“As far as any leadership that I can see,” Scott Blackwell said, “it’s still fairly inchoate at this point. I mean, insofar as there is any visible leadership, it’s come to be focused on Frankenwinheim. But that’s largely because of the publicity stemming from the attack on Maydene, Estelle, and Willa back in December and our own propaganda. I don’t have the vaguest idea who the real leader of this ram movement is-or who the leaders are, if they are multiple. Or where they are. And that, believe me, bothers me a lot.”
“At least,” Johnnie F. Haun said, “we do pretty much know what they’re thinking. Or, at least what they’re putting out in pamphlets, what they want their followers to think. They have to have access to some pretty good printing press. Which means they, or some of them, at least, have to be somewhere that they can get paper. Somewhere that they can haul the paper in; haul the pamphlets out. The broadsides and placards are one thing, but not all the pamphlets. They have to be using a press in one of the cities. I just can’t see some little village up in the hills producing those under the noses of the Amtmann and the constable. Not to mention under the nose of the priest. Not, at least, unless some fairly prominent people are in sympathy with the whole thing.”
“Is that the way it looks to you?” Scott asked.
“Not here in Wuerzburg, I’m sure of that,” Johnnie F. answered.
Steve Salatto raised his eyebrows. “Somewhere?”
“Over at Fulda, maybe. Orville thinks…”
Steve motioned to Weckherlin. “That’s Orville Beattie, the Fulda organizer for Johnnie F.’s ‘Hearts and Minds’ team.”
“Thank you.” Weckherlin nodded as he took notes.
“Orville thinks, but he can’t prove it, that some of the monks from the abbey are backing the farmers. Not the important ones, so much-the nobles who are there because their families put them there. But the guys out in the rural regions, the provosts as they’re called, who manage the farms and the estates, and see more of what the people have been put through these last couple of years. The invasion by the Hessians and all. Yeah, I know that the landgrave of Hesse is one of Gustavus Adolphus’ allies, but his soldiers aren’t any different from all the rest. Some of the provosts, at least, are sort of sympathetic to the desire of the people in the ram organization. To fight back, I mean. Against-well, against anyone who comes along to hassle them again.”
Weckherlin was frowning. But still taking notes.
Johnnie F. felt a little guilty for not mentioning Frau Else Kronacher in Bamberg, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was her press being used by the ram. Just ninety-nine percent sure. If Scott and Vince had Stew looked into it, that would cause trouble for her, and she had problems enough with those two boys. Not to mention that she did a lot of work for Stew and the rest of the Hearts and Minds team in Bamberg and it would be a nuisance for Stew to have to find another printer. And…
He suspected he was just rationalizing his decision to keep quiet. But he figured if there did turn out to be a problem, he’d take care of it himself without bothering Steve and Scott.
Chapter 8:
“But You Think That We Are Going To Hell”
Bamberg, February 1634
It was a very small flock. Johann Matthaeus Meyfarth looked out at the fruits of his efforts to organize a Lutheran congregation. He proceeded through the liturgy. General prayer for the church. Collect for peace. Prayer for those whom God had placed in authority over his flock. Sacrament of the altar.
In the afternoon, he wrote. Accompanied by more prayers. Propaganda pieces-many organizational in nature, but well salted with the theme of, “This isn’t the time to settle your personal scores; hold that until after we have won. Then we can take our complaints through a fair judicial system in which we have a say.”
Propaganda for people who were preparing to revolt against those whom God had placed in positions of authority. Propaganda that might, if they heard it, hold the flock back from worse sins than simply demanding justice.
Twelve Points. Twelve because of the echo of the Bundschuh that it raised. Shorter, much shorter, than the Twelve Articles of 1524. Some the same. Some different. Printed, circulated.
The ram had asked him to do this. The ram, he had found, was guarding his flock. And himself.
