A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY IMPOSTOR.
KAMPEN is a small seaport on the eastern shore of the Zuider Zee, celebrated not only for its great church of St. Nicholas, whose magnificence witnesses to its commercial eminence among the Hanse Towns, but also for the density of intellect of its inhabitants. To these are credited by their fellow Dutchmen all the laughable adventures of the men of Abdera, or of our own "wise men of Gotham." It is likely enough that they, too, had the robur et aes triplex to tempt the shallow waters of the Zuider Zee in a too fragile bark. It must have been this opacity of mind in the burgesses of Kampen which induced Jan van Poederlee, alias van Herenthals, to select it in 1480 as the scene of his exploits.
He seems to have come by sea from Amsterdam, for the Zuider Zee is the great highway in North Holland, accompanied by a servant whom he employed as the trumpeter. of his merits. He gave himself out as a great traveller ; he had certainly been to Rome, and he asserted that he had previously lived in the East, and done great service against the Turks, of whom, at the moment, all Europe was afraid. The Sultan, Mohammed II., who had taken Constantinople in 1453, undismayed by his failures at Belgrade and at Rhodes, was contemplating the invasion of Italy and the dominion of the Mediter- ranean. Jan had spent five years of his life fighting against these enemies of Christendom under the King of Cyprus, as a member of his personal retinue. He was "one. that _hath had losses," . for he had twice been cap- tured and detained in Turkish prisons. The King had made him a knight with his own sword, and had granted him a coat of arms, Sa. 2 bars wavy Ar., representing two waves of the sea, and formerly borne by the Turks whom he had overcome. He had also granted him another coat on his own account, viz., Az. 7 estoiles Or, and had given him a certificate attesting his pilgrimages. These were not less remarkable than his deeds of arms. He had three times visited the Holy Sepulchre, and had spent two years and fourteen weeks in Jerusalem, profes- sing his religion at the risk of his life. On one occasion he had visited the tomb of St. Katharine on Mount Sinai. He had thus acquired many relics, particularly from the Guardian of the Franciscan convent at Jerusalem, including portions of the Holy Cross, of three different kinds of wood out of the four mentioned in the legend.
He had a Bull of Pius II., in which all this was recited and another of Sixtus IV., the reigning Pope, dated June 29th, 1478, repeating the story, and commending him to the charity of the devout. Everyone who gave him a silver penny was to have an indulgence of 240 days, while more costly gifts were to be proportionately rewarded. This indulgence he had the power of communi- cating to any church or chapel he pleased, so that the faithful visiting it might for ever obtain the like remission in return for the like gifts. All prelates, male or female, were charged to provide him with thirteen dinners or suppers a year or the equivalent in cash, for himself and his man. Religious houses were to maintain them for three days, receiving plenary remission in return.
Jan van Poederlee was a foreigner in Kampen. He came from the neighbourhood of Mechlin, and it was not to be expected that the wise men of Kampen should accept him without credentials. He was therefore provided with letters from their diocesan, David of Burgundy, Bishop of Utrecht, guaranteeing the genuine- ness of the Papal Bulls which he carried. Moreover, the Bishop's letters were embodied in a public instrument attested by two notaries of Amsterdam. Armed with these_ documents he drove a thriving trade. He not only lived like a fighting cock on the burghers of Kampen, but he sailed over to Hoorn, on the western coast of the Zuider Zee, and played the same game there. He per- suaded the Beguines of St. Michael's op den Oirt, near Kampen, to pay him more than thirty-five Rhenish guilders for the grant to their church of his indulgence, and a copy of his letters containing it remains to this day in the archives of Kampen. He parted with his relics with great solemnity, kneeling to adore them before he handed them over to the recipients.
For more than a year all went well. But at last some trivial accident, or the jealousy of the regular clergy, cast a breath of suspicion on the holy and valiant knight. He was arrested and put to the torture. In due course he confessed that the Bulls were forgeries, and that he had been warned both at Rome and at Kampen to make no use of them. He admitted that he had himself written the notarial act of the letters of the Bishop of Utrecht during his residence at Kampen, and had counterfeited the official signs of the notaries, strange pen-and-ink drawings, rather like pots of flowers. The wood of the true Cross which he had delivered with so much ceremony to his dupes in Kampen and Hoorn he owned to be Lignum aloes, which he had bought in Kampen.
His confession is recorded in the criminal register of the town for 1481, and ends with the words : " znj Maij gladio ultore peremptv,s est."
CHARLES JOHNSON.
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