After the death of Otto I., Adelheid, with her son, Otto II. (973-983), happily conducted the affairs of the empire and firmly established its supremacy. But evil people alienated the heart of her son; she retired to Burgundy, her home. Meanwhile, Germany mourned the absence of the benefactress, but all Burgundy exulted over her return. Seized by repentance, Otto humbly besought his mother to meet him at Pavia. Weeping, he threw himself down before his mother, and from that time the insoluble bond of love remained until Otto's premature death. Otto III. (983-1002) and his Greek mother, Theophano, his guardian, succeeded Otto II. Theophano, incited by the Greek, Philagathus, Archbishop of Piacenza, became hostile to the empress, and, overcome by anger, she uttered these menacing words: "If I shall still reign one year, Adelheid shall not rule over more ground than one can encompass with one hand." Before one month was over, Theophano was overtaken by Nemesis and died (June 15, 991), while Adelheid outlived her in the enjoyment of happiness. "So many realms as she possessed, through the grace of God, first as the consort of the great Otto, then as the guardian of her son and grandson, so many cloisters did she found at her own expense, in honor of the King of kings." Before the year 1000 of Our Lord had ended, longing to be united with the Lord of Hosts, on the 16th of December, she died "and her soul rose to the pure light of the purest ether," says the chronicler, "and to describe all the miracles at her grave, another book would be necessary. But not to cover them entirely with silence at her grave the blind recover their lost sight, the paralyzed the use of their limbs, those sick with fever are cured there. Many ailing with manifold diseases are healed by the grace and the compassion of Our Lord Jesus Christ." Forsooth, A. D. 1000 is yet the blessed time when "faith transported mountains."
The most memorable women of the Ottoman epoch is perhaps the nun Roswitha, or Hrotsuit, of the cloister of Gandersheim, who is regarded as the first German poetess, although her works are exclusively in Latin. Born of a noble Saxon family she came early to Gandersheim, where she was educated by the Carmelite sister Richardis and the highly cultured Abbess Gerberga, Otto's niece. She became steeped in the classics, and was soon able to imitate them to such an extent that her fame as the bright ringing voice of Gandersheim soon spread over the Christian world. She composed in Latin hexameters a eulogy on Saint Mary, legends of saints, and an epic of Otto's great deeds (Carmen de gestis Oddonis I. Imperatoris). The last work is rich in valuable information, but a part of it has, unfortunately, been lost. She also wrote the history of her cloister from its foundation until 919. But her fame is founded especially on her Latin comedies, or rather dramatic sketches, six in number, imitating the style of Terentius, but borrowing the material from sacred legends, and chiefly glorifying chastity and virginity. She takes as her themes womanly martyrdom, and the strength of which even the frail woman is capable, if animated by faith and virtue. She writes with a moral ascetic view and preeminently for her sisters in the cloisters. Yet, because of the taste of her time she introduces the reader to situations which are rather delicate. Hence ensues a strange blending of classic sensualism and Christian spiritualism. The fire of sensuality blazes throughout, though the conclusion is always edifying through martyrdom; there is a struggle between vice and virtue, but in the end, the triumph of Christian sacrifices carries the day over the temptations and the sins of this world. Kuno Francke (Social Forces in German Literature) thinks that Roswitha, though surrounded by the atmosphere of the nunnery, was carried away by the naturalistic tendencies of her time. Scherr asserts: "Methinks that we may not offend her state as a nun when we suppose that she must have had, before she wrote her comedies, some experience in love, not merely in Terentius." Preferably, she chooses quite equivocal situations. It is true that in her preface she deprecates any such purpose with great ardor: "There are many good Christians who, for the sake of a more refined language, prefer the idle glitter of pagan books to the usefulness of the Holy Scriptures, a fault of which we also cannot acquit ourselves entirely. Then there are industrious Bible readers, who, though they despise the writings of the other pagans, yet read the poems of Terentius too frequently, and, allured by the grace of diction, stain their minds through acquaintance with unchaste objects. In view of this I, the clearly ringing voice of Gandersheim, have not disdained to imitate the much read author in diction, in order to glorify the praiseworthy chastity of pious women according to the measure of my feeble ability in the same way as the vile vices of lascivious women are there represented." It is interesting to see how she executes her plan. Take for example, her play entitled Abraham. In this an old hermit hears that his stepdaughter, who had run away with a seducer, is living in abject misery. He seeks to rescue her from a house of ill repute where she has sought shelter. She does not recognize him in his disguise, but he comes to see all the wretchedness of her life of shame, and melts her heart in a wonderfully poetic conversation which reminds one of Erasmus's colloquy between the youth and the fallen woman. "O my daughter, part of my soul, Maria, do you recognize the old man who with fatherly love brought you up and betrothed you to the Son of the Heavenly Lord?" "Whither has flown that sweet angelic voice which formerly was yours?" "Your maiden purity, your virgin modesty, where are they?" "What reward, unless you repent, is before you? You that plunged wilfully from heavenly heights into the depth of hell!" "Why did you flee from me? Why did you conceal your misery from me from me who would have prayed and done penance for you?" The miserable woman in her agony replies only by exclamations of pain, and confesses: "After I had fallen a victim to sin, I did not dare approach you." Abraham replies to that: "To sin is human, to persist in sin is hellish. He who stumbles is not to be blamed, only he who neglects to rise as quickly as possible."
In the play Dukitius, the Roman general so named, to commit an act of criminal wantonness, enters at night time the prison of three Christian maidens who had been thrown into confinement by order of Diocletian, the persecutor of Christians. But the would-be ravisher is confounded by the Holy Virgin, the protectress of innocence, and takes the pots and kettles and pans for the maidens. The virgins look through the chinks of the wall, and see the fool out of his mind holding the pots caressingly on his lap, and kissing tenderly the pans and kettles. Irene remarks: "His face and his hands and his clothes are soiled and blackened all over by his imaginary sweethearts." "Just as it should be," replies Chiona, "it is the color of Satan who possesses him."
Such was the work of the virtuous Christian singer in a strange foreign garment, the only one possible for her to write in, for a popular written German language did not yet exist. But her work was not lost, or as she said herself in her preface: "If anybody shall find pleasure in this my devotion (devotio), I shall be glad; but if it should please no one, on account of my humble station or the rusticity of a faulty diction, I myself at least rejoice over what I have done." Later on, copies of her works were spread beyond her cloister. One copy was dug up some five hundred years later from the dust of the cloister library of Saint Emmeran at Regensburg by Conrad Celtes of Humanist fame, and edited by him in 1,501. Roswitha was greeted by the world of the Renaissance as the "German Muse." Celtes's edition is adorned by the immortal Albrecht Durer with a woodcut representing Roswitha in a kneeling posture, presenting her works to Emperor Otto the Great in the presence of Archbishop Wilhelm of Mainz.
While dealing with the womanhood of the Ottoman era, it is incumbent upon us to mention the history of a true German type of a royal woman, who has been immortalized by Scheffel in the romanceEkkehard, already mentioned: Hadwig, Duchess of Suabia, niece of Otto I., sister of Gerberga, the abbess of Germersheim, the famous connoisseur of the classical authors, and the teacher of Roswitha. Early widowed by Burkhard of Suabia, the young, strong-minded princess of Saxon imperial blood with a firm hand continued the administration of the duchy. "The young widow," as Scheffel paints her, "was of royal disposition and uncommon beauty. But she had a short nose, and the sweet mouth was somewhat disdainfully puckered up, and her chin projected boldly so that the dimple which becomes woman so sweetly, was not to be found with her. And whose countenance is thus shaped, he bears with a sharp spirit a hard heart in his bosom and his nature inclines to severity. Therefore the duchess, in spite of the bright roses of her cheeks, inspired many a one in her land with a strange terror." Scheffel describes her steel-gray garment which flowed in light waves over the embroidered sandals; this garment clung close to her body; over it was a black tunic reaching down to the knee; in her girdle that encased her hips, shone a precious beryl; a gold-thread embroidered net held her chestnut-brown hair, yet carefully curled locks played around her bright forehead. The boudoir, too, of the illustrious lady of the tenth century is minutely described. On the marble table near the window stood a fantastically formed, dark green vase of polished metal, in which burned a foreign incense and whirled its fragrant white fumes up to the ceiling of the room. The walls were hung with many colored, embroidered rugs.
