The transcription of the old official seal of Cologne reads: Sancta Colonia Dei Gratia Romae Ecclesiae Fidelis Filia, “Holy Cologne, faithful daughter, by the grace of God, of the Roman Church.” Pope Innocent III, the chief architect of the crusade against the Albigenses, considered Cologne more illustrious in fame and splendor than all the other cities of Germany. Further, a chronicle from the eleventh century christened the city caput etprinceps Gallicarum urbium, “chief and prince of the Gallic cities.” Cologne was Roman during ages past and was forever Roman.
As Colonia Agrippinensis, the city had been pagan Rome’s main fortress, weapons depot, and headquarters for a major field commander on the Rhine. It had all the attributes necessary to Rome: Capitol, temple, amphitheater, and aqueducts—even Caesars. Then one day, Frankish and Christian bishops arrived, and Cologne remained “Roman.” In the ninth century, the Normans destroyed the city. Did these northern enemies of the south wish to undermine Roman authority on German land? In all probability, as religious chronicles may have overstated, Cologne would have remained a heap of rubble after this devastation had the Church not taken it upon itself to help the town recover. Nevertheless, a majority of the Cologne citizenry, above all the weavers guild, was not by any means satisfied with the authority of the Roman priests. Some chroniclers bitterly complained that “only rarely have the citizens accepted with gratitude the advantages and privileges which the bishops indirectly and directly allow to be apportioned unto them.”
In the eleventh century, under Archbishop Anno, the citizenry began to conspire against the Church. Before eventually becoming a saint, Anno knew no mercy with the rebels. On his instructions, all lay judges in Cologne had their eyes poked out. Only one judge was spared so that he could escort the others home. Yet about hundred years after Anno, Archbishop St. Engelbert, who became a pillar of the Church and linchpin of Germany, had his own trouble with the citizens of Cologne. He knew, however, that the nobility and service men were so intimidated that nobody dared revolt against him. So the execution flames blazed in Cologne!
In his Miraculous Dialogue, the Cistercian monk Caesarius von Heister bach wrote:
One day, heretics were seized in Cologne. After an initial investigation, they were transferred to a secular court and condemned. As they were brought to the fire, one of them, Arnold with an unknown surname, who was referred to as the “remaining master,” requested bread and a bowl of water. When someone wanted to fill the request, the authorities advised against it, because the devil could very easily conjure something which could cause offense and perdition. As I, Caesarius von Heisterbach, can judge, based on the testimony of another heretic who was held for three years by the king of Spain and then burned, Master Arnold intended to incite a blasphemous communion for the eternally damned. The heretics were led from the city to a place near the Jewish cemetery that was surrendered to the fire. When these people were already glowing intensely, many heard and saw how Arnold applied his hand to the half-burned heads of his students and spoke: “Be firm in your faith, because today you will be with Lawrence!” Among them was a beautiful maiden who was likewise devoted to the heresy. Because many pitied her, one took her from the fire and promised to marry her or deliver her to a convent if she converted. Yet she spoke to those who held her: “Say unto me where that seducer lies?” When they showed her Master Arnold, she fell over the body of the false teacher, veiling her face with her garment, and she ascended with this into hell.
Master Arnold and his faithful must have been some very strange heretics indeed if they were so anxious (already roasting in a fire ignited by Catholics) to join “Lawrence” in Paradise, in the custody of Catholic saints. After he became deacon in Rome, St. Lawrence is said to have been placed on a glowing gridiron by the heathens there and martyred in AD 258. He is regarded as the patron saint of libraries and librarians. Why should he have also been the patron saint of heretics, especially those condemned to be burned to ashes? Caesarius’s report raises still more questions: Since when does one ascend to hell, and why were the Cologne heretics burned near the Jewish cemetery?
St. Hildegard von Bingen once visited Cologne and spoke before the entire clergy of the city. Yet she did not speak about the sweet love ol God, to which she had dedicated so many poems; nor did she talk about heaven, toward which she so earnestly strove. Instead, she lectured on the hiding places of the heretics and informed her audience of devout priests that in order to capture this riffraff of the devil, the workshops of the weavers must be searched—and thoroughly. The art of weaving arrived in the valley of the Rhine from Friesland, to which the island Helgoland also belongs. Therefore, it was no coincidence that the Stedinger were so cruelly exterminated in Friesland1 while at the same time a hunt for heretics was undertaken against the people of Cologne and the Albigenses. It was also no coincidence that the Provencal Cathars were often called Tisserands—weavers!
