"City Air Makes You Free."
Part One
Last year, I published the story “One Day in the Life of Ivan of Lindishire,” about a serf in the 1200s who suppresses his desire for a better life because he is afraid of the conclusions he might reach were he to consider it. This is the story of his son.
The first thing Ulrich noticed when he entered Yulburg was the smell. Over time, he would come to forget about it, the way he had barely noticed the stench of Lindishire when he was growing up. The streets of Yulberg were dirty, but not excessively so, and Ulrich was surprised at the pace of the foot traffic and the carts. Everyone seemed in such a hurry, as though they had urgent business to conduct.
Perhaps they did, Ulrich reflected. The city spilled out well beyond its walls, but Ulrich noticed that the buildings inside looked nicer than those on the outskirts. The walls were high, but the gates were wide and large. There were guards posted, but they weren’t stopping anyone. Ulrich felt strange just walking right in, but dozens of other people were bustling in and out, and nobody was asked for papers or money. Ulrich joined the throng, and soon he was deep inside.
Ulrich had never seen so many people before in his life. And not a single one of them stopped to ask him any questions. They had their own business to attend to, and they assumed – if they assumed anything at all about him, or even took notice of him – that he had his own. Ulrich felt something that he had never experienced before: anonymity. It felt oddly comforting, as if some great weight had been lifted from his shoulders – though he could not say what the weight was.
He wandered through the streets, a bit adrift. Only now did he realize that perhaps it had been a bad idea to go to Yulburg without any idea of where he was going within the city or what he would do when he arrived. He had gone to the city for one reason and one reason only: because he didn’t want to be a serf like his father. Ulrich had heard a rumor that “city air made one free,” and though he wasn’t sure what that meant, he knew it meant he wouldn’t have to be a serf and spend his days working land he didn’t own for a man who took everything he had.
He wished his father, Ivan, had given him some better advice though. Surely his father must have known something about getting a job or finding lodging, which seemed like the most pressing priorities for Ulrich. Then again, his father had never been to a city, so maybe he didn’t know what one did there.
The only things Ivan had said to his son had been in the course of attempting to dissuade him to go. He’d warned Ulrich about licentiousness and depravity, and told him that in the city everything was permitted.
“Everything which is permitted,” Ivan had admonished his son, “is required. Keep your cross around your neck my son, and find a priest who can read the Bible for you. Whatever you do, don’t fall into company with whores and gamblers.”
Ulrich wandered for several hours and he was shocked to pass a tavern brawl that spilled out into the street – during the daytime, no less – and later a street lined with brothels where ladies of the night openly marketed their trade.
Eventually, Ulrich found an inn for the night. When he’d stored his meager belongings in his room, he went down to stand at the bar and eat supper. As the innkeeper poured him some stew, he asked her, “Good mistress, earlier today I passed some – well, some temptresses – and I didn’t go in, but I was rather shocked…”
“Shocked about what?”
“That the city watch would allow them to stand half-clothed on balconies and call to passersby – rather dirty things, I daresay.”
The innkeeper looked at him. “It’s perfectly legal,” she told him.
“What? Women going about with bare breasts in the middle of the day?”
“Well, yes. But there also isn’t any law against making a living as a whore.”
Ulrich marveled at this.
Over the course of his first few months, he came to the conclusion that there wasn’t actually much more prostitution going on in Yulburg than in Lindishire – once you took account of how many more people there were in the former. He figured there were probably about the same number of whores to residents as there were in Lindishire, where prostitution was illegal.
In Lindishire, soliciting prostitutes was illegal, and occasionally someone was jailed. But most of the inhabitants still went by the brothel. Because it was illegal, the guards and the local lord would go by and order the whores to service them free of charge or face jailtime for prostitution. Even Ulrich’s father went once or twice. And the local priests.
As far as the rest of the debauchery in Yulburg, Ulrich began to doubt it was really any greater than in Lindishire either. His father used to drink with the other serfs. And local laws didn’t seem to do much to deter the gambling. If anything, Ulrich met a lot of people in Yulburg who didn’t much care for taverns or gambling or visiting brothels. Besides, there was so much more to do in Yulburg than there was in Lindishire.
Ulrich got a job in a nearby guild hall, bringing foodstuffs in by cart each morning to the guild kitchens and carting away the refuse at the end of the day. During the late mornings and early afternoons, he stood at the door to greet the members and check identification for non-regulars. It was a good job, because the Guild of Goldsmiths paid their staff well. The clientele dressed more nicely than many tradesmen and occasionally one would give Ulrich a generous tip. In the evenings, he hung around the kitchens until the dinner hour had ended, at which time all the staff would gather for what inevitably turned out to be a feast of the leftovers.
After a time, though, Ulrich began to worry about his soul again. He wasn’t in the habit of drinking in the taverns and he never gambled away his wages or visited the brothels. But he hadn’t been to mass since he’d arrived in Yulburg, and he began to feel that he was doing something wrong.