On the whole, there is in the wide domain of literature scarcely anywhere such a detailed and absolutely accurate picture of the state of the culture and civilization of the tenth century as in this novel. The description of the characters, Hadwig's chamberlain Spazzo, the abbots and monks and warriors, the home industries, the vintage, the life of all the classes of people, the cloisters, the festivals, the Hunnish terror, the virtues and faults of the time, clerical purity and piety and the little and great shortcomings of celibacy, the German Christmas and Easter and Whitsuntide, the German soul (Gemuf), the patriarchal relations between the imperial mistress of Otto's blood and her lowliest maidservants pass before our eyes in a charming, ever-changing kaleidoscopic procession. The young widow, in her lofty castle of the Hohentwiel, whiling away her idle hours in the study of Virgil, with the pure-hearted and scholarly monk Ekkehard, whom she invited from the famed cloister of Saint Gall; Praxedis, the lovely chamber-woman of the duchess, of Greek race, a living souvenir of the time when the son of the Byzantine Emperor Basilius had wooed Hadwig; Hadumoth, the lovely forest flower and the foundling of the lowest stratum of society with her heart of love and truth and beauty, the personification of all that is great and good in the soul of German womanhood of the lower classes; the wood witch, who continues the old beloved custom of worship and loyalty to the old gods, in bitter hate of the new faith that has robbed her of husband, happiness, and child; the servant maid Friderun, tall as a building of several stories, surmounted by a pointed roof, her pear-shaped head, whose heart is now desolate, since her sweetheart was slain in the Hunnish battle, and who turns her attention to the solitary Hunnish prisoner, Cappan, whom she domesticates, Christianizes and marries; all these types of German womanhood are so perfect, so fragrant, so real that the historian of civilization loses heart in attempting to describe other or better types. The love of Hadwig and of Ekkehard, the latter's brief forgetfulness of his and her mission, Ekkehard's trial, his escape and recovery on the snowy Santis mountain in the Alps, the composition of the Walthari saga in the bracing mountain air, close to the blue heavens, inspired by the Alpine shepherd's godly child, Benedicta, are all episodes worthy of King Solomon's Song of Songs.
After the Ottoman dynasty follow the Franconian emperors, descendants, both through the female line and through marriage, from the Carlovingians and the Ottomans, since Konrad II. (1024-1039), the first Franconian, was descended from Otto's daughter and married Gisela of Burgundy, a descendant of Charlemagne. Theirs is a period of transition, of struggle between the Papacy and the empire, the preparation for the crusades, fantastic, impolitic expeditions to the Orient for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, fostering the spirit of aimless adventure, but, at the same time, widening marvellously the narrow horizon of the European world.
In contrast with the Latin poetry of court and cloister, the humble people cultivated in their own way the German popular love song and the tales that stir the popular soul. From those old folk songs we derive a great deal of our knowledge of the life and love of the women of the time. It is undoubtedly this awakening of the people which stimulated the clerics also to the necessity for preaching in German. An interesting spiritual poetess arises, known as the Frau Am, the recluse and sacred singer, who died in Austria in 1127, and who was the first woman known to us who in poetic German language worked out Biblical and evangelical stories. The naïve tone of her poetry is exemplified in her description of the scene where the enemies of Christ lead the adulteress to Him. Before retiring from the wicked world she had been married, and had had two sons who seem to have been theologians. They furnished her with material for three spiritual poems in which she described, with the inartistic hand of a plain woman, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost as they are communicated to man and create his virtues; further, she deals with the Antichrist and the Last Judgment.
We must not leave the Prankish-Salian dynasty without mentioning briefly a few superior royal women. Konrad II. found in his consort, Gisela, a beneficent helpmate and also a coadjutor in the affairs of state. To Konrad attaches the particularly characteristic and touching story of theWomen of Weinsberg, which has again and again been made the subject of poems exalting the virtues of the faith and love of German womanhood. When the emperor besieged the city of Weinsberg in Suabia he met with such a stout resistance that he swore in his wrath to slay all those who were able to carry arms. At last when hunger forced surrender, the women appeared in Konrad's camp pleading for mercy, but the emperor permitted them only to take as much of their precious possessions from the doomed city as they could carry on their backs. And behold! next morning when the gates opened, every woman tottered along under the burden of her husband on her shoulders. Konrad's magnates maintained that this was not the meaning of the grace offered to the women, but the emperor, touched by so much loyalty and love, exclaimed: "An Imperial word shall not be distorted by interpretation. The pledge as understood by the Women of Weinsberg shall hold good!"
Konrad and Gisela's great son, Henry III. (1039-1056), who was strong enough to bend and break the power of the Papacy during his brief reign, married Agnes, a princess with a manly soul. She would have saved her minor son, Henry IV. (1056-1106), perhaps the most unfortunate prince who ever wore the thorny crown of the empire, if the perfidious, selfish magnates of the empire had not snatched him by force too early from her motherly and royal care. With the loss of his mother Henry lost the direction and control and he seldom regained it during his long and calamitous reign. At the age of sixteen he was married to Bertha of Savoy (A. D. 1066), to whom he conceived a strange and unmerited aversion, which she overcame in the course of time by her faithfulness and loyalty in times of misfortune. She shared all the sorrows and humiliations inflicted upon him by the haughty magnates of the realm and especially by the German Pope Hildebrand, Gregory VII., the overtowering personality of his time. But divine providence tried to compensate her for her life of trial and bitterness: she became the mother of Agnes, wife of Frederic of Hohenstaufen, ancestress of that glorious dynasty under which blossomed up the First Classical Period of Bloom of German Literature and Civilisation.
Of tremendous influence in all states and conditions of women and men is the enforced celibacy of the clergy, an institution due, with all its consequences of good and of evil, to the energy and iron will of Pope Gregory VII. It is true that among the ancient Hebrews the marriage of the high priest, and even of the priests in general, to a divorced woman or to a widow, or, in fact, to any woman not a virgin, had been forbidden. The New Testament, however, knows no such ordinance. Several apostles, especially Saint Peter, were married. The Latin Church, however, since the eighth century, insisted more and more upon the celibacy of the clergy; but, nevertheless, it remained the rule for the clergy in Germany, France, and Upper Italy to be married. During the tenth century the moral decay among the clergy and the fear of its increase, if the ordinances of celibacy were enforced, left priestly marriage undisturbed. But the theory of the greater sanctity of the priestly state, and the mediæval spirit of the mortification of the flesh, as well as the growing conviction that only the sacraments administered by spiritually pure priests without carnal knowledge of woman had a saving grace and force, and prepared the way for the final stroke of entirely abolishing priestly marriage. As the power of the Papacy increased, and as the necessity for an army of instruments severed from the binding ties of family life and consequent dependence upon the secular powers became ever more pressing, the great Gregory VII. ventured the decisive and final decree of 1074, according to which every married priest who administered the sacrament at the altar, and every layman who accepted it from his hand, should be excommunicated, Amid a fearful storm of protest, the order for priestly celibacy was carried out in Germany. But the overwhelming power of Gregory VII. and the weakness of the emperor, which drove the princes and bishops into the arms of the Pope, lessened the resistance, though for centuries the storm did not subside, and in the north of Germany it continued far into the fourteenth century. Celibacy became a strong weapon in the hands of the Papacy; it subjected the priesthood absolutely to the Church, and withdrew its members from subjection to the secular power; but celibacy did not at least during the first centuries redound to a higher morality of the clergy. The complaints of their immorality increased with the firm establishment of celibacy, and after the fourteenth century actually fill the literature of Germany. These complaints are indeed one of the primary forces and agencies in bringing about the great revolution against the Church, known in history as the Reformation. It is no less true, however, that, with the counter reformation within the Ancient Church, a purifying influence was exerted upon the clergy, that the Reformation was to the Church a blessing in disguise, and that no doubt celibacy had its redeeming features, inasmuch as it made the genuine, earnest, and honest part of the priesthood pure and independent and fearless in their uplifting mission to the people of the Catholic faith: a true ecclesia militans. But celibacy, like any other great institution, is a two-edged sword! One needs only to trace the literary and historical sources of those centuries to become convinced that, on the whole, celibacy was a failure so far as the greater part of the clergy was concerned, and a still greater failure in so far as it affected the sphere of womanhood. The priestly farces (Pfaffenschwanke), the popular wisdom as expressed in hundreds of proverbs and sententious references, as well as the history of the time in question, prove the truth of this assertion and testify to the low moral status of both the clergy and the laity.
