WM c/ (Z^^^c^ti^ c/: >--Z--x^ <^yO^C^ wt/\/do J 6 . Y(p A HISTORY GERMAN LITERATURE SCHERER A HISTORY GERMAN LITERATURE W. SCHERER li TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION BY MRS. F. C. CONYBEARE EDITED BY F. MAX MULLER VOLUME I. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1886 \^AU rights reserved ] 3 1822 01659 5589 O >__ ! . ; ^"' INTRODUCTION. //^^^ v./ This work is a history of German literature from the earliest times to the death of Goethe. The first chapter traces the roots of German nationality back to the period preceding the Aryan separation, and presents a picture of the intellectual condition of our forefathers at the time when they became known to the Romans. The second chapter treats of the rise and development of the German hero- legends in the epoch of the migrations, and duritig the Merovingian period. The third chapter is devoted to the Mediaeval Renaissance, under the rule of the Carlovingians and the Ottos, the so-called Old High- German period, the chief literary achievements of which consisted in prose and verse translations from the Bible, in short political songs and poetic tales, and in the Latin dramas of the nun Rosvitha. The fourth to the seventh chapters embrace the classical period of Middle High-German lyric and epic poetry, extending from about the eleventh to the middle of the fourteenth century. The eighth and ninth chapters include the n^xt three hundred years, the period of transition from Middle High-German to New High-German. To this epoch belongs Luther's translation of the Bible ; the poetry of the period inclined to the drama, but no great literary masterpiece was produced. The tenth to the thirteenth chapters are devoted to the unfinished epoch in which we live, the New High-German period whicli began with the close of the Thirty Years' War. Its strength lies in lyric and epic poetry; and, in tracing its development from Paul Gerhardt to Goethe, I have given more space to it than to the earlier centuries. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Ancient Germans i Pytheas of Massilia, i. Julius Csesar, i. Tacitus, 2. The Aryans 3 Primitive poetry and its various forms, 5. Rhythm and metre, 5. Germanic religion .......... 6 Three epochs, 6. Proper names, 8. Siegfried, 9. Oldest remains of Poetry 10 Wessobrunner Gebet, 10. Alliteration, 10. Choral songs, 11. Lyrics and riddles, 12. Merseburg charms, 13. Poetical elements in primitive law, 14. CHAPTER II. Goths and Franks 16 Three classical periods of German literature, 16. The Heroic Songs 19 The German Migration, 20. Historical elements in the heroic songs, 21. Types of character, 23. Poets at the Court of Attila, 24. Song of Hildebrand, 25. XTlfilas 28 Gothic Christianity, 28. Gothic Bible, 30. Other Gothic frag- ments, 31. The Merovingian Empire 3 2 Christianising of German Tribes, 32. The Irish, 33. Rhyme, 34. Old High German, 36. Charlemagne, 36. viii CoJiients. CHAPTER III. PAGE The Old High-German Period 38 The Anglo-Saxons, 38. Charlemagne, 39. Muspilli, 40. The First Messianic Poems 40 Fulda, 41. 'The Heljand,' 42. Otfried's Gospels, 44. The Mediaeval Renaissance ........ 46 Court of Charlemagne, 47. St. Gall, 48. ' Waltharius,' 49. Notker, 51. Roswitha, 51. The Ottos, 51. The "Wandering Journalists 53 The Gleemen, 54. Ludwigslied, 54. Historical poems, 55. Otto the Great, 56. Herzog Ernst, 57. Latin and Latin-German poems, 57. Song of St. George, 57. CHAPTER IV. Chivalry and the Church 60 French influence, 60. Northmen, 60. Chivalry, 61. Latin Literature 62 'Rudlieb,' 62. Otto von Preising, 66. The Goliards, 67. The Arch-poet, 68. Drama of Antichrist, 70. Lady "World 71 Hostility of the clergy to chivalry, 73. Sermons, 74. Religious epics 74 Thenun (2«c/«j-a)Ava, 75. Heinrich von Molk, 76. Triumph of the secular spirit, 77. Poetic Fragment, ' Comfort in despair,' 78. The Crusades 79 Pilgrimage of 1064. Ezzo's Song, 80. Williram, 81. Solomon and Morold,8i. Konrads Rolandslied, 82. Lamprecht's Alexanderlied,S3. Shorter epics, 84. 'Konig Rother,' 85. ' Herzog Ernst,' 85. 'St. Brandan,' 86. ' Orendel,' 87. ' St. Oswald,' 87. ' Count Rudolf,' 88. Frederick II, 90. CHAPTER V. Middle High-German Popular Epics 92 Literary influence of the variius d stricts cf Germany, 92. The Hero legends in .Saxony, 93. The Rrvival of the Heroic Poetry 93 Clergy and gleemen, 94. Types of character in the heroic legends, 97. Style of the heroic poems, 100. Contents. ix The Nibelungenlied loi Inequalities of the poem, 102. Songa of the first part, 104. Songs of the second part, 109. ' Der Nibelungen Noth,' 1 1 2. Dietrich, von Bern 115 The ' Klage,' 115. ' Battle of Eavenna,' 117. ' Albhart's Death,' 117. ' Biterolf and the ' Rosengarten,' 118. The ' Hiirnen Seifried,' 119. The later ' Hildebrandslied,' 119. 'Ermenrich's Death,' 120. Ortnit and TVolfdietrich 120 ' Ortnit,' 120. ' Wolfdietrich,* 122. Hilde and Gudrun 124 ' Gudrun,' 126. Character of Giidran, 128. Other characters, 129. The poet's style, 131. Later additions, 133. CHAPTER VI. The Epics of Chivalry I35 Character of the 12th century literature, 135. Oldest love romance in Middle High-German, 'Flore,' 136. Eilhard von Oberge's ' Tristan,' 136. Heinrich von Veldeke . . . . . . • -137 Festival of Mainz, A. D. 1184, 137. Henry VI. as a Minnesinger, 137. Assonance and Rhyme, 13^. Veldeke's Aeneid, 138. His songs, 140. His followers: Heinrich von Morungen, 141. Herbortvon Fritzlar, 141. Albrecht von Halberstadt, 142. Moritz von Craon, 143. ' Pilatus,' 144. Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg . . -145 The Upper Rhine, 145. Friedrich von Hausen, 146. Reinmar von Hagenau, 147. Hartmann von Aue, 148. (The Arthur romances, 151.) Hartmann and Chrestien of Troyes, 153. The popular and chival- rous epics, 155. Gottfried von Strassburg, 157. "Wolfram von Eschenbach ........ 161 General characteristics, 162. Life, 165. Songs, 165. 'Parzival,' 166. 'Titurel,' 173. ' VVillehalm,' 173. Successors of the Great Chivalrous Poets 176 Epics after a foreign orii^inal, 177. Original Epics, 177. Historical Romances, 178. Rhymed chronicles, 178. Disciples of Wolfram and Gottfried, 179. Rudolf von Ems, 180. Konrad von Wiirtz- burg, 180. The later ' Titurel,' 182. 'Lohengrin', 183. Hadamar von Laber, 184. Clerical poetry, 184. Middle High-German Artistic Epics, 185. X Contents. CHAPTER VII, PAGE Poets and Preachers 187 Court of the Landgrave Hermann of Thuvingia, 187. The ' Wart- burgkrieg,' 187. St. Elizabeth, 188. Rise of the Minnesang, 189. "W Either von der Vogelweide 189 Life, 189. His ' Spriiche,' 192. Minnesang, 194. Older Bajuvarian lyric poetry, 194; (Kiirenberg, 195; Burggraf of Eegensburg, 195; Dietmar von Aist, ic,6) ; Walther and Reinmar, 197 ; Characteristics of Walther's poetry, 198. Minnesang and Meistersang ........ 201 Ulrich von Lichtenstein, 202. Reinmar von Zweter. 204. Neidhart von Reuenthal, 204. Tannhauser, 206. Court of Henry of Swabia, 207. Steimar, 208. The last Minnesingers, 208. The Meistersanger, 209. Maraer, 209. Frauenlob, 210. Regen- bogen, 210. The Wild Alexander, 211. Juhann Hadlaub, 211. Didactic Poetry, Satire and Tales . . . . . .212 The Winsbeke, 212. The Wild Man, 214. Werner von Elmen- dorf, 21^. Thomas'n of Zirclaria, 214. Freidank, 215. — Satires and Tales, 216. Strieker, 217. The so-called vSeifried Helbling, 218. 'Farmer Helmbrecht,' 218. 'The Bad Wife,' 219. Enenkel, 219. The 'Wiener Meerfahrt,' 220. 'Der Weinschwelg,' 220. Hugo von Trimberg, 220. Ulrich Eoner, 221. The Mendicant Orders . . . . . . . . .222 Decay of Middle High-German Poetry, 223. The Franciscans, 226. Berthold of Regensburg, 226. The Dominicans, 22 ;. AUiertus Magnus, 229. The Mystics, 229. Mathilde of Magdeburg, 231. Oppos'tion to the Papal power, 232. Rulmann Merswin, 240. CHAPTER VIIL The Close of the Middle Ages 235 Characteristics of the period from 1348 to 1648, p. 236. Origin and Rise of the Drama . . . . . . .238 Play of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, 238. The Church Festivals originated the Drama, 239. Religious Drama, 241-244. Reucblin's ' Henno,' 244. Roman comedy revived, 245. Songs and Ballads .......... 246 The later Meistersiiigers, 246. Volkslieder, 248. Ballads, 250. Khymed Couplets 253 ' Reineke Fuchs,' 254. Wittenweiler's ' Ring,' 255. 'The Devil's Net,' 256. Hermam von Sachsenheiin, 256. Sebastian Brand, 256. Thomas Murner, 257. Maximilian I, 258. Contents. ^ xl I'AGE Prose . 259 Prose romances, 259. Eulenspiegel, 261. History, 262. Acker- mann aus Bohmen,' 263. Niclas von Wyle, 264. The New Learning, or Humanism ....... 264 Heinrich von Langenstein, 265. Gutenberg, 265. Regiomon- taniis, 265. Peuerbach, 266. ^neas Sylvius, 266. Celtis, 266. ' Brotherhood of the Common Life,' 267. Erasmus, 267. Bebel, 268. Erfurt circle of writers and the Epistolae obscurorum virorum, 269. CHAPTER IX. The Eeformation and the Kenaissance .... 271 The Period from 1517 to 1648, pp. 271, 272. Martin Luther 273 Translation of the Bible, 274. Language, 275. Preaching, 276. Church Song, 277. Pamphlets, 279. Luther's influence, 281. Luther's Associates and Successors ...... 282 Lnther"s opponents. The Anabaptists, 282. Roman Catholics, 282. Hutten, 282. Dialogues, 282. First newspapers, 285. Verse and Song, 285. Calvinist hymns; Marot, 2S7. Kaspar Scheid, 2S7. Johann Fischart, 288. Secular Literature . ......... 290 Melanchthon,29i. Science, 291. Latin poetry, 293. Translations, 293. Fables, 293. Proverbs, 294. Farcical anecdotes, 295. Secular songs, 296. Novels, 296. Jbrg Wickram, 297. ' Faust,' 298. The Drama from 1517 to 1620 300 Luther, 301. Various sorts of drama, 302. Switzerland, 303. Alsace, 304. Hans Sachs, 304. Luther's circle, 306. Nicodemus Frischlin, 309. English actors, 310. Ayrer, 311. Heinrich Julius, Duke of Brunswick, 311. Improvements early in the sixteenth century, 311. The Thirty Years' War 3^4 Science and Poetry before the War, 314. South-west Germany, 316. The ' Fruit-bringing Society.' 3-17. Poetry after the outbreak of the war, 318. Martin Opitz, 319. Fleming, 322. Dach, 322. Strass- burg, 323. Nuremberg, 323. Hamburg, 323. Rist, 324. Zesen, 324. Andreas Gryphius, 325. Popular play of Dr. Faustus, 330. CHAPTER X. The Dawn of Modern Literature ... . . 331 Development of Germany since the peace of Westphalia, 331. Literature and religion, 333. Princely patronage, 334. xii « Conte7tts. Beligion and Science 335 During the war, 336. Roman Catholics. Friedr. Spec, 337. Angelus Silesius, 338. Martin von Cochem, 339. Abraham a Sancta Clara, 340. Protestants. Paul Gerhardt, 342. Spener, 344. Scriver, 345. Joachim Neander, 346. Gottfried Arnold, 347. Gerhard Tersteegen, 348. Count Zinzendorf, 348. Benjamin Schmolck, 349. Brockes, 351. Bach, 352. Handel, 353. Secular learning, 354. Leibniz, 354. Thomasius, 356. Wolff, 357. Saxony and Prussia, 358. The Befinement of Popular Taste 359 Literary styles and costumes, 360 ('Bombast,' 361). Idyllic Poetry, 363. Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein, 366. Satire and Epigram. Moscherosch, 367. Lauremberg, 368. Rachel, 369. Logau, 369. Popular Songs, 370. Christian Weise, 370. French literature, 371. Prussia and Saxony, 372. Leipzig, 373. Menke, 373. GUnther, 373. Gottsched, 373. Opposition, 374. (Frederick William L of Prussia, 374.) English influence, 375. Haller, 377. Hagedorn, 379. Retrospect and Prospect, 382. The Novel 382 Hero- and love-romances, 383. Popular Tales, 386. Grimmels- hausen, 387. Christian Weise, 389. 'Schelmuffsky,' 390. Imitations of Robinson Crusoe, 392. The Drama 393 The Opera, 393. Artistic Drama, 395. Christian Weise, 3g6. Drama in Schools, 397. Popular Drama, 397. Hanswurst, 400. Gottsched, 400. CHAPTER I. THE ANCIENT GERMANvS. About the time when Alexander the Great was opening new fields to Greek science by his invasion of India, a learned Greek, Pytheas of Massilia, started from his native town, _ ^^ ,. ■'. ' ' Pytheas of sailed through the straits of Gibraltar, along the Massilia western coast of Spain and France, and, passing discovers Great Britain, discovered at the mouth of the Rhine *?!j®'^*°'^* at the mouth a new people — the Teutons. of the Rhine Towards the end of the second century e.g., these ^th century B C same Teutons made themselves formidable to the ' ' Romans. A little later we find the great race to which they belonged designated by a Gallic name — Ger?nans, which is supposed to mean ' the neighbours.' Julius Caesar defeated them, and yet gained no real footing in their country, which lay on the right bank of the Rhine. He gives a sketch of his barbaric enemies in his history of the Julius Gallic War, but could furnish only an imperfect Caesar, account of their intellectual condition. Their religion seemed to him pure nature-worship. He notices — as characteristic features of this nation of hunters and warriors — the freedom of their life, their want of all sense of duty and of propriety, their incapability of self-control, the pleasure they took in hardening themselves against physical suflfering, their delight in marauding expeditions, and their ambition to lay waste all lands bordering on their own. In all this he expresses neither admiration nor contempt, but simply records his observations. Further intercourse, in peace and war, soon made the Germans belter known to the Romans. In the first century of our era, in the first glorious years of the Roman Empire, our forefathers B 2 The Ancient Germans. [Ch. i. excited at Rome an interest, springing partly from fear, partly from admiration. The Stoic saw in the unbroken power of these children of nature the realisation of his ideal of morality; the aristocratic champion of liberty welcomed in the Germans the fulfil- ment of his hopes, while the far-seeing patriot recognised in them a menace to his country. In the winter of 98-99 the historian Tacitus' Tacitus collected all that was known about them in • Germania.' his celebrated Germania. In that work he directed the attention of the Romans to this remarkable nation, ^\hose affairs kept the newly-elected emperor Trajan absent from the capital, where his presence was ardently desired. He drew at the same time, by way of contrast, a picture of the moral consequences of that excessive luxury which surrounded himself and those whom he addressed. There is in his account something of the tone of the pastoral poem, by which effete civilisation strives to satisfy, through the imagination, its longings after primitive innocence. The Germans of Tacitus know no riches other than their herds ; the possession of silver and gold and the practice of usury have no attractions for them. Their dress is simple, their military equipment imperfect. They value warlike adornments as litde as splendid funeral rites. Their food consists of fruits, game, and milk. They are exceedingly hospitable, and live not in towns, but each one by himself, wherever wood or field or spring attracts him. They are strangers to sensational shows and to artificial allurements of the senses. They reverence their women, lead pure lives, and hold the marriage tie sacred. Although the noble Roman's description contains many idyllic elements, yet it is not fair to call the whole of it a mere idyll. Tacitus appears to have had abundant material before him, drawn from immediate observation, and but slightly coloured by his own opinions. The life of the Germans is thoroughly known to him; he sketches the outlines of their constitution, their military customs, their religion and manners. He does not suppress their faults : their indolence in time of peace, their dislike of hard work, their immoderate love of drink, gambling, and fighting. He gives a summary of the numerous tribes and clans into which the nation was politically divided, and produces the impression of an inex- Ch. I.] The Aryas. 3 haustible and steadily increasing power, upon which a few isolated Roman victories could have no lasting effect. In short, it is evident that his picture is on the whole a faithful one, in which pleasing and repugnant features are mingled; and he leaves to posterity a valuable record — valuable for general history, as giving an idea of the character of that people, which was hereafter to destroy the Roman empire, but especially valuable to us who are descended from them. The Aryas. Tacitus raises the question whether the Germans were immi- grants, or had sprung up on their own soil. He decides in favour of the latter hypothesis, because it seemed to him impossible that the barren land which they inhabited could ever have attracted immigrants from another country. Modern science gives a different answer. It infers from the relationship of languages the relationship of nations, and the ex- istence of a primitive race which spread and ramified by migration. It infers from cognate words the existence among those primordial tribes of the things which those words designate, and thus shows us the degree of civilisation reached by them before they branched off into different nations. It infers from kindred mythologies and from similarity of poetical themes the existence of a primordial mythology and poetry, and endeavours to distinguish in this dark but rich background the beginnings of the separate nations, known to us in later and historical times. We are thus able to trace the antecedents of our forefathers. The conquerors of Rome fought without knowing it against a people who had once spoken the same language as themselves, and had migrated with them from Asia to Europe. The Germans were formerly a small tribe of a great race, some- times called the Indo-Germanic race, but which we may designate by the name, probably used by themselves, of Aryan. _. .