The plague near Bienenburg

  

  

 The plague near Bienenburg

There is hardly any other city where there are so many stories about the plague in Bienenburg. Since then, Bienenburg has seemed so deserted, even though it drew a wide ring around it. Where there was snow on the shores of the lake in winter, the green meadows covered in snow and cat paws visible, the plague raged in 1500. It had raged for two summers. It seemed to terrify everyone. It filled the streets, the councilors' hall, with people trying to figure out how to fight the plague.   

In almost every country it prevailed , like a process like when an illness rises in bed, the freezing in the limbs is easy to explain and the health disappears. Obviously, death seemed to be the only cause in the end that nothing could be found out.        

 The plague was discussed for a long time on the square in front of the town hall. In the many buildings in which the citizens of the city lived, such as in Webergasse, the walls were soon burned out. But it didn't look like an ordinary fire, more like arson. The residents of the houses left their homes, which were smashed and charred on the ground after their apartments were infected. The smell of fire and decay moved everywhere to the neighboring site, which was still spared from the plague. Only a few people came rushing over from Bergisches Land to Bienenburg to see what had happened. The people, a large part of Bienenburg, had disappeared.
As if carried away in a melting pot, died from the fever of the disease.
The gate to Bienenburg was wide open.

The days passed when the events of that time were no longer mentioned for fear of provoking another disaster. Even the straw baskets in which the nuns from Bienenburg raised their bees were burned. The petite one     

The monastery garden was still blooming. But all the bees were killed and flown out.     

 

The evil gods also stole small children from or cradles and did not spare them from the plague. At a time when the ancient world was ravaged by the plague. Death took the lead in 1500 AD through the plague, which spread like a poison. Its heyday in Bienenburg was two summers long. Their decline brought people back to life and everything should be fine again. Their achievement, a broad burial ground around Bienenburg. It changed the everyday life of the farmers and the workers who owned a trade, because the plague lived on in memory of those who were still alive at the time. And that's how it all started.

Chapter 1.
They had finally arrived at the old bridge. Karl and Anna Pelzer had worked in the fields for a long time. With their horse cart they drove back to their little house that was in the green. Karl and Anna from Pelzer had two children, Hanna and Jakob. They were already standing in the door waiting for their parents. Jakob rang the bells and announced that his parents would return home from work. then Jakob stepped out of the front door of the little house, which was now wide open. It was dark and cool in the stairwell. Anna from Pelzer said to Jakob, her son, don't stand around and take my pointed pouch off my legs. The boy stank badly because he had spent the whole day with the pigs. Hanna cleaned the house in time. For a few days the girl had been covered with red spots but father and mother did not know what that meant. She had played with Maria Zuber's children, the widow Kunzlein Zuber. The youngest had been lying under her covers for days and was very feverish. The Kunzlein widow was sitting with her sewing kit at the same time as the couple from Pelzer came home at their spinning wheel next to the bed of their sick child. She didn't notice her daughter getting sicker and sicker. The lack of necessary food since the death of her husband seemed sufficient. The storm and the flooding about a year ago when the river overflowed had also contributed to this.       

The unbearable heat of this year's summer also bothered the woman, as did the last day's march about a week ago.       

Little Trude looked very much like her father. He died of blood poisoning last winter. He made the hooks for hanging out of iron. Everyone in Bienenburg bought them from him. Some paid with fodder or cattle if they didn't have a thaler for the hoes. The nuns of Bienenburg paid for a single hoe with honey from their bees. Hanna's parents also had the heels of Kunzlein Zuber. It could be used to hang pots and pans, ladles and cupboards in the house. With the door open, Father Pelzer and Mother Pelzer went into the family's living room and bedroom and went to the fire, above which a pot was simmering a soup. The children of the Pelzer mother grabbed the ladle and stirred the pot with it. In thought of the deceased Kunzlein's hoes. Like her husband, Mother Pelzer was hungry. 
  