With the extinction of the Franconian dynasty we approach the golden era of the Hohenstaufen emperors. The ascent of that noble race was due to that German loyalty which they had borne to Henry IV. in his distress. Their home was the lofty Suabian Staufen which towered over the wooded valley of the Rems and looked down on the beautiful land with its vineyards and continuous orchards. The Hohenstaufens belonged to the poetic, highly gifted race of the Suabians from which have sprung some of the greatest German poets and thinkers. Suabia is the cradle of many of the choicest spirits from antiquity down to Schiller and Uhland.
German history during the golden reign of the Hohenstaufen emperors is filled with the deeds of royal women no less than with those of their anointed husbands. Imperial women held the insignia at the death of the emperors. Kunigunde, consort of Henry II., at his death turned over to Konrad II., the first Salian Frank, the insignia of the empire, the crown, the sceptre, and the holy relics which belonged to the regalia; which the last Frank, Henry V. (1106-1125), on his deathbed, intrusted to his consort, requesting her to hand them to his successor, that she might win gratitude and influence; for great weight was attributed to their possession, as they were deemed to contain mysterious forces and to give to their possessor the favor of the saints. Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, a cunning politician, induced the widowed empress to deliver the crown jewels to Frederic of Hohenstaufen, and then intrigued for the election of Lothaire the Saxon, who won the crown. At the next vacancy Konrad of Hohenstaufen (1138-1152) was elected, and founded the great Suabian dynasty. During its governance (1138-1254) the Germanic body politic displayed the highest degree of energy, and with that dynasty began and ended the most glorious period of mediæval German social life and literature. By the magnificence of their rule, the Suabian emperors, in spite of many and great political errors, through which they exhausted much of their strength in Italian wars, carried the romanticism of the Middle Ages to its zenith. In the same proportion in which the nation was raised by a knowledge of its own power, the national productions of art and letters were stamped with a bold and original character. Great men of extraordinary genius arose to exalt their own names with the glories of the empire.
The Roman expeditions of Frederick Barbarossa, who sought to restore the grandeur of Charlemagne, and of Otto the Great brought to Germany a new, original culture that took a place beside the old Latin, monkish, scholarly culture, with its gloomy clericalism. Chivalry, courtliness, the "gay science" of the Romance peoples, were grafted upon a knotty, rugged, but intensely healthy trunk. The very foundation of the new society stood in contrast with the ascetic gloom of the former church philosophy. The highest praise was now to be "gay and joyous in chaste moderation"; life, vigor, beauty, courtly elegance in form and countenance and speech marked the gentleman and the lady of the age. The eye was delighted by beautiful features and lovely expression; by stately appearance, fine movements, harmonious rhythm and dance, by splendid processions and courtly functions. Grace, charm, and loveliness were ardently sought: the commonplace and the vulgar were avoided as rustic and ridiculous.
The Hohenstaufens are the impersonation of romantic chivalry. There is in all of them, especially in Frederick II. (1212-1250), a profound romantic tendency, a thirst for heroic greatness, glory, immortality. A vein of poetry pulses through their history, "to develop which says Scherr will be reserved perhaps to some future German Shakespeare." The power of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) raised the nation to an intellectual elevation which created imperishable works of art and poetry. Glorious, though fruitless expeditions to Italy and crusades to the Orient extended mightily the limited horizon of the Germans: Southern and Oriental beauty penetrated the monachism of the North. The Italian and Sicilian courts of Frederick II. were thronged with the fairest ladies of Orient and Occident. Saracen beauties were intermingled with the loveliest women of the German and Roman and Greek world. All were bent upon gallantry, and song and poetry were the common accomplishments. The Orient once more fertilized the Occident; the fulness of Oriental fancy and symbolism poured over the Germans romance, wisdom and love, passion and vice, and cast a roseate bloom over the coarse actuality of the death struggle between Empire and Papacy, idealizing the "blood and iron" services of German warriors on Southern and Eastern battlefields.
The struggle for the Holy Sepulchre blended Christian monachism and Christian chivalry in the spiritual orders: the Knights Templars, the Knights of Saint John, the Teutonic Order. Their holy vows taken in the presence of ladies and princes "to honor and defer to the Church, to be true and obedient to the sovereign or feudal lord, to conduct no unjust feud, to defend widows and orphans," characterize sufficiently the ideal of their mission. The rules of honor are laid down in the new word Courtoisie, an essential part of which is devotion and service to ladies. Nevertheless, this service to ladies has a religious root: it is but the evolution to its final consequence of the old German veneration for women which Christianity crystallized in the cult of the Holy Virgin Mary. Religion is greatly dependent upon the emotions, thus making even this cult more sensuous than rational. Inasmuch as this religious affection is transferred to the entire sex, we find the most beautiful side of knighthood expressed and codified in theMinnedienst, or love service. And, in so far as the delight of youthful life and feeling was considered as dependent upon the life of nature in general, the subject of the minnesongs dealt with love within the natural environment of fields and forests, rivers and mountains, spring and flowers, winter and ice. "In the month of May," runs Freytag's beautiful description, "when the trees were adorned with foliage, and the heath with flowers, when the birds sang, and the brooks, freed from ice and snow, trickled through the meadows, then began also for the courtly man the sunny time of joy. Then he prepared his arms and armour, thought of adornment and fine garments, and wandered away for love-wooing, to repasts, to wedding and tournament, or to earnest war to acquire honor or to serve his chosen lady, or to win estates. But when the winter approached, the little birds migrated away, the meadows faded, the leaves sank from the trees, frost hovered about the burgh, then the joyful activity in the district terminated, the German knight retired to the interior of the house, lived honorably with wife and children and dreamed golden dreams in the hope of the next awakening of life." This conception of a dualism of human life, a serene, sunny side, and a cold twilight pervades the entire chivalrous poetry. It is but a realization of the dualism of the human soul, as Goethe has wonderfully expressed it in his Faust:
"Two souls alas! reside within my breast,And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.One with tenacious organs holds in loveAnd clinging lust the world in its embraces;The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,Into the high ancestral places.Yet in each soul is born the pleasureOf yearning onward, upward and away,When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,The lark sends down his flickering lay."
"Two souls alas! reside within my breast,And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.One with tenacious organs holds in loveAnd clinging lust the world in its embraces;The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,Into the high ancestral places.Yet in each soul is born the pleasureOf yearning onward, upward and away,When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,The lark sends down his flickering lay."
"Two souls alas! reside within my breast,
And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
One with tenacious organs holds in love
And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
Into the high ancestral places.
Yet in each soul is born the pleasure
Of yearning onward, upward and away,
When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,
The lark sends down his flickering lay."
The fantastic devotion to woman and the love for her at the time of the Minnesingers thus changed the entire life of the Teutonic race. Woman became the centre of the rich animated social circle. The love of woman controlled the hearts of the ruling class and the imagination of the poets. Her power in state, court, and home was firmly rooted and remained great, even though the golden sheen and glimmer of the period of the minnesong vanished after a few generations. Her legal status, too, was raised; she became equal, and in many respects superior, to man. If the basis of her existence was the house, the family, she was the ruler of the units of which the fabric of the state is composed. The sacred flame of the hearth was nourished by her; the children were in her safekeeping; in her eye and heart rested the blessing or the curse of home and state.
The love of woman, the life of minne, during that epochal era shines most brightly, though idealized, in the greatest lyric and epic poets Germany ever produced.
