Bartholomew Sastrow: Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster. Bartholomäus Sastrow
De Anima of Melanchthon on the other.
Meanwhile (1534–37) there were great disturbances in Stralsund. An ambitious demagogue of Lubeck, George Wullenweber, had involved the Hanseatic League in a Danish war. Smiterlow and Nicolas Sastrow thought that the war was wrong and foolish, and that it would endanger the interests of Stralsund. But a democracy, when once bitten by the war frenzy, is hard to curb, and regards moderation in the light of treason. Stralsund rose against its conservative council, forced Smiterlow to resign and compelled the elder Sastrow to remain a prisoner in his house for the period of a year. Father and son never forgot or forgave these years of plebeian uproar. For them the art of statesmanship was to avoid revolution and to keep the people under. "I recommend to my children submission to authority, no matter whether Pilate or Caiaphas governs." This was the last word of Bartholomew's political philosophy.
In 1535–6 the forces of the Hanse were defeated both by land and sea, and the war party saw the error of its ways. Sastrow was released, and his uncle-in-law was restored to office to die two years later, in 1539. But meanwhile things had gone ill with the Sastrow finances. Some skilful but dishonest ladies had purchased large consignments of cloth, not to speak of borrowing considerable sums of money from Nicholas Sastrow, and declined to pay their bill. During his imprisonment Nicholas had been unable to sell the stock of salt which he had laid in with a view to the Schonen herring season. A certain Mrs. Bruser, wife of a big draper, with a hardy conscience, had bought 1,725 florins' worth of the Sastrow cloth of the dishonest ladies. The Sastrows determined to get the money out of the Brusers. Bruser first avowed the debt, and then repudiated it, taking a mean advantage of the civic troubles of Stralsund and the decline of the Smiterlow-Sastrow interest. Thereupon began litigation which was not to cease for thirty-four years. The case was heard before the town court of Stralsund, then before the council of Stralsund, then before the oberhof or appellate court of Lubeck, and finally before the Imperial court of Spires. Bartholomew accompanied his father on the Lubeck journey, obtained his first insight into legal chicanery, and was, no doubt, effectually inoculated with the anti-Bruser virus. In 1541 the elder Sastrow obtained permission to return to Greifswald, and Bartholomew attended for a year the lectures of the Greifswald professors. The family circumstances, however (there were by this time five daughters and three sons), were too straitened to support the youth in idleness. Accordingly, in June, 1542, the two eldest sons left their home, partly to seek their fortunes, but more especially to watch the great Bruser case, which was winding its slow and slippery course through the reticulations of the Imperial Court at Spires.
There is no need to anticipate the lively narrative of Bartholomew's experiences in this home of litigation long-drawn-out. The reader will, however, note that he was lucky enough to come in for a Diet, and has an excellent story to tell of how the emperor was inadvertently horsewhipped by a Swabian carter. On May 19, 1544, Sastrow received the diploma of Imperial notary, and a month later he left Spires and entered the chancellerie of Margrave Ernest of Baden, at Pforzheim. This, however, was destined to prove but a brief interlude. In the summer of 1545 Sastrow is in the service of a receiver of the Order of St. John, Christopher von Löwenstein, who, after his Turkish wars, was living a frolicsome old age among his Frisian stallions, his huntsmen and his hounds. The picture of this frivolous old person, with his dwarf, his mistress, and his chaplain, is drawn with some spirit. Sastrow, who had so long felt the pinch of poverty, was now luxuriating in good fare and fine raiment. He has little to do, plenty to eat and drink, and his festivity was untempered by moral considerations. "Do not think to become a doctor in my house," said the genial host, and it must be confessed that the surroundings were not propitious to the study of the Institutes.
