandelwitz deliberately defied the burgomaster, looked him straight into the face and addressed him as follows: "What dost thou want with me, Johannes Heye? Why hast thou summoned me before thee? What crime have I committed?"

"Thou shalt know very soon," replied the burgomaster, and had her put under lock and key. The same fate befell the other woman. In the market place the partisans of the old doctrines had taken to arms and were much excited, while the evangelists loudly expressed their indignation at this double incarceration. Bailiff (or sheriff) Schroeder made his appearance on horseback, and showed with a kind of affectation a communion cup he had confiscated, and swore to "do" for all the evangelicals. Leaping on to a fishmonger's bench, L. Vischer cried in a thundering voice: "Rally to me all those who wish to live and die for the Gospel."^[8] The greater number rallied to his side. From the windows of the Town House the councillors had been watching the scene, and they began to fear for their personal safety when they should wish to go home. Rolof Moller went upstairs to make the situation clear to them; the two women were discharged after an imprisonment of less than an hour, and the Council asked the burghers to let the matter rest there, professing their goodwill towards them; but the crowd, slow to abate its anger, occupied the place up to four o'clock, after which the councillors could make their way without danger.

When Duke Bogislaw returned, the Stralsund council endeavoured to persuade His Highness that the destruction of the images had taken place in spite of them. In his great anger the prince would not hear of any justification; he accused the people of Stralsund of having failed in their duty towards religion as well as against the sovereign who was the patron of the city's churches. He added that the devil would bring them to account for it. The duke died on September 29 of the same year at Stettin, leaving two sons, George and Barnim.^[9]

The disturbances, nevertheless, continued, for the burghers saw with displeasure that the council, following the example of Princes George and Barnim, persisted in popish practices, thereby delaying the progress of Evangelism. On the Monday of St. John, 1524, Rolof Moller, at the head of a big troop of men, made his appearance in the old market place and, mounted also on a fishmonger's stall, began addressing the people, who applauded him. The dissensions between the magistrates and the burghers became more accentuated every day, and plainly foretold the ruin of public business. Moller observed no measure in his attacks on the council. He was just about thirty, clever, and, with an attractive personality, he might count upon being sooner or later elected burgomaster. It was only a question of time. His presumption blinded him to the reality; intoxicated with popular favour, he allowed himself certain excesses against the council, took his flight before his wings had grown, and dragged a number of people down with him in his fall. The city itself did not recover from the effects of all this for close upon a century.

Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow, a personage of great consideration, a clever spokesman, and of a firm and generous disposition, was a member of the council for seventeen years. Duke Bogislaw, who fully appreciated his work, took him to the conference at Nuremberg. The journey enabled the burgomaster to hear the gospel preached in its purity, and to become aware of the fatal error of papism. At Wittemberg he heard Luther preach. As a consequence, he was the first to proclaim the wholesome doctrine in open council, though the opposition of that body prevented him from supporting the propagators of the true faith when they kept within reasonable limits. He interposed between the council, the princes, and the exalted personages of the land, who were still wedded to papism, and Rolof Moller, the Forty-Eight, and their adherents who wished to carry things with too high a hand. Smiterlow told the council to show themselves less unbending with the burghers in all just and reasonable things. On the other hand, he exhorted the citizens to show more deference to the magistrates, giving the former the assurance that the preachers should not be molested, and that the gospel should not be hampered in its course. Unfortunately, his efforts failed on both sides.

Then the crisis occurred. The ringleaders--among the most turbulent, Franz Wessel, L. Vischer, BartholomÄi Buchow, Hermann Meyer and Nicholas Rode lifted Rolof Moller from his fishmonger's bench--took him to the Town House, and made him take his seat in the burgomaster's chair.^[10] The council was compelled to accept Rolof and Christopher Lorbeer as burgomasters, and eight of the citizens as councillors. In order to save their heads, the magistrates found themselves compelled to share with their sworn enemies both the small bench of the four burgomasters and the larger bench of twenty-four councillors. As for Smiterlow, his was the fate of those who interfere between two contending parties, the peacemakers invariably coming to grief like the iron between the anvil and the hammer. When Rolof Moller entered the burgomaster's pew Smiterlow left it, and inasmuch as his consummate experience foretold him of his danger he came to Greifswald with his two sons to ask my mother's hospitality.^[11]

The tolerance shown at this conjuncture by the young princes George and Barnim was due to two reasons. In the first place they expected to get the upper hand of the city without much trouble after it became worn out with domestic dissensions. Secondly, a band of zealots, with Dr. Johannes Amandus at their head, scoured the country, especially Eastern Pomerania, inciting the people to break the images, and preaching from the pulpit the sweeping away of all refuse, princes included. In the eyes of the papists, those people and the evangelicals were but one and the same set, and as their number happened to be imposing, the princes considered it prudent to lay low.