True poetry is, after all, the highest truth. To describe woman's life and love in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we cannot do better than view her reflection in the mirror of that poetry of which she is the almost exclusive subject. The minnesong is the especial history of women. Elevation and degeneracy appear as clearly in poetry as in life. Woman, wine, and the eternal laws of nature are the essence of poetry. Poetry, on the whole, is the history of love in all its aspects, and minne is especially the soul of the Middle High German poetry, which, in spite of its brilliancy, is, alas! too self-confined in this one, though supreme, all-pervading emotion.
In this respect, German minnesong is quite different from that of the Provençal troubadours, who sing also warlike strains of patriotism, of the sweet and glorious death for the fatherland, of revolution against an overbearing Church or political tyranny. Among the German minnesingers, Walter von der Vogelweide alone, the greatest of all, sings in the same strain.
One sided as the subject of that period is, its modulations are varied. There is the language of the pensive heart, of the gay boundings of hope and happiness, of cheerfulness and melancholy, of depth of feeling, of buoyant spirits, and again there is a dirge bewailing a lover's fate in tones that breathe mystic feelings.
We cannot, therefore, agree with the harsh judgment of the great Schiller regarding the Minnesingers: "If the sparrows should ever chance to think of writing or publishing an almanack of love and friendship, we might bet ten to one that it would be composed pretty much in the same manner. What a poverty of ideas in these minnesingers! A garden, a tree, a hedge, a forest, and a sweetheart! quite right! somewhat such are the objects which have a place in the head of a sparrow. And the flowers, they exhale! and the spring comes, and the winter goes, and nothing remains butennui!"
The minnesongs of the greatest masters, nevertheless, whose treasures were unearthed after Schiller's time, enable us to form a true and vivid estimate of the regard in which women were held when this poetry flourished. Wolfram von Eschenbach sings the sorrows of unrequited love:
"Would I that lofty spirit meltOf that proud dame that dwells so high,Kind heaven must aid me, or unfeltBy her will be its agony.Joy in my soul no place can find:As well might I a suitor beTo thunderbolts, as hope her mindWill turn in softer mood to me."Those cheeks are beautiful, are brightAs the red rose with dewdrops grac'd;And faultless is the lovely lightOf those dear eyes, that, on me plac'd,Pierce to my very heart, and fillMy soul with love's consuming fires,While passion burns and reigns at will;So deep a love that fair inspires!"But joy upon her beauteous formAttends, her hues so bright to shedO'er those red lips, before whose warmAnd beaming smile all care is fled.She is to me all light and joy,I faint, I die, before her frown;Even Venus, liv'd she yet on earth,A fairer goddess here must own."
"Would I that lofty spirit meltOf that proud dame that dwells so high,Kind heaven must aid me, or unfeltBy her will be its agony.Joy in my soul no place can find:As well might I a suitor beTo thunderbolts, as hope her mindWill turn in softer mood to me."Those cheeks are beautiful, are brightAs the red rose with dewdrops grac'd;And faultless is the lovely lightOf those dear eyes, that, on me plac'd,Pierce to my very heart, and fillMy soul with love's consuming fires,While passion burns and reigns at will;So deep a love that fair inspires!"But joy upon her beauteous formAttends, her hues so bright to shedO'er those red lips, before whose warmAnd beaming smile all care is fled.She is to me all light and joy,I faint, I die, before her frown;Even Venus, liv'd she yet on earth,A fairer goddess here must own."
"Would I that lofty spirit melt
Of that proud dame that dwells so high,
Kind heaven must aid me, or unfelt
By her will be its agony.
Joy in my soul no place can find:
As well might I a suitor be
To thunderbolts, as hope her mind
Will turn in softer mood to me.
"Those cheeks are beautiful, are bright
As the red rose with dewdrops grac'd;
And faultless is the lovely light
Of those dear eyes, that, on me plac'd,
Pierce to my very heart, and fill
My soul with love's consuming fires,
While passion burns and reigns at will;
So deep a love that fair inspires!
"But joy upon her beauteous form
Attends, her hues so bright to shed
O'er those red lips, before whose warm
And beaming smile all care is fled.
She is to me all light and joy,
I faint, I die, before her frown;
Even Venus, liv'd she yet on earth,
A fairer goddess here must own."
The longing for a distant, hard-hearted, beloved lady is expressed by Heinrich von Morungen in tones worthy of the best traditions of the Greek lyric poets:
"My lady dearly loves a pretty bird,That sings and echoes back her gentle tone;Were I, too, near her, never should be heardA songster's note more pleasant than my own;Sweeter than sweetest nightingale I'd sing.For thee, my lady fair,This yoke of love I bear,Deign thou to comfort me and ease my sorrowing."Were but the troubles of my heart by herRegarded, I would triumph in my pain;But her proud heart stands firmly, and the stirOf passionate grief o'ercomes not her disdain.Yet, yet I do remember how beforeMy eyes she stood, and spoke,And on her gentle lookMy earnest gaze was fix'd; O were it so once more!"
"My lady dearly loves a pretty bird,That sings and echoes back her gentle tone;Were I, too, near her, never should be heardA songster's note more pleasant than my own;Sweeter than sweetest nightingale I'd sing.For thee, my lady fair,This yoke of love I bear,Deign thou to comfort me and ease my sorrowing."Were but the troubles of my heart by herRegarded, I would triumph in my pain;But her proud heart stands firmly, and the stirOf passionate grief o'ercomes not her disdain.Yet, yet I do remember how beforeMy eyes she stood, and spoke,And on her gentle lookMy earnest gaze was fix'd; O were it so once more!"
"My lady dearly loves a pretty bird,
That sings and echoes back her gentle tone;
Were I, too, near her, never should be heard
A songster's note more pleasant than my own;
Sweeter than sweetest nightingale I'd sing.
For thee, my lady fair,
This yoke of love I bear,
Deign thou to comfort me and ease my sorrowing.
"Were but the troubles of my heart by her
Regarded, I would triumph in my pain;
But her proud heart stands firmly, and the stir
Of passionate grief o'ercomes not her disdain.
Yet, yet I do remember how before
My eyes she stood, and spoke,
And on her gentle look
My earnest gaze was fix'd; O were it so once more!"
Another Minnesinger, Kristan von Hamle, is an exponent of romantic love:
"Would that the meadow could speak!And then would it truly declareHow happy was yesterday,When my lady was there:When she pluck'd its flowers, and gently prestHer lovely feet on its verdant breast.Meadow! what transport was thine,When my lady walked across thee;And her white hands pluck'd the flowers;Those beautiful flowers that emboss thee IOh, suffer me, then, thou bright green sod,To set my feet where my lady trod!"
"Would that the meadow could speak!And then would it truly declareHow happy was yesterday,When my lady was there:When she pluck'd its flowers, and gently prestHer lovely feet on its verdant breast.Meadow! what transport was thine,When my lady walked across thee;And her white hands pluck'd the flowers;Those beautiful flowers that emboss thee IOh, suffer me, then, thou bright green sod,To set my feet where my lady trod!"
"Would that the meadow could speak!
And then would it truly declare
How happy was yesterday,
When my lady was there:
When she pluck'd its flowers, and gently prest
Her lovely feet on its verdant breast.
Meadow! what transport was thine,
When my lady walked across thee;
And her white hands pluck'd the flowers;
Those beautiful flowers that emboss thee I
Oh, suffer me, then, thou bright green sod,
To set my feet where my lady trod!"
And again, Master Hadlaub, the last of the line of true Minnesingers, at the end of the thirteenth century:
"I saw yon' infant in her arms carest,And as I gazed on her my pulse beat high;Gently she clasp'd him to her snowy breast,While I, in rapture lost, stood musing by;Then her white hands around his neck she flung,And prest him to her lips, and tenderlyKiss'd his fair cheek as o'er the babe she hung."Straight she was gone; and then that lovely childRan joyfully to meet my warm embrace:Then fancy with fond thoughts my soul beguiled;It was herself! O dream of love and grace!I clasp'd him, where her gentle hands had prest,I kissed each spot which bore her lips' sweet trace,And joy the while went bounding through my breast."