Jacob helped his father out of his shoes. They were made of wood.
In the next room he rested briefly on a bench.
Meanwhile Anna had washed her hands at the water pump in the house. The hallway was dark and she looked over where the grain was stored.
Hanna scrubbed the corner clean, but the fleas were already at home there. A gift from traders who had passed through Bienenburg.
The Zuber's widow was also given a sack of flour. None of them knew that the plague came there. Anna and Karl had not yet looked at it. Traces of flour were everywhere. Like the broken dishes when Hanna dropped them and passed out. Anna and Karl were very excited about it. They put her on the duvet and looked into her sick eyes. Their skin color mingled with black soot. Her urine was bloody. The bestial stench of her Kott made it hard to breathe, so hard that Father Pelzer got the daughter into the stable. There was little hope for them. Jacob wept and prayed for his sister Hanna. He sat down next to her on a haystack. What on earth was that smallpox on her face? The Pelzer family didn't know. The feces of the townspeople also changed. incredulous horror arose. About the rubbish and black bumps in Bienenburg, was finally discussed and then died. Hanna had also died. And the widow of Kunzlein Zuber died with her children. Karl Pelzer soon fell ill too. And then Anna said to Jakob we have to leave the house and save ourselves. Anna and Jakob fled to another city to explain what was happening in Bienenburg. Everyone said the plague had broken out in Bienenburg. And this came true like the daily morning, day and night. Men in armor were sent to Bienenburg. They were armed with weapons on their bodies and provisions. For days they rode on horseback around the city wall around Bienenburg. The nuns on the mountain had armed themselves with tools like her out of fear. They saw the men sitting on the horse. Covered with a load that was armor. With these weights on their bodies, they rode up and down the city wall. Their indescribable march caused a strong emotional excitement as they stared over the walls. They went through the gate and counted the sick and the dead in the street. Some of the sick made strange noises, others fevered and reached for their armor and cloaks. A barefoot man tried to pull a rider from his horse. He stabbed him dead with a sword as the sick man came closer and stretched out his hands to him. Most of the houses were surrounded by urine and sewer runners and it smelled terrible. The bubonic plague began to move everywhere you looked. The view of what was happening reached over the roofs. One saw forests and hills as green as the Wupper the cool waters. If you looked at the city of Bienenburg, if you looked up close you saw that life there disappeared. Every appearance of the people had been lost, where once the hustle and bustle reigned, the riders in their armor only saw the realm of death, which they entered with their eyes. This is what the monks of Hagen wrote in their books. On the flat roofs that were covered by red tiles, the healthy managed to escape. The nuns rested in the small rotunda placed by the church and watched the disaster in the city from their hill. The bees hummed in their baskets and they were the only ones spared. Little did they know that they were writing about the Bienenburg plague in exactly 1500. The monks of Hagen didn't even know that there was such a thing as a plague flea. Most of the time you are occupied with calculating time. And they were very knowledgeable about their domains. They had argued at times about this. At least when the lord of the castle was visiting. The abbot of Hagenfels was very petty and instigated his monks to be precise. The visits were not always that relaxed, especially during the plague. How selfless was the man among the monks. Even when they were self-employed, they sometimes misbehaved. They supplied the Archduke von Berg with news, including the plague of his people. The Archduke Ferdinand took note of it with regret. The monks advised the archduke much lower  


