Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
The men I can generally control, but my captains are a set of impious cut-throats who would sooner sack an Archbishop's palace than listen to the niceties of the feudal law which protects over-lords from such pleasantries." The Archbishop turned on his horse and gazed on the huge bulk of Schloss Hochstaden, and there a wonderful sight met his eye.
Then from near the great tent of the Archbishop, by the margin of the stream, came the answering call, accepting the demand for a parley. When at last the Archbishop, mounted on a black charger, came slowly up the winding path which led to the castle, attended by only two of his officers, he found the Count of Hochstaden awaiting him on the battlements above the gate.
It was at Cologne in the year 1248 on the eve of the Ascension day of our Lord. Before the mighty Archbishop Kunrad of Hochstaden stood a simple architect offering the plan of a church, and arrogantly boasting that it would become one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Christendom. That man was Master Gerhard of Ryle.
A cheer went up, the first heard for many days within those walls, and the feasters, flinging their caps in the air, cried "Hochstaden! Hochstaden!" The Count turned to his fair companion and said, with a smile: "The garrison is with me, my Lady." She smiled also, and sighed, but made no other reply, keeping her eyes steadfast on the stone steps beneath her.
Once more on the battlements, the Lord of Hochstaden commanded the trumpeter to sound the call The martial music rang out in the still morning air and was echoed mockingly by the hills on the other side of the river. After that, all was deep silence. "Once again," said Konrad. For a second time the battle blast filled the valley, and for a second time returned faintly back from the hills.
The warder at the gate of Schloss Hochstaden, after some cautious parley with the newcomers, joyously threw apart the two great iron- studded oaken leaves of the portal when he was convinced that it was indeed his young master who had arrived after some tumultuous years at the crusades, and Count Konrad with his followers rode clattering under the stone arch, into the ample courtyard.
The colour left the cheeks of the Lady of Bernstein as she listened in palpable terror to the fiendish outcry which seemed to scream for blood and that instantly, looking down she saw the Knight of Hochstaden still there at the foot of her wall gazing up at her. "My Lord," she said with concern, "if you stay thus behind your noisy troop you will certainly be captured when it comes day."
It is recorded that, in the great hall of the castle, the Count and his twenty bronzed and scarred knights ate such a meal as had never before been seen to disappear in Hochstaden, and that after drinking with great cheer to the downfall of the Saracene and the triumph of the true cross, they all lay on the floor of the Rittersaal and slept the remainder of the night, the whole of next day, and did not awaken until the dawn of the second morning.
They had had years of hard fighting in the east, and on the way home they had been compelled to work their passage through the domains of turbulent nobles by good stout broadsword play, the only argument their opposers could understand, and thus they had come through to the Rhine without contributing aught to their opponents except fierce blows, which were not commodities as marketable as yellow gold, yet with this sole exchange did the twenty-one win their way from Palestine to the Palatinate, and thus were they so long on the road that those in Schloss Hochstaden had given up all expectation of their coming.
The cries of joy that rang up from within the castle delighted the ear of the Count and softened the suspicion of the lady on the wall. "Now," cried Konrad to his Captain, "back to Schloss Hochstaden before the dawn approaches too closely, and let there be no mistake in the Archbishop's camp that you are on the way."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking