Bartholomew Sastrow: Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster. Bartholomäus Sastrow
that he had scarcely time to hand his horse to his servant before he dropped down dead. His neck was entirely twisted round, and his face was black. As a matter of course, people ascribed it to a visitation of God for having made fun of those who preached His Word.
In 1528 the States were called together at Stettin to ratify the pact of succession between the Elector of Brandenburg and the Dukes of Pomerania. The deputy of Greifswald, Burgomaster Gaspard Bunsaw, my mother's first cousin, took me with him as page, or rather as companion, and also to enable me to see something new. Our host had a magnificent garden; on the banks of a vast lake uprose a vast tower with an inside staircase, closed by a trap. One day that the company was amusing itself in watching the carps from that tower, I hauled myself up to the window out of curiosity, but I forgot the yawning trap door behind me, and was flung right to the bottom. It was a miracle that I did not break my neck, or, at any rate, my arms and my legs. Heaven preserved me by means of its angels, who frustrate the tricks of the Evil One.
At the age of five, Nicholas, the eldest son of Bertrand Smiterlow, was already much taller and stronger than I; this incarnate fiend worried all the children of the neighbourhood, and instead of reprimanding him, his father took no notice of the complaints against him. This indulgence bore such excellent fruit that in order to prevent disputes and perhaps personal violence between young Nicholas' father and the neighbours, Christian Schwarz considered it advisable to take Nicholas to live with him, and so we shared the same bed. One morning as we were dressing on the big locker at the foot of the bed, the youngster, without saying a word and out of sheer mischief, hit me right in the chest and made me tumble backward, a downright dangerous fall. The grandfather gave a dinner-party to his children and other people. Late in the evening the servants came with links to take their masters home. While they were waiting for that purpose, Nicholas began to play them tricks, which they endured from fear of the grandfather. Rendered bold by impunity, Nicholas struck some of the servants on the lips, but one of these retorted by a box on the ears which sent Nicholas whining to his grandfather. After the banquet the lanterns were lighted, and everybody was preparing to get home quietly when Bertrand Smiterlow, drawing his knife, rushed at the offending servant, who was lighting his master on his way, and wounded him seriously in the shoulder. On account of all this Christian Schwarz preferred to send me back to Stralsund to leaving me to enjoy the risky society of Nicholas. The boy grew up and his faults with him, for they amused his father, who encouraged them while nobody dared to say a word in protest. Nicholas had reached the age of twenty-seven when travelling to Rostock, he stopped for the night at Roevershagen. Some travellers, knowing his quarrelsome character, preferred to take themselves and their conveyance to the inn opposite. One of these had a sporting dog, which, running about, found its way into the hostel where Smiterlow was staying. The latter tied up the animal, did not send it back, and next morning the rightful owner saw it being taken away on a leash. Naturally, the man claimed his dog. Smiterlow, instead of giving him a civil answer, takes aim at him; the other, more prompt, quickly fires a bullet into the thigh. Smiterlow, in his wounded condition, got as far as Rostock, had his wound attended to; nevertheless died a few days later in consequence. The merchant continued his route without troubling himself, and no one lodged a complaint. Bertrand Smiterlow contracted the itch in the back; father and son, therefore, had their just reward. Heaven preserve me from criticizing the descendants of Herr Smiterlow, to whom I am doubly related, but I trust that mine will bring up their children in a more severe discipline and in the respect of their fellow-men.
In 1529 the English pest which had already been spoken of during the previous year, carried away many people at Stralsund. My mother had two attacks, from both of which she fortunately recovered. Being enceinte with my brother Christian, she ordered, like the good housewife she was, a general cleaning before her confinement. It so happened that we had a servant-girl who was possessed. Nobody had the faintest suspicion of this. When, at the moment of cleaning the kitchener and cooking utensils, she began noisily to fling about saucepans, frying-pans, etc., crying at the top of her voice, "I want to get out, I want to get out." Her mother, who lived in the Zinngiesser Strasse (Pewterers' Street), had to take her back. The poor girl was taken several times in a sleigh to St. Nicholas's, and they exorcised her after the sermon. Her case, as far as the answers tended to show, was as follows: The mother had brought new cheese at the market. In her absence, the daughter had opened the cupboard and made a large breach in the cheese; the mother, on her return, had expressed the wish that the devil might take the perpetrator of this thing, and from that moment dated the "possession." The girl had, nevertheless, been to Communion since; how, then, could the Evil One have kept his position? The priest, interrogated on that point, had answered: "The scoundrel, who has hidden himself under a bridge, lets the honest man pass over his head"; in other words, during the sacramental act, the Evil One hid himself under the girl's tongue. The Evil One was excommunicated and exorcised by the faithful on their bended knees. The formula of exorcism was received with derision. When the priest summoned him to go, he exclaimed: "I am agreeable, but you do not expect me to go with empty hands. I want this, and that, and the other." If they refused him one thing he asked for something quite different; and inasmuch as one of the faithful had remained "covered" during prayers, the Evil One politely snatched up his hat, and if God had let him have his own way, hair and skin would have accompanied the headgear.
At about the same period I witnessed an analogous fact. Frau Kron, an honest and pious matron, was possessed by a demon; the minister was preparing to drive it out at all costs when Frau Wolff entered. She was a young woman who surpassed her sisters in the art of beautifying her face, arranging her cap, and posing before the looking glass. When the evil spirit caught sight of her, he shouted. "Ah, you are here, are you? Just wait a bit till I arrange your cap before the mirror. Your ears shall tingle, I can tell you."
To come back to our own servant. When the power of mischief noticed that the time for tormenting her had passed away, and that the Lord was granting the prayers of the faithful, the Evil One asked in a mocking tone a pane of the belfry's window, which request was no sooner accorded to him than the pane shivered into ever so many splinters. The girl, however, ceased to be possessed; she married in the village, and had several children.
My brother Johannes had for his first tutor Herr Aepinus, before the latter had his doctor's degree,[14] and afterwards Hermannus Bonus,[15] who would have been pleased to settle at Stralsund with fifty florins per annum, but the council of that particular period did not contain one member who had had a university training. Like the princes the council inclined towards papism, and looked askance at men of letters; hence, it rejected Bonnus' overtures. The latter soon afterwards became the tutor of the young King of Denmark, for whose use he composed his Praecepta Grammaticae, which was much more easy than the Donat Grammar, and prevails to the present day under the title of the Grammatica Bonni. At his return from Denmark, Bonnus was appointed superintendent at Lubeck, where he is interred honorifice behind the choir.
When my brother left the school at Lubeck, my parents made many heavy sacrifices to keep him at Wittemberg for several years, where, notwithstanding some delicta juventutis, he studied with advantage.
My tutor's name was Matthias Brassanus. At the outset of his career he had been a monk at the monastery of Camp, but at the suppression of the institution he had lived at Wittemberg at the cost of the prince, like Leonard Meisisch, the future court preacher and minister at Wolgast, and afterwards pastor at Altenkirchen--a downright Epicurean pig! Brassanus, on the other hand, was a small, polite, temperate, well-bred, evenly balanced man. After his stay at Wittemberg he became the preceptor of George and Johannes Smiterlow, and afterwards rector scholae. Their worships of Lubeck having prevailed upon the council of Stralsund to part with this able teacher, Brassanus devoted the whole of his life successfully directing the school of Lubeck.
I profited as much by the lessons as my natural restlessness of character permitted. There was a great deal of aptitude, but the application failed. In the winter time I ran amusing myself on the floating ice with my fellow-scholars of my own age. Johannes Gottschalk, our ringleader, always got scot-free, thanks to his long legs, while the rest of the gang (and I was invariably with them) took many enforced footbaths in order to get safely to the banks. My father, in crossing the bridge had occasion more than once to witness the prowess of his son, who received many a sound drubbing when he came to dry himself