Sacred weaving!
At the whizzing loom of the earth, the spirit sits and knits the clothes for the living divinity. To weave is to be. Under the ash tree of the world, the Nornen, the Weird Sisters, wove the thread of fate.2 There are three of them: The eldest is called Urd, which meant “weaver” in pagan times. She attaches the first knot of the fabric, which will spin farther to Hel. Laurin, the dwarf king, also wove a silk thread, which he used to enclose his paradisal rose garden. Weaver’s ship, you follow the path, which you must follow, back and forth, until the cloth is woven. Weaver’s ship, you define the cycle that each individual action must fulfill. Therefore, among the people, you went by the name of Radius, for those who originally spoke Latin.
In 1133, a farmer from the town of Indien (today Komelimimster, near Aachen) built a ship in the forest and equipped it with wheels. Members of the weavers guild wanted to transport their ship to Aachen. On the way, a collection was taken from everyone, excluding the weavers, who touched the ship. As the ship journeyed to Aachen and passed by Maastricht, it was outfitted with mast and sail, and in Saint Trond near Liittich the weavers of the town guarded their ship day and night, filling it with all kinds of equipment—though what exactly it was filled with has not been passed down. Minstrels then encircled it and struck up a dance. The merry chaos lasted twelve days, until finally the authorities intervened. They dared not burn or otherwise destroy the ship in the belief that “the place, even if only ash were to remain of it, would be disgraced.” Therefore, the vessel was caulked so that it could be transported to a place in the nearest vicinity without much commotion or the authorities’ need to resort to the force of arms.
In a cave in the Sabarthes, I found a symbol from the Albigensian era. It depicted the ship of the dead with the sun for a sail—a sacred ship! When Apollo descended to the world, Zeus gave him a golden mitre, a lyre, and a chariot harnessed with swans. Then he sent him to Delphi, where Apollo was to promulgate the law to the Greeks. Akin to a star, Apollo navigated his swans to the land of the Hyperboreans, and his radiance penetrated to heaven. The journal of navigational tables forged from precious gold by Hephaestus-Vulcan, the son of Venus, saw him through the journey. On the surface of the water the deity slumbered. The Athenians dedicated their Parthenon to Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom, who was a weaver and manipulator of the spindle. A saffron cape hoisted as a sail on a parade float was solemnly carried to the Acropolis every four years by the highest officials of the Athenian state and there was offered to Athena. Noble-born Athenians intricately embroidered the sail with the representation of the clash of the Titans: when the gods and Titans waged a war over the mountain of Olympus.
Athena, the divine maker of the saffron-colored carpet of life, also protected the handiwork of the forge. She owed her divine existence to the moment when the blacksmith Hephaestus or, as others taught, the fiery Prometheus split from the head of Zeus. Thereby was Athena born. On the Acropolis her combat-ready spear always flashed, symbolic of the fact that without combat readiness and courage in the face of death, life is forfeited. When the Athenians carried the coatlike sail and spear to the temple mount, they also carried the banner of a raven, woven by the noblest daughters of the city, to span across the mast of the holy ship, which was left to the driving wind of fortune at the beach on the edge of the sea, so that it would sail to wherever it wished. Holy ship!
The most famous Hellenic heroes navigated the seas aboard the Argo, which was perhaps an area, an ark. They sailed to the north. Jason was the ship’s captain. Orpheus, the sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, and Hercules were his companions. Placed on the bow of the ship was a talk ing oak plank fetched from Dodona, where Greece’s holiest oak spoke wisdom. The Argonauts had to withstand terrible hardships throughom their journey, until they found the goal for which they had traveled: the golden fleece of divinity. In the Middle Ages this was considered akin to the philosopher’s stone.
