text:  At the upper end of the large Gothic room forming the interior of the town-hall of Hammelburg which was formally prepared as a court of trial sat upon a raised part of the flooring in his chair of state the Ober-Amtmann; before him were placed at a velvet-behung table his _schreibers_ or secretaries; beside him sat upon a low cushioned stool his daughter the fair Fraulein Bertha surrounded by her tirewomen who remained standing behind her