Chapter VIII: I Hear John Tetzel

Moritz sent all possible apologies in behalf of his father. “An affair of the cups” explained everything to my castle-folk. The clouds so suddenly gathered as suddenly blew over. I visited no more at Schloss Blankenburg, but almost daily Moritz met me at a great oak betwixt our respective fortress mansions, and forth we rode on the hunt. The Graf wisely kept to himself. The abbess had returned to Quedlinburg. Lady Ilsa was with us often. A chameleon was she,--now the dignified, courtly dame who honored me merely by suffering me to ride decorously at her saddle-bow, now the merry-eyed girl who gave me the same familiar chatter she granted her brother, now the sedate and pious woman who told long stories of the blessed saints and the evil witches, pressed me as to the nature of “succubi and incubi,” and asked with perfect seriousness “whether she did not have an entire vocation for the convent?” At Rome I had conceitedly thought that I comprehended womankind; but I did not then know Ilsa.

Life at the Regenstein was become, by this time, tolerable. Ever the northern beauty of the Harzland grew on me; the sniff of the pines, the long silences of the hills. I began to find the honest friendliness of my uncouth retainers more agreeable than the elaborate service of lips and gesture which Andrea bestowed. I even began to find a music in the German speech. The stubble on my chin was grown to a decent length. I wore clothes after the somewhat loud and full-cut fashion of the country.

“Your noble Grace is become a right Harzlander like his sires,” said Adolf, one day, approvingly.

Nevertheless, when summer passed into autumn, and I saw the rains destroying the glory of the greenwood, I concurred with Moritz when he suggested that I ride with him to Wittenberg. Ilsa had been asked thither for the winter to the home of her maternal aunt, the Freifau von Steinitz; and as for me, I would find congenial and advantageous company at the local court of the Elector of Saxony, the far renowned Frederick the Wise.

How we fared down from the Harzland into the rich valley of the Elbe, how by a detour we visited the free and wealthy city of Magdeburg, and were astonished at the elegance of its princely burghers, and how finally we must needs make another detour towards Berlin to visit an old military friend of my father’s, I leave out as immaterial. After quitting our host’s castle we found ourselves, late in October, traversing the sandy plain that forms the southern part of the Markgravate of Brandenburg. The country was poor, the peasants dwelling in wretched little mud villages, the castles to offer us hospitality few, and the inns intolerable. We therefore hastened over the last stages of the way to Jüterbog with all possible speed, being told that a cleanly inn and decent fare at last awaited us, and need we had of both.

While yet we were about two German miles[2] from the town, and upon a most solitary road, we were amazed at the number of wayfarers our cavalcade overtook--old men on their canes, round peasant women with children hanging at their skirts, and whole bands of sturdy wayfarers, usually carrying goodly bundles of provisions as if for a long journey. Occasionally we passed creaking ox-carts whereon a whole family were sitting in the straw. Once a company of wandering scholars ran up to us to beg “Charity for God’s sake!” in very bad Latin. We were all mystified, until at a watering trough a trudging rascal, who called himself a mendicant friar on pilgrimage to the Swiss shrine of Eisiedeln, gave the key.

“Whither go all these folk?” asked Moritz from his saddle; “to a shooting tournament?”

“To a holier sport than that, please your Lordship,” spoke the fellow, holding out his hand for a groschen.

“Well, tell us, then.”

“Why, the reverend Master Tetzel, His Holiness’s own special Commissioner, will preach and sell the new plenary indulgences this afternoon before the church at Jüterbog.”

“Indulgences?” I saw Gräfin Ilsa’s pretty ears prick up like a rabbit’s. “What do you mean?”

“Why, your Ladyship can learn for herself when she gets to Jüterbog. Not that noble folk like you have great sins upon your conscience, but still these are the most potent indulgences ever hawked. The Lord Pope’s special granting, you know.”

“What we heard of at Magdeburg,” frowned Moritz to me, but Ilsa was all attention.

“Your Lordships would do well to hear Master Tetzel,” ran on the glib rogue. “You see, he goes to Jüterbog because it is the nearest town to Saxony, the Elector having forbidden him to enter his dominions.”

“Another proof the Elector is justly called ‘the Wise,’” I remarked, signing to ride on. But from that moment Ilsa had lost interest in everything else, and questions from other wayfarers brought out abundance of information.

“Oh, yes, your Ladyship,” said an old peasant, “we have travelled clear from Bitterfeld, my wife and I, to hear Master Tetzel. They say he sells a wondrous indulgence--if you have one, your sins are washed clean white; and they avail equally well to get your friends out of purgatory if they have gone before you.”