Wieland the blacksmith embedded himself in a tree trunk and let his fate befall him. He hoped to be exonerated in this “ship” (like ail Argonaut). The smith had been lamed by King Nidhag, which forced him to seek revenge. Earlier, Wieland and his two brothers, Schlagfidr and Egli, had surprised three swan maidens who “chose the ones who died in the battle” in the Myrkwid, or “dark forest.” These swans were the Valkyries, who were dedicated to peace. On the banks of Wolf Lake, they took off their swanlike feathery gowns that were spun of white linen. Stealthily, the three brothers took the swan gowns and led the three virgins home as their wives. One day, after seven winters had passed, the women were driven deep into Myrkwid and never returned. Wieland’s pain at his wife’s disappearance became so great that his son, Wideke, wanted to abandon him: “Father, I do not want to become a smith! Give me a good stallion, a sharp sword, a strong spear, a new shield, a hard helmet, and a shining coat of mail so that I may take off and seek a good lord—he with whom I will serve and ride, so long as life is granted to me!” Whereupon his father asked to where he intended to ride. “To the land of the Amelungen, to Dietrich von Bern. . . ! ”
In the eighteenth century, the people from Berkshire in the south of England said “Wayland Smith lives in a stone.” Holy ship and holy stone. . . . Chiron, the ferryman of the dead, uses his boat to transport the souls of the deceased across the Styx to the underworld—across an expanse of water, which makes everything pure. In Nordic myths, this underworld is called Glasisvellir or Glasislundr, which can mean “glass site” as well as “amber country.” (Tacitus equates the Germanic word Gias with “amber.” The Romans called it glesum and the Greeks electron.) The Friesian island known as Helgoland and others in the North Sea were also known as the islands of the dead. The Roman historian Pliny calls them Glesiae or Elektrides. They were the insulae vitreae, the glassy islands of Celtic tradition, where King Arthur dwelled. Arthur means “great bear.”
On a small but seaworthy ship, Pytheas sailed from Marseille toward the midnight sun. He landed, as he intended, on the island of Thule: in amber country. Pytheas was a philosopher and a friend of wisdom. What use is wisdom if the final, divine mysteries are ignored? Pytheas probably carried amber in his hand as his ship entered the port of his hometown after his historic journey. In his own way, he was an Argonaut. Indeed, like the heroes of the Argo, he sailed to the north and may have brought back a golden yellow stone. I am sure that he sat before this stone and inspected it as thoughtfully as Hamlet contemplated the skull of his ancestor. The prince of Denmark asked what life is and why humans live. The questions he posed were those that provoked Lucifer’s fall from heaven. I am certain that distress did not and would never frighten Pytheas, even if he had known about Jehovah’s curse. Pytheas held a golden yellow stone. For him it was the philosopher’s stone . . . the golden fleece!
In a boat pulled by a swan, Lohengrin went to the needy and brought them the glad tidings of the Grail, the stone that fell from Lucifer’s crown. He also forbade people to question its provenance, but only his own! He did so for a reason: he was not human and, if humans recognized him, he had to return from whence he had come.
Europe was not purified when the Cologne Cathars were tracked down, seized in their workshops, and burned. That cremation near the Jewish cemetery was mockery. Instead of the biblical words Jesus spoke to a thief on the cross, “Today you will yet be with me in Paradise,” the Cathars, or at least the Cologne archheretic Arnold, used the comforting words “Today you will be with Lawrence!” But Arnold couldn’t have meant St. Lawrence, because most saints felt for heretics only hatred— not understanding or forgiveness—while they were still on the earthly side of misery. There is no reason to think that they would have felt otherwise in heaven. What Pope Gregory, sometimes called the Great, once said about the joy felt by the righteous of heaven at the sight of the agonies of the heretics would have also been valid for the saints. These agonies multiplied the divine desires of those dwelling in Abraham’s fold. So why should St. Lawrence, who accepted a martyr’s death to attain heaven, have been mentioned as a protector of the infernal ones?
Even if the account of Pope Gregory is incorrect or Lawrence had recognized that heretics were people who were not what his Church had taught, what clearly emerges from Caesarius’s account is that the Cathars of Cologne hoped to dwell with “Lawrence” in that place which the Catholics of the thirteenth century regarded as hell. Yet it was necessary to ascend to this otherworldly place. Consequently, it could not be hell, the place where Jesus was driven down after his resurrection, only to ascend to heaven finally and sit at the right hand of God, as the Christian profession of faith maintains. That Lawrence whom the heretics awaited was Laurin!
Seven hundred years ago, the famous monk and medieval chronicler Caesarius von Heisterbach wrote his principal works Dialogue of Visions and Miracles, the Life of the Holy Landgravine Elizabeth, and, at the request of the inquisitor Johannes, who was a well-known torturer of heretics, the writ Against the False Doctrine of Lucifer.3 There are many things to recount concerning the monks and abbots of this abbey, its growth, and its flowering.
Before setting up a monastery in the valley of St. Peter, fourteen Cistercian monks had sailed down the Rhine on an April day in 1188. They wanted to settle in the Seven Mountains, around the abandoned monastery of St. Maria on the Stromberg. Suddenly, as the chonicler Caesarius relates, they saw a circle in the sky that enclosed seven suns. That seemed to be a good omen because they believed that a circle signified the holy spirit and the seven signified the seven Christian gifts of grace, which, from then on, would illuminate the disbelieving and heretical land.
