On occasions the whole school came together to hear the Rector—­it was at such times, Erasmus tells us, that he heard Hegius.  At one of these gatherings during the Steward’s second visit Butzbach was sitting next to two friends from his own part of the world, Peter of Spires and Paul of Kitzingen.  They were above him in the school, having passed their entrance examination before the Rector with such credit that they were placed at once in the third class—­a rare distinction—­and Paul indeed at the end of his first half-year had come out top and passed into the second.  The friends talked together of the life of the cloister, of the happiness of study amid the practice of holiness and in the presence of God.  At the end Peter and Butzbach sought out the Steward and gave him their names:  Paul, the brilliant leader of the trio, remained behind in the world, and became a professor at Cologne.

Butzbach said farewell to the masters who had taught him, and to his various benefactors in the town, all of whom applauded his decision.  On St. Barbara’s Day, 4 Dec. 1500, the party set out, and were accompanied out of the town by students who swarmed about them like bees; Butzbach, when they at length took leave, urging them to follow his example.  Two days later they were at Emmerich, and after crossing the Rhine on the ice, so bitter was the frost, they were overtaken by the night at a convent and sought shelter.  It proved to be a house of Brigittines, with separate orders of men and women.  One of the party, a priest from Deventer, had a kinswoman among the nuns, but was not allowed to see her.  On 8 December the feast of the Conception of the Virgin, as they passed through a village, the two priests asked leave to say a mass for themselves in the parish church; and only with difficulty obtained it from the pfarrer in charge, so great was the jealousy between seculars and regulars.  At night they found hospitality in a Benedictine house at Neuss, where Butzbach notes the peculiarity—­which he discusses at length but is quite unable to explain—­that no one could be accepted as a monk with the name of Peter.

Next day the party was obliged to divide.  Peter of Spires, who from the first had been ailing and easily tired, was suffering acute pain from a sore on his finger; so Butzbach remained behind with him in a village, while the others went on to Cologne.  After twenty-four hours the sufferer was no better; and as sleep for either of them seemed impossible, they arose at midnight, hired a cart, and journeying under the stars, arrived at Cologne just as the gates were being opened.  They rejoined their friends, and the whole party was entertained in the house of a rich widow, whose son, recently dead, had been a monk at Niederwerth.