"I saw yon' infant in her arms carest,And as I gazed on her my pulse beat high;Gently she clasp'd him to her snowy breast,While I, in rapture lost, stood musing by;Then her white hands around his neck she flung,And prest him to her lips, and tenderlyKiss'd his fair cheek as o'er the babe she hung."Straight she was gone; and then that lovely childRan joyfully to meet my warm embrace:Then fancy with fond thoughts my soul beguiled;It was herself! O dream of love and grace!I clasp'd him, where her gentle hands had prest,I kissed each spot which bore her lips' sweet trace,And joy the while went bounding through my breast."
"I saw yon' infant in her arms carest,
And as I gazed on her my pulse beat high;
Gently she clasp'd him to her snowy breast,
While I, in rapture lost, stood musing by;
Then her white hands around his neck she flung,
And prest him to her lips, and tenderly
Kiss'd his fair cheek as o'er the babe she hung.
"Straight she was gone; and then that lovely child
Ran joyfully to meet my warm embrace:
Then fancy with fond thoughts my soul beguiled;
It was herself! O dream of love and grace!
I clasp'd him, where her gentle hands had prest,
I kissed each spot which bore her lips' sweet trace,
And joy the while went bounding through my breast."
The minnesong reached its climax of perfection in Walter von der Vogelweide, who is unsurpassed, even by Goethe, as a lyric poet. The following dancing song is typical of his work:
"Lady, I said, this garland wear!For thou wilt wear it gracefully;And on thy brow 't will sit so fair;And thou wilt dance so light and free;Had I a thousand gems, on thee,Fair one! their brilliant light should shine:Would'st thou such gift accept from me,O doubt me not, it should be thine."Lady, so beautiful thou art,That I on thee the wreath bestow,'Tis the best gift I can impart;But whiter, rosier flow'rs I know,Upon the distant plain they're springing,Where beauteously their heads they rear,And birds their sweetest songs are singing:Come! let us go and pluck them there."She took the beauteous wreath I chose,And like a child at praises glowing,Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the roseWhen by the snow-white lily growing;But all from those bright eyes eclipseReceiv'd; and then, my toil to pay,Kind, precious words fell from her lips;What more than this I shall not say."
"Lady, I said, this garland wear!For thou wilt wear it gracefully;And on thy brow 't will sit so fair;And thou wilt dance so light and free;Had I a thousand gems, on thee,Fair one! their brilliant light should shine:Would'st thou such gift accept from me,O doubt me not, it should be thine."Lady, so beautiful thou art,That I on thee the wreath bestow,'Tis the best gift I can impart;But whiter, rosier flow'rs I know,Upon the distant plain they're springing,Where beauteously their heads they rear,And birds their sweetest songs are singing:Come! let us go and pluck them there."She took the beauteous wreath I chose,And like a child at praises glowing,Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the roseWhen by the snow-white lily growing;But all from those bright eyes eclipseReceiv'd; and then, my toil to pay,Kind, precious words fell from her lips;What more than this I shall not say."
"Lady, I said, this garland wear!
For thou wilt wear it gracefully;
And on thy brow 't will sit so fair;
And thou wilt dance so light and free;
Had I a thousand gems, on thee,
Fair one! their brilliant light should shine:
Would'st thou such gift accept from me,
O doubt me not, it should be thine.
"Lady, so beautiful thou art,
That I on thee the wreath bestow,
'Tis the best gift I can impart;
But whiter, rosier flow'rs I know,
Upon the distant plain they're springing,
Where beauteously their heads they rear,
And birds their sweetest songs are singing:
Come! let us go and pluck them there.
"She took the beauteous wreath I chose,
And like a child at praises glowing,
Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the rose
When by the snow-white lily growing;
But all from those bright eyes eclipse
Receiv'd; and then, my toil to pay,
Kind, precious words fell from her lips;
What more than this I shall not say."
Minnesong represented at first, and during its growth, purity in love, and profound respect for noble womanhood. Goethe's word: "Wilt thou in life know what is seemly, inquire it of noble women," is fully realized. We like to dwell on this phase of our theme, for soon we shall have to descend to the very depths of corruption and impurity.
If we had not the chronological records of history, it would be hard to believe that a nation could be swept by a century of religious wars from the ideals set forth in minnesong to the degeneracy that characterized the "Era of Desolation."
But in the early days of minnesong, modesty, chastity, and measure or moderation (diu maze) are concomitants of the ideal of womanhood. Love is then the extinction of self. Walter von der Vogelweide says: "True minne never entered false hearts!"
Even Gottfried von Strassburg, the poet of passion and sensual love, in this respect the very counterpart of Walter von der Vogelweide, sings:
"Of all the things of this our World,On which the golden sunlight shines,Not one is blessed as a wifeThat vows her life and body sweetAnd manners also to measure refined."
"Of all the things of this our World,On which the golden sunlight shines,Not one is blessed as a wifeThat vows her life and body sweetAnd manners also to measure refined."
"Of all the things of this our World,
On which the golden sunlight shines,
Not one is blessed as a wife
That vows her life and body sweet
And manners also to measure refined."
Measure, like the Greekkalokagathiaof a gentleman, implies the harmony and the development of all the inner and outer virtues and charms. The sacredness of the relations between the sexes is originally almost of a religious nature. The lady of the knight's heart and the Holy Virgin are strangely blended.
There are among the lyrics of the Minnesingers many which are devoted entirely to religious topics, especially the glory of the Virgin, a specimen of which may here be given:
"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforterOf sinners; queen of saints in heav'n that are!Thy beauty round the eternal throne dost castA brightness that outshines its living rays:There in the fulness of transcendent joyHeaven's king and thou sit in bright majesty:Would I were there, a welcom'd guest at lastWhere angel tongues reecho praise to praise!There Michael sings the blessed Saviour's nameTill round the eternal throne it rings once more,And angels in their choirs with glad acclaim,Triumphant host, their joyful praises pour:There thousand years than days more short appear,Such joy from God doth flow and from that mother dear."
"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforterOf sinners; queen of saints in heav'n that are!Thy beauty round the eternal throne dost castA brightness that outshines its living rays:There in the fulness of transcendent joyHeaven's king and thou sit in bright majesty:Would I were there, a welcom'd guest at lastWhere angel tongues reecho praise to praise!There Michael sings the blessed Saviour's nameTill round the eternal throne it rings once more,And angels in their choirs with glad acclaim,Triumphant host, their joyful praises pour:There thousand years than days more short appear,Such joy from God doth flow and from that mother dear."
"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforter
Of sinners; queen of saints in heav'n that are!
Thy beauty round the eternal throne dost cast
A brightness that outshines its living rays:
There in the fulness of transcendent joy
Heaven's king and thou sit in bright majesty:
Would I were there, a welcom'd guest at last
Where angel tongues reecho praise to praise!
There Michael sings the blessed Saviour's name
Till round the eternal throne it rings once more,
And angels in their choirs with glad acclaim,
Triumphant host, their joyful praises pour:
There thousand years than days more short appear,
Such joy from God doth flow and from that mother dear."
The eternal longing for the divine then melts mysteriously into the longing for the youthful love of woman. This longing is perhaps nowhere in literature expressed with more touching, more naïve delicacy than by Gottfried when he has fair Sigune speak to Herzeloide concerning her Schionatulander whom she loved as ever woman loved man, and who was then absent in war:
"For the loved friend is all my spying;From the window on the road, over heather and bright meadowsAll in vain; I espy him not:Alas! my eyes by tears must dearly pay for longing love."From the window do I ascend to the battlement,And spy eastward, westward, after tidings from him,Who long ere this has conquered all my soul;Count me among old lovers, for my love abides.'When I then on wild tides glide in my boat,My eyes glance over thirty miles away,If I may find such tidingsAs would free me from sad longing for my bright young friend."Where is my joy? Why has departedLofty spirit from my heart?Pain and woe expelled our peace;I would gladly suffer for him, if I suffered but alone,Yet I know sweet longing draws him hither, though he must be far."Woe to me! How can he come? All too far is my true one.For him I shudder now in cold, now burn in fire.Thus Schionatulander makes me glow,His love kindles me as Agremontin does the Salamander."