Finally, they arrived on the Stromberg. Fifty years earlier a knight had established himself here as a hermit. Around his hermitage had assembled a flock of believers who, like him, “had escaped naked from the shipwreck of the world” and founded a monastery. Promoted and protected by popes and Cologne’s archbishops, who, in the area surrounding the monastery, were building one small castle after another, they tried to preach the gospel. It was not told to what extent they succeeded. What did reach us, however, is the fact that after the death of the hermit, the cloister was abandoned because of the altitude of this dwelling place on the mountain. With the archbishop’s permission, the monks founded another monastery—but what concerned those fourteen Cistercian monks who took possession of the abandoned monastery on t he summit of the Stromberg was the rough climate, the deficiency of the dwellings, and the difficulty of providing for themselves because of the high altitude. All this made them dissatisfied. They wanted to escape.
Yet because of a dream he had, the abbot believed in this mission and had to hold back the friars by persuasion and punishment: He dreamed that, holding the cross, he had boarded a boat along with a crowd ol white men. A fast current propelled the boat into the choir of a church, and only by skillful steering could he prevent the boat and crew from smashing into a column. Therefore, all of the monks remained on the Stromberg. Finally, however, even the abbot was no longer happy up there, and, in 1191, the monastery was moved to the foot of the mountain, to the valley of St. Peter. The church on the summit remained the monastery’s place of worship.
One day, the Cologne archbishop, Theodericus, saw to the beginnings of construction of Godesberg Castle. For some time, the chapel of St. Michael had stood there “because of the holiness of the place,” and nobody had dared to construct a castle. But when the constuction commenced, the Archangel Michael was allegedly so enraged about the building that, with outspread wings, he had flown off to the chapel on the Stromberg with a reliquary shrine from the chapel on the Wudinsberg (Wotansberg), as the Godesberg was still called.
Earlier, our students sang the drinking song Mihi est propositum in tab-erna mori, “My Idea Is to Die in the Tavern.” The song was written in the thirteenth century by a wandering cleric named Nicholas, who was called the archipoeta. Caesarius von Heisterbach recalled that Nicholas once fell ill with a high fever in Bonn and believed his last moments had finally arrived. Penitently, he banged on the door of the Heisterbach abbey and asked for shelter, which was given. For a while, it was believed that he had become a monk with a great sense of atonement. He was hardly recovered, however, when he pulled off his cassock and threw it away contemptuously. Then he escaped. Jakob Grimm compared this archipoeta to a tamed beast that was suddenly freed in the wild forest.
Nicholas reminds me of three famous characters: First, I recall troubadour Peire Cardinal, whose father wanted to make him into a clergyman. Instead, he became a heretic and one of the most famous wandering minstrels of the Minne.
Second, Till Eulenspiel: Although he couldn’t stand monks and nuns, when he felt miserable and depressed, he became the doorman of a cloister for a few days. What Till was up to in his capacity as doorman, archpoet Nicholas also would have done: He let wandering scholars and minstrels into the abbey and showed them what was in the kitchen, then he escaped with his guests. In the end, Till fell headfirst into the grave. Third, Nicholas reminds me of Shakespeare’s Lord Falstaff, that famous glutton with a fishlike thirst who traveled English roads, letting “the devil ride from his fiddle bow,” and who drowned his sadness because no virtue in the world remains in champagne. Yes, “that villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Sathan”: He enjoyed his life with a zest that can be compared to the weaver’s ship, and when he died, he went to “Arthur’s bosom.” The hostess of the East Cheapside tavern where Falstaff drank himself to death knew that “Arthur’s bosom” was not hell. She, Mistress Quickly, stayed with Falstaff in his last hours, “until he was as cold as any stone.” I will return to Sir Falstaff a bit later, because he was a heretic.
Near this tiny place is another hamlet called Wambach. Because both names recall the Asen and Wanen, the divine caste of gods of Germanic mythology, I decided to make a detour. The unexpected coincidence was golden in another way because at harvesttime, less than one hundred years ago, in 1830 to be exact, a farm girl unearthed a precious gold coin with the inscription Lysimachos Basileus, King Lysimachos. (Lysimachos was one of the most courageous field commanders of Alexander the Great; after Alexander’s death, he became king of Thrace and united Thrace with the adjacent portion of Asia Minor in an independent empire. From 288 BC, he was able to share domination over Macedonia with Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus and the warrior who vanquished the Romans. He fell in a battle with Diadochen Seleukos, who had become the king of Babylonia.) The coins were eventually handed over to the Prussian crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm and can still be admired, unless I am mistaken, in the coin collection in Berlin.
