Chapter 65: Laws of the Harvest
A week later, the master’s room of the von Frundsberg keep.
"The holy words penned by Father Anselm spread like wildfire along the trade roads," Isolde reported, "The peasants and many lesser lords have stopped paying the Pope’s tithes altogether. They use your printed book as lawful proof to cut their purses from Rome."
"What about the Diet’s decision? We must find out how outraged they are."
Isolde unrolled the vellum, scanning the ciphered words. "The priests’ party, led by Cardinal Morone and the Bishop of Augsburg, is bleeding silver. In the great hall, the Bishop demanded the lawful right to march with fire and sword upon these lands."
"Speak the Bishop’s exact words..." Konrad ordered.
Isolde turned the holy shouting of the Bishop into the plain words he demanded.
"The Bishop argued that the Swabian forges must be burned to ash before the new faith breaks the Empire’s purse forever.
He demanded the Catholic lords call up their peasants at once, march past the Bavarian guards, and put every living soul within our borders to the sword."
"The priests still dream that holy shouting can turn aside true lead shot. How did the worldly lords answer this?"
"With cold reason..." Isolde replied, "The Elector of Saxony mocked the Bishop before the whole Diet. The Elector noted that the Emperor’s peasants hold no true armor and fight with rusted pikes.
He warned them plainly that marching unarmored farmers into the crossing fire of your twelve-pounder great guns would bring only a great and bloody slaughter of their own people."
Isolde traced her finger down the vellum. "More than this, the Elector called out the priests’ greed. He stated that the Pope’s endless grasping for Fugger silver from your forges, and their paying for the coming Teutonic war, were the true roots of this evil.
The worldly lords asked to send a herald to parley, offering to lift the Pope’s curse if you sell them the plans for the new great guns."
"The Electors are blind to the truth of this realm..." Konrad sighed. "All I want is their iron ore and their crops. Has the Cardinal accepted their offer to negotiate?"
"He threw it back in their faces," Isolde confirmed. "Cardinal Morone swore the Church does not parley with damned heretics. He demanded blood for the shame the Church has suffered, ending all talk. The Diet is now frozen. The worldly lords will not pay for a fool’s march, and the priests will not suffer a parley."
"Hmm, so the emperor’s rule has finally crumbled," Konrad judged. "The Holy Roman Empire is torn apart into religiously warring factions. They will squander their grain and silver burning each other’s fields over the words of the priests."
"While they fight amongst themselves," Isolde reckoned, "they cannot gather a true host to march upon our lands."
"Just so," Konrad stated, standing up from his table. "We shall use this blinding smoke to mend our own greatest weakness. The ranks of the gunners grow, but our own fields do not yield enough grain to feed them."
"...we bleed Fugger silver to buy Hanseatic wheat."
Konrad walked past Isolde, moving to a locked iron box set into the wall.
"The minor lords within our borders laid down their swords days ago, yet they still hold onto their old land deeds... extracting money from the serfs while paying no heed to the strength of the blacksmiths," Konrad went on.
He unlocked the box and drew out a stack of sealed writs.
"This waste is ended." Konrad declared, dropping the stack onto the table. "These are the new laws of the harvest..."
"I lawfully strip every acre of good Swabian farmland from the old lords... the lands now belong solely to my rule."
Isolde’s eyes widened slightly, My Lord, stealing the ancient lands of the lords breaks every law of the Empire... the lesser lords will call this the highest tyranny."
"Consider them as having agreed... Don’t worry," Konrad replied immediately.
Konrad tapped his ink-stained finger upon the law written at the bottom of the writ.
"The old lords shall be named as paid masters of the harvest," Konrad ordered.
"The bringing of these laws needs swift swords," Isolde noted, turning at once to her duties.
"Call Marshal Eckhard," Konrad commanded, turning back to his table. "He shall send a company of gunners to every keep and manor in our lands. The laws shall be read at the barrel of a new gun. See that the master of stores puts heavy locks upon all the grain silos at once."
"The Teutonic knights still gather in the north, and Duke Wilhelm’s halberdiers mass upon our eastern roads, so we must be prepared." Konrad stated, his eyes fixed on the endless tallies in his Fugger books.
The doors of the room remained shut tight.
...
For two full days, the worldly lords and the high priests of the Holy Roman Empire had roared at one another, bringing forth not a single writ or law.
They sought to quench the fire of the new Swabian faith, but their old ways of parley and threat were failing.
After a long night of drinking deep of Burgundy wine and screaming over holy matters, the Diet gathered once more.
The Elector of Saxony, a cold-eyed lord who cared only for keeping his Hanseatic trade roads safe, saw the folly of shouting over Father Anselm’s book.
The new faith was already bleeding the Pope’s purse dry. Instead, the Elector turned the Diet’s eyes to a far swifter peril: the unbidden marching of the Teutonic knights.
"The priests howl over a Swabian smith," the Elector of Saxony called out. "Yet the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order puts the eastern lands to the torch. The Order’s taking of lands and their endless skirmishing with the Polish King choke the Baltic grain trade."
"...If the Pope keeps sending silver to feed this war of heavy horse, the Hanseatic merchants will close every port to the Empire."
The Elector, acting purely for his own purse, aimed his words straight at the master of the Pope’s silver: Cardinal Morone.
Morone, wrapped in layers of crimson Italian silk, felt his blood rise in sudden wrath.
The Cardinal stood for a bloated, rich Church that kept its power by taking tithes and buying the swords of sell-swords.
To be called to account by a worldly lord before the whole Diet was an insult to his high seat!
