Q by Luther Blissett (poetry books to read txt) 📕
The final blow: 'Omnia sunt communia, sons of whores!'
His head flies into the dust.
* * *
The houses are being ransacked. Doors smashed in with kicks and axe-blows. We'll be next. No time to lose. I lean over him.
'Magister, listen to me, we've got to go, they're coming... For the love of God, Magister...' I grasp his shoulders. He whispers a reply. He can't move. Trapped, we're trapped.
Like Elias.
My hand clutches my sword. Like Elias. I wish I had his courage.
'What do you think you're doing? We've had enough of martyrdom. Go on, get out while you can!'
The voice. As though from the bowels of the earth. I can't believe he's spoken. He's moving even less than be
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October ‘24 ended with another expulsion extra muros. This time it happened in Nuremberg. About a week previously the two adepts of Herrgott’s press had delivered the fruits of their sleepless nights and days of furious toil; the two pieces of writing that the Magister had brought with him from M�hlhausen: five hundred copies of The Manifest Interpretation, more again of the Confutation. Apart from this, the changes made to the method of composition of the quartos had given us several thousand separate small sheets, on which was reproduced a very short version of our programme, along with incitements, directed above all at women, and mentioning the blessings of the Lord who would protect us with the sword if need be. We would be able to distribute them freely as we travelled through the countryside, through villages and the outskirts of the towns. After one discussion which was not without its moments of hilarity, we decided to call them Flugbl�tter, ‘fly-sheets’ or ‘fliers’, just because they were small single sheets that could pass easily from hand to hand, adapted to humble people, in a simple language that many of the peasants would understand either by reading them themselves, or having them read them out loud.
That morning had passed with emissaries and couriers coming and going, to guarantee the first round of distribution of the Magister’s texts to various regions: a hundred copies had already been sent to Augsburg. But the climate in the city was not very reassuring. Great commotion had been caused, for example, by Denck’s umpteenth enterprise, when, on the 24th or 25th of October, he had harangued the students of St Sebald in no uncertain terms, issuing open invitations to massacre anyone who claimed the exclusive right to interpret the word of God. A sermon at the end of which Johannes the fox, with typical improvisation, had proclaimed himself rector of the school, to the applause of the enthusiastic students. None of this had gone down too well with the local authorities, which were under the additional pressure of incessant information coming in about the spread of revolts in the Forest and all the surrounding regions, and from the following day rumours began to spread about the imminent expulsion of Denck beyond the city walls.
And that was what happened. On 27 October the load of books from brother H�ltzel was stopped at the Spittler gate, as it was leaving town for Mainz. Among the volumes found by the guard of the city council, which had clearly been alerted in advance, were twenty copies of The Manifest Interpretation. They impounded the whole print-run and kicked out H�ltzel, whom the Magister had assigned the task of distributing and reprinting his works. In the course of the same day rumours about the imminent expulsion of Denck became a certainty. By daybreak on the 28th of October we were all under arrest. It would take the police another whole day to track down our warehouse: Herrgott had returned, he had had no qualms about denouncing us and letting the guards interrogate the two apprentices for a long time. The whole print run was impounded. Only Hut, on the first day, had managed to have the fliers transferred to Bibra, along with some copies of the Magister’s writings.�
The council didn’t want any trouble. Two burgomasters visited us in our cell in the evening, and informed us that the decision had been made: before dawn we would be led outside the city without giving notice of the arrest and the expulsion.
Magister Thomas, Ottilie, Pfeiffer, Denck, Hut, Elias and me. We found ourselves on the road once again, contemplating the incredible spectacle of dawn rising timidly behind the pinnacles of Nuremberg, tinging them with pink. This time the Magister didn’t seem especially bothered by events. Hut led us to his house in Bibra, a few miles away, a safe place where we could decide what needed to be done.
There the Magister told us that we would have to split up, and this worried us considerably: the fact that we had shared the misadventures of the past few months had brought us very close together, and it seemed ridiculous to dissolve the company.
I remember the determination in his eyes: ‘I know, but seven of us have to do the work of a hundred,’ he said. ‘And if we all stay together we’ll never do it. There are tasks that have absolute priority, and those we will have to share out among us. The time is ripe, we can get the godless into a corner, half of Germany is in revolt, and there’s not a moment to lose.’
He turned towards Hut: ‘Before we do anything else, we’ve got to be sure that at least the books sent to Augsburg have reached their destination, and try to distribute them as quickly as possible.
Hut nodded but didn’t say anything. It was his mission.
The Magister continued: ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s vitally important that I get to Basle. I’ve got to meet Ecolampadius there, and find out whether the situation is really as heated as the brothers down there have written. If the most important city in the Helvetic Confederation passed to us, it would make life hard for the princes…’ His eye fell on Denck. ‘I think that you, Johannes, should come with me. You’ve worked in a big city before and your advice would be a great help.’
