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Chapter 9


Münster

April 1, 1635


There were advantages to the radio system, Frederik admitted to Christian Ulrik. On the same day that the vomit-splattered body was found beneath an open window, he received the news of the death of Duke Ferdinand of Bavaria, the pluralist archbishop of Cologne who also held the see of Münster.

For the time being, the old man’s suffragan bishop would continue to do what vicars general did—within the parameters that his authority was now limited to Roman Catholic ecclesiastical matters. He had not stopped being a fanatical representative of what Frederik, in his own mind, classified as the most extreme measures of the Counter-Reformation; neither had Petrus Nicolartius, S.J., in Cologne, ceased to urge him on.

The parameters didn’t mean that the vicar general stopped trying to interfere in the civil administration of the Hochstift, but they meant that Frederik could just say “no.”

As for a likely successor . . . it would probably be some time before the canons and the pope could agree upon one.

He wrote a note for Rist to get in touch with Gisenius up in Bremervörde and tell him to recruit as many Lutheran clergy as possible for the Hochstift. He would deal later with the Calvinist nobility who were convinced that they had a perfect right to determine the religion of the residents of their own estates. While the cat was away, the Lutheran mice might as well have a high old time of it. Postscript: and someone who has experience in organizing consistories and superintendencies, because I don’t have time to do it myself.

Frederik diagrammed various considerations of what the current tumult in the Catholic church might mean for Westphalia.

Factoring in that he would have to go to Magdeburg for some space of time; he was a voting member of the USE House of Lords.

Then news came in from Italy. No longer was it simply that the cathedral chapter and the pope would have to agree on a successor to Ferdinand of Bavaria. Now it would be the canons and a pope (any pope). Yes, it would probably be quite some time before a successor would be elected and installed over at Cologne. As for Münster, which the old archbishop had held in pluralism, it might be even longer.

He produced another set of diagrams illustrating the various considerations of what this might mean for the Province of Westphalia. Locally, in regard to the Catholics in the city. More generally with the Catholics all through the former Hochstift, both Ober and Nieder.

Opportunities, opportunities. Possibly opportunities to frustrate the ambitions of that other Bavarian, Franz Wilhelm von Wartenburg.

* * *

Eckbert Bordemann, pot boy, aged ten, was an extraordinarily clever child. Notably more so than Jacob Stover, pot boy, also aged ten. That the cleverness most often expressed itself in mischief did not particularly distress Chaplain Lütkemann, as that was only to be expected when a man was dealing with boys. That Bordemann had a tendency to blame his exploits on Stover most likely fell under the immortal biblical question, “am I my brother’s keeper?” and should be, within the limits of human possibility, corrected.

In any case, young Eckbert was about to complete the fourth year of required schooling. The cleverness should not be allowed to go to waste; it was clearly time to furnish him with a scholarship and enroll him in the Latin School.

Vendt, the footman, stood stiffly to attention when the chaplain brought this up. “It will be difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“His family are among the serfs residing in the clerical immunities pertaining to the cathedral. The municipal Polizeiordnung prohibits such persons from taking up civic trades or entering the learned professions unless they are legally freed and sworn in as burghers. Which does happen, but not often. One might even say, rarely.”

A few searching questions elicited the information that all of the servants attached to the household were serfs, Vendt and his family included. “Stadtluft,” the free air of a chartered city that made a serf into a freeman after a year’s residence, did not extend, in spite of the absence of any physical barriers, to the lands inside the city wall that belonged to the bishop and cathedral chapter. Legally, the immunities had different air.

That was why serfs brought into the city as servants were required to live in the immunities.

What would it take to free young Eckbert? Obtain his manumission?

Money, of course. Unless, for some reason, the lord to whom he was bound was feeling magnanimous. Which did happen, but not often. One might even say, rarely.

Lütkemann brought the issue before the governor.

Frederik shunted it over to the lawyers, who tracked the issues. Eckbert’s parents were not bondsmen (Wachszinsige) of the cathedral chapter, although they lived within its precincts. Rather, they were bound to Damenstift Börstel, located on the northern edge of Osnabrück’s diocesan territory, in the tradition of its medieval Cistercian founders, out in the middle of nowhere or as close to nowhere as was possible given the comparatively dense population of the region.

Cistercian—like Himmelpforten.

Frederik winced. The most recent communication received from the redoubtable Gerdruth von Campe . . . 

Now there were even more Lutheran ladies to be dealt with.

Börstel’s transformation from a convent into an institution of Lutheran secular canonesses had come gently, the lawyers assured him, almost a century ago, resulting in a peculiar combination of Lutheran doctrine, as expounded by the preachers it employed to deliver sermons three days per week, with maintenance of an abbreviated form of the traditional liturgical hours of medieval Catholicism, reduced to three rather than seven times per day. During the past fifteen years, unfortunately, it had been plundered repeatedly, suffered from quartering of troops by both contenders that exhausted its resources, and most recently the same unit of the Swedish army that had dropped young Gustafsson into the diocese of Osnabrück as commandant had . . . 

To make a long story short, Börstel was flat broke. The abbess (one Gertrudt von Althauß), the prioress (one Elisabeth Kirstapell), and the cellarer (one Lucretia Wolbergh von Hären), speaking on behalf of the dozen or so surviving canonesses, averred that they would be willing to manumit any of the Stift’s serfs who might be living in Münster in return for a reasonable remuneration. As a token of good faith, they enclosed a copy of a manumission brief they had issued two years earlier for one of the maidservants in the city.

Not only would they be content (they would be ecstatic, and would accept any offer someone made on the general principle that anything was better than nothing, but their attorney advised them not to say so) to free all others on the same terms, but were anxious to do so.

It wasn’t any particular surprise that they were so willing. By definition, bound serfs living away in the city were bound serfs that were not needed on the farms or in the buildings of the abbey. The flat broke abbey.

Frederik advised his accountant to find the money to free the boy’s family.

Chaplain Lütkemann cleared his throat and emitted the words “scholarship” and “tuition.”

Frederik advised his accountant to find more money.

Vendt, standing stiffly, cast around in his mind for any child in his extended family who might be bright enough to catch the chaplain’s eye. If Eckbert was going to Latin School next term, the gubernatorial household would need a new pot boy.

Not that the Vendts were bound to Börstel. He had no idea whether or not their own lord would be willing to manumit them, or on what terms.

And young Jacob Stover, not sufficiently bright, seemed destined to remain a serf.

* * *

Bente gave birth to a little girl. It all went easily and the child was healthy. Frederik stood godfather and chose to name her Ulrikke.


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