So, one Sunday, he went to one of the great cathedrals in the city, where he confessed his sins and joined the other worshippers to listen to the priests speak in that strange tongue that Ulrich knew to be Latin. He took the bread and the wine and as he left he was feeling rather holy, when suddenly a stern voice called to him. Ulrich turned to see one of the priests walking towards him.
“Have you confessed your sins young man,” the priest asked him.
“Yes, father,” he replied.
“You’ve been out drinking with the other young men your age and you’ve been in the gambling dens.”
“No, father, I haven’t.”
“Do you visit the whorehouses then?”
“Never, father.”
The priest nodded at this. “You’re baptized?” he asked.
“Yes, father.”
“Well then, we are looking for a young fellow like you – we need another pair of hands around the cathedral and if you’re a God-fearing Christian in good standing with the church, we could pay you better than the guilds can.”
“Father, I don’t know that I’m called…”
“I don’t mean for the priesthood, young man. We need a man to clean out the scullery and guard the sanctuary against thieves and make sure the pantry’s well stocked.”
“Oh, I see. I could do that.”
“What is your name, young man?”
“Ulrich. Ulrich of Lindishire. Son of Ivan of Lindishire.”
“Lindishire… never been there. Is it a sinful, decadent place or a holy, righteous one?”
“I don’t know, father. Everyone there is a Christian.”
“Good then. I’m Father Abelaird.”
They shook hands.
Ulrich didn’t know what compelled him to take the job – whether it was the man’s force of presence, or the higher wage. He was already doing just fine working for the Guild, but the priest darkened when he heard it was the Goldsmith’s Guild and he muttered something about mammon and the love of money and said he would say a prayer for Ulrich. Ulrich rather liked the job at the Guild and he felt odd about working for the Church, seeing as he’d never considered himself a good Christian – not that he was a bad Christian, just that he wasn’t sure where he stood; not that he wasn’t a believer, but that he wasn’t particularly devout, after all – but Ulrich also worried that if he didn’t take the job, something bad would happen. He wasn’t sure about the status of his soul, but if Father Abelaird seemed so perturbed by the Goldsmith’s Guild, maybe working for gold merchants wasn’t a good thing for his immortal soul.
Ulrich was sure of one thing. Working for Father Abelaird would be good for his soul. And that convinced him to take the job.
After a month working at the cathedral, Ulrich rather liked it. For one thing, they fed and housed him – and the food was good and the lodging was clean. They even taught him to read. He had new clothes to wear, which looked something like acolyte’s robes or a monk’s habit to him. Father Abelaird took a liking to him. The priest said that Ulrich cheered his heart, for here was one young man of the rising generation who wasn’t corrupted like his peers. One man, Father Abelaird said, out of a thousand who wasn’t given over to debauchery and whoredom.
Father Abelaird took Ulrich under his wing. After Ulrich’s duties were finished, he would often be invited to join the priest in his study or in the church library for a discussion. Father Abelaird did most of the talking, and he seemed to relish having a young conversation partner who was eager to learn from him. Ulrich would bring the priest news about rumors and about new ideas that were getting bandied about by young men in the taverns and salons of Yulburg. Abelaird gave the young man permission to frequent these taverns, that he might be better able to bring word to the priest of what was taking place in these discussions. Father Abelaird even told Ulrich that he would go ahead and add a prayer to his daily litany that Ulrich be absolved of any drinking or gambling he did at these discussions – because, of course, he would need to fit in. The priest did add that Ulrich would need to avoid drinking to excess, as he would need to keep his head and remember what was being said.
So, Ulrich went to the taverns and listened to the other young men talk about ideas, and in the evenings he returned to the cathedral where he would sit with Father Abelaird and recount these conversations.
One evening, Ulrich told the priest, “there is much talk afoot of new ideas about rights. That men are born with rights, and that they can’t be put to death or imprisoned without just cause.”
“Rights? But of course. Of course. What rights?”
“Mainly there’s this idea that all men are born with a right to their own lives. Women, too, I think.”
“Hah,” Father Abelaird slapped the arm of his chair. “Next thing you know they’ll be coming to their local lords – or even to the king – claiming they’re entitled to have the lords give them all sorts of things. Or worse, they’ll come to the church and petition us to give them all kinds of special favors – as if we didn’t already do enough for poor and the destitute and any soul who truly needs help, and as if we didn’t already pain ourselves day and night trying to save their ungrateful souls. Souls many of them don’t want saved, if you ask me. Born with a right to one’s life? But show me a man or woman or child who consented to being born. A right doesn’t enter into it.”