"For the loved friend is all my spying;From the window on the road, over heather and bright meadowsAll in vain; I espy him not:Alas! my eyes by tears must dearly pay for longing love."From the window do I ascend to the battlement,And spy eastward, westward, after tidings from him,Who long ere this has conquered all my soul;Count me among old lovers, for my love abides.'When I then on wild tides glide in my boat,My eyes glance over thirty miles away,If I may find such tidingsAs would free me from sad longing for my bright young friend."Where is my joy? Why has departedLofty spirit from my heart?Pain and woe expelled our peace;I would gladly suffer for him, if I suffered but alone,Yet I know sweet longing draws him hither, though he must be far."Woe to me! How can he come? All too far is my true one.For him I shudder now in cold, now burn in fire.Thus Schionatulander makes me glow,His love kindles me as Agremontin does the Salamander."
"For the loved friend is all my spying;
From the window on the road, over heather and bright meadows
All in vain; I espy him not:
Alas! my eyes by tears must dearly pay for longing love.
"From the window do I ascend to the battlement,
And spy eastward, westward, after tidings from him,
Who long ere this has conquered all my soul;
Count me among old lovers, for my love abides.
'When I then on wild tides glide in my boat,
My eyes glance over thirty miles away,
If I may find such tidings
As would free me from sad longing for my bright young friend.
"Where is my joy? Why has departed
Lofty spirit from my heart?
Pain and woe expelled our peace;
I would gladly suffer for him, if I suffered but alone,
Yet I know sweet longing draws him hither, though he must be far.
"Woe to me! How can he come? All too far is my true one.
For him I shudder now in cold, now burn in fire.
Thus Schionatulander makes me glow,
His love kindles me as Agremontin does the Salamander."
Yet whether lofty or earthly, platonic or ardent, the centre of the lyrics of the Minnesingers is always the relation of the sexes. The manner of giving expression to the "eternal feelings" as Goethe calls them varies according to the desire, the hope, or the hopelessness of the lover. The lady is entreated for grace (Huld); she encourages the knight or keeps him at a distance; love ceases to be pure, feelings become fantastically exaggerated; the veneration of woman becomes morbid, sometimes even senseless; love is often allegorized; a magic charm envelops the singer; the world surrounding him is changed, his nature passes the natural bounds; melancholy, ever the legacy of German nature even in the midst of joy, prompts the desire that the epitaph on his tomb should record how faithful he was to his lady. He dreams, perchance, that a rose tree with two blooming branches embraces him and interprets the dream as a fulfilment of his secret desire. This fantastic unnaturalness of the super-realization of love had a demoralizing effect upon both men and women: it developed mock lovers and mock love.
Thus the love cult gradually degenerated. This was especially due to the fact that married women were in most cases the object of minne. French customs and thought entered more and more into German life. When the consummation of love appeared hopeless because of obstacles of a moral or social nature, the lovers, perchance, indulged themselves in a perverse mutual satisfaction of a puerile nature, such as the exchange of their undergarments for a night. Wolfram von Eschenbach relates that Gahmuret used to wear the shirt of his beloved Herzeloide over his armor in battle.
With the development of heraldry, the knight wore the colors of his lady love. He fought in tournament of real war for his lady. Frequently ladies imposed services and even hard and dangerous exploits upon their importuning lovers, either to test their love, or for the sake of sensation, or even to keep obstinate lovers at a distance. We must not believe that the knights went out cheerfully. "Let no one inquire," says Hartmann von der Aue, "after the cause of my journey. I confess frankly: love bade me to vow the crusade and now commands me to undertake the journey. It cannot be helped, and an oath must not be broken. Many a one boasts of what he has done from love, but where are deeds? I hear only words.... This is love indeed, if one for its sake expatriates himself. Behold, how it drives me from home! Truly, if Sultan Saladin still lived and all his army, they would not move me one pace from Franconia! Yet only the body crosses the sea, the heart remains behind with the beloved one." But the reward of love (Minnesold) is always kept in view. In the rarest cases it consists in an ideal satisfaction, except perhaps if the lady is of a very high rank and birth. Generally, however, it is real sensuality. The descent of morality can be gauged from the fact that it was not unusual for a lady to permit her lover to pass a night in her arms, upon the condition that he might not touch her impurely without her express consent. Perhaps a bare sword was placed between the two lovers as a guard of good behavior. Hartmann von der Aue defends the practice inIwein: "If any one declare it a wonder that Iwein lay so near a strange maiden without indulging in love, he knows not that a strong man can abstain from anything he chooses to abstain." In fact, the custom of a common couch became well-nigh a national German institution, as it was called "Beilager upon truth and faith." Among German peasants of certain sections says Weinhold this Beilager continues to this very day; but it is considered as a real betrothal. There is a small literature in existence on the "nights of proof" (Probenachte) of German maidens.
Yet in general the heads of families were not so accommodating regarding the young female members of their household. We learn of a class of "watchers" or spies (Merker) whose mission it was to watch over the honor of the maidens. A whole crop of poetry, the so-called watch songs, sprang up, dealing with the subject. The business of the clandestine lover is to escape from the snares and the watchfulness of those spies.
The following example of a watch song, of a high literary and poetic value, is typical:
"I heard before the dawn of dayThe watchman loud proclaim:'If any knightly lover stayIn secret with his dame,Take heed, the sun will soon appear;Then fly, ye knights, your ladies dear,Fly ere the daylight dawn."'Brightly gleams the firmament,In silvery splendor gay;Rejoicing that the night is spent,The lark salutes the day;Then fly, ye lovers, and be gone!Take leave before the night is done,And jealous eyes appear.'"That watchman's call did wound my heart,And banish my delight;Alas, the envious sun will partOur loves, my lady brightOn me she looked with downcast eyes,Despairing at my mournful cry,'We tarry here too long.'"Straight to the wicket did she speed;'Good watchman, spare thy joke!Warn not my love, till o'er the meadThe morning sun has broke:Too short, alas! the time, since hereI tarried with my leman dear,In love and converse sweet.'"'Lady, be warn'd! on roof and meadThe dew drops glitter gay;Then quickly bid thy leman speed,Nor linger till the day;For by the twilight did I markWolves hying to their covert dark,And stags to covert fly.'"Now by the rising sun I view'dIn tears my lady's face;She gave me many a token good,And many a soft embrace.Our parting bitterly we mourn'd;The hearts which erst with rapture burn'd,Were cold with woe and care."A ring with glittering ruby red,Gave me that lady sheen,And with me from the castle spedAlong the meadow green:And whilst I saw my leman bright,She waved on high her kerchief white:'Courage! to arms!' she cried."In the raging fight each pennon whiteReminds me of her love;In the field of blood, with mournful mood,I see her kerchief move;Through foes I hew, whene'er I viewHer ruby ring, and blithely sing,'Lady, I fight for thee.'"
"I heard before the dawn of dayThe watchman loud proclaim:'If any knightly lover stayIn secret with his dame,Take heed, the sun will soon appear;Then fly, ye knights, your ladies dear,Fly ere the daylight dawn."'Brightly gleams the firmament,In silvery splendor gay;Rejoicing that the night is spent,The lark salutes the day;Then fly, ye lovers, and be gone!Take leave before the night is done,And jealous eyes appear.'"That watchman's call did wound my heart,And banish my delight;Alas, the envious sun will partOur loves, my lady brightOn me she looked with downcast eyes,Despairing at my mournful cry,'We tarry here too long.'"Straight to the wicket did she speed;'Good watchman, spare thy joke!Warn not my love, till o'er the meadThe morning sun has broke:Too short, alas! the time, since hereI tarried with my leman dear,In love and converse sweet.'"'Lady, be warn'd! on roof and meadThe dew drops glitter gay;Then quickly bid thy leman speed,Nor linger till the day;For by the twilight did I markWolves hying to their covert dark,And stags to covert fly.'"Now by the rising sun I view'dIn tears my lady's face;She gave me many a token good,And many a soft embrace.Our parting bitterly we mourn'd;The hearts which erst with rapture burn'd,Were cold with woe and care."A ring with glittering ruby red,Gave me that lady sheen,And with me from the castle spedAlong the meadow green:And whilst I saw my leman bright,She waved on high her kerchief white:'Courage! to arms!' she cried."In the raging fight each pennon whiteReminds me of her love;In the field of blood, with mournful mood,I see her kerchief move;Through foes I hew, whene'er I viewHer ruby ring, and blithely sing,'Lady, I fight for thee.'"