So a small coin opened a bridge to ancient Macedonia in the little town of Asbach. I stop and reflect on the fact that this is truly exceptional.
Alexander the Great, you also belong to Lucifer’s court! Wolfram von Eschenbach praised your wisdom in song because you were a knight and Isaiah cursed you in the name of his Lord of the Hosts.
You wanted to be seated upon the “mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north” because you tried to storm the walls of Paradise, which some placed in Obarkia in the far north, the land of temporary darkness and long winter nights. According to legend, even as an arrogant youth, you wanted to fly with two griffons high over the clouds to the heavens. You wanted to be the same as the gods and you boisterously demanded entrance to Paradise, shouting stridently, “I too am a king!” And you let the priestly caste of the Siwa Oasis name you a son of Zeus: Amon. Your father, Philip, whose name means “horse friend,” believed that these animals were sacred. You must have asked, “Why have you created me?” or, as your father’s son and king of Macedonia, you wouldn’t have accomplished your duty to unite the Aryans. Your mother was Olympian. You asked yourself, “Why was I born to my mother?” Because you wanted to become an Olympian, you became immortal.
During one of your father’s military campaigns, an eagle flew into his tent and laid an egg upon his shoulder. The egg fell to the ground and broke and a snake crawled out. At the same instant, Olympus’s messengers arrived with news of your birth. The midwife was the serpent!
You died young, Alexander, and, if the reports are to be believed, with a smile upon your lips. Your corpse was laid to rest in a magnificent sarcophagus, although according to your last will, your hands were outside. They pointed at and were filled with earth. I know what you wanted to say: You wanted to ask the Creator, “Why have you created me from the earth?”
In the end, they laid you to rest in the city that you built in the Nile Delta, next to the Homerian Pharos, the city that still bears your name: Alexandria. Your last resting place was shown to those who wished to see it. As fanatical Christians demolished all temples in your Alexandria and, in a church, tortured to death the philosopher Hypatia, your sarcophagus vanished. You fell from the skies, Alexander, but you entered the enlightened realm of Lucifer, the Light Bringer. Your realm was called Olympus. We call it Asgard, Walhall, rose garden, and Mont Salvat. The Jews cursed it as Gehenna, and the Christians fled in terror from it—they called it hell. According to a shaveling named Lamprecht, a raging savage who was torment incarnate, during your lifetime hell reigned supreme over heaven and earth and could never be filled. Finally, it was written in The Solace of Souls, an orthodox medieval devotional book, that you, great Macedonian, were “violent to all people”: “Now he is in the power of the devil. For a short time, he was happy; now he is miserable for eternity. He created an empire but now is poor forever. Nobody attested to his goodness, so now he is filled with hell’s fire. He had great and worldly pride, but now has only shame. He didn’t want to follow the commandments of our Lord, so now he must obey the devil in hell.” We know, however, that Lucifer, who suffered injustice, greeted and kissed you, great Alexander.
As Pytheas sailed out of Marseille to the land of amber and the island of Thule, Alexander the Great stood in Gordion in Asia Minor before the sacred cart of Zeus. I prefer to believe that it was in the same year, 334 years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Alexander observed how the yoke and shaft of the cart were bound with a mind-boggling knot. Until then, no man alive could untie it. But Alexander wanted to fulfill the prophecy that was spoken by Pythia in Delphi: He wanted to become the king of Asia. Apollo had given him wisdom because he had a strong will. In both hands, Alexander took his sword, the sign of his royal power, and split the knot in two.
It was the Phrygian king Midas who had tied the knot, because Apollo had cursed him. Instead of listening to Apollo, Midas had followed Pan. Everything he touched had turned to gold, and instead of human ears, he had donkey ears. Did Alexander know Midas’s secret? We can only guess the answer, but when upon visiting the early Christian catacombs in Rome, we can see Jesus of Nazareth depicted with a donkey head and can even see a donkey instead of a person hanging from the cross. We can also see that the pope has gold coming from all over the globe.
