Bartholomew Sastrow: Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster. Bartholomäus Sastrow
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