1. There shall be complete separation of church and state, with no imperial knight, free lord, or other ruler, be he count or duke or king or emperor, having the right to dictate the conscience of his subjects;
2. Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist parishes request the right to choose their ministers from a list of qualified men provided by the ecclesiastical authorities, which we know that the administration, because of the separation of church and state, cannot make the churches do, yet we ask it; we say that other religious groups tolerated by the civil governments may pick their own leaders by their own rules, however they set up their organization;
3. All lords and imperial knights whose lands are enclaves within Franconia must permit their subjects to vote in the upcoming elections, saying that they themselves should have such a right to vote also;
4. We demand the end of all vestiges of serfdom on private estates of imperial knights and lords as well as on those which escheated from the bishops and abbot to the administration of the New United States; specifically the ending of restrictions on movement, restrictions on the right to marry, death duties of the best beast and best garment, and compulsory labor services on the lord’s own land, though we state that we are nonetheless willing to work the corvees when they are needed for the common good, as on the roads, fords and bridges, as is customary;
5. We demand that local custom be respected in regard to inheritance rights of leases on farms and other rural property, with no requirement for partible or impartible inheritance, etc. being imposed from above;
6. All towns in Franconia must open their citizenship to villagers, as long as they are of good repute and not criminals; citizens of Franconia and their families are to have freedom of movement and settlement anywhere within the territory administered by the State of Thuringia, whether city, market town, or village;
7. Guilds in the towns and cities of Franconia must open training in skilled work to rural applicants and not exclude them on the grounds that they are dishonorable because they carry the taint of serfdom, for all vestiges of serfdom are abolished; guilds must permit widows to continue to operate their husband’s business until such time as they marry, pass them on to an heir, or sell them, and make free choice of a buyer;
8. Secondary education is to be open to all; Latin schools in the towns must provide recommended scholars from the village schools with Latin lessons and admit them as soon as they qualify to do the work required by a Latin school;
9. Village-born persons must have the right to enter the service of the state and counties and be promoted as their education qualifies them, with no jobs reserved for the nobility or town patriciates;
10. We demand a standardized coinage and currency, resulting in fair tax assessments, and we request the publication of a clear, easy to understand, tax code written in plain language, in order that we need not pay more than we owe because we are simple ignorant men. We also ask for the abolition of the tithes, being willing to pay fair compensation to those who have bought them and submit the adjudication of fair compensation to impartial arbitrators;
11. We demand the end of internal tolls and tariffs, those imposed by the local lords and the imperial knights whose lands are enclaves within Franconia, saying that if such lords and knights are willing to become citizens of Franconia, they shall have all the rights of other men;
12. We demand standardized weights and measures, so that it is less easy for the clever and cunning to cheat the simple and trusting, that a bushel may everywhere be a bushel and a tun everywhere a tun.
* * *
Frankenwinheim, Franconia, February, 1634
“It is safe for Pastor Meyfarth, I think,” Old Kaethe said. “At least as safe as anything can be in these latter days. I am glad that Frau Else thought of her. Die alte Neideckerin.”
Constantin Ableidinger nodded. He tried to get back to Frankenwinheim on a regular basis. The villagers there were the closest thing he had to friends. He had finally, since his obligations to the Ram had become so heavy, sent Matthias to the gymnasium in Coburg. The boy should be safe there. As safe, as Old Kaethe had said, as anyone could be in these latter days. But he missed his son. Since the remarkable episode of the three auditors, he had returned to Frankenwinheim twice.
“At least, in Bamberg, the Ram’s men can continue to keep an eye on Meyfarth.” He tilted back on two legs of his stool and waved his stein at Old Kaethe.
“What do you think?” She poured his beer.
“I would have preferred, if possible, to keep religion out of it altogether. Since I can’t, apparently, it’s just as well that the religious points are being pushed by a rational man rather than by some visionary on the model of the 1536 Muensterites. Or by an up-timer such as this Herr Thornton. If he were writing this propaganda, as they call it, Fuchs von Bimbach and his followers would rejoice. As it is… Well, the radical demands of a century ago seem comparatively conservative in this day and age.” He laughed. “Which may represent progress.”
Rudolph Vulpius stroked his goatee. “What about von Bimbach? He’s the leader of the most intransigent of the knights and little nobles. I think we need to do something about him. What about the request that we have received from this Miss Noelle Murphy through the Hearts and Minds Team? Have you taken my suggestion seriously? That we should contact Judith Neideckerin? It’s not the only possibility. I have ties to other people on the estates of various branches of the Fuchs family. Not amicable ties, necessarily, but ties.”
The villagers present looked at each other.
Ableidinger, a comparative newcomer to Frankenwinheim, cleared his throat.
“In the days of my grandfather,” Vulpius said, “there was a maid serving on their estates here in the Steigerwald. Children for whom the Freiherr of that day provided funds for education. A lease on favorable terms for the man the maid eventually married that set him up as one of the village’s most prosperous tenants. An appointment as bailiff. The kind of thing that got a boy sent to school to the point he Latinized his name to Vulpius.”
Ableidinger grinned.
“Judith owes us,” Old Kaethe insisted, refusing to let irrelevant history distract her from more immediate concerns. “We are the ones who took her out of Bamberg in 1628 and saw to it that she reached Bayreuth safely. Now that Pastor Meyfarth is living in her mother’s house in Bamberg…”
Her voice trailed off until a new grievance crossed her mind. “Not to mention that Pastor Schaeffer is over in Bimbach’s castle serving as a chaplain since he left the village. And is suing to try to force us to continue paying his stipend on the grounds that he did not leave voluntarily…” Old Kaethe snorted. “I can’t imagine that Judith Neideckerin likes Pastor Schaeffer. He’s probably condemning her as a scarlet woman, sermon after sermon.”
Ableidinger chewed on his upper lip. “Did von Bimbach force her to become his mistress? Does she hold a grudge against him?”
“He made it plain that if she wanted him to continue providing her with a refuge from Bamberg’s witch-hunters, he expected adequate compensation for the risk. Otherwise, if she valued her virtue too highly, she was quite free to return to her parents’ house. That was at the height of the burnings.”
“She’s good looking.”