Stop night sky. It would protect him from deadly disease. The night as a remedy venerable abbot Ask Ferdinand the monks. He kept himself covered under a hood.
Then the Archduke of Abbot Bartholomes heard
his voice. The night is specially made for this.
There was a hoarse rattle in the abbot's voice.
Heavy breath followed when the conversation became tense because of the many death shooters that the Archduke had set up around Bienenburg. Also on the church tower. From there, riders marched around the structure of the wall, shooting their projectiles with bow and arrow as if by magic into the crowd of plague sufferers. My men spoke of black monsters they saw. A contracting sick crowd that forms anew every day. And getting bigger and bigger. Behind the walls there is a smell of decay, of rotten-stinking bodies. I had to protect myself and my soldiers, said the Archduke. I understand said the abbot. It is sad and at the same time a pity this one came towards him. Abbot Bartholomes thought for a long time
about these sad words of Archduke Ferdinand , he later spoke about the dire circumstances that arose in Bienenburg with his consecrated monks, the scribes Agnus and Dieterlin as well as the herbalist and history researcher Ersamus von Berghain. They went through all the details and then discussed another whore case. To burn a whore who had been locked in the dungeon for a year. My dear brothers, I recorded the whore's burning for tomorrow. As soon as the sun leans towards the earth, the fire on the scaffold can be lit and the prostitute burned. The fire purifying your soul takes effect when the sun goes down. Let us now pray for the plague sufferers from Bienenburg. So it happened. From now on Bienenburg was enemy territory, where one was not allowed to set up camp. A wide moat had been built around the city wall. Behind it, 1,300 people lived in huts and shacks. The sickbed was all occupied and the nuns of the bee castle were overwhelmed. They counted the minutes how the sick still had to live. Tufts of hair and flakes of skin were scattered all over the camp sites. The eyes of the sick were sparse. Sunken cheekbones covered black circles under the eyes. Sister Edeltraut did not know what was in store for her and her fellow sisters. She grimaced and looked at the sick people's throats. Rotten teeth, with the exception of the toothlessness, struck her. She was now forgiving a brew that she mixed from the heart of frogs and rose oil. It should break the evil spell, she hoped. She whispered to the sick, dripping the medicine into them. A gripping moment as Sister Edeltraud found. A fellow sister helped her carry the solution in a jug. It was sister Agnes. They were about to boil and make a new remedy. They wanted to make a solution from rose water and cattle from tree bark and use it to rub the plague bumps. Sister Edeltraut expected a lot from it. 700 people still lived in the city. The nunnery received copies of the medicine, dealt with the healing practices of nature for many centuries. The published writings of the only sister Hildegard were known and familiar to the nuns of Bienenburg. They kept to their expertise and the knowledge imparted, continued to write books on medicinal herbs and tried to trick the plague with elixirs. They also tried leeches but it was in vain. The animals were supposed to pull the poison from the bodies of the sick and the nuns hoped to be correct. The nuns asked God for the strength of the only visionary they worshiped and asked God to make the plague go away. But even here the effort was in vain. Sister Agnes also fell ill and soon died of the plague. From then on, Sister Edeltraut no longer dared to go to the sick. It has not proven itself, nor has a healing process been found that has been desirable. People continued to die of a disease that showed like the true one. No herb, not the wild fruits from the forest, neither the minerals from stones rubbed with a mortar helped the people who died before God Almighty like flies. The church was overwhelmed and then the abbot decided. After the witch died in the fire, he ordered the penitent sick to be killed. The Archduke von Berg was informed as soon as the road was clear and the winter had passed. But dear abbot said Sister Edeltraut we are still looking for a cure. Like the great Hildegard did before us. The means are ineffective, and you know that, Sister Abbot Bartholomes said. There is a cure worthy abbot for everyone. We are now trying full baths and a warm honey wrap. It helped heal the scars. Yes, with slight inflammations and sores, the abbot roared. But the plague is God's work and so the fire alone helps. He improved his words. And so it happened. The abbot and the Archduke Ferdinand and their entourage stepped up to the city wall. In the book of the monks it is written how it was. The many people burned alive. In the library of the monastery of Hagen books in which the Bienenburg case were illustrated with pictures were fiery and painful. In a private collection you can see the abbot beheading the corpses. The title of the monk book, the fire in Bienenburg. Nothing seemed so imperfect as the plague wrote the abbot. His original texts are made public. The forms of the plague, he wrote, are characterized by fuzzy elements. One lacks the heart to accept the plague as a disease. Such is the case of Bienenburg. The flames stood over the valley and burned down the houses, God's work had done that. The devotion with which the nuns cared for the plague was sacrificing and dramatic at the same time, and while caring for them they performed difficult operations at the same time. But even with her empathy, it was not enough to work miracles in Bienenburg. The plague caused a lot of deaths, the fire brought them down. The flames broke out of the sick bodies, they struck out their backs and heads, destroyed their plague bodies, their clothes and their skin. The abbot touched her plague bumps with a sword. Cut a cross into it. Animals, a bull and a young female cow, were also burned; their bones were later laid together with the deceased people. They lay all over the place in the ashes. Next to it are broken milk cans and jugs. Eaten by birds of prey, the remains of the corpses found eternal rest. A couple of donkeys were still standing in a yard, survived the plague and lost their way into the forest. Nobody knows what happened to Jakob and Anna Pelzer. It was said that Anna liked to peck at an apple, and Jacob was a generous and courageous man. Both survived the plague and that's a good thing. end