Pytheas sought the divine wisdom of Ariana, and Alexander wanted to be the king of kings of Asia and Iran, which is a new Ariana. Both sought, and seeking led them to the same goal: to prepare himself for the passage to divinity. With his sword Pytheas realized the necessity to be forearmed and Alexander knew the will to victory. Both needed partners and oarsmen, generals and soldiers. Pytheas had to overcome the skeptics in his city and, while on the high seas, he had to overcome the ocean waves, the storms in Biscay, the fog in the North Sea, and the worrisome question: “What next?” A whole front of Macedonian cynics was ranged against Alexander, and beyond the Hellespont were the sandstorms, deserts, mountain frosts, torrential rivers, and enemy armies as well as the probing question: “What then, when I am no longer?”
For Midas, the man who tied the Gordian knot, everything he touched turned to gold. Apollo cursed him because he placed Pan’s sonnets over Apollo’s songs, Catholic sonnets over those of the Hyperboreans. Properly translated, catholic means “world encompassing,” whereas Hyperborean means “Nordic.” Clearly, Midas had given the north priority in the tangled world, and the knot was tangled. Only an Alexander could untangle it—through action. But action that leads to victory sits next to the will to action. Alexander’s insight was Apollonian in nature: Like the sun god who was at home in the land of the barbarians, near and over the numerous stars, some more brilliant than others, Alexander chivalrously prevailed. The king of northern blood came and conquered his dominion over the king of kings of the Arian caste: Darius. Every struggle was a challenge for him, and every puzzle was a challenge. To win, man needs weapons. Alexander took his sword, just as Siefried took his Balmung, Dietrich his Eckesacks (magical swords), and Ornit his rose, and cut the Gordian knot. In this way, he untangled Midas’s knot and dominated the world. So his blood showed him the way.
Pytheas was of the same blood as Alexander. His nature sent him north to search for the answer to the questions “From where?” and “Where are we going?” Prior to Pytheas’s journey, Heraclitus had guessed at the heliocentricity of the world, just as the high priests of Apollo announced Apollo’s message, while still others made a pilgrimage to Delphi to see a stone where Apollo had killed the snake, Pythos. Pytheas knew all these puzzling questions, but he still had to resolve them! As the sun god Apollo traveled to the land of the barbarians to gain strength, so Pytheas traveled in his boat to the land of amber and Thule. In his own way, the Massilian sailor cut his own Gordian knot, and discovered the beginning and end of his world. Insight drew Pytheas inexorably to the north. Alexander resolved his greatest challenge through action—yet action, which leads to victory, demands insight (and how could it be otherwise?). As a consequence, Alexander had to combine perception with action. Did he gain this insight among Greece’s wise men, possibly Pytheas? His teacher was Aristotle.
I am traveling across the country, seeking knowledge of a stone that fell from Lucifer’s crown. It is an antiquated and foolish project, some would say—and some do say it.
A gold coin that a farm girl found more than one hundred years ago took me to Asbach in the Westerwald, a small German town. I pondered Alexander and Pytheas and continue to ponder Aristotle. I am happy; in a way, the circle is closing, although not fulfilled because Aristotle kunt maere von dem agetstein,4 as Wolfram von Eschenbach says in Der Wartburgkreig. Like Aristotle, he knew about the stone that fell from Lucifer’s crown.
I will return later to Aristotle and Alexander and the Claugestian stone, from a land that “never saw a Christian.” Even at midnight, the stone shines brightly. In the end, the old duke of Meran, Berchther, King Rother’s companion, wore it on his helmet.
In a sermon preached in 1220, Heinrich Minneke, provost of the Cistercian cloister in Neuwerk, asserted that there is a lady in heaven who is even greater than the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that her name is Wisdom. Did it come as any surprise when Minneke was charged with heresy by the bishop of Hildesheim? After all, the provost saw Lucifer begging forgiveness from the Almighty. The bishop of Hildesheim, a town that prominently displayed a thousand-year-old rosebush, was Konrad von Reisenberg. Pope Honorius III had entrusted him with the bishopric during the lifetime of his predecessor.5 In France, he had helped preach the crusade against the Albigenses, and now he brought his rich experience to Germany. Rome had good use for such a man in the Harz region. For a long while, this area had brimmed with heretics. In fact, 170 years before, in 1052, it was already well known that the inhabitants of Goslar would rather hang than kill a chicken. Apparently, early on they had been influenced by Manichaeism, a creed that Rome despised. It is truth that Manichaeans forbade the killing of animals, so as not to offend the law of reincarnation of souls.
