The Good Soldier_ A Tale of Passion - Ford Madox Ford [127]
56. Baedeker: a series of international guide books, once considered indispensable, published by the German publisher Karl Baedeker (1801–59). Baedeker produced his first guide, to Koblenz, in 1829.
57. M—… like Windsor: the ancient university town of Marburg has an 11th-century gothic castle containing an important library. It is also home to the oldest Protestant university in Germany (1527). Far from being a square, the site of Windsor Castle in Berkshire, begun by William the Conqueror as a stockaded earthwork, is an irregular parallelogram.
58. St Elizabeth of Hungary: (1207–31), lived as a Franciscan nun at Marburg. She built a hospital in the town and the Elisabethkirche was built to contain her tomb. She was canonized by Pope Gregory IX in 1235.
59. Prussia… disagreeable to go into that country: following Prussia’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the German Empire was declared under Prussian leadership and her imperial rivalry with Britain began in earnest. Prussian society was highly militarized and widely regarded as unappealingly totalitarian.
60. the Lahn: the River Lahn, a tributary of the River Rhine, runs through Marburg.
61. pour le bon motif!: with the best intentions! (French).
62. Ludwig the Courageous… one after the other: Dowell actually has in mind Philip the Magnanimous (1504–67), Landgrave of Hesse (1509–67). The German Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) allowed Philip to marry a second, but not a third, wife. Henry VIII married six women in succession: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
63. one of the dark places of the earth: this phrase had previously been uttered by Charlie Marlow, the principal narrator of Heart of Darkness (1902) by Ford’s friend Joseph Conrad. Referring to England at the time of the Roman Conquest, Marlow’s first words are: ‘And this also… has been one of the dark places of the earth.’
64. Arminians and Erastians: Arminians followed the teachings of the Dutch Protestant theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), who believed that predestination was conditional, whereas his Calvinist opponents believed it was absolute. ‘Erastians’ followed the teachings of Thomas Erastus (1524–83), a Swiss theologian who maintained ecclesiastical affairs were always subject to secular authority.
65. 65 Mrs Markham: pseudonym of Mrs Elizabeth Penrose (1780–1837), writer of popular, sanitized, historical and other books for children, the best known being Mrs Markham’s History of England (1823) and Mrs Markham’s History of France (1828).
66. Schloss: castle (German).
67. Ranke’s History of the Popes… Table Talk: the books in question are as follows: Leopold von Ranke, The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of Rome During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1837–9; trans. S. Austin, 1840); John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (1875–6); J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856); and Martin Luther, The Table Talk or Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther (1566; trans. W. Hazlitt, 1848).
68. Droschke: a four-wheeled carriage (German).
69. Pennsylvania Duitsch: the German spoken by German immigrants to Pennsylvania. The word should properly be Deutsch, but Duitsch is a possible form in the Low German (Plattdeutsch) dialect, as spoken in the northern part of Germany.
70. Trinkgeld: literally, ‘drink money’, i.e., a tip (German).
71. Rittersaal… the Reformer: literally, ‘knights’ room’, i.e., a state room (German). The ‘Reformer’ was Martin Luther. He instigated the Protestant Reformation when, as a professor of theology at Wittenberg University, he nailed his 95 theses to the doors of Wittenberg Cathedral on 31 October 1517, attacking the sale of papal indulgences. He was excommunicated in 1521. Luther’s