The flight of the priests and monks gave the magistrates the opportunity of listening to the preaching of Christian Ketelhot and his colleagues. In a short while the council's eyes were opened to the true light, and in accord with the Forty-Eight and the burghers themselves, they assigned the churches to the evangelical preachers; the monastery, that is, the supreme direction of all the ministers and servitors of the church being confided to Ketelhot, who exercised it for twenty-three years, in fact, up to the day of his death. Canons and vicars had taken the precaution to collect all the specie, valuables and title deeds, amounting to considerable sums; they entrusted to certain councillors of Greifswald chests and lockers filled with chalices, rich chasubles and various holy vessels. They occasionally converted these into money and handed to the debtors certain annuities at half-price. Consequently, the hospitals, churches, and pious foundations lost both their capital and their income. A long time after these events the sons of my relative, Christian Schwartz, dispatched to me for restitution to the council of Stralsund, a sailor's locker which had stood for forty years under their father's bed. It contained velvet chasubles embroidered with silver and pearls, in addition to a couple of silver crucifixes. Though their rules forbade the monks of St. John to touch coined metal, the father custodian did not scruple to carry away with him all that the convent held in clinking coin and precious objects.

Called to the ministry by a small group of citizens who had not given a thought to the question of his salary, Ketelhot had no other resource for his daily sustenance than the city "wine cellar" and The King Arthur.^[12] He found hospitable board and good company, but the life was detrimental to his studies. A Jew with whom he flattered himself he was studying the lingua sancta induced him to announce from the pulpit the error a Judaeo conceptus. As a consequence the council promptly appointed Johannes Knipstro as superintendent at Stralsund. He was the first that bore the title there, and Ketelhot neither suffered in consideration, rank, nor benefices. He remained all his life primarius pastor, and his effigy at St. Nicholas, facing the pulpit, is inscribed with the words: Repurgator ecclesiae Sundensis. Appointed in 1524, Knipstro, by his talent and solicitude, succeeded in leading Ketelhot back to the right path, for he broke for ever with the error. The two ministers lived in the most brotherly understanding. Ketelhot was no more jealous of the superintendent than Knipstro, took umbrage at the title of primarius pastor. They were not vainglorious, as were later on Runge and Kruse. Gradually the dukes admitted that the evangelicals, far from making common cause with the zealots of Eastern Pomerania, energetically opposed them. The Stralsund preachers were henceforth left in peace; they were more firmly established in their functions, and neither the council nor the citizens were any longer molested for having called them.

I now beg to resume the story of my family from the year 1523. My parents started house-keeping in the midst of plenty; they had a mill and a brewery, sold their corn, butter, honey, wool and feathers, and were even blessed with the superfluous. Everything was so cheap that it seemed easy to make money. It seemed as if the golden age had returned. Nevertheless, prosperity had to make room for misfortune.

In the course of that year (1523), in fact, George Hartmann, the son-in-law of Doctor StroÏentin,^[13] bought of my father a quantity of butter. A violent discussion having occurred between them, Hartmann, who was on his way to Burgomaster Peter Kirchschwanz with a short sword belonging to the latter, went instead to his mother-in-law to pour his grievances into her ears. This haughty and purse-proud woman, full of contempt for very humble folk because she happened to have married a doctor and a ducal counsellor (I omit for charity's sake some details which I shall tell my children by word of mouth), that woman, I say, presented her son-in-law with a hatchet, saying: "There, go to market with this piece of money, and buy a bit of courage." Emboldened by a safe-conduct of the prince, which Doctor StroÏentin had got for him, Hartmann fell in with my father at the top of the Sporenmacher Strasse. He was going to the public weigh-house to have a case of honey weighed, and he had not as much as a pocket knife wherewith to repel an assailant armed with a sword and a hatchet. He rushed into a spurmaker's shop, getting hold of a large pitchfork, but the bystanders wrenched it out of his hands; moreover, they prevented him taking refuge in the gallery. Thereupon my father snatched up a long stick with an iron prod standing against the wall, and going back into the street, shouted:

"Let the fellow who wants to take my life come out and show himself." At these words, Hartmann issued from an adjoining workshop. Not satisfied with his short sword and his hatchet, he had taken a hammer from the anvil and flung it at my father, who warded it with his stick, though only partly, for my father spat blood for several days. The hatchet went the same way, and just caught my father on the shoulder. The double exploit having imbued him with the idea that the game was won, the aggressor made a rush with his bare sword, but my father spitted him on his iron-prodded pole, and Hartmann dropped down dead. This is the true account of this deplorable accident. I am quite aware of the version invented by the ill-will of the others, which is to the effect that my father having found Hartmann altogether disarmed behind the stove in the spurmaker's room, straightway killed him on the spot. These are vain rumours, nugae sunt, fabulae sunt.

My father sought asylum with the "black" monks, to whom he was known. They hid him at the top of the church in a recess near the vault. In a little while Doctor StroÏentin, at the head of his servants and of a numerous group of followers, came to search every nook and corner of the convent. Naturally, he went into the church, and the fugitive, fancying it was all over with him, was going to speak in order to prove his innocence; fortunately Providence closed his lips and shut his enemies' eyes. In the middle of the night the monks smuggled him over the wall. Keeping to the high road, he succeeded in reaching Neuenkirchen, where a peasant's cart, sent by his father-in-law, was waiting for him. He managed to squeeze himself into a sack of fodder by the side of a sack of barley. Doctor StroÏentin stopped the vehicle on the road. The driver told him he was going to Stralsund. "What have you got there?" asked the doctor, beating the sacks with him. "Barley and my fodder," was the answer. "Have not you noticed any one going in a great hurry either on horseback or on foot?" "Yes; I saw a man galloping as hard as he could in the direction of Horst. I may have been mistaken, but I fancy it was Sastrow, of Greifswald, and I was wondering why he should be scouring the highway at that hour of night." StroÏentin wanted to hear no more. He turned his horse's head as fast as it would go in the direction of Horst.

My father reached Stralsund without further trouble; the council gave him a safe-conduct, which was only a broken reed in the way of a guarantee, for he had to deal with proud, rich and powerful enemies. Doctor StroÏentin, His Highness' counsellor, took particular advantage of the fact that Hartmann enjoyed the protection of Duke George. My father went from pillar to post in Denmark, at Lubeck, at Hamburg, and other spots; finally, he appeased his suzerain by paying him a considerable sum in cash; then, after long-drawn negotiations, his father-in-law succeeded in reconciling him with his adversaries. The expiatory fine was 1,000 marks, but Greifswald, where the family of the deceased resided, remained closed to him. Nor did the 1,000 marks prove any benefit to the son of Hartmann; the contrary has been the case. Misfortune pursued him without cessation in his health, his wealth, his wife and children.

At the gates of Stralsund stood the monastery of St. Brigitta; monks and nuns inhabited different parts. A wall divided the gardens. It was, however, by no means high enough to prove an obstacle to a nimble climber. It is the monks that did the cooking, and the dishes came to the nuns in a kind of lift large enough for one person. How the vow of chastity was observed was proved on the day of the invasion of the convent, when the skeletons, head and bones of new-born children were found everywhere.

At the period of the invasion of the churches and the monasteries, Franz Wessel, who at that time had discharged the functions of councillor for more than a twelvemonth, was charged with preventing at St. Catherine's the abstraction of precious objects. In order to cut short the idolatrous practices, he had a trench dug at the door of the garden of eighteen ells long, in which the images were buried. On the Holy Thursday, between four and six in the morning, the nuns whose retreat had been attacked were taken to St. Catherine's. Wessel received them courteously on the threshold of the cloister, took the abbess by the hand and intoned the popish hymn Veni, sponsa salvatoris, etc. The abbess begged of him to cease this joking, and rather to welcome her with some flagons of wine. Wessel objected that the hour was too early to begin drinking.

I have narrated the circumstances which compelled Burgomaster Nicholas Smiterlow to take refuge at my mother's with his two sons, Nicholas and Bertrand. The first-named, a doughty young man, good-looking and of independent character, had with great credit to himself terminated his studies. I have rarely seen such beautiful handwriting as his. Impatient to see the world, he felt himself cramped in Pomerania, and when he heard that Emperor Charles had an army in Italy, he induced his father to give him an outfit and to allow him to join it. Provided with a well-lined purse, he joined the Imperial troops, took part in the storming and sacking of Rome, got a great deal of loot, but fell ill and died.

Fate proved not more lenient to Doctor Zutfeld Wardenberg, also the son of a burgomaster. Berckmann and other writers have made him pass as a great prelate. Be this as it may; he certainly fancied himself a member of the Trinity which rules the universe. In his official functions he observed no law but his own sweet will. His own house contained a prison, and he behaved as if the council did not exist. In short, he wound up by setting the magistrates against him to such an extent that one night he judged it prudent to leave the city. His brother, Joachim, opened the gates to him without authority--a piece of daring which cost him ten weeks of imprisonment in the Blue Tower. At the sacking of Rome, Zutfeld Wardenberg tried to hide himself among the invalids of a hospital. He was soon discovered, killed, and everything taken away from him. In the church of St. Mary, at Stralsund, stands the handsome mausoleum he had prepared for himself, together with an epitaph setting forth his titles, but his body lies somewhere at Rome, no one knows where.