The news of John Sastrow's death put an end to this jollity. The poet laureate had been crossed in love, and sought oblivion in Italy. The panegyrist of Barns entered the service of a cardinal, and died at Acquapendente, without explaining theological inconsistencies, pardonable perhaps in lovelorn poets. Bartholomew determined to recover the property of his deceased brother, and set out for Italy on April 8, 1546. He walked to Venice over the Brenner, thence took ship to Ancona, and then travelled over the Apennines to Rome, by way of Loretto. The council was sitting at Trent, but theological gossip does not interest our traveller so much as the alto voices in the church choirs, and "the tomb of the infant Simeon, the innocent victim of the Jews." Nor is he qualified to play the rôle of intelligent tourist among the antiquities and art treasures of Italy. He was not a Benvenuto Cellini, still less a Nathaniel Hawthorne, bent on instructing the Philistine in the art of cultured enthusiasm. "A magnificent palace, a church all of marble, variously tinted and assorted with perfect art, twelve lions and lionesses, two tigers and an eagle that is all I remember of Florence."
Many modern tourists may not remember as much without Sastrow's excuses. Italy was by this time by no means a safe place for a German. Paul III was recruiting mercenaries to help the emperor to fight the League of Smalkald, and the Spanish Inquisition was industriously raging in Rome. It was sufficient to be a German to be suspected of heresy, and for the heretic, the pyre and the gibbet were ready prepared. It would be difficult to conceive a moment less propitious for aesthetic enjoyment. "Not a week without a hanging," says Sastrow, who was apparently careful to attend these lugubrious ceremonies. The excellence of the Roman wine increased the risk of an indiscretion, and by July Sastrow had determined that it would be well to extricate himself from the perils of Rome.
His reminiscences of the papal capital are vivid and curious. We seem to see the cardinal sweating in his shirt sleeves under the hot Italian sun, while his floor is being watered. Heavy-eyed oxen of the Campagna are dragging stone and marble through the streets to build the Farnese palace and splendid houses for the cardinals; the whole town is a tumult of building and unbuilding. Streets are destroyed to improve a view. If one of the effects of a celibate clergy is to promote immorality, another is to improve the cuisine of the taverns. Upon both topics Sastrow is eloquent, and there are too many confirmations from other quarters to permit us to doubt the substantial accuracy of his indictment.
By August 29, 1546, Sastrow was back at Stralsund. Through the good offices of Dr. Knipstrow, the general superintendent, he secured a post in the ducal chancellerie at Wolgast. His acuteness and industry obtained the respect of the Pomeranian chancellor, James Citzewitz, and he was given the most important business to transact. On March 10, 1547, he accompanied the ducal chancellors in the character of notary on a mission to the emperor. Ten years before the Dukes of Pomerania had joined the League of Smalkald, and they were now thoroughly alarmed at the Imperial victory at Muhlberg, and anxious to make their peace with Charles. The journey of the envoys is full of historical interest. Sastrow had to cross the field of Muhlberg and received ocular assurance of the horrors of the war and of the barbarities practised by the Spanish troops. He was a spectator of the humiliation of the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, at Halle, and to his narrative alone we owe the knowledge of the ironical laugh of the prince, and the angry threat of the emperor. From Halle the Pomeranian envoys followed Charles to Augsburg, having the good fortune to fall in with the drunken but scriptural Duke Frederick III of Liegnitz, of whose wild doings Sastrow can tell some surprising tales.
It must have been an astonishing experience, this life at Augsburg, while the Diet was sitting. The gravest theological and political problems, problems affecting the destiny of the Empire, were being handled in an atmosphere of unabashed debauchery and barbarism. Every one, layman and clerk, let himself go. Joachim of Brandenburg consented to the Interim for a bribe, and the Cardinal Granvelle, like Talleyrand afterwards, was able to build up an enormous fortune out of "the sins of Germany." In the midst of the coarse revels of the town the horrid work of the executioner was everywhere manifest. And, meanwhile, the grim emperor dines silently in public, seeming to convey a sullen rebuke to the garrulous hospitality of his brother Ferdinand, and to the loose morals of the princes.
The cause of the Pomeranian mission did not much prosper at Augsburg, and Sastrow and his friends pursued the emperor to Brussels, where they were at last able to effect the desired reconciliation. For the services rendered on this occasion Sastrow was made the Pomeranian solicitor at the court of Spires. The second Spires residence was clearly a period of honourable and not ungainful activity. Sastrow is busy with ducal cases; he makes another journey to the Netherlands in order to present Cardinal Granvelle with some golden flagons, and has occasion to admire the treasures of the great Flemish cities.