carried his head high indeed, and
deemed so greatly of his scutcheon and his knightly forbears that he
scorned all civic dignities as but a small matter. Then, whereas in the
middle of the past century all towns were forbid by imperial law to hold
tournaments, he went to Court, and had been dubbed knight by the Emperor
Charles, and won fame and honor by many a shrewd lance-thrust. His more
than common manly beauty gained him favor with the ladies, and since he
preferred what was noble and knightly to all other graces he would wed no
daughter of Nuremberg but the penniless child of Baron von Frauentrift.
But my grand-uncle had made an evil choice; his wife was high-tempered
and filled full of conceits. When princes and great lords came into our
city, they were ever ready to find lodging in the great and wealthy house
of the Im Hoffs; but then she would suffer them to pay court to her, and
grant them greater freedom than becomes the decent honor of a Nuremberg
citizen's hearth. Once, then, when my lord the duke of Bavaria lay at
their house with a numerous fellowship, a fine young count, who had
courted my grand uncle's wife while she was yet a maid, fanned his
jealousy to a flame; and, one evening, at a late hour, while his wife was
yet not come home from seeing some friends, as it fell he heard a noise
and whispering of voices, beneath their lodging, in the courtyard wherein
all these folks' chests and bales were bestowed. He rushed forth, beside
himself; and whereas he shouted out to the courtyard and got no reply, he
thrust right and left at haphazard with his naked sword among the chests
whence he had heard the voices, and a pitiful cry warned him that he had
struck home. Then there came the wailing of a woman; and when the squires
and yeomen came forth with torches and lanterns, he could see that he had
slain Ludwig Tetzel, Ursula's uncle, a young unwedded man. He had stolen
into the courtyard to hold a tryst with the fair daughter of the
master-weigher in the Im Hoffs' house of trade, and the loving pair, in
their fear of the master, had not answered his call, but had crept behind
the baggage. Thus, by ill guidance, had my grand-uncle become a murderer,
and the judges broke their staff over him; albeit, since he freely
confessed the deed of death, and had done it with no evil intent, they
were content to make him pay a fine in money. But some said that they
likewise commanded the hangman to nail up a gallows-cord behi