1883. Prowe's Life of Copernicus. 311
Precisely at noon each day, the tolling of the great bell gave the signal to all the inmates of the castle to assemble for the midday meal under the groined and granite-pillared porticoes of the arcade. Then the doors of the episcopal apartments were flung open ; the castle mastiffs, just unloosed, rushed out, loudly baying their exultation in liberty and expectancy of food ; and the bishop, clad in full choir-costume, attended by vicar, chief justice, chaplain, marshal, and chamberlain, and followed by his guests and retainers in orderly procession, led the way across the courtyard to the grand banqueting-hall. There eight separate tables were spread, corresponding to eight different degrees of dignity;[1] for, from the mitred ruler himself to the lowest scullion in his kitchen, each had his ascertained place, fixed by ordinance and assigned by authority. It is curious to read that one of these eight tables was set apart for jugglers and buffoons, and was placed in a conspicuous position — in medio cœnaculi — so that the whole company might freely and equally enjoy the quaint antics, fantastic gestures, quips and sallies, with which these Prussian Touchstones and Wambas repaid the episcopal hospitality. A table was also provided for certain poor persons chosen daily by the bishop, and these were served at the same time with the highest dignitaries, while the attendants, in two relays, took their food later, the inferior menials waiting upon the superior, and being at last regaled with the ragged remnants of the feast.
Day after day, for six years, Copernicus formed part of the stately procession to the banqueting-hall of the Castle of Heilsberg. Day after day, too, he must have shared the anxieties which weighed heavily on its chief inmate. The position of the Bishop of Ermland was, at that juncture, a singularly anomalous and a singularly onerous one. Contradictory obligations were forced upon him, irreconcilable privileges conferred upon him. He was at once a Prince of the Empire and a vassal of Poland ; he was ex officio a member of the Polish Senate and virtual vicegerent of the Polish king in West Prussia; yet he was expected, as president of the assemblies of his native country, to give a voice to the sullen murmurs of Prussian discontent with the Polish Government, and to represent and organise the stirrings of Prussian resistance to Polish encroachments. By an arrangement conferring on them in perpetual possession one full third of the territory conquered by the Teutonic
- ↑ See the ' Ordinancia castri Heilsbergk ' quoted by Prowe, Th. i. pp. 859-62, note.
