Three days after word spread that the Drummer, Hans Behem had been captured, thousands of pilgrims remained in Niklashausen. The real story was over but as Wunderli tells us, the Bishop didn't know that. According to various accounts , mostly in letters sent to other districts, the crowds had been told to disperse. But so many people, apparently had heard stories of various miracles that took place that people kept coming or remained and kept the clamor going.
There were several accounts of officials countering the idea that there had been any miracles or signs of divinity, at the time of the capture, since or, at all before, in this season. The Bishop's marshal, Jorg von Racken spoke Wednesday July 17, 1476 at the Wurzburg town council, explaining that the whole thing had come from the Drummer. He consoled the council members that there had not been so many miracles, that they "... were all vain inventions and false roguery." He said there was a report from Eichstatt that some conspirators had sent a man pretending to be mute who was coached to say he had been miraculously cured. The Bishop had assured in a letter to Saxony that there had been no miracles. [p. 126] The marshal claimed to be at the interrogation of the Drummer, who, it is recorded had denied and laughed at everything he was accused of. [p. 132]
Yet, despite the official assurances which became plentiful and widespread in the following days, the clerics in charge still had many unanswered questions. What to do with all the people, how to get them to go home? There were those who wanted them all to stay in Niklashausen, like under quarantine, in order to keep these crazy ideas away from their own local flocks and districts, as much as possible. Others wanted to know who this could be to cause such a major disturbance that went against all norms of sense. Some claimed the Drummer was the only culprit claiming a special connection with Mary Mother of God and there were those who thought he was far too simple, and had to have some help or guidance or owed all his skills even, to the Beghard or the Dominican hermit that there were so many tales of. This part of the story, if at all true, is still unknown. [pp. 128-9] The local parish priest of Niklashausen who at first encouraged the Drummer, and who was greatly enriched by all the pilgrims and then pushed to the edges when things became chaotic, was taken into custody. But he was a small player, it seemed. [pp. 130-1]
Part of the problem was that the authorities were always asking the same questions about God themselves. Was he angry? Was he happy now that the Drummer was captured? The accounts of the dead that walked, the blind that now could see, the mute who spoke again, were certainly plentiful and these all had to be heard and investigated and disproven. [pp. 126-8] Perhaps with enough of these stories disproved, the mobs would see the error of their ways and go home.
The captains that assumed leadership over the mob on the previous Sunday, like Conrad von Thunfeld, had all fled and could not be found. [p. 131]
In the meantime it took a few days to make interrogations in general, and in particular, with the Drummer himself and the friar that the officials had captured. But not many days.
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from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.
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