Death and the Devil

Enough, the pope decided, was enough. One of his flock was defying the power of the Holy Roman Church and some of its most distinguished servants. Very soon, Conrad found himself excommunicated. The interdict was pronounced and Conrad would doubtless have come to a sorry end had not events taken a completely absurd turn.

Conrad was elected archbishop.

Had he had the time, Conrad would probably have laughed himself silly. As it was, he was all sweetness and light, released the provost from captivity, dusted him down, and apologized to him. What had their disagreement been about? Provost of the cathedral chapter? The old man was provost of the chapter.

So the good burghers of Cologne had a bully as archbishop. But Conrad was not stupid. He knew that the citizens had more than once made their opinion of their archiepiscopal lords crystal clear. Just under two hundred years ago they had thrown Archbishop Anno out because he had commandeered a ship for his guest, the bishop of Münster. Christ Almighty, what was a ship and a bit of cargo that had been thrown into the Rhine so that Münster would not have to sit among flax and cheese! But Anno had been forced to flee, slipping out by a tunnel like a rat, otherwise the citizens would probably have killed him.

And then Philip von Heinsberg, who had left the city, only to find they had immediately started building a wall behind his back. Fine to have a wall, but shouldn’t the bastards have asked first?

Finally Engelbert von Berg. He had been stabbed in the back by his own nephew. The nephew didn’t come from Cologne, true, but that was irrelevant. Engelbert had been the city’s lord and master, and that was why he had been killed. The citizens of Cologne had blood on their hands, sacred blood!

And Conrad’s predecessor? He had made debts. Of course he had! What was money in the fight against the Devil? What in Christ’s name was it that made the Cologne merchants insist on repayment of their loans, as if the archbishop were a common debtor, at the same time denouncing him to the pope as a libertine who committed fornication with the wives of German knights and squandered their money on feasting and orgies?

Impudent, ungrateful rabble!

But the city was also the leading trading power in the empire and enjoyed privileges that made it as good as a free imperial city, such as the right to levy dues and mint coins. To make an enemy of the city would only bring problems. Better to acknowledge their rights.

For the moment at least.

The journeyman had also heard that the people in Cologne did not really trust Conrad. Everyone knew that the new archbishop’s cleverness was only surpassed by his unscrupulousness. For the moment he appeared as meek as a little lamb, though in the opinion of the citizens he was anything but meek and bore no resemblance whatsoever to a harmless grass-eater. Things were bound to get lively at some point, that was for sure.

Conrad was simply too crafty.

For the moment, though, no one had any complaints. On the contrary. He had opened two ale houses, the Medehuys in Old Market Square and the Middes in Follerstraße. That had meant a beer tax, but as long as they had plenty to drink, the burghers of Cologne were not too worried about taxes. No one had forgotten that terrible time, in 1225, when Archbishop Engelbert had briefly forbidden the brewing of beer.

The journeyman had been in the Medehuys and it had been to his taste. He went into raptures about the beer, praising every bubble in the foaming head. The way he talked about the effect of drinking this, for him unknown, liquid made Jacob feel like a dusty mug.

He listened, fascinated.

And with every word the tattered journeyman uttered, stuffing pieces of bread into his mouth so greedily he bit his own fingers, Jacob’s dreams took him farther and farther away from the farm and his father, and into the city, even if he had no idea what a provost, a papal legate, or an archbishop was. In his mind’s eye he kept on seeing Isabella’s pure, white face, kept on reliving that one day he had spent in Cologne, and more than ever the city came to represent the true life his mother had told him about when the warmth of her smile still brightened his life.

His father cursed Cologne. Otherwise he said nothing.

The journeyman left and Jacob was slaving away in the fields once more. Another brother died, leaving only him and an elder brother. Their father drove them like draft oxen. The weeks passed with agonizing slowness, one day the same as the next. Summer came, and still he saw the image of Isabella, still Cologne called. He was infected with love and the longing for a different world.

One very hot, very restless night, he got up quietly from his bed of straw, took a hunk of bread, and went out, away from their shack, across their fields until he could no longer see the small, squat hovel.

Then he started to run.