Bishop Konrad was an Upper Hessian by birth. Accompanied by a prelate, he traveled to Goslar to clear up the Minneke case. After the Neuwerk nuns had—against their will—implicated the accused in their depositions, the bishop ordered him henceforth to teach only the “correct” belief. Heinrich Minneke, however, never stopped praising divine wisdom and Lucifer’s forgiveness. Now far too flagrant for the bishop of Hildesheim, the provost was summoned before the bishop’s tribunal, stripped of his position, and sent back to his monastery. (Minneke belonged to the Praemonstraten order.) The bishop ordered the nuns to find another prior—this time an uncomplicated one. Neither Minneke nor the nuns followed the instructions of their bishop, who protested directly to the pope. But the courageous nuns of Goslar also protested to the Holy Father, though they seemed uncertain of the pontiff’s powers of judgment, for they took the precaution of writing a letter to Emperor Frederick II, explaining that the Neuwerk monastery had blossomed like a lily under Minneke’s direction. In their eyes, jealousy motivated the bishop of Hildesheim, who, apart from the imperial rights over the case, wished to damage the Neuwerk monastery. To them, their prior was a pious man who wanted only the best for their monastery, while the bishop of Hildesheim was only holding Minneke in a bad light under the undeserved accusation of heresy.
At his Ferentino court, the emperor gave the nuns’ letter to the bishops in attendance. Naturally, they supported the assessment of their colleague in Hildesheim. In their view, as they stated, the Neuwerk nuns were so partial that they seemed to have gone mad. They informed the Goslar nuns that it was high time to be reasonable: Obey the bishop and observe the rule of St. Benedict.6 The pope did not answer differently: To him, Minneke was a rotting appendage that had to be amputated from the body of the Church, a dispensable man whose replacement was a necessity. He was endangering souls and placing the Neuwerk cloister in a bad light. They should all be happy at Minneke’s recall.
Shortly after this, Bishop Konrad had the heretical provost arrested. At this time, Minneke himself wrote directly to the pope. He complained that he had been thrown in a dungeon without ever confessing or even being charged with heresy. He pleaded to be heard properly; he asserted that his arrest was an error, but if it could be proved that he had persisted in speaking against the unity of the Church, he would stay in prison for the rest of his life. The pope was so impressed with his letter that he ordered the bishop of Hildesheim to try the prisoner before a court of papal legates, theologians, and the grand inquisitor of Germany, Konrad von Marburg. On October 22, 1224, the synod gathered in Hildesheim. Minneke was charged and, after a long trial, condemned for heresy. He was stripped of his office and cursed and his priest’s clothes were taken from him.
Heinrich Minneke was burned alive as a Manichaean and Luciferian. He claimed to be a friend of wisdom and philosophy, but if we have been correctly informed, Minneke belonged to those heretics who were already quite weakened by a belief in Christian salvation, even if this was not very Roman Catholic in nature. For him, Lucifer was a fallen angel who one day—the youngest day—would be forgiven by God and subsequently redeemed.
To play with words is a dubious game. I cannot at all see any real link between Heinrich Minneke’s incineration as a Manichaean and the Minnesingers, who were also influenced by Manichaeism.
Heinrich von Reichenau relates the following events of 1052 in a south German historical treatise:
The emperor [Heinrich III], who was spending Christmas in Goslar, had a certain heretic hanged on the gallows with the general agreement of the populace to stop him from teaching heresy and infecting more people. Apart from teaching the terrible ideas of the Manichaean sect, the heretic had refused to eat any meat. In full sight of the gallows, the heretic refused to kill a chicken, and in the thirteenth century this was accepted as certain proof of heresy.
The heretic’s refusal to kill a rooster was quite understandable because a rooster was sacred to Apollyon, as John calls the diabolical blend of Apollo and the Antichrist in the Apocalypse. It was a bird that also would have pleased the German Tiubel when he presented himself at the forest’s edge at midday, as trees cracked and the wind howled. Even if today many still look askance at vegetarians, there is a certain sense about Goslar’s vegetarian heretic, and he hurt no one. It is surprising, then, that others demanded that he be hanged or burned. The number of ascetic heretics was very small, according to a Catholic historian. Why, then, should exceptions be presented as generalized truths? I haven’t strayed far from the preposterous reports concerning Landgrave Hermann, the father-in-law of St. Elizabeth: “He ate neither herring nor smoked fish and drank neither beer nor mead,” which the Cathars did with gusto. I think we should leave to the meticulous investigation oi armchair detectives the menu and drink of medieval heretics or Catholic faithful.