"I heard before the dawn of day
The watchman loud proclaim:
'If any knightly lover stay
In secret with his dame,
Take heed, the sun will soon appear;
Then fly, ye knights, your ladies dear,
Fly ere the daylight dawn.
"'Brightly gleams the firmament,
In silvery splendor gay;
Rejoicing that the night is spent,
The lark salutes the day;
Then fly, ye lovers, and be gone!
Take leave before the night is done,
And jealous eyes appear.'
"That watchman's call did wound my heart,
And banish my delight;
Alas, the envious sun will part
Our loves, my lady bright
On me she looked with downcast eyes,
Despairing at my mournful cry,
'We tarry here too long.'
"Straight to the wicket did she speed;
'Good watchman, spare thy joke!
Warn not my love, till o'er the mead
The morning sun has broke:
Too short, alas! the time, since here
I tarried with my leman dear,
In love and converse sweet.'
"'Lady, be warn'd! on roof and mead
The dew drops glitter gay;
Then quickly bid thy leman speed,
Nor linger till the day;
For by the twilight did I mark
Wolves hying to their covert dark,
And stags to covert fly.'
"Now by the rising sun I view'd
In tears my lady's face;
She gave me many a token good,
And many a soft embrace.
Our parting bitterly we mourn'd;
The hearts which erst with rapture burn'd,
Were cold with woe and care.
"A ring with glittering ruby red,
Gave me that lady sheen,
And with me from the castle sped
Along the meadow green:
And whilst I saw my leman bright,
She waved on high her kerchief white:
'Courage! to arms!' she cried.
"In the raging fight each pennon white
Reminds me of her love;
In the field of blood, with mournful mood,
I see her kerchief move;
Through foes I hew, whene'er I view
Her ruby ring, and blithely sing,
'Lady, I fight for thee.'"
The end of wooing is thus always understood to be the gratification of passion. But many ladies of the era of chivalry were extremely exacting, and imposed heavy tasks for the attainments of the prize which they alone could bestow. They allowed very slight favors at first, a glance, a trifle, otherwise they let the lover long and languish, as, for instance, in the case of the knight Ulrich von Lichtenstein, whom we shall soon consider more closely. Sometimes, however, favors which by modern standards would appear very improper were readily granted with a charming naïveté! The lover was allowed to accompany the lady of his heart to her bed chamber, and wait upon her and help her undress, a rather crucial service, as the mediæval custom was to sleep without any garments at all.
Weinhold calls minne the crown jewel of the German language, the love which rests in the soul; but it also had its shameful history of debasement, and finally met its death when the sensual prevailed over the spiritual, when minne became lust. Reinmar von Zweter could well say: "Minne is the gilding of love, a treasure above all virtue a teacher of pure morals, companion of chastity and fidelity, the noblest thing that is in the world, to which only woman can be compared. Minne flees from the fool, associates with the wise; minne strengthens honor, truth, and modesty." At the era of decadence of chivalry, however, minne came to mean sexual enjoyment par excellence.
The life of love in the high society of Germany for the lower gentry, according to Scherr, lived in their narrow, miserably equipped burgh stalls on a very low level became, in the course of time, a perfectly developed art and science; and Weinhold firmly believes that the highborn lords and ladies at the German courts dialectically treated interesting themes of love which may have had the forms of real courts of love, in imitation of the FrenchCour d'Amour. It is true, however, that some great Romance scholars deny their existence altogether. This seems erroneous. We know that Queen Alinora (Eleanor), the ill-famed consort of Henry II. (1154-1204), after her French divorce, was a high authority in love affairs. Schiller in TheMaid of Orleansdescribed the nature and character of such aCour d'Amour.
It is but natural that the minne of a knight was not always smooth sailing: his springtide feelings were frequently tossed on the sea of his lady's caprice; longing and suspense, "heaven-high exultation and sadness unto death," to use Clarchen's words in Goethe's Egmont, held him in a constant state of agitation. Tannhauser charmingly satirizes woman's whims. She demands impossible things of her foolish suitor, who is ever ready to serve: she asks him to have the Rhône River flow past Nürnberg; to turn the Danube back toward the Rhine; or to build an ivory palace, wheresoever she will, in the midst of a lake; or to bring her the light of the moon; the salamander from the fire, or from Galilee the mountain upon which Adam sat; in recompense of which she will bless him with her sweet love! "If I bring her the great tree from India, or the Holy Grail, which Parsifal guarded, or the apple which Paris adjudicated to Venus, or the magic mantle which fits only faithful ladies, or the ark of Noah from which he sent the doves, she will fulfill my most ardent desires! Alas, the sharp rod was kept too far away from her when a child!"
Some knights and Minnesingers console themselves by choosing other subjects for their songs, spurning the intolerable demands of their exacting mistresses, and their too expensive charms we need only recall that unmerciful lady who dropped her glove from the gallery between the lion and the tiger, and lovingly invited her knight to pick it up for her. The knight having accomplished the feat, threw the glove in the pretty face that welcomed his return, with the words: "Thanks, lady, I do not desire." But the majority became Don Quixotes and allowed themselves to be played with and mocked by their whimsical taskmasters.
From the sunny south, the Provence, the home of minstrels and songs, we learn how the troubadour Pierre Vidal of Toulouse fell desperately in love with Loba of Carcasses. As her name was Loba (she-wolf), he called himself Lop, encased himself in a wolf's skin and roamed, wolflike, through the mountains. Shepherds and dogs misunderstood the joke and tore him almost to pieces.
In Germany we meet with an extraordinary type of a knight-errant in the person of the noble Ulrich von Lichtenstein (died January 6, 1275 or 1276), who spent a long life in the self-imposed service of a capricious princess. During his long career of minne service, which, however, never brought him fulfilment of his desires, he committed one folly after the other, and, worst of all, he was never cured of his passion, though he often pathetically sings his misfortunes and the cruelty of his lady. He was no mean singer, and his poetry is a most interesting human document.
At the time of the purple bloom of Middle High German civilization, or when it first began to fade, Ulrich von Lichtenstein was a boy. Under his parental roof he heard and absorbed the epics of the romantic school of his time, and learned to appreciate the worth of a nobleman by his chivalrous aspiration for the grace of a high born lady. As a page of twelve years he was overwhelmed at the sight of a brilliant princess, very likely Agnes of Meran, the future consort of Frederick the Warlike. His youthful love was inflamed to such ardor by the alluring beauty of the queen of his heart that "he carried secretly away the water wherewith she had washed her white hands and drank it out of sheer love." But while he vowed chivalrous service and songs to the sun of his life, he married a gentlewoman who became the mother of his children. At the court of the marquis Henry of Istria he was still more confirmed in his adulation of woman. But his poetry in the "Ladies' Book" (FraueribucK) and his poetic messages to the queen of his heart betray not only an exaggerated love, but also the qualities of charity, bravery, honor. Von Lichtenstein's description of his own interesting life is due not to his self-love, but, as he tells us, "to the pure, sweet, much beloved lady." It is true that pure, sweet lady is capricious and cruel enough; for example, she invites her paladin to mingle among the lepers who assembled before her castle; promising as a reward to appoint an hour for a nocturnal visit and the fulfilment of his desires. But his exposure to a disgusting malady serves him to no purpose.
Even religion is subordinated by Von Lichtenstein to his lady love. He is not especially anxious for a pilgrimage across the sea, unless his lady so orders. He reproaches ladies for their nun-like costume, and says: "Alas, when you ought to go to dance with us, you are seen standing by the church."
