The rebel dukes raced home just in time to foil the attack.  Frustrated, the emperor decided to negotiate with them.  He sent an envoy as a messenger of peace.  But the dukes knew the envoy was a spy, so they played a trick.  Fake supplies of grain, corn, and wine were placed in the courtyard to make it appear that they had more supplies than they really did.

The deceit was successful.  The emperor decided to call off the siege because it was thought to be in vain.  But he had an even bitterer pill to swallow.  Everyone in Speyer knew that Edeltrand was in love with Eberhard. Having admitted defeat, the emperor now had to agree to his daughter’s marriage to the upstart duke.

The moral of this story is often told. Even the most cunning and powerful of fathers should realize that he can be betrayed, deceived, or misled by a daughter in love.

A city’s misery.  The Black Death had decimated the town’s population.  Soon there were almost no people left, not even any courageous priests to bury the dead.  All laughter and singing had stopped. Only the bells tolled weakly.  Shrouded in cloth, the few remaining citizens walked in procession behind the hearses.  Who would it be tomorrow?

To escape the plague, which had already claimed her husband, margravine Katherina fled with her children to the castle of Hohenbaden.   She hoped that they would be safe on top of a mountain.  She took the children to a tower and asked the guard not to allow anyone to approach or touch them.

The faithful servant followed her orders.  Every day he left food at the lowest step for the family to collect, to spare the children contact with any breath of the pestilence. The margravine was bent in sorrow.  She implored the virgin Mary to end the city’s misery.  In desperation the margravine pledged that she “would be forever grateful to the heavens and dedicate my children to the church.”

O miracle!  Mary came on a cloud and sent the desired relief. She made the hot springs gush into the valley.  The vapors drove away the Black Death.  The margravine’s vow had brought salvation to the town.  Thus we see that faith can surmount any doubt and that pestilence can be defeated.

Ed Street is a freelance writer based in Maryland. Christoph Wilkening is a proofreader for
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