Burgomaster Smiterlow was as frank in his speech as he was open of heart. When he conversed in the street his strong and clear voice could be heard a couple of yards off. All his speeches began with "Yes, in the name of Jesus." One day, after dinner, he went into his stables where, as a rule, he had three horses; he saw one of his stablemen strike one of the animals with a pitchfork, saying, in imitation of himself, "In the name of Jesus." Smiterlow snatched the implement away from him, then stuck it between his shoulders so that he dropped down, and quietly remarked: "Now and again I cause people to cry 'In the name of all the devils.'"

According to the custom of the papists, my mother went at half-past twelve, especially during Lent, to recite a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria before each of the three altars of her ordinary church. She always took her little BartholomÄi with her. On one occasion I sat down on the steps of the first altar and began to relieve nature; when she passed on to the second, I followed her and continued the operation, which I finished on the third. When my mother perceived what had occurred she rushed home in hot haste and sent a servant with a broom to repair the mischief. Seeing how young she was when separated from her husband and left with four young children, it is not surprising that my mother had moments of sadness and discouragement. One day that she was cutting up some dry fish, a piece fell from the block. I picked it up. Without noticing my mother stooped at the same time, and as I was rising, the edge of the hatchet cut my forehead. The scar was never effaced. The Lord be praised, though, the accident had no further consequence.

Hartmann's family having received satisfaction, my father appointed to meet his wife and his children at the manse of Neuenkirchen. It was in the autumn and the pears were ripe. After having shaken down and eaten as many as they could, the children began to pelt each other with them. A big pear dropped under the hoofs of a couple of horses tied to a large pear tree. When I stooped to get hold of it, one of the animals dealt me a severe kick at the temple. There was general consternation, and the wound being seemingly dangerous, we came back immediately to town, and I was taken to the doctor.

The Dukes George and Barnim came to Stralsund with four hundred horsemen; they received homage and confirmed the privileges of the city. As for the claims of the priests, it was decided to refer them to the Imperial Chamber. Burgomasters, councillors, burghers, preachers (in all about threescore), were summoned to depose on oath before the Imperial Commissioners, sitting at Greifswald. The lawsuit cost the city a considerable sum; the clergy practically flung the money away, but the rector, Hippolytus Steinwer, began to perceive that the chances were turning against them, and one day he was found dead. It was believed he had strangled himself from vexation. That event put an end to the litigation. The priests returned one after another to Stralsund.

Gradually the sobered citizens began to open their eyes to the serious prejudice which was being done to public and private interests by the agitation of Moller. On the other hand, the princes had learned to know Smiterlow during the journey to Nuremberg; they were also aware of the esteem in which he had been held by their father. All those feelings showed themselves on the occasion of the rendering of homage. Rolof Moller was obliged to leave the city, and Burgomaster Smiterlow re-entered it on August 1, 1526. Moller, after a stay of several years at Stettin, received permission to come back to Stralsund, Smiterlow giving his consent; but scarcely a fortnight after his return had gone by when he died, it was said, of grief; and the assumption was sufficiently plausible.

Hence, Smiterlow spent the time of his exile at my mother's, at Greifswald, while his house at Stralsund sheltered my father. The wives of the two banished men went constantly and at all seasons from one town to another, through hail, snow, rain, frost and cold, and also to the great detriment of their purse and their health.

I have often been told afterwards I was a restless, energetic child. I often went up to the tower of St. Nicholas's, and on one occasion I made the round of it outside. My mother, standing on the threshold of her house, facing the church, was a witness of the feat, and dared scarcely breathe until her son came down safe and skin-whole. It would appear that little BartholomÄi had his reward at her hands.

While at Greifswald I had already been sent to school. Besides reading, I was taught declension, comparisons and conjugation, according to the grammar of Donat; after which we passed to Torrentinus. On Palm Sunday I was selected to intone the Quantus; the preceding years I had sung at first the short, then the long Hic est. What an honour for the child and for the parents! It was a real feast, for as a rule the sharpest boys are chosen those who, undeterred by the crowds of priests and laymen, bring out their clearest notes, especially for the Quantus. The continuation of this story will, however, soon show how, from being sanguine, my temperament became melancholy, and how my gaiety and recklessness vanished.