His wishes for wealth are concentrated in five things: "fine women, good food, beautiful horses, good garments, brilliant armour." Von Lichtenstein calls himself blest that "his senses are intent to love her, to love her more and more." He hopes that in her goodness the good, dear, "pure" lady will reward his constancy more graciously than heretofore with the fulfilment of his wishes. Comfort and joy he has only in her, the fair one, the bright one, in her laughter. "When he is reflected in her playing eyes, his high mind blossoms like the roses at May time." "He would rather dwell in his lady's heart than in heaven itself."
But real madness begins when, to please his lady, he has a painful operation performed on his lip; on another occasion he cuts off his little finger and sends it to her in a precious box. The lady is astonished that any man can make such a fool of himself. And yet we learn incidentally that Ulrich has a good wife and dear children at home whom he visits when his knight-errantry carries him past his ancestral castle. He lives with his wife during the wintry days, he mentions her housewifely virtues in his poetry, she nurses him when he returns, perchance, sick and injured by his mocking-bird of a lady who, promising him sweet fulfilment, has him drawn up in a sheet to the window of her castle, and then prevents his entering by causing him to be dropped fifty feet into the moat. A strange chapter, truly, in the history of human folly and perversity!
It is pleasant to record that this kind of chivalry and love service found no welcome among the North Germans or Scandinavians. In their poetry that is left to us we find none of the degenerated, effeminate sensuality of the Romance and South German courtoisie. True German character does not permit the profound feelings of real affection to pass into publicity. Love is purer and more genuine; women stand on no imaginary, fantastic pinnacle, but are, on that account, really freer and nobler. The higher that women are raised to the domain of unreality and unnaturalness, the lower is generally their moral standard. This explains the fact that among civilized nations morality is always highest in the middle classes of society. Among the poorest and lowliest, alas! the demon of physical hunger, the moloch of distress, when there is frequently nothing for sale but womanly honor, militate against innate virtue.
A beautiful example of woman's gratitude toward a singer of her virtues must here be recorded. When Heinrich von Meissen, called Frauenlob (Women's Praise) from his glorification of the fair sex, died, A. D. 1317, at Mainz, he was magnificently entombed in the hallway of the Cathedral. The ladies of Mainz carried the bier of the deceased minnesinger with loud lamentations and mourning to his grave, and poured upon it such an abundance of wine that it flowed through the entire expanse of the church. Heinrich had indeed well deserved the women's special affection, as he had glorified the Holy Virgin, and given new place in the language to the ancient term Frau (the joygiver), that had been supplanted by Weib. The fame of Frauenlob has been perpetuated by German womanhood; in 1842 a monument, by Schwanthaler, was erected in his honor by the ladies of the city, in the cloisters of the Cathedral, where he is buried. The grave itself is still marked by a copy, made in 1783, of the original tombstone.
A few words about the education of a woman of noble birth may not be amiss. The difficult arts of writing and reading were more generally acquired by noble ladies than by their knights. While the great Wolfram von Eschenbach, though possessing all the social culture of his time, could not read, and Ulrich von Lichtenstein had to keep an epistle of his lady unread for ten days, as his secretary was absent, ladies generally studied those branches which appear to us now quite rudimentary. Heinrich von Veldeke, we learn, lent the manuscript of his Emit, before it was quite finished, to the Countess of Cleve, to read and to see (i. e., the pictures).
The noble maidens, whose instructors were usually the castle chaplains, learned early to sing minnesongs, to sing and say the ancient sagas and legends; they often even composed songs and poems; they learned music, which was part of a liberal education, played the fiddle, zither, and harp. Isolde, according to Gottfried von Strassburg, knew Irish, French, Latin, and played the Welsh fiddle. Fine handiwork belonged to a noble lady's occupations. The laws of courtesy were, as we have mentioned, codified into a perfect science for use under all conditions: at the court, at home, at the dance and play, on the street, to control conduct toward high and low, men and women; minute directions were provided for all occasions. Even the conversation in society, at the banquet table, is prescribed; noble ladies must show grace and measure in the favorite ball play, ride horseback, chase with falcons, blush, and nod their heads courteously at the tournaments. The reception of guests and their hospitable entertainment is their business, and the social savoir-faire constitutes ladylike courtoisie or moralitas. Religion toward God and the world, churchgoing, all are strictly regulated; and we see women in all their aspects, as we pass in review the vast literature of the time. The arts of adornment, of painting the cheeks and lips, are highly developed; the men seem to have been even more eager to adorn and decorate their persons than were the women. Male garments are adorned with symbolic colors; coats of arms of silk embroidery appear on the most ridiculous parts of knightly dress. Superficiality and superstition widely prevail. There is a strong belief in magic or love potions, as we learn, e. g., from a bit of poetry by Veldeke:
"No thanks to Tristan that his heart had been Faithful and true unto his queen; For thereto did a potion move More than the power of love: Sweet thought to me, That ne'er such cup my lips have prest; Yet deeper love, than ever he Conceived, dwells in my breast: So may it be! So constant may it rest! Call me but thine As thou art mine!"
The knightly dwelling, that is, the palace or castle of a lord, with a watch tower outside, rising above the strong wall and separated from the other dwellings, had always distinct from it a ladies' house, called "the women's secret" (der frouven heimliche), or thekemenate. This consisted of at least three rooms: one for the familiar intercourse of the family; this was also the sleeping chamber of the lady of the house; one, a room where the lady devoted herself, with her women, to the female occupations of the time; and lastly, the sleeping room for the maidservants. In each kemenate there were, usually, a kitchen, a chapel, cellars, and provision rooms. Arched niches in the wall gave opportunity to the ladies to look far overland. The furniture was rich, and often finely carved, but of heavy and clumsy pattern. Tables, chairs, and chests were abundantly provided. The bed was a large, square, high piece of furniture, and it was treated with great care and respect; it was covered with elaborate curtains, which hung from a silken canopy; heavy feather beds and fine linen were the pride of the highborn housewife.
Food was plentiful, but plain. Field and forest furnished the principal dishes: game, bread, vegetables. On festivals, delicacies and highly spiced dishes in great number burdened the table. Wine, beer, cider, and fruit brandies were drunk in large quantities. It is highly suggestive to read in the records the allowances of liquor made to princely ladies of the time and to their noble attendants. We forbear furnishing statistics from the records, which may seem to our time slanderous exaggerations.
The ideal of womanly beauty as established by the poets of the romance when knighthood was in flower is as follows: to be considered beautiful a woman must be of moderate stature, of slender and graceful build, of symmetrical and well-developed form. Out of the white countenance the cheeks must blossom forth like bedewed roses; the mouth must be small, closed, and sweetly breathing, the teeth shine forth from swelling red lips, "like ermine from scarlet"; a round cheek with snow-white dimple must heighten the charm of the mouth. The ideal nose was not Grecian, long, or pointed, or stumped, but straight and normal. Long eyebrows, a little curved, the color of which slightly contrasted with that of the hair, were praised. The eyes must be clear, pure, limpid like sunshine, preeminently blue or of that indefinite changing color which we note in some species of birds. The Oriental ideal of "the black eyes' spark is like God's ways, dark" is not acceptable to the mediæval Teuton. The hair was preferably of that golden blond which did not contrast too strongly with the snow-white, blue veined temples and the mild blue lustre of the eyes. A slender neck, a firm and plastic bust of moderate fulness, strong hips, round, white arms, long, slender fingers, straight legs, small, well-arched feet, must not be wanting. There are, of course, constant variations of that ideal according to the aesthetic views and the sensuous predilections of the love singers. In the late Middle Ages the womanly ideal of beauty becomes materialized and merely sensual: the different parts of woman's form are brought together from the various lands according to the particular local reputation for womanly beauty. Among the hundreds of types, Konrad Fleck's description ofBlancheflurmay be mentioned: gold shining hair fell around her temples, which were whiter than snow; fine straight eyebrows arched above her eyes, the power of which conquered everybody; her cheeks and lips were red and white, her teeth ivory, her throat and neck were those of the swan; her bosom was full, her limbs were long and slender, her waist was tender and delicate.
This detail painting of womanly beauty by the Minnesingers is a great advance over the descriptions given by the epic poets, which deal mostly in poetic generalities. A minnesong type is given in this description of the appearance of Kriemhilde: