n us here. He was the
son of a weaver in the town of Miltenberg (hence Piemontanus) on the
Maine, above Aschaffenburg. At the age of six he was put to school and
already began to learn Latin; one of his nightly exercises that he
brought home with him being to get by heart a number of Latin words
for vocabulary. After a few years he came into trouble with his master
for laziness and truancy, and received a severe beating; his mother
intervened and got the master dismissed from his post, and Butzbach
was removed from the school.

[12] Butzbach's manuscripts from Laach are now in the
University Library at Bonn, but have never been printed.
I have used a German translation by D.J. Becker, Regensburg,
1869.

An opportunity then offered for him to get a wider education. The son
of a neighbour who had commenced scholar, returned home for a time,
and offered to take Butzbach with him when he went off again to pursue
his courses for his degree. The consent of his parents was obtained;
and the scholar having received a liberal contribution towards
expenses, and Butzbach being equipped with new clothes, the pair set
out together. The boy was now ten, and looked forward hopefully to the
future; but the scholar quickly showed himself in his true colours.
He treated Butzbach as a fag, made him trudge behind carrying the
larger share of their bundles, and when they came to an inn feasted
royally himself off the money given to him for the boy, leaving him to
the charity of the innkeepers. At the end of two months the money was
spent, and they had found no place of settlement. Henceforward
Butzbach was set to beg, going from house to house in the villages
they passed, asking for food; and when this failed to produce enough,
he was required to steal. The scholar treated him shamefully and beat
him often; and as it was a well-known practice for fags, when begging,
to eat up delicacies at once, instead of bringing them in, Butzbach
was sometimes subjected to the regular test, being required to fill
his mouth with water and then spit it out into a basin for his master
to examine whether there were traces of fat.

The scholar's aim was to find some school, having attached to it a
Bursa or hostel, in which they could obtain quarters; apparently he
was not yet qualified for a university. They made their way to
Bamberg, but there was no room for them in the Bursa. So on they went
into Bohemia, where at the