Ulrich sat up a little when the priest spoke these last words. “That’s actually one of the things they say,” he said. “They talk about consent and about how it’s wrong that lords and earls and dukes make people work against their will and take all that they have. And rape their daughters and wives. And…”
“Consent?” Father Abelaird spat. “No man consents to the family he’s born into. No man consents to the nation he’s born into. Consent doesn’t enter into it. Anyone talking about bringing consent into morality – into what’s right or wrong, and last I checked nobody gets to consent to what’s right and wrong, right and wrong just are – is just looking for an excuse to turn his back on the family that raised him, the religion that saved his soul, and the nation that gave him everything he ever had. Next thing these impertinent, ungrateful youths will be refusing to marry the woman whose been ordained for them, and they’ll be refusing to pay taxes on the grounds that they didn’t consent to live under a king – a king without whom they wouldn’t be anywhere, I might add.”
Father Abelaird shook his head. “Is there anything else these scoundrels talk about?” he asked.
Ulrich hesitated. “Well,” he said, “There’s another word they use often. In addition to ‘consent.’”
“What is that?”
“It’s… they talk a great deal about liberty.”
“Liberty?”
“Liberty. Freedom.”
“I know what it means,” Father Abelaird snapped. He leaned back. “I know too well what it means – more than what a rabble in a drinking den knows, I might add.”
“What does it mean?” asked Ulrich.
“Well. What your companions mean – what they mean when they say liberty – is drinking and whoring. They mean debauchery, licentiousness, indulging in all manner of vices. Freedom to sin and live in heathenism. It’s pettiness, I tell you. Pettiness.”
“What do you mean when you say you know better than them?”
“I mean that they don’t know what true freedom really is – which is found only in community and in absence from temptation and sin. It isn’t found in choice. As if having the burden of choosing things made a man free. As if he was made free by having to pick what bread to eat, instead of just being grateful he’s got bread – and that his betters have done the hard work of making choices for him.”
“What do you mean?” Ulrich asked, somewhat confused.
“I mean I know what these fellows want. Their word ‘liberty’ is just another word for nothing – for cutting off all ties, for separating themselves apart from the bonds of family and church, separating themselves down to atoms – as if each of them was a unit unto himself. It’s a word for rejecting authority – for refusing to accept what’s good for them and refusing to listen to those who know better than them, as if the whole world began the day each man of them was born. Pettiness, I say, as if the whole world is just what each man of them thinks it is.”
Ulrich nodded. “I’ve heard them scoff at authority,” he said.
“They ought not to be so ungrateful. ‘Liberty,’ they say. ‘Ingratitude,’ I say. Liberty, hah, what about loyalty? What about paying your debts? These young men don’t know how much they owe the community they were born into, the church that’s done nothing but pray for their immortal souls, the people that’ve nurtured them their whole lives, the lord that lets them live on his land and in exchange only takes an tiny portion of his rightful property, the lord who lets them work his land and keep half of the proceeds. Ha, they think they’re better than they are. They cry for freedom and what they want is chaos.”
“Chaos?”
“They want to upend the order of things, the natural hierarchy. The great chain – an integral order in which no man has to wonder what he is for. That’s freedom – not this liberty, but having a place. Being born into a particular circumstance, a link in the chain. The king didn’t ask to be born into the royal family, did he? You think he likes having to make decisions for his people? It’s a great responsibility, it is.”
“No, I… I never thought that. I suppose he doesn’t maybe…”
“Well, he didn’t have a choice. And neither do these men. It was ordained – their place, and yours and mine. It’s a lie, this liberty, this choice. It’s all been ordained.”
Their conversation ended at this point, because Ulrich had duties to attend to. But Ulrich kept thinking about it for quite some time. He asked the priest the next day what he’d meant by ordained, and the man had told him about original sin and the fallenness of man’s broken nature.
“But I know about that,” said Ulrich, still confused.
“Well, then, did you ever stop to consider what it might mean?”
“Mean?”
“That human beings were fit to be slaves. That’s what it means. Our evil natures have fit us only for slavery and worse, and it is only through the sacraments of the church that we become free from that nature. It is only through serving the role given to us in life – your friends don’t want to serve a role, they don’t want what’s been given to them. That’s their sinful nature speaking – they want to indulge in their temptations, and they reject the true freedom that the church gives them.”
“But what is ordained? If we’re fit to be slaves? What do you mean?”
“I mean the feudal system – your friends don’t like it, but they don’t deserve any better. What’s more, they don’t recognize what we’ve got and what we’d be giving up by playing around with their notions of liberty.”
“What’ve we got?”
“An integral social order. That’s what we’ve got. A nation that cares for us – in which each of us has a place. In a cruel and broken world, people have a master to protect them. It’s the natural way of things and the best way and it resembles the hierarchy of the heavens. The absolute power and authority of the king here on Earth mirror the absolute power and authority and glory of God. And the great administration of the king’s governance mirrors the administration of all the heavenly host.”
Ulrich nodded, but he wasn’t sure he fully understood. Still, he was wary the next time he went to the tavern to converse with the other men his age.