“Crafty rascal,” I was muttering to Moritz. “I heard of this indulgence even in Rome. Half of the money _may_ go to build St. Peter’s church, but the other half, I take my oath, goes to the Fuggers, those Augsburg bankers who advanced the Archbishop of Mainz his 30,000 gulden to pay the Pope’s fees for his confirmation: and now the Archbishop is recouping himself.”

“And as for Tetzel,” quoth Moritz, with an equal shrug, “he is a hang-dog Dominican of vile fame in these parts. Rumor makes him out as condemned for adultery at Innsbruck five years ago, and barely saved by the Elector of Saxony’s pleading; possibly the story’s unjust, but you can judge the man after you see him. At least, he has a front and a voice of brass--the noisy villain.”

But my Lady Ilsa heard, or would hear, nothing of such innuendoes. After another pious wayfarer had suggested that one could probably buy an indulgence for some absent friend, I could ever see her giving the whip to her palfrey and leading us all.

“It’s her father that’s on her mind, poor lass!” spoke Moritz to me under his breath. “I know what you are thinking, and I think the same; but if for a few gulden we can get a scrap of paper that will make _her_ a bit happier--who in the devil’s name should make a face?”

And so we pressed onward. We saw the towers of Jüterbog, a little before noon, across the brown, sear grain fields of the advancing autumn. Solemn dark windmills were waving their long arms above the farmsteads. The squalid little thatched villages were pouring out their tow-headed northern peasantry, all headed for Jüterbog. At the gate of the small city and in the main street we could hardly win a way to the principal inn--despite vigorous laying about with our riding whips. We found the ‘Reichskanzler’ a very endurable hostelry, and luckily the best rooms were not taken, but mine host bustled up to us while at dinner to inform “their Lordships that they had best hasten their repast if they wished to see the reverend Commissioner of Indulgences enter the city.”

The inn naturally faced upon the chief square opposite the church. A convenient window was reserved for us, and quite at our ease we witnessed a sight which we were not to forget for many a long day. Only, through it all, I had one eye on the swarming street below, and one on Gräfin Ilsa, who sat flushed, eager, beautiful, as if expecting some kind angel to come down and bring a miraculous deliverance. And repeatedly I marvelled to myself at the fate which made the mad heretic and infidel of Messere Chigi’s feast the silent witness of what now came to pass.

At first the market-place seemed a mere fair ground. Two husky peasants were wrestling in a ring; a juggler was showing a few poor tricks from the church steps; vendors of bright ribbons, little knives, and red cloth caps cried their wares; a swarm of thirsty folk were coming and going from the wine cellar under the Rathaus. Then of a sudden the great bell on high began its booming. The folk came thronging into the square from every alley, making the whole place a sea of heads with a narrow avenue up to the church door. Next the blowing of horns and the chanting of the _Te Deum_ by many voices; and in streamed the procession. The local priests in their whitest surplices led, next the dark-gowned monks of the local convent, while altar boys ran at either side swinging the smoking censers; then the gravely gowned magistrates of the town, after them a vast herd of laymen, members of various religious brotherhoods, bearing many gay banners. These were followed by a multitude of school children, rosy and clean, and dressed in their best, all singing a hymn in praise of the Blessed Virgin. Then a kind of trembling seized the crowd. Necks craned, hats came off, a great many fell upon their knees on the flagging.

“Give heed, Christians,” a crier’s voice proclaimed. “The Reverend Master Tetzel and the warrant of His Holiness!”

A young monk bore a great parchment on a purple velvet cushion,--the commission of the Pope to the indulgence vendor. A second monk bore a tall red cross whereon the papal arms were emblazoned; and then, walking alone, and turning from time to time to lift his hand unctuously to bestow benediction upon the awestruck multitude, came the Reverend Master Tetzel.

The organ rumbled from the church, the procession streamed into it, and as many of the less orderly multitude followed as could find room. They were gone long enough to say a brief mass, and then, just as Ilsa was showing every sign of impatience, the Commissioner emerged again, and with similar pomp took his stand upon a small pulpit erected near the portal, with the red papal cross above him, and at his right,--significantly enough--a stout, iron-bound chest, secured by several padlocks. Beside the chest I saw a well-groomed merchant’s clerk whom I rightly suspected was the agent of the Fuggers, to make sure those worthy bankers received their share of the pious offerings.

Master Tetzel was a tall, full-necked Dominican who knew how to make his black robe fall in impressive folds. Later I discovered that his face was hard, cynical, and none too honest; but we saw him then only from across the market-place, whence his bull’s voice easily carried. The harangue he uttered was evidently a well-tested article, approved by its effect on many similar audiences. He began by extolling the charity of the Pope, who deigned to bestow such peculiar graces upon the German people, a folk he preferred above all the rest of Christendom. As for the object for which they were summoned to contribute their money, it was for the building of the Basilica of St. Peter, the holiest sanctuary in the world. But what, in any case, were a few miserable gulden beside the chance then and there for every one present to win eternal life for himself and for all his friends?

I cannot tell all his artful threatenings and persuadings, all his utterances about the vast treasury of good deeds accumulated by Christ, the Apostles, and manifold saints but now thrown freely at the disposal of any purchaser of indulgence. I will not deny he dropped words to the effect that a formal confession was necessary before the “blessed medicine” began its perfect effect upon the living, but it was very plain that he who paid the money would not find many difficulties in the shriving. As for the dead--now doubtless in purgatory--here was a marvellous chance to deliver them!

“I call on you all--great sinners, murderers, robbers, adulterers, to turn to God and receive this miraculous medicine which He in his mercy and wisdom has provided for your benefit. St. Stephen gave up his body to be stoned--his virtue is yours. St. Laurenz his to be burned, yours also. The martyrdom of St. Bartholomew is imputed to you again. And yet you--amongst whom even the most righteous is a miserable offender--will you not give one little gift of vile money to purchase eternal life?”

And then while women wept, and stolid peasants shook, he thundered the virtue of his indulgences touching the dead; and through it all I could see Ilsa’s tense, white face leaning farther, farther from the balcony.

“Your parents and relatives, sinners before God even if righteous before men, are in the flames of purgatory. They are crying out to you, ‘We are in bitterest torments; with a small alms you could save us, but you will not. We gave you birth, nourished you, and left you all our temporal goods; yet such is your cruelty towards us that you, so able to make us free, suffer us to lie in the fire.’”

“Is the action of the indulgence swift and sure even in purgatory?” cried some voice from the front of the gaping multitude.

Tetzel clapped his powerful hands together. “Yea verily! By God and all his angels!

‘The money in the strong box rings--
The ransomed soul to heaven upsprings!’

“I say unto you no words can describe the power and merit of these indulgences. Never before was such opportunity for sinful men. Yes! He who had been marvellously suffered to do foulest insult to the Holy Mother of God--pardon would be here for him!”

And then he threw his eyes upward and made the market-place shake with his stentorian summons.

“Lo! Heaven is opened! When will you enter if not now? Oh, senseless men, too hardened to appreciate such a bestowal of divine grace! How hard-hearted! If you will not think of yourselves, think at least of your parents, your father, your mother!” (Poor Ilsa’s head went down upon her hands. Moritz put his manly arm about her, while I discreetly looked upon Tetzel. The orator swept on to his turgid climax.) “Thus I have spoken. The hour of mercy passes. The hour of awful judgment will be at hand. At that last judgment I am free, you responsible; for I tell you that if you have but one garment, sell it; sell it--rather than fail to gain such a wondrous grace!”

By this time men and women were down on the stones, moaning, beating their breasts, and crying out for all manner of mercy. Tetzel stepped deliberately from the pulpit; and a lieutenant of milder voice explained the practical details. There was a scale of prices for the indulgence based upon the rank of the purchaser and the enormity of his guilt. Wives were advised to get indulgences for their absent husbands, who need know nothing about them in advance. There were priests ready in the church to hear confessions, and as soon as these had been gone through (and very perfunctorily, I may add) and the money paid, the indulgence was granted; while of course for souls in purgatory only the money would be required.

Soon a swarm as of bees was around the tables set now on the church steps, where several of the Commissioner’s clerks busily filled in the blank indulgence papers; and you could hear the steady chink, chink of good coin into the chest. Master Tetzel had known his audience. He was reaping an abundant harvest for his holy employers and the Fuggers.

Half amused and half disgusted I turned away, when I saw Gräfin Ilsa rising.

“My purse, brother,” she was saying; “I must go to the church.”

I let Moritz remonstrate with her, uttering, myself, not a word. He availed nothing. Away she went to the church with her two maids, both about as scared and fluttering as herself; and we sat gnawing our lips and thinking hard thoughts till they came back again. As imagined, the Gräfin had been as a lamb among wolves to the reverend indulgence sellers. She had purchased “graces” for herself, for her brother, for her departed mother, and above all for her father. The crafty vendors, at once divining her gentle blood, had pried out her true rank and taxed her ten good gulden per document, as the tariff duly provided for “abbots, great prelates, counts, barons, and others of the higher nobility,” for each of the precious letters. And there these letters were, most handsomely engrossed and sealed; whilst over her father’s the little lady poured especially, and read aloud to us the solemn words.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee, Eckbert von
Blankenburg, and absolve thee by the merits of his most holy
sufferings. And I in virtue of the apostolic power granted unto
me, absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and
penalties that thou mayest have incurred, however great. I efface
all the stains of weakness and traces of shame. I remit the pains
thou wouldest have had to endure in purgatory. I reincorporate
thee in the communion of the saints, so at the moment of death
the gate of paradise shall be opened to thee. And if thou
shouldest live long, this grace continueth unchangeable, until
the time of thy end.”

“But,” asked Moritz, none too enthusiastically, “must not our father go to confession before this indulgence becomes potent for him?”

“There was, indeed,” admitted Ilsa, “a little said about a confession, but the Commissioner’s clerk was very certain the main thing was the ten gulden. In any case, I can get Father Augustin to absolve my father, and all will be well.”

“So, dear Gräfin,” I said, I fear a little cynically, “you are quite satisfied of the strength and validity of these holy indulgences?”

“You saw the Pope’s arms; you heard the preacher’s words. It _must_ be all true, else whom in God’s world are we poor maids to believe?”

“Don’t press her,” growled Moritz in my ear; “drowning men will clutch at straws. For a little while she is being made very happy.”

But as for me, my blood had nigh boiled over. That night, after the Gräfin and her brother had retired, I went down into the great common room of the inn, and there in a roaring company, cans clinking and foul jests going about full merrily, was his Reverence the Pope’s Commissioner. I strode straight into the herd of wandering friars, discharged lanz-knechts, guzzling burghers, and up to the armchair where the Herr Preacher sat, with a fat, sly-eyed bar wench hanging on his elbow. The sight of a man in the dress of a gentleman, and with a silver scabbard, made everybody put down his mug, and look sharply as I accosted the Commissioner.

“Magister Johannes Tetzel,” spoke I clearly in Latin, standing before him, “I would speak with you.”

“Welcome, welcome to your Lordship,” the fellow slipped his flagon back to the woman and turned on me an eye as worldly wise as a rat’s; “your nobility would purchase one of my matchless and infallible soul medicaments?”

“Not for all the world. Now hear me, Herr Papal Commissioner. I have perforce to-day listened to your sermon, and very vile it was. I am a layman, but I know as much theology as full many gorging clerks; and I say to your face, you are befooling these honest folk out of their poor money as foully as did ever a Jew with his usury.”

The reverend domine flashed out of his seat like a bursting petard. His face was red as a beet.

“A million fiends! What have we here--a Turkish infidel? Am I not the lawful Apostolic Commissioner and Inquisitor into Heretical Pravity? Do you want utter anathema and the major excommunication?”

“Pish,” I responded, deliberately banging my hilt upon the table, “I have lived in Rome. I’m not a silly girl to be scared by big words and hell fire. I say to you, you have exceeded your commission. Debatable as are all the Pope’s indulgences, you have preached them in a manner your betters never authorized.”

“Now, by St. Dominic,” sneered the preacher, recovering a little of his poise, “who are you, my brave ritter, to swagger in here, and talk like a bishop? If you _have_ been in Rome, you will remember the saying there current, ‘God desireth not the death of any sinner, but that he should _pay_ and live’; and as for my instructions, I have followed them so excellently well that my chest is exceeding heavy, and that is all the Archbishop of Mainz or the Pope are likely to ask about.”

“Or the banking house of the Fuggers,” I flung back, casting an eye upon the spruce agent who sat by his wine in a corner. “Verily, Magister Tetzel, I hear that at your north country festivals there is a prize to the champion telling the greatest lie. By all the devils in hell I swear you are full victor!”

All this cut and thrust brought nowhere, and I was a fool to have believed that I could have accomplished anything. I was too furious to argue calmly, and Tetzel was beyond all argument. At least the reverend rascal heard his sins set before him in no mincing language. At last realizing that our colloquy was passing into a mere badinage of coarse epithets and empty threats, I had the wisdom to turn on my heel.

“No doubt, my venerable scoundrel,” I cried, as a last volley, “you have never heard of the learned Italian Masuccio. Grow wise, then, hearing what he said of you friars. ‘The best punishment for you would be for God to abolish purgatory and the fear thereof; then you would get no more alms and must go back to your spades.’”

“Heresy! Blasphemy!” roared the Commissioner and a dozen satellites. So I left them, calling for their “sleeping drinks” and making the dice rattle.

I went to bed in the most impious mood imaginable. The affair had confirmed me in my long standing suspicion that what most men called religion was a noxious lie.

“Curses on the faith that makes a creature like Ilsa--born to dwell in the sunlight--live out her days in terror and gnawing woe! If god I must have, let him be the Zeus of Plato and Aristotle.” And with such unholy thoughts, presently I went to sleep.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] About nine English miles.