^ X JIG v^ClTIlldillS JMost of the European peoples, Celts, Romans, Greeks, belong to the Germans, and Slavs, and in Asia the Persians and Aryan Indians, sprang from this common source, and re- amiiy. present the whole united body of the Aryan race, in contra- B 2 4 The Ancient Germans. [Ch. i. distinction to the similar ethnographical groups of the Semitic and Turanian races. Before their dispersion the primitive Aryas had already passed out of the lowest stage of civilisation. They were shepherds, and Tlie ancient acquainted with the first elements of a rude agri- Aryas. culture. Their poetry was truthful, graphic, and full of imagery, and contained the germs of a connected view of things. Their language endowed even lifeless objects with sex. Most of them looked upon the sky and the sun as male, on the moon and the earth as female, and thus the foundation was laid for a human conception of the whole of nature. Personifications and allegories Primitive arose quite naturally, and explanations of remarkable Aryan my- phenomena or events in nature were drawn from osy- the analogy of human experience. Peculiarities in animals were accounted for by fables, and remarkable occurrences in nature, both regular and irregular, such as the alternation of day and night, the change of the seasons, or tempests, were explained in the same manner. These men saw a reflection of their own simple life in all that surrounded them, and in this naive way tried to account for whatever they could not understand. They created a rich mythology, reflecting the main incidents of a pastoral life, such as feuds caused by the capture of cattle or women, or raids upon rich owners. The sound of the thunder is the battle-cry in the strife between the gods and giants. The former are favour- able to man and take his part, the latter, embracing all the adverse powers of nature, threaten his happiness. All poetry is worthless which does not represent the visible life that surrounds us. The Aryas began by giving poetical expres- sion to the conditions under which they lived, by finding words to describe the uncommon as well as the common, and by arranging together events which displayed the same characteristic features, till at last they were able to give them a typical and permanent form of expression. These were the first modes of their poetical activity, the basis of all further poetical invention. When an independent existence has once been imparted to images of surrounding Hfe, we get anecdotes, fables, and stories ; and out of this lowest stratum of Aryan thought Ch. I.] The Aryas. 5 and imagination spring the human elements of the myth, and perhaps also certain tragic elements of the later epic poetry. Such is, for instance, the noble invincible hero, invulnerable ex- p . ... cept in one spot, where he is wounded at last by forms of treachery, like Achilles and Siegfried ; or father and Aryan fion fighting together, unknown or only half known '^°^ ^^' to each other, and yet forced to fight like Laios and QEdipus, Rostem and Sohrab, Hildebrand and Hadubrand. We find, moreover, that worldly wisdom and experience embodied itself at a very early stage in the most various forms. The same experience may on the one hand originate a story, and on the other hand give rise to some reflection, which is handed down as a proverb. Observations of natural objects might take the form of riddles. Lastly, the selfishness of man invented all sorts of formulas to secure the fulfilment of his wishes from the gods and from his fellow men. The old Aryas had medicinal charms for ruling the powers of nature, and making them subservient to the wants of man. They had love songs, dwelling on the harmony or on the sharp contrasts between the joys and sorrows of the human heart and the varying phases of nature. They had hymns which were sung in chorus; songs in praise of celebrated men ; songs glorifying the deeds of their gods, and im- ploring their aid. Such songs glorifying the gods were sung at sacrifices, and, along with invocations and prayers, formed the noblest class of ancient poetry. They were the solemn accom- paniment of those public religious ceremonies on which depended the weal or woe of a nation, a tribe, or a family. Origin of Music and dancing were combined with this poetry, rhythm and The crowds of worshippers danced as they sang their ™® ^^' sacred songs, and rhythm and metre are, in fact, a remnant of the dance which once formed an integral portion of poetry and music. The half line with its four beats, peculiar to the oldest German poems, along with the form of stanza in which it appears, is found in the old hymns of the Rig- Veda, and conjures up before the trained fancy of the scholar a picture of old Aryan times. We see a circle of men gathered round the place of sacrifice ; they move foiu" steps forward and four backward, or four to the right 6 The Ancient Germans, [Ch. i. and four to the left. Measured song accompanies their movements. And every such movement, from the point of departure till the return to that point, corresponds to a line of eight beats or feet, or to double as many syllables in the song which accompanied it. Germanic Religion. In prehistoric times some tribes of the Aryan race migrated into Europe. These tribes developed gradually into nations no longer ,_. ^. able to understand each other's speech. The several Migration ... . and disper- nations again split up into tribes, and their language sion of the ^as divided into dialects containing the germs of other ^^*^' new languages. The Germans were one of these nations. They established themselves at first in North Germany, spreading as far as Scandinavia, and in later times tried to advance to the Rhine and South Germany. Everywhere they drove back the Celts, and at last found themselves face to face with the Romans. From this time onward we are tolerably well informed as to the degree of civilisation which our forefathers had attained; indeed we are able to form a conjecture as to their intellectual develop- ment before the time when they become historically known to us. At least we can discover a few main facts in the history of their religion. We can distinguish an early epoch, during which they wor- shipped the Heaven, the Aryan Dyaus, the Greek ThrG© epochs in ^eus, as the highest deity. We can distinguish a the religious Second epoch, in which the worship of the heaven-god development ^vas confined more and more to the tribe of the °German^s^ Suebi, the later Suabians, whose oldest setdements on the middle Elbe may be looked upon as the first home of the Germans in Europe. The new tribes which started thence chose their own favourite gods, whose sanctuary was the central meeting-place of the tribe. The eastern nations, the Vandals and Goths, worshipped a divine pair of brothers, re- sembling Castor and Pollux. The tribes on the North Sea, the forefathers of the future conquerors of England, worshipped a god- dess Nerthus, who in modern times has been wrongly called Hertha and relegated to the Baltic coasts. The tribes on the Rhine, the. Ch. I.] Germanic Religion. 7 later Franks, worshipped the storm -god Wodan as their leader and protector. Finally, we can distinguish a third epoch in which this Wodan has been set above all the other gods. The Germanic tribes on the Rhine attained a higher degree of culture through intercourse with their Celtic neighbours, and Wodan, the god of their tribes, impersonates their highest culture. The storm-god, who hurries through the air with the departed spirits, now becomes a god of knowledge, of poetry, the giver of understanding, of victory, and of all good. The worshippers of Wodan probably acquired a more refined art of war and better weapons from the Celts. Wodan himself carries a spear, and gives to those whom he loves precious swords, to be taken away again at his pleasure. When he is represented as the author of victory, this implies that victory ultimately rests with intelligence. The higher civilisation of the Rhenish tribes, and with it the worship of Wodan, spread to all the Germans. A common mythology sprang up, which later on enabled the p +* f Romans to identify certain German deities with some a common of their own gods. Wodan, the most honoured, German and, at the same time, the swift traveller, was iden- °^^ ° °^' tified with Mercury. Friya, the German Venus, was his wife. The old heaven-god Tius had retired to the position of god of. war, and might therefore be compared with Mars. His former task of conquering the giants in the tempest is transferred to an entirely new god, Donar, in Old English Thunor, the personification of thunder, who was invested with certain grotesque and rude characteristics. Armed with the hammer, he reminded the Romans, by his constant struggle with monsters and robbers, of the ad- venturous club-bearer Hercules, or, according to a its warlike higher conception of him, of the thunderer Jove him- character, self. Almost all the Germanic gods and goddesses have a war- like aspect. They carry on a perpetual strife with giants and dragons, and at the end of all things they are themselves destroyed by the world-consuming fire, Muspilli. The reader must bear in mind that the accuracy of some of these statements is disputed. It is not certain that the German Olympus bore such a warlike character in all epochs. Side by side with 8 The Ancient Germans. [Ch. l. the fiercer traits are found gentler ones, which probably point to a time when milder sentiments prevailed. The later northern mythology assigns the goddess of peace to the rude Thunderer as his wife ; and, after the last dread struggle „ . between gods and giants, after the general con- elements in fliagration, in which the sun is blackened and the the later earth disappears, a hope is held out to the souls of Iceiandio ^j^^ faithful of an eternal realm of peace. Then the mythology. earth, green and beautiful, will rise again from the sea, and corn will spring up unsown ; all evil will disappear, and sinless gods will reign for ever. We possess many proper names used by the various German tribes, and comparison shows us that they are of the highest Proper antiquity. The names given to boys and girls may names. be compared to those of patron saints given in later times in the Catholic Church; they pointed to examples of virtue, as ideals after which they were to strive. Thus these old German proper names show us what our forefathers held to be most truly good and beautiful. The names of men express those qualities which secure success in life, wisdom, strength, fortitude, the virtues of the warrior and the ruler, but above all the resolute will which pursues its object with fervour Tw'o classes ^^*^ determination. The names of women, on the of names of other hand, fall into two distinct groups. In the ■women, names of the one group nature and beauty are combined; they tell of love, gentle grace, purity, and constancy. The other group shows us women rejoicing in battle, bearing arms, and waving their torches as they rush on to victory. Such warlike women, the Walkyries, are also found in German mythology. Tacitus attests the respect paid by the Germans to women, and their belief in woman's sanctity and prophetic power. He re- presents the women as counselling, inspiriting, and tending the men; but later historians tell of some women who took part, fully armed, in battle. The same age and soil can hardly have originated such divergent ideals of womanhood. These names, fraught with such opposite moral significance, probably point to two different epochs in the spiritual growth of the nation. Ch. I.] Germanic Religion. 9 The one appointed to women their special sphere, and bowed in reverence before the weaker sex ; the other prized in women suc- cessful emulation only of mascuHne qualities. ' A similar change in moral views seems to be reflected in the name and myth of the sun. There must have been a time when love of beauty and reverence for women predomi- nated, and then it was that the Aryan sun-god was changed into a goddess. Later on the same goddess received the name of Sindgund, that is, ' she who must fight her way.' She then adopts the hero's dress, and under this aspect is also called Brunhild, i. e. ' the fighter in armour.' The myth further tells us how the sun goes of an evening to her home in the west, and how the heaven-god of a morning wakes the sleeping goddess, who appears on the summit of the hills in glowing flame — in rosy dawn. The hero, who later on took the place of the heaven- „. ,. , . . Siegfried. god in the legend of Brunhild, was called Siegfried. His name implies that he fights for victory, in order to secure peace, and he too is, therefore, one of the symbols of that milder view of life which we must distinguish in the history of our fore- fathers. He is the ideal of a hero and of a perfect man; the gods and the good spirits are favourable to him. The clever dwarfs educate him ; he learns the trade of a smith, and a godlike woman initiates him in sacred wisdom. He is early surrounded by the glory of wonderful deeds ; riches and power are his portion ; love beautifies his life ; but he falls by the treachery of a powerful enemy, and his early death raises him to still higher glory. The character of Siegfried lived on for centuries in the imagination of the poets. His praises were first sounded, it appears, by those same Franks who spread the worship of Wodan. And in the age of the migration of the German tribes and of the introduction of Christianity among them, the story of Siegfried was bequeathed by the expiring mythology to the folk-lore, which has preserved it to the present day. lo The Aticicnt Germans. [Ch. I. Oldest Remains of Poetry. * This I heard as the greatest marvel among men, that once there was no earth, nor heaven above, the bright stars gave no light, the sun shone not, nor the moon, nor the glorious sea.' With some such words as these begins a literary relic of the eighth The "Wesso- ^'^ ninth century, ending in a prayer, the so-called brunner ' Wessobrunner Gebet.' It is the beginning of a Gebet, Saxon poem, written down in Bavaria. The same primitive chaos is still more clearly depicted in a Norwegian poem Voluspa : — There was neither sand nor sea nor cool Voluspa. wave ; there was no earth nor heaven above ; there was a yawning gulf, and no firm land anywhere. Such a coin- cidence of ideas in poems coming from different and distant locali- ties, leads us to infer a common origin of the highest antiquity. We seem to hear in them an echo of primitive Germanic times, when our forefathers were heathens. Such echoes are rare, and are therefore worthy of careful attention. The first line of the Bavarian Manuscript runs thus : — 'Dat gafregin ih mit fiiahim firiwizzo meista.' If these words are read aloud, the three f's at once strike the ear. The three similar initial letters serve to ornament and bind together the eight feet of the line. This alliteration may be regarded as an indispensable element of versification in all old German poetry. It gives to the verse not melody, but a characteristic sound; it does not beautify it, but makes it compact and strong. Such alliteration results from a tendency early found in the Germanic nature, which renders all art difficult to us — a tendency, namely, to prize originality more than beauty, substance more than form. This feature has even stamped itself on our language. Already in very early times the accent was laid on the root- syllable, and all inflections tended to disappear. The word mensch (man) was once mafmisko', now the three syllables are reduced to one, at the expense of all euphony. Only the first sound of the root-syllable is considered in alliteration, no notice being taken of the vowels, so that the chief place is held by the consonants. The consonants have been well called the Ch. I.] Oldest Remains of Poetry. ii bones of speech, while the vowels fulfil the office of the flesh, imparting colour and beauty. The old German ear, however, had little feeling for beauty and colour. Apart from its alliteration and the changes which language has undergone, German poetry remains at this epoch essentially Aryan. It has the same technical means at its dis- posal, and is moulded in the same forms. The ^Xrvan chorus in which the multitude takes part is still the character of leading type. Individuals are subordinate to the ^^^ earliest whole body of singers, though in the course of poetrv time they separate from them, as chief singers, dancers, or actors. The choral song comprised lyric, epic, and dramatic elements, and was accompanied by march and dance, sometimes even by pantomime. Choral songs played an important part on all the great occasions of private and public life. Choral song received the wedded bride, and conducted her to her husband. The praises of 'ill 1 . J • - r 1 1 Choral songs. the dead were celebrated m a solemn funeral chorus. The march into battle and the sacrificial procession were attended with choral song. The departure for battle was itself a kind of sacred procession, when all who took part in it sang the praises of a saving god, Donar (Thunor), the slayer of monsters. Their loud baltle-cry, which they called bardilus, was supposed to be an imitation of thunder, the ' beard speech ' of the god. They also sang the deeds of their ancestors, and drew courage from the example of their forefathers. Little is told us about the sacrifice itself, but remnants of heathen worship lingered on for a long time, and with them some poor fragments of songs. Thus for example, in Mecklenburg, the reapers still leave a few ears of corn uncut; these they tie together, besprinkle them, form a circle round them, and taking off their hats, call on Wodan, 'Wode, Wode, now fetch thy horse food, now thistle and thorn, in a year's time corn.' Tacitus tells us of a solemn procession of the goddess Nerthus. She was thought to be present in a covered car drawn by cows and accompanied by a priest. She was received everywhere with reverence, and on her advent weapons were laid aside amid 12 The Ancient Germans. [ch. i. general peace and rejoicing. The Roman historian, however, makes no mention of songs. The Langobardi again, to the great wrath of Pope Gregory the Great, offered the head of a goat, with songs and dances, to some heathen deity, or, as he says, to the devil. Lastly, in comparatively modern times, it was the custom in many places for a hammer, a fox, or a crow to be carried about with singing. All these are relics of the old heathen symbolism, and of primitive religious processions. Again a myth might be represented dramatically, as the struggle between summer and winter is sometimes represented even in our day. Summer appears dressed in ivy or periwinkle, Winter in straw or moss. They fight until Summer is victorious. Then vanquished Winter is stripped of his covering, which is scattered to the winds, and a wreath or branch of summer flowers is carried round in procession. The chorus sings songs, to encourage and praise the conqueror, and uses words of which the meaning is now half lost, ' Stab aus, stab aus, bias dem Winter die Augen aus.' The same dramatic setting might be given to Thunor's conflict with the giants ; or again, Wodan's marriage with Friya and the awakening of the sun-maiden might be made to furnish material for small pantomimic scenes, in which chosen actors represented what was expressed in the words of the songs. When the actors sang, and established themselves along with, but independently of the chorus, dialogue and with it the beginning of the drama were created. Such songs and representations were not restricted to solemn occasions, but could also be used in social gatherings and at festivals. Amongst children's games there are still many with dramatic action, founded on some fairy tale or fable of animal life. In the same way myths were probably dramatised in primi- tive times. But choral poetry is not the only kind of poetry at this period. The other Aryan forms of poetry also continue to exist. Lyrics and The maiden greets her lover thus: 'I wish thee as riddles. much joy as there is foliage in spring ; I wish thee as much love, as the birds find delight and food ; I wish thee as much honour as the earth bears grass and flowers.' At social Ch. I.] Oldest Remains of Poetry. 13 gatherings riddles were set, founded on simple observation of nature, like the following : — 'There came a bird featherless. Sat on a tree leafless; There came a maiden speechless, And eat the bird featherless From off the tree leafless.* This signifies the sun eating up the snow. In a simpler form the same riddle occurs in Vedic times. * What is the best medicine for snow ?' The answer is, ' the Sun.' In time of need, the help of heaven is invoked by a charm which consists in relating a mythical incident ana- 1 1 11 rr^i • • r . Charms. logous to the earthly one. Ihe repetition of the saving words which proved effectual in the myth is supposed to secure an equally favourable result in the actual earthly difficulty. This is illustrated in the two charms found at Merseburg. The first refers to the horse of the god Phol or Balder, and introduces us to a whole company of gods. It runs rpj^g ^^^ thus: 'Phol and Wodan rode into the forest ; suddenly Merseburg Balder's horse sprained its foot. Sindgund and her charms, sister Sunna uttered a charm over him. Volla and her sister Friya did the same ; but all in vain. Then Wodan, who understood such things well, uttered his charm. He charmed away the sprain in the bone, the blood, and the joint. He uttered the potent formula, " Bone to bone, blood to blood, joint to joint, as if they were glued." ' Of course the meaning is that the desired effect immediately followed, and that the formula would produce the same result in all similar cases. This formula is of common Aryan origin. An old Indian charm begins 'Let marrow join to marroWj and also limb to limb ; may what thou hast lost in flesh and bone, grow again ; marrow be joined to marrow, skin to skin ; let blood come to the bones, and flesh to the flesh, let hair join hair, and skin skin.' Wodan, the god of wisdom, is also, as we see, the chief physician. Even the art of the four heavenly women, who understand wounds as the German wives did, is far inferior to his. 14 The Ancient Germans. [ch. i. The second Merseburg charm is said to have power to loose a prisoner's bonds. It describes the activity of the heavenly women, the Walkyries, in the battle. They are divided into three detachments ; the first bind the prisoners in the rear of the army which they favour, others engage the foe, the third group appear in the rear of the enemy, where the prisoners are secured, and touching their fetters, utter the formula of deliverance : ' Escape from your bonds, flee from the enemy.' There were charms also for protection and blessing, com- mending men to the protecting hand of the gods when starting on a journey, or cattle when sent to pasture. But above all, it was the principles which regulated life, and underlay morality and law, that were embodied in poetic form. Poetical There were no written laws, but the priest pro- elements in claimed the fixed laws as approved by the people, primitive He was the 'mouth-piece' and guardian of the laws. These promulgations of the law often described in detail the circumstances of actual Hfe, which the law covered, and this gave rise to real poetry, whose charm lingers even in the later written code. For instance, certain Frisian law-docu- ments enumerate the 'three needs' or conditions under which the inheritance of a fatherless child may be alienated, and in doing this bring before us a touching picture of misery. ' The first "need" is, when the child is taken prisoner and carried away bound, northwards over the sea, or southwards beyond the mountains; the mother may then part with her child's inheritance, and thus set her child free and save his life. The second " need " is when years of dearth come, and famine reigns in the land, and the child is dying of hunger ; then the mother may ahenate his inheritance and buy him therewith corn and cattle, that his life may be spared, for hunger is the sharpest of swords. The third " need " is, if the child is naked and houseless, and the cloudy night and ice-cold winter peep through the hedges, and all men hurry to their hearths and homes, and the wild beasts take refuge in the hollow trees and rocky caves ; the innocent child cries and laments its nakedness and wails because it has no shelter, and because its father who would protect it against cold winter and Ch. I.] Oldest Remains of Poetry. 15 gnawing hunger is lying in the dark depths of the earth, in his oak coffin fastened down with four nails, and hidden away; then the mother may alienate and sell her child's inheritance.' All solemn legal proceedings were accompanied by poetry. Oaths were sworn in alliterative verse. The sentence of banish- ment was uttered in alliterative language. The culprit is to be a fugitive and an outcast, everywhere and always : wheresoever fire burns, and grass is green, child cries for its mother or mother bears a child, as far as ship sails, shield glitters, sun mells snow, feather flies, fir-tree flourishes, hawk flies through the long spring day, while the wind lifts its wings, wheresoever the welkin spreads, or the world stands fast, winds roar and waters flow into the sea. Indeed, all legal formulas were full of alliteration. And some expressions uniting two terms each having the same initial letter, remain even in our time, such as house and home, spick and span, weal and woe, hand and heart, stock and stone, kith and kin, bed and board, wind and weather. CHAPTER II. GOTHS AND FRANKS. Two classical periods are usually recognised in the history of German literature ; but it is probable that there were in reality three. It is true that nothing but fragments of a single song . _ remains to us from the first period, but to the sicai periods historian lost poems are often as important as those of German giiH extant, if their former existence can be proved Literature. ^^^ ^^^-^^ influence on after ages established. That first period was richer indeed in inventive genius than any that followed it; the characters which it created are full of moral grandeur, and are well known to us ihrough the later Epics, though the songs which first told of them can never be recovered. Such was the creative force of language that these earliest poetic types lived on through long ages, nay, even when they seemed to have died out, revived again with fresh and undiminished vigour. The poetical stories of that first classical period were revived in the epic poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centur}% in the Nibe- lungenlied, Gudrun, Hugdietrich and Wolfdietrich and others. These stories are usually designated as the German hero-legends. The whole scheme of our history of literature becomes perfectly clear, if we bear in mind that it has attained those culminating points, separated each from the other by about 600 years. About the year 600 a.d. — if I may be allowed to fix a date, which should only be taken approximately — after the total change effected in Europe by the destruction of the Empire of the West, at a time when the Germans had not forgotten their own _. ♦ 1- . migration, though they had begun to feel the strong sicai period, intellectual influence of conquered Rome, — the Ger- circa manic national Epic attained its highest development. ■ ■ ■ More fortunate in this respect than the Germans, the English possess in Beowulf a fine and well-preserved specimen of Ch.il.] Classical Periods of German Literature. 17 what Germanic poetry could accomplish at that period. About the year 1200, as we have already said, the half-forgotten second cias- stories of the hero-legends appear again, and are sicai period, embodied in the well-known poems, the Nibelungen- circa lied and Gudrun. The same period produced lyric and epic poets of the first order, whose artistic training was at least in part based on French models. Such are Wolfram von Eschen- bach, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Walther von der Vogelweide. About the year 1800 Germany had its Goethe, its Schiller, and other poets and scholars, who absorbed in themselves mj^_(j gjas- the rays of French, English, classical and their own sicai period, old national culture, and added them in a purified °^^°* form to the intellectual life of the nation. The old heroic songs revived again, the Nibelungen legend acquired new fame, new poets made use of the old materials, and the brothers Grimm became the leaders of a new science, which sought to recover for the present the vanished creations of the past. These three culminating points of development imply a struggle to reach these points, an ascent followed by a descent. As far as we can judge, the tenth and sixteenth cen- turies were the times of deepest depression in ^°p®^^° ^ ^ ^ .of depression German literature. Literary culture was then at its in German lowest ebb; poetry excited no general interest, but literature, became a medium of party strife, or a mere mechanical ^° . ^ •' centuries. exercise, or a source of coarse amusement. The poetry of these periods was not entirely wanting in creative genius ; it had vast materials at its disposal, and even created certain moral types of great grandeur, though they were mostly the off'spring of hatred or rude jest. But the charm of form is totally absent from it ; it is too superficial, too indifferent to outward beauty ; it did not care to go deep enough to attain perfection and refinement; it left, in fact, the best it had, as formless material to be put into shape by a happier generation. The times of deepest depression are likewise separated from each other by 600 years. The course of our history of literature may therefore be reduced to the simplest scheme: three great waves, trough and crest in regular succession. c 1 8 Goths and Franks. [Ch. ii. Alas ! only too regular. Treasures were scarcely won when they were lost again, and the nation had to begin once more from the beginning. The religious epic flourished in the ninth century, but was completely forgotten by the twelfth. The perfection of form found in the thirteenth century had entirely disappeared in the fifteenth. Poets of little talent had a hard struggle to purge their verse of the grosser elements of the sixteenth century and recover purity of form and refinement of language. We ourselves feel at the present day that there is a risk of the German nation degenerating from the ideals which, in Goethe's time, constituted its greatness and its pride. Other nations are more fortunate in this respect, and know better how to preserve their literary traditions. Both the second and the third of the classical periods are marked by a spirit of free criticism which triumphs over all Characteris- . ,. _, . . . tics of the prejudices. Respect for foreign nations mcreases, second and regardless of political differences. Men are Hberal third cias- enough to feel that appreciation of foreign merits is sical periods. . . .,.,_,,. , , no sin against national pride. 1 hus it was that the more developed sense of form, characteristic of the Romanic nations, exercised a beneficial influence on the Germans, purified their taste, incited them to imitation, yet withal developed their originality. Hand in hand with this tolerance of foreign nation- alities, went religious toleration and abandonment of rigid con- ventionalities in life and literature. Moral judgment became more liberal, and at the same time a higher sense of honour sprang up, and led to a nobler type of humanity. The in- dividual soul became inspired with a noble self-consciousness, springing from the consciousness of pure intentions. In good society the lower passions are silenced. Women are worshipped with a pure enthusiasm. * Honour the women ' is Schiller's precept, and Walther von der Vogelweide sang : — 'Pure women are sweet as honeyed flowers. What shall compare unto the sight of them ? Verily they are fairer than aught in air, or earth, or in green fields.' Women themselves are at pains to develop their nature within the limits of their sex. They do not try to disguise their weakness Ch. II.] TJic Heroic Songs. 19 as strength, or openly to compete with men, but are content with the indirect influence which nature gives them. They do not enter into public life, but they exert their influence on men, and through them on the world. Their smile rewards the hero, the orator, the poet. They are the guardians of good manners, they demand self-restraint and culture. In their service poetry is spiritualised, and produces its best in epic, romance, and lyric song. The Heroic Songs. Young nations, like children, have no memory; they live in the present, in pleasure and pain, in hopes and wishes. But great suffering and great dangers make a deeper impression on them ; whoever appears as a deliverer in time of need is praised, and, if a tragic fate should overtake him, he lives on for a time in song. This was the case with the Cheruscan Arminius, the liberator of Germany, at least so Tacitus reports, and he also remarks that with the Germans songs took the place of sober annals. But the songs in praise of Arminius soon died away, and no lasting tradition gathered round his memory. The historical consciousness of the Germans dates from their great migration, which also gave life and substance to their heroic poetry. The rich legends which form the material of great national epics always owe their origin to gigantic national con- vulsions. It was so with the Greeks and Indians ; it was so with the Teutonic race. We can distinguish two elements, a mythological and an his- torical, in the Germanic hero-world. On the one hand there are gods who take the form of men, without descending altogether to the level of common humanity; on the other hand there are historical heroes, whose greatness seemed more than human, half divine, to the popular imagination ^^^^ histori- fired by the fame of their exploits. To the first cai element class belong Siegfried and the fabulous genealogies, i^ t^® °id through which the German princely families traced hero-legends their descent from Wodan or other gods. To the second class belong those names of heroic legend which are c 2 ao Goths and Fj'anks. [Ch. ii. attested by history, the historical leaders of the national movement against Rome. The German migration is like a deluge, which gradually encroached on the frontiers of the Roman empire and eventually submerged it entirely. Internal weakness, depopulation, dearth of talent, led the Romans to surrender one position after another to the Germans, who gradually came to occupy all the The German most responsible posts in the state, from that of the Migration, mercenary on the frontier to the imperial throne itself. It was a strange experience for these barbarians, and one which must have enormously increased their national pride, and stamped itself deeply on their memory. Their horizon was enlarged ; the individual acquired more importance ; remarkable men arose ; and foreign civilisation, mingling in coundess ways with native bar- barism, called forth the strongest contrasts. With the growth of their own self-consciousness their early heroic ideals too became more and more individualised. They lost their vagueness, and, in acquiring variety and a character of their own, became genuine personal types with distinct individual characteristics. But this is the mere dawn of historical consciousness. We are still far from exact history or even from that degree of faithfulness which we find in the most meagre chronicles. It is partly the know- ledge that is wanting, partly the power of exact observation. It is true the Germans possessed runic writing; they attributed mysterious virtue to the letters, and used them for casting lots, for spells, and for short inscriptions, but never for historical annals Orally trans- or Other consecutive records. The only organ of mitted songs, tradition was unwritten poetry, handed down by memory. But in their poetry they follow an idealising method, and make it general and mythological. The characters and incidents receive a typical form, often far removed from reality. The poets wandered from place to place, taking the songs with them, and the story became more vague the further it was trans- planted from home. Exaggeration could hardly be avoided. The characters were mixed up and the dates confused. The older characters were absorbed in those of the immediate past, whose figures thus assumed larger proportions, and became the centre of various legends. Thus a cycle of stories gathered round a single Ch. II.] The Heroic Songs. i\ name. The frequent coincidence of names rendered this con- fusion easier ; and when their great men had been raised to equal dignity with the old heroes, mythical and historical persons were blended together, and the cycle of legends became larger than ever. The traditions of German heroic poetry extend over more than 300 years, and are drawn from various German tribes, jjistorieal King Ostrogotha reigned over the Goths about the elements in year 250, and was the contemporary of the emperors t^^ heroic Philip and Decius. Ermanaric governed the Ostro- goths about 100 years later, and was a very warlike king, ruling over a large extent of territory. The invasion of the Huns drove him to despair, and he fell by his own hand before the year 374. Soon after the year 400 the Burgundians founded a mighty empire in the most fertile part of the Upper Rhine, where Caesar had already fought with the Germans, near Spiers, Worms, and INIayence. The Roman Aetius, who ruled Gaul with the aid of his Hun allies, defeated the Burgundians by means of these bar- barians in a terrible batde about the year 437 ; 20,000 men fell, amongst them their king Gundicarius (Gunther). The Bur- gundians seemed to be annihilated, and soon after retreated to Savoy. About the same time Attila was king of the Huns and Ostrogoths, to the terror of the world. His name is Gothic, the arrangements of his court were Gothic, and he reckoned among his knights Theodomer, the king of the Ostrogoths. The West had just learnt all the terror of this ' Scourge of God,' when news came of his sudden death (453), and in the following year his followers succumbed to the attacks of the Germans (454). Twenty- two years later Odoacer deposed the last shadow of a Roman em- peror ; and again, twelve years later, Theodoric led the Ostrogoths into Italy and Odoacer fell by his hand. About the same period the ^Merovingian Clo\is founded the kingdom of the Franks ; about the year 530 his sons destroyed the Thuringian empire; and his grandson Theodebert extended his kingdom so far, that, starting from Hungary, he planned an attack on the Byzantine emperor. The Merovingians also offered a successful resistance to the Vikings, who were the terror of the North Sea, and who appeared 22 Goths and Franks. [ch. il. even at the mouths of the Rhine. From another quarter the Longobards in Httle more than a century reached Italy, having started from Liineburg, in the neighbourhood of Brunswick, and their King Alboin took possession of the crown of Italy in 568. These wonderful transferences of power, and this rapid founding Distortion ^^ "^^^ empires, furnished the historical background of history of the German hero-legends. The fact that the move- by the poets, ^lent was originally against Rome was forgotten ; the migration was treated as a mere incident in the internal history of the German nation. There is no trace of chronology. An English bard of the eighth century, who transports himself into the heroic period, says that he has been at Alboin's court, that Gunther gave him an arm ring, and that he met Ostrogolha at the court of Ermanaric. Legend adheres to the fact of the enmity between Odoacer and Theodoric, but it really confuses Theodoric "with his father Theodomer, transplants him accordingly to Attila's court, and supposes that he was an exile there in hiding from the wrath of Odoacer. Attila becomes the representative of every thing connected with the Huns. He is regarded as Ermanaric's and Gunther's enemy, and as having destroyed the Burgundians. These again are confused with a mythical race, the Nibelungen, The Nibe- Siegfried's enemies, and thus arose the great and com- lungen plicated scheme of the Nibelungen legend. While legend. jj^ ^j^^ Nibelungen legend historical and mythical elements are mingled, the Theodoric legend, on the contrary, is in its main features historical, and the legend of King Orendel affords an example of pure myth. In the oldest version of the Nibelungen legend — that, namely, which penetrated into the North and was there preserved — Attila bears (he blame of the slaughter of the Burgundians. But as early as the seventh cen- tury certain German songs related the story in an essentially different manner. In these songs not Attila, but his wife Kriem- hild, Siegfried's widow, the sister of the Burgundian kings, plans the murder. In the same version the attractive character of the Markgrave Rudiger is introduced for the first time into the legend, and it is probable that this whole variation arose in Austria, being connected with that general amplification of the Ch. II.] The Heroic Songs. 23 heroic song, which brought it to its highest level of perfection and inaugurated the first golden age of German poetry. The oldest viythical legends, dating from a period before the mi- gration, give us the typical hero Siegfried, frank and bold, cut off in the bloom of his youth by his wicked and perfidious enemy Hagen. The oldest historical legends, down to about the middle of the fifth century, show us nothing but repulsive characters, drawn doubtless from the life of those rough times. Ermanaric and Attila represent the type of the covetous, cruel, ambitious sove- reign. Such tyrants have generally at their side a faithless and intriguing counsellor, to whose influence the worst deeds of the sovereign are attributed. Sibicho, the counsellor of Ermanaric, became later on in German a by-word for faithlessness. Beside him, we also find in Ermanaric's service WitUch and Heime, faithless warriors, of cold, gloomy nature, venal and cunning, shrinking from no expedient, however dishonourable. A very different type of ruler meets us later on. Theodoric, who treacherously destroyed his opponent, but afterwards became a beneficent sovereign, is represented in the legend as a man of clear judgment, gentle, yet strong. He is a benign and just ruler, and his banishment from throne and kingdom and home MUder cha- excites our pity. The faithless Sibicho is contrasted racteroftho with a careful monitor, the faithful Eckhart. Faithful later legends, servants, like old Hildebrand, play a great part in these later legends. Riidiger is animated in battle by the noblest motives, and comes unsullied out of a tragic struggle of conflicting duties. Women, as in Gudrun, become the peace-makers between families at feud with one another. Or else it is a woman who stirs up the quarrel and knows how to make manly strength subservient to her own ends. Attila loses his selfish cruelty ; and whatever horrors Kriemhild may be guilty of in the later legend, she is always actuated by loyalty to her husband, and only fulfils the duty of avenging the death of the noblest of heroes. Under all circumstances, we see in the position assigned to her a lofty recognition of woman's power. This idea also reflects the life of the time. The history of Merovingian France tells of a Brunhild and a Fredegonde, as the history of the Bourbons tells of a 24 Goths and Franks. [Ch. ii. Maintenon and a Pompadour. The wives of these Merovingian sovereigns met with express recognition at the hands of his- torians, as also did the influence they exercised on affairs. In countless deeds of horror a woman is said to be the cause ; the narrators seem accustomed to the question 'Where is the woman?' But by the side of these demon-like forms, we find another type of woman, modest, chaste, and gentle, who, although perhaps of lowly birth, may be raised to the throne and there spread blessings all around her. It was a rule of common law that double as much wergeld (blood-money) should be paid for the murder of a woman as for that of a man ; and the reason of this is often expressly stated — because she cannot defend herself with weapons. To tear the diadem from the head of a young girl, or even to loosen the plaits of her hair, was according to Bavarian law to be punished as heavily as an attempt to poison a freeman. In many other ways too feelings of humanity asserted themselves. A Gothic king of Spain is reported to have exclaimed after a victory, ' How miserable am I, that so much blood must flow in my time.' It was regarded as barbarous not to be willing to make compensa- tion for any wrong done. We have instances of men who made it their work in life to buy and liberate slaves. One cannot say that it is the gentleness of Christianity that is here at work ; the influence of Christianity worked in a very different way in other times. But here, as in other cases, humanity and respect for women go hand in hand. Only in this milder atmosphere could the heroic songs have developed their moral tendency, and the grandeur of the epic, the delight in polished manners and in elo- quent speech, have grown up. German heroic song begins with the Goths, and ends with the nations of the Prankish kingdom. The poets who first sang the Poets at the ^P'^ songs to their harps belonged to the court, court of Wandering minstrels spread abroad the praise of Attiia. princes, and were the teachers of the community. The Byzantine ambassador Priscus describes a feast of Attiia at which he was present. After the dinner, when it grew dark, torches were lighted, and two men, who stood opposite to Attiia, sang songs, in which they celebrated his victories and warlike Ch. II.] TJie Heroic Songs. 25 virtues. The guests gazed intently on the singers, some delight- ing in the poems, others excited by the thoughts of combat which they inspired, while the aged, who could no longer share in the deeds of daring which they loved, burst into tears. It is a picture like that of Ulysses among the Phseacians, when Demodokos sings the deeds of the heroes, and Ulysses hides his face and weeps. What has become of those songs of Ermanaric, Attila, and Theodoric, all those poems which once so strongly stirred German hearts? Charlemame caused them to be written down, as T.- • ,. , , TT . • -r. , Collection risistratus did the Homeric epics, iiut the next ^^ hero-songs generation had already forgotten them. In the ninth vmderCharie- century we come again on traces of them, after which ™^sne, but . soon lost, they drop quite out of sight. We must give up the collection of Charlemagne as lost for ever : this most important record of the German national epics is destroyed, and we are reduced to guess-work. All we know is, that the epic singer appeared before his audience like an orator, that he discarded the traditional strophic form, and that his song flowed on without break through the so-called Long-verses. He did not sing rhythmically, but rather declaimed in recitative. The old picturesque and vivid modes of expression, which primi- tive German poetry probably once possessed in common with the Aryan, disappeared in the ballad-like poetry which followed upon, and celebrated the stormy epoch of German migration ; and later on, when long narrative poems were revived, the old skill was not recovered. We possess in Germany itself but one poor literary fragment from the whole of this first classic period of epic legend and poetry ; this fragment is the song of Hildebrand. The aged Hildebrand has gone with Theodoric into exile among the Huns. Years afterwards he returns to Italy at the head of an army of Huns. His son Hadubrand advances to op- The song of pose him. The poet begins abruptly : ' I have heard Hildebrand. that Hildebrand and Hadubrand challenged each other to battle.' It seems as though he were treating a theme which he might assume to be generally known. Son and father arm themselves, and ride to meet each other. Hildebrand asks who his opponent is, and 26 Goths and Franks. [Ch. il. receives the answer, Hadubiand, son of Hildebrand. Then a second enquiry from Hildebrand and a clearer answer from Hadu- brand make it plain to the old man that his opponent is his own son. He tries to avoid the combat, tells his name, and offers bracelets as presents. Hadubrand rejects them with disdain, and takes the old man for a crafty deceiver, who only wishes to entice him on within range of his spear. As for his father, he has heard that he was killed in battle. Hildebrand still tries to pacify him. He sees, indeed, that Hadubrand does not need his gifts, for he wears beautiful armour, and no doubt has a generous master ; but he tries to induce him to seek out another opponent such as he can easily find in the army of the Huns, quite as distinguished as himself. Then Hadubrand taunts him with cowardice, and this he cannot bear ; he sees he must fight, and laments in despair the cruelty of his fate which dooms him, after thirty years of wandering, and after a thousand escapes, either to be slain by his own son, or to become that son's murderer. Here the combat begins ; they dash against each other with couched spears, which glance off from the shields ; then they dismount, and with their swords hack each other's shields in pieces. The conclusion of the poem is lost. We may suppose that the old man conquered, and stood over the dead body of his son. He had destroyed his own race. The poet knows how to place his subject before us in the most impressive manner. He takes little interest in the outward inci- dents. He just describes the arming of the two combatants, but in the fewest words possible. He goes straight to the point which seems to him the most important. What he delights in is the de- velopment of question and answer. He tells us specially that Hildebrand was the first to speak, because he was the worthiest and the oldest. He knows that it is an advantage in narrating long speeches that they should be interrupted or accompanied by action : he therefore introduces the episode of the bracelets, which Hildebrand takes from his own arms and offers to his opponent. Apart from its mere technical excellence the dialogue is so skilfully handled, that we perceive at once the character, the coming destiny, and the tragic end of the human beings who take part in it. The poet has reproduced the naive manners of Ch. II.] The Heroic Songs. ij a childlike age, in which men are allowed to praise themselves, in which possessions, presents, booty, are the objects of an undis- guised selfish cupidity. Hildebrand parades his own extensive acquaintance with men. The prize of battle is the armour of the vanquished ; ornaments are offered to soften the stubborn temper of the opponent. The poet not only knows how to introduce without effort a number of facts which lie outside the frame- work of the story, but he also understands the art of developing character, and of making speeches and actions its natural out- come. Hildebrand is the picture of old age as Hadubrand is of youth. The former is cautious, deliberate, prudent ; the latter is hasty, eager for combat, suspicious, and obstinate. The answers which Hildebrand receives to his cautiously put questions have the effect of forcing on him still further caution. But in order that we may entertain no doubt of his valour, Hadubrand, who suspects the courage of his foe, is made to allege that his father was always too fond of fighting. Tragic irony could not go further than in this admirable contrast between father and son ; between the father who knows his son, and the son who knows not his father ; the father striving to reveal his kinship, the son repudiating it ; the father filled with love for the son before him, the son full of affec- tion and admiration for the father whom he believes to be dead ; and the two engaged in mortal conflict with one another. Hildebrand is decidedly the hero of the poem. His whole early history is touched upon. Our pity is excited for him, so long sepa- rated from his family, and now, at the risk of dishonour, forced to engage in mortal conflict with the man whom he knows to be his own son. Yet the poet utters no word of sympathy, he works on us only by a bare statement of the facts in the formal style which he has adopted. Hildebrand's cry of despair when the fight is in- evitable, stands alone in the poem : in this cry the unspeakable anguish of the father's heart is concentrated. The fearful mental struggle, the fearful deed which must be done under the imperious demands of honour — these are the chief ideas which filled the ima- gination of the poet. He thus evidences the moral spirit of the old heroic songs. Small as is the fragment left to us, it is a noble fruit, and from it we may infer the grandeur of the tree which bore it. aS Goths and Franks. [ch. ii. Ulfilas. At the very time when heroic song was taking a higher flight, Christianity began to exert its influence on the Germanic nations. Influence of '^^^ latest legends have nothing heathen about them, Christianity and when we find that in these legends women play on German ^n important part, we must remember that at this time ^ ■ pious women were already contributing as nuns to the sanctification of life. At the king's court the monk now stands side by side with the minstrel. The forms of the old gods fade before the image of the Crucified. The migration began with the Goths. Among them heroic song first sprang up, and The Goths. , , , ^ ^^ • • ? r,^, they were also the first converts to Christianity. The Goths were the most advanced of the old German tribes. Their brief career foreshadowed the later and fuller development of the Franks. Nay, the problems which the Goths had to face were such as have occupied men's minds both in the middle ages and in modern times, and they recur again and again throughout German history. These problems are imperial power, the religious training of the people, toleration of nationalities and of creeds. Heroic song began with the Ostrogoths ; but it was the Visigoths who were first converted to Christianity. We can only guess at the causes which influenced the people to forsake their old gods. The most important was the migration itself, and the conse- changed conditions which arose from the total change quences of of locality. To leave their homes, to leave the sanc- the migra- ^^ary of their tribe, where they assembled for their religious festivals, and the sacred groves in which the gods dwelt, — this in itself was a great wrench. A time of great deeds, but also of great suffering ensued. The excitement of the struggle for existence might nerve and elevate the hearts of king and nobles, yet the mass of the people were without doubt exposed to extreme distress. They invoked the old gods, and finding no succour began to lose faith in them. Why should they not try the new gods, to whom the Greeks and Romans raised in- numerable churches and altars, the gentle and merciful God, the God of the poor and needy, who had Himself suffered the greatest Ch. II.] Ulfilas. 29 indignities ? Even the Roman emperor bowed before this God ; and He must surely be the most powerful Deity to whom the emperor himself could appeal for help. While these were probably the feelings of the people, their chiefs, on the other hand, had good political reasons for offering homage to the God of the Byzantine empire; they might thus acquire land and gain favour with the emperor. So the vigilant Christian missionaries found ready listeners in chiefs and people. The Visigoths were the tribe most closely connected with the Empire of the East. In the great struggle beLween Arius and Athanasius, which agitaled the Church in the fourth century, the imperial power inclined for a time to the side of Arianism, Con- stantius in particular, the son of Constantine the Great, favoured this more easily comprehensible form of church doctrine, and the Eastern bishops of that time were mostly Arian in their opinions. The form of Christianity therefore which lay nearest to the Goths was Arianism. Thus it was that at the Synod trmias, of Antioch in the year 341, the Arian Wulfila or circa 350. Ulfilas, as the Greeks call him, was consecrated bishop of the Goths, that is of the Visigoths to the north of the lower Danube. Ulfilas was about thirty years old. He was no ordinary theo- logian of the time : he had not been spoilt by the schools of the rhetors. We possess his later confession of His faith, in which he attempts to modify the doctrine of Arianism. the Trinity in the direction of a simple monotheism, — a striking proof of the freshness and vigour of his understanding. Seven years after his consecration misfortune befel the young commu- nity. The new religion roused the suspicion of the Gothic king, and a bloody persecution followed. The emperor Constantius allowed the survivors to emigrate to Moesia, in the neighbourhood of Nicopolis, not far from the Haemus mountains. These emigrants were called the Little Goths. Ulfilas laboured among them till his death. He died in 381 in Constantinople, whither he had gone to defend the doctrines of Arius. When he led the emigrants over the Danube in 348, he seemed to his contemporaries a second Moses at the head of his people. By his hand, as a bio- grapher expresses it, God had wrought for the followers of His 30 Goths and Franks. [Ch. ii. only-begotten Son, to deliver them from the hand of the bar- barians, just as formerly He saved His people, through Moses, from the hand of the Egyptians, and led them through the Red Sea. And in fact Ulfilas stands alone in the history of the conversion of the Germanic tribes. He is in the sphere of religion what Theodoric the Great is in the sphere of politics. At one moment the Ostrogoths are a homeless people; a few years elapse and they are reigning in Italy, their king becomes the successor of the Roman emperors, and endeavours to enter upon the whole in- heritance of Roman politics and Roman power. He and his people appropriated at one stroke all that Rome had attained to in political knowledge and statecraft. The highest ideal known to declining Rome in the intellectual sphere was Christianity, and the possession of the Bible has the same significance in the intellectual and religious sphere that the possession of Italy and Rome has in the political. The former, Ulfilas by one effort secured to the Visigoths. He was master of three languages: he preached in Greek, Latin, and Gothic ; and he devoted this gift to the noblest purpose. He is reported to tion of the have translated the whole Bible, only omitting the Bible into Books of the Kings as likely to encourage the ° °' warlike propensities of his people. This transla- tion he effected for those who were till then destitute of the first beginnings of a written literature. Nay, till he taught them, the Goths did not even know what reading meant, and Ulfilas had to translate the word by 'singing.' He created a style of writing which could be painted on parchment for a people who till then had only scrawled single signs, or a few consecutive words on wood or stone. He formed his alphabet by supplementing the Runes from the Greek alphabet, or the Greek alphabet from the Runes. The translation is a literal reproduction in Gothic of the Greek text. He united the greatest reverence for the holy Book, with a due regard for the laws of his native language. The language itself here came to his aid ; the Gothic syntax stood in closer relationship to the Greek than modem or even old German stands to the Gothic. Ulfilas had doubdess fellow-workers; the few remaining fragments of the Old Testament show a different Ch. II.] Ulfilas. 31 hand from the Gospels, and these again from the remains of the Pauline Epistles. But the idea, the example, the supervision, the merit, are his. Ulfilas did not write for the Little Goths alone. The entire con- version of the Visigoths was, notwithstanding the -v^i^e extent first persecution, only a question of time ; and the con- of German version of the Visigoths was destined to react upon -A-nanism. a large number of Germanic tribes. All the tribes of the Eastern branch were gradually drawn under the influence of Arianism. So it was with the Ostrogoths, with the Heruli, Skiri and Rugii of Austria and Bavaria, and also with the Vandals in Spain. Even the Burgundians, who had formerly been Roman Chris- tians, inclined for a time towards Arianism, and the less closely related Longobards seem, while they ruled on the Danube, to have superficially adopted Arianism, after the example of their Austrian neighbours. We may assume that the Gothic Bible and the intellectual power of Ulfilas reached as far as the limits of German Arianism. No German of Catholic persuasion ever attempted anything like it. Wycliffe in England, and Luther in Germany, are the first who can be compared with him. The partial or complete translations which arose before Wycliffe and Luther suffered from two causes: firstly, from the exaggerated respect felt for Latin as the sacred language ; secondly, from the papal decrees, which later on forbade the use of the Bible. What we possess in the Gothic language besides the Bible is insignificant. It consists of an interpretation of St. OtiD.©r lit©" John's Gospel founded on Greek commentaries, a rary frag- fragment of a Gothic Calendar, a few documents, at- mentsin tested by Gothic priests in Gothic, a Gothic toast in ° °* a Latin epigram, and a few isolated words in Latin writings. Probably the written literature was confined to the careful copy- ing and faithful rendering of the Bible, or to the amending and altering of the sacred text. These alterations consisted in changes based on the authority of a Latin translation or in the addition of synonyms and the choice of fresh expressions. But even when writers advanced to commentaries, they still kept within the lines 32 Goths and Frajiks. [Ch. ii. which Ulfilas had laid down. The MSS. which have been pre- served are probably of Italian origin : the most valuable of all, the famous ' Codex argenteus ' at Upsala, in silver letters on purple pirchment, may have been in the possession of the Ostrogothic kings themselves. In the territory of the Skiri and Rugii, the progenitors of the Austro-Bavarian race, we find in the ninth century in a Salzburg MS. traces of a knowledge of the Gothic alphabet and Bible. And it is evident that isolated ecclesiastical words, such as Heide (heathen), Pfaflfe (priest), Kirche (church), were first coined in Gothic, and thence passed into the German language, where they still survive. Thus the German language has received at least some small legacy from Gothic Arianism, although the Arian churches themselves have all perished. The chief enemy which those tribes which had embraced Arianism had to contend against was the Roman Church. They succumbed before the opposition of this and other hostile elements. But the Bible of Ulfilas has acquired an entirely new importance. Franciscus Junius printed and published it in the seventeenth century, and after Jacob Grimm in the nineteenth had made it the basis of the comparative grammar of all the Teutonic languages, it became the true key to German antiquity. Ulfilas is our best guide to the secrets of German primitive times ; he alone has survived his whole people. The Gothic songs which once formed the centre of our heroic legends, the songs of Ostrogotha, Ermanaric, Theodomer, and Theodoric, have long since died away; the Gothic Bible, in its noble fragments, lives on, a sacred relic, unchanged, and now imperishable. The Merovingians. The more roving and warlike of the German tribes showed _,. . . _ themselves the most ready to embrace Christianity; isingofthe they had been uprooted, and their heathen traditions German shaken, Rome, though conquered in the field, be- came intellectually the mistress of her conquerors. The rule of the emperors came to an end, that of the popes was gradually established. The Arian phase of German faith was fol- Ch. II.] The Merovingians. 33 lowed by a Roman Catholic one, at least among the Franks, Alemanni, Anglo-Saxons, and Bavarians, who had all distinguished themselves in the famous German movement against Rome. The more stationary Hessians, Thuringians, and Frisians, held out for a long time ; the Saxons were converted by force, after a weary struggle, towards the end of the eighth century, while with the Scandinavians the process of conversion began later, and was still more arduous. In the beginning of the sixth century the songs concerning Sieg- fried and Attila spread as f\ir as Scandinavia, but after that period the various German tribes became more and more separated from each other. The wide influence exercised by Theodoric did not descend to his successors. Under the Merovingian dynasty the Franks took up the task of consolidation, and com- fFli6 Franks pelled the whole of middle and South Germany to acknowledge their supremacy. The ground was thus prepared for fresh conversions. The Christianity of the Franks, which was due to accidental causes, was not of a very strict character. The clergy were drawn into secular life. No vigorous opposition was offered to the remnants of heathenism, nor was literature employed in support of religion. The Merovingian period, which brought German popular heroic song to perfection, cannot point to a single literary document in the German language. No Ulfilas arose ; no missionaries were sent out. The example of proselytism had to be first set from outside, by a small people, which now for the first and only time exerted its influence on the intellectual development of Europe, i.e. the Irish. In the first half of the fifth century St. Patrick brought Chris- tianity to the Irish from Scotland, and the Irish monasteries became a centre of civilisation and Christian missions, independent of Rome, and often directly opposed to her. They sent forth Columbanus, an apostle full of zeal, and yet of liberal views. He jrish. mis- recommended the study of the ancient poets just as sions in much as that of the early fathers of the church, and G-armauy. quoted the authority of Juvenal, as lending support to the Gospel maxims. He himself wrote in old Greek metre, and was well versed in classical literature and mythology. The maxims of D 34 Goths and Franks. [ch. il. life which he gives to his monks are fit for a brotherhood of philosophers. This Columbanus became in the seventh century the Apostle of the Alemanni. His disciple, Gallus, founded the monastery of St. Gall. They were followed by many others of their countrymen, whose zeal roused the emulation of the Prankish clergy, and prepared the way for the conversion of the Bavarians and Thuringians. The Merovingian empire thus became on the whole a Christian empire. But down to the eighth century, to the time of St. Boniface, all strict church discipline was wanting. Christianity was only one element of civilisation by the side of others, and did not yet claim the exclusive dominion over men's minds. German heroic song attained at this time its highest develop- ment. In the matter of poetic form, Germany was indebted to the ^, Romanic nations ; it was from them that German Bhyme, a ' product of poetry received the ornament of rhyme. We find the Komanic the first traces of rhyme in Germany in the ninth cen- na ions. ^^^.^ . ^^^ ^^^^ .^ j^ already used to adorn Christian hymns which were meant to supplant the popular songs. It is most probable that rhyme had been employed for some time in the popular songs, for the writers of these early Christian hymns would hardly have made the strange matter of their poetry yet more strange by clothing it in an unaccustomed form. As epic poetry with its stately alliterative verses gradually disappeared, rhyme came more and more into fashion. But it first found its way to Germany from outside. Popular Latin poetry had long employed nothing but rhyme. The Christian h} mns, intended to be sung by the masses, adopted the same form. It is also found in Irish poetry, and all the Romanic nations, the Northern and Southern Prench, the Spaniards, and Italians submit to its fetters. This melodious, sensuous adornment was evidently a product of that obscure epoch which laid the foundations of mediaeval life. It came to Germany through the medium of music, and German poetry could not resist its influence. Attractive Italian or Prench melodies wandered to Germany, and German poets set German words to them, as the Minnesanger Ch. II.] The Merovingians. 35 and the poets of the Renaissance did in later periods. And with these melodies, songs, and dances there also came rhyme. We find it first of all on the Upper Rhine, from whence it spread over the rest of Germany. The fact that rhyme is found in German poetry is as substantial a proof of the early influence of Romanic culture, as the foreign words used in German to designate influence of wine-culture and house-building, words which came Romanic into the German language at about the same period civilisation as the introduction of rhyme. This points to a dis- tinguishing feature of the first classical period of German literature, and one which recurs again in the second and third classical periods, — it was the Romanic nations who shaped the aesthetic sense of the Germans. Yet another event belonging to this epoch continues to exert its in- fluence to the present day, and is one of the most important incidents of German history ; I refer to the dialectal separation •' ' Separation between South and North German, which must have ^^ High- and begun about the year 600. Then arose the still exist- Low-German ing difference between High- and Low-German dialects, ^^*^®°*!' ° ° 1- . circa 600. and there was no educated language, no literary speech to bridge over the gulf. Two German languages were formed, and those who spoke them might easily have separated into two nations. Low-German dat and wat, by the side of High-German das and was ; Low-German ick instead of ich, open instead of offen^ the modern Berlinese ^« instead oithun; these and countless similar consonantal differences place Low German on the same level as Dutch, English, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. And all these languages have really kept to the original form of Germanic speech, while High German has separated itself from this common founda- tion. At first it was only a separate dialect, but afterwards, when used as the literary language, it slowly gained a sure supremacy. The movement seems to have originated in the mountainous dis- tricts. The Alemanni, the Bavarians, and Longobards, were the first to fall under its influence ; the Franks, Hessians, and Thuringians were only gradually drawn into it. Lower down the Rhine it was less powerful, and the Netherlands remained entirely untouched. 36 Gotlis and Franks. [ch. 11. Jacob Grimm has given the name of Old High German to the language which thus arose, and which continued to develop down to the eleventh century. And if we enquire what were the causes of this Old High consonantal change, or 'Lautverschiebung' as Grimm German, calls it, we shall find an answer in the general character of the Old High-German dialect. Among all the Teutonic languages, w hether of older or more modern times, none can compare for melody with this dialect, as seen in the rhyming poets of the ninth century. The cold, serious, sober ninth century is here using an instrument bequeathed to it by an older, gentler, and more aesthetic age. The language was rich in vowels, melodious and plastic as Italian, and therefore in its very nature suited to rhyme. But the delight in vowels led to the neglect of the consonants. The immoderate striving after euphony dissolved the firmer elements of words, and this was the real origin of the change of consonants in High German. This separation of High German has exercised a momentous influence in German literature and German history. To it may be attributed in great measure the difiiculty which the Germans have found in creating a united national literature and culture. For centuries all German poetry could only count upon a local and limited public ; and even to the present day the people of the various provinces are more abruptly divided from each other than elsewhere, South Germans and North Germans in particular standing in many respects in sharp contrast. It was the subjection of the Saxons by Charlemagne which hindered the High and Low Germans from becoming two nations. The cruel propagation of the Christian faith was in the end an advantage to the German nation. The giant will which kept together Italy, Gaul, and Germany, also united Saxons, Franks, Hessians, Thuringians, Alemanni, and Bavarians. At the same time the Germanic element in the empire was strengthened by the addition of the Saxons. More regard was now paid to the kinship of races, as may be seen from the division of the empire among the sons of Louis the Pious. At Strassburg, on February 14, 842, the Western Franks under Charles the Bald took their oath in French, while the Eastern Franks under Louis the German took theirs in Ch. II.] TJie Merovingians. ^y German. And the German Empire, strictly speaking, only began to exist after the Treaty of Verdun in 843. The mother-tongue of Charlemagne was High German ; he him- self, his family, and his court, spoke mostly High German, and it is to this circumstance that the High-German dialect owes that supre- macy which it has asserted since then almost without interruption. Under Charlemagne we first find the expression 'deu/sck,' i.e. popular (from deo/, people), used to designate the popular language of German origin in distinction to Latin and the Romance languages. The consciousness of German nationality first asserted itself at the time of the revival of the Empire of the West under Charlemagne. CHAPTER III. THE OLD HIGH-GERMAN PERIOD. Under Charlemagne we come to the first connected records in the German language, and these seem to have been called forth by The Anglo- the needs of Christian teaching. Under his succes- Saxons. gQ^g complete Christian poems were produced. But in all this the Franks, Saxons, and other German tribes only fol- lowed in the steps of another Germanic people, who led the way both by their example and direct influence — the Anglo-Saxons. Before St. Columbanus crossed to the continent, the Roman Church had gained a strong footing in the same corner of Europe from which the Irish missions had started. In the beginning of the seventh century Pope Gregory the Great succeeded in winning over the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Nu- merous learned and poetical works bear witness to the extraordinary talent of this people. Their popular epic, the ' Beowulf/ gives the story of a noble hero who came to succour foreigners in distress, fought victoriously with destructive water- demons, was crowned by his people, and finally succumbed in a fight with a dragon. Into this framework are woven varied pictures of life, marked by the true epic love for full details of manners, speech, and modes of warfare. The same creative power which is here displayed in the treatment of a national legend also exercised itself on the new materials offered by Christianity. In Bede the Anglo-Saxons possessed a scholar of the first order who had mastered the whole science of his time, and embodied it in various school-books which soon became very popular. In Aldhelm they had a Latin poet of much feeling and refine- ment. Caedmon is named as the oldest Anglo-Saxon Christian Ch. III.] The Anglo-Saxons. 39 poet who wrote in the vulgar tongue ; Cynewulf is known to us by various excellent works. Grand paraphrases in Old English verse of parts of the Old and New Testaments are still extant, as well as wonderful legends, like Cynewulf's ' Andreas,' in which the union of Christianity with the spirit of the popular epic produces noble effects. It was this circle of life and culture that sent out St. Boniface. He was no Bede : he was a man of narrow ..,„,., • , , J St. Boniface, spirit and small education, but certainly a hero, and well fitted to realise the ideal of a Christian apostle and martyr. He was quite different from St. Columbanus, whose fellow-country- men he persecuted everywhere in Germany ; he even accused them to the Pope, because they held such fearful heresies as belief in the roundness of the earth, and the existence of the antipodes. He is the representative of a different nationality, a different church sys- tem, a different age. He did not make many new converts among the Germans, but held the reins tight over those already converted. He was inexorable in rooting out all traces of heathen worship, and also set his face against all the more Uberal elements of Chris- tianity. He established a regular system of sacerdotal rule, and put all under the dominion of Rome. Charlemagne, with his great love of power and care for his people, continued in his church policy the work which Boniface had begun, and in this the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin was his _. , ° ' ^ Charlemagne most trusty counsellor. Charlemagne's decrees of and the first the year 789 were intended to insure outward unifor- German mity in matters of religion, and called forth the first PJ^ose. German prose writings, translations of the baptismal vow, of the Creeds, the Lord's Prayer, and Confessions. These again gave rise to other literature, chiefly of a religious character, but merely borrowed from the Latin ; many of these translations show a remarkable and quickly acquired facility, and they were a great aid in the composition of sermons which Charlemagne demanded from the clergy by decisive injunctions. Litde was done towards acquiring a complete German Bible. People only cared to possess the life of Christ, for which one gospel was enough. That according to St. Matthew, which was selected for the purpose, was reproduced in a translation at once beautiful and impressive. At 40 The Old High-German Period. [Ch. iii. the same time poetry was applied to religious subjects. Short prayers in verse were produced, and the stories of the Creation and Fall seem to have been favourite themes. The end of the world is described in a poem of which the greater part has come down to us. The author, who is a layman, adopts the prophetic tone of the preacher. He sets before his readers as effectively as possible church doctrines which he barely understands, and renders them attractive to the warlike nobles whom he addresses. The following is a short outline of the poem : — Two hosts, angels and devils, fight for the departing soul ; Antichrist fights with Elias ; the former is conquered, the latter wounded, and the drops of his blood set on fire forest and mountain ; all water is dried up, heaven melts in the glow, the moon falls, the world is consumed by fire — 'Muspilli,' as the poet calls it, using the old heathen term for the final conflagration of the world. The poem draws a terrible pic- ture of the pains of hell, and an equally attractive one of the joys of heaven. It points with solemn warnings to the last judgment when all crimes will come to light and be avenged. The penance of fasting is recommended as a protection against final punish- ment. The sins which the poet specially has in view are murder, bribery of judges, quarrels about boundaries — all of them aristo- cratic sins. The first Messianic Poems. In the ninth century Christian poetry took a higher flight, and selected as its theme the life of the Saviour. It undertook to render the gospel of love into German verse, and dared to pro- claim to a warlike people, through the mouth of its God, ' Blessed are the peacemakers.' The ninth century produced two Messianic poems, which were written during the reigns of the son and grandson of Charlemagne : a Saxon one by an unknown poet, and a Frankish one by Otfried. Both show us the highest theological culture of the time, as repre- sented by the school of Fulda. The monastery of Fulda was founded by St. Boniface, and we Ch. III.] The first Messianic Poems. 41 know pretty accurately all the circumstances of its foundation. His pupil Sturmi, who had lived for some time as a t^^lq Mon- hermit, was charged to select a site, and his bio- asteryof grapher describes him riding alone on his ass through Fuida. forest and desert, scanning with sharp eyes mountain and valley, and seeing nothing but huge trees and desert plains, wild animals, and all kinds of birds. At night he makes an enclosure for his ass, while he himself sleeps securely after making the sign of the cross on his forehead. ' Thus,' we are told, ' the holy man set out to fight against the devil, well provided with spiritual weapons, clothed in the armour of righteousness, his breast protected by the shield of faith, his head covered with the helmet of salvation, his waist girt with the sword of the word of God.' This figure of the Miles Christianus, the Christian knight and vassal of God, often meets us again in later times, in Erasmus, in the drama of the sixteenth century, and in Albert Diirer's pictures. Sturmi was, like Boniface, a true soldier of God. He was the first Abbot of Fukla. In the campaigns of Charlemagne he was the first missionary to the Saxons. A MS. at Fulda preserves the formula in which these heathen were forced to abjure 'Donar, and Woden, and Saxnot, and all the other monsters who are their companions.' From 822 Rabanus Maurus presided over the monastery as fifth Abbot. He was a narrow and intolerant man, who afterwards attained to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in Germany, and became Archbishop of Mainz (847 to 856). He made Fulda the first and most esteemed school of Germany. In his time the monastery filled the position of a leading university and was the resort of all who were eager to learn. The works of Rabanus are, from our point of view, scientifically worthless ; he has hardly any original thoughts, and only transmits those of others. But creative minds were very rare in the ninth century, and even encyclopaedic learning is a merit. Rabanus directed the school of Fulda from 804, and as Abbot retained part of the teaching in his own hands, particularly the expounding of the Scriptures. About 820 he wrote a commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel, which was much used in the two old Messianic poems I have mentioned. And it seems 42 The Old High-German Period. [ch. ill. that he himself had the idea of making his mother tongue the vehicle of religion. A Latin life of Christ, compiled from all four Gospels, but based mainly on St. Matthew, was translated into German in his time, and probably at his instigation ; and Otfried von Weissenberg, the author of the Frankish Messianic poem, acknowledges himself as his pupil. The older Saxon Messianic poem — usually called the ' Heljand ' (Heiland) ' Saviour,' was composed about the year 830, and, as an The ^^ record tells us, at the instigation of the emperor Heljand, Louis the Pious. It contains about 6000 alliterative circa 830. lines, and has been extravagantly praised ; but an im- partial critic will form a more sober estimate of its value. The poet stands on the same level as the Anglo-Saxon priests, who had already in the eighth century treated Bible-subjects poetically in their mother tongue. Intellectual intercourse still existed between the Saxons of England and those of North Germany. The German poet could learn much from the English, but he went even further than they did in transferring the spirit and costume of the secular epic to subjects which from their nature were but little fitted for such treatment. The secular epic, as it existed among the Anglo- Saxons, makes the sovereign and his circle the centre of interest. The relation between the king and his follo\v r. 56. 86 Chivalry and the Church. [Ch. iv. Count Palatine Henn-, kills him in presence of the Emperor, de- claring that he would have slain his stepfather also, had he been in his power. After this highly dramatic scene Ernst takes refuge in flight ; he is laid under the ban of the empire, and his country is invaded. After five years' resistance, he takes the cross, goes through wonderful adventures, makes offerings at the Holy Sepul- chre, and fights in Jerusalem against the heathen. He returns and first makes himself known to his mother, and then, in the Cathedral at Bamberg, he falls during service at the Emperor's feet, who pardons him without knowing who he is. In all his vicisbitudes, a friend and companion of his youth, Count Wetzel, remains faithful to him. The lighter emotions of love are hardly touched upon in this poem. Only once is a maiden introduced, such as usually meet the heroes of legend, and excite their affection. Duke Ernst does indeed save a captive maiden from her oppressors, but she is left dead in his arms. Two historical traitors to the imperial power are united in the Historical P^^son of the legendary Duke Ernst — i. e. Ludolf, the basis of the son of Otio the Great, and Duke Ernst of Suabia, legend. stepson of Conrad II. Even in the song of the eleventh century the hero was doubtless represen.ed as being put under the ban of the empire, and perhaps as leaving the country. The poet of the twelfih centurj' uses this incident in order to ascribe to him a crusade and many fabulous adventures in the style of the Alexanderlied. In the thirteenth century two great Middle High- German poems treated this same subject, which ended by circulat- ing as a ballad and popular romance. Side by side with this tale of the wanderings of a German prince « St. Bran- may be placed a poem relating the travels of the monk '^^^•' St. Brandan, which brings again before us the fame of the Irish monks. Brandan reads of a subterranean world, where it is day whilst we have nif,ht. Vexed at the improbability of this story he burns the book, and as a punishment has to experience much stranger things than this on a long sea-voyage. He has terrific encounters with devils, and many episodes of a farcical character are introduced, such as that of the monk who had stolen a bridle, or of Brandan's coat falling into the sea. Ch. IV.] The Crusades. 87 The story of ' King Orendel' reminds us yet more vividly of the Odyssey. It must have been founded on some song , g;ine Oren- containing ancient mythological matter. With the del,' 12th ancient Germans Orendel was the genius of navi- century, gation, a personification of favourable weather. In late autumn Orendel suffers shipwreck, and becomes subject to an Ice-giant, INIaster Ise. He is cast naked on the shore, and covers his naked- ness, like Ulysses, with a bough. By slave's service he earns a grey coat, in which he returns unrecognised in the spring-time to his own country. And after he has, like Ulysses, conquered the suitors who besiege his wife, he is received by her with joy. In the minstrel ballad of the twelfth century which has come down to us, Orendel's wife is transported to Jerusalem and made the daughter of King Da\'id. The Knights Templars serve and protect her ; she takes part armed in the conflict with the heathen, like a Walkiire or Amazon. Though she receives Orendel as one well known and long expected, yet when he suffered shipwreck he was on a crusade and knew nothing about her. He now becomes King of Jerusalem, and when the city falls, in his absence, into the hands of the heathen, he recovers it by the help of his wife. The poet has made a ' Gerusalemme Liberata ' out of the mythological legend. He knows the names of a few places in Palestine, and also a little about the state of the kingdom after the capture of the Holy City by Saladin in 1187. His intention doubtless was to comfort the mourning Christians with a hope of its recovery. He trusts implicitly in Divine help : as soon as his hero is in danger, the Virgin Mary prays to her Son for him, and angels hasten to help him. The author thus gains a ' deus ex machina,' such as a Greek or Roman epic poet could avail himself of. He also appeals thereby to pious minds, and by making the grey coat of Orendel typical of the seamless coat of Christ, he gives to his work quite the character of a sacred legend. But he is not of a pious disposition himself. He makes no sharp distinction between Christians and heathen, and never leads his readers into the world of spiritual experience. In this respect the author of ' St. Oswald' fully resembles him. The Crusade which he describes is also really a journey in quest of a bride. The talking raven of 88 Chivalry and the Church. [Ch. IV. the tale is a half-miraculous, half-comic element. A heathen maiden is carried off by fraud ; the pursuers are defeate I, killed, raised from the dead, and baptized. But we look in vain here for the serioUbHcss, not to say the religious palhos of the ' Rolandslied.' The Priest Konrad stands alone in this respect. The gleemcn sought only to amuse their audience by stories of the East, and of the struggle with the Paynim, and cared little to edify them. The supremacy of * Lady World' was not broken by the Crusades, on the contrary, they placed new weapons in the hands of her servants; and so also the moral result of the Crusades, thtir influence on the spirit of chivalry, consisted only in the destruction of intolerant bigotry and the reconciliation of those who formerly were foes. The Crusades, though ihcy sprang from intolerance, resulted in an increase of toleration. Though they seemed to express a trium[)h of the Papacy, yet ihey proved in the end prejudicial to its interests. It was wise of Frederick Barbarossa to make the deliver- ance of Jerusalem one of his objects, and thus assert in this direction the supremacy of the empire. In theory Palestine, hke all other countries of the earth, was under his protection. The Latin play of Antichrist, which we have mentioned, had already set forth this idea, and even in wider spheres men were accustomed to look upon the power of the emperor as universal. 'Count Hu- An authentic proof of this is afforded us in a German dolf,' 1170. poem, 'Count Rudolf,' written in 1170, which at the same time gives us a clear idea of the hostile and friendly relations between Christians and heathen in the kingdom of Jerusalem. Count Rudolf, the hero of the poem, is a Christian Coriolanus. Having quarrelled with his bielhren in the faith, he joins the heathen, in order to fight with them against the Christians. Probably the Count, tired and purified by many sufferings, returned at last to the ranks of the faithful. I say probably, because this beautiful tale, like so many others that especially excite our interest, is only pre- served to us in fragments. Poems reflecting real life and choosing their materials from contemporary history found little acceptance with a mediaeval public, which preferred tales of a phantastic and marvellous character. Hence, copies of poems like ' Count ch.iv.] The Crusades. ^9 Rudolf vere seldom multiplied, and it is only by a happy chance that fragments of them have come down to posterity What remains of ' Count Rudolf is throughout free from the over- refinement of later chivalrous romances. It is plain human life ^vhich is pictured to us, free from the artificialities of conven- tion. The narrative flows on simply and clearly, yet at times the personal sympathy of the poet breaks out. Sometimes he shows his enthusiasm for his hero, and thanks those who are kindly disposed to him; sometimes he utters his own feehngs in weighty language, and exp.es.s his hatred of faithless coun- sellors or his admiration of noble women. In the course of the story he gives vent, in a naive manner, to his imperial in^perial leanings. The King of Jerusalem wishes to ie^anin.^<>f introduce imperial ceremonial and magnificence at his court, fancying himself on an equal footing with ^^e emperor ; Count Rudolf, who understands such matters, is to aid him in the arrangements. But Rudolf begins to laugh and says, If you usurp imperial customs, it may be the worse ^or you ; the emperor has no equal, your whole land would be forfeited.' The domimor^ of the German Emperor is thus tacitly extended to Jerusalem, and it is assumed that a word from him would be enough to destroy the whole fabric of usurpation. And yet it is only a question of harmless ceremonial. But the time soon came when the German-Roman emperor really seemed to have extended his dominion to Extension of Jemsalem. On the i8th of March, 1229, the excom- the Imperial municated emperor, Frederick II, took a golden p ■ crown from the high altar of the Holy Sepulchre and placed 1 on his head. A German poet, Meister Freidank, who had joined the emperor's army, described in short epigrams the condition of things at Acre. 'There is no difference, he says « between Christian, Jews, and heathens at Acre. And the honest Swabian seems not to have felt quite at his ease in this inter- national throng. Frederick's whole Oriental policy was founded on the idea of the possibility of peaceable intercourse between Christians and Mohammedans, and this policy was only the prac- tical outcome of that religious toleraUon wliich had for some time 9© Chivalry and tlic CJinrch. [Ch. IV. exercised such a beneficial influence on the minds of Europe. We shall find this spirit of toleration still more stronp^ly expressed later on in some of the chivalrous poets, in Wolfram von Eschen- bach, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Freidank. In fact, Middle Hicrh-German poetry in its most famous repre- sentatives is, like our modern chissic literature, founded on the principle of toleration. And in the thirtcendi as in the nine- teenth century, the rise of fanaticism and persecution betokened the decay of literature. Signs of the same liberal spirit are not wantini? in the science of this epoch. The classic period of the Middle Ages reverenced Aristotle as a profound thinker, but most of his works remained unexplored till Frederick II caused Jewish scholars to translate the Translation Arabic texts of Aristotle with their Arabic commcn- of Aristotle, taries into Latin, and thus opened these treasures to Western science. To the Arabs belongs the literary merit of the work, the Jews were the instruments, the Christian emperor originated the scheme. The adherents of all three religions worked together to breathe fresh life into the greatest philosopher of antiquity, Frederick II stands at tlie head of the political and scientific movements of his time. He gave to politics the Frederick II. ' model of a state organized according to modern ideas; he endowed science with the Latin version of Aristotle; he united in himself the most vigorous features of that Italic- Norman life in the midst of which he grew up. Perhaps nowhere does the modern German experience so overpowering a feeling of the nearness of the spirit of mediaeval Imperialism, as when he finds himself in the sombre landscape of Palermo, at the foot of the beautiful Monte Pellegrino, and pictures to his imagination the half Saracenic court of Frederick II, and then stands beside the two gloomy but magnificent coffins in the Cathedral of the Sicilian capital, only separated by a slab of porphyry from the earthly remains of Henry VI and his great son. Frederick II was the last great champion of the temporal power against mediaeval sacerdotalism. He seemed almost a super- natural being in the eyes of the Italian people. They would not Ch. IV.] The Crusades. 9^ believe that he was really dead, and their disbelief spread to Ger- many. False Fredericks appeared, and when these passed away the idea soon became current that he would come ^^'-^^^^ J;-^ of a large army to reform the degenerate church. T.ll then he .as supposed to sleep in the Kiffhauser, or some other mounta.n There he sits at a stone table, and his beard has grown to In. fee If any one approaches him, he asks whether the ravens are std flvin/ round the mountain. If they are, he must sleep another hundred years. It was not till much later that the sleepmg emperor was supposed to be Frederick Barbarossa, and not till this century that he came to be regarded as a symbol of the vamshed dommion of the German people. CHAPTER V. MIDDLE HIGH-GERMAN POPULAR EPICS. In the history of German rivilisation we notice from early times a difference between the Rhino |)rovince.s and South Part played q^^^^^^ ^^ the Q^e hand, and the Lowlands of in literature ■' by the Germany, particularly the territory of the Saxons, various dis- on the Other. Lower Saxony had been one of the tncts of earliest homes of the Germans, whereas the Rhine- Germany, r 1 /-. » land and South Germany were won from the Celts and Romans in later times. The traces of the older civilisation in these parts were never quite obliterated, and exercised a good influence on the conquerors. It was by their own free will that the Germans carried some elements of this civiKsaiion to the North; while in the West and South tliey simply yiddcil to an irresistible influence due not only to the past and therefore temporary, but rendered permanent, as it would seem, by their geographical sur- roundings. Romanic culture continued to radiate from France and Italy to West and South Germany. The French influence asserted itself almost uninterruptedly, while the Italian influence was more fitful in its operation. In the end we can distinguish three districts in Germany clearly marked out from each other by their leading characteristics : — the Rhine, Lower Saxony, and Austria, i. e. Upper and Lower Austria, with Siyria, Carinthia, and Tyrol. In Bavaria, and later on in Thuringia, we observe a kind of compromise in which these differences become reconciled and neutralised. When the Carlovingians wished to create a Christian literature, Lower Saxony was drawn almost by force into the movement. But the ' Heliand ' remained a solitary achievement. During the Carlovingian Renaissance German poetry, as a branch of written literature, almost entirely vanished. We do not even know at ch. v.] The Revival of the Heroic Poetry. 93 what time alliteration — which certainly continued longer in Lower Saxony than elsewhere — finally gave place to rhyme. But the popular poetry, handed down by oral tradition, did not entirely disappear. The heroic songs, whilst retreating further and further from the Rhine and South Germany, found a refuge .pj^^ j^^^.^ in Lower Sa.xony, though only among the middle legends in and lower classes. The Saxon national legends were. Saxony, in consequence, almost entirely forgotten, and their place was taken by the Gothic-Frankish hero-legends. The Germanic heroes, banished from the castles, took refuge in the huts of the peasants, there to wait for the time when they might emerge from obscurity, and assume once more their place of honour. But during this time of banishment the legends underwent some modification. The achievements of those Saxons who had restored the empire in the tenth century reflected fresh glory on these old hero- legends. The redoubtable Gothic king, Ermanarich, was trans- formed first into a king of the Germans reigning in North Germany, and afterwards into a Roman emperor. The Italian campaigns revived the memory of Thcodoric the Great, the Dietrich von Bern (Veiona) of later Middle High-German poetry; and when the German soldier gazed in wonder at vast buildings like the amphitheatre at Verona, or the Castle of St. Angelo in Rome, he thought he saw before him a work of that Dietrich who, in okien times, had reigned ?o gloriously over the Amelungen, for the name of the Goths was forgotten and re|)laced by that of their royal family. The German legends and songs spread to foreign countries — to Denmark, Russia, Poland, Bavaria, Hungary, and Italy, and the wandering Saxon minstrel learned the legends of other lands, and wove the tales of foreign heroes into German song. TJIE KEVIVAL OF THE HEROIC POtCTRY. French influence is not perceptible in Geiman popular poetry until the eleventh century, the time of the rise of chivalry. At that period the Lower Rhine began to play an important part in German poetry. The gleeman of the Rhine learned from his Saxon brother how some of his poetic material had come to him from France by way of the Netherlands. The 94 Middle High-Gennan Popular Epics. [Ch. v. Rhenish gleeman also had at his command the whole mass of Poetry of Lower Saxon legends and songs. And it was not the gieemen. Qply up the Rhine that he wandered ; even in Upper Bavaria we find traces of his presence, while from Holland he brought back the legend of Gudrun. The Gcrm?.n knight found food for his romantic aspirations in the old heroic ideals set before him by the gieemen. And not the knights only, but the bishops too, cared sometimes to listen to the stories of the Nibelungen and the Amelungen. But, as tween the ^^^ \\zsG seen, a clerical reaction set in, which sought to clergy and destroy the activity of the gieemen throughout the whole e g semen, ^j- g^mj^ ^j^j West Germany, and to undermine the power of a secular code of morals founded on honour and self- respect. The result was very difTerent in dilTerent parts. On the Rhine, and in Allemania and Thuringia, the clergy succeeded in su{)planting the German heroes by the champions of the fiiith, the destroyers of the heathen and the Crusaders. The French influence, represented at first by clerical poets like Lamprecht and Konrad, also exercised its power on the gieemen. The Austrian provinces, however, retaincil their independence. The Austrian clerical poets being stricter, treated purely religious subjects only, and in consequence could not hold their own against the gieemen. And in Bavaria, as we noticed before, these opposing forces were reconciled. There, gieemen and clerical poets were equLilly welcome. They sang of Gudrun. King Rothcr, and the dying Roland, and the Kaiserchronik is likewise of Bavarian origin. Heroic poetry reached its zenith in Austria and Bavaria. There those immortal epics arose which, about the close of the ®'°*° twelfth century, were fortunately rescued from the acci- poetry in ^ ^ Austria, dents of Oral tiansmission, and written down on parcli- Bavaria, and nient. But in Lower Snxony the gleeman remained, as o-wer ^ x\^^ sole master of the poetic art, and was content Saxony, ^ merely to transmit his songs by word of mouth. It was only occasionally that a Saxon knight or priest appeared as a poet. The whole treasure of the Low German heroic poetry of that time would have been entirely lost to us, had not a learned Norwegian of the thiileenth century, who took an interest in these songs and Ch. v.] The Revival of the Heroic Poetry. 95 legends, written down their substance, grouping them round the character of Dietrich von Bern, and thus forming them into a Prose Romance or Saga. This work, entitled the t^-^q ' Thid- * Thidrekssaga,' gives us some idea of what the Saxon rekssaga,' songs must have been. As a rule they continued the I3th century, style of the journalistic minstrel poetry, which prevailed in the tenth century: i.e. concise narrative, delighting in incident, striving after bold effects, shrinking from no coarseness, and lacking any deeper insight into human character or moral problems. Now again, as in the si.xth century, the German heroic legends pene- trated to the North, not only through this Norwegian Saga, but also through the living popular songs. There are Danish and Faro songs based on Low German ones which have been lost, and the Faro songs are to this day sung as an accompaniment to the dance on those far off islands. In Bavaria and Austria the development of the heroic song took another course. It gained more epic breadth and fulness of detail, while its rivalry with the clerical poetry wrought some change in its subject matter. The priest had the advantage of knowing Latin, as well as of being familiar with history. Armed with these he attacked the heroic legends, and found gig^jcj^i c,i\\.\. it easy to prove that Attila and Theodoric, the legen- cism on dary Dietrich and Etzcl, were not coniemporaries, thus *^eroic poetry .... . /- 1 1 • • • ill Austria brmgmg the veracity of the glcemen mio suspicion. ^^^ Bavaria. The charge was a serious one, for all narrative poetry was expected to be true history. The result was that the gleeman made false appeals to fictitious historical authorities, and so ren- dered himself really liable to the charges of falsehood made against him. There is another kind of criticism, which we cannot so clearly trace, but which must also have been applied to these legends. The Nibelungen legend originally contained a number of mythical elements alike rt-pugnant to Christian ^gnioy^i oj, beliefs and to the comparative enlightenment of modification the twelfth century. The giants, dwarfs, and dragons, of mythical the fabulous elements in the story of Siegfried's youth and in the nature of Brunhild, were as much as possible 96 Middle High-German Popular Epics. [Ch. v. eliminated. The legend was thus made more perfect, being freed from superhuman elements. All the myiliologital elements were kept in the baekgrounil, and it is eviileiit that they did not excite so much interest as the more strictly historical portions, connected wilh well-known localities. The lej^end must also have been submitted to moral censorship, Improved for ^11 features that could possibly give offence lo moral tone, refined feminine feeling were expunged, hardly to the extent i)erhaps which modern taste might demand, but we must remember that those were limes of greater simplicity than ours. In the oldest version of the legend there is a close connection between Siegfried and Hrilnhild. He has awakened her from her magic sleep, she has initiated him in hidden wisilom, and they have sworn to be true lo one another. Hut a draught of oblivion given him by Kriemhild's mother makes him faithless; he marries Kriemhild, ami helps her brother Gunthcr to win IJrUnhild for himself. Hut Hriinhild has not forgotten the injury, and has her revenge. She drives ihe faiihleNS but still loved Siegfried to dcstrutiion, and dies with him. Later limes evidently took offence at Segfricd's relation to the two women. 'Ihe later version of the legend omits almost all mention of his earlier con- nection with Hrilnhild, and seeks another founilaiion for those incidents which the story could not afford to lose. Thus the moral purity of the young ill-fated hero remained untarnished Kriemhild as the avenger of Siegfried is horrilde, for her own brothers are her victims ; and this formed such an essential part of the legend that it couKl not well be altered. In the .'^.ixon traiiilion Kriemhild, when she sees that two of her brothers have fallen, thrusts a torch into their mouths to find out if they are really dead. According to another tradition, she strikes off with her own hand the heads of the two who lie bound before her. But the South German form of the legend rightly expunged such barbarities, and made another person the victim of Kriemhild's unnatural deeds. Here again a more refined moral feeling has raised the poetry to a higher level. Among all the subjects of heroic legend, that which is pre- Ch. v.] TJic Revival of the Heroic Poetry. 97 ser\-ed to us in the Nibelungenlied seems to have held the highest place. It excited the strongest clerical op- „ . .. position; it formed the greatest pride of the minstrel, of the and was in favour in the highest circles. The Nibeiungen lofty tone of the Nibelungenlied in its original ^^^^ ' form indicates that it was addressed to a highly cultured audience ; and the exact knowledge which it displays of Lower Austrian localities renders it probable that the poems about Siegfried and the Burgundians were first recited at the court of Vienna. For, towards the end of the twelfth century, it was no longer the custom to sing poetical narrations, but to declaim them or read them out. Few of the other heroic legendary poems maintained the high moral and sesthetic level of the Nibelunirenlied. The „ " Decay of sympathy of refined society was withdrawn from those heroiopoetry poems in the tliirtecnih century, when French in- i" the I3th fluencc penetrated even to tlic valleys of the Alps. century. And as soon as the popular poems began to be adapted for a lower audience, they lost their purity and serious tone. Authors wished to maintain the popularity of these poems by foolish con- cessions to fashion ; they strove after realistic effects ; they seized on a few rags of chivalry, artd iltckcd the old heroes with them, but only to their degradation. Still, if we consider the leading iilcas of these poems, there reigns in all of them a high moral lone. The leading characters in their salient features recur in the most various poems, and we easily perceive that in these characters we have moral ideals bequeathed from days long past, that the situations in which they are placed are thoroughly out of keeping with chivalry, and that all knightly elements, and even Christianity itself, are as a rule a mere outside varnish that has not penetrated very deep. So faithful was tradition, and so true the instinct which guided the opposition of the clergy to the heroic poems. The heroic legentls grew up in the time of the migration of races and in the Merovingian period, and it was the „. , last of these two epochs that exercised the best in- character of fluence on them. The kings who appear in the ^^^ heroiu popular poems resemble the Merovingians and the ^^^^ H 9 8 . Middle High-German Popular Epics. [ch. v. Amals rallicr than the HohenstauTen and Guelphs. The state is supposed to be the property of the whole royal family. Important acts of government are only carried out with the consent of the friends of the blood royal, antl the fiction of blood-relationship is ex- tended to nearly all those surrounding the throne. Honoured and faithful ministers guide the young princes, and rule the kingdom with power and wisdom. Throughout their lives they are looked upon as counsellors of authority, and their opinion is willingly listened to. The king is surrounded by a train of com- panions in arms, who are always ready to sacrifice themselves for him, while he in his turn bestows gifts on them with a liberal hand, and frees them from prison and distress, even at risk of his own life. The financial resources of the kingdom are represented under the idea of a vast and inexhaustible treasure. Precious weapons are handed down from father to son, and acquire a fateful imj)ort in bold deeds and hideous crimes. Even women demand that bloodshed should be avenged, and vengeance does not stop short of total destruction. Ludwig Uhland has rightly divided all the various characters of _ ^. the heroic legends into two groups: the loyal and the Conception ^ o t » / of character disloyal. The duty of liberality is connected with in the heroic loyalty, and avarice is a sign of disloyalty. Self- poetry, sacrifice, the root of all virtues, first appears within the family circle, then in the society at court, and in com- panionsliip in arms. As the lord and his vassals are bound together by a general bond, so the vassals are often connected with each other by some peculiar tie, and afford beautiful ex- amples of heroic friendship. Over and above the duties imposed by natural ties, or by alliances expressly agreed upon, it is esteemed honourable and glorious for a warrior to relieve distress in strangers and to aid the oppres<:ed. Action is free, so far as it does not conflict with a warrior's code of honour. Violated faith amongst relations is the chief cause of all the complications of the heroic legends. Wiicn two parties are once on a footing of enmity their friends often find themselves in a dilemma. Loyally to a friend entails determined treachery to an enemy; loyally to one who has been basely muidered leads to Ch. v.] TJic Revival of tJie Heroic Poetry. 99 treacherous revenge on all his living enemies ; the duties of a vassal come into conflict with family duties, and a marriage often becomes the source of a feud. The woman who was to form a connecting link between two houses suffers by her twofold position, and whilst trying to fulfil her conflicting duties, the flame of her shortsighted passion may become a firebrand destroying both houses. The spirit of chivalrous self-sacrifice, which instead of deriving a brutal pleasure from warfare, regarded it as a high and honourable calling, breathed a new life into the old heroes. They were typical examples of a noble secular life, a life of fighting and of many duties. A fervent enthusiasm for the profession of arms inspires every line of the ^liddle High-German heroic poems. The men are always described with solemn emphasis as heroes, warriors, swordsmen, and knights. Though the heroic poetry remained on the whole true to its origin, still it underwent some modification in the _ , , course of centuries. New characters were admitted modificution who bear witness to this influence of the times. Side of the hero by side with the dignity and nobility of the chief ^^^^ characters we perceive in some of the subordinate ones the coarse minstrel humour of the tenth century, which loudly applauded a Kuno Kurzibold. In Wolfhart, nephew of the old Hildcbrand, with his violent disposition and boundless love of fighting, his bloodthirstiness, his loud voice and rough jokes, and his aversion to the society of refined women, we recognise the earlier and far from ideal type of warrior. The courdy dignity of the chief cook had already been humorously treated in the older Latin poems, and Rumold, the chief cook in the Nibelungenlied, is a represent- ative of unimaginative common sense : he advises the Burgundians, when about to march against Allila, to ' stay at home and earn their bread honestly.' So also the union of the warrior and the musician in the noble fiddler Volker von Alzei had probably at first a humorous significance ; but as soon as the position of the minstrels was raised, and they were admitted in Bavaria and Austria into good society, this character was also idealised. After the middle of the twelfth century the knights began to write love- poems, to set them to music, and to sing them. Thus there H 2 ICO Middle High- German Popular Epics. [Ch. v. were undoubtedly many instances of the union of the professions of arms and of minstrelsy in the same individual. All this poetry is anonymous. The few names known to us German belong to a comparatively late time, and the works heroic poems connected with ihem are of no great value. In the anonymous. \^^[ period of Middle High-Gcrman poetry we must be contented with the poems themselves, without the name of the author. We must respect the voluntary obscurity in which these poets modestly hid themselves. They had no desire for literary fame and did not wish their names to be handed down to posterity; ihcy willingly retired behind those heroes in whose favour they wished to. enlist the sympathies of their hearers. This concealment of the author's identity is in harmony with the impersonal style of the poems themselves. The epic popular poet of the end of the twelfth century sometimes speaks in his own person, but it is merely a form of speech. He advances his personal reflections as if they were generally received opinions, and they often serve to foreshadow the future course of events. Nor do these poets allow themselves originality in depicting characters, things, and events. Throughout the different poems the same types of character are adhered to, for in this respect, as well as in their literary style, the authors bow to tradition. The heroic poems of the Middle High-German epoch, like the Style of popular epics of Merovingian times, are full of the heroic conventional phrases and ideas, out of respect to poems. which the poet is content to forego all personal originality. We do not find in these poems the grandeur and pictorial breadth of Homeric description; on the contrary, the style is throughout perfectly simple. The heroes and heroines are characterised by such epithets as brave, bold, beauti- ful; sometimes these are emphasised into very brave, bold as the storm, wonderfully beautiful ; sometimes they denote the leading characteristic of the person to whom they are applied, as when Riidiger is called the generous, Eckhart the faithful, Hagen the cruel. The descriptive element is confined to the most ordinary epithets ; such expressions as a white hand, a red mouth, bright eyes, yellow hair, are perpetually recurring. There are no detailed Ch. v.] The Nibelungenlied. • loi poetical similes, and ihe poet's imagination never goes beyond the very simplest comparisons, as, for instance, of the colour of young cheeks to the roses, of the rude love of fighting to the wild boar, of a malicious disposition to a wolf. Every mood has its conven- tional outward demeanour : the afflicted man sits silently upon a stone, and the man who has formed a resolution speaks not a word until he has carried it out. A downcast eye betokens dejection, an upward glance joy, silent contemplation inquiry, while turning pale and then red denotes a rapid change of mood. In the same manner remarks about stature, garments, and weapons are only made from a few fixed points of view. All the occupations of hero-life are reduced to conventional formulas, and though so many means are at the poet's command for the poetic glorification of battle, yet the popular epic writers seem only to have aimed at giving powerful expression to its most horrible aspects. So too the various localities in which different events take place are seldom more than vaguely indicated. In fact, the poet never concen- trates all his powers upon one point, and hardly ever goes into detail. In this respect, as in others, the style of the German popular epics is inferior to the ideal narrator, Ilumer. The Nibelungenlied. From the earliest times the Germans used the falcon in hunting and in their poetry the fighting, hunting falcon served as the emblem of a youthful hero. Flashing eyes reminded the mediaeval poet of falcons' eyes, and a noble lady of the twelfth century who has won the love of a man expresses this in poetry by saying that she has tamed a falcon. So too. in the opening of the Nibe- lungenlied, we read how Kriemhild dreamt in her girlhood of a falcon which she had spent many a day in taming, but to her lasting sorrow two eagles tore it to pieces before her eyes. This dream of gloomy foreboding foreshadows the events related in the first half of the poem. Siegfried is the falcon, his brother- in-law Gunther and Gunther's vassal Hagen are the eagles who tear him to pieces, and Kriemhild weeps for him and will not 102 Middle High-German Popular Epics. [Ch. v. be comforted. The carrying out of her horrible revenge forms the subject of the second part. She gives her hand in marriage to the king of the Huns, and invites the murderers to a feast, which she turns into a massacre. With wooing and betrothal the tale opens, with murder and fire it closes, very like in this to the legend of the siege of Troy. But the Nibclungenlicd does not merely consist of certain episodes selected from the legend, but exhausts the whole of the legendary material, thereby attaining a higher degree of unity than the Iliad. The closeness with which this poem links a crime and its punish- ment is characteristic of an ideal world, such as the spirit of a nation yet in its you h dreams of and desires. The heroes of the Iliad, on Inequalities ^'^^ contrary, with their naive selfishness are nearer of the the level of ordinary humanity. But notwithstanding Nibeiungen- ^1,,^ outward and inward completeness of the legend, the merit of the poem, as in the Iliad, varies in dif- ferent parts ; and these differences are much greater than in the Iliad. Side by side with the most beautiful scenes we meet with dull and sometimes even grotesque passages, through which we painfully make our way. Whilst the best parts— if we leave the difference of style out of consideration — may fairly compare with the noblest flowers of Homeric poetry, we can hardly venture to mention the name of Homer in connection with the inferior ones. This Middle Hi^di-Gcrman Epic is like an old church, in the building of which many architects have successively taken part, some of whom have sciupulously adhered to the original designs of their predecessors, while others have arbitrarily followed their own devices ; little minds have added paintings, scrolls, and side- wings, and Time has thrown over the whole the grey veil of age, so that the general impression is a noble one ; yet severer criticism will reject the excrescences, explore the architectural history, dis- tinguish in it the work of various hands, assigning to each master his own, before judi^nicnt can be passed on the artistic design and execution of the whole. Karl Lachmann attempted the work of restoring the Nibelun- genlied and analysing its various elements, and accomplished the task, not indeed fauUlessly, yet on the whole correctly. He has Ch. v.] The Nibelungenlicd. [03 pointed out later interpolations, which hide the original sequence of the story, and has divided the narrative which remains after the removal of these accretions into twenty songs, Lachmann's some of which are connected, while others embody criticism of isolated incidents of the legend. Some of them, but *^® Poem. certainly only a few, may be by the same author. Small as is the scope left for poetical individuality to show itself in the Middle High-German heroic poetry, yet we recognise in most of these songs such differences in conception, treatment, and style, as point to separate authorship. The whole may have been finished in about twenty years, from 1 190-12 10. Lachmann's theory has indeed been contested. Many students still believe that the poem, as we have it, was the work _. , ^ Single or of one hand ; but on this hypothesis no one has sue- divided ceeded in explaining the strange contradictions which Authorship pervade the work, parts of which show the highest ° ® oem.^ art, while the rest is valueless. Even those who believe in the single authorship of the poem must acknowledge that the poet derived the substance of his work from older lays (for the heroic legends till about the end of the twelfth century existed only in the form of lavs orally handed down), and that the internal disparities are explained by the various songs made use of by the author. But a careful examination of these inequalities and contradictions convinces us that the theory of single authorship is untenable. The author of the Nibelungenlicd cannot be known. Perhaps even a final revision of the poem never took place, and instead of speaking of a poet we can only speak of the man who first had the songs written down in a book. In the beginning of the twelfth century there existed a song about Kricmhild"s disloyally to her brothers. Perhaps it related in a shorter form all that is now included in the second part of our poem. The desire for greater epic detail may have led to the separate treatment of single incidents, but this would always be done with reference to a former whole, and the single poems could therefore later on be the more easily re-united as episodes in a wiioie. In the same way the songs of the first part may have grown out of an older shorter ballad, certain incidents of which invited separate I04 Middle High-Gervian Popular Epics. [Ch. v. treatment. But much in this part is new and without any older source, so that here the poet was guided by his imagination only. The first song, which opens with Kriemhild's foreboding dreams. The narrates the coming of Siegfried to Worms ; we are First Song, told of his father King Sicgmund, of his home in Xanten, of his beauty, his strength, and his chivalrous exploits. He hears of Kriemhild's beauty and coyness, and when urged to seek a wife, he declares that he will have none other than Kriemhild. Tlie opposition of his parents, their fear of Kriemhild's brothers, Gunther and Gemot ami ihcir vassals, especially Hagen, only urge him on. He thinks at first of winning her by force, yet resolves to ride with only a small number of followers to the land of the Burgundians. Clad in magnificent armour, he and his companions excite general attention at Worms. But Siegfried ill rewards the friendly reception which is given him ; he declares his intention of acquiring the Burgumlian empire by force of arms, yet is pacified on being oflered a share in the kingdom. He remains with the Burgundians, and the song closes with a peaceful joust between Siegfried and his hosts, in which Siegfried always proves superior. Throughout this song every word and action of Siegfried's is instinct with the boldness and impetuosity of youth. Without elaborate enumeration of his exploits, and using oniy the simplest means of description, the poet succeeds in impressing on us that Siegfried is a true hero. Hagen, who is represented as gloomy and terrible, is made prominent from the first, as being next in importance to Siegfiied. Each of the Burgundians is graphic- ally characterised, and untold dramatic force is thus given to their interview with Siegfried. It would take more words to describe the beauties of this poem than the poet used to accom- plish his task. His power of depicting character and developing incident is quite remarkable. But the original intention of the hero to woo and win Kriemhild seems to be quite forgotten by the end ol the poem. The author of this song probably left his work uncompleted, and must have certainly planned a very different continuation of the poem from that wliich we now find in the subsequent songs. Ch. v.] TJie Nibeliingenlied, 105 The second song is very trivial. The poet devotes all his energies to extolling his hero Siegfried. He makes The him wage a successful war for Gunther against the Second Song. Saxons and Danes, and take both of the hostile kings prisoners with his own hand. After this, the third song describes a feast, at which Siegfried sees Kriemhild for the first time and immediately falls The deeply in love with her. There is no mention here of Third Song. Kriemhild's coyness. On the contrary, she is at once attracted by the young knight, who for his part does not dare to think of winning her, but confines himself to exchanging tender glances with her and secretly pressing her hand. The freshness and innocence of first love are gracefully and tenderly described, but without any particular originality. The fourth song, on the contrary, is very powerful. It tells of the wooing of Brunhild, the Amazon-Queen of Isenstein The far over the sea. The man who would win Brunhild's Fourth Song, affection must conquer her in single combat, and lose his head if he fails. Siegfried promises to win her f(ir Gunther, on condition that Gunther should grant him Kriemhild's hind in return. This Gunther promises to do. Si