‘And what about the rest of us?’ Pfeiffer seemed worried. ‘Where are we going to go?’
Magister Thomas picked up a heavy jute sack and opened it on the table, enough to let some of the contents fall out before our eyes. The fliers tumbled on to the boards as though moved by an invisible hand.
‘These are the seeds. The countryside will be your field.’
My confused gaze met the eyes of Pfeiffer and Elias.
Ottilie picked up some sheets. ‘Of course, the peasants… the peasants.’ She looked at me. ‘They’ve must be told, we’ve got to let them know that their brothers throughout the whole of Germany are rising up. And for those who can’t read, we’ll read to them…’ Then, turning to Pfeiffer: ‘A troop, Heinrich, an army of peasants freeing this land from godlessness, inch by inch…’ She sought approval from the Magister. ‘We will march with the peasants on M�hlhausen, there are still plenty of people out there who want to shake off the yoke of tyrants and false prophets!’
I felt the heat of courage filling my heart and my muscles. That woman’s eyes and words lit a fire that I thought nothing and no one could ever extinguish.
Pointing at us, Magister Thomas turned to her with a smile and said, ‘Wife, I am entrusting these three men to you. Make sure that they are safe and sound upon my return. You will have to be prudent, the police of the princes have been set loose around the country, never stop anywhere, never spend two consecutive nights in the same place, don’t trust anyone whose heart you can’t read like an open book. And trust in God at all times. His is the light that brightens our way. Be careful never to lose it. I am confident that we will meet at the church of Our Lady in M�hlhausen at the beginning of next year. Good luck, and may the Lord be with each one of you.’
Eltersdorf, New Year 1527
The wind beats against the panels of the door like a crazed dog. The candles seem to flicker even in here, as though the frozen breath of winter could get to them. So memories merge and tremble, still run through with the shudder of fury: those were turbulent days. Sleeping on straw, this makeshift bed a prince’s four-poster in comparison: thin and dirty children, dignified faces beyond lamentation, filled with the desire for redemption: always on the road, passing through farmsteads, towns, villages. We were diligent sowers of the seed, lighting the spark of war against those who had usurped the word of God, the tormentors of His people. I saw scythes hammered into swords, hoes becoming lances and simple men leaving the plough to become fearless warriors. I saw a little carpenter carving a great crucifix and guiding Christ’s troops like the captain of the most invincible army. I saw all this and I saw those men and women take up their own faith and turn it into a banner of revenge. Love seized our hearts with that one fire that flamed within us all: we were free and equal in the name of God, and we would smash the mountains, stop the winds, kill all our tyrants in order to realise His kingdom of peace and brotherhood. We could do it, in the end we could do it: life belonged to us.
Themar, Unterhof, Regendorf, Swartzfeld, Ohrdruf, never two days in the same place. Half way through November we decided to stop in a tiny village called Gr�nbach, a little over a day’s walk from M�hlhausen. The village was inhabited entirely by peasants in the service of the knight of Enzensberg, to whom, some years before, the many-faceted Pfeiffer had acted as cook and confessor. He assured us that the knight was a sworn enemy of the imperial city, and that he would certainly do nothing to obstruct our evangelical campaign on his lands.
In exchange for help with the most arduous labours, we were lodged in an old disused stable, next to the cottage of a widow by the name of Frida. Straw for a bed and blankets of untreated wool. From the morning of our arrival this woman proved very happy to have us, insisting that throughout the whole of the previous week she had had all kinds of premonitions about important people coming to her house. For the first time I felt the strange sensation of listening to a person talk my language without being able to make out a word of what she was saying. Apart from Pfeiffer, who was born hereabouts, the only one to grasp anything that the old peasant woman said was Ottilie who, in her travels with her husband, had begun to listen to the thousand different ways in which a single vernacular could be mangled.
Widow Frenner had a daughter, about sixteen years of age, who tended the master’s cows and milked them every morning. The girl was the youngest of seven, and her six brothers had all ended up in the pay of a brave captain in the pay of Count Mansfeld.
From the day after our arrival in Gr�nbach, early in the morning, we started visiting fields, vegetable gardens and stables, and making contact with the people, distributing fliers and announcing the imminent fall of the powerful. Competition was very fierce: on the same day we met a Lutheran preacher, two tramps who were trying to get hospitality and food by explaining the Bible and predicting the future; and last of all a recruiter of mercenary soldiers who glorified life in his troop, the generous pay, the easy earnings, the glory.
Most of the peasants we met listened to us with a certain degree of attention, asked very punctilious questions about the end of the world, prided themselves at being called the elect, and showed a certain anxiety at the idea that to change their situation God would not descend in person to bring down the powerful, but rather that they would have to do it themselves with their scythes and pitchforks. Some of them, thanks to the fliers that we put in their hands, made acquaintance with the printed word for the first time, while others demonstrated that they were capable of reading something and told us that they
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