The founder of the Manichaean sect to which the Goslar heretics belonged was Mani. It is asserted that he was born smiling. I find this archheretic more attractive at his first breath than all the other sad-faced
creators of religions. I cite from a well-known essay on Mani’s life and work:
He must have been a visionary and highly-gifted poetic personality, a fiery orator and an unparalleled artist. Mani’s respect for art must have been due to his Iranian heritage. As the offspring of the ancient Ashkanian and Arshakuni castes, he was, in this regard, an authentic Persian who considered poetry, music, and the arts to be the most precious and pure of all noble undertakings.
We must also remember that an English language Literary History of Persia described the Manichaean joy in the creation of the beautiful as one of their major characteristics. Like the Hellenes who cultivated their kalos k’agatos or the Proven^ales who loved their bel e bos, the Manichaeans developed the beautiful and good and arrived at a gay Savoir.
Mani, who arrived smiling into this world, descended on both his father and mother’s side from the royal Parthian house of the Arshakuni (Askanija, Baskanija), which was founded in 256 BC by the Scythian king Arsarces I. This king had led his armies into the northern Iranian region of Parthia, where the ancient Persian religion had endured in the hearts of the Persian people and constituted a dam against Hellenism (which we should understand as the Near Eastern variety), Roman power, and the creeping influence of Judaism. It would be going too far to describe here the history of the Parthians and their kings or Manichaean morality and its doctrine, but it is a fact that Mani, the Ashkanian, was an Iranian-Aryan who rejected the Old Testament and the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. In AD 275, he was crucified on the orders of Zoroastrian priests. His body was skinned, stuffed, and hanged at the gates of Babylon as a gruesome warning. Long before Alexander had died there and soon after the death of Mani, the followers of Muhammad would conquer the city. Manichaeism seemed dead; but just a few years ago, the deceased Parsi seemed to have returned from the dead. As I leafed through my files, I came across the following newspaper clipping:
A short while ago, scientific journals and newspapers reported the sensational discovery of an original manuscript by Mani, the founder of a Persian religion. Crucified in 275, his followers hid his writings in fear of discovery. The seven volumes that were discovered in Fiume are scientifically and historically priceless. Dark brown, moldy, dusty, and torn, the treasures, which are like a piece of rotting tree bark, lie before Dr. Ibscher, a Berlin handwriting expert. With the help of a magnifying glass, tweezers, and an air brush, Ibscher must lift each page and place each little piece between glass plates. Resorting to other methods such as the use of chemicals is strictly forbidden, because it could destroy the handwriting on the pages. Dr. Ibscher estimates the time required for the full restoration of the text to be at least ten years. And how long will we have to wait for a translation?
The article appeared in 1935.
Another clipping from the same year asks, “Has the Grail Been Found?”: “A cup believed to have been used by Jesus during the Last Supper has been found by a British archaeological expedition in a cave in the Orontes Valley between Antioch and Harim in Syria, in the vicinity of one of the oldest Christian churches in existence. The cup has been taken to London for careful scientific examination.” I have never heard another word about his Grail and I doubt if we will ever hear of it again.
Finally, there are amazing similarities between Manichaean-Iranian and Icelandic poetry. I think we can exclude the explanation of coincidence. Nor did Manichaean missionaries evangelize in Iceland. Maybe, however, the Provencal troubadours who fled Rome’s inquisitors reached the land of the Edda, where they found their spiritual brothers in the skalds and transmitted to these singers and storytellers some of their Manichaean concepts. Or did the troubadours, skalds, and Manichaeans drink from the same well of Norse wisdom?
At any rate, my journey in search of Lucifer’s spirits, who were in no way bad ghosts, will almost certainly take me to Iceland.
[This refers to the Stedinger Revolt in Friesland (AD 1233-1234) and the crusade that Pope Gregory IX mounted against the Stedinger “heretics.” —Ed.]
[The three Nornen, or Weavers of Destiny, were Udr (what was), Verdandi (what will be), and Skuld (what should be). They worked under the Yggdrasil, the sacred ash tree, and appear in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Their Greek correspondents were the Moire. —Trans.]
™|Caesarius von Heisterbach (1180-1240), master of novices at the Heisterbach monastery, was one of the most widely read authors of the Middle Ages. —Trans.]
2l|“knew what to do with the agate stone.” —Trans.|
[Pope Honorius (born ca. 1227) was a former tutor of Emperor Frederick. —Trans.]
[The Rule of St. Benedict is the principal guide to Roman Catholic monastic life. It was written by Benedict between AD 530 and 560. —Trans.]